Cap. 4 Terms 2–3: Evangelical covenant from the blood; possible faith; three members announced

Second, that also must be explained which was set down in the thesis, namely that by the merit of the aforesaid death of Christ a certain new covenant has been sanctioned between God and the human race. By this covenant we understand that which is urged by the Apostle in (Galatians 3:11): Believe, and you shall live, and is set over against the legal, Do this and you shall live. This very pact, which promises salvation to any sinner under the condition of faith, has its foundation and firmament nowhere else than in the Mediator’s blood: without which poured out, not even by believing could any mortal aspire to eternal life. But when Christ’s death has been accepted by God as a lytron, it is now lawful without distinction for any human being to ascend into heaven by believing, as the Apostle shows in (Romans 3:21–26) and Christ himself in (Mark 16:15), Go, etc. In this Evangelical covenant, then, stabilized by Christ’s death, which the Apostles published to the whole world and Evangelical ministers still preach, no respect of persons is had. Esau will be saved, if he believes in the Messiah, as much as Jacob; Jacob will be damned, if he does not believe, as much as Esau. Yet it must be confessed that there is also another ordination of God, secret and absolute, looking to certain definite persons, and founded also in Christ’s death, which receives the name of the New Covenant. But this is understood rather as a pact between God the Father and Christ than between God and us. It is that which is recalled by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 53:10): If he shall have set his soul for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed; and is explained by the Apostle (Hebrews 8:10): This is the covenant that I will make, etc. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their heart, etc. — as if to say that by his death Christ not only stabilized that conditioned covenant which can be promulgated to all and each under this formula, If you believe, whoever you are, you will be saved through Christ’s death, but also that secret and absolute one concerning faith to be given to certain human beings, and those same to be saved infallibly through and on account of Christ. It is to be noted, however, that this latter covenant is known to Christ alone, and cannot through Christ’s ministers be made plain to anyone as to the singular persons it embraces. For the Apostles themselves could, and we can, preach to any human being that conditioned and revealed covenant, If you believe, you will be saved; but neither they could, nor can we, promise anyone infallibly, You are of those whom God gave to Christ the Mediator, and whom through and on account of Christ he will gift with persevering faith and lead infallibly to eternal life. For that would be as if we professed we had been of God’s counsel before the foundations of the world were laid, and could point out elect and non-elect with the finger. Without this latter covenant, which is more properly understood as stabilized between God and the Mediator than between God and human beings, that former conditioned one would by human wickedness and unbelief be void in all human beings, and that precious blood of infinite merit would flow away into emptiness. Yet because, as has been said, God alone knows those to whom this covenant looks, it is ours to urge and press that former conditioned covenant revealed to us: and that is what we defend as stabilized by Christ’s death with the whole human race. Finally this too is to be observed. Although that conditioned covenant is not actually published to each human being, yet it is of such a kind that it can be published and announced to any mortal: although individuals do not claim their right in this covenant for themselves, yet there is no one to whom it is not lawful, by the merit of Christ’s death, to promise this to himself and claim it from the pact, If I believe, I will be saved. It is stabilized as to all and each, but by a certain special providence of God governing the matter it is revealed and announced to these, not to those.

It remains third to explain what was set down in the thesis concerning the Divine ordination depending on the aforesaid covenant, according to which remission of sins and eternal life are decreed to be exhibited to any human being under the possible condition of faith. And here that one point needs explanation, that we affirm the condition of faith to be possible for each one. We do not want this so understood as if each one had in himself a natural intrinsic principle proportioned to eliciting an act of true and living faith. For that was the error of Faustus of Riez and the Semi-Pelagians, who ascribe faith to free choice and dream that the gift of believing is as it were naturally inborn and fixed in it. To this look those words of Faustus, On Free Choice, book 2, chapter 6: You see that the good of believing is not a novel privilege but an old one, and that from the very beginnings of the coalescing world the human mind was gifted by the highest Author with faith as with intellect and reason. And lest anyone think this gift of faith lost in fallen man, a little later he adds chapter 7: Let any pursuer of virtue cultivate in himself by special study this general gift of faith. See more in that sense. Although therefore he calls faith a gift, he still hints that it is a natural and general gift, and that anyone can elicit this act of believing by the powers of free choice. But this we wholly abhor, and we do not look to it when we say the condition of faith is possible. Further, neither do we found this possibility of believing in some supernatural gift already received by all. For we do not dare to maintain that gratuitous and sufficient helps for bringing forth the act of believing are given to all and each; since sacred Scripture itself clearly teaches that faith is a special gift of God. It remains, then, that with the most learned Báñez we found the possibility of performing this condition neither in some natural and innate gift, nor in a supernatural gift received by all, but in a supernatural gift possibly to be received by any wayfarer, according to the ordinary law, as the School speaks. These things thus set out and established, I will now divide the aforesaid thesis into three members, which I will confirm separately with reasons brought forward.