Chapter 3. That Out of the Corrupt Nature of Man Proceeds Nothing but Damnable

But man cannot be any way better known in either part of his soul, than if he come forth with his titles by which the Scripture sets him out. If he is painted whole in these words of Christ, That which is born of flesh, is flesh: as it is easy to prove, then he is proved to be a very miserable creature. For the affection of the flesh, as the Apostle witnesses, is death, inasmuch as it is enmity against God, and so is not subject, nor can be subject to the law of God. Is flesh so perverse, that with all her affection she continually uses enmity against God? That she cannot agree with the righteousness of the law of God? Finally, that she can bring forth nothing but matter of death? Now, grant that in the nature of man is nothing but flesh, and gather any good out of it if you can. But (they say) the name of flesh belongs only to the sensual, and not the higher part of the soul. But that is sufficiently confuted by the words of Christ, and of the Apostle. It is the Lord's argument, that man must be born again, because he is flesh. He commands not to be born again according to the body. But in mind he is not born again, if a part of it is amended, but when it is all renewed. And that does the comparison, set in both places, confirm. For the spirit is so compared against the flesh, that there is left no middle thing between them. Therefore whatever is not spiritual in man, is after the same reason called fleshly. But we have nothing of the Spirit but by regeneration. It is therefore flesh whatever we have of nature. But of that matter, if otherwise we could have any doubt, that is taken away from us by Paul, where after he had described the old man, whom he had said to be corrupt with concupiscences of error, he bids us to be renewed in the spirit of our mind: you see he does not place unlawful and evil lusts only in the sensitive part, but also in the very mind, and therefore requires a renewing of it. And truly a little before he had painted out such an image of man's nature, as did show that there was no part wherein we were not corrupted and perverted: for whereas he writes that all nations do walk in the vanity of their mind, are darkened in understanding, estranged from the life of God, by reason of the ignorance that is in them, and the blindness of their heart: it is no doubt that this is spoken of all them whom the Lord has not reformed to the uprightness both of his wisdom and justice: which is also made more plain by the comparison by and by adjoined, where he puts the faithful in mind, that they have not so learned Christ. For of these words we gather, that the grace of Christ is the only remedy by which we are delivered from that blindness and the evils that ensue thereof. For so had Isaiah also prophesied of the kingdom of Christ, when he promised, that the Lord should be an everlasting light to his Church, when yet darkness covered the earth, and a mist the peoples. Whereas he testifies, that the light of God shall arise only in the Church, truly without the Church he leaves nothing but darkness and blindness. I will not rehearse particularly such things as are written everywhere, especially in the Psalms and in the Prophets against the vanity of man. It is a great thing that David writes, if he is weighed with vanity, that he shall be vainer than vanity itself. His wit is wounded with a grievous weapon, when all the thoughts that come out of it, are scorned as foolish, trifling, mad and perverse.

No easier is the condemnation of the heart, when it is called deceitful and perverse above all things: but because I study to be brief, I will be content with one place alone, but such a one as shall be like a most bright looking glass, wherein we may behold the whole image of our nature. For the Apostle, when he goes about to throw down the arrogance of mankind, does it by these testimonies: that there is not one righteous man, there is not one man that understands or that seeks God, all are gone out of the way, they are made unprofitable together, there is none that does good, no not one: their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they work deceitfully, the poison of serpents is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: whose feet are swift to shed blood, in whose ways is sorrow and unhappiness, which have not the fear of God before their eyes. With these thunderbolts he inveighs, not against certain men, but against the whole nation of the sons of Adam. Neither does he decline against the corrupt manners of one or two ages, but accuses the continual corruption of nature. For his purpose is not simply to chide men to make them amend, but to teach rather that all men are oppressed with calamity impossible to be overcome, from which they cannot get up again, unless they be plucked out by the mercy of God. And because that could not be proved unless it had been by the overthrow and destruction of nature, he brought forth these testimonies whereby is proved that our nature is more than destroyed. Let this therefore remain agreed, that men are such as they be here described, not only by fault of evil custom, but also by corruptness of nature. For otherwise the Apostle's argument cannot stand, that there is no salvation for man but by the mercy of God, because he is in himself utterly lost and past hope. I will not here busy myself in proving the applying of these testimonies, that no man should think them unfitly used. I will so take them as if they had been first spoken by Paul, and not taken out of the Prophets. First he takes away from man righteousness, that is, integrity and pureness, and then understanding. The lack of understanding he proves by apostasy or departing from God, whom to seek is the first degree of wisdom. But that lack must needs happen to them that are fallen away from God. He says further, that all are gone out of the way and become as it were rotten, that there is none that does good, and then he adds the heinous faults wherewith they defile their members that are once let loose into wickedness. Last of all he testifies that they are void of the fear of God, after whose rule our steps should have been directed. If these be the inheritable gifts of mankind, it is in vain to seek for any good thing in our nature. Indeed I grant that not all these faults do appear in every man: yet it cannot be denied that this Hydra lurks in the hearts of all men. For as the body, while it already fosters enclosed within it the cause and matter of disease, although the pain be not yet vehement, cannot be called healthy: no more can the soul be reckoned sound, while it swarms full of such diseases of vices, albeit the similitude does not agree in all points. For in the body, be it never so much diseased, there remains a quickness of life: but the soul being drowned in this gulf of destruction, is not only troubled with vices, but also altogether void of all goodness.

The same question in a manner which has been before resolved, now rises up again anew. For in all ages there have been some, which by guiding of nature have been bent to virtue in all their life. And I regard it not, though many slippings may be noted in their manners: yet by the very study of honesty they have shown a proof that there was some pureness in their nature. What reward such virtues have before God, although we will more fully declare when we shall speak of the merits of works, yet we must somewhat speak in this place: so far as is necessary for making plain this present argument. These examples therefore seem to put us in mind, that we should not think man's nature altogether corrupt, for that by her instruction some men have not only excelled in some noble acts, but also in the whole course of their life have behaved themselves most honestly. But here we must think, how in this corruption of nature there is some place for the grace of God, not to cleanse it, but inwardly to restrain it. For if the Lord would suffer the minds of all men as it were with loose reins to run wildly into all sorts of lusts, without doubt there would be no man but he would in plain experience make us believe, that all those evils wherewith Paul condemns all nature, are most truly said of him. For what? Can you exempt yourself out of the number of them, whose feet are swift to shed blood, their hands defiled with robberies and manslaughters, their throats like to open sepulchers, their tongues deceitful, their lips venomous, their works unprofitable, wicked, rotten, deadly, whose mind is without God, whose inward parts are perverseness, whose eyes are bent to entrappings, their hearts lifted up dispiteously to triumph over others, and all the parts of them applied to infinite mischiefs. If every soul be subject to all such monsters, as the Apostle boldly pronounces, truly we see what would come to pass, if the Lord would suffer the lust of man to wander after his own inclination. There is no mad beast that is so headlong carried away, there is no stream be it never so swift and strong, of which the overflowing is so violent. The Lord heals these diseases in his elect by this means that we will by and by set forth. In some he only restrains them with putting a bridle in their mouth, only that they break not out, so far as he foresees to be expedient for preserving the universality of things. Hereby some are held in by shame, some by fear of laws, that they burst not forth into many sorts of filthiness, howbeit they do for a great part not hide their uncleanness. Some, because they think that an honest trade of life is good, do after a certain sort aspire toward it. Some rise up above the common sort, that by their majesty they may keep others in their duty. So God by his providence bridles the perverseness of nature, that it break not forth into doing: but he cleanses not within.

But yet the doubt is not dissolved. For either we must make Camillus like to Catiline, or else in Camillus we shall have an example that nature, if it be framed by diligence, is not altogether without goodness. I grant indeed that those goodly gifts which were in Camillus both were the gifts of God and seem worthy to be commended, if they were weighed by themselves, but how shall they be proofs of natural goodness in him? Must we not return to the mind, and frame our argument in this sort? If a natural man excelled in such uprightness of manners, then nature is undoubtedly not without power toward the study of virtue. But what if the mind were perverse and crooked, and following anything rather than upright straightness? And that it was such there is no doubt, if you grant that he was a natural man. Now what power of man's nature to goodness will you rehearse to me in this behalf, if in the greatest show of pureness it be found that he is always carried to corruption? Therefore, lest you commend a man for virtue, whose vices deceive you under virtue's image, do not so give to the will of man power to desire goodness, so long as it remains [reconstructed: fast] in its own perverseness. Although this is a most sure and easy solution of this question, that these are not common gifts of nature, but special graces of God, which he diversely and to a certain measure deals among men that are otherwise ungodly. For which reason we fear not in common speech to call one man well natured, and another of evil nature, and yet we cease not to include them both under the universal state of man's corruption, but we show what special grace God has bestowed upon the one, which he has not vouchsafed to give to the other, when his pleasure was to make Saul king, he formed him as a new man. And that is the reason why Plato, alluding to the fable of Homer, says that kings' sons are created notable by some singular mark, because God providing for mankind, furnishes these with a [reconstructed: princely] nature whom he appoints to bear government. And out of this storehouse came all the great captains that are renowned in histories. The same is also to be thought of private men. But because as every man has most excelled, so his ambition has most moved him forward (with which spot all virtues are defiled, so that they lose all favor before God,) it is to be accounted nothing worth, whatever seems praiseworthy in ungodly men, besides that the chief part of uprightness fails, where there is no study to advance the glory of God, which all they lack whom he has not regenerated with his Spirit. Neither is it vainly spoken in Isaiah, that upon Christ rests the Spirit of the fear of God, whereby we are taught, that so many as are strange from Christ, are without the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom. As for the virtues that deceive us with vain show, I grant they shall have praise in the court of policy, and in the common fame of men, but before the heavenly judgment seat, they shall be of no value to deserve righteousness.

With such bondage of sin therefore as will is detained, it can not once move itself to goodness, much less apply itself. For such moving is the beginning of turning to God, which in Scriptures is wholly imputed to the grace of God. As Jeremiah prays to the Lord to turn him, if he will have him turned. Whereupon the prophet in the same chapter, describing the spiritual redemption of the faithful people, says that they were redeemed out of the hand of a stronger, meaning with how straight fetters a sinner is bound so long as being forsaken of the Lord, he lives under the yoke of the devil. Yet will still remains, which with most bent affection is both inclined and hastens to sin. For man was not deprived of will when he did cast himself into this necessity, but of the soundness of will. And Bernard says not inaptly, which teaches that to will is in us all: but to will good is a profiting, to will evil is a fault: and therefore simply to will is the work of man: to will evil, of corrupt nature: to will well, of grace. Now whereas I say, that will put from liberty is by necessity drawn or led into evil, it is a marvel if that should seem a hard speech to any man, which neither has any absurdity in it, nor varies from the use of holy men: but it offends them that can make no difference between necessity and compulsion. But if a man ask them, is not God of necessity good? Is not the devil of necessity evil? What can they answer? For so is goodness knit with God's divinity, that it is no more necessary that he be God than that he be good. And the devil is by his fall so estranged from partaking of goodness, that he can do nothing but evil. But now if any robber of God do bark against this and say, that God deserves little praise for his goodness, which is compelled to keep: shall not this be a ready answer to him, that it comes to pass by his infinite goodness and not by violent compulsion, that he can not do evil. Therefore if this, that it is of necessity that God do well, does not hinder the free will of God in doing well, if the devil which can not do but evil yet willingly sins, who shall then say that a man does therefore less willingly sin for this that he is subject to necessity of sinning. This necessity, whereas Augustine each where speaks of it, even then also when he was enviously pressed with the caviling of Celestius, he did not stick to affirm in these words, [reconstructed: by] liberty it came to pass that man was with sin, but now the corruption which [reconstructed: ensued as punishment] [reconstructed: has made necessity of liberty]. And so often as he falls into mention thereof, he [reconstructed: doubts] not to speak in this manner of the necessary bondage of sin. Therefore let this sum of that distinction be kept, that man since he is corrupted, sins indeed willingly and not against his will nor compelled, by a most bent affection of mind, and not by violent compulsion, by motion of his own lust, and not by foreign constraint: but yet of such perverseness of nature as he is, he can not but be moved and driven to evil. If this be true, then surely it is plainly expressed that he is subject to necessity of [reconstructed: sinning]. Bernard agreeing to Augustine writes thus, only man among all living creatures is free: and yet by means of sin, he also suffers a certain violence, but of will and not of nature, that even thereby also he should not be deprived of freedom, for that which is willing is free. And a little after, will being changed in itself into worse, by I know not what corrupt and marvelous manner so makes necessity, that very necessity for as much as it is willing, can not excuse will, and will inasmuch as it is drawn by allurement, can not exclude necessity, for this necessity is after a certain manner willing. Afterward he says, that we are pressed down with a yoke, but yet none other but of a certain willing bondage, therefore by reason of our bondage we are miserable, by reason of our will we are inexcusable, because will when it was free, made itself the bond servant of sin. At length he concludes, that the soul is so after a certain marvelous and evil manner held both a bond servant and free, under this certain willing and evil free necessity: a bond servant by reason of necessity, free by reason of will, and that which is more marvelous and more miserable, therein guilty wherein it is free, therein bound wherein it is guilty, and so therein bound wherein it is free. Hereby truly the readers do perceive that I bring no new [reconstructed: thing], which long ago Augustine brought forth out of the consent of all godly men, and almost a thousand years after was kept still in monks' cloisters. But Lombard when he could not distinguish necessity from compulsion, gave matter to a pernicious error.

On the other side it is good to consider what manner of remedy is that of the grace of God, whereby the corruption of nature is amended and healed. For whereas the Lord in helping us, gives us that which we want, when we shall know what his work is in us, it will straightway appear on the other side what is our neediness. When the Apostle says to the Philippians, that he trusts that he which began a good work in them, will perform it to the day of Jesus Christ: it is no doubt, that by the beginning of a good work, he means the very beginning of conversion, which is in will. Therefore God begins a good work in us by stirring up in our hearts the love, desire and endeavor of righteousness, or (to speak more properly) in bowing, framing and directing our hearts to righteousness: he ends it in confirming us to perseverance. And that no man should cavil that good is begun by the Lord, when will being of itself weak is helped: the Holy Spirit in another place declares what will is able to do being left to itself. I will give you (says he) a new heart. I will put a new spirit in the midst of you. And I will take away the stony heart from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in the midst of you, and I will make you to walk in my commandments. Who shall say that the weakness of man's will is strengthened with help, whereby it may effectually aspire to the choice of that which is good, when it must be wholly transformed and renewed? If there be any softness in a stone which by some help being made tenderer will abide to be bowed every way, then will I grant that the heart of man is pliable to obey that which is right, so that that which in it is imperfect, be supplied by the grace of God. But if he meant to show by this similitude, that no goodness could ever be wrung out of our heart unless it be made thoroughly new: let us not part between him and us, that which he challenges to himself alone. If therefore a stone be transformed into flesh, when God turns us to the desire of that which is right: then is all that which was of our own will taken away, and that which comes in place thereof is all of God. I say that will is taken away, not in that it is will, because in the conversion of man, that which was of the first nature abides whole: also I say that it is created new, not that will then begins to be, but that it be turned from an evil will into a good. And this I affirm to be wholly done by God, because we are not able so much as to think, as the same Apostle witnesses: therefore in another place he says, that God does not only help our weak will, or amend our perverse will, but that he works in us to will. Therefore it is easily gathered, that which I said before, that whatever good is in will, it is the work of only grace. In which sense in another place he says, that it is God that works all in all. Neither does he there treat of the universal government, but gives to God alone the praise of all good things that the faithful have. And in saying, all truly he makes God the author of spiritual life, even from the beginning to the end. Which very same thing he had taught before in other words, saying that the faithful are of God in Christ, where he plainly makes mention of the new creation, wherein that which was of common nature before, is destroyed. For there is to be understood a comparison between Adam and Christ, which in another place he more plainly expresses, where he teaches that we are the work of God created in Christ to good works, which he has prepared that we should walk in them. For he goes about by this reason to prove, that our salvation is of free gift, because the beginning of all goodness, is at the second creation, which we obtain in Christ. But if there were any power of ourselves, were it never so small, we should have also some portion of merit. But he to prove us altogether nothing worth, reasons that we have deserved nothing, because we are created in Christ to good works, which God has prepared. In which words he signifies again, that all parts of good works, even from the first motion, are proper to God only. For this reason, the prophet after he had said in the Psalm that we are the workmanship of God, that there should be no partition, adds right away, We made not ourselves. That he speaks there of regeneration, which is the beginning of spiritual life, appears by the tenor of the text, where it right away after follows that we are his people and the flock of his pastures: we see now, how he not contented simply to have given to God the praise of our salvation, does expressly exclude us from all fellowship with him, as if he would say, that there rests no piece, be it never so little, for man to glory in, because it is all of God.

But there will be some perhaps that will grant, that the will being of her own nature, turned away from good, is converted by the only power of the Lord: but so that being prepared before, it has also her own part in doing, as Augustine teaches, that grace goes before every good work, but so, that the will does accompany it and not lead it, as a waiting maid after it, and not a forerunner. Which thing being not evil spoken by the holy man, Peter Lombard does [reconstructed: write] disorderly to this purpose. But I affirm, that as well in the words of the prophet which I have alleged as in the other places, these two things be plainly signified, that the Lord does both correct our corrupted will or rather destroy it, and also of himself puts in place thereof a good will. In as much as it is prevented by grace, in that respect I give you leave to call it a waiting maid, but for that being reformed, it is the work of the Lord: this is wrongfully given to man that he does with will coming after, obey grace going before. Therefore it is not well written of Chrysostom, that neither grace without will, nor will without grace can work any thing: as if grace did not work the very will itself, as even now we have seen by Paul. Neither was it Augustine's purpose when he called man's will the waiting maid of grace, to assign to her a certain second office in doing a good work, but because this only was his intent, to confute the wicked doctrine of Pelagius, which did set the principal cause of salvation in man's deserving: therefore he stood only upon this point, that grace was before all deserving, which was sufficient for the matter that he then had in hand, not meddling in the mean time with the other question, concerning the perpetual effect of grace, which yet in another place he excellently well handles. For sometimes when he says, that the Lord does prevent the unwilling that he may will, and follows the willing that he will not in vain, he makes him altogether the whole author of the good work. Albeit his sentences touching this matter, are too plain to need any long arguing upon them. Men (says he) do labor to find in our will something that is our own and not of God, but how it may be found I know not. And in his first book against Pelagius and Celestius, where he does expound that saying of Christ — Every one that has heard of my father comes to me, he says: Free will is so helped not only that it may know what is to be done, but also may do it when it has known it. And so when God teaches, not by the letter of the law, but by the grace of the spirit, he so teaches, that he that has learned, does not only see it in knowing, but also desire it in willing, and perform it in doing.

And because we are now in hand with the chief point whereupon the matter hangs, let us go forward and prove the sum thereof to the readers only, with a few and the most plain testimonies of the Scripture. And then, lest any man should accuse us of wrongful wresting the Scripture, let us show that the truth which we affirm being taken out of the Scripture, lacks not the testimony of this holy man, I mean Augustine. For I think it not expedient, that all the things be rehearsed that may be brought out of the Scriptures, for confirmation of our meaning, so that by the most chosen that shall be brought forth, the way may be prepared to understand all the rest that are here and there commonly read. And again, I think it shall not be unfitly done, if I openly show that I agree well with that man whom worthily the consent of godly men does much esteem. Surely it is evident by plain and certain proof, that the beginning of goodness is from nowhere else but only from God, for there can not be found a will bent to good, but in the elect. But the cause of election is to be sought out of man. Upon which follows, that man has not a right will of himself, but it proceeds from the same good pleasure, whereby we are elected before the creation of the world. There is also another reason not unlike to that. For whereas the beginning of willing and doing well is of faith, it is to be seen from where faith itself comes. For as much as the whole Scripture cries out that it is a free gift of God, it follows, that it is of the mere grace of God, when we, which are with all our mind naturally bent to evil, begin to will that which is good. Therefore the Lord, when he names these two things in the conversion of his people, to take away from them a stony heart, and to give them a heart of flesh, plainly testifies that, that which is of our selves must be done away, that we may be converted to righteousness: and that whatever comes in place thereof, is from himself. And he utters not this in one place only. For he says in Jeremiah: I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me all their days. And a little after: I will give the fear of my name into their heart, that they depart not from me. Again in Ezekiel: I will give them one heart, and I will give a new spirit in their bowels. I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and I will give them a heart of flesh. He could not more evidently claim to himself, and take from us whatever is good and right in our will than when he declares that our conversion is a creation of a new spirit, and of a new heart. For it follows always, that both out of our will proceeds no goodness till it be reformed: and that after reformation, so much as it is good, is of God and not of us.

And so read we the prayers of holy men made to that effect, as, "The Lord incline our heart to him" (says Solomon) "that we may keep his commandments." He shows the stubbornness of our heart, which naturally rejoices to rebel against the law of God if it is not bowed. And the same thing is in the Psalm: "Lord incline my heart to your testimonies." For the comparison of contrariety is always to be noted, which is between the perverse motion of the heart whereby it is carried to obstinacy, and this correction whereby it is led to obedience. When David, feeling himself for a time without the directing grace, prays God to create a new heart within him, to renew a right spirit within his bowels: does he not acknowledge that all the parts of his heart are full of uncleanness, and his spirit twisted with crooked perverseness? And in calling the cleanliness which he prays for, the creation of God, does he not attribute it wholly to God? But if any man take exception and say, that the very prayer is a token of a godly and holy affection: our answer is ready, that though David were by that time somewhat come to amendment, yet does he still compare his first state with that sorrowful fall that he had felt. Therefore taking upon him the person of a man estranged from God, he for good cause prays to have given him all these things that God gives to his elect in regeneration. And so being like a dead man, he wishes himself to be created anew, that of the bondservant of Satan, he may be made the instrument of the Holy Spirit. Marvelous and monstrous surely is the lust of our pride. God requires nothing more earnestly, than that we should most religiously keep his Sabbath, that is in resting from our own works, but of us nothing is more hardly obtained, than bidding our own works farewell, to give due place to the works of God. If sluggishness hindered not, Christ has given testimony evident enough of his graces, to make them not to be enviously suppressed. "I am" (says he) "the Vine, you are the branches: My Father is a husbandman." "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the Vine, no more can you, unless you abide in me." "For without me you can do nothing." If we bear fruit no otherwise than a branch buds being plucked out of the ground and without moisture: we need no more to seek what is the aptness of our nature to goodness. And this is a plain conclusion: "Without me you can do nothing." He does not say that we are too weak to be sufficient for ourselves: but in bringing us to nothing, he excludes all opinion of power be it never so little. If we being grafted in Christ, bear fruit like a Vine, which takes her efficacy of liveliness both from the moisture of the earth, and from the dew of heaven, and from the cherishing of the sun: I see nothing remain for us in doing a good work, if we keep whole for God that which is his. That fond subtle device is alleged in vain, that there is a juice already enclosed within the branch, and a certain power to bring forth fruit, and that therefore it takes not all from the earth or from the first root, because it brings somewhat of her own. For Christ means nothing else, but that we are a dry stick and nothing worth, when we are severed from him, because by ourselves being separate, we have no power to do well: as also in another place he says, "Every tree that my Father has not planted, shall be rooted up." Therefore the Apostle ascribes all the whole to him in the place already alleged. "It is God" (says he) "that works in us both to will and to perform." The first part of a good work is will: the second is a strong endeavor in doing it: the author of both is God. Therefore we steal it from God, if we take to ourselves anything, either in will or in effectual working. If it were said that God does help our weak will, then somewhat were left for us. But when it is said that he makes will, now all the good that is in it, is set out of us. And because the good will is yet still oppressed with weight of our flesh that it cannot rise up, he said further, that to overcome the hardness of that battle, there is ministered to us steadfastness of endeavor, even to the effect. For otherwise it could not stand together which he teaches in another place, that it is God alone that brings to effect all things in all, wherein we have before taught that the whole course of spiritual life is comprehended. For which reason, David, after he had prayed to have the ways of the Lord opened to him, that he might walk in his truth, by and by added: "Unite my heart to fear your name." In which words he signifies, that even they that are well minded, are subject to so many distractions of mind, that they easily vanish or fall away if they are not established to constancy. For which reason in another place, after he had prayed to have his steps directed to keep the word of God, he requires also to have strength given him to fight. "Let not any iniquity" (says he) "bear rule over me." After this sort therefore does the Lord both begin and end good work in us: that it may all be his work, that will conceives a love of that which is right, that it is inclined to the desire thereof, that it is stirred up and moved to endeavor of following it. And then that our choice, desire, and endeavor faint not, but do proceed even to the effect: last of all that man goes forward constantly in them, and continues to the end.

And he moves the will, not in such a sort as has in many ages been taught and believed: that it is afterward in our choice, either to obey or withstand the motion, but by mightily strengthening it. Therefore that must be rejected which Chrysostom so often repeats: whom he draws, he draws being willing. Whereby he secretly teaches that God does only reach out his hand, to see if we will be helped by his aid. We grant that such was the state of man while he yet stood, that he might bow to either part. But since he has taught by his example how miserable is free will, unless God both will and can in us: what shall become of us, if he give us his grace according to that small proportion? But rather we do obscure and extenuate it with our unthankfulness. For the Apostle does not teach, that the grace of a good will is offered us if we do accept it, but that he will perform it in us: which is nothing else, but that the Lord by his spirit does direct [reconstructed: and] govern our heart, and reigns in it as in his own possession. Neither does he promise by Ezekiel, that he will give to the elect a new spirit only for this end, that they may be able to walk in his commandments, but to make them walk indeed. Neither can Christ's saying, (every one that has heard of my Father comes to me) be otherwise taken, than to teach that the grace of God is effectual of itself: as Augustine also affirms. Which grace, God vouchsafes not to give to all men generally without regard, as that saying (as I think) of Occam, is commonly spoken among the people, that it denies nothing to him that does what lies in him. Men are indeed to be taught that God's goodness is laid open for all men, without exception that seek for it. But inasmuch as they only begin to seek for it, whom the heavenly grace has breathed upon, not so much as this little piece ought to be plucked away from his praise. Truly this is the prerogative of the elect, that being regenerate by the spirit of God, they are moved and governed by his guiding. Therefore Augustine does worthily as well mock them, that claim any part of willing them to themselves, as he does reprehend others which think that, that which is generally given to all men, is the special testimony of free election. Nature, (says he) but not grace, is common to all men. Calling it a brittle subtlety of wit like glass, that glistens with mere vanity, where it is generally extended to all which God gives only to whom it pleases him. And in another place. How came you? By believing. Fear you, lest while you take upon yourself that you have found the just way, you perish out of the just way. I came (you say) by free will. I came by my own will, why do you swell? Will you hear that this also is given you? Hear even him that calls: No man comes to me unless my Father draw him. And it is without controversy gathered out of John's words, that the hearts of the godly are so effectually governed by God's working, that they follow with an [reconstructed: unchangeable] affection. He that is begotten of God (says he) cannot [reconstructed: sin], because the seed of God abides in him. For we see that the middle motion which the Sophisters imagine, which we at our [reconstructed: liberty] may either obey or refuse, is openly excluded, where an effectual constancy to continue is affirmed.

Of continuance there should no more doubt have been made, but that it should have been taken for the free gift of God, unless the most wicked error had grown in force, that it is distributed according to the desert of men, as every man has shown himself not unthankful to the first grace. But forasmuch as this error has grown upon that point, that they thought it to be in our hand to refuse or receive the grace of God offered, that opinion being driven away, this other does also fall of itself. Albeit herein they err too many ways. For beside this that they teach that our thankfulness toward the first grace and our lawful use thereof, are rewarded with the later gifts: they add also, that now grace alone does not work in us, but that it is only a worker together with us. Of the first this we ought to believe, that the Lord while he daily enriches and heaps his servants with new gifts of his grace, because he likes and favors the work which he has begun in them, finds in them somewhat whereupon to bestow greater graces. And hereto serve those sayings: To him that has, shall be given. Again: Oh, good servant, because you have been faithful in few things, I will set you over many (Matthew 25:21; Luke 19:17). But here two things are to be taken heed of, that neither the lawful use of the first grace be said to be rewarded with the later graces, nor it be so computed a rewarding, that it cease to be reckoned the free grace of God. I grant therefore, that this blessing of God is to be looked for of the faithful, that however much the better they have used the first graces, they shall be increased with so much the greater. But I say, that this use also is of the Lord, and that this rewarding is of his free goodwill. And they use no less wrongfully than unhappily that old distinction of working and together-working grace. Augustine used the same indeed, but tempering it with a fit definition, that God in working together with us does end that which in working he begins, and that it is still the same grace but changes name, according to the diverse manner of effect. Therefore it follows, that he does not part it between God and us, as if there were a mutual meeting together by the motion of both, but only notes the multiplication of grace. To which purpose belongs that which in another place he teaches, that many gifts of God do go before the goodwill of man, among which the same goodwill itself is one. Therefore it follows, that he leaves nothing that it may claim to itself. Which thing Paul also has namely expressed: For when he had said that it is God, which works in us both to will and to perform (Philippians 2:[illegible]), he by and by adds, that he does them both of his goodwill: declaring by this word, that it is his free goodness. Whereas they are wont to say, that after we have once given place to the first grace, our own endeavors do now work together with the grace that follows, to this I answer: if they mean that we, after we have been once by the power of the Lord broken to the obedience of righteousness, do of our own accord go forward, and are inclined to follow the working of grace, I speak nothing against it. For it is most certain, that there is such a readiness of obeying, where the grace of God reigns. But from where comes that, but from this, that the Spirit of God always agreeing with itself, does cherish and confirm to steadfastness of continuing, the same affection of obeying, which it itself engendered at the beginning. But if they mean that man takes of himself somewhat whereby to labor with the grace of God, they are most pestilently deceived.

And to this purpose is that saying of the Apostle wrongfully wrested by ignorance: I have labored more than they all: not I, but the grace of God with me (1 Corinthians 15:10). For they take it so: that because it might seem somewhat arrogantly spoken that he preferred himself before them all, therefore he corrected it with referring the praise to the grace of God, but yet so that he calls himself a worker together with grace. It is a marvel that so many who otherwise were not evil men, have stumbled at this straw. For the Apostle does not write that the grace of the Lord labored with him, to the intent to make himself partner of the labor, but rather by this correction he gives away all the praise of the labor to grace only. It is not I (says he) that have labored, but the grace of God that was with me. But the doubtfulness of the speech deceived them: but especially the ill translation wherein the force of the Greek article was left out. For if it be translated word for word, he does not say, that grace was a worker together with him, but that the grace that was with him was the worker of all. And the same thing does Augustine teach, not darkly, though briefly, where he thus says: The goodwill of man goes before many gifts of God, but not before all. But of them which it goes before, it itself is one, then follows his reason: because it is written: His mercy has prevented me (Psalm 59:11): And his mercy shall follow me (Psalm 23:6). It prevents man not willing, to make him willing: and it follows him willing, that he will not in vain. With whom Bernard agrees bringing in the church speaking thus: Draw me in a manner unwilling, that you may make me willing: draw me lying slothful, that you may make me run (Sermon 2 on the Canticles).

Now let us hear Augustine speaking in his own words, lest the Pelagians of our age, that is to say, the Sophisters of Sorbonne, should as they are wont, lay to our charge that all antiquity is against us, wherein they follow their father Pelagius, by whom long ago Augustine was drawn forth into the same contention. In his book of Correction and Grace written to Valentine, he treats at length that which I will rehearse briefly, but yet do it in his own words: that to Adam was given the grace of continuing in good if he would: and to us is given to will, and by will to overcome concupiscence: that he therefore had to be able if he would, but not to will that he might be able: to us is given both to will and to be able. That the first liberty was to be able not to sin, ours is much greater, not to be able to sin. And lest he should be thought to speak of the perfection to come after immortality (as Lombard wrongfully draws it to that meaning) within a little after he plucks out this doubt. For (says he) the will of holy men is so much kindled by the Holy Spirit, that they therefore are able, because they so will: they therefore will, because God works that they so will. For if in so great weakness, in which yet it behooves the power to be made perfect, for repressing of pride, their own will were left to them, that by the help of God they may if they will, and God does not work in them to will: then among so many temptations will should needs fall down for weakness, and therefore could not continue. Therefore is succor given to the weakness of man's will, that it should be moved without swerving or severing by the grace of God, and therefore should not [reconstructed: faint] however weak it be. Then he treats more extensively how our hearts do of necessity follow the moving of God that works affection in them. And he says, that the Lord does draw men indeed with their own wills, but with such as he himself has wrought. Now have we that thing testified by Augustine's mouth, which we principally desire to obtain, that grace is not only offered by God to be received or refused at every man's free election, but also that grace is the same, that forms the election and will in the heart: so that every good work that follows after, is the fruit and effect thereof, and that it has no other will obeying it, but the same which it has made. For these are also his words out of another place, that nothing but grace makes every good work in us.

But whereas he says in another place, that will is not taken away by grace, but from an evil will turned into a good, and helped when it is good: he means only that man is not so drawn, that without any motion of heart he is carried as by an outward impulsion, but that he is inwardly so affected, that from his very heart he obeys. That grace is specially and freely given to the elect, he writes thus to Boniface: We know that grace is not given to all men, and to them to whom it is given, it is not given according to the merits of works, nor according to the merits of will, but of free favor: and to them to whom it is not given, we know that it is by the just judgment of God that it is not given. And in the same Epistle he strongly fights against that opinion, that the grace following is given to the deservings of men, because in not refusing the first grace, they showed themselves worthy. For he will have Pelagius grant, that grace is necessary to us for every of our doings, and is not given in recompense to works, that it may be grace indeed. But the matter cannot be comprehended in a shorter sum, than out of the eighth chapter of his book to Valentine of Correction and Grace, where first he teaches that man's will obtains not grace by liberty, but liberty by grace: and that by the same grace, by affection of delight printed in him, it is framed to continuance, that it is strengthened with invincible force: that while grace governs, it never falls away: when grace forsakes, it immediately tumbles down. That by the free mercy of God it both is converted to good, and being converted abides in it, that the direction of man's will to good, and steadfastness after direction, depends on the only will of God, and not upon any merit of his own. And so to man is left such a free will, if we like so to call it, as he writes of in another place, that can neither be turned to God, nor abide in God but by grace, and by grace is able all that it is able.

Man cannot be better understood in either part of his soul than by examining the descriptions Scripture gives of him. If he is accurately described in Christ's words — 'What is born of the flesh is flesh' — and it is easy to prove this is so, then he is shown to be a truly wretched creature. For the mind set on the flesh, as the apostle testifies, is death, since it is hostile to God and does not and cannot submit to the law of God. Is the flesh so corrupt that in all its desires it is continually hostile to God? That it cannot agree with the righteousness of God's law? That it can produce nothing but the material of death? If human nature is nothing but flesh, try to find any good in it. But they object that 'flesh' refers only to the sensual part of the soul, not the higher part. This is sufficiently refuted by the words of Christ and the apostle. The Lord's argument is that man must be born again because he is flesh — but He is not commanding rebirth according to the body. In the mind also there is no rebirth if only a part of it is renewed; the whole must be made new. The comparison in both passages confirms this. Spirit is set in contrast with flesh in such a way that nothing is left in between. Therefore, whatever is not spiritual in man is, by the same reasoning, called flesh. But we have nothing of the Spirit except through regeneration. Therefore, whatever we have by nature is flesh. If there were any doubt about this, Paul removes it when, after describing the old man as corrupted by the desires of deceit, he commands us to be renewed in the spirit of our minds. He does not place unlawful lusts only in the sensual part but in the very mind itself, and therefore requires its renewal. And a little earlier he had painted such a picture of human nature as to show that no part of us was free from corruption and perversion. He writes that all the nations walk in the futility of their minds, are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance in them and the hardness of their hearts. Without doubt this is said of all those whom the Lord has not reformed to the uprightness of both His wisdom and His righteousness. This is made even plainer by the contrast that immediately follows, where he reminds the faithful that they have not learned Christ that way. From those words we gather that the grace of Christ is the only remedy by which we are delivered from that blindness and the evils that follow from it. Isaiah had already prophesied this about the kingdom of Christ, promising that the Lord would be an everlasting light to His church — even while darkness covered the earth and deep shadow the peoples. By testifying that God's light will arise only in the church, Isaiah leaves nothing but darkness and blindness outside of it. I will not catalogue all that is written about man's vanity in the Psalms and the Prophets. It is a weighty statement when David says that if man is weighed against vanity, he proves to be even more vain than vanity itself. And man's mind receives a grievous blow when every thought that comes from it is scorned as foolish, empty, mad, and corrupt.

Nor is the condemnation of the heart any lighter — it is called deceitful and corrupt above all things. But since I aim to be brief, I will limit myself to one passage alone — one that serves as a bright mirror in which the full image of our nature can be seen. The apostle, intent on tearing down the arrogance of mankind, uses these testimonies: 'There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; their tongue practices deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways. There is no fear of God before their eyes.' With these thunderbolts he strikes not at a few individuals but at the entire race of Adam's descendants. He is not rebuking the corrupt customs of one or two generations — he is charging the perpetual corruption of our nature. His purpose is not simply to rebuke people into reform, but to teach that all people are held down by an inescapable calamity from which they cannot rise unless they are lifted out by God's mercy. And because this could not be proved without first establishing the ruin and destruction of our nature, he produced these testimonies to show that our nature is worse than destroyed. Let it be agreed, then, that people are what they are described to be here — not merely because of bad habits but because of the corruption of their nature. Otherwise the apostle's argument fails: that man's only hope of salvation is the mercy of God, because in himself he is utterly lost and without hope. I will not take time to justify the application of these testimonies, as if someone might think Paul was using them out of context. I will treat them as if Paul originally spoke them himself, rather than drawing them from the Prophets. First he removes righteousness from man — that is, integrity and purity. Then he removes understanding. The lack of understanding he proves by the departure from God, whom to seek is the very beginning of wisdom — a beginning necessarily absent in those who have turned away from Him. He then adds that all have gone astray and become worthless, that there is none who does good. After that, he catalogues the terrible sins that defile the members of those who are let loose into wickedness. Finally, he testifies that they are without the fear of God — the standard by which our steps should have been directed. If these are the inherited traits of the human race, it is pointless to search for any goodness in our nature. I grant that not all of these faults appear in every person — yet it cannot be denied that this Hydra lurks in the hearts of all. A body that already contains within it the seed and matter of disease cannot be called healthy, even if the pain has not yet become severe. Likewise, a soul cannot be considered sound while it is packed with such vices, even though the analogy is not perfect in every detail. For in the body, however sick, some life-force still remains — but the soul, submerged in this gulf of destruction, is not merely troubled by vices: it is entirely void of all goodness.

The question we seemed to have already settled now rises up again. In every age there have been some who, guided by nature, have pursued virtue throughout their lives. I am not ignoring the many failures that can be pointed out in their conduct — but through the very pursuit of honorable living they gave evidence that some purity existed in their nature. What reward such virtues have before God we will discuss more fully when we speak of the merits of works. For now, we must say just enough to clarify the present question. These examples seem to suggest that we should not think human nature is entirely corrupt, since by its guidance some people have not only performed notable deeds but have also conducted themselves with genuine honor throughout their whole lives. But we must consider that in this corruption of nature, God's grace has a place — not to cleanse it from within, but to restrain it outwardly. For if the Lord were to let the minds of all people run wild with loosened reins into every kind of lust, there would not be a single person who would not demonstrate through plain experience that all the evils Paul attributes to all of human nature are spoken with complete accuracy. Think about it: can you exempt yourself from the number of those whose feet are swift to shed blood, whose hands are stained with robbery and murder, whose throats are like open graves, whose tongues are deceitful, whose lips are venomous, whose works are worthless, wicked, corrupt, and deadly — whose minds are without God, whose inward parts are perversity, whose eyes are set on traps, whose hearts are arrogantly lifted up to triumph over others, and all of whose members are bent toward endless evils? If every soul is subject to all these monstrosities — as the apostle boldly declares — we can easily see what would happen if the Lord were to let human desire run unchecked. No wild animal is so recklessly driven; no river, however fast and powerful, overflows so violently. The Lord heals these diseases in His elect by the means we will shortly describe. In others He only restrains them with a bridle, so that they do not break out as far as would be harmful to the general order of things — but He does not cleanse them within. Some are held back by shame, some by fear of the law, from bursting into many kinds of filthiness — though they by no means hide all their corruption. Some, because they believe that an honorable way of life is worthwhile, pursue it after a fashion. Others rise above the common level in order to keep others in their place through their own dignity and authority. In this way God, through His providence, restrains the perversity of nature so that it does not erupt into action — but He does not cleanse it within.

But the difficulty is not yet resolved. We must either make Camillus comparable to Catiline, or else we must take Camillus as evidence that human nature, when cultivated by diligence, is not altogether without goodness. I grant that the fine qualities in Camillus were gifts of God and appear worthy of admiration when considered in themselves. But how do they prove natural goodness in him? Must we not return to the question of the mind and reason the argument out like this? If a natural man could excel in such uprightness of character, then nature must surely have some power toward the pursuit of virtue. But what if that very mind were crooked and perverse, following anything but true uprightness? And that it was indeed such there is no doubt, if you agree that he was a natural man — that is, not regenerate. What power of human nature toward goodness will you point to in such a case, if even in its greatest show of purity that nature is always found bending toward corruption? Therefore, lest you commend a person for virtue when his vices are merely wearing virtue's mask, do not attribute to the human will the power to desire goodness so long as it remains fixed in its own perversity. Yet there is a simpler and more certain answer to this question: those qualities in such men are not common gifts of human nature but special graces of God, which He distributes in varying degrees among people who are otherwise ungodly. For this reason we readily say in ordinary speech that one person is well-natured and another ill-natured — and yet we still include both under the universal condition of human corruption. We are simply pointing out what special grace God has given to the one that He did not choose to give to the other. When it pleased God to make Saul king, He fashioned him as a new man. This is why Plato, alluding to Homer's legend, says that kings' sons are distinguished by some special mark, because God, providing for humanity, equips with a princely nature those whom He appoints to rule. From this same store came all the renowned great commanders of history. The same can be said of private individuals. But since the more any person has excelled, the more ambition has driven him forward — and since ambition taints all such virtues so that they lose all worth before God — whatever appears praiseworthy in ungodly people is ultimately of no account. Beyond that, the most important element of uprightness is missing entirely where there is no desire to advance the glory of God — and all who have not been regenerated by His Spirit lack that desire. Nor is it said without reason in Isaiah that the Spirit of the fear of God rests upon Christ, teaching us that all those who are apart from Christ are without the fear of God — which is the beginning of wisdom. As for the virtues that deceive us with their outward appearance, I grant that they will earn praise in the courts of civic life and in the common reputation of people — but before the heavenly judgment seat, they will have no value toward righteousness.

With the will held captive in sin's bondage, it cannot stir itself toward goodness, let alone devote itself to it. For such stirring is the beginning of turning to God — and Scripture attributes that entirely to God's grace. Jeremiah prays that the Lord would turn him, if it is His will to have him turned. And in that same chapter, describing the spiritual redemption of the faithful, the prophet says they were redeemed from the hand of one stronger than they — showing how tightly a sinner is bound while he lives under the devil's yoke, forsaken by the Lord. Yet the will still remains — a will intensely inclined toward sin and rushing toward it. Man was not stripped of his will when he plunged himself into this bondage, but of the soundness of his will. Bernard puts it well: the capacity to will is in all of us, but to will good is progress, to will evil is fault. Therefore, simply to will belongs to human nature; to will evil belongs to corrupt nature; to will well belongs to grace. When I say that the will, stripped of its freedom, is by necessity drawn toward evil, it is a wonder if anyone should find that a hard saying — for it contains no absurdity and does not differ from the language of the holy writers. But it offends those who cannot distinguish between necessity and compulsion. If you ask them: is not God of necessity good? Is not the devil of necessity evil? What can they answer? Goodness is so bound up with God's divinity that it is no more necessary that He be God than that He be good. And the devil, by his fall, is so cut off from all participation in goodness that he can do nothing but evil. Now if any God-robber should bark against this and say that God deserves little praise for a goodness He is compelled to keep — the ready answer is that it comes not from violent compulsion but from His infinite goodness that He cannot do evil. Therefore, if the fact that God necessarily does good does not hinder the freedom of His will in doing good, and if the devil — who can do nothing but evil — still sins willingly, who shall say that a man sins any less willingly merely because he is subject to the necessity of sinning? This necessity is something Augustine speaks of everywhere. Even when he was being aggressively pressed by the objections of Celestius, he did not hesitate to state plainly: it was by freedom that man came to be in sin, but now the corruption that followed as punishment has made necessity out of freedom. And whenever he touches on the subject, he does not hesitate to speak of the necessary bondage of sin in these terms. Therefore let this be the settled summary: man, being corrupted, sins willingly — not against his will, not under compulsion — with the mind's deepest inclination, not by external force, by the motion of his own desire, not by outside constraint. And yet from the very perversity of his nature he cannot but be moved and driven toward evil. If this is true, then he is plainly subject to the necessity of sinning. Bernard, agreeing with Augustine, writes: among all living creatures only man is free, and yet through sin he also endures a kind of violence — but a violence of will, not of nature, so that even so he is not deprived of freedom, since what is willed is free. A little later: the will, changed within itself to something worse by some strange and corrupted process, creates a necessity — yet that necessity, since it is willed, cannot excuse the will; and the will, since it is drawn by allurement, cannot escape the necessity. For this necessity is, in a certain sense, willing. He then says: we are weighed down by a yoke — but a yoke of willing bondage. Because of our bondage we are miserable; because of our will we are inexcusable — for the will, when it was free, made itself sin's slave. His final conclusion is that the soul is held in a strange and evil way as both slave and free, under a willing and evil slavery: a slave by necessity, free by will, and — more wondrous and more miserable still — guilty precisely where it is free, bound where it is guilty, and thus bound where it is free. Readers can see from all this that I bring nothing new — these ideas were set forth long ago by Augustine from the common agreement of all godly people and were preserved in monasteries for nearly a thousand years afterward. Lombard, because he could not distinguish necessity from compulsion, opened the door to a damaging error.

On the other side, it is worth considering what kind of remedy God's grace provides in correcting and healing the corruption of our nature. For since God in helping us gives us what we lack, once we understand what He does in us, we will immediately see what our poverty is. When the apostle tells the Philippians that he is confident that He who began a good work in them will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ, there is no doubt that 'the beginning of a good work' refers to the very beginning of conversion — which lies in the will. Therefore God begins a good work in us by stirring up in our hearts the love, desire, and effort toward righteousness — or, to put it more precisely, by bending, forming, and directing our hearts toward righteousness — and He brings it to completion by confirming us in perseverance. Lest anyone suggest that God merely assists an already existing but weak will, the Holy Spirit declares elsewhere what the will is capable of when left to itself: 'I will give you a new heart.', 'I will put a new spirit within you.', 'I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.', 'I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.' Who would say that the weakness of the human will is merely strengthened by assistance so that it can effectively aspire to choose what is good — when in fact it must be completely transformed and renewed? If there were any softness in a stone such that with help it could become tender enough to be molded, then I would grant that the human heart can be made pliable to do what is right, with God's grace supplying what is imperfect in it. But if God meant by this image to show that no goodness can ever be drawn from our heart unless it is made entirely new, we must not divide with Him what He claims for Himself alone. If a stone is transformed into flesh when God turns us toward the desire for what is right, then everything that was of our own will is taken away, and what comes in its place is entirely from God. I say the will is taken away — not in the sense that the will ceases to exist, for in man's conversion what belonged to the original nature remains intact — but in the sense that it is created new: not that the will then begins to exist, but that it is turned from a bad will into a good one. And I affirm that this is done entirely by God, since we cannot so much as think anything on our own, as the same apostle testifies. Therefore in another place he says that God does not merely help our weak will or correct our perverse will, but that He works the willing itself within us. It is therefore easily seen, as I said before, that whatever goodness is in the will is the work of grace alone. In this sense he says elsewhere that God works all things in all people — and there he is not speaking of God's general governance but giving God alone the credit for all the good things the faithful possess. And by saying 'all' he makes God the author of spiritual life from beginning to end. He had taught the same thing before in different words, saying that the faithful are of God in Christ — plainly referring to the new creation, in which what belonged to the old common nature is destroyed. There is implied here a comparison between Adam and Christ, which he elsewhere states more explicitly, teaching that we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand for us to walk in. By this reasoning he proves that our salvation is a free gift: because the beginning of all goodness lies in the second creation, which we receive in Christ. If we had any power of our own, even the smallest, we would also have some share of merit. But to prove that we are nothing in ourselves, he argues that we have deserved nothing — because we are created in Christ for good works that God has prepared. In those words he affirms again that every aspect of good works, from the first impulse onward, belongs to God alone. For this reason, after the psalmist said that we are God's handiwork — so that no division of credit could be made — he immediately adds: 'We did not make ourselves.' That he is speaking of regeneration, which is the beginning of spiritual life, is clear from what immediately follows: 'We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.' We see that the psalmist was not content merely to give God credit for our salvation — he expressly excludes us from any partnership with God in it, as if to say that there remains no portion, however small, for man to boast of, because it is all of God.

Some may grant that the will, being by its nature turned away from good, is converted by the Lord's power alone — but then add that once it has been prepared, it also plays its own part, as Augustine teaches: that grace precedes every good work, but the will accompanies grace as an attendant following behind, not as a forerunner leading the way. That statement by the holy man is not wrong in itself, though Peter Lombard handles it clumsily. But I affirm that both in the prophetic passages I have cited and in the other relevant texts, two things are plainly indicated: first, that the Lord both corrects our corrupted will — or rather destroys it — and second, that He Himself puts a good will in its place. Insofar as the will is preceded and prepared by grace, I will let you call it an attendant — but since after being reformed it is the Lord's own work, it is wrong to credit man with obeying grace through a subsequently cooperating will. Therefore Chrysostom was not well advised when he wrote that neither grace without will nor will without grace can do anything — as if grace did not work the very will itself, as we have just seen from Paul. Nor was it Augustine's purpose in calling man's will an attendant of grace to assign it a secondary office in doing good works. His only aim was to refute Pelagius's wicked teaching, which placed the chief cause of salvation in man's merit. He therefore focused on the single point that grace precedes all merit — which was sufficient for the argument at hand — without addressing in that passage the separate question of grace's perpetual effect, though he handles that question excellently elsewhere. For sometimes when he says that the Lord goes before the unwilling in order to make him willing, and then follows the willing so that his willing may not be in vain, Augustine makes God the complete author of the entire good work. His statements on this subject are too clear to require extended argument. 'People labor to find in our will something that is our own and not of God,' he says, 'but how that could be found, I do not know.' And in his first book against Pelagius and Celestius, when expounding Christ's words — 'Everyone who has heard from the Father comes to Me' — he says: 'Free will is so helped not only that it may know what is to be done, but also that it may actually do it once it knows.' 'And so when God teaches not by the letter of the law but by the grace of the Spirit, He teaches in such a way that the one who has learned not only sees it in knowing but also desires it in willing and carries it out in doing.'

Since we are now dealing with the central point on which the whole matter turns, let us proceed and establish the main conclusion for readers with a few clear testimonies of Scripture. And then, lest anyone accuse us of twisting Scripture, let us show that the truth we affirm — drawn from Scripture — also has the testimony of Augustine. I do not intend to rehearse everything that could be cited from Scripture in support of our view. Rather, by presenting the most carefully chosen passages, I hope to prepare the way for understanding all the others scattered throughout. I also think it fitting to show openly that I am in agreement with the man whom the consent of godly people rightly holds in high esteem. It is evident by plain proof that the beginning of goodness comes from nowhere except God alone, for a will inclined toward good is found only in the elect. But the cause of election is to be sought outside of man. From this it follows that man does not have a right will of his own, but that it proceeds from the same good pleasure by which we were chosen before the creation of the world. There is another related reason. Since the beginning of willing and doing good is from faith, we must ask where faith itself comes from. Since all of Scripture cries out that faith is a free gift of God, it follows that it is of God's pure grace alone when we — who are naturally inclined with our whole mind toward evil — begin to will what is good. Therefore, when the Lord speaks of two things in the conversion of His people — taking away their heart of stone and giving them a heart of flesh — He plainly testifies that what is of ourselves must be removed before we can be turned to righteousness, and that whatever comes in its place is entirely from Him. And He does not say this only once. In Jeremiah He says: 'I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me all their days.' And a little later: 'I will put the fear of My name into their hearts, so that they will not turn from Me.' Again in Ezekiel: 'I will give them one heart and put a new spirit within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.' He could not more clearly claim for Himself and take from us whatever is good and right in our will than by declaring that our conversion is the creation of a new spirit and a new heart. The inevitable conclusion follows: nothing good comes from our will until it is reformed, and after it is reformed, whatever good it has is from God and not from us.

We also read holy men praying to this effect, as Solomon says: 'May the Lord incline our hearts to Him, that we may keep His commandments.' He reveals the stubbornness of our hearts, which naturally rejoice in rebelling against God's law unless they are bent. And the same is found in the Psalms: 'Lord, incline my heart to Your testimonies.' We must always notice the contrast implied here — between the perverse motion of the heart that drives it toward stubbornness, and this corrective work by which it is led to obedience. When David, feeling for a time the withdrawal of God's guiding grace, prays for God to create a clean heart within him and renew a right spirit in his inner being — does he not acknowledge that all the parts of his heart are full of corruption, and his spirit twisted with crooked perversity? And in calling the purity he prays for a creation of God, does he not attribute it wholly to God? But if someone objects that the prayer itself is evidence of a godly and holy disposition, our answer is ready: though David had by that time come some way toward restoration, he is still reflecting on the miserable fallen state from which he came. Taking on the person of one estranged from God, he rightly prays to be given all that God gives to His elect in regeneration. Like a dead man, he wishes himself to be created anew — that from being a servant of Satan he might become an instrument of the Holy Spirit. The lust of our pride is truly marvelous and monstrous. Nothing does God require more earnestly than that we keep His Sabbath — that is, that we rest from our own works. And nothing is harder to obtain from us than bidding our own works farewell to make room for the works of God. If sluggishness did not hinder us, Christ has given testimony clear enough about His grace so that it should not be hidden. 'I am the vine,' He says, 'you are the branches; My Father is the vinedresser. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. For apart from Me you can do nothing.' If we bear fruit no more than a branch cut from the ground and left without moisture, we need search no further for what our nature's capacity for goodness is. And the conclusion is plain: 'Apart from Me you can do nothing.' He does not say that we are too weak to be fully sufficient on our own. He brings us to nothing and thereby excludes every opinion of ability, however small. If we are grafted into Christ and bear fruit like a vine that draws its living energy from the moisture of the earth, the dew of heaven, and the warmth of the sun, then I see nothing remaining for us in doing a good work — as long as we preserve for God what belongs to Him. That clever device is vainly raised that there is already sap in the branch and a certain capacity for fruit within it, so that the branch does not take everything from the earth or the root but contributes something of its own. For Christ means simply that we are a dead stick and worthless when separated from Him — because by ourselves, when cut off, we have no power to do good. As He also says elsewhere: 'Every tree that My Father has not planted will be uprooted.' The apostle therefore attributes everything to God in the passage already cited: 'It is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.' The first part of a good work is the willing; the second is the vigorous effort in carrying it out. God is the author of both. If we claim anything for ourselves — either in the willing or in the doing — we steal it from God. If Scripture said that God helps our weak will, something would still be left for us. But when it says that He creates the will, then all the good in it is taken entirely out of our hands. And since the good will is still weighed down by the burden of our flesh and cannot rise on its own, Paul adds that God also provides the strength and perseverance needed to carry the battle through to its conclusion. Otherwise it would be impossible to maintain what he teaches elsewhere, that God alone brings all things to completion in all people — by which, as we have already shown, the entire course of spiritual life is meant. For this reason, after David prayed that God would open the ways of the Lord before him so he could walk in His truth, he immediately added: 'Unite my heart to fear Your name.' By these words he shows that even those who are well disposed are subject to so many inner distractions that they will easily waver and fall away unless they are established in constancy. For the same reason, in another place, after praying that his steps would be directed to keep God's word, he also asks for strength to fight: 'Let no iniquity have dominion over me.' In this way the Lord both begins and completes the good work in us, so that it is all His work: the will conceives a love for what is right, is inclined to desire it, is stirred up and moved to pursue it, and then — so that our choice, desire, and effort do not fail but proceed to completion — man presses on steadily and continues to the end.

God moves the will not in the way that has been taught and believed for many years — as if after His prompting it is left to our choice whether to obey or resist — but by powerfully strengthening it. Therefore what Chrysostom so often repeats must be rejected: 'Whom He draws, He draws because they are willing' — by which he quietly teaches that God merely reaches out His hand to see whether we will accept His help. We grant that this described the state of man while he still stood upright, when he could bow in either direction. But since man's fall has taught us how wretched free will is unless God both wills and acts within us — what will become of us if He gives us His grace in only a small measure? Rather, by our ingratitude we obscure and diminish it. For the apostle does not teach that the grace of a good will is offered to us to accept or reject as we please — but that God will work it in us. This means nothing other than that the Lord by His Spirit directs and governs our heart and reigns in it as His own possession. Nor does God promise through Ezekiel to give the elect a new spirit merely so that they will be able to walk in His commandments — but so that He will actually make them walk. Christ's saying — 'Everyone who has heard from the Father comes to Me' — can only be understood as teaching that God's grace is effectual in itself, as Augustine also affirms. This grace God does not distribute generally and without distinction to all people — as the widely repeated saying attributed to Occam has it, that God denies nothing to the one who does his best. People should certainly be taught that God's goodness stands open to all without exception who seek it. But since only those breathed upon by heavenly grace even begin to seek it, not even this smallest piece should be snatched away from God's praise. For it is the privilege of the elect to be regenerated by the Spirit of God and moved and governed by His guidance. Augustine therefore rightly mocks both those who claim any part of the willing for themselves, and those who think that what is given to all people generally is the special testimony of free election. 'Nature,' he says, 'but not grace, is common to all men.' He calls it a glittering but brittle trick, like glass that shines with mere vanity, when what God gives only to those He pleases is extended in teaching to all. In another place he writes: 'How did you come?', 'By believing.', 'Take care that while you claim credit for having found the right way, you do not perish from the right way.', 'I came,' you say, 'by free will. I came by my own willing.' 'Why do you swell with pride?' 'Do you want to hear that even this was given to you?' 'Hear the One who calls: No man comes to Me unless the Father draws him.' And it is plainly drawn from John's words that the hearts of the godly are so effectively governed by God's working that they follow with an unchangeable affection. 'Whoever is born of God,' he says, 'cannot sin, because God's seed abides in him.' For we see that the middle option the sophists imagine — where we are left free at any moment to either follow or refuse — is plainly excluded wherever Scripture affirms an effectual constancy to persevere.

There should have been no more doubt about perseverance — it should simply have been received as a free gift of God — were it not for the wicked error that grew powerful, teaching that God distributes subsequent grace according to each person's merit, rewarding those who have shown themselves grateful for the first grace. But since this error grew from the notion that it lies in our power to refuse or accept the grace God offers, once that idea is driven away, this other error collapses with it. Yet those who hold this error go astray in several other ways as well. Beyond teaching that gratitude for the first grace and its proper use are rewarded with subsequent gifts, they also add that now grace does not work alone in us but only works together with us. Concerning the first point, we ought to believe this: the Lord, as He daily enriches and multiplies His servants with new gifts of His grace — because He is pleased with and approves of the work He has begun in them — finds in them something upon which to bestow still greater graces. To this belong the sayings: 'To him who has, more will be given.' And: 'Well done, good servant, because you have been faithful in a little, I will set you over much' (Matthew 25:21; Luke 19:17). But two things must be carefully observed here: first, that the proper use of the first grace should not be called the cause that earns subsequent graces; and second, that even if it is called a rewarding, it must not stop being understood as God's free grace. I grant, then, that the faithful may expect this blessing: the better they have used their initial graces, the more they will be increased. But I also say that this use itself is from the Lord, and that this rewarding is from His free generosity. They also make unfortunate and wrong use of the old distinction between working grace and cooperating grace. Augustine did use this distinction, but he qualified it carefully: God, in cooperating with us, brings to completion what He began by working in us, and the grace is the same throughout — it only changes its name according to the different stage of its effect. It follows that he does not divide the work between God and us as if there were a mutual meeting of two parties in motion, but only notes the multiplication of grace. To the same effect he teaches elsewhere that many of God's gifts precede the goodwill of man — and that the goodwill itself is one of them. It follows that nothing is left for the will to claim as its own. Paul has expressed the same thing explicitly: after saying that it is God who works in us both to will and to work (Philippians 2), he immediately adds that God does both of these according to His good pleasure — by which word he declares that it is God's free generosity. As for the common argument that once we have yielded to the first grace, our own efforts now work alongside the grace that follows — my answer is this: if they mean that we, once broken to obedience by the Lord's power, go forward of our own accord and are inclined to follow the working of grace, I have no objection. For it is entirely certain that such readiness of obedience exists where God's grace reigns. But where does that readiness come from, if not from this: that the Spirit of God, remaining consistent with Himself, cherishes and confirms to perseverance the very inclination of obedience that He Himself first produced. But if they mean that man contributes something of his own by which he cooperates with God's grace — they are under a very dangerous delusion.

For the same reason the apostle's statement is wrongly twisted through ignorance: 'I have worked harder than all of them — yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me' (1 Corinthians 15:10). People interpret it this way: since saying he surpassed all the others might seem arrogant, he corrected himself by giving the credit to God's grace — but in a way that still makes himself a co-worker with grace. It is remarkable that so many otherwise sound-minded people have stumbled over this. The apostle does not write that God's grace labored alongside him in order to make himself a partner in the labor. Rather, by this correction he gives away all credit for the labor to grace alone. 'It was not I who labored,' he says, 'but the grace of God that was with me.' The ambiguity of the language misled people — and especially a poor translation that left out the force of the Greek article. For translated word for word, he does not say that grace was a co-worker alongside him, but that the grace that was with him was the sole worker of it all. Augustine teaches the same thing clearly, though briefly: 'God's goodwill precedes many of His gifts, but not all of them — and among those gifts it does precede, the goodwill itself is one.' His reasoning follows: 'For it is written: His mercy shall come before me (Psalm 59:10), and: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me (Psalm 23:6).' 'His mercy goes before the unwilling man to make him willing; it follows the willing man so that his willing will not be in vain.' Bernard agrees, representing the church as saying: 'Draw me even against my will, that You may make me willing; draw me as I lie sluggish, that You may make me run' (Sermon 2 on the Canticles).

Now let us hear Augustine in his own words, lest the Pelagians of our age — that is, the scholastic theologians of the Sorbonne — charge us, as they are prone to do, with having all antiquity against us. In this they follow their father Pelagius, by whom Augustine was long ago drawn into the same dispute. In his book On Rebuke and Grace, written to Valentine, Augustine discusses at length what I will summarize briefly but in his own words. To Adam was given the grace to persevere in good if he chose. To us is given the will to persevere, and through that will to overcome evil desire. Adam therefore had the ability to persevere if he willed, but not the willing that would make him able. To us is given both the willing and the ability. The first freedom was the ability not to sin; ours is much greater — the inability to sin. Lest anyone think Augustine was speaking of the perfection of immortality to come — as Lombard wrongly reads it — he removes that doubt shortly after. 'The will of holy men,' he says, 'is so kindled by the Holy Spirit that they are therefore able because they so will, and they so will because God works that willing in them.' 'For if in so great a weakness — in which power must still be perfected, to keep pride in check — their own will were left to them, so that they could persevere by God's help if they chose, while God does not work in them the very choosing, then amid so many temptations the will would inevitably fall because of its weakness and so could not persevere.' 'Therefore help is given to the weakness of man's will, so that it is moved without wavering or slipping by the grace of God, and thus does not fail, however weak it is.' Augustine then treats more extensively how our hearts by necessity follow the movement of God working affection within them. He says that the Lord draws people with their own wills — but with wills that He Himself has produced. We now have testified through Augustine's own words the very thing we chiefly desire to establish: that grace is not merely offered by God to be received or refused by each person's free choice, but that grace is what forms the choice and will in the heart. Every good work that follows is the fruit and effect of that grace, and it obeys no other will than the one grace itself has created. These too are his words from another place: nothing but grace produces every good work in us.

But where Augustine says in another place that grace does not take away the will but turns an evil will into a good one and assists it once it is good, he means only that a person is not drawn in such a way that he is carried along without any inner movement, like an object pushed from outside. Rather, he is so inwardly moved that he obeys from his very heart. That grace is specially and freely given to the elect he writes to Boniface: 'We know that grace is not given to all people, and that to those to whom it is given, it is not given on the basis of merit in works or in will, but by free favor. And to those to whom it is not given, we know that by God's just judgment it is withheld.' In that same letter he strongly argues against the idea that subsequent grace is given to reward people for not refusing the first grace, as if that made them worthy. He insists that Pelagius must grant that grace is necessary for every one of our actions and is not given in return for works — otherwise it would not truly be grace. The matter cannot be stated more concisely than in Chapter 8 of his book to Valentine, On Rebuke and Grace. There Augustine first teaches that man's will does not obtain grace through its freedom, but obtains freedom through grace. By that same grace, through the imprint of a genuine delight for what is good, the will is shaped to persevere. It is strengthened with invincible force, so that while grace governs it, it never falls away, and when grace withdraws, it immediately collapses. By God's free mercy it is both converted to good and, once converted, remains in it. The directing of man's will toward good, and its steadfastness after that direction, depends solely on God's will and not on any merit of man's own. And so to man is left a kind of free will — if we care to call it that — that can neither turn to God nor remain with God except by grace, and that is capable of everything it is capable of through grace alone.