COROLLARY X.
Adam sinned, and in him all humanity sinned. But when human nature had been infected with this original and common stain, that bond by which God was bound with humanity was immediately broken; and the twofold antecedent relation—on the one side of father, but on the other of son—was changed into the disposition and relation of a judge and of an accused party liable to guilt and punishment. For just as God, who before transgression and guilt bore the person of a father, after transgression and guilt assumed the person of a judge, and, having assumed it, condemned guilty humanity to death1 and deprived it of preternatural and supernatural gifts; so humanity, which while still pure was related to God in the disposition of a son, when disfigured and corrupted underwent the person of an accused party, and, having lost the power2 of entering upon the paternal inheritance, fell into the most wretched necessity of perishing. That is, when the first institution had been overturned by guilt and the crime of men, the state of misery succeeded the state of felicity; the order of severity and justice succeeded the order of benevolence and love; and the full and in every respect complete faculty of attaining the paternal inheritance degenerated into the sorrowful and bitter necessity of perishing.