by Aurelius Augustin, Bishop of Hippo

 Chapter 1 [I.]—Of the Nature of the Perseverance Here Discoursed of.

 Chapter 2 [II.]—Faith is the Beginning of a Christian Man. Martyrdom for Christ’s Sake is His Best Ending.

 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 8 [V.]—The Fifth Petition. It is an Error of the Pelagians that the Righteous are Free from Sin.

 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 17.—The Difficulty of the Distinction Made in the Choice of One and the Rejection of Another.

 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 22.—It is an Absurdity to Say that the Dead Will Be Judged for Sins Which They Would Have Committed If They Had Lived.

 Chapter 23.—Why for the People of Tyre and Sidon, Who Would Have Believed, the Miracles Were Not Done Which Were Done in Other Places Which Did Not Be

 Chapter 24 [X.]—It May Be Objected that The People of Tyre and Sidon Might, If They Had Heard, Have Believed, and Have Subsequently Lapsed from Their

 Chapter 25 [XI.]—God’s Ways, Both in Mercy and Judgment, Past Finding Out.

 Chapter 26.—The Manicheans Do Not Receive All the Books of the Old Testament, and of the New Only Those that They Choose.

 Chapter 27.—Reference to the “Retractations.”

 Chapter 28 [XII.]—God’s Goodness and Righteousness Shown in All.

 Chapter 29.—God’s True Grace Could Be Defended Even If There Were No Original Sin, as Pelagius Maintains.

 Chapter 30.—Augustin Claims the Right to Grow in Knowledge.

 Chapter 31.—Infants are Not Judged According to that Which They are Foreknown as Likely to Do If They Should Live.

 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 36.—The Preaching of the Gospel and the Preaching of Predestination the Two Parts of One Message.

 Chapter 37.—Ears to Hear are a Willingness to Obey.

 Chapter 38 [XV.]—Against the Preaching of Predestination the Same Objections May Be Alleged as Against Predestination.

 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.

 [XVII.] Among these benefits there remains perseverance unto the end, which is daily asked for in vain from the Lord, if the Lord by His grace does no

 Chapter 42.—The Adversaries Cannot Deny Predestination to Those Gifts of Grace Which They Themselves Acknowledge, and Their Exhortations are Not Hinde

 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.

 [XVIII.] Consequently sometimes the same predestination is signified also under the name of foreknowledge as says the apostle, “God has not rejected

 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 68.—Conclusion.

[XVII.] Among these benefits there remains perseverance unto the end, which is daily asked for in vain from the Lord, if the Lord by His grace does not effect it in him whose prayers He hears. See now how foreign it is from the truth to deny that perseverance even to the end of this life is the gift of God; since He Himself puts an end to this life when He wills, and if He puts an end before a fall that is threatening, He makes the man to persevere even unto the end. But more marvellous and more manifest to believers is the largess of God’s goodness, that this grace is given even to infants, although there is no obedience at that age to which it may be given. To whomsoever, therefore, God gives His gifts, beyond a doubt He has foreknown that He will bestow them on them, and in His foreknowledge He has prepared them for them. Therefore, those whom He predestinated, them He also called with that calling which I am not reluctant often to make mention of, of which it is said, “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”104    Rom. xi. 29. For the ordering of His future works in His foreknowledge, which cannot be deceived and changed, is absolute, and is nothing but, predestination. But, as he whom God has foreknown to be chaste, although he may regard it as uncertain, so acts as to be chaste, so he whom He has predestinated to be chaste, although he may regard that as uncertain, does not, therefore, fail to act so as to be chaste because he hears that he is to be what he will be by the gift of God. Nay, rather, his love rejoices, and he is not puffed up as if he had not received it. Not only, therefore, is he not hindered from this work by the preaching of predestination, but he is even assisted to it, so that although he glories he may glory in the Lord.

CAPUT XVII.

Restat in his bonis usque in finem perseverantia, quae frustra quotidie a Domino poscitur, si non eam Dominus per gratiam suam in illo, cujus orationes exaudit, operatur. Videte jam a veritate quam sit alienum, negare donum Dei esse perseverantiam usque in finem hujus vitae: cum vitae huic, quando voluerit, ipse det finem; quem si dat ante imminentem lapsum, facit hominem perseverare usque in finem. Sed mirabilior et fidelibus evidentior largitas bonitatis Dei est, quod etiam parvulis, quibus obedientia non est illius aetatis ut detur, datur haec gratia. Ista igitur sua dona quibuscumque Deus donat, procul dubio se donaturum esse praescivit, et in sua praescientia praeparavit. Quos ergo praedestinavit, 1019 ipsos et vocavit (Rom. VIII, 30) vocatione illa, quam me saepe commemorare non piget, de qua dictum est, Sine poenitentia sunt dona et vocatio Dei (Id. XI, 29). Namque in sua quae falli mutarique non potest praescientia, opera sua futura disponere, id omnino, nec aliud quidquam est praedestinare. Sicut autem ille quem castum futurum esse praescivit, quamvis id incertum habeat, agit ut castus sit: ita ille quem castum futurum praedestinavit, quamvis id incertum habeat, non ideo non agit ut castus sit, quoniam Dei dono se audit futurum esse quod erit ; imo etiam gaudet ejus charitas; nec inflatur (I Cor. XIII, 4), tanquam id non acceperit. Non solum ergo praedicatione praedestinationis ab hoc opere non impeditur, verum et ad hoc adjuvatur, ut cum gloriatur, in Domino glorietur (I Id. 31).