much to be granted to the free will, nor, with the Manicheans, is all
freedom to be denied it. Very well; but what difference is there
between the Pelagians and our adversaries, since both hold that
without the Holy Ghost men can love God and perform God's
commandments with respect to the substance of the acts, and can merit
grace and justification by works which reason performs by itself,
without the Holy Ghost? How many absurdities follow from these
Pelagian opinions, which are taught with great authority in the
schools! These Augustine, following Paul, refutes pith great
emphasis, whose judgment we have recounted above in the article Of
Justification. (See p. 119 and 153.) Nor, indeed, do we deny liberty
to the human will. The human will has liberty in the choice of works
and things which reason comprehends by itself. It can to a certain
extent render civil righteousness or the righteousness of works; it
can speak of God, offer to God a certain service by an outward work,
obey magistrates, parents; in the choice of an outward work it can
restrain the hands from murder, from adultery, from theft. Since
there is left in human nature reason and judgement concerning objects
subjected to the senses, choice between these things, and the liberty
and power to render civil righteousness, are also left. For
Scripture calls this the righteousness of the flesh which the carnal
nature, i.e., reason renders by itself, without the Holy Ghost.
Although the power of concupiscence is such that men more frequently
obey evil dispositions than sound judgment. And the devil, who is
efficacious in the godless, as Paul says Eph. 2, 2, does not cease to
incite this feeble nature to various offenses. These are the reasons
why even civil righteousness is rare among men, as we see that not
even the philosophers themselves, who seem to have aspired after this
righteousness, attained it. But it is false to say that he who
performs the works of the commandments without grace does not sin.