Membership by predestination cannot be lost; the prelates who trust in the temple

Yet it is granted that by human ordinanceordinacio; ordinancia: ordinance; of the sacrament, ordination clericsclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric, the predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]") as well as the foreknownprescitus, -i: the foreknown, are constituted in ecclesiastical offices; but those who ordain such offices for them do not have the power to ordain that they be membersmembrum: member or parts of the true churchecclesia: church.¹ Further, it is granted that a predestinate [man], however far he may be in mortal [sin], does not cease to be a member of the true church, although by a pretended excommunication he is put, in name, outside the temporal and bodily communion of the pretended church. Hence Richard of St Victor, in a certain treatise On the Power of the Keys, which begins thus, "Whatsoever thou shalt bind": "A man," he says, "can be called a member of Christ according to a twofold consideration: either according to predestination or according to conditionhabitudo: condition. According to predestination someone can be a member of Christ and not yet have charitycaritas: charity; for according to the Lord’s testimony, 'the charity of many shall grow cold.' According to this acceptation, therefore, it happens that a man is a member of Christ and is still held by the bond of due damnation; but according to condition he is called a member of Christ when he has in himself that whereby he is made this very thing.² But does that charity make a member of Christ 73which for a time burns and in a moment grows cold? Without doubt those who never receive persevering charity were never of those true members of Christ who complete the integrity of his body. Yet according to a certain acceptation we can, and are accustomed to, call those who have transitory charity members of Christ, because of the conformity with his members which for a time they seem to have. But, to remove every scruple from those who inquire piously, we say that we are accustomed to be called members of Christ in three ways: by predestination, by preparation, by concorporationconcorporacio: concorporation.³ By predestination, when one is divinely preordained to life; by preparation, when a pagan or a false Christian is truly pricked to compunction and imbued with truth and charity; by concorporation, when the former, through the washing of the body, the latter, through the absolution of the priestsacerdos / presbiter: priest / presbyter, is conformed to the church of Christ. The first is done by the purpose of the divine will, the second by the purpose of one’s own deliberation, but the third by the office of the priest. From the bodily [building] we can observe what we ought to think of the spiritual building. See: a timber is chosen from the forest; that it may be set in a building, it is afterwards hewn, and by hewing is prepared to a fitting shape; at last it is joined to the building and duly fitted to it in its place. See how one timber at length becomes a member of the building: first by choice alone, second by preparation, and third by joining.⁴ So indeed many are already members of Christ by predestination, yet not yet by preparation; and many by preparation, but yet not yet by concorporation. Augustine, while he was still an unbeliever, was by predestination 74a member of Christ; correspondingly, he became a member of Christ by preparation when, believing in heart and fervent in devotion, he hastened to baptism. But baptized and joined in fellowship with the church, he was concorporated with the members of Christ."⁵ And this teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence⁶ Augustine teaches, On Christian Doctrine 3, chapter 32: "For that is not in truth the body of the Lord which will not be with him for ever. Hypocrites," he says, "are to be said not to be with him, not only for ever, but even now, although they seem to be in his church."⁷ And Chrysostom says the same in the Incomplete [Work], homily 9: "Those who were God’s could not perish, because no one can snatch from God." And the same is the teaching of the holy doctors who understand themselves in this matter; for otherwise the faith of scripture would be false, since, John 10:27–28, Christ says: "My sheep hear my voice. And I know them: and they follow me. And I give them life everlasting: and they shall not perish for ever. And no man shall pluck them out of my hand."⁸ And afterwards he proves from the immensity of the Father’s gift (which is the Holy Spirit) that no one can do this, because his Father is omnipotent, out of whose hand no one can snatch anything. Now Christ and his Father are one with the Holy Spirit, who is their gift, by whom the church is joined to him (as is clear in chapter 10). Therefore no one can snatch his sheep out of his hand.⁹ For he eternally chose every member of the church as his bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom; therefore, just as no one can cease to be predestinate, so it is not possible that he should desert or expel any member of his bride, since (as I said above) the person choosing would then be improvident or ungracious.¹⁰ 75Second, the same is confirmed from the faith of scriptureex fide: as faith teaches; with a genitive, from the faith of [scripture], 1 John 2:19, where the holy evangelist speaks of the foreknown who for a time remained in grace: "If," he says, "they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us." For it does not make sense that this conditional of so lofty an evangelist should be impossible and heretical. Third, it is confirmed from the saying of the apostle, Romans 8:35, where, speaking of himself and the other members of the church, he openly asserts that no creature shall be able to separate them from the charity which is a number founded in Christ Jesus, binding together his members.¹¹ Therefore he says in the same chapter, [verse] 9: "But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." And he means that that man is not a part of his body.

And if it is objected, by appeal toobicitur per: it is objected, by appeal to this: that a foreknown [man] who is in charity has this bond, and consequently union, just as a predestinate [man] who is in crime lacks this bond, and consequently union: it is clear that, just as in the human body one must posit a flowing moisture and a radical moisturehumidum radicale / fluens: radical / flowing moisture, so in the mystical body of Christcorpus Christi misticum: the mystical body of Christ one must posit grace according to present justice and consummated grace.¹² Hence, just as abscessesapostema: abscess are grown on through the flowing moisture, not continuous [with the body] because of the disparity of nature, so it is with the members of the devil, although for a time, according to present justice, they are grown on. But the predestinate, although for a time they are deprived of flowing grace, yet have the radical grace, from which they cannot fall away; and so, having a twofold grace, they are bound by a twofold bond. Yet the first ligament is indissoluble.¹³

So, then, it seems to me that the teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence of the saints on the members of the true church is most necessary today, as it was in the time of the synagogue. For just as then the pretended priestssacerdos / presbiter: priest / presbyter said that it was repugnant to the divine promise that they or their possession should perish, as Jeremiah recounts, chapter 7[:4]: "Trust not in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord," so too now it seems [so with] certain superiorsprepositi: superiors of a particular church, who claim to prove from faith that they rule Peter’s little ship as its headcapitaliter: as head (as chief lord), so that it can be shaken by the waves of the world but not sunk.¹⁴ And so they imply that, by divine predestination, they cannot be damned, nor can temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods be stripped from their church; but that, of necessity of salvation, all other Christians must be subject to them, and that they, as chiefscapitales (noun): chiefs, in secular and spiritual exercise of lordshipdominacio: exercise of lordship, lord itdominus; dominari: lord; to exercise lordship / to lord it over all the goods of the church.¹⁵ Hence, just as the Aaronite priests said that "the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet" (as is said in Jeremiah 18:18), so they seem to say today that the pretended and particular church is established in three ways: namely, by Christ’s promise, by the prop of the church’s law, which is equivalent to the Christian faith, and by the close ranks of many wise men.¹⁶