Читать книгу An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible - Catharine Esther Beecher - Страница 23

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The celebrated John Calvin, one of the greatest Protestant theologians at the period of the Reformation, wrote a complete system based on the Augustinian theory. This system has been perpetuated in all the various sects which from him are named Calvinistic. The following extract gives his views on this subject:

John Calvin.

“It is a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused through all parts of the soul, which, in the first place, exposes us to the wrath of God, and then produces in us those works which the Scripture calls the works of the flesh.”

Of infants, he says:

“They bring their condemnation with them from their mother's womb, being liable to punishment, not for the sin of another, but for their own. For although they have not as yet produced the fruits of their iniquity, yet they have the seed inclosed in themselves; nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a seed of sin; therefore they can not but be odious and abominable to God. Whence it follows that it is properly considered sin before God, because there could not be liability to punishment without sin.”

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“The corruption of nature precedes and gives rise to all sinful acts, and is in itself deserving of punishment.”