Cap. 3 Obj. 6: Is there any middle between bare sufficiency of the price and real application?
Obj. 6. No middle can be found or devised between the sufficiency of the price and its real application. Those therefore who deny that a real application of Christ's death has been made to all ought not to proceed further than to posit the sufficiency of this price for all: above which whoever wishes to posit anything is necessarily compelled to concede a real application of the same to all. But now those who constitute this death of Christ as applicable to all unto salvation by God's ordination seem to give some middle between sufficient value and actual efficacy. But of what sort, pray, will that be? or where will it be found? It cannot be some efficiency looking indifferently to all and each human being and caused in them by Christ's death; because such an effect cannot be assigned. Nor can we, by virtue of Christ's death, place in God himself either some impetration of remission of sins extended to all, or an intention of application. It remains therefore that beyond the sufficiency of the price we posit nothing that looks to all as overflowing from Christ's death.
Sol. That this objection may be met, it must first be seen what sufficiency they understand who so reason, and meanwhile retain this distinction of the Scholastics — that Christ died sufficiently for all, efficaciously for the elect. They therefore understand Christ to have died sufficiently for all thus: Christ's death is sufficient to redeem all, but he was unwilling to die for all; Christ's death is in itself and in its intrinsic value a sufficient lytron for all, but it was not paid for all. But it never entered the Scholastics' mind to defend this sufficiency only hypothetically and absolutely to deny that Christ died for all. Nor can it easily be explained how without open contradiction it could be affirmed that Christ died or was offered sufficiently for all, and meanwhile be denied that he willed to die or be offered for many at all. As to those therefore who admit only such a hypothetical oblation and sufficiency in Christ's death, if it be referred to all, I answer that a middle can and ought to be assigned between that bare sufficiency of the price and its real application. For God's ordination revealed in the Gospel, according to which this death of Christ is proposed as to be received by any who repent and believe, proves that some middle has been constituted between that sufficiency and actual application. For in this ordination of God, according to which Christ's death is established and proposed as a cause of salvation applicable by faith to any wayfarer, there is contained less than in real application, yet there is contained something fuller than in the mere and bare sufficiency of the thing considered in itself, this conditional ordination looking to any sharer in human nature being excluded. This therefore is that very middle which the adversaries denied could be assigned; but they still urge and ask what that is in which this quasi-middle is produced, which surpasses bare sufficiency and yet does not reach real application. I answer: Though there is not some act looking indifferently to all and each, caused from Christ's death, yet there is a title to eternal life, looking indifferently to all and each under the condition of faith, founded in Christ's death; though there is not in God an impetration of remission, or an intention of application, extended to all and each according to the infallible order of predestination, yet there is in God a certain obligation to remission, and a will to remit sins and to confer life, extended to all and each according to the tenor of the Gospel promise. But I now forbear more, because when we come to the next thesis we shall treat of this very matter more copiously by design.
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Obj. 6. Nullum medium potest inveniri aut excogitari inter sufficientiam pretii et realem applicationem ejusdem: Qui ergo realem applicationem mortis Christi omnibus factam negant, non debent ulterius progredi quam ut ponant sufficientiam hujus pretii pro omnibus: supra quam quisquis vult aliquid ponere, cogitur necessario realem applicationem ejusdem omnibus concedere: Jam vero qui constituunt hanc mortem Christi ex ordinatione Dei omnibus ad salutem applicabilem, videntur inter valorem sufficientem et actualem efficaciam medium quoddam dare. At quale tandem illud erit? aut ubi reperietur? Non potest esse efficientia aliqua ad omnes et singulos homines indifferenter spectans, et in illis per mortem Christi causata; quia tale effectum assignari nequit. Neque possumus vi mortis Christi in ipso Deo ponere sive impetrationem quandam remissionis peccatorum ad omnes extensam, sive intentionem applicationis. Restat igitur ut ultra sufficientiam pretii nihil ponamus, quod omnes spectet, ex morte Christi redundare. Sol. Ut huic objectioni occuratur, inprimis videndum est qualem sufficientiam intelligant qui ita ratiocinantur, et retinent interim hanc Scholasticorum distinctionem, Christum pro omnibus mortuum sufficienter, pro electis efficaciter. Christum ergo pro omnibus mortuum sufficienter, sic intelligunt; Mors Christi est sufficiens ad omnes redimendos, sed pro omnibus mori noluit: mors Christi est in se et valore suo intrinseco sufficiens lytron pro omnibus, sed pro omnibus non fuit persolutum. At Scholasticis nunquam in mentem venit ex hypothesi tantum defendere hanc sufficientiam, et absolute negare Christum pro omnibus mortuum. Neque potest facile explicari quomodo sine aperta contradictione affirmaretur Christus pro omnibus mortuus vel oblatus sufficienter, et interim pro multis omnino negetur mori aut offerri voluisse. Quoad hosce igitur qui talem solummodo hypotheticam oblationem et sufficientiam admittunt in morte Christi, si ad omnes referatur, respondeo, Medium assignari posse et debere inter meram istam sufficientiam pretii et realem applicationem ejusdem. Nam ordinatio Dei in Evangelio patefacta, juxta quam haec mors Christi proponitur ut percipienda cuivis resipiscenti et credenti, probat medium quoddam inter illam sufficientiam et actualem applicationem esse constitutum. In hac etenim ordinatione Dei, juxta quam mors Christi statuitur et proponitur ut causa salutis cuivis viatori per fidem applicabilis, continetur minus quam in reali applicatione, continetur tamen quoddam amplius quam in mera et nuda rei sufficientia per se considerata, exclusa hac ordinatione conditionali, ad quemlibet humanae naturae participem spectante. Est igitur hoc illud ipsum medium quod assignari posse negarant adversarii; sed adhuc urgent et quaerunt, quid sit illud in quo productum hoc quasi medium, quod nudam sufficientiam superat, et tamen ad realem applicationem non attingit. Respondeo, Ut non sit actus aliquis, ad omnes et singulos indifferenter spectans, ex morte Christi causatus, est tamen titulus ad vitam aeternam, sub conditione fidei ad omnes et singulos indifferenter spectans, in morte Christi fundatus: ut non sit in Deo impetratio remissionis, vel intentio applicationis, juxta infallibilem praedestinationis ordinem ad omnes et singulos extensa, est tamen in Deo obligatio quaedam ad remissionem, et voluntas remittendi peccata, et vitam conferendi, extensa ad omnes et singulos, juxta tenorem Evangelicae promissionis. Sed pluribus jam supersedeo, quia cum ad proximam thesin ventum fuerit, de hac ipsa re ex instituto magis copiose disseremus.