Pars 5, Cap. 3
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-c3
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### Chapter III. *On grace, in so far as it is the remedy of sin.*

Concerning grace, however, in so far as it is a *remedy against sin*, these things are to be held: that free choice, although it is « the most powerful thing under God », can nevertheless of itself fall into sin, but can by no means rise again without the help of divine grace, which is called *grace making gracious*. — But that grace, although it is a sufficient remedy against sin, is nevertheless not infused into an adult unless the consent of free choice be present. From which it is gathered that four things concur toward the justification of the ungodly, namely the *infusion of grace, the expulsion of fault, contrition* and *the movement of free choice*. — Fault, therefore, is expelled by God's gift, not by free choice, yet not without free choice. For it belongs to *gratuitously given* grace to call free choice back from evil and to rouse it toward good; and it belongs to *free choice* to consent or to dissent; and it belongs to *the one consenting* to receive grace; and it belongs to *the one receiving* to cooperate with it, that at last he may *arrive* at salvation.

Now the reason for the understanding of the foresaid is this: since the first principle, by this very thing that it is first and most powerful, is the cause of all things that come to be in the universe except sins, which are « transgressions of the divine law and disobedience to the heavenly commandments », it has nothing rebellious, injurious and offensive to itself except sin, which, by contemning God's precept and by turning us away from the unchangeable good, *offends* God, *deforms* free choice, *destroys* the gratuitous gift and *binds over* to eternal punishment. Since therefore the deformation of the image and the destruction of grace is as it were an annihilation in the *being* of moral and gratuitous life; since the offense against God is to be weighed as great as he himself is; since the liability to eternal punishment holds the account of the infinite: it is impossible that man should rise again from fault unless he be *re-created* in gratuitous life, unless the offense be *remitted*, and the eternal punishment *relaxed*. He alone, therefore, who was the *creative* principle, is also the *re-creative* principle, namely the eternal Word of the Father, who is *Christ Jesus, the mediator of God and men* — who, because he creates all things out of nothing, therefore creates by himself alone without any intermediary.

Now because he re-creates by reforming what was *deformed* through the vice of fault through the habit of grace and justice, and by absolving what was *bound over* to punishment through condign satisfaction; hence it is that he repairs us by sustaining punishment for us in the assumed nature and by infusing reformative grace, which, since it continues us to our own origin, makes us members of Christ; and through this it makes the sinful soul, which had been the enemy of God, the brothel of the devil and the slave of sin, the bride of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit and the daughter of the eternal Father; all of which comes about through the gratuitous and condescending infusion of the gratuitous gift.

Again, since God so reforms that he does not weaken the laws implanted in nature; therefore he so bestows this grace upon free choice that he nevertheless does not compel it, but its consent remains free; and therefore, in order that *fault may be expelled*, it is not only necessary that *grace be introduced*, but also that free choice in adults — in adults, I say, because in little ones the faith of the Church and the merit of Christ suffice, and their own incapacity excuses them — it is necessary, I say, that it conform itself to *the expulsion of fault* through the detestation of all sins, which we call *contrition*; it is also necessary that it conform itself to *the introduction of grace*, through the complacency and acceptance of the divine gift, which we call *the movement of free choice*. And thus it is necessary that these four concur toward the justification of the ungodly.

Lastly, because the predisposition toward the completive form must be conformed to it; in order that free choice may dispose itself toward grace making gracious, it stands in need of the support of *gratuitously given* grace; and because it belongs to grace not to compel free choice but to go before it, and it belongs to both at once to come forth into act: hence it is that in our justification the act *of free choice* and *of grace* concur, consonantly indeed and in order, in such wise that it belongs to gratuitously given grace to *rouse* free choice; and it belongs to free choice to *consent* to a rousing of this kind, or to *dissent*; and it belongs to *the one consenting* to prepare himself for grace making gracious, because this is to do what is in him; and to one so disposed grace *making gracious* has to be infused, with which free choice can *cooperate*, if it will, and then it merits; or it can *set itself against* it through sin, and then it demerits. If therefore it cooperate with it even to the end, it merits *to arrive* at eternal salvation.

It is true, therefore, what Augustine says, that « he who created thee without thee will not justify thee without thee ». — It is also true that *it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy*. — It is also true that no one can be proud of his merits, because God crowns nothing in us but his own gifts. For God has reserved to himself the gifts of grace, to be bestowed liberally, that man may learn not to be ungrateful, nor to glory in himself, as if he had not received, but in the Lord. — It is also true that, although free choice cannot of itself fulfill the law nor bring grace about in itself, it is nevertheless inexcusable if it does not do what it can, because *gratuitously given* grace is always at hand for admonition, by whose support it can do what is in it; and this being done, let it have grace *making gracious*; and this being obtained, let it fulfill the divine law and do God's will; and this being done, let it at last arrive at everlasting beatitude on account of meritorious works, which are wholly *from grace*, and wholly also *from free choice*, though principally from grace: because, as Augustine says, « grace is compared to free choice as a rider to his horse » — which rider indeed *directs, leads* and *brings through* free choice to the harbor of eternal happiness, by exercising us in the works of perfect virtue according to the gift of that sevenfold grace.

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