Fifty Godly and Learned Sermons (The Decades)

Faith is the gift of God, but where he bestoweth faith, he useth means to give it by: those means he will not have us to neglect. An householder knoweth that faith is the gift of God, and yet notwithstanding he instructeth his children in the word of truth, he chargeth them to go to Church, to pray for faith, and to learn it at the preachers mouth. A good father would think much, yea he would not think well of it, if his son should say: Father I pray you teach me not, send me not so much to Church, and beat me not if I be not there: For faith is the gift of God, which whipping cannot bring me too. Then what man can quietly abide to hear that faith is the gift of God, and that therefore no man ought for faith, that is, for the corruption of faith and open blasphemy, to suffer any punishment?

Faith is the gift of God, but where he bestoweth faith, hée vseth meanes to giue it by: those meanes hée wil not haue vs to neglecte. An householder knoweth that faith is the gift of God, and yet notwithstanding hée instructeth his children in the word of truth, hée chargeth them to goe to Church, to pray for faith, and to learne it at the preachers mouth. A good father would thinke much, yea he would not thinke well of it, if his sonne should say: Father I pray you teach mée not, sende mée not so much to Church, and beate mée not if I be not there: For faith is the gift of God, which whipping cannot bring mée too. Then what man can quietlie abide to heare that faith is the gift of God, and that therefore no man ought for faith, that is, for the corruption of faith and open blasphemie, to suffer any punishment?

And yet Petilian in the 83. chapter of S. Augustine's 2. book Contra Petiliani ¹literas crieth out, & saith: God forbid and far be it from our conscience, to compel any man to our religion. Shall we therefore go on to speak the words of heretics? or to say, that the Lord God in the Scriptures hath planted hypocrisy, where with threats & punishment he hath driven men to goodness? David saith: It is good for me Lord that thou hast chastised me. And Jeremiah saith: Thou hast chastised me, (O Lord) and I am chastised like an untamed heifer. But if no man ought to be compelled to goodness, to what intent doth Solomon (the wisest of all men) so many times command to chastise children? He that spareth the rod hateth the child. Saith he: Thou in deed doest strike him, but with the rod thou deliverest his soul from death. Daily experience, and the disposition of men do plainly teach, that in men there are most vehement affections, which, unless they be remedied and bridled betimes, do both destroy them in whom they be, and other men too, who at yt first might easily with light punishment have been preserved. Men in their madness despise compulsion and chastising punishment, but when they come to themselves again, and see from how great evils they are delivered by those that compelled them, then they rejoice, that to their health they were chastised, & praise the compulsion which before they despised. Let us hear what Augustine doth think and teach hereof, whose experience in this matter was very much. In his 48. Epist. ad Vincentium contra Donatistas de vi coercendis haereticis, he writeth thus. My opinion sometime was, that no man ought by force to be compelled to the unity of Christ, that we ought to deal by words, fight in disputations, and overcome with reason, least peradventure we should have those to counterfeit themselves to be catholics, whom we knew to be open heretics. But this opinion of mine, was not confuted with the words of my gainsayers, but with the examples of those which showed the contrary. For first, mine own city (Hippo) was objected against me: which, when as sometime it held wholly with Donatus, was by the fear of the imperial laws, converted to the Catholic unity: