sin. Now observe: God being a God common to all, and His boundless
love being common to all, He grants a double grace; both antecedent
grace, and the grace by which one merits eternal life. All men,
heathens and Jews, good and bad, have in common antecedent grace. In
consequence of the common love of God towards all men, He has caused
to be preached and published His name and the deliverance of human
nature, even to the ends of the earth. He who wishes to be converted
can be converted. For God wishes to save all men and to lose none.
At the day of judgment none will be able to complain that enough was
not done for him, if he had wished to be converted. So God is a
common Light and Splendour which illumine heaven and earth, and men
according to their merits and their needs. But though God is common,
and though the sun shines on all trees, some trees remain without
fruit, and others bear wild fruit useless to mankind. This is why we
prune these trees and graft fertile branches upon them, that they
may bear good fruit, sweet to taste and useful for men. The fertile
branch which comes from the living paradise of the eternal kingdom,
is the light of divine grace. No work can have savour, or be useful
to man, unless it comes from this branch. This branch of divine
grace, which makes man acceptable and by which we merit eternal
life, is offered to all. But it is not grafted on all, for they will
not purge away the wild branches of their trees--that is to say,
unbelief or a perverse will, or disobedience to the commandments of
God. But in order that this branch of divine grace may be planted in
our soul, three things are necessary; the antecedent grace of God,
the conversion of our free will, and the purification of the
conscience. Antecedent grace touches all men; but all men do not
attain to free conversion and purification of the conscience, and
this is why the grace of God, by which they might merit eternal
life, fails to touch them. The antecedent grace of God touches man