System of Sacred Theology · §4.15.2 · Ludwig Crocius

Efficient cause God; vocation immediate and mediate

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Its chief efficient cause is God, and the Holy Spirit Himself speaks through the prophets. The proximate cause is divine calling—also named mission or election—either immediate or mediate.

Immediate or extraordinary calling is when God sends some by His peculiar mandate without human election (patriarchs, prophets, Apostles). Mediate and ordinary calling runs through means God constituted, directed by Him as the principal cause.

Latin

Eius causa princeps efficiens est Deus (Ps. 68:12; 1 Cor. 12:28; Matt. 9:38), et Spiritus Sanctus ipse loquitur per prophetas. Proxima causa est vocatio divina (Heb. 5:4), alias missio (Rom. 10:14), electio (Luke 6:13). Estque alia immediata, alia mediata. Immediata seu extraordinaria est, cum Deus quosdam peculiari mandato instructos non accedente hominum electione mittit—in V.T. patriarchas et prophetas, in N.T. Apostolos. Mediata et ordinaria est, quae fit per media divinitus constituta, per quae a Deo ut causa principe dirigitur (Num. 3:11; 2 Chron. 29:11; Eph. 4:11; Acts 20:28).

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About this text

Ludwig Crocius's System of Sacred Theology (Bremen, 1636), all four books: theology and its rule in Scripture; man's last end, death and the resurrection; God, the Trinity, creation, providence and sin; and the grace of Christ, the Word and sacraments, faith, the Christian life and prayer.

Ludwig Crocius (1586–1655) taught theology and philosophy at Bremen and sat as a delegate at the Synod of Dort (1618–1619). A Calvinist of the irenic school, he spent his career seeking common ground between the Reformed and Lutheran churches.

His System of Sacred Theology (Bremen, 1636) is a full Reformed dogmatics in the high-orthodox style: precise definitions, ordered questions, objections raised and answered.

Date1636 AD (Bremen; Reformed professor)

EditionSyntagma sacrae theologiae (Bremen: Berthold Villerian, 1636)

English follows the 1636 Bremen Latin (Berthold Villerian), read chapter by chapter from the SLUB Dresden page images, with a machine reading of the same pages as a check. No modern English was copied. The author index at the end of the volume is not translated.

Reference

VD17 14:684303C. SLUB id335860389.

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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