Cap. V Obj. 7 Sol: secret decree Rom. 9 — in God no prior/posterior decrees; order of causes
Sol. I answer: grant that secret decree of God who has mercy on whom he wills and leaves whom he wills to their innate hardness — loving Jacob, hating Esau, before any consideration of their good or evil deeds — and we do not labor even a little over priority and posteriority in the decree of eternal life and efficacious grace as to the predestinated. In God as to the thing, decrees are not prior or posterior to each other; as to our mode of considering and the mutual relation of things, the same decree compared to another can be both prior and posterior by a diverse order of causes. So the decree to give faith is prior in the order of efficient cause to giving life; the decree to give life is prior in the order of final cause to giving faith.
Latin
Sol. Respondeo, Modo concedatur arcanum illud decretum Dei, cujus vult miseretur, et quem vult duritiae suae innatae relinquentes, Jacobum diligentis, Esavum odio habentis, idque ante omnem considerationem bene aut male factorum in iisdem, nos de ordine prioritatis et posterioritatis in decreto aeternae vitae et efficacis gratiae quoad ipsos praedestinatos, ne tantillum quidem laborare. Nam scimus in Deo quoad rem non esse decreta alia aliis priora aut posteriora: quoad modum autem considerationis nostrae et rerum inter se habitudinem idem decretum alteri comparatum potest eo et prius et posterius esse, secundum diversum ordinem causarum. Sic decretum dandi fidem in ordine causae efficientis prius est quam dandi vitam: decretum dandi vitam in ordine causae finalis prius est quam dandi fidem.