Cap. VII: Rivetus completed — Quid pro ista; Garissoles Arg. I; Placeus Resp. 1

Therefore the Apostle does not compare the modes by which righteousness is received, but the causes, effects, and subjects of each. The cause of salvation is the obedience of the second Adam, as the cause of condemnation was the disobedience of the first. The effects are that the one constitutes us unjust, the other just. The subjects are many, made just through the one, unjust through the other. Therefore the Bishop of Deux-Ponts, explaining these words of the same chapter, But not as the offense, so also the gift, concludes from the preceding likeness alone: The likeness, then, is as to the thing between these, but not as to the mode. Which being so, the adversaries' argument limps, because they do not argue well from the thing to the mode of the thing. In the French edition, section 8, these last words are set out more fully: That being so, the adversaries' argument is worth nothing; because they conclude therein that we are justified in Christ in the same fashion that we are made sinners in Adam, which the Apostle does not say.

What could have been said more clearly for this our reply, and against the arguments of D. Garissoles? Yet let us weigh them briefly. I will not report all his words: for they are too prolix; but only those in which the nerve and force of the argument consists.

Arg. I. The Apostle has this proposed to himself in the latter part of chapter 5, which extends from verse 12 to the end, that what he taught concerning justification he may confirm by exposition of a noble type. But he taught in chapter 4 that the reason of our justification consists in this, that through the imputation of Christ's righteousness received by faith we are justified, that is, are held just and are absolved before God, etc. Therefore the Apostle wants to conclude from that comparison of Christ with Adam that justification befalls us from the imputation of Christ's righteousness. And yet this could be concluded by no legitimate reason unless the imputation of Adam's sin were posited, etc. For what is the force or reason of a consequence of that kind? Sin is propagated naturally from Adam into us, without any imputation. Therefore the righteousness of the second Adam, who is Christ, descends to us not by propagation but by imputation.

Reply 1. That first Major proposition — The Apostle confirms by exposition of a noble type what he taught concerning justification in chapter 4 — is taken either universally or particularly; that is, that the Apostle confirms either all things which he taught, or some. If the former, the proposition is false. For he had taught that faith is imputed unto righteousness, that a man is not justified from the works of the law, that the promise is not through the law, what faith that is through which we are justified, etc. Which things, however, he does not properly confirm by arguments drawn from that type: inasmuch as of them he does not even make mention in that comparison. If the latter, the argument is vicious and has no force of concluding: for it is in the first figure of syllogisms. And if it be conceived in the third figure with a universal minor joined, that minor will without doubt be openly false.