A Treatise of the Laws of Nature. Richard Cumberland

by the holy Writers ʽοι πορνòι, Fornicators, the Heathen World being a World of impure Fornicators. Their Doctrine did not condemn Fornication and Stews; and both Sexes were prostituted in their Stews, which were every where allow’d, and paid their Tribute. The Persians, Aegpytians, and Athenians, are infamous for their infamous Marriages, the Stoicks and Chrysippus, for allowing them; they are infamous also for unnatural Lusts, their Wise-Man is not averse from Love; Community of Women was practis’d in several Pagan Nations; some are superlative Instances of Masculine Amours; the Lacedaemonians are noted for lending their Wives; Plato, for countenancing Perjury in Love-Matters; Plato and Lycurgus banish’d Modesty from their Commonwealth, for they will have Men Spectators of naked Women; Plutarch was shameless, when he wrote his Amatorius; the Greek Philosophers are remark’d for their impure Masculine Amours, to which, not only the Athenians, but the Roman Senators, were addicted, and the Oracle of Apollo alloweth it. The Apostle hath remark’d their monstrous Uncleanness, (Rom. 1. 28) which he looketh upon as the Consequence of a reprobate Mind. But these soul Carnalities, the Sins of Uncleanness, are only one eminent Limb, or Member, of the Heathen Old-Man, that “hath his Conversation in the Lusts of the Flesh, fulfilling the Desires of the Flesh, and of the Mind, walketh according to the Course of this World, according to the Prince of the Power of the Air, in Lasciviousness, Lusts, excess of Wine, Revelling, Banquettings, and abominable Lewdnesses,” Ephes. 2. 2, 3. which were so fashionable in the Heathen World, that it was a Thing wonder’d at, that the Christians, who seem’d an odd out-of-the-way People, (1 Pet. 4. 3, 4.) “Did not run with them into the same Excess of Riot. Being fill’d” (Rom. 1. 29, &c.) “with all Unrighteousness, Fornication, Wickedness, Covetousness, Maliciousness, full of Envy, Murder,” (Homicide was the Gladiators Discipline, and matter of Glory, they slew their Slaves at pleasure, usually expos’d their Children, Romulus made a Law, that Children born deform’d, should be expos’d and stifled), “Debate, Deceit, Malignity, Whisperers, Back-Biters, Haters of God, Despiteful, Proud, Boasters, Inventors of evil Things, Disobedient to Parents, without Understanding, Covenant-Breakers, without natural Affection, Implacable, Unmerciful.” Such were the worse and the greater part of them; and of all them it must be said, that by several degrees of Wickedness, they constituted a World of flagitious People, “an evil World,” (a World of evil Men, and a World of Evils,) “a World of the Lust of the Flesh, and the Lust of the Eyes, and the Pride of Life, which are not of the Father, but are of the World.” 1 Joh. 2. 15.

      Of Original Sin.

      This degenerate Condition of the World of Mankind, is an uncontroulable Evidence of Original Sin in some Significations of it. For, in the first place, Original Sin may signify, That Mankind, antecedently to their being Holy, (which prior Condition may be called their Original Condition,) are ungodly Sinners. Of this Original sinful State, the current of Scripture, the frame of Christianity and Judaism, the frame of Man, the degenerate Condition of the World, the Order and Course of Things in it, are an uncontroulable Evidence. For Darkness is now before Light, antecedently to Sanctification we are Unholy, and the Proselytes were first Aliens; in Christianity, Unregeneracy is before Regeneracy, the Old is before the New Man, Servitude is before Freedom, all the Holy People were of the World before their coming out of the World, their Original Condition is that of mere Mundan Heathen People. The Religion also of a Saviour-King, of Redemption, and an Expiatory Sacrifice, of Saving Faith, Repentance and Conversion to God, of a new Covenant, and a new Kingdom of God, of Regeneration and Remission of Sins, of Justification and Sanctification, proclaimeth this Original sinful State, which inferreth the Existence of Original Sin in another Notion. For,

      In the second place, Original Sin may signify, that Mankind are now natively and originally ungodly Sinners, in a degree of prevalent Tendency that way: or, that the Original of Sin is in such Degree originally in Man. If Mankind are now the Flesh-Born, and Mundan People in all respects; both privatively, being born without the Life of Grace, or the Divine Love; and positively, a vicious carnal selfishness of Nature, being now our Nature, which is called Concupiscence: If this Original of Sin is now natively Original to Mankind, this vicious Tendency must be counted an Original Sin. And an Original Sin of this Nature and Notion, must be look’d upon, not as the Whole, but as a Branch of the Article of Original Sin, and is certainly a Branch of the Christian Religion, John 3. 6, 7. “That which is born of the Flesh, is Flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit, is Spirit. Marvel not, that I said unto thee, ye must be born again, or born from above.” Our Saviour plainly affirmeth, (as the New-Testament ordinarily doth throughout,) that there are two opposite Families of Men: The one, those that are born of the Spirit, the Heaven-born; the other, those that are born of the Flesh only, the Earth-born. That, by natural Generation, none are of the Spirit-born, or Heaven-born, but all are of the Flesh born, or Earth-born, Family. Man is therefore natively so constituted, as to be one of the Animal-vital, not one of the Spiritual-vital, Family. And, of Man so constituted, impartial, Christian Reason cannot but pronounce, “That he is natively a carnal and mundan Kind of Man, and Liver, in a Degree of prevalent Tendency that way. Agreeably to our Saviour, the Apostles establish the same Distinction of two opposite Families, Gal. 4. 29. Rom. 9. 8. Joh. 1. 13. Hence appeareth, that Infants, by their first Birth, belong to that Family, which is opposite to the Spiritual and Divine Family, (both as Natural and Carnal is oppos’d to Spiritual,) they belong to the Family of those that are in the Flesh devoid of the Holy Spirit. At the time of their Conception and Nativity, thus far they are of this Family; they are then the carnal and mundan Kind of Livers, in a degree of prevalent Tendency that Way. And in such Sense the Psalmists Words may commodiously be interpreted, 51. 5. “Behold! I was shapen in Iniquity, and in Sin did my Mother conceive me.” The Animal Nature in Brutes, is wicked and carnal; and the Animal Nature in Mankind, is manifestly the same. Infants are therefore such, in the way of prevalent Tendency that way, and, consequently, they are, in such Degree, by Nature the Children of Wrath. Which is not so to be understood, as if Mankind committed Sin, not through the Fault of their Will; for all the Servants of Sin are more, or less, Volunteers; the Sins which they commit, at the time of their Commission, are their Will and Choice, altho’ at other times (usually in their sober retired Thoughts) they are otherwise minded. But Man’s Nature is full of Inclinations to that which is Evil; all sort of Wickedness issueth from the Heart or inward Man, and Man is warn’d to take heed of walking “in the Ways of his Heart, and in the Sight of his Eyes.” If in fact all Men, in their unregenerate State, live in that which is Carnality and Wickedness, if they are under the Power of the Flesh, of Sin and Vice; this is a Demonstration, that Infants, at their Birth, are the Servants of Sin, in a degree of prevalent Tendency that Way.

      All the Wickedness that is in the Animal Nature, involveth in it an inordinate Self-Love, whence it ariseth. Self-Love is unquestionably innate in all, and a vicious carnal Self-Love is innate in all, in a degree of prevalent Tendency that Way, for it is a Root of Bitterness in all Men; therefore, in that Degree, the sourse and summary of Wickedness is innate in all Men; and so are the reigning Lusts, and Passions of the Flesh, which are nothing else but its prevalent impetuous Propensions and Tendencies. Hence Conflicts between the upper and lower Soul, between Reason, and the Motions of irrational Nature; and hence it is, that there is in him originally a Body of Sin and Death.

      Agreeably whereunto, as some of the Learned suppose,²⁶⁰ the Pythagoreans, and Platonists, discourse of a Strife innate in Man, an alien Animal of Kin to us from Generation, which some call, the many-headed Beast; others call it, a moral Species of Life. They suppose, that every Man, from his Birth, hath a bad Genius, inclining him to Evil, that a Purgation is necessary for Human Souls; that they have lost their Wings, are estrang’d from God, obnoxious to inordinate Passions; and Archytas, the Pythagorean, said, “We cannot arrive at the top of true Good, because of a bad Nature.” So the Hebrew Doctors ordinarily speak of the Ferment which is in