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new-born child has not sinned , except that by natural descent from Adam it has contracted the contagion of death * Through baptism sin is forgiven to it , not its own , but another ' s . ' Ambrosius , on Psalm xlviii , says , * A disposition towards sin there is in all , but this is not in itself sin , God punishes us only for our own sins , not for the crimes of another ' s iniquity ,
for those of Adam . ' Also , according to Tertullian , ( de Testim . Animae , c . iii . ) the consequence of Adam ' s sin is solely condemnation to natural death , in which opinion Hilarius agrees with him . Still we find in the African fathers before Augustin's time much more of indistinctness and indecision on this subject than in the Greek fathers , owing , perhaps , to misconception of the phraseology of the New Testament , which might be obscure to them , especially in the Latin translations . But by Augustin the doctrine was carried much farther . He affirmed the imputation of Adam ' s sin in the strictest juridical sense , and with it the total depravity of man , and his utter inability for all good , in a sense in which it is not affirmed in the Holy Scriptures . Perhaps this was greatly owing to the fact , that he had been formerly a
Manichaean , for the doctrines of Manichseism in this respect were very severe . Hence Pelagius named Augustin ' s representation of original sin a Manichaean doctrine . Augustin maintained , ' that the consequence of Adam ' s sin is not only the death of the body , but eternal death , ( Mors secunda cujus non est finis , ) to which all men are subjected : also children , who have not thought or done good or evil . Yet some are rescued by the unmerited grace of God , absolutum decretum . ( De Civit ., xiv . 1 . ) Fulgentius Rusp . ( de Fide , c . xxix . ) affirms , that children who have lived in the mother ' s womb , and died without baptism , must suffer everlasting punishment in hell . Many of the schoolmen taught the same , according to Petrus Lomb . b . ii . Augustin attributed a sort of physical effect to baptism , with which only he joined the grace of God . His followers , in support of their doctrine , generally , but not
universally , maintained the natural traduction of the human soul ; the Pelagians as generally denied it . Indeed , Pelagius denied not only the imputation of the sin of Adam , but even the physical propagation of human depravity . He taught that the moral nature of man is unaltered , and that man is now born in the same state in which Adam was created ; that infirmity , imperfection , and death , have been natural to man from the beginning ; that man will be punished solely by reason of his own sinful actions ; that human depravity is not propagated by birth ( physice ) , but merely through the imitation of bad examples ( moraliter ) from Adam onward . Omne bonum aut
malum , quo vel laudabiles vel vituperabiles sumus , non nobiscum nascitur , sed agitur a nobis . Capaces utriusque rei , non pleni nascimur ; et ut sine virtute , sic sine vitio procreamur . These views differed widely from those of Augustin and other Africans , and , in many respects , also from the plain doctrine of the Bible . This was observed and objected by Augustin $ and through the counter opposition of Pelagius , the zeal of Augustin was heated more and more , till it rose to the polemical degree But the African or Augustinian hypothesis was by no means common in the fourth century . "In the East ( as in Palestine ) they defended Pelagius and his doctrine , as
according in many points with that of Origen . It did indeed differ from the prevailing opinion in the East at that time ; but it may be seen in the
indifference of so many Greek teachers of the church , that nothing had yet been decided on church authority ; and that many of the Greek teachers were not at first aware of the importance of the doctrine . Even in the churches of the West , out of Africa , many saw nothing to be reprobated in the opinions of Pelagius at the beginning of the dispute ; and Zosimus , the Bishop of
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Letters from Germany * 101
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1831, page 101, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2594/page/29/
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