[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.

Table of Contents:

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CHAPTER I: Concerning the Will of God and Its Object; and Regarding Various Distinctions

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I. The Scriptural and Rational Foundation for God’s Will

Both Holy Scripture and sound reason ascribe will to God.

I. Holy Scripture does so, inasmuch as it everywhere testifies that God wills.

For our God is in heaven; whatever He wills, He does (Psalm 115:3). He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens (Romans 9:18). And He works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11).

Other passages of like import are everywhere obvious.

II. Sound reason likewise demonstrates this: For since God is most wise and most prudent, and the most free Agent, who acts most freely, moved by none save Himself; and most wisely, from previous reason and counsel, it is plainly evident that will must be ascribed to God; since will cannot be separated from counsel and reason. For just as it belongs to wisdom to know and discern objects presented to it, and to prudence to dispose them rightly, so also it belongs to the will to choose or reject, to desire or turn away.

II. The Nature of Divine Will

Will belongs to the class of things that move themselves and are carried toward something else, or toward some object. Therefore, it cannot exist without its proper motion, which the Scholastics have called volition, especially in Him who is pure act. Hence we can rightly understand the Will of God only in relation to its object and in reference to its object.

III. The Object of Divine Will

Now the object of the divine will is twofold:

One is primary, because natural and absolutely necessary per se.
The other is secondary, because free, and therefore absolutely contingent per se.

The former [primary] is God Himself, who is absolutely first and necessary, toward whom therefore His will is carried primarily, per se, by His nature, and by natural necessity.

The latter [secondary] comprehends all creatures whatsoever, which God produced freely, with absolute freedom. Hence their production was contingent per se, indeed even the volition or decree of the divine will concerning their production.

For nothing either exists or can be conceived that would necessitate God’s will to decree their production. Therefore, although the will of God, given the decree concerning their production, and given their production which flowed from that decree, is necessarily carried toward them, yet that necessity is entirely hypothetical.

From that first motion of the will, by which the divine will is carried toward God Himself, flows this other motion by which it is carried toward creatures outside God. For just as that will is carried toward God from consideration of the good which the divine intellect recognizes in God and shows must be embraced in Him, so also it willed that good to be brought forth and manifested outside God.

IV. The Twofold Consideration of God as Object of His Will

God comes to be considered as the object of His will in a twofold manner:

First, as the necessary, first, supreme Being, in whom is the perfection of all good, or all good in the most perfect and infinite manner, from eternity to eternity. Hence God is necessarily carried by His will toward Himself as toward that good, and embraces Himself with infinite love, and delights in Himself.
Second, as the first Being who can produce other beings of whatever kind outside Himself, and exhibit Himself as to be beheld in them, as it were.

Hence it is that God, while His will was carried toward Himself [primarily] as such, by the same will [secondarily] decreed from eternity to produce, preserve, and direct in time those creatures which now exist, that He might make manifest in them that He is such.

V. A Note on Divine Simplicity