Cap. 6 Arg. 4: Fourth inconvenience—Diospolis, African synod, and Orange overturned
Fourth, grant that grace is given or denied according as human wills have or have not set an obstacle, and you overturn nearly everything the Councils defined against the Pelagians. First among them is what the Council of Diospolis sanctioned against Pelagius: let him confess that grace is not given from merit, so that it may be true grace—that is, freely given—through the mercy of him who said, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy (Exodus 33:19; Romans 9:15). For to give or withhold grace according as someone has used natural gifts rightly or not, or (as others put it) according as someone has or has not done what lies in him, is for the Fathers the same as giving from merits and denying from demerits. Nor will that word of the African Fathers in their synodical letter stand: grace itself is not recognized at all unless it is given; and as long as it is not in a person, he must of necessity resist it in word or deed. How can it make sense that Gentiles in corrupted nature are to receive evangelical grace by that quasi-law if they have not set an obstacle to grace, when by the necessity of a depraved and habitual disposition they must resist grace the whole time they lack it? Finally those decrees of the Council of Orange fall—canon 4: if anyone contends that God waits for our will so that we may be purged from sin, but will not confess that even our willing to be purged is wrought in us by the Holy Spirit's operation and infusion, he resists the Apostle; and canon 6: if anyone subjoins the help of grace to human humility and obedience, and so on, he resists the Apostle. I leave the rest.
Latin
Quarto, admitte hanc gratiae donationem aut negationem, prout humanae voluntates obicem posuerint aut non posuerint, everteris fere omnia in Conciliis contra Pelagianos definita; quale est illud inprimis in Diospolitano Concilio sancitum contra Pelagium, Fateatur gratiam non dari ex merito, ut vera sit gratia, id est gratis data, per ejus misericordiam qui dixit, MISEREBOR CUIUS MISERTUS FUERO. Dari enim aut non dari gratiam prout quis recte naturalibus donis usus fuerit aut non fuerit, vel (ut alii loquuntur) prout quis fecerit aut non fecerit quod in se est, apud Patres idem est quod dari ex meritis, & negari ex demeritis. Porro, nec stabit illud Patrum Africanorum in Epistola sua synodica. Ipsa gratia nullatenus agnoscitur, nisi detur: quae quamdiu non est in homine, tamdiu necesse est ut ei sermone repugnet aut opere. Quomodo intelligi potest, Ethnicis in statu corruptae naturae constitutis, ea quasi lege gratiam Evangelicam donandam, si gratiae obicem non posuerint, cum tamdiu necesse sit (necessitate nimirum pravae & habitualis dispositionis) ut gratiae resistant, quamdiu eadem careant? Denique, corruent illa Arausicani Concilii decreta, canone 4. Si quis, ut a peccato purgemur, voluntatem nostram Deum expectare contendit, non autem, ut etiam purgari velimus, per sancti Spiritus operationem & infusionem in nobis fieri confitetur, resistit Apostolo. Et Can. 6. Si quis humilitati & obedientiae humanae subjungit gratiae adjutorium, &c. resistit Apostolo. Mitto caetera.