COROLLARY XLII.
But since almost everything concerning the divine cause and the antecedent will has already been treated, in order that we may come in order to those things which perhaps still remain, those things which are referred to the divine-human cause and the consequent will must be explained beforehand. This task will certainly have been satisfied if it becomes known with fitting perspicuity whence the appellation of the consequent will flowed, what its origin ought to be believed, and what endowments and properties belong to it. Now as regards the fountain of the appellation, there is no doubt that it is not found αὐτολέξει, verbatim, in the Scriptures, but that it is nevertheless found δυνάμει, in force and power. Certainly, the Fathers drew the appellation of the second and consequent will1 from the same fountain from which they derived the very division—
—of the divine will into first and second, into antecedent and consequent. But they derived this from no other source than from the oracles of the Scriptures suitably and diligently compared. Therefore, the appellation of the second and consequent will is commended under a twofold title: first, by the authority of those who used it; and then by the authority of the Scriptures from which they drew it.
Footnotes
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§§ III–VII, XI, XVII, XXI, XXIV ff. To this pertain the things which Laurence von Mosheim writes in Elementa theologiae dogmaticae, P. III, cap. III, sect. I, membr. I, p. 230: “The words of John III.16 are most worthy of note: ‘God so loved the world that he gave his Only-begotten Son, that every—’”
↩—one who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’ In these words lies concealed that twofold theological proposition of which we have spoken. Christ states the first proposition, ‘The grace of God is universal,’ thus: ‘God loved the world.’ Here ‘world’ is put for the whole human race, the container for the contained. Christ therefore says that the love of God regards all rational inhabitants of the earth; hence it is universal. The other proposition is, ‘The effective grace of God is particular’: ‘All who believe in the Son of God do not perish, but have eternal life.’ Here we have the consequent will. For effective grace, or the benefit of eternal life, is restricted to those alone who will believe. Whoever do not believe are not the object of the effective love of God, although they are the object of affective grace.”