Читать книгу An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible - Catharine Esther Beecher - Страница 29

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Having presented the Augustinian theory, as it is set forth in both Catholic and Protestant creeds, the next object will be to verify the statements of the preceding chapters as to the modes of meeting difficulties adopted by theologians.

The first extract will show that Augustine taught that all men had a common nature in Adam, so that his choosing to eat the forbidden fruit was the act of each and all human minds which were existing in or with him at that time. And thus that it was man and not God that caused our depravity of nature.

The extract introduced to verify the above was written to St. Jerome, who taught that all minds commenced their first existence at or near the birth of each. This Augustine denied, and the passage shows not only that he taught a common nature which was ruined in Adam, but also that all unbaptized infants go to endless punishment for the sin thus committed in Adam ages before they were born.