[Meditationes Jacobi Triglandii in opiniones variorum de voluntate Dei et gratia universali, ubi etiam aliquid de scientia media; (Hieronymus de Vogel, 1642)]
Jacobus Triglandius, born the 22nd of July, 1583, at Vianen to Romanist parents, did by providential guidance forsake the traditions of his forebears, having been brought by gracious illumination to embrace the doctrines of the Reformed churches. Nurtured first at Gouda, and later sent to priestly instruction at Amsterdam and Leuven, he was, by inward doubts and the testimony of holy Scripture, compelled to renounce the errors of Rome. Deprived of familial support, he endured privation but was sustained by divine hand, finding employment and, in due course, spiritual enlightenment through study of the Reformed confession. In the year 1602, Triglandius was appointed rector of the school at Vianen and, soon after, entered communion with the Reformed Church. Diligently preparing for sacred ministry, he was ordained at Stolwijk (1607), laboring faithfully thence and at Amsterdam, where he became, in 1610, a bulwark for truth amidst ecclesiastical tumult. As deputy to the Synod of Dort (1618–19), Triglandius did valiantly withstand the Remonstrant innovations, serving on the committee that composed the Canons of Dort—thereby defending the doctrines of election and sovereign grace. Elevated to the professorship at Leiden (1633), he distinguished himself as exegete and casuist, and as pastor in that city, contending mightily against Remonstrant doctrines and civil encroachments upon Christ’s Church. His Kerckelycke Geschiedenissen and other writings remain monuments of godly erudition. Called to his rest in 1654, Triglandius left a legacy of steadfast fidelity, zealously maintaining the purity of the Reformed faith for the edification of generations to come.
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They say they have derived this distinction from Damascene, on Orthodox Faith, book 2, chapter 29. They dispute vehemently among themselves about Damascene’s meaning in this distinction. We do not make that dispute our own, for it is not of great importance. We consider that distinction according to the understanding of those who use it today.
Some say that the Antecedent Will is that by which God, not as though impelled by us, but as if moved by His own goodness, desires all favorable things for us. By this will, God wills that all men be saved and endowed with heavenly blessedness, yet with this condition: if they themselves wish to be saved and do not place an obstacle to their own salvation and the attainment of heavenly blessedness.
The Consequent Will, however, arises from consideration of our actions—not good actions, since those pertain to the antecedent will, but evil ones. By this consequent will, therefore, God wills for man labors, calamities, death itself, and eternal damnation, according to that passage in:
Hosea 13: “O Israel, thy destruction is from thyself, but thy help is only in me”; and that in Wisdom 1: “God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living,” and shortly after, “But the ungodly with works and words have called it to them.”
Antecedent Will, thus explained, plainly coincides with Conditional Will. Therefore those who explain it thus also say it is conditional, and conditional for this purpose: that men, whom God by that will desires to save, may freely work and merit eternal salvation. Others, however, wish to distinguish Conditional Will from Antecedent Will. For what reason and in what sense will be made clear in what follows.
Not unlike that explanation is one in which others call the Antecedent Will the will of grace or mercy, by which God seriously wills that all men believe the word and be saved. They call the Consequent Will the will of justice, by which God decrees eternal life to those who actually believe or would believe, but eternal damnation to those whom He foresaw would spurn the offered grace and not believe in Him as the world’s redeemer.
Therefore both wills, both antecedent and consequent (according to that explanation), regard sinful men who through sin are subject to death. For grace and mercy regard sinners and the miserable, and are concerned with them as such. Moreover, both cannot regard any except those to whom the word is preached, since the antecedent will itself desires that they believe the word. Therefore that antecedent will either presupposes that the word is announced to all, or must be restricted only to those to whom the word is announced. What they think about this matter, or in what way they wish this to be considered, they ought to explain.
Concerning the Antecedent Will, they further say that it decrees condemnation to none simply. What does this mean? Does it then decree condemnation to some, but not simply? Thus it will be changed into the consequent will, which they call the will of justice, and those two wills, which they nevertheless want to be distinct, will be confused with each other.
But what does this mean, “It does not decree condemnation to any simply”? What is meant by “not simply”? What, I ask, except “not without the intervention of sin”? It establishes, therefore, that sin must precede damnation, and consequently that the consideration of sin must precede the decree of damnation itself. But sin has already preceded that very antecedent will, because it is called the will of grace and mercy.