{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050461.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050461.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050461.htm","text":"Chapter 6 [V.]\u2014Pelagius and Paul of Different Opinions.\nThe whole of this dogma of Pelagius, observe, is carefully expressed in these words, and none other, in the third book of his treatise in defence of the liberty of the will, in which he has taken care to distinguish with so great subtlety these three things,\u2014the \u201ccapacity,\u201d the \u201cvolition,\u201d and the \u201caction,\u201d that is, the \u201cability,\u201d the \u201cvolition,\u201d and the \u201cactuality,\u201d\u2014that, whenever we read or hear of his acknowledging the assistance of divine grace in order to our avoidance of evil and accomplishment of good,\u2014whatever he may mean by the said assistance of grace, whether law and the teaching or any other thing,\u2014we are sure of what he says; nor can we run into any mistake by understanding him otherwise than he means. For we cannot help knowing that, according to his belief, it is not our \u201cvolition\u201d nor our \u201caction\u201d which is assisted by the divine help, but solely our \u201ccapacity\u201d to will and act, which alone of the three, as he affirms, we have of God. As if that faculty were infirm which God Himself placed in our nature; while the other two, which, as he would have it, are our own, are so strong and firm and self-sufficient as to require none of His help! so that He does not help us to will, nor help us to act, but simply helps us to the possibility of willing and acting. The apostle, however, holds the contrary, when he says, \u201cWork out your own salvation with fear and trembling.\u201d 1791 And that they might be sure that it was not simply in their being able to work (for this they had already received in nature and in teaching), but in their actual working, that they were divinely assisted, the apostle does not say to them, \u201cFor it is God that worketh in you to be able,\u201d as if they already possessed volition and operation among their own resources, without requiring His assistance in respect of these two; but he says, \u201cFor it is God which worketh in you both to will and to perform of His own good pleasure;\u201d 1792 or, as the reading runs in other copies, especially the Greek, \u201cboth to will and to operate.\u201d Consider, now, whether the apostle did not thus long before foresee by the Holy Ghost that there would arise adversaries of the grace of God; and did not therefore declare that God works within us those two very things, even \u201cwilling\u201d and \u201coperating,\u201d which this man so determined to be our own, as if they were in no wise assisted by the help of divine grace.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on the...","type":"page"}