3 [h. ver. II. '' John xvii. 3. 9 Jer. xxxi. 34.
world — the light wliich is incorporeal and un- changeable. Or, '■'■ tlie leasf' may mean those who are later in time; whilst by " the greatest'" He may have intended to indicate those who were prior in time. For they are all to receive the promised vision of God hereafter, since it was, for us that they foresaw the future which would be better than their present, that they without us should not arrive at complete per- fection.'". And so the earlier are found to be the lesser, because they were less deferred in time; as in the case of the gospel " penny a day," which is given for an illustration." This penny they are the first to receive who came last into the vineyard. Or, " the least and the greatest" ought perhaps to be taken in some other sense, which at present does not occur to my mind.
CHAP. 42 [XXV.] — DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW TESTAMENTS.
I beg of you, however, carefully to observe, as far as you can, what I am endeavouring to prove with so much effort. When the prophet promised a new covenant, not according to the covenant which had been formerly made with the people of Israel when liberated from Egypt, he said nothing about a change in the sacri- fices or any sacred ordinances, although such change, too, was without doubt to follow, as we see in fact that it did follow, even as the same prophetic scripture testifies in many other pas- sages; but he simply called attention to this difference, that God would impress His laws on the mind of those who belonged to this cov- enant, and would write them in their hearts,'^ whence the apostle drew his conclusion, — "not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart; " '^ and that the eternal recompense of this righteousness was not the land out of which were driven the Amorites and Hittites, and other nations who dwelt there,'-* but God Him- self, "to whom it is good to hold fast," '5 in order that God's good that they love, may be the God Himself whom they love, between whom and men nothing but sin produces separation; and this is remitted only by grace. Accordingly, after saying, " For all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them," He instantly added, " For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." 9 By the law of works, then, the Lord says, "Thou shalt not covet: " "" but by the law of faith He says, "Without me ye can do nothing;" '^ for He was treating of good works, ev§n the fruit of the vine-branches. It is therefore apparent what dif- »i Matt. XX. 8. '■* Josh. xii. '7 John XV. 5.
Chap. 44.]
ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER.
lOI ference there is between the old covenant and the new, — that in the former the law is written; on tables, while in the latter on hearts; so that i what in the one alarms from without, in the | other delights from within'; and in the former man becomes a transgressor through the letter that kills, in the other a lover through the life- giving spirit, ^^'e must therefore avoid saying, that the way in which God assists us to work righteousness, and " works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure," ' is by externally addressing to our faculties precepts of holiness; for He gives His increase internally,^ by shed- ding love abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us." ^ CHAP. 43 [XXVI.] — A QUESTION TOUCHING THE PASSAGE IN THE APOSTLE ABOUT THE GEN- TILES WHO ARE SAID TO DO BY NATURE THE law's COiNIMANDS, WHICH THEY ARE ALSO SAID TO HAVE WRITTEN ON THEIR HEARTS.
Now we must see in what sense it is that the apostle says, " For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things con- tained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts," ■* lest there should seem to be no certain difference in the new testament, in that the Lord promised that He would write His laws in the hearts of His people, inasmuch as the Gentiles have this done for them naturally. This question therefore has to be sifted, arising as it does as one of no inconsiderable importance. For some one may say, " If God distinguishes the new testament from the old by this circumstance, that in the old He wrote His law on tables, but in the new He wrote them on men's hearts, by what are the ' faithful of the new testament discriminated from the Gentiles, which have the work of the law written on their hearts, whereby they do by nature the things of the law,5 as if, forsooth, they were better than the ancient people, which received the law on tables, and before the new people, which has that conferred on it by the new testament which nature has already bestowed 3n them?" I CHAP. 44. — THE ANSWER IS, THAT THE PASSAGE ' MUST BE UNDERSTOOD OF THE FAITHFUL OF THE NEW COVENANT. ' I Has the apostle perhaps mentioned those [ Gentiles as having the law written in their hearts who belong to the new testament? We must ] look at the previous context. First, then, refer- I'ing to the gospel, he says, "It is the power of| Tiod unto salvation to every one that believeth; 1 Phil. ii. 13.
^ Rom. ii. 14, 15.
3 Rom. V. 5.
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written. The just shall live by faith."'"' Then he goes on to speak of the ungodly, who b}- reason of their pride profit not by the knowledge of God, since they did not glorify Him as God, neither were thank- ful.7 He then passes to those who think and do the very things which they condemn, — hav- ing in view, no doubt, the Jews, who made their boast of God's law, but as yet not mentioning them expressly by name; and then he says, " Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile: but glory, honour, and peace, to every soul that doeth good; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law; for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." ^ Who they are that are treated of in these words, he goes on to tell us: " For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law," s and so forth in the pas- sage which I have quoted already. Evidently, therefore, no others are here signified under the name of Gentiles than those whom he had be- fore designated by the name of " Greek " when he said, "To the Jew first, and also to the Greek." ^ Since then the gospel is " the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek; " '■> and since " indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, are upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Greek: but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that doeth good; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek; " since, moreover, the Greek is indi- cated by the term " Gentiles " who do by nature the things contained in the law, and which ha\e the work of the law written in their hearts: it follows that such Gentiles as have the law wTit- ten in their hearts belong to the gospel, since to them, on their believing, it is the power of God unto salvation. To what Gentiles, however, would he promise glory, and honour, and peace, in their doing good works, if living without the grace of the gospel? Since there is no respect of persons with God,'° and since it is not the hearers of the law, but the doers thereof, that are justified," it follows that any man of any nation, whether Jew or Greek, who shall believe, will equally have salvation under the gospel. " For there is no difference," as he says after- wards; " for all have sinned, and come short ' Rom. i. 21. '° Rom. ii. II.
8 Rom ii. 8-13. " Rom. ii. 13.
I02 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. 45.
of the glory of God: being justified freely by His grace." ' How then could he say that any Gentile person, who was a doer of the law, was justified without the Saviour's grace?
CH.AP. 45. IT IS NOT BY THEIR WORKS, BUT BY GRACE, THAT THE DOERS OF THE LAW ARE JUSTIFIED; god's SAINTS AND GOD'S NAME HAL- LOWED IN DIFFERENT SENSES.
Now he could not mean to contradict himself in saying, " The doers of the law shall be justi- fied," ^ as if their justification came through their works, and not through grace; since he declares that a man is justified freely by His grace without the works of the law, 3 intending by the term ^^ freely " nothing else than that works do not precede justification. For in another passage he expressly says, " If by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace." •♦ But the statement that/ " the doers of the law shall be justified " ^ must be so understood, as that we may know that they are not otherwise doers of the law, unless they be justified, so that justification does not subse- quently accrue to them as doers of the law, but justification precedes them as doers of the law. For what else does the phrase " being justified " signify than "being made righteous," — by Him, of course, who justifies the ungodly man, that he may become a godly one instead? For if we were to express a certain fact by saying, " The men will be hberated," the phrase would of course be understood as asserting that the liber- ation would accrue to those who were men already; but if we were to say. The men will be created, we should certainly not be understood as asserting that the creation would happen to those who were already in existence, but that they became men by the creation itself. If in like manner it were said, The doers of the law shall be honoured, we should only interpret the statement correctly if we supposed that the hon- our was to accrue to those who were already doers of the law: but when the allegation is, "The doers of the law shall be justified," what else does it mean than that the just shall be justi- fied? for of course the doers of the law are just persons. And thus it amounts to the same thing as if it were said, The doers of the law shall be created, — not those who were so already, but that they may become such; in order that the Jews who were hearers of the law might hereby understand that they wanted the grace of the Justifier, in order to be able to become its doers also. Or else the term " They shall be justified " is used in the sense of. They shall be deemed, or reckoned as just, as it is j^redicated of a cer- tain man in the Gospel, " But he, willing to jus- ' Rom. iii. 22-24. * Rom. xi. 6.
^ Rom. ii. 13.
3 Rom. iii. 24, 28.
tify himself," 5 — meaning that he wished to be thought and accounted just. In like manner, we attach one meaning to the statement, " God sanctifies His saints," and another to the words, " Sanctified be Thy name; " *" for in the former case we suppose the words to mean that He makes those to be saints who were not saints before, and in the latter, that the jjrayer would have that which is always holy in itself be also regarded as holy by men, — in a word, be feared with a hallowed awe.
CHAP. 46. HOW THE PASSAGE OF THE LAW AGREES WITH THAT OF THE PROPHET.
If therefore the apostle, when he mentioned that the Gentiles do by nature the things con- tained in the law, and ha\-e the work of the law written in their hearts, 7 intended those to be understood who believed in Christ, — who do not come to the faith like the Jews, through a pre- cedent law, — there is no good reason why we should endeavour to distinguish them from those to whom the Lord by the prophet promises the new covenant, telling them that He will write His laws in their hearts,^ inasmuch as they too, by the grafting which he says had been made of the wild olive, belong to the self- same olive- tree, 9 — in other words, to the same people of God. There is therefore a good agreement of this passage of the apostle with the words of the prophet; so that belonging to the new testa- ment means having the law of God not written on tables, but on the heart, — that is, embracing the righteousness of the law with innermost affec- tion, where faith works by love.'° Because it is by faith that God justifies the Gentiles; " and the Scripture foreseeing this, preached the gos- pel before to Abraham, saying, " In thy seed shall all nations be blessed," " in order that by this grace of promise the wild olive might be grafted into the good olive, and believing Gen- tiles might be made children of Abraham, " in Abraham's seed, which is Christ," '^ by following the faith of him who, without receiving the law written on tables, and not yet possessing even circumcision, " believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." '^ Now what the apostle attributed to Gentiles of this character, — how that " they have the work of the law written in their hearts; " '•* must be some such thing as what he says to the Corinthians: " not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." '5 For thus do they become of the house of Israel, when their uncircumcision is accounted circumcision, by the fact that they do not ex- hibit the righteousness of the law by the excis- 5 Luke X. 29.
8 Jer. xxxii. 32. " Gal. iii. 8: Gen. x.xii i 'i Gen. XV. 6; Rom. iv. 2, '>_2 Cor. iii. 3.
6 Matt. vi. 9. 9 Rom. xi. 24.
Chap. 48.]
ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER.
103 ion of the flesh, but keep it by the charity of the heart. " If," says he, " the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? " ' And therefore in the house of the true Israel, ia which is no guile,^ they are partakers of the new testament, since God puts His laws into their mind, and writes them in their hearts with his own finger, the Holy Ghost, by whom is shed abroad in them the love ^ which is the " fulfilling of the law." •» CHAP. 47 [XXVII.] THE LAW "BEING DONE BY NATURE " MEANS, DONE BY NATURE AS RE- STORED BY GRACE.
Nor ought it to disturb us that the apostle described them as doing that which is con- tained in the law ^'- by Hature,'' — not by the Spirit of God, not by faith, not by grace. For it is the Spirit of grace that does it, in order to restore in us the image of God, in which we were naturally created. 5 Sin, indeed, is contrary to nature, and it is grace that heals it, — on which account the prayer is offered to God, " Be merciful unto me: heal my soul; for I have sinned against Thee." ^ Therefore it is by nature that men do the things which are con- tained in the law; ^ for they who do not, fail to do so by reason of their sinful defect. In con- sequence of this sinfulness, the law of God is erased out of their hearts; and therefore, when, the sin being healed, it is written there, the pre- scriptions of the law are done ^'^ by nature^'' — not that by nature grace is denied, but rather by grace nature is repaired. For " by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men; in which all have sinned; " ^ wlierefore " there is no difference: they all come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace." ^ By this grace there is written on the renewed inner man that righteousness which sin had blotted out; and this mercy comes upon the human race through our Lord Jesus Christ. " For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." '° CHAP. 48. — THE IMAGE OF GOD IS NOT WHOLLY BLOn-ED OUT IN THESE UNBELIEVERS; VENIAL SINS.
According to some, however, they who do by nature the things contained in the law must not be regarded as yet in the number of tliose whom Christ's grace justifies, but rather as among those some of wliose actions (although they are those of ungodly men, who do not truly and rightly worship the true God) we not only cannot blame, but even justly and rightly praise, since they have been done — so far as we read, or know, or hear — according to the rule of right- eousness; though at the same time, were we to discuss the question with what motive they are done, they would hardly be found to be such as deserve the praise and defence which are due to righteous conduct, [xxviii.] Still, since God's image has nut been so completely erased in the soul of man by the stain of earthly affections, as to have left remaining there not even the merest lineaments of it whence it might be justly said that man, even in the ungodliness of his life, does, or appreciates, some things contained in the law; if this is what is meant by the state- ment that " the Gentiles, which have not the law" (that is, the law of God), "do by nature the things contained in the law," 7 and that men of this character " are a law to themselves," and " show the work of the law written in their hearts," — that is to say, what was impressed on their hearts when they were created in the image of God has not been wholly blotted out: — even in this view of the subject, that wide difference will not be disturbed, which separates the new covenant from the old, and which lies in the fact that by the new covenant the law of God is wTit- ten in the hearts of believers, whereas in the old it was inscribed on tables of stone. For this writing in the heart is effected by renovation, although it had not been completely blotted out by the old nature. For just as that image of God is renewed in the mind of believers by the new testament, which impiety had not quite abolished (for there had remained undoubtedly that which the soul of man cannot be except it be rational), so also the law of God, which had not been wholly blotted out there by unright- eousness, is certainly written thereon, renewed by grace. Now in the Jews the law which was written on tables could not effect this new in- scription, which is justification, but only trans- gression. For they too were men, and there was inherent in them that power of nature, which enables the rational soul both to perceive and do what is lawful; but the godliness which transfers to another life happy and immortal has "a spotless law, converting souls," " so that by the light thereof they may be renewed, and that be accomplished in them which is written, " There has been manifested over us, O Lord, the light of Thy countenance." '^ Turned away from which, they have deserved to grow old, whilst they are incapable of renovation except by the grace of Christ, — in other words, with- out the intercession of the Mediator; there bemg " one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself " Ps. xix. 7.
'- I's. iv. 6.
I04 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. 49.
a ransom for all." ■ Should those be strangers to His grace of whom we are treating, and who (after the manner of which we have spoken with sufficient fulness already) " do by nature the things contained in the law," ^ of what use will be their " excusing thoughts " to them " in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men," 3 unless it be perhaps to procure for them a milder punishment? For as, on the one hand, there are certain venial sins which do not hinder the right- eous man from the attainment of eternal life, and which are unavoidable in this life, so, on the other hand, there are some good works which are of no avail to an ungodly man towards the attainment of everlasting life, although it would be very difficult to find the life of any very bad man whatever entirely without them. But inas- much as in the kingdom of God the saints differ in glory as one star does from another,-* so like- wise, in the condemnation of everlasting punish- ment, it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that other city; 5 whilst some men will be twofold more the children of hell than others.^ Thus in the judgment of God not even this fact will be without its influence, — that one man will have sinned more, or less, than another, even when both are involved in the ungodliness that is worthy of damnation.
CHAP. 49. THE GRACE PROMISED BY THE PROPHET FOR THE NEW COVENANT.
What then could the apostle have meant to imply by, — after checking the boasting of the Jews, by telling them that " not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified," 7 — immediately afterwards speaking of them "which, having not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law," ^ if in this description not they are to be understood who belong to the Mediator's grace, but rather they who, while not worshipping the true God with true godliness, do yet exhibit some good works in the general course of their ungodly lives? Or did the apostle perhaps deem it prob- able, because he had previously said that " with God there is no respect of persons," ^ and had afterwards said that " God is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles," 9 — that even such scanty little works of the law, as are sug- gested by nature, were not discovered in such as received not the law, except as the result of the remains of the image of God; which He does not disdain when they believe in Him, with whom there is no respect of persons? But whichever of these views is accepted, it is evi- dent that the grace of God was promised to the new testament even by the prophet, and that this grace was definitively announced to take this shape, — God's laws were to be written in men's hearts; and they were to arrive at such a knowl- edge of God, that they were not each one to teach his ngghbour and brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all were to know Him, from the least to the greatest of them.'° This is the gift of the Holy Ghost, by which love is shed abroad in our hearts," — not, indeed, any kind of love, but the love of God, "out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith," '^ by means of which the just man, while living in this pilgrim state, is led on, after the stages of " the glass," and "the enigma," and "what is in part," to the actual vision, that, face to face, he may know even as he is known. '^ For one thing has he required of the Lord, and that he still seeks after, that he may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life, in order to behold the pleasantness of the Lord."* CHAP. 50 [XXIX.] RIGHTEOUSNESS IS THE GIl-T Or GOD.
Let no man therefore boast of that which he seems to possess, as if he had not received it; 's nor let him think that he has received it merely because the external letter of the law has been either exhibited to him to read, or sounded in his ear for him to hear. For " if righteousness is by the law, then Christ has died in vain." ''^ Seeing, however, that if He has not died in vain. He has ascended up on high, and has led captivity cap- tive, and has given gifts to men, '7 it follows that whosoever has, has from this source. But who- soever denies that he has from Him, either has not, or is in great danger of being deprived of what he has.'^ " For it is one God which justi- fies the circumcision by faith, and the uncircum- cision through faith; " "^ in which clauses there is no real difference in the sense, as if the phrase '■'■ by faith " meant one thing, and " through faith " another, but only a variety of expression. For in one passage, when speaking of the Gentiles, — that is, of the uncircumcision, — he says, " The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen hy faith; " ^° and again, in another, when speaking of the circumcision, to which he him- self belonged, he says, " ^^'e who are Jews by