Chapter 8: Calvin Institutes — guilt follows hereditary corruption
Elsewhere Calvin unfolds his mind. "Original sin," he says, "is the depravity and corruption of our nature, which first makes us guilty of the wrath of God, then also brings forth in us works which Scripture calls works of the flesh" (Galatians 5:19). Therefore guilt follows corruption as effect follows cause — and indeed, as they claim, an adequate cause, for he immediately adds. "These two things, then, are to be observed distinctly: namely that, being thus spoiled and perverted in all the parts of our nature, we are already held before God justly damned and convicted on account of that corruption alone." Which same words so pleased so great a man that they stand twice in his Institutes — once in book 2, chapter 1, section 8, and again in book 4, chapter 15, section 10.
Latin
Exponit mentem suam alibi Calvinus, Peccatum originale, inquit, est naturae nostrae pravitas ac corruptio, quae primum reos facit nos irae Dei, tum etiam opera in nobis profert quae Scriptura vocat opera carnis. Sequitur ergo reatus corruptionem ut effectus causam, & quidem causam, ut loquuntur, adaequatam: subiungit enim continuo. Haec itaque duo distincte observanda: nempe quod sic omnibus naturae nostrae partibus vitiati perversique, iam ob talem duntaxat corruptionem damnati merito convictique coram Deo tenemur. Quae eadem verba, adeo tanto viro placebant, bis extant in ejus institutione, semel lib. 2. cap. 1. §. 8. & iterum lib. 4. cap. 15. §. 10.