Cap. 1 vocabulary: Reprobatio effects; against Pelagian calumny (Prosper)

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The proper effects of negative reprobation are these: unwillingness to decree the efficacious liberation of a person lying under damnation; and the will to deny that person the efficacious helps by which he would in fact be converted. The last effect is the eternal punishment of the obstinate sinner. That does not properly rise from mere passing-by or non-election, but from the other reprobation-act one may call pre-damnation — which presupposes foresight of sin and leaving the person in it. Weigh this too: reprobation's effects are not chained to one another the way predestination's are. In predestination the earlier effect usually causes the later — efficacious calling begets faith, faith justification, and so on. In reprobation the effects are not ordered that way, though taken together they serve one end: the shining of Divine justice. Finally, against certain malevolent slanders, mark this: In the fallen human being, sins such as unbelief, wickedness, and hardening — and the penalty due them, eternal damnation — follow reprobation as infallibly as faith, holiness, and perseverance follow predestination; yet they do not follow in the same way. Acting from the decree of predestination, God works those earlier goods by the influx of efficacious grace. From the decree of reprobation he does nothing that makes the reprobate worse, nothing that blocks believing and holy living, nothing that drives him into unbelief or wickedness. Watch that carefully. Old Pelagians and new alike see that, given reprobation as we have described it, none of the reprobate perseveres in faith or holy life — and they cry at once that we make God the author of sin and the cause why people do not believe or spring back from faith and holiness. With the Prophet we answer every reprobate: your destruction is from you, though help is from God alone. Reprobation takes nothing from the reprobate's own power; God simply does not put forth toward him the efficacious power he could put forth if he willed. So Prosper long ago: God despoils no one of the possibility of the good. It does not follow — as the objectors think — that those to whom God has not given penitence he has robbed of repentance, or that those he has not lifted he has struck down, and so on. Reprobation causes in a far different way from predestination. God predestinating works every good in the predestined by grace's influx, and is properly called an efficient cause. God reprobating works no evils in the reprobate by subtracting grace; the evils break out from nature's corruption — and God is no more their cause than the sun is cause of darkness when it does not light the air. So much I thought should be set down first on election, Predestination, and reprobation.

Latin

Propria autem & vera effecta reprobationis negativae haec sunt: Nolle decernere efficacem liberationem personae in statu damnationis jacentis; Velle negare tali personae auxilia efficacia quibus de facto converteretur. Ultimus effectus est aeterna punitio obstinati peccatoris: qui non proprie oritur ex mera praeteritione vel non-electione, sed ex illo altero reprobationis actu, quem praedamnationem licet appellare; atque peccati praevisionem supponit, & derelictionem in eodem. Jam & illud perpendendum, effecta reprobationis non habere illam connexionem inter se, quam habent effecta praedestinationis. Nam in praedestinatione prior effectus solet esse causa posterioris; ut vocatio efficax parit fidem, fides justificationem, &c.; sed in reprobatione effectus non sunt hoc modo invicem ordinati, quamvis omnes junctim sumpti ordinentur ad unum & eundem finem, relucentiam scilicet justitiae Divinae. Ultimo, & illud contra quorumdam malevolas calumniationes animadvertendum est: Licet peccata, qualia sunt infidelitas, improbitas, obduratio, & poena hisce debita, hoc est, aeterna damnatio, in homine lapso aeque infallibiliter consequantur reprobationem, atque fides, sanctitas, perseverantia consequuntur praedestinationem, tamen non eodem modo consequuntur. Nam Deus agens ex decreto praedestinationis operatur haec priora per influxum gratiae efficacis: at ex decreto reprobationis nihil agit quo deterior efficiatur reprobatus, nihil quo vel impediatur a credendo & sancte vivendo, vel impellatur ad infidelitatem aut improbitatem. Hoc diligenter observandum est, quia tam veteres Pelagiani, quam novi, cum videant, posita reprobatione tali qualem descripsimus, neminem reproborum aut credere perseveranter, aut sancte vivere, illico clamant, nos facere Deum autorem peccati, & causam cur vel non credant, vel resilant a fide & sanctitate; Sed cum Propheta respondemus cuivis reprobo, perditio tua ex te, licet auxilium ex solo Deo. Nam reprobatio nil subtrahit de potentia ipsius reprobati, quamvis Deus erga illum non exserat illam potentiam efficacem, quam posset si vellet. Sic olim Prosper, Deus neminem boni possibilitate desoliat. Non est ergo consequens, sicut putant qui talia objiciunt, ut Deus quibus poenitentiam non dederit, resipiscentiam abstulerit; & quos non levaverit, alliserit, &c. haec ille. Longe aliter igitur se habet reprobatio in causando, quam praedestinatio. Deus praedestinans operatur omnia bona in praedestinatis per influxum gratiae, & causa efficiens proprie nominatur: sed Deus reprobans nulla operatur mala in reprobis per subtractionem gratiae, sed mala consequenter erumpunt ex corruptione naturae, quorum Deus non magis causa est, quam sol tenebrarum, quando non illuminat aerem. Haec de electione, Praedestinatione & reprobatione praefanda putavi.

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

Copy-text Locked Latin, De morte Christi Cap. 1-5 densify through Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Fathers tip (Daniel 1650) (Latin)
Print Facsimile Internet Archive PDF of the 1650 Cambridge folio (Latin)
Checked print Internet Archive DjVu OCR of the 1650 Cambridge folio (Latin)

This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.