Via Patrum

On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §680

Man. Post. Cap. X: PLAC — why ‘until the law’ if equally known before; Augustine Gen. 17 not antecedent

Next, if it was equally known before and after the law, why did the Apostle say until the law? To what do those words look?

Surely if it was as well known before the law as after that there was sin in the world, there was no more need to prove that sin was in men before the law than after it.

Finally, that innate corruption was better known after the law than before—from the law and the testimonies by which it can be shown, from the end which was to make sin plain, from experience, and from the Apostle’s express witness, I did not know sin except through the Law—is so clear that it is strange the learned man was blind in so much light.

He adds something of Augustine from City of God book 15 chapter 27, as if Augustine had acknowledged that antecedent imputation—but in vain.

For he also badly interprets God’s words in Gen. 17:14, that soul shall be cut off from my people, because he has broken my covenant—taking them too harshly of a male infant—and the learned man seems to understand by that covenant not the covenant of circumcision but the law given to Adam: though this is never called a covenant or testament, and it is plain the former must be meant.

Next, Augustine wants that infant to perish because he is not regenerated: but regeneration is opposed to inherent corruption, which is the habitual breaking of God’s covenant propagated from Adam, not to imputation.

Latin

Deinde si aeque ante ac post legem notum fuit, cur Apostolus dixit usque ad legem? quorsum spectant illa verba? Certe si tam notum fuit ante legem, quam post legem, peccatum fuisse in mundo, non magis opus fuit probare, peccatum ante quam post legem in hominibus fuisse. Denique corruptionem innatam post legem, quam ante, notiorem fuisse, ex legis & testimoniis quibus demonstrari potest, & fine qui fuit patefacere peccatum, & experientia, ac diserto Apostoli testimonio peccatum non cognovi nisi per Legem, ita clarum est, ut mirum sit caecutisse Virum doctum in tanta luce. Subiungit aliquid Augustini ex lib. 15. de Civitate Dei cap. 27. quasi ille agnovisset imputationem illam antecedentem, sed frustra. Nam & male interpretatus est verba Dei Gen. xvii. 14. peribit anima illius de populo meo, quoniam testamentum meum dissipavit, ea enim de masculo infante accepit nimis duriter, & videtur Vir doctus per testamentum illud non foedus circumcisionis intelligere, sed legem latam Adamo: cum tamen nec haec unquam foedus aut testamentum dicatur, & manifestum sit illud debere intelligi. Deinde ideo vult Augustinus perire illum infantem, quia non est regeneratus: opponitur autem regeneratio corruptioni inhaerenti, quae habitualis est testamenti Dei dissipatio ab Adamo propagata, non autem imputationi.

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. 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.