Two Dissertations

Christ's death was meant for peace, yet curiosity turns it into dispute; both sides already grant a twofold consideration§1

Thesis 1: Christ's death is proposed in Scripture as a universal remedy applicable to every person unto salvation§2

Thesis 1 continued: John 3:16 does not restrict the death to the elect; Testimonies 2–3§3

Testimonies 4–5 and the conglobated “for all” texts close Cap. 1’s scriptural proof§4

Cap. 2 Ratio 1: Christ’s death yields some spiritual fruits even to the non-elect§5

5That death whose fruit brings some spiritual benefits even to those who are not saved is not applicable to the elect alone; but the death of Christ does bring some fruits even to those who will not be saved. For a clearer understanding of the Major I now suggest what I warned from the beginning: under the name of the death of Christ we embrace that whole heap of Christ’s meritorious obedience, to which his very death set the last closing clause, as it were. For this infinite merit of the Mediator Christ is what God the Father looks upon when he grants to lost and miserable mortals any spiritual benefit whatever in order to eternal salvation. If therefore it shall be established that even the those not chosen receive certain benefits of this kind from the merit of Christ, t the death of Christ, at least as to some effects, is not only applicable promiscuously to all human beings, but is in fact applied to certain persons who will not be saved.

Let us therefore come to the proof of the Minor, which alone can come into doubt. First, this very thing — that God deigns to call many even of the those not chosen to repentance and faith, and under the condition of faith to it not to be counted a great benefit? It is certainly so counted by God himself, who calls the preaching of the Gospel the word of life (John 6:68; Acts 5:20); the saving grace of God (Titus 2:11); who says that Christ had to suffer and rise again, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations (Luke 24:46-47); who finally calls this very announcement of the Gospel a treasure (2 Corinthians 4:7), pronounces the very feet of those who preach the gospel beautiful (Romans 10:15), and threatens its removal with the place of the highest punishment (Matthew 21:43), and decrees that those who have despised and thrust away so great a good are to be punished most severely (Luke 10:12-13; 2 Thessalonians 1:8). All these things show that the Gospel is a supernatural benefit granted even to those who abuse it.

Second, if anyone should stubbornly deny that the announcement of the Gospel itself is a benefit granted by God with respect to the those not chosen, yet no one will deny that that illumination of the mind, tasting some communication of supernatural gifts, of which mention is made in (Hebrews 6), are great and excellent benefits, and that they are conferred in order not to this bodily but to that spiritual life. Yet all these are often given to those who are not of the number of the elect; and they are given through and on account of Christ. For of his fullness we have all received (John 1:16), and to each one grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ (Ephesians 4:7). Indeed of supernatural gifts of whatever kind we may rightly say with the Apostle that one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each as he wills (1 Corinthians 12:11). I will also add this: whatever supernatural grace is given through Christ to any human being is given from the merit of Christ; for Christ confers nothing of this kind on human beings which he did not first merit for them by his obedience. So Bernard, Sermon 13 on the Song: Whatever wisdom, whatever virtue you trust yourself to have, ascribe to the Virtue of God, the Wisdom of God — to Christ. The origin of fountains and rivers is the sea; of virtues and sciences, the Lord Jesus Christ. Ambrose more generally: Every gift of the grace of God is in Christ (commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians).

Finally, this at least, on the judgment of all the ancients, proves that the death of Christ is by God’s ordination applicable even to the those not chosen: that they expressly taught that in Baptism it is applied to sin for any baptized infant. This is an excellent and supernatural effect of the death of Christ, concerning whose application to the non-predestinate there was scarcely any doubt in the ancient Church — not even among those who held absolute predestination most tightly. A very ample witness to this matter is Prosper himself (Response 2 to the Chapters of the Gauls, and Sentence 2 on the same Chapter). To him one may add the African Fathers in their Synodical Letter, and the Council of Valence, Canon 5. By this first argument, therefore, we obtain that the meritorious power of Christ’s death is not to be restricted to the elect alone, but is applicable to others by God’s ordination, and as to certain effects is sometimes in fact applied.

Cap. 2 Ratios 2–3: He bore the penalty of the whole race; any wayfarer may be called to believe§6

6Whoever, by undergoing death according to God’s ordination, sustained the penalty owed not only to the sins of certain singular persons but to the whole human race — his passion, by virtue of the same ordination, is applicable not only to certain and definite persons but to any individual of the human race. But Christ by dying sustained the penalty owed to the sins of the whole world. Therefore he willed his death to be, as it were, a universal cause of salvation applicable to all. Whoever denies the Major is bound to show why God willed his Son to bear the sins of the human race, if he did not will to institute in his death a cause at least applicable to the human race, even though an efficacious application does not follow in many. We can invent no other causes of this matter than that it pleased the divine goodness and wisdom to require from our Redeemer, and as it were to take into his own hands, a universal lytron applicable to all: (1) that in the application itself the liberty of the divine will, doing of its own what it wills, and a special eudokia toward the elect, might more appear; (2) that toward the those not chosen, at least those called in the Church, he might show a specimen unbelievers might be convicted in their consciences that on Christ’s part a way of freeing them was not wanting, but that they failed themselves, according to Christ’s word (John 5:40): You will not come to me, that you may have life.

Let us now descend to the Minor, in which it is affirmed that Christ sustained the penalty owed to the sins of the human race. So the Scriptures speak (Isaiah 53:6): All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has made the iniquity of us all to meet upon him. So the Fathers speak: The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is the price of the whole world, from which price those are strangers who either, delighted with captivity, refused to be redeemed, or after redemption returned to the same servitude (Prosper, on the Chapters of the Gauls, sentence on 9). So our Church of England, Article 2: Christ truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, that he might reconcile the Father to us, and might be a sacrifice not only for original guilt but also for all actual sins of human beings. Finally, those who most tightly restrict this death of Christ cannot deny this. The reverend and most learned Pareus, in his judgment on this second Remonstrant article which he sent to the Synod of Dort, has these words: The cause and matter of Christ’s passion was the sense or endurance of the wrath of God stirred up by the sin not of some human beings but of the whole human race, whence is effected the universality of the sin and of the wrath of God against it endured by Christ; but the universality of a reconciliation obtained or restored for all, by no means (Acts of the Synod of Dort, p. 217). The force of the argument is: Whoever willed and ordained that Christ the Mediator should sustain the wrath of God owed to the sins not of certain persons but of the whole human race, that one willed this passion of Christ to be a remedy applicable to the human race — that is, to each and every human being, and not only to certain singular persons — the supreme power and entire liberty of dispensing and applying this infinite merit according to the secret good pleasure of his will being nonetheless left to himself.

Whoever by divine ordination can be called to believe in the Mediator, and who by believing can obtain eternal life — to those the death of Christ is applicable unto salvation by a prior ordination of God. But any wayfarer can be called to believe in the Mediator, and by believing can obtain eternal life according to the evangelical covenant. Therefore the death of Christ is applicable to any wayfarer. The connection of the Major is plain from this: that a serious call to believe presupposes an object prepared in which one may believe; and this very ability to be saved by believing intimates that the saving object — that is, the death or merit of Christ — has been ordained as a remedy applicable to the one to whom such a benefit is promised under the condition of faith. For if someone were called to faith in Christ to whom Christ was not applicable by God’s ordination, faith would be demanded in a false object — indeed in none at all — as regards such a called person. The matter would stand just as if an evangelical preacher should call some demon clothed in human appearance and dwelling among human beings to faith in Christ, and should promise him eternal life if he believed. Such a call would be erroneous on the caller’s part and empty on the called person’s part, because he is called to believe in Christ to whom Christ is not applicable by God’s ordination, and salvation is promised to him under a condition to whom, even if he were supposed to believe, salvation is nonetheless denied for want of a sacrifice and covenant pertaining to him. The matter does not stand so with any wayfarer: therefore it must be confessed that the death of Christ under the conditions of the evangelical covenant is applicable to anyone.

The Major being confirmed, I come to the Minor, which ought to be beyond controversy among all the orthodox. For although God’s providence does not bring it about that the Gospel becomes known to each and every person, and thus that all are called to Christ, yet God himself constituted that the Gospel should be something truly announceable to all, and should be preached to every creature. If one preacher could go through the whole world and meet each and every mortal, it would be lawful for him to offer Christ to any human being, and under the condition of faith to announce and promise salvation to be obtained through Christ. For so the Apostle himself speaks (Romans 3:21-22): But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been manifested, attested by the law and the prophets — the righteousness of God, I say, through faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all who believe; for there is no distinction. The most learned Belgian Professors, in the judgment they exhibited to the Synod of Dort, confess this very thing (Acts of the Synod of Dort, p. 88): We confess, they say, that the merit and value of Christ’s death suffice not only to expiate all sins of human beings, even the greatest, but also to save all the posterity of Adam, even if they were far more numerous, provided they embraced it with true faith. But it would not suffice to save all, even if all believed, unless this be posited: that by divine ordination this death of Christ is a constituted remedy applicable to all. Deny that Christ died for some human beings, and I will at once infer that such persons, even if they believed, could not be saved through the death of Christ. What is commonly answered to this argument by some — that God did not command ministers to announce that Christ died for individual human beings whether they believe or not, but for believing and penitent sinners alone, and therefore that from the universality of the call it cannot be demonstrated that the death of Christ is by divine ordination a universal remedy applicable to anyone — seems to me said with too little consideration. For the faith of human beings is not presupposed as a condition that makes Christ to have died for them, but as a condition that makes the death of Christ — already applicable to all by the divine eudokia — in fact applied to individuals and fruitful. The death of Christ was a sacrifice established in the divine acceptation from the beginning of the world and ordained for human beings; nor could it help anyone, if he believed, unless it had been offered for him before he believed. When therefore we announce to someone that the death of Christ can profit him if he believes, we presume that it was destined for him as applicable before he believes.

Cap. 2 Ratio 4: All who hear the Gospel owe gratitude to Christ as Redeemer§7

7If all mortals, as soon as the doctrine of the Gospel concerning Christ the Redeemer sustaining death for the sins of human beings becomes known to them, are bound to render gratitude and obedience to Christ himself, then it is certain that this work of the Redeemer offering himself as a sacrifice to God is to be considered as a benefit applicable to all. For there is no cause why we should say that those are bound to gratitude, or to any acts of obedience whatever, by reason of the death of Christ, who are in every way most shut out from that benefit. Yet the Apostle testifies that any human beings whatever can be stirred to obedience by this very argument. For to any human beings whatever it can truly be said, after this mystery of Christ’s death has been made known to them, what is found in (1 Corinthians 6:20): You were bought with a price; glorify God in your body and in your spirit. Likewise also (2 Corinthians 5:15): He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again.

Unless the death of Christ is understood as a remedy applicable to all, that foundation on which evangelical ministers build exhortations of this kind will always be uncertain and often false. Always uncertain, because it cannot be clear to human beings who the elect are. Often false, whenever it is applied to the those not chosen, who on this title of redemption are not bound to live to Christ that that sacrifice offered by Christ for the redemption of the world is applicable to them. Indeed Christ himself could not by right of his death claim for himself a certain supreme lordship over each and every person, unless his death, according to God’s ordination, were a merit applicable to all unto salvation. Since therefore Christ died and lived again for this, that he might be Lord both of the living and of the dead (Romans 14:9), we ought, at least as to the right and power of saving application, to extend his death to all — although the Spirit of Christ (who breathes where he wills) gives to human beings the faculty and will to apply, and even the very fruit of the death applied, by a decree of special mercy.

Cap. 2 Ratio 5: The title Redeemer and Savior of the world requires a universal applicable cause§8

Cap. 2 Ratios 6–7: God’s counsel provided a lytron even for those who remain unbelieving; death is ordained before faith§9

Cap. 2 ultima ratio: As under the covenant of nature, so under grace salvation is obtainable for all — Cap. 2 closes§10

Cap. 3 Satisfit: preface — we do not defend a de-facto salvation already obtained for every person§11

Cap. 3 Obj. 1: Many were already damned when Christ died — how then was his death ever applicable to them?§12

Cap. 3 Obj. 2: Why ordain a precious remedy as applicable to reprobates God foresaw would never use it?§13

13Obj. 2. Those who set Christ's death, by God's ordination, as applicable to all and each, by the same stroke maintain that God provided for many human beings a remedy which he foresaw would never profit them. For God knew that none of the reprobate would be healed by this medicine of Christ's blood and freed from eternal death; to what end, then, would he ordain so precious a remedy as applicable even to those to whom it was most certain it would never be applied?

Sol. I do not deny that from our opinion it rightly follows that this remedy, even with God himself so ordaining and establishing it, is applicable to innumerable human beings to whom in fact it will never be applied. I deny, therefore, that anything false or inconvenient can, this being granted, be deduced from it. Indeed it is manifest that many benefits were provided by God for angels and human beings — I add also, and sometimes conferred, and duly ordained to a certain end — which God meanwhile knew would never profit them, nor avail to produce such an end. Those excellent gifts which were conferred on the apostate angels in their first creation were duly ordained by God to produce firm and constant obedience in them and to procure their beatitude; yet God knew they would be rebels and would never employ these gifts for the attainment of that good to which they were destined. The same can be said of Adam while still intact, whom God furnished with knowledge and holiness and fortified with his warnings abundantly sufficient to keep him in his duty; knowing meanwhile that all these things, which were applicable to promoting his obedience and happiness, would never be applied. It is therefore not alien to Divine wisdom to establish and ordain means applicable to some end, although he understands that, some obstacle intervening which he has not chosen to remove, it will be hindered. Here that of Aquinas can be brought, in the disputed questions on Predestination, where he sets a difference between providence commonly taken and predestination, which is a special part of providence: Providence, he says, regards only the order unto the end; predestination regards the issue or event of the order. Things ordained to an end by that more common providence do not always attain the end; but those ordained by singular predestination always attain it. As therefore God, by that wider providence, is understood to have provided many bodily remedies applicable to driving away any bodily diseases whatever from any persons whatever, which nevertheless he has not decreed to be infallibly applied to these or those singular persons; so also we affirm that God, from that philanthropy and more common providence, provided and ordained the blood of his Son as a remedy applicable to expiating the sins of any human beings whatever, although by singular predestination he has not decreed to render it applied to all and each. But to what end is it ordained as applicable to all, which is not intended to be infallibly applied to all? I answer: that from this the Divine liberty, mercy, and justice may shine more clearly, while that remedy which by God's ordination is applicable to any unto salvation is nevertheless applied only to certain human beings, God specially having mercy on them, and is not applied to others, God permitting it, and their own malice deserving it.

Cap. 3 Obj. 3: If applicable to all, why was Christ's death never announced to whole nations?§14

Cap. 3 Obj. 4: If the death is applicable to all, are resurrection, intercession, and mediation likewise?§15

Cap. 3 Obj. 5: Universal satisfaction would punish the same sins twice — so how can justice stand?§16

16Obj. 5. If Christ's death is a benefit applicable to all and each by God's ordination, then it must be said that Christ satisfied for the sins of the whole human race. But this cannot be defended without meantime undermining Divine justice: for the reason of justice does not suffer the same sin to be punished twice. Grant then that Christ's death is the ransom by which satisfaction was made to God for the sins of the human race — how can these human beings still be summoned by God's justice for the same sins and tormented with eternal punishments?

Sol. As to the Major, we judge its consequence can safely be conceded. For that Christ satisfied for the sins of the human race, or of all human beings, the orthodox Fathers boldly assert. So Eusebius, Demonstration of the Gospel, book 1, in the preface: It was fitting that the Lamb of God offer himself a victim for the remaining kindred lambs and for the whole human race. So Nazianzen: Christ is the sacrifice of the whole world, an expiation never to die, Oration 2 on Easter. So finally (to omit the rest) Cyril, Catechesis 13. The same manner of speaking our Anglican Church everywhere uses in the Articles of Religion, Articles 15 and 31, and elsewhere. Indeed even those who most strive to restrict this death of Christ speak thus. We cited earlier the testimony of the reverend Pareus, Heidelberg theologian, who freely confesses in the Judgment exhibited to the Synod of Dort that the cause and matter of Christ's passion was the sense or endurance of the wrath of God, stirred up by the sin not of some human beings but of the universal human race. A little later: the universality of sin and of the wrath of God against it, endured by Christ, is affirmed. Nor should this seem dissonant, since this universal redemption, satisfaction, or expiation accomplished by Christ's death imports nothing else than that a universal cause of salvation has been established and granted to the human race by Divine ordination, by whose benefit all and each can enjoy, through the faith required by the Gospel. We therefore call Christ the Redeemer of the world, and teach that he satisfied for the sins not of some human beings but of the whole world — not because, this price being paid for the sins of this race, all and each are immediately to be freed from captivity and death, but because by the virtue of this price paid all and each can and ought to be freed from death, and in fact are to be freed, according to the tenor of the Gospel pact, that is, if they repent and believe in this Redeemer. As to what is further urged — that it is against justice to accept satisfaction or a lytron for the sins of the universal human race, and yet not free all from the punishments of their sins, but adjudge many to eternal torments notwithstanding this satisfaction — to this I answer: This would indeed be most iniquitous if we had paid this price to God from our own, or if our Surety Jesus Christ had so offered his blood to God as a satisfactory price for the redemption of the human race that, no other condition intervening, all human beings would by the very fact of the oblation be immediately absolved, or if God himself had covenanted with the dying Christ that he willed to pour faith into all and each and to give all else that looks to the infallible application of this sacrifice offered for the human race. But since God himself arranged that this price from his own be paid to himself, it was in his power to attach conditions — which being fulfilled, this death would be fruitful to any human being; not being fulfilled, it would help no human being at all. No injury therefore is done to those human beings who are punished by God after the lytron for the sins of the human race has been accepted, because they themselves exhibited nothing to God in satisfaction for their sins, nor fulfilled that condition without which God was unwilling that this satisfactory price should turn to the good of any singular person. Further, neither should this be judged injurious to Christ the Mediator: for he so willed to die for all, and to number the price of redemption to the Father for all, that meanwhile he willed not all and each in any way whatever, but all and each as soon as they believed in him, to be absolved from the guilt of their sins. Finally Christ, offering himself in sacrifice to God the Father for expiating the world's sins, yet submitted to the Father's good pleasure the free distribution and application of his merits, and no pact was entered between Father and Son by which God is bound to effect that this death of Christ, which by God's ordination is applicable to all under the condition of faith, become applied to all through the gift of faith. We must not therefore deny that Christ's oblation once made is a perfect satisfaction for the sins not of some human beings only but of all — yet so that he who is said simply to have died for all conditionally promises from his death remission of sins and salvation, and will perform it, only to believers. Let us illustrate all this by a likeness: Think of countless human beings cast into prison by some King for an enormous debt, or condemned to death for the crime of high treason; and the King himself procuring that his son wipe out this whole debt to the last farthing, or put himself as guilty for those traitors and endure the punishments owed by all — yet with this law promulgated by both: that none is to be absolved or freed except those alone who will acknowledge this King's Son as their lawful Lord and serve him. These things being so established, I ask: if those are not freed who persist disobedient and rebellious against the King's son, is the crime of injustice incurred because after this lytron paid their debts are nonetheless exacted from many, or after the punishments endured by the son vengeance is nevertheless taken on these rebels? By no means: because the payment of a just price and the enduring of due punishments was indeed ordained to obtain remission for anyone under the condition of obedience, and not otherwise. I will not add more: it will be easy to accommodate all this to our present purpose.

Cap. 3 Obj. 6: Is there any middle between bare sufficiency of the price and real application?§17

Cap. 3 Obj. 7: Father and Spirit save only the elect — must the Son's oblation be equally narrow?§18

18Obj. 7. The Father's will, the Son's oblation, and the Holy Spirit's saving operation are equally wide, and regard the same persons. But the Father's will is to save the elect alone; and the Spirit, by infusing faith and giving perseverance, in fact saves the elect alone: therefore Christ's death or oblation is not to be extended except to the elect alone, and for that reason ought not to be considered as a remedy applicable to all and each unto salvation by God's ordination.

Sol. If the Major proposition is understood of the will of the predestinating God, which is always joined with infallibility of event, and of that special operation of the sanctifying Spirit which serves the execution of this decree, I say it is not absolutely true: for Christ's death or oblation somehow regards certain persons whom predestination does not embrace. Predestination is God's secret decree, by which he determined with himself from eternity to whom from the infinite merit of Christ's death he wills to give efficacious grace and eternal life infallibly; but Christ's oblation on the cross is a common benefit granted to the human race, by whose virtue anyone, provided he embraces it with true faith, can claim eternal life for himself according to God's will revealed in the Gospel. So Christ himself speaks in (John 3:14–15): As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Although therefore God's predestination and the efficacious calling that depends on it embrace no person not chosen, yet as Christ's oblation in the Gospel, so also Christ's oblation on the cross extends wider, and is as applicable to any human being as it is announcible, and will become salvific to anyone provided he believes — God's secret will meanwhile being left to him, according to which he has determined mercifully to cause some to believe, to permit others to their innate hardness, and in them not to cause that they believe. Finally I add also this: that there was in Christ himself a will according to which he willed his death to look to all and each, and also one according to which he willed the same to pertain to the elect alone. He willed it to look to all Adam's posterity to be saved, and in fact to save all, provided they embraced it with true faith; he willed it so to pertain to the elect alone that from its merit all things that look to obtaining salvation should be infallibly given them. And in this sense we confess that Christ's oblation is equally wide with God's predestination — of which more in its place.

Cap. 3 Obj. 8: Applicable-to-all death would erase elect/non-elect and overturn predestination§19

19Obj. 8. If Christ's death is set as applicable to all and each by God's ordination, then every distinction of elect and those not chosen is removed, and the doctrine of predestination is utterly overturned: have died for all in any sense, what prevents our pronouncing all and each human beings elect by God in the same sense?

Sol. These things proceed from ignorance of the true reason of election or predestination. For it is not any ordination to salvation through any means whatever places a person in the number of the elect or predestined, but an ordination through such media as God both knows and has decreed will infallibly produce the effect of salvation in the elect person. Hence that definition of predestination in Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 14: It is the foreknowledge and preparation of God's benefits, by which whoever are liberated are most certainly liberated. Hence also that Apostolic chain in (Romans 8:29–30), in which predestination is coupled by an inseparable bond with final glorification: Whom he predestined, them he also glorified. Although therefore we confess that Christ's death under some respect has been ordained by God as a common remedy of the human race, and will profit all under this Gospel condition if they have believed; yet it does not follow from this that all and each are promiscuously elect, because God has not decreed to give to all and each that grace that they may believe, and by believing draw life infallibly from this death of Christ. Indeed this also can be added: even if we grant not only that Christ died for all, but also that on account of this death of Christ sufficient grace has been prepared and given by God to all and each (which nevertheless we do not hold), still no one would rightly infer from these concessions that all human beings are promiscuously elect, or that there is no distinction between the elect and the passed-by. The reason is ready at hand: because no however sufficient ordination of media to procure a human being's salvation argues that he is predestined, unless there has also accrued this — that there be indeed an infallible order of special providence establishing and directing the ordained media to the most certain and unfrustrable attainment of the end. This can be illustrated by the example of Angels and of Human beings considered in the state of intact nature. All and each angels were created instructed with sufficient grace, and thence sufficiently ordained to obtaining beatitude: yet it is not thereby proved either that there was no election among the angels, or that all were indiscriminately elect. So Adam himself in his creation, and in him all his posterity, are understood to have been given sufficient grace and duly instructed for obtaining eternal life: yet it will not follow from this that all human beings were elect, or that no predestination is given. For it is not any ordination whatever to the attainment of eternal life that immediately posits a human being elect or denies a those not chosen, but (as has been said) an infallible ordination. To return and: from Christ's death ordained for all and each human being as a propitiatory sacrifice, and applicable by faith to obtaining remission and salvation, it does not follow that election and preterition are removed, because, this common ordination being posited and revealed in the Gospel, there is besides a certain secret ordination according to which the aforesaid death of Christ is decreed to be applied infallibly to some, of whom God wills specially to have mercy, and not so to be applied to others, of whom he does not will to have mercy in that way. And this abundantly suffices to defend the doctrine of predestination and reprobation, though we extend Christ's death to all in the aforesaid sense.

Cap. 3 Obj. 9: A-pari — dying for the unsaved as absurd as saving those Christ did not die for§20

Cap. 3 Obj. 10: Scriptures restrict the giving of the Son to believers alone§21

Cap. 3 Obj. 11: Death not applicable to those for whom Christ was not offered — the non-elect§22

22Obj. 11. Christ's death is not applicable to those for whom he did not die or was not offered: But there are countless human beings for whom he did not die or was not offered, namely all those who were not enrolled in the register of the elect before the foundations of the world were laid. From this they try to confirm the Minor, because the Apostle expressly asserts that God wills to grant all things to those for whom the Son died, (Romans 8:32): He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? But he does not freely give all things to all: Therefore Christ did not die for all: Therefore his death is not applicable to all.

Sol. I gladly grant that Christ's death can in no true sense be said applicable to those for whom God in no way willed him to die. For Christ's death is not a remedy applicable to expiating anyone's sins except by God's ordination and acceptance. And for this reason, although the ransom paid by Christ to God the Father is in itself of sufficient and superabundant value for redeeming the sins not only of human beings but of fallen angels, yet because of the defect of ordination and acceptance as to the angels, we truly deny that Christ ought to be said to have died for them in any way. The same would have to be held of those human beings too, if there were any who by the same defect of Divine ordination and acceptance were alien and excluded from every possibility of the said redemption. But as has been said, the Major being granted, let us come to the Minor. I answer therefore, That there is no one sharing the same human nature which the Redeemer deigned to assume, for whom Christ has not delivered himself as a redemption-price applicable by God's ordination and acceptance for obtaining remission of sins through faith in his blood. Nor does the Apostle contradict us, whose whole discourse in Romans 8 does not look to consoling any human beings whatever placed in any state, but the elect; nor the elect simply, but the elect already called, justified, sanctified, that is, as the same speaks in (Colossians 1:13), already delivered from the power of darkness, and transferred into the kingdom of the Son of his love. Nor does he affirm simply and universally that God freely gives all things to all human beings for whom Christ died, but to all those of whom the present discourse is instituted, that is, to all the predestined believing in Christ, for whom not only did Christ die, but to whom moreover Christ has already been given in a special mode, that is, united, and communicated with the infinite treasure of his merits. This consolatory argument of the Apostle drawn from Christ's death is therefore efficacious, but if it is accommodated to those and so far, to whom and so far as it was accommodated by the Apostle: namely in this way, You who from your effectual calling, justification and sanctification can already acknowledge and feel that you are predestined, and that God in specially and effectually redeeming you willed his Son not only offered to himself, but also communicated to you, how can you not trust that he will for the rest freely give you all other things necessary for consummating salvation? But if anyone should wish to apply the aforesaid reason to any human beings whatever, setting aside consideration of predestination, calling, justification, in this way, Christ died for you, or Christ gave himself a lytron or victim to God for expiating your sins, therefore God will also freely give you all things, I say he draws this argument beyond its limits contrary to the Apostle's mind; who narrowed it to certain persons, namely the predestined, and those already placed in a certain state, namely of justification and adoption.

Cap. 3 Obj. 12: Redeemer ordained from special good-pleasure only, not common love of the race§23

Cap. 3 Obj. 13: If applicable to all, divine wisdom and power would save all§24

Cap. 3 Obj. 14: If Christ died for all, did he love all with supreme and equal love?§25

25Obj. 14. If we posit that Christ died for all, it will follow: 1. That Christ pursued all human beings with supreme and greatest love (John 15:13): Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. And (1 John 3:16): By this we have known the love of God, that he laid down his life for us. Which does not seem so, because he does not lead all to life by this death of his. 2. What is a corollary of this, that Christ equally loved Peter and Judas, the elect and the those not chosen: For he would have exhibited to all the token of supreme love; are no degrees. 3. Finally, if Christ so died for all that by this death of his he procured for the those not chosen only the possibility of salvation under the condition of faith, able, which he knows will not be applied, but for the elect the very application and salvation — he would seem to have loved the those not chosen more than the elect, because it is of greater love to suffer r that he may obtain some minute good than a great one; just as that man would show a more ardent love toward someone who exposed himself to death lest the other be ever so slightly hurt, than if he did it lest he be punished with death.

Sol. The aim of both places is the same, namely to kindle Christians to mutual and most tender love by the example of our Savior Jesus Christ, who so loved us that he endured to die for us. But the sense of the words here is that to undergo death, or to pour out one’s life for another, is the greatest external effect and the most evident proof of love — which, when Christ has exhibited toward us by laying down his life for us, we too ought, where need is, to lay down our lives for the brethren, as is had in the aforesaid place (1 John 3:16). It is therefore not enough that we be ready to spend gold and silver for the brethren, to undergo hard labors or dangers, because there is still a greater love — that is, a greater, surer, and clearer proof of our love — namely that we lay down our soul, that is, our life, for them. And because nothing is dearer to each than himself, therefore by this attestation of love, by which someone spends himself for a friend, there is no greater. I now come closer to the solution, and I say: Although we confess that no one has greater love — that is, can from his own side put forth a greater external effect of his love — than by laying down life, because each has nothing more precious than his life; yet we deny that it is rightly deduced from this that the love of one dying for some is absolutely, simply, and in every way, as regards all those, the supreme and greatest that anyone can conceive in his heart. For first, where one lays down life for many, nothing hinders that as to the internal act of loving he may love one more vehemently than another: as if we should think that Jacob underwent death for freeing all his sons from captivity, we would nevertheless rightly assert that he did not love all supremely, but Joseph and Benjamin above the others, and more than the others. Supreme love as to intention, therefore, cannot be inferred with respect to all to whom this greatest judgment of love is exhibited. Second, someone can pour out life promiscuously for many, and yet as to the magnitude of the good willed love some more intensely than others, and accordingly not embrace all with supreme or equal love. For the magnitude of love is not to be estimated only from the side of the precious thing which is spent on the beloved by the lover, but from the side of the benefits which are intended to be conferred on the beloved from that spent thing. For example: If a King’s son should undergo death for all guilty of treason, this law being set, that all and each be absolved who are willing to cast themselves as suppliants before the King’s throne and to pledge faithful obedience for the future; and if for certain ones he should further intend to obtain from the Father that, for the merit of his death, he deign to persuade them of this submission and obedience, and so persuaded not only to absolve them but even to raise them to the highest honors — who does not see that death was endured for all, and yet that all were not loved supremely and maximally? For since to love is to wish and confer goods on someone, once a common benefit granted to many is posited, those are more loved to whom greater goods from the aforesaid benefit are intended and conferred. Finally, although human beings cannot exhibit to human beings a greater external testimony of love than if someone die for another, yet God the Father, Christ the Mediator God-man, and the Holy Spirit can exhibit a greater secret act and effect of their love toward some of those for whom Christ died than toward others; namely if they establish not only to give to certain ones remission of sins and eternal life from the merit of Christ’s death, provided they believe in this their Redeemer, but also from eternity elect certain ones to life to be participated efficaciously in Christ the Redeemer, and prepare for them and infallibly give all those things which effect this infallible participation and application. From these you see that that inference does not hold: Christ died for all; Therefore he loved all with supreme and equal love: because, this common benefit of his death being granted to all, he can nevertheless love some more intently than others, and decree, prepare, and give to some more and greater goods from the merit of his death than to others. Which is clear even in the elect themselves, for all of whom all confess that Christ suffered, and yet no one will have affirmed that Christ embraces with equal love anyone (so to speak) from the common run of the elect and the Patriarchs, Apostles, or his most blessed mother, or enriches them with equal gifts of grace and glory overflowing from the merit of his death. But that other subtlety by which it is inferred, If Christ had undergone death for all, he would have shown greater love toward the those not chosen than toward the elect, because it argues greater love to sustain in for him some minute good than a great one, seems to me little agreeable to right reason. If diverse deaths were to be undergone for diverse persons, this objection would have some appearance of truth: but where a single death is sustained for diverse persons, there it is plain that he is more loved for whom the one who dies intends more and greater goods from this single death. For if to love is to will goods to another, then to will greater goods is to love more. But in this way the love of Christ dying stood toward the elect and the those not chosen: for from one and the same death he willed more and greater er than to the latter.

Cap. 3 Obj. 15: Wisely destined means do not exceed their adequate end — the elect’s salvation§26

26Obj. 15. Means wisely destined do not exceed their adequate end: But the adequate end of Christ’s death is the salvation of the elect: Therefore Christ’s death has no ordination to any other those not chosen whatever: Therefore it is falsely established as applicable d’s ordination.

Sol. I acknowledge that the infallible salvation of the elect is a special and outstanding under God's glory Christ’s death was destined: Yet I deny that it was the unique or sole end. For God sent his Son into the world, and willed him to die, not only that he might efficaciously save the elect, but also that remission of sins and eternal life might be generally offered to any human beings whatever in the Gospel, and even conferred, if they believed. But this general or conditional covenant is not understood as established unless Christ’s death by God’s ordination is presupposed applicable to all human beings, and to be applied in fact to anyone as soon as he has believed. Scripture has clearly indicated this end in many places: (John 3:14–15): As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And (John 6:40): This is the will of my Father who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. (Acts 10:43): To him all the Prophets bear witness, that through his name everyone who believes in him receives remission of sins. I pass over the rest. From these it is plain enough that, although not all but the elect alone believe, God specially softening their hearts, yet Christ’s death was so offered by the Son to God the Father, so also offered indiscriminately by God the Father to human beings, so announced promiscuously to all by Evangelical ministers, that anyone may gather from this that there is a certain firm and stable ordination of God according to which Christ’s death pertains to all human beings. The those not chosen by their unbelief make this ordination useless to themselves: an ordination to be counted as nothing, or to be acknowledged as by no means established by Christ’s death as regards these unbelievers. For if we admit this, any unbeliever could plead, Even if I had believed the Gospel, I would not have been freed from sins by Christ’s death, because Christ’s death had no ordination according to which I could have been partaker of it. Which is diametrically contrary to the words of Christ himself (John 3:17–18): God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned; but whoever does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is what holy Prosper says: The death of Christ has indeed in itself what would profit all; but if it is not drunk, it does not heal. That it has in itself what can profit all, it has from the general Divine ordination: but that it is not drunk by many through faith, happens from common human unbelief: that it is drunk by some, comes from special Divine pity.

Cap. 3 Obj. 16: Application already firm in the death itself — so not applicable where not applied§27

Cap. 3 Obj. 17 (ultima) and Cap. 3 close: Places naming the elect do not cancel the race-wide covenant§28

Cap. 4 Tip: Thesis 2 — Christ died sufficiently for all by ordained sufficiency, not bare price-value§29

29Cap. 4. Thesis 2 is proposed, explained, and established. In our first thesis we tried to show that Christ’s death or merit, constituted by God, set forth in the sacred Scriptures, and to be considered by us, is a universal remedy applicable to all human beings unto salvation by God’s ordination. And for this reason we do not hesitate to assert that Christ died for all human beings, inasmuch as he underwent a death by whose merit and power all and each mortal who obeys the Gospel can be freed from death and obtain eternal salvation. But because some so concede that Christ died for all that with the same breath they assert he died for the elect alone, and so explain the received distinction of the Theologians — He died for all sufficiently, for the predestinate efficaciously — that they plainly extinguish the former limb, we will add a second thesis that will furnish occasion for disputing the matter on purpose, which until now we have only lightly touched in passing. This second thesis, then, will be cast in this form (pardon it if somewhat long): The death of Christ is acknowledged as the universal cause of human salvation, and Christ himself as having died sufficiently for all human beings, not by reason of mere sufficiency or inherent worth, according to which the death of God is a price more than sufficient for redeeming a thousand worlds, but by reason of the Evangelical covenant stabilized by the merit of this death with the whole human race, and of the Divine ordination depending thereon, according to which, under the possible condition of faith, remission of sins and eternal life are decreed to be exhibited, for the merits of the dead Christ, to any human being who will believe.

In treating this thesis we will do two things: First, we will untie certain terms that need explanation. Second, we will partition this thesis of ours into certain members and confirm them one by one with several arguments. First, then, it falls to be explained what we mean by bare sufficiency, and what by that which is commonly admitted by Theologians, that Christ died sufficiently for all. If we speak of the price of redemption, that lytron is to be acknowledged sufficient which answers equally to the captive’s debt, or which satisfies the demand of him in whose power it is to free this captive. Equality, whether of thing to thing, or to the demands of him who has dominion over the captive, constitutes what we call bare sufficiency. This will be illustrated by examples. Suppose my brother is held in prison for a debt of a thousand pounds. If I have as many pounds laid up in my chest, I can truly affirm, This silver is sufficient to dissolve my brother’s debt and free him from the debt. Yet so long as it is not yet offered for him, a bare sufficiency of the thing is understood, and it is estimated from value alone, while the act of offering that very lytron is still lacking, without which the aforesaid sufficiency effects nothing. By like reason, if many are condemned to death for the crime of treason, and the King himself against whom the crime was committed covenants that he is willing to be reconciled to all for whom his Son deigns to undergo death: already the Son’s death is by pact constituted a sufficient lytron for redeeming all for whom it shall be offered; but if there are any for whom that lytron is not yet offered, as to them it has only a bare and mere sufficiency, which is thought from the thing’s value considered in itself, not that which is understood from the offerer’s act. I add: even if we admit that the aforesaid lytron is not only sufficient by equality of thing to thing and by the demand of him who requires nothing further for redeeming captives, but is also greater and better by infinite degrees and exceeds all their debts, yet if the mind and act of offering for certain captives do not accompany it, although such a lytron be ever so copious and superabundant when viewed in itself and from its internal value, still what was said of sufficiency must be said of superabundance: it is a mere superabundance of the thing, and has as yet effected nothing for freeing the aforesaid persons.

To this mere sufficiency, which looks to nothing else than an equal or superabundant dignity of the appointed price for the thing to be redeemed, I oppose another, which for clarity’s sake I will call ordained sufficiency. That is understood when the thing that has the character of a lutron or redeeming price not only equals or by dignity surpasses the thing to be redeemed, but is moreover ordained to redeem it by some will and act of the offerer. Thus a thousand talents stored in a Prince’s treasury may be called a sufficient lytron for redeeming ten citizens captured by an enemy; but if the mind and act of offering and giving these talents for these captives, or for some of them, do not accompany it, as to those for whom it is not given a mere, not ordained, sufficiency of the thing is supposed. But add the act and mind of offering them for freeing certain persons, and then at last ordained sufficiency is asserted as to those alone. Further, this ordained sufficiency of the lytron for redeeming a captive can be twofold: Absolute, when between the one who gives and the one who receives this redeeming price for freeing captives it is so agreed that as soon as the price is paid, by the very fact of payment the captives are at once freed. Conditioned, when the price is accepted not that the captive be at once paid for and restored to liberty, but that he be freed under a condition, if he first does this or that. When we say that Christ died sufficiently for all, we understand not a mere sufficiency of the thing with a defect of oblation as to the greater part of human beings, but that ordained sufficiency which had joined to it the mind and act of the offerer, and that for all, yet by that conditioned, not absolute, ordination which we have expressed. In a word, when we affirm that Christ died sufficiently for all, we mean this: that there was in the victim itself a sufficiency or equivalence, indeed a superabundance, of price or dignity if compared to the whole human race; and that in the offerer and the accepter there was a certain ordination according to which the aforesaid victim was offered and accepted for the redemption of all human beings. Let this suffice for explaining the first term.

Cap. 4 Terms 2–3: Evangelical covenant from the blood; possible faith; three members announced§30

30Second, that also must be explained which was set down in the thesis, namely that by the merit of the aforesaid death of Christ a certain new covenant has been sanctioned between God and the human race. By this covenant we understand that which is urged by the Apostle in (Galatians 3:11): Believe, and you shall live, and is set over against the legal, Do this and you shall live. This very pact, which promises salvation to any sinner under the condition of faith, has its foundation and firmament nowhere else than in the Mediator’s blood: without which poured out, not even by believing could any mortal aspire to eternal life. But when Christ’s death has been accepted by God as a lytron, it is now lawful without distinction for any human being to ascend into heaven by believing, as the Apostle shows in (Romans 3:21–26) and Christ himself in (Mark 16:15), Go, etc. In this Evangelical covenant, then, stabilized by Christ’s death, which the Apostles published to the whole world and Evangelical ministers still preach, no respect of persons is had. Esau will be saved, if he believes in the Messiah, as much as Jacob; Jacob will be damned, if he does not believe, as much as Esau. Yet it must be confessed that there is also another ordination of God, secret and absolute, looking to certain definite persons, and founded also in Christ’s death, which receives the name of the New Covenant. But this is understood rather as a pact between God the Father and Christ than between God and us. It is that which is recalled by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 53:10): If he shall have set his soul for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed; and is explained by the Apostle (Hebrews 8:10): This is the covenant that I will make, etc. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their heart, etc. — as if to say that by his death Christ not only stabilized that conditioned covenant which can be promulgated to all and each under this formula, If you believe, whoever you are, you will be saved through Christ’s death, but also that secret and absolute one concerning faith to be given to certain human beings, and those same to be saved infallibly through and on account of Christ. It is to be noted, however, that this latter covenant is known to Christ alone, and cannot through Christ’s ministers be made plain to anyone as to the singular persons it embraces. For the Apostles themselves could, and we can, preach to any human being that conditioned and revealed covenant, If you believe, you will be saved; but neither they could, nor can we, promise anyone infallibly, You are of those whom God gave to Christ the Mediator, and whom through and on account of Christ he will gift with persevering faith and lead infallibly to eternal life. For that would be as if we professed we had been of God’s counsel before the foundations of the world were laid, and could point out elect and those not chosen with the finger. Without this latter covenant, which is more abilized between God and the Mediator than between God and human beings, that former conditioned one would by human wickedness and unbelief be void in all human beings, and that precious blood of infinite merit would flow away into emptiness. Yet because, as has been said, God alone knows those to whom this covenant looks, it is ours to urge and press that former conditioned covenant revealed to us: and that is what we defend as stabilized by Christ’s death with the whole human race. Finally this too is to be observed. Although that conditioned covenant is not actually published to each human being, yet it is of such a kind that it can be published and announced to any mortal: although individuals do not claim their right in this covenant for themselves, yet there is no one to whom it is not lawful, by the merit of Christ’s death, to promise this to himself and claim it from the pact, If I believe, I will be saved. It is stabilized as to all and each, but by a certain special providence of God governing the matter it is revealed and announced to these, not to those.

It remains third to explain what was set down in the thesis concerning the Divine ordination depending on the aforesaid covenant, according to which remission of sins and eternal life are decreed to be exhibited to any human being under the possible condition of faith. And here that one point needs explanation, that we affirm the condition of faith to be possible for each one. We do not want this so understood as if each one had in himself a natural intrinsic principle proportioned to eliciting an act of true and living faith. For that was the error of Faustus of Riez and the Semi-Pelagians, who ascribe faith to free choice and dream that the gift of believing is as it were naturally inborn and fixed in it. To this look those words of Faustus, On Free Choice, book 2, chapter 6: You see that the good of believing is not a novel privilege but an old one, and that from the very beginnings of the coalescing world the human mind was gifted by the highest Author with faith as with intellect and reason. And lest anyone think this gift of faith lost in fallen man, a little later he adds chapter 7: Let any pursuer of virtue cultivate in himself by special study this general gift of faith. See more in that sense. Although therefore he calls faith a gift, he still hints that it is a natural and general gift, and that anyone can elicit this act of believing by the powers of free choice. But this we wholly abhor, and we do not look to it when we say the condition of faith is possible. Further, neither do we found this possibility of believing in some supernatural gift already received by all. For we do not dare to maintain that gratuitous and sufficient helps for bringing forth the act of believing are given to all and each; since sacred Scripture itself clearly teaches that faith is a special gift of God. It remains, then, that with the most learned Báñez we found the possibility of performing this condition neither in some natural and innate gift, nor in a supernatural gift received by all, but in a supernatural gift possibly to be received by any wayfarer, according to the ordinary law, as the School speaks. These things thus set out and established, I will now divide the aforesaid thesis into three members, which I will confirm separately with reasons brought forward.

Cap. 4 Mem. 1 Rat. 1–2: Bare intrinsic sufficiency cannot ground ‘died sufficiently for all’§31

311. The mere sufficiency of Christ’s death, which is estimated from the intrinsic value alone of this lutron, without that ordained sufficiency which arises from the mind and act of offering, does not avail so far that Christ may truly be said to have died sufficiently for all. I thought this thesis should be added because of those who hold tightly that Christ died for the elect alone, and yet (I confess I am too slow to understand how) admit that Christ died sufficiently for all; and sometimes exalt this thing, a sufficiency spreading itself to all human beings, in very strong words. For they confess that Christ died for all human beings, for all orders, states, and kinds of human beings, indeed even for individual human beings as to the sufficiency of merits. The Contra-Remonstrants in the Judgment exhibited to the Synod of Dort write thus: When Christ is said to have died for all, this can be understood of the sufficiency of the merit, or the magnitude of the price. For the death of the Son of God is the one perfect and sufficient ransom for expiating and blotting out all the sins of the whole world: an immense merit of righteousness, a universal remedy for death, a perennial fountain of life, etc. A little later: This sufficiency of the ransom, as to the reprobate, has a twin end, one of itself, the other by accident. The end of itself, that God may make it plain he does not delight in the destruction of human beings, inasmuch as he gave his only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). The end by accident, that by this sufficiency of the ransom they may be rendered inexcusable. For these perish not by Christ’s fault but by their own, when by their unbelief they repudiate the benefits offered by Christ in the Gospel. So far they. This sufficiency of Christ’s death for reconciling all, I deny can be rightly conceived from a bare sufficiency of the thing offered, unless an ordained sufficiency from the offerer’s act accompanies it. Which can be proved thus.

When we say that Christ died sufficiently for all, we say nothing else than that he was offered sufficiently for all, or that he gave himself as a lytron or price of redemption sufficiently for all. But to die for all, or to be offered for all, or to give oneself for all, designates the act of one dying or offering himself, terminated under some ordination to freeing all. Therefore the mere sufficiency of the lytron, without the mind and act of the offerer terminated to persons, cannot make true this assertion, Christ died sufficiently for all. For common sense refuses that one should be granted to have died sufficiently for all who is denied to have died or been offered for some. And while the intrinsic sufficiency of the lytron for redeeming a thousand worlds stands and is conceded, it can at the same time stand that this same lytron has not yet been offered in any way for many human beings, much less sufficiently offered. For just as for freeing five debtors who each owe two hundred pounds, ten thousand pounds are more than enough; yet if this whole sum is offered and paid to the creditor by name for two only, the other three excluded, the sufficiency and superabundance in itself of this lytron will not make it that it was sufficiently given and paid for those three: so in this common cause of the human race, although Christ’s precious blood is a lytron more than sufficient for canceling the debts of all and each, yet it would not thence be affirmed to have been sufficiently offered for those who are discretely excluded in the very act of offering. They seem therefore not so much to interpret as to mock this most received and most true pronouncement of the Theologians, Christ died sufficiently for all, who transfer this term sufficiently from the mind and act of the one dying to a bare sufficiency or intrinsic value of the death considered in itself; as if the sense were, Christ’s death in itself has sufficient merit and value for blotting out the sins of all human beings, but Christ was not offered or dead for all — when the clear sense of this saying is that Christ died for all, and died sufficiently for all, although what he sufficiently offered for all is not efficaciously applied to all because of the intervening obstacle of unbelief.

In this distinction of the Scholastics, which our men commonly admit — namely that Christ died for all sufficiently, for the predestinate efficaciously — those words sufficiently and efficaciously denote what in the very mode of oblation was common to all human beings, elect and those not chosen alike, and what was peculiar to the elect alone. Common to sufficiently dead or offered for them as a victim to God the Father. But how will this former term, sufficiently, be referred promiscuously to elect and those not chosen, if it designates a bare sufficiency of the thing, excluding e thing to persons that arises from the offerer’s mind and act? Or what need is there of that latter term, efficaciously, to constitute a distinction in the mode of oblation or in the offerer’s intention as to elect and those not chosen, if there was absolutely no intention of Christ offering himself te alone? A bimembral distinction is frivolous and plainly inept where both members are not presupposed in the thing distinguished. It is to be observed, then, that the holy Fathers, urging the universal sufficiency of Christ’s death, do not stick in a bare sufficiency of the thing, but in the act, mind, and very mode of offering. So repeatedly Athanasius in the treatise On the Incarnation of the Word. I will set down one golden place: Christ the Son of God, having borrowed a body like ours, because we all were liable to death, sacrificed to his Father that same body given over to death for all. Likewise: After the monuments of his Divinity had been displayed, it remained that he should offer a sacrifice for all, delivering his temple to death for all, that he might make all free from the old transgression, etc. You see that the note of universality is joined not with the intrinsic sufficiency of the thing offered, but with the mind and act of the offerer, which looked to all. So Augustine: Christ’s blood was so poured out for the remission of all sins that it could blot out even the very sin by which it was poured. He does not say that in the blood poured out there is a sufficient intrinsic value for expiating all human beings’ sins, which is confessed among all who know how to estimate God’s blood rightly; but he urges the mode and act of offering, and in that constitutes this universality: It was so poured for the remission of all sins. It is one thing to say that Christ’s blood has from itself and in itself a sufficient value for blotting out all human beings’ sins; another to affirm that it was poured by the very fact for the remission of all sins, which Augustine said. But why do I recall the holy Fathers? Holy Scripture so speaks of Christ’s death that it does not refer its universal force to the bare dignity of the victim offered, but to the act and mind of the offerer (1 Timothy 2:6): He gave himself a price of redemption for all. The Apostle does not say, This lytron in itself and in its intrinsic value is sufficient for redeeming all, but was in truth given for a few, not for all; but, He gave himself for all. The mind and act, then, of Christ giving himself embraced all. So also of the Father sending the Son; So God loved the world, etc. (John 3:16). That bare sufficiency of the thing, then, does not avail so far that Christ may be affirmed to have died sufficiently for all, without a sufficiency ordained toward all from the offerer’s mind and act.

Cap. 4 Mem. 1 Rat. 3: Sufficient for humans as denied for fallen angels — objection and reply§32

Cap. 4 Mem. 1 Rat. 4 and close: Piscator/Pareus; intent vs ordination; first member closed§33

Cap. 4 Mem. 2: Death endured for all by the Evangelical covenant founded in the blood§34

34Christ’s death, by reason of the Evangelical covenant established with all human beings through it, is affirmed as truly endured for all human beings, and Christ in the same respect is asserted to have died sufficiently for all... We designate that pact of which we made mention before: If you have believed, you will be saved; or, Whoever has believed will be saved (Romans 10:9). That this pact concerning granting remission of sins, and concerning human beings to be saved by faith, has been sanctioned by the blood and death of the Son of God, first appears from the sacred Scriptures. In the institution of the Lord’s Supper Christ himself says (Luke 22:20): This cup is that new testament in my blood, which is poured out for you. As if he had said, The wine is a symbol of the Lord’s blood, by which blood that new covenant concerning remission of sins and our justification by faith is sanctioned and stabilized. And the Apostle (Hebrews 9:22): Without shedding of blood there is no remission. That covenant therefore entered with human beings, by which God bound himself to remit the sins of believers, has its firmness in Christ’s death. The same Apostle (Romans 3:25) teaches that God set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, for declaring his righteousness through the remission of sins that were before. In Christ’s blood or death, then, this Evangelical covenant is founded, according to which by faith remission of sins, justification, and eternal salvation are conferred on human beings.

Not to be long in a matter clear enough: since this conditioned promise, If you have believed, you will be saved, flows from God’s gracious affection toward human beings, it cannot have its foundation elsewhere than in the death and merit of Christ the Mediator, in whom all God’s free promises are Yes and Amen (2 Corinthians 1:20). For the act of faith itself is not of such worth that by its own dignity or merit it could obtain from God remission of sins and salvation; but the death and blood of the Son of God are of such worth that by their merit and power they can justify and save any believer according to the tenor of the Evangelical covenant. Through Christ’s death, therefore, this covenant has been stabilized.

Cap. 4 Mem. 2: Elect-only offer objection fails — conditional truth needs a universal pact§35

Cap. 4 Mem. 2 close: Adversaries’ concessions; Gospel announceability to every nation§36

36But perhaps someone may say: Even if this pact stabilized by Christ’s blood pertains not promiscuously to all human beings but to the elect alone, yet remission and salvation can be proposed and offered to all under the hypothesis of faith, because it is certain that the elect alone will perseveringly believe; and therefore no one of the those not chosen will ever be able to charge that this conditioned covenant s to himself, or violated. But this reply is of no moment. For the truth of any conditional proposition is to be conceived before the positing of the condition: indeed, although the condition is never going to come into act, still the truth of a rightly instituted conditional proposition ought to stand. Here, then, the conditional proposition or promise, If you have believed, your sins will be remitted to you, is false as to Cain or Judas unless a true foundation of the connexion is given, if it should happen that they believe. Nor does it matter at all to the truth of a conditioned proposition whether they are going to believe or not; since in such a proposition the ratio of the connexion is looked to, not the truth or falsity of the parts taken separately. If Peter shall have denied Christ, he will obtain eternal life, is a false proposition because of the weakness of the connexion, and yet each part separately was true. If Peter shall not have believed, he will not obtain eternal life, is a true proposition, and yet each part taken apart was false: for Peter both believed and obtained eternal life. By like reason, then, this conditional pronouncement, If you have believed, you will obtain remission of sins and eternal life, would be false as to any those not chosen person, even if he is supposed never going to believe, if the e of the connexion is lacking: but it is lacking unless that conditioned pact is asserted stabilized with all and each human being. For it does not follow: God in Christ’s death sanctioned a covenant concerning saving all the elect by faith: Therefore if Cain shall have believed, he will be saved. That conditioned covenant is therefore stabilized with the whole human race.

3. We prove that this Evangelical pact stabilized in Christ’s death, concerning giving salvation under the condition of faith, is universal, by urging this same reason further, and that from the concessions of those who seem to oppose us. Those therefore who try most of all to restrict Christ’s death nevertheless concede that by the merit of Christ’s death there is some way and ratio constituted by which any unbeliever can escape merited condemnation, namely if he believes. They concede that Christ’s death would abundantly have sufficed for saving all human beings, if as many human beings as are in the whole world believed in him. They concede finally that the word of the Gospel concerning Christ crucified is announced indiscriminately to elect and those not chosen, and all are commanded to believe in him, with this promise in him will obtain remission of sins. These things posited, I argue thus: If as many human beings as are in the whole world would obtain remission of sins and salvation if they believed, then there is firmed by Christ’s death a universal pact concerning saving any human being under the aforesaid condition of faith: But the first is true: Therefore also the second. The reason of the consequence is this: Because that conditional which they admit as much as to those not chosen as to elect — namely, If you have believed, whoever at length d — does not have necessary truth from the nature of the thing, as these do, If there is fire, it is hot, or, If it is a human being, it is an animal: it remains therefore that it have its truth founded in some voluntary ordination of God, by which he himself sanctioned that as to any human being, the antecedent being posited in being, the consequent also would be posited. For no third foundation can be assigned on which the truth of the aforesaid conditional rests. Therefore it must be confessed that that Evangelical pact is universal from God’s own ordination, and looks equally to all and each human being.

If anyone here objects that the Gospel itself was never announced to all human beings, and therefore neither does that Evangelical pact embrace the whole human race, or pertain to all and each, I reply: it does not follow, The Evangelical pact is not announced to this nation, or to this singular human being, Therefore as to them it was not sanctioned or stabilized: But this rightly follows, The Evangelical pact is not of itself Announceable to this nation, or to this human being, Therefore it pertains to them in no way. For other causes of the Gospel’s not being announced can underlie, while we still confess it announceable to all; which causes it is not of the present design to search out. We say therefore that in any age, to any nation, and to any human being, remission of sins in the Redeemer’s death under the condition of faith could truly have been announced. So in the time of the Old Testament this covenant was revealed to Job the foreigner. So in our age if an Evangelical Minister came to the Antipodes, he would not wait for a new stabilization of this conditioned covenant as to them, but at once, acknowledging it as stabilized, would announce it to them. And hence it is that the Apostle calls this word of the Gospel a mystery hidden from ages and generations, but now made manifest, and so on (Colossians 1:26). He therefore acknowledged it stabilized from eternity with the human race, although hidden or made manifest to these or those according to the Divine good pleasure. See (Romans 16:25–26) and (Ephesians 3:5) and 9.

Cap. 4 Mem. 3 tip: ‘Died for’ is not ‘infallibly predestined to save’ — Scripture§37

Cap. 4 Mem. 3: Fathers on ‘pro’; dual respect of the death; conditional decree for all§38

38From the Scriptures let us descend to the Fathers. It is plain among them that this proposition, Christ died for these human beings, does not avail in the same way as this, Christ will by his death save these human beings infallibly. We will be content with a few testimonies, because the matter is most well known to those who are even moderately versed in the Fathers’ writings. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, affirms that Christ suffered for all, and yet at once adds that those who do not believe in Christ defraud themselves of this general benefit. Therefore for Ambrose, Christ suffering for someone, and deciding by his passion that someone is to be saved infallibly, do not sound the same. Prosper, to the Chapters of the Gauls, reply 6: Most rightly is the Savior said to have been crucified for the redemption of the whole world. Yet the same affirms, Sentence 9, that although Christ’s blood is the price of the whole world, yet those are strangers from this price who, delighted with their captivity, were unwilling to be redeemed. So that of these it is rightly said, The Redeemer of the world gave his blood for the world, and the world was unwilling to be redeemed — to the Chapters of the Gauls, reply 9. Therefore with Prosper these two are not counted as of equal force: Christ was crucified for these, and Christ will procure that these be saved infallibly. Theophylact on (Hebrews 2:9): God gave his Son to us unto death, not for the faithful only, but for the whole circle of the lands. For although not all are saved, yet he fulfilled what was of his office. From which words it is plain that for Theophylact it is not the same if someone has said, Christ was given by God that he might die for all, as if he had said, Christ by God’s absolute good pleasure will save all through his death. I pass over more testimonies.

Finally I add this. From the mere force of these words, Christ died for all, it cannot be inferred that Christ died for all in such a way that he decreed through this death to save all effectively and infallibly: for he is truly and properly said to die for someone who dies for procuring another’s good, even if that other by his own vice perceives no advantage thence. For the particle for denotes a respect to another in the will and intention of the one dying; but it does not perpetually and necessarily involve such a respect that no one is rightly said to die for another unless he has decreed by his death to free the other absolutely and infallibly from death. For what if under some condition he renders liberation from death possible for guilty human beings, which without his death was impossible? Is he not by this alone truly asserted dead for them? Ambrose asserts it, who writes that Christ came for the salvation of all, and undertook the redemption of all, inasmuch as he opened a remedy by which all could escape, although there are many who ascribe the causes of their death to themselves, because they were unwilling to be cured. We do not therefore deny that the particle for in the sacred Scriptures, when Christ’s death is treated, sometimes designates that special intention according to which liberation from death and transfer into life is infallibly destined for those for whom he is asserted dead: but that this is so perpetual or necessary that the truth of this assertion, Christ died for all, does not stand unless it is posited that he had that absolute intention of saving all — that at last we utterly deny. You see now that that secret and absolute good pleasure concerning saving human beings, according to the inscrutable order of predestination, is not necessary for this, that Christ be rightly and truly said to have suffered and died for all.

What then is necessary? I will say in few words. Since Christ’s death has a double respect, one to God, to whom this precious lytron was offered and paid, the other to human beings, for whom it was offered and paid: Christ is said to have suffered, been offered, or died for all, if by his death and passion it is established that he effected that God himself is understood otherwise disposed toward giving eternal life to all human beings than he would be without this death of Christ; and also if it is established that any human being has, by the virtue of Christ’s death, some right of claiming for himself remission of sins and eternal life, which with this death shut out he could in no way have or claim. Either of these clearly shows that the force of Christ’s death extends itself to the whole human race, and therefore that we speak neither falsely nor improperly when we say that Christ died for all human beings.

As to the former: It is certain that, with respect to Christ’s death, God’s will is now otherwise compared toward all and each human being than it would be without it. For by this very thing, that Christ in his human nature suffered death, without any other medium intervening, this at least has been effected with God, that he wills to be reconciled to any human being believing and penitent, to remit sins, to confer eternal life. Hence for Cain, if he has done well and repented, remission is prepared on God’s part (Genesis 4:7). Hence to any wicked person it is said in God’s own name, If he shall have turned from his sins, he shall altogether live, he shall not die (Ezekiel 18:21). Take away the respect of Christ’s death present to the Divine mind and embracing the human race, and nothing true, solid, or serious would underlie promises of this kind as to the those not chosen. For the promise of conditioned remission ought to have its o less than the remission itself which is granted when the condition is performed. Nor does anything avail to break this universal force which Christ’s death obtained with God, that no one of the those not chosen fulfills that Evangelical condition of faith and penitence; the force of Christ’s death, and of the Divine ordination stabilized through it, if the condition were fulfilled by any human being, the benefit of remission and eternal life would doubtless follow.

Now as to what looks to the latter: that also is certain and connected, that any human being can claim for himself this right by the benefit of Christ’s death, that if he has believed, at once all his sins are deleted, and he himself is adopted as heir of eternal life. For although, because of defect of the fulfilled condition, many cannot in fact claim these promised goods, yet there is no mortal who, if the condition had been fulfilled by him, would not have had them redound upon him from the force of Christ’s death. This conditioned decree of God stabilized by Christ’s death, and revealed in the Gospel — from which we understand that God by the virtue of Christ’s passion has obliged himself to give remission of sins and eternal life to every believer, and from which there has accrued a universal right not to these or those singular persons, but to any individual of the human race, of obtaining remission under the aforesaid condition — sufficiently suffices for this, that Christ be truly asserted to have suffered for all human beings. Nor is this conditioned decree firmed by Christ’s death and extended to all to be despised as a thing of nothing because the infallible fulfillment of the condition depends on another secret decree: since that secret decree, inasmuch as it embraces these or those singular persons, is utterly unknown to us, and therefore is scarcely to be preached to anyone by name; but this conditioned decree, which comprehends the whole human race, is to be announced to all and each, as the most solid foundation of our Evangelical doctrine, according to that of the Apostle (Romans 10:8–9, 11): This is that word of faith which we preach, namely, That if you shall have confessed with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall have believed in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For the Scripture says, Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. This benefit by the virtue of Christ’s death is exposed and obtainable to all human beings under the condition of faith; and in that respect Christ is affirmed dead for all.

Cap. 4 Mem. 3: Faith-condition not impossible for any viator — passive potency§39

39We have taught that Christ died for all human beings, in this sense: that through Christ’s death an Evangelical covenant has been stabilized with the whole human race, according to which remission of sins and eternal life is exposed to all human beings under a possible condition of faith. Certain persons, fixing the eyes of their mind only on the secret of predestination and reprobation, cannot grasp how Christ, faith, remission of sins, eternal life, or any spiritual and saving good can pertain in any way, or under any possible condition, to those who were not included in the number of the predestinate before the foundations of the world were laid — even though Christ may be offered to them in Evangelical preaching, faith may be required of them, and remission and eternal life to be obtained through Christ may be promised to them under that very condition of faith. Briefly, then, we will show that this condition of faith, which is required for this, that Christ’s death endured for all be singularly applied to this or that person, neither is, nor ought to be conceived by us as, utterly impossible for any wayfarer. Here it must be recalled to memory what we warned from the beginning: that this possibility is founded in a supernatural help possibly to be received by anyone while we are here on the way; according to that celebrated saying of Prosper of Aquitaine: This is the difference between bad human beings and demons, that for human beings, even very bad ones, reconciliation still remains, if God has mercy; but for demons no conversion is reserved forever (Objection of Vincent, reply 6).

First, then, when we say that faith, or believing, is something possible for any wayfarer, we look not to an active and formal power, as if any wayfarer could by the liberty of his own choice elicit this act of believing; but to a passive power, as they call it, and a material one, because in any wayfarer this can be effected by God, that he be converted and believe the Gospel. For we are said to be able to do something in two ways, as Aquinas well observed: namely either by a power that is in us, as we say that a stone can be moved downward; or by a power considered on another’s part, as we say that a stone can be moved upward, not by an innate power, but by the power of the one throwing it. In this manner we affirm that any wayfarer can believe; or that the condition of faith is possible for any wayfarer, not by a proximate power residing in himself, but by a supernatural help which can be supplied by God at any moment to any wayfarer; according to that of John the Baptist (Luke 3:8): I say to you that God is able even from these stones to raise up children of Abraham. Therefore no heart is so hardened and stony that it cannot be softened by God and bent to faith and penitence. This is what Augustine signified in other words when he wrote that being able to have faith is of the nature of human beings, but having it is of the grace of the faithful (On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 5). To this the same Augustine also alluded in the Soliloquies, book 1, chapter 1, where when he had said, Let us believe, if this is in our power, he at once adds, Our power is God himself.

Cap. 4 Mem. 3: Absolute vs ordinary power — faith possible by ordinary power§40

40Second, when we refer this possibility of having faith to God’s active power, and to the human being’s receptive power, this is to be understood not of God’s absolute power only, but of God’s ordinary power. For among Theologians some things are called possible by God’s absolute power, some by ordinary power. It will not be foreign to our purpose to give this distinction explained in a few words. That, then, is called possible by God’s absolute power which from the nature of the thing does not involve a contradiction if it were done; that, on the contrary, is impossible which would involve a contradiction. And under this consideration, as Thomas rightly has it, whatever can have the ratio of a being is counted among these absolute possibles; but among impossibles, what cannot have the ratio of a being — such as whatever implies in itself to be and not to be at once. That such things are not subject to Divine omnipotence argues no defect in God. Because just as there is no defect of the power of sight when it is not directed to what is not visible, so neither is there a defect of absolute power because it is not terminated to what is impossible. It therefore suffices for establishing God’s omnipotence that he can do whatever is possible to be done: but of those things that are otherwise disposed it is more fittingly said that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do such things. To this some refer that of (Luke 1:37): No word will be impossible with God — that is, Whatever can be conceived by any intellect without implication of contradiction, that can be done by God. The norm, then, for judging what God can do by absolute power ought to be taken from the thing itself; because where there is no defect of possibility on the thing’s part, there is no defect of power on God’s part.

But this absolute power is not the one we properly and proximately look to in our thesis, but rather that which we call ordinary. That is taken in relation to some common law given and promulgated by God, according to which something is understood as possible to be done or not done, or also according to the common course of natural or moral things, as Báñez rightly has it. In this sense we affirm that, however unknown to us the secret decree of the Divine will may be concerning giving or not giving faith to singular persons, yet because there is no common law promulgated by God deciding the opposite, we ought to pronounce concerning any wayfarer that the condition of faith and penitence is possible for him according to God’s ordinary power: just as, on the contrary, we rightly say that according to ordained or ordinary power faith and penitence are already impossible for any damned person.

Cap. 4 Mem. 3: Triple proof — mercy, Christ the Head, viator vs damned§41

41That possibility of having faith, which looks to any wayfarer, is confirmed by a triple argument. First, one drawn from Divine mercy. For God, as Prosper speaks, takes from no one (still constituted on the way) the path of correction, nor strips anyone of the possibility of good. Moreover he has fixed a law concerning granting remission of sins and eternal life to any penitent and believing person: I do not will the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live (Ezekiel 33:11). Therefore not only according to God’s absolute power, but according to ordinary power, any unbeliever and impious person can be gifted with true penitence and saving faith. Of the unbelieving Jews the Apostle truly says (Romans 11:23): God is able to graft them in again. And of all contumacious sinners it is rightly affirmed in God’s person (Revelation 2:21): I gave them time that they might repent, and they were unwilling to repent. He who has so granted human beings the whole span of this life that in any moment of it conversion to God can be saving for them, according to that most celebrated saying of the Prophet (Ezekiel 18:21–22), If the wicked shall have done penitence from all his sins, etc., I will not remember all his iniquities — the same has also reserved to himself that according to his ordained power he can infuse the grace of faith and penitence into anyone not yet damned to the underworld. Hence it is that we ought to put no one outside a possible state of salvation whom God’s patience allows to live.

Second, the same can be shown by an argument drawn from the respect of Christ the Head toward any of the wayfarers. For although a natural head does not have power of influencing except into members conjoined and united, yet this mystical Head can act upon separated members and pour into them vivifying grace by which they are united to him. In which sense Aquinas not inconveniently lays down (Part 3, question 8, article 1) that Christ is the head of all human beings, but according to diverse degrees. He is called Head principally of those who are united to him by glory, or by grace actually communicated; less principally of those who according to God’s ordinary law can still be united to him, whether that power is to be reduced into act or not: but of those who are in no potency to receive Christ’s influx he can in no way be called Head. Such, however, ought to be judged all and only the damned; because according to God’s promulgated will there is no redemption from the underworld. The power of having faith, then, as to anyone still constituted in this life, is founded in the most sufficient virtue of Christ the Head for influencing, and in the aforesaid mercy of God, who according to the common law willed the whole span of this life to lie open for receiving.

Last, that the condition of penitence and faith, under which Christ’s death is applicable to any human being unto salvation, is possible while we live here, is plain from the diverse condition of human beings while they are wayfarers and after they have come to the term. By the consent of all Theologians the will of any wayfarer is for this state flexible toward the good; just as, on the contrary, the will of the damned for that state is immoveably hardened in evil. However clear it is. That after this life the state of bad human beings is immobile and plainly immutable, no one doubts. For as Damascene rightly has it, book 2, chapter 4: What the fall is to angels, the same is death to human beings. If a tree shall have fallen, whether toward the south or toward the north, in whatever place it shall have fallen, there it will be (Ecclesiastes 11:3). On the contrary, the will is flexible and the malice of human beings constituted in this mortal life is mutable, so far that by God’s ordinary power any unbeliever can be illuminated, any impenitent converted — in a word, any impious person justified and saved. Whence that of the Apostle (2 Timothy 2:25–26): Those who are affected with a contrary mind are to be instructed with gentleness: if at some time God may give them that repenting they may acknowledge the truth and receive soundness of mind. He therefore hints that these things can still be done, and ought to be hoped for by us. Not unlike is that of Peter (2 Peter 3:9): The Lord is patient toward us, not willing that any perish, but that all tend to repentance. There is no other place for correcting morals than in this life, says Augustine, Letter 54. But in this life while we are, no time is either too late or too early for recovering the soul’s health, as Clement of Alexandria truly has it in the Stromata. Who is going to receive faith and penitence from God before he exits life, who is not going to receive, is a secret hanging from his will; but that the very power unto faith and penitence remains to the extreme period of this life — although such a power would indeed be in vain unless in some it were reduced to act; but that it is not reduced in all is to be referred partly to God’s secret will, partly to the manifest wickedness of human beings. Under both respects, from a capacity or power unto faith and salvation least reduced into act as to many, there follows for God a greater manifestation of his mercy toward the elect, a clearer manifestation of justice toward the impious unbelieving and impenitent: and therefore such a power is not granted them in vain. Alvarez well, On Helps, disputation 105: For some power not to be in vain, it is not required that it sometime be reduced to every act it can produce; but it suffices that it be reduced to some, or several. For just as no one would truly say that the power of perceiving the mathematical disciplines is given to human beings by nature in vain, although many capable of these disciplines do not find masters who actually instruct them in the same; so no one will have affirmed that this power of believing and repenting is present in vain to all wayfarers by God’s fixed law, although God does not effect in all that they believe, that they repent.

Cap. 4 Mem. 3: Abelard objection on eternal decree — Halensis/Aquinas/Scripture/Augustine§42

42That also is objected which seems to cast a greater scruple: that God from eternity not only foreknew but predestined to whom he will infallibly give faith, remission, and eternal life, and to whom he will not: But God cannot in time act otherwise, or otherwise than he from eternity foreknew and decreed that he would do. On this argument Abelard once boldly asserted that God cannot do anything beyond those things which he has done or is going to do. If this holds, since it is certain that as to the greater part of human beings God neither foreknew faith to be produced in them nor decreed it, there is no ground for our saying that this condition of faith is in any way possible as to the those not chosen still constituted in this life.

That God does or permits nothing without an antecedent eternal decree and eternal foreknowledge is most true. But if anyone thence concludes that God cannot do by ordinary power anything beyond those things which he foreknew and decreed to be done, that is most false. For as our Halensis rightly has it, Part 1, question 21, article 4, member 2: Divine power is limited neither by God’s will nor by his foreknowledge, although the egress of Divine power into act is always accompanied by his foreknowledge and will. Aquinas renders a reason of this matter fit enough, namely: Because the very doing is subject to the foreknowledge and ordination of the one doing; but not the very being-able, which is natural. For God therefore does something because he wills; yet he can not therefore because he wills, but because he is powerful by his nature (Part 1, question 25, article 5, to the first). The same Aquinas answers the aforesaid objection in form in the Disputed Questions On the Power of God, article 5, reply to 1, whose words I will set down: This locution, God CANNOT DO EXCEPT WHAT HE FOREKNOWS HE WILL DO, is twofold: because the exceptive particle EXCEPT is referred either to the power which is imported by the verb CAN, or to the act which is imported by the verb DO. If in the first way, then the locution is false: For God can do more things than he foreknows he will do. If in the second way, then the sense is that it cannot be that something is done by God and is not foreknown by God: so the locution is true; but this sense does nothing for the purpose. Thus far he. But because some so wholly lean on this contemplation of the eternal and secret will and foreknowledge that they admit almost nothing else into their minds, we will show briefly that neither the Scriptures, nor the Fathers, nor reason itself permit that according to these secret and eternal decrees of predestination it be established by us what is possible for God, or impossible, according to his ordinary power.

Let us begin from the Scriptures: which are accustomed not to restrict God’s power according to the secret decrees of his will, but to extend it according to God’s infinite strength, and according to the rule revealed in the word. (Matthew 3:9): God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham. (Matthew 19:26): All things are possible with God. And (Matthew 26:53): Can I not ask the Father, and he will exhibit to me more than twelve legions of angels? (Mark 14:36): All things are possible to you: transfer this cup from me. So also the Apostle speaks of the refractory Jews: God is able to graft them in again (Romans 11:23). And of any fallen human being: Who are you who judge another’s servant? To his own Lord he stands or falls. But he will stand: for God is able to make him stand (Romans 14:4). Finally of any wayfarer that is true: God is able to make all grace abound in him (2 Corinthians 9:8). I pass over more. From these it is plain enough that God’s power is least to be judged from his secret decrees: For he did not decree to raise children of Abraham from stones, nor to free Christ from the Jews’ hands, nor to raise and establish any fallen person, nor to pour the abundance of his grace into any and all: indeed he decreed and foreknew that he would least do all these things, which yet (if we are willing to hear the sacred Scriptures) are not therefore held for impossibles.

Augustine to this sense: Almighty God can do many things which he neither wills nor does. The same Father also presses the point in Judas himself, a reprobate beyond controversy: The Lord, he says, who raised Lazarus in the body — could he not raise Judas in the mind? He could indeed, but he was unwilling. What Augustine does not fear to affirm of Judas, let us intrepidly affirm of any wayfarer, the secret will or foreknowledge of God concerning the same notwithstanding: namely that God can raise anyone in the mind, that is, gift him with penitence and faith and saving grace; because of no particular human being has he revealed that he wills not this, and of each he has revealed that by ordinary power he can do this while he is still constituted on the way. On this will we ought to lean, and least to divine about the possibility or impossibility of things from a will utterly unknown to us.

Cap. 4 Mem. 3 close: Ordinary power not tied to secret decrees; Thesis 2 closed§43

43Finally reason itself teaches that ordinary Divine power is not restricted by the secret decrees of eternal predestination. First, because we little humans sense that our power is not constrained according to the decrees of our will. He who has most firmly decreed with himself not to give alms to this singular human being does not thence lose the power of giving: and on the contrary, he who has decreed to give to another does not thence take from himself the power of not giving. For just as he freely willed one of opposites, when he could have willed the other, so also he freely does the one, the power of doing the other not lost. If the matter so stands in a human being, whose power is mutable and can be lost, how much more in God, whose power is immutable, eternal, and always the same. Second, because if we posit God’s ordinary power bound to his eternal and occult decrees and as it were circumscribed, we could ask nothing from God with sure faith — I am not saying that he wills, but that he can help us. For example: if I sense myself struck by Satan himself with some heavy temptation, I cannot with the certainty of faith flee back to God as able to free me, because it is uncertain to me what he decreed from eternity about this matter. By like reason we could not pray God to convert any unbelievers to faith, to bring any impious persons back to penitence, with full persuasion that he can do what we ask; because what was decreed to God in secret before the foundations of the world about these things is hidden from us. Third, finally, because if nothing else is judged possible to be done besides those things which God decreed to be done, it would follow that Divine power is not infinite. For that power is finite which is equaled to finite effects and is brought forth into its whole act. But infinite power, as Halensis rightly has it, Part 1, question 21, Can be brought forth into act, but not into the whole. God can therefore do many things which he does not will — for example, gift any singular person whatever with faith, justify, save. Indeed, he can will many things which he does not will, and yet his will (as Lombard rightly has it, Book 1, Distinction 43, Letter E) Can be neither new nor mutable in any way. Which, although he can will what he never willed, yet not otherwise, nor by a new will, but only by a sempiternal will can he will. For he can will what from eternity he can have willed: for he has the power of willing, both now and from eternity, what yet he neither now wills nor from eternity willed. Thus far he.

We thought these things should be set out a little more fully, that it may stand clearer that Christ’s death is applicable to any wayfarer, because the condition of Faith and penitence is possible for any wayfarer, the secret decree of predestination or preterition in no way destroying or coarcting this power either on God’s part or on human beings’ part. Therefore those act with little consideration who try to overturn the universality of Christ’s death, pertaining to any human beings under the tenor of the Evangelical pact, by the decrees of occult election and preterition. So much for our second thesis: let us go on to the third.

Cap. 5 Thesis 3: Universal death placates for any believer — not actual grace before faith§44

44Chapter 5. The third thesis is proposed, illustrated, and confirmed.

We have already finished our prior theses, in which it was explained in what sense the death of Christ is to be acknowledged as a universal cause of human salvation; and it was also shown that those do not rightly understand the most received saying of the theologians, Christ died for all sufficiently, for the elect efficaciously, who admit a bare sufficiency of the thing considered in itself, and meanwhile exclude an ordered sufficiency of the same, belonging from the will of God to all and each human beings according to the tenor of the Evangelical pact, under a possible condition of faith. Now indeed, because on the other side some have been found who stretch this universal force and ordination of the death of Christ considered, by this alone that Christ offered himself on the altar of the cross for all, beyond what is equal, a third thesis will have to be added by us, which may set the limits to which this universal force of the death of Christ extends itself, and beyond which it by no means diffuses itself — this force which embraces the human race and arises from the passion of Christ itself, considered without any other medium. It will be of this sort.

The death or passion of Christ, as a universal cause of human salvation, has by the very fact of the oblation rendered God the Father so far placated and reconciled to the human race that he may truly now be said ready to receive any human being into grace as soon as he has believed in Christ; yet the aforesaid death of Christ places no one, at least of adults, into the state of grace, of actual reconciliation, or of salvation, before he believes.

There are two members of this thesis, which we will treat separately and confirm with arguments, when a few things have first been premised about the word reconciliation for a clearer understanding of the whole matter. It must therefore be known that God, offended by the sin of man, not only stripped him of his paternal favor and adjudged him to eternal death, but further firmly decreed never to be reconciled to us under any condition by anything we would ever do or suffer. Just as the offense of God was contained in these two quasi-grades, so our reconciliation is carried through in two other grades answering these as it were from the opposite side. The prior grade of reconciliation is understood as procured as soon as — although not by us, yet in our name — that was done whereby the Divine will is inclined so that it already wills to return into grace with us under some certain condition to be performed, and to impart remission of sins and eternal life. This grade of reconciliation we affirm procured for all human beings by the very force and the very merit of the Lord’s passion, without any other medium. And hence it is (as we annotated above) that the death of Christ is set forth as the redemption or reconciliation of the whole world: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). Into which sense Prosper, Against the chapters of the Gauls, objection 9: The Redeemer of the world gave his blood for the world, etc. See Augustine, Epistles 159, 171, 173. This reconciliation of the world, therefore, is as it were the first grade toward the actual reconciliation of singular human beings; to none of whom would access to this Divine grace under the condition of faith have lain open, unless it were that God by the death of Christ had somehow stood reconciled to the human race. The posterior grade of reconciliation is situated in this, and is then judged acquired for this or that singular person, when, the condition of faith in Christ having been performed, he is received into the paternal grace of God, is justified, and is gifted with a hereditary right to eternal life. No one arrives at this posterior grade by the sole work of Christ himself offering himself on the cross to God the Father, but there must accede, before he obtains this actual reconciliation, an act or work of the human being himself believing in Christ the Redeemer and by faith applying the merit of his death to himself singularly. To this that of John 8:24 can be referred: Unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. The death of Christ therefore does not snatch from death, nor actually reconcile to God, this or that singular person, except as believing.

Cap. 5 first member: Evangelical preaching and placability under the faith-condition§45

45With this distinction or explanation of the word reconciliation set down, let us now return to the proposed thesis, whose prior member, to be confirmed by us in the prior place, stood thus: By the very fact of the death of Christ God is so far reconciled to any human being that he may truly be said ready to admit any into grace, even to eternal life, if only he has believed. We will dispatch this matter with fewer words, because the things we disputed about the universal pact, stabilized by the death of Christ under the condition of faith, all look toward this: yet we will add some things.

First, therefore, the very tenor of our Evangelical preaching demonstrates this. For what else do we preach to impious human beings and those still unbelieving, than that by the death of Christ it has been effected that the Divine will now stands toward the human race far otherwise than it would have stood with this death of Christ shut out? Namely, that that just God who without the blood of the Mediator would have breathed nothing other than wrath and death against us all and each, now placated by the blood of the Redeemer is ready to indulge pardon and life to all and each, provided they present themselves as suppliants and as believing in the Mediator. God would never order Ministers to preach this promiscuously to human beings unless he were in fact so disposed in mind. For the Gospel is a word of truth (Colossians 1:5), which announces nothing false or vain to sinners. But it pronounces and promises that God is so far placated and reconciled by the merit and efficacy of the blood of Christ poured out on the cross that he is ready to embrace any sinner whenever he has repented and believed: Therefore, the importunate speculation of election and reprobation set aside, the aforesaid efficacy of the death of Christ ought to be acknowledged toward all and each, and promiscuously proclaimed.

Second, that actual reconciliation of any singular person which is promised and exhibited to any believer because of the merit of crucified Christ presupposes that prior grade of reconciliation whereby God is understood so placated by the death of Christ that he already wills, under the condition of faith performed, to return into grace with any sinner. Whoever therefore confesses that any human being, however burdened with sins, as soon as he has believed is received into grace because of the death and merit of Christ, ought not to deny that by the death of Christ this has been effected toward all and each, that they have God ready, even obligated, to grant this benefit of reconciliation under the aforesaid condition to any. The antecedent is confirmed. Because we cannot even think the act of reconciliation or of perpetual remission going out as it were by law and terminated to any believing person at the very moment when he has apprehended the Mediator by true faith, unless we simultaneously think and acknowledge that the Divine will by the death of Christ is so prepared and predisposed that it leans toward exhibiting this favor to any human being, provided he has believed. This propensity or readiness of the Divine will to indulge pardon and grace to any human being as soon as he has performed the condition of faith I notice expressed by some with the word placability or reconciliability: which placability or reconciliability, obtained by the passion of Christ considered in itself, I do not understand why certain theologians reject so superciliously. For God would not be actually placated and reconciled to any human being as soon as he believed — that is, the condition of faith performed — unless he were placable and reconciliable to any human being before he believed — that is, under the condition of faith to be performed.

Here certain theologians object against us: Therefore on our view God will not be reconciled and placated to the sinful human being through and because of the death of Christ, but only reconciliable and placable: likewise the human being through the death of Christ is not reconciled to God, but reconciliable under a certain condition, namely of faith.

Cap. 5 first member close: Reconciliable versus reconciled; no Semipelagian lottery§46

46Solution. I answer that the consequence is vicious; God is reconciliable through the death of Christ to any human being about to believe: Therefore he is not reconciled through Christ to any believer, but will still be only reconciliable. Rather we profess that God is reconciliable to any human being about to believe through and because of Christ; that he is also reconciled to any believing human being through and because of Christ; and finally that he has given this condition of faith, by whose intervening actual reconciliation is acquired through and because of the same Christ. In vain therefore and invalidly do they argue from the position of a universal benefit, namely of reconciliability under the condition of faith to be performed, to the removal or negation of particular benefits, for example of reconciliation and salvation; since both are fetched from the death and merit of Christ; although those general ones are carried through without any intervening act of ours, those particular ones not without some act of ours, although not because of any act of ours.

Objection 2. Second, this also is objected (which seems to be of greater moment): If by the death of Christ we posit God made so placable and reconciliable to any human being that he is ready to receive any into grace if he believes, yet actually reconciled to no one before he believes; then we seem to posit that the virtue of the death of Christ according to itself stands equally for all, that God himself also stands indifferently toward all, and as it were waits for the determination of a lower cause, so that the death of his Son may turn out for human beings either fruitful or fruitless: which is nothing other than, with the Semipelagians, to suspend the salvation or perdition of singular human beings from the proper free choice of each one, either apprehending or repelling Christ by faith.

I answer: Let it be granted that by the death of Christ God was made so far placated or placable to the human race that he will receive any into grace if he has believed, with no discrimination of persons (which is the very voice of the Gospel); yet it does not thence follow that this very discrimination of believers and non-believers, of the reconciled and the non-reconciled, finally of the saved and the lost, is to be recalled to the uncertain dice of human free choice. For he who promulgated this universal Evangelical decree, Whoever has believed will be saved, nonetheless reserved to himself the special privilege of giving faith to some by his singular mercy, of not giving it to others by his freest and most just will, and by their manifest unworthiness. By the virtue of the death of Christ God obligated himself to enter into reconciliation with any human being if he has believed; but he did not obligate himself to pour into every human being that efficacious grace by which it is infallibly effected that he believe. We therefore hold both: namely both that God is so far placated by the death of Christ that he is already ready to receive any into grace if they do penitence and believe in Christ; and that the same God who under the condition of faith is ready to indulge the grace of remission to all equally is nonetheless not so disposed that he stands equally toward all as to producing this condition of faith in them. A merchant is said ready to sell his wares if someone wills to buy them: but that, one being unwilling, another wills to buy, the merchant himself does not effect, but it depends on the free choice of each one. The matter does not so stand between God and us. For although by the virtue of the death of Christ he is already ready to give remission and to enter into reconciliation with any human being if he wills to believe in Christ, yet God has this peculiar thing, that he himself inspires in all believers this very will of believing. We do not therefore vote with the Semipelagians, but we say with the Fathers of Orange, Canon 6: If anyone says that mercy is conferred on us believing, willing, desiring, and knocking without the grace of God, and does not confess that it is done Divinely in us by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we believe and will, he resists the Apostle saying, By the grace of God I am what I am. So much concerning the first member of our thesis.

I come to the other member, which is formed in this manner. The death of Christ considered as a general cause of human salvation frees none of adults from the guilt and weight of their sins, constitutes none actually reconciled to God — in a word, places none in the state of grace and salvation — before faith applied to the Gospel.

Cap. 5 second member tip: Immediate effect is reconciliability; adults, infants, and rival errors§47

47For the explanation of this proposition I will premise these few things.

The first is: that we, by the death of Christ generally considered as a cause of human salvation, denote nothing other than a consideration of the Lord’s passion in its immediate effect, which it produces of itself without any concurrence of human acts. This immediate effecting, which is produced without any media required from our side, we affirm to be reconciliability about to come into act as soon as we believe, not however actual reconciliation, or placement in the state of adoption and salvation before we believe.

The second thing which we thought should be premised looks to a certain discrimination to be observed here in the matter between adults and infants. For it has been said that none of adults is reconciled to God, or freed from the guilt of their sins, without an act of faith (which will shortly be proved). Whence it is clear that we admit that some of infants are by the virtue of the death of Christ absolved from sins and placed in the state of salvation, without any act of their will. For because they cannot by faith apply the blood of Christ for purging their souls, merciful God by the secret operation of his Spirit as it were sprinkles and vivifies their souls with the blood of Christ. This was well annotated by Aquinas, Disputed questions on Justification, article 3. Because children, he says, do not have whence they can convert themselves to the justifying cause, the justifying cause itself, namely the passion of Christ, is applied to them in baptism, and from this they are justified.

The last is: By the state of grace and salvation, which we deny belongs to any of adults before he has apprehended the mediator by an act of faith, we understand such a state as the Psalmist described, Psalm 32, when he pronounces blessed those whose iniquities have been remitted and whose sins have been covered; such as the Apostle painted, Colossians 1:12, 14, where he says they have been liberated from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of the beloved Son of God, already having redemption through his blood, namely remission of sins.

This thesis so explained must be proved, both against those who posit all human beings by the very merit of the passion of Christ received into the state of grace and salvation, and against those who think the elect at least reconciled from eternity, justified, and gifted with remission of their sins. Some attribute the former opinion to the Remonstrants: but, as it seems to me, however ambiguously and obscurely they speak, they are nonetheless alien from this error. They do indeed say, Hague Colloquy, page 9, that Christ by the death of the cross merited for all reconciliation and remission of sins. But they add, yet so that no one becomes a partaker of this remission in fact except believers. So elsewhere they say, page 131, that Christ by the death of the cross obtained for all reconciliation and remission of sins. But immediately they weave on this gloss, that the real participation of this obtained reconciliation and remission is proper to believers. Finally, pages 162 and 163, they expressly reject that dogma which is attributed to them by some, namely that all human beings by the death of Christ were restored from the fall and replaced in the state of grace; nor by remission obtained for all do they denote anything other than that a medium and mode has already been prepared and stabilized by the death of Christ whereby, faith applied, all and each can obtain remission of sins, page 186. So they soften and explain what seemed spoken more suspiciously in the Hague Colloquy: yet it must be confessed that some of them progressed somewhat further in this matter. Borreus, with Arminius, defends that God assumed the whole human race into the grace of reconciliation, Response to articles 13 and 14. Arnoldus against Tilenus seems also to sense the same, pages 232 and 261. Huberus and Puccius (whose writings I confess I have not yet seen) are everywhere charged with having taught that by the death of Christ all and each human beings were justified and restored into the bosom and grace of God. Now as concerns the latter opinion, I do not remember that I have read anyone of ours who expressly defends it. Yet our Thomson in his Diatriba, chapter 24, pages 92 and 99, commemorates some who try to prove the sins of the elect forgiven from eternity from the dignity and efficacy of the merits of Christ. Which granted, it would follow that the same were justified before faith in Christ, reconciled to God, and restored into the state of grace and salvation, which is most false. The proof of our thesis will be the refutation of both errors. We will therefore confirm it first in place by the testimonies of the Scriptures.

Cap. 5 second member Scripture: Remission and peace wait on faith — even for the elect§48

48First, that remission of sins does not flow immediately from the passion of Christ itself to all human beings without any intervening act of ours is proved by all those testimonies of the Scriptures which expressly prerequire an act of penitence. Such are Ezekiel 18:21: If the impious man has done penitence from all his sins, he will live with life and will not die. Luke 24:46, 47: It was necessary that Christ suffer and rise from the dead, and that penitence and remission of sins be preached in his name. 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to remit our sins to us and to cleanse us from every iniquity. From which it is plain that although Christ died for all, yet not all immediately live through this death of Christ, but all live as soon as they have come to their senses; although remission of sins is offered in the name of Christ, yet not all promiscuously become partakers of this benefit, but only the penitent; by the same law, that penitence precede remission; Finally, although by the virtue of the death of Christ God is obligated to remit sins, yet so that neither the faithfulness nor the justice of God demands that this remission be indulged to anyone except under this condition, If he confess his sins.

Second, the same is shown from those places which, before we can be justified or reconciled to God, prerequire faith from us, as an instrument by which we apprehend the grace of justification, and as a condition of obtaining reconciliation, commanded to us in the Evangelical pact itself. Of this sort are Acts 16:31: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. John 6:40: This is the will of my Father who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life. John 20:31: These things have been written that you may believe, and that believing you may have life in his name. Romans 3:22: The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all who believe; and verse 25: Whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith, etc. Galatians 2:16: We know that a human being is not justified except through faith in Jesus Christ; and we believe in Christ Jesus that we may be justified from the faith of Christ. I pass over innumerable others. From these it abundantly appears that Remission of sins, and Justification, or our reconciliation with God, is not such a benefit as overflows from the passion of Christ itself, without all media, to any human being; but that those for whom Christ died, whether sufficiently or efficaciously, cannot have the saving fruit of the same death applied to themselves except through faith going before.

Third, this can also be gathered from those sayings of the Scriptures in which, the death of Christ presupposed, it is nonetheless expressly affirmed that any human beings lie under the guilt of death and Divine wrath so long as they have not apprehended the Mediator by true faith. To this those look: Mark 16:16: Preach the Gospel to every creature. He who has believed will be saved; but he who has not believed will be condemned. And John 3:36: He who is unbelieving toward the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. John 8:24: If you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins. Finally, notwithstanding that Christ died for us, the Apostle said Ephesians 2:3 that we are all born children of wrath. Vain therefore are those who dream that by the death of Christ itself all human beings, without any intervening act from our side, have been restored into the bosom of Divine grace and the state of salvation.

Fourth, lest anyone say that the aforesaid testimonies pertain only to the those not chosen, but that all the elect by the very merit of the death of Christ ciled to God before they believed, let these clear testimonies of the Scriptures be heard to the contrary, Ephesians 2:11, 12, 13: Remember that you were once without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ, etc. He addresses those whom chapter 1, verse 4, he presupposes elect before the foundations of the world were cast; yet he teaches that they remained strangers from the covenants of promise and alienated from God until by faith, as a spiritual hand, they had drawn to themselves the riches of Divine grace heaped up in Christ, as it is ready to gather from verses 7 and 8 of this second chapter. In the same sense sound those words of the same Apostle, Romans 5:1: Justified by faith we have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The death of Christ therefore, considered in itself, until faith has acceded from our side, neither justifies this or that singular person nor places him in the bosom of grace. Finally, the Apostle Paul beyond all controversy was one of the elect, yet was not therefore either justified or restored into the state of grace and salvation while he remained a blasphemer against Christ and a persecutor of the Church, but then at last, after he acknowledged Christ and wholly leaned upon Christ, 1 Timothy 1:16: Jesus Christ had mercy on me, that in me he might show all clemency, that I might be an example to those who would believe in him unto eternal life. Remission of sins in the blood of Christ therefore does not anticipate faith and penitence, not even in the elect. Thus far we have fought with the express testimonies of the Scriptures; now we will attach some reasons founded in the same Scriptures.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Rat. 1: Merit needs contact — faith joins us to Christ§49

49Ratio 1. Although we grant that the death of Christ, considered as a meritorious cause, is most sufficient to expiate the sins of all human beings and to restore them into the state of grace with God, yet it cannot actually constitute anyone justified and reconciled unless it is somehow joined, fitted, and united to the one who is supposed to be justified and reconciled by it.

For as the philosophers often say — that every action requires some contact — this also holds true for this supernatural action, which cannot occur without some supernatural contact. By faith we touch Christ, and through faith we are joined to him and as it were fitted to him. For Christ dwells in us through faith (Ephesians 3:17).

Without faith, then, or before faith, we have no actual conjunction with Christ; and therefore from the merit of his death there is no remission of sins, no justification, no reconciliation with God the Father.

Most learned Calvin observed this on Romans 8:4: Christ communicates his own righteousness to none except those whom he joins to himself by the bond of his Spirit. Whatever therefore lies hidden in God’s eternal decree concerning those who are to be justified, reconciled to him, and likewise all the elect who are to be saved; whatever sufficiency or efficacy there is in the precious blood of Christ for redeeming human beings and reconciling them to God — still it does not customarily pass into the effect of actual reconciliation unless it is first joined to human beings through faith, because a meritorious cause no less than a natural one must be joined to that into which it flows and into which it pours its saving power.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Rat. 2: As Adam binds by generation, Christ saves by regeneration§50

50Ratio 2. Second, the argument is drawn from the proportion between Adam, the author of death and condemnation, and Christ, the author of life and justification.

Just as Adam binds no one with the guilt of death, and subjects no one to the divine wrath and condemnation, unless that one becomes as it were his member by natural generation: so Christ frees no one from death, restores no one into divine grace, justifies and reconciles no one to God, unless that one becomes his member by supernatural regeneration.

But this does not happen before faith is inspired into our hearts: John 1:12–13: As many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, namely to those who believe in his name: who were born not of blood, and so on, but of God.

No one therefore — whether among those passed by or among the elect — stands reconciled and justified before God by Christ’s death itself; but only then, when he is incorporated into Christ and through regeneration is set as it were as a member under this mystical Head, does he obtain the righteousness of Christ and peace with God.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Rat. 3: No pardon of uncommitted sins; blood heals only the believing sick§51

51Ratio 3. If by the very merit of Christ’s death all sins had been forgiven to human beings before they believed in Christ, and so all had been restored into the state of grace and reconciliation by the mere fact itself, it would follow that no one is born a child of wrath — which is diametrically contrary to the Apostle’s words just alleged from Ephesians 2:3.

Further: since the merit of Christ, in God’s acceptation, has infinite and eternal efficacy, this inconvenience would also follow — that the sins of human beings are remitted before they are committed, and expiated before they are perpetrated — if without any intervening act of ours, from the merit of Christ alone, the remission of sins and the actual reconciliation of human beings were to arise. But this is plainly impossible.

For just as a medicine which, as to its implanted efficacy and virtue, can heal leprosy, yet does not actually heal this or that human being unless he has already become a leper and takes the medicine named: so the blood of Christ, which can heal any human being, yet does not actually heal, cleanse, or reconcile anyone to God unless that one is already contaminated by sin and is believing.

In no way, then, are they to be heard who either philosophize that all human beings promiscuously are reconciled and placed in the state of grace by the passion of Christ itself, or contend that all the elect, by the sole power of that same passion, have all their sins forgiven them from eternity — since there is no forgiveness of sins except of sins committed, and no forgiveness of committed sins is to be hoped for by any except believers.

Most excellently and truly the reverend of pious memory, the Bishop of Salisbury: An already-made remission of future sins ought not to be believed. For although to God they are as already done which he from all eternity disposed should be done, yet for us they are not to be received otherwise than according to that mode of dispensation by which, decreed from eternity, they are to be completed for us in time and brought into act. Thus far he. We therefore must not dream of a remission of sins, or of a reconciliation already obtained, except according to the mode of dispensation decreed by God: that is, unless we first truly repent and believe in the Mediator.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Rat. 4: Merit works only as the Father accepts it — never before faith§52

52Ratio 4. The whole force and efficacy of that merit which Christ by his death prepared for the good of the human race, as regards its outflow and derivation into other persons, depends on the will of the Father who ordains and accepts it.

For who would dare snatch the merit of Christ to himself in another manner, or under another law, than that by which God himself ordained it to be communicated to human beings and accepted in their name? Indeed if anyone tries to do this, he will have done it in vain: for the merit of Christ is so great a good to us as it was accepted by God — as Scotus taught in this sense (Sentences book 3, distinction 19, unique question, p. 74).

But it was by no means accepted by God so as to produce actual remission of sins and reconciliation for any mortal before penitence, faith, and insertion into Christ. Therefore it does not actually justify, or reconcile to God, anyone except the penitent and the believing.

That it was not so accepted as to reconcile anyone before faith is clear from an argument drawn negatively from the Scriptures, in this way. No word occurs in the Sacred Scriptures from which it can be gathered that by the very force and efficacy of Christ’s death all human beings are promiscuously placed in the state of grace, or that any human being — whether elect or those not chosen — before penitence and faith obtains, by the virtue of Christ’s ross, remission of sins or actual reconciliation with God. Therefore it is rash to assert this.

Nor is there any reason for rejecting an argument of this kind drawn from the authority of the Scriptures negatively. For although in more middling matters, which do not concern the summit of our salvation, the reasoning is weak — This is not set down in the Scriptures; therefore it is false or illicit — yet in matters necessary to do or to know for salvation, such as the mode of obtaining remission and reconciliation with God, it follows most soundly: This is not taught in the Scriptures; therefore it is not to be believed by us. Since therefore the Scriptures nowhere teach that by the death of Christ remission of sins, or actual reconciliation, is conferred on any singular person before he has repented and believed in Christ, it is by no means to be admitted under pretext of amplifying the dignity of Christ’s death, or under any other pretext.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Fathers: Ambrose — without faith the passion bears you no fruit§53

53After the firm foundations of the Scriptures and the weight of the arguments, we will also set down the Fathers’ suffrages — but very few.

Ambrose, On the Faith to Gratian, book 4, chapter 1: If you do not believe, he did not descend for you; he did not suffer for you. Those words have this sense: no fruit of redemption from Christ incarnate and having suffered reaches this or that singular person before he believes in Christ.

For Ambrose does not mean to deny that Christ descended and suffered for human beings, whether they believe or do not believe; he means to teach that the usefulness, or saving force, of this passion then vivifies and reconciles human beings when they believe.

In this manner of speaking, then, he follows the known rules of the jurisconsults, who are accustomed to say that not-being, and being but uselessly, are held for equals. Things found without effect may be called as if nothing. Christ is therefore denied to have been incarnate and to have died for unbelievers, because by their vice he is understood to have been incarnate and to have suffered for them uselessly and without effect.

This plainly argues from Ambrose’s mind that by this alone — that Christ died for believers — no one is placed in the state of reconciliation and salvation before faith is applied to the Gospel.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Fathers: Augustine — redemption profits only when it is drunk§54

54Augustine will follow Ambrose. He writes thus in the reply to the article falsely imposed on him, reply 1: Those who pass through this age without the faith of Christ, and without the sacrament of regeneration, are aliens to redemption. A little later: The property of redemption is with those from whom the prince of this world has been cast out. At length he adds: The passion or death of Christ has in itself that it profits all; but if it is not drunk, it does not profit.

All of which utter that Ambrosian sentence — If you do not believe, he did not suffer for you — in still other words. For that phrase, they are aliens to redemption, hints at nothing else than that those who have not yet believed are by no means sharers of the remission of sins and of reconciliation with God.

So also the property of redemption denotes the acquired and as-it-were possessed fruit of redemption, and declares that same fruit to be with believers and the regenerate alone. Finally those words of Augustine — if it is not drunk, it does not profit — plainly prove that the usefulness overflowing from Christ’s death is derived to singular persons only by drinking, that is, by believing.

These things, all and each, overturn the sentence of those who state that either all human beings promiscuously, or the predestinate by a special quasi-privilege, by this alone — that Christ suffered on the cross for them — are restored into the state of grace and of actual reconciliation with God.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Fathers: Theodoret and Cyril — the universal cause needs faith’s application§55

55Third in place let Theodoret come forth, writing on those words of the Apostle (Romans 3:25): Whom God set forth to be a propitiatory through faith in his blood, and so on. The Lord Christ, he says, is the propitiatory, and by his blood procured our salvation, requiring from us faith alone.

From which words we gather that Christ, with his death and all his merits, has been so constituted the universal cause of our redemption, reconciliation, and salvation, the universal cause requires the application of faith

Cyril also stands in the same sentence. Explaining those words of our Savior (John 3:36) — He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who is unbelieving toward the Son will not see life — he gathers thus (book 2, chapter 74): Therefore Christ vivifies believers in himself, because, since according to nature he is life, he dwells in all the faithful through faith.

However much, then, Christ is life itself, yet he does not vivify anyone except believers — which Cyril confirmed by an excellent and most valid reason, namely because he does not dwell in human beings except in believers. As if he had said: the fountain of life does not actually vivify except those joined to himself, and the joined are held to be the faithful alone. Badly, therefore, do they argue who from either the death or the very life of Christ gather that either all or any human beings are constituted in the state of life, grace, and salvation before they are united to Christ by this bond of faith.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Fathers: Bede — each is reconciled when he believes the slain§56

56Last I will bring forward the most express testimony of the Venerable Bede, found in his Commentaries on 2 Corinthians 5: Through faith the world is reconciled to God, when it believes in Christ who was sent by God.

The Apostle had said that God in Christ reconciled the world to himself — that is, that Christ by God’s ordination paid that ransom to the Father, whereby it was effected that God does not exact from us satisfaction for our sins before he returns into grace with us, but, content with this alone, is ready to receive anyone into grace.

If you still ask whether, this price having been paid, by the very fact of the payment all human beings are at once reconciled, Bede answers: By no means that; but each one is then reconciled to God when he himself believes in Christ who was sent by God.

Those words of the same author on Luke 15 have the same mind: Then for each of us Christ is slain, when he believes him slain. He was slain from the origin of the world in the Divine acceptation; slain also, when the fullness of time came, on the cross itself; yet for you and for me — that is, for each singular human being — then slain when he believes in the slain. Which is just as if he had said: the benefit of the slain or dead Christ then pertains to us when we begin to believe in him.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Fathers close: Actual reconciliation needs the receiver’s consent§57

57From orthodox antiquity, therefore, they have departed who state that by the very passion of Christ all human beings are placed in the state of grace; nor less those who teach that the predestinate themselves, in this death of Christ, obtained the remission of their sins, or justification and reconciliation with God, from eternity — since this justification or actual reconciliation (as Bernard truly and skillfully) cannot belong to the receiver without consent any more than without the grace of the giver.

And thus you have received our sentence confirmed, and the contrary enervated.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Objections: Adversaries’ charges opened against Huber’s restitution claim§58

58Now let us bring forward the objections our adversaries can raise, and briefly dispose of them.

In defence of Huber's position—that every human being is already restored to the state of grace and salvation simply because Christ died for humankind—arguments of the following kind are advanced.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Obj. 1: If the death is a sufficient ransom, all must already be restored§59

59Either Christ's death was a sufficient ransom to wipe away the sins of the human race and put every human being back into grace and reconciliation, or it was insufficient. Call it insufficient, and we diminish divine grace and trample Christ's merit. Grant that it was sufficient, and then—once that sufficient cause has been put into act—nothing else is required to bring about the effect. From Christ's very act of offering himself to God, therefore, there would follow at once the universal liberation of all people from the guilt of their sins, and a universal reconciliation: that is, the reception of everyone into divine grace.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Solut. 1: A universal cause still needs each one’s application by faith§60

60We acknowledge the fullest sufficiency of the ransom—indeed its infinite superabundance. Our answer, however, is this: Christ's merit, considered in itself alone, does operate sufficiently as a universal cause of human salvation; yet a universal cause does not produce effects in particular persons before it is applied to each one. By Christ's death itself, therefore, a most sufficient universal cause was instituted, from which (as Aquinas says) any sins of any persons could be expiated. But before that cause puts forth its expiatory power for the liberation and reconciliation of individuals, it must be applied to each by faith. The Apostle himself teaches this clearly in Romans 3:25: "Whom God set forth as a propitiatory through faith in his blood," and so on.

So although Christ's death is a sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the human race, it cleanses us by way of a remedy: it must first be applied to each person before it can produce the effect of reconciliation and healing. And that application is made only through faith.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Obj. 2: No injury when the gospel binds the fruit to faith§61

61Suppose that after accepting a sufficient ransom God still does not receive everyone into grace. Then, the objection says, he would wrong Christ, because he would not grant to human beings what Christ merited for them by dying. He would also deal unjustly with human beings, because he would still hold them bound by sins as by debts, even though Christ wiped out all those debts with his blood.

Neither side is injured. Not Christ: he himself did not will that the satisfaction he offered for the sins of the human race should avail for the actual reconciliation of particular persons unless their faith intervened, as we proved above. It would therefore be an insult to Christ if anyone were admitted into the actual fellowship and share of this grace while still not believing in Jesus Christ, the Author of salvation and our Redeemer. Nor are human beings injured when they are not received at once into God's favor simply on account of Christ's dying act, for that was neither owed to them nor promised. We cannot claim from Christ's death any benefit against or beyond the order and covenant established by God and by Christ and opened to us in the Gospel.

That order stands fixed, and the Gospel expressly sets this condition: the grace of reconciliation and the gift of eternal life overflow to sinners from Christ's death if they believe; if they do not, they remain bound by sins and perish in their unbelief. "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; but whoever does not obey the Son will not see life, and the wrath of God remains on him" (John 3:36).

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Obj. 3: Adam’s binding act does not force Christ’s dying act to restore all§62

62Adam's sin, they argue, did not have greater force to bind every human being under the guilt of eternal death than Christ's death and merit have to expiate all, reconcile them to God, and call them back into grace and salvation. Yet Adam's very act of sinning did bind everyone with guilt and subject them to divine wrath. Therefore Christ's very act of dying ought to free everyone from death, reconcile them to God, and restore them to the state of grace and salvation.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Obj. 3 Solut close: Regeneration and election govern actual efficacy§63

63This argument smuggles in a false assumption. Its major premise treats it as conceded that the efficacy or virtue of a cause is always to be rated greater or lesser according as it reaches more or fewer subjects. That is quite false. A cause's efficacy—or excellence—must be judged from the nature and excellence of its effects, not from how many subjects it touches. Restoring sight to one blind person shows greater virtue than gouging out the eyes of a thousand; healing one mutilated and sick person shows more than mutilating or poisoning a thousand who are healthy and whole; in a word, recalling one human being to life shows more than handing a thousand over to slaughter. By the same measure, Christ's power in saving even one human being by his death is greater and more efficacious than Adam's power in destroying the whole human race by his sin.

To the minor premise one may also reply that Adam's very act of sinning binds no one with the guilt of death, and makes no one liable to divine wrath, except insofar as that person is propagated from sinful Adam by natural generation. In exactly the same way, Christ's dying act snatches no one out of the state of death, and frees no one from divine wrath, except insofar as that person is derived from Christ by supernatural regeneration. On both sides, then, the condition is equal if the comparison is just. All who are generated from Adam by nature lost God's grace and life; all who are regenerated from Christ by grace recover God's grace and life. No one is subjected to death or divine wrath by Adam's fault unless he has drawn natural origin from Adam; no one is exempted from death or divine wrath by Christ's merit unless he has drawn heavenly birth from Christ.

Aquinas explains this prudently and learnedly in Against the Gentiles, book 4, chapter 55: the effect of the first parent's sin reaches each person through the origin of the flesh; so the effect of Christ's death reaches each through spiritual regeneration. Anyone who wants Christ's merit to work in himself must be regenerated by Christ's Spirit. If someone still presses the point—propagation from Adam, from which wrath and the guilt of death follow, is common to all; why then is regeneration through Christ, on which our reconciliation and salvation depend, not made common to all in the same way?—I have nothing else to answer than this: God himself did not will that what flows to human beings by way of grace should be common to all in the same way as what comes by way of nature. He willed his grace to distinguish one person from another, and therefore did not will to make it equally common to all. Augustine noted this in On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 5; read him at leisure. Let no one murmur against God, then, because by the working of special grace he regenerates some and grafts them into Christ through faith; let no one ask why he frees that one rather than this. To stop every mouth it is enough that God himself answers (Matthew 20:15), "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with what is mine?" and so on; and that the Apostle says (Romans 9:18), "He has mercy on whom he wills." See also Augustine, On the Good of Perseverance, chapter 8. So although, as to sufficiency, Christ's death stands equally related to all, as to efficacy it depends on divine election: the effects of Christ's merits are mercifully applied to some, while others, hindered by their own unbelief, do not receive that application.

So far we have answered those who contend for a universal and likewise actual reconciliation of all human beings, each and every one. Now let us hear what can be urged by those who hold that the elect themselves, by the efficacy of Christ's death, were justified from eternity and reconciled to God.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Elect Obj. 1: Immutability seems to force eternal actual reconciliation§64

64Objection 1. Those who say that toward the elect themselves, before their faith and repentance, God is only placable and reconciliable—not actually reconciled and placated—seem to put acts and potencies in God, and to admit that God can be what he is not. But God is pure act and altogether immutable. It is therefore impossible that he should now be what he was not before. So if he is reconciled to Peter or Paul after they are known to repent and believe, he was already reconciled to them from eternity. Otherwise some variation would seem to be given in God, who is purest act and altogether immutable. Yet no sane person will deny that such variation is utterly alien to the divine nature, which is free of mutability on every side—especially since that conclusion agrees not only with the dictates of right reason and with the sounder philosophy (which teaches that the same, as the same, always does the same: that is, what remains the same way always produces the same effect), but can also be confirmed and settled by not a few, and those the clearest, places of sacred Scripture: by Malachi’s prophecy (Malachi 3:6), “For I the Lord do not change” (Junius: “I Jehovah do not change”); likewise by Numbers (Numbers 23:19), “God is not as a human that he should lie, nor as a son of man that he should change.” A plainly similar place gives support from the Epistle of James (James 1:17): “Every good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change or shadow of turning.” So far is any change from belonging in God that in him there is not even the least shadow of turning. But if one may say of God that he is now placable, now placated, now only reconciliable, now reconciled, one may fairly and not without cause doubt whether God always remains like himself and always holds himself in exactly the same way. Placability seems to suggest only a prior disposition and an inclination toward a future placating; reconciliability likewise suggests a readiness and propensity in God toward reconciliation—which at last, when human beings believe, is drawn out from potency into act.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Elect Obj. 1 Solut: Relative names change with the creature, not God§65

65That God is reconciliable to this or that elect person before that person’s faith and repentance, and is actually reconciled to the same person after faith and repentance, no more proves a change in God from act to potency than this does: that a human being is not justified at all until he believes, and is actually justified by God after he believes. Nor does it prove a temporal change of the divine essence or will from potency to act that someone’s sins are remissible and, after repentance, are actually remitted by God. No one will rightly say that because Paul is now justified as a believer in Christ—though he was not justified at all while he blasphemed against Christ—God himself undergoes some change. So neither does it follow from saying that a person is now reconciliable to God and now actually reconciled. To be justified and to be reconciled to God are either plainly the same, or at least inseparably joined.

To clear the scruple more openly, this must be known: although nothing absolute can newly arrive to God without a change in him, yet countless relative names can newly be predicated of God—at one time, and not at another—according to differences of time, while the divine essence and will remain without any shadow of change. What is affirmed of God in a mutable and temporal way is not affirmed because some change has come upon God, but because a change has come upon the creature. For example, one could truly say “Adam is creatable by God” when one could not yet truly say “Adam is created by God.” By the same measure, one could say before Adam’s actual repentance, “Adam is justificable by God,” or “Adam is reconciliable to God”; but one could not say, “Adam is actually justified and reconciled to God.” Even so we do not put acts and potencies in God, or any mutability at all. These things are said of God in different ways not by a change of God in himself, but by a change of the creature that comes from him.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Elect Obj. 1 Solut close: Eternal will admits no succession in the willer§66

66As Albert teaches, in things that act through essence the agent always holds himself in one way: he is not called “agent now and not before,” except insofar as the act now is and was not before. Nor do we invent a new or temporal act in God’s will itself when we say that, once faith has come, he becomes actually reconciled to this or that human being to whom, before faith, he was only reconciliable. God does not then begin to will that this believer should be actually reconciled to him—after having been only reconciliable before faith was conceived. From all eternity he willed that at this very moment the person both would believe and would be actually reconciled. Succession of changes is not in the willer, then, but in the thing willed—and those changes follow one eternal and most constant will of God.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Elect Obj. 2: Eternal love is not yet actual reconciliation§67

67Objection 2. God is actually reconciled to whoever he actually loves. He loves every elect person from eternity. So, the objection runs, he has been actually reconciled to them from eternity—and they have been actually reconciled and justified from eternity.

Solution. Follow the distinction in Aquinas. God loves in two senses: by the purpose to communicate his goodness, and by the very act of communicating it (Sentences, book 3, distinction 19). The love that tracks the eternal purpose—theologians call it the love of eternal benevolence—does not already count the beloved as actually justified or actually reconciled. It only ranks that person among those who will infallibly be justified and reconciled. Words for acts that stay inside God, and words for acts that pass from God to us, therefore do different work. Dilection, Election, and Predestination name eternal, inward acts of God; people are called Beloved, Elect, and Predestined from the hidden good pleasure of the divine will conceived and kept in God himself. Calling, Justification, Reconciliation, and Glorification name outward acts that terminate on a creature who already exists and are as it were received into that creature. No one is properly Called, Justified, Reconciled, or Glorified from the hidden eternal purpose alone, but from the finished execution of that purpose and the effect it produces in human beings. We gladly grant that God has an eternal will to justify every elect person and reconcile each to himself. We still refuse to say they were justified or reconciled from eternity. In the same way we grant God an eternal will to create the world, yet deny that the world was created from eternity. What Zanchi said of the actual remission of sins fits the elect's actual reconciliation: it is most certain in the divine destination from eternity, yet it is not actually given on God's side, nor actually received on the human side, before the person repents and believes (Thomson, Diatribe, p. 96).

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Elect Obj. 3 Solut close: Eternal love yields certain means, not eternal justification§68

68Objection 3. Why do the means work in some people and not in others? Not, they say, from any difference of free choice, but because God is already reconciled to all the elect in Christ before the world's foundations were laid, and is not reconciled to the rest. So we must not deny that every elect person is actually reconciled to God before conversion and faith—since the very dispensing of means powerful enough to produce faith and repentance in them sprang from that eternal, prior reconciliation.

Solution. We gladly admit that the infallible efficacy of means ordained to salvation does not hang on the human will. It hangs on a certain eternal and special love of God for his elect. But so far as that love regards people who are still unbelieving and unconverted, it is nothing but a free purpose to supply them with what will later convert them, justify them, reconcile them to God, and lead them without fail to eternal life. Inferring from that eternal love an eternal justification, an eternal reconciliation of the elect, and an eternal glorification of them is therefore just as bad a leap. What follows is only their certain and infallible justification, reconciliation, and glorification. That certainty—the infallible efficacy of means that tend toward salvation—is born from the love of God just named, not from free choice's power. If someone wants to label this eternal love (the ground of the certainty that conversion and reconciliation will be produced in time) "actual reconciliation," because God himself "calls the things that are not as though they were" (Romans 4:17), I will not stop him—provided he also admits he is using the name of a finished deed for the purpose of a deed still to be done. For God's predestination had already fixed what would come in its own time, as Augustine puts it (City of God, book 12, chapter 16).

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect: Eph 1 seems to make acceptance eternal before faith§69

69Some Scripture places can also be brought forward that seem, as to the elect, to assert an actual reconciliation with God—and an eternal one—before their faith and repentance.

Ephesians 1:4 says God elected them before the world’s foundation, and verse 6 that he had them accepted in his beloved Son. So, the objection runs, they were elect, and already actually justified and reconciled from eternity. Their reconciliation on God’s side was not made after faith was applied to the gospel; rather, what had already been done before the world’s foundations were laid then began to be manifested and revealed.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect Resp: Election wills justification in time, not coeternal with election§70

70Response. Electing someone to life before the world’s foundation is one thing; actually justifying and reconciling that same person to himself before the world’s foundation is another. Election names in God an eternal will to justify, reconcile, and save the elect person—but to justify, reconcile, and save him in his own time through faith. So the elect person’s actual justification, reconciliation, and sanctification flow from eternal election; they are not coeternal with it. That is easy to gather from Paul’s whole argument in Ephesians 1. He affirms that we were elect before the world’s foundations were laid (Ephesians 1:4), yet he does not say we were therefore sanctified before those foundations were laid. He says we were elect so that we might be holy and blameless before him in love. Nor does he teach, by the power of eternal election, that we were justified or reconciled from eternity. He teaches that this happened in the dispensation of the fullness of time, after we applied faith to the gospel that had been opened (Ephesians 1:9–10 and following).

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect Resp close: Accepted-in-the-Beloved and Eph 2 show justification begins at faith§71

71Nor does the clause “he had us accepted in his beloved Son” block this (Ephesians 1:6). The Greek verb ἐχαρίτωσεν seems to point to the present state of the elect already regenerated, more than to God’s eternal purpose. So Beza renders it, “he freely makes them gracious to himself”—that is, he has now freely justified believers and admitted them into the state of actual reconciliation. If someone reads that acceptance as God’s eternal love embracing the elect not yet born, then the acceptance names the purpose of communicating his goodness, not the act of communication itself—as was already answered from Aquinas above. Beza also notes rightly in his comments on verse 5 that the elect obtain wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption freely through faith in their own time. They were not, then, justified, sanctified, or reconciled from eternity, though they were elect and predestined from eternity (Ephesians 1:5). No one taught this more clearly than the Apostle himself. The very people he called elect before the world’s foundations were laid he also shows were by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3), and long remained without Christ, aliens from Israel’s commonwealth, strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope, and without God in the world. Then, in Christ Jesus, those who were once far off were made near when, through Christ’s blood grasped by faith, they were reconciled to God (Ephesians 2:12–13 and following). If we trust Paul, then—however eternal human election and predestination are from God’s eternal love—their justification and reconciliation are not to be called a mere manifestation or unveiling when they believe in Christ. That is when they first come to be and are constituted.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect: 2 Tim 1 grace given before ages is destination, not collation§72

722 Timothy 1:9–10. The Apostle says grace was given to the elect in Christ Jesus before the ages of the world, and that the same grace was made manifest through the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. So God seems plainly reconciled already, before the ages, to those to whom he gave grace in Christ before the ages.

Response. Because the divine purpose is firm and unmovable, that grace is said to have been given to the elect before the ages which was destined for them before the ages. In this place, then, eternal giving is eternal preparation of the grace that will be given to the elect without fail in their own time. So Augustine: the Apostle said grace was given when those who would receive it did not yet exist, because in God’s disposition and predestination what was to come in its time was already fixed (On Christian Doctrine, book 3, chapter 34). So Junius on these very words: grace was given from eternity, the grace to which we were predestined from eternity. Calvin expounds it no other way. “This donation of grace of which the Apostle speaks,” he says, “is nothing but the predestination by which we are adopted as God’s children.” A little later: “He gave”—what, with no merit prompting him, he assigned to those not yet born and kept stored in his treasuries until the thing itself would show that he decrees nothing in vain. From this we may rightly gather that the grace of justification, reconciliation, and salvation was by an eternal act assigned to all the elect, and as it were stored and reserved for them in the treasury of divine love. That it was by an act conferred on them before their faith and conversion does not follow. The elect’s justification and reconciliation themselves are not said to be opened and manifested when they believe in Christ; they are then given and constituted. What is said to be revealed and manifested then is God’s eternal good pleasure—his purpose to save the elect—which becomes known to us after, gifted with the Spirit and with faith, we have obtained justification and reconciliation with God.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect: Rom 5, Eph 2, Col 1 seem to reconcile enemies before faith§73

73Still other places are brought to prove that reconciliation with God does not begin when through faith we embrace the Mediator, but that every elect person was already reconciled to God from eternity. Romans 5:10 is of that kind: "when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son." So is Ephesians 2:4–5: "because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, he made us alive together with Christ." And so is Colossians 1:21–22: "you who were once alienated and enemies in mind in evil works he has now indeed reconciled in the body of his flesh through death," and so on.

From those places the adversaries infer that reconciliation does not wait on the act of faith. God, they say, is already reconciled to his own even while they still stand unbelieving and hostile to him. Benefits like these, they argue, are not the mark of a God merely placable and reconcilable, but of one already placated and actually reconciled.

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect close: Those loci confirm faith-timed reconciliation; Cap. 5 thesis ends§74

74Response. If by reconciliation nothing is meant but an inclination and readiness of the divine will to grant remission and to make peace with all who will embrace the Redeemer by faith, then we confess that God stands reconciled to the whole human race by the force of Christ’s death, even while we remain his enemies. But that (as said above) is a step toward our actual and personal reconciliation, not yet the actual reconciliation of particular persons. Further, if by reconciliation we mean God’s eternal love—by which he decreed to call, justify, reconcile to himself, and save certain people in time—I do not deny that God in that sense can be called benevolent to all the elect, even while they are still sunk in impiety and unbelief. But that benevolence, which precedes faith breathed into the elect’s hearts, holds only the purpose of making peace with them. It does not give them the state of peace already obtained, or of actual reconciliation.

With that said, I answer that in all those places the talk is either about that step toward personal reconciliation, or about believing elect people already set in the state of actual reconciliation only with faith intervening. So the places confirm our view rather than the contrary. Romans 5:10 (“when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of the Son,” and so on) means nothing else than that people are moved from enmity into actual reconciliation with God through Christ’s death as soon as they have believed in Christ. That is plain because in verse 1 of the same chapter the Apostle restricts this peace—or reconciliation—with God to those alone who are justified through faith (Romans 5:1); and in verse 11 he speaks of the same actual reconciliation as newly constituted: “Now,” he says, “we have obtained reconciliation”—that is, now after we have believed in Christ (Romans 5:11).

As for Ephesians 2:4–5, it is most true that God made us, who were dead, alive with Christ. But just as he did not make us alive in act until faith was first inspired, so neither did he reconcile us. To be reconciled to God is to be freed from death’s guilt, placed in spiritual life, and gifted with a hereditary right to eternal life. Those goods do not belong to the elect merely because they are elect. They belong at last when they have been effectually called and turned to God. The Apostle himself teaches this in verse 8: “By grace you have been saved through faith—and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

The last place, drawn from Colossians 1:21–22, expressly confirms our sentence: neither God’s eternal predestinating act itself, nor Christ’s merit itself in dying for his elect, makes people at once justified and reconciled to God. What else do the words “once alienated, he has now indeed reconciled” mean, except that we obtain remission of sins and actual reconciliation with God through Christ’s blood only when, inserted into Christ by faith, we are admitted into actual share and possession of his merits and righteousness? There is no need to pile up more for explaining this thesis. From what has been said it is plain enough that those stretch the universal force of Christ’s death beyond its just limits who, by the bare deed of Christ dying, judge every mortal indiscriminately restored into the state of grace—and no less those who defend that all the predestined, for Christ’s merit, were justified from eternity and actually reconciled to God even before faith was applied to the gospel.

Cap. 6 Thesis ultima open: Three theses reviewed; a fourth checks over-extension of universal efficacy§75

75Chapter 6. The last thesis is set out and confirmed.

We have already laid before you the universal force and efficacy of Christ’s death in three theses. In the first we showed that God appointed this death of Christ and set it before the human race as a universal remedy applicable to every human being. In the second we explained in what sense Christ is said to have died for all—or in what sense his death is owned as a universal cause of salvation established for the good of the whole human race. Not, as some want, merely by bare sufficiency or intrinsic worth, in which respect Christ’s death, or the blood of the Son of God, is a price more than enough to redeem every human and every angel. Rather, by the gospel covenant established and confirmed in this death and blood of Christ. By the terms of that covenant every human being gained a right, under the condition of faith, to claim remission of sins and eternal life.

To those two theses we added a third. Even with this universal force of Christ’s death in place, and with this universal gospel covenant looking to any person whatsoever, this or that particular person does have, by the sole benefit of that death, God bound to make peace with him and to give him life if he believes. He does not yet have actual justification or reconciliation—or the actual state of grace and salvation—before he believes. There remains a fourth and final thesis. Its chief work is to clear a scruple from the minds of those who stretch this universal efficacy of Christ’s death, which we defend, farther than the truth of the matter will bear.

Cap. 6 Thesis IV: Nature-as-grace adversaries and the thesis that God may give or deny application-media§76

76Some people argue at once from the claim that Christ’s death, in the sense already given, was spent for the human race—for every human being—that divine justice and goodness now require God to administer to all for whom he thus gave Christ to death the means needed to generate faith. Yet it is clearer than noon that ethnics and pagans, on whom the light of the gospel never shone, have not been given means that immediately suffice to produce faith in them. So the same people take refuge here: they say even such people are always given sufficient means by which, mediately and as if by degrees, they could have been led to faith in Christ if they had used those means well.

Ask what those means of grace are that could have stood ready for all and led all sufficiently to faith in Christ, and they thrust Nature upon us wrapped in the name of Grace. They say remnants of spiritual life remain in every human—some knowledge of God in the mind, some desire for the good they know in the heart; if a person uses those natural gifts rightly, God will heap greater grace on him and gift him with saving faith. Aquinas seems to lean that way in De veritate, question 14, article 11, reply to the first objection, where he writes: if someone reared in the woods followed the lead of natural reason in appetite for good and flight from evil, it must be held with full certainty that God would either reveal by inward inspiration what is necessary for belief, or send some preacher of the faith to him.

So their view comes to this: by the efficacy and merit of Christ’s death God is already bound as by statute to supply everyone with sufficient means to be led to Christ if they will, so that nothing is wanting on God’s side to keep anyone from faith and a fruitful share in Christ’s death. To untie that knot we have taken up this thesis to explain and confirm it.

Thesis IV. Once Christ’s death is posited as applicable to all humans under the condition of faith, it stands with divine goodness and justice to supply or deny the means of application—to nations or to particular persons—according to the good pleasure of his will, not according to the disparity of human wills.

Cap. 6 preliminaries: No fixed law that good use of nature buys supernatural light§77

77A few preliminaries, then I turn to confirming the thesis. First, notice that those on the opposite side think God is bound by a fixed decree and statute to give the talent of grace to those who use the talent of nature well. Second, they presume that any pagan, even one sitting in the shadow of death, can by free choice use that natural talent well or badly. Third, from that difference between those who use natural gifts rightly and those who do not, they try to explain why God deigns to light some with the gospel and the knowledge of Christ and does not deign to light others. Use the gifts rightly, they say, and the person is gradually to be led into saving knowledge of Christ; abuse them wickedly, and he is justly stripped of that knowledge.

Augustine seems to stand on the opposite side in De Natura et Gratia, chapters 8 and 9. There he grants that for certain infants the means of salvation could not be applied; and he also owns that adults who died in a region where they could not hear Christ’s name could in no way become just by nature and free choice. We likewise affirm that no decree, law, or promise of God exists by which anyone could safely conclude: this person used natural light rightly, or less badly; therefore God will illuminate him with supernatural grace.

Arminius does say God pledged this by Christ’s word, “To the one who has, it will be given” (Matthew 13:12). But the Reverend of Salisbury speaks more truly and more learnedly: Arminius hints a fallacy here, and commits it—leaping from the one who has in the state of nature to a gift in the state of grace, and making the light of faith the wage of unbelievers’ diligence. For what is promised, and in what kind the use falls, is increase in that same kind. Alvarez, a Roman Catholic writer, votes with us here: no law was ever enacted that helps of grace must be given to those who do all that is in them from nature’s faculty; nor did the Lord Christ by his death merit, or will to merit, such a law. The Apostle Paul teaches that the dispensation of supernatural grace runs not according to the use and works of the human will, but according to the purpose and counsel of the divine will: “He works all things according to the purpose and counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11).

Cap. 6 Secundo: Corrupted nature cannot haul grace to itself§78

78Second, though we grant that in ethnic people some sparks of natural light remain, and a certain imperfect desire for moral good, still—as the same Salisbury we praised earlier puts it best—those deformed ruins have no inhabitant but the Devil, and of those remnants in the midst of corruption there can be only a corrupted use. Let the adversaries show us even one person since the world began who by good use of nature drew the gift of grace to himself. Speaking morally, it is impossible that an ethnic person in corrupted nature should not set very many obstacles in grace’s way. Far from it that by using natural things well he can haul gratuitous and supernatural gifts to himself.

Aquinas says truly in Contra Gentiles, book 3, page 160: if through a prior disorder free choice has declined to evil, it will not be altogether in its power to present no impediment to grace. So those who think evangelical grace is given to everyone who uses nature’s light rightly and does not oppose an obstacle to grace are dreaming up people in corrupted nature such as it is not credible ever existed, exist now, or ever will. Whatever is objected, no one can remove that obstacle but God—as Bradwardine truly teaches in De causa Dei against Pelagius, book 2, chapter 32.

Cap. 6 Tertio close: Gospel given or denied by calling pleasure, not natural use§79

79Third and last, we assert—with sacred Scripture and experience itself as witnesses—that the gospel and the other means of salvation were not granted or denied to people because some used natural light rightly, or at least less badly, while others abused the same light perversely and wickedly. Sacred Scripture shows that the light of the gospel shone on people who did not expect it, people who were abusing natural light or talent in the worst way. Such were the Romans, Corinthians, and Ephesians: through the apostles the torch of the gospel was lit for them while they were still wallowing in the filth of superstitions and lusts. No less plain is this: to very many who lived less wickedly the gospel was never revealed.

Who does not know that among the philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Xenocrates, and among the Romans Fabricius, Scipio, and Cato, used nature’s light well beyond other people? Yet none of them became a partaker of evangelical grace on that account. So the cause of the gospel and of supernatural light, given or denied, is not to be sought in better or worse use of natural light, but in the good pleasure of God who calls or does not call. With those points tasted first, we come to the thesis itself. We confirm it first by an argument drawn from the death of Christ—the very place from which the adversaries think they can infer the contrary.

Cap. 6 Arg. 1 close: No covenant ties Gospel revelation to better use of nature§80

80If by Christ’s death a covenant has been established under which remission of sins is promised to any believer, but no covenant has been established under which the gospel is promised to any ethnic person who uses natural gifts rightly, or less badly, then it is rash—Christ’s death being granted—to conclude that God is bound by faithfulness, goodness, justice, or any bond whatever, on account of better use of nature, to reveal to people the mystery of evangelical grace. Yet it is most certain that no such covenant exists anywhere. Therefore the revelation or denial of the gospel depends on God’s good pleasure, who hides it or reveals it as he pleases, not on the varied acts of human beings.

We confirm the major premise from this: God is bound to no one and owes nothing to anyone except by a free and voluntary promise—“For who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid to him?” (Romans 11:35). Into that sense Augustine speaks: the Lord makes himself a debtor not by receiving, but by promising (on Psalm 83). He promises nothing spiritual to the works of corrupted nature, however splendid. He has set himself no law that would bar him from giving spiritual goods to people, however wicked and covered with every kind of crime. So we must not explain from the disparity of persons or of human works why the gospel and the knowledge of Christ are given to some and not to others. We must rest in the good pleasure of the divine will, according to the Apostle: “He called us with his calling, not according to our works, but according to his purpose and the grace that was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Timothy 1:9).

Still someone may press: even if God is bound neither by debt nor by any promise sealed by Christ’s death to reveal Christ to those who use nature’s light well, still—since from unpromised grace he often gives many things to people—what keeps us from saying he keeps this common pattern in distributing evangelical grace: grant it to those who use natural light more rightly, and withhold it from those who, by abusing nature’s light worse than others, have made themselves more unworthy of the light of grace? Scripture’s steady witness against that blocks us. It refers the gift of saving grace not to the person who works better, but to God loving and pitying one more than another (Romans 9). Experience blocks it too. Often a person more modest and temperate from early childhood, and for the most part master of lusts, lives and dies where Christian grace cannot be preached to him at all; while another given to lust and covered with crimes is so governed by God that he hears, believes, and is saved.

So we say every mortal by bad use of nature makes himself unworthy of the gospel; and that God, in giving or denying the gospel, does not weigh degrees of human dignity and unworthiness and from them draw a common rule for indulging grace or withholding it. Sometimes he denies it to those who have used nature’s remnants less badly, and meanwhile grants it to those who abuse the same remnants far worse; sometimes the reverse. So the reason why God deigns to give grace to this one and not to that one must be referred to God’s own good pleasure, not to unequal human works.

Cap. 6 Arg. 2: Divine goodness leaves application-media to free good pleasure§81

81Second, we prove that it is not contrary to divine goodness—even once Christ’s death is granted—still to withhold the means of application from any people he pleases. Christ’s death itself is a benefit God freely spent on the human race. It is fair and fitting that free application of that benefit remain with the benefactor. From giving one gift he is never bound to give another unless a promise intervenes; and no one can rightly claim such a promise about the means by which Christ’s death is applied—neither the whole race in a lump, nor any single person for himself alone.

What jars with divine goodness is not that God does not lavish every benefit on every person, but that he would injure anyone, or unjustly deny or withdraw a good that is owed. Illumination by evangelical grace, even with Christ’s death supposed, is still not owed to nature already corrupted by sin. So Bannezius (on the First Part, question 23, article 3, page 279): natural and supernatural illumination do not stand on the same footing, for natural light is owed to nature itself, while the light of grace is not owed to nature—least of all to nature already spoiled by sin—but is conferred by grace. If it is conferred by grace, it is not owed to all. Among twelve sentences that belong to the Catholic faith, Augustine set this second one in Epistle 107: that the grace of God is not given to all people. If it is conferred by grace, it is not given or denied according to good or bad use of natural light. Prosper is right (Response 8 to the Chapters of the Gauls): it is impiety to say that the grace by which we are saved is either repaid to good merits or fenced off by evils. And in On the Calling of the Gentiles: there are no crimes so detestable that they can fence off the gift of grace.

Those who try to defend God’s justice and goodness by human guesswork, and contend that he supplies free means of salvation to everyone who uses natural gifts rightly or less badly, but denies them to those who have abused the same gifts, are—speaking with Augustine—ignorant of the height of grace, and have woven improbable fables. Like it or not, if we ask why those means by which people apply Christ to themselves for salvation are granted to these particular persons and not to others, we must set aside the disparity of persons or of human works and rise to God’s freest good pleasure: “When the same cause binds all at once, / nor are they discerned by merit who differ by gift,” as Prosper puts it elegantly in the Poem On the Ungrateful, chapter 25.

Cap. 6 Arg. 3 open: From fact to right—immediate media given or denied by mercy§82

82From fact to right we argue this way. God leaves undone nothing that it would be alien to divine goodness, justice, or prudence not to do. It is wrong to doubt that, for he who is Goodness, Justice, and Wisdom themselves cannot, in acting or not acting, ever leave the rule of goodness, justice, or wisdom. So I attach the minor and affirm: even with Christ’s death granted, God has denied in the past, and still denies, to many nations and many particular people those means without which Christ’s death is applied to no one.

That will be plain if we look either at the immediate means of salvation—repentance, faith, regeneration, sanctification—by which a person is set in spiritual life and salvation and in actual share of Christ’s death and merits, or at the external means God uses as instruments to produce those first ones: the sending of teachers and pastors, the preaching of the gospel, and every other help without which those inward, immediate means cannot ordinarily be wrought.

As for the first set, faith itself and saving knowledge of Christ is a special gift given to some and denied to others, according to the good pleasure of the divine will: “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; to them it has not been given” (Matthew 13:11). “No one can come to me unless it has been given him by my Father” (John 6:65). “By grace you have been saved through faith—and this not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). “Faith is not of all” (2 Thessalonians 3:2). The same holds for repentance, regeneration, and sanctification: a special mercy that procures them gives them to some, and the same mercy, not unfolding its riches, denies them to others. “Turn us, O Lord, to yourself, and we shall be turned” (Lamentations 5:21). “He has mercy on whom he wills; whom he wills he hardens” (Romans 9:18). “Not of bloods, nor of the will of man, but of God they were born” (John 1:13). “Blessed be God who according to his mercy has regenerated us” (1 Peter 1:3). I pass over the rest. From these it is clear that God gives or denies those means in which union with Christ and salvation are immediately set according to the good pleasure of his will, not according to a difference in the human will.

All the orthodox Fathers press this hard against the Pelagians. Ambrose on Luke 7:9: God calls whom he deigns, and makes devout whom he wills. Augustine, Epistle 107: We know grace is not given to all people, nor according to the merits of the will of those who receive it. In the same letter he adds that those denied this grace often differ by no merit and no will, but share a like condition with those who receive it. Fulgentius, On the Incarnation and Grace, chapter 19: As in fleshly birth the formation of the divine work precedes every will of the one being born, so in spiritual birth, by which we begin to put off the old self, no one can have a good will by his own motion. And chapter 21: If God has not given to a person through his grace, that person can never will to believe in God, because grace does not find this will already there—it works it in the person. So God does not hand out these inward means promiscuously to everyone who might apply Christ’s death to himself. Nor may our opponents claim that God’s giving or withholding of faith springs from human wills resisting or not resisting, since Scripture expressly refers this to God’s good pleasure to pity or not to pity, and the Fathers in plain words shut out any disparity of human wills before grace is received.

Cap. 6 Arg. 3: External media withheld from nations under Old and New Testaments§83

83So far we have argued about the immediate means. Now we come down to the means of those means. Christ’s death and merit have had their force in God’s acceptance from the world’s beginning. Yet under the Old Testament God did not grant the external means of application to every human being alike. As the Psalmist says, “He declares his word to Jacob; he has not done thus to every nation” (Psalm 147:19–20). Paul speaks the same way: “In past ages God allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways” (Acts 14:16).

Prosper marked the same point: it is not far from ordinary observation, he says, through how many ages countless thousands of people, left to their errors and impieties, have perished without any knowledge of the true God (On Free Choice, page 225). Looking to New Testament times (On the Calling of the Gentiles 2.17), he adds: even now in the farthest parts of the world there are nations on whom the Savior’s grace has not yet shone. From this it follows that even with Christ’s death granted, God is still not bound by his goodness or justice to provide and offer to every person the means by which they can apply Christ to themselves. In God the move from fact to right works both ways: God does this, therefore he does it justly; God does not do this, therefore no right binds him to do it.

Cap. 6 Arg. 3 Obj. 1–2: Preacher neglect and ancestral contempt do not bind God§84

84Some meet this argument by saying the gospel is not preached everywhere less because God fails to send preachers than because those who are sent refuse to go. So Corvinus against Tilenus, page 105. But if God, by his goodness and justice, as if by a kind of congruence, and with Christ’s death supposed, were bound to communicate sufficient means of application to everyone, he would not let anyone be cheated of an owed benefit by another’s carelessness—least of all a benefit without which no salvation can be hoped for. It is even a contradiction to say that by ordinary law God provides and administers to all these means that look to applying Christ, and yet withholds them from some because of the preachers’ neglect—when the very care of the preachers would have to be counted among those means, without which knowledge and application of the Christ who is preached cannot be had.

Further, if God’s goodness or justice required that these means of applying Christ be administered to all, he would without doubt have kindled in at least some preachers the will and care to preach and carry the gospel to every nation. He himself knows how to thrust laborers into the harvest according to his good pleasure. Finally, what preacher-neglect explains that two hundred years ago the gospel was preached by no one among the Americans, when no one had even dreamed those nations existed? We must therefore rise to a higher cause: God’s free good pleasure in granting or denying these means. By a special providence he sees to it that they are administered to peoples, or not administered, through his ministers—as Acts 16:6 and following shows: “They were forbidden to speak the word of God in Asia, and they were intending to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit did not permit them,” and so on.

Second, they answer that those long without evangelical grace had already repudiated it in their ancestors, and so the descendants are rightly stripped of the gospel proclamation their ancestors despised; therefore the fact that some are not lit by the gospel’s saving light should not be referred to God’s absolute will. But this does not hang with their own views. If God, with an eye to Christ’s death, is bound to administer sufficient means of salvation to all people, it is hardly fair that, because ancestors despised the preached word in Noah’s day, the gospel should be denied to their posterity after many thousands of years. If—Adam’s sin notwithstanding—Christ’s death has (on their showing) secured that sufficient means of salvation be administered to all, it is alien to reason and equity to break that quasi-ordinary law on the pretext of sins committed by any other ancestors of ours.

Just as God could justly deny any spiritual benefit to Adam’s posterity because of Adam’s own sin, so we grant that from other ancestors’ sins God may also take occasion to deny us any free benefit. But if by Christ’s death, with God’s goodness concurring, a law has been set about administering the means of grace, then just as God will not abrogate that quasi-statute because of Adam’s sin—who bore in himself the person of all his posterity—so it is far less fitting that posterity be robbed of this benefit because of the sins of others who do not sustain that common person of the human race. They flee in vain to ancestral sins to explain the denial of a thing which, by the virtue of Christ’s death and of divine goodness, they themselves claim was prepared for all and each by divine decree and as if owed by fixed law.

Cap. 6 Arg. 3 close: Human unworthiness is circumstance, not the discriminating cause§85

85Third, they answer that evangelical grace is denied to some because by continual law-breaking they have made themselves unworthy of those to whom divine grace should be offered. This reply will only make our position clearer. First I take what no sober mind will deny: every person in corrupted nature has made himself unworthy of evangelical grace, if you attend to his sins. Then I add that human dignity and unworthiness—or greater and lesser unworthiness—is not the rule by which God proceeds in dispensing or denying the gospel to particular persons or to nations. That being so, unworthiness is always found in those denied the gospel, and also in those who receive it. So this unworthiness has the nature of a circumstance that always accompanies both those who get the gospel and those who do not; it does not have the force of a discriminating cause why it is given to these and not to those. In this matter we must come down to the sole pleasure of the divine will, who, when it pleases him, confers helps both on those who do and on those who do not do what is in them—as Alvarez says in On Helps, disputation 58.

But because this reply, which teaches that human unworthiness fences off evangelical grace, seems quietly to hint that some could have procured the same by their dignity, hear what the orthodox Fathers taught the Pelagians on this very point. Augustine, Epistle 107, page 500, shows that Christ’s saving grace is not granted or denied by the rule of greater or lesser unworthiness. For brevity I omit the words. Prosper presses this again and again (On the Calling of the Gentiles, book 1, chapter 15): a part of humankind is set free while a part perishes; and if we ascribe that to the merits of wills, so that grace seems to have neglected the bad and chosen the good, the case of innumerable peoples will rise against us, to whom through so many ages no announcement of heavenly teaching has flashed. Nor can we say that those later ones on whom the light has risen were better, and so on. In the Poem On the Ungrateful, chapter 12, the same Prosper shows that the Pelagians’ own opinion was this: God by his goodness wills to call all to grace, but the will of some, oppressed by vices under the first light, has been made unworthy of the second. Against them, in chapter 14, he contends that examples can be brought of wicked hearts converted by God’s power, hearts in which nothing of the matter had ever settled, and which bore no sign or sense of justice.

The sum of the argument comes to this: evangelical grace is not given because people are judged worthy of it—no one worthy of so great a gift is found—nor is it denied because some have stood more unworthy than the rest, since this light has been granted to the worst and meanwhile denied to others less depraved. We must therefore rest in the secret good pleasure of the divine will, who, that his mercy may shine the more, does not regularly grant the gospel’s light to those who use nature’s light well or less badly, but on the contrary calls the faithless and negligent to himself, and unworthy, ungrateful sinners. From this it is plain that it always remains free for God, and in no way alien to his goodness, to give or not to give to any people whatever the gospel and the other means needed for applying Christ’s merits, according to the good pleasure of his will, with no account taken of dignity or unworthiness, or of greater and lesser human unworthiness.

Cap. 6 Arg. 4 open: Contrary inconveniences—uneven grace pinned on the human obstacle§86

86The same point can be proved from the plain inconveniences that press the contrary view. If by Christ's death it has been universally obtained that God is bound—by the decree itself, or by some law of congruity—to grant, as far as in him lies, to every human being the grace of gospel preaching and of inward sanctification, then the chief reason why one person in fact shares both graces and another does not will lie here: that one has thrust up an obstacle and pushed the grace away, or has blocked it from being offered at all, while the other has neither pushed it away nor blocked it. Our opponents do not shrink from that consequence. They do not reduce the difference between evangelical calling and saving grace denied or granted to God's bare will, but to different conditions or dispositions on the human side. So Corvinus against Tilenus, page 489: though God does not preach the word of the cross everywhere, he is still ready to preach it to all who duly submit themselves to the ministry of the law—that is, who follow the light of the natural law alive even in Gentile hearts. Writing on natural gifts, page 118, he says God left those gifts to the nations so that if they used them according to God's intention, they would be led to glorify God in the measure of their knowledge, and on to Christ and the knowledge of him; but if they held down in injustice the truth they had, they would be left in their ignorance. Here he openly hangs the gospel call on the use or abuse of natural gifts.

Cap. 6 Arg. 4: Internal grace reduced to human wills—first inconvenience against Paul§87

87The same Corvinus so defends inward life-giving grace as laid open to all by an ordinary law that he reduces the very difference why one person in fact shares that grace and another does not to a difference of human wills, not to the divine good pleasure. Indeed he says it is certain that no one's conversion is precisely intended by God. But however much this flatters human reason, it still runs against divine Scripture and can be crushed by plain inconveniences. If we grant that either the outward gospel call, or the inward and effectual infusion of regenerating grace, is given and denied according to different human dispositions or operations, then first it would follow that free choice in the corrupted state, not yet lit by gospel light, can so well use its natural gifts that God is bound—by the ordinary law his own goodness dictates to him—to give spiritual grace to the natural man. That is against the Apostle: if it is from works, grace is no longer grace (Romans 11:6). We would receive it not by the pity of the giver, but by the equity of a repayor, as Fulgentius says in On the Incarnation and Grace of Christ, chapter 18.

Cap. 6 Arg. 4: Second and third inconveniences—preterition and prevenient grace in Paul§88

88Second—and every orthodox writer shrinks from this—it would also follow that the reason for predestination and preterition must be found in people's different qualities or acts. For the reason of predestination, which is the preparation of grace, cannot differ from the reason of grace, which is the gift itself. So anyone who teaches that the reason grace is given or withheld must be sought in human dispositions or operations must of necessity seek the reason of predestination and preterition there too. Third, it would follow that God breaks the law he himself set when he as good as forces this grace on those who have put an obstacle in its way—which the Apostle himself most humbly confesses happened to Paul: caught in open sin and rushing against Christ, God mercifully called him to the knowledge and grace of Christ. Fulgentius puts it finely in On the Incarnation and Grace, chapter 18: how God's mercy goes before us, and what sort it finds when it does, the Teacher of the nations shows not in someone else but in himself, saying, I who was formerly a blasphemer, and so on (1 Timothy 1:13). The Father hints that every mortal is refractory until preventing grace has brought him under.

Cap. 6 Arg. 4: Fourth inconvenience—Diospolis, African synod, and Orange overturned§89

89Fourth, grant that grace is given or denied according as human wills have or have not set an obstacle, and you overturn nearly everything the Councils defined against the Pelagians. First among them is what the Council of Diospolis sanctioned against Pelagius: let him confess that grace is not given from merit, so that it may be true grace—that is, freely given—through the mercy of him who said, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy (Exodus 33:19; Romans 9:15). For to give or withhold grace according as someone has used natural gifts rightly or not, or (as others put it) according as someone has or has not done what lies in him, is for the Fathers the same as giving from merits and denying from demerits. Nor will that word of the African Fathers in their synodical letter stand: grace itself is not recognized at all unless it is given; and as long as it is not in a person, he must of necessity resist it in word or deed. How can it make sense that Gentiles in corrupted nature are to receive evangelical grace by that quasi-law if they have not set an obstacle to grace, when by the necessity of a depraved and habitual disposition they must resist grace the whole time they lack it? Finally those decrees of the Council of Orange fall—canon 4: if anyone contends that God waits for our will so that we may be purged from sin, but will not confess that even our willing to be purged is wrought in us by the Holy Spirit's operation and infusion, he resists the Apostle; and canon 6: if anyone subjoins the help of grace to human humility and obedience, and so on, he resists the Apostle. I leave the rest.

Cap. 6 Arg. 4 close: Application-grace given or denied by free good pleasure, not human operations§90

90Let them explain how God is not said to wait for the human will, and to hang the help of supernatural grace on obedience to the natural law written in human hearts, if—Christ's death once granted—God on this way of acting gives grace to all who use natural gifts rightly, and withholds it from those who do not. Since all of that is utterly foreign to the truth, it remains to say that God, the merit of Christ's death notwithstanding, can give or deny the grace of applying that merit, and ordinarily does so to particular persons by the good pleasure and freedom of his will—not by merits, or by the different operations of human wills.

Cap. 6 Arg. 5 open: Useful ends that confirm application-grace by good pleasure§91

91Our view is confirmed by the most useful ends it serves to bring out—ends the contrary view plainly abolishes. Take this case: grant Christ's death, and still take God as distributing or withholding the grace by which that death is applied to human beings according to his good pleasure, and not according to some difference among human wills or actions.

Cap. 6 Arg. 5: Absolute liberty of God in first-grace—Matt. 20 and Rom. 9§92

92First, absolute liberty of God in giving first grace then shines out—an attribute everyone must acknowledge here. "I choose to give to this one as to you," even when human merits are unequal, is God asserting his own liberty (Matthew 20:14). And "I choose to give to this one, and not to you," where on the human side everything is equal, is a voice just as worthy of God, and likewise serves to display his supreme liberty, as Paul proves (Romans 9). For although by the power and efficacy of Christ's death God willed himself bound to give remission to believers, and glory to the regenerate grafted into Christ, yet he did not will himself bound—by any act of theirs, or any disposition of theirs considered in corrupt nature outside Christ—to give the Gospel to these nations or these particular persons, or to give faith and efficacious grace to these definite individuals. So those who teach that grace is given or denied according to the good or bad use of nature diminish the divine liberty God reserved for himself: which is as much as to say that nature anticipates grace.

Cap. 6 Arg. 5: Special mercy—Prosper against Faustus; Augustine on giving and withholding§93

93Second, our view makes conspicuous what Scripture presses so hard: God's free and special mercy in giving certain people both the light of the Gospel and saving grace. Prosper puts it well: "There is a certain part of the human race that is brought on to eternal salvation by special benefits" (De vocatione gentium 2.31). Those who think Christ's death has this effect—that God offers the means of saving grace to all, yet leaves it to each person's own choice whether to obey or resist the grace offered, so that if they raise no obstacle they receive grace, and if they raise one they are stripped of it—plainly cancel that special mercy. On their view God showed Jacob or Peter no special mercy he did not show Esau and Judas; Jacob and Peter merely applied to themselves by some special act what Esau and Judas neglected to apply. Faustus of Riez taught that openly (De libero arbitrio 1.10), denying any special divine dispensation for the salvation of certain people—a lesson he learned from Pelagius, as Prosper shows (Carmen de ingratis 10). Augustine speaks otherwise: "The Lord gives to whom he wills, because he is merciful; and he does not give to whom he does not will, that he may make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy" (De bono perseverantiae 12).

Cap. 6 Arg. 5 close: Boasting cut off; glory of human salvation wholly God's§94

94Third, our view leaves human beings no handle for boasting, and assigns the glory of human salvation wholly to God, who makes one person differ from another—as the Apostle says: "Who makes you differ? What do you have that you did not receive?" (1 Corinthians 4:7). "From whom," Augustine asks, "except from him who distinguishes you from another, to whom he did not give what he gave you?" (De praedestinatione sanctorum 9). But if their view wins—that by Christ's death God has become equally kind to all people, and that from this equal bent toward all he administers grace so that whoever uses nature's light well, or does what lies in him, draws grace to himself, while whoever uses that light badly, or fails to do what lies in him, does not—then the person who ends up sharing in grace has from himself a fair ground of boasting: by his own choice he set himself apart from another whom no special gift of divine mercy had set apart.

Cap. 6 Arg. 6 open: If grace turns on human disparity, Gospel and faith get an easy human account§95

95Suppose Christ's death is granted, and yet by God's decree the gift or denial of grace to particular persons does not proceed from the absolute liberty of the divine will, but from the disparity of human wills and actions. Then anyone can give a ready reason why the Gospel was withheld from this nation and granted to that one, and why these particular people receive faith and vivifying, regenerating grace while others do not. Of those who have it, the story runs: they got the light of the Gospel because they used nature's light well, or at least less badly. Of those who lack it: they stay without Gospel light because they used nature's light less well. Ask among Christians why this person has faith and regenerating grace and that one does not, and you hear the same human ledger—those who have it willed to believe and would not raise an obstacle; those who lack it would not believe and would not clear the obstacle away. Of the special calling according to purpose, by which God powerfully turns the hearts of those he specially chooses to pity toward belief, there is meantime not a word.

Cap. 6 Arg. 6: That easy human account of obtained grace is Pelagian—Rom. 9 and Phil. 2§96

96I add this: to give so ready a reason, from the human side, why grace is obtained or missed is the Pelagian trademark—and every orthodox writer has condemned it. The orthodox have always traced the gift or denial of efficacious grace back to the secret purpose of God's good pleasure. They never held that, once Christ's death is granted, God is so bound to administer his grace indiscriminately that having it or lacking it turns on the disparity of human wills. We do not deny that those who stay without grace have earned their unworthiness and choose their wickedness. We do say that everyone labors under that disease until special grace cures it; and that no unregenerate person pulls grace to himself by a better will. Rather, by a more efficacious grace given from God's mere good pleasure, he receives a better will—as the Apostle says: "It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy" (Romans 9:16). "It is God who gives us both to will and to accomplish, according to his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).

Cap. 6 Arg. 6: Prosper—many hear; wills prepared or not; mercy and judgment in the wills§97

97Prosper brings the difference between believers and unbelievers back to the same point (Ad excerpta Genuensium, reply to Doubt 4): "Many hear the word of truth, but some believe and others contradict—so these will to believe, and those will not. Who does not know that? Who denies it? Yet when the Lord prepares the will for some and does not prepare it for others, we must ask what comes of mercy and what of judgment." And a little later: "Mercy and judgment have been done in the wills themselves."

Cap. 6 Arg. 6: Augustine—actual share in grace rests on secret good pleasure, not free application§98

98Augustine too, everywhere, traces actual share in grace to this secret good pleasure of God—not to the difference among human wills that, by their native freedom, do or do not apply themselves to grace offered. De bono perseverantiae 8: of two already adult ungodly persons, why one is called so that he follows the Caller, while the other is either not called, or not called so as to follow—God's judgments are inscrutable. And De praedestinatione sanctorum 8: "Why," he asks, "does God not teach everyone? If we say it is because those he does not teach refuse to learn, the reply comes: Where then is the word, LORD, YOU TURN US AND GIVE US LIFE?"

Cap. 6 Arg. 6: Aquinas—saving gifts rest on simple divine will; prevenience for some who block grace§99

99Aquinas too will give no other reason why these particular persons receive the gifts of saving grace, and others do not, than the simple will of God (Contra Gentiles 3.161). "Though the sinner," he says, "puts an obstacle in grace's way, and so far as the order of things requires ought not to receive grace, yet sometimes, from the abundance of his goodness, God also goes before with his help even those who put that obstacle there, turning them from evil and converting them to good," and the rest. He adds at once: "He does not go before with his help all who block grace, but some in whom he wills his mercy to appear, so that in others the order of justice may be shown."

Cap. 6 Arg. 6 close: Obstacle and non-obstacle resolve into bare good pleasure—no promiscuous-grace decree§100

100Finally—lest we pin on the disparity of human wills the fact that these obtained efficacious grace and were converted, while those did not and stay unconverted—he adds in the same place these weighty words: "When God, among people held in the same sins, converts some by going before them, but sustains or permits others to go on according to the order of things, we are not to ask why he converts these and not those. That hangs on his simple will—just as it was by his simple will that, when all things were made from nothing, some were made more worthy than others." So far Thomas. Christ's death, then, established no divine decree that grace should be administered promiscuously to all, with a kind of annexed law that particular persons share or do not share in that grace according as they will or will not raise an impediment. The very distinction between those who raise an obstacle and those who do not must be resolved into God's bare good pleasure as its first and radical cause.

Cap. 6 Arg. 7 open: If grace is fixed for all who apply Christ, the last reason falls to human choice§101

101Suppose God's will, by Christ's death, is taken as somehow fixed to administer grace to every person who applies Christ to himself and is saved—yet so that only those receive and keep it who either used nature's light well, or raised almost no obstacle against the grace offered them, while everyone else does not receive it. Then the last account of grace obtained or missed, and of salvation gained or lost, would be charged not to the divine good pleasure but to human free choice. The consequence is plain and solid. On that view God is presumed, because of Christ's death, to administer grace and to offer everyone a grace sufficient for applying Christ and obtaining salvation; and he is also presumed, by absolute will or bare will, to give saving grace to no one specially.

Cap. 6 Arg. 7: Remonstrants—saving efficacy hangs on not opposing, not on omnipotent force§102

102So the Remonstrants put it in the Declaration of their view on the third article (Acts of the Synod of Dordrecht, p. 15). Saving efficacy of grace, they say, hangs neither on the fitness of the calling (as some Roman writers hold) nor on omnipotent divine force (as Prosper in the Carmen De Ingratis 14-15, and Augustine Against Julian 5.3, On the Predestination of the Saints 2, On Grace and Free Choice 20, and On Rebuke and Grace 14), but on an operation that most surely gets its effect when a person does not set rebellion against it—rebellion he could of himself have set.

Cap. 6 Arg. 7: They reverse the order—obstacle cleared because efficacious grace was given§103

103As if they said grace is efficacious in this or that particular person because he himself raised no obstacle—when they ought to have said he raised none because God, of his own good pleasure, gave him efficacious grace. I now add the Minor, and I affirm it is wholly alien to theology and to truth for anyone to hold that Christ's death established a decree by which the sure attainment of grace and salvation is shifted from God's absolute will onto the free choice of the human will.

Cap. 6 Arg. 7: First Adam's liberty-resolved grace vs Christ's stronger grace that makes willing conquer§104

104For that account of gaining or missing salvation which resolves into the liberty of human choice belonged to the first grace given to the first Adam—as Augustine well noted. But the grace given in Christ to all who are to be saved is far stronger: by it they will, and will so strongly, that in fact they always overcome the flesh's unwilling will. (See Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace 11-12.)

Cap. 6 Arg. 7 close: After Christ, who has applying grace turns on divine good pleasure, not human disparity§105

105So after Christ has been given us, the distinction that some have the grace by which they apply Christ to themselves for salvation, and others do not, is brought back not to the unevenness of human wills, but to the good pleasure of the divine will.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 open: Fathers testify that God withholds media and gifts by good pleasure§106

106Our last argument comes from the Fathers themselves. They freely grant that some people are not given the means and gifts by which they can believe in Christ and obtain salvation—and that this denial rests on the good pleasure of the divine will. God would never leave that undone if, once Christ's death is granted, divine goodness, prudence, or justice already required those means to be supplied to every person. We will not parade every Father in turn. We will take a few passages from those who fought the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8: Do not stretch the word grace beyond just limits—Pelagian abuse§107

107One caution first. When we say the orthodox Fathers who fought Pelagius refuse to grant that grace is given to all merely because of Christ's death, we are not letting the word grace run loose past its proper bounds—the very move the Pelagians once made. Anything God freely grants to people can, in a loose sense, be called grace.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8: Broad-sense grace—natural light, creatures, outward benefits, inward motions§108

108Natural light by which God lights every person who comes into the world; the witness of the creatures that steers the nations toward some knowledge of the Creator; outward benefits by which God shows his love of humankind to the whole world; inward stirrings that sometimes check a Gentile from evil or move him toward good—all these can, in that wide sense, wear the name grace. Under that blanket the Pelagians hid the poison of their teaching. Scripture does not mean the grace given through Christ that way, and neither do the holy Fathers once Pelagius forced them to speak more carefully.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8: Saving grace of Christ—supernatural gifts; non-infallible media called grace§109

109So by "grace of Christ" or saving grace, in Scripture's sense, we mean only those supernatural benefits and gifts aimed straight at salvation in Christ and eternal life. They fall into two ranks. Some are ordered to salvation through Christ, but not infallibly: Gospel preaching, illumination of minds in the mysteries of the faith—in short, whatever supernatural help tends to join people to Christ and set them in a state of salvation, yet has not actually joined them or moved them from death into life. The Apostle himself calls that preaching and knowledge of the Gospel "grace" (1 Cor. 1:4; 2:11). That is why 1 Peter 4:10 names preachers stewards of God's manifold grace. Augustine calls the Gospel itself Christian grace; Prosper calls it the Savior's grace—and in that sense says some nations live outside God's grace when no one there preaches Christ to them.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8: Proper vivifying grace—faith, conversion, regeneration; Augustine's colors§110

110Other supernatural gifts actually bring the state of salvation: a good will, faith, conversion, regeneration—in short, what belongs only to people grafted into Christ and reconciled to God. Those, Augustine says, deserve the name "grace of Christ" in the proper sense. Preaching and knowledge of Christian doctrine he refers to that proper grace only so far as they help produce and advance it. In On the Grace of Christ he makes the point expressly: the name does not mean mere lighting of the mind or stirring of the will, but the gift of faith itself and of a good will. He paints that grace in bright colors—the grace by which we are justified from iniquity and saved from weakness; a grace we barely share with the ungodly, but the grace by which we are children of God. Now for the Fathers' own words.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Primo: Augustine—some not called; media withheld by the abyss of predestination§111

111First, the Fathers who deny that—Christ's death granted—the grace of Gospel preaching is owed or given to all, and even say it is withheld from some by the purpose of God's will. That could not happen if grace were owed to everyone on the strength of Christ's death. Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 8: take two ungodly adults—why is one called so that he follows the Caller, while the other is not called, or not called that way? God's judgments are inscrutable. He plainly owns that some are not called at all. Chapter 14 adds that for some not cut out of the mass of perdition by God's higher judgment, the means by which they could believe are simply not applied. In both places he affirms that the means are denied, and he traces it to the unsearchable depth of divine predestination—not to uneven human wills or works, the Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian habit. Chapter 11 says the same: God chooses not to help some, and that rests on his will and hidden predestination.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Primo: Prosper—no Gospel calling where Mother Church has not regenerated§112

112Prosper grants the objection that not all are called to grace, at least of everyone to whom Christ's cross and the redemption of his blood have never been made known. Sentence 4 on the Chapters of the Gauls: we cannot say there is a calling of grace where Mother Church has not yet regenerated anyone. That strikes those who, to keep grace prepared and offered to all because of Christ, invent some calling and enough-grace in the thick of pagan darkness. What Prosper said of little children we may say of adults: prove them called somehow, when neither planter could preach to them nor irrigator help them (Response to Objection 4).

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Primo close: Fulgentius and Aquinas—original demerit justly withholds Gospel grace§113

113Fulgentius, On the Truth of Predestination book 1: to people who use reason God either supplies or withholds the persons fitted for their salvation—holding justice toward some, showing mercy to others. Meaning: he sends Gospel preachers, or does not, by his good pleasure—sends when he means to display mercy, withholds when he means to exercise justice. From the same Fulgentius I add: the common guilt all contracted in Adam is enough for Gospel grace to be justly denied to anyone. So he says there: the grace by which we are saved is never given for a prior good desert, yet it is denied only for a prior evil desert; for the first man passed the deserts of his sin to all. So for Fulgentius original demerit is already a just reason to withhold Christ's grace from anyone. Aquinas owns the same (2a 2ae q. 2 a. 5 ad 1): helps of grace are given to some in mercy, and in justice not given to others, as punishment for prior sin—at least original sin. All this confirms what we set out first: there is no decreed law, tied to Christ's death, that the means of Gospel grace must be administered to the whole human race. God, even with Christ's death in view, can by right deny—and has in fact denied to some—the very calling of grace.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Secundo open: Vivifying grace κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν—Augustine, calling according to purpose§114

114Second, from the same Fathers we show that the grace we call Christ's grace by preeminence—the grace that makes a person a living member of Christ and a sharer in salvation and eternal life—is not, because of Christ's death, prepared or offered to all, still less given to all. It is prepared, offered, and given to some; to others neither prepared nor given—and that by God's absolute good pleasure. Augustine, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.7: according to God's purpose one is called, another is not. To the called a free gift is given, and the calling itself is that gift's beginning; to the uncalled evil is paid back, because all are guilty since through one man sin entered the world. So the calling according to purpose—which pours in faith and charity and sets a person in the state of salvation—is given to some and denied to others. Clear too: those who receive it receive it not because their will specially obeyed first, but because God who calls specially showed mercy and softened the will to obey. And the common guilt all contracted in Adam is already enough to uphold God's justice toward anyone he passes by in the gift of saving grace—Bellarmine himself does not dare deny it (On Grace and Free Choice 2.4).

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Secundo: Augustine—who are made sheep; no decree to give all the grace that makes believers§115

115Augustine's second witness is Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.6: the One who makes people sheep is the One who frees human wills for the obedience of piety. Why he makes these sheep and not those—that is the question that belongs to the depth the Apostle feared to look into and cried, O the depth. Making sheep or not making them means nothing but making people faithful and obedient—or not. Both acts are God's, and both run by the purpose of his hidden will. So Christ's death did not fix the decree some invent: that the grace which makes believers and the obedient is prepared, offered, and given to everyone, on condition that free choice embrace it.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Secundo: Augustine—faith is God's gift; birth-guilt already justifies withholding it§116

116Third witness: On the Predestination of the Saints 8. Faith begun and faith perfected is God's gift. No one who will not fight the plainest Scripture should doubt that this gift is given to some and not to others. Why not to all should not unsettle the believer who holds that from one man all went into condemnation. Augustine teaches outright that the grace of faith is not given to all; we need no further reason for the gift withheld, because the damnable state in which we are all born already upholds God's justice—even if he gave saving grace to no mortal at all.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Secundo: Augustine—rebuke, original pravity, and grace infused not merely offered§117

117Fourth, On Rebuke and Grace 5. Unbelievers and rebels argue: I would deserve rebuke if by my fault I lacked faith and obedience—if I could give or take it myself and would not, or if when God gave it I refused. But if the Lord himself prepares the will, why rebuke me? Chapter 6 Augustine answers: the first crookedness that disobeys God is from the human, who by his own evil will fell from the uprightness God first made in him. So rebuke the damnable root, that pain may birth a will to be regenerated—yet only if the one rebuked is a child of promise, so God works inwardly in him by hidden inspiration even to will. Epistle 105 is the same case. Pelagius asks: what have we done who live badly, if we never received the grace to live well? Augustine answers only that people who live badly of themselves cannot truly claim they have done no evil. A little later: let them blame themselves; they were made from the mass God justly condemned for one man's sin. In both places Augustine grants that God has denied his grace to some; that those not given it could not take it for themselves; and that original guilt and pravity are reason enough for God, of his will, to withhold Christ's grace from anyone. Note too: he does not picture saving grace as something merely offered to the human will, knocking to be let in, but as something poured in—healing and vivifying the will that receives it.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Secundo close: Ep. 107, Prosper, Fulgentius—vivifying grace not seized by native liberty§118

118Our last Augustine witness is Epistle 107. Against the Pelagians he lists twelve catholic sentences; the fourth is, We know God's grace is not given to all. And lest anyone claim Christ's death made this grace prepared and offered to everyone, had or missed only as people choose to take or refuse it, sentences five and six shut that door too—more on that shortly. From Augustine we come to Prosper. In the Genoese Excerpts, answer to doubt 7: when the word of truth is preached, some believe willingly and some do not—but only because God has opened some hearts and not others. That is to say, the grace of faith is given to some and denied to others. Answer to the eighth doubt: of Tyre and Sidon what can we say but that it was not given them to believe? Why denied—let them tell if they can. Prosper asserts two things: the gift of faith is denied to some, and the reason is unsearchable. In On the Ungrateful 6 he sets out the Pelagian error: that without choosing persons, law or Christ's grace wills to save every human, and the Caller's gift is so laid open that anyone can reach it by his own liberty and strength. Chapter 10 paints the Semi-Pelagian colors; chapter 11 rejects them: Tell us how you prove Christ's grace passes by none of all who are born. For Prosper, to defend grace given to all is a strand of Pelagian poison. Hear Fulgentius. On the Truth of Predestination: the holy Fathers, holding apostolic truth, knew for certain—and left it in books—that God's grace is not given generally to all. A little later: no one can desire, ask, or even know that grace unless he first receives it from God. Again: do not think God's grace is given to all. Not all have faith; some do not receive God's charity so as to be saved. That they neither believe nor love the Lord is the fault of the human will, which, until divine gift-grace changes it, either fails to understand God's commands or despises them once understood. What could be plainer? Vivifying grace is not given to all, and no one has it unless it is given from above. Clearer still, On the Incarnation and Grace of Jesus Christ, p. 89: God who prepares the will is the One who gives it. If he has not given that will by his grace, a person can never will to believe in God—because grace does not find the will ready; it works the will in the person. So the Fathers who warred on Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians speak with one voice: vivifying, saving grace is not given to all; the spoiled will that lacks it can by its own fault scorn grace and push away what is offered in outward means; but it cannot, by right of native liberty, snatch this life-giving grace and drag it to itself.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 after Secundo: Pelagian-mode digression—vivifying grace offered to all, given by human will§119

119But the marrow of Pelagianism sits in the mode they invent for how God administers vivifying grace and how people take it. So we will set out what the Pelagian party claims and what the orthodox Fathers settle, with witnesses from both. The Pelagians hold that from Christ’s death and merit vivifying, regenerating grace flows to everyone from God’s mercy in such a way that being vivified and regenerated—or not—depends first on the human will that embraces or spurns the grace. Their view comes to this: saving grace is offered to all from sheer mercy in Christ, yet given to no one by absolute good pleasure. Ask why this person received Christ’s saving grace and that one did not, and they answer: the one willed to take what was offered; the other would not. Let them speak for themselves. Vitalis of Carthage, in Augustine Epistle 107, holds that grace follows the human will and is therefore given because people willed it. The Massilian leftovers of Pelagian heresy, in Prosper to Augustine, say that as far as God goes eternal life is prepared for all, but as far as free choice goes it is seized by those who freely believed God and received helps of grace by the merit of that belief. Pelagius himself, in Augustine, says people who use free choice well merit the Lord’s grace; others who have free choice by which they could come to faith and deserve God’s grace, by misusing their liberty, lack grace and run into damnation. Faustus of Riez: from God’s goodness that a person is called; from his own will that he promptly obeys.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8: Pontificii, Arminius, Remonstrants, Corvinus—efficacious grace hung on human consent§120

120From the old Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians we come down to people who hate the Pelagian name yet will not drop the error. In that class I put those Papists who teach that grace is efficacious by the consent of the human will: if the will happens to assent, God pours in vivifying grace; if it resists, God’s operation that would vivify and regenerate the soul is made void. With them I also count Arminius and his disciples, who hang the gift or denial of saving grace so far on human wills that they say God by absolute good pleasure wills to convert and regenerate no one, yet wills to convert and regenerate all on condition they have not resisted his exciting grace—and leaves them unconverted if they have resisted. So the Remonstrants: ask why this person is converted and that one is not, and the answer is that God converts the one who does not oppose with fresh obstinacy, and the other is not converted because he does oppose with fresh obstinacy. They take the reason for given or denied saving grace from different acts of human choice. About God removing the stony, stubborn heart by special mercy—or not removing it by the freedom of his own will—they keep a deep silence. Corvinus likewise refers whether we have or lack the grace by which we are converted and saved not to a discrimination of God’s will but of ours. Against Bogerman, p. 263: It is certain that nobody’s conversion is precisely intended by God. A little later: once all the operations God uses to work conversion in us are in place, conversion still remains so much in our power that we can refuse to be converted. That is their position.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Fathers reply: Augustine—conversion hangs on God preparing the will, not excited assent§121

121The holy orthodox Fathers speak far otherwise. They taught that vivifying, regenerating, converting grace for the soul itself is not given or withheld by the contingent yes or no of free choice, but by God’s free and absolute will, which does or does not choose to take away the mad hardness of the human heart. Augustine comes first. He always held that, once the work of human redemption was finished on the cross, some people have grace because God by special mercy worked in them so that they received it; others lack it because God would not, by pitying them, soften their rebellious hardness. Fine is Retractations 1.10: When I said all people can turn themselves to keep God’s commands if they will, let the Pelagians not take that as spoken on their side. It is wholly true that all can do this if they will; but the will is prepared by the Lord, and is so enlarged by the gift of charity that they can. From those words it is plain that conversion of the human will to God does not hang on this condition—If the will, once excited, chooses to obey—but that its very willing and its very ability hang on a preparation of God and an infusion of charity. The same Augustine, Epistle 107: How can one say everyone would have received grace if those to whom it is not given had not refused it by their own will, when it is not given to many infants who have no contrary will? A little later: How are merits of human will weighed here, when those to whom that grace is not given have a like case with those to whom it is given, and yet by God’s just judgment it is not given?

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Fathers reply: Prosper—grace given makes obedience; De vocat. Gent. on hidden election§122

122Hear others too. Prosper: Who doubts that free choice obeys so great a call from the Caller, when in that choice God’s grace has already generated the affection of believing and obeying? So God’s grace is not given to the will on condition that it obey; once given, it makes the will obey. The same writer, On the Calling of the Gentiles 1.18: for people of every condition and age, the cause of receiving grace is God’s will, with whom the reason of election is hidden—merits begin from that grace which they receive without merits. Note the witness. Even if this author (whoever he was) holds that helps of grace have not been wholly withdrawn from anyone, he still does not think grace stands ready and offered to all in such a way that the difference—why this person received it and that one did not—is traced to one willing to take and the other willing to resist. He reduces the cause of grace received to God’s hidden election; and, as far as non-reception is a mere negation, he reduces that too to hidden non-election. If you treat it as a moral omission by people who resist grace, then refer it to human viciousness. But that is by the way.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Fathers reply: Fulgentius—saving grace not by a law of willing to take or refuse§123

123Fulgentius everywhere beats back the Pelagian error that imagines saving grace prepared and offered to everyone in Christ the Redeemer under a kind of law: some have it because they willed to take it; others lack it because they willed to push it away. He teaches instead that the good will itself is given to some, and that everyone to whom it is not given cannot help but refuse it. We have already cited witnesses of that kind; now we add more. On the Truth of Predestination 1, p. 158: Not because we will have we received grace—nor was grace given even while we were willing. A little later, p. 159: Grace alone makes a good will in us; grace alone gives faith to the will. A will that does not have faith can have no merit toward receiving faith, because not to have faith is to displease God.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Fathers close: Fulgentius—grace by election cuts the throat of Pelagian and Arminian contingency§124

124The same writer, book 2 near the start, It is God’s to decide which people receive his grace, and how much. He does not pay it as wages owed to human wills or works; as merciful and kind he pours it freely into hearts he means to light. So he gives it to whom he wills and as much as he wills, because no rising of a good will and no fruit of any good work invites him before he bestows grace. That cuts the throat of the Pelagian view—and of the Arminian too—which will not have vivifying, saving grace (Fulgentius’s subject) prepared or given to anyone by the purpose of divine election, but given or denied to people by chance, under the shifting condition of a human will that yields or fights. Sounder Papists disliked that theology. A few of their witnesses we will add to the places already set down.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Schoolmen: Bannes—supernatural helps not given to all; difference not from free choice§125

125Dominicus Bannes, on Aquinas I q.22, last conclusion, p. 278: God, he says, decided from eternity—by a will either absolute or consequent—not to give supernatural helps to everyone. If anyone asks why he confers these gifts on certain people in particular and denies them to others, that hangs on God’s bare will; as Augustine and St Thomas teach, you should not hunt a further reason. A little later: So the Christian theologian who is humble should learn with St Thomas and Augustine to leave some things unknown rather than, with the curious, to know more than he ought, lest he slide into the Pelagian heresy by tracing this difference to free choice as its first cause and root—“because this one wanted to convert, and that one did not.” He also adds a line that cuts the sinews of Pelagian and Arminian theology: the will’s own concurrence is itself an effect that necessarily follows, by necessity of consequence, from efficacious divine help.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Schoolmen: Bannes rejects universal prepared grace and will-based discrimination§126

126With those rulings the learned Bannes rejects and condemns the view that regenerating, life-saving grace is prepared and laid open to every human being because of Christ’s merit. He also refutes those who locate the reason why some are regenerated and others are not—or why some convert and others do not—in human willing and refusing. And he teaches that our concurrence, or our non-resistance—our willing—is a necessary effect of efficacious grace once given, and so is not the reason or condition for its being given and received.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Schoolmen: Alvarez—efficacious grace’s start not from nature’s use of sufficient help§127

127Alvarez, On the Helps of Divine Grace, Disp. 58, p. 263: Suppose we assert a law God has set, that he will infallibly give efficacious help to those who use well—or who choose to use—sufficient help from their innate liberty alone. Then the start of efficacious grace would already come from nature and from the creature’s innate liberty of willing to use sufficient help well. That is the very law, the very decree of God, that Arminius, Corvinus, and the rest of that school defend with such zeal. They say sufficient grace is given to all because of Christ the Mediator’s merit; but efficacious grace—grace that in the act itself converts and regenerates—is to be given only if people use that exciting or sufficient grace well, that is, if the will, once stirred by grace and made able, puts forth the power of willing planted in it. That makes the beginning of efficacious grace belong to Nature. The same Alvarez, same place: this causal is false—“because the person stirred by God wills to consent, therefore he is helped.” This causal is true—“because the person stirred by sufficient grace is helped by efficacious help, therefore he cooperates.” He proves it at length in Disp. 59, and there also holds this proposition most true: because God wills that the person will, therefore the person wills.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Schoolmen: Alvarez against Arminians who root salvation’s difference in human will§128

128That stands diametrically against Arminian teaching. They deny that any antecedent will of God is why some rather than others believe, convert, and are saved with effect. They put the whole difference down to the prior human will of people who, stirred by the same common grace as others, chose ahead of the rest to believe, to turn, and to take hold of salvation.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Schoolmen: Estius—no frustrated divine striving blocked by human bad will§129

129William Estius, once professor at Douai, on I Sentences disp. 46 §2, p. 222: We must not picture in God a will, a zeal, some straining by which he wills, labors, presses, and does all that is in him so that every human being may be saved—only to fail because human bad will blocks his good will and, by prevailing and getting in the way, frustrates God’s will. Yet that is nearly the whole of what some claim Christ’s death procured: that God, by offering saving grace to all alike, wills to save those who freely apply themselves to grace and to damn those who resist it.

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Schoolmen: Bellarmine—efficacious grace not conditioned on not rejecting it§130

130Last, let Bellarmine step forward. He does not grant that Christ’s death is tied to any divine decree by which God would give efficacious grace—grace that regenerates in very fact—to every human being on the condition that they do not refuse it by their will. In On Grace and Free Choice book 1, chapter 12, he rejects those who teach that people have it in their power to make grace efficacious when otherwise, of itself, it would be only sufficient. He shows they stand against Augustine and Holy Scripture when they say everyone would have received God’s grace if those who do not receive it had not refused it by their will (p. 423). He presses the view with this trouble: if efficacious calling hung not on God’s purpose but on the human will, no room would be left for predestination. Add book 2, chapter 8, p. 455: We believe God by his own will wills to save many, both infants and adults, and by his own will does not will to save others, both infants and adults. See Augustine’s Enchiridion, chapters 102–103.

Cap. 6 close: why grace and free choice—universal covenant of faith, not of efficacious means to all§131

131But why so much on grace and free choice, when our question is the Death of Christ as the universal cause of human salvation? Because the Pelagians once taught—and many today still slide into—the view that by the Redeemer’s death and merit, saving or efficacious grace stands open equally to every human being, to be given if they do not refuse it by their will, and denied if they do. As if Christ’s death itself had been granted from pure mercy, while efficacious or saving grace reaches people only as they use free choice well or badly in embracing or rejecting exciting grace. Then salvation would belong to those “worthy to be saved” as willing from themselves—as Prosper sang in On the Ungrateful 1.6. So in this Dissertation on the universal efficacy of Christ’s death, just as we had to show against those who try to narrow it that a universal covenant stands with the whole human race to give remission and eternal life to each person under the condition of faith, so we also had to show against those who stretch that universal efficacy past its bounds that no law and no decree stands, in connection with Christ’s death, to give the means of supernatural grace—or saving efficacious grace itself—to everyone on the condition that they use nature’s light well or less badly, or that they do not refuse that grace by their will. Christ’s death being granted, God is bound by faithfulness, under the gospel covenant, to give remission of sins and eternal life to anyone who repents and believes. By no covenant is he bound to give faith itself, charity, or saving grace to someone who only performs some other act by free choice’s own powers. Indeed, once Christ’s death is granted, the gift or denial of efficacious saving grace remains as free to God as the gift of Christ himself, which is owed to no human acts of choice. So the coming of efficacious saving grace must be traced to God’s purpose of mercy or non-mercy as its first root—not to the human choice of willing or not willing. Thus far we have had to treat Christ’s death as its force and efficacy reach all. Next we must explain how it is restricted to God’s elect children.

Cap. 7 open: universal death under faith and electing grace—two decrees do not collide§132

132We have treated Christ’s death as it regards the whole human race—with the universal scope of his life-giving power, under the condition of Faith, as that power is to be brought into act for any person. For although, when that condition fails, Christ’s death does not put forth its saving force in the greater part of humankind, still it must neither be denied—what the Scriptures everywhere and clearly witness—nor doubted that God has within himself most just and wise reasons for his counsel when he ordained his Son’s death applicable to all under the condition of faith, and yet did not decree to effect or procure that the same death be applied to all by a faith given to each. So we must not set these divine decrees against each other as if they collided: “I will that my Son so offer himself on the cross for the sins of the human race that all and each who believe in him can be saved”; and “I will so dispense my efficacious grace that not all, but the elect alone, receive this saving faith by which they are saved.” If anyone thinks those two decrees fight, he ought rather to own the weakness of his understanding than to deny anything so plainly set down in Holy Scripture. Let this then stand fixed: by God’s own decree Christ was so offered on the altar of the cross for all human beings that his death is already established as it were a universal remedy for all and each, applicable by faith for obtaining remission of sins and eternal life.

Cap. 7 open: special elect prerogative—not Pelagian parity or Grevinchovius bare impetration§133

133But now, lest under this universal virtue of Christ’s death—which extends to all by power—we crush that special efficacy of the same which belongs and reaches to the predestined alone, we must take up the other part of the dispute we have undertaken. It will explain and defend the elect’s special prerogative in Christ’s death, both from the will of God the Father who gave his Son to death and from the Son who offered himself. For we must not so defend that Christ died for all that, with the Pelagians, we believe the life-giving efficacy of that death stands open in equal measure to all in common from the intention of the divine will, and yet in the event becomes saving for some and not for others from nowhere but the contingent use of human liberty. Nor must we rave with the Arminians as if God gave his Son to death intending absolutely nothing else than that he himself should thence have a bare power of saving any sinners he pleased, his justice notwithstanding, and that any sinners should have a way or means by which they could be saved, their sin notwithstanding. Hence that famous corollary of Grevinchovius in his dissertation On the Death of Christ, p. 9: that the dignity, necessity, and usefulness of the obtaining could have stood abundantly even if the redemption obtained had never been applied by him to any individual. Likewise also that at p. 14: that redemption could have been obtained for all, and yet applied to none, because of the intervening unbelief of all. But we by no means judge that Christ’s death was cast like a die; rather it was decreed from eternity by God the Father and by Christ that by the merit of this death certain persons, whom Scripture marks by the name of the elect, should be saved infallibly; and so by God’s will Christ’s death was offered and accepted for redeeming those same persons in a special mode and counsel.

Cap. 7: decree-order digression set aside; thesis aimed at the predestined alone§134

134Nor is it necessary here, for defending this special counsel, to settle that thorny little question—troubling to many, and troubling to all who consider it—whether the decree by which certain persons are predestined haring of eternal life is prior, or that other by which Christ was ordained to the Mediator’s office. For although, to shore up the weakness of human understanding, we are forced in God’s eternal decrees to conceive some as prior and some as posterior, still to contend about these imaginary signs of our reason, or to take from them questions of faith to establish or refute, seems to me slippery and very dangerous. This at least must be set beyond every cast of doubt: those decrees of God which we think according to an order of prior and posterior stand, in God himself, in the equal eternity of infinity; nor can or should any separate instant be given in which, one decree being fixed, the other is rightly thought not yet reviewed and fixed. Conceive then as prior in order the decree of constituting and sending the Mediator (which seems to me fitter to our way of understanding), and as posterior the decree of electing certain persons to the unfrustrated obtaining of eternal life in the Mediator so constituted; yet never so pull these apart that the Mediator’s passion was not from eternity foreseen as to be offered in a special mode and regard for those to be elected, and as specially offered for them was from eternity accepted by God. Or on the contrary, conceive as prior the decree of electing certain persons to salvation, and as posterior the decree of destining Christ to the Mediator’s office; yet never so separate them that Christ’s passion, specially offered and accepted for those same persons, was not the cause of preparing and giving those elect both efficacious grace and salvation. Since therefore either opinion serves our purpose alike, leaving aside a question of little necessity, we will propose and confirm a single thesis on Christ’s death, under a special consideration restricted to the predestined alone. It runs thus:

Cap. 7 Thesis: death destined to the elect alone—vs Grevinchovius foresight application§135

135Thesis. Christ’s death, from the special Intention of God the Father who from eternity ordained and accepted that sacrifice, and of Christ who offered the same to God the Father in the fullness of time, was destined for certain human beings (whom Scripture calls the Elect) and for them alone, to be applied efficaciously and infallibly for the obtaining of eternal life. We oppose this thesis to the Arminians’ error, which Grevinchovius tries to establish in his Dissertation On the Death of Christ, p. 7 ff., where he teaches that God, in delivering his Son, intended the obtaining of reconciliation to be common to all and each, but absolutely willed the application of that obtained reconciliation for no mortal. “I acknowledge,” he says, “in God indeed a constant and perpetual affection of applying the obtained good to all and each: I deny that the application itself is destined by God’s sure counsel and will to any human being except as a believer, and as a believer.” So this new little master thinks God wills eternal life in Christ equally for all, and does not by an absolute and antecedent will destine and prepare for some efficacious grace by which Christ is infallibly applied to them; but by his eternal foreknowledge looks ahead who will believe and who will remain in their unbelief, and only then destines to believers as believers the efficacious application of Jesus Christ’s death and merits. But we hold that in predestination to faith itself the application of Christ’s death is infallibly destined to certain persons; and we say this faith is prepared not for believers as believers, but for unbelievers, that by it they may become believers. So application not destined but done is understood in those considered as believers; but destined application is understood in those for whom the gift of faith is destined, through which that application will be made. And these are the elect, and the elect alone, whose special prerogative is that by the absolute will of God the Father and of Christ the Mediator they are decreed and procured to be saved infallibly through Christ’s death. With these preliminaries we come to the arguments, and first take up the plain testimonies of the Scriptures.

Cap. 7 Arg. 1: persons given to the Mediator—John 6 / 17 / Ephesians 1; Augustine§136

1361. First here belong those places that mark the Father’s absolute will to give certain persons to the Mediator and as it were commend them, to this end: that from him and through him they may receive all things needful for salvation, and finally salvation itself. John 6:37, 39: “All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all he has given me I should lose nothing,” and so on. It is clear from this context that not all promiscuously, but certain persons, were given to the Mediator by the Father’s singular mercy, from a certain and gracious purpose of bringing those same persons to eternal life without fail. Like texts are found in John 17:2: “You have given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to all you have given him.” This special donation can be understood as done in no other way than in eternal election. And that those so given to the Redeemer have a special prerogative in the very work of redemption no sane person will doubt. Certainly the Apostle marked it openly in Ephesians 1:4, 5, 6, and following: “He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world was laid. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Christ according to the purpose of his will.” Here you have that special donation of certain persons known to God alone. Then verse 7 shows that according to God’s purpose those same persons always obtain efficacious and applied redemption in the Mediator—“in whom we have redemption through his blood,” and so on. Therefore those specially given to Christ in election always draw faith, remission of sins, sanctification, and salvation from Christ’s death, the fruitful application of that same death being given them together with it. Saint Augustine understood by this donation nothing other than eternal election (On John, tract. 107): “The Father,” he says, “would not have given them to the Son unless he had chosen them.” The same Father, in On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 16, shows that those so given to the Son are also called in that peculiar way, so that Christ crucified does not become to them a scandal or foolishness, but the power and wisdom of God for working faith and salvation efficaciously in them. See the author’s words, which for brevity I omit. Either, then, it must be denied that certain persons were specially given by God the Father to Christ the Mediator, or it must at once be granted that the Mediator in his offering had a special regard to those same persons.

Cap. 7 Arg. 2: Christ keeps and sanctifies the given—John 17; Hebrews 2:13§137

1372. The same is proved from those places that teach Christ, conscious of the Father’s will, directs and infallibly leads to salvation the aforesaid persons specially given to him, with special care. That would doubtless not happen unless Christ’s death—which is the meritorious cause of every saving grace granted us—had been destined to those same persons as saving and life-giving by a special intention. But let us hear the words of Scripture. John 17:9: “I ask for them; I do not ask for the world, but for those you have given me, because they are yours.” And verse 12: “I have kept them; those you gave me I have guarded.” And verse 19: “For them I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.” Nothing is clearer than that two things are affirmed in these places: first, that not all promiscuously, but certain ones, were specially given by God the Father to Christ the mediator—which has been shown to be understood of the Elect; second, that Christ, in discharging the very office of Mediator and Savior, embraces and pursues those same persons with special love, intention, and care—that is, with such love, intention, and care as produce in them the infallible effect of eternal life. That is plain from Hebrews 2:13, where Christ presents these children given him by the Father to his Father safe and sound: “Behold, I and the children God has given me.”

Cap. 7 Arg. 2 close: absolute intercession (Bannes/Suarez)—oblation intends the same elect§138

138But now, to gather all this as into one bundle: those whom Christ by special intercession commended to the Father—that is, by absolute prayer (as Bannes has it on I q.23 art.5 p.297), or (as Suárez in tom. 3.1 q.19 disp.31 p.634) those for whom he prayed with an efficacious and absolute will that the merit of his death be applied to them efficaciously; those for whose keeping and guarding he mounts as it were extraordinary watch; those for whom he so sanctified himself that from him they efficaciously receive that sanctification which is worked in the hearts of the saved by the teaching of the Gospel; finally, those whom he will at last present to the Father, every one, safe and glorious—those, beyond all controversy, he also embraced with special intention in the very act of offering, and so in the whole work of redemption. For it is absurd that salvation was procured for them by the Mediator with special intention, if Christ’s death, which is the cause of human salvation, was not destined to them with special intention.

Cap. 7 Arg. 3: death bound to absolute purpose for certain persons—sheep, sons, Church texts§139

1393. The third argument is drawn from those Scripture testimonies in which Christ’s death, joined and as it were folded together with a sure and absolute purpose of giving eternal life, is not spread out to all human beings but is restricted to certain persons—and that by Christ’s own special intention. Such are John 10:15: “I lay down my life for my sheep.” John 11:51–52: Jesus was about to die that he might gather into one the scattered children of God. Ephesians 5:25–26: “Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her and present her to himself in glory.” Titus 2:14: Christ gave himself for us that he might cleanse for himself a people of his own, and so on. He purchased the church with his blood (Acts 20:28). Ephesians 1:22–23: he gave him as Head over all things to the church, which is his body. Add also Ephesians 5:23: “He himself is the Savior of his body.”

Cap. 7 Arg. 3: three observations—elect titles, not the promiscuous race, efficacious will§140

140In all these places three things must be noticed. First, by the names sheep, Church, children of God, and body of Christ are meant sheep, children of God, or members of Christ—not so much already united in act by a faith received as still to be united by God’s counsel and intention through a faith yet to be received. Second, under those titles the human race cannot be meant promiscuously. Third, when it is said that Christ died that he might gather these children, sanctify this Church, acquire this Church, and the like, what is marked in Christ as he offers himself is not an inefficacious will, or some conditioned intention that might miss its intended effect, but an efficacious will and an intention joined to an infallible outcome.

Cap. 7 Arg. 3 Probatur 1: sheep/members by eternal election—Augustine Tract. 46 / 49§141

141First, then: in those places the speech is of sheep, members, and children taken according to God's eternal and hidden purpose of election, not according to what they are in the present act. Nobody becomes Christ's sheep in fact, or a child of God, or a member of his mystical body, unless the merit and benefit of Christ's death are actually and efficaciously brought down and applied to him. So Christ died for the sheep, for the children of God, for the Church, for the members destined to him from eternity under the purpose of election—so that by the merit of his death God's predestination might be fulfilled in them. Augustine puts it so on John, tract. 46: "The Lord knows who are his; they are sheep according to that predestination, that foreknowledge, that election of sheep, before the world was founded." And in tract. 49, p. 366, on the scattered children of God: "These things were spoken according to predestination; for neither his sheep nor the children of God yet existed, because they had not yet believed."

Cap. 7 Arg. 3 Probatur 2: Scripture’s elect titles mark restricted intention—vs John 3:16§142

142The second point is proved: in the places alleged Christ’s death is marked as restricted under a special reason to certain persons. For otherwise why would Scripture have named sheep, children, and church, if it had meant to designate that death as it extends to all? It would have used in vain words that mark out a small part of the human race, unless it also meant to show that Christ’s intention in that matter looks not to the whole human race but is referred to those few. Christ’s death and God’s intention embracing all people without distinction is best expressed in John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” And so he loved the sheep, the children, his Church, that by his death he decreed to merit for them faith and eternal life efficaciously.

Cap. 7 Arg. 3: special love in the offering—Aquinas; Probatur 3 open (John 10:28 / 17:24)§143

143Holy Scripture meant to open to us this special intention of Christ in offering himself, sprung from special love, whenever it mentions Christ’s death as related to the Church alone, to the sheep alone, to the members alone of the mystical body—according to that word of Aquinas (Part 3, q.24 art.4): “God preordained the salvation of the elect, by predestining from eternity that it be completed through Jesus Christ.” The last point is proved: the testimonies brought forward contain the will of God the Father and of Christ—not inefficacious or conditioned, but absolute and efficacious—concerning the saving of those sheep through Christ’s death. For speaking of the same sheep Christ says in John 10:28: “I give them eternal life, and they will not perish forever.” And in John 17:24: “Father, I will that where I am, they also whom you have given me may be with me.”

Cap. 7 Arg. 3 close: absolute will—Savior of the world vs Savior of his sheep (Eph 1:18)§144

144And of this Church for which Christ gave himself up, the Apostle says in Ephesians 5:23: "Christ is head of the church, and Savior of his body." All of that marks an absolute will joined to its effect. So Christ is truly named Savior and Redeemer of the world insofar as he brought a remedy that is salutary for the whole world and applicable by faith; yet he is Savior and Redeemer of his sheep, of his Church, of his body—in one word, of the predestined children of God—insofar as by special intention he destined and procured that this same remedy be applied to them, giving them enlightened eyes of the heart (Ephesians 1:18) so that by faith they may possess Christ as efficaciously united and applied to them.

Cap. 7 Arg. 4 Ultimo: Gen. 3:15 seed promise—Satan crushed under the elect (Rupert / Marlorat)§145

1454. Lastly, we can confirm our view from those places in which God absolutely promised Christ, as he died, that by the merit of this death the Church would infallibly be set free from death and given eternal life. Genesis 3:15: “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” What else is that than that by the power and merit of Christ’s death Satan will be trampled down, and that all those of whom God in Christ specially willed to have mercy will be freed from his power? Who then can doubt that Christ referred his death—Satan’s vanquisher—with special regard to those who were to be freed through him by a special benefit? And that those to be infallibly freed were the elect is confessed by all sound theologians. Rupert (On the Victory of the Word of God, book 2, chapter 18) expressly calls the elect the serpent’s conquerors, because the efficacy of Christ’s death and resurrection crushing the Devil is destined and procured to be applied efficaciously to them alone from special mercy. So Marlorat on this place: the Devil and the wicked generation fight against God’s elect, but the elect at last prove stronger because of their Head, Christ, who by his death abolished him who had the empire of death. Christ’s death was therefore specially intended and destined to crush Satan under the elect’s feet and to save them efficaciously—and that from God’s own most firm promise.

Cap. 7 Arg. 4: Isa 53:10–11 long-lived seed—Luther, Calvin, Musculus on elect Church§146

146Isaiah 53:10–11 gives a like promise of God the Father about the efficacy of Christ’s death for the elect. The words run: “If he shall put his soul for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed; and the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. For the travail of his soul he shall see and be satisfied,” and so on. By these words the Father promises the Son that his passion and death will not be useless or barren, but will surely yield him seed. I ask, then: does this promise look to vague, indefinite individuals, or to certain persons singularly known to the Father and to Christ the Mediator? To invent a confused promise of some who will be saved, yet not yet singularly designated by God himself, is most unworthy of divine perfection and wisdom. But if God and Christ have settled that this seed will be efficaciously saved through Christ’s death, it follows that in the dying Christ there was, with respect to their salvation, an efficacious and singular intention. All interpreters of the place have taken it so: that through Christ’s death a most efficacious and certain liberation and salvation was promised to his mystical body—that is, to the Church, or the elect. So Luther: the posterity or seed spoken of is the Church; “he shall see seed” means he will have a kingdom and royal children. So Calvin: “he shall see seed” means Christ’s death will be the cause of begetting offspring, because the One who died, making alive, will acquire a people of his own. Musculus agrees, explaining “from the travail of his soul he shall see and be satisfied”: Christ already saw this bond of the elect and those to be saved, still sees it, and will see it to the world’s end, and is satisfied in seeing, because the Father’s good pleasure is directed in his hand. All agree that from the Father’s special good pleasure an efficacious salvation of the Church—certain persons known to God alone—was promised to Christ as the price of his passion, and that Christ intended and labored with a singular, efficacious will to save these elect, this peculiar people singularly given and committed to him by the Father.

Cap. 7 Arg. 4 objection (Grevinchovius) and reply: tacit promise of faith to the elect§147

147If someone objects with Grevinchovius that there was no absolute promise or will of God to redeem any particular persons efficaciously, but that God willed and refused the application of Christ’s death to each and all only conditionally—willing it for all if faith intervened, refusing it if unbelief mediated—and that therefore, even when Christ laid down his life, his death might be applied to no one, and he might be cheated of the promised seed by everyone’s intervening unbelief: the reply is that in this promise by which the Father as it were bound himself to the Mediator to give him seed if he put his soul for sin, there is contained a tacit promise of faith to be given to the elect themselves; without that faith they would not be Christ’s seed. So it was as much decreed that God, because of the Son’s death, give faith itself to some, as that he give the Son an everlasting offspring. Christ, foreknowing this promise and counsel, could not but offer the sacrifice of his death to the Father with special intention for this seed, for these future believers. So far we have argued from express Scripture testimonies; next we will add some reasons also grounded in holy Scripture.

Cap. 7 Arg. 4 Ratio 1: secret covenant (Jer 31:33 / Heb 8)—Mediator for elect Israel alone§148

148He who by his death not only established that evangelical covenant looking promiscuously to all—“Whoever believes will be saved”—but also that secret covenant which takes in certain singular persons known to God alone, described by the prophet in Jeremiah 31:33: “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after these days: I will put my law in their mind and write it on their heart, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people”—he who procured such a covenant by his death offered his death and merit to the Father to be applied efficaciously to certain elect persons. That is clear, because putting his laws into people’s minds, writing them on their hearts, and making them God’s peculiar people marks the efficacious application of Christ’s merits and names the privileges of the elect, or spiritual Israel. I add the minor and affirm that by his death Christ was Mediator of this secret covenant, which includes application and embraces God’s Israel—or the elect children of God—and them alone. Besides the prophet’s words just cited, we have the Apostle citing the same prophet (Hebrews 8:6): “Our High Priest is Mediator of a better testament, established on better promises.” What are those better promises Christ the Mediator established? Verse 10 rehearses them in Jeremiah’s own words; they reduce to two heads—the promise of an inward reforming of hearts, and of free remission of sins—as Calvin notes on the place. So by his death Christ merited remission of sins for all if they believe and turn; and for some he also merited and procured this free, secret covenant to be fulfilled by the promising God—namely that they believe and turn to God, through and because of the Mediator reforming their hearts efficaciously and putting his laws into them. Those for whom he merited this (as Augustine makes plain) are all who belong spiritually to the house of Israel and Abraham’s seed: what else is that than all the elect? So from God’s and Christ’s intention the elect have had destined and given to them the special benefit of a fruitful application from Christ’s death.

Cap. 7 Arg. 4 Ratio 2: precious blood not left to chance—Malderus on elect fruit§149

149A second reason is the price paid on the cross for redeeming the human race. That price was the blood of God’s Son, the only-begotten and beloved. It is not credible that so great a price was spent on an outcome dependent on the uncertain choices of human will. So the Father and Christ the Mediator meant by this precious death to redeem and save certain people infallibly and efficaciously; and those can be none other than those who are in fact saved—the elect. Therefore Christ’s intention in offering himself regarded the elect in a special way. I know Grevinchovius and others of that school boldly claim the proper end of impetration God intended was only that he might save the sinner with his justice intact, and that this redemption obtained for all might still be applied to none because of everyone’s intervening unbelief. That is as much as to say God gave the Son to death with no certain purpose of saving anyone by that death’s merit, but only a bare possibility of salvation procured for all in general, leaving efficacious share in salvation to each person’s choice—so that Christ’s death, taken in the whole breadth of its merit, might have redeemed no one from death. But whoever weighs how precious the Son’s death was in the Father’s eyes cannot even think he meant to expose the Son to death without a certain purpose of applying that death efficaciously to some. Isaiah 53:10: “The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” Hear Malder, a papal writer far sounder than the Arminians here (Anti-Synod, p. 138): if you look only at the offering itself, it is equal for all; otherwise, if you look at that for whose actual obtaining he offered. For the elect obtain the perfect fruit of his passion that actually follows and is applied, as given them by the Father for this. So Christ’s blood could not run to waste; by the price of his blood, from God’s decree, he merited for the elect the fruitful application of that same price.

Cap. 7 Arg. 4 Ratio 3: Spirit’s gifts prove special intent—Heb 7:25 Savior of certain ones§150

150Whatever spiritual, saving good Christ’s Spirit works in any people, Christ’s poured-out blood merited for those same people. But Christ’s Spirit produces in certain persons repentance and faith, and through faith and repentance an infallible application of his death. Therefore he merited these special goods for those same people; therefore, sacrificing himself on the cross’s altar, he meant to merit them. It is not right to suppose by chance that Christ procured greater spiritual benefits for these than for those. What will the adversaries say? That Christ’s Spirit gives people benefits Christ never merited for them? They will not dare so to trample Christ’s merit. That faith itself, the will, and the act of fruitful application are not special gifts of the Holy Spirit? They will blush at so crass a Pelagianism. Let them confess with us: just as through Christ’s death special goods were procured for the elect, so in the will of the dying Christ, and of the Father accepting that death, there was an efficacious intention to procure and confer those goods. And that is the singular privilege in Christ’s death we claim for the elect alone, because the fact shows God destined them alone to be saved efficaciously by his Son’s death. Hence Hebrews 7:25 establishes the office of Savior of certain ones—that is, of the elect—both by merit and by efficacy.

Cap. 7 Quartum: sufficienter / efficaciter—death for elect by absolute saving will§151

151A fourth argument is the distinction most received among all theologians: that Christ died for all sufficiently, for the elect efficaciously. Just as from the first half we refuted those who deny that Christ’s death, by God’s decree, is an applicable remedy for all people, so from the second half those must be refuted who deny that Christ’s death, and that by God’s decree, is a remedy to be applied to the elect efficaciously and infallibly. What else can “He died for the elect efficaciously” mean than that he died with an absolute intention and efficacious will to save the elect?

Cap. 7 Quartum: not contingent human will—Suarez on intended efficacy§152

152If someone twists the distinction as if Christ’s death, sufficient for all, became efficacious for some only by a contingent act of human free choice, the words themselves refute him: “Christ died efficaciously for these or those” marks a singular efficacy flowing from the dying one’s special will, not from the believer’s contingent act. Second, even the Jesuits do not take “efficacy” in this distinction as mere eventual efficacy, but as efficacy specially intended and merited by the dying one himself. So Suarez (On 3, disp. 41, p. 629): Christ did not merit remission of sins for all as to efficacy, because he did not apply his merit so that all would infallibly gain that effect. To merit efficaciously is to apply his merit to certain persons with the intention that they infallibly obtain eternal life from it. More plainly (p. 635): Christ’s merit stands equally toward all as to sufficiency, not as to efficacy—understood not only in the effects (in one, not another) but also in the will by which Christ offered his merits differently for different persons. Scripture’s witnesses that join Christ’s death to a sure purpose of redeeming his sheep, gathering God’s sons, acquiring the Church, and cleansing a peculiar people show that the efficacy theologians speak of is drawn from the dying Christ’s will, not from contingent free choice. By a special intention in his offering Christ obtained that it be made efficacious for the elect; the elect did not make it efficacious for themselves by some free-choice apprehension.

Cap. 7 Quartum Rat. 5: predestination requires special saving regard—Scotus / Malderus§153

153Ratio 5. From divine predestination we take a fifth reason. Given the predestination of certain persons before the world’s foundations, Christ’s will in offering himself must include a special regard for producing their salvation efficaciously by the merit of his passion. Whether we place election before or after the decree of the passion (as we understand the order), this stands: in Christ’s will—whether about to suffer or already suffering—there was an efficacious, singular intention to save these elect (or to-be-elect) efficaciously. His will never fails to conform to the Father’s. So it is incredible (as Suarez notes, On 3, disp. 41, §2, p. 615) that he offered his merits one way for those he knew the Father had chosen and another way for the rest, when he saw the Father’s will that they—and not others—be saved infallibly, and conformed himself to that will in all things. Isaiah 53:10 points here: “The will of the Lord shall be directed in his hand.” Election to eternal life from God’s free will is executed through Christ’s merits; therefore the Redeemer specially and efficaciously destined his meritorious death for these elect to be redeemed and saved infallibly, and offered it to the Father. Scotus puts it well (Book 3, dist. 19, p. 74): Christ foresaw his passion offered to the Father for the predestinate and elect, and so offered it efficaciously in effect; the whole Trinity accepted it efficaciously for them, and for no others was it efficaciously offered or accepted from eternity. By efficacious offering and acceptance he means offering joined to an absolute purpose to save those for whom it was so offered and accepted. Malderus, Bishop of Antwerp, on this argument rejects those who think Christ died equally for all as to efficacy, and concludes (p. 137) that, given predestination, Christ by his death conferred far more on these predestinate than on others.

Cap. 7 Quartum Rat. 6: offering matches intercession—John 17 / Suarez / Vázquez§154

154Ratio 6. Sixth, keep the proportion between Christ’s offering for people and his prayer or intercession for them. From John 17, and from his named prayer for Peter that Peter’s faith not fail, it is plain that Christ interceded with the Father for the elect to keep a firm, unconquered faith to the end and obtain salvation efficaciously. Anyone who denies that the gift of perseverance was won for special persons by Christ’s special prayer would credit free choice with the greatest of all spiritual benefits. That granted, I add: just as Christ specially prayed for special benefits for the elect, so he specially offered himself to merit those same benefits. On this special prayer and offering Suarez says (On 3, disp. 41, p. 635): as Christ prayed in different ways for people, so he merited in different ways; though he is universal Redeemer of all and a sufficient cause of salvation, in a special mode he is the efficacious cause of salvation for those he makes obedient. So the prayer by which he specially and efficaciously prayed for the elect rests on the offering by which he specially and efficaciously offered himself for them. See the force: whatever Christ obtains for particular persons by special intercession, he merited for them with the Father by an offering specially pertaining to them. By intercession he obtains for the elect faith, perseverance, and salvation itself; therefore, to procure those goods for them infallibly, he specially offered himself for them. Vázquez does not doubt (On 1, q. 23, art. 5, disp. 94, ch. 3) that by peculiar prayer and will Christ applied his merits to those who were predestinate and elect.

Cap. 7 Quartum Rat. 7: death as medium tracks God’s diverse saving will§155

155Ratio 7. Christ’s death and merit is the means God ordained to carry out his eternal counsel for human salvation. If God’s will stands differently toward effecting people’s salvation, then Christ’s death is likewise intended and applied differently toward that end. Means always serve the end, and the mode of application follows the agent’s intention. All sound theologians confess that God does not will everyone’s salvation in the same mode in which he wills some people’s. Therefore he did not will the means—Christ’s death—applied to all as it is applied to some. So for those for whom God by efficacious will decreed salvation, Christ’s death was destined so that by its merit everything needed to produce salvation infallibly would flow to them; for those for whom he did not so decree salvation, Christ’s death was not destined in that same mode. From the Father’s special intention in ordaining that sacrifice, and from Christ’s self-offering conformed to the Father’s will, the death is understood as destined and applied one way to the elect, whom God decreed to save infallibly through it, and another way to the rest, whom he allows to perish by their own fault even with this death. Whoever denies that discrimination in the offering and application can as easily deny that the wisest and most powerful God knows how—or is able—to intend and fit the means he instituted to different people as his will’s different reason requires.

Cap. 7 Quartum Rat. 8: fruitful application proves antecedent intention—Phil 2:13 / John 15:5§156

156Ratio 8. The event shows that some people really and efficaciously apply Christ’s death, with its infinite merit, to themselves for salvation. Was that application made according to Christ’s antecedent, efficacious intention in offering himself on the cross—or against it, or without it preceding? If they grant in the dying Christ an antecedent special will for this efficacious application that falls to all the elect and to them alone, we have what we aim to prove: that by God’s and Christ’s special intention this death is destined for the elect as to be applied efficaciously. No one will say a person can apply Christ’s death to himself efficaciously against Christ’s intention. The only remaining claim is that people make the application efficacious by free will without any preceding special, efficacious intention of the divine will. Piety forbids that. First, in good and saving acts God’s efficacious will stands before the human: “It is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish” (Phil. 2:13), and he works nothing in us antecedently that he did not antecedently decree to work. Second, in works that belong to salvation we can do nothing without Christ: “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). What we can do through Christ we receive power to do because of Christ’s merit—which, without the dying and meriting Christ’s antecedent special intention, is assigned to no one. So whoever has obtained this excellent grace and already applied Christ’s merit to himself efficaciously must confess he received that applying faculty above others from the special kindness of God and of Christ, who specially intended, destined, and applied his merit to him. The fruitful application in the predestinate itself shows that in Christ offering himself, and in God accepting the sacrifice, there was a special efficacious intention of that application for the predestinate. And that is the singular privilege of the elect in Christ’s death this thesis aims to establish.

Cap. 7 Quartum Rat. 9: without merited application elect have no privilege—Bannes / Rom 8:32§157

157Ratio 9. Suppose Christ’s death, by God’s ordination and Christ’s intention, did not merit for the predestinate an efficacious application and the infallible obtaining of salvation that flows from it. Then this follows: the Mediator’s merit, under the Father’s accepting will and the Son’s exhibiting will, regards the elect no more than the passed-by, but reaches both alike. The consequence is clear, since it is granted that by God’s will the dying Christ’s merit extends to all under the condition that they apply it to themselves by faith. Unless Christ by his death also meant to merit for the elect that, through faith given, this fruitful application be made in them, no singular privilege in his merit is assigned to them. By God’s ordination Christ’s death merited for Judas that he could, under the condition of faith, reach eternal life; for Peter it obtained besides that, because of Christ’s merit, he receive persevering faith and all other spiritual benefits required to obtain eternal life infallibly. Paul’s reasoning in Romans 8:32 looks here, treating the predestinate’s privileges: “He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him give us all things?” Just as he had hinted a special calling of the predestinate—“according to purpose”—so he marks a special offering of Christ for those same predestinate, an offering according to purpose: with a sure purpose to confer efficacious grace on the elect and lead them infallibly to life by this death’s merit. Those who erase that discrimination of divine intention in Christ’s death toward elect and passed-by, as Báñez truly says (On 1, q. 23, art. 5, pp. 296–297), make Christ’s merit no more perfect a cause of the predestinate’s salvation than of the reprobate’s. As to sufficiency the merit regards all equally; the difference is that it is applied to some and not to others. So if application itself for the elect does not fall under Christ’s merit, that merit regards predestinate and reprobate alike. So Báñez.

Cap. 7 Rat. 10: without absolute elect-saving will grace no better prepared than in Adam§158

158Ratio 10. If Christ did not offer himself to the Father with a peculiar absolute will to redeem and save the elect efficaciously by his death's merit, then efficacious grace and eternal life would be prepared or given to no one in Christ on any better footing than they were in Adam. The first Adam already gave the race the chance of grace and eternal life under a condition that hangs on our free choice.

Cap. 7 Rat. 10: conditional-only merit leaves us no better off in Christ than in Adam§159

159So if by his death Christ did not merit grace and life for anyone absolutely, but only for all alike under the uncertain condition that they choose to receive the offered grace, believe in him, and persevere in faith, leaving to each person's free choice whether to believe and persevere, then we would be no better off in Christ than we were in Adam. That is so as to how and how surely we obtain efficacious grace and eternal life.

Cap. 7 Rat. 10: Adam parity contradicts Scripture’s sure purpose of good pleasure§160

160But that clashes with Scripture. Scripture hangs the grace and eternal life prepared and to be given in Christ to all who will be saved on God's sure purpose of good pleasure, not on a contingent turn of human choice. The treatise on Election and Passing-by will show this.

Cap. 7 Rat. 10: Augustine De corrept. & grat. 11—grace in Christ makes us will§161

161It also clashes with the orthodox Fathers who opposed the Pelagians—above all Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace chapter 11. After showing what grace was given to the first Adam, he says of the grace prepared and given to the predestinate in Christ: “So much more largely is the help of grace given through Jesus Christ to those to whom God was pleased to give it, that it not only is present—without which we cannot remain even if we will—but also is so great and of such a kind that we will. For through this grace of God, in receiving the good and holding it perseveringly, there is in us not only the ability to do what we will, but also the will to do what we can.”

Cap. 7 Rat. 10 close: elect-only fruitful application by special decree via Christ’s merit§162

162This grace, given for Christ's sake to the elect alone, and producing in them alone the fruitful application that saves, flows to them not from some special act of human choice but from a special decree of God's will, and that through Christ's merit. So Christ's merit was destined for those same persons in a special way by God, and applied by Christ himself.

Cap. 7 Rat. 11: equal divine efficacy left to human will is near-Pelagian§163

163Ratio 11. We must reject any view that is the same as—or at least close kin to—the condemned Pelagian dogma. Those who hold that on God’s will and intention Christ’s death stands equally efficacious toward all, while on the human will’s side it happens that in the event it becomes fruitful for some, come as near Pelagius as can be. The orthodox, roused by Pelagius to weigh this carefully, have always taught against him that fruitful application of Christ’s merits hangs on the grace of predestination, by which faith and even the good will itself are mercifully given to some and, by God’s just judgment, denied to others.

Cap. 7 Rat. 11 close: Prosper/Hilary/Augustine/Fulgentius on special saving purpose§164

164That it is Pelagian to shift the fruit of Christ’s death—eternal life—from God’s special intention to a special act of free choice is plain from Prosper’s Letter to Augustine. Hilary’s Letter to Augustine shows the same: the Pelagian remnants treat eternal life in Christ’s death as so set before all that they flatly deny any singular purpose of God to save the elect by that death, and put the whole divide between the saved and the unsaved down to human wills. Against them, the orthodox saw a special hidden purpose in God accepting Christ’s death-sacrifice and in Christ offering it—toward efficacious fruitful application to certain persons. That is clear from Augustine’s On the Predestination of the Saints, On the Good of Perseverance, and his other anti-Pelagian and anti-Semipelagian books, where the special will to save the elect through Christ is if not the only then the chief conclusion. Prosper and Fulgentius say the same throughout: efficacious obtaining of salvation in Christ comes from God’s efficacious special will designating Christ to the elect in a special way, not from human free choice applying Christ’s death and merits to itself as chance may have it.

Cap. 7 ultimum Patrum: open — Augustine In Joh. tract. 48 on sheep/price§165

165Lest we seem to argue by empty labels, our last proof comes from the express witnesses of the Fathers and of later writers who give the predestined, in this death of Christ, a special privilege — nothing other than the sure attainment of grace and glory by God's special ordination, drawn from the dying Christ's merit and from his offering himself for them with a particular regard. Let Augustine speak first. 1. Outstanding is the word in In John, tractate 48 (vol. 9, p. 352): How did he say of those, YOU ARE NOT OF MY SHEEP? Because he saw them appointed to everlasting ruin, not bought for eternal life by his blood's price. Soon after: Of those sheep neither wolf snatches, nor thief carries off, nor robber kills. He who knows what he gave for them is sure of their number. Two points follow: first, our Savior offered his blood's price for redeeming the predestined in a special way — the way from which their sure salvation follows; second, for the passed-over or non-predestined he did not offer it that way, so they are denied to have been bought for eternal life by that price — meaning an absolute, efficacious ordering to eternal life that Christ's death is to carry out and bring into act.

Cap. 7 Patrum: Augustine Serm. 56 — came to redeem the predestined§166

1662. Closely related is Sermon 56 On the Lord's words (t gathered. Still, he who had predestined them knew them, and he who had come to redeem them with his blood knew them. He saw them while they did not yet see him; he knew them while they did not yet believe in him. Nothing is clearer: Christ came into the world to redeem the predestined by his blood — and to redeem them efficaciously and infallibly as people to be brought through to share eternal life. He never resolved with himself to redeem the those not chosen in that way.

Cap. 7 Patrum: Augustine De natura & grat. 5 — vessels of mercy only§167

1673. A third witness from the same Augustine is On nature and grace, chapter 5: Those who are delivered are called not vessels of their own merits, but vessels of mercy. Whose mercy, if not his who sent Christ Jesus into this world to save sinners? Whom he foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified. As if to say: by a decree of special mercy God sent Christ to deliver and save the predestined efficaciously and infallibly — and in that sense they alone are vessels of mercy. Piling up more Augustine would be wasted work. Anyone at home in him knows his teaching on the absolute predestination of some to eternal life, and on the eternal gift of those same persons to Christ the Mediator so that he may lead them to that life without fail. That predestination, gift, and leading cannot be understood — or even thought — without this special intention of applying his death and merits to them. See On the Predestination of the Saints 18; On the gift of perseverance 7; On rebuke and grace 9.

Cap. 7 Patrum: Ambrose — suffered for all, specially for the Church§168

1684. Ambrose supplies a fourth witness: And Christ suffered for all, yet for us he suffered specially, because he suffered for the Church. So she who received more doubtless owes more (On Luke, book 6, chapter 7). On Ambrose's reading, the suffering Christ had a special regard for his Church, and from that she drew a special fruit of the passion. He can say Christ suffered for all, and still hold that the will and intention of the suffering Christ does not regard everyone alike, but turns in a singular way upon his mystical body — the Church of the firstborn — which he meant by his blood to make his own and by the Spirit to join to a share in eternal life that cannot fail. He did not suffer for all under that special intention.

Cap. 7 Patrum: Remigius — Son delivered for predestined elect alone§169

1695. After Ambrose comes Remigius of Rheims on Romans 8: Those he predestined — or marked out beforehand — to reign with him in eternal blessedness he also called and justified through his passion, through baptism and faith adorned with good works, and he justified them to the world's end. Soon after, on Who did not spare his own Son, Remigius says: he did not keep him from death, but delivered him for all of us predestined to eternal life. That shows Christ suffered for the elect, and for them alone, with a fixed purpose to save them — the very special intention we are establishing, and which we insist must be limited to the elect alone in this offering of Christ.

Cap. 7 Patrum: Fulgentius — special will and predestination in Christ§170

1706. Fulgentius, On the Incarnation and grace of Jesus Christ 29 (Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. 6, p. 92): Those who treat God's will that all be saved as the same toward the redeemed and the damned — when asked why God wills all to be saved and yet not all are — what answer have they? Fulgentius implies that God by a special will decreed to procure, through Christ, the salvation of those who are in fact saved; and that their opponents have nothing solid left when pressed to explain why some are actually saved by Christ's death and others are not. He shows this difference cannot be reduced to a difference of human wills (chs. 30-31). 7. Another from the same Fulgentius, On the truth of Predestination, book 3: No Christian should doubt that those God predestined to the adoption of sons were predestined in Christ before the world's foundation not only to the reward of glory but to the grace of justification, and by that predestination's benefit called and justified according to purpose. Anyone who grants that God's elect sons were so predestined in Christ to grace and glory will freely admit that Christ's death and merit were ordained and accepted in a special way for those same elect, so that from them they might obtain without fail the grace and glory marked out for them.

Cap. 7 Patrum close: Paschasius, Gregory, Bernard before Scholastics§171

1718. Paschasius (Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. 9, p. 930) on Matthew 1:21, He shall save his people from their sins: Hence Zechariah says, And he made REDEMPTION OF HIS PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE OF DAVID HIS SERVANT. So the people he foreknew as his he surely came to save; all the rest he left, by his hidden judgment, in the mass of damnation. That teaches Christ came and died with a special intention to save the predestined — an intention he did not have for making others' salvation actual, even while he willed to make salvation obtainable for all under the condition of faith. 9. Gregory the Great, Morals 22.18 (p. 132): For the Only-begotten to intercede for man is to present himself as man before the coeternal Father; to ask for human nature is to have taken that nature up into his Divinity's height. So he intercedes for us not by voice but by compassion, because what he would not have damned in the elect he set free by taking it up. Those last words show plainly that in his whole Mediator's work Christ kept a special eye on freeing the elect without fail. 10. Bernard on Psalm He who dwells in the help of the Most High, verse 9: Christ died for friends — that is, for friends to be won, to make friends out of enemies. A little later: So according to time Christ died for the ungodly, but according to predestination for brothers and friends — as much as to say that Christ dying on the cross had a singular regard for his predestined brothers and future friends.

Cap. 7 Scholastici open: Sed missis — Lombard sufficienter/efficaciter§172

172Setting the older writers aside, we come down to the Scholastics and modern Romanists. They defend Christ as having died for all, yet they also grant he died for the elect alone with a special intention to apply that death to them so that eternal life follows without fail. 1. Start with Peter Lombard, master of the Scholastics: Christ offered himself on the cross's altar for all as to the price's sufficiency, but for the elect only as to efficacy, because he effects salvation only for the predestined (Sentences 3, dist. 20, letter c))). The reason he gives for calling Christ's death efficacious for the elect alone is worth marking. He does not say what Pelagians and Arminians would say — that only those were foreseen who, stirred by grace in free choice, would apply Christ to themselves — but that in them alone, by the kindness of special mercy, he wrought salvation. What his death wrought in the elect he surely decreed to work. That is the special intention under which we say Christ's death is related and ordained to the elect alone.

Cap. 7 Scholastici: Aquinas — eternal ordination completed through Christ§173

1732. Aquinas (ST III q.24 a.4): God preordained our salvation by eternally predestining that it be completed through Jesus Christ. He is speaking of the elect, and he holds that from eternity God ordained their salvation to be finished through Christ without fail. How then could Christ have matched that eternal ordination of his Father if, in his saving passion, he did not apply his merits in a peculiar way to effect and complete the elect's salvation without fail? So we must grant a special intention — God accepting this victim, Christ offering himself — restricted to the elect alone, so far as Christ's passion is joined to an infallible saving effect in particular persons.

Cap. 7 Scholastici: Aquinas on merit — sufficiency vs efficacy; John 10:15§174

1743. The same Aquinas, On the Grace of Christ (disp. Q.), art. 7 ad 4: Christ's merit stands equally toward all as to sufficiency, not as to efficacy. That inequality comes partly from free choice, partly from divine election, by which the effect of Christ's merits is mercifully given to some and justly withheld from others. When he says free choice partly explains unequal efficacy, read that of the lost, who turn themselves from the fountain of salvation. When he says divine election partly explains it, read that of the saved, who, under God's special mercy according to election's good pleasure, receive from that fountain whatever is needed to effect their salvation. His reply to the last objection shows the mind: God freely confers on people that they obtain the effect of Christ's merit. If election mercifully gives that effect to some and denies it to others, who can doubt that Christ — knowing election and his own calling — specially offered himself and his merits for those persons, and added to a price already sufficient in itself a most effectual, singular will to work their salvation? John 10:15 points the same way: I lay down my life for my sheep — with a singular intention to redeem, free, and bring them to life, as the whole discourse there shows.

Cap. 7 Scholastici: Scotus and Hugh of St Victor on elect-directed passion§175

1754. Scotus (Sentences III, dist. 19, single question) has much that illustrates our view. First: just as the Word foresaw his passion to be offered to the Father for the elect, so he offered it effectually unto its effect, and the whole Trinity effectually accepted that passion for them; for no others was it effectually offered or eternally accepted. So Scotus grants that by the Trinity's eternal decree Christ's passion was offered and accepted for the elect in a singular way, with special intention. 5. Hugh of St Victor (On the Sacraments I.8.7), treating Christ's passion: Human nature was corrupted by sin and wholly owed to damnation; if all had been damned, that would not have been injustice. But grace came and chose some from the mass of the whole by mercy unto salvation, and left some by justice unto damnation. Hugh teaches plainly that Christ, coming and offering himself for the race's sins, kept a singular eye on the elect he chose from that mass, whom he decreed — and in fact always does — to bring to salvation by his death's merits according to God's eternal good pleasure.

Cap. 7 Scholastici: Cajetan on Romans 8 — special donation to the elect§176

1766. Cajetan on Romans 8: He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him give us all things? Paul saw that the earlier chain of gifts did not yet prove effectually that God works all things for the elect's good — only that he works with them unto good. So, to conclude ALL THINGS effectually, he added that God freely gave even the Son for the elect, and from that inferred that with the Son all things are given to them. Cajetan's words cannot be bent to a universal gift of Christ given equally to the whole world: if that were so, God would give all things equally to every human being — which is plainly false. A special donation must be granted, under which Christ is given to the elect alone, and which alone carries after it an infallible, most certain gift of everything needed for salvation.

Cap. 7 Scholastici: Stapleton and Estius — efficacy for future friends / elect§177

1777. Stapleton (Moral Promptuary, Second Sunday after Easter, p. 254): Dying, Christ died effectually for friends alone — for friends-to-be after each one's conversion, not for those who were already friends. This Romanist does not shrink from granting Christ's dying a singular intention toward the elect. They are the future friends after conversion for whose effectual redemption he laid down his life while, with the rest, they were still ungodly, enemies, sinners, dead in sins. He is said to have died for all humans as to sufficiency; for his sheep — his elect — as to this efficacy, that is, with a singular intention, from his death's merit, to give them the effectual grace by which they believe and are saved. 8. Estius on Titus 2:14, Who gave himself for us: that is, who in assumed flesh delivered himself up, whether for all humans or specially for the elect, in whose person Paul often speaks. Christ's death-price suffices to redeem and save all, yet is applied unto salvation to the elect alone. Estius thus hints two things: Christ's offering had a general respect to all and a special to the elect; and that special respect must be defined as joined to an intention of applying it with certainty. He did not say the elect alone apply Christ's death to themselves by free choice's powers, but that it is applied unto salvation to them alone — by electing God, intending this good for his elect from Christ's death by special favor.

Cap. 7 Scholastici close: Suarez and Vasquez before Reformed Theologi nostri§178

1789. Next the Jesuits. However they defend universal grace and universal redemption, they dare not deny this special, effectual ordination and intention of the saving passion toward the elect alone. Let two chiefs speak: Suarez and Vasquez. Suarez on Aquinas III q.19: as Christ prayed diversely for humans, so he merited diversely — for some sufficiently, for others effectually. So though he is everyone's universal Redeemer and a sufficient cause of salvation, in a special way he is the effectual cause of salvation for those he makes obedient. It is incredible he offered his merits no differently for those he knew the Father had elect than for others, when he saw the Father's will was that they be saved without fail, and not others. Suarez thus grants that Christ's death and merits save the elect from the special mode of offering and the offerer's will — not from a chance act of human will laying hold of them. 10. Vasquez clearly owns this special intention toward the elect in applying his merits (on Aquinas I q.23, disp. 49, c.3, p. 687): I do not doubt Christ by peculiar prayer and will applied his merits to those predestined and elect. The same on Aquinas III q.19, disp. 77, c.5, p. 384, cites Andreas Vega: Christ's merits do not profit all effectually, because for those they do not profit he did not pray effectually or offer his passion. So not only the old Fathers but even newer Romanists confess what we aim to prove: God constituted Christ's death a universal saving cause applicable to all, yet by a special intention of offerer and accepter it is also a particular saving cause to be applied without fail, and singularly, to all and only the elect. See also Malderus, Antisynod, p. 138.

Cap. 7 Theologi nostri open: Postremo — Bucerus on Matt. 1:21 elect§179

17911. Last, our own theologians. They do not deny that Christ suffered for all, yet they also confess that in his death he redeemed the elect under a peculiar regard. Bucer states it on Matthew 1 at He shall save his people — that is, the elect whom the Father himself brings to him. By his death he expiated all the elect's sins and merited that the propitious Father give them his Spirit. So Christ's death merited something for the elect that he did not merit for others. Whatever he merited for anyone, he merited under the Father's ordination and acceptance. From that Fatherly will and ordination, then, Christ's death belongs to the elect in a special way that does not reach the rest.

Cap. 7 Theologi nostri: Musculus — electorum gratia Christ came§180

180Musculus, who in the Common Places presses hard that Christ must be held universal Redeemer, still grants Christ's special intention to redeem the elect. On Romans 8 he says Christ came into this world for the elect's sake — which can only mean he came with a peculiar intention to save the elect without fail. That special aim, securing for the elect the applied fruit of his passion, belongs to them so properly that it does not stretch to others.

Cap. 7 Theologi nostri: Calvin — Heb. 2 children given; three notes§181

181Calvin on Hebrews 2 at Behold I and the children God has given me: Christ brings none to the Father, he says, except those the Father himself has given him. That gift hangs on eternal election: those the Father destined for life he places in the Son's keeping to guard them. Mark three points. First, the Father from the election decree has singularly destined some for life. Second, Christ the Mediator received those elect as peculiarly entrusted to him by the Father. Third, Christ keeps a singular care of them, guarding and ruling them in this life until he brings them to eternal life. With that set down, it would be unreasonable and ungodly to deny that, in the very work of his offering and of mankind's redemption, Christ intended these elect's salvation by a peculiar intention — absolute and effectual.

Cap. 7 Theologi nostri: Zanchius — sufficiently for all, efficaciously for elect§182

182Zanchi (Miscellanies, On the Predestination of the Saints, p. 14): it is not false that Christ died for all men — his passion is offered to all in the Gospel. Yet he died efficaciously only for the elect, because they alone share the passion's efficacy. That they alone so share it must be referred to the special, effectual will of Christ suffering and of the Father accepting this victim — for the elect in a more peculiar way than for others. In sharing saving good, the divine will goes before the human.

Cap. 7 Theologi nostri: Vorstius — Amica duplic peculiar redemption sense§183

183Finally — not to weary by stacking more writers — even Vorstius could not deny that the redemption finished on the cross belongs to the elect in a peculiar sense. In the Friendly Duplicate (p. 230) he grants that redemption can be taken in different senses for several species of the same kind, so that some only, not all, may fitly be called redeemed in a special reason or peculiar sense, as Scripture often names them. On p. 235, answering Hebrews 13:20 (Christ the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant), he concedes Christ is Shepherd of these sheep, and of these alone, in a peculiar way: as to the saving, spiritual act of feeding them (which includes the actual gift of the Holy Spirit), and as to a special acquisition of those sheep. So far Vorstius.

Cap. 7 Theologi nostri close: Vorstius critique — Bridegroom/Head/Shepherd intent§184

184What exactly does Vorstius grant us when he allows that not all but some were redeemed by Christ's death in a special reason and peculiar sense, and that Christ is Shepherd of his sheep in a peculiar way as to a special acquisition? If he means only that, in the outcome, by diverse acts of human wills, redemption's fruit reaches some — that is, believers — in a special way, he trifles and never answers the texts brought against him. For He purchased the Church with his blood; He gives salvation to his body; He lays down his life for his sheep; He died to gather God's children — these and like sayings do not mark some special act of the Church, body, or sheep. They mark the Bridegroom's, Head's, and Shepherd's special intention and work toward this Church, this body, these sheep, decreeing and securing their salvation by his death's virtue and merit under a special will.

Cap. 7 Contra open: Obj. 1 — mercy vs justice in elect application§185

185Against all we have argued about Christ's special dying intention toward the elect, and about the saving application of his death that hangs on and flows from that intention, objections can be raised. 1. If Christ's offering carries an intention limited to the elect, and from it they receive efficacious application and sure salvation, then we seem to ground their justification and salvation less in God's good pleasure and special mercy than in a kind of justice. Ask why Peter rather than Judas received efficacious grace and salvation from Christ's death, and on our view the answer must be: because by special intention and application of his merits Christ merited for Peter what he refused to merit for Judas. Yet what comes from Christ's merits peculiarly applied to one person seems to come not from bare mercy of Divine good pleasure, but from justice — for it is just that what Christ merited for these or those persons be specially assigned to them. That seems to clash with the Apostle, who traces the grace and sure salvation of the predestined to God's pure grace alone.

Cap. 7 Contra Sol. 1: mercy fulfilled through Christ's merits§186

186These two claims do not clash: God justifies and saves Peter by pure grace — his mere eudokia — and God justifies and saves Peter with an eye to Christ's merits specially ordained and accepted for Peter's salvation. The reason is plain. The same God who, from bare good pleasure and pure mercy, decreed faith and salvation for Peter also decreed to give them only through and because of Christ's merits, destined and granted to Peter in a singular way — and that from the same eudokia and pure mercy. God's good pleasure stands against our merits; yet through Christ's merits applied to us it is filled out, not voided. So the Apostle says (Hebrews 13:21) that God himself works his good pleasure in us through Jesus Christ. It is therefore mere Divine eudokia that God wills to give Peter efficacious grace and save him; still that good pleasure is carried out only through Christ's merits. Our whole answer comes to this: every work of special grace in the elect is for Christ's merits specially applied to them, yet their justification and salvation show true mercy, not justice — because Christ, with his merits and with this very way of meriting and offering them under a special regard for the elect, drew the whole plan from God's free will toward them.

Cap. 7 Contra Obj. 2: merits applied before faith?§187

187Suppose the elect gain efficacious grace — saving faith — because Christ's death and merit on the cross were applied to them by a special intention. Then we seem to allow the merits of his passion to be imputed or applied to some people before they believe. That clashes with the received theological rule that faith is the instrument or means without which Christ's passion-merits are not applied to particular persons. So whoever has Christ's merits singularly applied or imputed must already stand as a believer. How then can we defend this special application of Christ's merits to the elect before they are made faithful and believing?

Cap. 7 Contra Sol. 2: God-side application; Scotus on joining the unjoined§188

188To meet the objection, take Ephesians 1:3 as foundation: God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ — that is, every saving good that comes down from God is given through Christ and for his merits. Saving faith, proper to the elect, ranks among the chief spiritual blessings; so it is granted, for Christ's merits, to all who in fact receive it. When theologians say faith is the instrument by which Christ's merits are applied to us, they mean application on the human side: the elect cannot apply those merits to themselves for any spiritual benefit unless faith is already presupposed in them. But if we view application or imputation from God's side alone, God can and does apply — impute and communicate — Christ's merits to people so that, with regard to those merits, he gives spiritual goods even while they still count as ungodly and unbelieving. Faith, when first given, is not given to a believer but to an unbeliever; yet it is given to the elect for the Mediator's merits. So we must confess: no elect person could, by believing, apply Christ's merits to himself for eternal life's fruit unless God, from special mercy and for that merit of Christ, had first infused the faith by which they would believe. That is the special application of Christ's merits which, from Christ's special will in offering himself and the Father's in accepting the sacrifice, we say belongs to the elect by a peculiar privilege. Scotus saw this in a saying worth marking: the chief thing in Christ's merit was that he merited the joining of the unjoined (lib. 3, dist. 19, unique q., p. 75) — as if to say the main force of those merits is that some from among unbelievers should become believers and, joined to Christ by faith, obtain eternal life. That special ordination and application of Christ's merits hangs wholly on God's good pleasure, not on human choice.

Cap. 7 Contra Obj. 3 + Sol.: OT elects and meritorious cause§189

189Obj. 3. If Christ in offering himself, and God in accepting that sacrifice, had a special intention to vivify and surely save all the elect by that sacrifice's virtue and merit, we seem to shut Old Testament elect out of the privilege — those born and dead before Christ's sacrifice was shown on the cross. Sol. On general sufficiency or special efficacy I answer: Christ's sacrifice had the same virtue under the Old Testament, before the outward act of exhibition, that it has under the New after Christ was really shown and offered on the cross. Just as special grace reaches New Testament elect from God's special intention by the merit of this sacrifice already actually exhibited, so special grace flowed to Old Testament elect from the same God's special will by the merit of that same sacrifice still to be exhibited. For Christ was the Lamb slain from the world's beginning, both in the readiness of his will and in the Father's acceptance. Note the difference: a cause that works physically or naturally must already be in act before its power yields an effect; a cause that works meritoriously or morally — such as Christ's passion — can yield an effect before it actually exists, if it at least stands beforehand in the knowledge and acceptance of him who, with regard to it, dispenses the benefits of his grace. Here a meritorious cause is kin to a final cause: not yet existing in act, but only foreseen and weighed, it still moves the agent to act. So we say Christ's passion and its dependent merits, foreseen as to be offered to God and applied specially to Jacob, not Esau, moved God to give Jacob the special grace he denied Esau. Suarez puts it well (In 3, q. 49, art. 4, comm.): that special love by which, for Christ's merits — exhibited or foreseen — God sanctifies and reconciles people can fall under Christ's merits, whether by meriting for us the effect of that love, or God's love (or election) freely fixed on us.

Cap. 7 Contra Obj. 4: incongruity of faith given only to elect§190

190Obj. 4. Last comes this charge: it is hardly fitting — indeed plainly incongruous — that God, who willed Christ's death, with its rich treasury of merits, to be equally applicable to all under the condition of faith for obtaining eternal life, should meanwhile refuse to prepare and give that same faith, for those same merits, equally to all, and should give persevering saving faith to the elect alone — and that for Christ's merits by a special Divine intention, a particular regard directed toward them

Cap. 7 Contra Sol. 4: three reasons; Rupertus and Ambrose§191

191I answer: once a Divine fact stands, it is rash — not to say impious — to quarrel with its equity or fittingness. We have long shown that by Christ's death that covenant with the human race was fixed, by whose terms eternal life is promised to anyone under the condition of faith. On that covenant Rupert of Deutz (on Genesis 4.34) says: we call it a covenant many times promised but once struck, by which alone the enmities between God and humankind are dissolved — namely the passion of Christ the Son of God. There peace is settled without contradiction when God, receiving human faith, gives people the same Christ his Son that they may be saved through him. So there is no doubt about this Divine ordination, founded in Christ's death and merits and looking to every person. What is still doubted is whether, given this universal covenant of eternal life for all who believe, God may freely show special mercy in giving the elect the saving faith by which they believe — and that through Christ, for his merits applied to them by a peculiar privilege. The fact itself speaks. We see the elect alone, in the outcome, receive from God persevering saving faith. To imagine so great a gift given them in any other way or regard than for Christ's merits, ordained and applied by a special Divine intention, is plainly unlawful. As Ambrose says devoutly, every gift of grace is in Christ — pointing to Ephesians 1:3, He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. That settled, though it is needless to debate the fittingness of Divine deeds when the deeds themselves are clear, still, to leave no scruple: first, this special intention by which God decreed, for Christ's merits, to give the elect the special benefits of efficacious grace and salvation does not fight the conditioned covenant Whoever believes will be saved; it is rather a special counsel subordinated to that universal covenant's sure fulfillment. Those left to their own choice under any helps of grace either push faith away or shake it off. Lest that universal covenant bring salvation's effect to no one, God by this special and secret intention saw to it that Christ's death-merit would be applied to some for the sure obtaining of faith and eternal life. Second, nothing unjust or incongruous follows if this special intention of efficacious application of Christ's merits puts forth its force in some, not in all: Christ's death is God's free gift to the human race, so free distribution and application of the overflowing merits ought by every right to hang on God's mere will. Third, God, who in the Gospel promised every person eternal life for Christ's merits if they believe, never promised any unbeliever that for those merits he would make him believe surely and perseveringly. So where is the incongruity? Not on the side of believers and the saved: to give singular persons, for Christ's merits, what was never singularly promised them is not blameworthy injustice but goodness to praise. Not on the side of the unbelieving and lost: to deny someone a benefit you owe him by no title is neither unjust in itself nor unfit for God's highest goodness.

Cap. 7 close: sufficient for all, efficacious for elect — Amen§192

192Let this be the sum and close of the whole controversy On the Death of Christ. The Mediator between God and humankind, Jesus Christ, in sealing that evangelical covenant by which eternal life is due to every believer, made no partition or sorting of people by which we could say anyone was shut out from the benefit of his death if he believed. In that sense — with Scripture, the Fathers, and solid reasons agreeing — we hold that Christ suffered and died on the cross for all human beings, for the whole human race. We add this too: the same Mediator, when he decreed to lay down his life for sin, also had this singular intention — that by the virtue of his merits he would efficaciously and surely vivify and bring to life certain ones singularly given him by the Father. In that sense we defend that Christ laid down his life for the elect alone, or to acquire his Church — that is, he died for them alone with this singular, fixed purpose of efficaciously regenerating and saving them through the merit of his death. So Christ's merit stands equally toward all as to sufficiency, yet not as to efficacy — and that not only from the effect, which lands in one and not another, but from the will by which Christ himself merited and offered his merits in different ways for different people. The first root of that diversity was Divine election and will, to which Christ's human will conformed. From this Suarez rightly draws that this merit of Christ is the cause of spiritual regeneration itself, gives it efficacy, influences its effect, and is at once the cause that this person is regenerated for whom he specially offered his merit (In 3, q. 19, disp. 41, §2, p. 635). Let Robert of Salisbury, of rare learning and pious memory, speak for our side (in Thomson's Diatribe, p. 94): though we do not deny that Christ died for all, yet we specially and properly believe he died for the Church, and that redemption's benefit does not belong to all by equal right. On that benefit's peculiarity — not on human will — hangs the efficacy of every means, so that they are and are useful only for those whom Christ redeemed in himself as elect under a peculiar regard; nor do they take effect because we will, but because in the elect and redeemed, according to the purpose of his grace, God works the willing for which he chose them. He who by his death most sufficiently merited eternal life for all — to be given to all under the evangelical covenant if they believed — also, by a peculiar application of his merits, most efficaciously merited for some that they should believe and receive eternal life as God's free gift through and for our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the elect's peculiar lot. May the Father of mercies make us all partakers of it; to him, with the Son and the Holy Spirit, be honor, praise, and glory now and forever. Amen.

De praedestinatione: title — Rom 9:18 and Calvin§193

193A DISSERTATION ON PREDESTINATION AND REPROBATION. By the Most Reverend John Davenant, lately Bishop of Salisbury, formerly Professor of Theology in the University of Cambridge, delivered in the Theological Schools to his hearers. Romans 9:18. Of whom he wills, he has mercy; and whom he wills, he hardens. Calvin on Romans 9:18: There is scarcely any doubt that Paul speaks here in his own sense — that God, by his own free decision, shows mercy to whom he chooses, and draws the severity of judgment against whomever he pleases. Printed at Cambridge by Roger Daniel, University Printer, 1650.

Prefatio: return to theological labor; scope of the inquiry§194

194Preface delivered to the University. What the poet said of farmers — "The finished labor returns for farmers in a circle" (Georgics 2) — fits theologians still more truly, especially those whose chair itself demands labor and sweat, not leisure or quiet. So I will enter these rounds of theological work that my office requires, eager and willing; and I will ask God first to steer me through the whole course of this undertaking so that I do not swerve even a little from the fixed center of sacred truth. The work I take up is steep in itself and blocked with many difficulties. For what is higher, or farther from human sense, than that eternal decree of Divine predestination by which, before the world's foundations were laid, we confess that certain ones were chosen before others — indeed with others plainly passed by — to share eternal life in Christ? We have given our labor to explaining that business, yet under this rule: let no one of you expect that I will touch every question theologians treat in this matter (that would be immense labor, and superfluous too), or any of those curious little puzzles by which unhealthy little men torture themselves, vex others, and finally obscure and twist the Christian faith. Steady faith rejects captious and useless questions; and whoever truly hears as a believer shows himself devout toward Divine wisdom, not craving his own (Hilary, On the Trinity 1; so also Tertullian, On the Resurrection). In this inquiry, then, we will set ourselves only a few of the most necessary points, and we will not dig deeper than Scripture's light lets us go. If we keep to that rule, Augustine rightly judged that this doctrine of predestination should be taught not only among the learned but also to the people (On the Perseverance of the Saints 2.16), and that it can be said so as to be milk for little ones and solid food for the grown.

Prefatio: preach free election; Pontifical reduction of the mystery§195

195If we follow Paul's steps, imitate holy Augustine, and hold the doctrine received in this our Church, there is no danger of scandal. But if we let the doctrine of free election be overwhelmed and buried — or, worse, if we calmly endure it when certain Papal writers and others have badly corrupted it and twisted it the other way — that lazy silence will not escape suspicion. A ready defense of the truth would meet us if published falsehood displeased us. None of you, I think, fails to see that many Papal writers have reduced this whole mystery of election and reprobation — at which Paul stood astonished — to an all-too-clear and easy account of the difference, teaching that some are chosen from foreknowledge of merits, others rejected from foreknowledge of demerits.

Prefatio close: Arminian fabric; elect unto faith; Anglican defense§196

196And what hurts more: from the Arminian school new teachers have come out who try to shake the catholic Church's most settled doctrine, and to raise I know not what new fabric of election and reprobation, wholly unknown to orthodox churches. What Papists assign to foreseen works, these assign to foreseen faith and unbelief. So they think they have secured Divine justice if, before the world's foundations were laid, God is said to have chosen only those he foresaw would believe the offered call and persevere in faith to the end; and, on the other side, to have reprobated only those he foreknew would refuse grace, remain unbelieving, and die in unbelief. Fine theologians indeed — who bring in a man already justified by faith, already set in adoption and salvation, before God has predestined him or chosen him to salvation in Christ! Splendid heralds of Divine grace — who will not trace the difference of good and bad wills in believing or not believing to the electing God's special mercy toward believers, but strain to refer whatever difference there is to a contingent act of free choice in admitting, keeping, and exercising grace. How much better — and closer to the Apostle's mind — is Augustine, scourge of the Pelagians (On the Predestination of the Saints 1.17): "God chose the faithful, but that they might become so, not because they already were. By choosing he makes them rich in faith, as heirs of the kingdom." So after Pelagius arose, Augustine and Catholics generally held and ratified this: people were chosen not from works but unto good works, not from faith but unto faith. That is: the elect became faithful and eager for good works; they were not chosen because God foresaw they would be such. This doctrine must be defended in the schools and preached in the churches. When Papal writers pour out their error's poisons everywhere, let us with no less care prepare antidotes for our own. Aristotle's saying is known. Let us also count it shameful to fall silent in God's cause while enemies of the truth shout against us on every side with writings and noise. Lest neighboring error's contagion seize ours too, I will, according to my slender measure, undertake to explain that most true doctrine which this Church of England has commended to all her people to embrace in the matter of predestination. And as far as I can I will refute those sophisms by which adversaries try to overturn the Church's sound teaching and to settle their new inventions.

Cap. 1 Prolegomena: four points before the controversy§197

197Chapter I. Prolegomena. But so that this whole matter may come into the light more easily, it will not be out of place to set a few things before the dispute itself — things whose explanation will open the way into this controversy. First: in questions of predestination or reprobation the very order of our thought breeds the sharpest fights, while one claims that in God's intellect and decrees this is prior which another holds is posterior. So we must speak briefly of this whole account of priority and posteriority under the diverse signs of reason. Second: because the words Election, Predestination, and Reprobation are used differently by different writers, we must explain the force of the words themselves, and show in what sense others take them, and in what sense we do. Third: because writers argue differently about the qualities or conditions of the subject, it will be worth setting out what is absolutely required and presupposed in the subject of predestination or reprobation when that subject is considered in common. Last: besides the common conditions required equally and without distinction whether someone is made the subject of predestination or of reprobation, some place further distinguishing qualities or conditions, by whose difference the act of Divine predestination falls on one and the act of reprobation on another. Those too must be weighed for what force they have. For some who refer the difference of election and reprobation to such things — whether our qualities or our acts — still will not let them be called causes, much less merits, and only grudgingly allow them even to be named conditions of our predestination. But let us gird for the work, and begin from those signs or distinct instants that theologians usually assign and separate according to prior and posterior order in the acts of both the Divine intellect and the Divine will.

Prolegomena I: one eternal act in God; James 1:17; Ambrose and Hilary§198

198First, then, this must be known and held: if we consider God's nature and perfection in itself, he does not first see one thing and then another, nor first decree or will this and then that. By one most simple act from eternity he has seen all things at once and decreed all things at once in himself. The firmest ground is Divine immutability — James 1:17: with God there is no change, or shadow of turning. Those words shut every change — in being or in working — out of the Divine nature. If we imagine God acting by turns in those operations understood as immanent in him, so that he first understands this then that, first wills this then another, we place in God a move from potency into act — which contradicts his most absolute simplicity. So Ambrose is right (or whoever wrote book 2 of On the Calling of the Gentiles, chapter 10): In God there is no accident, motion, new will, or temporal counsel; his thought is not varied by the inequality of changeable things; he comprehends all times and temporal things together with an everlasting, steady gaze. Hilary agrees: he denies piecemeal thoughts of things in God, and holds that all things stand with God in the even infinity of eternity (On the Trinity 12, p. 193). Every Scholastic and theologian I have seen assents — except one Vorstius, whose ravings are not even worth refuting in a theological school.

Prolegomena II: signs of priority among decrees; Scotus, Occam, Biel, Bannes§199

199Second: although every act in God's mind and will is eternal, and so not parted even by the lightest instant of before and after, still, from the side of the things God understands and has decreed, certain signs of priority and posteriority can be marked — according to our way of understanding. In that sense theologians ask whether God first decreed to give the elect eternal life, or faith and obedience that lead to eternal life; and whether he first reprobated some and cast them from eternal life before he foresaw them fallen and stained by sin. Hence nearly everyone who has written on predestination and reprobation draws a kind of series, almost a little table, trying to sketch the order of the Divine decrees — not because they judge that in God himself one decree is really before or after another, but because, given the ordered dependence of the things in themselves, our intellect ought to conceive one before another. Yet among the Scholastics themselves this teaching about those signs or instants of before and after — props by which our weak reason steadies itself when it thinks of God's decrees — is not very fixed or constant. Scotus, the chief craftsman of these signs, seems to some not only to have set them as prior and posterior in our mode of understanding, but also to have held that one is prior by nature to another in God himself — as if that before-and-after order could be assigned from the nature of the thing in the Divine acts themselves. But when I read carefully what Scotus teaches on these signs (1 Sent. dist. 41 q. unica; 3 Sent. Dist. 7 q. 4 and dist. 19 q. unica), he seems to me to teach y this: that in the things themselves there is some foundation from which we conceive that one decree of God is to be set before another by a certain order of our reason. From the other side our Occam denied these signs however considered (1 Sent. Dist. 9 q. 3); and Biel, taking that view, attacked them (3 Sent. Dist. 2 q. 1 dub. 3): "Priorities are not to be placed in Divine ngs, any more than pluralities of ordered acts. For there is one act in Divine things, indistinct in reality and in reason, which is the Divine essence itself; by that one cognition God foresaw Christ's incarnation, the future beatitude of all the elect, the fall and the repair — not one before, another after." And he adds at once that not even according to our consideration can such an order of before and after be conceived in the Divine decrees without that consideration becoming a false speculation. Dominic Báñez, though he does not wholly explode these signs with Biel, still weighs the theologians' discord in assigning them and says: notice how freely, in the business of predestination and reprobation, theologians multiply instants, and how little those help assign the account of the difference between the predestined and the reprobate. So let this brief warning stand: do not trust too much, or cling as to fixed dogma, to any certain order of the Divine decrees, whether drawn by Protestants or by Papal writers. It is hard to find two — among ours or among adversaries — who agree to the line in every point when they describe this series of Divine decrees. Let each take care not to bring in a view of predestination and reprobation that runs against Divine justice or free grace; and since these decrees are in reality altogether simultaneous in God, it matters little in what order of before and after we distribute and arrange them according to our mode of understanding.

Prolegomena III: order founded in things' dependence; final vs efficient cause§200

200Third: because our intellect is weak, we are often forced, when explaining predestination, to conceive something as before and something as after — as when we think God first considered the human being as fallen, before as elect in Christ; or when we say God first destines a person to eternal life, before to efficacious grace. So let us see where this order of before and after, which we mark in the Divine acts, is founded. Not in God's knowledge or will considered in itself: in Divine things all are simultaneous in duration. It is founded in the relation of the things themselves, insofar as one depends on another. Therefore, in our mode of consideration, that is prior in the Divine mind and will from which another hangs in the order of causality; that is posterior which hangs from another. If one stands wholly independent of another, neither is prior or posterior to the other. Next, mark carefully: the same thing can be prior and posterior to another in different kinds of cause. Compare an efficient or dispositive cause with a final one. In the kind of final cause, health is prior to the drug: it moves the physician to give it and the sick person to take it. But in the kind of efficient cause the drug is prior to health: by its virtue and efficacy the sick person is brought back to health. So in predestination: the will to give eternal life is conceived prior to the will to give efficacious grace in the order of final cause — for from the intention of giving life arises the decree to give such grace. But in the order of efficient cause the will to give grace is prior, and grace is given so that by its virtue and efficacy going before, the person may be led through to glory. That is what the Philosopher hints (Ethics 3.8): what is last in intention is first in execution, and the reverse. The reason is plain. In the act of willing and intending, that has the account of a cause which by desire and love of itself moves the agent to seek and apply such means; but in the act of executing, that has the account of a cause which advances the end itself and works toward obtaining it. So Báñez: the end which in the agent's intention has the account of a cause with respect to the means, when set in execution has the account of an effect, and the means themselves have the account of an efficient cause toward it. Mark this well: although in reality there is one and the same act of will in God by which he wills both means and end, the end through the means, and the means for the end, still in our mode of understanding all these are distinguished — and hence the tangled questions which of them is prior or posterior in the Divine will. To meet those questions, always weigh what order of causality the things themselves have among themselves: they are understood to carry the same order of priority. Add this too: although in the acts of the Divine will as to the thing there is no before or after, God does not will created things in a confused, unordered heap. It is true that in God there are not many volitions, nor one prior to another; yet by one most simple act of his will he willed one thing to be for another, and one to depend on another. Hence that consideration of before and after which properly belongs to the things themselves is attributed by us to the Divine decrees. So whenever the dispute is about God's knowledge — asking of two which he knew first — or about his will — asking of two which he decreed first — always remember: this priority or posteriority does not inhere really, truly, and formally in the acts of the Divine mind and will themselves, but is considered from the side of the things God has known and decreed, among which he willed a true and real before and after. And for our purpose, that is enough on this point.

Cap. 1 vocabulary: Electio — Scripture senses (nation / office)§201

2012. Let us now explain the three words that will keep returning through the whole dispute ahead. First is Election. Scripture uses that word in more than one way. Sometimes it means setting a people apart to share the word and the ordinary means by which people are led to salvation. So God is said to have chosen the Jewish nation and passed by the other nations. "The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples," and so on (Deuteronomy 7:6). Sometimes the same word means setting a particular person apart for an office in the state or in the church. So God is said to have chosen Saul as king of the Jews: "See whom the Lord has chosen" (1 Samuel 10:24); and Christ chose the Twelve as apostles: "Did I not choose you, the twelve?" (John 6:70). Those elections are not our question now. Still, in them and in every case of the same kind, election always means taking someone — or some — out of a larger number for a special end the agent intends.

Cap. 1 vocabulary: Electio proper — glory; Thomas; vs praedestinatio§202

202The election we must treat, then, is the singular act of the Divine will that from eternity sets certain ones apart for the end of glory — eternal life — and passes others by. Thomas rightly notes that this election, like love, is presupposed to predestination. All the predestined are understood as elect and beloved: beloved insofar as God wills them the good of eternal life; elect insofar as he wills them that good and does not will it to others. Taken properly, election looks only to the end: it is God's will to confer glory on particular persons while passing others by. Theologians do sometimes blur election with predestination. When the words are kept apart, election belongs chiefly to the end itself; predestination belongs to the means — as we will now show.

Cap. 1 vocabulary: Praedestinatio — dual use; school sense§203

203I turn next to Predestination. Theologians sometimes — though rarely — use that word for a bad end too: destination to death. So Augustine on John, Tractate 48: How did he say to them, "You are not of my sheep"? Because he saw them predestined to everlasting ruin, not purchased for eternal life by the price of his blood. And in City of God 15.1 he says there are two cities or societies of human beings: one predestined to reign forever with God, the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil. Augustine's disciples Prosper and Fulgentius sometimes speak the same way. The Fathers at the Council of Valence even confess a predestination of the elect to life and a predestination of the ungodly to death. We, following what has nearly become school usage, narrow "predestination" and "the predestined" to that special providence of God by which from eternity he proposed to secure, by efficacious means, the salvation of those he chose in Christ — and, matching that eternal purpose, he works their salvation in time efficaciously and without fail.

Cap. 1 vocabulary: Praedestinatio — two acts; Augustine; Aquinas arrow§204

204In predestination, then, we can mark two acts: one of the Divine will, one of the intellect. The will's act is to will salvation for this particular person, to choose him before others, to show him mercy and not show mercy to others — an act Aquinas (as we noted earlier) treats as prior to predestination and calls election. The intellect's act is to foreknow, and to direct these particular persons by infallible means to the end destined for them. That second act is where predestination proper chiefly lives. Augustine's description fits here: Predestination is nothing other than God's foreknowledge and preparation of the benefits by which whoever are set free are set free with certainty. So by predestination we always mean that part of Divine providence which directs its elect by infallible means and leads them through to eternal blessedness. How necessary this is becomes clear once you see that the life of glory surpasses what human nature can reach: free election to that end is not enough unless Divine wisdom and power also supply fit, infallible means that guide us there. Aquinas's likeness is not strained. An arrow is first aimed at a mark by the archer's purpose; then by his power, through the bow, it is sent toward that same mark. So every person destined from eternity by God's purpose for the mark of eternal life is, in time, by that same power, through efficacious grace, directed to glory's goal and at last brought there. That whole account of transmitting the elect into eternal life — as it is understood to stand from all eternity in the Divine mind — is what we call predestination.

Cap. 1 vocabulary: Reprobatio — Scripture voice vs school sense§205

205On the opposite word, Reprobation, a few points. As for the bare term, Scripture's "reprobate" and "to reprobate" point more to the present state of the ungodly than to God's eternal decree about them. ἀδόκιμος — a reprobate — is one who lives ungodly, does not carry himself as a son of God, and by his deeds shows himself counterfeit, spurious, adulterate. God is said to reject or reprobate such people because of that impurity, as goldsmiths throw out counterfeit coins. Even in Augustine — who treated this matter more richly and clearly than the other Fathers — "reprobate" and "reprobating" in the school sense barely appear, or do not appear at all. Still, the thing itself is plainly in Scripture. First, when Scripture affirms what forces the reprobation of some by clear necessary consequence: as when certain named persons are said elect and predestined by God before the world's foundations were laid. Election of some imports passing by — rejecting — others. Second, when equivalent phrases express the decree: God is said never to have known some, not to have given them to Christ, to refuse mercy to some, not to have written some names in the book of life — and the like, which plainly prove that from eternity the Divine mind and will marked a difference between elect and those not chosen. Finally, though Augustine and the other Fathers seldom use ion," they use other words that mean the same. Those the School calls reprobates, they call foreknown and predestined to destruction.

Cap. 1 vocabulary: Reprobatio — opposite act; Bannes; negative vs positive§206

206Drop the bare word; come to the thing. As to elect and to predestinate name that eternal act of the Divine will by which God decreed to direct certain persons to blessedness they will infallibly reach, so to reprobate names the opposite act: the decree to permit certain persons to fail and fall short of that end. That fits providence itself — which allows some defect in the things under its care. See Aquinas, ST I q.23 a.6. In reprobation we mark two quasi-acts of the Divine will. The first is unwillingness to elect someone to blessedness obtained without fail. Why that act lands on Judas rather than Peter has no reason on the reprobate's side; it is referred to the liberty of the Divine will. So Báñez: in the particular case, why God chose these and reprobated those has no adequate cause but the Divine will. In the same article he says this predestination of some and reprobation of others manifests the greatest liberty the Divine will has in dispensing supernatural goods — and that liberty is a great Divine perfection. The act we call passing-by or non-election, Bellarmine calls the negative act of reprobation. Guard this point: do not follow Scotus in treating God's will toward the reprobate — whom he does not choose but passes by — as merely negative. In the act we name by a negation there is an expressed, affirmative will of God; it does not mean God simply suspends willing about their falling short of blessedness. Read that act affirmatively, not only negatively. Passing-by / non-election involves affirmative decrees: I will to permit Judas to fall short of eternal life; I will and decree not to give Judas that special grace which, if he received it, would bring him to eternal life. So much for the first act. The second is to destine to punishment. That act terminates on the reprobate as foreknown and foreseen stained by sin — and that from the fault of his own will. Scotus calls this privative reprobation; Bellarmine, the positive act of reprobation. It designates the will to damn the reprobate person. Note also: God shows the reprobate certain effects that do not flow from their reprobation — that they are created, called to know the Gospel, illuminated with supernatural knowledge. Those are effects of common love and common providence, not of reprobation.

Cap. 1 vocabulary: Reprobatio effects; against Pelagian calumny (Prosper)§207

207The proper effects of negative reprobation are these: unwillingness to decree the efficacious liberation of a person lying under damnation; and the will to deny that person the efficacious helps by which he would in fact be converted. The last effect is the eternal punishment of the obstinate sinner. That does not properly rise from mere passing-by or non-election, but from the other reprobation-act one may call pre-damnation — which presupposes foresight of sin and leaving the person in it. Weigh this too: reprobation's effects are not chained to one another the way predestination's are. In predestination the earlier effect usually causes the later — efficacious calling begets faith, faith justification, and so on. In reprobation the effects are not ordered that way, though taken together they serve one end: the shining of Divine justice. Finally, against certain malevolent slanders, mark this: In the fallen human being, sins such as unbelief, wickedness, and hardening — and the penalty due them, eternal damnation — follow reprobation as infallibly as faith, holiness, and perseverance follow predestination; yet they do not follow in the same way. Acting from the decree of predestination, God works those earlier goods by the influx of efficacious grace. From the decree of reprobation he does nothing that makes the reprobate worse, nothing that blocks believing and holy living, nothing that drives him into unbelief or wickedness. Watch that carefully. Old Pelagians and new alike see that, given reprobation as we have described it, none of the reprobate perseveres in faith or holy life — and they cry at once that we make God the author of sin and the cause why people do not believe or spring back from faith and holiness. With the Prophet we answer every reprobate: your destruction is from you, though help is from God alone. Reprobation takes nothing from the reprobate's own power; God simply does not put forth toward him the efficacious power he could put forth if he willed. So Prosper long ago: God despoils no one of the possibility of the good. It does not follow — as the objectors think — that those to whom God has not given penitence he has robbed of repentance, or that those he has not lifted he has struck down, and so on. Reprobation causes in a far different way from predestination. God predestinating works every good in the predestined by grace's influx, and is properly called an efficient cause. God reprobating works no evils in the reprobate by subtracting grace; the evils break out from nature's corruption — and God is no more their cause than the sun is cause of darkness when it does not light the air. So much I thought should be set down first on election, Predestination, and reprobation.

Cap. 1 subject: Tertio — rationality as common condition§208

208III. Third: the qualities or conditions of the subject taken commonly and without distinction — what must clothe that subject on which the Divine act of predestination or reprobation, taken without discrimination, terminates. First, beyond dispute: for either act to fall on any subject at all, that subject must be endowed with a rational nature. Rationality is therefore a necessary condition always to be supposed in the predestined or the reprobate. The reason is plain to anyone. Both predestination and reprobation are God's decree about the supernatural end of eternal blessedness, and brute nature cannot be capable of that end. So when we say someone is ordered to blessedness by predestination, or shut out of it by reprobation, both must be understood of a rational creature. What is clear need not be long.

Cap. 1 subject: sin-infection debated — Scotus / Suarez before foresight§209

209Another quality most writers treat as necessarily presupposed in predestinating and reprobating — though not all agree: the infection of sin, which they think God foresaw in the subject before it could be predestined or reprobated. On their view rationality is not enough; the creature must also be presupposed a sinner, stained with sin. I do not gladly make this quarrel my own; still I will open briefly what others hold and what I hold. We must admit that the opinion which puts predestination before foresight of sin is neither new nor the property of obscure theologians. Nearly everyone who took predestination as bare designation to the end itself, rather than preparation of means, reasoned this way. Scotus, ordering instants in the Divine mind and will, always set the will to give beatitude before foresight of the fall (I dist. 41; III dist. 19 q.1): God first wills glory for a fixed number of elect, next orders grace for them, then foresees their fall in Adam. With Scotus stand many who claim the Scotist name. Maclantus, Galatinus, Alfonso Mendoza, and countless others teach the decree of predestination prior even to permitting the fall — and prior to creating man. So they do not treat foresight of sin as a condition of the subject on which predestination falls. Among recent Jesuits Suarez follows the same line and calls it the common opinion: I judge more probable the theologians' common view that the election of the predestined preceded permission of original sin.

Cap. 1 subject: angels prove election before stand/fall; Thomas terminus§210

210That God can elect and reprobate before any foresight of sin is plain in the angels. Those who stood were elect; those who fell were passed by or reprobated — and that before any foresight of standing versus falling. Before the decree to create or save them, God knew which angels, given such grace, would in fact persevere and reach eternal blessedness, and knew which would infallibly fall if given only the grace he later in fact gave. Why give the good angels grace he knew would bring them to glory? Only because a will to save them — election or predestination — came first. Why give the wicked angels grace he knew, taken alone, would leave them to perish? Because a will to permit their falling short of blessedness came first: otherwise he knew and could have given them, no less than the others, grace that would have carried them infallibly to glory. So toward the angels God's will to elect some and not others did not arise after foresight of who would stand or fall; it is rather the cause of that different outcome, and prior in order. Election and passing-by therefore do not, from the nature of the acts themselves, necessarily presuppose foresight of sin in the subject — not in angels. Nor does it seem necessary in humans to place foresight of sin as a condition in the subject prior to the decree of predestination and reprobation. Thomas notes rightly: motion takes its species from the terminus to which, not from the terminus from which. As whitening does not care whether the thing whitened was black, pale, or red, so predestination does not care whether someone is destined to eternal life from a state of misery or not. On Thomas's showing the act of predestination can fall on a subject not yet tangled in sin's misery.

Cap. 1 subject: Aquinas on reprobation/permission; Calvin not inventor§211

211Aquinas even seems to lean toward saying reprobation in fact preceded foresight of original sin. When he calls reprobation that part of Divine providence which permits some to fall short of beatitude, he implies that permission to fail from the means that lead to beatitude flows from reprobation — and so, in how we understand, is posterior to it. If permission to fail follows reprobation, then foresight of the actual fall follows all the more: it is foreseen only on the hypothesis of permission. I bring this in not because I cling to that opinion, but to touch in passing the ignorance — or malice? — of those who curse Calvin or Beza as if they invented a view no less current among Scholastics and even Pontificians than the contrary view that puts the sin-infected human as predestination's subject. As for Calvin (so far as I can judge): he rightly denies that foresight of sin is the cause of predestination or reprobation; yet with Augustine he always holds that consideration of foreseen sin stands before God as he predestinates or reprobates — as a common condition of the subject. Clear words: If all whom the Lord predestines to death are by natural condition liable to death's judgment, if all are taken from a corrupted mass, no wonder they lie under damnation. Hear clearer still. After Paul taught that God from a lost mass elects and reprobates whom he wills, why and how so little helps that, terrified, he breaks into O the depth! (Tractate on God's eternal predestination, p. 711). Beza, Zanchi, and other learned men speak more harshly and set consideration of the corrupted mass wholly after the decree of predestination — yet they never think anyone's damnation decreed except on presupposed sin.

Cap. 1 subject: bare election vs means — Davenant's judgment§212

212My judgment in brief. First: if by Predestination you mean bare designation to the end of glory (as many older Scholastics do), and by Reprobation only the negation of that act — the decree to pass by and not elect — I do not think foresight of sin must be supposed as something prior in the subject so predestined or reprobated. Why? In God's mind and will no act is really prior to another; all before-and-after is taken from the mutual dependence of the things themselves. Where the things have no causal dependence, Divine decrees about them admit no before or after. Sin is altogether beside the point for the act of Divine election or non-election. It is not the reason of either act (all confess that), nor a qualification of the subject without which those acts cannot fall — as rationality is; the angels already showed that. Since sin is neither cause why someone is elect to glory or permitted to fall short of it, nor a disposition required for either act, it is improper to say the decree to elect or not elect is prior in God's mind to foresight of sin — and improper to say foresight of sin was prior to that decree — for among independent things there is no before or after in God's mind or will. Those who try to blacken, with I know not what horrid consequences, the view that considers election and passing-by without foresight of sin are twisting ropes out of sand.

Cap. 1 subject: Scripture sense — means & praedamnatio presuppose sin§213

213Yet Scripture and Augustine, glory of the Fathers, do not take predestination and reprobation as bare election to the end, or bare passing-by. With the decree to give the end they join the decree to prepare and give certain, designated, infallible means; with the decree to permit falling short of the end they couple another — to punish and damn forever the one who fell short. For that reason I judge it better, fitter, and in this sense truer that foresight of sin be presupposed as a condition of the subject on which such a decree of predestination and reprobation falls. In Scripture predestination usually means not bare designation to glory's end, but destination to glory through means — and not any means, but means of efficacious grace derived from Christ our Head and Mediator. So Ephesians 1:4: he chose us in him that we should be holy; 2 Timothy 1:9: he saved us according to his purpose and the grace given us in Christ before the ages. From these and many like them it is plain the Apostle means destination and direction to glory's end by infallible means of efficacious grace from Christ. Augustine, as everyone knows, takes predestination as preparation of the grace that leads infallibly to glory: Predestination is the preparation of God's benefits by which whoever are set free are set free with certainty. So Aquinas describes it as special providence ordering and directing the elect to salvation's end not by any means, but by means that produce the event infallibly. Take it thus: Predestination in Scripture is not an abstract decree about the end alone, but a compounded decree — to give eternal life through means of grace in Christ. Reprobation in Scripture's use is not bare passing-by or non-election, but pre-damnation — appointment to destruction — bound inseparably to non-election, at least as to the event. Scripture calls the reprobate vessels of wrath fitted for destruction (Romans 9:22); formerly marked out for condemnation (Jude 4). Augustine calls reprobation predestination to destruction. Under "reprobation" we must include not only the bare decree to pass by, but also the will to pre-damn. That kind of predestination and reprobation cannot be conceived or explained rightly unless sin is preconceived as a common condition in the subject.

Cap. 1 subject: reasons — Christ medicus; media; justice — common close§214

214That can be shown by these reasons. First: predestination of humans to eternal life includes giving certain ones to Christ as Physician and Life-giver, and freeing them from the stock and head of old Adam, corrupter and killer of his posterity. So Scripture: "Those you gave me I have kept" (John 17:12); "Behold, I and the children God has given me" (Hebrews 2:13); "He chose us in Christ" (Ephesians 1:4); "Those who are well have no need of a physician" (Luke 5:31); "While we were still weak, Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6); "If many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many" (Romans 5:15). From these we gather: in the decree of predestination all the elect were given to Christ as Redeemer, Life-giver, and their future Physician. But a redeemer presupposes a captive, a life-giver a dead person, a physician a sick one — so those predestined in Christ the Redeemer are considered by God as such. As any act presupposes an object, such an act presupposes such an object: the acts of redemption, vivification, and healing, all included as future in our predestination or election in Christ, presuppose an object to be redeemed, made alive, healed — which is nothing other than one corrupted by sin. So Augustine (Serm. 9 on the Apostle's words): There was no cause for the Lord Christ's coming except to save sinners. Take away diseases and wounds, and medicine has no cause. If Christ was incarnate in time to save sinners, then from eternity too those given by predestination to the incarnate Christ to be saved were considered as sinners. Second: predestination means not only giving some to Christ as Redeemer and Liberator, but also the eternal preparation in God's mind of the means by which they are most certainly set free. All those means prepared for the elect can exercise their proper force only on a subject stained with sin — so predestination presupposes such a subject. Begin with efficacious calling to repentance and faith: what use is repentance except in a sinner? what force has faith except to justify a sinner? what does the Spirit of regeneration do but reshape the sinner to the image of Divine holiness lost in Adam? Since predestination prepares these and like means for the elect, God clearly considers them corrupted by sin and to be drawn out of that corruption by those efficacious means. As for reprobation, one argument seems enough: it falls only on a human considered as a sinner. Its aim is to display Divine glory by way of vindicating justice, as predestination's aim is to display that glory by way of sparing mercy. It does not serve God's glory to conceive him as destining to eternal punishment a creature not yet worthy of punishment. By absolute liberty God may decree not to communicate to an innocent creature some good he will give others; yet standing in his justice he cannot decree to inflict punishment on an innocent creature. Since reprobation includes the will to inflict punishment on the reprobate, on that side the person must be set before God as bound and stained by sin. Scripture always teaches wrath and vengeance provoked by sin: tribulation and anguish on every soul that does evil (Romans 2:9); the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23); because of these (their sins) the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience (Colossians 3:6). The Fathers carefully refuse to attribute to God a will to punish or damn anyone except as arising from preceding sin. Tertullian (On the resurrection): God is good from his own, just from ours — meaning vindicative justice. Augustine (Against Julian 3.18): God can free without good merits, because he is good; he cannot damn anyone without evil merits, because he is just. Prosper (Reply to Vincent's objections 2): That many perish is the merit of those perishing; that many are saved is the gift of the one who saves. And in the Reply to the eleven: Nothing can be referred to God's predestination except what belongs either to due retribution of justice or to undue largess of grace. From all this I judge it clear enough: not only a rational nature but a sinful one underlies the Divine act of predestination or reprobation — as common conditions of the subject without which neither act can fall on humans in the way Scripture describes those acts.

Cap. 1 prol. IV: distinguishing conditions defined — free-will use§215

215A few words now on distinguishing conditions. IV. By distinguishing conditions I mean contrary acts or qualities which, when foresight and weighed beforehand in the subject, bring about contrary acts in God toward that same subject. Take free choice: its good use and its bad use are contrary acts. If someone holds that, by God's ordination, foresight of the good use always means predestination, and foresight of the bad use means reprobation, then that person makes the good and bad use of free choice into distinguishing conditions required in the subject of predestination or reprobation.

Cap. 1 prol. IV: works foresight and faith foresight as distinguishers§216

216So too if someone maintains that only those are elected to glory whom God foresees clothed with merits or good works to the end of life, and that only those are reprobated or not elected whom he foresees clinging perseveringly to demerits or evil works — then that person makes foresight works, good or evil, into distinguishing conditions, and by their difference different Divine acts of predestination and reprobation are assigned to different people. Likewise if someone teaches that God elects only those he foresees will persevere in faith, and passes by and rejects only those he foresees will persevere in unbelief — then faith and unbelief become the distinguishing conditions by whose discrimination the distinct acts of predestination and reprobation fall on distinct persons.

Cap. 1 prol. IV: common vs distinguishing — Davenant denies foresight discriminators§217

217You already see the great difference between those earlier subject-conditions we called common, and these later ones we call distinguishing. Rational nature, and nature under sin, is presupposed in the predestined and the reprobate so that nothing in them is set as cause, reason, or occasion of the divide. Good and evil works, faith and unbelief, are instead set as foresight conditions in people so that the very divide between the predestined and the reprobate proceeds according to them. We grant the earlier conditions as prerequisites — so that a subject can, commonly and without distinction, lie under God as he predestines and reprobates. But these later ones, which many try to fix in place, we flatly deny: they are not presupposed or foreseen by God in the person to be predestined or reprobated, nor do different foresight varieties of them always drive different acts of predestination and reprobation onto different persons.

Cap. 1 prol. IV: Pontificii admit causes; Arminians mode-without-cause tergiversation§218

218One more prelude. Pontifical writers who hold that foresight works or sins are conditions God looks to in predestination to glory and in reprobation also frankly grant that those conditions are causes why some are elected to glory and others are not — just as, once the decree is executed, they are causes why some are admitted to the kingdom of glory and others shut out. Recent doctors of the Arminian school press hard that there is no election or reprobation of humans except by the foresight divide of faith or unbelief in them, yet they stubbornly deny that faith is the cause of election. They call it a way by which God regards the person to be elected, an antecedent of election; but they deny it is election's cause, and at the same time deny it is an effect flowing from election. That dodge shows how weak their case is. If they set faith only as an antecedent condition without which this or that person's election would not occur, they could fairly say they do not make faith the cause of that election. But when they further teach that faith posited means election posited, and foresight faith denied means election denied, they openly give faith not bare precedence but causality as well.

Cap. 1 prol. IV: Fathers treat such conditions as meritorious causes — Aug. Ep. 105§219

219I dare say Augustine and the other Fathers treat it this way: whenever some human quality or act is so required beforehand that when it is present some following gift of God is present with it, and when it is absent that gift is denied, they set that quality or act in the place of a cause — a cause, as they put it, meritorious in its own way. A condition demanded by God's ordination and performed by the person through God's grace has, for the Fathers, the force and nature of a meritorious motive cause with respect to the benefit conferred under that condition. So Augustine in Epistle 105: the very remission of sins is not without some merit, if faith obtains it. By the same reason, election to glory will not be without some merit on the elect person's side, if faith obtains it. For among the Fathers merit is nothing but a work which, by God's ordination, obtains some benefit. So if the benefit of election is conferred on us from our foresight act of believing, that is not a mere condition sine qua non — it is a cause, indeed the merit of the following benefit, in the sense in which the Fathers use the word merit.

Cap. 1 prol. IV: against Pelagian merits and scholastic merita congrua§220

220When the Fathers argue against the Pelagians that grace is not given or withheld according to free choice's merits, they mean simply this: it is not given according to a condition of foresight regarding free choice's good or bad use.r bad use.r bad use. Had the Pelagians proved that, the Fathers would never have denied it was a true cause of the grace conferred. So too when our theologians contend against some Scholastics that God does not predestine people from foresight congruent merits, they mean that these so-called congruent merits are not antecedent distinguishing conditions by which everyone in whom they were foresight is elected and everyone in whom they were not is rejected. If the Scholastics ever prove such conditions, their case is finished — and we will freely admit that those conditions are causes of the divide between elect and reprobate, in the sense in which cause and merit are spoken of.

Cap. 1 prol. IV close: word-tricks on faith; preface ends — theses next§221

221So it is mere word-trickery when they say foresight faith and unbelief are conditions — not only ones that precede predestination and reprobation taken commonly and without distinction, but ones from which the very distinction of elect and reprobate arises — and yet deny those conditions any causality. Every theologian who has ever argued the reason or cause of election assumes this: whatever, when posited and foresight by God, brings election with it, and when denied or not foresight leaves election absent, has the force of a cause. These are the points I thought should stand as a preface. From here our whole coming dispute will be drawn into certain fixed theses.

Cap. II open: Variæ sententiæ — election from foresight merits; agenda§222

222CAP. II. Here I set out the various opinions of those who teach that election rests on our foresight merits. We come at last to the business this labor was meant for. First we will argue election — or predestination — to salvation and eternal blessedness; then the other half of the controversy: non-election, passing-by, or reprobation.

Cap. II: principal question — foresight act as merit/cause of election?§223

223The chief question for the first half of the coming dispute is this: in those elected and predestined to glory, is there some act or quality God foresaw and weighed beforehand — or anything at all — that stands as merit, cause, reason, condition, or antecedent so bound to the decree of election that when that prior thing is set in the Divine foresight election follows, and when it is denied election is denied? Let us see what Pelagians, Scholastics, and certain recent doctors hold on this.

Cap. II: Pelagian opening — free will alone; election from foresight holiness§224

224Blinded self-love in human reason claims there is always some prior reason for the decree of election — and Scripture cries against it. That British serpent spat out this poison: that a person can keep God's law and reach eternal life by free choice alone. He joined to it another venom of the same kind: that God, foresighting who would live holy by their own will's choice, elected them all to glory before the world's foundations were laid.

Cap. II: Augustine vs Pelagius; dogma already rejected — no fresh refutation§225

225Augustine supplies both. First, Epistle 89, where he hurls anathema at the Pelagians for that heresy: their claim that free choice alone is enough to keep the Lord's commands is to be anathematized and cursed outright. Second, On the Predestination of the Saints 1.18: God foresaw, says the Pelagian, who would be holy by free will's choice, and so before the world's founding he elected them in that very foresight by which he foresaw them to be such. But since theologians of every party already reject Pelagius and this Pelagian dogma — or at least want to look as if they have — I will not waste effort refuting what no one dares openly defend.

Cap. II: Semipelagians — initiative from us; perseverance by free will§226

226The Semipelagians took up part of Pelagius's poison. Count among them Faustus of Riez, Cassian the Conferencer, the Massilians, and all who admit grace is needed to live godly, persevere, and reach eternal life — yet still claim that from us there first comes a beginning of labor and effort, which God's grace then follows, and for the sake of which saving grace is given. Consequently they hold that once a person has gained God's grace by striving and labor, he stays in that grace, faith, and good works not by any gift flowing from election, but by his own free choice; and that election to eternal life rests on foresight of that will.

Cap. II: Faustus — initiative, progress, election from foresight merits§227

227On that prior effort and labor Faustus writes (1.12): just as the prodigal's flight from a pious father's eyes is his own crime, so his return to the father's embrace — deliberating and rising by the good planted in him — is his own devotion. Chapter 17: the Lord invites the willing, draws the desiring, raises the striving. The last chapter: he waits for the will of the one to be cleansed. On progress and perseverance by free choice's powers — not by any special gift flowing from the predestination decree — he reasons (2.5): human salvation is set not in the Maker's predestination, but in the working of the one who serves the Giver of grace. Chapter 12: a person's state can turn this way or that not by God's constitution, but by liberty of choice. At last he openly teaches election from foresight of such good will and working of ours, not from any prior decree of God (2.2): God's foresight begins from the matter of human acts. A little later: to foresee is one thing, to predestine another. Foresight knows beforehand what is to be done; then predestination marks out what is to be repaid. That foresights merits; this preordains rewards. Foresight belongs to power, predestination to justice. Unless foresight has searched, predestination decides nothing. In these words he does not draw merits from the grace of predestination — he draws predestination from foresight merits.

Cap. II: Prosper & Hilary on Massilians — Semipelagian close before Scholastics§228

228These Semipelagians are clearest in the letters of Prosper and Hilary to Augustine — both prefixed to Augustine's On the Predestination of the Saints. Prosper reports their definition: God foresaw before the world's founding who would believe, or who would stay in the faith later helped by his grace, and predestined to his kingdom those he foresaw, once called by grace, would be worthy of election and would leave this life with a good end. Hilary: the Massilians say it undermines preaching to speak of some as elect according to purpose, and so on. A few lines later: they claim that by the merit of each person's willing and believing, one can be healed of disease and gain both the increase of that faith and the full effect of one's holiness. In short, they put the reason for elect or reject in this: each is paired with the merit of his own will. They grant God does not elect anyone's works in foresight of gifts he himself will give; yet they affirm he elects faith in foresight — so that whom he foresaw would believe, he elected, and to him gives the Holy Spirit so that by good works he may reach eternal life. Finally they hold that no one is given such perseverance that falling away is impossible; and so they deny any fixed number of those to be elected and rejected. I thought this worth quoting a little more fully, so you may see how near they stand to the Pelagians or Semipelagians who in our own age try to explode Augustine's teaching — rooted in Scripture and long confirmed by the catholic Church's witness.

Cap. II: Scholastici — causes of election (moral works / use of grace); Rom. 9 overthrows§229

229Next, down from the Semipelagians to the Scholastics. Not a few of them teach that predestination — or election — has a cause insofar as it falls on this man rather than that. Some plead good moral works before justifying grace; others good works after it; others foresight of a good use of God's grace. I need not linger refuting these views: one blow from the Apostle flattens them all (Rom. 9:11) — the children not yet born, having done nothing good or evil, so that God's purpose according to election might stand, not from works but from the One who calls.

Cap. II: three causes of the election-from-foresight error (pride, ignorance, curiosity)§230

230Why do Pelagians, Semipelagians, Scholastics, and so many others agree that election to grace and glory rests on something in our power to have or do? The causes of the error are plain. First: pride and self-love native to the race, which hates having every ground of boasting torn away. Second: thick ignorance of our corruption and of the will captive under sin's yoke. Third: put any cause of election in us, and the hard questions that otherwise force us up to an unsearchable height are easily waved off — and human curiosity hates that height. Once election tracks foresight of some human act, ask why one gets grace and another does not: because one disposed himself by free choice, the other did not. Why one perseveres and another not: because one wills to persevere, the other will not. Why this one was elect to glory before the world, that one not: God foresaw from eternity that one would admit offered grace, use it well, and stay in it by free choice to life's end — the other reject it at once, or at least shake it off before death.

Cap. II: fourth cause (cruelty charge); leave old Scholastics — Pontificii & Arminians next§231

231A last motive for many who will admit no election except one resting on foresight of some act free choice can elicit: they took as a necessary postulate what is utterly false — that God would be cruel unless he put it in every person's power to recover by himself the salvation lost in Adam. Leave the old Pelagians and Scholastics. Engage those who disturb the Church in our age by dressing old errors in new formulas. First certain Papal doctors, then the Arminians: both refuse any election to salvation that does not rest on foresight of human acts elicited from free choice, grace having gone before.

Cap. II: Vasquez enters — thesis: efficacious election from foresight merits§232

232First into the arena: the Papists. For all who hold this view (many of the sounder sort do not), let Vasquez speak. He tries to prop this thesis with many arguments (on ST 1.23.3, disp. 89): There is no efficacious election of particular persons to glory from God's will alone; each is elect to glory from foresight merits which God's grace will bring about. A few notes first so the thesis is clear; then the adversaries' arguments, stated and dissolved.

Cap. II: Vasquez clarified — efficient election, merits as ratio, special grace vs Arminians§233

233First: by efficacious election Vasquez means God's absolute, particular will that settles on certain persons to be blessed — Peter, Paul, and the rest one by one. He calls it efficacious election, or an efficacious will to give glory, to mark it off from the common antecedent will (a bare desire or affection) by which they say God wills eternal life for all, even the reprobate. Second: when he says this efficacious election to glory is from foresight merits, he does not make those merits the cause of God's willing — no cause of that is sought outside God — but the reason why the divine will freely terminates on glorifying this person. Third: adding "which God's grace will bring about" cuts him off from Pelagians who let merits flow from free choice without Christ's grace, which Augustine everywhere proved from Scripture necessary. Last: though the Jesuit holds there is no efficacious election to glory except from foresight of merits, he gladly grants predestination to special grace that infallibly leads to glory rests on no foresight of merits, and no cause, start, or occasion can be invented on the predestinate's side why God gave that grace or decreed in foresight to give it (ST I q.23, disp. 91.11). On predestination of particular persons to special grace, then, the Jesuit is far sounder than the Arminian and Vorstian school. Now their arguments for the thesis: they start from Scripture and usually cite these for election from foresight works.

Cap. II Arg. 1: Vasquez from Matt. 25:34 — kingdom prepared for foresight works§234

234First argument (Matt. 25:34ff.): "Come, you blessed of the Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the world's beginning. For I was hungry, and you gave me…" Vasquez: here Christ offers a kingdom prepared from the world's origin — that is, from eternity — and at once gives the reason they should receive what was prepared and destined, which is to mark the cause of that preparation. If the preparation rested on some other ground, and not on these very works named, the cause Christ himself assigns would be empty and none. Therefore people are elect to heavenly glory from foresight of their good works (ST I q.23 a.3, disp. 89.2).

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 1: works path to glory, not cause of decree — Scotus & Bellarmine§235

235From these words you may gather only this: God's children, freely predestined from eternity to glory, at last enter it — others shut out — because they alone took the straight road God ordained. Vasquez's claim that the works named here are causes of the preparation itself, or of God's eternal destination, is utterly false. The true cause is hinted when they are called the Father's blessed: he destined them to the heavenly inheritance because by grace he willed to be their Father in Christ. Their works, neither as foresight nor as done in time, caused predestination to glory — only introduction into it; and even of that they are not meritorious causes, only subordinate ones, as motion on a road is a "cause" of reaching the end. Vasquez's slip: he missed that decreeing or predestining to glory can be purely gratuitous in God and rest on no foresight of human acts, while the way of arriving at glory for man is laborious and needs many acts without which God ordained and foresaw he would never put in to glory's kingdom. Scotus (I dist. 41) marks the solution: "God wills to give Peter eternal glory on account of merits" is false if "on account of merits" construes with "wills" — God did not form the will to glorify Peter from foresight of merits — and true if it construes with "to give": he will not bring into possession of glory until it is foresight that Peter walked in the good works God prescribed and preordained. Bellarmine uses the same reply (De grat. et lib. Arb. 2.13): "God from eternity predestined to give men the kingdom ough foresight good works" is false if "through foresight works" hangs on "predestined," true if it hangs on "to give" — glorification in execution as the effect of justification, sanctification, or good works. This argument will be pressed again, harder; we will answer more fully then.

Cap. II Arg. 2: praescientia loci (Rom. 8:29–30 / 11:2 / 1 Pet. 1:2)§236

236Second: they press the places where election or predestination to glory is joined in so many words with foreknowledge — Rom. 8:29–30 ("Whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to his Son's image…"); Rom. 11:2 ("God has not cast off his people whom he foreknew"); 1 Pet. 1:2 ("elect strangers according to the Father's foreknowledge, unto sanctification of the Spirit…"). From these they infer that God elected to glory those he foreknew would be conformed to the Son's image — holy and good — so that foresight of future goodness or holiness was the cause of election to glory.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 2: foresight of sanctity not cause — decree precedes foresight§237

237Reply: those texts do not say God elected or predestined certain people to glory because he foresaw they would be conformed to Christ's image — holy and good. They say he elected those he foreknew, and predestined them to become conformed, or elected them unto sanctification. So foresight of future holiness was not the cause of predestination; predestination was the cause of the holiness foreseen. God foresees no saving spiritual good in people except what he himself works in them; he works none except what he decreed to work. The decree to work grace and holiness — already wrapped into predestination — always comes before any foresight of grace and holiness as in them.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 2: praescientia practica / scientia approbationis — Catharinus§238

238Weigh the words more closely. Paul did not say "whom he foresaw," but "whom he foreknew" (οὓς προέγνω). This foreknowledge is practical, not bare intuition — what theologians call the knowledge of approbation. Sense: those God loved and, by his eternal good pleasure, set apart from others and approved — those he predestined. Scripture often uses "know" for love or approval, and "not know" for hate or rejection ("I never knew you," Matt. 7:23; "The Lord knows the way of the righteous," Ps. 1:6). So Catharinus on this place: What is "he foreknew," if not "he foreloved"?

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 2: Vulgate "conformes fieri" — not election from foresight of works§239

239Second: Paul did not write "whom he foreknew would be conformed, he predestined," but "whom he foreknew" (that is, foreloved) "he predestined to become conformed" — as the Vulgate rightly supplies what the Greek leaves open. So God is not said to predestine from foresight of our works, but to foreknow the good works he prepared for those already predestined.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 2 close: Augustine — works prepared in predestination (Eph. 2:10)§240

240Hear Augustine (On the Gift of Perseverance 2.14): predestination is the foreknowledge and preparation of God's benefits by which whoever is freed is most surely freed. More plainly still (ch. 17): to whom God gives his holy gifts, he without doubt foresaw he would give them, and in that foreknowledge prepared them — for to arrange his own future works in his foreknowledge is exactly, and nothing else, to predestine. So you see how craftily and wickedly they cloud free predestination with foresight of works: God foresaw no good works in us, foresaw faith or holiness for no one, except what he prepared for us in the decree of predestination itself. He did not predestine us because he foresaw we would do good works; he foresaw we would do them because in our predestination good works were prepared for us to walk in (Eph. 2:10).

Cap. II Arg. 3: 1 Cor. 2:9 — prepared for those who love him (king/crown analogy)§241

241Third: they bring 1 Cor. 2:9 — "Eye has not seen… the things God prepared for those who love him." On ordinary speech, "for those who love him" looks like the cause of the preparation. Say a king prepared a crown for whoever scales a besieged city's walls: that would mean the crown was destined to this or that man from foresight of the climb — and no other way.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 3: love shows who receive glory — not foresight-cause of the decree§242

242Reply: "for those who love him" tells what sort of people finally receive the glory he prepared from eternity — it does not make foresight of that love the cause why glory was destined to them. The same love that freely destined them to glory also destined them to love God, and by that love they take the road that leads to glory. So our love of God is an effect of the divine love that elected and predestined us to salvation — foolishly taken as election's cause. So the Apostle: "We love God because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 3: Augustine In Joh. 86 — praescientia pleaded against grace§243

243Augustine (In John, tract. 86) puts it best: they defend God's foreknowledge against his grace when they say we were elect before the world's foundation because God foresaw we would be good. They were not elect because they were good — they would not have been good unless elect. So we may say the same of those who claim we were elect because God foresaw us as loving him: we would never love God unless we had been elect.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 3: earthly king analogy fails — strength from crown's destination§244

244Last: the earthly-king crown analogy fails at the very hinge of the argument. If no one could climb by his own strength, and the king could breathe that strength into whomever he chose, the crown would not be destined from foresight of the climb — the climb foreseen, and the strength given, would flow from the crown's destination. That is exactly how it stands between God and men.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 3 close: love infused from election — Augustine De grat. Christi 26§245

245No one would love God unless God poured charity into him; God would pour saving charity into no one unless he had first destined him to salvation. So he does not destine eternal life from foresight of our love — from the purpose of election to eternal life he infuses that love. Close with Augustine, who hammers the Pelagians everywhere: "That we might receive the love with which we should love, we were loved when we did not yet have it" (On the Grace of Christ against Pelagius, ch. 26).

Cap. II Arg. 4: 2 Tim. 2:21 — vessels unto honour from foresight of cleansing§246

246Fourth: they bring 2 Tim. 2:21 — "If anyone cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and useful to the Lord." So the vessels of election (or mercy) are those God foresaw would cleanse themselves: election, they say, rests on foresight of holy works.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 4: foresight of sanctity not denied — but not proved as cause§247

247Reply: of course God foreknows the holiness of those he elects to glory — he cannot fail to foreknow what he himself will do, and he works all our good in us. But proving that he foresees the elect's good works is not enough for their cause, unless they also show he elects from that prior foresight. And that they can never force out of Paul's words.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 4: mark of vessels, not cause — seal of adoption / flight from iniquity§248

248In that place Paul does not teach why vessels are elect to glory, but by what mark they are known. He stamps a double mark on them: one God alone can read — the seal of eternal adoption ("The Lord knows who are his"); the other men can see — flight from impiety and the practice of holiness and justice ("Let him depart from iniquity"; "If he cleanses himself, he will be a vessel unto honour").

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 4: vas in honorem twofold — eternal purpose vs actual sanctification§249

249Add: "vessel unto honour" is said two ways. From God's eternal electing purpose to honour — and then being such a vessel does not hang on foresight of sanctification; sanctification afterward flows from that decree. Or from actual sanctification — and in that sense someone becomes a vessel unto honour when, purified and renewed by God's Spirit, he begins among God's honoured servants to serve the divine honour in a holy life.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 4 close: Lyranus — mark of destined vessels, not foresight-cause§250

250So Lyranus seems to take the place: "he will be a vessel unto honour" means a vessel set apart for divine worship. However you read it, the text does not prove God elects us to glory from foresight of our holiness. It proves the elect to glory are filled with true holiness, known by that mark as vessels destined to honour, and actually put to honourable use through that holiness.

Cap. II Arg. 5: 1 Tim. 2:4 — common will to save all grounds foresight-election§251

251Fifth: from 1 Timothy 2:4 — "God wills all men to be saved" — they argue that from this common will to save all, God gives everyone sufficient grace to reach salvation. So some are elect to glory and others passed by only because he foresaw who would cooperate with that grace and persevere in holiness, and who would not cooperate at all, or would not remain in good works and faith. Therefore, they say, there is no election to glory except from foresight of merits.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 5: will to save tied to will to teach — God did not teach all§252

252This divine will for the salvation of all men must be read with the will joined to it — the will to teach all men. Paul binds them: God wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). Yet it is certain from God's word and from history that he has not willed to teach all, or to lead every person one by one to saving truth. Romans 10:14: how will they call on him in whom they have not believed? how believe without hearing? how hear without a preacher? how preach unless they are sent? In past generations God let the nations walk in their own ways (Acts 14:16) and gave knowledge of the truth to Israel alone. After Christ's coming the light did not at once shine on all by his will: for a time the apostles were barred from the Gentile road (Matthew 10:5), and later forbidden to preach in Asia (Acts 16:6). Come to our own age: how many nations found in the New World have for centuries not felt even a breath of saving truth? Can God be said to have willed them to know the truth when he would not send them heralds of it? See Prosper of Aquitaine on the Gallic chapters (Response 4 and Sentence 4). If they take Paul to mean that God, as far as in him lies, wills to give every fallen child of Adam saving knowledge and salvation itself for Christ's sake, you must either call their reading a clear error or confess weakness in the divine will — for the one who wills, and can, acts.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 5: ancestor-covenant dodge refuted — Adam ok, Indian via grandparents not§253

253Some, to save the opinion, press that through every age God willed each person to come to truth and be saved insofar as they stood in his covenant, not insofar as they fell from it in themselves or in their parents — and that he called everyone to the truth either in their own person or at least in parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. Nothing is more foolish. First: if for some prior cause God decreed, before they were born, never to call countless particular persons to the truth, he did not will to call those same people one by one. Next: how far from common sense is it that God called this one person to saving truth in the person of his grandparents? Is that the universal sufficient grace by which they prove he wills everyone's salvation person by person? Is each ancestor one person with his grandchildren? Or did God will to give something personally to a grandson because he once gave it to impious grandparents who threw it away? Anyone who wants to defend sufficient grace and a general will to save all this way should go not to grandparents but to the first parent of the race. In Adam — the root, the common person of humankind — we may fairly say God willed the salvation of all. But to say he personally willed the salvation of this Indian or American, and that he was sufficiently called to saving truth, though God never sent him a herald of saving grace — and to rest that only on some ancestor five hundred or a thousand years ago who by his own fault rejected the Gospel and cut his line out of the covenant of grace — that defense belongs to someone with nothing left to say; refuting it belongs to someone with nothing better to do.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 5 Primo: salvos fieri vs facere — preceptive will, not decretive§254

254If that reading fails, what do Paul's words mean? First notice: he did not say God wills to make all men saved and drag them to the truth by the force of preaching and the Spirit. He said he wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). When God wills to make someone saved, no human will blocks him — so Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace 14. These words show what God wills people to do, more than what he wills to work inside them. He wills gospel ministers, as far as they can, to labor that all may be saved and come to Christ; he wills each Christian, by prayer and every means he can, to further the salvation of all. It is ours, Augustine says, who do not know who belongs to the number of the predestined, to will that all be saved (On Rebuke and Grace 15). So the text belongs to the preceptive will that directs us — not to the decretive will that infallibly gives the good God has destined for a person.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 5 Secundo: approbative vs effectual will — no singular sufficient grace from approval§255

255Second: God is said to will something by a will of affection or of effect — so Thomas in the Disputed Questions on the will of God, art. 1 — or, as others put it, approbatively (what is good and lovable in itself) or efficaciously (what he has decreed to work for his glory in some particular person). The first is only the divine will's simple delight in a thing as fitting God's nature; the second is an absolute decree to give that good to someone in particular. Chastity, wisdom, faith, salvation are lovable goods, and in themselves agreeable to God's will — so we rightly say God wills all people to be chaste, wise, faithful, and saved. Hear that of the approving will, which looks at the thing as such, not of the effecting will, which decides to work it in this or that person. From that prior will — which of itself settles nothing about particular persons — they cannot force the claim that God wills to grant each person whatever suffices for his salvation. Still less can they hang on it that, from foresight of who will use those means well and who will not, he elects some to salvation and passes by and reprobates others.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 5 close: Augustine / Gregory / Aquinas — all = kinds, not foresight-cooperation§256

256Last: if someone still insists Paul's words mean God's efficacious will, he will never get free unless he reads the place as Augustine, Gregory, and the scholastics long did. Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace 14: "God wills all men to be saved" — understand all the predestined, because every kind of human being is among them. Gregory: he wills all men to be saved because from every kind of people he elects those he draws to the joy of eternal salvation (on 1 Kings, book 5, ch. 4). Aquinas on the same words: the distribution is for the kinds of individuals, not for the individuals of the kinds. So this text does not prove that by the will of good pleasure God wills the salvation of every single person — and far less that he elects people to salvation from foresight of the future cooperation by which they would fit themselves to that will.

Cap. II Arg. 6: James 2:5 — poor elect / rich in faith grounds foresight-election§257

257Sixth: Vasquez leans on James 2:5 — "Has not God chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom he promised to those who love him?" The Jesuit reads it: God chose those who were poor in this world because they were rich in faith and charity — chose them to glory, the inheritance of the kingdom. So, they say, election to glory hangs on God's foresight of who will finally be rich in faith and works.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 6: scopus — do not despise the poor; 1 Cor. 1:26 parallel§258

258Reply: James's point is that we must not despise the poor. Far from neglecting them, God in spiritual gifts mostly prefers them to the richer. The rich, for their part, are not to be overrated and honored while the poor are ignored — God often sends the rich away empty and fills the poor with goods. 1 Corinthians 1:26 runs the same way: not many wise by flesh, not many mighty, not many noble — God chose what the world calls foolish to shame the strong. So the Apostle shows God has chosen more from the poor, to give them faith and the heavenly inheritance, than from the rich.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 6: conjungit — elect to become rich in faith, not because foreseen rich§259

259That is why he binds the two phrases: rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom. He did not say the elect are heirs because they were foreseen as going to be rich in faith. He said they were elect so they would become rich in faith — and heirs of the kingdom.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 6: Vasquez calumny — if elect=make rich, then elect=make poor?§260

260Vasquez tries a cheap jab at that reading: if "choosing the rich in faith" means making them rich in faith, then "choosing the poor in this world" would mean making them poor — yet James does not say God made people poor; he says those who already were poor, because they were rich in faith, God chose to glory. Reply: no absurdity if we say God made people poor in this world — the rich/poor split itself comes from the divine decree. We grant James's words are not about that. And that does not hurt our reading;

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 6: fishermen analogy — elect makes apostles/faithful, not prior trade/poverty§261

261a near parallel shows why. If we say God chose fishermen as his Apostles, "choose" there means make them Apostles — not make them fishermen. They were already fishermen by their own trade before they were elect Apostles. So when I say God chose the poor who are rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, "choose" means make them believers and kingdom-heirs — not make them poor. Poverty is already assumed when faith and adoption to the heavenly kingdom are given.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 6: Augustine — elect makes rich in faith as he makes heirs§262

262Add this for the full sense: God does not elect from foresight of faith, yet he is rightly said to have chosen the rich in faith — because in time he makes such everyone he elected from eternity; and because, once made such, he already actually and almost visibly elects them, sets them apart from unbelievers, and takes them as his own. Close with Augustine on this very text (On the Predestination of the Saints 1.17): "God chose the faithful, but that they might become so, not because they already were. By electing he makes them rich in faith, just as he makes them heirs of the kingdom." That choosing is rightly said of them: he chose them so that he might do this in them.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 6 close: not elect because foreseen faithful — foresight because electing makes them§263

263Bottom line: foresight of future faith is not why God elects. He foresaw them faithful because election itself is what makes them faithful.

Cap. II Arg. 7: Apoc. 3:11 — hold fast / crown grounds foresight-perseverance§264

264Last: they take Revelation 3:11 — "Hold what you have, lest another take your crown." From that they say the crown of glory can be lost by an ungodly life, so God predestines no one to that crown unless he sees the person will persevere to the end in piety and faith. Without that foresight, they argue, predestination would be unsure — someone God meant for glory could drop out by weakness or wickedness.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 7: crown of ministry vs heavenly glory — alternate reading first§265

265Reply: the words fit the crown of ministry at least as well as heavenly glory — "Hold what you have" as keep the bishop's office steadily and carefully; "lest another take your crown" as lest, if you prove negligent, someone else is put in your place after you are set aside. Still, many read them of the heavenly crown without strain. Take that sense, and we answer as follows.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 7 Primo: elect cannot lose crown — certainty from causal chain, not bare foresight§266

266First: the predestined cannot lose the crown of glory. That certainty does not come from a force that drags them into eternal life, nor from bare foresight of what free will will do. It rests on the chain of causes special providence has linked so the elect's salvation is produced without fail. Paul marks that as causality, not naked foresight — Romans 8: God so set and steers the order of causes for the elect that even what looks hostile still works for their souls' eternal good (vv. 28ff to the chapter's end).

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 7: Augustine — if an elect perished God would be deceived and overcome§267

267That is why Augustine says: if any elect left God by free will's changeableness, God would not only be deceived but beaten — he not only foresaw their glorification; he decreed to bring it about by an unbeatable chain of causes. On Rebuke and Grace 7: if any of them perishes, God is deceived — but none does, for God is not deceived; if any perishes by human fault, God is overcome — but none does, for nothing overcomes God. Why "overcome" if an elect fell by his own will's fault? Because God undertook to plant in every elect not a thin bare possibility, but a firm, sure, unconquered will to persevere.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 7: weak will can lose; under divine direction the elect cannot§268

268So if you look only at the elect's weak will, they can lose the crown. Look at that same will under God's most effective direction, and they cannot.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 7 Secundo: foresight of perseverance concurrent — not prior cause of predestination§269

269Second: when opponents say God predestines to the crown only those he foresees will persevere, grant it this far — the same people predestined to glory are also foreseen as going to persevere in grace. Reject it when they make that foresight the cause of predestination, and prior to it in our order of thought.

Cap. II Sol. Arg. 7 close: hortations keep elect persevering — scripture proofs of foresight-election end§270

270Last, on the wording itself: Augustine (On Rebuke and Grace 13) says these lines are spoken to saints who will persevere as if their perseverance were unsure — they need to hear it that way, not to be proud but to fear. So the elect get such warnings not because their predestination is shaky or hangs on free will's change, but because by exhortation and other means God knows fit, he makes them persevere in grace and holiness. Those are the main Scripture proofs used for election from foresight of merits. Any further texts take their sense from these. From the texts, then, to the adversaries' reasons.

Cap. III open + Rat. 1: common inefficacious will before foresight of merits§271

271Cap. III — the adversaries' arguments weighed and answered. Now to their reasons. First they try to prove no one is chosen for glory by God's efficacious will except from foreseen merits, like this: Rat. 1. the will to give eternal life that comes before foresight of merits is only a common, ineffective will, looking equally at all — reprobate and predestinate alike. So if God efficaciously wills glory for someone, that hangs on foresight of merits.

Cap. III Rej. Rat. 1: Bannes — common will only before sin / Adam intact§272

272Rejection. That "common will to give eternal life to all" (Bannes is right) is only how we picture things before foreknowledge of sin. It proves at most that in intact Adam God willed everyone's salvation and gave him enough means — if Adam had used them, neither he nor his line would have fallen into eternal death's guilt. Once Adam fell, I deny God ever had a common, indifferent will to give eternal life to all in Christ Jesus.

Cap. III Rej. Rat. 1: reprobates only under 'if they will' — not equal termini§273

273Toward the reprobate he had no will aimed next at their salvation: defenders must tack on "if they themselves will." Since God foresees their Not-willing and will not give them what he really gives the elect, that will clearly does not terminate equally on elect and those not chosen salvation.

Cap. III Rej. Rat. 1: sufficient aids fail for pagans/infants — Augustine De nat.§274

274Those who put on God a good-pleasure will for everyone's salvation infer it from "sufficient helps for all" — yet they never prove that of pagans who never heard Christ's name or Gospel light, nor of their infants dying unbaptized (never mind the rest). Augustine says plainly many are damned who could not be justified and saved (On Nature and Grace 8–9).

Cap. III Rej. Rat. 1: Augustine Ep. 107 / 1 Tim. 2:4 — God not willing all alike§275

275Epistle 107's fourth of twelve catholic sentences: we know grace is not given to all; and where it is given, not by works' merits, nor even by the will's merits of those who get it — clearest in infants. Soon after, on the usual objection about God's general desire to save al, he adds words worth quoting: those who fight this plain truth miss how "God wills all to be saved" is said when so many are not. Not because they refuse, but because God does not will — obvious in infants. So "GOD WILLS ALL MEN TO BE SAVED," though he does not will so many saved, means all who are saved are saved only if he wills; any other reading must not contradict that open truth: many are not saved though men will it, if God does not. So Augustine.

Cap. III Rej. Rat. 1: Vasquez infants — deny invented common good-pleasure will§276

276Even Vasquez, pressed by the facts, grants that for some infants no sufficient Christ-remedy could be applied by human care. I add: nor was it applied by divine providence. So a posteriori God never had that invented common good-pleasure will to save every single person. Finally — and this most cuts their argument's nerve — I deny that the will by which God, before foreknowledge of merits, decreed eternal life for the elect was only that common, inefficacious "simple affection / complacency" will; I affirm it was a special, most efficacious will.

Cap. III Rej. Rat. 1 close: electing will causes merits — sum before Rat. 2§277

277Clear why: that free will of God before our merits or good works is itself their cause. How then call the will presupposed to merits common, equal, and indifferent to all, when in some it effects those "merits" and in others not? Effect differs; so does the cause. Hear Augustine again (never enough): true grace is not given by our merits but gives the merits when given — it goes before a good will, finds it in no heart, and makes it. Sum of our answer: the divine will before foresight of good works is not equal or indifferent about everyone's salvation, since in some God wills grace-works that lead to glory and in others he does not. So they wrongly start the efficacious saving will for the elect from foresight of merits — that will already shows itself in willing to give those merits, which will came before merit-foresight and ordered those merits to salvation.

Cap. III Rat. 2: Vasquez — physical vs moral media; no election before works-foresight§278

278Rat. 2. Second, Vasquez argues from the split between physical and moral means. With physical means he grants that an efficacious intention of the end comes before intending the means. But whenever the means to an end is moral (good works ordered to eternal life), he denies God can have any efficacious will to confer that end before foreknowing the means. So God elects to glory only from foresight of works (In 1. q. 23 art. 3 disp. 89 ch. 9; also disp. 81 ch. 5). He thinks he can prove the difference: physical means carry in themselves a natural power to cause the end, without depending on another's will — so even if the end is intended before they are foreknown, when applied they still tend to the end by their own virtue. Moral means, he says, do not produce the end by any inward natural power but only by another's ordination; unless foresight ordains and accepts them to the end before that end is efficaciously intended for someone, they count for nothing toward obtaining it — and to be accepted and ordained they must be foreseen. Hence no one is predestined to glory's end except after foresight of works that are moral means God ordained to that end.

Cap. III Resp. Rat. 2: deny the split — end-intention causes means; Paul/grace§279

279Resp. We do not grant Vasquez's physical/moral split at all. In the order of intention (the real question) the end causes the means — moral as well as physical — and from desiring the end first those means are chosen and applied. Known rule: means are applied toward the end. So intending the end always comes before supplying the means. God would not have destined efficacious grace to Paul unless he had first efficaciously destined to give him glory.

Cap. III Resp. Rat. 2: execution vs intention — moral/physical mode misses the question§280

280As for Vasquez's different operating mode in physical vs moral means: we grant they differ in mode, but deny that hurts our case. First, that angle misses the controversy's aim. We are not asking about execution-order — where we admit means related to the end act as cause toward the effect — but about intention-order, where means stand to the end as effects to a cause. His philosophy about how physical and moral means operate looks to the end as already out in external execution, not as in the agent's will and mind. In that sense means do precede the end — but that is beside the point.

Cap. III Resp. Rat. 2: moral means foreknown as apt/possible — not absolutely future before election§281

281Second, he presses that moral means would be worthless for obtaining the end unless foreseen and accepted by God before an efficacious intention of the end. We grant such means get their power to cause — or work toward — the end from God's prior will that ordained and accepted them to that end. But we also affirm: before the end is intended, God foreknows those means only as apt and helpful to it, as possible and shareable with all for whom he wills the end — not as absolutely going to happen in this or that particular person before that person is efficaciously elected to glory (destined to the end).

Cap. III Resp. Rat. 2 close: Semipelagian charge — Augustine election yields faith/sanctity/perseverance§282

282Finally, in this argument Vasquez crosses into the Semipelagian camp and leaves Augustine, who everywhere teaches men are not elected to eternal life from foresight of faith or good works — rather all our good works arise because we were predestined to eternal life. Faith: not elected because they believed, but elected that they may believe (De praed. Sanct. 1.17). Holiness: certain and plain we will be holy because God elected us, predestining that by grace we should be such (ibid. 18). Perseverance: to saints predestined by grace into God's kingdom, perseverance itself is given (De corr. Et grat. 12). So after election all our goods are foreseen, because they spring from election itself.

Cap. III Rat. 3: king’s prize — no glory-decree before victory / perseverance foresight§283

283Rat. 3. In God’s will the order of acts is not read in itself but by analogy to human willing — so in our way of speaking we call one thing prior and another later as willed or foreseen by God. Based on that premise Vasquez presses: as a king who sets a prize for those who contend well, on the rule that only the victor takes it, never decrees to give that prize to anyone — however loved — before he sees him possessed of the victory, so of God: he never decrees to anyone the prize of eternal glory (promised as a crown to those who contend lawfully) except after intuition of victory, that is perseverance in good works. And since God foreknows all futures, from eternity he foresaw who would win, and from that foresight decreed to give them glory — as a prince, seeing someone has conquered, only then resolves to assign the prize.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 3: grant analogy-order; God can destine the crown from mere grace first§284

284Sol. We grant the postulate: there is no priority/posteriority in the acts of the divine will or mind themselves; that order is borrowed from analogy to human willing and from how the objects depend on one another. To the comparison itself: first, we can show why an earthly prince does not mark someone out for the prize except after seeing the victory — and yet God, on the contrary, can first from mere grace destine someone singularly to the crown, and then prepare and give the gifts through which that person will be foreseen as brought to the crown.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 3: mortal king cannot inspire victory-powers — if he could, not from foresight§285

285The reason: a mortal king cannot inspire and pour in the will and powers by which this one person rather than others infallibly wins. If he could, nothing would stop him intending and decreeing from a primary, gratuitous will to give that prize to any friend — yet so the friend reaches it by the stated law, namely by winning, and from powers inspired by that primary intention. Were an earthly prince so able, we would not say he elected his friend to the prize from foresight of merits, but that from an antecedent purpose to give the prize he gave the merits and in that gift foresaw them. And that God so deals with all who are to be glorified is confessed.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 3: efficacious end-intention before victory; God more than agonothetes§286

286Second, Vasquez’s claim that a prince cannot efficaciously intend someone’s prize except from foresight of merits is not as settled as he thinks. Efficacious intention of an end moves the agent to apply every means in his power toward obtaining it — even when he cannot certainly foresee the event or infallibly secure the end. So a prince from special goodwill can seriously and efficaciously intend the prize for his friend before seeing the victory, and from that intention not only wish but, as far as he can, prepare and give all that helps toward victory — though as judge and agonothetes he cannot actually crown him except upon the victory won. God much more (for whom to will and to do are ready alike) can efficaciously intend for Peter or Paul the crown of eternal glory, and by that intention’s force prepare and give all that are called merits of the crown; and in this predestination from eternity foresee their merits, and at last, upon the fight nobly fought, set the destined crown on their heads.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 3 close: Augustine — gratuitous election before merits; Hypognost. 6§287

287Finally, this is the very sentence Augustine everywhere defends against the Pelagians: men are elected gratuitously and before all foresight of merits — not only to gifts of grace but also to the kingdom of glory — however they are brought there by the path of good works or merits, as the ancient Fathers usually speak. One place only: From the damnable mass of the human race God foresaw by mercy, not merits, those whom by election of grace he predestined to life (Contra Pelag. Hypognost. 6). So the foresight on which predestination to life rests is not of our merits but of divine mercy, who decreed to elect us from that damnable mass to share eternal life and to adorn us with merits.

Cap. III Rat. 4: optimum modus — glory by merits foresight as crown of justice§288

288Rat. 4. It is fair to hold that God marks people out for glory in the best way. But that best way, they say, is to do it from foresight of merits — for so the decree is cast as a crown of justice.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 4: not optimum — strips pure mercy; Detur totum Deo; Cyprian§289

289Sol. That God does all things in the best way no one but the worst would deny — yet we deny that the best way of electing people to eternal life is the one that rests on foresight of merits. It is not best, because it does least to display the glory of God’s pure mercy toward the elect. It strips what Augustine everywhere presses: Let the whole be given to God. It also strips Cyprian’s line, which Augustine never praised enough: In nothing is one to glory, because nothing is ours.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 4: pride; impossible in sin — efficacious grace only to predestined§290

290Further, it is not the best mode of electing, because it puffs a person up with pride by assuming each has by his own works set himself apart from the those not chosen. Finally: it is so far from best that it is not even possible a person corrupted by sin no merits efficacious for eternal life can be foreknown unless God has freely given them. God gives those only to whom he decreed from eternity to give. He decreed efficacious grace unto salvation only to those he predestined to salvation. From first to last, then, such merits cannot be foreseen in those not yet elected to eternal life — so they are not elected to life from a preceding foresight of merits.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 4: Jesuits vs other Pontificii — Mary/Apostles absolute; Valentia§291

291Add also: the Jesuits themselves diverge here from other Roman doctors, who teach that the virgin Mary, the blessed Apostles, and other eminently holy persons were absolutely predestined to glory before any foresight of merits — and it is likely the best were predestined in the best way. Of those eminently holy ones Valentia writes: such are predestined to eternal life before any regard of God’s foresight to their final cooperation (In 1. q. 23). But leave the Jesuits fighting one another:

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 4 close: gratuitous election stands; crown as prize; foresight after§292

292and finally: people can be elected gratuitously to eternal life even when the crown of eternal life is decreed to be set on the elect as the prize of a life lived laudably and justly. God’s will about the way of bringing them to that prize through holy works does not overturn gratuitous, merciful election to eternal life from the elector’s primary purpose and mere good pleasure. When God decrees to bring someone to glory through such works, the primary decree to give glory does not rise from foresight of those works — rather, from that decree flows the will to give efficacious grace for doing such works of justice. So foresight of them is after election.

Cap. III Rat. 5: foresight election would be acceptor personarum§293

293Rat. 5. If God elected some to glory from foresight of merits and passed others by, he would be an acceptor of persons. A just, rational election presupposes some disparity between elect and those not chosen, and the prudent always chooses what is better. Since no difference ned apart from foresight of merits in some that are not foreseen in others, it follows that God's election always rests on that kind of foresight of human merits.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 5: Pelagian/Faustus charge; Bannes — can elect equal or worse§294

294Sol. This argument was the old Pelagian press — Augustine shows it in many places (Contra 2 Epist. Pelag. 2.7; Ep. 105 to Sixtus; Hypogn. Contra Pelag. 6; and elsewhere). Even Faustus of Riez, champion of the Semipelagians, argues (lib. 2.4): if both are equal in nature, justice is at risk when the one without merit is elected unworthy. We answer with Banez: without injustice or vicious respect of persons God can not only elect one of two wholly equal people to eternal life and pass the other by, but even elect the one he foresaw would be entangled in more and heavier sins, leaving the one he foresaw would commit fewer and lighter (In 1. q. 23 art. 5).

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 5: loving and electing make worthier; Colossians 1:12§295

295The reason: by loving and electing, God makes those he loves and elects worthier and better. Human choice cannot create disparity of worth in what it chooses, so it must aim at the object where greater dignity is already assumed. For divine election's justice and wisdom it is enough that, though all people are unworthy of this electing gift, God by electing makes those he elects to glory fit and worthy ahead of others to share the saints' lot in light (Colossians 1:12).

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 5: Thomas and Augustine — electing makes worthy; holy not foreseen§296

296Thomas notes: we must say God loves some more than others — for God's love is the cause of things' goodness, and nothing would be better than another if he did not will a greater good to one than to another (ST I q.20 a.3). On Romans 9: election does not look to a good already in the person but makes it. He learned that from Augustine (Contra Jul. Pelag. 5.3): God did not elect those he foresaw as worthy, but by electing made them worthy. Both drew it from the Apostle: God elected us that we should be holy — not because we were foreseen holy.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 5 close: unjust acceptio vs liberal gift; Matthew 20:15§297

297Further: unjust respect of persons has no place where someone from mere liberality gives unequally of what is his own to equals — only where, in dispensing what is owed, he favors one over another for a personal circumstance outside the cause of merit (as when a prelate, conferring a benefice, prefers a rich man or kinsman to better and more learned men: that is respect of persons, because those circumstances do nothing for the merit or dignity of such a prize). God electing one to the kingdom of glory ahead of another does not act from a debt of justice but from a gift of munificence; he does not regard nobility, riches, talent, or any quality outside the matter that earns the name "respect of persons," but his own liberality and goodness — Matthew 20:15: Is it lawful for me to do what I will with my own? See Augustine, Ep. 106; De bono persever. 2.8; Contra 2 Epist. Pelag. 2.3.

Cap. III Rat. 6: mercy with justice needs elect congruitas; Javellus§298

298Rat. 6. In all God's works mercy with justice needs elect fitness — so, they say, we must posit on the elect's side some ity that was not on the reprobate's; otherwise no trace of justice will show in this election of God — and that he elects from foresight, not from the mere good pleasure of his will. So argues Javellus in the Questions annexed to Aquinas's Prima Pars.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 6: if justice means congruent merit, concurrence impossible§299

299Sol. I answer: if Javellus means some justice other than that God acts as befits his own goodness and faithfulness, I deny that justice is found in every act where he deals kindly with wretched people. And if he so takes God's justice that acting justly means, in the gift of election, looking to some congruent human merit — then, in that sense, justice concurring with mercy in every dealing with people is not only false but impossible.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 6: Aquinas — justice presupposes mercy; first gift free adoption§300

300For as Aquinas puts it best (ST I q.21 a.4): every work of divine justice always presupposes a work of mercy on which it is founded. So we must not run to infinity — we have to arrive at some first thing that depends on the mercy and goodness of the divine will alone. And what else can that be than the gratuitous adoption and destination of the elect to eternal life?

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 6 close: no praevisa congruentia; Miserebor cujus misertus fuero§301

301So for this first benefit, if some reason of justice is to appear in it, we must not require a foreseen congruity in the elect. It is just insofar as it is fitting for the divine will and goodness to act thus — according to I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy — not I will have mercy on those in whom, that I may do this justly at once, I shall have foreseen certain congruent merits.

Cap. III Rat. 7: mere good pleasure would elect all equally disposed — Valentia§302

302Rat. 7. If God predestined to glory from the mere good pleasure of his will and not from foresight of works, then he would predestine all alike, because all are equally disposed to receive that gift. For if he does not elect people as foreseen working well and persevering in good works, they must be elected as foreknown to be human beings or sinners — which belongs to all; so all would be elected. So argues Gregory of Valencia (In 1. q. 23).

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 7: Major fails — good pleasure may discriminate; none disposed to glory§303

303Sol. The Major's consequence fails. It does not follow that wherever God acts from mere good pleasure he must always deal equally with equals — on the contrary, because he acts from good pleasure he can discriminate in conferring his gifts where there was no difference in persons' qualities or state. And Gregory's first support for the Major — that with foresight of works excluded all are equally disposed to receive election — is false and unskillful. He should have said all are wholly undisposed to receive glory and disposed to undergo hell's pains. What disposition for election to glory is found in one reckoned a child of wrath by nature, stained with original corruption?

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 7: Lazarus analogy — no duty to raise all equally§304

304Just as it would be foolish to argue: if Christ on earth raised dead Lazarus from his own good pleasure, and not from foresight of any cooperation on Lazarus's part, then he would have raised all the dead alike, because all were equally disposed to receive that gift of raising — so Gregory's prior argument is invalid and inept. It assumes God is bound, whenever he acts from good pleasure, to deal alike with equals; and it posits a common disposition to receive election in people who are commonly disposed to receive damnation's punishment.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 7: not elect as man/sinner; gratis dilecti; Aquinas dilectio/electio§305

305As for Gregory's second support — if people are not elected to glory as foreseen working well, then they are elected as foreknown humans or as sinners, and since that belongs to all, election would belong to all — that too is frivolous. Philosophers rightly hold that what belongs to a thing as such belongs to every such; yet God's election does not fall on a person as human, nor on a sinner as sinner, because the event shows not all humans and not all sinners are elected. So we deny the fork Either God elects as foreseen cooperators with his grace, or as foreknown humans/sinners — and say he elects people as freely loved by him ahead of others. Why these freely loved ahead of others? A ridiculous question: the first cause of the divine will in pouring out its goods is the will itself; no further cause is to be hunted. Aquinas is not wrong (ST I q.23 a.4): predestination of some to eternal salvation presupposes that God wills their salvation. To that belong Love and Election: Love, inasmuch as he wills them this good of eternal salvation; Election, inasmuch as he wills them that good ahead of others. And that willing-by-loving is why they have the good from him ahead of others. So Love is presupposed to Election, and Election to predestination. So far Aquinas.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 7 close: gratuitous affection first; Romans 9:12; Ephesians 1:5§306

306From this you see: not foresight of human cooperation, but God's gratuitous affection alone is presupposed as antecedent to the election and predestination of particular persons. The Apostle illustrated it in that famous example of Jacob and Esau (Romans 9:12), and said it in plain words in Ephesians 1:5: who predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. And here enough for this argument.

Cap. III Rat. 8: if not from foresight, majority would be elect — few are saved§307

307Rat. 8. Without foresight of our works, they argue, a God good by nature — whose mercy is over all his works — would have marked at least most of humankind for life. Yet few are saved. So predestination must track foresight of works, that is of free choice used well or badly.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 8: goodness wills some good to each — not equal goods by foresight§308

308Sol. From God's being good by nature it rightly follows that he wills some good to every creature of his — not that he wills every good to every creature, or the same equal goods to equal creatures. Even in dispensing so-called goods of Nature or Fortune he is not bound to give them from foresight of good use, nor to impart them to the majority. We see strength of body, sharpness of mind, beauty of form, and abundance of riches are not given from foresight of good use — for the most part they go to those who abuse them worst: to injury, fraud, lust, luxury. And even those goods are granted only to few.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 8: electing the corrupt mass — no duty to choose the majority§309

309Further: We are speaking of election to life of people who are all utterly worthy of eternal death. We may grant that from the goodness of his nature God wills of eternal life to all humans as considered before the fall, adorned with justice and holiness — yet no reason forces us to say that, from humans corrupted and sunk in the damnable mass, his goodness obliges him to elect either all or the greater part to glory.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 8: mercy over all works — special mercy; few freed more illustrious§310

310Finally, the press that his mercy is over all his works misses the point. First, God can show mercy to every person (and he does) without that special, outstanding mercy of adopting them as heir of eternal life. Second, the greatness of divine mercy is not weighed by how many individuals receive it, but by the greatness of the benefits given and the unworthiness of those who receive them. That God from his enemies — deeply stained with sin and deserving of eternal death — through the death of his most beloved Son has willed to free even a few and destine them to the heavenly kingdom is a more illustrious specimen of mercy than the justice of leaving the whole wicked world to deserved ruin.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 8 close: Augustine — multitude of reject shows justice; Epist. 190§311

311Finally: why God, who could save all, yet willed to predestine few to life against the multitude of the rejected — Augustine gives two reasons, so there is little need to take refuge in foresight of good and bad works. Thus he: God willed this, that by the very multitude of the rejected it might be shown how little moment any number of those most justly damned has with the just God — and that those redeemed from that damnation might understand from this that what they see rendered to so great a part of it was due to that universal mass (Epist. 190).

Cap. III Rat. 9: glory depending on others' sins needs foresight — Stephen's martyrdom§312

312Rat. 9. Where someone's glory hangs on others' sins, they say it cannot be decreed except from foresight. Take Stephen: his glory somehow depended on the impiety of the Jews who would stone him — so God could not decree him glory, at least not in the degree that so glorious a martyrdom would give, unless that sin (which occasioned the martyrdom) was foreseen, and with it his patience and faith, by which he won outstanding martyr's glory from their cruelty. So if not to all, at least to some glory is destined from foresight of merits.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 9: intention vs execution — glory destined before foresight of faith§313

313Sol. One thing is glory destined to the elect before the world's foundations, according to God's intention; another is that same glory conferred on them in time by executing the decree. In God's intention itself glory — and so great a glory — was predestined to Stephen before foresight of his patience and faith. Indeed, in the decree of predestination God had prepared him that faith and patience because he had elected him to that glory.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 9: in execution God foresaw cruelty, Stephen's constancy, the crown§314

314But in executing that decree God foresaw the Jews' cruelty — which he permitted — that would give Stephen occasion for martyrdom. He foresaw Stephen, armed with such faith and constancy, about to die eagerly and willingly for Christ. And he foresaw himself, after that fight so nobly fought, about to give this bravest soldier an outstanding crown of glory.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 9: faith foreseen before obtaining crown, not before destinating it§315

315So Stephen's faith and patience were foreseen as going before his actually receiving the crown — not as going before the destinating of that crown. Divine foresight of the measure of grace God gave him, and which he exercised so gloriously, rested on the prior decree of election; the decree electing him to that glory did not rest on foresight of the faith he would receive from God and later show in the fight.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 9 close: can destine glory depending on others' sins without prior foresight to confer§316

316So the argument's assumption was false — that glory which somehow depends on others' sins cannot be decreed except from such foresight. It can be decreed or destined without that; it is only the conferring that cannot happen unless foresight of that sort goes first.

Cap. III Rat. 10: mere beneplacitum makes works idle — Predestinati / Sigebertus§317

317Rat. 10. If God, ignoring merits, had from mere good pleasure decreed to bless particular persons — say Paul and Peter — then good works would do nothing toward obtaining glory. So let Peter walk in good works: still glory is not credited to him from any desert of those works. Let him neglect good works entirely: God will still give him the destined glory by the force of his own good pleasure. That is highly absurd, and leans toward the Predestinarian error Sigebert's Chronicle reports: pious living's good works do not help toward glory if one is not predestinated; flagrant living's crimes do not hurt if one is.

Cap. III Rat. 10: Valencia, Vasquez, Faustus — election must rest on foresight of works§318

318Gregory of Valencia presses this; Vasquez uses it too. Even the old Pelagians turned it on the Catholics — so Faustus of Riez (De lib. Arb. 1.4): for those predestined to life prayer will not be necessary; for those appointed to death it cannot help — superfluous in the one case, powerless in the other. What they say of prayer they could conclude of every other good work: superfluous once an antecedent, gratuitous decree of divine election is posited. Therefore election must be set on foresight of works.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 10: consequentia nulla — end-decree includes means; harvest analogy§319

319Sol. That argumentation's consequence is plainly none. We rightly hold the decree to give glory gratuitous, and prior (in how we understand) to the decree to give grace or good works — because the first sets the end, the second orders means to the end — yet we deny that God's grace or the good works that are grace's effects do nothing toward obtaining glory. The reason is ready: an absolute, efficacious decree of any future event already means God wills to employ and apply the means that produce that effect. So in the antecedent decree to give glory is virtually included the consequent decree to give good works and the other means that are the way to glory's kingdom. Those means therefore work toward obtaining the end this way, even if for this particular person the end was not destined from prior foresight of them. Take an example: suppose God by an antecedent, gratuitous decree had set to give us a great harvest next year. To infer Therefore neither fair weather, nor seasonable rains, nor farmers' labor will do anything toward that abundance is ridiculous — for in that prior decree to give the fruit the will to execute through means is not shut out but included as depending on it.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 10: Bannes — no real independence; Apage — glory with future good works§320

320Think the same of the absolute, efficacious decree for Peter's glorification, and of the means of grace and good works by which he is brought to glory. Báñez saw this and exploded such consequences (In 1. q.23 a.2): from a priority in our way of understanding within one genus of cause, people infer without any show a real priority in the things themselves, or independence of one from another in the order God set — as if: Form was willed by God before matter, therefore form would come to be even if matter never would. Equal folly: If glory was willed to Peter before grace, or before foresight of the good works that flow from grace, then even if Peter stayed devoid of grace and good works he would still get glory. Away with that nonsense! Though God does not will glory to this particular person from prior intuition of his works, but from the gratuitous good pleasure of his will, he still wills him glory with intuition of future good working as the necessary mode by which God ordained that the person proceed to that end.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 10 close: not Predestinati — works profit; Father prepares repentance§321

Cap. III Rat.: God rejects only from foresight of sin — so elects from foresight of works§322

322God rejects only because of foresight of sin — for rejection or reprobation is a work of divine justice, which always presupposes a person stained with sin.h sin.h sin. Therefore he elects only from foresight of good works, since whoever is not rejected is by that very fact elected.

Cap. III Sol.: two acts of reprobation — praeterition vs praedamnation§323

Cap. III Sol.: praedamnation rests on sin foresight; election and damnation not parallel§324

Cap. III Sol.: two guilty subjects — damning from crime does not prove electing from virtue§325

Cap. III Sol. close: why not pardoned alike — beneplacitum; Augustine profundum; defer De Reprobatione§326

326Add this: ask why the wretched man suffered death — rightly, Because he was robber and traitor. Ask why the king would not pardon him as he did the other in the same case, or heap the same honors on him — here to answer Because he was guilty of robbery and treason is inept (so was the other we imagined). The answer is: it seemed good to the king, of his own good pleasure, to pity the one and not the other. The reason of that discrimination lies in the king's breast, not in diverse merits. I seal it with Augustine (Epist. 190): why he frees this one rather than that, or does not free — let whoever can sound that great depth of his judgments, yet beware the precipice. When we reach our other thesis, On Reprobation, we will unpack this more clearly.

Cap. III Rat. 12: efficacious election from mere good pleasure destroys free choice§327

327Rat. 12. If God efficaciously elects some to glory from the mere good pleasure of his will, and not from foreknowledge of merits, free choice is plainly destroyed. No one can resist God's efficacious will — so those so predestined to glory will not keep free power to lose it. Posit that antecedent will for the salvation of Peter and Paul: either they are under absolute necessity to do what salvation requires (believe, live piously, persevere in faith and piety, and so arrive at salvation), or God's efficacious decree can be made void. Both absurd and impossible. Therefore we must not posit efficacious election of some to glory except from foresight of merits that will arise from free choice preceded by God's grace.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 12: old Pelagian cantilena — Prosper, Faustus, Augustine's defense loci§328

328Sol. An old Pelagian refrain: those who hold absolute, efficacious predestination of certain people before foresight of merits induce fate and destroy free choice. Prosper records Pelagians defaming Augustine as utterly removing free choice and preaching fatal necessity under the name of grace (De lib. arb. P. 223). The same charge is in his Responses to the Gallic chapters,. 6. Faustus of Riez, Semipelagian champion, obliquely strikes Augustine as destroyer of free choice for saying everything on either side is fixed by predestination (De lib. Arb. 1.11), and claims a fatal decree is hidden under the word grace. Augustine himself must often wash off that foul calumny (Contra 2 Epist. Pelag. 2.7; De bono persever. 2.12; and elsewhere). I premise this so you see from whose cisterns almost all the adversaries' arguments are drawn.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 12: antecedent will to save does not coerce — free-moving means§329

329Now to the point. I deny that God's antecedent will to give Peter eternal salvation takes away or hinders his free choice about obtaining it — and yet I affirm that, on that hypothesis, he cannot fall from salvation, so the divine decree cannot be made void. First: God's efficacious will works all he wills, but in the manner and by the means he wills. From an efficacious, antecedent purpose to save Peter he need not use coercive means that necessitate the human will; it is enough to use those Divine wisdom knows can move and bend the will efficaciously, infallibly, yet freely. Indeed, when from the antecedent decree to give salvation God moves the elect's free choice toward acquiring it, liberty is not lost but rather increased and strengthened. As Báñez puts it (In 1. q.22 a.4): the creature's free choice receives participated liberty from Divine free choice, moving it strongly and sweetly according to its nature.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 12: Augustine — God inclines hearts; elect act freely by inspired willing§330

330Hear Augustine: when God wills something that must be done only by willing people, their hearts are inclined to will it by him who works in us, wonderfully and ineffably, even the willing (De praed. Sanct. 1.20). So the Jesuit's first assumption was false — that once God's efficacious will for the elect's salvation is posited, they necessarily and not freely will and do what brings them to salvation. They act freely, because God himself inspires in them a most free willing so to act.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 12: can the elect fall? fragility vs maintaining hand of God — Peter§331

331Next the Jesuit's later claim: if after God's efficacious decree the elect freely work toward salvation, an elect person can fall from salvation and God's decree can be made void — for whoever freely perseveres can fail to persevere, so can fail to be saved. I answer: the sayings Whoever freely acts can fail to act and Whoever is freely saved can fail to be saved, if they mean a possibility of not acting and not reaching salvation that can arise from human fragility considered in itself, we grant such a possibility of perishing still clings to the elect. But if they mean that, despite God's upholding hand, that weakness can go into act so that in the event they might not persevere in faith and holiness or reach eternal life — we deny entirely that, once God's efficacious decree for their salvation is posited, such a possibility of perishing belongs to them. Augustine shows it by Peter (De corr. Et grat. 8): as a weak, changeable man he could fall from faith, holiness, and salvation — but given that God had decreed, for Christ's prayer, to inspire in him a most free, strong, unconquered, persevering will in the faith, on that hypothesis he could not perish and could not but most freely persevere.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 12 close: God's hand leads firmly and sweetly — Valentia, Catharinus§332

332So it is God's hand, not ours, that we do not depart from God. That hand leads the elect to eternal life with such efficacy that his decree stands most firm — and with such sweetness and liberty that their choice in the good becomes most free. Valencia grants both can stand together (In 1. q.23 disp.1 p.4), and notes the oldest, most learned Scholastics held it. Ambrosius Catharinus too: grant a justification from which the predestinated cannot fall, and most free choice is not removed but made firmer and stronger by certainty of light and added fortitude. Ability not to persevere in faith, to fall from holiness — in a word, to sin and perish — is not liberty or part of liberty, but free choice's disease or weakness. When a contrary, strongest, most persevering will is given so that weakness cannot go into act, free choice is not destroyed but established free in the good. The freer the will, the less it can serve sin (Augustine, De praed. Sanct. 1.15). So the Jesuit's argument is worthless: The antecedent decree makes the elect unable to fall from salvation, therefore it takes away their free choice.

Cap. III Rat. 13: absolute election evacuates hortation, correction, prayer, industry — Pelagian charge§333

333Rat. 13. Another argument akin to this the ancient Pelagians also used to brandish against Augustine: namely, that this doctrine of absolute election of singular persons before foresight of merits empties every hortation and correction, makes prayers useless, extinguishes all industry, and finally brings despair on men. See Augustine, De bono perseverantiae 2.16, 17, 23, and nearly the whole of De correptione et gratia. From Hilary's and Prosper's letters among Augustine's Works (Tom. 7) it is plain the Pelagians objected all this invidiously. The same runs through Faustus of Riez, book 1 sect. 9 and 10, and that writing full of poison and pestilence. Sum of it: on our sentence, salvation is thrust on the elect whether idle or wicked, and denied to the those not chosen however hard they labor and live piously.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 13: Augustine dissolves — election excites industry; despair is the impious' vice§334

334Sol. Augustine dissolves all this in the places just cited. Still I answer: the doctrine of election excites and kindles industry of living well in all the pious. If the impious and profane take from it occasion of torpor or despair, that is their vice and innate perversity — not the doctrine's.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 13: same occasion from divine foresight — Augustine De bono pers. 2.15§335

335And Augustine showed (De bono perseverantiae 2.15) that a wholly similar occasion can be taken from the doctrine of divine foresight — which no one but an atheist, or one greatly unskilled, rejects.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 13: nearer point — gratuitous election stabilizes hortations as ordained media§336

336Nearer the point: I say this doctrine of gratuitous election stabilizes hortations and corrections and kindles men's wills to live piously — because we preach God's secret will to elect certain persons without silencing his revealed will, which decrees those elect are led to their destined end only through means God ordained. Hortations, corrections, prayers, and the like are among those means Divine wisdom ordained to promote the elect's salvation.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 13 close: no despair for the willing — removes boasting, not study of holiness§337

337Nor do we cast despair on any mortal willing to believe and live piously: we give such people most sure confidence they belong among the elect and those to be saved. We preach gratuitous election while teaching that no one gets fruit or comfort from it without faith and holiness — and that anyone living faithfully and holily can and ought to count himself among the elect. So the doctrine takes away every occasion of boasting and pride in one's works, but not the study of doing well; it rather kindles that study, teaching that no one has any certainty of election outside pursuit of holiness, or can ever reach election's end — eternal life — except by the way of holiness.

Cap. III Rat. 14: conformity of decree and temporal execution — Achilles of foresight-election§338

338Rat. 14. Last they argue from the conformity between God's election decree and its temporal execution: in the same order in which things are executed in time, God from eternity decreed they should be executed. Divine immutability requires he not act otherwise in time than he from eternity decreed he would. So since in temporal execution he leads none of the elect to glory except in view of good works and final perseverance, he could not from eternity elect them to glory except under that same view. If before the world's foundations he elected them to glory freely, not from foreseen works, yet at execution will not give glory except from works, he has changed his will — most unworthy of divine wisdom. All Papists who hold election from foreseen works trust this argument heavily and boast it is their Achilles.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 14: distinguish electing act from eternal life elected — dispositive vs motive§339

339Sol. To solve this rightly, distinguish God's act of electing from the thing he elects to, that is, eternal life itself. A thing can work as a disposing cause toward producing it that could not have been a motive cause of the elector's intention. We do not deny that good works, or a holy and pious life, work that way toward attaining eternal life, and that God from eternity looked on the elect's holy life as preceding their entrance into the heavenly kingdom.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 14: adversaries conflate antecedents of glory with antecedents of God's intention§340

340Here the adversaries slip: they think what precedes eternal life (to which men are elected) must also be conceived as preceding the elector's act or intention — God's decree by which they are elected. But that internal eternal act of the divine will by which he elects, and the glory or heavenly joy to which he elects, are greatly different. So we can rightly affirm of the object what we can only falsely affirm of God's act or intention destinating that object to a particular person. Example — true of the object: Paul's calling, justification, and pious life are seen by God as preceding his glorification. False if fitted to God's act: those same are seen by God as preceding the divine intention to glorify Paul.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 14: same execution order granted — opposite order of intention denied§341

341So we grant God decreed from eternity and foresaw that things would be executed in the same order he executes them in time — but we deny he also intended in that execution-order. In the acts of the divine will and mind there is of themselves no priority of order; in our understanding of the things' relation, execution and intention take plainly opposite orders. The decree of execution always starts from what is farther from the end and steps toward effecting it: God decreed to call Paul before justifying him, to justify and adorn with good works before glorifying. Executive will regards the external actual effecting, so what concurs earlier to producing the thing is referred earlier to that will. Intention, conversely, always starts from the end itself and moves to means so that it always wills first what is nearer the end.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 14: servant-to-Gaul ship example — intention vs execution order§342

342These points are thorny, so an example: I intend to send my servant into Gaul — I will that before I decree anything about getting a ship; I would never have thought to prepare him a little boat unless sending him to Gaul had already been decided. At execution I will to have the ship ready before sending him across, since the crossing cannot happen without a ship. If someone objects that I changed my will — because at first I intended the crossing before the ship, and now I will to put him aboard before sending him across — who would not laugh at such subtleties? In one will earlier and later follow the internal order of willing; in the other, the external order of effecting.

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 14 close: Peter to heaven — same will, diverse habitude; Papist case ends§343

343Fit this to our case: God intends to send Peter into Heaven — he wills that before he decrees efficacious, infallible means for him; he would never have resolved to supply such means unless he had first efficaciously decreed to give him heavenly glory. At execution God wills that Peter first share in grace, work well from grace, and persevere in good works to the end, before he makes harbor at heavenly glory. If some Jesuit disputant rises and shouts that God changed his will — because at first he intended glory for Peter before grace or perseverance, and now wills the reverse, grace and persevering good works before glory — I will laugh at the man's folly, and say this diverse consideration of intention and production of the same thing does not posit a diverse or changeable will in God, but a diverse way of considering the same will toward the same thing through different perspectives. That is nearly all the Papists dispute for election from foreseen works.

Cap. IV open: Arminianorum sententia — from Pontiffs to interpolators; Arminius on faith foresight§344

344Cap. IV. The Arminians' position is set out and their arguments refuted. Pontiff arguments omitted and rejected, we next deal with those who interpolated this controversy — changing some words and phrases while keeping the same error foundations. Chief among them is Jacobus Arminius: learned, sharp-minded, yet little regard for the ancient Church's judgment and none for the Reformed. Lest his defense look too crude, he would not hold anyone predestinated from foreseen works or merits (as some say) but from foreseen faith; nor would he boldly call that faith the cause of our predestination to glory as they did of works — with softened words he calls it only a condition, or something decently antecedent.

Cap. IV open: same if the thing itself is viewed — Causa/Merita; Arminius should not deny motive§345

345But if you look at the thing itself, both positions come to the same: it makes anyone's predestination (or non-predestination) to eternal life depend on some antecedent human act. The ancient Fathers and Scholastics in this controversy seem to me to mean by Cause — nay Merit — nothing else than any good act a man performs by divine grace, in view of which God by his decree or ordination grants any benefit. So if God predestinates in view of our faith and does not in view of unbelief, Arminius should not have denied that he posits faith as a reason or motive cause of our predestination — even a meritorious one, in the ancients' phrase and sense. But that by the way.

Cap. IV open: duplex decretum — general (all believers) and singular (named from foreseen faith)§346

346With predestination thus set from foresight of faith, Arminius and his followers establish a double decree. The first is general: God decreed to receive all believers into grace for Christ's sake, and to gift those persevering in faith with eternal life. The second is singular and terminates on particular persons: God established to gift with eternal glory this one and that by name — Peter, Paul, John — whom from eternity he foresaw would believe and remain in faith.

Cap. IV open: general decree urged as Scriptural — Resp. ad articulos, Hippolytus, Hague Remonstrants§347

347Note well: that prior general decree, which names no one singularly to salvation, is what Arminius most urges and thrusts forward as the predestination Scripture recommends. So in his Response to the articles, art. 4: This decree (the general, indeterminate one) I say is the foundation of Christianity, salvation, and certainty of salvation; and Rom. 8, 10, 11 and Ephesians 1 treat of it. The same in his Letter to Hippolytus, where he skips the predestination by which God decreed to save certain singular persons and gift them faith — as a small matter, scarcely founded in Scripture. The Remonstrants at the Hague Conference, forgetting any particular decree, aim to prove this sole decree — God indiscriminately wills to save any who persevere in faith and pour wrath on all unbelievers — is the whole and entire decree of Predestination (p. 62).

Cap. IV open: neither general nor foresight-singular is Pauline predestination — reply plan§348

348We hold the contrary: neither that general decree framed I will to save all who persevere in faith, nor that singular one resting on intervening foresight — I will gift eternal life to Peter, Paul, John, whom I foresee will perseveringly believe — is the predestination of which the Apostle speaks in Romans, and sacred Scripture. For the latter decree (so far as I know) adversaries rarely fight, content to assert it in a word; for the former they contend sharply. We will first meet their arguments, then confirm our position and impugn the contrary. And because at the Hague Colloquy arguments scattered elsewhere are gathered as a single collection, we will answer those Colloquists' little objections.

Cap. IV Arg. 1: gospel-revealed will to save perseverers is the whole predestination decree§349

349Arg. 1. God's will concerning men's salvation and ruin, revealed in the Gospel, is the whole entire decree of predestination. To will to save those persevering in faith, and to leave wrath on the unbelieving and impenitent, is that gospel-revealed will. Therefore to will to save perseverers in faith and leave wrath on unbelievers is the whole and entire decree of predestination. They say the major is self-evident and needs no proof; the minor is expressly founded in John 3:36 — Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son will not see life, but God's wrath remains on him — and John 6:40 — This is the will of him who sent me, that whoever sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life.

Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol: first — largo sensu any decree can be called praedestinatio, but theology specializes§350

350Sol. Before solving the argument: adversaries keep playing with the word predestination, so a word on that. First: in a broad sense any decree of God about anything can be called a decree of predestination — all God's decrees are conceived from eternity in the divine mind according to the destined purpose of the divine will. But sacred theology has narrowed that word to a special sense; it is not candid theology to play games with hearers under the general notion.

Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol: second — not every revealed placitum is the high Pauline predestination§351

351Second: in our controversy theologians have never meant by the predestination decree any revealed pleasure of the divine will about men's salvation and ruin, under any form. Twist the word that way and Matt. 25:34ff. Itself becomes the decree — Come, blessed of my Father… Depart, cursed… — and so does Rom. 2:6, God will render to each according to his works. Those places do open God's will about salvation and ruin; but to lodge in them that high, inscrutable predestination Paul so celebrates is most alien to Scripture and to all sound theologians.

Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol: third — properly a practical decree gifting singular persons grace and glory§352

352Third: predestination properly taken does not mean a universal law showing all alike how salvation is obtained or death incurred — Whoever believes and perseveres in piety will be saved; whoever does not believe or practice piety will be damned. It designates a practical decree by which from eternity God established to gift certain singular persons infallibly with singular goods: efficacious grace and eternal life. So Paul takes it in Rom. 8, restricting it to definite persons and joining it inseparably with glorification; so the School, which defined it as the preparation of grace in the present and of glory in the future. Decrees that only say generally what sort of men get eternal ling nothing about grace and glory for any singular persons, do not express predestination's force and nature.

Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol: Major — if universal, false; revealed qualities/acts ≠ formal decree§353

353With that premised I turn to their reason. The Major they call self-evident is either manifestly false, or particular — and then from particulars the conclusion is inept. If universal — Any gospel-revealed will of God about men's salvation and ruin is the whole entire decree of predestination — it is manifestly false. God has revealed his will about the qualities all who will share eternal life must have, and about the acts all who will enter that life must exercise; yet those revealed statutes do not contain the formal decree of divine predestination. That lies in the secret intention or will to gift certain elect efficaciously and infallibly those qualities and acts that lead to eternal life, and eternal life itself.

Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol: whole saving will includes vocation according to purpose — true praedestinans will§354

354For God's whole will about men's salvation is not contained in Whoever believes will have eternal life. Scripture further opens that to certain ones — of whom from mere good pleasure he wills to have mercy before others — he wills to gift vocation according to purpose; from that vocation repentance, faith, sanctification, and finally glorification, all infallibly. That is the true, properly predestinating will, opened in the Gospel as to the thing, though individuals are not there named. So much for the Major.

Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol close: Minor true — inference that this is whole predestination weakest§355

355On the Minor, founded in certain express Scripture places, one thing suffices: what they assume is most true — God has opened in the Gospel his will to save all who will persevere in faith and to damn unbelievers. What they infer from it is weakest: that in this decree of the divine will men's predestination is placed — nay, the whole and entire decree of our predestination. When we come to our own arguments, we will dispel this Arminian dream.

Cap. IV Arg. 2: Heb. 11:6 — without that by which one cannot please God, none can be elected§356

356Arg. 2. Second they argue from Heb. 11:6 — Without faith it is impossible to please God — and build this: Without that without which one cannot please God, no one can be elected by God to salvation; without faith one cannot please God; therefore. They call the Major certain, since electing to salvation is the highest love God can show a man — his greatest love toward a man.

Cap. IV Arg. 2 Sol: Apostle twisted — faith here actual, not foreseen; Enoch walked with God§357

357Sol. First to the Apostle's words: they are twisted badly into a sense wholly alien to his purpose. Faith here is not the foreseen faith of a man not yet existing, but actual faith already at work. That is clear from εὐηρέστησεν, to please — which Paul takes from the LXX at Gen. 5:24, Enoch pleased God; the Hebrew is he walked continually with God — he did not imitate his age's wickedness but served God sincerely and worshiped him purely. So the Apostle means only that no one can lead a pious life pleasing to God without faith, confirmed by Enoch's example. Wondrous ingenuity in the Remonstrants, who carved from this their election hanging on foresight of faith.

Cap. IV Arg. 2 Sol: Major stuffed with equivocations — sine quo as condition vs means; elect infants§358

358Now the syllogism. The Major — Without that without which one cannot please God, no one can be elected to salvation — is stuffed with equivocations. Without which as a condition versus a means. In the first sense it touches the cause but is manifestly false; in the second it does not even touch it, and still is not absolutely true. For some so far please God as to be elected to eternal life in whom God foresees no faith at all, much less antecedent faith. Example: the elect infants who die before they can believe or persevere. What will never be is not foreseen; foresight's object is something infallibly future.

Cap. IV Arg. 2 Sol: placere Deo = walk with God — without actual faith election would be temporal§359

359Further, to please God is not one sense only. Paulinely it means doing works pleasing to God, or (from the original) walking with God. Mark how absurd it is that no one could ever be elected unless he first has all that our works need to please God. Without actual faith — and charity too — no one can please God that way, or walk with God as Enoch did. If this argument had force, all election would be temporal and would follow justification and sanctification.

Cap. IV Arg. 2 Sol: two pleasing — destined vs adopted; Orange 25; first love from God's fountain§360

360Further: some please God before others as destined to faith and eternal life; some please as sons already adopted, sanctified, and accepted to the right of eternal life. In the prior sense (ours in this controversy) it is not only possible that one please God before faith had or foreseen — it is plainly impossible to please otherwise. Best Orange canon 25: Displeasing we were loved, that there might be made in us whence we might please. If we could receive no gift from God unless we first pleased him, and could not please without faith first, then either faith's gift is from us not God, or you get an infinite regress. So the reason of first complacency — divine love toward the fallen creature — is not some antecedent good quality in man, but must be fetched from the fountain of divine love. Love is the first gift in which all others are given; and God's love has this singular: it does not find but makes its object lovable to itself (Deut. 7:7–8).

Cap. IV Arg. 2 Sol close: election from amor benevolentiae not amicitiae — Remonstrants elide their own nerve§361

361Finally, their Major's confirmation — electing to salvation is an effect of highest love, so no one can be elected unless through faith at least foreseen he is pleasing and acceptable — is easily refuted. Election is an effect of love, but not of that friendship-love of Enoch pleased God; rather of the love the School calls benevolence. Effects of friendship-love tend only to the faithful and pious; effects of benevolence tend to the impious and unbelieving, to inspire faith and holiness in them — even to the not-yet-born, to destine them eternal life. The Remonstrants cannot even deny a love of God put forth toward the impious before faith and conversion; and by confessing it they cut the nerves of this argument. See what they write on antecedent and consequent love, Hague Colloquy p. 183 (Bertius).

Cap. IV Arg. 3: beneplacitum de salute = praedestinatio — 1 Cor. 1:21 Credentes velle salvare§362

362Arg. 3. God's good pleasure concerning human salvation is predestination itself to salvation; to will to save believers is that good pleasure concerning men's salvation; therefore. They call the Major clearly true, because election means nothing but God's good pleasure concerning the elect man's salvation. The Minor they found in 1 Cor. 1:21 — It pleased God by the foolish preaching to save believers — and illustrate from the contrary: in those who barely believe, God has no good pleasure, but his soul loathes them, and he swears such will not enter his rest (1 Cor. 10:5; Heb. 3:18).

Cap. IV Arg. 3 Sol: same vice as Arg. 1 — Major terms incongruous; beneplacitum wider than praedestinatio§363

363Sol. This argument is nearly the same as the first and has the same vice. Again: in the Major the terms are incongruously and unskillfully set. Good pleasure concerning human salvation is wider and more general than predestination, so it ought to be predicate not subject — thus: Predestination is God's good pleasure concerning human salvation; to will to save believers is that good pleasure; therefore to will to save believers is predestination itself. Had they framed the Major that way, they would have concluded from all affirmatives in the second figure. They preferred a preposterous wording to an open fallacy.

Cap. IV Arg. 3 Sol: if Major universal, false — declared beneplacita do not contain formal decree§364

364Let them argue their way: unless the Major is universal, nothing follows from particulars. If universal — Any or every good pleasure of God concerning human salvation is predestination itself to salvation — it is manifestly false. Declared good pleasures do not at once express or contain a formal decree of predestination. For God declared in his word the good pleasure of his will concerning the qualities and works of those to be brought to salvation, the means they must use, and the whole order of executing predestination — yet those do not contain the election decree, because they look equally to all and are set forth as law.

Cap. IV Arg. 3 Sol: beneplacitum that includes praedestinatio is the arcane will from the mass§365

365The good pleasure that actually includes predestination is not those declared statutes, but God's eternal secret will: from the same mass of perdition he resolved with himself to lead some persons infallibly to glory by pure mercy through efficacious grace, and according to justice to leave others in the perdition they merit.

Cap. IV Arg. 3 Sol close: Minor true of medium — not eligere credentes; Rom. 9:15§366

366Now the Minor: to will to save believers by the foolishness of preaching is God's good pleasure concerning human salvation. Who denies it? It is good pleasure about the means and organ without which no adult can be led to salvation. It does not express that eternal εὐδοκία by which some are elected to salvation and its means, others passed by. In a word: the Apostle said It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save believers — so he requires preaching and faith as means antecedent by God's good pleasure to effecting salvation. He did not say to elect believers. So he does not require faith or preaching as foreseen antecedent conditions of the eternal act of election. Nor do 1 Cor. 10 and Heb. 3 on unbelievers help: they do not prove eternal election or passing-by from foresight of future faith or unbelief, but that in executing his eternal decree God finally brings into his rest those whom efficacious vocation working according to purpose has made faithful, and excludes those who remain unbelieving by their own heart's corrupt perversity. Why he had mercy on these rather than those — do not ask, if you would not err. Suffice Rom. 9:15: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.

Cap. IV Arg. 4: Eph. 1:4 — election in Christ is of believers only; Arminius Exam. Pred. Perk.§367

367Argument 4. Another argument from Eph. 1:4 — According as he chose us in him, that is Christ. They argue: the election by which God chose us in Christ is only; the election made before the world's foundations was made in Christ; therefore it is of believers only. The Major's truth, they say, is that no one can be elected in Christ unless he is in Christ — and only believers are. Arminius urges the same in Exam. Pred. Perk. Pp. 313, 32: on the Apostle, Christ is not only a means through which salvation already gotten by election is obtained, but a meritorious cause in respect of which election is made and for whom that grace is prepared. God loves no one to eternal life except in Christ; so since no one is considered in Christ by God unless inserted by faith, election belongs to the faithful. So he.

Cap. IV Arg. 4 Sol: conclusion misses the point — believers consequently, not antecedently; Augustine§368

368Sol. Start from their conclusion: it does not settle what is in controversy. The question is not whether election is only of those who will be believers — or of those God foresaw before the world's foundations would believe — but whether that eternal act of divine election prerequires that foresight as cause, or at least antecedent condition. We deny it; adversaries cannot prove it. We grant election is of believers only — not believers in divine foresight before election, but believers consequently, by virtue of the grace prepared and destined for them in election. So Augustine, De praed. Sanct. 18: we were going to be such because he chose that we should be such through grace; and ch. 10: by predestination God foresaw what he himself would do (likewise ch. 17). Consult those places for the best solution of this Arminian argument and the best reading of this Pauline context.

Cap. IV Arg. 4 Sol: Major — temporal election of actual believers vs eternal gift of faith in Christ§369

369Drop the conclusion and take the Major: The election by which God chose us in Christ is of believers only. If that means temporal election — certain persons severed from the wicked world by efficacious vocation — we grant it is of believers, and of actually believing ones. But we dispute the eternal act of divine election, not its temporal effect. So of eternal election (what this controversy must regard): it is not of believers as if men still outside Christ were foreseen as believers and then elected with that foresight intervening; it is of believers because God foresaw he would give the gift of faith to those he decreed in the eternal purpose of election to give to Christ.

Cap. IV Arg. 4 Sol: John 6:37 — donation causes coming; elegit in Christo mis-exposed§370

370John 6:37 helps here: Whatever the Father gives me will come to me. The donation marks God's eternal election; coming marks faith produced in human hearts in its time. The giving leads to coming — rests on a false reading of He chose us in Christ.

Cap. IV Arg. 4 Sol: in Christo refers to the electing act — Eph. 1:3, 2 Cor. 5:19 parallels§371

371In Christ refers not to the elect man's state but to the electing God's act. Arminians expose He chose us in Christ as: us already existing in Christ, or foreseen as believing and inserted by faith, whom God then chose. But in Christ joined to a divine act does not always mean the subject already exists in Christ beforehand. Eph. 1:3: God blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ — and among those blessings is the first gift of faith and repentance, given not to those already in Christ but to those alien from him, to bring them to Christ and insert them. So God in Christ reconciled the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19) and created us unto good works (Eph. 2:10). Remonstrants themselves say God regenerates men in Christ (Coll. P. 99). In all these, in Christ cannot without absurdity mean already existing in Christ beforehand. So to elect in Christ is nothing but, in electing, to look to Christ the Mediator and Head of the Church, and by his grace to destine members to be joined to him and glorified.

Cap. IV Arg. 4 Sol close: love to eternal life in Christ true of introduction, false of praedestinatio§372

372Arminius urges that God loves no one to eternal life except in Christ — as he reads it, except considered faithful and already inserted into Christ, and so elects none except as faithful. That is true of the introduction itself to eternal life, false of predestination. In that sense God loves to eternal life all he decreed before the world's foundations to give to Christ to be made alive and saved. Those given to be made alive are not considered already made alive and faithful, but dead in sins and still unbelieving. In a word: God chose us in Christ not because he viewed us as already in Christ by our faith before election, but because with respect to Christ the Mediator all who are predestinated are predestinated to eternal life.

Cap. IV Arg. 5: Eph. 1:5–6 — destinavit εἰς υἱοθεσίαν; adoption only of the faithful§373

373Arg. 5. Their syllogism: those destined unto adoption through Jesus Christ and accepted in Christ as the beloved count as faithful; but Eph. 1:5–6 shows that everyone God elects to salvation he so destines unto adoption through Christ and makes acceptable in the beloved; therefore everyone he elects he considered faithful. They prove the Major from John 1:12 and Gal. 3:26 — no adoption into sons except through faith; you are all sons of God through faith in Christ.

Cap. IV Arg. 5 Sol: Major false — temporal adoption needs faith; eternal destinatio need not§374

374Sol. That Major fails. Yes, finished temporal adoption carries faith with it — beforehand as a condition, or at least together with adoption in the same moment — so you cannot treat someone as actually adopted without treating him as faithful. But destination unto adoption in God's mind before the world's foundations can and must be thought without treating our faith as an antecedent condition.

Cap. IV Arg. 5 Sol: eternal destinatio κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν — not according to foresight of faith§375

375And it does the Major no good to say there is no sonship-adoption except through faith. Grant the point: there is still an eternal destination of certain persons unto adoption according to the good pleasure of his will (Eph. 1:5), not according to foresight of our faith.

Cap. IV Arg. 5 Sol close: faith is effect of εὐδοκία — Matt. 11:26; Augustine De praed. Sanct. 13, 19§376

376Believers' faith — what sets them off from unbelievers — is not an antecedent of this divine good pleasure but its effect (Matt. 11:26). Augustine's De praedestinatione sanctorum 13 and 19 carefully opens these very Pauline words the Remonstrants press.

Cap. IV Arg. 5 Sol cont: John 15:16 — we did not choose; do not confuse destined and temporal adoption§377

377Sol. (cont.) Augustine nearly walks this first chapter of Ephesians in explaining it. Only a few notes: the election the Lord meant by You did not choose me, but I chose you — and faith itself does not come first. He chose us not because we believed, but that we may believe, so that we might not be said to have chosen him first. So they dangerously confuse destined adoption in the eternal act of divine election with finished adoption in the temporal effect of efficacious vocation.

Cap. IV Arg. 5 Sol cont: faith may accompany temporal adoption — not eternal destinatio; chain from election§378

378Faith may precede or at least go with adoption finished in the elect themselves — but it cannot (even on our way of thinking) precede the adoption God from eternity decreed and destined for certain persons in his electing mind. Efficacious vocation according to purpose precedes saving faith; predestination or election to glory precedes that vocation. So none are considered or foreseen as faithful except from the antecedent predestination decree — because efficacious vocation, true faith, and real adoption flow from it.

Cap. IV Arg. 5 Sol cont: benevolence toward elect still in sin — Orange 25; Scotus; two acceptations§379

379Further: their claim that God makes or holds none pleasing in Christ except the faithful cannot stand. Whence comes God's efficacious purpose to inspire saving faith and repentance into human hearts? That purpose still regards unbelievers and the impenitent — so they must grant a singular, special love of God there. So great is his love for his only-begotten Son that, looking to him in eternal benevolence, he embraces all he elected in him even while considered in sin and unbelief — and by special grace always works to draw them out of that state. So Orange can. 25: Displeasing we were loved, that there might be made in us whence we might please. Add: Christ is a head of infinite power, his merit of such efficacy that it can influence members not yet united but only destined, and by that influence unite them. Scotus (3 dist. 19) well noted: Christ merited that the not-yet-joined be joined — and therein his merit chiefly consists. If his merit reaches non-believers and joins them, a conforming divine acceptance extends to them too. Briefly: one may be acceptable to God in Christ, or for Christ's sake, two ways. One: present friendship-love, admitted as a household member to the throne of grace — in that sense only the faithful are pleasing in Christ. Two: eternal benevolence as a predestinated member of his Son — though paternal effects are not yet poured out, he intends in Christ and for Christ to pour them at the fit time. In that sense God has made many not yet believing or converted pleasing in Christ — not as already placed in him, but as to be placed by special favor, because elected in Christ from eternity.

Cap. IV Arg. 5 Sol close: Minor — faith a destined means, not a foreseen condition of election§380

380On the Minor, which sits in express Scripture words, little need be added: from what is said it is plain you cannot prove from it that faith in election must be taken as a foreseen condition antecedent to election — but as a means destined and to be given to those God elected and destined for adoption.

Cap. IV Arg. 6: perpetual use of Electi — in salvation contexts always means believers§381

381Arg. 6. Another argument from the standing use of Elect wherever salvation is in view — Rom. 8: Who will accuse God's elect?; Rom. 11: The elect have obtained; Matt. 22: Many called, few elect. From these and like places: the word Elect, when Scripture speaks of salvation, is always used for believers; therefore there is no election to salvation except of believers.

Cap. IV Arg. 6 Sol: elect known a posteriori — many elect while still unbelieving; Rom. 8:28–30§382

382Sol. When Scripture names designated persons Elect, it fits the word to believers alone — because we know nothing sure of election's secret except a posteriori, from the effects of faith and sanctification. So the Apostle often marks believers as Elect. That does not mean elect and believers must be confused, or that election hangs on foresight of faith as an antecedent condition. We cannot call unbelievers elect as we see them — yet many impenitent and unbelieving are elect in the meantime; true of Paul and of all the elect before efficacious conversion. And since Predestination and Election are used interchangeably in this dispute, Predestinated in salvation-talk is used even of unbelievers. Rom. 8:28ff.: Whom he predestinated, he called; whom he called, he justified — openly sets some Predestinated before vocation, faith, and justification.

Cap. IV Arg. 6 Sol close: actual faith not foresight-faith; invert — nexus not Remonstrant order§383

383Add: wherever Elect is given to the faithful, actual faith is meant — not faith merely in God's foresight before the world's foundations, which the Remonstrants urge. So they wrongly infer: Elect and believer are the same subjects in Scripture's phrasing, therefore election is from foresight of faith. Rather: therefore to all the elect in their time saving faith is given. If the argument had force I could invert it: Believers, when salvation is in view, always means the elect; therefore no saving faith except of the elect; therefore faith arises from antecedent election. From such word-use you may conclude only that faith and election have a nexus — not whether foresight of faith precedes election as a prerequired condition (as Remonstrants will), or faith follows election as a disposition to be produced in all the elect at the due time. The cited places do not settle that; weighing them one by one is needless.

Cap. IV Arg. 7: τρόπος of mercy and justice is the one true predestination — Rom. 9:22§384

384Arg. 7. The τρόπος by which the Lord shows his mercy in some and his justice in others is the true and only predestination. But the decree to save believers on one side and condemn unbelievers on the other is such a τρόπος. Therefore that decree is the true and only predestination. They say Contraremonstrants admit the Major; the Minor they prove from Rom. 9:22, where vessels of mercy and of wrath mean believers and unbelievers.

Cap. IV Arg. 7 Sol: double praeordinatio — intention and execution both declare mercy and justice§385

385Sol. In God's mind regarding the elect, conceive a double ordering: one of intention, one of execution — both serve to declare divine mercy and justice. Example: before the world's foundations God decreed to love Jacob and Peter and have mercy on them in special grace and eternal life; to pass by Esau and Judas for that infallible attainment of life and grace, and appoint those hardened in their sins to just condemnation — an abyss of mercy and justice no human wit can pierce. And that the same God has opened in his word that he decreed to save all believers and damn all unbelievers, and that on judgment day he in fact damns Esau and Judas and saves Jacob and Peter — that too is a singular specimen of divine mercy and justice.

Cap. IV Arg. 7 Sol: do not bind whole praedestinatio to the execution τρόπος — Major not universal§386

386So in both praeordinations mercy and justice shine — in the decree to make certain persons believers, and in the decree that promises and gives those believers eternal life; in the decree not to have mercy so far as to soften some and inspire faith, and in the decree that damns the same hardened unbelievers. Adversaries should not bind the whole reason of predestination to the latter τρόπος; it turns most properly on the former. With that premised: the Major is not universal. Not every τρόπος in which mercy toward some and justice toward others appears is that unique predestination whose depth Scripture so celebrates — though in predestination properly taken, by which some are destined to life by special grace and others left in death by their own demerit, mercy and justice play their parts most clearly.

Cap. IV Arg. 7 Sol: Minor — Ego salvabo credentes shows equal mercy/justice; discrimination from acts§387

387Now the Minor: that the decree to save believers and condemn unbelievers is the praeordination by which God declares mercy toward some and justice toward others. We grant that on that decree mercy and justice are seen and declared in the event — but mercy puts itself forth far higher in the predestination decree, and justice in the decree of passing by. I will save believers, I will condemn unbelievers, taken in itself, shows and makes mercy equally to all, justice equally to all. It promises Jacob and Peter nothing it does not under the same conditions promise Esau and Judas; it denies Esau or Judas nothing it does not under the same conditions deny Jacob and Peter. That Jacob and Peter share mercy and eternal life while Esau and Judas do not comes not from diverse decrees about the persons, but from the persons' diversity in their operations.

Cap. IV Arg. 7 Sol close: proper praedestinatio decrees special mercy to elect, denial to others§388

388But the mercy that puts itself forth in the predestination decree decrees, prepares, and bestows on a singular predestinated person what it does not decree, prepare, or bestow on one not predestinated. The justice in the reprobation decree decrees something denied to the reprobate that is not denied to the Predestinated. So it is not enough for predestination properly so called that, with diverse acts of human choice intervening, mercy falls on these and justice on those. What is required is a decree that, from God's primary intention and special operation in decreeing, includes mercy to be shown to these, and from his freest, most just will hints that the same special mercy is to be denied to others.

Cap. IV Arg. 8: from the order of execution — whom God saves/destroys in time he decreed from eternity§389

389Arg. 8. From the order of execution they argue: those and such as God saves and destroys in time, he decreed from eternity to save and destroy. But in time God saves only those who persevere in faith, as such, and destroys unbelievers as such. Therefore from eternity he decreed to save only the faithful as such. They prove the Major from God's immutability; the Minor from the Gospel's standing voice — life promised to believers, death threatened to unbelievers.

Cap. IV Arg. 8 Sol: conclusion does not force foresight-election; Major mixes Decernere and Servare§390

390Sol. The conclusion does not directly contradict us. What they needed was: therefore God elected to glory only the faithful as faithful, from foresight of that faith. Their conclusion — he decreed from eternity to save only the faithful as such — makes faith an antecedent condition for the external conferring of decreed salvation (which we grant), not for God's internal destinating decree (which they needed to prove). On the Major: two words are mixed in bad faith — one names destination to salvation in the divine mind, the other leading to salvation in external execution. Decernere looks to the eternal intrinsic act of will; Servare to the extrinsic temporal effect.

Cap. IV Arg. 8 Sol: faith precedes saving Peter, not the eternal decree — head of the error§391

391God's internal act does not have the causes or require the antecedent conditions that the external effect of salvation requires. He does not save Peter unless Peter's faith precedes; yet he decrees to save Peter in the free eternal good pleasure of his will — not with that faith as a condition for constituting the decree, but as a condition for timely temporal effecting of what was decreed. The error's head: the antecedent quality of faith, which should be joined to the thing decreed and set before it only in execution, is joined to God's decreeing act and set before the decree as an antecedent motive.

Cap. IV Arg. 8 Sol: king and beggar — robes precede crowning, not the first destination§392

392An example: some conditions can be required beforehand so that Peter is saved or brought into the heavenly kingdom, without being required beforehand so that he is elected or destined by God to eternal life. Suppose a king sees a beggar in rags, foul with ulcers, yet from mere good pleasure decrees to adopt him and raise him to the kingdom's crown — and also orders that before crowning he be clothed in royal garments and purged of uncleanness, and not crowned until thus purged and clothed. Who does not see those fair garments and the purging were decreed and prerequired as antecedent to crowning, yet not as antecedent motives for the first destination of kingdom and crown?

Cap. IV Arg. 8 Sol: Remonstrant syllogism on foresight-robes is mere trifles; apply to elect§393

393Run the Remonstrants' pattern and its vanity shows at once: whom and as such this king crowned in time, he decreed from the start to crown as such; but in time he crowns one beautifully clothed and purged of squalor as such; therefore from the start he decreed to adopt and crown one beautifully clothed as such — i.e. from foresight of fair garments. Mere trifles. The first will to adopt and crown did not spring from foresight of garments; crowning itself required those garments and that prior purging, by the king's decree ordering external execution. Apply it: God from mere good pleasure wills to adopt Peter, Paul, or any elect corrupt in old Adam's mass and wasting in sin, and gift eternal life — yet also decrees, and publishes in the Gospel, that he wills him first purified by faith and cleansed from sin's filth before entering the kingdom.

Cap. IV Arg. 8 Sol close: faith antecedent to execution not to eternal will; Minor — temporal prereqs§394

394Peter as faithful and purged of sins is antecedent to executing what was willed — acquiring salvation, by God's decree — but not antecedent to God's will to save Peter, who decreed both: to save Peter, and to gift him faith before he is saved. Nor does that unsettle divine immutability: something may be decreed as prior to the actual production of the thing decreed which is not prior to God's inward volition about producing it. Reason: the effect of salvation in the predestinated subject and the decree to give salvation in the predestinating will are diverse things and do not require the same prior causes or conditions. On the Minor: many things are prerequired for someone to be saved in time that were not prerequired for eternal election to salvation — rather means later conferred on the predestinated so he is led through to salvation.

Cap. IV Arg. 9: decree whose foundation is Christ is election itself — salvandis credentibus§395

395Arg. 9. God's decree on human salvation whose foundation is Christ is election itself to salvation. The decree to save believers is that salvation-decree founded on Christ. Therefore the decree to save the faithful is election itself. They call the Major plain — no salvation or blessing unto salvation except in Christ. The Minor equally clear: that one decree is the foundation of Christianity, of salvation, and of certainty of salvation — Christianity, because by it God constitutes Christ Savior and Head of those who will share salvation; salvation, because it is God's good-pleasure decree in Christ on which our whole salvation rests; certainty, because all our assurance rests on this prop: Believers will be saved; I believe; therefore I will be saved.

Cap. IV Arg. 9 Sol: owed conclusion is foresight-election; Major imperfect if made universal§396

396Sol. Notice: in no Remonstrant argument does the owed conclusion appear. One thing is to conclude that the decree to save believers is election itself; another, that election itself is from foresight of antecedent faith — the conclusion we waited for in vain and never saw. Discuss their reason as it stands. The Major explains election quite imperfectly, and is not true throughout if taken universally as it must be, unless we let a slippery syllogism be forced on us. Make it universal: every divine decree on human salvation whose foundation is Christ is election itself of singular persons to salvation. Attach the Minor: the decree to save believers (any men, if they believe) is that Christ-founded salvation decree. Therefore that decree is election itself of singular persons.

Cap. IV Arg. 9 Sol: diverse Christ-founded decrees — conditional gospel vs singular election§397

397To expose the errors: diverse decrees on human salvation can come into view, all founded on Christ, yet election itself does not consist in all of them. First are known decrees published to all, stating under what conditions or by what means men are led to salvation — I will save all who repent, believe in the Messiah, and persevere in that faith and newness of life to the end. By those, all mortals are taught what conditions let them expect salvation. But they set no singular persons elected or predestinated before others. Christ is their foundation: God would never have deigned to deal with corrupt rebellious man under such terms, or promise eternal life to the believing and repenting, without this new-covenant Mediator in whom all God's promises are Yea and Amen. Yet election's reason is not in them: with life offered promiscuously to all sinners if they believe and repent, unless another decree of pure mercy also came, no one would be saved, because no one would believe.

Cap. IV Arg. 9 Sol: second and third decrees — singular persons and efficacious means; Major false twice§398

398Second: another kind of decrees by which from eternity singular persons are designated in God's mind and will to be led infallibly to salvation. The individuals are not named in Scripture's book, yet they are written in the book of life (Phil. 4:3; Luke 10:20). Of these: God knows his own (2 Tim. 2:19); he calls his sheep by name (John 10:3); I know whom I have chosen (John 13:18). Third: always bound to that person-decree is a decree to gift those singular persons every means of efficacious grace by which they are led to salvation. So Rom. 8:30 — whom he predestinated he called, whom he called he justified — and Eph. 1:3–4. Election before the ages is as it were the measure of all spiritual blessings given in time (faith, holiness, perseverance); not the reverse, as Remonstrants will, foresight faith and perseverance measuring election. These decrees too have Christ for foundation: in him they are elected as members to be united in time to Christ their Head, and through and for him they are imbued with special grace. So the Major is false twice: it makes Christ foundation only of I will save all believers, when he is also foundation of I will give eternal life to Peter, Paul, and each elect — faith, perseverance, grace leading effectively to salvation. And it locates election formally in that universal decree, whereas election puts itself forth in the second decree electing singular persons to life and the third destinating them to efficacious means before others — per the theologians' definition: predestination is preparation of grace now and glory hereafter.

Cap. IV Arg. 9 Sol: Minor — Christ founds more than the general decree; Christianity's true foundations§399

399On the Minor in a word: Christ is foundation of that general decree to save whosoever under the condition of faith — but not of that alone; also of other decrees by which singular persons, given by the Father to Christ before the world's foundations, will in their time be gifted grace and glory. Remonstrants should not bury those later decrees in obstinate silence and stick in the first universal one, unless they think there never was a decree in God's mind to imbue singular persons with efficacious grace and lead them by it to glory. They cry the Major plain because no salvation except in Christ — a frivolous proof. Because no benefit is decreed for us except in Christ, is every Christ-founded salvation-decree therefore our election itself? That coheres like sand without lime. They say the Minor is clear because I will save all Believers founds Christianity, salvation, and certainty. I answer: that general decree alone is not Christianity's foundation. There are others — chief among them that faith, perseverance, and whatever leads infallibly to heaven are special gifts of special grace, not contingent effects from the choice of a man not yet elected, and motives of divine election.

Cap. IV Arg. 9 Sol close: general decree not sufficient certainty; Cap. IV Collocutors' args end§400

400Further: the foundation we assert proves far more that God constituted Christ Savior and Head of those who will be saved than their general one. All who will believe will be saved shows a pact of salvation with the human race for Christ's sake — but it lacks effect unless we fulfill the believing condition, about which that decree constitutes nothing. When we defend that God further decreed for Christ's sake to give grace, faith, and life to all the elect, and from his fullness really pour efficacious saving grace into them, we make Christ Savior and Head of all who share salvation not by bare pact but by the fact itself. Besides, All believers will be saved is not the good-pleasure decree our whole salvation rests on — it is, so to speak, declarative and doctrinal; singular persons' salvation must rest on a practical operating decree of God. It would go miserably with us if all our salvation rested on If you believe you will be saved, with no further good-pleasure decree to give us faith and save us efficaciously. Finally that general decree cannot be any singular person's sufficient certainty of his salvation: it saves no one by its own virtue alone — many will be damned who know and believe all believers and repenting will be saved. Certainty needs another decree's efficacy: that I believe, that I will persevere to the end. Whence that certainty of my faith and perseverance? Not from my contingent free choice — therefore from some immutable divine decree. As to the thing: certainty for this or that singular person rests on a practical decree infallibly decreeing and working that person's salvation. As to our knowledge: certainty rests on some revelation of that decree through the Spirit of adoption and its effects in individuals' hearts — that Spirit witnesses to our spirit that we are those sons of God destined to eternal life, sanctified in this age to be glorified hereafter. In the universal law-form decree Whoever believes will be saved, neither certain salvation of any singular person nor certain knowledge of one's infallibly future salvation can be founded. And these are all the Collocutors' arguments trying to establish election of singular men from the antecedent condition of foresight faith — all taken from Arminius's writings.

Cap. V open + Obj. 1: election is love unto salvation — therefore from foresight of faith§401

401Cap. V. Certain Arminian objections the Collocutors left out are set out and answered. Arminius has further arguments not used at the Hague Conference; we bring those in too and treat them one by one — many from his Examination of Perkinsian Predestination, some elsewhere. Obj. 1. Election is love unto salvation. God cannot love a sinner unto salvation unless reconciled to him. But God is reconciled only to one he looks on as believing in Christ. Therefore God elects no one except from an antecedent intuition of faith.

Cap. V Obj. 1 Sol: election is eternal purpose — love in the electing One, not yet poured out§402

402Sol. Election is the eternal purpose or decree to take certain men, others passed by, to the efficacious infallible attainment of grace and glory — and in that sense it is rightly Love unto salvation: not love already poured out outwardly on the elect, but love still enclosed in the eternal purpose in the electing One himself. So God embraced Paul not yet born, much less converted or believing, with his secret love, having in himself an eternal immutable purpose to impart grace and glory to him. Let the first proposition pass: election is love unto salvation.

Cap. V Obj. 1 Sol: cannot love unless reconciled — slippery and false; loves to gift faith§403

403What they attach — that God cannot so love anyone unto salvation unless reconciled, and cannot be reconciled to anyone except from antecedent foresight of his faith — is very slippery, indeed plainly false. By the love latent in the election decree, God loves one not yet reconciled so far as to appoint him to be reconciled; loves one not yet faithful so far as to decree him gifted with faith — though not as he loves sons already adopted, reconciled, and believing.

Cap. V Obj. 1 Sol: Arminius's own definition — faith prepared in predestination before foresight§404

404Arminius himself, if consistent, could not deny that by this election/predestination love God embraces the elect before all foresight of faith in them. In Public Disputations, Thesis 15 On predestination (p. 153), he defines: it is God's good-pleasure decree in Christ by which from eternity he determined to justify, adopt, and gift eternal life to the faithful whom he decreed to gift with faith. In the Examination of Perkinsian Predestination he grants God does not foreknow men as about to believe before he has predestinated them to believe (p. 32), and adds the strong reason: he foreknew they would believe by his gift, which gift is prepared in predestination (p. 37). Elsewhere he puts a double matter of predestination: divine things (spiritual blessings) and the persons to whom their communication is predestinated. I ask: how does God elect from foresight of faith if in election itself the gift of faith is decreed and prepared for men? It is ridiculous to say he decrees and prepares faith for certain men in election, yet elects them from an antecedent intuition of faith preceding that election — as if he only then decreed the gift of faith to this or that person when he had already seen he would believe.

Cap. V Obj. 1 Sol close: distinct decrees still; love unto salvation prepares faith for not-yet-believers§405

405To dodge the inconvenience Arminius claims there are not one but distinct decrees — I will give life to the faithful, and I will give faith to this one. If distinct, why did he himself put both in his definition of predestination? Let them be distinct (we care little): still, since there is predestination or election of certain persons to faith, that election must precede every intuition of faith in the elect; it must arise from love destinating to these what is not decreed to others. And when God elects singular persons to faith, others passed by, he does not do it unaware that this faith leads infallibly to eternal life — rather he ordained and gifted them that gift unto that end. So love unto salvation puts itself forth toward not-yet-believers by predestinating and preparing the gift of faith whereby they believe and, believing, enter eternal life. Thus this first Arminian objection has no force.

Cap. V Obj. 2: actual gift of eternal life bound to believers — therefore election from foresight faith§406

406Obj. 2. The actual gift of eternal life is no more bound than the will to give it. But the gift itself is bound to the faithful and presupposes antecedent faith. Therefore the will to give eternal life — which is nothing other than election — is likewise bound. So election is from foresight faith. Arminius and almost all who follow him build many arguments from this principle — frail and invalid.

Cap. V Obj. 2 Sol: more required as instruments for external work than as motives for intention§407

407Sol. Sound philosophy teaches that more is needed as prior tools to accomplish an external action than as prior reasons for intending or deciding on that action in the operator's mind and will. Argue parallel: the actual building of a house is no more bound than the will to build it; but building is bound to the prior fitting of timbers and stones; therefore the will is bound to all those as antecedents and is born from foresight of them. An inept conclusion indeed.

Cap. V Obj. 2 Sol: will to build precedes coaptation; eternal life given vs destinated§408

408The craftsman's first will to build was not born from foresight of fitting stones and timbers — the reverse: from the will to build followed that first joining of stones and timbers. Likewise eternal life produced outwardly and conferred on Peter or Paul presupposes many things that eternal life as destinated to them in God's secret will does not prerequire. To destinate to life is an immanent act in God's mind; to give life or lead to life is a work tending outward on the creature. The former is finished by the sole act of the divine will; the latter is not finished without many creaturely actions intervening, prerequired by divine ordination.

Cap. V Obj. 2 Sol close: crass error — God never bound himself Si prius credideris, licebit praedestinare§409

409So it is a serious mistake to think that God's first eternal destinating of a singular person to life is bound by the same laws that bind temporal attainment on the human side. The same God who told man, If you believe, I will give you will be saved — never bound himself: If you first believe, then I may predestinate you to life; otherwise I may not.

Cap. V Obj. 3: as one exists receiving eternal life, so considered — only the faithful predestinated§410

410Obj. 3. As one exists when receiving eternal life, so considered by God he was predestinated to receive it. But only the faithful receives, and no one else. Therefore only the faithful — and as considered faithful — was predestinated to receive eternal life.

Cap. V Obj. 3 Sol: Major ambiguous — reject prior existence-as-faithful; grant foresight of what God will make§411

411Sol. The Major is highly ambiguous. If it means every one predestinated to life already existed in God's intuition, before the predestination decree, as he will be in receiving eternal life — reject it outright. But if it means: when God destinates the elect to life, he at once from eternity looks ahead and sees of what sort he will make them before leading them to life, and contemplates them as such to be brought into possession of eternal life — that is most true, and cannot be denied unless one denies that God foreknows what he himself will do.

Cap. V Obj. 3 Sol: foresight of elects' faith inferred from election — Acts 13:48; Prosper on dignity§412

412Granted that, election is not drawn from antecedent foresight of faith — rather a sure foresight in God of the elects' faith is inferred from antecedent election, according to Acts 13:48: as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. So God rightly foresees as about to believe, before they receive destination decree he ordained to receive it. What Prosper said of charity we also affirm of faith (On Free Will, p. 125): of this so great, ineffable good no one was found worthy; but whoever was elected by God was made worthy. That learned Father, scourge of Pelagians and Semipelagians, did not say: whoever considered and foreseen as endowed with charity or faith was afterward elected — but: whoever was elected by God afterward became partaker of faith and charity.

Cap. V Obj. 3 Sol: preconsidered as to-be-faithful for reception, not as already faithful for destinating§413

413So whoever will receive eternal life was preconsidered by God as about to be faithful — antecedent to receiving eternal life — but not foreseen as already existing faithful — antecedent to destinating eternal life. Likeness: a man of good estate sees a wretched needy infant and at once decrees to adopt him and gift an excellent inheritance, yet not to enter it before puberty and cultivation in letters and manners. Truly that inheritance was destinated to him considered unlearned, uncultivated, an infant; yet the same inheritance was gifted to him considered cultivated, learned, of age — from the adopter's destinating purpose.

Cap. V Obj. 3 Sol close: same pattern in eternal inheritance; Hague Collation already refuted§414

414Think the same pattern in destinating and gifting the eternal inheritance, and the weakness of their argument is plain. I add no more: nearly the same argument, slightly altered, was brought at the Hague Conference and already refuted by us.

Cap. V Obj. 4: if predestination without foresight of faith, then save without satisfaction of justice§415

415Obj. 4. If God predestined some to life without knowledge of their future faith, then he would also will to save them without satisfaction of his justice — loving them more than his own justice. But those are false. Therefore so is what follows from them: that God predestinates anyone before foresight of faith, which applies Christ's satisfaction to particular persons unto salvation.

Cap. V Obj. 4 Sol: eternal will to save ≠ all that concurs in the consummated external act§416

416Sol. I answer: not everything that concurs in the will to save as consummated in the external act also concurs in the eternal will to save enclosed in election's secret purpose. We deny the Major's consequence. God never had a will to save anyone without satisfaction of his justice; yet he had a will to give certain ones to Christ, to give them faith by which that union would be made, and by which, with that faith mediating, he would be efficaciously satisfied for them through Christ's death — all of this antecedent to foresight of faith as already certainly and infallibly existing in them, yet not without foresight, nor by excluding foresight of faith to be infallibly imparted to them from God's grace.

Cap. V Obj. 4 Sol close: they deduce from foresight denied secundum quid, not simply excluded§417

417So they try to deceive us with such arguments: absurdities that follow only if foresight of faith is excluded or simply denied, they deduce from foresight denied secundum quid — that is, denied as an antecedent condition of predestination itself.

Cap. V Obj. 5: predestination without foresight of faith fights the nature and titles of eternal life§418

418Obj. 5. Predestination supposed without foresight of faith fights the nature of eternal life and the titles Scripture gives it: inheritance of sons (but only believers are), wage, reward, crown of justice. Therefore it is destined to no one apart from all consideration and intuition of faith and obedience

Cap. V Obj. 5 Sol: enter life as adopted son; predestination tends on a child of wrath§419

419Sol. Eternal life's nature is such that no one can enter it unless antecedently made actually a son of God by the Spirit of adoption — but not such that no one can be predestinated to it unless already an adopted son. Predestination contains the purpose of assuming into sonship: it tends on a child of wrath, whom by predestinating it makes a vessel of mercy as to purpose; by justifying, sanctifying, glorifying, a vessel of mercy as to act. Antecedent faith (or at least concomitant) is rightly required to constitute a son actually adopted; wrongly required to constitute God's decree about adopting a singular person and destinating the inheritance.

Cap. V Obj. 5 Sol: titles — eternal life a wage of faith; predestination never called a wage§420

420On the titles we reply: Scripture calls eternal life a wage or crown of faith and obedience — never predestination itself a wage or crown of our faith or obedience. Eternal life is that wage because God gifts it as something to be rendered, by promise or stipulation, to believers who live holy lives. Predestination as a benefit is never shown as promised under any condition of faith coming first from us. These objections therefore fail.

Cap. V Obj. 6: without foresight faith Christ is shut out of the election decree§421

421Obj. 6. If election is not from foresight faith, then Christ is shut out of the election decree, and men are predestinated to be saved before Christ is predestinated to save them — for those who do not yet believe are still outside Christ. But Christ was predestinated Savior only of the faithful, joined to him by faith. Therefore predestination is from foresight faith, or Christ (which is impious) is shut out of the election decree.

Cap. V Obj. 6 Sol: Major's consequence wobbles — elect in Christ as members to be united§422

422Sol. The Major's consequence wobbles. The election decree does tend toward a dead man lying in the mass of perdition — yet so that it decrees him life only as considered a member, by God's good pleasure, to be united to Christ and made alive through Christ. In that sense they are elected in Christ who are not yet considered grafted into Christ by faith.

Cap. V Obj. 6 Sol: Christ Head has causal priority — even the destined grafting comes from him§423

423Christ the Church's Head is so joined to all his members that he holds causal priority over all the rest, and every outflow of free good to others comes through and for him — not only after they are grafted into Christ by faith, but so that even the benefit of being destinated to be grafted by faith is fetched from him and conferred on us in him. That Christ was predestinated Savior of the faithful only is true — he leads all the predestinated to salvation only by faith — not because faith is found in all the predestinated before the election decree itself.

Cap. V Obj. 6 Sol close: Arminius's foresight-election puts free will under election, not Christ§424

424Finally: if election were from foresight faith as Arminius philosophizes, the absurdity he tries to pin on us would truly follow. Posit the law Whoever believes will be elected to life — then men not even existing in the divine purpose in Christ, but considered wholly outside Christ, by believing merit or at least by agreement obtain their election. Under that election each one's free choice is laid as foundation rather than Christ, when one descends from a universal law to the actual particular election of men.

Cap. V Obj. 7: without foresight-faith condition the whole Gospel is inverted§425

425Obj. 7. If election is not set from an antecedent condition of foresight faith, the whole Gospel is inverted. The Gospel first commands faith, then under that condition promises salvation — but those who resist Arminius have God first ordaining salvation to a singular person, then faith. The Gospel says, Believe and you will live; their doctrine says, Because I will to give you life, therefore I will to give you faith — the very overturning of the Gospel. So concede election from a foresight-faith condition, or explode Gospel doctrine.

Cap. V Obj. 7 Sol: secret decree Rom. 9 — in God no prior/posterior decrees; order of causes§426

426Sol. I answer: grant that secret decree of God who has mercy on whom he wills and leaves whom he wills to their innate hardness — loving Jacob, hating Esau, before any consideration of their good or evil deeds — and we do not labor even a little over priority and posteriority in the decree of eternal life and efficacious grace as to the predestinated. In God as to the thing, decrees are not prior or posterior to each other; as to our mode of considering and the mutual relation of things, the same decree compared to another can be both prior and posterior by a diverse order of causes. So the decree to give faith is prior in the order of efficient cause to giving life; the decree to give life is prior in the order of final cause to giving faith.

Cap. V Obj. 7 Sol: Biel — end loved before means; faith gift prepared with life destinated§427

427Biel is right: the end is loved before the means loved for the end's sake — love of the end is in some way cause of loving all that is unto the end. Since faith is God's gift bringing eternal life to the believer, who would dare say that gift was prepared and given to Peter or Paul while eternal life was not yet destinated to them? As if God had not destinated the benefit arising from his gift to the one he willed to enrich with that gift before others.

Cap. V Obj. 7 Sol: Gospel not inverted — Quisquis crediderit; elect get constant faith§428

428Nearer then to their reason. We deny that our position inverts the Gospel or holds anything against it. The Gospel says Whoever believes will be saved; we say God from special mercy inspires constant faith in certain ones he has decreed to lead infallibly to life. The Gospel first commands faith, then under that condition promises salvation; we teach God first ordains a singular person to life, then pours faith into that heart. I find no fight or contradiction here. The evangelizing voice tells individuals by what means they may obtain eternal life — it puts means first under a condition and promises attainment to those who use them. But God's electing decree prefixes for certain persons both means and end — end through means, means for the end — and so is said to look to the end first and more principally, because for its infallible attainment such grace is conceived as prepared for that person.

Cap. V Obj. 7 Sol close: Augustine on perseverance; God requires faith then gifts it to the elect§429

429Augustine found no contradiction here — he knew best that Gospel doctrine is Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved, yet taught that to saints predestinated into God's kingdom before the world's foundations this very perseverance was prepared and gifted. Briefly: these two sayings do not fight — God first exacts from us the duties of faith, then promises the benefit of life; and because for his special mercy he elected certain ones to share eternal life's benefit, he therefore wills to give them faith efficaciously so they may fulfill that duty.

Cap. V Obj. 8: none can be saved without faith — therefore election from foresight faith§430

430Obj. 8. Whoever by God's will cannot be saved without faith is not predestinated to be saved without faith. There is no secret will of God adverse to the revealed. The revealed says, I will not save Peter without faith — so there is no secret will decreeing to save that same Peter without faith. Therefore election unto salvation is from foresight faith.

Cap. V Obj. 8 Sol: adults not saved or predestinated without faith — but distinguish praedestinare/servare§431

431Sol. We grant no adult can be saved without faith — so God's will ordained, and he opened that ordination in the Gospel. We also grant no adult is predestinated to be saved without faith. But that can be taken ambiguously and needs distinct explanation. Predestination refers to an internal act within the secret of the divine mind; mind; mind; Saving denotes an external effect wrought in the man. So: no one is predestinated to be saved without considering antecedent faith as a means to producing that external effect — but we deny that no one is predestinated to be saved without considering antecedent faith as a motive for producing that internal act.

Cap. V Obj. 8 Sol: God saves through faith — cause of the willed, not of the willing§432

432God saves through faith, and decrees to save through faith — yet so that faith counts as an antecedent cause or condition not of the decree itself, but of the thing decreed. An effect of the divine will can proceed from a cause God foresaw from eternity and whose order to the caused he willed: that is called a cause of the thing willed, not of the willing.

Cap. V Obj. 8 Sol: revealed will does not make faith a motive of the eternal good pleasure§433

433Nor does our distinction set the secret will against the revealed. The revealed does say, I will not save Peter without faith — namely preceding faith as a means ordained to effect his salvation. It does not say, I will not save Peter without preceding faith as a motive or condition for forming my eternal good pleasure about his salvation. So from the revealed will one cannot rightly deduce that Peter's election unto salvation was made from his antecedent faith.

Cap. V Obj. 8 Sol close: faith and perseverance flow from election — Cap. V Arminian objections end§434

434Indeed from God's revealed word it is rightly deduced that both faith and perseverance in faith depend on a preceding election or ordination unto life. So Acts 13:48 — as many as were ordained to eternal life believed — and Matt. 24:24 — seducers would draw even the elect into apostasy if it were possible. That some believe, and that believers do not spring back from faith, flows from antecedent election — not, as Arminius wants, that foresight of their believing and persevering is what makes their election flow before others. We will not heap more objections from Arminius's writings; these scattered, the rest of the same flour are easy to dissolve. We come at last to set out our defense and strengthen it with arguments.

Cap. VI open: Orthodox position set out — election from mere divine good pleasure§435

435Cap. VI. The orthodox position is set out and confirmed. You have heard the adversaries' arguments for an election they fetch from an antecedent act of the human will. It remains to bring ours forward — showing that election or predestination of singular persons to the infallible attainment of eternal life flows from the mere good pleasure of God's mercy.

Cap. VI: Remonstrants claim grace-only, but foresight faith still makes dignity the discriminator§436

436I am not unaware that Remonstrants everywhere claim the election they defend rests on God's grace and mercy alone, not on any human merits or dignity. But when they revoke the whole elect/those not chosen discrimination to foresight of faith and unbelief, that discrimination an worth and unworthiness... Peter's faith and perseverance have a certain moral dignity; Judas's unbelief and obstinacy a moral undignity. It shines the more because Peter's faith and perseverance are not supposed prepared by some special divine good pleasure or gifted by special munificence — only offered in a sufficient administration of means, as also to those who remained unbelieving — and acquired and kept by Peter through good use of free choice; whence his election followed.

Cap. VI: their questions dissolve by human will; ours ascend to special good pleasure§437

437On their view, ask why these believed and those did not, why these persevered and those did not, why these were predestinated to eternal life and those not — every question dissolves by human choice's willing and not-willing. On ours one must ascend higher: though we attribute unbelievers' wickedness and perdition to human choice, yet believers' faith, perseverance, and destination to eternal life are to be sought from God's special good pleasure and a special operation answering it. No need to dispute curiously whether God first decrees eternal life to the elect then efficacious grace, or the reverse — only to prove that to certain singular persons known to God alone both efficacious grace and glory are predestinated, prepared, and gifted.

Cap. VI thesis vs Remonstrants; Faustus Semipelagian axioms exploded§438

438Remonstrants say and defend that the predestination or election decree falls on no one God has not foreseen and considered as believing and persevering in faith to life's last habit. We say predestination precedes that foresight — so only those are foreseen and considered by God as perseveringly believing whom God by the antecedent purpose of his election decreed to make such and, having made them, to lead to eternal life. We therefore explode Faustus the Semipelagian's axioms, not far from Remonstrant mind: Salvation of men is placed not in the Maker's predestination but in the servant's operation. There was no special divine munificence toward believers. Predestination is not cause of certain goods. Predestination pertains to justice. Unless foreknowledge has explored, predestination decrees nothing. Against all these we set ours: predestination of singular persons to life arises from God's mere good pleasure, not from any foresight operations of the human will — nay, of all good operations leading to eternal life, election's grace is the antecedent cause and fountain, not a following reward or wage. Now to arguments: mere divine good pleasure, not foresight faith on one side and unbelief on the other, makes the first discrimination of elect and passed-by.

Cap. VI Arg. 1: Augustine — praedestinatio is foresight and preparation of God's benefits§439

439First argument: from various definitions of Predestination. Augustine: Predestination is the foresight and preparation of God's benefits, by which whoever are liberated are most certainly liberated. Observe: God foreknows those benefits or grace-gifts by which, applied, he will liberate certain singular elect persons; then prepares them all for them; and at length, as he foresaw and prepared, confers them at the right time. What here does not flow from God's mere good pleasure, preceding every act of the human will? He foresaw in the elect those grace-gifts he himself predestinated and prepared by free benevolence when he elected them in Christ — as Eph. 1:3–4 also openly shows. To cast darkness on pure divine mercy by putting foresight faith as cause or antecedent condition is trifling — faith is one of the chief benefits prepared for the elect in the predestination decree.

Cap. VI Arg. 1: Aquinas, Vasquez — preparation of grace cannot depend on foresight faith§440

440Passing Augustine's definition, hear the Scholastics. Aquinas: Predestination is nothing but preparation of grace now and glory hereafter. As for a man lost in the fallen state, we cannot even suspect that this grace and glory are prepared for him from antecedent consideration of persevering faith in him. It is ridiculous to say God decrees and prepares for a man the grace he first considered as already had and obtained. Elsewhere Aquinas: Predestination is a certain reason of ordering some to eternal salvation existing in the divine mind — and the execution of that order is passively in the predestinated, actively in God. If predestination is an ordination of certain ones to salvation, we must not think some men by persevering faith first ordained to life — nay placed as it were in life's vestibule — before God elects or predestinates them. Hear even the Jesuits, fiercest enemies of our defense. Vasquez: Predestination is God's eternal purpose by which he prepares grace for someone unto eternal life. A purpose preparing grace that leads infallibly to eternal life cannot depend on foresight faith — that faith is the very grace in view — so it must be referred to God's mere will. That clear truth extorted this candid Jesuit confession: discrimination of predestinated from reprobate begins before their consent absolutely foreseen — therefore before foresight faith or any merits, which without human-will consent cannot even be understood.

Cap. VI Arg. 1 close: Arminius's own definition — first ratio from theologians' consensus§441

441Finally hear Arminius himself: Predestination is God's good-pleasure decree in Christ by which from eternity he determined to gift eternal life to the faithful whom he decreed to gift with faith. Predestination involves a double decree: I will give life to all the faithful; and I will give faith to these certain persons. Both depend on God's free pure mercy — neither on foresight faith or any human operation. Vainly then they put a foresight-faith condition before predestination, which all theologians in defining predestination itself acknowledge as free, and the spring of faith and every saving grace. Let this be our first reason — from the common consent of theologians in defining Predestination itself.

Cap. VI Arg. 2: from the nature of special liberating grace — Augustine§442

442Second argument: from the nature of special liberating grace — grace that is in fact saving. As Augustine rightly observed, Predestination is not preparation of just any grace, but of such grace; and such grace, namely that which is in fact saving, is predestination's effect. If this grace in the elects' hearts begets faith rather than finds it, then much more election itself, the cause of giving such grace, must be purely free — depending on no preceding act of the human will, but only on the divine good pleasure.

Cap. VI Arg. 2: 2 Tim. 1:9; Prosper — this grace barred by no evil merits, bought by no good§443

443So Paul: he saved us and called us with a holy calling — not from our works, but from his purpose and grace (2 Tim. 1:9). Prosper (Response to the Gallican Chapters, 8): no evil merits bar this grace, no good ones purchase it. Augustine (On the Grace of Christ, ch. 29): it makes us will, makes us act, makes us believe, and works good wills in men.

Cap. VI Arg. 2: De bono persever. — this grace prevents faith, will, and all our obedience§444

444In a word, as Augustine best puts it (On the Gift of Perseverance, ch. 15): this grace goes before faith, before the will, before all our obedience — and works all these in the one to whom it is given and whom it thus goes before. Add what adversaries will not dare deny: God gives such grace with the intention that it produce all these in the elect and those called according to purpose.

Cap. VI Arg. 2 close: faith-bearing grace given by freest will — so predestination unbound to prior free-choice acts§445

445So this special efficacious grace that brings forth faith and conversion does not prerequire an antecedent condition of our faith — it is given to some and not to others by the freest will of the Giver. Plainly then predestination itself, the cause of such grace prepared and gifted, is not bound to any antecedent acts of human choice, but is constituted in God's free good pleasure — as stated in Rom. 9:15Rom. 9:15Rom. 9:15, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.

Cap. VI Arg. 3: from Scripture authority — affirmative and negative§446

446Third argument: from the authority of Scripture, both yes and no. Scripture everywhere names God's εὐδοκία — his good pleasure — as the cause of our predestination; it never sets foresighted faith down as cause, condition, or antecedent. So we must not shift this ineffable benefit off pure good pleasure onto foresighted faith. So Rom. 9:11 (when they had done nothing good or evil, that God's purpose according to election might stand) and Eph. 1:11 (chosen in him, predestined according to purpose) — and the like.

Cap. VI Arg. 3: no Scripture tip for election from foresight faith — Si credideris, praedestinaberis?§447

447On the other side, adversaries cannot produce so much as one tip of Scripture hinting that men were chosen above others from a foresighted condition of prior faith. If the predestining decree really presupposes believing, and election follows once that condition is met, that bargain must be shown from Holy Scripture — inventing promises outside God's word is sheer temerity. Where then is If you believe, you shall be predestined? Or Whoever believes shall be predestined? There is Whoever believes shall be saved — God requires faith as antecedent to decreed salvation. There is no Whoever believes (or is foreseen to believe) shall be predestined — God does not require faith as antecedent to his decree.

Cap. VI Arg. 3: Hague reply — foresight faith not cause; Davenant — word-catching and merit§448

448The Hague Colloquy speakers answer first: they never call foresighted faith the cause of election, so they do not fight Scripture naming εὐδοκία — good pleasure alone — as cause. They even say outright that why God elects any one person to salvation is not that person's faith, but only good pleasure, grace, mere grace. Word-catching, all of it. Whoever makes persevering faith the condition God requires — at whose sight he always elects, and for whose absence he always passes by — gives faith causal force, even meritorious force, in Augustine's anti-Pelagian sense of merit. So Augustine: who would say that one who has already begun to believe merits nothing from him in whom he believed?

Cap. VI Arg. 3: Prosper, Hilary, Faustus — election-on-faith always meant prior merit§449

449Augustine is not alone: whoever of old hung election to life on a faith-condition thereby admitted prior dignity and merit in the elect. Prosper (Letter to Augustine), on the so-called Pelagian remnants: as far as God goes, eternal life is prepared for all; as far as free choice goes, it is grasped by those who spontaneously believed, and received grace help by the merit of believing. Hilary to Augustine: those who rejected election according to God's purpose and brought in election by foresight of faith and penitence recognized in that faith and conversion the merit and cause of election — by the merit of willing and believing they can be healed, and later, whatever grief arises, they call that the very cause why one is taken and another rejected. Faustus of Riez, careful Semi-Pelagian: as he grounds election in foresighted faith, so he does not hide that it is also from merit — Foreknowledge knows what will be done; predestination then describes the retribution; the one foresees merits, the other preordains rewards. Remonstrants are too clever, and desert their elders, when they have God elect by foresight of faith and still deny that foresighted faith is the cause.

Cap. VI Arg. 3: second Hague reply — God regards faith as medium to life, not condition of election§450

450Second reply: even if Scripture nowhere says in so many words that God elected us on condition we believe, you still cannot conclude he had no regard to faith in electing. We answer: not only is it missing in so many words — there are no equivalent words, nothing from which it can rightly be drawn. We do not deny every regard to faith in electing God. He regards aith he will ingenerate in the elect as the medium by which one reaches life — not as a condition men have already performed or must perform in order to reach election itself.

Cap. VI Arg. 3 close: good pleasure vs foresight faith — Rom. 4:16 not parallel for election§451

451Lastly Remonstrants say we err in opposing good pleasure (mere grace) to foresighted faith — as if electing from mere grace and from foresighted faith were rivals — since Paul, from inheritance being of faith, concludes it is of grace (Rom. 4:16). The cases are not alike. In election, of faith and of mere grace are opposites: that faith is presupposed to election unto first grace, the spring of all saving grace. In entering eternal life they are not contraries: that faith re grace gift, so the life-reward rendered to the believer is grace for grace. God set the race a double path to salvation — Law: Do this and live; Mediator: Believe and be saved — so what comes by faith is rightly called grace, as what comes by Law is from works. Gospel grace singular gift, the legal covenant relaxed, is to save sinners by faith. Remonstrants will never prove God ordained a double mode of predestining — one by works, one by faith. If some were elected for a believing act they performed, and others passed over for omitting it, the split would come not from a special pact of divine grace but from differing human wills. Peter's predestination would then be from Peter's special work, not God's special grace: believing here counts as a work of grace-prevented choice against disbelieving — not as a Gospel-covenant work against the Legal, since no such covenants exist for predestination either way.

Cap. VI Arg. 4: from the difference of divine vocation — Jesuits and Arminians forced to grant it§452

452Fourth argument: from the difference of divine calling — which even Jesuits and Arminians must grant. If God calls some with a peculiar vocation (Paul's vocation according to purpose, Rom. 8:28; Prosper's special vocation; Augustine's vocation that makes a believer, and vocation according to purpose by which God fulfills what he predestined, and hidden grace no hard heart refuses; the Jesuits' congruent and high vocation) — if that calling is of all the elect and of none but the elect, then God clearly predestined them with a will that goes before any foresight of their faith.

Cap. VI Arg. 4: media answer the end — efficacious means given elect before foresight of faith§453

453Means answer the end they are meant to secure. In this vocation God gives the elect — and only the elect — means he knows will be infallibly efficacious, and gives them so that they will be, and that before any foresight of their faith or conversion. That such means are prepared for some from mere good pleasure, not foresighted faith, is plain: faith and penitence follow from such calling as effect from cause. Had the same means been so prepared and given even to the most hardened, they too would have believed and turned.

Cap. VI Arg. 4: Augustine John 6:45 — special vocation implies antecedent will to save§454

454So Augustine on the predestined and the passed-by, from John 6:45 (Everyone who has heard from the Father and learned comes to me): all these God teaches to come to Christ; all these he wills saved and brought to the knowledge of the truth. Had he also willed to teach those for whom the Cross is foolishness to come to Christ, they too would have come. In this special vocation, then, we must grant a special prior will to save those so called.

Cap. VI Arg. 4: Augustine, Arminius, Vorstius — unequal conversion; absolute mercy§455

455Augustine again: when God wills to save outright, no human will resists; when he wills to save only if men will believe, most wills resist — so he wills to save some by absolute good pleasure that goes before and causes their faith, not that presupposes it. That thought drove Arminius to admit God does not work everyone's conversion and salvation equally. But a prudent agent shapes his work from the end he intends. So there was a special will to save some before foresight of their faith — and from it sprang that special calling and working that begot faith in their hearts. Vorstius, weighing the same special vocation, grants that toward some God exercises an extraordinary mercy free of every promise and absolute — and in that sense, He will have mercy on whom he will (Piscator, Reply to the Apology, p. 17).

Cap. VI Arg. 4 close: special vocation of mercy — election ad fidem, not ex fide§456

456Sum: there is a special vocation of mercy given to some — not because they were already counted faithful, but because they were predestined to become faithful. It flows from an antecedent will that infallibly destines them to eternal life. Not everyone has that vocation — only the elect. So election hangs on God's good pleasure, not on human act. So it is unto faith, not from faith. By this calling every predestined will is stirred to believe efficaciously — even if so hostile and fierce that he persecutes believers (Augustine, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.19).

Cap. VI Arg. 5: from election's inseparable help — certainty of causality, not bare science§457

457Fifth argument: from election's necessary assistance — certainty of causality, not bare science

Cap. VI Arg. 5: Matt. 24; Rom. 11:5; Eph. 1:11 — elect salvation certain because God so acts§458

458Hence Matt. 24 (to deceive, if possible, even the elect), Rom. 11:5 (a remnant according to election), and Eph. 1:11 (predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things by the counsel of his will). Quoad God, the elect's salvation is certain: from the election decree he has resolved so to work in their hearts that they are led to faith and penitence, remain in faith and newness of life, and at last die in the Lord.

Cap. VI Arg. 5: Arminian foresight — certainty only from God intuiting, not specially causing§459

459In Arminian predestination, where foresighted faith drags election after it, there is no certainty of salvation from God as special cause — only from God as onlooker. Of Arminius's four decrees describing predestination, none gives any singular person certainty of salvation by an infallibly operating cause; elect salvation stays certain to God only as one who sees.

Cap. VI Arg. 5: Arminius's four decrees — Mediator, believers, means, foresight of users§460

460First: a decree to give a Mediator. Second: to save believers and perseverers for that Mediator's sake. Third: to administer the means needed for faith. Fourth: to save those he foresees will believe and persevere by those means. The first three cause no certainty of salvation for any one person — they are common, and in bare form can as well cover reprobates as elect.

Cap. VI Arg. 5 close: fourth decree only intuits — so election from good pleasure, not foresight faith§461

461The fourth decree alone touches singular persons — and even it gives certainty only as foreseeing knowledge, not as an operating cause: God does not there resolve to produce faith and perseverance in the elect, but only to regard them as already about to believe and persevere. Where salvation is not certain from God specially and infallibly causing, there is not the election Scripture celebrates. So election hangs on mere good pleasure, not foresighted faith.

Cap. VI Arg. 7: from the absurdity — election suspended on human faith yields no fixed elect number§462

462Seventh argument: from the absurdity their view labors under — hanging divine election on a prior act of human faith and perseverance. Then neither the formal nor the material number of the elect would be fixed by any decree of divine good pleasure; that these particular persons are saved, and in this fixed count, would be an accident of contingent human choice — God foreseeing, not preordaining.

Cap. VI Arg. 7: ancient Semi-Pelagians owned the sequitur — Faustus on free choice§463

463The old Semi-Pelagians saw that sequitur and taught it openly as no absurdity. Faustus (On Free Choice 1): a man's state can turn this way or that not by God's constitution but by free choice. And 1.20: what God is to foreknow and preordain about us for the future consists in man's progress or failure.

Cap. VI Arg. 7: Prosper and Hilary — Pelagian remnants reject a fixed elect number§464

464The Pelagian remnants said it more openly still — Prosper and Hilary in their letters to Augustine. Prosper: they will not grant predestination that the elect's number can neither grow nor shrink. Hilary: they will not have a defined number of those to be chosen and rejected.

Cap. VI Arg. 7: Lessius — complete predestination rare in Scripture; hangs on perseverance§465

465Among recent Jesuits, Lessius presses it more openly: Scripture barely mentions complete predestination, he says, because it hangs not on bare good pleasure but on human perseverance. He even teaches that God's intention for the number of the saved was not absolute before foresight of the world's end.

Cap. VI Arg. 7 close: then Peter no more ordained than Judas — fights Eph. 1:4 and Acts 13:48§466

466If so, elect and passed-by would differ only by human operation, not divine — and Peter would be no more ordained by God to eternal life than Judas. Peter would enter the elect number only because he met the universal decree Whoever perseveringly believes shall be saved; Judas failed it and was shut out. Plainly absurd, and at war with Scripture: some elected in Christ before the world's foundation, to be holy and blameless (Eph. 1:4); some gifted with faith before others because before others God from mere mercy ordained them to life — Matt. 11:25-26; Acts 13:48; John 6:37; and throughout.

Cap. VI Arg. 8: no one foreseen persevering to whom God has not yet decreed the gift§467

467Eighth argument: no one was ever foreseen as having persevering faith unless God had already decreed to give that excellent gift. If God has decreed perseverance for Peter, Paul, or any particular person, that one is already elected and ordained to life — for the gift of perseverance itself carries an infallible ordination to eternal life. It is hardly reasonable that God should elect particular persons to life by foresight of his own gift, which he never gives or decrees to give except to those he has already destined to eternal life.

Cap. VI Arg. 8: first — perseverance from God's gift (Jer. 32:40; 2 Thess. 3:3), not bare free choice§468

468Nothing here can be shaken. First: if persevering faith could be foreseen in those to whom God has not yet decreed perseverance, that great good would come from human choice, not God's gift. All Scripture protests — saints' perseverance flows from God's gift: I will put my fear in their heart, that they may not depart from me (Jer. 32:40); Faithful is God, who will establish you and keep you from evil (2 Thess. 3:3). Augustine, following Scripture, taught that the power and will to persevere is given by grace's largess to saints predestined into God's kingdom — and not to others. So Aquinas is right: God's loving will that someone have this good is why he has it before others (ST 1.23.4).

Cap. VI Arg. 8: second — efficacious means only from intention of the end; 1 Pet. 1:5§469

469Second: perseverance is given only to one already elected and destined to eternal life. An agent who knows what means can do never prepares and gives infallibly efficacious means except from purpose and desire of the end. So Peter: by God's power you are kept through faith unto salvation (1 Pet. 1:5). God inspires faith, keeps it from going out, and does so that through faith we may be led to salvation. All to whom he decreed persevering faith had salvation most certain with God.

Cap. VI Arg. 8: Arminians twist the gift — sufficient grace to persevere if they will§470

470This argument badly torments Arminians and Jesuits alike. Arminians dare not openly deny that persevering faith is God's gift — yet they strongly deny that the act by which God gives faith is always efficacious, certain, and invincible. They teach that when God gives men power to reach him, faith is already prepared as a gift if that grace continues. Doubtless they hold the same of perseverance: the 'gift' means only sufficient grace — power to persevere if they will. That kind of gift does not imply prior destination to eternal life; it is 'given' even to those who never had and never will have faith, perseverance, or eternal life.

Cap. VI Arg. 8: gift implies reception — Phil. 1:29; Augustine De corr. et grat.§471

471This coheres neither with itself nor with Scripture. A faith or perseverance God gives to a particular person implies it is had on man's side. Some gifts include the reception itself — without reception they cannot even be understood as given. The good will of the believer and perseverer is such a gift: God never gave it to anyone who did not receive it. The question is not a gift prepared and offered under a contingent condition, but a gift truly and actually given to certain persons. Arminian reading fights Scripture: faith is given to those to whom it is given to believe — not merely to be able to believe (Phil. 1:29). Perseverance is pronounced given not to those who could have persevered and sprang back, but to those so strengthened by God's gift that they actually persevered. Augustine at length (On Rebuke and Grace 11–12): all predestined in Christ receive what Adam did not — help such that they not only can persevere if they will, but will, and in fact persevere.

Cap. VI Arg. 8 close: Vasquez split grace/glory fails — will to give the kingdom causes perseverance§472

472From this gift specially prepared and given to some, we gather eternal life was already destined for them. Vasquez the Jesuit, pressed by this absolute gratuitous predestination of certain persons to faith and perseverance, answers: yes, predestination to grace does not hang on foresighted merits — but election to glory does, and that is the standing view of Scripture and Augustine. In vain he tries to split what Scripture and Augustine join most closely. Scripture knows no election to efficacious grace except what is tied to the will to give glory — which will, in our way of considering, is prior to the will to give efficacious grace, and its cause and rule. Hence we are predestined unto adoption as sons (Eph. 1:5) — destination of glory and the heavenly inheritance, not grace alone. So Christ to the predestined (Luke 12:32): Fear not, little flock, for it pleased your Father to give you the kingdom — the will to give the kingdom as the peculiar cause of the providence that keeps the elect and makes them persevere through dangers. The will to give glory (election to life) is why they persevere before others — not foresighted perseverance why they were elected before others.

Cap. VI Arg. 9: one ratio of predestination — Head and members alike§473

473One ratio of predestination — Head and members, and members among themselves. If Christ's predestination to Mediator and Savior was gratuitous, not from foresight of merits, then much more must ours to the benefit of salvation be gratuitous. And if some of Christ's members were clearly predestined to eternal life with no regard to foresighted faith or perseverance, the same holds for all the rest. Predestination is uniform as to whether conditions are presupposed or not — that is beyond doubt.

Cap. VI Arg. 9: first — Christ the Mediator predestined without prior merits (Augustine)§474

474First limb: how was Christ predestined Savior — by God's gratuitous good pleasure, or by foresight of works? Hear Augustine (On the Predestination of the Saints 15): the brightest light of predestination and grace is the Savior himself, the Mediator, the man Christ Jesus — and by what prior merits of his own, of works or of faith, did the human nature in him earn to be that?

Cap. VI Arg. 9: second — infant elect without foresight faith; Augustine vs Pelagians§475

475Second limb — conformity among the members: many of Christ's members were predestined to eternal life with no prior regard to faith or perseverance. Persevering faith is only considered in those who use reason and free choice; so all who die in infancy and are saved must have been destined to salvation without that regard. Many die at that age whose salvation the Church never doubted. Many, then, were both elect and saved in whom foresight of faith and perseverance could have no place. By elect infants Augustine everywhere stops the Pelagians' mouths — those who grounded predestination to life in predicted merits (On Predestination and Grace 7; On the Gift of Perseverance 8, 12; On Merits and Remission 1.21; Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.7).

Cap. VI Arg. 9: Prosper on infants; Grevinchovius — if eternal life, then election§476

476Prosper agrees (On Free Choice): in infants neither prior nor later devotion is chosen — he means those reborn as soon as born, and snatched from this life into eternal beatitude. Grevinchovius (Disputation on Election from foresighted faith, p. 143), caught by this, finally doubts whether there is any infant election at all. But whoever has eternal life surely has election to eternal life — the glorified do not outnumber the predestined. Whom he predestined, them he glorified, and no others (so Augustine on the Apostle). Sound Prosper: none enter Christ's inheritance but those elected before the world's foundation, predestined and foreknown according to his purpose. If some infants receive the heavenly inheritance, those same are predestined or elect.

Cap. VI Arg. 9 close: Christ and Christian infants not from foresight — nor the rest§477

477Or Grevinchovius meant all infants are saved alike, so there is no infant election. Against that one unsound disputant stands the catholic Church's judgment: all infants are born children of wrath; not all are reborn — only those God dignifies with not owededed grace. Sum: Christ is not predestined from foresight of merits; nor Christian infants. Therefore neither are the remaining Christians — whose election is of one kind and the same ratio with their Head's, and among themselves.

Cap. VI Arg. 10: comparative election and rejection — an inscrutable abyss§478

478In comparative election and rejection of men there is an inscrutable abyss — a secret no human curiosity may pry into. Brought back to the sums of human reason, it would look like injustice: of two wholly equal, one is destined to life by God's gracious good pleasure, the other left.

Cap. VI Arg. 10: Rom. 9 — Jacob and Esau; objection of injustice referred to Rom. 11:33-34§479

479Paul shows it in Rom. 9: after stating Jacob's gratuitous election and Esau's being passed by, he at once thrusts off the objection human reason prompts — that if by such good pleasure one unborn brother is loved and the other hated before either did good or evil, there is injustice with God (v. 14). He solves it by not solving it: he sends it up to the inscrutable height of divine wisdom and judgment (Rom. 11:33-34).

Cap. VI Arg. 10: foresight election empties the secret — Peter and Judas already explained§480

480All the Orthodox in this business of predestination and passing by have owned that secret — and reject predestination from foresighted human acts just because that empties the secret. If Peter was predestined because God foresaw he would believe and persevere, and Judas passed by because foresaw he would die in unbelief, the reason for predestining and not predestining is already out in the open, with nothing secret left.

Cap. VI Arg. 10: Augustine and Prosper — depth of grace not opened by free choice§481

481Far otherwise Augustine (Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.6): why he makes these sheep and not those — who shows no favoritism, is the very question that belongs to that height. And Prosper (On the Calling of the Gentiles 1.23): in vain they try to open the depth of inscrutable grace by free choice, who plant election's cause in the merits of the elect. And in the last chapter: that question's depth, which with the Apostle's wonder we confess unsearchable, is not solved by free choice's willing and refusing.

Cap. VI Arg. 10 close: same against Arminians — no easy ratio of elect and rejected§482

482What Catholics once rightly said against the Semi-Pelagians, we turn on Arminians who ground election in foresight of faith and final perseverance: if so, you have comprehended God's inscrutable judgments. We, believing and showing those judgments incomprehensible, say that from one mass of perdition some are saved by God's goodness and grace, others left by just and hidden judgment (Peter the Deacon, On the Incarnation 7). Reject, then, all who give so easy a short-cut reason of elect and rejected — a reason neither the orthodox Fathers nor the Apostle himself, caught up to the third heaven, could give.

Cap. VI Arg. 11: that doctrine empties election of efficacy toward the elect in the way§483

483That doctrine does not rightly explain predestination or election: it grants the fruit, but no efficacy of election toward directing, keeping, and bringing the elect through to the goal on the way of salvation. Holy Scripture marks a special operation and providence of God flowing from the election decree — freeing the elect from all those evils that would otherwise block their salvation.

Cap. VI Arg. 11: Matt. 24 — for the elect days shortened; God removes every obstacle§484

484So Christ's words in Matt. 24: to lead astray, if possible, even the elect — and for the elect's sake those days will be shortened. The election decree is of that kind: by it God takes on himself to remove every obstacle that would block the elect's salvation, and to procure means that will infallibly produce it.

Cap. VI Arg. 11: Rom. 8:28 — all things work for good for the predestined and called§485

485So also Paul, Rom. 8:28: all things work together for good for those who are predestined and called according to purpose — God's special providence so steering all things that what looks most hostile to their salvation still advances it.

Cap. VI Arg. 11: Arminian foresight election — no operative force left for the way§486

486Weigh by contrast the Arminian invention — election from prior foresight of persevering faith. That sort of election strips election of all operative force for keeping or advancing the elect on the way of salvation. If they are elected to life only by regard to perseverance already kept to the last breath, election gave them nothing toward finishing the course in faith and holiness. They are taken to have overcome every difficulty and reached heaven's very threshold before God predestines them to life. That all the saved pressed on in faith and holiness, aimed straight at the kingdom, and all but entered the gates before they were predestined — or received any special grace by virtue of predestination — is plainly horrendous, intolerable to Christian ears that gladly hear Paul: whom he predestined, he also called; whom he called, he also justified; whom he justified, he also glorified (Rom. 8:30).

Cap. VI Arg. 11 close: Arminian order is Postdestinatio, not Praedestinatio§487

487Even if we had no other argument, this alone would amply shatter that Arminian predestination: it has men predestined to eternal life only once they have already arrived, every difficulty and danger overcome. That is more rightly called Postdestination than Predestination.

Cap. VI Arg. 12: true election decree segregates singular persons§488

488The true election decree segregates singular persons — those God, others passed by, has from special mercy infallibly destined to obtain salvation. The very word elect proves it: under its formal sense one is accepted, the other rejected. But in that Arminian decree — Whoever believes shall obtain eternal life; whoever remains unbelieving shall perish — there is no segregation of singular persons, no passing by or rejection of others, since by it God promises salvation equally to anyone and threatens perdition equally to anyone.

Cap. VI Arg. 12: Hague reply — segregation of believers; Davenant restates the question§489

489The Remonstrants answer at the Hague Colloquy (p. 53): segregation of believers is segregation of singular persons — for believers are singular persons (p. 51). If we mean election reaches certain singulars as singulars, apart from any qualities in them, and especially without regard to faith, they flatly deny election regards singulars that way. Easily answered. We grant believers are singular persons — every act is of singulars. What we deny is that by Whoever believes shall be saved God segregates some singulars unto faith or life, others passed by.

Cap. VI Arg. 12: first — Quisquis decree stands even if none or all believe; Peter = Judas§490

490First: that decree would stand firm even if no one believed and all perished — or if all believed and all were saved. As law or edict it declares by what deeds are done, anyone may come to eternal life, and by what neglected may not. But as a practical segregating decree, no one is set apart or chosen before others, no one passed by. If Judas believes and perseveres, by it he is saved; if Peter does not, by the same he is damned. Nothing is decreed for Peter not under the same condition for Judas; nothing denied Judas not under the same for Peter. Cling to that decree on equal law, and all are destined to salvation and all excluded from it. So there is no segregation of singulars, no election with others passed by.

Cap. VI Arg. 12: second — separation follows Peter's act, not God's segregating decree§491

491Second: we grant that by that decree's tenor Peter is to be set apart to eternal life once he has persevered in faith — but that separation follows from Peter's own consequent contingent act, not from a segregating decree of God. By his act he was set apart to salvation after he was foreseen to have believed and persevered; by the decree itself he was not singularly segregated unto faith or salvation. Like case: if a king enacts Whoever scales the besieged city's walls shall be knighted; whoever turns his back shall die — those who climb and those who flee are singular persons; yet the king is not said to have elected certain singulars to knighthood and passed others by, but to have conferred it on singulars and destined that dignity equally to all — to be won if they behave well, lost if not. Arminian election is of that kind throughout, and so includes no true real separation of singular persons.

Cap. VI Arg. 12: third — singulars as singularly loved; Aquinas on election and dilection§492

492Third: to their denial that election reaches singulars as singulars, we reply we do not claim the decree regards singulars merely as singulars, but as singularly loved by God from mere gratuitous goodwill. So Aquinas (ST 1.23.4): predestination of some to eternal salvation presupposes that God wills their salvation. That involves dilection and election — dilection insofar as he wills them the good of eternal salvation; election insofar as he wills that good to some before others. And dilection is presupposed to election.

Cap. VI Arg. 12 close: faith in election as effect prepared, not presupposed cause§493

493Finally, they say election does not reach singulars apart from foresighted faith in them. We grant election never happens without regard to good qualities — faith and holiness — but as prepared and to be given to all the elect by virtue of election. They are not presupposed to the election decree as causes, conditions, or occasions of election itself, as Arminians claim. Predestination does regard what is on our side — our faith and obedience — not as what bends God's will to will, but as that for whose production the divine will ordained grace. Any good quality or work considered in men is not the reason of predestination but its end (so Aquinas on Rom. 8). Be considered in election, then — as effect, not as reason or condition of election.

Cap. VI Arg. 13: last — foresight election overturns pure grace§494

494Last argument: we must not bring in an election that overturns pure grace and reduces the split between elect and rejected to the good use of free choice. But election from foresighted faith — and non-election from foresighted unbelief — does exactly that.

Cap. VI Arg. 13: major — Augustine: true grace needs absolute predestination (De bono persever. 2)§495

495The major is so clear adversaries are ashamed to say outright that this special election-grace hangs on anything but God's mere sole good pleasure. Augustine wisely weighs it (On the Gift of Perseverance 2): such free grace cannot stand unless absolute predestination stands with it — not hung on prior acts of human choice. Predestination must be preached, he says, so true grace (not given according to our merits) can be defended by impregnable walls. He means not Arminian predestination from foresight of human faith and perseverance, but Pauline — which prepares faith and perseverance for the elect from eternity and gives them in due time. Without that predestination, which Augustine defends through the whole book, he judged true grace cannot be defended.

Cap. VI Arg. 13: sounder scholastics — willing to receive grace is from predestination§496

496Even the more reliable scholastics, who usually overemphasize free choice, dare not reduce the split between elect and passed-by to good or bad use of free choice in embracing or rejecting grace. So Aquinas (Disputed Questions on Predestination, art. 2): this very willing to receive grace is from divine predestination. And Durandus (p. 250): every good done by someone, or that helps him reach the supernatural end — whether as cause or occasion — falls under predestination's effect.

Cap. VI Arg. 13: minor first — eternal favor given or denied by prior free-choice use§497

497Now the minor. This election and passing by from foresighted faith and unbelief, we say, hangs God's grace on the merit of the human will. First: grace of God most properly is that favor — eternal benevolence — by which he wills to confer eternal life on this singular person. But that love or favor, the first gift in which all others are given, the Remonstrants have given or denied as men first used free choice well or ill in admitting or rejecting the sufficient grace they say is offered to all. That is as much as to say: God began to love a man unto eternal life because the man's free choice applied itself to grace.

Cap. VI Arg. 13: minor second — why faith in Peter not Judas? special free-choice act§498

498Second: grace of God also means those supernatural gifts by which the Holy Spirit imbues, reshapes, and vivifies our souls — faith, charity, and the rest given to all the regenerate. On Arminius's view that grace too is given or withheld by the diverse merits of human wills. If election follows foresighted faith, why was that faith foresighted in Peter rather than Judas? They cannot claim special grace prepared for Peter in predestination caused him to believe — they explode that predestination and set faith prior to it. So they must fall back on a special free-choice act in Peter, specially fitting itself to means God supplied no less to Judas than to Peter for generating faith. What is that but to grant that admonishing or moving grace is offered from mere mercy to all alike, while vivifying grace of the will is conferred by each one's diverse merits in accepting or rejecting that prior grace?

Cap. VI Arg. 13: Pelagius's grace vs Augustine's — Miserebor cuius misertus fuero§499

499Arminius's disciples deny it — but whether they will or not, once predestination from foresight of faith is fixed, they can admit no grace but what Pelagius at last admitted; they cannot own what Augustine everywhere presses him to confess. What grace did Pelagius grant? God works in us to will the good and the holy while he kindles us by future glory and promised rewards, raises the stunned will by wisdom's revelation into desire of God, and advises us of every good. Those are the very means by whose administration Arminius has God watching who will believe and who will not — electing those he foresees will use them well, passing by those he foresees will abuse them. Augustine: We do not want that grace. Let Pelagius confess the grace by which future glory is not only promised but believed and hoped; wisdom not only revealed but loved; every good not only advised but persuaded. That grace which pours in faith, hope, and charity, and makes us do — Catholics held it is not given from merit, not from prior good use of free choice, but from God's mere mercy. So at Diospolis Pelagius is ordered to confess grace is not given according to our merits — reason: that it may be true grace, freely given through the mercy of him who said, I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I WILL HAVE MERCY.

Cap. VI Arg. 13 close: two impieties — explode foresight election; good use is benefit, not mover§500

500In a word: this view — electing singular persons to life from their foresighted faith — involves two things most hostile to grace: that God's first love destining them to life arises from the good use of grace-prevented free choice; and that faith itself is not infused into certain persons by a special gift, but conceived in them by a special good act of free choice. All the orthodox must explode it. On the contrary: the good use of grace God foreknew was not the cause that moved him to elect these before others — it was rather a special benefit of election.

Cap. VII open: De Reprobatione — prolegomena; two rocks to avoid§501

501Cap. VII — some prolegomena on Reprobation, with the Arminian view. Preliminaries tasted, I turn next to the other half of the dispute: passing by, non-election, or Reprobation of those God has not dignified with that excellent special mercy that infallibly leads to life. Here and everywhere Paul's word must hold (Rom. 12:3): not to think beyond what one ought. Idle curiosity will always find as much to learn as it cares to ask (so Tertullian wisely, On the Soul, at the end). In treating this matter, two rocks must be fled with all caution.

Cap. VII: first rock — creating some to destroy; Prosper and Hos. 13:9§502

502First rock: striking divine Goodness — those who teach God by absolute primary will, before any regard to sin, created some in order to destroy them, and that from that destroying will flows whatever God does about the those not chosen. With Prosper we rather say: one cause for being born, another is the Creator's benefit; perishing is the transgressor's desert. God does create those he foresaw would never share eternal life; those he decreed to use free choice with no special grace undergirding it; those he decreed most justly to subject to damnation for sins. Yet that perdition or damnation is not creation's end but transgression's wage — so Hosea may always stand: Your destruction is from you (Hos. 13:9).

Cap. VII: reprobation decree not thrust into all acts — common love; Rom. 2:4-5§503

503Further: that deep secret decree of non-election or reprobation must not be awkwardly stuffed into every act of God, as if with the those not chosen he did nothing except from that decree. Though he would not cree their infallible leading to eternal life, and willed to destine them to ruin with their sin intervening, yet while they live on earth — especially within the Church's pale — in giving bodily and spiritual benefits that by nature tend to salvation, he does much with them from common love or φιλανθρωπία toward the whole human race, and much from the covenant by which he lavishes certain supernatural benefits on all members of the visible Church. In the event those gifts become noxious to the reprobate — yet one must not say God by the reprobation decree intends abuse of his gifts, and hostilely supplies them to the those not chosen so that abusing them they may be punished and destroyed. Rather s much with the those not chosen from that overflowing kindness that spreads to all, though not in equal measure (Rom. 2:4-5 — or do you despise the riches of his goodness and patience, not knowing God's kindness leads you to repentance? But by your hardness you treasure up wrath).

Cap. VII: opposite rock — defending goodness so special mercy in election is crushed§504

504Opposite rock: some carefully dodge the first, then hit another no less deadly. Explaining the reprobation decree, they so defend God's goodness that in the opposite election decree they crush special mercy flowing from gratuitous good pleasure. As if Rom. 9:18 — I will have mercy on whom I will — meant I will have mercy on him I know just, whose ready faith I see, whom I see obey my precepts (so Faustus the Semi-Pelagian exposits, or rather corrupts, On Free Choice 1.3). What the poet sang of Jupiter — King Jupiter the same to all — they affirm of the true God: he wills eternal life equally to all; with sufficient means administered, he elects to glory those he foresees will use them well, and passes by those he foresees will abuse them. So electing shows no special mercy, reprobating no liberty of divine will, and in why this one is elect and that passed by no height remains — the split is recalled to human wills' liberty. Spalato rightly grants that holders of predestination and reprobation from foresight must put grace's efficacy in man's will, and admit means to salvation as prepared by God for all, yet not as predestined to any (Ecclesiastical Republic 7.11.198).

Cap. VII: our sense — negative reprobation from freest will; Episcopius on not-willing the highest good§505

505But as we taught that election's benefit hangs on God's gratuitous good pleasure, not on some prior good act of man, so the negation of that benefit — which we call non-election, passing by, or negative reprobation — we fetch from the same freest will of God, acting according to his own will. Episcopius, often worst in philosophy, here not badly (Theses, Disp. 22 on Justification, th. 3): it is one thing not to will to punish; another to will to affect someone with the highest good. By parity we say: it is one thing to will to punish someone; another not to will to affect someone with the highest good.

Cap. VII close (open): punishment presupposes fault; negative reprobation denies unowed benefit§506

506The will to punish in God cannot be considered without prior regard to the sin of the one to be punished, as demeritorious cause. But the will to pass by — or nolition, so to speak, of predestinating — can be considered without prior regard to the those not chosen person's sin. Why the difference? Punishment is an act of vindicative es a fault worthy of vengeance. Non-election or negative reprobation is not a punishment, but denial of a gratuitous benefit God owes no one — and so by its nature hardly requires an antecedent fault.

Cap. VII: Junius — reprobationis vocabulum trifariam sumitur§507

507Note here: among theologians the word reprobation is taken three ways, as the learned Junius rightly observed. First: for passing by and damnation jointly. In that sense people are called reprobate not only because God decreed to deny them efficacious grace and so permit them to fall short of beatitude's end, but also because he destined them to eternal punishments.

Cap. VII: first sense — antecedents of predamnation are not always antecedents of praeterition§508

508Those who under one word of reprobating join both divine acts — passing by and damning — can hardly affirm anything certain about reprobation. What precedes the act of predamning is not always what precedes the act of passing by: what serves as a cause for predamnation does not at once have the nature of a moving cause or demerit causing toward praeterition.

Cap. VII: second and third senses — damnation alone; strict praeterition as non-election§509

509Second sense: some take reprobation for the damnation decree alone — to be reprobated is nothing but to be destined to eternal torments. Those who put only that in the word are right to set sin as cause of such destination; they slip in acknowledging nothing higher in the decree of election and rejection. Third sense: reprobation as contradictorily opposite to election is taken for praeterition or non-election alone — an eternal ordination in the divine mind to deny certain persons efficacious grace that in fact leads to glory. That reprobation can be understood without prior regard to the rejected's sins as moving causes of the passing by. Once such praeterition is presupposed, then at last men are foreseen as about to die in sin and be tormented for sin. From eternity God willed to addict these passed-by those not chosen to eternal torments — not because passed by, but because evil He did not will to punish them in the first instant of reason in which he refused to glorify, but in that other in which he considered them sinners never to be freed from their sins.

Cap. VII: our sum — praeterition from mere liberty; Paul and Judas§510

510Our sum: foresight of demerits is not the cause of praeterition, non-election, or reprobation strictly taken. As it hangs on mere good pleasure that certain persons by that special providence we call Predestination are infallibly ordained to grace and glory, so it hangs on mere divine liberty that others are not so ordained, but left without this efficacious grace and permitted to fall short of glory. If anyone asks why God could most easily and justly leave both Paul and Judas to native hardness and eternal misery — and could as easily soften both and lead them to eternal glory — why he prepared efficacious softening grace for Paul and not Judas, ordained Paul infallibly to glory and not Judas: we do not flee to Paul's foresighted faith or merits, nor Judas's foresighted unbelief or demerits. We say God has mercy on whom he will by softening, and on whom he will he has least mercy by permissive hardening. For providence so diverse about these persons we assign no cause but the Will of God, which is the first rectitude. So you have our opinion.

Cap. VII: opposing sententiae — Jesuits on foresight sins; Arminians on final unbelief§511

511Those against us hold the contrary: the cause of non-election or reprobation is the sins in which the reprobate are foreseen as about to die. This is the view of certain Jesuits. Others say foresighted unbelief with final perseverance in it is the cause, so that no one is considered by God reprobate or those not chosen except in the very article of death, and that for this contumacious unbelief against God. That is Arminius's view, and of those usually called Remonstrants.

Cap. VII close: same foundations — refute mixed, then confirm ours; Cap. VIII ahead§512

512Now let us hear by what arguments they prop this view — those who fetch reprobation or praeterition from foresighted demerits, or from unbelief and final perseverance in it. No need to split Jesuit and Arminian arguments carefully: they rest on plainly the same foundations. As they met us in reading, we will set them out mixed. Once refuted, we will turn to confirming our own opinion.

Cap. VIII open: adversaries' arguments proposed and solved§513

513Chapter VIII — the adversaries' arguments proposed and solved. We turn now to their arguments: they contend that the sins with which the reprobate are foresighted as about to leave life were the meritorious and moving cause of divine reprobation.

Cap. VIII: prefatory — not the will to damn, but the eternal denial of efficacious grace§514

514Before their reasons are brought forward, this must be prefaced: we are not asking about reprobation as some theologians mean the will to damn or torment the reprobate — that will of God always regards sin as meritorious cause of decreed punishment, beyond dispute. We ask about reprobation as that absolute eternal decree by which from eternity God denied Cain and Judas efficacious grace he could have prepared and given them, had he so willed

Cap. VIII: those denied such grace are passed by — demerit concomitant, not cause of praeterition§515

515Those to whom God in his eternal decree denied such grace and the same ordination to glory, he did not elect but passed by — and, as theologians speak, reprobated. Add this: we do not deny that in all on whom divine reprobation falls there is found concomitant demerit adhering to the subject. What we deny is that that praeterition or non-election we call negative reprobation flowed from regard to that demerit. God sees original demerit in elect and reprobate alike — yet not by discrimination of cause, but by his good pleasure, he wills to elect Jacob, and wills not to elect but to reprobate Esau.

Cap. VIII: actual demerits foresight as consequent, not antecedent, to praeterition§516

516As for actual demerits from final perseverance in sins or unbelief: yes, these too are foresighted as future in all the reprobate — but as future concomitantly or consequently, not causally or antecedently to the divine act of praeterition. God would not foresee Cain or Judas dying in their wickedness and unbelief unless his prior will not to grant them special grace — by which they would be softened and turned to faith and penitence — were presupposed. That denial is plain proof of non-election or reprobation. Who would so impiously dote as to say God cannot turn evil human wills to good when, where, and as he wills? So Augustine rightly (Enchiridion 98). But let us hear the arguments.

Cap. VIII Arg. 1: Scripture — God does not will that men perish§517

517First they try to prove reprobation flows from foresighted human demerits from those Scripture places where God is said not to will that men perish — which would hardly be true, they say, if God by his will alone, and not for sins, reprobated so great a multitude. They cite Ezek. 18:23 (Is the death of the wicked of my will?), Hos. 13:9 (Your destruction is from you), 1 Tim. 2:4 (God wills all to be saved), Matt. 11:28 (Come to me, all), and many like places — no need to repeat or discuss them one by one.

Cap. VIII Arg. 1 Resp.: simple complacence vs predestinating will; non-election is not willing to destroy§518

518If adversaries mean that God, foresight of human demerits set aside, wills salvation equally to all, we deny the cited places prove that. They do prove that by his simple will of complacency God wills that all believe and repent, that none perish or be damned. They do not prove that by predestinating will he wills equally, before foresight of demerits, to work in all so they believe and repent, and not perish or be damned — nor that by reprobating will he has not decreed to deny some efficacious grace and infallible ordination to glory. Those two can stand together: God wills that all believe and none perish (simple complacence); and God wills to permit some to persist in voluntary unbelief and fall short of eternal salvation. Adversaries err in taking not-to-elect (or to reprobate) as equipollent with willing to destroy or inflict eternal death. Non-election or praeterition can fall on an intact creature — plain in the angels — but the will to destroy or afflict with eternal death can fall only on a vitiated creature: non-election is mere denial of a gratuitous benefit; death or perdition is sin's wage. True: all the those not chosen will infallibly rush into eternal death, and from eternity ges them to it — but that deputing to death is not conceived in the same sign of reason as non-election, but in a later one where final perseverance in sin is foresighted. That God wills none to perish without prior regard to demerits does not entail that he wills none to pass by or not-elect without that same prior regard.

Cap. VIII Arg. 1 Resp. coda (Vasquez): reprobates excluded from God himself without occasion from demerits§519

519Vasquez the Jesuit — no great friend of our defense — still sides with us here. By that peculiar efficacious grace proper to the predestined, he says, God without doubt excluded all the reprobate from himself by antecedent will, seizing no occasion at all from them. Denial of that grace wholly precedes our liberty. For us that is as good as saying: God from himself, by antecedent will, with no occasion taken from their demerits, passed by or reprobated all the reprobate.

Cap. VIII Arg. 2: Rom. 9 — reprobation called hatred of Esau§520

520Second, they try to prove foresighted demerits are the cause of reprobation — oddly enough — from Paul's own debate in Romans 9, where we take him to establish the opposite. First: the Apostle calls this reprobation hatred — Esau I hated — and God hates no one except for sin.

Cap. VIII Arg. 2 Resp.: Paul removes good and evil acts; Augustine Contra 2 Epist. Pelag.§521

521First reply: their argument strikes straight against Paul's mind and plain words. In this place he teaches that election and rejection of particular persons do not hang on diverse or contrary human acts, but on God's diverse good pleasure — willing to have mercy on one, not on another. For that cause he removes not only their good acts but their evil ones: when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or evil. As for those who claim God regarded not works done but works he foresaw they would do — and so loved Jacob and hated Esau — since they are sharper than the Apostle himself, who could not invent that answer, I will not refute them; let them enjoy their dream. Only this: hear Augustine patiently. Irritated by that inept escape he broke out: You are truly misguided who, when truth says NOT OF WORKS BUT OF HIM THAT CALLS, say Jacob was loved from future works God foresaw he would do (Against two Letters of the Pelagians 2.7).

Cap. VIII Arg. 2 Resp.: demerit frees from cruelty charge, not motive of Jacob/Esau discrimination§522

522Note also: we gladly grant that in the reprobate subject there resides that contagion and unworthiness which can free the reprobating God not only from cruelty and injustice, but even from the lightest suspicion of them. Whoever is denied this special mercy had no right that such grace be prepared or conferred. What is owed by no reason is reasonably denied — so Thomas. Add that he not only has no right to such a benefit, but by inborn vice is as it were proximately disposed to receive God's vengeance (Augustine, Against two Letters of the Pelagians 2.7). The state of the whole human race as presented to God electing and passing by is a state of sin, death, and merited damnation. But since that state is common to all and wraps Jacob as much as Esau, it can stand as a congruent reason why God may justly leave both — not as the moving cause why he rejected Esau while electing Jacob, who stood in the same condition. Hence Dionysius the Carthusian calls it intolerable that foresight of demerits be named the reason of reprobation.

Cap. VIII Arg. 2 Resp.: twofold hate — vengeance vs less love; Vasquez; Leah§523

523Lastly — and this breaks the nerve of the argument — God may be said to have hated Esau in two respects. First, hated unto vengeance and the punishment of eternal death: so he hates Esau only as a sinner, and for sin itself as moving and demeritorious cause. Second, hated unto denial of some special not owededed benefit — that is, loved less: so he can hate Esau only because he does not will to love him. In that latter sense the Apostle says God loved Jacob and hated Esau: by the freest purpose of his will he chose to soften Jacob by special grace, and refused Esau that great benefit. Why choose Jacob for that grace and not Esau? Because God so willed. Why so will? A foolish question — you seek a cause of the divine will in preparing and distributing gratuitous goods beyond the will itself. That hatred here means mere denial of special love in conferring a special benefit, even the Jesuits grant. Vasquez on these very words: to hate is the same as to have loved less. He acts like one who hates who gives a gift to one and withholds it from another. Such hatred needs no sin as its cause. So Jacob is said to have hated Leah (Gen. 29:31).

Cap. VIII Arg. 3: hardening (Rom. 9) said to presuppose sins as motive of reprobation§524

524Third: the Apostle styles reprobation thus — He has mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardens. But the will to harden presupposes the reprobate's sins in which he is hardened. Therefore the sins with which the reprobate leave this life are the moving or meritorious cause of their reprobation.

Cap. VIII Arg. 3 Resp.: hardening is nolle misereri; foresight of final persistence not its cause§525

525We answer: the will to harden Paul names there designates a peculiar act of the divine will by which he denies certain persons that singular grace by which their hearts would be softened. God, as Augustine truly says, does not harden by imparting malice, but by not imparting mercy — as the setting sun, drawing back its rays, is said to darken the air not by an influx that begets darkness, but by denying the influx whose presence would remove the dark. Since this hardening is done by permitting and denying special mercy, no one can be considered and foresighted by God as finally hardened in sin and dying unless the decree of that permissive hardening — or that denial of special mercy — precedes, by which God knows final remaining in sin would be blocked if the mercy were granted. So the argument's assumption — that this hardening will (which is reprobation) presupposes the reprobate's sins as cause of that reprobation or hardening — is not only false but alien to reason and common sense. Cause precedes effect: yet the reprobate's final remaining in sin follows the decree of not-having-mercy or of hardening. If God has mercy, man is not hardened; that special mercy's work is to soften. So Augustine: If God willed to have mercy on them, he could so call (as apt for them) that they would be moved, understand, and follow. A little later: God has mercy on no one in vain. At length: God's hardening is nothing but not willing to have mercy — namely by withholding the grace that infallibly and efficaciously softens and converts. Since no final obstinacy in contracted or committed sins can be supposed unless God's will not to soften precedes it, foresighted perseverance of the reprobate in their sins cannot be the cause of that denied mercy or softening. True: in daily life the reprobate, by quenching the light God kindles in their hearts, repelling divine motions, and basely obeying foul lusts, merit consequent blinding, desertion, and handing over to a reprobate mind. But under all that stands the divine permission — or denial of special grace — which may be called permissive hardening and flows from reprobation. Without that going before, and depending on God's freest will, the reprobate would not have fallen into that final contumacy, but by special not owededed mercy would have been freed from that rebellion and hardness.

Cap. VIII Arg. 4: will to show wrath (Rom. 9:22) said to presuppose sins as cause of reprobation§526

526Fourth: the Apostle says that when God reprobates he wills to show wrath and vengeance (Rom. 9:22). But the will to inflict vengeance presupposes that God regards a man as bound by sins. Therefore the sins by which the reprobate die bound are the cause of reprobation.

Cap. VIII Arg. 4 Resp.: negative reprobation not for damning; Cajetan; riches of mercy (Rom. 9:23)§527

527If we speak of that negative reprobation by which God firmly decreed of some particular person — say Cain or Judas — not so far to have mercy as to will to draw him efficaciously out of sin and misery, and at the same time decreed to permit his final hardening in sin: I deny God does this to fulfill a purpose of vengeance or damnation. Cajetan puts it well on Aquinas I, q. 23 a. 5: God does not permit sins in order to punish, but permits and punishes for the shining forth of his justice. Paul himself in the cited place shows that God denies this special mercy to some, thereby permitting them to be hardened — wherein negative reprobation consists — not with primary intent to damn those thus passed by, but to manifest the riches of his mercy toward the elect (Rom. 9:23). Only then do the elect see they were saved by pure mere mercy: when it is plain that the calling according to purpose granted them by gratuitous good pleasure was denied to others; that they were no better than those passed by as to corrupt nature, in which special mercy found them; and that they would have been no less hardened than the reprobate unless mere divine favor had softened them by that special grace.

Cap. VIII Arg. 4 Resp.: will to punish follows foresight final perseverance — not cause of negative reprobation§528

528True: God wills to show wrath and vengeance on all the reprobate. But that will to inflict vengeance is not immediately joined to the negative reprobation or non-election we are disputing. It arises from foresighted intervention of final perseverance in sin — a state of all the reprobate foresighted by God as infallibly future as an event consequent on negative reprobation, not as an antecedent cause. So the argument is weak: God in reprobating also wills to punish them; therefore foresighted sin is the cause of negative reprobation.

Cap. VIII Arg. 5: Jewish unbelief (Rom. 9:32; 11:19-20) said to be cause of reprobation§529

529Fifth: from the same Apostle they try to prove remaining in unbelief is the cause of reprobation, since he casts the Jews' reprobation back on their unbelief as cause (Rom. 9:31-32): Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, did not arrive at it — Why? Because not of faith. Confirmed by Rom. 11:19-20: The branches were broken off that I might be grafted in — Well: because of unbelief they were broken off; but you stand by faith. Sum: the Jews were reprobated for final perseverance in unbelief; therefore that perseverance is the cause of divine reprobation.

Cap. VIII Arg. 5 Resp.: Rom. 9 explains failure to attain justice, not eternal reprobation; Estius§530

530To the first witness from Romans 9: Paul is not giving the reason why the Jews were reprobated, but why they failed to attain true righteousness before God — however keen they seemed as pursuers of righteousness. That happened, he says, because they sought righteousness in their works and exact law-keeping, despising justification by faith; justification from works of the law is plainly impossible for a man weakened and corrupted by sin, and every sinner must flee to faith to be justified before God. Not only our theologians follow this reading, but among the Romanists William Estius of Douai expressly does so on this very place: Know that here no reason is given why the Jews were reprobated, but why they did not attain righteousness. So this first testimony is plainly off the point.

Cap. VIII Arg. 5 Resp.: Rom. 11 concerns visible grafting of peoples, not eternal election of persons§531

531Nor does the confirming text from Romans 11 help. Paul is not speaking of particular elect persons but of the whole body of Jews and Gentiles taken indefinitely. He is not teaching that some singular man is cut off for unbelief and struck from the number of the elect, then grafted back by recovered faith as by postliminium. He says only that the Jews in general, by unbelief, ceased to be God's covenant people, and that the Gentiles, embracing the gospel faith, succeeded into their place. To strip the Gentiles of every occasion for pride, he adds: if the Jews believe in Christ and stop persisting in unbelief, they are to be grafted in — admitted to the covenant people; and if the Gentiles who now rejoice as Church and people of God spring back from Christ's faith, they too will be broken off and cut from the Church's body. That threat has taken effect in many Gentiles who defected from Christ's faith to Mahometan superstition and stand torn from the covenant body. How does any of this prove that eternal reprobation of particular persons flowed from regard to their future unbelief as moving cause? It proves nothing. Paul discusses visible grafting and breaking of peoples, not eternal election and reprobation of individuals. That grafting and breaking denotes temporal admission or rejection of a nation from covenant status — one by faith, the other by unbelief. Sound theology abhors making reprobates into elect or elect into reprobates; yet Paul expressly teaches that those grafted of whom he speaks can be broken off, and those broken off grafted again.

Cap. VIII Arg. 5 Resp.: remnant according to election (Rom. 11:5, 7); reprobates left to their hardness§532

532Add this: when a nation — say the Jews — is broken off from the Church's body for unbelief, still none of the elect is broken off. By the same Apostle, a remnant according to the election of grace is saved (Rom. 11:5, 7). That some are not broken off while others of the same nation spring back and perish happens not because these were elected from foresighted faith, but because faith was given to these elect from God's eternal good pleasure, and a reservation according to election was made (Rom. 11:5). So too, that some are broken off by their unbelief and perish does not prove God from eternity reprobated them for foresighted unbelief. It proves that these reprobate, left to their hardness, brought forth unbelief — the genuine child of an hardened heart — and through it, broken from the Church's body, perished by their own desert.

Cap. VIII Arg. 6: Fathers and Augustine — reprobates must acknowledge justice for their sins§533

533Sixth: the reprobate are warned always to acknowledge in their reprobation the divine justice by which, for their own sins, they were deservedly reprobated. Therefore, say adversaries, they are reprobated from foresight of the demerits in which they are foresighted as finishing this life. Many Father-testimonies are brought, especially Augustine: On the Good of Perseverance 6 — By his own will each deserts God, that he may deservedly be deserted by God. On Grace and Free Will 21 — When you read in Scripture that men's hearts are hardened, do not doubt their evil deserts went before, that they might justly suffer it. Again, chapter 23 — When you hear the Lord say He has mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardens, in him whom God permits to be hardened believe his evil deserts; in him on whom God has mercy, acknowledge without doubt the grace that returns goods for evils. Most openly in Epistle 105: We seek the merit of hardening, and we find it. By desert of sin the universal mass is damned; those to whom God does not impart mercy merit that it not be imparted. From many such passages in Augustine and other Fathers, adversaries conclude that foresighted demerits with final lasting in them were the moving cause of divine reprobation.

Cap. VIII Arg. 6 Resp.: negative (Scotus permissive) vs punitive reprobation — if the latter, we grant§534

534To clear all this, recall first: we are treating the reprobation theologians call negative — which Scotus calls permissive (Sentences 1, dist. 41, q. 1) — not the positive or punitive kind. Negative reprobation, so taken, means only God's eternal purpose not to grant certain particular persons some gratuitous, not owededed, special benefit by which, if granted, they would be softened, converted, and infallibly led to eternal life. Positive reprobation means God's eternal purpose to punish certain persons with eternal death for the sins they will commit, and from which they are foresighted as not to be freed. If adversaries mean that latter decree, we freely grant: the eternal decree of predamnation tends to no one except as bound by sin's guilt. God wills to save the miserable without their merits, because he is good; he does not will to damn or punish innocents without demerits, because he is just.

Cap. VIII Arg. 6 Resp.: Augustine's just judgment refers to original demerit as adjunct, not motive§535

535Second: when Augustine says that in reprobation, we ought to acknowledge God's just judgment, that refers not to foresighted actual sins of individuals, but to the common original debt. So it does not help those who derive this reprobation from foresight of final perseverance in actual sins. We do grant original sin a place in negative reprobation — as an adjunct adhering to the reprobate subject, not as a moving cause of the divine will to that act of reprobating. Negative reprobation, whereby special grace is decreed denied to a person stained by original sin alone, is exercised not without justice, still less against it. What justice does not owe is justly denied; yet the discrimination — some efficaciously freed from this common original guilt, some left in that state by denial of special grace — depends not on retributing and vindicating justice, but on the liberty of the divine will, which has mercy on whom it will and passes by whom it will.

Cap. VIII Arg. 6 Resp.: negative reprobation not from foresight of final obstinacy; Lombard§536

536Third: if adversaries claim negative reprobation springs from foresight of final obstinacy in actual sins, that abhors not only truth but all likelihood. The very decree permitting that final hardening — wherein reprobation sits — precedes absolute foresight of the hardening. So Peter Lombard (Sentences 1, dist. 40): Reprobation is foresight of malice in certain ones and of not having mercy. That foresight is founded in the decree denying the special grace that in fact softens any heart, however hard. It is vain, then, to make foresight of final remaining in sins the cause of reprobation, when that remaining presupposes the permission sprung from the prior reprobation decree. So much for the argument in general. Now the testimonies one by one.

Cap. VIII Arg. 6 Ad primum: De bono perseverantiae — deserting God concerns common exciting grace§537

537To the first: when Augustine says men first desert God and thence merit to be deserted by God, he is not speaking of the denial of that efficacious special grace in whose denial we locate reprobation or praeterition proper. He means subtraction of a more common, exciting grace — which we grant is taken from men for demerits — yet so that without the prior preparation of that special grace they would already have fallen into this demerit of contumacy.

Cap. VIII Arg. 6 Ad secundum et tertium: consequent hardening vs eternal will not to soften§538

538To the second and third: when Augustine bids us believe evil deserts are not absent — or went before — in him whom God permits to be hardened, he is not speaking of that eternal will not to have mercy, not to soften, which contains reprobation itself. He means the hardening in which the sinner, justly forsaken by God, contracts a kind of stony hardness — and we do not deny that is the wage of preceding sins. Weigh this: however much that hardening, taken as increased and advanced as the evil disposition of the hardened man, arises from demerit of preceding sins, the first permissive hardening — mere negation of softening on God's part — cannot arise from that same foresighted demerit. To say God's will not to have mercy, not to soften, is born from foresight of human hardening would be as absurd as saying the sun's daylight, absent among the Cimmerians, arises from the air's long prior darkening.

Cap. VIII Arg. 6 Ad ultimum: merit of hardening in original sin; further hardening from daily sins; decree from free will§539

539To the last testimony — Augustine teaching that we easily find in ourselves the merit of hardening, but cannot find the merit of divine mercy — I answer: he is not speaking of foresight of actual sins lasting to life's end in this or that person, but of original sin, the common demerit of all Adam's children. That can stand as sufficient cause why divine mercy may be denied anyone without any show of cruelty; it cannot stand as cause why God refused to prepare and apply to this or that particular man an efficacious remedy by which that inborn hardness could be tamed. Original sin avails for inquiring into damnation; it does not avail as the cause of negative reprobation. Finally all the reprobate — especially those who reach the use of free will — are said to merit that hardening: negatively, because they do not merit softening or that special mercy; affirmatively, because by daily sins they merit further hardening and handing over to a reprobate mind (Rom. 1:28). Yet the reprobation decree by which they are permitted so to harden depends on God's freest will, not on their foresighted final hardness — which could not be foresighted unless that permitting decree were presupposed.

Cap. VIII Arg.: peccata reprobi sunt causa omnium effectorum — therefore also of reprobation§540

540Argument: the sins of the reprobate are the cause of all the effects of reprobation itself; therefore also of divine reprobation as it regards those effects. As to the first effect — hardening or subtraction of peculiar grace — it plainly arises from demerits of antecedent sins (Rom. 1; 2 Thess. 2; Exod. 9). As to the last — eternal damnation — human demerits are plainly its cause from the very form of the sentence passed at the final judgment.

Cap. VIII Resp.: if reprobation means damnation we grant; negative reprobation is antecedent, not damnation§541

541We do not deny that the ungodly's sins cause their damnation. If adversaries, who make the sins with which the reprobate are foresighted as finishing life the moving cause of reprobation, mean by reprobation nothing but damnation or the purpose to damn, so far we agree. But we are disputing negative reprobation — which is not damnation itself, nor damnation's cause, but a certain antecedent. No one is damned because reprobated, but because guilty; eternal death is the wage of transgression, not of reprobation. Set damnation aside, then — it is only improperly called an effect of this reprobation — and let us look at the rest.

Cap. VIII Resp. Primo: slippery consequence — cause of the permitted thing is not cause of the permission§542

542First: the argument — sins of the reprobate cause all reprobation's effects; therefore also divine reprobation itself as regards those effects — is a slippery, weak consequence if every evil that follows is called an effect. What causes the permitted thing need not cause the permission of that thing. Example: I see two drunken men wandering rashly about; I foresee both will fall into a pit and starve there unless helped. I resolve to warn one, draw him back, and free him from the peril; the other I will not warn or draw back — or at least not so as actually to free him. That latter falls into the pit, lies long, wastes, and at last starves.

Cap. VIII Resp. Primo cont.: cause of rebellion is corrupt nature; cause of permitting decree is free pleasure§543

543Ask the cause of the permitted evil in each of those effects — the fall, the long wasting, the final extinction — and I rightly name that person's drunkenness, blindness, and rashness. Ask the cause of my permission, or of my decree not to free him efficaciously, and you must come to the free power of my will, not to his ignorance or rashness. So God regards all men blind and wandering in sin's way: for some he prepares efficacious grace by which they shake off the stupor, return to themselves, and are saved; for others he decrees not to help with that powerful peculiar efficacious grace. Those latter rush into foul lusts, add sin to sin, harden in sin, die hardened, and are damned. Ask the cause of their rebellion, hardening, perdition: corrupt nature and voluntary sins are truly cause and origin of all those evils. Ask the cause of the permitting decree as to all that: you must come to the freest pleasure of the divine will, not to the permitted sins themselves. So the consequence wavers: sins of the reprobate cause all reprobation's effects; therefore they also cause reprobation itself — the decree of reprobation.

Cap. VIII Resp. Secundo: hardness is consequent event, not properly an effect of reprobation; Cajetan§544

544Second: adversaries seem to make that hardness or hardening — the reprobate's evil disposition or perverse act — an effect of divine reprobation. Most false. It may be a consequent event; it is not properly an effect of reprobation. As Cajetan well noted (on Aquinas I, q. 23 a. 5): whatever ordains the predestined to eternal life is an effect of predestination; yet in reprobation there is something that ordains to death — whatever has the character of fault or sin, such as that hardening and hardness — and that lies outside the whole effect of reprobation. Some theologians perilously err here: the means and causes of damnation are not tied to the reprobation decree as the means and causes of salvation are tied to the predestination decree. The difference is plain. Salvation's means are spiritual goods, and good falls under God's providence as intended, caused, and ordained by it. Damnation's means are spiritual evils; such evil falls under divine providence not as intended and caused, but as foresighted, permitted, ordained (so Dionysius the Carthusian on Sentences 1, dist. 40). When that hardness — man's vice or sin — is called an effect of reprobation, a mere consequent is labeled effect only improperly.

Cap. VIII Resp. Secundo cont.: Rom. 1 / 2 Thess. / Pharaoh — further hardening vs first permissive denial§545

545Finally: the hardening Paul regards in Rom. 1:28 — He gave them over to a reprobate mind — and that which 2 Thess. 2:10-12 depicts — Because they received not the love of the truth, God shall send them strong delusion that they believe a lie — do not denote denial of the first efficacious grace, without which such hardening would never have come. They denote subtraction of some granted grace after its abuse — which subtraction we grant arises from men's demerits — and the hardening that follows we acknowledge as both sin and the wage of preceding sin. What is said of Pharaoh (Exod. 9: Jehovah hardened Pharaoh's heart) must either be taken of the first denial of special grace and permissive hardening — and then that will to harden, i.e. not to soften, as mere gratuitous negation of an act on God's part, could not arise from Pharaoh's foresighted demerits, because it precedes such foresight. Here refuge is Rom. 9: He has mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardens. Or those words may refer to a further hardening by which Pharaoh, of voluntary obstinacy, stiffened his own heart, God outwardly and inwardly furnishing occasions by which he certainly foresaw Pharaoh would be more hardened — even if by nature those occasions ought to have softened him. So God hardens an ungodly man for his demerits when, provoked by impiety, he takes occasion to withdraw granted grace and to act in ways he knows will make such a man worse. God is also said to harden without that regard to final demerits — only because he wills — when to a man considered in the common mass he has not prepared or given that special mercy he granted another in the same miserable condition. That is the hardening which argues reprobation, and it does not depend on foresight of final perseverance in sins. So the argument proceeds from an equivocation.

Cap. VIII Arg.: if God reprobates from himself, fewer reprobates than predestined (Ps. 145:9; Gregory of Valencia)§546

546Some argue thus: if God reprobated men not for their sins, but of his own accord and from himself, then there would be fewer reprobate than predestined. For God is far more inclined from himself to mercy and beneficence than to deserting, destroying, and damning — according to Psalm 145:9: The Lord is sweet to all, and his compassions are over all his works. Gregory of Valencia (from whom we have taken most of the earlier arguments) judges this the best reason, and says he borrowed it from John Fekius.

Cap. VIII Resp.: same consequence fails for election and reprobation; negative reprobation is denial of unowed benefit§547

547We already dissolved this same reason of Gregory's in the predestination question. There he tried to prove predestination is from foresight of works because few are elect relative to the rejected. Now he contends reprobation hangs on foresight of final demerits because many are reprobate compared with the few elect. I answer: the consequence holds in neither place. As for reprobation — since it is not punishment but denial of a gratuitous not owededed benefit — nothing forces us to say God, acting from his own good will, cannot grant that benefit to fewer and deny it to more.e see in the angels that this benefit of election was denied to many, and without regard to foresighted demerits; whether denied to more than granted, I scarce dare say. Yet if anything in the thing itself were incongruous or unworthy of God, he could not deny election's benefit even to one without regard to foresighted sin — let alone to many. That single instance breaks the argument's force.

Cap. VIII Resp.: human mass of merited damnation; Augustine De bono persever. 8; Rom. 9:20§548

548Descend from angels to men. In men the equity of this is far easier to see. Since the whole mass of humankind has flowed down into merited damnation by our first parent's disobedience, if God with no further regard to actual sins wills to pass by and reject however many in preparing and giving special grace, he passes by and rejects those in whom he finds nothing for which they should be elect to so excellent a benefit, and in whom he finds much for which they are most unworthy of it. Nothing else need be said but Augustine (On the Good of Perseverance 8): Let him who is freed love grace; let him who is not freed acknowledge the debt — and Paul (Rom. 9:20): O man, who are you to answer God? Shall the thing formed say...?

Cap. VIII Resp.: propensity to mercy need not give special grace to most; praeterition is not desertion§549

549But God is more inclined from himself to mercy and beneficence than to deserting and destroying men. We grant it. Yet the most merciful is not wont to impart excellent peculiar benefits to all or even to most. It is enough to show that propensity that he has mercy on all as to many effects of his mercy — even if, as to this special effect of preparing special grace and infallibly ordaining to eternal life, he has mercy neither on all nor on most. Further: to pass by or reprobate is not the same as to desert and destroy. Yes, all the reprobate or those not chosen are at length deserted and destroyed — but that they were passed osen chosen as to special grace proceeds from God's mere will; that afterward they were deserted and destroyed took its origin from their intervening demerit. So far we have answered the arguments Gregory of Valencia uses on Aquinas I, q. 23, on Reprobation.

Cap. VIII Arg. 9 (Thomas of Argentina): adult reprobation from foresight of final bad use of free will§550

550Among the older Scholastics, Thomas of Argentina admits he deserts the common opinion of the theologians, and tries against them to prove this: that the cause of reprobation as to adults is the evil use of free will lasting in them to life's end, foresighted by God from eternity. That opinion differs in words, not in sense, from the Jesuit and Arminian. Let us hear Argentina's reasons.

Cap. VIII Arg. 9: syllogism — no one ordained to eternal punishment without precognition of cause§551

551To eternal punishment, he says, no one is ordained by a just Judge without precognition of the cause. But every reprobate is deputed to punishment by God the just Judge. Therefore only from foresighted evil use of free will lasting to the end — which is the same as saying with Jesuits and Arminians: only from foresighted unbelief and disobedience.

Cap. VIII Arg. 9 Resp.: reprobation is denial of unowed benefit, not adjudication to punishment§552

552I answer: by reprobation we mean that part of divine providence by which God wills to deny certain ones special grace and permit them to fall short of beatitude's end — as by predestination we mean that other part by which he willed to prepare and give certain ones that special grace and lead them infallibly to glory and beatitude. Based on that premise, we deny that this reprobation is a deputation or adjudication to punishment. It is free denial of an not owededed benefit from God's will alone; it is not compulsory infliction of an unearned penalty from God's will alone. Yes, in all the reprobate there follows ordination to punishment and imposition of punishment — and both rightly regard that person's final remaining in sin. But in the formal act of reprobation itself, ordination of the reprobate person to eternal death is not yet contained. Such arguments try to deceive us by presuming that what belongs to the same subject must spring from the same causes — as if, because every reprobate is also ordained to punishment, reprobation and that ordination to punishment must depend on the same causes. We hold: however much the same men who are reprobated are always also deputed to punishment, this reprobation flowed from the sole liberty of the divine will, while ordination to punishment drew its origin from their foresighted sin.

Cap. VIII Arg. 10: God as spiritual sun — reprobation from foresight of putting an obstacle to grace§553

553Tenth: God is as it were a Sun everywhere diffusing rays of spiritual grace. Therefore, as much as in him lies, he imparts spiritual grace to all, unless they put an obstacle to those diffused rays. That he leaves some void of grace and reprobates them happens because he foresaw them putting an obstacle to his grace. So reprobation is from that foresighted evil use of free will.

Cap. VIII Arg. 10 Resp.: sun not by natural necessity; special ray of mercy not offered to all alike§554

554The comparison fails in many ways. First: though God is not badly called a spiritual Sun, he does not diffuse his rays by necessity of nature but by his own choosing. So, as much as in him lies, he does not diffuse them to all equally and uniformly. Second: even if we grant that God diffuses certain common rays of grace to each and all (we will not litigate that now), we will never concede that, as much as in him lies, he promiscuously offers this special excellent ray of special mercy to each and all.

Cap. VIII Arg. 10 Resp.: if from foresight of obstacles, all would be reprobate; election softens some (Aquinas)§555

555Third: where God is presumed to will to deny no one that special mercy proper to election, and so to reprobate no one except who is foresighted as casting an obstacle to divine grace by perverse use of free will, Argentina misses that this exception about opposing an obstacle applies to each and all considered in the state of sin. Aquinas observed prudently (Contra Gentiles 3.160): the saying IT IS IN THE POWER OF FREE WILL NOT TO PRESENT AN IMPEDIMENT TO GRACE is truly said of those whose natural power is intact; he who by prior inordination has declined to evil is no longer altogether in his power so to will as to present an impediment. Since all mortals are of themselves ready to put obstacles, and in fact put very many, if God reprobated from such foresight he would have reprobated every one of us, not one excepted. So the pattern of predestination and reprobation shines here: though all put obstacles, God from abundance of mercy decreed finally to soften some — by efficacious and wondrous ways — out of their impediments and convert them to faith and repentance; others struggling the same way against his grace he decreed not to soften, but to leave hardened in their hardness and obstinacy. Finally the inference — that God from eternity foresaw some as finally using free will well, others ill, and by a decree following that foresight elected these and reprobated those — cannot stand. Good sound use of free will persevering to the end flowed only from election's grace, so it presupposes antecedent election. Conversely, evil use lasting to the last breath is not foresighted unless God's will to deny that special grace — which no heart, however hard, resists — is presupposed. That will of God is the will to reprobate. So foresight of a finally hardened heart is something later than reprobation; the reason or cause of reprobation cannot be sought from it.

Cap. VIII Arg.: if God elects and reprobates without cause from men, he is acceptor of persons (Acts 10:34)§556

556Argument: if from eternity God elected some and reprobated others without a cause holding on the human side, then he would be an acceptor of persons. For he seems an acceptor of persons who, when two are equal, gives to one what he denies the other. But that respect of persons is removed from God (Acts 10:34).

Cap. VIII Resp.: old Pelagian objection; Augustine Ep. 105 — same mass; debt to damned, unowed grace to freed§557

557This was the old Pelagian objection — we read it everywhere in Augustine. Epistle 105: those who think they make God an acceptor of persons if they believe that without preceding merits he has mercy on whom he will, calls whom he deigns, and makes religious whom he will, little notice that due punishment is rendered to the damned and not owededed grace to the freed — so neither complains as unworthy, nor the other glories as worthy. Rather there is no respect of persons where one and the same mass of damnation and offense wraps all, that the freed may learn from the not-freed that punishment would have suited him too unless grace had helped. The same objection he repels in Epistle 106 and Against two Letters of the Pelagians 2.7. Augustine's answer comes to this: it is not respect of persons where one does of his own what he wills. Mercy is given the elect; justice is not denied the reprobate. The elect is honored with a gratuitous gift; the reprobate is not cheated of any benefit owed him.

Cap. VIII Resp.: Durandus, Thomas, Gerson — unequal gifts from liberality are not injustice§558

558The Scholastics answer more briefly: it is not unjust or vicious to give unequals to equals where the gift is from mere liberality — only where something is rendered from debt. So Durandus (Sentences 1, dist. 41, q. 2 ad 1). Thomas to the same effect: There is no iniquity with God if he prepare unequals for equals. It would be against justice if the effect of predestination were rendered as debt and not given. Of things given from grace, one may at pleasure give more or less to whom he will, provided he subtracts from none what is owed (ST I, q. 23 a. 5 ad 3). Gerson in the Moral Rules: there is no respect of persons except where debt and parity stand on both sides; in free gifts, to take one and dismiss another is not respect of persons. So the major's consequence in the argument is plainly null: in predestination God gives the predestined not owed but not owededed grace; in reprobation he denies the reprobate not an owed benefit but an not owededed one.

Cap. VIII Resp.: Acts 10:34 concerns promised favor in every nation, not the eternal gratuitous decree§559

559As for Peter's words (Acts 10:34) — Of a truth I perceive that God is not an acceptor of persons, but in every nation he who fears him and works righteousness is accepted with him — they regard God's favor from covenant and promise, already as it were owed, not that eternal gratuitous favor bound by no covenant or promise. For by promising favor to those who fear him and live holily and piously, God would already be an acceptor of persons if he spurned a poor or lowly man worshipping him chastely and embraced a rich noble, or if he favored a religious Jew and neglected a Gentile living justly, soberly, and piously. That respect of persons the Apostle teaches is far from God. But God is held by no promise or covenant to predestinate or not predestinate.

Cap. VIII Resp.: election and praeterition from mere good pleasure; those passed by were children of wrath§560

560Further: in electing or passing by he regards no external circumstance of nation, nobility, or the like, but acts from the mere good pleasure of his will. Finally, those he passes by cannot pretend they feared God and lived justly; they are compelled instead to acknowledge they were children of wrath, most unworthy of the least divine benefit. So this Scripture place proves neither that predestination and reprobation proceed from some cause holding on the human side, nor that God is to be charged as an acceptor of persons.

Cap. VIII Arg.: God is rich in mercy — therefore he reprobates only from foresight of demerits§561

561Argument: God is rich in mercy. But if he reprobated some from his mere will and not for foresighted sin, nothing of mercy would appear in that act. Therefore he reprobates from foresight of demerits — or from foresighted evil use of free will lasting to the end.

Cap. VIII Resp. Primo: we deny foresight as origin of negative reprobation, not of preparing punishment (Aquinas on Rom. 9)§562

562First, always hold this: when we deny that reprobation took origin from foresight of human demerits, we mean reprobation as denied preparation of efficacious grace for certain persons — not as preparation of eternal punishment for those same persons. With Aquinas we gladly grant: foresight of merits cannot be any reason of predestination, because foresighted merits themselves fall under predestination; yet foresight of sins can be some reason of reprobation on the side of the punishment prepared for the reprobate, insofar as God proposes to punish the wicked for sins they have from themselves, not from God (Thomas, Commentary on Romans 9, lect. 2, near the end).

Cap. VIII Resp. Secundo: reprobates regarded as bound by original guilt — rich in mercy may still elect and pass by§563

563Second, note also: all whom God reprobates are regarded by him as bound by original guilt and liable to damnation — though that is not simply necessary to clear God of injustice or cruelty as to negative reprobation, as is plain in the angels. But among men it stands thus: all who are reprobated are in themselves deserving of condemnation and worthy of hatred. God, though rich in mercy, can most equitably by liberty of will elect some from among them and reprobate others — all of whom original sin has made worthy of hatred and (if one may so speak) reprobable.

Cap. VIII Resp. Denique: reprobation ordered to show justice and greater mercy; some mercy even toward the reprobate§564

564Finally: when it is objected that if God reprobated otherwise than from foresight of final and actual demerits, nothing of mercy would appear — that objection seems to rest on a Scholastic rule: in all God's works mercy and justice concur. The sense of the rule is not that every divine action is formally an act of justice or of mercy, but that it is an effect of providence ordained to show justice, or mercy, or both. So this reprobation, which we take as from God's mere will, is ordained to show justice in the damned and greater mercy toward the predestined. Further, some mercy appears even toward the reprobate themselves — not that special excellent mercy which by efficacious grace infallibly ordains to glory, but the many benefits of grace and mercy often granted them, not withdrawn except for abuse and voluntary rebellion against God. Even in their damnation God's mercy appears — not totally relaxing, but somewhat alleviating — while he punishes them short of what is condign (Thomas, ST I, q. 21 a. 4).

Cap. VIII Arg.: no just judge intends punitive justice per se — therefore God reprobates from foresight of demerit§565

565They press further: a just judge never aims at punitive justice for its own sake — only once punishable fault is supposed. Yet God, they say, in the act of reprobating means to exercise punitive and vindicative justice. Hence reprobation must spring from foresight of free will's evil, demeritorious use.

Cap. VIII Resp.: negative reprobation is not from punitive justice; permission precedes foresight of final bad use§566

566Negative reprobation — nothing but God's eternal purpose not to give certain ones that singular grace by which their hearts would be softened and by which they would be infallibly directed to eternal life — does not proceed from punitive justice, nor from a will to condemn, but from that reason of providence by which God judged it agreeable to his wisdom to permit some, by their own vice, to fall short of beatitude's end. That will posited, God foresights the reprobate's future sins and final remaining in them, and understands that the manifestation of his glory will arise from punishing those sins. So he intends to exercise punitive justice about the reprobate for the sins in which they are foresighted as finishing life — but that intention and foresight followed the act of the foresaid reprobation, as did the sinner's final state in his sins. We may truly say there was always in God a will to punish sins if they should come to be; but an absolute express will to punish, terminated on this or that particular person, we cannot place in God unless his permission that they come to be is presupposed, and that this person destined to punishment finally remain under their guilt. That permission — which contains the act of negative reprobation — is prior to absolute foresight of evil use of free will lasting to life's end in this or that person, and so cannot depend on that foresight as cause. Wrongly, then, are the decrees of reprobating and of avenging or damning drawn from the same causes.

Cap. VIII: Hactenus Jesuitarum — turn to Corvinus; negative reprobation to liberty alone§567

567So far we have aired the Jesuits' and Scholastics' arguments. Corvinus also presses others in his Defense of the Arminian sentence against Tilenus — and if anything new appears there, it will be cleared. We must labor all the more to recall the negative act of reprobation — which we may call praeterition or non-election — to the sole liberty of the divine will. For all who derive this reprobation from foresight of evil acts also hang election on foresight of good acts.

Cap. VIII: Augustine rejects foresight of Esau's evil and Jacob's good alike as causes§568

568Add Augustine — no one treated this cause more learnedly or holily: he denies as much that Esau's foresighted evil works were the cause of his reprobation as that Jacob's foresighted good works were the cause of his election. See Enchiridion to Laurentius 98, To Simplicianus 1.2, and Epistle 105, where he equally rejects those who say God hated or loved the not-yet-born because he foresaw their future works. Epistle 106 openly teaches that God by loving discerns those whom no merits discern. As he will not accept foresight of good merits as the basis for election, so he will not accept foresight of evils as the basis for reprobation. reprobation. Reprobation. For where good acts — believing, obeying, persevering tand on one side and opposite evil acts on the other, those are clearly regarded as discerned by merits. But let us come to Corvinus's sentence.

Cap. VIII: Corvinus with Arminius — reprobation only from personal rejection of offered grace§569

569With Arminius he therefore holds this: God always reprobates particular persons from their own personal rejection of offered grace. In the reprobation decree, on that view, he has rejected or passed by no one except as actually unbelieving and impenitent against God who is actually calling. Nor in Adam's fall has he left anyone by absolute ordination alone, or decreed to damn for original sin only.

Cap. VIII Resp.: personal unworthiness foresighted — but not antecedent motive of the reprobation decree§570

570If the talk is of adults only, we grant Arminius and Corvinus this much: a certain personal proper unworthiness, sprung from voluntary rebellion, was foresighted from eternity in all whom God from eternity reprobated. What we deny is that from that foresighted actual and final rebellion the reprobation decree flowed as from an antecedent moving cause. Rather we affirm: in the divine will we must first conceive that decree of permissive hardening or reprobation of which Paul speaks — He has mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardens — before we can conceive in the divine mind that foresight of any particular person as from eternity struggling against his grace and, to life's end, contumaciously spurning and rejecting it.

Cap. VIII critique: Corvinus's vocabulary of unbelief and vocation against Scripture; original sin alone§571

571Further: when they say that in the reprobation decree God considers men as actually unbelieving and impenitent against God actually calling, they are forced to use words against the received custom of Scripture and of almost all theologians. If we take our standard of speech from Scripture and sound theologians,ians,ians, unbelief denotes rejection of the Gospel, and the words grace and vocation presuppose the Gospel's manifestation. Yet on Arminius's and Corvinus's view, people are reprobated for foresighted unbelief to whom the Gospel was never announced, and said to have rejected grace and vocation to whom Christ's grace was never offered. Finally, their teaching that original sin makes no man guilty of eternal death, and that no one is damned for that alone, is as alien to the catholic Church's doctrine as it is necessarily bound up with Arminian theology.

Cap. VIII close into Cap. IX: Corvinus's arguments to be proposed and dissolved§572

572But let us now gird ourselves to propose and dissolve their arguments. Chapter IX — Corvinus's arguments proposed and dissolved.

Cap. IX Corvini Arg. 1: as God damns the gospel-contumacious in time, so he reprobated them from eternity§573

573Chapter IX — Corvinus's arguments proposed and dissolved. Adversaries commonly argue from the decree of damning to the act or decree of reprobation thus: In whatever manner of consideration God damns in time, in that same manner he decreed to damn and reprobated from eternity. But he damns men considered as contumacious to the Gospel — that is, as finally impenitent and unbelieving. Therefore he also reprobated them so considered.

Cap. IX Arg. 1: major — sin's relation to damnation same as to reprobation; wisdom would not reprobate without demerit§574

574They take the Major as clear from this: whatever relation sin has to damnation, it has the same to reprobation — so as sin is granted meritorious and moving cause moving God to damn this or that particular person, it must likewise stand toward reprobation. They add that it clashes with divine wisdom to will to reprobate a sinner without regard to evil merits, yet refuse to condemn him in time except for evil merits.

Cap. IX Arg. 1 Resp.: head of error — reprobation is not the same as the decree of damning§575

575Jesuits and Arminians use a like argument in the predestination debate — and we answered it before. The head of the error here is presuming reprobation, or the decree to reprobate, is altogether the same as the decree to damn. For us the decree to damn names a final judgment formed from all eternity in the mind of God the Judge and confirmed by his will's good pleasure: to punish with eternal death, for that sin, a man foresighted and considered guilty of sin at this life's very exit. The decree to reprobate names God's eternal good pleasure not as Judge but as freest Agent: resolving not to apply to certain persons that grace of special not owededed mercy which would in fact soften, convert, and lead them to eternal life.

Cap. IX Arg. 1 Resp.: wide difference of the two decrees; Major and its confirmation invalid§576

576Between these two decrees the difference is wide. The first proceeds from vindicating justice, and so regards the sinner's final guilt as moving cause of the destined punishment. The second goes forth from God's liberty doing of his own what he wills. As when God resolves to give a special benefit to some particular person it does not follow that he regarded that person's merits as moving cause of the beneficence, so when he resolves not to give that same special benefit to another, it is not rightly deduced that he regarded that person's final demerits as moving cause of the denied beneficence. So we call the Major and its confirmation invalid: there is neither uniform consideration nor the same relation of sin to the decree of reprobating as to the decree of damning. Far from clashing with divine wisdom, it best agrees with it that God refuse to condemn anyone except for sin's demerit as antecedent moving cause of destined punishment — and yet will to reprobate some (that is, pass them by in preparing special grace and infallibly ordaining to eternal life) from mere liberty of will, not from an antecedent motive of final unbelief or impenitence.

Cap. IX Arg. 1 Resp.: Bannes and Lombard — praeterition manifests liberty in dispensing supernatural goods§577

577Bannes puts it well: this praeterition or reprobation of some persons, others being elect, manifests the greatest liberty the divine will has in dispensing supernatural goods (on ST I, q. 23 a. 5, p. 293). Nor is it alien to divine wisdom — as with his other attributes — to manifest this attribute of liberty in dispensing the highest good to men. So Lombard (Sentences 1, dist. 41): God reprobated whom he willed, not for future merits he foresaw — yet by a most right truth, remote from our senses. So much for the Major.

Cap. IX Arg. 1 Resp. Minor: not all damned as gospel-contumacious; reprobation's cause lies elsewhere§578

578Now the Minor — which is not true if taken universally. Many are damned who are not at all considered by God as contumacious to the Gospel. Example: pagan infants, born children of wrath and not reborn in Christ. Among adults, all those to whom the Gospel never shone nor Christ became known. Arminius even grants that many are damned by the Law alone, not for contempt of the Gospel (Examination of Perkins's Predestination). No need to labor further on the Minor. Whether men are damned for contempt of Gospel or of Law, that the same are reprobated has its cause elsewhere. Finally we grant men are not reprobated without regard to a despised Law or Gospel, because God cannot reprobate anyone except as guilty of sin — but it does not follow from preconsideration of future faith in some and future sin in others. God electing or reprobating foresights from eternity many future things in elect and reprobate that are not moving causes of the act of electing or reprobating.

Cap. IX Arg.: Adam's sin remitted to all — God cannot leave anyone in that condemnation by strict right alone§579

579From Adam's sin remitted to all alike they argue thus: God cannot deal by strict right with any man lying in Adam's common sin so as to leave him in that condemnation without any hope of pardon. But if he reprobated any only as lying in Adam's common fall, and not for their actual personal rebellion against God, he would be dealing with them by strict and highest right.

Cap. IX Arg.: Major confirmed — Adam received; Christ obtained reconciliation for all; therefore reprobation only from final impenitence§580

580They try to confirm the Major two ways. First: pardon was given to Adam himself — so it would seem unjust that God, for Adam's sin which by mere estimation is called ours, should shut any others from eternal life, when he received into grace Adam who committed that sin. Second: Christ obtained redemption and reconciliation with the Father for all — and it seems little fitting that by a reprobation decree those be left to destruction for whom Christ so obtained reconciliation that nothing but impenitence can bar them from sharing its use. Therefore no one is reprobated except from regard to final impenitence or rebellion as moving cause — and that, they say, is reprobation.

Cap. IX Resp.: Major false for pagan infants — Augustine Enchiridion 99; Vasquez on infants§581

581I answer: as to pagan infants — neither in the covenant nor regenerated in Christ — the Major of their syllogism is openly false. If to condemn for original sin alone is to act with strict justice, then with such God does act with strict justice. So Augustine from the catholic Church's sentence (Enchiridion race is by so just a divine judgment damned in the apostate root that even if none were freed from it, no one could rightly blame God's justice; and those freed ought so to be freed that from the many not freed, left in most just damnation, it would be shown what the whole fellowship had merited — and whither even they would be led by God's due judgment unless his not owededed mercy helped. Even Vasquez the Jesuit, who sharply defends predestination from foresighted merits, must confess: if we mean reprobation as rejection from God's grace, reprobate infants had no cause of their reprobation at all; if rejection from beatitude, those infants for whom providence so disposes that no human remedy can be applied were by God's decree shut from the kingdom of heaven right after foresight of original sin they contracted (on ST I, q. 23 a. 3, disp. 89 c. 6). So Arminians push their error farther than the Jesuits themselves.

Cap. IX Resp.: as to adults — God does not damn without foresight of actual sin; reprobation as denying special grace is from liberty§582

582Set infants aside and take the Major as it regards adults with reason and free will. If dealing by strict right means decreeing someone damned and afflicted with eternal death without regard to actual sin, we grant God does not so deal with such sinners. He neither damned them nor destined them to damnation except for sins he foresaw and final impenitence in them. But if by dealing by strict right Corvinus means not preparing that special grace which, applied, God knows and decrees will free such a man — or passing him by and not ordaining him to take hold of eternal life by the special-providence decree we call predestination, but leaving him to his deficiency (so to speak) — then we affirm God so acts with sole liberty of will. And if that is dealing by strict right (we shall see shortly), then he deals by strict right with all the reprobate.

Cap. IX Resp.: reprobation decree is secret — reprobates not left without hope of pardon merely by being reprobated§583

583Further: the clause annexed to their Major — that such are left in that condemnation without any hope of pardon — is wrongly pinned on the decree of reprobation. Like predestination, the reprobation decree is secret; as to which particulars, no mortal knows it beforehand of himself or of another. As the predestined do not yet have hope of pardon from being predestined alone, so the reprobate are not left without hope of pardon from being reprobated alone. Paul the predestined could not conceive hope of pardon except through conversion and faith in Christ; Judas the reprobate is not left without hope of pardon except through his unbelief and impiety against Christ. Finally if Arminians argue from mere infallibility of the event and immutability of the decree that any reprobate is stripped of all hope of pardon, that inconvenience presses their view no less than ours. They grant Judas — and so every particular reprobate — was from eternity reprobated by God's fixed peremptory sentence; so that on their view it is as certain, infallible, and defined with God that Judas will never obtain pardon and eternal life as on ours. If, then, on that Arminian reprobation Judas is not left without all hope of pardon, neither will he be on the reprobation the orthodox defend.

Cap. IX Resp. to Major's first confirmation: original sin is by contagion, not bare imputation; Adam's penitence was for himself§584

584Now their confirmation of the Major. First they say it clashes with divine goodness that Adam who committed the sin be immune while others are smitten who are guilty by mere imputation. That confirmation has many faults. First: the question is not about men to be punished, but about men to be reprobated. Reprobation is one thing; damnation or punishment another — as we have often pressed. So those words wander from the question's scope. Next they too much thin original sin when they say it is ours by mere divine estimation and that we are guilty only by bare imputation. It is ours by contagious propagation, not bare imputation; we are guilty not only by God's mere estimation but by damnable corruption contracted in all the soul's faculties. Further, it does not clash with divine equity or goodness to free penitent Adam and punish others dying in original sin alone. What Adam did in the intact state he did as root of the human race — for us as for himself — so he is said to have stood and fallen not for himself alone but for all posterity. What he did in the fallen state he did for himself, not for posterity; by repenting he is said to have recovered divine grace and favor for himself, not for every posterity. Finally it is not iniquitous that God from mere mercy prepared and gave true serious penitence to Adam alone, and neither prepared nor gave the same saving penitence to many sprung from Adam. No law binds God more to give all Adam's posterity what he indulged Adam than to give Judas whatever from mere mercy he gave Paul or Peter.

Cap. IX Resp. to Major's second confirmation: Christ obtained reconciliation for all — only individual impenitence bars participation§585

585Secondly they contend that no one is reprobated merely as lying in Adam's common sin, because Christ obtained reconciliation for all — and only each person's impenitence can bar them from sharing it. They untie the knot they tied. If reconciliation or redemption were obtained for every person by Christ's offering already applied, the argument would have some force. But as it is not applied to adults except through faith and actual penitence, so neither to infants except through supernatural regeneration.

Cap. IX Resp.: no promise of faith to every adult or regenerating covenant with every infant — passing over some in original sin alone is free right; Major not confirmed§586

586Where, then, stands any promise that God will prep and confer on every adult the faith and penitence that actually reconcile them to him? And where has he bound himself by covenant to every infant — original sin or no — to count them reconciled and by supernatural regeneration make them sons and heirs of eternal life? He does neither, and is under no obligation to do so. So when he passes over or reprobates some who lie in original sin alone, he wrongs no one; he exercises free right. The Major, therefore, was neither sound in itself nor made solid by the proofs they annexed.

Cap. IX Resp. to Minor: God reprobating those in original sin alone does not deal by strict or highest right§587

587As for the Minor, I also deny that God, when he reprobates, deals with the reprobate by strict or highest right if he reprobates them as lying in original sin alone. If he dealt by highest right, as soon as they were born he could cast them into Gehenna as guilty of eternal death. If he dealt by strict right, he could strip them of all gifts of his grace.

Cap. IX Resp.: God confers corporal and spiritual benefits on the reprobate — therefore not strict right; false dichotomy with highest mercy§588

588But he often confers on them many corporal and spiritual benefits by which they may be made better; he withdraws nothing owed them, and pours into them nothing by which they are made worse. So he does not deal with them by strict right. Yet the adversaries plead as if between dealing from highest mercy and dealing from highest or strict right there were no middle.

Cap. IX Resp.: with the non-elect God acts from philanthropy, goodness, and admirable mildness — conscience convicts innate contagion or voluntary rebellion§589

589Highest mercy, we grant, is how God deals with the elect alone. Toward the those not chosen or reprobate his dealing is not highest right either, but philanthropy and a mildness worth wonder. Their consciences themselves convict them: the reprobation decree did not shove them; innate contagion, voluntary rebellion, or both, brought them into a death they richly deserved.

Cap. IX Arg. 3 open: God wills the saving grace of the Gospel offered promiscuously to all — Mat. 28:19; Mk 16:15; Col. 1:28§590

590God wills that the saving grace of the Gospel be offered to all men alike — a will he has opened in many Scriptures: Matt. 28:19, Go therefore and teach all nations; and Mark 16:15, Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. So also the Apostle, Col. 1:28: We announce Christ, warning every man and teaching every man, that we may present every man perfect in Christ. This regard of God for all men's salvation seems to argue that he reprobated no one except after regard to contempt of grace — or, what comes to the same, except from foresight of final unbelief and impenitence.

Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol: Docete omnes gentes / Predicate omni creaturae — apostolic authority for the whole world; wall between Jew and Gentile down§591

591From Christ's charges Teach all nations and Preach to every creature it rightly follows that those disciples were given apostolic authority — not pinned to one church or nation, but aimed at the whole world. It also follows that the wall which shut Gentiles from God's church was broken down, and that the Gospel was to be preached not to Jews alone but to Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and barbarians, wise and unwise — as Paul says in Rom. 1.

Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol: ministers must seek to bring every hearer to Christ — Augustine De correptione et gratia 15§592

592Finally it also follows that Gospel ministers' aim and labor — as Paul's did — ought to be to bring to Christ every one to whom they announce Christ's Gospel. As Augustine says with piety and prudence: not knowing who belongs to the number of the predestined and who does not, we ought to be so moved by charity that we will all to be saved (De corrept. Et grat. 15).

Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol: deny adversaries' corollary — reprobation of those to whom Christ ordered preaching is not only from foresight of demerits§593

593All that granted, we still deny the adversaries' corollary from these texts: that those to whom Christ ordered the Gospel preached were reprobated only from foresight of their demerits. To reprobate is, by decree of will, to permit some to fall short of beatitude's end — not destining or preparing for them that special grace which would in fact lead them to faith and eternal life. To elect is to ordain some to obtain beatitude infallibly and without frustration — destining, preparing, and giving them that special grace by which God from eternity decreed and knew they would be softened, converted, and in fact saved.

Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol: evangelizing mandate does not clash with reprobating will — passover antecedes final hardness, not from foresight of it§594

594We are commanded to preach the Gospel to many whom God, in that infallible ordination to grace and glory, from mere good pleasure willed to pass by. So the evangelizing mandate does not clash with the reprobating will. I add: he willed to pass them by as to preparing this special, actually saving grace — by a will that precedes their final hardness, not one that flows from foresight of that final hardness and unbelief. For (as often said) a particular person's final impenitence and unbelief is not foreseen by God as absolutely certain until the reprobation decree for that person stands — whereby God decreed not to pity them so far as to soften and convert them efficaciously, and also decreed to permit them by their own vice to repel any offered grace and stay hard-hearted to life's end.

Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol: Matt. 11:25; 13:11; Rom. 9:18 — antecedent good pleasure where the word was preached; efficacious grace prepared for some only§595

595Here belong the Savior's words, Matt. 11:25: I give you glory, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and uncovered them to infants. Yes, Father, for so it pleased you. And Matt. 13:11: To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; to them it is not given. And that saying of the Apostle, often pressed against every foe of special grace: He has mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardens (Rom. 9:18). All these texts concern those to whom God's word was preached — and yet in all of them God's antecedent good pleasure is hinted: efficacious grace prepared for some, not prepared for others.

Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol: physician analogy — command to preach to all does not prove God decreed to free all efficaciously§596

596In a word: from God's will that every physician do his utmost — prepare and offer each patient he takes on whatever helps prolong life — you may not infer that God will let none die of disease unless he foresaw him a stubborn scorner of the offered medicine. So from God's command that Gospel ministers preach the word (the medicine of souls) to all, and strain every nerve that every one be freed from death, it does not follow that God himself decreed to free all from death efficaciously — or that he did not decree to permit some, by their hard hearts, to rush into perdition whom, had he not reprobated them, he both could and would have softened by special mercy. Vain, then, to judge the predestinating or reprobating will — which determines an effect by infallible divine action, or withholds it — from the mandating will that ought to govern human actions.

Cap. IX Arg. 4: God is ready to give all sufficient media to believe and convert — therefore reprobation only by consequent will after foresight of final impenitence§597

597They press harder still: God on his part is ready to give everyone the media sufficient and needful for believing and converting, and will surely give them unless people themselves put up a barrier. But that seems to clash — that God by antecedent will should have reprobated someone, and yet be ready to supply him everything needful for salvation. Therefore, they say, he reprobated no one except by consequent will after foresight of that person's final impenitence, unbelief, and rejection of divine grace.

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol: universal sufficient grace is a slippery postulate — Vasquez grants some infants never received sufficient media of salvation§598

598The claim that sufficient grace is prepared and administered to all is very slippery — and even among patrons of universal grace it lacks full firm consent. Vasquez (as we noted before), constrained by the clear evidence, grants that for some infants sufficient media of salvation providence and were not applied by divine providence (In T. Aquin. Disp. 95.6). So for these little ones perishing in original sin we can turn their argument back: infants for whom sufficient media were never prepared or administered were rejected without regard to actual unbelief or final impenitence.

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol: infants of unbelieving idolaters — rejection without foresight of the reprobate's unbelief; Vasquez also grants some adult reprobation before foresight of sins§599

599Take infants born of two unbelieving idolatrous parents — knowing no Christ, serving the devil — whom the Apostle himself calls unclean (1 Cor. 7:14): for them sufficient media were neither prepared nor administered. In such cases they must grant rejection with no regard to foresight of the reprobate's unbelief. Set those infants aside who, under divine providence, are born and die outside the Church: the same Vasquez also grants that even for adults with reason and free will some reprobation and repulse was fixed by God before foresight of sins (ibid. Cap. 2). By reprobation he means rejection from that special grace which, denied, leaves a man always hardening and rushing into perdition (cap. 5).

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol: supply of sufficient grace does not exclude antecedent reprobation — preparation of efficacious grace does, and implies election§600

600If Arminius, Corvinus, and their backers grant us even that much, it follows that supplying sufficient grace does not shut out antecedent reprobation — whereas preparing efficacious grace truly does shut it out, and brings election in. So grant that God administers sufficient grace to every adult: still (as you see), even by a Jesuit's judgment, it does not follow they were not reprobated before foresight of final demerits.

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol: apostate angels received sufficient media yet some were elect, some reprobate — so sufficient grace to all would not prove reprobation only from foresight of final unbelief§601

601The apostate angels make this plain. God was not only ready to give them media sufficient and needful to stand and persevere in divine obedience — he gave them. Yet every theologian grants that among the angels some were elect, some those not chosen or reprobate. So even if the adversaries could prove sufficient uman being, they still could not rightly infer that no one is reprobated except from foresight of final unbelief. Just as positing sufficient grace for a given person does not posit his antecedent predestination, so positing that same sufficient grace does not deny his antecedent reprobation.

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol: predestination is ordination with infallible event; reprobation denies unfrustrable special operation — Bellarmine: God not bound to give sufficient grace to all§602

602The reason is the same either way. Predestination is not just any ordination to a supernatural end by media however sufficient — it is ordination joined to an infallible outcome. Reprobation does not deny every ordination to a supernatural end, but the unfrustrable ordination that comes from the ordaining God's device and special operation producing the very event of salvation. Finally: that sufficient media of salvation are given to all is asserted with more confidence than it is proved with ease. I will not enter that dispute now — it is not needed to solve the argument before us. One note only: Bellarmine, who defends this sufficient-grace view, first grants that God would do no injustice if he denied that sufficient grace to some or to all (De grat. et lib. Arb. 2.4). So God is bound to it by no pact or promise. How then e the adversaries promise every person sufficient grace that God never promised?

Cap. IX Arg. 4 Sol cont.: Bellarmine's mediate/immediate dodge — sufficient help for an Indian or American infant in the parents cannot be explained§603

603Second: Bellarmine is driven to the mediate-or-immediate distinction, and will not dare claim sufficient grace is given immediately to every infant. How dark that is — that an infant born among Indians or Americans had sufficient help shown in his parents, when no one can say what that help was! And if defending sufficient grace means fleeing to ancestors, it is far safer to go all the way back to the first parents — where no one doubts posterity also received sufficient grace in them — than to stop at any later ancestors, of whom it remains uncertain whether they received such sufficient grace in their children's name or not.