Cap. 7 Arg. 4 Ratio 2: precious blood not left to chance—Malderus on elect fruit
A 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.
Latin
Secunda ratio sumi potest a consideratione ipsius pretii in cruce persoluti pro redemtione humani generis. Pretium hoc fuit sanguis Filii Dei, Filii unigeniti & dilecti: At non est credibile tale ac tantum pretium impensum fuisse in eventum ex incerta alea humani arbitrii pendulum: Fuit ergo consilium & intentio Dei Patris ac Christi Mediatoris, hac pretiosa morte quosdam homines infallibiliter & efficaciter redimere & servare: Hi autem alii esse non potuerunt ab illis, qui reapse salvantur, id est, ab electis: Ergo Christi seipsum offerentis intentio speciali quodam modo respiciebat electos. Scio Grevinchovium, aliosque qui ex eadem Schola prodierunt, audacter asserere, Finem impetrationis proprium atque a Deo intentum fuisse, ut peccatorem salvare posset salva justitia sua: potuisse autem hanc redemtionem omnibus impetratam nullis applicari, propter intervenientem omnium incredulitatem. Quod perinde valet, ac si dicerent, Deum ita dedisse Filium in mortem, ut interim nullum certum propositum habuerit de servandis ullis hominibus merito ejusdem mortis, sed nuda possibilitate salutis per mortem Christi omnibus generaliter procurata, ita efficacem participationem salutis commisisse arbitrio singulorum, ut Christi mors, in tota latitudine sui meriti considerata, potuerit neminem a morte efficaciter redemisse. At quisquis rite perpenderit quam pretiosa fuit mors Filii in oculis Patris, ne cogitare quidem poterit illum voluisse Filium morti exponere absque certo proposito eandem mortem efficaciter quibusdam applicandi. Esai. liii. 10. Voluntas Domini in manu ejus dirigetur. Audite Malderum scriptorem Pontificium, Arminianis hac in re multo saniorem, Anti-Synod. pag. 138. Si solum respiciatur ipsa oblatio, inquit, aequalis illa est pro omnibus; secus, si respiciatur id pro quo reipsa obtinendo obtulit. Obtinunt enim electi fructum perfectum, & reipsa sequentem, & applicatum suae passionis, tanquam in hoc sibi datis a Patre. Non potuit igitur sanguis Christi in inane diffluere; quia pretio sanguinis sui, ex decreto Dei, promeruit electis fructuosam ejusdem pretii applicationem.