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| Chapter XIII. How human efforts cannot be set against the grace of God.
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Chapter XIII.
How human efforts cannot be set against the grace of
God.
And so the grace of God
always co-operates with our will for its advantage, and in all things
assists, protects, and defends it, in such a way as sometimes even to
require and look for some efforts of good will from it that it may not
appear to confer its gifts on one who is asleep or relaxed in sluggish
ease, as it seeks opportunities to show that as the torpor of
man’s sluggishness is shaken off its bounty is not unreasonable,
when it bestows it on account of some desire and efforts to gain it.
And none the less does God’s grace continue to be free grace
while in return for some small and trivial efforts it bestows with
priceless bounty such glory of immortality, and such gifts of eternal
bliss. For because the faith of the thief on the cross came as the
first thing, no one would say that therefore the blessed abode of
Paradise was not promised to him as a free gift, nor could we hold that
it was the penitence of King David’s single word which he
uttered: “I have sinned against the Lord,” and not rather
the mercy of God which removed those two grievous sins of his, so that
it was vouchsafed to him to hear from the prophet Nathan: “The
Lord also hath put away thine iniquity: thou shalt not
die.”1831
The fact then
that he added murder to adultery, was certainly due to free will: but
that he was reproved by the prophet, this was the grace of Divine
Compassion. Again it was his own doing that he was humbled and
acknowledged his guilt; but that in a very short interval of time he
was granted pardon for such sins, this was the gift of the merciful
Lord. And what shall we say of this brief confession and of the
incomparable infinity of Divine reward, when it is easy to see what the
blessed Apostle, as he fixes his gaze on the greatness of future
remuneration, announced on those countless persecutions of his?
“for,” says he, “our light affliction which is but
for a moment worketh in us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory,”1832
of which
elsewhere he constantly affirms, saying that “the sufferings of
this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory
which shall be revealed in us.”1833
However much then human weakness may
strive, it cannot come up to the future reward, nor by its efforts so
take off from Divine grace that it should not always remain a free
gift. And therefore the aforesaid teacher of the Gentiles, though he
bears his witness that he had obtained the grade of the Apostolate by
the grace of God, saying: “By the grace of God I am what I
am,” yet also declares that he himself had corresponded to Divine
Grace, where he says: “And His Grace in me was not in vain; but I
laboured more abundantly than they all: and yet not I, but the Grace of
God with me.”1834
For when he
says: “I laboured,” he shows the effort of his own will;
when he says: “yet not I, but the grace of God,” he points
out the value of Divine protection; when he says: “with
me,” he affirms that it cooperates with him when he was not idle
or careless, but working and making an effort.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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