Praedestinatus Sive Praedestinatorum Haeresis

For God foreknew that the Jews would deny his Son, and that the peoples of the nations would believe in him. And therefore he says: Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (Rom 8:29). For the Jews are taught to be children of Abraham through circumcision, but the nations become children of God through baptism, and the Son of God is their firstborn brother. The only-begotten, I say, the Son of God in a special sense, becomes a brother to those who are adopted as children of God in a general sense; whence he also says to the Father: I will declare your name to my brothers (Ps 21:23). These peoples of the nations, then, he foreknew, as we have said, that they would receive with a sincere heart his Son, whom the Jews were about to crucify, and would adore him as befitted the Son of God. Those, therefore, whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son might be the firstborn among many brothers—these he predestined; and those whom he predestined, these he also called. If you ask the Apostle when he predestined them, he tells you: Then, when he said to Abraham: In your seed all the nations shall be blessed. And therefore he says through the prophet: Hear this, all you nations (Ps 48:2). He says, then, to the Jews: Let it not seem to you that God has done anything new, he who wished to fulfill the promise he had made to our father Abraham, that in his seed all the nations should be blessed. Therefore, because he predestined all the nations, he also shut up all the nations in unbelief, that he might have mercy on all (Rom 11:32).

Therefore those whom he predestined, he also called; those whom he called, he justified, by taking away all sins; and those whom he justified, he also glorified, that is, he made them sons of God. Why then do you murmur, O Jews, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles? If God is for us, who is against us (Rom. 8)? That is, why do you lay hands on us, and take offense at the apostles of God? For if God did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, understand, O Predestinate, what it says: But he handed him over for all. By saying he handed him over for all, he both cut off the offense from the Jews and excluded your contention. But I marvel at your prudence, that you have read this passage thus: Those whom he predestined, these he called, so that you feared to approach the one verse that comes before. For when you came to this place, thinking, as it were, that your contention was satisfied, you were unwilling to look back at the verse that convicted you, namely, he handed him over for all; but you closed the book and began to shout: God does not call all to his grace, he does not invite all; and when our people said: Therefore he does not call all? you answered: He does not call all. And so our people, stunned and anxious, because they heard what none of the heretics had ever said, questioned your expertise, saying: How do you prove that God does not call all to his grace? Does God himself not wish to call them? Or does he wish to and cannot? Or do they not deserve it?

If he wills and cannot, he is blasphemed as powerless; if he can and does not will, he is seen as unjust. If they themselves do not merit it, then grace is no longer grace, and the calling is a matter of human merit, not of the grace of God. But if it is of the grace of God and not of human merit, he calls all. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, as the Apostle says; and he added: Being justified therefore freely in his grace through the redemption that is in Christ. Behold, freely; behold, also redemption. I say boldly: where there is presumption of human merit, there is no grace of divinity; for all things that we believe to be of the grace of God, we cannot apply to our own merits. Therefore, if it is of grace and not of merit, how do you say that some are not called, because they are unworthy of his calling? For if no one is called by his own merit, but by the gift of the grace of God, and one is called, another rejected, God is blasphemed as a respecter of persons. His apostles are also accused as false witnesses of the charge. For the blessed Apostle Peter cries out: In truth, he says, I have learned that there is no respect of persons with God; and the blessed Paul: For there is no respect of persons with God; and again the Lord says concerning servants: Doing, he says, the same things to them, remitting threats, knowing that both your and their God is in heaven, and with him there is no respect of persons.

If therefore this is so—indeed, because it is so—how do you prove that he does not call all to his grace? Or whom does he not will to save, who prays for those who fasten him to the cross? In this heresy the devil rages with the fury of his tyranny, so as to wound almost the whole world with a deadly blow. The creature wages war against the Creator, and says that he predestined what he punishes, that he established that to be done which he forbade. How impious this is, how sacrilegious, even the unskilled will recognize. For every sin is then rightly called sin when both the guilt of the offender and the equity of the judge are shown; because the punishment of sin always precedes the merit of the deed. But no one makes a man guilty except him who was able to avoid the sin. Therefore discern the sin between the one who predestines and the one who acts, so that the latter may either condemn or correct the evil deed of the former as something alien to himself. But from a just God all things that he condemns are alien. Hence if predestination is shown to be in the sinner, nothing is proven to be owed by the sinner to the just judge; because whose predestination is asserted, his operation also is proven. Do you see, I ask, how gravely God is blasphemed by these assertions? For if the force of his predestination is carried so far that sin is said to be by his ordination, the evil fruit is produced from no root but an impious one.

Therefore, according to the Manichee, there will be one God of evils and another of goods, so that the things that are good are ascribed to the good one and the things that are evil to the evil one—lest we seem to cry out a blasphemy worse than the Manichees, when we reckon that the one and same God whom we confess to be good and just has predestined all crimes. Let vain arguments of words therefore depart. The transgression of the delinquent and the predestination of the avenger have nothing in common, because sin consists in the contempt of the transgressor, while vengeance stands in the equity of the judge. Take away, therefore, one of the two: either [take away] predestination from the judge, so that you may prove him just, or show that there will be another judge. For by no reasoning will he who judges be able to punish what he has established, because if you assign evil to God's predestination, you will not be able to assign it to man's will. For either accuse the guilt in man and withdraw yourself from the blasphemy against God, or, if you assert that predestination was established by God for the one who sins, you have indeed taken away the guilt from the sinner, but you thrust a crime upon God. Certainly it is clear that sin is nothing other than the transgression of man, and predestination nothing other than the ordinance of God. How, then, could things so diverse and so contrary to one another come into one joining, so that what is good of God becomes evil of man, and the ordinance of the one who forbids is called the vice of the delinquent? But why do you not consider this, you who think that by God's predestination men consent to sins?

Certainly the devil wants and desires every sin to be committed; and do you believe that God set his predestination to serve the devil's desire and man's destruction, and willed that his predestination serve the will of the devil, so that, before any merit of their own will, he would already hand men over as guilty to the enemy, according to the whims of demons? For now it must suffice to have exposed the blasphemies of this passage. For with a fearful heart I faint under intolerable trembling. We have written of eighty-nine heresies in the first book; we have seen none that so loosened the reins for men to commit crimes; we have found none that so asserted blasphemies against God. I confess, O catholic confessors, that their blasphemies grow in this defense. Therefore I ask the purity of your faith, that you aid me as I struggle with your prayers, as I act against these men, all of whose words are blasphemies. I confess, I say, dearest ones, that all the members of my body grow numb, my mind fails, my hearing trembles, my face grows pale and drawn, the crop of hair on my head stands on end, my mind within is afflicted with its counsels as fear shakes it, my very tongue cannot move in its own court; because we speak against those who say that God is servile to the will of the devil.

IV. For already, they say, God has predestined men either to righteousness or to sin; and therefore, because he willed them to be what he created them to be, they cannot be anything else. When you ask them why they utter such blasphemy, they say it is because the Apostle said: Those whom he predestined, these he also called (Rom. 8:30).

V. And therefore they say that those whom God once predestined to life, even if they are negligent, even if they sin, even if they are unwilling, will be brought to life against their will; but those whom he predestined to death, even if they run, even if they hasten, labor in vain. Who would not see that by this saying the concern of the righteous to fear lest they fall is taken away, and from sinners is cut off the effect of hoping lest they rise? We have escaped the blasphemies of God; we have come to the ruins of men. For if it is so, that each one is what he has been predestined to be, the law ceases, the priest ceases, the devotion of the people ceases, the court of refuge is closed, the bosom of the Church is emptied, no one bends the knee to God, no one bows the head for blessings; the summits of God are closed, and at the same time all pursuits of virtues vanish.

VI. For however much anyone, they say, may strive, and not depart from the Church of God and the priests of God and divine studies, if God has once predestined him to death, he cannot be saved. Judas heard the word of life daily, daily clung to the Lord, daily was occupied with virtues, daily heard the very Son of God as his admonisher; and because he was predestined to death, he perished suddenly in a single stroke. Saul was daily a persecutor, daily a stoner of Christians, daily a ravager of churches; and because he was predestined to life, in a single stroke he was suddenly made a vessel of election. What then, they say, do you who remain in sins tremble? If God deigns you, you will be holy; or why are you who live in holiness made anxious? If God is unwilling, you will never be formed. Let both of you be secure concerning God. Are you who are holy, and anxious lest you fall, and present at prayers day and night, occupied with fastings, and diligently intent on divine readings, free for exhortations and daily pressing on all holy studies—are you, then, to be saved by your own will? Will you be holier than Judas, who received power to heal the sick, to put demons to flight, to raise the dead, to tread upon serpents and scorpions, a colleague of the apostles, a disciple of Christ; and yet, because he was predestined to death, he found eternal death?

Cease to be anxious, and be secure concerning the will of God; for if God deigns that you persevere, you will be holy. But you who are a sinner, learn from the apostle Paul. Can you ever commit worse things than he committed? And yet, because he was predestined to the apostleship, he suddenly escaped all his sins, and ascended from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high. This is the sum total of all your counsel; from this you deceive the world, from this you penetrate houses, and you captivate women burdened with sins, who are led about by various desires, always learning and never arriving at the knowledge of God (II Tim. 3:6-7). Therefore, with the Lord's help, that spirit which shattered the counsels of the false elders acting against Susanna—this spirit will now divide you against the immaculate Church of God as you treat false things. And just as those men were found full of deceits from their own accusation of themselves, so you will depart from your own oppositions defeated. Therefore we speak those very words among the beginnings which you yourselves spoke, but we draw the end of those same words otherwise. For we say to the just man: Surely Judas was an apostle, and he did not withdraw from Christ's footsteps; from his mouth day and night he received counsels of salvation, he exercised signs of powers, and he obtained all the insignia of apostleship; and yet, because he was negligent, he fell. Watch lest you fall; be anxious, because your adversary, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking to devour you (I Pet. 5:8).

But do not think that the fall of Judas was due to any impiety of God; for God did not will him to be wicked, but because he was a thief and had the money-box, and the root of all evils, avarice, was in his heart, therefore the wretch fell and burst asunder in the midst, he who neglected such great divine gifts, who, with the physician present, not only did not care to heal his wounds but even strove to increase them. For in the sin of Judas we ask you to be your own judges. For with Christ's help we so conclude against you that by your own judgment you may overcome yourselves. In the sin of Judas there is great sacrilege, an incomparable crime, an immense offense. Tell us, to whom do you wish this crime to be ascribed? To Judas the traitor himself, or to God the predestinator? If you prove that this sin—which it is worse to say than the sin Judas committed—is the sin of God the predestinator, I confess, you have won; but if it is the sin of Judas the traitor himself, our defense has won the palm: for God neither predestined him to be such, nor willed him to be such. Let us therefore defend the holy and immaculate Lord from the charge; lest the one whom he handed over through avarice, we accuse through injustice; and taking away the crime of Judas, let us call the Lord into blame.

For if he became such a man because God predestined him to be such, and not because he himself was negligent, then we indeed free him from every weight of crime, and, withdrawing ourselves from the reproach of the traitorous man, we accuse the cunning of God the predestinator, who, as it were, willed him to become an apostle so that he might make him a traitor from an apostle; whom, as it were, he willed to raise to the heavens so that he might cast him down from on high; whom, as it were, he willed to cast out demons so that he might hand him over to the power of demons. Why do we weave delays? Before your eyes you have both, O teachers of our time, the servant and the Lord, the Master and the disciple, the good God and the evil man: accuse the one you wish. If you accuse God as predestining, Judas is immune; if you accuse Judas as betraying, you will by no means be able to teach that God predestined his crime, because God's predestination is good, but Judas's betrayal is evil. The good one therefore did a good thing, because he must be believed never to have done evil. And if God's predestination is good, and Judas's betrayal is utterly wicked, the evil deed of Judas and the good deed of God could not have agreed. For it is impossible for darkness and light, good and evil, life and death, truth and falsehood, to have fellowship at the same time. Therefore, rendering to Judas alone his sin in full, and offering to God the most complete honor of his righteousness, render also to us the kiss of charity. For you labor in vain strife, you who through Judas excuse and defend all sinners, but accuse the righteousness of God.

Now let us come to the good teacher and truly most blessed Paul, and, having set aside the madness of evasion, let us set forth what is true and complete and cannot be denied. It is one thing to persecute an innocent man out of zeal of malice, as Cain did; it is another to persecute out of zeal for God, as Elijah did; and he not only persecuted, but even ordered a great many of the people to be killed with the sword in his sight. Cain killed one man, and is punished with eternal damnation; Elijah killed many, and is caught up to eternal glory. Therefore Paul did not imitate Cain, as you think, but, led by zeal for God, he even followed him. Perhaps you say: How do you prove this? Read his own testimony concerning himself in Galatians, where he says: I persecuted the Church of God and fought against it beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being, he says, more abundantly a zealot for the traditions of my fathers (Gal 1:13-14). Is it not known to all Catholics that the God of the Hebrews is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Whom, then, was he defending? The Father, without doubt, because his priests had told him that the one they had crucified was not the Son of God. Believing therefore his own Law, believing the priests of the living God, he received letters from them, so that going to Damascus to the synagogues he might bring Christians back bound (Acts 9:2). A most prudent and most wise man, who knew that he was acting out of zeal for God, without doubt thought that he was persecuting the enemies of God.

For he was running on behalf of the faith of God and on behalf of the truth. For he had not learned that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but, as he had heard from his own teachers and his own priests, he reckoned him a seducer and deceiver of his people. And so, having the spirit of Elijah, not of Cain, he pressed on boldly on behalf of the new worshippers of God, and, in ignorance, he practiced crimes as though they were virtues. But God, the inspector of the heart and the beholder of faith, caused him to find mercy, because his innocence proved his ignorance. How do we prove this? He himself says to Timothy: I was, he says, a persecutor and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly. You see, then, that where there is ignorance, there is no envy? For by the justice of God, doctrine is handed over to the ignorant; but to the one who knows and despises, let the sentence be pronounced. Hence Paul, walking through the darkness of ignorance, thought that he was pursuing the enemy of his Lord; he burned in persecution, because as a good servant he was striving to please the Lord. For he did not rest, he raged, showing himself more abundantly zealous than all for the traditions of the fathers. Whose fathers' zeal was he bearing? Doubtless that of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and the God of these is doubtless the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, striving to please him, he thought that he was pursuing his enemy; he endured the darkness of his own priests, to whom, by the command of the divine law, he was rendering his faith as a testimony. It is known to all what darkness holds.

Can not experience itself teach us that this is the nature of obscurity—to bring before the eyes in one manner the known and the unknown, the kindred and the stranger, the citizen and the barbarian—so that unless he has spoken, who he is cannot be known at all? This man, therefore, like a good guard of the house of Israel for the Lord of hosts, like a good watchman, having taken up his staff, was going about through the night of ignorance, so that whomever he found gathering the vintage of the Lord, he might lay waste with the spirit of Elijah. To the good servant, therefore, keeping vigil for the vineyard of his Lord, to the servant pursuing the zeal of the faith, to the servant imitating Elijah, to the servant contending for the truth in the darkness of ignorance, to the servant to whom he knew he had said that he should contend for the truth even unto death—to him, therefore, laboring and pursuing in the obscurity of faith, and not knowing that it was his own Lord whom he thought to be the enemy of his Lord, he came to his aid, saying: Be still, I am your Lord. Now judge for yourself concerning yourself. If you enter into your vineyard by night, will your man or your servant, when he has perceived you in the darkness of the night and has begun to come to seize you—tell me, I beg, bring forth the truth from your mouth; tell me, are you silent and do you allow yourself to be held by him whom you approve because he pursues you not out of zeal, not out of hostile enmity, but defending you while he thinks you a thief—does he not pursue you on your own behalf? To such a servant as this both praise and reward are due.

Finally, when you, pursuing him and wishing to strike him, have said to him, "Cease, I am your lord," immediately, casting the cudgel from his hand and prostrating himself at your feet, he begs pardon for his ignorance; and at that hour he will do what you have commanded him. So therefore at that time the blessed Paul, sent by the priests of God, already full of apostolic merits, was a vessel of election: having within himself the spirit of Elijah, he was persecuting, as it seemed to him, the enemies of the law of God, and the one whom he thought to be a thief of his Lord's vineyard, he himself was his God. For he was enduring the night whose darkness the unbelief of the priests had made for him. But the just Lord in this very persecution which he himself was enduring for his own justice was well pleased, because he himself had given the law which that man was keeping. Not therefore as one who accepts persons did he seize the unwilling and make him willing, seize the unbelieving and make him believing, seize the enemy and make him a friend, seize the evil and make him good: but he addresses his own faithful one, and one laboring for him, and says: Why do you persecute me? And he says those very words which are customarily spoken in obscurity: Who are you, Lord? And the Lord: I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting. Immediately he believes, and immediately he transfers himself from the Synagogue to the Church, not by changing the Lord, but by recognizing that he is the very one whom he always worshiped. Not by coming from one God to another God, but by proving that the same is the God whom he had always worshiped.

Not by coming from unbelief to faith, but by possessing the very faith that he had by right. Therefore the just Donatus knew his servant, according to what the Apostle himself says to Timothy: The Lord knows those who are his (2 Tim. 2:19). But to those whom he sees boasting that they are his servants, not for the defense of the truth but out of vainglory and some desire, he cries out to them, saying: Depart from me, for I do not know you (Matt. 7:23). But why do we linger on this point, when you not only inflict these injuries on the Apostle, so as to say that he was dragged unwillingly, when at a single phrase you read him saying of himself: If I do this unwillingly, a dispensation has been entrusted to me; but if I do this willingly, I receive a reward (1 Cor. 9:17). Exclude him from his reward, and say: Because you do this unwillingly, held against your will, dragged against your will, it is not you who run; for you do not advance by your own running—be assured of this. Know that you, even if you wish it, cannot sin. To these things he himself answers you: I so run, not as though into uncertainty (ibid., 26); I hasten daily, and I stretch forward to the prize of the upward calling (Phil. 3:14). And although I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified in this (1 Cor. 4:4). Do not be deceived: God is not mocked (Gal. 6:7). For unless I persist in many fastings, and mortify my flesh, and deliver it into servitude, I myself will become a castaway (1 Cor. 9:27). O good master! O wise architect, and instructor of all good things!

Thus he fabricates the Church, who wishes to offer an example of salvation. He does not overturn the minds of those striving in a good course, so that they might think they come to God in such a way as to remove from their minds the zeal of pleasing God, and say: We shall not please him by our own zeal—why do we strive? We shall not please him by our own course—why do we run? We shall not please him by our own will—why do we will? We shall not please him by our own vigilance—why do we keep watch? We shall not please him by our own prayer—why do we pray? If we are predestined to life, we shall not be reprobate. Excluding this, the apostle Peter cries out: Watch, because your adversary, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking to devour one of you (1 Pet. 5:8). And the apostle Paul: Do not consent to the unfruitful works of darkness; but rather even reprove them (Eph. 5:11). Do not consent, he says. Do you see how carefully he instructs our consent? For he knows that through our consent each one is deceived, each one is saved. But I mean the consent by which we consent to the physician, who, wishing to heal us freely, cries out to us daily: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28). Therefore you hear him calling, so that you may present yourself as one responding. This one who cries out that all should come to him did not know your doctrine.

For he would not say: "Come to me, all"; but he would say: "Let those who are predestined to salvation come to me, that they may be saved; let those who are predestined to death depart from me, that they may be punished." But it is not so, as you yourselves teach. For a man, if he withdraws his consent from the calling of God, perishes. This physician of ours indeed heals freely, but he commands observance. Whoever has not been saved either despised the one calling, or refused the one inviting, or neglected the things that were commanded him to abstain from. This we say concerning the perfect physician. What do you say? Say what you will: if you praise the physician and blame the sick man, you show the diligence of the physician and the negligence of the sick man.

VII. You do not say this, but you say what you have written in the booklet of your falsehood. "All whom God knows to be worthy of the redemption of his salvation, these he has predestined to salvation; these only he saves, whom he knows he has predestined to salvation. For the salvation of God does not serve the will of man. For he himself knows what to do for whom. Nor indeed does the freedom of the will precede the grace of God, but the grace of God precedes the freedom of the will." These are your writings, these are your sayings, true things mixed with false. We answer each point. If he calls all whom he knows to be worthy, therefore he has predestined all to salvation, because he does not cease to call all daily. If he saves only these whom he knows he has predestined, therefore he has predestined all to salvation, because he is the Lord and savior of all.

If the salvation of God does not obey the will of man, but the grace of God anticipates the will of man, show us who, being unwilling, obtained the most sacred mysteries of baptism, and afterward began through grace to will what he did not will; or who ever, being unwilling, performed penance, and after he was reconciled, began thus to repent after forgiveness. These two things are the sacrifice and the confession of human salvation. But we both sacrifice to God voluntarily, and we confess voluntarily. The sacrifice, by which we are redeemed by the blood of Christ and are washed by the water from his side; the confession, truly, by which, confessing our error, we again merit the forgiveness of sins. Therefore these two kinds, which alone we know can come to the aid of the human race, which the Holy Spirit says are done voluntarily, let us see whether, as you say, they are demanded from an unwilling man, or are required by a voluntary obedience. If from an unwilling and unwilling man, we give you our hands, you have conquered; if from one consenting and desiring and willing, the agreement of truth has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. For we sacrifice to God voluntarily, and we confess to his name, because he is good.

VIII. "It is not so," they say. "Vain and fruitless is the will of man, vain is the free choice of human will." If you said this in comparison with divine grace, we would say one thing. For we do not set human will before divine grace; for all things that are good, we ascribe not to proud man, but to the merciful God. Yet saying these things, we cannot say what you both say and write: "Vain is the will of man." But we say: The will of man is not vain; because if it is vain, it will neither obtain a reward as worthy, nor deserve punishment as unworthy. But lest you be so dull that by neither attending nor listening you fail to understand these things which we assert, go with your catechumens and with your penitents to the pontiffs of all the Churches; and if you see them refusing to give the grace of baptism to the unwilling, or to impose the hand of penance on the unwilling, know that you are catholics. But if they have not dared to give the grace of baptism except to those who have proven a true and whole will, nor to impose the hand on a penitent except to one showing a voluntary confession, why, drawn on by the vanity of your madness, do you say in this place: "Grace precedes the will"? Greater indeed is the grace of God than the will of man; but in this place the will is prior to grace. The former precedes by merit, the latter by order. I know that in this place you are accustomed to stir up certain mists for the ignorant, and with the crafty cleverness of your calumny to chatter about this word.

Behold, they say: "The will is prior to grace." We say in these two matters that the will is prior to grace: in the obtaining of baptism, and in the conversion of penitence; so that men, not led by your counsel, may begin to turn aside their heart to make excuses in sins (Ps. 140:4); while one says: "If God wills, forgiveness of sins will come to me; and if Christ wills to add me to the number of his flock, it shall be done." To him we say: "Unless you believe with your whole heart, forgiveness will not come to you, nor this grace, that you may become a partaker of the divine flock." Likewise, to those persisting in sins, if it be said: "Do penance (III, 2; IV, 17), for the kingdom of God is at hand"—when they have said: "If God deigns to grant pardon for sins, it is in his power"—to them we say: "Unless you will to do penance with your whole heart, God's forgiveness will never reach you." In these two matters, therefore, we say: the will of man precedes the grace of God. And again we say how the grace of God precedes this same will of man: because he would not have this very willing, unless the Only-Begotten, coming from heaven to us, had opened for all the workshop of his grace. For coming, he suffered for all men. Therefore in this order the grace of God precedes the will of man. Which we say for this reason, that we may shut you out on two counts. For you who say: "Grace precedes the will," sound well, but strike badly.

For you say: "Grace precedes the will," so that a man does not even begin to will the good, but waits to be drawn, waits to become good against his will; and when he is evil, he says: "God wills this, because his grace does not come to me." We, in this place, confront both you and the one who says this, saying: The will of man precedes the grace of God. For the Lord did not say: "You will first receive, and then ask; you will first find, and then seek; it will first be opened to you, and then knock"; but he said: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives." By saying "everyone," he established a general cause and excluded the specialness of his predestination; and by saying "he who asks receives," he demonstrated that the will of man is prior to the gift of grace. And yet the will of man becomes prior to grace, and the grace of God also becomes prior to the will.

For we did not go to the Holy One as sinners, but the Holy One came to sinners; nor did we ask him to come, but he came unasked; and so that man might ascend to God, God descended to man; he emptied himself, that he might fill us; he humbled himself, that he might exalt us; he became poor, that he might make us rich; the living bread hungered, that he might refresh us; the everlasting fountain thirsted, that he might bathe us, parched as we were, with the wave of the honey-flowing and eternal fountain; he was held, that we might be released; he was bound, that we might be saved; he was sold, that he might redeem us; he received a crown of thorns on his head, that he might take away the thorns and briars of the first curse; he was stripped, that he might clothe us; he was hung on the cross, that he might carry us away from the torments of eternal death. Condemning from the wood of the cross the wood of concupiscence, he spread out his undefiled hands in place of hands wantonly stretched out; in place of the taste of concupiscence, the food of gall is received, and the death of life is brought in exchange for the life of death. For he conquered for us, not for himself. For he himself was always, is, and will be most victorious. But because we all lost life and paradise in Adam, through Christ we obtain both paradise and eternal life, and adoption as sons of God, and the everlasting kingdom. At this point we vehemently execrate him who says: The will of man precedes the grace of God.

Nevertheless we abominate them in such a way that we say that already from the time of the passion and resurrection and ascension into heaven, from which time grace has now been diffused in the world, all these gifts of divine grace have been placed in the bosom of the Church; and whoever has not run to these so great gifts of God, and does not himself go to the Church of God but expects that the Church of God should come to him, we call this man insane. In this place we say to these men and to such as them: The grace of God, without respect of persons, has been placed in the bosom of the Church; if anyone wishes to seek it, he finds it; if anyone knocks at it, it will be opened to him; but to those unwilling, or lukewarmly willing, divine grace is not given; according to what the apostle Philip says to the eunuch: If you believe with your whole heart, you may be baptized (Acts 8:37). For grace did not exclude our willing, but stirred it up, and daily awakens the sleeping will. Therefore grace, having been placed, as it is written, in the midst of the earth, cries out: Come (Matt. 11:28); this word of God goes before the one who comes; ask, this word goes before the one who is about to ask; seek, this word goes before the one who is about to seek; knock, this word goes before the one who is about to knock. If a man has sought and found, it is of the grace of God; because God invited you to seek, God caused you to find; if you have not sought, you will not find either; this is in your free will. For you have such great power of free will that you were even able to despise your Lord when he called.

Whoever therefore is saved, it is by the grace of God, who established even the law; who both through the prophets and through himself and through his apostles daily invites you to will; if you are willing and hear, you will receive the good things of that eternal land. Therefore both what you will is of God, and what you ask is of God, and what you obtain is of God, because in this part grace anticipates the will. For you would not know what to will, unless he himself both through himself and through his own called you, and led you to ask, and how to ask. If this is so, what shall we now do about you who do not ask? Did God not will you, or did you not will God? Did God not will you to do good, or did you not will to do good? Did God not will you to be just, or did you not will to be just? Therefore I ask you, O most holy predestinator, that you make one of two. For either you will confess that you are conquered, or you will be convicted of blaspheming God. For if you allow yourself to be conquered, say with us: Man did not will good, and therefore he is evil; because if he had willed to ask, the grace of God would be given to him. When you have said this, you give your hands to the brotherhood, and through reverence you reconcile yourself to the Godhead. But if you say: Therefore he is evil, because God willed this, not because man did not will it, you are proved to have blasphemed God, whom you affirm to will evil, and it will be necessary that the Church anathematize the one blaspheming God.

IX. Let us now speak of the false fabrications of your book that follow. He errs who thinks that by willing the good he comes to Christ, since Christ himself says: No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (John 6:44). You who savor Christ more rightly, tell us whether Christ lied, and only then assert that we have fixed this sentence against the rule of Christ. For if Christ spoke the truth, we do not lie when we say that the predestined are drawn to life, because he himself is the life. It is nothing new that fools can be deceived by the sound of a word. Thus the vain Arius, following the sound of the word, says that the Father is greater than his Son. And he says to us what you say: If you believe the Son himself, listen to him. For he says: The Father is greater than I (John 14:28). Whoever attends to the sound of the word is joined, as to the heresy of the Arians, so to the vanity of the Predestinarians. For who does not know that no one can come to the Son unless the Father has drawn him? Nevertheless, before the Lord reveals through us the hidden mystery of this passage, we expose your meaning. For you cite this testimony so that no one may receive the warnings of priests with an attentive ear, no one may hasten to the bosom of Mother Church and grow strong on the breasts of the two Testaments; so that all may flee the house of God, and each may be occupied with whatever vice he wishes, waiting for the Father to stretch forth his hand from heaven, to draw him unwilling, reluctant, and resisting, and to make him, without his consent, elect and holy.

This is your assertion, and this is the dogma of yours that is caught out. But we say that however holy someone may be—whether he be an apostle, a martyr, a prophet, or a righteous man—he does not have powers of his own to ascend to Christ. For the Lord alone, by his own power, by virtue of his Godhead, ascended into the heavens and sits at the right hand of the Father. Therefore, however holy anyone may be, however much a friend of God, he does not have the powers to ascend into the heavens. And because the Son says to the Father: Father, I will that where I am, these also may be with me (John 17:24), explaining the concord of the Godhead, he says: No one comes to me—that is, by his own power no one can come to me. For it is not possible for the holiness of man to ascend to me, where I sit at the right hand of the Father, except the one whom the Father has drawn. Hence, in the person of one man, all the heaven of the saints says to God: You have held my right hand; in your will you have led me, and with glory you have taken me up (Psalm 72:24). Hence he added: For behold, those who make themselves far from you shall perish (ibid., 27). He did not say, "whom you make far from you," but "those who make themselves far from you shall perish," showing that destruction comes to man not from God's cursing but from man's own estrangement. But hear now what the book Praedestinatus says.

X. But if the force of the gospel testimony weighs on you, and you cannot, weighed down by the burden of the sentence, give us a harsh answer, at least explain to us the sentence of the Apostle, who says: "It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy" (Rom. 9:16). We have both declared the gospel testimony with true assertions, and we manifest this sentence of blessed Paul with evident impulse. First, however, we uncover your meaning, so that they may detest why the holy testimonies are usurped by you. For you wish that no one will the good, no one run to the good, but that he say in his heart: However much I will, however much I run, nothing will be able to profit him who wills, nothing will be able to profit him who runs. For "it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy." But we assert that no one obtains the grace of God unless he has run by faith; and when he has obtained it, he is forbidden by the Apostle's warnings to be puffed up. For he did not receive the grace of God according to his own running and according to his own will. For his running and his will, although they are great, although they are ample, still have a measure; but the grace of God has no measure. And therefore, even when the righteous man has reached the crown, he is not permitted to be puffed up in his crown. For the Holy Spirit says: "He who crowns you, not in your merit, but in his mercy and his compassion" (Ps. 103:4). Hence also the Apostle says: "What do you have that you did not receive?

But if you have received it, why do you boast as though you had not received it? Therefore he extended his course and his will to this end, that he might receive from the giver; but the gift, by the grace of the giver, surpasses the merit of the one who labors. For our willing stands between us and God just as it stands between a beggar and a giver. And so he who gives alms wishes to give to all, since this bountiful giver of grace of ours cries out daily: Come to me, all. And again: Ask and you shall receive. For example, some needy man has run and received from the giver, and having received riches he began to be wealthy who had been needy and poor: what is he now going to say? "I have these things from my own labor, because I willed it, because I ran"? He does not say this; but he says: "I am certain that I have nothing by the merit of my will or of my running; but the whole belongs to the grace of him who gave." And having said this, he can truly say with the Apostle: it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. Behold, we have spoken of this man who willed and ran, because the gifts of God are so great that they surpass both the course and the will of man. For the course and zeal of man, unless they are aided by the invisible supports of God, vanish away. For even the Apostle, fighting the good fight, and finishing his course, and keeping the faith, and now awaiting only the crown, says: By the grace of God I am what I am.

And again he says to us: By grace you have been saved. Great is the wretchedness of the one who thinks he obtains the gift of God by the merit of his own will. Every good gift is from above, from the Father of glory: we claim nothing for human power; whatever is good, we attribute wholly to the mercy of God. Yet we say that all good things are God's gifts in such a way that we impute all the evil things we do to our own negligence. For otherwise we do not deserve pardon, unless we truly show that we have sinned by our own fault, not by any prejudice of the Creator. And just as we have said of the good, that all the good a man has done is of God's grace, so whatever evil he has done let him reckon to his own negligence. Whence the Holy Spirit cries out: If you are willing and hear me, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you are unwilling, the sword shall devour you. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things. Therefore, by the occasion of a good testimony but a bad interpreter, you say: Do not will, because it is not of him who wills; the Holy Spirit says: If you are willing. You say: Do not run, because it is not of him who runs; the Holy Spirit says: Run, that you may all obtain. The Lord Jesus Christ cries out: Run while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you. Therefore, giving you a dismissal, we cling to the Holy Spirit. For it is better, as the apostle Peter says, to obey God rather than men. But what are we doing?

Again the dogma of your books grows toward worse things, in which it is read:

11. However much the strength of her zeal human will may stir up for building, it strives in that contest; or what does man's frailty think its vigilance will profit eternal desires, when the prophet cries out with evident proofs, saying: Unless the Lord has built the house, they have labored in vain who build it. Unless the Lord has kept the city, they have watched in vain who keep it (Ps. 126:1)? What is it that against the divine peaks and against his own conscience anyone hopes that he studies for building, when by these sacred utterances he is taught that the building of man is not certain but vain? First of all I ask, what building do you mean? If you are dealing with stones and mud, treat of these things with the Egyptians. But we in this place understand building as the word of God. But the word of God throughout the whole world is set forth by God's priests for the building up of God's churches. Is the speech of the pontiff therefore vain? Is the doctrine empty? Is the zeal empty? And if the building of this work is vain, why is it commanded by the Apostle? For the Apostle Paul says: Build one another up: let all things of yours be done for building up (1 Thess. 5:11). And again: As a wise architect I have laid the foundation (1 Cor. 3:10). If anyone builds upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, the fire will prove what each one's work is like (1 Cor.

And the Lord in the Gospel praises the wise man, because he builds his house upon rock, which is cast down by neither the force of winds nor of floods (Matt. 7:24). Do priests, then, build the Church in vain; do they watch in vain, to take away the simplicity of the sheep from the bites of wolves? And how do all who strike heretics with eternal anathema guard the flock of Christ? Everywhere the sheep of catholics are fed, and on the verdant pastures of pure faith, the mountains exult like rams and the hills like the lambs of sheep (Ps. 113:4). Everywhere from the rising of the sun to its setting, there is one flock and one shepherd, by whom the wolves are killed, lest they harm the flock of God; and do you still not see that the building of good will is not vain, but certain? Daily the house of God is built through the good word, through the holy example, through the best zeal. Daily the Lord cries out through the prophet: Build yourselves houses (Jer. 29:5), not houses of mud that are moved by the wind, but those that remain in the solidity of rock. But to you all these things we have said seem empty and vain. For your books say: The building of man is not certain, but vain. From the beginning all the saints brought building to their minds. For example, first Abel built justice, Noah innocence, Abraham faith, Isaac sacrifice, Jacob the pursuit of sacred things.

of these, Joseph’s chastity, Moses’ priesthood, Joshua son of Nun’s constancy of mind, David’s defense of the people of God, Solomon’s wisdom, John’s penitence. These we have recalled selectively from many, so that through them you, reader, being called to remember them, may inquire concerning the rest whom we have passed over in silence, whether they were men. If they were men, how do their books say, “The building of man is not sure, but vain”? Hence we now press the heretics’ statement with catholic conclusions. Either they were not men, because their building remains; or they were men, and the assertion of these men has vanished.

XII. But if you come against us, they say, you do not come against us, but against him who said: Unless the Lord builds the house, they have labored in vain who build it. And: Unless the Lord guards the city, they have labored in vain who guard it (Ps. 126:1). Therefore did he not know that it was not useful for the people of God, who caused these things to be written and directed to posterity even to the end of the world? You therefore who censure these things, take them away from the book of Psalms, because those who read and sing these verses, as you say, cannot be built up. We praise, approve, confess, confirm, and sing the prophet’s statement, and we explain it in this order according to the catholic rule. From the beginning, as we said, from the holy Abel the just even to Zechariah and John, all built the house, not with stones, as we said, but with holy examples.

Yet unless the Lord Jesus Christ had come and himself built this house, those who labored on it would have labored in vain; those who built it would have labored in vain. For they also stood watch over the flock diligently, but unless the Lord Jesus Christ had kept his own watch, those who kept watch over it would have labored in vain. Hence it also follows: It is vain for you to rise before the light (Ps. 126:2). For Christ is declared to be the light both by the prophets and by the evangelists and by the apostles. All the prophets, then, rose before the light, that is, before the birth of Christ. For them it was in vain to rise before the light, for they could not show the truth to those enduring the night. But the light came and made manifest the hidden things of darkness, and then at last praise began to be for each one from God. Unless, therefore, he himself had come and built the house, those building it would have labored in vain. Now, then, because he has come and has built the house, those who build it no longer labor in vain. And because he has come to guard the city, those who guard it no longer keep watch in vain. And because the light has come and shines in the darkness, we no longer rise before the light in vain. And because the bread of gladness has descended from heaven, we no longer eat the bread of sorrow. Hence there follows in the psalm the little verse: You, it says, rise before the light in vain, who eat the bread of sorrow.

But we who do not eat the bread of sorrow, but the bread of salvation, let us build our house upon the rock, and let us watch awaiting the Lord, because we do not know the day nor the hour (Matt. 25:13). Blessed is that servant whom, when the Lord comes (Luke 12:37), he finds watching. If it seems good, let us proceed to the remaining matters.

XIII. But why do these men think that by their own will they attain to the fruit of edification, when not even the vessel of election himself asserts that he was able to fulfill his own will? For the Apostle says of himself: For not the good that I will, that I do; but the evil that I do not will, that I do (Rom. 7:19). If therefore the Apostle cannot prevail to fulfill the good that he wills, how do these men say that by their own will they can attain to the fruit of grace? He never hastens to pardon who wishes the time of his sinning to be long. Grant pardon, teacher of the Gentiles, we beseech you, and do not permit us to be partakers of the injuries done to you. Let us see, then, what the Apostle willed and was not able to do, and what it was that he was compelled to do though he did not will it. He willed to speak the truth, but to lie he utterly did not will; therefore he lied. He willed chastity, he abhorred impurity; therefore he was defiled. He willed contempt of the world, he execrated all the glory of the age; therefore he existed as one vainglorious, that is, desirous of empty glory. Finally, he willed every good, but everything that is evil he utterly abhorred; therefore the Apostle worked nothing good that he willed, but perpetrated everything that is most wicked.

For you say: The Apostle says of himself: For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do (Ibid.). Do you see, I beseech you, into what pit of blasphemies the blind understanding of your mind has cast you headlong? You wish to show that the Apostle was occupied with crimes, so that no one may sigh that he is a sinner, no one may give forth a groan from the depths of his heart for his own wicked deeds, nor may anyone strive to wash away with weeping eyes what he defiled with his desires, when he hears that that vessel of election, that teacher of all the Churches, recalls that he did not do the good he wished, but asserts that he perpetrated the evil he did not wish. You have opened the gates, not of righteousness, but of iniquity to all men, and from the words of the Apostle you have taken up wars against the Apostle, wishing to be masters, while you show that you were never disciples, and attending to the sound of the letter, you yourselves suddenly began to be teachers. What now do we do, who cannot endure your blasphemies? If we keep silent, you seem to have spoken rightly, and not only to have spoken, but also to have written. We speak, with the Lord's help, fleeing the glory of men, teaching the ignorant, instructing the zealous, gladdening the knowledgeable, exposing you. The writing of your book is that which, what is worse, does not die with you when you die, and creeps like a cancer to overthrow the unwary. Let us see what follows in the book written by your vanity. The words are the Apostle's; we add nothing of our own.

He says of himself: For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do (Ibid.). Arius in his third book set down an epigram of this kind, saying:

XIV. We have received the words of the Son of God, and we believe them to be true, and we also confess them to be true. He himself says: The Father is greater than I, and: I and the Father are one, because I am in the Father, and the Father in me. He was unwilling to read; for he could have joined these two things together, that is, The Father is greater than I, and I and the Father are one; and if he had joined these two together, he would have found the Son of man and the Son of God. For all the kinds of passibility, removed from the Godhead, could belong to the Son of man alone. For God is neither less nor greater, but is that which he is, the same always, lacking increase, lacking diminution. He never advances by increasing, never fails by diminishing; but the same before all things who is after all things, and in all things past, present, and future he perseveres immutable. Let these things be as said in another work. For we have mentioned that the anathematized Arius said this in the chapter of his third book, in the order in which the Predestinarians spoke: They are the words of the Apostle, we have added nothing of our own; he himself says of himself: For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I hate, that I do (Ibid.). We now ask your prudence; we have read that the Apostle said: Now it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me; and that which I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God (Gal. II). What do you now say? Was this man carnal, or spiritual?

If you say he was carnal, you are refuted; for he cries out: "It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me." If you agree that he was spiritual, you will explain this passage along with us. For you will find the key to this passage in the statement that follows: "We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal" (Rom. 7:14). If you are carnal, blessed Apostle, how do you rebuke the carnal, saying: "And I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal men" (1 Cor. 3:1)? And again: "When," he says, "there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not carnal?" (Ibid., 3). And again: "As many of us," he says, "as are spiritual, think this way." But we are taught by your writings, man of God, that not only were you yourself spiritual, and rightly, while placed on earth, said that your conversation is in heaven, but we are also taught this: that your disciples too were spiritual. For you say to them: "If anyone is overtaken in some fault, you who are spiritual, correct such a one in the spirit of gentleness" (Gal. 6:1). What then do you now say to us: "We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal" (Rom. 7:14)? To this he himself will deign to give us an answer: I became as carnal to the carnal, that I might gain those who were carnal. The truth has opened itself to us, and falsehood has been shut out from the truth. And so the spiritual teacher took upon himself the person of a carnal man.

And so that he might not, like an offensive teacher, drive the listener away from himself, he reproaches himself in order to correct another. Hence he recalls this very thing elsewhere, saying: Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself, so that you might be exalted? (2 Cor 11:7). What then? I, he says, am carnal: what of you? I, he says, who have been sold under sin (Rom 7:14). Were you, Apostle, sold under sin—you who once, redeemed by the blood of Christ, redeemed for God through Christ a people without number? It is clear, therefore, that the Apostle wished to set forth in this passage not his own person, but another's, that is, the person of a carnal man. He is the one sold under sin who has not yet been redeemed by the blood of Christ, who is still carnal; and therefore it is said: What I do, I do not understand (Rom 7:15). For the Gentile does not understand that his action is against his own salvation; though he is a Gentile, he wishes good to come to himself, to attain good, to possess good, to acquire good, the good of his salvation, the good of his life: but he does not practice this good that he wishes, but the evil that he hates, that he does. He hates death, but he practices the works of death; he hates danger, but his activity is full of danger; he hates all evils, but the very things he hates, these he does. Why? Because the good, he says, does not dwell in my flesh, that is, the true God does not dwell in me. For to will is present with me—it is certain that I will the true God—but this that I will I do not find (Rom 7:18).

For these things confront me, a carnal man, a man sold under sin, a man who does not understand what I do, a man who does not do the good that I will, but the evil that I do not will, that I do, a man in whose flesh no good dwells; all these things confront me, so that I do not find a way to accomplish the good. Yet I delight in the law of God according to the inner man; that is, my inner man, in which my understanding is, delights in the law of God, which says that one invisible God ought to be worshiped. For although I am carnal, I know that wood and stone cannot be God; but I see another law warring against my understanding, resisting the law of my mind, which says and proves that these cannot be gods; yet this carnal law resists the law of my mind, leads me captive in the law of sin, which law is not in my mind but in my members. For I am led by the body, where I do not consent in my mind. Wretched man that I am! Paul does not say this of himself. For he was not wretched, but he is blessed and holy. Wretched man, he says, that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore the grace of sacred baptism will come, and will make this carnal man spiritual, and will redeem the man sold under sin from sin; and now he does not say: What I do I do not understand. For he does not do the evil that he hates, but he will do the good that he wills.

For he knows that the good already dwells in his flesh, that is, the Holy Spirit, through whom both to will is present to him, and he will find the power to accomplish it according to his good will. And now he is secure, and he delights in the law of God according to the inner man, because he does not see another law in his members. For he has in himself only the law of Christ, which does not fight against the law of his mind, and does not lead him captive into the law of sin, but leads him free to eternal life. And now he is not an unhappy man, but I am a happy man, because I have escaped all these evils and found all these good things. But who has granted this to me, if you ask: the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And lest any ambiguity of this exposition remain, by which it might be thought that the Apostle said these things about himself, he sets down words to be read in a tone of rebuke, when he says: Therefore I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh the law of sin. There is therefore no condemnation in Christ Jesus for those who walk according to the flesh. That is, if I, who am an Apostle, am considered carnal, will those who live carnally have no condemnation? And he added: But the law of the Spirit of life has freed you from the law of sin and death. Hence he also says in another place: When you were servants of sin, you were free with respect to righteousness. But now, freed from sin, you have been made servants of God. But God glories in him over the servitude of all, because the servitude he has can be compared to no other servitude.

For all servitudes are known to be compulsory; but God's servitudes cannot stand unless they are voluntary, according to what is written: The Father draws no one unwilling. Whence the prophet, full of the Holy Spirit, cries out: With my own will I will confess to the Lord (Ps. 27:7). And again: I will sacrifice to you willingly (Ps. 54:8). But against all these let them bring forth for us their book, wrapped in blind windings and, as if ignorant of itself, again repeating the same things and saying:

XV. None are called except the predestined; for the grace of God precedes the will of man; for God comes first in what is good in man, but man is scarcely found last in every good. Give the first parts to God, that you may empty out human pride. But if you wish to nourish pride in men, it appears that you are seeking the ruin of the human race, you who teach that in a good work God does not come first, but the will of man, so that they themselves seem rather to admonish God by their suggestions to do good, as if they had said that he does not do good unless they tell him; when it is certain that God, with no one suggesting and no one asking, bestows all good things on men. For the Apostle does not say: When we were asking, and petitioning, and running, and keeping watch; but, When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God; not through our will, but through the death of his Son (Rom. 5:10). Where is the will of man? It is excluded and.

Therefore not everyone who wills is saved; for if everyone who willed were saved, no one could be made a stranger to salvation. And so every man wills to be saved, but not every man is saved. For he is saved whom God has willed. Yes, I say, him whom God has willed, so that, with man's will excluded, He may manifest His own grace full and complete. I call those first ones of ours blessed, who did not in the least know the practice of so great a crime. Who would ever suspect that one must act against goodness in matters of good, and against justice fight with the arms of justice? They are not called, he says, unless they are predestined. And we say with you: they are not called unless they are predestined. For He who commanded His disciples to call all nations, saying: Go, baptize all nations, Himself predestined all before His coming. Therefore He predestined all nations to life, because He called all nations to life. He who has come will impute it to the divine clemency that both predestines and calls; but he who has not come, let him impute it to his own negligence that both despises and refuses. For it is not of divine predestination that man's perdition should come to be; nor is it the will of God when the will of the devil is fulfilled. For these wills are hostile and contrary to one another, and one cannot be fulfilled without contempt of the other. But if some are not called to life, in those who are not called the will of the devil is fulfilled.

And I am amazed at the boldness with which you enter his Church, when you do not fear to call him subject to the will of the devil; for he is proved to fulfill the will of the devil who does not will that all men attain salvation. For just as in those whom he wills to save his own will is believed to be fulfilled, so in those whom he does not will, the will of the devil is fulfilled. But the good God wills all to be good; and from this you suffer error, because all whom he wills to be good are not good. For you are accustomed to say: Those who are not good, with God driving them away from himself, are evil, so that those who sin may be seen to sin not by their own fault. If therefore you suffer error from this, that the will of God is not fulfilled, why do you not rather from this render judgment to sinners, whereby God may be praised for the patience of his loving-kindness, and man may be blamed for the impatience of his own will?

XVI. For you say: Therefore man conquers God. For he conquers God, if God wills him to be good, and he is not good. What therefore do you attend to in this place? Surely you do not see God and man struggling, that you should say these things? If you saw them struggling, you would rightly hand victory to one side. But now, because the Savior of men, holding to the physician's rule, gives warnings not necessary for his own advantage but useful for our salvation, commanding certain things to be done that you may obtain life, and forbidding certain things to be done that you may escape death—if you have listened, you will impute to the Savior that you live; if you have despised, you will reckon it to your own sloth, when you begin to feel the torments of death.

But if you say that the sick man's death came about through the doctor's inexperience, we teach that the doctor is perfect in every respect. If, however, you say that he fell into the death of one about to die by his own will, he himself cries out to you, saying: I do not will the death of the sinner (Ezek. 33:11). And if you should deserve to question him and say: If you do not will this, show what you do will; he will answer: I will that he be converted and live. Hence we too make the Catholic enclosure, standing in the way of your cunning. If a man can sin when God does not will it, how much more can he put an end to his sins when God wills it? If a man can will what God does not will, how much more can a man will what God wills? If a man can perish when God does not will it, how much more can he be saved when God wills it? If a man could fulfill the will of the devil when God did not will it, how much more can he fulfill the will of God when God wills it? If a man could despise the predestination of God by his own turning away, how much more can he fulfill the predestination of God by his own conversion? And so God said: This I do not will, that I will; that is, he said: I do not will the death of the dying man, I will that he be converted and live. What he said I will, that he predestined, for he predestined nothing unwillingly; what he said I do not will, he abandoned. If a man can will and do what God does not will, how much more can he both will and do what God wills? Here the matter concerns the perdition of man and his salvation. God wills that we be saved, the devil wills that we perish.

If a man's destruction, which the devil wills, can come about through our negligence, how much more can a man's deliverance, which God wills, come about through the diligence of a good and most faithful will?

XVII. But your book says: The grace of God precedes the will of man. We say: The grace of God not only precedes but also follows the will of man. Yet before we show how it precedes and how it follows, we set forth what you wish to prove. You say, then: The grace of God precedes the will of man, so that when a man hears so worthy and so true a sentence, he may not attend to what follows, but, with you expounding it, may learn that the will of man should cease; lest, as soon as he begins to will, God be seen to be stirred to jealousy; let him wait for grace to come first, which drags the unwilling, compels the reluctant, holds the fleeing. Let man wallow in the mire, be made the dregs of sewers, and be plunged into the whirlpools of crimes, and let him be secure in his vice. For if antecedent grace has come, man will be one who withdraws from crime. For man will not be first in relation to the grace of God, but the grace of God will be first in relation to the will of man. We have laid bare this zeal of yours. Now, against this, it is necessary that we demonstrate by just assertions what we catholics hold. Remember that we say with you: The grace of God precedes the will of man. We say, therefore: It both precedes and follows.

He comes first, because while we were not asking, not begging, not even willing, the Son of God came to snatch the whole world from death; and so that man might ascend to God, as we have already said, God descended to man. He came to invite the hungry to a banquet, the thirsty to a fountain, the wretched to strength, the poor to riches, the sorrowful to joy, the sold to redemption, slaves to freedom, captives to rest. Behold, in this passage we teach that the grace of God precedes the will of man. Now let us see how that same grace which had gone before follows after by following. For the grace that went before shows what you should ask, whom you should ask, and how you should ask; it shows what you should seek, how you should seek, where you should seek; it shows what you should knock at, where you should knock, how you should knock; and from this search it excluded no one. Not only did it exclude no one, but it even invited all universally: For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened (Matthew 7:8). And again he said: If his son asks his father for bread, will he hand him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he hand him a serpent? If therefore you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him (Ibid., 9-11)? To those who ask, certainly.

Therefore, just as I said with you in the earlier place, that the grace of God precedes the will of man, so now say with me in this place: the will of man precedes the grace of God—not by being proud, but by asking; not by exalting itself, but by seeking; not by struggling, but by knocking. For unless he has willed it by faith, no one imparts to him the gift of baptism of divine grace; unless, I say, he has willed to believe by faith, he will not be a partaker of forgiveness; unless he has desired it by faith, he will not be able to attain to the gift of God. For if a Gentile coming to Christ has said, "I do not wish to be baptized," he will not be able to be baptized. If a sinner coming to the fruit of repentance has said, "I do not wish to be reconciled," he will not be able to be reconciled. The priestly judgment examines both, and it can confer nothing of grace upon them unless it has learned from their mouth a most sincere will; or if it has dared otherwise, you yourselves know. Let us say something greater. Even if the weakness of the body takes away the faculty of speech, the abundance of the grace of God can in no way be ministered to one who is silent. For unless the secret of the mind has been declared by the messenger of the tongue, it will not be able to obtain grace. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rom. 10:10). Therefore, since the Lord says, "Everyone who asks receives" (Matt. 7:8), the will of the one asking seems to precede, so that the grace of the one repaying may be granted to those asking. And lest I seem to have left you wavering in this place—you who attribute every good thing to grace.

You do not labor with me: I will not say only that grace came first at that time when God, not disdaining to be joined to man, deigned to come to us when we were not asking; but even to this day the will of God precedes the will of man. For he wills that we be saved, and we do not will it. But woe to me and to those like me, because daily both the grace and the invitation and the will of God and the compunction and the promise of eternal joy and the terror of eternal punishment precede our wills. Daily, therefore, the grace of God, full of innumerable aids, precedes our wills; but our will does not follow all these gifts of God. What then does your book say? The will of God precedes the will of man. And what did we say? It both precedes and follows. Why then have we labored in speaking, because you say only that it precedes, while you deny that it follows. But the very thing you say—that it precedes—you say for this reason, that man, placed in sins, should make his own will quiet and should wait for grace to come to him first, lest he begin to put his own will before the grace of God. But we catholics abominate these things and say: Grace precedes the will of men, by showing eternal life in which they may delight, by showing everlasting fire in which they may be terrified, so that they may be recalled from the delights of sins. Grace, I say, daily precedes our wills; but our will, which is worse, does not follow. Hence.

It is for this that we weep in prayer, groan in repentance, because we do not follow the one who goes before us, we despise the one who invites us, and we neither honor the father who coaxes us as sons nor fear the lord who terrifies us as servants. Hence he himself also speaks to us through the prophet: A son honors his father, and a servant fears his lord. If I am the Lord, where is my fear? If a father, where is my honor? Let us now ask: does preceding grace demand anything of us, or not? Without doubt it demands. What does it demand? Surely this very thing that you yourselves say: the will itself. Therefore grace goes before. What is grace? That what you have asked for, you receive for free. And therefore he did not say: Buy and it shall be given to you, but: Ask and it shall be given to you. And so that the simplicity of the brethren may more openly recognize this meaning, let us offer some comparison. Wisdom was shown to Solomon: behold, grace; now hear Solomon himself speaking, to whom it was shown. "I became," he says, "a lover of her form, and I sought to take her for myself, and I ran after her; and the more she withdrew far from me." Does it not seem to you that a most beautiful girl is enticing and provoking her lover in the race? Why then have we wished to make mention of this example? Hear the grace of God. Let us set forth the daughter of the father. Know, O man, that this one has been made manifest to you by her father with evident signs, so that you may see and become a lover of her beauty.

He shows also how great are his riches, how great his love, how great his affability, how great his faithfulness. She is therefore beautiful, she is rich, she is faithful, she is wise, she is even the daughter of the supreme king. It is for this, O man, that the father has set her before your eyes, so that, having become her lover, you may ask for her in marriage and beget sons for God from her, as did he who said: If you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, yet you will not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begot you through the Gospel (1 Cor 4:15). From what wife did Paul beget us for God? Surely from the grace of Christ, whose lover he became, and for love of her he declared that he counted all torments sweet. Take, then, from the example of the flesh a comparison of the girl, so that you may attain the spiritual sense more fully. She has therefore been shown to you by the father: behold, the grace of the father preceded your will. Now begin to will. The grace of him who shows her has surely been shown, so that from this you may consider how much he ought to be believed to love you, because in order to make you his own, he showed you his daughter, beautiful, rich, wise, so that, having become her lover, you might take her to yourself in marriage. Behold the grace that precedes the will, behold the grace that stirs the heart, behold the grace that entices the mind, behold the grace that rouses the sleeper. What now do you command the father to do for one who does not ask, does not entreat, does not desire, and does not show the warmth of your love?

Does he take his daughter and join her to you when you are preoccupied with disdainful pursuits, or surrounded by other loves? He does not do this. But unless you seek her as silver, and unless you search her out as a treasure, and unless you desire her from faith, and unless you run from faith, and unless you show your true love, you will not receive her at all. Let it be enough for you that, though you are a beggar and she is rich, she enriches you with her riches; though you are base-born and she is the daughter of the highest sovereignty, she ennobles you with her generosity. But listen carefully to what her father, solicitous for his daughter, says to her lovers: "He who loves father and mother more than me," he says, "is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37). He did not say: "He who is poor, or who is base-born, or who is wretched"; but "he who loves anything more than me is not worthy of me." O the grace that goes before, demanding only love! Man, love and receive; but if you love, show it by deeds. Everyone who loves wills, desires, asks, keeps watch, runs, hastens, strives through friends, through children, through household members, through servants, through himself, in season and out of season, by entreaties, by promises, by fixed agreement, and by an unbroken token of love. And to open your eyes, you who think that you can be joined to divine grace unwillingly and against your will: what is it that, when the father gives her, is expressed by grace going before through his household?

He is asked by the one who receives her how she comes—whether he renounces all the loves of the world and all the pomps of the enemy; for unless he has expressed his will in words, is the grace he has asked for given to him? What then does a man will, what has he run after, what has he desired? To obtain grace; and what does he promise? I renounce all the pomps of the devil and his pleasures. He shows that he does not will what he willed, and begins to will what he did not will; and then at last he begins to take delight in a share of grace, through which he is called both rich and a son of the king. Behold, we have shown you the grace of God both preceding and following. It precedes, because it calls, because it provokes, because it invites you to come; it follows, because when you have come, and willed, and asked, it gives. Let us now see where your intention proceeds. For the anathematized book written by your vanity says:

XVIII. For it was not when we were asking or when we were petitioning, but when we were enemies, that we were reconciled to God, not through our own will, but through the death of his Son. You therefore command that men should not ask God to be reconciled to him, but should be made his enemies, so that the sentence of the apostle Paul may stand; nor should they hand over their will to good endeavors, because you say that this—that men are reconciled to God—is what the Apostle said: We are reconciled to God, not through our own will, but through the death of his Son. Therefore, according to you, is the one who has been an enemy to God himself to be reconciled to God, himself to be saved? These who Chri.

crucified, these are to be saved, and those who said, "We do not want this man," are these to be delivered? But those who were not enemies but friends, and who wished to lay down their soul in love for him—will these be in abomination to the Most High? You prove yourselves to blaspheme more sharply than all heretics, who, unwilling to enter the straight path, have handed yourselves over to winding ways full of errors. For the Apostle invites us not to enmity with God but to love. For he says: "God therefore commends his love in us; for if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved from wrath through him" (Rom 5:8). He commends, therefore, by this work his love in us, so that even thus, by conferring our love upon him wholly, we may seem at least by the vow of love to repay what we cannot by our strength. For that God loves us profits us; if we love God, we cannot profit him. For God needs nothing, is exalted by no one's honoring, is cast down by no one's contempt. Therefore, to what end does he commend his love in us? That we may surely say: If, when we were enemies, he so loved us that he even suffered his only Son to be killed for the salvation of us all, how much more now, already reconciled to him, will he save us unto his own life? Hence, setting aside your special defense, he introduced general grace, saying: "Considering this, that one died for all.

And he added: Therefore all are dead; because he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for all (2 Cor 5:14-15). At this point your insane book confronts us and says:

XIX. You, it says, wherever you read "all," you want it understood universally, although "all" is often said for a part. For when it is said: All have turned aside (Ps 13:3); yet not all had turned aside. And: Every man is a liar (Ps 115:11); yet not every man is a liar, because we read of a certain one: He was a truthful man. Therefore "all" seems to signify the greatest part, although it is certainly established that it should not be understood as all. We find no passage in your book without blasphemies. Where is this assertion attended to? So that those who agree with you may say that Christ did not suffer for all. If you do not wish this to be understood, then the Apostle did not name "all" here for a part, but mentioned all universally. Correct your book, therefore, because Christ suffered for all, and hastens to come to the aid of all men. He calls all, he invites all: whoever is saved will impute it to the grace of God who calls, invites, and assists; whoever is not saved will impute it to himself, who is negligent, despising alike and abandoning. For all good things are conferred on us by the grace of the Lord when we ask; but all evil things are inflicted on us by the devil when we despise God. For the devil will not be able to exercise his power in those who live by divine defenses.

Can a captive subject to himself the vessels of his own conqueror? No one, says the Lord, enters into the house of a strong man and plunders his vessels, unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his vessels (Matt 12:29). You make the strong man an enemy; but we believe him to be bound and subjected by the trophy of the cross; crafty, but we show his snares exposed. Can the conquered prevail to touch one fortified by the sign of victory? Can the blows of arrows invade one surrounded by the shield of the Lord, clothed in the breastplate of faith, and protected by the helmet of hope and salvation (Eph 6:16-17)? Man is not conquered by the devil, except when he has withdrawn from his own defender, as the Apostle says: Be subject to God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you (Jas 4:7). He is an invisible enemy; he is laid low by an invisible defender. But here too your insane book contradicts, and has dared to say that the devil can do so much as to drag men against their will, even those whom Christ, redeeming them by his blood, made sons of God.

XX. You say: With eyes closed you passed through the ambushes of the enemy, you who say that human will can acquire something of virtue, not considering how great the losses God suffers daily, how great the ruins of chastity are brought about by the devil, and how great are the lusts of crimes. If you saw these things, we would not need to labor to show you the losses of virtues and the victories of vices. Tell me, I beg, what losses God suffers daily: does he suffer them with the devil conquering, or with man despising? If you say with the devil conquering, we pour back your blasphemy upon your own head; if with man despising, our assertion has won the victory. For the devil is neither lord, nor creator, nor father. But God deigns to be our lord, and creator, and father. He joined his most victorious body to our body, that he might shut out the frailty of our body. He mingled his blood with our blood, that the fervor of our inborn heat might be quieted, tempered by the divine blood. By the power of his chrism he anointed us, that we might conquer the devil struggling against us. He promises that he will protect us with the shield of his good will: He who hopes in me, he says, I will deliver him, I will protect him, because he has known my name (Ps. 90:14). Hence also the prophet says above concerning him: He who dwells in the help of the Most High (Ibid., 1), which he cannot invade, neither the arrow that flies by day, nor the business that walks in darkness, nor ruin or the noonday demon, and the rest.

From these indications it is declared that the devil has power at the time when he has found us negligent, when he has found us sleeping in faith. For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord from faith, this one shall be saved (Rom. 13). But what does it profit that we have shown the human race to be freed from the devil by God's victory, and that men are captured by their own fault? Another article of opposition is added to us. For their book says:

XXI. By the transgression of the first man, the freedom of the will perished from men. But we say: By the transgression of the first man, the freedom of the will was made manifest, which could make man will what God does not will. If, therefore, the freedom of the will perished, how are we men sinners? We are sinners from no other source than that we will what God does not will, and do not will what God wills; we commit what he forbids and are unwilling to do what he commands to be fulfilled. By what means do we do so great an evil, if we do these things unwillingly? It is another who works through us; therefore the law ought to have been given to him, not to me. The law is not given to the sword, lest it kill a man; but the law is given to him who slays by the sword. For the sword, whether it kills or does not kill, is the same; nor does it acquire praise by being at rest, nor incur guilt by killing. If, therefore, we too are acted upon and do not act, we are excluded from sins when we transgress, we are excluded from faith when we believe. Hence, therefore, being overcome, they turn to calumny.

For their book says: You are renewing the Pelagian heresy again, when you say that by free will men can put an end to sins. The Church did not condemn Pelagius on this account. For it objects to him that he had exaggerated free will to such an extent that he refused the help of God.

XXII. But we say: By free will we commit every sin; but from every sin we are freed by the grace of God with the consent of the will. That God does not give his grace to those who do not ask, we have taught from this passage where he himself says: Ask and you shall receive. It has been shown to us who do not ask what we should ask; it has been shown to us who do not seek what we should seek; it has been shown to us who do not knock what we should knock at. If we are unwilling to ask, we shall not receive; if we are unwilling to seek, we shall not find; if we are unwilling to knock, it shall not be opened to us. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened. Therefore free will is so vigorous in us that it can obey God; it has been so weakened in us that it can even despise God himself, by whom that very freedom was given. And it was given for this purpose, that by it the devil alone should be despised. For if free will had ceased through the transgression of the first man, the law would certainly have ceased, which cannot speak except to him who can both despise it and hear it.

But the law did not cease—whether the natural law, through which Abel, Enoch, Noah, Shem and Japheth, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and the rest pleased God. These pleased him, to be sure, by the instinct of the natural law. Conversely, others displeased him—whether those whom the whirlpool of the flood swallowed, or those whom the flame of sulphur consumed. For neither would the former have pleased him, nor the latter displeased him, if the natural law had not existed, and if there had not been in them freedom of will. What then do we do? We do not escape their calumny, unless we say that God's grace alone is the cause. For their book barks, saying:

XXIII. You exclude grace by freedom of will. For either we are freed by free will, or we are rescued by the grace of God. Choose what you say. If you give everything to grace, we are one; if to free will, know that we cannot agree with you. Listen, you slanderers, and hear this very thing that you fear. We say that free will exists there where God's grace is present. For without God's grace the will is not free but captive. For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17). We do not hand down this freedom to human pride, but we define it as belonging to God's grace and his glory: which grants so much that others do more good than he commanded, and likewise do more than he forbids evil. For the hand that can strip a man of his clothing, which God forbids, is the same hand that can clothe the naked, which God commands. What do you say?

It is one hand that clothed the naked man and stripped the clothed man. He is blamed when he has stripped, because he was able to clothe; he is praised when he has clothed, because he was able to strip. Remove the free exercise of choice in either case, and he neither incurs blame from vice nor acquires praise from virtue. But to set out for you the freedom of choice: choice is in the soul, freedom in the body. Freedom without choice does not sin, whereas choice without freedom does wrong. In short, if you hold some thief shut up, you have taken away his freedom to steal, but you have not taken away his choice; for you have bound his hands, not his mind. If someone becomes blind when he had been given over to the desires of the eyes, the freedom of his eyes is indeed bound, but his choice has remained in its own right; for by the judgment of the mind he exercises his desires. Therefore Christ calls him an adulterer who is not committing adultery—the one who has looked at a woman to desire her (Matt. 5:28)—for he has choice, though he does not have freedom. By his own choice he becomes guilty without the deed; for a perfected will is reckoned by the just judge in place of the work of the deed; and he is said to have fulfilled all things who has done what he could. For the body is prevented by the impossibility of the matter, because the choice of the mind is not held bound. Now, then, what does grace do? It does not take away free choice, but heals it, enlarges it, adorns it, instructs and exalts it. Yet it exalts not the unwilling but the willing. For unless you will by faith and run by faith, you cannot otherwise be set free by grace.

Let us therefore be assured that grace does not reject us while we do wrong, but we reject grace when we sin. For here the judgment of the one who judges attends to one of two things: either grace rejecting, or man despising. For if grace has rejected, it has made man free from sin. Is he to be blamed who did not dine at the house of one who refused him from his own banquet; and is he not rather shown worthy of compassion, since he called others and refused this one? It is monstrous cruelty if one who has been forbidden is forbidden to dine with those who are dining; and why he did not dine, let him be ordered to be killed by the one who was unwilling for him to dine together. At last, at some time, your book, having been made empty, seems to grant freedom of will, yet on this condition, that it deal with measures, not with appearance.

XXIV. Whence, he says, is there greater freedom of will in good for that one, whence is it less for this one, unless because it is reckoned by God's dispensation? For in one grace shows itself slender, in another abundant and generous, according as grace itself wills, not as we will. Here I do not contend with you: here Christ and Paul conquer you. For Christ says: He who loves more, more is forgiven him; he who loves less, less (Luke 7:47). And Paul asserts, saying: He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly (2 Cor 9:6). Therefore grace is not in God through respect of persons, but through the love of man in the mind; whether the love be great or small. For who is he who, loving God more, less...

...by God? Nay, to speak more truly, the one who does not love God is loved by God. But how God can be loved, the Lord himself teaches, saying: He who hears my words and does them, this is the one who loves me (John 14:21). Whence also he said to his disciples: If you love me, keep my commandments (Ibid., 15). Let us therefore see, O man, what free will itself does, so that it may perfectly obtain the grace of God. It empties its own freedom, and makes itself a servant of God. But that we do these things by our own will, the Apostle himself teaches, saying: Do you not know that to whomever you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are servants of him whom you obey, whether of iniquity unto sin, or of justice unto sanctification (Rom 6:19)? Therefore he who has submitted himself to the yoke of God has emptied his freedom of will, so that through the freedom of the divine will he may be set free. Does it not seem to you that he empties the freedom of his own will, who denies bread to himself when hungry, denies a draught to himself when thirsty, denies sleep to himself when drowsy? But in these things he will not be able to be worthy, unless he has proven himself voluntary. For not from sorrow, says the Apostle, nor from necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor 9:7). Whence also the prophet says to God: I will sacrifice to you willingly (Ps 54:6). And again: My flesh has flourished again, he says, and from my own will I will confess to him (Ps 28:7). But of the unjust we read: He refused to understand how to do good (Ps 36:3).

Hence also the blessed Jacob says: Simeon and Levi, brothers, accomplished iniquity out of their own will (Gen. 49:5-6). If therefore, before our true and whole liberty came, the Lord Jesus Christ, being just, sanctified himself to God voluntarily, and out of his own will confessed, while the sinner out of his own will sinned, how much more now, with our liberty restored through Christ, are all things rendered to our own right—not with nature ruling, as Pelagius and Caelestius defined, not with man's nature ruling, but with the grace of Christ forgiving? Not by imputing to our own strength, but by presuming on God's aids; not by usurping anything for oneself, but by imputing the whole to the grace of God? The whole, I say, I have said the whole; the whole I repeat, the whole—but the good; the evil, however, we have incurred from our own vice, from our own negligence, and from our own will. Why do you turn your head to calumnies and object to us the dogma of Pelagius? We anathematize all who say that, with the aid of God set aside, a man can be without sin if he wishes; we anathematize those who say that there is neither death through Adam nor life through Christ; we anathematize those who say that one born of two baptized persons cannot need baptism; we anathematize those who think that the baptized ought not to be reckoned by the sanctification of baptism for the remission of sins; we anathematize all things that the Church condemns in all heretics; we anathematize also your book with you, which says:

We have recognized the nature of man so corrupted by Adam's transgression that its restoration through Christ has been obtained not in reality but in hope, as the Apostle says: We have been saved in hope; but hope that is seen is not hope (Rom. 8:24). If therefore we have been saved in hope, we do not yet hold the reality in the present age. For this reason, even after baptism, people again desire carnally and suffer the motions of the body, because they have obtained the help of restoration in hope, not in reality. For if they had obtained it in reality, after the grace of baptism there would be neither the possibility nor the will to sin. But because the power of baptism is so great that it wipes away all sins, yet the defilement of sins is not washed away by the wave of baptism; for it is clearly taught that it is present naturally through Adam. For those members which at the hour of baptism are free from shame afterward receive shame, by which they provoke the gaze everywhere and seek privacy through modesty. For the members that God had made, transgression turned into shameful parts; and they are not called members, but shameful parts. Those shameful parts at that moment of baptism become members, but soon again from members they are made shameful parts. For they have been restored not in reality but in hope. For the concupiscence of the flesh, which through Adam's transgression reigns in the body as the law of sin, again claims the baptized person for itself and strives to overthrow his entire mind.

For this is the root of that wound which Christ healed; and he healed it in such a way as the Apostle says: We have been saved in hope. And he bids us transfer our mind to the contemplation of things invisible, and not to collapse by presuming on the things that are seen. And therefore he says: But hope that is seen is not hope; lest perhaps they should suppose that sins are so taken away through baptism that even the very roots of sins are thought to be removed at the same time. For that impulse of pollution which invaded nature through transgression remains in the baptized person just as the root of a hair remains when it has been cleansed and shaved on the surface with a razor. For it has been shaved so that the surface might be cleansed; it has not been uprooted so that it might not grow again thereafter. For if the whole frailty of Adam's transgression were entirely taken away through baptism, all the baptized would be drawn to crimes by no impulse of heat, no one would be stained with human filth, no one would be pricked by the sting of concupiscence; but because we have been saved in hope, what we do not yet see we await through patience. The time will come in which women shall not marry, nor men take wives, but they shall be as the angels in the heavens (Matthew 22:30). For when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory; where, O death, is your victory? where is your sting? But the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.

Then we shall say: Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is your little book, which you give to no one to read except under an oath. See that you do not betray it, see that you do not give it to the unlearned to read; the kingdom of God belongs to few. In this it appears that God has predestined you to life, if you keep this little book as you keep your own soul. The greatest part of the little women among you deserves to receive this little book. Finally, she who betrayed it—a woman in body but a man in spirit—when she had received this little book from you under oath, reading what was written she shuddered, and gave it to those whom she knew to be catholics to be examined. We too have read it, which you have always feared; and, with the Lord's help, plainly exposing its blasphemies, we admonish all catholics to flee this little book, to execrate it, and to strike it with eternal anathema. For its damnability has reached such a point that it empties out all the mysteries of the Savior. It says that the baptism of Christ has no fruit at all while it is administered. Hope, it says, which is seen is not hope, that is, the remission of sins; and whatever is promised in the present is not, because it is reserved for the future; here, however, that is, in this world, it is not received. For the Apostle says: Hope which is seen is not hope. Did the Apostle then say this in accordance with that sense of yours?

Therefore first we shall expound the meaning of the blessed Paul with due reverence; and then at last we shall cut off, piece by piece, the feet of your book, in those matters in which its conclusion claims to have found its perfect end concerning us. The Apostle, bringing consolation to the sons of God, says that in this world they should seek nothing, lest perhaps, considering that the impious and unbelieving rejoice in prosperous successes while they themselves are afflicted, they should say: Behold, these are sinners and those abounding in the world have obtained riches (Ps. 72:12); but we, even to this hour, both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted (1 Cor. 4:11). Therefore, setting aside the consideration of the present age, he promises future joys. And although, he says, you are wearied with great sufferings, yet the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that shall be revealed in us (Rom. 8:18). And therefore, he says, by hope we have been saved (ibid., 24). Note for yourself: "we have been saved"—he did not say "we are to be saved," but "we have been saved." He made it a past matter of salvation; when we believed, we have been saved. Why "by hope"? For we hope to rise again, for we have not yet risen. Therefore, because we hope that we shall receive rewards for good things, and that for evil things we can incur the punishments of hell—hoping for good things and fearing evil things—we have been saved; and we who were children of wrath have been made children of God (Eph. 2:3). Hence also another Apostle cries out: Beloved, we are the sons of God (1 John 3:2).

Therefore adoption as sons is not promised in baptism, but conferred. But you say concerning what we have already received: "A hope that is seen is not hope." To us the whole of hope seems to consist in the sanctification of baptism; therefore what seems to us to be hope is not hope. In the anointing of Christ's chrism we discern the firmament of our hope; therefore a hope that is seen is not hope. We see the body of Christ as our hope; therefore a hope that is seen is not hope. We regard the blood of Christ as our redemption; therefore a hope that is seen is not hope. You have emptied out all the sacraments, you have made void the mysteries, and, as it were, faithful and fit surveyors of Antichrist, you have prepared a place for him to succeed us once we have been cast out by certain persons. For these things which the Apostle says about the joys of this world—"a hope that is seen is not hope"—you have transferred to the divine mysteries. What he mentions concerning fleeting and slipping things, this you have ascribed even to holy baptism itself. May we have no part with you for eternity, nor let our understanding be defiled any further by these blasphemies.

XXVI. Therefore, they say, the baptized are again defiled and desire carnally, because they have obtained the help of renewal not in reality but in hope. But we so stretch toward future rewards in hope that we do not deny what we have received in the present. For he deserves to obtain benefits who does not confess having received them. If you deny what you have received, you are refuted as ungrateful. Therefore, if you have not yet obtained grace, but are going to obtain it, why do you communicate with us in secret? Wait for another body of Christ, another blood of Christ; for you boast that this one is present not in reality but in hope.

XXVII. For if we had obtained it in reality, they say, after the grace of baptism there would be neither the possibility nor the will of sin. Therefore you wish to show that the grace of baptism did not confer the reality, because after baptism we can again both will evil and do evil. And to whom was the law of God to be given, if the possibility of evil had been taken away? Or who would seek a reward for keeping the commandments of God, if he could not transgress, just as neither a mute man is praised for silence, nor a eunuch for virginity. For those who are denied passage to evil lack praise in good. We therefore say that the possibility of evil is good for those who despise it. I will give a brief answer to each of these points. Someone could have despoiled those who were clothed: behold, he could do evil; but because he was unwilling, the possibility of evil became good for him, who by a wiser counsel despised it.

Someone could have seized money entrusted to him, could have committed adulteries: behold the possibility of evil; and the one who despised it—that very possibility made him as much praised for not having cared for the money as crowned for having preserved chastity. We have spoken of one heading, that is, concerning the possibility of evil, that it is good for those who have despised it. Now let us see how, on the contrary, the possibility of good is evil in those who have despised it. Someone has money laid up: behold the possibility of good, for he can come to the aid of all who suffer need. But when he has despised this possibility of good, the possibility is made evil, and so evil that it is proven to be the root of all evils (1 Tim. 6:10). But what are we doing? The state of our baptism is placed in danger, and we are treating of the poison of avarice. It is known to all that the crime of avarice is grave enough; but that the grace of baptism is emptied out by faithless men has only recently begun to become known, only recently begun to be disclosed to catholics.

XXVIII. For they say that sin is thus removed through baptism, as a hair is shaved off with a razor. For, they say, it is shaved so that the place may be cleansed, not so that it may not grow again. For if the whole frailty of Adam's transgression were entirely taken away, all the baptized would be drawn to crimes by no impulse of heat, would be stung by no goad of concupiscence. Hence, therefore, the sacred mysteries of baptism are emptied out, because concupiscence—as you yourselves say—is the law of sin, and it claims the baptized person for itself again. If, therefore, you were excluded from this concupiscence, both the remission of sins and the true consolation of graces would be complete in baptism. But I have put "graces" in the plural for this reason, because although grace is one, as one vine is made plural by its branches, and as many vines are said to be as there are shoots pressed from one vine. Therefore, from the one font of baptism there is given in the present the remission of sins, and the kingdom is promised in the future; a son of man is made a son of God; he is made a son by adoption; he is made a sharer in the kingdom; he is made a citizen from a stranger; he is made free who had been a slave of the enemy; he is made rich who had before been a beggar; and he who had long been ignoble begins to be both illustrious and great. But your book empties out all these things, and you say

XXIX. If what is promised in baptism were given, no one after the wave of baptism would be stung by the goad of concupiscence. Let us see, then, whether this concupiscence is the law of sin, as you say. We say that concupiscence is a matter of natural contest, and we say that it was firmly established from the depths by God the Creator for the propagation of men. For the first men had not yet tasted of the tree of transgression when God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28). He therefore who before sin, by blessing, commanded the human race to be multiplied, undoubtedly implanted in this nature that by which it might be propagated. For the disparate sex could by no means have been multiplied if it did not have the increase of natural concupiscence. It is not good, says the Lord, for man to be alone; let us make him a helper (Gen. 2:18). Do you wish this helper of the disparate sex to have been made by the Lord for consolation, or for generation? For if concupiscence is evil, which is shown to be the matter of generation, it follows according to you that woman was made by God not for a helper of good, but as an occasion of sin. But if you say that the helper of woman was granted not for reparation but for some consolation I know not what, then the disparate sex was created without cause by him of whom we read that he made all things in wisdom (Ps. 103:24).

But perhaps the authority of the Old Testament does not hold you; then listen to what our Lord Jesus Christ himself said concerning the first human beings. He who made them, he says, made them male and female, and blessed them and said: For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh. And to these words he added: What therefore God has joined, let no man separate. We read, then, that they were made by God, blessed by God, and joined together by God.

XXX. And I marvel with what boldness you say that this concupiscence, through which marriages are consummated, was inflicted on the human race by the devil. For who would doubt that a bad thing—if indeed it is bad—could not have been conferred by a good God upon a good man? For if it was given by God, it is recognized to be good; but if it is bad, it is evident that it was infused by the devil. For thus says your book:

XXXI. The members that God made, they made shameful by their transgression. If what God created is not in the members, and the enemy has appeared over God's handiwork, and against God's will has made his creature contain another order than the one he himself established, then marriage is accursed, and the whole mass of the human race, coming from that curse, subsists with the devil as its author. Choose for yourselves one of the two: either human generation is good, and concupiscence is good; or marriages are evil, and concupiscence is wicked.

Correct, then, the rule of the Church; condemn what throughout the whole world priests have done—blessing the beginnings of marriages, consecrating them, and joining them in the mysteries of God. I am amazed at the boldness with which you enter the church, where you know that whatever is done is contrary to your sects. You therefore deny that God gave this desire from which we are born. Then we are not his creature, if conjugal desire is not his creature. For take away this thing, which you say is the law of sin, and let us see who can cleave to a wife. But he who had given the power of seed in blessing, himself implanted love in desire for the multiplying of offspring, and willed that to be loved which he established to be multiplied. For natural desire is the increase of the race. But if, as you say, every cause of sin consists in this, then he himself created the crime in the race, who willed that posterity be multiplied through love, and commanded a wife to be loved beyond the rights of paternal affection. Finally, our Lord Jesus himself, when he says, What God has joined together, let not man put asunder (Matthew 19:6), it is as if he were saying: You are not permitted to hate your wife, whom you began to love with me as author. For he was jealous for the union made by himself, lest it be defiled by the hatreds of married couples. What a strange perversity of things! When hatred of a wife is punished by God, the desire of husbands is condemned by men. But the just Judge does not condemn natural desire, who, in order to multiply offspring, therefore implanted love.

For when marriage and divorce were being discussed, the Lord then dictated that sentence, saying: What God has joined, let man not separate. He said this so as to show specifically that the joining of marriage is from God. For neither could there be intercourse without union, nor union without intercourse. If marital desire is not from the creature of the Maker but from sin, they say—then, according to you, God joined in blessing what the devil inserted through transgression. But if that is so, he was not an adversary but a helper of God, if those whom God willed to be one flesh he made inseparable through desire; and what God commanded to be increased and to grow, the devil found the very means by which what God had commanded might be fulfilled. O how unhappy is the impiety invented by the Praedestinati, that it should be said that what was implanted by the blessing of the Creator came about from the transgression of man! This you call the law of sin; but we prove it to be the law of kind, which you accuse of crime; and this we say is the cause of virtues, which you wish to show as the material of vices. For while its aid makes parents fruitful in offspring, its struggle renders both the continent and virgins glorious. And lest you think there is any harm in it anywhere, it bestows greater things by resisting than by helping; because while it helps, it brings forth the fruit of kind; while it resists, it confers the reward of chastity.

There it works without fault; here it exercises struggle with its gift. Remove concupiscence, and marriages cease; remove concupiscence, and the rewards of chastity cease. What kind of evil, I ask, is this, which is shown to be the cause of a twofold good; which displays some in the joy of generation, others in the triumph of virtue? For some act through it lawfully, others strive through it gloriously. But if this is said to be a sin even in all things, it is evident that both married people and the continent and virgins are condemned through it; for it is known to be present in all by nature. We do not hold that it is so; but we praise it as keeping its own order and showing reverence to God. And therefore even in the baptized it is itself blessed, not put to flight, and is adorned rather than taken away. For he who now blessed the fountain of ever-flowing water that we might be reborn spiritually, himself then blessed married couples that we might be born carnally. This motion of concupiscence, therefore, like the other members, we have received from the Creator. If concupiscence is therefore evil because adultery is sometimes committed through it, then the hand is also evil because murder is perpetrated through it. Accuse the tongue too, because God is blasphemed through it; condemn the foot too, because it has led a man to the brothel. Thus it comes about that not concupiscence alone, but all the members are condemned by you. I would answer you with a catholic mouth, that just as the hand was made, not for

to be killed, but to be worked; and the tongue not for blaspheming, but for the glory and praise of the Creator; and all the members, not to serve vices, but to attend to the divine precepts; so also concupiscence is implanted by nature, not for committing adultery, but for generating: which we have certainly proved can bring not only the aid of fecundity to married couples, but even the palm of virtue to the continent. Do you wish to know that this concupiscence is good? I will compare it to the divine mysteries. For they condemn not only evils that are sought, but also goods that are presumed upon. Suppose someone has presumed upon the body of the Lord before the illumination of baptism; is not this man to be condemned for the presumption of a good? For what, conferred on others according to order, brings salvation, this same thing makes for damnation in others outside of order, outside of the accepted time. Similarly, if a layman usurps the priesthood, or if he presumes to offer the sacred office; is not this man to be condemned for a power not granted to him? But if presumption concerning such holy things makes one guilty, not the action, how much more in concupiscence is it not the action keeping its own order, but going outside of order, that is called into crime, and makes accursed that which goes outside of order, which the Creator placed as blessed in its own order? But if this is so, indeed because it is so, what do you suffer, unhappy ones, who, wishing to empty out the restoration of baptism, say that this concupiscence has therefore remained, lest all sins seem to have been forgiven to man by exact measure?

Why should you not rather suspect from this that it is not a sin, since it is not destroyed in baptized persons? For if it were a sin, it would certainly be taken away like the rest. Therefore, you who strive to empty the gifts of baptism through concupiscence, show the devil to be the creator of concupiscence; through whom you teach both that the Creator failed in his operation when he created, and that the one granting baptism could not fully succor. Those who willingly admit you to themselves will have a share with you. For it is written that they shall be guilty, not only who do iniquity, but also those whom it is established consented to them (Rom. 1:32).