In its nature, grace is assistance, help from God; and all divine aid may be included under the term, — as well what may be called natural, as what may be called spiritual, aid.' Spiritual grace includes, no doubt, all external help that God gives man for working out his salvation, such as the law, the preaching of the gospel, the example of Christ, by which we may learn the right way; it includes also forgiveness of sins, by which we are freed from the guilt already incurred; but above all it includes that help which God gives by His Holy Spirit, working within, not without, by which man is enabled to choose and to do what he sees, by the teachings of the law, or by the gospel, or by the natural conscience, to be right.^ Within this aid are included all those spiritual exercises which we call regeneration, justification, perseverance to the end, — in a word, all the divine assistance by which, in being made Christians, we are made to differ from other men. Augustin is fond of representing this grace as in essence the writing of God's law (or of God's will) on our hearts, so that it appears hereafter as our own desire and wish; and even more prevalently as the shedding abroad of love in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, given to us in Christ Jesus; therefore, as a change of disposition, by which we come to love and freely choose, in co-operation with God's aid, just the things which hitherto we have been unable to choose because in bondage to sin. Grace, thus, does not make void free will: 3 it acts through free will, and acts upon it only by liberating it from its bondage to sin, i.e., by liberating the agent that uses the free will, so that he is no longer enslaved by his fleshly lusts, and is enabled to make use of his free will in choosing the good; and thus it is only by grace that free will is enabled to act in good part. But just because grace changes the disposition, and so enables man, hitherto enslaved to sin, for the first time to desire and use his free will for good, it hes in the very nature of the case that it is prevenientA Also, as the very name imports, it is necessarily gratuitous; 5 since man is enslaved to sin until it is given, all the merits that he can have prior to it are bad merits, and deserve punishment, not gifts of favour. When, then, it is asked, on.the ground of what, grace is given, it can only be answered, "on the ground of God's infinite:mercy and undeserved favour." ^ There is nothing in man to merit it, and it first gives merit of •good to man. All men alike deserve death, and all that comes to them in the way of blessing is necessarily of God's free and unmerited favour. This is equally true of all grace. It is pre-eminently clear of that grace which gives faith, the root of all other graces, which is given of God, not to merits of good-will or incipient turning to Him, but of His sovereign good pleasure.'
But equally with faith, it is true of all other divine gifts: we may, indeed, speak of " merits of good " as succeeding faith; but as all these merits find their root in faith, they are but " grace on grace," and men need God's mercy always, throughout this life, and even on the judgment day itself, when, if they are judged without mercy, they must be condemned.^ If we ask, then, why God gives grace, we can only answer that it is of His unspeakable mercy; and if we ask why He gives it to one rather than to another, what can we answer but that it is of His will? The sovereignty of grace results from its very gratuitousness: ^ where none deserve it, it can be given only of the sovereign good pleasure of the great Giver, — and this is necessarily inscrutable, but cannot be unjust. We can faintly perceive, indeed, some reasons why God may be supposed not ' Servian 26. * On Nature and Grace, 62. On the Grace 0/ Christ, 13. On Rebuke afid Grace, 2 sq.
3 On the Spirit and Letter, 52; On Grace and Free IViU, i sq. * On the Spirit and Letter, 60, and often.
5 On Nature and Grace, 4, and often. 6 On the Grace of Christ, 27, and often.
' On the Grace 0/ Christ, 34, and often. ^ On Grace and Free Will, 21. 9 On Grace and Free Will, 30, and often.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Ixix to have chosen to give His saving grace to all/ or even to the most;^ but we cannot understand why He has chosen to give it to just the individuals to whom He has given it, and to withhold it from just those from whom He has withheld it. Here we are driven to the apostle's cry, " Oh the depth of the riches both of the mercy and the justice of God! " 3 The effects of grace are according to its nature. Taken as a whole, it is the recreative principle sent forth from God for the recovery of man from his slavery to sin, and for his reformation in the divine image. Considered as to the time of its giving, it is either operating or co-operating grace, i.e., either the grace that first enables the will to choose the good, or the grace that co-operates with the already enabled will to do the good; and it is, therefore, also called t'lthtx prevenient or subsequent grace.-* It is not to be conceived of as a series of disconnected divine gifts, but as a constant efflux from God; but we may look upon it in the various steps of its operation in men, as bringing forgiveness of sins, faith, which is the beginning of all good, love to God, progressive power of good working, and perseverance to the end.s In any case, and in all its operations alike, just because it is power from on high and the living spring of a new and re-created life, it is irresistible and indefectible.^ Those on whom the Lord bestows the gift of faith working from within, not from without, of course, have faith, and cannot help believing. Those to whom perseverance to the end is given must persevere to the end. It is not to be objected to this, that many seem to begin well who do not persevere: this also is of God, who has in such cases given great blessings indeed, but not this blessing, of perseverance to the end. Whatever of good men have, that God has given; and what they have not, why, of course, God has not given it.
Nor can it be objected, that this leaves all uncertain: it is only unknown to us, but this is not uncertainty; we cannot know that we are to have any gift which God sovereignly gives, of course, until it is given, and we therefore cannot know that we have perseverance unto the end until we actually persevere to the end; ^ but who would call what God does, and knows He is to do, uncertain, and what man is to do certain? Nor will it do to say that thus nothing is left for us to do: no doubt, all things are in God's hands, and we should praise God that this is so, but we must co-operate with Him; and it is just because it is He that is working in us the willing and the doing, that it is worth our while to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. God has not determined the end without determining the appointed means.^ Now, Augustin argues, since grace certainly is gratuitous, and given to no preceding merits, — prevenient and antecedent to all good, — and, therefore, sovereign, and bestowed only on those whom God selects for its reception; we must, of course, believe that the eternal God has foreknown all this from the beginning. He would be something less than God, had He not foreknown that He intended to bestow this prevenient, gratuitous, and sovereign grace on some men, and had He not foreknown equally the precise individuals on whom He intended to bestow it. To foreknow is to prepare beforehand. And this is predestination.') He argues that there can be no objection to predestination, in itself considered, in the mind of any man who believes in a God: what men object to is the gratuitous and sovereign grace to which no additional difficulty is added by the necessary assumption that it was foreknown and prepared for from eternity. That predestination does not proceed on the foreknowledge of good or of faith,'° follows from its being nothing more than the foresight and preparation of grace, which, in its very idea, is gratuitous and not according to any merits, sovereign and according only to God's purpose, prevenient and in order to faith and good works. It is the sovereignty of grace, not its foresight or the preparation for it, which places men in God's hands, and suspends salvation absolutely on his unmerited * On the Gift of Perseverance, i6; Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, ii. 15, 2 Epistle to Optatus, 190.
3 On the Predestination of the Saints, 17, i3.
•* On Grace and Free Will, 17; On the Proceedings 0/ Pelagius, 34, and often.
5 Compare Thomasius' Dogmengeschichte, i. 510.
6 On Rebuke and Grace, 40, 45; On the Predestination of the Saints, 13. ' On Rebuke and Grace, 40. 8 On the Gift of Perseverance, 56. 9 On the Predestination of the Saints, 36 sq.
*° On the Gift of Perseverance, 41 sq., 47.
Ixx INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
mercy. But just because God is God, of course, no one receives grace who has not been foreknown and afore-selected for the gift; and, as much of course, no one who has been foreknown and afore-selected for it, fails to receive it. Therefore the number of the predestinated is fixed, and fixed by God.' Is this fate? Men may call God's grace fate if they choose; but it is not fate, but undeserved love and tender mercy, without which none would be saved.^ Does it paralyze effort? Only to those who will not strive to obey God because obedience is His gift. Is it unjust? Far from it: shall not God do what He will with His own undeserved favour? It is nothing but gratuitous mercy, sovereignly distributed, and foreseen and provided for from all eternity by Him who has selected us in His Son.
When Augustin comes to speak of the means of grace, i.e., of the channels and circumstances of its conference to men, he approaches the meeting point of two very dissimilar streams of his theology, — his doctrine of grace and his doctrine of the Church, — and he is sadly deflected from the natural course of his theology by the alien influence. He does not, indeed, bind the conference of grace to the means in such a sense that the grace must be given at the exact time of the application of the means. He does not deny that "God is able, even when no man rebukes, to correct whom He will, and to lead him on to the wholesome mortification of repentance by the most hidden and most mighty power of His medicine." ^ Though the Gospel must be known in order that man may be saved* (for how shall they believe without a preacher?), yet the preacher is nothing, and the preachment is nothing, but God only that gives the increase.s He even has something like a distant glimpse of what has since been called the distinction between the visible and invisible Church, — speaking of men not yet born as among those who are " called according to God's purpose," and, therefore, of the saved who constitute the Church,^ — asserting that those who are so called, even before they believe, are " already children of God, enrolled in the memorial of their Father with unchangeable surety," 7 and, at the same time, allowing that there are many already in the visible Church who are not of it, and who can therefore depart from it. But he teaches that those who are thus lost out of the visible Church are lost because of some fatal flaw in their baptism, or on account of post-baptismal sins; and that those who are of the " called according to the purpose " are predestinated not only to salvation, but to salvation by baptism. Grace is not tied to the means in the sense that it is not conferred save in the means; but it is tied to the means in the sense that it is not conferred without the means. Baptism, for instance, is absolutely necessary for salvation: no exception is allowed except such as save the principle, — baptism of blood (martyrdom),^ and, somewhat grudgingly, baptism of intention. And baptism, when worthily received, is absolCitely efficacious: " if a man were to die immediately after baptism, he would have nothing at all left to hold him liable to punishment." 9 In a word, while there are many baptized who will not be saved, there are none saved who have not been baptized; it is the grace of God that saves, but baptism is a channel of grace without which none receive it.'° The saddest corollary that flowed from this doctrine was that by which Augustin was forced to assert that all those who died unbaptized, including infants, are finally lost and depart into eternal punishment. He did not shrink from the inference, although he assigned the place of lightest punishment in hell to those who were guilty of no sin but original sin, but who had departed this life without having washed this away in the '' laver of regeneration." This is the dark side of his soteriology; but it should be remembered that it was not his theology of grace, but the universal and traditional belief in the necessity of baptism for remission of sins, which he inherited in common with all of his time, that forced it upon him. The theology of grace was destined in * On Rebuke and Grace, 39. Compare 14.
* On the Gift of Perseverance, 29; Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, ii. 9 sq. 3 On Rebuke and Grace, i.
4 Oil the Predestination of the Saints, tj, 18; if the gospel is not preached at any given place, it is proof that God has no elect there.
5 On the Merits and Forgiz>eness of Sins, etc., ii. 37. * On Rebuke and Grace, 23. 7 Do., 20.
* On the Soul and its Origin, \. w, ii. 17. 9 On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, tXz.,\\. tfi.
*° On Augustin's teaching as to baptism, see Rev. James Field Spalding's The Teaching and Influence of A ugustin, pp. 39 sq.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Ixxi the hands of his successors, who have rejoiced to confess that they were taught by him, to remove this stumbUng-block also from Christian teaching; and if not to Augustin, it is to Augustin's theology that the Christian world owes its liberation from so terrible and incredible a tenet.
Along with the doctrine of infant damnation, another stumbling-block also, not so much of Augustinian, but of Church theology, has gone. It was not because of his theology of grace, or of his doctrine of predestination, that Augustin taught that comparatively few of the human race are saved. It was, again, because he believed that baptism and incorporation into the visible Church were necessary for salvation. And it is only because of Augustin's theology of grace, which places man in the hands of an all-merciful Saviour and not in the grasp of a human institution, that men can see that in the salvation of all who die in infancy, the invisible Church of God embraces the vast majority of the human race, — saved not by the washing of water administered by the Church, but by the blood of Christ administered by God's own hand outside of the ordinary channels of his grace. We are indeed born in sin, and those that die in infancy are, in Adam, children of wrath even as others; but God's hand is not shortened by the limits of His Church on earth, that it cannot save. In Christ Jesus, all souls are the Lord's, and only the soul that itself sinneth shall die (Ezek. xviii. 1-4); and the only judgment wherewith men shall be judged proceeds on the principle that as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned under law shall be judged by the law (Rev. ii. 12).
Thus, although Augustin's theology had a very strong churchly element within it, it was, on the side that is presented in the controversy against Pelagianism, distinctly anti-ecclesiastical. Its central thought was the absolute dependence of the individual on the grace of God in Jesus Christ. It made everything that concerned salvation to be of God, and traced the source of all good to Him. "Without me ye can do nothing," is the inscription on one side of it; on the Other stands written, " All things are yours." Augustin held that he who builds on a human foundation builds on sand, and founded all his hope on the Rock itself. And there also he founded his teaching; as he distrusted man in the matter of salvation, so he distrusted him in the form of theology. No other of the fathers so conscientiously wrought out his theology from the revealed Word; no other of them so sternly excluded human additions. The subjects of which theology treats, he declares, are such as " we could by no means find out unless we believed them on the testimony of Holy Scripture." ' *' Where Scripture gives no certain testimony," he says, " human presumption must beware how it decides in favor of either side." ^ " We must first bend our necks to the authority of Scripture," he insists, " in order that we may arrive at knowledge and understanding through faith." ^ And this was not merely his theory, but his practice.-* No theology was ever, it may be more broadly asserted, more conscientiously wrought out from the Scriptures. Is it without error? No; but its errors are on the surface, not of the essence. It leads to God, and it came from God; and in the midst of the controversies of so many ages it has shown itself an edifice whose solid core is built out of material " which cannot be shaken." 5 ' On the Soul and its Origin, iv. 14. 2 Q„ ij^ ^fcriis and Forgiveness 0/ Sins, etc., ii. 59.
3 On ths Merits and Forgiveness 0/ Sins, i. 29. * Compare On the Spirit and the Letter, 63.
S On the subject of this whole section, compare Renter's Augusiinische Stndien, which has come to hand only after the whole was already in type, but which in all essential matters — such as the formative principle, the sources, and the main outlines of Augustin's theology — is in substantial agreement with what is here said.
TABLE OF MATTERS TREATED IN THE PRECEDING ESSAY.
I. The Origin and Nature of Pelagianism pp. xiii.-xvii.
The first task of the Church, xiii.; inevitableness of this heresy, xiii.; the author of it, xiii.; its novelty, xiii.; its ami-Christian basis, xiv.; its roots, xiv.; its formative and central principle, xiv.; its three chief contentions, xv.; its altitude as to grace, xv.; its crass individualism, xvi.; the claims made for it, xvii.
II. The External History of the Pelagian Controversy pp. xvii.-xxi.
Pelagius' work in Rome, xvii.; Pelagius and Ccelestius in Africa, xviii.; Coelestius' condemnation at Carthage, xviii.; Pelagius' examination before John of Jerusalem, xviii.; his trial at Diospolis, xviii., xix.; his condemnation at Carthage and Mileve, xix.; Innocent's acquiescence, xix.; Zosimus' wavering policy, xix.; the interference of the State and the final action of the Africans, xx.; Julian of Eclaniun, xx., xxi.; Semi-Pelagianism and its condemnation, xxi.
III. Augustin's Part in the Controversy pp. xxi.-lxvi.
Augustin's readiness for the controversy, xxii.; first oral stage of it, Augustin's early anti-Pelagian sermons, xxii., xxiii.; occasion, object, and contents of the first two books of the treatise On the lilcrits and Forgiveness of Si>ts, xxiv.; occasion, object, and contents of the third book, xxv.; occasion, object, and contents of On the Spirit and the Letter, xxvi.; the letter to Anastasius, xxvii.; the note to Pelagius, xxviii.; the first letter to Paulinus of Kola, xxviii.; Augustin's sermons of this period, xxix., xxx.; the progress of the controversy, xxx.; Sicilian Pelagianism and the letter to Hilary, xxxi.; Timasius and James, xxxii.; occasion, object, and contents of On Nature and Grace, xxxii., xxxiii.; Paulus Orosius, xxxiv.; letter to Jerome on the origin of the soul, xxxiv.; Ccelestius' Definitions, xxxv.; occasion, object, and contents of On the Perfection of Man's Righteousness, XXXV.; news of the doings in Palestine, xxxvi.; Pelagian view of "Forgive us our debts," xxxvi.; councils in Africa, and letters to Innocent, xxxvi., xxxvii.; letter to Hilary of Norbonne, xxxvii.; letter to John of Jerusalem, xxxvii.; letter to Juliana, xxxviii.; occasion, object, and contents of On the Proceedings of Pelagius, xxxix.; second letter to Paulinus of Nola, xxxix., xl.; the sharpest period of controversy, xl.; Augustin's policy, xli.; Zosimus' discomfiture, xli.; occasion and object of On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin, xiii.; contents of On the Grace of Christ, xiii., xliii.; of On Original Sin, xliii., xliv.; Augustin's sermons of this period, xliv.-xlvii.; letter to Optatus on the soul, xlvii., xlviii.; correspondence with Sixtus, xlviii., xlix; letter to Mercator, I.; letter to Assclicus, 1., li.; occasion, object, and contents of the first book of On Marriage and Concupiscence, li., lii.; second letter to Optatus, lii.; occasion, object, and contents of On the Soul and its Origin, liii.; advent of Julian, liv.; his first controversial writings, liv.; occasion, object, and contents of the second book of On Marriage and Co7icupisccnce, Iv.; and of Against Txvo Letters of the Pelagians, Iv., Ivi.; of Against fulian, Ivii., Iviii.; the Enchiridion, Iviii.; occasion of On Grace and Free Will, Iviii., lix.; object and contents of this treatise, lix.; occasion, object, and contents of On Rebuke and Grace, Ix.; the letter to Vitalis, Ixi., Ixii.; Julian's reply to the second book of On Marriage and Concupiscence, Ixii.; occasion of On Heresies, Ixii.; its treatment of Pelagianism, Ixiii.; rise of Semi-Pelagianism in Gaul, Ixiii.; occasion, object, and contents of On the Perseverance of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance, lxiv.,lxv.; contents of the Unfinished Work, Ixv.; Augustin's crowning anti-Pelagian work, Ixvi.
IV. The Theology of Grace pp- Ixvi.-lxxi.
Roots and formative principles of Augustin's theology, Ixvi.; grace its central thought, Ixvi.; the necessity of grace, / Ixvi.-lxviii.; the fall, Ixvii.; free will, Ixvii.; the nature of grace, Ixviii.; prevenient grace, Ixviii.; gratuitous grace, Ixviii.; sovereignty of grace, Ixviii.; the effects of grace, Ixix.; irresistible grace, Ixix.; indefectible grace, Lxix.; predestination, Ixix., Lxx.; the means of grace, \kx..; infant damnation, Ixx., Lxxi.; the Scriptural basis of Augustin's theology, lxxi.
Ixxii DEDICATION OF VOLUME I. OF THE EDINBURGH EDITION.
TO THE RIGHT REVEREND THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER.
My dear Lord, — I gladly avail myself of your permission to dedicate this volume to you. In the course of a professional life of nearly the third of a century, which has not been idly spent, I have never failed to find pleasure in theological pursuits. In the intervals.of most pressing labour, these have often tended to refresh and comfort one's wearied spirit. If this confession of my own experience should have any weight with any one in our sacred calling to combine the hard work which we owe to others while ministering to their wants, with " that diligent attendance to reading " which we require for ourselves, to inform our minds and refresh our spirits, I shall have accomplished my only purpose in making it. Your Lordship, I am sure, will entirely approve of such a combination of employments in your clergy. I well remember your recommendation of theological study to us at the opening of Bishop Phillpott's Library at Truro; and how you counselled us the more earnestly to pursue it, from the danger there is, in these busy times, of merging the acquisition of sacred learning in the active labours of our holy vocation. That the divine blessing may crown the work which you are so diligently prosecuting in the several functions of your high office, is the earnest wish, ray dear Lord, of your faithful servant, Mannamead, Plymouth, March lo, 1872.
DEDICATION OF VOLUME II. OF THE EDINBURGH EDITION.
TO THE REV. C. T. WILKINSON, M.A., VICAR OF ST. ANDREWS WITH PENNYCROSS, PLYMOUTH.
My dear Vicar, — I have great pleasure in associating your name with my own in this volume. We are ofificially connected in the sacred ministry of the Church, and I think I may, not unsuitably, extend our relations in this little effort to strengthen the defences of the great doctrine of Grace committed to our care and advocacy. Never was this portion of revealed truth more formidably assailed than at the present day. Rationalism, as its primary dogma, asserts the perfectibility of our nature, out of its own resources; and with a versatihty and power of argument and illustration, which gathers help from every quarter in literature and philosophy, it opposes " the truth as it is in Jesus." This truth, which implies, as its cardinal points, the ruin of man's nature in the sin of the first Adam, and its recovery in the obedience of the second Adam, is vindicated with admirable method and convincing force in the Anti-Pelagian treatises of the great Doctor of the Western Church. Some of these treatises appear for the first time in our language in this volume; and you will, I am sure, admire the acuteness with which Saint Augustin tracks out and refutes the sophistries of the rationalists of his own day, as well as the profound knowledge and earnest charity with which he enforces and recommends the CathoUc verity.
In identifying you thus far with myself in this undertaking, I not only gratify my own feelings of sincere friendship, but with a confidence which I believe I do not over-estimate, I assume, what I highly prize, your agreement with me in accepting and furthering the principles set forth in this volume.
With sincere sympathy for you in your important work at Plymouth, and best wishes for the divine blessing upon it, believe me, yours very faithfully, Mannamead, Plymouth, June 24, 1874.
Contents. — § i. The Latin Titles of the Treatises contained in this Volume; on the Preface of the Benedictine Edition. § 2. Notice of Pelagius, and his Opinions. § 3. Of Ccelestius and his Doctrine, in Seven Propositions. § 4. On Augustin as compared with other Doctors of the Church; his Estimate of Pelagius and Ccelestius. § 5. The Different Fortunes of these Two Men at First. § 6. St. Jerome differs from St. Augustin as to the Origin op Pelagianism; East and West, their Doctrinal Characteristics — how Agreeing, how Varying. § 7. On the Conduct of Augustin and Pelagius; Partisanship of their Followers and Critics. § 8. Paramount Influence of St. Augustin IN Ancient and Modern Times, and in Various Parts of Christendom. § 9. Reason of this Influence; Augustin true TO Scripture and Human Experience; in Favourable Contrast to Pelagius as to the Scientific Depth and Accuracy OF his Doctrine. § 10. R.ationalis.m and Revelation; Pelagius' Views Isolated and Incoherent; Augustin an Excellent Guide in Scripture Knowledge. § 11. Popularity and Permanence of Pelagianis.m; Consentient with Man's Natur.\l Feelings; Elevating Influence of Divine Grace, its Ulti.mate Triumph in Everlasting Glory. § 12. Original Text from which this Translation is made; Works useful in the Pelagian Controversy.
§ I. The reader has in this volume, translated for the first time in English, five of the fifteen treatises of St. Augustin on the Pelagian heresy. They are here arranged in the same order (the chronological one) in which they are placed in the tenth volume of the Benedictine edition, and are therefore St. Augustin's earliest contributions to the great controversy. These are their Latin titles: De peccatorum mentis et remissione, et de baptismo parvuloriim ad Marcellinum; libri tres, scripti anno Christi 412.
De Spiritii et littera ad eiundem; liber unus, scriptus sub finem anni 412.
De naiura et gratia contra Pelagnivt,ad Tijitasium et Jacolmm; liber unus, scriptus anno Christi 415.
De perfectione jiistitice hominis; [Epistola sen] liber ad Eutropium et Paulum, scriptus circiter finem anni 415.
De gestis Pelagii ad Aiireliinn episcopum; liber unus, scriptus sub initium anni 417.
The Benedictine editors have enriched their edition with prefaces (" Admonitiones ") and critical and explanatory notes, and, above all, with the appropriate extracts from St. Augustin's Retractations,^ in which we have the author's own final revision and correction of his works. All these have been reproduced in a translated form in this volume; and they will, it is believed, afford the reader sufficient guidance for an intelligent apprehension of at least the special arguments of the several treatises. The Benedictine editors, however, prefixed to this detailed information an elaborate and lengthy preface, in which they reviewed the general history of the Pelagian discussions and their authors, with especial reference to the part which St. Augustin played throughout it. This historical introduction it was at first intended to present to the reader in English at the head of this volume. In consideration, however, of the length of the document, we have so far changed our purpose as to substitute a shorter statement of certain facts and features of the Pelagian controversy, which it is hoped may contribute to a better understanding of the general subject.