ell say
with ancient writers that God wills to save all men according to his
antecedent will, but not according to his consequent will, which never
fails to be followed by its effect. And if those who deny this universal
will do not allow that the antecedent inclination be called a will, they
are only troubling themselves about a question of name.

81. But there is a question more serious in regard to predestination to
eternal life and to all other destination by God, to wit, whether this
destination is absolute or respective. There is destination to good and
destination to evil; and as evil is moral or physical, theologians of all
parties agree that there is no destination to moral evil, that is to say,
that none is destined to sin. As for the greatest physical evil, which is
damnation, one can distinguish between destination and predestination: for
predestination appears to contain within itself an absolute destination,
which is anterior to the consideration of the good or evil actions of those
whom it concerns. Thus one may say that the reprobate are _destined_ to be
condemned, because they are known to be impenitent. But it cannot so well
be said that the reprobate are _predestined_ to damnation: for there is no
_absolute_ reprobation, its foundation being final foreseen impenitence.

82. It is true that there are writers who maintain that God, wishing to
manifest his mercy and his justice in accordance with reasons worthy of
him, but unknown to us, chose the elect, and in consequence rejected the
damned, prior to all thought of sin, even of Adam, that after this resolve
he thought fit to permit sin in order to be able to exercise these two
virtues, and that he has bestowed grace in Jesus Christ to some in order to
save them, while he has refused it to others in order to be able to punish
them. Hence these writers are named 'Supralapsarians', because the decree
to punish precedes, according to them, the knowledge of the future
existence of sin. But the opinion most common to-day amongst those who are
called Reformed, and one that is favoured by the Synod of Dordrecht, is
that of the 'Infralapsarians', corresponding somewhat to the conception of
St. Augustine. For he asserts that God having resolved to permit the [167]
sin of Adam and the corruption of the human race, for reasons just but
hidden, his mercy made him choose some of the corrupt mass to be freely
saved by the merit of Jesus Christ, and his justice made h