Fathers

Two Dissertations · §76

Cap. 6 Thesis IV: Nature-as-grace adversaries and the thesis that God may give or deny application-media

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Some people argue at once from the claim that Christ’s death, in the sense already given, was spent for the human race—for every human being—that divine justice and goodness now require God to administer to all for whom he thus gave Christ to death the means needed to generate faith. Yet it is clearer than noon that ethnics and pagans, on whom the light of the gospel never shone, have not been given means that immediately suffice to produce faith in them. So the same people take refuge here: they say even such people are always given sufficient means by which, mediately and as if by degrees, they could have been led to faith in Christ if they had used those means well.

Ask what those means of grace are that could have stood ready for all and led all sufficiently to faith in Christ, and they thrust Nature upon us wrapped in the name of Grace. They say remnants of spiritual life remain in every human—some knowledge of God in the intellect, some desire for the known good in the affection—and that if a person uses those natural gifts rightly, God will heap greater grace on him and gift him with saving faith. Aquinas seems to lean that way in De veritate, question 14, article 11, reply to the first objection, where he writes: if someone reared in the woods followed the lead of natural reason in appetite for good and flight from evil, it must be held with full certainty that God would either reveal by inward inspiration what is necessary for belief, or send some preacher of the faith to him.

So their view comes to this: by the efficacy and merit of Christ’s death God is already bound as by statute to supply everyone with sufficient means to be led to Christ if they will, so that nothing is wanting on God’s side to keep anyone from faith and a fruitful share in Christ’s death. To untie that knot we have taken up this thesis to explain and confirm it.

Thesis IV. Once Christ’s death is posited as applicable to all humans under the condition of faith, it stands with divine goodness and justice to supply or deny the means of application—to nations or to particular persons—according to the good pleasure of his will, not according to the disparity of human wills.

Latin

Sunt enim nonnulli, qui ex eo quod mors Christi, sensu praedicto, humano generi, sive omnibus & singulis hominibus, impensa affirmatur, statim inferunt, Divinae justitiae & bonitati illud jam incumbere, ut omnibus, pro quibus Christum sic in mortem dedit, administret media ad fidem ingenerandam necessaria. Quia autem luce meridiana clarius liquet, Ethnicis & Paganis, quibus nunquam affulsit lux Evangelii, non esse data media quae immediate sufficiant ad fidem in iis producendam, eo confugiunt, ut dicant etiam talibus dari semper media sufficientia, quibus mediate, & quasi per gradus ad fidem Christi duci potuissent, si istis bene usi fuissent. Si quis autem quaerat, quae sint illa gratiae media, quae omnibus praestare, omnesque ad fidem Christi sufficienter ducere potuissent, Naturam Gratiae nomine obvolutam nobis obtrudunt. Dicunt enim reliquias quasdam vitae spiritualis omnibus hominibus inesse, scilicet in intellectu aliquam Dei cognitionem, in affectu ad bonum cognitum aliquod desiderium, quibus donis naturalibus si homo recte utatur, Deum illum majori gratia cumulaturum, & fide salutifera donaturum. Videtur Aquinas in hanc sententiam propendere, Quaest. 14. De veritate, art. 11, Resp. ad 1, Ubi scribit hunc in modum, Si quis in sylvis enutritus ductum rationis naturalis sequeretur in appetitu boni, & fuga mali; certissime tenendum est quod ei Deus vel per internam inspirationem revelaret ea quae ad credendum sunt necessaria, vel aliquem fidei praedicatorem ad eum dirigeret. Eo igitur redit horum sententia, ut existiment Deum efficacia & merito mortis Christi, jam quasi statuta lege adstrictum esse, ut media sufficientia omnibus suppeditet quibus ad Christum ducantur si voluerint; ita ut ex parte Dei nihil desideretur, quo minus omnes ad fidem & fructuosam participationem mortis Christi perveniant. Ad hujus difficultatis enodationem hanc thesin explicandam & confirmandam suscepimus. Thesis IV. Posita Christi morte omnibus hominibus applicabili sub conditione fidei, stat cum bonitate & justitia Divina suppeditare vel negare, sive nationibus sive singularibus hominibus, media applicationis, idque pro beneplacito voluntatis suae, non pro disparitate voluntatum humanarum.

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

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