Cap. VI close: Maresius args VI–VIII — public person, Christ-parallel, covenant benefits

VI. But I do not know what proof he subjoins. For he was a public person, and represented the whole human race far more effectually than the high Priest in the sanctuary represented the whole Israelite nation. First, cannot that be denied by me as easily as it is affirmed by the learned man? Next, grant it is so — was therefore some one, and that the first, action of the high Priest imputed to the Israelite nation? If you say yes, give a place of Scripture that teaches it. If you deny, what does this do toward proving the imputation of Adam's first actual sin alone, and that antecedent? The high priest represented the Israelite people by office, as vessel of the legal covenant, and in a manner bore him upon shoulders and heart. Is anything of that kind said of Adam? VII. Nor is it less true, he says, that we have sinned in Adam, and so his sin is justly imputed to us all for punishment, than that afterward we, crucified together with Christ, have satisfied divine justice in him, and so his satisfaction and obedience are deservedly imputed to us before God for righteousness. I confess that we have sinned in Adam, and that his sin is justly imputed to us all for punishment. But that is not now in question between us. The question is only about the mode of imputation, or, so to speak, the species: whether it is imputed antecedently or immediately, or through corruption? This I affirm; that the distinguished man does not even try to prove. He therefore wanders from the state of the question which ought to have been between him and Placeus. For the rest, we are said to have satisfied divine justice in Christ as in our surety, who satisfied in our place, when he ought in no way to satisfy for himself. Shall we say likewise that we have sinned in Adam as in our surety, who would have sinned in our place? To be sure, we were then bound to obey God, Adam not likewise. And he came into our place, that he might violate the law in our place. Does this please the most celebrated man? I do not think so. And I have already observed that Christ's satisfaction is imputed to us through our consent or faith: and so nothing can be made of that comparison, except at most that Adam's sin is imputed to us through our consent, which is habitually included in hereditary vice: which is Placeus's very own judgment. VIII. In the last place he fights with this argument. And this imputation of Adam's sin is so much the fairer, because as he had received the condition and promise of life not for himself only but also for his posterity if he stood, so he ought by his fall to have contracted the guilt of death not for himself only but also for all his: for it is most equal that to whom the advantages belong, to him the burdens and disadvantages also belong. How does he understand that Adam had received the condition and promise of life not for himself only but also for his posterity if he stood? Thus — that Adam's posterity would have been under the same condition and promise of life under which Adam was, that is, would live forever if they had not violated God's law? This is most true. For under whatever covenant the fathers are, under the same their children also are. Or that Adam would have communicated to posterity his original righteousness which he had preserved? Nothing truer; but what is that to the imputation of Adam's sin, especially antecedent? By his sin he deprived himself of original righteousness, and contracted corruption, and propagated that privation and corruption into posterity, and through it his own guilt of death. So, as he was under the law of sin and death, so he begot children likewise under the law of sin and death. For he communicated to them his sin, and through sin death. Or finally does he understand that Adam's righteousness, if he had stood, would have been imputed to all his posterity for eternal life? First D. Garissoles denies this, and refutes it with several arguments, in the book on the Imputation of the first sin, chapter 15, section 14, pages 510–511. Next, whence can that be known? Finally, Adam would have had to beget children unlike himself, that is, immutable or impeccable. For let us suppose they sinned: they would have been at once both righteous by imputation of paternal righteousness and unrighteous by their own sin, and so at once worthy of both life and death. If you say they would have fallen from that imputation by sinning, I shall reply that that imputation would therefore have been superfluous and useless, inasmuch as, if they had sinned, it would have been of no use to them; seeing they would have been no less righteous by their own righteousness than Adam himself had been. This argument therefore avails rather to overturn than to establish the antecedent imputation of Adam's sin. For who would believe that the most equal God set Adam such a law, that if he obeyed, however constantly and perpetually, his obedience would not be imputed to posterity, yet his disobedience would be imputed if he happened even once not to obey; and so (as far as imputation is concerned) obedience and disobedience would stand in a contrary way?