Two Dissertations · §149

Cap. 7 Arg. 4 Ratio 2: precious blood not left to chance—Malderus on elect fruit

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A second reason is the price paid on the cross for redeeming the human race. That price was the blood of God’s Son, the only-begotten and beloved. It is not credible that so great a price was spent on an outcome dangling from the uncertain dice of human choice. So the Father and Christ the Mediator meant by this precious death to redeem and save certain people infallibly and efficaciously; and those can be none other than those who are in fact saved—the elect. Therefore Christ’s intention in offering himself regarded the elect in a special way. I know Grevinchovius and others of that school boldly claim the proper end of impetration God intended was only that he might save the sinner with his justice intact, and that this redemption obtained for all might still be applied to none because of everyone’s intervening unbelief. That is as much as to say God gave the Son to death with no certain purpose of saving anyone by that death’s merit, but only a bare possibility of salvation procured for all in general, leaving efficacious share in salvation to each person’s choice—so that Christ’s death, taken in the whole breadth of its merit, might have redeemed no one from death. But whoever weighs how precious the Son’s death was in the Father’s eyes cannot even think he meant to expose the Son to death without a certain purpose of applying that death efficaciously to some. Isaiah 53:10: “The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” Hear Malder, a papal writer far sounder than the Arminians here (Anti-Synod, p. 138): if you look only at the offering itself, it is equal for all; otherwise, if you look at that for whose actual obtaining he offered. For the elect obtain the perfect fruit of his passion that actually follows and is applied, as given them by the Father for this. So Christ’s blood could not run to waste; by the price of his blood, from God’s decree, he merited for the elect the fruitful application of that same price.

Latin

Secunda ratio sumi potest a consideratione ipsius pretii in cruce persoluti pro redemtione humani generis. Pretium hoc fuit sanguis Filii Dei, Filii unigeniti & dilecti: At non est credibile tale ac tantum pretium impensum fuisse in eventum ex incerta alea humani arbitrii pendulum: Fuit ergo consilium & intentio Dei Patris ac Christi Mediatoris, hac pretiosa morte quosdam homines infallibiliter & efficaciter redimere & servare: Hi autem alii esse non potuerunt ab illis, qui reapse salvantur, id est, ab electis: Ergo Christi seipsum offerentis intentio speciali quodam modo respiciebat electos. Scio Grevinchovium, aliosque qui ex eadem Schola prodierunt, audacter asserere, Finem impetrationis proprium atque a Deo intentum fuisse, ut peccatorem salvare posset salva justitia sua: potuisse autem hanc redemtionem omnibus impetratam nullis applicari, propter intervenientem omnium incredulitatem. Quod perinde valet, ac si dicerent, Deum ita dedisse Filium in mortem, ut interim nullum certum propositum habuerit de servandis ullis hominibus merito ejusdem mortis, sed nuda possibilitate salutis per mortem Christi omnibus generaliter procurata, ita efficacem participationem salutis commisisse arbitrio singulorum, ut Christi mors, in tota latitudine sui meriti considerata, potuerit neminem a morte efficaciter redemisse. At quisquis rite perpenderit quam pretiosa fuit mors Filii in oculis Patris, ne cogitare quidem poterit illum voluisse Filium morti exponere absque certo proposito eandem mortem efficaciter quibusdam applicandi. Esai. liii. 10. Voluntas Domini in manu ejus dirigetur. Audite Malderum scriptorem Pontificium, Arminianis hac in re multo saniorem, Anti-Synod. pag. 138. Si solum respiciatur ipsa oblatio, inquit, aequalis illa est pro omnibus; secus, si respiciatur id pro quo reipsa obtinendo obtulit. Obtinunt enim electi fructum perfectum, & reipsa sequentem, & applicatum suae passionis, tanquam in hoc sibi datis a Patre. Non potuit igitur sanguis Christi in inane diffluere; quia pretio sanguinis sui, ex decreto Dei, promeruit electis fructuosam ejusdem pretii applicationem.

About this text

John Davenant — Dissertationes duae from the 1650 Cambridge Latin. Honest partial through De praedestinatione Cap. 1 subject tip; Cap. 1 mid-Thesis and remainder remain; De praedestinatione Cap. 1 Prolegomena IV distinguishing conditions tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Variae (Pelagian opening) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Scholastici / Vasquez Arg. 1 tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 2 praescientia tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 3 (1 Cor. 2:9) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 4 (2 Tim. 2:21) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 5 (1 Tim. 2:4) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 6 (James 2:5) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 7 (Apoc. 3:11) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 1 (common inefficacious will) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 2 (Vasquez physical vs moral media) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 3 (king/prize / victory foresight) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 4 (optimum modus / crown of justice) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 5 (acceptor personarum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 6 (misericordia/congruitas) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 7 (equal disposition) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 8 (few saved / major part) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 9 (Stephen / glory from others' sins) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 10 (mere beneplacitum / Predestinati) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III reprobation ratio (foresight of sin) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 12 (efficacious election / free choice) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 13 (hortation/prayer) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 14 (decree/execution conformity) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arminianorum open tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 7 (τρόπος; Rom. 9:22) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 8 (ordo exsecutionis) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 9 (Christus fundamentum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 1 (amor ad salutem) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 2 (actualis vitae datio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 3 (qualis existens) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 4 (justitiae satisfactio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 5 (natura vitae aeternae) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 6 (Christus a decreto) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 7 (Evangelium invertitur) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 8 (arcana/revelata) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI (Orthodoxa sententia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 2 (gratia specialis) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 3 (Scripturae) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 4 (vocatio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 5 (adjutorium) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 7 (inconveniens) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 8 (perseverantia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 9 (unica ratio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 10 (abyssus) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 11 (efficacia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 12 (segregativum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 13 (pura gratia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VII open (reprobatio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VII Junius trifariam tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VIII open (adversariorum) tip; Cap. VIII peccata-causa tip; Cap. VIII fewer-reprobates tip; Cap. VIII Argentina tip; Cap. VIII dives-misericordia tip; Cap. VIII Corvinus tip into Cap. IX; Cap. IX Ab Adae tip; Cap. IX Ab Adae Christus omnibus+Minor tip; Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol tip; Cap. IX vocatione Evangelica tip; Cap. IX vocatione Sol cont. tip; Cap. IX Arg. 6 Sol cont. tip.

English follows locked 1650 Cambridge Latin of De morte Christi Cap. 1-6 opening (origin + Thesis 1 + Cap. 2 Rat. 1-ultima + Cap. 3 Satisfit through Obj. 17 + Cap. 4 Thesis 2 tip through Mem. 1 close + Cap. 4 Mem. 2 through Mem. 3 tip + Cap. 4 Mem. 3 possible-faith through Thesis 2 close + Cap. 5 Thesis 3 tip through Mem. 2 Scripture close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Rat. 1-4 + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Fathers tip + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Huberiana objections tip through Obj. 3 Solut close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 elect-from-eternity objections tip through Obj. 3 Solut close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect objections tip through Cap. 5 thesis close + Cap. 6 opening tip through Arg. 1 close before Arg. 2), reconstructed from the Internet Archive PDF (pdftotext + tesseract) of the Roger Daniel folio with DjVu OCR check. The 1683 reprint was not used as copy-text. No modern English was copied.

Witnesses

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