Chapter 52.—The Whole Discussion is About Grace.

Let us, however, observe what our author answers, after laying before himself the question wherein he seems indeed so intolerable to Christian hearts. He says: “But you will tell me this is what disturbs a great many,—that you do not maintain that it is by the grace of God that a man is able to be without sin.” Certainly this is what causes us disturbance; this is what we object to him. He touches the very point of the case. This is what causes us such utter pain to endure it; this is why we cannot bear to have such points debated by Christians, owing to the love which we feel towards others and towards themselves. Well, let us hear how he clears himself from the objectionable character of the question he has raised. “What blindness of ignorance,” he exclaims, “what sluggishness of an uninstructed mind, which supposes that that is maintained and held to be without God’s grace which it only hears ought to be attributed to God!” Now, if we knew nothing of what follows this outburst of his, and formed our opinion on simply hearing these words, we might suppose that we had been led to a wrong view of our opponents by the spread of report and by the asseveration of some suitable witnesses among the brethren. For how could it have been more pointedly and truly stated that the possibility of not sinning, to whatever extent it exists or shall exist in man, ought only to be attributed to God? This too is our own affirmation. We may shake hands.

52. Iste vero objecta sibi quaestione, in qua revera intolerabilis videtur cordibus christianis, quid respondeat attendamus. Ait enim: «Sed hoc est quod multos movet, inquies, quod non per Dei gratiam hominem sine peccato esse posse defendis.» Prorsus hoc est quod movet, hoc est quod objicimus. Rem ipsam dicit; hoc omnino aegerrime sustinemus: hinc a Christianis talia disputari, ea quam in alios et in ipsos habemus, dilectione non ferimus. Audiamus igitur quomodo se ab objectione quaestionis hujus expediat. «O ignorantiae caecitas,» inquit, «o imperitae mentis ignavia, quae id sine Dei gratia defensari existimat, quod Deo tantum audiat debere reputari!» Si nesciremus quae sequantur, his tantummodo auditis, falsa nos de illis, jactante fama et quibusdam fratribus idoneis testibus asseverantibus, credidisse putaremus. Quid enim dici brevius potuit et verius, quam possibilitatem non peccandi, quantacumque est vel erit in homine, nonnisi Deo debere reputari? Hoc et nos dicimus, jungamus dexteras.