A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter 32
32 The Christian Faith Touching the Assistance of Grace PL 44, 220
Let no Christian then stray from this faith, which alone is the Christian one; nor let any one, when he has been made to feel ashamed to say that we become righteous through our own selves, without the grace of God working this in us,—because he sees, when such an allegation is made, how unable pious believers are to endure it,—resort to any subterfuge on this point, by affirming that the reason why we cannot become righteous without the operation of God’s grace is this, that He gave the law, He instituted its teaching, He commanded its precepts of good. For there is no doubt that, without His assisting grace, the law is “the letter which killeth;” but when the life-giving spirit is present, the law causes that to be loved as written within, which it once caused to be feared as written without.
Fides christiana de adjutorio gratiae. Prophetia Jeremiae de Novo Testamento. Lex. Gratia. Nemo ergo Christianorum aberret ab hac fide, quae sola christiana est; neque quisquam, cum verecundatus fuerit dicere, per nos ipsos fieri nos justos, non hoc in nobis operante gratia Dei, quia videt hoc a fidelibus et piis ferri non posse, cum dicitur, ad hoc se convertat ut dicat, ideo sine operatione gratiae Dei nos justos esse non posse, quia legem dedit, quia doctrinam instituit, quia bona praecepta mandavit. Illa enim sine adjuvante spiritu procul dubio est littera occidens: cum vero adest vivificans spiritus, hoc ipsum intus conscriptum facit diligi, quod foris scriptum lex faciebat timeri.