Annotation CCXV

”They were thine, and thou gavest them to me.” — John 17:6

Whether all believers are certain of grace.

John Ferus, narrating this passage in the commentaries: “DO NOT [trust] thyself in God,” he says, “but in Christ; in whom, if thou find thyself by faith and love, be certain that thou art predestined by God.” Michael Medina thus refutes Soto, [who was] condemning these words: “Soto in this place accuses Ferus of the error concerning the certitude of grace, condemned in the Council of Trent. But since here the author speaks — after his manner, and [that] of all who speak humanly — of a moral certitude, which depends on the acts which we experience in ourselves, there is no reason why that error should be imputed to him, unless it be also imputed to all [those] whom we have already shown to have used this phrase in many [places]. Nay, unless the whole human race is to be condemned, because it calls those [things] ‘certain’ which are apprehended from human conjectures: it is assuredly true that, from the living faith which we experience in ourselves, we can know, through conjectures, that we are partakers of the eternal reward — since we know [it was] said by the truthful master,¹ ‘He who believes in the Son has eternal life’; and ‘he who loves me shall be loved by my Father, and we will come to him.’ But that we can know in ourselves true love and faith, there is no one who doubts — although we cannot [with certainty] apprehend that we are pleasing to God, or that we have infused grace in us. And so, the error condemned at Trent is not that we can, by conjectures and human reasonings, know that we have divine love or grace, or that we presume concerning divine predestination, the divine promises encouraging [us]; but [the error is] that anyone of men could, by the certitude of faith — divine revelation being excluded — be certain of divine grace or predestination.”²