For the upright in heart also stretches forward to the things that are before, forgetting the things that are behind, so that by a right course — that is, by right faith and intention — he may arrive where he may dwell as pure in heart. Just as those single phrases are to be assigned to their several places, where it was said: Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that is innocent of hands and pure in heart — the innocent of hands shall ascend, and the pure in heart shall stand: the one is in the doing, the other in the end — and there is rather to be understood that which was said: Good is the substance in which there is no sin in the conscience. For then will there truly be a good substance, that is, true riches, when all poverty shall have passed away, that is, when all infirmity shall have been consummated.
But now let a man turn himself away from sin, since by making progress he departs from it and is renewed from day to day, and let him direct his hands in the work of mercy, and cleanse his heart from every sin, and show mercy, so that what remains may be remitted through pardon. For this is understood, in a wholesome way and without vain and empty boasting, in that which holy John said: If our heart does not reproach us, we have confidence toward God, and whatsoever we ask we shall receive from Him. For in this passage he seems to have admonished that our heart may not reproach us in the very prayer and petition — that is, lest perhaps, when we shall have begun to say: Forgive us,
'as we also forgive,' we be pricked with compunction for not doing what we say, or even not dare to say what we do not do, and lose the confidence of asking. Likewise he set against himself a testimony of the Scriptures which is wont to be alleged to them: For there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and sins not; and, as it were, he responded with other testimonies, namely that the Lord says of holy Job: Have you considered My servant Job? For there is none like him on the earth, a man without complaint, true, a worshipper of God, abstaining from every evil. Concerning which we have already discoursed above. Yet this man did not show us how Job also — if these words are so to be understood — was without any sin on the earth, and how that is true which he said is written:
There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and sins not. 'Likewise they say,' he says, 'that in Your sight shall no living man be justified'; and to this testimony he responded, as it were, to no other end than that the Holy Scriptures might seem to be in dispute with one another, whose concord we ought to show. For he says: 'To whom it must be answered that of holy Zacharias the evangelist testifies, saying: And they were both, Zacharias and Elizabeth his wife, righteous before the Lord, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord without complaint.' Who, being both righteous, had of course read among those very commandments how they might cleanse their sins.
For Zacharias, according to what is said in the epistle to the Hebrews of every priest taken from among men, of course offered sacrifices even for his own sins. But how it is to be understood that it is said 'without complaint,' we have, I think, sufficiently shown above. 'And the blessed Apostle,' he says, 'says: That we should be holy and immaculate in His sight.' This is accomplished, that we should be this — if by 'immaculate' are to be understood those who are altogether without sin; but if 'immaculate' are those who are without crime, then we cannot deny that even in this life there have been and are such, because a man is not therefore without any sin merely because he has no stain of crime. Whence the Apostle also, when he was choosing ministers to be ordained, did not say:
'If any be without sin' — which he could not find — but he said: 'If any be without crime,' which of course he could find. Yet this man did not show how, according to his cause, we ought to receive that which is written: For in Your sight shall no living man be justified. Indeed, the meaning is plain, more clearly declared from the preceding verse. Enter not, he says, into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight shall no living man be justified. He fears judgment, because he desires mercy, which exults over judgment. For this is what it means, 'Enter not into judgment with Your servant':
'Do not judge me according to Yourself, who are without sin,' for in Your sight shall no living man be justified, which is understood, without any difficult question, to be said of this life. And what he says: 'shall not be justified,' he referred to that perfection of righteousness which is not in this life. 'Likewise they say,' he says, 'If we shall say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us'; and to this most evident testimony he attempted to respond with, as it were, contrary testimonies, namely that the same holy John says in the same epistle: This I say, brethren, that you sin not. Everyone who is born of God does not commit sin, because His seed remains in him, and he cannot sin; likewise there:
He who is born of God does not sin, because the generation of God preserves him, and the evil one does not touch him. 'Likewise there,' he says, 'where it says of the Saviour: Since He appeared to take away sins. Everyone who abides in Him does not sin; everyone who sins has not seen Him nor known Him. Likewise there: Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, even as He is pure.' And yet, although all these testimonies are true, that too is true which he proposed and did not resolve: that if we shall say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
And by this, according to that which we are born of God, in Him who appeared to take away sins — that is, in Christ — we abide and do not sin (this, however, is what is renewed inwardly from day to day); but according to that which we are born of that man through whom sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and thus it passed upon all men, we are not without sin, because we are not yet without his infirmity, until, by that renewal which takes place from day to day (since according to it we are born of God), the whole infirmity be healed, in which we are born of the first man, and in which we are not without sin.
While the remnants of this infirmity remain in the inner man, although they are diminished from day to day in those who make progress, if we shall say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. For how is it true: Everyone who sins has not seen Him nor known Him, since according to that vision and knowledge which will be in open sight no one sees and knows Him in this life? But according to the vision and knowledge which is in faith, there are many who sin — certainly the apostates themselves, who nevertheless once believed in Him — so that it cannot be said of any of them: According to the vision and knowledge which is as yet in faith, he has not seen Him nor known Him.
But I think it must be understood thus: that the renewal which is being brought to perfection both sees and knows itself, whereas the infirmity which is being done away with neither sees nor knows Him in whose remnants—however slight—still lodged within us, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Since, therefore, we are sons of God through the grace of renewal, nevertheless, on account of the remnants of infirmity, it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Then there will be no sin, because no infirmity, whether inner or outer, will remain. And everyone who has this hope in Him sanctifies himself, even as He also is holy;
For he sanctifies himself not by his own self, but by believing in Him and calling upon Him who sanctifies His holy ones. The perfection of this sanctification, which now advances and grows from day to day, will take away all the remnants of infirmity. "Likewise they say," he says, "'It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.'" To these, he says, it must be answered that the same Apostle says elsewhere concerning a certain matter: Let him do what he wills. "Likewise," he says, "to Philemon concerning Onesimus: Whom I would have kept with me, that he might minister to me on your behalf; but without your counsel I would do nothing, that your good deed might not be as it were of necessity, but voluntary. Likewise in Deuteronomy: He has set life and death before your face, good and evil.
Choose life, that you may live. Likewise in Solomon: God from the beginning made man and left him in the hand of his own counsel. He added to him commandments and precepts: if you will keep the commandments, they shall preserve you, and hereafter shall make you keep a pleasing faithfulness. He has set before you water and fire; stretch out your hand to whichever you will. Before man are good and evil, life and death; poverty and honor are from the Lord God. Likewise in Isaiah: And if you are willing and will hear me, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you are unwilling and will not obey me, the sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things." But here indeed, however much these men would cover it over, they are laid bare.
For they show that they are disputing against the grace or mercy of God, which we desire to obtain when we say: Your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth; or: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For why do we ask these things in prayer with so great a groaning, if it is of the man who wills and runs, and not of God who shows mercy? Not that this is done without our will, but that the will does not accomplish what it undertakes unless it is divinely helped. This is the soundness of faith which makes us pray: to seek, that we may find; to ask, that we may receive; to knock, that it may be opened to us. Whoever disputes against this soundness shuts the door of God's mercy against himself.
I do not wish to say more on so great a matter, because I commit it better to the groanings of the faithful than to my own words. Yet see, I beseech you, of what sort it is that the mercy of God should on that account be unnecessary to him who wills and runs—the very mercy which even goes before him, that he might run. For, as regards what the Apostle says concerning a certain man, Let him do what he wills, there, as I judge, where it follows and he says: he does not sin, let him marry—as though it should be reckoned a great thing to be willing to marry, in a place where the help of divine mercy is being more laboriously discussed; or as though even there it were of any avail to will anything, unless God, by the providence with which He governs all things, should join male and female together—or as to what the Apostle wrote to Philemon:
that his good deed might not be as of necessity, but voluntary—as though a good could be voluntary in any other way than when God works in us both to will and to work according to good will; or as to what is written in Deuteronomy: He set life and death before the face of man, good and evil, and admonished him to choose life—as though even that admonition did not come from mercy, or as though it were of any avail to choose life, unless God should breathe in the charity of choosing and grant that what was chosen should be held fast, He of whom it is said: For wrath is in His indignation, and life in His will; or as to what is said:
If you will keep the commandments, they will preserve you—as though he ought not to give thanks to God because he willed the commandments, seeing that, forsaken by every light of truth, he could not will these things. When fire and water are set before man, he does indeed stretch out his hand to which he wills, but higher is He who calls, higher than all human thought, since the beginning of the correcting of the heart is faith, as it is written: You shall come and pass over from the beginning of faith; and each one so chooses the good as God has apportioned to each the measure of faith; and: No one can come to Me, says the Prince of faith, unless the Father who sent Me draw him. That this was said concerning the faith by which one believes in Him, He afterward explains plainly enough where He says: The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed, and who it was that would betray Him. And He said: Therefore I said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it be given him by My Father. Now this man thought he had found something great for his cause in the prophet Isaiah, because God said: If you are willing and hear me, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you are unwilling and do not hear me, the sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.
As though the whole Law were not full of conditions of this kind; or as though those precepts were given to the proud for any other reason than because the Law was set for the sake of transgression, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made—whence it came in secretly that the offense might abound; and where the offense abounded, grace did much more abound: that is, that man might receive the precepts while proudly trusting in his own strength, and, failing in them and made even a transgressor, might seek a Liberator and Savior; and thus the fear of the Law, having made him humble, might lead him as a schoolmaster to faith and grace. So, when the infirmities had been multiplied, they afterward hastened, for whose healing Christ came opportunely.
In whose grace even the righteous of old believed, being aided by that same grace of His, so that rejoicing they might foreknow Him, and some even foretold that He would come—whether within that people of Israel, as Moses and Joshua the son of Nun and Samuel and David and other such men; or outside that people, as Job; or before that people, as Abraham, as Noah, and whatever others there are whom the divine Scripture either mentions or passes over in silence. For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, without whose grace no one is freed from condemnation—whether that condemnation which he drew from him in whom all sinned, or that which he afterward added by his own iniquities. But what sort of thing is it that this man placed at the end, namely, if anyone should say:
Can it come to pass that a man does not sin even in word? "It must be answered," he says, "if God wills, he can; for God does will, therefore he can." Likewise he says: (If anyone should say: Can it come to pass that a man does not offend in thought? It must be answered: If God wills, he can; for God does will, therefore he can.) See how he was unwilling to say: If God helps, he can—He to whom it is said: Be my helper, forsake me not—not indeed for the getting of bodily goods and the avoiding of bodily evils, but for the carrying out and perfecting of righteousness. On which account we say: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Nor is anyone helped except one who himself also does something;
but he is helped if he calls upon God, if he believes, if he is called according to purpose, since those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren; and those whom He predestined, them He also called; and those whom He called, them He also justified; and those whom He justified, them He also glorified. We run, therefore, when we make progress, while our soundness runs in those who make progress—just as a scar too is said to run, when the wound is well and carefully healed—so that on every side we may be perfect, without any infirmity of sin at all, which God not only wills, but also brings about and helps that it may be fulfilled.
And this the grace of God works with us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not only by precepts, sacraments, and examples, but also by the Holy Spirit, through whom charity is secretly poured out in our hearts, which intercedes with unutterable groanings, until soundness be perfected in us, and God, as He is, be shown to be seen in eternal truth. Whoever, therefore, thinks that there has been or is in this life any one man, or any men—apart from the one mediator of God and men—for whom the remission of sins was not necessary, is opposed to the divine Scripture, where the Apostle says:
Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned. And of necessity, by impious contention, he asserts that there can be men who, without Christ the mediator liberating and saving them, are free and safe from sin, whereas He has said: They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. But whoever says that, after the remission of sins has been received, any man has so lived righteously in this flesh, or does so live, as to have no sin whatsoever, contradicts the Apostle John, who says:
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. For he did not say "we had," but we have. But if anyone asserts that this was said concerning that sin which dwells in our mortal flesh according to the vice contracted by the will of the first sinning man—to whose sinful desires the Apostle Paul commands that we not be obedient—and asserts that a man does not sin who, though sin dwells in his flesh, in no way at all consents to any evil work, whether of deed or word or thought, even though concupiscence itself be stirred, which in another manner has received the name of sin (because to consent to it is to sin, and because it is stirred in us against our will):
he indeed distinguishes these things subtly, but let him see what is to be made of the Lord's Prayer, where we say: Forgive us our debts. This, unless I am mistaken, there would be no need to say, if we never—whether in a slip of the tongue or in dwelling with pleasure upon a thought—consented in any degree to the desires of that same sin; but we should have to say only: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Nor would the Apostle James say: In many things we all offend. For no one offends except him whom evil concupiscence—by desiring or shunning something to be done or said or thought against the rule of righteousness, something he ought not—persuades, whether deceiving him or prevailing over him.
Finally, if—apart from that Head of ours, the Savior of His own body—it is asserted that there either have been in this life, or are, certain righteous men without any sin, whether by never consenting to its desires, or because what is present is to be reckoned as no sin, being so small that God does not impute it to their piety (although one man is blessed without sin in one way, and another blessed to whom the Lord does not impute sin in another way)—I do not think this need be too strongly resisted. For I know that it has seemed so to certain men, whose opinion on this matter I do not dare to censure, although neither am I able to defend it.
But plainly, whoever denies that we ought to pray, Let us not enter into temptation—and he denies this who contends that, for the not-sinning, the help of God's grace is not necessary to man, but that the human will suffices with the Law alone received—him I do not doubt is to be removed from the ears of all, and to be anathematized by the mouth of all.