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When it is said, "The male who is not circumcised in the flesh of
his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people, because he
hath broken my covenant," some may be troubled how that ought to be
understood, since it can be no fault of the infant whose life it is
said must perish; nor has the covenant of God been broken by him, but
by his parents, who have not taken care to circumcise him. But even
the infants, not personally in their own life, but according to the
common origin of the human race, have all broken God's covenant in
that one in whom all have sinned. Now there are many things called
God' s covenants besides those two great ones, the old and the new,
which any one who pleases may read and know. For the first covenant,
which was made with the first man, is just this: "In the day ye eat
thereof, ye shall surely die." Whence it is written in the book
called Ecclesiasticus, "All flesh waxeth old as doth a garment.
For the covenant from the beginning is, Thou shall die the death."
Now, as the law was more plainly given afterward, and the apostle
says, "Where no law is, there is no prevarication," on what
supposition is what is said in the psalm true," accounted all the
sinners of the earth prevaricators," except that all who are held
liable for any sin are accused of dealing deceitfully (prevaricating)
with some law? If on this account, then, even the infants are,
according to the true belief, born in sin, not actual but original,
so that we confess they have need of grace for the remission of sins,
certainly it must be acknowledged that in the same sense in which they
are sinners they are also prevaricators of that law which was given in
Paradise, according to the truth of both scriptures, "I accounted
all the sinners of the earth prevaricators," and "Where no law is,
there is no prevarication." And thus, be cause circumcision was the
sign of regeneration, and the infant, on account of the original sin
by which God's covenant was first broken, was not undeservedly to
lose his generation unless delivered by regeneration, these divine
words are to be understood as if it had been said, Whoever is not born
again, that soul shall perish from his people, because he hath broken
my covenant, since he also has sinned in Adam with all others. For
had He said, Because he hath broken this my covenant, He would have
compelled us to understand by it only this of circumcision; but since
He has not expressly said what covenant the infant has broken, we are
free to understand Him as speaking of that covenant of which the breach
can be ascribed to an infant. Yet if any one contends that it is said
of nothing else than circumcision, that in it the infant has broken the
covenant of God because, he is not circumcised, he must seek some
method of explanation by which it may be understood without absurdity
(such as this) that he has broken the covenant, because it has been
broken in him although not by him. Yet in this case also it is to be
observed that the soul of the infant, being guilty of no sin of neglect
against itself, would perish unjustly, unless original sin rendered it
obnoxious to punishment.
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