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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 65.—The Church’s Prayers Imply the Church’s Faith.
These things, therefore, which the Church asks from the Lord, and always has asked from the time she began to exist, God so foreknew that He would give to His called, that He has already given them in predestination itself; as the apostle declares without any ambiguity. For, writing to Timothy, he says, “Labour along with the gospel according to the power of God, who saves us, and calls us with His holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the times of eternity, but is now made manifest by the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ.”153 2 Tim. i. 8, etc. Let him, therefore, say that the Church at any time has not had in its belief the truth of this predestination and grace, which is now maintained with a more careful heed against the late heretics; let him say this who dares to say that at any time it has not prayed, or not truthfully prayed, as well that unbelievers might believe, as that believers might persevere. And if the Church has always prayed for these benefits, it has always believed them to be certainly God’s gifts; nor was it ever right for it to deny that they were foreknown by Him. And thus Christ’s Church has never failed to hold the faith of this predestination, which is now being defended with new solicitude against these modern heretics.
65. Haec igitur quae poscit a Domino, et semper ex quo esse coepit, poposcit Ecclesia, ita Deus vocatis suis daturum se esse praescivit, ut in ipsa praedestinatione jam dederit: quod Apostolus sine ambiguitate declarat. Scribens quippe ad Timotheum: Collabora, inquit, Evangelio secundum virtutem Dei salvos nos facientis, et vocantis vocatione sua sancta; non secundum opera nostra, sed secundum suum propositum et gratiam, quae data est nobis in Christo Jesu ante tempora aeterna, manifestata autem nunc per adventum Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi (II Tim. I, 8-10). Ille itaque dicat Ecclesiam aliquando in fide sua non habuisse veritatem praedestinationis hujus et gratiae, quae nunc contra novos haereticos cura diligentiore defenditur: ille, inquam, hoc dicat, qui dicere audet aliquando eam non orasse, vel non veraciter orasse, sive ut crederent infideles, sive ut perseverarent fideles. Quae bona si semper oravit, semper ea Dei dona esse utique credidit; 1033 nec ab illo esse praecognita unquam ei negare fas fuit. Ac per hoc praedestinationis hujus fidem, quae contra novos haereticos nova sollicitudine nunc defenditur, nunquam Ecclesia Christi non habuit.