quent Hints, that to adopt the Fruits of Sin was to give countenance to it. He quoted ſeveral Texts (for he was well read in Scripture) ſuch as, He viſits the Sins of the Fathers upon the Children; and, the Fathers have eaten four Grapes, and the Children's Teeth are ſet on edge, &c. Whence he argued the Legality of puniſhing the Crime of the Parent on the Batſtard. He ſaid, ‘Tho’ the Law did not poſitively allow the deſtroying ſuch baſe-born Children, yet it held them to be the Children of no body; that the Church conſidered them as the Children of no body; and that at the beſt, they ought to be brought up to the loweſt and vileſt Offices of the Commonwealth.’
Mr. Allworthy anſwered to all this and much more which the Captain had urged on this Subject, ‘That however guilty the Parents might be, the Children were certainly innocent. That as to the Texts he had quoted, the former of them was a particular Denunciation againſt the Jews for the Sin of Idolatry, of relinquiſhing and hating their heavenly King; and the latter was parabolically ſpoken, and rather intended to denote the certain and neceſſary Conſequences of Sin, than any‘expreſs
