The Young’s Literal Translation:
I exhort, then, first of all, there be made supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, for all men: ****for kings, and all who are in authority, that a quiet and peaceable life we may lead in all piety and gravity, ****for this is right and acceptable before God our Saviour, ****who doth will all men to be saved, and to come to the full knowledge of the truth; ****for one is God, one also is mediator of God and of men, the man Christ Jesus.
Table of Contents:
The Young’s Literal Translation:
I exhort, then, first of all, there be made supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, for all men: ****for kings, and all who are in authority, that a quiet and peaceable life we may lead in all piety and gravity, ****for this is right and acceptable before God our Saviour, ****who doth will all men to be saved, and to come to the full knowledge of the truth; ****for one is God, one also is mediator of God and of men, the man Christ Jesus.
[Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love; Ch. XXIV — XXVIII]
XXIV. The Solution to Present Spiritual Enigmas to Be Awaited in the Life of the World To Come:
And thus it will be that while the reprobated angels and men go on in their eternal punishment, the saints will go on learning more fully the blessings which grace has bestowed upon them. Then, through the actual realities of their experience, they will see more clearly the meaning of what is written in The Psalms: “I will sing to thee of mercy and judgment, O Lord”(Ps. 100:1, Vulgate; cf.Ps. 101:1, R.S.V)—since no one is set free save by unmerited mercy and no one is damned save by a merited condemnation.
Then what is now hidden will not be hidden: when one of two infants is taken up by God’s mercy and the other abandoned through God’s judgment—and when the chosen one knows what would have been his just deserts in judgment—why was the one chosen rather than the other, when the condition of the two was the same? Or again, why were miracles not wrought in the presence of certain people who would have repented in the face of miraculous works, while miracles were wrought in the presence of those who were not about to believe. For our Lord saith most plainly: “Woe to you, Chorazin; woe to you, Bethsaida. For if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles done in your midst, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes”(Matt. 11:21). Now, obviously, God did not act unjustly in not willing their salvation, even though they could have been saved, if he willed it so.
[This is one of the rare instances in which a textual variant in Augustine’s text affects a basic issue in the interpretation of his doctrine. All but one of the major old editions, up to and including Migne, here read: Nec utique deus injuste noluit salvos fiere eum possent salvi esse SI VELLENT (if they willed it). This would mean the attribution of a decisive role in human salvation to the human will and would thus stand out in bold relief from his general stress in the rest of the Enchiridion and elsewhere on the primacy and even irresistibility of grace. The Jansenist edition of Augustine, by Arnauld in 1648, read SI VELLET (if He willed it) and the reading became the subject of acrimonious controversy between the Jansenists and the Molinists. The Maurist edition reads si vellet, on the strength of much additional MS. evidence that had not been available up to that time. In modern times, the si vellet reading has come to have the overwhelming support of the critical editors, although Rivière still reads si vellent. Cf. Scheel, 76-77 (See Bibl.); Rivière, 402–403; J. G. Krabinger, S. Aurelii Augustini Enchiridion (Tübingen, 1861 ), p. 116; Faure-Passaglia, S. Aurelii Augustini Enchiridion (Naples, 1847), p. 178; and H. Hurter, Sanctorum Patrum opuscula selecta (Innsbruck, 1895), p. 123.]
Then, in the clearest light of wisdom, will be seen what now the pious hold by faith, not yet grasping it in clear understanding—how certain, immutable, and effectual is the will of God, how there are things he can do but doth not will to do, yet willeth nothing he cannot do, and how true is what is sung in the psalm: “But our God is above in heaven; in heaven and on earth he hath done all things whatsoever that he would” [Cf. Ps. 113:11, a mixed text; composed inexactly from Ps. 115:3 and Ps. 135:6; an interesting instance of Augustine’s sense of liberty with the texts of Scripture. Here he is doubtless quoting from memory]. This obviously is not true, if there is anything that he willed to do and did not do, or, what were worse, if he did not do something because man’s will prevented him, the Omnipotent, from doing what he willed. Nothing, therefore, happens unless the Omnipotent wills it to happen. He either allows it to happen or he actually causes it to happen.
Unless we believe this, the very beginning of our Confession of Faith is imperiled—the sentence in which we profess to believe in God the Father Almighty. For he is called Almighty for no other reason than that he can do whatsoever he willeth and because the efficacy of his omnipotent will is not impeded by the will of any creature.