(3.) The Third Breviate.

III. “Again we must ask,” he says, “what sin is,—natural? or accidental? If natural, it is not sin; if accidental, it is separable;3    [An accident “is a modification or quality which does not essentially belong to a thing, nor form one of its constituent or invariable attributes: as motion in relation to matter, or heat to iron.”—Fleming: Vocabulary of Philosophy.—W.] and if it is separable, it can be avoided; and because it can be avoided, man can be without that which can be avoided.” The answer to this is, that sin is not natural; but nature (especially in that corrupt state from which we have become by nature “children of wrath”4    Eph. ii. 3.) has too little determination of will to avoid sin, unless assisted and healed by God’s grace through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Ratiocinatio 3. Iterum, inquit, quaerendum est, quid est peccatum, naturale, an accidens. Si naturale, peccatum non est: si autem accidens est, et recedere potest; et quod recedere potest, vitari potest; et quod vitari potest, potest homo sine eo esse quod vitari potest. Respondetur, 0294 naturale non esse peccatum: sed naturae, praesertim vitiatae, unde facti sumus natura filii irae (Ephes. II, 3), parum esse ad non peccandum voluntatis arbitrium, nisi adjuta sanetur gratia Dei per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum.