Cap. 2 Ratio 1: Christ’s death yields some spiritual fruits even to the non-elect

That death whose fruit brings some spiritual benefits even to those who are not saved is not applicable to the elect alone; but the death of Christ does bring some fruits even to those who will not be saved. For a clearer understanding of the Major I now suggest what I warned from the beginning: under the name of the death of Christ we embrace that whole heap of Christ’s meritorious obedience, to which his very death set the last closing clause, as it were. For this infinite merit of the Mediator Christ is what God the Father looks upon when he grants to lost and miserable mortals any spiritual benefit whatever in order to eternal salvation. If therefore it shall be established that even the non-elect receive certain benefits of this kind from the merit of Christ, then it will be clear that the death of Christ, at least as to some effects, is not only applicable promiscuously to all human beings, but is in fact applied to certain persons who will not be saved.

Let us therefore come to the proof of the Minor, which alone can come into doubt. First, this very thing — that God deigns to call many even of the non-elect to repentance and faith, and under the condition of faith to eternal life — I ask, is it not to be counted a great benefit? It is certainly so counted by God himself, who calls the preaching of the Gospel the word of life (John 6:68; Acts 5:20); the saving grace of God (Titus 2:11); who says that Christ had to suffer and rise again, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations (Luke 24:46-47); who finally calls this very announcement of the Gospel a treasure (2 Corinthians 4:7), pronounces the very feet of those who preach the gospel beautiful (Romans 10:15), and threatens its removal with the place of the highest punishment (Matthew 21:43), and decrees that those who have despised and thrust away so great a good are to be punished most severely (Luke 10:12-13; 2 Thessalonians 1:8). All these things show that the Gospel is a supernatural benefit granted even to those who abuse it.

Second, if anyone should stubbornly deny that the announcement of the Gospel itself is a benefit granted by God with respect to the non-elect, yet no one will deny that that illumination of the mind, tasting of the heavenly gift, and some communication of supernatural gifts, of which mention is made in (Hebrews 6), are great and excellent benefits, and that they are conferred in order not to this bodily but to that spiritual life. Yet all these are often given to those who are not of the number of the elect; and they are given through and on account of Christ. For of his fullness we have all received (John 1:16), and to each one grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ (Ephesians 4:7). Indeed of supernatural gifts of whatever kind we may rightly say with the Apostle that one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each as he wills (1 Corinthians 12:11). I will also add this: whatever supernatural grace is given through Christ to any human being is given from the merit of Christ; for Christ confers nothing of this kind on human beings which he did not first merit for them by his obedience. So Bernard, Sermon 13 on the Song: Whatever wisdom, whatever virtue you trust yourself to have, ascribe to the Virtue of God, the Wisdom of God — to Christ. The origin of fountains and rivers is the sea; of virtues and sciences, the Lord Jesus Christ. Ambrose more generally: Every gift of the grace of God is in Christ (commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians).

Finally, this at least, on the judgment of all the ancients, proves that the death of Christ is by God’s ordination applicable even to the non-elect: that they expressly taught that in Baptism it is applied to the remission of original sin for any baptized infant. This is an excellent and supernatural effect of the death of Christ, concerning whose application to the non-predestinate there was scarcely any doubt in the ancient Church — not even among those who held absolute predestination most tightly. A very ample witness to this matter is Prosper himself (Response 2 to the Chapters of the Gauls, and Sentence 2 on the same Chapter). To him one may add the African Fathers in their Synodical Letter, and the Council of Valence, Canon 5. By this first argument, therefore, we obtain that the meritorious power of Christ’s death is not to be restricted to the elect alone, but is applicable to others by God’s ordination, and as to certain effects is sometimes in fact applied.