Chapter 28 [XVIII.]—A Good Will Comes from God.

Men, however, are laboring to find in our own will some good thing of our own,—not given to us by God; but how it is to be found I cannot imagine. The apostle says, when speaking of men’s good works, “What hast thou that thou didst not receive? now, if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?”362    1 Cor. iv. 7. But, besides this, even reason itself, which may be estimated in such things by such as we are, sharply restrains every one of us in our investigations so as that we may not so defend grace as to seem to take away free will, or, on the other hand, so assert free will as to be judged ungrateful to the grace of God, in our arrogant impiety.363    See De Gratiâ Christi, 52; and De Gratiâ et Libero Arbitrio.

CAPUT XVIII.

28. Voluntas bona a Deo. Sed laborant homines invenire in nostra voluntate, quid boni sit nostrum, quod nobis non sit ex Deo: et quomodo inveniri possit ignoro. Excepto enim quod Apostolus ait, cum de bonis hominum loqueretur, Quid enim habes quod non accepisti? Si autem et accepisti, quid gloriaris, quasi non acceperis (I Cor. IV, 7)? Ipsa etiam ratio, quae de iis rebus a talibus quales sumus, iniri potest, quemlibet nostrum quaerentem vehementer angustat, ne sic defendamus gratiam, ut liberum arbitrium auferre videamur; rursus, ne liberum sic asseramus arbitrium, ut superba impietate ingrati Dei gratiae judicemur.