Estius: the first good movement and Paul's conversion
Thesis LIII. Estius's teaching comes to the same. Operating grace, he says, is commonly said to work in us without us because the first act of conversion, the first good movement of the will, which is the effect of that grace, does indeed come from the will as from an active and free source. Yet God works it by his grace without any earlier movement of the will in us by which we strive or aspire toward that first movement, or by which the will commands it of itself.
Indeed a good disposition of the will is sometimes breathed into a person even while he strongly resists, as happened with Paul. His conversion, as regards that change from evil to good brought about by operating grace, is the pattern and model for the conversion of all sinners, since by God's grace they are turned from being averse and made willing from being unwilling.
The later acts of the will that follow that first one, by which we go on clinging to God, are also worked in us by God's grace. But our will, now turned to God, not only produces them freely but also commands them of itself through other earlier acts.
In this way it cooperates with divine grace in a special manner, and for this reason the grace is called cooperating in this respect (on book 2 of the Sentences, distinction 26, section 11).
Latin
LIII. Eodem recidit quod docet Estius, Gratiam operantem vulgo dici in nobis sine nobis operari, quoniam primus conversionis actus, seu primus bonus voluntatis motus, qui ejus gratiae effectus est, a voluntate quidem est, tanquam a principio activo & libero; sed tamen Deus illum per gratiam suam operatur, sine praevio in nobis alio motu voluntatis, quo ad primum illum motum conemur, aut aspiremus, aut quo voluntas eum sibi imperet. Quippe cum interdum homini, etiam valde repugnanti, inspiretur bonus affectus voluntatis, ut in Paulo contigit. Cujus conversio, quantum attinet ad mutationem illam ex malo in bonum factam per gratiam operantem, forma est & exemplar conversionis omnium peccatorum. Quoniam per Dei gratiam ex aversis convertuntur & ex nolentibus volentes redduntur. Reliquos vero voluntatis actus, qui primum illum consequuntur, & quibus Deo pergimus adhaerere, gratia Dei quidem operatur quoq; in nobis; sed tamen voluntas nostra ad Deum jam conversa, non solum illos libere producit, verum etiam per alios anteriores actus sibi imperat. Et ita modo quodam singulari cooperatur divinae gratiae, quae propterea hoc respectu dicitur cooperans. In 2. Sentent. Dist. 26. §. 11.