{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050933.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050933.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050933.htm","text":"[The 215th of Augustin\u2019s Epistles.]\nTo my very dear lord and most honoured brother among the members of Christ, Valentinus, and to the brethren that are with you, Augustin sends greeting in the Lord.\n1. That Cresconius and Felix, and another Felix, the servants of God, who came to us from your brotherhood, have spent Easter with us is known to your Love. 2937 We have detained them somewhile longer in order that they might return to you better instructed against the new Pelagian heretics, into whose error every one falls who supposes that it is according to any human merits that the grace of God is given to us, which alone delivers a man through Jesus Christ our Lord. But he, too, is no less in error who thinks that, when the Lord shall come to judgment, a man is not judged according to his works who has been able to use throughout his life free choice of will. For only infants, who have not yet done any works of their own, either good or bad, will be condemned on account of original sin alone, when they have not been delivered by the Saviour\u2019s grace in the laver of regeneration. As for all others who, in the use of their free will, have added to original sin, sins of their own commission, but who have not been delivered by God\u2019s grace from the power of darkness and removed into the kingdom of Christ, they will receive judgment according to the deserts not of their original sin only, but also of the acts of their own will. The good, indeed, shall receive their reward according to the merits of their own good-will, but then they received this very good-will through the grace of God; and thus is accomplished that sentence of Scripture, \u201cIndignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile: but glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh good; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.\u201d 2938\n2. Touching the very difficult question of will and grace, I have felt no need of treating it further in this letter, having given them another letter also when they were about to return in greater haste. I have written a book likewise for you, 2939 and if you, by the Lord\u2019s help, read it, and have a lively understanding of it, I think that no further dissension on this subject will arise among you. They take with them other documents besides, which, as we supposed, ought to be sent to you, in order that from these you may ascertain what means the catholic Church has adopted for repelling, in God\u2019s mercy, the poison of the Pelagian heresy. For the letters to Pope Innocent, Bishop of Rome, from the Council of the province of Carthage, and from the Council of Numidia, and one written with exceeding care by five bishops, and what he wrote back to these three; our letter also to Pope Zosimus about the African Council, and his answer addressed to all bishops throughout the world; and a brief constitution, which we drew up against the error itself at a later plenary Council of all Africa; and the above-mentioned book of mine, which I have just written for you,\u2014all these we have both read over with them, while they were with us, and have now despatched by their hands to you. 2940\n3. Furthermore, we have read to them the work of the most blessed martyr Cyprian on the Lord\u2019s Prayer, and have pointed out to them how He taught that all things pertaining to our morals, which constitute right living, must be sought from our Father which is in heaven, lest, by presuming on free will, we fall from divine grace. From the same treatise we have also shown them how the same glorious martyr has taught us that it behoves us to pray even for our enemies who have not yet believed in Christ, that they may believe; which would of course be all in vain unless the Church believed that even the evil and unbelieving wills of men might, by the grace of God, be converted to good. This book of St. Cyprian, however, we have not sent you, because they told us that you possessed it among yourselves already. My letter, also, which had been sent to Sixtus, presbyter of the Church at Rome 2941 and which they brought with them to us, we read over with them, and pointed out how that it had been written in opposition to those who say that God\u2019s grace is bestowed according to our merits,\u2014that is to say, in opposition to the same Pelagians.\n4. As far, then, as lay in our power, we have used our influence with them, as both your brethren and our own, with a view to their persevering in the soundness of the catholic faith, which neither denies free will whether for an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God\u2019s grace, whether that it may be changed from evil to good, or that it may persevere in the pursuit of good, or that it may attain to eternal good when there is no further fear of failure. To yourselves, too, my most dearly beloved, I also, in this letter, give the same exhortation which the apostle addresses to us all, \u201cnot to think p. 440 of yourselves more highly than you ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.\u201d 2942\n5. Mark well the counsel which the Holy Ghost gives us by Solomon: \u201cMake straight paths for thy feet, and order thy ways aright. Turn not aside to the right hand nor to the left, but turn away thy foot from the evil way; for the Lord knoweth the ways on the right hand, but those on the left are perverse. He will make thy ways straight, and will direct thy steps in peace.\u201d 2943 Now consider, my brethren, that in these words of Holy Scripture, if there were no free will, it would not be said, \u201cMake straight paths for thy feet, and order thy ways; turn not aside to the right hand, nor to the left.\u201d Nor yet, were this possible for us to achieve without the grace of God, would it be afterwards added, \u201cHe will make thy ways straight, and will direct thy steps in peace.\u201d\n6. Decline, therefore, neither to the right hand nor to the left, although the paths on the right hand are praised, and those on the left hand are blamed. This is why he added, \u201cTurn away thy foot from the evil way,\u201d\u2014that is, from the left-hand path. This he makes manifest in the following words, saying, \u201cFor the Lord knoweth the ways on the right hand; but those on the left are perverse.\u201d In those ways we ought surely to walk which the Lord knows; and it is of these that we read in the Psalm, \u201cThe Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish;\u201d 2944 for this way, which is on the left hand, the Lord does not know. As He will also say at last to such as are placed on His left hand at the day of judgment: \u201cI know you not.\u201d 2945 Now what is that which He knows not, who knows all things, both good and evil, in man? But what is the meaning of the words, \u201cI know you not,\u201d unless it be that you are now such as I never made you? Precisely as that passage runs, which is spoken of the Lord Jesus Christ, that \u201cHe knew no sin.\u201d 2946 How knew it not, except that He had never made it? And, therefore, how is to be understood the passage, \u201cThe ways which are on the right hand the Lord knoweth,\u201d except in the sense that He made those ways Himself,\u2014even \u201cthe paths of the righteous,\u201d which no doubt are \u201cthose good works that God,\u201d as the apostle tells us, \u201chath before ordained that we should walk in them\u201d? 2947 Whereas the left-hand ways\u2014those perverse paths of the unrighteous\u2014He truly knows nothing of, because He never made them for man, but man made them for himself. Wherefore He says, \u201cThe perverse ways of the wicked I utterly abhor; they are on the left hand.\u201d\n7. But the reply is made: Why did He say, \u201cTurn not aside to the right hand, nor to the left,\u201d when he clearly ought rather to have said, Keep to the right hand, and turn not off to the left, if the right-hand paths are good? Why, do we think, except this, that the paths on the right hand are so good that it is not good to turn off from them, even to the right? For that man, indeed, is to be understood as declining to the right who chooses to attribute to himself, and not to God, even those good works which appertain to right-hand ways. Hence it was that after saying, \u201cFor the Lord knoweth the ways on the right hand, but those on the left hand are perverse,\u201d as if the objection were raised to Him, Wherefore, then, do you not wish us to turn aside to the right? He immediately added as follows: \u201cHe will Himself make thy paths straight, and will direct thy ways in peace.\u201d Understand, therefore, the precept, \u201cMake straight paths for thy feet, and order thy ways aright,\u201d in such a sense as to know that whenever you do all this, it is the Lord God who enables you to do it. Then you will not turn off to the right, although you are walking in right-hand paths, not trusting in your own strength; and He will Himself be your strength, who will make straight paths for your feet, and will direct your ways in peace.\n8. Wherefore, most dearly beloved, whosoever says, My will suffices for me to perform good works, declines to the right. But, on the other hand, they who think that a good way of life should be forsaken, when they hear God\u2019s grace so preached as to lead to the supposition and belief that it of itself makes men\u2019s wills from evil to good, and it even of itself keeps them what it has made them; and who, as the result of this opinion, go on to say, \u201cLet us do evil that good may come,\u201d 2948 \u2014these persons decline to the left. This is the reason why he said to you, \u201cTurn not aside to the right hand, nor to the left;\u201d in other words, do not uphold free will in such wise as to attribute good works to it without the grace of God, nor so defend and maintain grace as if, by reason of it, you may love evil works in security and safety,\u2014which may God\u2019s grace itself avert from you! Now it was the words of such as these which the apostle had in view when he said, \u201cWhat shall we say, then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?\u201d 2949 And to this cavil of erring men, who know nothing about the grace of God, he returned such an answer as he ought in these words: \u201cGod forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?\u201d Nothing could have been said more succinctly, and yet to the point. For what more useful gift does the grace of God confer upon us, in this present evil world, than our dying unto sin? Hence he shows himself ungrateful to grace itself who chooses to live in sin by reason of that whereby we die unto sin. May God, however, who is rich in mercy, grant you both to think soundly and wisely, and to continue perseveringly and progressively to the end in every good determination and purpose. For yourselves, for us, for all who love you, and for those who hate you, pray that this gift may be attained,\u2014pray earnestly and vigilantly in brotherly peace. Live unto God. If I deserve any favour at your hands, let brother Florus come to me.\nThe phrase of Christian salutation, vestra caritas which may be rendered \u201cyour loving or beloved selves;\u201d it is a parallel phrase with the more familiar one to modern ears, \u201cYour Honour.\u201d\n439:2938 439:2939\nThe following treatise is here referred to,\u2014On Grace and Free Will.\n439:2940\nSee Epp. 175\u2013177, and 181\u2013183.\n439:2941 440:2942 440:2943\nProv. 4:26, 27.\n440:2944 440:2945 440:2946 440:2947 440:2948 440:2949","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on Gra...","type":"page"}