.

Subsections

Revealed Will has a Foundation in God
Divine Disposition, Inclination & Willingness
Revealed Will as Improperly God’s Will
Revealed Will may Express Purpose

.

.

Order of Contents

Articles  4+
Quotes  32+
Thomism  3
Scotism  1
Aquinas vs. Scotus  1
Jansenism  1
Historical  3
Latin  3

.

.

Articles

1600’s

White, John – ch. 25, ‘The text of 1 Tim. 2:4, God wills all men to be saved, etc. expounded.  The diverse expositions that are given of those words.  God’s antecedent will, as they call it, is not his will formally.  The antecedent and consequent will of God expounded diverse ways.’  in A Defence of the Way to the True Church…  wherein the motives leading to papistry…  are handled and fully disputed  (London: Field, 1614), pp. 207-40

White (1570–1615) was an English clergyman, a royal chaplain and controversialist.

White has a detailed discussion of how the antecedent/consequent will distinction was variously used by the medieval scholastics.  White argues against the distinction, at least with regard to his understanding of his Jesuit opponent’s view (who claims to follow Aquinas and others).

Du Moulin, Pierre – ch. 5, ‘Of the Antecedent & Consequent Will of God’  in The Anatomy of Arminianism…  (London: Snodham, 1620), pp. 27-41

“II. The one of these wills is called the antecedent will, the other is called the consequent, not because that will goes before this, for in this sense, this distinction may be admitted, because there is a certain order among the purposes of God: Thus his will of creating man was in order before his will of feeding or clothing him.  But with [John] Damascene and [James] Arminius…” – p. 28

“XXIV. All these [previous] things are not therefore spoken that we should reject this distinction of the will of God into his antecedent and consequent will: For we know that among the decrees of God, some are before and some are after in order.  But we deny that there are two decrees of God, between which man’s will steps in, as if man’s will came between the decree of creating man and the decree of condemning certain men.  But we deny that the will of man does so come between the two decrees of God that the first, or antecedent decree, is broken off by the will of man and that God is compelled to absist from that end which He had propounded to Himselfe and which He did seriously intend: We deny also in the work of our election, the precise will of God to depend on the foreseeing of any power or action of man’s free-will, or the consequent will of God to be suspended on man’s will.” – pp. 40-41

White, Francis – pp. 78-80  in ‘Answer’ in ‘Touching the Necessity of Understanding the Quality of the Roman Church’  in A Reply to Jesuit Fisher’s Answer to Certain Questions Propounded by…  King James…  (London: Islip, 1624)

White (c. 1564 – 1638) was an Anglican bishop who here seeks to refute in a bit of detail the teaching of a divine antecedent and consequent will as held by Romanists (including Aquinas), in relation to their teaching that the true Church is visibly universal in all places in the world.  White was an Arminian, but that does not appear to affect the argument(s) here.

Rutherford, Samuel – in Examination of Arminianism

Turretin, Francis – 16. ‘May the will be properly distinguished into antecedent and consequent, efficacious and inefficacious, conditional and absolute?  We deny.’  in Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr.  (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1, 3^rd Topic, p. 226 ff.

.

.

Quotes

Collection of

ed. Ponter, David – ‘Antecedent / Consequent Will’  23 quotes at Calvin & Calvinism

.

Individual Quotes

Order of

John of Damascus
Aquinas
Vermigli
Perkins
Yates
Wolleb
Weemes
Donne
Ames
Rutherford
Stock
Davenant
Burgess
Twisse
Owen
Whitfield
Jeanes
Norton
Hall
Bramhall
Durham
Thaddaeus
Barker
Baxter
Henry

.

700’s

John of Damascus

Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 29, ‘On Providence’  in NPNF2, vol. 9, pt. 2, p. 42   Damascus (c. 675 or 676 – 749) was Christian monk, apologist and theologian, known as the last of the Greek fathers.  Damascus appears not to believe in an unconditional predestination underlying his antecedent/ consequent distinction, per ch. 30.

“Also one must bear in mind that God’s original wish was that all should be saved [1 Tim. 2:4] and come to His Kingdom.  For it was not for punishment that He formed us but to share in his goodness, inasmuch as He is a good God.  But inasmuch as He is a just God, his will is that sinners should suffer punishment.

The first then is called God’s antecedent will and pleasure, and springs from Himself, while the second is called God’s consequent will and permission, and has its origin in us.  And the latter is twofold: one part dealing with matters of guidance and training, and having in view our salvation, and the other being hopeless and leading to our utter punishment, as we said above.  And this is the case with actions that are not left in our hands.

But of actions that are in our hands, the good ones depend on his antecedent goodwill and pleasure, while the wicked ones depend neither on his antecedent, nor on His consequent will, but are a concession to free-will.  For that which is the result of compulsion has neither reason nor virtue in it.  God makes provision for all creation and makes all creation the instrument of his help and training, yea often even the demons themselves, as for example in the cases of Job and the swine [Mt. 8:30 ff.].”

.

1200’s

Thomas Aquinas

Commentary on the Sentences, bk. 1, dist. 48, quest. 1, The conformity of our will to the will of God, art. 4, Whether we are bound to conformity in the thing willed, reply to obj. 1

“What is divinely willed, as regards his antecedent will, is known to us from the natural inclination itself.  But what is willed by the consequent will he makes known to us either through a revelation or through his activity.”

.

1500’s

Peter Martyr Vermigli

Most Learned & Fruitful Commentaries…  upon…  Romans...  (London: Daye, 1568), ch. 9

pp. 269-70

“‘Thou wilt say then unto me: why doth he yet complain? For who can resist his will?’…

And forasmuch as not all which hear the Gospel are inwardly with efficacy moved of God, thereof it comes that Paul says to the Corinthians, that it is to some the savor of life to life, and to other some the savor of death to death.  This is a plain  and simple conciliation of that contrariety which appears to be in the will of God.  And because that in these vocations and promises seems to be expressed some will of God which yet takes not effect, certain divines have not unskillfully said that there is one will of the sign, or of the antecedent: another will of efficacy, or of the consequent.

For it oftentimes happens, that God either threatens or promises a thing, which yet shall not come to pass.  And yet does not God therefore lie, or deceive.  For He pronounces those things, either as nature was then ordered, or as through ill deserts it might come to pass, unless some change were had in the mean time.  So was Ezekiel told that he should die: because that disease whereof he was sick was by nature deadly.  Wherefore the prophet in those threats pronounced, God’s will of the sign: that is, so much as could be known by the force of nature.  But the changing came of the will of God which is of efficacy, which they call the consequent.

Nineveh also for the grievous sins thereof was worthy to be destroyed.  Wherefore Jonah showed unto them the antecedent will of God, which they call the will of the sign: Wherefore when God calls Pharaoh or any other reprobate, by that vocation or outward promise we understand the antecedent will, or the will of the sign, but that other hidden will, which they call the will of efficacy, or the consequent, we understand not.

Wherefore God cannot deny Himself, neither does He in these wills strive against Himself.  But by his doctrine and promises being in differently and generally set forth, He stirs up the minds of the ministers of the Church, cheerfully to preach the word and that unto all men: which thing doubtless they would not do, if He had made them assured of his hidden will.  For if they knew that they had to deal with men reprobate, they would utterly be discouraged, and give over.”

.

p. 273

“Wherefore he teaches that God in these threatnings and promises does not always reveal his hidden and unchangeable will, whereby He has most firmly decreed what He will do: but only his will, which they call the antecedent will, or the will of the sign, that is of admonition: for that their present estate requires that.  But Paul in this place and the prophet in the beginning of the chapter entreat of that will and power of God whereby He by most good right both makes, and makes n•w all things as pleases Him.”

.

The Common Places  (d. 1562; London, 1583), pt. 3, ch. 1, Of Predestination upon the 9th Chapter to the Romans, pp. 31-33

“Further, there are some which interpret these words of the apostle [1 Tim. 4:2, “God will have all men to be saved”], of the will of the sign or of the antecedent, that all men are invited, for that preaching is indifferently set forth to all men.  Neither is there any, in a manner, which inwardly feels not some prick whereby he is oftimes stirred up to live well.  So that if we respect this will of God, we easily grant that He will have all men to be saved.

But they will not have it to be understood of the hidden and effectual will, which they call consequent: and after this manner may those kinds of speech be understood: ‘God lightens every man which comes into this world;’ (Jn. 1:9)  ‘Come unto Me all ye which labor, and are laden.’ (Mt. 11:21)  For all men are provoked by the oracles of God, and all men are inwardly moved by some provoking.  All these interpretations are doubtless very likely, and also apt…

46. They object also a sentence of Christ, ‘How often would I have gathered together thy children, as a hen gathers together her chickens, and thou wouldest not?’ (Mt. 23:37)  But here also is meant of the antecedent will of the sign, whereby God by his prophets, preachers, apostles and scriptures, many times invited the Jews to fly unto Him by repentance: which yet they refused to do.  But yet God, by his effectual will, which they call consequent, perpetually drew to Him those that were his: neither was there ever any age wherein He gathered not together as many of the Hebrews as He had predestinated.  Therefore Augustine said, ‘Those which I would, I have gathered together, although thou wouldest not.'”

.

1600’s

William Perkins

A Treatise of God’s Free Grace & Man’s Free Will  (Cambridge, 1601)

pp. 133-34

“The third point comes now to be considered, namely the harmony or consent of both wills.  For the words are, ‘I would, ye would not.’ [Mt. 23:37]  Here it may justly be demanded whether there be a harmony or consent between God’s will and man’s will, and how it stands with this text.

I answer, there is an excellent harmony: and generally it stands in this, that God’s will has a sovereign lordship over the will of man, and man’s will stands subject to it absolutely, and simply depends upon it.  And by this means, where man has a will, God has an antecedent will;† and where man’s will has any stroke or action, there God’s will formerly had his stroke and action.

† [Given the context and below, it is likely Perkins means God’s will of decree is antecedent to man’s will, involving the predetermination of man’s will.  Perkins below criticizes Damascene’s sense of the term antecedent will.]”

.

pp. 146-48

“Again, some school-divines following Damascene make and ascribe to God an applied or depending [consequent] will, on this manner: God for his part [antecedently] would have all men without exception to be saved: why then are they not saved?  They themselves will not.  And because they will not, God therefore [consequently] chooses some and refuses others.

But according to the former doctrine, I take this kind of applied will to be an invention of man’s brain.  For the contrary is the truth, namely that man’s will wholly depends on the will of God.  That vessels be some of honor, some of dishonor, it is not in the power of the clay, but in the will of the potter.  The first cause orders the second, and not the second the first.  To make God’s will depend on man’s will, is to put God out of his throne of majesty, and to set the creature in his room.

Others set forth the depending will of God on this manner: God (say they) decrees nothing in particular of things that are casual and contingent, but He foresees within Himself what the will of the creature will do or not do, when things are thus or thus ordered: and upon this foresight He consequently determines what shall be done. (Bellarmine, bk. 4, ch. 15, Of Grace & Free Will; Richard Tapper)

But this opinion, as it gives unto God a common or general providence, so it takes away the certain determination of God touching all particular events.  And it is absurd to think that God should foresee the future acts of man’s freewill, when as yet He has determined nothing: for things that shall be, are therefore to come to pass, because God by decree has determined their being.  And therefore the foreknowledge of things that shall be follows the decree of God.”

.

John Yates

God’s Arraignment of Hypocrites with an Enlargement concerning God’s Decree in Ordering Sin...  (Cambridge, 1615), pt. 3, Reasons Objected to make God the Author of Sin, p. 76

“But thus they [medieval scholastics] expound themselves, that God works, decrees and wills the deformity that is found in the sins of commission, not by his antecedent will, whereby He works things out of his own liking, but by his consequent and conditional will, whereby presupposing the purpose of suffering his creature to avert and turn from Him, He still intends to move, impel and carry them forward, though being by their own fault out of the way, He carries them thither whither they should not go: first, say they, by substraction of grace, upon the withdrawing whereof He saw the creature would turn from Him, He purposed to suffer the sin of aversion or omission to enter: secondly, this purpose being presupposed, and foreseeing that which would follow upon it in his consequent and conditional will, He positively decreed the other, which is of commission.

Man by creation was made to seek an infinite good, and love it infinitely; which if he omit to seek in God, then must he needs commit the contrary and seek it in himself: for so God decreed that man not continuing to adhere unto Him, should fall into self-love, pride and all evils of that kind.

All this might be borne withal, save only they make deformity of the essence of an action, which cannot be borne withal…”

.

Johannes Wolleb

The Abridgment of Christian Divinity...  (d. 1629; London: Mabb, 1660), bk. 1, ch. 3, Concerning the Works of God & the Decrees of God in General, The Rules, pp. 33-37

“[I] This is called his [Greek] (Acts 2:23), Determined purpose, [Greek] (Acts 4:28), The hand and counsel of God; [Greek] (Eph. 1:9), The good pleasure of God and Gods eternal providence. (Now this is called his eternal providence, that it may be distinguished from actual providence, which is nothing else but the execution of God’s decrees.)

II. This is called, the Will of God, or The will of his good pleasure.

Indeed the decree is the very will of God; yet for our better understanding, the will is considered as the cause efficient, the decree is the effect.  Now whereas this word ‘will’ is taken diversely, it is diverse ways distinguished by divines, to wit, into the will of his good pleasure and the will of the sign; into an antecedent and consequent; into absolute, and conditional; into secret and revealed.

But these are not real distributions of the divine will, but distinctions only of the name: For to speak properly, there is in God but one only will, which is called the will of his good pleasure, because out of his most free good pleasure He has decreed what shall be done: It is called also his antecedent will because it had existence before any creature and from eternity with God it was established: It is named also absolute, because it depends upon God’s good pleasure and not from the things which are done in time.  Lastly it is called secret, because in respect of priority it is known neither to men nor angels.  But these things are improperly styled by the name of divine will which are comprehended in that ordinary verse:

Praecipit, et prohibet, promittit, consulit, implet:
“Commands, forbids, promises, consults, fulfills.”

(Alexander Ross: The Schoolmen take God’s antecedent will in another sense, for his velleity [willing, desire or wish], and they call it conditional; they make his consequent will absolute and which is always fulfilled, the other not always.)

For as the magistrates’ commands are called his will, so the name of will is attributed to precepts, prohibitions, promises, to effects also and events.  And this is it which is called the will of the sign, because it signifies what is acceptable to God and what He would have done by us.  It is also called his consequent will because it follows that eternal antecedent will: And ’tis a conditional will because God’s precepts, prohibitions, comminations and promises have the condition of obedience and disobedience annexed.

Lastly, his revealed will, because it’s daily set forth in God’s Word.  This distinction of the will is duly to [be] observed lest we should imagine that there are in God either really different or contrary wills.

III. What things are done against the will of God are not done besides his will.

For many things may be done against his revealed will, which notwithstanding, are consistent with his secret will or will of his good pleasure.  God by his revealed will desired not man’s fall, but most severely forbade it, yet He did will and decree the same by the will of his good pleasure, as it was a means for manifestation of his glory.

IV. Therefore by the decree and will of God, good and evil comes to pass; good by efficiency, evil by permission.
…

X. Gods decree in itself is one and most simple; neither is there priority or posteriority in it.

XI. But in respect of the things which are decreed, is so distinguished, that in what manner or order they come to pass, God is said to decree them that they should thus come to pass.

These are idle questions: whether God decreed this or that first?  Whether He first ordained the end or the means?  For whereas the decree of God in itself is one and a most simple action, there is neither priority nor posteriority in it, but it is distinguished only in regard of the things which are decreed…”

.

John Donne

Fifty Sermons. The Second Volume Preached…  (d. 1631; London: Flesher, 1649), Sermon 26, on Isa. 65:20  Donne

“And we consider an antecedent-will in God, and that
antecedent will is before all; for by that will, God would have all men saved.”

.

John Weemes

An Exposition of the Moral Law, or Ten Commandments...  (London: Cotes, 1632), bk. 1, Commandment 1, Exercitation 7, pp. 50-51

“Question: But how could he [Paul] wish this [to be accursed from Christ for his brethren’s sake, in Rom. 9:3], seeing it imports a diminution of the love of God…

Answer: If ye will consider this petition by itself, it was neither sin nor dimunition of this love: but if ye will consider the consequents of this wish, if indeed he had been excluded from the Kingdome of heaven, then it had been a sin for him to have wished it.  One may wish a thing simply without sin, yet to wish it vestitum omnibus circumstantiis [clothed with all circumstances] it may be sin.

Example: a woman has her husband to be executed for some capital offence, the woman wished her husband to live, as her husband and a father to her children to provide for them; but if she should desire her husband to live as an enemy to the commonwealth contrary to the law, then her wish were a sinful wish: So for Paul to wish this to testify his earnest love to the Church, it was no sin; but if he had wished it vestitum ominibus circumstantiis, with a diminution of the love of God and want of eternal happiness, then his wish had been sin.

Again we wish a thing antecedente voluntate vel consequente voluntate, ‘with an antecedent or consequent will.’  Example: a judge by his antecedent will wishes that all the subjects may live; but by his consequent will, he wishes the malefactor to die.  So Paul wished this by his antecedent will, but not considering it with all the consequents that might follow upon it.

Fourthly, Paul wished not this absolutely, but in comparison: as the natural mother who pleaded before Solomon chose rather that the child should be given to her who was not the mother of it than that the child should be cut in two, 1 Kn. 3:26.  If ye consider Paul’s wish here, it was only in comparison; rather than they should die, he wishes this to himself.”

.

William Ames

The Marrow of Sacred Divinity...  (d. 1633; London: Griffin, 1642), bk. 1, ch. 7, Of the Decree & Counsel of God, pp. 32-33

“38. Hence the will of God is the first cause of things. Rev. 4:11, ‘By thy will they are, and were created.’  But the will of God, as it wills to work outwardly, does not presuppose the goodness of the object, but by willing does make the object.  James 1:18, ‘Because He would, He begat us.’  Rom. 9:18, ‘He hath mercy on whom He will.’

39. Therefore there is no cause properly so called to be given of God’s will.

40. Hence it is rightly said that God does will one thing to exist for another: but not that that one thing is a proper cause whereby the will of God is inwardly moved to appoint that other thing.  So God would that the sun and stars should exist, for the generation, conservation and corruption of things below: yet the sun and stars are not a cause why God would that those things should be generated, conserved and corrupted.  And so it is in all things out of God, which indeed among themselves are causes and effects, even as they depend upon the divine will, but there is no cause of God’s will out of itself.

41. Also the willing of one thing in God is not properly a cause effecting that He will another thing in Himself, because the efficiency of a cause upon an effect, and dependance of the effect upon a cause, cannot be in the will of God, which is God Himself, truly and simply willing all things together and at once, with one only act; yet it is true that the Schoolmen say that a passive attingency of the divine will in respect of one thing is a cause of a passive attingency in respect of another: and so in this sense it is truly and piously said that God wills some one thing because He wills another.

42. Therefore although He wills many things which will not follow but upon some antecedent act of the creature, yet the very act of willing in God does not properly depend as a consequent thing upon the act of the creature.  Neither is it lawful under the appellation of an ‘antecedent will’ to give unto God that imperfect will which is called velleitas, a ‘woulding’ in the schools.  For it does not agree to an omniscient, omnipotent and infinitely, blessed Nature.

43. Wherefore that opinion which determines that God does will something antecedently to the act of the creature, which same thing afterwards He wills not towards them, but wills another thing, is not to be admitted: because it makes the will of God mutable and depending upon the act of the creature, so that as often as the act of the creature is changed, so often also it is changed.

44. By that opinion also, that form of speech prescribed in the Word of God wherein we commit ourselves and all ours to God, as ‘I will do this or that if God will,’ [Jm. 4:15] should not be used in all things, but [rather, it is by that opinion] turned contrarily, ‘God will do this or that, if man will.’

45. This will determines of all things, greatest, least, contingent, necessary, free, without exception…”

.

Samuel Rutherford

Exercitationes apologeticae, II.iii.1, p. 323  as translated in Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics  2nd ed.  (Baker Books, 2003), vol. 3, ch. 5.4, E. The Ad Intra–Ad Extra Distinctions, 6. Voluntas antecedens and voluntas consequens, p. 466

“[a divine will resident] in the antecedent causes from which an effect follows, but not necessarily; so that God antecedently wills that all people be saved, insofar as He gives to all the natural capacity to be saved and in no way impedes the sufficiency of the means; and God wills consequently that which He wills not in the causes but in Himself, namely, that believers be saved.”

.

Richard Stock

A Stock of Divine Knowledge, being a lively Description of the Divine Nature, or  the Divine Essence, Attributes & Trinity particularly explained and profitably applied…  (London: T.H., 1641), ch. 13, pp. 133-34  Stock (c.1568-1626) was an English puritan.

“Objection: Again it is objected, the apostle Paul says in 1 Tim. 2:4 that God would have all men saved: How should it be then that any should perish, unless his will be changeable?

Answer: Ambrose upon this place of the apostle expounds it thus: God will have all men to be saved, but so as they come to Him, He will have them saved; if they will salvation to themselves; and if this sense be admitted, there is no shadow of change in God, though many be not saved, because those many that are not saved, do not seek salvation…

God will have all men saved, He wills the salvation even of the reprobate, as a thing in itself good and suitable to the disposition of a gracious God: but yet He does not determine or appoint it, and therefore though many perish, there is no change in God’s will: this place showing what God might approve of being done, not what He determined to do; He wills it by an antecedent will, as in itself considered; but not with a consequent will, and here is no change in God’s will;”

.

John Davenant

Animadversions upon a Treatise entitled, God’s Love to Mankind...  (Cambridge: Daniel, 1641), ‘Answer: Whether the decree of absolute Reprobation is contrary unto the use and end of God’s gifts bestowed upon men,’ pp. 390-99

“That God wills the good of men in bestowing any good gifts or graces upon them, needed no proof at all: We have always willingly granted this proposition.  Yet for the true understanding thereof it must be observed that when we say, ‘This is God’s will; this is God’s aim or intent,’ these words have not always the same signification.  This author [Samuel Hoard, an Arminian], by confounding the diverse meaning of these and the like words, does strangely entangle himself through his whole discourse.

First therefore: Anything is said to be according to God’s will which, considered in itself, is according to the goodness and pureness of the Divine nature.  This is a perpetual and necessary volition in God, qua Deo placet omne bonum [by which God is pleased by every good thing]. (See [Diego] Ruiz [d. 1632], Of the Will of God, disp. 6, §2, p. 38)  And this simplex complacentia [simple complacency] towards all good actions of men, or events unto men, is possible circa creaturas omnes etiam nunquam futuras [about all creatures, even which will never be].  For there is no goodness imaginable which has not an agreement with the good will of God which we call amorem simplicis complacentiae [a love of simple complacency].  Satis constat hujusmodi complacentiam Dei versari circa poenitentiam, gratiam et gloriam possibilem Judae aut cujus libet damnati [It is sufficiently clear that this kind of complacency in God has reference to the possible repentance, grace, and glory of Judas, or of any damned person whatsoever]. (Ruiz, disp. 19, p. 214)  But this is not it which we now speak of.

2. Secondly, God is said to will, desire or aim-at that good, for the obtaining whereof He affords fitting means, though withal He wills that it shall be in the liberty of the creature to hinder and frustrate those means, and though He have absolutely decreed to permit the creature to abuse them unto his own destruction.  This is that which usually is termed by divines voluntas antecedens, voluntas conditionata, voluntas simplicis complacentiae [the will preceding, will-conditioned, will of simple complacency].

And thus God is said to aim-at or to will and desire the conversion, justification and salvation of those who never shall be converted, justified or saved.  Neither must we think that by these men God’s omnipotent will is crossed, because his voluntas simplicis complacentiae [will of simple complacency] is not fulfilled.  For the absolute will of God was that in such persons their own free-will might hinder the good effect of his gifts and graces, which He was absolutely resolved to permit for some greater good.

Lastly, there is a will in God which strictly and most properly is called voluntas beneplaciti [will of good-pleasure] or his absolute will, which is not only a liking of the good willed unto the creature, and an ordering of fit means whereby the creature (if his own free-will hinder not) may attain it, but a merciful decree of so ordering the means and the very will of the creature, that it shall infallibly and infrustrately obtain the good end whereunto such means were accommodated.  And of this will Ruiz truly affirms:

Sola haec voluntas absoluta simpliciter amplectitur objectum, et ideo sola simpliciter et absolute meretur nomen voluntatis Beneplaciti [Only this absolute will simply embraces its object, and therefore only it, simply and absolutely, deserves the name of the will of good pleasure.]. (disp. 18, §4, p. 185)

We grant, therefore, that in the second acception of the word ‘will,’ God truly wills, likes, desires the repentance, faith, perseverance and salvation of all to whom the Gospel is preached and Christ offered.  But in the last and most proper acception, God wills the perseverance and salvation only of his elect, in whom He never ceases working till the happy effect be produced.

Our divines at [the Synod of] Dort [1618-1619] granted a true and serious will in God according to the second acception of the word ‘will,’ but not according to the last.  Which will simplicis complacentiae [of simple complacency] may stand with absolute reprobation.

If this author can be content to acknowledge that for a true, serious and no delusory will, which affords the creature means of repenting, believing and being saved, though under an eternal absolute decree of permitting the final disobedience and perdition of the creature, we will free him from the trouble of answering the places of Scripture, and with him embrace the interpretation of Damascene, who tells us (Of the Orthodox Faith, bk. 4, ch. 20) that albeit the Scriptures do in such places seem to make God’s benefits causes of man’s sin and ruin, yet they must be understood [Greek], not [Greek].

A physician does give his patient physick with an absolute will to cure so far as his skill and ability will stretch: But God does not always give the means of salvation unto all men out of his absolute will, for then all should be cured and saved.  Ps. 135, Omnia quaecunque voluit Deus, fecit in coelo et in terra [All which God wills is done in heaven and in earth].  Fulgentius gives the reason (1 ad Mon., ch. 12), Quia cui semper subest cum volet posse, non aliud est in illo velle quam posse [For to whom there is always present the ability whenever he wills, in him to will is nothing other than to be able.].

The will of God inviting or moving men to perform such good acts as tend to their salvation is God’s true and serious will, though He have not decreed by such means to produce their salvation. (See [Michael] Bajus, Institutes, bk. 1, ch. 104, etc. etc. 115, 116)  This will is often despised by men to their own damnation.  But there is a will not only ordaining means to the end, but of causing men to use the means unto the consecution of the end.  And thus by giving them special grace, God wills the kingdom of glory only unto the elect.

The former will is not to be baffled with the name of dissimulation, because this latter is only it which brings men unto glorification.  And we further add that the reprobates in resisting the former will, which is vera voluntas simplicis complacentiae [the true will of simple complacency], do always fulfill the latter, which is God’s absolute will of permitting this resistance and of gathering out of it a greater illustration of his own glory.

The blessings and means which God out of his goodness afforded to the angels, to Adam and which He continually affords unto wicked men, by the ill frame of their hearts may be and have been turned to their own hurt; and yet we cannot but acknowledge in them an antecedent and gracious will to do them good.  But we do acknowledge, over and above this will of complacency, an absolute will of efficiency, by which God has mercifully decreed to work in some persons the will and the deed, and by the means of grace, de facto, to bring them unto glory.

These two different manners of willing and working the salvation of men do demonstrate an absolute will in God of saving some, which we call the absolute decree of their election, and an absolute will of permitting others to draw upon themselves damnation by voluntary abusing the means of grace, which we call absolute reprobation.  Chrysostom (who is no depressor of man’s free-will) was not ignorant of this absolute will of God turning and bending man’s which way He pleases: Si Deus voluerit, nullus impediet [If God wills, none impedes]. (See many times in homily 2 on Ps. 50)  And of this will St. Augustine speaks (Enchiridion, ch. 97):

In coelo et in terra non quaedam voluit et fecit, quaedam vero voluit et non fecit, sed omnia quaecun{que} voluit fecit.

[In heaven and on earth, He did not will some things and accomplish them and will other things but not accomplish them; rather, He accomplished all things whatsoever He willed.]

And St. Jerome, speaking of the Samaritans, says (apud Petr. Diac.): Si voluisset, ex indevotis devotos fecisset [If He had willed, He had made the impious pious].  And that prayer of Basil is famous (On the Incarnation, ch. 8):

Malos, quaesumus, bonos facito; bonos in bonitate conserva.  Omnia enim potes: quem enim volueris, salvas: et non est qui resistat tibi.

[Make the wicked good, we beseech You; preserve the good in goodness.  For You can do all things: whomsoever You will, You save; and there is none who may resist You.]

Since therefore the Scriptures and the Fathers, and all orthodox divines, who confess that to be a true will which by affording ordinary means aims at the sanctification (1 Tim. 4:3) and salvation of all men (1 Tim. 2:4), do notwithstanding, intimate unto us an absolute will eternally predestinating and in time infallibly working the salvation only of some men; it is but a weak kind of reasoning from the affirmation of the one to conclude a negation of the other.

The doctrine of absolute election and reprobation infers that God had not an absolute will by those means of grace which He bestowed upon the non-elect angels or men to bring them unto glory; and that He had an absolute will to permit themselves to abuse them to the procuring of their own eternal misery: And yet he that should say that God by giving the non-elect angels such excellent endowments, or by giving Cain and Judas such fatherly admonitions, did in those means aim at their destruction, speaks both ignorantly and profanely.  For the aim of God and the end of any good gift which He vouchsafes unto men, is to be measured by the nature of the gift itself and not by the perverse use which God suffers the receivers to make of it.

Calvin usually speaks in the Scripture-phrase, even in those points which seem harsh to the ears of the Remonstrants.  But this author having before truly explained how such phrases are to be understood, namely of the end whereunto reprobates always finally abuse them, and not of the end whereunto God has ordained them, he had done much better to have afforded Calvin’s words this charitable construction.

And as for Beza, he denies not a proper and true ordination of the divine grace unto the effecting of salvation in all to whom it is afforded, nor a true will of complacency in God, that by them it should be used to that good end: but he denies an absolute will in God of saving them by that grace; and he shows the end which the wicked always come to by abusing it, which is, ut gravius puniantur [that they are more severely punished].

That Calvin had no other meaning, appears by these words of his which shut-up the section out of which the former are taken:

Quid sibi vult Dominus eos docendo a quibus ne intelligatur curat?  Considera unde vitium, et desines interrogare.  In verbo enim qualiscunque sit obscuritas, satis tamen semper est lucis ad convincendam impiorum conscientiam.

[What does the Lord intend by teaching those whom He takes no care should understand?  Consider from where the fault proceeds, and you will cease to inquire.  For in the Word, whatever its obscurity may be, there is nevertheless always enough light to convict the consciences of the wicked.]

The drift of Calvin is not to affirm that God works either by any positive action, or by proper ordination of his Word unto any such end that deafness, blindness, senselesseness whereunto the reprobate grow only by their own default.  But because God, who could soften their hearts and would if they were in the number of his elect, has ordained not to do it, this ordination is intimated by the event which perpetually follows upon it, namely deafness, blindness, etc.  So that all which Calvin intends is this (see §14-15, where is mind is explained), that where God has not comprised men within his merciful decree of predestination, there He has decreed to hold-off his hand from effectually opening their ears and eyes; and they suo vitio obsurdescunt [become deaf through their own fault], etc.  And Beza had no other intent, but to show that the Word preached unto the reprobate (Opuscula, p. 30 and Of Predestination, p. 434):

non eo usque conjunctum cum Spiritus ministerio, ut illos vera fide, qua propria nota electi a reprobis dignoscuntur, Christo ut palmites frugiferos inserat.

[is not so joined with the ministry of the Spirit as to insert them into Christ by true faith, by which, as the distinctive mark, the elect are distinguished from the reprobate as fruitful branches.]

Whence follows that woeful event, ut justo exitio devoti magis ac magìs reddantur [Greek] [that they may be rendered more and more devoted to just destruction].

For [Johannes] Maccovius, if his speeches [see pp. 372-73 in the previous section] tend to show the intentional end of the gospel preached, and not the eventual success, we utterly disclaim his opinion.

For God properly intends no end of his volitions or actions but Himself, unto whose glory all things have naturam mediorum [the nature of means], not intenti finis [the intention of an end].  The intention therefore of means by God unto any lower or inferior end is nothing else but the fitness of such means considered in themselves (and not abused) for the producing of that end: And this intention is not altered by the decree of reprobation; for that decree as it is immanent and eternal in voluntate divina, nihil ponit in reprobato [in the divine will, puts nothing in the reprobate]: And when the temporal execution comes, it puts no malice into his will; it puts no necessitation unto wicked actions upon his will; it only puts in God an absolute will of not-giving effectual grace, and of not-working in him salutiferous actions, whereupon follows perditio tua exte [your destruction is out of yourself, Hos. 13:9].”

.

Alexander Ross

A Century of Divine Meditations upon Predestination…  (London: Young, 1646), pp. 15-16, 19, 21-23, 89-92  Ross (c. 1590–1654) was a Scottish minister and chaplain-in-ordinary to King Charles I.  He was not the Aberdeen doctor of the same name.

“XVIII. God by his antecedent will decreed to bestow faith and grace on us, which by his consequent will He resolved to deny us; his former will was moved by his own goodness, but his latter will was provoked by our wickedness: if we have unjustly rejected the grace which by his former will He resolved to give us, may not He justly by his latter will deny that grace, which was rejected so perversely by us.  Lord, if thou art resolved by thy first will to bestow grace on me, let me not by my disobedience provoke thy second will to deny that grace unto me.

XIX. Our wickedness is the cause that moves God to exercise his acts of justice; but his own bounty is the cause, and our misery the occasion, why He exercises his acts of mercy…”

“XXI. God will have all men to be saved and He will have wicked men to be damned: that, is his antecedent will; this, his consequent: that, is sometimes frustrated of its end, this never; and its fitting that seeing his will cannot be fulfilled by us, it should be fulfilled upon us.  They that will not satisfy his will by their obedience, shall satisfy his will in suffering just vengeance.”

“XXIII. There is in man a twofold judgment, to wit, an antecedent, which is that of the affections and senses; and a consequent, which is that of reason: so there is a twofold volition: the one follows the judgment of sense, and it is rather an imperfect desire than a perfect volition; the other follows the judgment of reason:

both these volitions were in Christ more eminently than in us, because in Him were two wills, and these, by reason of his two natures, were distinct in Him, though his person was but one; therefore He desired the cup might pass from Him, but willed it not; or, He willed it by his antecedent, not by his consequent will.

O Thou that madest in Thyself the judgement of affection stoop to the judgment of reason and madest thy desire subservient to thy will, and causedst thy antecedent will to give place to thy consequent: produce in me the same effect, that these sinful delights which my affections so earnestly run after, and thy gentle corrections, which they so earnestly run from, may be so ordered that the one by me may be courageously subdued, the other patiently endured, that my affections may submit to my will, my will to reason and reason to thy Spirit.”

“LXXXVIII…

…
7. There is a complete will, or volition; and there is an incomplete will, or velleity.

8. There is a general or confused judgment; and there is a more particular or distinct judgement.

…
7. Volition follows the last judgment of reason, velleity follows the antecedent, or confused judgement.

8. By a general and confused judgment my will affects the good which is commanded by God’s law; by a particular and distinct judgment, my will affects the evil which is condemned by God’s Law.”

.

Anthony Burgess

Vindiciae legis, or a Vindication of the Moral Law & the Covenants…  (London: Underhill, 1647), Lecture 24, on Dt. 4:13, pp. 231-33

“Having proved it [the Mosaic deliverance of the 10 Commandments] is a covenant, all the difficulty remains in declaring what covenant it is; for here is much difference of judgements, even with the learned and orthodox…

Some explain it thus: God (say they) had a primary or antecedent will in giving of the Law, or a secondary and consequent: His primary will was to hold out perfect and exact righteousness, against which the apostle argues and proves no man can be justified thereby: but then God, knowing man’s impotency and inability, did secondarily command repentance and promises a gracious acceptance through Christ; and this [understanding] may be very well received, if it be not vexed with ill interpretations.

But, lastly, this way I shall go: The Law (as to this purpose) may be considered more largely, as that whole doctrine delivered on Mount Sinai with the preface and promises adjoined and all things that may be reduced to it; or more strictly, as it is an abstracted rule of righteousness, holding forth life upon no terms but perfect obedience.  Now take it in the former sense: it was a covenant of grace; take it in the later sense, as abstracted from Moses’s administration of it, and so it was not of grace, but works.”

.

William Twisse

The Riches of God’s Love unto the Vessels of Mercy consistent with his Absolute Hatred or Reprobation of the Vessels of Wrath...  (d. 1646; Oxford, L.L., 1653), bk. 1, pt. 2, Discourse, 3rd Sort of Reasons, pp. 250-51

“Election and rejection or reprobation, and in general the will of God, may be considered either quoad actum voluntis, ‘as touching the act of’ God ‘willing,’ or as touching the things willed.  Of this distinction, this author [Samuel Hoard] takes no notice; It is fit for some and advantageous to fish in troubled waters.

Now as touching the act of God willing, both Aquinas has proved that there can be no cause thereof and withal professes that never was any so mad as to say that merits can be the cause of predestination, quoad actum praedestinantis, ‘as touching the act of’ God ‘predestinating’.  And Bradwardine has curiously disputed this way, that no will of God is conditional, to will quoad actum volentis; and [Johannes] Piscator against Vorstius has proved the same after his way; and by variety of demonstration this way may be convinced, as in part I have showed in this discourse, both on the part of election and on the part of reprobation.

And both Dr. [Thomas] Jackson [an Arminian] in his book of Providence, professes that the distinction of Voluntas antecedens and consequens, or antecedent and consequent will in God, is to be understood quoad res volitas, ‘as touching the things willed’, as much as to say, non quoad actum volentis.  And Gerardus Vossius [an Arminian], drawing the distinction of will antecedent and will consequent unto the distinction of will absolute and will conditional, applies it only quoad res volitas, and so interprets Fathers’ discourse[s] thereof;

And of a conditional will gives this instance: God will have men to be saved in case they believe, where faith is clearly made the condition of salvation, a temporal thing, the condition of a temporal thing, not the condition of God’s will to save, it being no way fit that a temporal thing should be made the condition of a thing eternal, such as is God’s will to save.  And this is more apparent by the reading of Vossius himself, History of Pelagianism, bk. 7, treating of God’s will to save all.

Now if we speak thus of God’s will quoad res volitas, ‘as touching the things willed,’ these things willed being very different, we have reason to consider them distinctly also.  Now these things are either grace or glory, commonly called salvation; and as touching grace, to wit, the grace of regeneration, the grace of faith and repentance, we willingly confess that God’s will to confer them is so absolute that He has determined to confer them according to the mere pleasure of his will, not according to man’s works (which is plain Pelagianism and condemned in the Synod of Palestine above 1200 years ago); and as He gives them to whom He will, so He denies them to whom He will, according to that Rom. 9:18, ‘He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardneth.’

But as touching salvation or damnation, in which respect this author usually speaks of the absolute or conditional will of God, we utterly deny that God in the dispensation or administration, or execution of these proceeds or ever did decree to proceed according to the mere pleasure of his own will, but altogether according to their works.  For albeit God has made no law according whereto He means to proceed in giving or denying grace, yet has He made a law according whereto He proceeds in bestowing salvation and inflicting damnation.  And the law is this:

‘Whosever believeth shall be saved; whosoever believeth not shall bedamned.’

2 Cor. 5:10, ‘We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every man may receive the things, which are done in his body according to that he hath done, whether good or evil.’

So that according to that sense wherein this author usually speaks of the absolute and conditional will of God, we utterly deny that God does absolutely elect any man to salvation or reject any man unto damnation, though He does absolutely elect some unto grace, that is to the grace of regeneration, to the grace of faith and repentance, and absolutely reject others therefrom.  For as much as He bestows these graces on some and denies them unto others not according to their works, but according to the mere pleasure of his own will, but he does not inflict damnation or bestow salvation according to the mere pleasure of his will, but according unto man’s works.  And as he carries himself in the execution of salvation and damnation, after the same manner He did from everlasting decree to carry Himself, namely to save no man of ripe years but by way of reward of their faith, repentance and good works, [and] so to damn none but for their infidelity, impenitency and evil works.”

.

A Discovery of Dr. Jackson’s Vanity…  (Amsterdam: Thorp, 1631), pp. 677-80

“In the next place you [Thomas Jackson, an Arminian] touch upon a distinction much talked of, and as much advanced by some as cried down by others.  Yet both Scotus and Durandus give a tolerable, and Aquinas with the Dominicans after him, an orthodox interpretation thereof, though neither suitable to the mind of [John] Damascene, commonly reputed the father of it.  Yet look what in this kind is wanting in them is supplied by [Gregory] Arminiensis, who gives both an orthodox construction thereof, and that also in conformity to the opinion of Damascene, of whose text he gives a very sound and orthodox interpretation and the more orthodox the more opposite to their constructions who, with great cry of words draw it to the countenancing of their Arminian tenets without cause.

Love, you say, is the fruit of God’s antecedent will, wrath and severity are the proper effects of his consequent will.  Fruit and effect you make all one (as with good reason you may).  Now what, I pray you, is this effect which you call love?  You seem to intimate that they are the effects of creation, as when you say, ‘Every particular faculty of soul or body is a pledge undoubted of God’s love.’  Yet faculties of souls and bodies are found in beasts, but God’s antecedent will in Damascene is referred wholly unto men.  Neither does Damascene at all refer it to the work of creation, but makes it to be that whereby God will have all to be saved.

Liberty of will is proper to man in distinction from beasts, but who sees not that this indifferently makes him obnoxious unto damnation as well as capable of salvation?  Then when you say wrath and severity is the effect of God’s consequent will, what do you mean by ‘wrath’?  Is it either a resolution to take vengeance, or the execution of vengeance itself?  I think you take it for the execution of vengeance itself.  Now there is an execution of reward also properly opposite unto this which, whether it be the same love you speak of, it became you to express so much, or whether you conceive it to be different, yet it were fit you should take notice of it and acknowledge that this is a fruit of God’s consequent will as well as wrath; that as effectually presupposing obedience, as this disobedience: and that love in rewarding is every way as infallibly consequent to the obeying of God’s will revealed as wrath is of our neglecting and despising it.  A full explication of this distinction you promise in good time; how well you perform it we may in good time consider with God’s help.

Next you enter upon another form of the same distinction (as you pretend) and you suffer it to fly with one wing, for you talk of God’s absolute will (which you seem to confound with God’s antecedent will), but as touching the member congruously opposite, you leave us to seek for that.  But as it is we are to consider it: God’s absolute will was (you say) to have men capable of Heaven and Hell, of joys and miseries immortal.  This cannot be understood of God’s consequent will; for this absolute will is indifferent to end in the bestowing of reward or punishment, and is immediately terminated only in making man capable of either; but his consequent will is not so indifferent.  For the only effect thereof you mention to be wrath and severity, and this presupposes rather than causes capableness.

Neither can this absolute will be the antecedent will of God according to Damascene’s meaning.  For the antecedent will in Damascene is only referred to the will of God, whereby He wills man’s salvation: but this absolute will is (you say) to have men capable of Heaven and Hell.  To help this, you tell us that this absolute will (whose possible objects are two) is in the first place set on man’s eternal joy.  But you do not proceed to show on what it is set in the next place, as if by such like incongruities you desired rather to confound your reader [rather] than to satisfy him.

Yet by the tenor of your discourse you leave it to us to guess that in the second place, to wit upon the despising of God’s love, it is set upon a man’s damnation.  So that by this your doctrine, both God’s antecedent will and consequent will is all one, and that is God’s absolute will.  But no such thing is found in Damascene, from whom, such as you are, do usually take this distinction of will antecedent in God and will consequent: And indeed you do well to make one as absolute as another; for like as wrath, the fruit of this will of God in the second place (as you imply) has not its course but upon presupposition of disobedience; so in like manner, the proper opposite to wrath on the other side, the fruit of this will of God in the first place, has not its course but upon presupposition of obedience.”

.

John Owen

Salus electorum, sanguis Jesu, or the Death of Death in the Death of Christ…  (London: W.W., 1648)

bk. 2, ch. 4, pp. 91-92

“First, ‘God’ (say they [Arminians]), ‘considering all mankind as fallen from that grace and favor in Adam where they were created, and excluded utterly from the attainment of salvation by virtue of the covenant of works which was at the first made with him, yet by his infinite goodness was inclined to desire the happiness of them all and every one, that they might be delivered from misery and be brought unto Himself, which inclination of his they call his universal love and antecedent will, whereby He would desirously have them all to be saved, out of which love He sends Christ.’

[Owen:] That God has any natural or necessary inclination by his goodness or any other property to do good to us or any of his creatures, we do deny: everything that concerns us is an act of his free will and good pleasure, and not a natural necessary act of his Deity, as shall be declared.

Secondly, the ascribing an antecedent conditional will unto God, whose fulfilling and accomplishment should depend on any free contingent act or work of ours, is injurious to his wisdom, power and sovereignty, and cannot well be excused from blasphemy, and is contrary to Rom. 9:19, ‘Who hath resisted his will? I say.'”

.

bk. 4, ch. 2, p. 203

“Many more effectual reasons are produced by our divines for the denial of this natural affection in God [necessarily resulting in sending Christ for the human race, Jn. 3:16] in the resolution of the Arminian distinction (I call it so, as now by them abused) of God’s antecedent and consequent will, to whom the learned reader may repair for satisfaction: so that the love mentioned in this place is not that natural affection to all in general, which is not:”

.

Thomas Whitfield

The Doctrines of the Arminians & Pelagians truly stated and clearly answered...  (London, 1651), ‘An Examination and Confutation of the Arminian erroneous tenets concerning Election’, pp. 34-35

“4. Antecedent and consequent wills are such as cannot agree to God as they [Arminians] understand them.  For his antecedent will they make to be such whereby He wills and earnestly desires the salvation of all men: the consequent will, that whereby He wills the damnation of some, namely such as persist in unbelief; and the salvation of others; namely such as persevere in the faith; now these cannot agree with the nature of God; for:

1. For this antecedent will has sometimes an end and the consequent will always a beginning; the absolute or peremptory decree of damnation, never taking place till the antecedent or conditional will touching salvation be expired: and so likewise the peremptory decree of salvation, not taking place till the ceasing of the other.  Now the acts of God’s will are immanent acts, therefore eternal like Himself.

Objection: But God foresees who will persevere in believing, and upon this foresight grounds his purpose.

Answer: Then upon this foresight, He only purposes to will their salvation when they do believe and persevere; but He does not actually will it, that is, will it with his consequent and peremptory will, till they do believe; which cannot stand with the eternity of his will.

2. This antecedent will they make rather to be a velleietas, than a volitio, rather ‘a wishing’ and desiring, than ‘a willing,’ which cannot agree to God; who is totus actus, all act, yea actus purissimus et perfectissimus, the most pure and perfect act: therefore no imperfect wishes and desires belong to Him.

(Si Deus non potest, est impotens, si potest sed non efficit quia non licet, tum Deus vellet aliquid quod non liceret [If God cannot, He is impotent; if He can, but does not effect it because it is not permitted, then God would will something which is not permitted]. Dr. Twisse)

3. If God by his antecedent will does seriously and heartily desire the salvation of all men, when some of these come to be damned, then this desire either still continues in Him or not: If it does not continue, then his will is changeable, but he says of Himself, ‘I am the Lord, I change not,’ Mal. 3:6.  Besides, they make this antecedent will whereby He wills the salvation of all to flow from his nature; and being natural to him, it must be unchangeable as his nature is: If it does continue, then God continues earnestly to desire the salvation of wicked men when they are damned; so never has his desire accomplished, which cannot stand with perfect felicity: yea if it does continue, then God does seriously will their salvation and damnation at one time, and so wills a flat contradiction: or else when He damns men, He does not will to damn them; and so his actions are not guided by his will.

4. If he does will their salvation, why does He not work it, for He is in heaven, and does whatsoever He will?  ‘He works all things according to the pleasure of his will,’ Eph. 1:11.”

.

Henry Jeanes

A Vindication of Dr. Twisse from the Exceptions of Mr. John Goodwin in his Redemption Redeemed  (Oxford: Robinson, 1653), pp. 254-55  appended to William Twisse, The Riches of God’s Love…  (Oxford: L.L., 1653)

“First, you cannot deny but that in these words of Christ, ‘Father if it be possible, or if it be thy will, let this cup pass from Me,’ Christ prayed not as a Mediator for his elect, for so He was engaged to drink of this cup, but as a man naturally declining and abhorring death and the ignominy of the cross as they are in themselves evil: and yet all your arguments, mutatis mutandis, ‘with due change’ may be applied unto this interpretation, as well as unto Dr. Twisse’s notion (as you call it) upon Lk. 23:34.

Secondly, in answer unto your objections, we may make use of a distinction of prayer brought by Suarez in the 3rd Part, Summa, Aquinas, quest. 21, art. 4, ‘Prayer is nothing else but an unfolding of the will unto God.’  Now in Christ’s manhood there was a twofold will, one absolute and effectual, another conditional and uneffectual, which may otherwise be termed a velleity, a will of simple complacency, a will of a thing only secundum quid, in some particular respect, ‘according to some particular consideration’.  Of such a will of his we read, Mk. 7:24, ‘He entered into an house, and would have no man know it, but He could not be hid.’

Answerable unto these two acts of the will in Christ, there may be attributed unto Christ two sorts or kinds of prayer: one proceeding from an absolute and effectual will, and this was always heard: the other from a conditional and uneffectual will, and this was not always heard; such was his prayer in his agony, ‘Let this cup pass from Me’; and of this sort or kind of prayer is that passage, Ps. 22:2, in reference unto Christ, understood, ‘O my God, I cry in the day time, but Thou hearest not, and in the night season and am not silent.’

Now to apply this distinction: Christ could not pray as a private man for those of his persecutors for whom He did not pray as a Mediator, if we speak of that kind of prayer, which comes from an absolute and effectual will, which is styled by Gregory de Valentia, Voluntas rationis undequaque deliberatae [the will of the rule which has deliberated in every respect], because it proceeds upon regard had to all circumstances.  And the reason is, because with this kind of prayer, He never prayed for any thing, but what He knew would be granted; for He never absolutely and effectually willed any thing, but what was agreeable unto God’s absolute will, the will of his decree or good pleasure; and this is all that your [John Goodwin’s] arguments can prove.

But yet notwithstanding this, He might pray (taking prayer for a representation of a conditional or uneffectual will) for the pardon of even those of his persecutors, who He knew should be condemned and for whom therefore He prayed not as Mediator: or more plainly, He might express a velleity, a gracious, merciful, and charitable desire, to have all his crucifiers pardoned, so as it were not contrary unto God’s decree, unto which He did submit, and in which He did acquiesce, as He did in his prayer for the removal of his passion, ‘not my will but thy will be done.’

An answer very like unto, if not coincident with this, may be easily gathered out of Dr. Twisse; and it is that Christ, as a private man, prayed for the pardon of all his persecutors, taking prayer for an expression of Christ’s antecedent will, not as prayer is a representation of his consequent will.

An antecedent will, as Alvarez explains it, is the willing of a thing considered absolutely, as it is in itself, abstracting from all other considerations of it.  A consequent will is the willing of a thing considered with all circumstances wherewith it is clothed.

Thus a merchant wills the preservation of his wares with an antecedent will, as the preservation of his wares is considered in itself; but he does not will it with a consequent will as it is considered with this circumstance, as ’tis accompanied with hazard and danger of his life.  Thus also a judge with an antecedent will, wills the life of a prisoner, because his life is in itself a thing good and desireable: but he does not will it with a consequent will, as he is guilty of murder, incest or any the like capital crime.

Now Dr. Twisse, though he reject the application of this distinction to God, with whose simplicity and infinite knowledge several successive considerations of one and the same thing are utterly incompatible, yet he denies not but it may have place in the manhood of Christ:

Ratione diversarum considerationum non nego (says he) distinctionem istam competere posse in hominem; quippe cui variae considerationes occurrere possunt invicem succedentes: sic Christus naturali sui conservandi desiderio ferebatur, cum a patre peteret, ut calix transiret; at considerata voluntate et decreto patris de calice isto ad bibendum ipsi propinato, eidem se submittere consultum duxit.

[With respect to different considerations, I do not deny that this distinction can apply to man; for various considerations may occur to him, succeeding one another.  Thus Christ was moved by His natural desire for self-preservation when He asked the Father that the cup might pass from Him; but, having considered the Father’s will and decree concerning that cup which had been appointed for Him to drink, He judged it expedient to submit Himself to the same.]

This distinction in regard of diverse considerations of one and the same thing, may be ascribed unto man, in whom are found several considerations of the same thing succeeding one another: So Christ as man, out of a natural desire of self-preservation, prayed that the cup of his passion might pass from Him; but the will or decree, the command of his Father, his own office, and man’s salvation being considered, He submitted himself to the drinking up of this cup, even to the very dregs; nevertheless not my will but thy will be done. Lk. 22:42. If this cup may not passe away from me except I drinke it, thy will be done. Mt. 26:42. He did not will his passion with an antecedent will, but he willed it (you see) with a consequent will. Jn. 4:34. And so he prayed against it, as a prayer is a proposal of an antecedent, not consequent will.

Now that Dr. Twisse resembles this prayer of Christ, for the forgiveness of all his crucifiers, unto Christ’s deprecation of his death and passion, and makes it to be as that, an expression only of an antecedent will, a desire of their pardon, considered absolutely in itself, abstracting from God’s decree unto the contrary, I shall evidence by giving you Dr. Twisse’s own words. Vindication of the Grace, Power & Providence of God, bk. 1, pt. 2, page 188:

Non dicit Molinaeus istam voluntatem Christi hominis, secundum quam oravit pro crucifigentibus ipsum, contrariam fuisse voluntati divinae; potuit enim fieri cum submissione voluntati Dei tacite facta, licet non expressa, ad formulam precationis illius: pater transeat a me calix iste; Sed non mea voluntas fiat, sedtua.

[“Molina does not say that this will of Christ as man, according to which He prayed for those who crucified Him, was contrary to the divine will; for it could have been made with a tacit submission to the will of God, although not expressly stated, in accordance with the form of that prayer: ‘Father, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.’]

And again afterwards in the same page:

Annon homini sanctissimo convenit, privatam offensam remittere, et palam protestari, se (nisi Deus aliter statuisset) percupere ut ipsis ignosceret; de quibus tamen Deus aliter forsitan constituerit, quod et ipsi forsitan innotescit?  Annon petiit salvator, et ardenter obsecravit, ut si possibile esset, calix transiret, cum tamen Deum aliter constituisse, ne scilicet eum transiret calix, ipsi satis constaret? etc.

Denique, Christum illis bene voluisse, ut homo erat, quos antecedaneo decreto ab omnis boni spe ac possessione absolute exclusit Deus; hoc enim addendum fuit (licet illud fraudulenter nimiùm dissimulet Corvinus) etiam haec sententia quid horrendi, quaeso te inculcat?  Praesertim cum non sic voluisse dicamus, considerata ista, de eorum a salute exclusione, voluntate divina; sed duntaxat, si per volunta∣tem Dei aliter constitutum non fuisset, et si penes ipsum esset, ut eligeret, utrum in persecutores ipsius vindictam exerceret, aut suspenderet; pro ea quam ut homo in omnes (etiam in injuriis remittendis) charitatem exercere debuit, vindictam suspensam mallet quam exercitam.

[Does it not befit a most holy man to forgive a private offense, and openly to profess that he would greatly desire to forgive them (unless God had otherwise determined); concerning whom, nevertheless, God perhaps had otherwise ordained, a fact which perhaps was also known to Him?  Did not the Savior ask, and earnestly beseech, that, if it were possible, the cup might pass from Him, although it was sufficiently clear to Him that God had otherwise determined—that is, that the cup should not pass from Him? etc.

Finally, that Christ, insofar as He was man, wished well to those whom God, by a prior decree, had absolutely excluded from all hope and possession of good: for this too had to be added (although Corvinus most deceitfully conceals it)—what, I ask you, of anything horrible does this doctrine inculcate?  Especially since we do not say that He willed thus when that divine will concerning their exclusion from salvation is taken into consideration; but only that, if God’s will had not otherwise determined the matter, and if it had been within His power to choose whether to exercise vengeance upon His persecutors or to suspend it, then, in accordance with that charity which, as man, He ought to exercise toward all (even in the forgiving of injuries), He would have preferred that vengeance be suspended rather than exercised.]”

.

John Norton

The Orthodox Evangelist…  (London: Macock, 1654), ch. 1, ‘Of the Divine Essence’, pp. 17-18

“The will of God is God by one simple act, absolutely willing the being of whatsoever He pleases.

That distinction of the absolute and conditional will, as also that of the antecedent and consequent will of God, are both unsound.  God wills it to be a truth that whosoever believes shall be saved: He likewise wills it to be the duty of Judas to believe: Hence follows (in case) a will of approbation concerning things in their own nature possible, which yet never shall be: as namely, the acceptation of the obedience of the reprobates; but it does not follow that God has conditionally willed the acceptation of the obedience of the reprobates.  God decrees the coexistence of two extremes conditionally cohering, as the faith and salvation of Judas, the sight of such miracles and repentance in the Tyrians: the being of which extremes themselves He has not decreed.  Though the things willed be conditioned, yet the volition or willing of God concerning those things is absolute.

The authors and approvers of the second distinction, understand by the antecedent will of God (John Damascene, Of the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 29), his will concerning the creature looking at it as in itself, without any consideration of after-circumstances: so they say God wills all men, even the reprobate to be saved: this they call his first will, and it is, say they, uncertain.  By the consequent will of God, they understand his will concerning the creature looked at, not only as in itself, but together with after-adjuncts and circumstances, as sin, etc.  This they call his second will, and it is, say they, certain.  As a judge looking upon such a person as in himself, accounts it best that he should live; but looking upon him in second respects, as a murderer, etc. he accounts it best that he should die.

The vanity of both these distinctions appears in that they are repugnant to the simplicity, perfection and independence of the first cause.  The will of God in the decree, and the revealing of part thereof in the command, do not infer diverse wills in God: The command shows what is the duty of man; the decree contains God’s purpose concerning our doing or not doing our duty.  To will such a thing ought to be and not to will that it shall be, yea to will the not being thereof, are not opposite.  But both may and do proceed from the same will.”

.

Joseph Hall

The Shaking of the Olive-Tree: the Remaining Works of that Incomparable Prelate Joseph Hall…  (London: Cadwell, 1660), Via Media: the Way of Peace in the Five Busy Articles commonly known by the name of Arminius, Of the Fifth Article of Perseverance, pp. 376-78

“Surely it is easy to observe that we are too fearful of some distinctions which carry in them a jealousy of former abuse and yet both may well be admitted in a good sense and serve for excellent purpose.  As that (if we labor for our better understanding to explicate the one will of God by several notions of the antecedent and consequent will of God, which Paulus Ferrius, a reformed schoolman, approves by the suffrages of Zanchi, Polanus and other orthodox divines, to look at it a little running, as that which gives no small light to the business in hand.

As there is wont to be conceived a double knowledge of God, the one of mere understanding whereby He foreknows all things that may be; the other of vision, or approbation, whereby he foreknows that which undoubtedly shall be, so there is a double will to be conceived of God answerable to this double knowledge: an antecedent will, which answers to the mere understanding whereby God wills every possible good without the consideration of the adjuncts appertaining to it; a consequent will answering to the knowledge of approbation, whereby (all circumstances prepensed) God does simply will this or that particular event as simply good to be and which is there upon impossible not to be.  The one of these is a will of complacency, the other of prosecution; the one is as it were an optative will, the other an absolute.

In the first of these God would have all to be saved because it is in a sort good in itself, in that the nature of man is ordainable to life and man has by God common helps seriously offered for the attaining thereof; neither can we think it other than pleasing to God that his creatures should both do well and fare well.  In the latter He wills some of all to be saved, as not finding it simply good (all circumstances considered) to extend this favor to all; this appears in the effect, for if God absolutely willed it, it could not fail of being, neither does ought hinder, but these two may stand well together, a complacence in the blessedness of his creature and a will of his smart.  For both that which we will in one regard, we may not will in another, as we may wish a felon to live as a man, to die as a malefactor; and besides, the possibility of one opposite does not hinder the act of another, as he that has power to run perhaps does sit or lie.

Learned Zanchi methinks gives at once a good satisfaction as to this doubt (Of the Nature of God, 1.3, ch. 4); so to the ordinary exception whereat many have stumbled, of the pretended mockage of God’s invitations, where He means not, as some have misconceived, a serious effect.

In the parable of the Gospel (says he) those which were first bidden to the marriage feast and came not, were they therefore mocked by the king because he only signified unto them what would be acceptable unto him and what was their duty to perform? and yet he did not command them to be compelled as he did the second guests to come to the wedding?  Surely no, yet in the mean time, there was not the same will of the king in the inviting of the first and of the second, for in these second there was an absolute will of the king, that they should without fail come; and therefore he effectually caused them to come.  In the former he only signified, and that fairly and ingenuously, what would be pleasing to him:

Thus he.  The entertainment of this one distinction, which has the allowance of orthodox and learned authors to be free from any danger or inconvenience, would mitigate this strife since it is that which the opponents contend for, which the defendents may yield without any sensible prejudice.”

.

John Bramhall

Castigations of Mr. [Thomas] Hobbes his last Animadversions in the case concerning liberty and universal necessity wherein all his exceptions about that controversy are fully satisfied  (London: 1657), An Answer to his Fountains of Arguments in this Question, pp. 37-38  Bramhall (1594–1663) was an Archbishop of Armagh and an Anglican theologian and apologist.

“He [Hobbes] says:

‘It is not Christian to think, if God had a purpose to save all men, that any could be damned, because it were a sign of want of power to effect what he would.’

It is true, if God had an absolute purpose to work all men’s salvation irresistibly, against their wills, or without themselves.  But God has no such absolute will to save all men.  He loves his creatures well, but his own justice better: And He that made men without themselves, will not save them without themselves.

He co-operates with all his creatures according to their distinct natures which He has given them, with necessary agents necessarily, with free agents freely.  God has given men liberty to assent to saving truth: they abuse it.  He has proposed a condition under which they may be saved: they reject it.

So He wills their salvation by an antecedent will, and their damnation by a consequent will: which two wills in God, or within the divine essence, are no way distinct; for they are the same with the divine essence.  But they are distinguished only in order to the things willed of God; Neither is there the least contradiction between them.

The one shows us what God would have us to do; The other is what God Himself will do.  The one looks upon man as he was created by God, or as he should have been or might have been without his own fault; The other looks upon man as he is with all circumstances.  The one regards only the order of the causes and means designed by God for our salvation; The other regards also the application or misapplication of these means by ourselves.”

.

James Durham

A Commentary upon the Book of the Revelation...  (Edinburgh: Higgins, 1658), ch. 2, Lecture 6, on vv. 18-29, pp. 169-70

“The second conclusion pretended to be drawn from this [Rev. 2:21] is that the Lord has a universal will to have all men saved, seeing He gives her time to repent.  This we say does not follow hence: For:

…
4. It will not follow Christ wills persons to repent; therefore He wills their salvation: because He may be said to will them to repent when He requires it of them as their duty: and thus their duty of repenting is the immediate object of his revealed and preceptive will: but a person’s salvation is the proper object of his will of good-pleasure, or of his decreeing and purposing will.

And no otherways can He be said to will such persons’ salvation (because He commands them to repent) than this, to wit, that in His Word He has signified repentance to be such a person’s duty, and that He has appointed a connection between repentance and salvation; which still relates to his revealed will: even as when God made the first Covenant with Adam, it might be said that He willed Adam to be holy, and that by that Covenant He had made a connection between holiness and life; yet it is not proper to say that the Lord willed life to Adam upon that condition, because that looks to the event and respects the Lord’s will of purpose: which cannot but be effectual.

And if the Lord’s willing of men (at least such as are under his ordinances) to be saved be thus understood as including only the duty which God lays upon men and the connection that He has made between it and salvation in his Word, it may be admitted: but if it be extended to any antecedent will in God Himself, distinct from that which is called His revealed will, this place and such like will give no ground for such an assertion.”

.

Johannes Thaddaeus

The Reconciler of the Bible…  (London: Miller, 1662)

Exodus

“114. Ex. 4:21; 7:3; 10:27; 11:10, ‘But I will harden Pharoah’s heart.’  Ch. 8:15, 32, ‘Pharaoh hardened his heart, and was hardened, etc.’

God hardens permissively, not effectively, by no antecedent will (for He will not the death of a sinner), but by a consequent will, when he punishes by just judgment, and uses evil to a good end.  ‘Satan,’ says Augustine, ‘hardens by persuading, man by consenting, God by forsaking.'”

.

Proverbs

“549. Prov. 1:26, ‘I will mock at your trouble; and laugh when your destruction comes.’  Eze. 18:32, ‘I will not the death of a sinner, for I take no pleasure in the destruction of a sinner.’

God is delighted in his justice, when He punishes those which despise his grace, and that will not hearken to his fatherly vocation; but of his mercy He will not the death of sinners, as death is the destruction of nature.  The former place belongs to God’s consequent will; the latter to his antecedent will; that is ruled by justice, this by mercy.”

.

Ezekiel

“673. Eze. 18:23; 33:11, ‘God will not the death.’  ‘He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.’  Rom. 9:18, ‘He has mercy on whom He will, and whom He will he hardens.’

God will not the death of a sinner by his antecedent will, but by his consequent will, or his justice; because he justly punishes him who rejects the grace of God offered unto Him.  He hardens therefore permissively, not affectively.

674. Eze. 18:23, ‘I will not the death of him that dies. Ch. 3:18, ‘Thou shalt die the death.’

God as our Father will not by the Gospel, but as He is our judge and revenger, He will by the Law, that a sinner shall die.”

.

Romans

“1224. Rom. 9:18, ‘God has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens.’  Ch. 11:32, ‘God has concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.’

The first place is concerning the most free will and power of God, who may have mercy on whom He please; his antecedent will reaches to all men, his consequent will is restrained to the believers and unbelievers, and so He will have mercy of the faithful, that they may be saved, but he justly punishes and hardens the unbelievers and wicked men who resist his grace freely offered unto them.”

.

Matthew Barker

Natural Theology...  (London: Ranew, 1674), ch. 8, p. 217  Barker (1619–1698) was an English Independent puritan minister and parliamentarian.

“Men perish by their own will, but against God’s will; I mean his antecedent will, and as revealed in his Word.  For else men perish by God’s consequent will, having rejected the means of their own salvation.”

.

Richard Baxter

A Christian Directory...  (London: White, 1673), pt. 2, Christian Economics, ch. 23, title 2, Some Questions about Prayer Answered, p. 595

Ҥ24. Question 24: May we pray for the destruction of the enemies of Christ, or of the Gospel, or of the king?

Answer: Not with respect to that which is called God’s antecedent will; for so we ought first to pray for their conversion (and restraint till then).  But with respect to that called his consequent will, we may: that is, we must first pray that they may be restrained and converted, and secondly that, if not, they may be destroyed.”

.

Richard Baxter’s Catholic Theology...  (London: White, 1675)

pt. 1, sect. 14, Of Several Distinctions of God’s Will, pp. 56-57

“360. XII. The last now to be named is the antecedent and consequent will.  This also is handled by many Schoolmen and much used by the Jesuits and Arminians.  To pass by others, Pennottus handles it Propugn. bk. 4, ch. 21, having first showed, ch. 20, p. 225 that Chrysostom and Damascene first used it.  His explicatory propositions are:

1. Voluntas antecedens et consequens non est in Deo respectu omnium volitorum, sed solum respectu eorum quae aliquo modo pendent ex lib. arbtrio creaturae.

[The antecedent and consequent will do not exist in God with respect to all things willed, but only with respect to those things which in some manner depend upon the free will of the creature.]

2. Voluntas antecedens est illa qua Deus vult hominis salutem quantum in ipso est, et qua illum ad salutem ordinat, et media ad salutem necessaria praeparat, quibus nisi per ipsum hominem steterit, salutem assequatur.

[The antecedent will is that by which God wills the salvation of man, insofar as it lies in Him, and by which He ordains him to salvation and prepares the means necessary for salvation, so that, unless the hindrance to salvation should arise from the man himself, he may attain salvation.]

3. Non semper voluntas antecedens et consequens circa objecta contraria versantur, sed potest idem objectum esse volitum à Deo voluntate tum antecedente tum consequente.

[The antecedent and consequent will do not always concern contrary objects; rather, the same object may be willed by God both by the antecedent will and by the consequent will.]

4. Voluntas antecedens in Deo est voluntas beneplaciti, et non solum voluntas signi.

[The antecedent will in God is the will of good pleasure, and not merely the will of sign.]

5. Voluntas antecedens est formaliter et proprie in Deo existens, et non solum per metaphoram ad eum modum, quo voluntas signi.

[The antecedent will exists formally and properly in God, and not merely metaphorically, in the manner in which the will of sign does.]

361. I tell you their sense that I may the better open the plain truth to you, which is as follows:

1. This distinction of voluntas antecedens et consequens is not applied to God as He is our Creator, or end, nor as He is mere Proprietor or Benefactor, but only as He is Rector or [the] Moral Ruler of man.

2. As government has an antecedent and consequent part, viz. legislation and judgement (with execution), so God’s antecedent will is nothing but his legal will, or his will as Rector signified by his laws; and his consequent will is his judicial will, or expressed in judgment: one antecedent to man’s part (obedience or disobedience) and the other consequent to it.

3. It is most certain that God wills antecedently all that is in his Law, that is, that all that believe and repent shall be saved: and that He wills consequently that Judas e.g., and every finally impenitent unbeliever, shall be damned.  For what God does, that He wills to do: But God does Himself make such a Law and pass such a judgement: Therefore He is willing of it.”

.

pt. 2, sect. 7, ‘The Antecedent & Consequent Will of God, etc.’, p. 54

“102. The distinction of God’s antecedent and consequent will, used by Damascene, is by many applied to this controversy, but by none that I have read sufficiently explained, which is the cause that so many good men reject it, because they misunderstand it.

It’s truly said that by his antecedent will, God would have all men to believe, repent and be saved, but by his consequent will He will have all condemned whom He does condemn.  But then it must be understood that this distinction is not applied to the will of God as He is merely an Absolute Proprietary or Benefactor, but as He is the King or Rector of the world; and so his legislation is his antecedent will, and his judgment is his consequent will.

And no man of religion can deny either that God’s Law is the signification of his will, or his will signified, or that his judgment and execution is his will declared; or that God’s Law of Grace does conditionally give pardon and salvation to all antecedently to man’s performance or rejection of the condition, or that God condemns infidels consequently to their infidelity.  The Law antecedently to man’s part acted says, ‘He that believes shall be saved;’ and the sentence consequently to his fact says, ‘Judas, an unbeliever or impenitent, shall perish.’  And thus the distinction has no doubt or difficulty.”

.

bk. 2, The Synodists [of Dort] & Arminians, Calvinists & Lutherans, Dominicans & Jesuits Reconciled

Third Day’s Conference, First Crimination, p. 55

“Arminian:

We do not: But we say that as to God’s antecedent will, He both elected and redeemed all alike; and the inequality is only in his consequent will.  But the Synodists [of Dort] say otherwise.

Baxter:

1. If you understand the distinction aright, they say the same as you: that is, if you thus distinguish only of the will of God as Rector, or his governing will, and by the antecedent will mean only the legislative, which making our duty, goes before our doing or not-doing it, and by the consequent will, mean only the judicial which follows duty and sin.  God deals equally by all men in the first (as to the tenor of his Law, though the different promulgation make a difference of obligations), but unequally in the second.

2. And if you distinguish thus of his eternal decrees, either they respect damnation or salvation.  And by his antecedent will, you mean that which goes before the foresight of man’s will, and by the consequent, that which follows this foresight.  Now:

1. Have I not said enough to convince you that as it is actus agentis in God, we cannot prove any diversity or priority? but only ex connotatione objecti.

2. And as to damnation, I have proved that they commonly agree with you, that God decrees not sin, but foresees it, and decrees damnation [in contrast to reprobation] only as for foreseen sin.  Whatever Piscator and a few more say, this is the common doctrine of Protestants and Fathers.

3. But as to election, dare you say yourself that God decrees to change no man’s will, but upon foresight that the person himself will first change it?¹  If man change it first, God need not to come after to change it: If God change it first, then He decreed first to change it and did not first foresee it changed.

¹ Vasquez and many Jesuits profess that God’s first grace is given without any cause, condition or occasion in man.  And says Malderus in pt. 1 of pt. 2 of Thomas, qest. 110, art. 1, p. 469, Deus non praesupponit in creatura bonum, quo ad ipsius dilectionem moveatur, sicut voluntas hominis benefactoris: sed bonum creaturae provenit ex voluntate Dei, qui vocat ea quae non sunt tanquam ea quae sunt.  That is, God’s efficient will of beneficence is first, and then his final will of complacence; first God makes us good, and then loves us as good.”

.

7th Days Conference, 1st Crimination, p. 135

“Baxter:

…1. God absolutely wills that it shall be man’s duty to repent and believe.  Duty is the thing antecedently willed with an absolute will.

2. God wills that heaven shall be his due if he perform that condition.

3. But if he will not perform it, that Hell be his due.  This will is conditional as to the thing willed.

4. These volitions of God belong to Him as Rector (supposing Him a Benefactor), giving out his benefits by a Law.  And this will is expressed by God’s Law, which actually constitutes the absolute debitum obedientiae [debt of obedience], and the conditional debitum premii vel poenae [debt of reward or punishment].

5. The condition being past, God’s consequent will is absolute de premiando vel puniendo [concerning to reward or to punish]: He wills the death of the impenitent consequently.  And this is but God’s will, qua judex [as judge], expressed by his judgment actually.

6. Though in strict sense, the thing that God antecedently wills is not the event, but the debitum vel jus [debt or right], man’s duty, and his due thereupon, yet because it belongs not to a legislator as such to do any more towards the event than command it (supposing necessary power and helps), therefore after the manner of men it is said that God wills the event (repentance and salvation) because He wills to do so much towards it, even all that concerns Him to do as a mere Rector (besides the donation of necessary power or help as a Benefactor).  And this is all that you mean, in which both sides are really agreed.

Arminian:

I confess we use to explain it by his antecedent will, and saying that quantum in se [so much as is in Himself], He would have all repent and live.  But by quantum in se, we do not mean that God does as much as He is able to it: Therefore your explication seems true as well as conciliatory, that He does quantum in se as Rector per leges [a Legislator through laws], supposing also his necessary help.

Baxter:

So God delights not in the death of sinners because it is not his antecedent will that they die, but only his consequent on supposition of impenitency, which he wills not.  And also because it is the good of justice and not our death and hurt as such, or for itself that God loves and delights in.  But when men return and live, they fulfil his antecedent will and do that which He loves as good in itself.

And He would have all men come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved [1 Tim. 4:2], that is, He obliges both ministers to preach to them and others to pray for them and help them, and themselves to obey and receive his grace; and He gives them means and gives Christ and life by free donation to all on condition they will but accept the gift.  And He that strictly wills this much, may be said after the manner of men to will the event.  And this is all that both sides mean, if they understood themselves.”

.

An Apology for the Nonconformists’ Ministry…  (London: Parkhurst, 1681), pp. 122-23, 127

“I long ago began a treatise [Baxter’s Catholick Theology] to reconcile the Arminians and Anti-Arminians in these matters…  And because I know not whether ever I shall live to reassume it…  I must give the judicious a few hints of the media [means] of conciliation which I would have used:

…
20. The doctrine of God’s antecedent and consequent will must be better explained, as being but his governing will, so called from legislation and judgment, which are the antecedent and consequent parts of government.

21. So must God’s will de naturalibus et moralibus [of natural and moral things], and his legislative antecedent will be well opened, and the uselessness and confusion of the distinction of signi [sign] and beneplaciti [good-pleasure] manifested.”

.

Universal Redemption of Mankind by the Lord Jesus Christ Stated & Cleared…  (London: Salusbury, 1694), ch. 2, pp. 27-33

“11. We must as is said before distinguish between Christ (and the Father in Him) as Rector per Leges [Legislator through laws] or Legislator, and as Dominus Absolutus [Absolute Lord].  And so we must distinguish between those benefits which Christ as Rector gives by his laws and those which as mere Benefactor and Absolute Proprietary He gives, though not contrary to his laws or Covenant, yet over and above what by Covenant or Law He gives.

Also we must distinguish between the event and nature of things as such, and the right to and dueness of things as such.  And consequently we must most carefully distinguish between God’s will de rerum eventu [concerning the event of things] and his will de debito [concerning debt], as such.  The clear distinguishing of these two is a singular key to the opening of the sense of Scripture, and in particular of this controversy.

For indeed, it is to distinguish between our physics and our ethics.  God’s will about natural beings as such stands at the top of physics as the first cause.  God’s will de debito, as such, stands at the top of our ethics as the first cause.  And you may easily conceive how the confounding of our physics and ethics must needs blind us and lose us in our divinity, as it would do in philosophy.

I join all these distinctions together, for in some they all come to one or are of necessary consideration jointly that any one of them may be understood.  Our divines, usually with the Schoolmen, distinguish between voluntatem signi and beneplaciti [will of sign and of good-pleasure].  But in the ordinary school-sense, that is not the same distinction with that which I here intend.  Dr. [William] Twisse oft uses the distinction between voluntatem propositi et praecepti [will of putting forth and of precept], and means in effect the same that I do: But he oft speaks of it as being but metonymically God’s will and not properly.  By which I must conclude that he meant quoad eventum [as to the event], and not quoad debitum [as to debt]; for God properly wills that this shall be man’s due or duty.

I shall therefore a little further explain this distinction and then show you the soundness of it, and then the exceeding usefulness and necessity of it, both in this and many other controversies:

1. For the title I choose rather to denominate it from the object than the act, because the diversity is in the object, but none in the species of the act naturally considered: Debitum and natural being are two distinct things; but ‘to will’ one and ‘to will’ the other is all one as to the nature of willing.  God does as properly will duty as He wills natural beings.  Yet if I must denominate it from the acts, I would distinguish between God’s Directive Will and his Legislative.

For to call it voluntas praecepti is too narrow a term, for the precept is but one part of God’s Law and determines only of one sort of right, that is, of the dueness of obediential actions or forbearance of forbidden actions.  But there is also a debitum praemii et beneficii–pure vel absolute–dati, et debitum poenae [debt of reward and benefit, whether purely or absolutely given, and a debt of punishment], which the rest of the Law, Testament or Covenant of God determines of, which must all be here included as well as the former.  In sum, the Law determines:

1. What shall be due from us;
2. and what shall be due to us, and on what terms.

I call it therefore, The will of God de eventu, et de debito [of event, and of debt], as such.  I say ‘as such,’ for else they are coincident: For God’s will de rerum natura, vel existentia determines de debito quatenus evenit esse debitum [determines the nature or existence of things, and debt so far as debt comes about], but not qua debitum [as debt].  And his will de debito determines of the dueness of some events, not as eventual [as to the event], but as due.  Or to avoid all ambiguity: call it God’s will de ente mere naturali [concerning merely natural being] and his will de debito morali [concerning moral debt], or Legislative or Governing.

2. And for the nature of the distinction, understand further that there are two acts which I call God’s will de debito:

The first is that immanent act of his will by which He strictly and properly wills what shall be due.  This also is twofold:

1. Productive, or instituting dueness;
2. and approbative, or taking complacency in duty.

The former of these I principally intend, but exclude not the latter.  God does eternally will every due, but it is not therefore eternally or from eternity due.  For He wills from eternity (to speak vulgarly) only that this shall be due at such a time and by such a means.  I say by such means: For though God’s will produce all dueness, yet only by means does He produce it.  That means is the revelation of his will.

2. This revelation of God’s will de debito we call his Law.  This therefore is the second thing which I call God’s will de debito, or his Legislative will, that is, the Law as it is signum voluntatis divinae [a sign of the divine will], that is, formally as a law.  This I call God’s will de debito, only metonymically, as it is the sign of his will before expressed.

If the proper will of God were separated from this, it would then be no producer of dueness or right at all, for it would be no law, no signum; it would lose its nature as abrogated laws do.

Also observe that you must here carefully distinguish between God’s act in making a law and the moral act of that law, or of his will by that law when it is made.

I call not legislation itself, ‘God’s will de debito‘ or ‘his legislative will’.  His ordaining the sign itself, or making the law which is his instrument, is an act of his will de rerum eventu vel naturae [concerning the event of things, or of their nature].  For it only makes that instrument or sign by which right [of debt] shall be after[wards] produced, but [it] does not directly thereby produce that right.  But it is the signification and moral act of that law, which flows from its nature, which does produce right, and which we here intend.

The scribe that writes a statute, and the sovereign himself, in composing the matter, order and terms, does but make that signum or instrument which, being made, does therefore institute right, because it signifies the sovereign’s will to institute it.  So much for the explication of my meaning in this distinction.

2. Next I shall say somewhat to prove the soundness of it, which is therefore necessary because some ignorant persons laugh at it, as if we feigned two wills in God, and one of them contrary to the other.  Otherwise, to men of understanding, it is not very needful; and therefore I shall say but this briefly:

It is not two wills in God as two distinct essences or faculties that I assert, but only two distinct acts: Distinct, I say, in regard of their distinct products or effects, and so to man’s apprehension, though in God we say there is no diversity or distinction.

Yet as we cannot handsomely conceive of his will to save Peter, and his will to damn Judas, as one act, having such different effects: so it is here.  Who knows not that naturality and morality, physics and ethics, event and right are different things, and consequently we may and must distinguish of God’s willing them accordingly.

When a man says, ‘You shall do this,’ preceptively, he does only say, ‘It shall be your duty to do it,’ but says not that eventually you shall do it.  Nor are his words false if you never do it.  He that says prophetically or by prognostication, ‘you shall do this,’ means that it shall so come to pass; and if it do not, his words are false; but he does not say, ‘It is or shall be your duty.’

12. Accordingly we must distinguish between the antecedent and consequent acts and will of Christ as Ruler of mankind.  For the understanding of which and avoiding mistakes, observe:

1. That we speak not now of eternal decrees, but of the will of Christ in this relation as He is the Ruler of the world and Church, and as He is the conveyer of his mercies according to and by his Covenant, and as He judges the world according thereunto.

2. That by his antecedent will and acts, we mean only that which in his government is antecedent to man’s obedience or disobedience, which is principally legislation and making his new Covenant, and also the giving of preachers and other acts, which are the first part of his administration.  And by his consequent acts and will, we mean only that second part of government which finds man obedient or disobedient, and is commonly called judgment and execution.

And when we say that by his antecedent acts and will Christ gives pardon, justification and right to glory equally to all, we mean that as Legislator and Promiser He has antecedently made an universal act of oblivion, or deed of gift, conditionally pardoning, etc. all, and no farther than conditionally pardoning any.  And when we say that He consequently justifies and saves none but true Christians, and in that sense died for no other according to his consequent will, we mean that as Judge of mankind, He will give justification and salvation to believers and to no others; nor [did He] ever intended to do otherwise.

(Let the reader know that the foresaid scheme of the effects of Christ’s death is more accurately, and yet more briefly, done in my Methodus Theologiae: and therefore let him that dislikes the number or order of distributions pass it by: But I have not time to reform it here.”

.

1700’s

Matthew Henry

Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Ezekiel 18, vv. 21-29

“(3) What encouragement a repenting returning sinner has to hope for pardon and life according to this promise…

he has this to support himself with, that God’s nature, property, and delight, is to have mercy and to forgive, for He has said (Eze. 18:23): “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?  No, by no means; you never had any cause given you to think so.”

It is true God has determined to punish sinners; his justice calls for their punishment, and, pursuant to that, impenitent sinners will lie for ever under his wrath and curse; that is the will of his decree, his consequent will, but it is not his antecedent will, the will of his delight.

Though the righteousness of his government requires that sinners die, yet the goodness of his nature objects against it.  ‘How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?’  It is spoken here comparatively; He has not pleasure in the ruin of sinners, for He would rather they should turn from their ways and live; He is better pleased when his mercy is glorified in their salvation than when his justice is glorified in their damnation.”

.

.

In Thomism

Order of

Article
Quotes

.

Article

1200’s

Aquinas, Thomas – ‘Whether the divine will can be distinguished by antecedent and consequent?’  in Disputed Questions, On Truth, question 23, On the Will of God

“I answer that…  Therefore, that toward which God has ordered the creature with regard to himself is said to be willed by him as by a first intention or by an antecedent will. But when a creature is impeded from this end because of its defect, God still fulfills in it the goodness of which it is capable; and this pertains, as it were, to his second intention and it is called a consequent will.

Thus, since God made all men for blessedness, he is said to will the salvation of all men by an antecedent will; but since some are turned against their own salvation, whom the order of his wisdom does not allow to come to salvation because of their defect, he fulfills in them what pertains to his goodness in another way, namely, condemning them by justice; so that whereas they do not attain to the first order of his will, they fall into the second; and while they do not carry out God’s will, the will of God is fulfilled in them. However, the very defect of sin by which someone is rendered worthy of punishment in the present or else the future is not willed by God either by an antecedent or a consequent will, but it is only permitted by him…

and neither did he order him to salvation according to the order of predestination, which is the order of absolute will; rather, to the extent that this order is from himself, he gave to him a nature ordered to beatitude.

Reply Obj. 1: Neither order nor distinction comes from the act of the will, but only from the things willed.”

.

Quotes

1200’s

Thomas Aquinas

Summa, pt. 1, quest. 19, article 6, reply to obj. 1

“The words of the apostle, ‘God will have all men to be saved,’ etc. can be understood in three ways.

First, by a restricted application, in which case they would mean, as Augustine says (De praed. sanct. i, 8: Enchiridion 103), God wills all men to be saved that are saved, not because there is no man whom He does not wish saved, but because there is no man saved whose salvation He does not will.

Second, they can be understood as applying to every class of individuals, not to every individual of each class; in which case they mean that God wills some men of every class and condition to be saved, males and females, Jews and Gentiles, great and small, but not all of every condition.

Third, according to Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 29), they are understood of the antecedent will of God; not of the consequent will.  This distinction must not be taken as applying to the divine will itself, in which there is nothing antecedent nor consequent, but to the things willed.

To understand this we must consider that everything, in so far as it is good, is willed by God. A thing taken in its primary sense, and absolutely considered, may be good or evil, and yet when some additional circumstances are taken into account, by a consequent consideration may be changed into the contrary.

Thus that a man should live is good; and that a man should be killed is evil, absolutely considered. But if in a particular case we add that a man is a murderer or dangerous to society, to kill him is a good; that he live is an evil. Hence it may be said of a just judge, that antecedently he wills all men to live; but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. In the same way God antecedently wills all men to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned, as His justice exacts.

Nor do we will simply, what we will antecedently, but rather we will it in a qualified manner; for the will is directed to things as they are in themselves, and in themselves they exist under particular qualifications. Hence we will a thing simply inasmuch as we will it when all particular circumstances are considered; and this is what is meant by willing consequently. Thus it may be said that a just judge wills simply the hanging of a murderer, but in a qualified manner he would will him to live, to wit, inasmuch as he is a man. Such a qualified will may be called a willingness rather than an absolute will. Thus it is clear that whatever God simply wills takes place; although what He wills antecedently may not take place.”

.

1600’s

On Alvarez

Thomas Bayly, Certamen religiosum, or a Conference between the late King of England [Charles I] and the Late Lord Marquesse of Worcester concerning Religion, together with a vindication of the Protestant cause from the pretenses of the Marquesse his last papers...  (London: 1651), bk. 1, pp. 235-38  Bayly (d. 1657?), initially a royalist divine, was by this time a Roman Catholic.

“The other exposition [of 1 Tim. 2:4] which Alvarez relates, is that the apostle speaks of God’s antecedent will.  Thus (he says) Augustine does expound it in diverse places, and for this exposition he also cites Damascene, Prosper, Theophylaot, Oecumenius, Aquinas, as also Chrysostom and Ambrose, and says that it is common among the doctors.

Now in the next disputation he tells us that God’s antecedent will is that which respects the object simply considered, and by itself: and that this will is called antecedent, not because it goes before the good, or ill use of our will, as some think, but because it goes before that will whereby God respects the object considered with some adjunct, which is the consequent and latter consideration of it.

If (says he) the salvation of the reprobate be considered simply by itself, so God does will it: but if it be considered, as it has adjoined the privation, or want of a greater good, to wit, the universal good of manifesting God’s justice in the reprobate and of causing his mercy the more to shine forth in the elect, so God does not will it.  And in this respect were affirmed, that God by a consequent will does not will that all shall be saved, but only such as are predestinate.¹

¹ Quarta explicatio docet loqui Apostolum de voluntate Dei antecedente, quae est voluntas signi, et voluntas secundum quid, ut dicitur disput: sequenti.  Hanc explicationem etiam tradit S. Aug. lib. ad art. sibi falso impositos, art. 2. et cap. 15, De corrept. et grat. etc. Alvarez ubi supra.

Voluntas Dei antecedens est, quae fertur in objectum ali∣quod absolute consideratum, et secundum se; dicitur autem haec voluntas antecedens, non quia antecedit bonum, vel malum usum nostri arbitrii, ut arbitrantur auctores primae sententiae, sed quia antecedit voluntatem quâ Deus fertur in objectum consideratum cum aliquo adjuncto, quae est consequens, et posterior consideratio ejus.—Si consideretur salus re∣proborum secundum se, et absolute, sic est a Deo volita: si autem consideretur, secundum quod habet adjunctam privationem, aut carentiam majoris boni, viz. boni universi manifestationis justitiae divinae in reprobis, et majoris splendoris misericordiae ejus in electis, sic non est volita a Deo.  Et secundum hoc asserimus, quod voluntate consequente Deus non velit omnes falvos fieri, sed solum praedestinatos. Alvarez, De Auxiliis, disp. 34, num. 3.

Now take any of all these four explications of the apostle’s words, wherein he says that God will have all men to be saved (as for my part I like best either the second, or the last); take any of them, I say, and the apostle’s words are nothing against that which Protestants hold concerning reprobation.

As for that of Peter, that God is not willing that any should perish, 2 Pet. 3:9, Bellarmine himself expounds both it, and the former place, viz. 1 Tim. 2:4. of that Will of God which divines call God’s antecedent will.¹  Now what that antecedent will of God is, we have seen even now out of Alvarez: if Bellarmine did understand it otherwise (as Alvarez notes that some did), he is confuted by Alvarez in the place above cited.  Where he also cites Augustine saying, ‘Many are not saved, not because they will not, but because God will not: which without all controversy is manifested in young children:’ whence he infers that the condition, which is included in God’s antecedent will, whereby he will have all men to be saved, is not this: If they will and if they do not hinder it.²

¹ Verum est, Deum velle omnes salvos fieri voluntate illa, quam recte Theologi antecedentem vocant. Bellarmine, De gratia et lib. arb., bk. 2, ch. 3.

² Multi salvi non fiunt, non quia ipsi nolint, sed quia Deus non vult; quod absque ulla controversia manifestatur in parvulis. Augustinus apud Alvarez, disp. 34, num. 5.  Ergo conditio, quae includitur in voluntate antecedente, qua Deus vult omnes homines salvos fieri, non est ista, si ipsi voluerint, aut per eos non steter it. Alvarez, Ibid.

And Bellarmine himself also, though he say, ‘It is most true that all are not saved because they will not: for if they would, God would not be wanting unto them,’ yet immediately he adds:

‘But none can have a will to be saved except God by preventing and preparing the will, make him to will it.  And why God does not make all to will this, who has known the mind of the Lord? and who has been his Counsellor? (Rom. 11:34)’†

† Verissimum est, non fieri omnes salvos quia ipsi nolunt: nam si vellent, Deus eis utique non deesset.  Caeterùm nemo vult salvus fieri, nisi Deus praeveniendo, et preparando voluntatem faciat eum velle: cur autem Deus non faciat omnes velle, quis novit sensum Domini? et quis consiliarius ejus fuit?  Bellarmine, loco proxime citato.

The last place of Scripture, which the Marquesse objects is Eze. 33:11, ‘As I live, saith the Lord, I delight not in the death of a sinner.’  Now to this also we have Alvarez to answer for us, viz. first that it is meant of spiritual death, which is by sin, which God does only permit, but does not delight in it.  And this explication he says, is confirmed by the words following, ‘but rather that he be converted and live.’  And if it be expounded of the second death, which is eternal damnation, the meaning he says is that God will not inflict this upon any but for sin.¹

¹ Intelligitur de morte spirituali, quae est per peccatum.  Hanc enim non vult Deus sed solum permittit.  Colligitur haec explicatio ex contextu: ait enim, sed magis ut convertatur, et vivat.  Si autem explicetur de morte secunda, scil. de damnatione aeterna, dicendum est, quod Deus non vult hanc mortem alicui inferre, nisi supposito peccato, ut disp. 109 & 110, patebit. Alvarez, De Auxiliis, disp. 33, num. 5.

But though God will not inflict damnation upon the reprobate but for sin, yet this same Alvarez (as I have showed abundantly before) and so other writers of the Church of Rome do tell us that God by his eternal decree of reprobation of his mere will and pleasure, does determine to suffer the reprobate to sin, and so to damn them for it.  And thus now I have made it appear (I hope) sufficiently, that by the consent of the Romanists themselves the Scriptures alleged are not repugnant to the doctrine of Protestants concerning reprobation:
…

It has also been showed before in what sense God would have none to perish, viz. by his antecedent will, with which yet will stand the decree of reprobation, as we hold it, which likewise has been showed, and that from both Bellarmine and from Alvarez also.  And that God desires sinners may come to repentance and so to life, Protestants (that I know) do not deny, though they hold that God does give (and so from all eternity did purpose to give) repentance unto some and not to others, as He pleases; which I have also showed to be acknowledged by Bellarmine, Alvarez, Estius and others of the Church of Rome.  And it is most clear by that of the apostle, ‘If God peradventure will give them repentance,’ 2 Tim. 2:25, and that, ‘He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardneth.’ Rom. 9:18.”

.

1900’s

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Reality: a Synthesis of Thomistic Thought  (Herder Book Co., 1950)

ch. 10, God’s Will & God’s Love, pp. 104-5

“Now we understand that God’s efficacious will is always infallibly fulfilled…

In what sense, then, do we speak of God’s inefficacious will?  This will, says Thomas (Ia, q. 19, a. 6 [Whether the Will of God is always fulfilled?], ad 1), is a conditioned will, an antecedent will, which wills all that is good in itself, independently of circumstances.  Now this conditional, antecedent will remain[s] inefficacious because, in view of a higher good of which He alone is judge, God permits that this or that good thing does not come to pass.  Thus, in view of that higher good , God permits to illustrate, that harvests do not reach maturity, that the gazelle becomes the prey of the lion, that the just suffer persecution, that this or that sinner dies in final impenitence.  Sometimes we see the higher good in question, sometimes we cannot.  In permitting final impenitence, for example, God may be manifesting infinite justice against obstinacy in evil.

Such is the Thomistic distinction of antecedent (inefficacious) will from consequent (efficacious) will…

To illustrate.  God willed, by consequent will, the conversion of St. Paul.  This conversion comes to be, infallibly but freely, because God’s will, strong and sweet, causes Paul’s will to consent freely, spontaneously, without violence, to his own conversion.  God did not on the other hand will, efficaciously, the conversion of Judas, though He, conditionally, inefficaciously, antecedently, certainly willed it, and He permitted Judas to remain, freely, in final impenitence.  What higher good had God in mind?  This, at least: the manifestation of infinite justice. (For more extended exposition, see our work, De Deo uno, 1938, pp. 410-34; also Rev. thom., May, 1937, “Le fondement supreme de la distinction des deux graces, suffisante et efficace.”)

We must add this remark: Resisting sufficient grace is an evil which comes solely from ourselves.  But non-resistance is a good, which, in last analysis, comes from God, source of all good.”

.

ch. 59, Efficacious Grace

“The Divine Will, Antecedent and Consequent

‘The will.’ says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 19, a. 6, ad 1), ‘is related to things as they are in themselves, with all their particular circumstances.  Hence we will a thing simply (simpliciter) when we will it with all its concrete circumstances.  This will we call the consequent will…  Thus it is clear that everything which God wills simpliciter comes to pass.

If, on the contrary, we will a thing in itself good, but independently of its circumstances, this will is called the antecedent will, or conditional will, since the good in question is not realized here and now.  That man should live, says St. Thomas (Ibid.), is good.  But if the man is a murderer, it is good that he be executed.  Antecedently, God wills that harvests come to maturity, but He allows for some higher good, that not all harvests do in fact mature.  Similarly, He wills antecedently the salvation of all men, tough for some higher good, of which He alone is judge, He permits some to sin and perish…

It is thus that St. Thomas harmonizes God’s antecedent will, of which St. John Damascene speaks, with God’s omnipotence.

.

The Supreme Principles

Nothing comes to pass, either in heaven or on earth, unless God either brings it to pass in mercy, or then in justice permits it.  This principle, taught in the universal Church, shows that there is in God a conditional and antecedent will, relative to a good which does not come to pass, the privation of which He permits in view of some higher good.
…

All that God wills, He does.  This principle has no exception.  All that God wills (purely, simply, unconditionally) comes to pass without our freedom being thereby in any way forced, because God moves that freedom sweetly and strongly, actualizing it, not destroying.  He wills efficaciously that we freely consent and we do free consent. The supreme efficacy of divine causality, says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 19, a. 6), extends to the free mode of our acts…

Hence we find that in the ninth century, to terminate the long controversy with Gottschalk, the Council of Thuzey (860), at the instance of the Augustinian bishops, harmonized God’s will of universal salvation with the sinner’s responsibility.  That Council’s synodal letter (OL, CXXVI, 123; Denz., 17th ed., p. 145, no. 320, note 2.) contains this sentence: Whatever He has willed in heaven or on earth, God has done.  For nothing comes to pass in heaven or on earth that He does not in mercy bring to pass or permits to come to pass in justice.

Since God’s love is the cause of created goodness, says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 20, a. 3), no created thing would be better than another, if God did not give one a great[er] good than He gives to another.  This is equivalent to St. Paul’s word: What has thou that thou hast not received? (1 Cor. 4:7)”

.

.

In Scotism

Quote

1200’s

John Duns Scotus

Ordinatio, bk. 1, dist. 26-48  tr. Peter Simpson  (2013 / 2023), dist. 46, Whether God’s Will of Good-Pleasure is always fulfilled?  II. To the Principal Arguments, p. 197

“The will of God,¹ as to all things, must always be fulfilled, – because as the Almighty can do everything possible, so, when the divine will is determined for positing something in being with final determination, it will be; but to will that with will of being well-pleased is to will it with the last determination that can be posited on the part of the omnipotent will willing the effect into being; therefore, in respect of whatever effect God is thus willing, it will be.

¹ The Vatican editors say this is against Scotus’ doctrine, and they refer to Rep. IA d. 46 nn. 17-18, 12-14, and to nn. 7-8 here below.

…
7. To the first argument [n.1] I say that although the saying of the apostle [1 Tim. 2:4] could be expounded with a distribution accommodated for all those who will be saved – yet it could much better be expounded of antecedent will, thus: ‘he wills to save all men and that all are saved’, namely as far as concerns his own part and by his antecedent will, forasmuch as he has given them natural gifts and right laws and common aids sufficient for salvation.

8. Just as of a king, establishing good laws and prefixing ministers to guard those laws, it could be said that he wills all his subjects to live peaceably and quietly, as far as in him, and yet, if he see someone being unjustly oppressed, it would not be necessary that the king at once involve himself, to make him live quietly, unless he were turned over to him by a complaint of fact (he does indeed antecedently will everyone to live peaceably and quietly, but he does not will everyone immediately so to live), – so I say in the matter at hand, that although God [does] not have a will of being well-pleased to save this person, yet he wills for him the common aids to salvation, by which he too can live sufficiently well and be saved; on account of which it can be said that, as far as is on his part, he wills all to be saved.”

.

.

On the Teaching of Thomas Aquinas vs. John Duns Scotus

Article

1600’s

Macedo, Francisco – 2. ‘General will of God concerning the salvation of all men, 1 Tim. 2:4’  in Collations of the Teachings of St. Thomas & Scotus, with the Differences between the Two…  vol. 1  tr. AI by Vertias  (Padua: Frambotti, 1671), bk. 1, Collation 12, pp. 841-73  A more detailed ToC is given at the beginning of the volume.

Macedo (1596-1681), known as S. Augustino, was a Portuguese Franciscan theologian.  While exercising independent judgment, he tends to lean original-Scotus.  He had a very good knowledge of Aquinas’s works (and of Thomists and their works) through his life (vol. 2, p. 424).

Thomas, while allowing for other interpretations, preferred taking 1 Tim. 2:4, about God willing all men to be saved, to refer to an antecedent will of God, in contrast to a consequent will of God.  He also speaks of it as a conditional and imperfect will, and a velleity (disposition or willingness) in contrast to the absolute will of God. (Summa, pt. 1, q. 19, art. 6, ‘Whether the will of God is always fulfilled’ [Aquinas distinguishes])  Macedo adds:

“Hence it is commonly called a will of sign and opposed to the will of good pleasure, which is always fulfilled — as several weighty Thomists here expound: Cajetan, Bañez, Zumel, cited by González (disp. 56, sect.1)…”

It appears correct that Thomas did understand the antecedent will as a part of the will of sign (or revealed will), as Thomas says in the same place that such a will refers to things as good in themselves, and (Reply to Objection 1):

“This distinction [between antecedent and consequent] must not be taken as applying to the divine will itself, in which there is nothing antecedent nor consequent, but to the things willed.”

Macedo goes on regarding Scotus:

These difficulties [between other Thomists] are not found in Scotus, who places the antecedent will as inefficacious and insofar as it depends on God bestowing by it the common aids, which is likewise a will of sign (as Lychetus expounds there), and calls the consequent will one of good pleasure and the ultimate determination, which produces its effect and is therefore efficacious…

that passage of Scotus in the same place (1st dist., q. 46, sole question, respondeo enim secundo): ‘When the divine will determines itself to placing something in being in the ultimate determination, it will exist.'” p. 844

.

.

In Jansenism

Quote

1600’s

Louis-Gorin de Saint-Amour

The Journal of Monsieur de Saint Amour, Doctor of Sorbonne, containing a Full Account of all the Transactions both in France and at Rome concerning the Five Famous propositions controverted between the Jansenists and the Molinists, from the beginning of that affair till the Pope’s decision  (London: Ratcliff, 1664), Disquisition 6 of Paul Irenaeus, or the true method for inquiring, Whether the five propositions were condemned in Jansen, Article 8, Notes for the fuller understanding of Jansenian doctrine about Christ’s death, pp. 233-34  tr. ChatGPT 5.6

“Again, that these same men admit in God a certain antecedent will of the salvation of all, he himself also acknowledges. From which it follows that, with much greater right, it is admitted in Christ.

Moreover, this antecedent will does not pertain only to this: that God, abstracting from the fall of man, is said to desire the salvation of all, insofar as they are men; but, generally, the antecedent will of God is directed toward that which is right, that which is just, that which is good in itself. Thus, because it is right for man to be converted, to do penance, not to despise the goodness of God, not to reject his graces, to approach the Sacraments—God is considered to will all these things by an antecedent will, although, when the individual circumstances are considered, he has not decreed to confer upon each individual efficacious graces by which they certainly arrive at salvation, without which they certainly fall away from salvation.

Therefore God does not desire, by an antecedent will, the salvation of all men merely on this account, that he made all rational creatures for blessedness; but also because, since he diffuses very many graces, both external and internal, among the reprobate, which it is unjust for them to abuse, and since he wills that an entrance into his Church should likewise be open to them, he is considered, by an antecedent will, to will that all arrive at salvation, because he would will that they not remain obstinate in wickedness, and that they make good use of the helps offered to them; although, on the other hand, by a will of justice, when all the circumstances are considered, he judged it better to leave them to their wickedness, and not to grant efficacious aids, by which alone the depravity of the human heart is overcome.

Hence it is evident that God wills, by an antecedent will, the salvation both of the demons and of reprobate men; nevertheless, in a very different way in the case of men than in that of demons. For since he now offers no helps of grace to demons, nor wills that an entrance into the Church, or the aid of the sacraments, be open to them, consequently neither does he will them to make good use of his grace, which he now grants none to them. But, on the contrary, since men are still on the way, he must be thought, by an antecedent will, to desire for them conversion and a sincere return to himself and a good use of his graces, from which he by no means bars them—none of which he provides toward demons.

That antecedent will, moreover, often seems to have been in Christ, as when he wept over Jerusalem and lamented its coming calamities in these words: “Luke says, ‘He wept over it, saying, If you also had known, and indeed in this your day, the things which are for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes, because days will come upon you, and your enemies will surround you with a rampart,’ etc.”

Thus Christ laments the ruin of his own nation, and in it of all the reprobate, whose image it bore, and nevertheless he plainly consented to the absolute will of the divine decree of predestination, by which they had been separated from that lot of the saints. Nor, indeed, do some inconveniently understand Christ’s words in the garden, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” of that human velleity by which he deprecated the damnation of the reprobate set before his mind.

3. From these things it is evident in what sense a conditioned will of the salvation of the reprobate ought to be removed, and in what sense it can be admitted in God and Christ.

For that condition which is customarily brought forward by the Molinists, by which it is said that God desires the salvation of all if they themselves also will it, with some sufficient grace supplied to them which requires nothing in order to act, ought to be entirely cast out, as being wholly unworthy of the efficacy of divine aid, and completely alien from that state in which, as Augustine says, “if the will of man were left to him, so that grace does not work the very willing, amid so many weaknesses of this life the will itself would succumb.”

But a conditioned will of another kind—by which it would be said that God wills all men to be saved if they themselves also will it, not because some versatile grace is supplied to them, but because he would will them to recover from their depravity and hardness and to return to repentance, from which they are hindered not by some external inability, but by their own and culpable perversity—this, I say, account of conditioned will, since it is nothing other than an antecedent will, and, as I think, than the eternal law commanding all things just and forbidding all things unjust, does nothing contrary to divine predestination, nor can it be said to have been denied by Jansenius.

It is also evident from the things said above that Christ can in many ways be said to have died for the salvation of the reprobate, even according to Jansenius.

For it must be noted that “to die for someone” is understood in two ways. Either it signifies to will the salvation of someone, or it signifies to will the means to be conferred for obtaining salvation.

Again, God is said to will someone’s salvation either by an antecedent will or by a consequent, that is, absolute, will. The antecedent will, again, is understood either Molinistically, so that it is the same as that conditioned will which we reject; or Thomistically, so that it is nothing other than that will of God by which God wills whatever is just and equitable to be done, whatever is good in itself and absolutely. We have said that this agrees with that other kind of conditioned will.

These things being established, it is clear that Christ can in many ways be said to have died for the salvation of all men altogether, and especially of the faithful reprobate.

First, he offered a sufficient price for all.

Secondly, in the New Law, God sets forth the sacraments of divine grace, fountains, and, as Prosper says, a certain cup of immortality, for all; and in the Old [Law] he nowhere withheld his aid from those imploring the aid flowing from the future merits of Christ.

Thirdly, by that antecedent will he would will all to aspire to his Church, to depart from sins, and to flee to his mercy.

Fourthly, he has nowhere failed to grant to men certain helps of salvation, sometimes external, sometimes internal, by which, if men make bad use of them, they make bad use of them through their own depravity, and against that antecedent will of God. For because it is unjust for men thus to abuse the benefits of God, therefore God is said not to will this, because he does not will evil. On the other hand, because it is equitable for men to make good use of them, therefore God is said to will this.

Fifthly, and still more properly, [Christ died] for the faithful reprobate, because he gave them a right to eternal salvation through baptism, from which they fall away only through their own fault and guilt.

This one thing, therefore, he granted to none of the reprobate who die in unbelief: that he should turn their wills toward himself by that efficacious grace, without which, on account of the obstinate will of men in evil, nothing is ever done well by them.

This one thing likewise he grants to none of the faithful reprobate: that the efficacious gift of perseverance should be bestowed upon them. And yet he would not deny this very thing to those asking for it; but that they should ask, and should ask in such a way that such a great thing ought to be asked, by a certain hidden judgment he did not will to work in all, although the fact that they do not ask does not arise from a defect of grace, but from their depravity.”

.

.

Historical

On the Post-Reformation

Articles

Heppe, Heinrich – ch. 5, “The Attributes of God”, sect. 28  in Reformed Dogmatics  ed. Ernst Bizer, tr. G.T. Thomson  (1861; repr. Wipf & Stock, 2007), pp. 90-92

Heppe (1820–1879) references or quotes on the topic: Hyperius, Polanus, Voet, Heidegger, Mastricht, Riissen, Maresius and Wendelin.

Muller, Richard – Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: the Rise & Development of Reformed Theology, ca. 1520 – ca. 1725  2nd ed.  (Baker Books, 2003), vol. 3, ch. 5.4

E. The Ad Intra–Ad Extra Distinctions

5. Voluntas absoluta and voluntas conditionata  463
6. Voluntas antecedens and voluntas consequens  465

F. The Ad Extra Distinctions

3. Voluntas efficax and voluntas inefficax  470

.

Quote

Richard Muller

Dictionary of Latin & Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology  1st ed.  (Baker, 1985), voluntas Dei, pp. 332-33

“A second set of distinctions can be made between the voluntas Dei absoluta et antecedens, the absolute and antecedent will, of God and the voluntas Dei ordinata et consequens.  The Lutheran orthodox argue this distinction as a description of the effective will of God ad extra and juxtapose it with the previous distinction between the revelative will of God and the hidden will.

The voluntas absoluta et antecedens, sometimes called voluntas prima, first or primary will, is the eternal divine will in and of itself, according to which the ultimate end or final good is willed by God apart from consideration of conditions, circumstances, and means to be encountered or used proximately in the achievement of the divine purpose.

The voluntas ordinata et consequens, sometimes called voluntas secunda, second or secondary will, is the will of God according to which he orders proximate causes and effects both in terms of the universal order and its laws and in terms of the circumstances that arise out of the contingent events and the creaturely free wills resident in the order.

The voluntas ordinata, therefore, corresponds with the potentia ordinata (q.v.), or ordained power of God, whereas the voluntas consequens is a distinct willing that rests on the divine foreknowledge.

In the systems of Lutheran orthodoxy, the voluntas consequens is the will of God that elects intuitu fidei (q.v.), in view of faith.  The Reformed deny the distinction between voluntas antecedens and voluntas consequens on the ground that it amounts to a denial of the freedom and independence of the divine will and implies contingency in God himself.  They accept, however, the distinction between voluntas absoluta and voluntas ordinata in conjunction with that between potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata, and subsume both voluntas absoluta and voluntas ordinata under the voluntas decreti vel beneplaciti considered as the ultimate voluntas Dei decernens, the deciding will of God.
…

Finally, the Protestant scholastics argue a series of distinctions in the voluntas signi vel praecepti.  The voluntas signi vel praecepti is, first, synonymous with voluntas revelata and voluntas moralis.  As such, several of the Lutheran orthodox argue that the voluntas signi is not truly the will of God but an effect of his will or a subsidiary willing resting on the voluntas antecedens and, formally, on the voluntas consequens.  In other words, it is an effect or object of the divine will that provides a sign of what is willed in and by God.

The voluntas revelata can be distinguished into a voluntas legalis, according to which God demands obedience to his will, and a voluntas evangelica, according to which God wills to save through grace in Christ.  The Reformed occasionally allow here a distinction between voluntas antecedens and voluntas consequens.  The former refers to the commands of God, the voluntas legalis, which ordains the conditions of human life absolutely; the latter refers to the voluntas evangelica, which establishes the conditions under which fallen mankind can be saved.”

.

.

Latin

1600’s

Suarez, Francis – bk. 3, ch. 8, ‘Of the will of sign and good-pleasure, and antecedent and consequent’  in Commentaries & Disputations on the First Part of Thomas the Divine, on God One & Three  (Moguntia: Balthasar, Lippi, 1607), pp. 148-49

Suarez (1548-1617) was a Spanish Jesuit priest, philosopher and theologian, one of the leading figures of the School of Salamanca movement.

Rutherford, Samuel – 14. ‘Whether in God there is an antecedent and consequent will, according to the Arminian sense?  We deny against the Arminians’  in An Examination of Arminianism  (1639-1643; Utrecht, 1668), ch. 2, ‘On God’, Heading 5:  On God’s Will & its Execution, pp. 70-74

Maccovius, Johannes – in A Theological Collection of all that which is Extant, including Theological Theses through Common Places in the Academy of Franeker  (Franeker, 1641), First Part:  a Collection, 1. Of Predestination

4. Whether there may be granted in God to be an antecedent & consequent will?  11
…
8. No Ineffectual Will of God  22

Maccovius (1588-1644)

Hottinger, Johann Jacob – Theological Exercise on an Antecedent & Consequent Will of God (in 2 parts)  in On Predestination & the Saving Grace of God…  to which is added Two Historical-Dogmatic Exercises are appended on 1. the Antecedent & Consequent Will of God, & 2. the Sufficient & Efficacious Grace of God  (Zurich, 1727), pt. 2, pp. 423-66

Hottinger (1652-1735) was a reformed, Swiss theologian, a professor of theology at Zurich, and the son of J. H. Hottinger (1620-1667).

.

1700’s

Holtzfus, Barthold – Theses 8-9, ‘On Antecedent & Consequent’  in ch. 8, ‘Of the Will of God & of the Distinctions of the Divine Will’  in A Theological Tract on God, Attributes and the Divine Decrees, Three Academic Dissertations  (1707), pp. 109-122

.

.

.

Related Pages

On the Will of God

On Predestination & the Decrees of God

Revealed Will vs. Will of Decree

On God’s Signified Will, or Will of Sign

Gospel Call as God’s Desire, Wish & Pleasure

Revealed Will Being God’s Will, Desire, Pleasure & Wish

Affections of God

Reformed vs. Aquinas on Revelation

On Calling

Is an Aspect of God’s Will Ineffectual?

Compatibility of Irresistible & Resistible Grace

On Revealed or Supernatural Theology