Chapter 12: Made sinners through inherited corruption, not immediate imputation
That learned man moves on to verse 19, and argues from it: we were made sinners by Adam's disobedience, therefore it was imputed to us. Through hereditary corruption—I grant; immediately—I deny. He seems bent on proving the consequence. Who, he asks, could that state, that sin, that transgression make us guilty, or bring the παράπτωμα of Romans 5:18 (a judicial act, God's justice spoken out, and its effect: damnation, condemnation) upon us without actual sin, whether our own or imputed? Away with the delirium. The answer is plain. As Chamier puts it, it can make us guilty causally, by original sin produced and propagated into us. That is no delirium; it is the Church's settled doctrine, which Scripture and experience confirm. How, he adds, can we be constituted sinners in act without sin? Since that cannot be original sin—still only habitual, especially in the newly conceived or newborn—it must be some actual sin. I answer: we are constituted sinners not without sin, for original sin is truly sin. It is not an actual act; it is, in act, habitual sin: in act it inheres in infants; in act it makes us liable to God's wrath. Deny that, and you are scarcely off Pighius's path.
Latin
Tranfit ille Vir doctus ad vers. XIX. Ex eoque sic argumentatur. Constituti sumus peccatores per inobedientiam Adami; Ergo nobis imputata fuit. Mediante corruptione hereditaria, Concedo: Immediate, Nego. Videtur probare velle consequentiam. Nam qui quaeso, inquit, illa κατάστασις, illa ἁμαρτία, illud παράπτωμα, nos potuit reos constituere, τὸ παράπτωμα Rom. vers. 18. (quod quidem est actus judiciarius, justitiae Dei effatum, & effectum, damnatio, condemnatio) in nos inducere citra peccatum actuale, vel proprium, vel imputatum? Apage hoc delirium. Facilis est responsio. Potest nos reos constituere, ut loquitur Chamierus, causaliter, producto & propagato in nos peccato originali. Neque id est delirium; sed constans Ecclesiae doctrina, quam veram esse Scriptura & experientia contestantur. Quomodo, subjungit, constitui peccatores, scilicet actu, sine peccato? Quod cum non possit esse originale, quippe quod tantum adhuc habituale, praesertim in recens conceptis aut natis, superest ut sit quoddam actuale peccatum. Respondeo, constitui peccatores non sine peccato: nam peccatum originale est vere peccatum. At non est actu. Imo est actu peccatum habituale: actu inhaeret infantibus: actu nos facit reos irae divinae. Hoc si negas, a Pighii opinione vix distas.