Heb. vii. 18.REPROBATION. The Latin Word Reprobatio is often put to express, that one rejects a thing that before one had admitted and embraced; or that we will no longer make use of a Person or Thing that we had before made use of. For example, St. Paul says, that God had reprobated, rejected, or disanull’d the Ceremonial Law, because of the Weakness and Unprofitableness thereof. Reprobatio sit praecedentis mandati, propter infirmitatem ejus & imbecillitatem. We read also, The Stone which the Builders (reprobated, or) refused, is become the head Stone of the Corner.
Psal. cxviii. 22. Matth. xxi. 42. Mark xii. 10. Luke xx. 17. 1 Pet. ii. 4,7. Psal. xxxiii. 10. Ecclus. xx. 20. Jerem. vi. 30.To reprobate, often signifies barely to reject. The Lord (reprobates or) bringeth the Counsel of the Heathen to nought, he rejects and condemns it. A wise Sentence shall be (reprobated, or) rejected, when it cometh out of a Fool’s Mouth; that is, it will be laugh’d at and despised. Jeremiah calls the Princes of Judah reprobate Silver. Reprobate Silver shall Men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them. That is, bad Silver of a coarse Alloy, which will not be taken in Traffick.1
Lastly, to reprobate, expresses the Decree of God, to abandon the Wicked to the greatest of Evils, by not taking them out of that Mass of Corruptions, in which we are all involved by our Birth, and in not affording them the Graces necessary to their arriving at eternal Happiness. a There are Reprobates, who at their Baptism receive Remission of their Sins, and afterwards several other actual Graces; but who do not receive the Gift of final Perseverance.2 Others are lost, either because of their Birth, which is corrupted by original Sin, or as a Punishment of their actual Sins, of which they have made themselves guilty, and of which they have not repented. But all those whom God reprobates, he does not reprobate them by making them wicked but by not granting them the Benefits of his gratuitous Aug. Ep. 194. nov. edit. p. 719 n. 14. c. 3.Mercy. Merito namque peccati universa massa damnata est; nec obdurat Deus impertiendo malitiam, sed non impertiendo miserecordiam. Quibus enim non impertitur, nec digni sunt, nec merentur; ac potius ut non impertiatur, hoc digni sunt, hoc merentur.
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