Cap. VI: Maresius args IV–V — Rom. 5:12 peccavimus; Levi in Abraham's loins

IV. To the former the distinguished Maresius joins certain other arguments. And who indeed, he says, would deny that what we have sinned is deservedly and rightly imputed to us? But that that sin is ours also, the Apostle clearly teaches, who asserts that all have sinned in Adam. Romans 5:12. Wholly, what we have sinned is deservedly imputed to us. But that sinning of ours is prior, at least by order of nature, to the imputation itself. Therefore cut away imputation by thought, and show us, if you can, that we have sinned the very first actual sin of the first man. Those who hold antecedent imputation say that that sin is not ours except by imputation. If it is not ours except by imputation, it is ours because it is imputed to us, not on the contrary imputed to us because it is ours. As to what touches the Apostle's place, neither by the word we have sinned is the first actual sin of Adam signified, nor does the Apostle seem to us to say in whom but rather in that, nor if you turn it in whom can any imputation therefore be elicited, unless perhaps consequent or mediate, as in its place, God granting, I am going to demonstrate.

V. He adds, For if in Abraham's loins Levi was tithed, Hebrews 7:9, how much more shall we all be judged to have sinned in Adam's loins, inasmuch as we were in him as branches in a root, a mass in firstfruits, members in a head, Romans 11:16, 1 Corinthians 15:22. If anyone should argue similarly: If in Abraham's loins Levi was tithed, how much more in the loins of Seth, or of Enosh, or of some other of the Patriarchs who lived before the flood, have we all sinned? Would the learned man prove the consequence? Or what could he answer that could not be likewise answered to him? There is therefore no consequence. For by what art will the imputation of the first actual sin be elicited from there rather than of following sins, and of Adam's rather than of Seth's or Noah's, and antecedent rather than consequent? But, that I may act liberally, I confess that we have sinned in Adam's loins: does it therefore follow that his first actual sin is imputed to us by an imputation which precedes hereditary corruption? The contrary rather follows. For we have sinned in Adam, because we were in him. But we were in him as branches in a root. And branches are so in a root that nothing of the root is properly imputed to the branches, but the branches draw from the root their nature and vital sap, such as is in the root, good or bad. So we have drawn a corrupt nature from corrupt Adam. For the rest, neither was the mass properly in the firstfruits, but the firstfruits in the mass, nor other members in the head. And so these comparisons seem foreign from what we are doing, and induce no imputation, much less an immediate or antecedent one.