For neither by sin nor its punishment was he himself reduced to that infantine and helpless infirmity of body and mind which we see in children.For God ordained that infants should begin the world as the young of beasts begin it, since their parents had fallen to the level of the beasts in the fashion of their life and of their death; as it is written, "Man when he was in honor understood not; he became like the beasts that have no understanding."(2)Nay more, infants, we see, are even feebler in the use and movement of their limbs, and more infirm to choose and refuse, than the most tender offspring of other animals; as if the force that dwells in human nature were destined to surpass all other living things so much the more eminently, as its energy has been longer restrained, and the time of its exercise delayed, just as an arrow flies the higher the further back it has been drawn.To this infantine imbecility(3) the first man did not fall by his lawless presumption and just sentence; but human nature was in his person vitiated and altered to such an extent, that he suffered in his members the warring of disobedient last, and became subject to the necessity of dying.And what he himself had become by sin and punishment, such he generated those whom he begot; that is to say, subject to sin and death.And if infants are delivered from this I bondage of sin by the Redeemer's grace, they can suffer only this death which separates soul and body; but being redeemed from the obligation of sin, they do not pass to that second endless and penal death.
CHAP.4.--WHY DEATH, THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN, IS NOT WITHHELD FROM THOSE WHO BY THE GRACE OF REGENERATION ARE ABSOLVEDFROM SIN.
If, moreover, any one is solicitous about this point, how, if death be the very punishment of sin, they whose guilt is cancelled by grace do yet suffer death, this difficulty has already been handled and solved in our other work which we have written on the baptism of infants.(4) There it was said that the parting of soul and body was left, though its connection with sin was removed, for this reason, that if the immortality of the body followed immediately upon the sacrament of regeneration, faith itself would be thereby enervated.For faith is then only faith when it waits in hope for what is not yet seen in substance.And by the vigor and conflict of faith, at least in times past, was the fear of death overcome.Specially was this conspicuous in the holy martyrs, who could have had no victory, no glory, to whom there could not even have been any conflict, if, after the layer of regeneration, saints could not suffer bodily death Who would not, then, in company with the infants presented for baptism, run to the grace of Christ, that so he might not be dismissed from the body? And thus faith would not be tested with an unseen reward; and so would not even be faith, seeking and receiving an immediate recompense of its works.But now, by the greater and more admirable grace of the Saviour, the punishment of sin is turned to the service of righteousness.For then it was proclaimed to man, "If thou sinnest, thou shall die;" now it is said to the martyr, "Die, that thou sin not." Then it was said, "If ye trangress the commandments, ye shall die;(1) now it is said, "If ye decline death, ye transgress the commandment." That which was formerly set as an object of terror, that men might not sin, is now to be undergone if we would not sin.Thus, by the unutterable mercy of God, even the very punishment of wickedness has become the armor of virtue, and the penalty of the sinner becomes the reward of the righteous.For then death was incurred by sinning, now righteousness is fulfilled by dying.In the case of the holy martyrs it is so; for to them the persecutor proposes the alternative, apostasy or death.For the righteous prefer by believing to suffer what the first transgressors suffered by not believing.For unless they had sinned, they would not have died;but the martyrs sin if they do not die.The one died because they sinned, the others do not sin because they die.By the guilt of the first, punishment was incurred; by the punishment of the second, guilt is prevented.Not that death, which was before an evil, has become something good, but only that God has granted to faith this grace, that death, which is the admitted opposite to life, should become the instrument by which life is reached.
CHAP.5.--AS THE WICKED MAKE AN ILL USE OF THE LAW, WHICH IS GOOD, SOTHE GOOD MAKE
A GOOD USE OF DEATH, WHICH IS AN ILL.
The apostle, wishing to show how hurtful a thing sin is, when grace does not aid us, has not hesitated to say that the strength of sin is that very law by which sin is prohibited."The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law."(1) Most certainly true; for prohibition increases the desire of illicit action, if righteousness is not so loved that the desire of sin is conquered by that love.But unless divine grace aid us, we cannot love nor delight in true righteousness.But lest the law should be thought to be an evil, since it is called the strength of sin, the apostle, when treating a similar question in another place, says, "The law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.Was then that which is holy made death unto me? God forbid.