On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §250

Man. Post. Cap. IV: Sexta — morte morieris phrase / unused sense

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I cannot help adding a sixth reason to the ones above, drawn first from the phrase 'you shall die the death.' I know no place in Scripture where 'to die the death' is taken of that figured death which is only absence of holiness in the soul. Next, from the name 'death' itself: I do not find that sense in the Old Testament, and not even in the New used absolutely and without addition—unless perhaps Luke 9:60, 'let the dead bury their dead,' where the Lord seems to mean unbelief and stubbornness, not the privation of original righteousness common to all. For whoever does not believe is already condemned (John 3:18), and God's wrath remains on him (John 3:36)—so an unbeliever may well be called dead.

Grant that he meant that privation: it is his way to shift words from their proper, common sense to a spiritual, metaphorical one, to veil the Gospel light for a time—and the Apostles should not have copied him there. Who then believes God's first law and threat, set in the most ordinary words 'you shall die the death,' must be read in a sense wholly unused—and so that the same word, used once and to be taken once, is taken both properly and metaphorically at once? I could bury you with further arguments, but not everything must be poured out at once.

Latin

Temperare mihi non possum quin sextam rationem superioribus adjungam, ductam primum a phrasi illa morte morieris: Nam nullus quod sciam locus extat in scriptura, ubi phrasis illa morte mori de figurata illa morte sit accipienda, quae nihil aliud est quam absentia sanctitatis in anima. Deinde ab ipso nomine mortis, quod in vetere Testamento mihi non occurrit eo sensu, Immo ne in Novo quidem absolute, & sine additamento, nisi forte Luc. ix. 60. sine ut mortui sepeliant suos mortuos: quo tamen loco non videtur Dominus ad privationem originalis justitiae communem omnibus respexisse, sed ad incredulitatem & contumaciam. Cum enim qui non credit jam sit condemnatus Ioh. 3. 18. & super eum ira Dei maneat. Ioh. 3. 36. nihil prohibet incredulum mortuum appellari. Fac tamen eum ad privationem illam respexisse, solemne ei est vocabula transferre a propria & communiter usitata significatione ad spiritualem & metaphoricam lucis Evangelicae ad tempus tegendae causa, in quo eum imitari non debuerunt Apostoli. Iam quis credat primam illam dei legem & comminationem conceptam verbis usitatissimis morte morieris, intelligendam esse sensu prorsus inusitato, & quidem ita ut idem vocabulum semel positum, semel intelligendum, accipiatur simul & proprie, & metaphorice. Possum te obruere aliis argumentis, sed non sunt omnia simul ac semel effundenda.

About this text

New English, free to read. Open any section below.

English follows the locked 1661 Saumur Latin of Capita I–XIV partial through Man. Post. Caput IX (eph-ho / eph-ho pantes) before eph-ho / eph-ho pantes, reconstructed from IA PDF page images with Vision OCR and pdftotext as check. No modern English was copied. Cap. IX deepen+ remain.

Catalogue & scope

IA deimputationepri00lapl. Densify: Capita I–XII + Caput XIV + Man. Post. Cap. II–VI through Cap. X Rom. 5:14 tip. Not whole Disputatio; Cap. X Rom. 5:14+ / ~494 pp Disputatio remain.

Witnesses

This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.