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.

Chapter 48 [XIX.]—Practice of Cyprian and Ambrose.

What, then, hinders us, when we read of God’s foreknowledge in some commentators on God’s word, and they are treating of the calling of the elect, from understanding the same predestination? For they would perchance have rather used in this matter this word which, moreover, is better understood, and which is not inconsistent with, nay, is in accordance with, the truth which is declared concerning the predestination of grace. This I know, that no one has been able to dispute, except erroneously, against that predestination which I am maintaining in accordance with the Holy Scriptures. Yet I think that they who ask for the opinions of commentators on this matter ought to be satisfied with men so holy and so laudably celebrated everywhere in the faith and Christian doctrine as Cyprian and Ambrose, of whom I have given such clear testimonies; and that for both doctrines—that is, that they should both believe absolutely and preach everywhere that the grace of God is gratuitous, as we must believe and declare it to be; and that they should not think that preaching opposed to the preaching whereby we exhort the indolent or rebuke the evil; because these celebrated men also, although they were preaching God’s grace in such a manner as that one of them said, “That we must boast in nothing, because nothing is our own;”122    Cyprian, Testimonies, iii. 4, as above. and the other, “Our heart and our thoughts are not in our own power;”123    Ambrose, On Flight from the World, ch. 1. yet ceased not to exhort and rebuke, in order that the divine commands might be obeyed. Neither were they afraid of its being said to them, “Why do you exhort us, and why do you rebuke us, if no good thing that we have is from us, and if our hearts are not in our own power?” These holy men could by no means fear that such things should be said to them, since they were of the mind to understand that it is given to very few to receive the teaching of salvation through God Himself, or through the angels of heaven, without any human preaching to them; but that it is given to many to believe in God through human agency. Yet, in whatever manner the word of God is spoken to man, beyond a doubt for man to hear it in such a way as to obey it, is God’s gift.

CAPUT XIX.

48. Quid ergo nos prohibet, quando apud aliquos verbi Dei tractatores legimus Dei praescientiam, et agitur de vocatione electorum, eamdem praedestinationem intelligere? Magis enim fortasse voluerunt hoc verbo in ea re uti, quod et facilius intelligitur, et non repugnat, imo et congruit veritati quae de praedestinatione gratiae praedicatur. Hoc scio, neminem contra istam praedestinationem, quam secundum Scripturas sanctas defendimus, nisi errando disputare potuisse. Puto tamen eis qui de hac re sententias tractatorum requirunt, sanctos et in fide atque doctrina christiana laudabiliter usquequaque diffamatos viros, Cyprianum et Ambrosium, quorum tam clara testimonia posuimus, debere sufficere, et debere ad utrumque, id est, ut et gratiam Dei gratuitam, sicut credenda atque praedicanda est, per omnia credant et per omnia praedicent, et eamdem praedicationem praedicationi qua hortamur pigros, vel corripimus malos, non opinentur adversam: quia et isti viri, cum sic praedicarent Dei gratiam, ut unus eorum diceret, «In nullo gloriandum, quando nostrum nihil sit» (Cyprianus, ad Quirinum, lib. 3, cap. 4); alter autem, «Non est in potestate nostra cor nostrum et nostrae cogitationes» (Ambrosius, de Fuga saeculi, cap. 1); non tamen hortari et corripere destiterunt, ut fierent praecepta divina. Nec timuerunt ne diceretur eis, Quid nos hortamini? quid et corripitis, si nihil boni ut habeamus est nostrum , et si non est in potestate nostra cor nostrum? Haec ne dicerentur eis, nequaquam illi sancti ea mente timere potuerunt, qua intelligebant paucissimis esse donatum, ut nullo sibi homine praedicante, per ipsum Deum vel per Angelos coelorum doctrinam salutis accipiant; multis vero id esse donatum, ut Deo per homines credant. Quolibet tamen modo dicatur homini verbum Dei, procul dubio, quo sic audiat ut illi obediat, donum Dei est.