Rome (General)

As to the first, they deny that concupiscence or tinder is prohibited by the law of God because they do not consider it to be a sin. … But the orthodox think concupiscence is both properly sin and is prohibited by the law.

Now who can believe that Paul would so often and so expressly have called that sin, if it was not true sin and properly so called, but only because it flowed from sin and inclined to sin (as the Council falsely maintained)?

He, then, who admits not that all the desires of the flesh are sins, and that that disease of concupiscence, which they call a stimulus, is a fountain of sin, must of necessity deny that the transgression of the law is sin.

Those who maintain that concupiscence is not sin, are wont to found on the passage of James, "Then, when lust has conceived, it bringeth forth sin," (James 1:15). But this is easily refuted: for unless we understand him as speaking only of wicked works or actual sins, even a wicked inclination will not be accounted sin. But from his calling crimes and wicked deeds the fruits of lust, and also giving them the name of sins, it does not follow that the lust itself is not an evil, and in the sight of God deserving of condemnation.

Falsely, therefore, do the Papists remove it from the number of sins and reckon it among the works of God.

Bellarmine says that this inordinate concupiscence is not properly sin. What then? Shall we say it is improperly called sin, even though in the very principles of nature it chains and restrains man like a ferocious beast? Is this credible? Let Bellarmine believe such absurdities—we do not.

Fifth, the last commandment of lust forbids the first motions to sin that are before consent. … Again, the philosophers knew that lust with consent was evil, even by the light of nature. But Paul, a learned Pharisee, and therefore more than a philosopher, knew not lust to be sin that is forbidden in this commandment [Rom. 7:7]. Lust therefore that is forbidden here, is without consent.

Lust in the bud; that is, the first risings of lust, even before the consent of the will to them; the first openings of particular lusts, sometimes not regarded nor noticed, and so neither approved nor disapproved; and sometimes checked in their very rising, Rom. 7:15. But however it be, they are sins here forbidden, though the Papists will not allow them to be so

If that law demands perfect conformity to the image of God, then these impulses of evil are clearly sinful. … The Protestant doctrine which pronounces these impulsive acts to be of the nature of sin is confirmed by the consciousness of the believer. He recognizes as evil in their own nature the first risings of malice, envy, pride, or cupidity.

These, whatsoever the Papists say to the contrary, as soon as ever they do but begin to heave and stir in our breasts, are truly sins; and do, in their measure, pollute and defile the soul: for the soul of man is like a clear mirror, upon which if you only breathe, you sully it, and leave a dimness upon it

But Protestants also believe that lust or concupiscence in the regenerate, as including a remaining tendency towards what is sinful, and the first or earliest motions of this tendency in the heart, though not deliberately consented to and followed out, is itself truly and properly sinful.