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

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.

§ I. On operating and cooperating grace. — Actual grace was meritoriously divided by St. Augustine, in book On Grace and Free Will, chapter 17, into Operating and Cooperating, in these words: « God by cooperating brings to perfection what He began by operating: for He operates by beginning, that we may will; He cooperates with those who will, by perfecting ». Wherefore the Apostle says to the Philippians 1: I am sure that he who hath begun a good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus. Therefore, that we may will, He works without us; but when we will, and so will as to act, He cooperates with us. Yet without Him either operating, that we may will, or cooperating when we will, we avail nothing toward the good works of piety. Of Him operating, that we may will, it was said to the Philippians 2: God... From these words one may infer, first, that grace is rightly divided

into operating and cooperating grace: for this division has its foundation in Sacred Scripture, which commends grace under both appellations, of operation and cooperation. For operating grace is commended in Isaiah 26, in these words: All our works thou hast wrought in us, O Lord; and Philippians 2: God it is who worketh in us both to will and to accomplish. And 1 Corinthians 12: Now all these things one and the same Spirit worketh.

But cooperating grace is praised in Romans 8: we know that to them that love God all things cooperate unto good. And at the end of Mark: the Lord cooperating, and confirming the word, etc. And 1 Corinthians 15: I have laboured more abundantly than all they: yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Both graces also are intimated by the Council of Orange, Canon 9, in these words: As often as we do good, God works in us, that what is ours, namely that we operate, He may operate. And the Council of Trent, Session 6, chapter 6, says that God prevents and stirs us up by His grace: then works with us that we may be converted to Him: of which the former

It is gathered 2. The definition of each grace: for operating grace, according to St. Augustine, is that whereby God works in us that we may will, by beginning: and of what sort that motion is which God works by beginning, he declares shortly after, saying: That we may will, he says, He works without us; hence one may conclude that operating grace is the first and undeliberated motion, whether of the intellect or of the will, which God effects in us without us, that we both will well and act. — This motion, however, is said to be made in us without us, not because the intellect and will contribute nothing at all to this motion; for (as we said in the Preludes) the vital act is produced in the ordinary way in a vital potency without a physical influx of that potency; but this motion is said to be made in us without us, because we do not freely concur in it, in that sense, namely, in which the evil of concupiscence, which the Apostle suffered unwillingly,

God cooperates with those willing, perfecting: or whereby God, when we will, and so will as to act, cooperates with what is ours. Whence it follows that cooperating grace is the supernatural concurrence of God, whereby He concurs toward all supernatural and free acts: whether they proceed from the will commanding or executing; or from other potencies acting supernaturally at the command of the will; whether the will still be weak, or strong and firm.

It is gathered 3. That although this division of grace into operating and cooperating can be extended to habitual grace, yet it is more properly and more commonly attributed to actual grace. The former part of this assertion is urged, namely that this division can be adapted to habitual grace, on account of its twofold effect, whereof one is to affect the subject and render it formally pleasing to God; the other, to be the efficient cause of the meritorious work. In respect of the former, habitual grace can be called operating; in respect of the latter, it can be called cooperating; because it produces the former effect by itself alone, not indeed effectively, but formally, in the manner in which whiteness is said to make a surface white. In respect of the latter it can be called cooperating, because grace does not produce the meritorious work by itself alone, but with free choice and the concurrence of the free will, which stands related to that meritorious work not only after the manner of what is moved, but also by the motion of a mover and an efficient cause. — Yet more properly, and more commonly, this division is attributed to actual grace; because St. Augustine himself (from whom that division is borrowed) as well as Sacred Scripture, in which it has its foundation, seem altogether to speak of actual grace; since St. Augustine treats of that grace about which his controversy was with the Pelagians: and this was none other than actual grace: for concerning habitual grace they were in agreement. To this belongs the fact that St. Augustine, in the book On Nature and Grace, chapter 43, calls cooperating grace healing grace, which seems proper to habitual grace; for to heal belongs not only to habitual, but also to actual grace, at least inchoatively.

It is gathered 4. Setting aside the various opinions of the Recent Writers, operating grace, according to St. Augustine, as Bellarmine rightly gathers in book 1, On Grace and Free Will, chapter 17, is that which alone produces in man the first good deliberated will, such as conversion, whether from infidelity to faith, or from other sins to penance: while cooperating grace is that which cooperates with man already willing and striving, by augmenting and strengthening the will, that he may effect and perfect what he wills and strives for: so that operating grace is that which alone produces a good will in men, or which God produces in us without us; whereas cooperating grace is that which produces something in us not by itself alone, but with us cooperating at the same time. — Now that operating grace acts alone in us means nothing else than that it acts without any preceding motion of our will, whereby we pray, seek, desire, knock; and thus without attributing anything of merit as a reward for that good will: not, however, as if man did not simultaneously influence that good will; for the vital act does not ordinarily occur except with the influx of the vital potency. And that cooperating grace does not act alone in us amounts to the same as its acting only upon the supposition of a preceding influx of the will, whereby we have knocked, desired, or done something similar.

In one word, grace is called operating which includes a previous, not a simultaneous, influx of the will; while cooperating grace is that which includes a simultaneous, and presupposes a previous influx of the will. — Hence all those supernatural motions which God effects in us without us, while we concur freely, belong to operating grace, whether by them we are stirred up toward the first good will by which we begin to be converted; or we are invited to a good will by which we either wish to persevere in grace already received, or actually persevere. — Nor should those Recent Writers be heeded who restrict operating grace to that actual grace alone whereby God produces the first good will in man: both because the definition brought forward by St. Augustine fits even those motions by which God invites the just man to works of piety; for these motions take place in us even while we are just; and because in the same chapter St. Augustine says: without God either operating that we may will, or cooperating when we will, we avail nothing toward the good works of piety: therefore no work of piety can be done by a just man unless God operate that he may will, and cooperate with him willing; and finally, because the same St. Augustine, in the book On Rebuke and Grace, chapter 11, says: That there be in us through this grace of God (namely commanding) a beginning of good, and its persevering maintenance, not only that we can what we will, but also that we will what we can.

You ask: Whether operating grace is really distinguished from cooperating? — I answer, this seems more probable: First, because operating grace is nothing else than a sudden and undeliberated motion of the intellect and will, whereby man is stirred up to good; whereas cooperating grace is a divine motion whereby the will freely acquiesces in the prior motion: yet these motions are really distinct acts. Secondly, because operating is sometimes separated from cooperating, for instance when man resists the inspiration of God, as we shall show presently: therefore operating grace is really distinguished from cooperating. Thirdly, because cooperating grace is within our power; operating grace not at all.

§ II. On the division of grace into preventing and subsequent. — This division is commended by David, Psalm 58, saying: His mercy shall prevent me. And in the same place: His mercy shall follow me. The Church also makes mention of both in the Collect for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, in these words: May Thy grace, we beseech Thee, O Lord, always prevent and follow us, and make us continually attentive to good works. The same doctrine St. Augustine hands down in the Enchiridion, chapter 32, where he says: It preventeth that we may be healed, it followeth that being healed we may be governed: it preventeth that we may be called, it followeth that we may be glorified. And in book 2 to Boniface, chapter 9: If without him, he says, we can do nothing, certainly neither begin nor perfect: because that we may begin it is said: his mercy shall prevent me; that we may perfect, it is said: his mercy shall follow me.

Note, however (as we already admonished in the Preludes) that preventing and subsequent grace can be considered by St. Augustine, either with respect to the will, or with respect to themselves. With respect indeed to the will, or to the free consent of man; and this again in two ways: First, in such wise that preventing grace is called that which both precedes and accompanies the free will of man: subsequent, however, that which follows the same will of man. St. Augustine speaks of preventing and subsequent grace in this sense in many places: but most clearly in the Enchiridion, c. 34. Many goods of God, he says, precede the good will of man, but not all: but those which it itself does not precede, among these it itself also is, for both readings are found in the sacred writings, both his mercy shall prevent me, and his mercy shall follow me: it preventeth the unwilling that he may will, and followeth the willing lest he will in vain. Thus likewise both graces are employed by St. Fulgentius, book 1, To Monimus; « He Himself, he says, freely bestows grace upon the unworthy, that by preventing mercy he may begin to will the good, and by subsequent mercy may be able to do the good that he wills ». — Secondly, with respect to the same will, both graces are taken in another manner; so that preventing is said to be that which precedes the good will, although it is not yet itself the good will: thus the Council of Trent, Session 6, c. 16, employs it, where it says that the good virtue, which Christ Jesus continually infuses into the justified, always precedes, accompanies, and follows their good works; hence antecedent or preventing grace is said not only with respect to the first good movement of the will, whereby sinners begin to be converted to God (as some Recent Writers hold), but also with respect to the first good will which the justified conceive concerning doing good works: whence St. Augustine, in book 2 against the 2nd Letter of Pelagius, says: May God turn away this madness of ours, that we would make ourselves prior to His gifts, and Him posterior: since his mercy shall prevent me, and He is He to whom it is faithfully and truly sung: Thou shalt prevent him with the blessings of sweetness. By which words he signifies that preventing grace is called that which precedes and stirs up the human will toward any good work whatsoever. — Preventing and subsequent grace is also taken with respect to themselves, so that preventing grace is the first grace, whereby we are stirred up to good: subsequent, however, any grace whatsoever that follows that first one. Thus St. Augustine took both graces in the book On Nature and Grace, chapter 51 or 52. « His mercy, he says, preventeth us: it preventeth, moreover, that we may be healed, for this afterward followeth, that being healed we may also be raised up: it preventeth that we may be called, it followeth that we may be glorified: it preventeth that we may live piously, it followeth that we may live with Him forever ». Hence some gather that there are five effects of grace: The first is that the soul be healed from infirmity: the second that it will the good: the third that it efficaciously perform the good that it wills: the fourth that it persevere in good: the fifth that it happily attain eternal glory. Hence St. Bernard, in the book On Loving God, addressing Him, says: This is greatly wonderful, that no one is able to seek Thee unless he has first found Thee. Wilt Thou therefore be found that Thou mayest be sought, sought that Thou mayest be found: for Thou canst be sought and found, but not prevented.

You ask 2. Is that division adequate? — I answer first, if preventing and subsequent grace are considered with respect to themselves, the aforesaid division is adequate; because any actual grace whatsoever, either is that first grace, whereby God illuminates and piously affects the soul; or is the grace whereby that grace is followed. I answer secondly, that if grace be regarded, both as preventing, and as subsequent, insofar as each is distinguished from grace accompanying the will, the division of grace into preventing and subsequent is not adequate; for besides those there must also be admitted a concomitant grace, which assists the will already prevented by divine grace, that it may accomplish the work.

§ III. On the division of grace into exciting and assisting. — This division has its foundation in Sacred Scripture. Thus Apocalypse 3: I stand at the door, and knock. If any one shall hear my voice, and open to me the entrance, I will enter in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Ephesians 2: Rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee. And Psalm 118: Open to me, and I will enter. In the Council of Trent, Session 6, chapter 5: That they who through sin were turned away from God may be disposed to convert themselves by His exciting and assisting grace. The same is found in c. 6.

Likewise in the prayers of the Church: Our actions, we beseech Thee, O Lord, prevent by Thy inspiration, and further by Thy assistance. This division of grace St. Augustine likewise commends in book 2 On the Merits of Sinners, chapter 18: That we are converted to God, he says, unless He Himself excite and assist us, we cannot. Hence exciting grace, according to St. Augustine, is that which excites the sinner to rise, either from infidelity or from mortal sin, that he be changed from evil into good: or the just man not operating, that he gird himself to a good work. Assisting grace, however, is that which aids the will already converted and prepared for a good work, toward willing and doing. Which St. Fulgentius lucidly declares in book 2 On the Truth of Predestination: Mercy preventeth, he says, the free choice of man, while in him not yet willing well it alone produces the beginning of good will; it followeth, while to him willing well it ministers aid, that by operating well he may arrive at the affection of good will. Wherefore in the mind of St. Augustine and his disciples there is no difference between exciting and preventing, assisting and subsequent grace, except with respect to their different offices; so that the same grace, inasmuch as it prevents the will, is also called exciting: inasmuch as it assists the same toward the work, it is also called assisting. Whence St. Augustine on Psalm 52: Not of my own will did I rise to Thee, but Thou camest to stir me up: for his mercy shall prevent me. And in the book On Free Choice, c. 17, he embraces all these graces together, saying: Therefore, that we may will, He works without us; but when we will, and so will as to act, He cooperates with us. Which he also proves from that passage to the Philippians 2: God it is who worketh in us both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will.

You ask: whether exciting grace is itself also divided? — Vazquez affirms this in book 2, disp. 185, and some Recent Writers side with him. But the other theologians cry out against it, and pronounce that opinion absolutely unworthy of Catholic Doctors. First, because it makes God cruel: furthermore, mocking sinners themselves: finally, it declares Him deceitful in the Sacred Scriptures.

The first is clear, because it seems open cruelty to threaten and inflict eternal torments upon those who are not converted, yet in whose power that conversion was not, since they had no congruous graces; whereas by congruous graces Vazquez understands those which God bestows on that occasion and at that time when He knows man will consent to them; otherwise concerning incongruous graces, which are not conferred with the same opportunity and disposition of the man: therefore that opinion plainly fights against the goodness of God and His paternal clemency, disposing all things justly and sweetly.

The second is also shown: because from various texts of Sacred Scripture it is established that God calls all to penance, and wills all men to be saved, etc., which would indeed be utterly illusory if God did not confer congruous grace, through which alone men can be converted and saved.

Finally, the third is plain; for Sacred Scripture introduces God speaking to the Israelites, and in their person addressing all transgressors, in these words of Isaiah: What is it that I ought to have done more to my vineyard, that I have not done? For I ask whether congruous grace was conferred upon them or not? If it was conferred, why were they not converted, seeing that congruous grace always attains its effect? If it was not conferred, certainly God did not do for His vineyard all that He owed, nor would He justly complain of their hostility; for they could reply that if He had given them congruous grace, as He gave others, they would without doubt have believed and done penance. Add to this that incongruous grace does not deserve to attain the name of grace; for what kind of grace is that which has no effect, offers no favor, and is granted solely for this, that men may resist it? It conflicts with the common sentiment of the Fathers, who refer the lack of the effect of conversion to the wicked will of the sinner himself, according to that word of Hosea 13: Thy perdition is of thee, O Israel. They teach besides that God deals most benignly with us, and offers to all grace whereby we can and ought to be converted: and they illustrate this by the example of the sun illuminating all men equally. So especially Origen, book 3, Periarchon, chapter 1; Chrysostom, Homily 7 on 1 John, chapter 1; Theodoret, qu. 12 on Exodus. — Therefore it must be asserted that there is no incongruous grace; but that every exciting grace whatsoever is most congruous on the part of God and of His intention, because for this reason He always calls us that we may consent, and calls in the more congruous manner that He can. For He stands at the door and knocks, and as it were awaits and explores the dispositions, temperaments, manners, and propensions of all, that according to the various dispositions and inclinations of each one of us He may likewise bestow various grace, whereby, if we will, we can be converted to Him. Yet it often happens that one hardens oneself against every mode of even the most congruous calling grace, as appears in the Jews, with whom Christ the Lord conversed so long, though He had been sent chiefly to the sheep who had perished of the house of Israel; nevertheless they were rebellious to the light, and resisted the Holy Spirit.

You will object: Vazquez adduces certain sayings of St. Augustine, above all that which the most holy Doctor has in the book to Simplician, question 2, where, speaking of congruous grace, he thus says: Can it be that those who, called in this manner, do not consent could, called in another manner, accommodate their will to faith? And that it may be true that many are called but few chosen, although many are called in one manner, yet because not all are affected in one manner, only those follow the calling who are found fit for it by obeying. True it is that many are called, but few chosen; for those are elect who are congruously called: but those who did not fit the call, nor would despise the call, were not elected, because they did not follow it, though called. And presently: Wherefore although He calls many, He has mercy nevertheless upon those whom He so calls as it is fitting for them to be called that they follow. And again: But whom He hath mercy upon, He so calls him as He knows fits him, that he reject not Him calling. So says the holy Doctor. These are the principal testimonies which Vazquez brings forward for asserting congruous grace. But for non-congruous grace those things can be brought forward which St. Augustine says shortly afterward in the same place: Ask whether, if He wished, he says, to have mercy even upon them, He could so call them as would be fitting for them, that they should believe, understand, and follow. And much farther on: Here someone will say: Why then was Esau not so called that he wished to obey? After many things, answering, he adds: Who would dare to say that there was wanting to God a manner of calling whereby even Esau would apply his mind to faith in Him, and join his will, in which Jacob was justified? But if so great can be the obstinacy of the will that the aversion of the mind hardens against every mode: it is asked also whether that hardness itself be from divine punishment? For when God forsakes, not so calling him as he could be moved to faith, who shall say, even if he should say that the manner whereby he might be persuaded to believe was wanting even to the Omnipotent? Finally he concludes that it was not wanting; yet that He denied that very manner to Esau: because on whom He wills He hath mercy, and whom He wills He hardeneth: nor is there therefore iniquity with God. But who, he says, cannot see that no one can be accused of iniquity who exacts what is due to himself, nor certainly he who wills to bestow what is due to another? By which words he signifies that congruous grace is not unjustly denied to some, because we are all unworthy of it by reason of original sin. — I answer 1. That St. Augustine in the aforesaid words seems rather to debate the question than to define it; since he offers nothing resolutive and affirmative. I answer 2. That he speaks very obscurely, and does not seem to treat there of internal calling grace, of which we are treating, but of external: For we see, he says, that some are moved differently than others to believe when the same things are demonstrated or signified. Hence he adduces the miracles which Christ wrought after His resurrection, whereby some believed, others did not: he adduces also the scars whereby He reduced the unbelieving disciple, or at least one wavering in faith, back to faith; all of which, as appears, pertain not so much to internal as to external grace.

I answer 3. That St. Augustine there appears to refer rather to the obstinacy of the mind and the defect of the will than to God Himself the incongruity of grace: Many are called, he says, but few chosen: namely those who despised not Him calling, but followed Him believing. And below: Not elected, because they did not follow. And again: Esau therefore would not, and did not run; yet even if he had willed and run, he would have arrived by the help of God, who would grant him even to will and run by calling, unless by despising the call he became reprobate. By which words he clearly signifies that the defect of conversion and salvation must be attributed not to inefficacy of grace, but to the rebellion of the will.

To this I add that the intention of any Author must not be judged from some particle of his doctrine, but his mind is to be regarded especially from other passages in which he expressly treats the difficulty and question: now it is certain that St. Augustine holds something else elsewhere: especially in book 12 of the City of God, chapter 6, where he speaks thus: For if some, equally affected in mind and body, behold the beauty of one body, and one of them be moved to enjoy it unlawfully, while the other perseveres in chaste will, what thinkest thou to be the cause? Then he adduces various causes which various persons might allege, against whom nevertheless he concludes: What else appears, save that one willed, and another willed not, to fall away from chastity? And in the book On the Predestination of the Saints, discoursing of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, whose ends were diverse, he speaks thus: As regards nature, both were men: as regards condition, both were kings: as regards cause, both pursued the captive people of God; as regards punishment, both were mildly admonished by the scourges of God: what then made their ends diverse, save that the one, feeling the hand of God, groaned in remembrance of his own infirmity; the other contending with free will against the most merciful goodness? By which words he indicates that the cause of the ends of these things must be sought from their liberty.

Although this present distribution of grace not long ago bore the burden and was the seed-bed of a most weighty division and disputation among Catholic Doctors; nevertheless, since under the wind of Christ the Lord reigning through the Prelates of the Church this tempest has been calmed, and a great tranquility restored throughout the universal Church: therefore our business will be only against the most intense enemies of that same Church, the Calvinists, whose standard-bearer not only ridicules but most sharply attacks this present division of grace. For in book 2 of his Institutes, chapter 3, n. 11, having said that our will is moved by God — Not in such wise, he says, as for many centuries it has been believed and handed down, that after the motion of election of God it should be ours either to obey or to resist, but He effectually affecting it: he insolently subjoins: That saying therefore so often repeated by Chrysostom must be rejected: Whom He draws, He draws willing: whereby he insinuates that the Lord merely awaits with outstretched hand whether it please us to be helped by His aid. Therefore against this raving traducer of the Holy Fathers and detractor of Catholic doctrine we shall have to contend in the following §§, demonstrating first what the name of sufficient grace signifies, and what its energy is: secondly, that that grace must necessarily be admitted: thirdly, that it is conferred upon all adults: fourthly finally, that sufficient aid unto salvation is not denied even to infants themselves who depart from this life before adult age.

§ IV. What Sufficient Grace Is, and What Is Signified by This Name. — Lest through ambiguity of the word there arise equivocation or delusion, it must be observed that Sufficient Grace can be taken generically or specifically. Taken generically, it is called aid divinely granted beyond what nature owes, conferring the power of acting supernaturally in any manner whatsoever; that is, defectibly or indefectibly; in which sense even efficacious grace is called sufficient, 2 Corinthians 12: Sufficeth thee (Paul, my grace. For whatever is efficacious is also judged sufficient; because a cause cannot work efficiently unless it be sufficient to operate in that manner wherein it is a cause. Specifically, however, sufficient grace, inasmuch as it is distinguished from efficacious, is rightly defined from the Council of Trent, Session 6, Canon 4: An internal motion and excitation infused by God, to which free choice can dissent if it wills. — Now sufficient and efficacious grace agree in this, that each is not only such as to give the power of acting and confer the potency for operating, but is also ordered toward the very operation by the intention of God: for I cannot prove what certain persons affirm, namely that sufficient grace is ordered only toward the power of operating, and not toward the operation itself, as Bellarmine seems to hold in book 1 On Grace and Free Will, c. 11. Indeed sufficient grace agrees with efficacious in this, that both are ordered toward an act; but differs from it in that efficacious always has annexed to itself the consent of the will, while sufficient very often does not at- tain its ef- fect: which assuredly does not proceed from any defect of power, but pre- eminently from the resistance and negligence of the will, as is gathered from the Coun- cil of Trent, Session 6, Canon 11, where we read: God commandeth not impossibilities, but by commanding admonisheth thee to do what thou canst, and to ask what thou canst not, and helpeth thee that thou mayst be able. By which words the Council establishes that man excited is moved by God to do what he can, that is, to reduce by sufficient grace the power which he has of operating well to act: therefore the Coun- cil judges that sufficient grace is ordered not only toward the power of operating, but also toward the operation itself.

The arguments also support this. First, because every active form constituting a potency in first act regards immediately the second act, toward which it orders the potency which it perfects: but sufficient grace is an active supernatural form constituting our will, and our intellect, in first act: therefore it immediately regards the second act toward which it orders those faculties: therefore sufficient grace regards not only the power of operating, but also the operation. — Then, that is judged sufficient by common consent which excludes the necessity of any other thing: therefore grace, that it may be truly sufficient, ought to exclu- de the necessity of another aid for eliciting the act. — Finally, God does not command nor exact from us only that we be able to operate well whenever His preventing grace stirs us up, but commands and exacts that we operate well de facto: therefore every exciting grace, whatever it be, is given by God, that de facto we operate well if we will. Hence to man having sufficient grace nothing whatsoever is wanting on the part of the active principle or of grace, but only, as we said, on the part of the reduction of the ac- tive principle to act: but that reduction takes place through the consent of free choice: therefore it must be concluded that sufficient grace is that which confers both power and operating, if we will; for there is none which confers only power and not operating; otherwise it would not be sufficient, nor indeed grace, since aid would be fruitless, if it were not ordered toward the operation itself.

You will say. St. Augustine in the book On the Predestination of Saints, chapter 16, says: For God calleth many predestinated sons of his, that he may make them mem- bers of his one predestinated Son, not with that calling wherewith they were called who would not come to the marriage: for with that calling the Jews were called, to whom Christ crucified is a scandal, and the Gentiles to whom Christ crucified is foolishness: but with that calling are the predestinated called, which the A- postle distinguished, saying, preaching to them that were called Jews, and Greeks, himself the virtue of God, and the wisdom of God; for thus he says, but to them that are called: that he might show those not called, knowing there is a certain fixed calling of those who are called according to purpose. By which words St. Augu- stine seems to distinguish a twofold calling: one whereby the predestinate are called, which is ordered not only toward power, but toward act; and which of itself is efficacious: the other truly whereby the reprobate are called, which of itself indeed is sufficient, but not efficacious: therefore he holds that sufficient grace of itself lacks energy, and confers only power toward the work. — I deny the consequence. For although ⟦illegible: 1 word (OCR "rocati")⟧ according to purpose God confer some exciting, special, and singular grace, because He foresees that they will consent by grace, and not fail in their calling; yet those whom He foresees will be such He loves more ardently and follows with greater aids: nevertheless it does not follow thence that He bestows upon the others only inefficacious and incongruous grace. Hence also there are some eminently predestinate, to whom a special vocation is given, as to the Apostles, especially the Saints Paul, Matthias, etc.

But that the matter itself may appear more clearly and be set forth more exactly, it must be observed that when it is said, sufficient aid is given to man, that he may be able to operate, two things are there to be distinguished: one is that which is formally given through the aid; the other, that which is as it were the term or end of such aid. What is formally given through sufficient aid is power: but the term or end for which it is given is to will or to accomplish. Therefore when it is said that sufficient aid is given on account of power, that assertion either concerns the formal effect of the aid: for it is given that it may constitute man simply potent toward willing; or it concerns the end for which it is given. If however it be understood of the end or term for which it is given, this expression is false; for power is not given on account of power as on account of the ultimate term, but on account of operating: thus therefore sufficient aid is not only toward power, but also toward operating: and hence that it may truly be sufficient, it must give sufficiency not only toward power, but also toward operating; therefore the first cannot be given without the second; for power cannot simply constitute anyone potent in some genus unless it be toward it sufficient. Nor did St. Augustine distinguish in that sense between aid toward power, and toward willing, as though the one were sufficient for act, and not the other: but that the one had act conjoined, and not the other. But it can be sufficient toward act, and yet not have it conjoined on account of the liberty of the agent.

It is confirmed, this doctrine by St. Augustine, in the book On Rebuke and Grace, chapter 12, where he distinguishes a twofold aid, one sufficient, and another deficient. Yet he indicates that the sufficient is given not only on account of the power of operating, but also on account of the operation: provided, of course, the consent of our will accede; for he says: One thing is aid without which something is not done (whereby he signifies sufficient aid), another is aid whereby something is done (whereby he denotes efficacious, or efficient aid); for without food we cannot live, and yet although food be present, it does not follow that he who wishes to die lives: therefore the aid of food is without which it is not done that we live. By which words St. Augustine declares that to sufficient grace nothing whatsoever is wanting whereby good could be done, except the consent of the will, which indeed completes not the active virtue of the same will, but reduces it to act. Thence it happens that we operate well. Therefore sufficient grace is given by God toward being able to operate de facto as toward the term and end; which end, if it be frustrated thereof, this must be referred not to the intention of God, but to the senselessness and hostility of our will. Whence that sufficient grace sometimes produces no effect is due not to innate sterility, but to a perverse will.

§ II. — Sufficient Grace Is Given, Which the Human Will Sometimes Resists. Proof 1. This assertion is confirmed by all those oracles of Scripture, of the Councils, and of the holy Fathers, whereby in the preceding Section it was proved that medicinal grace differs from the grace of health in this, that (as the heretics will) the latter would leave the will of innocent man altogether free; whereas the former seizes and impels the will of fallen man so necessarily that it cannot resist it at all. Truly since the heretics attempt to take these sacred defenses away from us with their cavils, false interpretations and responses, hence it pleases us here to repeat some of those sacred texts, together with the erroneous repliques of the adversaries, and the preclusions of those texts. Lest however I be longer, omitting the various texts which could be adduced from the Old Testament, let me bring forward and examine only one or other from the New.

The first text is Matthew 11. v. 20. 21. Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein were done the most of his miracles, because they had not done penance. Woe to thee Corozain, woe to thee Bethsaida, for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they would long ago have done penance in sackcloth and ashes. From these words Christ the Lord upbraids the Corozaites because they had not done penance at the sight of so many miracles: therefore truly they were able to do penance not only remotely, but proximately; for Christ's upbraiding to be valid, which certainly it is in the highest degree valid, it is necessary that, as the Tyrians and Sidonians at the sight of Christ's miracles would have grieved not only remotely but proximately, so the Corozaites, instructed with the same helps, could have done penance. For the former, that is the Tyrians, would truly have been pricked with sorrow, according to the oracle already cited: therefore the latter, namely the Bethsaites, could have been pricked proximately; otherwise no force would have existed in the parity of Christ, nor any strength: for if those could proximately, these only remotely, why should these be punished more severely in judgment, those more lightly, as Christ the Lord wills there, v. 22? Nevertheless I say unto you: It shall be easier for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for you. Shall he who could do more receive lighter, while he who could do less receives heavier punishments? Yet no one does or can do that salutary penance (of which Christ speaks) by the force of exterior grace alone: for whoever should assert this would be marked with the error of Pelagius. Therefore the Corozaites, as also the Sidonians, could by the force of interior grace do penance. Now it is certain that men of this sort did not do penance, toward which they were inwardly urged: therefore they repulsed that interior grace of penance offered through Christ: but grace of such sort as is repulsed we call sufficient: therefore it must be admitted.

You reply 1. That when it is said that, those miracles being wrought in Tyre and Sidon, the inhabitants of those cities would have been converted, the sense is either that God would have converted them by interior necessary grace, which He would have bestowed upon them by working signs before them, just as He conferred it upon the inhabitants of Bethsaida and Corozain while He worked those signs before them: or the sense is that God would have converted them by grace which they had independently of those signs, and which would have wrought its effect upon their presence. If the first: then it is true that the Tyrians and Sidonians did not have grace necessary for conversion; nevertheless they were damned. If the second: nothing is furnished that evinces our argument; for it ought to prove, and not suppose, that the same grace would have been in the Tyrians and Sidonians which was in the inhabitants of Corozain. — Against: this response is utterly empty, and by no means breaks the force of the aforesaid argument: for falsely it concludes from this, that the Tyrians and Sidonians saw not the signs which Christ wrought in the cities of Corozain and Bethsaida, and had not those graces which sufficiently, at the sight of those signs, would move the beholding will to penance, thence to follow that they had not elsewhere sufficient graces for their conversion; whereas God, who wills all men to be saved, and wills no one to perish, but all to be converted to penance, suffers even His sun of justice to rise over good and bad; inasmuch as He enlightens every man coming into this world, and rains showers of grace upon the just and unjust.

You reply 2. That in that complaint of Christ only exterior grace and that of miracles is treated of, expressed by this word miracles, and said by Christ the Lord, that the Tyrians and Sidonians would have been converted if they had seen those signs which were wrought in Corozain and Bethsaida; not because those miracles alone could have converted them, which indeed no one but a Pelagian would say, nor even because both those peoples had by virtue the same interior grace, as the objection pretends: but because the Tyrians and Sidonians would have had from God the interior grace of conversion, whereby they would have been converted, and would have received that grace God so willing, supposing that those miracles had been wrought among them: whereas the Corazaites and Bethsaites did not receive that grace, because they were rebels, and contradicted chiefly those miracles; by which rebellion and contradiction they were made unworthy that God should join to them the grace of conversion: but thus the Tyrians and Sidonians would not have contradicted. Because, says St. Augustine, book On the Good of Perseverance, chapter 11.

They had naturally the divine gift of understanding, whereby they might be moved to faith, if congruous to their minds they had either heard words or beheld signs. There, he says, the Tyrians were left, and the Sidonians, who also could have believed if they had seen those miraculous signs of Christ: but since that they should believe was not given them, even whence they might believe was denied. From which it appears that some have in their very natural endowment the divine gift of understanding, who might be moved to faith, if congruous to their minds they either hear words or behold signs; and yet if by the higher judgment of God they are not separated from the mass of perdition by the graces of predestination, neither are applied to them the divine words or deeds, whereby they might believe, if certainly they heard or saw.

Therefore, say the heretics, in the Tyrians and Sidonians we have an illustrious example from Augustine, because although they had the gift of understanding, whereby they might be moved to faith if they either heard words or saw signs, since nevertheless they were not predestinate, and saw no signs nor heard words, presently they had not sufficient grace for doing penance. — Against. The upbraiding of Christ given to the Corozaites, that they had not done penance at the sight of so many miracles, would have been utterly futile and unjust, if truly the Corozaites had been able to do penance not only remotely, but not proximately, and consequently unless they had had grace proximately moving to penance. For Christ's upbraiding to be valid and just, it is necessary that, as the Tyrians and Sidonians at the sight of Christ's miracles would have grieved not only remotely but also proximately, so the Corozaites, the same grace shining upon them, could have done penance: therefore it is false that the Corozaites lacked sufficient grace for doing penance because by reason of their rebellion they were judged unworthy of that grace. Equally false is it that the benefit of converting grace was denied to the Tyrians and Sidonians because they were absolutely reprobated by God; for although, as we said, they had not that grace which moves to penance at the sight of Christ's signs and the hearing of His oracles, thence it is not consequent that they had not sufficient graces, whereby if they had so willed they could have repented.

In confirmation of this truth, according to the oracle cited above, recourse may be had to Matthew 23, where Christ complains of the Jews under the name of Jerusalem in these words: How often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not! But this will would be plainly hypocritical if they truly had not, with grace calling them inwardly or outwardly, sufficient help whereby they might be gathered under the wings of the Lord and flee for refuge to Christ through penance. Hence Luke 19: the same Savior, seeing the city, wept over it, saying: Because if thou also hadst known, and indeed in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace, etc. For the Jews might justly have answered that this ground of complaint was pretended in vain, since they had not sufficient help whereby they could either receive Christ or do the things that were for their peace.

You will say 1. By these and similar texts is signified only that the vocation which is resisted is merely external, namely that which comes about through the will of sign, and not the internal, which comes about through the will of good pleasure; for it is well known that in God there is a twofold will, namely of sign and of good pleasure. The former is that by which God bears Himself in the manner of one willing, inasmuch as He commands or counsels, forbids and permits something; the latter, however, is that by which God properly wills what is pleasing to Himself: the former is not always fulfilled; the latter, they say, always obtains its effect. — To the first. This thought is impious and unworthy of God, should anyone imagine that God stirs man to penance by His external voice alone, and does not truly will that any inspiration be granted him whereby he may convert himself; for He would mock men if He did not call those whom He calls with the intention and purpose of converting them themselves: nor would God intend to convert them unless He joined some internal help to His external calling; for, as St. Augustine teaches, book On Grace and Free Will, chapter 18: Free will would be admonished altogether without its fruit unless it first received something of love, whereby it might seek that what was commanded be added to it and fulfilled. Second, the end of the law, and consequently of any external vocation whatever, is that if man experiences difficulty he ask for help; if facility, that he render thanks to God, as St. Augustine teaches in many places, especially Epistle 89: Therefore He commands that, having attempted to do what was enjoined, and wearied under the law in our infirmity, we know how to ask for the help of grace; and if we have been able to accomplish anything of good work, let us not be ungrateful to Him who helps. Book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 19: The law was given that grace might be sought; grace was given that the law might be fulfilled. Likewise most evidently St. Prosper in his Epistle to Demetrias: Nor, he says, is a precept given for any other reason than that the helper of the one commanding may be sought. Therefore either God employs His calling in vain, or at least He imparts with it a secret and interior inspiration by which man is at least admonished of his infirmity, that he may have recourse to the help of grace.

You will say 2. The argument drawn from the aforesaid text of Matthew 23 is the same which Julian objected to St. Augustine, as appears from the work Imperfect, chapter 93, where from the same Gospel text Julian gathers that the divine will is sometimes hindered by the human: which St. Augustine there rejects as heretical, saying:

It must be forgiven, because you are deceived in a matter very obscure. Far be it that the intention of the Omnipotent and All-knowing should be hindered by man. Too little do such men think of themselves, or they do not suffice for harassing Him, who think that God omnipotent can will something and yet cannot do it because frail man hinders: as it is certain that Jerusalem would not have her children gathered together by Him, so it is certain that He, even against their unwillingness, gathered together whatsoever of them He willed.

Therefore so far is our argument from supporting Catholic truth that rather it savors of the Pelagian error. — To the first. If these things are so, then the Fathers of the Council of Sens must be marked with the Pelagian error, and they took up the arms of Julian in order to root out the pestiferous dogma of the Lutherans; for in decree 15, by the same argument which we employ, they proved that we are not carried away inevitably by divine inspirations, as appears from the plain words of that decree. Second, there is no one who does not tacitly understand that a great gulf stands fixed between us and Julian if with the Theologians we distinguish two wills in God, namely the will of sign, by which God moves man through ordinary means to do what He commands, and urges him to seek the aid of the Savior. Of which will indeed St. Augustine makes mention in the same chapter of the Imperfect Work; for he subjoins after the words already praised: Now Scripture commonly suits the will of man, that admonished he may perceive what he has not and cannot: and elsewhere, where all good things are, that the needy may ask. The other is that of good pleasure, by which He effectually incites man to good. That the former will can be resisted St. Augustine there confesses; for he says: Wherefore through the Prophet, Isaiah 1, it was said: If you will not, and hear me not, the sword shall devour you: whence St. Augustine gathers that the will of sign, with respect to the effect of mercy, is sometimes hindered, although it is not hindered with respect to the effect of justice. But the latter will, namely of good pleasure, is not hindered, as St. Augustine there declares against Julian:

If, as you say, man ought not by any necessity to be recalled from his own intention, assuredly an evil one, why is the Apostle, breathing slaughter and thirsting for blood, recalled from his worst intention by a violent blindness of body and a terrible voice from heaven, and, cast down from being a persecutor, raised up to become a more laborious preacher than the rest of that Gospel which he was assaulting? Acknowledge grace.

But the case stands thus: God calls whom He deigns to call; and the Spirit breathes where He wills. Julian, however, contended that any will of God whatsoever, even the will of good pleasure, is sometimes frustrated in its effect by human will; but we contend that only the will of sign, which declares and signifies itself through sufficient means, can be hindered with respect to the effect of mercy, although it is always fulfilled with respect to the effect of justice: therefore our opinion differs very far from that of Julian.

Finally the assertion can be proved by all those texts of Scripture in which God invites and exhorts men to penance and to the pursuit of justice. Thus Canticles 5: Open to me, my sister, my spouse; and likewise that of the Prophet Joel 2: Be converted to me, and I will be converted to you. By which words, says the Council of Trent, Session 6, chapter 5, we are admonished of our liberty; even as we confess the necessity of grace while we answer Lamentations 5: Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted; for from these and similar texts it is gathered that, as it is proper to God to go before us by knocking at and exciting our hearts through sufficient grace, so it is proper to the will to open to Him by its free consent, rendering His vocation efficacious.

The same truth can also be proved by those parallel texts of Scripture in which God rebukes and condemns the hostility of men, and likewise their continual reluctance and struggle against His divine grace. Thus Isaiah 65: All the day I have spread forth my hand to an unbelieving people, that walketh in a way that is not good after their own thoughts. Proverbs 1: I called, and you refused: I stretched out my hand, and there was none that regarded. Matthew 20: Many are called, but few chosen. Chapter 22: He sent his servants to call them that were invited to the wedding; and they would not come. John 15: If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin. And afterwards: If I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would not have sin: but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. Acts 7: You always resist the Holy Ghost. Romans 2: Knowest thou not that the benignity of God leadeth thee to penance? 2 Corinthians 6: We exhort you that you receive not the grace of God in vain. Apocalypse 3: I stand at the gate and knock; if anyone shall open, etc. From which passages it can plainly enough be gathered that sometimes it depends on human will whether grace obtain its effect.

But that the heretics may bridle these sacred defenses of ours, they devise various exceptions against these texts of Scripture. For they answer 1. that by those sacred words is signified the external, not the internal vocation; or if the discourse be of the internal, that vocation is not to be considered which is according to purpose. For they observe that vocation is twofold: namely internal, which comes about through interior grace; and external, which comes about through law and doctrine. Of both these vocations St. Augustine makes mention, Epistle 107, in these words: If therefore God were thus to prepare and work the will of man, that he would only apply his law and doctrine to his free will (behold the external vocation), and by that other, secret vocation (behold the internal vocation) should not so avert his sense as to accommodate assent to the same law and doctrine. And St. Prosper on the 5th chapter of Galatians: If vocation in the Gospel be understood only of preaching, it is not said truly that to some and to others it is preached otherwise and otherwise; but if it be regarded with respect to the effect of planting and watering, one thing was done in those whose outer ears were struck by bodily voice; another in those whose inner sense God opened.

They observe 2. that the internal vocation is twofold, one according to purpose, another not according to purpose. The former is proper to the predestined alone: the latter belongs to the reprobate, who believed it and were members of the Church, Augustine, book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 16. For God calls the predestined as many sons of His, that He may make them members of His predestined only-begotten Son, not by that vocation by which they were called who would not come to the wedding: for by that vocation both the Jews were called, to whom Christ crucified is a scandal, and the Gentiles, to whom Christ crucified is foolishness: but by that vocation He calls the predestined which the Apostle distinguished, saying: Both to the Jews and to the Greeks, etc. And book 5 Against Julian, chapter 1: Not all who are called are called according to purpose; for many are called, but few chosen. Who then are elect? These are called according to purpose. Why however certain persons are called not according to purpose he teaches in the same place, namely because they are born for the utility of the predestined. And in the preceding passage: Not that hard things may profit them, but that, He Himself using them well, hard things may profit them unto mercy, namely that they may understand from how deep a mire they were delivered by the grace of God. — But against this: for, as we have already said, it is impious to assert that God excites sinful man to penance, and the just man to the pursuit of the works of piety, by the external voice alone, and does not truly will that any inspiration, any internal help whatever, be granted him whereby he may convert himself and pursue good works. Wherefore St. Prosper in the Epistle To Demetrias asserts that the voices of teachers and the letters of pages, which serve God for the instruction of those hearing or reading, are not devoid of the virtue of Him whom they serve; and thereupon he holds that the internal vocation is ever joined to the external. Which St. Augustine likewise openly teaches in the places praised above, when he says in book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 19: The law was given that grace might be sought: grace was given that the law might be fulfilled. And book On Grace and Free Will, chapter 18: Free, he says, will is admonished altogether without its fruit unless it first received something of love, whereby it might seek that what was commanded be added to it and fulfilled. False therefore is it, in the mind of St. Augustine, that the external vocation is not conjoined with the internal. Nor does it matter that that most holy Doctor asserts a twofold vocation, one according to purpose, another not according to purpose. For by vocation not according to purpose he does not understand a purely external vocation, bare, and of itself insufficient for conversion and justice; but a vocation lacking its fruit; and that not from the inefficacy of the grace of the Caller, but from the hostility and malice of the resisting human will, as the same holy Doctor signifies in the words praised above, book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 16, saying: Those called by a vocation not according to purpose were they who would not come to the wedding; for it is certain that they were in truth sincerely invited and called by the Father of the family with the intention that they should come, as appears from the Gospel text; for St. Luke says, chapter 14, that the Father of the family sent his servant at the hour of supper to say to the invited that they should come: because now all things are ready. For why should he prepare the supper, invite many, send servants to them, if he did not call them with sincere mind to the supper? Nor does the Evangelist assign the cause of the delay and refusal of the invited on the part of the Caller, but on the part of the very invited: for he says: They began all at once to excuse themselves: which excuse St. Matthew, chapter 22, teaching it to have been pure unwillingness and reluctance of will, where relating the same Parable under the name of the wedding, says: he sent his servants to call them that were invited to the wedding, and they would not come. — But that this was the mind of St. Augustine, namely that by vocation not according to purpose he would not signify only the external vocation, but comprehend under this name also the internal grace of the will, is sufficiently gathered from book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 1, where he manifestly says that he disputed concerning the true grace of Christ, which is victorious, and distinguishes the Predestined. In the solution of which question, he says, labor was indeed spent on behalf of the free will of the human will: but the grace of God conquered; nor could one arrive at anything else than that the Apostle be understood to have said with most liquid certainty: who discerneth thee? Hence it is that in that place he affirms that a vocation of this kind ought to be present, because the will of man alone does not suffice that we live justly and rightly, unless it be helped by the mercy of God. Hence it is that there he describes it thus: that vocation is the maker of good will; which in the book On the Predestination of the Saints he expressed thus: By which vocation he is made a believer. Hence finally, that he may more clearly explain its necessity, he says: The will itself, unless something occur that delights and incites the mind, can in no wise be moved. All these things manifestly signify that that vocation of which he speaks embraces also the very grace of the will: since it is that which delights the soul, which makes the good will, and which is called necessary by the mercy of God for living justly and rightly.

You will say 2. To the testimonies of Scripture cited above, that the internal vocation too is sometimes resisted, but by concupiscence, which remains even in the just themselves, and often conflicts with the most holy motions of the divine Spirit. — But this answer is utterly futile: for either concupiscence resists without the consent of the will, or with the will consenting. If the first, as happened to the Apostle, who said Romans 7: Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, that is, concupiscence, then that rebellion of the flesh is not formally sin, but only effectively, or the effect of original sin, as St. Augustine teaches in many places, especially book 3 Against Julian, chapter 26, where he says: Concupiscence, the spirit not consenting, does not arrive at works deserving damnation. If the second: therefore the will can resist interior grace. But that the texts of Scripture are to be understood of this latter resistance is clear, because in the passages adduced of Holy Scripture they are condemned who resist the vocation of God and the Holy Spirit: therefore that resistance is culpable, and consequently voluntary.

Second proof from the Councils. — That sufficient grace is to be admitted the Councils have decreed and defined; and first indeed the Council of Valence III, celebrated in Gaul in the time of Leo IV, in which Canon 2 decrees: Not for this reason do the wicked perish, because they could not be good, but because they would not be good. Hence we gather 1. that grace is granted to the wicked whereby they could be good; for without grace they cannot be such: nor grace alone which illuminates the intellect; for by a grace of this kind men could not be good. 2. That grace is repudiated by them because they would not be good: but the grace repudiated, whereby men could have been good if they had willed, is sufficient grace: therefore it is to be admitted. — 2. The same truth is laid down in the Council of Sens, celebrated in the time of Clement VII under the Most Illustrious Cardinal and Chancellor of France Antony of Prato; for in decree 15 it laid down that we are not always moved efficaciously by divine inspirations, and gathered it from Holy Scripture: Nor, it says, such is the help of God drawing, as cannot be resisted; how often did the Lord will to gather together the children of Jerusalem, as the hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and they would not? In vain surely would Stephen rebuke the Jews of hard neck and uncircumcised heart, who always resisted the Holy Spirit. In vain would Paul admonish the Thessalonians not to extinguish the spirit, if men were inevitably carried away by divine inspirations. From which oracle it is gathered that grace is sometimes frustrated in its effect; not from defect of its fecundity and virtue, but from defect of the resisting human will. The same is defined in the Council of Cologne, celebrated in the year 1536 under Hermann, part 2, chapter 32, in these words: Although no one be converted to the Lord unless drawn by the Father: nevertheless let no one here bring forward the excuse that he is not drawn, since He ever stands at the door knocking, namely through the internal and external word threatening, that we may be converted from our most evil way, etc. By which and similar words it so plainly hands down that sufficient grace is to be admitted that this one definition of this Council seems sufficient for establishing that truth. But let no one be frightened because the Council says: Not even does a moment pass in which God stands not at the door and knocks; which its interpreter Clichtoveus, chapter 33, explains thus: God admonishes us assiduously by interior impulse and inspiration: nor indeed, as Didacus Alvarez rightly notes, is the sense that for every moment whatsoever every sinner receives into himself help sufficient for salvation: for while he sleeps, he is surely not moved by an actually sufficient help: but these words are to be expounded according to common usage of speech. — 3. Finally and above all it is defined by the Council of Trent, Session 6, chapter 11, where it openly teaches us that sufficient grace is present for keeping the divine precepts; which however we sometimes spurn; for it says: God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding admonishes thee both to do what thou canst, and to ask what thou canst not, and helps thee that thou mayest be able. Which sentiment the Council seems to have drawn from St. Augustine, partly from book On Nature and Grace, chapter ⟦illegible⟧, where in almost the same words he has the first part of this sentiment: God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding admonishes thee both to do what thou canst, and to ask what thou canst not: but the other part from other places of the same holy Doctor, in which he teaches that God grants to those asking; especially book 1 To Boniface, last chapter, near the end: That they may ask, he says, He instructs them falling down, and mercifully hears them asking: which indeed accords with those words of Christ the Lord, saying Matthew 7: Ask and you shall receive: seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. — From which sufficient grace is manifestly established by this argument: any justified person whatever, while a precept is imposed upon him, is admonished to do what he can, or ask what he cannot: therefore he has an internal and secret inspiration whereby he is thus admonished to do or ask: for mere external admonition, unless it have grace for its companion, does not ward off the impossibility of fulfilling the precept, but rather increases its difficulty from occasion; since, as St. Augustine says, book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 3: The law, though good, if holy spirit help it not, increases evil desire by forbidding; for it becomes more pleasant because coveted: and thereupon the Council treats of the interior vocation and motion of the will: yet most justified persons neither do what is commanded nor ask help for doing it: therefore they resist at least one or other inspiration.

You will say 1. To the Council of Valence: its sense is that the wicked were compelled to sin not by divine foreknowledge or anything similar, or by necessity, but sinned by their own evil will original or actual: for this the same Council indicates when in the selfsame Canon 2 it says: ⟦Ver?⟧ altogether did the foreknowledge of God impose necessity upon any evil, such that it could not be otherwise. And afterwards: Nor do we believe anyone to be condemned on account of its prejudgment, but by the merit of his own iniquity; nor do the wicked themselves perish for this reason, because they could not be good, but because they would not be good, and by their own fault remained in the cause of damnation, whether by the merit of original or even of actual sin. This answer is confirmed: both because that Council condemned the four chapters of the Synod of Carthage; and because that this is its sense can easily be gathered from the mind of its President, namely Remigius of Lyons, books On the Three Epistles, and On Holding the Truth of Scripture. — But this answer is utterly vain: for although the Council truly decrees that the wicked were necessitated to sin not by the foreknowledge of God, but from their own evil will vitiated by original or actual sin; nevertheless it openly teaches that the wicked perish for this reason, not because they could not be good, but because they would not be: therefore the Council concedes that the wicked had sufficient help whereby they could have been saved and been good, if they had willed; which nevertheless they rendered utterly useless and vain through the hostility of their own evil will.

You will say 2. To the Council of Sens: its authority is null or slight, because it is only a Provincial Council approved by no Supreme Pontiff. — Next, its sanction contributes nothing toward establishing sufficient grace: because, you will say, it speaks not of interior graces alone, but abstracts from interior and exterior; for it speaks of graces which are always at hand, and which we have at every moment: yet it is certain, you will say, that we do not at every moment have interior graces: therefore it speaks of graces abstracting from interior and exterior. — Finally, one must distinguish especially in Councils between what is placed in the place of a decree or definition and what is brought forward as the reason of the definition or decree: for when Councils define, they act as sacred authors; but when they reason, they act in human fashion; and thereupon sometimes they slip: yet in this which is cited as the decree of faith, namely that the necessity of grace does not prejudice free will, the reason of that definition is that it is always at hand, nor would even a moment pass by; which reason certainly seems less to be approved. Therefore nothing at all avails, nor does the decree of the aforesaid Council of Sens support us in any way. — To the first.

It is certain, says Caius, book 5 Of Theological Places, chapter 4, that Provincial Councils, unless they are specially reprobated, are commended by the common knowledge of the Church, or even by implicit consent, if they have come to the common notice of the Church; for it is by no pact made plausible that the Church should long have dissimulated the heresy of a Provincial Council divulged throughout the whole world.

Now that Council of Sens was not only divulged throughout the whole Christian world, but also most well known; for it was very often employed by Catholic Doctors for explaining and resolving controversies concerning auxiliaries. — Moreover, the Council of Trent (says Suarez, Prolegomena 6 On Grace, chapter 5), which was celebrated twenty years later, approves by its authority the whole doctrine of grace which the Council of Sens had handed down, because it teaches and defines the same there more expounded and completed. — Finally, no slight authority is lent to this Synod by the fact that it was held at Paris, and that besides the Bishops there attended the most celebrated Doctors each and all of the sacred Faculty of Theology of Paris

Doctors ; wherefore Jodocus Clichtoveus, most celebrated Doctor of that age and keenest subduer of Luther, calls that Synod an assembly of most learned men in the book which he entitled : Compendium ve-ritatum ad fidem pertinentium contra erroneas Lutheranorum assertiones, from the acts done in the Council of Sens celebrated at Paris.

I answer 3. To the Council of Cologne: its authority aids us not at all: both because Hermann presided over it, who afterwards for heresy and apostasy from obedience to the Roman See was deposed from the Archbishopric by Pius III the Pontiff and Charles V the Caesar: then because in the passage praised for our proof the Council treats only of penance, and not of grace: finally, because by the internal word, whereby God is there said always to admonish us, nothing else can be understood than the grace of intellect ; which sort of grace the Pelagians admitted ; whence it follows that, if this be the sense of the passage, namely that every man has always grace sufficient for his conversion, this Council approved the doctrine of Pelagius. — To the first. If anything of the authority of the Council of Cologne departed through the apostasy of Hermann, very much also would be derogated from the Council of Nicaea and others, since Osius of Corduba presided over those, whose subsequent fall proved so fatal that Cardinal Baronius, writing of him at the year 357, number 18, says thus: The fall of Osius surpassed the case of all who went before, whether Origen, or Tertullian, or whomsoever of others you name. To how many Councils did he not attend, and bear great part, as at Elvira, Arles, Neo-Caesarea, ⟦illegible: Ilerandrino⟧, Gangra, the two great and ecumenical Councils of Nicaea and Sardica, and others of which memory has perished ? This very Osius, whom the Arians called prince of Synods, and whom the Nicenes said conceived the formula ; this man, I say, was shamefully cast down in the conciliabulum of Sirmium, basely made a betrayer of that same Nicene faith. Certainly no one of sane mind took occasion from that fall of Osius to reject the Synod of Nicaea : therefore with equal reason there is not why the adversaries should strive to defame the Synod of Cologne, over which a Catholic had before presided, by the case of Archbishop Hermann. — To the second I say, the answer of the adversaries is ludicrous ; for although the Council treats ex professo of penance, and not of grace ; nevertheless it plainly signifies that no one can perform salutary penance unless he be moved and helped thereto by grace, which grace is sometimes frustrated in its effect, when namely the human will, according to its liberty, resists it, as the Council there admonishes. — To the third I say. By the internal word, whereby God is said to admonish us, not only is signified the illumination of the human intellect, but also the motion of the will, seeing that the Council there treats of salutary penance, unto which not only the illumination of the intellect, but also the motion and cooperation of the will is necessary.

I answer 4. To Trent: this head of the Council was framed against Luther and his Followers, who say that the commands of God are impossible not only for sinners but even for the just even with actual auxiliaries ; and not against those who say that at times the grace of praying and of working is denied to the just, whence the commands of God become impossible for them. — But this answer is utterly useless ; for although this chapter was published especially against Luther, yet the Fathers premised the opinion expounded above as most efficacious for refuting utterly the error spoken by Luther. For if the justified either has grace whereby he can fulfill the commands and likewise conquer the delight of concupiscence, or at least grace whereby he can implore that help, what can hinder the justified from being able to fulfill the law of God? And truly the Council gathers the same from this opinion and other similar ones. Whence it is clear that those oppose the doctrine of orthodox religion who say that the just man sins at least venially in every good work, or, what is more intolerable, merits eternal punishments.

Nor does it avail to say, that it is true that the precepts of God are not impossible under condition, namely if the will be aided, but that thence it does not follow that to all is given grace sufficient for keeping the commands of God. On the contrary, a command which is not possible except under some condition is judged absolutely impossible with respect to him upon whom it is imposed, unless he have the necessary condition, or some means whereby he can attain that necessary condition: but the commands of God are impossible with respect to the justified man unless he have healing grace, or a means whereby he can obtain it: therefore they are not possible for the justified unless he have either the grace of working, or the power of obtaining and asking such grace.

Third proof from the authority of St. Augustine. — I make mention of all the holy Fathers who preceded or followed St. Augustine, of those opinions by which they plainly signify that the human will sometimes struggles against divine grace; for already we have sufficiently reviewed these in the preceding section, by referring the testimonies of the same holy Fathers to prove that the grace of Christ does not necessarily and inevitably drive the human will to good. I shall bring forward Augustine alone, in whose patronage the heretics most glory: for this most holy Doctor teaches in many places in open words that His grace is frustrated in its effect on account of the struggle of the human will, in whose liberty it lies to consent to or dissent from grace. Here however I shall not describe all the testimonies of that most holy Doctor, for this would be tedious, but I shall enumerate only the principal ones.

Therefore the first testimony, whereby from St. Augustine it can be proved that man sometimes struggles against divine grace, and consequently not every grace is efficacious, is taken from the fact that he teaches in many places that the sin of the adult man consists in this, that he contemns and repudiates the grace of God. Thus especially book 3, chapter 19, Of Free Will:

Since God, he says, is everywhere present, who in many ways through creation serving Him calls to Himself, teaches the believing, consoles the hoping, urges the loving, assists the attempting, hears the entreating, not what you know not is imputed to you as guilt, but that you neglect to seek what you know not; nor that you gather not your wounded limbs, but that you contemn Him willing to heal you: these are your own proper sins, etc.

To which certainly nothing is more evident for asserting sufficient grace. — Nor does it avail to answer with David Paraeus, book 2 Of Free Will, chapter 5, that these things were written by Augustine before the birth of the heresy of Pelagius, while he was still held by the error of the Massilians. For the same St. Augustine in the book On Nature and Grace, chapter 67, where he attacks the Pelagians more sharply, described them in precisely the same words. But that he might repel from himself every injury inflicted upon divine grace, he subjoins there: Thus also I exhorted as much as I could to live rightly, and I did not make void the grace of God, without which human nature, now darkened and vitiated, cannot be illuminated and healed. By which words he sufficiently denotes that when he wrote those books On Nature and Grace he was altogether free from every error concerning grace, and above all from Semipelagianism, which admits the beginning of faith from ourselves; since in the words just praised he openly professes that he did not make void the grace of God, without which human nature, now darkened and vitiated, cannot be illuminated and healed. He acknowledges therefore that nature cannot be illuminated except through grace, and thereupon confesses that for that illumination faith is necessary, as a benefit of that very grace. — Add to these all the testimonies of that most holy Doctor in which he asserts that sinners are therefore to be damned in the last judgment because they scorned the redemption offered by Christ. Thus tractate 36 On John: Christ came first to save, afterwards to judge; condemning unto punishment those who would not be saved: leading unto life those who by believing spurned not salvation. From which it may be gathered that as they alone will be crowned in judgment who spurned not salvation; so those only will be condemned who would not be saved, and consequently rejected healing grace. Hence most excellently in book 2 On the Creed, c. ⟦illegible: chapter number⟧ he describes in prayer the terrible countenance of Christ the Judge, etc., in these words:

To His enemies, he says, He will show His wounds: wherefore it was said through the Prophet: They shall look on him whom they pierced: not that He may say to them as to Thomas: because thou hast seen, thou hast believed: but that the truth convincing them may say: Behold the man whom ye crucified; behold God, and man, in whom ye refused to believe. Ye see the wounds which ye inflicted: ye recognize the side which ye pierced, since it was opened both by you and for you: and yet ye would not enter.

The second argument is sought from that axiom frequent with St. Augustine: God does not desert unless he be deserted. Thus in the book On Nature and Grace, chapter 26, he says:

As one limping from a wound is cured for this purpose, that when the past evil is healed his future going may be directed: so our evils the heavenly physician heals not only for this, that they may now be no more: but that hereafter we may walk rightly: which indeed even the sound could not do unless aided by Him. For when the physician, a man, has cured a man, he commits him henceforth to be sustained by the elements and bodily aliments, that the same health may grow strong by fit succor and persist, to God, etc. But God Himself, when through the mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ, He spiritually heals the sick, or vivifies the dead, that is, justifies the impious, and when He has led him on to perfect health, that is, to perfect life and justice, does not desert him if he be not deserted, that he may live piously always and justly. For as the eye of the body, even wholly sound, cannot see unless helped by the whiteness of light: so man, even justified most perfectly, cannot live rightly unless divinely aided by the external light of justice. God takes care therefore not only that He blot out what we have sinned, but also that He grant that we sin not.

Which sentiment indeed the Council of Trent retains and proves, Session 6, chapter 11, where you set forth the reason why the just are obliged to walk in the way of justice, whereby already delivered from sin, made servants of God, living soberly, justly, and piously, they may profit through Jesus Christ, through whom they have had access into this grace. This reason of the obligation it sets forth: For God by His grace does not desert the justified unless He be first deserted by them. Where the Council added the word, first, which St. Augustine has not, for more clearly insinuating this truth and the mind of the same holy Doctor. From these one can thus argue: God does not desert the just man, endowed with actual auxiliaries necessary for profiting in the way of justice, by withdrawing from him His divine succors, unless he be first voluntarily deserted by him, scorning these very offered auxiliaries: therefore men can sometimes struggle against the divine auxiliaries whereby they could profit in the way of justice: but those auxiliaries, when rejected, are sufficient graces: therefore they are to be admitted.

You will say. The context of the aforesaid holy Doctor is to be understood of habitual grace; so that God does not desert the just by withdrawing from them sanctifying grace, unless He be first deserted by them through mortal sin. Against this, St. Augustine there speaks of the withdrawal of that grace which against the Pelagians he willed to assert as supremely necessary for salvation: but the Pelagians nowhere denied that sanctifying grace is necessary for salvation, nor was it ever proved by St. Augustine contending against them; seeing that concerning sanctifying grace there was no dispute with them, but only concerning actual graces: therefore the answer of the adversaries is futile and vain. Next the same is plainly clear from the scope of that chapter, whence the aforesaid words were drawn: for Pelagius affirmed that the mercy of God was not necessary that we sin not, but because we have sinned: which in that whole chapter St. Augustine refutes most strongly, showing that the justified is not deserted by God through the withdrawal of actual grace necessary for living piously. It is certain therefore from the very scope of the Augustinian disputation that the discourse here is not of that desertion which withdraws habitual grace, but of the other, which withdraws actual grace only. That same is plain from these words, wherein he accommodates the adduced comparison of the wounded man to his purpose: so our evils the heavenly physician heals not only for this, that they may now be no more, but that hereafter we may walk rightly, which indeed even the sound could not do unless aided by Him. Whereby he plainly signifies that assisting grace, which is still necessary for men even sound, and indeed having habitual grace, that they may walk rightly. — Add to these, that for this reason the holy Doctor proves that God does not desert the just man unless He be first deserted, because, he says, He does not desert if He be not deserted, that he may live piously always and justly: for as the eye of the body, even most purely sound, cannot see unless helped by the whiteness of light, so also man, most perfectly justified, unless divinely aided by the eternal light of justice, cannot live. Whereby Augustine shows that the just, most perfectly justified, cannot persevere without actual grace, but stand in continual need of the help of God, which surely God does not deny: for, as St. Augustine subjoins, God heals therefore, not only that He blot out what we have sinned, but also that He grant that we sin not: that is, He continually gives help to the justified that he may live rightly if he wills; whereby he plainly signifies that he is there treating of actual grace: for he who grants that we sin not certainly does not withdraw what is necessary that we sin not: but not only habitual but also actual grace is necessary that we sin not, since by the force of habitual grace alone we cannot in the ordinary way avoid sins and conquer the graver temptations; for spirit must be added and strength supplied, when the strong armed man takes to himself many others worse than himself: therefore there is there discourse not of habitual, but of actual grace.

A third argument of no small weight for insinuating the same truth is sought from the book On Correction and Grace, c. 1, where he teaches:

If they shall not deliver themselves from this damnation, he says, who are able to allege that they heard not the Gospel of Christ, since faith is of hearing: how much less shall they deliver themselves who shall say: Perseverance we received not? For the excuse of those saying: We received not hearing, seems more just than that of those saying: We received not perseverance: since it can be said: Man, in that thou hadst heard and heldfast, in that thou wouldest have persevered hadst thou willed: but it can by no means be said: that which thou hadst not heard thou wouldest have believed hadst thou willed.

Whereby he testifies that sufficient grace is present to man for persevering, without which he could not persevere, and with which he could persevere if he willed: therefore he who did not persevere had sufficient aid whereby he could persevere, yet persevered not, because he despised the aid. That this is the mind of St. Augustine is confirmed from those things which he had said a little before, and whereby he confirmed the superior words: for the question is whether the regenerate merits correction while he sins: and whether this excuse of his is just which the holy Doctor sets forth, chapter 6: What have I done, that I received not? Which question he thus solves: If one already regenerate and justified relapse into an evil life by his own will, certainly he cannot say: I received not: because the grace of God received he so lost into evil by free choice. Whence at the beginning of the seventh chapter he says: We nevertheless correct them, and justly do we correct them, who, when they have well begun, have not persevered therein: for from good into an evil life they were changed by their own will: then he says that their excuse shall be vain in the day of judgment: perseverance we received not. To prove and confirm all these he employs this, since it can be said: Man, in that thou hadst heard and heldfast, in that thou wouldest have persevered hadst thou willed: whereby it stands established that St. Augustine by those words, thou wouldest have persevered hadst thou willed, demonstrates that that man did not persevere by his own fault, his own vice, his own will, his own free choice.

You will say, that St. Augustine by these words, in that thou hadst heard and heldfast, thou wouldest have persevered, hadst thou willed, teaches nothing else than that that man would have persevered if he had complete and perfect will of persevering; for thus to will to persevere is in fact to persevere. Against this, if these things were true, it would follow that St. Augustine trifles, nor signifies anything else by these words, he would have persevered if he willed, than he would have persevered if he persevered, which certainly is altogether trifling. Next St. Augustine speaks in the same manner of the baptized man not persevering as of Adam; for as for retorting this excuse of the baptized sinner, perseverance I received not, he opposes this one thing only, thou wouldest have persevered hadst thou willed, so a little after for deciding the same question about Adam, chapters 10 and 11, which he frames in these words: Why did Adam perish by not persevering, who received not perseverance? He inculcates oftener this, he would have persevered if he willed: but all testify that Adam had complete power of persevering: therefore the same must be judged of the baptized sinner not persevering.

Fourth proof taken from theological reason. — The first reason persuading that sufficient grace is granted to all men is deduced from the possibility of observing the divine precepts, which can be formed in this manner: God does not command impossibilities: yet most of His divine precepts are impossible to men without the subsidy of grace, namely those which are of the supernatural order, and which from the natural order impose grave difficulties in their observance: therefore since God imposes precepts of this kind, either He grants grace whereby they can be fulfilled, or at least whereby the strength for keeping them can be obtained. But not all to whom such precepts are prescribed fulfill the same, or ask of God the strength for keeping them; therefore some of them struggle against divine grace. The adversaries admit the minor. But the major is proved: First, from the Scriptures, Deut. 30: This command that I command thee this day is not above thee, nor far off placed: but the word is very nigh thee in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayst do it. — Second, from the Council of Trent, Session 6, chapter 11: God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding admonishes thee to do what thou canst, and to ask what thou canst not, and helps thee that thou mayst be able. — Third, from the holy Fathers, especially Basil, Homily 6 on the Hexaemeron: If the works of approved operations are not placed within us, but necessities emerge from birth, in vain surely do the makers of laws prescribe things to be done and not to be done. To St. Chrysostom, Homily 16 on the Epistle to the Hebrews: Man cannot say, I cannot, nor accuse the Creator; for if He made us impotent and then commands, the fault is His. To St. Jerome, book 3 against the Pelagians: God commanded possible things; of this no one doubts. — But especially from St. Augustine in many places, above all book 2 On the Merits of Sins, chapter 6: I cannot doubt, he says, either that God commanded nothing impossible to man, or that anything is impossible to God for helping and assisting that what He commands be done; and hereby man can if he will be without sin, aided by God. And in the book On Nature and Grace he inculcates this truth often, especially chapter 13; wherefore in chapter 69 he openly professes: By this very fact that we most firmly believe that God, just and good, could not command impossibilities, hence we are admonished both what to do in easy things and what to ask in difficult ones.

Finally, the same truth stands by this reason: the first intention of one wisely commanding is that what is commanded be done: but what is impossible cannot be done: therefore God most wise does not command impossibilities.

You will answer, that the commandments can be said to be possible in a fourfold way: First, in the most remote manner, by reason of the faculty of free will, flexible toward good and evil; or by reason of free nature, insofar as it is capable of faith, hope, and charity. Second, somewhat more closely, insofar as man already has faith, which is the seed of prayer, by which he can obtain the grace necessary for living well. Third, much more closely, inasmuch as man already has habitual charity, by which he is said to be able to love God. Fourth, proximately and most completely, when the will is so prepared by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that it not only can, but even wills; which assuredly does not happen except through actual grace, without which habitual charity, however great and perfect, cannot pass into act. These things supposed, nothing is commanded to man which is not possible by some one of these four ways; yet that is not always commanded which is possible proximately and most completely.

But on the contrary, God commands man nothing, especially the just man, unless he have proximate and complete power, either for praying or for acting through actual grace, as is clear both from St. Augustine, book On Nature and Grace, chapter 13, whose teaching the Council of Trent praised above sets forth and proves, defining in Session 6, chapter 11, that nothing is commanded to man unless he be at once admonished both to do what he can and to ask for what he cannot; and consequently that, beyond nature and faith and habitual charity, he receive moreover an actual inspiration, either whereby he may fulfill the precept, or whereby he may obtain help for fulfilling it. Add that the precept remains still absolutely impossible to the man having nature, faith, and even habitual charity, unless moreover actual grace be granted him, either whereby the precept may be fulfilled immediately, or at least whereby the help necessary for fulfilling the law may be obtained: no otherwise than the precept of giving alms remains impossible to the man who does not have money, nor the power to procure it for himself, even if he have the will to bestow alms, and also the natural faculty, namely the hand for distributing it: therefore just as the precept of giving alms is not imposed upon the man who neither has money nor can procure it, even if he have the natural faculty whereby he could distribute and bestow it; so the precept of doing justice or exercising charity is not imposed on the man who has nature, faith, and even habitual charity, unless besides he have either the actual grace necessary for exercising works of charity, or at least the means of obtaining actual grace, namely the grace of prayer. Therefore one must conclude with St. Leo, Sermon 16 On the Passion: he urges us justly by the precept who runs before us with help; and likewise with Tertullian, book Against Marcion: A law would not be laid upon him who did not have the obedience owed to the law within his power. Hence St. Jerome, book 1 Against the Pelagians: We confess that God gave possible commandments lest He Himself be the author of injustice, should He demand that be done which cannot be done. Which Abbot Odo of Cluny explains most beautifully, book 2 of the Collations, number 13: We oppose nature's frailty to God, as though He knew not what sort of men He made us, and as though, forgetful of our human fragility, He had laid upon man commandments which he could not bear. O blind madness! O profane rashness! For we seem to accuse God in two ways: for neither is He just who ⟦illegible: word(s) lost between "posse" and "impossibile"⟧ impossible thing can be commanded, nor is He good who would damn man for those things which he cannot avoid: and how would what He Himself declares stand firm: My yoke is sweet? Let us therefore ascribe neither iniquity to the just One nor cruelty to the good One.

ARGUMENTS OF THE ADVERSARIES FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE.

They object 1. Calvin, book 2 of the Institutes, chapter 3, brings forward that word of John 6: Every one that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh to me; concerning which St. Augustine, book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 8: What is, every one that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, except that there is none who hears and learns and cometh not to me? For if every one who heard of the Father and learned comes, certainly every one who comes not has not heard of the Father nor learned: therefore no one is stirred up and enlightened by the grace of God unless he straightway follow Him who stirs up and enlightens. — I distinguish the antecedent: that every one who has heard of the Father and learned comes taught and called by efficacious grace, I concede: howeversoever called, I deny. For a twofold kind of calling must be distinguished: one indeed whereby a man is taught and called so that he may proximately believe in Christ; and he who hears by this kind of calling doubtless learns, believes, and comes, as St. Augustine teaches in the same place, saying: we see many come to the Son because we see many believe in Christ: but where and how they heard this of the Father and learned it, we do not see, since that grace is secret; yet that it is grace who doubts? This grace therefore, which is bestowed secretly upon human hearts by divine bounty, is rejected by none of hardened heart; for it is bestowed precisely that the hardness of heart may first be taken away. Another kind of calling is that whereby man is solicited to pray for and obtain that singular and ineffable benefit of the grace softening the heart, while it is not granted by God. Augustine touches on this in many places, but especially in Tractate 28 on John, where he weighs the aforesaid words of John thus: Great is the commendation of grace: no one comes unless drawn: whom He draws and whom He draws not, why He draws this man and not that, do not wish to judge, if you wish not to err; take once for all and understand: you are not drawn; pray that you may be drawn. Of the former calling Augustine must be understood, as he himself indicates near the end of the same chapter, saying: Therefore to be drawn of the Father to Christ, and to hear and learn of the Father so as to come to Christ, is nothing else than to receive from the Father the gift whereby one believes in Christ.

You will urge. From the same St. Augustine, book On the Grace of Christ, chapter 14, where the same text of John is weighed: When God teaches, not by the letter of the law but by the grace of the Spirit, He so teaches that what each one has learned he sees not only by knowing, but desires by willing and perfects by doing; and by this divine mode of teaching even the will itself and the very occasion, not merely the natural possibility of intending and operating, is aided. Hence he concludes: Every one who has learned of the Father not only can come, but comes — where there is already both the progress of possibility, and the affection of will, and the effect of action. Therefore every grace is efficacious.

I answer. First, by distinguishing the antecedent: when God teaches not by the letter of the law but by the efficacious grace of the Spirit, which heals either from sin or from infirmity, ⟦illegible: omnis quisque didicit, non solum …⟧ everyone who has learned not only … but even desires by willing and perfects by doing, I concede: by sufficient grace, which moves and solicits toward the expiation of sins and the recovering or obtaining of health, I deny. I answer secondly. That St. Augustine by the words cited signifies nothing else than that grace is necessary not only habitual, which completes a power such as Pelagius alone seemed to require; but also actual, which concurs toward the operation. For, as St. Augustine notes there, to be able to come he places in nature, or even, as Pelagius has begun to say, in grace of whatever sort he may feel it to be, whereby, as he says, the possibility itself is aided: but to come is already in the will and in the work. It is not, however, consequent that he who can come also does come, unless he wills it and does it.

You are pressed further. From the same St. Augustine, chapter 13 of the same book: Whoever knows what he ought to do, and does it not, has not yet learned according to grace, but according to the law: not according to the Spirit, but according to the letter; therefore whoever neglects a good work is judged to have not interior but only exterior grace: and presently, either there is no sufficient grace, or only an external one. I distinguish. The antecedent: he has not yet learned according to efficacious and complete grace, I concede: according to sufficient grace, and such as is frustrated of its effect through the negligence or resistance of the agent, I deny. For he recognized, through the internal help afforded him, how great his infirmity is and how much he needs divine protection, which he ought suppliantly to entreat: but because he obeys not such inspiration, nor obtains the divine help, therefore he is said simply not to have learned, or not yet to have heard; for spiritual hearing properly is the assent of the heart, as St. Augustine teaches most excellently, book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 14: Ears, he says, for hearing is itself the gift of obeying, that they who have them may come to Him to whom no one comes unless it were given him of His Father. We exhort therefore and preach: but they who have ears for hearing obeyingly all hear: but they who have them not, let that be in them which is written: that hearing they hear not; namely, hearing with the sense of the body, they hear not with the assent of the heart.

You object 2. Calvin adduces that word of the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 9: It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. And yet if anyone called does not obey, and it lies within his will placed in him either to obey or not to obey, it could rightly be said also: it is not only of the merciful God, but also of the willing and running man, to pursue and attain the good; because the mercy of the caller determines no more to the good work than the obedience of the called, which the impious do not bear: therefore man cannot strive against that calling.

I answer. That text of the Apostle must be understood of that singular calling whereby a man is efficaciously and eminently called antecedently to any merits, as St. Augustine explains, book I to Simplicianus, question 2: It is true, he says, not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy, because although He call many, He has mercy nevertheless on those whom He calls in such wise as that it is given them to follow. Which exposition surely fits the mind of the Apostle best; for he intends there to set forth the reason why God called Jacob, not Esau, by a special calling, as appears from the text. That singular calling, therefore, must be distinguished from conversion, or the operation of justice, which follows that calling: for conversion is from God and from us; but calling must be ascribed to God alone. Which truth Augustine commends most excellently, book On Grace and Free Will, chapter 5, where he presses the Pelagians, who wrongly interpreted that text of Zechariah, Be converted to me, and I will be converted to you, so as to ascribe man's conversion to his own power, not to the grace of God: They do not attend, says St. August., who think thus; because unless our conversion itself to God were a gift of God, it would not be said: God of virtues convert us, and Thou God converted shalt quicken us, and convert us, God of our salvation, and other things of like sort which it were long to recount. By which words St. August. signifies that our conversion must be ascribed partly to the divine and partly to the human will: which he presses chiefly from that word of 1 Cor. 15: By the grace of God I am what I am: and that he might show also free will, he soon adds: and his grace in me was not void, but I labored more abundantly than all they. Yet lest the ⟦illegible: voluntas?⟧ itself be thought able to do anything good without the grace of God, continuing after he had said: his grace in me was not void, but I labored more abundantly than all they, he subjoins, saying: yet not I, but the grace of God with me: that is, not alone, but the grace of God with me: lest by this neither the grace of God alone, nor he himself alone, but the grace of God with him. By which he signifies that conversion must be ascribed partly to the hu-human and partly to the divine will, although principally it is the work of the divine will and mercy. But that calling alone is to be ascribed to God, he teaches in the same place: That ⟦illegible: utem?⟧ we should fall from heaven, and be converted rather, and by a most efficacious reason, was the grace of God alone; because his merits were great, but evil.

You will object 3. That word of 1 Corinthians 1: Who discerneth thee? and what hast thou that thou hast not received? Whereby the Apostle signifies that no one can discern himself nor glory in his own merits; for that must be ascribed to grace alone, as St. Augustine explains, book On the Predestination of the Saints: Nothing, he says, is so contrary to this sense of the Apostle, Who discerneth thee? as for anyone to glory in his own merits, as though he had made them himself, not the grace of God; but the grace which discerns the good from the evil, not as common to the good and the evil. But, say the adversaries, sufficient grace being given to two men, of whom one obey, the other resist, he who obeyed can say that he discerns himself from him who resists, and glory in his own proper obedience: therefore he contradicts the Apostle.

I answer. First, that this inference departs from the mind of the Apostle in his words; since there the Apostle treats not of the operation of grace, whereby one is discerned from another; but of that dissension arisen among the Corinthians, whereby one gloried that he was a disciple of Paul, another of Apollo; and the Apostle insists on this one thing, that they not glory in men, as appears from chapter 3, verse 21, and pursues the same argument in the following chapter, and exhorts that no one be puffed up against another, whether on behalf of Apollo or on account of his own gift, because in the dispensation of the word one seemed more eloquent, another better instructed in spiritual gifts, and immediately joins: For who discerneth thee? and what hast thou that thou hast not received? but if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? Now you are filled; now you are made rich, etc. But lest they think that dissension should be removed on account of the title of Apostleship, wherewith Paul himself, and not Apollo, was endowed, he teaches therefore that the faithful, received unto faith of themselves, have no ground above others for glorying; which that he might prove, he adds: For I think that God hath set forth us apostles last, as appointed to death; as if he said: it is not for you to make schisms in the Church on our account, nor to glory that you were baptized by some one of the Apostles; for what is an Apostle? A man given over to death, a victim of expiation, a spectacle to the world and to men.

I answer secondly. But if these words of the Apostle be transferred to the present question, as in fact St. Augustine often used them, to show against the Pelagians that we are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves, but that our whole sufficiency is of God as of the principal cause: thus, I say, the aforesaid text being so used, I distinguish the major: no one can say that he discerns himself, simply and absolutely, I concede: relatively and insofar as he was moved and helped by divine grace, I deny. For just as a boy still unskilled in the art of writing, while guided and directed by his Master of writing, forms some letters, or even copies whole words, cannot boast that he wrote simply, although nevertheless he truly wrote; so he who kept the commandment of God, while another did not consent, who had been called by like grace, cannot say without arrogance, simply, that he himself fulfilled the commandment and thereby discerned himself from the other: yet as the boy who formed some words while the scribe directed truly can say that he wrote, and in this way discerned himself from another who likewise had not written; so the man in the proposed hypothesis can affirm that he discerned himself in some measure, aided not only by his own powers but by the benefit of grace. Nor indeed does he who thus discerns himself, by the grace surely of God, by which he is anticipated and helped, contradict the Apostle, who forbids only that man say that he discerns himself by glorying in his own powers, and as it were of a good which he had not received: nay, rather he imitates the same Apostle saying: By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace in me was not void: for I labored more abundantly than all they, etc. In which words the Apostle ascribes something to himself above the rest: yet he attributes it not to his own powers but to the benefit of grace. Which interpretation St. August. approves, book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 31, where, after he had said: When God acts with the rational soul that it believe, surely God works in man the very willing to believe, and in all things his mercy anticipates us: but to consent to the calling of God, or to dissent from it, as I said, belongs to one's own will. Immediately he subjoins: Which therefore not only does not weaken what was said, what hast thou that thou hast not received?, but even confirms it: for to receive and to hold he cannot hold the gift of which he hears this, unless by consenting; and hence that they have, and that they receive, is of God: but to receive and to hold is surely of the receiver and holder.

You will urge. The grace which discerns the good from the evil is not common to the good and the evil, as St. August. teaches in the words cited in the objection: but sufficient grace is common to the good and the evil: therefore by it no discernment can be made.

I distinguish. The major: the grace which discerns the good from the evil with that perfect discernment whereby one is plucked out of the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of the Son of God, is not common to the good and the evil, I concede: that by that discernment whereby one prepares himself for that perfect discernment there is not that grace common to the good and the evil, I deny: for all, both good and evil, are called by the Father of the family to the marriage; and our heavenly Father makes His sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and pours the dew and rain of grace upon the just and the unjust.

You object 4. That word of Philippians 2: For it is God who worketh in us both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will. Whereby the Apostle signifies that not only the beginning of the work but its consummation must be ascribed to God alone: therefore no place is left for a sufficient grace which may be resisted; but every grace, whatsoever it be at length, is efficacious, which works in us either willing alone or both willing and accomplishing together.

I answer. First, by denying the consequence: which will appear altogether absurd if anyone weigh the entire Apostolic text. For the Apostle says there: Wherefore, my dearly beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but much more now in my absence, with fear and trembling work out your salvation. For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish. In which words St. Apostle admonishes us to fear and tremble in the matter of salvation, because God works in us both to will and to accomplish: from which so far is it rightly concluded that we cannot resist grace, that on the contrary it may thence be understood that we ourselves can resist grace: and therefore that there is great occasion and ground for fearing: for if every grace were most efficacious, doubtless they who have it and work well, and do not flatter themselves in their works, would have nothing to fear, but would work out their salvation without any dread. I answer, secondly, by distinguishing the antecedent: God works in us to will and to accomplish either without us or with us, I concede: without us only, I deny. For through operating grace He works in us without us; but through cooperating grace with us, as St. Augustine teaches, book On Grace and Free Will, chapter 19: We believe, he says, He works without us when beginning: but when we will, and so will as to do, He cooperates with us when perfecting. Hence St. Bernard, book On Grace and Free Will, says most excellently: God works these three things in us, namely to think, to will, and to accomplish: the first, namely to think, without us: the second, namely to will, with us: the third, namely to accomplish, through us.

ARGUMENTS DRAWN FROM THE COUNCILS AND HOLY FATHERS AND FROM THEOLOGICAL REASON.

You will object 1. Canon ⟦illegible: canon number⟧ of the Council of Orange, wherein we read thus: If anyone confesses that, that we may be cleansed from sins, God awaits our will, but not that we should even will to be cleansed through the infusion and operation of the Holy Spirit wrought in us, he resists the Holy Spirit Himself speaking by Solomon: The will is prepared of the Lord: and by the Apostle pronouncing wholesomely: It is God who worketh in us both to will and to accomplish. From which it is inferred thus: that we may be cleansed from sin, God does not await our will; therefore any grace determines our will efficaciously, and presently no sufficient grace is given. — I distinguish the antecedent: God does not await our will such that this ought to anticipate His grace, and prepare itself toward it by its own powers, as the Semi-Pelagians wished, I concede: He does not await our will following the motion of His grace, that it consent to it, I deny. But that such is the mind of the Council is gathered most openly from the other canons, especially the sixth, wherein whosoever subordinates the help of grace to human humility or obedience, that is, makes it posterior, is anathematized.

You will object 2. Diverse sayings of St. Augustine and of his Disciples, whereby divine grace seems signified to be always efficacious, nor does the human will anywhere strive against it. But since I have already resolved very many of those sayings in the preceding Section, here I shall subjoin only one or two: above all that which St. Augustine teaches chapter 10 On the Grace of Christ: But let these men sometimes confess with us that we will with grace, whereby the magnitude of future glory is not only promised but also believed and hoped; neither is wisdom only revealed but charity also infused; nor is everything that is good only urged but also persuaded. And somewhat after: This grace Pelagius ought to confess, if he wish not only to be called but also to be a Christian. — I answer, that by the words cited Augustine signifies nothing else than that beyond the law and doctrine, in which Pelagius placed the whole account and virtue of grace, another help is desired, whereby not only is everything that is good urged but also persuaded. Whence the same holy Doctor, book 2 of the Unfinished Work, chapter 157, thus addresses the Pelagians: I admonish you to understand of what grace you are enemies, by denying that God works wills in the minds of men, not that unwilling they believe, which is said most absurdly, but that from unwilling they become willing: not as man the doctor does by teaching and exhorting, threatening and promising in the word of God, which is done in vain unless God work within and will through His unconquerable ways: for while the doctor plants and waters, we can say: perhaps the hearer believes; but when God gives the increase he believes without doubt and profits: behold what is the difference between law and promise, between letter and Spirit. In which words St. Augustine censures Julian, who wished that Jews could by the law and Gentiles by nature become sons of Abraham; which that he might demonstrate false, St. Augustine shows the law, without the Spirit working within, that is, without the grace of adoption, to be useless and vain; for, as he says, book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 19: The law was given that grace might be sought: grace was given that the law might be fulfilled. But the law of itself would not suffice unto the grace of adoption, unless some beginning of salutary grace annexed to itself were conveyed by the author of the law. Therefore St. Augustine teaches no otherwise that God works in us to will than because beyond the external grace of the law and doctrine He also supplies an internal help, without which we could will and work nothing at all that is good.

You will object 3. Sufficient grace in our opinion seems nowise to differ from the grace of possibility which the Semi-Pelagians admitted: but such a grace of possibility St. Augustine rejects, and condemned it in many places, chiefly book On the Grace of Christ: therefore sufficient grace ought not to be admitted by Catholic teachers. — I deny the major: for the grace of possibility, which St. Augustine impugns, differs most widely from the sufficient grace which we admit, as may be gathered from the same St. Augustine reporting Pelagius's opinion about the grace of possibility itself, book On the Grace of Christ, chapter 4, where Pelagius says: We, he says, distinguish these three things thus, and distribute them as it were digested into a fixed order: in the first place we place the being able, second the willing, third the being. The being able we locate in nature, the willing in choice, the being in effect. That first thing, namely the being able, properly pertains to God, who bestowed it on His creature: but the rest, namely the willing and the being, are to be referred to man: because they descend from the fountain of choice: therefore in the will and the good work there is praise of man, nay rather of man and of God, who gave the possibility of his will and work, and who ever aids the possibility itself with the help of His grace. From Pelagius's words it is clear that the possibility of the work, or natural power, is both from God and aided by the help of divine grace. But by that help Pelagius wished to signify nothing else than law and doctrine, remission of sins, and the example of Christ, as St. Augustine declares at greater length in the same book: who on the contrary teaches that the help whereby our possibility is aided is some secret inspiration, or virtue of the Holy Spirit: for thus he opens his mind at the beginning of chapter 13 of the same book: This, he says, if it must be called doctrine, certainly must be so called that God be believed to infuse it more deeply and more interiorly with ineffable sweetness, not only through those who plant and water outwardly, but also through Himself, who ministers its increase hiddenly; so that He show not merely the truth but impart also the charity of things: for thus God teaches those who are called according to His purpose, granting together both that they know what to do, and that they do what they know. — From which it appears that St. Augustine thought otherwise concerning the grace of possibility than Pelagius. — They disagreed moreover among themselves about the mode whereby the grace of Christ aids: for Pelagius wished the grace of possibility to be ordered only to the natural power, which it ought to aid and perfect; but not to concur toward action and operation; whereas St. Augustine taught that the grace of God works in us not only the being able but also the willing and accomplishing, or not possibility alone but volition and action also. Moreover Pelagius ascribed to free will the consent which he rendered to grace; but holy Augustine contended that this consent must be attributed principally to grace. Therefore long is the difference between sufficient grace, which we admit, and the grace of possibility which the Pelagians alleged. First indeed Pelagius constituted the help of possibility in outward helps only; but we with St. Augustine judge sufficient grace must be placed in the secret operation of the Holy Spirit. Second, although Pelagius perhaps admitted some internal grace of possibility, still he did not hold it necessary for each act of piety, but only that acts be done more easily, as we have often noted; but we profess that sufficient grace is to be desired for each single act. Third, Pelagius wished the grace of possibility ordered only to the power, not to action; whence he ascribed consent principally to free will; but we contend that sufficient grace so excites the will that concomitant and subsequent grace is necessary for willing and operating, by reason of which the determination and consent of the will is attributed principally to the virtue of grace.

You will object 4. Therefore the Massilians were condemned as heretics because they judged the help necessary for believing sufficient, that man anticipated might believe he could if he willed: but the sufficient grace which we admit is of this kind: therefore we subscribe to the Semi-Pelagians. — I answer, by denying the major, whose falsity appears from this condemned proposition: The Semi-Pelagians admitted the necessity of interior prevenient grace for each act, even for the beginning of faith, and herein were heretics, inasmuch as they wished that grace to be such as the human will could resist or obey. Which proposition Innocent X declared false and heretical, and as such condemned it. False therefore is it that the Semi-Pelagians were condemned because they admitted sufficient prevenient grace, to which man could consent if he willed or dissent: but they erred chiefly in teaching that we can merit by a merely natural affect desiring faith the grace of faith, and consequently the other gifts, as we have taught already many times.

You will object 5. The efficacy of grace does not depend on free will: but if sufficient grace were granted, which became efficacious through the consent of the will, its efficacy would depend on free will: therefore none is to be admitted. — I distinguish the major: the efficacy of grace does not depend on free will in act first, namely that virtue which it has to move the will infallibly, I concede: efficacy in act second, that is, the consent given to the divine calling does not depend on free will, I deny: for, as holy Augustine teaches, book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 31: After this manner when God acts with the rational soul that it believe … surely God works in man the very willing to believe, and in all things his mercy anticipates us: but to consent to the calling of God, or to dissent from it, as I have said, belongs to one's own will.

II. — WHETHER SUFFICIENT GRACE IS GRANTED TO ALL MEN WITHOUT EXCEPTION.

I AFFIRM IT. And that truth may licitly be confirmed openly by very many oracles of Sacred Scripture: which arguments, that they may become more evident, it helps to weigh under distinct headings.

It is proved first From the universal vocation and illumination through Christ. — For indeed John 1, of the Lord Christ it is said: He was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. From which testimony St. Augustine, book On Genesis against the Manichees, chapter 3, proves that all men, if they will, can keep the precepts of God: That light, he says, feeds not the eyes of irrational animals, but the more numerous hearts of the faithful, who believe in God, and turn themselves from the love of visible and temporal things to His precepts to be kept: which all men can do if they will, because that light enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. The aforesaid St. Chrysostom anticipated him, Homily 1 on these words of John, He enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world: where he says: « He enlightens assuredly so far as lies in Him. But if any have been unwilling of their own accord, with the eyes of their mind closing, to direct their gaze to the rays of this light, they have persisted in darkness not from the nature of the light but from their own malice, who of their own accord made themselves unworthy of so great a gift; for grace is diffused upon all: it excepts or disdains no Jew, no Greek, no Barbarian, no Scythian, no freeman, no servant, no man, no woman, no old man, no youth, etc. But they who neglect to enjoy its gift, let them impute this their fault to themselves: since since it is given to all, open to all, and forbidden by none, certain lost and wicked men refuse to enter by their own malice only ».

To this also pertains what is said generally in Wisdom 1, that infidels, and all men among whom there is no knowledge of God, have not lacked a sufficient means whereby they may arrive at His salutary knowledge. Which the Apostle confirms, Romans 1, verse 19, saying of the Gentiles that God sufficiently manifested Himself to them, that they might render Him the glory due Him, such that they are inexcusable, in that they glorified Him not as God, and setting aside His worship served idols. Doubtless because, as St. Prosper rightly says, book 2 On the Vocation of the Gentiles, chapter 17, even those who formerly lacked, or still lack, the external preaching of the word of God, did not lack nor lack the necessary and sufficient grace whereby they may come to faith and the light of truth. Even now, he says, in the farthest parts of the world there are some nations upon whom the grace of the Savior (that is, the Gospel) has not yet shone: yet to these the measure of general utility? kept utilii from above is ever bestowed upon all men, and is not denied.

Second proof. From the general will of God to save each and every man. — Whoever wisely and sincerely intends an end also wills to employ the means absolutely necessary for attaining that end: but God most wise sincerely intends the salvation of all men: therefore He also wills that grace be conferred on them whereby they may attain salvation. The major is evident. The minor is proved: First indeed from that of Ezekiel 33: Why will you die, O house of Israel? saith the Lord. I desire not, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that he be converted and live. Where Tertullian notes, book On Penance, chapter 1, that God swore, that He might without any difficulty be believed: Swearing also, he says, like the Lord, Titus, where He wishes to be believed. O blessed are we for whose sake God swears! O wretched, if we believe not even a swearing God! But most openly 1 Timothy 2, where the Apostle hands down this truth, teaching that prayer is to be made for all, even for Pagans and Gentiles, brings forward this reason of that obligation: For this is good, he says, and acceptable in the sight of our Savior God, who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Which truth surely he confirms with this threefold reason: For one is God, one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: who gave himself a redemption for all, in their times. In which words the Apostle signifies that God wills the salvation of all men under a threefold title: first because He is Creator of them all; second because He is Redeemer of all; third because He must be Judge of all, and the blood which He shed for all upon the cross will be unto testimony in their times that He was not Himself the cause why any should be rejected and damned. Hence Paulus Orosius embraces this threefold reason most excellently, book On the Liberty of Choice, after the middle: This therefore Lord Christ, he says, I say, the Son of God, founded in the beginning in the power of the Father and glory, redeemed in the middle, and will judge also at the last.

But that this will extends quite to all, holy Chrysostom above all teaches writing on this passage: Imitate, he says, thy God: if He wills all men to be saved, deservedly one must pray for all. St. Damascene, book 2 of the Orthodox Faith, chapter 29: Let it, he says, not escape us that God, excelling in goodness, primarily wills indeed to save all men and make them possessors of His kingdom: but as just, wills nevertheless that punishment also be inflicted on those who sin. But Augustine above others hands down this truth in many places, chiefly book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 33: God, he says, wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth: yet not so that He take from them free will, whereby using well or ill they may be judged most justly: which when it happens, infidels indeed act against the will of God, when they believe not His Gospel: yet do they not thereby conquer it: but defraud themselves of a great and supreme good, and involve themselves in present evils, about to experience in punishments the power of Him whose mercy in gifts they despised... He therefore shall be guilty unto damnation under His power who despised His mercy unto believing. Whoever however believed in Him, who despised not being absolved by Him from all sins, healed from all vices, kindled with His heat and light, and enlightened, shall have from His grace good works, whereby he may be redeemed also according to the body from the corruption of death, adorned, and satisfied with goods, not temporal but eternal. — To him St. Prosper sings in harmony most excellently, Reply 2 to the Objections of the Vincentians: Most sincerely, he says, must it be thought and professed that God wills all men to be saved, since the Apostle, from whom is this saying, diligently prescribes that it be guarded with piety in all Churches, that supplication be made to God for all men; whence that many perish is the merit of the perishing; that many are saved is the gift of Him who saves. Hence in Reply 8 to the Chapters of the Gauls, he says constantly: Who says that God does not will all men to be saved but a certain number of the predestined, speaks more harshly than must be spoken of the height of secr⟦illegible: opening of the obiection lost by the OCR; only this closing fragment of its line is legible⟧table grace of God, who also wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

I answer. Every divine will is fulfilled, for all things whatsoever the Lord willed He hath done in heaven and in earth, Psalm 134. And, who resisteth his will? Romans 9. Whence St. Augustine, book On Correction, chapter 11: To God willing to act no arbitrament of man resists; for so is willing and unwilling within the power of the willing or unwilling one that it neither impedes nor overcomes divine power. To whom St. Fulgentius accords: What He wills, he says, He always does insuperably: therefore since He wills all men to be saved, this surely is fulfilled in them which the immutable and impenetrable will of omnipotent God holds. The same the African Prelates exiled in Sardinia write in their Synodal Letter: Always the will of God is fulfilled, because His power is nowise conquered: He Himself is He who hath done all things whatsoever He would in heaven and in earth, in the sea and all abysses, and whose will no one resists: but not all men quite are saved: therefore it is a sign that God does not will the salvation of all men. — True, I say with Molina, that God wills something outside Himself in two ways: first, so efficaciously and powerfully that His intention is never hindered in effect; second less validly, yet still sufficiently, because the effect could follow were some condition not lacking. By the former will God wills the salvation of the elect: because, says the Apostle, 2 Timothy 2: The sure foundation of God standeth having this seal: namely the seal whereby the eternal Father ratified and fixed in His foreknowledge the salvation of sons and signed it; For the Lord knoweth who are his, and no one shall snatch them out of his hand. By the latter indeed He intends the salvation of all men generically, and that sincerely so far as from His side; but men themselves through their negligence or malice are defrauded of eternal salvation, because they themselves withstand the divine will; yet neither does the general divine will become so barren that from it innumerable graces always ready and opportune for procuring salvation are not born for whosoever possess them, would they but will to use them. But if perchance they should refuse to use them, nevertheless the human will the divine will will always overcome, destined to obtain a secondary end as often as it shall have been defrauded by our fault. For thus, says St. August. on Psalm 110, are the works of the Lord constituted, that the creature established in free choice overcome the will of its Creator. God wills not that you perish, for He forbids: yet if you sin, think not that man has done what He willed, and that there befell God what He willed not: for as He wills that man sin not, so He wills to spare the sinner, that he return and live: thus finally He wills, though not primarily, to punish him persevering in sin, lest contumacy escape the power of justice. Thus whatever you choose, omnipotence shall not lack wherewith to complete its will concerning you. Therefore either God efficaciously and determinately intends the salvation of the elect, and then nowhere is He frustrated of it; or He intends disjointly the salvation of all, or certainly punishment if they refuse to be saved: which punishment the sinner never shall escape: and thus it comes about that the divine will is fulfilled one way or the other always.

I answer 2. A conditioned will to be equivalent to an absolute will when the positing of the condition depends on the will: but the very condition on which the salvation of men depends, namely if they themselves will, no less depends on the will of God than salvation itself; for it cannot be supplied by human will unless it be supplied by the divine will, since man can neither will nor work unless God give this, He Himself being He who works in us both to will and to accomplish; therefore the conditioned will of saving all is equivalent to the absolute: but there is no absolute will in God of saving all: therefore neither an antecedent and conditioned will.

I distinguish the minor: the condition on which salvation depends depends on the will of God — altogether, I deny: partly, I concede. For although man cannot be saved unless God willing prepares the will of man, nevertheless He does not prepare it so in all things that He desires not also the consent of man, as St. Augustine teaches most excellently, book On the Grace of Christ and Free Will, chapter 11: He Himself, he says, that we will, works when beginning, who cooperates with the willing when perfecting. That we therefore will, He works without us; but when we will, and so will as to do, He cooperates with us: yet that without Him willing or operating we will, or operating with us when we will, toward good works of piety we avail nothing. — To him St. Prosper elegantly subscribes, book 2 On the Vocation of the Gentiles, chapter 9: His own willing unto obedience He so bestows that He takes away not even from those who will persevere that mutability which can will otherwise. Otherwise no believer would ever have fallen away from faith, concupiscence would overcome no one, sadness would crush no one, anger would vanquish no one, the charity of none would grow cold, the patience of none would be broken, and no one would neglect the grace bestowed on him; but because these things can happen, and into consent to such temptations the descent is too easy and prone, never ought that voice of the Lord cease to sound in the ears of the faithful: watch ye, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. Finally he concludes thus: therefore as they who believed are helped that they remain in faith; so they also who believe not yet are helped that they believe. And as those hold it in their power to go out, so these hold it in their power to return: and it becomes manifest that by diverse and innumerable ways God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth: but they who come are directed by the help of God; they who come not resist by their own pertinacity.

I answer 3. That God is judged to will the salvation of all men in that mode whereby St. Augustine explains that will: but that most holy Doctor explains the will so that he uses the particle all, not collectively but distributively; such that that divine will is ordered not to all men quite one by one but only to some of them. First indeed he interprets that divine will of saving all men by a fitting distribution, book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 8: As, he says, we speak integrally when concerning some teacher of letters, who alone is in a city, we say, this man teaches all letters: not because all learn, but because no one learns letters there except from him: so we say rightly: God teaches all to come to Christ: not because all come, but because no one comes otherwise. Second he takes this saying incompletely; or, as they speak, not for the individuals of genera but for the genera of individuals, because clearly out of every genus of men, age, sex, condition, the predestined are elected. So book On Correction and Grace, chapter 11: What is written, he says, He wills all men to be saved, yet not all are saved, can be understood in many ways: but here I shall say one thing, that it was said so that all the predestinated be understood, because every genus of men is therein. Third he says God is said to will all men to be saved because He makes all who are saved will to be saved: in which sense, book On Correction and Grace, chapter 15, he interprets that saying of the Apostle to the Galatians, chapter 4: God sent the Spirit of his Son crying: Abba Father, that is, making us cry. If therefore, he says, Scripture rightly calls the spirit crying, by which it is brought about that we cry, rightly also God willing, by whom it is brought about that we will. From these the adversaries infer that God does not intend the salvation of individual men. — True, I deny this inference; for in these places, examples, negation of the divine will toward all cannot be inferred, but negation only of execution and effect; therefore those expositions are to be referred only to the absolute and consequent will; which indeed appears plainly from the very manner of speaking familiar to that most holy Doctor; for everywhere he asks not so much why God or mediator labors to free those who perish, as why He frees not in fact, redeems not, saves not: in which sense the Apostle said to the Galatians miserably perishing, chapter 5: Christ will profit you nothing: you are evacuated from Christ, that is, St. Augustine expounding the place, Christ cut Himself off from you as from a possession He held: because evidently through your defect His death shall profit you nothing.

Third proof. From the death of Christ for all men. — Sufficient graces are prepared and furnished for those for whom Christ underwent death and offered His most precious blood in redemption to the divine Father: but He offered it for each and every man: therefore He prepares and confers sufficient grace on each. All admit the major. The minor truly is proved. 1. From that of Cor. 5: If one died for all: therefore all are dead: which inference of the Apostle can be understood threefold: First, that it be inferred that all are dead by the death of sin in Adam. Second, that all are dead to the old life. Third, that everyone ought to reckon himself as dead to himself. But in whatever sense this consequence be understood, it presupposes what is conceded in the antecedent, that Christ died for all men altogether. For if Christ died only for some, how is thence gathered that all are dead by Adam's sin, that all ought to die to the old life, that each ought to reckon himself as dead to himself? The same truth is gathered from that of 1 John 2, where of the Lord Christ it is said that He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world.

Where by the name of the whole world He signifies not only the Elect out of the whole world but also the reprobate, as the Council of Trent interprets, Session 6, chapter 3, wherein from that passage of St. John which it cited at the end of the preceding chapter it infers thus: And although He died for all, yet not all receive the benefit of His death, but only those to whom the merit of His passion is communicated. In which words the Council teaches that Christ died even for those who received not the benefit of His death.

It is proved 2. The same major by the authority of the holy Fathers, 1st indeed of those who preceded St. Augustine, who with unanimous consent ⟦illegible: closing lines of the page are lost in the OCR; the page ends on a hyphen-split word whose second half is "culo" at the head of p290, evidently printed "se-/culo"⟧seculum teach that Christ died for all. Thus Nazianzen, Oration 20: All, he says, without exception have we been renewed by the heavenly Adam, of whom we were partakers of the first Adam, snatched from the serpent, and dead to sin. Chrysostom, Homily on chapter 2 of the Epistle to the Hebrews: That the grace of God, he says, might justify death for all, not for the faithful alone: but for the whole world: for He Himself died for all. Epiphanius, heresy 80: For the whole world indeed He offered Himself victim, Himself sacrifice, Himself priest, Himself altar, Himself God, Himself man, Himself king, Himself Pontiff, Himself lamb; He became all things in us for us, that life might be wrought for us in every way. Ambrose, Sermon on Psalm 118: That mystic sun of justice arose for all, shone for all, suffered for all, and rose again for all.

It is proved. 3. By the authority of St. Augustine himself, who confirms this truth with very many monuments: First indeed in all those places where he says Christ poured out blood for each and every man whom He will judge at the end of the world. Thus on Psalm 95: He shall judge the orb of the earth in equity: not a part; because He bought not a part: He holds to judge the whole: because He gave the price for the whole. Shortly after he explains what by the name of the orb of the earth he understands, saying: He who judgeth the orb of the earth in equity, and the peoples in His truth: what is equity, and truth? He will call together with Himself His elect unto judging: but the rest He shall separate one from another: for He will set some at the right hand, others at the left, etc. Therefore by the name of the orb of the earth he understands all those who in judgment shall be placed both at the right and at the left hand, that is, all the elect and reprobate: accordingly since he asserts Christ will judge the whole orb because He bought the whole, he expressly signifies Christ will judge all elect and reprobate, because He expended blood upon elect and reprobate alike. Which truth surely he confirms and explains most excellently Sermon 67 On Time, where he introduces Christ so compelling sinners on the last day of judgment:

Ego te, o homo, de limo manibus meis feci, ego terrenis artubus infundere spiritum.... cum expulsus de Paradiso, iure peccati, mortis vinculis tenereris, virginalem uterum, sine dispendio virginitatis pariendus introivi, in praesepe expositus et pannis obvolutus iacui, instantiae contumelias, humanosque dolores, quibus tibi similis fierem, ad hoc scilicet, ut te mihi similem facerem, pertuli; irridentium palmas, et sputa suscepi, acetum cum felle bibi: Flagellis caesus, vepribus coronatus, crucifixus, vulnere perforatus, ut tu eripereris, morti animam in tormentis dimisi. En clavorum vestigia, quibus affixus pependi, en perfossum vulneribus latus. Suscepi dolores tuos, ut tibi gloriam darem; suscepi mortem tuam, ut in aeternum viveres: conditus iacui in sepulchro, ut tu regnares in caelo; cur quod pro te pertuli perdidisti? cur ingrate redemptionis tuae munera renuisti? non te ego de morte mea quaero, redde mihi vitam tuam, pro qua meam dedi.... Cur me graviore criminum tuorum cruce, quam illa in qua quondam pependeram afflixisti? Gravior enim apud me peccatorum tuorum crux est, in qua invitus pendeo, quam illa in qua tui misertus mortem tuam occisurus ascendi: cum essem impassibilis, pro te pati dignatus sum. Sed tu despexisti in homine Deum, in infirmo salutem, in via reditum, in iudice veniam, in cruce vitam, in suppliciis medicinam. Haec. Doctor. — Confirmatur. 2. Hamdem veritatem sanctus ille Doctor iis omnibus testimoniis, quibus clare affirmat Christum pro omnibus sanguinem fudisse, quos Adami culpa infecit. Sic lib. 20 De Civit. Dei, c. 6. ait: Apostolus inquit: Ergo omnes mortui sunt, quod pro omnibus mortuus est unus: ut qui vivunt, iam non sibi vivant, sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est, et resurrexit: omnes itaque mortui sunt in peccatis, nemine prorsus excepto: sive in originalibus, sive etiam voluntate additis: sive ignorando, sive sciendo, nec faciendo quod iustum est: et pro omnibus mortuis unus mortuus est, idest nullum omnino habens peccatum.

As if he said: for all those who were dead, whether by original or by actual sin, Christ died; but there is no man whatsoever who was not dead through sin, whether original or actual: therefore Christ died for all men absolutely without exception.

Most elegantly and in a novel manner he establishes this same truth, lib. 2 Operis Imperfecti, c. 17. where, when Julian had said, in order to elude certain testimonies of the Apostle: Innumerable testimonies of Scripture almost beyond number attest that He died for many rather than for all; St. Augustine answers:

Hinc te exue si potes, quod unus pro omnibus mortuus est, et aude dicere non omnes esse mortuos, pro quibus mortuus est Christus: cum statim tibi Apostolus fauces premat, et opprimat ad audacissimam vocem quae sequeretur ostendens, et dicens: ergo omnes mortui sunt. Noli sic laudare Apostolum, noli expunere ut non vis audire: si unus pro omnibus mortuus est: ergo omnes mortui sunt, in hos omnes qui mortui sunt: cum peccato mors pertransiit, per illum in quo omnes moriuntur: ubi sunt et parvuli, quia pro ipsis Christus mortuus est, qui propterea omnibus mortuus est, quia omnes mortui sunt.

By which he openly signifies that this word, all, must be understood in exactly the same manner when the Apostle says that Christ died for all, as when he says that all are dead. — It is confirmed. 3. From all the passages in which he teaches that many are in fact damned, for whose redemption Christ died: thus in Psalm. 38. he teaches that Christ wished also to redeem Judas the traitor, and that he shed his blood so as to bestow eternal salvation upon him:

Christus patitur, inquit, et punitur, per quem passus est. Nam Iudas traditor punitus est, et Christus crucifixus est: sed nos redemit sanguine suo, et punivit illum de pretio suo: proiecit enim pretium argenti, quo ab illo Dominus redemptus erat: nos agnovit pretium, quo ipse a Domino redemptus erat.

To him subscribes St. Fulgentius, lib. 2 De Redempt. pecc., c. 7. where he says:

Miserrimus Iudas, qui cum male crimen traditionis admiserit, peius illius criminis poenitentiam gessit: quia penitus indulgentiam non quaesivit: ne sic illa gravis culpae poenitentia deterior est inventa, quam culpa. Illud etenim Dominicae traditionis peccatum habuit posterius tempus, quo posset absolvi: illum non punit sententia, quae non conversionem habuit, sed desperationem. Ideo poenitentem non adiuvit, sed peremit: quia sibi conversionis tempus incisione abstulit, et indulgentiam desperatione substraxit: tantum valet opportunitas concessi temporis ad indulgentiam peccatorum.

Hence you see that Christ was most ready to grant pardon, had the traitor not withdrawn it from himself by anticipating in death that later time in which his sin could have been absolved. — The same truth John Malderus, Bishop of Antwerp, confirms in Antisynodo, c. 7. with this invincible argumentation, whereby he attacks the Calvinians insofar as they establish that Christ died for the elect alone: no elect person perishes: someone for whom Christ died has perished: therefore someone for whom Christ died is not elect. He proves the minor from that testimony of the Apostle 1. Corinth. 8. In your opinion the infirm brother will perish, for whom Christ died. And also from that ad Rom. 11. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.

Finally it is proved that Christ died for each individual man from the common doctrine of the disciples of St. Augustine. First of all St. Prosper declares this matter expressly in praefatione ad obiectiones Vincentianas, where he most clearly demonstrates that the Massilian Priests, who complained that St. August. had taught that Christ did not die for all and each individual man, he proves to calumniate them, and with a prodigious lie to attribute to so great a Doctor an impious, profane, and blasphemous opinion; for there he says that the enemies of Aug. had collected prodigious lies of certain most foolish blasphemies, in order to persuade men that such things are taught by him as are contained in a diabolical indictment; which opinions also he calls impious, profane, blasphemies: then, enumerating those opinions, he assigns the first place to this one, that our Lord Jesus Christ did not suffer for the salvation and redemption of all men: hence there in the same place he himself opens his judgment, writing in response to the first objection, As regards, he says, the magnitude and power of the price, and as regards the fact that it pertains to one cause of the human race, the blood of Christ is the redemption of the whole world. but those who pass through this age without the faith of Christ, and without the sacrament of regeneration, are aliens from the redemption. Since therefore on account of the one nature of all, and the one cause of all received in truth by our Lord, all may rightly be said to be redeemed, yet lest all should be plucked from captivity, the property of redemption doubtless belongs to those of whom the prince of this world has been cast out. And with some words interposed: For the chalice of immortality, which is compounded of our infirmity and the divine power, has indeed this quality, that it may profit all: but if it be not drunk, it does not heal. He employs a most similar answer when he dissolves the chapters of the Gauls; for then he sets down this, as it were, argument: The Savior was crucified for all of us. Then he subjoins: Since therefore it is most rightly said that the Savior was crucified for the redemption of the whole world, on account of the certain assumption of human nature, and on account of the common perdition of all in the first man: nevertheless it can be said that he was crucified for those only upon whom his death conferred benefit.

And that he might show more clearly that Christ died for the reprobate themselves also, Their lot, he says, is different from that of these, because we are reckoned among those of whom it is said, The world knew him not. And according to this it could be said: The Redeemer of the world gave his blood for the world, and the world would not have him, nay the darkness did not receive the light. That he might explain by these words how Christ so pleaded the cause of men on the cross that none was passed over by him, he adduces two grounds, under which Christ comprehended all and each individual in his oblation, with none at all excepted. The first is, the human nature which he assumed. The second, the original corruption of the same nature, which flows from the sin of Adam; for since he destined his blood both for human nature and for its original offense, and since there is no one who is not a partaker of that nature and offense, so neither can there be any one on whose account he did not undergo death. — St. Leo, whose Notary Prosper is said to have been, adduces things most similar in Sermon 1. On the Nativity of the Lord: Our Lord, he says, the destroyer of sin and death, just as he found no one free from guilt, so he vouchsafed to rise for the deliverance of all. And Serm. 11. On the Passion of the Lord: The Lord having died for all the impious, he says, even Judas could have obtained remedy in him, had he not hastened to the halter. — St. Salvianus, lib. 2. To the Church: the universe owes him, thus the whole, so each individual. — St. Caesarius of Arles, Homily 27. opening why Christ in the judgment is going to show to the reprobate the wounds received on their behalf, says: What if you ask how he shall come? Surely in that body which was assumed for our salvation, born for our absolution, and for the healing of our wounds pierced with lance and nails. For unbearable to the guilty will be the first sentence recalling the scars then present: what therefore shall we do at that time, when against us shall be brought forward the bruises of the crucified Lord, the marks of our sins, and the stains of our lust? or with what worship, do you think, will our Redemption regard our perdition? So much the graver will human offenses be, by how much greater the divine benefits shall have shown themselves. Similar things are found in Beda in cap. 21 Lucae, and Laurentius Iustinianus lib. cit. cap. 4.

You will object. Christ the Lord died for the predestined alone: therefore not for all and every individual man.

Proof of the antecedent: first from Scripture. Thus Ioann. 10. I lay down my soul for my sheep. And cap. 17. I ask not for the world, but for those whom you have given me. There St. August. He wishes this, he says, to be understood in this manner, by those who are not in that lot of grace as to be chosen by him out of the world. Therefore not for these, but for those whom the Father gave him, he says he asks. Hence Epist. 102. recounting these words of Christ the Lord Ioan. 27. Those whom you gave me, I have kept, and none of them has perished, he says: Not one of those for whom Christ died has perished: therefore, etc. — I answer, that just as there is a twofold kind of intention in God concerning human salvation, one general, which is often deprived of what is intended or of its effect; the other special, which is never impeded or unfruitful: so in the Son of God, written with unwavering stability in the memorial of his Father, as St. August. says, lib. De Correptione et Gratia, c. 9. there is a twofold intention of the Mediator: one general, which can be defrauded of its effect, of which the Apostle spoke ad Galatas, saying: You are made void of Christ, that is, you are made void of his merits, dead indeed for you, but uselessly on account of your sloth and inconstancy: the other truly special, which pertains to the Predestinate, and to those who apply to themselves the merit of the Passion of Christ by their faithful obedience. Both intentions of the Mediator St. Prosper thus explains ad obiectionem nonam Gallorum: Although it is most rightly said that the Savior was crucified for the redemption of the whole world, yet it can be said that he was crucified for those only whose benefit his death itself was. In exactly the same sense speaks St. August. exposition in Psalmum 87. expounding these words: All the day long I have stretched forth my hands: where he says: His good works profited the predestined alone to eternal salvation, but not all men. The testimonies placed in the objection must be understood of the latter intention of the Mediator; not however of the former, of which we are speaking.

You will object. 2. That passage Ioan. 11. I knew that you always hear me. From which you argue thus: Christ is always heard by the Father for those for whom he prays: yet he is not heard for the salvation of the reprobate: therefore for them he neither prays nor dies. — I distinguish the major: Christ is always heard in those things which he asks of the Father efficaciously and absolutely, I concede: in those which he asks only conditionally, I deny; for, as St. Thomas excellently says in cap. 17. Ioan. Christ, as far as lies in himself, prayed for all, because his prayer, as far as lies in itself, is efficacious, so as to avail for the whole world; yet he does not obtain effect in all, except in the saints and elect of God: and this on account of the impediment of worldly men.

You will urge. From St. August. lib. 21. De Civit. Dei, c. 27. If the Church were certain about some persons that they are predestined to the eternal fire prepared for the devil, she would no more pray for them than for the devil himself: yet Christ knows the reprobate are predestined to eternal fire: therefore he did not pray for them. — I answer first, that St. Augustine does not assert this so ⟦generaliter?⟧ universally, namely that if the Church knew who are predestined to go into eternal fire with the devil, she would no more pray for them than for the devil himself: for far different is his mind in that place: he is arguing against those who think that in the judgment of God all the guilty are to be spared on account of the prayers of the Saints. And he confutes this opinion from the fact that, it being admitted, there would be no reason why the Church should not pray even now for the devil and his Angels: that he may convince this to be absurd, he asserts that if the Church knew which of the living are predestined to go into eternal fire, she would not pray for them, by a prayer doubtless arising from an absolute will of salvation, although she could pray for their conversion to Christ while they are among the living. For just as God, the foreknowledge of the damnation of Lucifer being posited, willed, as far as lay in him, his salvation, and conferred upon him sufficient aids for obtaining it, so, says St. Bonaventura in 1. dist. 16. quaest. 1. If anyone knew certain persons to be foreknown, he ought, as far as in him lies, to will them to be saved, yet not with an absolute will. Therefore the Church, the reprobation of a man still living being known, can will his salvation, as far as in her lies, and from that will ask sufficient graces for him.

You will object. 3. St. Augustine, Epistola 107. where he says: We know, he says, that the grace of God is given for greater things, even for each single act: we know that it is not given to all men; we know that to those to whom it is given, it is given by the free mercy of God: we know that to those to whom it is not given, it is not given by the just judgment of God. And lib. On the merits and remission of sins, c. 19. he teaches that God sometimes does not bestow upon the just either certain knowledge, or victorious delight: Let us understand, he says, if we can, that God, who is good, therefore sometimes does not bestow even upon his Saints either a certain knowledge of each work of justice, or victorious delight, that they may know that not from themselves, but from him is the light whereby the darkness of their heart is illuminated. Similar things he has in several places. Therefore God denies grace to some. — Bellarmine answers, lib. On Grace and free will, c. 8. that St. Augustine is to be explained chiefly by the Epistle to Vitalis on Grace, wherein he discerns the faithful from the infidels, and the just from the impious, namely concerning the grace of faith, and also sanctifying grace. The truth of this answer is gathered first, from the fact that concerning that grace was the question between St. Augustine and Vitalis; for Vitalis thought, as St. Augustine relates at the beginning of the same Epistle, that to believe in God, to consent to the Gospel, is not the gift of God, but that this is of ourselves, that is, from our own will, which God himself has not wrought in our heart. This opinion St. August. expresses still more clearly at the end of the same Epistle: But you, if those things refuse to be heard concerning yourself ⟦audiri recusant?⟧, where is the beginning of faith, which is also the beginning of good, that is, of pious will? You do not wish it to be the gift of God, but contend that we have it from ourselves, that we may begin to believe: whereas God consents to give the other goods of religious life through his grace to those already asking, seeking, knocking from faith.

Secondly, because St. Augustine seems to intimate this in the preceding words, where he indicates that grace by which we are reborn in Christ: We know that those born carnally according to Adam contract the contagion of death surely in their first birth, nor are they delivered from the punishment of eternal death unless through grace we are reborn in Christ. Thirdly, because St. Aug. says this grace is properly called by this name in Apostolic doctrine. Epistola 95. This, he says, the Apostolic doctrine calls by that name the grace whereby we are saved, and justified from our own iniquity.

You will press further. This grace, namely of faith in Christ, is not necessary for each single act: but the grace which St. Augustine says is not given to all is the same which is said to be necessary for each single act: therefore, etc.

I answer. The same Bellarmine answers that justifying grace is necessary for each single act which are properly called acts, that is, for acts of justice. Nor does he depart altogether from the sense of Augustine, since St. Augustine suggests this lib. On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter From faith, he says, therefore the Apostle says man is justified not from works, because the first is given, that by which the others which are properly called works are asked, in which one lives justly. But if you wish St. Augustine there to treat of grace generically, which he denies is given to all, I shall answer that he says it is not given to all because it is not given to certain little ones: for he subjoins: How is it said that most will accept this grace⟦plerosque?⟧ if not those to whom it is not given rejected it by their own will, since God wills all to be saved, although it is not given to many little ones, and without it most die who have no contrary will, and sometimes it is not given by God unwilling to believing and hastening parents and ministers ⟦illegible: ministrisque credentibus… (faded print)⟧ when suddenly, before it is given, the child expires, for whom it was being hastened that he might receive it.⟦final clause uncertain⟧

You ask first. — Whether God also grants to infidels themselves sufficient grace, both for avoiding sins, and for promoting themselves from grave guilt to salvation.⟦reatis gravibus?⟧

I affirm: for here the influx of divine goodness and mercy toward absolutely all men, whoever have been, are, and will be, is plainly gathered⟦influxus?⟧, both from the general will of God, whereby he wills all men to be saved, and from that special oblation of the Lord Christ for the salvation of all and every individual man. And this moreover is perspicuously gathered from St. Augustine, when he says that all adults are therefore to be damned because they insolently repudiate the grace of the Redeemer offered to them: for what else does he signify, when he says lib. On Nature and Grace, chapter ⟦illegible: chapter number⟧ let not that be imputed to fault which he ignorantly knew not, but that which negligently he did not receive⟦whole clause very uncertain from faded print⟧... which you know not: nor that you gather not your wounded limbs, but despise him willing to heal you; are these sins of yours own? What, when he exclaims tract. 36. on John Christ came, but first to save, afterward to judge: judging unto punishments those who would not be saved: illuminating unto salvation those who by believing did not repudiate salvation? What finally, when he says lib. On catechizing the uninstructed, cap. 26. From which destruction, that is, everlasting punishments, merciful God willing to liberate men, if they be not enemies to themselves, and resist not the mercy of their Creator, sent his only-begotten Son? etc. By which he declares that God wills to liberate men if they resist not the mercy of their Creator; and thereupon bestows on them that grace whereby those who are damned could be snatched from everlasting punishments, unless they repudiated that divine benefaction. This Doctor was forestalled by his celestial Teacher Ambrose in Psal. 108. in these words: The mercy of the Lord is full the earth, where he says: That mystical Sun of justice has risen for all, come for all, suffered for all, and risen for all: and he suffered that he might take away the sin of the world: but if anyone believe not in Christ, by the general benefaction he defrauds himself: as if anyone, shutting the windows, should exclude the rays of the Sun, not therefore has the Sun failed to rise for all, but he defrauds himself of its warmth: but what belongs to the Sun keeps its own prerogative: what belongs to the imprudent excludes from himself the common grace of light. — To these subscribes most excellently and expressly holy Prosper, lib. 2. De vocatione Gentium, c. 31.

It has been labored, he says, as much as the Lord has helped, that not only in the last days, but also in all past ages it should be proved that the grace of God was present to all men, with providence indeed equal and goodness general, but in a manifold manner of operation and diverse measure: since whether hiddenly or manifestly, he himself is, as the Apostle says, Savior of all men, especially of the faithful: which sentence, of most subtle brevity and strongest force if it be considered with tranquil gaze, resolves this whole controversy which we are treating; for by saying who is Savior of all men, he confirmed that the goodness of God over universal men is general: but by adding especially of the faithful, he shows there to be a part of the human race which by the merit of divinely inspired faith is advanced by special benefactions to supreme and eternal salvation.

You will say. That grace whereby God calls infidels to himself is that very one which the Pelagians admitted, asserting that infidels are summoned to God through the ministries of creatures: therefore truly God does not lavish grace upon infidels. — I deny the major. For the Pelagians admitted only exterior grace of exhortation, law, and doctrine: It has been understood, says St. Prosper, Epistola ad Rufinum, and most healthfully perceived, that this only do they profess concerning grace: that something is the mistress of free will, and thus through exhortations, through law, through doctrine, through contemplation of creatures, through miracles, and terrors from without it is shown to its judgment. Moreover our assertion differs far from their madness; for although we do not refuse that God instills into infidels knowledge and fear of himself through the ministries of creatures, as St. Augustine teaches, lib. De natura et gratia, cap. 67. saying: He is present everywhere, who by many evils through creature serving him as Lord calls back the averted, teaches the believer, consoles the hoping, exhorts the loving, purifies, adjures, hears the beseeching: nevertheless that exterior grace of infidels is joined with an interior one, whereby their intellect is illumined, and their will excited and helped toward good; just as the grace whereby men believe in Christ, although it is always conferred through the external preaching of the Gospel, comprehends nevertheless the interior breathing of the Holy Spirit. This truth Orosius luculently declares in his Apologeticum on the liberty of the will, where he thus carps at Pelagius: Now this has ever been the faithful and undoubted judgment, that God minister his help, not only in his body, which is the Church, to which on account of the faith of believers he lavishes the special gifts of his grace, but also to all Nations in this world he supplies his longanimous and eternal clemency: not, as you assert with your disciple Caelestius, whose hidden nature of impious dogmas has already been confounded before the African Synod, in natural good alone, and in free will generally one grace contributed to all, but specially, daily, through seasons, through days, through moments, through instants, to all and each individually he ministers. Lest anyone however gather from this that grace is conferred in each single moment, a little later he explains his mind, and teaches that this must be understood of those moments in which we are urged by the temptation of the demon, or by domestic corruption of the flesh to sin. Most evidently, he says, it has been declared that the aid of God fails no man, especially since the seducer presses, and infirmity inheres: that is, impotence of executing the commandment proceeding from the infirmity of the flesh.

You will say. The Semipelagians admitted that sufficient grace is poured out upon all, and accordingly that infidels can by its benefit come to faith: for thus St. Prosper, in Epist. to St. Augustine concerning them says: The propitiation which is in the sacrament of the blood of Christ is proposed to all men without exception: so that whoever wish to come to faith, and to baptism, can be saved: therefore our assertion savors of the error of the Semipelagians. — I deny the consequence. For the Semipelagians taught that any man whatever can by the forces of nature, and without the interior aid of the Holy Spirit, seek, knock, believe; and merit grace by these works of nature, as St. Prosper teaches in the same Epistola: They cultivate, he says, that prior is the obedience of those obeying than grace, so that it must be believed that the beginning of salvation stands from him who is saved, not from him who saves: and that the will of man gives birth to aid for divine grace for itself. It is manifest therefore that we differ far from their heresies: inasmuch as we affirm that not even the least movement of will aspiring to faith and salvation can come to pass without interior and supernatural grace.

You will say. Faith is the first grace: but infidels do not have faith: therefore neither that grace. — I answer, that a twofold faith is distinguished; namely one whereby one believes in God in whatever manner, that is, in some way, whether insofar as known through creatures, yet not without some supernatural light, such as was the faith in Cornelius, before he was incorporated into the Church by participation of the sacraments: another whereby men become faithful, and by which they are truly incorporated into the body of the Church. Concerning the former St. Augustine is consulted, lib. 1. ad Simplicianum, q. 2. *Man begins to receive grace from the moment he begins to believe in God, moved to faith either by internal or external admonition: but it matters by what articles of times, or by celebration of sacraments a fuller and more evident grace be infused: for catechumens do believe, or truly

Cornelius did not fail to believe in God when by alms and prayers he showed himself worthy to whom an Angel was sent: but in no way would he have done these things unless he had first believed: nor in any way would he have believed unless he were called either by secret admonitions through visions of mind or spirit, or more manifest ones through the senses of the body. But in some there is so great a grace of faith as does not suffice for obtaining the kingdom of heaven, as in catechumens, as in Cornelius himself before he was incorporated into the Church by participation of the sacraments. Concerning the latter faith speaks the same holy Doctor in the same place, saying: In some there is so great a grace of faith that they are already assigned to the body of Christ, and to the holy temple of God. The former faith is offered to all having the use of reason, according to that Ioann. 1. He enlightens every man coming into this world: the latter however is proper to the faithful alone. Hence St. Augustine, cap. 9. De praedestinatione Sanctorum: Faith therefore, both begun and perfect, is a gift of God: and that this gift is given to some, not given to others, let him not at all doubt who does not wish to conflict with most manifest sacred letters.

You will insist from St. Augustine, lib. De praedestinatione Sanctorum, cap. 9. Even faith begun is not given to all: therefore not all have sufficient aid unto salvation. — I distinguish the antecedent: faith begun insofar as it signifies faith in Christ beginning through the preaching of the Gospel is not given to all, I concede: insofar as it signifies ⟦illegible: faded passage; OCR preserves only the fragment "…rius…", where roughly one printed line is lost — the sense resumes below with the reply citing S. Augustine⟧ …rius… fourth Epistle he had written against Porphyry; where treating of the time of the rise of the Christian religion, and resolving why God so long delayed the advent of Christ, he says: What then is wonderful if Christ knew the whole world so full of infidels in prior ages that he would not deign to appear to them, or to be preached; since he foresaw they would not believe his words, nor his miracles? For neither is it incredible that all then were such as we wonder that so many have been and are from his advent even to this time, and yet from the beginning of the human race sometimes more hiddenly, sometimes more evidently, as seemed congruent to the times divinely, neither did he cease to prophesy, nor were those wanting who would believe in him: and from Adam even to Moses, and in the people of Israel itself, by a certain special mystery there was a prophetic race; and in other Nations before he had come in the flesh. Thus the holy Doctor.

You will press further: God denies the aid of faith, whether begun or perfect, to those whom he forbids the Gospel to be preached: but to some nations God forbade the Gospel to be preached: for we read Acts 16. that Paul and Timothy were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the Word of God in Asia, and when they attempted to go to preach in Bithynia, the Spirit of Jesus permitted them not: therefore the grace of faith is denied to some. — I distinguish the minor: the grace of Evangelical preaching is denied to some on account of foreseen abuse, and on account of their sins, I concede: grace in any manner manifesting God, and inducing to his worship is denied to some: I deny.

You will say. The Apostle says Acts 11.: In past generations he suffered all nations to walk in their own ways: therefore he did not minister to them sufficient aids whereby they might recover themselves to the true path of virtue and salvation. — I deny the consequence; for, as St. Prosper says most excellently, lib. 2. De Vocat. Gentium, cap. 1. For indeed in past ages this same grace, which after the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ has been diffused everywhere, and of which it is written: your lightnings have illumined the world, was wanting to the world; although with special care and indulgence of God the Israelitic people had been chosen: and all other nations were permitted to walk in their own ways, that is, to live according to their own will: nevertheless the eternal goodness of the Creator did not so turn itself away from those men as to admonish them by no signs to know and fear him. And that he may show in what sense the Gentiles are said to be forsaken by God, he subjoins: Who indeed although in comparison with the elect, that is, the Jews, they seem rejected: yet never were they disinherited by manifest and hidden benefactions.

You will insist: The same Apostle says: How shall they invoke him in whom they have not believed? or how shall they believe without a preacher? Yet to very many nations the Gospel has not been preached: and accordingly there has not been furnished to them a sufficient means unto salvation. — I deny the consequence: For the Apostle there answering his own objection says: Their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world; which surely is understood either of the Apostles and Evangelical preachers, who everywhere preached Christ ⟦illegible: one faded word or two before "Domino mandatum" (likely something like "praedicaverunt iuxta")⟧ the commandment of the Lord: You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the last of the earth: or those words are understood of the very harmony of the heavens, and the most ordered disposition of all creatures, whereby easily the Creator of all can be known: For by the greatness of the beauty, and of the creature, the Creator of them may be seen knowably, says the Wise Man, cap. 13. For the invisible things of God, by those things which have been made, being understood, are seen; also his everlasting power and divinity, says the Apostle Rom. 1. so that those nations, which have not the law, namely the Mosaic or Evangelical, are inexcusable... because when they had known God, they did not glorify him as God. Hence Trismegistus in his dialogues says this world is a most splendid mirror in which the author of nature is discerned. And Dionysius to Titus calls the world of divine things, which are not seen, an integument. And Basil Homil. in Exameron says it is the book in which God is read. And Athanasius in his oration against idols says it is a musical instrument whence the sweet concord of divine knowledge is uttered: that it is the painting which proves its Author: all which the Apostle confirms Rom. 10. saying: There is no distinction of Jew and Greek: for the same Lord is rich unto all who call upon him. Where by ⟦illegible: "firaerum"; sense requires a term for the non-Iewish nations (perhaps "Graecos")⟧ the Apostle understands the other nations distinct from the Jews, to whom God bestowed the most sufficient means unto salvation. Hence St. Prosper, lib. On the Vocation of the Gentiles, cap. 15. There has ever been applied to all men, he says, a certain measure of supernal doctrine, which although it was of a more sparing and more hidden grace, as though before they knew it not, we call into the fellowship of the sons of God to be adopted: So also now in the farthest parts of the world there are certain nations upon which the grace of the Savior has not yet shone: we do not doubt that even concerning these the time of vocation is disposed by the hidden judgment of God, wherein they shall hear and receive the Gospel which they have not yet seen: nevertheless that general measure of aid which from above is afforded to all men is not denied to them.

You ask: Whether infidels, by those general aids which accrue to them for knowing God, and keeping his commandments known by natural light, can be prepared unto the faith of Christ? — I answer, that this seems more probable: partly because Cornelius Acts 10. by prayer and alms obtained this, that God should direct an Angel to him, who should admonish him that Peter must be summoned, that he might be instructed in the faith of Christ and baptized: partly because the Holy Fathers and Theologians teach this, for St. Basil in the briefer rules, interrogation 124. says: If it happen that some be like Corneliuses, who are occupied in nothing evil, and desirous of perfection, if with true knowledge and sincerity they exercise those good things whatsoever placed within their power, without doubt God will lavish upon them those things which also upon Cornelius. Wherefore St. Thomas, quaest. 14. On Truth, art. 11. to the first: If, he says, anyone be nurtured in the forests, where he hears nothing of the faith, nor can know it, yet following the dictate of natural reason with appetite of good and flight of evil, most certainly it must be believed that God would either inspire in them by internal inspiration those things necessary to be believed; or send a preacher of the faith, as to Cornelius the Centurion. Finally, because it pertains to divine providence to provide for each one the things necessary for salvation, provided no impediment arise on the part of the receiver.

You ask secondly — Whether God has provided sufficient remedies for salvation for all infants?

To be observed before satisfaction be made to the question, that here I institute discourse concerning little ones dying after received sacred baptism, for no one doubts that this sacrament is for them the most sufficient remedy of attaining salvation; but we treat only of those little ones who depart from this life before they be baptized; who indeed are in a twofold difference: for some die in the wombs of mothers, and that either through the carelessness of parents, or by mere chance, and the sole force of nature: others truly die after they have been born, and before they arrive at years of discretion.

Moreover a distinction must be made between the little ones of infidels and of the faithful; for for the little ones of infidels dying, whether in the wombs of mothers, or under the dominion of parents, baptism can by no human diligence whatsoever be applied. But whether certain remedies can be applied to the little ones of the faithful thus departing is controverted among some Theologians: for some judge it not improbable that God succor extraordinarily the little ones of the faithful dying in the wombs of mothers on account of the singular piety of parents, and their assiduous prayers and continual vows, wherewith they entreat God that the little ones be promoted to the grace of Baptism. So taught Gabriel in t. dist. 4. qu. 2. art. 3. and he adduces thereto the authority of Gerson exhorting parents to pray for their little ones, insofar as God sanctify those whom he foresaw not to be given the grace of baptism. Concerning little ones however dying after nativity taught Cajetan 3. par. qu. 68. art. 2. that where baptism cannot be applied by human diligence, another remedy supplies for them, namely the faith of parents applied to the little ones, whether by the sign of the cross, or invocation of the Holy Trinity, or in another manner. But St. Pius V supreme Pontiff commanded these articles, with many others, to be expunged as erroneous.

The present difficulty is not raised concerning those infants for whom Baptism could be procured through the ministry of men: for to that extent Christ can be said to have provided that baptism be applied to them, insofar as he instituted it for attaining salvation, and ordained ministers who should administer it, as St. Prosper teaches most excellently, lib. 2. On the Vocation of the Gentiles, cap. 17. I judge it not irreligious to be believed, he says, nor inconveniently understood, that these men of few days belong to that part of grace which is always bestowed upon all nations: whereby certainly if parents used it well, even they themselves would be helped through the same: for the beginnings of all little ones, and those whole beginnings of an age not yet rational, lie under the arbitrament of another's will, nor can counsel be given them in any manner except through others: and it follows that they belong to the fellowship of those whose affection, whether upright or perverse, they are governed: for just as from another's confession they believe, so from another's infidelity or dissimulation they believe not. And since they themselves have had neither desire of the present life, nor of the future, which it was their deed to be born, so it comes about that theirs it is not to be reborn: but as among adults, besides that general grace more sparingly and more hiddenly knocking at the hearts of all men, a special calling arises with more excellent operation, larger gift, more powerful virtue; so also concerning innumerable little ones the same election is manifested, which indeed failed not those parents whose children were not reborn, but was especially present with those parents whose children were reborn, so that often to many, whom the impiety of their own deserted, the care of strangers served, and they came unto regeneration through extraneous persons, which for them was not to be provided by proximates. These things St. Prosper, which being premised,

I answer first, that for little ones dying whether in the womb, or outside the womb, whether by chance, or by the negligence of parents, God prepared not only remedies sufficient for salvation, but also, as far as lies in himself, sufficiently provided that they be applied to them. First because God by antecedent will wills all men to be saved: therefore as far as from himself he sufficiently prepared the means necessary for salvation, and provided that they be applied to them: for he acting wisely who intends an end prepares sufficient means for attaining that end, and as far as from himself provides that they be applied. Then because a remedy is judged sufficient on the part of the provider when it has every kind of power of conferring the effect to which it is ordered: but the defect of application draws not itself from the part of the provider himself: but God insofar as he intends the salvation of all men instituted Baptism as the most sufficient medium for attaining it, and intends that remedy be applied to each individual; otherwise he would not sincerely will the salvation of all men: therefore, etc. Finally because a physician is judged, as far as lies in himself, to have sufficiently provided for the sick man concerning remedy and its application, who not only prepared the medicine, but committed it to ministers, that they carry it to the sick man and administer it themselves; although the sick man cannot take it, either because the ministers and ⟦illegible: "tamuli"?⟧ physicians are forbidden to approach the sick man, or because the sick man himself, being otherwise guilty of a capital crime, is demanded unto death by public lictors: therefore by similitude God, as far as lies in himself, must be said to have sufficiently provided concerning the remedy necessary for little ones unto salvation, since he instituted baptism for that end, and ordained ministers for applying it; although it sometimes happen that ministers are impeded, or the little one prohibited by natural causes, which in a certain manner serving the celestial King, exact from him the punishment of original crime.

I answer secondly, that although it sometimes happens that through human negligence the remedies instituted for salvation cannot be applied to little ones dying either in the womb or outside it, nevertheless this non-application is not reckoned as positively willed and ordered by God, but merely permitted. This assertion follows from what has gone before; for it implies that God sincerely wills the salvation of all, while at the same time positively intending and ordaining that necessary means should not be supplied to some. Add that the opposite opinion would afford parents an occasion of despair, carelessness, and negligence regarding those things which are necessary for the salvation of their little ones.

Finally, since God reprobates no one without foreknowledge of demerits, it does not appear why He should positively intend some little ones to remain in the mass of corruption and perdition rather than others: therefore it is more consonant with the divine will and providence to hold that God does indeed intend and sincerely will that convenient remedies unto salvation be applied to each little one, although, by the gentle ordination of His providence, He does not wish to hinder the course of natural causes, which He foresees are to be united unto the ruin and death of certain little ones before the remedy necessary unto salvation can be applied to them.

You will say: He is not reckoned to provide sufficiently for him whose care he has undertaken, who, when evil impends over him, does not drive it off while he can repel it: yet God can hinder those things by which little ones are prevented from coming to baptism, and nevertheless He does not hinder: therefore He is not reckoned to provide sufficiently for them. — I distinguish the major: if the provider be particular, and ordained only to the special good of one, I concede; if he be a general provider, respecting the common good, I deny. For since the care of the general provider extends to all things, he must so provide for individuals as not to cast aside care of the rest, nor disturb his own ordinance. Now God cannot hinder the causes by which death is procured for a child in his mother's womb, and before he arrives at baptism, without prejudice to their nature or activity, and without disturbing the order established by Himself, which assuredly He is not bound to prevent: For God is not constrained by fate to come to the aid of those infants, says St. Augustine in book De Bono Perseverantiae, chapter 12. But lest, because He does not aid them, when He is the common cause of both, we should think that human affairs in little ones are governed not by divine providence but by fortuitous chances, etc.

You will urge: St. Augustine says in the same place: And again, though the parents hasten and the ministers are ready, so that baptism may be given to the little one, yet, God not willing, it is not given, who held him but a little while in this life, that it might be given: therefore God does not will baptism to be applied to those little ones. It is confirmed from Epistle 107, in which, by the example of those little ones dying before receiving baptism, that holy Doctor proves that God does not will all men to be saved: How, he says, is it said that all men were to receive grace, if not those to whom it is not given refused it by their own will? Since God wills all men to be saved; whereas it is not given to many little ones, and without it most die, who have no contrary will, and sometimes while their parents are desirous and hastening, and the ministers also willing and ready, by God's willing it is not given, when suddenly, before it is given, he expires, for whom they were running that he might receive it. Whence it is manifest that those who resist this evident truth do not at all understand in what manner of speech it was said that God wills all men to be saved, since so many are not saved, not because of themselves, but because God does not will it, which is made manifest without any obscurity in little ones. — I answer. 1. That particle, God not willing, is not to be understood of the primary volition of God to damn some little ones without fault, but only of some permission, or of the volition of prohibiting the course of secondary causes; which indeed St. Augustine explains by the example of the sparrow not falling to the ground without the will of God, that is, unless God permits and knows its fall. Whence formally I distinguish the antecedent: baptism is not conferred upon these little ones, God unwilling to disturb the order, nor to prohibit the power of natural causes by preserving the life of the little one longer than the natural order requires, I concede; unwilling, the order of nature being preserved, that ministers concur to the application of baptism, I deny. — To the confirmation I say that St. Augustine speaks thus only to exclude grace according to merits: for he argues against Pelagius, repeating and refu…

You will insist. All things that are done in the world, except sin, God positively wills and ordains: but that lack of baptism with which little ones are afflicted is not sin: therefore God positively wills and ordains it. — I distinguish the major: God wills and ordains it either by primary and antecedent will, or only by secondary and consequent will. If the former, I concede; always by primary, I deny. Now God by primary and antecedent will does not will baptism to be denied to little ones, but only by consequent will: because indeed He wills natural causes to act by their own motions, nor does He will to prohibit their power.

You will press further. St. Augustine in the same chapter of De Bono Perseverantiae refers to the inscrutable judgment of God the reason why baptism is given to one little one rather than to another. — I answer: he says this only of those in whose favor the hidden providence so orders particular causes that they do not act by their own motion, nor prevent the little one from obtaining baptism, but certainly does not affirm this of all in general: hence in book De Gratia et libero arbitrio, chapter 22, he teaches most excellently:

Sometimes, he says, this grace is bestowed upon the children of unbelievers, when by the hidden providence of God they somehow come into the hands of the pious; and sometimes the children of the faithful do not obtain it, some impediment existing whereby help cannot be brought to them in peril: but these things come to pass by the hidden providence of God, whose judgments are inscrutable and His ways past finding out; which the Apostle having said, consider what he foretold, etc.

You will urge again: St. Augustine in Epistle 105 openly teaches that some little ones sometimes die before receiving baptism, not on account of the sin or negligence of their parents, but on account of the sole divine ordination, whereby He willed them to perish;

What shall I say, he says, of the unexpected and sudden deaths of innumerable infants, by which often even the children of religious Christians are anticipated, and deprived of baptism before it; whereas on the contrary, the children of the sacrilegious and enemies of Christ, coming somehow into the hands of Christians, depart from this life not without the sacrament of regeneration. … What merits, pray, went before here? If the merits of the same little ones are considered, they have none proper of their own, for that is the common mass of both: if you attend to the parents, good are those whose children perished by sudden deaths without the baptism of Christ: evil truly those whose children, through some power of Christians, arrived at the sacraments of the Church. And why did the providence of God, by which the hairs of our head are numbered, without whose will not a sparrow falls to the ground, which is neither pressed by fate, nor hindered by fortuitous chances, nor corrupted by any iniquity, bestow rebirth unto the heavenly inheritance not upon all the little ones of her children, but upon some of the impious? This infant, sprung from faithful spouses, received amid the joy of parents, suffocated by the drowsiness of mother or nurse, becomes an outcast and exile from the faith of his own. That infant is born of sacrilegious defilement, exposed through the cruel fear of his father, gathered up by the merciful pity of strangers, baptized by their Christian solicitude, becomes a sharer and partaker of the eternal kingdom. Let them think on these things, let them ponder these things; hence let them dare to call God either a respecter of persons in His grace, or a rewarder of preceding merits. Thus far St. Augustine.

He has things similar and no less excellent in book 6 against Julian, chapter 14, where he says:

Which is much more wonderful: He sometimes adopts into sonship whom He forms in the womb of a most unclean woman: and sometimes He does not will to be his father whom He forms in the womb of His own daughter. The former indeed reaches baptism by I know not what provision; the latter, overtaken by sudden death, does not reach it. And thus God, in whose power are all things, makes him whom He formed in the devil's dwelling to be in the fellowship of Christ; and does not will him whom He formed in His temple to be in His kingdom: or if He wills, why does He not do what He wills? Not even as you are wont to say of adults, God wills, and the little one wills not. ⟦illegible: Certi h… ubi tati⟧ there is no immobility, no rashness of fortune, no digni«ty of person; what remains but the profundity of mercy and truth?» — I answer: that St. Augustine by these words does not signify that God by positive will shuts out some little ones from the grace of baptism; but only by permissive will; namely, by not impeding the concurrence and activity of natural causes, on account of the general and gentle administration of His divine providence, whereby it comes to pass that little ones are extinguished before they arrive at the grace of baptism.

YOU ASK THIRDLY. — Whether God also confers aids sufficient unto salvation upon senseless and blinded and hardened sinners?

Note 1. Those sinners are called blinded and hardened who adhere to sins with so firm a mind, and are so averted from the divine light, that they neither recognize nor abhor their most wretched state, but rather take from it an occasion of persevering in sin. Hence obstinacy and blindness import two things: one on the side of the human will, namely the firm adherence itself to evil: the other on the side of divine justice, which is the very subtraction of grace; from which it follows that the mind is neither illumined to perceive the evil, nor is the heart touched to withstand it. There are therefore two causes of hardening and obstinacy in evil: the first is the perversity of man, whereby he rejects the divine graces offered to him: in which sense it is written Psalm 91: Today if you shall hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts. Hence the Apostle admonishes Hebrews 3: Take heed, brethren, lest perhaps there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, to depart from the living God: but exhort one another every day, while it is called today, that none of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. In which sense St. Fulgentius writes in book De fide, chapter 3: He is hardened, either he who is not converted, despairing of the pardon of his sins; or he who so hopes in the mercy of God as to remain unto the end of this present life in the pertinacity of his crimes. The second cause of hardening is the divine justice, which removes from the unworthy man those proximate aids by which he might be converted. Thus St. Augustine explains it in tractate 51 on the Gospel of John: Some, he says, did not believe and could not believe, because by the hidden, yet not unjust judgment of God they were blinded and hardened, He forsaking them who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble; and thus hardening on the part of God is nothing else than the subtraction of efficacious grace. Hence the same St. Augustine in Epistle 109: God does not harden, he says, by imparting malice, but by not imparting mercy.

Note 2. The question is not raised concerning sufficient operating aid; for no one doubts that God takes away from those who do not cooperate with the exciting grace the helping or cooperating aid. Nor is the discourse even concerning external sufficient aid, whatever it be, of natural order, which seems to us to be conceded by the benefit of creation: but chiefly the question concerns supernatural aid, both external, such as miracles, the preaching of the Gospel, etc., and internal, such as pious illustrations of the intellect and motions of the will. The difficulty therefore is whether God gives to any whatsoever most wicked, blinded, and hardened sinners always aids sufficient, both internal and external, of supernatural order, by which they can proximately do penance: or whether at least He supplies to them remotely sufficient graces for working conversion: about which difficulty to be resolved Theologians vary, some affirming, some denying. Nevertheless the opinion of those who uphold the affirmative part seems to me more probable. Therefore I answer, more probably to all men is given grace at least remotely sufficient, by which they can impetrate the grace necessary for repenting and recovering themselves. Which assertion is gathered first from Ezekiel 18, where God thus protests: I desire not the death of the sinner, but rather that he be converted and live. Therefore toward any sinner whatsoever, as long as he is among the living, He intends not death, but conversion: but He would act otherwise if He supplied no aid to him for repenting: therefore, etc. Which indeed is confirmed from 2 Peter 3, where God is said to deal patiently with sinners, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Wherefore the Lateran Council under Innocent III decrees: If anyone after receiving baptism shall have relapsed into sin, he can always be restored through true penance.

The same assertion is proved by the authority of St. Augustine, who does not deny all manner of grace to those most desperate men who are commonly called blinded and hardened. First indeed that holy Doctor teaches that the blindness and hardening proper to this life is only imperfect, and differs greatly from that by which the damned are said to be utterly confirmed in evil. Thus in Psalm 6 after the middle he speaks thus:

He gave them up to a reprobate mind: for such is the blindness of mind: into it whoever has been given up is shut out from the interior light of God; but not yet wholly while he is in this life. For there are outer darknesses, which are understood to pertain more to the day of judgment, that whoever, while time is, would not consent to be corrected, may be wholly outside God: for what is it to be wholly outside God, but to be in the highest blindness?

Therefore he admits that the blinded, while they live here, are not wholly shut out from the interior light. ⟦gap in print/OCR: one or more lines lost between the preceding sentence and "dixisset"⟧ dixisset, since nothing is incurable for the Almighty physician, he thus addresses the hardened sinner:

But even though you refuse to cure your wound, He admonishes you that you be cured, and recalls you when averse, and in a certain manner compels and draws back to Himself him who flees: in all things He fulfills what is said: His mercy prevents me.

By which words He openly signifies that even the hardened themselves are prevented by the mercy of God, that they may ask the help of the omnipotent physician, with which they are admonished to implore it.

Which doctrine St. Prosper expressly defends, saying in book 1 De vocatime gentium, chapter 21: We believe that to no man was the help of grace wholly subtracted. Which he shows most clearly in book 2 chapter 13 in the very Cain, the standard-bearer of all the hardened: for where he expressed in most elegant words those interior voices with which the obstinate fratricide's heart was smitten, he adds:

When therefore God spoke such things to Cain, did God then not do so, and did He not act as much as sufficed, that that hardened man should recover himself?

This sentiment of the holy Doctor can also be strengthened by all those places in which he teaches that the blinded and hardened, at the very time when they sin from blindness and hardening, can cast aside both, namely by impetrating a more abundant grace, whereby the blindness and hardness of heart may be driven away. Thus in tractate 53 on John, explaining why the hardened Jews could not believe, he says: They could not believe, because Isaiah the Prophet foretold this: but this Prophet foretold it, because God foresaw that this would be: but why they could not, if it be asked of me, I quickly answer: because they would not. He judges therefore that the blinded Jews did not believe because they would not; and immediately indicates that they were endowed at least with the power of believing once removed. Which he affirms still more clearly in book De praedestinatione Sanctorum, chapter 9: It is easy, he says, that we accuse the infidelity of the Jews as coming from free will, who after such great virtues wrought among them would not believe.

Finally, that this was the mind of the most holy Doctor can be gathered from the sins of the hardened; for no one, as he inculcates repeatedly, sins in that which he cannot in any way avoid; seeing that God commands impossibilities to no man, and every sin proceeds from free will: but those things which the blinded and hardened commit against the laws of God are imputed to themselves as fault, as the holy Doctor himself proves in many places: for in Sermon 78 De tempore he refutes most sharply those who, when the treatment concerns the crimes committed by hardened Pharaoh, say within themselves: why is that iniquity imputed to Pharaoh? And in tractate 53 on John, disputing of the blinded Jews, he admonishes lest anyone dare to excuse the sin which the hardened have committed: nay moreover in book 5 against Julian, chapter 3, concerning the same blindness of the Jews he pronounces thus: That blindness was for the Jews a great evil of incredulity, and a great cause of sin, that they might kill Christ. Hence the author of the book De Praedestinatione et Gratia, chapter 15, among the works of the same holy Doctor, tom. 7, says the cause why Pharaoh perished was that with free will he fought against the most merciful truth of God: otherwise than Nebuchadnezzar, who yielded to the scourges of God and did penance.

As to nature, he says, both men were equal: as to dignity, both Kings: as to cause, both possessed captive(?) the people of God: as to punishment, both were admonished mercifully with scourges. What then made their ends different, except that the one, feeling the hand of God, groaned in the recollection of his own iniquity: the other with free will fought against the most merciful truth of God?

You will say: St. Augustine in the exposition of certain propositions taken from the Epistle to the Romans, which he censures and examines in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 23, says that it was not imputed to Pharaoh that then, that is, when he was hardened, he did not obey: Because indeed, he says, with a hardened heart he could not obey: but because he made himself worthy that his heart should be hardened by prior infidelity: therefore Pharaoh had no aid by which he could obey; otherwise by not obeying he would have sinned. — I deny the consequence; for such was not the mind of the holy Doctor: for if he held that the sins of the hardened could not be imputed to them, nor be punished with eternal torments, there would follow in like manner with him the teaching that the good works of the elect are attributed to them in no way, nor can they be crowned with an eternal reward; for he subjoins: For thus in those whom God elects, faith, not works, begins merit, so that through the gift of God they may work well: so also in those whom He damns, infidelity and impiety begin the merit of punishment, so that through itself(?) he may pay the punishments. Therefore St. Augustine wills nothing else, when he says that Pharaoh's disobedience is not imputed to him, but only his prior infidelity, whereby he made himself worthy that his heart should be hardened, than that by a certain special kind of imputation the infidelity itself was more imputed, than the sins which proceeded from that hardening.

You will say 2: From 1 John 5 there is a sin unto death for which one ought not to pray: therefore there are certain sins which import a total desertion of God. — I distinguish the consequent: if by sin unto death be understood final impenitence, as St. Thomas interprets it, I concede; if any other sin whatsoever be understood, I deny; for there is no sin so great that it cannot be remitted in this life; and for which the grace of penance cannot justly be impetrated. To these add that those words of St. John are explicated differently by the holy Fathers: for St. Ambrose, book 1 De Paenitentia, chapter 8, understands by sin unto death the gravest sin in each genus, for whose pardon, he says, not just anyone but only a man of eminent sanctity ought to pray. But St. Jerome in dialogue 2 against Jovinian understands that prohibition of praying is not to be received simply and absolutely: but only in this sense, that whoever prays for a sin unto death ought to have such confidence and such certitude of obtaining pardon, as if he prayed for other sins which are not unto death. Which interpretation indeed seems to be the genuine mind of St. John, as is gathered from what precedes: for he had said: This is our confidence which we have towards God: because whatsoever we shall ask according to His will, He hears us. And a little after: He who knows his brother to sin a sin not unto death, let him ask, and life shall be given to him who sins not unto death. And immediately he subjoins: There is a sin unto death, etc. By which he signifies that with such confidence prayer is not to be made for that sin, because pardon is most difficultly granted. Finally St. Augustine, book De Correptione et Gratia, chapter 12, having brought forward those words of St. John, says: Concerning which sin, since it has not been expressed, many and diverse things may be thought: but I say that it is that sin whereby the faith which works through charity is deserted even unto death.

You will say 3: From Matthew 12, he who shall have spoken a word against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come: therefore to the man who has committed a sin of that kind no sufficient aid for repentance is afterwards given. — I distinguish the consequent in like manner: if by the word against the Holy Spirit be understood final impenitence, as St. Augustine explains, book 1 against Cresconius, chapter 8, I concede; if either blasphemy against the divinity, or sin from malice, as St. Basil explains in the shorter rules, response 253, and St. Chrysostom, Homily 12 on Matthew, I deny; for although these sins are most difficultly remitted, both on account of their enormity, and on account of the pertinacity and unworthiness of the sinner; nevertheless they are not absolutely irremissible. To these add, that the sin against the Holy Spirit is said to be that which is committed against the manifest works which are wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit. For Christ the Lord, when He cast out demons by the finger of God, that is, by the power of the Holy Spirit, which wonderful power indeed the Jews calumniating and blaspheming attributed to Beelzebub, therefore Christ the Lord, reproving their malice, said: if your sins were against the Son of man, certainly they would offer some occasion of excuse, forasmuch as my divinity lies hidden from you: but truly because they were sins committed against the manifest works wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit, hence it comes to pass that your sins have no motive of excuse annexed. Nevertheless He did not judge those to be wholly irremissible: since it is not improbable that some of the Jews who blasphemed against the Holy Spirit did penance, and were received unto the faith and grace of Christ.

You will say 4: St. Augustine, book De Correptione et Gratia, chapter 12, distinguishing the grace conferred upon the first man from that which is granted to his posterity, affirms that this is not given to some in punishment of sin; But now, he says, to whom such aid is lacking, it is already the punishment of sin: but if grace must be denied in punishment of some sin, especially on account of the sin of blindness and hardening: therefore according to the mind of St. Augustine grace is denied to hardened sinners. — I distinguish the major: St. Augustine teaches that the aid by which good can proximately be done, which was granted to the first parent, is denied to some, I concede; that by which that proximate aid can be impetrated, I deny. For, as St. Augustine teaches repeatedly, especially book 1 ad Simplicianum, question 1: It is left to free will in this mortal life, not that it may fulfill justice whenever it wills: but that with simple piety it may turn itself to God, by whose gift it may be able to fulfill it.

⟦heading?⟧ § II. — WHY NO DISCOURSE IS MADE HERE CONCERNING EFFICACIOUS GRACE.

Although all Catholics confess that there is some distinction between efficacious and sufficient grace, nevertheless they do not agree among themselves in assigning the distinction of each: for so varied is, and wholly(?) opposed, the opinion and conflict of Authors concerning asserting this truth, that scarcely anything certain can be defined in this matter; since upon both sides arise the heaviest waves of difficulties, which scarcely can human mind, however practiced and illumined, avoid. Nor indeed is this a wonder; for I judge that the harmony of efficacious grace with human liberty is so obscured and hidden from investigation, that it justly claims for itself the name and reason of a mystery utterly impassable for us who dwell in this vale of miseries. But since he who scrutinizes Majesty is oppressed by glory, lest we fall into Scylla desiring to avoid Charybdis, we have judged it a part of religion to refrain from inquiry of this kind: especially since it seems to have been retained by the supreme Pontiffs, Paul V in the year 1607(?), and Urban VIII in the year 1625, and again in the year 1641. Lest anyone, namely, without the special license of the supreme Pontiff, restore by sharper disputations those conflicts once calmed, published to light and committed to press, concerning the distinction of such divine aids.