Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Elect Obj. 3 Solut close: Eternal love yields certain means, not eternal justification
Objection 3. Why do the means work in some people and not in others? Not, they say, from any difference of free choice, but because God is already reconciled to all the elect in Christ before the world's foundations were laid, and is not reconciled to the rest. So we must not deny that every elect person is actually reconciled to God before conversion and faith—since the very dispensing of means powerful enough to produce faith and repentance in them sprang from that eternal, prior reconciliation.
Solution. We gladly admit that the infallible efficacy of means ordained to salvation does not hang on the human will. It hangs on a certain eternal and special love of God for his elect. But so far as that love regards people who are still unbelieving and unconverted, it is nothing but a free purpose to supply them with what will later convert them, justify them, reconcile them to God, and lead them without fail to eternal life. Inferring from that eternal love an eternal justification, an eternal reconciliation of the elect, and an eternal glorification of them is therefore just as bad a leap. What follows is only their certain and infallible justification, reconciliation, and glorification. That certainty—the infallible efficacy of means that tend toward salvation—is born from the love of God just named, not from free choice's power. If someone wants to label this eternal love (the ground of the certainty that conversion and reconciliation will be produced in time) "actual reconciliation," because God himself "calls the things that are not as though they were" (Romans 4:17), I will not stop him—provided he also admits he is using the name of a finished deed for the purpose of a deed still to be done. For God's predestination had already fixed what would come in its own time, as Augustine puts it (City of God, book 12, chapter 16).
Latin
Obj. 3. Efficacia mediorum in quibusdam hominibus potius quam in aliis non ex discrimine liberi arbitrii oritur, sed exinde quod Deus est reconciliatus electis omnibus in Christo ante jacta mundi fundamenta, aliis haud reconciliatus: Non igitur negare debemus electos omnes esse Deo actualiter reconciliatos ante conversionem suam ac fidem; quandoquidem ipsa dispensatio tam efficacium mediorum ad producendam in illis fidem & paenitentiam, ex aeterna illa & antecedanea eorundem reconciliatione traxit suam originem. Solut. Efficacitatem infallibilem mediorum ad salutem ordinatorum non ab humana voluntate pendere, sed ex aeterno & speciali quodam Dei erga electos suos amore, lubenter confitemur. At hunc amorem nil aliud esse dicimus, quatenus respicit homines adhuc infideles & inconversos, quam gratuitum propositum providendi iisdem quo in futurum convertantur, justificentur, Deo reconcilientur, & ad aeternam vitam infallibiliter perducantur. Aeque male igitur ab hoc amore aeterno infertur aeterna justificatio, & aeterna reconciliatio electorum, atque aeterna glorificatio eorundem, cum colligere inde solummodo oporteat certam et infallibilem eorundem justificationem, reconciliationem et glorificationem: quae certitudo sive infallibilis efficacia mediorum ad salutem tendentium ex praedicto amore Dei, non ex virtute liberi arbitrii nascitur. Hunc amorem aeternum, unde pendet certitudo conversionis et reconciliationis in tempore producendae, si lubet alicui vocare actualem reconciliationem, eo quod ipse Deus vocet ea quae non sunt tanquam sint, Rom. iv. 17. nihil impedio, modo simul fateatur se rei faciendae propositum rei factae nomine indigitare: Quia in Dei praedestinatione fixum erat quod suo tempore futurum erat, ut loquitur Augustinus, De Civit. Dei, lib. 12. cap. 16.
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.