Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect: 2 Tim 1 grace given before ages is destination, not collation
2 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.
Latin
2. Tim. i. 9, 10. Dicit Apostolus, electis Datam fuisse gratiam in Christo Jesu ante tempora seculorum; patefactam autem fuisse eandem gratiam per adventum Servatoris nostri Jesu Christi: At Deus illis videtur plane reconciliatus ante tempora seculorum quibus dedit gratiam in Christo ante tempora seculorum. Resp. Propter firmitatem & immobilitatem Divini propositi illa gratia dicitur ante tempora seculorum data electis, quae ante tempora seculorum fuit illis destinata: An hoc igitur loco aeterna datio est aeterna praeparatio gratiae electis suo tempore infallibiliter dandae. Sic Augustinus, Apostolus datam dixit gratiam, quando nec erant adhuc quibus daretur, quoniam in dispositione ac praedestinatione Dei jam factum erat quod suo tempore futurum erat, De doctr. Christ. lib. 3. cap. 34. Sic Junius in haec ipsa verba, Datam esse dicit ab aeterno gratiam, ad quam ab aeterno fuimus praedestinati. Nec aliter eam exposuit Calvinus; Donatio haec, inquit, gratiae cujus meminit Apostolus, nihil aliud est quam praedestinatio qua sumus adoptati in Dei filios. Paulo post, Dedit, quod nullo merito provocante nondum natis assignavit, ac in thesauris suis repositum habuit, donec re ipsa patefaceret nihil se frustra statuere. Recte ergo hinc deducamus gratiam justificationis, reconciliationis & salutis fuisse actu aeterno assignatam electis omnibus, & quasi repositam & reservatam illis in thesauro Divini amoris; sed fuisse actu in eos collatam ante fidem & conversionem eorundem non recte deducitur. Ipsa justificatio & reconciliatio electorum non dicitur tum patefacta & manifestata quando credunt in Christum, sed tum donata & constituta: Quod vero tum revelatum & manifestatum dicitur, est illud aeternum beneplacitum sive propositum Dei de servandis electis; quod innotescit nobis postquam Spiritu & fide donati Justificationem & reconciliationem cum Deo sumus consequuti.