Question XV. What is the effect of this hardening?

As long as a man is among the living, he never so hardens but that, if he willed to repent, he could still [do so], since general and sufficient helps are always at hand for him — as St. Augustine explains (bk. On Grace and Predestination, ch. 14, 15; tract. 13 on John); and this is clear in our Pharaoh, when it is said to him (ch. 8), “if thou wilt let [them] go,” etc.; (ch. 9), “dost thou still retain [them],” etc.; and (v. 27), “his heart was made heavy”; and (v. 35); and (ch. 10, v. 3), “how long wilt thou not [submit]?” And therefore that [text] (ch. 9, v. 16), “I have raised thee up, that I may show in thee my strength,” is understood either in this way: “I have set thee up [as] King, roused [thee] to such power, snatched [thee] from so many plagues and perils”; or: “Thee, thus hardened of thy own accord, and unwilling to repent, I have connected [directed] to this good end at least — that in thee and through thee my power may be demonstrated.” And so [in] Rom. 9. But the certain effects of this hardening are: exclusion from heavenly glory, and the suffering of eternal gehenna.