Pars 5, Cap. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/5/d/5/q/bon-brev-p5-c2
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### Chapter II. *On grace, in so far as it helps toward meritorious good.*

Second, the grace of the Holy Spirit presents itself to us as to be considered *in comparison with free choice*, and this according to a twofold mode. First, namely, in so far as it is a *help toward merit*; second, in so far as it is a *remedy against sin*.

Concerning the grace of God, therefore, in so far as it is a *help toward meriting*, these things are to be held: that whereas grace is spoken of *generally, specially* and *properly*; *generally*, that divine help is called grace which is bestowed on the creature liberally and gratuitously and indifferently toward any act whatever; and without a help of grace of this kind we can neither accomplish anything nor endure in *being*. — *Specially*, grace is said to be a help divinely given, that one may prepare himself to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, whereby he may arrive at the state of merit; and such is called *gratuitously given grace*, and without this no one sufficiently does what is in him, that he may prepare himself for salvation. — *Properly*, however, grace is said to be a help given divinely for meriting, which indeed is called the gift of *grace making gracious*, without which no one can merit, nor make progress in good, nor arrive at eternal salvation. For it, as the root of meriting, goes before all merits; on account of which it has been said that it « goes before the will, that it may will; and follows after, lest it will in vain ». Hence no one can merit it by the merit of *condignity*, but « it itself merits to be increased by God on the way, so that, being increased, it may merit also to be perfected » in the fatherland and in everlasting glory by God himself, whose it is *to infuse, to increase* and *to perfect* grace according to the cooperation of our will and according to the purpose or good pleasure of eternal predestination.

Now the reason for the understanding of the foresaid is this: since, when the first principle by its omnipotent power and most benign bounty produced every creature out of nothing into *being*, and through this the creature has of itself *non-being* but has its whole *being* from elsewhere: it was so made that it should, by reason of its defectibility, always stand in need of its principle, and that the first principle should, by reason of its benignity, not cease to flow into it. Since therefore the rational spirit, by this very thing that it is from nothing, is in itself *defective*; by this very thing that it is a limited and needy nature, is *curved in upon itself*, loving its own good; by this very thing that it is wholly from God, is wholly *beholden to God*; and because it is *defective*, of itself it tends toward *non-being*; because *curved in*, of itself it does not rise up to the rectitude of perfect justice; because wholly *beholden to God*, and God has no need of its goods, it can do nothing of itself and by its own power whereby it might constitute God its debtor, and most of all of the eternal reward, which is God, except through divine condescension: hence it is that, in order that it may *be preserved in being*, since it is *defective*, it always stands in need of the help of the divine presence, maintenance and influence, whereby it may be maintained in *being*; which help, although it is universal toward all creatures, is nevertheless named by the name of *grace*, because it proceeds not out of debt but out of the liberality of the divine goodness. — Hence it is also that, in order that it may *prepare itself for the gift of supernal grace*, since it is *curved in*, it stands in need of the gift of another *grace gratuitously given*, most of all after nature's fall, whereby it may be made capable of moral goods, which are goods from *circumstance*, and which can in no way be called good unless they proceed from a right intention, namely, that they be done not on account of ourselves but on account of the highest good, to which our curved-in spirit does not rise unless it be prevented by God through some grace gratuitously given. — Hence it is nonetheless that, in order that it may *do works meritorious* of the eternal reward, since it is wholly *beholden to God* and the debtor of its whole self, it stands in need of the gift of *grace making gracious*, through which God may condescend to it, first accepting its image and will before the operation flowing from them; because, since « the cause is nobler than the effect », no one can make himself better nor do a work pleasing to God unless he himself first please, so that God may regard *himself* first rather than *his gifts*. And therefore every root of meriting is founded in grace making gracious, whose it is to make man worthy of God; on account of which no one can merit it by the merit of *condignity*, but only by the merit of *congruity*.

But grace once had *merits its own increase* in the state of the way through the good use of it, by the merit of *worthiness*. For since God alone is the fontal principle of the infusing of that grace, *he* alone is the principle of its increasing after the manner of one infusing, and *grace* after the manner of merit and dignity, and *free choice* after the manner of one cooperating and meriting, inasmuch as free choice *cooperates* with grace and *makes its own* that which is grace's.

And therefore free choice through grace merits not only the increase of grace in the state of the way by the merit of *worthiness*, but also *completion* in the state of the fatherland by the merit of *condignity*, both on account of the *sublimity* of the gift of the Holy Spirit cooperating in the merit; and on account of the *veracity* of God promising; and on account of the *vertibility* of free choice consenting and finally persevering; and on account of the *difficulty* of the state of meriting; and on account of the *dignity* of Christ our head interceding, who must be glorified together with his own members; and on account of the *liberality* of God rewarding, whom it does not befit to render small things in return for the service of one faithfully obeying him; and on account of the *nobility* of the work, which proceeds from charity, which weighs as much in the sight of the judge as does the love from which it proceeds, which sets God incomparably before all creatures, and which therefore cannot sufficiently and fittingly be rewarded except in God and the highest good. — From all which, as from seven reasons, sevenfold grace makes one merit eternal glory not only by the merit of *congruity*, but also by the merit of *condignity*.

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