the works of john gill vol2 SAMPLE

Part 4: – A Vindication
1. Justin Martyr affirms 51 , that “we were born sinners:” which words
this man says in one place I have translated to a false sense; but in some
pages after, when he had forgot what he had sail before, says, it may
be translated either way; either “we were or were made, or were born
sinners:” but be this as it will, the question, he says, will return, in what
sense Justin uses the word sinners, as it is now the question between
us, in what sense St. Paul uses the word, Romans v.
I answer, Justin does not use the word sinners for sufferers, in which
sense our modern Arminians, silly enough, make the apostle to use it
in the above place; and I can scarcely think our author has front
enough to assert this, when he reads the passage in Justin, which stands
thus; “We, who by him (Christ) have access to God, have not received
the carnal, but spiritual circumcision, which Enoch, and those like him,
kept; but we, seeing we were born sinners, have received it by baptism,
through the mercy of God.”
2. Irenæus 52 has such a passage as this referred to by me, “Christ hath
granted us salvation, that what we lost in Adam, that is, to be after the
image and likeness of God, we might receive in Christ Jesus;” which
this man, after Dr. Whitby, would have to be understood of the
immortality of the body, which is only a part of that image; whereas
Irenæus 53 elsewhere makes this likeness to be in the whole man, body
and soul, and particularly to consist in the reason of man, and the
freedom of his will, which, he says, he has lost; his words are these 54 ;
“Man being rational, et secundum hoc similis Deo, ‘and in this respect
like to God,’ and being made free in his will, and of his own power, is
himself the cause why he may become sometimes wheat, and
sometimes chaff; wherefore he will be justly condemned, because
being made rational, he hath lost true reason; and living irrationally, he
51 Dialog. cum Truph. p. 261.
52 Adv. Hæres. 1. 3, c. 20, p. 282.
53 Ib. 1. 5, c. 6, p. 441.
54 Adv. Hæres. 1. 4, c. 9, p. 326.
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