"a matter, namely, for the eating of an apple, that he "should destroy him in this world and that to come, "and not him only, but all his posterity?" But the blind pharisee disputes not so much against us, as against God himself. Who was it that denounced death in case he transgressed? Who was it that pronounced him miserable, and the world accursed on the same account? Are we to blame if the Jews are not pleased with the ways of God? Besides, although to eat an apple be in itself but a small thing, yet to disobey the command of the great God, is not such a small matter as the Jew supposeth.

§5. The second consequent of the first sin of man is the moral corruption of nature, the spring of all that evil of actual sin that is in the world. And herein we have a full consent from the Jews, delivered after their manner, both in the Targums, Talmuds, and private writings of their principal masters. For, an evil concupiscence in the heart of man, from his very conception, they generally acknowledge. The name they give it, is ( figmentum malum) the evil figment of the heart, properly enough from Gen. vi, 5; “And "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the "earth; and that the whole figment of the thoughts, or "computation of his heart, was only evil, every day." Hence have they taken the above-mentioned term, which, perhaps, is a more proper name than that used by Christian divines, (originale peccatum,) original sin. And it is a ludicrous ignorance in some of the late rabbins, who profess to deny original sin, and yet in the mean time grant this evil figment in all mankind, which was not in Adam in his innocency. The

(יצרא בישא) Targumists term it in the Chaldee tongue

to the same purpose. On Psal. xci, 12; "That thy foot "stumble not at the evil figment which is like a stone;"

that is, that it seduce thee not, that it cause thee not to offend, to stumble and fall in sin; see James i, 14; and Psal. cxix, 70; they call it absolutely the figment, or evil foam of the heart. "The figment of their heart is "made thick, as with fatness;" an expression not unusual in the scriptures, to set out impenitency and security in sinning, Isa. vi, 10. Moreover, they do not unfitly describe it by another property, as Eccles. ix, 14; "The evil figment, or concupiscence, which is like "to a great king," namely, because of its power; on which account, in the New Testament, it is said (BacıLEVEL) to reign as a king, because of the subjection of it, (Ev tais etiboμiais) in the lusts, or concupiscence of the heart, Rom. vi, 12; and (nupiɛvɛi) to have dominion, vi, 14, which is to the same purpose with that of the Targumist. And thus we have ample testimony to this moral corruption of nature in the Targums, the most ancient records now extant of the Judaical apprehensions about these things.

The Talmudists have expressed the same thoughts about this inbred and indwelling sin; and, to set forth their conceptions about it, they have given it several names not unsuitable to those descriptions of it which are given us by the Holy Ghost in the New Testament; as (ymalum) evil a name, as they say, given by himself,* Gen. viii, 21; and answerably it is termed in the New Testament, (y apaρria) that sin, that evil thing that dwelleth in us, Rom. vii. They observe that Moses called it (y) præputium, uncircumcision, Deut. x, 16; and therefore (in Tract. Sand. chap. xi,) to the question. When an infant may be made partaker of the world to come? R. Nachman, the son of Isaac, answereth, "Presently after he is circumcised;" circum

*R. Moses Haddarshan, a R. Jose, in Bereshith Rabba.

cision being admitted of old, as the sign of the taking away by grace of the natural evil figment of the heart: and accordingly it is called by our apostle (expoßusia) uncircumcision, Col. ii, 13. Again; they observe that David calls it (RDD) an unclean thing, Ps. li, 10, by the rule of contrarieties; "Create in me a clean heart, "O God;" whence it appears that the heart of itself is unclean. And the apostle gives it us under the same name and notion, 1 Thes. iv, 7; 1 Cor. vii, 14. They also call it (*) an enemy or hater; and to the same purpose it is called in the New Testament (εxopa) enmity or hatred, Rom. viii, 7. Isaiah calls it (a) the offence, or the stumbling block, Isa. Ivii, 17. See also Rom. v, 18; Jam. i, 14, 15. The cause of our stumbling and falling. Ezekiel calls it (8) a stone, chap. xxxvi, 26. Nor doth any allusion better set out the nature of it from its effects; (nagdia ouλugu naι aшeтuvonтos) “an hard and impenitent heart," Rom. ii, 5.*

gos

But the (7) "new man, or good concupiscence, comes not on our nature until the age of thirteen years; so the Midrash, feeling in the dark after that supply of grace, which is so clearly revealed in the pel. So Manasseh Ben Israel; "This vitiosity and contagion proceeding from the sin of our first parents; hath invaded both faculties of our rational souls, the understanding and the will." And for the continuance of this, or its abode in us, they express it, (in Bereshith Rabba) "So long as the righteous live they wage war "with their concupiscence." And they variously set forth the growth of it, where it is not corrected by

*Vid. Neve Shalom, lib. x, cap. ix. Midrash Coheleth in Eccles. iv, 13.

†Præf. De Fragilit. Vid. Tractat. Sandrim, fo. 91. Kimki, in Psal. li.

grace. At first they say, it is like a spider's thread, but at last like a cart rope, from Isa. lix, 5; and v, 18. . And again, in the beginning it is like a stranger, then as a guest, but lastly as the master of the house. See Jam. i, 14, 15.”*

§6. More testimonies of this nature, from the writings that are of authority amongst them, might be produced, but that these are sufficient for our purpose. What we aim at, is, to evidence their conviction of that manifold misery which came upon mankind on the entrance of sin into the world. And in proof of two things have we produced their suffrage and consent.

1. The change of the primitive condition of man, by his defection from the law of creation. This made him obnoxious in his whole person, and all his concernments, to the displeasure and curse of God, to all the evil which in this world he feels, or fears in another; to death temporal and eternal: and hence did all the disorder which is in the universe arise, which must be acknowledged by all men who will not brutishly deny what their own consciences dictate to them, and which the condition of the whole lower world proclaims, or irrationally ascribe such things to God as are utterly inconsistent with his wisdom, goodness, righteousness, and holiness. And.

2. We have manifested their acknowledgment, that a principle of sin, or moral evil, hath invaded the nature of man; or that from the sin of our first parents there is an evil concupiscence in the heart of every man, continually and incessantly inclining the soul to all moral evil whatever.

From both these it unavoidably follows, on the first notions of the righteousness, holiness, veracity, and faithfulness of God, that mankind in this estate and

Bereshith Rabba, Sect. xxii.

condition can justly expect nothing but a confluence of evil in this world, and at the close of their pilgrimage to perish with a ruin commensurate to their existence. For God in wisdom and righteousness, as the sovereign Lord of his creatures, having given them a law, good and equal, and having appointed the penalty of death and his everlasting displeasure to the transgression thereof; and withal having sufficiently promulgated both the law and the penalty; the transgression prohibited actually ensuing, himself being judge; it remains, either that all this constitution of a law, and threatening of a penalty, was vain and ludicrous, as Satan in the serpent pretended, or that mankind is rendered absolutely miserable and cursed, and that for ever. Now which of these is to be concluded, Divine revelation, reason, and the event of things, will readily determine.

That God, without the least impeachment of his righteousness or goodness, might have left all mankind remediless in this condition, is manifest, both from what hath been discoursed concerning the means whereby they were brought into it, and his dealing with angels on the like occasion. The condition wherein man was created, was morally good and upright; the state wherein he was placed outwardly, happy and blessed; the law given him just and equal; the reward proposed to him glorious and sure; and his defection from this condition voluntary. The execution of a righteous sentence upon the voluntary transgression of a just law hath no unrighteousness in it. And this was the sum of what God did in this matter, as to the misery that came on mankind; and who should judge him, if he left man for ever to "eat of the fruit of his own ways, "and to be filled with his own devices?"