"Now if that word of the prophet Ezekiel be true (continues Georgius), 'The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father,' no part of mankind are left in original sin." But I really will have nothing to do with this unclean beast at all (Deut. xiv. 7). My purpose is to come to the help of the ignorant only, that they may not be taken and carried away with such worthless cavillings as these. No one thing is more certain, than that all

This good brother monk, prodigal of dealing with strangers, huddles all together and presses into the household even those against whom God has shut and barred the door. But that man is wilfully mad, whoever he may be, who does not confess that no one of those who died naturally in Adam can be restored unto eternal life in any other way than in that ordained of God. The manifest difference between the seed of a believing and that of an unbelieving man, as determined by the apostle, is this, that the former is "holy," but the latter "unclean." And on this sacred principle, before the Gentiles were ingrafted into the Church with the Jews by the breaking down of "the middle wall of partition between them," the apostle calls the branches of Abraham "holy" from their holy root. But what need is there of a lengthened discussion of this point? Did not the same prophet

Ezekiel, whose word this monk so abuses, frequently condemn the uncircumcised Gentiles to destruction as profane persons? Nor would circumcision be the covenant of life even now on any other grounds. How, then, can it be true to assert that the son shall not bear the punishment of the sin of the father? And, on the other hand, I ask, How shall that man boast himself to be innocent who is born an unclean raven from an unclean egg? For original sin is so derived from Adam universally, that it becomes the peculiar property of the nature of every man. No one, therefore, can justly complain, under an imagination that he is bearing the guilt of another's sin, and considering himself free from fault. But if it is not lawful for God to punish, in their children, the sins of their fathers, what is the meaning of that word, "Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation"? (Exod. xx. 5.) And, again, "Vis

s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation"? (Exod. xxxiv. 17.) Moreover, the first part of this visiting vengeance is, that the non-elect children of Adam, being left destitute of the Spirit of God, remain sunk in the original sin of their nature.