But so that it may be more fully established that these things correspond to one another exactly, not only in appearance but also in the reality itself, it remains to investigate whether the Alexandrians attributed to the relation of mercy and love those endowments which, by the unanimous suffrage of others, we proved to be proper to the antecedent will. But it is not lawful to doubt this agreement of judgments. For what are enumerated as the principal properties and marks of the antecedent will? Namely, that it is and is believed to be efficacious and active; and then that it is and is believed to be universal and extending to all those who are comprehended under the appellation of the human race. But there is none of these ornaments which the Alexandrians do not attribute to divine love and mercy; none which they do not teach to be proper to the commerce of mercy and love between God and men.
For these are the men who, in the testimonies adduced1, unanimously profess: a) that love which does not benefit is empty; b) that God manifests his benevolence toward men ἔργῳ, by the deed itself; c) that he is always at hand for them, inwardly and outwardly exhorting, admonishing, and chastising; d) that he omits no care for their salvation; e) that for this reason he sent his Only-begotten, forgives sins, and furnishes aid; and f) that he furnishes aid not to these or those alone, but altogether to all, so far as lies in himself; since g), so far as lies in himself, he wills all men to be saved; h) he wills no one to perish, no one to fall away from the hope of obtaining salvation; whence i) he exhibits σωτηρίαν καθολικὴν καὶ γενικήν, universal and general salvation; and k) he abandons and condemns only those by whom he himself is first abandoned and who persevere in fault even unto the end.
But what is signified by these things, what is shown? I believe that neither efficacy
nor universal amplitude is lacking to divine love toward men and to divine mercy. I now proceed to confirm this in order by other testimonies of the same men, from which it will be evident, II., that the Alexandrian doctors held this judgment: that an incredible abundance of effects redounds from the commerce of love and mercy unto the whole human race.