Cap. 7 open: special elect prerogative—not Pelagian parity or Grevinchovius bare impetration
But 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.
Latin
Jam vero ne sub hac universali virtute mortis Christi, quae ad omnes potestate se extendit, illam obteramus specialem ejusdem efficaciam, quae ad solos praedestinatos pertinet & pertingit, altera pars susceptae nostrae disputationis aggredienda est, quae specialem electorum in morte Christi praerogativam, tam ex voluntate Dei Patris Filium suum in mortem dantis, quam Filii seipsum offerentis, explicabit & tuebitur. Non enim debemus ita defendere Christum pro omnibus fuisse mortuum, ut cum Pelagianis credamus ejusdem mortis vivificam efficaciam a pari momento prostare omnibus communem, ex intentione Divinae voluntatis, in eventu autem fieri aliquibus salutiferam, aliis minime, non aliunde quam ex contingente usu humanae libertatis. Neque cum Arminianis delirandum est, quasi Deus dederit in mortem Filium suum, nihil aliud absolute intendens, quam ut inde haberet ipse nudam potestatem salvandi quosvis peccatores, non obstante justitia sua; atque ut quivis peccatores haberent modum sive medium quo salvari possent, non obstante peccato suo. Hinc praeclarum illud Grevinchovii corollarium, in dissertatione De morte Christi pag. 9. Impetrationi suam dignitatem, necessitatem, utilitatem abunde constare potuisse, etiamsi impetrata redemtio nulli individuo unquam ab ipso applicata fuisset. Item & illud, pag. 14. Potuisse omnibus impetratam esse redemtionem, & tamen nullis eam applicari, propter intervenientem omnium incredulitatem. Nos autem minime arbitramur Christi mortem fuisse tanquam aleam jactam; sed Deo Patri Christoque fuisse ab aeterno decretum, merito hujus mortis certas quasdam personas, quas Scriptura electorum nomine designat, infallibiliter servare; adeoque ex voluntate Dei mortem Christi pro iisdem redimendis fuisse speciali quodam modo & consilio oblatam & acceptatam.