2. But as I said, the
soul has not only received sin but retains it, holds it, and shows no kind of
resistance. It is enough that the soul is polluted and defiled, for that is
sufficient to provoke God to cast it away; for which of you would take a cloth
annoyed with stinking, ulcerous sores, to wipe your mouth withal, or to thrust
it into your bosoms? and the soul is polluted with far worse pollution than any
such can be. But this is not all; it retains sin as the wool retains the dye,
or as the infected water receives the stench or poisonous scent; I say, it
retains it willingly; for all the power of the soul is not only captivated by a
seizure of sin upon the soul, but it willingly, heartily, unanimously,
universally falleth in with the natural filth and pollution that is in sin, to
the estranging of itself from God, and an obtaining of an intimacy and
compliance with the devil.
Now this being the state and condition of the soul from the belly, yea, from before it sees the light of this world, what can be concluded but that God is offended with it? For how can it otherwise be, since there is holiness and justice in God? Hence those that are born of a woman, whose original is by carnal conception with man, are said to be as serpents so soon as born. 'The wicked (and all at first are so) go astray as soon as they be born, speakings lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder, that stoppeth her ear' (Psa 58:3,4). They go astray from the belly; but that they would not do, if aught of the powers of their soul were unpolluted. 'But their poison is like the poison of a serpent.'
Their poison—what is that? Their pollution, their
original pollution, that is as the poison of a serpent—to wit, not only deadly,
for so poison is, but also hereditary. It comes from the old one, from the sire
and dam; yea, it is also now become connatural to and with them, and is of the
same date with the child as born into the world. The serpent has not her
poison, in the original of it, either from imitation or from other infective
things abroad, though it may by such things be helped forward and increased;
but she brings it with her in her bowels, in her nature, and it is to her as
suitable to her present condition as it is that which is most sweet and
wholesome to other of the creatures. So, then, every soul comes into the world
as poisoned with sin; nay, as such which have poison connatural to them; for it
has not only received sin as the wool has received the dye, but it retaineth
it. The infection is got so deep, it has taken the black so effectually, that
the tint, the very fire of hell, can never purge the soul therefrom.
And that the soul has
received this infection thus early, and that it retains it so surely, is not
only signified by children coming into the world besmeared in their mother's
blood, and by the firstborn's being redeemed at a month old, but also by the
first inclinations and actions of children when they are so come into the world
(Exo 26). Who sees not that lying, pride, disobedience to parents, and
hypocrisy, do put forth themselves in children before they know that they do
either well or ill in so doing, or before they are capable to learn either of
these arts by imitation, or seeing understandingly the same things done first
by others? He that sees not that they do it naturally from a principle, from an
inherent principle, is either blinded, and has retained his darkness by the
same sin as they, or has suffered himself to be swayed by a delusion from him who
at first infused this spawn of sin into man's nature.
Nor doth the
averseness of children to morality a little demonstrate what has been said; for
as it would make a serpent sick, should one give it a strong antidote against
his poison, so then are children, and never more than then, disturbed in their
minds, when a strict hand and a stiff rein by moral discipline is maintained
over and upon them. True, sometimes restraining grace corrects them, but that
is not of themselves; but more oft hypocrisy is the great and first moving
wheel to all their seeming compliances with admonitions, which indulgent
parents are apt to overlook, yea, and sometimes, through unadvisedness, to
count for the principles of grace. I speak now of that which comes before
conversion. But as I said before, I would not now dispute, only I have thought
good thus to urge these things to make my assertion manifest, and to show what
is the cause of the damnation of the soul.
3. Again; as the soul receives sin, and retains it,
so it also doth entertain it—that is, countenance, smile upon, and like its
complexion and nature well. A man may detain—that is, hold fast—a thing which
yet he doth not regard; but when he entertains, then he countenances, likes,
and delights in the company. Sin, then, is first received by the soul, as has
been afore explained, and by that reception is polluted and defiled. This makes
it hateful in the eyes of justice: it is now polluted. Then, secondly, this sin
is not only received, but retained—that is, it sticks so fast, abides so
fixedly in the soul, that it cannot be gotten out; this is the cause of the
continuation of abhorrence; for if God abhors because there is a being of sin
there, it must needs be that he should continue to abhor, since sin continues
to have a being there. But then, in the third place, sin is not only received,
detained, but entertained by the now defiled and polluted soul; wherefore this
must needs be a cause of the continuance of anger, and that with aggravation.
When I say, entertained, I do not mean as men entertain their enemies, with
small and great shot, but as they
entertain those whom they like, and those that are got into their affections. And therefore the wrath of God must certainly
be let out upon the soul, to the everlasting damnation of it.
