Sermons & Letters 188 part 14/15

For just as he is a stranger to the number of the faithful and to the lot of the saints who dissents in anything from catholic truth, so he is made outside of grace who denies anything of its fullness — as though he needed the help of God in some part of his own actions, but in some part did not need it, and as though there were any time or any moment in which it could not be pernicious to him if the Holy Spirit were absent from him; who indeed, according to the essence of true Deity, is everywhere secure and comprehends all things, but is understood to withdraw in a certain manner from those whom He has ceased to govern.

For the cessation of His help is taken for His absence, which he most insanely thinks useful to himself who, in the things he has rightly done, rejoices that he rather than God has wrought them. Fully and truly, therefore, must the grace of God be confessed, of which this is the first gift: that His help be felt. On which account the Apostle says: Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is of God, that we may know the things that are given to us by God (1 Cor. 2:12). Whence if there is anyone who thinks he possesses some good things of which God is not the bestower, but he himself is his own author, it is manifest that this man does not have the Spirit of God, but of the world, and is swollen with that teaching of secular wisdom, of which the Lord says:

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world (1 Cor. 1:19)? According to which wisdom, as the Apostle says, certain men, when they had known God, did not glorify Him as God, or give thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their senseless heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools (Rom. 1:21). Do you see what recompense is due to the proud, and with what wage they are filled, who, if in any way they have come to the knowledge of truth, ascribe this to their own wisdom, and glory in their natural talent;

as though they had known God not by God's gift, but by the faculty of their own intellect? All the elements of the world indeed, and the natures of all created things, by their very appearance demand this, that the invisible things of God, through the things that are made, may be seen, being understood (Rom. 1:20); and in the beauty of heaven and earth there are, as it were, certain pages ever open to the eyes of all, and never silent about their Author, whose proclamation imitates the teaching of masters and the utterances of the Scriptures.

But whatever it be that strikes the outward parts of the bodily senses, in the field of the heart on which this cultivation is bestowed it can neither fix a root nor send forth a shoot, unless that supreme and true Husbandman applies the power of His own work, and leads to vital progress the things that have been planted. For whether the contemplation of creatures, or the series of the sacred volumes, or the science of those who discourse, proclaim the truth by sincere and assiduous testimony, neither is he that plants anything, nor he that waters, but God that gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:7). CHAPTER VIII. That the ruin of the proud is the most grievous of all. — Among all the falls of men, then, among all the deeds of sinners, none is more grievous than the ruin of the proud;

especially when the exaltation itself tends to the injury of God. For those are borne up in one way who, from the desire of singular self-exaltation, seek to be preferred to all; but in another way do those swell, who, refusing God's help — the things that cannot be done without His work — contend to accomplish them by their own virtue, and take their hope away from the Lord and transfer it to themselves: so that there may be fulfilled in them what is written: Cursed is the man who has hope in man, and makes flesh his arm, and his heart departs from the Lord (Jer. 17:5).

This pride took its beginning from the devil: who, since he was pleased with his own power and dignity, which he had received from the Creator, and compared himself with the glory of his Author, was cast down from heavenly humility together with those angels whom he had drawn into consent of his impiety. And therefore he was able to harm the first human beings, because to them, evilly credulous, he persuaded through venomous lies that they would be better if they leaped forth into the liberty of their own free will, than if they remained in the keeping of the law given. CHAPTER IX. That pride, by which one wishes to be his own author of his goods, is the beginning of all sin. —

Whether therefore in the fall of the devil, or in the transgression of man, the beginning of sinning is pride, which is congruently also named avarice, because both appellations signify that appetite which both covets to exceed its own measure, and does not deign to be rich except by what is its own: as though it had this likeness to God, that of its own goods it should itself be to itself the fountain, itself be to itself the abundance. But this exaltation is born from the perverse use of God's gifts. For if the Creator of natures had conferred no beautiful, no sublime things upon rational natures, they would have nothing whereby to exalt themselves. For no one is proud of the things he has not received, nor can anyone be inflated over that which is alien to his participation of it.

Never does the drunkard glory in sobriety, nor the envious in benevolence, or the savage in gentleness, or the unchaste exalt himself in chastity. The vices themselves separate themselves from the virtues; and when we are borne along in sins, they are loved as one's own, being not implanted through nature, but conceived from an evil will: for, as it is written, the liar speaks of his own (John 8:44). But when a praiseworthy life is led in good and upright acts, it is God's, that which is wrought; it is God's, that which is loved. For every best endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights (James 1:17).

Whence, because among the vices boasting is either non-existent or rare, and he who glories in what is shameful is easily despised, the evil of pride must be guarded against most of all by the virtues, because it lies in wait for none more opportunely than for those to whom just praise is given. CHAPTER X. That pride and the Pelagian heresy are of this kind born from good works; and also concerning the remnants of the Pelagians.

When therefore, through the unspeakable mercy of God, liberty is restored to the captive, salvation to the lost, and life to the dead, when in the sacrament of Christ's cross and resurrection what was old returns to newness and what was impious is regenerated into innocence, the ancient enemy rages the more malignantly and burns the more fiercely; and though with countless arts of harming he strives to overthrow the human race, sowing discords, kindling wraths, sharpening lusts, urging on to shameful things, contriving falsehoods and multiplying the snares of error through the fictions of false opinions, he is more tormented by the virtue of those who stand firm than he rejoices over the frailty of those who fall.

For many who serve God, and meditate on His law day and night, have crucified their flesh with its desires and lusts, and have subdued the incitements of all allurements; being neither conquered by losses, nor broken by persecutions, nor corrupted by prosperity, they neither loved this world when it fawned upon them, nor feared it when it terrified. With what assault, then, could the devil attack so great a firmness and so sublime a purpose, unless, being unable to persuade them to the love of vices, he should send in upon them a craving for praise, so that a new temptation might be devised from the very source whence the first deception had done its harm? Not, therefore, upon the slothful and lukewarm, nor upon the inert and uncultivated, but rather upon certain souls distinguished by the uprightness of good deeds,

which shone with lustre, that he crept in through human glory; and those whom he could not cast down by force, he overthrew by pride. For the more illustrious they were in virtues, the more suited he found them to his ambushes. For when they were set in the paradise of the Church and abounding in the delights of the virtues, he incited them to a confidence in their free will, so that they might place their own progress in themselves, and stretch out the hand of presumption to the tree of their own will. Yet against this impiety the upright hearts of innumerable saints resisted, and not only the learned bishops, but also the universal peoples of the Church, following the example of the apostolic see, shuddered at the madness of the new dogma.

But certain men found viper-like counsels by which they might infuse the poison of their teaching, and arm their tongue through the deceits of false reasoning. Hence came that fraudulent praising of human nature, and the defence of an original dignity supposedly unharmed in all men; hence it was asserted that Adam's sin had injured his posterity by example, not by transmission; and that, just as it had been possible for him not to violate the commandment, so it was free for every man to avoid transgression; hence the emptying of infant baptism, in that infants were said to be granted only adoption, but absolved of no guilt; hence, finally, the feigned and insincere confession of divine grace, which they said was given according to merits, rather than that from which merits are born.

This portion of their proud preaching certain men reserved for themselves, while rejecting the rest. But there is no doubt that they did this either too clumsily or very wickedly, in order to relieve the general ruin of all men by the privilege of merits; and while among us they confessed the wounds of original sin, yet among their own they maintained the view that the transgression of the first men had harmed only its imitators; but that natural faculty had lost nothing of its own in another's sin, and that it was both possible and free for it, through voluntary devotion, to earn the bounty of grace. CHAPTER XI. That all who are born in sin are estranged from salvation, unless they are reborn in Christ.

But this portion of the condemned dogma catholic minds easily perceive and rightly detest. For since the Lord Jesus says: They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick: for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners (Luke 5:31), these men are convicted, even without speaking, of crying out in their pride: We are whole, we have no need of a physician; what aids from the help of grace are to be awaited by us, to whom strength is supplied out of the soundness of nature? And not in vain does John testify and say: Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Nor is it in vain written: No one is clean from filth, not even the infant whose life is of one day upon the earth (Job 14:4, according to the LXX); and:

Who can make clean that which is conceived of unclean seed? Is it not You who alone are (the same passage, according to the Vulgate)? Wherefore, just as there now stands in the Church the ordinance of the Saviour saying: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:5), so was it most sacredly provided in the law that a boy who was born, unless he were circumcised on the eighth day, should have his soul cut off from his people (Gen. 17:14), destined to have no share in the inheritance of Israel. All these, and many more proofs, the Holy Spirit would not have inserted with such care into the sacred pages, if the nature in the sons of Adam were such as it was principally established in him himself. But because the Son

of God came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), and to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10), it is manifest that all are, by being born, subject to condemnation in Adam, unless they are set free by being reborn in Christ. Wherefore we must vigilantly consider what is wrought in the very gift of regeneration. For although all the parts of this same mystery concur in one, yet one thing is that which is done visibly, another that which is celebrated invisibly; nor is the outward form the same as the power in the sacrament, since the form of the human ministry is employed in service, but the power is furnished through the effect of the divine work; to whose might indeed it must be referred that while the outer man is washed, the inner is changed;

and there is made a new creature out of the old; vessels of wrath are transferred into vessels of mercy, and the flesh of sin is converted into the body of Christ; out of the impious there become the righteous, out of the captive the free, out of the sons of men there become the sons of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God (John 1:13). And because we have received this without doubt, most true is that which the Apostle teaches, saying: For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God (Rom. 8:14). Wherefore let them see whose sons they wish to be held, who have determined that all men are ruled by their own will, since the same Apostle testifies and says: He who has not the Spirit of Christ is none of His (Rom. 8:9). CHAPTER XII.

That we must glory in God alone, from whom is all virtue, glory, and wisdom. — The impious vanity of the proud having therefore been refuted, in whom even those things which seem praiseworthy are turned into sin, let us choose that humility whose virtue and glory is God, knowing that the prophet David sang concerning the saints: O Lord, they shall walk in the light of Your countenance, and in Your name they shall rejoice all the day, and in Your righteousness they shall be exalted; for You are the glory of their strength (Ps. 88:16-17). He who also elsewhere most piously confesses that the Lord is to be praised in His saints, saying: God is wonderful in His saints: the God of Israel, He shall give strength and power to His people (Ps. 67:36).

With this Jeremiah also agrees and says: Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glories glory in this, to understand and to know that I am the Lord (Jer. 9:23-24). But whence understanding and knowledge itself are to be had, the Proverbs of Solomon reveal, and say: For the Lord gives wisdom, and from His face come knowledge and understanding (Prov. 2:6). And in the book of Ecclesiastes of the same author we read that both the hearts and the works of the righteous are in the hand of God, and that they advance in their pursuits only so far as He has advanced them. However much, he says, a man labours to seek, he shall not find.

And whatever the wise man says that he knows, he cannot find out, because my heart has seen all this, that the righteous and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God (Eccl. 8:17; 9:1). Such is that which the Apostle proclaims, saying that every good word and every holy work is a gift of the Holy Spirit, without whom nothing is rightly done. Therefore, he says, I make known to you that no one speaking in the Spirit of God says anathema to Jesus, and no one can say, Lord Jesus, but in the Holy Spirit. Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but the same God who works all in all.

But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for profit. To one indeed is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discerning of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of words. But all these things one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each one as He wills (1 Cor. 12:3-11). CHAPTER XIII. That without the help of Christ working in us we do no good; and that free will is not thereby taken away, but assisted.

— There are also innumerable other testimonies which, from the pages both of the New and the Old Testament, confirm with a kind of united cry that this is the most excellent dignity of true humility: that all things which make a man a Christian are to be referred to the gift of divine grace. But to heap together into one so great a multitude of sentences would have been excessive, especially since my discourse was addressed to your holiness, to whom, from the pattern of the things we have recalled, all such things offer themselves either to your recollection or to your reading; and some, though very brief, are of such fulness and such power that by no ingenuity of an adversary can they be twisted into another meaning.

For what contradiction can be admitted in that which Truth itself is related to have said to His disciples through the Gospel of John: As the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing (John 15:4-5)? Is not the branch convicted, when lifted up, of being emptied of all fruitfulness, if it is not nourished by the richness of the vine? For who can bring forth the fruit of righteousness without the help of grace, or who dares to say that he is not divided from Christ, who denies that Christ works in him?

Or is it perhaps to be feared that we may seem to take away free will, when we say that all the things through which God is made favourable are to be referred to Him? That this is by no means the consequence is shown by the light of truth: for when the Spirit of God works, free will is helped, not taken away; and grace does this, that the will, corrupted by sin, drunk with vanities, hedged about by seductions, hindered by difficulties, should not remain in its languors, but, cured by the aid of the merciful physician, should grow strong again, and rejoice that it has been taught without asking, and sought without seeking; for daily is fulfilled what the prophet Isaiah foretold: They to whom it was not announced concerning Him shall see, and they who have not heard shall understand (Isa. 52:15).

But how this comes to pass, John teaches, saying: We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness; and we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, that we may know the true God, and may be in His true Son (1 John 5:19-20). This same thing, indeed, the Lord now also works unceasingly by the same power, who says: Behold, I am with you all the days, even to the consummation of the age (Matt. 28:20). CHAPTER XIV. That in nothing is the working of grace anticipated by the human will. — Therefore, that we may seek the mercy of God, is itself the mercy of God, who says: I will have mercy on whom I have had mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I have shown mercy (Rom. 9:15).

Whence wonderfully through Jeremiah the same Lord makes manifest that no one anticipates the grace of God by his own merit, but that on account of the love with which God loves even those turned away, they are drawn to mercy. With an everlasting love, He says, have I loved you: therefore have I drawn you to compassion, for I will build you up, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel (Jer. 31:3-4). With which sentence the apostle John also agrees, saying: Not as though we had loved God, but because He first loved us; and below: Let us therefore love, because God first loved us (1 John 4:10, 19). The apostle Paul also is of the same mind, saying in his Epistle to Timothy, the second:

Labour together for the Gospel according to the power of God, who has freed us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us before eternal ages (2 Tim. 1:8-9). Writing to Titus also, he teaches that the grace of God is anticipated by no good merit of man. For we ourselves, he says, were also once foolish, unbelieving, erring, serving divers desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness

and love of God our Saviour appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out abundantly upon us through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that, being justified by His grace, we might be heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:4-7). Every pious motion, therefore, of enlightened minds cannot indeed be separated from man's own will, since he will do nothing rightly except what he does willingly; but that the intention of the mind may tend toward what is just and useful, is conceived from the inspiration of that eternal and unchangeable Truth. And just as by the physician's art, in dimmed eyes,

so that they may be able to see what they do not see, yet the vision is not other than their own which the medicine has bestowed; so in hearts slow and dull, through the Holy Spirit the film drawn over the sight is wiped away, and from the true light the now-darkened and failing lamps receive light; nor yet will it be anything but theirs, whatever brightness they have received. Whence the Lord says: I came to send fire upon the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled (Luke 12:49)? And the same commands that our lamps be always burning, namely, that the mind, kindled by the fire from above, may not grow lukewarm, but strive always to burn; and if any adversity has disturbed its vigour, let it seek fire from the same source whence it began to be inflamed. CHAPTER XV.

That a commandment is given for this reason, that the help of Him who commands may be sought, with whom man cooperates by obeying. — Wherefore, since most manifestly the prophetic, evangelical, and apostolic teaching neither wills us to be proud nor allows us to be slothful, we ought to be cooperators with the grace of God, and to follow it vigilantly and soberly as it arouses, helps, enriches, and daily advances us, never ceasing from the giving of thanks; for amid the prosperity and adversity of this life, by which, as by a double temptation, we are always assailed, if we advance, from thence we are nourished; if we stand, from thence we subsist; if we fall back, from thence we are restored. For the Spirit says through the prophet David: The steps of a man shall be directed by the Lord, and he shall will his way.

When he falls, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with His hand. Not in vain, therefore, is it commanded that we be good, when it is said: Depart from evil, and do good (Ps. 36:23-24, 27). But neither is it in vain that the Lord says through Jeremiah: I will put My fear in their heart, and I will watch over them to make them good (Jer. 32:40-41). Nor was the injunction of the apostle Paul to the Romans superfluous, saying: Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21); when he says to the Corinthians: We pray to God that you do no evil (2 Cor. 13:7). For in all the admonitions and commandments of God there is one and the same principle both of divine grace and of human obedience;

nor is a commandment ever given for any other reason than that the help of Him who commands may be sought. For the voices of teachers and the letters of the pages which serve God for the instruction of hearers or readers do not lack the power of Him whom they serve; and when that which is commanded is obediently accomplished, then the effect of the divine work is declared. CHAPTER XVI. How greatly is to be avoided, in good works, that self-exaltation which corrupts all things. — But the ambushes of the tempter are watchful, so that where devotion advances, exaltation may creep in, and that a man may glory in a good work in himself rather than in the Lord. But the Apostle's solicitude warns against this danger, saying: Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12-13). The more excellently, therefore, men advance in the commandments of God, the greater cause they have for fear and trembling: lest, over the very increases of their uprightness, the mind, conscious of itself and greedy of praise, be snatched into the excess of pride, and become unclean through vanity while it seems to itself brilliant with clear virtue. But against this danger let us hear what blessed Peter proclaims in his first Epistle: If any man, he says, speaks, let it be as the words of God; if any man ministers, let it be as of the power which God administers: that in all things God may be honoured through Jesus Christ, to whom is glory and dominion forever (1 Pet. 4:11). The same in his second Epistle:

Grace, he says, be multiplied unto you in the acknowledgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has now by His divine power given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and virtue; through which He has given us the greatest and most precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature, fleeing from the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world (2 Pet. 1:2-4). If, therefore, God has by His divine power given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, nothing is more to be fled than the appetite of this concupiscence, which denies the power of the divine work out of love of one's own dignity;

and whereas other lusts diminish only those goods to which they are opposed, this, while it draws all things to itself, at the same time corrupts them all. Since, therefore, the general name of all pride is odious, whether it swell with its own honour, or with nobility, or with immoderate wealth, this portion of it is found more harmful than all temptations, in that it seems to be a friend to the very virtues which it desires to ruin. But because loftier things fall the more grievously, the prince of pride rejoices that those whom he could lay low by his impulse have first risen to greater heights. CHAPTER XVII. That through humility man is truly made subject to God and united to Him. — But against this evil the most steadfast good of humility comes to meet it.

Which we have therefore called true, because it is the unconquerable strength of all the virtues, and a kind of life of their members. For we distinguish it from those offices which it can have in common even with the wise of this world, and we define its property in this, that through all things it is subject to God. Nor can it lose anything of its merits, since it establishes the causes and advances of its virtues not in itself, but in Him as their author. For it is fitting that the image of God should shine unto God, and thence be beautiful, thence be adorned, saying: The light of Your countenance is sealed upon us, O Lord (Ps. 4:7);

otherwise it is an adulteress, and estranged from the divine wedlock, if it displays the comeliness of some other in the mirror of its own heart, or consents to be adorned with any other jewels than those which it has received from the treasures of the Bridegroom through the pledge of the Holy Spirit. CHAPTER XVIII. That Demetrias has the more need of humility, on account of both the purity of her virginity and the splendour of her family. — But if every Christian soul ought to be fortified with the solidity of this continence, because all have received the nuptial sacrament in whatever order of their calling, how much more must the dignity of your person be armed with the protection of this virtue, to whom, out of the most abundant gifts of God's grace, so manifold a matter for glorying offers itself.