Fathers

Two Dissertations · §117

Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Secundo: Augustine—rebuke, original pravity, and grace infused not merely offered

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Fourth, On Rebuke and Grace 5. Unbelievers and rebels argue: I would deserve rebuke if by my fault I lacked faith and obedience—if I could give or take it myself and would not, or if when God gave it I refused. But if the Lord himself prepares the will, why rebuke me? Chapter 6 Augustine answers: the first crookedness that disobeys God is from the human, who by his own evil will fell from the uprightness God first made in him. So rebuke the damnable root, that pain may birth a will to be regenerated—yet only if the one rebuked is a child of promise, so God works inwardly in him by hidden inspiration even to will. Epistle 105 is the same case. Pelagius asks: what have we done who live badly, if we never received the grace to live well? Augustine answers only that people who live badly of themselves cannot truly claim they have done no evil. A little later: let them blame themselves; they were made from the mass God justly condemned for one man's sin. In both places Augustine grants that God has denied his grace to some; that those not given it could not take it for themselves; and that original guilt and pravity are reason enough for God, of his will, to withhold Christ's grace from anyone. Note too: he does not picture saving grace as something merely offered to the human will, knocking to be let in, but as something poured in—healing and vivifying the will that receives it.

Latin

Quartum sumitur ex libro De corrept. et gratia, cap. 5, ubi increduli et rebelles hoc modo argutantur: Recte corriperer, si eam (id est, fidem et obedientiam) mea culpa non haberem; hoc est, si eam possem mihi dare vel sumere ipse, nec facerem; vel si dante Deo accipere noluissem: Verum cum ipsa voluntas a Domino praeparetur, cur me corripis? &c. Cap. 6. respondet Augustinus in hunc modum: Prima pravitas, qua Deo non obeditur, ab homine est, quia ex rectitudine, in qua eum Deus primitus fecit, sua mala voluntate decidens pravus effectus est. Corripiatur ergo origo damnabilis, ut ex dolore correptionis voluntas regenerationis oriatur; si tamen qui corripitur filius est promissionis, ut Deus in illo intrinsecus occulta inspiratione operetur et velle. Huic conjungo locum plane confimilem, ex Epistola 105. Ita objicit Pelagius: Quid nos fecimus qui male vivimus, quandoquidem gratiam unde bene viveremus non accepimus? Nihil aliud respondet Augustinus quam non posse eos veraciter dicere se nihil mali fecisse, qui de suo male vivunt. Et paulo post: Sibi hoc imputent, quia ex ea massa facti sunt, quam propter unius peccatum merito Deus justeque damnavit. Observandum est utroque in loco, concedere Augustinum, esse nonnullos quibus gratiam suam Deus negavit; porro, eos quibus non est data, non potuisse eam sibimetipsis sumere; denique, reatum et pravitatem originalem satis idoneam rationem esse, cur Deus gratiam Christi pro sua voluntate cuivis deneget. Denique illud quoque notandum, Augustinum non imaginari gratiam Christi salutiferam esse quiddam oblatum humanae voluntati, et pulsans ut intro mittatur, sed quiddam infusum et sanans ac vivificans voluntatem cui datur.

About this text

John Davenant — Dissertationes duae from the 1650 Cambridge Latin. Honest partial through De praedestinatione Cap. 1 subject tip; Cap. 1 mid-Thesis and remainder remain; De praedestinatione Cap. 1 Prolegomena IV distinguishing conditions tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Variae (Pelagian opening) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Scholastici / Vasquez Arg. 1 tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 2 praescientia tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 3 (1 Cor. 2:9) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 4 (2 Tim. 2:21) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 5 (1 Tim. 2:4) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 6 (James 2:5) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 7 (Apoc. 3:11) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 1 (common inefficacious will) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 2 (Vasquez physical vs moral media) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 3 (king/prize / victory foresight) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 4 (optimum modus / crown of justice) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 5 (acceptor personarum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 6 (misericordia/congruitas) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 7 (equal disposition) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 8 (few saved / major part) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 9 (Stephen / glory from others' sins) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 10 (mere beneplacitum / Predestinati) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III reprobation ratio (foresight of sin) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 12 (efficacious election / free choice) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 13 (hortation/prayer) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 14 (decree/execution conformity) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arminianorum open tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 7 (τρόπος; Rom. 9:22) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 8 (ordo exsecutionis) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 9 (Christus fundamentum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 1 (amor ad salutem) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 2 (actualis vitae datio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 3 (qualis existens) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 4 (justitiae satisfactio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 5 (natura vitae aeternae) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 6 (Christus a decreto) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 7 (Evangelium invertitur) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 8 (arcana/revelata) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI (Orthodoxa sententia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 2 (gratia specialis) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 3 (Scripturae) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 4 (vocatio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 5 (adjutorium) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 7 (inconveniens) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 8 (perseverantia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 9 (unica ratio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 10 (abyssus) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 11 (efficacia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 12 (segregativum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 13 (pura gratia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VII open (reprobatio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VII Junius trifariam tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VIII open (adversariorum) tip; Cap. VIII peccata-causa tip; Cap. VIII fewer-reprobates tip; Cap. VIII Argentina tip; Cap. VIII dives-misericordia tip; Cap. VIII Corvinus tip into Cap. IX; Cap. IX Ab Adae tip; Cap. IX Ab Adae Christus omnibus+Minor tip; Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol tip; Cap. IX vocatione Evangelica tip; Cap. IX vocatione Sol cont. tip; Cap. IX Arg. 6 Sol cont. tip.

English follows locked 1650 Cambridge Latin of De morte Christi Cap. 1-6 opening (origin + Thesis 1 + Cap. 2 Rat. 1-ultima + Cap. 3 Satisfit through Obj. 17 + Cap. 4 Thesis 2 tip through Mem. 1 close + Cap. 4 Mem. 2 through Mem. 3 tip + Cap. 4 Mem. 3 possible-faith through Thesis 2 close + Cap. 5 Thesis 3 tip through Mem. 2 Scripture close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Rat. 1-4 + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Fathers tip + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Huberiana objections tip through Obj. 3 Solut close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 elect-from-eternity objections tip through Obj. 3 Solut close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect objections tip through Cap. 5 thesis close + Cap. 6 opening tip through Arg. 1 close before Arg. 2), reconstructed from the Internet Archive PDF (pdftotext + tesseract) of the Roger Daniel folio with DjVu OCR check. The 1683 reprint was not used as copy-text. No modern English was copied.

Witnesses

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