COROLLARY XLV.
Since these things are so, a comparison can usefully be instituted between each will, the first and the second, the antecedent and the consequent. The first comparison which offers itself pertains to the origin of each will; this is followed by another, which is referred to the proper endowments of each; then the last follows, which is concerned with the effects of each.
Now, that we may begin from the first head of comparison, nothing is more evident than that the origins of the first and second will are of such a kind that they differ from one another, as they say, by the whole heaven. For the former proceeds from mercy, the latter from justice; the former goes before, the latter follows; the former has no fore-shining knowledge other than that of lost and ruined humanity and of the means by which it may be restored and advanced to its end; the latter is directed by the foreknowledge of the consent or dissent by which men will have obeyed God when he brought aid, or will have repelled the medicine and soundness offered by him; the former belongs to God the restorer, the latter inheres in God the most equitable distributor of rewards and punishments.
I come to the proper insignia of each, of which I judge that two must chiefly be commemorated: first, that both the first and the second will are efficacious, but the former with the efficacy of mercy and the latter with the efficacy of equity and justice; and then, that the former is universal without qualification and of one form, while the latter is so divided and two-formed that it decrees rewards for some and punishments for others according to the variety of merits and demerits.
There remain the effects which proceed from either will and which can be recalled to this summary: 1) the antecedent will supplies the powers and means by which the faculty of good works is bestowed, but the consequent will defines and predestines the good works themselves; 2) the former exempts men from the necessity of perishing, the latter punishes those worthy of eternal death; finally, 3) the former affords the power of obtaining salvation, but the latter enriches lawful contenders with an immortal crown.