The Blessed Virgin was preserved
from the blemish of original sin, but not from the debt, remote at least,
because as a natural descendant of Adam she would have had to contract that
debt; and thus she differs from Christ Who was entirely immune from debt. But
she was free from the actual infection of original sin and hence
was adorned with sanctifying grace from the first moment since there is
no medium between the state of sin and the state of grace. (Adolphe Tanquerey, A
Manual of Dogmatic Theology, 2 vols. [trans. John J. Byrnes; New York:
Desclee Company, 1959], 2:99, emphasis in original)
The Blessed Virgin was not immune from the proximate
debt if she has been included in that law under which all the posterity of
Adam, because of his sin, must contract sin; but she was immune from it and
therefore she had only the remote debt if she has been exempted from the
very law of inclusion, although by reason of active descendance from Adam she
should have been included in it. Because the solution to a question of this
kind depends only on the will of God and nothing certain has been made manifest
concerning it, let us cease our mental gymnastics. One thing is certain,
namely, the Blessed Virgin did have the reed of the Redemption because
only in view of Christ’s merits was she preserved from original sin. (Ibid., 2:99
n. 3, emphasis in original)
