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Subsections

Foundation in God
Improperly God’s Will
Divine Disposition, Inclination & Willingness
Has Purpose
Semiotics
God’s Antecedent Willing
Conditional Will
Ineffectual Will
Accommodation
Mixed: Will of Sign & Decree

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Order of Contents

Articles  8+
Quotes  8+
Is God’s Will  3
Persons’ Salvation ought to Occur, though it Never does  2
History  3
Latin  10+

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Articles

1100’s

Lombard, Peter – The Sentences  tr. Giulio Silano  (c. 1150; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2007), vol. 1

bk. 1, Trinity

1. Enjoyment & Use

1. Every doctrine concerns things and/or signs
2. On the things which one is to enjoy and/or to use, and on those who use and enjoy
3. What is it ‘to use’ and ‘to enjoy’?

…
45. God’s Will

1. On God’s will, which is God’s essence, and on its signs
2. That though for God it is the same to will as to be, yet God cannot be said to be all which He wills
3. On the understanding of these expressions: God knows, and/or God Wills”, “God knows all and/or wills something”
4. That God’s most highly good will is the cause of all which naturally are, the cause of which is not to be sought, because it is the first and most high cause of all
5. In what manners is (the term) God’s “will” accepted
6. That God’s preception, prohibition, permission, counsel, and operation are sometimes understood by the name of “will”
7. Whether God wills from all persons that to be done those things which He commands, and/or not to be done those things which He prohibits

46. Evil & the Efficacy of the Divine Will

1. That God’s will, which He Himself is, can be cancelled in nothing
2. In what manner is this to be understood: “I willed to gather thy children together, and thou wouldst not”, and this:  “He who wills all men to come to be saved”
3. Whether evils come to be done by God willing and/or nilling
4. In what manner is this saying of St. Augustine to be understood: “It is good that evils come to be”
5. On the multiple acceptation of the term “good”
6. That evils have value for the university of things
7. That the cause that man is worse, is not in God

47. Efficacy of the Divine Will

1. That the will of God regarding a man is fulfilled whithersoever he turns himself
2. In what sense certain things are said to be done “against” God’s will
3. For what reason did God command to all to do good and avoid evil, but does not will that this be fulfilled by all

48. Conformity of our Will to the Divine Will

1. That man sometimes with goodwill wills something other than God wills, and with bad-will sometimes wills the same which God wills
2. That God’s will is fulfilled through the evil wills of men
3. Whether it pleased holy men that Christ would suffer and die
4. Whether we ought to will the sufferings of the saints

…
bk. 4, Sacraments

1. Sacraments in General

1. On the Sacraments.
2. What is a Sacrament.
3. What is a sign.
4. How sign and Sacrament differ.

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1200’s

Aquinas, Thomas

art. 4, ‘Whether God’s will is distinguished into the will that is his good pleasure and the will that is a sign?’  in Commentary on the Sentences, pt. 1, dist. 45, question 1,  What the Will of God is

Summa, pt. 1, quest. 19, The Will of God

art. 11, ‘Whether the will of sign is to be distinguished in God’

art. 12, ‘Whether five expressions of will are rightly assigned to the divine will?’

Disputed Questions, On Truth, question 23

art. 3, ‘Whether God’s will is fittingly divided by the will of good-pleasure and the will of sign?’

art. 7, ‘Whether we are bound to conform our will to the divine will?’

art. 8, ‘Whether we are bound to conform our will to the divine will in the thing willed, namely, bound to will what we know God wills’

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1300’s

Scotus, John Duns

Ordinatio, tr. Peter Simpson  (2013 / 2023), bk. 1, dist. 26-48

46. Whether God’s will of good-pleasure is always fulfilled?  197

47. Whether divine permission is some act of the divine will?  198

48. Whether a created will is morally good whenever it conforms to the uncreated will?  200

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1500’s

de Valdes, Juan – ‘Juan de Valdés (1509-1541) on Matthew 23:37’  from Commentary Upon the Gospel of Matthew (London: Trüber & Co, 1882) 413-15  at Calvin & Calvinism

Vermigli, Peter Martyr – The Common Places…  (London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583), pt. 1, 17. ‘Whether God be the Author of Sin’

‘Of the Will-Signified, and the Will Effectual’  201
‘Another Discourse’  205

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1600’s

Maccovius, Johannes

A Theological Collection of all that which is Extant, including Theological Theses through Common Places in the Academy of Franeker  (Franeker, 1641), First Part, Collection 1, ‘of Predestination’

Disputation 2, ‘Of the Will of Sign’, pp. 4-8

Rutherford, Samuel

‘God’s Serious & Unfeigned Ardency of Desire that we do what is our Duty’  from Christ Dying & Drawing Sinners to Himself…  (London 1647), pp. 443-45 (irregular pagination: colophon lll2-lll3) & pp. 440-42 (colophon: Kkk4-Lll1)

“It’s much worthy of observation, how that sweet evangelic invitation is conceived, Isa. 55:1…  For the interjection, ‘Ho’, is a mark of sorrowing, as ‘ah’, or ‘woe, everyone that thirsts’.  It expresses two things: 1. A vehemency and a serious and unfeigned ardency of desire that we do what is our duty, and the concatenation of these two, extremely desired of God, our coming to Christ and our salvation.  This moral connection between faith and salvation is desired of God with his will of approbation, complacency, and moral liking, without all dissimulation, most unfeignedly [margin: What the revealed will of God is];
…

…we say with good reason of God’s good will, called voluntas signi, it might have its complete and entire end and effect though not any one of men or angel obey…

We are hence taught to acknowledge no love to be in God which is not effectual in doing good to the creature; there is no lip-love, no raw well-wishing to the creature which God does not make good…  yet does not the Lord’s general love fall short of what He wills to them.”

2. ‘What is the nature of the permissive will of God, and of the will of good pleasure and sign.  The Remonstrants, Arminians are called to the discussion’  in A Scholastic Disputation on Divine Providence, chs. 1-10  tr. by AI by Onku  (Edinburgh, 1649), pp. 11-20  Latin

Polhill, Edward – “The Divine Will Considered in its Eternal Decrees”  in The Works of Edward Polhill (Morgan, PA.: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1998), pp. 131-32, 164 & 208-10

‘Edward Polhill (1622-1694) on Matthew 23:37’

“Query 3. Whether the will of God touching conversion be always accomplished therein?…  God may be said to will the conversion of men two ways; either by such a will as is effective, and determinative of the event, or by such as is only virtual, and ordinative of the means tending thereunto: both parts of this distinction are bottomed upon scripture…

…[W]herefore, in respect of that ordination, God may be truly said, by a kind of virtual and ordinative will, to will the turning and salvation of all men…

1. God by a virtual or ordinative will does will the turning and salvation of all men within the bosom of the church; for they have Jesus Christ set before their eyes, and what was the true end of Christ’s coming, but to turn every one from his iniquities, (Acts 3:26).  They have the gospel preached unto them: there we have God spreading out his hands all the day, standing and knocking at the door of the heart, crying out with redoubled calls, “Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?”  Wooing and beseeching men, be ye reconciled unto me; making his salvation bringing grace appear unto all men, even to the non-elect themselves…  what is the meaning of all this, if God no way will their conversion?…

Neither will it salve the business, to say, there is a voluntas signi in all this; for what is voluntas signi, if it be not signum voluntatis?  If it be only an outward sign or appearance, and there be no counterpane or prototype thereof, within the divine will, how is it a true sign? which way could it be breathed out from God’s heart?…

the true end of his call is their conversion, and that that end is not attained, the only reason lies within themselves, in their own corrupt, unbelieving hearts. Moreover, it is worthy of our consideration, that those scriptures (which the Remonstrants urge, to prove that all the operations of grace, even those in the very elect who actually turn unto God, are resistible) do signally set forth this ordinative will of God…

wherefore, this will is God’s ordinative will, imported in the ministry of Christ and the prophets, the proper end and tendency whereof was to gather them into the bosom of his grace…

Every ordinance is an ordinance from the will of God; it is an appointment dropped down from heaven; it is divinely destinated eis oikodomen, for edification and not for destruction; it is the place where God records his name…  John’s baptism was not a mere external sign or shadow, but imported God’s ordinative counsel to bring men to repentance; it was eis matanoian, to repentance, as its proper end, (Matt. iii. 11).  Gospel-preaching is not a mere sound or voice of words, but it importeth God’s ordinative counsel to turn men unto himself…  Every ordinance speaks an ordinative counsel for some spiritual end, a serious ordination for the good of souls…

but it proves that the proper end and tendency of the means afforded to the Jewish church, was that they might bring forth good fruits to God; and in respect of that ordination, God is said to expect those good fruits from them.”

‘Edward Polhill on ‘Conditional Decree’ as Will Revealed’

Turretin, Francis – Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. Dennison  Buy  (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1, 3rd Topic, ‘The Will of God’, 15th Question, ‘May the will be properly distinguished into the will of decree and of precept, good purpose (eudokias) and good pleasure (euarestias), signified, secret and revealed?  We affirm.’, pp. 220-26

“I.  Although the will in God is only one and most simple, by which He comprehends all things by a single and most simple act that He sees and understands all things at one glance, yet because it is occupied differently about various objects, it thus happens that in our manner of conception, it may be apprehended as manifold (not in itself and intrinsically on the part of the act of willing, but extrinsically and objectively on the part of the things willed).
…

XVIII.  There cannot be contrariety between these two wills because they do not will and nill the same thing in the same manner and respect…
…

XIX.  Although God may be said to will the salvation of all by the will of sign and to nill it by the beneplacit will, yet there is no contradiction here….”

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1900’s

Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald – The One God: a Commentary on the First Part of St. Thomas’s Theological Summa  (Herder Book, 1943), ch. 19, The Will of God

11. Whether the will of expression is to be distinguished in God  588
12. Whether five expressions of will are rightly assigned to the divine will  589-91

Garrigou-Langrange was an influential Thomist professor.

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Quotes

Order of

Aquinas
Zanchi
Perkins
Polanus
Wolleb
Ames
Rutherford
Baxter
Turretin
Howe

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1200’s

Thomas Aquinas

Summa, pt. 1, q. 19, art. 11

“The will of God is one, since it is the very essence of God.  Yet sometimes it is spoken of as many, as in the words of Ps. 110:2: ‘Great are the works of the Lord, sought out according to all His wills.’  Therefore sometimes the sign must be taken for the will…

Some things are said of God in their strict sense; others by metaphor, as appears from what has been said before (q. 13, art. 3).  When certain human passions are predicated of the Godhead metaphorically, this is done because of a likeness in the effect.  Hence a thing that is in us a sign of some passion, is signified metaphorically in God under the name of that passion…  In the same way, what is usually with us an expression of will, is sometimes metaphorically called will in God; just as when anyone lays down a precept, it is a sign that he wishes that precept obeyed.  Hence a divine precept is sometimes called by metaphor the will of God, as in the words: ‘Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven’ (Matt 6:10)…  Therefore in God there are distinguished will in its proper sense, and will as attributed to Him by metaphor.  Will in its proper sense is called the will of good pleasure; and will metaphorically taken is the will of expression [signi], inasmuch as the sign itself of will is called will…

Expressions [signa] of will are called divine wills, not as being signs that God wills anything; but because what in us is the usual expression [signa] of our will, is called the divine will in God.  Thus punishment is not a sign that there is anger in God; but it is called anger in Him, from the fact that it is an expression [signum] of anger in ourselves.”

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1500’s

Jerome Zanchi

Live Everlasting: or the True Knowledge of One Iehova, Three Elohim and Jesus Immanuel: Collected Out of the Best Modern Divines, and compiled into one volume by Robert Hill  ([Cambridge:] Legat, 1601), pp. 250-53  This work is largely a translation and abridgement of Zanchi’s De natura Dei.  HT: David Ponter

“The third question.  Whether the will of God be simply one, or divers; and if divers, which they be.
…

Secondly it is diverse in respect of diverse sorts of manners by which he seems to will those things which he will.  For he wills good after one sort even for himself, evil after another, and for another respect then for itself, to wit, for the good may come of it: that is called his good will; for this his permissive will, or voluntary permission.  Again he wills some things simply, as to create the world, save the elect, send his Son, &c., others he wills conditionally, as if all men will be saved they must keep the commandments; or believe in Christ: and so some do interpret that place, “God would have all men to be saved.”  His absolute will, say some, is ever done, his conditional will is not, but when the condition is performed: and therefore both these wills have divers names amongst divines.

The first is called voluntas beneplaciti, the will of his good pleasure, because it simply so pleases God that this or that shall be done, which is properly his will: the other is called voluntas signi, the will of sign: because that precepts and promises with condition observing them, are signs that God will do so, though always and in all things he simply will not that which he commands, or promises: as we may see both in Abraham and Pharaoh. He commanded Abraham to kill his son, and it was a sign he would have had him done so, because he commanded: yet God would not that he should do it, for he forbad him, and he did it not: and this was the will of his good pleasure. He commanded Pharaoh to let Israel go: but he would not have him do so, for he hardened his heart lest he should let them depart: yet his commandment was a sign of his will, but such as one as Ludovieus Vives says, is improperly called his will.”

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1600’s

William Perkins

A Treatise of God’s Free Grace & Man’s Free Will  (Cambridge, 1601), p. 44

“If we compare this text [Matt 23:37, Christ lamenting over Jerusalem] with Isa. 6:10 they seem to be contrary.  For here Christ says, ‘I would have gathered you’: there He says, ‘Harden them that they be not gathered and converted.’  God therefore seems to will and not to will one and the same thing.

Answer: There is but one will in God: yet does it not equally will all things, but in diverse respects it does will and nil the same thing.  He wills the conversion of Jerusalem, in that He approves it as a good thing in itself: in that He commands it, and exhorts men to it: in that He gives them all outward means of their conversion.  He wills it not, in that He did not decree effectually to work their conversion.  For God does approve, and He may require many things, which nevertheless for just causes known to Himself, He will not do.  The confirmation of the angels that fell, God approved as a thing good in itself, yet did not He will to confirm them.  A judge in compassion approves and will[s] the life of a malefactor: and yet withal he wills the execution of justice in his death.  Even so God sometimes wills that in his signifying will, which He wills not in the will of his good pleasure.”

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Amandus Polanus

The Substance of the Christian Religion  (London, 1600), pp. 11-16

“And this much touching the wisdom of God. Now follows concerning his will.

…
2. Again the will of God is either absolute or conditional.

…
The conditional will of God is that by which God wills certain things, with a condition adjoined thereunto.

And this is called the will of sign, because God does declare and manifest the same, both in precepts and prohibition, and also in promises, and threatenings, as it were by signs.

It is also called the antecedent [that which comes before] will, because it goes before the reward or the punishment, that is propounded in the promises, or in the threatenings.

By this, God will have all men to be saved and to come to the acknowledgment of truth [1 Tim. 2:4]: to with, if they believe the promises and preaching of the Gospel, and also obey the same.  And therefore He calls and invites all men of all sorts and degrees (and therefore magistrates also) to the fellowship of salvation, and to the confession of the truth: yet he commands all to work their own salvation, and to come to the acknowledging of his truth, though all do it not. 1 Tim. 2:4.

By this will Christ would have gathered together the Israelites, as a hen does her chickens, Lk. 13:34 to wit, unless they that were called had refused to come.

This will is manifested, not by our conjectures, but only out of his word.

And it is the square of all our works, and the perfect rule of all righteousness and holiness.

Neither is this will of God dissembled or counterfeit, as though God commanded many things, which he would not: for example, when Gen. 22, He commanded Abraham to offer his son, and yet afterwards forbade it.  Whatsoever God commands that He wills.  So He commanded that Abraham should offer up his son, to wit, in will, in mind, and in appointing him for a burnt offering, for so God tried his faith and readiness to obey his commandments, and not that Abraham should indeed kill and slay his son Isaac, though Abraham did so understand the word of offering: and this the Lord Himself does sufficiently declare when in verse 12. He says, ‘Now I know and have tried that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not spared or withheld thy son even thy only son from me.'”

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John Wollebius

Compendium of Christian Doctrine, pt. 1  in ed. John Beardslee, Reformed Dogmatics: J. Wollebius, G. Voetius & F. Turretin  (Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), ch. 3, (3), proposition 2, p. 48

“Just as the edicts of a magistrate are called his will, so the designation of will may be given to precepts, prohibitions, promises, and even deeds and events. Thus the divine will is also called that which God wants done [voluntas signi], because it signifies what is acceptable to God; what he wants done by us.  It is called “consequent” because it follows that eternal antecedent; “conditional” because the commandments, prohibitions, warnings, and promises of God all have a condition of obedience or disobedience attached to them. Finally, it is called “revealed,” because it is always explained in the word of God. It must be observed that this sort of distinction does not postulate either really diverse, or contradictory, wills in God.”

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William Ames

The Marrow of Theology  (1997), bk. 1, ch. 7, p. 100

“53. Those means through which that will is revealed are the ‘intention of the sign’ [voluntas signi]–rightly so called not only by metaphor because they show men what they mean, but also by metonymy because they are the effects or adjuncts or partial declarations of God’s own will.

54. There are five signs included in that old verse: He instructs, forbids, permits, counsels, and fuliflls.  Because counseling coincides with instruction, it would have been better to have substituted: He promises.”

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Samuel Rutherford

Apologetic Exercitations for Divine Grace, Exercitation 2, ch. 1, pp. 201-2

“Hence is that, Aquinas, Valentia, Durandus and Suarez† want the will of God divided thus: it is the will improperly and the division is by a homonym in homonyms, so that the will of sign is the will improperly.  Thus Durand, on folio 13, ‘A command,’ he says, ‘is not directly and always a sign that the one commanding wants the thing commanded to be, but only that He wants to oblige the subject.’

† Aquinas, in pt. 2, q. 9, art. 11; Valentia, tome 1, disp. 1, q. 19, punc. 2; Durandus, bk. 1, dist. 48, q. 3; Suarez, tome 1, Of the Attributes of God, bk. 3, ch. 8.”

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A Scholastic Disputation on Divine Providence  (Edinburgh, 1649), Metaphysical Inquiries, p. 605  Trans. T. Fentiman.  A ‘metonymy’ is something that is indirectly named by something closely related to it.  Rutherford here delineates the eternal foundation of the will of sign, namely what Rollock had elucidated, the will of approval in God, which wills the goodness of things in and of themselves.

“[Margin note:] How far the will of sign may be a will

Question 33, Whether the will of sign may improperly and metonymically be the will of God?

Response:  The will of sign, according as it designates what is the pleasing and acceptable revealed will of God to us, that which is of our duty, so it is called the approving will, contradistinguished from the will of good-pleasure [of decree], and refers to two things:

1. To that which we ought to believe or do, inasmuch as that is obliging of consciences, since we ought to will to please God and will the reward of obedience following.

2. It refers to obedience, and this so far as God displays that to us by an act, either through special grace or a common concursus.

The first will is of complacency and is properly called will, whose object is the duty of the rational creature.  In this way God sincerely [serio] approves and wills obedience, and is pleased in this moral good as a rule and norm, and it is not less a will than that which is called of good-pleasure [or the will of decree].

But the latter way is not an executing will as the will of good-pleasure is, nor does God will, intend or decree through grace or concursus, to work in the creatures that which He commands or prohibits, because He commands or prohibits it.

And in this way the will of sign is so far improperly called ‘the will of sign’; indeed, the punishment is called the wrath of God, because assuredly God punishes that which is done, as men are accustomed to do such being angry and in the passion of wrath, being aroused and agitated, although nonetheless, passions do not occur in God.”

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Christ Dying & Drawing Sinners to Himself  (London: 1647), pp. 138-41

Here is the fifth article in this prayer: a sort of correction, in which Christ does resign his will, as man, to the will of God; as Mt. 26:39; Lk. 22:42.  ‘Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.’
…

Assertion 3.  I shall not with some affirm that which in the general is true, a will contrary to God’s revealed command and will, called voluntas signi, which is our moral rule to oblige us, is a sin [see Assertion 4 below]; but a will contrary to God’s decree, called voluntas beneplaciti, which is not our rule obliging, except the Lord be pleased to impose it on us as a moral Law, is not a sin.
…

Assertion 4.  A conditional and a submissive desire, though not agreeable to a positive law and commandment of God, is no sin, nor does the Law require a conformity in all our inclinations and the first motions of our desires to every command of God, though most contrary to nature and our natural and sinless inclinations.

1. If God command Abraham to kill his only begotten son and offer him in a sacrifice to God, which was a mere positive commandment, for it’s not a command of the law of nature (nor any other than positive) for the father to kill the son, if yet Abraham retain a natural inclination and love commanded also in the law of nature to save his son’s life and to desire that he may live, this desire and inclination, though contradictory to a positive command of God, is no sin; because the Fifth Command, grounded on the law of nature, does command it.  Nor did God’s precept (‘Abraham, kill now thy son, even Isaac thine only begotten son’) ever include this, ‘Abraham, root out of thine heart all desire and inclination natural in a father to preserve the life of the child.’  So the positive command of the Father that the Son of God should lay down his life for his sheep, did never root out of the sinless nature of the man-Christ a natural desire to preserve his own being and life, especially He desiring it with special reservation of the will of God commanding that He should die.

2. A martyr dying for the truth of Christ may have a natural and conditional desire and inclination to live, though his living be contrary to the Lord’s revealed will commanding him to seal the Gospel with his blood and to confess Christ before men.

3. If the brother, son, daughter, wife or friend that is as a man’s own soul, Dt. 13:6, blaspheme God, yea if father or mother do it, Dt. 33:8-9, yet is a father obliged to stone the son or daughter, the son being a magistrate or a Levite and priest, to judge according to law (the priests’ lips should preserve knowledge, Mal. 2:8) that his father or mother ought to be stoned to death; yet ought not father or son to lay aside that natural desire of being and life to son, father, brother which the law of nature in the Fifth Command does require, especially the desire being conditional, with submission to God’s will, as the desire of Christ is here; and the command to stone the blasphemer, that the father stone the son, the son the father, being positive, and though founded on the law of nature, that a man prefer his Lord Creator and God before son or father and mother, yet are they not precepts of the law of nature such as is the precept of nature that a man desire his own life and being, the father the life and being of the son.”

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Richard Baxter

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.”

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Francis Turretin

Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. Dennison  Buy  (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1, 3rd Topic, ‘The Will of God’, 15th Question, ‘May the will be properly distinguished into the will of decree and of precept, good purpose (eudokias) and good pleasure (euarestias), signified, secret and revealed?  We affirm.’, p. 224

“XIX.  Although God may be said to will the salvation of all by the will of sign [the revealed will] and to nill it by the beneplacit will [of decree], yet there is no contradiction here.  Besides the fact that the universal proposition is to be understood not so much of the singulars of the genera as of the genera of the singulars, the former will relates to the mere approbation of God and the command of duty, while the latter is concerned with its futurition and fulfillment.  The former denotes what is pleasing to God and what He has determined to enjoin upon man for the obtainment of salvation, but the latter what God Himself has decreed to do.  But these two are not at variance: to will (i.e., to command man to believe) and to nill (i.e., to decree not to give him faith in order that he may believe)…

XX.  The will of sign which is set forth as extrinsic ought to correspond with some internal will in God that it may not be false and deceptive; but that internal will is not the decree concerning the gift of salvation to this or that one, but the decree concerning the command of faith and promise of salvation if the man does believe (which is founded both upon the connection established by God between faith and salvation and the internal disposition of God by which, as He loves Himself, He cannot but love his image wherever He sees it shining and is so much pleased with the faith and repentance of the creature as to grant it salvation).”

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1700’s

John Howe

The Redeemer’s Tears Wept Over Lost Souls, in Works  (d. 1705), vol. 2, pp. 358-361  on Lk. 19:41-42

“But when expressions that import anger, or grief, are used [Gen. 6:6; Jud. 10:16; Ps. 78:40; 95:10; etc.], even concerning God Himself, we must sever in our conception everything of imperfection, and ascribe everything of real perfection. We are not to think such expressions signify nothing, that they have no meaning, or that nothing at all is to be attributed to Him under them.

Nor are we, again, to think they signify the same thing with what we find in ourselves, and are wont to express by those names. In the divine nature, there may be real, and yet most serene complacency and displacency, viz. that are unaccompanied with the least commotion, and import nothing of imperfection, but perfection rather, as it is a perfection to apprehend things suitably to what in themselves they are. The holy Scriptures frequently speak of God as angry, and grieved for the sins of men, and their miseries which ensue therefrom: and a real aversion and dislike is signified thereby, and by many other expressions which, in us, would signify vehement agitations of affection that we are sure can have no place in Him. We ought, therefore, in our own thoughts to ascribe to Him that calm aversion of will, in reference to the sins and miseries of men in general…

….

so these expressions, though they signify not in God such unquiet motions and passions as they would in us, they do signify a mind and will, really, though with the most perfect calmness and tranquility, set against sin and the horrid consequences of it, which yet, for greater reasons than we can understand, He may not see fit to do all He can to prevent.  And if we know not how to reconcile such a will in God, with some of our notions concerning the divine nature; shall we, for what we have thought of Him, deny what He has so expressly said of Himself, or pretend to understand his nature better than He Himself does?”

.

The Reconcileableness of God’s Prescience of the Sins of Men with the Wisdom and Sincerity of His Counsels, Exhortations, and Whatsoever Means He Uses to Prevent Them, Section 19, page 51-2

“It seems, I confess, by its more obvious aspect [in the term ‘will of sign’, which is often misunderstood], too much to countenance the ignominious slander which profane and atheistical dispositions would fasten on God, and the course of his procedure towards men; and which it is the design of these papers to evince of as much absurdity and folly, as it is guilty of impiety and wickedness: as though He only intended to seem willing of what He really was not; that there was an appearance to which nothing did subesse [exist under].

And then why is the latter called voluntas [will]? unless the meaning be, He did only will the sign; which is false and impious;”

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The Redeemer’s Tears Wept Over Lost Souls, Appendix, “How God is said to Will the Salvation of them that Perish”, pp. 386-8

“Shall it be said that sin does not displease God; that He has no will against sin; it is not repugnant to his will?  Yes; it is to his revealed will, to his law.  But is that an untrue revelation?  His law is not his will itself, but the signum [sign], the discovery of his will.  Now, is it an insignificant sign?  A sign that signifies nothing? Or to which there belongs no correspondent significatum [signification]? –nothing that is signified by it?  Is that which is signified (for sure no one will say it signifies nothing) his real will, yea or no?  Who can deny it?  That will, then (and a most calm, sedate, impassionate will it must be understood to be), sin and consequently the consequent miseries of his creatures, are repugnant unto.
…

Therefore, it seems out of question, that the holy God does constantly and perpetually, in a true sense, will universal obedience, and the consequent felicity of all his creatures capable thereof; i.e. He does will it with simple complacency, as what were highly grateful to Him, simply considered by itself.  Who can doubt, but that purity, holiness, blessedness, wheresoever they were to be beheld among his creatures, would be a pleasing and delightful spectacle to Him, being most agreeable to the perfect excellency, purity, and benignity of his own nature, and that their deformity and misery must be consequently unpleasing?”

.

.

The Will of Sign is an Expression of God’s Will for the Creature

See also ‘Bible Verses that God’s Revealed Will is his Will’, ‘John Howe on God’s Revealed Will is Actually His Will’ and ‘The Revealed Will is Improperly God’s Will in Some Respect(s)’.

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Quotes

Order of

Gryffith
Davenant
Rutherford
Baxter

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1600’s

William Griffith

The Delights of the Saints…  (London: Butter, 1622), pt. 1, pp. 15-16  Gryffith (c.1589–1672) was an Anglican bishop, opposed to the puritans.

“And so in all the commandments of God, we must understand the will of God to be either (Zanchi, Of the Nature of God, ch. 3):

1. Declarans [declaring]
2. Efficiens [effecting]

The first is that which shows what should be done, and so the Law is called doctrina, a rule which shows us what pleases or displeases God.

The second is that which causes us to do what is pleasing to Him, and so the Law is called mandatum [a commandment], when He makes the elect to walk in his paths (Eze. 11:20), or works faith in their hearts to believe in Christ.  The 1. may be broken by the wicked. The 2. cannot: ‘For my counsel shall stand, and my will shall be done, says the Lord.’ (Isa. 46)

But then it may be objected that the wicked sin not, because they do not break or do any thing against the absolute and proper will of God.

I answer: That sin is not defined to be the transgressing of the secret will of God which cannot be broken, but of his declared and revealed will (Zanchi, bk. 3, ch. 4, Of the Nature of God), which only shows what is pleasing or displeasing to Him.

Hereby then you see the will of God is only one, immutable and unchangeable, and that although He gives his Law unto all, yea, both legem operandi and lege credendi [the law to be worked and the law to be believed], to show what should be done and what should be believed; yet it is not his absolute will that all men should either do or believe the same, that they might be saved.  For if it were, who could resist it? (Rom. 9:19)”

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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].”

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‘To his imaginary conference’, pp. 476-77

“Temptation: God has a double calling of men: an outward calling, by preaching the Word in men’s ears; an inward, by the irresistible work of the Spirit in their hearts.  The outward calling is a part of God’s outward will: the inward and effectual calling is a part of his secret will.  He calls me only with the outward call: and therefore I cannot be assured of God’s goodwill and meaning that I should believe, repent and be saved.

Minister: You misconceive Gods calling.  His outward calling by preaching the word in men’s ears is a means to convey the sense of the word preached inwardly to their understandings, and mediante intellectu [the intellect mediating], inwardly to stir up their wills to the doing of such things as they now see would make for their eternal good.

And I appeal unto your own knowledge and experience: Did the Word preached never pierce further than your ears?  Has it not enlightened your understanding with the wholesome doctrine of the gospel?  Has not God’s Spirit at some time or other by the Word inwardly moved you to break off your sinful and lustful courses and to lead a sober, just and religious life?  Why do you, contrary to your own conscience, falsely accuse God of affording you a bare outward calling, but no inward?  Why do you traduce Him as not willing that you should believe, repent and so be saved?

Take it for a certain rule: God always wills men should do those things which by his Word-written He enjoins them to do, and by his Spirit enlightening and inciting He so helps them to do that it is only the voluntary perverseness and stubbornness of their own wills resisting the Word and the Spirit which hinders them from doing those things which they should.

It is true that God can make any hard and resisting heart a soft and obedient heart; and He does it where He has an eternal purpose out of special mercy so to do: And it is as true that God may justly leave a stubborn heart to his own resistency and perverseness; and this He does where He has purposed in justice so to do.  Deus miseretur cujus vult, et quem vult indurat [God shows mercy to whom He wills, and He hardens whom He wills, Rom. 9:18].

If you long to be assured of this secret meaning or purpose of God towards you in particular before you resolve upon your repentance, I can assure you that it is the Devil who has stirred up in you a longing after a thing impossible that so he may procure your destruction.  Strive therefore to bring this foolish and wicked fancy out of your mind and to judge of the meaning of God which belongs unto you according to his Word revealed unto you, leaving his secret and unsearchable will unto Himself.”

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Samuel Rutherford

A Scholastic Disputation on Divine Providence, chs. 1-10  tr. by AI by Onku  (Edinburgh, 1649), ch. 2. ‘What is the nature of the permissive will of God, and of the will of good pleasure and sign.  The Remonstrants, Arminians are called to the discussion’  Latin

pp. 12-13

“2. ‘What is the nature of the permissive will of God, and of the will of good pleasure and sign.  The Remonstrants, Arminians are called to the discussion, the faith of Judas the traitor, which nevertheless He by no means willed or decreed by the will of good pleasure since such things never happen in the nature of things…

the object of the will of sign or approving of God, is that which is morally good and honest, but of the disapproving, what is unjust and evil: whether it happen in the nature of things, or not…

Thus God willed and commanded the repentance of Cain, but it by no means follows therefore Cain repents, because the event of the thing or non-event of the thing is badly, and by no art of logic concluded from the will of sign or approving…

the commandment of God does not signify to us the will of God about such an event; but only the will of God about such moral equity of the thing.
…

as far as pertains to the essence of the will of sign, God equally approves with moral complacency the final obedience of Judas the traitor, as the obedience of Peter the apostle:”

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p. 14

“…He says by this will to Judas the traitor, ‘I command and will your final obedience,’ that is,
I approve, and hold it morally pleasing and acceptable, whether that obedience actually exists,
or not, as the law of an earthly prince is not made to this end, that men should simply cultivate
society, but on the hypothesis of society being cultivated, that they should order their life civilly
and according to the rule and norm of good laws; so the formal use of the Word of God
revealing to us the will of sign is to illuminate, lead, direct what may be the pleasing good
acceptable will of God, and how our acts, on the hypothesis that they are elicited and exist, can be instituted according to the Word of God, so that they may be pleasing and acceptable to God, and worthy of reward in Christ.”

.

p. 16

“Christ therefore as God willed and
approved the gathering of the Jerusalemites to Himself and their obedience as a thing so
intensely dear to Him and morally pleasing, as is the care of a hen for her chicks, which she
cherishes and nourishes by the expansion of her wings, although the Jerusalemites held that
blandishing invitation of the Savior as cheap; meanwhile He denied to the same the grace which
would have most sweetly procured their most free obedience, with liberty unimpaired, which is
an invincible argument that God decreed that their obedience should never exist.”

.

Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter’s Catholic Theology...  (London: White, 1675), pt. 2, sect. 7, ‘The Antecedent & Consequent Will of God, etc.’, p. 54

“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;”

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.

God Signifies (by the Will of Sign) the Event of Persons’ Salvation as Due unto Him (He having a Moral Right that it come about), though the Event Never Occurs

Order of

Intro
Quotes  2

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Intro

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Travis Fentiman
8-2026

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Richard Baxter below cuts through an impasse that some persons run up against, namely whether God, in calling sinners to Himself through the gospel call, intends and purposes the hearers, some of which are reprobates, to actually come to Him and be saved, or not?

It is sometimes adamantly maintained that this language must be denied, as God does not intend or purpose the event of the Gospel hearer’s salvation coming to pass in the future, as the divine purpose falls within the scope of God’s eternal decree; and God has decreed not to save all hearers, namely those hearers that are reprobates.

Yet is there any legitimate sense in which such language may be affirmed, that God intends for hearers (considered as creatures, some of whom are reprobates) to actually come to Him and be saved?  Baxter splices out two different possible meanings in this language, affirming what may and should be affirmed.

Baxter distinguishes that the event of reprobates coming to Christ and being saved is not willed by God to happen as an event (and hence they do not come to Christ), yet the existence of that event coming to be is morally due unto God out of debt by the creature, as owed to Him, as He has a right to it, though it never occur or come into existence.  Hence the event ought to occur through the creature and come to pass in the future, as God requires the event of the salvation of the reprobate (called by the gospel) to occur; yet such creatures do not fulfill this call and bring it to pass through their actions.  They owe God completed actions and an event that never occurs, namely their own eternal salvation.

Two things are often objected to this:

Objection 1: The language of “intention” and “purpose” (it is silently assumed) can only ever be used in such a context with regard to God bringing the event into existence, which can only respect God’s eternal, efficacious decree.

Yet God signifying the hearer to come to Him by his gospel call involves not less than: (1) the hearer, (2) the action of coming, and (3) Him as the end goal being signified.  Thus the hearer is pointed beyond himself, to come to God.  This involves, as signs inherently do, teleology, or a kind of goal, design, purpose or intention.¹

¹ See ‘That the Revealed Will may Express Purpose’, ‘On Teleology’ and ‘On the Study of Signs, or Semiotics, in Relation to God’s Signified Will’.

In this case it is both an epistemological intention, so far as the goal is intellectually comprehended, and a moral intention, insofar as a moral obligation unto something (that is possible but not yet existent) is signified and bound.  The words “goal,” “design,” “intention” and “purpose” are commonly used in everyday life with respect to persons’ moral wills, the expression of them and persons’ obligations, not to mention that these concepts are found throughout God’s revealed will in Scripture.¹

¹ See ‘Bible Verses on Common Grace & the Sincere Free Offer of the Gospel’ and ‘Bible Verses on God’s Revealed Will being his Will, Desire, Wish & Pleasure’.

Objection 2: God, by his will of sign, only morally approves of the goodness and excellence of salvation in itself; it does not have respect to an event of reprobates being saved.

Yet what God commands, namely the whole action (encompassing at least the three delineated parts above, inclusive of the end goal and the seamless teleology of the whole action),† inherently involves a design and an obliged movement unto the terminus ad quem (the end to which), or the event of the reprobate receiving salvation,¹ which is precisely that which is so highly approved of and commended by God.

† See ‘On the Study of Signs, or Semiotics, in Relation to God’s Signified Will’.

¹ The given hearer is considered in the Gospel call as a creature, not formally as a reprobate.

Baxter below splices in technical categories what many people find difficult to articulate (often wrestling with others over the same words, with different meanings in mind), though it is common sense in the matter:

God does not will the event of the reprobate’s salvation as an event (i.e. in bringing it into existence), but He does will the possible event as morally owed to and highly approved by God, that it should occur, and should become existent in the future, though the creature obstructs the teleology of God’s call and drawing influence (backed often with motions of the Holy Spirit towards that end) in sinfully exercising his or her will against it, or not with it, overcoming that influence.¹

¹ Some details have been added here beyond what Baxter says below, but for those details, see ‘On the Compatibility of Irresistible & Resistible Grace’ and ‘The Common Operations of the Spirit’.

Be it noted, Samuel Rutherford was one of those persons who tended to not let the language of “intention,” “purpose” and “event” be used in the very mundane and legitimate ways those words are commonly used by us, and hence agree with those who differ in at least the best sense their language will bear.¹  Yet having such a mind facilitates coming to a deeper understanding of God’s precious truths (instead of blocking ourselves off from them), as well as facilitating closer unity with fellow Christians, without creating and preserving unnecessary divisions and opposition.  Such Christians are often trying to get at an aspect of the truth that is not easy to precisely delineate, and are afraid of denying it.

¹ See, for instance: Rutherford, ch. 2, ‘What is the nature of the permissive will of God, and of the will of good pleasure and sign.  The Remonstrants, Arminians are called to the discussion’  in A Scholastic Disputation on Divine Providence, chs. 1-10  tr. by AI by Onku  (Edinburgh, 1649), pp. 11-20  Latin.  Yet Rutherford does speak in one place of the revealed call of God expressing “a certain quasi-intention,” and in another place of Isa. 55:1 expressing “a serious and unfeigned ardency of desire that we do what is our duty,” terming this a “desire of approbation”.  Rutherford’s Examination of Arminianism: The Tables of Contents with Excerpts from Every Chapter, tr. Johnson & Fentiman (RBO, 2019), ch. 2, sect. 20, p. 58; Christ Dying & Drawing Sinners to Himself (London, J.D., 1647), pt. 3, pp. 443 & 445.

Baxter, as you will find on the point at hand, is more detailed and accurate, and therein more helpful, than Rutherford.  Heed God’s Word: “strive not about words [λογομαχεῖν] to no profit” (2 Tim. 2:14); do not be a word-fighter (or a logomach), but find much profit in understanding all the multifold, precious truths of God you can, seek the edification and peace of your Christian brothers and sisters, and leave the rest to Him; He will gain much glory by it, and you much blessing.

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“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!“

Mt. 23:27

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Quotes

Order of

Norton
Baxter

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1600’s

John Norton

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

“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.”

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Richard Baxter

Universal Redemption of Mankind by the Lord Jesus Christ Stated & Cleared…  (London: Salusbury, 1694), ch. 2, pp. 27-29

“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]…

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 moral debt], as such…
…

1…  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 [morally] 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.

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.

Historical

On the Medieval Church & Post-Reformation

Quote

Michael Lynch, John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: a Defense of Catholic & Reformed Orthodoxy  (Oxford Univ. Press, 2021), 7.2.2 Voluntas Providentialis, pp. 150-51

“It is worth noting at this point that Davenant clearly accepted the standard scholastic distinction between God’s signified will (voluntas signi) and will of good pleasure (voluntas beneplaciti).  This distinction, having its roots in Hugh of St. Victor and taken up by Peter Lombard and Lombard’s own commentators, was nearly universally accepted by the Reformed orthodox in the early modern period.  There is a logical relationship between God’s voluntas signi and God’s voluntas simplicis complacentiae.  God’s voluntas signi is an act of his voluntas simplicis complacentiae respecting the simple love of a thing, whether that thing is brought about or not.  Thus, this will of simple complacency, sometimes called God’s approbative will or will of affection (as Aquinas termed it), was contradistinguished with God’s will of good pleasure.

This relationship between God’s signified will and his will of simple complacency— where the former is an expression of the latter— explains why Davenant interprets God’s will in 1 Tim. 2:4, and texts like it, as approbative, revealed, and signified as well as de voluntate simplicis complacentiae, because the former is in fact grounded upon and make known to us the latter.”

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On the Post-Reformation

Articles

Heppe, Heinrich – ch. 5, ‘The Attributes of God’, section 25  in Reformed Dogmatics, ed. Bizer (1950; Wipf & Stock, 2007), pp. 85-88

“(2)… Although God wills some things voluntas signi [will of sign, or the revealed will], like the repentance of the reprobate, the faith of Judas, the non-slaying of Christ, which He nevertheless anything but decreed by voluntas beneplaciti [will of good-pleasure, or decree] as things that would never happen; and He wills some things voluntas beneplaciti, which He can anything but will voluntate signi, like the selling of Joseph or the slaying of Christ.

(3)  But these wills are not contrary, because they are not concerned with the same things, nor is their connection and reference the same.  The object of the beneplacitum [good-pleasure of decree] is an existent eventuating [causing to become an event] in the nature of things, which is to have or not to have an actual existence, be it a good or a bad existent [existence], consonant or not with the voluntas signi.  But the object of the voluntas signi is approval of the morally good and honorable or disapproval of the unjust and wicked.” – p. 87

“The former will [of command] is called by the [Medieval] Scholastics, on the authority, it is thought, of Hugh of St. Victor, voluntas signi, whether because it is signified by some sign, like a word, precept, interdict, etc.; or because it signifies God’s will as the effect and adjunct of it…” – p. 88

Muller, Richard – 1. “Voluntas beneplaciti and voluntas signi”  in PRRD (Baker, 2003), vol. 3, ch. 5.4, Will and Freedom, E. The Ad Intra–Ad Extra Distinctions, pp. 457-59

.

Quotes

Richard Muller

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

“The voluntas signi vel praecepti, the will of the sign or precept, is the voluntas revelata, or revealed will, of God and the voluntas moralis, or moral will, according to which God reveals in signs and precepts his plan for mankind both in the law and in the gospel.  Here, again, the Lutherans and Reformed differ insofar as the former [the Lutherans] deny [though the Reformed affirm] the contrast between a universally offered salvation revealed in the voluntas signi [the will of sign, or revealed will] and a secret elective will in the voluntas beneplaciti.
…

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.”

.

PRRD, vol. 3 (Baker, 2003), Part 2, ch. 5.4, E., ‘The Ad Intra–Ad Extra Distinctions’

p. 458

“The term voluntas signi, literally, the will of the sign, is closely related to the term signum voluntatis, the sign of the will or purpose.  It indicates an overt sign or indication that someone wills something and can therefore be understood as a revealed will or, specifically, as a revealed precept or ‘preceptive will’–thus, what is literally called the ‘signified will’ is a will that God makes known and in effect ‘signifies’ what is commanded…  The voluntas signi, therefore, is not a ‘mere sign’ but one that corresponds with something that is truly in God.”

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p. 459

“In light of such problems, Leigh, Maccovius, and Twisse (very much following the tradition) indicate that the voluntas propositi or beneplaciti [proposed will or of good pleasure, i.e. the will of decree] alone is properly called the will of God, ‘which none can resist, Rom. 9:19,’ whereas the voluntas signi or commandment is only ‘improperly’ called God’s will…  Baxter does agree with Twisse, however, that the commandments or signs of God are only improperly designated as the divine will.”

.

p. 463

“5.  Voluntatas absoluta and voluntas conditionata.  The distinction between decretive and perceptive will, voluntas beneplaciti and voluntas signi, relates also to a distinction between absolute will and conditioned will (voluntas absoluta et voluntas conditionata).  According to the former, God wills and determines that something should occur ‘without any condition’ in the object of God’s willing—but the latter, the conditional will, rests upon the fulfillment of a condition in or by the object of the divine will, for example, the will of God to save men upon condition of faith.  Maccovius notes, against the Arminians, that the distinction is ‘utterly vain.’  Wendelin indicates that this distinction causes some difficulty, but makes perfectly good sense if it is understood solely in terms of the voluntas signi [will of sign, or revealed will]—granting that most of the divine precepts, promises, and condemnations are stated conditionally.  The distinction is, however, extended improperly to the eternal decree, inasmuch as the decree cannot be ‘suspended on conditions’…”

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Latin Articles

1100’s

Lombard, Peter – Libri IV Sententiarum, vol. 1 (bks. 1-2)  2^nd ed.  (c. 1150; Florence: College of St. Bonaventura, 1916)

bk. 1

1. Enjoyment & Use

1. Every doctrine concerns things and/or signs
2. On the things which one is to enjoy and/or to use, and on those who use and enjoy
3. What is it ‘to use’ and ‘to enjoy’?

…
45. God’s Will

1. On God’s will, which is God’s essence, and on its signs
2. That though for God it is the same to will as to be, yet God cannot be said to be all which He wills
3. On the understanding of these expressions: God knows, and/or God Wills”, “God knows all and/or wills something”
4. That God’s most highly good will is the cause of all which naturally are, the cause of which is not to be sought, because it is the first and most high cause of all
5. In what manners is (the term) God’s “will” accepted
6. That God’s preception, prohibition, permission, counsel, and operation are sometimes understood by the name of “will”
7. Whether God wills from all persons that to be done those things which He commands, and/or not to be done those things which He prohibits

46. Evil & the Efficacy of the Divine Will

1. That God’s will, which He Himself is, can be cancelled in nothing
2. In what manner is this to be understood: “I willed to gather thy children together, and thou wouldst not”, and this:  “He who wills all men to come to be saved”
3. Whether evils come to be done by God willing and/or nilling
4. In what manner is this saying of St. Augustine to be understood: “It is good that evils come to be”
5. On the multiple acceptation of the term “good”
6. That evils have value for the university of things
7. That the cause that man is worse, is not in God

47. Efficacy of the Divine Will

1. That the will of God regarding a man is fulfilled whithersoever he turns himself
2. In what sense certain things are said to be done “against” God’s will
3. For what reason did God command to all to do good and avoid evil, but does not will that this be fulfilled by all

48. Conformity of our Will to the Divine Will

1. That man sometimes with goodwill wills something other than God wills, and with bad-will sometimes wills the same which God wills
2. That God’s will is fulfilled through the evil wills of men
3. Whether it pleased holy men that Christ would suffer and die
4. Whether we ought to will the sufferings of the saints

…
bk. 4, Sacraments

1. Sacraments in General

1. On the Sacraments
2. What is a Sacrament
3. What is a sign
4. How sign and Sacrament differ

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1200’s

Aquinas, Thomas

art. 4, ‘Whether God’s will is distinguished into the will that is his good pleasure and the will that is a sign?’  in Commentary on the Sentences, pt. 1, dist. 45, question 1,  What the Will of God is

Summa, pt. 1, quest. 19, The Will of God

art. 11, ‘Whether the will of sign is to be distinguished in God’

art. 12, ‘Whether five expressions of will are rightly assigned to the divine will?’

Disputed Questions, On Truth, question 23

art. 3, ‘Whether God’s will is fittingly divided by the will of good-pleasure and the will of sign?’

art. 7, ‘Whether we are bound to conform our will to the divine will?’

art. 8, ‘Whether we are bound to conform our will to the divine will in the thing willed, namely, bound to will what we know God wills’

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1300’s

Scotus, John Duns

All the Works  new. ed.  (Paris, 1891), vol. 10, Ordinatio, bk. 1  Detailed ToC

46^th Distinction  762
47^th Distinction  771
48^th Distinction  777

pt. 1, q. 19, art. 11, ‘Whether the will of sign is to be distinguished in God?’  in Summa  (Rome: Sallustiana, 1900), vol. 1, pp. 510-12

Scotus (c. 1265/66–1308) was a Scottish, Romanist priest and Franciscan friar, university professor, philosopher and theologian.

Gregory of Rimini

On the First & Second of the Sentences  (Giunta, 1522)  Here is a modern fascimile reprint of the 1522 edition which is much easier to read: Franciscan Institute Publications, Text Series no. 7, ed. Eligius Buytaert (St. Bonaventure NY: Franciscan Institute, 1955); the page numbers match.

48.1  181-81b

1. …to the question on the will of sign  181
2. On the will of good-pleasure they put forth three conclusions with objections [???]  181

Gregory (c. 1300–1358) was one of the great scholastic philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages.  He was the first scholastic writer to unite the Oxonian and Parisian traditions in 14th-century philosophy, and his work had a lasting influence in the Late Middle Ages and Reformation.  His scholastic nicknames were Doctor acutus and Doctor authenticus.

.

1500’s

Luther, Martin – Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard  in D. Martin Luthers Werke  (1510-1511; Weimar: Hermann Bohlau, 1893), vol. 9, bk. 1

1.  30-31
…
45.  60
46.  60
47.  61
48.  61

Cajetan, Thomas – pt. 1, q. 19, art. 11, ‘Whether the will of sign is to be distinguished in God?’  in Commentary on the Summa  (Lyra: Joseph van In, 1892), vol. 1, p. 219

Cajetan (1469–1534) was an Italian philosopher, theologian, a master of the Order of Preachers and cardinal from 1517 until his death.  He is now best known as the spokesman for Romanist opposition to the teachings of Luther and the Protestant Reformation while he was the Pope’s legate in Augsburg.

Daneau, Lambert – A Threefold Commentary on the First Book of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, which is on the True God…  (Geneva: Eustathius Vignon, 1580)

1. Enjoyment & Use

Lombard  4
1.. Every doctrine is of things or signs  12
2. Of things which are to be enjoyed or to be used, and of these which are to be enjoyed and used  13
8. Whether to use or to enjoy may be virtues  20
Censure  21

…
45. God’s Will

Lombard  702
4.  709
5.  711
6. 713
7.  714
Censure  715

46. Evil & the Efficacy of the Divine Will

Lombard  720
2.  731
3.  732
5.  733
6.  733
7.  735
9.  736
10.  737
12.  737
14.  738
Censure  738

47. Efficacy of the Divine Will

Lombard  741
1.  745
2.  746
Censure  747

48. Conformity of our Will to the Divine Will

Lombard  748
2.  753
3.  754
5.  754
Censure  755-57

Daneau (c. 1530 – c. 1590) was a French jurist and reformed theologian, who taught for a time in Leiden and other places.

Beza, Theodore –  The Response of Theodore Beza to the Acts of the Colloquy of Montisbelgard, the Tubingen Edition  Parts 1 (2nd ed.) & 2 (1st ed.) bound together  (Geneva, 1588), pt. 2

In which Sense God does Not Will the Death of a Sinner  168

[Beza quotes Augustine distinguishing between man as a created man, versus as he is a sinner.  God takes no pleasure in the death of men as men, but as sinners, as it illustrates his hatred of sin and the vindication of his glory.]

An Explication of Mt. 23:37 and a Conciliation of External & Internal Calling Appearing Repugnant to Each Other  169

On the Distinction of Will of Sign & of Good-Pleasure  173

On Eze. 18  196

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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

Exercise 2, ‘Of Notions of the Divine Will’, ch. 1, ‘Of God’s Revealed Will [Signi] and His Will of Good-pleasure’  in Apologetic Exercises for Divine Grace  (Amsterdam, 1636; 1651), pp. 213-238

“From this, these things we posit, saying:

1. God seriously wills, that is, He loves, approves and by an act of complacency He lifts up for the obedience of reprobates, insofar as it is a good and holy thing, whether the obedience may come forth by the act, or not…
…

5. For God to intend and decree the death of a sinner, and for God not to delight in the death of a sinner, as He swears in Eze. 33:11, are in no way contradictions.” – p. 232-233

A Scholastic Disputation on Divine Providence (Edinburgh, 1649)

ch. 2, ‘What is the permissive nature of the will of God, and of the Will of Sign and the will of good pleasure: the Arminian Remonstrants are invoked for their part.’, pp. 3-12

Metaphysical Inquiries

10 – Whether the Creator may be able to command something injurious to the creature [No], and what sort of right does God have in the creatures?  573

To what extent justice belongs to God essentially, and what follows.  584

Whether the Will of Sign is the Will of God improperly and metonymically?  [Yes; Rutherford explains that the Approving will that lies behind it in God is properly called his will, though the communication directing that to the creature, by creaturely signs and commands, is not properly God’s will as God has not willed it to be in the event.]  605

Whether the act, or whether truly the lawlessness or malice of the act may be formally prohibited?  608

Whether God properly dispensed with the law when He commanded Abraham to slay his only begotten son?  It is minimally true.  610

Whether the will of sign & the permitting will may coincide?  611

Concerning the conflict in God’s will as it is falsely imputed to our side, pp. 613-615

Concerning the Will of Approval and the Will of Good-Pleasure, a debater is examined who says that God wills every possibility, pp. 615-620

Salmanticenses (Antonio de la Madre de Dios) – pt. 1, q. 19, art. 11, ‘Whether the will of sign is to be distinguished in God?’  in A Theological Course  new ed.  (1637; Paris: 1876), vol. 2, p. 235

Salmanticenses.  The work sought to maintain strict scholastic Thomism.

Maccovius, Johannes – A Theological Collection of all that which is Extant, including Theological Theses through Common Places in the Academy of Franeker  (Franeker, 1641), pt. 1

2. Of the Will of Sign  4-8

Maccovius (1588-1644)

Trigland, Sr., Jacob – ‘Of the Will of Sign & of Good-Pleasure’, pp. 158-64  in Meditations of Jacob Trigland on Various Opinions on the Will of God & Universal Grace, where is yet something of Middle Knowledge  (Leiden, 1642)

Trigland here affirms arguments of the Medieval Scholastics that the Will of Sign always externally signifies something of the internal will of God and his good-pleasure.  He then gives counter arguments to those who deny such.

“Rightly therefore and truly we say those signs truly and properly are signs of the divine will.” – p. 163

Wendelin, Marcus Friedrich – Vindicatory Theological Exercises for Christian Theology…  Opposite the Anti-Wendeliana Collection by Johann Gerhard & Other Festering Writings of Recent Lutherans Against the Orthodox, by which All and Each Theological Controversy between the Orthodox & the Lutherans is so far Plainly Treated, & Solidly & Logically Broken Down by the Truth of Orthodox Doctrine…  (1652), vol. 1, pp. 43-50

Exercitation 4, ‘The doctrine of the secret will of God and the revealed will of sign and good-pleasure is further explicated and asserted’

Strang, John

Of the Will & Actions of God Surrounding Sin in Four Books: the Judgment of the Reformed Churches, especially of the Scottish, is humbly offered and with much pleasure submitted  (1657)

bk. 1, The state of the controversy is explicated and some things are premitted which serve the coming disputation  1

6. Refutation of those who attribute to God a will of beneplacitum, according to the modes of beneplacitum and sign  34-43

Strang (1584-1654) was a Scottish minister and principal of Glasgow University.  This work of his was an infralapsarian response to Rutherford’s Treatise on Providence (which cause him a bit of turmoil with the covenanters).

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1700’s

Holtzfus, Barthold – 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

Thesis 7  on Good-Pleasure & Sign

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Related Pages

On God’s Revealed Will

Revealed Will vs. Will of Decree

Gospel Call as God’s Desire, Wish & Pleasure

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

Affections of God

Of God, his Attributes & Man’s Knowledge of God

Reformed vs. Aquinas on Revelation

Revealed Theology

Natural Theology

Theology

Scholastic Theology

Divine Ideas

On a Divine Disposition, Inclination & Willingness