On the Calling of All Nations

But now, with Christ's help, let us begin what we have undertaken to treat. In every human soul, so far as we are given to understand and experience, there naturally inheres some kind of will, by which either what pleases is sought, or what displeases is avoided. Of this will, so far as pertains to its natural motion, weakened as it is by the fault of the first transgression, there are two kinds, according to which the will of man is either sensual or animal. But when the grace of God is present, a third kind is added to it through the gift of the Spirit, so that it can become spiritual, and through this more excellent motion may judge all affections, from whatever source arising, by the law of supernal reason.

The sensual will, then, which we may also call carnal, does not rise above that motion which is born of the bodily senses, such as exists in the souls of infants: who, although they use no judgment of reason, nevertheless show that they will something, and are unwilling to something, when by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, they both love the things by which they are delighted, and hate the things by which they are offended. For what is it to love, but to will? Or what is it to hate, but to be unwilling? They have therefore even in themselves a will of their own, which, although it is incapable and ignorant of foreseeing and taking counsel, nevertheless delights to act in those things which flatter the senses of the flesh, until the vigor of rational understanding is aroused through the more mature services of the body, and is moved to the use of the members that serve it, not by an alien impulse, but by its own law.

From this sensual appetite, then, in which those remain whom we see even in more advanced years to be witless and foolish, one rises to the animal will: which, before it is moved by the Spirit of God, even if it can raise itself above the sensual motion, nevertheless, without participation in the highest love, is occupied with earthly and perishing things. In this state, even human talents, if they do not shamefully serve bodily pleasure, and temper their desires by the laws of justice and honesty, acquire nothing beyond the reward of temporal glory.

And although they fittingly adorn the present life, yet they do not possess the reward of eternal blessedness: because they do not refer their upright actions and good pursuits to the praise and honor of him from whom they received them, so that in this very animal discernment they might understand more sublimely, and shine forth more excellently than others. For when certain men have bent the keenness of their mind not only to the establishment of the most useful arts, and to the teachings of the liberal disciplines, but even to the inquiry into the highest good, and have beheld the invisible things of God, understood through the things that are made, yet giving no thanks to God, nor confessing that he is the author of this faculty to them, but saying that they are wise—that is, glorying not in God but in themselves, as though by their own studies and reasonings they had drawn near to the contemplation of truth—they became vain in their thoughts.

And what, by the illumination of God's grace, they had found, they lost through the blinding of pride: falling back from the supernal light to their own darkness, that is, from the unchangeable and eternal good to a mutable and corruptible nature. When, therefore, such men fall back into love of themselves, and so please themselves, that they refer nothing which they judge praiseworthy in themselves to the gifts of God, but claim it for themselves, and ascribe it to the pursuit of their own will, they are exiled far from that spiritual will, and have nothing in themselves by which they might be advanced to eternal life, beginning even to corrupt in themselves those very temporal gifts of God, and to pass from the good use of them into the habit of innumerable vices.

For although it is written, that when the Most High divided the nations, as he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the angels of God, and the Lord's portion became his people Jacob, Israel the line of his inheritance: and it is written that the Lord said to Israel: You shall be holy to me, because I the Lord your God am holy, who have separated you from all peoples to be mine; and although it is written in the book of Esther, Mardochaeus saying: I thank thee, O Lord, for thou hast wrought new signs and wonders, such as have not been done among the nations, dividing the whole age into two lots, thou hast chosen one for thy people, the other for the other nations (Esther X); and Paul and Barnabas say:

We also are mortal, men like unto you, announcing to you that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, who in past generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways; although, therefore, Scripture proclaims these and many similar truths, yet according to that same Scripture we believe and most piously confess, that never has the universal care of divine providence been lacking to mankind. Which, although it directed a chosen people to piety by special institutions, yet withdrew the gifts of its goodness from no nation of men, so that they might be convicted of having received prophetic voices and the precepts of the law through the service and testimony of the elements. Whence also they were made inexcusable, because they made gods for themselves out of the gifts of God; and what had been created for use, they venerated for worship.

Into this impiety even that nation which the Lord separated to himself from all nations would have wholly passed, had he not held forth the purpose of his mercy to sustain the fallings of the elect. For the pages of the Old Testament are full of the record of Israel's defection, so that it plainly appears that it was always of divine grace, that not all that people departed from the Lord. Thus human nature, vitiated in the transgression of the first man, even amid the benefits, amid the precepts and helps of God, is always more prone to the worse will, to which to be entrusted is nothing other than to be abandoned.

This will, therefore, is wandering, uncertain, unstable, unskilled, weak in accomplishing, ready in daring, blind in its desires, swollen in honors, anxious with cares, restless with suspicions, more greedy of glory than of virtues, more attentive to fame than to conscience, and more wretched through the whole of its own experience in enjoying the things it has desired than in lacking them, and has nothing in its own powers except readiness for peril: since a mutable will, which is not ruled by the immutable will, draws nearer to iniquity the more sharply it is bent upon action. As long, therefore, as those things please a man which displease God, his will is animal: because even if he acts in good morals, he still lives badly, if he does not live for the glory of God. For this is the proper and chief mark of the pious, that they glory in the Lord, and love themselves only in God. For they love themselves well, who in themselves love the works of God.

For God too loves this in us, which he himself has made: and hates this, which he himself has not made. If, then, we love the work of God in us, we rightly love the good will in us: which indeed, if it were not the work of God, would not be worthy of love. But what man, unless he be of evil will, does not love in himself the good will, which is the first planting of the heavenly husbandman? For as Truth says: Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up: whatever is not to be rooted up is manifestly planted by the Father.

But the good will is the first seed of all virtues, which, resting upon its own origin, reposes in that eternal and unchangeable will, so that it may truly be spiritual: since he who cleaves to God is one spirit, while, through the communion of the one who enlightens and the one enlightened, the one who justifies and the one justified, the one who rules and the one subject, every action is referred to one; and what is referred to one belongs to both: because that which he has given cannot be alienated from God, nor that which he has received from man.

Here it seems fitting to treat the question whether, when a man begins to be of good will, the very will that was in him is corrected, or whether another will, which he did not have and which is contrary to the former, is given to him. That this may appear more clearly, let it not be tiresome to inquire into it more deeply. All of us men were created without fault in the first man, and all of us lost the soundness of our nature through the transgression of that same man. From this comes derived mortality, from this the manifold corruption of body and soul, from this ignorance and difficulty, useless cares, unlawful desires, sacrilegious errors, vain fear, harmful love, unjust joys, counsels to be repented of, and a multitude of miseries no less than of crimes.

With these and other evils, then, rushing in upon human nature, with faith lost, hope abandoned, understanding blinded, will held captive, no one finds in himself whence he might be repaired: because even though there was one who by natural intellect strove to struggle against vices, he ordered the life of this present time only fruitlessly, but made no progress toward true virtues and eternal blessedness. For without the worship of the true God, even what seems to be virtue is sin: nor can anyone please God without God. But he who does not please God, whom does he please but himself and the devil? When man was despoiled by him, he was not deprived of will, but of the soundness of will: because he could not be thrust down from the state of innocence unless he sinned by will. That which, then, was good in nature, was made evil in quality.

And that motion of the mind which can never be without some love, that is, without some will, did not lose its appetite, but changed its affection: receiving by desire what it ought to have rejected by judgment. When, therefore, man returns to piety (of whom it was said for this reason: "A spirit that goeth and returneth not"; because unless God converted him, he would not return), no new fashioning, no new creature is made; no other substance is created in him, but the same that had been shaken is repaired. Nor is anything else taken away from him except the fault, which nature did not have. For there was in Adam a nature without fault, who through disobedience of will contracted many evils, and transmitted them to his posterity, to be multiplied more and more. That these might be conquered, and reduced to nothing, nothing effects this but the grace of the Savior, who repairs his work by his work.

For as the apostle John says: "For this the Son of God appeared, that he might destroy the works of the devil". And as he breaks the chains of the captive, so he clothes the nakedness of the despoiled, so he heals the wounds of the wounded: so that what he does in him is also carried out through him. It is not expedient for man to fight against his enemy without a protector. For he has a contest with him by whom he was once overcome. Let him not, then, trust in his own strength, which even when whole did not stand firm: but let him seek victory through him who alone was not conquered, and conquered all things. And if he seeks, let him not doubt that he received the affection of seeking from him whom he seeks.

Nor let him think, because he is moved by the Spirit of God, that he therefore does not have free will, which he did not lose even when he gave himself by will to the devil, by whom the judgment of the will was depraved, not taken away. What, therefore, was not slain by the one who wounds is not removed by the one who heals. The wound is healed, nature is not removed. But what perished in nature is not restored except by the author of nature, with whom what nature lost did not perish. For eternal is wisdom, eternal is truth, eternal is goodness, eternal is justice; in short, the light of all virtues is eternal, and the whole of what virtue is, is God. If he does not work in us, we can be partakers of no virtue. Without this good, indeed, nothing is good; without this light, nothing is bright; without this wisdom, nothing is sound; without this justice, nothing is right.

For the Lord says through Isaiah: "I am, I am God, for there is none besides me who saves". And Jeremiah: "I know, O Lord," he says, "that the way of man is not in himself, nor is it in a man to direct his own steps". For mortal man, his origin condemned in Adam, born carnally, does not arrive at the spiritual dignity of the new generation unless guided by the Holy Spirit.

But neither does he desire this with any longing who has not received the warmth of that very longing, of which the Lord says: "I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled?" But this fire is the love of God, which the lover of the world cannot grasp with a captive heart; for he is full of the love of vanities, which even if he could in some part avoid, and having transcended corporeal and visible things, made progress toward understanding eternal and invisible things, if he should also have withdrawn from the worship of idols, and ceased to venerate heaven and earth and all the elements of this world; yet, disturbed by the very humility of Christ, he will not grasp faith and love of Christ, and will not overcome by his own judgment the scandal of the Lord's birth and death.

For on account of the wisdom of the world resisting the wisdom of God, that the pride of those presuming upon themselves might be blinded, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. Whence those who are puffed up with secular teachings consider the cross of Christ a thing more to be laughed at than adored: and the more sublimely each one has ascended to the institutes of human disciplines, the more he disdains the humble and weak things of our preaching. Nor is it strange if pagan philosophy resists the Gospel of the cross of Christ, when even Jewish learning struggles against it. Neither the learned, then, nor the unlearned, nor those of any lineage or rank, are led to God by human reason; but every man who is converted to God is first moved by the grace of God. For he is not light to himself, nor does he kindle the course by the ray of his own light.

For if blessed John, than whom no man born of woman is greater, was not the light, because he did not shine by his own splendor, but had received of that true light which enlightens every man coming into this world, that he might be a light: who then will he be, who by his own judgment alone breaks off so many strivings of opinions, so many chains of custom, so many prejudices of antiquity, and has this only of grace, that he heard, from the mere voice of a teacher sounding from without, and has all of will, that he believed? For if it were so, there would be no difference between grace and law; nor would the spirit of indulgence give life to anyone, if the killing letter remained. For the law, in that it commands something to be done or not done, does not bring it about that it is done or not done beforehand: since its severity is served not by liberty but by fear.

But the Lord, that he might not destroy the law but fulfill it, made the command of the law effective through the help of grace, and by multiplying clemency took away the punishment, that he might punish sin not by avenging but blot it out by remitting it. Whence he freed by truth the adulteress who, by the law's constitution, was to be stoned, and by grace, when the executors, being reproved, terrified in their consciences, had left the trembling accused under his judgment, he who had come to seek and to save that which was lost. And therefore, bowed down, that is, brought low to human things, and bent to the work of our reformation, he wrote with his finger on the ground, that he might empty the law of commandments through the decrees of grace, and show that he was the one who had said: "I will give my laws in their minds, and write them in their hearts".

This indeed he does daily, while he inserts his own will into the hearts of those called, and with the pen of the Holy Spirit rewrites in mercy whatever the devil, in envy, had falsified on the pages of the soul. When, therefore, the word of God is brought to the ears of the flesh through the ministry of preachers, the operation of divine power is mingled with the sound of the human voice, and he who stirred up the office of the one evangelizing also formed the affection of the one hearing. For the food of the word becomes sweet to the soul, old darkness is driven away by new light, and the inner gaze is stripped of the fog of ancient error.

The mind passes from will to will, and that which is driven out lingers with some delay, yet that which is born claims for itself whatever is more choice, so that the law of sin and the law of God have diverse and distinct dwellings in the same man, and while the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit resists the lusts of the flesh, the tempter indeed dares to lie in wait through outward things, but the mind, fortified by the help of God, prevails. For to the great benefit of the faithful the material of contests is reserved, that holiness may not grow proud while weakness is being assailed. Whence the Apostle also says: "Lest I should be exalted by the greatness of the revelations, there was given to me an angel of Satan, to buffet me: for which cause I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me: and he said to me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for power is made perfect in infirmity".

Let the Lord, then, seek his own image, and let the good shepherd find the straying sheep, and not disdain to carry the sick one, wearied long on the pathless way, upon his own shoulders, and to save her not only by calling her back but also by carrying her. Let the Lord seek his own image, and, the concretion of all the filth that has fallen upon it wiped away, let him clear the mirror of the human heart. For it is written: "Who can make clean what is conceived of unclean seed?" Is it not you alone who can? Let the Lord seek his own image, that in its renewal and justification the grace of the reformer may appear, as the apostle Paul testifies was done in himself, and says: "Now I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ; only they had heard that he who persecuted us in times past now preaches the faith which he once destroyed; and they glorified God in me".

If, then, at that time the Christian people had learned, and those of the primitive Church, who were of one heart and one soul, believed thus, so that when they saw someone converted from error to the knowledge of the truth, they glorified God, and confessed that the faith of the one corrected was the gift of God; the Lord himself likewise taught his disciples, the teachers of all nations, thus, saying: "Let your light so shine before men, that seeing your good works, they may glorify your Father who is in heaven".

This faith, then, being fixed in our hearts and humbly founded, by which we most wholesomely believe that all good things, and especially those which bring forward to eternal life, are held by the gift of God, are increased by the gift of God, are guarded by the gift of God, I think a pious sense ought not to be disturbed by my question, which arises concerning the conversion of all, and not of all men, if we do not obscure what is clear by what is hidden; and while we insolently press upon what is closed, we be excluded from what is open; since it ought to suffice that we walk in that to which we have attained. For what wonder is it if some do not come to the sacraments of life, when many who seemed to have come depart? Of whom it is said: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us".

Like these also are those who profess that they know God, but by their deeds deny him. For although it is written: "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved"; of whom, nevertheless, the Lord says: "Not everyone that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven"; and: "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many mighty works in thy name? And then I will say to them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye workers of iniquity". Such men do not call upon the name of the Lord, who do not have the spirit of adoption of sons, in which we cry, Abba, Father. For no man can say the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Spirit.

And whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God, who come to God through God: and, willing to be saved, are altogether saved, because they conceive the very desire of salvation from the inspiration of God, and through the illumination of the one calling come to the knowledge of the truth. For they are the children of promise, the reward of faith, the spiritual seed of Abraham, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, foreknown and foreordained unto eternal life, as the Holy Spirit testifies through the prophet Jeremiah, saying: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord".

For this is the testament which I will dispose to the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my laws in their sense, and I will write them in their heart: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying: Know the Lord: for all shall know me from the least of them even to the greatest: for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more. And I will give them another way, and another heart, that they may fear me all days, for their own good and that of their children after them: and I will establish for them an everlasting testament, which I will not turn away after them, and I will put my fear into their heart, that they may not depart from me: and I will visit them that I may make them good.

Through Isaiah also the Lord, concerning that grace of his by which he makes a new creature out of all men, foretells the same things, saying: Behold I make new things, which shall now arise, and you shall know them: And I will make a way in the desert, and rivers in the dry land. The beasts of the field shall bless me, the sirens and the daughters of the ostriches, because I have given water in the desert, and rivers in the dry land, for my chosen race to drink, my people whom I have gotten for myself, that they may declare my mighty works. And again: I swear by myself, unless justice shall go forth out of my mouth, and my words shall not be turned back, that to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God.

If therefore it is impossible for these things not to come to pass, since neither is God's foreknowledge uncertain, nor his counsel changeable, nor his will ineffectual, nor his promise false: all those of whom these things were foretold are saved, without exception of any. For he gives his laws in their sense, and writes them with his own finger on their hearts, that they may receive the knowledge of God not by the work of human teaching, but by the instruction of the highest Teacher: because neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. All these, from the least even to the greatest, know God, because in order that they might come to Christ, they heard and learned from the Father. All, led out from error, are directed into the way of life; to all, their heart being changed, it is granted to think rightly and to will rightly; in all is implanted the fear whereby they are instructed in the commandments of God.

A way is made in the desert, and the dry land is watered with rivers, so that they who before did not open their mouth to confess God, and had passed, like dumb and irrational animals, into the ferocity of beasts, being cleansed by the fountains of the divine utterances, bless and praise God, declaring the mighty works and marvels of his mercy, who chose them, and adopted them as sons, and made them heirs of the new testament. But if (as the Apostle says) no man disannulleth or addeth to a testament that is confirmed by man, how can it come to pass that the divine promise be dissolved in any part? It surely remains, and is daily fulfilled, what the Lord promised to Abraham without condition, and bestowed without law: for even if certain ones, to whom these things were foretold, did not believe, their unbelief did not make void the faithfulness of God. For God is true, but every man a liar.

And those indeed who, having heard the Gospel, were unwilling to believe, have been made more inexcusable than if they had heard no proclamation of the truth. But it is certain that these were not, in the foreknowledge of God, sons of Abraham, nor numbered in the lot of those of whom it was said: In thy seed shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed. For he who said, And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me from the least of them even to the greatest, promised that they would believe. He who said, I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more, promised that they would be reconciled. He who said, I will give them another way and another heart, that they may fear me all their days, promised that they would obey.

He who said, I will put my fear in their heart, that they may not depart from me: and I will visit them, that I may make them good, promised that they would persevere. Lastly, he promised that all, without exception of anyone, would be subject to him, who said: I have sworn by myself, righteousness shall go forth from my mouth, and my words shall not be turned back, that unto me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. If here we should say that what God swore would be done is not done, we ascribe falsehood (which be far from us) and lying to the Truth.

But if (as piety and faith persuade us) the words of God do not fail, and that which he has decreed comes wholly to pass; how shall the firmness of a truthful promise appear to us, when many thousands of men still serve demons and bend the knee to idols, unless we understand such declarations of God to have been uttered according to that unchangeable knowledge in which the whole of humanity is already, before him, distinguished, and whether he speaks of the good or of the evil, he so speaks of the one part as though he passed over no man? For when the Apostle says: Old things are passed away, behold all things are made new: does he not seem to have said that all men are renewed? Or when he says: Because in him it hath well pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell, and through him to reconcile all things unto himself: does he not speak as if he would have no one understood to be excluded from this reconciliation?

Or when he says: In these last days he hath spoken to us in his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things: does not the form of the statement convey that all men have been transcribed by the Father into the inheritance of Christ, according to the prophecy of David saying: Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession; for when the Lord says: If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself: does not the conversion of all seem to be promised? Or when it is prophesied of the Church and said: Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain: does any man seem to be left out who is not signified as destined to be subjected to Christ?

What of when it is said: And all flesh shall come before my sight to worship in Jerusalem, saith the Lord; or that: And it shall come to pass in those days, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh; or that: The Lord lifteth up all that fall, and raiseth up all that are cast down: is it not proclaimed as though no one were set apart from this gift of God?

The people of God, therefore, has its own fullness, and although a great part of mankind either rejects or neglects the grace that saves, yet among the elect and foreknown, and those set apart from the generality of all, a certain special universality is reckoned, so that out of the whole world the whole world may seem to be delivered, and out of all men all men may seem to be taken up: just as, when the discourse concerns the impious, the divine style so orders its speech that what is said of a certain part seems to pertain to all men: as is that saying of John the Baptist: He who comes from heaven is above all: what he has seen and heard, he testifies; and no man receives his testimony. Or that of the Apostle: All seek the things that are their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's.

Or that which the psalm of David sings: The Lord looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there were any that understood, or did seek God. All have gone astray, they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no not one.

By these, then, and by other testimonies which may be brought forward in greater number by those who inquire, it is shown beyond doubt that sometimes, for a part of the earth, the whole earth is named, and for a part of the world, the whole world, and for a part of mankind, all men—the distinction of which Scripture for the most part quickly makes clear, so that the reader's understanding may be transferred from the appellation of universality to the part which is to be understood: as is that saying of the Apostle: We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness, but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Is Christ then power to the very same to whom he is a stumbling-block? Or wisdom to those to whom he is foolishness?

But because some of the same are to be justified by faith, while others are hardened by their own impiety, he has distinguished one kind of believers and unbelievers under the name of "the called," so that those whom he signified as strangers to faith he might show to be strangers to the calling also, although they had heard the Gospel. By this rule the divine word promises through Isaiah, saying: And I will lead the blind into a way that they know not, and they shall walk in paths which they have not known: and I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things I will do, and will not forsake them. But what follows: But they themselves are turned back; is to be referred to a certain part of their own race, not to those of whom he says: I will not forsake them. Again the Lord says to Jacob: Fear not, for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the East, and gather thee from the West.

I will say to the North, Give up: and to the South, Keep not back: bring my sons from a far country, and my daughters from the ends of the earth: all in whom my name is called. For I have prepared him for my glory, and formed him, and made him. But what follows: And I have brought forth a blind people, and their eyes are blind, and they have deaf ears; cannot by any reasoning agree with those whom he says he has prepared for his glory. For in all these words which are spoken of one kind of men, earlier things suit some persons, and later things others. In the Apostle also, what happens in a part of the people is narrated under the appellation of the whole people, and the fullness is reckoned in the remainder. For when he was discoursing of the blindness of the Jews, and showing that some of them were made safe by grace, he says: I say then, hath God cast away his people? God forbid.

For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin: God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. The foreknown people, then, the people not cast away, are those who have been justified in Christ. And what seems to be said of all Israel is shown to apply only to those whom the election of grace has left as a remnant, as the following words of the Apostle's discourse relate. For he adds and says: Know ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias, how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying: Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have digged down thine altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my life? But what saith the divine answer unto him? I have left me seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So then, he says, at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace saved.

And if by grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. Not all Israel, then, is reprobate, nor is all Israel elect, but voluntary blindness has turned one part away, while gratuitous illumination has reserved the other part for itself: and yet the discourse is so held concerning them, that in both those who perish and those who are made safe, no distinction of the whole kind seems to have been made. For when we read: As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sake: the wording sounds as though it called the very same people beloved whom it had called enemies. But the Apostle himself has wiped away this obscurity by saying: Because blindness in part has happened to Israel: so that we might understand one kind to be divided into two species, and that every man, all fullness, all Israel, is not always to be referred to the whole, but for the most part to a part.

Among these modes of speaking, moreover, we ought also to notice that manner of expression in the Scriptures, whereby what pertains to men of diverse times is promised as though it were spoken of one generation of the same age, as is that which St. Peter the Apostle, writing to the Gentiles of his own and of the future time, says: But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Were those men still living, when this was preached, whom God in past generations had suffered all to walk in their own ways, and were those very same men who had before been given up to their own wills, now being called out of darkness into marvellous light?

Had not those men already passed away, were they no longer in this world, nor was there any return from error to truth possible for men long since dead? And yet the customary manner of speech has so touched upon the grace given, after many ages, to the descendants of the impious, that these themselves now seem to be chosen, who before had been abandoned. But these things pertain not to the same men, but to men of the same nation: and the calling which shone forth near the end of the world does not run back to a past age. Thus in a certain manner they both are and are not the same people of whom and to whom these things are said, in that in some particular respect they are not divided from the general, but in another respect they are separated from what is common.

But when those who love contentious disputes have read or heard these things, they will say that we, through arguments of this sort, contradict the Apostle who declares that God wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Which particle of the Apostle's words we accept so wholly and fully, that we take nothing away from it out of what precedes or follows and pertains to it: since, to leave aside the other testimonies of the divine utterances, this passage alone suffices to empty out what they calumniously object, and to defend what they impiously deny. Thus the apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, says: I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and for all who are in high positions: that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all. Concerning this rule of apostolic doctrine, therefore, with which the universal Church is imbued, lest we wander into a different understanding by our own judgment, let us inquire what is felt in that universal Church itself: for nothing can remain doubtful in a precept, if obedience concurs in zeal with it. The Apostle, then—indeed the Lord through the Apostle, who was speaking in the Apostle—commanded that supplications and prayers, thanksgivings, be made for all men, for kings and for those who are in high positions. Which law of supplication the devotion of all priests and all the faithful holds so concordantly, that there is no part of the world in which prayers of this kind are not celebrated by Christian peoples.

Everywhere, therefore, the Church supplicates God not only for the saints and those already regenerated in Christ, but also for all unbelievers and enemies of the cross of Christ, for all worshippers of idols, for all who persecute Christ in his members, for the Jews, upon whose blindness the light of the Gospel does not shine, for heretics and schismatics who are estranged from the unity of faith and charity. And what does she ask for these, except that, having left their errors, they may be converted to God, may receive faith, may receive charity, and, freed from the darkness of ignorance, may come to the knowledge of the truth?

Because they themselves are unable to bring this about, being weighed down by the burden of evil habit, and bound by the chains of the devil, nor are they able to overcome their own deceptions, to which they have clung so obstinately that they love falsehood as much as truth ought to be loved: the merciful and just Lord wills that supplication be made to him for all men: so that when we see countless numbers rescued from such profound evils, we may not doubt that God has granted what was asked of him to grant; and giving thanks for those who have been saved, we may also hope that those who have not yet been enlightened will, by the same work of divine grace, be delivered from the power of darkness, that they may be transferred into the kingdom of God before they depart from this life.

But if the grace of salvation has passed over some, as we see happening, and the Church's prayer for them has not been received: this must be referred to the hidden judgments of divine justice, and it must be acknowledged that the depth of this secret cannot be laid open to us in this life. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part: and we now see through a glass, darkly. Nor are we wiser or more learned than the most blessed Apostle, who, when disputing about the power of grace, having entered upon the hidden depths of great mysteries, gave way before things which it was impossible to explain fully.

For when he had said: I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and thus all Israel should be saved, as it is written: There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; and this is my covenant to them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the Gospel, they are enemies for your sake: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sake. For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. For as you in times past did not believe God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God has concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

When, therefore, he had poured forth in a certain overflow of his own mind these mysteries of divine works excelling beyond the measures of human understanding, he turned the whole course of his exposition to astonishment, and, marveling at what he had brought forth, exclaimed and said: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of him, and through him, and in him, are all things: to him be glory forever. Amen.

Why in earlier ages all the nations were left to go their own ways, with only Israel excepted: and why God gives grace to one man, but denies it to another.

For the foregoing assertion of the teacher gave occasion for a manifold question, so that the cause might be sought of grace so varied among so many peoples and times: namely, why in former ages all the Gentiles were allowed to walk in their own ways, only Israel being excepted, who was instructed by the divine oracles and chosen to the knowledge of the truth, whose unbelief at length made room for the saving of the Gentiles: as though, if that one people had remained in the faith of its own race, the mercy of God could not have shown itself toward the other nations.

Why, finally, are those whose diminution is the salvation of the Gentiles not freed from their blindness before the fullness of the Gentiles enters in: as though they who are all to be saved, once the adoption of all nations has been accomplished, could not be enlightened along with all the rest; or how all Israel is to be saved once blindness has been removed, when so countless a multitude of them, perishing in their unbelief, has not reached the times promised for salvation; or how it can be said that the fullness of the Gentiles themselves, to whom no calling had earlier been given, is now entering in, when so many thousands of men of every age and condition, in all nations under heaven, die without the justification of Christ?

But the pious and learned teacher preferred to suspend the causes of these mysteries and judgments upon the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, rather than by rash inquiry to discuss a secret of most just truth and most merciful goodness withdrawn from human understanding: omitting nothing of what ought not to be unknown, yet touching nothing of what is not permitted to be known. For there are many things in the dispensation of the divine works, of which, the causes lying hidden, only the effects are shown, so that although what is done is manifest, why it is done is not manifest: the matter itself being brought into the open, while the reason for it is withdrawn into concealment; so that in the same matter both presumption concerning things unsearchable is checked, and falsehood concerning things manifest is refuted.

For if I do not know why this man is born a Greek, that one a Barbarian; this one born into riches, that one into poverty; this one raised up by a strong and beautiful body, that one deformed by the shrunken frailty of weak limbs; this one, born of Catholics, nourished in the cradle of truth, that one, offspring of heretics, drinking in with his mother's very milk the poison of error; if, in short, I cannot judge a thousand other differences in bodily condition, in qualities of mind, in the circumstance of times, in the custom of regions: I am not thereby ignorant that God is the founder and orderer of all these things. He indeed so created the bodies and spirits of individual men that, apart from that voluntary diversity which follows afterward from each one's own pursuit, he varied even the very beginnings of their condition with a most dissimilar multiplicity.

Many opinions of vain talkers would trouble us and pull us in different directions—men who have presumed to define unfitting things about matters unknowable, and have attributed these original inequalities to fates, which are nothing, and to the stars—were it not that we hold with most certain knowledge that God the creator forms each vessel from the original elements as he wills, and tempers one nature of souls, one nature of bodies, according to measures pleasing to himself. These works of God would indeed not be withheld from human understanding, if they ought to have been made known, and it would be made manifest why each thing happens as it does, were it not that it should suffice to know that it happens so. The Lord says to Moses: "Who gave man a mouth, and who made the mute and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? Is it not I, the Lord God?" And through Isaiah: "Shall I not, who make others to bring forth, myself bring forth? Saith the Lord".

In the book of Ecclesiasticus it is read: "Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and honor, are from God". And Job says: "The tabernacles of robbers abound, and they provoke God boldly, whereas it is he that hath given all things into their hands". And the same, discoursing on the increase and decrease of all human affairs, and referring all changes to the judgments of God, says: "With him is wisdom and strength: he hath counsel and understanding. If he pull down, there is none that can build up: if he shut up a man, there is none that can open: if he withhold the waters, all things shall be dried up: if he send them out, they shall overturn the earth. With him is strength and wisdom: he knoweth both him that deceiveth, and him that is deceived. He leadeth counsellors away bound, and maketh judges fools.

He looseth the belt of kings, and girdeth their loins with a rope; he leadeth priests away without glory, and overthroweth nobles; he changeth the speech of the truthful, and taketh away the doctrine of the aged; he poureth contempt upon princes, and relieveth them that were oppressed; he revealeth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth forth to light the shadow of death; he multiplieth nations, and destroyeth them, and restoreth them after they were overthrown; he changeth the heart of the princes of the earth, and deceiveth them, that they walk in vain out of the way; they shall grope as in the dark, and not in light, and he shall make them stagger like drunken men." And again, saying that the will of God cannot be made void: "For he is alone, and none can turn away his thought; and whatsoever his soul hath willed, that hath he done". One part of mankind is delivered while another part perishes.

And if we would wish to ascribe this to the merits of the wills, so that it might seem that the wicked have been neglected by grace but the good chosen: the case of countless peoples will stand against us, upon whom through so many ages no proclamation of heavenly teaching ever shone, nor can we say that their descendants were better, of whom it is written: "The people of the Gentiles that sat in darkness have seen a great light, and to them that sat in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen". And to whom the apostle Peter says: "But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people, that you may declare the virtues of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; who in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God; who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy".

It is not therefore attributed to the merits of the lesser, what the greater did not merit; for equal impiety accused both fathers and children, and the same blindness of ignorance plunged them all together into the same errors. But why God did not have mercy on those, and had mercy on these—what knowledge can comprehend it, what wisdom can search it out? The reason of this distinction is hidden, but the distinction itself is not hidden. We do not understand him judging, but we see him working. Why do we bring accusation against the hidden justice, we who owe thanks to the manifest mercy? Praise and revere what is done, for it is safe not to know what is concealed. But look also to the universal multitude of little ones, in whom, apart from that offense by which the human race is born into condemnation, neither past nor future merits can be reckoned.

For all of whom we now speak, before any use of understanding, before any free choice of will, some pass over, regenerated to eternal blessedness, others, unregenerate, to perpetual misery. If you confess original guilt, the whole number is in guilt; if you look for moral innocence, the whole sum is without fault. Human justice finds nothing whereby it may discern, but the ineffable grace of God has that whereby it may choose. The counsel is hidden, but the gift is not hidden; piety puts forth its work, but power darkens the cause. Yet what is not seen is no less certain than what is seen: because the confession of even an unknown equity cannot be denied to the author of a manifest work.

But if you also direct the gaze of your mind to those who, after a long life spent in crimes and wickedness, are renewed by the sacrament of Christ's baptism at the very end of life, and without any support of good works are transferred into the fellowship of the heavenly kingdom: by what understanding will you grasp the divine judgment, except by acknowledging without doubt that the gifts of God are gratuitous—and that, just as no deeds are so detestable as to be able to bar the gift of grace, so no works can be so excellent as to be owed this which is granted freely, by way of a token of repayment? For the redemption of Christ's blood would become cheap, and the mercy of God would give way before the prerogative of human works, if the justification that comes by grace were owed to preceding merits: so that it would be not the gift of one bestowing, but the wage of one working.

And how else could it be proved that no fitting effort is sufficient to blot out original sin, unless both the impious and the wicked were received through Christ's washing into the kingdom, and those who glory in their own righteousness might acknowledge how nothing worthy they can do toward the adoption of the sons of God, if they do not attain to the sacrament of regeneration—since they are held under the same condition as the most wicked sinners, destined to be equal in sanctification if regeneration is present, and equally to perish together if the washing is withheld? If, then, even from among the most wicked, at the very end of life, grace finds some to adopt, while yet many who seem less guilty are strangers to this gift, who can say that this happens either without the dispensation of God, or is decided without profound equity? Which indeed is not unjust because it is hidden, but is just because it is beyond doubt the judgment of God.

For that which depends on his own decision, by what sentence it ought to be judged, is uncertain before it is judged; but when the matter has come to its end, no one is free to complain of the outcome: for it is most certain that God could not have done otherwise than he has done.

He established the variety of manifold calling, belonging to one grace, by that rule of gospel comparison also, in which he shows a householder hiring workers for his vineyard at different hours under an agreement of a denarius, by which the equality of eternal life is signified; where, without doubt, those brought into the vineyard at the eleventh hour, made equal to the workers of the whole day, are preferred in lot to those of whom we now speak, whom divine indulgence has rewarded at the failing of the day and the close of life, to commend the excellence of grace: not paying a wage for labor, but pouring out the riches of his goodness upon those whom he chose without works; so that even those who toiled in much labor, and received no more than the last, might understand that they had received a gift of grace, not the wage of works.

Hence if we too murmur against the householder, because those called last are made equal to the workers of the whole day, and though they scarcely worked at all, are rewarded no less than those who did much: it will be said to us what was answered to one of them: "Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst thou not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is thine, and go thy way. I will also give to this last even as to thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own? Is thy eye evil, because I am good?" Certainly to this complainer such generosity seemed unjust. And what learning did it bring him? What reason did he receive?

The justice of this dispensation was not revealed to him, nor was he admitted to the inspection of the hidden secret; but that he might refrain from scrutinizing the judgments of God, the goodness of the one showing mercy, and the power of the one willing, were set against him—as though it were also said to him by the Apostle: "O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" To all men, then, of whatever race, whatever condition and age, the will of God is the cause of receiving grace, with whom the reason of election is hidden—grace beginning merits for those who received it without merits.

For if these could be good without grace, it would not be said: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven"; and: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you"; but it would be said: "Unless a man be just and good, he cannot be blessed forever." Nor would there be need to be born again through water and the Spirit, if it sufficed to be instructed through a precept. And faith would be made void, which believes that all sins are forgiven through baptism, if grace were taught to be bestowed not upon the wicked and impious, but upon the good and upright. The origin, therefore, of true life and true righteousness is placed in the sacrament of regeneration, so that where man is born again, there too the truth of the virtues themselves may arise.

And they begin to advance toward eternal glory through faith, who could scarcely have attained even a temporal reward of empty praise. For whether the Jew, puffed up with knowledge of the law, or the Greek, inflated with zeal for natural wisdom, before he is justified through faith in Christ, is shut up under sin: and if he perseveres in his unbelief, the wrath of God remains upon him—that wrath, namely, contracted in Adam's transgression, of which the Apostle speaks, saying: "And you, when you were dead in your offenses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, the spirit that now worketh on the children of unbelief; among whom also we all conversed in time past, in the desires of our flesh, doing the will of the flesh and of our thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest".

And again: "That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the conversation of Israel, and strangers to the testament, having no hope of the promise, and without God in this world". And again: "You were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord". And again: "Giving thanks to the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love". And again: "For we ourselves also were sometime foolish, incredulous, erring, slaves to divers desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another".

"But when the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour appeared: not by the works of justice which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us, by the laver of regeneration and renovation of the Holy Ghost, whom he hath poured forth upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour: that, being justified by his grace, we may be heirs, according to hope of life everlasting."

And that it may appear most briefly what the nature of man without grace is, let the Apostle Jude say what is wrought either by the ignorance of the unlearned or by the teaching of the wise. But these, he says, whatsoever things indeed they know not, they blaspheme; and whatsoever things they know naturally, as dumb animals, in these they are corrupted.

Let the evangelist Luke also say, under the words of Zachary, before the illumination of grace in what night the human race lay, and from what darkness of ignorance the people of God is rescued: And thou, he says, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people unto the remission of their sins, through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to direct our feet into the way of peace. Now these bowels of mercy the Lord bestowed not for the redemption of one people only, but for the salvation of all nations, the Evangelist saying: For Jesus was about to die for the nation, not only for the nation, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God that were scattered abroad.

For this is what that voice of the Lord declares, which, sounding through a certain trumpet of piety over the whole world, both invites and gathers all men together. For when he had said: I confess to thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones: yea, Father, for so hath it seemed good in thy sight; he added: All things are delivered to me by my Father: and no one knoweth the Son but the Father, neither doth any one know the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. And then he added: Come to me, all you that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet, and my burden light.

But John the Baptist, in the Gospel of John, protests with prophetic spirit, saying: He that cometh from heaven is above all; what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testimony. He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. Therefore, as far as pertains to the blindness of the human race, contracted through a long night of ignorance and pride, the Creator of the world came into this world, and the world knew him not. The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. He that is above all beareth witness of what he hath seen and heard, and no man receiveth his testimony.

But because the Son of God did not come into the world in vain, and gave himself for all, and died not only for the nation, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God that were scattered abroad, and says to all: Come to me, all you that labour and are burdened: and reserving to himself the choice of an unknowable election, gives the knowledge of himself and of the Father to whomsoever he will reveal it: all the children of light, children of the promise, children of Abraham, children of God, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2), true Israelites, foreknown and foreordained unto the kingdom of God, whom he hath called not only from among the Jews, but also from among the Gentiles: these receive the testimony of him who came from heaven, setting their seal that God is true, that is, expressly signifying in their salvation that God is true, fulfilling and perfecting what he promised to Abraham the father of all nations: who, when God promised that he should be heir of the world, staggered not through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being most fully assured that what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

But who is so alien from the faith of Abraham, who so degenerate from the father of all nations, as to say that the promise of God is either not fulfilled, or fulfilled by any other than him who promised? He indeed shall be found a liar, but God is true. And everyone who receiveth his testimony, this he seals, this he signifies, that through the illuminating light he has been made to see, made obedient, made understanding, as John the Evangelist testifies, saying: We know that the whole world is seated in wickedness; and we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us understanding, that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son.

But if it be asked why the Saviour of all men has not given this understanding to all, that they might know the true God, and be, that is, remain, in his true Son: although we believe that the help of grace has never been wholly withdrawn from any men, of which we shall discourse more fully in what follows: yet perhaps this is veiled just as that other matter is hidden, why formerly, passing over all other nations, he chose to himself one people whom he would instruct in the knowledge of truth: concerning which judgment of God, if there is to be no complaint, much less should there be murmuring concerning this matter which is done with the election of all nations. For the things which God has willed to be hidden are not to be searched into; but the things which he has made manifest are not to be denied, lest we be found both unlawfully curious in the former and damnably ungrateful in the latter.

Nor are we ignorant that there are some of such inconsiderate presumption and such proud arrogance, that what the chief teacher of the Gentiles, instructed not by men nor through man, but divinely, confessed to be far and deeply removed beyond the measure of his knowledge, they dare, with teaching of a false name, to profane, and would have nothing hidden there, nothing to be secret, where the Apostle disclosed not what should be believed, but showed what should not be searched into.

For it is granted to no studies, to no talents (as we have already said above) to search out by what judgment, or by what counsel, God, unchangeably good, unchangeably just, ever foreknowing, ever omnipotent, has therefore concluded all things under unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all, and yet in those ages in which he was instructing Israel alone, deferred to enlighten innumerable peoples of the ungodly, and now suffers that same Israel to be blinded, until the fullness of the Gentiles come in, perishing in so many thousands of those born and dying, and to be saved in those whom the end of the world shall find. By which mystery, unfolded through the whole body of the Scriptures, it has indeed become known to us what has been done, what is being done, and what is to be done: but why it has pleased that it should be so done, is withdrawn from the contemplation of human understanding.

But these men, who are ashamed to be ignorant of anything, and under the occasion of obscurity stretch out snares of deception, refer all the discrimination by which God chooses some and does not choose others (for many are called, but few are chosen) to the merits of the human will, teaching, namely, that no one is saved gratuitously, but by retribution, because it is naturally implanted in all, that if they will, they can be partakers of the truth, and that grace flows to those by whom it has been sought. Which definition (setting aside for the moment the truth about grace) seems to display some little semblance of reason concerning those who use free will.

But concerning infants, who without any merit of good will share, along with the rest of mortals, in the common cause of original wound, nothing can be brought forward by way of explanation, whereby it may be taught why these are saved, being reborn, and those perish, not being reborn, under his providence and omnipotence, in whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the spirit of all flesh of man, and to whom it is said: The days of man are short, the number of his days is with thee. Nor do I think that these patrons of the will would use such shameless liberty with the simplicity of these little ones, as either to say that these things happen by chance, or to assert that those not reborn do not perish. For plainly they would either be convicted of holding, with the pagans, a belief in fate, or, with the Pelagians, of denying that Adam's sin was transmitted to his posterity.

But not even the Pelagians could say that infants are not baptized by fate; but because they dared to profess them free from sin, they deserved to be condemned. But when the question is agitated concerning the discrimination of all men, and infants cannot be separated from all men, and Truth has said concerning men of every age: The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost, in vain do they attempt to lay open the depth of inscrutable grace through free will, who establish the cause of election in the merits of those who are chosen. And though they have brought forward many foolish and false things concerning the will and judgment of adults, yet they fail in the discrimination of infants, nor can they glory in the reason rendered for that question, which is treated concerning all men, and is not resolved concerning all.

But the manifold variety and greatness of divine grace proves that these men, contrary to the truth, even in what they say concerning the wills of adults, are building up falsehood, and that the testimonies of the divine sayings are repugnant to their persuasion. Which things, if we should wish to attach them all to our discourse, there would be no limit to the discussion. Yet such of them as offer themselves to memory shall not be omitted, that it may be made manifest, as far as is sufficient, that every good merit of man, from the beginning of faith even to the consummation of perseverance, is a gift and work of God.

Therefore let the Apostle Paul explain from what fountain faith itself is born, which is the begetter of good will and of just action, he who gives thanks to God for the faith of the Romans, saying: First indeed I give thanks to my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is announced in the whole world. Writing also to the Ephesians: For this cause, he says, I also, having heard of your faith which is in the Lord Jesus, and of your love toward all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.

Giving thanks likewise for the faith of the Colossians: We give thanks, he says, to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, always praying for you, hearing of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which you have toward all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. And that they might receive other good things from the same Author of good things, telling what he prays for them: Therefore, he says, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray and to ask for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy, pleasing God in all things, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to the power of his glory, in all patience and longsuffering with joy.

Likewise to the Thessalonians, who served with the spirit of faith and love: We give thanks, he says, to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers without ceasing, remembering the work of your faith and labor and charity and the endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ before God and our Father: And below: Therefore we also give thanks to God without ceasing, because when you had received of us the word of the hearing of God, you received it not as the word of men, but (as it truly is) the word of God, who works in you who have believed. Could it be more fully or more clearly demonstrated that the faith of believers is the gift of God, than that thanks were thus given to God, because those to whom the word of God was preached by men did not doubt as it were the speech of men, but believed as though God were speaking through men, he who worked in them that they might believe?

In the second epistle also to the same Thessalonians the Apostle speaks thus of those making progress in faith in Christ: We ought to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you toward each other abounds, so that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations which you endure, an example of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer.

The Apostle Peter also, proclaiming that faith is held from God, writes thus: Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as gold or silver, from your vain manner of life received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled, of Christ Jesus, foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but manifested in these last times for you, who through him are faithful in God, who raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. Likewise the same, in the second Epistle, speaks thus of the reception of faith: Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

But whence the spirit of faith is had, the apostle John teaches most plainly, saying: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that dissolves Jesus is not of God, and this is antichrist. Likewise he says that the Gospel is received by him in whom is the Spirit of truth. We, he says, are of God: he that knows God hears us: he that is not of God hears us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. Likewise in the Acts of the Apostles the apostle Peter, proclaiming that faith is through the Lord Jesus, says: This man, whom you see and know, his name has made strong, and the faith which is by him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

Concerning the faith also of Lydia, whose heart, among the other women who likewise heard the Gospel, the Lord opened, it is thus related in the same history: And on the sabbath day we went forth outside the gate by a river, where prayer seemed to be, and sitting down we spoke to the women who were gathered together: and a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of the Thyatirians, one that worshipped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, that she might attend to those things which were spoken by Paul. And that faith is not of human wisdom, but of divine inspiration, is confirmed by the voice of Truth itself. For when the Lord said to his disciples: But whom do you say that I am? Simon Peter answering said: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven.

The apostle Paul also preaches that this very faith is given according to measure, at the pleasure of him who bestows it, thus: For I say, through the grace that is given me, to all that are among you, not to be more wise than it behooves to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety, according as God has divided to every man the measure of faith. Likewise the same, commending the unity of right faith and agreement in the honor of God as being from God, says: Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be of one mind toward one another according to Jesus Christ: that with one mind and one mouth you may glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And below: Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

By which testimony we are taught that not only faith, but also joy and peace and abundance of hope are not had except through the power of the Holy Spirit. But writing to the Ephesians about the riches of the grace that repays good for evil, and about the faith which is had not of ourselves, but by the gift of God, the Apostle speaks thus: But God, who is rich in mercy, for his exceeding great charity wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together in Christ, by whose grace we are saved, and has raised us up together, and has made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. For it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has prepared, that we should walk in them.

This therefore is the proper attribute of the new creature through grace, that they who are the workmanship of God, who are formed by heavenly birth in Christ, should not grow torpid in idleness, nor be dissolved in slothfulness, but should advance from strength to strength, by walking in the way of good works; for this is to be formed, this is to become new from the old creature, this is to be reformed from the image of the earthly man to the image of the heavenly man: all of which, whether openly through the co-workers of grace, or secretly through the ministering of the Spirit, he begins, he increases and perfects, whose building and whose workmanship we are.

That God is the author of all virtues and of every good.

Abundantly, as I judge, it has been demonstrated by these testimonies (although other proofs might have been gathered) that the faith by which the impious is justified is had from nothing but the gift of God, and that it is bestowed with no preceding merits, but is granted for this purpose, that it may be able to be the beginning of merits: so that when it itself has been given, not sought, the other goods are conferred upon its very petitions. Whence, then, certain testimonies out of many are to be taken up, which may show, in the diversity of gifts, the bounty of grace. That it is indeed from God that man chooses the way of God, and rises from his fall, the Davidic psalm sings, saying: The steps of a man shall be directed by the Lord, and He shall delight in his way. When he shall fall, he shall not be bruised, for the Lord putteth His hand under him.

Likewise the same, that one comes to God under God's leading: Send forth Thy light and Thy truth: they have led me and brought me unto Thy holy hill, and into Thy tabernacles. Likewise, that man's strength is in the Lord, and that God's will goes before him who is to be freed: My strength, saith he, will I keep to Thee, for God is my helper: my God, His mercy shall prevent me. In Proverbs also we read of wisdom and understanding: For the Lord giveth wisdom, and from His face cometh knowledge and understanding. Likewise in the same book, concerning the dispensations of God's wisdom, without which no actions are right, it is thus said: Counsel and equity is mine; prudence is mine, and strength is mine. By me kings reign, and tyrants by me hold the earth. Likewise elsewhere, that no one can walk rightly unless the Lord direct him: The steps of a man are directed by the Lord; but how shall a mortal understand his own ways?

Likewise elsewhere: Every man seemeth just to himself, but the Lord directeth the hearts. And elsewhere: The will is prepared by the Lord. Likewise in the same place, concerning thought and counsel: There are many thoughts in the heart of a man, but the counsel of the Lord standeth. In the book of Ecclesiastes, moreover, it is said that both having necessary things and using them well is the gift of God: There is not, saith he, a good thing for man, except that he eat and drink, and show his soul good in his labor. And indeed I saw this, that it is from the hand of God. For who shall eat, or who shall enjoy, without Him? Likewise in the same book it is read that the hearts and works of the just are in the hand of God, and that they profit in their pursuits only so much as He shall have granted.

However much a man labor to seek, he shall not find; and whatsoever the wise man shall say that he may know, he shall not be able to find, because I gave all this to my heart, and my heart saw all this, for both the just and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God. In the book of Wisdom, however, concerning the same work of grace, it is thus said: For He Himself is both the guide of wisdom, and the corrector of the wise; for in His hand are both we and our words, and all wisdom, and skill of works. Concerning continence also, that it is held from the gift of God, the same Scripture speaks thus: As I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it: and this itself was a point of wisdom, to know whose gift this was.

With this sentence the teaching of the apostle Paul agrees, writing thus in the first to the Corinthians: For I would that all men were even as myself: but every one hath his proper gift from God; one after this manner, and another after that. The Lord, indeed, in the Gospel according to Matthew, is narrated to have hinted this concerning the gift of continence: For when His disciples said, If the case of a man with his wife be so, it is not expedient to marry: Jesus said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, but they to whom it is given by my Father. Concerning the fear of God and wisdom it is read in Ecclesiasticus: The fear of the Lord is the crown of wisdom; both, however, are gifts of God. Likewise concerning the same: The fear of the Lord hath set itself above all things; blessed is he to whom it is given to have the fear of the Lord.

Isaiah also speaks thus concerning spiritual riches, of which the Lord is the author: In treasures our salvation hath come: wisdom, and piety, and discipline are from the Lord; these are the treasures of righteousness. Likewise concerning the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, whose goodness is anticipated by no one's merit, he saith this: Who hath measured the water in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor, who might instruct Him, or whom did He consult, and instruct him, or who showed Him judgment, or who showed Him the path of understanding, or who first gave to Him, and it shall be repaid him?

Whence also in the book of Job, according to the same sense, are read the words of the Lord, saying: Who hath first given to me, that I should repay him? All things which are under heaven are mine. Jeremiah, indeed, thus declares that right wisdom is from God to man: I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, neither is it in man to direct his own steps. Likewise, that the conversion of the heart to God is from God, the Lord Himself protests through Himself, saying: I will restore them into this land, and I will build them up, and not destroy them, and I will plant them, and not pluck them up, and I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, because they shall return to me with their whole heart.

Likewise the same, preaching that God's being known is from God: And they shall know, saith he, that I am the Lord their God: and I will give them a heart to know me, and ears to hear. But that every good word and every holy work is a ministration of the Holy Spirit, without whom nothing is rightly done, Paul the apostle teaches in the first to the Corinthians, saying: Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed. And no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit: and there are diversities of ministrations, but the same Lord: and there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another faith, in the same Spirit; to another the grace of healing, in one Spirit; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of speeches. But all these worketh one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will. But that each one has only so much grace as the Lord has granted, the same Apostle says to the Ephesians: One body, and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ; wherefore he saith: Ascending on high, he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men.

Likewise the same in the second to the Corinthians says that we are not even sufficient to think anything spiritual, except by the grace of God: But such trust have we through Christ toward God; not that we are sufficient to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. And again in the same Epistle, teaching that the effect of good works and their sufficiency is ministered by the grace of God: And God, saith he, is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work; as it is written, He hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever.

Now he that ministereth seed to the sower, will both minister bread for your food, and increase the fruits of your righteousness; that ye being enriched in every thing may abound unto all bountifulness.

Writing to the Ephesians, indeed, the Apostle teaches that all good things by which God is pleased are gifts of God, and that it behooves them to be sought from Him, that He may bestow them upon those who do not have them: For this cause, saith he, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. But that God is the author of every good thing, whose gifts are neither uncertain nor mutable, but come from an eternal will, James the apostle speaks thus: Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. For of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. To this Zechariah the prophet also sings in accord, saying: The Lord shall save His people in that day as sheep, for holy stones are lifted up over His land: because if there is anything good, it is His: and if there is anything best, it is from Him.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, moreover, that the gifts of knowledge and understanding are of God, who bestows them upon whom He will, it is thus said: Then the disciples came, and said unto Him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. John the Evangelist also declares that no one has any good thing, except what he has received from above, saying: A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. In the Gospel of the same, moreover, there is the teaching of the Truth itself, that no one comes to the Son unless drawn by the Father; because God makes him who is to come both understanding and obedient. No man, saith He, can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

For it is written in the Prophets: And they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. And further on: Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. Moreover, that to progress and persevere in faith and in good works even unto the end is a matter of divine gift and help, the authority of the sacred Scriptures confirms. For Paul the apostle, writing to the Philippians, says: Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

But someone, wishing to twist the force of this testimony to the perversity of his own opinion, wanted what was said—"who hath begun in you"—to be understood as if it had been said, "who hath begun out of you": so that both the beginning and the completion of the work should be referred not to God but to man, who both wished to begin and to complete it. But this most insane pride the most excellent preacher of grace crushes in the same epistle, saying: And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God; for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake. And again: With fear, saith he, and trembling work out your own salvation. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

Likewise in the first to the Thessalonians he teaches that the beginning and the progress and the completion of the virtues are from God, saying: Now God Himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you: and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: to the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.

Writing to the Corinthians also, and commending the progressing perseverance of all virtues as God's gift, he says: I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in every thing ye are enriched by Him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Likewise to the Romans, concerning the love of Christ, by which He makes those whom He loves inseparable, that is, persevering unto the end (for what else is it to persevere but not to be conquered by temptation?): Who shall separate us, saith he, from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written: For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Likewise to the Corinthians, concerning the victory which Christ accomplishes: The sting, saith he, of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Likewise to the Thessalonians, concerning the perseverance which God grants: And the very God of peace, saith he, sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.

Likewise to the Thessalonians, that all our good things, whether in doing or in speaking, and perseverance in them, are gifts of God, he thus preaches, saying: Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work. Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you: and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith. But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil. Peter the apostle also—let us hear whence he teaches the power of perseverance to come: But the God of all grace, saith he, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you; to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever.

John the apostle, indeed, thus speaks that the victory of the saints is the work of God dwelling in the saints: Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world. Likewise the same: Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. In the Gospel according to Luke, moreover, that God gives that one should persevere in the faith, is thus set forth: And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. In the Gospel of John also, concerning the sheep of Christ which are snatched from His hand by none, we read the Truth Himself thus speak: But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Likewise in the same Gospel, concerning those whom the Father gives to the Son, who all come to the Son, and none of whom perishes, these words are spoken by the mouth of the Lord Himself: All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out: for I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me, the Father: that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.

There are many other testimonies in the series of the canonical Scriptures, which for the sake of avoiding prolixity we pass over: since those which we have adduced are neither few, nor obscure, nor slight; by which it is most fully declared that all things which pertain to meriting eternal life can neither be begun, nor increased, nor perfected without the grace of God: and against every election glorying in free will, that saying of the Apostle stands invincibly opposed: For who maketh thee to differ? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? Therefore the depth of that question, which we confess according to the Apostle's admiration to be impenetrable, is not resolved by the willing and not-willing of free will: because although not-willing the good is in man, yet he does not have the willing of the good unless it be given; and the former nature contracted through fault, the latter nature receives through grace.

But what that is, whereby this same nature—in all men guilty before reconciliation, in all wretched—is not in all justified, and is by a certain portion of itself distinguished from those who perish, by Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost, can by no means be tracked down by human sense. For however much the malice of the impious be accused as resisting the grace of God, will it ever be proved that those to whom it has been granted merited it: or that that power of grace, which subjected to itself those whom it willed, was unable to convert those who remained unconvertible? Such were those who were drawn, as were those who were left in their hardness. But to the former, astonishing grace granted what it willed; to the latter, just truth repaid what it owed: so that the judgment of God may be more inscrutable in the election of grace than in the retribution of justice.

Nevertheless, lest that part of the faith by which we piously believe that God wills all men to be saved by the knowledge of the truth should, through what is clearly shown concerning the effects of grace, seem to be weakened, we must strive, with Christ's help, that the firmness of this definition may appear to us. But since the business of this necessary inquiry demands no light labor to be spent upon it, let us begin the ensuing discussion from the beginning of the other volume.

Having removed and set aside all contentions which the animosity of intemperate disputations engenders, it is evident that there are three things to which one ought to hold fast in this question, at which we are beginning the second volume: one, which must be professed, that God wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth; another, which is not to be doubted, that no one arrives at this very knowledge of the truth, and the attainment of salvation, by his own merits, but by the aid and working of divine grace; the third, which must be confessed, that the depth of the judgments of God cannot be penetrated by human understanding: and it ought not to be inquired why he does not save all whom he wills to be saved, since if what cannot be known is not sought after between the first and second definition, no ground of contention will remain, but both will be preached, both will be believed, with a secure and tranquil faith.

For God, with whom there is no iniquity, and whose ways are all mercy and truth, is the good creator of all men, the just orderer, condemning no one undeservedly, freeing no one deservedly: punishing our own deserts when he punishes the guilty, bestowing his own gift when he makes just, so that the mouth of those who speak iniquities may be stopped, and God may be justified in his words, and may overcome when he is judged. Neither is the complaint of the condemned just, nor is the arrogance of the justified truthful: whether the one says he did not deserve punishment, or the other asserts that he deserved grace.

But just as those things which are brought forth from the divine sayings for the manifestation of grace can by no art of reasoning be violated, so that clear and consonant statements, in so great a multitude, be dragged into some uncertainty of perverse interpretation: so too what is found in the same body of Scriptures concerning the salvation of all men must not be profaned by any contrary argumentation, so that the more difficult this very thing is to grasp in understanding, the more praiseworthy is the faith by which it is believed. For great is the strength of agreement, for which authority suffices to follow the truth even when reason is hidden. Let us therefore carefully consider what is commanded by the Lord to the preachers of the Gospel. According to Matthew he says thus: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.

Go therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. But according to Mark he says thus to the same apostles: Go into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature: and he who believes and is baptized, shall be saved; but he who does not believe, shall be condemned. Was any distinction made by this precept of any nations or of any men? He excepted no one by merit, separated no one by race, distinguished no one by condition. To absolutely all men was the Gospel of the cross of Christ sent: and lest the ministries of the preachers should seem to be accomplished by human work alone, he says: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.

That is, when, as sheep, you shall enter into the midst of wolves, do not tremble on account of your own weakness, but trust in my power, who will not abandon you in this work until the consummation of the world: not that you may suffer nothing, but—what is much greater—that you may not be overcome by any cruelty of those who rage. For you will preach in my power, and it will be brought about through me, that among those who contradict, among those who rage, sons of Abraham may be raised up from stones. I will instill what I have taught, I will accomplish what I have promised. For they will hand you over in councils, they will scourge you in their synagogues, and you will stand before kings and governors for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they hand you over, do not be anxious about how or what you are to speak.

For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. For brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his son, and children will rise up against their parents, and will put them to death. And you will be hated by all men for my name's sake. But he who perseveres to the end, he shall be saved. Therefore, as the Apostle says, the saving grace of God has appeared to all men, and yet the ministers of grace were hated by all men; and while some were those who hated, others were those who were oppressed by the hatreds of the persecutors: yet neither party was deprived of the designation of "all men": one part indeed sustaining the loss of its own salvation by its portion of rebellion, but the other obtaining the reckoning of fullness by the dignity of the faithful.

For John the apostle says: but if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just; and he is the propitiation for our sins; not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. It is, moreover, a mystery of a great and ineffable sacrament, that to the preachers to whom it was said: Go into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature, it had earlier been said to the same men: Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and enter not into the cities of the Samaritans; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. For although the Gospel was directed toward the calling of all men, and the Lord willed all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, yet he had not taken from himself the power over his own dispensations, so that the order of his counsel should run its course otherwise than he had determined by a hidden and just judgment.

Whence the murmurs of the complaints of the contumacious have no place, because it is agreed that what God willed to come about ought not to have come about otherwise than he willed. But in a later time, when now the Lord Jesus was seated in the glory of God the Father, and the preachers of the word were devoting themselves to the task they had undertaken, the apostles, wishing to evangelize the word in Asia, were forbidden by the Holy Spirit; and planning to go into Bithynia, they were prevented by the spirit of Jesus: grace certainly not denied to those peoples, but, as it appeared, delayed. For afterward the Christian faith grew strong even among them.

But what the reason was for the deferred calling is not clear; and yet we are taught by the example of the deed that among general promises, or works, or precepts, God knows how to arrange certain things, exempted from the common causes, by a more hidden reasoning, so that, I believe, by the interposition of certain shadowings, the things that shine more secretly may become known more marvelously, lest the gaze become too careless from the ease of seeing, and in a sense grow drowsy with the accustomed, if it is not roused by the unaccustomed. Now these unknowable delays of illuminations, among which certainly many fail in unbelief, we know to occur not only among the more remote peoples of the ungodly, but also within the cities of the faithful, throughout many households and families, while even those who are destined to become Christians oppose the Christian faith. For many will love what they hate; will preach what they do not accept.

And who among these things will make known to the querulous or the curious why the sun of righteousness does not yet rise upon certain peoples, and why truth, though to be revealed, still withholds its rays from darkened hearts? Why are those who are to be corrected allowed to err for so long, and why is that which must be granted to the old at the end not granted through so long an age? Why do parents not yet believe when their children already believe in Christ; and again, why does depraved offspring dissent from religious parents? And yet, since God, who is the giver of the beginnings and increase of faith, is entreated daily for all according to his own precept: so that if he hears, the grace of his mercy may be known; and if he does not hear, the judgment of truth may be understood.

But not even in past ages was this same grace lacking to the world—the grace which, after the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, has been diffused everywhere, and of which it is written: Your lightnings have illumined the world. For although it is agreed that the people of Israel was chosen by the special care and indulgence of God, and that all other nations were allowed to walk their own ways—that is, they were permitted to live according to their own will—yet the eternal goodness of the Creator did not so turn itself away from those men that it admonished them by no signs to know and fear him.

For heaven and earth and sea, and every creature that can be seen and understood, was disposed chiefly for this benefit of the human race: that rational nature, from the contemplation of so many forms, from the experience of so many good things, from the perception of so many gifts, might be imbued with the worship and love of its own author, the Spirit of God filling all things, in whom we live, and move, and have our being: since, although salvation is far from sinners, yet nothing is void of the presence and power of that very salvation.

Therefore, as the Prophet says: The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord: which has never been lacking in any ages, in any generations, and that providence by which he administers and contains the universe of things he has always applied to the ruling and nourishing of natures, having disposed, by the immutable eternity of his counsel, at what times he would distribute each thing, and the inscrutable and unsearchable measures of his manifold grace; through which gifts and sacraments he might vary his dealings. For just as this bounty of grace, which has most recently flowed out upon all nations, does not empty out that which fell as dew, under the law, upon Israel alone, nor do present riches abrogate the faith of past parsimony: so too, from that care of God which specially watched over the sons of the patriarchs, it is not to be conjectured that the helms of divine mercy were withdrawn from other men, who indeed seem, in comparison with the elect, cast off, but were never disowned by manifest and hidden benefits.

For we read in the Acts of the Apostles that Paul and Barnabas, apostles, said to the Lycaonians: Men, why do you do these things? We also are mortals, men like you, announcing to you that you should be turned from these vain things to the living God, who made heaven, and earth, and sea, and all things that are in them: who in past generations permitted all nations to walk in their own ways. And indeed he did not leave himself without testimony, doing good from heaven, giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness. What, then, is this testimony which always served the Lord, and never fell silent about his goodness and power, if not the ineffable beauty of the whole world itself, and the rich and ordered bounty of his ineffable benefits, through which certain tablets of the eternal law were offered to human hearts, so that in the pages of the elements, and in the volumes of the seasons, the common and public doctrine of divine instruction might be read?

Heaven, therefore, and all heavenly things, sea and earth, and all things that are in them, proclaimed the glory of God with the harmonious concord of their form and order, and spoke, by a perpetual proclamation, the majesty of their own author. And yet the greatest number of men, who were permitted to walk in the ways of their own will, did not understand, nor did they follow this law, and the odor of life which breathed unto life became to them an odor of death unto death: so that even in those visible testimonies it might be discerned that the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.

That no one arrives at the very knowledge of the truth and the perception of salvation by his own merits, but by the help and working of divine grace. What therefore was accomplished in Israel through the establishment of the law and the prophetic utterances, this the testimonies of the whole creation and the miracles of God's goodness have always accomplished in all nations. But since in that people, over whom both kinds of instruction presided, no one was justified except by grace through the spirit of faith, who can doubt that those who, from whatever nations and at whatever times, were able to please God, were set apart by the spirit of God's grace? Which grace, although it was formerly more sparing and more hidden, yet never in any age denied itself, being one in power, diverse in measure, unchangeable in counsel, manifold in operation. For even in these days in which rivers of ineffable gifts water the whole world, the same manner is not bestowed upon all, nor the same measure.

For although through the ministers of the word the grace of God's truth is preached to all alike, and the same exhortation is applied; yet it is God's tillage, God's building, whose power works invisibly, so that what is built or cultivated may profit by increase: as the apostle Paul testifies, saying: What then is Apollo? And what is Paul? Ministers of him in whom you have believed, to each as the Lord has given. I planted, Apollo watered, but God gave the increase. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one. But each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow-workers; you are God's tillage, you are God's building. Of this tillage and building, therefore, each one is a helper and workman and minister only insofar as the Lord has given to each.

And those who are cultivated by the labor of ministers advance to that degree to which the author of the increase has raised them. For in the field of the Lord the planting is not uniform nor one. And although the structure of the whole temple comes together into one beauty, yet not every stone has the same place, nor the same use: just as in one body not all the members have the same function, the Apostle saying: But now God has placed the members, each one of them, as he willed. But whence these members are fit, whence useful, whence beautiful, the same teacher explains, saying: Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking in the Spirit of God says "Anathema to Jesus"; and no one can say "Lord Jesus," except in the Holy Spirit. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of workings, but the same God who works all things in all.

But to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for profit. To one indeed is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith in the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discernment of spirits; to another kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of speeches: but all these one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each as he wills. Since the teacher of the nations preaches these things with such great light, with such great clarity, by what reasoning, by what cause is it to be doubted whether the seed of all virtues in us is from God? Or who but the most unwise would complain of the difference of divine gifts, or would think that what is not equally bestowed from the heavenly liberality should be ascribed to unequal merits?

For if this distribution proceeded according to the merits of preceding works, the Apostle would not conclude the catalogue of these very gifts with such a conclusion, saying: But all these one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each as he wills. For there, surely, if he had wished the causes of merits to be understood, he would have said: Dividing to each as they deserve—just as he promised to planters and waterers the reward of their devotion, saying: But each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. Therefore something is given to each without merit, from which he may tend toward merit, and it is given before any labor, from which each may receive a reward according to his labor.

That this is so is also recognized by the testimony of the Gospel truth, where it is said by way of comparison, that a man going into a far country called his servants, and delivered to them his goods: and to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own strength, that is, according to his own natural capacity, but not according to his own merit: because it is one thing to be able to work, another to work; and it is one thing to be able to have charity, another to have charity; and it is one thing to be capable of continence, justice, wisdom, and another to be continent, just, and wise. Therefore not everyone who is reparable is repaired, nor is everyone who is curable healed; because to be reparable and curable is of nature, but to have been repaired and healed is of grace.

Finally, those to whom, according to the measure of their capacity, which the distributor of substance foresaw in them, an unequal number of talents was entrusted, received not the reward of merit but the material of work. In which the most vigilant industry of the two servants is not only honored with glorious praises, but is also bidden to enter into the eternal joys of its Lord. But the slothful idleness and lazy wickedness of the third is so punished that he is both disgraced with the reproach of blame, and stripped of the portion he had received. For he deserved to lose his useless trust, who had not exercised charity.

Whence also in the following discourse, in which the form of the future judgment is most clearly declared, the Son of Man sitting on the seat of his majesty, before all the nations gathered together, some are said to be set on the right hand, others on the left: to those on the right, praised for works of charity, nothing else is objected to those on the left than the neglect of mercy and benevolence. These also, therefore, had received faith, but had not pursued love: nor will they be condemned for a gift not preserved, but for a gift not increased. For although all good things are gifts of God, yet some things are granted by God even unpaired with any request, so that through those things which have been received, those which have not yet been given may be sought. For the seed that is cast into the earth is not sown for this, that it should remain alone, but that by bearing fruit it should be manifold and abundant.

Its increase indeed is from him who gives the increase: but the living earth, already made fruitful by the shower of grace, has that which is expected from it, toward the increase of what it has received.

Having discussed these things rightly (as I judge), so far as the Lord has granted, let us return to the point from which the disputation digressed: namely, to the consideration of the differences by which the works and gifts of divine grace are varied. For the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, whose judgments are unsearchable and whose ways are past finding out, has always so tempered his mercy and judgment that, by the most secret will of his eternal counsel, he has not wished the measures of his gifts to be equal in all things over all generations or over all men. For he has helped some in one way—those whom it was fitting to bring to the knowledge of himself by the testimony of heaven and earth—and others in another way—those whom he provided for not only by the service of the elements, but also by the teaching of the law, the oracles of the prophets, the signs of miracles, and the cooperation of angels.

And much more differently still has he declared his mercy to all men, when the Son of God was made the son of man, that he might be found by those who sought him not, and might appear to those who did not ask for him, and that he might not stand pre-eminent in one people only of the Israelite stock, but that in every nation which is under heaven the multiplied seed of Abraham might arise, into which succession of heirs not the children of the flesh, but the children of promise should enter. And as great as was, in past ages, the sparingness of grace toward the other nations, so great is it now toward the Jewish people—although, once the fullness of the Gentiles has been brought in, even to their own dryness the overflow of the same watering is promised. What, then, are the causes of these dissimilarities under the same grace, or what the reasons—since the holy Scriptures do not speak of them—who shall declare?

And since in these matters the knowledge of the apostle Paul passes from disputation into astonishment, whose presumption would be so great as to suppose, by discoursing on these things, that they are to be laid open rather than to be marveled at in silence? Let this secret, then, so far removed from human understanding, be patiently and calmly left unknown; yet, because closed things cannot be penetrated, the entrance of things that have been unlocked is not therefore to be passed over. For many authorities of the divine sayings have made manifest, and the continual experience of all ages has taught, that the just mercy of God, and his merciful justice, have never failed either in nourishing the bodies of men, or in teaching and helping their minds.

For he always rains upon the good and the evil, he always makes his sun to rise upon the just and the unjust, he always supplies the vital airs, he always ministers the alternations of day and night: he always bestows fruitfulness on the fields, increase on the seeds, fecundity for the begetting of men. And if at any time he diminishes any of these things, he chastises by kindly corrections the aversion and sloth of those who misuse them, that they might seek his mercies in adversity, whose justice they had not feared in prosperity. Finally, if we go back to the very beginnings of the world, we shall find that the Spirit of God was the ruler of all the saints who preceded the flood, for which reason they were also called sons of God: since, as the Apostle says, Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

And when these same, having neglected the observance of the fathers, mingled themselves in unlawful unions with the reprobate, and on account of that wicked association were judged worthy of extermination, the Lord said: My Spirit shall not remain in these men, for they are flesh. Whence it appears that this people, whose generations are set forth in distinct order together with the number of years, had previously been spiritual, by that will indeed over which the Holy Spirit presided, so bestowing the governance of his rule that he did not take away the power of declining to vices—which power, had this people not used it, they would not have forsaken God, nor would they have been forsaken by God, and they would have been of that number of whom it is said: Happy is he who was able to transgress, and did not transgress. As long, then, as they remained with God, they remained by that will which God inspired and directed. For the will is prepared (as it is written) by the Lord.

But of this preparation the advancement is not always one, nor is there a single measure: since in many ways and by innumerable differences the works and gifts of grace are varied, and even within the several kinds of gifts themselves the degrees are unequal and the quantities unlike. For just as among the sproutings of herbs and trees which the earth produces, there is not one species, nor one kind in all, but each is brought forth in the form of its own seed and in the quality of its own stock; and they do not receive their full beauty as soon as they come forth, but are advanced by fixed and orderly increases, until through successive growths they arrive at the perfect measure of their proper habit: so also the seeds of the charisms, and the plants of the virtues, do not spring up in every field of the human heart already possessing the whole of what they are to become, nor is maturity easily found at the outset, or perfection at the beginning.

Indeed the powerful and merciful God frequently brings forth those marvelous effects of his working, and for certain minds, without awaiting the delay of gradual progress, brings in all at once whatever he is going to bestow. In the loins of Abraham, Levi is sanctified, and together with him the house of Aaron and the priestly order is blessed. In Isaac, conceived by promise and born contrary to the hope of sterile old people, the calling of all the nations, and the whole form of Christ, is beforehand established. Jacob, with no merit favoring him, is chosen and loved before he is born. To Jeremiah it is said: Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth from the womb, I sanctified thee. John, within the womb of Elizabeth his mother, filled with the Holy Spirit, exults; and, that none among those born of women might be greater, he feels the beginnings of grace before those of nature.

But although other examples of similar evidences are not lacking, which for the sake of brevity we pass over, yet much more frequent, and much more numerous, is that portion of mankind to whom, piece by piece, whatever the heavenly bounty gives is added by increase, so that, for the sake of conferring gifts, further gifts are brought forth from those already conferred. Some, having received faith, are not without diffidence—which indeed he knew to be in himself who said: I believe, Lord, help thou my unbelief. Nor did they feel it wholly absent from their own souls who said: Lord, increase our faith. Some do not understand what they believe, and many are long held within the small measure of their simplicity. Many, however, quickly receive the light of understanding. Yet understanding itself does not have the same vigor, or a like capacity, in all.

And very many, though they seem adorned with both faith and understanding, still labor under a lack of charity; and to those things which they see by faith and understanding, they are unable to cling fast: since one cannot persevere in that which is not loved with the whole heart. The gift of charity itself, too, is not always such that whatever pertains to its fullness is received all at once by the recipient. For there is a love which can be overcome by another love. And often the love of God withers away through love of the world, unless it advances, the Holy Spirit kindling it, to that fervor which can be quenched by no cold, and can languish with no lukewarmness. Since, therefore, in this ineffable gift is the sum of all gifts, and it is, as it were, the life of all the virtues: to this end all other things are conferred, that the intention of the faithful soul may have means by which it can strive toward perfect charity.

And since this charity is not only from God, but is itself God, it makes stable, persevering, and unconquerable those whom it fills with the river of its delight. But those who do not know the sweetness of these waters still drink of the torrents of this world; or even if they have tasted something of the fountain of life with the tips of their lips, yet they delight to be made drunk with the golden cup of Babylon: they are deceived wholly by their own judgment, they fall by their own will; and if they persist in this sloth, they themselves strip themselves of what they have received. For any good things whatsoever can easily perish without charity, which cannot profit without charity.

Now these things, briefly and summarily touched upon, serve this purpose: that we may know with utter certainty that none of the faithful is abandoned without first departing from God, nor is anyone's ruin arranged by divine ordination; but for many who already use the judgment of reason, it is therefore free to depart, so that not to have departed may be a reward: and so that what cannot be done except by the cooperating Spirit of God may be reckoned to the merit of those by whose will it could have not been done. Which will can exist alone in evil actions, but cannot exist alone in good ones. For although it is according to nature for man to have a good will, yet the vice which through evil will rushes in upon nature is overcome not by the virtue of nature, but of grace.

Therefore that first people of God was ruled by the Spirit of God, and through the instruction of the Holy Spirit abstained from fellowship and the customs of the accursed and pre-condemned people, guarding its own separation from mixture with carnal men, whose evils the patience of God endured only so long as the good, by not imitating them, could be pleasing. But when even the good were corrupted by imitation of the evil, and through failure of will the whole multitude conspired together into the same wickedness, one impiety defiled them (Noah's household excepted), one sentence blotted them out. But the goodness of God was not lacking even to that part which did not stand fast in charity, and from its very beginning swelled with the poison of diabolical envy. For the Lord deigns, by fatherly counsel, to soothe the leader of that impious race, who envied his holy brother's merits and pondered his slaying with a parricidal heart, saying to Cain: "Why art thou become sad? Why is thy countenance fallen?

If thou offer rightly, but dost not rightly divide, hast thou not sinned? Be still. For his turning shall be to thee, and thou shalt rule over him." Lay aside, He says, the sadness born of envious rivalry, and quench the flames of cruel hatred. Abel has done thee no wrong, nor has he injured thee by pleasing me: I have despised thy gifts by my own judgment, not by his wish. For thou didst do a good work carelessly: thy offering would have been right, had the division been right. Knowing to whom thou wast offering, thou oughtest to have known what thou wast vowing. Thou didst not divide rightly between me and thee, since thou didst reserve the better portion for thyself. This, then, is thy error, and thy sin; be still, and do not be stirred up against thy innocent brother; let thy fault rather be recalled upon thyself; do not give sin dominion over thee, but rather take thou dominion over it.

For by repenting thou wilt not proceed to a greater crime, and thou shalt be cleansed from that in which thou grievest to have displeased. When, therefore, God spoke thus to Cain, is it at all doubtful that He willed, and, so far as sufficed for a means of healing, did act, that Cain might come to his senses from that furious impiety? But his stubborn malice became the more inexcusable for that very reason from which it ought to have been the more corrected. And assuredly God foreknew to what end the conception of the raging man would proceed. Nor, because divine knowledge could not be deceived, was the deed of the will driven by necessity of sinning: from whose intention and effect indeed the safety of Abel could have been kept unharmed, had it not pleased God, with great praise to His own patience, that the temporal fury of the impious man should become the perpetual honor of the just one.

As for the descendants of that fratricide, though they lived in the ways of their forefather, who does not easily perceive that the divine goodness never denied itself to them, if one considers how much they might have profited from so long a patience of God, so rich an abundance of temporal goods, and so numerous a propagation of multiplied fruitfulness? These benefits, though they brought no remedy or amendment to the hardened, nevertheless prove that their turning away was not of divine ordination, but of their own will.

But in the preservation of Noah and his sons and daughters-in-law, in whom the seed-plot of all nations was being arranged, how great works of divine grace are revealed, holy Scripture makes manifest, while in that ark of wondrous capacity, which received as much of every kind of animal as sufficed for restoration, the Church is figured, which was to gather to herself the whole race of mankind; while through wood and water the redemption of Christ's cross and the washing of regeneration are disclosed; while in those who were saved from that devastation of the world the fullness of all nations is blessed; while the gift of fruitfulness is renewed, and, with only the eating of things strangled and blood forbidden, the liberty of eating what one pleases is increased, and the security of salvation is consecrated in the testimony of the many-colored bow, that is, in the sign of manifold grace.

These mysteries and sacraments indeed imbued not only those very few men of one household then living, but in them also all their posterity, so that what was bestowed upon the instruction of the parents might profit the knowledge of the children. Now indeed, as the increase of human propagation went forward, when the very multitude of mortals grew proud of its own multiplications, and, according to the height of its elation, desired to thrust the mass of its immoderate construction into heaven, how wonderful was the censure of divine justice in curbing this insolence! Which confounded the one speech of those peoples, consonant in signs mutually known to one another, into a variety of seventy-two tongues: so that, with concord perishing amid the dissonant voices of the workers, the machine of that insane undertaking might be dissolved, and a fitting dispersion of that evil assembly might give inhabitants to the whole earth.

But in this work of God's providence the miracles of Christian grace were being foreordained, which was to call back all this dispersion into the fabric of that building in which every knee is bent to God, and every tongue confesses that Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. This breadth of grace, to be revealed in the fullness of appointed times, the promise of God made to Abraham was already indicating with clearer signs, when his twofold succession—namely, the sons of the flesh, and the sons of the promise—was compared to the multitude of the sands and of the stars, and the old man, through his wife's long-standing barrenness now estranged from hope of offspring, believed with praiseworthy faith that through the seed of one son he would become the father of the world, foreseeing Him in his seed—nay, beholding Him—who said: "Abraham saw my day, and was glad".

By which faith, when Abraham was justified, he had not yet received the command of circumcision, but while he was in his natural foreskin, his faith was reckoned unto righteousness; and that same faith received the seal of circumcision in that member of the body through which the seed of procreation was to come to that flesh in which, without carnal seed, the Son of God, God the Word, would be made flesh, and would be born of Mary the virgin, a daughter of Abraham—all being taken into the fellowship of this nativity who, reborn in Christ through the Holy Spirit, should have believed what Abraham believed.

Now this faith, before that seed should come, concerning which it was said to Abraham: In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, was contained within the people of a single stock, the hope of our redemption flourishing among the true Israelites: because although there were some from among foreign nations whom the truth deigned to enlighten in the times of the law, yet they were so few that it is scarcely recognized whether they existed at all. Nor for this reason are the nations excusable, who, being alienated from the manner of life of Israel, having no hope, and without God in this world, perished under the darkness of ignorance: because this abundance of grace which now waters the whole world did not flow before with equal largess.

For a certain measure of heavenly teaching was always afforded to all men, which, though of a more sparing and more hidden grace, sufficed nevertheless, as the Lord judged, for some unto remedy, for all unto testimony: so that it plainly and clearly appears—not doubtfully—that unless where sin abounded, grace did more abound, even now a like impiety would blind the whole human race. Or perhaps (as many chatter) better dispositions than those of the ancients have arisen in our times, and the last ages have brought forth souls more apt for divine gifts? Even if this were so, it would have to be attributed to the goodness of the Author, who, in calling peoples to eternal life, had fashioned hearts that would not resist. But nothing at all has been renewed in carnal generation, nor has a nobler stock of offspring arisen among the later generations, since rather among the men of that time in which the Redeemer of the world came, the slower the propagation was, the more robust was the iniquity found to be.

The impiety of Jewish fury proved this: and how apt that generation was for the Gospel of Christ, not only the hearts of the people, but also of the scribes and rulers and priests taught—for whom it was not enough to have raged against the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world, against the testimony of the law, against the oracles of the prophets, against the proofs of divine powers, with seditions, insults, spittings, slaps, blows, stones, scourgings, and at last the atrocity of the cross, unless they should also persecute with the same madness the witnesses of his resurrection—which the apostles, when they were scourged by the high priests, showed to have been prophesied in the Davidic psalm, saying: Lord, thou art God who hast made heaven and earth and the sea, and all things that are in them: who by the Holy Ghost, through the mouth of our father David thy servant, hast said: Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples meditate vain things?

The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes came together as one against the Lord and against his Christ? For truly in this city there gathered together against thy holy son Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do what thy hand and thy counsel decreed to be done.

Therefore, in order to manifest the grace of God, which was disposed by his eternal and unchangeable counsel unto the salvation of all nations, not the earlier times were passed over as though incapable, but these were chosen; which brought forth such peoples, whose fierce and voluntary iniquity persisted—not from a disposition to take counsel, but from an intent to rage—in doing what the hand and counsel of God had decreed should be done, so that the grace and power of God might be the more marvelous, which out of hearts so hard, minds so darkened, so hostile, made for itself a people faithful, subject, holy: which people arrived at the light of God's wisdom not through the wisdom of this world, but through that gift of which the Apostle John testifies, saying: We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us understanding, that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son.

To which testimony the apostle Paul agrees, saying: Giving thanks to the Father who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from darkness, and from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love. And again the same: For we were, he says, sometimes foolish, unbelieving, erring, slaves to divers desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness and love of our Savior appeared, not by the works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but according to his own mercy he saved us, by the laver of regeneration of the Holy Ghost, whom he poured out upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by his grace, we might be heirs according to hope of life everlasting.

Could it be explained more fully, more clearly, more truly, what merits of men Christ found, and what manners he subjected to himself, what hearts he converted to himself, when he came to heal not the whole, but those who are ill, and to call not the just, but sinners? Since the people of the nations who sat in darkness saw a great light, and to them that sat in the region and shadow of death, light has arisen. The nations raged, the peoples were angered, the kings were furious, and the powers contradicted, and the superstitions and errors of the whole world resisted. But out of those resisting, raging, persecuting his own people, Christ increased his people, and through the bonds and torments and deaths of the saints, faith was made strong, truth conquered, and throughout the whole world the abundance of the Lord's harvest field was multiplied.

For so great a constancy of faith was granted from above, such confidence of hope, such fortitude of endurance, that that fire of love, which the Holy Spirit had kindled in the hearts of the faithful, could in no way be quenched by those who oppressed it: since even those who were tortured burned the more fiercely, and those who raged often caught the same flame which they were persecuting—with which the blessed apostle Paul, being set on fire, said confidently and fervently: Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom also we have access through faith into this grace wherein we stand, and we glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God; and not only so, but we glory also in tribulations; knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience trial, and trial hope, and hope confoundeth not, because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost who is given to us.

And again: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Or distress? Or persecution? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or the sword? As it is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome, because of him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This charity, poured forth through the Holy Spirit, brought it about that the world of the faithful conquered the world of the impious. This confounded the cruelty of Nero, the fury of Domitian, and of many princes after them, with the glorious end of innumerable martyrs, Christ granting to his imitators, out of the persecutions of kings, the crowns of everlasting garlands.

There is therefore no reason to doubt that Jesus Christ our Lord died for the ungodly and for sinners: from whose number, if anyone were found free, then Christ did not die for all. But he died absolutely for all. Therefore no one among all men, before the reconciliation which was made through the blood of Christ, was other than either a sinner or ungodly, the Apostle saying: For when as yet we were weak, according to the time, Christ died for the ungodly: for scarce for a just man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man some one would dare to die. But God commendeth his charity towards us, because when as yet we were sinners, Christ died for us; much more, therefore, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

The same Apostle also, in the second Epistle to the Corinthians, says: For the charity of Christ presseth us, judging this, that if one died for all, then all were dead; and Christ died for all, that they also who live may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again. But let us hear what he pronounces about himself: A faithful saying, he says, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief. But for this cause have I obtained mercy: that in me first Christ Jesus might show forth all patience, for the instruction of them that shall believe on him unto life everlasting.

Whether circumcision, then, or uncircumcision, all were universally shut up under sin, and one guilt had bound all fast, and among more and less impious there was no one who could be saved apart from the redemption of Christ: which redemption extended itself to the whole world, and rested upon all men without distinction; since, on the fiftieth day from that Passover on which the true Lamb had offered himself as a victim to God, when the apostles and those who were of one mind with them, filled with the Holy Ghost, spoke with the tongues of all nations, a multitude of men of diverse race gathered, roused by the miracle, so that the whole world, in those who were present, might hear the Gospel of Christ.

There had gathered together (as it is written) Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and those who dwell in Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews also and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, hearing the wonderful works of God preached in their own tongues: whose testimony ran forth far and wide even to those nations that are more remote. To the accomplishing of which thing, we believe the providence of God prepared the breadth of the Roman empire, so that the nations that were to be called to the unity of the body of Christ might first be joined together by the right of a single empire of impiety; although Christian grace is not content to have the same boundaries as Rome, and has already subjected to the sceptre of the cross of Christ many peoples whom Rome did not subdue with her arms.

Which empire, nevertheless, through the primacy of the apostolic priesthood, has been made greater in the citadel of religion than in the throne of power. But if perhaps, just as we know some nations have been adopted into the fellowship of the sons of God against their own will, so too now in the farthest parts of the world there are some nations upon whom the grace of the Savior has not yet shone: we do not doubt that concerning them also, by the hidden judgment of God, a time of calling has been appointed, in which they shall hear and receive the Gospel which they have not yet seen.

To whom, nevertheless, that general measure of aid which has always been offered from above to all men is not denied: although human nature has been wounded by so bitter a wound that no spontaneous contemplation can fully instruct anyone unto the knowledge of God, unless the true light has dispelled the shadow of the heart—which light God, just and good, by an inscrutable judgment, has not poured forth in past ages in the same manner as in these last days. Whence the blessed apostle Paul also, writing to the Colossians, says: The mystery which hath been hidden from ages and generations, but now is made manifest to his saints, to whom God would make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Was this mystery then unknown even to the prophets? And were they, through whom the Holy Spirit spoke, ignorant of the very things whose announcements were made by themselves? I do not think this is to be understood so plainly, but rather that the mystery was hidden from the Gentiles themselves, which the Lord revealed when He willed, and to whom He willed. For concerning the calling of the Gentiles, who were not the people of God, and upon whom He had not before had mercy, but now has mercy, it is thus said in Deuteronomy: And the Lord saw, and was jealous, and was angered because of the anger of His sons and daughters, and said: I will turn my face away from them, and I will show what shall be in the latter time, for it is a perverse generation, sons in whom there is no faith.

They provoked me to jealousy with that which is not God, they angered me with their idols, and I will provoke them to jealousy with those who are not a nation, I will anger them with a foolish nation. And David thus foretells concerning all nations that shall worship God: All the nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord, and shall glorify Thy name. And again the same: And all the kings of the earth shall worship Him, all nations shall serve Him. And again: All the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in Him; all nations shall magnify Him. Isaiah also announces like things, saying: For it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God on the summit of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall come to it.

And again the same: And the Lord of Sabaoth, he says, shall make for all nations, on this mountain they shall drink wine in gladness, they shall be anointed with ointment on this same mountain, He shall deliver all these things to the nations, for this is the counsel over all nations. And again the same: And the Lord shall reveal His holy arm in the sight of all nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation which is from the Lord. And again: Behold, strangers shall come to thee through me, and shall flee to thee. And below: Nations that knew thee not shall call upon thee; and peoples who know thee not shall flee to thee. Hosea likewise prophesies the same things, saying: And it shall come to pass, in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they shall be called sons of the living God, and the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel shall be gathered together in one (Osee).

And again: I will have mercy on her that was not beloved, and I will say to that which was not my people: Thou art my people, and it shall say: Thou art my God (Osee ii). Now under the apostles, when those who had believed in Christ from the circumcision thought that those who were Gentiles, and were called the uncircumcision, could not be partakers of the grace of justification: the blessed apostle Peter teaches how indiscriminately both peoples stand before God, if both come together into the unity of faith. For when, he says, I had begun to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as also upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said: John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If therefore God gave to them the same grace as to us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who then was I, that I could withstand God?

Hearing these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying: Then to the Gentiles also has God given repentance unto life. James the apostle also speaks of this calling of the Gentiles: Men, brethren, hear me: Simon has declared how God first visited to take out of the Gentiles a people for His name; and to this agree the words of the prophets, as it is written: After this I will return, and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down, and I will rebuild the ruins thereof, and I will set it up, that the residue of men may seek after the Lord, and all the nations upon whom my name is invoked, saith the Lord who doeth these things: known to the Lord from the beginning of the world is His own work.

Simeon too, that man to whom it had been answered by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord, spoke thus concerning the salvation of all nations which was revealed in Christ: Now Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word, in peace: because my eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples, a light for the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel. By these and other testimonies of Scripture it is shown beyond doubt that this most rich, most powerful, most benign grace, by which in the last time of the world all nations are called into the kingdom of Christ, was hidden in the secret counsel of God in former ages.

And why it was not revealed before, with that manifestation with which it now becomes known to all nations, no knowledge is able to grasp, no understanding to penetrate: although that which is most piously believed concerning the goodness of God, that He wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth, must be understood as nothing other than perpetual and eternal, according to those measures by which God knows how to heap general gifts with special favors: so that both they who have been without a share of grace may be convicted of their own wickedness, and they who have shone forth by His light may glory not in their own merit, but in the Lord.

In this narrow indeed, but nevertheless straight path of understanding, no small difficulty is opposed by the consideration of little children, who use no judgment of reason, whereby, perceiving the benefits of their Maker, they might be able to come to the knowledge of the truth; and they do not seem justly to be charged with neglect of the helping grace, being placed by nature in that ignorance which, without doubt, receives no knowledge, and perceives no teaching.

Whence, since God wills all men to be saved, how is it that so great a multitude of infants is alienated from eternal salvation, and so many thousand souls of men in these tender ages are left outside eternal life; as though they had been created for this alone by Him who, hating no one, made them, that because they came into this world with the flesh of sin, they should fall under the indissoluble bonds of guilt without the guilt of any act of their own? What can be more profound than this, what more wonderful? Nor is it lawful to believe that those who have not obtained the sacrament of regeneration belong to any fellowship of the blessed. And it is yet more astonishing, more marvelous still, that where there is no offending act, where the will offers no resistance, where there is the same misery, a like weakness, a common cause, there should not be one judgment upon so equal a case; and that those whom rejection disowns, election adopts as its own.

Nevertheless, concerning this depth of God's discernment our heart shall not be troubled, if with firm and steadfast faith we believe every judgment of God to be just, and do not seek to have known what He has willed to be secret; so that where it cannot be searched out why He judges thus, it may suffice to know who judges. Although this question is not so unknowable that we can gain nothing of instruction from it, if a calm gaze of a sober heart be applied to contemplate what can be seen.

For when we consider among pagans, among Jews, among heretics, among the catholic Christians themselves, how manifold is the number of little ones that perish, who, as far as concerns their own wills, are agreed to have done neither good nor evil: we learn that upon them remains that sentence which the human race incurred by the transgression of the first parent, the rigor of which sentence, since it is not relaxed even in regard to such as these, shows how great that sin must have been. For no one would be thought to be born not innocent, unless it were also harmful for such as these not to be reborn. But concerning the untimeliness of death there is no ground for complaint, since mortality, once entered into our nature through sin, has made every day of our life liable to itself. For man could in some manner be called immortal, if there were a span within which he could not die at all.

But corruption is never so partaker of incorruption that what is owed to its downfall is not always liable to failing. The beginning of this life is the beginning of death: nor does our age begin to increase before it begins to diminish. And if any space of time is added to it, it does not accede to this end, that it may remain, but passes into this, that it may perish. Whatever therefore is mortal from the day of its beginning, on whatever day it dies, does not fall contrary to the law of mortality, nor is it ever nearer to being able to live than to being able to fail. But although the mortality of all men arose from one cause, corruptible nature is drawn out not into one but into manifold weakness. And whether by diseases, or by infirmities, or by wounds, not only years or months or days of human life, but also all hours and all moments, are subject.

Nor is there any kind of death, or any manner of dying, which does not fall within the universality of mortals into some portion. For a heavy yoke remains upon the sons of Adam from the day of their coming forth from their mother's womb, unto the day of their burial in the mother of all. But the weights of this most bitter yoke have not so fallen upon the sons of Adam that divine justice applied nothing of its own measure to them, which so subjected them, doomed to fail, to the laws of failing, that it did not turn away from them the power of its own moderations. Nor did all men therefore fall into all evils because by their common condition all were subject to all, but that, the general necessity being varied, the Lord might reserve to Himself causes of indulgence and of correction, and that in the one debt of all there might be both what mercy would remit, and what justice would exact.

Since, then, the just and omnipotent providence of God unceasingly judges all things, and no one comes into this world, nor departs from it, except by that birth and departure which the arbiter of all things, according to His most high knowledge and wisdom, decrees, as it is written in the book of Job: Who does not know that the hand of the Lord has made all these things, in whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the spirit of all flesh of man? And again: The days of man are short, and the number of his days is with thee: who shall dare to inquire into the causes of his works and counsels? For it is inscrutable, and very much hidden, why the human condition is varied with such great differences. One is gripped by a long-lasting infirmity from infancy even to old age, and amid unceasing pains the appointed span of life does not fail to run its course. Another, sound with entire strength, is invigorated by a most long-lived vigor.

For this one there is an end in boyhood, for that one in adolescence. This one is not allowed to advance beyond youth: for that one it is impossible to grow even to the rudiments of speech. Frail mortality would experience these manifoldly unequal boundaries less bitterly, if it suffered only the losses of the present age, and if those who departed hence without the washing of regeneration did not fall into eternal miseries. But since the cause is inscrutable both of the gifts which grace bestows and of the miseries which nature has deserved, this very difficulty of understanding sends us back to our Author.

And when we ask how He wills all men to be saved, who does not grant to all that time in which through voluntary faith they might be capable of receiving grace, I think it may be believed without irreligion, and understood without impropriety, that these men of few days belong to that part of grace which is always bestowed in common upon all nations, by which, indeed, if their parents made good use of it, they themselves also would be helped through them. For the beginnings of all little ones, and that whole outset of not-yet-rational infancy, lie under the judgment of another's will, nor can they in any way be provided for except through others, and it follows that they belong to the fellowship of those by whose right or wrong affection they are governed. For just as by another's confession they believe, so by another's unbelief or dissimulation they do not believe.

And since they themselves had neither desire of the present life, nor of the future; as much as it was their own doing to be born, so much is it made their own not to be reborn. But just as concerning adults, besides that general grace which knocks more sparingly and more secretly at the hearts of all men, a special calling is put forth by a more excellent work, a more generous gift, a more powerful virtue, so also concerning countless little ones the same election is manifested; which indeed was not lacking, even in the parents, to those who were not reborn, but was present, beyond the parents, to those who were reborn; so that often for many whom the impiety of their own kin abandoned, the care of strangers has been of service, and they have come to regeneration through outsiders, which was not to be provided for them through their own kin.

In this work of grace, who but the most arrogant and vainest of men would complain of divine justice, that a like providence does not care for all little ones alike, nor either by power remove, or by mercy forestall, all the dangers which can hinder the regeneration of those about to die? Which indeed would happen thus toward all, if it ought so to happen. Nor is it hidden how much sloth would be bred in the hearts of the faithful, if in the baptizing of little ones nothing were to be feared from anyone's negligence, nothing from their own mortality: seeing that it could in no way happen that such should be defrauded of Baptism. But by so unlosable a felicity of infants the opinion of that error would be most vehemently strengthened, which dares to preach, against the catholic faith, that the grace of God is given according to the merits of men.

For it would seem, by entire equity, to be owed to blameless innocence that adoption should pass over none of those whom no guilt bound; nor would it have been impiously said by a certain man concerning the Baptism of little ones, "Grace has what it may adopt, the water has nothing to wash away." But this detestable proclamation all disciples of the truth understand; and from it, it is manifest that those who are saved are set free not by merit but by grace, since it is not doubtful that those who die without baptism have perished. And they certainly would not perish, unless they were partakers of a most grievous sin. Now, however, by a hidden but just discernment of God, it is shown both what grace confers, and what transgressing nature deserves; so that pride may not be lifted up against the gift, nor diligence cease on account of the danger.

Whether therefore we contemplate the last ages, or the first, or the middle, it is reasonably believed that God wills all men to be saved, and has always willed it; and this is shown from no other source than from those benefits, and that providence of God, which He bestows commonly and without distinction upon all generations. For gifts of this sort were and are so general, that by their testimonies men could be helped toward seeking the true God; and while these gifts bear witness through all ages to their Author, a bounty of special grace has been poured out over and above. Which, although it is now bestowed more abundantly than before, yet the Lord has kept the causes of His distributions within His own knowledge, and hidden them within the secret of His most powerful will; which, if it flowed forth uniformly upon all, would not lie hidden.

And just as there is no ambiguity about general benevolence, so nothing that would be astonishing would arise concerning special mercy, and accordingly that would be grace, this would not be. But it has pleased God both to grant this to many, and to withhold that from no one; so that from both it may appear that what has been bestowed on a portion has not been denied to the whole; but that in some grace has prevailed, in others nature has resisted. This more abundant grace indeed we believe and experience to be so powerful, that we in no way judge it to be violent, since whatever is done in the saving of men is accomplished by the will of God alone, seeing that even the little ones themselves are helped by the service of another's will.

Indeed the grace of God takes the principal preeminence in all justifications, persuading by exhortations, admonishing by examples, terrifying by dangers, inviting by miracles, giving understanding, inspiring counsel, and illuminating the very heart, and imbuing it with the affections of faith. But the will of man is also subjoined to it and joined with it, which is roused by the aforesaid supports to this end, that it may cooperate with the divine work in itself, and begin to exercise unto merit that which it conceived from the heavenly seed unto zeal; having from its own mutability the possibility of failing, and from the help of grace the possibility of profiting. This help, through innumerable ways, whether hidden or manifest, is applied to all; and what is refused by many is their own wickedness, while what is received by many belongs both to divine grace and to human will.

Whether therefore we consider the beginnings, or the progress of the faithful, or the stages of those persevering even to the end, no kind of virtue whatsoever occurs which is possessed either without the gift of divine grace, or without the consent of our own will. For grace itself acts by this whole manner of healing and helping, so that in him whom it calls, it prepares the will as the first receiver and servant of its gifts. For there is no virtue in the unwilling, nor can it be asserted that faith, or hope, or charity is in those whose consent is alien to these goods. This consent, moreover, is engendered not only by the exhortation of preachers and the incitements of teaching, but also by fear; wherefore it is written: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear, however great the terrors by which it is brought in, does nothing else than this—that whomever it has made fearing, it also makes willing; and not only willing, but wise.

Whence also it is written: Blessed is he to whom it has been given to have the fear of God. For what is so blessed as this fear, which is the begetter and instructor of wisdom? In whose devotion indeed the will too is devout, which, with grace as author, advances by that same fear with which it began. When therefore this fear is instilled even by a certain force of great terror, reason is not thereby extinguished, nor is understanding taken away, but rather that darkness which was pressing upon the mind is dispelled, so that the will, previously depraved and captive, is made upright and free. Whence, just as the soul receives no virtue unless it has taken in a ray of true light, so grace confers nothing upon him whom it calls, unless it has opened in him the eyes of the will.

This will, in very many (as has been discussed above), from its very beginning being most ardent, is enriched with swift and great increases; but in very many others, advancing slowly and hesitantly, it is scarcely brought forward to such increments as might have a firmness suitable for perseverance. The Lord indeed says: No one comes to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him. But this was said for this reason, that we might know that faith, without which no one comes to Christ, is held as a gift from the Father, according to that which was said to the Apostle: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. He who worked this in the hearts of those to be drawn, that they should believe—this he effected, that they should will.

For there would be nothing from which they were drawn, if they were not followers in faith and will; since those who do not believe are neither drawn at all, nor come; nor do those approach who dissent, but they withdraw. Those, therefore, who come are led by love; for they are beloved, and they have loved; they have been sought, and they have sought; and what God willed them to will, they have willed—he who so grants to them, for the sake of obedience to himself, the very act of willing, that he does not even take away from those who are to persevere that mutability which is able to be unwilling. Otherwise no one of the faithful would ever have fallen away from faith. Concupiscence would conquer no one, sadness would crush no one, anger would vanquish no one, no one’s charity would grow cold, no one’s patience would be broken, and no one would neglect the grace bestowed upon him.

But because these things can happen, and the descent into consent to such temptations is all too easy and prone, that voice of the Lord ought never to cease sounding in the ears of the faithful, by which it is said to the apostles: Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation. Wherein, if he admonished the disciples only concerning watching, and not also concerning praying, he would seem to have exhorted only the powers of free will. But when he added, And pray, he sufficiently taught that it would be a matter of heavenly gift, that even while watching they should not be overcome by the storm of temptation. Such also is that which he says: Simon, Simon, behold Satan has desired to sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren, and pray that you enter not into temptation.

If, then, the faith of so great an apostle was going to fail unless Christ prayed for him, there was doubtless in him a mutability which could waver in temptation, and he had not yet been so solidified by the virtue of perseverance as to be immune to all dangers. Indeed, so grave a disturbance shook him even after these things, that in the house of Caiaphas, terrified by the questioning of one maidservant, he was brought, his constancy failing, even to a threefold denial of Christ, to whom he had pledged that he would die. He, therefore, who then looked upon the troubled heart of the apostle, not with human but with divine eyes, and by a powerful glance incited him to abundant tears of penitence, could confer this firmness of soul upon his foremost disciple, so that, just as nothing deterred the Lord himself from fulfilling the purpose of his passion, so no fear should thereafter overcome blessed Peter.

But this stability was proper to him alone, who alone truly and powerfully said: I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again. But in other men, so long as the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and so long as the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak, an unchangeable firmness of soul cannot be found: since truly perfect and secure happiness belongs not to this life, but to another. In the uncertainty of the present contest, where the whole of life is a temptation, and where not even victory itself is safe from the ambush of pride, one is not free from the danger of mutability. And although the divine protection grants to innumerable of its saints the virtue of persevering even to the end, yet it takes away from none of them what is repugnant to them from within themselves, so that in all their pursuits and endeavors there is always a contest between willing and not willing.

This very repugnance the most blessed Peter himself endured even at the very consummation of all his palms of victory. For the Lord himself testifies to this and says: Amen, amen I say to thee, when thou wast young, thou didst gird thyself, and walk where thou wouldst: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not. Now this he said, signifying by what death he should glorify God. Who, then, would doubt, who would be ignorant, that this most steadfast rock, which took from that principal Rock the communion both of virtue and of name, always had this desire, that constancy in dying for Christ should be granted to him? Nevertheless, the struggle of trepidation was so unavoidable, that this man, most eager for martyrdom, though it was declared that he would indeed obtain the victory of the passion, would not obtain it without the temptation of fear.

Rightly, therefore, not only for beginners, but even for the most advanced of the saints, prayer is uniformly made to the Lord, and it is said: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For to all who remain in faith and love it is granted by him that they are not overcome in temptation; so that he who glories, may glory in the Lord: and he ascribes that very glory to those very ones to whom he imparts it; so that, although they have stood by the help of God, yet because they will have in themselves that from which they might fall, it is their merit that they have stood. Therefore, just as those who have believed are helped that they may remain in faith, so also those who have not yet believed are helped that they may believe. And just as the former have it in their own power to depart, so the latter have it in their own power not to come.

And it becomes manifest that in diverse and innumerable ways God wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. But those who come are directed by the help of God; those who do not come struggle against it by their own obstinacy. And although many, loving their darkness, do not receive the splendor of truth, and many who had been enlightened grow dark again: yet the word of God abides forever, and nothing falls short of the truth of the promise. Daily there enters in the foreknown and promised fullness of the nations, and in the seed of Abraham every nation, every tribe, every tongue is blessed. For what the Father has given to the Son, the Son does not lose, nor can anyone snatch from his hand what he has received.

The firm foundation of God stands, and the building of the temple that is to abide forever does not waver, the truth and mercy of God being set forth above all things: from whom that which is denied to no one, and owed to no one, is nevertheless brought to effect in those to whom he has promised it. For he himself works all things in all. But all things, without doubt, just and good. For all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.

Just as he foreknew before the ages how great a multitude of the whole world of men, whether using common gifts, or aided by special helps, would nevertheless turn aside from the way of truth and life and enter upon the broad way of error and death: so he always had foreknown how great a number of the pious, through the help of grace and through the servitude of obedience, would attain to eternal blessedness; so that, with none falling away from the fullness of his promises—he who was neither to be deceived as to their progress, nor to be lacking in his help—he might glorify above all others those whom he chose out of all.

For to the whole of mankind, as we have abundantly proved, the manifold and ineffable goodness of God has always taken thought, and takes thought, in such a way that no one perishing has any excuse of the light of truth having been denied him, nor is anyone free to glory in his own righteousness, since both his own wickedness plunges the one down to punishment, and the grace of God brings the other through to glory.

What therefore we intimated at the beginning of this second volume, this we now again commend, that when the depth and height of grace is discussed, we should stand firm upon those three most salutary and most true definitions.

Of which the first professes that it is eternal and proper to divine goodness, that it wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth; the second proclaims at the same time, that every man who is saved, and who comes to the knowledge of the truth, is helped and ruled by the aid of God, and is kept, that he may remain in the faith which works through love; but the third temperately and soberly declares that not every reason of the will of God can be comprehended, and that many causes of the divine works are withdrawn from human understanding: so that when in times, in nations, in families, in little ones, in those not yet born and those begotten, certain things are known to have been done either variously or remarkably, we should not doubt that these are among those things which the just and merciful God has willed not to be known in this passing age.

Which indeed must be considered as disposed for our benefit, that since we have been made safe in hope, for whom God has prepared what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, just as we steadfastly believe that we shall see what we do not yet see, so we should patiently await understanding what we do not yet understand. If therefore insidious malice should cease, if insolent presumption should be quieted: these matters being rightly (as I think) handled, no cause of contention remains, nor is it any longer necessary for us to be occupied with endless questions. For it has been labored, as far as the Lord has helped, that it might be proved that the grace of God was present to all men not only in the last days, but also in all ages past, with equal providence indeed and general goodness, but with manifold working and diverse measure: since whether secretly or openly, He is (as the Apostle says) the Savior of all men, especially of the faithful.

Which sentence, of the most sublime brevity and of the strongest force, if considered with a tranquil eye, settles this whole controversy which we have been treating. For by saying: Who is the Savior of all men, he confirms that the goodness of God is general over all men. But by adding: especially of the faithful, he shows that there is a part of the human race which, by the merit of divinely inspired faith, is advanced by special benefits to the highest and eternal salvation: which indeed is done by no iniquity of the most just and most merciful God, whose judgment in these dispensations is not to be discussed with arrogance, but to be praised with trembling: since even among the peoples of the faithful themselves (as has already been shown above) the same things are not conferred on all, nor equally, and before any weight of human merits, there is a most dissimilar measure of the divine gifts.

For if we do not dare to complain of the judgments of carnal parents, when they embrace some of their own children with a more indulgent affection before any examination of character, before any dutiful services of devotion: in masters too toward their servants the disposition is free, nor is anyone justly blamed who, from a household of one condition, chooses some whom he would more kindly honor, and whom he would more freely educate: is it then to be made a matter of complaint against the most benevolent equity of the supreme Father and true Lord, that in his great house all things are varied by countless differences? And since no one has any good thing which He has not given, yet not all shine with the same virtues, nor are enriched with the same endowment of gifts. Nor can we fit this diversity of degrees to causes of merits, since the principal cause of all good merit is grace, from whose riches is taken whatever is found praiseworthy in individuals.

Just as therefore concerning those things which the Holy Spirit works in manifold ways within the Church, it is impious to conceive any complaint in the heart, so also concerning that providence which presides over unbelievers, one must in no way murmur: since the just and good arbiter is neither of an unjust will nor of uncertain discernment, so that we should think, under the immense mercy and justice of almighty God, that anyone perishes who ought not to perish. No part of the world is void of the Gospel of Christ; and although that general calling does not rest, yet even that special calling has now been made common to all. From every nation, from every condition, thousands of old men, thousands of young men, thousands of little children are adopted daily, and by the effects of Christian grace even the very weapons by which the world is worn down are made to serve.

For how many who, in the tranquility of peace, delayed to receive the sacrament of baptism, has the fear of impending danger driven to flee to the water of regeneration! And what quiet exhortation long did not persuade in slow and lukewarm souls, sudden threatening terror has extorted. Certain sons of the Church, captured by enemies, made their masters subject to the Gospel of Christ: and to those whom by the condition of war they served, to these same they became masters in the teaching of the faith.

But others, Barbarians, while aiding the Romans, learned in our regions what they could not know in their own places, and returned to their homes with the instruction of the Christian religion. Thus nothing can withstand divine grace, so that what it has willed should not be fulfilled, since even discords draw toward unity, and wounds are turned into remedies, so that the Church takes increase from that very place whence it feared danger. To whatever outcomes of human affairs our inspection may turn itself, it will find no ages, no affairs, no beginnings or departures of generations to be void of the eternal and inscrutable judgments of God. All the conflicts of varieties, and all the causes of dissimilar outcomes, which we are not able to investigate and discern, are in that eternal knowledge known together and distinguished together.

And nothing there is disordered, even of the qualities of actions not yet existing: since in God there is no accidental motion, nor new will, nor temporal counsel, nor does His thought vary with the inequality of mutable things, but He comprehends all times and temporal things alike with an everlasting and stable gaze, and has already rendered all things to all, He who has already made the things that are to come. Hence is that saying of the blessed Apostle Paul writing to the Ephesians: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ: just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unblemished before Him in love.

Who predestined us unto the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ our Lord, according to the purpose of His will, unto the praise of the glory of His grace, and the rest which he connects under the preaching of the same sense, teaching that the gift and work of grace has always remained in the eternal counsel of God, and that all the sons of adoption were chosen not only at that time when, already existing, they were called, but even before the world was founded. In which election, whatever of men has not been foreknown in Christ will by no reasoning be joined to it. For all who are to come into the kingdom of God by a calling of any time whatsoever, are marked with this adoption which preceded all ages. And as no unbeliever is numbered in this lot, so no one of the pious is set apart from this lot.

For from the fullness of the members of the body of Christ, the foreknowledge of God, which cannot be deceived, loses nothing, and the sum foreknown, and elected beforehand in Christ before eternal ages, can be diminished by no loss, just as the Apostle, writing to Timothy, says: Labor together with the Gospel according to the power of God, who has freed us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before eternal times. Against this most splendid light of unconquered truth, certain persons are wont to say, not soberly, that it is superfluous to labor to acquire the merits of good works, and that it is also in vain to press on with prayers by which God is hoped to be entreated, if the election of Christian grace subsists from His unchangeable purpose. Nor can anything proceed otherwise than as it has been disposed by the will of the Almighty.

But those who cleverly think they oppose this do not understand that the knowledge of God, which embraces the past and the present and the future, is not held by time, and that things which are yet to be done stand as much in His sight as those which either are being done or have been done. Since this is most true, that power does not need any delay in seeing and discerning, which with a perpetual and true gaze beholds together things created and things to be created, things arisen and things to arise, things done and things to be done: and whatever in the universe of things unfolds through predetermined ages, and is unfolded in manifold varieties, all this it already comprehends in that order which the end of this world will receive from that supreme and perfect judgment of His.

But this eternal and ever tranquil knowledge urges upon us no necessity of sinning: nor does iniquity flow from that source whence justice flows: because since the good God has made all things good, and there is altogether no nature of evil; from free wills, which indeed it was good to make free, spontaneous transgression arose, and mutable nature, whose safety depended on the unchangeable essence, broke itself away perversely from the highest good while it delighted in its own, a ruin which the grace of God now heals. And for this reason Jesus Christ came into this world, that He might dissolve the works of the devil, which indeed are so dissolved, that in their destruction labor is also required even from those who are being helped, since this too is granted by the Savior.

Therefore the blessed Apostle says: Not only so, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience produces proof, and proof hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. And likewise the same to the Ephesians: By grace, he says, you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has prepared that we should walk in them. God therefore, to those whom He has chosen without merits, gives that whereby they may also be adorned with merits. And it is said in vain that there is no principle of working in the elect, since they work even toward this, that they may be elect.

For the gifts of the virtues cannot be idle, since as Truth says: To everyone who has, more will be given, but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Continence therefore is not given for this, that it should not fight against desires: nor is wisdom and understanding bestowed on anyone, that he should not meditate day and night on the law of the Lord. What does the gift of love accomplish, if the concern of benevolence does not keep watch? What fruit is there in patience, if fortitude has nothing to endure? Or how is one shown to live piously in Christ, who is assailed by no persecution? Or the peace which is from God, and with God, is it well at rest if it is not at variance with the world? Or can the love of God be maintained without the enmities of the devil? The grace of God makes no one wholly untried, nor for this reason without the guard of heavenly arms on the right hand and on the left.

The Christian soldiery of ours is trained so that though it may engage with no enemy, since it is more praiseworthy and more happy for one who fights to have been unable to be conquered, than for one who is idle to have been unable to be tempted. But that the concern for prayers is not dissolved by the purpose of divine election, I will prove clearly by one testimony, so as to omit the rest for the sake of brevity. In the book of Tobias, then, the angel Raphael says to his son Tobias: Remember the commandments of thy father, for he commanded thee that thou oughtest to take a wife of thy father's kindred. And now hear me, brother, do not reckon that demon, but ask for her.

And know that a wife shall be given thee this night: and when thou shalt have entered into the chamber, take of the liver of that fish, and put it upon coals, and the odor shall come forth, and that demon shall smell it, and shall flee, and shall not appear about her at all forever. And when you shall begin to wish to be with her, arise both of you first, and beseech the Lord of heaven, that mercy and health may be given to you. And do not fear, for she is destined for thee before the ages, and thou shalt save her.

Although therefore what God has determined can by no reasoning fail to come to pass, the zeal of praying is nevertheless not taken away; nor is the devotion of free will relaxed by the purpose of election, since the effect of fulfilling the will of God has been so foreordained, that through the labor of works, through the instancy of supplications, through the exercises of virtues, increases of merits may come about; and that those who have done good works may be crowned not only according to the purpose of God, but also according to their own merits.

For this reason indeed, in a secret most remote from human knowledge, the predetermination of this election has been hidden, and it cannot be pronounced of anyone before his own end that he is to be among the glory of the elect, so that a useful fear may preserve persevering humility, and he who stands may see to it that he does not fall; and if perchance he should fall, overcome by some temptation, let him not be swallowed up by sadness, nor despair of the mercy of him who lifts up all who fall, and raises up all who are cast down. For while one lives in this body, the correction of no one is to be neglected, the restoration of no one is to be despaired of. Let holy Church, then, pray, and giving thanks for those who have believed, let her ask for them a perseverance that increases; but for those who are outside the faith, let her beg that they may believe.

Nor let her therefore cease from supplications, if for some she has not been heard. For God, who wills all to come to the knowledge of the truth, cannot refuse anyone without justice.