On Rebuke and Grace

Contents

Reading pages: 1–7 · 8–10 · 11–13 · 14–16

1. 1Augustine thanks Valentinus for news of peace at Hadrumetum, urges rereading his book On Grace and Free Will, and states that free choice in doing good depends on being set free and helped by Christ.
2. 2Grace not only shows what is good but enables us to do it with love; Paul admonished and rebuked, yet prayed for his hearers, knowing God gives the increase.
3. 3Against the objection that superiors should only command and pray, not rebuke, Augustine shows that the apostles did all three: commanded, rebuked, and prayed.
4. 4Augustine states the objection of those who refuse rebuke: if love is God's gift, the one who lacks it should be prayed for, not rebuked.
5. 5One who refuses rebuke must be rebuked for that very refusal; rebuke, like preaching and prayer, is a means God uses, though he can correct without it, as with Peter and Paul.
6. 6Those who fall away after receiving faith cannot plead that perseverance was not given them: they lost grace by their own will; yet perseverance is God's gift, as Scripture and Cyprian's exposition of the Lord's Prayer show, and rebuke remains useful.
7. 7Those who fall away are justly rebuked and condemned; the predestined, called according to God's purpose and separated from the mass of perdition by grace, persevere to the end and none of them perishes, while those who will not persevere were never among the elect.
8. 8Why God gives perseverance to some of the regenerate and not to others, like why some infants are baptized and others not, is among his inscrutable but just judgments; Augustine confesses he does not know.
9. 9Those who do not persevere were never truly sons of God or disciples in his foreknowledge; the predestined, called according to his purpose, cannot perish, and even their lapses work for their good; therefore rebuke is to be used, leaving the outcome to God's mercy or judgment.
10. 10Adam was created upright and could have persevered by free choice; he fell by his own will and the whole race was condemned in him; God ordered angels and men to show first what free choice could do, then what grace and justice can do.
11. 11Adam had a grace “without which” he could not persevere, left to his free choice; the saints receive through Christ a more powerful grace “by which” they actually will and persevere; Christ's own humanity was taken up into union with the Word by grace, not merit.
12. 12Augustine distinguishes Adam's ability not to sin from the final inability to sin, and the help without which from the help by which; the predestined saints receive perseverance itself, so that their weak wills, moved by grace, persevere where Adam's strong will did not.
13. 13The number of the predestined is fixed; it is hidden from each believer for the sake of humility, so that some who are not predestined live faithfully for a time and then fall; the rest are justly judged for original sin, added sins, or failing to persevere.
14. 14Rebuke is a medicine for the predestined and a punishment for others; no human will can resist God's will to save, and “God wills all men to be saved” can mean all the predestined, drawn from every kind of men; God moves wills from within, as with Saul's and David's followers.
15. 15Superiors should rebuke with love, even by excommunication, which can heal; since we do not know who is predestined, we must will all to be saved, as God makes us will, and must not neglect rebuke.
16. 16Rebuke must not be neglected, for the watchman is answerable; since we cannot tell who is predestined, we rebuke all with love, while praying for the grace by which what is commanded is done.