Cap. 6 Arg. 8 Fathers close: Fulgentius—grace by election cuts the throat of Pelagian and Arminian contingency
The same writer, book 2 near the start, It is God’s to decide which people receive his grace, and how much. He does not pay it as wages owed to human wills or works; as merciful and kind he pours it freely into hearts he means to light. So he gives it to whom he wills and as much as he wills, because no rising of a good will and no fruit of any good work invites him before he bestows grace. That cuts the throat of the Pelagian view—and of the Arminian too—which will not have vivifying, saving grace (Fulgentius’s subject) prepared or given to anyone by the purpose of divine election, but given or denied to people by chance, under the shifting condition of a human will that yields or fights. Sounder Papists disliked that theology. A few of their witnesses we will add to the places already set down.
Latin
Idem, lib. 2. non longe ab initio, pag. 169. Dei est vel quibus hominibus suam gratiam, vel quantum dare velit: qui non eam humanis voluntatibus aut operibus debitam retribuit, sed gratuitam illuminandis cordibus misericors ac benignus infundit. Et ideo cui voluerit et quantum voluerit largitur, quia neque ullo bonae voluntatis exortu neque effectu cujusquam boni operis, priusquam gratiam tribuit, invitatur. Haec jugulum petunt sententiae Pelagianae, quinetiam et Arminianae, quae gratiam vivificantem et salvantem (de qua loquitur Fulgentius) nemini praeparatam aut donatam statuunt secundum propositum electionis Divinae, sed quibusvis contingenter datam aut negatam juxta conditionem diversam obsequentis aut obluctantis voluntatis humanae. Quae Theologia sanioribus papistis displicuit: Quorum paucula testimonia superpositis locis adjiciemus.