Chapter 34 [XXX.]—A Man’s Sin is His Own, But He Needs Grace for His Cure.

Well, but what does he mean when he says: “Then again, how can one be subjected to God for the guilt of that sin, which he knows is not his own? For,” says he, “his own it is not, if it is necessary. Or, if it is his own, it is voluntary: and if it is voluntary, it can be avoided.” We reply: It is unquestionably his own. But the fault by which sin is committed is not yet in every respect healed, and the fact of its becoming permanently fixed in us arises from our not rightly using the healing virtue; and so out of this faulty condition the man who is now growing strong in depravity commits many sins, either through infirmity or blindness. Prayer must therefore be made for him, that he may be healed, and that he may thenceforward attain to a life of uninterrupted soundness of health; nor must pride be indulged in, as if any man were healed by the self-same power whereby he became corrupted.

CAPUT XXX.

34. Quomodo suum est hominis peccatum, licet gratia indigeat ut sanetur ejus infirmitas. Quid autem sibi vult, quod dicit: Deinde quomodo Deo pro illius peccati reatu subditus esse poterit, quod suum non esse cognoverit? Suum enim non est, inquit, si necessarium est. Aut si suum est, voluntarium est: et si voluntarium est, vitari potest. Nos respondemus: Suum est omnino; sed vitium quo committitur, nondum omni ex parte sanatum est: quod quidem ut inolesceret, de non recte usa sanitate descendit: ex quo vitio jam male valens, vel infirmitate, vel caecitate plura committit: pro quo supplicandum est, ut sanetur, et deinceps in perpetua sanitate vivatur; non superbiendum, quasi homo eadem potestate sanetur, qua potestate vitiatus est.