Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

In vain is it also objected 3) that we are taught by the Church to ask of God not only the power, but the good act; 4) that grace is that which distinguishes; 5) that a benefit is conferred on those who do well which is not conferred on those who do not; and finally 6) that that grace is like a monster, which never does anything).

I. They say, therefore, that Augustine acknowledges no other grace than efficacious grace, i.e. that which obtains the consent of the will or is joined with its effect. This indeed would not be demonstrated by itself merely from the fact that Augustine speaks of this alone; for these two things can be combined at the same time, namely, that of two things only one is spoken of, and yet the other is not understood to be excluded, or it can happen that the speech about the former is not exclusive. But if account be taken of the Pelagian controversy, in which the question was universally about the necessity of grace insofar as it is the gratuitous principle of good will and action, and about the insufficiency of nature for salutary works, and moreover it be considered that Augustine wrote very many books on this question and that it is held by the consent of all that the grace which the Church proclaims as necessary was defended by Augustine; it appears impossible that in Augustine no mention should occur of another grace besides the efficacious, if this other grace is to be held on the authority of revelation.

II. We therefore briefly lay down these points in order. A) We concede that Augustine, when he disputes about grace, not infrequently keeps before his eyes that grace which is called efficacious or congruous. Surely it is this of which he treats when he disputes on the Predestination of the Saints, which is defined by him as the foreknowledge and preparation of the benefits by which most certainly are liberated whosoever are liberated; for benefits or graces of this kind, by which most certainly are liberated whosoever are liberated, are certainly efficacious graces. Wherefore he says that this grace is rejected by no hard heart. c. 8. Likewise Augustine keeps efficacious grace before his eyes when he disputes on the gift of Perseverance, which gift he does not have who does not persevere. Again, he has regard to efficacious grace when he restricts the sense of the words of Paul: God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. He also perhaps signifies efficacious grace (see what we will say below) when in the letter to Vitalis CCXVII. c. 5. he places this in the fifth place among the dogmas certainly to be held about grace: the grace of God is not given to all. Which also the African Bishops exiled in Sardinia do in the letter to John and Venerius, etc., teaching in c. 9. that «he does not think worthily about the grace of God whosoever thinks that it is given to all men; since not only is faith not of all, but there are even still found some nations, to which the preaching of faith has not come.» Finally Augustine considers efficacious grace, whether when in the book De Corrept. et Grat. he disputes about the help whereby, or generally when he treats of that grace which is given to the elect, called according to purpose, children of the promise (cf. De Gratia Christi. c. 13. seq. De praedest. SS. c. 6. De Persever. c. 9. etc.)

III. B) But it must be denied that Augustine restricted the amplitude of the grace of Christ to efficacious graces alone. For 1) he also frequently speaks expressly of grace insofar as it is sufficient, namely of the grace conferring powers on the will, which lacks its effect only through the fault of man; 2) he also speaks of grace insofar as it is a genus indifferent to the purely sufficient and the efficacious; 3) he also co-signifies sufficient grace even then, when he speaks of efficacious grace.

a) Surely for demonstrating the first point the testimonies brought in the preceding Thesis ought to suffice, which are taken from the works of Augustine written in the Pelagian cause, and which certainly are not all the testimonies that could be brought.

β) The second point must be proved a little more at length; for it is a matter of no small moment, rightly explained by Bolgeni in his unpublished Tract De Gratia, namely, not sufficiently noticed by all. To this contributes first what we explained in Th. XLIV. p. 1ª. on the force of these formulas: grace which gives the good act, and makes us do. Furthermore, mention of grace occurs frequently in Augustine under this respect of a power conferred for acting, without the existence of the salutary act being determinately conceived. De Nat. et Grat. c. 26. «God heals not only so as to blot out what we have sinned, but so as to provide also that we sin not.» De Gestis Pelagii c. 10. «This grace, which they knew as most well-known in the Catholic Church, the Bishops believed Pelagius to confess, when they heard him saying: a man converted from sin by his own labor and the grace of God can be without sin.» Ibid. c. 14. «The grace which is preached in the Church of Christ is given by the ministration of the Holy Spirit, so that we are helped in each one of our acts.» Serm. CLXXVI. n. 5. «To implore, it stirred your heart and it gave you the power to implore: for it is God, he says, who works in you to will and to work, because, that you might have a good will, his calling went before.» Cont. duas epist. pelag. L. IV. c. 5. «The inspiration of love, that we may do what we have come to know with holy love, which is properly grace.» In Psal. CXVIII. Serm. XXII. n. 7. «This is that sweetness, which the Lord gives so that our earth may yield its fruit, so that we may do good truly well, i.e. not from fear of carnal evil but from delight in spiritual good.» Oper. imperf. I. II. c. 165. «God justifies the impious not only by remitting the evils he has done, but also by giving charity, that he may decline from evil and do good through the Holy Spirit, whose continual ministration the Apostle besought for those to whom he said: we pray to God, that you do nothing evil.» De Grat. et lib. arb. c. 4. «The grace of God, without which we can do nothing good.» Moreover, by these formulas there is not represented a grace which is historically joined with its effect, but one which gives power and strength for the effect: therefore grace is exhibited by Augustine under a generic notion indifferent to the purely sufficient or the efficacious. Similar testimonies of Augustine, moreover, occur not infrequently; which accordingly must be explained in the same way.

v) It remains to demonstrate the third point, namely that sufficient grace is co-signified by Augustine even then, when he speaks of efficacious grace. For sufficient grace is co-signified, if, when the grace effecting the act is represented, it be signified that the same grace can be resisted and can therefore remain in a state of pure sufficiency. Now indeed De Praed. SS. c. 5. he says: «Where it is said: what have you that you have not received? whosoever dares to say: I have faith from myself, therefore I have not received, certainly contradicts this most open truth: not because believing or not believing is not in the free choice of the human will, but in the elect the will is prepared by the Lord.»Here the grace of the elect is exhibited, and these are they who consent to the calling, who are congruously called that they may consent, i.e. whose will is prepared by the Lord (by a congruous preparation): when however it is said that to believe or not to believe is in the free choice of the human will, it is signified that the elect one, who consents, could dissent; and therefore that preparation of the will could be without effect. Likewise de Gratia Christi c. 13: «Thus God teaches those who are called according to purpose, at the same time giving them both to know what they do and to do what they know.»The discourse is about the grace which is given to those called according to purpose; and these are they in whom grace is efficacious. Concerning this manner of teaching he adds in the following chapter: «Concerning this manner of teaching the Lord also says: everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to me. Whoever therefore will not have come, it is not rightly said of him: he indeed heard and learned that he must come, but he does not want to do what he has learned. It is altogether not rightly said concerning that manner of teaching, by which God teaches through grace. For if, as the Truth speaks, everyone who has learned, comes; whosoever does not come, certainly has not learned.»Weigh carefully here that it is not said only he who hears, but he who hears and learns; the discourse is surely about that grace by which one is not only urged, but also won over. (cf. the words of Augustine in the preceding Th. under lit. 5.) It follows: «but who does not see that both someone's coming and not coming are by the free choice of the will? But this choice can be alone, if he does not come: it cannot however be unless aided, if he comes, and so aided that he not only knows what is to be done, but also does what he has known. And by this, when God teaches not through the letter of the law, but through the grace of the Spirit, he so teaches, that what each one has learned, he not only sees by knowing, but also seeks by willing and perfects by acting.»Therefore he who comes, comes aided, and without this help he could not come: he however who, being aided, comes, was able not to come; because he comes by the free choice of the will. But a necessary connection is said to be between learning and coming: he who has learned, comes: he who does not come, has not learned: but on Augustine's authority, he comes freely, therefore also freely has he learned: otherwise he would come necessarily. Namely, to learn is to give consent to the word heard, which consent is made with the help of the grace of God, but is made freely. «To learn, says s. Thomas 1ª. 2ae. q. CXIII. a. 3., is not without a movement of free will; for the learner consents to the teacher." Distinguished therefore are both learning and seeking by willing and perfecting by acting, which are the coming itself, just as the first free act from the subsequent ones. Therefore this grace does not obtain its effect without the free consent of the will. It could therefore be without effect, i.e. remain purely sufficient: therefore.

Wherefore this declaration — that anyone believes or does not believe, comes or does not come by the free choice of the will — is to be understood according to the mind of Augustine wherever he treats of the effect of grace or of efficacious grace, according to what he expressly taught in Spirit. et lit. cc. 33. and 34: therefore everywhere, either explicitly or implicitly, when he speaks of efficacious grace, he co-signifies sufficient grace.

IV. If it be asked why Augustine frequently exhibits grace under the aspect of efficacious help, more than one reason can be brought. First indeed, because it is familiar to Augustine, when several species, as it were, are contained under one genus, to direct the keenness of his mind to that species which is the most excellent, and to signify it by the name of the genus antonomastically. Cf. what Faure has in the note to cc. 1 and 2 of the Enchiridion, which likewise accomplish the very same thing that we say. Then the reason could have been that which compelled him to circumscribe the interpretation of the Pauline text: who wills all men to be saved etc. Thirdly, it must be noted that the Pelagian question about the necessity of grace could also be proposed thus: are faith, good will, good action, and generally any good and salutary act a gratuitous gift of God from the powers conferred through grace, or are they from the powers of nature, which is from God? moreover, if it be so proposed, the question is really instituted about the good acts themselves which are done, and the grace which is asserted to be necessary is that which is joined with its effect. Now indeed Augustine frequently seems to regard the question of grace in this way, as he certainly regards it in the books on Praedest. SS. and on the Dono perseverantiae. Finally, it must be accurately and subtly considered that Pelagian grace was accustomed to be so proposed that it was called the grace which gives the ability, or the grace by which possibility is helped: we have seen in what sense indeed that was said, which is entirely different from the notion of sufficient grace (Th. XLIV. p. 1.): nevertheless because it is also fitting to avoid the manner of speaking of the heretics, lest occasion of error or of suspicion of error be given; hence we judge it to have come about that Augustine, abhorring that ambiguous formula, deemed it better to preach above all that grace which is not only active but also really effects, and to oppose this one to Pelagian grace, inasmuch as it is most distant from that one.

V. Moreover, when Augustine speaks of this grace, by which God so calls man that he follows the one calling, he rightly says that it is rejected by no hard heart: «for who would say that the manner, by which it was brought about that he was persuaded to believe, was lacking even to the Almighty?»Ad Simplic. L. I. q. II. n. 14.

Again, speaking of the grace of Christ, Augustine in letter 217 to Vitalis c. 5. denies that it is given to all. With him agree the African Fathers exiled in Sardinia in the Synodal letter c. 9. This seems at first sight entirely alien to Catholic doctrine; but if the polemical scope and the manner of speaking of the Fathers be regarded, there will be no difficulty. The polemical scope was that they should oppose the Pelagians, who said both that the grace of God is given to all, because free will and the law were given to all together with nature, and that if there are those who do not believe, who do not act well, this is not to be traced back to a defect of the grace which is given to all (namely of nature and of free will and of the law), but to the free choice of each one. This was the poison that lay hidden in that opinion: the grace of God is given to all, namely so that the gratuitousness of grace and the necessity of the supernatural gift would be denied. The Catholics therefore, teaching that the grace of God is not nature or free will or the law, but an interior gratuitous gift superadded to nature, whose first effect in little ones is to justify them, in adults to call them to faith, and noting that this grace is not given to all little ones, nor to all adults the proximate calling to faith, which is ordinarily joined with the preaching of the Gospel, since however they were not bound to believe that the other graces going before this calling are supernatural (for in reality they can be intrinsically natural, through which however man disposes himself negatively to faith, cf. Th. XXXIV. and Parergon pag. 264.) and therefore graces in a stricter sense; they affirmed the very fact: the grace of God, the grace of justification, the grace of faith is not given to all, by which affirmation indeed they established that the grace of God is not nature or free will or the natural law, which have been given to all, and that the grace of God is given freely. Cf. the quoted words of the African bishops. But the Pelagian affirmation, that the grace of God is given to all, taken in the sense of its authors, was entirely heretical: what wonder, then, that it was rejected?

VI. If all these things be held, it will be evident that what the Jansenists say is entirely false: that only efficacious grace is preached by Augustine, and that besides it he acknowledges nothing but Pelagian possibility.

Wherefore, in line with what has been said, there must still be discussed the difficulty of certain testimonies, from which Augustine seems to have placed nothing intermediate between grace joined with its effect and Pelagian possibility. Surely after the words recited above from the book De Gratia Christi, c. 14. he says: «By this divine manner of teaching even the will itself and the operation itself are helped, not only the natural possibility of willing and operating. For if only our being able were helped by this grace, the Lord would say thus: everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, can come to me: but he did not so say etc.» Again on Praed. SS. c. 1: «To be able to have faith, just as to be able to have charity, is of the nature of men: but to have faith, just as to have charity, is of the grace of the faithful. That nature therefore, in which the possibility of having faith has been given to us, does not distinguish man from man: but faith itself distinguishes the faithful from the infidel.» And after a few things, when he had said that in the elect the will is prepared by the Lord, he adds a little later: that for some the will is prepared by the Lord, for others not prepared; therefore for those who are not elect, the will is not prepared by the Lord: those therefore who act badly lack the grace which would truly be sufficient; for by it the will is prepared for good.

Now as regards the first: it is said that grace does not help only natural possibility, i.e. it does not so help man, that the natural power of free will, even if aided by various helps of knowledge, nevertheless by its natural powers alone at length acts as it ought. This is what Augustine must demonstrate. It is proved, however, because the grace of Christ effects the good will and the good action, namely it is a principle superadded to nature, from which the good will and the good act proceed. Moreover, for this demonstration to hold, it is not necessary that that grace always produce the work, but that through it and it alone the work is produced when it is produced, or can be produced. That is therefore what Augustine intends here. Wherefore Augustine posits nothing intermediate between natural possibility and the grace by which the work is done, insofar as it is the grace by which the work can be done: conceded; insofar as it is the grace by which the work is really done: denied. Cf. here n. III. 8.

As regards the second: the Massilians wanted the beginning of faith to be from nature, and by the merit of nature the distinction of the faithful from the infidels to be made. This Augustine attacks, who therefore teaches that not by the power of nature (we call it obediential potency), which is common, but by faith the faithful are distinguished from the infidels, and that faith is a gift of God. But that these things again be true, there is no need that the grace by which faith is given be always joined with faith itself; but it is only necessary that faith be given through a grace unowed to nature, and therefore that faith be gratuitous; for that is what Augustine intends here. Wherefore nothing is placed intermediate between the power of nature and the grace of faith insofar as it is the grace by which faith is given by God; con. insofar as it is the grace by which faith is received, i.e. grace joined with faith itself; neg.

To the third it is clear that the preparation, by which the will is prepared for some, is here that preparation by which one is so called that he follows the one calling, so persuaded that he is won over: that there is, however, another calling and persuasion, from which man dissents, Augustine himself teaches, as is evident from what has been brought above: therefore nothing can be wrung out of this testimony.

But there remains that passage from the same book, De Gratia Christi, ch. 47: «If they agree with us not only that there is in man a possibility, even when he neither wills nor acts well, but also the very will and action, that is, that we may will well and act well, which are not in man except when he wills well and acts well; if, as I said, they agree also that the very will and action are divinely helped, so that without that help we will nothing well and act nothing well... nothing, as far as I judge, will be left of controversy between us about the help of grace.» There it is weighed that two helps are distinguished by Augustine: the help of possibility, which is present even then when man does not act well, and the help of will and action, that we may will well and act well. But this second help, that we may will well and act well, is said not to be in man except when he wills well and acts well; when, therefore, he does not will well and act well, only the help of possibility is present, which is shown with sufficient clearness by the whole series of the disputation in that book to be the help of Pelagian possibility: therefore.

I answer, denying the minor, or, for the sake of clarity, by distinguishing. Augustine affirms that only when man wills well and acts well is there in him the help that he may will well and act well — I deny; he affirms that only when he wills well or acts well are good will and action in man — I concede. This is established grammatically; for he does not say: that which is not... but: those things which are not.

So I distinguish the consequence. Therefore, when good will and action are not present, the term is lacking which is intended by grace and which is expressed in these words: that we may will well and act well — I concede; the help is lacking that we may will well and act well, namely the help supplying the power for this, and therefore only Pelagian possibility is present — I deny. By a like reasoning, moreover, you will dispose of similar things which may be objected.

VII. The Jansenists say that Augustine not rarely holds it as certain that grace is lacking to those placed in temptation. Of course, Augustine teaches what all men experience more or less. Namely, when men are pressed by a vehement temptation, they experience that they do not immediately have the strength to crush it utterly, yet that they have the strength of resisting for the present instant and have the strength of praying to obtain the help by which they may be thoroughly freed from that annoyance, which they will certainly obtain, if, as they are able, they continue to pray and so resist. Moreover, this is to have even from the beginning sufficient grace. And Augustine gives the reason why God does not immediately from the beginning confer the grace by which the enemy may be utterly crushed, or why He does not suddenly free from temptation, namely that man may acknowledge and feel his own infirmity and so be solidified in humility. On Ps. CVI, n. 5: «The second temptation is difficulty in doing well. He cries out to the Lord (behold, prayer and the power of praying), the Lord frees from necessities, breaks the bonds of difficulty... The Lord could have brought this about without difficulty (namely, which man placed in temptation experiences): but if we had this without difficulty, we would not acknowledge the giver of this good. For if He willed it from the first, He could, and man would not feel the cupidities striving against him, nor would the soul, weighed down by its bonds, be dashed; he would attribute to his own strength what he felt himself able to do.»

VIII. But in order that Augustine's doctrine in this matter may be declared more fully, it must be considered that a twofold grace is distinguished by Augustine: the one proximate, which is the complete power of fulfilling the law; the other remote and initial, which is the power, or proximate grace, of seeking and asking. Furthermore, the latter grace is called by him something of love, a somewhat small grace; but the proximate grace is called by him simply grace, helping grace, help.

Certainly, let it first be considered that Augustine frequently supposes both that grace is lacking to man, by which temptation might be overcome, and that the same man prays to God for the obtaining of this grace. Thus on Ps. LXX, serm. 1, n. 6: «I who will to be freed from captivity by your grace cry out to you. Free me from the hand of the sinner, from his power, lest when he rages he lead me to consent, lest when he lies in wait he persuade me to iniquity.»Cf. Serm. CLXV, nn. 1, 2, on Ps. CXVIII, Serm. X, n. 5, and on Ps. CVI, n. 4. You have, therefore, a twofold grace indicated: the one which is desired, that we may not consent to the suggestions of the enemy and that we may also do the good, and which accordingly is still lacking; the other by which we pray, by which we ask; for we cannot pray usefully without grace, on Augustine's authority; which grace is already present and stirs man to pray. Consonant with these are the things which he has in ep. CLVII to Hilarius, c. 2, n. 10: «He who says to God: 'Be my helper,' confesses that he wills to fulfill what He commanded, but to seek the help from Him who commanded, that he may be able. So also this man, since he knew that no one can be continent unless God gives it, went to the Lord and prayed; surely willing he went, willing he prayed, nor would he have asked unless there were a will; but unless he had asked, how much would the will be able? For even if it can before it asks, what does it profit, unless it gives thanks to Him for what it can, from whom what it cannot yet do is to be asked?... But He will help (God), if we do not presume on our own strength... and for the things which we can already do, let us give thanks, and for those which we cannot yet, let us ask God with suppliant, yearning will.» Serm. CLXIII, c. 10: «I will that you will, but it does not suffice that you will. You must be helped, so that you may fully will and fulfill what you will.» Serm. CLV, n. 4: «Grace superabounded, which blotted out all the sins which it found, and supplied help to our striving will for not sinning.» And so, when man does not yet have the help by which he is helped toward some good works, toward fulfilling the law, he can already do something; he can will, he can strive, he can pray — which does not happen without grace. You see, moreover, that by the name of helping grace, of help, the proximate grace is meant.

IX. But that grace, by which we can already do something, at least pray, Augustine calls, as we have already noted, something of love, a somewhat small grace. De Gratia et lib. arb., c. 18: «Why therefore was it said: Let us love one another, because love is from God (1 Ioann. IV, 7)? unless because free will was admonished by the precept to seek the gift of God: which indeed would be admonished utterly without its fruit, unless it first received something of love, so that it would seek to be added to itself, whence it might fulfill what was commanded.»Serm. CXLV, n. 5. »The law terrifies the one presuming on himself, grace helps the one hoping in God. See, for instance, that captive. He sees another law in his members fighting against the law of his mind... Behold, he is conquered, behold, he is dragged, behold, he is captured, behold, he is subjected. What did it profit him: you shall not covet? He heard it to know the enemy, not to conquer. Now you have seen the enemy, fight, free yourself, assert yourself into freedom, let the pleasing suggestion be repressed, let the illicit delight be destroyed. Arm yourself, you have the law, go forth, conquer, if you can.» These things are said with man considered only under the law. He continues: »For what is it, that from a somewhat small grace you already take delight in the law of God according to the inner man?» Here something other than the law is supposed, an interior grace proper to the new testament. He adds: »but you see another law in your members... leading you captive in the law of sin. Behold, whence that multitude of sweetness is hidden from you who fear; it is hidden from the one who fears: how is it perfected for the one who hopes? Cry out under the enemy, because you have an assailant, you have also a helper; who waits for you as you fight, lifts up the one laboring, but if he finds the one hoping; for he hates the one who is proud.» Just as, therefore, on Augustine's authority, faith is inchoate and perfect, and there are certain inchoations of faith similar to conceptions (ad Simplic., L. I, q. 2, n. 2), so also charity is inchoate and perfect, and inchoate charity is inchoate justice (De Natura et Gratia, c. 70), and so there is a small and weak will and a great and robust will: by the former the commandments cannot yet be fulfilled, by the latter they can (De Gratia et lib. arb., cc. 15, 17).

You have, therefore, a twofold grace distinguished by Augustine: namely, an initial or somewhat small one, by which man can pray and ask, and so for the present necessity resist temptation; and a helping one, by which the law is fulfilled.

X. But when Augustine supposes that grace is lacking, he speaks not of any grace whatsoever, but of the helping or proximate one. For when grace is lacking, he admonishes that it must be asked of God: therefore he already supposes that the initial grace is present, and that only the great and robust grace is lacking. De Natura et Gratia, c. 43: «God does not command impossible things, but by commanding He admonishes both to do what you can and to ask for what you cannot.» Opus imperf., L. I, c. 93: «Scripture usually addresses man's will, that, admonished, he may feel what he does not have or cannot do, and, in need, may ask from Him from whom are all good things.» Certainly the same Augustine teaches that the admonition of asking for help is joined to the precept. De Gratia Christi, c. 8: «The law commands rather than helps; it teaches that there is a disease, it does not heal; rather, what is not healed is increased by it, so that the medicine of grace may be sought more attentively and more solicitously... What is it, then, that this man reckons the law and doctrine to be grace, by which we are helped to work justice, which, however much it helps, helps to this: that grace be sought... Accordingly, through the law grace is shown, so that the law may be fulfilled through grace.» And De Grat. et lib. arb., c. 15: «The Pelagians think they know something great when they say: God would not command what He knew could not be done by man: who does not know this? But He commands some things which we cannot, so that we may know what we ought to ask from Him.»

XI. Finally, so that every cavil may be demolished, these three things are to be noted. 1°. A certain manner of speaking of Augustine is to be noted. For to him, not to have grace is not always the same as to lack help, but is not to consent to God asking and urging: it is clear from the words of Augustine cited in the preceding Th. under n. X, s. 2. The impotence with which men are said time and again to labor is a consequent impotence, arising namely from the fact that they do not will to use the means which they have and so to obtain the grace by which they could. Thus in Tract. XCVI, n. 1, on John, he says of the Apostles: «The Apostles were not yet fit then to die for Christ, to whom He said: you cannot follow me now. Whence their first, Peter, who had already presumed that he could do this, experienced something other than he thought.» But was this impotence an antecedent impotence arising from a defect of grace, which God would deny by His free will alone, or a consequent impotence, the free non-use of that grace which they already had and by which they could have obtained more abundant graces; so that they could not for this reason, because they did not will? If the former, why did Christ urge the Apostles to pray? Christ therefore foresaw that they would be unable, because it was to be that they would not pray, would not place their hope in God.

3°. When Augustine at times teaches of man willing to act well that which he says (De Perfect. iust., c. 3): «nor yet, when he wills, does he immediately have the power; but when, the cure having been applied, he has been healed and the medicine has helped the will», besides what we said under n. VII ff., he also wills to teach this: that the will of salvation does not suffice of itself, unless grace be present; namely, that a will which is elicited by the powers of nature is worth nothing, but that grace is necessary in order that the will be powerful.

XII. The Church and the faithful do not ask only for the power; but because, as regards the power of overcoming the infirmity of nature, there can be several degrees, they ask for those graces which are so relatively strong that they are certainly to be joined with the act: namely, they desire that grace which will be efficacious; and although they know that it depends on their own will that grace be efficacious in act, they also know that they can dissent, and will dissent from certain graces, but that God knows which graces they are by which men are so congruously called that they follow the one calling: therefore they ask for these graces, because with these, i.e. with good operation, the attainment of happiness and the actual keeping of the divine law are connected. Undoubtedly the faithful, with the Church going before in her liturgy, ask for two things: both the power and the act, i.e. a grace which so confers the power as also to give the act.

XIII. In order that grace, not the will, may discern, it is not necessary that it itself determine the act, but it suffices that it, freely given, be the principle of the good works which without it could not be done by the will alone. Cf. Th. XLIV, n. IV. More clearly: the grace which is given to discern men from the mass of perdition and to transfer them into the kingdom of Christ is that which can discern all, yet does not actually discern all, but in many remains only sufficient for discerning. Whence there is given both efficacious grace and purely sufficient grace. But the grace which actually discerns the good from the evil, the predestined from the reprobate, is not every grace which is distributed by God to men, but a definite grace, i.e. efficacious grace; whence it does not follow that besides it no other is given.

XIV. He who works well has both the power and the act; since this is an effect of grace, it is a gift; namely, he has a gift, and a gift from a gift. He has, namely, grace both prevenient and helping: but he who does not work has only the gift, i.e. the prevenient grace. But if both graces — both that which is efficacious in the one working and that which remains purely sufficient in the one not working — are considered in the divine prescience, which knows what the will of each one would do under these or those graces, and which preceded the predestination of grace, it will easily be clear that the conferral of the grace which was foreseen to be efficacious if conferred has the character of a greater benefit and is a sign of greater love.

XV. That grace which is called sufficient and yet never operates from the defect of some principle required for the first act, which is not in the power of the will, is like a monster — we concede. That grace which both obtains its effect and does not obtain it on account of the free choice of the will, and which, when it does not obtain it, is called purely sufficient only to indicate this fact, is monstrous, if as purely sufficient it never attains its effect — we deny. This takes place in any faculty which can indeed act, but sometimes acts and sometimes does not. The adversaries suppose that sufficient grace is of a different nature from efficacious grace, and that the effect is lacking on account of the defect of some principle holding itself on the part of the first act; but this is not the doctrine which the catholic Church defends. Sufficient grace really obtains its effect whenever the will works well, and then accordingly it is efficacious in the second act: sometimes it does not obtain its effect, and then it is called by us purely sufficient, which accordingly, as such, is never joined with its effect. Namely, by this appellation not the nature of grace, but only the fact, i.e. the defect of free consent, is signified.