Cap. VIII Resp.: negative reprobation is not from punitive justice; permission precedes foresight of final bad use
Negative reprobation — nothing but God's eternal purpose not to give certain ones that singular grace by which their hearts would be softened and by which they would be infallibly directed to eternal life — does not proceed from punitive justice, nor from a will to condemn, but from that reason of providence by which God judged it agreeable to his wisdom to permit some, by their own vice, to fall short of beatitude's end. That will posited, God foresights the reprobate's future sins and final remaining in them, and understands that the manifestation of his glory will arise from punishing those sins. So he intends to exercise punitive justice about the reprobate for the sins in which they are foresighted as finishing life — but that intention and foresight followed the act of the foresaid reprobation, as did the sinner's final state in his sins. We may truly say there was always in God a will to punish sins if they should come to be; but an absolute express will to punish, terminated on this or that particular person, we cannot place in God unless his permission that they come to be is presupposed, and that this person destined to punishment finally remain under their guilt. That permission — which contains the act of negative reprobation — is prior to absolute foresight of evil use of free will lasting to life's end in this or that person, and so cannot depend on that foresight as cause. Wrongly, then, are the decrees of reprobating and of avenging or damning drawn from the same causes.
Latin
Reprobatio negativa, quae nihil aliud dicit quam aeternum Dei propositum de non-dando quibusdam singularem gratiam qua corda illorum emollirentur, cujusque beneficio ipsi ad vitam aeternam infallibiliter dirigerentur, non procedit ex justitia punitiva, neque ex voluntate damnandi, sed ex illa Divinae providentiae ratione, qua Deus judicavit sapientiae suae convenire, ut permitteret quosdam suo vitio a fine beatitudinis deficere. Posita autem hac Dei voluntate, praevidet Deus futura reproborum peccata, et finalem eorundem permansionem in peccatis; atque simul intelligit gloriae suae manifestationem ex punitione peccatorum orituram. Intendit itaque Deus justitiam punitivam exercere circa reprobates, propter peccata in quibus praevidentur vitam finitori; sed haec intentio et praevisio secuta est reprobationis praedictae actum, sicuti et ipse finalis status peccatoris in peccatis suis. Dicere quidem possumus, et vere, semper fuisse in Deo voluntatem puniendi peccata, si fierent: sed absolutam et expressam voluntatem puniendi, ac terminatam ad hanc aut illam singularem personam, non possumus in Deo ponere, nisi praesupposita Dei permissione ut fierent, utque haec persona punitioni destinata sub reatu eorundem finaliter permaneret. Haec autem permissio, quae reprobationis negativae actum continet, prior est absoluta praescientia mali usus liberi arbitrii ad finem vitae usque perdurantis in hac aut illa persona singulari, ac proinde non potest ex illa tanquam ex causa dependere. Perperam ergo reprobandi ac vindicandi sive damnandi decreta ex iisdem causis deducuntur.