Must we be thus saved, O Osorius, in keeping God's Commands? is this your harangue, and think you this so easy to be performed? Why not, say you, when the Spirit of God helps? How little does this Saying differ from that Ancient one of the Pelagians, which Augustine rehearses in a certain place, writing against Julian the Pelagian, for thus they said. By an easy endeavour after holiness, which God helps, a Man may be without 1sins. But let us hear Augustine answering, both them and you: We deny not, saith he, that the help ⟨p. 168⟩of God is so powerful, if he will, that at this day we might have no evil concupiscences, against which we should fight, though with the greatest certainty of Conquest. And yet you your self deny not, that it doth not so come to pass, but why it comes not to pass, who hath known the mind of the Lord? Yet I know not a little, when I know, whatsoever that cause is, that it is not the iniquity of a just God, nor the insufficiency of an 2Almighty God. Therefore there is something in his deep and hidden Counsel, why as long as we live in this mortal flesh, there is something in us, against which our mind should fight: There is also something why we should say, forgive us our sins; and a little after, that Man understands these things who being hunger-bitten, returns to himself, and says, I will arise and go to my Father, and presently he subjoins, therefore it comes to pass in this place of infirmity, that we should not live proudly, and that we should live under the daily remission of sins: But whether that be the cause, or another; which I am much more ignorant of, yet that which I cannot doubt is, how much soever we get forward under this burden of a corruptible body, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive our selves, &c. This he said, but why should I urge you with humane Authority, seeing the matter it self carries against you with a very strong voice, and the whole Scripture gives this honour only to Christ, and the Universal experience and ⟨p. 169⟩example of Men, and the practice of life, besides your very own retired Sense, the Domestic Witnesses of your Conscience, do publish a manifest Testimony against you? You say, we presently obtain the help of God, 3whereby we may most easily perform all things, that are commanded us, &c. Is it so? all things?
Must we be thus saved, O Osorius, in keeping God's Commands? is this your harangue, and think you this so easie to be performed? Why not, say you, when the Spirit of God helps? How little does this Saying differ from that Antient one of the Pelagians, which Augustine rehearses in a certain place, writing against Iulian the Pelagian, for thus they said. By an easie endeavour after holiness, which God helps, a Man may be without 1sins. But let us hear Augustine answering, both them and you: We deny not, saith he, that the help ⟨p. 168⟩of God is so powerful, if he will, that at this day we might have no evil concupisences, against which we should fight, though with the greatest certainty of Conquest. And yet you your self deny not, that it doth not so come to pass, but why it comes not to pass, who hath known the mind of the Lord? Yet I know not a little, when I know, whatsoever that cause is, that it is not the iniquity of a just God, nor the insufficiency of an 2Almighty God. Therefore there is something in his deep and hidden Counsel, why as long as we live in this mortal flesh, there is something in us, against which our mind should fight: There is also something why we should say, forgive us our sins; and a little after, that Man understands these things who being hunger-bitten, returns to himself, and says, I will arise and go to my Father, and presently he subjoyns, therefore it comes to pass in this place of infirmity, that we should not live proudly, and that we should live under the daily remission of sins: But whether that be the cause, or another; which I am much more ignorant of, yet that which I cannot doubt is, how much soever we get forward under this burthen of a corruptible body, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive our selves, &c. This he said, but why should I urge you with humane Authority, seeing the matter it self carries against you with a very strong voice, and the whole Scripture gives this honour only to Christ, and the Universal experience and ⟨p. 169⟩example of Men, and the practice of life, besides your very own retired Sense, the Domestick Witnesses of your Conscience, do publish a manifest Testimony against you? You say, we presently obtain the help of God, 3whereby we may most easily perform all things, that are commanded us, &c. Is it so? all things?
- 1Aug. cont. Julian Pelagia l. 4. c. 3.Aug. cont. Iulian Pelagia l. 4. c. 3.
- 2A hidden counsel of God in commanding those things which cannot be done by us.
- 3De just, lib. 9. pag. 231.
