or of the assistance of grace), rests rather in expressions than in things.  For it is sufficient to consider that God, as well as every wise and beneficent mind, is inclined towards all possible good, and that this inclination is proportionate to the excellence of the good.  Moreover, this results (if we take the [166] matter precisely and in itself) from an ‘antecedent will’, as it is termed, which, however, is not always followed by its complete effect, because this wise mind must have many other inclinations besides.  Thus it is the result of all the inclinations together that makes his will complete and decretory, as I have already explained.  One may therefore very well 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