De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

In the third order are adults who come to faith in Christ with original sin together with actual sin. In them there are altogether the same necessary dispositions which are required in the man just described: namely acts of faith, hope, and charity. Except that this motion of charity is required differently in those sinners than in him who had contracted no actual sin. For penance is necessary for them,¹ which is also an act of the love of God: against whom the sin had been committed. Not, I say, is another act of penance required besides the act of charity: so that whereas in the preceding justification three acts were required, here we add a fourth. Because in no reconciliation is anything necessary except a single act of charity: but yet that act in different people is different. The first reason² for this conclusion is plainly that which I deduced from the nature of things in ch. 1. For it is a natural law most known through itself to all peoples that no one returns into the friendship of him whom he has offended unless he repents of the deed. Since therefore God is more perfect than nature, in whatever law he willed the same to be most observed toward himself: according to that, The Most High hates sinners, and has mercy on those who repent.³ And, To the penitent he has given the way of justice. Nor was there any other cause for that dreadful thought of God, It repents me that I have made man,⁴ than that that most shameful race of men was impenitent. For if they had taken care to delete their crimes through penance, God would never have blotted them from the face of the earth. And both sacred pages are scattered with this testimony of Jeremiah:⁵ If that nation shall repent of its evil, which I have spoken against it, I also will repent. And, If the impious shall repent of all his sins which he has committed, and shall keep all my commandments, and shall do judgment and justice, he shall live and shall not die: all his iniquities which he has committed I will not remember.⁶ There are more and more common testimonies of the old law (as David's bed watered day and night with tears of penance,⁷ the Ninevites' sackcloth and ashes,⁸ and other such tokens of penance) than that there is need to heap them all up here. But also John, whom God had sent into the world as an angel to prepare the ways of Christ,⁹ began from there the proclamation of truth, that they should repent, whom he dipped in the waters of the Jordan as a figure of the evangelical baptism. And the same theme of his preaching Christ the Lord himself took up: namely, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Most openly teaching, namely, that the power of his blood (which he designated by the name of the kingdom of heaven) would be diffused by no sacrament at all, nor by any other way whatsoever, into any mortal who had sinned by his own will, unless the sin which is hostile to divine grace were deleted through penance. And this thereafter was the institution of the apostles. Hence when the Jews, pricked in heart, asked, What shall we do, men and brethren? Peter answered, Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins: and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.¹⁰ From the preaching of the Baptist therefore, and from these words of Peter, it is clearly evident that penance is necessary, not only for sins committed after baptism, which are to be remitted by the sacrament of confession, but for those which are to be wiped away in baptism without confession.

To this St Thomas¹¹ subscribes in 3 p. question 68 article 4, from that common saying of Augustine, He who created you without you will not justify you without you: where some necessary cooperation is designated, by which the sinner disposes himself through penance. Then, that through baptism man is made a member of Christ: according to that, Whoever of you have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ:¹² but every iniquity is an impediment to such regeneration: for what participation does justice have with iniquity?¹³ Hence Augustine¹⁴ in the book On Penance ch. 2, concerning those very ones who come to baptism, declares that no one, being constituted arbiter of his own will, when he comes to the sacrament of the faithful (namely baptism), can begin a new life unless he repents of the old life. Besides, the sacrament of baptism was instituted¹⁵ to wipe away sin: but he who notices that he is in sins, and does not reject them in mind, if not in form, at least in power retains them: and therefore sets an obstacle to the effect of the sacrament. Which therefore the Church ought not to confer on him, lest there be falsity in it. For we are buried together, as Paul says, through baptism with Christ,¹⁶ where therefore we must die to sins, which nevertheless are destroyed only by displeasure: as they are perpetrated by complacency. Hence in art. 6 of the same question St Thomas repeats that before baptism, although not to a priest, at least to God man is bound to confess his sins with sorrow by recollecting them.

But in order that we may dispute more conveniently and lucidly about both at once. The fourth and last grade¹⁷ of those to be justified is that of those who, having fallen from the grace of baptism, through the mercy of God, unless they have become foolish at the end, recover their senses. In them almost the same dispositions which must precede justifying grace in those of whom we were just speaking, or similar in proportion. For first an act of faith and hope is required. Although, when a Christian is established in sins of this kind, he perhaps does not always need a new help to elicit such unformed acts: then when he is converted: as we are about to say. Yet an act of charity from the help of God is always necessary, which is the proximate disposition. But that act of charity must have regard to sin, so that it is also an act of penance: for to repent of a divine offense is an act of charity. Concerning this matter, besides those things which have been adduced, there is also the sentence of Christ, Unless you have penance, you will all perish together.¹⁸ And, It was necessary that Christ should suffer, and rise from the dead, and that penance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations. Hence Peter also says, not only to those to be baptized, but to Simon Magus even after baptism, Repent, he says, of this wickedness of yours, and pray God if perhaps this thought of your heart may be forgiven you.¹⁹ Finally, as we said that baptism is necessary for the three preceding kinds of sins, so for this the sacrament of penance is necessary. For as baptism is a whole ship to preserve innocence amid the waves of this world, so penance is the second plank after shipwreck,²⁰ as Tertullian in the first book On Penance and afterwards Jerome on Daniel are the authors.

But concerning this disposition of penance we must speak a little more precisely. And indeed against the Lutherans we have said enough above. For there are three slippery places²¹ among others for them, from which they rush into this error of rejecting such dispositions. The first is that all works shown by us through the faculty of nature and the general influence of God they condemn as sins. Which both at the close of the preceding book and consequently in ch. 2 of this book we have fought against as best we could. The second cause of their error is that they either do not consider, or do not accept, that dispositions for grace are not the works of our will alone, but of God helping us with peculiar favor. In which fallacy Luther is wrapped up in art. 6 of his assertions. Namely, that as the Pelagians, so we arrogate to ourselves a disposition which is the merit of grace. But we have shown both a little before. Namely both that the dispositions are not precisely our works, but God's works singularly assisting us: and that by no reason, in that they precede grace, are they meritorious. But if some say that they are certain merits, they say so most improperly. The third delusion of these men, at least of Luther, is art. 7: that no act of charity is necessary in conversion which is borne toward sins and is a detestation of the past life. But, he says, the best penance is a new life. And from these at last they conclude that we are justified by faith alone. Teaching that whoever gives faith to the words of Christ promising us remission of sins, and has so believed as to trust certainly that his sins are now forgiven him, at once receives the mercy of God and grace by such faith. Not that the same faith is in any way either a disposition or a merit, but that through it the mercy and the passion of Christ are applied to us in the manner explained in ch. 5 and 11. Which fiction is indeed so manifold that it was necessary for us to tear it apart limb by limb through different chapters. To these things, therefore, which we have so far conjectured in scattered fashion against this faith alone, let us at last put a colophon. First, what they say, that no penance for sins is needed, has already been most openly refuted above by the testimonies of Scripture and natural reasons.

But let us weigh the weight of their arguments. Luther says that a new life is the best penance. For μετάνοια, he says, which we²² call repentance, signifies only this, that it is a change: that is, a change of mind: which word only sets before us that one who has had a bad purpose until now should have a good one for the future: with no account taken of sorrow for past things. According to that of Paul, In Christ Jesus,²³ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creature. But indeed, to grant him all this, what he says about the word μετάνοια and about newness of life makes more openly for us than against us.²⁴ For no one puts on the new man before he has put off the past: according to that of Paul, Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new substance.²⁵ And, Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light.²⁶ And, The truth is in Jesus, to put off according to the former conversation the old man: who is corrupted according to the desires of error.²⁷ And he adds, But be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice: but to put off the old man, and to lay aside the old conversation, is done only through detestation of the former life: therefore he says both terms in being renewed unto new life: namely both from which (as the philosophers speak) and to which. And therefore unless one turns his mind away from sins by a contrary motion of the will to those which were committed, he does not renew his life: nor, according to Paul's word, is he a new creature. But that proverb, that true penance is a new life, is brought forth against those who, although they often conceive a good purpose and begin penance, nevertheless repeatedly relapse. For we are admonished by that saying that our purpose has then cast firm roots, when it has produced the fruit of a new life. Nor indeed does the word μετάνοια designate anything else. For the change also implies respect to the past. Namely that from abomination of the past evil we turn our mind to good. Hence also Metanoia was among the poets themselves the goddess of repentance for past things. As is to be seen in that Ausonian poem: I am the goddess to whom Cicero himself gave no name. I am the goddess who exact the punishments of what is done and what is not done: namely that they repent, so I am called Metanoia.

But against that, that by faith alone we apprehend the mercy of God, and yet not by way of disposition or merit, the first argument is that it is neither explicable nor possible to understand how by faith, or by any action of ours, especially which God requires of us, grace is infused into us and mercy applied, unless either by way of disposition (which we say with respect to the first grace) or by way of merit, which happens in its increase. A third way is surely not even thinkable. For unless our action were a disposition, to what end would God use it to pour out his kindness upon us? For it has already been established by us in several places that that act of faith is freely produced by us with the special prevenient help of God. But if so, what else is God's warning and moving it, that we believe in him, and believing be reconciled with him, than that we dispose ourselves for grace? Namely to turn ourselves to him (as I was explaining a little before) so that grace may be poured into us? Or let them explain to us what else it is for mercy to be applied to us by faith. Hence the step is immediately made most easily, to demonstrate that faith alone is not the whole disposition. For according to its substance it only means the assent of the intellect, by which we most firmly believe both that the things which God has revealed to us are most true, and also those things which he promises to us are most certain. But among the things which he has revealed to us, that is most firm, that as many as have not penance perish.²⁸ Besides very many other such testimonies of Scripture. Nor does he simply promise us remission of sins, but on that condition, if we have repented. For if that nation, says the prophet, shall repent, I also will repent.²⁹ And Christ the Lord: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.³⁰ Therefore it is not enough to give faith to Christ, unless we do those things which faith itself shows us. Nor otherwise can we confidently trust him promising us pardon, if we have prepared ourselves by penance: or (to speak more safely) if we have given assent to him, cooperating with him working: since he has promised nothing to the unprepared. It is therefore manifest that we are disposed and moved toward God not by faith alone,³¹ but also by hope and charity, and indeed, where actual sins are present, by the action of penance. So that here too, besides others, there is a legitimate sense of that Gospel, When he comes, he will convict the world of sin: namely, that otherwise there is no way for the divine breath to insinuate itself into our breasts than by convicting our sins.³² For by its breathing and our assent, according to the Baptist's³³ admonition, we demolish the swellings of sins, and spread straight and level ways for God coming.³⁴

But they say that hope and charity naturally follow faith at the same continuous moment. But we have already exposed this verbal screen of theirs above. For they do not say that hope and charity accompany faith in such a way that all are required for receiving grace, but that grace follows faith, and hope and charity follow grace. Wherefore they always retain that we are justified by faith alone. But we who catholically confess them have already sufficiently shown above that they are required prior by nature to grace being infused, and that charity does not necessarily follow from faith. But neither, if we grant that freely, will they establish with any probability that faith alone is that by which we are justified. For its office is not required except by reason of the act of charity: because we cannot love the unknown. For in order that God might entice us to his love, he revealed to us the things to be hoped for. Wherefore although the act of faith is first, nevertheless the preparation for grace is not perfected except through the act of charity. If therefore faith never justifies before it works through charity, as we said a little before, why is justification attributed to it alone, even if charity should follow by natural consequence, and not also, indeed rather, to charity?

Moreover (which is the last argument here)³⁵ that confidence which these men call faith, although it is partly born from the faith which we give to God as promiser, is nevertheless especially increased and made stable by charity and good works. And therefore if they saw clearly, it is not that most firm confidence of theirs by which we are justified, but it rather presupposes that we have already been justified by faith working through charity. For this is what Paul means where, after that word, Being justified therefore by faith³⁶ (namely working through charity) we have peace, he immediately adds, We have access through faith into this grace in which we stand, and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God. As if most firm hope proceeds from charity. Indeed for that reason he declares of charity to the Corinthians that³⁷ it believes all things and hopes all things, because it nourishes and strengthens the habit of the other virtues. And this is what Augustine signifies in the Enchiridion ch. 8,³⁸ where he says that as love is not without hope, so neither is hope without love: namely that hope by which from works done through the grace of God we hope for eternal life. And on Ps. 31: The very charity, he says, of one doing good gives us the hope of a good conscience.

Nevertheless, that we may at last dismiss Luther, his disciples afterwards are to be wondered at, who do not see that, already convicted of this matter, they think exactly the same as we do, and yet, palliating the old error under a different name alone, persist in persuading their peoples that they are steadfastly evangelical, but we are stubborn Pelagians. Indeed in the Augsburg Confession art. 4,³⁹ in express and repeated words they confess that penance is required for justification, although they say grace is given freely: that is, it does not depend on the condition of our dignity, nor is it given because of any preceding works, or the dignity of subsequent ones. And in Melanchthon's Apology: The faith, he says, of which we speak exists in penance: that is, it is conceived in the terrors of conscience, which feels the wrath of God against our sins. For this reason they say that the preaching of the Gospel begins from penance, so that terrified minds may flee to faith. They therefore admit⁴⁰ that penance is altogether required from him who is to be justified by faith, and thus that an impenitent person can never be justified by faith. How then do they differ from us who confess a disposition for grace? Perhaps because they reckon all those terrors before grace to be sins: which we have often refuted before: not only because even without special help to fear evil is morally good, but because that action which is properly and proximately the disposition is through special help: and therefore is not sin. And although perhaps these men before did not acknowledge special help, now nevertheless they have been forced to confess it openly, as is to be seen in the Ratisbon Interim art. 5.⁴¹ Its words are: It is clear that adults do not obtain these benefits of Christ unless by the prevenient motion of the Holy Spirit, by which their mind and will are moved to detestation of sin. And they add the authority of the Gospel and of Augustine. In the explanation of which words Bucer⁴² says: Adults do not obtain these benefits of Christ unless by the prevenient motion of the Holy Spirit, by which their mind and will are moved to detestation of sin. For altogether salutary penance for sins, which must perfectly precede justification in us, if not in time, yet by nature, cannot be stirred up in us except through the Holy Spirit. Are these not the words which St Thomas⁴³ and our doctors use? Therefore in the matter there is no interval, except that we significantly call those preceding motions dispositions, although not merits: but they deny it in words. But let the provident reader commit this place to memory. For from this penance, which they now confess to be necessary, we must draw a most valid argument in book 3 ch. 10 against their certainty of grace. But now it is enough to have established this place of dispositions not only from the very principles of truth, but also from the admissions and assertions of the adversaries.

Finally, at the close of this disputation, that which I prefaced when ordered to speak on this matter in the holy Synod is to be gathered.⁴⁴ Namely, that the Lutherans are not sufficiently contradicted if it is pronounced that hope and charity come together with faith in the article of justification. For they themselves grant that more than is fair: so far are they from denying it. For they say (as we have very often noted) that grace, which is apprehended by faith alone, immediately follows hope and charity. And therefore Melanchthon in the Apology says both. First, that faith is not only the principle and beginning, as we say, but that properly and truly by faith alone on account of Christ we are reputed just. And a little after: It is impossible to tear the love of God away from faith. But the point of contradiction,⁴⁵ this is, that as the act of unformed faith, at least by nature, precedes grace, so acts of hope and charity must precede. And so faith is not the whole, but the first act by which we are converted. Which the holy Synod of Trent has perspicuously confessed in its confession, session 6, ch. 6,⁴⁶ where concerning those who are reconciled from original and actual sin at once it says: They are disposed to that justice when, aroused and aided by divine grace, conceiving faith from hearing, they are freely moved toward God, believing that the things which have been divinely revealed and promised are true: and especially that the impious is justified by God through his grace, and the redemption which is in Christ Jesus: and when, knowing themselves to be sinners, from fear of divine justice (by which they are profitably shaken) turning to consider the mercy of God, they are raised to hope: trusting that God will be propitious to them through Christ, and they begin to love him as the fountain of all justice: and therefore are moved against sins by some hatred and detestation: that is, by that penance which must be done before baptism. Finally, when they propose to receive baptism, to begin a new life, and to keep the divine commandments. And concerning him who returns to grace after a fall after baptism, ch. 14: But those who have fallen from the grace of justification received through sin can again be justified, when, God arousing them through the sacrament of penance, they have taken care to recover the lost grace by the merit of Christ. For this mode of justification is the repair of the fallen, which the holy Fathers aptly called the second plank after the shipwreck of lost grace. And can. 9: If anyone says that the impious is justified by faith alone, so as to understand that nothing else is required which cooperates for obtaining the grace of justification, and that it is in no way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the motion of his own will, let him be anathema.