Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. v. of Predestination. 133
est a sensibus carnis hcec schola in qua Pater auditur
et docet. We see many come to the Son, because we see
many believe in Christ : but where and how they heard
and learned this of the Father we see not. Too secret is
that grace ; but that it is grace who can doubt ? This
grace thus secretly imparted is rejected by no heart, how
ever hard. 1
Indeed, it is given for that purpose, viz. that
this hardness of heart may be removed. When the Father
is heard, and teaches the man within to come to the Son,
He takes away the stony heart and gives the heart of flesh,
thus making sons of promise and vessels of mercy prepared
for glory. But why does He not teach all to come to
Christ ? Because those whom He teaches He teaches in
mercy, and those whom He teaches not He teaches not in
"
judgment. For He hath mercy on whom He will have
mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth." And
to him who objects why doth He yet complain, for who
hath resisted His will ? the Apostle answers, not by deny
ing the objection, but urging submission under it : man,
" 2
who art thou that repliest against God ?
Again :
(
Why, when both alike hear, and, supposing
a miracle, both alike see, one believes and another does
not believe, lies in the abyss of the riches of the wisdom
and knowledge of Grod, whose judgments are unsearchable,
and who, without iniquity, has mercy upon whom He
will have mercy, and whom He will, hardeneth. For
His decrees are not unjust, because they are incompre
hensible. 3
Again : It displeases him (the objector in Rom. c. ix.)
that Grod complains of sinners whom, as it appears to him,
He hardens. But Grod does not harden sinners by obliging
them to sin, but by withholding grace, such grace being
withheld from those from whom it is withheld, according
to an occult justice, infinitely removed from human per
ceptions. 4
1 Nimium gratia ista secreta est,
2 De Prsed. Sanct. c. viii.
gratiam vero esse quis ambigat ?
Haec itaque gratia, quse occulte humanis
cordibus divina largitate tris
Epist. 194. c. iii.
4 De Div. Quaest. ad 1. Simplic. i.
Q. 2. n. 16.
buitur, a nullo duro corde respuitur.