On Rebuke and Grace, to the same Valentinus and the Monks with Him
Chapter 2.—The Catholic Faith Concerning Law, Grace, and Free Will.
Chapter 3 [II.]—What the Grace of God Through Jesus Christ is.
Chapter 4—The Children of God are Led by the Spirit of God.
Chapter 5 [III.]—Rebuke Must Not Be Neglected.
Chapter 6 [IV.]—Objections to the Use of Rebuke.
Chapter 7 [V.]—The Necessity and Advantage of Rebuke.
Chapter 8.—Further Replies to Those Who Object to Rebuke.
Chapter 10—All Perseverance is God’s Gift.
Chapter 13.—Election is of Grace, Not of Merit.
Chapter 14.—None of the Elect and Predestinated Can Perish.
Chapter 15.—Perseverance is Given to the End.
Chapter 17 [VIII.]—Why Perseverance Should Be Given to One and Not Another is Inscrutable.
Chapter 18.—Some Instances of God’s Amazing Judgments.
Chapter 19.—God’s Ways Past Finding Out.
Chapter 21.—Who May Be Understood as Given to Christ.
Chapter 22.—True Children of God are True Disciples of Christ.
Chapter 23.—Those Who are Called According to the Purpose Alone are Predestinated.
Chapter 24.—Even the Sins of the Elect are Turned by God to Their Advantage.
Chapter 25.—Therefore Rebuke is to Be Used.
Chapter 26 [X.]—Whether Adam Received the Gift of Perseverance.
Chapter 28.—The First Man Himself Also Might Have Stood by His Free Will.
Chapter 29 [XI.]—Distinction Between the Grace Given Before and After the Fall.
Chapter 30.—The Incarnation of the Word.
Chapter 32.—The Gifts of Grace Conferred on Adam in Creation.
Chapter 35.—There is a Greater Freedom Now in the Saints Than There Was Before in Adam.
Chapter 36.—God Not Only Foreknows that Men Will Be Good, But Himself Makes Them So.
Chapter 37.—To a Sound Will is Committed the Power of Persevering or of Not Persevering.
Chapter 38.—What is the Nature of the Gift of Perseverance that is Now Given to the Saints.
Chapter 39 [XIII.]—The Number of the Predestinated is Certain and Defined.
Chapter 40.—No One is Certain and Secure of His Own Predestination and Salvation.
Chapter 41.—Even in Judgment God’s Mercy Will Be Necessary to Us.
Chapter 42.—The Reprobate are to Be Punished for Merits of a Different Kind.
Chapter 43 [XIV.]—Rebuke and Grace Do Not Set Aside One Another.
Chapter 44.—In What Way God Wills All Men to Be Saved.
Chapter 47.—Another Interpretation of the Apostolic Passage, “Who Will Have All Men to Be Saved.”
Chapter 15.—Perseverance is Given to the End.
Rightly follows the word to the kingdom of the elect: “If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how has He not also with Him given us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? God who justifieth? Who condemneth? Christ who died? yea, rather who rose again also, who is at the right hand of God, who also soliciteth on our behalf?”64 Rom. viii. 31 ff. And of how stedfast a perseverance even to the end they have received the gift, let them follow on to say: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, Because for thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that hath loved us. For I am certain, that neither death, nor life, nor angel, nor principality, nor things present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”65 Rom. viii. 35 ff.
15. Merito sequitur vox ad regnum electorum: Si Deus pro nobis, quis contra nos? Qui Filio proprio non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit eum, quomodo non et cum illo nobis omnia donavit? Quis accusabit adversus electos Dei? Deus qui justificat? Quis condemnat ? Christus qui mortuus est, magis autem qui et resurrexit, qui est in dextera Dei, qui et interpellat pro nobis? Quam fortis autem perseverantiae usque in finem munus acceperint, sequantur et dicant: Quis nos separabit a charitate Christi? tribulatio? an angustia? an persecutio? an fames? an nuditas? an periculum? an gladius? Sicut scriptum est, Quia propter te mortificamur tota die, aestimati sumus ut oves occisionis. Sed in his omnibus supervincimus per eum qui dilexit nos. Certus sum enim quia neque mors, neque vita, neque angelus, neque principatus, neque praesentia, neque futura, neque virtus, neque altitudo, neque profundum, neque creatura alia poterit nos separare a charitate Dei, quae est in Christo Jesu Domino nostro (Rom. VIII, 31-39).