COROLLARY XXIX.
This will be understood much more evidently still if the mind is turned toward the fountain from which the orthodox Fathers derive the first and antecedent will1. For, adhering to the Scriptures with the greatest fidelity, they first deny that the first and antecedent will is of such a kind that its principal cause ought or can be sought outside God himself. Then, affirmatively, they establish that the sincere and native fountain of this will is τὴν εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ, τὸν πλοῦτον τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ, τοῦ Θεοῦ φιλανθρωπίαν, τὰ σπλάγχνα ἐλέους Θεοῦ, καὶ τὸν ὑπερβάλλοντα πλοῦτον τῆς χάριτος, the good pleasure of his will, the riches of his grace, the benignity of God toward men, the bowels of divine mercy, and the superabundant vein of grace2. Who, then, would judge a will flowing from this fountain to be not true and intimate, but improper and metaphorical? Plainly no one who perceives what follows from each thing and what things mutually succeed one another.