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tion have supplied us with matter, then reason does but make use of them; that is, in plain terms, there being so many ways of arguing, so many sects, such differing interests, such variety of authority, so many pretences, and so many false beliefs, it concerns every wise man to consider which is the best argument, which proposition relies upon the truest grounds; and if this were not his only way, why do men dispute and urge arguments, why do they cite councils and fathers, why do they allege Scripture and tradition, and all this on all sides, and to contrary purposes? If we must judge, then we must use our reason; if we must not judge, why do they produce evidenee? Let them leave disputing, and decree propositions magisterially, but then we may choose whether we will believe them or no; or if they say we must believe them, they must prove, it and tell us why. And all these disputes concerning tradition, councils, and fathers, are not arguments against, or besides reason; but contestations and pretences to the best arguments, and the most certain satisfaction of our reason,

But then all these coming into question submit themselves to reason, that is, to be judged by human understanding, upon the best grounds and information it can receive. So that Scripture, tradition, councils, and fathers, are the evidence in a question, but reason is the judge; that is, we being the persons that are to be persuaded, we must see that we be persuaded reasonably, and it is unreasonable to assent to a lesser

evidence, when a greater and clearer is propounded, but of that every man for himself is to take cognizance if he be able to judge, if he be not, he is not bound under the tie of necessity to know anything of it; that that is necessary shall be certainly conveyed to him; God, that best can, will certainly take care for that; for if he does not, it becomes to be not necessary; or if it should still remain necessary, and he be damned for not knowing it, and yet to know it be not in his power, then who can help it? There can be no further care in this business. In other things, there being no absolute and prime necessity, we are left to our liberty, to judge that way that makes best demonstration of our piety, and of our love to God and truth, not that way that is always the best argument of an excellent understanding, for this may be a blessing, but the other only is a duty.

ON THE

CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE

OF

ORIGINAL SIN.

FROM A TREATISE ENTITLED, "DEUS JUSTIFICATUS," BEING A

LETTER TO A LADY.

FIRST, Madam, be pleased to remember, that the question is not whether there be any such thing as Original Sin; for it is certain, and confessed on all hands almost. For my part, I cannot but confess that to be which I feel, and groan under, and by which all the world is miserable.

Adam turned his back upon the Sun, and dwelt in the dark and the shadow; he sinned, and fell into God's displeasure, and was made naked of all his supernatural endowments, and was ashamed and sentenced to death, and deprived of the means of long life, and of the sacrament and instrument of immortality, I mean the Tree of Life, he then fell under the evils of a sickly body, and a passionate, ignorant, uninstructed

soul; his sin made him sickly, his sickness made him peevish; his sin left him ignorant, his ignorance made him foolish and unreasonable. His sin left him to his nature, and by his nature, whoever was to be born at all, was to be born a child, and to do before he could understand, and be bred under laws, to which he was always bound, but which could not always be exacted. And he was to choose, when he could not reason, and had passions most strong, when he had his understanding most weak, and was to ride a wild horse without a bridle, and the more need he had of a curb, the less strength he had to use it, and this being the case of all the world, what was every man's evil became all men's greater evil; and though alone it was very bad, yet when they came together it was made much worse; like ships in a storm, every one alone hath enough to do to outride it; but when they meet, besides the evils of the storm, they find the intolerable calamity of their mutual concussion, and every ship, that is ready to be oppressed with the tempest, is a worse tempest to every vessel, against which it is violently dashed. So it is in mankind, every man hath evil enough of his own; and it is hard for a man to live soberly, temperately, and religiously; but when he hath parents and children, brothers and sisters, friends and enemies, buyers and sellers, lawyers and physicians, a family and a neighbourhood, a king over him, or tenants under him, a bishop to rule in matters of government spiritual, and a people to be ruled by him in the affairs of their souls ;

then it is that every man dashes against another, and one relation requires what another denies; and when one speaks, another will contradict him; and that which is well spoken, is sometimes innocently mistaken, and that upon a good cause produces an evil effect, and by these, and ten thousand other concurrent causes, man is made more than most miserable.

But the main thing is this; when God was angry with Adam, the man fell from the state of grace; for God withdrew his grace, and we returned to the state of mere nature, of our prime creation.

This was the great effect of Adam's sin, which became therefore to us a punishment, because of the appendant infirmity that went along with it; for Adam being spoiled of all the rectitudes and supernatural heights of grace, and thrust back to the form of nature, and left to derive grace to himself by a new economy, or to be without it; and his posterity left just so as he was left himself; he was permitted to the power of his enemy that betrayed him, and put under the power of his body, whose appetites would govern him; and when they would grow irregular, could not be mastered by anything that was about him, or born with him, so that his case was miserable and naked, and his state of things was imperfect and would be disordered.

But now, Madam, things being thus bad, are made worse by the superinduced doctrines of men, which when I have represented to your ladyship, and told

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