Gentiles, who followed not after justice,[1] might attain to justice, and that all might receive the adoption of sons. Him hath God set forth as a propitiator, through faith in his blood,[2] for our sins; and not for our sins only, but also for those of the whole world.[3]
CHAPTER III.
Who are justified through Christ.
But, though He died for all,[4] yet do not all receive the benefit of His death; but those only, unto whom the merit of His passion is communicated. For as in truth men, ifthey were not born propagated from the seed of Adam, would not be born unjust; whereas, by that propagation, they contract through the same [Adam] when they are conceived, injustice as their own; so, if they were not bornagain in Christ, they would never be justified; seeing that in that new birth there is bestowed upon them, through the merit of His passion, the grace whereby they are made just. For this benefit the apostle exhorts us evermore to give thanks to the Father, who hath made us meet to he partakers of the inheritable of the saints in light, and hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption, and remission of sins.[5]
CHAPTER IV.
A Description is interwoven[6] of the Justification of the Impious, and of the Manner thereof under the State of Grace.
By which words a description of the Justification of the impious is interwoven, to the effect that it is a translation from that state in which man is born a child of the first Adam, into the state of grace, and of the adoption of the sons of God,[7] through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Saviour. And this translation, since the Gospel has been promulgated, cannot be effected, without the laver of regeneration,[8] or the desire thereof, as it is written; Unless a man be born again of
