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Balthasar Hübmaier
[1524—

race was potentially in him. The imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, that great subject of quarrel among theologians, does not engage his thought, nor does he go at any length into the nature of sin itself, but what he does say is very much to the point. He defines sin to be "every motion or desire against the will of God, whether in thought, word or deed," in which he evidently comes nearer to the profound truth than those modern theologians who would limit sin to conscious trangression of the law.

The group of doctrines usually treated by theologians under the head of Soteriology receives scant attention in Hübmaier's writings. Not that he had any doubt regarding any of them, but the circumstances under which he wrote were such as to call for no extended treatment. Of the atonement, for example, as the means of salvation, he speaks definitely but once; and if his words were literally interpreted they would show that he was satisfied with the theory of satisfaction as taught by Anselm, or possibly as developed by Aquinas. As to the execution of the divine election, the means by which men are actually saved,