1. The order established for your edification requires that you learn first what to believe, and afterwards what to ask. For so says the Apostle, Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved. This testimony blessed Paul cited out of the Prophet; for by the Prophet were those times foretold, when all men should call upon God; Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved. And he added, How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? Or how shall they hear without a preacher? Or how shall they preach except they be sent? Therefore were preachers sent. They preached Christ. As they preached, the people heard, by hearing they believed, and by believing called upon Him. Because then it was most rightly and most truly said,How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? Therefore have ye first learned what to believe: and today have learned to call on Him in whom you have believed.

2. The Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, has taught us a Prayer; and though He be the Lord Himself, as you have heard and repeated in the Creed, the Only Son of God, yet He would not be alone. He is the Only Son, and yet would not be alone; He has vouchsafed to have brethren. For to whom does He say, Say, Our Father, which art in heaven? Whom did He wish us to call our Father, save His own Father? Did He grudge us this? Parents sometimes when they have gotten one, or two, or three children, fear to give birth to any more, lest they reduce the rest tobeggary. But because the inheritance which He promises us is such as many may possess, and no one be straitened; therefore has He called into His brotherhood the peoples of the nations; and the Only Son has numberless brethren; who say, Our Father, which art in heaven. So said they who have been before us; and so shall say those who will come after us. See how many brethren the Only Son has in His grace, sharing His inheritance with those for whom He suffered death. We had a father and mother on earth, that we might be born to labours and to death: but we have found other parents, God our Father, and the Church our Mother, by whom we are born unto life eternal. Let us then consider, beloved, whose children we have begun to be; and let us live so as becomes those who have such a Father. See, how that our Creator has condescended to be our Father!

3. We have heard whom we ought to call upon, and with what hope of an eternal inheritance we have begun to have a Father in heaven; let us now hear what we must ask of Him. Of such a Father what shall we ask? Do we not ask rain of Him, today, and yesterday, and the day before? This is no great thing to have asked of such a Father, and yet ye see with what sighings, and with what great desire we ask for rain, when death is feared, when that is feared which none can escape. For sooner or later every man must die, and we groan, and pray, and travail in pain, and cry to God, that we may die a little later. How much more ought we to cry to Him, that we may come to that place where we shall never die!

See also:

1. O Father, Thou Who Hast Created All
2. Lord Our Father, Thanks to Thee
3. Lord Our Father Thanks to Thee

Chapter 50 [XXIX.]— Righteousness is the Gift of God

Let no man therefore boast of that which he seems to possess, as if he had not received it; 1 Corinthians 4:7 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. Galatians 2:21 Seeing, however, that if He has not died in vain, He has ascended up on high, and has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men, it follows that whosoever has, has from this source. But whosoever 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 justifies the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith; Romans 3:30 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 by faith; Galatians 3:8 and again, in another, when speaking of the circumcision, to which he himself belonged, he says, We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Jesus Christ. Observe, he says that both the uncircumcision are justified by faith, and the circumcision through faith, if, indeed, the circumcision keep the righteousness of faith. For the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith, Romans 9:30 — by obtaining it of God, not by assuming it of themselves. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. And why? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by works Romans 9:31-32 — in other words, working it out as it were by themselves, not believing that it is God who works within them. For it is God which works in us both to will and to do of His own good pleasure. Philippians 2:13 And hereby they stumbled at the stumbling-stone. Romans 9:32 For what he said, not by faith, but as it were by works,Romans 9:32 he most clearly explained in the following words: They, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. Romans 10:3-4 Then are we still in doubt what are those works of the law by which a man is not justified, if he believes them to be his own works, as it were, without the help and gift of God, which is by the faith of Jesus Christ? And do we suppose that they are circumcision and the other like ordinances, because some such things in other passages are read concerning these sacramental rites too? In this place, however, it is certainly not circumcision which they wanted to establish as their own righteousness, because God established this by prescribing it Himself. Nor is it possible for us to understand this statement, of those works concerning which the Lord says to them, You reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition; Mark 7:9 because, as the apostle says, Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Romans 9:31 He did not say, Which followed after their own traditions, framing them and relying on them. This then is the sole distinction, that the very precept, You shall not covet, Exodus 20:17 and God’s other good and holy commandments, they attributed to themselves; whereas, that man may keep them, God must work in him through faith in Jesus Christ, who is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. Romans 10:4 That is to say, every one who is incorporated into Him and made a member of His body, is able, by His giving the increase within, to work righteousness. It is of such a man’s works that Christ Himself has said,Without me you can do nothing. John 15:5

Chapter 51.— Faith the Ground of All Righteousness

The righteousness of the law is proposed in these terms—that whosoever shall do it shall live in it; and the purpose is, that when each has discovered his own weakness, he may not by his own strength, nor by the letter of the law (which cannot be done), but by faith, conciliating the Justifier, attain, and do, and live in it. For the work in which he who does it shall live, is not done except by one who is justified. His justification, however, is obtained by faith; and concerning faith it is written, Say not in your heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring down Christ therefrom;) or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what says it? The word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart: that is (says he), the word of faith which we preach: That if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. Romans 10:6-9 As far as he is saved, so far is he righteous. For by this faith we believe that God will raise even us from the dead—even now in the spirit, that we may in this present world live soberly, righteously, and godly in the renewal of His grace; and by and by in our flesh, which shall rise again to immortality, which indeed is the reward of the Spirit, who precedes it by a resurrection which is appropriate to Himself—that is, by justification. For we are buried with Christ by baptism unto death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Romans 6:4 By faith, therefore, in Jesus Christ we obtain salvation—both in so far as it is begun within us in reality, and in so far as its perfection is waited for in hope; for whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. How abundant, says the Psalmist, is the multitude of Your goodness, O Lord, which You have laid up for them that fear You, and hast perfected for them that hope in You! By the law we fear God; by faith we hope in God: but from those who fear punishment grace is hidden. And the soul which labours under this fear, since it has not conquered its evil concupiscence, and from which this fear, like a harsh master, has not departed—let it flee by faith for refuge to the mercy of God, that He may give it what He commands, and may, by inspiring into it the sweetness of His grace through His Holy Spirit, cause the soul to delight more in what He teaches it, than it delights in what opposes His instruction. In this manner it is that the great abundance of His sweetness—that is, the law of faith—His love which is in our hearts, and shed abroad, is perfected in them that hope in Him, that good may be wrought by the soul, healed not by the fear of punishment, but by the love of righteousness.

See also:

1. Our Righteousness
2. The Righteousness of God and Man
3. Two Kinds of Righteousness
4. We are Sinners, but He is Our Righteousness

Chapter 8.—Romans Interprets Corinthians.

Attend, then, carefully, to the apostle while in his Epistle to the Romans he explains and clearly enough shows that what he wrote to the Corinthians, “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life,” 2 Cor. iii. 6. must be understood in the sense which we have already indicated,—that the letter of the law, which teaches us not to commit sin, kills, if the life-giving spirit be absent, forasmuch as it causes sin to be known rather than avoided, and therefore to be increased rather than diminished, because to an evil concupiscense there is now added the transgression of the law.

Chapter 9 [VI].—Through the Law Sin Has Abounded

The apostle, then, wishing to commend the grace which has come to all nations through Jesus Christ, lest the Jews should extol themselves at the expense of the other peoples on account of their having received the law, first says that sin and death came on the human race through one man, and that righteousness and eternal life came also through one, expressly mentioning Adam as the former, and Christ as the latter; and then says that “the law, however, entered, that the offence might abound: but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. v. 20, 21.Then, proposing a question for himself to answer, he adds, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.” Rom. vi. 1. 2. He saw, indeed, that a perverse use might be made by perverse men of what he had said: “The law entered, that the offence might abound: but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,”—as if he had said that sin had been of advantage by reason of the abundance of grace. Rejecting this, he answers his question with a “God forbid!” and at once adds: “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” Rom. vi. 2. as much as to say, When grace has brought it to pass that we should die unto sin, what else shall we be doing, if we continue to live in it, than showing ourselves ungrateful to grace? The man who extols the virtue of a medicine does not contend that the diseases and wounds of which the medicine cures him are of advantage to him; on the contrary, in proportion to the praise lavished on the remedy are the blame and horror which are felt of the diseases and wounds healed by the much-extolled medicine. In like manner, the commendation and praise of grace are vituperation and condemnation of offences. For there was need to prove to man how corruptly weak he was, so that against his iniquity, the holy law brought him no help towards good, but rather increased than diminished his iniquity; seeing that the law entered, that the offence might abound; that being thus convicted and confounded, he might see not only that he needed a physician, but also God as his helper so to direct his steps that sin should not rule over him, and he might be healed by betaking himself to the help of the divine mercy; and in this way, where sin abounded grace might much more abound,—not through the merit of the sinner, but by the intervention of his Helper.

Chapter 10.—Christ the True Healer

Accordingly, the apostle shows that the same medicine was mystically set forth in the passion and resurrection of Christ, when he says, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him: knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. vi. 3–11. Now it is plain enough that here by the mystery of the Lord’s death and resurrection is figured the death of our old sinful life, and the rising of the new; and that here is shown forth the abolition of iniquity and the renewal of righteousness. Whence then arises this vast benefit to man through the letter of the law, except it be through the faith of Jesus Christ?

See also:

1. The True God
2. True Wisdom

15. Be sure, Brethren, that enemies have no power against the faithful, except so far as it profiteth them to be tempted and proved. Of this be sure, Brethren, let no one say ought against it. Cast all your care upon the Lord, throw yourselves wholly and entirely upon Him. He will not withdraw Himself that ye should fall. He who created us, hath given us security touching our very hairs. “Verily I say unto you, even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” Matt. x. 30. Our hairs are numbered by God; how much more is our conduct known to Him to whom our hairs are thus known? See then, how that God doth not disregard our least things. For if He disregarded them, He would not create them. For He verily both created our hairs, and still taketh count of them. But thou wilt say, though they are preserved at present, perhaps they will perish. On this point also hear His word, “Verily I say unto you, there shall not an hair of your head perish.” Luke xxi. 18. Why art thou afraid of man, O man, whose place is in the Bosom of God? Fall not out of His Bosom; whatsoever thou shall suffer there, will avail to thy salvation, not to thy destruction. Martyrs have endured the tearing of their limbs, and shall Christians fear the injuries of Christian times? He who would do thee an injury now, can only do it in fear. He does not say openly, come to the idol-feast; he does not say openly, come to my altars, and banquet there. And if he should say so, and thou wast to refuse, let him make a complaint of it, let him bring it as an accusation and charge against thee: “He would not come to my altars, he would not come to my temple, where I worship.” Let him say this. He does not dare; but in his guile he contrives another attack. Make ready thy hair; he is sharpening the razor; he is about to take off thy superfluous things, to shave what thou must soon leave behind thee. Let him take off what shall endure, if he can. This powerful enemy, what has he taken away? what great thing has he taken away? That which a thief or housebreaker could take: in his utmost rage, he can but take what a robber can. Even if he should have license given him to the slaying of the very body, what does he take away, but what the robber can take? I did him too much honour, when I said, “a robber.” For be the robber who and what he may, he is a man. He takes from thee what a fever, or an adder, or a poisonous mushroom can take. Here lies the whole power of the rage of men, to do what a mushroom can! Men eat a poisonous mushroom, and they die. Lo! in what frail estate is the life of man; which sooner or later thou must abandon; do not struggle then in such wise for it, as that thou shouldest be abandoned thyself.

16. Christ is our Life; think then of Christ. He came to suffer, but also to be glorified; to be despised, but to be exalted also; to die; but also to rise again. If the labour alarm thee, see its reward. Why dost thou wish to arrive by softness at that to which nothing but hard labour can lead? Now thou art afraid, lest thou shouldest lose thy money; because thou earnest thy money with great labour. If thou didst not attain to thy money, which thou must some time or other lose, at all events when thou diest, without labour, wouldest thou desire without labour to attain to the Life eternal? Let that be of higher value in thine eyes, to which after all thy labours thou shalt in such sort attain as never more to lose it. If this money, to which thou hast attained after all thy labours on such condition as that thou must some time lose it, be of high value with thee; how much more ought we to long after those things which are everlasting!

17. Give no credit to their words, neither be afraid of them. They say that we are enemies of their idols. May God so grant, and give all into our power, as He hath already given us that which we have broken down. For this I say, Beloved, that ye may not attempt to do it, when it is not lawfully in your power to do it; for it is the way of ill-regulated men, and the mad Circumcelliones, both to be violent when they have no power, and to be ever eager in their wishes to die without a cause. Ye heard what we read to you, all of you who were present in the Mappalia. “When the land shall have been given into your power” (he saith first, “into your power,” and so enjoined what was to be done); “then,” saith he, “ye shall destroy their altars, and break in pieces their groves, and hew down all their images.” Deut. vii. 1 and xii. 3. When we shall have got the power, do this. When the power has not been given us, we do not do it; when it is given, we do not neglect it. Many Pagans have these abominations on their own estates; do we go and break them in pieces? No, for our first efforts are that the idols in their hearts should be broken down. When they too are made Christians themselves, they either invite us to so good a work, or anticipate us. At present we must pray for them, not be angry with them. If very painful feelings excite us, it is rather against Christians, it is against our brethren, who will enter into the Church in such a mind, as to have their body there, and their heart anywhere else. The whole ought to be within. If that which man seeth is within, why is that which God seeth without?

See also:

1. The Life-Thread of Faith
2. CPH & Lutherans for Life
3. O Christ, Our Joy

Chapter 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 prophetpromised 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 sacrifices 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 passages; but he simply called attention to this difference, thatGod would impress His laws on the mind of those who belonged to this covenant, and would write them in their hearts, Jeremiah 31:32-33 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;2 Corinthians 3:3 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, Joshua 12 but God Himself, to whom it is good to hold fast, in order that God’s good that they love, may be theGod 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. Jeremiah 31:34 By the law of works, then, the Lord says, You shall not covet: Exodus 20:17 but by the law of faith He says, Without me you can do nothing; John 15:5 for He was treating of good works, even the fruit of the vine-branches. It is therefore apparent what difference 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 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. We 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, Philippians 2:13 is by externally addressing to our faculties precepts ofholiness; for He gives His increase internally, 1 Corinthians 3:7 by shedding love abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us.Romans 5:5

Chapter 43 [XXVI.]— A Question Touching the Passage in the Apostle About the Gentiles Who are Said to Do by Nature the Law’s Commands, 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 contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, Romans 2:14-15 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 theGentiles, which have the work of the law written on their hearts, whereby they do by nature the things of the law, Romans 2:14 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 on them?

Chapter 44.— The Answer Is, that the Passage Must Be Understood of the Faithful of the New Covenant

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, referring to the gospel, he says, It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jewfirst, 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.Romans 1:16-17 Then he goes on to speak of the ungodly, who by reason of their pride profit not by the knowledge of God, since they did notglorify Him as God, neither were thankful. Romans 1:21 He then passes to those who think and do the very things which they condemn—having 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 does evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile: but glory,honour, and peace, to every soul that does 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. Romans 2:8-13 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, Romans 2:14 and so forth in the passage which I have quoted already. Evidently, therefore, no others are here signified under the name of Gentiles than those whom he had before designated by the name of Greek when he said, To the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16 Since then the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes, to the Jew first, and, also to the Greek; Romans 1:16 and since indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, are upon every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Greek: but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that does good; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek; since, moreover, the Greek is indicated by the term Gentiles who do bynature the things contained in the law, and which have the work of the law written in their hearts: it follows that such Gentiles as have the lawwritten 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 ofpersons with God, Romans 2:11 and since it is not the hearers of the law, but the doers thereof, that are justified, Romans 2:13 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 afterwards; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God: being justified freely by His grace. Romans 3:22-24 How then could he say that any Gentile person, who was a doer of the law, was justified without the Saviour’s grace?

Via “On the Spirit and the Letter”

Chapter 24.— The Passage in Corinthians

Photo by Sacred Destinations @Flickr

In the passage where he speaks to the Corinthians about the letter that kills, and the spirit that gives life, he expresses himself more clearly, but he does not mean even there any other letter to be understood than the Decalogue itself, which was written on the two tables. For these are His words: Forasmuch as you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who has made us fit, as ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which was to be done away; how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more shall the ministration of righteousness abound in glory. 2 Corinthians 3:3-9 A good deal might be said about these words; but perhaps we shall have a more fitting opportunity at some future time. At present, however, I beg you to observe how he speaks of the letter that kills, and contrasts therewith the spirit that gives life. Now this must certainly be the ministration of death written and engraven in stones, and the ministration of condemnation, since the law entered that sin might abound. Romans 5:20 But the commandments themselves are so useful and salutary to the doer of them, that no one could have life unless he kept them. Well, then, is it owing to the one precept about the Sabbath day, which is included in it, that the Decalogue is called the letter that kills? Because, forsooth, every man that still observes that day in its literal appointment is carnally wise, but to be carnally wise is nothing else than death? And must the other nine commandments, which are rightly observed in their literal form, not be regarded as belonging to the law of works by which none is justified, but to the law of faith whereby thejust man lives? Who can possibly entertain so absurd an opinion as to suppose that the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones,is not said equally of all the ten commandments, but only of the solitary one touching the Sabbath day? In which class do we place that which is thus spoken of: The law works wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression? Romans 4:15 and again thus: Until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law? Romans 5:13 and also that which we have already so often quoted: By the law is theknowledge of sin? Romans 3:20 and especially the passage in which the apostle has more clearly expressed the question of which we are treating: I had not known lust, except the law had said, You shall not covet? Romans 7:7

Chapter 25.— The Passage in Romans

Now carefully consider this entire passage, and see whether it says anything about circumcision, or the Sabbath, or anything else pertaining to a foreshadowing sacrament. Does not its whole scope amount to this, that the letter which forbids sin fails to give man life, but rather kills, by increasing concupiscence, and aggravating sinfulness by transgression, unless indeed grace liberates us by the law of faith, which is in Christ Jesus, when His love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us? Romans 5:5 The apostle having used these words:That we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter, Romans 7:6 goes on to inquire, What shall we say then? Is thelaw sin? God forbid. Nay; I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, You shall not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without thelaw once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual; whereas I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I would not, Iconsent unto the law that it is good. But then it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing. To will, indeed, is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now, if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then alaw, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ out Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Romans 7:7-25

BWV 13 Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen
Second Sunday after Epiphany

Georg Christian Lehms, Gottgefälliges Kirchen-Opffer (Darmstadt, 1711); Facs: Neumann T, p. 258.

3. Johann Heermann, verse 2 of “Zion klagt mit Angst und Schmerzen,” 1636 (Fischer-Tümpel, I, #361); 6. Paul Fleming, final verse of “In allen meinen Taten,” 1642 (Fischer-Tümpel, I, #489).

20 January 1726, Leipzig.

BG 2; NBA I/5.

1. Aria (T)

Michelangelo Buonarroti, "The Separation of Light & Darkness" (1508-12)

Of my sighing, of my crying
No one could the sum reveal.

If each day is filled with sadness
And our sorrow never passeth,
Ah, it means that all our pain
Now the way to death prepareth!

2. Recit. (A)

My dearest Lord hath let
Me long in vain invoke him,
To me in all my weeping
No comfort yet revealing.
The hour even now
Is from afar appearing,
But still I must in vain make my entreaty.

3. Chorale (A)

That God who gave me the promise
Of his helping hand alway
Lets me strive in vain to find him
Now within my sad estate.
Ah! Will he then evermore
Cruel wrath retain for me,
Can and will he to the wretched
Now no longer show his mercy?

4. Recit. (S)

My sorrow ever grows
And robs me of all peace,
My cup of woe is filled
With tears to overflowing,
And my distress will not be dampened
And leaves me full of cold despair.
This night of care and grief
Doth bring my anxious heart oppression,
I sing, thus, only songs of sorrow.
No, spirit, no,
Take only comfort in thy pain:
God can the wormwood’s gall
Transform with ease to wine of rapture
And then as well ten thousand joys allow thee.

5. Aria (B)

Moaning and most piteous weeping
Help our sorrow’s sickness not;

But whoe’er to heaven looketh
And strives there to find his comfort
Can with ease a light of joy
In his grieving breast discover.

6. Chorale (S, A, T, B)

Thyself be true, O spirit,
And trust in that one only
Who hath created thee;
Let happen what may happen,
Thy Father there in heaven
Doth counsel in all matters well.

Via On The Spirit and the Letter

Chapter 40.— How that is to Be the Reward of All; The Apostle Earnestly Defends Grace

What then is the import of the All, from the least unto the greatest of them, but all that belong spiritually to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah—that is, to the children of Isaac, to the seed of Abraham? For such is the promise, wherein it was said to him, In Isaac shall your seed be called; for they which are the children of the flesh are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac, (for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calls,) it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger (Romans 9:7-12). This is the house of Israel, or rather the house of Judah, on account of Christ, who came of the tribe of Judah. This is the house of the children of promise—not by reason of their own merits, but of the kindness of God. For God promises what He Himself performs: He does not Himself promise, and another perform; which would no longer be promising, but prophesying. Hence it is not of works, but of Him that calls, (Romans 9:11) lest the result should be their own, not God’s; lest the reward should be ascribed not to His grace, but to their due; and so graceshould be no longer grace which was so earnestly defended and maintained by him who, though the least of the apostles, laboured more abundantly than all the rest—yet not himself, but the grace of God that was with him (1 Corinthians 15:9-10). They shall all know me, (Jeremiah 31:34) He says— All, the house of Israel and house of Judah. All, however, are not Israel which are of Israel, (Romans 9:6) but they only to whom it is said in the psalm concerning the morning aid (that is, concerning the new refreshing light, meaning that of the new testament), All you the seed of Jacob, glorify Him; and fear Him, all you the seed of Israel. All the seed, without exception, even the entire seed of the promise and of the called, but only of those who are the called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). For whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified (Romans 8:30). Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed: not to that only which is of the law,— that is, which comes from the Old Testamentinto the New—but to that also which is of faith, which was indeed prior to the law, even the faith of Abraham,— meaning those who imitate the faith of Abraham—who is the father of us all; as it is written, I have made you the father of many nations (Romans 4:16-17). Now all these predestinated, called, justified, glorified ones, shall know God by the grace of the new testament, from the least to the greatest of them.

Chapter 42 [XXV.]— Difference Between the Old and the New Testaments

Hans Holbein the Younger, "Allegory of the Old & New Testaments" (1532-35)

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 sacrifices 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 passages; but he simply called attention to this difference, that God would impress His laws on the mind of those who belonged to this covenant, and would write them in their hearts, (Jeremiah 31:32-33) 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; (2 Corinthians 3:3) 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, (Joshua 12) but God Himself, to whom it is good to hold fast, 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 (Jeremiah 31:34). By the law of works, then, the Lord says, You shall not covet: (Exodus 20:17) but by the law of faith He says, Without me you can do nothing; (John 15:5) for He was treating of good works, even the fruit of the vine-branches. It is therefore apparent what difference 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 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. We 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, (Philippians 2:13) is by externally addressing to our faculties precepts of holiness; for He gives His increase internally, (1 Corinthians 3:7) by shedding love abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us (Romans 5:5).

Via On the Spirit and the Letter

Chapter 4.— Theirs is a Much More Serious Error, Requiring a Very Vigorous Refutation, Who Deny God’s Grace to Be Necessary

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, "The Parable of the Blind" (1568)

They, however, must be resisted with the utmost ardor and vigor who suppose that without God’s help, the mere power of the human will in itself, can either perfect righteousness, or advance steadily towards it; and when they begin to be hard pressed about their presumption in asserting that this result can be reached without the divine assistance, they check themselves, and do not venture to utter such an opinion, because they see how impious and insufferable it is. But they allege that such attainments are not made without God’s help on this account, namely, because God both created man with the free choice of his will, and, by giving him commandments, teaches him, Himself, how man ought to live; and indeed assists him, in that He takes away his ignorance by instructing him in the knowledge of what he ought to avoid and to desire in his actions: and thus, by means of the free-will naturally implanted within him, he enters on the way which is pointed out to him, and by persevering in a just and pious course of life, deserves to attain to the blessedness of eternal life.

Chapter 5 [III.]— True Grace is the Gift of the Holy Ghost, Which Kindles in the Soul the Joy and Love of Goodness

We, however, on our side affirm that the human will is so divinely aided in the pursuit of righteousness, that (in addition to man’s being createdwith a free-will, and in addition to the teaching by which he is instructed how he ought to live) he receives the Holy Ghost, by whom there is formed in his mind a delight in, and a love of, that supreme and unchangeable good which is God, even now while he is still walking by faithand not yet by sight; 2 Corinthians 5:7 in order that by this gift to him of the earnest, as it were, of the free gift, he may conceive an ardent desire to cleave to his Maker, and may burn to enter upon the participation in that true light, that it may go well with him from Him to whom he owes his existence. A man’s free-will, indeed, avails for nothing except to sin, if he knows not the way of truth; and even after his duty and his proper aim shall begin to become known to him, unless he also take delight in and feel a love for it, he neither does his duty, nor sets about it, nor lives rightly. Now, in order that such a course may engage our affections, God’s love is shed abroad in our hearts, not through the free-will which arises from ourselves, but through the Holy Ghost, which is given to us. Romans 5:5

Chapter 6 [IV.]— The Teaching of Law Without the Life-Giving Spirit is The Letter that Kills

For that teaching which brings to us the command to live in chastity and righteousness is the letter that kills, unless accompanied with thespirit that gives life. For that is not the sole meaning of the passage, The letter kills, but the spirit gives life, 2 Corinthians 3:6 which merely prescribes that we should not take in the literal sense any figurative phrase which in the proper meaning of its words would produce only nonsense, but should consider what else it signifies, nourishing the inner man by our spiritual intelligence, since being carnally-minded is death, while to be spiritually-minded is life and peace. Romans 8:6 If, for instance, a man were to take in a literal and carnal sense much that is written in the Song of Solomon, he would minister not to the fruit of a luminous charity, but to the feeling of a libidinous desire. Therefore, theapostle is not to be confined to the limited application just mentioned, when he says, The letter kills, but the spirit gives life; 2 Corinthians 3:6 but this is also (and indeed especially) equivalent to what he says elsewhere in the plainest words: I had not known lust, except the law had said, You shall not covet; Romans 7:7 and again, immediately after: Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.Romans 7:11 Now from this you may see what is meant by the letter that kills. There is, of course, nothing said figuratively which is not to be accepted in its plain sense, when it is said, You shall not covet; but this is a very plain and salutary precept, and any man who shall fulfil it will have no sin at all. The apostle, indeed, purposely selected this general precept, in which he embraced everything, as if this were the voice of the law, prohibiting us from all sin, when he says, You shall not covet; for there is no sin committed except by evil concupiscence; so that the law which prohibits this is a good and praiseworthy law. But, when the Holy Ghost withholds His help, which inspires us with a good desire instead of this evil desire (in other words, diffuses love in our hearts), that law, however good in itself, only augments the evil desire by forbidding it. Just as the rush of water which flows incessantly in a particular direction, becomes more violent when it meets with anyimpediment, and when it has overcome the stoppage, falls in a greater bulk, and with increased impetuosity hurries forward in its downward course. In some strange way the very object which we covet becomes all the more pleasant when it is forbidden. And this is the sin which by the commandment deceives and by it slays, whenever transgression is actually added, which occurs not where there is no law. Romans 4:15

Chapter 7 [V.]— What is Proposed to Be Here Treated

We will, however, consider, if you please, the whole of this passage of the apostle and thoroughly handle it, as the Lord shall enable us. For I want, if possible, to prove that the apostle’s words, The letter kills, but the spirit gives life, do not refer to figurative phrases—although even in this sense a suitable signification might be obtained from them—but rather plainly to the law, which forbids whatever is evil. When I shall have proved this, it will more manifestly appear that to lead a holy life is the gift of God—not only because God has given a free-will to man, without which there is no living ill or well; nor only because He has given him a commandment to teach him how he ought to live; but because through the Holy Ghost He sheds love abroad in the hearts Romans 7:7 of those whom he foreknew, in order to predestinate them; whom Hepredestinated, that He might call them; whom He called, that he might justify them; and whom he justified, that He might glorify them.Romans 8:29-30 When this point also shall be cleared, you will, I think, see how vain it is to say that those things only are unexampled possibilities, which are the works of God—such as the passage of the camel through the needle’s eye, which we have already referred to, and other similar cases, which to us no doubt are impossible, but easy enough to God; and that man’s righteousness is not to be counted in this class of things, on the ground of its being properly man’s work, not God’s; although there is no reason for supposing, without an example, that his perfection exists, even if it is possible. That these assertions are vain will be clear enough, after it has been also plainly shown that evenman’s righteousness must be attributed to the operation of God, although not taking place without man’s will; and we therefore cannot deny that his perfection is possible even in this life, because all things are possible with God, Mark 10:27 — both those which He accomplishes of His own sole will, and those which He appoints to be done with the cooperation with Himself of His creature’s will. Accordingly, whatever of such things He does not effect is no doubt without an example in the way of accomplished facts, although with God it possesses both in His power the causeof its possibility, and in His wisdom the reason of its unreality. And should this cause be hidden from man, let him not forget that he is a man; nor charge God with folly simply because he cannot fully comprehend His wisdom.

See also:

1. Letter to Rome
2. Letter to the People of Hippo

Via The Anti-Pelagian Writings & Pelagius’ Suspicious Confession

Chapter 2 [II.]—Suspicious Character of Pelagius’ Confession as to the Necessity of Grace for Every Single Act of Ours.

Duccio di Buoninsegna, "Christ Appears to the Apostles Behind Closed Doors" (1308-11)

You informed me in your letter, that you had entreated Pelagius to express in writing his condemnation of all that had been alleged against him; and that he had said, in the audience of you all: “I anathematize the man who either thinks or says that the grace of God, whereby ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,’ 1 Tim i. 15. is not necessary not only for every hour and for every moment, but also for every act of our lives: and those who endeavour to disannul it deserve everlasting punishment.” Now, whoever hears these words, and is ignorant of the opinion which he has clearly enough expressed in his books,—not those, indeed, which he declares to have been stolen from him in an incorrect form, nor those which he repudiates, but those even which he mentions in his own letter which he forwarded to Rome,—would certainly suppose that the views he holds are in strict accordance with the truth. But whoever notices what he openly declares in them, cannot fail to regard these statements with suspicion. Because, although he makes that grace of God whereby Christ came into the world to save sinners to consist simply in the remission of sins, he can still accommodate his words to this meaning, by alleging that the necessity of such grace for every hour and for every moment and for every action of our life, comes to this, that while we recollect and keep in mind the forgiveness of our past sins, we sin no more, aided not by any supply of power from without, but by the powers of our own will as it recalls to our mind, in every action we do, what advantage has been conferred upon us by the remission of sins. Then, again, whereas they are accustomed to say that Christ has given us assistance for avoiding sin, in that He has left us an example by living righteously and teaching what is right Himself, they have it in their power here also to accommodate their words, by affirming that this is the necessity of grace to us for every moment and for every action, namely, that we should in all our conversation regard the example of the Lord’s conversation. Your own fidelity, however, enables you clearly to perceive how such a profession of opinion as this differs from that true confession of grace which is now the question before us. And yet how easily can it be obscured and disguised by their ambiguous statements!

Chapter 3 [III.]—Grace According to the Pelagians.

But why should we wonder at this? For the same Pelagius, who in the Proceedings of the episcopal synod unhesitatingly condemned those who say “that God’s grace and assistance are not given for single acts, but consist in free will, or in law and teaching,” upon which points we were apt to think that he had expended all his subterfuges; and who also condemned such as affirm that the grace of God is bestowed in proportion to our merits:—is proved, notwithstanding, to hold, in the books which he has published on the freedom of the will, and which he mentions in the letter he sent to Rome, no other sentiments than those which he seemingly condemned. For that grace and help of God, by which we are assisted in avoiding sin, he places either in nature and free will, or else in the gift of the law and teaching; the result of which of course is this, that whenever God helps a man, He must be supposed to help him to turn away from evil and do good, by revealing to him and teaching him what he ought to do. We have in these two clauses an explanation of the terms “law” and “teaching,” which Pelagius uses almost technically. but not with the additional assistance of His co-operation and inspiration of love, that he may accomplish that which he had discovered it to be his duty to do.

Chapter 4.—Pelagius’ System of Faculties.

In his system, he posits and distinguishes three faculties, by which he says God’s commandments are fulfilled,—capacity, volition, and action: meaning by “capacity,” that by which a man is able to be righteous; by “volition” that by which he wills to be righteous; by “action,” that by which he actually is righteous. The first of these, the capacity, he allows to have been bestowed on us by the Creator of our nature; it is not in our power, and we possess it even against our will. The other two, however, the volition and the action, he asserts to be our own; and he assigns them to us so strictly as to contend that they proceed simply from ourselves. In short, according to his view, God’s grace has nothing to do with assisting those two faculties which he will have to be altogether our own, the volition and the action, but that only which is not in our own power and comes to us from God, namely the capacity; as if the faculties which are our own, that is, the volition and the action, have such avail for declining evil and doing good, that they require no divine help, whereas that faculty which we have of God, that is to say, the capacity, is so weak, that it is always assisted by the aid of grace.

Chapter 5 [IV.]—Pelagius’ Own Account of the Faculties, Quoted.

Lest, however, it should chance to be said that we either do not correctly understand what he advances, or malevolently pervert to another meaning what he never meant to bear such a sense, I beg of you to consider his own actual words: “We distinguish,” says he, “three things, arranging them in a certain graduated order. We put in the first place ‘ability;’ in the second, ‘volition;’ and in the third, ‘actuality.’ The ‘ability’ we place in our nature, the ‘volition’ in our will, and the ‘actuality’ in the effect. The first, that is, the ‘ability,’ properly belongs to God, who has bestowed it on His creature; the other two, that is, the ‘volition’ and the ‘actuality,’ must be referred to man, because they flow forth from the fountain of the will. For his willing, therefore, and doing a good work, the praise belongs to man; or rather both to man, and to God who has bestowed on him the ‘capacity’ for his will and work, and who evermore by the help of His grace assists even this capacity. That a man is able to will and effect any good work, comes from God alone. So that this one faculty can exist, even when the other two have no being; but these latter cannot exist without that former one. I am therefore free not to have either a good volition or action; but I am by no means able not to have the capacity of good. This capacity is inherent in me, whether I will or no; nor does nature at any time receive in this point freedom for itself. Now the meaning of all this will be rendered clearer by an example or two. That we are able to see with our eyes is not of us; but it is our own that we make a good or a bad use of our eyes. So again (that I may, by applying a general case in illustration, embrace all), that we are able to do, say, think, any good thing, comes from Him who has endowed us with this ‘ability,’ and who also assists this ‘ability;’ but that we really do a good thing, or speak a good word, or think a good thought, proceeds from our own selves, because we are also able to turn all these into evil. Accordingly,—and this is a point which needs frequent repetition, because of your calumniation of us,—whenever we say that a man can live without sin, we also give praise to God by our acknowledgment of the capacity which we have received from Him, who has bestowed such ‘ability’ upon us; and there is here no occasion for praising the human agent, since it is God’s matter alone that is for the moment treated of; for the question is not about ‘willing,’ or ‘effecting,’ but simply and solely about that which may possibly be.”

Chapter 6 [V.]—Pelagius and Paul of Different Opinions.

The whole of this dogma of Pelagius, observe, is carefully expressed in these words, and none other, in the third book of his treatise in defence of the liberty of the will, in which he has taken care to distinguish with so great subtlety these three things,—the “capacity,” the “volition,” and the “action,” that is, the “ability,” the “volition,” and the “actuality,”—that, whenever we read or hear of his acknowledging the assistance of divine grace in order to our avoidance of evil and accomplishment of good,—whatever he may mean by the said assistance of grace, whether law and the teaching or any other thing,—we are sure of what he says; nor can we run into any mistake by understanding him otherwise than he means. For we cannot help knowing that, according to his belief, it is not our “volition” nor our “action” which is assisted by the divine help, but solely our “capacity” to will and act, which alone of the three, as he affirms, we have of God. As if that faculty were infirm which God Himself placed in our nature; while the other two, which, as he would have it, are our own, are so strong and firm and self-sufficient as to require none of His help! so that He does not help us to will, nor help us to act, but simply helps us to the possibility of willing and acting. The apostle, however, holds the contrary, when he says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Phil. ii. 12. And that they might be sure that it was not simply in their being able to work (for this they had already received in nature and in teaching), but in their actual working, that they were divinely assisted, the apostle does not say to them, “For it is God that worketh in you to be able,” as if they already possessed volition and operation among their own resources, without requiring His assistance in respect of these two; but he says, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to perform of His own good pleasure;” Phil. ii. 13. or, as the reading runs in other copies, especially the Greek, “both to will and to operate.” Consider, now, whether the apostle did not thus long before foresee by the Holy Ghost that there would arise adversaries of the grace of God; and did not therefore declare that God works within us those two very things, even “willing” and “operating,” which this man so determined to be our own, as if they were in no wise assisted by the help of divine grace.

See also:

1. Against Pelagius
2. Paul Gerhardt
3. Peter Paul Rubens
4. Paul Tillich

Chapter 5 [III.]—Rebuke Must Not Be Neglected

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, "Nathan Rebukes David"

“Then,” say they, “let those who are over us only prescribe to us what we ought to do, and pray for us that we may do it; but let them not rebuke and censure us if we should not do it.” Certainly let all be done, since the teachers of the churches, the apostles, were in the habit of doing all,—as well prescribing what things should be done, as rebuking if they were not done, and praying that they might be done. The apostle prescribes, saying, “Let all your things be done with love.” 1 Cor. xvi. 14. He rebukes, saying, “Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye have judgments among yourselves. For why do ye not rather suffer wrong? Why are ye not rather defrauded? Nay, ye do wrong and defraud; and that, your brethren. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not possess the kingdom of God?” 1 Cor. vi. 7 et seq. Let us hear him also praying: “And the Lord,” says he, “multiply you, and make you to abound in love one towards another and towards all men.” 1 Thess. iii. 12. He prescribes, that love should be maintained; he rebukes, because love is not maintained; he prays, that love may abound. O man! learn by his precept what you ought to have; learn by his rebuke that it is by your own fault that you have it not; learn by his prayer whence you may receive what you desire to have.

Chapter 6 [IV.]—Objections to the Use of Rebuke

“How,” says he, i.e. the objecting Pelagian. “is it my fault that I have not what I have not received from Him, when unless it is given by Him, there is no other at all whence such and so great a gift can be had?” Suffer me a little, my brethren, not as against you whose heart is right with God, but as against those who mind earthly things, or as against those human modes of thinking themselves, to contend for the truth, of the heavenly and divine grace. For they who say this are such as in their wicked works are unwilling to be rebuked by those who proclaim this grace. “Prescribe to me what I shall do, and if I should do it, give thanks to God for me who has given me to do it; but if I do it not, I must not be rebuked, but He must be besought to give what He has not given; that is, that very believing love of God and of my neighbour by which His precepts are observed. Pray, then, for me that I may receive this, and may by its means do freely and with good will that which He commands. But I should be justly rebuked if by my own fault I had it not; that is, if I myself could give it to myself, or could receive it, and did not do so, or if He should give it and I should be unwilling to receive it. But since even the will itself is prepared Prov. xvi. 1. by the Lord, why dust thou rebuke me because thou seeest me unwilling to do His precepts, and dust not rather ask Him Himself to work in me the will also?”

Chapter 7 [V.]—The Necessity and Advantage of Rebuke

To this we answer: Whoever you are that do not the commandments of God that are already known to you, and do not wish to be rebuked, you must be rebuked even for that very reason that you do not wish to be rebuked. For you do not wish that your faults should be pointed out to you; you do not wish that they should be touched, and that such a useful pain should be caused you that you may seek the Physician; you do not desire to be shown to yourself, that, when you see yourself to be deformed, you may wish for the Reformer, and 474may supplicate Him that you may not continue in that repulsiveness. For it is your fault that you are evil; and it is a greater fault to be unwilling to be rebuked because you are evil, as if faults should either be praised, or regarded with indifference so as neither to be praised nor blamed, or as if, indeed, the dread, or the shame, or the mortification of the rebuked man were of no avail, or were of any other avail in healthfully stimulating, except to cause that He who is good may be besought, and so out of evil men who are rebuked may make good men who may be praised. For what he who will not be rebuked desires to be done for him, when he says, “Pray for me rather,”—he must be rebuked for that very reason that he may himself also do for himself; because that mortification with which he is dissatisfied with himself when he feels the sting of rebuke, stirs him up to a desire for more earnest prayer, Or, “more earnest desire for prayer.” that, by God’s mercy, he may be aided by the increase of love, and cease to do things which are shameful and mortifying, and do things praiseworthy and gladdening. This is the benefit of rebuke that is wholesomely applied, sometimes with greater, sometimes with less severity, in accordance with the diversity of sins; and it is then wholesome when the supreme Physician looks. For it is of no profit unless when it makes a man repent of his sin. And who gives this but He who looked upon the Apostle Peter when he denied, Luke xxii. 61. and made him weep? Whence also the Apostle Paul, after he said that they were to be rebuked with moderation who thought otherwise, immediately added, “Lest perchance God give them repentance, to the acknowledging of the truth, and they recover themselves out of the snares of the devil.”

Chapter 8.—Further Replies to Those Who Object to Rebuke

But wherefore do they, who are unwilling be rebuked, say, “Only prescribe to me, and pray for me that I may do what you prescribe?” Why do they not rather, in accordance with their own evil inclination, reject these things also, and say, “I wish you neither to prescribe to me, nor to pray for me”? For what man is shown to have prayed for Peter, that God should give him the repentance wherewith he bewailed the denial of his Lord? What man instructed Paul in the divine precepts which pertain to the Christian faith? When, therefore, he was heard preaching the gospel, and saying, “For I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it from man, nor did I learn it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ,” Gal. i. 11.—would it be replied to him: “Why are you troubling us to receive and to learn from you that which you have not received nor learnt from man? He who gave to you is able also to give to us in like manner as to you.” Moreover, if they dare not say this, but suffer the gospel to be preached to them by man, although it cannot be given to man by man, let them concede also that they ought to be rebuked by those who are set over them, by whom Christian grace is preached; although it is not denied that God is able, even when no man rebukes, to correct whom He will, and to lead him on to the wholesome mortification of repentance by the most hidden and mighty power of His medicine. And as we are not to cease from prayer on behalf of those whom we desire to be corrected,—even although without any man’s prayer on behalf of Peter, the Lord looked upon him and caused him to bewail his sin,—so we must not neglect rebuke, although God can make those whom He will to be corrected, even when not rebuked. But a man then profits by rebuke when He pities and aids who makes those whom He will to profit even without rebuke. But wherefore these are called to be reformed in one way, those in another way, and others in still another way, after different and innumerable manners, be it far from us to assert that it is the business of the clay to judge, but of the potter.

Chapter 9 [VI]—Why They May Justly Be Rebuked Who Do Not Obey God, Although They Have Not Yet Received the Grace of Obedience

“The apostle says,” say they, “‘For who maketh thee to differ? And what hast thou that thou hast not received? Now also if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?’ 2 Cor. iv. 7. Why, then, are we rebuked, censured, reproved, accused? What do we do, we who have not received?” They who say this wish to appear without blame in respect of their not obeying God, because assuredly obedience itself is His gift; and that gift must of necessity be in him in whom dwells love, which without doubt is of God, 1 John iv. 7. and the Father gives it to His children. “This,” say they, “we have not received. Why, then, are we rebuked, as if we were able to give it to ourselves, and of our own choice would not give it?” And they do not observe that, if they are not yet regenerated, the first reason why, when they are reproached because they are disobedient to God, they ought to be dissatisfied with themselves is, that God made man upright from the beginning of the human creation, Eccles. vii. 30. and there is no unrighteousness with God. Rom. ix. 14. And thus the first depravity, whereby God is not obeyed, is of man, because, falling by his own evil will from the rectitude in which God at first made him, he became depraved. Is, then, that depravity not to be rebuked in a man because it is not peculiar to him who is rebuked, but is common to all? Nay, let that also be rebuked in individuals, which is common to all. For the circumstance that none is altogether free from it is no reason why it should not attach to each man. Those original sins, indeed, are said to be the sins of others, because individuals derived them from their parents; but they are not unreasonably said to be our own also, because in that one, as the apostle says, all have sinned. Rom. iii. 23. Let, then, the damnable source be rebuked, that from the mortification of rebuke may spring the will of regeneration,—if, indeed, he who is rebuked is a child of promise,—in order that, by the noise of the rebuke sounding and lashing from without, God may by His hidden inspiration work in him from within to will also. If, however, being already regenerate and justified, he relapses of his own will into an evil life, assuredly he cannot say, “I have not received,” because of his own free choice to evil he has lost the grace of God, that he had received. And if, stung with compunction by rebuke, he wholesomely bewails, and returns to similar good works, or even better, certainly here most manifestly appears the advantage of rebuke. But yet for rebuke by the agency of man to avail, whether it be of love or not, depends only upon God.

See also:

1. Rebuke & Grace
2. Sin, Death, Grace
3. Heretics & Grace
4. Grace After Luther

Via “A Treatise on Rebuke & Grace”

I Have read your letter—Valentine, my dearly beloved brother, and you who are associated with him in the service of God—which your Love sent by brother Florus and those who came to us with him; and I gave God thanks that I have known your peace in the Lord and agreement in the truth and ardour in love, by your discourse delivered to us. But that an enemy has striven among you to the subversion of some, has, by the mercy of God and His marvellous goodness in turning his arts to the advantage Or according to some mss., “progress.” of His servants, rather availed to this result, that while none of you were cast down for the worse, some were built up for the better. There is therefore no need to reconsider again and again all that I have already transmitted to you, sufficiently argued out in a lengthy treatise; Treatise on Grace and Free Will, see above. for your replies indicate how you have received this. Nevertheless, do not in any wise suppose that, when once read, it can have become sufficiently well known to you. Therefore if you desire to have it exceedingly productive, do not count it a grievance by re-perusal to make it thoroughly familiar; so that you may most accurately. Or, “most clearly.” know what and what kind of questions they are, for the solution and satisfaction of which there arises an authority not human but divine, from which we ought not to depart if we desire to attain to the point whither we are tending.

Chapter 2.—The Catholic Faith Concerning Law, Grace, and Free Will

Now the Lord Himself not only shows us what evil we should shun, and what good we should do, which is all that the letter of the law is able to effect; but He moreover helps us that we may shun evil and do good, (Ps. xxxvii. 27) which none can do without the Spirit of grace; and if this be wanting, the law comes in merely to make us guilty and to slay us. It is on this account that the apostle says, “The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” (2 Cor. iii. 6). He, then, who lawfully uses the law learns therein evil and good, and, not trusting in his own strength, flees to grace, by the help of which he may shun evil and do good. But who is there who flees to grace except when “the steps of a man are ordered by the Lord, and He shall determine his way”? (Ps. xxxvii. 23). And thus also to desire the help of grace is the beginning of grace; of which, says he, “And I said, Now I have begun; this is the change of the right hand of the Most High.” (Ps. lxxvi. 10). It is to be confessed, therefore, that we have free choice to do both evil and good; but in doing evil every one is free from righteousness and a servant of sin, while in doing good no one can be free, unless he have been made free by Him who said, “If the Son shall make you free, then you shall be free indeed.” (John viii. 36). Neither is it thus, that when any one has been made free from the dominion of sin, he no longer needs the help of his Deliverer; but rather thus, that hearing from Him, “Without me ye can do nothing,” (John xv. 5) he himself also says to Him, “Be thou my helper! Forsake me not.” (Ps. xxvii. 9). I rejoice that I have found in our brother Florus also this faith, which without doubt is the true and prophetical and apostolical and catholic faith; whence those are the rather to be corrected—whom indeed I now think to have been corrected by the favour of God—who did not understand him.

Chapter 3 [II.]—What the Grace of God Through Jesus Christ is

For the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord must be apprehended,—as that by which alone men are delivered from evil, and without which they do absolutely no good thing, whether in thought, or will and affection, or in action; not only in order that they may know, by the manifestation of that grace, what should be done, but moreover in order that, by its enabling, they may do with love what they know. Certainly the apostle asked for this inspiration of good will and work on behalf of those to whom he said, “Now we pray to God that ye do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is good.” (2 Cor. xiii. 7). Who can hear this and not awake and confess that we have it from the Lord God that we turn aside from evil and do good?—since the apostle indeed says not, We admonish, we teach, we exhort, we rebuke; but he says, “We pray to God that ye do no evil, but that ye should do that which is good.” (2 Cor. xiii. 7). And yet he was also in the habit of speaking to them, and doing all those things which I have mentioned,—he admonished, he taught, he exhorted, he rebuked. But he knew that all these things which he was doing in the way of planting and watering openly were of no avail unless He who giveth the increase in secret should give heed to his prayer on their behalf. Because, as the same teacher of the Gentiles says, “Neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.” (1 Cor. iii. 7)

See also:

1. Heretics & Grace
2. Even the Pious Resist Grace
3. Sin, Death, Grace
4. On the Grace of Christ and Original Sin

Via Augustine, “The Reality of the Resurrection”

Caravaggio, "Doubting Thomas" (1602-03)

Now, with respect to the resurrection of the body — and by this I do not mean the cases of resuscitation after which people died again, but a resurrection to eternal life after the fashion of Christ’s own body — I have not found a way to discuss it briefly and still give satisfactory answers to all the questions usually raised about it. Yet no Christian should have the slightest doubt as to the fact that the bodies of all men, whether already or yet to be born, whether dead or still to die, will be resurrected. 85. Once this fact is established, then, first of all, comes the question about abortive fetuses, which are indeed “born” in the mother’s womb, but are never so that they could be “reborn.” For, if we say that there is a resurrection for them, then we can agree that at least as much is true of fetuses that are fully formed. But, with regard to undeveloped fetuses, who would not more readily think that they perish, like seeds that did not germinate? f192 But who, then, would dare to deny — though he would not dare to affirm it either — that in the resurrection day what is lacking in the forms of things will be filled out? Thus, the perfection which time would have accomplished will not be lacking, any more than the blemishes wrought by time will still be present. Nature, then, will be cheated of nothing apt and fitting which time’s passage would have brought, nor will anything remain disfigured by anything adverse and contrary which time has wrought. But what is not yet a whole will become whole, just as what has been disfigured will be restored to its full figure. 86. On this score, a corollary question may be most carefully discussed by the most learned men, and still I do not know that any man can answer it, namely: When does a human being begin to live in the womb? Is there some form of hidden life, not yet apparent in the motions of a living thing? To deny, for example, that those fetuses ever lived at all which are cut away limb by limb and cast out of the wombs of pregnant women, lest the mothers die also if the fetuses were left there dead, would seem much too rash. But, in any case, once a man begins to live, it is thereafter possible for him to die. And, once dead, wheresoever death overtook him, I cannot find the basis on which he would not have a share in the resurrection of the dead. 87. By the same token, the resurrection is not to be denied in the cases of monsters which are born and live, even if they quickly die, nor should we believe that they will be raised as they were, but rather in an amended nature and free from faults. Far be it from us to say of that double-limbed man recently born in the Orient — about whom most reliable brethren have giveneyewitness reports and the presbyter Jerome, of holy memory, has left a written account — far be it from us, I say, to suppose that at the resurrection there will be one double man, and not rather two men, as there would have been if they had actually been born twins. So also in other cases, which, because of some excess or defect or gross deformity, are called monsters: at the resurrection they will be restored to the normal human physiognomy, so that every soul will have its own body and not two bodies joined together, even though they were born this way. Every soul will have, as its own, all that is required to complete a whole human body. 88. Moreover, with God, the earthly substance from which the flesh of mortal man is produced does not perish. Instead, whether it be dissolved into dust or ashes, or dispersed intovapors and the winds, or converted into the substance of other bodies (or even back into the basic elements themselves), or has served as food for beasts or even men and been turned into their flesh — in an instant of time this matter returns to the soul that first animated it, and that caused it to become a man, to live and to grow. 89. This earthly matter which becomes a corpse upon the soul’s departure will not, at the resurrection, be so restored that the parts into which it was separated and which have become parts of other things must necessarily return to the same parts of the body in which they were situated — though they do return to the body from which they were separated. Otherwise, to suppose that the hair recovers what frequent clippings have taken off, or the nails get back what trimming has pared off, makes for a wild and wholly unbecoming image in the minds of those who speculate this way and leads them thus to disbelieve in the resurrection. But take the example of a statue made of fusible metal: if it were melted by heat or pounded into dust, or reduced to a shapeless mass, and an artist wished to restore it again from the mass of the same material, it would make no difference to the wholeness of the restored statue which part of it was remade of what part of the metal, so long as the statue, as restored, had been given all the material of which it was originally composed. Just so, God — an artist who works in marvelous and mysterious ways — will restore our bodies, with marvelous and mysterious celerity, out of the whole of the matter of which it was originally composed. And it will make no difference, in the restoration, whether hair returns to hair and nails to nails, or whether the part of this original matter that had perished is turned back into flesh and restored to other parts of the body. The main thing is that the providence of the [divine] Artist takes care that nothing unbecoming will result. 90. Nor does it follow that the stature of each person will be different when brought to life anew because there were differences in stature when first alive, nor that the lean will be raised lean or the fat come back to life in their former obesity. But if this is in the Creator’s plan, that each shall retain his special features and the proper and recognizable likeness of his former self — while an equality of physical endowment will be preserved — then the matter of which each resurrection body is composed will be so disposed that none shall be lost, and any defect will be supplied by Him who can create out of nothing as he wills.

But if in the bodies of those rising again there is to be an intelligible inequality, such as between voices that fill out a chorus, this will be managed by disposing the matter of each body so to bring men into their place in the angelic band and impose nothing on their senses that is inharmonious. For surely nothing unseemly will be there, and whatever is there will be fitting, and this because the unfitting will simply not be. 91. The bodies of the saints, then, shall rise again free from blemish and deformity, just as they will be also free from corruption, encumbrance, or handicap. Their facility [facilitas ] will be as complete as their felicity [felicitas ]. This is why their bodies are called “spiritual,” though undoubtedly they will be bodies and not spirits.

For just as now the body is called “animate” [animale ], though it is a body and not a “spirit” [anima ], so then it will be a “spiritual body,” but still a body and not a spirit.

Accordingly, then, as far as the corruption which weighs down the soul and the vices through which “the flesh lusts against the spirit” are concerned, there will be no “flesh,” but only body, since there are bodies that are called “heavenly bodies.” This is why it is said, “Flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God,” and then, as if to expound what was said, it adds, “Neither shall corruption inherit incorruption.” What the writer first called “flesh and blood” he later called “corruption,” and what he first called “the Kingdom of God” he then later called “incorruption.”

But, as far as the substance of the resurrection body is concerned, it will even then still be “flesh.” This is why the body of Christ is called “flesh” even after the resurrection. Wherefore the apostle also says, “What is sown a natural body [corpus animale ] rises as a spiritual body [corpus spirituale ].” For there will then be such a concord between flesh and spirit — the spirit quickening the servant flesh without any need of sustenance therefrom — that there will be no further conflict within ourselves. And just as there will be no more external enemies to bear with, so neither shall we have to bear with ourselves as enemies within. But whoever are not liberated from that mass of perdition (brought to pass through the first man) by the one Mediator between God and man, they will also rise again, each in his own flesh, but only that they may be punished together with the devil and his angels. Whether these men will rise again with all their faults and deformities, with their diseased and deformed members — is there any reason for us to labor such a question? For obviously the uncertainty about their bodily form and beauty need not weary us, since their damnation is certain and eternal. And let us not be moved to inquire how their body can be incorruptible if it can suffer— or corruptible if it cannot die.

For there is no true life unless it be lived in happiness; no true incorruptibility save where health is unscathed by pain. But where an unhappy being is not allowed to die, then death itself, so to say, dies not; and where pain perpetually afflicts but never destroys, corruption goes on endlessly. This state is called, in the Scripture, “the second death.” Yet neither the first death, in which the soul is compelled to leave its body, nor the second death, in which it is not allowed to leave the body undergoing punishment, would have befallen man if no one had sinned. Surely, the lightest of all punishments will be laid on those who have added no further sin to that originally contracted. Among the rest, who have added further sins to that one, they will suffer a damnation somewhat more tolerable in proportion to the lesser degree of their iniquity.

See also:

1. Augustine on I John & Romans
2. Augustine Bibliography
3. The Benefit & Comfort of the Resurrection
4. Bibliography: Augustine and the Latin West

Via Augustine’s “Against the Donatists”

Masaccio, "The Baptism of the Neophytes" (1425)

Chapter 10.—13. But they think within themselves that they show very great subtlety in asking whether the baptism of Christ in the party of Donatus makes men sons or not; so that, if we allow that it does make them sons, they may assert that theirs is the Church, the mother which could give birth to sons in the baptism of Christ; and since the Church must be one, they may allege that ours is no Church. But if we say that it does not make them sons, “Why then,” say they, “do you not cause those who pass from us to you to be born again in baptism, after they have been baptized with us, if they are not thereby born as yet?”

14. Just as though their party gained the power of generation in virtue of what constitutes its division, and not from what causes its union with the Church. For it is severed from the bond of peace and charity, but it is joined in one baptism. And so there is one Church which alone is called Catholic; and whenever it has anything of its own in these communions of different bodies which are separate from itself, it is most certainly in virtue of this which is its own in each of them that it, not they, has the power of generation. For neither is it their separation that generates, but what they have retained of the essence of the Church; and if they were to go on to abandon this, they would lose the power of generation. The generation, then, in each case proceeds from the Church, whose sacraments are retained, from which any such birth can alone in any case proceed,—although not all who receive its birth belong to its unity, which shall save those who persevere even to the end. Nor is it those only that do not belong to it who are openly guilty of the manifest sacrilege of schism, but also those who, being outwardly joined to its unity, are yet separated by a life of sin. For the Church had herself given birth to Simon Magus through the sacrament of baptism; and yet it was declared to him that he had no part in the inheritance of Christ. Acts viii. 13, 21. Did he lack anything in respect of baptism, of the gospel, of the sacraments? But in that he wanted charity, he was born in vain; and perhaps it had been well for him that he had never been born at all. Was anything wanting to their birth to whom the apostle says, “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat, even as babes in Christ”? Yet he recalls them from the sacrilege of schism, into which they were rushing, because they were carnal: “I have fed you,” he says, “with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not men?” 1 Cor. iii. 1-4. For of these he says above: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chlöe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” 1 Cor. i. 10-13. These, therefore, if they continued in the same perverse obstinacy, were doubtless indeed born, but yet would not belong by the bond of peace and unity to the very Church in respect of which they were born. Therefore she herself bears them in her own womb and in the womb of her handmaids, by virtue of the same sacraments, as though by virtue of the seed of her husband. For it is not without meaning that the apostle says that all these things were done by way of figure. 1 Cor. x. 11. But those who are too proud, and are not joined to their lawful mother, are like Ishmael, of whom it is said, “Cast out this bond-woman and her Son: for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” Gen. xxi. 10. But those who peacefully love the lawful wife of their father, whose sons they are by lawful descent, are like the sons of Jacob, born indeed of handmaids, but yet receiving the same inheritance. Gen. xxx. 3. But those who are born within the family, of the womb of the mother herself, and then neglect the grace they have received, are like Isaac’s son Esau, who was rejected, God Himself bearing witness to it, and saying, “I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau;” Mal. i. 2, 3; Gen xxv. 24. and that though they were twin-brethren, the offspring of the same womb.

See also:

1. Infant Baptism
2. On Baptism & Salvation

Via Augustine’s Anti-Pelagian Writings

Chapter 2.—Why Heretical Writings Must Be Answered.

Augustine Refuting a Heretic

For the new heretics, enemies of the grace of God which is given by Jesus Christ our Lord to small and great, although they are already shown more openly to need to be avoided by a manifest disapprobation, still do not cease by their writings to try the hearts of the less cautious and less learned. And these must certainly be answered, lest they should confirm themselves or their friends in that wicked error; even if we were not afraid that they might deceive some one of the catholics by their plausible discourse. But since they do not cease to growl at the entrances to the Lord’s fold, and from every side to tear open approaches with a view to tear in pieces the sheep redeemed at such a price; and since the pastoral watch-tower is common to all of us who discharge the office of the episcopate (although you are prominent therein on a loftier height), I do what I can in respect of my small portion of the charge, as the Lord condescends by the aid of your prayers to grant me power, to oppose to their pestilent and crafty writings, healing and defensive writings, so that the madness with which they are raging may either itself be cured, or may be prevented from hurting others.

Chapter 6 [III.]—Grace is Not Given According to Merits.

But lest perchance they say that they are aided to this,—that they may “have power to become the sons of God,” but that they may deserve to receive this power they have first “received Him” by free will with no assistance of grace (because this is the purpose of their endeavour to destroy grace, that they may contend that it is given according to our deservings); lest perchance, then, they so divide that evangelical statement as to refer merit to that portion of it wherein it is said, “But as many as received Him,” and then say that in that which follows, “He gave them power to become the sons of God,” grace is not given freely, but is repaid to this merit; if it is asked of them what is the meaning of “received Him,” will they say anything else than “believed on Him”? And in order, therefore, that they may know that this also pertains to grace, let them read what the apostle says: “And that ye be in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which indeed is to them a cause of perdition, but of your salvation, and that of God; for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” Phil. i. 28, 29. Certainly he said that both were given. Let them read what he said also: “Peace be to the brethren, and love, with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Eph. vi. 23. Let them also read what the Lord Himself says: “No man can come to me, except the Father who hath sent me shall draw him.” John vi. 44. Where, lest any one should suppose that anything else is said in the words “come to me” than “believe in me,” a little after, when He was speaking of His body and blood, and many were offended at His discourse, He says, “The words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and life; but there are some of you which believe not.” John vi. 64. Then the Evangelist added, “For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed, and who should betray Him. And He said, Therefore I said unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given him of my Father.” John vi. 64 ff. He repeated, to wit, the saying in which He had said, “No man can come unto me, except the Father who hath sent me shall draw him.” And He declared that He said this for the sake of believers and unbelievers, explaining what He had said, “except the Father who hath sent me shall draw him,” by repeating the very same thing in other words in that which He said, “except it were given him of my Father.” Because he is drawn to Christ to whom it is given to believe on Christ. Therefore the power is given that they who believe on Him should become the sons of God, since this very thing is given, that they believe on Him. And unless this power be given from God, out of free will there can be none; because it will not be free for good if the deliverer have not made it free; but in evil he has a free will in whom a deceiver, either secret or manifest, has grafted the love of wickedness, or he himself has persuaded himself of it.

See also:

1. Sin, Death, Grace
2. Grace After Luther
3. On the Grace of Christ and Original Sin
4. Even the Pious Resist Grace

Via Augustine, The Writings Against the Manichaeans and the Donatists

Chapter 15.—23. For it is the Church that gives birth to all, either within her pale, of her own womb; or beyond it, of the seed of her bridegroom.

Bertram of Minden, "Isaac asks Esau to hunt for venison" (1383)

But Esau, even though born of the lawful wife, was separated from the people of God because he quarrelled with his brother. And Asher, born indeed by the authority of a wife, but yet of a handmaid, was admitted to the land of promise on account of his brotherly good-will. Whence also it was not the being born of a handmaid, but his quarrelling with his brother, that stood in the way of Ishmael, to cause his separation from the people of God; and he received no benefit from the power of the wife, whose son he rather was, inasmuch as it was in virtue of her conjugal rights that he was both conceived in and born of the womb of the handmaid. Just as with the Donatists it is by the right of the Church, which exists in baptism, that whosoever is born receives his birth; but if they agree with their brethren, through the unity of peace they come to the land of promise, not to be again cast out from the bosom of their true mother, but to be acknowledged in the seed of their father; but if they persevere in discord, they will belong to the line of Ishmael. For Ishmael was first, and then Isaac; and Esau was the elder, Jacob the younger. Not that heresy gives birth before the Church, or that the Church herself gives birth first to those who are carnal or animal, and afterwards to those who are spiritual; but because, in the actual lot of our mortality, in which we are born of the seed of Adam, “that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.” 1 Cor. xv. 46. But from mere animal sensation, because “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,” 1 Cor. ii. 14. arise all dissensions and schisms. And the apostle says (Gal. iv.) that all who persevere in this animal sensation belong to the old covenant. that is, to the desire of earthly promises, which are indeed the type of the spiritual; but “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.” Cor. ii. 14.

24. At whatever time, therefore, men have begun to be of such a nature in this life, that, although they have partaken of such divine sacraments as were appointed for the dispensation under which they lived, they yet savor of carnal things, and hope for and desire carnal things from God, whether in this life or afterwards, they are yet carnal. But the Church, which is the people of God, is an ancient institution even in the pilgrimage of this life, having a carnal interest in some men, a spiritual interest in others. To the carnal belongs the old covenant, to the spiritual the new. But in the first days both were hidden, from Adam even to Moses. But by Moses the old covenant was made manifest, and in it was hidden the new covenant, because after a secret fashion it was typified. But so soon as the Lord came in the flesh, the new covenant was revealed; yet, though the sacraments of the old covenant passed away; the dispositions peculiar to it did not pass away. For they still exist in those whom the apostle declares to be already born indeed by the sacrament of the new covenant, but yet capable, as being natural, of receiving the things of the Spirit of God. For, as in the sacraments of the old covenant some persons were already spiritual, belonging secretly to the new covenant, which was then concealed, so now also in the sacrament of the new covenant, which has been by this time revealed, many live who are natural. And if they will not advance to receive the things of the Spirit of God, to which the discourse of the apostle urges them, they will still belong to the old covenant. But if they advance, even before they receive them, yet by their very advance and approach they belong to the new covenant; and if, before becoming spiritual, they are snatched away from this life, yet through the protection of the holiness of the sacrament they are reckoned in the land of the living, where the Lord is our hope and our portion. Nor can I find any truer interpretation of the scripture, “Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect” Ps. cxxxix. 16. considering what follows, “And in Thy book shall all be written.”

See also:

1. Letter to the People of Hippo
2. God’s People

Via Augustine’s City of God

Adriaen van Stalbemt, "Paul & Barnabas at Lystra"

Argument—In this book it is shown that eternal life is not obtained by the worship of Janus, Jupiter, Saturn, and the other “select gods” of the civil theology.

Preface.

It will be the duty of those who are endowed with quicker and better understandings, in whose case the former books are sufficient, and more than sufficient, to effect their intended object, to bear with me with patience and equanimity whilst I attempt with more than ordinary diligence to tear up and eradicate depraved and ancient opinions hostile to the truth of piety, which the long-continued error of the human race has fixed very deeply in unenlightened minds; co-operating also in this, according to my little measure, with the grace of Him who, being the true God, is able to accomplish it, and on whose help I depend in my work; and, for the sake of others, such should not deem superfluous what they feel to be no longer necessary for themselves. A very great matter is at stake when the true and truly holy divinity is commended to men as that which they ought to seek after and to worship; not, however, on account of the transitory vapor of mortal life, but on account of life eternal, which alone is blessed, although the help necessary for this frail life we are now living is also afforded us by it.

Chapter 1.—Whether, Since It is Evident that Deity is Not to Be Found in the Civil Theology, We are to Believe that It is to Be Found in the Select Gods.

If there is any one whom the sixth book, which I have last finished, has not persuaded that this divinity, or, so to speak, deity—for this word also our authors do not hesitate to use, in order to translate more accurately that which the Greeks call θεότης;—if there is any one, I say, whom the sixth book has not persuaded that this divinity or deity is not to be found in that theology which they call civil, and which Marcus Varro has explained in sixteen books,—that is, that the happiness of eternal life is not attainable through the worship of gods such as states have established to be worshipped, and that in such a form,—perhaps, when he has read this book, he will not have anything further to desire in order to the clearing up of this question. For it is possible that some one may think that at least the select and chief gods, whom Varro comprised in his last book, and of whom we have not spoken sufficiently, are to be worshipped on account of the blessed life, which is none other than eternal. In respect to which matter I do not say what Tertullian said, perhaps more wittily than truly, “If gods are selected like onions, certainly the rest are rejected as bad.” Tert. Apol. 13, Nec electio sine reprobatione;and Ad Nationes, ii. 9, Si dei bulbi seliguntur, qui non seliguntur, reprobi pronuntiantur. I do not say this, for I see that even from among the select, some are selected for some greater and more excellent office: as in warfare, when recruits have been elected, there are some again elected from among those for the performance of some greater military service; and in the church, when persons are elected to be overseers, certainly the rest are not rejected, since all good Christians are deservedly called elect; in the erection of a building corner-stones are elected, though the other stones, which are destined for other parts of the structure, are not rejected; grapes are elected for eating, whilst the others, which we leave for drinking, are not rejected. There is no need of adducing many illustrations, since the thing is evident. Wherefore the selection of certain gods from among many affords no proper reason why either he who wrote on this subject, or the worshippers of the gods, or the gods themselves, should be spurned. We ought rather to seek to know what gods these are, and for what purpose they may appear to have been selected.

See also:

1. True Wisdom
2. What All Men Understand by the Term God

Via The City of God Chapter 1

Chapter 1.— Of the Adversaries of the Name of Christ, Whom the Barbarians for Christ’s Sake Spared When They Stormed the City.

Gustave Doré, "Death on the Pale Horse" (1865)

For to this earthly city belong the enemies against whom I have to defend the city of God. Many of them, indeed, being reclaimed from their ungodly error, have become sufficiently creditable citizens of this city; but many are so inflamed with hatred against it, and are so ungrateful to its Redeemer for His signal benefits, as to forget that they would now be unable to utter a single word to its prejudice, had they not found in its sacred places, as they fled from the enemy’s steel, that life in which they now boast themselves. Are not those very Romans, who were spared by the barbarians through their respect for Christ, become enemies to the name of Christ? The reliquaries of the martyrs and the churches of the apostles bear witness to this; for in the sack of the city they were open sanctuary for all who fled to them, whether Christian or Pagan. To their very threshold the blood-thirsty enemy raged; there his murderous fury owned a limit. Thither did such of the enemy as had any pity convey those to whom they had given quarter, lest any less mercifully disposed might fall upon them. And, indeed, when even those murderers who everywhere else showed themselves pitiless came to those spots where that was forbidden which the license of war permitted in every other place, their furious rage for slaughter was bridled, and their eagerness to take prisoners was quenched. Thus escaped multitudes who now reproach the Christian religion, and impute to Christ the ills that have befallen their city; but the preservation of their own life— a boon which they owe to the respect entertained for Christ by the barbarians— they attribute not to our Christ, but to their own good
luck. They ought rather, had they any right perceptions, to attribute the severities and hardships inflicted by their enemies, to that divine providence which is wont to reform the depraved manners of men by chastisement, and which exercises with similar afflictions the righteous and praiseworthy—either translating them, when they have passed through the trial, to a better world, or detaining them still on earth for ulterior purposes. And they ought to attribute it to the spirit of these Christian times, that, contrary to the custom of war, these bloodthirsty barbarians spared them, and spared them for Christ’s sake, whether this mercy was actually shown in promiscuous places, or in those places specially dedicated to Christ’s name, and of which the very largest were selected as sanctuaries, that full scope might thus be given to the expansive compassion which desired that a large multitude might find shelter there. Therefore ought they to give God thanks, and with sincere confession flee for refuge to His name, that so they may escape the punishment of eternal fire— they who with lying lips took upon them this name, that they might escape the punishment of present destruction. For of those whom you see insolently and shamelessly insulting the servants of Christ, there are numbers who would not have escaped that destruction and slaughter had they not pretended that they themselves were Christ’s servants. Yet now, in ungrateful pride and most impious madness, and at the risk of being punished in everlasting darkness, they perversely oppose that name under which they fraudulently protected themselves for the sake of enjoying the light of this brief life.

Via Augustine’s ‘Two Letters to Valentinus,” chapters 6, 11, 12

Chapter 6 [IV.] – God’s Grace to Be Maintained Against the Pelagians; The Pelagian Heresy Not an Old One.

Folio 129v of the St. Augustine Gospels, depicting Luke

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 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.” (Jer. xvii. 5).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 human frailty. 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.” (Ps. xxvii. 9).

Chapter 11. – Other Passages 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.” (2 Chron. xv. 2). 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, 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.” (1 Chron. xxviii. 9). 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.” (Rom. iv. 4).

Chapter 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.” (1 Cor. xv. 9). 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.” (1 Cor. xv. 10). Then, in order to exhibit also his free will, he added in the next clause, “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.” (2 Cor. vi. 1). 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.” (1 Cor. xv. 10). In other words, Not I alone, but the grace of God with me. 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.” (2 Tim. i. 8, 9). 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.” (Titus iii. 3). 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.” (Titus iii. 4–7).

Via Augustine’s Enchiridion, Chapters 3, 4, and 5

CHAP. 3.–GOD IS TO BE WORSHIPPED THROUGH FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE.

Now if I should answer, that God is to be worshipped with faith, hope, and love, you will at once say that this answer is too brief, and will ask me briefly to unfold the objects of each of these three graces, viz., what we are to believe, what we are to hope for, and what we are to love. And when I have done this, you will have an answer to all the questions you asked in your letter. If you have kept a copy of your letter, you can easily turn it up and read it over again: if you have not, you will have no difficulty in recalling it when I refresh your memory.

CHAP. 4.–THE QUESTIONS PROPOUNDED BY LAURENTIUS.

You are anxious, you say, that I should write a sort of handbook for you, which you might always keep beside you, containing answers to the questions you put, viz.: what ought to be man’s chief end in life; what he ought, in view of the various heresies, chiefly to avoid; to what extent religion is supported by reason; what there is in reason that lends no support to faith, when faith stands alone; what is the starting-point, what the goal, of religion; what is the sum of the whole body of doctrine; what is the sure and proper foundation of the catholic faith. Now, undoubtedly, you will know the answers to all these questions, if you know thoroughly the proper objects of faith, hope, and love. For these must be the chief, nay, the exclusive objects of pursuit in religion. He who speaks against these is either a total stranger to the name of Christ, or is a heretic. These are to be defended by reason, which must have its starting-point either in the bodily senses or in the intuitions of the mind. And what we have neither had experience of through our bodily senses, nor have been able to reach through the intellect, must undoubtedly be believed on the testimony of those witnesses by whom the Scriptures, justly called divine, were written; and who by divine assistance were enabled, either through bodily sense or intellectual perception, to see or to foresee the things in question.

CHAP. 5.–BRIEF ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS.

Moreover, when the mind has been imbued with the first elements of that faith which worketh by love, it endeavors by purity of life to attain unto sight, where the pure and [perfect in heart know that unspeakable beauty, the full vision of which is supreme happiness. Here surely is an answer to your question as to what is the starting-point, and what the goal: we begin in faith, and are made perfect by sight. This also is the sum of the whole body of doctrine. But the sure and proper foundation of the catholic faith is Christ. “For other foundation,” says the apostle, “can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Nor are we to deny that this is the proper foundation of the catholic faith, because it may be supposed that some heretics hold this in common with us. For if we carefully consider the things that pertain to Christ, we shall find that, among those heretics who call themselves Christians, Christ is present in name only: in deed and in truth He is not among them. But to show this would occupy us too long, for we should require to go over all the heresies which have existed, which do exist, or which could exist, under the Christian name, and to show that this is true in the case of each,–a discussion which would occupy so many volumes as to be all but interminable.

See also:

1. Truth in Love
2. What Wondrous Love is This

Via Augustine’s Enchiridion, Chapters 1 & 2. The Enchiridion is among the latest books of Augustine. It was written after the death of Jerome, which occurred Sept. 30, 420; for he alludes in ch. 87 to Jerome “of blessed memory” (sanctoe memorioe Hieronymus presbyter). It is addressed to Laurentius, in answer to his questions. This person is otherwise unknown. One MS. calls him a deacon, another a notary of the city of Rome. He was probably a layman. The author usually calls the book “On Faith, Hope and Love,” because he treats the subject under these three heads (comp. I Cor. xiii. 13). He follows under the first head the order of the Apostles’ Creed, and refutes, without naming them, the Manichaean, Apollinarian, Arian, and Pelagian heresies. Under the second head he gives a brief exposition of the Lord’s Prayer. The third part is a discourse on Christian love.

I CANNOT express, my beloved son Laurentius, the delight with which I witness your progress in knowledge, and the earnest desire I have that you should be a wise man: not one of those of whom it is said, “Where is the wise ? where is the scribe ? where is the disputer of this world ? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” but one of those of whom it is said, “The multitude of the wise is the welfare of the world,”‘ and such as the apostles wishes those to become, whom he tells,” I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.” Now, just as no one can exist of himself, so no one can be wise of himself, but only by the enlightening influence of Him of whom it is written,” All wisdom cometh from the Lord.”

The true wisdom of man is piety. You find this in the book of holy Job. For we read there what wisdom itself has said to man: “Behold, the fear of the Lord [pietas], that is wisdom.” If you ask further what is meant in that place by pietas, the Greek calls it more definitely qeosebeia, that is, the worship of God. The Greeks sometimes call piety eusebeia, which signifies right worship, though this, of course, refers specially to the worship of God. But when we are defining in what man’s true wisdom consists, the most convenient word to use is that which distinctly expresses the fear of God. And can you, who are anxious that I should treat of great matters in few words, wish for a briefer form of expression? Or perhaps you are anxious that this expression should itself be briefly explained, and that I should unfold in a short discourse the proper mode of worshipping God?

See also:

1. Wisdom Literature for the Family
2. True & False Worship

Anti-Pelagian Writings, Chapter 24 [XIX.]—Infants Saved as Sinners.

And let no one suppose that infants ought to be brought to baptism, on the ground that, as they are not sinners, so they are not righteous; how then do some remind us that the Lord commends this tender age as meritorious; saying, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven?” Matt. xix. 14. For if this [“of such”] is not said because of likeness in humility (since humility makes [us] children), but because of the laudable life of children, then of course infants must be righteous persons; otherwise, it could not be correctly said, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven,” for heaven can only belong to the righteous. But perhaps, after all, it is not a right opinion of the meaning of the Lord’s words, to make Him commend the life of infants when He says, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven;” inasmuch as that may be their true sense, which makes Christ adduce the tender age of infancy as a likeness of humility. Even so, however, perhaps we must revert to the tenet which I mentioned just now, that infants ought to be baptized, because, although they are not sinners, they are yet not righteous. But when He had said: “I came not to call the righteous,” as if responding to this, Whom, then, didst Thou come to call? immediately He goes on to say: “—but sinners to repentance.” Therefore it follows, that, however righteous they may be, if also they are not sinners, He came not to call them, who said of Himself: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” They therefore seem, not vainly only, but even wickedly to rush to the baptism of Him who does not invite them,—an opinion which God forbid that we should entertain. He calls them, then, as a Physician who is not needed for those that are whole, but for those that are sick; and who came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Now, inasmuch as infants are not held bound by any sins of their own actual life, it is the guilt of original sin which is healed in them by the grace of Him who saves them by the laver of regeneration.

Chapter 25.—Infants are Described as Believers and as Penitents. Sins Alone Separate Between God and Men.

Some one will say: How then are mere infants called to repentance? How can such as they repent of anything? The answer to this is: If they must not be called penitents because they have not the sense of repenting, neither must they be called believers, because they likewise have not the sense of believing. But if they are rightly called believers, [See below, c. 26 and 40; also Book iii. c. 2; also Epist. 98, and Serm. 294.] because they in a certain sense profess faith by the words of their parents, why are they not also held to be before that penitents when they are shown to renounce the devil and this world by the profession again of the same parents? The whole of this is done in hope, in the strength of the sacrament and of the divine grace which the Lord has bestowed upon the Church. But yet who knows not that the baptized infant fails to be benefited from what he received as a little child, if on coming to years of reason he fails to believe and to abstain from unlawful desires? If, however, the infant departs from the present life after he has received baptism, the guilt in which he was involved by original sin being done away, he shall be made perfect in that light of truth, which, remaining unchangeable for evermore, illumines the justified in the presence of their Creator. For sins alone separate between men and God; and these are done away by Christ’s grace, through whom, as Mediator, we are reconciled, when He justifies the ungodly.

Via Retractions Volume 1

Chapter 42.—From the First Epistle of John.

Moreover, from John’s Epistle I meet with the following words, which seem indispensable to the solution of this question: “But if,” says he, “we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John i. 7. To the like import he says, in another place: “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God, which is greater because He hath testified of His Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar; because he believed not in the testimony that God testified of His Son. And this is the testimony, that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” 1 John v. 9–12. It seems, then, that it is not only the kingdom of heaven, but life also, which infants are not to have, if they have not the Son, whom they can only have by His baptism. So again he says: “For this cause the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” 1 John iii. 8. Therefore infants will have no interest in the manifestation of the Son of God, if He do not in them destroy the works of the devil.

Chapter 43.—From the Epistle to the Romans.

Let me now request your attention to the testimony of the Apostle Paul on this subject. And quotations from him may of course be made more abundantly, because he wrote more epistles, and because it fell to him to recommend the grace of God with especial earnestness, in opposition to those who gloried in their works, and who, ignorant of God’s righteousness, and wishing to establish their own, submitted not to the righteousness of God. Rom. x. 3. In his Epistle to the Romans he writes: “The righteousness of God is upon all them that believe; for there is no difference; since all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission [This is the reading of the Vulgate, as well as of the Greek; but Augustin, following an Old Latin reading, actually has propositum, instead of remissionem.—W.] of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness; that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” Rom. iii. 22–26. Then in another passage he says: “To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin.” Rom. iv. 4–8. And then after no long interval he observes: “Now, it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” Rom. iv. 23–25. Then a little after he writes: “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Rom. v. 6. In another passage he says: “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I know not: for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. vii. 14–25. Let them, who can, say that men are not born in the body of this death, that so they may be able to affirm that they have no need of God’s grace through Jesus Christ in order to be delivered from the body of this death. Therefore he adds, a few verses afterwards: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” Rom. viii. 3. Let them say, who dare, that Christ must have been born in the likeness of sinful flesh, if we were not born in sinful flesh.

See also:

1. Augustine Bibliography
2. Bibliography: Augustine and the Latin West
3. The Apocalypse of St John
4. An Easter Sermon from John Chrysostom

To His Well-Beloved Brethren the Clergy, and to the Whole People [of Hippo], Augustine Sends Greeting in the Lord.

1. In the first place, I beseech you, my friends, and implore you, for Christ’s sake, not to let my bodily absence grieve you. For I suppose you do not imagine that I could by any means be separated in spirit and in unfeigned love from you, although perchance it is even a greater grief to me than to you that my weakness unfits me for bearing all the cares which are laid on me by those members of Christ to whose service both fear of Him and love to them constrain me to devote myself. For you know this, my beloved, that I have never absented myself from you through self-indulgent taking of ease, but only when compelled by such duties as have made it necessary for some of my holy colleagues and brethren to endure, both on the sea and in countries beyond the sea, labours from which I was exempted, not because of reluctance of spirit, but by reason of imperfect bodily health. Wherefore, my dearly-beloved brethren, act so that, as the apostle says, whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. Philippians 1:27 If any vexation pertaining to time causes you distress, this itself ought the more to remind you how you should occupy your thoughts with that life in which you may live without any burden, escaping not the annoying hardships of this short life, but the dread flames of eternal fire. For if you strive with so much anxiety, so much earnestness, and so much labour, to save yourselves from falling into some transient sufferings in this world, how solicitous ought you to be to escape everlasting misery! And if the death which puts an end to the labours of time is so feared, how ought we to fear the death which ushers men into eternal pain! And if the short-lived and sordid pleasures of this world are so loved, with how much greater earnestness ought we to seek the pure and infinite joys of the world to come! Meditating upon these things, be not slothful in good works, that you may come in due season to reap what you have sown.

2. It has been reported to me that you have forgotten your custom of providing raiment for the poor, to which work of charity I exhorted you when I was present with you; and I now exhort you not to allow yourselves to be overcome and made slothful by the tribulation of this world, which you see now visited with such calamities as were foretold by our Lord and Redeemer, who cannot lie. You ought in present circumstances not to be less diligent in works of charity, but rather to be more abundant in these than you were wont to be. For as men betake themselves in greater haste to a place of greater security when they see in the shaking of their walls the ruin of their house impending, so ought Christians, the more that they perceive, from the increasing frequency of their afflictions, that the destruction of this world is at hand, to be the more prompt and active in transferring to the treasury of heaven the goods which they were proposing to store up on earth, in order that, if any accident common to the lot of men occur, he may rejoice who has escaped from a dwelling doomed to ruin; and if, on the other hand, nothing of this kind happen, he may be exempt from painful solicitude who, die when he may, has committed his possessions to the keeping of the ever-living Lord, to whom he is about to go. Wherefore, my dearly-beloved brethren, let every one of you, according to his ability, of which he himself is the best judge, do with a portion of his substance as you were wont to do; do it also with a more willing mind than you were wont; and amid all the vexations of this life bear in your hearts the apostolic exhortation: The Lord is at hand: be careful for nothing. Philippians 4:5-6 Let such things be reported to me concerning you as may make me understand that it is not through my presence with you, but from obedience to the precept of God, who is never absent, that you follow that good practice which for many years while I was with you, and for some time after my departure, you observed.

May the Lord preserve you in peace! And, dearly-beloved brethren, pray for us.

See also:

1. God’s People

Via Augustine’s Anti-Pelagian Writings vol. 1, “A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins,…”

Chapter 33.—Christ is the Saviour and Redeemer Even of Infants.

Let us therefore give in and yield our assent to the authority of Holy Scripture, which knows not how either to be deceived or to deceive; and as we do not believe that men as yet unborn have done any good or evil for raising a difference in their moral deserts, so let us by no means doubt that all men are under sin, which came into the world by one man and has passed through unto all men; and from which nothing frees us but the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. [XXIII.] His remedial advent is needed by those that are sick, not by the whole: for He came not to call the righteous, but sinners; and into His kingdom shall enter no one that is not born again of water and the Spirit; nor shall any one attain salvation and eternal life except in His kingdom,—since the man who believes not in the Son, and eats not His flesh, shall not have life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. Now from this sin, from this sickness, from this wrath of God (of which by nature they are children who have original sin, even if they have none of their own on account of their youth), none delivers them, except the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world; John i. 29. except the Physician, who came not for the sake of the sound, but of the sick; except the Saviour, concerning whom it was said to the human race: “Unto you there is born this day a Saviour;” Luke ii. 11. except the Redeemer, by whose blood our debt is blotted out. For who would dare to say that Christ is not the Saviour and Redeemer of infants? But from what does He save them, if there is no malady of original sin within them? From what does He redeem them, if through their origin from the first man they are not sold under sin? Let there be then no eternal salvation promised to infants out of our own opinion, without Christ’s baptism; for none is promised in that Holy Scripture which is to be preferred to all human authority and opinion.

Chapter 34 [XXIV.]—Baptism is Called Salvation, and the Eucharist, Life, by the Christians of Carthage.

The Christians of Carthage have an excellent name for the sacraments, when they say that baptism is nothing else than “salvation,” and the sacrament of the body of Christ nothing else than “life.” Whence, however, was this derived, but from that primitive, as I suppose, and apostolic tradition, by which the Churches of Christ maintain it to be an inherent principle, that without baptism and partaking of the supper of the Lord it is impossible for any man to attain either to the kingdom of God or to salvation and everlasting life? So much also does Scripture testify, according to the words which we already quoted. For wherein does their opinion, who designate baptism by the term salvation, differ from what is written: “He saved us by the washing of regeneration?” Tit. iii. 5. or from Peter’s statement: “The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us?” 1 Pet. iii. 21. And what else do they say who call the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper life, than that which is written: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven;” John vi. 51. and “The bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world;” John vi. 51. and “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye shall have no life in you?” John vi. 53. If, therefore, as so many and such divine witnesses agree, neither salvation nor eternal life can be hoped for by any man without baptism and the Lord’s body and blood, it is vain to promise these blessings to infants without them. Moreover, if it be only sins that separate man from salvation and eternal life, there is nothing else in infants which these sacraments can be the means of removing, but the guilt of sin,—respecting which guilty nature it is written, that “no one is clean, not even if his life be only that of a day.” Job xiv. 4. Whence also that exclamation of the Psalmist: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me!” Ps. li. 5. This is either said in the person of our common humanity, or if of himself only David speaks, it does not imply that he was born of fornication, but in lawful wedlock. We therefore ought not to doubt that even for infants yet to be baptized was that precious blood shed, which previous to its actual effusion was so given, and applied in the sacrament, that it was said, “This is my blood, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins.” Matt. xxvi. 28. Now they who will not allow that they are under sin, deny that there is any liberation. For what is there that men are liberated from, if they are held to be bound by no bondage of sin?

Chapter 35.—Unless Infants are Baptized, They Remain in Darkness.

“I am come,” says Christ, “a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.” John xii. 46. Now what does this passage show us, but that every person is in darkness who does not believe on Him, and that it is by believing on Him that he escapes from this permanent state of darkness? What do we understand by the darkness but sin? And whatever else it may embrace in its meaning, at any rate he who believes not in Christ will “abide in darkness,”—which, of course, is a penal state, not, as the darkness of the night, necessary for the refreshment of living beings. [XXV.] So that infants, unless they pass into the number of believers through the sacrament which was divinely instituted for this purpose, will undoubtedly remain in this darkness.

Chapter 36.—Infants Not Enlightened as Soon as They are Born.

Some, however, understand that as soon as children are born they are enlightened; and they derive this opinion from the passage: “That was the true Light, which lighteth every one that cometh into the world.” John i. 9. Well, if this be the case, it is quite astonishing how it can be that those who are thus enlightened by the only-begotten Son, who was in the beginning the Word with God, and [Himself] God, are not admitted into the kingdom of God, nor are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. For that such an inheritance is not bestowed upon them except through baptism, even they who hold the opinion in question do acknowledge. Then, again, if they are (though already illuminated) thus unfit for entrance into the kingdom of God, they at all events ought gladly to receive the baptism, by which they are fitted for it; but, strange to say, we see how reluctant infants are to submit to baptism, resisting even with strong crying. And this ignorance of theirs we think lightly of at their time of life, so that we fully administer the sacraments, which we know to be serviceable to them, even although they struggle against them. And why, too, does the apostle say, “Be not children in understanding,” 1 Cor. xiv. 20. if their minds have been already enlightened with that true Light, which is the Word of God?

Chapter 37.—How God Enlightens Every Person.

That statement, therefore, which occurs in the gospel, “That was the true Light, which lighteth every one that cometh into the world,” John i. 9. has this meaning, that no man is illuminated except with that Light of the truth, which is God; so that no person must think that he is enlightened by him whom he listens to as a learner, although that instructor happen to be—I will not say, any great man—but even an angel himself. For the word of truth is applied to man externally by the ministry of a bodily voice, but yet “neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.” 1 Cor. iii. 7. Man indeed hears the speaker, be he man or angel, but in order that he may perceive and know that what is said is true, his mind is internally besprinkled with that light which remains for ever, and which shines even in darkness. But just as the sun is not seen by the blind, though they are clothed as it were with its rays, so is the light of truth not understood by the darkness of folly.

Via Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, Book IV

Chapter 10.— Of the Praise of the Law

Once more, in the praise of the law, what advantage is it to them that, in opposition to the Manicheans, they say the truth when they wish to bring men from that view to this which they hold falsely against the Catholics? For they say, We confess that even the old law, according to the apostle, is holy and just and good, and that this could confer eternal life on those that kept its commandments, and lived righteously by faith, like the prophets and patriarchs, and all the saints. By which words, very craftily expressed, they praise the law in opposition to grace; for certainly that law, although just and holy and good, could not confer eternal life on all those men of God, but the faith which is in Christ. For this faith works by love, not according to the letter which kills, but according to the Spirit which makes alive, to which grace of God the law, as it were a schoolmaster, leads by deterring from transgression, that so that might be conferred upon man which it could not itself confer. For to those words of theirs in which they say that the law was able to confer eternal life on the prophets and patriarchs, and all saints who kept its commandments, the apostle replies, If righteousness be by the law, then has Christ died in vain. Galatians 2:21 If the inheritance be by the law, then is it no more of promise. Galatians 3:18 If they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of none effect. Romans 4:14 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, is evident: for, The just by faith lives. Galatians 3:11 But the law is not of faith: but The man that does them shall live in them. Galatians 3:12 Which testimony, quoted by the apostle from the law, is understood in respect of temporal life, in respect of the fear of losing which, men were in the habit of doing the works of the law, not of faith; because the transgressors of the law were commanded by the same law to be put to death by the people. Or, if it must be understood more highly, that He who does these things shall live in them was written in reference to eternal life; the power of the law is so expressed that the weakness of man in himself, itself failing to do what the law commands, might seek help from the grace of God rather of faith, seeing that by His mercy even faith itself is bestowed. Because faith is thus possessed, according as God has given to every one the measure of faith. Romans 12:3 For if men have it not of themselves, but men receive the Spirit of power and of love and of continence, whence that very same teacher of the Gentiles says, For we have not received the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of continence, 2 Timothy 1:7 — assuredly also the Spirit of faith is received, of which he says, Having also the same Spirit of faith. 2 Corinthians 4:13 Truly, then, says the law, He who does these things shall live in them. But in order to do these things, and live in them, there is necessary not law which ordains this, but faith which obtains this. Which faith, however, that it may deserve to receive these things, is itself given freely.

But those enemies of grace never endeavour to lay more secret snares for more vehement opposition to that same grace than when they praise the law, which, without doubt, is worthy to be praised. Because, by their different modes of speaking, and by variety of words in all their arguments, they wish the law to be understood as grace— that, to wit, we may have from the Lord God the help of knowledge, whereby we may know those things which have to be done—not the inspiration of love, that, when known, we may do them with a holy love, which is properly grace. For the knowledge of the law without love puffs up, does not edify, according to the same apostle, who most openly says, Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. 1 Corinthians 8:1 Which saying is like to that in which it is said, The letter kills, the spirit makes alive. 2 Corinthians 3:6 For Knowledge puffs up, corresponds to The letter kills: and, Love edifies, to The spirit makes alive; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us. Romans 5:5 Therefore the knowledge of the law makes a proud transgressor; but, by the gift of charity, he delights to be a doer of the law. We do not then make void the law through faith, but we establish the law, Romans 3:31 which by terrifying leads to faith. Thus certainly the law works wrath, that the mercy of God may bestow grace on the sinner, frightened and turned to the fulfilment of the righteousness of the law through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is that wisdom of God of which it is written, She carries law and mercy on her tongue, Proverbs 3:16 — law whereby she frightens, mercy by which she may help—law by His servant, mercy by Himself—the law, as it were, in the staff which Elisha sent to raise up the son of the widow, and it failed to raise him up, For if a law had been given which could have given life, righteousness would altogether have been by the law, Galatians 3:21 but mercy, as it were, in Elisha himself, who, wearing the figure of Christ, by giving life to the dead was joined in the signification of the great sacrament, as it were, of the New Testament.

Chapter 12 [VI.]— Of the Praise of Free Will

Moreover, that, in opposition to the Manicheans, they praise free will, making use of the prophetic testimony, If you shall be willing and will hear me, you shall eat what is good in the land; but if you shall be unwilling and will not hear me, the sword shall consume you: Isaiah 1:19-20 what advantage is this to them, when, indeed, it is not so much against the Manicheans that they are maintaining, as against the Catholics that they are extolling, free will? For they wish what is said, If you be willing and will hear me, to be so understood, as if in the preceding will itself were the merit of the grace that follows; and thus grace were no more grace, seeing that it is not free when it is rendered as a debt. But if they should so understand what is written, If you be willing, as to confess that He prepares even that good will itself of whom it is written, The will is prepared by the Lord, Proverbs 8:35 they would use this testimony as Catholics, and not only would overcome the ancient heresy of the Manicheans, but would not found the new one of the Pelagians.

What does it profit them, that in the praise of that same free will they say that grace assists the good purpose of every one? This would be received without scruple as being said in a catholic spirit, if they did not attribute merit to the good purpose, to which merit now a wage is paid of debt, not according to grace, but would understand and confess that even that very good purpose, which the grace which follows assists could not have been in the man if grace had not preceded it. For how is there a good purpose in a man without the mercy of God first, since it is that very good will which is prepared by the Lord? Proverbs 8:35 But when they had said this, that grace also assists every one’s good purpose, and presently added, yet does not infuse the love of virtue into a resisting heart, it might be fitly understood, if it were not said by those whose meaning is known. For, for the resisting heart a hearing for the divine call is first procured by the grace of God itself, and then in that heart, now no more resisting, the desire of virtue is kindled. Nevertheless, in all things which any one does according to God, His mercy precedes him. And this they will not have, because they choose to be not Catholics, but Pelagians. For it much delights a proud impiety, that even that which a man is forced to confess to be given by the Lord should seem to be not bestowed on himself, but repaid; so that, to wit, the children of perdition, not of the promise, may be thought themselves to have made themselves good, and God to have repaid to those who are now good, having been made so by themselves, the reward due for that their work.

See also:

1. Free Will Contest
2. Free Resource from CPH
3. Free Book on the Lord’s Supper

Via the Anti-Pelagian Writings

Chapter 12: The Law Could Not Take Away Sin

Observe also what follows. Having said, “In which all have sinned,” he at once added, “For until the law, sin was in the world.” Rom. v. 13. This means that sin could not be taken away even by the law, which entered that sin might the more abound, Rom. v. 20. whether it be the law of nature, under which every man when arrived at years of discretion only proceeds to add his own sins to original sin, or that very law which Moses gave to the people. “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. Gal. iii. 21, 22. But sin is not imputed where there is no law.” Rom. v. 13. Now what means the phrase “is not imputed,” but “is ignored,” or “is not reckoned as sin?” Although the Lord God does not Himself regard it as if it had never been, since it is written: “As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law.”

Chapter 13: Meaning of the Apostle’s Phrase “The Reign of Death”

“Nevertheless,” says he, “death reigned from Adam even unto Moses,” Rom. v. 14. —that is to say, from the first man even to the very law which was promulged by the divine authority, because even it was unable to abolish the reign of death. Now death must be understood “to reign,” whenever the guilt of sin Reatus peccati. so dominates in men that it prevents their attainment of that eternal life which is the only true life, and drags them down even to the second death which is penally eternal. This reign of death is only destroyed in any man by the Saviour’s grace, which wrought even in the saints of the olden time, all of whom, though previous to the coming of Christ in the flesh, yet lived in relation to His assisting grace, not to the letter of the law, which only knew how to command, but not to help them. In the Old Testament, indeed, that was hidden (conformably to the perfectly just dispensation of the times) which is now revealed in the New Testament. Therefore “death reigned from Adam unto Moses,” in all who were not assisted by the grace of Christ, that in them the kingdom of death might be destroyed, “even in those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression,” Rom. v. 14. that is, who had not yet sinned of their own individual will, as Adam did, but had drawn from him original sin, “who is the figure of him that was to come,” Rom. v. 14. because in him was constituted the form of condemnation to his future progeny, who should spring from him by natural descent; so that from one all men were born to a condemnation, from which there is no deliverance but in the Saviour’s grace. I am quite aware, indeed, that several Latin copies of the Scriptures read the passage thus: “Death reigned from Adam to Moses over them who have sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression;” Comp. Epist. 157, n. 19. [Some few Greek copies have come down to us (e.g. 67**) which omit the “not,” but no Latin copy (unless d* be an exception), although other Latin writers (e.g. Ambrosiaster) testify to their former existence.—W.] but even this version is referred by those who so read it to the very same purport, for they understood those who have sinned in him to have sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression; so that they are created in his likeness, not only as men born of a man, but as sinners born of a sinner, dying ones of a dying one, and condemned ones to a condemned one. However, the Greek copies from which the Latin version was made, have all, without exception or nearly so, the reading which I first adduced.

Chapter 14: Superabundance of Grace

“But,” says he, “not as the offence so also is the free gift. For if, through the offence of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by One Man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.” Rom. v. 15. Not many more, that is, many more men, for there are not more persons justified than condemned; but it runs, much more hath abounded; inasmuch as, while Adam produced sinners from his one sin, Christ has by His grace procured free forgiveness even for the sins which men have of their own accord added by actual transgression to the original sin in which they were born. This he states more clearly still in the sequel.

See also:

1. It is Not Death to Die
2. On the Grace of Christ and Original Sin
3. Grace After Luther
4. Grace, Enough for Me

A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin

Wherein he shows that Pelagius is disingenuous in his confession of grace, inasmuch as he places grace either in nature and free will, or in law and teaching; and, moreover, asserts that it is merely the “possibility” (as he calls it) of will and action, and not the will and action itself, which is assisted by divine grace; and that this assisting grace, too, is given by God according to men’s merits; whilst he further thinks that they are so assisted for the sole purpose of being able the more easily to fulfil the commandments. Augustin examines those passages of his writings in which he boasted that he had bestowed express commendation on the grace of God, and points out how they can be interpreted as referring to law and teaching,—in other words, to the divine revelation and the example of Christ which are alike included in “the teaching,”—or else to the remission of sins; nor do they afford any evidence whatever that Pelagius really acknowledged Christian grace, in the sense of help rendered for the performance of right action to natural faculty and instruction, by the inspiration of a most glowing and luminous love; and he concludes with a request that Pelagius would seriously listen to Ambrose, whom he is so very fond of quoting, in his excellent eulogy in commendation of the grace of God.

How greatly we rejoice on account of your bodily, and, above all, your spiritual welfare, my most sincerely attached brethren and beloved of God, Albina, Pinianus, and Melania, we cannot express in words; we therefore leave all this to your own thoughts and belief, in order that we may now rather speak of the matters on which you consulted us. We have, indeed, had to compose these words to the best of the ability which God has vouchsafed to us, while our messenger was in a hurry to be gone, and amidst many occupations, which are much more absorbing to me at Carthage than in any other place whatever.

You informed me in your letter, that you had entreated Pelagius to express in writing his condemnation of all that had been alleged against him; and that he had said, in the audience of you all: “I anathematize the man who either thinks or says that the grace of God, whereby ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,’ (1 Tim i. 15) is not necessary not only for every hour and for every moment, but also for every act of our lives: and those who endeavour to disannul it deserve everlasting punishment.” Now, whoever hears these words, and is ignorant of the opinion which he has clearly enough expressed in his books,—not those, indeed, which he declares to have been stolen from him in an incorrect form, nor those which he repudiates, but those even which he mentions in his own letter which he forwarded to Rome,—would certainly suppose that the views he holds are in strict accordance with the truth. But whoever notices what he openly declares in them, cannot fail to regard these statements with suspicion. Because, although he makes that grace of God whereby Christ came into the world to save sinners to consist simply in the remission of sins, he can still accommodate his words to this meaning, by alleging that the necessity of such grace for every hour and for every moment and for every action of our life, comes to this, that while we recollect and keep in mind the forgiveness of our past sins, we sin no more, aided not by any supply of power from without, but by the powers of our own will as it recalls to our mind, in every action we do, what advantage has been conferred upon us by the remission of sins. Then, again, whereas they are accustomed to say that Christ has given us assistance for avoiding sin, in that He has left us an example by living righteously and teaching what is right Himself, they have it in their power here also to accommodate their words, by affirming that this is the necessity of grace to us for every moment and for every action, namely, that we should in all our conversation regard the example of the Lord’s conversation. Your own fidelity, however, enables you clearly to perceive how such a profession of opinion as this differs from that true confession of grace which is now the question before us. And yet how easily can it be obscured and disguised by their ambiguous statements!

See also:

1. Grace, Enough for Me
2. God's Grace is All-Embracing
3. Grace After Luther

Via The Harmony of the Gospels Chapter I.—On the Authority of the Gospels.

1. In the entire number of those divine records which are contained in the sacred writings, the gospel deservedly stands pre-eminent. For what the law and the prophets aforetime announced as destined to come to pass, is exhibited in the gospel in its realization and fulfilment.
The first preachers of this gospel were the apostles, who beheld our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in person when He was yet present in the flesh. And not only did these men keep in remembrance the words heard from His lips, and the deeds wrought by Him beneath their eyes; but they were also careful, when the duty of preaching the gospel was laid upon them, to make mankind acquainted with those divine and memorable occurrences which took place at a period antecedent to the formation of their own connection with Him in the way of discipleship, which belonged also to the time of His nativity, His infancy, or His youth, and with regard to which they were able to institute exact inquiry and to obtain information, either at His own hand or at the hands of His parents or other parties, on the ground of the most reliable intimations and the most trustworthy testimonies. Certain of them also—namely, Matthew and John—gave to the world, in their respective books, a written account of all those matters which it seemed needful to commit to writing concerning Him.

2. And to preclude the supposition that, in what concerns the apprehension and proclamation of the gospel, it is a matter of any consequence whether the enunciation comes by men who were actual followers of this same Lord here when He manifested Himself in the flesh and had the company of His disciples attendant on Him, or by persons who with due credit received facts with which they became acquainted in a trustworthy manner through the instrumentality of these former, divine providence, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, has taken care that certain of those also who were nothing more than followers of the first apostles should have authority given them not only to preach the gospel, but also to compose an account of it in writing. I refer to Mark and Luke. All those other individuals, however, who have attempted or dared to offer a written record of the acts of the Lord or of the apostles, failed to commend themselves in their own times as men of the character which would induce the Church to yield them its confidence, and to admit their compositions to the canonical authority of the Holy Books. And this was the case not merely because they were persons who could make no rightful claim to have credit given them in their narrations, but also because in a deceitful manner they introduced into their writings certain matters which are condemned at once by the catholic and apostolic rule of faith, and by sound doctrine.

Of the Letter and the Spirit

Chapter 15 [IX.] – The Righteousness of God Manifested by the Law and the Prophets.

Here, perhaps, it may be said by that presumption of man, which is ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishes to establish one of its own, that the apostle quite properly said,” For by the law shall no man be justified,” inasmuch as the law merely shows what one ought to do, and what one ought to guard against, in order that what the law thus points out may be accomplished by the will, and so man be justified, not indeed by the power of the law, but by his free determination. But I ask your attention, O man, to what follows. “But now the righteousness of God,” says he, “without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.” Does this then sound a light thing in deaf ears? He says, “The righteousness of God is manifested.” Now this righteousness they are ignorant of, who wish to establish one of their own; they will not submit themselves to it. His words are, “The righteousness of God is manifested:” he does not say, the righteousness of man, or the righteousness of his own will, but the “righteousness of God,” – not that whereby He is Himself righteous, but that with which He endows man when He justifies the ungodly. This is witnessed by the law and the prophets; in other words, the law and the prophets each afford it testimony. The law, indeed, by issuing its commands and threats, and by justifying no man, sufficiently shows that it is by God’s gift, through the help of the Spirit, that a man is justified; and the prophets, because it was what they predicted that Christ at His coming accomplished. Accordingly he advances a step further, and adds, “But righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ,” that is by the faith wherewith one believes in Christ for just as there is not meant the faith with which Christ Himself believes, so also there is not meant the righteousness whereby God is Himself righteous. Both no doubt are ours, but yet they are called God’s, and Christ’s, because it is by their bounty that these gifts are bestowed upon us. The righteousness of God then is without the law, but not manifested without the law; for if it were manifested without the law, how could it be witnessed by the law? That righteousness of God, however, is without the law, which God by the Spirit of grace bestows on the believer without the help of the law, – that is, when not helped by the law. When, indeed, He by the law discovers to a man his weakness, it is in order that by faith he may flee for refuge to His mercy, and be healed. And thus concerning His wisdom we are told, that “she carries law and mercy uponher tongue,” – the “law,” whereby she may convict the proud, the “mercy,” wherewith she may justify the humbled. “The righteousness of God,” then, “by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all that believe; for there is no difference, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” – not of their own glory. For what have they, which they have not received? Now if they received it, why do they glory as if they had not received it? Well, then, they come short of the glory of God; now observe what follows: “Being justified freely by His grace.” It is not, therefore, by the law, nor is it by their own will, that they are justified; but they are justified freely by His grace, – not that it is wrought without our will; but our will is by the law shown to be weak, that grace may heal its infirmity; and that our healed will may fulfil the law, not by compact under the law, nor yet in the absence of law.

Chapter 16 [X.] – How the Law Was Not Made for a Righteous Man.

Because “for a righteous man the law was not made;” and yet “the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” Now by connecting together these two seemingly contrary statements, the apostle warns and urges his reader to sift the question and solve it too. For how can it be that “the law is good, if a man use it lawfully,” if what follows is also true: “Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man?” For who but a righteous man lawfully uses the law? Yet it is not for him that it is made, but for the unrighteous. Must then the unrighteous man, in order that he may be justified, – that is, become a righteous man, – lawfully use the law, to lead him, as by the schoolmaster’s hand, to that grace by which alone he can fulfil what the law commands? Now it is freely that he is justified thereby, – that is, on account of no antecedent merits of his own works; “otherwise grace is no more grace,” since it is bestowed on us, not because we have done good works, but that we may be able to do them, – in other words, not because we have fulfilled the law, but in order that we may be able to fulfil the law. Now He said, “I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it,” of whom it was said, “We have seen His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” This is the glory which is meant in the words, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” and this the grace of which he speaks in the next verse, “Being justified freely by His grace.” The unrighteous man therefore lawfully uses the law, that he may become righteous; but when he has become so, he must no longer use it as a chariot, for he has arrived at his journey’s end, – or rather (that I may employ the apostle’s own simile, which has been already mentioned) as a schoolmaster, seeing that he is now fully learned. How then is the law not made for a righteous man, if it is necessary for the righteous man too, not that hemay be brought as an unrighteous man to the grace that justifies, but that he may use it lawfully, now that he is righteous? Does not the case perhaps stand thus, – nay, not perhaps, but rather certainly, – that the man who is become righteous thus lawfully uses the law, when he applies it to alarm the unrighteous, so that whenever the disease of some unusual desire begins in them, too, to be augmented by the incentive of the law’s prohibition and an increased amount of transgression, they may in faith flee for refuge to the grace that justifies, and becoming delighted with the sweet pleasures of holiness, may escape the penalty of the law’s menacing letter through the spirit’s soothing gift? In this way the two statements will not be contrary, nor will they be repugnant to each other: even the righteous man may lawfully use a good law, and yet the law be not made for the righteous man; for it is not by the law that he becomes righteous, but by the law of faith, which led him to believe that no other resource was possible to his weakness for fulfilling the precepts which “the law of works” commanded, except to be assisted by the grace of God.

See also:

1. We are Sinners, but He is Our Righteousness

Book II. Chap. 23

ON THE FOLLOWING TREATISE,

“DE PECCATORUM MERITIS ET REMISSIONE.”

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A Necessity arose which compelled me to write against the new heresy of Pelagius. Our previous opposition to it was confined to sermons and conversations, as occasions suggested, and according to our respective abilities and duties; but it had not yet assumed the shape of a controversy in writing. Certain questions were then submitted to me [by our brethren] at Carthage, to which I was to send them back answers in writing; I accordingly wrote first of all three books, under the title “On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins,” in which I mainly discussed the baptism of infants because of original sin, and the grace of God by which we are justified, that is, made righteous; but [I remarked] no man in this life can so keep the commandments which prescribe holiness of life, as to be beyond the necessity of using this prayer for his sins: “Forgive us our trespasses.”207207 See Matt. vi. 12. It is in direct opposition to these principles that they have devised their new heresy. Now throughout these three books I thought it right not to mention any of their names, hoping and desiring that by such reserve they might the more readily be set right; nay more, in the third book (which is really a letter, but reckoned amongst the books, because I wished to connect it with the two previous ones) I actually quoted Pelagius’ name with considerable commendation, because his conduct and life were made a good deal of by many persons; and those statements of his which I refuted, he had himself adduced in his writings, not indeed in his own name, but had quoted them as the words of other persons. However, when he was afterwards confirmed in heresy, he defended them with most persistent animosity. Cœlestius, indeed, a disciple of his, had already been excommunicated for similar opinions at Carthage, in a council of bishops, at which I was not present. In a certain passage of my second book I used these words: “Upon some there will be bestowed this blessing at the last day, that they shall not perceive the actual suffering of death in the suddenness of the change which shall happen to them;”208208 See Book ii. ch. 50.—reserving the passage for a more careful consideration of the subject; for they will either die, or else by a most rapid transition from this life to death, and then from death to eternal life, as in the twinkling of an eye, they will not undergo the feeling of mortality. This work of mine begins with this sentence: “However absorbing and intense the anxieties and annoyances.

Chapter 1 [I.]—Introductory, in the Shape of an Inscription to His Friend Marcellinus.

However absorbing and intense the anxieties and annoyances in the whirl and warmth of which we are engaged with sinful men209209 This is probably an allusion to the Donatists, who were then fiercely assailing the Catholics; [and over the conference between whom and the Catholics, Marcellinus had presided the previous year (411).—W.] who forsake the law of God,—even though we may well ascribe these very evils to the fault of our own sins,—I am unwilling, and, to say the truth, unable, any longer to remain a debtor, my dearest Marcellinus,210210 [Flavius Marcellinus, a “tribune and notary,” a Christian man of high character and devout mind, who was much interested in theological discussions. He was appointed by Honorius to preside over the commission of inquiry into the disputes between the Catholics and Donatists in 411, and held the famous conference between the parties, that met in Carthage on the 1st, 3d, and 8th of June, 411. He discharged this whole business with singular patience, moderation, and good judgment; which appears to have cemented the intimate friendship between him and Augustin. Augustin’s treatise onThe Spirit and Letter is also addressed to him, and he undertook the City of God on his suggestion. See below, p. 80.—W.] to that zealous affection of yours, which only enhances my own grateful and pleasant estimate of yourself. I am under the impulse [of a twofold emotion]: on the one hand, there is that very love which makes us unchangeably one in the one hope of a change for the better; on the other hand, there is the fear of offending God in yourself, who has given you so earnest a desire; in gratifying which I shall be only serving Him who has given it to you. And so strongly has this impulse led and attracted me to solve, to the best of my humble ability, the questions which you have submitted to me in writing, that my mind has gradually admitted this inquiry to an importance transcending that of all others; [and it will now give me no rest] until I accomplish something which shall make it manifest that I have yielded, if not a sufficient, yet at any rate an obedient, compliance with your own kind wish and the desire of those to whom these questions are a source of anxiety.

Chapter 2 [II.]—If Adam Had Not Sinned, He Would Never Have Died.

They who say that Adam was so formed that he would even without any demerit of sin have died, not as the penalty of sin, but from the necessity of his being, endeavour indeed to refer that passage in the law, which says: “On the day ye eat thereof ye shall surely die,”211211 Gen. ii. 17. not to the death of 16 the body, but to that death of the soul which takes place in sin. It is the unbelievers who have died this death, to whom the Lord pointed when He said, “Let the dead bury their dead.”212212 Matt. viii. 22; Luke ix. 60. Now what will be their answer, when we read that God, when reproving and sentencing the first man after his sin, said to him, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return?”213213 Gen. iii. 19. For it was not in respect of his soul that he was “dust,” but clearly by reason of his body, and it was by the death of the self-same body that he was destined to “return to dust.” Still, although it was by reason of his body that he was dust, and although he bare about the natural body in which he was created, he would, if he had not sinned, have been changed into a spiritual body, and would have passed into the incorruptible state, which is promised to the faithful and the saints, without the peril of death.214214 1 Cor. xv. 52, 53. And for this issue we not only are conscious in ourselves of having an earnest desire, but we learn it from the apostle’s intimation, when he says: “For in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven; if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life.” 215215 2 Cor. v. 2–4.Therefore, if Adam had not sinned, he would not have been divested of his body, but would have been clothed upon with immortality and incorruption, that “mortality might have been swallowed up of life;” that is, that he might have passed from the natural body into the spiritual body.

1. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people meditate vain things?”
(ver. 1). “The kings of the earth have stood up, and the rulers taken
counsel together, against the Lord, and against His Christ” (ver. 2).
It is said, “why?” as if it were said, in vain. For what they wished,
namely, Christ’s destruction, they accomplished not; for this is
spoken of our Lord’s persecutors, of whom also mention is made in the
Acts of the Apostles.3030     Acts iv. 26.

2. “Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their yoke from
us” (ver. 3). Although it admits of another acceptation, yet is it
more fitly understood as in the person of those who are said to
“meditate vain things.” So that “let us break their bonds asunder, and
cast away their yoke from us,” may be, let us do our endeavour, that
the Christian religion do not bind us, nor be imposed upon us.

3. “He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn, and the
Lord shall have them in derision” (ver. 4). The sentence is repeated;
for “He who dwelleth in the heavens,” is afterwards put, “the Lord;”
and for “shall
laugh them to scorn,” is afterwards put, “shall have them in
derision.” Nothing of this however must be taken in a carnal sort, as
if God either laugheth with cheek, or derideth with nostril; but it is
to be understood of that power which He giveth to His saints, that
they seeing things to come, namely, that the Name and rule of Christ
is to pervade posterity and possess all nations, should understand
that those men “meditate a vain thing.” For this power whereby these
things are foreknown is God’s “laughter” and “derision.” “He that
dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn.” If by “heavens” we
understand holy souls, by these God, as foreknowing what is to come,
will “laugh them to scorn, and have them in derision.”

4. “Then He shall speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His
sore displeasure” (ver. 5). For showing more clearly how He will
“speak unto them,” he added, He will “vex them;” so that “in His
wrath,” is, “in His sore displeasure.” But by the “wrath and sore
displeasure” of the Lord God must not be understood any mental
perturbation; but the might whereby He most justly avengeth, by the
subjection of all creation to His service. For that is to be observed
and remembered which is written in the Wisdom of Solomon, “But Thou,
Lord of power, judgest with tranquillity, and with great favour
orderest us.”3131     Wisd. xii. 18.  The “wrath” of God then is an
emotion which is produced in the soul which knoweth the law of God,
when it sees this same law transgressed by the sinner. For by this
emotion of righteous souls many things are avenged. Although the
“wrath” of God can be well understood of that darkening of the mind,
which overtakes those who transgress the law of God.

5. “Yet am I set by Him as King upon Sion, His holy hill, preaching
His decree” (ver. 6). This is clearly spoken in the Person of the very
Lord our Saviour Christ. But if Sion signify, as some interpret,
beholding, we must not understand it of anything rather than of the
Church, where daily is the desire raised of beholding the bright glory
of God, according to that of the Apostle, “but we with open face
beholding the glory of the Lord.”3232     2 Cor. iii. 18.  Therefore
the meaning of this is, Yet I am set by Him as King over His holy
Church; which for its eminence and stability He calleth a mountain.
“Yet I am set by Him as King.” I, that is, whose “bands” they were
meditating “to break asunder,” and whose “yoke” to “cast away.”
“Preaching His decree.” Who doth not see the meaning of this, seeing
it is daily practised?

6. “The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art My Son, to-day have I
begotten Thee” (ver. 7). Although that day may also seem to be
prophetically spoken of, on which Jesus Christ was born according to
the flesh; and in eternity there is nothing past as if it had ceased
to be, nor future as if it were not yet, but present only, since
whatever is eternal, always is; yet as “today” intimates
presentiality, a divine interpretation is given to that expression,
“To-day have I begotten Thee,” whereby the uncorrupt and Catholic
faith proclaims the eternal generation of the power and Wisdom of God,
who is the Only-begotten Son.

7. “Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the nations for Thine
inheritance” (ver. 8). This has at once a temporal sense with
reference to the Manhood which He took on Himself, who offered up
Himself as a Sacrifice in the stead of all sacrifices, who also maketh
intercession for us; so that the words, “ask of Me,” may be referred
to all this temporal dispensation, which has been instituted for
mankind, namely, that the “nations” should be joined to the Name of
Christ, and so be redeemed from death, and possessed by God. “I shall
give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance,” which so possess them
for their salvation, and to bear unto Thee spiritual fruit. “And the
uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.” The same repeated,
“The uttermost parts of the earth,” is put for “the nations;” but more
clearly, that we might understand all the nations. And “Thy
possession” stands for “Thine inheritance.”

8. “Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron,” with inflexible justice,
and “Thou shalt break them like a potter’s vessel” (ver. 9); that is,
“Thou shalt break” in them earthly lusts, and the filthy doings of the
old man, and whatsoever hath been derived and inured from the sinful
clay. “And now understand, ye kings” (ver. 10). “And now;” that is,
being now renewed, your covering of clay worn out, that is, the carnal
vessels of error which belong to your past life, “now understand,” ye
who now are “kings;” that is, able now to govern all that is servile
and brutish in you, able now too to fight, not as “they who beat the
air, but chastening your bodies, and bringing them into
subjection.”3333     1 Cor. ix. 26, 27.  “Be instructed, all ye who
judge the earth.” This again is a repetition; “Be instructed” is
instead of “understand;” and “ye who judge the earth” instead of “ye
kings.” For He signifies the spiritual by “those who judge the earth.”
For whatsoever we judge, is below us; and whatsoever is below the
spiritual man, is with good reason called “the earth;” because it is
defiled with earthly corruption.

9. “Serve the Lord with fear;” lest what is said, “Ye kings and judges of the earth,” turn into pride: “And
rejoice with trembling” (ver. 11). Very excellently is “rejoice”
added, lest “serve the Lord with fear” should seem to tend to misery.
But again, lest this same rejoicing should run on to unrestrained
inconsiderateness, there is added “with trembling,” that it might
avail for a warning, and for the careful guarding of holiness. It can
also be taken thus, “And now ye kings understand;” that is, And now
that I am set as King, be ye not sad, kings of the earth, as if your
excellency were taken from you, but rather “understand and be
instructed.” For it is expedient for you, that ye should be under Him,
by whom understanding and instruction are given you. And this is
expedient for you, that ye lord it not with rashness, but that ye
“serve the Lord” of all “with fear,” and “rejoice” in bliss most sure
and most pure, with all caution and carefulness, lest ye fall
therefrom into pride.

10. “Lay hold of discipline,3434     [This reading is corrected by St.
Jerome in his Hebraic Psalter, and our Authorized Version “Kiss the
Son” is sustained by the best authorities. See a forcible elucidation
in Bishop Wordsworth’s Commentary on Psalms. Ps. ii.—C.]  lest at any
time the Lord be angry, and ye perish from the righteous way” (ver.
12). This is the same as, “understand,” and, “be instructed.” For to
understand and be instructed, this is to lay hold of discipline. Still
in that it is said, “lay hold of,” it is plainly enough intimated that
there is some protection and defence against all things which might do
hurt unless with so great carefulness it be laid hold of. “Lest at any
time the Lord be angry,” is expressed with a doubt, not as regards the
vision of the prophet to whom it is certain, but as regards those who
are warned; for they, to whom it is not openly revealed, are wont to
think with doubt of the anger of God. This then they ought to say to
themselves, let us “lay hold of discipline, lest at any time the Lord
be angry, and we perish from the righteous way.” Now, how “the Lord be
angry” is to be taken, has been said above. And “ye perish from the
righteous way.” This is a great punishment, and dreaded by those who
have had any perception of the sweetness of righteousness; for he who
perisheth from the way of righteousness, in much misery will wander
through the ways of unrighteousness.

11. “When His anger shall be shortly kindled, blessed are all they who
put their trust in Him;” that is, when the vengeance shall come which
is prepared for the ungodly and for sinners, not only will it not
light on those “who put their trust in” the Lord, but it will even
avail for the foundation and exaltation of a kingdom for them. For he
said not, “When His anger shall be shortly kindled,” safe “are all
they who put their trust in Him,” as though they should have this only
thereby, to be exempt from punishment; but he said, “blessed;” in
which there is the sum and accumulation of all good things. Now the
meaning of “shortly” I suppose to be this, that it will be something
sudden, whilst sinners will deem it far off and long to come.

From On Christian Doctrine, Book I, Chapter 7:

7. For when the one supreme God of gods is thought of, even by those who believe that there are other gods, and who call them by that name, and worship them as gods, their thought takes the form of an endeavour to reach the conception of a nature, than which nothing more excellent or more exalted exists. And since men are moved by different kinds of pleasures, partly by those which pertain to the bodily senses, partly by those which pertain to the intellect and soul, those of them who are in bondage to sense think that either the heavens, or what appears to be most brilliant in the heavens, or the universe itself, is God of gods: or if they try to get beyond the universe, they picture to themselves something of dazzling brightness, and think of it vaguely as infinite, or of the most beautiful form conceivable; or they represent it in the form of the human body, if they think that superior to all others. Or if they think that there is no one God supreme above the rest, but that there are many or even innumerable gods of equal rank, still these too they conceive as possessed of shape and form, according to what each man thinks the pattern of excellence. Those, on the other hand, who endeavour by an effort of the intelligence to reach a conception of God, place Him above all visible and bodily natures, and even above all intelligent and spiritual natures that are subject to change. All, however, strive emulously to exalt the excellence of God: nor could any one be found to believe that any being to whom there exists a superior is God. And so all concur in believing that God is that which excels in dignity all other objects.