Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

ON THE ANTECEDENT SAVING WILL OF GOD.

The universal saving will of God is demonstrated from the Scriptures.

« That the antecedent will of God in this order of fallen and restored humankind is directed to the eternal salvation not only of those who are saved, but also of others, and indeed that this saving will is extended to all men absolutely who have already come to the use of reason, is demonstrated from the doctrine of the holy Scriptures. »

We are not speaking here of the will of simple complacency in the goodness of an object, which is conceived in God not so much as a will as a necessary judgement concerning any aspect of good, even merely possible; but we assert a will which of itself wills the very effect of salvation, although not without a condition on the part of the free cooperation of the men to be saved. This will of salvation, moreover, includes the will of offering to men (at least antecedently to the impediments interposed either freely by man or from elsewhere, not directly by God) all those aids without which salvation cannot be obtained, and which of themselves suffice, so that men using them can attain salvation. That God has prepared all these aids for men by an antecedent will, so that through them men may be saved, is usually signified when it is said that there is in God a sincere antecedent will of human salvation. Nor indeed can there be in God any will which is not sincere.

The question, moreover, whether the antecedent will of salvation, also in relation to those who in fact are not saved, is a will of good pleasure or a will of sign, has no place at all. For what could the sign of the saving will, I mean the divine operation for our salvation and the precept that we work out our salvation, signify other than the most true will in God that we be saved? Shall we perhaps suspect, with Calvin, that God, who is infinitely good and true, wills meanwhile to persuade us by fallacious signs that his will is that we be saved, when this is in truth nothing, but is rather a contrary hidden will?

Finally, let it be noted, in order to delimit the state of the question, that the discussion here concerns not only the will absolutely antecedent to the foreseeing even of original sin, but the will which is referred to men in this order fallen and restored through Christ. It is a matter, therefore, of a saving will consequent indeed upon the foresight of the fallen nature in Adam, but antecedent to the foresight of the acts or omissions by which individual adults bring upon themselves the judgement of damnation.

The thesis comprises two parts, which, although they are theologically proved by almost the same proofs of revelation from Scripture and the Fathers, yet, considering the solemn and explicit definition of the Church, were not proposed with the same degree and under the same censure. For the former part has been defined to be de fide; the other part has not hitherto been defined under this censure, as is clear from the condemnation of the 5ᵃᵉ proposition of Jansenius: « It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died for absolutely all men. » It was condemned by the Supreme Pontiffs as « false, rash, scandalous; and understood in the sense that Christ died only for the salvation of the predestined, impious, blasphemous, contumelious, derogating from the divine goodness, heretical. » From this condemnation itself, and from the parity of the grounds which we shall see, it is established that the second part also is certain, so that it cannot be denied without rashness. With these preliminary remarks, the demonstration follows.

I. That the saving will extends also to others besides those who in fact are saved, in this present order of fallen and restored nature, all the holy Scriptures proclaim. For they teach, a) that all who believe are given by the Father to the Son through the very gift of faith, and that they are given to the Son because the Father wills¹ mercy, so that all may be saved through the Son, Io. III. 14-18; VI. 37-40; cf. XVII. 12. ². That among these there are believers who by their own fault are not going to obtain salvation no one can doubt, unless he would absurdly contend, with the Calvinists, from whom the Jansenists themselves dissent in this matter, that neither the grace of faith, nor any effect of the sacraments, nor in general any supernatural gift is ever granted to those who are not among the predestined, and so to all those who in fact are not saved. b) Just as the Father gave the only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life, Io. III. 16; so Christ the Saviour prayed to the Father for all who would believe, that they may be in the Father and in the Son, Io. XVII. 20. 21. He expended not only prayer but also preaching, solicitude, labours, and miracles, to gather the children of Jerusalem, « as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, » yet they were unwilling; as Christ himself, weeping³ lamented, Matth. XXIII. 37; Luc. XIII. 34. c) Beyond all these things, Christ, as the Scriptures bear witness, poured out his very life and blood for all the faithful, and at least also for those who perish; and therefore he poured it out so that they might be preserved from ruin, Rom. VIII. 31. sq.; XIV. 15; 1. Cor. VIII. 11. Hence d) all the faithful are said to be placed and destined for the acquisition of salvation, 1. Thess. V. 9. 10; 2. Thess. II. 13. For God directs the call to faith and justification and all graces, in all those to whom He bestows them, toward eternal salvation; whence eternal life is the end of the graces which God intends in bestowing them, Rom. I. 16; VI. 22; 1. Pet. I. 9. This order of grace toward salvation is indicated in the holy Scripture by modes of speaking in which faith and Christian righteousness, without any distinction made between those who will actually be saved and others who at last will perish through their own fault, are everywhere called eternal life in all the faithful, Io. III. 36; V. 24. 39; XVII. 3; Act. V. 20; XI. 18.

II. Indeed the Scriptures teach that God embraces absolutely all men with his saving will. We shall prove this first from the explicit and most clear testimony of 1. Tim. II. 1-6, to which accordingly the interpretation of other passages, if there are any more obscure, ought to be brought by the hermeneutical rule. We shall then set out heads of doctrine from other places of Scripture, which demonstrate and confirm the same universality of the saving will.

1°. The passage of the Apostle⁴ reads thus: « I urge, therefore, first of all that supplications be made… for all men, for kings and for all who are in high station, that we may lead a tranquil life in all piety and chastity; for this is good and acceptable before God our Saviour, who wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth: for there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all. » Two things come into question: what is the extent and what is the property of this will, that all men be saved, as it is to be taught by the Apostle.

As to the first question, in words that are explicit and clear in themselves, if they are taken in their obvious sense, the extent of the saving will to absolutely all men is expressed, as is evident from mere inspection. In the context, however, there is not only nothing which allows one to suspect any restriction; but rather the context clearly shows that the obvious sense of the words, in which the universality of the divine will that all men be saved is expressed, is the true sense intended by the Apostle. This is shown both by the form of the argument, that is, the matter to which the will of the salvation of all is led by the Apostle to persuade; and above all by the twofold reason by which the Apostle himself declares the extent of the saving will to all men.

a) Accordingly the Apostle bids that prayers be made « for all men, » not only for the faithful; but indeed he speaks directly of prayer for unbelievers. And this zeal for praying for all men he urges on the principle that God « wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. » Therefore, by the mind of the Apostle, the will of the faithful ought to extend as widely that all be saved, and so also prayer for all, as widely as the will of God extends that all be saved. But from the will and prayer of the faithful which the Apostle commends, assuredly no man is excepted. Therefore neither is any man excepted from the saving will of God. Hence it is plain that that interpretation of the words of the Apostle, recalled by Augustine once and again, that God wills all men to be saved insofar as he wills that we should will all to be saved, is not false; although indeed the immediate sense of the words « God wills all men to be saved » is not this, but rather the sense of the Apostle's argument. Moreover, it is plain that by this Augustinian interpretation the universality of the saving will of God is not only not excluded, but is included in it and presupposed. We shall speak of this matter further below.

To explain this more fully, a difficulty must be resolved, which could be put in this way. The Apostle does not commend prayer for all men, and by name for kings and magistrates, that all may be saved; but that it may be allowed to Christians to lead a tranquil life in all piety. This, namely Christians leading a life in all piety, he says is acceptable before God, who wills all men to be saved. Therefore those « all men » whom God is said to will to be saved seem to be only Christians living in all piety. The difficulty makes necessary a more careful consideration of the words of Paul. I shall begin with the last clause: God wills all men to be saved. Paul himself, as I shall presently show, explains these words in such a way that « all men » must necessarily be understood as all created by God and all sharers in human nature. Hence, even if everything premised in the objection were conceded, the inference would still have to be denied, nor could it be granted that all men should be understood as only Christians; but it would necessarily have to be said that from the Apostle's universal principle, namely that God wills absolutely all to be saved, the particular propositions are proved. The sense, indeed, would be: because God wills absolutely all men to be saved, therefore it is first of all acceptable before God that Christians lead a tranquil life in all piety, and that to obtain this end prayers be made for all men, and especially for those who can most of all hinder or promote the tranquillity of life. But with this sense admitted, the proof of the universal saving will would be restricted to the words alone of vv. 4-6, « who wills all men to be saved » etc.; the preceding verses 1-3 could no longer, as we have done, be used for proof, but would only not stand in the way of a universality proved from elsewhere. With these preliminary remarks, let us look at the context, from which we shall understand the fallacy of the antecedent in the opposing argument. In the words « who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, » the Apostle directly and explicitly has in view unbelievers, who have not yet come to the knowledge of the truth; the immediate reason for the preceding clause is contained in them: « this is acceptable before God, » as is plain from the very form of the construction: « for this is good and acceptable before our Saviour God, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. » Whatever that good and acceptable thing before God may be, it certainly cannot be something restricted to those alone who have already come to the knowledge of the truth; but it must be something reaching to those who have not yet come, and whom God wills all to come to the knowledge of the truth; for it is called good and acceptable before God under this aspect and formally, insofar as he wills all to come to the knowledge of the truth. What then is it that is called acceptable before God by the Apostle? If it is only that which immediately precedes, « that we may lead a tranquil life in all piety and chastity, » this must, by what has been said, pertain also to those who have not yet come to the knowledge of the truth, and the sense of this preceding clause is then necessarily: that all men may lead a life in all piety, namely not only those who have already come to the knowledge of the truth, but also those who have not yet come, that they may come and lead a life in all piety. The context would then be: let prayers be made for all men, for kings and magistrates, that all men may come to lead a tranquil life in all piety; for this is acceptable before God, because God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. But if it seems improbable that this clause in the first person, « that we may lead a life in all piety, » should be extended to others than those who are actually Christians, the other clause, « for this is acceptable before God, » cannot be referred to the immediately preceding clause alone; it must be referred to the whole preceding context, or rather to the principal preceding proposition: let prayers be made for all men... for this is acceptable before God, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Indeed the principal proposition, which Paul wishes to persuade, and on which the others depend in grammatical construction, is this: « I beseech, therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, petitions, thanksgivings (εὐχαριστίας) be made for all men. » To this universal there is then subjoined a particular, although already included in it, for a special reason: « for kings and for those who are in high station, that we may lead a tranquil life. » When therefore the most universal reason of the whole commendation and exhortation is given, « for this is acceptable before God, » it is rightly understood that this acceptable before God is the whole which has gone before, and which the Apostle wishes to persuade; namely, that it is acceptable before God that prayers be made for all men, etc. The reason why it is acceptable, Paul adds: « because God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. » This therefore is itself why one must pray, and what must be prayed for, for all men, that they may come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved.

When therefore it is said in the objection that the Apostle commends prayer that it may be allowed to lead a tranquil life in piety, a distinction must be drawn: if life in piety is understood as to be prayed for all men, I concede or let it pass; if it is understood as restricted to those alone who are actually Christians, I subdistinguish: this is the special reason for praying for kings, I concede; this is the general reason given by the Apostle for praying for all men, I deny.

b) If any doubt could remain, all of it is removed by the manner in which the Apostle himself declares the universality of the saving will. The reason for this will, by which God wills all men to be saved, Paul gives in two ways: first, because God is one, God of all men: « he wills all men to be saved; for there is one God. » The Apostle used this argument elsewhere too, Rom. III. 29; X. 12, to show that God calls to faith, that through faith and the Christian religion they may be saved, not only the Jews but also the Gentiles, without distinction between Jew and Greek. « Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since indeed there is one God. » From the doctrine of the Apostle, therefore, the reason why God wills a man to be saved is sufficient in this alone, that God is the God of this man. No man, therefore, is excepted, unless perhaps there are men of whom he, the one true God, is not God; and the fiction of the Gnostics concerning two gods, one of the spiritual and another of the animal and earthly men, is introduced. The second reason of the Apostle is that « there is one mediator of God and men, a man, Christ Jesus. » For just as Christ alone is the worthy mediator with God, because he has the divine nature; so he is the mediator for men, because he has the human nature assumed from the human race. He is therefore mediator between God the Father, from whom by generation he has the communicated divine nature, and men, whose nature he has assumed. Cf. Heb. II. 14-16. Hence, in order that someone be included under the mediation of Christ and consequently under the saving will of God, it suffices that he have specifically the same nature, and that he be of that human race from which Christ has the assumed nature; it suffices, I say, from the doctrine of Paul, that he be a man, for the saving will of God and the mediation of Christ to extend to him. Thus from the fact that the man Christ Jesus, by the assumed human nature, is mediator of God and men, the Apostle himself concludes that he « gave himself a redemption for all. » Therefore again, unless we wish with the Docetists to deny that Christ assumed a truly human nature from the human race, and that he is consubstantial with us according to it, we must confess that, according to the doctrine of the Apostle, the mediation and redemption of Christ, and therefore the will to save, pertain to the whole human race and to all who are absolutely sharers in human nature. Cf. Laurentii Alticotii Dissertationem de antiquis et novis Manichaeis.

There remains another question, what kind of will this universal will of God is? The will of which the Apostle speaks, as to its own proper nature, is not merely complacency in the goodness of the object, such as there is in any good, even a merely possible one; but it is a will that the salvation of all men exist; although He does not absolutely will the existence of salvation, but under a condition which also depends on the co-operation of men: and therefore on God's part it is an active and operative will. For a) on account of that mere complacency, which effects nothing, God is never said in the Scriptures, nor can it be said, to will the salvation of anyone. For who would say, or with such seriousness, so often and so insistently press upon us, that God wills the salvation of those who are already in eternal damnation? Yet, as we see, it is by Christ and by the Apostles that it is repeated and commended that God wills all men to be saved. That simple complacency in the goodness of the object, however, also extends to the salvation of the damned and of the devil himself. b) Paul does not simply say that God wills the salvation of all, but expressly states that the object toward which the divine will is directed is the existence of salvation: « He wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth » (σωθῆναι καὶ εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν). c) The will that all come to faith, and through faith to salvation, is such that from that will God wills « prayers to be made for all men, » and, what is far greater, that from that same will Christ was made mediator of all, and « himself gave himself a redemption (ἀντίλυτρον)⁵ for all. » It is therefore beyond all doubt that this will which Paul describes is the will of God properly so called, that all men be saved; and therefore the will of conferring on all men, on its part, what is necessary to attain salvation. Yet in order that salvation be actually obtained, free co-operation is also necessary on the part of men (for we are now speaking of adults), and therefore the will of God that the salvation of all men be actually conferred is conditional and antecedent.

2°. Since, according to the Apostle's declared doctrine, the economy of redemption embraces absolutely all men, and this universality of redemption has its origin in the universal mercy and will of God, that all men be saved; it cannot be that this universality of the saving will is not either presupposed or expressly preached in all the Scriptures. For « the word of reconciliation » and « the gospel of salvation » are the chief theme of the Scriptures, as generally of all apostolic preaching.

Indeed a) the Scriptures everywhere teach that the redemption of Christ and the price of his blood pertain to all those who, dead in the first Adam, need restoration through the second Adam. « Judging this, that if one died for all, then all are dead » 2. Cor. V. 14. 15. « For if by the offence of one many (οἱ πολλοί, the multitude of all) died, much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of one man, Jesus Christ (as far as in itself lies), abounded toward the many (εἰς τοὺς πολλοὺς, into the same multitude of all) » Rom. V. 15. b) Hence the Scriptures, having instituted a comparison between all men and the faithful, who actually receive the more abundant fruits of redemption, constantly affirm that the will of salvation, and the redemption flowing from it, pertain to all the faithful indeed, but not only to them: rather also to all other men, although in the faithful the fruit is greater and happier. « He is the propitiation (ἱλασμός, the sacrifice of propitiation) for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world » 1. Io. II. 2; « who is the Saviour of all men, especially of the faithful » 1. Tim. IV. 10. c) The wonderful long-suffering of God in bearing with sinners and admonishing them to penance, even those who are not going to obey the call, is constantly commended and explained in the Scriptures, from the infinite mercy and will of God, by which He wills that no one perish. Thus St Peter (2. Pet. III. 9.), answering those who objected to the faithful, « where is the promise of his coming? », replies: « the Lord does not delay his promise, as some think, but acts patiently on your account (text. gr. vulg. εἰς ἡμᾶς), not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance. » Cf. Rom. II. 4. 5. Likewise in the Old Testament the exhortations of God to penance flow from that will, concerning which God solemnly swears by himself: « As I live, says the Lord God, I do not will the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn from your most wicked ways; and why will you die, house of Israel? » Ezech. XXXIII. 11; cf. XVIII. 23. The commendation of this mercy of God, from the universal saving will, is remarkable in Sap. XI. 24-XII. 18, where it is narrated that God destroyed the Egyptians and the impious Canaanites not with one onslaught, but gradually. The end which God had in view in this mode of punishment is described thus: « those who err thou dost correct by degrees (κατ' ὀλίγον, gradually), and admonish them concerning the things in which they sin, that, putting aside wickedness, they may believe in thee, O Lord. » The reason for this mercy is God's own goodness, which the sacred writer commends in wonderful words, pertaining to all men without exception who are creatures of God. « Thou sparest all, because they are thine, O Lord, who lovest souls…… For thy power is the beginning of justice, and because thou art Lord of all, thou makest thyself to spare all » (καὶ τὸ πάντων σε δεσπόζειν, πάντων φείδεσθαί σε πείσει). Read the rest in the same place. d) From these things it appears at the same time that this entirely universal will of God is presupposed in all the testimonies, n. I, adduced to prove that not only the predestined, but others also are comprehended by the antecedent saving will of God. For if God wills all men to come to the knowledge of the truth, that all be saved, and none of them perish; surely the Father, so far as He is concerned, wills to give all to the Son, not only those who, by receiving faith, are at some time actually given. The Son therefore did not pray the Father for those only who were actually given to him, but for all; he expended his labours and his blood. Likewise the graces are not only those which men actually accept by consenting, but also those which God offers, and, so far as He is concerned, prepares for all men; although they are not accepted, they are prepared by God from this will and intention, so that all may be saved by consenting to them. That Christ, John XVII. 9, does not pray the Father for the world, formally as it is an enemy of God, of Christ, and of his kingdom, is indeed most true; but let it be noted how and what the Saviour there prays. He prays to the Father, presenting as a motive the faith and love of the disciples, and in turn the love of the Father toward them; he asks, however, for them perseverance in faith and charity, in which they now are. « Holy Father, keep them in thy name. » But for the world he could pray neither from that motive, nor for perseverance in the good, which it had already attained. He prays for it not that it persevere in what it is; but rather that it cease to be what it is, the unbelieving and hostile world, as one may see even in this very prayer, v. 21: « that the world may believe, that thou hast sent me. »

The universal saving will of God is demonstrated from the doctrine of the Fathers.

« That the sense of the holy Scriptures which we have mentioned is genuine, the Catholic understanding of all antiquity assures us. For the holy Fathers unanimously teach that God wills¹ all men to be saved by an antecedent will², which he conceives from himself and from his goodness; nor is there any other will of his in denying eternal salvation and in condemning, except a consequent will, conceived from justice on account of sins, which, never expiated, stand before the divine foreknowledge. »

The doctrine of the Fathers stated in this thesis anyone can learn from Petavius, de Deo l. X. c. 4. 5; de Incarnat. l. XIII. c. 1-14; Did. Ruiz de volunt. Dei disp. XIX. sect. 5. 6; disp. XX. sect. 1. 6. 7; Scip. Maffei Histor. dogmat. praesertim ll. IV. V. VI. For us, in a matter which is not difficult, it is enough to have indicated a few things.

1°. Among the Greek Fathers there is none, and among the Latins at least up to the age of Augustine there is no one, who has denied that the will of God to save men is universal and extends to each individual. What Augustine's opinion was we shall see a little later. Indeed there is none of the Fathers who, when the opportunity offered, did not most explicitly profess that breadth of the saving will.

They teach a) that the will to save is primary in God and conceived from the goodness of his nature, whereby God therefore wills only what is good for the creature in every way. Whence, if there is not a will to save but rather a will to damn toward some man, they say that this is not conceived by God except insofar as it is provoked by the sins of men. See th. XLVII. n. II. Hence b) they teach that God wills the eternal salvation of all, whose creator and God he is. « He wills all those to be his whom he founded and created; would that you, man, not flee and hide yourself: he also seeks those who flee, and does not will the hidden ones to perish » Ambros. in Ps. 39. n. 20. « For one God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, is God of all men, and therefore desires all whom he made to be saved » Primasius in 1. Tim. II. 5. Hence c) they say: as far as the part of God is concerned, all would be enlightened, all just, all saved, ὡς τὸ γε αὐτοῦ μέρος, διεσῳθησαν ἅπαντες, καὶ γὰρ ἐκλήθησαν ἅπαντες: Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Theophylact, Ambrose, Paulinus. In accordance with these things d) the Fathers call it « salus generale beneficium, commune ius indulgentiae » Ambros. καθολικὴ καὶ γενικὴ σωτηρία Didym. Alex. Trin. I. 27; κοινὴ βασιλεία καὶ γενικὴ³ κοινὴ Gregor. Nyss. in Eccl. hom. III. 3. T. I. p. 407. Since this is the breadth of the saving will, e) the Fathers often ask whence it comes that not all are saved. And they constantly answer that this is because « not all were willing to come », because « men defraud themselves of the general benefit », because « they are envious of themselves », because « men do not want to be saved, but God does not impose necessity. » Ambros. Paulinus, Chrysost. Oecumen. That this answer, if the question concerns adults, was common in the fifth century, St Augustine indicates in Enchir. c. 97. « When a cause is asked, « why not all are saved, the usual answer is, because they themselves do not want it. » Nor did Augustine disapprove of this answer, except when it is taken in a Pelagian sense, as if it belonged to man, by the natural powers of free will, to save himself. Hence, answering difficulties about the sense of Augustine's doctrine which arose after his death, his most faithful disciple St Prosper of Aquitaine speaks on this matter in the same way as the other Fathers, although everywhere with diligent caution against the poisons of the Pelagians and Semipelagians. Thus (« ad Capitula Gallorum » n. 8.), to the objection that according to Augustine « God does not will all men to be saved, but a certain number of the predestined, » Prosper replies that we cannot indeed search out how God wills all absolutely to be saved, yet this is to be believed from the oracles of the Scriptures; then he adds: « the care of all men is therefore with God, and there is no one whom either evangelical preaching, or the testimony of the law, or even nature itself, does not reach⁴. But let us ascribe the unbelief of men to men themselves, and confess that faith is the gift of God, without whose grace no one runs to grace. » And in the recapitulation of the same objection he writes: « likewise he who says that God does not will all men to be saved, but a certain number of the predestined, speaks more harshly than is to be said about the depth of the inscrutable grace of God, who both wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, and fulfils the purpose of his will in those whom he foreknew and predestined... so that those who are saved are saved because God willed them to be saved; and those who perish perish, because they deserved to perish. » Cf. Prosper's response there to objections 2 and 12; St Fulgentius, ad Monim. l. 1. cc. 23. 24.

Moreover, the way of thinking and speaking in the Councils is no different. At the Council of Arles, about the year 475, there is a letter of the Fathers to the priest Lucidus, where it is said in II: « Anathema to him who says that the one who perished did not receive it, so that he might be saved; that is, concerning one baptized, or a pagan of that age, who was able to believe and was unwilling. » VI. Likewise: « Anathema to him who says that Christ did not die for all, nor that He wills all men to be saved. » In the Council of Quierzy against Gottschalk, chap. III: « Almighty God wills all men without exception to be saved, although not all are saved: that some are saved is the gift of the Saviour; that some perish is the merit of those who perish. » In the Council of Valence III the consensus on this point with the Fathers of Quierzy is full, chap. II: « We believe that no one is condemned by a prejudgment of God, but by the merit of his own iniquity. Nor do the wicked perish for this reason, that they could not be good; but because they were unwilling to be good, and by their own vice remained in the mass of damnation, either by original merit or even by actual merit. »

2°. From this universal will of God, that all be saved, this⁵ is Christ's economy and universal redemption through Christ. The Fathers teach expressly, a) that the will of the incarnate Son to save extends to all men, because the Father wills all men to be saved. Thus the opinion of Apollinaris, « that Christ by his operation according to the flesh does not quicken all (as far as in him lies), but only those whom he willed, » Gregory of Nyssa condemns in these words: « The Son quickens whom he wills: we do not so understand this as if some were rejected by the quickening will; but since we have received and believe that all things that are the Father's are also the Son's, therefore we contemplate also the will of the Father in the Son. The Father, however, wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth... Thus it is manifest that all whom the Father wills to be quickened, the Son himself also quickens (as far as in him lies)... and that in a beneficent will toward men he is not inferior to the Father, as Apollinaris thinks, when he says that not all but only some were willed to be saved. For the divine will is not the cause why, while some are saved, others perish; otherwise the perdition of these would have to be referred to that will as to its cause » Nyss. in Antirrhet. Bibl. Gallandi T. VI. p. 543. b) The Fathers frequently teach that Christ administered the economy of redemption and shed his blood for the human race, for human nature, for all whose nature he assumed, for the nature of each man. « Those who say that the Lord is not good have forgotten that this is the summit of his love toward men, that he was made man because of us. For this reason our Pedagogue the Lord is supremely good and open to no complaint, because through the excess of his love toward men he suffers with the nature of each man.... Wherefore God indeed is good through himself, but just consequently on account of the things that are ours, and this very thing because he is good » Clemens Alex. Paedagog. l. 1. c. 8. p. 113. 127.⁶ Cf. th. XLVII. c) The Fathers repeat that the necessary helps to salvation, and especially the merits of Christ, are prepared for all men and set forth as if in common. Just as the goods of nature, says Gregory Nazianzen (or. 33. al 34. n. 9.), are common to men, common heaven, common sun and moon and stars, the changes of the years, rains and fruits and air, and common reason, so « the law, the prophets, and the very sufferings of Christ are common, through which we have been restored, no exception having been made, but all are partakers of the same Adam, and were led into deceit by the serpent and affected by death through sin, and have been restored to salvation through the heavenly Adam, and have been recalled through the wood of shame to the tree of life, whence we had fallen. »

The teaching of St Augustine on the universality of the saving will is vindicated.

« As regards Augustine, it is established by testimonies in no way ambiguous that he, even after the Pelagian heresy had become known, taught together with the other Fathers that the antecedent saving will of God is wholly universal. »

1°. Augustine constantly defends that Christ shed his blood to redeem absolutely all men. Nor did he teach this only before the rise of the heresy of Pelagius; rather, against the Pelagians he used this truth, as a principle most certain to all Christians, by which he might demonstrate that original sin had passed into all men. « One died for all; therefore all are dead, for whom Christ died (2. Cor. V. 14.) Deny therefore that Christ died even for little children, so that you may take them out of the number of the dead, that is, out of the contagion of sins... For if Christ died for them, then they too are dead » contr. Iulian. l. VI. c. 9; cf. ib. c. 4; Civ. Dei l. XX. c. 6; de Nupt. et concupisc. l. II. c. 33; Op. imperfect. l. II. c. 174. Vide Petav. de Incarn. l. XIII. c. 3; Stephan. de Champs.: de Haeres. Iansen. l. III. disp. 7. I. B. Faure ad Enchir. Aug. c. 41-47. 120.¹

2°. Augustine constantly taught that sufficient grace is at hand for all men, by which they can be saved, unless they are enemies to themselves. See Tricassin. Opusc. de necessaria ad salutem gratia omnibus data; Scipion. Maffei Hist. dogm. l. IX. §. 9.

3°. Most eloquently he professed the antecedent will of God, that absolutely all be saved; and in this sense St Augustine understood the testimony of Paul, 1. Tim. II. 4., in l. de spirit. et litt. c.33. n.57. seqq., that is, in the work in which he himself « disputed fiercely against the enemies of God's grace » (Retract. II. 37.), in the year 412, the year in which the heresy of the Pelagians was condemned at the Council of Carthage, and he himself had already written against the same men the books de peccator. merit. et remissione. « God wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; yet not so as to take away from them the free will, by which, using it well or badly², they are most justly judged. Since this is so, unbelievers indeed act against the will of God,... about to experience in punishments the power of him whose mercy in gifts they despised. » We have given the whole text at th. XLVIII. n. II. See Tricassin. De praedestin. P. I. Sect. VII. §. 2. puncto 2. p. 135; Steph. de Champs l. c. cap. 13; and Ioan. B. Faure ad Cap. 52. Enchirid. August. From these authors you will also see the fiction of Jansenius refuted, by which he shamelessly contended that the passage cited contains not the opinion of St Augustine but an objection of Pelagius.

It is worth while to compare with that testimony from the book l. de sp. et litt. another from the Retractations, l. I. c. 10. n. 2. « What I said (De Genes. contra Manich. l. I. c. 3.): that light feeds the pure hearts of those who believe God and turn themselves to fulfil his precepts, that all men can, if they will; let not the new heretics the Pelagians think that it was said according to them. For it is entirely true that all men can do this, if they will; but the will is prepared by the Lord, and is so much increased by the gift of charity that they can. » It is clear in this place that Augustine, as in his disputes against the Manichaeans, so no less after the Pelagian heresy had become known and the necessity of grace for any saving work, whether to be begun or to be perfected, had been fully perceived, asserted that all men have a free power of keeping the commandments and of attaining salvation; with this difference, however, that against the Manichaeans it was not necessary for him to dispute about the origin of powers and of ability from the gift of grace, whereas against the Pelagians the whole dispute was not about the liberty of the power but about its origin from grace. Therefore, while he teaches that this power is present to all and present to no one except by the gift of grace, by that very fact he affirms that God, whose gift grace is, wills of himself and by the antecedent will of his goodness, that all keep the commandments, that all persevere, and consequently that all are saved. Add to these what he writes in Io. tract. XII. n. 12.³ « For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. As far as in the physician lies, he comes to heal the sick. He kills himself who will not observe the physician's precepts. The Saviour came into the world: why was he called Saviour of the world, unless to save the world?... If you do not wish to be saved by him, you will be judged by yourself. » Cf. also the book de catechizand. rudibus c. 26. n. 52., written by Augustine already as a bishop (in the year 400.).

4°. In the same sense, about the extension of the antecedent saving will to all men, Augustine's most faithful disciples understood him. Whence, among the « calumnies, » among the « reproaches brought against the memory of the Catholic preacher, » among the « prodigious lies », St Prosper also lists these (ad cap. Gallorum VIII. IX; ad obiect. Vinc. I. II.): « that according to the teaching of Augustine God does not will all men to be saved, but a certain number of the predestined »; « that the Saviour was not crucified for the redemption of the whole world. » Concerning the other disciples of Augustine, and likewise concerning the definitions of the Council of Arles III in the fifth century against the errors of Lucidus, and of the Councils of Gaul and Germany in the cause of the monk Gottschalk, one should consult Petav. de Incarn. l. XIII. c. 6. sqq. and I. B. Du Chesne (Le Predestianisme, Traite historique et theologique, Paris 1734.). Cf. Propos. IV. et V. among those condemned by Alexander VIII on 7 December 1690.

By the manifold interpretation of the text 1. Tim. II. 4., Augustine never denied the universality of the antecedent saving will.

« As often as St Augustine, in his books against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, interprets the apostolic text 1. Tim. II. 4. of the particular saving will, so often he understands the will that actually effects salvation, or the absolute will; yet, this interpretation being added, he does not deny that in the direct sense of that testimony the antecedent and universal will is signified; but that sense of the particular saving will, to which the holy Doctor advanced for polemical reasons, is rightly said to follow from the words of the Apostle. »

I. To the interpretation of the apostolic text 1. Tim. II. 4. given by the other Fathers and by himself in the book l. de spiritu et litt., of which we spoke in the preceding thesis, Augustine added, in the course of his dispute against the Pelagians, three other explanations; indeed, as he says in Enchir. c. 103, the passage of Paul « can be understood in any other way, provided that we are not compelled to believe that Almighty God willed something to be done and it was not done. » Those three celebrated explanations, however, run thus: that we understand all who are saved to be saved by the will of God, and that no one is saved unless God wills it, Enchir. c. 103; contra Iulian. IV. n. 42. sq.; ep. 217. al. 107. ad Vital. n. 19; de Praedest. SS. n. 14; or that we understand « all men, the whole human race distributed by whatever differences, » that is, not single individuals of the kind but the kinds and conditions of individuals Enchirid. l. c., De Corrept. et grat. n. 44; lastly, that we understand God to will and to bring about that we ourselves wish all men to be saved Civ. Dei XXII. 2; de Corrept. et grat. n. 47. In all these places, moreover, Augustine clearly declares that there is indeed some universal saving will of God (for how could there not be?), but that will which he there understands and has before his eyes is not universal: for by that will whatever the Almighty wills, all of it is also actually done; whence, since many are not made saved, it must be said (by that will which is before Augustine) that those alone, and all who are actually saved, are willing to be saved.

The difficulty, then, in interpreting Augustine's teaching is not whether in these places the holy Father denies that God wills absolutely all men to be saved; for this, we concede, is denied in a certain sense. But the whole question is of which will this universality is denied by Augustine.

In Augustine's teaching a distinction is drawn between the will of God, which men resist and which is not always fulfilled, and the absolute will, which by its very effect produces its own term and which is always unconquered. This we have fully demonstrated at thesis XLVIII. Especially in the book l. de spirit. et litt., against the heresy of Pelagius, he most clearly distinguished the saving will a) as that by which God wills that all men believe and obey and be saved; and therefore he persuades all extrinsically and intrinsically, he forestalls all by mercy in his gifts, he offers to all what they may receive: yet he is not persuaded to all, not all consent, not all receive, not all commit themselves to God to be kindled and enlightened by warmth and light, because to consent to the calling of God belongs to a will prepared by grace, and it belongs to the same will, by its own powers, to resist grace, as Augustine there declares. Unbelievers do not believe with God; they « act against this will of God, » by which « God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, not so, however, as to take away from them free will, by which those who use it well or badly are most justly judged. » This, therefore, is the antecedent and conditional will of salvation, plainly of all men, which is not always fulfilled. In the same place St Augustine distinguished b) the will of God by which he not only persuades but also, by its very effect, persuades. This will, by which the very term toward which it tends is actually effected, could indeed be universal, considered in the omnipotence of God, to whom there cannot be lacking a mode of persuading which he knows agrees with the one called, so that he is also persuaded (cf. ad Simpl. 1. I. q. 2); yet in fact it is established that this actually effectual will of salvation is not universal. « Now if anyone presses us to scrutinize that depth, why he is so persuaded that he also is persuaded, but the other is not so; two things alone occur to me meanwhile, which I am pleased to answer: O the depth of riches, and: Is there iniquity with God? Whoever dislikes this answer, let him seek out the more learned, but let him take care lest he find them more presumptuous » de spirit. et litt. n. 60¹ But in all the places cited at the outset, in which St Augustine restricts the saving will to those alone in whom the effect itself is obtained, he has before his eyes solely the will considered in the second way; but in those places he never treats of the antecedent and conditional will. It was therefore necessary to deny that this saving will of God is universal. Indeed, in Enchir. c. 103. and de Corrept. et grat. n. 44. coll. 45.diserte he expressly treats of the will « by which the Almighty cannot will in vain whatever he has willed, » and « by which God did in heaven and on earth all things whatsoever he willed, and surely did not will to do whatever he did not do. » Namely, in those two places he treats partly of the saving will considered in the whole range of graces and helps, which are in the power of the Almighty; partly, however, of the will as far as it actually effects its term. In this second way especially, or, as is commonly said, as the will is efficacious, he regards the will in the remaining places cited: cont. Iul. IV. n. 42. sq.; ep. ad Vital. n. 19; Corrept. et grat. n. 47; Praedest. SS. n. 14; Civ. Dei XXII. 2. « What is this: 'everyone who has heard from the Father and learned comes to me,' unless there is no one who hears from the Father and learns and does not come to me?... Why then does he not teach all, that they may come to Christ, except that all whom he teaches, mercy teaches; but those whom he does not teach, judgement does not teach.... The word of the cross is foolishness to those who perish, but to those who are saved it is the power of God. God teaches all these to come to Christ, for he wills all these to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For if he had wished to teach also those to whom the word of the cross is foolishness, that they might come to Christ, without doubt they too would come » Praed. SS. n. 13. 14.

Augustine had the greatest reason for considering the will of God in this way, in the matter of justification and salvation, from the proud and heretical error of the Pelagians itself. For they taught that God had conferred grace on all, namely, in their sense, a rational nature and free will; but that it was now for man to save himself by the powers of nature and the strength of the (bare) will, and not for God to save man. In this heresy, as regards the beginning and inchoation of salvation, the Semi-Pelagians agreed with them. God therefore, they said, indifferently conferred on all a good nature and an excellent free will, and he himself wills that all save themselves by the powers of nature; if any do not save themselves, this is solely because they are unwilling to strive with the powers of their good nature.² In order that the holy Doctor might overcome this heresy, it was not so much necessary for him to consider what man contributes in the matter of salvation, except as far as this was required to repel the calumnies about a denial of the liberty of the will made by Catholics; but rather it was necessary to direct the whole contention to demonstrating that the first place belongs to divine grace, so that it would be understood to be both absolutely necessary and anticipating every merit, and entirely gratuitous. Hence Augustine denies first of all that men save themselves because they themselves will it (by the powers of nature); he denies next that God wills all to be saved in such a way that he has conferred on all whatever could be conferred while the free will of man is kept safe, as the heretics asserted, in order to exclude the operation and grace of God from the way of salvation; lastly, he rejects this proposition: « men are not saved because they themselves are unwilling, » understood in the sense of the heretics: as if, namely, it were not the grace of God that makes the willing out of the unwilling and leads them to salvation; but that men would not be saved solely for this reason, that they themselves by the powers of nature do not begin or do not complete the work of salvation.

St Augustine shows that this doctrine of theirs is false by the example of infants (against Julian; ep. ad Vital., ll. cc.): « Those infants convict this sense of yours (he says, against Julian, there) by their very silence, because they neither ask, nor seek, nor knock; nay, even when they are baptized, they cry out, refuse, and struggle; and yet they receive... with far more infants not adopted into this grace by him who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. To them he cannot say: I willed (all means placed in my power), and you were unwilling. For if he had willed (absolutely), who of them, who do not yet have the power of their own will, would have resisted his most omnipotent will? » Augustine thus excludes, by this example of infants, not the will of God to confer on all adults, through grace, the possibility of salvation, a possibility so clearly asserted by him (vid. th. LI.); but he excludes the natural will of men, by which they would save themselves according to the heretical opinion of their adversaries.³

From all these things it is manifest that, as regards the thing itself, the explanations of the particular saving will handed down by Augustine in the passages cited are not an exclusion of the universal will of salvation, which the other Fathers and Augustine himself in other places most clearly asserted and vindicated from the doctrine of the Scriptures. For the Fathers, and Augustine himself in other places, treat of the will of God antecedent and conditional, which is universal; but in later places Augustine discusses the same saving will absolute and actually effecting its term, which is indeed particular.⁴ But one truth, that the will effectual in act pertains only to those who in fact are saved, does not exclude the other truth, that the antecedent saving will embraces all men.

II. It remains to say what sense Augustine thought lay under the words of the Apostle 1. Tim. II. 4. It is not in itself contradictory that he defended the antecedent saving will of God as universal, along with the other Fathers, and yet thought that in this text of the Apostle there is solely a question of the absolute and actually effectual, and so particular, will. I say that this is not in itself contradictory; it is nevertheless certain that, even in the interpretation of this testimony, Augustine did not contradict the older Greek and Latin Fathers, who all understood the passage of the antecedent will, by denying what they affirmed; but he differs from them only in this, that he explains not one immediate sense only, but several senses following from the immediate sense, and so, collating all his places, he supplies a richer and fuller interpretation.

Certainly a) St Augustine himself explains the text of Paul most clearly as concerning the antecedent and universal saving will, in 1. de spirit. et litt. n. 57. 58. b) He declares that the same passage can be understood in several ways. « It can be understood in many ways, of which I have mentioned some in other small works of ours » de Corrept. et grat. n. 44. Among these many ways, and among some which Augustine himself has mentioned, is certainly also that one explained as the antecedent and universal will, in the book de spirit. et litt.⁵ c) The manner of speaking, when he proposes any one of those three senses concerning the particular will, clearly indicates that those senses are not taken by the holy Doctor as exclusively true and as contained in the words of the Apostle; but are commended as a truth which also can be understood in the sacred text.⁶ They never propose any one of those senses as fixed and settled, but in the manner of one disputing and consulting: « we can so understand; » « it can also be understood thus; » « why then do we not so accept it? » « it can be understood in any other way, provided only that we are not compelled to believe that Almighty God willed something (by the consequent and absolute will) to be done, and it was not done. » Finally, d) from the connection of the consequent and particular saving will with the antecedent and universal will, it is understood that these interpretations of Augustine set forth a truth which follows from the immediate sense, directly expressed in the words of the Apostle. For from that will by which God, of goodness and of all consolation, wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, provided that men « are not enemies to themselves, and do not resist the mercy of their creator, and do not destroy themselves, » as St Augustine says (de catechizand. rudib. n. 52; in Io. tract. XII. n. 12.), there follows the absolute will of the salvation of those who « commit themselves to him to be enlightened and kindled » (de spir. et litt. n. 58.), and who obey the grace of God. Hence, considering the doctrine of the Scriptures, of the Fathers and of Augustine himself on the universality of the antecedent saving will, it can rightly be affirmed and shown with Io. B. Faure (ad Enchir. Aug. c. 103. p. 197.) that Augustine, in those very places where he has before his eyes the absolute and particular will of God, does not indeed explain but nevertheless presupposes the universal antecedent saving will. This can be shown both from the similitudes which the holy Doctor uses to declare that particular will, when he says that God wills all to be saved in the sense in which the one master in a city is said to teach all the boys of the city, and the sun is said to illuminate all; and from the third explanation, by which it is understood that God wills all to be saved, because he makes us desire and pray for the salvation of all. For a master cannot rightly be said to teach all the boys of the city, nor the sun to illuminate all, except insofar as on the part of the master and on the part of the sun there is ready all that is necessary and without which it could not be, that all the boys of the city should without exception be taught, and all men enlightened. Nor does God bid us and make us pray for all, unless because he wills to confer his graces, as far as in him lies, on all, yet according to the laws of his wisdom, so that through them all may be saved.

Thus the full explanation of the words of the Apostle, « God wills all men to be saved, » is completed by a fourfold declaration of Augustine, in this way. 1°. God wills all men to be saved, yet not so as to take away from them free will, by which those who use it well or badly are most justly judged (Sp. et litt.). Willing, however, 2°. that all be saved in this way, he bids us to will that all be saved, and works this in us by pouring out this charity in our hearts (Correpl. et gr. n. 47; Civ. Dei XXII. 2.). When, however, 3°. God foreknows others who obey grace, and so in them the condition is fulfilled through the help of his grace, he wills to confer eternal salvation on these by the very effect (Enchirid., cont. Iulian. IV., ad Vital., de Praed. SS.). With regard to others, in whom he foresees the condition not fulfilled, this effectual will of salvation is not applied; and this happens by their own fault, as those who misuse free will; although God, considering the whole range of graces, which are in the power of the Almighty, could also make these from unwilling men willing (Enchir., Correpl. et gr. n. 44. 45.). Granted, therefore, 4°, that not all men are those who are thus subject to the effectual will of salvation; yet all kinds of men are, according to the differences of conditions, talents, and ages (Enchir., Correpl. et gr. n. 44.). Cf. Ruiz de volunt. Dei disp. XIX. sect. 8. n. 14.

By the will antecedent God wills the salvation of all infants also.

« The antecedent will of God, by which he wills all men to be saved, is to be affirmed as pertaining not only to adults capable of the help of grace, but also to all « men of a few days ». Those, therefore, who are snatched away by death before baptism, are to be thought excluded from eternal blessedness not by the antecedent but by the consequent will; although the term with respect to which the antecedent will of salvation is affirmed, and the consequent will of salvation is denied, is not altogether the same as regards infants and as regards adults. This doctrine is confirmed by the authority of the ancients. »

As in other chapters of theological doctrine, so here a twofold question must be distinguished: whether it is, and how it is. In this matter it is no wonder if, even when the former question can easily be brought to clarity from revealed principles and the truth can be certainly demonstrated, yet in the latter question many things remain obscure and ambiguous; for this happens in most truths, and in all those which are properly called mysteries. It must nevertheless be attempted that this second question also be determined, as far as the nature of the subject matter permits, and as far as is needed to forestall or resolve the difficulties which could be raised against the truth itself.

I. The principal testimonies by which the universality of the saving will is set forth in the Scriptures and explained by the holy Fathers embrace infants no less than adult men¹. The manner in which the Scriptures and the Fathers teach that the universality of the divine will, that all men be saved, is to be understood, is contained in these three reasons.

a) God wills that all men, of whom he himself is God and creator, be saved. « He wills all men to be saved; for there is one God » 1. Tim. 2. 4. « He wills all to be his own, whom he founded and created « Ambros. in Ps. 39. « One God is God of all men, and therefore desires all to be saved whom he made » Primas. in 1. Tim. II. 5. etc.

b) God wills that all who have human nature be saved; because the Son of God assumed human nature, and in that nature is the God-man mediator between God and all who are men. « He wills all men to be saved; for there is one God, one mediator also of God and men, the man Christ Jesus » 1. Tim. ib. « For the sake of the human race the Son of God was born of the Virgin,... that, having been made man of the Virgin, he might take upon himself the nature of flesh, and that through the fellowship of this union the body of the whole human race might be sanctified in him, so that, as all were founded in him through that which he willed to be corporeal, so again he might be referred to all through that which is his invisible nature » Hilar. Trin. 1. II. n. 24. etc.

c) This same principle they propose in another way, namely that Christ died for all who are dead through sin; and thus God wills to restore through Adam all who fell in the first Adam. In this doctrine it is directly and explicitly said that the universal saving will of God is referred to the reparation of the human race, original sin being supposed². Moreover this supposition is understood also in all other places; for Scripture and the Fathers speak of the will of God according to the present historical order of the human race. « For if by the offence of one many (οἱ³ πολλοί) are dead, much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, unto many (εἰς τοὺς πολλοὺς) has abounded » Rom. V. 15. « For if one died for all, then all are dead » 2. Cor. V. 14. 15 (according to the interpretation of St Augustine). « With no exception made, but all sharing in the same Adam, and led into fraud by the serpent and affected by death through sin, and restored to salvation through the heavenly Adam, and recalled through the wood of shame to the tree of life, whence we had fallen » Naz. or. 33. (34.) n. 9. Indeed St Augustine very often inculcates from 2. Cor. V. 14. that the death of Christ for all little children, by name, is a certain principle beyond controversy, so that from it he may demonstrate against the Pelagians that all are dead through original sin. « It remains that all, for whom Christ died, are dead in sin, let no one deny, let no one doubt, who does not deny or doubt himself to be a Christian. Wherefore, if little children incur no sin, they are not dead; if they are not dead, he has not died for them, who has died only for the dead... In no way, therefore, are you permitted to deny that they contract original sin... For whence the dead, if not thence, or on account of what death of little ones did he die, who did not die except for the dead? » Aug. contr. Iul. 1. IV. n. 8. But the divine will that Christ should die for sinners, and the human will of Christ offering death for sinners, is not understood except from the will that these same sinners⁴, for whom death has been offered (sins, both original and personal, being supposed), should be redeemed and saved. « God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him; » « I came not to judge the world, but to save the world; » « the Son of man came to save what had perished » Io. III. 17; XII. 47; Matth. XVIII. 11. Therefore the divine will that Christ should die for all, and the offering of death made by Christ as man for all, is certainly (original sin being already supposed) from the will of the salvation of all.

The extension of the saving will is therefore described in revelation by these marks: God wills the salvation of all whose God and creator he is; he wills the salvation of all who are of that specific nature in which Christ the Redeemer is man; he wills, through Christ, the restoration to salvation of all who fell in Adam. Vide th. XLIX. L. LI. Now these marks are common to infants equally with adults, without any distinction. « Are not little children men, so that they do not belong to what has been said, all men? » Aug. contr. Iul. IV. n. 42. Either, therefore, the value of the arguments of Scripture for proving the antecedent saving will of God in relation to all adults is called into doubt, which is certainly an impiety, and cannot come about without the proofs of the defined dogma itself, concerning the will of salvation and the death of Christ for the salvation of others also than the predestined, being weakened; or the antecedent will of salvation must be conceded also in relation to all infants; for the chief foundations in the revealed word of God are the same on both sides. Yet it is not on that account the same operation of the saving will, nor the same mode for infants and adults; and for that reason the term with respect to which the will is said to be antecedent and consequent does not stand in the same way: for these depend on the different state of those to be saved, who are capable or incapable of actual grace and free action, and therefore on the diversity of the means of salvation.

But before we proceed to the declaration of how that antecedent will stands with regard to all infants, the difficulty must be removed which Gabriel Vasquez (in 1. P. disp. 96. c. 3. n. 10.) raised against the interpretation of the principal testimony, 1. Tim. II. 4.; for from the words of the Apostle that follow, in which it is said not only that God wills « all men to be saved, » but also « to come to the knowledge of the truth, » he thinks it is established that the discourse concerns the will referred only to adults and not also to infants. But a) how widely that will of God extends is shown not so much from the words of v. 4 considered by themselves as from what precedes and especially from what follows. From these it is clear that God wills all men to be saved whose God he is, all who have human nature, by which, assumed, the Son of God became man, the mediator of men; and finally all for whom God wills prayers to be offered. b) If by the other clause (« he wills all men to come to the knowledge of the truth ») the beginning and condition of salvation is signified; it is clear from the analogy of faith that not all the same conditions are required in infants as in adults. The words of the Apostle are therefore to be understood according to the capacity of the subject, and under the conditions which are required differently according to the diversity of the subject. Although, therefore, the clause would state a condition necessary for adults alone, that would in no way prove that the antecedent clause too can and must be restricted to them⁵ alone; it would only prove that the condition which falls under a precept was restricted and mentioned by the Apostle only for those who are capable of the precept. The precept of Christ may be compared: « teach all nations, baptizing them » Matth. XXVIII. 19; and « he who believes and is baptized will be saved » Marc. XVI. 16. Although here the precept of teaching on the part of the Apostles and the precept of believing on the part of the Gentiles are referred, in the proper and direct sense, to adults alone, yet the other clause, baptize them, and whoever has been baptized will be saved, none the less embraces infants as well as adults, which Vasquez would certainly not deny. Moreover, c) just as in these passages of the Gospel the teaching and faith, so in Paul the knowledge of the truth, in an accommodated sense, pertains also to infants, as St Augustine often explains. « Thus, although that faith which consists in the will of believers is not yet in the little child, yet the sacrament of faith itself makes him a believer. For just as to believe is answered for (through the hearts and mouths of those who carry him, as he says contr. Iul. VI. n. 6.), so he too is called faithful, not by assenting in mind⁶ to the thing itself but by receiving the sacrament of the thing itself » ep. 98. al. 23. n. 10. ad Bonifac. And in another sense: « infants who are baptized and die come, through that grace, to the knowledge of the truth, which in the kingdom of God is most certain » contr. Iul. IV. n. 42.

Therefore « knowledge of the truth » is said in three ways: an inchoate knowledge through the sacrament and the habit of faith, an inchoate knowledge through actual faith, and a consummated knowledge in vision. God wills that all men, adults and infants, come to the knowledge of the truth; but he wills this as regards the inchoate knowledge, in a manner differing according to their diverse condition: that infants come to the sacrament and the habit, adults also to the act of knowing; but all to the consummated knowledge of the truth in the kingdom of God.

II. There remains the question how that antecedent will of salvation is to be understood with regard to all infants. If we were simply compelled to confess our ignorance on this question, the truth of this will, which we proved from revealed principles, would not on that account be less certain; for it is far different, as I have said, to demonstrate the truth that it is, and to understand how it is. Nevertheless, « this question is not so unknowable that we can acquire no knowledge from it, if a tranquil gaze of a sober heart is applied to contemplating what can be seen » (De vocatione gent. 1. II. c. 21.). All this understanding, so far as we are able to attain it, depends, however, on the definition of the term with respect to which the saving will is called antecedent. If this term were simply foreseen original sin, the will of salvation of all infants would easily be understood as antecedent to this foresight. Then, indeed, the consequent will would likewise have to be called that which follows the foresight of original sin; but since the consequent saving will is not universal, but particular as regards those alone who are in fact saved, it would have to be concluded that God, in the present state of the fallen and restored race, in no way wills the salvation of other infants, except those who are in fact saved. But in the Scriptures and the Fathers the will of God is treated with respect to the present state of the fallen human race; and so, original sin having been supposed as propagated into all the posterity of Adam, God is said to will the salvation of all men. For the saving will which is preached in the Scriptures and the Fathers is the will of the Redeemer and the Repairer of fallen nature, and therefore the will of quickening and healing all through Christ, who died through the first Adam, as has been sufficiently demonstrated above. Therefore the term with respect to which the will is called antecedent, which the Scriptures and the Fathers preach as universal to the salvation of all men, cannot be understood as foreseen original sin; but rather, original sin being supposed, the will of salvation remains universal, and takes on the character of a will of redemption. Another term, therefore, must be the one by which the antecedent, conditional and universal will is distinguished from the consequent, absolute and particular will of salvation of those alone who are saved in fact.

1°. If, the infection of sin being supposed, the saving will still remains conditional and universal, then nothing other than the final state of grace or of sin can be understood as the term, the foresight of which is followed by the particular will of salvation of some and the will of damnation of others. For a) in general the universal will of salvation of all men is so described, that it is referred to all men as long as they are in the state of the wayfarer. Not to mention other things which are clear in themselves from what precedes, surely it is the will of God that we pray for the salvation of all, as long as they are in the state of the wayfarer; and this very divine command the Apostle declares to come from the will of God that all men be saved; therefore this saving will of God extends to all men as long as they are in the state of the wayfarer. « Most sincerely must it be believed and professed that God wills all men to be saved; since the Apostle, whose this teaching is, most earnestly commands what is most devoutly observed in all the Churches, that supplication be made to God for all men: of whom, that many perish is the merit of those who perish, that many are saved is the gift of the one who saves; for that the guilty man be condemned is the justice of God beyond blame, but that the guilty man be justified is the grace of God beyond words » S. Prosper ad II. obiect. Vincentianam. Moreover, b) particularly as regards infants, beyond this final state of grace or of sin no other term can be feigned for distinguishing the universal will, which, original sin already being supposed, wills the salvation of all, from the will which wills not the salvation of many of these same men, but their exclusion from salvation. Unless, perhaps, you invent the fable of the Semi-Pelagians, who, with merits and sins foreseen under a condition never to be verified, set up a term by which God wills for infants either salvation or deprivation of salvation, in a « new kind of absurdity » (th. XLV.).

If, therefore, the term according to which the will of salvation is distinguished, antecedent universal, from the consequent particular will were considered in general and abstracting from special modes and circumstances, we could say that the term is the same as regards infants and as regards adults possessed of reason, namely the foreseen final state of grace or of sin.

2°. If now the manner in which a man perseveres in grace is considered in the concrete, and the manner in which the antecedent will of God, as far as in itself lies, wills the justification, perseverance in grace and salvation of all, there is a great difference between infants and adults. The justification and perseverance in righteousness of adults cannot be without their free cooperation with the help of grace; the falling away from perseverance and final sin come from their free evil acts and omissions, which God does not will but permits (cf. th. XLIII. n. II.). Hence God cannot be understood, by the antecedent will, and as far as in himself lies, to will the salvation of all men, unless he offers to all the possibility of justification, perseverance and salvation by granting the necessary graces, without which there is no possibility of salvation. Vide Bellarmin. de Grat. et lib. arb. 1. II. c. 5. Therefore, for adults, the term with respect to which the universal saving will, viewed as a whole, is called antecedent, includes also the foreseen good use of free will aided by grace, or the foreknown evil use of that same will not obeying the graces offered (cf. S. August. supra th. LI. LII.). On the contrary, as regards the justification and perseverance of infants, their free will does nothing at all, nor can it do anything, since in act it does not exist. The means by which their justification is effected (the privilege of martyrdom excepted) is baptism conferred without any free cooperation of the infants themselves; but perseverance is purely passive, consisting in the very grace of death after the reception of the sacrament, which death, although considered in itself and ontologically (or entitatively) it is natural, nevertheless includes grace that is intrinsically supernatural, if death is considered as a whole, death in the state of grace; and it is also in itself a benefit extrinsically supernatural, as being ordered to the attainment of the supernatural end. Hence, just as for adults the antecedent will of salvation cannot be understood without its being at the same time the will of graces and means without which salvation is impossible, so the antecedent will of salvation as regards infants cannot be understood without its being the will that the merits of Christ be applied to them through baptism. Therefore, in the same way, the will of salvation of all infants is antecedent and conditional, in the same way that the will that the merits of Christ be applied through baptism to all infants is antecedent and conditional.

Certainly God does not will the application of baptism to all infants by an antecedent absolute will, and according to the whole extent of his omnipotence, nor by a consequent will; for if he willed it so, « he to whom truth sings: whatever he willed, he did » (Aug. Enchir. c. 103.), it would undoubtedly come to pass. But that this grace is not in fact granted by the effect itself to all infants is too manifest; and by this very fact it is also manifest that by such an absolute will, whether antecedent or consequent, God does not will the salvation of all infants. If therefore he wills the application of baptism for all infants only under some condition, the foreseen verification or frustration of this very condition will be the term by which the will of the application of baptism is distinguished into antecedent and consequent. What this condition is remains to be inquired. In this question lies the whole difficulty, which most people experience in understanding the divine will for the salvation of all infants.

It is plain that the condition under which God wills the application of baptism to all infants is not, and cannot be, as in adults, the cooperation of the infants themselves with grace and under grace; but the condition is contained in the actions of secondary causes, which are required for the application of baptism or impede it. Those actions are, first, those which depend immediately or mediately on free wills of other men; next, to these belong the effects which, according to the present order introduced through original sin, and established by God for other most wise ends, follow naturally from physical causes. The condition therefore must be stated thus: God wills for all infants the application of the merits of Christ through baptism, so far as moral and physical secondary causes, namely the free wills of men and the natural physical order, do not stand in the way. God does not directly will the impediments derived from these secondary causes, insofar as they impede the application of baptism; he only permits them. The will, therefore, by which God wills the application of baptism to all infants who in fact die without receiving the sacrament, is a will antecedent to the foreseen impeding actions arising from secondary causes: consequently, however, in view of the foreseeing of these actions, God does not will to change the natural order, and he permits death without baptism, which follows from the laws of nature; and thus, with death in original sin foreseen, he does not will the salvation of these infants by consequent will.

3°. To understand that this antecedent will of God, although it wills the salvation of infants under a condition whose fulfilment in no way depends on the free will of the infants themselves, is the true will of God pursuing the salvation of them all, and not merely a complacency and approval of the goodness of salvation considered in itself, we must consider more distinctly both the working of that will and the conditions under which he wills salvation itself.

a) Consequent upon the foreseen original sin, and upon the infection of the whole human race through the free transgression of its forefather and head, Adam, God mercifully wills the restoration of the whole human race; to this end he destines it from eternity, promises it, and in time sends his Son made flesh, having taken a nature from that same human race; he wills that the incarnate Son, Christ, should render full satisfaction for all sins; he accepts this satisfaction as foreseen; and in the fullness of time Christ actually offers it for all sins. « God sent his Son, that the world might be saved through him »; « he is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. » Certainly all those also are included in this restored human race who die as infants before the use of reason: therefore all those infants are included in the will of redemption; and in the divine will accepting the satisfaction, and in the human will of Christ offering satisfaction for all sins, there is also the acceptance and offering of satisfaction for the original sin with which all those infants are infected. Hence, with regard to and by virtue of the merits and the shed blood of Christ, God instituted for all those infants a sacrament by which the satisfaction and merits of Christ could be applied to each one. Yet all these things are, by their nature, ordained by God to the salvation of infants. Now such a will of salvation is certainly not a mere complacency in the goodness of an object considered in itself; but it is an active will on God's part, pursuing the salvation of infants, to whom this will of redemption refers, all and each, as was demonstrated above at n. I.

b) God wills to effect the application of the sacrament not immediately through himself but through secondary causes; and through these he wills it not for all infants by an absolute will, but for all, insofar as the secondary causes, disposed by universal and ordinary providence, do not stand in the way. Among these secondary causes are first of all the free wills of other men, on which the application of the sacrament depends, at least for the majority of infants. God anticipates these wills by his precepts, counsels, and aids of the natural and supernatural order; he stirs them up and inclines them, so that through diligence and care, through obedience and cooperation under grace received, through suitable merits and good works, through alms and prayer, both of others and especially of parents and of those to whose guardianship the little ones are entrusted, and through the apostolic labours of his ministers, infants may be brought to the grace of baptism. For, just as in the natural order, so also in the supernatural order of sanctification and eternal salvation, God wills, as the general laws of divine providence and the nature of things require, to provide for little ones through other men. In this sense Augustine says in many places that infants, just as they fell by another's will, so they believe through the faith of others and are brought to the sacrament of faith. « The faith of another can provide for a little one, to whom his own unbelief cannot be imputed. » (as though contracted by his own will) de lib. arbitr. III. 23. That in this way the saving will of God acts upon the wills of men to procure the salvation at least of many infants, who nevertheless are not saved through the fault of men, is most manifest; and therefore, as regards these infants, God's active antecedent will that they be saved is most manifest, although it is not an absolute antecedent will but a conditional one, if men on their part should obey the divine will, as they could and ought; and although, consequent upon the contrary deeds of men, God permits death in original sin, and with this foreseen he does not will the salvation of those infants by consequent will. If, as regards many infants who in fact fall from eternal blessedness, we understand well enough the manner in which God pursues their salvation by his antecedent will, it is no great matter if we confidently commit to the just and good God the manner of this pursuit of salvation as regards all infants, where we cannot understand that manner in particular, since the will of salvation of all has been most splendidly manifested to us in general by God himself, both in words and in deeds.

There are not lacking grave theologians who teach that God wills to bring to the sacrament and, consequently, to sanctification and salvation all infants without exception who in fact die in original sin, unless it depended on the free actions of men; and so they reduce the condition under which God antecedently wills the salvation of all little ones to this one alone, namely the free cooperation of men. Thus teach Arrubal, in 1. P. disp. 91. c. 3. 4; Herice disp. 35. c. 2. n. 27-29; Martinon disp. 20. sect. 4. n. 38; Kilber (in Theol. Wirceburg. de Deo disp. IV. c. 2. a. 3. T. II. p. 195. sq.). Cf. Andream Vega de Iustific. l. V. c. 16. ad finem; Bellarmin. de Grat. et lib. arb. l. II. c. 5. If we thought this opinion necessary to defend the antecedent will of salvation for all infants, we would gladly embrace it. For since that universal antecedent will is certainly demonstrated from the teaching of Scripture and the Fathers, this very teaching would also contain such a mode of the saving will, without which, on the hypothesis, the saving will itself could not subsist. But because the antecedent saving will seems sufficiently intelligible even with this opinion denied, and because arguments for proving this mode of will are not otherwise available, we neither dare to despise the opinion (for it is pious and not repugnant to the analogy of faith), nor do we consider it necessary to affirm it.

Now, c) besides the wills of men, there come into consideration the non-free secondary causes of the physical order, which, according to the common and ordinary laws of providence, contribute to making the conferral of the sacrament possible or impossible. The course of these causes and the universal laws by which they are governed God, consequent upon original sin, indeed wills to be such as they now are; and he has not yet restored the preternatural state of immortality, even after the redemption of the human race by Christ was decreed and is now accomplished. Hence there follows indeed, according to the course of these laws, the death of many infants before the use of reason; and (as we now grant) sometimes there follows, independently of all free wills and actions of men, death in original sin: yet with this natural course of things there very well consists in God a conditional antecedent will of salvation for all these infants; for this very condition is that under which he wills the application of the sacrament, insofar as namely the general order wisely and justly instituted allows. If God willed by himself such an order of physical causes for this end, that infants should die in original sin, that would certainly be repugnant to the saving will, and it could no longer be said that he wills the salvation of these infants: but God did not institute the course for this end, nor does he direct this general order of things to it by his antecedent will, but wills it for other most wise ends; and from it he does not directly intend the consequent death of infants in sin, but only permits it, insofar as he does not will, for all infants, to prevent by a change of the general order or by a miracle the demand of the physical laws. Such permission, however, proves only that there is not in God an absolute will of salvation for these infants; but it in no way proves that there is not a conditional will of salvation for all, insofar as the general course of things, wisely arranged for other ends, does not impede the application of the sacrament instituted for all.

We can embrace the whole in this formula: God wills the salvation of all infants who die in original sin by antecedent will according to common providence; yet he does not will to provide for the salvation of all of them by special providence. In order that this be rightly understood, the reason of common providence must be kept before our eyes. « God, insofar as he is the common provider and governor of the whole world, says Becanus, Tract.I. c. 13, has three chief offices: first, he prescribes to each thing a certain end; second, he conceives and prepares sufficient means for attaining that end; third, he allows each thing to use those means according to the demand of its own nature; that is, he allows natural and necessary causes to act naturally and necessarily, contingent causes to act contingently, and free causes freely. »

III. This whole way of understanding, that God wills the salvation of all infants, was expressed by the author of the books de Vocatione gentium, whom Pope Gelasius I. commends by the name « magistri Ecclesiae » (in Opusc. contr. Pelag. in Collect. Concil. Mansi T. VIII. p. 111.⁷⁸. He therefore found⁹ the whole explanation set out above confirmed by the authority of this teacher of the Church. His teaching on the manner in which God wills that all « men of few days » be saved is contained in book II in these chapters.

1°. First of all, « we must rest on those three most salutary and most true definitions, » namely that God wills all men to be saved, that salvation is begun and perfected by the work and operation of divine grace, and finally that « the reason of the whole will of God cannot be grasped »; and so « one must not inquire why he does not save all men, who wills all men to be saved »¹⁰. Therefore « as those things which are brought forth from the divine oracles concerning the manifestation of grace can in no way be violated by any art of disputation..... so also what is found concerning the salvation of all men in the same body of the Scriptures is not to be rashly assailed by any contrary argument, so that the more difficult it is to grasp by understanding, the more praiseworthy it is to believe it by faith » l. II. cc. 1. 2. 30.

2°. If, with these three settled and fixed points, it is specifically asked, also with regard to infants, how God in the present economy wills that all be saved, and yet not all are saved? « this question is not so unknowable that we can gain no learning from it, if a calm gaze of a sober heart is applied to contemplating what can be seen » ibid. c. 21. Therefore, although the words of Paul, 1. Tim. II. 4., « are to be received wholly and plainly » (l. I. c. 12); the will that all infants be saved does not include also the will of changing the present physical order of mortality brought in by the sin of Adam: « nor is there reason to complain of the untimeliness of death, since mortality, once it has entered our nature through sin, has made every day of our life liable to it » l. II. c. 21. This is the same as saying that the antecedent will for the salvation of infants is not, with respect to all, and insofar as it is universal, absolute but conditional; namely, insofar as the general laws of the present order, in which fallen nature has been established on account of its sin¹¹, do not hinder the application of the merits of Christ through the visible sacrament.

3°. Yet these very laws are from divine providence, « which subjected things destined to fail to the laws of failure in such a way that it did not turn away from them the power of its governances. » Hence arises a new difficulty, whose gravity our author fully perceived at the end of c. 22 and at the beginning of c. 23. To resolve it he further explains more fully the rationale of the saving will. For since human nature is infected by sin, the grace of remission, as in adults so in little ones, is wholly gratuitous; nor does God owe it to infants. He wills indeed by antecedent will this grace for all; yet not for all with equal providence. He leads some by the effect itself to baptism, in a manner sometimes even plainly wonderful, and this is undue mercy towards them; he permits others to die without baptism, and this is just judgment. « The weights of this most harsh yoke (of original sin) did not so fall upon the sons of Adam that divine justice (and mercy) did not apply to it something of its own measure.... so that, the general necessity having been varied, the Lord might reserve for himself causes of indulgence and of correction, and there might be in the one debt of all what the merciful might remit and the just exact l. II. c. 22; cf. c. 21. Therefore that those laws, from which it comes about that many infants die in sin, are subject to « the power of the divine governances, » very well proves that the antecedent saving will is not absolute, that mercy is not bestowed equally on all, which is owed to no one, and that there is towards some a special mercy, which is not universal and common to all; but in no way does it prove that there is no saving will which extends to absolutely all infants. How this is to be understood in connection with the power and providence of God concerning physical laws, our author considers further.

4°. Although God wills, consequent upon original sin, those laws as they now are, he did not institute them for this reason, nor by his antecedent will does he direct them to this end, that those little ones should die without baptism; but, unwilling to change the general laws, established for just causes and ends, into a special favour for all infants, he permits the death that naturally follows from them. Therefore, antecedently to these demands of the general laws, God wills that the remedy of salvation be applied to all, and by this he wills the salvation of all; consequently to these demands he wills to permit death without baptism, and by consequent will he does not will the salvation of those who die in sin, in view of the death foreseen. « In what work of grace would anyone..... complain that a like providence does not provide for all little ones, and that he does not either remove by power or forestall by mercy all the dangers that can prevent the regeneration of those who are about to die. This would certainly happen towards all, if it had altogether to be so » l. II. c. 24.

5°. What most convinces that this antecedent will is active not only through the death of Christ and the institution of a remedy against sin for all, but also through the preparation of graces, as far as little ones are capable of receiving them, is explained last, in the following consideration. Namely, prevenient and exciting grace, which is conferred immediately on adults, pertains mediately to little ones, whom God willed to bring to the grace of baptism, either by diligence and care, or by the suitable merits and intercessions of adults. Just as the grace of adults is various and manifold, to which they themselves can freely consent or resist, so the providence towards little ones is manifold, yet not in any way separated from the obedience and merits of adults. « When we ask how he wills all men to be saved, he who does not grant to all that time in which they may be capable of receiving grace through voluntary faith; I do not think it irreligious to believe, nor inappropriate to understand, that these men of a few days belong to that part of grace which is always bestowed on all nations, by which, indeed, if their parents (and other men) used it well, they too would be helped through them... But just as, among the elders, besides that general grace which more sparingly and more secretly knocks at the hearts of all men, a special calling is put forth by a more excellent work, a larger gift, and a more powerful virtue; so too, among the countless little ones the same election is manifested. This indeed was not lacking, among the parents, to those who were not reborn » l. II. c. 23.

This doctrine of the book de Vocatione gentium is not at odds with it, but indeed agrees with it excellently, St Fulgentius, de Verit. praedestin. l. I. cc. 9-11; yet with this distinction, that the diverse aim of each requires it. For the author of the books de Vocatione gentium has as his purpose to declare what the saving will is, which pertains to all; Fulgentius, as Augustine usually does, looks to this, that he may show that grace and predestination to grace are a gratuitous benefit, not a reward due to natural merits. Hence Fulgentius considers more the gratuity of the benefit in infants, who are brought by God to baptism through the good will inspired in adults, and the inscrutable judgment in others who are not baptized, whom God, although he does not will the negligence and fault of men but only permits it, could nevertheless have brought to the same grace, if his will be considered according to the amplitude of omnipotence. But where Fulgentius looks to the antecedent conditional will of salvation, his opinion is the same as that of our author. « Why do we not also believe most certainly, and proclaim freely, that in the baptism of infants the diligence of parents pertains to the redeeming of grace, but negligence pertains to the justice of the judge? » Yet this negligence is not from the will, and much less from the antecedent will of God as judge; but it is wholly from the evil will of men, which God does not will but permits. For he goes on: « it is not because of God that there is negligence of good work, from whom no cause of evil work could ever be, but because a good will... is given by God... whereas the evil will, which by its own merit either does not receive or loses the grace of charity, does not lay aside the torpor of its negligence » Fulgent. ibi c. 10. n. 21.

Scholion. The difficulties which are usually raised against the truth, which is most firmly fortified by the teaching of Scripture and the Fathers, for the most part arise from a perversion of the state of the question. Therefore it must not be permitted: a) that the absolute will be confused with the conditional; b) that it be falsely supposed that there cannot be in God any conditional will of salvation, unless the condition depend on the free will of the one to be saved. That the condition under which God wills the salvation of all infants does not depend on their liberty, this indeed clearly proves that the gratuitous gift of the beatific vision is not within the free power of infants; but it does not prove that in God there is no will to grant this gift to them, insofar as the laws of the general order do not stand in the way. From the same reasoning, that the condition does not depend on the free will of infants, it further follows that, if salvation and eternal beatitude are granted to them, these are not a wage and crown for free merits acquired through gratuitous grace; but they are an inheritance and a gratuitous gift corresponding to the grace infused into them without them (without their free cooperation). Furthermore, with this independence of acquiring or losing salvation from the will of infants there coheres the doctrine, at least the most common one in the schools, more agreeable to the analogy of faith, and more powerful by the most weighty authorities, that infants, as is certain from faith, are indeed condemned to the privation of the supernatural last end in the beatific vision, which privation is owed to fallen nature and to nature deprived of sanctifying grace through original sin; yet they are not condemned to the punishment of the sense of torments, which is owed to free evil merits. Hence God cannot will the damnation of adults except by a will consequent to foreseen evil merits, which depend on their liberty; and therefore by antecedent will he wills the salvation of them all, as the crown of the merits of grace, under a condition depending on their liberty aided by grace. But the condition of infants is far different both as regards salvation and as regards damnation. By consequent will he wills their exclusion from eternal glory on account of original sin, which does not depend on their own liberty, but on the free sin of the first parent: so also, therefore, by antecedent will he wills the salvation of them all as a gratuitous inheritance under a condition, insofar as impediments do not stand in the way, which do not depend on their liberty, but were induced by the free sin of the first parent.

The part of the explanation in which we said that the condition under which God wills by antecedent will the application of the sacrament, and thence salvation, at least as regards most infants, is placed also in the free wills and actions of other men, may seem contrary to the doctrine of Augustine. « We see at times, he himself says, that to faithful men of good merit their sons are not granted, that they may be in the kingdom of God with their parents; but that little ones not reborn depart from this life, while sometimes, even when their own parents are eagerly desiring it and the ministers of the sacraments are hastening readily, their delay is not put off for a little while by almighty and most merciful God, so that the children of Christians may depart hence reborn » Aug. Op. imperf. cont. Iul. VI. c. 12; de Grat. et lib. arb. n. 44. But a) Augustine has only set out to prove that the grace of baptism is a gratuitous benefit; he does not, however, deny that God, by antecedent conditional will, wills this grace to come to all. b) He denies only the merit de condigno, on account of which the regeneration of infants is due; but he does not deny the impetration of baptism for them. c) He only enumerates some manifest diligences of parents; but he does not say that no impediment was placed either by parents or by others. d) At most it could be proved from Augustine that, besides free wills, the natural order of physical laws is also a condition under which God wills the application of baptism to all those in whom in fact the application is impeded. But surely Augustine never denied, indeed he clearly taught, that free actions of men also belong to such conditions, and that impediments to the application of the sacrament are placed in these actions for those infants to whom God wills the application by antecedent will. See de peccator. merit. et remiss. l. III. n. 22; ep. 98. n. 5. 6. Above all, e) let it be noted that Augustine, in all such passages as are objected, is not treating of the antecedent conditional will; but of the will productive of the effect in the second act and of the consequent will.