De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

But it would not have been enough to have established in general that the law is possible for us through the help of God, unless we also speak particularly of that greatest precept of love, and of the lighter ones. For they say, as is seen in Bucer in the same place, that the commandments of God can be kept not by individuals but by all in common.¹ For this reason they say that that exposition of the creed, where it is held that all the commandments can be kept by individuals, is not Jerome's.² For Jerome, they say, in book 1 of the Decalogue against the Pelagians teaches the contrary: that when this mortal [body] has been clothed with immortality, then God will be all in all, so that there is not only wisdom in Solomon, meekness in David, zeal in Phinehas, faith in Abraham, charity in Peter, but all virtues in all. But as long as we have this treasure in vessels of clay and are surrounded by fragile flesh, no one, he says, has all the virtues. Note, prudent reader, in what sense they take these words of Jerome: for in this way, that no one can fulfill the whole law, but one fulfills one commandment and another another, and so the whole is fulfilled by all together. And therefore, they say, Jerome had premised a little before that then we are just when we confess ourselves sinners. And in the letter to Ctesiphon he says that this is the only perfection for men, if they know themselves imperfect. Therefore for the explanation of the general conclusion of the preceding chapter we have woven in here these particular [conclusions]. The first: Individuals³ through the grace and help of God can keep each and all the commandments, so that they are truly just. This follows immediately from the preceding chapter. For if God commanded us nothing impossible, there is no precept in his law which individuals cannot fulfill by his favor. Otherwise, just as to fulfill it would not be free, so neither would not fulfilling it be sin. And the same reasoning holds of that greatest precept of the love of God above all things. Since by the word of commanding it is proposed just like the others. Nay, consider with an eye, reader, the words which Moses speaks:⁴ These are, he says, the precepts which the Lord your God has commanded, that you may do them. And again: That you may keep all his commandments and precepts. And third: Hear, Israel, and observe, that you may do: the Lord your God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, etc. Here God seems to press upon them by the mouth of the prophet, lest they should dare to say that that great precept was not placed before us so that we might satisfy it. Indeed he who just before, when he commanded it, premised with such great repetition, that you may do, that you may keep, that you may observe: which is as if he had said, that you may satisfy. And the conclusion is confirmed. This precept of loving God with the whole heart and whole mind is so conformable to reason, and so deeply implanted in man by nature (as was demonstrated in the first book), that nothing can be more so: therefore although it becomes difficult for us from the infestation and incursion of the flesh, why will the help of divine grace not be so powerful that at some time we can so do his will that neither in the heart is anything contrary to him, nor consequently in love any account of fault? For to love with the whole heart and with the whole mind⁵ can be done in two ways. In the first way, so that not only is there nothing in the heart repugnant to charity, but nothing remitting or impertinent, but the whole is always actually intent on God. And this will be in the fatherland. But in the other way "with the whole heart" is understood as [the way] we satisfy the precept: namely, that we admit nothing contrary to his will, neither in deed, nor in word, nor even in thought. And in this way we love in the way: wherefore David says most often, I will confess to you, Lord, with my whole heart. And, With my whole heart I have sought you. And, With my whole heart I will search your law.

And that this is possible, we are besides most plainly admonished by the very mouth of God in the same book, where we read thus: This commandment which⁶ I command you today (and he speaks of that greatest one) is not above you (that is, it is not above your powers, supported by my help), for what we can do through friends, we can in some way do through ourselves. And it follows: Neither is it far off, nor placed in heaven, that you might say, Who of us is able to ascend to heaven, that he may bring it down to us, that we may hear and fulfill it in deed. What is it "that we may fulfill" but "that we may satisfy"? And it continues: Neither is it placed beyond the sea, that you might excuse yourself and say, Who of us will be able to cross the sea and bring it to us, that we may be able to hear and do what is commanded. But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. As if he had said, it is so ready for you to do that you can offer no excuse if you do not fulfill it according to my will. And Christ our Lord in the Gospel:⁷ This is, he says, the greatest and first commandment in the law: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind. And how it is the greatest he explains, because with the other adjoining one concerning the love of neighbor, the whole law and the prophets hang on it: namely, from this, that every law and the prophets, as they are explanations of it, are so referred to it as to a target: because the end of the commandment is charity.⁸ But if it is the greatest, it is truly chiefly to be observed: for, as the prophet says, You have commanded your commandments to be kept exceedingly.⁹ But if it is observed, the will of the one commanding is satisfied: otherwise Christ would have said in vain, He who does the will of my Father who is in heaven,¹⁰ he will enter into the kingdom of heaven: and we would daily ask in vain, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Therefore the will of God is not only in the kingdom of heaven, but before the entrance into the kingdom of heaven, on earth: which is to satisfy each commandment.

Nor did Jerome in the cited place teach the contrary.¹¹ Which Bucer could have looked at in the next line. Except that it is most holy to them to cite truncated words. For where in the said dialogue Atticus answers that no one in this life has all the virtues, he immediately explains himself by the cause subjoined: Because, he says, it is necessary that individuals excel in certain things. Therefore Jerome meant only that no one has all the virtues perfected, as it will be in heaven. Therefore he does not contradict himself when he says to Damasus that all the commandments can be fulfilled by individuals.

But from this conclusion a doubt arises:¹² Whether the just man, besides habitual sanctifying grace, also needs the special help of God moving him to the individual works of the commandments. For thus St Thomas seems to affirm in 1.2 q. 109 art. 9.¹³ Concerning this, the second conclusion is as follows.¹⁴ Although it is held by some as an opinion not improbable that the just man does not need, besides sanctifying grace, a new special help for individual meritorious works, nevertheless it is simply true that he needs new help to work and fulfill the law, to avoid sinning and to persevere. The first member is the opinion of those who hold that doctrine which is common among theologians, and which we asserted in the previous book, chapter 20. Namely, that a man can by natural vigor, with only general help, sometimes perform a good moral work, even outside grace, and so sometimes fulfill some commandments as to the substance of the works. For from this an argument is formed, in my judgment not invalid. Every work good in its kind without any bad circumstance, which outside grace is morally good, if it is done by one who is in grace, is meritorious of eternal life: because for a work to be acceptable to eternal life, nothing else seems to be required than that it be good in its kind and circumstances, and be done by a friend of God. For Scripture says: God looked¹⁵ upon Abel and upon his gifts: that is, because the person was in his grace, the work was acceptable to him. But a man who is in grace can sometimes fulfill the commandments and do other good works with only the general concurrence of God, much better than he could outside grace: therefore such works will be meritorious of eternal life. Nor does any other relation to God as to a supernatural end seem to be required than that it proceed from grace. For a work good by its object is of its nature referred to God: and when one is converted to him, he virtually refers all his works to him. Wherefore that which some invent:¹⁶ namely, that a work can proceed from one who is in grace, yet not from grace, I cannot sufficiently approve except concerning venial sins. For if the work is good, and is from one who is in grace, it virtually (as they say) proceeds from grace. But Gregory¹⁷ and Capreolus, because they imagine that St Thomas was of the opinion that for individual morally good works special help is required outside grace, rightly infer from this that according to him, even for one existing in grace, the same special help is required for individual meritorious works. But we, who have shown above the contrary concerning a morally good work, also think, under the judgment of the more expert, the contrary concerning meritorious works: namely, that besides grace no other special help is required for individual works. Which opinion was most approved before us by Cajetan¹⁸ in the cited place on St Thomas. But the second member of the proposed conclusion: namely, that simply for working and fulfilling the law special help is necessary besides grace, St Thomas proves there, because man in fallen nature needs the help of God in two ways. First, to heal nature, and for this sanctifying grace is abundantly sufficient: for by it nature is rectified, because it is restored to the order of the divine rule and will. But besides, help is required by which he is moved to act. First, on account of the general reason, because no creature can come forth into act unless by the power of divine motion: and second, on account of the peculiar condition of fallen nature, which although through grace, as regards the mind, it is reduced to order, nevertheless remains corrupted and infected as regards the flesh. And in this second reason he shows that he is not speaking of individual works, because, as he had said in the same question, article 2, the corruption of sensuality is not so great that a man could not sometimes by the general help of God act according to reason. But simply such special help is required, because neither all things nor for long can we act well for the preservation of grace without it. And by the same reason it follows that to avoid sinning special help is also required besides grace, and therefore to persevere. If, however, perseverance means the continuation of good until the end of life. For if it means a good purpose and a singular habit of mind, all that is infused into man with grace. In confirmation of this conclusion St Thomas cites Augustine, On Nature and Grace, where he says: Just as¹⁹ the eye of the body, most fully sound, cannot see unless it is helped by the brightness of light, so man, even most perfectly justified, cannot live rightly unless he is divinely helped by the eternal light of justice. And in the book On the Gift of Perseverance he asserts from the words of Cyprian that by that word of the Lord's Prayer, Hallowed be your name, the saints ask for perseverance in holiness, which depends on his continual help. The same is done by On Grace and Free Choice, chapter 6, where he says that the grace of God is necessary not only that he may justify the impious, that is, that from impious he may become just, but also that, when he has been justified by faith, he may walk with grace and lean upon it, lest he fall: according to that saying, Who is this that comes up white,²⁰ leaning upon her kinsman? And this need David confessed when he asked, Be my helper, do not forsake me.²¹ Finally there is a certain analogy and proportion between natural and supernatural things: that just as God not only gives natural forms of acting, but concurs with them by a general influx, so those whom he makes grateful to himself he helps by special help for supernatural works: so that in both ways it may be true, My Father works until now²² (that is, assiduously and continually), and I work. From which word Jerome, to Ctesiphon, gathers these words to this sense: He is always a giver and always a bestower. It is not enough for me that he once gave himself to me, unless he always gives. Therefore although it is not so expressly determined in the councils that new help is required besides habitual grace, nevertheless it is so to be understood. For in the holy Synod of Trent now²³ canon 22 it is held: If anyone says that the justified can persevere in the justice received without special help of God, let him be anathema. And in the Council of Milevis, canon 3, grace is determined to avail not only for the remission of sins that have been committed, but also for help that they not be committed. And in the Council of Orange, canon 25: God inspires in us faith and love of himself, so that after baptism (with his help) we can fulfill the things that are pleasing to him. Note "help" and "aid."

Let the third conclusion of this chapter be.²⁴ Although we can avoid individual venial sins, we cannot avoid all. The conclusion is not only St Thomas's in the same 1.2 q. 109 art. 8, but also of all theologians in 2 Sent. d. 28. Nay, it draws its roots not from the scholastic theologians but from sacred Scripture according to the interpretation of the holy Fathers. The reason is derived from the distance between mortal and venial.²⁵ For the first consists in the perversity of reason, which since it is reformed by grace (for the just man has a fixed purpose toward God), such a man can by the help of God avoid both individual and all [mortal sins]. But venial sin is committed by subreption on account of the tyranny of the flesh, which always remains in the justified. For in the person of the restored man Paul said:²⁶ I myself serve the law of God with the mind, but with the flesh the law of sin. And therefore although we can avoid individual venial sins (otherwise they would not be sins), we cannot avoid all. For that assault of the flesh into various kinds of vices is so pertinacious and continuous that while we avoid one, we run into another. Because reason cannot endure in assiduous watchfulness and vigilance to repress incursions of this kind. But this reasoning, says Durandus,²⁷ militates only concerning venials from subreption: for example, those which happen through defect of full deliberation. Wherefore (and not altogether improbably) he holds that it is venials of this kind which we cannot avoid all of. For the rest, he says, which are venial by their object, such as a lie in jest, an idle word, and all similar things, we can avoid as we do mortal sins. Nevertheless it is more probable that we cannot fully guard against all of these either: both because occasions of them also occur more frequently, so that we could repel them all; and because, since they are light sins which do not cast us down from the grace of God, we become slacker and more remiss in overcoming them. It is true, however, that they can be conquered much more easily. Nay, there are men of advanced virtue who guard themselves so vigilantly from them that they are preserved unharmed for some time. But this conclusion, as I was just saying, is not to be heard as the opinion of the scholastics, but as the collection of the Fathers from the divine utterance. For that voice of the Pelagian Celestius was once heard:²⁸ that a man can live without sin if he wishes, by the power of free choice. Concerning this matter Jerome wrote against him to Ctesiphon,²⁹ and also a dialogue against the Pelagians, and Augustine³⁰ the book On the Perfection of Justice, and afterward the book On the Spirit and the Letter. Which heresy, Jerome says, drew its beginning from the Pythagoreans and Stoics, who said that passions do not fall upon the wise man. Against which error the Fathers were not so anxious to fight with reasons as with the testimonies of Scripture: as is that saying of John:³¹ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And,³² There is no just man on earth who does good and does not sin. And Solomon:³³ There is no man who does not sin. And Job,³⁴ according to the 70: No one is clean from filth. And David:³⁵ All have turned aside, they have together become useless. There is none who does good, there is not even one. And, Do not enter into judgment with your servant, because no living man will be justified in your sight. Whence the saints daily pray, Forgive us our debts. Because of that duel which the spirit sustains against the flesh, of which Paul says:³⁶ I feel another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and capturing me in the law of sin. But it must be noted³⁷ in Augustine in both places that he does not deny that it is possible, by the help of God, for a man to be wholly immune from sin, but he says that apart from the one Jesus Christ no one has been exempt. And therefore he calls that impossible which was never done. And Jerome says the same in book 2 of the dialogue, citing that saying of Ecclesiastes: Everything that is to come has already been done in the former age: but that a man was wholly free from actual fault never was, Jerome says, in the former age: therefore neither will it be. However, if afterward Augustine, treating the same argument in On Nature and Grace, chapter 36, most deservedly excepts the most holy mother of God. Where it is indeed to be wondered at that those who think Augustine there remembers original sin.³⁸ For in that part of the book he treats the same argument as in the cited books On the Perfection of Justice and On the Spirit and the Letter: namely, that a man cannot live without sin, against Celestius, who said, A man can not sin if he wishes. But original sin is not in our will. In whose example that heretic brought forward a long catalogue of the old testament: for example, Abel, Enoch, Abraham, and the other just, whom he said committed no sin. Among them he also included the blessed virgin. Where if he understood of original sin, he could not have spoken of them individually. For according to the Pelagians, no mortal contracts it. From these just men recounted by Augustine, he excepts only the most blessed virgin. Yet not affirming [it], but not wishing to make mention of her on account of the honor of the Lord. For we know, he says, that more grace was conferred on her to conquer sin on every side, who merited to conceive and bear God, whom it is certain had no sin. In that he says "to conquer," he most manifestly speaks of actual sin: since original sin is not conquered. And therefore he said notably and discreetly of her, "to conquer": but of Christ, "to have had none." And he adds: With this virgin therefore excepted, all the other saints, men and women, if asked whether they were without sin, would answer: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. By which word it is clear that he spoke only of actual sin. For concerning original sin, although a Christian affirms that he does not have it, he does not contradict John. But on account of this word of Augustine, all the Fathers afterward and all theologians with one mind most rightly preach that the glorious virgin committed no actual sin, whatever Chrysostom³⁹ thought, who was older than Augustine. Hence the present holy Synod of Trent⁴⁰ determines in canon 23, under the censure of anathema, that no one hereafter say that anyone in this life can avoid all venial sins except by a special privilege of God. As, it says, the Church holds concerning the blessed virgin. Otherwise it reckons the other Fathers and theologians under the name of the Church: because among the decrees of the Church this kind had not been included. Therefore to return to the explanation of this conclusion, this must first be noted, that the saints called that impossible not because God could not do it, but because he had not yet done it. And second, that when we speak with our Protestants,⁴¹ it must be noted that the saints never understood that a man could at no time be without all sin. For Jerome⁴² in book 3 of the same dialogue, when Critobulus presses him whether a man who has come forth from the waters of baptism is without sin, Atticus candidly answers: I answer that it is impossible for a man to be without sin if he wishes, not because a man immediately after coming forth from baptism is not without sin, but that time when he is without sin is ascribed not to human possibility but to the grace of God. And lower, explaining that saying, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man according to my heart, who will do all my wills: It is not doubtful, he says, that David was holy, and chosen in this, that he should do all the wills of God: but yet he did not do them forever. And therefore he adds: This we also say, that a man can not sin if he wishes, for a time, for a place, for bodily weakness, as long as the mind is intent, as long as the string is not loosened by any vice on the lyre.⁴³ But if he slackens a little, as one who pulls against a river, if he slackens his hands, immediately slips backward and is carried by the flowing waters where he does not wish, so human condition, if it slackens a little, speaks its own frailty and knows that it can do many things not. Behold in what way the saints understood that a man cannot live without sin: not indeed that every work of ours is sin, so that by no work we satisfy the law, as the adversaries perversely philosophize, but that life cannot be passed without a man often falling, at least into lighter sins, more or less according to each one's care and diligence, or negligence and carelessness. Nay, a man can last a day when he is not mindful even of the slightest fault, so that he can confess it in particular.

Let us subjoin therefore the fourth conclusion.⁴⁴ On account of venial sins, a man neither loses the reality nor the name of a just man, nor is he properly called a transgressor of the law. This is plainly clear in the words of Augustine⁴⁵ in the place just cited from On Nature and Grace, where after the commemoration of so many just men of the old law, Abel, Enoch, Abraham, David, and the rest whom Scripture calls just, he adds: Not only the just, but if all the saints, men and women, to whom it was given to live, were asked, they would answer that they are not without sin. And a little before, chapter 14, he says of himself, and was speaking of others born of God, John, where he says: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And James:⁴⁶ In many things we all offend. And in the Enchiridion, chapter 64.

Nor is every crime a sin, nor is every sin a crime.⁴⁷ Therefore we say that the life of all the saints, as long as it is lived in this death, can be found without crime: but if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Whence in the Council of Milevis,⁴⁸ canons 6, 7, 8, and in the African Council, canon 81, those are reprobated with the execration of anathema who say that those voices of the saints, If we say that we have no sin, and, Forgive us our debts, are uttered not for themselves but for others, or on account of humility, not on account of truth. Wherefore among the ecclesiastical dogmas,⁴⁹ chapter 86, Augustine: No saint and just man is without sin, nor yet from this does he cease to be just or holy: since he holds holiness with affection. And therefore all the saints truly pronounce themselves sinners. The same Atticus answers Jerome⁵⁰ in book 1 of the dialogue to Critobulus, who objected from the sacred canon those many who are called saints and just: such as Zachary and Elizabeth. Concerning them it is had in Luke⁵¹ that they were both just before God, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without complaint. And Job,⁵² of whom it is read that he was in the land of Hus, simple and upright, and fearing God; to whom you can subject all from Abel the just to John, than whom Christ confesses none greater has been born among women.⁵³ All, he says, were just, but nevertheless they could fall. For, David says,⁵⁴ who understands his sins? and from my hidden sins cleanse me, Lord. Whence then, he says, we are just when we confess ourselves sinners. For the just man is the accuser of himself in the beginning of his speech.⁵⁵ And the same holy Synod of Trent now confesses,⁵⁶ chapter 11, that although in this mortal life the most saintly and just sometimes fall at least into light and daily sins (which are also called venial sins), they do not therefore cease to be just. For that voice of the just is both humble and true: Forgive us our debts. Add that not only do venial sins⁵⁷ not take away justice and the grace of God, but they do not even prevent them from being called perfect just men: wherefore what we were saying in the preceding chapter, namely that justice and charity are not perfect in this life, must be reckoned only in comparison with that [perfection] of the fatherland. It is holy that this our [justice] is not, like that, fixed and firm. Otherwise in this life they truly are, and in the sacred utterances are pronounced, perfect men. For Augustine⁵⁸ in the cited place On the Spirit and the Letter, where he denies that the precept of love is perfectly fulfilled in this life, nevertheless does not deny that charity is here perfect; nay, he openly confesses it from that saying, For no one has greater charity⁵⁹ than that a man lay down his soul for his friends. There is also that saying,⁶⁰ He who keeps his word, truly in this is the charity of God perfect. And,⁶¹ You shall be perfect before the Lord your God. And Christ in the Gospel:⁶² Be perfect, as your Father who is in heaven is perfect. And,⁶³ For the rest, brothers, rejoice, be perfect. But if our Protestants had weighed the whole book On the Perfection of Justice more attentively, Augustine there expresses a certain word in which they would have seen the perfection of the justice of this age. For this, he says, is our justice in this pilgrimage itself,⁶⁴ that we tend now by the straightness and perfection of its course toward that perfection and fullness of justice, where in the beauty of his glory charity will be already full and perfect. So Augustine. Behold therefore the perfection of justice in the way which fully satisfies the law: namely, to walk uprightly in the way of the Lord, to turn aside nothing from it. For the perfection of the fatherland⁶⁵ is not to walk but to stand: that is not merit but reward: not the race but the prize. The law is the same as the rule by which we tend to the prize: therefore perfect observance of the law is to enter through the narrow gate and follow the straight path. For,⁶⁶ Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. And Paul:⁶⁷ I have fought the good fight, he says, I have kept the faith, I have finished the course: for the rest there is laid up for me a crown of justice. Therefore the commandment is not to receive the crown, but so to finish the contest that you receive the crown. In sum, our justice here is to walk by faith and to thirst for justice (for, Blessed, he says, are those who hunger and thirst for justice)⁶⁸ so that we may be satisfied when, his glory appearing, we see him as he is. But let me consider the words of Paul,⁶⁹ whether he looked to this as a distinction of the perfect. For he says: Not that I have already received or am already perfect. Behold the perfection of those triumphing in the kingdom. But I follow after, if by any means I may comprehend. This is the profession of the militia, concerning whose perfection he adds: Therefore as many of us as are perfect, let us think this, etc. The perfection of the way therefore is to run perfectly and to follow. But if we have admitted certain minute things while the string is slackened on the lyre, we do not therefore turn aside from the way, nor turn our backs to God: but we are delayed as it were struggling against the floods of this age. Let us finally hear our Augustine⁷⁰ in the same place On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 36: To that perfection of the kingdom, he says, pertains, You shall not covet (that is, being stripped of the body, to be freed from the struggle of this mortal flesh); to this [perfection], Do not go after your concupiscences, and to hope for the perfection of that as a reward. Therefore let us conclude the fifth⁷¹ and last proposition against Luther, art. 31: The just man does not sin in every work. That the just man falls seven times a day is indeed among the proverbs of the Wise Man,⁷² to whom the Lord revealed wisdom: but that the just man sins in every work could not be revealed to Luther⁷³ except by his own genius, so as to discourage men, lest they act well and believe themselves to owe less to God because he had already given them nature, which neither could he himself heal when infirm, nor sufficiently help when healed, so that they might act well, and yet he had commanded that we do justly the things that are just. Add that the Wise Man speaks of the lightest faults, nor does he call good works sins: but our new prophet wishes to drive us mad with a wonderful antithesis. For he says that the just man sins not only in every work but in every good work: and that every good work, even when best done, is mortal sin: mortal in the judgment of God, except that through his mercy it is not imputed. With colors of this kind he everywhere flourishes one work, both good and sin: best done, and mortal sin in the judgment of God, and yet through mercy not imputed. Let it be open to you still, reader, to hear the explanation of the man, which you have often read in the author himself. Where Paul says,⁷⁴ I serve the law of God with the mind, but with the flesh the law of sin, he has a most clear sense. Namely, that the mind aspires to the best, but the flesh to the lowest: in which conflict the man placed now as victor serves the law of God, now as conquered succumbs to the law of sin. But what Paul declares of one person on account of the vicissitude of different works, Luther⁷⁵ has tried to drag to the same person at the same time, and even according to one and the same work. So much so that he elicits from this place that not only is the same person at once just and a sinner, but that the very same work of the just man is partly good, insofar as it proceeds from the grace of God, and partly evil, insofar as it proceeds from free choice. See to what lengths that error asserted by these men brings forth, that concupiscence even in the baptized is sin. For they everywhere cry that it is the bad tree which cannot bear good fruit. Nay, consider, I pray, with what kind of mortals we have been fighting for thirty years. They make us worse than beasts. For those, if they are not free for good, certainly are not free for evil either. But these men grant us freedom for evil in such a way that they wish it wholly taken away for good. Nay, they are not afraid to teach that the best God compels us to sin: yet they can by no means be brought to believe that he himself, who is greatest, can sufficiently help us to a work that is truly good. First of all, is this not a manifest contradiction, that the same work be at once good and evil in the sight of God? In natural things nothing prevents the same food, which is wholesome for one, from being pestilential in respect of another: but that one work be at the same time done according to the rule, law, and will of God, and the same be at the same time against the same law, rule, and will (for this is to be good and mortally evil), however it may arise from whatever causes, is it possible to understand? Add that if it is sin according to the judgment of God, how is it not imputed through mercy? Is God not as just as he is merciful? In what way, therefore, can that in which he judges the account of sin and offense against himself to persist be not imputed through mercy? But I remember that I have refuted this in two places: namely, in book 1 and also in book 2. Therefore, leaving aside the contradictions of these men, the reason of the conclusion is⁷⁶ this. One can through the grace of God perform a work according to his law, so as to mix in no evil end or circumstance, but do it according to his will, otherwise we would daily ask in vain, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven: therefore such a work will be altogether free of fault. This is most strongly confirmed by one testimony of Cyprian,⁷⁷ which nevertheless Luther, art. 2, brings forward for himself from a certain letter On Mortality. For that holy martyr says: The mind of man, besieged and surrounded on all sides by the infestation of the devil, scarcely meets each thing, scarcely resists. If avarice is struck down, lust rises: if lust is suppressed, ambition succeeds: if ambition is despised, anger exasperates, pride inflates, drunkenness invites, envy breaks concord, jealousy cuts off friendship, etc. From this place, in what way, Luther, you can extract that all works are sins, no one but your disciples sees. First, he does not say that when one vice is conquered another conquers us, but that another battle of the flesh rises up. But to grant you this for the moment, why do you intercalate the authority and not read it continuously? For he says: If avarice is struck down, lust rises. Therefore to strike down avarice is not sin but virtue. And if lust is suppressed, ambition succeeds. Therefore we can suppress lust so that it has no account of sin. Cyprian therefore so far denies that every work is sin that he affirms that the same affections which sometimes conquer us are also in turn conquered by us. Cease therefore to be blind. Cease to call sins the works which are done by us through the help of God, and which are his greatest benefits. Whether⁷⁸ when Paul himself, but Christ lived in him, when nothing under the sun was feared that could separate him from the love of God, will you then dare to say that every work of his was sin? Were the preaching of John the precursor of Christ, and all the confessions of the martyrs, when they were cut down, killed, and torn apart for Christ, still sins, because they proceeded from free choice? Yet works which are not done through free choice cannot be worthy of any reward, because as sin, so neither is a work of virtue, unless it is done freely. Surely one who is thus blasphemous against the saints⁷⁹ does not spare even the most holy mother of God.⁸⁰ Say therefore that the offices of the immaculate virgin, while she nursed, carried, and nourished Christ, were sins. And even that word, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, from which she merited to be called blessed by all generations, let it be your consummated blasphemy. For we listen to Paul, who to the Corinthians⁸¹ bids the just to awake, lest they sin. And again, if a virgin marries, he says, she does not sin. And Peter,⁸² setting before us excellent virtues, adds: For doing these things you will not sin at any time: and James⁸³ does not say, In all things we all offend, but, in many things. Surely because there are some things in which we do not sin: and John:⁸⁴ Everyone who remains in him does not sin. Nay, it is enough for us to hear Christ our teacher,⁸⁵ who says: Behold, you are made whole; sin no more. From these and other such things the holy Synod now present⁸⁶ refuted that confession at the end of chapter 11: namely, that it is contrary to the doctrine of orthodox religion to say that the just man sins in every good work, and canon 25, where it strikes the audacity of such men with the censure of anathema.