Chapter 44.—An Objection of the Pelagians.

Nor do they fail to see this point, that his own sins are no detriment to the parent after his conversion; they therefore raise the question: “How much more impossible is it that they should be a hinderance to his son?” But they who thus think do not attend to this consideration, that as his own sins are not injurious to the father for the very reason that he is born again of the Spirit, so in the case of his son, unless he be in the same manner born again, the sins which he derived from his father will prove injurious to him. Because even renewed parents beget children, not out of the first-fruits of their renewed condition, but carnally out of the remains of the old nature; and the children who are thus the offspring of their parents’ remaining old nature, and are born in sinful flesh, escape from the condemnation which is due to the old man by the sacrament of spiritual regeneration and renewal. Now this is a consideration which, on account of the controversies that have arisen, and may still arise, on this subject, we ought to keep in our view and memory,—that a full and perfect remission of sins takes place only in baptism, that the character of the actual man does not at once undergo a total change, but that the first-fruits of the Spirit in such as walk worthily change the old carnal nature into one of like character by a process of renewal, which increases day by day, until the entire old nature is so renovated that the very weakness of the natural body attains to the strength and incorruptibility of the spiritual body.

44. Objectio Pelagianorum. Neque illud fallat, quod nec parenti post conversionem obsunt propria peccata: «Quanto enim magis,» inquiunt, «filio ejus obesse non possunt?» Sed qui hoc sentiunt, non attendunt quia sicut parenti, per hoc quod spiritu renatus est, propria peccata non obsunt; ita qui de illo natus est, nisi eo modo renascatur, quae a parente tracta sunt, oberunt. Quia et innovati parentes, non ex primitiis novitatis, sed ex reliquiis vetustatis carnaliter gignunt; et filii ex parentum reliqua vetustate toti vetusti, et in peccati carne propagati , damnationem veteri homini debitam Sacramento spiritualis regenerationis et renovationis evadunt. Illud namque praecipue, propter quaestiones quae de hac re motae sunt vel moveri adhuc possunt, attendere ac meminisse debemus, tantummodo 0178 peccatorum omnium plenam perfectamque remissionem Baptismo fieri; hominis vero ipsius qualitatem non totam continuo commutari: sed spirituales primitias in bene proficientibus de die in diem novitate crescente commutare in se quod carnaliter vetus est, donec totum ita renovetur, ut animalis etiam infirmitas corporis ad firmitatem spiritualem incorruptionemque perveniat.