300 REIN AND RECOVERY, &C. and passion. Thus it practises vice, though in less degrees, as it passes from infancy to childhood thus it grows up to taste, to indulge, and to delight in forbidden enjoyments. Then as its knowledge increases, it sins against the plainer dictates of con- science, and with a more criminal consent of the will ; thus it increases its guilt, and strengthens the habits of sin, both in the body and in the mind, and grows up towards perfection in ini- quity, unless restraining or recovering grace prevent. QUEST. VII.But if we allow that it is possible the new-cre- ated Soul sho ld be thus corrupted, yet is it agreeable to the Justice or TV don, or Goodness of God, to create so many millions of ouls, pure, innocent and holy, as they must he ig their own Natures, coming from the Hands God, and to unite them immediately to such bodies, derivedfrom sinful Parents, and infectedwith vicious Ferments and Appétites, whereby they are so early, and almost unavoidably led into sinful Practices, and defiled thereby? And, to make this question still more difficult, it might beadded, Is it not contrary to the Justice and Goodness of God to create innocent Souls and unite them to such Bodies derived from sinful Parents, whereby they are, subject to many painful Sensations, such Anguish and Agonies, and early Misery, before they can know any thing ofgood or evil, or have committed any actual Transgression`. Answer.Perhaps, this is the greatest difficulty in the whole doctrine of original sirs, and therefore -I shall offer at a humble endeavour to answer it in a more particular and distinct manner, by the following steps or degrees of reasoning : Reason I. Though the soul of man be created by God himself, without deprived or sinful qualities in it, yet it never exists or comes into being, but as a part of human nature; and that not as a piece of stewworkmanship from. God's hand, but as a part of mankind who are propagated from the first parent, by the continued' power of God's first creating word, be fruifill and multiply: Gen. i. 28. And thus, though the soul really comes fromGod rather than from the parent, yet man is to be considered as propagating his kind, much in the same manner as brute-creatures and all animals propagate their kind : And their descendants or offspring are tainted with any poison, disease or painful infirmity, which is mingled with the blood or animal * As abstruse and difficult as this question is, yet almost all parties of ehristians, who acknowledge any thing of original degeneracy, are obliged to answer it, as well as those who are called Calvinists.
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