Cap. 2 Ratios 6–7: God’s counsel provided a lytron even for those who remain unbelieving; death is ordained before faith
If it was the counsel and will of God that Christ by dying should deliver into his hands a lytron most absolute, most perfect, and most sufficient, not only for freeing those who by God’s benefit believe and so are saved as to the event, but also for those who by their own fault remain unbelieving and so are damned as to the event, then it must be confessed that this death of Christ is a remedy applicable to all by the nature of the thing and by God’s ordination. And such was God’s counsel, such his will — which is proved from the divine promises that indicate his will to us. For God promised salvation under the condition of faith and repentance even to those who will never perform these conditions. So to Cain himself, if he repent, remission is promised (Genesis 4:7). Which salvation, or remission of sins, promised under condition to such a person, clearly argues that a cause of salvation was prepared for that same person and is applicable under the said condition. The same is proved from this: that God so ordered his counsel in the work of redemption that no mortal can truly complain that he perished for want of an expiatory sacrifice. Yet he to whom the death of Christ is not a remedy applicable unto salvation by God’s will can no less truly affirm that a sacrifice was wanting to him than can the evil angels, for whom the death of Christ is ordained under no condition. And this is that counsel which the Pharisees are said to have despised (Luke 7:30).
If according to the order and nature of the things themselves, and of our consideration, the death and merit of Christ must be posited as something first ordained and destined by God for the good of the human race before faith is understood to be destined for anyone, then it is necessary to think of it as a cause of salvation applicable to all before it is stated as applied, or to be applied infallibly, to this one and that. The reason of the consequence is this: that the death or merit of Christ is understood as applied or to be applied to no one until faith is conceived as granted or to be granted to him; and on the contrary, the death of Christ is considered applicable to anyone before faith is conceived as denied or to be denied to him forever. I now add the Minor: namely, that the death of Christ, or his infinite merit, must be posited as something first established and destined for human beings before faith is destined for these or those singular persons. This is plain, first, because the death or merit of Christ is the object of faith: to what end would he destine to give faith to Peter or to Paul unless he had first ordained a remedy of salvation applicable to anyone through the medium of faith? Further, faith, like all other saving gifts, is conferred on human beings on account of Christ and from the merit of Christ; therefore in the order of the divine decrees the death of Christ precedes the faith of every Christian. Here belong those words of the Palatine theologians in the judgment they exhibited at Dort (Acts of the Synod of Dort, p. 88): The faith of the elect does not precede but follows the death of Christ, because that death is the cause of the faith by which the elect are given on account of Christ, and its object, which faith itself looks upon and embraces. Finally, for all human beings lost in the first Adam, a obtainable salvation is decreed in the death of the second Adam before it is decreed to whom it is to be given efficaciously and infallibly, and to whom it is not to be given. It must therefore be confessed that the Mediator Jesus Christ, with his death and the infinite treasury of his merits, is by God’s ordination applicable to the whole human race unto salvation, although there intervene the freest, most just, and most hidden good pleasure of God, according to which he decrees that faith (by whose medium application is made) is to be given infallibly to certain persons and by no means to others. But why, in dispensing the treasury of Christ’s merits — sufficient and applicable to each and every person — he deals so unequally with equals, we ought not to ask, because we cannot know, but with the Apostle to rest in the secret will of God, who has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens (Romans 9:18); to whom no one has first given, that he should be bound to repay him as a debt (Romans 11:35).
Latin
Si fuit consilium et voluntas Dei ut Christus moriendo lytron sibi in manus traderet absolutissimum, perfectissimum et sufficientissimum, non modo pro illis liberandis qui Dei beneficio credunt, et sic quoad eventum salvantur, sed etiam pro illis qui suo vitio manent increduli, et sic quoad eventum damnantur, tum fatendum est, hanc mortem Christi esse remedium ex natura rei et ordinatione Dei omnibus applicabile: At tale fuit Dei consilium, talis voluntas: Quod evincitur ex promissionibus divinis, quae ejus voluntatem nobis indicant. Promisit enim Deus salutem sub conditione fidei et poenitentiae etiam illis qui conditiones hasce nunquam sunt praestituri. Sic ipsi Caino, si resipiscat, promittitur remissio, Gen. iv. 7. Quae salus sive remissio peccatorum sub conditione personae tali promissa clare arguit causam salutis eidem personae esse paratam et sub dicta conditione applicabilem. Idem evincitur ex eo, quod Deus in opere redemtionis ita consilium suum instituerit, ut nemo mortalium vere conqueri possit se defectu hostiae expiatoriae periisse. At hostiam sibi defuisse non minus vere potest affirmare is cui mors Christi non est remedium ad salutem ex Dei voluntate applicabile, quam Angeli mali, quibus sub nulla conditione mors Christi ordinatur. Atque hoc est illud consilium quod sprevisse dicuntur Pharisaei, Luc. vii. 30. Si secundum ordinem et naturam ipsarum rerum, atque considerationis nostrae, mors et meritum Christi ponendum est ut quiddam prius a Deo ordinatum et destinatum in bonum humani generis, quam fides cuiquam destinata intelligatur, tum necesse est illud cogitare ut causam salutis omnibus applicabilem, priusquam huic et illi applicata aut infallibiliter applicanda statuatur. Ratio consecutionis haec est: Quod Christi mors sive meritum nemini applicatum aut applicandum intelligitur, donec fides eidem concessa aut concedenda concipitur: Et e contra, cuivis applicabilis consideratur mors Christi, priusquam fides illi in perpetuum denegata aut deneganda concipitur. Jam adjungo Minorem, nempe mortem Christi sive meritum ejus infinitum poni debere, ut quiddam prius stabilitum et destinatum hominibus, quam fides hisce aut illis singularibus personis destinetur. Quod patet primo, quia mors sive meritum Christi est objectum Fidei: quorsum vero destinaret Petro aut Paulo donare fidem, nisi prius ordinasset salutis remedium mediante fide cuivis applicabile? Porro, fides, sicuti et reliqua omnia dona salutaria, confertur hominibus propter Christum, et ex merito Christi: praecedit itaque in ordine decretorum Divinorum mors Christi fidem cujuscunque Christiani. Huc faciunt illa Theologorum Palatinorum verba, in judicio suo Dordrechtano exhibito, Act. Synod. Dordrecht. pag. 88. Fides electorum mortem Christi non antecedit sed sequitur, quia mors illa est causa fidei, qua propter Christum donantur electi, et objectum ejus, quod ipsa intuetur et complectitur. Denique universis hominibus in primo Adamo perditis, in secundi Adami morte salus parabilis decernitur priusquam quibus efficaciter et infallibiliter danda, quibus non danda sit, decernatur. Fatendum est igitur Mediatorem Jesum Christum, cum morte et infinito meritorum suorum thesauro, esse ex ordinatione Dei toti humano generi ad salutem applicabilem, quamvis interveniat liberrimum, justissimum, occultissimum Dei beneplacitum, juxta quod fidem (qua mediante fiat applicatio) certis personis infallibiliter donandam, aliis minime donandam statuat. Cur autem in dispensando thesauro meritorum Christi, omnibus et singulis sufficiente et applicabili, tam inaequaliter agat cum aequalibus, nos quia scire non possumus, quaerere non debemus, sed cum Apostolo, in arcana Dei voluntate acquiescere, qui cujus vult miseretur, et quem vult indurat, Rom. ix. 18. cui nemo prior dedit, ut ex debito ei reddere teneatur. Rom. xi. 35.