COROLLARY XXXI.
With universal amplitude there is joined and associated another excellence of the antecedent will, than which none is more illustrious and none established by the Fathers1 with fuller consensus, and which is situated in this: that the antecedent will is and is called serious, efficacious, and active. For God2, who is love and the Father of mercies, does not mock the wretched, does not act with dissimulation, and what, moved by his benignity, he wills, he wills seriously and sincerely. Hence he deters and calls all away from vices, although impious and overwhelmed with crimes; he exhorts all most lovingly to return to good fruit; he is an aid to all; he rejoices in repentance from evils; and he covers, preserves, and seals all with his grace and his protection. He premoves them to ask and aids those who ask; he arouses them to seek and meets those who seek; he invites them to knock and most benignly opens to those who knock3. If the εὐνοῦχος καὶ δυνάστης, eunuch and potentate, of the queen of the Ethiopians gives himself to reading the Scriptures, Philip the deacon is immediately commanded to be present to expound them to him in order; and if Cornelius the ἑκατοντάρχης, centurion, importunes God with prayers, an angel is sent at once to signify to him what teacher he ought to summon to himself. It is thus true and established that the antecedent and salvific will is sincere, active, and efficacious.