the soul in God's judgment stood before Him as defiled and polluted with sin. But although I said I will not dispute at what time the soul may be said to receive sin, yet it is evident that it was precedent to the redemption made mention of just before, and so before the person redeemed had attained the age of a month. And that God might, in the language of Moses, give us to see cause of the necessity of this redemption, he first distinguisheth, and saith, 'The firstling of a cow, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat,' did not need this redemption, for they were clean, or holy. But the firstborn of men, who was taken in lieu of the rest of the children, and the 'firstling of unclean beasts, thou shalt surely redeem,' saith He. But why was the firstborn of men coupled with unclean beasts, but because they are both unclean? The beast was unclean by God's ordination, but the other was unclean by sin. Now, then, it will be demanded, how a soul, before it was a month old, could receive sin to the making of itself unclean? I answer, There are two ways of receiving, one active, the other passive; this last is the way by which the soul at first receiveth sin, and by so receiving, becometh culpable, because polluted and defiled by it. And this passive way of receiving is often mentioned in Scripture. Thus the pans received the ashes, (Exo 27:3); thus the molten sea received three thousand baths, (2 Chron 4:5); thus the ground receiveth the seed, (Matt 13:20–23); and this receiving is like that of the wool which receiveth the dye, either black, white, or red; and as the fire that receiveth the water till it be all quenched therewith: or as the water receiveth such stinking and poisonous matter into it, as for the sake of it, it is poured out and spilt upon the ground. But whence should the soul thus receive sin? I answer, from the body, while it is in the mother's belly; the body comes from polluted man, and therefore is polluted (Psa 51: 5). 'Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?' (Job 14:4). The soul comes from God's hand, and therefore as so is pure and clean: but being put into this body, it is tainted, polluted, and defiled with the taint, stench, and filth of sin; nor can this stench and filth be by man purged out, when once from the body got into the soul; sooner may the blackamoor change his skin, or the leopard his spots, than the soul, were it willing, might purge itself of this pollution. 'Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord God' (Jer 2:22).
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,20 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, 21 but as they entertain those whom they like, and those that are got into their affections. 22 And therefore the wrath of God must certainly be let out upon the soul, to the everlasting damnation of it.
Now that the soul doth thus entertain sin, is manifest by these several particulars—
(1.) It hath admitted it with complacence and delight into every chamber of the soul; I mean, it has been delightfully admitted to an entertainment by all the powers or faculties of the soul. The soul hath chosen it rather than God: it also, at God's command, refuseth to let it go; yea, it chooseth that doctrine, and loveth it best, since it must have a doctrine, that has most of sin and baseness in it (Isa 65:12; 66:3). They 'say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits' (Isa 30:10). These are signs that the soul with liking hath entertained sin; and if there be at any time, as indeed there is, a warrant issued out from the mouth of God to apprehend, to condemn, and mortify sin, why then,
(2.) These shifts the souls of sinners
