8

asked for, man's merit precedes, saying that that sinned, we make Him a liar.'s But if very thing is merit, that by his prayer he is that are born of God sin not,' and if th desiring that divine grace should come to his words refer to those of them who are assistance, let them give heed to what the same world, it is necessary that we should holy man says in his exposition of Isaiah. He them as those numberless people who says: "And to pray God is a spiritual grace; obtained God's grace by the regeneration for no man says that Jesus is the Lord, except laver. But yet, when the prophet says, in the Holy Spirit." Whence also, expounding things are waiting upon Thee, that Thou mys the Gospel according to Luke," he says: "You give them meat in seacon. That Thou see certainly that everywhere the power of the them they gather for themselves; when Lord co-operates with human desires, so that no openest Thine hand, all things shall be 54 man can build without the Lord, no man can with goodness. But when Thou turnest a undertake anything without the Lord." Because Thy face, they shall be troubled : Thou s such a man as Ambrose says this, and commends take away their breath, and they shall fal God's grace, as it is fitting for a son of promise shall be turned into their dust. Thou s to do, with grateful piety, does he therefore send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be creats. destroy free will? Or does he mean grace to be and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth understood as the Pelagians in their different such things as these cannot seem to have be discourses will have to appear nothing but law said of any time whatever but of that fr - so that, for instance, God may be believed to time, in which there shall be a new earth help us not to do what we may know, but to new heaven. Therefore they shall be disture. know what we may do? If they think that such that they may take their beginning. And w a man of God as this is of this mind, let them Thou openest Thy hand all things shall be f hear what he has said about the law itself. In with goodness,' which is not easily characterist the book "On the Avoidance of the World," he of this age. For concerning this age what do says: "The law could stop the mouth of all Scripture say? There is none that doeth go men; it could not convert their mind." 3 In no, not one.' 10 If, therefore, there are differe another place also, in the same treatise, he says: generations, and here the very entrance in "The law condemns the deed; it does not take this life is the receiver of sins to such an exte away its wickedness.” 4 Let them see that this that even he who begot should be despise faithful and catholic man agrees with the apostle while another generation does not receive st who says, "Now we know that what things soever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Because by the law no flesh shall be justified in His sight." 5 For from that apostolic opinion Ambrose took and wrote these things.

www

:

ON

CHAP. 31. THE TESTIMONIES OF AMBROSE
THE IMPERFECTION OF PRESENT RIGHTEOUSNESS.

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let us consider whether by any means ther may not be a regeneration for us after the cours of this life, of which regeneration it is sa In the regeneration when the Son of man sh sit in the throne of His glory.'" For as that's called the regeneration of washing whereby are renewed from the filth of sins washed away, so that seems to be called a regeneration which we are purified from every stain of belly materiality, and are regenerated in the pre But now, since the Pelagians say that there sense of the soul to life eternal; so that every either are or have been righteous men in this quality of regeneration may be purer than life who have lived without any sin, to such an that washing, so that no suspicion of sins co extent that the future life which is to be hoped fall either on a man's doings, or even on his ve for as a reward cannot be more advanced or thoughts themselves." Moreover, in another more perfect, let Ambrose here also answer them and refute them. For, expounding Isaiah be impossible that any person created in a bo place in the same work he says: "We see it the Prophet in reference to what is written, "I can be absolutely spotless, since even Paul sets have begotten and brought up children, and that he is imperfect. For thus he has it: “N they have despised me," he undertook to dis- that I have already received, or am already per pute concerning the generations which are of fect; 2 and yet after a little he says, 'As many God, and in that argument he quoted the testi- of us, therefore, as are perfect.' 13 Unless, per mony of John when he says, "He that is born chance, there is one perfection in this wor of God sinneth not." 7 And, treating the same very difficult question, he says: "Since in this world there is none who is free from sin; since John himself says, 'If we say that we have not

12

another after this is completed, of which be says to the Corinthians, When that which is perfect is come; '4 and elsewhere, ⚫ Till we a

the

33.1

OF

CALIFORMA

AGAINST TWO LETTERS OF THE PELAGIANS.

433

see,' says he, 'now through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face.' Then, His face being revealed, we shall be allowed to look upon the glory of God, which now our souls, involved in the compacted dregs of this body, and shadowed by some stains and filth of this flesh, cannot clearly see. 'For who,' He says, shall see my face and live?' and rightly. For if our eyes cannot bear the rays of the sun, and if any one should gaze too long on the region of the sun he is said to be blinded, — if a creature cannot look upon a creature without deceit and offence, how can he without his own peril look upon the glittering face of the eternal Creator, covered as he is with the clothing of this body? For who is justified in God's sight, when even the infant of one day cannot be pure from sin, and no one can boast of his integrity

LONG AFTER AMBROSE.

into the unity of the faith, and the knowlof the Son of God, into the perfect man, e measure of the age of the fulness of t.' As, then, the apostle says that many laced in this world who are perfect along him, but who, if you have regard to true ction, could not be perfect, since he says, see now through a mirror, enigmatically; en face to face: now I know in part; but I shall know even as also I am known:' So there both are those who are 'spotless' is world, and will be those who are spotin the kindom of God, although certainly, a consider it accurately, no person can be ess, because no person is without sin." in the same he says: "We see that, while ve in this life, we ought to purify ourselves to seek God; and to begin from the purion of our soul, and as it were to establish and pureness of heart?" Foundations of virtue, so that we may deto attain the perfection of our purgation CHAP. 32 [XII.] —THE PELAGIAN'S HERESY AROSE this life." And again, in the same he says: : laden and groaning, who does not say, It would be too long if I were to seek to retched man that I am! who shall deliver mention everything which the holy Ambrose said rom the body of this death?'3 So with and wrote against this heresy of the Pelagians, same teacher we give all varieties of inter- which was to arise so long afterwards; not intion. For if he is unhappy who recognises deed with a view to answer them, but with a view elf as involved in the evils of the body, to declare the catholic faith, and to build up inly everybody is unhappy; for I should men in it. Moreover, I neither could nor ought call that man happy who, being confused to mention all those things which Cyprian, most any darkness of his mind, does not know glorious in the Lord, wrote in his letters, whereby own condition. That, moreover, has not it is shown how this which we hold is the true rdly come to be understood; for if a man knows himself is unhappy, assuredly all are ched, because every one either recognises weakness by wisdom, or by folly is ignorant "Moreover, in the treatise "On the Benef Death," he says: "Let death work in n order that that may work life also, a good after death, that is, a good life after vic- a good life after the contest is finished; nat now no longer the law of the flesh may v how to resist the law of the mind, that no er we may have any contention with the y of death." Again, in the same treatise ays: "Therefore, because the righteous have reward, that they see the face of God, and light which lightens every man, let us hencenput on the desire of this kind of reward, our soul may draw near to God, our prayer draw near to Him, our desire may cleave Him, that we be not separated from Him. placed here as we are, let us by meding, by reading, by seeking, be united with 1. Let us know Him as we can. w Him in part here; because here all things imperfect, there all are perfect; here we are nts, there we shall be strong men.

Eph iv. 13.
21 Cor. xiii. 12.
Work cited, chs. 9, 49.

For we

'We

3 Rom. vii. 24.

and truly Christian and catholic faith, as it was
delivered of old by the Holy Scriptures, and so
retained and kept by our fathers and even to this
time, in which these heretics have attempted to
destroy it, and as it will hereafter by God's good
will be retained and kept. For that these things
and things of this kind were thus delivered to
Cyprian, and by Cyprian, is testified by the testi-
monies produced from his letters; and that thus
they were maintained up to our times is shown
by these things which Ambrose wrote about these
matters before these heretics had begun to rage,
and catholic ears had shuddered at their profane
novelties which are everywhere; and that thus,
moreover, they shall be maintained hereafter, was
declared with sufficient vigour partly by the con-
demnation of such opinions as these, partly by
their correction. For whatever they may dare
to mutter against the sound faith of Cyprian and
Ambrose, I do not think that they will break out
into such a madness as to dare to call those noted
and memorable men of God, Manicheans.
CHAP. 33.

·OPPOSITION OF THE MANICHEAN AND CATHOLIC DOGMAS.

What is it, then, which in their raging blindness of mind they are now spreading about,5 5 See above, ch. 20.

heretics as these were in existence? — seeing that they overthrow their impious dogmas with such clearness that we can scarcely find anything more manifest to say against them. Or, indeed, was there any need of the congregation of a Synod to condemn this open pest, as if no heresy could at any time be condemned except by a Synodal

"that almost throughout the entire West a dogma not less foolish than impious is taken up ;" when by the mercy of God and by His merciful governance of His Church, the catholic faith has been so watchful that the dogma, "not less foolish than wicked," as of the Manicheans, so also of these heretics, should not be taken up? So holy and learned catholic men, such as are at- congregation?-when, on the contrary, very tested to be so by the report of the whole Church, praise both God's creation, and marriage as ordained by Him, and the law given by Him by means of the holy Moses, and the free will implanted into man's nature, and the holy patriarchs and prophets, with due and fitting proclamation; all which five things the Manicheans condemn, partly by denying, and partly also by abominating. Whence it appears that these catholic doctors were far removed from the notions of the Manicheans, and yet they assert original sin; they assert God's grace above free will, as antecedent to all merit, so as truly to afford a gratuitous divine assistance; they assert that the saints lived righteously in this flesh, in such wise that the help of prayer was necessary to them, by which their daily sins might be forgiven; and that a perfected righteousness which could not have sin would be in another life the reward of those who should live righteously here.

CHAP. 34.
-THE CALLING TOGETHER OF A SYNOD
NOT ALWAYS NECESSARY TO THE CONDEMNATION
OF HERESIES.

What is it, then, that they say, that "subscription was extorted from simple bishops sitting in their places without any Synodal congregation"? Was subscription extorted against such heretics as these from the most blessed and excellent men in the faith, Cyprian and Ambrose, before such

few heresies can be found for the sake of condemning which any such necessity has arisen; and those have been many and incomparably more which have deserved to be accused and condemned in the place where they arose, and thence could be known and avoided over the rest of the lands. But the pride of such as these, which lifts itself up so much against God as not to be willing to glory in Him but rather in free will, is understood as grasping also at this glory, that a Synod of the East and West should be gathered together on their account. In fact, they endeavour, forsooth, to disturb the catholic world, because, the Lord being against them, they are unable to pervert it; when rather they ought to have been trodden out wherever those wolves might have appeared, by watchfulness and pastoral diligence, after a competent and sufficient judgment made concerning them; whether with a view of their being healed and changed, or with a view of their being shunned by the safety and soundness of others, by the help of the Shepherd of the sheep, who seeks the lost sheep also among the little ones, who makes the sheep holy and righteous freely; who both providently instructs them, although sanctified and justified, yet in their frailty and infirmity to pray for a daily remission for their daily sins, without which no one lives in this world, even although he may live well; and mercifully listens to their prayers.

A TREATISE ON GRACE AND FREE WILL.

EXTRACT FROM AUGUSTIN'S "RETRACTATIONS,"

BOOK II. CHAP. 66,

ON THE FOLLOWING TREATISE,

"DE GRATIA ET LIBERO ARBITRIO.”