§ 157. Augustine's doctrine of EEOEEMmG grace. 847
what good could we do ? Or, how could we not do good, with Buch a love?" " Tlie Holy Spirit breathes where He will^ and does not follow merits, bnt Himself produces the merits ! ' Grace, therefore, is not bestowed on man hecause he already believes, but that he Tn.ay believe ; not hecause he has deserved it by good works, but that he Tnay deserve good works." Pelagius reverses the natural relation by making the cause the effect, and the effect the cause. The ground of our salvation can only be found in God Himself, if He is to remain immutable. Augustine appeals to examples of pardoned sinners, " where not only no good deserts, but even evil deserts, had preceded." Thus the apostle Paul, " averse to the faith, which he wasted, and vehemently inflamed against it, was suddenly converted to that faith by the prevailing power of grace, and that in such wise that he was changed not only from an enemy to a friend, but from a persecutor to a sufferer of persecution for the sake of the faith he had once destroyed. For to him it was given by Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake." He also points to children, who without will, and therefore without voluntary merit preceding, are through holy baptism incorporated in the kingdom of grace.' His own experience, finally, afforded him an argument, to him irrefutable, for the free, undeserved compassion of God. And if in other passages he speaks of merits, he means good works which the Holy Ghost effects in man, and which God graciously rewards, so that eternal Efe is grace for grace. "If all thy merits are gifts of God, God crowns thy merits not as thy merits, but as the gifts of his grace." '
' De pecc. orig. § 28 (x. 265) : " Et ipsorum [prophetarum] corda eadem mundabantur mediatoris fide, et diffundebatur in eis caritas per Spiritum Sanctum, qui ubi vult spirat, non merita sequens, sed etiam ipsa merita faciens."
' De gratia et libero arbitrio, cap. 22 (§ 44, torn. x. f. 742). Pamili, he says, have no will to receive grace, nay, often struggle with tears against being baptized, " quod eis ad magnum impietatis peccatum imputaretur, si jam libf ro uterentui arbitrio : et tamen l^aeret etiam in rel'uctantibus gratia, apertissime nullo bono tnerito praecedentc, alioquin gratia jam non esset gratia." He then calls attention to the fact that grace is sometimes bestowed on children of unbelievers, iind is withheld from many children of believers.
* De grat. et lib. arbitrio, c. 6 (f. 726), where Augustine, from piissages likf
348 THIED PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Grace is irresistifjU in its effect ; not, indeed, in tlie way of physical consti'aint imposed on the will, but as a moral power, which makes man willing, and which infallibly attaina its end, the conversion and final perfection of its subject.* Tills point is closely connected with Augustine's whole doo trine of predestination, and consistently leads to it or follows from it. Hence the Pelagians repeatedly raised the charge that Augustine, under the name of grace, introduced a certaio fatalism. But the irresistibility must manifestly not be ex tended to all the influences of grace; for the Bible often speaks of grieving, quenching, lying to, and blaspheming the Holy Ghost, and so implies that grace may be resisted ; and it presents many living examples of such resistance. It cannot be denied, that Saul, Solomon, Ananias, and Sapphira, and even the traitor Judas, were under the influence of divine grace, and repelled it. Augustine, therefore, must make irresistible grace identical with the specific grace of regeneration in the elect^ which at the same time imparts the donum perseverantice.'^
James i. 17 ; John Hi. 27 ; Eph. iu 8, draws the conclusion: "Si ergo Dei don* sunt bona merita tua, non Deus coronat merita tua tamquam mcrita tua, sed tarniliiam dona sua."
' "Subventuin est infirmitati voluntatis humanac, ut divina gratia indeclinor aiUer et insuperabi/ilcr [not ivseparabiUler, as the Jesuit edition of Louvaiu, 1577, reads] ageretur; et ideo, quamvis infirma, non tamen deficcret, neque adversitate aliqua vincerelur." De corrcpt. et grat. § 38 (torn. x. p. 771).
' It is in this sense that the Calvinistic theologians have always understood the Augustinian system, especially the Presbyterians. So, e. g.. Dr. Ounni.nqham (1. c. voL ii. p. 352): "Augustine, in asserting the invincibility or irresistibility of grace, did not mean — and those who in subsequent times have embraced this general system of doctrine as scriptural, did not intend to convey the idea — that man was compelled to do that which was good, or that he was forced to repent and believe against his will, whether he would or not, as the doctrine is commonly misrepresented, but merely that he was certainly and effectually made willing, by the renovation of his will through the power of God, whenever that poivcr was put forth in a fneasure sufficient and adequate to produce the result. Augustine, and those who have adopted his system, did not mean to deny that men may, in some sense and to some extent, resist the Spirit, the possibility of which is clearly indicated in Scrip, ture ; inasmuch as they have most commonly held that, to use the language of our [the Westminster] Confession, ' persons who are not elected, and who finally perish, may have some common operations of the Spirit,' which, of course, they resist and throw off." Similarly Dr. Shedd (Ilist. of Doct. vol. ii. 73), who, however, extendi