Grace at Work, with Free Will Still Ours

This would rightly trouble us if, in every work and practice, the beginning and the end were everything, and there were no middle in between. And so, as we know that God creates opportunities of salvation in various ways, it is in our power to make use of the opportunities heaven grants us with more or less earnestness. For just as the offer came from God, who called him, “Go out from your country,” so the obedience came from Abraham, who went out. And as the carrying out of the saying “Come into the land” was the work of the one who obeyed, so the added words “that I will show you” came from the grace of God, who commanded or promised it. [a]

But we do well to be sure of this: though we practice every virtue with unceasing effort, yet with all our labor and zeal we can never arrive at perfection. Mere human diligence and toil is not enough by itself to deserve to reach the splendid reward of blessedness, unless we have secured it through the Lord working together with us and directing our heart to what is right. So every moment we ought to pray and say with David, “Order my steps in your paths, so that my footsteps do not slip,” and, “He has set my feet on a rock and ordered my goings.” We pray this so that he who is the unseen ruler of the human heart may be pleased to turn toward the desire for virtue that will of ours, which is more readily inclined to vice, either through ignorance of what is good or through the delights of passion.

We read this in a verse in which the prophet sings very plainly: “I was pushed and overturned, so that I might fall.” Here the weakness of our free will is shown. And, “the Lord upheld me”: this shows, again, that the Lord’s help is always joined to it. By this help, so that we may not be utterly destroyed by our free will, when he sees that we have stumbled he upholds and supports us, as if stretching out his hand. And again: “If I said, My foot has slipped”—that is, through the slipperiness of the will—“your mercy, O Lord, helped me.” Once more he joins the help of God to his own weakness, as he confesses that it was not by his own efforts but by the mercy of God that the foot of his faith did not slip. And again: “In proportion to the many sorrows I had in my heart”—which most certainly sprang from my free will—“your comforts have refreshed my soul.” That is: by coming into my heart through your inspiration, and opening to view the future blessings you have prepared for those who labor in your name, they not only took all anxiety from my heart but actually filled it with the greatest delight. And again: “If the Lord had not helped me, my soul would almost have dwelt in hell.” He certainly shows that through the corruption of this free will he would have dwelt in hell, had he not been saved by the help and protection of the Lord.

For “by the Lord”—and not by free will—“a man’s steps are directed”; and “though the righteous man falls”—at least through free will—“he will not be cast away.” And why? Because “the Lord upholds him with his hand.” This is to say with the utmost clearness: none of the righteous are able by themselves to acquire righteousness, unless every moment, when they stumble and fall, the divine mercy holds them up with its hands, so that they do not utterly collapse and perish when they have been cast down through the weakness of free will.