The second and third objections answered: the church’s digestion, and unformed faith

And so the apostle says truly that Christ is the saviour especially of the faithful in the third and fourth degree; and some understand the saying of the apostle, 1 Timothy 2:4, directly according to the letter, that God "will have all men to be saved".¹ To the second objectioninstancia; objectum: objection, from the saying of blessed John, the teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence is the same. For Christ is, as to sufficiency, the propitiation, that is, the physician or propitiatory medicine, of the whole human race, which has, beyond the devil, after the fall of the angels, freedom of choice, so that it may be saved; since the whole human race is "a certain man" who, going down "from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among robbers"; who, left half dead in his whole [being], had by the grace of the Samaritan medicine prepared, and ministers providently dispensing it with the wages and instruction of the twofold testament, according to which that whole man could be healed.² But besides that natural man, the second Adam must spiritually beget one generation mingled with the former, which is holy mother churchecclesia: church. And in that body some are truly members, as the predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]"), assimilated in the fourth digestion, whether they are for a time distempered, as the lapsed, or 61firmly established in perpetual health after the first healing.³ And those who are within the said church not as parts are in a twofold degree: as some remaining perpetually in their unbeliefinfidelitas: heathenism, unbelief, who never received charitycaritas: charity or grace. And these are like air or wind in a man, on which his natural heat never acted. And these, whether they are mingled [with the church] in place or only in the human race, serve for the cooling of holy mother church. And these [others] are like the superfluities of the food of the church’s bridegroomsponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom, who spiritually digests the predestinate and at last assimilates [them]. And this is the food of which Christ speaks, John 4:32: "I have meat to eat which you know not."⁴ Hence the superfluities of that food are tainted in two ways: as some are received into the stomach of holy mother church through grace, according to present justice, but because of their hypocrisy or heresy are not digested, on account of the abhorrence of working charity, but are to be perceptiblysensibilis: perceptible vomited up in this life; of whom the Holy Spirit speaks, Apocalypse 3:16: "Thou art neither hot nor cold; therefore I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth."⁵ And such are, whether clerics or laymen, those who make a show of working for the edification of holy mother church in whatever they do, but yet, because they have cold intentions of temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods, for which they principally act, are therefore hypocrites abominable to God, like lukewarm water that provokes to vomiting. And these are most abominable to God by reason of the falsehood lurking in duplicity, which is opposed to truth. Hence, just as, according to Aristotle, Meteorologica 1, chapter 6, 62water thus heated freezes more quickly because of the cold exhalations which the pores of heat receive, so those who make a show of sanctity of this kind are the most dangerous enemies of the church; through whom, as through men treacherously opening the gates of the church, those cold in faith and virtues creep in; who, more than [happens] among the faithful, extinguish and freeze the charity of the so-called church.⁶ The church, I say, ought to glow with pure charity from simple participation in Christ, who is a fire hot of itself with charity, and to put after [it] cupidity, the mother of all evils, and consequently not to love lucrative inventions more than God’s lawlex dei / lex Christi / lex evangelica: God's law / the law of Christ / the gospel law. And there are within the church other foreknownprescitus, -i: the foreknown, more hidden, escaping such vomiting: some like the dry superfluity of the first digestion, some like the moist superfluity of the second digestion, and some like abscessesapostema: abscess or worms of the third digestion.⁷ And it is clear that this does not followsequitur: it follows: "If any [persons] on the roadviantes: those on the road are in the church, then they are of the church"; but the converse [does]. For we know that cocklezizania: cockle grows among the wheat, that the raven feeds on the same threshing-floor as the dove, and that chaff is laid up in the barn for a time among the grain; and yet there is an incommunicable distinction between these, as has been exemplified in the human body. So we must imagine of holy mother church; and so is to be understood the text of 1 John 2:18, where it is said: "Even now there are become many Antichrists. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us."⁸ For just as superfluity proceeds from the food and from the solid members, while yet it is not of them, so the purgings of the church proceed from her, yet they were not of her as parts, since no part of her can fall away from her. Hence, to discern the distinction between the pure and such superfluities, blessed John says in the second canonical epistle: "Whosoever," he says, "revolteth and continueth not in the doctrinedoctrina: doctrine of Christ hath 63not God." Now the doctrine of Christ is humility, charity and poverty. Whoever, therefore, hates these, not imitating Christ as an eagle [does], know that he is not of his church.⁹ And so three peoples are excluded from the members of the church, who sin wholly in faith: namely, the wholly unbelieving, as pagans; heretics, as priests and Pharisees with those like them, who never tasted the sweetness of the hope of blessedness from the imitation of incarnate wisdom, but sit in the church in outward face for the sake of an affection for temporal primacies and carnal pleasures; and, third, those who have tasted a little of the divine digestion, but, for want of perfect charity or of final perseverance, fall away as unqualifiedinhabilis: unqualified (to hold office) to put on formally Christ the head; and these sin against the Trinity and the three catholic virtues (as I said above).¹⁰ And all such, Augustine says, are not of the members of the church, just as in the natural body of a man no one says that the proportionals are members. But St Thomas seems to speak generally, equivocating on "member": namely, of a member alive for a time and of a member wholly dead, a putative one.¹¹

To the third, it is denied, in the sense of scripture, that all men are faithful. Yet it is granted with Damascene that every man has faith, at least unformed, since naturally, by the first impression of beingens / esse / essencia: a being / being (existence) / essence, he knows, at least indistinctlyconfuse / confusus (fides, noticia): indistinct(ly), first of all, that God is, and every article of faitharticulus fidei: article of faith.¹² But this unformed faith does not suffice to name a man faithful, or a part of the church; but all final unbeliefinfidelitas: heathenism, unbelief must be excluded. And of such a faithful man Christ speaks, John 10:28, promising that everyone who believes in the Son may not perish (supply: by everlasting death); now he believes in 64the Son who, by believing him, adheres to him finally through love.¹³ Hence, since about such final adherence we are in doubt, Augustine on John, homily 12, teaches how a member of the church is well enough known to God, and to whom he wishes to reveal [it]. "The Lord knoweth," he says, "who are his; he knows who will remain for the crown, who will remain for the flame; he knows in his threshing-floor the wheat, he knows the chaff; he knows the crop, he knows the cocklezizania: cockle." But to the rest it is unknown who are doves and who ravens.¹⁴