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A Treatise on the grace of christ, and on original sin, by aurelius augustin, bishop of hippo; In Two Books, written against pelagius and coelestius in the year a.d. 418 · Chapter 41

Restoration of Nature Understood by Pelagius as Forgiveness of Sins

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In this same work he says in another passage: "Now, if even without God men show of what character they have been made by God, see what Christians have it in their power to do, whose nature has been through Christ restored to a better condition, and who are, moreover, assisted by the help of divine grace."1883 By this restoration of nature to a better state he would have us understand the remission of sins. This he has shown with sufficient clearness in another passage of this epistle, where he says: "Even those who have become in a certain sense obdurate through their long practice of sinning, can be restored through repentance."1884 But he may even here too make the assistance of divine grace consist in the revelation of teaching.

Notes

  1. 1883

    Epistle to Demetrias, ch. 3.

  2. 1884

    Epistle to Demetrias, ch. 17.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Volume 5, ed. Philip Schaff (1886–89). Public domain. Text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.