Zwingli: Latin Works and Correspondence, Vol. 2

comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands," thinking likewise that it was he who had been promised, because he was the tenth and a thousand years had now passed since the creation of the world. This pious man erred twice, but innocently, for the time was not yet at hand, nor was this he who was promised, but only a type of him, as Peter witnesseth [I Pet. 3:20-21].

My object in all this is to show that the promise made to the first mortals was carefully kept in mind by them, even if expression was given to this in few words, and that the hope or confidence they had in this seed did not deceive them. On this matter I shall speak more distinctly in the third division. I have given a foretaste of it here as far as was necessary to justify me in myself pronouncing judgment when I was forbidding others to do so. For I do not deny that the damnation of all who had come from so contaminated a source would have followed, if the, goodness of God had not counteracted the evil. Since it has done so, the problem must evidently be solved in this way — we must admit the great power for damnation that sin would have had, and we must likewise recognize how much of its strength has been taken from it by the remedy which God has provided.

To the second objection 1 answer that I never said without qualification that original sin cannot damn. For in the book upon Baptism I bore witness that I was speaking only of the children of Christians, saying that the original guilt could not damn them. The book itself plainly bears witness to this in two passages.* Hence I was not a little surprised at the theatrical cries, "Do ye see where Zwingli is going in the matter of original sin?" and "What is this but making Christ void?" This I have added simply because I am sure about the children of Christians, that they are not damned by original sin; as to those of others I am less sure, though, to confess frankly, the view that I have taught seems to me the more probable one, that we have no right to pronounce rashly about the children even of

*See ed. of Schuler and Schulthess, Vol. II, 1, p. 287: "For what we say here of the original sin of children, refers to the children of believers only." Also p. 288: "Hence it is clear, contrary to all theologians, that the children of believers cannot be damned because of original sin, for they do not know the law."