But if anyone considers these distinguished disputations of Prosper together and then endeavors to divide them into their members, he will easily perceive, as I indeed judge, that this excellent vindicator of the Catholic profession begins by applying himself partly to chastising, and partly to reproving and condemning, two classes of men. For he chastises the temerity of those who strike against the impenetrable depth of the judgments of God; who think that an indifferent will of God is to be asserted throughout all ages; and who, rather than revering them, inquire too curiously and freely into the causes of the varied and manifold providence exercised toward men. But he more bitterly convicts and most severely condemns those who refer the causes of the works and judgments of God wholly to human wills and actions; who, infected by the Pelagian or Semipelagian plague, will that the dispensations of God be varied according to the mutability of free choice; and who teach that the very grace by which we are saved is either repaid to good merits or withheld by evil ones.
The way having thus been made level and these obstacles removed from the midst, he hands down in order:
I. That those speak more harshly than one ought to speak concerning the depth of the inscrutable grace of God who say that God does not will all men to be saved, but only a fixed number of the predestined.
Indeed, II. he affirms that it must most sincerely be believed and professed that God wills all men to be saved.
III. He adds that this is therefore to be held with such great constancy because the Apostle, whose sentence this is, most earnestly commands what is most piously observed in all the churches: that supplication be made to God for all men.
But lest, IV., any place for doubt remain as to the amplitude in which, according to the author himself, the words “God wills all men to be saved” ought to be taken, he adds that the same persons are “all men” in Paul, “all nations” in Matthew, “all the tribes of the earth” in Moses, and “all the ends of the earth” and “all the families of the nations” in David. He teaches, namely, that “all men” in Paul ought to be taken so indefinitely that not even one is to be judged excepted from the salvific will of God.
But, V., what kind of salvific will is this, and from what fountain does it flow? It flows from the fountain of divine benignity; for if men, being evil, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will the heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him? Whence1 appears the great dignity of man, who was so created by God that he might know his own Author, and was esteemed so greatly that the Only-begotten of God expended his blood for his redemption.
But, VI., of itself it is such that by a manifold providence it assists men and places them upon the way2 by which one tends toward retribution.
For God has care of all men; and there is no one whom either evangelical preaching, or the testimony of the law, or even nature itself does not address. For the mercy3 and grace, the goodness and patience of God, are declared through all things, so that no one may despair and no one may presume. Let no one despair, because4 the Lord raises up all who fall and lifts up all who are cast down; let no one despair, because5 God takes away the way of correction from no one, nor despoils anyone of the possibility of good; but let no one presume, because6, just as he is sweet in lenity, so is he just in vengeance, and nothing is lost to his long-suffering, since the converted man experiences him as benign, and the hardened man as severe.
Wherefore, VII., this is the order chosen by his merciful and salvific will: that absolutely all men who possess the use of reason should be assisted in manifold ways, should be withdrawn from the necessity of perishing, should obtain the possibility of good, and, having obtained it, should enter upon the way of correction if they will; but if7 they spurn the will of God inviting them, they should feel the will of God avenging.