De causa Dei: Book II, Chapter 13
Thomas Bradwardine, De causa Dei contra Pelagium (1344). English translation: Wroot Press, CC BY-NC 4.0; machine-learning use permitted with attribution (https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/rights/).
Source: Henry Savile's edition, London 1618, 509C–511B; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/2/13/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[509C–509E]
CHAPTER XIII. That the help without which no one perseveres, and through which anyone perseveres, is the Holy Spirit, the divine goodness and will.

Having shown that free choice, before the fall or after it, however much created grace sustained it, could not persevere finally, or even for a time, without another, special help of God, it now remains to show what that help is. Upheld by it, anyone who perseveres perseveres, and without it no one at all can persevere. That help of God is the Holy Spirit, the divine goodness and will, as the eighth and ninth chapters of the first book easily demonstrated.[n1] It can be shown in the way the fifth chapter of this second book showed its principal conclusion, which is similar to this one. The authorities alleged in those chapters also bear witness to it, and to them I shall add a few others. Augustine, in On Rebuke and Grace 47 and 49, as the end of the ninth chapter of this second book alleged more fully, shows that the divine help necessarily required by free choice in order to persevere in the good is not only that without which we cannot persevere even if we wish, but also that which brings it about that we wish. But what is that without which we cannot will, which makes us will and brings about our willings, if not God? According to the Apostle in Philippians 2, God works in us the willing, and does so through the Holy Spirit and his own most omnipotent will, as chapters 8 and 9 of the first book prove. For in canonical Scripture and in the Doctors the divine goodness and will are frequently assigned to the Holy Spirit, by a kind of appropriation.[n2]

[509E–510B]
Accordingly Augustine says in On Rebuke and Grace 47: "The first grace, which was given to the first Adam, is that by which it comes about that man has justice if he wishes. The second can do more: by it it also comes about that he wills, and wills so much, and loves with such ardor, that by the will of the spirit he overcomes the will of the flesh, which desires contrary things." The will of the spirit is, that is, the will of the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle understands in Romans 8, when he says, "If by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live." To show by which spirit this is done, he added at once, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." That this saying of the Apostle, about putting to death the deeds of the flesh by the spirit, is to be understood not of the spirit of man but of the Holy Spirit of God, is attested by the authorities of Augustine: On Grace and Free Choice 26; On the Predestination of the Saints 13; and Against Julian 6, 14, as the fourth chapter of this second book alleged more fully. Likewise in On Rebuke and Grace 59: "Concerning perseverance in the good itself," he says,[n3] "God did not will that his saints should glory in their own strength, but in himself. He gives them not only help of the kind he gave the first man, without which they cannot persevere even if they wish, but he also works in them the willing itself. Since they will not persevere unless they both are able and will, the possibility and the will of persevering are given them by the bounty of divine grace. For their will is so kindled by the Holy Spirit that they are able because they so will, and so will because God works that they will."

[510B–510C]
"For if, in so great a weakness of this life, their own will were left to them, so that they would remain in the help of God, without which they could not persevere, if they wished, and God did not work in them that they wish, then amid so many and such great temptations their will would succumb through its own weakness. They would therefore be unable to persevere, because, failing through weakness of will, they either would not will, or would not will so much, through weakness of will, that they could." The same, in On the Gift of Perseverance 8: "We ask that we not be led into temptation, so that this may not happen, and we are heard. Surely it does not happen, because God does not permit it to happen." And in chapter 18: "By his own will he falls who falls, and by the will of God he stands who stands." And in 36: "Hence," he says, "it is shown clearly enough that the grace of God, both for beginning and for persevering to the end, is not given according to our merits, but is bestowed as a gift according to his most secret, and likewise most just, most wise, most beneficent will."

To this purpose also belongs that of Psalm 32 [33]: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the breath of his mouth all their power," with Augustine's exposition recited above; and that of Psalm 36 [37]: "But the Lord confirms the just"; and that of Psalm 50 [51]: "Confirm me with a principal spirit"; and that of 2 Timothy 1: "Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who dwells in you"; and that of Psalm 72 [73]: "You held my right hand, and in your will you led me," etc. And that of Psalm 29 [30]: "Lord, in your will you granted strength to my beauty." He granted, he says, for the adornment of my charity and grace, the strength of perseverance.

[510C–510D]
Hence Augustine says in On Grace and Free Choice 14: "If grace withdraws, man falls, not upright but cast headlong by free choice. Therefore, even when a man has begun to have good merits, he must not attribute them to himself but to God, to whom it is said in the Psalm, 'Be my helper, do not forsake me.' In saying 'do not forsake me,' he shows that if he is forsaken he is by himself worth nothing good. Hence that other one also says, 'I said in my abundance, I shall not be moved forever.' For he had thought it was his own good that he so abounded as not to be moved, whereas it was so that it might be shown him whose that good was, in which, as in something his own, he had begun to glory. Warned for a little while by grace's deserting him, he says, 'Lord, in your will you granted strength to my beauty; you turned your face away from me, and I was troubled.'"

[510D–510E]
The same, in On Rebuke and Grace 35, says: "The predestined, for whom all things work together for good in this very just life, learn that they ought to exult with trembling. They are not to arrogate to themselves, as if from their own strength, confidence of remaining, nor to say in their abundance, 'I shall not be moved forever.' For this reason it is said to them, 'Serve the Lord in fear and exult in him with trembling, lest at any time the Lord be angry and you perish from the just way.' For he does not say, 'lest you come to the just way,' but 'lest you perish from the just way.' The Apostle used these words where he says, 'With fear and trembling work out your own salvation'; and, showing why with fear and trembling, he says, 'It is God who works in us both the willing and the working.' For he did not have this fear and trembling who said in his abundance, 'I shall not be moved forever.' But because he was a son of promise, not of perdition, he learned, when God deserted him for a little while, what he was by himself. 'Lord,' he says, 'in your will you granted strength to my beauty; you turned your face away from me, and I was troubled.' Behold, he is more learned for this, and more humble. He held to that way, now seeing and trusting in his will[n4] that God had granted strength to his beauty. Before, attributing it to himself and presuming on himself in such abundance as God had granted, and not on him who had granted it, he was saying, 'I shall not be moved forever.' He was therefore troubled so that he might find himself, and, wisely humble, might learn where hope was to be placed, not only for eternal life, but even in this life of pious conduct and perseverance."

[510E]
And the same, in the first sermon on the words of the Apostle,[n5] treating his authority cited above, says: "'Now,' you say, 'I walk the just way. I needed to learn, I needed through the teaching of the law to know what I should do. I have free choice of will; who will separate me from this way?'"

[510E–511B]
"If you read carefully, you will find that he had begun to exalt himself over a certain abundance of his, which he had then received; but the Lord, merciful, to teach humility, took away what he had given, and left him suddenly destitute. Confessing the mercy of God by remembering it, he said, 'I said in my abundance, I shall not be moved forever.' I said it; a man said it, and every man is a liar. So I said it in my abundance: so great was my abundance that I dared to say this, 'I shall not be moved forever.' What came of it? 'Lord, in your will[n6] you granted strength to my beauty; you turned your face away from me, and I was troubled.' You showed me, he says, that what I abounded in was yours. You showed me from whom to ask, to whom to attribute what I had received, to whom I ought to give thanks, to whom to run in my thirst, from whom to be filled, and for whom to keep what I was filled with. 'For I will keep my strength for you,' so that I may not lose as my Savior the one by whose giving I am filled. That you might show this, you turned your face away from me, and I was troubled: troubled because dried up, dried up because exalted. What then does the Lord say? 'Serve the Lord in fear, and exult[n7] in him with trembling.' So too the Apostle:

'With fear and trembling,' he says, 'work out your own salvation; for it is God who works in you. Therefore exult with trembling, lest at any time the Lord be angry and you perish from the just way.' Did he say, 'lest at any time the Lord be angry and you not come to the just way'? Or, 'and he not lead you to the just way'? Or, 'and he not admit us[n8] to the just way'? You are already walking in it; do not be proud, lest you perish even from it. And 'you perish,' he says, 'from the just way,' 'when his anger has flared up in brief upon us,' not for long. For where you are proud, there you lose what you had received. Here the terrified man, as if saying, 'What then shall I do?', is answered by what follows: 'Blessed are those who trust in him, not in themselves, but in him.' Therefore in Psalm 35 [36] the Psalmist also says well, 'Let not the foot of pride come to me, and let not the hand of the sinner move me. There they have fallen who work iniquity; they have been cast out and could not stand.' See how, when the Lord is angered against the proud, they perish from the just way, so far that they are driven out from it and cannot stand in it. Nor is this surprising, since 'anger is in his indignation, and life in his will,' as the sixth chapter of this second book expounded more carefully."

NOTES

1. Print: capitula prima. The sense is "of the first book"; compare capitula primi in the next section (509E), where the same chapters are meant. Bradwardine's reference is to I.8 and I.9.
2. "Appropriation" (appropriare) is the technical term of Trinitarian theology. Attributes common to the three Persons, such as goodness and will, are assigned to one Person because of a special fittingness. This is the step that lets Bradwardine move from "the divine will" to "the Holy Spirit" throughout the chapter.
3. De ipsa perseuerantia, inquit, Boni, noluit Deus…. The capitalized Boni does not construe as a separate word. I take it as a genitive with perseuerantia ("perseverance in the good"), with inquit intervening. This is the sense of Augustine's De correptione et gratia, and the evident one here.
4. confidens in voluntate sua. Sua must mean God's will, since the whole passage turns on Ps 29:8 in voluntate tua, and the clause continues Deum… praestitisse virtutem. The Latin is formally ambiguous (his own will or God's). English "his" keeps the ambiguity.
5. De verbis Apostoli sermone primo. Savile gives no work, only the margin "Augustine". De verbis Apostoli is the usual title of a group of Augustine's sermons, but the passage quoted, on "I said in my abundance" (Ps 29:7), appears to come from Augustine's Enarratio in Psalmum 29, second exposition, sermon 1. I translate the words as Savile prints them and leave the identification to be verified.
6. Savile's print omits tua here (Domine in voluntate praestitisti), though every earlier quotation of Ps 29:8 has in voluntate tua. I translate "in your will", the evident sense of the verse.
7. Print: exaltate ei cum tremore ("exalt him with trembling"). The Vulgate of Ps 2:11 has exultate, and the same print has exultate cum tremore a few lines later, as at 510D. The sense requires "exult", and I translate accordingly. I take exaltate as a misprint in the 1618 text.
8. The main text reads nos here and in super nos below; the variants in the margin read vos, which fits the second-person address that follows (in illa ambulatis). The main reading can be construed (Augustine including himself with his hearers), so I translate it and record the variants.