Book I, Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37. Against certain Pelagians who say that a man can duly prepare himself of himself alone; and that if he does so, God will give him his grace freely. 1

There are still others who hold that a man cannot properly merit grace of himself, but can nevertheless duly prepare himself, and that God will then give him his grace freely. So in natural things, when the matter has been duly prepared, the form is induced at once. But this preparation either helps in some way or does not help. If it does not help, it neither prepares nor disposes. If it helps, it is in some way praiseworthy and meritorious, and some cause of the bestowal of grace, against the two preceding chapters; and so all the arguments made here and there come back against this error. Again, on this view the beginning of faith is from us, B1 but the supplement from God. Augustine recites and rejects this in On the Predestination of the Saints 2, saying: "If it does not belong to the grace of God that we have begun to believe, but rather what is added to us on that account, and so we first give the beginning of our faith to God, in order that the supplement of it be repaid to us, who would say that he who has already begun to believe merits nothing from him in whom he has believed? Whence it comes about that to one who already merits the rest is said to be added by divine retribution, and thus that the grace of God is given according to our merits; which Pelagius condemned when it was objected to him, lest he himself be condemned." The same can be argued of preparation in every way. He argues in a similar way in On Grace and Free Choice, chapters 12, 17, 18. 2

Again, the preparation itself is a gratuitous gift of God, as the 9th and 20th chapters make clear, and as the 27th, with the 10th and the same 20th, will prove. C1 It is also evident enough through our supreme Author, who says in John 15, "Without me you can do nothing," and through his Disciple Paul, who confesses in 2 Corinthians 3: "Such confidence we have through Christ toward God, that we are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God." And 1 Corinthians 4: "What do you have that you have not received? C2 But if you have received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" And Romans 11: "For from him, and through him, and in him are all things." Whence Augustine too, supported by the force of these authorities, proceeds through the whole book On the Predestination of the Saints, showing that the beginning of faith, its completion and its end, and the whole of it entirely, is from God. Whence in chapter 7

he says of the elect: "Election was obtained by them freely; what it obtained did not come after anything of theirs that they had first given and that might be repaid to them." He proves this by that verse of the Psalm cited above: "For nothing he has saved them." And below, in chapter 14: "This whole argument, by which we defend that grace is truly grace, that is, that it is not given according to our merits, is asserted most evidently by the testimonies of the divine utterances ‖D1. Yet among those who think themselves held back from all zeal of piety unless they assign to themselves something that they gave first and that is repaid to them, it struggles somewhat in the case of adults who use the choice of the will. But when it comes to infants, and to the very mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ, every assertion of preceding human merits against grace fails." The same in On the Gift of Perseverance 67: "Let them attend to how they are deceived who think that it is from us that we ask, seek, and knock. And they say that this is the merit by which grace is preceded, so that grace may follow when we receive as askers, and find as seekers, and it is opened to those who knock; and they do not want to understand that even this is of divine gift, that we ask, seek, and knock. For we have received the Spirit of adoption of sons, in whom we cry 'Abba, Father.'" For this he also cites blessed Ambrose, E1 who says: "And to pray to God belongs to spiritual grace, as it is written, 'No one says "Lord Jesus" except in the Holy Spirit.'" Again, then to receive grace would be a matter of him who wills and runs, against the Apostle to the Romans 9, since on this view it is his to prepare himself duly. 3 E2 This is confirmed through Augustine in the Enchiridion 23, who disputes on this authority of the Apostle and attributes the very preparation of our will wholly to God, as was alleged just now against the error. The same is evident through him in On the Two Souls 15, and it is recited in the Sentences 2 of Peter [Lombard], dist. 26, where he says that the will, that it may not admit evil and may obtain good, is anticipated and prepared by the grace of God, which he also confirms by that saying of the Apostle,

"Not of him who wills, nor of him who runs," etc. The same is evident through the same author, Retractations 1.23; and in On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 4, where he says that God prepares the will; and below, in the sixth: "Although to believe or not to believe is in the choice of the human will, yet in the elect the will is prepared by the Lord." And further down, in the seventh: "When many hear the word of truth, some believe and others contradict, since in some the will is prepared by the Lord, in others it is not prepared." And in On Grace and Free Choice, the twenty-first: "We are formed and created in good works, which we did not prepare, but God Almighty prepared, that we might walk in them." Does not the royal Prophet also say to God, in Psalm 64 [65], "Preparing the mountains in your power"? The mountains are those lofty in the state of life, but it is he who prepares the mountains, not the mountains themselves, and this by your power, not by theirs. Wherefore also below: "The river," he says, "of God is filled with water"; this is, according to Augustine, "the people of God is filled with the Holy Spirit," that is, with his spiritual gifts. "You prepared their food," that is, spiritual food, "for so is its preparation." Here the Roman Psalter, which Augustine expounds, reads thus: "For so is your preparation" 4; and on this Augustine says: "Not because they deserved you, to whom you forgave sins (for their merits were evil), but you, on account of your mercy, because so is your preparation; thus you prepared their food."

How, moreover, did Paul prepare himself, raging most cruelly against Christ, to merit the grace of Christ? How Matthew? And how others like them? Do we not read that the Lord cured certain sick persons by whom, or for whom, he had not been entreated, and who were not preparing themselves in any way, out of his mercy alone? Would not a merciful, kind, and good man, knowing and able, do the same? Why then would not God, who is infinitely better in all things? And if he thus heals bodily infirmities, why not likewise, or rather much more, spiritual ones? Is not the soul more than the body? More like the Creator, and dearer to the Redeemer? But perhaps these men will object that passage of Psalm 9: "Your ear has heard the preparation of the heart"; B1 and Proverbs 16: "It is for man to prepare the mind, and for the Lord to govern the tongue"; and 1 Kings 2: "To him thoughts are prepared." Again, the prayers and alms of Cornelius, not yet baptized and not yet a believer, ascended as a memorial in the sight of God. For this reason Cornelius was told through an Angel to send for Simon, who was sent for, came, and baptized Cornelius himself, as is evident in Acts 10. Therefore on account of that preparation through prayers and alms he merited to be baptized. Again, in such an adult who is to be baptized there are, before baptism, many thoughts and deliberations about being baptized, and finally consent; and when all this preparation is completed, baptismal grace is given. But the first of these concludes nothing, since God hears our prayers in this way, and they are nevertheless not only from us, nor first from us, but from God in us. For we have received the spirit of adoption of sons, in whom we cry "Abba, Father," Romans 8. The Apostle, expounding this in Galatians 4, says: C1 "God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying 'Abba, Father,'" that is, making us cry out. This is evident through the expositions of the Saints, and through Augustine in On the Gift of Perseverance 66; through him, with blessed Ambrose, in chapter 67, the whole reply is evident, as was alleged above.

To the other point, when they allege that it belongs to man to prepare the mind and to the Lord to govern the tongue: this is certainly true, but it belongs not to man alone to prepare the mind, but also to the Lord, as was shown above; hence both belong to the Lord. For who does not know that it is greater and better to prepare the mind for speaking wisely than to utter what has been prepared? For according to Cato: "Speech is given to all, wisdom of mind to few." 5 And who, I do not say a Christian, but even a Pelagian, would dare to attribute to himself what is better and greater, and to the Lord God what is worse and less? Whence James 1: "Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." And Augustine, On the Words of the Apostle, sermon 15: "You will be a work of God, not only because you are a man, but also because you are just; D1 for it is better to be a just man than to be a man. If God made you a man, and you make yourself just, you do something better than God did." The same, on that verse of Psalm 144 [145], "In your justice they shall exult": "Let no one attribute to God what he is, and to himself what he is as just; for you attribute the better thing to yourself rather than to God; for it is better

to be just than to be a man." And Bernard, On Grace and Free Choice 10: "Far be it that we attribute to the will's very nature its perfection, and to God only its creation, since it is far better, surely, to be perfected than to be made; and since it seems wicked even to say it, that what is less be attributed to God and what is more exalted to us." Augustine also, in City of God 12.9, argues in this way: "If the good Angels were first without a good will, and made it in themselves without God's cooperating, then they were made better by themselves than by ‖E1 him. Far be it! If they could not make themselves better than he had made them, than whom no one makes anything better, then surely they could not have a good will, by which they were better, except by the working help of the Creator." The same Augustine, in Book 1 of Against Pelagius and Caelestius, On the Grace of Christ and on Original Sin, chapter 22, 6 refutes Pelagius, who reckoned that thought is sent in by God but love is from us, and says thus: "Let him distinguish thought and love, as things to be distinguished are to be distinguished; and since each is

a gift of God, but one the lesser and the other the greater, let him not here exalt our justice by praising our justifier, so as to assign to the divine help whichever of these two is lesser, but usurp for human choice whichever is greater; and if he has agreed that we receive charity by the grace of God, let him not think so, as if any meritorious good deeds of ours had preceded. 7 For whence could we then have good merits, when we did not love God? For in order that we might receive the love by which we should love, we were loved, when we did not yet have it. This the Apostle John says most openly: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us; most excellently and most truly. For we would not have that from which to love him, unless we had received it from him, when he first loved us. But what good would we do, unless we loved? Or how do we fail to do good, if we love? For although God's commandment is sometimes seen to be done by those who do not love but who fear, yet where there is no love, no good work is reckoned, nor is it rightly called a good work, because everything that is not from faith is sin, and Faith works through love."

But since Solomon seems to set some difference between preparing the mind and governing the tongue, it must be known that to govern belongs to some higher ruler, with respect to something lower directed by him; but to act belongs to any active cause whatever, whether higher or lower. So it can be said that fire heats the iron; but it belongs to the smith to govern and moderate the heat and the heating. So too it belongs to man to prepare the mind, yet not to him alone, but as to a lower active cause together with a higher active cause, and in the power of him who is Lord. But it belongs to the Lord alone, as supreme ruler, to govern the tongue, though with man acting under him, as it belongs to the smith to govern the hammer that stirs up various sounds. For in the hand of God are both we and our words. It could also be said very fittingly: it belongs to the Lord ‖B1 to govern ‖B2 the mind, and to man to prepare the tongue. 8 But that passage, 1 Kings 2, "To him thoughts are prepared," the Gloss understands thus: that is, "to his thought," as if to say, no thoughts lie hidden from him. 9 The whole verse seems to bear this out: "Let the old things," it says, "depart from your mouth, for God is the Lord of knowledge, and to him thoughts are prepared." But of Cornelius I say that however good a preparation he had, he had already received it freely from God, as the preceding [chapters] have taught. Nor was he altogether without faith. For how would he have prayed to God, and given alms for love of him, unless he had in some way believed in him? He did not, however, have full faith, or one not revealed in all things, but a veiled faith. In these ways Augustine replied to those raising the same objection, in On the Predestination of the Saints 8: "It is customary," he says, "to say, 'He deserved to believe because he was a good man, even before he believed.'" This can be said of Cornelius, whose alms were accepted and whose prayers were heard before he believed in Christ; yet he did not give and pray without some faith. For how did he call upon one in whom he had not believed? But if he could have been saved without faith in Christ, the Apostle Peter would not have been sent as architect to build him up; although unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it have labored ‖C1 in vain. Whatever, therefore, Cornelius did well, both before he believed in Christ and after he had believed, is to be wholly given to God, lest perhaps anyone be exalted. Finally, the same is evident from the same author; for all such

thoughts come about freely from God, without whom we can do nothing, since we are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves. For this Augustine says in On the Predestination of the Saints 2: "Who does not see that thinking comes before believing? For no one believes unless he has first thought that it should be believed. For however swiftly, however very quickly, certain holy thoughts may fly ahead of the will to believe, 10 and that will follow at once so that it accompanies them as if most closely joined, it is nevertheless necessary that all things which are believed be believed with thought ‖D1 preceding. What therefore pertains to religion and piety, we are not fit to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God."

Yet though these things are so, it is not my intention to deny all preparation and disposition preceding charity and grace in adults. For I know that servile fear, fear of punishment, fear of harm, love of advantage, and the moral virtues greatly draw back from sin, incline toward good works, and so prepare and dispose for charity and grace and for works truly pleasing. 11 Very many authorities written in Book 3 of the Sentences of Peter [Lombard], dist. 34, sufficiently show this. Yet none can do any of these things, nor in any way dispose himself, without God specially acting in it, as the preceding [chapters] make plain. Nevertheless, the conferral of grace does not always follow a preparation of this kind, just as perseverance, predestinatively unto life, does not always follow the grace conferred, as the preceding clearly teach.