Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

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Note VII.
Taylor sees in the doctrine of original sin, according to
the received strict interpretation of it, a basis of the doc
trine of predestination (p. 319), and argues against them
as virtually one and the same doctrine; in doing which he
is right. But if the ground is only true in a mysterious
sense, that which is raised upon it is only true in the same
sense, and is so deprived of its definiteness, and conse
quently of its harshness for a doctrine to be harsh ; must
positively state something. As a mystery it disowns such
a charge.
The received interpretation of original sin being thus
rejected, Jeremy Taylor substitutes for it the more lenient
interpretation put forward by the early fathers of this sin,
as a deprivation, viz. of certain higher and supernatural
gifts conferred upon man at his creation ; an absence of
perfection, as distinguished from a positive state of sin.
This sin brought upon Adam all that God threatened
but no more. A certainty of dying, together with the
proper effects and affections of mortality, were inflicted on
him, and he was reduced to the condition of his own nature,
and then begat sons and daughters in his own likeness,
that is, in the proper temper and constitution of mortal
men. For as (rod was not bound to give what He never
promised viz., an immortal duration and abode in this
life, so neither does it appear, in that angry intercourse
that God had with Adam, that he took from him or us any
of our natural perfections, but his graces only. Man being
left in this state of pure naturals, could not by his own
strength arrive to a supernatural end, which was typified
in his being cast out of Paradise, and the guarding of it
with the flaming sword of a cherub. For eternal life being
an end above our natural proportions, cannot be acquired
by any natural means. Vol. ix. p. 1.
f God gives his
gifts as He pleases, and is unjust to no man by giving or
not giving any certain proportion of good things; and
supposing this loss was brought first upon Adam, and so
descended upon us, yet we have no cause to complain, for
we lost nothing that was ours. p. 56.
When he comes, however, to reconcile this modification