Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

ON THE REASON FOR DISTINGUISHING THE DIVINE WILL IN MANY WAYS, WHICH IS MOST SIMPLE IN ITSELF.

On the antecedent and consequent will of God.

Although the divine will is in itself one most simple act, yet for us, on account of the diversity of the objects to which it is referred, there is need of manifold consideration and distinction of reason; but with regard to the saving will, the distinction most necessary and used by the holy Fathers and theologians is into the antecedent and the consequent will. In this partition, according to the doctrine of those same Fathers and of the old theologians, and especially of St Thomas and St Bonaventure, the term by which the saving will is called antecedent or consequent is the foresight of the free acts of the creature, and not, before all foresight, a predefined manifestation of justice and of the beauty of the universe.

I. From what has been demonstrated above concerning divine simplicity and the distinctions of reason, it is clear enough a) that the divine will cannot be conceived as a power which elicits diverse acts; but that it is one simple act, and the divine essence itself regarded under the reason of volition, which has as its principal and necessary object the infinite and essential good itself; and that it freely terminates to other goods, that they may be, without any change in itself (see p. 307. sq.). It is clear b) that the same infinite volition eminently equals many acts, insofar as that one act terminates to many diverse objects, to which a finite will can be carried only by distinct and diverse acts. Hence, just as in the divine volition every real distinction must be denied, so virtual distinctions, as they are understood by us through inadequate concepts, are necessarily to be admitted (see p. 159.). Therefore, although it is indubitable, as the Fathers say with Cyril of Alexandria, dialog. V. de Trin. T. V. p. 555, « that the divine will is not distinct from God himself, and that he who says will signifies the very nature of the Father and of the Son, » nevertheless the same Fathers distinguish the divine will in many ways, in view of the diverse reasons of the objects to which it extends.

II. The most important distinction, frequent among the holy Fathers and most clearly declared by them, is that of the antecedent or first will and the consequent or second will. Antecedent and consequent are relative terms; for something is understood to antecede by being prior to another that is posterior, and to follow in relation to another prior either in reality or in reason. The question therefore is, what is the term in relation to which the will of God is said to be antecedent and consequent. The solution of this question is of such moment that from it, as from its principle and foundation, depends the sincere interpretation of almost the whole doctrine on the saving will and on predestination to glory.

There have not been wanting some theologians of the School, from the sixteenth century on, who, in order to reconcile their opinions about predestination, about the predefinition of all our acts absolutely antecedent to foreknowledge, and about the mode of premotion and of efficacious grace, with the Catholic doctrine of the antecedent will for the salvation of all men, were compelled to defend that the term by which the will of God is called antecedent and consequent is not our foreseen free acts but plainly something else. They took the immediate occasion of their interpretation from a certain explanation of each will, which St Thomas has, 1. q. 19. a. 6. There the Angelic Doctor teaches that the antecedent will is that by which God wills the good considered in itself: but because sometimes what, considered in itself, would be good ceases to be good by some attached circumstance; hence, he says, it happens that by the consequent will, which is referred to the thing considered according to all its circumstances, God sometimes does not will what he wills by the antecedent will. These circumstances, from which it comes about that by the consequent will God does not will the salvation of all men, those interpreters affirmed are not, in St Thomas, to be understood as the sins of men, but something altogether different, entirely independent of the free will of men. It is, in their opinion, a circumstance by which God is moved not to will the salvation of innumerable men, namely that, if all were saved, the justice of God would not be sufficiently manifested, and the beauty of the universe would be less. Hence they say that the term, in relation to which the saving will of God is called antecedent or consequent, is by no means the foreseen holiness or depravity of the creature, as we assert; but that the antecedent will is that by which God wills the salvation of all, considered in itself, with that circumstance set aside, namely that this salvation of all would impede « a greater universal good and the beauty of the universe; » and that the consequent will is that by which God, that circumstance of a greater good being considered, wills the salvation of the predestined only, and does not will the salvation of the others.

Whether we have faithfully reported the opinion which we undertake to refute will be judged from the very words of those interpreters, which read thus. « 1°. It is called the antecedent will, not because it precedes the good or evil use of our free choice; but because it precedes the will by which God is carried toward the object considered with some circumstance, which is his consequent consideration of it. » 2°. « If the salvation of the reprobate (i.e. not the predestined, while they still enjoy this life) is considered in itself and absolutely, thus it is willed by God; but if it is considered as having attached to it the privation or lack of a greater good, namely of the universal good of divine providence, of the beauty of the universe, of the manifestation of divine justice in the reprobate, and of a greater splendour of his mercy in the elect, thus it is not willed by God. And according to this we assert that by the consequent will God does not will all to be saved, but only the predestined. » 3°. « It is not necessary that God by the antecedent will will the opposite of what he wills by the consequent will »¹ 4°. « The antecedent will formally implies in God a conditional act, by which he would will the salvation of all, unless from this the beauty of the universe and the universal good of divine justice and mercy were impeded. » Didac. Alvarez de Auxil. disp. XXXIV. nn. 3-5. p. 260. 261.

But indeed, among the holy Fathers and the older theologians it is most certainly said that the saving will is antecedent, insofar as it precedes in reason and does not yet presuppose the foresight of the free acts of the creature; but consequent, which follows upon free acts foreseen and presupposes them.

For a) the will called antecedent by the Fathers is that which God conceives from himself and from his inborn goodness; the will called consequent is that which God conceives, provoked as it were by our free acts. Hence b) by the antecedent will God, whose nature is goodness, who « loves all things that are, and hates nothing of what he has made; » « who loves souls; » « for whom impious men are not necessary » Sap. XI. 25. 27; Eccli. XV. 12; wills only the communication of his goodness, though according to diverse degrees; wills only what is good in every way for the rational creature made by him in his image; but by the consequent will God wills some things, which are good in themselves only upon the supposition of the evil acts of the creature, and which are evils for a sinful creature and privations of great goods. c) Therefore, with the good free acts of the creature foreseen, God wills by the consequent will the goods which he also wills by the antecedent will; but with the evil free acts of the creature foreseen, God sometimes wills things which are not good except consequently upon those acts, and which he does not will by the antecedent will.

Although, therefore, the antecedent and consequent will is also in view of good merits, yet because there the object, with respect to either reason of the will, is not different; while on the contrary, because the object of the consequent will is the infliction of punishment, where the distinguishing term is foreseen evil merits: therefore the Fathers most frequently consider the consequent will in this other way, insofar as it is the will of punishing justice, consequent upon our evil works. « The good pleasure, says Chrysostom, hom. I. in Eph. n. 2, is everywhere the preceding will; for besides this there is also another will. Thus the first will is that those who have sinned should not perish; the second will is that those who have become evil should perish. For surely it is not necessity that punishes them, but will... Therefore Paul calls the good pleasure the will which is first, which is vehement, which is will with desire »² From Chrysostom, John Damascene expressed his own doctrine, which the Scholastics afterwards followed. « One must know, says he, Fid. ortodox. II. 29, that God antecedently wills all to be saved; for he did not create us in order to punish us, but that we might share in his goodness, since he created us as good. But those sinning he wills to be punished, as just. Therefore the will is called first, antecedent, and good pleasure (εὐδοκία), which is from himself; but the will second and consequent and permission, which is from our cause »³ Almost the same things he repeats again in dial. cont. Manichaeos n. 79, and illustrates by a comparison with an earthly judge, which St Thomas afterwards adopted, 1. q. 19. a. 5, and which before him Pope Gregory the Great (if he is the author) used in the same way in 1. Reg. l.II. c.2. n.20. « Although, says John Damascene, he judges (punishes) willingly, yet not by the antecedent will but by the consequent. The antecedent will is what one wills from oneself; the consequent will is what proceeds from the cause of other things, which come about. For antecedently God from himself wills all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth, but we sinning he wills us to be punished for our benefit. And the antecedent will of God is that of goodness, but the consequent is that of his justice »⁴ In the same way, and in almost the same words, other Fathers speak, as Tertullian before the rest, contr. Marc. II. 11. « The goodness of God is prior according to nature, severity posterior according to cause; the former innate, the latter accidental; the former proper, the latter adapted; the former put forth, the latter applied. » After the others, St Bernard, serm. 5. de Nat. Domini n. 3, writes: « that he has mercy belongs to him; for he takes from himself the matter and, as it were, the seed-bed of mercy. For what he judges and condemns, we in a manner compel him; so that mercy seems to proceed from his heart far differently than punishment... Rightly therefore he is not called the Father of judgments or of vengeances but the Father of mercies... all the more because he takes the cause and origin of mercy from what is his own, of judging or avenging rather from ours. »

From this constant doctrine of the Fathers is drawn the explanation of the saving will, antecedent and consequent, as handed down by St Thomas, St Bonaventure and the other ancient theologians. As for St Thomas, we affirm that the circumstances on account of which God, by a consequent will, does not will the salvation of those who in fact are not saved are, with the Angelic Doctor, never anything other than the sins of men. But if this is true, then surely the same term is assigned by St Thomas as by the holy Fathers, the term before which the will of God is distinguished into antecedent and consequent. First, therefore, St Thomas, in all the places to be cited where he treats of this matter, appeals to the doctrine of John Damascene, and wholly approves his reason for distinguishing the two wills of God. How plain the doctrine of John Damascene is, we have seen above. Thus in de verit. q. 23. a. 2. he says first, « the understanding of this distinction is to be taken from the words of John Damascene. » Then, after a luminous explanation in the body of the article, he adds in the reply to the second objection: « God wills a certain man to be saved by an antecedent will, by reason of the human nature which he made for salvation; but he wills him to be damned by a consequent will, on account of the sins which are found in him. » Again, in the commentary on 1 Tim. II. lect. 1: « the salvation of all men, considered in itself, has the character of being willable, and the Apostle speaks here in this way, and so his will is antecedent. But if one considers the good of justice and that sins be punished, then he does not will it, and this is the consequent will. » Likewise in 1. dist. 46. q. 1. a. 1., the whole of which article leaves no place for evasion: « considering all the circumstances of the person, it is not found that it is good for all to be saved. » Hear from the Angelic Doctor what these circumstances are: « for it is good that he who prepares himself and consents be saved through the largess of divine grace, but for one who is unwilling and resists it is not good to be saved, because it is unjust... therefore God does not will this man, considered under these conditions, to be saved; but only that man who is willing and consenting: and this is called the consequent will, because it presupposes the foreknowledge of works, not as a cause of the willing (which, as being the very essence of God, has no cause), but as the reason of the thing willed. » He explains this very point there in ad 5: « the conditions by which man is made disordered from the attainment of the end, under which, existing thus, God does not will him to be saved, are from the man himself, and therefore all that follows is imputed to him as guilt. » The same plainly teaches 1. q. 19. a. 6. « A just judge wills antecedently that every man live, but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. Similarly God antecedently wills every man to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned according to the exigency of his justice. » I hold that the judge's will to hang a man is consequent upon the homicide, not, however, consequent upon the necessity of the beauty of the commonwealth with no offence yet presupposed. Thus, then, neither the necessity of manifesting justice before the supposition of sin, nor the beauty of the universe, requires that God not will the salvation of all; but, with some final sin presupposed, the exigency of justice is that these should not be saved. How the evils of guilt, which are certainly not from God but from man, are ordered by God to the beauty of the universe, and so how the evils of punishment per accidens contribute to the same, St Thomas declares in 1. q. 19. a. 9. and in 1. dist. 46. a. 4.⁵ From this reason, that God, being good, can also make good out of evils, he explains in 1. q. 23. a. 5. ad 3., after Augustine, why God can permit the evils of guilt and, by a consequent will, reprobate some.

Such is the most luminous doctrine among the other works of St Bonaventure, 1. dist. 46. a. 1. q. 1., where, John Damascene having been cited, he adds this explanation. « The antecedent will is the will with respect to that for the sake of which God made man, and it is irrefragably of good things. The consequent will, however, is not the will which follows merits (existing already in time as things done); but which wills certain things according to the knowledge of merits. The first, namely the antecedent, is called by the Masters conditional, or the will by which God wills, so far as it is in himself. The second, namely the consequent, is called absolute. » Read the rest there.

Corollary. If the antecedent saving will is understood with respect to its term of comparison taken universally, the will is considered as it stands antecedently to the foresight of original sin itself, and all the more of all our free acts. But if the saving will is regarded, as almost always in the Scriptures and mostly by the holy Fathers, as referred, with original sin presupposed, to the human race fallen and restored, the term before which the will of eternal salvation is called antecedent or consequent is the foresight of the final state which is to be, in grace or in sin. This foresight, both as to adults and as to little ones, includes many things which stand in different ways on either side. Although, therefore, abstracting from the manner in which a man is brought to the state of grace or remains in the state of sin, it can be said universally that the term before which the will of eternal salvation is called antecedent or consequent is the final state of this life: nevertheless, in the concrete, looking at this term together with its manner, it must be said simply that the term before which the will of salvation is antecedent or consequent is one thing for little children and another for adults. But another place will be given for speaking of this difference.

On the distinctions of the saving will according to the doctrine of St Augustine.

« For the true sense of St Augustine concerning the will of God in the business of our salvation, which is always unconquered and which no one can resist, it helps not a little, to be rightly understood, to notice certain other distinctions of the divine will connected with the foregoing: into the absolute will, which is efficacious in act, and into the will which is directed to its term under a condition depending also upon created liberty; the will considered on the side of the lawgiver, and the will of the judge considered as a whole; and finally the will considered according to all the helps which are in the treasuries of omnipotence, and the will according to the helps which God actually confers. »

The conditional will and the will of the lawgiver can indeed be compared with the antecedent will; and the opposite members, namely the absolute will and the will of the judge, can in some measure be traced back to the consequent will. Yet not every antecedent will of God is conditional; it can also be absolute. Again, the will of the lawgiver, or the will that commands, is considered under a quite different aspect from the antecedent will. In the last division, the will considered according to the helps to be actually conferred corresponds to the consequent will; but the other member, namely the will considered according to the omnipotence of God, agrees fully neither with the antecedent nor with the consequent will. Hence the distinctions proposed in this thesis are not altogether the same as that earlier distinction of the antecedent and the consequent will. They agree better, however, with the manner of considering which is familiar to Augustine, and they help not a little to understand his teaching. It is not without cause, therefore, that we add these other distinctions to that earlier one.

I. The absolute will, considered universally, may be such antecedently, that it wills absolutely, independently of conditions, that a term should exist; or the absolute will may be consequently, which absolutely wills the existence of the term when the condition has been verified. Hence the consequent saving will is always also absolutely efficacious and conferring salvation itself, as is clear of itself. But the antecedent saving will indeed brings about many things which are of themselves ordered to salvation; yet it does not will this without a condition depending also on the free cooperation of men, as far as those are concerned who are capable of cooperation, the question of the saving will as regards infants being set aside meanwhile. Thus, then, the conditional and the absolute saving will is reduced to the antecedent and the consequent will, the mutual agreement of which two distinctions St Bonaventure declares very well. « The antecedent will is called by the Masters the conditional will, or the will by which God wills, so far as it is in himself. The second, namely the consequent, is called absolute. The difference between this will and that is not according to a diversity of affection or of manner of willing which is in God; but according to the manner of connoting and of understanding. For insofar as God is said to will the salvation of all, so far as it is in himself and antecedently, there is connoted in all an ordering to salvation, both on the part of the nature given and on the part of the grace offered; for God gave them a nature by which they could know him, and, known, seek him, and, sought, find him, and, found, cleave to him, and by this obtain salvation. Likewise he offered grace, when he sent and offered his Son, whose price suffices for the salvation of all. He also gave and showed laws and commandments of salvation. He himself is also present to all who seek him, and near to all who call upon him. To will, therefore, to save a man antecedently is to be ordered to make him saved, and not to fail him who wills to arrive. Hence to will to save antecedently does not connote salvation (actually conferred), but ordainability to salvation. But to will to save consequently or absolutely is to give salvation to him whom he foreknows will arrive at salvation through his help and grace, and it connotes the outcome of salvation » St Bonaventure, 1. dist. 46. a. 1. q. 1.

Thus the antecedent conditional saving will passes, from the foresight of a condition to be fulfilled, into the consequent absolute will which is effective of salvation; but from the foresight of the contrary hypothesis there follows the consequent absolute will of reprobation. You have these reasons of the absolute and conditional will expressed in St Augustine, Enchirid. c. 108. 104. « He who, without any ambiguity, if in heaven and on earth, as truth sings, has done whatever he willed (by absolute will), certainly did not will (did not will by absolute will) whatever he did not do. Wherefore God would have wished the first man also to be kept in that salvation in which he was made (conditional will), ... if he had foreknown that he would have a perpetual will to remain without sin, as he was made. But because he foreknew that he would sin, he prepared his will rather for this (absolute and consequent), so that he himself might do good even from one who does evil, and so the evil will of man would not be emptied, but nevertheless the good of the Almighty would be fulfilled. »

II. Augustine also distinguishes the divine will in another way: into the preceptive will, which is not always fulfilled by men; and into the same will, as it is at once preceptive and a law sanctioning with rewards and punishments, which is always unconquered, and which no power and no created will can hinder. Considered in the first way, the will of God is that we freely do or omit something, and for carrying it out He indeed gives the necessary help and grace, yet in such a way that we can resist it in the exercise of our freedom. « If He is almighty, why do you pray that His will be done? What then means: Thy will be done? Let it be done in me, that I may not resist Thy will…… for the will of God will be done in you, even if it is not done by you…… whether it be well or ill with you, it will be done in you; but let it also be done by you » Aug. serm. 56. (al. 48. de divers.) n. 7. In the other way the will is considered as absolute, for rendering reward or punishment according to merits, which is not to be done freely by man, but carried out by the Almighty, and therefore always unconquered. Augustine declares his mind excellently concerning both distinctions in the book de spirit. et litt. c. 33. n. 58. « God indeed wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; yet not so as to take away from them free will (the preceptive and offering will, grace which can nevertheless be resisted), by which, using it either well or ill, they are most justly judged (the will of sanction). When this happens, unbelievers indeed act against the will of God (the preceptive will not fulfilled); yet they do not on that account overcome it (considered in its entirety), but rather defraud themselves of a great and supreme good and entangle themselves in penal evils, about to experience in punishments the power of Him whose mercy in gifts (the antecedent and preceptive will of salvation) they have spurned¹. So the will of God is always unconquered; but it would be conquered, if it did not find what to do with the spurners, or if they could in any way escape what He has himself decreed concerning such persons (by the consequent will, executing the sanction). For he who says, for instance: I will that all these servants of mine work in the vineyard, and after the labour, resting, feast; so that whoever of them has refused this should always grind in the mill; it seems indeed that whoever has spurned it acts against the will of his lord (the preceptive will); but he will then overcome that will (considered as the sanction of the law), if, spurning the mill, he also escapes, which can in no way happen under the power of God. » Cf. Enchirid. c. 100. St Anselm drew his doctrine from Augustine in « Cur Deus homo » c. 15. « Although man, or the evil angel, is unwilling to be subject to the divine ordinance, he cannot yet flee from it. For if he wishes to flee from under the commanding will, he runs under the punishing will. And if you ask, by which way does he pass? Only under the permitting will. And this very thing which he perversely wills or does, supreme wisdom turns (by the consequent will) into the order and beauty of the aforesaid universe. » Cf. S. Th. 1. q. 19. a. 6.

III. The Pelagians taught that salvation is to be obtained by man from his own natural powers and human merits. Whence they thought that the reason many are not saved is solely that men, who ought to be willing, namely by a will bare and by the powers of nature, themselves are unwilling. God, as far as human liberty being kept safe he could confer on man the means of attaining salvation, has conferred them on all equally: since he gave to all nature and in it a full possibility of salvation, and moreover, in superabundance, he offered to all equally the external grace of law and teaching and of the example in Christ. Hence the saving will of God is referred equally to all; insofar as he wills the salvation of all, if they make good use of the powers of good nature. It is for men by the powers of nature to save themselves, not for God to save men; nor can God, without injury to human liberty, by the operation of his grace convert men's wills and make the unwilling willing. A similar error concerning the saving will of God followed from the principles of those Semipelagians, who thought that a good human will must necessarily precede, so that grace may be added. Vide S. Fulgent. de Incarn. et gratia ad Petrum diac. n. 56.

In direct opposition to these errors, Augustine in his disputations against the Pelagians and Semipelagians defended the Catholic doctrine; whence also his manner of considering and of speaking cannot rightly be understood unless the character of the contrary errors is most carefully kept before the eyes in interpreting Augustine. As far as the present matter is concerned, the Pelagian doctrine gave Augustine occasion to consider the sanctifying will of God in the whole range of graces and helps which are subject to his omnipotence. Before this omnipotence God never lacks a manner by which a hard heart is softened; a manner by which it is urged, so that it is persuaded to man; a manner by which he calls in such a way that man does not reject the one calling. « For who would be so impiously foolish as to say that God cannot turn the evil wills of men, whichever he wills, whenever he wills, wherever he wills, to good? » S. Aug. Enchirid. c. 98. But indeed, if the will of God is regarded in relation to the individual graces which he actually confers: he confers grace on all by a sincere antecedent will, so that man does not reject the one calling; yet he does not always and not to all confer those graces by which he foreknows they will consent; he does not always call in such a way « as he knows to fit them so that they do not reject the one calling. » Considering the will of God in relation to the whole range of possible graces, Augustine teaches that the effect of God's mercy cannot be frustrated by man. « The effect of God's mercy cannot be in man's power, so that he would be merciful in vain if man were unwilling; for if he wished to have mercy on them also, he could call them in a way suited to them, so that they both were moved and understood and followed…. Here someone will say: why then was Esau not so called that he would be willing to obey?… Who would dare to say that God lacked a way of calling by which he would apply the mind of Esau also to the same faith, and join his will to that in which Jacob was justified?… For who would say that the manner by which he might be persuaded to believe was lacking even to the Almighty? » Ad Simpl. l. 1. q. 2. n. 13. 14. On the other hand, when the individual graces which God actually confers are regarded, the tenth Quesnellian proposition was condemned: « grace is the operation of the hand of the Almighty, which nothing can impede or retard. »

Furthermore, while Augustine keeps before his eyes that omnipotence of God, to which all graces lie ready in a certain infinite variety, at times he calls that single will, by which God confers grace under the foreknowledge of a future consent, and by which the consent is in fact obtained, the will of showing mercy and the will of saving; and conversely, when, under the foresight that man will by his own fault resist the grace to be conferred, yet another grace to which consent would be joined is not given, by a just but hidden judgement, God is said by Augustine not to will to show mercy and not to will to save; namely, not to will by absolute and effective will, and not to will according to the whole extent of his omnipotence. The holy Doctor considers, in Enchirid. c. 95, from the words of Christ, Matth. XI. 21, that it is certain that the Tyrians and Sidonians would have done penance, if the grace which the cities of Galilee had received in vain had been conceded to them, and yet this grace was not given to them. Of the effective will, and of the omnipotent will which God did not have toward the Tyrians, what Augustine adds must be understood: « nor indeed did God unjustly not will them to be saved, when they could have been saved, if he had willed (al. they willed). Then (in the other life) it will be seen in the clearest light of wisdom what the faith of the pious now holds…. how certain, unchangeable and most efficacious the will of God is; how many things he is able to do and does not will, while he wills nothing which he cannot do…. In heaven and on earth, whatever he willed, he did, which is certainly not true, if he willed some things and did not do them, and, what is more unworthy, did not do them because the will of man hindered what the Almighty was willing to happen. Nothing therefore comes about unless the Almighty wills it to come about, either by permitting it to happen or by doing it himself. » See I. B. Faure in the notes to the Enchirid. S. Aug. cc. 52. 95. 103.

Scholion. Among the Scholastic theologians there is another distinction of the divine will, first recalled by Hugh of St Victor (Summa sent., Tract. I. c. 13. T. III. p. 195.), into the will of good pleasure and the will of sign. St Thomas speaks of this distinction in 1. q. 19. a. 11. 12; de verit. q. 23. a. 3, and all the other Scholastics in this place of the Summae and in 1. dist. 45. The will of good pleasure² as distinguished from the will of sign, is every will of God properly so called, both antecedent and consequent, both conditional and absolute. The will of sign, as the Scholastics understand it, is not God's will itself; but is an extrinsic sign of the divine will, which they note is metaphorically (or rather metonymically) called a will. They enumerate, moreover, five such signs or objective manifestations of the will: « he commands and forbids, permits, counsels, fulfils. » These are, namely: precept, prohibition, counsel, operation and permission. Hugh, comprehending under the name of precept also counsel, lists only four signs of the will. Moreover, it is manifest in itself that a sign and manifestation of the will cannot come from God, who is infinitely good and true, without some will properly so called corresponding to it, which God wills to be made manifest by the sign. To one who considers it, it will be clear that precept, prohibition and counsel always correspond to a will at least antecedent and of good pleasure; operation and permission correspond to some will at least consequently absolute. I have said that a will which God wills to manifest always corresponds to the sign; but I have not said that in God there is always a will which men gather from the sign; for they can err. Thus he would have erred who from the precept given to Abraham had gathered that in God there is a will that Isaac be actually sacrificed.

Hence the distinction of Calvin into a manifest and a hidden will of God is truly impious, so that what God manifestly signifies he wills, the flight from sins, the observance of the law, the salvation of all men, he by a hidden will is unwilling should be done. The distinction of John Piscator also belongs to the same class, between the natural will of disapproval, by which God hates sins, and the free will, by which he decrees and wills that sins be done. See Petav. l. X. c. 10. n. 5.