For those who can accept it – hallelujah! :-)
What do you think he means by “if men do not show themselves unworthy”? I take it simply as his way of saying something like “provided they believe”.

David,

It’s interesting to read this discussion about the word “unworthy” translated from the French. I recently got into a discussion about this word when I posted some quotes from Blaise Pascal, in which he used the same word in a similar sense. Like Amyraut and Calvin, Pascal wrote in French. I’m wondering if there is some type of mistranslation, a semantic sense that simply doesn’t make the transition from French to English. Technically, the English word “unworthy” doesn’t work in some of these contexts. If you’re interested in seeing how some thoughtful commenters theorized about this on my site, the posts are here:

http://theoparadox.blogspot.com/2009/01/pascal-on-gods-self-revelation.html

and here:

http://theoparadox.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-from-pascal.html

and here:

http://theoparadox.blogspot.com/2009/01/does-anyone-deserve-grace.html

Your suggestion that “unworthiness” stands for “unbelief” makes sense of the matter. My two years of French aren’t helping much at this point!

Grace & peace,
Derek Ashton