Speculum theologiæ in Christo, or, A view of some divine truths which are either…

3. If Adams sin be not imputed to us, then neither was his righteousness so; then we never were righteous, we never were esteemed such in Gods account; then we are not fallen creatures, we are merely simply as God made us: Then what need of renovation or regeneration? An unfallen creature is uncapable of reparation; Whence then, or by what way could it possibly come to pass, that there should be an innate inordination or proneness to evil in us? Such things cannot be found in an unfallen rational creature, yet doubtless they are found in us. The Scripture tells us, that we are naturally dark; nay, darkness it self: That the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Nay, the very Philosophers spied out this. Hence Tully saith, That man was brought forth into life, not by nature as a Mother, but as a Step-mother; with a body naked, frail, infirm, with a mind anxious in troubles, low in fears, soft in labours, prone to lusts. Upon which St. Austin glosses thus,¹ Naturam accusavit, rem vidit, causam nescivit, latebat eum cur esset grave jugum super filios Adam. He accused nature, the thing he saw, the ⟨p. 215⟩cause he knew not, the grievous yoke on the sons of Adam was hid from him. Nay, the very Socinians, though in the point of Original sin they are more blind and void of sense than Pagans, confess thus much, Homines ad peccandum sunt naturâ proni: ²Men are by nature prone to sin: Nay, it is added, sense and appetite draw them, as it were, with chains to vice. Thus saith one of them, Whence then is this natural inordination and pravity? Is it from the fall? We are not fallen creatures. Is it from the Creator? It is impossible. Darkness cannot be from the Father of lights, nor pravity from the fountain of infinite goodness. Adams sin not being imputed to us, no tolerable account can be given, how it should ever come to exist among men. But supposing what is most true, That it is naturally in us; yet, unless Adams sin be imputatively ours, it is not sin in us: What though we want knowledge and righteousness? It is not Carentia justitiae debitae inesse, a want of what ought to be in us; it is not a privative want, a want of what we once had in Adams righteousness, and afterwards lost in his sin; but it is a mere negative want, a want of that we never had, nor never forfeited. Adams righteousness being not imputed to us, we never had it;