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Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise On the Predestination of the Saints. — A Treatise on the Gift of Perseverance
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by Aurelius Augustin, Bishop of Hippo
Chapter 1 [I.]—Of the Nature of the Perseverance Here Discoursed of.
Chapter 3.—God is Besought for It, Because It is His Gift.
Chapter 4.—Three Leading Points of the Pelagian Doctrine.
Chapter 5.—The Second Petition in the Lord’s Prayer.
Chapter 6 [III.]—The Third Petition. How Heaven and Earth are Understood in the Lord’s Prayer.
Chapter 7 [IV.]—The Fourth Petition.
Chapter 9.—When Perseverance is Granted to a Person, He Cannot But Persevere.
Chapter 10 [VI.]—The Gift of Perseverance Can Be Obtained by Prayer.
Chapter 11.—Effect of Prayer for Perseverance.
Chapter 12.—Of His Own Will a Man Forsakes God, So that He is Deservedly Forsaken of Him.
Chapter 13 [VII.]—Temptation the Condition of Man.
Chapter 14.—It is God’s Grace Both that Man Comes to Him, and that Man Does Not Depart from Him.
Chapter 15.—Why God Willed that He Should Be Asked for that Which He Might Give Without Prayer.
Chapter 16 [VIII.]—Why is Not Grace Given According to Merit?
Chapter 18.—But Why Should One Be Punished More Than Another?
Chapter 19.—Why Does God Mingle Those Who Will Persevere with Those Who Will Not?
Chapter 20.—Ambrose on God’s Control Over Men’s Thoughts.
Chapter 21 [IX.]—Instances of the Unsearchable Judgments of God.
Chapter 25 [XI.]—God’s Ways, Both in Mercy and Judgment, Past Finding Out.
Chapter 27.—Reference to the “Retractations.”
Chapter 28 [XII.]—God’s Goodness and Righteousness Shown in All.
Chapter 30.—Augustin Claims the Right to Grow in Knowledge.
Chapter 32 [XIII.]—The Inscrutability of God’s Free Purposes.
Chapter 33.—God Gives Both Initiatory and Persevering Grace According to His Own Will.
Chapter 34 [XIV.]—The Doctrine of Predestination Not Opposed to the Advantage of Preaching.
Chapter 35.—What Predestination is.
Chapter 37.—Ears to Hear are a Willingness to Obey.
Chapter 39 [XVI]—Prayer and Exhortation.
Chapter 40.—When the Truth Must Be Spoken, When Kept Back.
Chapter 41.—Predestination Defined as Only God’s Disposing of Events in His Foreknowledge.
Chapter 43.—Further Development of the Foregoing Argument.
Chapter 44.—Exhortation to Wisdom, Though Wisdom is God’s Gift.
Chapter 45.—Exhortation to Other Gifts of God in Like Manner.
Chapter 46.—A Man Who Does Not Persevere Fails by His Own Fault.
Chapter 47.—Predestination is Sometimes Signified Under the Name of Foreknowledge.
Chapter 48 [XIX.]—Practice of Cyprian and Ambrose.
Chapter 49.—Further References to Cyprian and Ambrose.
Chapter 50.—Obedience Not Discouraged by Preaching God’s Gifts.
Chapter 51 [XX.]—Predestination Must Be Preached.
Chapter 52.—Previous Writings Anticipatively Refuted the Pelagian Heresy.
Chapter 53.—Augustin’s “Confessions.”
Chapter 54 [XXI.]—Beginning and End of Faith is of God.
Chapter 55.—Testimony of His Previous Writings and Letters.
Chapter 56.—God Gives Means as Well as End.
Chapter 57 [XXII.]—How Predestination Must Be Preached So as Not to Give Offence.
Chapter 58.—The Doctrine to Be Applied with Discrimination.
Chapter 59.—Offence to Be Avoided.
Chapter 60.—The Application to the Church in General.
Chapter 61.—Use of the Third Person Rather Than the Second.
Chapter 62.—Prayer to Be Inculcated, Nevertheless.
Chapter 63 [XXIII.]—The Testimony of the Whole Church in Her Prayers.
Chapter 64.—In What Sense the Holy Spirit Solicits for Us, Crying, Abba, Father.
Chapter 65.—The Church’s Prayers Imply the Church’s Faith.
Chapter 66 [XXIV.]—Recapitulation and Exhortation.
Chapter 67.—The Most Eminent Instance of Predestination is Christ Jesus.
Chapter 14.—It is God’s Grace Both that Man Comes to Him, and that Man Does Not Depart from Him.
This grace He placed “in Him in whom we have obtained a lot, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things.”29 Eph. i. 11. And thus as He worketh that we come to Him, so He worketh that we do not depart. Wherefore it was said to Him by the mouth of the prophet, “Let Thy hand be upon the man of Thy right hand, and upon the Son of man whom Thou madest strong for Thyself, and we will not depart from Thee.”30 Ps. lxxx. 17, 18. This certainly is not the first Adam, in whom we departed from Him, but the second Adam, upon whom His hand is placed, so that we do not depart from Him. For Christ altogether with His members is—for the Church’s sake, which is His body—the fulness of Him. When, therefore, God’s hand is upon Him, that we depart not from God, assuredly God’s work reaches to us (for this is God’s hand); by which work of God we are caused to be abiding in Christ with God—not, as in Adam, departing from God. For “in Christ we have obtained a lot, being predestinated according to His purpose who worketh all things.” This, therefore, is God’s hand, not ours, that we depart not from God. That, I say, is His hand who said, “I will put my fear in their hearts, that they depart not from me.”31 Jer. xxxii. 40.
14. Hanc gratiam posuit in illo, in quo sortem consecuti sumus, praedestinati secundum propositum ejus qui universa operatur. Ac per hoc sicut operatur ut accedamus, sic operatur ne discedamus. Propter quod ei per prophetam dictum est, Fiat manus tua super virum dexterae tuae, et super filium hominis quem confirmasti tibi; et non discedimus a te (Psal. LXXIX, 18, 19). Iste certe non est Adam primus, in quo discessimus ab eo: sed Adam novissimus, super quem fit manus ejus, ut non discedamus ab eo. Christus enim totus cum membris suis est, propter Ecclesiam, quae est corpus ejus, plenitudo ejus. Cum ergo fit super eum manus Dei, ut non discedamus a Deo, ad nos utique pervenit opus Dei (hoc est enim manus Dei): quo opere Dei fit ut simus in Christo permanentes cum Deo; non sicut in Adam, discedentes a Deo. In Christo enim sortem consecuti sumus, praedestinati secundum propositum ejus qui universa operatur. Manus igitur Dei est ista, non nostra, ut non discedamus a Deo. Manus, inquam, ejus est ista, qui dixit, Timorem meum dabo in cor eorum, ut a me non recedant (Jerem. XXXII, 40).