Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

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.