ter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? " 4 Now some foolish people think that in this place the apostle had no answer to give; and for want of a reason to render, rebuked the presumption of his inter- rogator. But there is great weight in this saying: " Nay, but, O man, who art thou? " and in such a matter as this it suggests to a man in a single word the limits of his capac- ity, and at the same time does in reality con- vey an important reason. For if a man does not understand these matters, who is he that he should reply against God? And if he does understand them, he finds no further room for reply. For then he perceives that the whole human race was condemned in its re- bellious head by a divine judgment so just, that if not a single member of the race had been redeemed, no one could justly have ques- tioned the justice of God; and that it was right that those who are redeemed should be redeemed in such a way as to show, by the greater number who are unredeemed and left in theirj ust condemnation, what the whole race deserved, and whither the deserved judgment of God would lead even the redeemed, did not His undeserved mercy interpose, so that every mouth might be stopped of those who wish to 1 Rom. ix. 17; Ex. ix. 16. 3 Rom. ix. 19.
glory in their own merits, and that he that glorieth might glory in the Lord.5 CHAP. IOO. THE WILL OF GOD IS NEVER DE- FEATED, THOUGH MUCH IS DONE THAT IS CONTRARY TO HIS WILL.
These are the great works of the -Lord, sought out according to all His pleasure,6 and so wisely sought out, that when the intelligent creation, both angelic and human, sinned, doing not His will but their own, He used the very will of the creature which was working in opposition to the Creator's will as an instru- ment for carrying out His will, the supremely Good thus turning to good account even what is evil, to the condemnation of those whom in His justice He has predestined to punish- ment, and to the salvation of those whom in His mercy He has predestined to grace. For, as far as relates to their own consciousness, these creatures did what God wished not to be done: but in view of God's omnipotence, they could in no wise effect their purpose. For in the very fact that they acted in opposition to His will, His will concerning them was ful- filled. And hence it is that "the works of the Lord are great, sought out according to all His pleasure," because in a way unspeak- ably strange and wonderful, even what is done in opposition to His will does not defeat His will. For it would not be done did He not permit it (and of course His permission is not unwilling, but willing); nor would a Good Being permit evil to be done only that in His omnipotence He can turn evil into good.
CHAP. IOI. THE WILL OF GOD, WHICH IS ALWAYS GOOD, IS SOMETIMES FULFILLED THROUGH THE EVIL WILL OF MAN.
Sometimes, however, a man in the good- ness of his will desires something that God does not desire, even though God's will is also good, nay, much more fully and more surely good (for His will never can be evil): for example, if a good son is anxious that his father should live, when it is God's good will that he should die. Again, it is possible for a man with evil will to desire what God wills in His goodness: for example, if a bad son wishes his father to die, when this is also the will of God. It is plain that the former wishes what God does not wish, and that the latter wishes what God does wish; and yet the filial love of the former is more in harmony with the good will of God, though its desire is different from God's, than the want of filial 6 Ps. cxi. 2 (LXX.): " The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.1' (A. V.)
<0 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. CIII.
affection of the latter, though its desire is the same as God's. So necessary is it, in deter- mining whether a man's desire is one to be ap- proved or disapproved, to consider what it is proper for man, and what it is proper for God, to desire, and what is in each case the real motive of the will. For God accomplishes some of His purposes, which of course are all good, through the evil desires of wicked men: for example, it was through the wicked designs of the Jews, working out the good purpose of the Father, that Christ was slain; and this event was so truly good, that when the Apostle Peter expressed his unwillingness that it should take place, he was designated Satan by Him who had come to be slain. ' How good seemed the intentions of the pious believers who were unwilling that Paul should go up to Jerusalem lest the evils which Aga- bus had foretold should there befall him! 2 And yet it was God's purpose that he should suffer these evils for preaching the faith of Christ, and thereby become a witness for Christ. And this purpose of His, which was good, God did not fulfill through the good counsels of the Christians, but through the evil counsels of the Jews; so that those who opposed His purpose were more truly His servants than those who were the willing in- struments of its accomplishment.
CHAP. 1 02. — THE WILL OF THE OMNIPOTENT GOD IS NEVER DEFEATED, AND IS NEVER EVIL.
But however strong may be the purposes either of angels or of men, whether of good or bad, whether these purposes fall in with the will of God or run counter to it, the will of the Omnipotent is never defeated; and His will never can be evil; because even when it inflicts evil it is just, and what is just is certainly not evil. The omnipotent God, then, whether in mercy He pitieth whom He will, or in judgment hardeneth whom He will, is never unjust in what He does, never does anything except of His own free-will, and never wills anything that He does not per- form.
CHAP. 103. — INTERPRETATION OF THE EXPRES- SION IN I TIM. II. 4: " WHO WILL HAVE ALL MEN TO BE SAVED."
Accordingly, when we hear and read in Scripture that He " will have all men to be saved," 3 although we know well that all men are not saved, we are not on that account to restrict the omnipotence of God, but are rather to understand the Scripture, "Who 2 Acts xxi. 10-12.
will have all men to be saved," as meaning that no man is saved unless God wills his sal- vation: not that there is no man whose sal- vation He does not will, but that no man is saved apart from His will; and that, therefore, we should pray Him to will our salvation, because if He will it, it must necessarily be accomplished. And it- was of prayer to God that the apostle was speaking when he used this expression. And on the same principle we interpret the expression in the Gospel: "The true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world:" 4 not that there is no man who is not enlightened, but that no man is enlightened except by Him. Or, it is said, "Who will have all men to be saved; " not that there is no man whose salvation He does net will (for how, then, explain the fact that He was unwilling to work miracles in the presence of some who, He said, would have repented if He had worked them?), but that we are to understand by " all men," the hu- man race in all its varieties of rank and cir- cumstances,— kings, subjects; noble, plebe- ian, high, low, learned, and unlearned; the sound in body, the feeble, the clever, the dull, the foolish, the rich, the poor, and those of middling circumstances; males, females, infants, boys, youths; young, middle-aged, and old men; of every tongue, of every fashion, of all arts, of all professions, with all the innu- merable differences of will and conscience, and whatever else there is that makes a distinction among men. For which of all these classes is there out of which God does not will that men should be saved in all nations through His only-begotten Son, our Lord, and there- fore does save them; for the Omnipotent can- not will in vain, whatsoever He may will? Now the apostle had enjoined that prayers should be made for all men, and had especially ad- ded, " For kings, and for all that are in au- thority," who might be supposed, in the pride and pomp of worldly station, to shrink from the humility of the Christian faith. Then saying, " For this is good and accept- able in the sight of God our Saviour," that is, that prayers should be made for such as these, he immediately adds, as if to remove any ground of despair, "Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." 5 God, then, in His great condescension has judged it good to grant to the prayers of the humble the salvation of the exalted; and assuredly we have many exam- ples of this. Our Lord, too, makes use of the same mode of speech in the Gospel, when He says to the Pharisees: " Ye tithe mint, 4 John i. 9.
5 1 Tim. ii. 1-4.
Chap. CVIL] ENCHIRIDION.
271 and rue, and every herb."1 For the Phari- sees did not tithe what belonged to others, nor all the herbs of all the inhabitants of other lands. As, then, in this place we must understand by "every herb," every kind of herbs, so in the former passage we may un- derstand by "all men," every sort of men. And we may interpret it in any other way we please, so long as we are not compelled to believe that the omnipotent God has willed anything to be done which was not done: for, setting aside all ambiguities, if "He hath done all that He pleased in heaven and in earth,"2 as the psalmist sings of Him, He certainly did not will to do anything that He hath not done.
CHAP. 104. — GOD, FOREKNOWING THE SIN OF THE FIRST MAN, ORDERED HIS OWN PURPOSES ACCORDINGLY.
Wherefore, God would have been willing to preserve even the first man in that state of salvation in which he was created, and after he had begotten sons to remove him at a fit time, without the intervention of death, to a better place, where he should have been not only free from sin, but free even from the de- sire of sinning, if He had foreseen that man would have the steadfast will to persist in the state of innocence in which he was created. But as He foresaw that man would make a bad use of his free-will, that is, would sin, God arranged His own designs rather with a view to do good to man even in his sinful- ness, that thus the good will of the Omnipo- tent might not be made void by the evil will of man, but might be fulfilled in spite of it.
CHAP. 105. MAN WAS SO CREATED AS TO BE ABLE TO CHOOSE EITHER GOOD OR EVIL: IN THE FUTURE LIFE, THE CHOICE OF EVIL WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE.
Now it was expedient that man should be at first so created, as to have it in his power both to will what was right and to will what was wrong; not without reward if he willed the former, and not without punishment if he willed the latter. But in the future life it shall not be in his power to will evil; and yet this will constitute no restriction on the free- dom of his will. On the contrary, his will shall be much freer when it shall be wholly impossible for him to be the slave of sin. We should never think of blaming the will, or saying that it was no will, or that it was not to be called free, when we so desire happiness, that not only do we shrink from misery, but 1 Luke xi. 42. [" All manner of herbs.'' A. V.]
2 Ps. cxv. 3. [" Our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased." A. V.]
find it utterly impossible to do otherwise. As, then, the soul even now finds it impos- sible to desire unhappiness, so in future it shall be wholly impossible for it to desire sin. But God's arrangement was not to be broken, according to which He willed to show how good is a rational being who is able even to refrain from sin, and yet how much better is one who cannot sin at all; just as that was an inferior sort of immortality, and yet it was immortality, when it was possible for man to avoid death, although there is reserved for the future a more perfect immortality, when it shall be impossible for man to die.
CHAP. 106. THE GRACE OF GOD WAS NECES- SARY TO MAN'S SALVATION BEFORE THE FALL AS WELL AS AFTER IT.
The former immortality man lost through the exercise of his free-will; the latter he shall obtain through grace, whereas, if he had not sinned, he should have obtained it by desert. Even in that case, however, there could have been no merit without grace; be- cause, although the mere exercise of man's free-will was sufficient to bring in sin, his free- will would not have sufficed for his mainten- ance in righteousness, unless God had as- sisted it by imparting a portion of His un- changeable goodness. Just as it is in man's power to die whenever he will (for, not to speak of other means, any one can put an end to himself by simple abstinence from food), but the mere will cannot preserve life in the absence of food and the other means of life; so man in paradise was able of his mere will, simply by abandoning righteous- ness, to destroy himself; but to have main- tained a life of righteousness would have been too much for his will, unless it had been sus- tained by the Creator's power. After the fall, however, a more abundant exercise of God's mercy was required, because the will itself had to be freed from the bondage in which it was held by sin and death. And the will owes its freedom in no degree to itself, but solely to the grace of God which comes by faith in Jesus Christ; so that the very will, through which we accept all the other gifts of God which lead us on to His eternal gift, is itself prepared of the Lord, as the Scripture says. 3 CHAP. 107. ETERNAL LIFE, THOUGH THE RE- WARD OF GOOD WORKS, IS ITSELF THE GIFT OF GOD.
Wherefore, even eternal life itself, which 3 Prov xvi. 1. [•' The preparation 01 the heart in man is from the Lord." A. V.]
272 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. CXis surely the reward of good works, the apos- tle calls the gift of God. " For the wages of sin," he says, "is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." ' Wages (stipendium) is paid as a re- compense for military service; it is not a gift: wherefore he says, "the wages of sin is death," to show that death was not inflicted undeservedly, but as the due recompense of sin. But a gift, unless it is wholly unearned, is not a gift at all. 2 We are to understand, then, that man's good deserts are themselves the gift of God, so that when these obtain the recompense of eternal life, it is simply grace given for grace. Man, therefore, was thus made upright that, though unable to remain in his uprightness without divine help, he could of his own mere will depart from it. And whichever of these courses he had chosen, God's will would have been done, either by him, or concerning him. There- fore, as he chose to do his own will rather than God's, the will of God is fulfilled con- cerning him; for God, out of one and the same heap of perdition which constitutes the race of man, makes one vessel to honor, another to dishonor; to honor in mercy, to dishonor in judgment; 3 that no one may glory in man, and consequently not in himself.
CHAP. 1 08. A MEDIATOR WAS NECESSARY TO RECONCILE US TO GOD; AND UNLESS THIS MEDIATOR HAD BEEN GOD, HE COULD NOT HAVE BEEN OUR REDEEMER.
For we could not be redeemed, even through the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, if He were not also God. Now when Adam was created, he, being a righteous man, had no need of a mediator. But when sin had placed a wide gulf between God and the human race, it was expedient that a Mediator, who alone of the human race was born, lived, and died without sin, should reconcile us to God, and procure even for our bodies a resurrection to eternal life, in order that the pride of man might be exposed and cured through the humility of God; that man might be shown how far he had departed from God, when God became incarnate to bring him back; that an example might be set to disobedient man in the life of obedience of the God-Man; that the foun- tain of grace might be opened by the Only- begotten taking upon Himself the form of a servant, a form which had no antecedent merit; that an earnest of that resurrection of the body which is promised to the redeemed might be given in the resurrection of the Re- 1 Rom. vi. 23 2 Comp. Rom. xi. 6.
3 Rom. ix. 21.
deemer; that the devil might be subdued by the same nature which it was his boast to have deceived, and yet man not glorified, lest pride should again spring up; and, in fine, with a view to all the advantages which the thoughtful can perceive and describe, or per- ceive without being able to describe, as flow- ing from the transcendent mystery of the person of the Mediator.
CHAP. 109. THE STATE OF THE SOUL DURING THE INTERVAL BETWEEN DEATH AND THE RESURRECTION.
During the time, moreover, which inter- venes between a man's death and the final resurrection, the soul dwells in a hidden re- treat, where it enjoys rest or suffers affliction just in proportion to the merit it has earned by the life which it led on earth.
CHAP. IIO. THE BENEFIT TO THE SOULS OF THE DEAD FROM THE SACRAMENTS AND ALMS OF THEIR LIVING FRIENDS.
Nor can it be denied that the souls of the dead are benefited by the piety of their living friends, who offer the sacrifice of the Medi- ator, or give alms in the church on their be- half. But these services are of advantage only to those who during their lives have earned such merit, that services of this kind can help them. For there is a manner of life which is neither so good as not to require these services after death, nor so bad that such services are of no avail after death; there is, on the other hand, a kind of life so good as not to require them; and again, one so bad that when life is over they render no help. Therefore, it is in this life that all the merit or demerit is acquired, which can either relieve or aggravate a man's sufferings after this life. No one, then, need hope that after he is dead he shall obtain merit with God which he has neglected to secure here. And accordingly it is plain that the services which the church celebrates for the dead are in no way opposed to the apostle's words: " For we must all appear before the judg- ment-seat of Christ; that every one may re- ceive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad;" 4 for the merit which renders such services as I speak of profitable to a man, is earned while he lives in* the body. It is not to every one that these services are profitable. And why are they not profitable to all, except because of the different kinds of lives that men lead in the body? When, then, sacri- Chap. CXIV.J ENCHIRIDION.
273 fices either of the altar or of alms are offered on behalf of all the baptized dead, they are thank-offerings for the very good, they are propitiatory offerings for the not very bad, and in the case of the very bad, even though they do not assist the dead, they are a species of consolation to the living. And where they are profitable, their benefit consists either in obtaining a full remission of sins, or at least in making the condemnation more tolerable.
CHAP. III. AFTER THE RESURRECTION THERE SHALL BE TWO DISTINCT KINGDOMS, ONE OF ETERNAL HAPPINESS, THE OTHER OF ETERNAL MISERY.
After the resurrection, however, when the final, universal judgment has been completed, there shall be two kingdoms, each with its own distinct boundaries, the one Christ's, the other the devil's; the one consisting of the good, the other of the bad, — both, however, consisting of angels and men. The former shall have no will, the latter no power, to sin, and neither shall have any power to choose death; but the former shall live truly and happily in eternal life, the latter shall drag a miserable existence in eternal death without the power of dying; for the life and the death shall both be without end. But among the former there shall be degrees of happiness, one being more pre-eminently happy than another; and among the latter there shall be degrees of misery, one being more endur- ably miserable than another.
CHAP. 112. — THERE IS NO GROUND IN SCRIPT- URE FOR THE OPINION OF THOSE WHO DENY THE ETERNITY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS.
It is in vain, then, that some, indeed very many, make moan over the eternal punish- ment, and perpetual, unintermitted torments of the lost, and say they do not believe it shall be so; not, indeed, that they directly oppose themselves to Holy Scripture, but, at the suggestion of their own feelings, they soften down everything that seems hard, and give a milder turn to statements which they think are rather designed to terrify than to be received as literally true. For "Hath God," they say, "forgotten to be gracious? hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies?"1 Now, they read this in one of the holy psalms. But without doubt we are to under- stand it as spoken of those who are elsewhere called "vessels of mercy,"2 because even they are freed from misery not on account of any merit of their own, but solely through the pity of God. Or, if the men we speak of in- sist that this passage applies to all mankind, there is no reason why they should therefore suppose that there will be an end to the pun- ishment of those of whom it is said, " These shall go away into everlasting punishment;" for this shall end in the same manner and at the same time as the happiness of those of whom it is said, " but the righteous unto life eternal.3 But let them suppose, if the thought gives them pleasure, that the pains of the damned are, at certain intervals, in some de- gree assuaged. For even in this case the wrath of God, that is, their condemnation (for it is this, and not any disturbed feeling in the mind of God that is called His wrath), abid- eth upon them;4 that is, His wrath, though it still remains, does not shut up His tender mercies; though His tender mercies are ex- hibited, not in putting an end to their eternal punishment, but in mitigating, or in granting them a respite from, their torments; for the psalm does not say, "to put an end to His anger/' or, "when His anger is passed by," but "in His anger."3 Now, if this anger stood alone, or if it existed in the smallest conceivable degree, yet to be lost out of the kingdom of God, to be an exile from the city of God, to be alienated from the life of God, to have no share in that great goodness which God hath laid up for them that fear Him, and hath wrought out for them that trust in Him,6 would be a punishment so great, that, suppos- ing it to be eternal, no torments that we know of, continued through as many ages as man's imagination can conceive, could be compared with it.