A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is

In the next place, we have the thing it self confessed, and that is in two things.

He was shapen in iniquity, that is the first: The word is many times applied to the bringing forth of a child, and doth properly signify to bring forth with sorrow and pain; Hence some render it, I was born in iniquity, and so it may very well be translated; but if we render it shapen, or formed, then this showeth, That in the forming of the parts of the body, and disposing of it for animation, even then sin is there initially; so that before we are born, as soon as that mass is enlivened and animated, so soon is original sin in a man.

He was shapen in iniquity, that is the first: The word is many times applied to the bringing forth of a child, and doth properly signifie to bring forth with sorrow and pain; Hence some render it, I was born in iniquity, and so it may very well be translated; but if we render it shapen, or formed, then this sheweth, That in the forming of the parts of the body, and disposing of it for animation, even then sinne is there initially; so that before we are born, as soon as that mass is enlivened and animated, so soon is original sinne in a man.

The other expression is, That in sin did his mother conceive him; The Hebrew word is, Did warm him, or nourish him; So that this doth not so much relate to the actual conception, as to that whole time his mother did bear him in the womb, all that while this pollution was in him. Hence Aquila renders it, [Greek or Hebrew], and the Septuagint [Greek or Hebrew], which though happily some might think it a fault in writing, [Greek or Hebrew] for [Greek or Hebrew], yet there are those, who make that word emphatical, and say, it's a metaphor from the fowl, that is called [Greek or Hebrew], Pica, the Pie, that while building of her nest, is with great vehemency and violence compiling of it, breaking off the tops of twigs, and flying from place to place, as if some inward heat did transport her Others make it to signify a multiform appetite from the colour of that Bird. Well, howsoever it be, the word from the Hebrew is to be extended to that whole time, the child is carried in the mothers womb, being warmed and nourished there; So that not only, as Ambrose of old, we may say, Hominis ortus in vitio est, a mans birth is in sin, but as soon as ever that mass of flesh in the womb is informed and animated, so soon it becomes sinful. It is true indeed, the parts of the body are along while in forming before the soul be inspired, and sin is not properly, till the soul be united to the body, yet because that is part of man, and tends to it, we may say sin is there inchoatively and imperfectly, because it is in tendency to make up man, and therefore it was, that Christ being to be man, yet without sin was to be conceived by the holy Ghost, The very corpulent substance of the Virgin Mary, from which his body was made to be purified and sanctified by the holy Ghost.