Although the divine will is most simple and of one kind, so that it may more fittingly be called θέλησις than θέλημα, and differs not at all from the very substance of God, as Cyril of Alexandria1 says, and as Junilius, the African bishop2, together with Cyril, and the other ecclesiastical writers3 testify; nevertheless, it has been received by the usage of the Fathers and of absolutely all theologians that, according to the manifold manner in which it can be considered, it may also be distinguished in a manifold way. For those things which are indeed simple, but at the same time of infinite power and excellence, since they are equivalent to many things, likewise present several aspects and, as it were, faces, and are subjected to several notions and divisions.
But among the divisions of the divine will, that one is distinguished above the rest and celebrated in the speech of all by which the divine will is so distributed that one is called first and antecedent, the other second and consequent. I undertake to explain this division; I proceed to define the force inherent in it; I disclose the fountain from which it flows; I demonstrate, by the suffrage of Tradition, the nature and amplitude of the restored order; and, on account of the most intimate kinship of the questions, I propose to inquire into the true and sincere interpretation of the words which Paul writes to Timothy4.