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

Having explained the necessity of grace for knowing the truth, doing good, and fleeing evil, its essence must now be investigated, its dignity uncovered, its causes laid open, and its various divisions and species declared; which we shall certainly accomplish, according to our measure, in the three following Articles: the first of which will treat of the essence of grace: the second, of its causes: the third, indeed, will reserve and expound its various and manifold species.

Here there will be no discussion of the essence of actual grace, because in the third Article, in explaining the various divisions of actual grace itself, we shall explain it: but the present dissertation deals only with habitual grace, which is the most noble species of grace. For it is, as St. Gregory says, the root of good works. Indeed, as St. Chrysostom says, it removes the rust of sins, restores to the soul its brightness and fire, makes it more beautiful than the rays of the sun, makes the deformed beautiful, and the infirm sound. For it is, as Augustine testifies, the beauty of the interior man, and the splendor of the human mind. Indeed, as Nazianzen says, it irradiates the soul and renders it like unto God. For, as St. Peter says, God has bestowed upon us the greatest and most precious promises, that through them we may be made partakers of the divine nature: and as Christ the Lord commended, we become perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect: and through it we obtain the power of becoming sons of God, says St. John; for, adds St. Paul, the Spirit himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are sons of God. It is that by which the other divine charisms shine forth in us, faith radiates, hope is strengthened, charity blazes, and the whole illustrious crown of virtues is crowned with the fruits of good works. It is finally that by which, with it leading and shining, we walk secure, with it protecting we conquer, with it preserving we are crowned. — Therefore, in order that we may apprehend the essence of this most excellent and truly divine gift, so far as is granted to humanity, three things must be determined in this Article: First, whether grace is an uncreated or created something, a habit permanently abiding, or an act lightly and quickly passing away. Second, whether it is the same as charity, or something formally or really distinct from it. Third, whether and how it can be increased and diminished, preserved and corrupted.

NOTE 1. In the resolution of the present Question there were three erroneous opinions: the first is attributed to the Master of the Sentences in book 1, distinction 17, throughout, but especially in the last chapter, where he seems to assert that charity (which below we shall prove to be really identical with sanctifying grace) is not a created habit, but the very person of the Holy Spirit communicated to us substantially, which without any medium of a created habit is the immediate principle of that love by which we love God and neighbor; and this on account of the excellence of charity, which is properly predicated of God, according to that text of 1 John 4: God is charity. For we do not read the same of the other virtues; indeed nowhere has Scripture said: God is faith, God is hope; wherefore although these virtues are habits implanted in us by God, distinct, and thus immediate principles of supernatural acts, nevertheless charity does not seem to be a distinct habit infused by God, but God Himself inhabiting the soul of the just, who through Himself immediately is the principle of the act of charity in us. The second error was that of Calvin in book 3 of the Institutes, chapter 11, where he denies all interior justice in man, and admits indeed that man may be called just, but only by the extrinsic imputation of the justice of Christ or of God. Which error he certainly supports from that saying of Paul, 2 Corinthians 5: Him who knew no sin, He made sin for us, that we might be made the justice of God in Him. You see, says Calvin, that our justice is not in us but in Christ, and belongs to us only by that right because we are partakers of Christ? Finally, the third erroneous opinion was that of Osiander in his Evangelical Harmony, where he asserts sanctifying grace to be rather a substance than a quality; because, he says, grace is nothing other than the justice and holiness of God Himself, constituting man just and holy; just as sunlight is nothing other than the presence of the Sun itself over the whole hemisphere. This threefold erroneous assertion we undertake to refute in the three following Conclusions.

NOTE 2. All Catholics agree that justified man possesses a twofold grace: one created, by which he is formally justified; another uncreated, by which he is efficiently made just; which truth St. Paul clearly expounded, Romans 5, saying: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us. For by these words he signifies that there is granted to the just not only charity, which is indeed created, but also the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the just as in a sanctuary: for although the three persons of the adorable Trinity at once illuminate and consecrate the just by their divine presence, according to that saying of Christ the Lord, John 14: If anyone love me, we will come to him, and will make our abode with him; nevertheless, by a special reason the Holy Spirit is called grace: > because, as our Alexian Doctor says, qu. 61, m. 2, art. 2, it is called grace inasmuch as it is called gift, and gift inasmuch as it is called love; for the Holy Spirit Himself, according to His proper property, is love, and as love proceeds from the Father and the Son: and therefore because He is a gift, therefore He is love, because nothing is a gift except by reason of love; for if something be given out of fear, it is not properly a gift, but rather redemption; likewise if it be given out of covetousness, it is not a gift but gain: but a gift properly is from love and liberality, and without coercion: so that in every gift love is first given; and thus the Holy Spirit is called grace because a gift, and a gift because love. < From which it is evident that the Holy Spirit in a peculiar manner inhabits and consecrates the soul of the just. But the difficulty is whether He accomplishes this by His divine presence immediately, or indeed through the mediation of some created gift.

NOTE 3. From the same Alexian Doctor, same book, art. 3, grace can be compared to the soul in two ways: namely, either to its first natural being, or to its second and supernatural being. Considered in the former way, grace is without doubt an accident, since it comes to the soul after its being is in every way perfect and complete. But the difficulty is whether, considered in relation to the soul as subsisting in the supernatural order, it can be called some substantial mode, or rather a pure accident. Which difficulty will be resolved in the following Conclusion.

First Conclusion. — HABITUAL GRACE IS NOT THAT UNCREATED THING, BUT CREATED.

This is common among Catholics; and it is Proved first from Sacred Scripture, namely from all those passages which signify that we are formally justified by a gift granted to us by God. Thus St. Paul, Romans 5: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us. These words St. Augustine weighs thus in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 32: > The charity of God is said to be poured forth in our hearts: not that by which He Himself loves us, but that by which He makes us His lovers: even as the justice of God, whereby by His gift we are made just. < To these accord those words of St. Peter, chapter 2 of his first Epistle: He has bestowed on us great and most precious promises, that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature. For by these the Prince of the Apostles declares that we put on the divine likeness, while through the greatest and most precious gifts of grace granted to us by God we become partakers of the divine nature; and thereupon he judges that we are justified by something distinct from God: for the gift is customarily distinguished from the giver; although we do not impugn that the divine Word, and the Holy Spirit, gave themselves, while the latter was given to us by the Father, and the former by the Father together with the Son. The same truth all the other sacred texts illustrate and confirm, by which below we shall urge that habitual graces perpetually remain in us.

The Doctor proves the Conclusion in book 1, distinction 17, question 8, with eight arguments, which I reduce all to three heads. The first argument is drawn from the justification of a sinner, who before penance is called unjust; but after penance is called just, from which the Doctor argues thus, n. 18: > Injustice, since it is formally a privation, cannot be taken away except by the opposite habit; because a privation is not removed except by the form, which the subject lacked through the privation: therefore he who was justified, being changed from unjust to just, necessarily had to receive a habit opposed to that privation signified by the name injustice. < Which argument indeed presses according to the ordinary law, for in virtue of extraordinary and absolute power injustice could be taken away by mere extrinsic condonation, and without any positive habit infused, as we shall teach below with the same Doctor. — It confirms n. 19.: > If there is nothing else in the soul after penance than before, it does not appear that man in any other manner is related to God as just, nor God to him, than when he was unjust, because no diversity seems to exist on the part of God if God changes nothing in him and produces nothing: but it is false that man as just is not otherwise related to God, nor God to him, than when he was a sinner; since God loves the just, and hates the sinner: therefore it is necessary that that diversity be sought from the side of sanctifying grace and charity produced in the justified man. <

It is proved secondly: God accepts the just man and ordains him to eternal life: but that acceptance is not a will to beatify him at that time; for if God had such a will, He would in fact raise the just man to eternal felicity: therefore that will is nothing other than a judgment, namely by which God judges the just man worthy of beatitude, of which he was unworthy while he was unjust; yet God cannot have such a will unless some change intervene, either on the part of God, or on the part of the sinner. Not indeed on the part of God, because His will is intrinsically immutable: therefore it is necessary that that change be sought from the side of the sinner, and consequently it behooves that justified man receive some form which he lacked while he was a sinner. — It confirms that argument: > because, it says, the divine volition, since it is entirely one act in itself, does not have the character of opposed acts, or of distinguished ones without any distinction of objects; for to will and not to will divinely do not occur except on account of the diversity of objects; otherwise contradictories would be true without any distinction causing that truth: therefore since God wills to ordain the just man to beatitude, to which He likewise does not ordain the sinner, it is necessary that this mutation of the divine volition presuppose some diversity in the object; otherwise God would be related in the same manner toward the sinner as toward the just. <

It is proved thirdly, from the nature of the meritorious act, for which inhering charity is necessarily required: because nothing acts formally by any action unless the principle of that action be formally in the agent: but the will acts by a meritorious act de condigno: therefore it has in itself the form whereby it is the principle of that action: yet that form is neither faith nor hope, because otherwise a sinner having faith and hope could merit de condigno, which is absurd; moreover no action is in the power of the agent unless the agent have the form according to which it can act: for if it acted through something merely extrinsically co-assisting to it, over which it had no power, such an action would not be within its power: but the meritorious act ought to be within the power of the one meriting, inasmuch as it must be voluntary: therefore it is necessary that the agent meritoriously have in itself the form and principle of the meritorious act, whereby it can freely exercise such an act; and consequently the principle of such a meritorious act cannot be the Holy Spirit Himself assisting and concurring particularly with the will in the meritorious act: since that divine Spirit would not be in the free disposition of the will. Finally, the Holy Spirit does not move the will specially to a meritorious act except by producing something in it: but what He would produce in it would be either that meritorious act itself, and thus the will would not concur in producing it, but only in receiving it passively; or something else distinct from the act, and accordingly it would be charity, or grace, for nothing else can be devised.

This truth likewise our Alexian Doctor proves by this argument: > sanctity and uncreated grace, which is God, makes us pleasing to God, either through itself, or through something distinct from itself. Not through itself, because it is in the sinner just as in the just, by essence, presence, and power: therefore it is necessary that it make the soul pleasing to God by a grace distinct from itself. Moreover, when we become pleasing to God, whereas on account of sin we were unpleasing, either we receive something new, or we do not. If not: then it is the same in us to be pleasing or unpleasing to God. If so: then in justification we must receive something created. <

Finally, God is related to the soul in justifying it, as the soul to the body in animating it; for God is the life of the soul, as the soul is the life of the body: but the soul does not vivify the body except by imparting life: for if the soul held life in itself in such wise that it did not infuse some disposition into the body, the body would never live: therefore, just as there is some disposition and principle of life in the living body, so likewise there must be some vital disposition implanted in the soul itself by God, in order that it may be said to live the spiritual life.

You will object 1. That text of 1 John, chapter 4: God is charity, and he who abides in charity abides in God, and God in him. Whence St. Augustine, On the Trinity, chapter 1, infers that he who loves his neighbor, it follows that he loves chiefly that very love itself, namely God, who is love and charity. — The Doctor answers n. 13.: that St. Augustine speaks of efficient, not formal, love, in such wise that God is indeed called love, insofar as He produces in us supernatural dilection and love: but not that He Himself is formally our love: and thus the argument of St. Augustine rightly runs, that he who loves his neighbor ought also to love God, who is the author of that love, because he who in due order loves the lesser gift ought more to love another greater good, especially when in the lesser there is no reason of lovableness except from the greater good.

You will object 2. No good (according to St. Augustine, lib. 15. De Trinitate, chapter 18) is more excellent than the gift of God (namely charity): but no gift of God is more excellent than the Holy Spirit: therefore the Holy Spirit is charity; and consequently the grace whereby we are sanctified. — The Doctor answers by denying the ultimate consequence: for the Holy Spirit can indeed be called charity, not only effectively, as God is called my hope, or my patience, because He effects patience and hope in me, which He has not formally in Himself; but He is also called charity formally; because since charity is a perfection simply simple, it belongs to Him formally. Yet it does not follow from this that He is formally the charity and grace whereby we are justified; just as He is not formally the life whereby we live, although from elsewhere He has life formally in Himself, and produces it in us.

You will object 3. Every creature can be understood not to be good: but charity cannot be understood not to be good: therefore it is not something created. — The Doctor denies the minor; for in the sense in which any creature whatsoever can be understood not to be good, namely insofar as it is defectible and corruptible, charity also can be said not to be good, seeing that it can be diminished, and by mortal sin extinguished altogether.

You will object 4. It belongs to a more perfect virtue to produce an effect without a medium than with a medium: but the divine sanctifying virtue is most perfect: therefore it effects sanctification without any medium. — I distinguish the major: that it belongs to a more perfect virtue on the part of the agent, I concede: on the part of the recipient, I deny. An agent is indeed considered nobler while it produces its effect by its own proper and sole virtue; but otherwise is it with a cooperator and one receiving the act, since it is nobler to cooperate in the production of an act than merely to receive it passively as produced by another.

Finally you will object: Everything that acts upon another is nobler than that upon which it acts; for the agent has a certain dominion over the patient, and subjects it to its own virtue and activity: therefore since grace acts upon the created spirit, it ought to be nobler than the created spirit: but nothing is nobler than the created spirit except the uncreated Spirit: therefore sanctifying grace is something uncreated. — Our Alexander of Hales answers, in the place praised above, that grace is nobler than the created spirit, not indeed simply, but in a certain respect: > For, he says, inasmuch as grace is compared to the soul as an agent acting upon it, it is nobler; but insofar as it is compared to the soul as a disposition of the soul itself, thus it is ignobler; and it has the character of the ignobler, because a disposition is not nobler than the substance which it disposes, since it redounds into that substance; but insofar as it is moving, it is nobler. An example appears clearly in light; insofar as that light is in the air from the Sun itself, that light is a disposition of the air: but ex hypothesi, if the air were to see the Sun, then that light would be compared to the air under the character of a mover, or of one altering, because light alters the sight: but that character of altering would not hold from the side of the air in which it would be, but from the side of the Sun from which it would come. <

You ask. Did the Master of the Sentences really teach that sanctifying grace is not something created? — The Doctor answers, n. 30.: that this was not his opinion, since in dist. 37. he plainly teaches charity to be something created, inasmuch as it is in a child, whom God inhabits, and who yet can have no elicited act concerning God. Likewise in Book 2, dist. 26. he admits grace created in the soul. Hence he seems to want nothing else in the place praised above than that charity is attributed to the Holy Spirit by a special reason; to whom the other infused habits are not attributed, because through the habit of charity the Holy Spirit inhabits the soul of the just man, and at the same time through it flows into the act of love; which indeed he does not perform through the other habits of faith and hope; since through that habit whereby he inhabits the soul of the just man he does not flow into the acts of faith and hope and of the remaining virtues, but through distinct habits mediating.

Conclusion second. — HABITUAL GRACE IS A SUPERNATURAL GIFT CONTINUALLY AND PERMANENTLY PERSEVERING IN MAN.

It is proved: first indeed from the Council of Vienne, the Clementine De summo Trinitate et fide Catholica, in these words: > Attentive to the universal efficacy of the death of Christ, which is applied equally through baptism to all the baptized, we have deemed, with the approval of the sacred Council, that the second opinion should be chosen as more probable, which says that in baptism informing grace and virtues are conferred upon little ones as well as adults, as more consonant and harmonious with the sayings of the Saints and of the modern Doctors of Theology. < Item from the Council of Trent, Session 6. chapter 7.: > Receiving true and Christian justice, they are bidden, immediately reborn, to preserve it, the first stole granted them through Christ Jesus in place of that which Adam lost by his disobedience for himself and for us, white and immaculate, that they may bear it before the tribunal of Jesus Christ our Lord, and have life eternal. < Whence I dispute thus: the grace which infants receive in baptism, and which they ought to preserve and bear before the tribunal of Christ that they may have life eternal, is intrinsic and permanent: therefore, etc.

It is proved secondly by the authority of the holy Fathers. First indeed of St. Dionysius, book De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia chapter 2., where he says that by divine generation a divine state is wrought in us: but a state is something persevering and subsistent. Of St. Irenaeus, book 5. Adversus haereses, chapter 6., where he says that those are perfect who have the persevering Spirit of God. Of St. Cyprian, Epistle 2. ad Donatum, where he calls the grace conferred in baptism a second soul infused into us from heaven. — To these concurs St. Basil, book De Spiritu Sancto, chapter 26., where he compares sanctifying grace to the power of seeing existing in the eye, and to the habitual art existing in the craftsman: > Just as, he says, the power of discerning is in a sound eye, in a purged soul, etc. and just as art is in him who has acquired it: so the grace of the Holy Spirit is in him who has received it: always indeed present, though not perpetually operating. < — To these subscribe all those holy Fathers who teach that by sanctifying grace the divine image and beauty is sketched and delineated in us. Thus St. Ambrose, book 6. Hexaemeron, c. 8., after having said that justification takes place not in the body, but in the soul, which bears the image of the sanctity of God, says: > You are painted, then, O man, and painted by the Lord your God: you have a good craftsman and painter; do not erase the good picture, for it is fair, shining with truth; expressed not in wax, but in grace. < To him agrees St. Augustine in many places, especially Epist. 105. ad Consentium, not far from the end, saying: > What else is justice when it is in us, or any virtue whatever by which one lives rightly and wisely, than the beauty of the interior man? But beauty is something permanent, and likewise grace. < — That same heavenly image and divine beauty marvellously delineated in us through sanctifying grace St. Chrysostom thus elegantly commends, Homil. 1. on the Epistle to the Ephesians, where expounding those words: He has graced us in his beloved Son, he says: > He has made us gracious, that is, he has not only freed us from sins, but makes us beloved and friends: for just as if someone were to light upon one scabrous with pestilence, disease, old age, childhood alike and famine, and restore him a youth exceedingly beautiful, surpassing in every youthful vigour, emitting vehement splendour from his cheeks, and dimming with his reflections even the flashings of his eyes; whom then he establishes in the very flower of age, and besides clothes and adorns with purple and every kind of ornament: not otherwise did God make our soul beautiful, and wrought, desirable, and delightful: the Angels desire to behold it, and God himself, according to that saying: The King hath desired thy beauty. < In which words he manifestly signifies that man is established just through intrinsic and permanent forms, by which he is renewed and adorned, and his soul is marvellously illumined, and made pleasing and lovable alike to God and to the Angels.

The Thomists are wont to prove this Conclusion with the Angelic Doctor by this twofold argument. First: it is not fitting that God provide less for those whom he ordains and directs to possess supernatural good, than for creatures which he loves and ordains to natural good: but for natural creatures he so provides that he not only moves them to natural acts, but even bestows upon them certain forms and virtues which are principles of acts, that through those forms they may be inclined to the production of such acts: therefore much more does he infuse into those whom he moves and ordains to attain eternal supernatural good certain supernatural forms or qualities, through which they may be moved by him sweetly and promptly to the attainment of eternal good. — Secondly: for man to be in the grace of God is for him to be loved by God, as even the heretics confess: but for man to be loved by God imports something intrinsic to him and permanent in him, by reason of which he becomes grateful and acceptable to God: therefore truly there must be admitted some gift permanently persevering in the just man, so long as he is just, through which he becomes grateful to God. The minor is proved; for since love is an affection by which one tends toward some object on account of its goodness, in this divine and human love agree, that each regards the goodness of the object; but they differ in this, that human love, since it is sterile and lowest, nor is effective but only affective, supposes in the object a goodness by which it is attracted and drawn; but the love of God, since it is most fruitful and most powerful, nor only affective but also effective, causes goodness in the object which it loves: therefore as God by loving creatures in the natural order bestows upon them natural perfections, whereby they are a congruous object of such love, so by loving an intellectual creature in order to the supernatural end, he confers upon it supernatural goodness and perfection, by reason of which he loves it: but that special goodness can emanate from nowhere else than from sanctifying grace: therefore since the just are loved by God with special love, there must necessarily be admitted in them some intrinsic gift, which may be the reason of that love.

Truly both these arguments seem weak: The first indeed, because God would sufficiently provide for just men in order to elicit supernatural acts by the actual help alone, which he would afford them on certain occasions. The second likewise fails: both because, as we shall say below, God can forgive sin, and constitute man friend out of enemy, without any conferring of an intrinsic gift; and hence to reconcile divine love to him it is not necessary that God confer anything intrinsic upon the creature itself: and because the hatred of God posits nothing in the man whom he hates, but suffices only unto this, that man have sin and live wickedly; and that God be so affected toward him as to will to punish him with eternal pain, nor is any intrinsic form required: therefore in order that God specially love the just man, nothing further is required than that man live well, and that God will to confer eternal life upon him: hence from the fact that God pursues the just man with special love it is not absolutely necessary that he confer upon him some intrinsic form and goodness.

Therefore it must be concluded with the Subtle Doctor in 1. dist. 17. question 3. number 21.: that by no argument can it be efficaciously proved that there is given in us a supernatural habit continually persevering: > For that, he says, cannot be gathered from the act which we experience, nor from the substance of the act, nor from the intensio ne of the act, nor from the delectation or facility in operating, nor from the moral goodness or rectitude of the act, can we conclude that such a supernatural habit inheres, because with any one of these given, someone possessing charity could know certitudinally that he is in charity: namely from this, that he would experience that act to inhere in himself, or that an act so intense inhered in him, or inhered so delectably or easily, or was consonant with right reason. — But the reason why such a habit cannot be concluded from the act, or from some condition of the act itself: is because either the act can have all the things premised from the sole potency, right reason concurring: or if some habit concurred on account of some condition of the premises, this could be some acquired habit; for acquired friendship could give such intension to the act, as a second cause together with the potency; it could also grant such facility and delectation; the habit could also be so consonant with right reason that the elicited act would have no evidently apparent condition, from which it would necessarily be concluded that it is elicited according to a supernatural habit. — But if you say: the will suddenly changes, so that it operates intensely and easily and delectably, and in this manner consonant with supernatural reason, that is, to the dictate of faith: and it cannot so suddenly acquire the habit of ordered friendship consonant with faith: therefore it has some non-acquired habit whereby it is inclined to act suddenly. I answer: The will can move quite suddenly as regards natural acts, which are wholly subject to its power, because as Augustine says, 1. Retractationum, cap. 22., Nothing is so in the power of the will as the will itself: therefore from such suddenness the opposite cannot be conceded. <

Thence the Doctor infers, that if some argument prove desired in us some supernatural habit whereby we are formally made just, it must be sought chiefly from this, that God accept some acts unto glory as merits condign of a reward: > For in this manner, he says, we believe our nature beatifiable to be habitually accepted as just, that is, when it is not actually operating: because the divine will ordains it to eternal life, as worthy of so great a good > according to the disposition which it has habitually in itself, on account of this

habitual acceptance of the beatifiable nature, even when it does not operate; and on account of the actual acceptance of the act elicited from such a nature, there must be posited one supernatural habit, whereby the possessor is formally accepted by God, and whereby the act elicited by him is accepted as meritorious. »

But if you ask: how does that habit dignify the nature, and likewise the acts elicited through the mediation of that act? — The Doctor answers n. 23. that it dignifies the nature, inasmuch as it is a certain perfect form rendering it pleasing to God.

« For the reason, he says, of accepting the nature seems to be like a certain comeliness of the nature pleasing to the divine will, so that whether that habit be active or not active, from this alone that it is such a form decorating and adorning the soul, it can be a reason of accepting the nature; but for the acceptance of acts more is required, than that the agent have this spiritual comeliness; otherwise one having such a habit could not have any indifferent act, nor sin venially, because neither of these removes the comeliness of the operator; and thus either would be accepted, if the act were accepted from the sole comeliness of the operator. Therefore it is necessary to say that this habit, besides being a spiritual comeliness, is also inclining to determinate acts, that is, it concurs in a special manner effectively, namely by eliciting those very acts physically together with the potency, and morally instilling into them its comeliness. »

Thus the Doctor; and since these things contain an excellent doctrine, and are in themselves clear, therefore it was permitted to transcribe them more fully.

You will say. 1.: Man can be justified without habitual grace, doubtless through actual supernatural love of God: therefore habitual grace is not required. —

I distinguish the consequent: that habitual grace is not required simply, and absolutely, for justification, I concede: in a certain respect, and unto a better state, I deny. For although someone can be justified by actual grace alone, nevertheless to actual grace there is added justifying habitual grace, not from absolute necessity, but for the greater adornment of the soul, and that he may exercise all works of justice more connaturally.

You ask. Whether it is of faith that that grace whereby we are justified is something habitual and permanent?

I answer, that although it would be most rash to deny that the grace whereby adults are justified is habitual and permanent; nevertheless it does not seem plainly to be of faith as determined by the Church; which indeed I demonstrate thus: if the definition of this truth had been made as of faith, it would be gathered, chiefly either from Innocent III., chapter Maiores De Baptismo; or from Clement V. in the Council of Vienne in the place cited above; or from the Council of Trent in the words also praised above: but from neither chapter can it be gathered. — Not indeed from Innocent III., for he says that question to be controverted among Theologians, for his are these words:

But that which the objectors adduce, that faith, or charity, or other virtues are not infused into little ones, as not consenting, is not granted absolutely by most, since on account of this a question is disputed among Doctors of Theology, some asserting that through the virtue of Baptism guilt indeed is remitted to little ones, but grace not conferred; some saying that sin is forgiven and virtues infused, they having > having them as regards habit, not as regards use, until they attain adult age.

From which words it is evident that the question proceeds only concerning children, but not concerning all men simply. Which is also evident from the very reason touched there: for some judged that habits are not infused into children in Baptism because they saw them wholly unfit for acts of virtue; which, besides others who have held this opinion, the Angelic Doctor notes, Book 3, question 69. article 6., which passage is cited in the margin of the chapter cited above, Maiores. But who does not see that this reason has no place in adults, since they are able to exercise acts of virtue? — Nor yet from Clement V., because there he only says that the opinion of those who say that in Baptism informing grace is conferred upon little ones as well as adults should be chosen as more probable as consonant with the sayings of the Saints and modern Doctors of Theology, but does not decide absolutely as of faith. Nor from the Council of Trent, because it indeed defines that charity is poured forth in the hearts of those who are justified and inheres in them: but whether it inheres after the manner of an act, or after the manner of a habit or permanent quality, it does not define.

You will say. 1: The Roman Catechism published at the command of St. Pius V., conformably to the doctrine of the Council of Trent, p. 2. c. 2. De Baptismo, n. 50., where the second effect of Baptism is treated, says thus: But grace, as the Tridentine Synodus ⟦taught?, laying down? that all must believe?, decrees? under pain of anathema?⟧, is not only that whereby remission of sins takes place, but a diverse quality inhering in the soul, like a certain splendour and light, which blots out all the stains of our souls, and renders those souls more beautiful and more splendid. And the Fathers of the Council conclude this plainly from the sacred Scriptures, when they say grace is poured forth, and are wont to call it that of the Holy Spirit: therefore it is of faith that sanctifying grace is a certain quality. —

I answer first, that the Council of Trent did not use the name of quality, although it expressed the thing somewhat. I answer secondly, even if the Council had used the name of quality, still some doubt ⟦would arise?⟧, whether quality ought to be taken strictly for a distinct predicament apart from the rest, or broadly for every accident which is predicated in the accidental category of quality.

You will say. 2: The Council of Trent distinguishes the grace of justification from the acts by which man is disposed to justification: for in Session 6. cap. 10. it says thus: This disposition justification itself follows: therefore sanctifying grace is something besides the acts, and on that account permanent. —

I deny the consequence; because those acts by which we are disposed to justification can be followed by another act more perfect whereby we are justified.

NOTES. 1. That it is beyond controversy that habitual grace is really distinguished from faith and hope, since they can exist separately; for those two virtues subsist in man stained by mortal sin, in such wise that that sin does not fall directly upon them through infidelity or despair and presumption: but habitual grace so abhors the fellowship of any mortal sin that it can nowise subsist with it, unless perhaps through an extraordinary power of God. Whence the difficulty is raised only concerning the distinction or identity of the same habitual grace with charity. Concerning whose resolution the opinion of Authors is manifold: for some with the Angelic Doctor, 2. q. 110. art. 3., and the Seraphic Doctor in 2. dist. 27. art. 1. qu. 2. will that grace and charity are habits really distinct: but very many with the Subtili Doctore in 2. dist. 20. num. 3. affirm both to be really undistinct. The rest however judge both opinions to be probable, since they seem to have no stable foundation in the sacred Scriptures, Councils, and Fathers, which however will be shown to be false below.

NOTES. 2. That all Catholic Doctors alike agree that sanctifying grace and charity are certain illustrious participations of the Divinity, by whose virtue we rise and are lifted up into the fellowship of God, according to that saying of St. Peter, 2. 1.: He hath given us most great and most precious promises, that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature. But they differ in this, that some contend that habitual grace is indeed a participation of the Deity, but according to the reason of nature, and insofar as the divine nature and essence is the fount and origin of all the perfections of God: but that charity is a participation of the same Deity, not insofar as it is nature, but insofar as it is operating through will and love: so that the former refers and expresses the Deity subsisting, but the latter the Deity operating. But others contend that charity, and habitual grace considered according to entity and formal reason, are participations of the divine nature: but are said to participate the divine virtue and operation, insofar as they are operative and effective.

NOTES. 3. Finally, the Doctors also agree among themselves that habitual grace and charity are the most excellent gifts of God which he is wont to grant to creatures: so that they far excel and surpass first the substance of the intellectual and spiritual creature, as well human as Angelic, since they assimilate us to God in a more excellent manner than the other perfections of the natural order; whence deservedly August., book 2. ad Bonifacium, cap. 6., grace surpasses not only all the stars, and all the heavens, ⟦but?⟧ also all the Angels; and likewise far excel the other corporeal creatures however excellent; for, says the Wise Man, The possession thereof is better than gold, and chosen silver. Hence in the same place the Wise Man says: I have preferred her before kingdoms and thrones, and I esteemed riches nothing in comparison with her. Nay rather even both these most excellent gifts of God exceed the dignity of the maternity of God: for it is nobler to conceive God in mind than in womb: but through sanctifying grace and charity we conceive God in mind, nay rather the whole Trinity inhabits us, according to that saying of John 14.: We will come to him, and make our abode with him: hence sanctifying grace and charity appear more excellent than the very maternity of the Virgin Mother of God, if this be considered apart from those gifts of God: for, as Augustine says, l. 1. De Virginitate: Mary was more blessed in receiving the faith of Christ, than in conceiving the flesh of Christ: maternal kinship would have profited Mary nothing, unless she had more happily carried Christ in heart than in flesh.

These things thus premised, two things must here be especially established: First, that sanctifying grace and charity are not really distinguished from each other: Secondly, that neither are they formally distinguished, inasmuch as formal distinction imports diverse formalities and objective concepts, separately and adequately conceivable from each other.

First Conclusion. — CHARITY AND HABITUAL GRACE ARE ONE AND THE SAME REALLY HABIT. Thus the Doctor in the place cited.

Proof 1. Habits are not to be really distinguished whose effects are entirely the same: but the effects of grace and charity are utterly the same from sacred Scripture: therefore, etc. The major appears; for the diversity of habits is gathered only from the diversity of acts, unto which they are designated and ordered. The minor is proved: six effects especially are attributed in divine Scripture to sanctifying grace, which there agree to charity: For first there is attributed to sanctifying grace the adoptive virtue of divine generation, whereby we are signed as adopted sons of God: but this same virtue is attributed to charity, 1. Joan. 3.: Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God. There the particle ut, importing a certain emphasis, denotes a certain causality of charity toward conferring upon us something spiritual and divine; hence chapter 4. of John: Every one that loveth is born of God. Whence St. Dionysius, book De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, cap. 1., says charity is that whereby we are regenerated and constituted in divine being. — Secondly there is attributed to sanctifying grace, that it makes man grateful and beloved to God: but this also befits charity: for John 15. Christ the Lord says: If anyone love me, he shall be loved by my Father. And chapter 14.: You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you. — A third effect of sanctifying grace is, that it confers spiritual life: but this also belongs to charity, for 1. John 3.: He that loveth not remaineth in death. And further: We know, that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. Whence St. Prosper, lib. 3. De vita contemplativa, c. 18., calls charity the death of crimes, the life of virtues, the soul of holy minds. — A fourth effect of sanctifying grace is, that it be the fount and origin of all virtues, and likewise the root of all good works: but this also belongs to charity, as the Apostle plainly teaches, 1. ad Cor. c. 13., where he attributes all the offices of the other virtues to charity, saying: Charity is patient, is kind, etc. Hence too he names charity the fulness of the law. Whence St. Gregory, Homil. 27.: A branch of good work has no greenness, if it does not abide in the root of charity.

A fifth effect of sanctifying grace is, that it join us intimately to God: but the same belongs to charity; for 1. John 1.: He that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him: whence St. Bernard, Sermon 83. on the Canticles, says that by charity our soul is made one with God. — Lastly a sixth effect is, that sanctifying grace be the seed of eternal life: but the same is the prerogative of charity: since James 1.: God hath promised the crown of life to them that love him. Therefore all the effects which are attributed to sanctifying grace in sacred Scripture agree also to charity.

Proof 2. And at the same time this induction is confirmed from the Council of Trent, Session 6. cap. ⟦7?⟧ where it uses charity indiscriminately for sanctifying grace, and attributes even the force of sanctifying to charity itself: for assigning one sole formal cause of justification, it says it to be charity, in these words: For although no one can be just, unless the merits of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ be communicated to him, yet in this justification of the sinner it takes place, while by the merit of the same most holy Passion the charity of God is poured forth by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who are justified, and inheres in them. In which words no one will doubt that sanctifying grace is understood by the name of charity; both because all Catholic Doctors gather from the words inheres, and is poured forth here placed, that sanctifying grace is an intrinsic form, and permanent: and because there the Council treats of the formal cause of justification, which is sanctifying grace itself. — Moreover, this very thing the Council confirms with the following words, for it adds: Thence in justification itself, together with remission of sins, man receives through Jesus Christ all these things infused at once, into whom he is ingrafted through faith, hope, and charity: for if some other form besides charity, faith, and hope ⟦were designated?⟧ for justification, doubtless the Council would not have been silent about it, especially since the purpose of that chapter was not to make mention of those three virtues, except insofar as either all three, or some one of them was the form justifying. Which chapter 10. opens more clearly, saying: Of this increase of justice the holy Church begs when she prays: Give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity. Where doubtless it speaks of the increase of the formal cause of justification; hence it uses faith, hope, and charity for sanctifying grace, inasmuch namely by faith, and hope we are vivified through charity. — Finally, the mind of the Council is plainly gathered from the eleventh Canon of the same Session, where, condemning him who says that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of grace, and charity, lest it might seem to distinguish grace from charity, it adds in the singular number: Which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, and inheres in them: by which words it signifies that it speaks of one and the same habit; for no Grammarian would say, Peter and John walks, but walk, because they are two really distinct persons: therefore since the Council speaks of grace and charity in the singular, it is a sign that it intends them not to be really distinct.

The Thomists answer, that all things proper to grace are indeed attributed to charity, but in a different manner; to grace indeed as to the formal cause, and root: but to charity as to the fruit of grace itself, and operative principle: and that this mutual attribution of properties takes place on account of the intimate and inseparable connexion which those two habits preserve between themselves. —

True, but against this: in the opinion of the Adversaries, grace is in the same way the root of the other supernatural virtues that are not theological, as it is the root of charity itself; and these virtues have an intimate connection with sanctifying grace according to the ordinary law of God; yet on account of that connection not all those effects which in Sacred Scripture are attributed to sanctifying grace are likewise said to belong to those virtues, just as they do not to hope and faith; therefore it is a sign that those effects are not attributed to charity on account of its mere connection with sanctifying grace. Add that even if at times the effect of one cause were attributed to another inseparably conjoined with it, speaking properly and by a certain metonymy, still this must never be thought to be done when the doctrine of things to be believed is being handed down: for the Church would commit no less a fault than the Philosophers if, while opening up the causes and properties of things, she were to assign others which belong to things most intimately conjoined with them. But the Council of Trent, in the passages cited above, gathering from Sacred Scripture the doctrine concerning the dispositions, causes, and effects of justification, explains that this is charity, and speaks of it, taken together with sanctifying grace, in the singular as of one habit; therefore the Council judges that charity and sanctifying grace truly have the same effects, not on account of their connection and inseparability, but on account of identity.

They answer 2, that the effects of grace are attributed to charity because charity is a partial form of justification; for they hold that the form of justification is not one simple quality. —

Against this, this proposition directly militates against the Council of Trent, session 7, praised above, where it says that there is one formal cause of our justification: One, it says, is the formal cause of the justification of man, the justice of God, not by which He Himself is just, but by which He makes us just; therefore the Council does not judge that there is a twofold distinct formal cause of justification; otherwise it would have assigned this twofold formal cause there, just as it assigns various final causes of the same justification there, namely the glory of God and of Christ, and eternal life. Add that also among partial formal causes of one effect, nothing is attributed to one distinct from the other, in the way the effects of sanctifying grace are assigned to charity; therefore, etc.

All these points are confirmed by the authority of St. Augustine, book De Natura et Gratia, chapter 62, where he not obscurely indicates that charity is the formal reason of justification, in these words: For charity itself is the truest, fullest, and most perfect justice. And Letter 113: Unto having a good will, wherein is this very thing, that we live justly, and charity itself, whereby it so excels in all the gifts of God that even God is said to be loved, whereby alone is fulfilled in us whatever we fulfill of the divine law and admonition, etc. By which words he designates charity as that whereby we live justly, and forthwith whereby we are just.

Finally our assertion is proved by reason: first indeed because, as the Subtle Doctor says, beings are not to be multiplied without urgent necessity; but no necessity appears for multiplying and distinguishing the habits of charity and sanctifying grace, seeing that all the effects attributed to the latter are also customarily attributed to the former, as we said in the first proof of the Conclusion; therefore, etc. — Then, if grace and charity were really distinguished, they could be separated from each other, at least by the extraordinary and absolute power of God; but this cannot be said; therefore neither can that. The major is evident from what the Philosophers commonly hand down about the sign of real distinction; for absolute beings, one of which is prior to the other and independent of it, such as sanctifying grace and charity would be if they were truly really distinguished, can exist and be preserved separately. The minor, however, is proved: if any man could have grace without charity, he would be grateful and acceptable to God, indeed His adopted son, and yet would not be His friend, which is absurd. — Moreover, if charity were infused into anyone without sanctifying grace, and he died in that state, he would not be damned, since he would have no sin, because every sin is impossible together with charity; nor would he be saved, because being without sanctifying grace he would not be the adopted Son of God, and consequently would be incapable of the inheritance promised solely to the sons of God; but both consequents are utterly unfitting; therefore also that from which they follow. Finally no sufficient reason at all appears for a real distinction between grace and charity, as will be evident from the solution of the objections.

You will object. 1. The principle of being is really distinguished from the principle of operating; but sanctifying grace is the principle of being supernaturally, while charity is the principle of operating; therefore they are really distinguished. It is confirmed: God no less looks to the full and perfect fulfillment of nature, and to its perfection in the supernatural order, than in the natural order; but in the natural order He so perfects nature that He first gives it the substantial form, and then the powers and accidental forms, which are instruments of acting; therefore in the supernatural order He ought first to confer upon the soul the form by which it is constituted in supernatural being, before the active forms; but sanctifying grace is the form conferring supernatural being, while charity is the form conferring the mode of acting supernaturally; therefore the former is prior, the latter posterior. —

I answer first, that the major can be denied; since substantial forms are also active, as we taught in the Physics, indeed even accidental forms are; for heat produces heat; nor is it necessary that some prior form always be conferred which gives being before another is bestowed which gives the power of acting; for heat, itself demanding it, is produced by fire in water without any prior form, and thus produced it produces another heat in the hand touching the water; similarly whiteness is conferred on a subject and has the power of drawing away the sight without any prior form; therefore when a principle of acting supernaturally is conferred on something, there is no need that some prior form be conferred upon it which demands such a principle. Add that even if the form which is the principle of operating required another by which nature would be constituted first in the order of the absolute before being in the order of an active principle, it would not follow from this that both forms ought to be really distinguished; for in the more probable opinion intellect and will are not really distinguished from the soul, which is their principle and root as faculties; consequently although charity presupposed sanctifying grace, as its root and fountain from which it emanates, it would not follow that it is really distinguished from it, just as the properties flowing from the essence and presupposing it are not really distinguished from it.

You will object. 2. Charity supposes habitual grace in the soul; therefore it is really distinguished from it. The antecedent is proved: it belongs to the notion of virtue in common to dispose the subject to act fittingly in accordance with a preexisting nature; for virtue gives the power of acting well, that is, of exercising an operation fitting and proportionate to nature; hence Aristotle, Physics 7, chapter 3: Virtue is the disposition of the perfect toward the best. And he adds: But I call perfect that which is disposed according to its nature; but charity is a supernatural virtue; consequently it supposes nature in perfect supernatural being through some other form distinct from it; but that form is none other than sanctifying grace; therefore this is presupposed to charity. —

I deny the antecedent, and to its proof I say that it is universally false, especially in the present difficulty; for if every virtue had to presuppose a nature proportionate to itself, it would follow that neither faith nor hope are true virtues in the faithful sinner, since in him they suppose no sanctifying grace, by which he would be constituted in supernatural being and state.

You will object. 3. Sacred Scripture and the Councils, which speak of grace and charity as of two distinct things; therefore they are truly distinct. The antecedent is proved from that passage to the Romans 5: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us; where by the Holy Spirit sanctifying grace is understood, as St. Augustine explains, book De gratia Christi, chapter 20, through grace, he says, by which we are justified, the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts; consequently sanctifying grace is something other than charity. Similarly 1 Timothy 1: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ superabounded with faith and love; and 2 Corinthians 13: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and the communication of the Holy Spirit be with you all. In which words the Apostle distinguishes grace from charity, since he commemorates both, which he would by no means do if he judged them to be one and the same real habit. Similarly the Council of Vienne speaks of charity and sanctifying grace as of distinct things. For the Clementines, De summa Trinitate, says that grace and the virtues are poured forth in Baptism, where it understands by the virtues the three Theological ones, namely faith, hope, and charity. Trent concurs with it, Session 6, chapter 10, when it says that sanctification is the justification and renovation of the interior man through the voluntary reception of grace and gifts. And Canon 11 expresses charity and grace separately, by which it plainly denotes them to be distinct; otherwise it would commit an inept tautology, taking many names to signify the same thing, when one alone would suffice. —

I deny the consequence, and to the first text of Scripture I say that the Spirit by whom the Apostle says charity is poured forth is the very person of the Holy Spirit, to whom the pouring forth of charity is specially attributed, because it is the chief effect of divine love toward men, and it is said to be given through charity because the divine Trinity dwells specially in the soul ablaze with charity, according to that oracle of Christ the Lord: If any one love me, we will come to him, etc. Nor does it matter that St. Augustine understands by the Spirit sanctifying grace. For besides that the other Fathers signify that by this name spirit there the person of the Holy Spirit is designated, it does not follow from there that they hold charity to be distinguished from sanctifying grace, since they teach, in the passages praised by us above, that charity is the formal cause of our justification; but perhaps he wished to indicate that one and the same quality is at once grace, insofar as it raises us to the supernatural state, and charity poured forth in our hearts, insofar as it orders and incites us actually to love God and neighbor. Add other contexts of the same Apostle; I say the Apostle by the name of love or charity either understands uncreated charity, whereby namely God the Father so loved us as to give His only-begotten Son, or actual love, or the act of love, whereby we in fact love God, which truly is not the same real thing as sanctifying grace, but an act distinct from it as from its principle. As for the Council of Vienne, I say it indeed speaks jointly of grace and the virtues being poured forth in Baptism, but does not say that charity is distinct from grace; hence by the name of virtues there it understands only the other virtues infused per se, such as faith and hope, which are not identified with sanctifying grace. In the same way the texts of the Council of Trent must be explained; for it does not express the names of grace and charity in order to designate them as mutually distinct — for that appears false from the proof of the Conclusion — but only in order to signify that what we call grace and charity is truly the cause of justification.

Second Conclusion. — SANCTIFYING GRACE IS NOT EVEN FORMALLY DISTINGUISHED FROM CHARITY, THAT IS, BY THAT DISTINCTION WHICH INTERVENES BETWEEN DIVERS FORMALITIES SEPARATELY CONCEIVABLE; BUT THEY SEEM TO BE DISTINGUISHED ONLY IN RESPECT OF DIVERS OFFICES.

This seems to be the genuine opinion of the Subtle Doctor in book two, distinction 26, number 3, where he proves that opinion which says: That grace formally is that virtue which is charity, and whatever excellences are attributed to grace are attributed to charity, and conversely; for each formally equally divides between the children of the kingdom and of perdition. And the Conclusion can be persuaded by the reason of the same Doctor; for just as entities are not to be multiplied without urgent necessity, so neither are formalities to be distinguished; but no necessity appears for distinguishing sanctifying grace and charity as divers formalities, seeing that, as we said, the effects attributed to one are also attributed to the other, and consequently they do not seem to be distinct formalities.

You will say: Charity is a simply simple perfection, for which reason it belongs to God: for God is charity; which assuredly does not befit grace, since it ill becomes God, nor is it attributed to Him; consequently it is not a simply simple perfection; and therefore grace is necessarily distinguished from charity, if not really, at least formally. —

The Doctor answers in the same place number 1, that charity can be considered either transcendently or categorically, that is, insofar as it signifies and embraces charity both created and uncreated, or insofar as it designates only created charity alone. In the former way he grants that sanctifying grace and charity are distinguished formally, as wisdom, as such, is distinguished from created wisdom, and as animal, as such, is distinguished formally from this rational thing; but created charity and grace are not so distinguished that created charity signifies some absolute formality which sanctifying grace does not signify, or vice versa; therefore when the Doctor, in number 1 praised above, says that grace is formally distinct from charity, he speaks only of charity taken transcendentally, which indeed he there grants to be formally distinguished from grace; but he does not compare created charity with sanctifying grace, wherefore he says there that every grace is charity, though not conversely. —

But that created charity and sanctifying grace are not distinguished by name alone, as Durandus holds, is evident from this, that things differing by name alone have only diverse appellations, not diverse offices, like knife and sword; but charity and grace connote diverse offices and distinct things. For grace signifies being grateful and acceptable to God, with supernatural acceptance into adopted sonship, and as such does not signify some supernatural principle of loving God connaturally, which nevertheless charity, taken with the concept of created charity cut away, signifies; therefore sanctifying grace and charity are distinguished more than by name.

NOTE. 1. Concerning the first part of this proposed Question, there have been three capital erroneous opinions of heretics. The first error was that of the Jovinians, who once taught that men, having received the grace of God, cannot grow, as St. Jerome testifies in book 2 against that same heretic. The second is attributed to Kemnitz, who although he taught that justice and holiness could receive some increase, nevertheless denied that this came from good works, but only from faith in the divine promises, and consequently rather from the good pleasure of God than from the merit of the one acting. The third error finally was that of the Beghards and Beguines, who judged that men could attain in this life to such a degree of sanctity and justice that they would not be permitted to advance to a further perfection. Against this threefold error the battle will be waged in the first Conclusion.

NOTE. 2. Among Catholics it is beyond controversy that habitual and sanctifying grace can be lost through mortal sin, the Lord saying through Ezekiel, chapter 18: But if the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity according to all the abominations which the wicked man useth to work, shall he live? All his justices which he hath done shall not be remembered: in the prevarication by which he hath prevaricated, and in his sin which he hath sinned, in them he shall die. But the difficulty is whether sanctifying grace — which has been proved above to be really the same as charity — can be destroyed and corrupted by each sinful act, or indeed only by an act of hatred and aversion from God directly opposed to charity; just as faith, hope, and the other virtues are not lost except by contrary and opposing acts.

NOTE. 3. Here the difficulty is not raised whether habitual grace can be increased and diminished by the extraordinary power and disposition of God, with respect to the intensification of the degrees which are in it, and that at will, and without any respect to meritorious or demeritorious works; but it is asked whether in fact, and according to the common law, sanctifying grace can be increased by any meritorious acts whatsoever, not only of charity but also of the other virtues, both supernatural and moral; and that not only through more intense, but also through more remiss acts of those virtues; and whether it is also diminished by every venial sin. Therefore three things come here chiefly to be resolved: First, whether habitual grace can be increased, so long as we live in this mortal state, by any good works whatsoever. Second, whether truly by every mortal sin habitual grace is destroyed. Third, finally, whether by each venial sin habitual grace is diminished.

First Conclusion. — HABITUAL GRACE CAN BY ITS NATURE BE INCREASED: AND IN FACT IT IS INCREASED IN MEN BY EACH OF THEIR GOOD WORKS, SO LONG AS THEY LIVE IN THIS MORTAL STATE: SO THAT THERE IS NO ONE SO HOLY AND PERFECT WHO CANNOT MAKE

A STILL HIGHER STEP IN SANCTITY, EVEN BY REMISS AND LESS INTENSE ACTS. This Conclusion contains four parts, against as many errors declared in the first Notable.

It is proved, first indeed from Sacred Scripture exhorting in many places to progress in justice and sanctity: thus Ecclesiasticus 18: Be not judged justified until death, that is, make progress in justice. Proverbs 4: The path of the just, as a shining light, goeth forward, and increaseth even to perfect day. To the Philippians 1: And this I pray, that your charity may more and more abound. And Apocalypse 22: He that is just, let him be justified still; and he that is holy, let him be sanctified still. And 2 Corinthians 4: Though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

The same truth was defined in the Council of Vienne, in the Clementine Ad nostrum, concerning heretics; and at Trent, Session 6, chapter 10, where it says: Being justified therefore, and made friends of God, and housed with Him, running from virtue to virtue they are renewed, as the Apostle says, day by day; that is, by mortifying the members of their flesh, and presenting them as instruments of justice unto sanctification, through the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, in this justification received through the grace of Christ, their faith cooperating with good works, they grow and are justified more... which increase of justice holy Church begs when she prays: Give unto us an increase of faith, hope, and charity. Hence Canon 24 decrees thus: If anyone shall say that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, not the cause of its increase, let him be anathema.

To this truth assent all the holy Fathers, especially Jerome on chapter 1 to the Ephesians, explaining these words, Unto every one of us is given grace, etc.; Augustine, Letter 59 to Dardanus; Basil in his scholia on those words of Psalm 83, They shall go from virtue to virtue; Bernard, Sermon 9 on the Psalm Qui habitat, etc.

It is also urged by reason: Grace is a supernatural quality, and a certain participation of the divine nature; therefore it does not conflict with its being increased. The consequence is proved: that repugnance, if there were any, would be drawn either from its being a quality, or because it is supernatural, or finally because it is a participation of the divine nature. Not the first, for it is proper to a quality to be capable of intensification. Nor even the second, for from it there would follow that the act of charity, or of another infused virtue, since they are supernatural, cannot be increased, which is evidently absurd, seeing that we love God now more remissly, now more intensely, from a supernatural motive. Not finally the third, for since that participation of the divine nature is inadequate and imperfect, it does not conflict with its becoming more or less perfect with regard to degrees of intensity.

The second part is also proved, namely that sanctifying grace can be increased not only by the act of the love of God, but also by good works proceeding with the help of grace. For this truth the Apostle teaches in many places, especially Romans 6: As you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now yield your members to serve justice unto sanctification. By which words he exhorts the Roman faithful, that as before the reception of the grace of Baptism they had served iniquity by their evil works, so after receiving Baptism they should serve justice unto sanctification, that through good works they may become holier. But more openly he demonstrates this truth in Colossians 1, saying:

That you may walk worthy of God, pleasing him in all things, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened in all virtue.

It is confirmed from other passages of Scripture, in which an increase of glory, which is perfected justice, is promised to the good works of the just, and consequently an increase of grace or of initiated justice. Thus 1 Cor. 15: Abound in every good work, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord: because clearly even the cup of cold water given in the name of Christ, or of his disciple, will receive the reward of eternal glory, as is signified in Matt. 10. Likewise 2 Cor. 2: This momentary and light tribulation of ours, above measure, works in us an eternal weight of glory in sublimity. To these add the doctrine and definition of the Council of Trent praised above, by which it openly signifies that grace is increased in us not only through acts of charity, but also through any good works whatsoever.

The third part is proven, namely that the just are able to advance throughout their whole life in the justice received; so that they never reach that point beyond which they cannot progress so long as they are on the way, and lead a mortal life; for thus Sacred Scripture clearly teaches, Ecclus. 18: Be not afraid to be justified even unto death, for the reward of God abides forever: as if to say: do not cease, while you live, to advance by new degrees in justice, because the holier you will be, the greater and more abundant glory you will receive. So likewise Ps. 83: They shall go from virtue to virtue, the God of gods shall be seen in Sion, that is, in virtue they shall grow until they attain the blessed vision. And Galatians 6: But let us not fail in doing good, for in due time we shall reap, not failing. By which words the Apostle signifies that the whole time of this life has been given for working well and for sowing, so that we may reap in the other life, namely the seed of eternal life.

The same truth the Holy Fathers defend with their authority, especially St. Jerome upon Ps. 83, expounding those words, he hath set his tabernacle in his heart, where he says: whoever is holy daily stretches forward to what lies before, and forgets what is behind. St. Augustine, Sermon 15 On the words of the Apostle: Always add, always walk, always advance, do not remain on the way. St. Leo, Sermon 2 On Quadragesima: This, he says, is the true justice of the perfect, that they never presume themselves to be perfect, lest, ceasing under the pretense of a journey not yet finished, they fall into the danger of failing, where they have laid aside the desire of advancing. St. Prosper in the Collection of sentences of St. Augustine, Sentence 102: In this life, which is wholly temptation, in the most sublime saints that perfection is not attained which leaves no ascent remaining. Hence in book of Epigrams, elegy 26, he sang elegantly:

For ever over the saints there remains wherewith they may grow, And the glory of the perfect is a beginning. Let virtue bear virtue; out of light let light Come forth, and let every palm make a step.

Reason also favors it: for so long as man is a wayfarer, he can merit; hence Christ the Lord exhorted his disciples: Walk while you have the Light, that the darkness comprehend you not. John 12. Therefore he can always attain a new degree of grace, which may be the seed of a new degree of glory. Next, so long as the wayfarer is not at his terminus he can tend toward it with continuous steps: but while men are in the world, they have not a permanent city, says St. Paul, but they seek one to come; and thereupon they can hasten unceasingly toward their fatherland by continual increase of good works. Finally, although the obediential capacity of man for grace is finite, nevertheless according to the ordination of divine providence it is never wholly filled by the means and aids ministered by God, nor will anyone ever attain that degree of grace which Christ the Lord had; wherefore it is fitting that, so long as he is a wayfarer, since his capacity cannot be wholly filled, he be at least in such wise promoted and aided divinely through the helps of grace, that he may always advance more and more, until he attain the end of his way.

Finally the fourth part is proven, namely that habitual grace can be increased even through remiss and less intense acts: Both because Sacred Scripture and the Council of Trent openly teach that our sanctity is increased through whatever good works: but remiss acts are good works: therefore through those acts sanctifying grace is increased. And because, says the Doctor in Book 4, distinction 2, question 1, if sanctifying grace were not increased through remiss acts, since it is the seed of glory, it would follow that the adult who exercised more remiss acts after Baptism would not be happier nor endowed with greater beatitude than the infant who dies immediately after Baptism: but the consequent fights against the very rewarding justice of God, which does not suffer even the least good work, say a cup of cold water, given out of mercy, to be without reward. It is confirmed, from this, that God suffers no evil works, however remiss, to remain unpunished; for venial sins of every kind are punished in Purgatory unless in this life they be discharged: therefore by equal reason he ought not to leave any good works whatsoever, however minute, unrewarded; for God is not more inclined to vengeance for evil than to the rewarding of good. Finally, the Council of Trent, Session 6, chapter 16, after it established the conditions desired for meriting, namely that it be a work honest, voluntary, proceeding from grace, says: Nothing further is wanting to the justified themselves, that they be held truly to have merited; therefore no more intense act is required, since those assigned conditions can also fall in the remiss mode.

You will object against the first part: All our grace and justice flows down from Christ the fountain of all grace, of whose fullness we all have received: but Christ distributes graces to each one as he wills, and not according to the merit of each, as St. Paul teaches in 1 Cor. 12: therefore if any increase of grace is made, it is not made through good works. — I distinguish the minor: divides to each one as he wills first grace, and sometimes its increase, I concede: divides always the increase of grace as he wills, that is, out of mere liberality, without regard to good works meriting that increase, I deny. For the contrary was proven above from Scripture: for in vain and delusively would it urge us to summon a new degree, ⟦illegible: verba inter «gradum» et «Christi» omissa videntur; sensu requiritur aliquid quale «si is ex sola»⟧ if it hung upon the mere liberality of Christ the Lord. Add that the Apostle, upon whose authority the objection relies, there speaks only of the distribution of graces freely given.

You will insist: Whatever grace is given gratis, and from pure liberality; for if from merits, now it is no longer grace, says the Apostle: therefore since the increase of grace has the true character of grace, it ought to be granted gratis, and not from merit, and in view of good works. — I distinguish the antecedent: every grace is given gratis, either by reason of itself, or by reason of its principle, I concede: always by reason of itself, I deny. A twofold free bestowal of grace, therefore, must be distinguished: one indeed simple, which takes place with no regard had to a meritorious work; another quoad sic, namely by reason of the principle, which is given gratis. Thus eternal glory, although it is the crown of victors, the reward of laborers, and the inheritance of sons, nevertheless is called grace, because certainly it is given on account of meritorious works, which were elicited through sanctifying grace freely granted. By equal reason the increase of grace is called grace, because it is granted only by reason of the meritorious work, which was elicited through actual and habitual grace granted simply gratis.

You will object against the second part: habits cannot be increased except through acts similar to those which they elicit: therefore sanctifying grace, since it is really identical with charity, cannot be increased through acts of other virtues, but only through an act of the love of God. — I distinguish the major: acquired and acquired-by-our-acts habits cannot be increased except through acts similar to those which they elicit, and through which they were produced, I concede: infused habits, and those granted through the sole liberality of God, such as is sanctifying grace, cannot be increased except through homogeneous acts, or acts similar to those which they elicit, I deny. For since meritorious acts concur to the increase of the habit not physically, but only morally, namely by moving God by way of merit to confer that increase, and since God is moved to recompense the service of a faithful servant on account of any observance and obedience of his whatsoever: thence it comes about that the increase of sanctifying grace can be made through any good work whatsoever. Add that charity is a general virtue, which embraces the other virtues as it were in its bosom; for the fullness of the law is love, says the Apostle; hence it is that it can easily be morally increased through any acts whatsoever of the other virtues.

You will object against the third part St. Augustine in the Enchiridion, chapter 121, saying: Here one comes to so great a magnitude of charity, than which greater cannot be: therefore St. Augustine holds that charity can have, in this mortal life, a limit and terminus of accession. — I deny the consequence, for there he is not treating of charity according to the intensification of the habit, but according to the exhibition of a work of the greatest kind in its genus, such as is to despise all things for God, and to undergo death for him; according to that of John 19: Greater love than this no man hath, that he lay down his life, etc. Which most excellent effect indeed a faithful man can exercise in this mortal life, as did the Martyrs, and very many Kings and rich men; and likewise innumerable Religious, who, having sold all that they possessed, and having distributed their abundant largess of alms to the poor, followed poor Christ.

Finally you will object against the last part, that passage of Apoc. 3 where the Bishop of Sardis is reproached because his works were not full before God: but works not full are none other than remiss works: therefore so far are they from being able to merit an increase of grace, that rather they provoke the anger and indignation of God. Next, according to St. Gregory, book Moral., chapter 16, not to advance on the way of the Lord is to go back: but through remiss works we do not advance: therefore we go backward. Finally, he who negligently uses received gifts does not merit to receive an increase of the gift: but he who works remissly uses the gifts negligently: therefore he does not merit an increase of that gift: therefore remiss works nowise conduce to the increase of grace. — I deny the consequence: and to the first argument I deny the minor: for by works not full are understood not remiss works, but those which were done out of vain glory, and are wholly empty of retribution and reward. — To the second I likewise deny the minor: for just as he who exercised an act of charity, which is the most excellent of all virtues, is not said to go back when afterward he exercises an act of another less perfect virtue: so neither ought he be said to go back, who after he has exercised a perfect and intense act of some virtue, afterward elicits a less perfect act of the same or of another virtue: for he is always said to walk who makes motion toward a terminus, although he may now walk more quickly, now more slowly. — To the third I distinguish the major: he who negligently, that is sinfully uses, or rather abuses goods, does not merit their increase, I concede: he who negligently, that is remissly uses such gifts, I deny. For since there is no precept whereby it is commanded that an act be done in an intense and perfect mode, thence one is not to be said to sin while acting remissly.

You will ask: when is such an increase of grace granted by God on account of remiss works? — I answer, Authors vary in resolving this doubt: for there are those who hold that that increase is granted immediately once the meritorious work was elicited. So Gabriel in Book 1, distinction 17, question, article 3. Vasquez disp. 220. Some judge with St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 114. art. 5. that such an increase is not given immediately, but only when man elicits a more intense act. The Cretan however with Subtili Doctore in 4. dist. 21. q. 1. teach that that increase is conferred chiefly at the instant of death: for since a remiss act does not of itself and physically increase the infused habit, but only dispositively and morally: it seems fitting that God, who keeps a gentle manner of acting, should not increase immediately, because there is not a sufficient disposition, but only at the last instant of life, lest namely he leave remiss acts without reward: and moreover the soul in that article, on account of perseverance in grace, is disposed so that such an increase be given to her.

You will say: The justified, according to the Council of Trent, through good works go from virtue to virtue, and from day to day grow in justice itself through good works, and are justified more and more: therefore they must receive an increase of their justice not only at the end of life, but also as soon as they have exercised good works, though remiss ones. — I answer, this indeed is true of intense works, but not of remiss ones; for it better suits that God keep a gentle manner of operating, namely bestowing the increase of grace according to disposition, which since it does not seem more apt than in the article of death, therefore in a more fitting order then only he confers the increase of grace for those remiss acts.

You will insist: There does not seem to be a greater disposition at the end of life than immediately after those acts were elicited: therefore the reason does not appear why that increase is deferred to the end of life. — I deny the antecedent: for ordinarily it happens that at the end of life charity is more intense. Next, on account of perseverance in grace even unto the last term of life there seems to be a greater disposition for receiving that increase of grace than there had been before. Finally, to him whose remiss merits ought not to remain without reward, that owed increase must be paid in that state, in which no disposition is required, just as on the way, which is the state of disposing oneself and meriting.

Second Conclusion. — Habitual grace can be destroyed by any mortal sin whatsoever, and not only by an act of hatred and aversion from God.

This assertion is proven by all those texts of Scripture in which it is declared that they are to be barred from the kingdom of heaven, not only those who pursue God with actual hatred, but also those who perpetrate any sin whatsoever. Thus Galatians: The works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, etc. which things I foretell you as I have foretold, because they who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God. Where he says absolutely that those who do such things shall not attain the kingdom of God: which he declares more openly in 1 Cor. 6 where he says: But you injure and defraud, and that your brethren? Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor servers of idols, nor adulterers, etc. shall possess the kingdom of God: and these indeed you were, but you are washed, but you are sanctified, etc. Where it is manifest that he speaks of sins of any kind whatsoever. He has similar things in Eph. 5. Hence Philippians 2: With fear and trembling work out your salvation. To which accords that passage of Apoc. 3, where it is said to the just Bishop: Hold fast that which thou hast, that another take not thy crown.

Wherefore the Council of Trent, Session 6, chapter 15:

It must be asserted, he says, that the grace of justification once received is lost not only by infidelity, whereby faith itself also is lost, but by any other mortal sin whatever, though faith be not lost: because every mortal sin gravely offends God, adjudges man to eternal damnation, and renders him hateful and hostile to God: and thereupon expels sanctifying grace, by which we are friends of God, sons and heirs.

Those things that are wont to be objected against this truth by heretics are resolved below.

Third Conclusion. — Habitual grace is not destroyed, nor diminished, through venial sins.

The first part of this Conclusion is evident from Sacred Scripture, which calls those sinning venially just. Thus Proverbs 24: Lay not wait, nor seek impiety in the house of the just, nor spoil his rest: for a just man shall fall seven times, and shall rise again; as if it said: think not that you will find in him impiety or any grave fault and iniquity: for if he falls at some time, as happens to just men, nevertheless he falls only lightly, and rises again immediately. Hence the Council of Trent, Session 6, chapter 11:

Although in this mortal life, however holy and just, they sometimes fall into sins, at least light or daily, which are also called venial sins, they do not on this account cease to be just: for that voice of the just is both humble and truthful: forgive us our debts.

The latter part of the Conclusion, namely that habitual grace is not diminished through venial sins, is proven from this, that if venial sins diminished the intensification of grace, it would be chiefly because they were physically or morally repugnant to it; or because they merited its diminution: but neither can be said. Not indeed the first, because those things which mutually repugnate to each other physically or morally cannot subsist together according to the ordinary law: but a venial sin can subsist with even very intense grace, say when someone having most ardent charity commits the same venial sin as he who has only remiss charity. The second also cannot be said, namely that a venial sin moves God to take away some degrees of grace, because God does not punish lighter sins, such as venial ones are, with so grave a punishment as is the loss and privation of some part of grace and of the glory corresponding to it. Next, if a venial sin diminished grace, it would follow at length that, venial sins being multiplied, grace could be altogether lost: for since the degrees of that grace are finite, if every venial sin took away one degree or part of it, so many venial sins could be committed that at last all grace would perish and vanish: but it is absurd that grace could be lost through venial sins: otherwise man could be damned on account of a venial sin, being indeed deprived of sanctifying grace, which is absolutely necessary unto salvation.

You will say: Through venial sin a certain tepidity is contracted, and the vigor of the soul is dulled, especially when they are committed frequently and deliberately: But that tepidity and that weakness of soul arise from nothing other than from a diminution of habitual grace: therefore truly it is diminished through venial sin. — I deny the minor; for those do not arise from remission and diminution of sanctifying grace in itself; but from the subtraction of the helps of grace, which he becomes unworthy of who sins venially more freely or more frequently.

You will say 2. St. Augustine, Epistle to Seleucianus, affirms, that if venials shall have been gathered together, they will so oppress and weigh us down as would some one great sin: therefore venials multiplied can have the same effect which one mortal would have: but one mortal sin suffices not only to diminish, but even to destroy sanctifying grace: therefore likewise venial sins will be able to destroy that same grace, or at least diminish it. — I distinguish the antecedent: oppress and weigh down effectively and formally, as a mortal sin opposes and weighs down, I deny: dispositively and remotely, I concede. For venials multiplied dispose to the loss of grace and to the commission of mortal sin, inasmuch namely frequently and ordinarily it comes about that those who are very negligent in avoiding venials slip into some mortal sin, because they are deprived of greater helps of grace, with which the just were furnished; for while men, says St. Augustine, Sermon 58 On the seasons of the year, being negligent above all despise their sins because they are small, crimes are joined to the growing petty sins, and make a heap, and overwhelm.

You ask: how is sanctifying grace expelled by mortal sin, whether physically, and by reason of natural opposition: or truly morally only, and by reason of disposition and divine ordination?

I answer, that it is done not physically, but morally, because if mortal sin were the physical cause of the expulsion of grace, it would accomplish this either effectively, or formally, or positively. — The first cannot be said, because if mortal sin expelled grace effectively, it would have to produce in the soul some form physically opposed to grace itself and incompatible with it: but this it does not accomplish: for if it be a sin of pure omission, it effects nothing physically: but if it be a sin of commission, it produces no form which is physically opposed to grace; for a sin of commission produces nothing unless perhaps a vicious habit: but that neither physically nor morally conflicts with sanctifying grace, for vicious habits contracted through assiduous sin remain in the justified, and incline them to sin, as experience attests. — The second also cannot be said: both because what expels another as a form physically opposed and incompatible must have that incompatibility from its own nature: but mortal sin from its own physical nature has no such incompatibility; for the same act which is mortal sin, if it were not done freely, would be physically the same act, yet it would neither expel grace nor be sin: wherefore it has not that power of expelling from its own nature. — The third finally cannot likewise be affirmed; for a form which does not depend on physical dispositions, nor presupposes them in the subject, cannot be physically expelled through contrary dispositions, for these expel a form in no other way than by formally destroying the dispositions prerequisite to that form: but grace does not depend physically upon any dispositions, as is evident in infants, who without any disposition are justified through Baptism; but if in adults some acts are required whereby they may be disposed to sanctifying grace, those dispositions are only moral by reason of divine constitution and ordination, which prescribed that they should be had beforehand. There remains therefore, that mortal sin destroys grace only morally: either inasmuch as it moves God to the subtraction of grace, as to the infliction of other punishments: or because grace is a form ill-befitting mortal sin; seeing that the former makes man a friend of God: whereas the latter makes him an enemy: or lastly, inasmuch as sin turns man away from God and converts him to creatures: while grace on the contrary summons man away from creatures, that it may convert him to God. Here too it is wont to be asked, whether at least through an extraordinary disposition and power of God, sanctifying grace can subsist together with mortal sin. But this question will be resolved in a more fitting order in the Disputation on charity.

Having explained, as far as possible, the nature of habitual grace, we must consequently treat in this Article of its causes, all of which the Tridentine Council openly declares in Session 6, chapter 7, in these words:

The final cause of this justification is the glory of God and of Christ, and life everlasting; the efficient cause is a merciful God, who washes and sanctifies gratuitously, signing and anointing with the holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance; but the meritorious cause is His most beloved only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we were enemies, for the exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, merited for us justification by His most holy Passion on the wood of the cross, and made satisfaction for us unto God the Father; the instrumental cause is likewise the sacrament of Baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, without which no man was ever justified. Finally, the sole formal cause is the justice of God: not that by which He Himself is just, but that by which He makes us just: namely, that justice which, bestowed on us by Him, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind: and not only are we reputed, but we are truly called and are just.

Although, as is clear from the foregoing words, there are many causes of grace, nevertheless our discussion here will be only of the Efficient cause, and of the Material cause, as well as of the subjective principle of habitual grace, which is the principal analogue under this name grace.

Note 1. That a productive cause is distinguished threefold by the Philosophers, namely principal, co-agent, and instrumental. The principal cause is that which is first, and independent of the concurrence of a superior cause of the same kind in the production of the effect; so that the other causes depend upon its influx. A co-agent, or less principal cause, is said to be that which indeed influences the effect efficiently, but with dependence upon the principal cause; so that without its concurrence it would not at all influence the effect. Finally, the instrumental cause is that by which the effect indeed attains its production, not so much through a proper virtue intrinsically inherent in it, as through the virtue of the principal agent, by whom it is moved and assumed for producing the effect.

Note 2. All Theologians agree with the Council of Trent, in the place soon to be cited, that the first and supreme efficient cause of grace is God, who washes and sanctifies gratuitously, signing and anointing with the spirit of promise, as the Council speaks after the Apostle, 1 Cor. 6. and ad Titum 3; but that the less principal and meritorious cause is Christ the Lord, who by the principal ministry is the executor of grace and glory, and the institutor of the sacraments, and who by his most holy passion merited justification for us, and satisfied God the Father for the sins of men. Finally, the instrumental efficient causes are the sacraments themselves instituted by Christ, which God uses as instruments for producing grace, not physically, as the Thomists will, but morally, as the Subtle Doctor and his Disciples affirm. But the difficulty is whether any creature also, by ordinary or extraordinary law, can have the ratio of a principal productive cause of grace.

Note 3. The controversy is moved especially concerning the humanity of Christ, which since it is the most excellent and most powerful of created things, inasmuch as all power in heaven and in earth was given to it, has also the most efficacious virtue of operating above the other creatures in the order of nature, grace, and glory; hence some Theologians will it to be not only the meritorious cause, but even the principal effective cause of grace; so that it truly concurs with physical concurrence toward its production. Thus hold Medina in 3. part. q. 13. dubio ultimo, and Cabrera there disp. 2., where they teach that the humanity of Christ, or Christ the Lord inasmuch as man, is the principal cause of sanctifying grace in all the just, yet secondary however, and subordinated to God. But how improbable their opinion is, the following will disclose.

Single Conclusion. — God is so alone the principal efficient cause of grace, that no agent creature can be given so perfect that it obtain the same principal productive virtue of grace. This is common to both the Angelic and the Subtle school.

Proof first: He alone can produce justifying grace as principal cause who alone can justify: but God alone can justify men, and cleanse from sin: therefore the production of justifying grace belongs to God alone, as principal cause. The major stands; for sanctifying grace is infusion, the forgiveness and absolution of sins. But the minor is proved from holy Scripture. Job 14. Who can make clean him that is conceived of unclean seed? Is it not thou who only art? Isaiah 1. I am he that blotteth out thy iniquities, tell if thou hast anything that thou mayst be justified. Rom. 3. For there is one God, that justifieth. And 8. God is he that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? From which words it is clearly gathered that habitual grace, which is the formal cause of justification and remission of sins, depends on God alone, as on the principal cause, so that the productive force of it can belong to no other. Whence deservedly St. August. book 1. De peccatorum meritis, cap. 11. says: Whosoever therefore shall have dared to say: I justify thee, (namely as principal cause) it follows that he say also: Believe in me: thence he concludes, that as we must believe in God alone, so must we judge that no creature, but God alone, as principal cause, can justify. The reason of this truth is, because the offense of God hangs absolutely upon his right, concerning which no other can dispose, except through a vicarial power delegated to himself as minister and dispenser by God himself.

Nor does it avail to reply, those testimonies are to be understood of the principal cause, which is first and independent of superior concurrence, but not of the secondary principal. — This reply, I say, is altogether nothing; because since it is proper to God to be the first cause and independent of every other superior, not only with respect to divine grace, but also in order to whatever effect whatsoever: it is evident that in those places Scripture would assert nothing special to the production of grace and the justification of sins, if it intended nothing else.

Proof second: He alone can be the principal cause of grace who alone can give the Holy Spirit, as chief cause: but no creature, even Christ the Lord inasmuch as man, has the physical and principal power of giving the Holy Spirit: therefore neither of conferring and producing habitual grace. The major is evident from that to Rom. 5. The charity of God is poured forth, etc. But the minor is proved: the gift must be in some way in the power of the giver himself, either by origin, or by possession: but in neither of these modes can the Holy Spirit be Christ's, as man, nor of any pure creature: therefore none besides God can give the Holy Spirit; and presently neither confer sanctifying grace. Hence deservedly St. Augustine, in the book De Trinitate, c. 12., distinguishing those things which befit Christ as God from those which befit him as man, teaches Christ the Lord, inasmuch as God, to have said to the Apostles, Ioan. 16., concerning the Holy Spirit: But if I go I will send him to you: but inasmuch as he was man, to have said, Ioan. 11.

I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete: by which he would signify that he, as man, could not principally, and of his own authority give the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, but that inasmuch as he was man he ought to obtain him from God by prayers.

Proof third: If any creature could produce grace, it would best perform this either by creating it, or by educting it from the obediential power of the soul: but a creature can perform neither: therefore neither can it physically produce grace, as principal cause. The major stands: for grace cannot be produced, unless either from nothing by creation, or from the power of the subject by eduction. But the minor is proved: first as regards creation, because since creation is the production of being from nothing, he who creates must, as principal cause, have dominion over producible being as such, and consequently be Lord of all producible entity: but this, as is manifest, cannot belong to any creature: therefore, etc. It stands also as regards eduction: both because, as we shall prove in the following Question, grace is not educed but created; and also because even if it were educed, that educing virtue could not belong to a creature: for as natural educative virtue has dominion over the natural power of the subject from which it educes the form, so he who educes something from obediential power ought to have dominion over such a power: but no creature can have such dominion; since obediential power is that by which every creature is subjected to the absolute dominion of God so as to obey in all those things which involve no contradiction; and absolutely that dominion of God can be attributed to no creature: therefore neither that educative virtue of grace.

You will object 1. Those texts of Scripture, whereby Christ the Lord seems signified, as man, to be the physical principal cause of grace and of our justification: thus John 1. The law was given by Moses; grace and truth were made by Jesus Christ. And John 10., Christ the Lord himself says: I am the door; by me if any one enter in, he shall be saved: but principal authority is signified by the door: therefore Christ has principal authority and productive virtue of grace. — I distinguish the consequent: Christ has principal productive virtue of grace, either inasmuch as God, or inasmuch as man. I concede: inasmuch as man, I deny. For as in Christ there is a twofold nature, namely divine and human, so likewise in him there is a twofold virtue concerning the communication and production of grace. For inasmuch as man he has meritorious virtue with respect to the production of grace, and also the power of excellence, or of principal ministry, with respect to its communication, inasmuch namely as his humanity is an instrument conjoined personally to the divinity, by reason of which union he is head of the whole Church, influencing the life of grace into each of the faithful as members of that mystic head: but inasmuch as God, he has principal power of producing grace: whence the aforesaid texts of Scripture are to be understood of one or other of these powers; and presently they urge nothing against the Conclusion.

You will object 2. He who principally produces the ultimate disposition to some form can produce that form itself also: but man principally produces the ultimate disposition to grace: therefore he can produce that also as principal cause. The major stands, for indeed he who produces heat as eighth, and in the proximate degree for receiving the form of fire, produces that same form of fire. But the minor is proved: man principally elicits acts of contrition and charity: but those are ultimate dispositions to grace: therefore, etc. — I answer first by distinguishing the major: the agent, which principally produces the ultimate disposition to some form, can also produce that form itself, when it is educed from the natural power of the subject, I concede: when it is educed from its obediential power, I deny. For since obediential power is subject to God alone, nor does it lie under the dominion of any creature, it follows that no creature can produce that form, if it is truly educed: much less when it is created, as sanctifying grace in fact is created, as we shall soon prove. I answer secondly that the major is true when the productive form follows naturally and necessarily upon the production of the ultimate disposition: but otherwise when beyond the positing of the ultimate disposition some condition is required on the part of the extrinsic agent, which he who introduces the ultimate disposition cannot cause: but so it is in the present case: for beyond the act of charity and contrition, which is the disposition to grace, there is still required on the part of God special benevolence and acceptance and remission, whereby he may will to remit sin and accept man formerly hostile into his friendship: presently that remission of sin and conferral of sanctifying grace does not follow naturally and necessarily upon the positing of the ultimate disposition, or the act of love and contrition: as the form of fire follows the positing of the eighth and last degree of heat: but only sanctifying grace follows the act of charity and contrition from the mere good pleasure of God and his voluntary acceptance.

You will object 3. God can produce a quality of such perfection that it have the force of producing grace principally: therefore truly that virtue can belong to some creature. The antecedent is proved: if anything stood in the way why that quality should not be producible, especially because grace, since it is of supernatural order, requires a cause which has of itself and in itself an altogether supernatural activity: but this virtue conflicts not with a creature: for the light of glory by its proper and intrinsic virtue raises man to the supernatural state, and together with it efficiently concurs, as principal cause, toward the act of the vision of God, just as habitual grace itself concurs toward meritorious supernatural acts: therefore, etc. — I deny the antecedent: for that quality would either be more perfect than grace, or equal, or less perfect. If less perfect, without doubt it could not produce grace; for a less perfect cause cannot principally produce an effect more excellent than itself: since no one gives what he has not: presently that less perfect cause could not attribute to the effect that eminent perfection which itself has not. Nor equally perfect: otherwise also sanctifying grace could produce another sanctifying grace of the same degree and perfection, which none admits. Finally not more perfect, for grace is the most perfect quality of supernatural things, and the most noble participation of God, presently no other quality more excellent and more perfect than sanctifying grace itself is thinkable for this state. But to the proof of the objector I say there is no parity, for more things are required to produce a supernatural habit than an act, because a supernatural habit has more the ratio of power than habit, since it gives not only more easily but simply the ability to operate: but an act cannot produce a power, nor that which gives simply the ability to operate. For the act of vision neither produces nor augments the visual faculty: therefore sanctifying grace cannot be produced through any act of a creature. Whence it follows that sanctifying grace must be created, yet no creature can create.

You will object 1. Supernatural habits can de facto be generated from supernatural acts, as some Scotists judge probable: therefore by the absolute power of God, such acts could also produce a habit of grace. They prove the consequence, for acts are more perfect than habits: therefore if those acts are produced by a creature, de facto also habits could be produced by the absolute power of God through some creature. — I deny the consequence: for even if those habits were supernatural (as now I suppose gratuitously), nevertheless they are acquired through supernatural acts, which since they are vital require a created principle: but grace is an infused habit, and producible only through creation, and therefore cannot be produced except by another than God.

Note 1. With the Doctor in 2. dist. 1. q. 2. n. 8., that creation is the production of the whole thing into being, with no part of it presupposed, or the production of a thing from nothing of subject and terminus: for creation is made from nothing not only of the terminus to be produced, because this likewise befits generation, but it is also made from nothing of subject: so that, as in generation there is made a transit from the non-being of the form to its being dependently upon a subject, so in creation there is made a transit from the non-being of form and matter to their being, or rather to the being of the whole composite, if the whole composite is produced; or to the being of matter, if matter alone is made; or to the being of form independently of a subject, if form alone is formed by creation.

Note 2. That eduction is a species of action opposed to creation; for as the formal ratio constituting creation is to be made independently of a subject, and from nothing, so the formal ratio constituting eduction is to be made out of something as out of a pre-existing subject. Hence three things are conceived in eduction: first, that from which eduction is made: second, that whose eduction is made: third, that out of which eduction is made. The first is the agent, the second is the form, the third is the subject. Hence two causes concur to eduction, namely efficient and material, or agent and subject; the former indeed as active and productive principle; the latter as passive and receptive principle: the one producing, the other sustaining, and thus influencing the production of the form, so that without such influx the form can neither be made nor conserved naturally.

Note 3. Here we are treating of the connatural production of grace, or of the mode whereby its nature demands it be produced. For it is beyond controversy that God by absolute power could create grace, and produce it independently of a subject: because although it be an accident, and for this reason seem to be made with some dependence on the subject in which it is received, nevertheless God could produce and conserve it independently of every subject; just as he conserves accidents independently of every subject; but the difficulty is whether grace by its nature demands rather to be created from nothing than educed from a subject. Concerning which question there is a threefold opinion: the first of the Thomists teaching grace to be educed from the power of the soul: the second of Paludanus, Ferrariensis, and Soto, and others asserting habitual grace not to be created absolutely, but concreated at the creation of man the just: the third is that of the Subtle Doctor in 1. dist. 17. q. 6. num. 5. and in 2. dist. 1. num. 14. most especially however in 4. dist. 1. quaest. 1. et 2. and also of Alexander of Hales 2. part. quaest. 1. and St. Bonaventure in 2. dist. 26. art. 1. q. 2.; which opinion as truer, and safer, that it may appear more evidently, let it be

Single Conclusion. — Sanctifying grace is produced by true creation properly so called.

Proof 1. from holy Scripture, which as often as it makes mention of the production of grace, so often declares it created. Thus Psal. 50. Create a clean heart in me, O God. And the Apostle ad Gal. 6. calls the just man a new creature. And ad Ephes. 2. the faithful are said to be created in Christ Jesus: and cap. 4. he admonishes them to put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth: all which texts would have no true signification if grace were not properly created: therefore it must truly be said to be created.

The Thomists reply, grace is said to be created, not because according to its natural and physical esse it is produced from nothing, which is required for the ratio of perfect creation; but because it is infused by God with no merits of ours preceding, which has a certain similitude with creation, and may be called moral creation. They confirm this from the fact that in Scripture the just man is said to be generated by grace, according to that of Paul, first ad Corinth. 4. In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel. And this, first Peter 2. As newborn babes: but all generation, human excepted, is made by eduction of the form, not indeed by creation: presently therefore also in holy Scripture grace is said to be educed. — Against, the words of Scripture are to be understood according to the literal sense, as St. Augustine teaches in many places, when no repugnancy appears thence, nor does anything emerge against piety and truth: but that the aforesaid texts of Scripture are understood of true creation, nothing emerges conflicting with reason nor with truth or piety: presently they are to be understood of true creation. Add that their reason is altogether nothing; since man a sinner can remotely at least dispose himself toward receiving habitual grace, and merit it de congruo, and accordingly absolutely it is not made from any previous moral disposition. Moreover the Thomists concede there is no moral cause of habitual grace: therefore much more ought they to admit that there is none physical, material, and subjective cause of it; since physical causality after the mode of matter is far greater than moral: therefore if this is denied to the production of grace, that it may be judged a pure benefit of God, with better right must subjective causality be denied, that namely the production and conferral of grace be reduced to the sole liberality of God and his supconditionem retundatur ⟦illegible: raw OCR "cmnditatem retundatur"; page opens mid-sentence⟧. To the confirmation I say neither text of Scripture cited by the Thomists helps them ⟦uncertain reading: raw OCR "ip-is lavere"; sense requires "iuvare/iuvari"⟧: since St. Paul speaks of the ministry of Gospel preaching, whereby he had begotten the faithful Corinthians to Christ, that is, had illustrated those already formed into new men by baptismal grace with the Gospel truths: for the office of the Apostle himself was not to bestow on them sanctifying grace, except ministerially only: whence he could not be named their father absolutely. Hence St. Peter declaring the matter more plainly, does not say men renewed by baptism to be begotten absolutely, but quasi-begotten.

Proof second by reason: Grace is the most excellent and most noble of all creatures: therefore it demands to be produced by the most perfect of all actions: but creation is the most excellent of all actions, and far more noble than eduction: therefore sanctifying grace is not educed but created. The major stands: both because grace is of supernatural order, presently transcending the whole perfection of all nature: and because it orders and conduces to a far more excellent end, namely to God, as author and bestower of glory: whereas other created things look upon God only as author of nature: finally because it is the most excellent participation of the Divinity, who illustrates men far more nobly than any created gifts whatsoever, inasmuch as he constitutes them adoptive sons of God and heirs of himself. Sequitur etiam maior patet ⟦uncertain: raw OCR "Sequeln etiam maioris patet"⟧, for on this account the rational soul is produced by creation, namely because it is most excellent among creatures of natural order: therefore by equal reason sanctifying grace, since it is the most excellent of all created things, demands rather to be produced by creation than by eduction.

Proof third: That begins through creation which ceases through annihilation: but grace ceases through annihilation: therefore it begins through creation. The major stands: for that which is annihilated is corrupted through its whole being, so that nothing of it remains, neither by reason of form, nor by reason of the matter out of which and in which, that is, by reason of the subject from which the form could be conceived and formed: and consequently, when it passes into nothing, it must also proceed from nothing. For if it were resolved into something, especially into a subject out of which it would arise, and consequently, since in its annihilation it is not resolved into something, also in its production it is not formed out of something. The minor also stands both by the authority of St. Thomas himself in 2. dist. 26. quaest. unica, art. 2. ad 5., where he expressly says that when grace is corrupted, it at the same time passes also into nothing; and by reason, because if grace when it ceases to be were resolved into something, especially into a substance, or faculties of the soul, in which it inheres: but that seems improbable; for a supernatural being, such as grace is, does not seem able to be resolved into a purely natural being, such as the faculty of the soul and substance.

You will say. Creation is of entities subsisting per se: but grace, since it is an accident depending on a subject, does not subsist per se: therefore neither is it produced by creation. — I distinguish the major: creation is of entities subsisting per se and independent from a subject from which they would be produced by eduction, I concede; independent from a subject in which they are received, once they have been produced, I deny. Therefore in the justification of man, as the Doctor observes in 1. dist. 17. quaest. 6. num. 6., a twofold action intervenes: one by which grace is created, another by which it is united to the subject, which union is formally called the justification or regeneration of man, just as the rational soul is created by one action and united to matter by another: which union is the generation of man. Whence the first action is properly called creation; for it is an action from the non-being of grace to its being: but the second is not properly called creation, though it could be called transmutation, because by it the soul is changed from being unpleasing to being pleasing to God; or, as the Doctor speaks, there is there a twofold change, one from non-being of charity or of grace to the being of grace, and this is that change which is creation, and is one change properly so called, because it presupposes nothing, neither nature nor its receptive subject. Another change is from a subject not beloved to being beloved, and thus the soul is changed from not being beloved to being beloved: and this change is not simply creation, because it presupposes a recipient, and hence this change in a certain respect can be called generation, and the whole composite is reckoned as generated such, and not simply: because the substance which is the terminus of generation, and was present or presupposed, is generated according to its grateful and accidental being in the infusion of grace.

You will urge. In that first instant in which grace is formed, either it is produced outside the subject, or in the subject. Not the first, otherwise an accident would naturally be without a subject, which is absurd, since inherence is natural to it. If the second: therefore grace is not created, but educed, because the subject concurs to its production in the genus of material cause. — I answer. Grace in the instant of time in which it is created is in the subject ⟦uncertain: raw OCR gives no main verb here; construction elliptical⟧: but truly in the instant of nature it is neither in the subject nor outside the subject: because as such it is considered only according to its being of grace simply, and not according to the reason of inherence or of non-inherence: just as the essence of man is considered only as the essence of man, not indeed as visible, nor as invisible.

You will press. Therefore substantial forms other than the rational soul, and likewise accidents, are collected to be educed from the potency of matter, and not created: because in coming-to-be and in being conserved they depend on a subject: and therefore they are collected to depend thus, because they are not naturally produced nor conserved without a subject, unless a miracle intervene: therefore since grace is neither produced nor conserved except in a subject, short of a miracle, it is rightly inferred that it depends on a subject in being and in being conserved, and consequently that it is not created, but educed from the potency of the subject. — I deny the antecedent: for precisely for this reason those forms are collected to depend on a subject, not because they are produced in it, but either because they are its connatural perfections, forthwith ordered to its natural complement; or because they are products of a second efficient cause acting dependently upon the concurrence and influx of the subject: since since a second cause cannot create, it necessarily requires a subject with which, and in which, it may act: and forthwith those forms, both substantial and accidental, are necessarily educed from the potency of the subject, because the subject concurs and inflows toward their production. But it is otherwise concerning grace, which since it is produced immediately by God, does not necessarily require the influx of a subject: nevertheless it is not produced, nor conserved, outside the subject, because since it has no particular operations which it could exercise outside the subject, it would be produced and conserved outside the subject uselessly and in vain.

You will say 2. The soul is said to have a natural inclination toward grace: but for no other reason than because grace is educed from it: therefore, etc. —

I deny the minor: seeing that the body also has an inclination toward the rational soul: yet that soul is not educed from it, but created.

You will say 3. What is created cannot be corrupted by any second cause: for the rational soul, which is created, is naturally incorruptible: but grace is corrupted by the sinful action of a second cause: therefore it is not created, but educed. — I answer 1. by denying the major: for an accidental form, were it created, could be corrupted physically by a second cause, if that cause produced a form incompatible with the created form, and demanding connaturally its removal from the subject: for since whatever form, substantial or accidental, cannot be naturally conserved outside a subject, by that very fact whereby a second cause would introduce into the subject a form incompossible with the created form, this latter must necessarily be destroyed. I answer 2. by distinguishing the minor: some second cause destroys grace physically, and by a true corruptive action of it, I deny; morally, and by reason of the ordination of God, who decreed not to conserve grace in a soul stained by mortal sin, I concede.

You will say finally. Creation is the production of the whole entity: but in the justification of man the whole entity is not produced, since a subject is presupposed, namely man: therefore grace is not created. — I answer by distinguishing the minor: in the justification of man, which takes place through the union of grace with the subject, the whole entity is not produced, because indeed a subject is presupposed to which grace is united, I concede: the whole being of grace is not produced by that prior action by which grace is conceived to be produced in the instant antecedent to its union, I deny. For, as we said above from the Doctor, in the justification of man two actions concur really distinct: one which terminates at the very being of grace which is produced: another which terminates at its union with the subject, namely the soul or the will. The former is altogether independent of the subject, and thus is creation properly so called: the latter, however, necessarily connotes the subject, as also the grace, by which it is deemed to be united with that same subject.

Note 1. That the soul is endowed chiefly with a threefold faculty, namely the intellectual, the volitive, and the memorative, which, as the Doctor teaches in 2. d. 17., are distinguished from it ⟦uncertain reading: raw OCR "ut decet"; sense and parallel require "docet"⟧ not really, as the Thomists contend, but formally, as the holy Fathers teach, especially saint Augustine, lib. 15. De Trinitate, cap. 11.: These three things, he says, memory, understanding, and will, since they are not three lives but one life, nor three minds but one mind, consequently assuredly are not three substances, but one substance. To this S. Bernard accords, Sermon 11. on the Canticles, where he says: Certain things I contemplate in the soul, memory, understanding, and will, and these three are the very soul itself. But this truth S. Isidore declares more clearly, lib. 11. Etymologiarum, cap. 1., and from him Hugh of Saint Victor, lib. De Spiritu et Anima, where he says: The soul is called by various names according to its operations: for it is called anima while it vivifies, sensus while it senses, animus while it is wise, mens while it understands: yet these do not differ in substance, as they do in names, since there is one essence, though indeed diverse properties. Hence arises the difficulty whether grace inheres in a faculty of the soul more immediately than in its very substance.

Note 2. In grace some distinguish two things, namely entity, and activity or virtue: for every grace, they say, even habitual, is ordered not only to the adornment and embellishment of the soul, but also to operation and act; nor is it deemed to adorn and illuminate the soul except insofar as it promotes it from the natural state to the supernatural, so that one who, powerful only by his own strength, can elicit only purely natural acts, by the benefit and virtue of grace elevated higher, and seconded with a greater and nobler activity, may also elicit acts of a superior order, whereby he may attain a supernatural end: but these two things, namely the entity of grace and its activity, differ only in name, seeing that the whole of grace is in itself active, and ordered to enlivening and elevating the virtue of the soul.

Note 3. Habitual grace, concerning which the question is here principally raised, confers upon the soul not so much a facility for exercising its acts favorably and more expeditiously, as a virtue and activity without which the soul could not elicit such acts. For, as we have said several times already, this difference intervenes between supernatural and natural habits: that the latter confer upon faculties merely a facility for exercising their acts through a certain habituation, whereby the obstacles that formerly impeded their prior actions are removed; but the former confer also a certain power, by elevating the soul and promoting it to a nobler state, in which it can elicit acts exceeding its natural powers in every way. These things having been set forth in brief, let there be

A single Conclusion. — GRACE INHERES IMMEDIATELY IN THE WILL, AND BY ITS MEDIACY IS SUBJECTATED IN THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SOUL. So the Doctor in 2. dist. 26. quaest. unica, and likewise saint Bonaventure, same distinction, art. 1., q. 5., against the Thomists.

Proof first, from the authority of saint Augustine, Sermon 12. De Verbis Apostoli, cap. 12., where he says that grace is related to free choice as the rider to the horse: but free choice inheres immediately in the will: therefore also grace.

Proof second: A disposition to some form is subjectated in the subject of that form itself: but grace is a disposition to glory: therefore it inheres in the same subject in which glory and felicity ought to inhere: but beatitude and felicity inhere immediately in the will, and not in the very substance of the soul: therefore the same must be said of grace. He proves the major taken from the Doctor num. 1. ⟦uncertain reading: raw OCR "P'robat maiorem subsumpti Doctor num. t."⟧ Beatitude satiates the blessed: but it is impossible to conceive how he would be satiated unless he were joined to the beatific object by a vital act: nor could he be so joined unless by exercising such an act; and hence the soul is not joined to the beatific object by its substance, but by the operations of its faculties, and most truly by the operations of the will. — Then, if the soul were joined immediately through its substance to the beatific object, it would follow that if, per possible or per impossible, the powers of the soul were circumscribed from the soul itself, it could be beatified, and thus it would be blessed without any second act whereby the object would be attained: but this is absurd: therefore, etc. — Finally, if beatitude were immediately in the essence of the soul, then a true second act ⟦uncertain: raw OCR "non vern actus"; sentence continues on p210⟧ could be reckoned nothing other than habitual grace: but this cannot be said, otherwise the just in via would be blessed, because habitual charity and grace of the way and of the fatherland are of the same species, according to that word of saint Paul: Charity never falleth away: but this consequence is utterly absurd.

The Doctor proves third: Grace perfects the soul insofar as it is operative of an act meritorious: therefore it must inhere in the soul insofar as it is thus operative: but the soul is not operative of an act meritorious except insofar as it has a will: seeing that a meritorious act must necessarily be free: therefore, etc. He confirms it: wisdom must not be placed in the soul insofar as it is essence, but insofar as it has an intellect, because it is determinative with respect to acts of intellect: therefore by parity of reason grace, which is ordered to eliciting meritorious acts, must inhere in the soul insofar as it has a will, or inhere immediately in the will itself.

The Doctor proves finally: Grace and charity are not distinguished really: indeed, nor even formally adequately, as was proved above: therefore they must have the same subject immediately: but all confess that charity inheres immediately in the will: therefore they must concede the same concerning grace. He confirms it from the authority of S. Anselm, lib. De Conceptu virginali, cap. 3., where he says that justice and injustice too is formally in the will: but grace is justice; for through it we are formally made just: therefore it must reside immediately in the will. He confirms it 2. Grace and sin are formally opposed; if not by the nature of the thing and physically, at least morally and by divine ordination: therefore they pertain to the same subject; for opposites are about the same thing: but sin is in the will immediately: therefore also grace.

You will object 1. The essence is more indeterminate than the power: therefore it has more need of a determinant; and consequently grace, which is determinative, ought rather to be subjectated in the essence of the soul than in its power. — The Doctor distinguishes the antecedent num. 9. The essence is more ⟦illegible: reply continuation not captured by OCR on this faded leaf⟧

You will object 2. Grace is always in its act, and hence there must inhere in it that which is always in act: but a power is not always in act: therefore grace ought not to inhere in it immediately. The major is plain: for the act of grace is to render pleasing: but habitual grace, as long as it is in the soul, always renders it actually pleasing to God: therefore it is always in act. The minor also holds: for a power does not always elicit an act, nor is it in act, but is ordered to act: therefore what inheres in it cannot be always in act; for it cannot be in act unless the power were equally in act. — The Doctor distinguishes the major: grace is always in its act, which it produces effectively, he denies; in formal act, he concedes. And likewise his proof being distinguished, he denies the consequence: for the act of grace, which is to gratify, is not an act which grace produces effectively, but a formal act proceeding from its union with the soul.

You will object 3. A form whereby one determines to acting must rather be placed in the principal agent than in the instrument: but the essence is the principal agent; the power, however, is its instrument: therefore grace must rather inhere in the essence than in the power. — The Doctor distinguishes the major: that it must rather be in the essence than in an instrument separate, extrinsic, and really distinct, he concedes: than in an instrument joined, intrinsic, and only formally distinct from the essence, he denies: otherwise the habit of faith would rather have to inhere in the essence of the soul than in its intellect itself, nor would any habit of the virtues be placed in the will or appetite, but in the very essence of the soul, which certainly no one would admit.

You will object 4. Habits, which are received immediately in powers, are ordered only to acts of such powers: whereas grace is ordered not only to acts of the will, but also to acts of all the powers: therefore it is not received immediately in any power. — I distinguish the major: they are ordered only to eliciting and producing acts of such powers, I concede; to commanding and ordering them, I deny. For charity and grace are ordered only to eliciting those acts which customarily proceed from the will, and not from other faculties: seeing that they concur not effectively and formally to the act of faith, hope, etc., but only imperatively, namely admonishing the will, that it as mistress command the other faculties, insofar as they produce their acts.

Corollary. — From these gather that sanctifying grace can thus be defined: Habitual sanctifying grace is a supernatural quality of the soul infused by God, whereby we are made partakers of the divine nature, and are moved by God to honor and do that which conduces to the rite eternal ⟦uncertain: raw OCR "ad ritum cetri-nam conducit"; exact wording unsure⟧. Which definition that passage of S. Chrysostom, Homily De Baptismo, reported by S. Augustine, lib. 1. Contra Iulianum, cap. 6., most excellently illustrates, where he says:

That through this grace men become not only free, but also just; not only just, but also holy; not only holy, but also sons; not only sons, but also heirs; not only heirs, but also brethren: not only brethren, but also co-heirs: not only co-heirs, but also members; not only members, but also temple; not only temple, but also organs of the Holy Ghost.

The Church compares the divine Spirit, the giver of graces, to a fountain by an elegant similitude, when He is called by her a fountain sealed, who indeed derives and pours forth the most sweet streams of grace upon all men far and wide: but like the fountain of paradise He flows out most abundantly into four as it were rivers, namely into the four principal outflows of divine grace: of which the first is in gratis data, and gratum faciens: the second in the grace of healing, and Medicine: the third in that which excites, and assists: which is again distributed into that which excites, and that which aids; while this latter is divided into that which operates, and that which aids: the fourth finally is in sufficient grace, and efficacious grace. Of these there will chiefly be discussion in this Article under as many different Sections, so that the matter may be known more distinctly and clearly. For here we are not going to treat of the capital and primary division of grace into created and uncreated, which we suppose from the preludes of this Treatise to have been set forth openly enough and sufficiently; for we said in the first paragraph that one grace is natural, another supernatural; moreover, of supernatural grace, one is created, another uncreated: and that uncreated grace is called above all the divine Word, and the Holy Spirit, since on account of the exceeding charity wherewith God loved us, He gave His Son for our redemption, and the Spirit indeed for our sanctification. Hence St. Augustine, Sermon 61, De Verbis Domini, chapter 1: The grace of God, he says, is the gift of God; but the greatest gift is the Spirit Himself, and therefore it is called grace.

There are also those who teach with St. Thomas that among the uncreated graces must be numbered the love of God, and predestination, whereby God willed us well; because the love of God, whereby He predestines us, is the chief and greatest benefit of God granted gratis, at least according to intention. But St. Augustine seems to oppose this opinion; for in book De praedestinatione Sanctorum, chapter 10, he distinguishes grace from predestination, saying: Moreover, between grace and predestination there is only this difference, that predestination is the preparation of grace: but grace is the very giving itself: unless perhaps you should say that St. Augustine spoke these words of grace in a stricter signification, namely of that divine benefit absolutely necessary for our meritorious and salutary work, concerning which his controversy with the heretics was principally waged in the books De Praedestinatione: therefore our discussion will be only of the other divisions of grace in the five following Sections.

ALTHOUGH, as we noted in the Preludes, all grace is given freely; because, as the Apostle says, Rom. 11, if by grace, it is now not by works; otherwise grace is no more grace: whence Saint Augustine, in the book On the Deeds of Pelagius, says: The very name of grace, and the understanding of that name, is taken away if it is not given freely, but he who is worthy receives it; nevertheless Theologians commonly divide created grace by a primary division into that which is called freely given, and that which is called sanctifying. The former is that which is primarily bestowed by God upon the utility and spiritual salvation of others, according to that word of 1. Cor. 12, The manifestation of the Spirit is given for the utility, namely of the Church, and for the edification of the body of Christ, and the consummation of the Saints. I said primarily, for although they obtain freely given graces, they can expend them for their own edification and salvation, according to that word of Daniel 12, They who are learned shall shine as the splendor of the firmament; and they who instruct many to justice, as stars into perpetual eternities.

Sanctifying grace, however, is that which is primarily bestowed by God upon the utility and spiritual salvation of the recipient himself, according to that word of Ephes. 1, He hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing, that we might be holy, and unspotted in his sight. I said primarily, because sanctifying grace also, which makes man pleasing, can contribute to the salvation of others, both through the good example of the man possessing it, according to that word of Matth. 5, So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father: and through fraternal charity, by which each one is bound to procure the salvation of his brother: for God commanded each one concerning his neighbor: and finally on account of the unity

of the Church and the communion of Saints, according to that word of Psalm 118, I am a partaker with all them that fear thee.

The aforesaid division of grace into sanctifying and freely given is legitimate. Proof, because that division is legitimate whose dividing members possess the three following conditions: first, that they share the reason of the genus: second, that they be distinguished from one another: third, that they adequately share the divided genus. But the aforesaid division stands thus: 1. For each of its members is ordered to supernatural good, either to be procured for oneself or for others. 2. Freely given grace is distinguished from sanctifying grace: for this is referred to the recipient's own salvation, but that to the utility of others. 3. Finally both of these graces adequately share the general reason of grace: because every grace properly so called is per se first ordered to one's own or to others' salvation.

You will say. Natural gifts cannot be referred to either member of this division: for they do not per se regard one's own or another's salvation: therefore this division is not adequate. — I distinguish the antecedent: natural gifts are a certain species of grace broadly taken, and insofar as grace signifies any divine gift converted beyond merit, I concede: but of grace strictly taken, and insofar as grace signifies a gift freely granted in order to salvation, I deny.

You will say 2. The aforesaid opposition is not sought from the nature of the thing, but from its effect: therefore it is not legitimate. — I deny the consequence: because since all graces are ordered by their nature to some effect, although among them some are absolute qualities, nevertheless as far as our knowledge is concerned in this mortal state, it suffices that their constitutive and distinguishing reasons be drawn from the end to which they are ordered.

You will say 3. The Sacerdotal character, and the virtue of administering the Sacraments, is a certain created supernatural grace of order: but this regards neither of those: therefore the aforesaid division is not adequate. The minor stands: for it cannot be reduced to sanctifying grace, because from its primary intention it is not ordered to the private sanctification of each of the ministers: nor is it freely given, because it does not seem to regard any member of the freely given graces enumerated by the Apostle. — I deny the minor: for, as will appear within, this virtue of ministering the Sacraments is reduced to the virtue of working miracles, which is a freely given grace: for no greater miracle can be reckoned than the vivification and sanctification of a soul, which is elicited through the administration of the Sacraments.

You ask: By what precisely is freely given grace distinguished from sanctifying grace?

I answer, these two graces differ from one another chiefly in three ways: First, they differ by reason of themselves, in that freely given graces are altogether diverse among themselves, and have no relation or connexion with one another, although they are ordered to the conferring of faith, and to the public good of the Church: but sanctifying graces regard one another mutually: for all the aids of actual grace regard habitual grace, whether as dispositions toward it, or as effects proceeding from it, or as the concourse due to it. — Second, they differ by reason of the end: because, as we said, sanctifying grace is conferred by primary intention for one's own good; but freely given grace for the public utility of the whole Church: not that sanctifying grace does not sometimes redound to public utility, but that end is extrinsic, and hangs rather upon the operator than upon the grace itself. — Third, finally, they differ by reason of the subject: because sanctifying grace is found only in the just: but freely given grace can also be found in sinners; for in Numbers 23. 24. Balaam is said to have prophesied, who was nonetheless perverse. John 13.¹ Caiphas prophesied that Christ was about to die for the nation, that the children of God who were dispersed might be gathered together into one. And Matthew 7.² Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many miracles in thy name? And then will I profess unto them: because I never knew you. The reason of this thing indeed is, that although a man may be evil in respect of himself, it does not conflict that he be useful to others: whence it follows, that from miracles alone in this mortal life the sanctity of the operator cannot be certainly concluded: although it is beyond doubt that the grace of miracles, and other things of that kind, are more often granted to the just than to sinners.

You ask 2. Which of these graces is the worthier of the other?

I answer, without doubt sanctifying grace is far more excellent than freely given graces; which indeed is gathered from the Apostle 1. ad Cor. 12, where after the Apostle had enumerated various kinds of freely given graces, wishing to speak of sanctifying grace, or of charity, he adds: And I shew unto you yet a more excellent way. Hence he exhorts the faithful: Emulate the better charisms: and what those better charisms may be he declares in the following chapter: if I speak with the tongues of men, and of Angels, but have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. Christ had signified the same truth Luke 12, saying to the Apostles: In this do not rejoice that the spirits are subject unto you, but rejoice in this, that your names are written in heaven. Hence Saint Augustine, book 83. Questions, Question 69, says that freely given graces are not granted to all the just and faithful, lest they be led into a most pernicious error of judging that in such deeds there are greater goods than in the works of justice, by which eternal life is procured.

Reason also supports this, because the habit which is immediately referred to the ultimate end, and joins us to it without any medium, is more excellent than that which accomplishes it only mediately: but sanctifying grace is immediately referred to the ultimate end, and immediately joins us to God; whereas freely given grace directly regards the utility of the neighbor, and orders us to the ultimate end only through the mediation of sanctifying grace, and therefore the latter is more excellent than the former.

Moreover, in the present Section there will be discourse only concerning freely given graces, which for the sake of greater clarity we shall distribute into the following §§.

§ I. How manifold is Freely Given Grace. — I answer that it is commonly divided into nine species, which the Apostle enumerates 1. ad Corinth. 12, where, having said: There are diversities of graces, but one and the same Spirit; he adds: To one indeed by the Spirit is given the word of wisdom: and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit: to another faith in the same spirit: to another the grace of healings in one Spirit: to another the working of virtues, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of speeches.*

The reason of this division our Alensian reports q. 63. m. 3. on the part of the truth to be taught, 2. confirmed, 3. expounded by him who has attained such graces:

For truth, he says, either concerns things to be believed and things to be done, or the end of the things done and believed: or more manifestly; either it is about the end, or about those things which are toward the end. Moreover those things which are toward the end are either to be done, or are to be believed, and accordingly a threefold grace is required, that wisdom be about the end, namely about eternal things: science about things to be done: faith about things to be believed. — As regards the confirmation of speech, which is necessary to the doctrine of truth, according to what is said at the end of Mark: They preached everywhere, the Lord cooperating, and confirming speech with signs following: because a twofold grace is required; for the confirmation of speech takes place in two ways: in one way through miracles of operation, in the other way through miracles of cognition. Moreover the miracles of operation occur in two ways: in one way insofar as they exceed the act of nature, yet not its power: in the other way insofar as they exceed both act and power, and are said to be impossible to nature. Similarly the miracles of cognition occur in two ways, in one way through cognition of the true, but in the other through cognition of the good; or otherwise: in one way through cognition of things, in the other way through the discernment of intentions. To the confirmation of the doctrine of truth in a work that exceeds the act of nature is the grace of healings. There is again a grace in a work that exceeds the power of nature, namely the grace of the operation of virtues, that is, of miracles, which are above nature, as the Gloss interprets. Similarly there is a grace in the marvelous cognition of truth, whether of things future, as the grace of prophecy. Next there is a grace in the marvelous discernment of good or of intention, as the grace of the discernment of spirits, so that one may discern what he hears; by what spirit, good or evil, a thing is spoken, because the devil speaks good things by seduction, as the Gloss explains. — Finally, as regards the explication, or exposition, of truth, two things are required: one, that the explication of truth be made to all; the other, that it be made of all things that pertain to their salvation. The grace of the explication of truth is therefore twofold: the grace of kinds of tongues, through which the explication of truth would be made to all, and the grace of interpretation of speeches, through which the explication of truth would be made of all things. The grace of kinds of tongues is necessary for the explication of truth in proper speeches, according to the property of each idiom: but the interpretation of speeches for the explication of truth in manifested speeches <. This from the Alensian.

The same distribution the Angelic Doctor gathers 1. 2. quaest. 111. art. 1. ⟦uncertain: raw OCR "quaest. ở. art. t."; citation restored to Summa I-II q. 111 a. 1 (De divisionibus gratiarum)⟧ from this, that freely given grace is ordered to this, that man cooperate with another, that he be brought back to God: but man cannot operate unto this by moving interiorly, but only by teaching exteriorly, or persuading: and therefore freely given grace contains under itself all those things by which man has need, that he may instruct another, and inform him of divine things, which are above reason.

Moreover three things are required for this: First, that man have full cognition of divine things, as far as human condition can bear, that he may instruct and inform others. Second, that he may prove and confirm those things which he says; otherwise his doctrine would not be efficacious. Third, that he can fittingly utter those things which he conceives, and expound them to his hearers.

To the first, however, namely that man have knowledge of divine things, three things are necessary: First, that he most surely hold the principles of the cognition of divine things; this indeed is done through faith, which is numbered among the freely given graces, not insofar as it is a certain virtue pertaining to the sanctification of man in himself, but insofar as it imports some eminent certainty and conviction of faith, by which man becomes fit to inform others of divine things. Second, that he thoroughly traverse the principal conclusions, which are deduced from those most lofty principles; this indeed is done through wisdom. Third, that he abound in examples, and in the cognition of effects, through which causes must sometimes be manifested; and as regards this science is set forth, which is the cognition of human things; because the invisible things of God are understood and seen through those things which have been made. Therefore insofar as wisdom and science import fullness and abundance, such that man can not only rightly judge within himself concerning divine things, but also instruct others, and refute contradictors, they are thus numbered among the freely given graces. But others, under another acceptation, are enumerated among the gifts of the Holy Ghost, namely insofar as the mind of man is rendered wholly movable by the Holy Ghost, toward those things which are of wisdom and science.

As to the second, namely the confirmation of those things which are rightly delivered from above above reason, it is required that the evangelical Doctor sometimes do those things which are proper to divine power, and which cannot be done by natural virtue. But of these there are four genera, of which the two former pertain to the operation of those things which God alone can do in miraculous works, whether they be for the salvation of bodies, and as regards this is posited the grace of healings, or whether they be referred solely to the manifestation of divine power, such as that the sun stand still, that the sea be divided, and as regards this is posited the operation of virtues. The two latter pertain to the manifestation of those things which it belongs to the Lord alone to know. These two are either contingents, whether futures, for whose discernment Prophecy is posited; or the hidden things of hearts, for which is posited the discernment of spirits. To the third finally, namely to the faculty of uttering those things which are deservedly perceived, it is necessary that the Preacher of sacred doctrine speak in that idiom by which he may be understood, and accordingly is posited the grace of tongues. Last of all it is required, that he expound those things which have been revealed in that sense in which they were dictated by the Holy Ghost, and ought to be understood, and on account of this is posited the interpretation of speeches.

From these it is evident that that division of freely given grace handed down by the Apostle is not into proximate and immediate members.

You will object 1. Faith is sanctifying grace: therefore it ought not to be numbered among the freely given graces. — I distinguish the antecedent: it is sanctifying grace, insofar as it is the gift by which one firmly adheres to things revealed, on account of the authority of God revealing, I concede: insofar as faith is a singular illumination of God in conceiving the mysteries of faith, and likewise an exceeding certainty of the things to be believed, by which man becomes fit to instruct others, and to expound and persuade them of the mysteries of faith, I deny.

You will object 2. The gifts of the Holy Ghost ought not to be numbered among the freely given charisms, for per se they are referred to the salvation of those to whom they are conferred: yet wisdom and science are gifts of the Holy Ghost: therefore they ought not to be reckoned among the freely given graces. — I distinguish the minor: they are gifts of the Holy Ghost, insofar as through wisdom and science man is easily rendered movable by the Holy Ghost, I concede: insofar as through each man is rendered fit to instruct others, I deny.

You will object finally: The grace of healings, the operation of virtues, prophecy, the discernment of spirits can be recalled to the same head, namely to the gift of miracles: therefore the aforesaid division fails. — I distinguish the consequent: if this division is examined with rigor of Logic, whose laws require division into immediate members, I concede: if morally, I deny: for commonly the passage is made from a prior and immediate member to mediate ones.

Here, however, although these things appear true, nevertheless I judge that it must be said as more probable that there are more than nine freely given graces: for the same Apostle also enumerates helps, and governments, which cannot be recalled to any of the nine assigned. There can be added the science of light in the Supreme Pontiff together with a Council for defining matters of faith. There can also be added the character of Order, which although it could be recalled to the operation of virtues, yet seems more distinct from it than the word of science is from the word of wisdom.

Corollary. — From these gather that the definition of freely given grace is rightly assigned by our Alensian 3. part. qu. 13 m. 2. in these words: Freely given grace is a gift divinely infused into men, without merits, for the edification of another. It is called a gift divinely infused, because it proceeds from God the bestower of all good things; for every best gift and perfect gift is from above, descending from the Father of lights. It is added to men, because since freely given grace is given for bringing men back to God, it was fitting that the means ordered to this bringing-back be conferred also upon men, insofar as this restoration may take place in a manner convenient to their nature. It follows not from merits, both because it is not had from the debt of nature, nor does it regard its natural complement: and because freely given grace is also found in sinners, and therefore is not bestowed on account of their good works. It is called lastly for the edification of another, because wherever the Apostle commemorates freely given graces, he subjoins that they are granted on account of the utility of others. Thus 1. Corinth. 3. he says he received grace to evangelize the Gentiles. And chap. 1. after assigning the freely given graces, he affirms they are conferred unto the consummation of the Saints ⟦uncertain: raw OCR inserts "idest filolium", reading unclear⟧ unto the work of the ministry, unto the edification of the body of Christ, which is the Church. And 1. Petri 4.³ it is said: As every man hath received grace, ministering the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. From all these texts it sufficiently appears that all freely given graces have been granted by God for the edification and utility of the neighbor. That this may stand out more evidently, a few things must here be discussed concerning each of the freely given graces specifically.

§ II. On the Word of Wisdom and of Science. — Some judge that both of these graces pertain only to cognition; yet so that they deem the word of wisdom to be the cognition of the higher and more sublime interior mysteries of faith, such as the Trinity, Predestination, and the Incarnation; but the word of science to be the cognition of those things which pertain to morals, such as the precepts of the Decalogue. Thus Saint Augustine seems to think, book 13 of the Confessions, chap. 18, where he calls the former grace the greater light, and the latter the lesser light. But others judge, with Saint Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Theodoret on chap. 12. 1. ad Cor., that the word of science is bare cognition of the mysteries of the faith, without the skill of instructing others; but the word of wisdom to be the same cognition together with the skill of instructing others. Yet neither opinion appears true, for from it would follow that the word of wisdom and of science, insofar as they are freely given graces, would not be distinguished from wisdom and science insofar as they are gifts of the Holy Ghost. It would likewise follow that the word of science would not be a freely given grace, because it would not conduce to the salvation of others. — Therefore I judge it truer to say that the word of wisdom and of science are freely given graces ordered not only to the cognition of the mysteries of faith, and of the moral precepts, but also to their expounding and preaching to others. — The Words of Wisdom and of Science are freely given graces ordered not only to knowing, but also to preaching and expounding to others the mysteries of the faith.

This truth is evident from sacred Scripture itself, which calls these freely given graces the word of wisdom and of science: but speech is not bare cognition, but one made known to another through the external manifestation of the internal concept. Hence Saint Jerome, expounding the aforesaid passage of the Apostle where he commemorates these freely given graces, says: The word of wisdom is to speak wisely, aptly, and reasonably. Reason also supports this; for the preaching and manifest exposition of the mysteries of faith is the most fitting medium for bringing men back to God: therefore in this preaching and exposition above all must the reason of wisdom and of science be constituted, insofar as they are freely given graces.

But the word of wisdom and of science differ from one another, as Saint Augustine teaches lib. 12. De Trinitate, chap. 14. in these words: Where the praised text said: To one indeed by the Spirit is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, these two doubtless it distinguishes, although it does not there explain what the difference is, and whence either may be discerned. But they differ, (in my judgment), in the manner in which wisdom and science differ, insofar as they are gifts of the Holy Ghost, proportion preserved; whence just as wisdom is the gift of the Spirit by which the most lofty mysteries of the faith are known, and science another gift, by which those things are known which pertain to morals; so the word of wisdom is the grace of expounding the most lofty mysteries of faith; but the word of science is the grace of expounding those things which pertain to morals, as Saint Augustine teaches in the passage cited above. Or, as pleases others, the word of wisdom is the grace of expounding the mysteries of the faith through eternal and divine causes and through the proper principles of the same faith; but the word of science is the grace of expounding the same mysteries through effects, examples, and other sensible things.

§ II. On Faith, which is Freely Given Grace. — Faith, insofar as it is freely given grace, is said by some to be constant confidence in God, indeed unto obtaining, and especially unto working miracles. And it is put forward by Saint Paul 1. Corinthians, chap. 13, If I should have all faith, so that I remove mountains, etc. By which words is signified that the translation of mountains, and other miracles, could have been done through some faith; which faith because it has such an end, namely that it regard public utility, will rationally be freely given grace. Thus judge Saint Chrysostom, and other Fathers.

You will object. By what reason is faith thus distinguished from the operation of virtues? — I answer, that it is distinguished as some total cause from some partial effect, because first the operation of virtues, according to this opinion, is some external effect depending upon this faith as upon its cause. — Furthermore, faith of this kind has other effects besides the operation of virtues, which, as we said, is constant confidence in God, not only unto working miracles, but even unto obtaining anything whatsoever, whether regarding the body, or the soul, or the goods of fortune. Thus judge certain Doctors.

But more rightly faith, insofar as it is here expounded, is said to be the most certain and most firm assent, or a certain eminent understanding of the mysteries of God, such as is required in a Doctor, not only for conceiving them, but also for expounding them to others, and likewise for defending them intrepidly and firmly. Thus calls it our Lyranus on 1. ad Cor. cap. 12; which explication surely accords with the mind of Saint Paul; for Romans 12. he says the Prophet and Doctor ought to teach according to the reason of faith, that is, according to the measure of that eminent understanding, and cognition of mysteries, which he received from the bounty of the Holy Ghost. Wherein Saint Stephen above all was admirably imbued, whom, as we read Act. 6, the Apostles chose full of faith, that is, full of the understanding of the mysteries of God. Whence the Jews were not able to resist the Spirit, and wisdom, with which he spoke. Hence in the same place he is said to be full of grace and fortitude, on account of the firmness and intrepid constancy with which he prevailed toward defending the faith, and expounding its mysteries, even at the expense of his own life.

§ IV. What are the Grace of Healings, and the Operation of Virtues. — Here there is no discourse concerning the operation of virtues such as can be found in a physician, or even in a demon, who can dissolve infirmity by the virtue of medicines, and by applying actives to passives, in a sensible manner, as physicians do, or insensibly, as sometimes happens through the aid of demons; but we treat only of that virtue which proceeds from the special concourse of the Holy Ghost, such as was once in the Prophets, and Apostles, and is also now in certain sons of the Church, though not so frequently. — Now the grace of healings is a supernatural virtue of healing bodies; but the operation of virtues is a certain higher virtue of working miracles, and more remarkable prodigies, whether for utility, or for terror, or for the punishment of unbelievers. Thus in Saint Peter that marvelous virtue of healings existed, when he commanded the lame man to walk; equally existed in him the virtue of working miracles, while at his word Ananias and Saphira fell down dead, etc. — Yet the difficulty is whether those who are endowed with this virtue concur morally or physically in those marvelous operations. Which difficulty indeed the Doctor solves in 4. dist. 1. quaest. 1. et 4. saying that they concur in this only as instrumental and dispositive causes, not indeed naturally, but from the good pleasure of God, who is the principal agent in the production of this marvelous effect: for just as, the due organization of the human body being posited, God infuses the rational soul by pact; so, the application of words or other sensible signs being posited, by pact he produces this or that other marvelous effect.

§ V. On Prophecy. — The name of Prophecy has various significations in sacred Scripture. First indeed sometimes it signifies to sing eternal praises. Thus 1. Reg. chap. 10. Saul is said to be among the Prophets, and we read that he prophesied with them, when the Spirit of the Lord leaped upon him, and he prophesied in the midst of them, namely of the prophets, whose band he had encountered; that is, he sang divine praises with them. It also sometimes signifies an agitation by an evil spirit. Thus 1. Reg. chap. 18. we read of the same Saul: And on the next day an evil spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of his house. 3. It signifies to work miracles. Thus Ecclesiasticus chap. 46. the corpse of Eliseus is said to have prophesied: And his body prophesied; namely because, as we read 4. Reg. c. 13. certain men burying a man saw robbers, and cast the corpse into the sepulchre of Eliseus, which when it had touched the bones of Eliseus, the man revived, and stood upon his feet. 4. Not rarely the name of prophecy denotes to interpret the mysteries of the faith. Thus 1. ad Cor. 14, But let the prophets two or three speak, and let the rest judge: but if any thing be revealed to another sitting, let the first hold his peace: for you may all prophesy one by one: that all may learn, and all may be exhorted: and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. — But the name of Prophecy, insofar as it is here used, properly signifies the cognition of those things which are remote from the senses, and impenetrable to the ordinary apprehension of men, such as future contingents, the secrets of hearts, the decrees of the divine will; and likewise those things which are so dispersed in place and time that they cannot become known except by God revealing.

Now for this prophecy two things seem especially necessarily required: namely the apprehension and conception of the truth to be revealed, and the assent by which the intellect of the Prophet judges most certainly this thing to be true: The first is caused by revelation: the second by a certain supernatural light: for since that assent is supernatural, it must be caused through some supernatural light; not indeed through the light of faith: because the light of Prophecy is more evident than the light of faith, especially when the Prophet knows, and distinctly perceives that which he reveals to others; but through a certain other light specially ordered to this, which accordingly may be called the prophetic light. — From these it follows that prophecy, insofar as it is here used, namely for a freely given grace, is nothing other than the cognition, and prediction of all those things which cannot naturally be known, and are very far removed from the senses.

You will object. In what manner is Prophecy distinguished from the grace of preaching, and of speech: and which of those graces is the more excellent of the other? — Our Alensian answers, quaest. 67. m. B. That Prophecy is divine revelation denouncing the events of things with immutable truth: in prophecy therefore, he says, there are two things, revelation, and denunciation. As regards revelation, which is in cognition, the grace of prophecy is worthier, and the act of prophesying more eminent; and it is greater to prophesy than to preach: as regards denunciation, the grace of preaching is worthier, because preaching is unto the salvation of souls, but prophesying unto the denunciation of truth, which is less than the salvation of souls.

§ VI. What Discretion of Spirits Is. — The sacred Doctors do not agree in their explanation of this freely given grace: for there are those who, with St. Thomas, affirm that the discretion of spirits is nothing other than a certain supernatural judgment concerning the internal thoughts of the mind. The rest, however, concur with St. Chrysostom in the explanation of the freely given graces, holding that discretion of spirits is a knowledge of internal movements, or of counsels or precepts delivered by certain men, or even of apparitions and sensible locutions through good or bad Angels: and accordingly, upon this opinion, discretion of spirits extends itself to all things which can lead into evil as well as into good, whether inwardly or outwardly.

This discretion of spirits, moreover, can come about in two ways: namely, either through Christian prudence, using one's own industry and the principles of faith, with holy Scripture admonishing, above all 1 John chapter 4: Do not believe every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God. 2. Through a certain special instinct and motion of the Spirit, whereby spiritual men especially are spurred on and moved, to whom this grace is chiefly granted, according to that saying, 1 Corinthians chapter 14: If any man seem to be a prophet or spiritual, let him know the things that I write unto you, that they are the commandments of the Lord. Of this latter discretion of spirits, which alone is a grace freely given, we treat here principally. Whence discretion of spirits, insofar as it is a grace freely given, can be called both a judgment concerning internal thoughts and a knowledge of internal movements, counsels, apparitions, and sensible locutions through good or bad Angels: for each of these modes contains utterly all knowledge of things to be judged which are most uncertain and obscure; for things which are evidently good or evil have no need of discretion of spirits in order to be separated from one another: and therefore there is need only of this discretion of spirits when matters are obscure and difficult to know, and insofar as by common judgment they can lead into error as well as into truth, into evil as well as into good, into superstition as well as into religion under the pretext of piety, and through certain prodigies which are thought to be miracles. For which reason St. Anselm says that this discretion of spirits is most difficult, both because the senses and thoughts of man are inextricable, and because the evil Angel frequently transfigures himself into an Angel of light; nevertheless this knowledge can be certain and easy, as Gerson says, through intimate inspiration and an internal repose and spiritual sweetness, or illumination from external darkness, whereby all the darkness of doubt is put to flight. How, however, true prodigies can be discerned from false and masked ones, and likewise the locutions and apparitions of good Angels from those which occur through evil Angels, we have already said in the Treatise On the Angels, in treating of the infestation of demons.

§ VII. What the Gift of Tongues Is. — First of all it must be observed that the kinds, or gift, of tongues can be understood in two ways: First, namely, so that the Apostles and Apostolic men, using only one idiom, were heard and understood by all nations, the Spirit evidently imprinting upon minds the attached meaning of the words, or multiplying the voices in their ears. Second, so that the same Apostles and Apostolic men truly spoke in various idioms.

Nor are there lacking among the holy Fathers and sacred Interpreters those who approve the former mode, leaving aside the latter. Among others, moreover, Ecumenius stands out in chapter 2 of the Acts, as well as Basil, Bishop of Seleucia, in his Sermon on the Innocents, in these elegant words: When the Spirit, which flowed down from the heavens, distributed the operation of hearing among the towers of the gathered nations received in the tongue of the Apostles, accommodating the voice of each one to the sense of all who heard, and grace adapting, so that the river of speech which poured forth from the lips became familiar to the ears of all, by the Spirit transformed into that which was akin to the voice of each of those who were listening. This mode likewise seems able to be confirmed from that passage of Acts chapter 2: How do we hear, every man, our own tongue wherein we were born? And also from the fact that St. Peter is recorded to have converted in one single sermon there three thousand men, who nevertheless were from diverse nations.

The latter mode nearly all the rest of the holy Fathers approve; especially the Nazianzene, Oration 11, where after he has enumerated those two modes, he prefers the latter to the former, and proves it from these words of Acts 2: We have heard them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God: for, he says, these words (in our tongues) accord not only with the verb we have heard, but also with the participle speaking, as though the diverse tongues had not been heard before the Apostles spoke. He confirms it further from that passage, 1 Corinthians 14: I thank my God that I speak with the tongue of you all. By which words the Apostle signifies that he speaks in the idiom of all. He proves it moreover by reason: because, he says, according to the former mode, the gift of tongues would follow not as a grace freely given to the Apostles, but only to the hearers. To this can be added that for the spreading of the faith and the preaching of the Gospel the Apostles ought not only to be understood by others; but they ought moreover to understand others, namely, that they might answer their objections, resolve difficulties, and also remove doubts.

This latter opinion, moreover, appears more probable, although the former does not lack probability. Whence one could answer to the aforesaid texts of Scripture praised in confirmation of the former opinion, either that not only Peter preached to these three thousand men, but also the other Apostles, according to that saying there: Are not all these who speak Galileans? and thus it could have happened that each one, on account of the various nations, used various tongues: or that the same St. Peter preached not for one hour, nor in one place, but in divers sermons: and thus according to the opportunity of place, time, and nation he could use now one idiom, now another. Hence kinds of tongues are nothing other than a faculty supernaturally infused, whereby various idioms and their meanings can be known, and which those who possess such knowledge can use whenever they wish, and whenever occasion offers itself: every particle of which definition appears sufficiently from what has been said shortly before.

§ VIII. What the Interpretation of Speeches Is. — It is a certain special grace communicated especially to Doctors for interpreting languages in writing or in speech. The particles of which definition are established from this, that, as historians have related, at the beginning of the nascent Church the Holy Ghost provided for certain learned men, who were called Interpreters: for the reason that they interpreted foreign tongues in which some Prophet prophesied in the Church. — Moreover, after the Apostles had delivered sermons, their speeches were interpreted for those who were unskilled either in the idiom which they had used, or in the meaning of the words which they had uttered, lest namely the Apostles themselves, devoted to weightier matters, should be detained by this business, and burdened by that labor. — Finally, such Interpreters were accustomed to expound to the people the epistles written by the Apostles, and to turn them into another idiom, just as the seventy Interpreters had turned the Old Testament into the Greek idiom.

You will object. Unto what end was the aforesaid interpretation of speeches useful or necessary in the primitive Church; since then the gift of tongues was familiar to all, who invisibly receiving the Holy Ghost through Baptism and Confirmation were even visibly endowed with the charisms of the same divine Spirit, and above all with the gift of tongues. For we read in Acts 19 that when Paul had come to Ephesus, and had laid hands upon the newly converted faithful, the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they spoke with tongues, and prophesied. Again in chapter 10 we read that the same Spirit fell upon all the gentiles gathered together with Cornelius: For they heard them speaking with tongues, and magnifying God. — I answer, that the interpretation of speeches was ordered unto the common utility of the faithful: for the gift of tongues was not familiar to all, as is evident from these words, 1 Corinthians 14: Do all speak with tongues? But that which is brought forward from Acts 10 and 19 proves only that on certain occasions the gift of tongues was communicated together with Baptism and Confirmation, namely, that the virtue and efficacy of Baptism might appear the more, and the truth of faith be the more confirmed.

You will object 2. Why did the Apostles make use of Interpreters, since they themselves excelled in the gift of tongues, and likewise in the interpretation of speeches? For St. Irenaeus relates, book 3, chapter 1, and St. Jerome in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers, that St. Peter used the holy Mark as Interpreter, and St. Paul Titus. — I answer, that the Apostles indeed had the interpretation of speeches; nevertheless they sometimes made use of the ministry of Interpreters, not for their own proper utility, but for that of the faithful: for after the Apostles had preached, it was necessary that someone make the foreign voices known to hearers unskilled in them, using the familiar idiom of each of the hearers: it was necessary also that the deeper mysteries of faith, which the Apostles had expressed in fewer words, be expounded with fuller discourse to those whom the Apostle calls idiots.

You will object finally: by what reasoning is the interpretation of speeches distinguished from the gift of tongues? — I answer, that the interpretation of speeches signifies and imports above the gift of tongues a certain special assistance of the Holy Ghost for preserving fidelity to the words, maintaining clarity of the sentences, and attaining the sense of the speech being interpreted; for, as St. Jerome complains in many places, it is exceedingly difficult in translations of foreign tongues to obtain all these things, on account of the various proprieties of each idiom, for neither does translation suffice word for word, but a certain attainment of the sense is also required. Moreover, the interpretation of speeches adds above the gift of tongues a knowledge of the deeper mysteries contained in the words, which knowledge St. Paul often designates by the broad name of Prophecy, and refers to together with the gift of tongues.

You ask: whether the freely given graces are habitual or actual? — I answer, that some of them are habitual, namely those which inhere permanently, of which sort are wisdom, knowledge, faith, the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of speeches: others truly are actual, and are motions and as it were instantaneous and temporal impressions, which cease when the effect ceases, of which sort are the grace of healings, the working of miracles, the gift of Prophecy, and discretion of spirits. The reason of this answer is, because we use habits when we will: whereas the Saints did not use these given graces at their own pleasure, but only when moved by God: therefore they were wont to pour forth prayers to God, that they might work some miracle, for example: but they used the former graces at their pleasure, and upon occasion given, and public utility presenting itself: therefore the former inhere after the manner of habit: the latter truly only after the manner of act. Nor does it matter that the Apostle in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 14, says that the spirits of Prophets are subject to Prophets; for it must be understood with respect to the enunciation and locution only of those things which have been revealed to them, not truly with respect to that revelation, which they receive not as they will: whence the Apostle writes there: Let two or three prophets speak, and let the rest judge; but if anything be revealed to another sitting, let the first hold his peace.

St. Augustine commends this division of grace in many places, but nowhere more fully and more clearly than in the book On Rebuke and Grace, chapter 11, where, after he had demonstrated in the preceding chapter that Adam by free will could have stood if he had willed, he begins the following thus: > What then? Did Adam not have the grace of God? He indeed had it greatly, but dissimilarly: he was in good things, which he had received of the goodness of his Creator...... But the Saints in this life, to whom this grace of liberation pertains, are in evils: from which they cry unto God: but deliver us from evil. He had no need in those good things of the death of Christ; His blood, of that Lamb, absolved these from the guilt, both hereditary and proper. He had no need of that assistance which these implore when they say: I see another Law in my members, etc. since in them the flesh concupisceth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and laboring and perilized in such a combat, they demand that the virtue of fighting and conquering be given to them through the grace of Christ: but he, tried and troubled by no such strife of him> self against himself, enjoyed in that place of beatitude his peace with himself: wherefore although they did not then rejoice, yet now those stand in need of a more powerful grace of things ». And further on. > Nor therefore did God will him to be without His grace, which He left in his free will; since free will suffices for evil: for good, however, it avails nothing, unless it be aided by the omnipotent good: if man had not deserted that assistance through his free will, he would always have been good: but he deserted it, and was deserted. For such was the assistance, which he could desert when he would, and in which he would remain if he would, not because it came about that he would. This is the first grace which was given to the first Adam. But this is more powerful in the second Adam: for the first is that whereby it comes about that man has justice if he will. The second, therefore, is more potent, whereby it also comes about that he wills, and wills so much, and loves with such ardor, that by the will of the spirit he conquers the contrary concupiscence of the will of the flesh. Nor indeed was that a small grace, wherein was demonstrated also the power of free will, since he was so admonished that without this assistance he would not remain in good, but could desert this assistance if he would: but this is so much greater, as that it is but little for man by the former to repair his lost liberty, it is finally but little not to be able without it either to apprehend good, or to remain in good if he wills, unless he is also made to will. For God had then given to man a good will, whereby rectitude was wrought in him. And there was an assistance, without which he could not remain if he would; but that he would, He left in his free will: yet he could remain, if he would: because the assistance was not lacking whereby he could, and without which he could not perseveringly hold the good which he would: but because he would not remain, therefore his is the blame, whose merit it would have been if he had willed to remain, as the holy Angels did, who while others fell through free will stood themselves, and merited to receive the due reward of that abiding: namely, so great a fullness of beatitude, whereby it is most certain to them that they shall ever abide therein. But if this assistance had been wanting to Angel or to man as soon as they were made, since such a nature had not been made that without divine assistance it could abide whither it would, assuredly they would not have fallen by their own fault: for the assistance would have been wanting without which they could not remain. Now, however, to whom such assistance is wanting, it is already the penalty of sin: but to whom it is given, it is given according to grace, not according to debt. And so much more abundantly is it given through Jesus Christ our Lord to those to whom it pleased God to give it, that not only is it present, without which we cannot remain even if we would: but verily it is so great and of such a kind that we do will. For it is in us, upon receiving this grace of God in good, and holding it perseveringly, not only to be able to do what we will, but truly to will what we can. Which was not in the first man; for one of these was in him, the other was not: for, to receive good, he had no need of grace, because he had not yet lost it; but to remain in it, he had need of the assistance of grace, without which he could by no means do it, and he had received the power to do so if he would, but had not the willing that he had power over: for if he had had it, he had persevered: for he could persevere even if he would: that he would not, he descended by free will, which then was so free, that he could will well and ill: but what shall be freer than free will, when he shall not be able to serve > sin, whereas it was to be hereafter, and to man as it was made, and to the holy Angels the reward of merit; but now, the good of merit being lost through sin, it has been made in those who are delivered the gift of grace, which was to be the reward of merit ». At the beginning of the following chapter: > The assistances themselves are to be distinguished: one is the assistance without which something does not come to pass: and another is the assistance whereby something comes to pass: for without aliments we cannot live, yet when aliments are present it does not come about thereby that he lives who wishes to die: therefore the assistance of aliments is without which it does not come to pass, not whereby it comes to pass, that we live; but truly beatitude, which man has not, when it has been given, makes him forthwith blessed. For the assistance is not only without which it does not come to pass, but truly whereby it comes to pass, for the sake of which it is given. Wherefore this assistance both is whereby it comes to pass, and without which it does not; because if beatitude has been given to man, he forthwith becomes blessed, and if it has never been given, he never shall be. But aliments do not consequently make man live, and nevertheless without them he cannot live. Therefore to the first man (who in that good, wherein he had been made upright, had received the power not to sin, the power not to die, the power not to desert that good itself) was given the assistance of perseverance, not whereby it came about that he persevered, but without which by free will he could not persevere. Now, however, to the Saints predestinated unto the kingdom of God by the grace of God, not only is such an assistance of perseverance given; but such, that perseverance itself is bestowed upon them, not only so that without this gift they cannot be persevering, but verily, that through this gift they may be none other than persevering ». After many things: > That therefore the first man might not receive this gift of God, namely perseverance in good, but perseverance were left in his free will, his will had such powers, which had been instituted without any sin, and resisted nothing concupiscently of itself, so that free will might worthily be entrusted to so great goodness, and facility of living well, and of persevering: God indeed foreseeing what he would do unjustly; yet foreseeing, not coercing unto this; but at the same time knowing what He would justly do with him. Now, however, after that great liberty has been lost through the merit of sin, infirmity remains to be aided even by greater gifts. For it pleased God, that He might above all extinguish the pride of human presumption, that all flesh should not glory before Him, that is, every man. Whence should flesh not glory before Him, unless of its own merits, which indeed it could have had, but lost, that is, by free will, wherefore there remains nothing for those to be liberated, save by the grace of the Liberator? » And further on: > who gives them not only an assistance such as He gave to the first man, without which they cannot persevere if they will not: but works in them also the willing: so that since they will not persevere unless they both can and will, both the possibility and the will of persevering be bestowed upon them by the largess of divine grace: for only by the Holy Ghost is their will so enkindled, that they can for this reason, because they so will, and so will for this reason, because God works in them to will. For if in so great infirmity of this life, in which infirmity nevertheless perfect virtue had to be wrought on account of the repression of elation, their own will were left to themselves, so that they would remain in the assistance of God, without which they could not persevere, if they would, nor would God work in them that they would, amid so many and so great temptations their very will would succumb through its infirmity, and therefore they could not persevere, because failing through infirmity they neither > will it, or do not so will through the infirmity of the will, as to be able. Assistance has therefore been brought to the infirmity of human will, that by divine grace it is acted indeclinably and invincibly: and therefore although weak, it would not fail, nor be overcome by any adversity. Thus it has come about, that the will of man, invalid and feeble, persevered in a still lesser good through the power of God, whereas even the will of the first man, strong and sound, did not persevere in a greater good, having the power of free will: although not with respect to the future assistance of God, without which he could not persevere if he would; yet not such, whereby in him God worked that he would. For to the strongest He left and permitted to do what they would: for the weak He reserved, that by His own giving they should most invincibly will what is good, and most invincibly refuse to desert it ». Hence St. Augustine, whom I judged should be transcribed somewhat at greater length, that thence may appear what was the genuine mind of the holy Doctor concerning the difference of each grace, namely of health and of medicine, which we shall declare more openly below: but first out of this most abundant harvest certain seeds of truth must be gathered, concerning which there is agreement among Catholics and Heretics.

Corollary I. — From the foregoing doctrine of St. Augustine. — From these, therefore, it follows first, that grace was necessary for Adam in the state of innocence, as is evident from the words of St. Augustine praised above. Hence in the Enchiridion, chapter 106, speaking of the state of the first man, he pronounces in this manner: Although without grace not even then could any merit have existed, since although sin consisted in free will alone: nevertheless free will did not suffice for holding justice, unless the divine assistance were afforded by participation of the immutable good. And in the following chapter: Thus therefore was man made upright, so that he could remain in that uprightness not without divine assistance. His disciples subscribe to him, especially St. Prosper chapter 18 Against the Collator. Fulgentius On the Incarnation and Grace, chapter 12.

You will say: St. Augustine expressly pronounces that Adam by the powers of the free will of nature could persevere in good, and accordingly had no need of grace for that end. The antecedent is proved from the book On Rebuke and Grace, chapter 10, where he asserts that Adam could stand through free will, as the holy Angels did, who while others fell through free will stood themselves. And in the following chapter he had said: He had given an assistance, without which he could not remain if he would: but that he would, He left in his free will. Hence that celebrated sentence of the book On the Perseverance of the Good: He who is not led into temptation, he says, does not depart from God: this is altogether not in the powers of free will, such as they now are; it had been in man before he fell; which liberty of will, however, how much it availed in the excellence of that first condition appeared in the Angels. — I answer, that St. Augustine in these and similar sentences uses those words, nature, naturally, free will, in a sense far otherwise than is wont to be taken by us. For by nature he understands all habitual gifts, which the first man, received from God, would have transfused into posterity together with humanity by generation. For as from that nativity whereby we are now born we are said by the Apostle to be by nature children of wrath, so that the name of nature signifies and embraces original guilt; so from that nativity whereby (if Adam had not sinned) all his sons by example would have been born children of God and saints; whence he takes the name of nature in such wise that it comprehends also sanctifying grace itself. Thus St. Augustine himself explains himself in many places; for book 1 Of Retractations, chapter 15: Properly nature is said, he says, in which we have been created without fault. And in book 8 On Free Will, chapter 19, disputing with the Manichees, he says: so also we call nature itself otherwise, when we speak properly, the nature of man, in which he was first made in his genus unblamable: otherwise this one, in which from the penalty of that condemned one we are born mortal, and ignorant, and subject to the flesh: according to which mode says the Apostle: for we were also by nature children of wrath. Hence Epistle 107 he says: The first Adam lost nature itself in himself. Regarding which words the Council of Orange, Canon 21, affirms that nature was lost through Adam. Finally Coelestine calls that natural possibility, Epistle to the bishops of Gaul, chapter 1, whereby he designates the will adorned without fault and with habitual grace, while he says: In the transgression of Adam all men lost natural possibility and innocence. — In quite similar sense S. Augustine used the names liberty and free will, when speaking of innocent nature, as is evident both from the cited words in the objection, and likewise from Epistle 107, where he says: By the greatness of the first sin we lost free will for loving God: and in Sermon 2 On the Words of the Apostle, of the first man, he says: Great powers of free will man received when he was created; but by sinning he lost them: by which words, under the name of free will he signifies the will adorned with sanctifying grace and heavenly gifts, which by natural propagation were to have been transfused into posterity, if he himself had not sinned.

Corollary II. — It follows 2. That medicinal grace is more excellent than the grace of health, chiefly by three characters 1. That the former is more abundant. 2. That it is more potent. 3. That it is more determinative of the will unto operation. The first is evident from those words of Christ the Lord, John 10: I am come, that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly: whence the Apostle to the Romans 5 says: Where sin abounded, grace did more abound, which oracles St. Bernard lucidly expounds in the Sermon upon chapter 12 of the Apocalypse: Exceedingly, he says, have one man and one woman harmed us; but thanks be to God, through one man nonetheless, and one woman, all things were restored, nor without a great murmur of thanksgiving. For not as the offense, so also the gift, but the magnitude of the benefit exceeds the estimation of the loss: So indeed the most provident and most clement artificer repaired what had been shattered, not breaking it, but refashioning it altogether more usefully, etc. — The second likewise is established from the doctrine of St. Augustine himself, which he clearly expounds in the book On Rebuke and Grace, in the words cited above, where he calls medicinal grace more potent, greater, and more efficacious: for succor had to be brought to infirm and vitiated and wounded human nature by a more potent remedy, lest prostrate it lie cast down with all concupiscence of carnal things; for, as St. Augustine said above, If in so great infirmity of this life their own will were left to themselves, so that they would remain in the assistance of God, without which they could not persevere, if they would, nor would God work in them that they would, amid so many and so great temptations their very will would succumb through its infirmity, and therefore they could not persevere, because failing through infirmity, they neither would: or do not so will through infirmity of will, as to be able. — Thirdly, finally, St. Augustine signifies there, adding: Assistance has therefore been brought to the infirmity of human will, that by divine grace it is acted indeclinably and insuperably. What moreover those words signify, to be acted indeclinably and insuperably, we shall declare below.

Corollary III. — It follows 3. That a twofold assistance was necessary in each state, namely of the nature of the innocent and of the fallen; to wit, intellectual and habitual, that is, the habit of sanctifying grace, whereby the just man may continue to act well and persevere, and the celestial illumination of the intellect, whereby he may know the good to be followed, the evil to be shunned: concerning which two aids Catholics and Heretics agree; not so concerning the assistance of the will, or celestial delectation, whereby the will is affected and moved unto good: for concerning this it is controverted whether it was necessary for each state, as we shall examine below.

I said 1. That the assistance of habitual grace was necessary in each state unto acting and persevering, namely that perseverance which is contained in repeated acts of divine charity: not truly some idle and as it were inert perseverance, which comprehends no act. And accordingly the sense is not: that habitual grace is necessary for remaining in habitual grace, as some seem to expound: for this appears per se ridiculous; but rather that habitual grace is necessary for persevering in the actual love of God, or for exercising new acts of love; in which sense the present assertion contains nothing of difficulty or controversy, and is confirmed by St. Augustine as often as he preaches the possibility conceded to the first Adam, and free will for loving God.

I said 2. That the assistance of knowledge was necessary in each state; which assertion St. Augustine teaches, book 3 On Free Will, last chapter, where he repeats the necessity of that assistance from that cause which is common to integral and corrupted nature: The will, he says, brings naught to doing anything whatever, unless some cognition of a thing impel it; but what anyone chooses or rejects is in the power of man: but whereby, seen, he be touched, there is no power; which he affirms in the same place to pertain also to the first man and to the Angels. Hence in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 53, he pronounces universally: No one has in his power what comes into his mind: but he speaks of indeliberate cognition, which Adam innocent, equally as his posterity, ought to receive from God: not truly of free cognition, which he had in his power. That both gifts, habitual and actual, were necessary both to integral and to sound nature, St. Augustine plainly signifies in the book On Rebuke and Grace, where to Pelagius saying: Not to sin is ours: he answers thus: If he spoke of the integral and sound nature of man, which we have not through evil, not even thus would it rightly be said: since not to sin being merely ours, although to sin be ours, for there would be the assistance of God, and as it were the light to sound eyes, aided by which they see themselves offering to the willing. By these words he does not say that there would be the assistance of God as light to sound eyes: but that he might distinguish two aids, he significantly says: There would be the assistance of God, and as the light to sound eyes, etc.

Since therefore these things are common among all, both Catholics and Heretics, or at least few there are who cry out against the doctrine handed down in the superior Corollaries; there remains to determine in what chiefly and precisely consists the difference of the grace of health from medicinal grace. Concerning which, in assigning it, a threefold capital opinion is assigned: The First contends that they differ mutually in this, that dissent from the grace of health is possible, not so from medicinal. The Second derives the distinction of each from this, that the grace of health besides the habitual assistance has annexed only the intellectual assistance, not truly the assistance of delectation, whereby the will would be specially affected, and moved unto willing. The Third opinion indeed requires this threefold assistance in each state, but with supreme disparity to be assigned within. That the knowledge of all which may be had the more evident and easy, it pleases to weigh this triple opinion under distinct Paragraphs.

§ I. Whether medicinal grace differs from the grace of health in this, that dissent is possible to the latter, but assent necessary to the former.

Pestilential and heretical was the opinion of Luther, that man in the state of fallen nature cannot in any wise dissent from grace. As he teaches in many places, but chiefly in the book On the Bondage of the Will. Wherefore the Council of Sens deservedly affirms that he fell into Manichaeism when he strove to avoid Pelagianism, as not rarely happens to heretics; for they are wont to decline from one extreme into another no less vicious. The words of the Council are:

Luther fell into the error of Manes, while he condemned Pelagius too excessively and scrupulously: fearing namely to extol free will with Pelagius, he attributes every good work, which is in man, to God and to divine grace; naught at all to free will. And thus abolishing free will altogether Luther was made a Manichaean, while he fled from being a Pelagian.

To which most wicked doctrine Calvin subscribed in many places, but chiefly in the Antidote to Trent ad Session 6, article 5, where concerning the Fathers of that Council he speaks thus:

In this they hallucinate, in that they dream that motion is taken from us which would leave us the middle election. Finally, in this they are deceived, that they observe no difference between the grace of regeneration, which now comes to the aid of our misery, and the first, which was given to Adam, a difference which Augustine diligently expounds, saying: the first man had that grace indeed, by which he could never be evil: for such was the aid, that he would desert it when he willed, not so that he willed; but greater is the grace in the second Adam, by which it comes to pass even that we do will. Hence lib. 2. Institutionum, cap. 5. n. 10. concerning the help of grace given to men in this state of fallen nature, he speaks thus: ⟦illegible: lountitem moret⟧, not as it was delivered and believed for many centuries afterward, namely, that our motion of election is afterwards obeyed or resisted: but that it efficaciously affects it: therefore that saying so often repeated from Chrysostom must be rejected: whom he draws, he draws willing: whereby he insinuates that the Lord, with hand only outstretched, awaits whether by his own arbitrement it may please us. We concede that such was the condition of man still standing, that he could incline to either part: but since he taught by his own example how miserable free will is, unless God in us both wills and can, that it be done unto us, if after that manner he bestows his grace upon us.

That we may proscribe this indeed erroneous opinion, let it be:

Catholic Assertion: The medicinal grace of Christ does not in any way necessitate the will to consent: but it leaves to itself the faculty of dissenting: and forthwith that difference altogether fictitious which the heretics establish between the grace of health and of medicine. This truth is proved by all those texts of Scripture in which it is openly declared that in the state of fallen nature grace's aids, even completely sufficient ones, are resisted: and consequently also that internal motion of the will, so that those who act well or laudably abstain from every evil work could have done the contrary. Which truth we read plainly in Ecclesiasticus 1, where the just man is praised because he could have transgressed, and hath not transgressed: could do many things, and did them not. And there is added to his commendation: Who is this, and we will praise him? for he hath done wonderful things in his life. But if, antecedently necessitated by medicinal grace, which he could not resist, he did all these things, he would do nothing wonderful and singular which anyone else, prevented by the same grace, would not with like facility accomplish. Then, too, it would be false that he could have transgressed when he did not transgress, that is, obey the commandments with a power toward the opposite, if he ought thus to have been necessitated; for he could not obey completely except when prevented and excited by medicinal grace to obedience; but that being posited, in the sense of the heretics, he could not have failed to obey.

The same truth appears from Isaiah 5: What ought I to have done further to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? Have I waited that it should bring forth grapes, and it hath brought forth wild grapes? In which words God complains of the Israelites that they did not obey his divine commandments: but this complaint would present no appearance of justice, if medicinal grace determined the will to the good work in such a way that it could by no means recoil from it. For deservedly the Jews could have answered that God ought further to have kept silence toward his vineyard in order to retain the awaited fruit, namely to concede to it necessitating grace, without which no one can exercise works of piety: nor ought God, that grace not conceded, to have waited for the vineyard to bring forth grapes; otherwise he awaited something impossible, no more congruous to reason than one who pretends to gather grapes from thorns, and figs from briars.

But the same assertion the Lord Christ most openly confirms Matth. 23, where he likewise complains of the Jews: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not! For this will would be plainly hypocritical, if there had been need to them of necessitating grace that they might will to be gathered, even as Calvin teaches, and God had not supplied it: so that the Jews antecedently neither willed to be gathered nor obeyed him calling. Likewise Act. 7. You always resist the Holy Ghost. Ierem. 10. I have stretched forth my hands all the day to a people that believeth not, and gain-saith me. I adduce other contexts signifying the same.

The same assertion is proved by the authority of Councils; above all indeed of the Synod of Sens decreeing against Luther Decree 15. ⟦illegible: auxilium roluit congregure⟧ children of Jerusalem, as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not? Vainly surely would Stephen accuse the Jews of hard neck and uncircumcised heart, who always resisted the Holy Ghost; vainly would Paul admonish the Thessalonians not to extinguish the spirit, if men were carried away inevitably by divine inspirations.

The same is most clearly taught by the Council of Trent, Sess. 6. Can. 4. where it says:

If anyone shall say, that man's free will, moved and excited by God, cooperates nothing by assenting to God exciting and calling, so as to dispose and prepare itself for obtaining the grace of justification, and cannot dissent if it will, but as some inanimate thing does nothing at all and remains merely passive, let him be anathema.

Where it must be noted 1. that both Councils speak of efficacious help; for Trent speaks of that to which man actually consents and cooperates, by whose aid he disposes himself for his own justification: and of the same speaks the Synod of Sens in the cited decree, namely of a help actually moving and drawing free will to consent, and by whose aid we run in the odor of his ointments, as it adds in the same place shortly after. It must be noted 2. that man's free assent and cooperation is explained by Trent through this, that he can cast off that inspiration, and dissent if he wills. It must be noted 3. that according to the doctrine of both Councils, the help efficacious being posited and standing, dissension and rejection can exist, that is, a man actually prevented by efficacious help, to which he de facto consents and cooperates, can if he will not consent, and cast off the divine inspiration and motion; for those words of the Synod of Sens plainly signify this: it is not such a help of God drawing that it cannot be resisted: as likewise those words of the Council of Trent Can. 4. Free will, moved and excited by God, cooperates by assenting to God exciting and calling in such wise that it can dissent, if it will.

It is proved 3. by the authority of the holy Fathers, who teach most clearly that God so calls and helps those consenting to work well, that they can not consent to the calling and help of grace to which they actually consent. So think the Greek Fathers, above all Origen lib. 1. Periarchon c. 1. where, having taught that every rational soul is possessed of free will, he subjoins: If we are of our own arbitrement, perhaps certain diabolical powers can instigate to sin, and others aid toward salvation: nevertheless we are not compelled by necessity either to act rightly or ill. Irenaeus subscribes lib. 4. Contra haereses, cap. 7. They who work it, he says, shall receive glory and honor, because they worked the good when they could not work it: but they who work it not, shall receive the just judgment of God, because they worked not the good when they could have worked it. Above the others indeed Saint Chrysostom declares this truth in many places, especially Hom. 19. on Genesis, where he says: Because the Lord of all made our nature to be of free will, he ever exhibits what is his own for everything according to his mercy: and knowing the hidden things in the depth of the mind and its secrets, he exhorts, counsels, and represses our many attempts: and imposes necessity upon none, but, fitting remedies applied, commits the whole to the judgment of the sick man. And Hom. 81. on cap. 26. Matth. The calling of God, he says, compels no one: nor does it in any way violate the mind of those who wish to despise virtue: but it exhorts indeed and counsels, and persuades by every means to be good: but if any resist, it in no way compels them to will to be good. Where under the name of violence and coaction he excludes necessity from the divine virtue of grace.

In similar manner speak the Latin Fathers; but above the others Saint Cyprian plainly teaches this truth Epist. 50. To Cornelius, where he says: He upbraided not those departing, or threatened gravely, but rather turned to his Apostles and said: Will you also go away? keeping doubtless that law whereby man, left to his liberty, and established in his own arbitrement, himself seeks either death or salvation: and therefore he is not driven toward one of these by any antecedent necessity.

Saint Ambrose accords, lib. 2. De Iacob et vita beata, cap. 3. where he says: He who has the power of his own acts is certainly free: but whoever is antecedently necessitated to act, so that he cannot not act, has not that power: and forthwith Saint Ambrose proscribes necessity of acting from free man.

Saint Jerome gives his assent to this in book 2 of his work Against Jovinian, where he says: God made us with free will: we are not drawn by necessity either to virtues or to vices: otherwise, where necessity is, there is neither damnation nor crown. This same sentiment Saint Augustine relates and approves in his book On Nature and Grace, chapter 65. Wherefore this most holy Doctor, whose authority above all Calvin strives to enlist in defense of his erroneous dogma, declares in many places that it lies within our will to consent or to refuse consent to grace. Most clearly indeed in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 31, where he writes: Assuredly God works in man the very willing to believe, and in all things His mercy prevents us: but to consent to the calling of God, or to refuse consent to it, belongs to one's own will. In these words Saint Augustine reconciles two things which the heretics say cannot by any art be joined together: the first, that God by His efficacious grace works in us the willing and the believing, that is, whatever good we do; the second, that He so works these things, that nevertheless we can refuse consent to the grace by which He does them.

But that the reprobate in fact resist the grace offered to them, and that it rests with them that they do not consent to it, the same Saint Augustine taught in book 1 To Simplician, question 2, by the example of Esau: Esau would not ⟦illegible: rry»⟧, he says, and did not run: yet had he willed, he would have arrived by the help of God, who stood ready to grant even the willing and the running by recalling him, unless by contempt of his vocation he were to become reprobate. Here he speaks of the internal vocation, and of the help given to the very will, without which it could not run and arrive: for otherwise it would not have rested with the will itself and its contempt of grace that it should not run and arrive; but rather upon the defect and absence of the necessary help.

His own disciples subscribe to him, especially Saint Prosper in book 2 On the Vocation of the Gentiles, chapter 28: God, he says, so gives the very willing to obey Him, that even for those who are to persevere He does not take away that power by which they are able not to will. And Saint Anselm on Matthew chapter 6: In Paul, he says, the coercing will of God, that is, the necessitating will of God, is discerned, but it was not so, because although he was struck down, nevertheless his will remained free, so that he could have resisted had he wished.

OBJECTIONS DRAWN FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE.

The heretics object various texts of Scripture, by which they strive to prove that grace granted in the state of fallen nature is not subject as regards its use to the liberty of the will; but rather that it necessitates and determines it to consent. Thus 2 Paralipomenon 30: In Juda was wrought the hand of the Lord, that He might give them one heart, to do according to the word of the Lord, the commandment of the King and of the Princes. Like to this is that of Ezechiel 36, where God thus addresses the Jews: I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit in the midst of you, and I will cause you to walk in my commandments. Likewise that to the Philippians 2: For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will.

I answer, that from all these texts nothing else can be gathered than that for works of salvation we stand in such need of the grace of God preventing and cooperating, that without it no such work can be done; to that end Saint Augustine uses the texts cited above and those to be cited shortly against the Pelagians and Semipelagians, in the book On the Good of Perseverance, and in book 2 Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. I answer, second, that from those texts it does not follow that grace necessitates the will antecedently; for although God bestows upon us a new heart and a new spirit, and causes us to walk in His commandments, and gives both to will and to accomplish according to His good will, and brings it about that we will and do, still it does not follow from this that He does so by a help antecedently necessitating, and of such efficacy that the will cannot dissent from it; for God brings it about in two ways that we exercise supernatural works pertaining to salvation: first morally, by illuminating the intellect and alluring the will through preventing grace; second physically, by cooperating with the consenting will through accompanying grace, but not by determining it through an antecedently necessitating grace.

They object, second, other various texts, by which God seems signified to move our will so efficaciously and to effect the work in it, that it cannot wholly cease therefrom. Thus Esther chapter 14 prays God: Transfer his heart (namely, of King Assuerus) into hatred of our enemy: therefore, they say, Esther understood that the heart of King Assuerus could by divine aid be so transferred into hatred of the enemy of the Jews that, once it was so placed, it could not happen otherwise. To this concur all those texts whereby the will of God is signified to be most omnipotent, and that no one can resist it. Thus Esther 13: There is none that can resist thy will. Isaias 46: My counsel shall stand, and all my will shall be done. Romans 9: Who resisteth his will? Therefore if God wills that I consent to His grace, I cannot refuse consent to Him.

I answer, that although the will of God is one and most simple, nevertheless by reason of the divine operation and deliberation it is distinguished by theologians as manifold, namely positive and permissive; antecedent and consequent; efficacious and inefficacious; absolute and conditional. Whence I distinguish the consequent: I cannot refuse consent and struggle against the efficacious and absolute will of God, of which will the cited texts of Scripture are to be understood, I concede: against an inefficacious will, or one efficacious only under a condition hanging upon the free choice of man, such as is the will by which God intends our consent and our work, I deny.

They object, third, those texts in which the will is said to be drawn by God. Thus Canticles 1: Draw me, we will run after thee, etc. John 6: No man can come to me except the Father who hath sent me draw him. Therefore every one who is led to God must be drawn by a help of such power and strength that he does not resist it: for if, in virtue of our innate liberty, we respond to God calling and follow Him, we rather draw God, so to speak, to cooperate with us than He draws us.

I deny the consequence: and to the antecedent I say that God draws us to working well and salutarily by His preventing grace, without which no one can work salutarily: beyond that preventing help another cooperating help is granted, which neither prevented nor worked before the will consents: yet never does the will so determine the cooperating help that it was not itself first drawn by God, that is, moved and excited by the preventing help of divine inspiration, of which help the aforesaid texts are to be understood; but not of a grace antecedently necessitating the will to act, and which cannot be resisted. Nor let that word draw occasion any difficulty, for in moral matters and free causes it signifies not to necessitate, but to allure, according to that saying of the Poet: Each is drawn by his own pleasure: by pleasure, I say, not necessity, nor obligation, but delight, as Saint Augustine says, Tractate 26 on John.

OBJECTIONS URGED BY THE HERETICS FROM SAINT AUGUSTINE FOR A NECESSITATING MEDICINAL GRACE.

Calvin objects, in book 2 of the Institutes, chapter 3, number 13, and certain followers of his urge various texts of Saint Augustine in which he asserts that the grace of Christ operates, first, the very willing, and effects that we will; second, bestows a good will; third, takes away all merits and virtues; and many other things of that kind, from which that most wicked archheretic infers that our hearts follow the motion of an afflicting God by necessity: whence, with his customary insults, he even attacks the sacred Faculty of Paris, saying:

Let us now hear Augustine speaking in his own words, lest the Pelagians of our age, that is, the Sorbonnic Sophists, criminate against us the whole of antiquity, as is their custom.

Both he and his followers adduce, first, from Epistle 107 to Vitalis, where St. Augustine says: Wherefore that we believe in God and live piously is of God who shows mercy, not of him who willeth nor of him who runneth: not because we ought not to will and to run, but because He works in us both to will and to run. And in the book De Gratia et libero Arbitrio, chapter 17: Without Him either operating that we may will, or cooperating when we will, we avail nothing for the works of piety. And in the book De Bono Perseverantia, chapter 13: We therefore will, but God works in us both the willing and the working, for the good will.

Secondly, they gather from the same Epist. 107. The steps of a man are directed by the Lord, and His way ⟦illegible: inlet⟧, and we shall understand that very good will by which we begin to will to believe, since what is the way of God but true faith? to be the gift of Him who therefore directs our steps first of all that we may will.

Thirdly, lastly, he en- deavours to prove it from Epistle 105. Eternal life is itself also called grace for no other reason than that it is given gratis: nor is it therefore given because of merits, but because the very merits for which it is given were themselves given. And Epistle 107. It must be understood, therefore, he says, that even the good merits of man are gifts of God, by which, when eternal life is rendered, what is rendered but grace for grace? Therefore the true and genuine distinction between each grace, that of medicine and that of health, must be gathered especially from this head: that the latter left man a free artificer of his own will and good works, whereas the former impels him necessarily to the good work.

I deny the consequence: for from the fact that God is said to work in us the willing and to effect a good will, it does not follow that we are thereby necessitated by an efficacious grace to act; otherwise the same would have to be affirmed of the Angels and of Adam innocent; for St. Augustine himself most clearly teaches that there was given to Adam himself and to the Angels a grace which was efficacious in them, so that it wrought in them to will and a good will, as may be seen lib. 12. De Civit. Dei, c. 9. where, after he had asked whether the holy Angels, whom they have as Creator by nature, have the same as Author of their will through the Holy Spirit diffusing charity in them, he sets forth two opinions, one of which decrees that the Angels never lacked chaste love, the other that they stood without it for some time; then from either he demonstrates it to be certain that a good will could have been granted only by God. Whence, he says, because a good will was made in the Angels, whether it was made with them, or apart from their fellowship as beings distinct, since these remained in the same good will, while those were changed by falling away into an evil will… who made this but He who created them with a good will, that is, with a chaste love, whereby these adhere to Him, at once founding nature in them and bestowing grace? That by these words the discourse is not concerning habitual charity, but concerning a good volition and actual charity, becomes clear from the scope and context of the disputation; for after he had discoursed of the evil will or perverse love, and taught that there is no efficient cause of it, but rather a deficient cause, from this question he proceeds to another like one which regards the cause of the good will: If we say there is no efficient cause even of the good will, care must be taken lest the good will of the good Angels be believed not made, but coeternal with God. It is clear, therefore, that on either side the dispute concerns the act of the will, whether evil or good.

It is evident, therefore, that for eliciting the first good volition the Angels received the aid of a grace most similar to that which works in us the very willing. For whatever St. Augustine asserts in the places written in the objection concerning the efficacy of medicinal grace for effecting a good will, does he not equally affirm of this aid of the Angels? Indeed he teaches plainly that God effects a good will and the very willing both in them and in us.

Moreover, what St. Augu- stine taught concerning the Angels, the same must often be inculcated as to be determined of the first man innocent, namely, that he was founded with an actual good will. This he opens clearly lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, c. 11. God made, he says, man right, as it is written, and hence of a good will: for he would not be right without possessing a good will: a good will, therefore, is the work of God; for with it man was made. And chapter 21. Why should He not permit the first man, who was right, that is, created with a good will, to be tempted by that one? And in the book De Corrept. et Gratia: Therefore God had then given man a good will, for in it He had made him, who had made him right.

I will bring forward no more testimonies of St. Augustine to insinuate the same truth, since those sufficiently set forth above demonstrate that the aid of grace which God bestowed upon the Angels and Adam for the first act of love had all those things altogether from which the heretics pretend that force of inflicting necessity belonging to medicinal grace: for by that aid God bestowed a good will, and wrought the very willing. And accordingly we rightly deny the consequence, since in the places cited in the objection St. Augustine contends for nothing else than that God prevent our will with exciting grace, and concur with it through cooperating grace for forming a good will and exercising a good willing.

You object, 2. Calvin ib. num. 9. All the saints and just men now supplicate God humbly that He incline their wills to the good work and observance of the precepts, and thereupon determine them efficaciously to good: but innocent Adam had no need to pray for this; indeed, as St. Augustine taught above, it was in his free power to will good: therefore medicinal grace differs from the grace of health, in that the former induced to good necessarily, the latter freely.

I answer 1. by denying the minor; since Gelasius the Supreme Pontiff in the sayings against the Pelagians, which are found in tome 2 of the Councils, pronounces expressly that even the first Parents ought to have besought the divine grace which would effect and confirm their will in good.

If in those first men themselves, he says, while they trusted too much in their own felicity, and received so great a grace of God in vain, neither by praying — which indeed they are nowhere reported to have done — nor by returning thanks for what they had received, nor by imploring suppliantly that the same might remain undefiled, they could not stand secure; how much more after the transgression ⟦illegible: munam⟧, into which by an evil confidence in themselves they fell lethally in no wise ⟦illegible: inquirendo⟧ seeking the Creator, can they not stand even sick by their own strength without the divine gift, without which they could not persist even whole?

And below:

Hence that first integrity of condition, while it trusted thus concerning itself, as though it needed not Him who had founded it: nor gave thanks for what it had received, which it is nowhere recorded to have done, sought help for preserving what it had taken, nor ran devoutly even to knock at Him upon the approach of the tempter, but consulted and believed itself to its own will, that without the guard of the Creator it could withstand the ambushments of the deceiver.

Nothing indeed could have been said more plainly and more clearly to prove that prayer was necessary for Adam, that he might beseech the firmness and perseverance of grace.

To these things the authority of St. Augustine also helps to fasten. For here, lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, c. 21. Why did God, he says, not permit the first man (by that evil Angel) , who was created right, that is of a good will, to be tempted? Seeing he was so instituted that if he trusted in the help of God, the good man would conquer the evil Angel: but if proudly pleasing himself he deserted God his Creator and Helper, he would be conquered: having good merit in the right will divinely joined to him; but evil in the perverse will deserting God; because even to trust in the help of God he could not indeed without the help of God. It is manifest, therefore, that Adam could conquer the demon through divine help, which he was able to obtain by confidence in God and by prayer.

I answer secondly, by denying the sequel of the major: for although just men with David beseech God to incline their hearts unto His testimonies, it is not consequent thereupon that this inclination and de- termination is made necessarily; since divine grace can freely and benignly bend and determine the wills of men by a moral, not however a physical, allurement, to good.

You object, 3. Calvin ib. cap. 9. num. 12. 13. 11. St. Au- gustine teaches that the grace of perseverance granted to Adam, given as an aid to perseverance, differed in this from that of his posterity, that it conferred power on him only, but on these also the will: therefore truly medicinal grace differs from the grace of health, in that the former inflicts necessity, the latter not so. His followers prove the antecedent from various texts of the same holy Doctor, especially from the book De Correptione et Gratia, chapter 11, where, having said more than once of Adam that he had a help, without which he could not persevere if he willed, the choice of each part being placed in his arbitrement, he at length adds:

But because he willed not to remain, therefore his is the blame, whose merit it would have been, had he willed to remain: as the holy Angels did, who, when others fell through free will, by the same free will stood themselves;

and in the book De bono perseverantia, chapter 1, he hands down the same openly: This is not, he says, (namely, not to depart from God, or to remain with God) altogether within the powers of free will, such as they now are; it was in man before he fell. And in the Enchiridion to Laurentius 104, disputing of the divine will, and asserting that whatsoever it wills is altogether done; when it was objected: why therefore did He not guard the first man, whom He had instituted good and right, in that salvation in which he had been created: and likewise, why did He not translate him to the better blessedness of immortality, to which He seemed to have willed to found him and to transfer him? Both depended on the will of Adam, he answers, saying:

Wherefore even if God had willed to guard the first man in that salvation in which he had been founded, and to lead him at a fitting time after sons begotten, without the interposition of death, to better things, where already he could commit not only no sin, nor yet have a will of sinning; if He had foreknown that he would have a perpetual will to remain without sin, as he had been made; yet because He foresaw that he would make evil use of free will, that is, that he would sin, He rather prepared His will to this end, that the punishment itself should make even of the malefactor one who suffered evil.

He renders the reason of this saying, because then, both to will and to nill, to persevere and not to persevere, on account of the greatest liberty of that state, was left to the free arbitrement of the will. For so, he says, chapter 106, it behoved man first to be made such that he could will both well and ill: but now, as he straightway adds, the will is held under the servitude of sin, whence it comes that it cannot will well: but the will ought to be liberated and prepared through the grace of Christ.

I deny the consequence, and to the antecedent I say, that the perseverance of the Angels was a special gift of God, as also now is that of holy men, as St. Fulgentius expressly and most clearly hands down, lib. 2 ad Trasimundum, chapter 2, where concerning the Angels he speaks thus:

But since a certain part of that Angelic nature is seen hurled down from the summit of heavenly beatitude into the lowest and everlasting misery, blessed Peter saying: because God spared not the Angels that sinned, but delivered them, drawn down by infernal ropes to the lower hell, unto torments, to be reserved unto judgment: it is known of a surety that all could have been oppressed by a uniform companionship of ruin, unless that virtue of ⟦illegible: praritatis⟧ defended those whom ⟦illegible: cellet⟧ from the fall, which alone could not naturally be changed or prepared.

Therefore the same was necessary also for preparing man, since no other could guard the standing Angel from ruin than that which could repair fallen man after the fall. One is the grace operating in each: in this that he might rise, in that that he might not fall; in that that he might not be wounded, in this that he might be healed: from this it repelled infirmity, it suffers that one not to be infirmed.

These matters, which were expounded at length by Saint Fulgentius, that most keen defender and most illustrious interpreter of Augustinian doctrine, are handed down from the same saint's teaching previously given by Augustine himself lib. 12. De Civit. Dei, c. 9. where, disputing concerning the good and bad Angels, he has this: When those fell through evil will, these others, further aided, attained to that fullness of beatitude whence they were made most certain they would never fall. Here, by the words further aided, he doubtless understands the special aid granted to the good Angels for perseverance. Which indeed he hands down more fully and more clearly in Sermon 2 on Psalm 32, where he teaches that the Angelic nature, which he designates by the name of the heavens, had need of divine grace, which would confer upon it perseverance and firmness:

The heavens, he says, where there is no misery, do they not need the Lord because they do not need misery? All things need the Lord, both the miserable and the happy: without him the miserable are not raised up, without him the happy are not governed: therefore lest perhaps inquiry be made about the heavens, when you heard the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord: hear that even the heavens need the Lord: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established. For they were not to themselves their own establishment: nor did the heavens themselves furnish firmness to themselves. By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the spirit of his mouth all their power: they had nothing from themselves, and as it were a supplement they received from the Lord. For by the spirit of his mouth, not a part, but all their power.

The same afterwards teaches concerning the holy Apostles, so that no one may doubt, that not only saints and just men in the state of fallen nature, but also innocent man, and likewise the Angels, had need of divine grace in order to persevere.

Which doctrine indeed Saint Bernard most clearly hands down and defends in the book On Free Choice, where he teaches that perseverance was given by God to the Angels, not to Adam: To the higher spirits, he says, it was given to endure without sin and without misery, etc. But Adam indeed could exist without these things, yet not also remain in them. And in Sermon 22 on the Canticle: He who raised up fallen man, he says, gave to the standing Angel that he not fall: thus delivering him from captivity, even as he preserved the other from captivity: and on this account redemption was equally, indeed, both releasing him and preserving this one: hence it is clear that to the holy Angels Christ the Lord was redemption, as justice, as wisdom, as sanctification. Hence he concludes: Therefore everything that was, he was made to the Angels, and to us what? wisdom, justice, sanctification, redemption. In which words he most openly teaches two things: first indeed, that God gave to the Angels not only that they could not fall, but that they should not fall; secondly, that the redemption of the Angels is in the same manner as is their sanctification: but this beyond doubt is a special benefit of God: therefore also the other.

From these things therefore it is established, and most openly follows: first, that to the Angels and to innocent man there was necessary a special aid of God for persevering; secondly, that the grace by whose aid the Angels stood did not bring with it a necessity of persevering: whereupon Calvin shamefully errs, together with all his Followers, when they contend that medicinal grace imposes necessity because through it God certainly raises up whom he wills and defends them from falling: for this is common to both graces, of medicine and of health, that through it God raises up whom he wills and protects them from ruin.

You insist. Saint Augustine in the book On Rebuke and Grace, in the words praised above in the first Paragraph, calls medicinal grace the aid by which, and the grace of health the aid without which. By which he signifies that innocent man had indeed a grace which he could use at his liberty for doing good and for persevering in it: but otherwise his posterity, to whom is conferred an aid by which they are determined to willing and to persevering: but (they say) the aid without which left man free; but the aid by which compels him to act: therefore medicinal grace differs from the grace of health in this, that the one affects and moves man necessarily, the other freely.

They prove the major: Saint Augustine, ibid., chapter 12, explaining the distinction between the two aids granted to nature fallen and sound, says:

Therefore to first man, who in that good in which he had been made upright, had received being able not to sin, being able not to die, being able not to abandon that good itself, was given an aid of perseverance, not whereby it would come about that he persevere, but without which free choice could not persevere. But now to the Saints predestined into the kingdom of God by the grace of God, not only such an aid of perseverance is given: but such, that perseverance itself is given to them: not only so that without that gift they cannot be persevering; but even so that through this gift they be none other than persevering.

They prove the minor: Calvin, book 6 On Free Choice, near the end, namely that in this respect medicinal grace differs from the grace of health, that the former determines man necessarily to good, while the latter leaves him master of his own liberty and flexible toward either part: for this Saint Augustine seems most clearly to indicate near the end of the same chapter 12, where he says:

It suffices therefore for the infirmity of the human will that it be acted upon by divine grace unswervingly and invincibly: and therefore although weak it would not fail, nor be overcome by any adversity; so it came about that the will of man, invalid and feeble in a yet small good, persevered by the will of God: whereas even the will of the first man, strong and healthy, did not persevere in a greater good, having the power of free choice, although not of the future judgment of God without which he could not persevere if he willed: yet not such by which God would work in him that he should will: for he abandoned the strongest, and permitted him to do what he willed; he kept the weak ones, that by his own giving they might will most invincibly.

Therefore medicinal grace impels man necessarily to the good work.

I answer first, that the aid whereby something comes to be can be understood in two ways, namely either for the efficient cause or for the formal cause. Now Saint Augustine here uses the aid whereby only in the formal sense; for he treats here only of the grace necessary for persevering both for the first innocent man and for his posterity predestined; as manifestly appears from the beginning of chapter 10, which reads thus: Hence another question is excited, not indeed contemptible… for it is asked of us, with regard to this gift of God, which is to persevere in good unto the end, what we think of the first man himself. You see the question to be treated under three heads, on the occasion of which he distinguishes the aid which was given to the first man for persevering, and which he calls the aid without which he could not persevere, from the aid which is now given to men fallen, laboring in the interior war of concupiscence amid the darkness of ignorance, which he says is greater and stronger, and not only an aid without which they can persevere, he says, but an aid whereby unless they be persevering: nor does he treat anything else whatever in the aforementioned chapters. Hence it happens that since this aid he says pertains only to the predestinated; for of them alone had he spoken in chapter 9. Wherefore this disputation being finished, the thirteenth chapter begins thus:

These things I say of those who are predestined into the kingdom of God… not of those who, when it had been announced and spoken, were multiplied above number: these indeed can be called called, but not elect, because not called according to purpose:

by which he openly signifies that the predestined are not excluded from the aid of which he had treated in the three preceding chapters. It is false therefore that Saint Augustine by the aid whereby comprehended any aid whatever granted to the posterity of Adam, but only that whereby man formally becomes persevering, even as by beatitude he formally becomes blessed: For beatitude, he says in chapter 12 above, which man does not yet have, when it is given, he immediately becomes blessed: for it is an aid not only without which it does not come to be, but also whereby it comes to be, on account of which it is given. Wherefore this aid is both whereby it comes to be and without which it does not come to be: because both if beatitude be given to man, he immediately becomes blessed, and if it be never given, he will never be. It cannot be denied that Saint Augustine here calls it an aid whereby, not whereby efficiently, but whereby something formally comes to be: for thus does not beatitude make men blessed.

Most clearly indeed he expounds his meaning, when he accommodates to the proposed question concerning the aid of perseverance the definition of the aid whereby, expounded in words so perspicuous and with an example so illustrious: for he applies it neither to the efficient cause, which works perseverance in us, but rather to perseverance itself, whereby we are formally persevering, while he says in the same chapter 12.: Therefore to first man was given an aid of perseverance, not whereby it would come about that he persevere, but without which by free choice he could not persevere. But now to the saints predestined into the kingdom of God by the grace of God, not only such an aid of perseverance is given, but such that perseverance itself is given to them, not only so that without this gift they cannot be persevering, but even so that through this gift they be none other than persevering. It is an aid whereby with respect to perseverance, namely perseverance itself, or the gift through which they be persevering.

But when the Presbyters of Marseilles were bitterly carping at that doctrine of Saint Augustine, and gathering from it that perseverance could not be lost contumaciously: Saint Augustine in the book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 6, expounds this his mind thus copiously and lucidly:

They do not will, he says (as you write) these brethren, that this perseverance be so preached, that it can either simply be merited, or be lost contumaciously: where they attend too little diligently to what they say. For of that perseverance we speak, whereby one perseveres unto the end, which when it is so given, one has persevered unto the end: but if one has not persevered unto the end, it was not given, which also we sufficiently treated above. Therefore let men not say that perseverance was given to anyone unto the end, unless the end itself have come, and he to whom it was given be found to have persevered unto the end. For we call chaste him whom we know to be chaste, whether he shall or shall not remain in that same chastity: and if he have anything else of divine gift, which can be held and lost, we say he has it as long as he has it, and if he have lost it We say he had it. But perseverance unto the end, since no one has it unless he have persevered unto the end, many can have it, no one lose it; for there is no need to fear lest perhaps when a man has persevered unto the end, some evil will arise in him, lest he persevere unto the end. This gift therefore of God can be suppliantly merited, but when it has been given it cannot be lost contumaciously: for when each one has persevered unto the end, neither can this gift be lost, nor the others which he could before the end: for how can that be lost, whereby it comes to be that even what could be lost be not lost?

These things Saint Augustine.

In these words the Holy Doctor most clearly teaches 1. that gift of perseverance, which he had described in the book On Rebuke and Grace, chapters 11. and 12., to be that very perseverance, whereby one formally perseveres unto the end: and hence he openly signifies that the aid whereby, of which he makes mention for the illustration of this question, is that whereby formally comes to be that for the sake of which it is given, even as beatitude, which he brings forward as an example, is that whereby we are formally made blessed. Nor does it matter, that he uses the words it comes to be: for he signifies here not the efficient cause, but only the formal; for in the same manner he uses this word in the formal sense, in Psal. 121., when he says:

The hot grows hot with heat, the cold grows cold with cold, the swift becomes swift with speed: what is hotter than heat itself, whereby whatever becomes hot grows hot? what colder than cold itself, whereby whatever becomes cold grows cold? what therefore swifter than swiftness itself, whereby whatever runs swiftly becomes swift?

By which words that the word becomes signifies not the efficient but the formal cause can be doubted by no one. He teaches 2. That no antecedent necessity is found in that perseverance, but only a consequent one; because he asserts that it can then only be lost contumaciously when one has persevered unto the end: therefore he does not judge that gift to be compared with aids of such a kind that human liberty cannot resist them: for otherwise even while we live here it could not be lost contumaciously: since those aids would induce, as an antecedent necessity of persevering, so also an impossibility of not persevering. We have therefore from the mind of Saint Augustine that the aid whereby involves no antecedent, but only a consequent necessity, which, that it may appear more fully, I answer 2. That even if the aid whereby be taken in the efficient sense, it can import no antecedent necessity: indeed by this argument that aid held place in integral nature, which the heretics admit with us to have been most free, and devoid of all antecedent necessity: for if the aid whereby be taken for the grace whereby God certainly and efficaciously works the very willing, it cannot be denied that it was granted to Adam and the Angels, that they love God at the very moment of creation; since Saint Augustine speaks thus concerning that first love of the Angels, or good volition, which they received in creation itself lib. 12. De Civit. Dei, c. 9.: And who had made this, but he who created them with good will, that is, with his love, whereby they adhere to him? He teaches even further that they could have such good will only by the aid of the Creator operating. And thence he concludes concerning the Angels just as concerning us it can be said, that the charity of God has been poured forth in them by the holy Spirit, who is given to them. — What he there teaches concerning the holy Angels, the same he professes must be thought concerning the first man, book 11. chapter 11., in these words: Good will is the work of God, since by it man was made by him. And On Rebuke and Grace, chapter 11.: Then therefore, he says, God gave man a good will: for in that he had made it, who had made him upright. From these things therefore it appears that the heretics shamefully err, and wander heaven-wide from the principles of Augustine, while they assert that the aid whereby, or efficacious grace, was not conferred upon the Angels and first Parents in the state of innocence, and that what Augustine teaches concerning the aid of God granted to Adam for persevering (which indeed was not efficacious, but only sufficient, a passage here illegible in the printed original) they wish demonstrated to extend to all the aids of grace granted to himself. Wherefore these things premised, to the argumentation in form:

I answer first, distinguishing the major: the aid whereby was not granted to innocent Adam, if it be taken formally, or for the formal cause, I concede: for thus he did not have that aid whereby, or gift of perseverance, whereby the Predestinated formally persevere unto the end: if it be taken efficiently, and for the cause operating and effecting, I deny: for thus Adam had an efficacious aid for forming a good will, and producing chaste love, with which he was created. The minor likewise I distinguish: the aid whereby imposes antecedent necessity, and which destroys liberty, I deny: consequent, which leaves man arbiter and master of himself, I concede. There is therefore no reason why the heretics should boast so greatly that patronage shines forth for them from this authority and doctrine of Saint Augustine, for establishing the supremely necessitating power of medicinal grace, from which it be judged to differ from the grace of health, since far otherwise did Saint Augustine understand by the aid without which, and the aid whereby, than the heretics devise; whereupon in vain do they usurp a defense of their error from the distinction of this twofold aid.

You ask. Why did Saint Augustine make mention of this twofold aid, without which and whereby, in only one place, and only after the heresy of Pelagius had been vanquished? Truly in the long conflict with the Pelagians, he never employed this distinction for vanquishing them. —

I answer, this was touched upon for this reason, that his war with the Pelagians was not concerning the necessity of grace for persevering, but concerning an aid absolutely necessary for exercising any good work meritorious: which indeed the Pelagians denied, admitting only an aid of possibility together with the other external aids, of which we have often made mention: moreover they would not have any aid absolutely required on the part of the will for doing good absolutely, but only for exercising it more easily, which worst dogma introduced by Pelagius Saint Augustine attacked most keenly, demonstrating that an aid is absolutely necessary on the part of the will, without which no good work could be, nor willed. — But when he had to expound the gift of perseverance in the book On Rebuke and Grace, it was necessary for him to distinguish the aid without which, from the aid whereby something comes to be, that namely he might signify the difference between the grace granted to Adam for persevering, with which he did not persevere, and that which is granted to the Saints and Predestinated in the state of fallen nature: for the sum of his doctrine in the book On Rebuke and Grace is this, that he demonstrate how God deals with the Saints concerning the establishing of their perseverance. For in chapter s. he demonstrates that the perseverance of the Saints pertains to the gifts of God: whether that otiose one whereby a man finishes this life before he be changed from good into evil: or the actuosam other, compared from the actual aids of actual grace, rendering pleasant to the will that it persevere, conferring perpetuity and inseparable fortitude: then in chapter 10. he treats of the gift of perseverance granted to the first man: and demonstrates that he indeed could have perseverance if he had willed, because he had forces sufficient for persevering: since his will was sound, there was no need for him of heavenly delight, whereby God in us effects with the very will of persevering that active perseverance itself: but that he could with the aid, which he had received in creation itself, so procure perseverance for himself, that this seemed rather to be attributed to his liberty than to divine grace, as he explains in chapter 11., and after chapter 12. compares the aid of perseverance granted to Adam with perseverance itself, which is now given to all the Saints, whether through unforeseen death, or through the grace of the will, which effects the very willing in them. Therefore that he might define the matter plainly, he distinguishes two genera of aids: the one without which something does not come to be, and the other whereby something comes to be. Then he teaches that Adam received only the aid without which not; because he received not perseverance itself, but only that without which he could not persevere; but the Saints in this state receive the aid whereby they persevere, because perseverance itself is given to them; whether when, while they are just, they are oppressed by unexpected death: or when even unto the last breath they receive a motion of the will, which effects the very willing in them: finally, where he proved that Adam had no need of a motion of the will for persevering actively, he concludes thus:

Thus therefore the first man would not receive this gift of God, that is, perseverance in good, but to persevere or not to persevere he would be left to his own choice: so great forces had his will, which had been instituted without any sin, and resisted nothing concupiscently from itself, that the choice might be mingled worthily with so great goodness and facility of living well in persevering.

II. — In the state of integral nature there did not suffice for the first act of will only the habitual aid together with the illustration of the intellect: but besides, there was need of an aid whereby the will was moved to eliciting that act of chaste love, whereby men adhere to God.

Saint Augustine proves this truth luculently from a similar case concerning the holy Angels in chapter 9., where asking whether the holy Angels, who have as Creator of nature him whom they have, have in the same the author of good will through the holy Spirit, with charity poured forth in them: he proposes two opinions, of which one asserts the Angels never lacked chaste love; the other defends that they existed for a while without it: then from both he demonstrates it to be certain that that good will could not have been conceded except by God. For first treating the prior opinion asserting the Angel never lacked chaste love, he says:

Further, because it was made (the good will of the holy Angels) whether it was made together with them, or had they been before without it? but if together with them, there is no doubt that it was made by him by whom they themselves also were made: and at the same time when they were made, if by him by whom they were made they adhered with love with which they were made, and thereby these are made good, separated from the society of those others (the bad), because these remained in the same good > will, while those were changed by falling away from it, namely with evil will.

By which words he openly signifies that charity was not habitual, but actual, by which the good Angels are separated from the bad. — But after he has thus disputed from the prior opinion, whereby it is decreed that the Angels never existed without chaste love, he weighs the other opinion thus:

But if, he says, the good Angels were first without good will, and made it in themselves with God not operating: then better are they made by themselves than by him: far be it. For what were they without good will, unless bad, or if on this account not bad, because neither was an evil will in them, for they had not fallen away from that which they had not yet begun to have? rightly not yet such, not yet so good, as they began to be with good will; or if they could make themselves better than he had made them, by whom no one makes anything better, having passed over also the good will, whereby they would be better, except by the aid of the Creator operating, they could not have it, etc.

Wherefore both parts being thus proved, finally he concludes, that that first good will was in the Angels diffused through the holy Spirit: It must be confessed therefore, he says, with due praise of the Creator, that it pertains not only to men, but can even be said of the holy Angels, how the charity of God is poured forth in them by the holy Spirit, who is given to them. — But what Saint Augustine taught concerning the Angels, that they had not the first good will actual unless aided by the divine aid of grace, this he more often declares must be established likewise concerning the first parents, but especially lib. 14. De Civit. Dei, c. 11. where he writes:

God made, he says, as it is written, man upright, that by this of good will; for he would not be upright not having a good will: good will therefore is the work of God: since by it man was made by him.

And book On Rebuke and Grace, chapter 11.: Then therefore God had given man a good will: for in that he had made it, who had made upright. By which words he signifies not only habitual charity, but also actual, whereby the first man adhered to God from his origin, and consequently that in the state of integral nature the grace conferred upon Adam and the Angels for conceiving chaste love embraced a motion of the will: and hence it was most like unto that which comes to our aid in this state of our misery: and consequently grace of health does not differ from medicinal in that the latter is required for exercising the first good will, the former not so.

It is confirmed from the other opinion of the same Holy Doctor, drawn from book X. On Genesis according to the letter, chapters 10. 11. 12., where weighing those words of chapter 2. Therefore the Lord God took man, and placed him in the paradise of pleasure, that he might work and keep it, he says that twofold sense can be offered of that divine oracle, namely that man was placed in paradise, either that he should till and keep that garden of delights: or that God should illuminate and adorn man himself with virtues and sanctifying grace: By which locution, he says, is said that man works the earth which already was earth, that adorned and fruitful it may be: by which locution is said that God works man, who already was man, that he may be pious and wise. And with a few words interposed: God took man whom he made, and placed him in paradise to work, even that he might be just.... The truth of which assertion indeed he confirms from those places of Scripture which speak especially of lapsed man: For we are the figment of his, he says. for also the Apostle, when among the faithful where converted from impiety he commended the grace whereby we are saved; for by grace, he says, you are saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God. Since the Holy Doctor employs these words to prove that man was for this reason placed by God in paradise that he work him that he be just, it sufficiently indicates that the justice of Adam just as ours flows from the same grace which concurs for effecting the first good will; wherefore he adds: And elsewhere when he had said: With fear and trembling work out your salvation, lest they should think it to be attributed to themselves as though they made themselves good; immediately he subjoined, For God is it who works in you. Therefore the Lord God took man whom he made, and placed him in paradise that he work him. — You see therefore that Saint Augustine uses the same words and texts to prove that the grace of health was necessary for Adam that he might have a good will, which Saint Apostle commends in lapsed man; and hence the grace of health does not differ from medicinal in that the latter is necessary for the lapsed man to exercise the first good will, not so for innocent man. These things will stand forth more evidently from the following paragraph.

III. — Wherein finally consists the difference between the Grace of Health and Medicinal.

The genuine difference between the grace of health and medicinal seems to consist chiefly in this, that Adam with habitual grace alone and the aid of cognition could persevere: but the Saints in this state of fallen nature, besides those two, there is also necessary a motion of the will.

It is proved from Saint Augustine, who teaches in many places that the difference of the two states turns upon the help of the will, in this: that Adam and the Angels, instructed by habitual grace and the aid of knowledge, had no need for persevering of a motion of the will, or of a heavenly delectation alluring to supernatural good; but men in this state of vitiated nature, besides habitual grace and that heavenly incitement, further require for persevering actual grace impressed upon the will itself and soothing it with interior sweetness.

The latter part of this doctrine is handed down by Saint Augustine as often as he contends against the Pelagians, namely that in this state of corrupted nature it is not enough for acting well that the mind be illumined; but it is required besides that the Holy Spirit impress upon the will the delectation or internal motion and inspiration of charity. So lib. De Spiritu et Littera, cap. 3.:

Nor does free will, he says, avail anything except unto sin, if the way of truth lie hidden: and when what must be done, and how one must live, begins not to lie hidden, unless it delight, and be loved, it is not done, not undertaken, not lived well: but that it may be loved, the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, not by free will which arises from us, but by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.

And in the following chapter he teaches that the illumination of the mind profits nothing toward acting well where the Spirit helps not, inspiring in place of evil concupiscence good concupiscence, that is, pouring charity into our hearts: wherefore lib. 4. ad Bonifacium, cap. 5. he reproves the Pelagians because they wished us to have from the Lord God the aid of knowledge, whereby we might know what is to be done, not the inspiration of love, that we might do what is known with holy love. — That very thing he thus inculcates

De gratia Christi, cap. 15. If this grace is to be called doctrine, let it certainly be so called, that God is believed to infuse it more deeply and inwardly with ineffable sweetness, not only through those who plant and water outwardly, but also through himself, who ministers its increase hiddenly, so that he does not merely show the truth, but also bestows charity. It would be superfluous to prove this truth by many texts of the same holy Doctor: since he hands it down so often that scarcely any page occurs in his lucubrations against the Pelagians in which, besides the aid of knowledge, he does not contend that heavenly delectation too is necessary for acting well; nor are even the heretics drawn back from this truth: but they do not consent in like manner to the former part.

Therefore the former part of the assertion is proved, namely that Adam with only habitual grace and the aid of knowledge could persevere, nor was a pious motion of the will necessary to him for this. It is proved, I say, first from this, that Saint Augustine never calls the grace granted to Adam and the Angels for persevering by those names by which he expresses motions of the will: although these are many, and well-nigh innumerable, yet Antonius Deschamps learnedly and lucidly reduces them to twelve principal ones, lib. 3. disp. 3. cap. 16. of which the former six, he says, more manifestly express love, namely undeliberate: but the remaining ones plainly signify delectation.

First, from charity he calls it the spirit of charity, lib. 1. ad Simplicianum, qu. 1., or the inspiration of charity, as Epist. 117. near the end, or the infusion of charity, as lib. 2. ad Bonifacium, cap. ⟦illegible⟧., or finally the grace by which the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, as everywhere throughout his works: especially lib. De gratia Christi, cap. 26. — secondly he imposes on it a name from dilection; for lib. De Spiritu et Littera, cap. 3. he calls it depromtionem, and dilection of the supreme good. And lib. 2. ad Bonifacium, cap. ⟦illegible⟧. inspirationem dilectionis. — Thirdly, he names it the inspiration of divine love, as in the disputation against Fortunatus: and frequently attributes to it other names of this kind derived from love. — Fourthly, he calls it the good of concupiscences. So lib. De Spiritu et Littera, cap. 5. he says: ⟦…⟧ the saints the Spirit inspires, not adjuring them, in place of evil concupiscence good concupiscence. — fifthly, he says it is cupiditas boni, lib. 2. ad Bonifacium, cap. ⟦illegible⟧. — Sixthly, he calls it good will, lib. De gratia Christi, cap. 21. — By equal reason he signifies that motion of the will by just so many names taken from heavenly delectation. First, for he calls it sweetness in many places, but most of all in Psal. 4., where he most sweetly expounds that sentence of David, The Lord shall give sweetness, of the grace impressed upon the will itself. — Secondly, he names it dulcedo, lib. 2. ad Bonifacium, cap. 9., saying: Therefore the blessing of sweetness is the grace of God. — Thirdly, he most often imposes on it the name of delectation, in nearly all the books which he elaborated in defense of divine grace. — Fourthly, he names it condelectation. So lib. 1. De Vitiis et Concupiscentia, cap. 30. he says: The grace of God is the condelectation of the law of God according to the inner man. — Fifthly, he names it iucunditas in Psal. ⟦illegible⟧. — Sixthly, finally, he calls it voluptas, Tract. 26. in Ioan., saying: Thou art drawn by pleasure. What is it to be drawn by pleasure? to delight in the Lord, etc. There is a certain pleasure of the heart, etc. These are the names by which the holy Doctor expresses the motion of the will distinct from the illumination of the intellect; but from so many names, by which the holy Doctor is accustomed to express that pious motion of the will, and which he ever uses and heaps up, as it were, in abundance, whenever he speaks of medicinal grace, from so many, I say, names, not even one does he employ even once when he discourses of the grace granted to Adam and the Angels for persevering. Therefore it is a sign that he judged Adam and the Angels did not need that grace which moves the will, that they might persevere in the good granted to them in creation.

It is confirmed. From this, that the same holy Doctor, lib. 2. De peccatorum meritis, cap. 19. accurately distinguishing the graces of intellect and will, calls the one light and illumination; the other indeed sweetness and delectation: for he says: Let us understand, if we can, the Lord God to be good to attribute to his Saints some work of justice neither a certain science nor a certain delectation, that they may know that they have not from themselves, but from him, the light by which their darkness is illumined, and the sweetness by which he gives fruit to their land. By which words he signifies both the grace of light and of delectation to be necessary for men in the state of fallen nature: but when he discourses of that grace which Adam and the Angels received for persevering, he mostly calls it light and illumination, nowhere indeed delectation or sweetness: therefore he judges that for the Angels and Adam habitual grace informing the soul, and actual grace irradiating the intellect, sufficed for persevering; but not grace stimulating and moving the will.

Proof 2. From this, that the same holy Doctor judges that help, alluring and moving the will to good, to be necessary for man furnished with habitual grace for this reason, because he is driven by the goads of concupiscence into evil, and called back from pursuing good; whence one may argue thus: the holy Doctor teaches that man, furnished with habitual grace, and irradiated by divine light, needs heavenly delectation alluring the will to good, on account of overcoming the motions of concupiscence removing him from the pursuit of such good: but innocent Adam was stimulated by no harmful appetite of self-love or delectation antecedent to consent: therefore there was no need to him of that motion and delectation of the will toward pursuing good. Both the major and the minor Saint Augustine plainly hands down, lib. De correptione et gratia, cap. 11. where concerning innocent Adam he writes thus: « He had no need of that help which these implore, when they say: I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, which is in my members. Unhappy man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Since in them the flesh concupisceth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and laboring and imperiled in such contest, they ask that there be given them through the grace of Christ the virtue of fighting and conquering; but he, tried and troubled by no such strife of himself against himself, enjoyed his peace with himself in that place of beatitude. » Thus the holy Doctor. But that help which the Saints implore in this state against the concupiscence of body and soul is heavenly delectation, as Saint Augustine teaches in almost infinite places: thus Hom. 19. while he asks: How does God deliver thee from thee? He answers: By giving thee strength to fight against thy concupiscences, inspiring virtue, giving to thy mind heavenly delectation. And lib. De Continentia, cap. 3. Against the noxious sweetness by which concupiscence conquered, the Lord gives beneficent sweetness. From these it may be inferred that the help which the Saints implore in this state against concupiscence is heavenly delectation: but the first man and the Angels had no need of that help which the Saints implore against concupiscence: therefore the first man and the Angels had no need of heavenly delectation; nor consequently of any motion of the will.

Proof 3. By all those texts in which the holy Doctor affirms that the first man could work and pursue good by free will. Most eloquently does he teach this in lib. De natura et gratia, cap. 56. when he speaks of Pelagius thus: It is true, he says, that God then good, than just, made such a man, who would suffice to lack the evil of sin, but if he had not willed otherwise. For who knows him not made sound and blameless, and with free arbitrement, and constituted with free power for living justly? but now there is treated of him whom robbers left half-dead. By which words he signifies that concerning fallen man Pelagius affirmed that he could act well by the forces of nature, if he willed: this Saint Augustine pronounces true of Adam. And he speaks in this sense when he says: There is treated of a certain vigor of that mind and use of reason which docile Adam apprehended the precept of God, and the law of the commandment, and could easily keep it if he willed. But for no other reason does Saint Augustine teach that man could pursue good by free will than because, besides habitual grace and the illumination of the intellect, he needed no actual help stimulating the will to good: but the will itself, elevated by habitual grace, could of itself pursue and embrace the good manifested by the intellect, which does not happen in the same way to fallen man: therefore the grace of health differs in this from medicinal grace, in that the latter necessarily requires actual help moving the will; the former not so. Proof of the minor: Saint Augustine teaches that the Pelagian dogma would be true, if what they taught of fallen man they had asserted only of sound man: but the Pelagians taught that fallen man needs only doctrine infused from heaven, whereby the will receives not the power of acting, but only that it exercise it, which it has from nature, as it were with the way demonstrated along which it ought to walk: therefore in the state of sound nature, besides habitual grace and the illumination of the intellect, whereby innocent man might know what was to be done, and what to be fled, he needed no further help.

You will say 1: Saint Augustine, as noted on page 216, says medicinal grace differs from the grace of health only in this, that the one is greater and more powerful: he judges those graces are not distinguished according to entity, but only according to greater and less, and consequently that the aforesaid difference assigned by us is none. — I deny the consequence: for if this consequence were legitimate, it would follow equally that the grace of creation is not distinguished from the grace of Christ in substance, nor the illumination of the intellect from the heavenly delectation soothing the will. For, as Saint Augustine says, Serm. 11. De verbis Apostoli, cap. 5., Excepting that grace by which human nature was created, which is common enough to Christians and pagans: this is the greater grace; not because men were created through the letter, but because through the letter flesh having been made, thou wast made. In the same manner he speaks of the graces of will and intellect compared with each other: for having said concerning the grace of Christ cap. 26. that cogitation and dilection are to be discerned, he adds, that both are a grace and gift of God, but one less, the other greater. Therefore as it cannot be affirmed that cogitation and dilection are not distinguished according to substance, because Saint Augustine says the latter is the greater gift of God; so neither can it be concluded that the grace of health is not distinguished substantially from medicinal grace, because he said the latter is the greater grace.

You will insist: From Saint Fulgentius, that very grace which raised man defends the Angel standing from fall: One and the same, he says, lib. 2 ad Transimundum, grace wrought in both, in this that he should rise, in that other that he should not fall. But that includes not only the motion of the intellect but also of the will: therefore this also ought to comprise both helps. — I distinguish the major: one and the same grace taken generically, insofar namely as it signifies supernatural help owed by no merit of nature, wrought both in the Angel, and in man, because each had need of that heavenly help, this one that he rise from his fall, that other that he not rush headlong into guilt, I concede: the same grace taken specifically, insofar as it signifies help of not only the intellect but also of the will, wrought in both, I deny.

You will say 2: Saint Augustine in book 11. Of the City of God, chapter 13, plainly teaches that a twofold help was granted to Adam, namely one by which his intellect would be illumined and his will enkindled; for he says: If the will of Adam had remained steadfast in the love of the higher unchangeable good, by which he was illumined that he might see, and enkindled that he might love, he would not have turned away from it to please himself, and therefrom have grown dark and cold. These words signify not obscurely that in Adam the kindling of the will was distinct from the illumination of the intellect. — I answer first, that if that word kindling signified an undeliberate love, or a prior delectation in Adam, it would follow that he necessarily persevered, because there would be no evil delectation in him by which its force toward perseverance could be wrested away; which yet appears false. Wherefore I answer secondly, that Augustine's opinion was far different from that which the adversaries pretend; for there Saint Augustine contends that the first sin of Eve was pride, whereby she caused herself not to see the snares of the serpent: but that Adam sinned by perversely loving his wife, a perverse love which pride nevertheless had preceded; furthermore, he says, what could be the beginning of an evil will except pride? And that he may more clearly show that that outward transgression of the first parents could not occur before they had inwardly failed God through pride, he adds: If the will had remained steadfast in the love of the higher unchangeable good, by which it was illumined that it might see, and enkindled that it might love, it would not have turned away from it to please itself, and therefrom have grown dark and cold, so that in that hollow it believed the serpent had spoken, or that he approved by the divine command the will of his wife, and thought himself a venial transgressor of the precept if he did not desert the companion of his life even in this companionship of sin: therefore no good work was done, that is, that transgression, that they might grow by the forbidden food, except by those who were already evil. Therefore Saint Augustine does not treat there of illumination and kindling which precede and provoke the love of God; but rather of the very love of God, by which the first parents were illumined and enkindled, that they might see other things and love rightly: wherefore from this context no support whatsoever shines forth for the doctrine of the adversaries, nor even the least prejudice to our opinion.

You will say 3: The illumination of the intellect does not give power to the will; but for the will to be able to do what before it could not, some influx must be given into it: yet the grace which innocent Adam contained gave power to the will: for by it he could persevere if he willed: therefore besides the illumination of the intellect there was need also of a help moving and assisting the will. — I distinguish the major: the illumination of the intellect does not give power to the will toward the supernatural order, when it has not been raised by sanctifying grace, I concede: when thus raised and elevated, I deny: for such was the will of innocent Adam; since he possessed sanctifying grace, by which his soul with its faculties was promoted to the supernatural order; and consequently his will, as it had no repugnant concupiscence, needed no other help for pursuing the good than that it be shown to him through the illumination of the intellect.

You will say finally: A supernatural act entitatively cannot proceed except from a power elevated to the supernatural order: yet by the mere illumination of the intellect the will is in no wise elevated to such an order: therefore Adam's will needed a special help for this. — I distinguish the major: it cannot proceed except from a power elevated to the supernatural order, either by common, or by special help, I concede: by special only, I deny. But Adam's will was elevated to the supernatural act by the common help, namely by the habit of sanctifying grace residing principally in the will itself as in its immediate subject: therefore it had need of no special help for this.