35. Since the Churches in the Christian world, both the Roman Catholic Church and those separated from it, which are named after their leaders, Luther, Melancthon and Calvin, trace all sin from Adam and his transgression, it is permissible to subjoin here something about the sources whence evils are inherited; for these sources are as many as there are fathers and mothers in the world. That inclinations, aptitudes and propensities to various evils are derived from these, is clear as daylight from the testimony of experience, and also from the assent of reason. Who does not know, from the collective testimony of experience, that there is a general likeness of dispositions, and hence of manners and features, from parents in children and children's children, even to indefinite posterity? Who cannot thence infer that original sins are from them? The notion suggested to every one, when he looks at the countenances and manners of brothers and relatives in families, causes him to know and acknowledge this.
[2] What reason, then, is there for deducing the origin of all evils from Adam and his seed? Is there not equal reason for deducing it from parents? Does not the germ of these similarly propagate itself? To deduce the tendencies from which, and according to which, the spiritual forms of the minds of all men n the universe exist, from Adam's seed alone, would be exactly like deriving birds of every species from one egg, also beasts of very nature from one seed, and trees of every kind of fruit from one root. Is there not an infinite variety of men? one like a sheep, another like a wolf? one like a kid, another like a panther? one like a gentle cob harnessed to a carriage, another like an untamable wild ass before it? one like a playful calf, another like a voracious tiger? and so on. Whence has each his peculiar disposition but from his father and his mother? Why, then, from Adam? - by whom, however, is described in a representative type the first Church of this earth, as has been already shown? Would not this be like tracing from one stock, deeply hidden in the earth, a plantation of trees of every appearance and use, and from a single plant shrubs of every value? Would that not also be like extracting light from the obscurity of the ages and of histories, and like unravelling the thread of a riddle that is without an answer? Why not rather derive them from Noah,
Who walked with God (Gen. 6:9),
And
Whom God blessed (Gen. 9:1),
and from whom with his three sons alone surviving
The whole earth was overspread (Gen. 9:19)?
Would not the hereditary qualities of the generations from Adam be thus extirpated, as if drowned by a flood?
[3] But, my friend, I will lay bare the true source of sins. Every evil is conceived of the devil as a father and is born of atheistical faith as a mother; and, on the other hand, every good is conceived of the Lord as a father and is born, as of a mother, of saving faith in Him. The generations of all goods in their infinite varieties with men, are from no other origin than from the marriage of the Lord and the Church; and, on the contrary, the generations of all evils in their varieties with them, are from no other origin than from the union of the devil with the community of the profane. Who does not know, or may not know, that a man must be regenerated by the Lord, that is, be created anew, and that, so far as this takes place, so far he is in goods? Hence this follows: that, in so far as a man is unwilling to be generated anew, or created anew, so far he takes up and retains the evils implanted in him from his parents. This is what lies concealed in the first precept of the Decalogue:
I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hold Me in hatred, and showing mercy unto thousands who love Me and keep My commandments (Exod. 20:5-6; Deut. 5:9-10).
