COROLLARY LXVIII.
The Jansenists seem to approve the division of the divine will into antecedent and consequent which was repudiated by the Calvinists; but they so approve it that they utterly overthrow its force and account. For, with Jansenius as their leader1, they unanimously decree that a distribution of this kind can be conceded and usefully employed only insofar as this one thing is signified by it—
—that by his antecedent will, before the foreseen fault of Adam, God willed all men to be saved and, induced by that general will, destined to each the aids necessary for attaining salvation; but that by his consequent will, after the foreseen fault of Adam, he does not will all men to be saved. This explanation of the antecedent and consequent will indeed tends to demonstrate that the Jansenists agree with the infralapsarians but are most alien from the Fathers and orthodox masters. And 1) it demonstrates that they agree with the infralapsarians, among whose number the Genevans at the Synod of Dort issued this profession of their faith2: “From eternity, by his most free will, God determined within himself to leave certain definite persons, fallen, guilty, and corrupted in and with Adam, in the state of their own sin and corruption, and not to employ toward them the remedy of salutary grace in Christ.” They then denied that after the fall of Adam God wills all men to be saved, and finally subscribed to these words: “This is our simple and faithful judgment, the faith of our Church, and indeed, as we do not hesitate firmly to assert, of all the French churches which adhere to the French Confession.” “Moreover,” Étienne De Champs adds3, “the Dutch, British, Palatine, Hessian, Swiss, Zeeland, Frisian, Bremen, Emden, and many other Calvinists teach the same things, and their judgments are recited in the Acts of Dort. Hence it is that, since that robber synod of the Calvinists, no one has written concerning predestination who, just as Jansenius did, does not accurately explain these things and define that the will by which God does not will all men to be saved does not precede but follows the forevision of original sin. Peter Du Moulin in his letter to the Synod of Dort, William Ames in the Anti-Synodica, Moses Amyraut in the defense of Calvinist doctrine, and the remaining writers of that faction have taught this expressly and much more copiously than Jansenius himself.” Agreement 2) with the infralapsarians is followed by disagreement with the orthodox Fathers, whose fixed doctrine4—
—and universal judgment the Jansenists could neither more shamefully corrupt nor more inwardly pervert. For the Fathers believe and call that will the antecedent salvific will which: a) is celebrated in the divine writings; b) proceeds from merciful benignity; c) is referred to Christ as to the meritorious cause; d) tends to this, that the damage introduced by the original transgression be repaired; e) withdraws all from the necessity of perishing; f) bestows upon all the faculty of adoption and salvation; g) cuts off every excuse; and h) brings it about that the judgment of eternal damnation is pronounced against all and only those who have rejected the gifts of mercy even unto the end. But there is no reason for us to prove by arguments that a salvific will of this kind is called antecedent, not because it precedes the original transgression, but because it precedes final impenitence.