Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/215

His flesh was subject to his will, and his will to his understanding, which received its light from the divine mind. If our first parents had procreated before sinning, their children would have inherited their pure nature. To prevent this, it would have been necessary on the part of God to change that law in virtue of which each being transmits its own qualities, and to establish another law in its place by which each being could only transmit precisely that which it has not. Our first parents having been guilty of a grievous rebellion, they were justly despoiled of all their privileges. Their spiritual union with God ceased, and they were separated from him. Their wisdom was converted into ignorance, all their power into weakness. They were deprived of that original justice and grace in which they were born, and, being despoiled of all, remained entirely destitute. Their flesh rebelled against their will, their will against their understanding; their reason sought to control their will, and their will to subdue the flesh; and their flesh, will, and reason united in rebelling against that most high God who had so magnificently endowed them.

It is evident that in this condition the father could not avoid transmitting to his children, by way of generation, his own properties, and that the child was born ignorant of one ignorant, weak of one weak, depraved of one depraved, separated from God of one departed from God, infirm of one infirm, mortal of one mortal, rebellious of one rebellious. Had man been born wise of one ignorant, strong of one weak, united to God of one separated from God, healthy of one infirm, immortal of one mortal, and submissive of one rebellious, the law of nature must have been changed in virtue of which