Chapter 58 [XXXVI.]—“Likeness of Sinful Flesh” Implies the Reality.

It is no small concession to the authority and truthfulness of the inspired pages which those persons have made, who, although unwilling to admit openly in their writings that remission of sins is necessary for infants, have yet confessed that they need redemption. Nothing that they have said differs indeed from another word, even that which is derived from Christian instruction. Whilst by those who faithfully read, faithfully hear, and faithfully hold fast the Holy Scriptures, it cannot be doubted that from that flesh, which first became sinful flesh by the choice of sin, and which has been subsequently transmitted to all through successive generations, there has been propagated a sinful flesh, with the single exception of that “likeness of sinful flesh,”439    Rom. viii. 3.—which likeness, however, there could not have been, had there not been also the reality of sinful flesh.

CAPUT XXXVI.

58. An anima ex traduce. In rebus 0185 obscuris, ubi Scripturae non adjuvant, cavenda judicandi temeritas. Scripturae clarae in his quae ad salutem necessaria sunt. Non enim parum paginarum divinarum auctoritati veritatique cesserunt, qui etsi noluerunt litteris suis aperte exprimere, parvulis remissionem necessariam peccatorum, redemptionem tamen eis opus esse confessi sunt. Alio quippe verbo, etiam ipso de christiana eruditione deprompto, nihil aliud omnino dixerunt. Nec dubitandum est his qui divina scripta fideliter legunt, fideliter audiunt, fideliter tenent, quod ab illa carne quae prius voluntate peccati facta est caro peccati, deinceps per successionem transeunte in omnes proscriptione iniquitatis et mortis caro sit propagata peccati, excepta una similitudine carnis peccati, quae tamen non esset, nisi esset et caro peccati.