Cap. 6 Arg. 3: External media withheld from nations under Old and New Testaments
So far we have argued about the immediate means. Now we come down to the means of those means. Christ’s death and merit have had their force in God’s acceptance from the world’s beginning. Yet under the Old Testament God did not grant the external means of application to every human being alike. As the Psalmist says, “He declares his word to Jacob; he has not done thus to every nation” (Psalm 147:19–20). Paul speaks the same way: “In past ages God allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways” (Acts 14:16).
Prosper marked the same point: it is not far from ordinary observation, he says, through how many ages countless thousands of people, left to their errors and impieties, have perished without any knowledge of the true God (On Free Choice, page 225). Looking to New Testament times (On the Calling of the Gentiles 2.17), he adds: even now in the farthest parts of the world there are nations on whom the Savior’s grace has not yet shone. From this it follows that even with Christ’s death granted, God is still not bound by his goodness or justice to provide and offer to every person the means by which they can apply Christ to themselves. In God the move from fact to right works both ways: God does this, therefore he does it justly; God does not do this, therefore no right binds him to do it.
Latin
Hactenus de mediis immediatis disputatum est: Ad media horum mediorum descendamus. Christi mors ac meritum habuit in acceptatione Dei ab origine mundi suam efficaciam: Deus tamen sub Vetere Testamento externa applicationis media non omnibus hominibus universim concessit, sed, ut loquitur Psalmista, Verbum suum denunciat Jacobo: non fecit taliter omni nationi, Psal. cxlvii. 19, 20. Et in eandem sententiam Paulus, Act. xiv. 16. Deus praeteritis aetatibus sivit omnes gentes ambulare in viis suis. Prosper hoc idem annotavit, Non est, inquit, remotum ab inspectione communi, quot secula, quam innumera hominum millia erroribus suis impietatibusque dimissa, sine ulla veri Dei cognitione defecerint, De lib. arbitr. pag. 225. Et De vocat. Gent. 2, 17, Novi Testamenti tempora respiciens, dicit, Sunt etiam nunc in extremis mundi partibus aliquae nationes, quibus gratia Salvatoris nondum illuxit. Ex quibus sequitur, etiam posita Christi morte, Deum nihilominus haud teneri ratione bonitatis aut justitiae suae media omnibus & singulis providere & offerre, quibus possunt Christum sibi applicare. In Deo enim a facto ad jus optime sequitur argumentum tam affirmando quam negando; Deus hoc facit, ergo juste facit; Deus hoc non facit, ergo nullo jure tenetur ut faciat.