The appearance of gold is presented at first by its color, but the baseness of lead is detected lurking within. Just as if under the preferred guise of a feigned fellow-citizen an enemy should suddenly appear, or if the crafty subtlety of the foe should transfigure itself into an angel of light, so under the front of piety the evil of heathenism, and within the name of grace, a fatal decree will lie hidden. If, therefore, one is assigned to life and another to perdition, as they assert, then, as one of the saints said, 'we are born not to be judged, but already judged,' and no equity of judgment can hold according to these things. For if God gave nothing to the servant, what will He require back from the servant? IV. THE WORKS OF THE LAW ARE DESTROYED AND THOSE OF GRACE ARE COMMENDED.
AGAINST THIS, THAT MOST UNLEARNEDLY THEY PUT FORWARD TESTIMONIES IN SUPPORT OF GRACE ALONE. 'We read,' they say, 'in the Epistle to the Romans: For if Abraham was justified by works, he has glory, but not before God'; likewise: 'Now to him that works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt; but to him that works not, yet believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned unto righteousness.' They add also: 'But if by grace, then not of works; otherwise grace is no more grace.' To these it must be answered that there are two kinds of works, of which one is removed after the coming of the Lord, the other is approved. For by saying:
but to him that works not, yet believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned unto righteousness—here he plainly sets faith before the works of the law. Nor shall we say that the testimonies of the apostles are conflicting and contrary to one another, when another apostle says: 'Faith without works is dead,' and again: 'Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God; you do well. The demons also believe, and tremble'; likewise: 'For as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.' Nor will the very teacher of the Gentiles, Paul, appear at variance and contrary to himself, when he says thus:
'In all things let us show ourselves as ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulations, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in prisons, in seditions, in labors,' and again: 'Each one shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.' These things will seem discordant to the inexperienced and untaught, and to those who resist the truth with an obstinate spirit. But according to the catholic rule, the works of the law are made void, which are according to the letter, and those which are to be done after grace, grace accompanying, are asserted. Let us see whether we can prove by the very facts that this is so. We read that the works of the law are destroyed, when he restrains the boasting of the Jews, saying: 'Where is your glorying? It is excluded. By what law?'
'Of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we reckon that a man is justified by faith, without the works of the law.' Similarly also to the Galatians he says: 'Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, we also believe in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law; because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified before Him.' And thus the impious error said that works are made void, but by deceitful cunning it suppressed which works those were. Now, therefore, you will find difficulty of understanding removed, if you understand the distinction of persons or of works. For to the Jews it is said: 'By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.'
But to Christians, now reborn in Christ, the word of instruction is thus directed: 'Work good toward all, but especially toward those who are of the household of faith,' and again: 'Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.' To Christians, I say, it is said: 'So let your light shine before all men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven'—that is, that we may not so much dissolve into idleness as glory in good works, not in ourselves but in the Lord. To Christians it is said:
'In truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that fears Him and works righteousness is accepted with Him.' V. CONCERNING THAT WHICH HE SAYS: BY THE GRACE OF GOD I AM WHAT I AM. Hear the Apostle mingling labor with grace in a humble confession: 'By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace in me was not void, but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God with me.' See how to the gift of grace he always joins the service of labor: 'yet not I.' Because he had brought in mention of labor alone, he quickly ran back, as to the embrace of grace his mother, saying: 'but the grace of God with me.' 'By the grace of God,' he says, 'I am.'
The first part, in pious subjection, he ascribed to grace alone; all the middle things, as the teacher of obedience, he assigned to labor; and, tempering both at the consummation, he joined together grace and labor. He did not say, 'I without grace,' or 'grace without me,' but 'the grace of God with me.' What he had first set forth as distinct and separate, how well he connected at the end of his discourse! And so, among the regenerate, when grace without labor, or labor without grace, is set down in the Scriptures, it is suppressed, not separated. When one is named without the other, the other is passed over in silence, not denied, according to that rule which the bishop Augustine intimates: 'Not all things that are passed over in silence are denied.' But in another place also the Apostle says:
'I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.' Behold, the blessed Apostle, already won for Christ, already made the vessel of election, in no way slackens his hands into idleness under the name of predestination and grace, but joins his own efforts to the benefits of God and says: 'I chastise my body and bring it into subjection.' Behold, he is now a soldier of the right-hand company, and see how, though already approved, he fears to be imperiled; how, though elect, he dreads to be reprobated. Already he has the victory in his hands, and yet he does not lay down his arms; already he has been led to triumph, and still he fears the outcome of the warfare.
Since these things are so, perceive that you rise up with the weapons of impious error not against some weak person, but against the doctrine of the chief Apostle, and that you contradict Christ, who speaks within him. And while you take away the service of labor and the causes of praying, know that you are shutting the door of salvation against the human race; and while you know not how to flee the impiety of Pelagius, understand that you are declining to the pestilential dogma of the Manichaeans, who deny free will altogether. VI. HOW THIS IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD: 'BY GRACE YOU ARE SAVED THROUGH FAITH, AND THIS NOT OF YOURSELVES; FOR IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD, NOT OF WORKS, LEST ANY MAN SHOULD BOAST'—WHERE BOTH FAITH IS NUMBERED AMONG WORKS, AND THE FOOD OF THE LAW IS DESCRIBED AS PERISHING, THE FOOD OF GRACE AS ABIDING.
Just as, between the works of the law and of faith, you—friend of sloth and ignorant of discernment—have wandered from the path of understanding, so, between the two times of grace, following your persuasion as a most wicked guide, you have lost the shining rule of the catholic faith. The time of grace by which we were redeemed did not await the merits of men, sought no works at all; God was content with the devotion of our faith alone, according to that word of the Apostle: 'Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him unto righteousness,' as also in another place He says: 'But my just one lives by faith; but if he withdraw himself, he shall not please my soul.' He asserted that this man is just and lives by faith, because He remembers that He conferred faith and righteousness on him who sought them. But by saying:
'but if he withdraw himself'—when he has voluntarily turned aside to bypaths, he did not perish as one forsaken, but as one who ungratefully withdrew himself from the mercy that pressed upon him. Likewise to the Hebrews: 'But he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder to them that seek Him.' How well He joined both the office of the Lord and of the servant by saying: 'and that He is a rewarder to them that seek Him.' For as to God belongs the bounty of rewarding, so to man belongs the devotion of seeking. But you say that faith itself cannot belong to all. It is no wonder if to the man from whom you deny that works pertain, you also strive to take away faith, which it is manifest is reckoned among works, as we have in the Gospel:
'Work not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures unto eternal life,' where the food—that is, the understanding of the letter—is described as perishing, but the food of grace—that is, faith—as abiding. And so the continued discourse follows: 'The Jews said to Him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.' You perceive that nothing is done in the service of God without work, since even he who seems to believe, works. Likewise in the Apostle: 'Neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith, which works by love.' Similarly also to the Thessalonians [the second epistle]:
'May God count you worthy of His calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith in you'; and concerning Abraham in the epistle of the Apostle James: 'You see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect.' Recognize here a twofold office, both of working and of faith. 'By grace,' he says, 'you are saved through faith.' The first calling, therefore, requires of us the short summary of faith; but the grace of the following time enjoins upon the redeemed, the cleansed, the renewed, the diligence of work and the care of laborious service, so that what we received without labor we may keep with labor, by the help of aid, the Apostle admonishing: 'See,' he says, 'that you receive not the grace of God in vain.'
Recognize that the degrees of calling and of consummation are distinct. He awaits faith from the little ones; he requires works together with faith from the confirmed—yet in such a way that he may increase the affection of belief in those who make progress, and stand as a daily helper to those who labor. VII. AGAINST THIS, WHICH THEY SAY, THAT FREE WILL HAS BEEN WHOLLY TAKEN AWAY. The asserter of this wicked persuasion judges that man—enriched with intellect, endowed with reason, adorned with the honor of the divine image—is to be compared to brute animals and senseless beasts, so that he is dragged to the right way by no guidance of his own, but only by the violent command of the Author.
By which kind of reasoning he strives to liken man even to insensible elements, so that, just as in the case of the earth—which produces nothing of fertility by its own choice, which is ignorant of its own fruitfulness, to which belongs neither any sense nor liberty nor will, yet from which the yield of crops is obtained through the labor of a cultivator—so from man, idle from all exercise of virtue, the fruits of righteousness and the desire and progress of good things are taken up by God alone pressing upon him; and, as though he neither feels nor consents in anything, so whatever he desires or does is judged to pertain in nothing to his own effort and zeal; and, just as the great sea, which is tossed hither and thither by the driving winds, so to whatever good deed the human mind is turned by the sole impulse of divine power, without any affection of its own.
Since these things are so, if intellect does not recall man from the left hand of evil, if desire does not rouse him toward the right hand of good, then he will now be held not in the condition of a man, but of a beast. Behold, the heretic, under the pretext of grace, shows what kind of man he wishes man to be after grace. And so, if free will has wholly perished—which surely consists in the love of innocence, or in the working of righteousness, or in the sanctification of the body—if this has been wholly taken away in the transgression of the first man, how do we read: 'Learn righteousness, you who inhabit the earth,' and again: 'But my just one lives by faith,' and: 'The just shall possess the earth by inheritance,' and: 'The eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and His ears unto their prayers'?
Has innocence utterly perished, because in its first degree its possessor neglected to stand? I think not, because it is written: 'The innocent and upright have cleaved to me,' and again: 'Who shall stand in His holy place? He that is innocent in hands and clean of heart,' and again: 'The Lord will not deprive of good things those who walk in innocence.' Has the sanctification of the body been wholly lost, because the dignity of the first purity was shattered when the members in the rebellious servant did not keep their servitude? Not at all, because we read: 'That you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God,' and again: 'Be holy, for I am holy.'
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Thus, of that kind of goods which the ill-secured dweller of paradise had received from the kindly Author, the exercise did not perish, though the perfection was lost. Not, I say, did the chastity of these virtues perish, though the virginal integrity was violated. VIII. IN WHAT MANNER THE WEAKNESS OF FREE WILL IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD. But you ask and say: how is the weakened will of the human mind to be understood? Its diminished liberty so requires the supports of grace, just as a man worn out by long infirmity, with tottering step, needs aids and comforts the more.
Therefore, just as after an inveterate habit of luxury the recovery of continence will cost much labor, and just as, after long use of drunkenness, sobriety once made captive is scarcely recovered with the violence of a rigid cross—sobriety which before, while it was kept unharmed, was preserved with little trouble, since with a certain pleasure it is possessed by an inviolate conscience—and just as, after the various allurements of carnal vices which early youth, retaining its state, could easily have trodden under foot, one returns to the way of virtue with great struggle, as it were against the ascent of a steep mountain: so the liberty of the human will, granted by God, lost the flower and vigor of its grace, yet did not itself perish, so that the divine gifts should not be felt as wholly forbidden to it.
...which he recognizes must be sought again for himself, with the utmost toil and sweat, through the patronage of God's help. Hear the lawgiver disputing about the free choice of the will, when he says: 'I have set before your face life and death, good and evil; choose life, that you may live'; and again: 'I have chosen the way of truth; I have not forgotten your judgments.' You see that here no necessity of fate or of imposed perdition oppresses anyone, where the power of choosing is granted; nor does predestination drag a man to one side, where the election of either side is offered. Likewise: 'Let your hand save me, for I have chosen your commandments'—which is to say: the pernicious pleasure of the world was indeed enticing me toward the left hand, but the profit of your commandments drew me to the right.
Therefore, since the very nations are directed to the judgment of evil or good by the choice innate within them, how much more can the humble Christian govern toward the good part the liberty of his own will—he who places his own capacity in the strength of God his helper, to whom it is said: 'If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have'; and again: 'Do you wish to be made whole?' Being aware how much the mighty Maker has implanted in the human heart, He questions the will of the very one He is about to heal. For in another place also He rebukes a people that walks in the liberty of choice granted to it, thus: 'Bring forth the people that is blind and yet has eyes, that is deaf and yet has ears.' Here, that they are deaf and blind is understood to be a matter of obstinacy, not of nature.
And in the Gospel He openly shows that the disposition of good will has been implanted in man: 'If any man,' He says, 'will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me'—which is to say: it belongs to my mercy that you are called, but it is committed to your will that you follow. Let us see whether God invites man to Himself through ease. 'Let him deny himself,' He says—that is, let the man who is evil strive to be good, and beseeching say: 'Of my own will I will confess to Him.' Each one is commanded to be converted of his own will, lest perhaps the sinner despair that he can be changed for the better. 'If any man,' He says, 'will come after me, let him deny himself'—that is, let one thing be made out of another.
Let patience conquer wrath, let temperance rein in concupiscence, let humility drive out pride, let the cross crush pleasure. Who would reckon that these things are to be conferred, without labor of heart, without affliction of the flesh, without the great striving of the whole man, upon one who sleeps, by grace alone? 'Let him deny himself'—that is to say: O man, do not think that you were so fashioned by your Author that you cannot become just from unjust, chaste from lustful, kindly from ill-willed. That you may be able to attain this, it is not your making that must be changed, but your life. Now, in saying these things, we do not equate the labor with grace, but rather set grace altogether beyond comparison before it. IX. HOW THIS IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD:
'IT IS NOT OF HIM THAT WILLS, NOR OF HIM THAT RUNS, BUT OF GOD THAT SHOWS MERCY'; OR ELSE THAT SAYING: 'I CAME NOT TO CALL THE JUST, BUT SINNERS TO REPENTANCE.' But you say: so entirely is nothing of man's, but all of the grace of God, that the Apostle says: 'Not of him that wills nor of him that runs.' Just as the Jew arrogates to himself out of the Law, or the Pelagian out of the presumption of free choice—yet, though it be with man's service, it is nonetheless of God who shows mercy, not of him that wills nor of him that runs. Here he plainly marks and rebukes the one who thinks that he alone suffices for himself without the hand of a helper. But to him who joins his own efforts to the aid of Him who shows mercy, he does not say 'not of him that wills nor of him that runs,' but speaks far otherwise to him: 'So run,' he says, 'that you may obtain'; and again:
'You were running so well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?' If the will of the runner is not also to be looked for, why is it said: 'I therefore so run, not as uncertainly'; and again: 'I have finished the course, I have kept the faith'? 'Not of him that wills nor of him that runs'—he has veiled himself in the darkness of errors who, in the Holy Scriptures, knows neither how to inquire into the persons nor into the causes. In this place the Apostle, asserting the faith of the Gentiles, restrains and checks the pride of the Jews, who arrogated righteousness to themselves out of the works of the Law and spurned God's mercy and grace—who, as the Apostle says, 'seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.'
Whom also in another place He condemns, under a feigned justification and by an oblique, ironic utterance, saying: 'I came not to call the just, but sinners to repentance.' The 'just'—that is, those who flatter themselves out of a presumption of righteousness—just as in another place He spurns the Pharisee justifying himself and receives the publican accusing himself. 'I came not,' He says, 'to call the just, but sinners to repentance'—that is, I came not to call the Jews, who claim for themselves the privileges of righteousness out of the Law, but rather I seek the Gentiles, who out of faith profess the repentance of sinners. For, aimed at their haughtiness, He also says in another place: 'They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.' The Jews, however, boasted themselves to be just and whole, but they were not.
But who would dare with a sound heart to call himself sound, when the whole race of mankind lay languishing, stricken by the single bite of the serpent? There is therefore one hope of health for the sick man: if he acknowledge himself sick before the physician. Truly it is fitting that he should lack the remedy who feigns not to know his own sickness. And therefore there shall be greater joy among the angels in heaven over one sinner doing penance than over ninety-nine just persons who need no penance. Who, in this place, would not believe those to be truly just who need no penance? Yet no one is more in need of salvation than he who does not understand that he is in need of it.
And therefore that true Shepherd rejoices more over the one sheep that has been called back from wandering than over the ninety-nine sheep that did not wander. And who could be immune from the evil of deadly error, when the prophet testifies: 'All we like sheep have gone astray; every one has turned aside into his own way'? How lamentable was the blindness of the Jews, which, having denied the Savior, had lost the way and refused to know its own error! Here, therefore, the divine discourse, under the name of the 'just'—without prejudging the other sense—rather marks and chides the arrogance of the Jews. For since the number one hundred and the denarius signify the just and perfect, so the number nine and ninety-nine, by the very reckoning of the imperfect number, signify the unjust and sinners.
And so in this place the Apostle's teaching chastises the haughtiness of the Jew, who, justifying himself out of the Law, had repudiated the mercy of the Redeemer, by saying 'not of him that wills'—because in the humble Christian that very obedience and submission is a running and an ascent, but in the Jew's haughtiness it is a fall and a downward course. 'Not,' he says, 'of him that wills nor of him that runs.' How can this utterance pertain to the faithful man, subject to the laws of Christ, to whom it is said: 'And in the law of the Lord was his will,' and what we mentioned before: 'If any man will come after me,' and: 'Freely will I sacrifice to you, O Lord,' and: 'He that will save his soul shall lose it, and he that shall lose his soul for my sake shall find it'?
See how great and how arduous a work—the losing and finding of the soul—He establishes even in man's will, and therefore He concluded thus: 'For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father, and then shall he render to every man according to his works.' Note that, when He says 'according to his works,' the Bestower of grace has placed man's salvation not in the predestination of the Maker, but in the working of the servant. Therefore here it is not man's condition that is designated, but his conduct; and so in another place He says: 'We shall all stand before the tribunal of God, that every one may render an account of the things done in his own body, according as he has done, whether it be good or evil.' Recognize in this place that it is not the evils of another's race or origin, but the deeds done in one's own body, that are to be examined at the final judgment.
Wherefore, concerning a man who has been reborn in Christ, it stands that what shall be called into examination is not that he was born, but what he has done. If therefore the act of man is not also of the will, how does He say: 'If you be willing and will hear me, you shall eat the good things of the land'? And so God, the Creator of both—that is, of the outer and the inner man—just as by His power He arranged the members of the human body, so by His ordinance He permitted man to carry out and administer the ministry and use of those members.
And just as He Himself formed the right hand in every man, yet placed it in man's power to stretch it out wherever he willed and to apply it to diverse works, in like manner He inserted, inspired, and infused into each and every soul the perception of reason and the choice of the will, but left it to be governed and exercised in the hand of human counsel, and committed its offices to the right and dominion of man—so that, if being corrupted he should crave evil, he might know that it was permitted him in the liberty of choice, yet not know that it was lawful; but if he should desire good, he might request the action and completion of it from the Creator, while to him should pertain the dutiful devotion toward its reward. And therefore the Fashioner and Ruler of man assigned to man the use of good will, but reserved to Himself its accomplishment.
He did not therefore, in an equal and just manner, grant willing to one and deny it to another; but just as He gave to every man a hand, an eye, and a step, so likewise He bestowed on every man a will, that he might turn it toward whatever parts he chose. Righteousness, therefore, in man is not a personal, but a general and public gift of God. The access to attaining salvation, like a certain fountain set forth in the midst of this world and granted in common for the drawing, lies open to all, so that he who has neglected to draw is deservedly guilty toward the Giver. And so, that which has been offered to all is to be required back from all. For if, as they say, there is a special dispensation concerning man's salvation, I do not know how the reckoning can be general. But when He says:
'We must all be made manifest before the tribunal of God'—He would not so terribly exact it from all, unless He had mercifully offered it to all. Therefore the Apostle exhorts the man set in the readiness of warfare thus: 'Labor as a good soldier of Christ. No man being a soldier to God entangles himself with secular business, that he may please Him to whom he has proved himself. For he also that strives in the contest is not crowned unless he strive lawfully'; and again: 'The husbandman that labors must first partake of the fruits.' Hear the Apostle in another place too, not preaching your idleness: 'For the rest,' he says, 'brethren, be strengthened in the Lord and in the might of His power. Put on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.'
'For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual wickednesses in high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day and to stand perfect in all things. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with charity, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace, in all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one.' When he says 'that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil,' and again 'that you may be able to resist in the evil day,' and in what follows:
'taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one,' he shows most plainly that the capacity of choice has been granted by God to every man, whereby it should be ready for him not only to resist his own flesh, but even to fight back against the devil—concerning whom he also says in another place: 'Be watchful,' he says, 'for your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour.' If to this adversary the necessity of origin had already, as you assert, allotted certain fixed ones, he would not seek whom to deceive, nor would it profit the allotted to be watchful. But it is not so.
For just as the enemy is set upon all, so to all the right hand of protection and help is not denied, and to those who pray and watch it is succored by the kindness of mercy—which surely is bestowed on those who knock more from devotion than from predestination. And so, amid these things, does not the one who says that grace alone, without the exercise of work and labor, can suffice, seem to you to burst forth, with a mind estranged, into this voice of blasphemy: