abundance
of reasons in the universal harmony which are unknown to us, because we
know not sufficiently the extent of the city of God, nor the form of the
general republic of spirits, nor even the whole architecture of bodies, may
produce the same effect.

134. XIX. 'Those physicians who chose, among many remedies capable of
curing a sick man, whereof divers were such as they well knew he would take
with enjoyment, precisely that one which they knew he would refuse to take,
would vainly urge and pray him not to refuse it; we should still have just
cause for thinking that they had no desire to cure him: for if they wished
to do so, they would choose for him among those good medicines one which
they knew he would willingly swallow. If, moreover, they knew that
rejection of the remedy they offered him would augment his sickness to[206]
the point of making it fatal, one could not help saying that, despite all
their exhortations, they must certainly be desirous of the sick man's
death.'

God wishes to save all men: that means that he would save them if men
themselves did not prevent it, and did not refuse to receive his grace; and
he is not bound or prompted by reason always to overcome their evil will.
He does so sometimes nevertheless, when superior reasons allow of it, and
when his consequent and decretory will, which results from all his reasons,
makes him resolve upon the election of a certain number of men. He gives
aids to all for their conversion and for perseverance, and these aids
suffice in those who have good will, but they do not always suffice to give
good will. Men obtain this good will either through particular aids or
through circumstances which cause the success of the general aids. God
cannot refrain from offering other remedies which he knows men will reject,
bringing upon themselves all the greater guilt: but shall one wish that God
be unjust in order that man may be less criminal? Moreover, the grace that
does not serve the one may serve the other, and indeed always serves the
totality of God's plan, which is the best possible in conception. Shall God
not give the rain, because there are low-lying places which will be thereby
incommoded? Shall the sun not shine as much as it should for the world in
general, because there are places which will be too much dried up in
consequence? In short, all these comparisons, spoken of in these maxims
that M. Bayle has just given, of a physician, a benefactor, a mini