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

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.