Breviloquium

But concerning grace, insofar as it is remedy against sin, these things are to be held: that free choice, though it be "under God most powerful¹," yet can through itself fall into sin, but in no way can rise without the aid of divine grace, which is called making pleasing. — But that grace, though it be sufficient remedy against sin, yet is not infused into the adult unless the consent of free choice be present. From which is gathered that to the justification of the impious four concur, namely infusion of grace, expulsion of fault, contrition and motion of free choice. — Fault is expelled therefore by the gift of God, not by free choice, yet not without free choice. For it is of grace freely given to recall free choice from evil and to excite to good; and it is of free choice to consent or dissent; and it is of the consenting to receive grace; and of the receiving to cooperate with it, that at last he arrive at salvation². The reason for understanding the aforesaid is this: because, since the first principle, by this that first and most powerful, is causative of all which are made in the universe except sins, which are "transgressions of divine law and disobediences of celestial mandates³," it has nothing rebellious, injurious and offensive to itself except sin, which, contemning the precept of God and turning us away from the immutable good, offends God, deforms free choice, destroys the gratuitous gift and obliges to eternal punishment. Since therefore the deformation of the image and the destruction of grace is as it were annihilation in the being of morals and gratuitous life; since the offense of God is to be weighed so much⁴, as he is who is offended; since the guilt of eternal punishment holds the reason of the infinite: it is impossible that man rise from fault, unless he be recreated in gratuitous life, unless the offense be remitted, and eternal punishment be relaxed. He alone therefore, who was the creative principle, is also the recreative principle, namely the eternal Word of the Father, which is Christ Jesus, the mediator of God and men⁵, which because it creates all from nothing, therefore creates by itself alone without any mean.

But because it recreates, reforming the deformed through the vice of fault through the habit of grace and justice, absolving the obliged to punishment through condign satisfaction; hence it is that it repairs us, sustaining punishment for us in assumed nature and infusing reformative grace, which, since it continues us to our origin⁶, makes us members of Christ; and thereby the sinning soul, which had been the enemy of God, the brothel of the devil and the slave of sin, makes the spouse of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit and the daughter of the eternal Father; which whole is made through the gratuitous and condescensive infusion of the gratuitous gift.

Again, since God so reforms, that the inborn laws of nature he does not weaken⁷; therefore so he grants this grace to free choice, that yet he does not coerce it, but its consent remains free; and therefore to this, that fault be expelled, it is necessary not only that grace be introduced, but also that free choice in adults — in adults I say, because in infants the faith of the Church and the merit of Christ suffices, and the impotence of itself excuses⁸ — it is necessary, I say, that it conform itself to the expulsion of fault through detestation of all sins, which we call contrition; it is also necessary that it conform itself to the introduction of grace, through complacency and acceptance of the divine gift, which we call the motion of free choice. And thus it is necessary that these four concur to the justification of the impious.

Lastly, because the predisposition to the completive form ought to be conformable to it; to this, that free choice dispose itself to grace making pleasing, it needs the aid of grace freely given; and because it is of grace not to coerce free choice, but to go before, and of both at once to go forth into act: hence it is that in our justification concur the act of free choice and of grace, consonantly indeed and ordinately, so that it is of grace freely given to excite free choice; but it is of free choice to consent or dissent to such excitation⁹; and it is of the consenting to prepare himself to grace making pleasing, because this is to do what is in himself; and so disposed grace making pleasing has to be infused, with which free choice can cooperate, if it will, and then it merits; or be contrary through sin, and then it demerits. If therefore it cooperate with it even to the end, it merits to arrive at eternal salvation.

True therefore is what Augustine¹⁰, says, that "he who created thee without thee will not justify thee without thee." — True also is that it is not of the willing nor of the running, but of God having mercy. — True also is that none can be proud of merits, because in us God crowns nothing except his gifts. For God reserved to himself the gifts of grace to be generously bestowed, that man learn not to be ungrateful nor to glory in himself, as though he had not received, but in the Lord¹¹. — True also is that though free choice through itself cannot fulfill the law nor make grace in itself, yet it is inexcusable, if it does not what it can, because grace freely given is always at hand for admonition, by whose aid it can do what is in itself; which done, it have grace making pleasing; which obtained, it fulfill the divine law and do the will of God; which done, at last it arrive at everlasting blessedness on account of meritorious works, which are totally from grace, totally also from free choice, though more principally from grace: because, as Augustine¹², says, "grace is compared to free choice, as the rider to the horse," which rider indeed directs free choice, leads and leads through to the port of eternal felicity, exercising us in works of perfect virtue according to the gift of sevenfold grace itself.