Rejectio Errorum (Caput III et IV: De Hominis Corruptione et Conversione)
The Scope of Original Sin
The Synod sets forth the true doctrine of original sin and rejects the error that it is insufficient to condemn the human race or merit punishment.
Having set forth the orthodox teaching, the Synod rejects the errors of those: Those who teach that original sin cannot properly be said, by itself, to be enough to condemn the whole human race, or to merit temporal and eternal punishments, contradict the Apostle, who says, Romans 5: 12: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.✦ And verse 16: Guilt from one trespass led to condemnation.✦ Likewise, Romans 6. The wages of sin is death.✦
Spiritual Gifts and the Image of God
The Synod rejects the error that spiritual gifts and virtues were not part of the original image of God in man's will.
Those who teach that spiritual gifts, or good habits and virtues—such as goodness, holiness, and righteousness—could not have had a place in the human will when man was first created, and that consequently they were not separated from it in the fall. For this conflicts with the description of the image of God that the Apostle sets forth in Ephesians.✦1 42 24, where he describes it in terms of righteousness and holiness, which have their place entirely in the will.✦
The Bondage of the Will
The Synod rejects the error that spiritual gifts were not lost in the fall and that unaided human nature can exercise them for good.
Those who teach that spiritual gifts were not separated from the human will in spiritual death — since these gifts were never corrupted in themselves, but only hindered by the darkness of the mind and the disorder of the affections — and that, once these hindrances are removed, a person can exercise the natural faculty planted within them, that is, will or choose or refuse whatever good they set before themselves. This teaching is new and mistaken, and it has the effect of inflating the powers of free choice against the saying of the prophet Jeremiah: 17 9: The heart is deceitful above all things, and perverse.✦ And the Apostle's words in Ephesians: 2 3: Among them — stubborn people — we all once conducted ourselves in the desires of our flesh, carrying out the will of the flesh and its thoughts.✦
Total Spiritual Death
The Synod rejects the error that unregenerate man is not totally dead in sins or destitute of all powers for spiritual good.
Those who teach that unregenerate man is not truly or totally dead in sins, nor destitute of all powers for spiritual good, but can hunger and thirst after righteousness or life, and offer the sacrifice of a contrite and afflicted spirit, which is acceptable to God. For these things are contradicted by the clear testimonies of Scripture, Eph. 2 1, 5: You were dead in trespasses and sins. And Gen. 6 5 and 8 21: The imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil every day.
True Contrition and Spiritual Hunger
The Synod teaches that hungering for life and offering a contrite spirit belong to the reborn, not to the unregenerate.
Besides, to find liberation from misery and to hunger and thirst for life, and to offer to God the sacrifice of a contrite spirit — this is what belongs to the reborn, and to those who are called blessed.✦ Psalm 51 19 and Matthew verse 6.
Common Grace and Saving Grace
The Synod rejects the error that corrupt man can use common grace to gradually attain saving grace.
Those who teach that corrupt, natural man can use the common grace which the light of nature is to him, or the gifts left behind after the fall, so rightly that by this good use he can obtain greater grace — the gospel grace, for instance, or saving grace — and so gradually attain salvation itself And that in this way God, for his part, has prepared himself to reveal Christ to all, since the means for Christ's revelation — faith and repentance — he administers as necessary to all, sufficiently and effectively. For Scripture testifies that this is false, beyond the experience of all ages. Psalm 147. 19, 20: He has shown his words to Jacob, his statutes and his judgments to Israel; he has not dealt so with any other nation, and they have not known his judgments.✦ Acts 14.
God's Particular Self-Revelation
The Synod cites Scripture to show that God has not revealed himself equally to all nations.
In past ages, God let all the nations walk in their own ways. Acts 16. 6, 7: Paul and his companions were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word of God in Asia. And when they had come to Mysia, they tried to go toward Bithynia, but the Spirit did not allow them.
Faith as God's Gift in Conversion
The Synod rejects the error that faith in conversion is merely a human act rather than a gift poured into the heart by God.
Those who teach that, in the true conversion of a person, new qualities, habits, or gifts cannot be poured by God into that person's will, and that therefore the faith by which we are first converted and by which we are called faithful is not a quality or gift poured in by God, but merely a human act, and cannot otherwise be called a gift than in reference to the power of attaining it. These claims contradict the sacred writings, which testify that God pours new qualities of faith, obedience, and the sense of his own love into our hearts. Jer. 31. 33: I will place my law in their minds, and I will write it on their hearts.✦ Isa. 44. 3: I will pour water on the thirsty, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring.✦
The Love of God Poured Out
The Synod cites the outpouring of God's love and the Church's prayer for conversion against the error that faith is merely human.
Rom. v. 5: The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.✦ They also run counter to the unceasing practice of the Church, which prays in this way through the prophet: Convert me, Lord, and I will be converted.✦ Jer. 31. 18.
Against Pelagian Moral Persuasion
The Synod rejects the error that converting grace is merely gentle persuasion and not a powerful divine work.
Those who teach that the grace by which we are converted to God is nothing other than a gentle persuasion — or, as others explain it, the most noble way of acting in the conversion of a person, and the one most fitting to human nature, which works through persuasions — and that nothing prevents even merely moral grace from making natural people spiritual, indeed that God produces the consent of the will in no other way than through a moral approach, and that the power of divine operation by which it surpasses Satan's operation consists in this: that God promises eternal goods, while Satan promises temporal ones. This is entirely Pelagian, and contrary to all of Scripture, which recognizes besides this way yet another way of the Holy Spirit — far more powerful and far more divine — at work in the conversion of a person. Ezek. 36. 26: I will give you my heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take away the heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh, etc.
God's Omnipotent Power in Regeneration
The Synod rejects the error that God does not use his omnipotence to powerfully bend the will to faith and conversion.
Those who teach that in the regeneration of man God does not use the powers of his own omnipotence by which he might powerfully and infallibly bend his will to faith and conversion, but that, having set aside all the operations of grace by which God brings about the conversion of man, man is nevertheless able to resist God and the Spirit who intends and wills to regenerate him, and that by his own act he often resists, so that he might completely hinder his own regeneration, and indeed that it remains in his own power to be regenerated or not to be regenerated. For this is nothing other than to strip away all the power of God's grace in our conversion and to subject the action of almighty God to the will of man — and that against the Apostles, who teach that we believe according to the power of God's mighty strength. Eph. 1: 19.✦ And that God would by his own goodness freely accomplish the benevolence of his goodness and the work of faith with power in us.✦ 2 Thess. 1:
Divine Power for Life and Godliness
The Synod cites Scripture to affirm that God has given believers divine power for everything pertaining to life and godliness.
11. Likewise, God has given us his divine power for everything that pertains to life and godliness. 2 Pet.✦ 1. 3.
Grace Before the Will
The Synod rejects the error that grace and free will are co-equal partial causes at the beginning of conversion.
Those who teach that grace and free will are partial causes acting together at the beginning of conversion, and that grace does not precede the will's power in the order of causality — that is, that God does not effectively help a person's will toward conversion before that person's own will moves and determines itself. For the ancient Church long ago condemned this teaching among the Pelagians, from the Apostle's letter from Rome. 9. 16: It depends not on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who shows mercy. And, 1 Cor. 4. 7: Who makes you different? And, What do you have that you have not received?
God Who Works in Us
The Synod concludes with the testimony that God works in believers both to will and to accomplish.
Likewise, Phil. 2. 13 It is God who works in you, both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.✦
Read the original Latin
Exposita doctrina orthodoxa, Synodus rejicit errores eorum:
Qui docent, ‘Proprie dici non posse, quod peccatum originis per se sufficiat toti generi humano condemnando, aut temporales et æternas pœnas promerendo.’ Contradicunt enim Apostolo, dicenti, Rom. v. 12: Per unum hominem peccatum in mundum introiit, ac per peccatum mors, et ita in omnes homines mors transiit, in quo omnes peccaverunt. Et vers. 16: Reatus ex uno introiit ad condemnationem. Item, Rom. vi.
23: Peccati stipendium mors est.
Qui docent, ‘Dona spiritualia, sive habitus bonos, et virtutes, ut sunt bonitas, sanctitas, justitia, in voluntate hominis, cum primum crearetur, locum habere non potuisse, ac proinde nec in lapsu ab ea separari.’ Pugnat enim hoc cum descriptione imaginis Dei, quam Apostolus ponit Ephes. iv. 24; ubi illam describit ex justitia et sanctitate, quæ omnino in voluntate locum habent.
Qui docent, ‘Dona spiritualia non esse in morte spirituali ab hominis voluntate separata, cum ea in sese nunquam corrupta fuerit, sed tantum per tenebras mentis, et affectuum inordinationem impedita; quibus impedimentis sublatis, liberam suam facultatem sibi insitam exerere, id est, quodvis bonum sibi propositum ex se, aut velle, sive eligere, aut non velle, sive non eligere possit.’ Novum hoc et erroneum est, atque eo facit ut extollantur vires liberi arbitrii, contra Jeremiæ prophetæ dictum, cap. xvii. 9: Fraudulentum est cor ipsum supra omnia et perversum. Et Apostoli, Ephes. ii. 3: Inter quos (homines contumaces) et nos omnes conversati sumus olim in cupiditatibus carnis nostræ, facientes voluntates carnis ac cogitationum.
Qui docent, ‘Hominem irregenitum non esse proprie nec totaliter in peccatis mortuum, aut omnibus ad bonum spirituale viribus destitutum, sed posse justitiam vel vitam esurire ac sitire, sacrificiumque Spiritus contriti, et contribulati, quod Deo acceptum est, offerre.’ Adversantur enim hæc apertis Scripturæ testimoniis, Ephes. ii. 1, 5: Eratis mortui in offensis et peccatis. Et Gen. vi. 5 et viii. 21: Imaginatio cogitationum cordis hominis tantummodo mala est omni die.
Adhæc liberationem ex miseria et vitam esurire ac sitire, Deoque sacrificium Spiritus contriti offerre, regenitorum est, et eorum qui beati dicuntur. Psa. li. 19 et Matt. v. 6.
Qui docent, ‘Hominem corruptum et animalem gratia communi, quæ ipsis est lumen naturæ, sive donis post lapsum relictis, tam recte uti posse, ut bono isto usu majorem gratiam, puta evangelicam, sive salutarem, et salutem ipsam gradatim obtinere possit. Et hac ratione Deum se ex parte sua paratum ostendere, ad Christum omnibus revelandum, quandoquidem media ad Christi revelationem, fidem, et resipiscentiam necessaria, omnibus sufficienter et efficaciter administret.’ Falsum enim hoc esse præter omnium temporum experientiam Scriptura testatur. Psa. cxlvii. 19, 20: Indicat verba sua Jacobo, statuta sua et jura sua Israeli, non fecit ita ulli genti, et jura ista non noverunt. Act. xiv.
16: Deus sivit præteritis ætatibus omnes gentes suis ipsarum viis incedere. Act. xvi. 6, 7: Prohibiti sunt (Paulus cum suis) a Spiritu Sancto loqui sermonem Dei in Asia. Et, Quum venissent in Mysiam, tentabant ire versus Bithyniam, sed non permisit eis Spiritus.
Qui docent, ‘In vera hominis conversione, non posse novas qualitates, habitus, seu dona in voluntatem ejus a Deo infundi, atque adeo fidem, qua primum convertimur, et a qua fideles nominamur, non esse qualitatem seu donum a Deo infusum; sed tantum actum hominis, neque aliter donum dici posse, quam respectu potestatis ad ipsam perveniendi.’ Contradicunt enim hæc sacris literis, quæ testantur Deum novas qualitates fidei, obedientiæ, ac sensus amoris sui cordibus nostris infundere. Jer. xxxi. 33: Indam legem meam menti eorum, ac cordi eorum inscribam eam. Esa. xliv. 3: Effundam aquas super sitientem, et fluenta super aridam; effundam Spiritum meum super semen tuum.
Rom. v. 5: Charitas Dei effusa est in cordibus nostris per Spiritum Sanctum, qui datus est nobis. Repugnant etiam continuæ praxi Ecclesiæ, sic apud prophetam orantis: Converte me, Domine, et convertar. Jer. xxxi. 18.
Qui docent, ‘Gratiam, qua convertimur ad Deum, nihil aliud esse quam lenem suasionem; seu’ (ut alii explicant) ‘nobilissimum agendi modum in conversione hominis, et naturæ humanæ convenientissimum esse, qui fiat suasionibus; nihilque obstare quo minus vel sola moralis gratia homines animales reddat spirituales; imo Deum non aliter quam morali ratione consensum voluntatis producere: atque in eo consistere operationis divinæ efficaciam, qua Satanæ operationem superet, quod Deus æterna bona, Satan autem temporaria promittat.’ Omnino enim hoc Pelagianum est, et universæ Scripturæ contrarium, quæ præter hunc etiam alium, et longe efficaciorem ac diviniorem Spiritus Sancti agendi modum, in hominis conversione agnoscit. Ezech. xxxvi. 26: Dabo vobis cor meum, et spiritum novum dabo in medio vestri, et auferam cor lapideum, daboque cor carneum, etc.
Qui docent, ‘Deum in hominis regeneratione eas suæ omnipotentiæ vires non adhibere, quibus voluntatem ejus ad fidem et conversionem potenter et infallibiliter flectat; sed positis omnibus gratiæ operationibus, quibus Deus ad hominem convertendum utitur, hominem tamen Deo, et Spiritui regenerationem ejus intendenti, et regenerare ipsum volenti, ita posse resistere, et actu ipso sæpe resistere, ut sui regenerationem prorsus impediat, atque adeo in ipsius manere potestate, ut regeneretur vel non regeneretur.’ Hoc enim nihil aliud est, quam tollere omnem efficaciam gratiæ Dei in nostri conversione, et actionem Dei omnipotentis subjicere voluntati hominis, idque contra Apostolos, qui docent, Nos credere pro efficacitate fortis roboris Dei. Ephes. i. 19. Et, Deum bonitatis suæ gratuitam benevolentiam et opus fidei potenter in nobis complere. 2 Thess. i.
11. Item, Divinam ipsius vim omnia nobis donasse, quæ ad vitam et pietatem pertinent. 2 Pet. i. 3.
Qui docent, ‘Gratiam et liberum arbitrium esse causas partiales simul concurrentes ad conversionis initium; nec gratiam ordine causalitatis efficientiam voluntatis antecedere;’ id est, ‘Deum non prius hominis voluntatem efficaciter juvare ad conversionem, quam voluntas ipsa hominis se movet ac determinat.’ Hoc enim dogma Ecclesia prisca in Pelagianis jam olim condemnavit, ex Apostolo Rom. ix. 16: Non est volentis nec currentis, sed Dei miserentis. Et, 1 Cor. iv. 7: Quis te discernit? Et, Quid habes quod non acceperis?
Item, Phil. ii. 13: Deus est qui in vobis operatur ipsum velle et perficere pro suo beneplacito.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rom.5.12 — Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and so death spread to all people, because all sinned—
- ↩Rom.5.16 — And the gift is not like what came through the one who sinned. For the judgment following one trespass led to condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses led to justification.
- ↩Rom.6.23 — For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
- ↩Eph.4.24 — and put on the new self, created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
- ↩Eph.4.24 — and put on the new self, created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
- ↩Jer.17.9 — The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and desperately sick — who can know it?
- ↩Eph.2.3 — Among them we too all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the thoughts, and we were by nature children of wrath, just like the rest.
- ↩Matt.5.3-Matt.5.11 — Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matt.5.4 — Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Matt.5.5 — Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matt.5.6 — Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matt.5.7 — Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Matt.5.8 — Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matt.5.9 — Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Matt.5.10 — Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matt.5.11 — Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and say every kind of evil against you falsely on my account.
- ↩Ps.147.19-Ps.147.20 — He declares his words to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. Ps.147.20 — He has not dealt thus with any other nation; and as for his ordinances, they have not known them. Praise the LORD!
- ↩Jer.31.33 — But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
- ↩Isa.44.3 — For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.
- ↩Rom.5.5 — And hope does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
- ↩Jer.31.18 — I have surely heard Ephraim lamenting: 'You disciplined me, and I was disciplined, like an untrained calf. Restore me, and I will return, for you are the LORD my God.'
- ↩Eph.1.19 — and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of the strength of his might
- ↩Eph.1.19 — and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of the strength of his might
- ↩2Pet.1.3 — just as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and excellence,
- ↩Phil.2.13 — For God is the one working in you, both to desire and to work for his good pleasure.
Notes
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