Chapter 6: no Scripture for representation

Did God then reveal it in Scripture? Let the place be produced. Can it be gathered from nature? Let a reason be adduced. For to one affirming something of that kind I am neither bound nor is it expedient to assent beyond the book of nature and of Scripture. Nor indeed can it be gathered from the words of Augustine or of the most distinguished Amyraut. For what consequence is this: every man is by origin nothing but Adam—therefore all men were considered by God as one person in Adam—or, therefore Adam in sinning sustained the person of all men? What the learned man says, that a natural conjunction can be a fit cause why someone should undergo penalties for another's crime, is not true in the divine forum, unless there is also between them a conjunction of sin, or at least in the one who is punished a sin worthy of that penalty, or he himself is a vessel of sins. What he subjoins, that because of unity of representation Adam's sinning was the same as if all had committed the sin, needs proof. For not whatever one who represents another does is at once to be imputed to that other, whether he consents or does not consent. God struck a covenant with the human race in Noah, and with the Israelites in Abraham; yet of neither, I think, were good works or sins imputed to their posterity.