For abundant proof that this was the interpretation of this passage, from the apostles to the time of Augustine, the author refers to Dr. E. Beecher’s _Conflict of Ages_, book v., chapter 2. Augustinian Interpretation. The Augustinian interpretation is this: The sin of Adam caused a _depraved nature_ and consequent spiritual death to all his descendants. So also the obedience and death of Christ have purchased or caused a _holy nature_ and spiritual life to all who are regenerated. Princeton Interpretation. It has been shown that the Princeton theologians teach, that though all men did not sin _in_ Adam, or sin at all, before they were born, yet God _imputes_ Adam’s sin to them, and _regards_ and _treats_ them _as if_ they had committed it. Their interpretation of this passage then is briefly this: As by, or on account of, Adam’s sin a _condemning sentence_ came on all men, so by Christ’s obedience a _sentence of acquittal_ (_i.e._, justification) came on all who are regenerated. According to these divines, verse 12 does not refer to a depraved _nature_ nor to _actual sin_, but only to the fact that all suffer the penalty for Adam’s sin through all time and eternity, unless they are regenerated. The Princeton school of divines are the most strongly Calvinistic in maintaining the total depravity of man and his entire inability to perform any truly virtuous act previous to regeneration. Here, then, we have these results: The Augustinian theory of _the depraved nature_ of man, consequent on Adam’s sin, contradicts the common sense and moral sense of mankind, contradicts the creeds and teachings that contain it, and is not taught in the chief passage in the Bible claimed as teaching it, as interpreted by the whole Christian world in the first four centuries, and by a large body of Calvinistic divines who teach total depravity at the present time. Whoever, then, denies that this passage of the Bible teaches this doctrine is sustained by the whole Church of the Apostolic ages and by a great body of the highest Calvinistic churches at this day. There are some other passages that may be referred to as relating to this subject. The first is Romans, chapter ii., 6 to 16: