A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter 49
49 The Grace Promised by the Prophet for the New Covenant PL 44, 231
What then could the apostle have meant to imply by,—after checking the boasting of the Jews, by telling them that “not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified,”—immediately afterwards speaking of them “which, having not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law,” if in this description not they are to be understood who belong to the Mediator’s grace, but rather they who, while not worshipping the true God with true godliness, do yet exhibit some good works in the general course of their ungodly lives? Or did the apostle perhaps deem it probable, because he had previously said that “with God there is no respect of persons,” and had afterwards said that “God is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles,”—that even such scanty little works of the law, as are suggested by nature, were not discovered in such as received not the law, except as the result of the remains of the image of God; which He does not disdain when they believe in Him, with whom there is no respect of persons? But whichever of these views is accepted, it is evident that the grace of God was promised to the new testament even by the prophet, and that this grace was definitively announced to take this shape,—God’s laws were to be written in men’s hearts; and they were to arrive at such a knowledge of God, that they were not each one to teach his neighbour and brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all were to know Him, from the least to the greatest of them. This is the gift of the Holy Ghost, by which love is shed abroad in our hearts,—not, indeed, any kind of love, but the love of God, “out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith,” by means of which the just man, while living in this pilgrim state, is led on, after the stages of “the glass,” and “the enigma,” and “what is in part,” to the actual vision, that, face to face, he may know even as he is known. For one thing has he required of the Lord, and that he still seeks after, that he may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life, in order to behold the pleasantness of the Lord.
Quid ergo hinc Apostolus efficere voluit, quod jactantiam cohibens Judaeorum, cum dixisset, Non auditores legis justi sunt apud Deum, sed factores legis justificabuntur; continuo subjecit de his, qui legem non habentes, naturaliter quae legis sunt faciunt: si non illi sunt intelligendi, qui pertinent ad gratiam Mediatoris, sed illi potius, qui cum Deum verum vera pietate non colant, habent tamen quaedam opera bona in vita impia? An forte hoc ipso probandum credidit, quod supra dixerat, quia non est personarum acceptio apud Deum; et quod postea dixit, quia non Judaeorum est Deus tantum, sed et Gentium : quod quantulacumque legis opera naturaliter insita non invenirentur in eis, qui legem non acceperunt, nisi ex reliquiis imaginis Dei; quam non contemnit, cum in eum credunt, apud quem non est acceptio personarum? Sed quodlibet horum accipiatur, constat gratiam Dei promissam esse Testamento Novo etiam per Prophetam: eamdemque gratiam in eo definitam, ut scribantur leges Dei in cordibus hominum, perveniantque ad eam cognitionem Dei, ubi non docebit unusquisque civem suum vel fratrem suum, dicens, Cognosce Deum; quia omnes cognoscent eum a minore usque ad majorem eorum. Hoc donum Spiritus sancti est, quo diffunditur charitas in cordibus nostris: charitas non quaelibet, sed charitas Dei de corde puro et conscientia bona et fide non ficta , ex qua justus in hac peregrinatione vivens, ad speciem quoque perducitur post speculum et aenigma, et quidquid erat ex parte, ut facie ad faciem cognoscat, sicut et cognitus est . Unam enim petiit a Domino, et hanc requirit, ut inhabitet in domo Domini per omnes dies vitae suae, ad hoc ut contempletur delectationem Domini .