Scotus Academicus, Tomus octavus: De Divino Gratiae Beneficio, et initium De Virtutibus Theologicis

In which everything that must be said concerning Divine Grace is illustrated by the light shed in the paragraphs that follow.

§ I. What is the proper and genuine signification of the name of grace. — Since the use of the name of grace is various and manifold, both among sacred and among profane Authors, lest anyone should at once stumble at the threshold on account of the ambiguity of the word, I judge it will not be unwelcome to disclose at the outset its various significations. — First, therefore, the name of grace signifies a certain loveliness or beauty of body, according to that saying of the last chapter of Proverbs: Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain, etc. — It is used likewise for elegance and polish of speech; thus Ecclesiastes 6: A sweet word multiplieth friends, and the gracious tongue, that is, graceful, aboundeth in a good man. Whence as many as heard Christ the Lord pouring forth oracles wondered at the words of grace that proceeded out of his mouth: hence the Royal Prophet had pronounced: Grace is poured abroad in thy lips. — The name of grace is sometimes taken for the effect of benevolence; for one is said to return into favour with another when he merits his goodwill, whence nothing is more frequent in Scripture than if I have found favour in thy eyes, etc. — It signifies also gratitude, or thanksgiving; thus 2 Kings 2, David says: I will render grace: whence that saying of Sophocles, grace begets grace: that is, every benefit freely conferred demands gratitude. But all these and other similar acceptations of grace are improper and alien to our purpose. — Therefore grace more properly signifies every gratuitous gift proceeding from God's mere good pleasure and liberality; for thus it is rightly understood how it is not rendered for merits but is wholly bestowed gratis; which is the reason why it is named grace. For the name of grace takes its origin not from this, that it makes its subject gracious, as some have said with too little accuracy, but from this, that it is given freely: as appears both from Scripture, Romans 4: To him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt: where the Apostle opposes grace to debt: and still more clearly in chapter 11 of the same Epistle: And if by grace, it is not now by works: otherwise grace is no more grace: and also from St. Augustine in many places everywhere, especially lib. De natura et gratia, c. 3. This, he says, grace, without which neither infants nor those of riper age can be saved, is not rendered for merits, but is given freely; wherefore it is called grace. And on Ps.: It is deservedly named grace, he says, because it is given freely. He has similar things in almost countless places, especially where he disputes against the Pelagians. To him accords St. Bernard, Sermon 2 De Resurrectione, in these words: Grace is given freely; even when it is bought, it is bought freely, according to that saying of Isaiah 55: Come, buy wine and milk without money. Hence St. Isidore of Seville on lib. 1 Reg. c. 10 observes most excellently that grace is rightly likened to milk; because, he says, milk is gratuitous in flesh, where the mother does not seek to receive, but labours to give: that mother gives freely, and grieves if there be none to receive. From all which it is evident that the name of grace, inasmuch as it is used by Theologians, signifies a good altogether gratuitous, which is bestowed apart from any debt and obligation on the part of the giver, and apart from any right on the part of the recipient. That these things may be more clearly known, it must be understood that debt (for the present) is twofold: one indeed on the side of merit, which is referred to the person whose it is to exercise meritorious works, according to that saying of the Apostle to the Romans 1: To him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt. The other truly is on the side of the condition of nature: thus we say it is due to man that he have reason, free will, and all other things that pertain to the integrity and condition of human nature. Now the particle freely in the definition of grace properly so called excludes both debts, namely of merit or of work, and of condition or of natural integrity. Hence it is that supernatural gifts claim for themselves more specially the ratio of grace properly so called than do natural gifts: for these latter indeed lack the former debt, since they are owed nothing by reason of merit and of work, because they do not fall under merit; yet they are not without the debt on the side of condition, because they pertain to the integrity of nature. Supernatural gifts, however, claim for themselves more specially the ratio and dignity of grace, seeing that they are owed nothing on either title, not only by reason of merit, but also by reason of condition and of natural integrity. — But that a readier and clearer plan of the things to be said may be had, I judged it congruent to append in this prelude a delineation and common distribution of divine grace itself, so that while discourse is made of some member dividing it, some knowledge of it may shine forth, until in the second Disputation they be treated more fully.

§ II. Of how many kinds is the division and distinction of grace. — Grace generically can be distinguished threefold: namely, natural, supernatural, and divine. Natural grace is the very creation of man, and also everything that follows upon his nature: for the formation of man is an altogether gratuitous gift, granted without any preceding merits of his, but out of God's sole liberty and liberality, as St. Augustine teaches excellently in many places, above all Epist. 95 ad Innocentium, where, while he condemns the opinion of Pelagius, that he acknowledged no other grace besides creation, he subjoins: Although, he says, by a reason not to be disapproved, the grace of God is said to be that whereby we were created, that we might be something, and yet not such a something as a corpse, which does not live, or a tree which does not feel — so that we might profit, which he means — but men, who both are, and live, and feel, and understand: and for so great a benefit we ought to give thanks to our Creator; wherefore deservedly even this can be called grace, because it was given not for the merits of any preceding goods, but by the gratuitous goodness of God. And a little after: But that grace whereby we were created men, although we understand it ought thus to be called, it is nevertheless a wonder if we read it so called in any legitimate Prophetic, Evangelic, or Apostolic writings. And St. Bernard subscribes, lib. De summatione: First, in Christ we were created unto the liberty of the will: Second, we are reformed through Christ in the spirit of liberty; with Christ thereafter to be consummated in the state of eternity. — Grace is called divine because it designates either the divine love itself, the fountain and origin of all the charisms whatsoever that are derived to us from God; or those divine persons sent forth by God for our salvation: by which reason the Incarnation of the divine Word is called grace: For thus God himself is the same Spirit, and therefore is called grace. — Supernatural grace is a certain eminent quality, or gratuitous gift surpassing the capacity and state of nature, granted to us by God on account of the merits of Christ the Redeemer, in order to the obtaining of salvation: in which sense grace is chiefly used in holy Scripture: thus Acts 15: But we believe that by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved. And Ephesians 2: For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God; that no man may glory. And to Titus 3: That, being justified by his grace, we may be heirs according to hope of life everlasting. Wherefore St. Augustine, Epist. 19, blaming Pelagius because he admitted only natural grace, says: The Apostle commends by no means that grace whereby we were created, that we might be men; but that whereby we were justified, that we might be just men: for that is the grace through Jesus Christ our Lord.

2. — Now this supernatural grace is again distinguished twofold, namely external and internal. External grace is called the extrinsic gratuitous gift of God conducing to salvation, which regards all equally, such as the grace of law and of doctrine, or of Gospel preaching. Which grace Pelagius indeed admitted, as St. Aug. remembers in very many places, above all lib. De gratia Christi, c. 10, where he proves against the Pelagians that besides graces of this external kind another must still be admitted, namely interior: What is more manifest, he says, than that he himself, namely Pelagius, says nothing else of the grace whereby God works in us speedily what is good, than law and doctrine? etc. But we cultivate that grace, that they may sometimes confess it, whereby the future magnitude of glory is not only promised, but loved also; nor is everything that is good merely urged, but persuaded. — Internal grace is called every gift granted freely by God, and conducing to eternal salvation, which is proper to each one to whom it is conceded, and affects him inwardly. Such is that grace of which the Apostle speaks Rom. 5, when he says: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us. And 2 Cor. 3: You are the epistle of Christ ministered by us, and written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God: not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy tables of the heart.

3. — Again, internal grace is divided into grace freely given and sanctifying grace. Grace freely given is that which primarily and of itself conduces not to the salvation of him in whom it is; but by it one cooperates with another, that he may be brought back to God; or it is a gift freely and without debt conferred upon man, primarily and of itself contributing to procuring the salvation of another; which definition seems to have its foundation in those words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 12: To every one is given the manifestation of the Spirit to profit, namely of others. Although, however, every grace is freely given, as we said in n. 2, nevertheless the name of grace freely given is restricted to signify this species of grace: First, because Christ the Lord conferring such graces upon the Apostles significantly admonishes them that they were conferred gratuitously, and that they should administer them gratuitously. For when he had said Matth. 10: Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils: he subjoins: Freely have you received, freely give. Second, because it is commonly received, that the name of the genus is accommodated less to the nobler species: thus we designate the brute when we say animal: but grace freely given is less noble than sanctifying grace, because sanctifying grace joins man to God immediately; but not grace freely given; whence Christ the Lord Luke 10, when he had heard the Disciples reporting: Lord, the devils also are subject to us in thy name, shortly after subjoins: But yet rejoice not in this, that spirits are subject unto you: but rejoice, that your names are written in heaven. Moreover nine species of grace freely given are constituted by the Apostle 1 Cor. c. 12, namely faith, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, the grace of healings, the working of miracles, prophecy, the discerning of spirits, kinds of tongues, interpretation of speeches: the reason of which distribution we shall subjoin in Disp. 2, while we weigh each of these graces singly. — Sanctifying grace is that whereby the rational creature is made pleasing and acceptable to God, or certainly is disposed that it become such; because it is a supernatural gift granted primarily and of itself for the proper salvation of each one.

4. — Again, sanctifying grace is subdivided into habitual and actual. Habitual grace is that which is conferred after the manner of a habit, or quality permanently abiding in us, of which the effect is twofold: one indeed formal, namely to make man pleasing and acceptable to God, because by it we are formally justified and are pleasing to God: the other produced, insofar as grace itself concurs with free will as an effectual principle for eliciting meritorious acts; just as heat has two effects: the first is to make the subject hot to which it adheres: the second truly is exterior warming. Now this habitual grace seems to be signified by Christ the Lord in these words John 14: If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him. For the gift signified in the latter words, whereby God makes his abode in us, is permanent and stable. The same grace St. Aug. designates, Epist. 15 ad Dardanum, where he teaches that in baptized infants, however unaware they may be, the Holy Ghost dwells. And the Council of Vienna, as it is related in the Clementine De summa Trinitate, et fide Catholica, cap. unico, says that such grace is conferred on infants, according to the more probable opinion of Theologians both ancient and recent. — Actual grace is that which is granted after the manner of an act, and is a certain motion of God, whereby the rational creature is moved and aided to exercise operations above the powers of nature, such as, e. g., a certain holy inspiration, or thought in the mind, and a pious affection in the will divinely excited and infused. Of this Augustine treats chiefly against the Pelagians, above all in lib. De gratia Christi, cap. 12, where he says: This grace is wrought, not only that we may know what must be done, but also that having believed we may love what we have believed. The Council of Orange also mentions it, Canon 9, where it says: We are said to be worthy of the gift, when both we think rightly, and restrain our feet from falsehood and injustice. For as often as we do good, God works in us and with us, that we may work. It must be observed that we knowingly said this help to be necessary for operation exceeding the powers of nature; but an operation can exceed the powers of nature in three ways: First, simply and absolutely, as if by its genus, and according to its substance, that operation be of a higher order, namely supernatural, as are the acts of the Theological virtues, of faith, hope, and charity. Second, by reason only of the state corrupted by sin, not truly simply and absolutely; just as a sick man cannot bend himself to solid acts unless he be helped by someone, which he could easily accomplish if he were sound, without that aid; so also man, broken and weakened by sin, cannot accomplish many things without special help, which in the state of innocence, with no aid intervening, he would have performed. Thirdly finally, by reason of manner, or place, or time, or person, or other circumstances; for it often happens that what exceeds those powers neither of itself nor by reason of state, nevertheless exceeds them by reason of some circumstance: just as a sound man, who of himself would be sufficient and strong enough to move a certain weight, could nevertheless not move it without the help of another, either on account of the excessive mass of the weight itself, or because he was placed in an inconvenient spot. So a just man could easily fulfil some precept of the Decalogue if no necessity pressed; otherwise, however, if he is tossed by grave temptation, unless he be helped by some special aid.

5. — Again actual grace is subdivided into operating and cooperating. Operating grace, which is also called exciting, is defined by St. Aug. lib. De gratia et libero arbitrio, c. 17, that whereby God works in us, beginning in us without us. But God is said to work it without us, not that we concur actively thereto in no way; for no inspiration, however sudden, can be excited in the mind, nor any motion of the will made so promptly, but that intellect and will operate. For they are vital acts, which therefore necessarily and essentially depend upon the concourse of the vital power. God therefore is said to work operating grace in us without us, because we do not concur thereto freely; for we ought to be held the operators of those acts only which are within our free power, and of which we are masters. — Cooperating grace, which is also called concomitant and aiding, is defined by the same St. Aug. in the same place, that whereby God cooperates with those who will, perfecting: or whereby God cooperates with us when we will, and thus will that we may act. Operating grace, I say, is also called exciting, because it performs the office, as it were, of him who arouses anyone from sleep; for the will, torpid with the sleep and sloth of sin, is aroused, as it were, by the cry and voice of vocation through holy inspiration. And as arousal takes place without the consent of the sleeper, so that grace is excited in us without our consent, and anticipates every operation and use of our will: which gift of grace surely is designated Apoc. 3 in these words: Behold, I stand at the gate and knock; for to stand at the gate of the human heart, and to knock through holy inspiration, belongs to God alone. Cooperating grace also is deservedly called aiding, because in that very moment in which anyone aroused from sleep and the torpor of sin freely responds to God calling, and by consent opens the door of his heart, God stretches out to him helping hands, that he may break forth into a good act: which surely is also signified in the same chapter of Apocalypse, when after the aforesaid words it is subjoined: If any man shall open to me, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, not alone, but with him. The same also is denoted Ephesians 5: Rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee: for to this grace calls and arouses us, that we may rise from sleep.

6. — Again operating or exciting grace is commonly subdivided by Theologians into sufficient and efficacious. Sufficient can be considered in two ways: either generically or specifically. Considered generically, it is called that which gives the power of acting, whether declinably or indeclinably, that is, either so that it does not always attain its effect; or so that it is always joined with the effect certainly and infallibly, in which sense efficacious grace also is reduced to sufficient. Considered specifically, and as opposed to efficacious, it can be described as that which does not always obtain its effect, or which in reality lacks, and is deprived of, the effect to which it is ordered, although it can have it. — Efficacious is that which always obtains its effect, whereby namely God moves the will indeclinably and insuperably, and which is nothing else than the help of grace: of which St. Aug. makes mention so often in lib. De corrept. et gratia. But God is said to move the will indeclinably and insuperably, not because it cannot be overcome and declined, but because it is never in fact overcome and declined; not otherwise than as some Emperor is called invincible, not because he cannot at all be conquered and overcome, but because he never has been conquered, nor is wont to be.

7. — Finally actual grace is subdivided into preventing and subsequent, which subdivision, on account of the conformity it has with the preceding, is confused with it by most Theologians: yet I judge that it differs somewhat from it; that this may be perceived, it must be known that preventing and subsequent grace can be compared in three ways, namely either to the free consent of the will, or in order to themselves mutually, or by respect to justification. In the first way preventing grace is called that which so precedes the free will of man, that it also accompanies and includes it: subsequent truly, that which follows that will. The explication of which St. Aug. remembers in many places, above all in the Enchiridion, c. 32, in these words: The good will of man is preceded by many gifts of God: but not by all: for both are read in the sacred Oracles, and his mercy hath prevented me, and his mercy shall follow me: it preventeth the unwilling, that he may will: it followeth the willing, that he may not will in vain: or preventing is called, because it runs before every consent of the will; subsequent truly, that which supposes and follows such consent, moving man to fulfil what he had purposed, giving opportunity of fulfilling it, and aiding him, when he in fact fulfils and executes it. By which reason preventing and subsequent grace coincides with exciting and aiding. In the second way preventing and subsequent grace relatively, and in order to themselves mutually, are so called, that preventing is that grace whereby we are excited to good: subsequent truly, that which follows that first grace; and in this sense every prior grace can be called preventing in order to the posterior. Thus it seems St. Aug. used both graces lib. De natura et gratia, c. 31: His mercy, he says, preventeth us; it preventeth, that we may be healed; and followeth, that being healed we may live: it preventeth, that we may be called; it followeth, that we may be glorified: it preventeth, that we may live piously — Those Theologians who explain preventing and subsequent grace respectively with respect to justification, so that preventing be called whatsoever precedes justification, that we may be healed from sin: but subsequent be held whatsoever other is conferred upon justified man, that in accepted sanctity he persevere and be promoted to eternal life. So teaches Vasquez on the first part disp. 88 c. 10. Which he proves presently by the praised testimony of St. Augustine, and also by the authority of St. Fulgentius lib. 1 Ad Monimum, c. 11, where he says: He preventeth the impious, that he may become just; he followeth the just, lest he become impious: he preventeth the cast down, that he may rise; he followeth the lifted up, lest he fall.

8. — There are also some Theologians who generically distinguish grace into the grace of God and the grace of Christ. They call it the grace of God, not because it is given by him, for thus every grace would be the grace of God; for there is none which is not conferred by God: but they wish it so called, because it is given from the pure liberality of God; not truly in respect of the merits of Christ, which they judge was the grace conferred both upon Angels and upon innocent man. Truly these things cannot be proved by us, especially since we have taught, and shall assert below, that every grace whatsoever was conferred both upon Angels and upon men solely on account of the foreseen merits of Christ. Wherefore I should judge it better said, that grace can be distributed into the grace of Christ, as Head, and as Redeemer. The first is that grace which was destined and conferred both upon Angels and upon men before sin, on account of the foreseen Incarnation of Christ to come, even if Adam had not sinned. The second truly, which is conferred upon fallen men by the benefit of the Passion and Death of Christ, which is called by very many names by St. Aug., namely the grace of liberation, lib. De corrept. et gratia, c. 11. Liberating grace, Epist. 105. the medicinal help of the Saviour, the grace of the physician, the aid of the most potent physician, etc. lib. De natura, et gratia, caps. 31. 39. 48. etc.

9. — Finally they divide the grace of Christ into grace simply so called and grace for grace; the memory of which division St. Aug. has lib. De gratia et libero arbitrio, cap. 8, where he says: If our life is good, it is nothing else than the grace of God; without doubt, also eternal life, which is rendered for good life, is the grace of God: for it is freely given, because it was freely given to him to whom it is given: but he to whom it is given is only grace; but this, which is given to him, because it is the reward of his, is grace for grace.

It helps here to append the series of all the heretics who attempted to darken with the soot of their errors the divine light of grace: and also to terrify with them all the most zealous Assertors of Catholic truth, who with their sayings and writings contended against them all their errors most sharply and gloriously, for the sake of asserting the genuine doctrine of grace. Truly, since these things have been treated most copiously already in the second Luminary, where discourse was made of the errors concerning divine predestination; lest we traverse again to nausea tracks already worn, I judge these must be passed over; as also the relation and declaration of the five states of man, namely of pure nature, of integrity, of innocence, of fallen nature, and of repaired nature: concerning which we have sufficiently treated in the fifth luminary disp. De homine. Therefore I judge only certain things should be inscribed in these preludes, which can carry light and illumination for resolving the controversies concerning divine grace: such as above all the doctrine of St. Augustine, and also the sanction of certain Councils, whose canons and decrees easily come not into everyone's hands. Be it therefore

§ III. Of how great authority in solving and resolving the controversies concerning supernatural grace must above all be held the doctrine of St. Augustine. — I judge that no Theologian is unaware that St. Aug., above all the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, was the true Achilles of divine grace, and its most strenuous assertor, whose authority in resolving the controversies of faith (especially those which pertain to divine grace) has always been of the greatest weight with all the defenders of Catholic truth in whatever age after him. Which indeed becomes manifest from the illustrious encomiums wherewith his stupendous genius, heavenly doctrine, and suave eloquence are celebrated not only by the supreme Pontiffs, but by as many of the coeval or succeeding Fathers and Doctors of the Church as there were: for scarcely one will you find who does not wholly boil over into the praises of St. Augustine. — There comes forth above all Innocent the first, most holy Pontiff, who commends the doctrine of Augustine no light account, while with his Apostolic letters and sanctions he commended and approved both Synods, the Carthaginian and the Milevitan, and the Synodical epistles of each given to himself (of all which Augustine was the leader and the pen), and also his book De natura et gratia. And he adds that he abstains from writing, because it is agreed they have said everything, that nothing has been omitted by them, nothing suppressed. And responding to the peculiar letters of Augustine, he praises magnificently the Epistles sent by the Councils and written by Augustine, as lines full of faith and confirmed with the whole rigour of Catholic religion, and says their contention consists in daily consideration of the grace of God, and in the correction of those who think otherwise concerning integral faith; so that they can prove him an integral Doctor. This is also the reason why Zosimus the Pontiff approved on his own account and strengthened with his authority all the doctrinal Canons of the Carthaginian Synod, which the African Prelates had drawn from the books of Augustine to slay the Pelagian heresy, as St. Prosper testifies in the book Contra Collationem, writing that the detractors and rivals of St. Augustine were prostrated by Apostolic authority: Then, he says, the engines of these men were broken, then upon their pride did they fall with their allies and princes: when Innocent of happy memory struck the heads of the nefarious error with the apostolic sword: how greatly Pius Zosimus of blessed memory annexed to his own sentence the strength of the decrees of the African Councils, and armed the right hands of all the Prelates with the sword of Peter for the lopping off of the impious. By parity of reason this is why Coelestine the Pontiff approved the canons of all the preceding Synods excerpted from the writings of Augustine and enacted with authority, in the Epistle to the Bishops of Gaul, cap. 2, wherein likewise he praised the writings of Augustine De gratia Dei with this magnificent encomium: Augustine, he says, a man of holy memory, for his life and merits we have always held in our communion; nor has even a rumour of sinister suspicion ever bespattered him: whom we have always remembered to have been formerly of such great learning, that he was held among the best Masters even by my Predecessors. Well therefore did all in common think of him, seeing that everywhere he was to all both an object of love and of honour. This same Honorius the Pontiff proved by the Epistle to Possessor Bishop of Africa, in which teaching him what the Catholic Roman Church feels and asserts concerning the grace of God and liberty of arbitrium, he writes thus: Concerning free arbitrium, and the grace of God, what the Roman, that is, the Catholic Church follows and asserts, although it may be known in many books of blessed Augustine, and especially ad Hilarium, et Properum, nevertheless express chapters are contained in the Ecclesiastical records. Now these chapters seem to be none other than those whereby the Pontiffs Sixtus III. Leo I. Felix IV. Boniface II. Gregory I. Adrian I. Urban V. Martin V. Pius II. Gregory XIII. Sixtus V. Clement VIII. Paul V. and other supreme Pontiffs were praisers and approvers of St. Augustine. One may stand for all, John II., who in the Epistle to Aricenus and other Senators brought forth this elogium concerning Augustine: St. Augustine, he says, whose doctrine according to the statutes of my Predecessors the Roman Church follows and keeps. Whence Clement VIII. not without great cause said the doctrine of Augustine had been left to the Church as it were a dowry.

The same truth the most illustrious Doctors of the Church confirm, who lived from Augustine down to us through the course of thirteen centuries: first of all the fifth century, whose beginnings Augustine himself illustrated, bore as many heralds of his praises as men illustrious in piety and doctrine. Above all St. Jerome thus magnificently extols him, in the Epistle found among the letters of Augustine 25: Proceed from virtue to virtue, thou art celebrated throughout the world; the Catholics again reverence and look up to thee as the author of the ancient faith; and — a sign of greater glory — all heretics detest thee. And Epist. 30: Whatever can be said of lofty genius drawn from the fountains of the holy Scriptures has been set down and described by thee.... But for me it is decreed to love thee, and look up to thee, to venerate, to admire: and to defend thy sayings as if they were mine. With which indeed most excellent encomia and leagues of friendship he signed, being now near death. For Eusebius of Cremona, his disciple, relates in the Epistle to Damasus Bishop of Aportunense: St. Jerome at his death saying many things worthy of record, made mention of blessed Augustine after this manner: Joy and consolation have I, that I leave behind me the admirable man Augustine Bishop of Hippo, of much learning and goodness, redeemed with all truth and perfection: on whose account I have much confidence in Christ Jesus that our faith may be sustained; write to him concerning me, pray him, that as a faithful soldier he fight, lest (which God forbid) evils come upon our nation. With like praises he heaps him St. Paulinus, in an Epistle found among the letters of Augustine, thus addressing him among other things: O truly... which things stir our inmost heart, that they cannot be consumed by the error of the envious: O lamp worthy to be placed above the candlestick of the Church, which pouring forth widely over the Catholic cities from the sevenfold flame the light of the oil of gladness, though dissipating the dense darknesses of the heretics, dost unfold in the splendour of clarion speech the light of truth out of the confusion of shadows... Thy mouth, I say, have I deservedly called the silver pipe of the eternal fountain. — Volusianus concurs in the same elogiums, in the second Epistle found among the letters of Augustine, writing: Both ignorance in other Priests is tolerated without detriment to the worship of God: but when we come to the Prelate Augustine, the law of God fails in whatever he chances to be ignorant of. — Nebridius, Epist. 71 in the same Augustine, accords with the former, writing: It pleases me to keep thy letters (O Augustine) as my eyes: for they are great, not in size, but in matters, and contain proofs of great things: those letters shall sound to me of Christ, those of Plato, those of Virgil. They shall be therefore to me sweet for hearing on account of eloquence, easy for reading on account of brevity, wholesome for understanding on account of wisdom. — Consentius, Epistola 221 ad Augustinum, thus elegantly addresses him in these elogiums: Thou admirable man, to whom our Father alone, conscious of secrets, because he holds the key of David, has granted with most serene gaze of heart to penetrate the fabric of the heavens, and with unveiled face (as it is written) to behold the glory of the Lord: insofar as he who gave thee this thought shall have given thee faculty of uttering it, declare to us some portion of the ineffable substance, and image and likeness, which with him as thy aid thou strivest to express insofar as thou art able with words: since unless thou shine forth as guide and master of so great a thing, our thought, as with bleared eyes, fears to gaze upon it, so greatly dazzled by the reflected flash of so great light. Enter therefore into that cloud of the mysteries of God most obscure, which bars our gaze: the little questions, in resolving which I know I err, who prefer to follow with faith the authority of thy sanctity rather than be depraved by the false image of a conceived reason. — Audax, Epistola 130, speaks of him excellently: Augustine, follower of justice, renewer of spiritual glory, dispenser of eternal salvation, so far is the worldly orb known of thee as noted. I desire therefore to feed upon the flowers of thy wisdom, and to be irrigated with the draughts of the living fountain. — Possidius Bishop of Calama, addressing Mandonius, celebrates a compendious but accurate praise of St. Augustine, writing: Augustine Father of Fathers, Doctor of Doctors: equal to Angels in fervour, equal to Prophets in revelation of hidden mysteries, equal to Apostles in preaching, image of the Divinity, abyss of wisdom. — St. Prosper, most zealous disciple of Augustine, in interweaving his encomiums puts forth all the force of his eloquence: now calling him, Epistola ad Ruffinum, the chief portion of the priests of the Lord and the most excellent minister of grace; sometimes he celebrates his praises more copiously, thus lib. 3 De vita contemplativa, cap. 31, writing: St. Augustine Bishop, sharp of genius, sweet of eloquence, skilled in secular literature, laborious in ecclesiastical labours, illustrious in daily disputations, composed in all his action, learned in expounding our Catholic faith and in resolving questions, circumspect in confuting heretics, cautious in explaining the canonical Scriptures. — Victor of Utica lib. 1 De persecutione Vandalorum commends the same Saint with no smaller eloquence: At what time, he says, the city of Hippo Regius was besieged, which the blessed Augustine, worthy of all praise, Bishop, author of many books, venerated: then that river of eloquence, which ran more abundantly through all the fields of the Church, was turned into bitterness of absinthium being drunk. — St. Fulgentius, devoted to Augustine before others, magnificently extols his books lib. 2 De veritate praedestinationis, cap. 12, writing thus: Let everyone read these who desires to attain eternal salvation. To him accords Cassiodorus in the book De divinis lectionibus, cap. 22, where he thus marvellously exalts the praises of Augustine: He also the most blessed Augustine, an eminent Doctor, he says, subduer of heretics, defender of the faithful, and palm of famous contests. And in the Prologue upon the Psalter he adds: Augustine, eminent master of all letters, and (a rarity in such abundance) a most cautious disputator; he runs indeed like a purest fountain, polluted by no sordid matter, but persevering in integrity of faith; he knows not how to give place to heretics whence they might defend themselves by any struggle; he is found a safe Catholic, wholly orthodox, and resplendent in the Church of the Lord with most suave brightness, ruddy with the clarity of supernal light. — St. Gregory in the register lib. 8. Epist. 37. ad Innocentium Episcopum writes thus: If you desire to be fed with more delicate pasture, read the little works of blessed Augustine, and seek not our bran in comparison with that wheat. — Isidore of Seville lib. 6 Ethymolog. says: Of our writers Origen among the Greeks in the labour of the Scriptures surpassed both Greeks and Latins in the number of his works. Finally Jerome is said to have read six thousand of his books. Yet of all these Augustine conquered them by his genius and learning. For he wrote so much that no one could avail day and night not only to write his books, but not even to read them. — It would be long to go through singly the most ardent heralds of the same St. Aug. in every age: from whom it appears that the most holy Doctor (that we also may bring something from our store to his glory) is the crown of geniuses, the goal of human intelligence, the miracle of nature, the interpreter of predestination, the tongue of truth, the thunderbolt of heretics, the club of errors, the sword of knots, the compendium of the ancient Doctors, the seed-plot of posterity, the tongue and lamp. So great was his charm that even his knowledge was a grace; whence it ought to be a wonder to no one that he applied his wisdom to the defence of grace; for grace was owed to grace.

From all these things it is clear that St. Augustine must be heard before the other Fathers and Doctors of the Church, especially in the controversies concerning divine grace; which however I would not wish you to understand as if all the dogmata of that most holy Doctor, in those books above all which he wrote concerning divine grace, were weighed with such certainty and truth that they should be received as it were oracles of faith. It is certain indeed that neither to St. Augustine nor to any other Father and Doctor of the Church should that authority be attributed to his particular assertion and private doctrine which is wont to be rendered for establishing the Catholic faith to the holy Scriptures, the oracles of Councils and supreme Pontiffs, and the consenting consensus of the Fathers. Which indeed is proved from St. Augustine himself lib. De Dono perseverantiae, cap. 21, where he plainly rejects that authority for himself, writing: I believe no one embraces all that is mine so as to follow me except in those things in which he perceives that I have not erred. For therefore now have I undertaken those books in which I took up my Opuscula to be retracted, that I might show that I myself had erred in many things. Lest anyone urge that he truly said this concerning the Opusculs previously published by himself, when he was younger and still rude in deciding controversies of faith, he subjoins: I esteem that by the mercy of God I have made progress in writing: yet not so perfectly begun; since I speak more arrogantly than truly if I now say that even in this age I have already arrived at perfection of writing without any error. Therefore he does not wish to vindicate for his writings, even those published in perfected age, that authority, that they may be suspected to be altogether void of error. — He demonstrates this same thing plainly Epist. 10 ad S. Hieronymum: To those books of Scripture alone, he says, which are now called Canonical have I learnt to render this fear and honour, that I believe most firmly that none of these authors erred in writing anything, etc. But those authors I so read, that however much they may excel in sanctity and doctrine, I do not therefore hold it certain because they themselves so felt; but because they have been able to persuade me either through those canonical authors, or by probable reason, that what they say does not shrink from truth. I judge another feeling, my Brother. I do not judge you to wish your books to be read so as if those of Prophets or Apostles: concerning whose writings it is nefarious to doubt that they lack all error. And with many things interposed: although I owe this immense servitude only to the Canonical Scriptures, whereby I follow them alone, so that I do not doubt that their Conscriptors erred in nothing in them, placed nothing fallaciously. Which he inculcates everywhere in other works, and especially lib. De Natura et gratia, c. 60. lib. 2 Contra Cresconium, c. 32. Ep. 48. lib. 2 Contra Faustinum, c. 5. I confess therefore that everyone owes it, from St. Augustine himself, that so great an authority should not be attributed to him, that from his single doctrine it suffice to establish the dogmata of faith: For thus, he says, Ep. 3: we ought to have the disputations of whatsoever Catholics and praised men as it were Canonical Scriptures, that it be not lawful for us, saving the honourificence which is owed to those men, to blame and reject anything in their writings, if perchance we find that they felt otherwise than truth holds, by divine help understood either by others or by us. Such am I in the writings of others: such do I cultivate readers of mine to be. Let them see therefore how far they stray from his opinion, who wish his books read as those of Prophets or Apostles, concerning whose writings it is nefarious to doubt that they lack all error.

This same truth is confirmed: First indeed, from St. Augustine himself, who proved by his own example that the most holy Doctors of the Church are not to be followed in all things. For lib. 6 De Baptismo contra Donatistas, c. 2, speaking of St. Cyprian, he says: Wherefore rendering due reverence, and paying as much honour as I am able to the peaceful Bishop and glorious martyr Cyprian; I dare nevertheless to say, that he thought otherwise concerning the baptism of Schismatics or Heretics, when afterwards truth revealed it. And lib. 2 Contra Faustum, c. 5, concerning the writings of any others not Canonical, he says the judgment of the Reader is free, whereby he may approve what pleases: or disapprove what offends. Therefore St. Augustine does not judge that equal authority is to be held for the holy Doctors of the Church as for the very oracles of the Scriptures and Councils; and straightway indicates sufficiently that not all dogmata handed down by himself deserve omnimodal faith.

You will say. The writings of St. Augustine, especially on grace and free arbitrium, against the Pelagians, were approved by a special decree of the supreme Pontiffs and of the Church; which indeed is proved: First, from the Epistle of Hormisdas to Possessor, where he says: Concerning free arbitrium nevertheless, and the grace of God, what the Roman, that is, the Apostolic Church follows and asserts, although it can be acknowledged in various books of St. Augustine, and especially ad Hilarium, et Prosperum: nevertheless express chapters are contained in the Ecclesiastical scrinia: which if they are lacking, and you judge necessary, we will send. Second, from the Epist. of John cited in the superior Paragraph, in which he writes of St. John: whose doctrine according to the statutes of my predecessors the Roman Church follows and keeps. By which he signifies that whatever St. Augustine affirmed in the books against the Pelagians must be believed approved by the Apostolic See. — Truly, nothing whatsoever against our assertion is evinced from either of the two aforesaid testimonies; for Pontiff Hormisdas signifies nothing else but that from the works of St. Augustine it can be known what the Church feels concerning grace and free arbitrium: because certainly in them those very chapters which are contained in the Ecclesiastical scrinia are defended most sharply, and which Pontiff Coelestine interwove in his epistle, of which there will be discourse in the following. Similarly John the Pontiff by the aforesaid words intends in no way to prove the writings of St. Augustine against the Pelagians; since in that epistle there is no discourse about Pelagians, but rather about the followers of Nestorius, against whom he confirms the Catholic faith concerning the divinity and Incarnation of Christ with testimonies of Holy Scripture and the Fathers: and at the very front of it he places St. Augustine with this elogium: St. Augustine, whose doctrine according to the statutes of my predecessors the Roman Church follows and keeps, in lib. 11. De Civit. Dei he says thus: We believe, and hold, and faithfully preach, that the Father begot the Word. He subjoins also other testimonies of the same from lib. 2 Contra Maximinum, and from lib. 15 De Trinitate. Since therefore neither in this epistle is there discourse of the doctrine of St. Augustine against the Pelagians, nor is any book called forth by which he impugned them, there is no reason why thence anyone should gather specially that whatsoever is contained in the works of Augustine against the Pelagians is thus approved by the Apostolic See, that to depart even a little from them is nefarious. More probably indeed from this passage the supreme authority could specially be vindicated for the books De Civit. Dei, de Trinitate, and contra Maximum, which here are praised; which however is most alien from their mind. — Deservedly therefore Tostatus in defensorio p. 2. c. 83. admonishes « that from the general approbation of the Church « authority and strength accrue both to the works of St. Aug. and of other « Fathers, chiefly so far as to four heads: The first is, « that the Church grants expressly to all the Faithful of Christ that they « read them, and this with most honourable mention imparts not a small « splendour to their Authors. The second is, that she judges « them useful to the doctrine of faith and morals, and praises them on that account: with « which commendation readers are in a manner enticed, and invited diligently « to unroll them. The third, and principal, is, that the Ch« urch removes from the approved Opuscules suspicion of wilful heresy, « which is true heresy: for those works which are approved, although not « discussed entirely by the Church, as if single parts ought to be approved, « nevertheless are known by a certain general discussion, and it ap« pears from them how the Author of them feels catholically in all things, « not willing to dogmatize expressly and knowingly any error, etc. And that was « the cause most of all, wherefore the Church approved the works of certain Doctors: « because certainly she willed to sever those from pestilential books, which heretics « had been wont to scatter for corrupting faith or morals. The fourth is, that she gives them a certain authority which elsewhere « they had not: not indeed that which adversaries attribute to St. Augustine, but another of inferior note, consisting in this, that when someone al« leges a saying of some book approved by the Church, tacit approbation stands, « although the author himself show no cause of his saying. Hence « St. Thomas asserts, that sacred doctrine uses the authorities of the Doctors of « the Church as arguing from proper principles, but only probabiliter».

Therefore it is permitted to conclude with Vincent of Lérins, Contra haereses c. 39: What the Fathers are bound by this law to believe, that whatsoever they, either all together, or many, with one and the same sense, manifestly, frequently, perseveringly, as it were with a consentient counsel of Masters receiving, holding, handing down, have confirmed, that must be held undoubted, certain, and ratified. But whatsoever anyone, however sanctified and learned, however a Bishop, however Confessor and Martyr, shall have felt besides all, or even against all, if it be secluded among private and occult little opinions apart from the authority of the common, public, and general sentence.

§ IV. — IN WHICH THINGS ABOVE ALL THE DOCTRINE OF ST. AUGUSTINE CONCERNING GRACE HAS BEEN SO APPROVED BY THE CHURCH THAT IT IS NOT LAWFUL TO DEPART FROM IT EVEN A LITTLE? — In those chapters especially which Coelestine the Pontiff digested and approved in that famous epistle to the Bishops of Gaul, that he might vindicate St. Augustine himself from the suspicion of error in this part. For when the Massilian Presbyters were tumultuating in Gaul, and after the death of Augustine were sharply carping at his doctrine concerning grace and free arbitrium, criminating above all most invidiously that he taught that not only good works but also the beginnings of good will are to be attributed to divine grace, hence they objected that he had exceeded the necessary mode; Hilarus and Prosper could not endure that the books of the Doctor of grace be plucked at unpunished by Semi-Catholic men: but they attempted to repel their calumnies with every effort; and first indeed Prosper published certain little books, in which responding to the Capitula of the Gauls, and to the Vincentian objections, he accurately vindicated the doctrine of St. Augustine from the criminations of his rivals. But when the evil crept wider, and was not quieted by these remedies, he came with Hilarus to Rome, and together they pleaded before Coelestine the supreme Pontiff, that he both curb the audacity of the Massilians, and approve with Apostolic authority the doctrine of St. Augustine which the Roman Pontiffs hitherto had embraced. Coelestine wrote to the Bishops of Gaul, and so wrote that he signified to them, and indeed to the whole Catholic Church, what the Apostolic See sanctioned in the doctrine of Augustine concerning grace and free arbitrium: for when he had briefly touched the Massilians, that they clamoured against St. Augustine, he enumerates singly the individual chapters of his doctrine which were approved by himself and the Roman Church, and confirms them with the testimonies of the preceding Pontiffs. Moreover those Chapters are: First, that in the transgression of Adam all men lost natural possibility and innocence, and that no one can arise out of the depth of that ruin by free arbitrium unless the grace of God pitying raise him up. — Second, that no one is good of himself unless he partake of him who alone is good. — Third, that no one even renewed by the grace of baptism is fit for overcoming the snares of the devil and eradicating the concupiscences of flesh, unless he receive perseverance of good conversation by the daily help of God. — Fourthly, that no one makes good use of free arbitrium except through Christ. — Fifthly, that all studies, all works and merits of Saints must be referred to the glory and praise of God, because no one pleases him from elsewhere than from that which he himself has given. — Sixthly, that God so works in the hearts of men, and in free arbitrium itself, that holy thought, pious counsel, and every motion of good will is from God, because through him we are able to do anything good, without whom we can do nothing good. — Seventhly, that he must be anathematized who shall have said that the grace of God whereby we are justified through Jesus Christ our Lord avails only for remission of sins committed, and not also for aid that they be not committed. — Eighthly, that he must be anathematized who shall have said that the grace of God through Jesus Christ aids us for this end only, that we sin not, because by it there is revealed and opened to us understanding of the commandments, that we may know what we ought to desire or avoid: but that through it there is not granted to us that what we know must be done we also love and are able to do. — Ninthly, that he must be anathematized who shall have said that the grace of justification is given to us for this reason, that what we are commanded to do through free arbitrium we can accomplish more easily through grace: as if, if grace were not given, we could not indeed easily, but nevertheless could fulfil the divine commandments without it.

From these sentences of Augustine, strengthened by the authority of the supreme Pontiffs Innocent and Zosimus, Coelestinus frames the following canon: Confirmed therefore by these Ecclesiastical rules and documents taken from divine authority, with the Lord aiding, we are so established, that of all goods of affection and works, of all studies and virtues, wherewith from the beginning of faith he is tempered, we profess God the Author: and let us not doubt that all merits in man are anticipated by his grace, whereby it comes to pass that we begin both to will and to do anything good: by which aid and gift of God free arbitrium is not taken away, but liberated, that of dark it may become lucid, of crooked right, of languishing sound, of improvident provident. And finally thus concludes shortly after: But the deeper and more difficult parts of the intervening questions, which those who resisted the heretics (Pelagians namely, and Semi-Pelagians) treated more broadly (above all St. Augustine), just as we dare not despise, so we have no necessity of constructing, because for confessing the grace of God, to whose work and dignity nothing must be subtracted, we believe sufficiently to suffice whatever according to the aforesaid Rules the writings of the Apostolic See taught us: so that we think him in no wise a Catholic who shall appear contrary to the prefixed sentences.

§ V. — HOW EAGERLY ALL HERETICS WHATSOEVER WHO EXISTED AFTER ST. AUGUSTINE ENDEAVOURED TO DEFEND THEIR ERRORS BY HIS DOCTRINE. — « That error of every kind has this, says Deschamps lib. 3. disput. 1. cap. 1, *that since it is weak of itself, and blushes with native colour, it creeps not into the light before it has associated to itself the defence of sacred « Letters, and put on as it were a mask, the name of some most holy and « most learned man. Hence the heretics vie with one another in flying to the name of St. Augustine, since of all who flourished in the nascent « or adult Church with praise of piety and doctrine there is none « who has more authority and faith with posterity ».

Long ago Jerome Torrensis noted this in the preface to the Augustinian confession. « Sectaries, he says, since they defer no honour, or « certainly a most small one, to the Fathers, and wish the same all under one name to be nothing but men, often deceitful men; one « however they always except, and honour most, him they cultivate « as a faithful master of pious doctrine, and observe: they make him next « to the Apostle Paul, and never cease attempting to join him to their party. Where a disputation on Justification occurs, « none more frequently than Augustine do they adduce in patrocinium of their party. Similarly where the question of the Eucharist and of the sacred body of Christ « is moved by Sacramentarians, Augustine is always first « and last in their mouth.» Likewise Claudius Sanctesius in repetition 9 de Eucharistia observes: it is permitted to observe the adversaries, he says, *whether destroying ours or asserting theirs, to beware with solid and certain scriptures, and « in every controversy to flee to one Augustine, as to a sacred « anchor: not because he stands for their party, but because « he wrote so much and so variously as the occasion required, that it is easy for all « heretics after him to twist something from him, and to turn away « otherwise than he said ».

That this indeed can easily be proved by the reckoning of all heretics whatsoever who existed in whatever century after St. Augustine.

First namely, the Predestinatiani attempted to cover their errors with the authority of so great a Doctor, as St. Prosper testifies in the Chronicle: The heresy of the Predestinati, he says, which is said to have drawn its beginning from the books of Augustine ill understood, began to creep abroad in these times. Baronius indeed at the year of Christ 190 num. 17: After the death of St. Augustine, he says, there bubbled up certain men, who incurred several errors from his writings ill perceived, which they attempted to defend with the name and authority of St. Augustine.

Scarcely had the heresy of the Predestinatians been crushed when another arose in the eighth century, which waged war upon the sacred images. Its chief restorer in Gaul was Claudius, Bishop of Turin. Of him Dungal thus writes in the reply published against him: He takes up Augustine, « whose subtlety of intellect and rectitude of the sense of Christ he is most far removed from, rejecting indeed nearly all others besides him alone. And after several intervening words: But he wantonly caresses and flatters St. Augustine, preferring him with singular praise, as if he recalled him as his patron. Likewise: Claudius judges that his sect can be upheld by the authority of supreme Augustine. Consistent with these are the things which Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, writes against the same heretic in book 1. De Cultu imaginum: Augustine, he says, he was accustomed to extol among the ancients with the encomiums of great praise.

The same fraud Berengarius concealed, that he might fight against the divine Sacrament of the Eucharist; for of him Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, writes in the book De Eucharistiae Sacramento, where he thus addresses him: You exult in the words of blessed Augustine, boasting here that you have conquered and surpass; here you rejoice that you have found the firmament of your defense. Algern also, lib. 1. De Sacramento, cap. 10, often inculcates this, and especially in that chapter which begins thus: But even hence from the sentence of blessed Augustine: you are not going to eat this body which you see, the heresy was born, etc.

In the fourteenth century a new error burst forth from hell, with John Wyclif as its leader and parent; with how much insolence he claimed the name and authority of St. Augustine can easily be known from these words of Wyclif: In many extraneous and modern things I dissent, but with many ancient saints, and especially Augustine, I consent. When Thomas Waldensis recited this, Tom. 1. lib. 1. art. 2. cap. 81, he adds: Trusting in this audacious pomp, his disciples called him by a notorious and inflated name, John of Augustine.

With equal zeal and similar artifice Luther and Calvin, and their followers, strove to draw St. Augustine over to their own side, and to seek a hiding-place in his authority. For Luther wrote petulantly in the book De servo arbitrio: Augustine is entirely mine. Calvin claims Augustine for himself far more ambitiously, in many places, but especially lib. 3. Contra Pighium: I have boasted, he says, of Augustine, that he is wholly ours. And after much else: we say nothing but Augustine. And at length, as if the matter were openly demonstrated, he concludes thus: Therefore, even though Pighius may burst, he cannot extort this from us, that Augustine is ours. And lib. De aeterna Dei Praedest.: Augustine himself, he says, is so entirely ours that if a confession were to be written by me, it would abundantly suffice me to produce one woven together from his writings.

With like imprudence Melancthon, in the Apology for Luther against the Sorbonists, says: Is not Luther's sense concerning free will and grace throughout the whole matter the sentiment of all Augustine? In the same place the same rascal speaks: But if it was ever doubted in what kind of letters or affairs Lutetia was engaged, this place now declares it, in which I think it appears that in that whole Sorbonic Faculty there is no one who has ever touched Augustine. That they may be able to touch the very Scripture itself can easily be estimated, when some among the Theologians have not even seen the popular Writer Augustine. Theologians! O Sorbonne! And after a few words interjected: Grant this request of yours to yourselves, that you do not read Augustine daily, but merely glance at him: for there is no page of your error which does not convict you. And universally concerning the Lutherans and Calvinists Bartholomaeus Carnerarius affirms, lib. 1. De libero arbitrio, cap. 3: Having often experienced their great craftiness, they openly prefer Augustine before the wretched common people, as a cloak for their errors.

Wherefore the most learned Waldensis, lib. 2. cap. 31, deservedly writes: Anxious about the heretical calumniators of his books, Augustine said that word of Ecclesiastes: I have hated all my labor, wherein I labored under the sun, because his books came into the hands of fools, who frequently according to the perversity of their heart sow heresies thence. Nevertheless, that also ought to console the most holy Doctor which Facundus, Bishop of Hermiane, who lived one century after him, elegantly and aptly for our subject observed: But why should we wonder at this? For Augustine could not have spoken better than the Prophets, than the Apostles, when the Frangellistae, both on account of their words similarly ill understood, and then many heretics attempt to defend their errors.

Although, therefore, the matter has here been treated only concerning the authority of St. Augustine, nevertheless he himself alone is not to be considered the only one to be heard in resolving the controversies concerning divine grace; for to resolve and solve those difficulties the celebrated treatises of all those Holy Fathers help not a little, who in the age of St. Augustine contended most strenuously against the nascent or re-nascent heresy of the Pelagians; but especially those of the SS. Jerome, Prosper, Hilary, and of all those whom in the prior volume, while treating of the expugnators of the Pelagian heresy, we have indicated and praised.

Furthermore, that an easier and clearer order of the matters to be set forth may be had by the readers, especially the junior Theologians of our Seraphic Order, chiefly for whose benefit we have undertaken this labor, we have judged it expedient to insert here the decrees of those Councils in which the Catholic doctrine concerning divine grace has been distinctly and professedly determined and asserted, whose canons especially rarely come into the hands of all. But that I may pass over the decrees of the Council of Diospolis, of which mention was made in the prior volume, I shall begin this prelude from the decrees of the Council of Carthage, which are commonly circulated under the name of the Council of Mileve.

§ VI. — DECREES OR CANONS OF THE COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE CELEBRATED IN THE YEAR OF CHRIST 418, BY WHICH THE PELAGIAN HERESY IS PROSCRIBED AND CONDEMNED. That Council of Carthage, in which 217 Bishops assembled, as St. Prosper narrates in his Chronicle, or 214, as he says in response 8. to the chapters of the Gauls, and also cap. 10. lib. contra Collatorem, seems to be the same as that plenary Council of all Africa of which St. Aug. makes mention in Epist. 17. ad Valentinum; and to which he perhaps alludes lib. 3. Contra Iulianum cap. 7, in these words: « Your cause « before the competent judgment of the assembled Bishops has now been concluded, « nor must anything further be transacted with us, as far as the right of examination « pertains, except that you follow with peace the sentence delivered concerning « this matter; but if you are unwilling, let yourselves be restrained from turbulent « or insidious disquietude ». In this Council certain decrees were published against the Pelagian heresy, which decrees, or chapters, seem to many learned men to be the same as those eight canons which are commonly circulated under the name of the Council of Mileve against Pelagius. But we shall prove that those decrees were published not by the Council of Mileve but by the aforesaid Council of Carthage, where we shall review these decrees.

CHAPTER I. — Against the Pelagians, who say that Adam could have died even without sin. — First, it pleased all the Bishops who were in this holy Synod to establish what has been defined in the present Council, that whosoever says that Adam, the first man, was made mortal, so that whether he sinned or did not sin he would die in body, that is, depart from the body, not by the merit of sin but by the necessity of nature, let him be anathema.

CHAPTER II. — That all are baptized truly unto the remission of sins. — Likewise it pleased that whosoever denies that little ones newly drawn from the wombs of their mothers ought to be baptized, or says that they are indeed baptized unto the remission of sins, but derive nothing from Adam of original sin, which is expiated in the laver of regeneration, whence it follows that in them the form of baptism unto the remission of sins is understood not truly but falsely, let him be anathema. Since that which the Apostle says must be understood in no other way: By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned; than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere has always understood it: for on account of this rule of faith even little ones, who could not yet commit any sins in themselves, are therefore baptized truly unto the remission of sins, so that in them that be cleansed by regeneration which they contracted by generation.

CHAPTER III. — That the grace of God not only remits sins, but also helps that they be not committed. — Likewise it pleased that whosoever shall have said that the grace of God, in which we are justified through Jesus Christ our Lord, avails only for the remission of sins already committed, and not also for aid that they be not committed, let him be anathema. ⟦the raw OCR breaks off at "ana-" before the Caput IV heading; restored closing "nathema sit" from sense⟧

CHAPTER IV. — That through the grace of God we may know what we ought to do, and love to do it. — Likewise, whoever shall say that the same grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, helps us toward not sinning for this reason only, because through it there is revealed and opened to us an understanding of the commandments, so that we may know what we ought to desire and what to avoid; but that it is not bestowed upon us so that, having known what must be done, we may also love to do it and be able to do it; let him cite the Apostle: Knowledge inflates, but charity edifies: it is most impious for us to believe that we have the grace of Christ for that which inflates, but not for that which edifies; since it is a gift of God both to know what we ought to do, and to love to do it; so that, with charity building up, knowledge cannot inflate. And just as concerning God it is written, Ps. 63. Who teacheth man knowledge, so also it is written, John 4. Charity is of God.

CHAPTER V. — That the grace of God makes it possible for the law to be fulfilled, not easily without grace (as Pelagius says), as if what cannot be fulfilled more difficultly without the grace of God could be fulfilled more easily by grace. — Likewise it has pleased that whoever shall say that the grace of justification is given to us for this reason, that what we are commanded to do by free will we may be able to fulfill more easily by grace, as though even if grace were not given, we could indeed not easily, yet still could fulfill the divine commandments even without it, let him be anathema: for the Lord was speaking of the fruits of the commandments when He did not say: without me you can act with more difficulty; but said: John 13. Without me you can do nothing.

CHAPTER VI. — That according to the teaching of John the Evangelist no one exists who can be without sin. — Likewise it has pleased that where St. John the Apostle says in his first Epistle: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us, whoever shall think this is to be understood so as to claim that we ought to say we have sin on account of humility, not because it is true, let him be anathema. For the Apostle continues, and adds in the same place: But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, who forgives us our sins, and cleanses us from all iniquity. Wherein it is abundantly clear that this is said not only humbly, but also truthfully: for the Apostle could have said: if we say that we have no sin, we exalt ourselves, and humility is not in us; but when he says: We deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us, he sufficiently shows that whoever declares himself to have no sin speaks not the truth, but falsehood.

CHAPTER VII. — That it behooves everyone, even the Just, to say: Forgive us our debts. — Likewise it has pleased that whoever shall say that in the Lord's Prayer the Saints say the same words, Forgive us our debts, not on their own behalf, because this petition is already unnecessary for them, but on behalf of others who are sinners among his people; and therefore that it is not lawful for any one of the Saints to say: Forgive me my debts, but rather, Forgive us our debts, so that the Just is understood to ask this for others rather than for himself, let him be anathema. For the Apostle James was holy and just when he said: For in many things we all offend. For why was the word added, all, unless that this saying might agree also with the Psalm, wherein it is read: Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight no man living shall be justified? And in the prayer of the wisest Solomon: There is no man who sinneth not. And in the book of Job, chap. 37: He sealeth in the hand of every man, that every man may know his own infirmity? Whence also Daniel, holy and just, when in prayer he spoke in the plural, saying, We have sinned, we have committed iniquities, etc., which he there confesses truthfully and humbly, lest it be thought, as some hold, that he had spoken these words not of his own sins, but rather of those of his people, afterwards said: While I was praying, and confessing my sins, and the sins of my people to the Lord our God. He did not wish to say our sins, but said both the sins of his people and his own, because as a Prophet he foresaw those who would understand these words so badly.

CHAPTER VIII. — That the Saints truly say: Forgive us our debts. Likewise it has pleased that whosoever would will the very words of the Lord's Prayer, wherein we say, Forgive us our debts, to be spoken by the Saints in such wise that they are said humbly, but not truthfully, let him be anathema. For who could bear a suppliant who lies not to men, but to the Lord Himself, who says with his lips that he wishes his debts forgiven, and says in his heart that they are not forgiven him, because he has no debts?

There are besides fourteen other Canons published for establishing ecclesiastical discipline, about all of which there is no small controversy among Authors.

You will object: « when did they issue from the African Council? » — I answer. Baronius, at Ann. 416, judges that only the eight Canones received above are prior ones of the second Council of Milevum; but that the rest belong to various African Councils; so much so that you may see one body compacted from diverse members, whose head, feet, and remaining members are joined together out of diverse members. But I judge it more probable that the aforementioned Canons were published by the plenary Council of Carthage; and that this controversy may be settled according to our measure, it must be known that four Synods were held in Africa concerning the errors of Pelagius and Coelestius: namely two under Innocent the first, Roman Pontiff, the Viberitan and the Carthaginian, both Provincial: and another two under his successor Zosimus, the first indeed a Carthaginian one in the Year 417, to which were present the Bishops of the Province of Byzacena, whose metropolis was Carthage; then the other, fuller, of two hundred and seventeen Bishops, begun in the Year 418, and not concluded until after Pelagius and Coelestius had been condemned by Zosimus; Augustine makes mention of these Synods, Epist. 17, in these words: What was written to Innocent, Pope of the Roman city, by the Council of the Carthaginian Province, and by the Council of Numidia: and somewhat more diligently by five Bishops, and what he wrote in reply to the Africans. Also what was written to Pope Zosimus concerning the African Council, and his rescript sent to all the Bishops of the whole world: and what we briefly established in the later plenary Council of all Africa against that same error.

NOTE FURTHER that two Councils were celebrated at Viberi in Numidia. One indeed in the year 402, at the beginning of the pontificate of Innocent, under Arcadius and Honorius Augusti II. Consuls: the other in the year 411, in the last year of the life of Innocent, under Theodosius and Honorius, sons of Arcadius, Consuls, at which time likewise was being celebrated the Provincial Synod of Carthage, to which alone had come the Bishops of the Proconsular Province, or even a few Bishops of neighboring Provinces. Moreover Baronius holds that the aforementioned collection of Canons should be divided into three parts, and assigns the first, that is, to the interpretation given by the first Council of Milevum, the second, containing the eight anathematisms against the heresy of Pelagius, to the second Council of Milevum: the third, embracing all the rest, he attributes to various African Councils. In the ancient collection of Councils, however, the aforementioned Canons were assigned to the first Council of Milevum. — Yet whoever imposed upon this collection the name of the Council of Milevum had neither knowledge nor account of the facts, nor of the persons, nor of other circumstances. First because the first Council of Milevum was held in the year of Christ 402, at the beginning of the pontificate of Innocent: at which time far from having arisen was the heresy of Pelagius, which began only to be spread abroad and propagated around the year 413, as St. Prosper observes in his Chronicle at that year: In this age (he says) Pelagius the Briton exercised the doctrine of his name against the grace of Christ, with Coelestinus and Julianus as helpers, and drew many into his error. And well did he say this of that year, because in the previous year, as Baronius proves by the best reasoning at the year of Christ 412, Coelestius, disciple of Pelagius, arraigned by Paulinus the Deacon concerning the heads of the Pelagian heresy, had been condemned by synodal sentence at Carthage. Therefore the Pelagian heresy could not have been condemned in the first Council of Milevum, which began to be published only after a full decade. And consequently, the first eight Canons of this collection, by which the heads of the Pelagian heresy are condemned article by article, must necessarily belong to another Council. — Furthermore, the Council of Milevum, from which...

Which indeed is established first by Canon nine, whose words are: Likewise it has pleased that all the Bishops gathered at the Council be held no longer, three judges being elected from each Province, and there were elected from the Province of Carthage, Vincentius, Fortunatianus, and Clarus; from the Province of Numidia, Alypius, Augustine, and Restitutus; from the Province of Byzacena, together with the holy elder Donatianus Primate, Cresconius, Jocundus, and Emilianus; from Mauritania Sitifensis, Severianus, Asiaticus, and Donatus; from the Province of Tripolitana, Plautius, who was sent as the one legate according to custom, who together with the holy elder Aurelius should examine everything, from whom the whole Council begs that he himself subscribe all the acts, whether those already completed or the Epistles, and they subscribed. Aurelius Bishop of the Church of Carthage consented to this decree, and subscribed after its reading, and similarly all the rest subscribed. It stands firm, I say, that this Canon cannot be judged to have been enacted by the second Synod of Milevum; for this Synod was Provincial of Numidia, but this Canon (as is evident) belongs to a plenary National Council, gathered from five Provinces of Africa. — Moreover, Aurelius Bishop of Carthage was not present at the second Council of Milevum, who at that time was celebrating a Provincial Synod at Carthage, from which he wrote to Innocent the Roman Pontiff; but at this Synod, in which the aforementioned Canon was enacted, he was present and presided. — Finally, at the second Council of Milevum Silvanus presided, who wrote letters together with the other Bishops of Numidia to Innocent; Silvanus indeed is not even named in this Canon; but to Aurelius Bishop of Carthage is given the faculty of writing and subscribing the Epistles; what therefore has this Council in common with the second of Milevum? — Nor is it likely that the first eight were enacted by the same Council: first because we have the letters of this Council to Pontiff Innocent, in which no mention is made of the Canons enacted by them, no approval is sought, a matter not to be passed over in silence, had it been done; then because the Fathers of that Synod, by common Epistles, and likewise four Bishops by their own particular letters directed to Innocent the Supreme Pontiff, beg that he publicly condemn Pelagianism; therefore it was not yet publicly condemned, nor were its assertors yet universally separated from the body of the Church, but the Fathers of Milevum beg that it might be done by the Roman Pontiff; then because St. Prosper, in his reply against the Chapters of the Gauls, cap. 8, speaking of those Canons, says: With two hundred and fourteen Priests, whose constitution against the enemies of the grace of God the whole world has embraced with oral profession: as their discourse has it: Let us speak of the grace of God, etc. And against the Collator: The 214 Priests erred, who in the Epistle, which they set before their Constitutions, addressed Zosimus of the Apostolic See thus: We have established, etc. If the Canons against Pelagius, which he calls Constitutions, were decreed in the time of Zosimus, and by 214 Bishops, certainly they were not decreed in the second of Milevum. Namely, the second of Milevum was held under Innocent, not under Zosimus, and there were present at it not 214 but only sixty Bishops, as they themselves profess in their Epistle to Innocent, publishing the names of each.

Again, in the poem against the ungrateful, the same Author, speaking of these Canons, which, as he had said before, were approved at Rome, adds:

They were founded, and written they remain, which from the cataracts Of the eternal fountain flowed forth, with metal overflowing, And were published by three hundred tongues of the Nobles.

Two hundred and fourteen Fathers he could call three hundred by synecdoche; but sixty, by no means.

If the Pelagian heresy, by the Canons enacted, had been condemned first at Milevum rather than at Rome, Prosper would have spoken falsely of it in the same book:

The coming plague the See of Peter's Rome first cut away, Which, made head of the world by pastoral honor, Holds by religion whatever it does not possess by arms.

Coelestinus the first, R. P., in an Epistle to the Bishops of the Gauls, writing against the Pelagians, cap. 10, says: That also which was established within the decrees of the Synod of Carthage we embrace as proper to the Apostolic See, namely what is defined in the third chapter: And whosoever shall say that the grace of God, whereby we are justified, etc. And he recites word for word Canon 3 of the Milevitan collection, and adds: And again in the same Chapter, that if anyone shall say that the grace of God through Jesus Christ helps us for this reason only, etc. And he recites the fourth Canon of that collection; and also the fifth, always under the name of Carthage, never of Milevum. But since Coelestinus entered upon his pontificate in the year of Christ 423, it is not likely that he was ignorant of the true Author of the Canons which he cited, whether they had been enacted under Zosimus or under Innocent, especially since he had the acts of both Pontiffs and of both Councils in this cause, and recited them in this same Epistle, from their authentic records, in their own words.

Let us conclude this passage with the testimony of all the ancient Codices. In the Epitome of the African Church, which Adrian the First gave to Charlemagne, the eight Canons against Pelagius are found with this note: «The eight chapters which follow were established under anathema in the Council of Carthage». In the body of the Canons of the African Church, which was read at Carthage in the plenary Council of Africa, after the consulship of Honorius XIII. and Theodosius XII., they are found word for word in the Council of Carthage of the preceding year, not in any Council of Milevum; there, however, all the Councils which were held in Africa in the time of Aurelius Bishop of Carthage are referred to together with their decrees. In the vulgar collection they are read verbatim in the plenary Council of Africa, Honorius VIII. and Theodosius VIII. Consuls. Photius says in his Library that he had read this Synod of Carthage with these Canons, against Pelagius and Coelestius. Binius, in the second Tome of the Councils, asserts that they are referred to the same Council in a certain ancient Codex of the Monastery of Saint Bavon of Ghent, and in a Codex printed at Mainz in the year 1652, according to the very ancient exemplar of the Monastery of Winchester. If therefore anyone, these things considered, should persist on account of that one collection in calling the Canons against Pelagius Milevitan, and not Carthaginian, I would say of him that he takes no account of human good faith.

VIII. THE CANONS OF THE SECOND COUNCIL OF ORANGE, CELEBRATED IN THE YEAR 529, WHEREBY IT IS CHIEFLY ESTABLISHED WHAT IS TO BE HELD CONCERNING GRACE AND FAITH.

Preface. — When we had come together, God propitious and Himself inviting, for the dedication of the Basilica which our most illustrious Prefect and Patrician son Liberius built at Orange in most faithful devotion, and when a spiritual colloquy had arisen among us concerning those matters which pertain to the ecclesiastical rule, it came to our attention that there are some who wish to hold opinions concerning grace and free will less cautiously, and not according to the rule of Catholic faith. Wherefore it seemed to us just and reasonable, according to the authority and admonition of the Apostolic See, that we ought to set forth for observance by all, and to subscribe with our own hands, the few chapters transmitted to us by the Apostolic See, which have been gathered by the ancient Fathers from certain volumes of the Scriptures, for the instruction of those who think otherwise than is fitting: which, when read, let those who hitherto have believed concerning grace and free will otherwise than was fitting not delay to incline their mind to those things which accord with Catholic faith.

1. If anyone says that through the offense of the prevarication of Adam man was not changed wholly for the worse, that is, as to body and soul, but believes that, the liberty of the soul remaining unimpaired, the body alone is subject to corruption, deceived by the error of Pelagius, he contradicts the Scripture saying: The soul that sinneth, the same shall die. And: Know ye not that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are whom you obey, and of whomsoever one is overcome, to the same he is made a slave.

2. If anyone asserts that Adam's prevarication injured him alone, and not his progeny; or certainly testifies that death of the body alone, as the punishment of sin, passed through one man into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul, he will do injustice to God, contradicting the Apostle who says: By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.

3. If anyone says that the grace of God can be conferred through human invocation, but not that grace itself makes us keep silence so as to be invoked by us, he contradicts Isaias the Prophet, or the Apostle saying the same thing: I was found by them that did not seek me: I appeared openly to them that asked not after me.

4. If anyone contends that, in order that we may be cleansed from sin, God awaits our will; but does not confess that even that we may wish to be cleansed is wrought in us through the infusion and operation of the Holy Spirit, he resists the Holy Spirit Himself saying by Solomon: The will is prepared: etc., and the Apostle preaching: It is God who worketh in us both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will.

5. If anyone says that the beginning of faith, no less than its increase, and the very affection of belief, whereby we believe in Him who justifies the impious, and by which we arrive at the regeneration of baptism, is not in us through the gift of grace, that is, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit correcting our will from infidelity to faith, from impiety to piety, but that it is naturally inherent in us, he is shown to be an adversary to Apostolic dogmas, St. Paul saying: We trust that he who hath begun a good work in you will perfect it unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that other: To you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him: and: By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God. For they who say that the faith, whereby we believe in God, is natural define, in a certain manner, all those who are aliens from the Church of Christ to be believers.

6. If anyone says that without the grace of God divine mercy is bestowed divinely upon us believing, willing, desiring, striving, laboring, watching, studying, asking, knocking; but does not confess that, that we may believe, or will, or be able to do all these things as we ought, is wrought in us through the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; and subordinates either the help of grace to human humility or obedience, and does not consent that it is the gift of grace itself that we should be obedient and humble; he resists the Apostle saying: What hast thou that thou hast not received? And: By the grace of God I am what I am.

7. If anyone confirms that by the vigor of nature any good thing pertaining to the salvation of eternal life can be chosen, as is expedient, either to choose or to consent to saving, that is, Evangelical preaching, without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all sweetness in consenting to and believing the truth, yet through heretical spirit, not understanding the voice of God in the Gospel saying: Without me you can do nothing. And that saying of the Apostle: In what are we able to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God?

8. If anyone contends that some come to the grace of baptism through mercy, others indeed through free will, which in all who are born from the prevarication of the first man is acknowledged to be vitiated, he is proved alien from right faith. For this Canon does not assert that the free will of all has been enfeebled through the sin of the first man; or certainly it so thinks it unimpaired that nevertheless certain ones could, without the revelation of God, acquire by themselves the mystery of eternal salvation. How contrary this is, the Lord Himself proves, who testifies that not some, but no one can come to Him unless the Father draw him, as He says also to Peter: Blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven: And the Apostle: No man can say, the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost.

9. It is a divine gift both when we think rightly and when we restrain our feet from sadness and injustice: for as often as we do good, God worketh in us and with us, that we may work.

10. The help of God must ever be implored even by those reborn and holy, that they may arrive at a good end, or be able to persevere in good work.

11. Let no man vow anything rightly to the Lord unless he have received it from Him, as it is read: What we have received from thy hand, we give unto thee.

12. God loves such men as we shall be by His gift, not such as we are by our own merit.

13. The liberty of will enfeebled in the first man cannot be repaired except through the grace of baptism: and what was lost cannot be restored except by Him from whom it was able to be given, whence Truth itself says: If the Son shall make you free, then shall you be free indeed.

14. No wretched man is delivered from whatever misery unless he who is prevented by the mercy of God, as the Psalmist says: Speedily anticipate us thy mercies, O Lord. And that other: My God, his mercy shall prevent me.

15. From that which God formed Adam was changed, but into worse through his iniquity: from that which iniquity wrought the faithful man is changed, but into better through the grace of God: therefore that change belonged to the prevaricator of old: this (according to the Psalm) is a change of the right hand of the Most High.

16. Let no one glory on account of what he seems to have, as though he had not received it, or suppose that for that reason he received it, because the letter appeared outwardly either to be read or sounded forth to be heard. For as the Apostle says: If justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain. But further, if He did not die in vain, ascending on high He led captivity captive, He gave gifts to men. Thence has whosoever hath: but whosoever denies himself to have thence, either truly hath not, or what he hath shall be taken away from him.

17. Worldly covetousness makes the fortitude of the Gentiles, but the charity of God makes the fortitude of Christians, which is poured forth in our hearts, not by the arbitrament of the will, which is from ourselves, but by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us, the grace preventing with no merits.

18. A reward is due to good works if they be done; but grace, which is not due, goes before, that they may be done.

19. Human nature, even if it remained in that integrity in which it was created, could by no means preserve itself, its Creator not assisting.

Whence since without the grace of God it cannot guard the salvation which it has received, how without the grace of God shall it be able to repair that which it has lost?

20. God does many good things in man which man does not do: but man does no good thing which God does not grant that man should do.

21. As to those who, wishing to be justified in the law, have fallen from grace, the Apostle most truly says: If justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain: so also concerning those who think that nature commends and receives the grace of faith in Christ, it is said most truly: if justice be by nature, then Christ died in vain. For already here was the law, and it did not justify; already here was nature, and it did not justify: therefore Christ did not die in vain, that both the law might be fulfilled through him, who said: I came not to dissolve the law, but to fulfill it: and that nature lost through Adam might be repaired through him, who said that he came to seek and to save that which was lost.

22. No one has anything of his own except lying and sin: but whatever a man has of truth and of justice is from that fountain which we ought to thirst after in this desert, that being sprinkled as it were with certain drops thence we may not fail on the way.

23. Men do their own will, not God's, when they do that which displeases God; but when they so do what they will as to serve the divine will, although willingly they do what they do, nevertheless it is his will by whom what they will is prepared and commanded.

24. So are the branches in the vine that they contribute nothing to the vine, but receive from it whence they live: for thus is the vine in the branches, that it ministers vital nourishment to them, not takes it from them: and hence it profits disciples both to have Christ remaining in themselves, and to remain in Christ, and not Christ. For when the branch is cut off, another can sprout from the living root; but he who has been cut off cannot live without the root.

25. Utterly is it the gift of God to love God: he himself gave it that he might be loved, who loves though not loved: displeasing, we were loved, that there might be wrought in us that whereby we might please. For the Spirit of the Father and of the Son diffuses charity into our hearts, whom we love with the Father and the Son.

But if according to the above-written sentences of the holy Scriptures, or the definitions of the ancient Fathers, this we ought, God propitious, both to preach and to believe: that through the sin of the first man free will has been so inclined and weakened that no one thereafter can either love God as he ought, or believe in God, or work for God what is good, unless grace and the divine mercy prevent him. Whence we believe that to Abel the just, and Noe, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and to all the multitude of the ancient Saints, that illustrious faith which the Apostle Paul preaches to their praise, was conferred not through the good of nature which had been previously given in Adam, but through the grace of God. Which grace also after the coming of the Lord we know is conferred on all who desire to be baptized, not in their free will, but in the largess of Christ simultaneously, according to that already said above, and which the Apostle Paul preaches: To you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him. And that: By grace you are saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God. And that which the Apostle says of himself: I have obtained mercy that I may be faithful. He did not say because I was, but that I might be. And that: What hast thou that thou hast not received? And that: Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. And that: No one has any good thing unless it have been given him from above. Innumerable are the testimonies of the holy Scriptures which could be brought forward to prove grace, but they have been passed over out of zeal for brevity, since indeed where few do not suffice, more will not profit. This also we believe according to the Catholic faith: that grace accepted through baptism, all the baptized, Christ aiding and cooperating, can and ought to fulfill those things which pertain unto salvation, if they have willed to labor faithfully.

But that some have been predestinated to evil by the divine power, we believe not only not, but even if there be those who wish to believe so great an evil, with all detestation we say anathema to them. This also we wholesomely profess and believe; and afterwards we are helped by the mercy of God: but he himself, with no preceding good merits of ours, inspires both faith and love of himself, that we may faithfully seek the Sacraments of baptism, and after baptism, with his aid, may be able to fulfill those things which are pleasing to him. Thence it must be believed most manifestly, that that faith so admirable of the thief whom the Lord recalled to the fatherland of Paradise, and of Cornelius the Centurion, to whom the Angel of the Lord was sent, and of Zachaeus, who merited to receive the Lord himself, was not of nature, but the gift of the divine largess, etc. Thus the Council.

It must here be observed, moreover, that no light controversy is agitated among Doctors and Ecclesiastical Annalists as to by what Supreme Pontiff the above-written Canons were selected and directed to the Synod of Orange. For very many judge, with Suarez, Prolog. 6. De Gratia, cap. 1, that they were composed and sent by Leo, under whose vigor and diligence St. Prosper affirms the Pelagian heresy had been crushed and almost extinguished in Dimidio temp., cap. 6. Baronius ad Ann. Christi 462 judged that that Synod was celebrated not under Pope Leo but under Hilary his successor. Again, in the Appendix, Tom. 10, having revoked his prior opinion, he contends that that Synod was celebrated under the Roman Pontiff Felix IV, Anno Christi 526. And very many recent writers follow this opinion.

Observe further that very many judge the aforesaid Canons to have been everywhere culled from the doctrine of St. Augustine and conceived by St. Prosper, whose labors the Supreme Pontiffs used very much especially against the Semi-Pelagians. It is certain, however, that the Canones were composed not from the doctrine of one St. Aug., but collected also by the ancient Fathers from the volumes of the holy Scriptures, as is read in the preface, or as the conclusion bears: these are the definitions of the ancient Fathers. By which it is convicted that the Fathers judged this to be not a peculiar sentiment of St. Aug., but common to him with the other ancient Fathers; which indeed Boniface II confirms by his Epistle to Caesarius of Arles, whereby he confirms the Synod of Orange, chiefly in that part wherein it defined that we have not faith except from preceding grace through Christ, as doctrine handed down by many Fathers, and consonant with the Catholic rules of the Fathers.

SELECTED ITEMS FROM THE DECREES OF THE COUNCIL OF SENS. — Scarcely had the Lutheran pest begun to rage more widely and to propagate itself when the Cardinal a Prato, Archbishop of Sens and Chancellor of Gaul, convoked a Council at Paris, which is found in the last volume of the Councils under this title: the Council of Sens celebrated in the year of the Lord 1028, whose authority is so great that our Faventinus deservedly wrote, disp. 60. in 1. cap. t. Licitum: Although this Council of Sens is Provincial, it is nevertheless of great authority, and its whole doctrine seems to have been confirmed in the Council of Trent. Which indeed Suarez confirms, prolog. 6, writing: The Council of Trent, which was celebrated after 20 years, approves by its virtue the whole doctrine concerning grace which the Council of Sens had handed down; because it teaches nearly the same thing more expounded and enriched, as it defines. Wherefore that which Bellarmine prescribes universally, lib. 2. De Conciliis, cap. 10, and by the sense of all Catholics — that a particular Council not expressly confirmed makes an argument so probable that it is rash not to acquiesce in it — ought to be accommodated especially to this Synod.

Among the other decrees of that Council, which are eighteen in number, it has pleased to transcribe here only two, which most of all establish and define the doctrine De libero arbitrio, and also De fide, ac operibus bonis, merito, et gratia.

DECREE 16. On Free Will. — Although there is scarcely any Catholic truth so open, no passage of sacred Scripture so manifest, which heretics do not elude with their cavils and evasions: yet in none have they raged so shamelessly, and with such loss to the Christian cause, as in extirpating and rooting out free will. For what could that enemy of truth have devised more pernicious for the faithful of Christ, than that either seduced by Pelagius they should more proudly arrogate all things to themselves without the aid of grace; or with languishing and pusillanimous spirit, with Wyclif, commit all things to necessity and to fate? Certainly nothing will remain then, either for divine laws, or for human laws, nothing for counsels or election, nothing for prayers or rebuke, and other things of that kind: finally there will be no justice to come, whereby punishments have been constituted for some, rewards for others, if according to the sentiment of Wyclif and the Lutherans all things come about from necessity.

This error had first appeared among the Gentiles, but was soon cast out with the full consent of all; so greatly does free will press itself upon the minds of all, as if known by a certain evident experiment! Therefore since God has left man in the hand of his own counsel, and has set before him fire and water, good and evil, that unto whatsoever he will he may stretch forth his hand: it is not without reason that blessed is said to be that man who could have transgressed and has not transgressed, and could do evil and has not done it: since under him is his appetite, and he rules over it, and finally throughout the whole of sacred Scripture it everywhere meets one that the free will of man toward either part would be asserted, it has seemed sufficient to the holy Provincial Council to expound the powers and limits of this liberty.

For neither do we exclude divine grace while asserting free will, which they do not fear so often to impose falsely upon us, and now to strike at the eyes of believers with this charge: but according to sacred Scripture we extend it thus, that the human will, sustained by the aid of preventing mercy, and touched by a certain interior and hidden breathing of a more secret inspiration, turns itself to God, draws near to God, and prepares itself for that true grace, which at length received, it may be apt for eternal life. Nor does so great a necessity of grace prejudice free will, since it lies ready at hand, nor does even a moment pass in which God does not stand at the door and knock, and if anyone shall have opened the door to him, he will enter in to him and sup with him. Nor finally let the help of God thus drawing be such as cannot be resisted. For how often did the Lord will to gather together the children of Jerusalem, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and they would not? Vainly indeed would Stephen upbraid the Jews, of hard neck, and uncircumcised heart, who always resisted the Holy Spirit: vainly would Paul admonish the Thessalonians not to extinguish the spirit, if men were carried away inevitably by divine inspirations. God indeed draws, but we run in his odor; we are seized not by force, not by the hook; he predestinates, elects, calls, but those only who have fallen into vocation and election does he glorify as adults. And although he reaches from end to end mightily, yet he orders all things sweetly. This heresy therefore, which utterly takes away the liberty of arbitrium, we condemn not so much (seeing that it is already long since condemned) as we declare to be contrary to the common conception of men, and to the open testimonies of Scripture.

DECREE 17. On Faith, and Works, Merit, and Grace. — Frequent is that thing among the imprudent, and among those who are borne not so much by moderation of mind as by impulse, that while they incautiously flee from one vice they slip into another. Of this thing Luther affords proof, who while too eagerly persecuting confidence in works, at length leaves nothing remaining to works, and thus undertakes the defense of faith alone, so that he acknowledges faith alone and rejects and condemns works. But if those things be rightly weighed which he brings forward from the Scriptures in favor of faith, they do not exclude the other virtues. Those things truly which he cites against works pertain all of them either to excessive confidence in works, or to legal ceremonies. By faith indeed we live, and without this it is impossible to please God. If nevertheless anyone shall have had all faith, so as to remove mountains, but shall not have had charity, he is nothing; by faith we are justified, but by hope also we are saved; and there were remitted to Mary Magdalene many sins, because she loved much: for if anyone, saith the Lord, shall have loved me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him. Now there remain Faith, Hope, Charity, these three: but the greater of these is Charity. And more powerful in quickening and justifying, since faith without works is dead. Then because faith is useful unto salvation when it worketh through charity; but charity is not idle, but labors through good works, to make our calling and election certain.

BULLS OF THE SUPREME PONTIFFS, PIUS V., GREGORY XIII., AND URBAN VIII., WHEREBY VERY MANY PROPOSITIONS OF BAIUS ARE CONDEMNED.

Urban Bishop servant of the servants of God, for perpetual memory of the matter.

IN eminenti, though placed in the See of the Church militant by merits unequal, we diligently apply ourselves that those things which have been providently established and ordained by Our Predecessors for the conservation of the Catholic faith may be firmly observed forever, and where need be may be strengthened by the protection of Our authority. Indeed of old from Pius Pope V. of happy memory, Our Predecessor, there issued a Constitution of the following tenor, namely: Pius Epi- scopus servant of the servants of God, for future memory of the matter. From all the afflictions which, constituted in this place by the Lord, we sustain in so mournful a time, that pain chiefly tortures our soul that the Christian Church, agitated so long by so great storms, is assailed by new opinions daily proposed; and the people of Christ, divided by the suggestion of the ancient enemy, is worn away everywhere and indiscriminately into errors of one kind and another: but as far as We are concerned, we strive with all our forces that these, as soon as they break forth, be utterly crushed: for we are affected with great grief that very many, otherwise of approved probity and doctrine, burst forth both in word and in writings into various opinions full of offense and danger, and even dispute about them in the schools with one another; of which kind are the following:

1. Neither Angels nor the first man, still integral, merit grace rightly called such.

2. As an evil work by its nature is meritorious of eternal death, so a good work by its nature is meritorious of eternal life.

3. Both to the good Angels and to the first man, if they had remained in that state until the end of life, felicity would have been wages, and not grace.

4. Eternal life was promised to man in his state of integrity and to the Angel in view of good works, and good works from the law of nature are per se sufficient for attaining it.

5. In the promise made to the Angel and to the first man is contained the constitution of natural justice, by which eternal life is promised to the just on account of good works without any other regard.

6. It was established by the natural law for man that, if he persevered in obedience, he would pass into that life in which he could not die.

7. The merits of the first man in his integrity were the gifts of the first creation, but according to the manner of speaking of Sacred Scripture they are not rightly called graces: whence it follows that they ought now to be called only merits, and not also grace.

8. In those redeemed by the grace of Christ no good merit can be found which has not been bestowed gratuitously upon the unworthy.

9. The gifts granted to man in his integrity and to the Angel can perhaps not be disapproved when called grace by reason; but because according to the usage of Scripture only those gifts are understood by the name of grace which are conferred through Jesus upon the ill-deserving and the unworthy, therefore neither the merits nor the reward rendered for them ought to be called grace.

10. The satisfaction of temporal punishment, which often remains after sin is forgiven, and the resurrection of the body, are to be ascribed properly to nothing but the merits of Christ.

11. That we attain eternal life because we have lived piously and justly in this mortal life even unto the end must be contended, by the just judgment of God, to belong not properly to the grace of God, but to the natural ordination established at the very beginning of creation; nor in this retribution of goods is any regard had to the merit of Christ, but only to the first institution of the human race, in which it was established by the natural law that, by the just judgment of God, eternal life be rendered for obedience to the commandments.

12. It is the sentiment of Pelagius that a good work done apart from the grace of adoption is not meritorious of the heavenly kingdom.

13. The good works done by the sons of adoption do not take on the character of merit from the fact that they are done through the Spirit of adoption dwelling in the hearts of the sons of God, but only from the fact that they are conformable to the law, and that through them obedience is rendered to the law.

14. The good works of the just will not receive in the day of the last judgment a greater reward than they would deserve to receive by the just judgment of God.

15. He says that the character of merit does not consist in this, that he who works well possesses grace and the Holy Spirit dwelling within him, but solely in this, that he obeys the divine law: which opinion he repeats again and again, and proves with many arguments throughout nearly the whole book.

16. In the same book he repeats more than once that there is no true obedience to the law which is done without charity.

17. He says that he shares the opinion of the Pelagians, who say that it is necessary to the character of merit that man be raised by the grace of adoption to a deific state.

18. He says that the works of Catechumens, such as faith and penance done before the remission of sins, are merits of eternal life, which life Catechumens will not attain unless first the impediments of their previous faults be removed.

19. He seems to insinuate that the works of justice and temperance which Christ performed did not derive a greater value from the dignity of the person performing them.

20. No sin is venial by its own nature, but every sin deserves eternal punishment.

21. The sublimation and exaltation of human nature into the fellowship of the divine nature was due to the integrity of the first condition; and therefore it must be called natural, and not supernatural.

22. With Pelagius think those who understand the text of the Apostle to the Romans 2, the Gentiles, who have not the law, do naturally the things that are of the law, as speaking of Gentiles not possessing the grace of faith.

23. Absurd is the opinion of those who say that man was exalted from the beginning by some supernatural and gratuitous gift above the condition of nature, so that he might worship God supernaturally by faith, hope, and charity.

24. By vain and idle men, according to the folly of the Philosophers, has been devised that opinion, which is to be rejected as Pelagianism: that man was so constituted from the beginning that, through the gifts superadded to nature, he was elevated by the largess of the Creator and adopted as a son of God.

25. All the works of unbelievers are sins, and the virtues of the Philosophers are vices.

26. The integrity of the first creation was not an undeserved exaltation of human nature, but its natural condition: which opinion he repeats and proves through several chapters.

27. Free will without the help of the grace of God avails for nothing but sinning.

28. It is a Pelagian error to say that free will avails for avoiding any sin whatsoever.

29. Not only are those thieves and robbers who deny that Christ is the way, and the door of truth, and of life, but also whosoever say that one can ascend by some other way than through Christ to the way of justice, that is, to any justice whatsoever.

30. Either that man can resist any temptation without the help of grace itself, so as neither to be drawn into it nor overcome by it.

31. Perfect and sincere charity, which is from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned, can exist both in Catechumens and in penitents without the remission of sins.

32. That charity which is the fulness of the law is not always joined with the remission of sins.

33. The Catechumen lives justly, rightly, and holily, and keeps the commandments of God and fulfils the law through charity, before obtaining the remission of sins, which is at length received in the washing of baptism.

34. That distinction of a twofold love, namely natural, whereby God is loved as the author of nature, and gratuitous, whereby God is loved as the beatifier, is vain and fictitious, devised to mock Holy Scripture and very many testimonies of the ancients.

35. Everything which a sinner does, or a servant of sin, is either sin or is sin.

36. Natural love, which arises from the powers of nature, is defended by certain teachers from Philosophy alone, through the elation of human presumption, with injury to the cross of Christ.

37. With Pelagius thinks he who acknowledges any natural good, that is, one which takes its origin from the powers of nature alone.

38. Every love of a rational creature is either vicious concupiscence, by which the world is loved, which John forbids: or that praiseworthy charity which, poured forth in the heart by the Holy Spirit, loves God.

39. What is done voluntarily, even if done under necessity, is nevertheless done freely.

40. In all his acts the sinner serves the ruling concupiscence.

41. That mode of liberty which is from necessity is not found under the name of liberty in the Scriptures, but only the name of liberty from sin.

42. The justice by which the impious man is justified through faith consists formally in the obedience of the commandments, which is the justice of works; and not in any grace infused into the soul, whereby man is adopted as a son of God, is renewed according to the inward man, and is made a partaker of the divine nature, so that, being thus renewed by the Holy Spirit, he may thereafter live well and obey the commandments of God.

43. In all penitents before the Sacrament of absolution, and in Catechumens before baptism, there is true justification, yet separated from the remission of sins.

44. By most of the works which the faithful perform that they may obey the commandments of God, such as obeying parents, restoring a deposit, abstaining from homicide, from theft, and from fornication, men are indeed justified, because these are works of the obedience of the law and of the true justice of the law; yet by them they do not obtain increase of the virtues.

45. The Sacrifice of the Mass is a sacrifice for no other reason than that general one, by which every work done is such that man may adhere to God in holy fellowship.

46. To the reason and definition of sin there does not pertain the voluntary, nor is it a question of the definition, but of the cause and origin: whether every sin ought to be voluntary?

47. Whence original sin truly has the character of sin without any relation or respect to the will, from which it took its origin.

48. Original sin is voluntary in the habitual will of the little child, and it habitually dominates the child, inasmuch as the free choice does not act in a contrary manner.

49. And from the habitual dominating will it comes about that the child dying without the Sacrament of regeneration, when he had actually attained the use of reason, would hate God, blaspheme God, and conflict with the law of God.

50. Evil desires, with which reason does not consent, and which man suffers unwillingly, are forbidden by the commandment: Thou shalt not covet.

51. Concupiscence, or the law of the members, and its evil desires, which men feel unwillingly, are a true disobedience of the law.

52. Every crime of his is of such a condition that he can infect his own author and all posterity in the same manner whereby the first transgression infected them.

53. As great as is the force of the transgression, so great a store of evil merits do those contract who are born with lesser vices, as those who are born with greater.

54. This definitive sentence, that God commanded man nothing, is falsely attributed to Augustine, for it belongs to Pelagius.

55. God could not have created from the beginning such a man as is now born.

56. In sin there are two things, the act and the guilt; but when the act passes away, nothing remains except the guilt, that is, the obligation to punishment.

57. Whence in the Sacrament of baptism, or in the absolution of a Priest, properly only the guilt of sin is taken away, and the ministry of Priests liberates only from guilt.

58. The penitent sinner is not vivified by the ministry of the absolving Priest, but by God alone, who, suggesting and inspiring penance, vivifies and raises him up: but by the ministry of the Priest the guilt alone is taken away.

59. When through alms and other works of piety we satisfy God for temporal punishments, we do not offer to God a worthy price for our sins, as certain erring persons suppose: for otherwise we would be at least in some part redeemers; but we do something in view of which the satisfaction of Christ is applied and communicated to us.

60. Through the sufferings of the Saints communicated in an indulgence, our offenses are not properly redeemed, but by the communion of charity their sufferings are imparted to us, that we may be worthy to be delivered from the punishments due for sins by the price of the blood of Christ.

61. That celebrated distinction of the doctors, that the commandments of the divine law are fulfilled in two ways: in one way as regards only the substance of the works commanded, in the other as regards a certain definite manner, namely according to which they avail, when done, to lead to the eternal kingdom, that is, after the manner of merits, is fictitious and to be rejected.

62. That distinction also, whereby a work is said to be good in two ways, either because from its object and all circumstances it is right and good, which has been wont to be called morally good; or because it is meritorious of the eternal kingdom, inasmuch as it is done by a living member of Christ through the spirit of charity, is thought to be rejected.

63. Similarly, that distinction also of a twofold justice: of one, which comes about through the indwelling spirit of charity; of the other, which comes about indeed from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit exciting the heart to penance, but not yet dwelling in the heart and pouring forth charity in it, whereby the justification of the divine law is fulfilled, is rejected as most odious and most obstinate.

64. Finally, that distinction also of a twofold vivification, of one whereby the sinner is vivified, while penance, and the purpose and beginning of a new life are inspired in him by the grace of God: of the other whereby he is vivified who is truly justified and is made a living branch in the true Christ, is judged fictitious and by no means consonant with the Scriptures.

65. Any use of free will that is good, or not evil, can be admitted only with a Pelagian error: and he does an injury to the grace of Christ who so thinks and teaches.

66. Only violence conflicts with the natural liberty of man.

67. Man sins even damnably in that which he does necessarily.

68. Infidelity purely negative in those to whom Christ has not been preached is a sin.

69. The justification of the impious takes place formally through obedience of the law, and not through a hidden communication and inspiration of grace, which makes those justified by it fulfill the law.

70. Man existing in mortal sin, or in the guilt of eternal damnation, can have true charity; and charity even perfect can consist with the guilt of eternal damnation.

71. Through contrition even joined with perfect charity, and with the vow of receiving the sacrament, the crime is not remitted outside the case of necessity or of martyrdom without the actual reception of the sacrament.

72. All the afflictions whatsoever of the just are vengeance for their own sins; whence John and the martyrs suffered what they suffered on account of their sins.

73. No one besides Christ is without original sin; hence the Blessed Virgin died on account of sin contracted from Adam, and all her afflictions in this life were, as those of other just men, vengeance for actual or original sin.

74. Concupiscence in those reborn who have relapsed into mortal sin, in whom it now dominates, is a sin, as are also the other evil habits.

75. The movements of evil concupiscence are, for the state of man wayfaring, forbidden by the commandment: thou shalt not covet: whence man feeling, and not con- senting, transgresses the commandment: thou shalt not covet, although the transgression is not accounted sin.

76. So long as any concupiscence of the flesh is in one who loves, he does not fulfill the commandment: thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart.

77. The laborious satisfactions of the justified are not of condign worth to expiate the temporal punishment remaining after guilt has been forgiven.

78. The immortality of the first man was not a benefit of grace, but a natural condition.

79. False is the opinion of the Doctors that the first man could have been created and constituted by God without natural justice.

Which opinions indeed, weighed before Us in a strict examination, although some of them could in some manner be sustained in the rigor and proper sense of the words intended by their assertors, we condemn, circumscribe, and abolish as heretical, erroneous, suspect, rash, scandalous, and inflicting offense on pious ears, respectively, and by whatsoever word or writing emitted concerning them, by the present authority: and we forbid to all persons hereafter the faculty of speaking, writing, and disputing about the same and similar things in whatever manner. Those who act otherwise we deprive perpetually of all his dignities, grades, honors, benefices, and offices, and we likewise declare them unfit for any whatsoever, and by that very fact we bind them also with the bond of anathema, from which no one inferior to the Roman Pontiff can release them, except at the article of death, etc.

IT MUST BE OBSERVED FIRST that this condemnation of these propositions was published first by the Supreme Pontiffs, without that order and fixed number of propositions which we designated above, as is evident from the printed exemplars at Rome, 1579, the fourth of February. Afterwards, however, for the sake of greater clarity it was transcribed by Theologians with numbers added, so that the propositions which they brought forward in disputation could be cited more conveniently. Moreover, there are several propositions distinguished by separate numbers which seem to contain entirely the same doctrine and the same error; yet they are counted as distinct because they propose the opinion not in one and the same manner, but in a manifold and diverse way, and sometimes with some addition. Finally, it must be known that certain propositions among those mentioned above are not found in the little works published by Michael Baius; because not only were those opinions exhibited to the Pontiff which had been excerpted from Baius's printed booklets, but also those which had been asserted only by living voice, or dictated to his disciples in the schools.

TO BE NOTED SECONDLY, that although the Pontifical censure of these propositions, as regards the individual assertions, is indetermi- nate and ambiguous — six censures in general indeed are passed against these propositions by the Supreme Pontiffs, pronouncing the assertions of Baius to be heretical, erroneous, sus- pect, rash, scandalous, and inflicting offenses on pious ears, which individual censures do not fall upon the individual propositions, but together with the proposition accommodated, wherefore "respectively" is added: nevertheless there is no one of these propositions which escapes the Pontifical censure; seeing that the decrees of the Pontiffs expressly pronounce those opinions, in the rigor and proper sense of the words intended by the assertors, to be heretical, erroneous, etc., and to be condemned, circumscribed, and abolished, and they forbid to all persons the faculty of speaking, writing, and disputing about them and similar things in whatever manner; wherefore none of those propositions can be defended by a son of the Roman Church.

TO BE NOTED THIRDLY, that when Michael Baius himself had found out that these propositions of his had been condemned by Apostolic authority, being pious as he was, and a most obedient son of the Church, he retracted and condemned the same by a public act, the exemplar of which condemnation, fortified with his own hand and seal, he sent to Rome on May 24, in the year 1580, the tenor of which follows: I, Michael de Baius, Chancellor of the University of Louvain, acknowledge and profess that from various conversations and communications held with the Reverend Father D. Francis Toledo, preacher of his Holiness, and sent specially for this matter, concerning divers opinions and propositions long ago condemned and prohibited by the most holy D. N. Pius V. of happy memory under date of the kalends of October in the year 1567, and recently by Gregory XIII., the present supreme Pontiff, under date of the 4th of the kalends of February in the year 1579, I have been so moved and led thereby that I hold myself fully persuaded that the condemnation and prohibition of all those opinions was made and decreed rightly, deservedly, and only after mature judgment and a most diligent discussion having been premised, I confess: moreover very many of the same opinions are contained and defended even in that sense in which they are reproved, in certain little books formerly written by me, and published before the censure of the Apostolic See concerning them emanated. Finally I declare that in the presence of all these things I now withdraw from them all, and acquiesce in the condemnation made by the Holy See; nor do I wish hereafter to teach, assert, or defend them. Given at Louvain, the 21st day of March, in the year 1580. — It would nevertheless be desirable, for the resolving and settling of all controversies concerning the censure of each single proposition of this kind, that the Church should designate which note of condemnation befits each particular proposition; which, until it is done, I judge it will not be unwelcome to subjoin here the censure of the sacred Faculty of Paris concerning certain of those propositions referred to it by two Belgian Superiors of our Order, as will appear from the preface of the same censure.

CENSURE OF THE SACRED FACULTY OF PARIS against certain propositions.

In the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred sixty, on Thursday, the twenty-seventh day of the month of June, the most sacred Faculty of Theology of Paris, after Mass had been celebrated according to custom at the College of the Sorbonne, was gathered in the same College by oath in the matter of faith, upon the propositions written below, noted with Censure by the same Faculty with mature deliberation of the Masters, which brother Peter de Quercu, Guardian of the convent of Nivelles, and brother Aegidius de Querceto, Guardian of Ath, sent to the aforesaid Faculty of Theology, sealed with the seals of the aforesaid Convents; beseeching earnestly that the said Faculty pass censure upon them, the tenor of which propositions follows together with the censure upon them.

I. Proposition. The free will of man does not have power unto opposites, nor is that power fitting to it from its own natural and intrinsic reason. — Censure: the first part of this proposition is heretical: the second is false, and erroneous, and adverse to Moral Philosophy.

II. Proposition. Liberty and necessity belong to it with respect to the same thing, and only violence conflicts with the natural liberty of man. — Censure: the first part of this proposition includes a contradiction, and is heretical: the second is false.

III. Proposition. The free will, from its intrinsic reason, does not have that of itself, and through itself, it should elicit a free act. — Censure: this proposition is false, erroneous, and pernicious.

IV. Proposition. The free will of itself can only sin, and every work of the free will left to itself is mortal or venial sin. — Censure: this proposition, as to both parts, is heretical.

V. Proposition. Man, by doing what is in him, sins: and he cannot avoid sinning by doing what is in him. — Censure: this whole proposition is heretical.

VI. Proposition. To be able to sin is not of the reason of man's free will, nor was such a power of sinning given to man by God. — Censure: the first part of this proposition is false: the second heretical.

VII. Proposition. The free will of man cannot avoid sin without the special grace of God; whence it comes about that every work of one who is purely an infidel is sin. — Censure: the second part of this proposition is false; and it is badly inferred from what precedes.

VIII. Proposition. The free will freely wills whatsoever happens spontaneously or voluntarily; so that what it wills necessarily, it wills the same freely. — Censure: the second part of this proposition implies a contradiction, and is heretical.

IX. Proposition. A heretic, a schismatic, and a man purely an infidel sometimes merits eternal life de congruo. — Censure: this proposition is plainly heretical.

X. Proposition. Man existing in mortal sin, whether in its guilt unto eternal death, has charity in himself. — Censure: this proposition is heretical.

XI. Proposition. Through contrition, without the sacrament of Baptism or of Penance being really applied, the crime is not remitted outside the case of martyrdom and of necessity. — Censure: this proposition is heretical.

XII. Proposition. If a sinner does what is commanded, through contrition, and Confession made to a Priest, his sin is not remitted to him unless the Priest absolve; even if the Priest out of malice deny him absolution without reason. — Censure: this proposition is heretical.

XIII. Proposition. Only with the Pelagian error admitted can there be before the first justification in man a good use of free will; and he who prepares himself for it sins, like one who most wickedly abuses his natural goods; for before it, all the works of man are sins worthy of damnation. — Censure: this proposition, as to all its parts, is heretical.

XIV. Proposition. Grace is not given except to one resisting; likewise neither is the first justification, which justification is faith itself: for faith is that whereby anyone from impious becomes pious. — Censure: the two first parts of this proposition are heretical, and the third is false.

XV. Proposition. Man sins necessarily, even damnably, in some species of sin, and the act toward which he is necessarily borne is sin to him; wherefore to be borne freely into the act is not a necessary condition for sinning. — Censure: this proposition is heretical as to all its parts.

XVI. Proposition. No one besides Christ is without original sin: hence the Blessed Virgin died on account of the sin which she had contracted from Adam: and all her afflictions in this life, like those of other just men, are vengeance for original or actual sin, whence Job also suffered, and the martyrs, on account of their sins. — Censure: this proposition, as to all its parts,

XVII. Proposition. Do all things to the glory of God: and I say to you not to resist evil: are to be taken simply as precepts. — Censure: the latter part of this proposition, as it lies, is heretical.

XVIII. Proposition. Every good work is meritorious of eternal life; but if any work be rewarded temporally only, not worthy of eternal life, that work is evil, because there is no good work meritorious except of eternal life. — Censure: this whole proposition conflicts with sacred Scripture.

Other Censures also, celebrated in this age, have been published, both by the Supreme Pontiffs and by the sacred Faculty of Paris, concerning other propositions relating to divine grace: which, since they are in everyone's hands, and adhere tenaciously to the minds and memories also of candidate Theologians, therefore I judged that they need not be annexed here.

Innumerable oracles of the Scriptures proclaim the existence of grace, which everywhere bear witness that there exists a benefit divinely bestowed upon man, in order to elicit meritorious works, whereby he may be able to merit eternal glory. Thus Psal. 83: The Lord will give grace and glory; John 1: Of his fulness (Christ) we all have received: and grace for grace, etc.; that is, eternal glory is promised to us for the good use of that grace which flows forth from Christ as from its fountain into us and overflows abundantly. Ephes. 2: By grace you are saved through faith, and this not of yourselves; for it is the gift of God. And chapter 4: But to every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the giving of Christ. 1. To Timothy 4: Neglect not the grace that is in thee, which was given thee by the imposition of my hands. From these, and other similar passages well-nigh innumerable, it is evident that grace is truly something real, and possesses true existence in the nature of things, and that it is distinguished from the very substance of man and from all his natural goods, such as are the powers or faculties, accidents, and natural operations. — The same truth the Ecumenical Councils confirm, together with the unanimous consent of the holy Fathers, among whom nothing occurs more frequently than the repeated mention and assertion of heavenly grace, or of the aid divinely infused, relying upon which mortal man can break forth into operations and acts far exceeding the powers of his weak and infirm nature, as appears not only from what was said in the Preludes, but will also be established more fully in the course of this Treatise. — Theological reason also proves this same point quite clearly, an argument to be drawn both from the side of God and from the side of man himself. From the side of God indeed, and above all from His immutability; for since it is certain that God sometimes loves man and sometimes holds him in hatred, which assuredly cannot come to pass unless some change occur, either in man himself who is loved, or in the will of God loving him; whereas it is most certain that with God there is no transmutation, nor shadow of vicissitude, as is said James 3; it follows necessarily that that change must be sought on the side of man himself; namely, in such wise that, when he is anticipated by the singular love of God, he would possess within himself a certain peculiar good by which he formally becomes the object and scope of that divine love, and by being deprived of which he ceases to be an object of that love, and becomes rather an object of hatred. Moreover, that singular gift of God terminating His benevolence and love is the very thing which we call grace. From the side of man indeed: since God, by the wise and sweet administration and ordering of created things, has destined man, capable of Divinity, for the eternal fruition of Himself; which end, since it far exceeds his natural spirit and innate powers, it was necessary that he be endowed with some divine aid wholly surpassing nature, by whose assistance he might be able to accomplish those things which would conduce to the attainment of such an end. For truly, if God under the title of creation supplies to all things made by Him the necessary means whereby they may reach the end to which, by His wise disposition, they are destined: by the very fact that God created them He is bound, as is fitting, to provide for them; for, as St. Ambrose teaches most excellently, book 1. Offic. chapter 19: What workman neglects the care of his work, or who deserts what he himself judged ought to be made? Not to have made a thing involves no injustice: not to care for what thou hast made is the height of unkindness: surely then with no less liberality and congruity ought God to furnish man those helps whereby he may be able to obtain the supernatural end for which he is destined; although the bestowal of that aid depends upon His supreme liberality and pure munificence and mercy; whence the existence of grace cannot be proved by a more efficacious argument than from its supreme necessity, which above all declares and confirms that it does exist.

Furthermore, at the threshold of this inquiry it must be observed that, speaking generally, a thing can be called necessary in two ways: namely, per se and absolutely, or relatively and in order to some end. In the former sense God alone is a necessary being; and accordingly in this sense grace is not to be called necessary. In the latter sense, however, many things are and are called necessary by reason of their order to certain ends, which without them cannot be attained at all, or certainly cannot be attained so conveniently. Again, this relative necessity, which is drawn from the order to an end, can be distinguished as twofold: one indeed simple, without which the end simply cannot be obtained: in which sense a ship is necessary for one crossing from Gaul into England; the other, however, secundum quid and in relation to a better state, which is more properly called utility: in which sense a horse is said to be necessary for one setting out to Rome, namely for him who could go on foot.

Now it is certain that grace is necessary secundum quid, or useful to man for the attainment of his last end; for it confers at least some facility, if God should will to bestow it, for the obtaining of the last end: and this is so certain that even Pelagius admitted such a necessity, as appears from what was said in the first volume, where the Pelagian heresy was treated. There remains, therefore, the controversy concerning simple necessity with respect to the end, namely whether, in order to attain the last end of eternal salvation, grace is simply necessary for man; in which sense alone the present controversy is disputed among Theologians.

Moreover, since man can attain this supernatural end only by moral operations, it comes to pass that the necessity of grace in order to the attainment of this last end is the same as the necessity of the same grace for the exercise of good works, whereby he may merit that end, and for the avoidance of evils, whereby he would forfeit it eternally. Hence it follows that, since every operation of man is ordered and directed through intellect and will, either toward knowing the true, or toward pursuing the good, or finally toward fleeing and shunning evil; from this will arise the difficulty, whether and in what manner grace seems necessary for this threefold operation of man. Wherefore the present Disputation will be distributed into three Articles: the first of which will expound the necessity of grace for knowing the truth: the second, for doing good: the third, for fleeing evil.

It is a trite and common place among Theologians that the state of man can be distinguished fivefold; concerning which it would be a matter of doubt whether grace were necessary to him for pursuing and attaining any given truth.

The first is called the state of pure nature, in which man is neither promoted through grace beyond the powers of the end of nature, nor recalled through any sin or vice from his fitting natural end, but is left under these powers and innate endowments; and he is subject to no other defects than those which arise naturally from the constitution of body and soul, such as mortality, infirmity, ignorance, and the rebellion of the lower part against the higher. — That state is called the state of integral nature which, besides all natural perfections, includes a special internal peace, namely between the higher part of man and the lower: that is, the perfect subjection of the sensitive appetite under the rational; so that the sensitive appetite neither forestalls the command of the will nor resists it, but at its nod compresses or exerts its own movements and passions; whence it comes about that the flesh does not concupiscence against the spirit, nor the spirit against the flesh. But when this happens otherwise, man suffers a certain sickness and diminution in his powers, in this way distracted and tending toward contrary things: therefore while both parts are in accord, he is said to possess a certain moral integrity, by that concord of his powers, namely with forces united and conspiring toward the same end: whence it comes about that the rational part is more governed toward acting well, and life is to be lived conformably to right reason. — The third state is that of innocent nature, or original justice, which besides man's natural perfection and integrity embraces many gratuitous benefits pertaining to body and soul: namely freedom from death and disease, the infusion of sanctifying grace and supernatural virtue, and likewise the conferral of all these upon posterity, to be transmitted by continual propagation, had he not sinned.

Although this most foul state must altogether be lamented and execrated, inasmuch as it is the overflow and lerna of all evils that are derived upon the whole human race: nevertheless it demonstrates an outstanding endowment of man, namely liberty, by which, arbiter of his own fortune, an honored psalmist and fashioner, he gives his hand to whatever part and lot he may prefer. - Finally the fifth state is that of nature restored and repaired through the grace of

Christ the Lord. Now the question here concerns only the state of fallen nature: whether namely grace be necessary to us for uncovering truth. Since however truth is threefold — one indeed natural and speculative; another moral and practical; a last supernatural and divine — it will have to be resolved in the three following Questions whether and in what manner grace is required for the knowledge of that truth.

NOTE 1. By the name of grace we here understand only actual and assisting grace, not indeed habitual and sanctifying grace; since it is certain that habitual grace is not necessary for knowing natural truths; for very many infidels and Gentile philosophers destitute of that grace, such as Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, acknowledged many truths, even those pertaining to God, such as his existence, veracity, and his other attributes, from creatures. Wherefore St. Augustine, when in book one of the Soliloquies, chapter 2, he had said, O God, who willed that none but the pure know thee, retracted this assertion in book 1 of the Retractations, with these words: For it can be answered, he says, that many who are not pure know many things. The difficulty therefore is raised only about actual, or operative grace, which makes man intrinsically capable of exercising certain acts which he could not elicit by the powers of nature alone.

NOTE 2. A truth is said to be natural on a threefold account: namely either on the part of the light and medium by which alone it is known: or only on the part of the object and thing which is known: or on the part of the thing and light together. On the part of the light alone: thus the existence of God and his divine attributes, although they are of the divine order, and consequently preternatural, are nevertheless known through natural light; for the Apostle says to the Romans 1: The invisible things of him are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity. On the part of the object alone, which is indeed of itself of natural order and entity, but cannot be known through some natural and sensible medium, nor sufficiently deduced from sensible things. Such are the free cogitations of hearts, so long as they are not manifested outwardly by words, or gestures, or other signs. Thirdly finally, on the part of object and medium together; such are all those things which not only are of natural order and entity, but moreover present their appearance to the senses; and thus can be perceived by the intellect through mediating sensitive cognition; of which sort are all the elements, and likewise many bodies which present themselves before our eyes. The present question is raised about truth of this threefold kind, whether it can become known to us without the special benefit of actual grace.

NOTE 3. Every natural truth is divided into speculative or practical. Speculative is that in whose mere knowledge the intellect rests, such as that heaven is incorruptible, that earth is immovable, etc. Practical moreover is that which beyond intellectual knowledge also ordains and denotes something to be done or omitted respectively toward the attainment of an end. Further, in this present Question there will be talk only about speculative truth: in the following one the controversy will be raised about practical truth, namely whether for attaining its knowledge some special aid of grace is needed. Both truths, however, can be taken either distributively or collectively. Collectively, when the whole collection of all utterly natural truths is taken, that is when all truths are taken together: distributively however, when one or several of them are taken separately and without others. For just as someone having a single denarius can distribute it among all the poor distributively, because there is no one to whom he cannot give it; yet cannot give it to all at once collectively, so that each receive a whole denarius: so it can be asked whether we can for this mortal life know all natural truths without the benefit of grace distributively, such that of them none exists which naturally could not be known; or whether truly we can discover them all even collectively in this way. — Concerning this the opinion of the Ancients is chiefly threefold. The first is Henry's, which the Doctor relates and refutes in 1 dist. q. 4. n. 2, teaching that we can often attain certain knowledge of any natural truth without special illumination of grace. Which opinion Vazquez seems in part to have imitated, disp. 1 cap. 2, where he teaches that knowledge of any natural truth of one dwelling and adhering to right living cannot be had without the aid of grace through Christ; but that truths which do not pertain to virtue can indeed be had by the aid of the grace of God. The second opinion is that of those who teach that the intellect of fallen man can, with the sole general concurrence of God, discover every speculable natural truth, not only divisim but also coniunctim. Durandus seems to think thus in 2 dist. 25 q. 1. The third opinion is that of the Subtle Theologians, admitting that fallen man can know natural truths divisim, without special benefit or aid of grace, but not coniunctim.

First Conclusion. — MAN CAN EVEN IN THE STATE OF FALLEN NATURE, WITH THE SOLE GENERAL CONCURRENCE OF GOD AND WITHOUT SPECIAL AID AND ILLUMINATION OF GRACE, KNOW WITH CERTAINTY CERTAIN SPECULATIVE TRUTHS OF THE NATURAL ORDER. This is the more common and more certain opinion among theologians.

And it is proved by very many texts of Scripture, whereby it is established that men can have certain knowledge not only of created things but even of God as author and administrator of nature: thus Wisdom 1:1. Sanctified by investigation, and the invisible creature is found out by the thing that is made. Psalm 18: The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands. Similarly St. Paul to the Romans 1 plainly teaches that many things about God can be known naturally, when he says: That which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them: for his invisible things from the creation of the world are seen, being understood by the things that are made: his eternal power also, and Divinity: so that they are inexcusable, namely the Gentile philosophers, of whom the discourse there is, because having known God they did not glorify him as God. — By which words the Apostle above all signifies: first indeed that there is something in God so conspicuous that it can be acknowledged by the mere natural light alone, which therefore he calls that which is known of God: otherwise indeed it is certain that in God nothing is so abstruse, and so impervious to human minds, that it cannot be apprehended through grace and special revelation; for thus the Trinity of persons and equality in unity of essence, which lies hidden naturally, becomes manifest and known through revelation and grace. He signifies moreover by these words, By the things that are made are clearly seen, that the Gentile philosophers by natural discourse from creatures, as from divine effects, attained some knowledge of God, and indeed so great that for this reason they were inexcusable, because they knew God, and did not glorify him as God. — Nor does it stand against this that the Apostle says there, For God hath manifested it unto them: for he means that he manifested it not by the aid of special revelation or grace, but through creatures made by himself, as the following words signify, by the things that are made are clearly seen. Here must be recalled what we said in the previous volume to demonstrate that the knowledge of God is innate in us by natural light.

This assertion is proved further by the authority of the Holy Fathers: Augustine, in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 12, says of those concerning whom the Apostle speaks in Romans 1, Who hold the truth of God in injustice, that they arrived through visible creatures at the understanding of the invisible Creator. And shortly after he calls them knowers of the Creator through the creature. More authorities of the same Doctor we shall set forth below. — His most faithful disciple St. Prosper subscribes to him, book Against the Collator, chapter 22, where, assailing Cassian for affirming that our natural knowledge can be repaired unto salvation, he thus criticizes him: What does he define as apt for the renovation of our miserable old age? The nakedness of the science of the transgressor? As if that science, either remaining from the resources of nature, or acquired through the instruction of legal doctrine, could by its perception avail so that what we know should be done we also love to do. By which words he confesses that there survives in us a certain knowledge, and a sure apprehension of truth, from the remains of nature created by God.

The Subtle Doctor also proves this truth in 1 dist. 3 q. 4, against the Academics and Henry, who contended that no certain cognition could be obtained by us through the powers of nature: first indeed from Aristotle, 2 Metaph.: First principles are known to all, like the doorway in a house, because the doorway escapes no one, though the interior of the house be hidden, says the Doctor; whence he argues thus: that which belongs to all of a species follows the specific nature; therefore since each one has infallible certitude about first principles, and moreover the form of a perfect syllogism is naturally evident to anyone, as appears from its definition; and since knowledge of the conclusion depends only upon the evidence of the principles and upon the evidence of the syllogistic inference; the consequence is, that any conclusion whatsoever demonstrable from premises known per se can naturally be known to anyone. — Second, since Henry especially defends his opinion by the authority of St. Augustine, the Doctor proves that the same holy Doctor grants that we can naturally attain certain cognition through the experience of the senses: which he demonstrates first from lib. 15. De Trinitate, chapter 12, where he says: Far be it from us to doubt that things which we have learned through the senses of the body are true; for through them we learned heaven and earth and those things in them that are known to us, insofar as he who created us and them willed them to become known to us. From these the Doctor thus infers: «If therefore we do not doubt their truth, and are not deceived: then we are certain of things known through the way of sense; for certitude is had when doubt and deception are excluded». — Moreover, St. Augustine grants there certitude about our own acts: Whether anyone sleep, he says, or wake, he lives; for even to sleep and to see in dreams is the mark of one living. Nor does it avail to say, says the Doctor, that living is not a second act but the first; because Augustine adds there: If anyone say, I know that I live, he cannot be deceived, even while reflecting in whatever manner upon the first act of knowing. And there: If anyone say, I know that I live, he cannot be deceived.

It is evident therefore from St. Augustine that certain knowledge of natural things can be had, and that by the powers alone either of ingenerate light or of light acquired, whereby each one experiences while acting that he has an act, and while living that he has been endowed with life.

The Conclusion is proved further by reason: Man by his nature has principles sufficient for acquiring speculative knowledge of natural things: therefore for this the aid of grace is not needed. The inference is manifest; for grace is not judged necessary for any other reason to attain knowledge of things divinely credible than because for this the powers of nature fail. But the antecedent is proved; for it is established that man naturally perceives sensible objects through internal and external senses, from which natural truths are deduced; next, through the agent intellect he can fabricate intelligible species expressing such apprehension of the senses; and finally perceive that same species formed by the agent intellect, struck off as the image of things perceived through the senses, in the possible intellect, and thus have perfect formal knowledge of those things: man therefore has by his nature sufficient power to know any natural truth whatsoever; nor does he need the aid of grace for this. — Second, if grace were necessary for man to know natural truths, chiefly as physical principle, or as moral principle of such cognition: yet neither can rightly be asserted. Not the first indeed, because the intellect is a sufficient active principle for eliciting cognition, provided it be informed by an intelligible species; which (as we said just now) it can attain by the powers of nature.

Nor yet as a moral principle; for a principle of this kind can be judged necessary for forming cognition in two ways, namely either intrinsically, by infusing light or directing the phantasms, or extrinsically, namely by applying suitable objects or removing impediments: but in neither way does grace seem necessary for the knowledge of natural truths taken disjunctively, and in particular; for the internal illumination, which cannot come from objects and which therefore must be supernatural, does not pertain to the mode of knowing natural truths, which ought to be connatural to man; and the objects are sufficiently proposed to the senses by the force of the natural order, which God established among the causes of the universe, provided he himself does not deny them his general concurrence: nor is God's special providence needed for removing impediments, because the things that are met with in the investigation of any matter can easily be overcome by human industry and labor. Therefore by no reason does the assistance of grace seem necessary for attaining the knowledge of natural truths taken distributively. — It is confirmed: such an order of things could not have been instituted without some mark of imperfection and defect of the providence naturally due, that no man should naturally know any truth: therefore it must not be judged that it was so made; for God by sagacious providence and wisdom constituted and disposed all things most orderly. The antecedent is plain: for just as providence would be defective if it had instituted such an order that all should be born blind, or deaf, or tongueless, so too, and much more, if all were senseless and perpetually deprived of the use of reason; but supposing the use of reason, and objects occurring naturally, together with God's general concurrence, many truths cannot fail to be known, especially those which are so manifest that there is no one possessed of reason who does not immediately perceive them without any difficulty; such as that fire is hot, that man is risible, that the whole is greater than its part: therefore grace does not seem necessary for this.

You will object 1. Certain texts of Scripture, by which it seems proved that grace is necessary for uncovering truth; especially that of Gen. 6: All the thought of their heart was bent upon evil. Likewise that of 2 Cor. 3: Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God. Therefore St. Paul judges that we can form no certain thought without divine aid. — I deny the consequence., and to the first text I say: all thought bent upon evil, for the most part, I grant; always, I deny: for it is said there in the same place that all flesh had corrupted its way, and yet we read there in the same place: Noe found grace before the Lord. To the second I say, that from the text it sufficiently appears that St. the Apostle is speaking not of every thought and cognition of truth, but of holy cognition, that is, contributing unto true sanctity and justice, and availing unto salvation and unto exciting that confidence of which he had immediately spoken: Such confidence we have through Christ toward God: as St. Augustine also interprets, book De bono perseverantiae, chap. 13, where he says: As regards the rite of piety and the worship of things divine, we are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves: such thoughts, we confess, cannot be had without the special benefit of grace. Or else I distinguish the antecedent: that we are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves as of ourselves, so that it may profit unto salvation and conduce to persuading faith, I grant; simply, and absolutely, I deny. For we may assert that this is the mind of the Apostle, as appears from the text; since he had congratulated the Corinthians that they were the Epistle of Christ written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God: he had also congratulated himself that this Epi- stle had been written by his own ministry. Lest therefore he might seem to have ascribed to himself too arrogantly the ministry of so great a thing, he refers the whole to the grace of his Lord, and pours it back into the Author of the gift. Whence he adds: But such confidence we have through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also has made us fit ministers of the New Testament. From which it appears that the mind of the Apostle is only that he profess himself not sufficient to think anything of himself that pertains to persuading faith.

You will object 2. The Council of Milevis, or Carthage, decreeing in Canon 1: Both are gifts of God, to know what we ought to do, and to love, that we may do it. Likewise that of Orange, Canon 9: It is a gift of God when we think aright. — I deny the consequence: for the Councils speak only of thoughts and truths pertaining to the attainment of eternal life, as may be gathered both from the fact that the same Councils openly profess to establish in their Canons the Catholic dogma against the error of the Pelagians and Semipelagians, and hence treat of the knowledge of truth pertaining to salvation: and from the fact that the Council of Orange explains the aforesaid limitation in Ca- non 7, saying: if anyone affirms that he is able to think or choose any good that pertains to the salvation of eternal life, without illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he is led astray heretically.

You insist: The same Council, Can. 22, affirms that no one has of himself anything but falsehood and sin: therefore one cannot know truth of oneself and by one's own powers. — I distinguish the antecedent: if de suo is taken of ignorance and concupiscence, of which man is the author, by which man's faculties are ruined and rush into worse, I grant; if you interpret de suo, of the nature and faculties of man, by which he can detect truth and pursue good, I deny. For all things that are in man are of twofold genus; for some are good, and are granted by God, the creator and bestower of all good things: they belong to the Creator and Artificer. But vice, which darkens and weakens these natural things, so that it needs illumination and cure, was not contracted from the blame- less Artificer, but from original sin, which was committed by free choice. And book 1 De gratia Christi, chap. 20: The cupidity of men, which is a vice, has man for its author, or the deceiver of man, not the creator of man. — Then I say, the Council speaks only of supernatural thought, and contributing unto salvation; for it says: But whatever truth and justice man has is from that fountain which we ought to thirst for in this desert, that irrigated by certain drops from it we may not faint on the way. This salutary knowledge, moreover, we confess of itself cannot be had without the special assistance of divine grace.

You will urge: The same Councils constantly teach that man cannot have of himself any beginning of his justification: but if by the forces of nature he could attain truth and uncover error, he could in some measure prepare himself for conversion and justification; for by knowing the excellence of virtue and the foulness of vice, without difficulty he could pur- sue virtue and abhor vice: therefore, etc. — I deny the major, since natural things are not proportionate to grace and justification, which is a supernatural benefit, they cannot avail even to dispose for it, or obtain it, or merit it; but they avail only to impetrate, or merit certain natural goods proportioned and suitable to themselves.

You will object 3. Various sayings of St. Augustine, by which he seems to insinuate that we cannot know any truth with certainty, except in the eternal rules, which, since they exist in the uncreated light, transcend the grasp of the human mind. Thus lib. 9. De Trinitate, chap. 6: But we contemplate, he says, the inviolable truth, from which perfectly, as far as we can, we define not what the mind of each man is like, but what it ought to be like according to the sempiternal reasons. And there: By other rules altogether, remaining unchangeably above our mind, we are compelled both to approve with ourselves, and disprove, whenever we rightly approve or disap- prove anything. And there: Taking with simple understanding beyond the keenest edge of mind the art ineffably beautiful of such figures. And there chap. 7: In that eternal truth, therefore, from which all temporal things have been made, we behold the form according to which we are…, and thence we have within us the true knowledge of things conceived from it as a word. Likewise book 12, chaps. 2 and 3: But it belongs to a higher reason to judge about those corporeal things according to incorporeal and sempiternal reasons. Likewise in the same book, chap. 11: Nor do only the intelligible and incorporal reasons of sensible things placed in places remain without local spaces. Likewise book 14, chap. 15, speaking of the unjust man, who rightly praises and blames much in the morals of men, says: By what rules at last do they judge? Near the end he adds: Where then are they written, except in that book of that light which is called truth? Finally book 12 of the Confessions, chap. 25: If we both see the truth, neither you in me, nor I in you: but both in it, the unchangeable truth which is above the mind. Therefore St. Augu- stine judges that the knowledge of no truth can be had, without the special illustration of uncreated light, and consequently without the assistance of divine grace. — The Doctor denies the consequence, in dist. 3, quest. 1, n. 18, where he expounds the aforesaid authorities, and resolves that necessary truths are seen in the eternal rules in either of these four ways: First indeed, as in the proximate object, because the divine intellect gives intelligible being to creatures from eternity, in which necessary truths shine forth immutably; and thus every intellect which detects those truths can be said to see them in the eternal light, that is, in the secondary object of the divine intellect, which is the truth or light eternal. Second, as in the containing proximate object; because the divine intellect contains those truths, as it were a book. Third, as in something by whose power it moves the object; because as the divine intellect produces other things from itself in intelligible being, so it gives the reason directly, because it moves; and concerning this the Doctor brought forward certain subtle points. Fourth, as in the remote object known, because the divine Essence is the first principle of speculables and the last end of practicables; and thus cognition through principles drawn from it is purer and more eminent. — I should believe, therefore, with the Subtle Doctor, that St. Augustine by the eternal rules of necessary things understands ideas, which he says exist in the uncreated light, both because God contains in himself ideas of this kind; and because he produced them from eternity, producing, to be sure, creatures in intelligible being: and finally because God is the measure of all speculables and of the parts among speculables. Philosophers therefore know necessary truths in the eternal rules, that is, in his ideas, not which they see in the Word, but which they participate from the Word; for all the ideas which we have of nece- ssary truths are participations of the divine ideas. And this answer can be confirmed from the same St. Augustine, book De Trinitate, chap. 16, where he contends that philosophers do not know contingents in the eternal rules: for if by eternal rules he understood the special aid of grace, he would not deny that contingents can be known in the eternal rules, because not less aid is needed for knowing contingents than necessary ones: therefore from the fact that he denies contingents are known in the eternal rules, we must understand by them immutable and eternal ideas, in which contingents cannot be represented.

You insist: The same St. Augustine, book 83 Questions, q. 146, requires the greatest purity in those who desire to grasp truth: None but the pure…, he says, attain it: but that purity cannot be had without grace: therefore this is necessary for acquiring the knowledge of truth. — The Doctor distinguishes the major there, n. 22: St. Augustine requires physical, or Platonic, purity, which is purification and withdrawal from sensible things, both external and internal, that is, from phantasms; I grant: he requires moral purity, or purification and separation from vices, which can be obtained only through grace; I deny. For the same Augustine lauded above, book 15 De Trinit., cap. ⟦cap.?⟧ grants that the unjust man sees in the eternal rules.

You will object 4. God must be entreated to grant science and knowledge, whereby truth may be detected: therefore this knowledge cannot be acquired by the forces of nature. The antecedent is plain from that of St. James, chap. 1: If any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all abundantly, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. The consequence likewise is evident; for St. Augustine says, Epist. 95: The giving of thanks is the clearest testimony of grace. And Epistle 109 he says: The giving of thanks is the surest sign of a gratuitous benefit. — I answer, granting the antecedent, by denying the consequence: for we can pray God for general aid, and give thanks to him for obtaining it, when it has something of contingency and fallibility: for on account of such contingency it has the character of general ⟦aid⟧, but general because it is contingent, and on the side of event it has falli- bility: wherefore we pray God for rain, fair weather, the fruits of the earth, and when these are obtained, we give thanks to him, because although they pertain to general provi- dence, nevertheless they have contingency and fallibility on the side of event.

You will object 5. Man cannot attain the knowledge of any truth unless sensible objects are proposed to him so suitably as to lead him into true cognition, not into error: but that is not in man's power, to be stirred by objects in such a way, and disposed to cognition, since it depends upon the particular providence of God establishing the order of things thus: therefore it is a special benefit of God that man can know any truth. The major stands. The minor is proved: God could have disposed created things so that from their course and operation man, who sometimes attains truth, would always stumble into error: whence that things are in fact disposed so as to lead man at times into the knowledge of truth proceeds not from God's general providence, whereby he could dispose things otherwise, but pertains to his special providence and ordination, and consequently to a peculiar grace distinct from the benefit of creation: therefore man could, saving God's creation and general provi- dence, lack the knowledge of any truth whatsoever. — I deny the minor: for although God by absolute power could thus have instituted the universe that objects occurring here and there would lead man into error; yet that he disposed things otherwise is not properly a benefit of grace, of which here is the question, but the benefit of creation itself, though more favorable than the prior disposition (by which it could be instituted). Whence whatever follows in the ordinary way through the common flux of causes and the general concurrence of God from such ordination pertains to the same benefit of crea- tion: otherwise certainly, that man is sound in body, whole in limbs, and born with apt disposition of the senses, would have to be ascribed to peculiar grace, and not to the benefit of creation, because it might happen otherwise, if to be sure God had established another order in things, which nevertheless no one of sound mind would say.

You will object 6. With Henry: sensible objects are changed perpetually: therefore species drawn from them cannot suffice for certain cognition. Then, one cannot have a certain and infallible know- ledge of truth unless he has something by which he can discern the true from the probable: but that other thing cannot be anything other than the benefit of grace: therefore it is required for uncovering truth. The minor is proved: if anything else sufficed, especially a species received from objects: but it is insufficient for this, because sometimes it represents itself, sometimes indeed it represents itself as the object which it expresses: where it represents itself only, the cognition is true: where truly it represents itself as the object, it is false: therefore that species does not suffice, so that anyone could disce- rn whether his cognition is false, or probable, or true. Finally, the soul is of itself changeable and subject to error: therefore it cannot be freed from er- ror by something which is more changeable than itself: but created species are more changeable than the soul itself: therefore through them the soul cannot be freed from error. — The Doctor denies the consequence in 1. dist. 3, qu. 1, n. 13, and to the first indeed he answers that from a changeable thing an immutable cognition can be acquired, just as from a contingent thing a necessary one, because although the object were changeable, nevertheless it could cause a species whereby it represented itself under an immutable aspect; for mutability is not the reason for generating a species, but the very nature of the object, which in itself and its intrinsic predicates is not changeable, but always holds itself in the same way. He adds besides, that even if the species received from a changeable thing were changeable, it could nevertheless represent the thing under an immutable aspect: just as God, although he is immutable, is nevertheless represented by something mutable in himself, namely by an infused, or acquired species. To the second the Doctor says, the argument avails only against those denying intelligible species as distinct from phantasms, and affirming that only phantasms serve to determine the intellect; for those who admit intelligible species can deny that these sometimes represent themselves as themselves, at other times indeed as the object; for they always represent themselves as themselves, nor does anyone ever use them while asleep. To the third he answers: truly the soul is changeable from ignorance to knowledge, and from negation of intellection to intellection, I grant: that it is changeable from right cognition to erroneous cognition, especially about objects which are apt to cause evidence when duly applied, such as are, v. gr., first principles and conclusions deduced from them, I deny.

You will object 7. Very many natural truths are hitherto unknown to Phi- losophers, namely the cause of the ebb and flow of the sea, and many others: therefore man cannot know all of them distributively. Then, if each of such truths of the natural order, taken distributively, could be known without grace with only general concurrence, which God confers within the natural order, they could be known by any man whatsoever; of which thing nevertheless we experience the contrary. Finally, to have cognition of purely natural truths we pray God; whence Solomon in Wisdom 9. thus addresses God suppliantly: Give me wisdom, O Lord, that sitteth on thy throne, etc.: therefore for the cognition of such truths divine liberality is needed, and consequently the benefit of grace. — I deny the consequence. And to the first I say, those truths are natural by reason of the object only, not by reason of object and medium together: or if they are natural also by reason of the medium, their ignorance does not proceed from defect of power in the intellect, but either from defect of study, application, and experience, or from some other defect: whence it came about that most truths unknown in prio- r ages at length became known in later ones. To the second, I deny the sequela of the antecedent, whose reason is that the intellect of any man whatever can be considered in two ways: first indeed according to those things that belong to it per se, essentially, and from its specific nature: second, according to certain particular reasons and accidental conditions which it has from the diversity of temperament and quali- ties of body. In the prior way the intellect of man, insofar as it is of itself, has sufficient physical power to know any truth whatsoever purely natural by reason of object and medium together, but because the intellect in its operation depends on the body and its temperament, thence it happens that by reason of such complexion, that power and sufficientia physica cannot be reduced to act in some men, who are known in this latter way to be less apt for acquiring science. Our conclu- sion however is understood of natural power considered in the prior way, not the latter. To the third I distinguish the antecedent: We pray God for obtaining such cognition more easily, or that we may use it as expedites salvation, I grant: to have it simply, as though some grace were absolutely necessary unto this end, I deny. Nor otherwise must Solomon's deprecation be understood, if it be restricted to the mere truths of the natural order; for that can be extended also to the truths of supernatural order.

Second Conclusion. — MAN IN THE STATE OF FALLEN NATURE CANNOT APPREHEND ALL AND SINGULAR NATURAL TRUTHS BOTH DISJUNCTIVELY AND COLLECTIVELY WITHOUT THE SPECIAL ASSISTANCE OF DIVINE GRACE.

It is proved first: Although for perceiving all those natural truths collectively man has physical power, because those truths are contained within the line of sensible being, or of being cognoscible through species accepted from the senses, which is the object proportionate to our intellect, nevertheless he has no moral power for this without the special assistance of grace: therefore he has need of it. The consequence is plain. The antecedent likewise, since for acting there is required not only physical power but also mo- ral and ready power, or free from all impediments. But in this state of fallen nature the intellective faculty of man is entangled and bound by many impediments, lest it be able to break forth upon its whole object collectively taken without error and defect. First indeed the brevity of life recalls it from that, for longest and most protracted time is needed to know all truths, inasmuch as they are innumerable, and among them some exceedingly difficult of understanding, so that the greatest part of life would have to be spent in the detection of some one of those truths. Second, far imperfect is the ministry of the senses, through whose benefit truth ought to be detected; great indeed is their sluggishness and tardiness of operation; great equally the debility of the organs in which they reside, and their infirmity growing heavier day by day on account of the excessive consumption of animal spirits in actions of theirs oft repeated. Third, the dullness and corruptibility of the mortal body itself is an obstacle; whence Galenus Aphorism. 2: Art is long, life brief, occasion precipitous, experiment perilous, judgment difficult. To these add the assaults of the passions and the mockeries of the senses, and the narrow limits, since they busy themselves only about sensibles, from which other things are to be dug out by analogy and discourse, not without great and frequent danger of falsity. Add equally frequent care and occupation about temporal things and those necessary for food, clothing, dwelling, etc., all of which take away time from detecting truth elsewhere. — All these impediments luculently noted and described the Wise Man, chap. 9, saying: The body that is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly habitation depresses the sense thinking many things. For the brevity of life and the infirmity of the body, and the dullness of the senses, are signified by the body that is corrupted; slowness and sloth of learning, and difficulty of judgment, by the soul weighed down: occupation in external things and those necessary for sustenance by the earthly habitation: finally the diverse motions of the passions disturbing the mind and dragging it this way and that, by the sense thinking many things.

The aforesaid proof is confirmed: What has not been done hitherto is rightly judged impossible by the forces of nature: but no man has been found hitherto who has acquired all speculative truths: nay rather as many as have existed among the ancient Philosophers erred in these; whence Aristotle, 1 Physics, noted many errors of the ancients concerning the principles of nature; and he himself asserted the eternity of the world, and was greatly doubtful about the immortality of the soul; and scarcely one of the ancient Wise Men was there who asserted and worshipped God as the unique ruler of the world, and accordingly no one has been found hitherto who attained all natural truths whether distributively or conjunctively.

You will say 1: Natural appetite ought not to be frustraneous, but attains in some individual at least that toward which it tends: but there has been implanted in us a natural appetite for knowing every truth whatsoever natural: therefore that appetite ought to be fulfilled in some individual at least of human nature through the attainment of cognition of all truths. — I distinguish the major: That appetite attains in some individual at least what it tends toward both intensively and extensively, I deny: intensively at least, I grant. To the minor I say the appetite for knowing truths is fulfilled not indeed extensively, namely as regards the cognition of each of them, because not all fall under sense nor arrive at the intellect; but it is fulfilled at least intensively, because clearly it acknowledges the general principles of all things, from which particular conclusions and truths can be deduced.

You will say 2: Our intellect is capable of all truths whatsoever natural: therefore it can know any whatsoever. — I distinguish the antece- dent: if they be duly applied to the senses, I grant: otherwise, I deny. We cannot, moreover, apply all such truths to our senses; partly on account of the subtlety of some; for there are things too subtle to be able to lie open to our senses, such as invisible things: partly on account of their immense number, for who can hold in number the stars of heaven, the sand of the sea, the leaves of trees, etc.?

You ask: whether at least such a cognition of all natural things can be had through extraordinary aid and benefit of God? — I affirm, partly because no reason of repugnance can be adduced: partly because from fact to power the consequence holds; Theologians confess, as do Christian Philosophers too, that God granted Adam, and Salomon also, knowledge of all such things; why then could he not bestow the same benefit on another?

You ask again: whether that benefit would be of the natural order or su- pernatural? — I answer it would be supernatural per accidens, and by reason of mode, because clearly it could not be acquired by the forces of nature; it would be natural by reason of object, because certainly cognition of such objects would be of the same species as our knowledge, just as the eyes which Christ the Lord gave to the man born blind were of the same species as the eyes which nature would have produced.

Note 1. Practical truths differ in two ways: for some are about the works of art, and are called mechanical, of which the account is the same as of speculative truths: others are called moral, which look to the morals of men being rightly and justly instituted. Again, moral truths are regarded either as universal, such as are the general principles of morals, for instance, that you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to another: God is to be worshipped: parents are to be honored, etc.; or particular, as that here and now the parent is to be honored, alms are to be given to this or that poor man. Here, however, the question is not about universal truths, because knowledge of them is the same as cognition of speculative truths; but the whole difficulty turns chiefly upon particular truths, insofar namely as they are regarded with all the circumstances requisite for acting well morally.

Note 2. Practical truth can be known naturally in two ways: namely, either through the light ingenerated in individual men, whereby each one, nature leading and teaching, and without any ratiocination or light mended from elsewhere, knows that this and that is good or evil, to be pursued or fled; or through the light compared and acquired by the benefit of ratiocination or study, whereby each one can detect what agrees or disagrees with right reason, not only in general, but even in the particular. Here, however, there is no question of ingenerated knowledge; for it is certain that it follows the lot of nature, so that where the intellect is more vigorous, the ingenerated light also shines more excellently, whereby it appears more clearly what is to be pursued and what to be shunned according to the internal dictate of conscience: consequently there remains only this difficulty to solve, whether each one through the compared natural light can detect practical truths in particular without any assistance of actual grace.

Note 3. Some practical truths are of such perfection and sublimity that they cannot be acknowledged except by God revealing, such are all those which inform and illustrate Christian and Evangelical man; and they are called Evangelical truths and virtues, as denial of self, voluntary poverty. Others indeed are of lower grade and order, which regard man standing within the sole line of nature and reason, and which, as we said, can become known through the ingenerated or compared light. Here the difficulty is not about truths of the first order, but only about the practical truths of the latter order, concerning which it is asked whether they can be detected without the special benefit of grace exciting and assisting.

First Conclusion. — MAN IN THE STATE OF FALLEN NATURE CAN KNOW CERTAIN MORAL TRUTHS WITHOUT THE SPECIAL ASSISTANCE OF GRACE.

It is proved first from the Apostle to the Romans 1, saying that the Gentile Philo- sophers were inexcusable in their idolatry and depravation of morals, because when they had known God, they glorified him not as God: he judges therefore that the Philosophers knew by natural light that God ought to be glori- fied; otherwise they would not have sinned by not rendering to him glory and due honor; for as every sin is voluntary, so it presupposes judgment and knowledge of the thing to be done. Moreover the same Apostle, chap. 2, says: The Gentiles, who have not the law, do naturally those things that are of the law; such having not the law are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them: that is, they show themselves to know by the forces of nature and through the ingene- rated light what is to be done and what to be shunned, the natural light dictating: therefore as the natural light of the speculative intellect still flourishes even in the state of fallen nature and suffices for detecting speculative truths, so also flourishes and still subsists the natural light of synderesis, or practical intellect, for knowing truths of morals. Nor does it matter that St. Augustine, chap. 27 of book De spiritu et littera, refers this passage to Gentiles pertaining to the grace of the Mediator; for he does not there condemn the opinion of those who refer it to ethnic infidels.

The same truth the Holy Fathers prove, for St. Chrysostomus, Hom. 50 on Genesis says: In our nature is implanted knowledge of good and evil, let no one therefore make pretext that ignorant of virtue he neglects it, etc. And Homily 51: A sufficient teacher, he says, we have, conscience, and it cannot be that anyone be deprived of that aid; for together with the formation of man is implanted knowledge of things to be done and not to be done. To them accords St. Augustine, book 2 of the Confessions, chap. 4: Thy law, he says, is written in the hearts of men, which iniquity itself does not erase: For what thief calmly endures a thief? Which sentiment S. Prosper explains in marvelous fashion, in his poem De providentia Dei, about its middle, thus singing:

Go yourselves into the recesses of your mind, and within Behold the engraved marks, the written volumes of the heart, And acknowledge the law born with you along with you: For who shall there now be, not the flock of the field, nor the beast of the deep, Who should foolishly delight so in open vices, Or wish himself to suffer what he does? Deceptive falsehood, Rapacious of the future, furious and atrocious, bloody homicide He condemns, and against the adulterer draws the swords of adultery.

This assertion is further proved by reason: First indeed, moral and practical truth is the object proportioned to the light of natural human intellect: therefore it can naturally be detected by it. The inference is evident: for every natural faculty can perceive by its own powers an object connatural and proportioned to itself; nor does the eye need a special grace, that it may apprehend a colored object. The antecedent also is established; for natural moral truth lies within the line of natural intellect, and hence is an object proportioned to it. — Secondly, man can by his ingrafted light know universal principles which pertain to morals being rightly and justly formed, as was said shortly before, both from Scripture and from the holy Fathers: therefore by these same powers, without the special assistance of grace, he can know particular conclusions deduced from those principles: for whoever, e.g., knows in general that alms ought to be given to the needy, whenever an occasion of bestowing alms offers itself in the particular case, will easily judge by nature's own prompting that alms ought to be given to such a poor man. — Finally, if man could not know by nature's powers any moral truths in particular, it would follow that he could not sin against those same truths without grace: but the consequent is false: therefore also the antecedent. The inference of the major is evident: for it would not be in his power to have such knowledge, whence ignorance of truths of this kind would be altogether invincible, and accordingly whatever he did against them would not be imputed to him as guilt.

You will say 1: From the knowledge of moral truths is acquired the habit of prudence, which embraces in its bosom all the virtues: but all the virtues cannot be acquired without the special benefit of grace: therefore neither the knowledge of their truths. — I distinguish the major: there is acquired an imperfect habit of prudence, and only as regards some very slight degrees, I concede: there is acquired the perfect habit of prudence, whereby one is said to be truly prudent, and has a permanent facility of judging prudently on any given occasion, even while the gravest difficulties arise, about what must be done ⟦protereudi⟧, I deny. And likewise, with the minor distinguished, I deny the consequence. For prudence, which is said to embrace all virtues in its bosom, is not only that imperfect prudence by which one exercises some act of natural prudence, or judges rightly once and again about doing or not doing a thing; but it is a permanent disposition, and a sound judgment whereby for the most part one judges well about things to be done even in arduous matters: but this cannot be acquired without the assistance of grace: whereas the former can be obtained and exercised by the mere powers of nature.

You will say 2. To approve false things as true is a wound contracted through original sin, as saint Augustine teaches in many places, especially concerning those things which pertain to practical truths; therefore to uncover those truths is a benefit of grace. — I distinguish the antecedent: To approve them with an efficacious approbation, which moves and draws the affection, is a wound of original sin, I concede: with an inefficacious approbation, I deny. Likewise I distinguish the consequence: Not to approve all false things as true is a benefit of grace, I concede: only some, I deny. We confess therefore that human reason very often grows blind, and wanders from the truth in uncovering very many moral truths; for thus the Philosophers among the Gentiles did not attain certain knowledge of many practical truths: for as we are affected, so we form our judgment about things: yet it very often happens that men are ill affected; and consequently it is certain that they mostly do not apprehend moral truth with certainty.

You will insist. From the holy Fathers man is said to be through original sin not only wounded, but even blinded: therefore in the state of fallen nature he can attain knowledge of no truth, especially practical and moral truth, without the illumination and benefit of divine grace. The antecedent is evident, especially from St. Gregory the Great, Homily 11 on the Gospels, where speaking of the blind man whom Christ illumined in Luke 18, he has this: Who that blind man was according to history we do not know; yet we know what he signifies by mystery: for the blind man is the human race, which expelled from the joys of Paradise by its first parent, ignorant of the clarity of the supernal light, suffers the darkness of its damnation; yet it is illumined by the presence of its Redeemer, that it may already see through desire the joys of the inner light, and set the steps of good work in the way of life. — I distinguish the antecedent: Man through original sin is blinded as regards the knowledge of supernatural truths, which he lost through the loss of faith and infused science, I concede: as regards the knowledge of natural truths, both speculative and practical, I deny. For as the light of reason is not extinguished through original sin, so neither is that innate power and capacity of the intellect lost for perceiving any truths whatsoever that lie within the breadth of its natural object. But that this was the mind of the holy Fathers, and especially of St. Gregory, is clear from the same place; for he says: While our Redeemer drew near to Jericho, the blind man returned to the light; because while the Divinity took upon itself the defect of our flesh, the human race received again the light it had lost; from the fact that God suffers human things, thence man is raised up toward divine things. From which it appears that he treats only of spiritual blindness as regards the knowledge of supernatural truths, which the human race lost when Adam sinned together with innocence, and which it recovered at the approach and shining of the Sun of justice, who enlightens every man coming into this world.

You will say 3. Men are very often pressed by so grave a temptation of the devil that they are drawn away from the study and contemplation of moral truths: therefore in order to overcome and master those temptations they need the help of grace. — I distinguish the consequent: There is needed the help of grace strengthening the will, that it may overcome those temptations, and that the mind be not called back and distracted from the study of those truths, I concede: strengthening and fortifying the intellect, so that applied to the study of those truths it obtain their knowledge, I deny. Here however there is no question of the difficulty which the human will can suffer toward the pursuit of truth, as it sometimes suffers toward another good work; but of the power which the intellect has for perceiving truths that lie within the breadth of its natural object; which certainly we say can be perceived without any benefit of grace.

You will say finally. If man could by the mere powers of nature attain knowledge of things to be done, it would follow that he would have something necessary for acting morally well, which should be credited to himself, and not to God: for such knowledge is necessary for acting well: but this openly conflicts with the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 4, saying: For who distinguisheth thee? And what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? Therefore, etc.

I deny the inference of the major: for man thence has no occasion for congratulating himself and glorying: First, because he cannot know with certainty whether he had a thought of that kind by the mere powers of nature, or by the sole benefit of divine grace: for it sometimes happens that God informs certain men of those things, as it were divinely and miraculously, which could be known by mere natural reason. Wherefore no one can boast rashly and proudly of any good thought whatever, as though he had not received it from God, since perhaps in fact he had it from the special grace and benefit of God. Secondly, even if he knew with certainty that he had had such a thought from his own powers and industry, he ought not on that account to glory on that score; because, as saint Cyprian rightly admonishes, book 3 Ad Quirinum, chapter 4: In nothing must we glory, when nothing is our own; all natural goods are from God; for from him we have received the powers of nature, and every faculty of acting, nor can we do anything without at least his general concurrence. To the passage of the Apostle I say that it ought properly to be understood of things pertaining to piety, and to the supernatural end of eternal salvation, in which sense St. Augustine expounds it in book De Praedestinatione sanctorum, chapters 4 and 5.

WHETHER AND WHAT GRACE IS NECESSARY FOR KNOWING SUPERNATURAL TRUTHS, OR FOR ASSENTING TO THE MYSTERIES OF FAITH.

Note 1. That some truth can be called supernatural on a threefold account; namely, on the part of the object, on the part of the reason or motive for assenting, or on the part of both together. A truth is said to be supernatural on the part of the object only, when of itself it indeed transcends the natural capacity of the intellect, nor could it be perceived unless it had been divinely revealed; yet it is attained by a merely natural reason and motive, as happens in heretics, whenever by human faith, or by their own will, they give assent to some supernatural truth, for instance the mystery of the Trinity and of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ; for although those truths be supernatural of themselves, nevertheless the motive or reason by which the heretic assents to them is purely natural: he does not give them assent on account of the motive of divine revelation; otherwise he would believe the other revealed mysteries by equal right: but he is only moved to believe those mysteries on account of human reason, which is subject to error. Secondly, a truth is said to be supernatural on the part of the motive alone, when namely the intellect perceives it, and gives assent to it through divine revelation: e.g. while one believes that Isaac begot Jacob — this being purely natural on the part of the object — yet it becomes supernatural by reason of the motive, when one believes it because holy Scripture reports it with God revealing it. Thirdly and finally, a truth is said to be supernatural on the part both of the object and of the motive, when namely the object known, and the motive by which it is known, are supernatural, as while we believe that God is threefold because Christ revealed this.

Note 2. That some supernatural truth requires two things for its knowledge; one indeed on the part of the object, namely that it be proposed to the intellect, and set before it to be perceived; another on the part of the intellect, namely that it can believe the object proposed to it, and give assent to it. Concerning both, however, a difficulty is raised; whether namely supernatural grace is required, both that the object be proposed to the intellect, and that the intellect give assent to it. Pelagius admitted the first, conceding that for having faith concerning the mysteries it is required that they be proposed through the preaching of the Gospel; but he denied the second, namely that interior grace is necessary for believing the revealed truth, or at least he wished it to be desired only for believing more easily, as was said in the first volume, in reporting the errors of Pelagius.

Note 3. Concerning the present difficulty the Semipelagians differed from the Pelagians chiefly in this, that some among them would admit indeed that grace is necessary for attaining perfect faith and exercising it; yet they wished there to be in us certain beginnings and seeds of faith, whereby we could merit that perfect faith; of which St. Prosper in his Epistle to St. Augustine has this: Certain ones however of these depart so little from the paths of the Pelagians that, when they are compelled to confess that grace of Christ which prevents all human merits, lest if it is rendered to merits it should be vainly named grace, they take refuge in the condition of the proper nature of each man, in which, since we merited nothing previously, because we did not even exist, grace establishes free will and rationality so that through discerning good and evil, and toward knowledge of God, and obedience to his commandments, he could direct his will, and arrive at that grace whereby we are reborn in Christ: seeking, asking, knocking by natural faculty of course, so that he may receive, find, enter because he used well the good of nature, and by the help of initial grace merited to arrive at that saving grace. But the Pelagians wished free will to suffice of itself for assenting to revealed truths, nor was any grace needed for that. Against whom let there stand

One Conclusion. — MAN CANNOT KNOW ANY SUPERNATURAL TRUTH WITH CERTAINTY WITHOUT SPECIAL GRACE, WHICH ILLUMINES THE INTELLECT AND MOVES THE AFFECTION, NOR THEREFORE WITHOUT SUCH GRACE CAN HE BELIEVE AS ONE OUGHT FOR SALVATION.

It is proved first from holy Scripture. For John 6, Christ the Lord testifies: No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him. For to come to Christ is nothing else than to believe in Christ, as the Savior himself, to be adored, indicates in these following words: Every one that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh to me.

And shortly after: But there are some of you that believe not... therefore I say unto you, that no man can come to me, etc. Whence saint Augustine in book De Praedest. Sanctorum, chapter 8: What is it, he says, to come to me, but to believe in me? And shortly after: Therefore to be drawn by the Father to Christ... is nothing else than to receive a gift from the Father, whereby one believes in Christ. Furthermore John 12: Therefore they could not believe, where again he says Isaiah: Blind the heart of this people, and make his ears heavy, etc. For since blinding comes about through the withdrawal of divine light, and they cannot believe who lack that light, it openly follows that no one can believe without the special aid of divine grace.

The holy Apostle inculcates the same truth in many places, especially 1 Corinthians chapter 1: What hast thou that thou hast not received? With which testimony St. Augustine in the place cited above, chapter 3, confesses he was altogether convinced that faith is a gift of God, whereas before he thought it was in us from ourselves, and that we obtain through it the gifts of God, whereby we live temperately, piously, and justly in this age. Likewise chapter 1: I have obtained mercy that I might be faithful: whence saint Augustine rightly observes in book De Gratia et libero arbitrio chapter 7: For he did not say, I have obtained mercy because I was faithful, but that I might be faithful; thereby showing that that very faith cannot be possessed unless God have mercy, and is a gift of God. Likewise 2 Corinthians chapter 3: Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God: whence St. Augustine in book De Praedest. Sanctorum chapter 2 draws this truth: To believe, he says, is nothing else than to think with assent: and everyone who believes thinks, and by believing thinks, and by thinking believes. Likewise Ephesians chapter 2: By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God. On which passage Augustine uses book De Gratia et libero arbitrio chapter 7 and De Praedest. Sanctorum chapter 7: There is also, he says, what I said, through faith not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God. Philippians 1: For unto you it is given, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him. Whence Augustine in book De Gratia et Libero arbitrio, chapter 14: Both things therefore belong to the grace of God, the faith of believers and the endurance of sufferers: because he said both were given.

It is proved secondly, from the Council of Carthage, Canon 4, where it is stated that it is a gift of God both to know what we ought to do, and to love that we do it. By the Canon of Orange 7, defining as heretics of such spirit those who think that without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit men can by the powers of nature think anything that pertains to salvation; and Can. 9: It is a divine gift, when we think rightly, and hold our feet back from falsehood and injustice; by the Tridentine, Session 6, Canon 3, pronouncing anathema against those asserting that without the preventing inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and his aid, man can believe, etc.

It is proved thirdly from the holy Fathers. From St. Clement, book 6 of the Stromata, pages 501 and 502: Moreover, whoever among the Greeks glory that truth has been comprehended by them, let them tell us from whom they boast they learned it. If indeed they say not from God, they confess they learned it from men. But men are not worthy of belief when they speak about God, insofar as they are men; for neither can he who is a man speak truly worthily of God, weak and subject to death, whose destruction is the work of him who made him. Then, he who cannot speak truly about himself, ought he not much less to be believed even concerning God? For as far as man is distant from the power of God, so weak also is his reason, even if it speaks not God himself, but about God and the divine Word. Since even those who claim God as their Master scarcely attain knowledge of God, grace bringing them aid toward however small a cognition, as they accustom themselves to contemplate the Holy Spirit by the Holy Spirit: because the Spirit searcheth the deep things of God; but the animal man perceiveth not those things that are of the Spirit. Therefore the only doctrine handed down from God is that which is with us, upon which depend all fountains of wisdom, whatsoever are borne toward truth as toward their mark. In which words St. Clement beats down all certain and salutary cognition of God and of divine things into the illumination of grace and the teaching of the Holy Spirit.

It is proved from the holy Fathers cited by saint Augustine in book De Bono perseverantiae, chapters 17 and 19. By Cyprian in book 3 ad Quirinum chapter 1, writing, in nothing must we glory, when nothing is our own. By Ambrose in book De Fuga saeculi, chapter 1: It is not in our power our heart, and our thoughts, etc.

It is proved also by reasons, especially those which St. Augustine uses, the first of which is drawn from prayers and thanksgivings: for no one prays unless he is about to ask of him whom he prays that which is undeserved and beyond his capacity: yet the faithful pray the Lord for the unfaithful, that he convert them from unfaithfulness to faith: therefore this faith is an undeserved gift, and from grace. Likewise thanks are not given to God except for some gift, and grace properly so called: but they are given for the conversion of unbelievers; thus St. Augustine Epistle 17: Vainly, he says, and perfunctorily rather than shamefully do we pour forth prayers to God for these men, that they may consent to believe the doctrine to which they are opposed, if it does not pertain to his grace to convert to faith his wills contrary to that faith. Vainly also, and perfunctorily rather than shamefully, do we render great thanksgivings with exultation to God when certain of them believe, if he himself does not work this in them. Let us not deceive men, when we cannot deceive God.

We plainly do not pray to God, but feign that we pray, if we do not believe him to make in us what we pray for; we plainly do not give thanks to God, but feign that we give thanks, if we think that he himself does not do that for which we give him thanks.

The second reason: That which befits certain ones out of the mercy of God, and befits others not out of the just judgment of God, is grace, and a gift properly so called: yet faith befits certain men out of the mercy of God, and befits others not out of the just judgment: therefore, etc. The argument is that of saint Augustine in book De Praedest. chapter 6: Many hear the word of truth, but some believe, others contradict. Who is ignorant of these things? who denies it? But since for some the will is prepared by the Lord, for others the will is not prepared by the Lord, it must certainly be discerned what comes of his mercy, what of judgment. And chapter 8: When the Gospel is preached, some believe, some believe not; but those who believe the preacher sounding outwardly, hear from the Father and learn: but those who believe not, hear outwardly, inwardly hear not, neither learn — that is, to these it is given that they believe, to those it is not given, because he says: no man cometh to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him. And afterward: Therefore faith, both begun and perfected, is a gift of God; and let no one doubt at all that this gift is not given to certain ones, who is unwilling to contend against the most manifest sacred Letters. But why it is not given to all, he ought faithfully not to know, who believes that all deeds done by one are unto most just condemnation: so that there would be no just reproach of God even if none were delivered thence. Whence it is established great that grace, because very many are delivered, and what was owed to itself they acknowledge in those who are not delivered, so that whoever glories, may glory not in his own merits, which appear equal in the damned, but in the Lord.

The third reason: Either faith is grace, or no grace properly so called is given: but the consequent is false: therefore the antecedent is true.

The major is proved: That whence all good merits begin is grace, or that which is given to it on account of its merits is given: if it is given on account of merits, it is not grace: For if, says the Apostle, it be of grace, it is now not of works: therefore that whence good merits begin is either grace, or no grace properly so called exists. This reason is that of St. Augustine Epistle 105, where he says: It remains that we attribute faith itself not to a human free choice whereby men extol themselves, nor to any surpassing merits, because from that source begin whatever goods are merits: but let us confess it to be the gratuitous gift of God, if we think true grace, that is, without merits.

You will object. 1. Whatever is required of man is in his power: yet faith is required of man: therefore it ought to be in his power: but that which is in the power of man is not grace properly so called, nor a gift of God beyond nature's due: therefore, etc. This is evident: for in vain would God require anything of us, unless it lay in our power to fulfill it. Likewise the minor is clear from Mark 16: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. And Romans 10: If thou believe, thou shalt be saved.

I answer. 1. This argument was devised by the Semipelagians, as is clear from the Epistle of St. Prosper to St. Augustine, book De Praedest. Sanct. chapter 11, where he says: If thou believest, thou shalt be saved; just as it is said, if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh you shall live: for here too, of these two one is required, the other offered. Therefore that we mortify the deeds of the flesh is required: but that we live is offered. Not therefore on account of many such passages, as that mortifying the deeds of the flesh should we say is not a gift of God, nor confess that it is a gift

of God: since we hear that it is required of us, with the reward of right offered if we have done this. Whence he concludes that since the Semipelagians admitted that to mortify the deeds of the flesh is a work of grace, they ought also to concede that the assent of faith cannot be formed without the assistance of grace.

I answer. 2. By distinguishing the major: Whatever is required of man is in his power, either through the grace of God, or through nature, I concede: through nature always, and without grace, I deny. But both are of God, Augustine says in the same place, both what is commanded, and what is offered: for he is asked to give what he commands: believers ask that their faith be increased: they ask for unbelievers, that faith be given them, so that both in its increases and in its beginnings faith may be the gift of God.

You will object. 2. Various texts of Scripture, by which there appears to be in us a certain beginning of good will, through which faith may be sought and desired. Thus Isaias 3: At the voice of thy cry he shall hear thee, and answer thee. Luke 12: Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. Rom. 1: To will is present with me, but to accomplish that which is good I find not. It is evident, therefore, that to him who wills, desires, and seeks, the rewards are proposed and prepared.

I distinguish the consequent: that the rewards are prepared on account of a work elicited by the powers of nature alone, I deny; elicited with the assistance of grace, I concede. I acknowledge, therefore, that to him who wills, desires, and seeks, the rewards are prepared; but that he may will, desire, and seek is of the mercy of God. For from divine Scripture itself it is established that it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy; and that God is he who worketh in us both to will and to accomplish; and because we know not how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings. Hence St. Augustine, book 2, Ad Bonifacium, chapter 9, weighing those words of Proverbs: Man's heart prepareth his way, together with these words of 2 Cor. 3: Not that we are sufficient to think anything, etc., says: Man prepareth his heart, yet not without the aid of God; for if God touches the heart, man prepareth his heart. And again: For if we could do anything without him, assuredly we could neither begin nor accomplish; that we may begin, it was said, His mercy preventeth me; that we may accomplish, it was said, His mercy will follow me.

You will object. 3. Heretics believe certain mysteries of faith, namely of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Resurrection; yet God's gift or grace, by which they might believe, is not conferred upon heretics; therefore one can assent to supernatural truths without the gift of faith and the assistance of grace.

I distinguish the major: they believe either on account of certain natural conjectures, or on account of divine revelation, I concede; on account of a certain natural reason demonstrative and sure, I deny. Likewise I distinguish the minor: grace is not conferred upon heretics when they believe supernatural truths on account of merely human conjecture, or by a faith acquired at second hand, I concede; when they believe on account of the authority and revelation of God, and from a motive purely supernatural, the grace at least of an inchoate and imperfect faith is not given them, I deny. For in them that faith is a certain gift of God, but of the disinherited, as St. Augustine says, book De Patientia, chapter 28, and as we have more fully declared in the Treatise On Faith. Or more briefly and clearly I distinguish the major: they believe by human and acquired faith, I concede; by divine and infused faith, I deny. For they do not believe on account of the authority of God revealing; otherwise they would assent not merely to some, but to all revealed truths whatsoever.

You will object. 4. Supernatural truths are within the line of the specificative object of our intellect; therefore by its native powers they can be attained by it. The antecedent is plain: for truly if such truths were not within the line of the specificative object of the intellect, that intellect could not apprehend them even with any aid whatsoever, just as the eye cannot perceive sound because it is outside the line of its proper object. But the consequence is proved thus: whatever power can by its own powers attain whatever is within its specificative object; therefore if supernatural truths and the mysteries of our faith are contained within the specificative object of our intellect, they can be attained by it through the powers of nature.

I distinguish the antecedent: those truths are within the line of the proportionate specificative object, I deny; of the disproportionate, I concede. And likewise I distinguish the consequent. And in proof of it I say that any power whatever can by its own powers attain whatever is within its specificative object, which is proportionate to it, but not what is disproportionate: as is evident in the case of sight, whose object is every luminous or colored body, when nevertheless, shining with too great splendor, it cannot be apprehended by the eye unless it be aided and strengthened by some special power. Therefore by parity of reasoning, although supernatural truths are within the line of the adequate and specificative object of our intellect, which is every intelligible being abstracting from the natural and supernatural, created and uncreated, spiritual and corporeal; nevertheless since those truths are not contained within its proportionate and connatural object, which for this state is the intelligible being by conversion to phantasms and through species received from the senses, therefore those supernatural truths cannot be perceived by the powers of nature except by the benefit of a light strengthening and elevating the intellect to the supernatural order and state.

You will object. 5. The act of Christian faith can be commanded by the will for an evil end, for example for worldly glory, as St. Augustine teaches, book De Catechizandis Rudibus, chapter 17; but for such an act of faith, or even for the will commanding an act of that kind, grace is not required; therefore, etc.

I answer, denying the major: for that faith is not Christian, but merely natural; whence the same St. Augustine says that men who are moved by an evil will to believe enter the Church with a feigned heart and mock the Christian name.

Since all the efficacy and operation of grace consist not only in illuminating the intellect in uncovering truth, but also in regulating the will in the effective pursuit of good and the aversion from evil, we proceed in due order from the operation of that grace concerning the knowledge of truth to investigate its necessity and efficacy with regard to the will in the pursuit of good. Now, since the good, which is the object of the will, is of one kind when it belongs to the supernatural order and conduces to the attainment of eternal life, and of another when it belongs to the natural order, which contributes toward a purely natural end; and moreover, since among the goods of the natural order one is good simply, which by nature befits the appetent subject — and this, according to the common state of things, is threefold: namely, purely natural, such as seeing, eating, sleeping, etc.; another artificial, such as building, painting, etc.; and finally another civil or political, such as the mutual cohabitation and association of citizens; and yet another moral, which accords with right reason and the honesty of morals — here there will be no discussion of what is naturally good simply, for it is certain that all those operations by which physical, artificial, and civil good is acquired can take place without any special help of grace. Therefore the present controversy concerns only moral good, both of the supernatural and even of the natural order, in resolving which heretics have varied most widely and contended in diverse ways. First indeed by Pelagius: for although his error was fickle and shifting, and on that account St. Prosper rightly called him the British Serpent because of his sinuous windings, since he could not be confined within any fixed opinion, even though he attempted with many verbal wrappings to veil and disguise his heresy; nevertheless all his evasions converged upon this one point, that he asserted free will to be of itself sufficient for performing every good that contributes to the establishment of salvation — although he did not ultimately refuse the benefit of grace, whereby each might live more easily uprightly and rightly and pursue the good, as St. Augustine relates at greater length, especially in Sermon 13 on the Words of the Apostle, chapter 12, where he says: Indeed (the Pelagians) say that the grace of God is an aid toward doing things more easily. These are their words: for this purpose, they say, God gave His grace to men, that what they are commanded to do by free will they may accomplish more easily through grace. More easily I desire, no one more difficultly, yet no one fails to arrive: by a beast of burden more easily, yet still on foot one arrives.

But Julian, a disciple of Pelagius, in order to evade the condemnation of his Master while not abandoning his heretical opinion, asserted that by the powers of nature the will of salutary good was present to us, but that the force and power of actually doing it resided only through the grace and help of God. Hence St. Augustine, in book 2 To Boniface, chapter 8, speaking of Julian and his followers, says: These men wish the desire of good in man to begin from man himself, so that the merit of this raised-up effort may attain also the grace of perfecting it. And in book 1 Against Julian, chapter 3, he says: You wish the striving for sanctity to proceed in the will of man without help, which God ought deservedly to assist not gratuitously. The Massilians, however, whom St. Prosper in his Epistle to St. Augustine calls the remnants of the Pelagians, and whom the theologians name Semi-Pelagians, because they refined in some part the heresy of the Pelagians, were chiefly involved in this error: that they asserted man could, without preventing grace, will to believe; but not that he could believe, or will or do any other good; and that by this natural affection of believing he would merit the help of healing grace.

To this threefold heretical sentence, proscribed by the Church, there extremely conflicts another triplex likewise condemned by the Church: the first is that of Luther, in the assertion of articles 6 and 36, of Calvin in book 2 of the Institutes, chapter 3, and of others whom Bellarmine records in book 5 On Grace and Free Will, chapter 4, affirming that man in the state of fallen nature cannot, not even with the grace and special help of God, do anything good, nor work anything however holy and just that is not sin; which, however, they say, is not imputed to the faithful who believe in Christ. The second is that of John Hus, among whose various errors related and condemned in the Council of Constance one was this: that he asserted no good work could be done without sanctifying grace, and consequently that all the works of a sinner are sins. Finally, the third was that of Michael Baius, who among the various propositions which we have set forth in the preliminaries as condemned by three supreme Pontiffs has this as number 25: All the works of infidels are sins, and the virtues of the philosophers are vices; and thereupon he judged that the grace of faith is so necessary that no moral good whatsoever can be done by infidels.

Therefore, that we may meet all these erroneous opinions that conflict extremely with Catholic truth and doctrine — since the principal dispute concerns the triple grace, actual, habitual, and of faith — five things must be established in this Article: first, whether actual grace is absolutely necessary for supernatural good conducing to the meriting of salvation. Second, whether sanctifying grace is necessary for every morally good work. Third, whether the grace of faith is prerequisite for the same work. Fourth, what grace is required for the love of God as Author of nature. Fifth, finally, what grace is necessary for keeping the commandments of God.

NOTE 1. By the name of grace nothing else is here signified than actual grace, or that actual assistance and aid by which man is aroused, helped, and promoted to elicit works conducing to the attainment of eternal life. Nor indeed is the present difficulty concerned with sanctifying grace: for it is certain that it is not necessary for every supernatural work conduceing to salvation: since without it we can will and perform many works of the supernatural order and conducing to salvation; such, namely, are all those works by which sinners dispose themselves for sanctifying grace itself, of which the Council of Trent treats, session 6, chapter 6; such especially are acts of faith, hope, and fear of God, while sinners, considering themselves, turning from the fear of divine justice, wherewith they are profitably shaken, to the consideration of God's mercy, raise themselves up in hope, trusting that God will be propitious to them on account of Christ, and begin to love him as the fountain of all justice: so that thereby they may be moved against sins by some hatred and detestation, etc. All which acts assuredly conduce to justification, and consequently to eternal salvation; nor consequently is justifying grace required beforehand for them, for which they are dispositions and preparations.

NOTE 2. That although eternal happiness is to be merited by good works on the part of adults, as appears from innumerable texts of Scripture, in which it is promised afresh as to be granted, either by way of a reward due to laborers laboring rightly and faithfully, or under the title of a crown laid up for those fighting and conquering, or lastly by way of an inheritance prepared by God for his adopted sons — for, says the Apostle, Rom. 8, if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and co-heirs of Christ — nevertheless, as St. Augustine rightly teaches, that eternal happiness is called grace by the same Apostle: because, says the same author, book 3, De gratia et libero arbitrio, chapter 7, if our life is nothing else than the grace of God, without doubt eternal life also, which shall be rendered for a good life, is the grace of God: and indeed it is given gratis, nay gratis it was given to him to whom it is given. But that which is given is merely grace; this, however, which is given to him, because it is its reward, is grace for grace, as wages for justice. Unfolding this truth, he says: But perhaps you ask whether we have read in the Holy Scriptures grace for grace: but you have the Gospel according to John, most clear in so great light; where John the Baptist says of the Lord Christ: we all have received of his fullness, and grace for grace. Of his fullness therefore we have received, according to our measure, as it were our portions, that we may live well: as God hath parted to every one the measure of faith, because each one hath his proper gift from God; one thus, another thus, and this itself is grace: but moreover we receive also grace for grace, when eternal life shall be rendered to us, of which the Apostle said: the grace of God is life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord: whereas he had said before: the wages of sin is death. Wages deservedly, because the service of diabolical death rendereth the debt of eternal death. Wherein although he could say, and say rightly: but the wages of justice is life everlasting, he preferred to say: but the grace of God is life everlasting, that from this we might understand that God leads us to eternal life not for our merits, but through his mercy. From which it will easily be gathered that that happiness can be merited only by the aid and benefit of grace.

NOTE 3. That although there be innate in us an appetite for happiness, and consequently it be certain that it can be obtained — for we would not (says St. Augustine, book 1, Contra Iulianum, chapter 3) by natural instinct wish to be immortal and blessed unless we could be so — nevertheless that natural appetite does not incite us, nor spur us on at least elicitedly, toward eternal beatitude, whereby we are borne toward the good proposed, unless it be revealed; seeing that neither by innate light nor by light acquired by our own powers does such happiness appear: for, says the Apostle, neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what God hath prepared for them that love him. And straightway it is necessary that this blessed felicity be made known through some supernatural light of revelation or illumination. But that this external and bare revelation does not suffice, but that beyond it some supernatural and divine aid is desired, whereby it may be attained, must here be determined against both Pelagians and Semipelagians.

First Conclusion. — MAN CANNOT, BY HIS OWN POWERS AND WITHOUT SUPERNATURAL AID, WILL OR ACCOMPLISH ANY GOOD WORK THAT CONDUCES TO ETERNAL SALVATION. This is of faith against the Pelagians.

It is proved first from Sacred Scripture, namely from all those places which St. Augustine uses to uproot the erroneous dogma of the Pelagians. First indeed from the Old Testament, but especially from Psal. 24: my eyes are ever towards the Lord: for he shall pluck my feet out of the snare. And Psal. 20: In thy strength thou hast adorned my countenance with beauty. And Psal. 36: The steps of a man are directed by the Lord. And Psal. 126: Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. And Wisd. 8: I knew that I could not otherwise be continent except God gave it, etc. — But more openly and clearly this truth becomes known from the New Testament by almost innumerable oracles, and truly especially from these words, John 6: No man can come to me, except the Father who hath sent me draw him. And, No man can come to me, unless it were given him by my Father. Both texts St. Augustine weighs thus, book 1 ad Bonifacium, chapter 19: Whether this be given already to him willing to believe, on account of the merits of his good will, or rather that the will itself may believe, as Saul was excited from above, however bitter he might be against the faith, so as even to persecute believers… for why did the Lord command us to pray for them that persecute us? Do we pray for this, that the grace of God be requited to them for their good will, and not rather that their evil will be changed into good? — Likewise John 15: Without me you can do nothing. Which sentence St. Augustine weighs thus, Sermon 13 De Verbis Apostoli, chapter 12: The true Master, who flattereth no one, deceiveth no one, the truthful Doctor and likewise Savior, to whom led us that most troublesome Pelagian when he was speaking of good works, that is, of the fruits of branches and vine shoots; he does not say, without me you can indeed do something, but more easily through me: he does not say your fruit you can indeed do without me, but more abundant through me: he did not say this; read what he said…: without me you can do nothing. — Likewise Phil. 13: God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish. St. Augustine adds, book De Gratia Christi, chapter 5: Or as is read in other codices, and especially the Greek, both to will and to accomplish. See whether the Apostle did not long before cut off in holy spirit future adversaries of the grace of God, and these two, both to will and to accomplish, which he (Pelagius) willed to be ours in such wise that divine grace would not be aided by its own help, when he says God worketh in us. Let silence be granted to innumerable other texts of Sacred Scripture, which St. Augustine everywhere gathers most abundantly, and by which he roots out the Pelagian error.

It is proved secondly by the authority or decrees of all Councils in which the Pelagian heresy was proscribed and condemned. First indeed from the Council of Diospolis, in which, as was said in the first volume, twelve articles scattered by Pelagius and his followers were condemned, of which the seventh was this: that the grace of God, without its assistance, is not given for each single act, but that it belongs to free will, or to law and doctrine. Likewise in the Council of Milevis, or Carthage, chapter 4, it is enacted: both are gifts of God, both to know what we ought to do, and to love that we may do it. Further, from the Second Council of Orange, Canon 7: If anyone affirms that by the vigor of nature any good pertaining to the salvation of eternal life can be thought or chosen, or that it can be perceived without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, who bestows on all sweetness in consenting to and believing the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit. And Canon 9: It is a gift of God whenever we think rightly, and keep our feet from falsehood and injustice: for as often as we do good, God worketh in us and with us that we may work. Lastly from the Council of Trent, session 6, canon 3, it is enacted: If anyone shall say that without the preventing operation of the Holy Spirit and his assistance man can believe, hope, love, or repent as he ought, so that the grace of justification be conferred upon him, let him be anathema.

It is proved thirdly from the holy Fathers, especially from St. Augustine in all those books which he published against the Pelagians; from which I judge that one or two sentences should be transcribed here. The first is taken from book 2, De Nuptiis et concupiscentia, chapter 3. If anyone, he says, says that in all men there is free will to worship God rightly without his help, he seems to be Caelestianus and Pelagius. The second is drawn from the book De Natura et gratia, chapter 1: if, he says, natural possibility suffices of itself through free will both for knowing how one ought to live and for living well, then Christ died gratuitously; then the offense of the cross is made void, etc. Which catholic and orthodox doctrine of St. Augustine the whole Church has embraced, which proscribed the dogma of the Pelagians as heretical under anathema.

Finally it is proved by reason: No faculty can tend beyond its own powers unless it be quickened and strengthened by some form superadded; but every act tending to eternal life is beyond the powers and property of the created intellect and will; for it is a motion toward a supernatural end; therefore no act of either faculty tending to eternal life can be produced by man except through a form superadded, which is of the supernatural order, and which raises and uplifts man to that same supernatural state. Whence, for the same reason, proportion being observed, the Christian ought to be formed and to act in order to eternal life as Christ was formed and acted: but Christ the Lord was formed through the Holy Spirit: for what was born of the Virgin is of the Holy Spirit; and he emitted all his acts only from a supernatural and divine principle, namely from the personality of the Word, and an intellect informed by divine wisdom, and a will illumined with all the charisms of grace: therefore Christian man ought likewise to act (especially in those things which pertain to salvation) from a supernatural principle. Which reason St. Fulgentius confirms and weighs thus elegantly, in the book De Incarnatione et Gratia Christi, chapter 20: For the form, which preceded in the flesh of Christ, let us acknowledge spiritually in our faith: for Christ the Son of God was made and born according to the flesh of the Holy Spirit. Therefore so in the heart of man faith can neither be conceived nor increased unless the Holy Spirit infuse and nourish it: for of the same Spirit are we born again, of whom Christ was born, etc.

Lastly, there ought to be a certain proportion between the principle, the means, and the end to be attained: but eternal felicity far exceeds the powers of nature, since it does not come to mind unless divinely revealed, nor can it be attained unless the mind be raised heavenward: therefore in order to obtain it it is necessary that there be some proportion between the soul and beatitude itself: but none whatsoever can exist except through the benefit of grace, whereby namely the human mind is elevated to the supernatural state: therefore this is absolutely necessary for attaining salvation.

They objected. 1. The Pelagians cited the example of the Centurion Cornelius, who, Acts 10, is said to have been religious and fearing God with all his house, giving many alms to the people, and always praying to God; wherefore he deserved to see in vision and rapture the Angel of God coming in and saying: Thy prayers are ascended in memory in the sight of the Lord, etc. Hence they argued: religion, fear of God, alms, and prayers of Cornelius were acceptable to God, and consequently contributed something to his salvation; yet Cornelius was not yet a believer, and consequently not yet aided by divine grace: for Cornelius learned the faith from Peter, as St. Augustine testifies, book 1, De baptismo, chapter 8; but when the Angel spoke to him he had not yet been imbued by Peter with faith and the mysteries, as appears from that history; therefore he was pleasing to God without faith; therefore someone can perform some good work conducing to eternal life without the special benefit of the grace of God, whose primary effect is faith. — I deny the minor: for although Cornelius had not yet believed explicitly in Christ the Lord, nor been imbued with the mysteries of faith by St. Peter, nevertheless he was not devoid of all faith, as St. Augustine testifies, book De Praedest. Sanctorum, c. T., where he says: What can be said of Cornelius, whose alms were accepted and prayers heard before he believed in Christ: yet he was not endowed without some faith, and prayed: or how invoked he, in whom he had not believed? But if he could be saved without faith in Christ, the architect Apostle Peter would not be sent to build him up. Whence he concludes: Whatever therefore, both before he believed in Christ and when he had believed, Cornelius wrought well, must be attributed wholly to God, lest perhaps anyone be extolled. Whence when St. Augustine, in the place cited in the objection, says the Centurion learned the faith of Christ from Peter, he must be understood of explicit and perfect faith through Christ: but when in the words praised shortly after he says he prayed and was endowed not without some faith, he speaks of inchoate faith, which tends toward God, such as seems to have been in the first Gentiles: further, this faith is called implicit, because those who believe in God are prepared also to believe in Christ, when it shall be revealed to them.

You will object 2. The work by which we are prepared for sanctifying grace and for attaining eternal life is a supernatural work; but a work of that kind is from us, and not from God alone specially concurring through grace. It is proved from various texts of Scripture, for in Prov. 16 we read: It is man's to prepare the soul, and the Lord's to govern the tongue. Zacharias 1: Be converted to me, and I will be converted to you. Matth. 19: If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. Therefore this work, by which we are prepared for attaining eternal salvation and for intimate union with God, which is effected through sanctifying grace, is from us and elicited by our own powers. — I deny the minor, and I answer each part of that proof: as to the first, it is truly man's to prepare his soul, because God calls no one to himself except one willing; yet this preparation cannot be made without the special aid of God; for man cannot prepare his soul without good thought, which is given only by God: for we are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, says the Apostle 2 Cor. 3. — As to the second I say that it is indeed man's to convert himself to the Lord: but this cannot be done without the aid of God preventing and spurring him to conversion; whence as it is said Zacharias 1: Be converted to me, and I will be converted to you: so also it is read Lamentations 5: Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted. Whence, says the Council of Trent, session 6, chapter 5: When in Sacred Scripture it is said: Be converted to me, and I will be converted to you, we are admonished of our liberty. And when we answer: Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted, we confess that we are prevented by the grace of God. — As to the third authority I say that the observance of the commandments depends indeed upon our will, but not without the guard of divine grace: for God is he who worketh in us both to will and to accomplish, says the Apostle Phil. 2.

You will object 3. If a good work conducing to salvation depended on the grace of God, God would be said to be an accepter of persons, because he would give grace to one rather than to another. Next, that grace would be something fortuitous and casual, because it would be conferred on one meriting nothing of the kind; nay even often resisting: but those consequences are utterly absurd; therefore, etc. — I deny the sequel of the major: for then only is respect of persons committed when a debt intervenes, such that what is owed to one be conferred on another, or that what is owed be given to one and denied to another; but not when he who owes nothing liberally and gratuitously bestows something on one, which he does not likewise bestow on another. As to the second I say that although grace is conferred on one meriting nothing and often resisting, nevertheless it ought not to be called something fortuitous or casual, but a gratuitous gift bestowed wholly by the wise Administrator of things, who distributes his gifts to each one with his highest prudence, as he wills.

You will object 4. There is no free will if it needs the aid of God; but there is free will; therefore it does not need the aid of God for performing those things which are necessary for salvation. — I deny the major: for grace, however fleeting, does not destroy free will but augments it, as will appear below, where we shall demonstrate the highest concord of human liberty with divine grace; whence St. Augustine, book 2, De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, chapter 3, in order to remove from himself the reputation and injury wherewith Julian afflicted him, calling him a Manichaean because he believed he had said: If anyone shall say either that there is free will in men, or that God is the creator of them that are born, Caelestianus is called a Pelagian; and Julian afterwards subjoins: Therefore let them be called heretics, they become Manichaeans; and while they fear a false infamy, they incur true crime: like wild beasts, which are surrounded with wings that they may be driven into nets: that, I say, he might remove this injury from himself, he says: Therefore not as thou speakest, everywhere deceiving: If anyone shall say either that there is free will in men, or that God is the creator of them that are born, Caelestianus is called a Pelagian. For the Catholic faith does not say this, but says: If anyone shall say that there is free will in men to worship God rightly without his help: and whosoever thus speaks of God as the Creator of them that are born as to deny him as the Redeemer of little ones from the power of the devil: he himself is called Caelestianus and Pelagian. Therefore that free will is in men, and that God is the creator of them that are born, we shall assuredly say; hence you are not Caelestians and Pelagians: but that anyone is free to do good without the aid of God, and that little ones are not rescued from the power of darkness and so transferred into the kingdom of God, this you say: hence you are Caelestians and Pelagians. Other similar Pelagian objections they thrust forward, all of which St. Augustine diluted at length, and some of them he reported and repelled.

Second Conclusion. — Man cannot have any good supernatural affection, or beginning of faith, without the benefit of divine grace. This is against the Semipelagians,

It is proved by all those texts of Scripture by which in the preceding Question we declared faith to be a gift of God and grace properly so called. For St. Augustine uses them, in the books De Praedestinatione Sanctorum, to prove that the very beginning of faith is a benefit of grace, especially chapter 8, where he says: When the Gospel is preached, some believe, some do not believe: but they who believe hear inwardly and learn from the Father while the preacher sounds without; but they who do not believe hear without, hear not within, nor learn: that is, to these it is given to believe, to those it is not given; because no one, he says, cometh to me, except the Father who sent me draw him… Therefore to be drawn by the Father to Christ, and to hear and learn of the Father, that one come to Christ, is nothing else than to receive a gift from the Father, whereby he believe in Christ: for he was not distinguishing those hearing the Gospel from those not hearing it, but believers from unbelievers, who said: No man cometh to me, unless it were given him by my Father. Faith, therefore, both inchoate and perfect, is a gift of God: and that this gift is given to some and not given to others, let him not doubt at all who does not wish to contradict most manifest Holy Scriptures. Whence in chapter 2 he says that the opinion by which one asserts the beginning of faith not to be from God makes man compose with God, so that he vindicates to himself a part of faith, and leaves a part to God: and what is more lofty, he takes away the first himself, yields the second to God. If it pertains not, he says, to the grace of God that we began to believe, but rather that, for this reason, what is added to the good, that we believe more fully and more perfectly: then through this we give the beginnings of our faith first to God, that its supplement be rendered to us… Whoever therefore wishes to avoid this damnable opinion in every part, let him understand truly the saying of the Apostle: To you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him. For he shows each to be the gift of God, because he said each was given. Nor does he say that ye may more fully and more perfectly believe in him, but to believe in him: nor did he say he had obtained mercy for himself that he might become more faithful, but that he might be faithful, because he knew that he had not offered to God the beginning of his faith as its prime mover, and received from him its increase, but that he had been made faithful by him, by whom also he was made Apostle.

It is proved secondly from the Council of Orange, Canon 5: If anyone says that the increase, as well as the beginning of faith, and the very affection of belief, whereby we believe in him who justifies the ungodly, and whereby we arrive at the regeneration of baptism, is not in us through the gift of grace, that is, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit correcting our will from infidelity to faith, from impiety to piety, but that it is naturally in us, he is proved contrary to Apostolic doctrine, approving the blessed Apostle Peter saying: He who hath begun a good work in you will perfect it unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Reason also persuades the same thing; for the act by which the will moves the intellect efficaciously to assent to the things of faith is supernatural; therefore it cannot be possessed naturally. The consequence is plain: the antecedent is proved: the act of believing is an effect commanded by the will: for it moves the intellect efficaciously to assent to the revealed truth. Likewise its object is such: since the will loves the honesty and goodness found in such an act; but from the supernatural character of the effect and of the object is gathered the supernatural character of the act, which must bear upon them; for there is a necessary proportion between act and object: therefore the act of the will, whereby man is induced to believe, is supernatural, and consequently cannot be elicited without the aid of grace.

You will object 1. Cassianus on behalf of the Semipelagians: Zachaeus and the Thief anticipated the grace of God by their own desires and vows, and obtained it. For Zachaeus, Luke 19, when he sought to see Jesus who he was, merited to hear from him: Zachaeе, make haste and come down, for today I must abide in thy house: but the Thief, Luke 23, having said to Christ: Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom, merited to hear: This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. Therefore one can naturally desire the grace of Christ and obtain it, and consequently perform some good work, or at least will it, which pertains thereto. — Zachaeus and the Thief were prevented by the grace of God, says St. Prosper against the Collator, chapter 15: for he who shone in the heart of the Publican Matthew, then persecuting the Church, and of Paul, himself also shone in the heart of Zachaeus and in the heart of the crucified Thief with the Lord: unless perchance the word of the Lord was idle when he deigned to address Zachaeus, who sought to see him who he was: Zachaeе, make haste and come down, for today I must abide in thy house, and did not prepare for himself the mind of him whose lodging he chose. In the justification of the Thief too, even though no signs of operating grace were understood, should we not receive even him with all believers as drawn, the Lord saying: when I shall be lifted up from the earth I will draw all things to myself? Thus St. Prosper.

You will object 2. Cassianus, cited by St. Prosper, chapter 8: The Apostle openly testifies, Romans 1, that sometimes beginnings of good wills arise through the good of nature, which however, unless directed by God, cannot arrive at the consummation of virtues; for he says: To will is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good I find not: therefore he truly holds that the beginning of faith implanted in us is innate from nature.

I deny the consequence: for, says St. Prosper in the same place, the blessed Apostle did indeed say: to will is present with me, but to accomplish I find not. But the same said 2 Cor. 3: Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God: and Phil. 2 the same said: For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will.

Therefore the Apostle is not contrary to himself, but since the good will to will has been given to us, we do not at once find and do, unless seeking, asking, and knocking; He who gave the desire bestows the effect. For that voice of one saying: to will indeed lies close to me, but to accomplish the good I find not, was spoken by those called and placed under grace, who indeed take delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but see another law in their members war against the law of their mind and captivating them in the law of sin: and although he had received knowledge of willing rightly, yet he does not find within himself the virtue of doing those things which stand in the way, until for the good will he has taken upon himself he merit to find what he should do.

You will object 3. God, when He sees us inclining to will the good, comes to meet us, directs, and strengthens us. At the voice of thy cry (says Isaias, chapter 30) as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee: and Psalm 29: Call upon me, He says, in the day of tribulation, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Therefore truly man of himself can have an affection for the good, which anticipates and attracts grace. — I deny the consequence, and to the antecedent Saint Prosper answers, chapter 7, that that proposition savors of Pelagianism.

For who, he says, does not see that this doctrine assigns merit to free will, whereby grace is anticipated, so that grace should serve it, rendering a debt, bestowing a gift? which definition was condemned even by Pelagius himself with anathema in the Synod of the Bishops of Palestine. For in him who begins to will the good, and desires to depart from iniquity and error, we profess that the grace of God works this very thing, since the steps of man are directed by the Lord, and He will well order his way.

You will object 1. Christ the Lord, rebuking the Pharisees, said Luke 12: And why even of yourselves do you not judge that which is just? But He would not have said this to them unless He had known from their natural judgment that they were able to discern what is just. Therefore He truly holds that men can by natural virtue know or do what is just. — I distinguish the minor: men can by natural judgment discern what is just by natural and moral equity, this I concede: by supernatural equity, conducing to salvation, and moreover to instituting Christian justice, this I deny. Whence Saint Prosper, chapter 23, responding to this objection, says: To attribute to free will, in the aforesaid objection, not only the will of good but also its possibility: as if intelligence, that is, justice, were required of them because they could produce these things from the goods of nature without the gifts of God. — By which he signifies that men cannot judge naturally concerning things pertaining to salvation to be instituted, and Evangelical justice to be formed.

Finally you will object Cassian's words, 3 Kings, chapter 6, by which Solomon declares to God how David, wishing to build a house to the name of the Lord God of Israel, was nevertheless forbidden by Him to fulfill his vow and desire. Whence he reasons thus: this thought and this design of King David — must it be said to be good and from God, or evil and from man? For if that thought was good and from God, why was he forbidden by Him by whom it was inspired to him? If and from man, why is he praised by the Lord? It remains therefore that it be believed to have been good and from man; after which manner we can also judge our own daily thoughts. For neither was it granted to David alone to think a good thing from himself, nor is it naturally denied to us that we should ever be able to know or think anything good. Thus Cassian. — Saint Prosper answers, chapter 25, that by this testimony and argument it is not proved that pious thoughts arise from free will alone, and not from the inspiration of God.

For the will of David, which was assuredly good, is not therefore to be believed not to have been from God, because the Lord willed that a temple not be built for Himself by him, but by his son.

For sometimes the Lord wills that things be not done which He had nonetheless inspired in men: for although the Lord commanded the Apostles to teach and baptize all nations, nevertheless Acts 16: They were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to speak the word of God in Asia. And again: when they attempted to go into Bithynia, they were forbidden by the Spirit of Jesus. Whence Saint Prosper subjoins:

Did they not have this will from God, namely that they desired to convert to the faith the hearts even of those whom God by a hidden judgment did not then wish to hear the Gospel? Or that the Church prays daily for her enemies, that is, for those who have not yet believed — does she not do this from the Spirit of God? Who would say this, unless one who does not do it, or who > thinks that faith is not a gift of God? And yet what is asked for all is not obtained for all: nor is there iniquity with God, who often does not grant what has been asked, though He gave the power to ask it.

NOTE 1. Concerning the present Question, there are, as we have said, two contending opinions. The first indeed is that of Luther, Calvin, and other heretics of our time, who teach that man, however holy and just, can do nothing good in this state of nature fallen and repaired, even with the help of grace itself: nay, that all his works are defiled and are to be accounted true sins; yet these do not harm him, nor are they imputed to him unto damnation, if he firmly believe that they are forgiven him by God, nor are they reckoned unto punishment. The second, however, is that of John Hus, to which Michael Baius seems to have subscribed, teaching that sanctifying grace is so necessary for the exercise of any good that, in its absence, all the works of man would be sins: for among the erroneous propositions asserted in his writings or sayings, and proscribed and condemned by the supreme Pontiffs Pius V, Gregory XIII, and Urban VIII, is this, number 27: Free will without the aid of the grace of God avails only for sinning. There also is condemned that proposition number 39: Every love of a rational creature is either vicious concupiscence, by which the world is loved, which John forbids: or that laudable charity, by which God is loved through the Holy Spirit diffused in the heart. Likewise this one, number 39: In all his acts the sinner serves dominant concupiscence. From which it appears that he wished to hold not only that no one can avoid sin without sanctifying grace, and that all the works which can be done in its absence are sins, but also that whatever is not done from the principle and motive of charity is truly reckoned among sins: whence the proposition which is number 25 states: All the works of infidels are sins, and the virtues of the Philosophers are vices.

NOTE 2. The present difficulty is not raised about the actions of man, but about human actions, that is, about those which proceed from the judgment of reason and deliberate will; which actions (as we have proved in our moral Philosophy) are good, or indifferent, or vicious. They can indeed possess either goodness, namely moral and natural, or meritorious and supernatural. In this especially they are distinguished from one another: that the first is constituted by the sole conformity which the act has with right reason and prudence; but the second proceeds from the influx of grace and charity, referring our acts to a supernatural end. From the preceding Question it is clear that man cannot elicit any work of the supernatural order meritorious of eternal life without sanctifying grace: whether, however, in its absence he cannot exercise certain acts naturally and morally good — this must be determined here.

NOTE 3. The moral goodness of acts is drawn chiefly from a threefold source: namely, the object, the end, and the circumstances. From the object indeed, not as it is regarded in itself and according to its entity; but as it is conformable to right reason; for this is the distinction between the intellectual and the moral virtues, that the intellectual virtues consider the object inasmuch as it is in itself: but the moral virtues are concerned with the object inasmuch as it accords with right reason. From the end, moreover, while namely the act tends toward a congruous end, conformable to the right dictate of the conscience of reason; and this through licit and ordered means; for it can happen that an act tend toward an excellent end, which nonetheless will be vicious: suppose, if it be proposed as to be obtained through vitiated and perverse means: thus health to be acquired for the exercise of acts of charity, and for serving God more freely and easily, is an act good from the end; yet it can be most wicked, if namely that restoration of health were procured through sorceries and the aid of demons: whence, that any act may be accounted good from the end, it is necessary that it tend toward it through congruous means. Finally, from the circumstances an act is judged good when it is affected by those circumstances and conditions which right reason sees to be required on the part of person, place, time, etc.

These things having been premised, two things must be established in this Question: First, that the works of the faithful existing in sanctifying grace are not sins. Second, that the faithful defiled by mortal sin can sometimes elicit morally good works.

First Conclusion. — It is heretical to assert that all the works of a man who is just and existing in sanctifying grace are sins. The truth of this Conclusion is evident from the Council of Trent, session 6, canon 25, decreeing: If anyone shall say that in any good work the just man sins at least venially, or — what is more intolerable — mortally, etc., let him be anathema.

And it is proved first: Sacred Scripture very often exhorts us to the exercise of good works, and commends the works of just men: but it is impious to assert that it leads us to perpetrating vicious works, and extols the sins of men with praises: therefore, etc. The major is evident from various texts of that sacred Scripture. Thus Matthew 5, Christ the Lord addressing His disciples and followers says: Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works. And to Titus 2: The grace of God hath appeared to all men, instructing us, that denying impiety and worldly desires, we should live soberly, justly, and godly in this world, etc. Similarly He commends the works of the just. For Job 2: In all these Job did not sin with his lips. Weighing which words Saint Gregory says: Of blessed Job testimony is borne both of his mouth and of his heart, who both checked fault from his tongue and cleansed it from his heart. So also 3 Kings, chapter 14, God rebuking the impiety of Jeroboam through an Angel, says: Thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and followed me with all his heart, doing that which was pleasing in my sight. And Matthew 26: Why do you trouble this woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. Whence Matthew 25 the just Judge calls the Elect to the heavenly kingdom: For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat, etc.; by which He signifies that they are given eternal reward because they exercised works of mercy. Whence Saint Peter admonished the faithful, chapter 2 of his second epistle, verse 1: Endeavour that by your good works you may make sure your calling. For in doing these things you will never sin.

It is evident also by reason. A just man is bound to keep the divine precepts prescribed to him, and to render this he has the powers necessary, divine aid shining forth upon him: for God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding He both admonishes thee to do what thou canst and to ask what thou canst not, and He aids thee that thou mayest be able to ask, as the Council of Trent teaches, session 6, chapter 11: but a man fulfilling the divine commandments cannot be judged to be doing anything evil: otherwise God would command what is evil, and would be accounted the author of sin: which assuredly it is impious to assert: therefore it must be confessed that a just man exercises good works.

The heretics will object that Psalm 13: There is none that doeth good, there is not even one: therefore there is no one in any state who executes some good work. Moreover Psalm 142 the royal Bard prays: Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight no man living shall be justified: therefore no one is free from sin and guilt, so that from his works he should not have that whereby he is condemned. Finally they object Isaiah 61: We are become all as unclean, and all our justices as a rag of a menstruous woman: therefore truly no man is free from guilt, and all the works of the just, however holy they appear, are truly sins. — I deny the consequence: for far different is the sense of the aforesaid texts of sacred Scripture from that intended by the heretics. For I say first, that the discourse there is concerning Atheists, of whom mention had been made in the preceding verse: The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God. Or if it be extended more broadly, it can be said that the Psalmist spoke not in the rigor of speech, but by metonymy, by which a few are accustomed to stand for all; which assuredly is not infrequent, nor unusual in Scripture: for thus Genesis 6 we read that All flesh had corrupted their way, when nevertheless it is said there that Noe was just and perfect in his generations, and walked with God, and found grace before the Lord. — To the second I say, that by those words is signified that man cannot appear just in every respect in the sight of God, that is, if he be compared with God: not that truly in himself he is not just, but that his justice, if compared with the divine, scarcely merits the name of justice, namely in that manner in which the stars, although most lucid in themselves, nevertheless when compared with the sun seem deprived of all light: in which sense Job said, chapter 1 (9): Can man be justified in comparison with God? — To the third I say then, that this was said of the most wicked Jews of that time, whose legal justices were not only empty of grace and merit, but stained with many sins. Nor does it stand in the way that Isaias speaks in the common voice, as though he counted his own justice depraved together with the rest of the Jews: for this he did after the manner of the Prophets, who, even though just, while they bewail the crimes of men, are wont to attribute them to themselves out of study for humility, or affection of charity, that thus they may bend God more easily and efficaciously to clemency.

Second Conclusion. — A sinner destitute of sanctifying grace can exercise some morally, or honestly good work. And accordingly not all his works before justification are sins. Thus Doctor Subtilis in 2. dist. 28. and the Seraphic Doctor, in the same place.

It is proved first by the authority of Councils, but especially of the Council of Constance, session 15, in which the errors of John

Hus are related and condemned, who in article 10 held: Without sanctifying grace no good work can be done, and consequently all the works of a sinner are sins. Similarly the Council of Trent, session 6, Canon 7, decrees: If anyone shall say that all the works which are done before justification... are truly sins, let him be anathema. And by Canon 6 he is condemned who says that the fear of hell is evil: but this fear is found in sinners before the attainment of the grace of justification: therefore the Council holds that whatever things are done by sinners before the attainment of justification are not sins.

It is proved also by the definition of the supreme Pontiffs Pius V, Gregory VIII, and Urban VIII, condemning the propositions of Nichaëlis Baius, as was said in the 1st Notable.

Thirdly, the truth of this assertion is evident from sacred Scripture; for Luke 11 Christ exhorts sinners to bestow alms and to exercise mercy toward the poor, saying: Give alms, and behold all things are clean unto you: but He would exhort to something impious if alms could not be done by a sinful man without sin: therefore Christ the Lord holds that a sinner, before the attainment of the grace of justification, can elicit some morally good work. Similarly Daniel advised King Nabuchodonosor that he redeem his sins with alms: but sins can in no way be redeemed by wicked and sinful works: therefore alms done by a sinner, with the intention of relieving another's misery, is not a sinful work, but morally good and honest.

This same truth is confirmed by all those oracles of the Holy Fathers by which, as the following Question will make manifest, they teach that nature avails for good, and that infidels sometimes exercise moral good, and moreover possess true virtues: for if infidels can do this, much more sinners, who are enlightened by faith.

Moreover this truth is urged by reason: By natural and divine law the works of the virtues of justice, religion, mercy, etc. are commanded even to unjust men: but they would not be commanded unless men could execute them without admixture of sin, and unless they were honest in every respect: therefore it must be that those works elicited by a sinner are honest.

The Subtle Doctor adds, in 2. dist. 28, number 4, that he who asserts that a sinner can do no good does not seem to say anything other than to pervert all who have once committed mortal sin, so that afterward they do no good work of its kind; to which nevertheless they are elsewhere bound: when yet they ought to be persuaded and moved to the opposite, namely that they do good works of their kind, because these dispose them toward obtaining grace more quickly and easily.

You will say 1: God turns away His face from the praises, prayers, and sacrifices which are made by sinners: therefore all the works of sinners are evil. The antecedent is evident from Psalm 4: But God hath said to the sinner: Why dost thou declare my justices, and take my covenant in thy mouth? And from Isaiah 1: To what purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims? saith the Lord, etc. Offer sacrifice no more in vain. Incense is an abomination to me.... And when you stretch forth your hands I will turn away my eyes from you; for your hands are full of blood. — I distinguish the antecedent: God turns away from and execrates those things because they are done irreverently, and against the prescription of the law and the pleasure of God, this I concede: precisely because they are offered by sinners, this I deny. Or otherwise: things offered by sinners out of fear of punishment, with the intention of persevering in sins, are unpleasing to God, this I concede: simply and precisely because they are offered by men existing in sin, this I deny. To these add that the Prophet speaks especially of the Jews performing all these things not from affection of religion and honesty, but with a hypocritical and profane mind, and placing all the force of justice in that external worship; whence chapter 20 (29) he complains of them, saying: This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

You will say 2: From St. Matthew chapter 7: An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit: but that evil tree designates the sinner: therefore he cannot bring forth fruits of good works, — I distinguish the minor: the sinner acting from an evil intention and perverse will is designated, this I concede: simply and absolutely, because he is a sinner, this I deny: for thus St. Augustine interprets the aforesaid passage, book 1 Contra Iulianum, chapter 3: Therefore not insofar as he is man, which is the work of God; but insofar as anyone is of an evil will, he is an evil tree, and cannot bring forth good fruit.

You will insist: If by the evil tree be understood the sinner acting from an evil will, then the sinner will not be able to be discerned and known by his works, because a good thing by reason of its office can be done from an evil end and evil will: but the consequence conflicts with the intention of Christ saying by their fruits you shall know them: therefore by the evil tree the sinner is simply understood. — I deny the consequence of the major: for although a sinner can sometimes do certain works good by reason of the object with an evil will; nevertheless he rarely accomplishes this, and from his ordinary works he can easily be recognized for what sort he is, not only by intention and end, but also by object. This only, however, does Christ the Lord intend to signify, namely that from the daily conversation of each one his morals can easily be uncovered and recognized.

You will urge: As evil works contaminate the will from which they proceed, even if those works are substantially good in themselves; so conversely a perverse will defiles all works which arise from it, even if they are good in themselves from elsewhere: but the will of a sinner is perverse: therefore, etc. — I deny the parity: and the reason of the disparity is, that the will is therefore defiled by all its evil acts because it is per se their cause; but although the works of an evil will are its effects, they are not however defiled by it because they are its effects, just as the will is per se good, though per accidens evil. Thus while a proud man bestows alms, that act is per se the act of a merciful man, and per accidens of a proud man.

You will say 3: All the acts of a man existing in mortal sin are referred to an evil end on the part of the agent: therefore they are morally evil. The consequence is evident, for a perverse end vitiates and disorders the act. The antecedent is proved: a sinner orders all that he desires toward a private good; for the last end of a sinner is either the sinner himself, or the good of the sinner himself; but that end is perverse and vicious: therefore, etc. — I distinguish the antecedent: all evil acts which are truly mortal sins, this I concede: those which are either merely venial sins, or honest works, this I deny. For only by those works is the sinner judged to constitute and desire himself or his private good as a last end, through which grace and charity are destroyed and eliminated, which ought to direct all the works of man to Him as their last end: but these are destroyed only privatively by mortal sins: for venial sins, or honest works, elicited by a sinner, do not conflict privatively with charity and grace, but only cut themselves off from it, inasmuch namely as they are not referred to God as to a last end: therefore by these the sinner does not positively regard himself as a last end.

You will say 4: Whatever is done by man is done either from charity or from concupiscence, as St. Augustine teaches in many places, especially book 9 De Trinitate, chapters 7 and 8: but charity is not distinguished from sanctifying grace: therefore what is not done from sanctifying grace must needs be done from concupiscence, which St. Paul calls the root of all evils. — I distinguish the minor: perfect charity is not distinguished from sanctifying grace, this I concede: inchoate charity, this I deny. For charity is twofold according to St. Augustine in the book Natura et gratia, chapter 70: Charity, he says, inchoate, is justice inchoate: charity advanced, is justice advanced: charity perfect, is justice perfect. Moreover inchoate charity is twofold: one indeed by reason of motive, when God is indeed loved, but more for our utility than for His glory: the other by reason of degree, when namely God is loved for Himself, but more remissly and with lesser ardor. But charity imperfect in the former manner is not sanctifying grace, but only perfect charity at least by reason of motive, when namely God is loved for Himself.

You will urge: Therefore at least without this inchoate charity no good work can be done: but that is not in sinners: therefore they can exercise no good work. — I distinguish the minor: sinners do not have inchoate charity by reason of state, and such as is supernatural, this I concede: by reason of motive, and such as is purely natural and moral, this I deny. For, as will be proved below, men can love God above all things without any aid of supernatural order of grace, as the Author of nature, and their most liberal benefactor and preserver; which love seems to be a kind of initial natural charity. The remaining things which are wont to be objected against our assertion will solve

Note 1. Concerning the resolution of the present Question, a most serious controversy once arose between St. Augustine and Julian, as is clear from chapter 3 of book 1 which that holy Doctor wrote against the same Julian. For Julian contended three things: first indeed that in infidels there had been true virtues by which they were rightly judged to live. This St. Augustine denied. For you are accustomed (says St. Augustine at the beginning of the chapter), denying the grace of God, to deny the virtues by which one lives rightly, and attributing them to nature and to human endowment, not to the grace of God, to use this as an argument — namely that infidels sometimes have them — so as to attempt to evacuate what we say, that no one lives rightly except by faith through Jesus Christ. Secondly, Julian wished the acts of those natural virtues to suffice for justifying infidels. That this is certainly false St. Augustine demonstrates there with several arguments; but especially with the argument ad hominem: for elsewhere Julian had taught that indeed the beginning of justice is in man, but its consummation from God: yet speaking of the works of infidels, departing from his own opinion, he attributes to man not only the affection of virtue but also its effect. While saying these things, says St. Augustine, behold, you have now even taken away that which you had attributed to the grace of God: namely the very effect of the will: for you did not say that they willed to be merciful, modest, chaste and sober, and were not such because they had not yet attained through grace the effect of this good will; but rather that if they willed to be such and are such, then in them both the will and the effect abound with virtues. Whence he concludes: Of course, far be it that true virtue be in anyone unless he be just: but far be it that anyone be just unless he live by faith, for the just man lives by faith. Moreover, who among those who wish to be regarded as Christians, except the Pelagians alone, or perhaps you yourself alone among them, would call an infidel just, call an impious man just, call one enslaved to the devil just? Finally, thirdly, Julian wished that to be true virtue from which any work whatsoever proceeds, whether meanwhile the end be vicious or honest: yet with this distinction, that where the end was honest, and the virtue tended toward eternal things, then the work was fruitful and meritorious; but where it looked to temporal things, and the end was vicious, then the work was sterile and useless unto salvation. That absurd opinion you thus carp at, St. Augustine: Therefore those virtues, so base and deformed by such an end, and therefore in no way true virtues, nevertheless seem so true and beautiful that, he says, they can sustain neither the loss of their name nor of their kind, but are frustrated only by the paltriness of the reward which they coveted, that is, by the fruit of earthly commodities, not of heavenly promises, etc.: from which it is clear that St. Augustine denies true virtues in infidels no otherwise than Julian was asserting them, namely that they suffice for the justification and beatitude of man.

Note 2. From the same St. Augustine in the same place, that true virtue, or a good moral work, can be called good in two ways, namely either by reason of duty or by reason of end. Duty, he says, is that which must be done: but the end is that for the sake of which it must be done. Whence a work is called good by reason of duty when it is good from its object; thus to give alms to a poor man is good by reason of duty; but to bestow it on account of God, or Christ morally existing in the poor man, is good not only by reason of duty but also by reason of end. Moreover the same holy Doctor observes there that for a work to be simply good, it does not suffice that it be such by reason of duty; but it is also required that it be such by reason of end: for if it be good only by reason of duty, it will truly be evil because of the discovered circumstance of an evil end; whence addressing Julian he says: Virtues ought to be discerned not by duties, but by ends... Whatever good is done by man, which true wisdom commands ought to be done, although it be judged good by reason of duty, yet by the very fact that the end is not right it is sin. Therefore some good things can be done by those not doing well, by whom they are done: for it is good that help be given to a man in peril, especially an innocent one: but he who does this, if he does it for worldly glory, for men more than for God, does not do well, nay he does not do a good thing, because he does it with a will that is not good. Which saying certainly accords with that common maxim of the Philosophers, good from an integral cause, evil from the least defect.

Note 3. Concerning the present Question there exists the greatest controversy: for all agree that some good work can be done without faith by reason of duty alone; but they dissent concerning a good work by reason of both duty and end together. Now the negative part is defended not only by Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Peter Martyr, and many other heretics; but also by some among Catholics, such as Gregory of Rimini on book 2, distinction 28, Capreolus in the same place, Marsilius on book 3, question 20, to whom certain more recent authors subscribe, asserting that the virtues of the Gentile philosophers are vices, and that the mere absence of faith suffices for all the works of infidels to be true sins. But since this Question has an affinity with that in which it is asked whether man in the state of fallen nature can produce some good moral work by his own powers and without the aid of actual grace, therefore I shall untangle both at once.

Single Conclusion. — The grace of faith is not so necessary for acting rightly that without it no good moral work could be done, and consequently all the works of infidels are not to be judged absolutely sins. This is the more common and safer assertion among Catholic Doctors. That its proofs may be made more evident and appear more efficacious, for the sake of clarity I choose to set them forth under diverse headings, together with the responses of the Adversaries, and weigh them.

It is proved first. — From Sacred Scripture. — Divine Scripture often exhorts sinners, even infidels, to fasting, prayer, and almsgiving: therefore it supposes those works can be rightly done by them. This is evident from what follows, for it would be impious to assert that Scripture exhorts them to some wicked work. The antecedent is proved from Daniel 4, where the Prophet addressing King Nabuchodonosor says: Let my counsel please thee, and redeem thou thy sins with alms: but sins are not redeemed by wicked works and other sins: therefore the alms of the King, though an infidel, were not sins; nay they could have been pleasing to God, and apt for obtaining His mercy and averting the imminent vengeance. — Likewise Ezechiel 29: Nabuchodonosor is said to be about to receive a reward for the service by which he served God in the assault upon Tyre. Therefore I, says God, will give Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon the land of Egypt: and he shall take her multitude, and spoil her booty, and rifle her spoils: and it shall be wages for his army, and for the service wherewith he served against her, for I have given him the land of Egypt because he hath laboured for me, saith the Lord God. From which one may argue: God remunerates no sins with wages: but some works of infidels are remunerated with wages, as is clear from the foregoing text, and also from others: for God repaid the benefit bestowed upon the Israelites by the Egyptian midwives by building them houses, because they feared God, as we read Exodus 21: and the kindness shown by Rahab to the spies of the Israelites was compensated by Josue, without doubt according to the will of God: therefore some works of infidels are not sins. And therefore deservedly St. Jerome reasons thus on chapter 29 of Ezechiel, verse 18: And from the fact, he says, that Nabuchodonosor receives the reward of a good work, we understand that even the Ethnic nations, if they have done anything good, are not passed over without reward by the judgment of God.

The Adversaries respond, that those infidels received the reward on account of works that were good indeed by reason of duty, but not by reason of end, and consequently it is not to be inferred from this that those works were not sinful. — On the contrary, the same force of argument always recurs and presses, namely that it is not credible that God praised and rewarded them for their sins: but if works of this kind were good only by reason of duty, yet evil from a perverse end, it would follow that they were praised and rewarded by God for their sins.

They urge: From chapter 1 of Exodus, the Egyptian midwives, who contrary to the command of the King preserved the male infants of the Hebrews, receive a reward on account of a lie, for they said to the King: The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women: for they themselves have the knowledge of midwifery, and before we come to them they give birth: which is certainly false, and yet it is added: God dealt well with the midwives. Therefore God can bestow some temporal reward upon a sinful action which has a certain species of virtue by reason of duty. — I deny the consequence: for a twofold action must be distinguished in those Egyptian midwives, one by which out of compassion and a sense of humanity, and fear of God, they saved the Hebrew children: another by which they lied to the King cruelly commanding: the former was good not only from the object but also from the end. For it is said there, verse 17, But the midwives feared God, and did not do according to the precept of the king of Egypt, but preserved the males. But the latter action, namely the lie, was intrinsically evil. Now God praised and rewarded the former action, but not the latter; whence it is written there, verse 21: Because the midwives feared God, he built them houses.

They respond secondly, that those works of infidels were from actual and supernatural grace, and therefore were good, and praised by God. — On the contrary, this is feigned gratuitously and without foundation, since there is sufficient proportion between the natural powers of man and the works of the natural order; especially when there is propensity and natural inclination toward such things; nor are there any impediments except slight ones, which can easily be overcome. Add that if this response availed, faith would no longer be the first grace, as the adversaries wish: forasmuch as the Gentiles, in whom there was no faith, would have had grace for eliciting good works of this kind.

Moreover it is proved from the Apostle to the Romans 2, verse 14, where the Apostle says that the Gentiles, who have not the law, do naturally the things that are of the law, that is, that by natural instinct and guidance they do certain things contained in the written law, and necessary by the force of the law of nature itself, and sufficiently known by the light of reason; for they prefer this sense, as Paul's words sound, especially joined with what follows: Who are a law to themselves, showing the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, etc. Which interpretation and exposition is proved from the Fathers: for Origen, book 2 on the Epistle to the Romans, has thus: But also the Greek, that is the gentile, who although he have not the law, is himself a law to himself, showing the work of the law in his heart, and acts by natural reason, as we see some among the nations hold justice, or chastity, or prudence, and keep temperance: this man, although he seem alien from eternal life because he believes not in Christ, and cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven because he has not been reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, seems, by those things which are said by the Apostle, to be able by no means wholly to lose the glory and honour and peace of good works. And from Tertullian, book On the Crown of the Soldier, chapter 6, where he thus says: The Apostle writing to the Romans, that the nations do by nature the things that are of the law, suggests both the natural law and legal nature. And Jerome in the place cited above: It is clear, he says, that we are despised in comparison with the Gentiles, if they by the natural law do what we neglect even though written, concerning which the Apostle Paul disputes most fully to the Romans.

The adversaries respond, that St. Augustine in book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapters 27 and 28, interprets the aforementioned text of the Apostle of those Gentiles which from the natural wild olive had been grafted into the good olive: that is, which had been transferred from gentility to the faith of Christ. Since they are disciples of that man, namely St. Prosper against the Collator chapter 22, and St. Fulgentius book On the Grace of Christ, chapters 25 and 26, therefore the exposition favouring our assertion cannot stand. — I deny the consequence: because texts of this kind can bear several Catholic senses, even literal ones, as the Theologians teach in the preliminaries of Theology: therefore St. Augustine himself, who reports the interpretation of the aforesaid Fathers in the same book chapter 27, does not disapprove it; nay he seems to approve it: for he says:

But if these, who do naturally the things that are of the law, are not to be reckoned among those whom the grace of Christ justifies, but rather among those, even of the impious, who most certainly worship not the true God justly, yet certain deeds of theirs, which we either read, or know, or hear of, we cannot according to the rule of justice not merely censure, but we also deservedly and rightly praise: although if they are examined with regard to the end for which they are done, they fall short of that which merits the due praise and defence of justice.

Therefore St. Augustine judges that even the nations persisting in unbelief sometimes elicit certain good works, which according to the rule of justice cannot be censured, nay which deservedly are praised.

They urge: St. Fulgentius book On the Incarnation and Grace of Christ, chapter 25, says that those contradict the grace of God who assign the aforesaid text of the Apostle to unbelieving Gentiles: therefore the Apostle speaks only of Gentiles converted to the faith. — I distinguish the antecedent: St. Fulgentius thinks those contradict grace who assign this passage of the Apostle to unbelieving Gentiles, according to the sense of the Pelagians, who used this passage of the Apostle both to show that by the powers of nature the nations could fulfil the whole law, and to prove that the nations could be justified without faith in Christ — I concede; according to the sense of the orthodox Fathers using that passage, so as to persuade that some morally good works could exist in infidels — I deny. For the same St. Fulgentius in the following chapter of the same book says: Those men of whom mention is made by the Apostle can indeed do certain good works which pertain to the equity of human society: but because they are not done in the charity of God, they cannot profit unto salvation, namely and eternal life. — To these add that this 21st proposition of Baius has been condemned by the Supreme Pontiffs: They think with the Pelagians who interpret the text of the Apostle to the Romans 2, Those who have not the law do naturally the things that are of the law: as speaking of the Gentiles not having the grace of faith. — This same assertion of ours can also be confirmed by those words of Christ in which He supposes some good moral work can be done by ethnic nations and infidels, for instance when He says Matthew 5: If you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this? and if you salute your brethren only, what more do you? do not even the Ethnic nations this? where Christ speaks of love and salutation morally good; for no one is so foolish as to hope for reward from God for an evil thing: and Luke 11: If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, namely from a good affection; for otherwise it would be no wonder that an evil gift should proceed from evil men.

It is proved secondly. — From the decrees of the Supreme Pontiffs. — For Pius V, Gregory XIII, and Urban VIII in the Bull published against Michael Baius condemn this proposition number 25: All the works of infidels are sins, and the virtues of the philosophers are vices.

The adversaries respond, that that proposition was not condemned in the sense in which it is asserted; since five other senses of the aforesaid proposition can be discovered, on account of which it deservedly ought to have been condemned: The first is, that Baius would say all works of infidels are sins, even those with which reason does not consent, and which man suffers unwillingly, such are all the motions of first-first concupiscence. The second is, that he would assert all works of infidels to be sins, even of those who have not distinct and explicit faith in Christ, however much they may have some faith in God, and consequently implicit faith concerning Christ. The third is, that according to the mind of Baius all works of infidels not having faith perfectly formed by charity are sins. The fourth is, that all works of infidels who have not the infused habit of theological faith are sins. The fifth is, that in the opinion of Baius all works of infidels are sins not only by reason of end but also by reason of object and duty. Therefore that proposition 25 was not condemned because it asserted all works of infidels to be sins on account of the absence of faith, from whose defect it comes about that those works are always done with evil intention and from the perverse end of the one acting. — On the contrary: although the aforesaid proposition could deservedly have been condemned according to the five senses proposed, yet this does not prevent its having been condemned also in the sense we intend. First, because it is established that that proposition of Baius, put forward by him universally and without any explanation, was condemned by the Supreme Pontiffs also generally, and without any explanation or limitation, and consequently in the sense intended by us. Secondly, because it is certain that the aforesaid proposition was asserted by Baius in the sense intended by us. Thirdly, because that sense which we intend is the natural and genuine sense of the aforesaid proposition. But the others, although they can perhaps be accommodated to it, are nevertheless less natural. Now it is certain that when any proposition is condemned, it must always be expounded in the more natural and genuine sense: therefore, etc.

It is proved thirdly. — From the holy Fathers. — In the first place St. Clement appears, book 1 of the Apostolic Constitutions, chapter 31, where he says: Abraham our progenitor taking up the way of truth from the very faculty of nature, when Thou didst appear to him, Thou didst lead him forth as a Leader: and when Thou hadst given him to understand what this world at last was, knowledge went before unto his faith, and faith followed upon knowledge, and upon faith the covenant. Therefore Abraham took up the way of truth from the very faculty of nature, and before supernatural faith infused by God through nature's Author, and despised the world: he therefore wrought good by his own powers of nature before receiving the gift of supernatural faith. — Irenaeus book 1 against heresies chapter 72: All men are of the same nature, able to retain and work good, and again able to lose it and not do it. By which words he affirms that in man's nature there is a power of working good, and therefore he pronounces it common to all men, even infidels; which power he certainly confirms throughout as natural to man: but the adversaries do not concede grace to be common to individual men: consequently also in their opinion Irenaeus does not speak of a power of doing good proceeding from grace, inasmuch as he pronounces it common to men. — Tertullian in the book against the Jews: Before the law of Moses written on stone Tablets, he says, I contend there was an unwritten law, which was understood naturally and kept by the Fathers. For whence was Noe found just, unless natural justice of the law preceded him? And so before the written law, as the natural law was understood by all by their alone inborn light, so it was kept by the Fathers with a natural affection, which made natural justice. — Athanasius in the Oration against Idols: The mind occupies its own liberties, he says, and abuses itself toward those pleasures which it has contrived, because it is free and of its own arbitrium: for it can incline itself toward good, and likewise resist goods: therefore to the human mind, under the title ⟦illegible⟧ There are among us, he says, the very virtues according to nature: for having these seems to be inherent in the soul by an affinity, not from human doctrine but from nature herself.* — Nazianzen in Oration 19 in praise of his deceased Father commends him excellently because before faith he had most excellently pursued moral natural virtues, prudence, temperance, from the instruction of nature alone: but especially justice so incorrupt that although, he says, he was engaged in great offices and administrations of the Republic, he did not increase his means by a single farthing. Which he had premised also of many others removed from the illumination of faith: As, he says, many of our own are not with us, whom of course a scandalous life separated from the common body: so on the contrary many of the rest stand among ours, because they evidently prefer faith in conduct, and while caring to be Christians in name alone, possess the thing itself, among whom my own father also was: alien indeed, but otherwise inclining toward us by the honesty of his morals. He therefore admits true virtues in infidels. — Nyssenus in the book On the Fifth Beatitude says: He who made man according to His image laid up in his nature the materials and supports of all goods, so that nothing good and honest should thrust itself into us from without and insinuate itself, but it should be within our power to have what we will, drawing forth the whole good from nature out of that certain store: he therefore concedes that the faculty of every virtue and honesty is implanted in nature itself, so that we draw forth good from nature herself as from our own storehouse. — Jerome explaining that text to the Galatians 1, That He might reveal His Son in me, says: Let it be clear that the knowledge of God is in all by nature, and that they have in themselves the seeds of justice and of the other virtues: whence many without the faith and Gospel of Christ have been either wise or holy, so as to obey their parents. Thence concerning those infidels he gathers: Thou art damned by a greater judgment, that having in thyself the principles of virtues and the seeds of God thou believest not in Him without whom thou canst not be. But if the powers of nature availed only unto sinning, how would it be clear that the seeds of justice and of all virtues are in all by nature? How would infidels having the seeds of virtues be guiltless by not producing their fruits, if they had not the powers for it? — Chrysostom Homily 22 on 1 Corinthians: Whoever wishes to become good, he says, nothing impedes him, even though he was previously among the worst of men: and that happens to us even more opportunely, that virtue is according to nature for us, malice beyond nature, not otherwise than good and adverse health. But how is virtue according to nature if it is not natural? how is malice beyond nature if its inclination and faculty avail only unto sinning? how finally is nothing an impediment to the worst men and infidels that they become good, if grace is wanting to them, nor are the powers of nature present that they attain goodness? — Damascene book 3 On the Faith, chapter 14: Natural are the virtues, he says, and naturally, and without labour, are they present in all, although we do not all equally exercise those things that are of nature: for from the fact that we have fallen from what is according to nature into what is beyond nature by transgression. By which he plainly confesses that there is inherent in us a natural faculty for pursuing and attaining virtues. Therefore the sentence of the holy Fathers is concordant, and there are in us natural powers for moral good, nor are they in infidels so worn away and scattered that they cannot break out into act and fruit.

It is proved fourthly. — From St. Augustine and his Disciples. — Countless things can be gathered from St. Augustine to demonstrate that God has granted men so much a natural faculty for pursuing good and taking up moral virtues that they flourish even in infidels; but from these I bring forward the choicer ones. First indeed book 3 On Free Choice, chapter 23, has thus: Advancement in the best studies, and piety, for which the capacity has not been denied him, if he neglect it of his own will, justly precipitates him into a graver ignorance than exists in others, and difficulty. Now that the capacity granted to nature for advancing in the best studies is natural he demonstrates there for this reason: For that which she knows not naturally, and cannot naturally, to this she did not devote the facility of the soul for comparing itself toward doing rightly. He judges therefore that neglected study of virtue cannot be imputed as guilt to the soul, if she cannot naturally pursue it either with knowledge or with love, yet has a natural capacity, which indeed he proves by this example: For to speak, or to know, or not to be able, is natural to the infant, which difficulty and ignorance of speech is not only blameless, but also pleasing and welcome to human affections. Therefore since the desertion of virtue is not blameless in man, it follows that he has a natural potency for pursuing it. Hence so often against the Manichaeans he demonstrates nature to be good, from this, that vices are against nature. The vices themselves too, he says, book 1 Against the Adversary of the Law and the Prophets, chapter 5, bear testimony to the goodness of nature, for because evil is through vice, surely good is through nature: for vice is against nature, because nature harms, nor would it harm unless it diminished its own good: therefore evil is nothing but privation of good: but the goods from which vices deprive souls are the moral perfections of virtues: therefore virtues are natural. He has similar things in the Enchiridion chapter 11, and book 1 against Julian chapter 8, and the book On Two Souls, chapter 14. — More openly he declares this truth in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, c. 27, where treating of the works of infidels he has thus:

But if those who do naturally the things that are of the law are not yet to be reckoned in the number of those whom the grace of Christ justifies, but rather in that of those, even of the impious, who worship not the true God most certainly and justly, yet certain deeds of theirs, which we either read, or know, or hear of, we cannot according to the rule of justice not merely censure, but we also deserve to praise rightly. Although if it be examined with what end they are done, none will be found who merit the due justice and defence.

In which place the particle or evidently proves that in the mind of the holy Doctor, although rarely, yet sometimes infidels can do good works, both by duty and by end. Wherefore in chapter 28 he adds: Not so utterly has the image of God been worn away in the soul of man by the stain of earthly affections that there have remained in it no last lineaments as it were, whence it can deservedly be said that even in impiety itself it can do some things of law and nature. Wherefore again in the same chapter he says: So just as certain venial sins do not impede eternal life, without which this life is not led, so certain good works profit the impious nothing unto eternal salvation, without which most difficultly is the life of any man passed, even the worst. — To these especially gives support that which he has in Epistle 150, where he says:

You recall Polemo, as you write, and we too from his letters remember that disputing concerning the fruit of temperance he converted suddenly to other manners one not only drunken but drunk at the time. Since therefore he, as you have wisely and truthfully understood, was not acquired to God, but only freed from the dominion of luxury: yet lest we should attribute to human operation that same thing which was made better in him, rather to divine. For of the body itself, which is for our sake, whatever goods there are, as beauty, and strength, and health, and if anything of this kind, are only from God creator and perfecter of nature. How much more can none other bestow the gifts of the soul? For what can human memory conceive more proud or more ungrateful than if it thought God makes man beautiful in flesh, chaste in soul to be made by man? This in the book of Wisdom is thus written: When they knew, he says, that no one can be continent unless God give it. If therefore Polemo, having become continent from luxurious, knew so whose this gift was, and worshipped Him piously, casting aside the superstitions of the Gentiles, he would be not only continent, but also truly wise and wholesomely religious, which would avail him not only for the honesty of the present life but also for future immortality.

These things St. Augustine. From which testimony two things especially confirm our present assertion: The first, that St. Augustine calls the works of Polemo good not only materially and from object, but also formally and from end: both because he names them simply goods of the soul and gifts of God, such as are not works only materially good and intrinsically evil from end: then because they are referred to God, to whom formally evil works ought not to be referred: then because he says they avail for the honesty of life, to which those things which are done from a perverse end can contribute nothing at all: finally because he teaches that if Polemo were converted wholly to God and worshipped Him piously, they would avail for the immortality of future life, unto which only formally good works can profit. — The second is, that those works of Polemo were not supernatural and elicited by aid of grace, but natural, performed with the sole general concurrence of God: both because St. Augustine refers that continence of Polemo to God as Creator and perfecter of nature, unto whom strength, fortitude, and other gifts of the body are referred; but supernatural works, and conceived by aid of grace, are not referred to God as author of nature, but to the giver of grace Himself: then because certain Adversaries deny that aids of grace are conceded to those who are outside the faith, such as Polemo was.

The adversaries respond, that good things indeed are done by infidels by the sole powers of nature, but by reason of the object, not by reason of circumstances and end. — On the contrary, St. Augustine in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, c. 27, concedes that good works are sometimes done by infidels even by reason of end, although this happens most rarely, and this was observed p. 92. Moreover works which are done with evil end cannot be called simply good; but those works which infidels sometimes exercise are said there c. 28 by St. Augustine to be simply good: For as, he says, certain venial sins do not impede eternal life, without which this life is not led: so certain good works profit the impious nothing unto eternal salvation, without which most difficultly is the life of anyone passed, even the worst. But this opposition of venial sins in the just, and good works in infidels, would not be sound, if these works by reason of perverse end, or defect of due end, were venial sins, or, which is worse, mortal. Nor would Augustine say rightly that they do not profit the impious unto eternal life; for if they were evil and true sins, they would not only not profit unto eternal life, but would even harm, as is clear: therefore he judges those works of infidels were not evil from the end of the one acting, but are absolutely morally good.

His most faithful disciples subscribe to the holiest Doctor, above all St. Fulgentius in the book On the Incarnation, chapter 25, where he teaches that before faith there are morally good works which do not merit eternal glory: Which also those do, he says, who receive not the grace of faith, keeping by a certain natural law those things which pertain to honesty of morals and society of life: he therefore admits in infidels morally good works pertaining to the society of life; which indeed he confirms c. 26, where speaking of those who without the grace of faith have known God, says: In them indeed some good things can be found, which pertain to the equity of human society: but because they are done without the charity of God, they cannot profit. — Holy Prosper sings in harmony with him in the book against the Collator, chapter 26, where he teaches that although infidels exercise many acts morally good, agreeable to laws and reason, yet because they are not supernatural, nor proceed from grace, therefore they cannot lead to true life: For of human nature, whose Creator God remains even after its prevarication, substance, form, life, senses, and reason, and the other goods of body and soul, which are not wanting even to the wicked and vicious; but theirs is not the true perception of good, which can honour mortal life but cannot confer eternal. The same he sang elegantly in Epigram 81.

Although many things remain in man after the first wound, Which make this life have the ornament of praise: Yet if there be wanting the fountain of faith To bright intellect and love of probity… The useless germ of all fruits withers.

It is proved fifthly. — By Theological Reason. — If an infidel could not elicit any morally good act, this would be required either from the side of the person, because he is an infidel, or from the condition of the object, or from the circumstance of end: but it is impeded by none of these. Certainly not by the first head, because infidelity is related to the operation only materially and concomitantly: for the infidel is not bound, nor necessitated, to act as an infidel. Nor indeed by the second head, for nothing forbids why an infidel cannot be borne toward a thing good from its object: for to honour parents, to give alms to the poor, and others of this kind are goods from the object and by reason of duty, which truly can be exercised by infidels, and the histories of the nations report them performed by very many of them. Finally not by the third: for man destitute of the knowledge of faith can exercise some good work by reason of duty, for instance to honour parents, to give alms: which work indeed will be ordered to God virtually and implicitly from its nature: since a good act per se, and from its nature, unless vitiated from evil end by the one acting, has an essential order to right reason: which right reason says an essential order to God, and the divine reason, of which it is a certain participation. For as the stone tends by its nature to the centre, unless it be violently detained; so every work good and honest from object and from its nature tends into God, as into the light of reason and the fount of all good and honest things, unless it be violently referred by man to a perverse end: but an infidel can elicit such an act, which not be referred to an evil end, for instance to give alms from an affection of mercy, but not from an affection of vain glory. — But that this implicit and virtual relation of the work to God as to its last end suffices for its honesty, thence appears, for otherwise if it did not suffice, it would follow that some good work exercised by a man even faithful and just would be sin, which is absurd. The sequence is declared; for it can happen that a faithful and just man thinking nothing of God gives alms to a poor man from the sole motive of relieving his misery; in which case, since he does not think of God, he will not be able to refer the alms formally and expressly to Him; and consequently he would sin against Him, if the implicit relation did not suffice.

You will say: Then that man faithful and just refers such alms habitually to God through the habit of charity with which he is endowed. — But truly on the contrary, a habit contributes nothing to the act unless it concurs toward operating it; otherwise he who has the habit of justice, if afterwards he sins through intemperance, would also sin with the sin of injustice on account of such a habit of justice which he contracted. — Secondly, human nature through sin is not totally corrupted: therefore there remains in it a certain power, albeit slight, with respect to the good connatural to it. The antecedent is clear by the authority of the Council of Trent Session 6, chapter 1, asserting Free arbitrium was by no means extinguished: though attenuated in its powers, and weakened. The consequent is from St. Augustine book On the Perfection of Justice, chapter 2, where to the question whether sin is natural or accidental he responds that it is not of nature, but an accident of nature especially vitiated: whence we were made by nature children of wrath, and the arbitrium of the will avails little unto not sinning unless helped and healed by the grace of God. Where he concedes that free arbitrium has indeed a power, albeit modest, for not sinning: which is certainly illustrated by the similitude of an infirm man, who of himself can have some motion, yet cannot perfectly be moved with the motion of a sound man unless he be healed by the aid and benefit of medicine. — Thirdly, the light of natural reason can direct the intention with respect to some connatural good: therefore the rational appetite of man can follow such guidance of reason, especially where no temptation, or at least only a light one, impedes. The antecedent can be confirmed by the authority of St. Prosper against the Collator chapter 22, where he says: Who doubts that these remnants of wisdom for the utility of temporal life, issued from nature by God, survive in the human race? For if even for ordering these earthly things the ingenuity of reason's soul did not prevail, nature would be not vitious but extinct. The consequence also is clear: for the appetite can tend toward the good proportioned to it if it holds cognition, and encounters no impediment. — I add from St. Bonaventure on book 2, dist. 28, art. 3, q. 3, where he declares and luminously proves this truth. For after he premised that some work can be called good threefold: first meritoriously with respect to eternal beatitude; 2. Dispositively, namely inasmuch as it disposes congruously toward obtaining the good of grace and glory; 3. Honestly, namely inasmuch as the act is orderable to an honest end: finally he concludes this good of the last mode can be done without any aid of grace.

Free arbitrium, he says, by the operation of God alone without any gift of grace, although difficultly, can go forth into some moral good; yet by it it is neither disposed to grace nor to glory, because it is not ordered into the last end but only orderable: but that good which leads to perfect good, whether by merit of congruity or by merit of condignity, cannot be done without the aid of God, as the authorities of the Saints expressly say. And that they ought to be understood in this manner, is plain. For if free arbitrium be left in its own naturals alone; there will still remain to it the judgment of reason, by which it knows parents are to be honoured: and it stands that if it have this natural judgment, by that by which it can know parents are to be honoured, by that it can think; and since it has a natural instinct, it can also will it: and since it has exterior organs subservient, it can fulfil it in act: but as it makes that judgment of right reason, without the gift of grace, it is not directed toward obtaining the end, which is God, and the reward of eternal beatitude, which it cannot know unless God reveal. And therefore the Saints say that it can neither think nor will nor do good without the help of divine grace, because they speak of good according as it is ordered unto a certain possession of beatitude.

The aforesaid reasons will be confirmed, and at the same time our assertion solidified, by the solution of all those things which the Adversaries object, whose arguments and foundations we shall distribute under certain fixed heads, and weigh severally.

FIRST CAPITAL ARGUMENT of the adversaries drawn from the weakness of free arbitrium, and the uselessness of the law for good unless the subsidy of grace shine forth. — Therefore they object: If infidels could operate anything good, especially by the powers of free arbitrium: yet they cannot; forsooth man's free arbitrium in the state of fallen nature is held captive under the bonds of earthly cupidities in such wise that, unless it be helped by divine grace, it is utterly weak and invalid for pursuing good: therefore by the powers of nature no morally good work can be done. The antecedent is proved: First indeed from those words of Christ the Lord, John 8, If the Son shall make you free, then shall you be free indeed: therefore without the liberating grace of Christ there can be no liberty unto good. Secondly, from the Council of Orange Canon 13, The arbitrium of the will weakened in the first man, unless through the grace of baptism, cannot be repaired: what is lost, unless from Him who could give it, cannot be restored. Thirdly from St. Augustine affirming this same in several places: most truly however book 2 to Boniface, chapter 5, where he says: We do not say that by the sin of Adam free arbitrium perished from the nature of men, but that it avails for sinning in men subjected to the devil; but avails not for living well and piously unless the will of man itself be liberated by the grace of God, and aided unto every good of action, speech, thought. — I distinguish the antecedent: free arbitrium in the state of fallen nature by no powers can attain supernatural, salutary, and beatific good — I concede: that it is utterly invalid and infirm toward natural, moral good, and pertaining to the honesty of human society — I deny. For we said above from the Council of Trent, and St. Augustine, that free arbitrium in men is not altogether extinct, although attenuated and weakened. I say therefore indeed that free arbitrium was extinguished by the sin of Adam with respect to the good pertaining unto salvation, unless it be freed from the bonds of cupidities with which it is ensnared and pressed by grace vegetating and liberating: whence St. Augustine, book 1 to Boniface: Which of us, he says, would say that by the sin of the first man free arbitrium perished from the human race? Liberty indeed perished through sin, but that which was in Paradise, of having full justice with immortality: on account of which human nature needs divine grace, the Lord saying: if the Son shall make you free, then shall you be free indeed. But with respect to natural goods, although free arbitrium be weak and wounded, it is nevertheless not on that account judged extinct, and utterly impotent for pursuing that good, as was proven above.

They insist: St. Augustine openly confesses that free arbitrium avails for nothing except sinning: for in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 4, he says: Nor does free arbitrium avail for anything except sinning, if the way of truth lie hidden: therefore every work of free arbitrium left to itself is sin. — I distinguish: that it avails nothing whatsoever except sinning, that it avails little for pursuing good by its own powers — I concede: that it avails nothing at all — I deny: for the same St. Augustine in the same book, chapter 27, acknowledges that free arbitrium in infidels can operate some good. — Otherwise I distinguish: that free arbitrium avails nothing whatsoever except sinning insofar as sin is called everything which does not conduce to obtaining eternal life — I concede: that it is opposed to the dictate of right reason — I deny. That this is the mind of St. Augustine is clear in the same place, for he adds: Even that which must be done, and toward which we must strive ⟦running head stripped: AN INFIDELIUM OPERA SINT PECCATA⟧

…⟦illegible: est cupriit non latore⟧, unless it also delight and be loved, it is not done, not undertaken. ⟦illegible: mm brne riritur⟧: but that it be loved, the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, not through free arbitrium, which arises from us, but through the Holy Spirit, who is given to us.

It is objected 2. Various texts of Scripture by which it seems insinuated that men cannot operate anything good unless aided by the help of grace: thus John 17, Without me you can do nothing. 2 Corinthians 3, Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves … what have you that you have not received? ⟦restored: Agieureine Dei auxiio⟧ without the aid of God we cannot do anything good, nor will or accomplish any good. — I distinguish: unless divine ⟦attulerit? print: atlulgeat⟧ aid come to us we cannot perform anything good that pertains unto eternal salvation — I concede: that it be an honest moral good — I deny. But Christ the Lord and the Apostle wished to signify nothing else. For Christ the Lord had said shortly before: as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine, so neither you, unless you abide in me: by which words He shows the disciples cannot make any fruit that profits unto salvation without His aid: in which manner also the Council of Orange in Canon seven uses the aforesaid Oracle, to insinuate that by the vigour of nature no good can be done which suffices unto salvation. The Apostle likewise signifies that we cannot do and accomplish anything good which pertains unto salvation, unless aided by God author of grace; but the Apostle does not deny that we can will and accomplish something which is moral and natural good, aided by God author and moderator of nature.

It is objected 3. Truly the powers of free arbitrium and of nature help not at all toward pursuing good, if the law itself and knowledge of doing good, where grace is absent, profit nothing toward avoiding sins, but rather toward sinning more gravely: but so it is: therefore, etc. The major is evident. The minor is proved from the Apostle everywhere, especially in the Epistle to the Romans, for he says chapter 4, For the law worketh wrath: and where there is no law, neither is there transgression. And chapter 5, The law crept in that sin might abound. And chapter 7, Without the law sin was dead. And 1 Corinthians 15 the law is called the strength of sin. And 2 Corinthians 3 the Law is called the killing letter, the ministry of death, and the ministry of damnation: now the law is said to work wrath, increase transgression, raise up sin, minister death, etc. on no other ground than because without grace it can by no means be directed toward good, but rather excites unto offending: therefore man by the powers of free arbitrium alone can in no way pursue good. — I distinguish the minor: the law without grace works wrath, increases transgression, etc. per se, and from its institution — I deny: per accidens, and occasionally as received by him upon whom it is imposed, namely by reason of resisting concupiscence, whereby ⟦fit?⟧ for the most part, but not always, man obeys not the mandate of the law — I concede. I say therefore all those evil effects which are ascribed to the law by the Apostle are not effected per se and from the institution of the law: first, because the same Apostle chapter 7 says: For the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good: secondly, because the same Apostle in the same chapter warns that care be taken lest good be made to be death or the cause of death: thirdly, because the end of the law is good, namely the knowledge of sin; …for verily by the law is the knowledge of sin, he says in the same place chapter 3. Whence St. Augustine in the book On the Spirit and the Letter says: The law shows to man his infirmity, that fleeing to the mercy of God through faith, he may be healed through faith. And book 13 On the Words of the Apostle, chapter 3, he says: Good, he says, is the law, if anyone use it lawfully. What then is it to use the law lawfully? to acknowledge by the law his disease, and seek health, and run to divine aid. — I say secondly, that the law is said to be the cause of wrath, death, sin, etc. per accidens, and by occasion taken, in that sense in which Christ the Lord Luke 2 is said to be set for the ruin and resurrection of many. And 2 Corinthians 6 the Apostles are said to be authors of death unto death, namely by occasion: but the law is said to be the cause of death, wrath, and sin by occasion and per accidens for three causes. First, because if there were not law there would be no transgression, since knowledge notifying obligation brings a greater penalty: whence St. Augustine in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 14 ⟦print: 1t⟧ The letter, he says, prohibiting sin does not justify man, but rather kills by increasing concupiscence, and heaping up iniquity by transgression. Secondly, because as the same St. Augustine teaches in the same place chapter 4, the law although good increases desire by prohibiting evil: as the rush of waters if it cease not to flow into that part becomes more vehement by the opposed dam, which mass when it has overcome, precipitated with greater accumulation, bursts forth more violently over the plains: for I know not in what manner this very thing which is coveted ⟦print: enneupiscitur⟧ becomes more pleasant while forbidden. Finally thirdly, the law is said to be occasionally the cause of sin, because for the most part from the law, men to whom it is given take occasion of pride, as St. Augustine testifies book 3 to Boniface, chapter 1(?): The letter, he says, cut in two, so as openly to make themselves guilty either by not doing what it commands, or by thinking they do what is spiritual, that is from God, they exercise not charity: so they remain either openly iniquitous or fallaciously just: prudent in open iniquity, humbled; foolishly proud in fallacious wisdom.

SECOND CAPITAL ARGUMENT, by which the Adversaries strive to prove that everything which proceeds not from charity is sin. — They object. No act is given midway between culpable cupidity and holy charity: therefore no good work morally good in all its circumstances is given without grace, and consequently without faith, which is the first grace: forsooth if such an act were given, it would be midway between charity and culpable cupidity. They prove the antecedent from St. Augustine in several places, especially book 9 On the Trinity chapter 8, where he says every word is conceived either by cupidity or by charity: No one loving, he says, does anything which he has not first spoken in his heart: which word is conceived by love, either of creature, or of Creator; that is, either of mutable nature, or of unchangeable truth. And on Ps. 18, Whoever will refuse to serve charity, must serve iniquity: and in the Enchiridion to Laurentius, chapter 11 ⟦print: 1i⟧ Reigns, he says, carnal cupidity where there is not the charity of God. — I answer first, distinguishing the antecedent: no act is given midway between holy charity and culpable cupidity concomitantly, and by reason of subject — I concede: because almost no act is done by man except one in which either cupidity or charity dominates: formally, and considering the sole reason of the act itself — I deny; for truly some act can be indifferent, nay even morally good, where charity is absent, that affection namely which orders and directs all things per se into God. — I answer secondly, that the antecedent can be denied: for St. Augustine himself acknowledges some act midway between charity and vitious cupidity which is not evil: for he says in the book On Patience, chapter 26, If anyone not having charity, and placed in some schism, lest he deny Christ, suffers tribulations, anguishes, hunger, etc., by no manner are those things culpable: nay truly even this patience is praiseworthy. And in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, he says the impious do some things which not only cannot be censured, but truly which deservedly are praised. Therefore he does not judge all acts which proceed not from charity to be derived from vitious cupidity. And lest he appear contrary to himself, it must be said he uses the name of cupidity here in a broader signification, for that affection which is not perfect charity, nor is ordered per se to God.

They insist: The same St. Augustine affirms first that without charity and love of God nothing can be done per se except sin; for he says in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 14, That is not good fruit which springs not from the root of charity. — I distinguish: that it is not good fruit without charity which is sufficient for obtaining salvation — I concede: that it be morally good and contribute to the honesty of human society — I deny. For as often as St. Augustine says charity is desired for a good act, so often it is understood of good work conducing unto eternal life: thus is to be understood what he says book 1 On the Grace of Christ, chapter 26, What good should we do unless we love? And a little after: Where love is not, no work is imputed, namely unto merit of eternal life.

Finally they urge from the same St. Augustine, book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 1, If the commandment is done through fear of punishment, not love of justice, it is done servilely, not liberally, and therefore it is not done: but from the same St. Augustine chapter 8, Whosoever (of the Jews) did what the law commanded, not aiding spirit of grace, did through fear of punishment, not love of justice: and hence before God it was not in the will which before men appeared in the work: rather they were accused from this, that in mind they wished rather to prefer that God, if it could be done, commit with impunity. Therefore no commandment can be fulfilled nor good done without grace and charity. — I distinguish the minor: that this happens for the most part — I concede: always and on every occasion given — I deny: for such is not the opinion of St. Augustine, that whatever is done through fear of punishment is vitious; for he himself commends fear of God even servile in many places, most truly however book 1 Against the Adversary of the Law and the Prophets, chapter 16. Healthfully, he says, sacred scripture commends not only the goodness but also the severity of God: since God both is loved usefully and feared. And on Psalm 127 explaining those words: Blessed the man who feareth the Lord, he says: Me(?) whose fear is not yet chaste feareth the presence of the Lord, and punishments. Through fear he does whatever good he does. Not through fear of losing that good, but through fear of suffering that evil: he fears not lest he lose the embraces of the most beautiful spouse: but fears lest he be cast into gehenna: good is this fear too, useful is it. And in the book On Grace and Free Arbitrium, chapter 18, he calls that Spirit of fear a great gift of God: not that Peter denied Christ through fear, but of one the Lord Christ said: Fear him who hath power to send soul and body into gehenna. And in Tractate 1 on the Epistle of John he says the fear of the Lord occupies the mind first, that charity may enter afterward, and fear is the medicament of the soul, but charity its health. —

All the other holy Fathers agree with them: for St. Cyprian, in the book On the Praise of Martyrdom, says: You have been roused by the fear of things to come to this glorious title (of Martyrdom, that is): for they to whom greater things are promised, to them greater are those things which seem to be objects of fear. And St. Basil, expounding on Psalm 33 those words The rich man wanted and hungered, says: if ever you sense sin breaking out and springing up in any one thing, call back to your mind that dreadful judgment of Christ, which no mortal can endure. And there he affirms that fear to be salutary, a worker of holiness, and to curb the soul from sinning as it were with a certain bridle. And St. Chrysostom, Homily 15 To the People of Antioch, says: What? Is hell graver; but nothing is more useful than the fear of it: for the fear of hell brings us the race toward the kingdom: unless fear were good, Christ would not have devoted many sermons, and long ones, speaking about that punishment and torture. The like is found in St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, and Jerome on chapter 1 of Malachi.

THE THIRD CAPITAL ARGUMENT is drawn from this, that all the works of infidels are said to be sins, and their virtues false and counterfeit. — It is objected 1. The Apostle, Romans 14, saying: whatsoever is not from faith is sin: but the works of infidels cannot be derived from faith: therefore they are sins. — I distinguish the minor: that what is not from faith, as the rule of acting, is sin, I concede; that what is not from faith, as the principle or rule of believing, is sin, I deny. For faith is taken in two ways (for the present): first, for that by which someone judges something to be licit for himself; this is, for the dictate of conscience: in which sense we commonly say that we do a thing in good faith, which we carry out from conscience and the dictate of reason: thus the Fathers of the Lateran Council took the name of faith in Canon 41, where we read: Since all that is not from faith is sin, we shall hold by synodal judgment that no prescription at all without good faith, that is, without a good conscience. Second, the name of faith signifies the habit and act by which we believe some truth on account of the authority of the one saying it. But the Apostle here takes faith in the prior way: for he speaks of Jews converted to the faith, who through an erroneous conscience judged it not lawful to eat foods prohibited by the Mosaic law. When therefore they distinguish food from food, and nevertheless eat of that food which they judge illicit, they truly sin, because they act not from faith, that is, not from the dictate of conscience judging it licit. Moreover, everything that does not proceed from such faith, that is, what is not done according to that rule, is sin. So St. Chrysostom interprets it, Homily 26 on the Epistle to the Romans, saying: Here faith is understood not of dogmas, but of the argument of the proposed undertaking, that is, the persuasion concerning the matter at hand about doing it: with whom concur OEcumenius, Theophylactus, and several other more recent interpreters with Estius.

They urge: Most of the holy Fathers take faith here for the faith of believing. For so Augustine understands it in several places, especially book 4 Against Julian, chapter 3: therefore the solution given above is null. And presently, that what is done by one lacking the habit of infused faith is sin. — I distinguish the consequent: that what is not from faith contrarily, and positively, that is, what is done unfaithfully, and against what faith persuades should be done, is sin, I concede; that what is done negatively, that is, with faith absent, is sin per se, and precisely because it is done by one not having faith, I deny. Now in the former way (if he speaks of divine faith) the Apostle uses it: for he forms his proposition about the Jew, who judges that abstinence is owed from certain foods, and nevertheless against the faith he has eats those foods; whose action is doubtless sin, as being done against the light and dictate of conscience. That this is the Apostle's meaning is clear from the preceding words; for he says: But he that discerneth (that is, makes a certain discernment of foods, judging some clean, others unclean), if he eat, is condemned: because not from faith: for all that is not from faith is sin.

They insist: Yet the Apostle says not only the works done contrary to faith, but also those done negatively, are sins: therefore the solution is null. They prove the antecedent from that passage to the Hebrews 11: Without faith it is impossible to please God: therefore no work of infidels can be good and pleasing to God. — I deny the antecedent; and first I distinguish the text of the Apostle: without faith it is impossible to please God by reason of the agent, I concede; by reason of the work, I deny. I confess indeed that an infidel so long as he remains in infidelity cannot please God by reason of himself, although sometimes he may please by reason of the work; yet not with that complacency of which the Apostle treats there, and which proceeds from supernatural justice and sanctity, by which the Saints pleased God, of whom he goes on to treat throughout the whole chapter, consequently to what he had said at the end of the preceding chapter, My just one lives by faith.

Finally they urge: Not only by reason of the agent, but even by reason of the work all the works of infidels are sins, and unpleasing to God: therefore etc. The antecedent is proved from the same Apostle to Titus 1: Unto the defiled and unbelievers nothing is pure. — I distinguish the antecedent: unto the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure with perfect and supernatural purity, I concede; with imperfect and moral purity, I deny. For there can be a twofold purity of a work: namely perfect, and of the supernatural order, which proceeds from sanctifying grace, whereby it comes to pass that all the works of the just are truly pure, pleasing to God, and acceptable for supernatural beatitude; but another is moral purity, and of the natural order, whereby it comes to pass that a work elicited about an honest good, and illustrated by the due moral circumstances, is judged pure, and the object of natural divine complacency, by which God approves all the offspring and fruits of nature which come forth according to the order prescribed by natural Providence. For if the shoots of trees and plants please God, as is gathered from these words of Genesis 1: The earth brought forth green herbs, and such as yield seed according to its own kind, and the tree that beareth fruit, having seed each one according to its kind: And God saw that it was good: much more can the acts and fruits of the will, in which there remain certain, though faintest, lineaments of the divine image, please God in a nobler manner. — And otherwise I distinguish: unto the defiled and unbelieving who either abuse the creatures of God through uncleanness of heart, or through infidelity treat them as though they were impure and use them not, nothing is pure, I concede; simply to infidels, and by reason only of their infidelity, I deny. Otherwise by an equal consequence it would follow that all the works even of the clean are pure; for the Apostle says: all things are pure to the pure. Which however is absolutely false; otherwise nowhere could anyone sin once justice had been attained. Thus St. Augustine in book 21 Against Faustus the Manichee, expounds this text of the Apostle both of believers and of unbelievers who abuse the creatures of God, e.g. foods, through impurity, keeping neither time, nor manner, nor measure; and he applies it both against the Jews, who after the abrogation of the law still judged foods unclean, and against the Manichees, who judged all foods altogether unclean and produced from an evil principle. — And finally I distinguish: the Apostle speaks of those impure ones who have a perverse and depraved conscience, whose works are therefore altogether impure because they have an evil intention in their works. This certainly seems the genuine mind of the Apostle; for he says: Unto the defiled and unbelievers nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled: they profess that they know God, but in their works they deny him: being abominable, and incredulous, and to every good work reprobate.

They object 2. St. Augustine, who declares and proves in many places that the works of infidels are sins, and that in them there are no true virtues, especially in book 1 On Marriage and Concupiscence, chapter 3: Let it be far off, then, that he be said truly chaste who does not hope in his wife through the true faith of marriage for the sake of God. And in the following chapter: Those who do not generate children with this intention, this will, this end, that they transfer them from the members of the first man to the members of Christ: but infidels wishing to glory in an infidel progeny, even if their observance be so great that they come together according to the rules of matrimony solely for the cause of begetting children, have not in them true conjugal chastity. Since chastity is a virtue, to which vice contrary is shamelessness, and since all virtues, even those which operate through the body, dwell in the soul, how is the body asserted to be truly of chastity when the very soul is not strengthened by the true God? Whereas that holy Psalmist accuses fornication, where he says: For behold they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that commit fornication against thee. True chastity therefore, whether conjugal, or widowed, or virginal, must not be called such except that which is enslaved to true faith. But above all he immediately treats and discusses the matter in book 4 Against Julian, chapter 3, writing thus: But you set before us examples of impious men most bitter enemies of this grace, whom you say, alien from the faith, are to be held to have virtues, in which without the aid of grace there is only the good of nature, though enslaved to superstition, who by the sole inborn forces of liberty are frequently found merciful, modest, chaste, and sober. Which error St. Augustine refuts chiefly with three arguments: First indeed by an argument ad hominem, because Julian elsewhere taught that the beginning of justice is indeed in man, but its consummation is from God: namely, that the will, or desire of good, is from us, but its effect from God; whereas speaking of the works of infidels he attributes to the forces of free will not only the willing, but even the effect of the good of the will: whence St. Augustine thus interrogates him: But if, as they were, and are, we now find in them the willing and the effect of the willing, what remains to be reserved for grace in those evidences in which you say they abound in virtues? Second he attacks him with an argument drawn from Proverbs 21: He that saith to the wicked man: Thou art just, shall be cursed among the people, and odious to the nations. Third he presses him with the authority of the Apostle to the Romans 1: The just lives by faith. Let it be far off, he says, that he be just who does not live by faith; for the just lives by faith. From these places the Adversaries argue thus: there cannot there be any good work where true virtue cannot be found; but St. Augustine openly confesses that in infidels no true virtue is found: therefore he denies equally that there is any good work in them. — I distinguish the minor: St. Augustine confesses that infidels do not possess true virtues, that is, no habit by which a man is judged to live rightly, and by which he obtains the grace of justification and eternal life, as Julian wished, as we noted in the third Notable; I concede: that there is no habit of virtue by which a man is inclined to any morally good work of the natural order, at least where grave temptation does not press, I deny. I confess therefore that in infidels there is no true virtue simply, by which a man is ordered to salvation: in which sense alone St. Augustine uses true virtue, as appears in the same third chapter. For he says: If therefore for attaining true beatitude, which immortal faith, which is in Christ, truly promises us, the virtues profit man nothing, then in no way can they be virtues. And thus he denies that infidels have virtues because no infidel can be just: because, as he repeats many times in the same place, the just lives by faith: Who moreover, he says, who wish themselves to be held Christians, unless the Pelagians alone, or perhaps you yourself alone among them, would call an infidel just? Would call impious just, would call him just who is enslaved to the devil? Let him be Fabricius, let him be Fabius, let him be Scipio, let him be Regulus, whose names you thought fit to use as terrors, as though we were speaking in the ancient Roman Curia. But in this cause, even if you appeal to the School of Pythagoras or of Plato, where most erudite and learned men, ennobled by Philosophy far excelling the rest, said that true virtues are none but those which are in a manner imprinted on the mind by that eternal and immutable substance, which is God: even there against you I shall cry out as much as He grants, who called us in the liberty of piety: neither in those is there true justice, because the just lives by faith: faith is by hearing, but hearing by the Word of Christ; the end of the law is Christ unto justice for everyone that believeth: how are they truly just, in whom the humility of the true Just One is cheap? For the nearer they approached by understanding, the further pride receded: because knowing God, they did not glorify him as God, etc. Whence he concludes: if justice is by nature and will: then Christ died gratuitously; if justice is by teachings of men of whatever sort: then Christ died gratuitously. For by that by which is true justice, by that also is the kingdom of God: for God himself would be unjust, which be far from us, if a true just one were not admitted to his kingdom, etc. Such are the words of St. Augustine, by which it abundantly appears that down to here St. Augustine denies that the virtues of infidels are true, inasmuch as those virtues of infidels cannot contribute anything to salvation.

He urges: If infidels had within them any true virtues, and only morally good ones, they could be called barren in respect of beatitude: but St. Augustine plainly denies that any virtues can be called barren; for thus about the middle of the same third chapter he carps at Julian: It cannot be said how much that opinion of yours supports you, because you said all virtues are fruitful, by which we are good either fruitfully or barrenly: It cannot be, that we are good barrenly. But we are not good whatever barrenly we are: For a good tree brings forth good fruit: far be it that, as God is good, from whose axe is prepared destruction for trees bringing forth no good fruit, good trees be cut down and cast into the fire. In no way therefore are men good barrenly: but those who are not good can be some less evil, others more evil. Therefore according to St. Augustine no virtue can be barren. — I distinguish the minor: no virtue can be barren in respect of a natural good to be attained, I concede; that no virtue can be fertile in respect of a natural good, and barren in respect of a supernatural good, I deny. For St. Augustine himself in book 5 Of the City of God, chapter 15, affirms that God gave to the Romans Empire over so many Nations and kingdoms in reward for their civil and moral virtues. He judges therefore that those moral virtues merit some temporal reward; and hence even though they appear barren in respect of eternal felicity, they can nevertheless truly be fertile in respect of a temporal good, which God promises and renders to them in reward.

They insist: St. Augustine there denies that men can be good barrenly. For there he charges Julian with having said that all virtues are certain affections, by which we are good either fruitfully or barrenly: It cannot be (says the holy Doctor) that we are good barrenly, but we are not good whatever barrenly we are. And a little later in the same place: in no way are men good barrenly. And still somewhat later he thus upbraids Julian: How therefore, I beseech thee, dost thou jest in these disputations, or rave, thou who praisest the fruits of barren trees, which certainly are either none; or if they are none, they are not to be praised; or if the fruits are good, surely the trees are not barren; nay rather they are good, since the fruits are good, and ought to please God, which good trees cannot fail to do: and finally at the end of the aforesaid chapter he declares that good is not that which is barren, in these words: According to thee, let such wills, he says, be called good trees; it suffices that they are barren before God, so that by this they are not good. From all which one may thus infer: if there were any morally good work in infidels, it would be barren, and not conducing to the end of eternal salvation: but from the aforesaid places of St. Augustine no barren good is given: therefore no morally good work is given in infidels. — I answer, distinguishing the minor: no barren good is given from which men are called good simply and perfectly, I concede; that no barren good is given from which men are called good secundum quid and less perfectly, I deny. Again I distinguish: no barren good is given in the sense of Julian, whom St. Augustine attacks there, I concede; in another sense, which Theologians commonly defend, I deny. For it is certain that there is some barren good, in that sense which Theologians commonly defend, namely that good which from object, end, and circumstances is morally good, yet profits nothing toward salvation, because it is done without grace. For the holy Fathers acknowledge such a barren good. Among others St. Ambrose in his Commentary on Psalm 1, on the verse: And his goodness faileth not: where such morally good...

He insists: From the place of St. Augustine just cited, the fruits of barren trees are not to be praised: but infidels are barren trees: therefore their fruits, that is, their acts, are not to be praised. — I answer, distinguishing the major: of barren trees operating barrenly and unfaithfully, I concede; otherwise, I deny.

They urge in the same St. Augustine: If the fruits are good, surely the trees are not barren: therefore if the works of infidels are good, infidels must not be called barren trees, which is against St. Augustine. — I answer, distinguishing the antecedent: if the fruits are good simply, I concede; if they are good only secundum quid, I deny.

He insists again from the same Augustine: a barren will is not good: therefore a barren work is not good. — I answer, distinguishing the antecedent: it is not good in every mode, I concede; that it is not good secundum quid, I deny; that is, it is not good in the order to salvation and the attainment of the kingdom, which is the supreme good of man; but it is good in the order to moral honesty, and to the right natural formation of man.

OBJECTION 3. Several other sayings of St. Augustine, by which he seems openly to confess that all the works of infidels are sins, because whatever good they sometimes seem to do, they carry it out with an evil end. And this he asserts especially in book one On Baptism and Concupiscence, chapter 3. When, he says, men do these things without faith which seem to pertain to conjugal chastity, whether seeking to please men, or themselves, or others, or avoiding human hardships in those things which they covet as necessary for life, or serving demons, sins are not thereby restrained, but by these sins other sins are overcome. Let it be far off, then, that he be called chaste otherwise who does not keep to his wife the sure faith of marriage for the sake of God. Similarly in book 4 against Julian, chapter 3, Julian asking: If a pagan covers the naked, is it sin because it is not from faith? he answers thus: Precisely insofar as it is not from faith, it is sin. And again at the end of the same chapter he addresses the same Julian thus: Understand, he says, what the Lord says: if thy eye is wicked, thy whole body shall be darksome: but if thy eye is simple, thy whole body shall be lightsome: and acknowledge this eye to be the intention with which each one does what he does, and learn that he who does not do good works with the good intention of faith, that is, of that faith which operates through love, has the whole body, so to speak, which consists of those works as members, darksome, that is, full of the blackness of sins. Or else, since you at least grant that the works of infidels which seem good to you do not however lead them to eternal salvation and the kingdom, know that we say that that good of men, that good will, that good work, cannot be conferred on anyone without the grace of God, which is given through the one Mediator of God and men, by which alone man can be brought to the eternal gift of God and the kingdom. All other things therefore, which seem among men to have something of praise, seem to thee true virtues, seem good works, and without any commission of sin. As for me, this I know, that it is not made by a good will. For the will of an infidel, and impious, is not good. It cannot be, as being done in a most evil state: nor does the name of sin apply here in the strict and proper signification, inasmuch as it signifies an act disagreeing with and contrary to the dictates of right reason and the prescriptions of the laws. I answer 2. For the most part indeed the works of infidels are sins, because it rarely happens that they are not truly acts disagreeing with the rules of right living and right reason; for they are accustomed to act from infidelity, which, since it is an erroneous rule, there is no doubt that whatever proceeds from it is vitiated and sinful. I answer 3. Therefore the works of infidels are for the most part sins, because rarely do they propose to themselves any right end in their works, that they might obey the mandates of God by rendering glory to Him: nay rather for the most part they act for a most evil end: because, as St. Augustine says in the words praised above, they seek either to please themselves or others. Whence in chapter 3 of book 4 against Julian, where he pronounced that covering the naked, insofar as it is not from faith, is sin, he straightway subjoins: Not because through the deed itself, which is covering the naked, it is sin: but to glory in such a work not in the Lord is sin: for to glory not in the Lord is something done unfaithfully, breathing of pride, that is, of presumption: whence in the same chapter, giving the reason why infidels do goods badly, he says: Because namely they do them not as a faithful, but as an unfaithful and evil cultivator. Finally, while in the same chapter he says: Where there is not the intention of good faith, which operates through love, the whole body is full of the blackness of sins: he wished only that sin reigns in infidels, and is present concomitantly, on account of the absence and defect of faith, which is the principle of justification.

He urges: Whatever infidels do from infidelity is sin formally, and not only concomitantly: but St. Augustine testifies that infidels, doing all even those things which seem good works, always act from infidelity, for in book 1 On Baptism and Concupiscence, chapter 1, he says: Infidels have the good of conjugal chastity, because they use it unfaithfully, turning it into evil and sin: therefore, etc. — I distinguish the major: whatever infidels do formally from infidelity is sin, I concede; because namely infidelity itself is the evil tree, which cannot bring forth good fruits: that whatever they do in the state of infidelity is formally sin, I deny. Nor did St. Augustine mean anything else: for in the same place he subjoins: But now truly they turn into the use of justice that concupiscence whereby the flesh concupisceth against the spirit, the marriages of the faithful: it is certain however that the marriages of the faithful do not convert it except while they act faithfully and from faith: whence he subjoins: For they have the intention of generating children to be regenerated: so that those who are born sons of this world may be reborn sons of God.

He urges: If what is not from faith were sin only concomitantly, and not formally, the reasoning of St. Augustine against Julian would be vain and useless: since Julian would without difficulty have admitted that indeed whatever proceeds formally from infidelity is sin: but otherwise concerning the other works of infidels, which are not formally acts of infidelity, but acts of virtue, or mercy, or justice, or temperance: therefore St. Augustine judges the works of infidels to be sins not only inasmuch as they proceed from infidelity itself, but also as they are done within infidelity itself. — I deny the antecedent: For Julian judged not only that the works of infidels are morally good; but also that they suffice for sanctifying grace, and for meriting eternal glory: he judged also that man, with the pursuit of holiness approaching, could by grace adhere so as to be unable to fall into sins, as St. Augustine testifies in the aforesaid chapter 3 of book 1. Against your persuasions, he says, and you grant, saying, therefore what God swears can be believed to be perfected by the pursuit of sanctity, once prayed for: this error he attacks with those words of the Apostle, Whatsoever is not from faith is sin. — Moreover Julian judged those works which are good from their object to be nevertheless good, even if done from a perverse end: which holy Augustine reproaches him there as a most evil dogma and utterly unworthy of Christian men. Whence, he says, lest I seem to calumniate your very words, I shall now set them down: The origin of all virtues, you say, is situated in the rational soul, and all the affections, by which we are good either fruitfully or barrenly, are in the subject of our mind: prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude. Since therefore the force of these affections is naturally in all, yet, you say, it does not hasten toward one end in all, but according to the judgment of the will, whose nod they serve, they are directed either to eternal things or to temporal ones. Which being in that which they are, not in that which they do, they vary only in that which they merit: and therefore they can sustain no loss, you say, either of their name or of their kind, but are enriched only by the magnitude of the reward they desired, or frustrated by its smallness. This opinion of Julian, as insipid, St. Augustine thus beats back: I know not when you learned these things: yet now you see, I judge, that it follows that the prudence of flies be true, whereby they devise kinds of little gains: and the justice of flies, whereby through fear of greater loss they more easily sometimes despise their own than usurp what belongs to another: and the temperance of flies, whereby they prohibit the appetite for luxury, because it is costly, and are content with necessary food alone and covering: and the fortitude of flies, whereby, as Horace says, book 1 Epist. 1, Through seas they flee poverty, through rocks, through fires: whereby finally we learn that by a certain barbaric irruption they could have been compelled under many terrors of enemies to betray what they had: whence he concludes: Therefore those virtues with such an end are shameful and deformed, and therefore in no way genuine and true virtues; yet they seem to you so true and beautiful that they could sustain no loss of their name or kind; but are enriched or frustrated only by the magnitude of the reward they desired, that is, by the fruit of earthly goods, not of heavenly rewards. Against this latter error moreover St. Augustine heaps up many other things, by which he signifies that that is evil which evil, noxious, and unfaithful will makes.

He insists again: By what was the mind of St. Augustine concerning the works of infidels cannot appear more clearly than from the doctrine of his Disciples, especially of St. Prosper: but St. Prosper openly confesses that the works of infidels, insofar as they are done in the state of infidelity, are sins: therefore, etc. The minor is proved from the book against the Collator, chapter 22. Nature, he says, uses its goods badly, in which without the worship of the true God it is conquered by impieties and impurities, and is accused from that very thing whence it thinks itself defended. And book 1 On the Vocation of the Nations, chapter 2. Without the worship of the true God, he says, even that wherein virtue seems to be is sin: nor can that

please God without God: but he who does not please God, by whom if not by vices and clamors does he please? Finally, in the book On the Ungrateful, chapter 16.

For every work of probity, unless it spring From the seed of true faith, is sin, and turns into guilt, And barren glory heaps up punishment for itself.

Now by the name of this barren glory, which heaps up punishment for itself, he signifies the works of infidels elicited in the state of infidelity: therefore, etc. — I answer, St. Prosper is to be explicated in the same way in which we expounded St. Augustine: namely of the morally good work, which is done unfaithfully, and with some presumption of obtaining grace through it. Indeed the Semipelagians, against whom St. Prosper militates, judged that man by natural pursuit and desire of faith could merit both faith itself and the other gifts of God, by which one arrives at eternal life. But St. Prosper teaches on the contrary that these works, conceived with that type and spirit of pride, are sins, are turned into guilt, and rather heap up punishment than merit grace, which he clearly explains in chapter 37 of the work praised above:

Yet if they think that anyone can grasp these By his own strength, whether that labor be worthy to be called Merited genius, they say, of one seeking true goods: They conceive growing, they are diminished; advancing, They fail; shining they fall: running they recede.

In exactly the same way must be explicated the other passage of the same St. Prosper from the book On the Contemplative Life, chapter 3, where he says: The Apostle, by saying that whatsoever is not from faith is sin, declared that all goods which are done from faith are virtues, or if they should have been done without faith, they are not to be believed any goods, but vices, which we ought not to stand approving, but condemning, and hurling away as hostile, and driving out from the bounds of eternal salvation. For St. Prosper speaks there of the intentions of infidels, which not the mere absence of faith, but the unfaithful and noxious will renders culpable. For St. Prosper sufficiently hinted that those works are elicited by a spirit of pride, while he says they are hurled down inflated: similarly while he adds that what he said of infidels could also be twisted against believers, who live not according to God but according to man. Finally his meaning appears more lucidly near the end of the chapter, where he intimates that he treats of the works of God which are done by infidels with an evil intention, while he says: Therefore if ever it has also shone forth clear, that they do not seem to have their virtues who feign: and those feign who not from faith, nor for the sake of God, but for the sake of men only operate some good, in fastings, and vigils, chastity, constancy, and the other goods to be sown. Not that they may become good, but that they fashion themselves as good before men, nor that they may receive the eternal reward, but for acquiring popular glory. It must be said therefore that by the name of that barren glory, which heaps up punishment for itself, he understands nothing else than vainglory, with which infidels abounded on every side, especially the Philosophers, whom Tertullian accordingly calls lovers of glory.

The Adversary heaps up various opinions of other disciples of St. Augustine, by which they strive to prove that truly the works of infidels are formally sins. First indeed St. Fulgentius seems to define the matter openly in the book On the Truth of Predestination, chapter 18, where he says: Before human will receives faith, by itself it can merit punishment, not faith: for every one that is not from faith is sin, and without faith it is impossible to please God. But he who does not please God, doubtless displeases God, not mitigating God, but rather exasperating him. And book 2, chapter 5: We do not please God unless we will; but from himself is granted to us that we will, by whom unless the will of man be changed so that it be good, it always desires evil, so that it never rightly desires good: and thus while it does not keep the right order in its own affairs, it in no way pleases the true and good God. — Primasius on these words, 1st chapter, of Romans: What is not from faith, says: Not from the faith which works through charity: but everything that is not from faith is sin; whatsoever builds not up is not from faith, and therefore is sin. — Bede on the cited chapter: All the life of infidels is sin; and nothing is good without the highest good; for where the acknowledgment of the true and immutable truth is lacking, even in the best morals virtue is false. — Prudentius in the book Against John Scotus, chapter 4, has: Man after that damnation has free will, by which he can incline by his own will, and is inclined to evil; he has free will by which he can rise again to good. But that he rise to good, is not of his own strength, but of the grace of God having mercy. He has free will that he can will well, that he can live well, that he can adhere to God: but that he will well, that he live well, that he adhere to God, is not of his own strength, but of the grace of God having mercy. — St. Remigius, and the Church of Lyon in the book On the Three Epistles, chapter 22: Truly dead are the works of infidels, not only when they openly serve vices and sins, but also when, instigated by the natural good which the omnipotent Creator grants, or imbued with natural law, they seem to have and exercise certain good works, and as it were certain virtues; because, ignorant or hating, or even persecuting, the faith of God and of his Christ, since they do not operate from that faith, altogether neither good work nor true virtue can there be, which does not proceed from the root of truth and goodness: for while those things which seem good works according to man are never referred by true faith to the Lord whom they know not, nor do they act for his sake, but for the sake of some honesty by which they may seem great among men, or for the desire of some temporal commodity, by the very impiety of infidelity, by the very inflation of elation, by the very perversity of cupidity, all things are so impure and defiled that before God they are not

Sermon one On Innovation: It is certain, he says, that all things tend toward their own origin as far as lies in them, and are ever more inclined toward it. So also we who were created from nothing, it is agreed that if we are left to ourselves we slip always into sin, which is nothing. — I answer, those holy Fathers are to be understood in that way in which we expounded St. Augustine, namely that in infidels there is no good, no true virtues, and their works are sins, either because weighed down and conquered by the weight of their concupiscences they most frequently rush into vices: or because, not acknowledging the true God, they do not operate for his glory, but for the desire of some temporal or empty vanity; whence it comes to pass, as the Church of Lyon presently argued, that by the very impiety of infidelity, by the very intention of their works, by the very perversity of cupidity, all things are so impure and defiled that before God they are judged not virtues but vices. Or finally, I say that the virtues and morally good works of infidels are called sins comparatively with respect to the theological and infused moral virtues: for the acquired moral virtues appear midway between those theological and infused moral virtues, and vices or sins. Whence since a medium compared to the more perfect extreme is judged imperfect; whereas on the contrary it seems perfect when compared with the other less perfect extreme: thus tepid compared to hot seems cold, and compared to cold, seems hot: similarly dark compared to black appears white, but appears black when placed next to white. Hence it is that the acquired moral virtues, by reason of order and comparison with the theological and infused moral ones, or those which operate from the principle of grace and charity, are called imperfect; whereas on the contrary they can be judged perfect, if they are compared with the vices to which they are opposed. Since therefore St. Augustine and his Disciples consider the virtues of infidels in order to the perfect virtues of Christians, and compare those with these: therefore they say that they are not true virtues, but counterfeit: and those truly sin...

THE FINAL ARGUMENT prevails by reason. — They object 1: No good work can be given without right and perfect intention: but in infidels there cannot be right intention: therefore neither any morally good work. The major is clear from that saying of St. Ambrose, book 1 On Duties, chapter 3: Your effect puts its name upon your work. The minor is proved: there cannot there be right intention where there is no faith, which is the eye of the mind directing intention. For, says St. Augustine on Psalm 31, let them reckon their works good before faith, where indeed faith was not, there was no good work: for a good work intention makes; faith directs the intention. — I answer, granting the major, distinguishing the minor: where there is no faith, there cannot be right intention, nor direction of the work to the ultimate supernatural end, I concede; to an honest subalternate natural and moral end, I deny. For as faith directs the intention of man with respect to the supernatural ultimate end, so also the light of reason can direct the intention with respect to some honest end connatural to man.

They insist: Every work which is referred to some created end, and is not directed to God, is sin: but where there is no true faith and knowledge of God, a work cannot be directed to God: therefore since in infidels there is no true faith and knowledge of God, it follows that their works are sins. They prove the major from St. Augustine, book 4 Against Julian, book 3. Whatever good is done by man, he says, and is not done for that for which true wisdom commands it ought to be done, although it may seem a duty, is by its very wrong end a sin. — I distinguish the major: that what is not referred to God either explicitly or implicitly: actually but virtually, or habitually, is sin, I concede; that what is referred implicitly, habitually, and virtually, namely by the intrinsic relation which is identified with, and as it were imbibed in, the very entity of the act, is sin, I deny. For an act can be referred to God in three ways, as St. Bonaventure notes in 2 dist. 41, namely actually, virtually, and habitudinally. First, when someone thinking of God loves him, and directs his work to his glory. Second, when someone refers some work to God having at the beginning of the work his glory as end, though he does not think of him during the course of the work. Third is when, without a preconsidered ultimate end, or God, from the sole nature of the good work there comes about its direction to God. But infidels, who in no way acknowledge God, cannot indeed explicitly and actually direct their work to his glory; this however they can implicitly: for since they act for the particular end of virtue, as truly they can act; for instance when they give alms because natural reason dictates it honest to help the needy, implicitly and virtually or habitually they refer that work to God: for they act for an end instituted by God.

They urge: If it were licit to act for some other end besides the glory of God, and if some act of a creature could be licitly referred to some created end, especially to the very honesty of virtue: yet from St. Augustine, lib. 19. De Civit. Dei, it is not licit to act for the sole end of virtue: For indeed they are thought by certain persons to be virtues with a fine and honest end, when they are referred to themselves; even then they are inflated or proud: and therefore they must be judged not virtues but vices: therefore by no means can an act be good which is referred to another end than to God. - I distinguish the minor: it is not licit to act for the honesty of virtue as for the ultimate end, I concede; as for a subalternate end ordainable to the ultimate end, whether virtually or habitudinally, I deny. Now St. Augustine says in the former sense that the virtues, when they are referred to themselves, are proud and inflated, such as were most often the virtues of many Gentiles, especially of the Philosophers, and likewise of the men of valor, who tasted in their own virtues or splendid deeds nothing but human and fleeting glory: whence St. Augustine, book 1 Of the Unfinished Work against Julian: Hear, and understand: the fortitude of the Gentiles worldly cupidity makes; but the fortitude of Christians the charity of God, which is poured forth in our hearts, not by the arbitrium of our will, which is from us, but by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us. Or as he explains more lucidly in the book On True Religion, c. 38: Infidels seek, he says, threefold cupidity, either of pleasure, or of excellence, or of spectacle: thus knowing not how to love temporal things, that from them they expect beatitude. But to those things whereby each wishes to be made blessed he must serve whether he will or will not: for whithersoever they lead, thither follows also whoever has been seen to take them away, he is feared.

They object 2. If any act could be good without grace, it would follow that God concurs no otherwise to an evil and sinful act than to an act of virtue, because he would concur to each only with a general concourse, and as Author of nature: but the consequent is against orthodox and Catholic doctrine, which St. Augustine defends most sharply, book 2 On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, chapter 18, where he proves God to be the author of the good work in us, not of the evil: The will, he says, is either good or evil: and certainly we have not an evil one from God: there remains therefore, that we have a good will from God... wherefore what turns us away from God is ours, and this will is evil: but that we turn ourselves to God, we cannot unless he excite and help, and this will is good: therefore no morally good work can be done without grace. — I deny the sequel of the major: For God concurs to a good act per se, and intending it directly; because he offers his general concourse to creatures with this intention, that they use it well: whereas he in no way intends an evil act, but only his general concourse is determined to an evil end by the created will, which abuses that general concourse impressed on her by him, twisting it into a perverse end not intended by God; therefore God is to be said to concur to that evil act only per accidens.

You will urge: If these things were so, it would follow that demons can effect a morally good work, because the forces of nature are not less perfect in demons than in men: but the consequent is absurd: therefore also the antecedent. — I deny the sequel of the major, and toward its proof I say that natural forces are indeed not less perfect in demons than in men according to substance and physical principle, pass over that; according to the state of misery in which demons are, I deny. For that state prohibits them so that they cannot effect any moral good of the natural order in every respect, because in that state they are obstinate in evil; whence it comes to pass that they cannot elicit any act except it be done from some evil circumstance and from an affection of a perverse end.

Corollary I. From the three questions set forth above it follows first, that fallen man without any special actual aid of the supernatural order can exercise some moral good; and next that the opinion of Gregory of Rimini appears less probable, in 2 dist. 28. quest. 1. art. 1., where he teaches that beyond every thought and previous motion which can be made through natural causes, some special transient aid is necessary, by which the will be physically forced, so that it refer its act to God as ultimate end, without which relation and habitude that act cannot be morally good. - But from what has been said it abundantly appears that neither is that actual relation universally necessary for a morally good work, but sometimes virtual and habitual suffices; nor is any supernatural subsidy needed that the act be exercised. First, because however weak and infirm the forces of human arbitrium may be, they suffice for this. Because (as St. Augustine teaches in the book Of Spirit and Letter, c. 28.) the image of God in the human soul has not been so worn away by the defilement of earthly affections that there have not remained in it, as it were, remnants whence it can merit to be said that even amid the impiety of his life man does or savors somewhat of the law. And a little later speaking of the Nations, which although they have not the law naturally do the things that are of the law, he says: For they also were men, and there was inherent in them that of nature, by which the rational soul both perceives and does something lawful: but piety, which transfers to the other life, blessed and eternal, has the law immaculate converting souls. Whence the Author of the book Hypognosticon, which is woven entirely out of the sayings of St. Augustine, says, chapter 1: We confess that free arbitrium exists in all men, having indeed the judgment of reason, yet not by which it is fit to begin or certainly accomplish things pertaining to God (that is, eternal beatitude) without God; but only in the works of the present life, both good and evil; namely goods which arise from the goods of nature. — Add here that this proposition of Baius num. 61 was condemned by the Supreme Pontiffs: Without Pelagian error can be admitted some use of free arbitrium that is good or not bad: and he injures the grace of Christ who thinks and teaches thus. Whence Lessius meritedly in the book On Riches, chapter 10, num. 5, constantly affirms that the opinion of Gregory of Rimini together with the erroneous doctrine of Michael Baius was condemned by these Pontiffs. Add all those things by which in the second Question we proved that grace is not required for a morally good work of the natural order. Moreover, if for every good work there were desired a special antecedent aid beyond the motion which can be made through natural causes, such that without it no good act could be done, and it being posited, could not fail to be done, as the same Gregory teaches, it would follow first that the good act would not be done freely, because it would not be done with indifference and antecedent power toward appetite; since the will prevented by that aid cannot but operate. It would follow second that all who do not operate morally well are altogether impotent to operate rightly, because they lack something absolutely necessary and antecedent, which they have neither in reality, nor is it in their free power that they obtain it; for if they could have and merit it, especially through some morally good act: but such aid is prerequired for that good act, as Gregory contends. Wherefore either before every good act some good act ought to precede, which is contradictory; or such aid is not in the power of the operator, nor depends on any good act of him who is deprived of it. Finally, since such a morally good act is of the natural order, the physical force complete and sufficiently potent is undeservedly denied without that special transient aid, so that the will can exercise that act; for if anything rendered that act to the will, most especially moral goodness: but that does not hinder; nay rather it renders the act proportionate to the will, since its object, proportionate, is the moral good consonant with reason. Furthermore free arbitrium in fallen man is not utterly extinguished, but only infirm, as was said above from the Council of Trent: therefore just as in an infirm person some forces remain sufficient for an act, though imperfect, so also in the will of fallen man there remain sufficient forces for doing some morally good and honest work; e.g. to honor parents, to relieve the needy, etc. The foundations of Gregory together with those of Vazquez will be dissolved below.

Corollary II. — It follows second, that the opinion of Vazquez is also less probable, who in disputation 190 teaches that for a morally good work some aid is prerequired, not to give the power, but to actually act, and he judges it to consist in a certain honest and congruous thought, that is, tempered to the genius, complexion or temperament of the man, either infused by God in those circumstances and occasions in which he foresaw from eternity through middle knowledge that free arbitrium, excited by that pious thought, would consent to it. But this special aid he says is grace granted through Christ. That it is grace, he proves thus: every gift of God not owed by the force of creation is special favor and grace, or a gratuitous gift: but every congruous thought, with which one acts morally well, is thus not owed; because man by his nature demands one thought no more than another, nor does he more claim this true order from which that thought follows; otherwise whenever anyone acts badly, he would have been deprived connaturally of the congruous thought owed to him. Add that that congruous thought is not given to all, hence it is not connatural: but beyond the lot of nature. For what is owed to nature is granted to all; and therefore it is grace, inasmuch as grace signifies every gift of nature not owed, whether meanwhile that gift be above the order of nature, or not. Finally, if God gave man only a sufficient thought, he would satisfy the debt of nature; therefore where he prepares a congruous and efficacious one for exercising a morally honest good, he does beyond the debt of nature; and consequently that gift must be called a gratuitous benefit. — But that that special benefit tending to honesty is through Christ, he proves, because from the fall of Adam we were left in that state in which no congruous thought was owed; and moreover on account of original sin we all ought to be deprived of it; hence God grants it not except in view of the merits of Christ the Lord Redeemer. — But this opinion is attacked: First, because some practical thought about a morally good act can be had by the mere forces of nature, as was proved in the second Question of the first Article: therefore also a good affection. But whether the affection to which that pious thought leads follow or follow not, that depends on the will, which determines itself at pleasure to follow or not follow the dictate of reason: and therefore for that no special subsidy of divine grace is needed: for the forces of free arbitrium suffice for it. Second, that congruous thought about some honest act signifies two things only, namely that it be a thought of an honest good, and that it be congruous or efficacious: but from neither head is it necessary that it be a special grace of God: therefore, etc. The major stands. The minor indeed is proved as to each part: because that thought ought not to be judged grace precisely from this, that it is about an honest act and object; for human liberty and nature is not so vitiated that from phantasms it can abstract certain species of evil, and so also of moral and honest good; because not only delectable objects are proposed to the senses, but also honor toward parents and observance toward friends: for wherever man is educated, sustained, protected, and lives among men of the same nature, thence he can have more thoughts inducing to the cult of parents and observance of friends. That truly the thought about an honest good considered as congruous, or as efficacious, is not special grace, is also clear; partly because the same Vazquez judges sufficient knowledge about the honest act and object not to be special grace; therefore he ought to judge the same about the congruous or efficacious thought. The consequence is clear: for efficacious and sufficient aids are within the same order of grace: therefore if the sufficient thought about an honest act be not judged true grace, neither equally should the efficacious thought be placed within the order of grace. Third, original sin did not constitute men obstinate in evil and morally inflexible to good; nor does it entirely impede the general course and concourse of things and secondary causes both acting naturally and freely together with the general concourse of the first Cause; therefore notwithstanding it man can have the affection of a good thought; since it does not transcend its forces. — Nor does it stand in the way that original sin might have merited that men be deprived of natural goods, and perhaps also of congruous thoughts, and likewise of every honest action: since indeed it did not merit it in reality, thence it does not follow that every pious thought of ours is a gratuitous gift of God; otherwise also natural life and the other natural and ingrafted gifts ought equally to be called graces, because on account of original sin we could be deprived of them by God: therefore as those natural benefits are not properly called graces, in the sense in which Vazquez here uses grace, so neither ought that honest thought be judged grace, although on account of original sin we could deservedly be deprived of it as of life. - Nor does it matter either that the congruous thought follows here and now rather than at another time and place, or in this individual rather than in that; for this does not always arise from some special grace or causality of God, but sometimes proceeds also from the force of the order of secondary causes, their natural disposition being supposed, and the free use of human will conjoined, with the sole general concourse of God due to such causes naturally: but this benefit does not transcend the gift of creation, nor the natural disposition and state of things. Otherwise the benefit of grace would also be judged that any man whatever is not born blind, lame, etc.; for another disposition of causes was possible from which that would follow, as another series was possible from which those pious thoughts would not arise. Nay even the merely sufficient thought itself would have to be called grace, because another order of things was possible in which that thought would not occur to this and that man, to whom now de facto it happens. Similarly generation itself, and the natural complexion, and such or such an indoles would be reckoned grace, because another series of things was possible in which either this one would not be born, with complexion and indoles; and thus nothing at all...

They object 1. Those texts of Scripture by which it seems intimated that man in the state of fallen nature without special aid of God can effect no morally good work, nor have any congruous thought, of which kind is that John 15: Without me you can do nothing. And 2 Corinthians 3: Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God: whence St. Augustine in tractate 8 On John says: Whether therefore little or much, it cannot be done without him without whom nothing can be done. — I answer, these and similar texts of Scripture are to be understood (as we have already often said) of works pertaining to salvation, on account of which it is necessary that we adhere to Christ as branches to the vine of life, according to that which he says in the same chapter of John: I am the vine, you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit unto life eternal; for without me you can do nothing, that namely which profits toward it.

They object 2. Certain oracles of Councils and holy Fathers: First indeed in the Diospolitan Council Pelagius was compelled to confess that the grace of God is given for individual acts. Similarly in the second Arausican Council, Canon nine: As often as we do good, God operates in us and with us that we may operate: that is, his grace precedes us, and induces us to operate well: and Canon 18: A reward is owed to good works if they be done, but grace precedes that they be done: and Canon 12: No one has of himself except falsehood and sin: but if anyone man has truth, it is from that fountain which we ought to thirst after. The same the holy Fathers openly teach: above all St. Ambrose, book 1 On the Vocation of the Nations, chapter 3, says: If God works not in us, we can be partakers of no virtue. St. Augustine, Sermon 13 On the Words of the Apostle, chapter 11, speaking of the aid of the Holy Spirit, which the Pelagians wished necessary only for operating more easily, says, if he pour it not out we can do nothing good at all: Thou dost indeed act (he says) without his helping, with free will, but badly. And further on: When I say to thee: without the aid of God thou doest nothing, I say nothing of good: for to do evil thou hast without the aid of God a free will. From these therefore it follows that we can work nothing whatsoever without the subsidy of God. — I distinguish the consequent: that we can do nothing whatsoever without the subsidy of God, either as author of nature, or as author of grace, I concede; that we can do nothing without the aid of God as author of grace, I deny. Or otherwise I distinguish: that we can do nothing without the subsidy of God as author of grace which profits toward eternal life, I concede; which profits toward the honesty of human society and rectitude of morals, I deny. Therefore while the Councils and holy Fathers require divine aid for the right and just operation of man, they speak of works conducing to salvation; for thus the Fathers of the Carthaginian Council express their mind in the Synodal letter which they write to Zosimus the supreme Pontiff, where among other things they have this: Let us say that the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, aids us through individual acts not only to know the truth, but also to do justice; so that without the grace of God we are able to have, think, say, and do nothing of true and holy piety. In like manner St. Prosper interpreted the mind of the Council in the eighth response to the Chapters of the Gauls: with two hundred and fourteen priests, whose constitution against the enemies of the grace of God the whole world embraced with truthful profession, as their discourse has it: let us say the grace of God, etc. — But to Canon 22 of the same Council we have already answered: that no one has of himself except falsehood and sin for the most part, because he can know little truth and do good, I concede; that he can do nothing at all, I deny.

They object 3. The Church persuades us to demand the grace of God for exercising individual good acts: therefore she judges it necessary for this. The antecedent appears from various prayers of the Church, in which the grace of God is sought for all our actions. Thus in the prayer of the 6th Sunday after Epiphany it is said: Grant, we beseech thee, O almighty God, that ever meditating on things reasonable, what are pleasing to thee we may carry out both in word and deed. And in the prayer of the Sunday after Pentecost: Grant to us, we beseech thee, O Lord, always the spirit of thinking what is right, etc. And in that celebrated Collect: Direct our actions, we beseech thee, O Lord, by thy inspiration, and further them by thy continual help. The same appears in the two Collects which are recited each day at the office of Prime. The consequence indeed is proved from the holy Fathers, who everywhere gather from the utility of prayer the necessity of grace, saying that we pray in vain if what we ask lies within our own power; for thus reason the Fathers of the Carthaginian Council, Epistle to Innocent or Zosimus; for against the Pelagians asserting that for operating, perfecting justice, and fulfilling the mandates of God human nature alone suffices of itself, they argued thus: if with the possibility of nature and the arbitrium of the will these things are constituted in our power, who does not see that they are vainly asked of the Lord and prayed for fruitlessly? — I answer first, therefore we implore divine aid for our individual acts not only that they be made morally good and honest, but also that they profit toward salvation, so that we decline toward no sin, but that our words ever proceed to do the justice of God, our thoughts and works be directed. - I answer second, that although some good works be done through nature, nevertheless we can beseech God to aid us in exercising them: first indeed, that they be done more perfectly within the order of nature: second, because it is not infallible that we shall act honestly and morally well: third, because neither shall we long persevere without sin by the mere forces of nature, and perhaps we shall sin lightly or gravely, unless God remove the occasions of sinning. Nor ought it seem wonderful that we pray God for a natural work; for the Church also admonishes us to beseech God, and prescribes certain prayers for obtaining the fruits of the earth, serenity of the air, and the removal of tempests; all which although they come to pass according to the course of natural providence, yet not so invariably that they could not happen otherwise.

Finally they object: We render thanksgivings to God for individual good works: but thanksgiving is the acknowledgment of received grace: therefore it supposes grace collaborating in all our good acts. — I distinguish the major: We render thanksgivings to God for every good work, either common ones, which are rendered for natural goods, as rain, serenity of weather, etc.; or special ones, which are owed to God for supernatural gifts, I concede; that special ones only, I deny.

Corollary III. — That all the aforesaid and similar objections may be dissolved the more easily, it must be known, that although we grant that free arbitrium sometimes suffices for exercising some morally good work, nevertheless our mind is not, that without the aid of God any morally good work whatever can be done singly and distributively: for many natural goods are beset by grave temptations, and seem arduous: but without some divine aid grave temptations cannot be overcome, as the following Article will prove, nor on account of the weakness and infirmity of free arbitrium can we attempt and undertake anything arduous unless God aiding and divinely assisting: hence even though free arbitrium sometimes prevails for pursuing some morally and naturally good work, it is not to be inferred that it can undertake and carry out any good work whatever; nor likewise long persevere in the exercise of some good, on account of the immense temptations and continual struggle of concupiscence, and of the senses declining to the depraved and perverse corruption.

Note 1. The love of God is twofold, namely natural and voluntary. The former is the very propensity of nature toward God as the last end and highest good; for every creature inclines toward God as its author, moderator, and end with a certain weight of love — insensible things indeed by natural motion, brute animals by sensitive motion, but rational creatures by intellectual love, which is properly called dilection, because it is made with advertence and election: the latter, however, is the free and effective propensity of the rational creature toward God as the last end and highest good. — Again, voluntary dilection is twofold: one of friendship, the other of concupiscence. The former is that whereby we are said to love a friend for his own sake, willing his own good only on his account: the latter, when we love that which suits us; thus, with a love of concupiscence we are said to love God when we desire Him to be present to us or rejoice in Him. And this love of concupiscence is again constituted twofold: one licit, whereby God is loved by us as the last end; the other vicious, whereby God is loved by us in the manner of a certain means, on account of temporal goods, so that He may satisfy our cupidities. — Again, each love, both of benevolence and of concupiscence, is still further twofold, namely absolute and conditioned. The former proceeds from an absolute will of loving God, while a man thus establishes it in his mind: I will to love God: the latter, which is also called ineffective, proceeds from a merely conditioned will, e.g., while a man thus resolves in his heart: I would wish to love God with my whole heart and all my strength, if on that account pleasures, delights, and riches, as Christ the Lord indicates, did not have to be renounced. Finally, absolute love is still further twofold: one perfect, the other imperfect. Perfect is that whereby God is so loved that He is preferred to all things whatsoever, with the purpose of pleasing Him in all things, even at the loss of all other goods; such was the love of Paul thus resolving in his mind, Romans 8: I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the charity of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Imperfect, however, is that whereby God is loved as the author of nature, or as the fountain and giver of justice, yet not above all things, nor preferred to others. The former is called the love of God above all things, the latter the love of God together with all things. — But each of these loves of God is again twofold, namely natural and supernatural. Natural is that which not only proceeds from a principle and will acting by their own forces alone, but also is borne toward God as the author of nature and the giver of all goods; thus we love God because He has granted us to be, to live, and the goods of life. Supernatural likewise is that which not only is exercised with the help of grace, but also tends toward God as the giver of grace itself and the munificent bestower of glory. Moreover, both dilection is divided into the dilection of God above all things and that which is not above all things. The former is that which prefers God to all things, so that one is rather prepared to suffer the loss of all goods whatsoever than to do anything displeasing to God. The latter, namely the natural dilection of God above all things in a qualified sense, is that whereby man is indeed affected toward God more than toward the rest, on account of His supreme clemency, but is not prepared to cast aside the rest for the keeping of the law of God on every occasion given. — Again, the natural dilection of God above all things is twofold: one indeed in a certain respect, the other simply. The former is that whereby God is loved by man precisely under the aspect of a common good, which as such ought rather to be loved than any creature whatever; for right reason prescribes that the whole and the common good be loved more than the part and the particular good; which dilection, moreover, is common to man with beasts and inanimate things, and even with demons and the damned; for every part operates by a certain natural inclination for the common good of the whole, even with peril or detriment to itself. It is manifest, however, that God is the common good of the whole Universe and of all its parts, whence every creature in its way loves God more than itself. But the natural dilection of God above all things simply is that whereby He is loved under every aspect and perfection that He has within the order of nature, so that the rational creature, on account of the integrity of all perfections which it discovers in God, loves Him more than every other created thing, in which it recognizes a lesser perfection. — Finally, the love of God, both natural and supernatural, is again twofold, namely affective and effective. Affective is the purpose of the will resolving to love God above all things, to please Him in all things, and to avoid all things that can displease Him. Effective, however, is that whereby man so prefers God to all things on whatever occasions, that he fulfills His commandments and precepts.

Note 2. That God can be loved above all things in three ways: namely either intensively, or extensively, or estimatively or appreciatively. Intensively indeed, when He is loved with the utmost effort of the will, and with an act more fervent and intense than is any love wherewith a creature is loved. Extensively, however, in respect of the duration and perseverance of love, while evidently the dilection lasts longer than that of any other good. Appreciatively, finally, and estimatively, when God is so loved that He is held of greater worth than the other goods and preferred to them; whether meanwhile He be compared with created goods in particular and preferred to them, or be loved absolutely as infinite good, and far excelling any other goods whatsoever. This love, however, can be exercised in two ways, namely either willing only that goodness and perfection reside in God; or furthermore willing that created goods be exhibited to Him, such as honor, worship, and reverence from all creatures, although He has no need of our goods. — Further, this is not the question here, whether by the forces of nature alone God can be loved above all things both intensively and extensively: partly because neither of those modes of loving God above all things is exacted of us; for the mode of intension or extension of an act does not fall under precept; partly because neither contributes anything to the determination of the present question; since the different manner of intension or extension does not induce diversity of order and species in the act; for a remisser act, or one of lighter duration, is of the same nature and order as the more intense or longer lasting, when all else is equal.

Note 3. That the natural love of God differs from the supernatural in many respects: First indeed by reason of the connection whereby supernatural love is tied to habitual grace, whether existent, or future, or possible, of which connection purely natural love is destitute. Secondly, because supernatural love, beyond the natural activity of free will, requires an infused habit of charity, as the efficient principle of it, with the aids of grace supernatural in entity: natural love, however, beyond the active powers of nature and the principles due to nature, requires no principle, neither efficient nor formal, which of its own nature be infused and supernatural. Thirdly, because supernatural knowledge necessarily precedes supernatural love: natural knowledge, however, precedes natural love. Fourthly finally, because supernatural love elicited by a sinner contributes to his justification, while elicited by a just man it contributes to a fuller beatitude: natural love, however, helps nothing positively either toward justification or toward glory, but only negatively, by removing obstacles and occasions of sin. Now the present controversy is not raised concerning that dilection which is a certain natural propensity toward God, for since this is common both to irrational and insensible creatures and to those using reason, it is most certain that it can be had without grace. Nor concerning the dilection of God as the author of grace: for no one doubts that grace's assistance is needed for that dilection, since it exceeds the forces of nature. Nor concerning the vicious love of concupiscence, whereby God is loved as a means for obtaining temporal goods, and because He is their giver; for this love is disorderly and culpable, as St. Augustine teaches in Psalm 70, where he says: They who seek God on account of earthly benefits seek not God, but themselves. Therefore only the other loves of God come into disputation, namely the appreciative and the intensive, of concupiscence and of benevolence. Here therefore three things especially must be solved: First, whether the precept of loving God can be fulfilled by the forces of nature. Second, with what perfect love God can be naturally loved. Third, whether equally the other precepts of the divine law pertaining to the neighbor can be fulfilled without any aid of grace.

First Conclusion. — GOD CAN BE LOVED WITH A NATURAL LOVE OF BENEVOLENCE WITHOUT ANY AID OF GRACE.

Proof is made first from Romans 1: The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness of men, who detain the truth of God in injustice; because that which is known of God is manifest in them: for God hath manifested it unto them: for the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, his everlasting power also and Divinity, so that they are inexcusable. In which words St. Paul accuses the Gentiles, especially the Philosophers, of impiety and injustice, so that they are inexcusable, because they do not worship the true God, namely with love and observance, for worship consists especially in His love, according to that saying of St. Augustine, Epistle 120: Piety is the worship of God, nor is He worshipped save by loving. But if such worship and justice were impossible to them, they could rightly be excused, and would undeservedly be accused of having forsaken the love of justice and the true worship of God; for there is no greater ground of excuse than impossibility; therefore St. Paul manifestly supposes the Gentiles able to love God: but this power, which the Apostle supposes in them, is purely natural; since it arises from the natural notion of God, which they can borrow from visible creatures; but the love possible from a natural notion is purely natural, for a natural notion cannot move toward supernatural love: therefore, etc. — This our reasoning is confirmed by the testimony of St. Ambrose, who, weighing the foregoing passage, says: From the very fabric of heaven God is seen by them: for this reason He made the stars so beautiful, that from them how great and how admirable their Creator is may be acknowledged, and He alone adored; therefore by the natural law he renders the human race guilty: for they were able to apprehend this by the law of nature, the fabric of the world bearing witness, that God alone the author was to be loved, which Moses handed down in writing. By which words St. Augustine signifies that the infidel who does not worship God is therefore accused as guilty of injustice, because with a natural notion drawn from the fabric of creatures he could apprehend that God alone the author is to be loved, and he is bound by the natural law to such dilection and love of justice. — To him concurs St. Prosper, book 1. On the Vocation of the Gentiles, chapter 2, writing: According to Scripture we believe and most piously confess that the care of divine Providence has never been wanting to the whole body of mankind. And though it directed the people set apart for itself by special institutes unto piety, yet it withheld the gifts of its goodness from no nation of men, that the prophetic voices and legal precepts might be shown to have received witness in the services and testimonies of the elements. They became vain and inexcusable, who made gods for themselves, and venerated unto worship what had been created for use. Therefore St. Prosper judges with St. Paul that infidels are inexcusable, who render to creatures the worship of the Creator, since from the natural testimony of creatures they have sufficient principles for the true worship and love of God and of justice, toward which the faithful people are promoted by the prophetic voices and oracles of the Scriptures. — The same truth is again intimated by the same Apostle in Acts 14, where, speaking of the Gentiles, he says: He left not himself without testimony, doing good from heaven, giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. Whereby by the testimony which God left to the Gentiles, inwardly moving hearts and sealing them to the obligation of prayer and dilection, he signifies reason, which gathers from creatures the truth and beneficence of the Creator, so that thence it may be spurred to His love and worship. To this pertains also that saying of Acts 17: Determining appointed times, and the bounds of their habitation, to seek God, if perhaps they may feel after him, or find him. By which St. Apostle declares that by the natural disposition of times and things the Gentiles can not only seek God, but also, as it were, feel after and find Him with love and worship; For, says St. Prosper, book 2. On the Vocation of the Gentiles, chapter 1: They worship all celestial things, sea and earth, and all things that are in them, and with the harmonious concert of their kind and order proclaim the glory of God, and by perpetual preaching speak forth the majesty of their author.

Proof secondly from the authority of the Councils, which, while they define grace necessary for loving God, not without counsel but notably add these clauses (as is required for salvation, or for eternal life, or for justification); whereby they signify that a dilection of God is possible which contributes nothing to salvation, and which is purely natural and is made without any aid of grace. Thus speaks the Second Council of Orange, especially Can. 20. No one, it says, can love God as is fitting, or believe in God, or work for God that which is good, unless grace, or divine mercy, prevent him: in like manner speak the Fathers of the African Council in Prosper's Response to chapter 8 of the Gauls: so likewise the Tridentine, Session 6, Can. 3: If anyone shall say that without the preventing inspiration of the Holy Spirit and His aid man can believe, hope, love, or repent, as he ought, so that the grace of justification be conferred upon him, let him be anathema. From which it is lawful thus to argue: theological phrases found in the definitions of Councils are to be understood in that mode and that sense in which they are commonly received by theologians: but this phrase (as is fitting) is so received by theologians that it signifies possible morally good natural acts, which are not done as is fitting and require no grace, and from which salutary acts, which claim grace, are distinguished; therefore the Councils suppose possible acts of natural dilection of God.

Proof thirdly from the definition of the Supreme Pontiffs, who condemned these propositions of Baius, namely number 31: That distinction of a twofold love, namely natural, whereby God is loved as the author of nature, and gratuitous, whereby God is loved as beatifier, is vain and fictitious. Likewise proposition 37: Natural love, which arises from the forces of nature, is defended by some authors from Philosophy alone, by an elation of human presumption with injury to the cross of Christ. Again proposition 39: Every love of a rational creature is either a vicious cupidity, whereby the world is loved, or that laudable charity diffused through the Holy Spirit in the heart, whereby God is loved. It is evident therefore that some natural love of God, conceived by the forces of free will alone, must be admitted.

Fourthly this same truth is proved by the authority of the holy Fathers: for St. Basil, Homily 9, That God is not the author of evils, says: Whence is man wicked? From his own free will. Whence is the devil evil? From the same previously known cause; for he too had free will and a power implanted in himself, either of following God or of departing from the good. By which he signifies to us that the power of following God is implanted naturally: but we follow God by loving and worshipping Him. — To him concurs St. Gregory of Nyssa, Catechesis 5: It was altogether necessary, he says, for the construction of our nature, that by a power implanted in it it should know that which is supreme, that it should be held by the desire of divine eternity. By which he refers to the very construction of nature the power implanted in it of the notion of God and the desire of eternity. — To this truth most especially St. Augustine gives assent: For first he teaches that there resides in man a natural inclination and innate appetite toward the love of God: but an innate appetite cannot be borne toward supernatural love, and accordingly it busies itself about the natural love and dilection of God. This argument the adversaries admit. But the major is proved from that saying of book 1 of the Confessions, chapter 1: Thou hast made us for thee, and our heart is restless until it rest in thee. Which restlessness is born from the very creation and condition of rational nature, which, as it was created for loving God, so neither can it rest in the love of any created thing, no less than a stone outside its center. — Secondly, according to the doctrine of St. Augustine, it is natural for a rational creature to adhere to God through dilection: but it would not wish thus to adhere unless such love were natural to it: therefore, etc. The major lies hidden in all those places wherein he signifies that vice is therefore an evil of nature because it separates it from God, to whom it was fitting to adhere. Thus especially lib. 12. De Civit. Dei, c. 1. When it is said of the vice of a rational creature that it adheres not to God, hence is openly declared that it belongs to its nature to adhere to God. Therefore, since to depart from God is the vice of nature, to adhere to God through dilection is the perfection of nature itself. — Finally the mind of St. Augustine is detected most especially in this, that he proves the celebrated tenet of the Platonic Philosophers, who taught that the natural beatitude of man constituted in this life consists in the contemplation and love of God: but those Philosophers acknowledged no other love of God than natural, arising from the forces of nature alone: therefore with them St. Augustine supposes the love of God natural in entity, and possible from the principles of nature alone. The major is evident, for those Philosophers were ignorant of all faith infused and of grace supernatural in entity. The minor is proved from the same St. Augustine lib. 8. De Civit. Dei, c. 5. If then, he says, Plato said that the wise man is the imitator, knower, and lover of this God, by whose participation he is blessed, what need is there to sift the others? none of whom came nearer to us than these. And in book 10, chapter 1, speaking of the same Platonists, he says that they deny that anyone will be blessed who has not adhered with the purity of chaste love to that one supreme good, which is the unchangeable God. Therefore it is conformable to the mind and doctrine of St. Augustine that the love of God be possible naturally in entity.

THE ADVERSARIES RESPOND that that love toward which the Philosophers referred the beatitude of this life is judged by the same Augustine to be supernatural: indeed he recalls it to grace itself, for in book 11, chapter 25, according to Plato's mind he proclaims God the inspirer of the love whereby one lives well and blessedly, and the giver of intimate sweetness. And in book 22, chapter 22, he relates from Tully that no greater gift had been given by the gods, nor could be given, than this love. — On the contrary, the benefit to which the Philosophers recalled this love is not of the supernatural order, but natural, pertaining to the grace of creation and to God as the author and provider of nature; which is gathered first, because the Platonists spoke in the same manner of the wisdom and knowledge of God as of His love; but the wisdom and knowledge of God which they had was natural in entity, being acquired from creatures either by the connatural light or by a natural discourse. Secondly, this very thing St. Augustine teaches in the same chapter 25, where he says: Because our nature, that it might be, has God for its author, doubtless, that we may wisely understand, we owe to have Him Himself for Doctor; Him also, that we may be blessed, the giver of intimate sweetness. By which he signifies that we receive from God His love and knowledge in the same manner in which we received nature: but nature was conferred by God as the author of nature: therefore from the same proceeds that love which the Platonics required for beatitude. — To the most holy Doctor subscribe his disciples, for St. Fulgentius, book On Faith, chapter 3: God, he says, implanted the faculty of knowing and loving Himself in none but Angels and men... And because of the liberty of will, which was chiefly to be conferred on intellectual creatures, He so endowed them with the faculty and will of knowing and loving Himself, that each one could both have it and lose it. By which words he declares that the power conceded by God of loving Him is of the same manner as that which had been conceded of knowing Himself: but the power of knowing God belongs to the forces of nature alone: therefore also the power of loving Him. — St. Prosper concurs, book 2. On the Vocation of the Gentiles, chapter 1, where he says: For heaven, and earth, and sea, and every creature that can be seen and understood is disposed chiefly unto this venerable utility of man, that rational nature from the contemplation of so many species, from the experience of so many gifts, and the perception of so many bounties, should be imbued with the worship and dilection of its author: therefore St. Prosper judges that the principal end of creating corporeal creatures is not the temporal utility of man, but spiritual and honest, which is perceived from the worship and dilection of the author of nature, which all created things provoke. — St. Anselm subscribes in the Monologion, chapter 66: Nothing is fitter, he says, than that the rational creature be made for this, that it love the supreme Essence and Good above all things, even as Itself is the supreme Good, nay, that it love nothing except It, or on account of It: therefore the love of God, and of creatures for God, is the natural end of the rational soul itself, and accordingly is to be obtained through natural love as a congruous medium.

Finally proof is made by theological reasoning: that which the intellect can know by the forces of nature the will can naturally love: but the intellect can know God by the forces of will alone: therefore the will also can love Him. The major stands by the authority of the holy Fathers, for St. Athanasius, in the treatise Of Definitions, column 3: Whatever it understands, he says, it is agreed is led by the will. St. Fulgentius to Monimus, chapter 18: Nor can reason reside therein in any wise, unless the dilection of the Creator could reside in it. St. Damascene On the Two Wills of Christ: Man, he says, inasmuch as he partakes of reason follows reason as his leader in appetiting. Therefore natural will is a certain appetite of reason, consentaneous with sense, which is accommodated only to naturals; but the wills of nature are first that we obey the laws of God: for by nature man is the servant of God. Therefore it stands that to the power of understanding there is annexed the natural power of willing the good understood. — Secondly, the natural law commands and counsels the dilection of God before all created goods, because God is made known by natural reason as worthy of love before them all: but the native law cannot command nor counsel an impossible love, such as the love of God would be, the benefit of grace excluded, if that love were not natural: therefore truly such a natural love of God must be conceded. — Thirdly, we pursue parents, benefactors, and friends with a natural love of benevolence: therefore with equal right we can love God. The consequence is evident; since purely natural reason can suggest motives to the will whereby it be more efficaciously excited to love God than to the love of parents, benefactors, and friends: whether you adduce natural benefits, or consider the communion of goods, or observe the bonds whereby we are bound to other men, far higher are those things which natural reason can investigate and attain in God for provoking His love. Therefore if human motives can obtain from a created will a love of benevolence so efficacious that sometimes we contemn temporal advantages, nay even life itself, for parents and benefactors, why shall we deny that divine motives proposed by natural reason can obtain the same love?

You will object. 1. Sacred Scripture makes mention of no love of God except that which is of charity, and which leads to eternal life: but that is not natural: therefore no natural love of God is to be admitted from sacred Scripture.

I answer. First, by denying the major; for from the first proof of this Conclusion it stands that the holy Apostle sufficiently designated a natural love of God, when he said the Gentiles were inexcusable because they had known God naturally, yet had not worshipped Him by adoring and loving. I answer secondly, by distinguishing the major: sacred Scripture makes no mention of that natural love of God explicitly, and expressly, I concede; implicitly, and virtually, I deny. Add that the end and principal scope of sacred Scripture is to commend to men the supernatural love of God, for the reason that He alone is worthy of God, and He alone leads to His possession and fruition, whence it makes express mention of that supernatural love alone.

You will object. 2. Various testimonies of St. Augustine, whereby he seems to establish five principal points: The first indeed is, that the love of benevolence toward God be pure and chaste, whereby God is loved gratuitously and without hope of any gain: but that love is impossible by the forces of nature alone, because for it St. Augustine desires the spirit of grace, as stands evident from the Commentary on Psalm 118, Sermon 3, and book 5 Against Julian, chapter 3. God Himself, he says, is present both by illuminating the mind, and by overcoming concupiscence, and by terrifying molestation; for all this is rightly done when it is done on account of Himself, that is, when He Himself is loved gratuitously; which love cannot be in us except from Himself. — The second is, because he who loves God loves truth and rectitude: for God is the rectitude and truth of every virtue, according to St. Augustine book 2 On Free Choice, chapter 10: but moral truth and rectitude cannot be loved without the spirit of grace, as the same teaches in many places, especially in the book On Correction and Grace, chapter 2: When men do this as it ought to be done, that is, with dilection and delectation of justice, let them rejoice to have received the sweetness which the Lord gave. — The third is, that whatever is not done out of fear of punishment is done out of the love of justice and truth, which love is charity from God, as the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 14 teaches, where after he has said that the Holy Spirit is necessary to man, whereby there may be made in his soul the delectation and dilection of that supreme and unchangeable good, which God is, from whom he has it that he may be, he subjoins: For neither does free will avail anything except unto sinning if the way of truth lie hid; and even when that which is to be done, and whither we must strive, appears not hidden, unless it also delight and be loved, it is not done, it is not undertaken, it is not lived well. Afterwards he shows this love to be charity, which is from God: But that it may be loved, he says, the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, not through free will, which arises from us, but through the Holy Spirit, who is given to us. — The fourth is, that according to his doctrine every will is either good or evil: and every good will is from grace. Thus he teaches book 2 On the Merits of Sins, chapter 18: If then, he says, the will is either good or evil, and assuredly we have not an evil one from God, it remains that we have a good will from God. — The fifth, because one of the capital controversies between Pelagius and the Catholic Church was whether God can be loved above all things by the forces of nature alone; which indeed St. Augustine denied in the book On Grace and Free Will, chapter 18: Whence, he says, is in men the charity of God, and of neighbor, except from God Himself? for if it is not from God but from men, the Pelagians have conquered; but if from God, we conquer the Pelagians: therefore from St. Augustine there is no natural love of God.

I deny the consequence. And to all those foregoing passages I say that St. Augustine intends nothing else than that every love of God conducing to salvation can be had only with God conferring and inspiring it, for there he treats only of salutary love, as is to be gathered, partly because concerning the other acts of virtue, for which he desires assisting grace, he always disputed against the Pelagians in that acceptation; for they attributed acts of virtue to the forces of nature alone in no other sense than as salutary and meritorious of eternal life: therefore much more, speaking of divine love of benevolence, which is the most perfect of all, he must be judged to speak only of salutary love; partly because the Pelagians acknowledged no love of God that was not salutary and meritorious, however elicited by the forces of nature alone; but they professed even every natural love to be salutary, therefore the whole scope of Augustine was to establish the necessity of grace for every salutary and meritorious act; finally because St. Augustine speaks only of that love which sacred Scripture commends; but that is supernatural, as leading to the possession of God: whence the same Augustine, interpreter of himself, in book 1 Against Julian, chapter 3, says: the love whereby one arrives at God is only from God the Father, through Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit.

You will urge. St. Augustine continually reciprocates infused charity and the love of God, defining charity solely by the love of God, as stands evident from Sermons 13 and 15 On the Words of the Apostle; but charity is supernatural love: therefore St. Augustine acknowledged no other. — I answer, that St. Augustine therefore defines charity by the love of God because evidently since he was disputing only of salutary love, he did not distinguish the love of God into natural and supernatural; but commended only the supernatural, which truly is not distinguished from charity, and accordingly they can deservedly be defined through one another.

You will object. 3. If the goodness of God could be loved with natural and supernatural love, then also the truth revealing God could be believed with natural and supernatural faith, since the account of each is parallel: but the truth of God revealing cannot be believed with natural faith: therefore neither can goodness be loved with natural love. — I deny the minor; for to the first revealing truth we can assent not only with supernatural assent, but also with natural; and heretics in fact thus assent to the mysteries of faith not controverted by them, which they believe; for they do not have the supernatural habit of faith, as we said in the treatise On Faith.

You will object. 4. If a natural love of God were possible, that love could be had without habitual justifying grace; since such grace is not the elicitive principle of natural love: but the consequent is false, because if there can be a natural love of benevolence of man toward God, then also a sinner remaining in sin could become the friend of God; but this is absurd; for God does not love sinners, but hates them. — I distinguish the minor: that man remaining in sin would be the friend of God in a certain respect, and imperfectly, insofar namely as God would love some natural good inasmuch as He is the author of nature, I concede: perfectly, and absolutely, so that God should will him His fruition and possession, I deny. ⟦Adde: num⟧ it be absurd for man to love God with a natural love, sufficient for a love of friendship with God, without man being loved back by God with the same love of friendship on account of the stain and foulness of sin; for not rarely among men it happens that he who gravely offends another loves the offended with a love of friendship, though the offended is unwilling to love him in return.

You will object 5. No love of friendship can exist between God and man, as Aristotle teaches 8 Ethics: but every love of benevolence is a love of friendship: therefore no love of benevolence can exist between God and men. — I answer first, by distinguishing the major: no love of friendship can exist between God and men if friendship be taken strictly, for mutual and manifest benevolence, and between equals, I concede: if it be taken in the broader signification for the love whereby one wishes well to another for his own sake, I deny. Indeed we can will to God all goods that are internal and natural to Him by complacency, and likewise desire for Him external goods, such as glory, praise, and worship. I answer secondly, that the minor can be denied: for although benevolence and friendship are sometimes used interchangeably for one and the same thing, still this distinction intervenes between them, that friendship includes a certain union of affection toward the beloved thing; whence the lover tends toward the beloved as toward something of himself and pertaining to himself, or as another self: hence that trite saying, A friend is another self; but benevolence says only a simple affection toward another, whereby we wish him some good: which certainly can happen even though between us and him there intervene no true love whereby we love him in himself; thus e.g., while we behold an actor better executing his part, we wish him a larger reward; although nevertheless we love him in himself with no true love; nay, we even hold the infamous man in contempt.

You will object 6. Nature inclines only toward the good suitable to itself, and proper to each thing, as Aristotle teaches in the place praised above: but the love we would have toward God would not be about our own proper good, but common: therefore that love is not natural to man. — I distinguish the major: nature inclines toward the good proper to each thing in this sense, that nothing be loved unless it be in some way conjoined to us and pertaining to us, I concede: as though it were particular to us and ought only to redound to our own use, I deny: for mothers pursue their sons with honest dilection even if they hope for or expect no utility from them.

You will object finally: If there could be a natural love of benevolence of man toward God, a sinner remaining in sin could be the friend of God: but the consequent is false: therefore also the antecedent. — I distinguish the major: he could be the friend of God in a certain respect, and imperfectly, inasmuch as God would love in him a certain natural good, I concede: the friend of God perfectly, and so that God wills him supernatural good, I deny: for no one has this perfect friendship of God except the just and holy.

Second Conclusion. — MAN CAN LOVE GOD ABOVE ALL THINGS BY NATURAL FORCES; NOT INDEED WITH EFFECTIVE AND EFFECTUOUS LOVE PERFECTLY AND ON EVERY OCCASION WHATEVER: BUT AFFECTIVELY, AND FOR SOME BRIEF INTERVAL OF TIME FREE FROM EVERY MOTION OF GRAVE PERTURBATIONS.

The first part is proved from the Doctor in 3. dist. 27. n. 13. First indeed, natural reason dictates that among lovable things there be one supremely lovable: and consequently lovable more than all others: but the same reason dictates that supremely lovable thing to be God: therefore the same reason dictates God to be loved above all things: but the will can naturally, and without any supernatural habit, love above all things that which by natural reason is proposed as supremely lovable: therefore the will can naturally love God above all things. The major of the argument stands: For since among lovable objects there is a certain order and degree of perfection, such that one be judged more perfectly lovable than another, lest there be a progress into infinity, some supremely lovable thing containing in itself all lovableness and perfection must be admitted. The minor also is evident; namely that that object which natural reason demonstrates to be supremely lovable is God: because otherwise it would follow that charity inclines toward supremely loving that which natural reason dictates is not to be supremely loved. But the subsumption is proved: if the will could not love whatever is proposed by the intellect as to be loved, in the manner wherein it is exhibited as to be loved, it would follow that it would not have liberty for forming that dilection, and consequently that it would not be evil if it naturally loved something else more than God: for sin would not be imputed to it for loving itself more than God, if it could not love God more than itself by the forces of nature.

It is proved secondly: If one could not love God above all things without an infused habit, it would follow that someone, where he experienced that he loved God more than other things, could detect that he had the habit of infused charity, and consequently that he was in the state of grace: but this openly militates against sacred Scripture, signifying in many places that no one knows whether he is worthy of himself; and therefore it is necessary that by natural dilection, and without any infused habit, the created will can love God above all things.

It is proved thirdly: Because according to the Philosopher 9 Ethics, chapter 9, the brave citizen ought to expose himself to death for the safety of the republic of which he is a member; and consequently ought to love the commonwealth more than himself; but right reason dictates no more that one ought to expose himself to death for the safety of the Republic, or that he ought to love it more than himself, than that he ought to expose himself to the peril of death for God, and love Him more than himself; therefore natural reason dictates God to be loved more than oneself. The sequence is evident: for neither will certain reason be able to dictate to the will that something be done which the will itself cannot do. The major also stands: for right reason persuades that a part ought to be exposed to peril for obtaining the safety of the whole, a member amputated for preserving the health of the other parts of the body: therefore it also stimulates the brave man that he steadfastly cast himself into death for preserving the republic, and safeguarding its peace and welfare.

It is proved fourthly: In two ways the help of grace can be feigned necessary for eliciting some act. First, as the physical principle of it; when the will does not have from itself intrinsically sufficient forces for such an act, but is disproportionate to it. Secondly, as the moral principle removing impediments: when indeed the will has sufficient natural forces from itself for that effect: yet as to the use, or exercise of the work, it cannot unfold them, as it were, because of impediments occurring, which, that they may be removed or overcome, it needs aid. But neither can here be said: partly because that act is in itself natural and does not exceed the internal faculty of free will; partly because in its use difficulties do not always occur which would require grace for overcoming them: as e.g., in the love of concupiscence, whereby God is loved as our good by the mode of simple complacency, or efficacious desire, or conditioned desire, without consideration of the difficulties that occur in the efficacious pursuit of that good; for this love has no difficulty requiring grace. And I say the same of the love of benevolence or friendship, whereby God is loved as good in Himself by reason of Himself, and also as supremely good, and excelling above all things: by complacencing ourselves in divine goods, and therefore willing His supreme excellence, and all goods internal and external expected confusedly, and abstracted from difficulties, and even somewhat willing to please Him in all things, with a certain weak and imperfect and tacitly limited will. With these inconveniences God can, as it were incidentally, be loved even somewhat above all things confusedly, without a naturally insuperable difficulty.

You will object 1. The will cannot efficaciously will by its natural forces that which it cannot perform by those same forces: but in effect the will cannot love God above all things, as author of nature, by proper forces in the state of fallen nature: therefore neither can it conceive by the forces of nature the purpose of loving God above all things. — I answer by denying the major: For as a certain king can efficaciously will, or have the efficacious purpose of gaining victory by himself, although he cannot truly obtain victory without the aid of his soldiers, or of some mightier Prince: so man can naturally will always to love God above all things according to affection, although he cannot in effect, without the grace of God, love God above all things, and prefer Him to all things on whatever occasions.

You will object 2. The most excellent act of human will cannot be done by its proper forces: but the dilection of God above all things is the most excellent act of the human will: therefore it cannot be done by its natural will. — I distinguish the minor: The dilection of God, as the author of grace and glory, is the most excellent act of the human will, I concede: as the author of nature, I deny: Or otherwise, it is the most excellent among natural acts, I concede: among all acts of the same will of whatever order they be, I deny.

You will insist: Most internal acts cannot be done without the dilection of God with grace: e.g., the act of a certain heroic fortitude, the love of enemies, etc.; therefore much less can the dilection of God be elicited without grace. — I distinguish the antecedent: Those acts cannot be done on account of the difficulties annexed to them, I concede: on account of the reason of the object, I deny: for the difficulties arising extrinsically removed, it is more natural, and accordingly easier, to love God than all other things; because the more a thing has of truth, if it pertain to us in any way, toward that the will tends with natural and greater impetus.

You will object 3. If one could love God by the forces of nature, then by the same virtue one could observe all His commandments: since observance of the commandments is an argument of dilection: but no one can observe all the divine precepts by the forces of nature: therefore neither thus to love God. — I distinguish the major: If he would love God above all things with love both affective and effective, constantly, perfectly, and on every occasion given, I concede: if only he loves God with affective love, and likewise effective love only imperfect, I deny: but God cannot be loved effectively, constantly, on whatever occasions, by the forces of nature, as the Second part of the Conclusion will prove: For that God be loved constantly and efficaciously, it is required that against every impediments and whatever difficulties that love be firmly held; so that the will be prepared absolutely and efficaciously, as far as lies in itself, to please God in all things, and avoid everything displeasing to Him: but such love cannot be had by the forces of nature: for as man in the state of corrupted nature has a moral impotence for long keeping the divine commandments, and temptations supernaturally to be avoided: so also for loving God efficaciously and constantly, and even with so perfect an affection that by the force of that affection he adheres to Him above all things; for so great perfection exceeds the fragility of corrupted nature and its propension toward sensible goods, from which it cannot recall its affection without the aid of grace. Therefore that effective love above all things must conquer all mortal sins, either in effect, if they occur while it is actual: or in affection, because it includes a purpose efficacious of itself for avoiding everything contrary to such love: but it is impossible for fallen man to conquer all sins, even those adverse to the natural law, without special assistance of grace: therefore it is also impossible that he have the dilection of God victorious over all such sins through that efficacious purpose of avoiding them.

Third Conclusion. — GOD CANNOT BE LOVED AS THE AUTHOR OF GRACE AND GLORY, WITH A PERFECT OR IMPERFECT BENEVOLENCE, WITHOUT A SPECIAL BENEFIT OF GRACE. This truth is evident sufficiently from what we have said,

And it is proved by all those texts of Scripture whereby the perfect love of God is reckoned a divine benefit. Thus Romans 5: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us. Ephesians 6: Peace to the Brethren, and charity with faith, from God the Father. 1 John 4: Charity is of God. Weighing which texts St. Augustine in the book On Grace, and Free Will, chapter 19, says: Great are these things, but they say all are from God, he says, the Father, and Lord Jesus Christ: Therefore these great goods are gifts of God.

It is proved likewise from the Councils, especially however the Milevitan decreeing Canon 1: When the Apostle says: Knowledge puffeth up, charity edifieth. it is most impious that we should believe that we have the grace of Christ unto that which puffeth us up, and not unto that which buildeth up, since each is a gift of God, both to know what we ought to do, and to love that we may do it. Similarly the Tridentine Council Session 6, Canon 3, thus decrees: if anyone shall say that without the preventing inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and His aid, man can believe, hope, love, or repent as he ought, so that the grace of justification be conferred upon him, let him be anathema.

Reason also lends support. For since the love of God, as the author of grace, has for formal object the supernatural order, it is necessary that the love itself be of the same order; for acts are specified by the formal objects toward which they tend. Furthermore, the aforesaid love is the effect of perfect piety, for God is worshipped chiefly by love, as St. Augustine teaches Epistle 29. Piety, he says, is the worship of God, which is exhibited chiefly by loving. But the act of piety cannot be perfectly done without grace: therefore etc. Finally, the love of God above all things as the author of grace is the ultimate disposition unto justification, as we shall prove within: but it is heretical to assert that man can by his own forces dispose himself proximately unto justification, as St. Augustine teaches in book 1 to Boniface, last chapter: therefore with equal reason it is heretical to say that God, the giver of grace, can be loved above all things by fallen man by the virtue of free will alone. Which truth certainly we shall explain more fully and confirm more efficaciously in the disputation concerning divine charity.