Chapter 2: That Man Is Now Spoiled of the Freedom of Will, and Made Subject to Miserable Bondage

Since we have seen, that the dominion of sin, since the time that it held the first man bound to it, does not only reign in all mankind, but also wholly possesses every soul: now we must more nearly examine, since we are brought into that bondage, whether we be spoiled of all freedom or no: And if yet there remains any parcel, how far the force thereof proceeds. But to the end that the truth of this question may more easily appear to us, I will by the way set up a mark, to which the whole sum may be directed. And this shall be the best way to avoid error, if the dangers be considered that are like to fall on both sides. For when man is put from all uprightness, by and by he thereby takes occasion of slothfulness: And because it is said, that by himself he can do nothing to the study of righteousness, forthwith he neglects it wholly, as if it pertained nothing to him. Again, he can presume to take nothing upon himself, be it never so little, but that both God's honor shall be thereby taken from him, and man himself be overthrown with rash confidence. Therefore, to the end we strike not upon these rocks, this course is to be kept, that man being informed that there remains in him no goodness, and being on every side surrounded about with most miserable necessity, may yet be taught to aspire to the goodness of which he is void, and to the liberty of which he is deprived, and may be more sharply stirred up from slothfulness, than if it were feigned that he is furnished with greatest power. How necessary this second point is, every man sees. The first, I see, is doubted of by more than it ought to be. For this being set out of controversy, it ought then plainly to stand for truth, that nothing is to be taken away from man of his own, so far as it behooves that he be thrown down from false boasting of himself. For if it were not granted to man to glory in himself even at that time when by the bountifulness of God he was garnished with most singular ornaments, how much ought he now to be humbled, since for his unthankfulness he is thrust down from high glory into extreme shame? At that time, I say, when he was advanced to the highest degree of honor, the Scripture attributes nothing else to him, but that he was created after the image of God, whereby it secretly teaches, that man was blessed, not by his own good things, but by the partaking of God. What therefore remains now, but that he being naked and destitute of all glory, do acknowledge God, to whose liberality he could not be thankful when he flowed full of the riches of his grace; and that now at length with confession of his own poverty he glorify him, whom in the acknowledging of his good gifts, he did not glorify? Also it is as much our profit, that all praise of wisdom and strength be taken from us, as it pertains to the glory of God, that they join our ruin with the robbery of God, that give to us anything more, than that which is true. For what is else done when we are taught to [reconstructed: fight by] our own force, but that we be lifted up on high on a staff of a reed, that it may by and by break, and we fall to the ground? Albeit, our forces are yet too much commended when they are compared to the staff of a reed. For it is but smoke all that vain men have imagined and do babble of them. Therefore not without cause is this excellent sentence often repeated by Augustine, that free will is rather thrown down headlong, than established by them that defend it. This I thought needful to speak before, as by way of preface for many men's sakes, which when they hear man's power overthrown from the ground, that the power of God may be built in man, do much hate this manner of disputing as dangerous — much more superfluous, which yet appears to be both in religion necessary, and for us most profitable.

Whereas we have a little before said, that in the understanding mind, and in the heart are placed the powers of the soul, now let us consider what they both are able to do. The Philosophers indeed with great consent do imagine that in the understanding mind, sits reason, which like a lamp gives light to all counsels, and like a queen governs the will, for they say that it is so endowed with Divine light, that it can give good counsel, and so excels in lively force that it is able well to govern. On the other side, that Sense is dull and blear-eyed, that it always creeps on the ground, and wallows in gross objects, and never lifts up itself to true insight. That the appetite, if it can abide to obey reason, and does not yield itself to Sense to be subdued, is carried on to the study of virtues, holds on the right way, and is transformed into Will: but if it gives itself subject into the bondage of Sense, it is by it corrupted and perverted, so that it degenerates into lust. And whereas by their opinion there do sit in the soul those powers that I have spoken of before, understanding, sense, appetite or will, which word Will is now more commonly used, they say that understanding is endowed with reason, the best governess toward good and blessed life, so that it does hold itself within its own excellence, and show forth the force that is naturally given it. But that inferior motion of it, which is called Sense, whereby man is drawn to error and deceit, they say to be such, that it may be tamed with the rod of reason, and by little and little be vanquished. They place Will in the midst between reason and Sense, as a thing at her own ordering, and having liberty whether it wishes to obey reason, or give forth itself to be ravished by Sense.

Sometimes indeed they do not deny, being overcome by very experience, how hardly man establishes reason to reign as queen within himself, while sometimes he is tickled with enticements of pleasures, sometimes deceived with false semblance of good things, sometimes importunately stricken with immoderate affections, and violently hauled out of the way, as it were with ropes of strings of sinews, as Plato says. For which reason Cicero says, that these sparks given by nature, are with perverse opinions and evil manners by and by quenched. But when such diseases have once gotten places in the minds of men, they grant that they do more outrageously overflow, than that they easily may be restrained: and they stick not to compare them to wild horses which throwing away reason as it were casting the chariot driver, do range unruly and without measure. But this they make no question of, that virtues and vices are in our own power. For if (say they) it be in our choice to do this or that, then is it also in our choice not to do. Now if it be in our choice not to do, then is it also to do. But of free choice we seem to do those things that we do, and to forbear those things that we forbear. Therefore if we do any good thing when we please, we may likewise leave it undone: if we do any evil, we may also avoid the same. Indeed some of them have burst forth into so great licentiousness, that they have boasted that it is indeed God's gift that we live, but our own that we live well and in a holy manner. And from there comes that saying of Cicero in the person of Cotta: because every man himself gets virtue to himself, therefore never any of the wise men did thank God for it. For (says he) for virtue we are praised, and in virtue we glory, which should not be if that were the gift of God, and not of ourselves. And a little after: This is the judgment of all men that fortune is to be asked of God, but wisdom to be taken of himself. This therefore is the sum of the opinion of all the philosophers, that the reason of man's understanding is sufficient for right governance: that will being subject to it, is indeed moved by sense to evil things. But even as it has free election, so can it not be stopped, but that it follows reason for her guide in all things.

Among the ecclesiastical writers, although there have been none that did not acknowledge both that the soundness of reason in man has been sorely wounded by sin, and his will exceedingly entangled with perverse desires, yet many of them have too much assented to the Philosophers: of which the ancient, as I think, did so much advance the strength of man, upon this consideration lest if they should have expressly confessed his weakness, first they should have made the Philosophers, with whom they then contended, to laugh at them: and then lest they should give to the flesh, which of itself was dull to goodness, a new occasion of slothfulness. Therefore, because they would not teach anything that were an absurdity in the common judgment of men, their study was to make the doctrine of Scripture half to agree with the teachings of the Philosophers. But that they principally regarded that second point, not to make place for slothfulness, appears by their own words. Chrysostome has in one place: Because God has put both good and evil things in our own power, he has given us freedom of election, and he withholds not the unwilling, but embraces the willing. Again, Oftentimes he that is evil, if he will, is turned into good, and he that is good by slothfulness falls and becomes evil, because God made our nature to have free will, and he lays not necessity upon us, but giving convenient remedies, suffers all to lie in the mind of the patient. Again, As unless we be helped by the grace of God, we can never do anything well: so unless we bring that which is our own, we cannot obtain the favor of God. And he had said before, that it should not be all of God's help, but we must also bring somewhat. And this is commonly a familiar word with him, let us bring that which is ours, God will supply the rest. With which agrees that which Jerome says, that it is our part to begin, but God's to make an end: our part to offer what we can, his to fulfill what we cannot. You see now that in these sayings they gave to man toward the study of virtue more than was fitting, because they thought that they could not otherwise awaken the dulness that was naturally in us, but if they did prove that in it only we sinned. With what apt handling they have done the same, we shall after see. Surely that the sayings which we have rehearsed are most false, shall by and by appear. Now although the Greeks more than others, and among them principally Chrysostome have passed measure in advancing the power of man's will, yet all the old writers, except Augustine, do in this point so either vary, or waver, or speak doubtfully, that in manner no certainty can be gathered of their writings. Therefore we will not dwell upon exact reckoning of every one of their sayings, but here and there we will touch out of every one of them so much as the plain declaration of the matter shall seem to require. As for them that followed after, while every one for himself sought praise of wit, in defending of man's nature, they fell continually by little and little one after another into worse and worse, till it came so far that man was commonly thought to be corrupted only in his sensual part, and to have reason altogether, and will for the more part uncorrupted. In the meantime this flew about in all men's mouths, that the natural gifts were corrupted in man, and the supernatural were taken away. But to what meaning that tended, scarcely the hundredth man did even slightly understand. As for my part, if I would plainly show of what sort is the corruption of nature, I could be easily contented with these words. But it is much material that it be heedfully weighed what a man, being in all parts of his nature corrupted and despoiled of his supernatural gifts, is able to do. They therefore which boasted themselves to be the disciples of Christ, spoke of this matter too much like Philosophers. For the name of Free Will still remained among the Latins, as if man had still abided in uncorrupted state. And the Greeks were not ashamed to use the word much more arrogantly: For they called it Autexousion, that is to say, of her own power, as if man had the power of himself. Because therefore all, even to the common people, had received this principle, that man was endowed with Free Will, and many of them that would seem excellent, cannot tell how far it extends: first let us search out the force of the word itself, and then let us proceed on by the simplicity of Scripture to show what man is able to do of his own nature, toward good or evil. What Free Will is — whereas it is a word commonly found in all men's writings, yet few have defined it — yet it seems that Origen rehearsed that thing whereof they were all agreed, when he said, that it is a power of reason to discern good or evil, and a power of will to choose either of them. And Augustine varies not from him, when he teaches that it is a power of reason and will, whereby good is chosen while grace assists, and evil when grace ceases. Bernard, while he means to speak more subtly, speaks more darkly, who says, that it is a consent by reason of the liberty of will that cannot be lost and the judgment of reason that can be avoided. And the definition of Anselm is not familiar enough, which says, that it is a power to keep uprightness for itself. Therefore Peter Lombard and the other Schoolmen have rather embraced Augustine's definition, because it both was plainer and did not exclude the grace of God, without which they saw that Will was not sufficient for itself. But they bring also of their own such things as they thought either to be better, or to serve for plainer declaration. First, they agree that the name of Arbitrium, that is free choice, is rather to be referred to reason, whose part is to discern between good and evil things: and the adjective Free pertains properly to will, which may be turned to either of both. Therefore since freedom properly belongs to will, Thomas says that it would very well agree if Free Will be called a power of choosing which being mixed of understanding and appetite, does more incline to appetite. Now we have in what things they reach that the power of Free Will consists, that is to say, in reason and will. Now remains that we shortly see how much they give to either part.

They are commonly wont to subject to the free determination of man things that are middling, that is, which do not belong to the kingdom of God: but they do refer true righteousness to the special grace of God and spiritual regeneration. Which thing, while the author of the book Of the Calling of the Gentiles means to show, he reckons up three sorts of wills: the first sensitive, the second natural, the third spiritual, of which he says that man has the first two at his own liberty, and the last is the work of the Holy Spirit in man. Whether this is true or not shall be treated in a place fit for it, for now my purpose is but shortly to recount the opinions of others, and not to refute them. From this it comes to pass that when writers speak of free will, they principally seek not what it is able to do in civil or outward actions, but what it can do toward the obedience of the law of God. Which latter point I think so to be the principal, that yet I think the other is not to be neglected. Of which meaning I trust I shall show a good reason. There has been a distinction received in the Schools that reckons up three sorts of freedoms: the first from necessity, the second from sin, the third from misery. Of which the first so naturally sticks fast in man that it can by no means be taken away: the other two are lost by sin. This distinction I willingly receive, except that there necessity is wrongfully confused with compulsion: between which two how much difference there is, and how necessary that difference is to be considered, shall appear in another place.

If this be received, then shall it be out of controversy that man does not have free will to do good works, unless he be helped by grace, and that by special grace, which is given to the only elect by regeneration. For I do not concern myself with these frenetic men who babble that grace is offered generally and without distinction. But this is not yet made plain, whether he be altogether deprived of power to do well, or whether he has yet some power, although it be but little and weak, which by itself indeed can do nothing, but by help of grace does also its part. While the Master of the Sentences goes about to make that plain, he says there are two sorts of grace necessary for us, whereby we may be made fit to do a good work: the one they call a Working grace, whereby we effectually will to do good; the other a Together-working grace, which follows good will in helping it. In which division this I dislike: that while he gives to the grace of God an effectual desire of good, he secretly shows his meaning that man already of his own nature, after a certain manner, desires good, though ineffectually. As Bernard, affirming that good will is indeed the work of God, yet this he grants to man, that of his own motion he desires that good will. But this is far from the meaning of Augustine, from whom yet Lombard would seem to have borrowed this division. In the second part of the division, the doubtfulness of speech offends me, which has bred a wrong exposition. For they thought that we do therefore work together with the second grace of God, because it lies in our power either to make void the first grace by refusing it, or to confirm it by obediently following it. Whereas the author of the book Of the Calling of the Gentiles does thus express it: that it is free for them that use the judgment of reason to depart from grace, so that it may be worthy of reward not to have departed, and that the thing which could not be done but by the working together of the Holy Spirit may be imputed to their merits, by whose will it was possible to have not done it. These two things I had a mind to note by the way, that now, reader, you may see how much I dissent from the soundest sort of the Schoolmen. For I do much further differ from the later sophisters, even so much as they be further gone from the ancient time. But yet somewhat, after such a sort as it is, we perceive by this division in what manner they have given free will to man. For at length Lombard says that we do not have free will therefore, because we are alike able either to do or to think good and evil, but only that we are free from compulsion: which freedom is not hindered, although we be perverse and the bondmen of sin, and can do nothing but sin.

Therefore, man shall be said to have free will after this sort, not because he has a free choice as well of good as of evil, but because he does evil by will, and not by compulsion. That is very well said: but to what purpose was it to garnish so small a matter with so proud a title? A goodly liberty indeed, if man is not compelled to serve sin: so he is yet a willing servant whose will is held fast bound with the fetters of sin. Truly I do abhor striving about words with which the Church is vainly wearied: but I think that such words are with great religious carefulness to be guarded against, which sound of any absurdity, especially where the error is hurtful. How few, I pray you, are there, who, when they hear that free will is assigned to man, do not immediately conceive that he is lord both of his own mind and will, and that he is able of himself to turn himself to whatever part he will? But someone will say: this peril shall be taken away, if the people be diligently warned of the meaning of it. But rather, forasmuch as the wit of man is naturally bent to falsehood, he will sooner conceive an error out of one little word than a truth out of a long tale. Of which thing we have a more certain experience in this very word than is to be wished. For, omitting that exposition of the old writers, all those in manner that came after, while they stick upon the natural signification of the word, have been carried into a trust in themselves that brings them to destruction.

But if the authority of the fathers does move us, they have indeed continually the word in their mouth: but they do withal declare, how much they esteem the use of it. First of all Augustine, who sticks not to call it Bondwill. In one place he is angry with them that deny free will but he declares his chief reason why, when he says only, Let not any man be so bold to deny the freedom of will, that he go about to excuse sin. But surely in another place he confesses, that the will of man is not free without the Holy Ghost, for as much as it is subject to lusts that do bind and conquer it. Again, that when will was overcome with sin wherein it fell, nature began to want freedom. Again, that man having ill used his free will, lost both himself and it. Again Free will is become captive, that it can do nothing toward righteousness. Again, that it cannot be free, which the grace of God has not made free. Again, that the justice of God is not fulfilled when the law commands, and man does as of his own strength, but when the Holy Ghost helps, and man's will not free, but made free by God, obeys. And of all these things he shortly renders a cause, when in another place he writes, that man received great force of free will when he was created, but he lost it by sinning. Therefore in another place, after that he had showed that free will is established by grace, he sharply inveighs against them that take it upon them without grace. Why therefore (says he) dare wretched men either be proud of free will before that they be made free, or of their own strength if they be already made free? And they mark not that in the very name of Free will, is mention of freedom. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. If then they be the bondmen of sin, why do they boast them of free will? For of whom a man is overcome, to him he is made bond. But if they be made free, why do they boast them as of their own work? Are they so free, that they will not be his bondservants, which says: Without me you can do nothing? Beside that also in another place he seems sportingly to mock at the use of that word when he said, that will was indeed free, but not made free, free to righteousness, but the bondservant of sin. Which saying in another place he repeats and expounds, that man is not free from righteousness, but by choice of will, and from sin he is not free, but by grace of the Savior. He that does testify, that the freedom of man is nothing else but a freemaking or manumission from righteousness, seems trimly to mock at the vain name thereof. Therefore if any man will permit the use of this word with no evil signification, he shall not be troubled by me for so doing. But because I think it cannot be kept without great peril, and that it [reconstructed: should] turn to a great benefit to the Church, if it were abolished: neither will I myself use it, and I would wish others, if they ask me counsel, to forbear it.

I may seem to have brought a great prejudice against myself, which have confessed, that all the ecclesiastical writers, except Augustine, have spoken so doubtfully or diversly in this matter, that no certainty can be had out of their writings. For some will so construe this, that I meant therefore to thrust them from giving any voice herein, because they are all against me. As for me, I meant it to no other end but this, that I simply and in good faith would have godly wits provided for, which is they wait upon those men's opinion in this point, they shall always waver uncertain. In such sort do they sometimes teach, man being spoiled of all strength of free will, to flee to grace only; sometimes they furnish or seem to furnish him with his own armor. But it is not hard to make appear, that in such doubtfulness of speech, they nothing, or very little, esteeming man's strength, have given the praise of all good things to the Holy Ghost, if I here recite certain sentences of theirs, whereby that is plainly taught. For what means that saying of Cyprian, which Augustine so often repeats, that we ought to glory of nothing, because we have nothing of our own, but that man wholly despoiled in himself, may learn to hang all upon God. What means that saying of Augustine and Eucherius, when they expound, that Christ is the tree of life to whom he that reaches his hand, shall live? And that the tree of knowledge of good and evil, is the free choice of will, whereof whoever tastes, forsaking the grace of God he shall die? What means that of Chrysostom, that every man is naturally not only a sinner, but also altogether sin? If we have no good thing of our own: if man from top to toe be altogether sin: if it be not lawful to attempt how much the power of Free will is able to do, how then may it be lawful to part the praise of a good work between God and man? I could rehearse of this sort very many sayings out of others, but lest any man should cavil that I choose out those things only that make for my purpose, and do craftily leave out such things as make against me, therefore I do forbear such rehearsal. Yet this I dare affirm, however they be sometimes too busy in advancing Free will, that this yet was their purposed mark, to teach man being altogether turned away from trust of his own power, to have his strength reposed in God alone. Now come I to the simple setting forth of the truth, in considering the nature of man.

But I am here constrained to repeat that which in the beginning of this chapter I speak by way of preface. As any man is most discouraged and thrown down with conscience of his own misery, neediness, nakedness and shame, so has he best profited in knowledge of himself. For there is no danger to be feared, lest man will take too much from himself, so that he learn that what he wants is to be recovered in God, but to himself he can take nothing more than his own right, be it never so little, but that he shall destroy himself with vain confidence, and conveying the honor of God to himself, become guilty of heinous sacrilege. And truly, so often as this lust invades our mind, that we desire to have somewhat of our own which may rest in ourselves rather than in God, let us know that this thought is ministered to us by no other counselor, but by him that persuaded our first parents to have a will to be like God, knowing both good and evil. If it be the word of the devil that raises up man in himself, let us give no place to it, unless we wish to take counsel of our enemy. It is pleasant indeed for a man to have so much strength of his own, that he may rest in himself. But that we be not allured to this vain confidence, let so many severe sentences make us afraid, by which we be thrown down: as are, Cursed is he who trusts in man and sets flesh to be his arm (Jeremiah 17:5). Again, that God has no pleasure in the strength of a horse, nor delights in the legs of man, but delights in them that fear him, and attend upon his mercy. Again, that it is he who gives strength to him that faints, and to him that has no strength, he increases power; even the young men shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall stumble and fall, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. All which sayings tend to this end, that we lean not upon any opinion of our own strength, be it never so little, if we mean to have God favorable to us, who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. And then again, let these promises come into our remembrance: I will pour out water upon the thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. Again, all you that thirst, come to the waters. Which promises do testify that none are admitted to receive the blessings of God, but they that pine away with feeling of their own poverty. And such promises are not to be passed over, as is that of Isaiah: You shall have no more sun to shine by day, neither shall the brightness of the Moon shine to you — for the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and God your glory. The Lord indeed does not take away the shining of the sun or moon from his servants, but because he will himself alone appear glorious in them, he calls their confidence far away, even from those things that are counted in their opinion most excellent.

Truly, that saying of Chrysostom has always exceedingly well pleased me, that the foundation of our wisdom is humility — but yet more that saying of Augustine: As (says he) that same rhetorician being asked what was the first thing in the rules of eloquence, answered, pronunciation; and what was the second, he answered, pronunciation; and what was the third, he answered, pronunciation — so if one asks me of the rules of Christian religion, the first, the second, and third time, and always I would answer, humility. But he means not humility when a man knowing some little virtue to be in himself abstains from pride and haughtiness of mind, but when he truly feels himself to be such a one as has no refuge but in humility — as in another place he declares. Let no man (says he) flatter himself: of his own he is a devil. That thing whereby he is blessed, he has of God only. For what have you of your own but sin? Take away from you sin which is your own, for righteousness is God's. Again, why is the possibility of nature so presumed on? It is wounded, maimed, troubled and lost; it needs a true confession, and not a false defense. Again, when every man knows that in himself he is nothing, and of himself he has no help, his weapons in himself are broken, the wars are ceased. But it is needful that all the weapons of wickedness be broken in pieces, shivered in pieces and burnt, that you remain unarmed and have no help in yourself. How much more weak you are in yourself, so much the more the Lord receives you. So upon Psalm 70 he forbids us to remember our own righteousness, that we may acknowledge the righteousness of God — and he shows that God does so commend his grace to us that we may know ourselves to be nothing, that we stand only by the mercy of God, when of ourselves we are nothing but evil. Let us not therefore strive here with God for our right, as if that were withdrawn from our salvation which is given to him. For as our humbleness is his highness, so the confession of our humbleness has his mercy ready for remedy. Neither yet do I require that man not convinced should willingly yield himself — nor if he has any power, that he should turn his mind from it, to be subdued to true humility. But that laying away the disease of self-love and desire of victory, with which being blinded he thinks too highly of himself, he should well consider himself in the true looking glass of the Scripture.

And the common saying which they have borrowed out of Augustine pleases me well, that the natural gifts were corrupted in man by sin, and of the supernatural he was made empty. For in this latter part of supernatural gifts, they understand as well the light of faith as righteousness, which were sufficient to the attaining of heavenly life and eternal felicity. Therefore banishing himself from the Kingdom of God, he was also deprived of the spiritual gifts, with which he had been furnished to the hope of eternal salvation. Whereupon it follows, that he is so banished from the Kingdom of God, that all things that belong to the blessed life of the soul are extinguished in him, until by the grace of regeneration he recovers them. Of that sort are faith, the love of God, charity toward our neighbors, the study of holiness and righteousness. All these things, because Christ restores them to us, are counted things coming from another to us, and besides nature, and therefore we gather that they were once taken away. Again, soundness of the understanding mind and uprightness of heart were then taken away together, and this is the corruption of natural gifts. For though there remains somewhat left of understanding and judgment together with will, yet we cannot say that our understanding is sound and perfect, which is both feeble and drowned in many darknesses. And as for our will, the perverseness thereof is more than sufficiently known. Since therefore reason, whereby a man discerns between good and evil, whereby he understands and judges, is a natural gift, it could not be altogether destroyed, but it was partly weakened, partly corrupted, so that foul ruins thereof appear. In this sense does John say, that the light shines yet in darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not: in which words both things are plainly expressed, that in the perverted and degenerate nature of man, there shine yet some sparks that show that he is a creature having reason, and that he differs from brute beasts, because he is endued with understanding: and yet that this light is choked with great thickness of ignorance, that it cannot effectually get abroad. So [reconstructed: will], because it is inseparable from the nature of man, perished not, but was bound to perverse desires, that it can covet no good thing. This indeed is a full definition, but yet such as needs to be made plain with more words. Therefore, that the order of our talk may proceed according to that first distinction, wherein we divided the soul of man into understanding and will: let us first examine the force of understanding. So to condemn it of perpetual blindness, that a man leave to it no manner of skill in any kind of things, is not only against the word of God, but also against the experience of common reason. For we see that there is planted in man a certain desire to search out truth, to which he would not aspire at all, but having felt some flavor thereof before. This therefore is some sight of man's understanding, that he is naturally drawn with love of truth, the neglecting whereof in brute beasts proves a gross sense without reason, albeit this little desire such as it is faints before it enters the beginning of its race, because it by and by falls into vanity. For the wit of man cannot for dullness keep the right way to search out truth but strays in diverse errors, and as it were groping in darkness, oftentimes stumbles, till at length it wanders and vanishes away, so in seeking truth, it does betray how unfit it is to seek and find truth. And then it is sorely troubled with another vanity, that oftentimes it discerns not those things to the true knowledge, whereof it were expedient to bend itself, and therefore it torments itself with fond curiosity, in searching out things superfluous and nothing worth: and to things most necessary to be known, it either takes no heed, or negligently or seldom turns, but surely scarce at any time applies its study earnestly to them. Of which perverseness, whereas the profane writers do commonly complain, it is found, that all men have entangled themselves with it. Therefore Solomon in all his Ecclesiastes, when he had gone through all these studies, in which men think themselves to be very wise, yet he pronounces, that they are all vain and trifling.

Yet do not all travails of wit always become void, but that it attains something, specially when it bends itself to these inferior things. Indeed, it is not so blockish, but that it tastes also some little of the higher things — however more negligently it applies the searching of them — yet not with like power of conceiving. For when it is carried up above the compass of this present life, then it is principally convinced of its own weakness. Therefore, that we may the better see how far, according to the degrees of its ability, it proceeds in every thing, it is good that I put forth a distinction. Let this therefore be the distinction: that there is one understanding of earthly things, another of heavenly things. Earthly things I call those that do not concern God and his kingdom, true righteousness, and the blessedness of eternal life, but have all their respect and relation to this present life, and are as it were contained within the bounds thereof. Heavenly things I call the pure knowledge of God, the order of true righteousness, and the mysteries of the heavenly kingdom. Of the first sort are policy, governance of household, all handicrafts, and liberal sciences. Of the second sort are the knowledge of God and God's will, and the rule to frame our life according to it. Concerning the first, this we must confess: because man is a creature by nature given to live in companies together, he is also by natural instinct bent to cherish and to preserve the fellowship of these companies; therefore we see that there are in the minds of all men universal impressions of a certain civil honesty and order. Hereby it comes to pass, that there is found no man that understands not that all companies of men ought to be kept in order with laws, and that conceives not in his mind the principles of these laws. From this comes that same perpetual consent, as well of all nations as of all men, to laws, because the seeds thereof are naturally planted in all men without any teacher or lawmaker. And I weigh not the discussions and fightings that afterward arise, while some desire to pervert law and right, the loose absolute governments of kings, that lust strays abroad in stead of right, as the [reconstructed: thieves] and robbers, some (which is a fault more than common) think that to be unjust, which others have established for just: and on the other side stiffly say, that to be laudable, which others have forbidden. For these men do not therefore hate laws, because they do not know that laws are good and holy, but for that they raging with headstrong lust, do fight against manifest reason, and for their fancy do abhor that, which in understanding of mind they allow. The latter sort of striving is such, that it takes not away that first conceiving of equity. For when men do strive among themselves, concerning the points of laws, they agree together in a certain sum of equity. Wherein is proved the weakness of man's wit, which even then when it seems to follow the right way, yet halts and staggers, but still this remains true, that there is sown in all men a certain seed of political order. And that is a large proof, that in the ordering of this life, no man is void of the light of reason.

Now do follow the arts, both the liberal and the handicrafts: in learning whereof, because there is in us all a certain aptness, in them also does appear the force of man's wit: but be it that all men are not apt to learn them all, yet is this a token certain enough of the common natural power, that there is almost no man found, whose faculty of wit does not in some art or other show forth itself. Neither have they only a power or facility to learn, but also to devise in every art some new thing, either to amplify or make more perfect that which has been learned of another that went before — which thing, as it moved Plato erroneously to teach, that such conceiving is nothing else but a calling to remembrance, so by good reason it ought to compel us to confess, that the beginning thereof is naturally planted in the wit of man. These points therefore do plainly testify, that there is given to men naturally a universal conceiving of reason and of understanding. Yet is it so a universal benefit, that therein every man ought for himself to acknowledge the peculiar grace of God. To which thankfulness the creator himself does sufficiently awaken us, when he creates natural fools, in whom he makes us to see with what gifts man's soul excels, if it is not endowed with his light, which is so natural in all men, that it is yet altogether a free gift of his liberality toward every man. But the invention and orderly teaching of the same arts, or a more inward and excellent knowledge of them which is proper but to a few, is no perfect argument of the common conceiving of wit, yet because without difference it happens to the godly and ungodly, it is rightfully reckoned among natural gifts.

So often therefore as we light upon profane writers, let us be put in mind by that marvelous light of truth that shines in them, that the understanding of man, however much it be perverted and fallen from the first integrity, is yet still clothed and garnished with excellent gifts of God. If we consider that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will neither refuse nor despise the truth itself, wherever it shall appear, except we will dishonorably use the Spirit of God: for the gifts of the Holy Ghost cannot be set lightly by, without contempt and reproach of himself. And what? Shall we deny that the truth shined to the old lawyers, who have set forth civil order and discipline with so great equity? Shall we say that the Philosophers were blind both in that exquisite contemplation, and cunning description of nature? Shall we say that they had no understanding, who by setting in order the art of speech, have taught us to speak with reason? Shall we say that they were mad, who in setting forth natural science, have employed their diligence for us? What of all the Mathematical sciences? Shall we think them doting errors of mad men? No, rather we cannot read the writings of the old men, concerning these things, without great admiration of their understanding. But shall we think anything praiseworthy or excellent, which we do not acknowledge to come from God? Let us be ashamed of so great unthankfulness, into which the heathen Poets fell not, who confessed that both Philosophy and Laws, and all good arts, were the inventions of [reconstructed: the gods]. Since then it appears that these men, whom the Scripture calls natural men, were of so sharp and deep sight in searching out inferior things, let us learn by such examples, how many good things the Lord has left to the nature of man, after that it has been spoiled of the true God.

But in the meantime let us not forget, that these are the most excellent good gifts of the Spirit of God, which for the common benefit of mankind he deals abroad to whom it pleases him. For if it behooved, that the understanding and skill that was required for the framing of the tabernacle, should be poured into Bezalel and Oholiab by the Spirit of God, it is no marvel if the knowledge of those things which are most excellent in man's life, be said to be communicated to us by the Spirit of God. Neither is there cause why any man should ask, what have the wicked to do with God's Spirit, which are altogether estranged from God. For where it is said that the Spirit of God dwells in the faithful only, that is to be understood of the Spirit of sanctification, by which we are consecrated to God himself, to be his temples: yet does he nevertheless fill, move and quicken all things with the virtue of the same Spirit and that according to the property of every kind which he has given to it by law of creation. If it has been the Lord's will that we should be helped by the labor and service of the wicked in natural Philosophy, Dialectic, the mathematical knowledges, and other: let us use it, lest if we neglect the gifts of God, willingly offered in them, we suffer just punishment for our slothfulness. But lest any should think a man to be blessed, when under the elements of this world there is granted to him so great an ability to conceive truth, it is also to be added that all this power to understand, and the understanding that follows thereof, is a vanishing and transitory thing before God, where there is not a steadfast foundation of truth. For Augustine teaches most truly, whom (as we have said) the Master of the Sentences, and the other Schoolmen are compelled to assent to, as the free gifts were taken from man after his fall, so these natural gifts which remained, were corrupted. Not that they can be defiled of themselves in as much as they come from God, but because they cease to be pure to a defiled man, that he should have no praise of them.

Let this be the sum: that it is seen that in all mankind is reason which is proper to our nature, which makes us to differ from brute beasts, as brute beasts do differ in sense from things without life. For whereas there are born certain natural fools and idiots, that defect obscures not the general grace of God. But rather by such sight we are put in mind, that what is left to ourselves, ought justly to be ascribed to the kindness of God, because if he had not spared us, our rebellion had drawn with it the destruction of our whole nature. But whereas some do excel in sharpness of conceiving, some other do surpass in judgment, some have a quicker understanding to learn this or that art: in this variety God sets forth his grace to us, that no man should claim to himself as his own, that which flows from God's mere liberality. For how becomes one more excellent than another, but that in common nature might appear above others the special grace of God, which in omitting many, says openly that it is bound to none. Besides that, God pours in singular motions, according to the calling of every man. Of which thing we meet with many examples in the books of the Judges, where it is said, that the Spirit of the Lord led them, whom he called to rule the people. Finally, in every noble art there is a special instruction. By which reason the strong men followed Saul whose hearts the Lord had touched. And when his ministering in the kingdom was prophesied, Samuel said thus: The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon you, and you shall be another man. And this was continued to the whole course of government: as after it is spoken of David, that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him from that day forward. But the same is spoken in another place as touching particular motions: yes, in Homer men are said to excel in understanding, not only as Jupiter has dealt to every man, but also as the time required. And truly experience teaches, while many times such men stand amazed as were most sharp and deep-witted, that the wits of men are in the hand and will of God to rule them at every moment: for which reason it is said, that he takes understanding from the wise, that they may wander out of the way. But yet in this diversity we see remaining some marks of the image of God, which do make difference between all mankind and other creatures.

Now is to be declared what man's reason sees, when it comes to the kingdom of God and to that spiritual insight, which consists chiefly in three things: to know God, and his fatherly favor toward us, wherein our salvation stands: and the way to frame our life according to the rule of his law. Both in the first two and in the second, properly they that are most witty, are blinder than moles. I deny not that there are here and there read in philosophers, concerning God, many things well and aptly spoken, but yet such as do always savor of a certain giddy imagination. The Lord gave them indeed, as is above said, a little taste of his godhead, that they should not pretend ignorance to color their ungodliness: and many times he moved them to speak many things by confession of which they themselves might be convinced. But they so saw the things that they saw, that by such seeing they were not directed to the truth, much less did attain to it, like as a wayfaring man in the midst of the field, for a sudden moment, sees fair and wide the glistening of lightning in the night time, but with such a quickly vanishing sight, that he is sooner covered again with the darkness of the night, than he can stir his foot, so far is it that he can be brought into his way by such a help. Beside that, those small drops of truth, with which, as it were by chance, they sprinkle their books, with how many and how monstrous lies are they defiled? Finally, they never so much as smelled that assurance of God's good will toward us, without which man's wit must needs be filled with infinite confusion. Therefore man's reason neither approaches, nor goes toward, nor once directs sight to this truth, to understand who is the true God, or what a one he will be toward us.

But because we being drunk with a false persuasion of our own deep insight, do very hardly suffer ourselves to be persuaded, that in matters of God it is utterly blind and dull: I think it shall be better to confirm it by testimonies of Scripture than by reasons. This does John very well teach in that place which I even now cited, when he writes, that life was in God from the beginning, and the same life which should be the light of men, and that the light did shine in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not (John 1:4). He shows indeed, that man's soul is lightened with the brightness of God's light, so that it is never altogether without some small flame, or at least some spark of it, but yet, that with such a light he comprehends not God. And why so? Because man's quickness of wit, as toward the knowledge of God, is but mere darkness. For when the Holy Spirit calls men darkness, he at once despoils them of all ability of spiritual understanding. Therefore he affirms, that the faithful who embrace Christ, are born not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of man, but of God (John 1:13). As if he should say: flesh is not capable of so high wisdom to conceive God and that which is God's, unless it be enlightened with the Spirit of God. As Christ testified, that this was a special revelation of the Father, that Peter did know him (Matthew 16:17).

If we were persuaded of this, which ought to be beyond all controversy, that our nature lacks all that which our heavenly Father gives to his elect by the spirit of regeneration, then there were no matter to doubt upon. For thus speaks the faithful people in the Prophet: For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we shall see light. The Apostle testifies the same thing, when he says that no man can call Jesus the Lord, but in the Holy Spirit. And John the Baptist, seeing the dullness of his disciples, cries out that no man can receive anything, unless it be given him from above. And that he means by gift a special illumination, and not a common gift of nature, appears from this, that he complains that in so many words as he had spoken to [reconstructed: commend] Christ to his disciples, he prevailed nothing. I see (says he) that words are nothing to inform men's minds concerning divine things, unless the Lord give understanding by his spirit. Indeed Moses, when he reproaches the people with their forgetfulness, yet notes this too, that they can by no means grow wise in the mysteries of God, but by the benefit of God. Your eyes (says he) have seen those great tokens and wonders, and the Lord has not given you a heart to understand, nor ears to hear, nor eyes to see. What should he express more, if he called us blocks in considering the works of God? Therefore the Lord by the Prophet promises for a great grace, that he will give the Israelites a heart, that they may know him: signifying thereby, that man's understanding is only so much spiritually wise, as it is enlightened by him. And this Christ plainly confirmed with his own mouth, when he says that no man can come to him, but he to whom it shall be given from the Father. What? Is he not himself the living image of the Father, in whom the whole brightness of his glory is expressed to us? Therefore he could not better show what our power is to know God, than when he says that we have no eyes to see his image, where it is so openly set before us. What? Did he not come into the earth for this purpose, to declare his Father's will to men? And did he not faithfully do his office? Yes surely. But yet nothing is wrought by his preaching, unless the inward schoolmaster, the Holy Spirit, set open the way to our minds. Therefore none come to him, but they that have heard and been taught of the Father. What manner of learning and hearing is this? Even when the Holy Spirit by marvelous and singular power forms the ears to hear, and the minds to understand. And lest that should seem [reconstructed: strange], he cites the prophecy of Isaiah, where when he promises the repairing of the church that they which shall be gathered together to salvation, shall be taught of the Lord. If God there foreshows some particular thing concerning his elect, it is evident that he speaks not of that kind of learning that was also common to the wicked and ungodly. It remains therefore that we must understand it thus, that the way into the kingdom of God is open to no man, but to him to whom the Holy Spirit by his enlightening shall make a new mind. But Paul speaks most plainly of all, who of purpose entering into discourse of this matter, after he had condemned all men's wisdom of folly and vanity, and utterly brought it to nothing, at the last concludes thus: that the natural man cannot perceive those things that are of the spirit of God: they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually judged. Whom does he call natural? Even him that stays upon the light of nature. He, I say, comprehends nothing in the spiritual mysteries of God. Why so? Is it because by slothfulness he neglects it? No, rather although he would labor never so much, he can do nothing, because indeed they are spiritually judged. What does that mean? Because being utterly hidden from the light of man's understanding, they are opened by the only revelation of the spirit: so that they are reckoned for folly where the spirit of God gives no light. Before he had raised up those things that God has prepared for them that love him, above the capacity of eyes, ears and minds. Indeed he testified that man's wisdom was as a certain veil, whereby man's mind was kept from seeing God. What do we mean? The Apostle pronounces that the wisdom of this world is made folly by God: and shall we certainly give to it sharpness of understanding, whereby it may pierce to the secret places of the heavenly kingdom? Far be such beastliness from us.

And so that which here he takes away from men, in another place, in a prayer, he gives it to God alone. God (says he) and the Father of glory, give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Now you hear that all wisdom and revelation is the gift of God. What follows? And enlighten the eyes of your mind. Surely if they need a new revelation, then are they blind of themselves — that follows after: That you may know what is the hope of your calling. Therefore he confesses that the wits of men are not capable of so great understanding to know their own calling. And let not some Pelagian babble here, that God does remedy that dullness or unskilfulness, when by the doctrine of his word he directs man's understanding, where without a guide he could not have attained. For David had a law, wherein was comprehended all the wisdom that may be desired, and yet not content with that, he requires to have his eyes opened, that he may consider the mysteries of the same law. By which speech truly he secretly says that the sun rises upon the earth where the word of God shines to men: but they gain not much thereby, until he himself who is therefore called the Father of lights, does give them or open their eyes, because wherever he shines not with his spirit, all things are possessed with darkness. So the Apostles were well and largely taught by the best schoolmaster: yet if they had not needed the spirit of truth to instruct their minds in that same doctrine which they had heard before, he would not have bidden them look for him. If the thing that we ask of God, we do thereby confess that we want: and God in that he promises it to us, does argue our need, let no man now doubt to confess that he is so much able to understand the mysteries of God, as he is enlightened with his grace. He that gives to himself more understanding is so much the more blind, for that he does not acknowledge his own blindness.

Now remains the third point, of knowing the rule of well framing of life, which we rightly call the knowledge of the works of righteousness, wherein man's wit seems to be of somewhat sharper sight than in the other two before. For the Apostle testifies that the Gentiles, which have no law, while they do the works of the law, are to themselves in stead of a law, and show the law written in their hearts, their consciences bearing them witness, and their thoughts accusing them within themselves, or excusing them before the judgment of God. If the Gentiles have righteousness naturally graven in their minds, surely we cannot say that we are altogether blind in the order of life. And nothing is more common than that man, by the natural law, of which the Apostle speaks in that place, is sufficiently instructed to a right rule of life. But let us weigh to what purpose this knowledge of the law is planted in men: then it shall by and by appear how far it brings them toward the mark of reason and truth. The same is also evident by the words of Paul, if a man does mark the placing of them. He had said a little before that they which sinned in the law are judged by the law; they that have sinned without law do perish without law. Because this might seem unreasonable, that the Gentiles should perish without any judgment going before, he by and by adds that their conscience is to them in stead of a law, and therefore is sufficient for their just damnation. Therefore the end of the natural law is that man may be made inexcusable. And it shall be defined not ill after this sort: that it is a knowledge of conscience, that sufficiently discerns between just and unjust, to take away from men the pretense of ignorance, while they are proved guilty by their own testimony. Such is the tenderness of man toward himself, that in doing of evils, he always turns away his mind so much as he may from the feeling of sin. By which reason it seems that Plato was moved to think that there is no sin done but by ignorance. That indeed were fitly said of him if men's hypocrisy went so far in hiding of vices, that the mind might not know itself guilty before God. But when the sinner, seeking to eschew the judgment imprinted in him, is now and then drawn back to it, and not suffered so to wink but that he be compelled whether he will or no, some time to open his eyes: it is falsely said that he sins only by ignorance. Themistius says more truly, who teaches that understanding is seldom deceived: that it is blindness when it goes any further, that is, when he comes down to the special case. Every man, if it be generally asked, will affirm that manslaughter is evil: but he that conspires to kill his enemies deliberates upon it, as on a good thing. The adulterer generally will condemn adultery, but in his own, privately he will flatter himself. This is ignorance, when a man, coming to the special case, forgets the rule that he had lately agreed upon in the general question. Of which thing Augustine discourses very finely in his exposition of the first verse of Psalm 57, although the same thing is not continual. For sometimes the shamefulness of the evil deed so presses the conscience, that not deceiving himself under false resemblance of a good thing, but wittingly and willingly he runs into evil. Out of which affection came these sayings: 'I see you better and allow it, but I follow the worse.' Therefore, I think, Aristotle has very aptly made distinction between incontinence and temperance. Where incontinence reigns, he says, that there by reason of troubled affection or passion, knowledge is taken away from the mind, that it marks not the evil in his own act, which it generally sees in the like: and when the troubled affection is cooled, repentance immediately follows. But intemperance is not extinguished or broken by feeling of sin, but on the other side obstinately stands still in her conceived choice of evil.

Now when you hear judgment universally named in the difference of good and evil, think it not every sound and perfect judgment. For if man's hearts are furnished with choice of just and unjust, only to this end, that they should not pretend ignorance, it is not then needful to see the truth in every thing. But it is enough and more, that they understand so far that they can not escape away, but being convicted by witness of their conscience, they even now already begin to tremble at the judgment seat of God. And if we will try our reason by the law of God, which is the example of true righteousness, we shall find how many ways it is blind. Truly it attains not at all to those that are the chief things in the first table, as of confidence in God, of giving to him the praise of strength and righteousness, of calling upon his name, of the true keeping of Sabbath. What soul ever, by natural sense did smell out, that the lawful worshiping of God consists in these and like things? For when profane men will worship God, although they be called away a hundred times from their vain trifles, yet they always slide back there again. They deny indeed that sacrifices please God, unless there be joined a purity of mind: by which they declare, that they conceive somewhat of the spiritual worshiping of God, which yet they by and by corrupt with false inventions. For it can never be persuaded then, that all is true that the law prescribes of it. Shall I say, that that wit excels in any sharp understanding, which can neither of itself be wise, nor listen to teaching? In the commandments of the second table it has some more understanding, by so much as they came nearer to the preservation of civil fellowship among men. Albeit even herein also it is found many times to fail. To every excellent nature it seems most unreasonable, to suffer an unjust, and too imperious a manner of governing over them, if by any means he may put it away: and the judgment of man's reason is none other, but that it is the part of servile and base courage, to suffer it patiently: and again, the part of an honest and free-born heart to shake it off. And revenge of injuries, is reckoned for no fault among the philosophers. But the Lord condemning that too much nobleness of courage, commands his to keep the same patience, that is so ill reported among men. And in all the keeping of the law, our understanding marks not desire of mind at all. For a natural man suffers not himself to be brought to this, to acknowledge the diseases of his desires. The light of nature is choked up, before that it come to the first entry of this bottomless depth. For when the philosophers note immoderate motions of mind for faults, they mean those motions that appear and show forth themselves by gross tokens, but they make no account of those evil desires that do gently tickle the mind.

Therefore, as Plato was worthily found fault with before, for that he imputed all sins to ignorance, so is their opinion to be rejected, which teach that purposed malice and stubbornness is used in all sins. For we find it too much by experience, how often we fall with our good intent. Our reason is overwhelmed with so many sorts of being deceived, is subject to so many errors, stumbles at so many stays, is entangled with so many straits, that it is far from sure directing. But how little it is esteemed before the Lord in all parts of our life, Paul shows when he says, that we are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves. He speaks not of will or affection, but he takes also this away from us, that we should not think that it can come in our minds how anything is to be done well. Is our diligence, insight, understanding, and head so corrupted, that it can devise or think upon nothing that is right before the Lord? That seems too hard to us, that do unwillingly suffer ourselves to be stripped of the sharpness of reason, which we account a most precious gift. But to the Holy Ghost it seems most full of equity, which knows that all the thoughts of wise men are vain: and which pronounces plainly, that all the invention of man's heart, is only evil. If all that our wit conceives, devises upon, purposes and goes about, is always evil, how can it come in our minds to purpose that which pleases God, to whom only holiness and righteousness is acceptable? So is it to be seen, that the reason of our mind, whichever way it turns itself, is miserably subject to vanity. David knew this weakness in himself, when he prayed to have understanding given him, to learn the Lord's commandments aright. For he [reconstructed: secretly] says therein, that his own wit suffices him not, which desires to have a new one given him. And that he does not only once, but almost ten times, in one Psalm, he repeats the same prayer. By which repeating he privately declares, with how great need he is driven to pray it. And that which he prays for himself alone, Paul commonly uses to pray for the churches. We cease not (says he) to pray for you, and to desire that you may be filled with the knowledge of God in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthily of God, etc. But as often as he makes that thing the good gift of God, let us remember that he does also testify, that it lies not in man's power. And Augustine so far acknowledged this defect of reason to understand those things that are of God, that he thinks the grace of illumination to be no less necessary for our minds, than the light of the sun is for our eyes. And not content with that, he adds a correction of that, saying, that we lift up our eyes to see the light: but the eyes of our mind lie shut, unless the Lord open them. And the Scripture teaches that our minds are not enlightened one day alone, that they may afterward see by themselves: for that which I even now alleged out of Paul, belongs to continual progress and increases. And this does David expressly set out in these words: With my whole heart I have sought you, make me not to stray from your commandments. For when he had been regenerated and had not little profited in true godliness, yet he confesses, that for every moment he needs continual direction, lest he should swerve from the knowledge with which he is endowed. Therefore, in another place he prays to have the right spirit renewed, which he had lost by his own fault, because it belongs to the same God to restore to us the same thing being lost for a time, which he himself gave at the beginning.

Now is will to be examined, wherein stands the chief liberty of free choice, for it has been already seen, that choice does rather belong to will, than to understanding. First that this thing which the Philosophers have taught, and is received with common consent, that is, that all things by natural instinct desire that which is good, may not seem to belong to the uprightness of man's will: let us mark that the force of free will, is not to be considered in such appetite, as rather proceeds of the inclination of the essence, than of the advisement of the understanding mind. For even the Schoolmen do confess, that free will has no action, but when reason turns itself to objects, whereby they mean that the object of appetite must be such as may be subject to choice, and go before deliberation, which prepares the way for choice. And truly, if a man consider what is that natural desire of good in man, he shall find that it is common to him with beasts. For they also desire to be well, and when any show of good appears that moves their sense, they follow it. But man does neither choose by reason, that he may follow with diligence that thing, which is indeed good for him, according to the excellence of his immortal nature, nor takes reason to counsel, nor bends his mind, but without reason, without counsel, like a beast, follows the inclination of nature. This therefore makes nothing for the freedom of will, if a man by sense of nature be carried to desire that which is good: but this is requisite, that he discern good by right reason, and when he has known it, that he choose it, and when he has chosen it, that he follow it. But lest any man should doubt, there is to be noted a double Sophistical argument. For Appetite is not here called the proper manner of will, but a natural inclination: and Good is called not as of virtue or justice, but of estate, as we say, This man is well, or in good case. Finally, although a man [reconstructed: go] never so much desire to attain that which is good, yet he follows it not. As there is no man to whom eternal blessedness is not pleasant, yet is there none that aspires to it, but by the moving of the Holy Ghost. Therefore since the natural desire in men to be well, makes nothing to prove the freedom of will, no more than in metals and stones, does the affection inclining to the perfection of their substance: let us consider in other things, whether will be so infected and corrupted in all parts, that it engenders nothing but evil: or whether it keeps still any parcel unhurt from where do grow good desires.

Those that attribute to the first grace of God, that we will effectively seem, on the other side say secretly that there is in the soul a power of itself to aspire to good, but it is so weak that it cannot grow to a perfect affection, or raise up any endeavor. And there is no doubt that the Schoolmen have commonly embraced this opinion, which was borrowed from Origen and certain of the old writers: inasmuch as they are accustomed to consider man in pure natural things (as they term it), such a one as the Apostle describes in these words: I do not the good that I would, but the evil that I would not, that I do. To will is present to me, but to perform it, I find not. But after this manner the discourse that Paul there follows is altogether wrongfully perverted. For he treats of the Christian wrestling (which he briefly touches on to the Galatians), which the faithful continually feel within themselves, in the battle of the flesh and the spirit. But the spirit is not of nature, but of regeneration. And that the Apostle does there speak of the regenerate appears by this, that when he had said that there dwells no goodness in him, he adds an exposition, that he means it of his flesh. And therefore he says that it is not he that does the evil, but sin that dwells in him. What does this correction mean — in me, that is, in my flesh? Even as much as if he had said thus: God dwells not in me of myself, for there is no good to be found in my flesh. Hereupon follows that manner of excuse: I myself do not the evil, but sin that dwells in me. Which excuse belongs only to the regenerate, who with the chief part of their soul tend toward good. Now, the conclusion that is adjoined after declares all this matter evidently. I am delighted (says he) with the law, according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind. Who has such a striving in himself, but he that being regenerate by the Spirit of God, carries the leavings of his flesh about with him? Therefore Augustine, whereas once he had thought that this had been spoken of the nature of man, revoked his exposition as false, and ill agreeing together. And truly, if we allow this, that men without grace have some motions to good, though they be but small, what shall we answer to the Apostle who says that we are not sufficient so much as to think anything? What shall we answer to the Lord who pronounces by Moses, that every invention of man's heart is only evil? Therefore, since they have stumbled by false taking of one place, there is no cause why we should stay upon their judgment. Let rather this saying of Christ prevail: He that does sin, is the servant of sin. We are all sinners by nature, therefore we are all held under the yoke of sin. Now if whole man be subject to the dominion of sin, then it must needs be that the will itself, which is the chief seat thereof, be bound fast with most straight bonds. For otherwise that saying of Paul would not stand together, that it is God who works will in us, if any will did go before the grace of the Holy Spirit. Away therefore with all that many have triflingly spoken concerning preparation. For although sometimes the faithful do pray to have their heart formed to the obedience of the law, as David does in many places, yet it is to be noted that even that desire of praying is from God. Which we may gather from his words; for when he wishes to have a clean heart created within him, surely he does not take on himself the beginning of creation. Therefore let rather this saying of Augustine have place with us: God will prevent you in all things — and sometimes prevent his wrath. How? Confess that you have all these things of God: that whatever good you have is of him; whatever evil, it is of yourself. And a little after: Nothing is ours but sin.

We have seen that sin's dominion — ever since it first enslaved the first man — not only reigns throughout all of humanity but fully possesses every soul. Now we must examine more closely whether, in being brought into this bondage, we are stripped of all freedom — and if any remains, how far its power extends. To help the truth of this question become clear, I will set up a guiding principle for the whole discussion. The best way to avoid error is to consider the dangers that lie on both sides. If man is declared to have lost all uprightness, he will immediately take that as an excuse for laziness — and because it is said he can do nothing on his own toward righteousness, he neglects it entirely as though it had nothing to do with him. On the other hand, if he is allowed to claim even the smallest credit for himself, he robs God of His honor and ruins himself through reckless self-confidence. To avoid both dangers, this is the course to take: let man be told that no goodness remains in him and that he is surrounded on every side by desperate necessity — and yet let him be taught to desire the goodness he lacks and the freedom of which he has been deprived. This should stir him more urgently from laziness than any flattering fiction about the great powers he possesses. The importance of the second point is obvious to everyone. The first point, I notice, is doubted by more people than it should be. Once that is settled beyond dispute, this truth should stand firm: nothing must be left to man that would allow him to boast about himself, since he must be brought down from false self-glorification. If man was not permitted to glory in himself even at the time when God had adorned him with the most remarkable gifts, how much more ought he to be humbled now, after ingratitude has plunged him from high glory into utter shame? At that time, when man was elevated to the highest dignity, Scripture attributes nothing to him except that he was created in God's image — which quietly teaches that man was blessed not through anything of his own but through his sharing in God. What then remains now, except that, naked and stripped of all glory, he acknowledge God — the One to whom he was not grateful when he overflowed with the riches of His grace — and that now, confessing his own poverty, he glorify the One he failed to glorify when recognizing His gifts? It serves our good just as much as it serves God's glory that all praise of wisdom and strength be taken from us. Those who attribute anything more to us than the truth warrants join our ruin to the robbery of God. What else happens when we are taught to fight through our own strength, except that we are lifted up on a reed staff that immediately snaps and sends us crashing to the ground? And yet even that comparison gives our strength too much credit — for all that vain people have imagined and babble about human power is nothing but smoke. Augustine therefore rightly repeated this memorable statement: that free will is not established but destroyed by those who defend it. I thought it necessary to say this as a kind of preface, for the sake of those who, when they hear that man's power is being demolished so that God's power may be built up in man, are inclined to view this approach as dangerous — or at least unnecessary. It will become clear, however, that this discussion is both necessary for religion and of great benefit to us.

We said earlier that the powers of the soul are seated in the mind and in the heart. Now let us consider what each is able to do. The philosophers are nearly unanimous in their view of the mind: they imagine that reason sits enthroned within it, illuminating all thought like a lamp and governing the will like a queen. They hold that reason is endowed with divine light so that it can give sound counsel, and that it possesses such lively energy that it can govern well. The senses, on the other hand, they regard as dull and dim-sighted, always crawling on the ground, wallowing in material things, and never lifting themselves to true insight. As for appetite: if it submits to reason rather than surrendering to the senses, it is carried toward the pursuit of virtue, stays on the right path, and is transformed into will. But if it gives itself over to the senses, it is corrupted and perverted by them and degenerates into lust. In their view, then, the soul contains three powers: understanding, sense, and appetite or will — the word 'will' being the more common term now. They say that the understanding is endowed with reason, the best guide toward a good and blessed life, as long as it remains within its own proper excellence and exercises its natural force. The lower motion they call sense — whereby a person is drawn into error and deception — can, they say, be tamed by the discipline of reason and gradually overcome. They place the will between reason and sense as an independent faculty, free to choose whether it will obey reason or surrender itself to be carried away by the senses.

The philosophers do sometimes acknowledge — compelled by sheer experience — how difficult it is for reason to maintain its rule as queen within a person, who is at one moment lured by the temptations of pleasure, at another deceived by the false appearance of good things, and at another violently dragged off course by unruly passions, like a man pulled by ropes of sinew — as Plato puts it. Cicero says for the same reason that the sparks of virtue given by nature are quickly extinguished by corrupt opinions and evil habits. When such diseases have once taken hold in human minds, they admit that they overflow so violently that they cannot easily be restrained — and they do not hesitate to compare them to wild horses that throw off reason as though tossing the driver from the chariot, running wild without limit or control. But they have no doubt that virtues and vices are in our own power. Their reasoning: if it is in our choice to do a thing, then it is also in our choice not to do it. And if it is in our choice not to do it, then it is also in our choice to do it. We seem to do freely what we do, and to refrain freely from what we refrain. Therefore, if we choose to do good, we could equally leave it undone; if we do evil, we could equally avoid it. Some of them have gone so far in this direction as to boast that it is God's gift that we live, but our own achievement that we live well and righteously. From this comes the saying of Cicero, spoken through the character of Cotta: since every man acquires virtue for himself, no wise man has ever thanked God for it. 'For virtue,' he says, 'we are praised, and in virtue we glory — which would not be so if virtue were God's gift rather than our own.' And a little later he adds: 'This is the common judgment of all people — that good fortune is to be asked from God, but wisdom is to be obtained by oneself.' This, then, is the core of the philosophers' position: the reason within man's mind is sufficient to govern him rightly. The will, subject to reason, is drawn toward evil by the senses. But since the will has free choice, nothing prevents it from following reason as its guide in all things.

Among the church writers, while none of them failed to acknowledge that sin has seriously wounded man's reason and thoroughly entangled his will in corrupt desires, many of them gave too much ground to the philosophers. The early writers, I think, elevated man's strength for two reasons: first, so as not to give the philosophers — with whom they were then engaged in debate — grounds for ridicule; and second, so as not to give the flesh, which was already sluggish toward good, a new excuse for laziness. Because they were unwilling to teach anything that sounded absurd by common human standards, they tried to make Scripture's teaching halfway agree with the philosophers. But that their primary concern was the second point — avoiding the encouragement of laziness — is clear from their own words. Chrysostom writes in one place: 'Because God has placed both good and evil things within our own power, He has given us freedom of choice, and He does not compel the unwilling but welcomes the willing.' And again: 'Often the one who is evil, if he wills it, is turned to good, and the one who is good falls into evil through laziness — because God made our nature to have free will. He does not impose necessity on us, but providing suitable remedies, He leaves all to lie in the disposition of the patient.' And again: 'Just as without being helped by God's grace we can never do anything good, so unless we bring what is our own, we cannot obtain God's favor.' He had said earlier that God's help would not be everything — we too must contribute something. His familiar refrain was: 'Let us bring what is ours; God will supply the rest.' Jerome agrees: 'It is our part to begin, but God's to bring to completion; our part to offer what we can, His to fulfill what we cannot.' You can see that in these statements they attributed more to man in the pursuit of virtue than was fitting, because they thought the only way to shake off the natural sluggishness of human beings was to prove that they sin purely by their own choice. How well they handled this will be examined later. For now, it is enough to say that the statements we have just cited are completely false — as will shortly be shown. Although the Greeks exceeded others in exalting the power of human will — and Chrysostom above all — still all the early writers except Augustine are so inconsistent, wavering, or ambiguous on this point that almost no firm conclusion can be drawn from them. We will therefore not attempt a thorough survey of all their statements but will draw from each of them only as much as the plain presentation of the matter seems to require. As for the later writers: each one, in pursuit of personal praise for defending human nature, gradually slipped further and further until it became commonly accepted that man was corrupted only in his sensual part, while his reason remained entirely sound and his will largely intact. Meanwhile the phrase 'the natural gifts were corrupted in man and the supernatural taken away' circulated on everyone's lips — but scarcely one in a hundred truly understood what it meant. For my part, if I simply wanted to describe the nature of corruption, I could be content with those words. But it matters greatly to carefully weigh what a man — corrupted in every part of his nature and stripped of his supernatural gifts — is actually capable of doing. Those who claimed to be disciples of Christ spoke about this too much like philosophers. The term 'free will' continued to be used among Latin writers as if man still remained in his uncorrupted state. The Greek writers were not ashamed to use an even more arrogant expression, calling it autexousion — meaning 'of its own power' — as if man controlled himself by his own strength. Since this principle — that man is endowed with free will — has been received by nearly everyone, including the common people, and since even many who claim expertise cannot define how far it extends, let us first examine the meaning of the word itself, and then proceed from the simplicity of Scripture to show what man is capable of on his own in matters of good and evil. As for the definition of free will: while the phrase appears in nearly all writers, few have defined it carefully. Origen seems to have stated the common understanding when he said it is the power of reason to distinguish between good and evil, and the power of will to choose either. Augustine does not differ from him when he teaches that it is a power of reason and will by which good is chosen when grace assists, and evil when grace is absent. Bernard, attempting to be more precise, speaks more obscurely: he says free will is a consent arising from the will's freedom — which cannot be lost — and from reason's judgment — which can go astray. Anselm's definition is less familiar: he calls it a power to maintain uprightness for its own sake. Peter Lombard and the other scholastic theologians preferred Augustine's definition because it was clearer and did not exclude God's grace, without which they recognized the will is not sufficient on its own. They also added their own refinements, which they thought were either improvements or contributed to clearer expression. First, they agreed that the term arbitrium — 'free choice' — refers primarily to reason, whose task is to distinguish between good and evil, while the word 'free' properly applies to the will, which can turn in either direction. Since freedom properly belongs to the will, Thomas Aquinas says it would be quite fitting to call free will a power of choosing that, being a mixture of understanding and appetite, leans more toward appetite. So we now know what they hold the power of free will to consist in — namely, reason and will. It remains to see briefly how much they attribute to each.

The common practice is to leave to man's free determination things that are morally neutral — that is, matters that do not belong to the kingdom of God — while referring true righteousness to the special grace of God and spiritual regeneration. The author of the book On the Calling of the Gentiles, in trying to make this clear, lists three kinds of will: the first sensitive, the second natural, and the third spiritual. He says that man possesses the first two by his own liberty, while the last is the work of the Holy Spirit in man. Whether this is accurate will be examined in its proper place; my purpose here is only to briefly summarize the views of others, not to refute them. From this approach it follows that when writers discuss free will, they are primarily concerned not with what it can do in civil or external affairs, but with what it can do in obeying God's law. I regard the latter as the main question, while not dismissing the former — and I trust I will give good reason for this. The schools have accepted a distinction that identifies three kinds of freedom: freedom from necessity, freedom from sin, and freedom from misery. The first is so naturally fixed in man that it can never be taken away; the other two were lost through sin. I accept this distinction, except that necessity is wrongly confused with compulsion — a distinction that is important and will be addressed in another place.

If this is accepted, then it will be beyond dispute that man does not have free will to do good unless he is helped by grace — and specifically by that special grace given only to the elect through regeneration. I will not concern myself with those frenzied people who babble that grace is offered indiscriminately to all. But what remains uncertain is whether man is entirely stripped of the power to do good, or whether he retains some small, weak capacity that can do nothing on its own but can still contribute something when aided by grace. In trying to settle this question, Peter Lombard identifies two kinds of grace that are necessary for us to perform a good work. The first he calls working grace, by which we effectively will to do good. The second is cooperating grace, which follows and assists that good will. In this division I find one thing troubling: by attributing to God's grace the effective desire for good, Lombard subtly implies that man already has some natural, if ineffective, desire for good on his own. Bernard similarly holds that good will is indeed God's work, yet grants man this: that he himself moves first toward that good will by his own initiative. But this is far from Augustine's meaning, even though Lombard claims to have drawn this distinction from him. In the second part of the division, the vagueness of language has given rise to a wrong interpretation. People concluded from it that we cooperate with God's second grace in this sense: it lies in our power either to nullify the first grace by rejecting it, or to confirm it by obediently following it. The author of On the Calling of the Gentiles expresses it this way: those who exercise the judgment of reason are free to depart from grace, so that it is worthy of reward not to have departed; and what could only be accomplished by the cooperation of the Holy Spirit may be credited to the merit of the one who could have chosen not to cooperate. I mention these two points in passing, so that the reader may see how far I differ even from the most careful of the scholastic theologians — and how much further still from the later ones, who have drifted even further from the early tradition. Still, we can gather from this distinction in what way they have attributed free will to man. In the end, Lombard says we do not have free will in the sense of being equally able to choose good and evil, but only in the sense that we are free from compulsion — a freedom that remains even though we are perverse and enslaved to sin and can do nothing but sin.

Man will therefore be said to have free will in this limited sense: not that he freely chooses between good and evil, but that he does evil voluntarily, not by compulsion. That is well said — but why dress such a small thing in such an impressive title? Fine freedom indeed, if man is not compelled to serve sin — while he is still a willing servant whose will is firmly shackled by sin's chains. I despise word-fights that needlessly exhaust the church. But I think certain words must be carefully avoided when they strongly suggest something false, especially when the error is harmful. How many people, upon hearing that free will is attributed to man, will fail to immediately conclude that he is master of both his mind and his will, and fully able to direct himself wherever he pleases? Someone might say: this danger can be removed by carefully explaining the meaning to people. But in fact, since the human mind is naturally bent toward falsehood, a person will sooner pick up an error from a single word than a truth from a lengthy explanation. We have more experience of this in this very word than we could wish. For, leaving aside the careful qualifications of the early writers, nearly all those who came after them — by clinging to the natural meaning of the word 'free will' — have been swept into a self-confidence that leads to their ruin.

If the authority of the church fathers carries weight, they do use the phrase 'free will' continually — but their own explanations reveal how little they value it. Augustine himself does not hesitate to call it 'bound will.' In one place he objects to those who deny free will, but his stated reason is telling: 'Let no one be so bold as to deny free will to the point of trying to excuse sin.' But in another place he confesses that man's will is not free without the Holy Spirit, since it is subject to lusts that bind and conquer it. Again: 'When will was overcome by sin, in which it fell, human nature began to lose its freedom.' Again: 'Having misused his free will, man lost both himself and it.' Again: 'Free will has become captive and can do nothing toward righteousness.' Again: 'It cannot be free unless God's grace sets it free.' Again: 'God's justice is not fulfilled when the law commands and man obeys by his own strength, but when the Holy Spirit helps and man's will — not free by nature but freed by God — obeys.' He summarizes all of this in another place: man received great power of free will when he was created, but he lost it through sin. Having established that free will is set right only by grace, Augustine then sharply rebukes those who claim it without grace. 'Why then,' he says, 'do wretched people dare to boast of free will before they have been set free — or of their own strength after they have been?' 'And do they not notice that in the very name free will there is a reference to freedom?' 'But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.' 'If then they are slaves to sin, why do they boast of free will?' 'For a person is bound to whatever has overcome him.' 'But if they have been set free, why do they boast as if it were their own achievement?' 'Are they so free that they refuse to be servants of the One who says: Without Me you can do nothing?' In another place he seems to mock the term playfully, saying that the will was indeed free, but not freed — free from righteousness, but the slave of sin. He repeats and explains this elsewhere: man is not free from righteousness except by the choice of will, and not free from sin except by the grace of the Savior. One who testifies that man's freedom is nothing other than freedom from righteousness seems to be ironically mocking the empty title. Therefore, if anyone wishes to use the word 'free will' without a harmful meaning, I will not fight over it. But because I believe it cannot be used without great danger, and that abolishing it would be a great benefit to the church, I will not use it myself — and I would advise others, if they ask my opinion, to avoid it as well.

I may seem to have put myself at a disadvantage by admitting that all the church writers except Augustine have spoken so inconsistently or ambiguously on this matter that no firm conclusion can be drawn from them. Some will take this to mean that I am dismissing them all because they are against me. My intention was nothing of the sort. I simply wanted to warn sincere readers in good faith: if they rely on those writers' opinions on this point, they will find themselves constantly wavering. Sometimes those writers teach that man, stripped of all power of free will, must flee to grace alone; sometimes they seem to equip him with his own weapons. But it is not hard to show that in all their ambiguity they thought little or nothing of man's own strength and gave all the credit for good things to the Holy Spirit — if I cite a few of their statements that teach this plainly. What else does Cyprian mean — a saying Augustine repeats so often — that 'we ought to glory in nothing, because we have nothing of our own,' so that man, entirely stripped in himself, may learn to depend wholly on God? What do Augustine and Eucherius mean when they explain that Christ is the tree of life — and that whoever reaches out to Him will live — and that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the free choice of will, so that whoever tastes of it forsakes God's grace and dies? What does Chrysostom mean when he says that every person is by nature not only a sinner but entirely sin? If we have no goodness of our own, if man from head to toe is nothing but sin, if it is not even legitimate to test how much free will can accomplish on its own — then how can it be right to divide the credit for a good work between God and man? I could gather many more such quotations from other writers, but I refrain, lest anyone accuse me of cherry-picking favorable statements and craftily leaving out those that go against me. Yet this I will affirm: however much those writers may sometimes press the claims of free will, their intended goal was to teach man to turn completely away from trust in his own power and to place all his strength in God alone. Now I come to the plain presentation of the truth as I consider the nature of man.

I am compelled here to repeat what I said as a preface at the beginning of this chapter. The more deeply a person is humbled and cast down by his awareness of his own misery, poverty, nakedness, and shame, the more he has profited in self-knowledge. There is no danger of a person thinking too little of himself, as long as he understands that what he lacks must be recovered in God. But if he claims even the smallest thing for himself beyond what is truly his, he destroys himself with vain confidence and, by stealing God's honor for himself, becomes guilty of serious sacrilege. Whenever the desire to possess something of our own — something that rests in ourselves rather than in God — invades our minds, we should know that this thought comes from no other source than the one who persuaded our first parents to desire to be like God, knowing both good and evil. If that desire is the devil's word, let us give it no room — unless we wish to take counsel from our enemy. It is pleasant, of course, to imagine having such strength of our own that we could rest in ourselves. But let the many solemn warnings of Scripture drive away this vain confidence: 'Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength' (Jeremiah 17:5). Again: God takes no pleasure in the strength of a horse, nor delight in the legs of a man, but delights in those who fear Him and hope in His mercy. Again: He gives power to the faint and strength to those who have none; even young men grow tired and stumble, but those who wait on the Lord renew their strength. All these sayings point to the same conclusion: we must not rest on any confidence in our own strength, however small, if we want God to be favorable to us — for He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Then let these promises come to mind: 'I will pour out water on the thirsty and floods on dry ground.' And: 'Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters.' These promises testify that only those who are consumed by the feeling of their own poverty are admitted to receive God's blessings. Nor should we pass over this promise from Isaiah: 'You will no longer have the sun for light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you — for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and God will be your glory.' The Lord does not literally take away sun and moonlight from His servants — but because He alone will appear glorious in them, He calls their confidence away even from the things they consider most excellent.

The saying of Chrysostom has always pleased me greatly: that the foundation of our wisdom is humility. But even more so the saying of Augustine: 'Just as when a certain rhetorician was asked what was the first rule of eloquence, he answered: delivery; and the second: delivery; and the third: delivery — so if anyone asks me what are the rules of the Christian life, I would answer first, second, and third: humility.' By humility he does not mean the kind where a man, knowing he has some small virtue, merely restrains his pride. He means the kind where a person truly feels himself to be one who has no refuge except in humility — as he explains in another place. 'Let no man flatter himself: of his own he is a devil.' 'Whatever makes him blessed he has from God alone.' 'For what do you have of your own but sin?' 'Take away from yourself sin, which is your own, for righteousness belongs to God.' And again: 'Why is so much presumed upon the possibilities of nature?' 'It is wounded, maimed, vexed, and lost; it needs a true confession, not a false defense.' And again: 'When every man knows that in himself he is nothing and has no help in himself, his weapons are broken and the fighting stops.' 'But it is necessary that all the weapons of wickedness be broken, shattered, and burned, so that you remain unarmed and find no help in yourself.' 'The weaker you are in yourself, the more the Lord receives you.' Commenting on Psalm 70, he forbids us to rely on our own righteousness so that we may acknowledge the righteousness of God. He shows that God commends His grace to us by teaching us that we are nothing in ourselves, that we stand only by the mercy of God, since apart from Him we are nothing but evil. Let us not therefore contend with God over our rights, as if giving Him the glory somehow diminishes our salvation. For as our humility is His exaltation, so the confession of our humility finds His mercy ready as a remedy. I do not require that a person who is not yet convinced should willingly surrender — or that if he believes he has any ability, he should force his mind to suppress it in order to practice true humility. Rather, I ask that, laying aside the disease of self-love and the desire to win arguments — the very things that blind him into thinking too highly of himself — he look honestly at himself in the true mirror of Scripture.

The common statement borrowed from Augustine also pleases me well: that the natural gifts were corrupted in man by sin, and the supernatural gifts were taken away entirely. By supernatural gifts they mean the light of faith and righteousness — the things that were sufficient for attaining eternal life and heavenly felicity. When man banished himself from the kingdom of God, he was stripped of the spiritual gifts with which he had been equipped for the hope of eternal salvation. It follows that, having been banished from God's kingdom, everything belonging to the soul's blessed life has been extinguished in him, until he recovers it through the grace of regeneration. These gifts include faith, the love of God, love toward neighbors, and the pursuit of holiness and righteousness. Because Christ restores all these to us, they are reckoned as gifts that come to us from outside and are beyond nature — which confirms that they were once taken away. Along with this, soundness of understanding and uprightness of heart were also lost — this is the corruption of the natural gifts. Although some measure of understanding and will remains, we cannot say our understanding is sound and complete, since it is both weak and submerged in many kinds of darkness. And as for our will, its perversity is more than sufficiently evident. Since reason — by which a person distinguishes good from evil, understands, and makes judgments — is a natural gift, it could not be entirely destroyed, but it was partly weakened and partly corrupted, so that ugly ruins of it are visible. In this sense John says that the light still shines in darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. In these words both things are plainly expressed: that in man's perverted and fallen nature, there still shine some sparks showing that he is a rational creature distinct from animals — yet this light is so smothered by thick ignorance that it cannot break through effectively. Similarly, the will — because it is inseparable from human nature — did not perish entirely, but it became bound to corrupt desires, so that it can crave nothing good. This is a complete summary, though it requires further explanation. Following the distinction we made between the soul's understanding and its will, let us first examine the power of understanding. To condemn it as entirely and perpetually blind, leaving it no capacity for knowledge of any kind, contradicts both Scripture and the plain experience of common sense. We can see that a desire for truth has been planted in man — a desire he would never have at all unless he had already tasted something of it. This natural love of truth is one mark of man's understanding, and the fact that animals lack it shows their brute, unreasoning nature. Yet even this small desire fades before it can properly begin — it quickly turns to vanity. For man's mind, in its dullness, cannot hold to the right path in searching out truth but wanders off into various errors, and — as if groping in darkness — frequently stumbles until at last it loses its way entirely. So in the very act of seeking truth, it reveals how unfit it is to find it. It is also troubled by another kind of perversity: it often fails to recognize what subjects are truly worth knowing, and so torments itself with foolish curiosity about useless and worthless things. The things most necessary to know either receive no attention, or receive it rarely and carelessly, and almost never with genuine effort. Non-Christian writers commonly complain about this same perversity, and it is clear that all people have fallen into it. This is why Solomon, after going through in Ecclesiastes all the fields of study in which men think themselves wise, pronounces them all vanity and meaningless pursuit.

Yet intellectual efforts are not always wasted — the mind does attain something, especially when it bends itself toward earthly matters. It is not so dull as to fail to taste something of higher things as well — though it applies itself to those more carelessly and with less power of comprehension. When the mind is carried up beyond the scope of this present life, it is especially then that it is exposed as weak. To see more clearly how far the mind's ability extends in different areas, it is helpful to make a distinction. Let this be the distinction: there is one kind of understanding for earthly things, and another for heavenly things. By earthly things I mean those that have nothing to do with God and His kingdom, true righteousness, or the blessedness of eternal life — things that concern only this present life and are, so to speak, contained within its boundaries. By heavenly things I mean the pure knowledge of God, the order of true righteousness, and the mysteries of the heavenly kingdom. Earthly things include civil government, the management of households, all the trades and crafts, and the liberal arts and sciences. Heavenly things include the knowledge of God and His will, and the rule for shaping our lives according to that will. Concerning earthly things, this much must be acknowledged: because man is by nature a social creature, he is also by natural instinct inclined to nurture and maintain the bonds of society. We therefore find that the minds of all people share certain universal impressions of civil decency and order. From this it follows that there is no person who does not understand that human communities need to be governed by laws, and who does not grasp in his mind the basic principles of those laws. This is the source of the widespread and consistent agreement — found among all nations and all people — on laws: the seeds of those laws are naturally planted in everyone without any teacher or lawgiver. I attach little weight to the arguments and disputes that afterward arise when some people, driven by desire, seek to pervert law and justice — when lawless rulers substitute their personal will for right, acting like thieves and robbers, or when some (a very common fault) declare unjust what others have established as just, and stubbornly call praiseworthy what others have forbidden. Such people do not hate laws because they think laws are bad — they know well enough that laws are good and holy. Rather, they fight against plain reason because they are driven by headstrong desire, and they detest with their conduct what they approve with their minds. This kind of dispute does not remove the original understanding of equity. For even when people argue about specific points of law, they agree on a general standard of fairness. This shows both the weakness of human intellect — which halts and staggers even when it seems to be on the right path — and yet confirms that all people carry within them a seed of civic order. This is strong evidence that in managing the affairs of this life, no person is entirely without the light of reason.

Next come the arts — both the liberal arts and the trades. Since all people have some aptitude for learning these, they too reveal the power of human intellect. And while not everyone is equally suited for every art, it is clear evidence of a common natural capacity that nearly every person can demonstrate their intelligence in at least one area. People have not only the ability to learn an art but also to invent something new within it — either expanding or improving on what others before them had discovered. This fact led Plato to mistakenly teach that such understanding is nothing more than recollection from a previous existence. But it should rightly lead us to acknowledge instead that the starting point of this capacity is naturally planted in the human mind. These facts plainly testify that a universal capacity for reason and understanding has been given to people by nature. Yet this is so universal a benefit that each person should recognize in it the particular grace of God. The Creator Himself moves us to this gratitude by creating those born with severe mental limitations — showing us, in the contrast, what remarkable gifts the human soul possesses when endowed with His light. That light is natural to all people and yet entirely a free gift of His generosity to each one. The discovery and systematic teaching of the arts, or the deeper and more excellent knowledge of them that belongs only to a few, is not the most reliable evidence of this common intellectual capacity. But since these gifts are distributed without distinction to both believers and unbelievers, they are rightly counted among natural gifts.

Whenever, therefore, we come across non-Christian writers, let the remarkable light of truth shining in them remind us that the human mind, however perverted and fallen from its original integrity, is still clothed with excellent gifts of God. If we consider that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will neither refuse nor despise truth wherever it appears — unless we are willing to dishonor the Spirit of God Himself, for the gifts of the Holy Spirit cannot be taken lightly without contempt and reproach toward Him. How then? Shall we deny that truth shone in the ancient lawgivers who established civil order and justice with such remarkable fairness? Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their careful contemplation and precise description of nature? Shall we say they had no understanding who, by systematically developing rhetoric, taught us to speak with reason? Shall we say those who devoted their energies to natural science for our benefit were foolish? What of all the mathematical disciplines? Shall we dismiss them as the ravings of madmen? No — we cannot read the writings of the ancient thinkers on these subjects without great admiration for their intelligence. But shall we think anything praiseworthy or excellent without acknowledging that it comes from God? Let us be ashamed of such ingratitude — a failure that even the pagan poets avoided, since they acknowledged that philosophy, law, and all the useful arts were inventions of the gods. Since these men, whom Scripture calls natural men, had such sharp and penetrating insight into earthly matters, let their example teach us how many good things the Lord left in human nature even after it was stripped of the true God.

But let us not forget that these are excellent gifts of the Spirit of God, which He distributes for the common benefit of humanity to whomever He pleases. For if the understanding and skill required to construct the tabernacle had to be poured into Bezalel and Oholiab by the Spirit of God, it is no wonder that the knowledge underlying the most excellent human achievements is likewise said to come from the Spirit of God. And no one should ask what the wicked have to do with the Spirit of God, since they are entirely estranged from God. For when Scripture says the Spirit of God dwells only in the faithful, that refers to the Spirit of sanctification, by which we are consecrated to God to be His temples. Nevertheless, the same Spirit fills, moves, and animates all things according to the nature He has given to each kind by the law of creation. If it has been the Lord's will that we benefit from the work of unbelievers in natural philosophy, logic, mathematics, and other disciplines — let us make use of it. To neglect the gifts God has graciously provided through them would be to invite just punishment for our laziness. Yet lest anyone think a person is truly blessed merely because God has granted such great intellectual capacity in earthly matters, we must add this: all this power of understanding, and whatever knowledge follows from it, is fleeting and worthless before God where there is no firm foundation of truth. For Augustine teaches most truly — and as we have noted, Peter Lombard and the scholastic theologians were compelled to agree — that just as the free gifts were taken from man at the fall, the natural gifts that remained were also corrupted. Not that they are defiled in themselves insofar as they come from God, but because they cease to be pure in a defiled man, so that he has no ground for boasting in them.

Let this be the summary: reason is found in all of humanity as something proper to our nature, and it is what distinguishes us from animals, just as animals' sense perception distinguishes them from inanimate things. The fact that some people are born with severe cognitive limitations does not obscure this general grace of God. Rather, such cases remind us that whatever remains in us is rightly attributed to God's kindness — for if He had not spared us, our rebellion would have brought the destruction of our entire nature. As for the differences among people — some excelling in sharpness of mind, others surpassing in judgment, and others learning particular arts more quickly — in this variety God displays His grace so that no one can claim as his own what flows entirely from God's free generosity. How does one person excel over another, except that God's special grace appears in some more than in others within a shared human nature — and by passing many over, He makes plain that He owes this to no one? Furthermore, God pours special impulses into people according to their individual calling. We see many examples of this in the book of Judges, where it says the Spirit of the Lord moved those He called to rule the people. Likewise, every noble art carries with it a special kind of inspiration. This is why the men of valor who followed Saul were those whose hearts God had touched. When Samuel prophesied about Saul's role in governing the kingdom, he said: 'The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will be a different man.' This continued throughout David's reign as well — it is recorded that the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. The same is said elsewhere regarding particular impulses. Even Homer says that men excel in understanding not only according to what Zeus has allotted to each man, but also as the moment requires. And experience confirms this: when men of the sharpest minds are at times left bewildered and at a loss, it shows that human intellect is in the hand and will of God to direct at every moment. For this reason Scripture says He takes understanding away from the wise, so that they wander from the path. Yet in all this diversity we still see traces of the image of God remaining, which set all of humanity apart from every other creature.

Now we must examine what human reason can see when it comes to the kingdom of God and spiritual understanding — which consists chiefly in three things: knowing God, knowing His fatherly favor toward us in which our salvation consists, and knowing how to shape our lives according to the rule of His law. In the first two areas especially, even the most brilliant minds are blinder than moles. I do not deny that philosophers have here and there said many things about God that are well and aptly expressed — but they always carry the flavor of a dizzy imagination. The Lord did give them, as noted above, a small taste of His divine nature, so they could not plead ignorance to cover their ungodliness. He often moved them to speak things by which they themselves could be convicted. But they saw what they saw in such a way that this seeing did not direct them to the truth, much less bring them to it. It is like a traveler in an open field who for a brief instant sees a wide flash of lightning in the night — but the sight vanishes so quickly that he is plunged back into darkness before he can even move his foot, let alone find his way. And besides, those small drops of truth sprinkled as if by accident throughout their books — how thoroughly are they contaminated by massive and monstrous falsehoods? Finally, they never so much as caught a scent of that assurance of God's good will toward us, without which the human mind must inevitably be filled with endless confusion. Therefore, human reason neither approaches nor moves toward this truth — it does not even direct its gaze toward understanding who the true God is, or what He intends toward us.

But because we are so drunk with a false persuasion of our own deep insight that we are very reluctant to accept that in matters of God the mind is utterly blind and dull, I think it is better to establish this from the testimony of Scripture rather than from arguments alone. John teaches this plainly in the passage I just cited, where he writes that life was in God from the beginning, that the same life is the light of men, that the light shines in the darkness, and that the darkness has not understood it (John 1:4). He shows that man's soul is illuminated by the brightness of God's light, so that it is never entirely without some small flame or at least some spark of it — and yet that by such light man does not comprehend God. Why not? Because man's natural intellect, when it comes to the knowledge of God, is mere darkness. For when the Holy Spirit calls men 'darkness,' He at once strips them of all capacity for spiritual understanding. John then affirms that the faithful who receive Christ are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:13). As if he were saying: the flesh has no capacity for the high wisdom needed to comprehend God and the things of God, unless it is enlightened by the Spirit of God. Christ Himself testified to this when He told Peter that his recognition of Him was a special revelation from the Father (Matthew 16:17).

If we were fully convinced of what should be beyond all controversy — that our nature entirely lacks what our heavenly Father gives to His elect through the Spirit of regeneration — there would be no room for doubt. The faithful in the Psalms declare: 'With You is the fountain of life, and in Your light we see light.' The apostle confirms the same when he says that no one can call Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist, seeing the dullness of his disciples, cries out that no one can receive anything unless it is given to him from above. That he means by this a special illumination rather than a common gift of nature is clear from this: he complains that all his many words commending Christ to his disciples accomplished nothing. 'I see,' he says, 'that words cannot inform human minds about divine things unless the Lord gives understanding through His Spirit.' Moses too, when he rebukes the people for their forgetfulness, makes this same observation: they cannot grow wise in the mysteries of God except by God's gift. 'Your eyes have seen those great signs and wonders,' he says, 'and yet the Lord has not given you a heart to understand, nor ears to hear, nor eyes to see.' What more would he need to say in order to call us blocks of wood when it comes to understanding the works of God? Accordingly, God promises through the prophet as a great act of grace that He will give the Israelites a heart to know Him — showing that man's understanding is spiritually wise only to the degree that God enlightens it. Christ confirmed this plainly with His own words when He says that no one can come to Him unless it has been given to him by the Father. Is Christ not the living image of the Father, in whom the whole brilliance of God's glory is shown to us? Therefore He could not have shown our incapacity to know God more clearly than by saying that we have no eyes to see His image even when it is placed openly before us. Did He not come to earth precisely to declare His Father's will to people? And did He not faithfully carry out that task? Certainly. Yet His preaching accomplishes nothing unless the inward teacher — the Holy Spirit — opens the way into our minds. Therefore, only those who have been heard and taught by the Father come to Him. What kind of hearing and teaching is this? It is when the Holy Spirit, by a marvelous and unique power, forms the ears to hear and the mind to understand. So that this would not seem strange, Christ cites the prophecy of Isaiah, where God promises that in the restoration of the church, those gathered to salvation will be taught by the Lord. Since God there speaks of something particular to His elect, it is clear that He is not referring to the kind of learning that the wicked and ungodly share. It follows, then, that we must understand this: the way into the kingdom of God is open to no one except those to whom the Holy Spirit grants a new mind through His illumination. But Paul speaks most plainly of all. He deliberately takes up this subject, first condemning all human wisdom as foolish and worthless and demolishing it entirely, and then concludes: the natural man cannot accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are discerned spiritually. Who is the natural man? The one who depends on the light of nature. He, I say, grasps nothing in the spiritual mysteries of God. Why not? Is it because he is too lazy to try? No — even if he were to work extremely hard, he still could not do it, because these things are spiritually discerned. What does that mean? It means that, being entirely hidden from human understanding, they are opened only by the Spirit's revelation — so wherever the Spirit of God does not shine, they are regarded as foolishness. Paul had earlier established that what God has prepared for those who love Him lies beyond the reach of eyes, ears, and human minds. He also testified that human wisdom is a kind of veil that keeps the mind from seeing God. What can we say? The apostle declares that the wisdom of this world is made foolish by God — and shall we claim that this same wisdom has the sharpness to penetrate to the secret places of the heavenly kingdom? Far be such folly from us.

And so what Paul takes away from people in one passage he gives to God alone in another — in a prayer, saying: 'May the God and Father of glory give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation.' You hear that all wisdom and revelation is God's gift. What follows? 'And enlighten the eyes of your heart.' If they need a new revelation, they are therefore blind on their own — as Paul then goes on to say: 'that you may know what is the hope of your calling.' He therefore acknowledges that the human mind lacks the capacity to understand even its own calling. Let no Pelagian come here and chatter that God remedies this dullness simply by directing man's understanding through the teaching of His word where, without a guide, man could not have found his way. David had the law, in which all desirable wisdom was contained, and yet he was not content with that — he asked to have his eyes opened so that he might perceive the mysteries of that same law. By this he quietly says that the word of God is like the sun rising on the earth — but people gain little from it until the One who is rightly called the Father of lights gives or opens their eyes. Wherever He does not shine with His Spirit, everything remains in darkness. The apostles had been thoroughly and carefully taught by the best of all teachers — yet if they had not needed the Spirit of truth to instruct their minds in that very doctrine they had already heard, Christ would not have told them to wait for Him. If in asking something from God we thereby confess we lack it — and if God in promising it to us thereby declares our need — then let no one hesitate to confess that he can understand the mysteries of God only to the degree that God's grace has enlightened him. The person who claims greater understanding for himself is all the more blind for failing to acknowledge his own blindness.

Now remains the third area: knowing the rule for living rightly — what we rightly call the knowledge of the works of righteousness. Here man's mind seems somewhat sharper than in the other two areas. The apostle testifies that the Gentiles, who have no written law, do the works of the law and show that the law is written on their hearts — their consciences bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or excusing them before God's judgment. If the Gentiles have righteousness naturally engraved on their minds, we cannot say we are entirely blind when it comes to how life should be ordered. It is widely said that man, by the natural law of which Paul speaks in that passage, is sufficiently instructed in the right rule of life. But let us weigh the purpose for which this knowledge of the law is planted in men — and then it will quickly become apparent how far it actually brings them toward the goal of reason and truth. This is also clear from Paul's words, if one observes their context. He had just said that those who sinned having the law are judged by the law, while those who sinned without the law will perish without the law. Since this might seem unjust — that the Gentiles should perish without any prior judgment — he immediately adds that their conscience serves as a law for them and is therefore sufficient ground for their just condemnation. The purpose of the natural law, then, is to render man without excuse. It can be defined this way: it is knowledge of conscience that sufficiently distinguishes between just and unjust, so as to remove the pretense of ignorance from people who are convicted by their own testimony. Man is so tender toward himself that whenever he does evil, he turns his mind away from the feeling of sin as much as he can. This is apparently what moved Plato to think that no sin is committed except through ignorance. That would be fitting enough if human hypocrisy went so far in hiding vices that the mind might be entirely unaware of its guilt before God. But when the sinner who tries to escape the judgment stamped on his conscience is repeatedly pulled back to it — when he is not allowed to keep his eyes shut but is compelled, whether he likes it or not, to open them at times — it is simply wrong to say that he sins only through ignorance. Themistius speaks more accurately: he teaches that understanding is seldom truly deceived, but that blindness comes when it moves to the particular case. Everyone, when asked in general, will agree that murder is wrong. But a man who is plotting to kill his enemy thinks it over as though it were a good thing. The adulterer will condemn adultery in general, but privately flatters himself in his own case. This is the nature of this ignorance: when a man comes to the specific situation, he forgets the rule he just agreed to in the abstract. Augustine discusses this skillfully in his exposition of Psalm 57:1. Yet it is not always so, for sometimes the wickedness of the act presses so hard on the conscience that the person does not deceive himself with a false appearance of good — he runs knowingly and willingly into evil. From this impulse come such sayings as: 'I see the better and approve it, but I follow the worse.' Aristotle therefore made a very fitting distinction between incontinence and intemperance. Where incontinence rules, he says, the agitation of passion so clouds the mind that it fails to recognize the evil in its own specific act — even though it could see the same evil in a general case. Once the passion cools, remorse immediately follows. But intemperance is not extinguished or broken by the feeling of sin — on the contrary, it stubbornly persists in its settled choice of evil.

When you hear that people possess a general capacity to distinguish good from evil, do not assume this means their judgment is fully sound and complete. If the purpose of the moral knowledge in men's hearts is simply to prevent them from claiming ignorance, then they do not need to perceive the truth fully in every matter. It is sufficient — more than sufficient — that they understand enough that they cannot escape: convicted by the testimony of their own conscience, they already begin to tremble before God's judgment seat. And if we measure our reason by the standard of God's law — which is the model of true righteousness — we will find it blind in many ways. It fails entirely when it comes to the chief requirements of the first table of the law: trust in God, giving Him the honor of being all power and righteousness, calling on His name, and truly observing the Sabbath. What soul ever, by natural instinct, discerned that the lawful worship of God consists in these and similar things? When people without God's word set out to worship Him, though they are called away from their empty rituals a hundred times over, they always slip back into them. They do acknowledge that sacrifices cannot please God without purity of heart — showing that they have some sense of spiritual worship. But they immediately corrupt this insight with their own invented additions. And they can never be persuaded that all that the law prescribes on this subject is true. Should I call that a sharply intelligent mind which can neither find wisdom on its own nor receive instruction? In the commandments of the second table there is somewhat more understanding, to the degree that those commandments relate more closely to the maintenance of civil life among people. And yet even here human reason frequently fails. To a person with any proud sense of dignity, it seems utterly unreasonable to endure unjust and oppressive rule when it can be resisted — and in the common judgment of man, to bear it patiently is the mark of a servile and base spirit, while throwing it off is the sign of an honorable and free person. Likewise, revenge for injuries is not counted as a fault among the philosophers. But the Lord, condemning that so-called noble spirit, commands His people to maintain the very patience that the world despises. Furthermore, in all its concern with the law, human understanding pays no attention to the desires of the heart. A natural person simply will not allow himself to be brought to acknowledge the corrupt desires within him. The light of nature is extinguished before it ever reaches the entrance to that bottomless depth. For when philosophers identify unruly passions as faults, they mean the passions that burst out in obvious and visible ways — they take no account of the evil desires that quietly and gently stir within the mind.

Just as Plato was rightly criticized for attributing all sin to ignorance, so we must also reject the view that deliberate malice and stubbornness are present in all sins. Experience shows us all too often how frequently we fall with good intentions. Our reason is overwhelmed by so many forms of deception, subject to so many errors, stumbling at so many obstacles, and tangled in so many difficulties, that it is far from a reliable guide. How little it counts before the Lord in all areas of life is shown by Paul when he says that we are not sufficient even to think anything, as of ourselves. He is speaking not just of will or desire — he also takes from us the very thought that we could conceive on our own how to do anything rightly. Are our diligence, perception, understanding, and reasoning so corrupted that we can devise or think of nothing that is right before the Lord? That seems too harsh to us, who so reluctantly allow ourselves to be stripped of our confidence in our own reason — which we regard as one of our most precious gifts. But to the Holy Spirit it seems entirely just, since He knows that all the thoughts of wise men are vanity and declares plainly that every intention of the human heart is only evil. If everything our minds conceive, plan, intend, and pursue is always evil, how can we possibly think of anything that pleases God — to whom only holiness and righteousness are acceptable? Thus we see that our reason, whichever way it turns, is wretchedly subject to vanity. David knew this weakness in himself when he prayed to be given understanding to learn the Lord's commandments rightly. By asking for a new understanding, he was quietly admitting that his own was not enough. And he did not do this only once — he repeated the same prayer nearly ten times in a single psalm. By this repetition he privately disclosed how urgently he felt driven to ask it. And what David prays for himself, Paul regularly prays for the churches: 'We do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of God in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthily of God.' As often as he calls this a good gift of God, he is also testifying that it lies beyond man's power. Augustine acknowledged this deficiency of reason in understanding the things of God so fully that he held the grace of illumination to be no less necessary for our minds than sunlight is for our eyes. And not content with that, he added a correction: we raise our eyes to see the light, but the eyes of our mind lie shut unless the Lord opens them. Nor does Scripture teach that our minds are illuminated just once and then able to see by themselves — for what I just cited from Paul belongs to continual progress and growth. David makes this explicit in these words: 'With my whole heart I have sought You; do not let me stray from Your commandments.' Even after he had been regenerated and had made considerable progress in true godliness, he still confessed that he needed continuous direction every moment, lest he deviate from the knowledge he had received. For this reason he prays elsewhere for the renewal of a right spirit — which he had lost through his own fault — because the same God who gave it at the beginning must also restore it when it has been lost.

Now the will must be examined, for it is here that the chief liberty of free choice is said to reside — it has already been seen that choice belongs more to the will than to the understanding. First, lest the philosophers' common teaching — that all things by natural instinct desire what is good — seem to prove the uprightness of man's will: we must note that such appetite does not prove the freedom of will, since it proceeds from the inclination of one's nature rather than from a deliberate judgment of the mind. Even the scholastic theologians acknowledge that free will acts only when reason turns toward objects — meaning that the object of appetite must be capable of deliberate choice, with reason preparing the way before the choice is made. And truly, if a person considers what this natural desire for good in man actually is, he will find it is something he shares in common with animals. Animals also desire to be well, and when any appearance of good appears to their senses, they follow it. But man does not choose through reason in order to pursue what is genuinely good for him according to the excellence of his immortal nature — he neither takes counsel from reason nor engages his mind, but follows the inclination of his nature blindly, like an animal. Therefore, the fact that a man is naturally drawn by instinct to desire good does not prove freedom of will. What would be required is this: that he discern the good through right reason, that having known it he choose it, and that having chosen it he pursue it. But lest anyone be taken in, there are two subtle confusions to note here. First, appetite here does not mean the proper function of the will but only a natural inclination. Second, 'good' is used here not in the sense of virtue or righteousness but in the sense of well-being — as we say someone is 'well' or 'in good condition.' Finally, even when a person strongly desires to attain what is good, he does not actually follow through. There is no person to whom eternal blessedness is not appealing, yet no one aspires to it without the moving of the Holy Spirit. Since the natural desire in people to be well provides no more proof of free will than the tendency in metals and stones to incline toward their own kind of perfection, let us now consider in other matters whether the will is so thoroughly infected and corrupted that it produces nothing but evil — or whether it retains some uncorrupted part from which good desires can still arise.

Those who attribute to God's first grace the fact that we effectively will seem, by contrast, to be quietly implying that the soul has a natural power on its own to aspire to good — but that this power is so weak it cannot grow into a full and perfect desire or rise to any genuine effort. There is no doubt that the scholastic theologians commonly embraced this opinion, which was borrowed from Origen and certain early writers. They were accustomed to describing man in what they called 'purely natural' terms, taking as their text the words of the apostle: 'For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, that I keep on doing' and 'For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.' But in applying that passage this way, they completely misread Paul's argument. He is there dealing with the Christian struggle — which he touches on briefly in Galatians — the ongoing battle between the flesh and the spirit that the faithful constantly experience within themselves. But the spirit is not natural — it belongs to regeneration. That Paul is speaking of the regenerate is clear from this: when he says that no good dwells in him, he immediately qualifies it by saying he means this of his flesh. Therefore he says that it is not he who does the evil, but sin that dwells in him. What does this qualification mean — 'in me, that is, in my flesh'? It means: 'God does not dwell in me considered in myself, for no good is to be found in my flesh.' From this comes the kind of excuse that follows: 'I myself do not do the evil, but sin that dwells in me.' This excuse belongs only to the regenerate, who with the deepest part of their soul incline toward good. The conclusion Paul draws afterward makes all of this plain: 'I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind.' Who experiences this kind of inner battle except one who, having been regenerated by the Spirit of God, still carries the remnants of his flesh? Augustine himself, having once thought this passage referred to unregenerate human nature, later retracted that interpretation as false and self-contradictory. And truly, if we grant that men without grace have some small impulses toward good, what shall we say to the apostle who declares that we are not sufficient even to think anything on our own? What shall we say to the Lord who declares through Moses that every intention of the human heart is only evil? Since the scholastic theologians have stumbled by misreading a single passage, we have no reason to follow their judgment. Let the word of Christ prevail instead: 'Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.' We are all sinners by nature, and therefore all held under the yoke of sin. If the whole person is subject to sin's dominion, then the will itself — which is sin's chief dwelling place — must be bound with the tightest chains. Otherwise Paul's statement that it is God who works the will within us would make no sense, if any act of will could precede the grace of the Holy Spirit. Away, then, with all the meaningless talk many have offered about preparation of the will. Although the faithful do sometimes pray to have their hearts formed for obedience to the law — as David does in many places — we must note that even the desire to pray that prayer comes from God. This is clear from David's own words: when he asks for a clean heart to be created within him, he is clearly not claiming the initiative of creation for himself. Let us therefore hold to this saying of Augustine: 'God will go before you in all things — and sometimes go before His wrath.' How? 'Confess that you have all these things from God — whatever good is in you is from Him; whatever evil, it is from yourself.' And a little later: 'Nothing is ours but sin.'