Chapter 39.—Pelagius Glorifies God as Creator at the Expense of God as Saviour.

Beyond this, however, although he flatters himself that he vindicates the cause of God by defending nature, he forgets that by predicating soundness of the said nature, he rejects the Physician’s mercy. He, however, who created him is also his Saviour. We ought not, therefore, so to magnify the Creator as to be compelled to say, nay, rather as to be convicted of saying, that the Saviour is superfluous. Man’s nature indeed we may honour with worthy praise, and attribute the praise to the Creator’s glory; but at the same time, while we show our gratitude to Him for having created us, let us not be ungrateful to Him for healing us. Our sins which He heals we must undoubtedly attribute not to God’s operation, but to the wilfulness of man, and submit them to His righteous punishment; as, however, we acknowledge that it was in our power that they should not be committed, so let us confess that it lies in His mercy rather than in our own power that they should be healed. But this mercy and remedial help of the Saviour, according to this writer, consists only in this, that He forgives the transgressions that are past, not that He helps us to avoid such as are to come. Here he is most fatally mistaken; here, however unwittingly—here he hinders us from being watchful, and from praying that “we enter not into temptation,” since he maintains that it lies entirely in our own control that this should not happen to us.

39. Porro autem quod Dei causam sibi agere videtur, defendendo naturam; non attendit quod eamdem naturam sanam esse dicendo, medici repellit misericordiam. Ipse est autem creator ejus, qui salvator ejus. Non ergo debemus sic laudare creatorem, ut cogamur, imo vere convincamur dicere superfluum salvatorem. Naturam itaque hominis dignis laudibus honoremus, easque laudes ad creatoris gloriam referamus: sed quia nos creavit, ita simus grati, ut non simus, quia sanat, ingrati. Vitia sane nostra quae sanat, non divino operi, sed humanae voluntati justaeque illius vindictae tribuamus: sed ut in nostra potestate fuisse ne acciderent confitemur, ita ut sanentur in illius magis esse misericordia quam in nostra potestate fateamur. Hanc iste misericordiam et medicinale Salvatoris auxilium tantum in hoc ponit, ut ignoscat commissa praeterita, non ut adjuvet ad futura vitanda. Hic perniciosissime fallitur: hic, etsi nesciens, prohibet nos vigilare et orare ne intremus in tentationem, cum hoc ne nobis accidat, in nostra tantum potestate esse contendit.