LI. That the helps of grace necessary for attaining salvation have always been present to all men

The author of the work On the Calling of All Nations completes in these words¹ the demonstration which he began and perfected in parts:

By these and other testimonies of the Scriptures it is shown without doubt that this most rich, most powerful, most benign grace, by which in the last time of the world all nations are called into the kingdom of Christ, was hidden in the counsel of God in preceding ages; and that no knowledge can comprehend, no understanding penetrate, why it was not previously revealed by that manifestation by which it is now made known to all nations. Nevertheless, that which is most piously believed concerning the goodness of God, that he² wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, ought to be understood as nothing other than perpetual and eternal, according to those measures by which God knows how to heap special gifts upon general gifts; so that both those who have been without grace may be convicted of their own wickedness, and those who have shone by its light may glory not in their own merit but in the Lord.

And³ again he writes somewhat more clearly:

Whether, therefore, we contemplate the last ages, the first, or the middle, it is rationally and piously believed that God wills all men to be saved and has always willed it; and this is shown from no other source than from those benefits which the providence of God expends commonly and indiscriminately upon all generations. For gifts of this kind were and are so general that by their testimony men could be assisted in seeking the true God; and upon these gifts, which throughout all ages proclaim their Author⁴, the largess of special grace has been poured forth.

Although it is furnished more copiously now than before, nevertheless the Lord has retained the causes of its distributions within his own knowledge and hidden them within the secret of his most powerful will; and if these gifts flowed uniformly upon all, they would not be hidden. And just as there is no ambiguity concerning general benignity, so concerning special mercy nothing would exist which was to be wondered at; and consequently the one would be grace and the other would not. But it pleased God both to bestow the one upon many and to remove the other from no one, so that from both it may appear that what was conferred upon a portion was not denied to the universality, but that in some grace prevailed and in others nature recoiled.

With these the following words agree exactly⁵:

It has been labored, insofar as the Lord aided, that it might be proved that the grace of God was present to all men, not only in the last days but also in all past ages, indeed by an equal providence and general goodness, but by a manifold operation and in a diverse measure; because, whether secretly or manifestly, he is, as the Apostle⁶ says, “the Savior of all men, especially of the faithful.” If this sentence, of most subtle brevity and most powerful strength, be considered with a tranquil gaze, it decides this entire controversy of which we are treating. For by saying “who is the Savior of all men,” he confirmed that the goodness of God toward all men is general; but by adding “especially of the faithful,” he showed that there is a portion of the human race which, by the merit of divinely inspired faith, is advanced by special benefits to supreme and eternal salvation. This is indeed done without any iniquity on the part of the most just and most merciful God, whose judgment in these dispensations must be praised with trembling, not discussed with arrogance.