Three Anti-Pelagian Treaties of S. Augustine Viz; de Spiritu Et Littera, de Natura Et Gratia and de Gestis Pelagri

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1887. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... are living righteously, boast as though they had not received it; that he says is excluded, i.e., driven out and away, not by the law of deeds, but by the law of faith, because by the law of faith a man knows that whatever little good he has in his life, he has it by the grace of God, and that from Him alone he will obtain the power of perfection in the love of righteousness. 18. This thought makes him godly, for godliness is true wisdom, I mean that godliness which the Greeks call Oeoaefteia. For such is the godliness commended in the passage of the book of Job which says to man, Behold, godliness is wisdom. Oeooefieia, if we interpret it job. xwii 28. according to the origin of the word, might be translated the worship of God; and worship consists chiefly in the soul being grateful to Him. Wherefore, in that most true and singular sacrifice, we are admonished to give thanks to our Lord God. But the soul would be ungrateful to Him, if she attributed to herself what comes to her from God, and above all things righteousness, and were puffed up with the works of righteousness, as though they were her own works and her own gifts to herself; not with an ordinary kind of pride, as though these gifts belonged to the class of riches or beauty or eloquence or other properties, external or internal, of the body or the mind, which even wicked people often possess; but with a would-be wisdom as though they were good qualities and the peculiar property of the good. By this vice some even great men have been driven back from the firm ground of the Divine substance, and have drifted down into disgraceful idolatry. Wherefore the Apostle, in the same Epistle in which Rom.i. 14-17 he defends grace so eagerly, after he had said that he was debtor to Greeks and Barbarians, t...