The Calling of All Nations 1.1–1.8

Between the defenders of free choice and the preachers of the grace of God a great and difficult question has long been debated. For it is asked whether God wills all men to be saved; and since this cannot be denied, it is asked why the will of the Almighty is not fulfilled. And when it is said that this happens according to the will of men, grace seems to be excluded; and if grace is rendered for merits, it is clear that it is not a gift but a debt. Hence it is asked again why this gift, without which no one is saved, is not conferred on all by him who wills all to be saved. And so no end is found to the contrary disputes, while what is manifest and what is hidden are not distinguished. Concerning this conflict of opinions, then, I will try to inquire, as far as the Lord helps, with what measure and moderation one should think; exercising and examining the small measure of my ability in those things that have (as I think) soberly fixed themselves in my heart; so that, if my pen proceeds along rules that contain nothing offensive and nothing perverse, it may be useful not only to us but to others that we have reached some limit that we ought not to pass. First, then, we must discuss the movements and stages of the human will. Between it and the grace of God some make an unsound distinction, thinking that by the preaching of grace free choice is denied, and not noticing that the same rule can be turned against them: that they deny grace when they want it to be not the leader of the human will but its companion. For if the will is taken away unless it is itself the origin of true virtues, grace is taken away unless it is itself the cause of good merits. But now, with Christ’s help, let us begin what we have resolved to treat.

In every human soul, as far as one is given to understand and experience it, there is naturally some kind of will, by which what pleases is sought or what displeases is avoided. Of this will, as far as its natural movement is concerned, weakened by the fault of the first transgression, there are two kinds, according to which the will of man is either sensual or animal. But when the grace of God is present, a third kind is added to it through the gift of the Spirit, so that it can become spiritual and, by this more excellent movement, judge all the affections arising from whatever source by the law of the reason from above.

The sensual will, then, which we can also call carnal, does not rise above the movement that arises from the bodily senses, such as is found in the souls of little children, who, though they use no judgment of reason, still show that they want one thing and do not want another, when by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching they love what delights them and hate what offends them. For what is it to love but to will? Or what is it to hate but not to will? So they too have their own will, which, though it is incapable and ignorant of foreseeing and deliberating, yet loves to act in those things that flatter the senses of the flesh, until the vigour of the rational mind is roused through the more mature service of the body and is moved to use the members that serve it, not at another’s nod but by its own law.

From this sensual appetite, then, in which remain those whom we see senseless and foolish even in older years, one rises to the animal will, which, before it is moved by the Spirit of God, even if it can raise itself above sensual motion, is yet occupied with earthly and perishing things, without sharing in the highest love. In this will human talents, even if they do not serve bodily pleasure shamefully and temper their desires by the laws of justice and honour, gain nothing beyond the reward of temporal glory; and though they adorn the present life becomingly, they do not have the reward of eternal blessedness, because they do not refer their right actions and good pursuits to the praise and honour of him from whom they received the power to be wiser and to shine more excellently than others. For when some have turned the eye of the mind not only to the institutions of the most useful arts and the teachings of the liberal disciplines, but even to the inquiry into the highest good, and have seen the invisible things of God, understood through the things that are made, yet not giving thanks to God nor confessing him to be the author of this faculty, but saying that they were wise, that is, glorying not in God but in themselves, as though they had approached the contemplation of truth by their own studies and reasonings, they became vain in their thoughts, and what they had found by the illumination of God’s grace they lost through the blinding of pride, falling back from the light above into their own darkness, that is, from the unchangeable and eternal good to a changeable and corruptible nature. When such men, then, fall back into love of self and so please themselves that they do not refer to God’s gifts all that they judge praiseworthy in themselves, but claim it for themselves and ascribe it to the effort of their own will, they are exiled far from that spiritual will and have nothing in themselves by which they might be carried forward to eternal life; and they begin to corrupt in themselves even those temporal gifts of God and to pass from their good use into the habit of innumerable vices.

For although it is written that, when the Most High divided the nations, as he dispersed the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God, and the Lord’s portion became his people Jacob, Israel the cord of his inheritance; and it is written that the Lord says to Israel, “You shall be holy to me, because I the Lord your God am holy, who separated you from all the nations to be mine”; and although it is written in the book of Esther, in the words of Mordecai, “Thanks be to you, Lord, because you have done new signs and wonders, such as have not been done among the nations, dividing the whole world into two lots; you chose one for yourself, your people, leaving the other to the nations”; and Paul and Barnabas say, “We too are mortals, men like you, announcing to you that you should turn to the living God, who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them, who in past generations let all the nations walk in their own ways”: although, then, the Scripture of truth declares these and many like things, yet according to that same Scripture we believe and most piously confess that the care of divine providence has never been lacking to the whole of mankind; which, though it directed a people set apart for itself to piety by special institutions, yet withdrew the gifts of its goodness from no nation of men, so that they might be convicted of having received prophetic voices and legal precepts in the services and testimony of the elements; whence they too were made inexcusable, because they made gods for themselves out of God’s gifts, and venerated for worship what had been created for use.

Into this impiety that nation too which the Lord separated for himself from all nations would have passed wholly, had he not held out the purpose of his mercy to sustain the lapses of the elect; for the pages of the Old Testament are full of accounts of Israel’s defection, so that it plainly appears that it was always due to divine grace that not all that people departed from the Lord. Thus human nature, vitiated in the transgression of the first man, even amid the benefits, commands and helps of God, is always more inclined to a worse will, and to be entrusted to it is nothing other than to be abandoned. This will, then, wandering, uncertain, unstable, unskilled, weak for accomplishing, quick for daring, blind in its desires, swollen in honours, anxious with cares, restless with suspicions, greedier of glory than of virtues, more careful of reputation than of conscience, and through all its experience more wretched in enjoying what it has desired than in lacking it, has nothing in its own powers except a readiness for danger: since a changeable will, which is not ruled by the unchangeable will, draws near to iniquity the faster, the more keenly it is bent on action. As long, then, as those things please a man that displease God, his will is animal; for even if he acts with good morals, he still lives badly if he does not live for the glory of God. For this is the proper and chief mark of the pious, that they glory in the Lord and love themselves only in God. For they love themselves well who love the works of God in themselves. For God too loves in us what he himself made, and hates what he did not make. If, then, we love God’s work in us, we rightly love a good will in us, which would not be lovable if it were not God’s work. And what man, unless of evil will, would not love in himself a good will, which is the first planting of the heavenly husbandman? For since the Truth says, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up,” it is clear that whatever is not to be rooted up has been planted by the Father. And a good will is the first seed of all virtues. Resting on its origin, it rests in that eternal and unchangeable will, so as to be truly spiritual; since he who cleaves to God is one spirit with him, while through the communion of the one who enlightens and the one enlightened, of the one who justifies and the one justified, of the one who rules and the one ruled, every action is referred to one, and what is referred to one belongs to both. For neither can what he gave be alienated from God, nor what he received from man.

Here, it seems, we must treat whether, when a man begins to be of good will, the same will that was in him is corrected, or another will, which he did not have and which opposes the former, is given him. That this may appear more clearly, let others not be reluctant to inquire. All men were created without fault in the first man, and all lost the soundness of our nature through the transgression of that same man. From this came mortality, from this the manifold corruption of body and soul; from this ignorance and difficulty, useless cares, unlawful desires, sacrilegious errors, vain fear, harmful love, unjust joys, counsels to be regretted, and a multitude of miseries no smaller than that of crimes. As these and other evils rushed into human nature, faith lost, hope abandoned, understanding blinded, will captive, no one found in himself the means of being restored. For even if there was someone who tried by natural understanding to struggle against vices, he adorned only the life of this time, barrenly, and did not advance to true virtues and eternal blessedness. For without the worship of the true God even what seems to be virtue is sin, nor can anyone please God without God. And he who does not please God, whom does he please but himself and the devil? When man was despoiled by the devil, he was deprived not of his will but of the soundness of his will, because he could not be thrust out of the state of innocence unless he sinned by will. What was good by nature, then, became evil by quality; and that movement of the soul which can never be without some love, that is, without some will, did not lose its appetite but changed its affection, taking by desire what it ought to have rejected by judgment. When, therefore, man returns to piety — of whom it is said, “a spirit that goes and does not return,” because, unless God converted him, he would not return — when he becomes a new making and a new creature, no other substance is created in him, but the same that had been damaged is repaired; nor is anything taken from it except the fault, which nature did not have.

For in Adam there was a nature without fault; he, through the disobedience of his will, contracted many evils and passes them on to his posterity, to be multiplied more and more. That these may be overcome and brought to nothing is accomplished only by the grace of the Saviour, who repairs his work by his work; for, as the apostle John says, “For this the Son of God appeared, to destroy the works of the devil.” And so he breaks the chains of the captive, so he clothes the nakedness of the despoiled, so he heals the wounds of the wounded, that what he does in him is also done through him. For it is by no means good for him to fight his enemy without a protector, since he has the contest with one by whom he was once overcome. Let him not trust, then, in his own strength, which did not stand even when it was whole; but let him seek victory through him who alone was not conquered and has conquered for all. And if he seeks, let him not doubt that he has received the very desire to seek from him whom he seeks. Nor, because he is led by the Spirit of God, should he think that he therefore has no free choice, which he did not lose even when he gave himself by his will to the devil, by whom the judgment of the will was depraved, not taken away. What, then, was not destroyed by the one who wounded is not taken away by the one who heals: the wound is healed, nature is not removed. But what perished in nature is restored only by the author of nature, with whom what nature lost has not perished. For wisdom is eternal, truth eternal, goodness eternal, justice eternal; in short, the light of all virtues is eternal, and all that virtue is, is God. If he does not work in us, we can share in no virtue. For without this good nothing is good, without this light nothing is bright, without this wisdom nothing is sound, without this justice nothing is right. For the Lord says through Isaiah, “I am, I am God, and there is no other besides me who saves”; and Jeremiah: “I know, Lord, that a man’s way is not his own, nor is it in a man to direct his steps.” For mortal man, born carnally in the condemned origin in Adam, does not reach the spiritual dignity of the new race except under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Nor does anyone seek it with any desire who has not received the warmth of that very desire from God, of whom the Lord says, “I came to send fire on the earth, and what do I will but that it burn?” And this fire is the love of God, which the lover of the world cannot conceive in a captive heart; for it is full of the love of vanities. Even if he could avoid these in some part, and, passing beyond temporal and visible things, had advanced by understanding to eternal and invisible things; if he had withdrawn even from the worship of images and ceased to venerate heaven and earth and all the elements of this world, yet he will not grasp faith in Christ and love of him, troubled by his very humility, nor overcome by his own judgment the stumbling block of the Lord’s birth and death. For because of the wisdom of the world resisting the wisdom of God, so that the pride of those who presume on themselves might be blinded, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. Hence those who swell with secular learning think the cross of Christ fit to be laughed at rather than adored; and the higher anyone climbs in the institutions of human disciplines, the more he scorns the humble and weak things of our preaching. Nor is it strange if gentile philosophy resists the Gospel of the cross of Christ, when even Jewish learning struggles against it. Neither the learned, then, nor the unlearned, of whatever stock or rank, are led to God by human reason; but every man who is converted to God is first moved by the grace of God. For he is not a light to himself, nor does he kindle his heart with the ray of his own light. For if blessed John, than whom no one born of women was greater, was not the light, because he did not shine by his own splendour, but had received from that true light which enlightens every man coming into this world, so that he might be a lamp: who will be the man who, using only his own judgment, breaks through so many conflicts of opinions, so many bonds of custom, so many prejudices of antiquity, and, with only the voice of a teacher sounding outside him, has from grace only what he heard and from his own will all that he believed? If it were so, there would be no difference between grace and law, nor would the spirit of mercy give life to anyone, if the killing letter remained. For the law does not bring it about that what it commands to be done or not done is done or not done, since its severity is served not in freedom but in fear; but the Lord, in order not to abolish the law but to fulfil it, made the command of the law effective through the help of grace, and by multiplying mercy took away the penalty, so as to destroy sin not by avenging it but by forgiving it. Hence the adulteress, who was to be stoned by the ordinance of the law, he freed both by truth and by grace, when those who were to execute the precept, terrified in their consciences, had left the trembling accused under the judgment of him who had come to seek and save what was lost; and therefore, stooping down, that is, lowered to human things and bent to the work of our reformation, he wrote with his finger on the ground, to empty the law of commandments by the decrees of grace, and to show that he was the one who had said, “I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.” This indeed he does daily, while he puts his will into the hearts of the called, and with the pen of the Holy Spirit the Truth in mercy rewrites whatever the devil in envy has falsified on the pages of the soul. When, therefore, the word of God is brought to the ears of the flesh through the ministry of preachers, the working of divine power is mingled with the sound of the human voice, and he who stirred up the office of the one who evangelizes has also strengthened the affection of the hearer. For the food of the word grows sweet to the soul, old darkness is driven out by new light, and the inner sight is freed from the mist of ancient error: the mind passes from will to will; and though the will that is being driven out lingers with some hesitation, yet the will that is being born claims for itself all the better things, so that the law of sin and the law of God have different and separate dwellings in the same man; and, while the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit resists the lusts of the flesh, the tempter may dare to lie in wait through outward things, but the mind fortified by God’s help prevails. For the material of struggles is reserved for the great benefit of the faithful, so that holiness may not be proud while weakness is assailed. Hence the Apostle too says: “Lest I should be exalted by the greatness of the revelations, there was given me an angel of Satan to buffet me. For this I asked the Lord three times that it might depart from me; but he said to me: My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Let the Lord, then, seek his image, and the good shepherd find the wandering sheep, and not disdain to carry on his shoulders the sick sheep, long wearied in pathless places, and save it not only by calling it back but also by carrying it. Let the Lord seek his image, and, wiping away the crust of all the filth that has fallen on it, clear the mirror of the human heart. For it is written: “Who can make clean what was conceived of unclean seed? Is it not you, who alone are?” Let the Lord seek his image, so that it may appear reformed by grace in its renewal and justification, as the apostle Paul testifies was done in himself, saying: “I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea that were in Christ; they had only heard that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith he once attacked; and they glorified God in me.” So the Christian people had then learned, and so those first members of the Church, who were of one heart and one soul, believed, that when they saw anyone converted from error to the knowledge of the truth, they glorified God and confessed that the faith of the one corrected was a divine gift. The Lord himself too taught his disciples, the teachers of all nations, saying: “So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”