In the same manner there is here a commandment given of the Lord to Adam before his sin that he should not eat of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," which commandment Adam would have fulfilled willingly and with the highest pleasure, had he not been deceived by the craft of Satan. But Paul is referring to quite another law; for he is plainly speaking of a law which was given, not to the righteous, but to the unrighteous. Who is there, then, so stupid or so insane, who will after all conclude that a law was not given to Adam because he hears us affirm that Adam was a righteous man? For no other conclusion can follow than that the law, which was made for the unrighteous, was not the law that was given to the righteous Adam; and on the converse it must follow that as a law was given to righteous Adam, that law was not the same as the law which was afterwards made for the unrighteous. There is therefore in this syllogism or argument of our adversary, the two-fold unsoundness of unjust connection and unjust division. There is in it moreover a double equivocation. The first is in not making it plain that the law before sin is one thing, and the law after sin another. And in the second place, the equivocation lies in not making it equally plain, that the righteous man before sin and the righteous man after sin are each righteous, but in a different sense; that the one is righteous by nature the other by new-creation and justification. It is most useful to examine thus the arguments and reasonings of our adversaries, and in this manner to apply the science of sound logic to good purpose in these momentous discussions. For the arts of logic were not seriously intended to be used in the dead disputation of the school only; but that the gravest and most sacred subjects might by them be soundly explained and taught. And it is by the very false reasoning now in question, that Satan does a great deal of business in denying original sin. Whereas to deny original sin, is to deny virtually the passion and resurrection of Christ. Let the passage of the apostle Paul therefore, 1 Tim. 1:9, hinder us not from determining with Moses in the text now before us, that a law was here commanded of God to Adam though a righteous man, "That he should not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," in the same way as commandments were also given to angels. And because Adam transgressed this commandment he sinned, and begat and propagated his children after him also sinners. III. V. 17b. _For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die._