Augustine on God's Wish and Will

God no doubt wishes all men to be saved and to come into the knowledge of the truth; but yet not so as to take away from them free will, for the good or the evil use of which they may be most righteously judged. This being the case, unbelievers indeed do contrary to the will of God when they do not believe His gospel; nevertheless they do not therefore overcome His will, but rob their own selves of the great, nay, the very greatest, good, and implicate themselves in penalties of punishment, destined to experience the power of Him in punishments whose mercy in His gifts they despised. Thus God’s will is for ever invincible; but it would be vanquished, unless it devised what to do with such as despised it, or if these despises could in any way escape from the retribution which He has appointed for such as they.

Augustine, “A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter: Chapter 58,” in NPNF, 1st Series, ed. by Philip Schaff (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 5:109; De Spiritu Et Littera, c. 58.