A Treatise on Nature and Grace 14
14 Refutation of Pelagius PL 44, 253
But the truth is, the question which is proposed to him—“Are you even yourself without sin?”—does not really belong to the subject in dispute. What, however, he says,—that “it is rather to be imputed to his own negligence that he is not without sin,” is no doubt well spoken; but then he should deem it to be his duty even to pray to God that this faulty negligence get not the dominion over him,—the prayer that a certain man once put up, when he said: “Order my steps according to Thy word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me,”—lest, whilst relying on his own diligence as on strength of his own, he should fail to attain to the true righteousness either by this way, or by that other method in which, no doubt, perfect righteousness is to be desired and hoped for.
Sequitur Pelagii refutatio. Jam vero illud quod ei dicitur, « Ipse tu sine peccato es? » revera non pertinet ad eam rem de qua vertitur quaestio. Sed quod dicit, « negligentiae suae potius imputari, quod non est sine peccato: » bene quidem dicit; sed dignetur inde et orare Deum, ne illi haec iniqua negligentia dominetur: quem rogabat quidam, quando dicebat, Itinera mea dirige secundum verbum tuum, et non dominetur mihi omnis iniquitas : ne dum suae diligentiae quasi propriis viribus fidit, neque hic ad veram justitiam, neque illic, ubi sine dubio perfecta desideranda est et speranda, perveniat.