Chapter 3 [III.]—Nature Was Created Sound and Whole; It Was Afterwards Corrupted by Sin.

Man’s nature, indeed, was created at first faultless and without any sin; but that nature of man in which every one is born from Adam, now wants the Physician, because it is not sound. All good qualities, no doubt, which it still possesses in its make, life, senses, intellect, it has of the Most High God, its Creator and Maker. But the flaw, which darkens and weakens all those natural goods, so that it has need of illumination and healing, it has not contracted from its blameless Creator—but from that original sin, which it committed by free will. Accordingly, criminal nature has its part in most righteous punishment. For, if we are now newly created in Christ,14    2 Cor. v. 17. we were, for all that, children of wrath, even as others,15    Eph. ii. 3. “but God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by whose grace we were saved.”16    Eph. ii. 4, 5.

CAPUT III.

3. Natura sana condita, peccato est postea corrupta. Natura quippe hominis primitus inculpata et sine ullo vitio creata est: natura vero ista hominis, qua unusquisque ex Adam nascitur, jam medico indiget, quia sana non est. Omnia quidem bona, quae habet in formatione, vita, sensibus, mente, a summo Deo habet creatore et artifice suo. Vitium vero, quod ista naturalia bona contenebrat et infirmat, ut illuminatione et curatione opus habeat, non ab inculpabili artifice contractum est; sed ex originali peccato, quod commissum est libero arbitrio. Ac per hoc natura poenalis ad vindictam justissimam pertinet. Si enim jam sumus in Christo nova creatura (II Cor. V, 17), tamen eramus natura filii irae, sicut et caeteri: Deus autem qui dives est in misericordia, propter multam dilectionem qua dilexit nos, et cum essemus mortui delictis, convivificavit nos Christo, cujus gratia sumus salvi facti (Ephes. II, 3-5).