The decree according to which God from all eternity condemns irrevocably to hell a great part of mankind, is, however, according to Luther, His “Secret Will” which we cannot investigate. With this His “Revealed Will” does not coincide. This distinction becomes a pet one of Luther’s, by means of which he fancies he can escape the embarrassment in which the many passages of the Bible concerning God’s desire that all men be saved, involve him. The “_voluntas occulta et metuenda_” of the “_Deus maiestatis_” determines man’s fate irrevocably; upon this we must not speculate, for it is beyond human investigation. We must, on the contrary, according to Luther, not go beyond the “_voluntas Dei revelata_”--which he also speaks of elsewhere as the “_voluntas prædicata et oblata_,” or “_voluntas beneplaciti_”--which, it is true, strives after the salvation of all men and the removal of sin.[763] “From this we must conclude that God, as He is preached, is not in every instance the same as He Who actually works, and that in some cases in His revelation He says what is quite untrue.”[764] Thus the author is no longer content to place another meaning upon the biblical statements concerning God’s will that all men be saved, as he did in the “_Assertio_,”[765] though even in the “_De servo arbitrio_” he still “attempts to place a different interpretation upon the passages of Scripture in question and to explain away by a desperate exegesis God’s will for the salvation of the whole human race as expressed in the New Testament.” Hence he takes refuge in the “_voluntas revelata_,” which differs from the “_occulta_.” Should the former not agree with the latter and revelation declare that God wills, whereas the “_voluntas secreta_” really does not so will, then the passages of the revealed word “are a proof that God is raised above our code of morality.”[766] “The ‘_voluntas occulta_’ becomes entirely arbitrary.” The demand, Luther says, that God should act as we think right is tantamount to calling Him to account for being God. We must believe that He is just and good even when He transgresses the codes of Justinian and Aristotle. Is He, forsooth, only to condemn that man whom we think deserving of condemnation? Shall we look upon it as an absurdity, that He should condemn the man whose lot it is to be declared deserving of damnation? Shall we consider it wrong that He should harden whom He chooses to harden, and have mercy on whom He wills to have mercy?[767] From the standpoint that we must simply accept the “_secreta maiestatis_” even when apparently most unreasonable, he pours out his scorn on the efforts of the olden theologians to harmonise free-will with eternal election to grace.