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Notes
Spanheim (1600–1649), was a professor of theology at Geneva (1631-1642) and has five disputations on original sin in his Miscellaneous Theological Disputations, vol. 1. Spanheim’s disputations are self-designed to answer regarding original sin: “1. Whether it exists. 2. What it is.” As to Spanheim’s view:
1. He affirms below that “from the free ordination of God” there was a “covenant” with Adam and all his posterity in him, and that Adam’s first sin “is imputed to all”.
2. In addition, Spanheim has a kind of realist conception of all posterity being in Adam, namely by way of our nature being in him. Thus Adam is “considered as a principle both seminal and representative of the whole human race”.
3. Spanheim prefers to take the relevant phrase in Rom. 5:12, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ, “for that all have sinned” (KJV), as meaning “in him all have sinned,” but allows the meaning of “because all have sinned”.
5. Spanheim does not use a direct and immediate imputation of Adam’s sin to every individual through his lengthy disputations as an easy answer to why every person is born sinful, but rather predominantly explains sin’s propagation to posterity (below and elsewhere) by the conveyance of corrupt human nature through human generation.
As to the more nuanced issue of the immediate versus mediate imputation (and in what ways) of Adam’s sin, Spanheim can be difficult to interpret:
6. Spanheim in one place affirms “that first sin is imputed to all and on account of that imputation, nature is vitiated in all,” which may seem to affirm immediate imputation. Yet note that Spanheim does not say that the “guilt of that first sin is imputed to all,” and thus “nature is vitiated in all,” but only that “the first sin is imputed,” or reckoned, “to all”, that is, possibly, as all were in Adam by nature and in potency (as Spanheim speaks of).
7. Just before this is the statement: “by the very fact that all sinned, and are considered to have sinned, it is imputed to all.” This could be understood as:
“by the very fact that all sinned [by their nature in Adam], and are considered to have sinned [given his representative capacity], it is imputed [or accounted] to all.” This corrupt human nature, with its attendent guilt, is then conveyed to all through human generation.
This would be a kind of mediate imputation, similar to that taught by Theodore Tronchin, who was also a Genevan professor of theology (1615-1656) while Spanheim was there. For Tronchin’s view, see Quotes at ‘Proponents’ of Mediate Imputation.
Yet (1) Spanheim’s statement could be taken in a way consistent with immediate imputation, and (2) it is not entirely clear whether the statement is Spanheim’s own affirmation, or his opponent’s.
8. It may be more likely Spanheim was designedly using guarded, somewhat ambiguous and not-explicit language and detail, to that level, throughout the whole, and did not intend to declare for either immediate or mediate imputation, leaving this issue, which he does not take up explicitly, undetermined.
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Miscellaneous theological Disputations, pt. 1 (d. 1649; Geneva: Chouët, 1652), trans. AI by Roman Prestarri at Confessionally Reformed Theology
‘Miscellaneous Theological Disputation exhibiting a Theological Compendium’ Latin
“28. This Fall, as it has man for cause, so it is imputed to man and indeed to all, because it was not proper or personal, but common and as it were natural [pertaining to his nature], committed by him who was the seminal and representative principle of the entire human race.
29. Hence also the entire human race was guilty in him, then liable to that penalty which can be defined by the latitude of death both external and internal and eternal.”
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‘Disputation on Original Sin’ Latin
“7. But the affirmative opinion [that original sin exists] is to be seriously held in the Church of God, and is founded both in the truth of the thing and in the truth of the enunciation of Holy Scripture concerning the thing. From both these principles it can be invincibly demonstrated that original sin is truly given in every man descended from Adam by natural series of generation…
8. That original sin, therefore, attacked by so many enemies, truly exists, we give proof…
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‘Disputation 4 on Original Sin’ Latin
“2. 8th Place: A place of Sacred Scripture exists:
Rom. 5:12, ‘Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.’
Since the principal seat of original sin is in these words, both ἀνάσκευή [refutation] is necessary [for the arguments of those who deny original sin] and κατασκευή [construction] for their vindications.
3. For the κατασκευή [construction], these things are to be noted:
1. The apostle proves the necessity of our reconciliation with God through the second Adam from our separation from God through the first Adam, namely that God willed there to be a similar ratio [rule] of the latter as there was of the former, that by the fall of one man all were infected with sin, by the obedience of one also all are freed from it. Therefore the apostle here proposes the πρότασις [protasis] of the comparison both in verse 18 and 19, and subjects its ἀπόδοσις [apodosis], with the remaining words interjected by parenthesis [insertion], simultaneously for elucidating the comparison and opposition of the first and second Adam.
2. The apostle mentions the first sin, namely the originating [i.e. the actual sin of Adam], considered in complex, by reason of universal ἀταξία [disorder] intervening in the internal acts of mind, will and appetite, and in the external acts both of the sensitive power and locomotive. All of which are expressed by general terms both ἁμαρτία [sin] and παράβασις [transgression] or παράπτωμα [trespass].
3. That sin is said to have entered through one man, either εἰδικῶς [specifically] or κατ᾽ ἀντονομασίαν [by antonomasia] so called, or with one placed transsumptively [by transference] for first, as sometimes the same is as ראשון [first] or primus [first].
4. Sin is said to have entered not from God creating, but through man voluntarily turning himself from his Creator, therefore it is not something κτιστόν [created] but παραισακτόν [introduced by stealth], and which as it were secretly insinuated itself into the world.
5. It is said to have entered into the world not so much taken συστηματικῶς [systematically] or subjectively, as metonymically for the inhabitants of the world, for it is expounded in the following by ‘all men’ [Rom. 5:12, 18], although secondarily it also entered into the world and subjected it to vanity, as is evident from (Rom. 8:19-20), etc., as it were by some contagion.
6. Death is said to have entered through sin, namely both external or corporeal, and internal or spiritual, and eternal, and not only actual death, but also liability and obligation to death, and the proximate power of dying.
7. Death passed into all human persons also, being educed by natural series of generation from that one blood of this first Adam, all of which, not even infants excepted, were rendered liable to death, from which liability neither Enoch nor Elijah taken up into heaven were free ex se [from themselves], nor those to be changed sometime in that decreed day (1 Cor. 15:51, 52). Nor did it pass to all by imitation, since Adam’s sin was unknown to innumerable people, nor could it thus pass to infants, but rather by participation of guilt and by propagation of guilt.
8. The cause is subjoined both of that general infection through guilt and of consequent misery through punishment, that in that first man all sinned, so ἐφ᾽ ᾧ [“in which”, “in whom” or “for that” in Rom. 5:12] is the same as ἐν ᾧ, when all are said to die ἐν τῷ Ἀδάμ [in Adam] (1 Cor. 15:22), as also that phrase is taken (Mk. 12:26; Lk. 20:37; Acts 7:38; 1 Cor. 10:2; Heb. 11:12). Even granted that that phrase is not to be understood subjectively or relatively, but causally, the matter would come to the same thing, for the cause would be rendered why death passed into all altogether and individually, namely because all sinned, not by [Adam’s] actual sin, since that is by no means common to all (v. 14). Necessarily therefore all ought to be considered to have sinned that sin of the first man, whence the apostle so often δεικτικῶς [demonstratively] inculcates ἑνὸς παράπτωμα [one trespass] and of one man, which first entered into the world, and through which guilt came into all unto condemnation not only effectively but also meritoriously. This place will have to be vindicated more prolixly in the following.
4. We have therefore in this place:
1. Universal corruption of all men altogether without exception.
2. Corruption derived from the first man.
3. Corruption derived not by imitation of Adam’s sin, of which indeed innumerable people never heard anything: Therefore by participation of the first man’s guilt.
4. Liability of all men altogether and obligation to death, even of infants not actually sinning.
5. Participation and propagation of sin and death from one man corresponding to participation and propagation of righteousness and life from one man.
Therefore all and each are partakers of the sin committed by the first man, who stood for all, and thus all are born both evil and miserable, with guilt and with guilt or liability to punishment. For the demerit in which all are born draws from itself the privation of the divine image, first conferred on man for himself and his posterity, and the substitution of the contrary image of Satan, and thus both darkness of mind and aversion of will and affections from God, and the σύμπραξις [confusion] and disturbance of all those faculties.
5. Objections [of the Socinian John Völkel to original sin existing, which Spanheim will answer]:
1. That Adam’s sin is imputed to posterity is confirmed by no support either of reason or of divine Scripture.
2. The words [ἐφ᾽ ᾧ, “in which”, “in whom” or “for that,” in Rom. 5:12] not only can, but also ought to be translated ‘forasmuch as’, as Erasmus translates, or ‘because’:
1. For Paul elsewhere also uses either the same or similar words with the same signification (Rom. 8:3; 2 Cor. 5:4; Heb. 2:18).
2. The same is proven by the structure of the words, which would be inept or entirely null if those two words ἐφ᾽ ᾧ [in whom] were to be taken so as to be referred to the word ‘man’. For if the diction ᾧ [whom] as a relative [particle] looked to the word ‘man’, it would altogether have been joined to it closely with no speech interjected. But thus placed, so as to be referred to the word ‘man’, it tolerates the usage of no language.
3. If the particle ᾧ [whom] had respect to the man noted above, the apostle would not have said ἐν ᾧ [in whom] but ἐν ἐκείνῳ [in him].
4. If the matter stood thus, the apostle would have used not a preposition, but ἐν [in]. For when something is signified to be done in some thing or person, or through it, it is not customary to say ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ [upon it], but rather ἐν αὐτῷ [in it] that it was done. Nor can it be said that ἐφ᾽ ᾧ is placed for ἐν [in], for this ought to be denied to those affirming without reason and by begging the question: Therefore death is not said to have passed into all because Adam’s sin was imputed to them, but ‘because’, or ‘forasmuch as’, all have sinned.
3. The discourse is about men’s own and actual sin, not indeed about imputation of alien sin. For the apostle about to declare and confirm his saying, immediately subjoins: ‘For until the law, sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.’ From these words it is established that the discourse is about [persons’] actual sin, against which the Mosaic law was enacted and which Adam’s posterity themselves perpetrated.
4. The apostle has no more discourse about the imputation of Adam’s sin than in the following he has discourse about the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.
5. As in the other member of the collation, true obedience to be provided by men themselves is to be understood from Paul’s mind: So here true disobedience provided by men themselves is to be understood.
6. Nor is the opposite proved from the fact that Paul adds:
‘As by one man’s offence many were made sinners, so by the righteousness of one many were made righteous.’
For here imputation is not to be understood on the one side, indeed, of sin committed by Adam, on this side of obedience provided by Christ. For this is the sense of Paul’s words: that therefore all are constituted sinners on account of Adam’s debitum [debt], that is, [they are] liable to eternal death because they are born from him and thus placed in the same state with him, no differently than those who are begotten from a father delivered into servitude on account of some crime must undergo the same constitution, not that paternal crime is imputed to them, but because thus carries the force and nature of generation itself. The same is to be thought about those who are begotten from Christ through imitation of obedience. For as Christ our spiritual father through obedience obtained possession of eternal life, so those born from him through faith and obedience will attain the same divine state, by reason not of imputation, but of spiritual generation.
These are so many exceptions of John Völkel the Socinian, bk. 5, On True Religion, as he writes, ch. 21.
6. But all these things are obtruded in vain either against our vexillation [position] or against arguments drawn from that place of Paul. They indeed have appearance, but by no means have force.
To the 1st Objection, Answer:
1. The error is by false hypothesis that we necessarily need the support of reason as a foundation of things to be believed by us in such mysteries; but it suffices that we have supports of Scripture, by which they are to be elicited and upon which they are to be superstructed, although with the use of reason employed as an instrument.
2. Τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ [Begging the question] is sought that either supports of reason or of Scripture are lacking to us here. The opposite was partly shown previously, partly is still to be shown.
7. To the 2nd Objection, Answer:
1. By συγχώρησις [concession], the words ἐφ᾽ ᾧ can be translated ‘forasmuch as’ or ‘because’, and that without any prejudice to our cause, as was demonstrated in thesis 3 [point 8]. For even with that translation admitted, the deduction of original sin from that place [of Rom. 5:12] always remains firm.
2. By ἄρνησις [denial] that the words ought thus to be translated [as Völkel would have them, namely as “because”]. The opposite [meaning, “in whom”] was also demonstrated above [to be preferred] in the same thesis.
8. To the 1st Reason, Answer:
1. The elenchus [refutation] from particulars [i.e. other Bible verses] errs:
Paul elsewhere uses the same or similar words with the same signification: Therefore also in this place.
But also elsewhere he uses the same or similar words with other signification. Therefore we shall be permitted to infer the same from there by entirely the same right. The places were shown above in thesis 3 from 1 Cor. 8:11 and Heb. 9:17.
2. It is falsely supposed that ἐφ᾽ ᾧ occurs in (Rom. 8:3), for ἐν ᾧ [in which] is had there. Even granting that that phrase is employed there in a causal sense, no inference is given from a particular to a universal, or to another particular.
3. The place 2 Cor. 5:4 is turned back a fortiori [from a greater reason], for ἐφ᾽ ᾧ ought not to be taken there in causal sense, but in παρεμπτικῷ [a parenthetical] or relative sense; nor does it there signify propterea quod [because], but it is to be referred to the preceding word οἰκητηρίῳ [habitation], so that the sense may be: in which habitation indeed, as long as we are, we do not desire to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that is, we do not despise the present life, although we long for the future.
4. The place Heb. 2:18 is also ἀπροσδιόνυσος [inappropriate], both because ἐφ᾽ ᾧ is not had there, but ἐν ᾧ [in which], and because that ἐν ᾧ can be either ἀναφορικόν [anaphoric] or relative to Christ’s παθήματα [sufferings], partly corporeal, like hunger, thirst, torments; partly spiritual, like temptations, reproaches, revilings; and because even granting, not conceding, that those words are to be taken in a causal sense, no solid inference is given from one place as particular to another place. And also because the causal sense of particles ἐφ᾽ ᾧ brings no prejudice to our opinion, as was demonstrated.
Add that the most fitting sense of those words is given, with a Hebraism observed, so that it may correspond to באשר of the Hebrews, ‘in which’, that is, through which, for per quas [through which], with a singular number placed for the plural, in this sense: it was fitting for Christ to be made like his brothers, not only as to properties, but also as to the miseries and ἀδιάβλητα [blameless] infirmities of human nature, so that by intuition of those very things in his members he might be stirred to compassion and aid, and so that as faithful high priest constituted by God in his house, He might offer fitting propitiation to God for their sins. To which compassion He is the more inclined because He himself experienced similar things in his temptation on earth, and thus can bear aid to his own constituted in those very evils in temptation, as now received into glory.
9. To the 2nd Reason, Answer:
1. Τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ [Begging the question] is sought that the very structure of the words requires this, or that it would be inept or null if τὸ ἐφ᾽ ᾧ is referred to ‘man’.
2. The elenchus [refutation]: τὸ ἐπόμενον [the consequent] errs that ἐφ᾽ ᾧ cannot be referred to man because certain things are interjected. But nothing is more frequent than parentheses [insertions] in Paul. Nor is the relation of such particles to more remote things infrequent to the same apostle. Thus e.g. 2 Thess. 2:9, οὗ [whose] is referred not to τοῦ κυρίου [the Lord] which immediately precedes, but to τὸν ἄνομον [the lawless one], which is the more remote subject: Either therefore the adversary’s assertion proceeds καθόλου [universally] that such things ought always to be referred to things immediately preceding, or not. If the former, it is false. If the latter, it is inconsequent.
3. Τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ [Begging the question] is sought that the usage of no language tolerates such construction.
10. To the 3rd Reason, Answer:
1. It is supposed, not proved, that this should have been expressed otherwise by the apostle, and he should have said not ἐν ᾧ [in whom] but ἐν ἐκείνῳ [in him]. For the force of either phrase is the same, and it is lawful for the Holy Spirit to express his mind at will.
2. That ἐφ᾽ ᾧ is most fittingly referred to that ἀνθρώπῳ [man] about whom discourse was previously instituted.
11. To the 4th Reason, Answer:
1. The error is by false supposition, for the apostle promiscuously, and by his liberty, employs phrases which it pleases him to employ. Nor are human writers constrained to these straits, much less ought divine writers to be constrained.
2. It is also gratuitously supposed, not proved, that when something is signified to be done in some thing or person, or through it, it is customary to say ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ [upon it], that it was done. For this is affirmed either universally or particularly. In the former way it is false, in the latter inconsequent.
The opposite is evident from various examples. Thus for example, Mk. 2:4, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ is placed for δι᾽ οὗ [through whom]. So in Heb. 9:17, ἐπὶ νεκροῖς [over the dead] is placed for ἐξ αὐτῶν [from them]. So Mt. 18:16, ἐπὶ στόματος δύο μαρτύρων [at the mouth of two witnesses] for ἐν στόματι [in the mouth]. Indeed, if the preposition is placed for πρὸς [to] and διὰ [through] and μετὰ [with], why cannot it be employed for a preposition more cognate to it?
Nor should the permutation of those prepositions seem new, as Völkel ought to have known, even to Attic writers. It ought to seem less wonderful to sacred writers, expressing the Hebrew ב [in] promiscuously, sometimes through ἐν [in], sometimes through ἐπί [upon], so they often have ἐπί [upon] for ἐν [in], Mt. 2:23; 13:52; Mk. 1:9; 2:1. Why not also ἐφ᾽ ᾧ?
3. It is vainly asserted again that the apostle’s mind is that death is said to have passed into all because, or forasmuch as, all sinned, namely by actual sins. For this is petere principii [to beg the question]. And it is refuted from verse 14 where mention is made of those who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, that is, actually, who are nevertheless involved in sin.
4. The elenchus [refutation] of opposites errs, that death is not said to have passed into all because Adam’s sin was imputed to them, but because, or forasmuch as, all sinned. For by the very fact that all sinned and are considered to have sinned, it is imputed to all. The reason of proof is invincible, because otherwise it will be false that all and each sinned, since recently born infants have not sinned, namely by actual and personal sins.
12. To the 3rd Objection, Answer:
1. Τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ [Begging the question] is sought that the discourse is about men’s own and actual sin, for the reason already given: since the matter is about one sin and about universal sin, ἑνὸς παραπτώματος [one trespass] and indeed of one man, opposed to one man [Christ], about whom the apostle also treats in the following. But such cannot be given unless that first sin is imputed to all and on account of that imputation, nature is vitiated in all. For proper and actual sin is not, or cannot be universal with respect to all.
2. The elenchus [refutation] a dicto secundum quid [from speaking in a qualified way] errs, for that first sin can be called both ‘alien’ and ‘proper’: ‘proper’ indeed insofar as that act is considered personal of Adam actually sinning: ‘alien’ indeed insofar as he is considered to have stood for the whole human race, as its principle both radical or seminal and representative.
3. The elenchus [refutation]: τὸ ἐπόμενον [the consequent] errs that it follows from the words of the following verse 13, that the apostle in verse 12 spoke about actual sin against which the law of Moses was enacted and which Adam’s posterity actually perpetrated, namely by their personal act. For this by no means follows from the apostle’s words, but rather the opposite. For when the apostle had said that ‘all sinned in Adam’, and this could seem hard, the apostle proves it from the fact that that original corruption became known a posteriori [from what follows] at every time through actual sins, which before the written law and in that whole period anteceding the law were already raging throughout the world, which indeed cannot but argue a corrupt principle in all. And ἄχρι νόμου [until law] is placed for καὶ ἄχρι νόμου [even until law]. And because sin was universal in that period also, there had to be given some law anterior to the written law, whose violation involved all in sin, but such cannot be given except that primogenial [original] law inscribed by God to the first man. Although therefore verse 13 is discourse about actual sins manifesting that corrupt origin of all, so far is it from following thence that in verse 12 the discourse is not about the first and one sin in which all sinned, that the contrary is proved thence by progress a posteriori to a priori [from what follows to what precedes]. It could also be said that this is the apostle’s mind: he had said all sinned in Adam. It was easy to object that this cannot be given, for since sin is transgression of law, and law was not given to innumerable people, nor could it be borne to infantine age, how can universal transgression in all be given with no law presupposed? The apostle shows that he does not understand this about the actual sins of individuals, but about the one sin common to all, and universal transgression of the law given in the first man to the whole human race.
4. The same apostle proves in the following, verse 14, through the universal tyranny of death into all and each person, even infants, who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression; and thus who are not considered to sin by actual sin similar to Adam’s sin, but by original.
Objection: Those are understood who have not sinned a sin committed against some law written precisely and expressly, such as was enacted to Adam.
Answer: The παρήχησις [derivation] of Paul’s words errs, who by the words κατὰ τὸ ὁμοίωμα τῆς παραβάσεως Ἀδάμ [after the similitude of Adam’s transgression] does not speak about the object against which sin was committed, that this was diverse in both cases, but about the form of the sin itself, which is diverse, on one part original sin, on the other actual. Ὁμοίωμα παραβάσεως [similitude of transgression] is given in every actual sin, whether it is given against written law or against law impressed on nature, but it is not given between original and actual sin. As therefore in verse 12 he gives demonstration διότι [because] from cause to effect: so here he gives demonstration ὅτι [that] from effect to cause.
13. To the 4th Objection, Answer:
1. Κατὰ τὸ ἴσον [By equality], as in the following there is discourse about imputation of the second Adam’s righteousness, so here there is discourse about imputation of the first Adam’s sin. And the imputation of both the evil deed of the first and the good deed of the second Adam is most clearly taught by the apostle. Therefore principium [a beginning principle] is sought by the Socinians, urging this here without foundation, which is πρῶτον μέθοδος [their first method]. Whence also it appears that imputation of the first sin is dangerously denied, since from this it is easy for Socinianists to progress to denying the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.
14. To the 5th Objection, Answer:
1. By denial, in the other member of the collation, the discourse is about true obedience to be provided by men themselves, from Paul’s mind. For the discourse is expressly περὶ ἑνὸς δικαιώματος [concerning one righteousness] which extends to all members of that second Adam or to his whole mystical body, unto justification of life. So the apostle there opposes τῇ ὑπακοῇ τοῦ ἑνός [the obedience of one] of the second man expressly to τῇ παρακοῇ τοῦ ἑνός [the disobedience of one].
2. By concession, true obedience provided by men themselves is required from the justified, namely through the ἓν δικαίωμα [one righteousness] of the second Adam, by no means however from those to be justified as the matter or meritorious cause of our justification before God.
3. The elenchus [refutation] a dicto secundum quid [from speaking a certain way] errs. For that first sin was sin in one way as the personal sin of Adam himself sinning, in another way it was a universal sin and disobedience provided by all. In the former way, as the first man is considered as a singular person; in the latter, as he is considered as the principle both seminal and representative of the whole human race.
15. To the 6th Objection, Answer:
1. By denial, the opposite is not proved from the fact that Paul adds, ‘as by one man’s offence many are made sinners, so by one man’s righteousness many are made righteous.’ Nor is imputation to be understood there of that sin committed by Adam, here of obedience provided by Christ. For this is most truly evident from the whole antithesis instituted by the apostle between the second and first Adam.
2. Τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ [Begging the question] that this only is the sense of Paul’s words, that therefore all are constituted sinners on account of Adam’s offense, that is, liable to eternal death, because they are born from him, and thus placed in the same state with him, as those who are born from a criminal and servile father undergo the same constitution without imputation of paternal crime, from the force and nature of generation itself. But the παρήχησις [derivation] of Paul’s words errs, because unless Adam’s sin is imputed to all, the punishment inflicted on all cannot be just, nor can they be rendered liable to death on that account without supreme injustice. Nor can participation of punishment be just before God without participation of guilt and liability.
3. The elenchus [refutation] of parity errs. Different is the character of sons liable indeed to punishment, but not to guilt on account of a father’s crime, since transfusion of punishments into the guilty can be given among men, whose will and practice are not always just, but the same cannot and ought not to be said about God’s justice and judgment, which is according to truth. Add that that punishment of sons born from a criminal father among men is ἀτύχημα [misfortune], not ἀδίκημα [injustice], but the punishment of infants born from Adam is also ἀδίκημα [injustice], not only ἀτύχημα [misfortune].
4. Κατὰ τὸ ἴσον [By equality], how does this carry the force of generation and nature, except from the gratuitous [free] ordination of God, making one man the depositary of his covenant and considering all in one?
5. Τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ [Begging the question] that some are begotten from Christ through imitation of obedience, for they ought to be begotten by God before they imitate Christ’s obedience, as a work needs to be resuscitated from the dead, a tree needs to become good, before either acts of life from the former or good fruits from the latter can be expected.
6. It is falsely supposed that we are born from Christ through faith and obedience, for we need to be born from Christ before we provide either faith or obedience. As no one works evil unless evil, so no one works supernatural good unless regenerated.
7. The elenchus [refutation] a dicto secundum quid [from qualified statement] errs that we attain a divine state by reason of spiritual generation, for besides that spiritual regeneration itself is a divine state, if by divine state Völkel understands possession of eternal life, it is granted that we attain it by reason of spiritual generation as a medium or condition sine qua non [without which nothing], by no means however as a meritorious cause, since spiritual regeneration is imperfect in us and not proportionate to the divine state to be attained, which cannot be acquired for us from elsewhere except through most perfect righteousness either our own and proper in the legal mode, which is now impossible for all men, or alien [foreign], which becomes ours by imputation, in the evangelical mode.
And these things indeed suffice for vindications of this most noble place [of Rom. 5:12] also, which it is of great interest for us to maintain safe, since it is both the basis of this necessary doctrine in the Church of God and is customarily assailed, especially by various argumentations of adversaries.”
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