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'We know that to those who love God all things work together for good, to those who according to His purpose are called' — as though man's purpose were meant to be understood, which purpose, as a good merit, the mercy of the calling God should follow; not knowing that it was therefore said, 'who according to His purpose are called,' so that God's purpose, not man's, should be understood, whereby He chose before the foundation of the world those whom He foreknew and predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son. For not all the called are called according to His purpose, since 'many are called, but few are chosen.' Those, then, are called according to His purpose who are chosen before the foundation of the world. Of this purpose of God was said also that which I have already mentioned concerning the twins Esau and Jacob:
'That the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him who calls, it was said to her that the elder shall serve the younger.' This purpose of God is also mentioned in that place where, writing to Timothy, he says: 'Labor together for the gospel according to the power of God, who saves us and calls us with His holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages of eternity, but is now made manifest by the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.' This, then, is the purpose of God, whence it is said: 'All things work together for good to those who according to His purpose are called.'
A man's good purpose is indeed aided by the grace that follows, yet it would not even exist unless grace preceded it. A man's zeal too, which is called good, although it is aided by grace once it has begun to be, nevertheless does not begin without grace, but is inspired by Him of whom the Apostle says: 'But thanks be to God, who put the same zeal for you into the heart of Titus.' If God gives that a man should have zeal on behalf of others, who else is going to give that he should have it for his own self?
Since these things are so, I see nothing in the Holy Scriptures commanded to man by the Lord for the proving of free will, which is not found to be either given by His goodness or asked for in order to show the help of grace; nor does a man begin at all to be changed from evil to good through the beginning of faith, unless the undeserved and gratuitous mercy of God works this in him. Recalling his own reflection upon this mercy, a certain man says, as we read in the Psalms: 'Will God, then, forget to be merciful, or will He in His anger shut up His mercies?' And I said: 'Now I have begun; this is the change of the right hand of the Most High.' When therefore he had said, 'Now I have begun,' he did not say, 'this is the change of my own will,' but 'of the right hand of the Most High.'
Thus therefore let the grace of God be considered, so that from the beginning of his good change even to the end of its completion, he who glories may glory in the Lord; because, just as no one can accomplish good without the Lord, so no one can begin it without the Lord. But let this be the end of this volume, that the reader's attention may be refreshed and made ready for what follows. BOOK THREE. Thus far follow the things which they slanderously object against us; they do not yet begin to weave together the things which they themselves hold. But lest the length of the volumes should give offence, we have divided these very objections into two books; and the former having been finished, which is the second book of this whole work, from here we begin the other, and join it as a third to the first and the second.
They say that we assert 'the law of the Old Testament was not given in order to justify the obedient, but that it might become the cause of graver sin.' They utterly fail to understand what we say about the law, for we say that which the Apostle says, whom they do not understand. For who would say that those who are obedient to the law are not justified, since, unless they were justified, they could not be obedient? But we say that it is brought about by the law that men should hear what God wills to be done, and by grace that the law should be obeyed; for 'not the hearers of the law,' says the Apostle, 'are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.' The law therefore makes hearers of righteousness, grace makes doers.
For 'what was impossible for the law,' says the same Apostle, 'in that it was weak through the flesh, God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and concerning sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.' Behold what we say. Let them pray that at some time they may understand, not wrangle that they may never understand. For it is impossible to fulfil the law through the flesh, that is, through carnal presumption, by which the proud, being ignorant of God's righteousness—that is, the righteousness which is from God so that a man may be righteous—and wishing to establish their own, as though the law could be fulfilled through their will unaided by God, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.
Therefore the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk not according to the flesh—that is, according to the man who is ignorant of God's righteousness and wishes to establish his own—but who walk according to the Spirit. And who walks according to the Spirit, save whoever is led by the Spirit of God? 'For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.' Therefore 'the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.' Nor is the letter evil because it kills, but it convicts the wicked of transgression. 'For the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Was then that which is good,' he says, 'made death to me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, worked death to me through that which is good, that sin through the commandment might become sinful above measure.'
Behold what 'the letter kills' means. 'For the sting of death is sin, but the power of sin is the law'; for by forbidding it increases the desires of sin, and thence it kills, unless grace by its succour gives life. Behold what we say; behold on what ground they object against us, that we so say 'the law was given to be the cause of graver sin,' not hearing the Apostle who says: 'For the law works wrath; for where there is no law, there is no transgression'; and: 'The law of transgression was ordained until the seed should come to whom the promise was made'; and: 'If a law had been given which could give life, righteousness would altogether have been by the law. But the Scripture has concluded all things under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.'
Hence it is that the Old Testament, from Mount Sinai where the law was given, gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar. 'But we,' he says, 'are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.' They therefore are not children of the free who received the law of the letter, by which they could be shown to be not only sinners but even transgressors besides, but those who received the Spirit of grace, by which that very law, holy and just and good, can be fulfilled. Behold what we say: let them give heed and not contend, let them be enlightened and not slander. They say further that we assert baptism does not truly make men new, that is, does not give full remission of sins, but that they contend men become partly sons of God and partly remain sons of the world, that is, of the devil.
They lie, they lay snares, they equivocate; this we do not say. For we say that all men who are sons of the devil are also sons of the world, but not that all sons of the world are also sons of the devil. God forbid that we should say the holy patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and others of the same kind were sons of the devil, when they begot children through marriage, and those faithful ones who up to now and henceforth still beget children. Yet we cannot contradict the Lord who says: 'The sons of this world marry and are given in marriage.' Some therefore are sons of this world and yet are not sons of the devil; for although the devil is the author and prince of all sins, yet not every sin makes a man a son of the devil.
For the sons of God also sin, since, 'if they say they have no sin, they deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them'; but they sin under that condition by which they are still sons of this world; whereas insofar as by grace they are sons of God, they surely do not sin, 'because everyone who is born of God does not sin.' But it is unfaithfulness that makes sons of the devil, which is properly called 'sin,' as though it were the only one, if it is not expressed what kind of sin it is—just as when 'the Apostle' is spoken of, if it is not expressed which apostle, none is understood but Paul, because he is better known by his many epistles and 'laboured more than all of them.' Hence what the Lord says of the Holy Spirit: 'He shall convict the world of sin,' He willed to be understood as unfaithfulness. For when He explained this, He said:
'Of sin, indeed, because they did not believe in me'; and where He says: 'If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin.' For it is not that they previously had no sin, but He willed that unbelief itself be understood, by which they did not believe even Him present and speaking, belonging to him of whom the Apostle says: 'according to the prince of the power of the air, who now works in the sons of unbelief.' Therefore those in whom there is no faith are sons of the devil, because they have not in the inner man that by which whatever is committed through human weakness or ignorance or any evil will at all may be forgiven them;
but those are sons of God who, even if 'they say they have no sin, deceive themselves and the truth is not in them,' assuredly, in what follows—'when they confess their sins' (which sons of the devil do not do, or do not do according to the faith which is proper to the sons of God)—'He is faithful and just to forgive them their sins and to cleanse them from all iniquity.' And that what we say may be more fully understood, let Jesus Himself be heard, who was surely speaking to the sons of God when He said: 'If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!' For if they were not sons of God, He would not say to them: 'Your Father who is in heaven.'
And yet He says that they are evil, and know how to give good things to their children. Are they then evil in respect of the same thing whereby they are sons of God? God forbid; but they are evil in respect of that whereby they are still sons of the world, though already made sons of God by the pledge of the Holy Spirit. Baptism therefore indeed washes away all sins, absolutely all—of deeds, words, thoughts—whether original or added, whether committed in ignorance or knowingly; but it does not take away the weakness which the regenerate man resists when he strives in the good contest, but consents to when, as a man, he is overtaken in some fault; rejoicing on account of the former in the giving of thanks, but groaning on account of the latter in the pleading of prayers, there saying: 'What shall I render to the Lord for all that He has rendered to me?' here saying:
'Forgive us our debts'; on account of the former saying: 'I will love You, O Lord, my strength'; on account of the latter saying: 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak'; on account of the former saying: 'My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the snare'; on account of the latter saying:
'My eye is troubled because of anger,' and countless such utterances of which the divine writings are full, which are spoken by the sons of God with alternating voices, now exulting over the good things of God, now mourning over our own evils, out of faith, so long as they are still also sons of this world by reason of the weakness of this life; whom nevertheless God distinguishes from the sons of the devil not only by the laver of regeneration, but also by the uprightness of that very faith which works through love, 'because the just man lives by faith.' But this weakness, with which we struggle up to the death of the body, alternating between failing and advancing—and it matters greatly which prevails in us—shall be consumed by another regeneration, of which the Lord says:
'In the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His majesty, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones,' and so forth. For in this place He indubitably calls the final resurrection 'regeneration,' which Paul the Apostle also names both adoption and redemption, saying: 'But even we ourselves, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body.' Have we not been regenerated, adopted, redeemed through the holy laver? And yet there remains a regeneration, adoption, redemption, which we ought now patiently to await as coming at the end, so that then we may in no part any longer be sons of this world.
Whoever therefore disparages baptism, in respect of what we now receive through it, corrupts the faith; but whoever now already attributes to it what indeed we shall receive through it, yet afterwards, cuts off hope. For if anyone should ask me whether we have been saved through baptism, I shall not be able to deny it, since the Apostle says: 'He saved us through the laver of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.' But if he should ask whether through that same laver He has already in every possible way made us saved, I shall answer: it is not so. For the same Apostle likewise says: 'For by hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he also hope for? But if we hope for what we do not see, we await it with patience.'
The salvation of man therefore has been effected in baptism, because that which he drew of sin from his parents has been forgiven, or whatever he himself also sinned properly before baptism; but his salvation shall afterwards be so great that he will not be able to sin at all. Since these things are so, from them are also refuted those things which they next object against us. For what Catholic says—what they boast that we say—that 'the Holy Spirit was not a helper of virtue in the Old Testament,' except when we understand the Old Testament in the way the Apostle said: 'from Mount Sinai, giving birth into bondage'?
But because in it the new was prefigured, those men of God who understood this were, according to the distribution of the times, indeed the stewards and bearers of the Old Testament, but are shown to be heirs of the New. Or shall we deny that he pertains to the New Testament who says: 'Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels'? Or he who says: 'He set my feet upon a rock and directed my steps, and put a new song in my mouth, a hymn to our God'? Or him who was before the Old Testament, which is from Mount Sinai—the father of the faithful, of whom the Apostle says: 'Brethren, I speak after the manner of men: yet a man's confirmed testament no one annuls or adds to'?
'To Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He does not say: And to seeds, as of many; but as of one: And to your seed, which is Christ. And this I say,' he says: 'the testament confirmed by God, the law which was made after four hundred and thirty years does not annul, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no more by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise.'
Here surely, if we ask whether this testament—which he says is confirmed by God and not annulled by the law which was made after four hundred and thirty years—is to be understood as new or old, who would hesitate to answer 'new,' but hidden in prophetic recesses until the time should come when it might be revealed in Christ? For if we should say 'old,' what will that be which is 'from Mount Sinai, giving birth into bondage'? For there the law was made after four hundred and thirty years, by which law he confirms that this testament of the promise to Abraham cannot be annulled, and he wills that what was done for Abraham should rather pertain to us, whom he wills to be sons of the free woman, not of the bondwoman, heirs by promise, not by law, when he says:
'For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no more by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise'—so that the law which was made after four hundred and thirty years entered in for this, that the offence might abound, when by the sin of transgression the pride of man, presuming upon his own righteousness, is convicted, and where the offence abounded, grace might much more abound through the faith of the man now humbled, failing in the law and fleeing to the mercy of God. Therefore when he had said: 'For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no more by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise'—as though it were said to him: For what purpose then was the law afterwards made?—he added and said: 'What then is the law?' To which question he presently made answer:
'It was added because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made.' The same thing he states thus: 'For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is annulled. For the law works wrath; for where there is no law, there is no transgression.' What he says in that testimony: 'For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no more by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise,' this he says in the other: 'For if those who are heirs through the law, faith is made void and the promise is annulled,' showing sufficiently that what God gave to Abraham by promise pertains to our faith—which is assuredly of the New Testament. And what he says in that testimony: 'What then is the law?' and answered:
'It was added because of transgressions,' this in the other passage he likewise subjoined: 'For the law works wrath; for where there is no law, there is no transgression.' Whether therefore Abraham, or the righteous before him, or those after him up to Moses himself—through whom was given the testament from Mount Sinai, giving birth into bondage—or the other prophets after him and holy men of God up to John the Baptist, they are sons of the promise and of grace after the manner of Isaac the son of the free woman, heirs of God not by the law but by promise, and co-heirs of Christ.
For God forbid that we should deny that righteous Noah, and the righteous of an earlier time, and whoever from him up to Abraham were able to be righteous, whether renowned or hidden, pertain to the heavenly Jerusalem, which is our mother, although they are found to be earlier in time than Sarah, who bore the prophecy and figure of that free mother herself. How much more evidently, then, after Abraham—to whom the promise itself was so declared that he should be called the father of many nations—are all who pleased God to be reckoned sons of the promise! For it is not that from Abraham and thenceforward the generation of the righteous is truer, but the prophecy is found more manifest.
But to the Old Testament, which is from Mount Sinai giving birth into bondage, which is Hagar, those pertain who, when they have received the law holy and just and good, think that the letter can suffice them for life, and therefore do not seek the divine mercy by which they may become doers of the law, but, being ignorant of God's righteousness and wishing to establish their own, are not subject to the righteousness of God. Of this kind was that multitude which murmured against God in the wilderness and made an idol, and that which already in the very land of promise committed fornication after strange gods. But this multitude is exceedingly reprobate even in the Old Testament itself.
Those also, whoever were there, following only the earthly promises which God there pledges, and ignorant of what these very things signify with regard to the New Testament, kept God's precepts out of love of attaining them and fear of losing them—or rather did not keep them, but seemed to themselves to keep them; for faith did not work in them through love, but earthly desire and carnal fear. But whoever does the precepts in this way without doubt does them unwillingly, and thus does not do them in his soul; for he would rather not do them at all, if he were allowed with impunity to act according to what he desires and fears. And thus in the very will within he is guilty, where God Himself who commands looks on. Such were the sons of the earthly Jerusalem, of whom the Apostle says:
'For she is in bondage with her children,' pertaining to the Old Testament from Mount Sinai giving birth into bondage, which is Hagar. Of that very kind were those who crucified the Lord and remained in the same unbelief. Hence even to this day their sons are in the vast multitude of the Jews, although the New Testament, as was prophesied, has now been opened and confirmed through the blood of Christ, and the gospel spread abroad from the river where He was baptized and professed His teaching, even to the ends of the earth. These Jews, according to the prophecies which they read, are dispersed everywhere throughout all lands, so that from their very codices testimony to Christian truth may not be lacking.
God therefore established the Old Testament also, because it pleased God, until the fullness of time, to veil the heavenly promises by earthly ones set as it were in reward, and to give the law—though spiritual—on tablets of stone to a people gaping after earthly goods and therefore having a hard heart.
For apart from the sacraments of the old books, which were commanded solely by reason of signifying—although even in them, since they are to be understood spiritually, the law is rightly called spiritual—the rest certainly, which pertain to piety and good morals and are not to be referred by any interpretation to some signification, but are to be done outright as they are stated, no one will doubt that this law of God was necessary not only to that people then, but even now to us for the ordering of a right life.
For if Christ has taken from us that most grievous yoke of many observances—that we be not carnally circumcised, that we sacrifice no victims of cattle, that we rest not from even necessary works on the sabbath as the sevenfold cycle of days returns, and other things of this kind—but that we hold them understood spiritually, and, the shadows that signify being removed, keep watch in the light of the very things which are signified: shall we therefore say that it does not pertain to us what is written, that whoever finds another's lost property should restore it to him who lost it, and many other similar things by which one learns to live piously and rightly, and especially the Decalogue itself, which is contained in those two tablets of stone, except the carnal observance of the sabbath, which signifies spiritual sanctification and rest?
For who would say that Christians ought not to observe that the one God be served with the homage of religion, that an idol be not worshipped, that the name of the Lord be not taken in vain, that parents be honoured, that adulteries, murders, thefts, false testimonies be not committed, that neither a neighbour's wife nor anything at all belonging to another be coveted? Who is so impious as to say that he does not keep these precepts of the law for the very reason that he is himself a Christian and established not under the law, but under grace?
But there is plainly this great difference, that those placed under the law—whom the letter kills—do these things either from desire of attaining earthly felicity or from fear of losing it, and therefore do not truly do them, since the carnal desire by which one sins is rather changed or increased by another desire, not healed. These pertain to the Old Testament, which gives birth into bondage, because carnal fear and desire make them slaves, not evangelical faith and hope and charity free men.
But those placed under grace—whom the Spirit gives life—do these things out of that faith which works through love, in hope of goods not carnal but spiritual, not earthly but heavenly, not temporal but eternal; believing above all in the Mediator, through whom they do not doubt that both the Spirit of grace is supplied to them, that they may do these things well, and that pardon may be granted when they sin. These pertain to the New Testament, sons of the promise, regenerated by God the Father and a free mother.
Of this kind were all the ancient righteous, and Moses himself, minister of the Old Testament, heir of the New; because out of the same faith by which we live, they too, one and the same, lived—believing that the incarnation, passion, and resurrection of Christ were to come, which we believe have come to pass—up to John the Baptist himself, as it were a certain boundary of the dispensation now past; who, signifying that the Mediator Himself was to come, not by any shadow of the future or allegorical signification or any prophetic foretelling, but pointing Him out with his finger, said: 'Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sin of the world,' as though saying:
'He whom many righteous men longed to see, in whom, as one about to come, they believed from the very beginning of the human race, of whom the promises were made to Abraham, of whom Moses wrote, of whom the law and the prophets are witnesses—behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sin of the world.' From this John and thenceforward there began to be, concerning Christ, things past or present, which by all those righteous of the earlier time were believed, hoped, and desired as future. The same faith therefore is both in those who were beforehand Christians not yet in name but in the reality itself, and in these who are so not only in reality but are also so called; and in both is the same grace through the Holy Spirit. Whence the Apostle says:
'But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written: I believed, therefore have I spoken; we also believe, therefore also do we speak.' In one way, then, is 'the Old Testament' called, according to the now prevailing usage of speech, the law and all the prophets who prophesied up to John—which is more distinctly called the 'Old Instrument' than the 'Old Testament'—but in another way as the apostolic authority names it, either expressing this name or signifying it. For he expresses it where he says: 'Until this present day, so long as Moses is read, that same veil remains in the reading of the Old Testament, which is not unveiled, because it is done away in Christ.' For thus indeed he referred the Old Testament to the ministry of Moses. Likewise he says:
'That we may serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter,' signifying that same testament by the name of 'letter.' Likewise in another place: 'Who also has made us fit,' he says, 'to be ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.' And here by the mention of the new he willed the old assuredly to be understood. But much more evidently, though he said neither 'old' nor 'new,' he distinguished those two testaments by the two sons of Abraham, one of the bondwoman, the other of the free, which we have already mentioned above. For what more explicit than that he should say: 'Tell me, you who wish to be under the law: have you not heard the law?'