Cap. VII: Christ–Adam comparison — meritorious proximity versus remote condemnation

"But," he says, "since a comparison is here instituted between Christ and Adam, the disobedience committed by Adam is no more to be called a remote cause of our condemnation than the obedience performed by Christ is to be called a remote cause of our justification." As if a comparison could not be instituted between two causes of opposite effects, when they are first in their kind, unless each alike is proximate! Who does not know that Christ's obedience is the adequate and only cause of our justification, but Adam's disobedience only an inadequate and partial cause of our condemnation? for we are condemned not on account of Adam's actual sin alone, but also on account of the hereditary corruption inhering in us, and all our other sins whether actual or habitual; whereas yet we are justified on account of Christ's one obedience, and in no way on account of ours. This cause, therefore, since it is the sole and only cause of justification, is the same both first and proximate; but that, since it is not alone, but together with it there are many other causes of condemnation, is first in such a way that there is no necessity that it be proximate. What? do we not draw sin and, through sin, condemnation from Adam by natural propagation? Did not both the Fathers of old and our first Reformers use to oppose the propagation of sin to Pelagian imitation, with no mention made of imputation? And yet of natural propagation, in its own kind indeed, Adam is the first cause, but of each of us the nearest or immediate cause he certainly is not. Here therefore the greatest difference is seen between Adam and Christ. Adam is the most remote cause of our generation, whereas Christ is the proximate cause of our regeneration. We are sons of Adam not nearest but remote: for between us and Adam many others are interposed; but we are nearest sons of Christ, as many as believe in him. For by faith we are united to Christ straight and immediately, and also by his Spirit, who, since he is only one in number both in Christ and in all of us, couples us to Christ so immediately that between Christ and the believer there is no middle person. Since the learned man was not ignorant of these things, how could he speak so? "Finally in meritorious causes," he says, "of the kind we are dealing with, there is always proximity, because that merit always acts near (ἐγγύς) and efficaciously." A fine argument! as if efficacy, like cause, could not equally be distinguished into remote and proximate! for each cause has its own force, and when the effect follows, that is efficacy; otherwise it would not be a cause. Did not Adam efficaciously propagate his nature and corruption into us? And yet he is only a remote cause of our nature and corruption. But he himself is not the meritorious cause of our condemnation, but the cause of this cause; for from him flowed the hereditary corruption that is the proximate or immediate cause of our condemnation, and of this the cause was Adam's actual sin. Can we likewise say that Christ's obedience was the cause of some virtue or obedience that is the cause of our justification? To that extent, therefore, there is a memorable difference between Christ's obedience and Adam's disobedience, and the former is to be called the proximate cause of justification, the latter the remote cause of our condemnation (for corruption is interposed). Otherwise how could Adam's actual sin be a meritorious and proximate cause of our condemnation? First, if it is not ours except by imputation, it does not merit our condemnation except by the intervention of imputation. It is therefore not a meritorious cause of our condemnation through itself, but only through an accident, by reason of that imputation, which is a divine action, and so supernatural and voluntary: whereas yet Christ's obedience is a meritorious cause of our justification through itself; namely, performed to that end and counsel by our surety in our place. That granted, it follows that our being sinners and being condemned is to be ascribed through itself to that divine action, but to Adam's sin only through an accident — which my conscience will in no way let me be led to believe or do. Next, he who imputes sin to some man presupposes that that man exists; he who condemns to death presupposes that he whom he condemns lives. Since therefore of our existing and living, which by nature precedes our condemnation, Adam is only a remote cause, how can he be the proximate cause of our condemnation?