Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. x. of Predestination.
269
arbitrarily ; it then involves the doctrine of efficacious
grace ; for there is no room at either end for any original
motion of the will, upon which the possession of such grace
depends.
But the latter is, according to the Thomist doctrine,
the mode in which this grace is obtained and preserved.
First, the primary possession of this grace is not owing, in
whole or in part, to any merit or original act of will in the
individual. It was laid down that to a man who prepared
himself as much as possible for grace, grace was still not
necessarily given ; non necessario data se prceparanti
ad gratiam et facienti quod in se est. } But if a man s
best possible preparation of himself for it was no claim in
the eye of (rod to it, the bestowal of it evidently did not
depend upon any thing in a man himself, but proceeded
upon a different law. And when we are let into the real
meaning of this position, the same conclusion is still more
clear. For when this position comes to be explained, as it
is further on in the argument, it turns out to be only an
other form of the position that nobody can prepare him
self, either in whole or in part, for grace, i.e. have any
original share in this work. The preparation of the human
heart for the reception of grace was a Divine work, in
which God was the mover, and the human will the tiling
moved.
The distinction indeed of operating and co-operating
grace, gratia operans et cooperans, appears at first sight
to imply an original act of the will, with which Divine
grace co-operates, and which is co-ordinate with that grace.
But as explained, it carries no such meaning with it, and
issues in a verbal subtlety. Two acts are attributed to the
will, one interior, the other exterior, the one being the
substance of the act, the other its manifestation ; the one
the real moral act itself, the other that act as expressed in
outward form. Of these two acts then, the former is attri-
1 Homo comparator ad Deum formam a figulo,^ quantumcunque sit
sicut lutum ad figulum, secundum praeparatum. Ergo neque homo reillud
Jer. 18. 6. Sicut lutum in cipit ex necessitate gratiam a Deo,
manu figuli
sic vos in manu mea. quantumcunque se I
praeparet.
1"
Sed lutum non ex necessitate accipit
2 dae Q. 112. A. 3.