Fathers

Two Dissertations · §188

Cap. 7 Contra Sol. 2: God-side application; Scotus on joining the unjoined

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To meet the objection, take Ephesians 1:3 as foundation: God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ — that is, every saving good that comes down from God is given through Christ and for his merits. Saving faith, proper to the elect, ranks among the chief spiritual blessings; so it is granted, for Christ's merits, to all who in fact receive it. When theologians say faith is the instrument by which Christ's merits are applied to us, they mean application on the human side: the elect cannot apply those merits to themselves for any spiritual benefit unless faith is already presupposed in them. But if we view application or imputation from God's side alone, God can and does apply — impute and communicate — Christ's merits to people so that, with regard to those merits, he gives spiritual goods even while they still count as ungodly and unbelieving. Faith, when first given, is not given to a believer but to an unbeliever; yet it is given to the elect for the Mediator's merits. So we must confess: no elect person could, by believing, apply Christ's merits to himself for eternal life's fruit unless God, from special mercy and for that merit of Christ, had first infused the faith by which they would believe. That is the special application of Christ's merits which, from Christ's special will in offering himself and the Father's in accepting the sacrifice, we say belongs to the elect by a peculiar privilege. Scotus saw this in a saying worth marking: the chief thing in Christ's merit was that he merited the joining of the unjoined (lib. 3, dist. 19, unique q., p. 75) — as if to say the main force of those merits is that some from among unbelievers should become believers and, joined to Christ by faith, obtain eternal life. That special ordination and application of Christ's merits hangs wholly on God's good pleasure, not on human choice.

Latin

Ut huic objectioni occurratur, fundamenti loco ponendum est illud Apostoli, Ephes. i. 3. Benedixit nobis Deus omni benedictione spirituali in Christo. Id est, Quicquid boni salutiferi ad nos a Deo descendit, id nobis per Christum & propter merita Christi donatur. Cum igitur ipsa fides salutifera, quae propria est electorum, sit inter praecipuas spirituales benedictiones reponenda, propter merita Christi illam donari iis omnibus, quibus de facto donatur, in confesso est. Quod igitur vulgo dicunt Theologi, fidem esse illud instrumentum, quo mediante merita Christi nobis applicantur, id intelligendum est de applicatione ex parte hominum considerata: Ipsi enim electi non possunt sibi applicare merita Christi ad perceptionem beneficiorum quorumcunque spiritualium, nisi fide in iis praesupposita. At si applicationem aut imputationem ex parte solius Dei consideremus, tum dicendum est, Deum & posse & solere applicare, id est, imputare & communicare, hominibus merita Christi, ita ut intuitu horum meritorum det illis bona spiritualia, etiam cum impii & infideles censeantur. Fides enim ipsa, cum primum datur, non fideli datur, sed infideli: datur autem electis propter merita Mediatoris. Necesse est ergo ut fateamur, neminem ex electis potuisse credendo sibi applicare merita Christi ad fructum vitae aeternae, nisi Deus ex speciali misericordia, propter hoc meritum Christi, fidem qua crederent illis prius infudisset. Atque haec est illa specialis applicatio meritorum Christi quam ex speciali voluntate Christi seipsum offerentis, Deique Patris hoc sacrificium acceptantis, ad electos peculiari quodam privilegio pertinere affirmamus. Scotus huc respexit, illo dicto observatione dignissimo, Haec fuit potissimum in merito Christi, quod meruit non-conjunctos conjungi, lib. 3. dist. 19. qu. unica, pag. 75. Quod perinde est ac si dixisset, praecipuam efficaciam meritorum Christi in eo sitam, quod meruit ut quidam ex infidelibus reapse fierent fideles, Christoque per fidem conjuncti vitam aeternam consequerentur. Haec est illa specialis ordinatio meritorum Christi, atque applicatio, quae tota pendet ex Dei beneplacito, non ex hominum arbitrio.

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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