Book II, Chapter 14

Chapter 14. That perseverance is given freely by God and is not procured by merits.

After this it remains to inquire whether anyone can merit perseverance for himself. That he can might appear not implausible. For someone can merit perseverance for another by his devout prayers. Otherwise it seems pointless to pour out prayers to God that he ‖D1 may confirm someone in the good, contrary to what was set out in the eighth of this [book]. Why then can a man not merit perseverance for himself? Again, a wayfarer who is in grace and about to fall from it could, and can, obtain perseverance for himself from God by persisting in devout prayer. Why else would the Son ‖D2 say to us that whatever we asked the Father in the Son's name he would give us? And James says: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all abundantly and does not reproach, and it will be given him; but let him ask in faith, doubting nothing." Why then, if any of us lacks perseverance, should he not do likewise, and have it done for him likewise? This is especially so since God gives to all abundantly, and every best gift and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights. Again, man can merit eternal life, as the whole Christian faith attests, and this is a greater and better perseverance. Much more, therefore, can he merit that one too. Again, man can merit final, beatific confirmation and everlasting perseverance, as the holy angels appear to have merited it, from what was premised in the tenth of this [book]. Much more, then, can he merit temporal perseverance. Again, Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance 7: "This gift of God," that is, perseverance, "can be earned by humble supplication; it cannot be lost through obstinate defiance." And below, 46, he says that God gives some things to those who do not pray, such as the beginning of faith, but has prepared others only for those who pray, such as perseverance to the end.

These considerations are no obstacle, however. The opposite side seems more probable, and more in accord with reason and the authorities of the saints. For suppose that anyone could merit perseverance. Let two wayfarers be posited, John and Peter, equal in all natural and gratuitous gifts. Let it be posited that God gives perseverance to neither of them except according to what their merits require. Let them merit perseverance equally up to a time or instant A, at which both are tempted equally to mortal sin. Since it is not necessary that, when one consents, the other consent, nor that, when one resists, the other resist, let it be posited that John resists and so dies, but Peter

sins.1 Then John merited perseverance and received it at A or before; and Peter merited it altogether equally before A. Therefore he too received perseverance at A or before, which is false, since he did not persevere but fell. Or thus: Peter and John equally merited that perseverance be given to them, yet Peter did not merit that perseverance be given to himself, and so neither did John, contrary to the premises. Or let any disparity of merits whatever be posited. Even so, he who merited more that perseverance be given to him, if tempted equally or less, can fall into mortal sin. And he who merited less, if tempted equally or more, can resist and so die, and therefore persevere finally. Again, a certain perseverance is given to baptized infants who depart this life thus, but to many adults who have merited in many ways, by no means. Indeed, let it be posited that one established in the greatest grace merits most excellently that perseverance be given him, and yet at last falls into mortal sin. Let it be posited that another, in slight grace, namely that of baptism, never merits well, but throughout his whole time, which may be longer or shorter, exercises himself in indifferent acts

or in venial sins, yet abstains from mortal sin, and so departs. This man therefore had final perseverance and the other not at all. So it seems plain that final perseverance is not given according to the merits of those to whom it is given, but according to the gratuitous grace of the giver himself. If someone replies that perseverance is not given to some of those mentioned because, although they merited in many ways, they afterwards sinned mortally, he does not untie the knot or escape the difficulty. For final perseverance is preservative from mortal sin, and finally conservative of the other divine gifts. Augustine says in On the Gift of Perseverance 7: "How can the gift of perseverance be lost, through which it comes about that even what could be lost is not lost?" And above, 3: "Those who receive perseverance receive indeed a great gift of God, by which his other gifts are preserved." He who has merited final perseverance, therefore, has merited to be preserved by God from every mortal sin and finally conserved in the good. Why then, in the cases just cited, is one preserved from evil and conserved in the good, and the other not at all? Again,

this man, now sinning mortally, earlier merited most worthily that perseverance be given to him. Why then did he not receive it earlier, as another did who merited equally, or less, or not at all? Nor can one say further that he merited and received it but lost it through subsequent sin, as is plain from the demonstration of the ninth corollary of this [book]. Nor can anyone pretend that, after a man has merited perseverance and received it, he cannot sin mortally. For any wayfarer who has received and has perseverance to the end is not yet at the end but tending toward the end. So just as he can complete the course to the end, so he can fail near the end. Who doubts that the holy Martyrs, Confessors and Virgins, who persisted for many years in unbroken charity to the end of life, could freely have fallen within so short a time? Nor can anyone dream that it is true of no one that he has perseverance so long as he is in this life, but that when he has departed it is true that he had perseverance, although this seems to be the view

of Augustine in On the Gift of Perseverance 7, as is plain from the twelfth of this [book]. Solon, who was one of the seven ancient wise men, said that no one is happy while he lives, yet after death it is true that he was previously happy. This view involves both inconsistency and falsity. It is inconsistent because, if someone persevered through some whole time, then it was presently true that he was persevering through that time, as it is of what is moved through some whole time. It was true then, therefore, that he persevered by some perseverance or perseverances, and so still by some perseverance he was then presently persevering. Therefore it was true that he then had perseverance. Or, more briefly: if a dead man had perseverance, this was either for an instant only or for a time. It was not for a single instant only, as is plain from the twelfth of this [book]. And that instant either was in his life, and since it was not immediately adjacent to the instant of his death, as is shown elsewhere, he persevered in the intervening time; or it was in his death, and then he neither had nor did anything. But if he had perseverance for a time, then throughout that whole time it was true that he presently had perseverance. And if anyone

persists in perversity by saying that he had perseverance for some time, yet at no time had perseverance, then always, for any time and instant of his, he did not have it and was not having perseverance. So he never had it, nor was he having perseverance, contrary to the hypothesis. Again, thus: this man persevered and had perseverance, and not always. At some time, then, namely at some instant, he began to persevere and to have perseverance. Let that instant be called A. A was not the instant of his death, which we call B, because then he did not begin but ceased to persevere and to have perseverance. Nor was it after B, as is plain to everyone. Therefore throughout the whole time AB this man persevered and had perseverance. The former reply also involves falsity, because according to what was shown earlier in the eleventh of this [book], perseverance does not differ

in reality, absolutely, from charity or grace. He therefore who has charity or grace that will remain finally also has perseverance itself. Moreover, if that reply were true, no one would persevere or could persevere on the way. Perseverance would be neither a gift of God nor a good. Indeed it would not exist, nor moreover could it exist, against the eighth of this second [book]. Nor can anyone quibble further by saying that perseverance is nothing, and that no one presently has it or has had it in the past. No well-disposed person doubts that it exists, the eighth of this [book] certifies it, and the whole Church holds it. After these perversities we must return to the earlier matter. If anyone, then, can merit perseverance for himself, he can do so either when established in charity and grace, or without them. Not without them, as the thirty-ninth and following [chapters] of the first [book] teach. If he can even without them, much more can he if he has grace. So let it be posited that someone not having perseverance has grace and has had it continuously before, and continuously merits perseverance, and that at a future time or instant A he will receive and have it. It evidently follows that he had it earlier, namely throughout the whole time

in which he continuously had charity, as the eleventh of this [book] proves. Again, merit is not with respect to the past, so as to make something to have been in the past that in truth was not in the past, since the agent precedes the thing done, in time or in nature. If, however, this man, existing continuously before, now, and afterwards in grace but without perseverance, merits perseverance and receives it, then he had it earlier throughout the whole time in which he earlier continuously had grace, as has just been shown, and this through his own good merit. Again, then, one who is not going to persevere and is not predestined, being in grace, could merit for himself final perseverance in the good. So he could also merit to be predestined and of the number of the elect, or of the number of those to be saved, contrary to what was established in the fifth of this [book] and the forty-fifth of the first. Further, if anyone merited perseverance for himself, some cause and reason would have to be assigned in respect of the divine will why one finally perseveres and another falls: namely, that one merits perseverance for himself and the other not at all. Yet we sometimes see one who has lived most holily for nearly the whole time of his life, at the very point of exit, as it were,

leap back, fall, and so die. We see another who has lived most wickedly for nearly the whole time of his life, in the very last gasp, as it were, rise again and pass over holily. Many infants, too, baptized in the font, pass rightly2 thus to life, and many adults, who for a long time have merited in many ways, at last sin mortally and so pass to death. Therefore the Lord too, in the person of Job, hinting at human ignorance in this matter, says to him: "Show me, if you know all things, in what way light dwells, and what is the place of darkness, that you may lead each thing to its bounds and understand the paths of its house" (Job 38). Now what is light but the just man? What is darkness but the sinner? What is the way or path but action? And what are the bound, place, or house but the bound of action, or of life, and the perpetual dwelling in glory or in punishment? The Lord says, therefore: "If you know all things, show me these"; as if he said plainly, he who does not know all things does not know how to show these. Gregory, Moralia 29, 12, agrees with this exposition: "We see many daily," C1 he says, "who shine with the light of justice and yet at the end are darkened

by the obscurity of their wickedness, and we discern many wrapped in the darkness of sins who yet near the end of their life are suddenly restored, free, in the light of justice. We have known many who, having once found the way of untarnished justice, held to it until death, and we have seen very many who, to the very exit, piled up without ceasing the crimes they had begun. Who then, amid these clouds of hidden judgments, could send forth a ray of his mind, so as by some consideration to discern either who will persist in evil, or who will persevere in good, or who will be converted from the lowest to the highest, or who will be driven back from the highest to the lowest? These things are hidden from men's senses, nor is anything known of anyone's end, because the abyss of the divine judgments is in no way penetrated by the eye of the human mind. For we see that that Gentile world, adversary of God, has been flooded with the light of justice, and Judea, once beloved, is blinded by the night of perfidy. We know also that the thief passed from the gibbet to the kingdom, and Judas fell from the glory of the apostolate into hell. And again, since sometimes lots that have begun are not changed, and we have known the robber sometimes to arrive at punishment,

and we know that the Apostles received the purpose they desired, the kingdom, who then could discuss in what way light dwells, etc.?" E1 The same Gregory, in Moralia 25, 14, on that text of Job 34 [29], "When he grants peace, who is there to condemn? when he hides his face, who can behold him?", says: "Let no one discuss why, while the Jewish people stood, the Gentile world long lay in unbelief, and why, when the Gentile world rises to faith, the guilt of unbelief has laid the Jewish people low. Let no one discuss why one is drawn by gift and another repelled by merit. For if you marvel at the Gentile world taken up, when he grants peace, who is there to condemn? If you are astonished at Judea lost, when he hides his face, who is there to behold him?" E2 Augustine also, On the Gift of Perseverance 19: "Of two infants equally bound by original sin, why this one is taken up and that one left; and of two wicked men already grown to adult age, why this one is so called that he follows the caller, while that one is either not called or not so called:

the judgments of God are inscrutable. And of two pious men, why perseverance to the end is given to this one and not given to that one: the judgments of God are inscrutable." He recites and shows the same view often in the same book, above and below. A1 Speaking of those who live well and piously but are not going to persevere, he says the same in On Rebuke and Grace 25: "If I am asked here why God did not give perseverance to those to whom he gave the love by which they lived as Christians, I answer that I do not know. For, not arrogantly but acknowledging my measure, I hear the Apostle saying: 'O man, who are you, that you answer back to God?' etc., and 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how inscrutable are his judgments, and unsearchable his ways.' So far as he deigns to show us his judgments, let us give thanks; so far as he chooses to hide them, let us not murmur against his counsel, but believe that this too is most salutary for us." A2 And in 26 he adds immediately: "But you, whoever you are, enemy of grace, who ask in this way, and who say rightly that you do not deny you are a Christian and boast of being Catholic: if then you confess

that it is a gift of God to persevere in good to the end, why will these receive this gift and those not receive it? I think you do not know, along with me, and that we both cannot here penetrate the inscrutable judgments of God." And in 27 it continues: "It is indeed to be wondered at, and greatly wondered at, that God does not give perseverance to certain of his sons, whom he has regenerated in Christ and to whom he gave faith, hope and love, while he forgives such great crimes to the sons of others and, by granting grace, makes them his sons. Who would not wonder at this? Who would not be most vehemently astounded? But this too is no less true, and yet it is true, and so manifest that not even the enemies of God's grace can find any way to deny it: that certain sons of his friends, that is, of the regenerate and good faithful, who depart hence as infants without baptism, he alienates from his kingdom, into which he sends their parents, although, if he wished, he would surely procure for them the grace of this laver, since all things are in his power. And certain sons of his enemies he causes to come into the hands of Christians and through the laver to be brought into the kingdom from which their parents are alien, although neither in the former

is there evil merit, nor in the latter good merit, in the infants from their own will. Certainly these judgments of God, since they are just and deep, can be neither censured nor penetrated. Among them is also this matter of perseverance, about which we are now disputing. About both, then, let us cry out: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how inscrutable are his judgments,' and let us not wonder that we cannot search out his unsearchable ways. For, to pass over countless other things that are given to some men and not repaid to the merits of wills, but are not given by God to others (with whom there is no respect of persons), let us look at those of whom we are speaking. For we are discussing3 those who do not have perseverance in goodness, but die with the will failing from good into evil. Let them answer, if they can, why he did not then snatch them from the perils of this life, while they were living faithfully and piously, lest wickedness change their understanding and deceit beguile their souls. Did he not have this in his power? Or was he ignorant of their future evils? Surely none of this is said except most perversely and insanely.

Why then did he not do it? Let those who laugh answer, when in such matters we cry out: 'How inscrutable are his judgments, and unsearchable his ways.' For God does not fail to give this to whomever he wills,4 or else that Scripture lies which says of the death of the just man, as though premature, 'He was snatched away lest wickedness change his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul.' Why then does God give this so great benefit to some and not to others, he with whom there is no iniquity or respect of persons, and in whose power it is how long each remains in this life, which is said to be a temptation upon earth? Just as they are compelled to confess that it is a gift of God that a man end his life before he is changed into evil, and yet are ignorant why it is given to some and not to others, so let them confess with us that perseverance in the good is a gift of God according to the Scriptures, of which I have already set down many testimonies. And why it is given to some and not to others, let them deign to be ignorant with us, without murmuring against God." D1 For these and similar reasons, therefore, it seems to me more probable, and more in accord with reason and Catholic doctrine, that perseverance is not rendered to merits,

but is given freely by God according to his gratuitous grace, gratuitous predestination and gratuitous will, like the first grace, which works in and justifies the sinner. A witness to this is Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance 36, saying: E1 "It is shown clearly enough that the grace of God, both of beginning and of persevering to the end, is not given according to our merits, but donated according to his most secret, and equally most just, most wise, most beneficent will, since those whom he predestined he also called with that calling of which it is said, 'The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.'" And below, 48: "Those for whose sake we are doing this are removed from the heretical perversity of the Pelagians only so far that, although they are not yet willing to confess that they are predestined who by God's grace become obedient and remain so, they now at least confess that [grace] precedes the will of those to whom this grace is given,

so that grace may not be believed to be given other than as a free gift,5 as the truth speaks, but rather according to the merits of a preceding will, as the Pelagian error speaks against the truth." Grace therefore precedes to faith, that is, to the act of faith.6 Otherwise, if faith precedes it, then undoubtedly the will, that is, the act of willing, precedes it, since faith cannot exist without will. But if grace precedes faith, since it precedes will, then surely it precedes all obedience; it precedes charity too, that is, the act of charity by which alone God is truly and sweetly obeyed; and grace works all these in him to whom it is given and whose all these it precedes. These things must be understood according to the exposition premised in the thirty-sixth of the first. And Augustine continues: "There remains in these goods perseverance to the end, which is asked of the Lord daily in vain if the Lord does not work it by his grace in him whose prayers he hears. See, then, how alien it is to the truth to deny that perseverance to the end of this life is a gift of God, since he himself, when he wills, gives the end of this life, and if he gives it before an impending

lapse, he makes the man persevere to the end. But more wonderful, and more evident to the faithful, is the largesse of God's goodness in that this grace is given even to infants, whose age is not one at which obedience is given. These gifts of his, therefore, to whomever God gives them, he undoubtedly foreknew he would give, and in his foreknowledge prepared. Those, then, whom he predestined he also called with that calling which I am not tired of recalling often, of which it is said, 'The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.' For to dispose, in his foreknowledge, which cannot be deceived or changed, B1 his own future works, this altogether, and nothing else, is to predestine." And above, 19, as was cited earlier: "Of two pious men, why perseverance to the end is given to this one and not given to that one, the judgments of God are inscrutable. Yet this ought to be most certain to the faithful, that this one is of the predestined and that one is not. For 'if they had been of us,' says one of the predestined, who had drunk this secret from the Lord's breast, 'they would surely have remained with us.' What is this, I ask: 'They were not of us, for even if they had been, they would surely have remained with us'? Were not

both created by God? Both born of Adam? Both made of earth? And had they not received souls of one and the same nature from him who said, 'I made every breath'? Were not both, finally, called, and had they not both followed the call of necessity?7 Both justified from the wicked, and both renewed through the laver of regeneration? But if the man who undoubtedly knew what he was saying heard this, he could answer: These things are true; according to all of them they were of us; yet according to a certain other distinction they were not of us. 'For if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us.' What then is this distinction? The books of God lie open; let us not turn away our gaze. Divine Scripture cries out; let us lend our hearing. They were not of those, because they were not called according to purpose; they were not chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world; they had not followed into their lot;8 they were not predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things." And above, 17, to a heretic who asked why God did not give some who had worshipped him in good faith perseverance to the end, he answers: "Why do you think, except that he does not lie who says, 'They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us,

they would surely have remained with us'?" He also shows this same thing, in On Rebuke and Grace, 28 and 29 and after, D1 by the same authority, 1 John 2, and by similar ones. The same, in On the Gift of Perseverance 13, speaking of conversion to faith and perseverance in faith, says: "God foreknew that he would do these things. This is the predestination of the saints, whom he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, that they might be holy and without blemish in his sight, predestining them in charity for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, into himself, according to the good pleasure of his will; in which he bestowed his favor on them in his beloved Son, in whom they have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins9 according to the riches of his grace, which he made abound in them in all wisdom and prudence, that he might make known to them the mystery of his will, according to his good will, which he purposed in him for the dispensation of the fullness of times, to restore all things in Christ, those that are in heaven and those on earth, in him. In whom also we have obtained a lot, being predestined

according to the purpose of him who works all things." Against this so clear a trumpet of truth, namely the Apostle to the Ephesians 1, what man of sober and vigilant faith would admit any human voices? And below, 15: "But why, you say, in the case not only of infants, E1 but also of twins or of the aged, is there one and the same cause with so different a judgment? Is not the question similar, why in a different cause the judgment is the same? Let us recall, then, those laborers in the vineyard, those who labored all day and those who worked one hour. Surely the cause is different, the labor expended, and yet the judgment in rendering the wage is the same. E2 Did even these, murmuring, hear anything else from the Householder than 'This I will'?" Gregory, Moralia 25, where he was cited just before, agrees with this: "Let no one discuss," he says, "why, while the Jewish people stood, the Gentile world long lay in unbelief, and why, when the Gentile world rises to faith, the guilt of unbelief has laid the Jewish people low," etc., as above; and he immediately adds: "So let the counsel of the highest and hidden power be the satisfaction of open

reason. Whence in the Gospel the Lord, when speaking of the cause of this matter, says: 'I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, who hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father'; and then, adding as it were a reason for the hiding and the revealing, he says: 'for so it was pleasing before you.' In these words we receive examples of humility, lest we presume rashly to scrutinize the lofty counsels about the calling of some and the rejection of others. For having brought in both, he did not at once give the reason, but said that it so pleased God, showing in this that what has pleased the just one cannot be unjust. Whence also, rendering wages to the laborers in the vineyard, when he made certain workers unequal in work equal in reward, and the one who had sweated more at the labor sought more in wages, he says: 'Did you not agree with me for a denarius? But I will to give to this last also as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will?' In all the things, then, that are set out outwardly, the open cause of the hidden reason is the justice of the will. Let it therefore be said: 'When he grants peace,

who is there to condemn? when he hides his face, who is there to behold him?' And because God judges the smallest as the greatest, and individual things as all things, it is fittingly added, 'both over a nation and over all men.' It is as if we were plainly admonished to attend to this: that the judgment described over one nation is carried out also over all men by an invisible examination, so that one is repelled and another chosen in secret, but none unjustly. What we see done in the greatest matters, let us therefore cautiously fear in each of us too. For thus the divine judgments are directed over one soul as over one city; thus over one city as over one nation; thus over one nation as over the whole multitude of the human race. For the Lord attends to individuals as if he were free from all, and attends to all together as if he were free from individuals." B1 And if someone asks, by way of objection, why God gives such great gifts of grace to those whom he does not will to persevere in them, I answer: he who is bound to me in nothing, and who gives or lends me a great good for a time, what injury does he do me? Or if he gives me a great

good, which I cannot keep unless he himself preserves it, and I lose it because of my fault, he ceasing to preserve it, what injury does he do me? Indeed he does me a great favor. C1 And if you still ask why he does so, I still answer: for your temporal advantage, [and for such] and for the eternal advantage of the elect, as can be had from the thirty-second and thirty-ninth of the first. C2 Therefore Augustine too, On the Gift of Perseverance 17: "It seems to men," he says, "that all who appear to be good faithful ought to have received perseverance to the end. But God judged it better to mix with the fixed number of his saints some who will not persevere, so that those for whom security in the temptation of this life is not expedient cannot be secure. For what the Apostle says restrains many from ruinous elation: 'Therefore let him who seems to stand take heed lest he fall.' He who falls falls by his own will, and he who stands stands by the will of God. For God is able to make him stand; not therefore he himself, but God. Yet it is good not to be high-minded,

D1 but to fear." And below, 37: "No,10 he says: as we have already said above, those who will not persevere are mingled with those who will persevere by the most provident will of God, so that we may learn not to think high thoughts but to agree with the lowly, and to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in us both to will and to work ‖D2 for good will. We therefore will, but God works in us even the willing; we therefore work, but God works in us even the working ‖D3 for good will. It is expedient for us both to believe and to say this; this is pious, this is true, so that our confession may be humble and submissive and the whole be given to God." The same, On Holy Virginity 16, urging humility on virgins, says: "Is it to be believed that for any other reason God permits many men and many women who will fall to be mingled with the number of our profession, than that, with these falling, fear *D4 may thereby be increased, by which pride is repressed, which God hates so much that against this one vice alone the Most High humbled himself?" Other objections can be raised here and solved, D5 as in the thirty-fifth of the first. But if this part pleases anyone and no better answer occurs, he can say to the first objection that even if someone could merit perseverance

... for another, it need not follow that he could also merit it for himself; for it is not the case that whatever anyone can merit for another, he can also merit for himself. A saint like Stephen, for instance, can perhaps merit for another, say for Paul, the first grace, the grace of conversion, operating grace, and yet in no way for himself, as the 35th of the first and what follows make clear. Christ also, by his most holy passion, merited for us liberation from sin, redemption from prison, and many other things, and in no way for himself, as no Christian doubts; and this is evident from Gregory on Ezekiel, homily six; E1 from Anselm, Cur Deus homo 2, 19; from Peter, Sentences 3, distinction 18; and from the same authors and others in many other places 11. And Peter can merit for John that God reveal to him that Peter errs in believing A, which is false; that Peter understands nothing; that B is true and not revealed to Peter 12

... Peter, or perhaps that nothing is divinely revealed to Peter, and similar things; and Peter cannot merit these for himself, since that Peter should both merit and possess these things includes a manifest contradiction. A1 Nor does it follow that, because whatever we ask of the Father in the name of the Son will be done for us, we therefore merit whatever we so ask. For a wayfarer established in grace can reasonably ask to be of the lot of those predestined to life, of the number of the elect, written in the book of life. So the Church prays in the Secret of the Mass: "God, to whom alone the number of the elect to be placed in heavenly happiness is known, grant, we beseech you, that the book of blessed predestination may keep written in it the names of all those whom we have taken up commended in prayer, and of all the faithful" 13. A2 So too the Wise Man seems to pray to God, saying, "Do not reject me from among your children" (Wisdom 9); and yet no one can merit predestination for himself, as is clear from the 45th of the first and the fifth of the second. A3 And if you ask why, then, one asks for what is in no way ‖A4 obtained by asking, I answer that there are some works by which something new is obtained, and others by which an old good is kept. For health is acquired by one work and preserved by another; so too the pious works of the predestined do not acquire predestination for him but preserve it. For at times, if he did not pray, give alms, and do the other works of piety at the opportune times, he would not keep his predestination, would not hold what he had, but another would take his crown, he would be deleted from the book of the living, and would not be written down with the just sons. Therefore, just as predestination is of the end, namely eternal life, so also of the preceding works, as is clear from the 45th of the first. The same can be said likewise of the one who perseveres and of perseverance; yet I do not wish to deny that the works of such a man merit an everlasting reward in heaven. Or it can be said otherwise: God willed that powerless men should ask of God for predestination and for perseverance 14, so that they might plainly recognize that they do not have such goods from themselves but from God. Hence Augustine, in On the Good of Perseverance, 11 15: "After the fall of man, God willed that it pertain to his grace alone that man should come to him, and willed that it pertain to his grace alone that man should not withdraw from him. He placed this in that man in whom we have obtained our lot, predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things; and by this, just as he works that we may come, so he works that we may not depart. For this reason it was said to him through the Prophet, 'Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, and upon the Son of man whom you have strengthened for yourself; and we do not ‖C1 depart from you.' 16 That man is certainly not the first Adam, in whom we do not depart from him,17 but the last Adam, over whom his hand is laid so that we may not depart from him. For Christ whole, with his members, exists for the sake of the Church, which is his body, his fullness. Since, then, the hand of God is over him so that we may not depart from him, the work of God certainly reaches us. For this is the hand of God, by whose work it comes about that we are in Christ, remaining with God. For in Christ we have obtained our lot, predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things. This hand, therefore, is God's and not ours, so that we may not depart ‖C2 from God." And it continues in 12: "For this reason he also willed that he be asked not to lead us into temptation, for if we are not led into it, we do not depart from him. This could have been given to us even without our praying; but he willed to remind us by our prayer ...

... by our prayer, from whom we should receive these benefits; for from whom do we receive them, if not from him from whom it is right that we ask?" But perhaps a further answer must also be given in another way, by distinguishing concerning merit. For one kind of merit seems to be obtaining, another preserving; one obtaining some new good, another preserving an old one. In the first way, according to what has been said, no one merits perseverance for himself, any more than predestination; in the second way he does merit it, as appears from what has been said. It is as if a prince gives a soldier a certain fief on condition that he render him a certain service, or else lose it; when he renders the service owed, he can be said to merit his fief, not by newly obtaining it but by keeping it so that it is not lost. D1 Nor is it altogether evident that whoever can merit the greater can also merit whatever is less. For it is not the case that, because someone merits the eternal heavenly kingdom, he can therefore merit an earthly temporal kingdom; nor, because someone can merit his final great good, can he therefore merit his first small good; nor, because someone who has received the first grace, grace freely given, can merit a greater good, temporal or eternal, can he therefore also merit the first grace itself, E1 as is clear from the 35th of the first and what follows. How, however, someone merits eternal life is not in every respect sufficiently clear. For he does not merit it without grace, as the 39th of the first and what follows make plain; nor does it seem that he merits it in grace, since by the very fact that he is in grace, even without any merit of his own, he is a son of the kingdom and an heir, as is clear from the forty-third of the first, and clear also in the case of baptized infants. E2 Indeed, it even seems that before the infusion of grace he is a son of the kingdom and of life, by God's gratuitous and eternal predestination, which does not follow causally upon any second cause, such as grace or merits, as can be seen from the forty-fifth of the first. Again, according to what was set out in the 35th and 45th of the first, God wills the kingdom and, on its account, merits, and wills these finally for the sake of the kingdom; therefore the Lord does not accept this man to the kingdom on account of these, antecedently and causally. How, however, anyone merits eternal life can be known from the foregoing and from the thirty-ninth of the first. By these and similar considerations an answer can be given to the other points. But whoever shall have said anything better on these or other matters, I embrace devoutly, I revere obediently, I follow gladly.