Fathers

Two Dissertations · §566

Cap. VIII Resp.: negative reprobation is not from punitive justice; permission precedes foresight of final bad use

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Negative reprobation — nothing but God's eternal purpose not to give certain ones that singular grace by which their hearts would be softened and by which they would be infallibly directed to eternal life — does not proceed from punitive justice, nor from a will to damn, but from that reason of providence by which God judged it agreeable to his wisdom to permit some, by their own vice, to fall short of beatitude's end. That will posited, God foresights the reprobate's future sins and final remaining in them, and understands that the manifestation of his glory will arise from punishing those sins. So he intends to exercise punitive justice about the reprobate for the sins in which they are foresighted as finishing life — but that intention and foresight followed the act of the foresaid reprobation, as did the sinner's final state in his sins. We may truly say there was always in God a will to punish sins if they should come to be; but an absolute express will to punish, terminated on this or that particular person, we cannot place in God unless his permission that they come to be is presupposed, and that this person destined to punishment finally remain under their guilt. That permission — which contains the act of negative reprobation — is prior to absolute foresight of evil use of free will lasting to life's end in this or that person, and so cannot depend on that foresight as cause. Wrongly, then, are the decrees of reprobating and of avenging or damning drawn from the same causes.

Latin

Reprobatio negativa, quae nihil aliud dicit quam aeternum Dei propositum de non-dando quibusdam singularem gratiam qua corda illorum emollirentur, cujusque beneficio ipsi ad vitam aeternam infallibiliter dirigerentur, non procedit ex justitia punitiva, neque ex voluntate damnandi, sed ex illa Divinae providentiae ratione, qua Deus judicavit sapientiae suae convenire, ut permitteret quosdam suo vitio a fine beatitudinis deficere. Posita autem hac Dei voluntate, praevidet Deus futura reproborum peccata, et finalem eorundem permansionem in peccatis; atque simul intelligit gloriae suae manifestationem ex punitione peccatorum orituram. Intendit itaque Deus justitiam punitivam exercere circa reprobates, propter peccata in quibus praevidentur vitam finitori; sed haec intentio et praevisio secuta est reprobationis praedictae actum, sicuti et ipse finalis status peccatoris in peccatis suis. Dicere quidem possumus, et vere, semper fuisse in Deo voluntatem puniendi peccata, si fierent: sed absolutam et expressam voluntatem puniendi, ac terminatam ad hanc aut illam singularem personam, non possumus in Deo ponere, nisi praesupposita Dei permissione ut fierent, utque haec persona punitioni destinata sub reatu eorundem finaliter permaneret. Haec autem permissio, quae reprobationis negativae actum continet, prior est absoluta praescientia mali usus liberi arbitrii ad finem vitae usque perdurantis in hac aut illa persona singulari, ac proinde non potest ex illa tanquam ex causa dependere. Perperam ergo reprobandi ac vindicandi sive damnandi decreta ex iisdem causis deducuntur.

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.

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