On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §75 · Josué de la Place (Placeus)

Chapter 8: Not alien obligation — infants bound by their own vice

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He also adds in the earlier place, for fuller explanation, these words. "Nor is this an obligation of another's offense: for what is said — that by Adam's sin we have been made liable to God's judgment — is not to be taken as if we ourselves, innocent and undeserving, were bearing the blame of his offense; but because through his transgression we have all been clothed with the curse, he is said to have bound us. Yet from him not penalty alone has rushed upon us, but a plague poured in from him resides in us, to which penalty is due by right. So Augustine, however often he may call it another's sin (so that he may show more clearly that it is derived into us by propagation), yet at the same time asserts it also as each one's own. And the Apostle himself most expressly testifies that death has wandered through unto all for this reason, that all have sinned — that is, that they have been wrapped in original sin and stained with its spots" (Romans 5:12). And so even infants themselves, while they bring with them their damnation from the mother's womb, are bound not by another's vice but by their own. Therefore guilt and condemnation and death follow hereditary corruption as effect follows cause, and on account of that alone — not, however, on account of Adam's actual sin (except remotely and mediately) — we are sentenced to death.

Latin

Addit quoque in priore loco uberioris explicationis gratia haec verba. Neque ista est alieni delicti obligatio: quod enim dicitur, nos per Adae peccatum obnoxios esse factos Dei judicio: non ita est accipiendum, ac si insones ipsi & immerentes culpam delicti ejus sustineremus: sed quia per eius transgressionem maledictione induti sumus omnes, dicitur ille nos obstrinxisse. Ab illo tamen non sola in nos poena grassata est, sed instillata ab ipso lues in nobis residet cui iure poena debetur. Quare Augustinus utcunque alienum peccatum saepe vocet (quo clarius ostendat propagine in nos derivari) simul tamen & proprium unicuique asserit. Et Apostolus ipse disertissime testatur, ideo mortem in omnes pervagatam, quod omnes peccarint, id est, involuti sint originali peccato, & eius maculis inquinati. Atque adeo infantes quoque ipsi, dum suam secum damnationem a matris utero afferunt, non alieno, sed suo ipsorum vitio sunt obstricti. Reatus igitur & damnatio & mors sequuntur corruptionem haereditariam ut effectus causam, & ob eam duntaxat non autem ob peccatum actuale Adami (nisi remote & mediate) morti sumus addicti.

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