Cap. VII §6: Chamier vs Bellarmine; meritorious cause only through corruption

So excellently to Bellarmine's objection from Romans 5 — as sin reigned unto death, so also grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life — replies the most distinguished man whose hearer Placeus once was, Chamier, in these words (for I will transcribe his whole reply, because it is most worthy of reading). I reply that righteousness in this place cannot be granted to be understood as our internal renovation: but that righteousness of Christ by whose imputation we are just: (Nor do we grant that there is that force in the antithesis which would infer that.) We confess sin to be understood as that which reigned through death-bearing works: or better that very corruption inhering in us whence death-bearing works: but we wholly deny that therefore righteousness is to be understood as inhering in us. For the reason of falling is not altogether the same as of rising again. Man could not fall except through his own sin, never through another's. But in turn, he who fell through his own sin could not rise again except through another's righteousness. Just as a bankrupt cannot be in debt except through his own want: but no one can be freed of the same except through another's wealth — namely of him who pays money for him. Therefore sin is compared to righteousness not as inhering to inhering, by which Bellarmine deceives himself: but as cause to cause — thence of death, hence of life. Thus far Chamier. Since therefore the proposition — In whatever way Christ is the cause of justification, so Adam is the cause of condemnation — is not universally true, this conclusion cannot be drawn from it: Therefore as Christ is the meritorious cause of justification, so Adam is the meritorious cause of condemnation. For in whatever way a syllogism be formed from it, if it be in the first figure the form will be vicious; if in the third, the minor will be openly false. Yet grant that Adam is the meritorious cause of condemnation: will immediate imputation of Adam's sin thence follow? In no way. For he is the meritorious cause of our condemnation not immediately, or by a merit preceding hereditary corruption, but by the mediating of that corruption which he communicated with us. For he merited condemnation for us because he merited condemnation for himself, and propagated his merit or sin into us, and through sin or merit condemnation. For it is settled that we all draw from Adam guilt and condemnation by the mediating of hereditary corruption propagated from him into us. Which cannot likewise be said of Christ — that we draw justification from him by the mediating of an inhering righteousness propagated into us: for not as hereditary corruption is truly sin sufficient for our being condemned does righteousness inhering in us merit eternal life or suffice for justifying us. Those who oppose us, if they acknowledge this difference, see their arguments of this kind fall; if they do not acknowledge it, they depart from the confession of faith which the 28th National Synod confirmed. Which of the two do they choose?