Chapter 18.—The Opinion of the Saints Themselves About Themselves.

It is to be confessed that “the Holy Spirit, even in the old times,” not only “aided good dispositions,” which even they allow, but that it even made them good, which they will not have. “That all, also, of the prophets and apostles or saints, both evangelical and ancient, to whom God gives His witness, were righteous, not in comparison with the wicked, but by the rule of virtue,” is not doubtful. And this is opposed to the Manicheans, who blaspheme the patriarchs and prophets; but what is opposed to the Pelagians is, that all of these, when interrogated concerning themselves while they lived in the body, with one most accordant voice would answer, “If we should say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”314    1 John i. 8. “But in the future time,” it is not to be denied “that there will be a reward as well of good works as of evil, and that no one will be commanded to do the commandments there which here he has contemned,” but that a sufficiency of perfect righteousness where sin cannot be, a righteousness which is here hungered and thirsted after by the saints, is here hoped for in precept, is there received as a reward, on the entreaty of alms and prayers; so that what here may have been wanting in fulfilment of the commandments may become unpunished for the forgiveness of sin.315    See above, Book iii. 17.

18. «Et Spiritum sanctum» fatendum est «etiam antiquis temporibus» non solum «mentes bonas adjuvisse,» quod et isti volunt; verum etiam bonas eas fecisse, quod nolunt. «Omnes quoque Prophetas et Apostolos vel sanctos et evangelicos et antiquos, quibus Deus testimonium perhibet, non in comparatione sceleratorum, sed regula virtutum justos fuisse,» non dubium est; quod adversum est Manichaeis, qui Patriarchas Prophetasque blasphemant: sed quod adversum est et Pelagianis, interrogati omnes de se ipsis cum in hoc corpore degerent, una voce concordissima responderent, Si dixerimus quia peccatum non habemus, nos ipsos seducimus, et veritas in nobis non est (I Joan. I, 8). «In futuro autem tempore,» negandum non est, «mercedem esse tam bonorum operum quam malorum; et nemini praecipi, quae hic contempserit, illic mandata perficere:» sed plenae justitiae saturitatem , ubi peccatum esse non possit, quae hic a sanctis esuritur et sititur, hic sperari in praecepto, ibi percipi in praemio, eleemosynis et orationibus impetrantibus, ut quod hic minus impletum fuerit mandatorum fiat impunitum per indulgentiam peccatorum.