Cap. VIII Arg. 6 Ad secundum et tertium: consequent hardening vs eternal will not to soften
To the second and third: when Augustine bids us believe evil deserts are not absent — or went before — in him whom God permits to be hardened, he is not speaking of that eternal will not to have mercy, not to soften, which contains reprobation itself. He means the hardening in which the sinner, justly forsaken by God, contracts a kind of stony hardness — and we do not deny that is the wage of preceding sins. Weigh this: however much that hardening, taken as increased and advanced as the evil disposition of the hardened man, arises from demerit of preceding sins, the first permissive hardening — mere negation of softening on God's part — cannot arise from that same foresighted demerit. To say God's will not to have mercy, not to soften, is born from foresight of human hardening would be as absurd as saying the sun's daylight, absent among the Cimmerians, arises from the air's long prior darkening.
Latin
Ad secundum et tertium: Quando Augustinus jubet nos credere ejus mala merita non abesse, aut praecessisse, quem Deus indurari permittit, non loquitur de illa aeterna voluntate non-miserendi, non-emolliendi, quae ipsam reprobationem continet, sed de ea obduratione in qua peccator a Deo juste derelictus quasi lapideam quandam duritiem contrahit; quam esse praecedentium peccatorum mercedem haud negamus. Sed hic perpendere oportet, utcunque haec obduratio, quae aucta et provecta consideratur, ut mala dispositio hominis indurati, ex demerito praecedentium peccatorum oriatur, tamen illa prima induratio permissiva, quae consideratur ut sola negatio emollitionis ex parte Dei, non potest oriri ex eodem praeviso demerito. Nam voluntatem non-miserendi, non-emolliendi, in Deo consideratam nasci ex praevisione obdurationis in homine consideratam, aeque absurdum esset ac si quis dixerit diluculum illud solis absentem apud Cimmerios oriri ex praeeunte diuturna obtenebratione aeris.