Cap. VIII Resp. Primo cont.: cause of rebellion is corrupt nature; cause of permitting decree is free pleasure
Ask the cause of the permitted evil in each of those effects — the fall, the long wasting, the final extinction — and I rightly name that person's drunkenness, blindness, and rashness. Ask the cause of my permission, or of my decree not to free him efficaciously, and you must come to the free power of my will, not to his ignorance or rashness. So God regards all men blind and wandering in sin's way: for some he prepares efficacious grace by which they shake off the stupor, return to themselves, and are saved; for others he decrees not to help with that powerful peculiar efficacious grace. Those latter rush into foul lusts, add sin to sin, harden in sin, die hardened, and are damned. Ask the cause of their rebellion, hardening, perdition: corrupt nature and voluntary sins are truly cause and origin of all those evils. Ask the cause of the permitting decree as to all that: you must come to the freest pleasure of the divine will, not to the permitted sins themselves. So the consequence wavers: sins of the reprobate cause all reprobation's effects; therefore they also cause reprobation itself — the decree of reprobation.
Latin
Jam si quaeratur causa mali permissi in omnibus et singulis hisce effectis, scilicet in ipsa praecipitatione, in diuturna illa maceratione, in denique ipsa postrema exstinctione, recte omnium causam veredixerim fuisse praedictae personae ebrietatem, caecitatem ac temeritatem. At si quaeratur causa permissionis meae sive decreti mei permittentis de eodem homine non efficaciter liberando, hic ad liberam voluntatis meae potentiam, non ad illius inscitiam aut temeritatem, est deveniendum. Sic Deus intuetur omnes homines orbitate caecos et in peccati via errantes: quibusdam praeparat efficacem gratiam, qua quasi crapulam discutiant, ad se redeant, et serventur; statuit etiam e contra, alios hac tam potente peculiari et efficaci gratia non juvare. Hi posteriores ruunt in foedas concupiscentias, peccatum addunt peccato, in peccatis obdurantur, obduratique moriuntur, et damnantur. Si quaeratur causa rebellionis, obdurationis, perditionis quoad tales, vere respondere possumus, corruptam illorum naturam et peccata voluntaria horum omnium malorum fuisse causam et originem: At si quaeratur causa decreti permittentis quoad haec omnia, ad voluntatis Divinae liberrimum placitum, non ad ipsa peccata permissa, est deveniendum. Vacillat ergo illa consequentia, Peccata reprobi sunt causa omnium effectorum reprobationis: Ergo etiam sunt causa reprobationis ipsius, sive decreti reprobantis.