The Calling of All Nations 1.17–1.23

And if you direct the eye of your mind also to those who, having spent a long life in shameful deeds and crimes, are renewed by the sacrament of Christ’s baptism at the very end of their life and, without the support of any good works, are transferred into the fellowship of the heavenly kingdom, with what understanding will you grasp the divine judgment, unless you acknowledge without doubt that God’s gifts are free; and that, just as there are no crimes so detestable that they can keep off the gift of grace, so no works can be so outstanding that what is given freely would be owed to them by a judgment of recompense? For the redemption by the blood of Christ would grow cheap, and the mercy of God would yield to the prerogative of human works, if the justification that comes through grace were owed to preceding merits, so that it would be not the gift of the giver but the wage of the worker. And how could it be proved that no effort is able to remove original sin, unless even the impious and criminal were taken into the kingdom through the washing of Christ, and those who glory in their own righteousness recognized that they can do nothing worthy of the adoption of the sons of God if they have not come to the sacrament of regeneration, since they are held in the same condition as the most wicked sinners, to be equal with them in sanctification if regeneration is present, and to perish with them if the washing is lacking? If, then, grace finds even among the most wicked, at the very end of life, those whom it adopts, while many who seem less guilty are strangers to this gift, who will say that this is done without God’s dispensation or decided without deep equity? It is not unjust because it is hidden, but it is just because there is no doubt that it is God’s judgment. For what depends on his decision, by what sentence it ought to be judged, is uncertain before it is judged; but when the matter has come to its end, no one is free to complain of the outcome, because it is most certain that God ought not to have done otherwise than he did. He established the variety of manifold calling, belonging to one grace, also by that rule of the Gospel parable in which he shows the householder hiring workers for the vineyard at different times on the agreement of a denarius [by which the equality of eternal life is signified]. There without doubt those let into the vineyard at the eleventh hour and joined to the workers of the whole day prefigure the lot of those of whom we are now speaking, whom, to commend the excellence of grace, divine indulgence rewards at the failing of the day and the close of life, not paying a price for labour, but pouring out the riches of its goodness on those whom it chose without works; so that even those who sweated in much labour and received no more than the last may understand that they received a gift of grace, not a wage for works. Hence, if we too murmur against the householder because those called last are made equal to the workers of the whole day, and many works earn no more than almost none, it will be said to us what was answered to one of them: “Friend, I do you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go. I wish to give to this last as to you. Or is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is mine? Or is your eye evil because I am good?” Certainly this generosity seemed unjust to this complainer; and what instruction did he take away, what reason did he receive? The justice of this dispensation was not revealed to him, nor was he admitted to look into the hidden secret; but, so that he might refrain from discussing God’s judgments, the goodness of the one showing mercy and the power of the one willing were set before him, as though the Apostle too were saying to him: “O man, who are you to answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why have you made me thus?”

For all men, then, of whatever nation and race, of whatever condition and age, the cause of receiving grace is the will of God, with whom the reason of election is hidden, their merits beginning from that grace which they received without merits. If these men could be good without grace, it would not be said: “Unless one is reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven”; and: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you”; but it would be said: “Unless one is just and good, he cannot be blessed for ever.” Nor would there be need to be reborn through water and the Spirit if it were enough to be instructed through a commandment. And the faith that believes that all sins are forgiven through baptism would be emptied if grace were taught to be bestowed not on the bad and impious but on the good and upright. The origin of true life and of true justice, therefore, is set in the sacrament of regeneration, so that where a man is reborn, there too the truth of the virtues themselves arises, and those who could scarcely reach the temporal reward of vain praise begin to advance through faith to everlasting glory. For whether a Jew swelling with knowledge of the law or a Greek puffed up with the study of natural wisdom, before he is justified by faith in Christ he is shut up under sin; and if he persists in his unbelief, the wrath of God remains on him, that wrath, namely, contracted in Adam’s transgression, of which the Apostle speaks, saying: “And you, when you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, the spirit that now works in the sons of unbelief, among whom we too once lived in the desires of our flesh, doing the will of the flesh and of the thoughts, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest”; and again: “That you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants, having no hope of the promise, and without God in the world”; and again: “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord”; and again: “Giving thanks to the Father, who has made us worthy of a share in the lot of the saints in light, who rescued us from darkness and the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love”; and again: “For we too were once foolish, unbelieving, wandering, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness and humanity of our Saviour appeared, not by works of righteousness which we had done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, justified by his grace, we might be heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

And so that it may be clear, very briefly, what human nature is like without grace, let the apostle Jude tell what either the ignorance of the unskilled or the learning of the wise does: “But these,” he says, “blaspheme whatever they do not know; and whatever they know by nature, like dumb animals, in these they are corrupted.” Let the evangelist Luke too tell, in the words of Zechariah, in what night the human race lives before the illumination of grace, and from what darkness of ignorance the people of God is rescued: “And you, child,” he says, “will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people for the forgiveness of their sins, through the tender mercy of our Lord, with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

This tender mercy the Lord bestowed not for the redemption of one people only but for the salvation of all nations, as the evangelist says: “That Jesus was to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who were scattered.” For this is the work of that voice of the Lord which, sounding through the whole world like a trumpet of mercy, both invites and summons all men. For when he had said, “I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, for so it was well pleasing before you,” he added, “All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and him to whom the Son wills to reveal him.” And then he added: “Come to me, all who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” And John the Baptist, in the Gospel of John, testifies in a prophetic spirit, saying: “He who comes from heaven is above all; what he has seen and heard he testifies, and no one receives his testimony. He who receives his testimony has set his seal that God is true.” As far as concerns the blindness of the human race, then, contracted in the long night of ignorance and pride, the Creator of the world came into this world, and the world did not know him; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it; he who is above all testifies what he has seen and heard, and no one receives his testimony. But since God the Son of God did not come into the world in vain, but gave himself for all and died not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who were scattered; and says to all, “Come to me, all who labour and are burdened”; and, keeping for himself the decision of an unknowable election, gives knowledge of himself and his Father to those to whom he wills to reveal him: all the children of light, the children of the promise, the children of Abraham, the children of God, the chosen race, the royal priesthood, the true Israelites, foreknown and foreordained to the kingdom of God, who called them not only from the Jews but also from the gentiles, receive the testimony of him who came from heaven, setting their seal that God is true; that is, showing expressly in their own salvation that God is true, fulfilling and completing what he promised to Abraham, the father of all nations, who, when God promised that he would be heir of the world, did not waver in distrust but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and knowing most fully that what he has promised he is able also to do. And who is so alien to the faith of Abraham, who so degenerate from the father of all nations, as to say that God’s promise is either not fulfilled or fulfilled by another than he who promised? Such a man will be a liar; but God is true, and everyone who receives his testimony seals this and shows this, that through the enlightening light he has been made to see, made obedient, made understanding; as John the Evangelist testifies, saying: “We know that the whole world lies in the evil one, and we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, that we may know the true God and be in his true Son.”

But if it is asked why the Saviour of all men did not give all men this understanding, that they might know the true God and be, that is, remain, in his true Son: though we believe that the help of grace was wholly withdrawn from no men (of which we shall speak more fully in what follows), yet this is perhaps as veiled as that other is hidden, why formerly, passing over all the nations, he took one people for himself to instruct in the knowledge of the truth. If there is no complaint to be made about that judgment of God, much less is there to be murmuring about what is done in the election of all nations. For what God willed to be hidden is not to be searched out, but what he made manifest is not to be neglected, lest we be found unlawfully curious in the one and damnably ungrateful in the other. We are not unaware that there are some of such inconsiderate presumption and such proud arrogance that what the chief teacher of the gentiles — taught not by men nor through a man but divinely — confessed to be removed far and deep beyond the measure of his knowledge, they dare to profane with a teaching of false name; and they will have nothing hidden, nothing secret there, where the Apostle did not disclose what we should think but showed what we should not search into. For (as we have already said above) it is granted to no study and no talent to track out by what judgment or counsel God, unchangeably good, unchangeably just, always foreknowing, always almighty, shut up all things in unbelief that he might have mercy on all; and yet in those ages in which he was instructing Israel alone, put off enlightening innumerable peoples of the impious; and now allows the same Israel to be blinded until the whole of the gentiles comes in, perishing in so many thousands born and dying, and to be saved in those whom the end of the world finds. This mystery, spread through the whole body of the Scriptures, has indeed made known to us what has been done, what is being done and what is to be done; but why it pleased God that it be done so has been withdrawn from the contemplation of human understanding.

But these men, who blush to be ignorant of anything and under cover of obscurity set snares of deception, refer every distinction by which God chooses some and does not choose others (for many are called, but few chosen) to the merits of the human will, teaching that no one is saved freely but by recompense, because it is naturally implanted in all that they can share in the truth if they will, and grace flows to those by whom it has been sought. This definition, to say nothing for the moment of the truth of grace, seems to offer some small reason in the case of those who use free choice. But concerning little children, who without any merit of good will share a common case with the rest of mortals in the original wound, no explanation can be brought to show why these, reborn, are saved and those, not reborn, perish, under the providence and omnipotence of him “in whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all the flesh of man,” and to whom it is said, “The days of man are short; the number of his days is with you.” I do not think these patrons of the will are so shameless as to say either that these things happen by chance or that the unreborn do not perish. For they would be openly convicted either of holding, with the pagans, a belief in fate, or of denying, with the Pelagians, the sin passed on to Adam’s descendants. And not even the Pelagians dared to ascribe to fate that little children are not baptized; but because they dared to declare them free from sin, they deserved to be condemned. But since the question being debated concerns the distinction among all men, and little children cannot be separated from all men, and since the Truth said of men of every age, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost,” those who place the cause of election in the merits of those who are chosen try in vain to open the depth of unsearchable grace through free choice. And though they have brought forward many foolish and false things about the will and judgment of adults, they fail when it comes to the distinction among little children, nor can they boast of having given the reason for a question that is treated concerning all men and is not resolved concerning all.

But the manifold and great abundance of divine grace proves that these men assert even what they say about the wills of adults against the truth, and that the testimonies of the divine words fight against their persuasion. If we wished to attach all these testimonies to our discourse, there would be no end to the discussion. Yet those that offer themselves to memory will not be omitted, so that it may be shown, as far as is sufficient, that man’s good merit, from the beginning of faith to the completion of perseverance, is a divine gift and work. Let the apostle Paul, then, explain from what fountain faith itself is born, the mother of good will and righteous action, he who gives thanks to God for the faith of the Romans, saying: “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in the whole world.” Writing to the Ephesians too: “For this reason,” he says, “I too, having heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” Giving thanks to God likewise for the faith of the Colossians: “We give thanks,” he says, “to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” And, telling what he prays for them, that they may receive other good things from the same author of good things: “Therefore,” he says, “from the day we heard, we too have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthily, pleasing God in all things, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with power according to the might of his glory, in all patience and long-suffering with joy.” Likewise to the Thessalonians, who were fervent in the spirit of faith and love: “We give thanks,” he says, “to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers without ceasing, remembering your work of faith and labour of love and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ before God and our Father.” And below: “For this reason we too give thanks to God without ceasing, that when you received from us the word of God that you heard, you received it not as the word of men but, as it truly is, the word of God, who works in you who believe.” Could it be shown more fully or more plainly that the faith of believers is God’s gift than by the fact that thanks were given to God because those to whom the word of God was preached through men did not doubt it as men’s speech, but believed it as God speaking through men, who worked in them so that they believed? In the second Epistle to the same Thessalonians too the Apostle speaks thus of the faith of those advancing in Christ: “We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is fitting, because your faith grows abundantly and the love of each of you for one another abounds, so that we ourselves boast of you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and the afflictions that you endure, as an example of the just judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer.” The apostle Peter too, preaching that faith is had from God, writes thus: “Knowing that you were redeemed from your vain way of life handed down from your fathers, not with perishable things, gold and silver, but with the precious blood of Christ Jesus, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world but made manifest in the last times for your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope might be in the Lord.” Likewise the same speaks thus in his second Epistle of the receiving of faith: “Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith equal to ours through the righteousness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” And whence the spirit of faith is had, the apostle John teaches most plainly, saying: “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that dissolves Jesus is not from God, and this is the Antichrist.” Likewise the same says that the Gospel is received by him in whom is the spirit of truth: “We,” he says, “are from God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not from God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” Likewise in the Acts of the Apostles the apostle Peter, declaring that faith is through the Lord Jesus, says: “This man whom you see and know, his name has made strong, and the faith that is through him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.” Of the faith of Lydia too, whose heart, among the other women who were hearing the Gospel with her, the Lord opened, it is told thus in the same history: “On the sabbath day we went out of the gate by the river, where there seemed to be a place of prayer; and sitting down we spoke to the women who had gathered. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of the Thyatirans, a worshipper of God, heard us; whose heart the Lord opened to attend to the things spoken by Paul.” That faith is not from human wisdom but from divine inspiration is confirmed by the voice of the Truth himself. For when the Lord said to his disciples, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” And the apostle Paul preaches that this very faith is given in measure according to the will of the giver: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone among you, not to think more highly than one ought to think, but to think with sobriety, as God has distributed to each the measure of faith.” Likewise the same, commending that the unity of right faith and agreement in honouring God are from God: “May the God of patience and consolation,” he says, “grant you to be of one mind toward one another according to Jesus Christ, that with one accord and one mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And below: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope in the power of the Holy Spirit.” By this testimony we are taught that not only faith, but also joy and peace and abundance of hope are had only in the power of the Holy Spirit. And writing to the Ephesians the Apostle says this of the riches of grace that repays good for evil, and of the faith that is had not from ourselves but by God’s gift: “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, made us alive together with Christ, by whose grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, for it is the gift of God; not from works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his making, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them.” This, then, is proper to the new creature through grace, that those who are God’s making, who are founded in Christ by a heavenly birth, do not grow numb in idleness or go slack in sloth, but advance from virtue to virtue, walking by the way of good works. For this is to be made, this is to become a new creature out of the old, this is to be reformed from the image of the earthly man to the image of the heavenly man. All of this, whether openly through the co-workers of grace or hiddenly through the supply of the Spirit, he begins, he increases and he perfects, whose field, whose building and whose making we are.