COROLLARY L.
Indeed, if the consequent will is referred expressly to the decree of inflicting punishment, it must be judged to be differently constituted with respect to this stage of mortality and with respect to the stage which follows the present mortality and is named the state of eternity. For with respect to the present stage of mortality we have received from the Fathers this fixed and universal judgment1: 1) that the order of justice is subordinated to the order of mercy; 2) that no man is punished by justice before he has received the benefits of mercy; 3) that the proper punishments of justice are inflicted on account of mercy contemned; 4) but that they are so inflicted that they are tempered in manifold ways, and by them provision is made no more for justice than for the salvation of men; and therefore, 5) that the present stage is truly the stage of grace2, and one in which even the punishments themselves present the force of medicine and remedy. But with respect to the state of eternity the Fathers testify with one mouth: 1) that it is the state of equity and justice; 2) the state of eternal life or death; but that 3) it is decreed to no one, and no one lives in it, unless he has either wandered astray even unto the end and repelled mercy, or has finally proved just—
—3.