This post is an excerpt from the forthcoming book Rome Examined: Examination of the Decrees of the Council of Trent. In this concise distillation of Chemnitz’s magisterial critique, we present his scriptural case against Rome’s decrees on tradition, justification, the sacraments, and papal authority—one section at a time. (Find all the excerpts here: https://wolfmueller.co/category/rome-examined/)
Examination
These two decisions of the council openly contradict themselves. One need only compare the first explanation—that all people on account of original sin and actual sin, death, and the devil are enslaved—with Canon Seven—about works before justification. In his work mentioned earlier, Andrada gives us the key to these mysteries. Therefore, I shall simply bring forward his explanation, though without his loud rhetoric.
6:1: Andrada’s Opinion concerning the Works of Unbelievers
[1] Andrada states that Canon Seven is directed against exaggerated notions of our corruption and against the view that a person—without being renewed by the Spirit—is incapable of doing anything that is untainted by sin.
[2] Scholasticism teaches that even the unregenerate, the person without faith and the Spirit, can fulfill God’s commandments. As is well known, fathers like Augustine[1] and Prosper[2] think differently concerning this. Andrada, who writes at the council in the name of the council, explains the judgment concerning the works of unbelievers has not yet been decided by the church. Therefore, each one can decide for themselves at their own discretion.
[3] Andrada says that, according to the view of the wisest, unbelievers need not only a general influence, but particular help and support from God in order to perform works that are completely without guilt. But he does not understand this help of God to be renewing grace or that regenerating effect of the Spirit. Rather, he means the so-called heroic zeal as found among the distinguished pagans.
[4] This completely godless view, as though one could through the course of philosophy find salvation without God’s Word and without the Holy Spirit, was not only secretly harbored at the council, but was also openly presented as something which everyone should wholeheartedly accept.
[5] He explains the sense of the first chapter of Romans to be that the natural knowledge of God is sufficient unto salvation. But what of Paul’s statement in Romans 10:13 ff, “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved”?
[7–8] Then 1 Corinthians 1:21 would also have to be discarded, which states that the world in its foolishness has not recognized God. This also could not stand with Christ’s prayer in John 17:17, “Holy Father, sanctify them in Your truth. Your Word is truth.”
Andrada writes such statements at the council that would be better suited for a less civilized context. For is this not to trample on God’s Word with the feet, to mock justifying faith, and to provoke God’s judgment? How can we even wonder that they do so little justice to Scripture when they are not ashamed to invent a faith and a church which has absolutely no written or revealed word of God?
[9] What Canon Seven vaguely suggests with respect to those who seek to prepare themselves for grace Andrada unveils following the phrase from Clement, that philosophy is a guide to Christ.
[10] Let philosophy be accorded its honorable place for this life. But let it remain in its barriers! Let it not be mixed with the doctrine of the church in matters which are of the Spirit!
6:2: The Scriptural Teaching concerning the Works of the Unregenerate
[1–2] In order to rightly present this doctrine in a clear manner, it is necessary first to distinguish between the works of God in man (such as the body, soul, and all kinds of cognition) from works which are in themselves corrupt (such as the works of humanity).
[3] Second, in so doing one must consider what Augustine says (On Nature and Grace, ch. 3): “All the good which nature has in the body, members, reason, senses, etc., it has from God, who masterfully and finely prepares them. But the damage which darkens and weakens these natural goods stems from original sin.”[3]
Therefore, natural goodness is impaired, damaged, and tainted through sin. Thus, we have such phrases as “spirit of the flesh” (Colossians 2:18); “defiled mind” (Titus 1:15); “earthly wisdom” (James 3:15); “renewal of the mind” (Romans 12:12); “renewal of the entire person” (Colossians 3:10). There always remains, however, a distinction between nature itself and its degradation resulting from sin.
[4] The third question revolves around the actions of the regenerate. Some actions are corrupt and forbidden by God’s Law according to their type. Others are not to be rebuked according to their type, for example arts, laws, and virtues, whether civic, moral, or economic. There is also an external discipline with the unregenerate. Even among the pagans, those virtues have a great appearance. As Aristotle says, justice shines more brightly than the evening and morning star. In order to direct the disorder, God establishes governments and also grants to the unregenerate a heroic zeal and exemplary civic virtues.
[6] But now there remains the fourth question which is the chief question. From what has been stated, it seems to follow that those virtues in the unregenerate are not errors, but good works. This response easily arises from what has been said up to this point: What nature still contains from its originally created disposition is in itself good, though impaired through sin. For this reason, Augustine prudently remarked that for a work to be good, it is not only necessary that it comes from God, but above all, that it is done in a good manner.[4] For a man who rushes to help someone in danger out of a thirst for glory has not done a good work in a good manner, for he did not prove himself to be good by his action.[5] He lacks a good motive. From the following dual perspective, the virtues of unbelievers are not good works, but rather sins before God:
First, in view of the purpose. For it is a brilliant remark of Augustine that it is not the action, but the intention in that action which distinguishes virtues from errors.[6] For as he says, true virtues are God’s service and gifts to the children of men.
Second: There is no good fruit which has not grown from the root of love.[7] Augustine discusses this explicitly in his writing On the Spirit and the Letter. Love is, according to Galatians 5:22, a fruit of the Spirit. This is missing with those who are unregenerate. Therefore, their good works cannot be considered virtues. A bad tree can only bring forth bad fruit, that is, pure sins. Thus Augustine: “’What does not proceed from faith is sin.’ This is not only to be understood in terms of food but is a general valid principle.”[8]
[7] However, Augustine also states, “There is something in our hearts which takes joy in those heathen virtues. For this reason it is difficult for us to completely reject them.” But what is sin in God’s eyes we can only learn from His Word. What Augustine holds against Julian — “Because you say people can please God without faith, the church must detest you,”[9]—is how the reader ought to regard that detestable position which Andrada is not ashamed to represent at the council itself.
6:3: The Arguments of the Opponents
[1] “If the actions are not evil in themselves, in what way then are they sins?” This can be answered as follows: The heart as a creation of God is good and yet is called evil on account of sin. Thus, actions which would not have been evil in themselves are tainted and stained among unbelievers, that is, when they are done by people who are not reconciled and who are not regenerate, but are rather full of guilt and sin. Now God judges not according to what is before the eyes, but rather He sees the heart.
For example, if compassion is in itself good, it is certainly misused by unbelievers. Such misuse is sin.
[2] The second objection is: “If exceptional virtues among the pagans are particular gifts and works of God, then they are not sins.” Augustine answers: “To the extent that these virtues are good, they are from God. But they become sins through their misuse among unbelievers.”[10]
[3] Erasmus raises the objection, “Is the good instruction of Socrates then to be regarded as matricide before God?” To this I reply, “Even among the unregenerate, errors are not all the same. Sodom shall fare more bearably than Chorazin on the last day. “For,” Augustine says, “those who are not good can be more or less evil.”[11] Now Anselm states, “The entire life of the unbeliever is sin. There is nothing good without the highest good.”
[4] Now the position that all actions before justification are full of sin is anathematized in the Canon Seven. Thereby the condemnation is hurled upon men such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Anselm, yes even upon Holy Scripture itself. Andrada boasts, “Our tongue shall prevail; it is ours to speak; who is our Lord?” (Psalm 12:4). I set against this another verse from the same Psalm, “May the Lord destroy all hypocrisy and the tongue which speaks proudly” (Psalm 12:3), Amen, Amen.
Let no one think that we wish to judge those on the outside. This is a matter of preserving pure doctrine. For the so-called “merit of congruity” (meritum congrui) is that infamous Helena; her knight is the council which contends for her on the battlefield with the seventh canon against Scripture and antiquity.
[1] “Most bitter enemies of grace, you offer us examples of ungodly men who, you say, ‘though without faith, abound in virtues where there is, without the aid of grace, only the good of nature even though shackled by superstitions. Such men, by the mere powers of their inborn liberty, are often merciful, and modest, and chaste, and sober.’ […] But God forbid there be true virtues in anyone unless he is just, and God forbid he be truly just unless he lives by faith, for ‘He who is just lives by faith.’ Who of those wishing to be considered Christians, except the Pelagians alone, or, perhaps, you alone among the Pelagians, will call an unbeliever just, and an ungodly man just, and say a just man is in bondage to the Devil?–whether he be Fabricius, whether he be Scipio, whether he be Regulus, whose names you thought would frighten me, as though we were speaking before the ancient court of Rome. You may also appeal to the school of Pythagoras, or that of Plato, where the most erudite and learned in a philosophy far excelling the others in nobility said there are not true virtues except those is some way impressed on the mind by the form of the eternal and unchangeable substance which is God. In spite of this, I proclaim against you with all my divinely given liberty of godliness: ‘True justice is not in those men’ and ‘He who is just lives by faith, faith comes from hearing, and hearing is by the word of Christ. For Christ is the consummation of the Law unto justice for everyone who believes.’ […] How can true justice be in those in whom there is not true wisdom? If you attribute true wisdom to them, there will be no reason for not saying they arrive at the kingdom of which it is written: ‘the desire of wisdom bringeth to the kingdom.’ Therefore, Christ died in vain of men without the faith of Christ through other means or power of reasoning may arrive at true faith, at true virtue, at true justice, at true wisdom. As the apostle most truly says about the Law: ‘If justice is by the law, then Christ died in vain;’ it is also most true to say that, if justice is by nature and the will, then Christ died in vain. If any justice whatsoever is given through the teaching of men, then Christ died in vain, for what gives true justice also gives the kingdom of God. God Himself would be unjust if the truly just were not admitted to His kingdom, since the kingdom itself is justice, as it is written: ‘The kingdom of God does not consist in food and drink, but in justice and peace and joy;’ and if the justice of the ungodly is not true justice, then whichever they have of the virtues allied with it are not true virtues (because failure to refer the gifts of God to their Author makes the evil men using them unjust); thus, neither the continence of the ungodly nor their modesty is true virtue.” – Augustine of Hippo, Against Julian, Book IV, Chapter 3, §16-17, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, NY: Fathers of the Church Inc. (1957), pg. 179, 181-182, link: https://archive.org/details/againstjulian0035augu/page/179/mode/1up
“The function is that which is to be done; the end is that for which it is to be done. When a man does something in which he does not seem to sin, yet does not do it because of that for which he ought to do it, he is guilty of sinning. […] Therefore, virtues which serve carnal pleasure or any temporal advantages or emoluments cannot be true. But virtues that render no service to anything are not true virtues. True virtues in men serve God, by whom they are given to men; true virtues in angels serve God, by whom they are also given to angels. Whatever good is done by man, yet is not done for the purpose for which true wisdom commands it to be done, may seem good from its function, but because the end is not right, it is sin.” – Augustine of Hippo, Against Julian, Book IV, Chapter 3, §21, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, NY: Fathers of the Church Inc. (1957), pg. 186-187, link: https://archive.org/details/againstjulian0035augu/page/186/mode/1up
“Therefore the nature of the human race, generated from the flesh of the one transgressor, if it is self-sufficient for fulfilling the law and for perfecting righteousness, ought to be sure of its reward, that is, of everlasting life, even if in any nation or at any former time faith in the blood of Christ was unknown to it. For God is not so unjust as to defraud righteous persons of the reward of righteousness, because there has not been announced to them the mystery of Christ’s divinity and humanity, which was manifested in the flesh. For how could they believe what they had not heard of; or how could they hear without a preacher? For ‘faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.’ But I say (adds he): Have they not heard? ‘Yea, verily; their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.’ Before, however, all this had been accomplished, before the actual preaching of the gospel reaches the ends of all the earth—because there are some remote nations still (although it is said they are very few) to whom the preached gospel has not found its way,—what must human nature do, or what has it done—for it had either not heard that all this was to take place, or has not yet learnt that it was accomplished—but believe in God who made heaven and earth, by whom also it perceived by nature that it had been itself created, and lead a right life, and thus accomplish His will, uninstructed with any faith in the death and resurrection of Christ? Well, if this could have been done, or can still be done, then for my part I have to say what the apostle said in regard to the law: ‘Then Christ died in vain.’ For if he said this about the law, which only the nation of the Jews received, how much more justly may it be said of the law of nature, which the whole human race has received, ‘If righteousness come by nature, then Christ died in vain.’ If, however, Christ did not die in vain, then human nature cannot by any means be justified and redeemed from God’s most righteous wrath—in a word, from punishment—except by faith and the sacrament of the blood of Christ.” – Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on Nature and Grace, Chapter 3, NPNF1-05, link: https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf105/npnf105.xii.vii.html
“And yet, they thought they were fulfilling the law of God by their righteousness, when they were rather breakers of it all the while! Accordingly, it wrought wrath upon them, and sin abounded, committed as it was by them who knew the law. For whoever did even what the law commanded, without the assistance of the Spirit of grace, acted through fear of punishment, not from love of righteousness, and hence in the sight of God that was not in the will, which in the sight of men appeared in the work; and such doers of the law were held rather guilty of that which God knew they would have preferred to commit, if only it had been possible with impunity. He calls, however, the circumcision of the heart the will that is pure from all unlawful desire; which comes not from the letter, inculcating and threatening, but from the Spirit, assisting and healing. Such doers of the law have their praise therefore, not of men but of God, who by His grace provides the grounds on which they receive praise, of whom it is said, My soul shall make her boast of the Lord; and to whom it is said, My praise shall be of You: but those are not such who would have God praised because they are men; but themselves, because they are righteous.” – Augustine of Hippo, On the Spirit and the Letter, Chapter 13, NPNF1-05, link: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1502.htm
“Therefore all are enemies of the cross of Christ who, going about to establish their own righteousness, which is of the law, — that is, where only the letter commands, and the Spirit does not fulfil — are not subject to the law of God. For if they who are of the law be heirs, faith is made an empty thing. ‘If righteousness is by the law, then Christ has died in vain: then is the offense of the cross done away.’ And thus those are enemies of the cross of Christ who say that righteousness is by the law, to which it belongs to command, not to assist. But the grace of God through Jesus Christ the Lord in the Holy Spirit helps our infirmity. Wherefore he who lives according to the righteousness which is in the law, without the faith of the grace of Christ, as the apostle declares that he lived blameless, must be accounted to have no true righteousness; not because the law is not true and holy, but because to wish to obey the letter which commands, without the Spirit of God which quickens, as if of the strength of free will, is not true righteousness. But the righteousness according to which the righteous man lives by faith, since man has it from God by the Spirit of grace, is true righteousness.” – Augustine of Hippo, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, Book III, Chapters 22-23, NPNF1-05, pg. 775-776, link: https://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/0354-0430,_Augustinus,_Contra_Duas_Epistolas_Pelagianorum_[Schaff],_EN.pdf
“When our Lord Jesus Christ, as we have heard in the Gospel when it was read, had said that He was Himself the bread which came down from heaven, the Jews murmured and said, ‘Is not Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?’ These Jews were far off from the bread of heaven, and knew not how to hunger after it. They had the jaws of their heart languid; with open ears they were deaf, they saw and stood blind. This bread, indeed, requires the hunger of the inner man: and hence He saith in another place, ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.’ But the Apostle Paul says that Christ is for us righteousness. And, consequently, he that hungers after this bread, hungers after righteousness,—that righteousness however which cometh down from heaven, the righteousness that God gives, not that which man works for himself. For if man were not making a righteousness for himself, the same apostle would not have said of the Jews: ‘For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish their own righteousness, they are not subject to the righteousness of God.’ Of such were these who understood not the bread that cometh down from heaven; because being satisfied with their own righteousness, they hungered not after the righteousness of God. What is this, God’s righteousness and man’s righteousness? God’s righteousness here means, not that wherein God is righteous, but that which God bestows on man, that man may be righteous through God. But again, what was the righteousness of those Jews? A righteousness wrought of their own strength on which they presumed, and so declared themselves as if they were fulfillers of the law by their own virtue. But no man fulfills the law but he whom grace assists, that is, whom the bread that cometh down from heaven assists. ‘For the fulfilling of the law,’ as the apostle says in brief, ‘is charity.’ Charity, that is, love, not of money, but of God; love, not of earth nor of heaven, but of Him who made Heaven and earth. Whence can man have that love? Let us hear the same: ‘The love of God,’ saith he, ‘is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us.’ Wherefore, the Lord, about to give the Holy Spirit, said that Himself was the bread that came down from heaven, exhorting us to believe on Him. For to believe on Him is to eat the living bread. He that believes eats; he is sated invisibly, because invisibly is he born again. A babe within, a new man within. Where he is made new, there he is satisfied with food.” – Augustine of Hippo, Tractate XXVI (On John), Chapter VI, §1, NPNF1-07, link: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.xxvii.html
“The five porches in which the infirm folk lay signify the Law, which was first given to the Jews and to the people of Israel by Moses the servant of God. For this Moses the minister of the Law wrote five books. In relation therefore to the number of the books which he wrote, the five porches figured the Law. But because the Law was not given to heal the infirm, but to discover and to manifest them; for so saith the Apostle, ‘For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the Law; But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe;’ therefore in those porches the sick folk lay, but were not cured. For what saith he? ‘If there had been a law given which could have given life.’ Therefore those porches which figured the Law could not cure the sick. Some one will say to me, ‘Why then was it given?’ The Apostle Paul hath himself explained: ‘Scripture,’ saith he, ‘hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.’ For these folk who were sick, thought themselves to be whole. They received the Law, which they were not able to fulfil; they learnt in what disease they were, and they implored the Physician’s aid; they wished to be cured because they came to know they were in distress, which they would not have known if they had not been unable to fulfil the Law which had been given. For man thought himself innocent, and from this very pride of false innocence became more mad. To tame this pride then and to lay it bare, the Law was given; not to deliver the sick, but to convince the proud. Attend then, Beloved; to this end was the Law given, to discover diseases, not to take them away. And so then those sick folk who might have been sick in their own houses with greater privacy, if those five porches had not existed, were in those porches set forth to the eyes of all men, but were not by the porches cured. The Law therefore was useful to discover sins, because that man being made more abundantly guilty by the transgression of the Law, might, having tamed his pride, implore the help of Him That pitieth. Attend to the Apostle; ‘The Law entered that sin might abound; but where sin abounded, grace hath much more abounded.’ What is, ‘The Law entered that sin might abound’? As in another place he saith, ‘For where there is no law, there is no transgression.’ Man may be called a sinner before the Law, a transgressor he cannot. But when he hath sinned, after that he hath received the Law, he is found not only a sinner, but a transgressor. Forasmuch then as to sin is added transgression, therefore ‘hath sin abounded.’ And when sin abounds, human pride learns at length to submit itself, and to confess to God, and to say ‘I am weak.’ To say to those words of the Psalm which none but the humbled soul saith, ‘I said, Lord, be merciful unto me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.’ Let the weak soul then say this that is at least convinced by transgression, and not cured, but manifested by the Law. Hear too Paul himself showing thee, both that the Law is good, and yet that nothing but the grace of Christ delivereth from sin. For the Law can prohibit and command; apply the medicine, that that which doth not allow a man to fulfil the Law, may be cured, it cannot, but grace only doeth that. For the Apostle saith, ‘For I delight in the Law of God after the inner man.’ That is, I see now that what the Law blames is evil, and what the Law commands is good. ‘For I delight in the Law of God after the inner man. I see another law in my members resisting the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity in the law of sin.’ This derived from the punishment of sin, from the propagation of death, from the condemnation of Adam, ‘resists the law of the mind, and brings it into captivity in the law of sin which is in the members.’ He was convinced; he received the Law, that he might be convinced: see now what profit it was to him that he was convinced. Hear the following words, ‘Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Give heed then. Those five porches were significative of the Law, bearing the sick, not healing them; discovering, not curing them.” – Augustine of Hippo, Sermon LXXV, §2-3, NPNF1-06, link: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf106.vii.lxxvii.html?scrBook=John&scrCh=5&scrV=2#highlight
[2] “No matter how many of God’s commands they promote, ministers merely knock at the door of men’s souls; they do not enter. It is God, then, who raises the dead and sets free those who are bound by the shackles of sin. Heit is who grants understanding to darkened hearts, makes the unjust just,and gives them that love whereby the Lover may be loved in return. He himself is the love which He implants. This love, therefore, through which the dead receive life, and darkness becomes light, and the unclean become resplendent, and the foolish begin to grow wise, and the sick to grow strong, this love no one gives to another, nor even to oneself. It is not given by the letter of the Law, nor by natural wisdom, which, when it has once acted, knows only how to fall swiftly downward, but does not know how to arise again. Although it may strive to grow to full stature through the higher arts and adorn its natural goodness with noble manners, still it runs blindly through devious paths unto death, its final doom. From false virtue it cannot acquire the true fruits of eternal life. In its mortal span it loses the empty splendor of a beauty destined to perish. Every virtuous deed is a sin, unless it rises from the seed of true faith; it becomes a source of guilt, and its barren glory heaps up punishment for itself. To such an extent, therefore, is faith a gift, and as a grace freely given, it does not enrich those who have been called, as though they themselves have merited it. It does not distinguish works that are just, but it alone makes the unclean clean.” – Prosper of Aquitaine, Carmen De Ingratis: A Translation with an Introduction and Commentary, tr. Charles T. Huegelmeyer, DC: The Catholic University of America (1962), Patristic Studies, Vol. XCV, pg. 67, 69, v. 390-413, link:
“All of us have been created in the first man without any blemish and we have all lost the integrity of our nature through the sin of the same first man. Hence followed mortality, hence the manifold corruption of body and mind, ignorance and difficulty, useless cares, unlawful desires, sacrilegious aberrations, vain fears, harmful love, unholy pleasures, blamable designs, and as great a host of woes as of sins. With these and other evils assailing human nature, with faith lost, hope abandoned, the intellect blinded, the will enslaved, no one finds in himself the means of a restoration. Although some tried, guided by their natural reason, to resist vices, the life of decency they led here on earth was sterile. They did not acquire true virtues and attain eternal happiness. Without worship of the true God even what has the appearance of virtue is sin. No one can please God without God.” – Prosper of Aquitane, The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 7, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, No. 14, MD: The Newman Press (1952), pg. 33-34, link: https://archive.org/details/stprosperofaquit027573mbp/page/n44/mode/1up
“We conclude that neither the learned nor the illiterate of whatever race or rank come to God led by human reason; but every man who is converted to God is first stirred by God’s grace. For man is no light unto himself, nor can he inflame his own heart with a ray of his own light. If Saint John than whom no son of men was greater, was not the light because he did not shine with his own brightness, but had received the power to enlighten others from the true Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world: what man is there who would give up so many conflicting opinions, so many constraining habits, so many inveterate prejudices, relying only on his own judgment and helped solely by the spoken word of a teacher? Grace would then consist only in the exterior hearing of the doctrine and the whole of a man’s faith would spring from his own will If such were the case, there would be no difference between grace and the Law; and the spirit of forgiveness would enliven no one if the letter that kills remained. For indeed the Law commands things to be done or avoided, but it does not help one to do or to avoid them. Its rigour is complied with not out of free choice but out of fear. But the Lord with a view not to destroy but to fulfil the Law, through the help of His grace, made the command of the Law effective, and through the abundance of His clemency lifted its penal sanction so that He might not avenge sin with punishments, but destroy it through forgiveness.” – Prosper of Aquitane, The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 8, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, No. 14, MD: The Newman Press (1952), pg. 37-38, link: https://archive.org/details/stprosperofaquit027573mbp/page/n48/mode/1up
“There would be no need of being born again of water and of the Spirit, if it were sufficient to know the Law. We believe that in baptism all sins are forgiven; this faith would be vain if we were taught that grace is not given to the wicked and the ungodly, but only to the good and the righteous. Thus the source of true life and of true justice lies in the sacrament of regeneration. When man is born again, then his virtues begin to be true then they who could hardly gain an earthly reward of vain praise, begin through faith to advance towards eternal glory. Before a man is justified, be he a Jew proud of his knowledge of the Law or a Greek conceited with the study of natural wisdom, he is imprisoned under sin. Were he to persist in his unbelief, the anger of God would remain upon him, the anger incurred in Adam’s sin.” – Prosper of Aquitane, The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 18, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, No. 14, MD: The Newman Press (1952), pg. 63, link: https://archive.org/details/stprosperofaquit027573mbp/page/n74/mode/1up
“Within the people of Israel which was guided by both these teachings of things created and of the Law and Prophets no one could be justified except through grace in a spirit of faith.” – Prosper of Aquitane, The Call of All Nations, Book II, Chapter 6, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, No. 14, MD: The Newman Press (1952), pg. 97, link: https://archive.org/details/stprosperofaquit027573mbp/page/n108/mode/1up
[3] “Man’s nature, indeed, was created at first faultless and without any sin; but that nature of man in which every one is born from Adam, now wants the Physician, because it is not sound. All good qualities, no doubt, which it still possesses in its make, life, senses, intellect, it has of the Most High God, its Creator and Maker. But the flaw, which darkens and weakens all those natural goods, so that it has need of illumination and healing, it has not contracted from its blameless Creator—but from that original sin, which it committed by free will. Accordingly, criminal nature has its part in most righteous punishment. For, if we are now newly created in Christ, we were, for all that, children of wrath, even as others, ‘but God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by whose grace we were saved.’” – Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on Nature and Grace, Chapter 3, NPNF1-05, link: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf105.xii.vii.html
[4] “Who is he that believeth not that Jesus is the Christ? He that does not so live as Christ commanded. For many say, ‘I believe:’ but faith without works saveth not. Now the work of faith is Love, as Paul the apostle saith, ‘And faith which worketh by love.’ Thy past works indeed, before thou didst believe, were either none, or if they seemed good, were nothing worth. For if they were none, thou wast as a man without feet, or with sore feet unable to walk: but if they seemed good, before thou didst believe, thou didst run indeed, but by running aside from the way thou wentest astray instead of coming to the goal. It is for us, then, both to run, and to run in the way. He that runs aside from the way, runs to no purpose, or rather runs but to toil. He goes the more astray, the more he runs aside from the way. What is the way by which we run? Christ hath told us, ‘I am the Way.’ What the home to which we run? “I am the Truth.” By Him thou runnest, to Him thou runnest, in Him thou restest. But, that we might run by Him, He reached even unto us: for we were afar off, foreigners in a far country. Not enough that we were in a far country, we were feeble also that we could not stir. A Physician, He came to the sick: a Way, He extended Himself to them that were in a far country. Let us be saved by Him, let us walk in Him. This it is to ‘believe that Jesus is the Christ,’ as Christians believe, who are not Christians only in name, but in deeds and in life, not as the devils believe.” – Augustine of Hippo, Homily X (on 1 John 5:1-3), NPNF1-07, link: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iv.xiii.html
“Perhaps he may answer that God does not compel men to do these things, but only forsakes those who deserve to be forsaken. If he does say this, he says what is most true. For, as I have already remarked, those who are forsaken by the light of righteousness, and are therefore groping in darkness, produce nothing else than those works of darkness which I have enumerated, until such time as it is said to them, and they obey the command: ‘Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.’ The truth designates them as dead; whence the passage: ‘Let the dead bury their dead.’ The truth, then, designates as dead those whom this man declares to have been unable to be damaged or corrupted by sin, on the ground, forsooth, that he has discovered sin to be no substance! Nobody tells him that ‘man was so formed as to be able to pass from righteousness to sin, and yet not able to return from sin to righteousness.’ But that free will, whereby man corrupted his own self, was sufficient for his passing into sin; but to return to righteousness, he has need of a Physician, since he is out of health; he has need of a Vivifier, because he is dead. Now about such grace as this he says not a word, as if he were able to cure himself by his own will, since this alone was able to ruin him. We do not tell him that the death of the body is of efficacy for sinning, because it is only its punishment; for no one sins by undergoing the death of his body; but the death of the soul is conducive to sin, forsaken as it is by its life, that is, its God; and it must needs produce dead works, until it revives by the grace of Christ. God forbid that we should assert that hunger and thirst and other bodily sufferings necessarily produce sin. When exercised by such vexations, the life of the righteous only shines out with greater lustre, and procures a greater glory by overcoming them through patience; but then it is assisted by the grace, it is assisted by the Spirit, it is assisted by the mercy of God; not exalting itself in an arrogant will, but earning fortitude by a humble confession. For it had learnt to say unto God: ‘Thou art my hope; Thou art my trust.’ Now, how it happens that concerning this grace, and help and mercy, without which we cannot live, this man has nothing to say, I am at a loss to know; but he goes further, and in the most open manner gainsays the grace of Christ whereby we are justified, by insisting on the sufficiency of nature to work righteousness, provided only the will be present.” – Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on Nature and Grace, Chapter 25, NPNF1-05, link: https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf105/npnf105.xii.xxix.html
[5] “Whatever good is done by man, yet is not done for the purpose for which true wisdom commands it to be done, may seem good from its function, but because the end is not right, it is sin. Therefore, certain good acts can be done when those who do them are not doing well. It is good to help a man in danger, especially an innocent man. But, if a man acts loving the glory of men more than the glory of God, he does a good thing not in a good way, because he is not good when his act is not done in a good way. God forbid that a will be or be said to be good when it glories in others, or in itself, and not in the Lord. Neither may its fruit be said to be good, since a bad tree does not produce good fruit; rather, the good work belongs to Him who acts well even through evil men.” – Augustine of Hippo, Against Julian, Book IV, Chapter 3, §21-22, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, NY: Fathers of the Church Inc. (1957), pg. 186-187, link: https://archive.org/details/againstjulian0035augu/page/187/mode/1up?q=plato
[6] “You know that virtues must be distinguished from vices, not by their functions, but by their ends. The function is that which is to be done; the end is that for which it is to be done. When a man does something in which he does not seem to sin, yet does not do it because of that for which he ought to do it, he is guilty of sinning. Not heeding this fact, you separated the ends from the functions and said that the function, apart from the ends, should be called true virtues, and in consequence you involved yourself in such absurdities that you were obliged to call even that whose mistress is avarice true justice. If you think only of the function, then refusing to take another’s property can look like justice. But, when someone asks why it is done, and the answer is: ‘In order not to lose more money in contention,’ how could this work, serving avarice, belong to true justice? The virtues Epicurus introduced as handmaids of pleasure are such that they do whatever they do for the sake of obtaining or possessing pleasure. God forbid that true virtues serve anyone but Him to whom we say: ‘Lord of virtues, convert us.’ Therefore, virtues which serve carnal pleasure or any temporal advantages or emoluments cannot be true. But virtues that render no service to anything are not true virtues. True virtues in men serve God, by whom they are given to men; true virtues in angels serve God, by whom they are also given to angels. Whatever good is done by man, yet is not done for the purpose for which true wisdom commands it to be done, may seem good from its function, but because the end is not right, it is sin.” – Augustine of Hippo, Against Julian, Book IV, Chapter 3, §21, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, NY: Fathers of the Church Inc. (1957), pg. 186-187, link: https://archive.org/details/againstjulian0035augu/page/186/mode/1up
[7] “For, although it is true that he cannot hope without love, it may be that there is something without which, if he does not love it, he cannot realize the object of his hopes. An example of this would be if a man hopes for life eternal—and who is there who does not love that?—and yet does not love righteousness, without which no one comes to it. Now this is the true faith of Christ which the apostle commends: faith that works through love. And what it yet lacks in love it asks that it may receive, it seeks that it may find, and knocks that it may be opened unto it. For faith achieves what the law commands [fides namque impetrat quod lex imperat]. And, without the gift of God—that is, without the Holy Spirit, through whom love is shed abroad in our hearts—the law may bid but it cannot aid [jubere lex poterit, non juvare]. Moreover, it can make of man a transgressor, who cannot then excuse himself by pleading ignorance. For appetite reigns where the love of God does not. When, in the deepest shadows of ignorance, he lives according to the flesh with no restraint of reason—this is the primal state of man. Afterward, when ‘through the law the knowledge of sin’ has come to man, and the Holy Spirit has not yet come to his aid—so that even if he wishes to live according to the law, he is vanquished—man sins knowingly and is brought under the spell and made the slave of sin, ‘for by whatever a man is vanquished, of this master he is the slave’. The effect of the knowledge of the law is that sin works in man the whole round of concupiscence, which adds to the guilt of the first transgression. And thus it is that what was written is fulfilled: ‘The law entered in, that the offense might abound.’” – Augustine of Hippo, tr. Albert C. Outler, Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love, Chapter XXXI, §117-118, link: https://ccel.org/ccel/augustine/enchiridion/enchiridion.chapter31.html
[8] “You introduce a race of men who can please God by the law of nature without the faith of Christ. This is the chief reason why the Christian Church hates you. […] The testimony I cited from the Apostle–‘All that is not from faith is sin’–you received as you pleased, and you did not expound it as it savors, but as you savor it. The Apostle was talking first about food, but when he said: ‘He who hesitates, if he eats, is condemned, because it is not from faith,’ he wished to make a general statement about the kind of sin in question, concluding immediately, ‘For all that is not from faith is sin.’” – Augustine of Hippo, Against Julian, Book IV, Chapter 3, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, NY: Fathers of the Church Inc. (1957), §23-24, pg. 188-189, link: https://archive.org/details/againstjulian0035augu/page/188/mode/1up
“‘Ye have not chosen me,’ He says, ‘but I have chosen you.’ Grace such as that is ineffable. For what were we so long as Christ had not yet chosen us, and we were therefore still destitute of love? For he who hath chosen Him, how can he love Him? Were we, think you, in that condition which is sung of in the psalm: ‘I had rather be an abject in the house of the Lord, than dwell in the tents of wickedness’? Certainly not. What were we then, but sinful and lost? We had not yet come to believe on Him, in order to lead to His choosing us; for if it were those who already believed that He chose, then was He chosen Himself, prior to His choosing. But how could He say, ‘Ye have not chosen me,’ save only because His mercy anticipated us? Here surely is at fault the vain reasoning of those who defend the foreknowledge of God in opposition to His grace, and with this view declare that we were chosen before the foundation of the world, because God foreknew that we should be good, but not that He Himself would make us good. So says not He, who declares, ‘Ye have not chosen me.’ For had He chosen us on the ground that He foreknew that we should be good, then would He also have foreknown that we would not be the first to make choice of Him. For in no other way could we possibly be good: unless, forsooth, one could be called good who has never made good his choice. What was it then that He chose in those who were not good? For they were not chosen because of their goodness, inasmuch as they could not be good without being chosen. Otherwise grace is no more grace, if we maintain the priority of merit. Such, certainly, is the election of grace, whereof the apostle says: ‘Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace.’ To which he adds: ‘And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace.’ Listen, thou ungrateful one, listen: ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.’ Not that thou mayest say, I am chosen because I already believed. For if thou wert believing in Him, then hadst thou already chosen Him. But listen: ‘Ye have not chosen me.’ Not that thou mayest say, Before I believed I was already doing good works, and therefore was I chosen. For what good work can be prior to faith, when the apostle says, ‘Whatsoever is not of faith is sin’? What, then, are we to say on hearing such words, ‘Ye have not chosen me,’ but that we were evil, and were chosen in order that we might be good through the grace of Him who chose us? For it is not by grace, if merit preceded: but it is of grace: and therefore that grace did not find, but effected the merit. See then, beloved, how it is that He chooseth not the good, but maketh those whom He has chosen good.” – Augustine of Hippo, Lectures on the Gospel According to St. John, Tractate LXXXVI (on John 15:15-16), §1-3, NPNF1-07, link: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.lxxxvii.html
[9] “For you, who deny that the virtues by which a man lives rightly are gifts of God, and attribute them to human nature and will, not to the grace of God, are accustomed to argue that unbelievers sometimes have these virtues; in this way you try to nullify our assertion that no one lives rightly except by faith through Jesus Christ our Lord, the one Mediator of God and men, and thus you most plainly profess yourselves His adversaries. […] You introduce a race of men who can please God by the law of nature without the faith of Christ. This is the chief reason why the Christian Church detests you. ” – Augustine of Hippo, Against Julian, Book IV, Chapter 3, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, NY: Fathers of the Church Inc. (1957), pg. 177, 188, link: https://archive.org/details/againstjulian0035augu/page/177/mode/1up
“By proclaiming the nature as guiltless, and the power of free will and the law, whether the natural alw or the law given through Moses, your dogma would persuade men that there is indeed some need for Christ, yet it is not necessary to pass into Christ for eternal salvation, because, it says, the way through the sacrament of His death and resurrection is more commodious (if you grant that much), not because there cannot be another way. Considering, therefore, how much Christians ought to detest you, renounce your opinion even in our silence.” – Augustine of Hippo, Against Julian, Book 6, Chapter 24, §81, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, NY: Fathers of the Church Inc. (1957), pg. 393, link: https://archive.org/details/againstjulian0035augu/page/395/mode/1up
[10] “How much more tolerable, then, to attribute what you say are virtues in the ungodly to the divine gift rather than only to their will; although they are ignorant of this until, if they are of the number of the predestined, they receive the spirit which is from God and thus come to know the things given them by God. But God forbid there be true virtues in anyone unless he is just, and God forbid he be truly just unless he lives by faith, for ‘He who is just lives by faith.’ […] As the apostle most truly says about the Law: ‘If justice is by the law, then Christ died in vain;’ it is also most true to say that, if justice is by nature and the will, then Christ died in vain. If any justice whatsoever is given through the teaching of men, then Christ died in vain, for what gives true justice also gives the kingdom of God. God Himself would be unjust if the truly just were not admitted to His kingdom, since the kingdom itself is justice, as it is written: ‘The kingdom of God does not consist in food and drink, but in justice and peace and joy;’ and if the justice of the ungodly is not true justice, then whichever they have of the virtues allied with it are not true virtues (because failure to refer the gifts of God to their Author makes the evil men using them unjust); thus, neither the continence of the ungodly nor their modesty is true virtue.” – Augustine of Hippo, Against Julian, Book IV, Chapter 3, §16-17, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, NY: Fathers of the Church Inc. (1957), pg. 180, 182, link: https://archive.org/details/againstjulian0035augu/page/180/mode/1up
[11] “If they have not the faith of Christ, then they are neither just nor pleasing to God, since without faith it is impossible to please God. Their thoughts will defend them on the day of judgment thus: that they may receive a more tolerable punishment, because in some way they did naturally the works of the Law, having the work of the Law written in the hearts to the extent that they did not do to others what they did not want done to themselves. But those men without faith sinned in that they did not refer their works to the end to which they should be referred. Fabricius will be punished less than Catiline, not because Fabricius was good, but because Catiline was more evil. Fabricius was less wicked than Catiline, not because he had more virtues, but because he did not deviate so much from the true virtues.” – Augustine of Hippo, Against Julian, Book IV, Chapter 3, §25, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, NY: Fathers of the Church Inc. (1957), pg. 189-190, link: https://archive.org/details/againstjulian0035augu/page/189/mode/1up
