passages God requires all His commandments to be kept and fulfilled? How does He make this requisition, if there is no free will? What means " the happy man," of whom the Psalmist says that " his will has been the law of the Lord "? ' Does he not clearly enough show that a man by his own will takes his stand in the law of God? Then again, there are so many commandments which in some way are expressly adapted to the human will; for instance, there is, " Be not overcome of evil,"^ and others of similar import, such as, " Be not like a horse or a mule, which have no understanding; " 3 and, " Reject not the counsels of thy mother; " ■♦ and, " Be not wise in thine own conceit; " 5 and, " Despise not the chastening of the Lord; " ^ and, " Forget not my law; " 7 and, " Forbear not to do good to the poor; " ** and, " Devise not evil against thy friend; " 9 and, " Give no heed to a worthless woman; " '° and, " He is not inclined to understand how to do good; " " and, " They refused to attend to my counsel; " '^ with numberless other passages of the inspired Scriptures of the Old Testament. And what do they all show us but the free choice of the human will? So, again, in the evangelical and apostolic books of the New Testament what other lesson is taught us? As when it is said, " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth; " "^ and, " Fear not them which kill the body; " '"♦ and, " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself; " '5 and again, " Peace on earth to men of good will." "^ So also that the Apostle Paul says: " Let him do what he willeth; he sinneth not if he marry. Nevertheless, he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well." '^ And so again, " If I do this willingly, I have a reward; " ''^ while in another passage he says, " Be ye sober and righteous, and sin not; " '9 and again, " As ye have a readiness to will, so also let there be a prompt performance; " ^° then he remarks to Timothy about the younger widows, " When they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they choose to marry." So in another passage, " All that will to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution;"^' while to Timothy himself he says, " Neglect not the gift that is in thee." " Then to Philemon he addresses this explanation: " That thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but of thine own will." ^^ Servants also he advises to obey their masters " with a good will." ^■^ In strict accordance with I Ps. i. 2.
* Prov. i. 8.
^ Prov. iii. i.
»o Prov. V. 2.
■3 Malt. vi. 19.
*'' Luke ii. 14.
■9 I Cor. XV. 34.
*- I Tim. iv. 14.
^ Rom. xii. i.
5 Prov. iii. 7.
3 Ps. xxxii. 9.
* Prov. iii. 11.
this, James says: " Do not err, my beloved brethren...and have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect to persons; " ^5 and, '' Do not speak evil one of another." ^^ So also John in his Epistle writes, " Do not love the world," ^^ and other things of the same import. Now wherever it is said, " Do not do this," and " Do not do that," and wherever there is any requirement in the divine admonitions for the work of the will to do anything, or to refrain from doing anything, there is at once a sufficient proof of free will. No man, therefore, when he sins, can in his heart blame God for it, but every man must impute the fault to himself. Nor does it detract at all from a man's own will when he performs any act in accordance with God. Indeed, a work is then to be pronounced a good one when a person does it willingly; then, too, may the reward of a good work be hoped for from Him concerning whom it is written, " He shall reward every man according to his works." ^^ CHAP. 5. HE SHOWS THAT IGNOR.\XCE AFFORDS NO SUCH EXCUSE AS SHALL FREE THE OFFENDER FROM PUNISHMENT; BUT THAT TO SIN' WITH, KNOWLEDGE IS A GRAVER THING THAN TO SIN IN IGNOR.'iNCE.
The excuse such as men are in the habit of alleging from ignorance is taken away from those persons who know God's commandments. But neither will those be without punishment, who know not the law of 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." ^9 Now the apostle does not appear to me to have said this as if he meant that they would have to suffer something worse who in their sins are ignorant of the law than they who know it. [iii.] It is seemingly worse, no doubt, " to perish " than " to be judged; " but inasmuch as he was speaking of the Gentiles and of the Jews when he used these words, because the former were without the law, but the latter had received the law, who can venture to say that the Jews who sin in the law will not perish, since they refused to believe in Christ, when it was of them that the apostle said, "They shall be judged by the law "? For without faith in Christ no man can be delivered; and therefore they will be so judged that they perish. If, indeed, the condition of those who are ignorant of the law of God is worse than the condition of those who know it, how can that be true which the Lord says in the gospel: "The servant who knows not his lord's will, and commits things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes; whereas the ser\-ant who knows his lord's will, and commits things worthy of '(> Jas. iv. II. 29 Rom. ii. 12.
27 I John ii. 15.
[Chap. 6.
stripes, shall be beaten with many stripes "? ' Observe how clearly He here shows that it is a graver matter for a man to sin with knowledge than in ignorance. And yet we must not on this account betake ourselves for refuge to the shades of ignorance, with the view of finding our excuse therein. It is one thing to be ignorant, and another thing to be unwiUing to know. For the will is at fault in the case of the man of whom it is said, " He is not inclined to understand, so as to do good." ^ But even the ignorance, which is not theirs who refuse to know, but theirs who are, as it were, simply ignorant, does not so far excuse any one as to exempt him from the punishment of eternal fire, though his failure to believe has been the result of his not having at all heard what he should believe; but probably only so far as to mitigate his punishment. For it was not said without reason: " Pour out Thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known Thee; " ^ nor again according to what the apostle says: " When He shall come from heaven in a flame of fire to take vengeance on them that know not God." '' But yet in order that we may have that knowledge that will prevent our saying, each one of us, " I did not know," " I did not hear," " I did not understand; " the human will is summoned, in such words as these: " Wish not to be as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding; " 5 although it may show itself even worse, of which it is written, " A stubborn servant will not be reproved by words; for even if he understand, yet he will not obey." ^ But when a man says, " I cannot do what I am commanded, because I am mastered by my concupiscence," he has no longer any excuse to plead from ignorance, nor reason to blame God in his heart, but he recognises and laments his own evil in himself; and still to such an one the apostle says: " Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good; "? and of course the very fact that the injunction, " Consent not to be overcome," is addressed to him, undoubtedly summons the determination of his will. For to consent and to refuse are functions proper to will.
CHAP. 6 [iv.] — god's grace to be maintained AGAINST THE PELAGIANS j THE PELAGIAN HERESY NOT AN OLD ONE.
It is, however, to be feared lest all these and similar testimonies of Holy Scripture (and undoubtedly there are a great many of them), in the maintenance of free will, be understood in such a way as to leave no room for God's assistance and grace in leading a godly life and a good conversation, to which the eternal reward 2 Ps. S Ps.
xxxvi. 3. xxxii. 9.
3 Ps. Ixix. 6. ^ Prov. xxix. 19.
is due; and lest poor wretched man, when he leads a good life and performs good works (or rather thinks that he leads a good life and performs good works), should dare to glory in himself and not in the Lord, and to put his hope of righteous living in himself alone; so as to be followed by the prophet Jeremiah's malediction when he says, " Cursed is the man who has hope in man, and maketh strong the flesh of his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord." ^ Understand, my brethren, I pray you, this passage of the prophet. Because the prophet did not say, " Cursed is the man who has hope in his own self," it might seem to some that the passage, " Cursed is the man who has hope in man," was spoken to prevent man having hope in any other man but himself. In order, therefore, to show that his admonition to man was not to have hope in himself, after saying, " Cursed is the man who has hope in man," he immediately added, " And maketh strong the flesh of his arm." He used the word " arm " to designate power in operation. By the term "flesh," however, must be understood hitman fraiify. And therefore he makes strong the flesh of his arm who supposes that a power which is frail and weak (that is, human) is sufficient for him to perform good works, and therefore puts not his hope in God for help. This is the reason why he subjoined the further clause, " And whose heart departeth from the Lord." Of this character is the Pelagian heresy, which is not an ancient one, but has only lately come into existence. Against this system of error there was first a good deal of discussion; then, as the ultimate resource, it was referred to sundry episcopal councils, the proceedings of which, not, indeed, in every instance, but in some, I have despatched to you for your perusal. In order, then, to our performance of good works, let us not have hope in man, making strong the flesh of our arm; nor let our heart ever depart from the Lord, but let it say to him," Be Thou my helper; forsake me not, nor despise me, O God of my salvation." ^ CHAP. 7. — GRACE IS NECESSARY ALONG WITH FREE W'ILL TO LEAD A GOOD LIFE.
Therefore, my dearly beloved, as we have now proved by our former testimonies from Holy Scripture that there is in man a free determination of will for living righUy and acting righdy; so now let us see what are the divine testimonies concerning the grace of God, without which we are not able to do any good thing. And first of all, I will say something about the very profession which you make in your brotherhood. Now your society, in which you are leading lives of continence, could not hold together unless you de- * Jer. xvii. 5.
9 Ps. xxvii. 9.
Chap. 9.]
spised conjugal pleasure. Well, the Lord was one day conversing on this very topic, when His disciples remarked to Him, " If such be the case of a man with his wife, it is not good to marry." He then answered them, "All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given." ' And was it not to Timothy's free will that the aposUe appealed, when he exhorted him in these words: " Keep thyself continent "? ^ He also explained the power of the will in this matter when He said, " Having no necessity, but possessing power over his own will, to keep his virgin." ^ And yet " all men do not receive this saying, except those to whom the power is given." Now they to whom this is not given either are unwilling or do not fulfil what they will; whereas they to whom it is given so will as to accomplish what they will. Li order, therefore, that this saying, which is not received by all men, may yet be received by some, there are both the gift of God and free will.
CHAP, 8. — CONJUGAL CHASTITY IS ITSELF THE GIFT It is concerning conjugal chastity itself that the apostle treats, when he says, " Let him do what he will, he sinneth not if he marry; " •♦ and yet this too is God's gift, for the Scripture says, " It is by the Lord that the woman is joined to her husband." Accordingly the teacher of the Gentiles, in one of his discourses, commends both conjugal chastity, whereby adulteries are prevented, and the still more perfect continence which foregoes all cohabitation, and shows how both one and the other are severally the gift of God. Writing to the Corinthians, he admonished married persons not to defraud each other; and then, after his admonition to these, he added: " But I could wish that all men were even as I am myself," s — meaning, of course, that he abstained from all cohabitation; and then proceeded to say: " But every man hath his own gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that." s Now, do the many precepts which are written in the law of God, forbidding all fornication and adultery, indicate anything else than free will? Surely such precepts would not be given unless a man had a will of his own, wherewith to obey the divine commandments. And yet it is God's gift which is indispensable for the observance of the precepts of chastity. Accordingly, it is said in the Book of Wisdom: " When I knew that no one could be continent, except God gives it, then this became a point of wisdom to know whose gift it was." ^ " Every man," however, " is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed " ^ not to observe and keep these holy precepts of chastity. If he should say in respect of these commandments, " I wish to keep them, but am mastered by my concupiscence," then the Scripture responds to his free will, as I have already said: " Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.'"^ In order, however, that this victory may l)e gained, grace renders its help; and were not this help given, then the law would be nothing but the strength of sin. For concupiscence is increased and receives greater energies from the prohibition of the law, unless the spirit of grace helps. This explains the statement of the great Teacher of the Gentiles, when he says, "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.'"' See, then, I pray you, whence originates this confession of weakness, when a man says, " I desire to keep what the law commands, but am overcome by the strength of my concupiscence." And when his will is addressed, and it is said, " Be not overcome of evil," of what avail is anything but the succour of God's grace to the accomplishment of the precept? This the apostle himself afterwards stated; for after Soiying, " The strength of sin is the law," he immediately subjoined, " But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." '° It follows, then, that the victory in which sin is vanquished is nothing else than the gift of God, who in this contest helps free will.
CHAP. 9. ENTERING INTO TEMPTATION. PRAYER IS A PROOF OF GRACE.
WHierefore, our Heavenly Master also says: " Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." " Let every man, therefore, when fighting against his own concupiscence, pra\- that he enter not into temptation; that is, that he be not drawn aside and enticed by it. But he does not enter into temptation if he conquers his evil concupiscence by good will. And yet the determination of the human will is insufficient, unless the Lord grant it victory in answer to prayer that it enter not into temptation. What, indeed, affords clearer evidence of the grace of C^od than the acceptance of prayer in any petition? If our Saviour had only said, " Watch that ye enter not into temptation," He would appear to have done nothing fiirther than admonish man's will; but since He added the words, "• and pray," He showed that God helps us not to enter into temptation. It is to the free will of man that the words are addressed: " My son, remove not thyself from the chastening of the Lord." '^ And the Lord said: " I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not." '^ So that a man is assisted by grace, in order that his will may not be uselessly commanded.
' Rom. xii. 21. " Matt. xxvi. 41.
[Chap. io.
CHAP. IO [v.] FREE WILL AND GOD'S GRACE ARE SLMULTANEOUSLY COALMENDED.
When God says, " Turn ye unto me, and I will turn unto you,"' one of these clauses — that which invites our return to God — evidently belongs to our will; while the other, which promises His return to us, belongs to His grace. Here, possibly, the Pelagians think they have a justification for their opinion which they so prominently advance, that God's grace is given according to our merits. In the East, indeed, that is to say, in the province of Palestine, in which is the city of Jerusalem, Pelagius, when examined in person by the bishop,^ did not venture to affirm this. For it happened that among the objections which were brought up against him, this in particular was objected, that he maintained that the grace of God was given according to our merits, — an opinion which was so diverse from catholic doctrine, and so hostile to the grace of Christ, that unless he had anathematized it, as laid to his charge, he himself must have been anathematized on its account. He pronounced, indeed, the required anathema upon the dogma, but how insincerely his later books plainly show; for in them he maintains absolutely no other opinion than that the grace of God is given according to our merits. Such passages do they collect out of the Scriptures, — like the one which I just now quoted, " Turn ye unto me, and I will turn unto you," — as if it were owing to the merit of our turning to God that His grace were given us, wherein He Himself even turns unto us. Now the persons who hold this opinion fail to observe that, unless our turning to God were itself God's gift, it would not be said to Him in prayer, "Turn us again, O God of hosts;"3 and, "Thou, O God, wilt turn and quicken us; " •♦ and again, "Turn us, O God of our salvation," s — with other passages of similar import, too numerous to mention here. For, with respect to our coming unto Christ, what else does it mean than our being turned to Him by believing? And yet He says: " No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." ^ CHAP. II. — OTHER P.^SSAGES OF SCRIPTURE WHICH THE PELAGIANS ABUSE.
Then, again, there is the Scripture contained in the second book of the Chronicles: " The Lord is with you when ye are with Him: and if ye shall seek Him ye shall find Him; but if ye forsake Him, He also will forsake you."? This passage, no doubt, clearly manifests the choice of the will. But they who maintain that God's grace is given according to our merits, ' Zech. i. 3.
2 See On the Proceedings 0/ Pelagius, above, ch. xiv. f 30-37).
receive these testimonies of Scripture in such a manner as to believe that our merit lies in the circumstance of our " being with God," while His grace is given according to this merit, so that He too may be with us. In like manner, that our merit lies in the fact of " our seeking God," and then His grace is given according to this merit, in order that we may find Him." Again, there is a passage in the first book of the same Chronicles which declares the choice of the will: " And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts; if thou seek Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever." ^ But these people find some room for human merit in the clause, " If thou seek Him," and then the grace is thought to be given according to this merit in what is said in the ensuing words, " He will be found of thee." And so they labour with all their might to show that God's grace is given according to our merits, — in other words, that grace is not grace. For, as the apostle most expressly says, to them who receive reward according to merit " the recompense is not reckoned of grace but of debt." 9 CHAP. 12. HE PROVES OUT OF ST. PAUL THAT GRACE IS NOT GIVEN ACCORDING TO MEN'S MERITS.
Now there was, no doubt, a decided merit in the Apostle Paul, but it was an evil one, while he persecuted the Church, and he says of it: " I am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God." '° And it was while he had this evil merit that a good one was rendered to him instead of the evil; and, therefore, he went on at once to say, " But by the grace of God I am what I am." " Then, in order to exhibit also his free will, he added in the next clasue, " And His grace within me was not in vain, but I have laboured more abundantly than they all." This free will of man he appeals to in the case of others also, as when he says to them, " We beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." '^ Now, how could he so enjoin them, if they received God's grace in such a manner as to lose their own will? Nevertheless, lest the will itself should be deemed capable of doing any good thing without the grace of God, after saying, " His grace within me was not in vain, but I have laboured more abundantly than they all," he immediately added the qualifying clause, " Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." " In other words, Not I alone, but the grace of God with me.
I Cor. XV. 9.
Chap. 14.]
And thus, neither was it the grace of God alone, nor was it he himself alone, but it was the grace of God with him. For his call, however, from heaven and his conversion by that great and most effectual call, God's grace was alone, because his merits, though great, were yet evil. Then, to quote one passage more, he says to Timothy: " But be thou a co-labourer with the gospel, according to the power of God, who saveth us and calleth us with His holy calling, — not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus." ' Then, elsewhere, he enumerates his merits, and gives us this description of their evil character: " For we ourselves also were formerly foolish, unbelieving, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another."^ Nothing, to be sure, but punishment was due to such a course of evil desert! God, however, who returns good for evil by His grace, which is not given according to our merits, enabled the apostle to conclude his statement and say: " But when the kindness and love of our Saviour God shone upon us, — not of works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the laver of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Ghost, whom He shed upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that, being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." ^ CH.'VP. 13 [VI.] — THE GRACE OF GOD IS NOT GIVEN ACCORDING TO MERIT, BUT ITSELF MAKES ALL GOOD DESERT.
From these and similar passages of Scripture, we gather the proof that God's grace is not given i according to our merits. The truth is, we see that it is given not only where there are no good, but even where there are many evil merits preceding: and we see it so given daily. But it is plain that when it has been given, also our good merits begin to be, — yet only by means of it; for, were that only to withdraw itself, man falls, not raised up, but precipitated by free will. Wherefore no man ought, even when he begins to possess good merits, to attribute them to himself, but to God, who is thus addressed by the Psalmist: " Be Thou my helper, forsake me not."-^ By saying, "Forsake me not," he shows that if he were to be forsaken, he is unable of himself to do any good thing. Wherefore also he says: " I said in my abundance, I shall never be moved," 5 for he thought that he had such an abundance of good to call his own that he would not be moved. But in order that he might be taught whose that was, of which he 2 Titus iii. 3. 5 Ps. XXX. 6.
3 Titus iii. 4-7.
had begun to boast as if it were his own, he was admonished by the gradual desertion of God's grace, and says: " O Lord, in Thy good pleasure Thou didst add strength to my beauty. Thou didst, however, turn away Thy face, and then I was troubled and distressed." ^ Thus, it is necessary for a man that he should be not only justified when unrighteous by the grace of (jod, — that is, be changed from unholiness to righteousness, — when he is requited with good for his evil; but that, even after he has become justified by faith, grace should accompany him on his way, and he should lean upon it, lest he fall. On this account it is written concerning the Church herself in the book of Canticles: " Who is this that cometh up in white raiment, leaning upon her kinsman? "7 Made white is she who by herself alone could not be white. And by whom has she been made white except by Him who says by the prophet, " Though your sins be as purple, I will make them white as snow"?^ At the time, then, that she was made white, she deserved nothing good; but now that she is made white, she walketh well; — but it is only by her continuing ever to lean upon Him by whom she was made white. \\'herefore, Jesus Himself, on whom she leans that was made white, said to His disciples, "Without me ye can do nothing." 9 CH.AP. 14. PAUL FIRST RECEIVED GRACE THAT HE MIGHT WIN THE CROW^.
Let US return now to the Apostle Paul, who, as we have found, obtamed God's grace, who recompenses good for evil, without any good merits of his own, but rather with many evil merits. Let us see what he says when his final sufferings were approaching, writing to Timothy: " I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith." '° He enumerates these as, of course, now his good merits; so that, as after his evil merits he obtained grace, so now, after his good merits, he might receive the crown. Observe, therefore, what follows: " There is henceforth laid up for me," he says, "a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." " Now, to whom shguld the righteous Jutlge award the crown, except to him on whom the merciful Father had bestowed grace? And how could the crown be one " of righteousness," unless the grace had preceded which "justifieth the ungodly "? How, moreover, could these things now be awarded as of debt, unless the other had been before given as a free gift?
* Ps. XXX. 7.
9 John XV. 5.
[Chap. 15.
CH.'VP. 15. THE PELAGIANS PROFESS THAT THE ONLY GRACE WHICH IS NOT GIVEN ACCORDING TO OUR MERITS IS THAT OF THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.
AVhen, however, the Pelagians say that the only grace which is not given according to our merits is • that whereby his sins are forgiven to man, but that that which is given in the end, that is, eternal life, is rendered to our preceding merits: they must not be allowed to go without an answer. If, indeed, they so understand our merits as to acknowledge them, too, to be the gifts of God, then their opinion would not deserve reprobation. But inasmuch as they so preach human merits as t^ declare that a rpan has them of his own self, then most rightly the apostle replies: " Who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou, that thou didst not receive? Now, if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?" ' To a man who holds such views, it is perfect truth to say: It is His own gifts that God crowns, not your merits, — if, at least, your merits are of your own self, not of Him.
If, indeed, they are such, they are evil; and God does not crown them; but if they are good, they are God's gifts, because, as the Apostle James says, " Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights."^ In accordance with which John also, the Lord's forerunner, declares: " A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven " ^ — from heaven, of course, because from thence came also the Holy Ghost, when Jesus ascended up on high, led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men."* If, then, your good merits are God's gifts, God does not crown your merits as your merits, but as His own gifts.