A Treatise On the Predestination of the Saints 1/2, Augustine

Hear the words, 'Who hath first given to Him and it shall be recompensed to him again? since of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things'? [Rom. 11.35.] And from whom, then, is that very beginning of our faith if not from Him?

For this is not excepted when other things are spoken of as of Him; but 'of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things.' But who can say that he who has already begun to believe deserves nothing from Him in whom he has believed?

Whence it results that, to him who already deserves, other things are said to be added by a divine retribution, and thus that God's grace is given according to our merits. And this assertion when put before him, Pelagius himself condemned, that he might not be condemned. Whoever, then, wishes on every side to avoid this condemnable opinion, let him understand that what the apostle says is said with entire truthfulness, 'Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.' [Phil. 1.29]

He shows that both are the gifts of God, because he said that both were given. And he does not say, 'to believe on Him more fully and perfectly,'' but, 'to believe on Him.'

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