Cap. X Arg. VII open: Arminius’s three decrees leave church-acquisition to free will; Grevinchovius and Episcopius admit redemption may apply to none / church may wholly fail
If, as Arminius sets it, after God’s decree to give Christ as Mediator and Savior, and the second decree to save any under the condition of repentance, faith, and perseverance, and the third to administer to all the means needed for repentance and faith—if, with those three decrees in place, election and reprobation of singular persons, salvation and damnation, hang on foresight of men’s faith or unbelief—then it follows that free will was left able to empty out the end of the Lord’s passion, the acquiring of the Church. So that Christ not dying in vain, and having a church of elect efficaciously redeemed by his blood, would come not from some antecedent decree or special grace of God electing certain members to Christ the Head and predestining them to be made alive and saved through him, but from the contingent working of human wills. For all mortals, if taken as not yet elect and not predetermined by that special providence we call Predestination to have faith and persevere in it, can stay in unbelief, spring back from faith once received, in a word fall from salvation and leave Christ the Redeemer with no redeemed church at all. Those who fetch election and reprobation from foresight of faith and unbelief cannot deny this consequence. Grevinchovius admitted it candidly (Dissert. De morte Christi, p. 14): We assert that redemption could have been obtained for all, and yet applied to none because of the intervening unbelief of all. So Episcopius, resting on this Arminian principle, confesses the whole church on earth can fail, and that Christ need not always have some true church on earth in order to remain King and Head.
Latin
Si, ut ponit Arminius, post decretum Dei de dando Christo Mediatore et Salvatore, et illud alterum quo decrevit quosvis sub conditione resipiscentiae, fidei et perseverantiae salvos facere, itemque et illud tertium quo decrevit media ad resipiscentiam et fidem necessaria omnibus administrare; si, inquam, positis hisce tribus decretis, singularium personarum electio et reprobatio, salus et damnatio dependeat ex praevisa hominum sive fide sive infidelitate, tum sequitur, hominum libero arbitrio relictum fuisse, ut possent finem Dominicae passionis, hoc est, acquisitionem Ecclesiae, prorsus evacuare: Ita ut, quod Christus frustra mortuus non fuerit, quod habeat Ecclesiam electorum sanguine suo efficaciter redemptam, non ex antecedaneo aliquo decreto, aut speciali gratia Dei membra quaedam Christo Capiti eligentis et per Christum vivificanda et salvanda praedestinantis, sed ex contingente operatione humanarum voluntatum evenerit. Universi enim mortales, si considerentur ut nondum electi, nec speciali illa providentia Dei, quam Praedestinationem vocamus, ad habendam fidem et perseverandum in eadem praedeterminati, possunt in sua incredulitate manere, possunt a fide suscepta resilire, possunt, uno verbo, a salute excidere, et Christum Redemptorem, absque Ecclesia redempta prorsus relinquere. Hanc consequentiam non possunt negare, qui electionem et reprobationem ex praevisione fidei et infidelitatis conantur arcessere. Ingenue itaque illam admisit Grevinchovius, Dissert. De morte Christi, pag. 14. Asserimus, inquit, potuisse omnibus impetratam esse redemptionem, et tamen nullis applicatam propter intervenientem omnium infidelitatem. Sic etiam Episcopius hoc principio Arminiano innixus, fatetur totam Ecclesiam in terris deficere posse, neque necesse esse ad hoc, ut Christus Rex et Caput maneat, illum habere semper Ecclesiam aliquam veram in terris.