The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

without trust toward God, is rather the actual fault of the adult than the fault
of a new-born infant, which is destitute of the use of reason, as the Lord
says to Moses, Deut. i. 39, "Your children, which in that day had no
knowledge between good and evil." Melanchthon, in the Apology, replied
by referring to the German form of the Confession, which brings out more
clearly than does the Latin, that it is not the act, but the power of fearing
God and trusting in Him, which is referred to, or as Melanchthon
expresses it, not the act only, but the gift and power of doing these things.
The Apology is the best commentary on the disputed parts of the
Augsburg Confession, as well as an able defence of them.
ii. The positive result is that they are born with concupiscence, that is,
that from their birth they are all full of evil desire and evil propensity. The
Confession says, "Et cum concupiscentia." German: “Dass sie alle von
Mutterleibe an voller böser Lust und Neigung sind." The term
concupiscence is a New Test. term, Rom. vii. 7, 8, "I had not known lust
(margin, 'or concupiscence')" etc., "wrought in me all manner of
concupiscence." So Col. iii. 5, "Mortify therefore your members which are
upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil
concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry." 1. Thess. iv. 5, "Not
in the lust of concupiscence." The Greek word which it translates, and
which is used in a number of places where it is not translated
concupiscence, has the general meaning of earnest and intense desire.
Thus our Saviour, Luke xxii. 15, says, "With desire (epithumia) I have
desired (epithumeo) to eat this passover with you before I suffer." St. Paul
says, (Phil. i. 23,) "Having a desire (epithumia) to depart;" 1 Thess. ii. 17,
"Endeavoured with great desire." These are the only cases, three out of
thirty-seven, in which the word epithumia is used without implying
something inordinate and sinful. The natural epithumia of an unsanctified
nature is always inordinate, carnal, sensual, impure: it is desire, lust,
concupiscence. The word is also applied by metonymy to objects which
kindle such desires. Every epithumia except that of our Lord, and of the
natures conformed to His nature, is represented as sinful. In the passage in
Romans vii. 7, 8, concupiscence