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.

A Treatise on the Gift of Perseverance,1    [In some editions and in many mss. the title is, On the Benefit of Perseverance, and the book is so cited by Remigius, Florus (or Bede), Hincmar, and others. Probably neither title is authentic. Prosper speaks of it to Hilary as if it simply bore the name of the second book of the Predestination of the Saints. “In the books,” he writes, “of Bishop Augustin, of blessed memory, which bear the title, On the Predestination of the Saints.”—W.]

by Aurelius Augustin, Bishop of Hippo;

Being the Second Book,

Of the Treatise “On the Predestination of the Saints.”

addressed to prosper and hilary.

a.d. 428 or 429

In the first part of the book he proves that the perseverance by which a man perseveres in Christ to the end is God’s gift; for that it is a mockery to ask of God that which is not believed to be given by God. Moreover, that in the Lord’s prayer scarcely anything is asked for but perseverance, according to the exposition of the martyr Cyprian, by which exposition the enemies to this grace were convicted before they were born. He teaches that the grace of perseverance is not given according to the merits of the receivers, but to some it is given by God’s mercy; to others it is not given, by His righteous judgment. That it is inscrutable why, of adults, one rather than another should be called; just as, moreover, of two infants it is inscrutable why the one should be taken, the other left. But that it is still more inscrutable why, of two pious persons, to one it should be given to persevere, to the other it should not be given; but that this is most certain, that the former is of the predestinated, the latter is not. He observes that the mystery of predestination is set forth in our Lord’s words concerning the people of Tyre and Sidon, who would have repented if the same miracles had been done among them which had been done in Chorazin. He shows that the case of infants is of force to confirm the truth of predestination and grace in older people; and he answers the passage of his third book on free will, unsoundly alleged on this point by his adversaries. Subsequently, in the second part of this work, he rebuts what they say,—to wit, that the definition of predestination is opposed to the usefulness of exhortation and rebuke. He asserts, on the other hand, that it is advantageous to preach predestination, so that man may not glory in himself, but in the Lord. As to the objections, however, which they make against predestination, he shows that the same objections may be twisted in no unlike manner either against God’s foreknowledge or against that grace which they all agree to be necessary for other good things (with the exception of the beginning of faith and the completion of perseverance). For that the predestination of the saints is nothing else than God’s foreknowledge and preparation for His benefits, by which whoever are delivered are most certainly delivered. But he bids that predestination should be preached in a harmonious manner, and not in such a way as to seem to an unskilful multitude as if it were disproved by its very preaching. Lastly, he commends to us Jesus Christ, as placed before our eyes, as the most eminent instance of predestination.

S. AURELII AUGUSTINI HIPPONENSIS EPISCOPI DE DONO PERSEVERANTIAE LIBER AD PROSPERUM ET HILARIUM SECUNDUS .

Prima parte libri probat perseverantiam illam, qua in Christo perseveratur usque in finem, esse donum Dei. Hoc enim a Deo irrisorie peti, si a Deo dari non creditur. Porro dominica oratione nihil pene aliud posci quam perseverantiam juxta Cypriani martyris expositionem: qua quidem expositione ipsi gratiae inimici convicti sunt antequam nati. Perseverandi gratiam non secundum accipientium merita, sed aliis Dei misericordia dari, aliis justo ejus judicio non dari docet. Cur ex adultis ille potius quam iste vocetur, quemadmodum et ex duobus parvulis cur iste assumatur, ille relinquatur, inscrutabile. Inscrutabilius vero, cur ex duobus piis, huic perseverare donetur, non illi: sed illud tamen certissimum, hunc esse ex praedestinatis, illum non esse. Praedestinationis mysterium dominicis verbis de Tyriis et Sidoniis, si eadem apud illos quae apud Chorozain signa facta essent, poenitentiam acturis, monstrari observat. Exemplum parvulorum ad praedestinationis et gratiae in majoribus veritatem firmandam valere ostendit: atque ad locum libri sui de Libero Arbitrio tertii ab adversariis male huc allatum respondet. Altera postea operis hujus parte refellit quod illi aiunt, Praedestinationis definitionem utilitati exhortationis et correptionis adversam. Asserit contra praedestinationem utiliter praedicari, ut homo non in se ipso, sed in Domino glorietur. Quae autem ab illis adversus praedestinationem objectantur, eadem non absimiliter vel adversus Dei praescientiam, vel adversus gratiam illam, quam ad caetera bona (excepto initio fidei et perseverantiae perfectione) necessariam esse consentiunt, posse torqueri. Praedestinationem quippe sanctorum nihil aliud esse quam praescientiam et praeparationem beneficiorum Dei, quibus certissime liberantur, quicumque liberantur. Verum praedestinationem congrua ratione praedicari jubet, ac non eo modo ut apud imperitam multitudinem redargui ipsa sua praedicatione videatur. Postremo illustrissimum praedestinationis exemplum nobis positum ob oculos Dominum Jesum commendat.