Chapter 6.—Wherein the Pharisee Sinned When He Thanked God; To God’s Grace Must Be Added the Exertion of Our Own Will.

Let us then drive away from our ears and minds those who say that we ought to accept the determination of our own free will and not pray God to help us not to sin. By such darkness as this even the Pharisee was not blinded; for although he erred in thinking that he needed no addition to his righteousness, and supposed himself to be saturated with abundance of it, he nevertheless gave thanks to God that he was not “like other men, unjust, extortioners, adulterers, or even as the publican; for he fasted twice in the week, he gave tithes of all that he possessed.”264    Luke xviii. 11, 12. He wished, indeed, for no addition to his own righteousness; but yet, by giving thanks to God, he confessed that all he had he had received from Him. Notwithstanding, he was not approved, both because he asked for no further food of righteousness, as if he were already filled, and because he arrogantly preferred himself to the publican, who was hungering and thirsting after righteousness. What, then, is to be said of those who, whilst acknowledging that they have no righteousness, or no fulness thereof, yet imagine that it is to be had from themselves alone, not to be besought from their Creator, in whom is its store and its fountain? And yet this is not a question about prayers alone, as if the energy of our will also should not be strenuously added. God is said to be “our Helper;”265    Ps. xl. 17, lxx. 5. but nobody can be helped who does not make some effort of his own accord. For God does not work our salvation in us as if he were working in insensate stones, or in creatures in whom nature has placed neither reason nor will. Why, however, He helps one man, but not another; or why one man so much, and another so much; or why one man in one way, and another in another,—He reserves to Himself according to the method of His own most secret justice, and to the excellency of His power.

6. Repellamus itaque ab auribus et mentibus nostris eos qui dicunt, accepto semel liberae voluntatis arbitrio, nec orare nos debere, ut Deus nos adjuvet, ne peccemus. Talibus enim tenebris nec pharisaeus ille caecabatur, qui quamvis in hoc erraret, quod sibi addendum ad justitiam nihil putabat, seque arbitrabatur ejus plenitudine saturatum; Deo tamen gratias agebat, quod non esset sicut caeteri homines, injusti, raptores, adulteri, sicut ille publicanus; quod bis in sabbato jejunaret, quod omnium quae possidebat, decimas daret. Nihil sibi addi ad justitiam jam petebat: sed tamen ex iis quae habebat, gratias Deo agendo, ab illo se accepisse omnia fatebatur: et tamen improbatus est, et quia veluti saturatus nihil de alimentis justitiae jam rogabat accipere, et quod eam publicano esurienti ac sitienti se velut insultans praeferre gestiebat (Luc. XVIII, 10-14). Quid ergo illis fiet, qui etsi fateantur se non habere, vel non plenam habere justitiam; tamen a se ipsis habendam, non a suo Creatore, ubi horreum ejus et fons ejus est, deprecandam esse praesumunt? Nec ideo tamen solis de hac re votis agendum est, ut non subinferatur adnitendo etiam nostrae efficacia voluntatis. Adjutor enim noster Deus dicitur (Psal. LXI, 9), nec adjuvari potest, nisi qui etiam aliquid sponte conatur. Quia non sicut in lapidibus insensatis, aut sicut in eis in quorum natura rationem voluntatemque non condidit, 0155 salutem nostram Deus operatur in nobis. Cur autem illum adjuvet, illum non adjuvet; illum tantum, illum autem non tantum ; istum illo, illum isto modo; penes ipsum est et aequitatis tam secretae ratio, et excellentia potestatis.