GRATIA, or GRACE. The word Grace is understood several ways in Scripture, which it may be proper to take notice of. 1. Grace is taken for Beauty, Good-Grace, and Agreeableness of Person. For Ps. xlv. 2.example; Full of Grace are thy lips; because God hath blessed thee for ever. Hearken to the instructions of Wisdom, and she shall give to thine head an ornament of Prov. iv. 9. Gen. xviii. 3. Gen. vi. 8.Grace.
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Grace is taken for favour, friendship. If I have found Grace in thy sight. Noah found Grace in the eyes of the Lord. God gave the Hebrews Grace in the sight of the Egyptians, so that these lent unto them clothes and jewels, &c.
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Grace is taken for Pardon, Mercy; to shew Grace and Mercy; to pardon any one, to restore him to our good Graces.
Ecclus. vii. 37.4. Grace is understood to signify benefit. Gratia dati in conspectu omnis viventis: Benefits oblige all men. By Gratia is meant likewise reward. If you do good to your friends only, if you love those only who Luke vi. 32, 33, 34.love you, Quæ gratia est vobis? What reward can you expect from God?
- Grace is taken for certain Gifts of God, which he bestows freely on whom he pleases; but do not justify those to whom he gives them, and tend not directly to their sanctification: these are Graces, which are called Graces freely given; such are the gifts of miracles, prophecy, languages, and all the rest mentioned by St. Paul in his 1 Cor. xii. 4.first Epistle to the Corinthians. These Gifts are intended rather for the advantage of others, than of the person, who possesses them; though the good use which he makes of them may contribute to his sanctification. By Grace likewise, all sorts of justifying Graces are meant, some whereof tend to justification, others actually justify.
There are several sorts of inward Graces; for the Graces of the Understanding may be called by this name, as well as the Graces of the Will. There are habitual and actual Graces.
Divines distinguish these inward, actual Graces, into preventing, exciting, and operating; subsequent, assisting, and co-operating. But it is not our design to enter upon an examination of all these Graces; this is the business of Divines.
St. Austin defines inward, actual Grace to be the inspiration of love, which prompts us to do what we know out of a religious affection. Legem volunt (Pelagiani) intelligi gratiam … non inspirationem dilectionis, ut cognita sancto amore faciamus, quæ propriLib. 4. ad Bonif. cap. 5. num. 11.è gratia est. He says likewise, that the Grace of God, is the blessing of God’s sweet influence, whereby we are induced to take pleasure in that which he commands, to desire and love it; and that if God does not prevent us with Lib. 2. ad Bonif. cap. 9. num. 21.this blessing, what he commands, not only is not perfected, but is not so much as begun in us. Benedictio dulcedinis est gratia Dei, quâ sit in nobis, ut nos delectet, & cupiamus, hoc est, amemus, quod præcipit nobis; in quâ si nos non prævenit Deus, non solum non perficitur, sed nec inchoatur in nobis.
Without the inward Grace of Jesus Christ, man is not able to do the least thing, that is good. He stands in need of it to begin, continue, and finish all the good he does, or rather which God does in him and with him by his Grace.
Rom. xi. 6.The Grace of Jesus Christ is free; it is not due to us: if it were due to us, it would be no more Grace; it would be a debt: of itself it is an assistance so powerful and efficacious, that it surmounts the hardness of the most rebellious heart, without destroying our liberty.
There is no Subject in Divinity, upon which the Christian Doctors have written so largely, as upon the several particulars relating to the Grace of God. It is a mystery which the mind of man has always been desirous to unfold; but notwithstanding all its efforts, it is obliged always to acknowledge its insufficiency. The difficulty consists in reconciling the liberty of man with the operation of Grace, the concurrence of man with the assistance of the Almighty. And who is able to set just bounds between these two things? Who can pretend to know how far the privileges of Grace extend over the heart of man, and what the force of that man’s liberty is, who is prevented, enlightned, moved, and attracted by Grace?
Although the Books of the Old Testament express themselves very clearly, with relation to the fall of man, his incapacity as to good, his continual want of God’s aids, the darkness of his Understanding, and the evil propensions of his Heart; although this is all to be observed, not only in the historical part of the Bible, but likewise in the Prayers of the Saints, and in the Writings of the Prophets; nevertheless these truths are far from being so well unravel’d in the Old Testament as in the New; nor are the Jewish Doctors so well instructed in matters relating to Grace, as the Fathers, and the Maimon. More Nevochim. Basnage hist. des Juifs, t. 1. l. 6. c. 13.Christian and Catholick Divines.
The Rabbins have no distinct knowledge of original Sin; some deny it, and maintain, that it is incomprehensible how a man should be born with sin; but at the same time they acknowledge a natural bad propensity in man, a figmentum malum, which inclines them to evil. See the Article ORIGINAL SIN.
As to the Grace of Jesus Christ, it is not at all extraordinary that they should not be acquainted with it, because they receive neither his Person, his Doctrines, nor the Books of his Disciples: they do not even know, distinctly at least, what that Grace will be, which the Messiah whom they expect, will give them in order to blot out their sins, and lead them to salvation. They believe that the Messiah will be one of Limburg. Collat. cum Judæo. p. 73.perfect sanctity, that he will convert the nations, and procure the true God to be worshipped in all places. But they do not acknowledge the satisfaction which he was to make for sin: they reckon much upon their good works, repentance, and a change of life; yet own in their Catechism, that no one ought to expect salvation from the goodness of his works, or the perfection of his righteousness, Catechism. Jud. Qu. 14.but that it is Grace which bestows it.
But when we come to examine this Grace, some, as Maimonides, reduce it almost to constitution only. As God, says he, has created man erect in stature with feet and hands, so he has given him a will to move himself, and act as he pleases; and it is the goodness of constitution which makes things easy or difficult. He says farther, That the Fear of God is not in the hand of heaven; that it is in every man’s power to observe or not observe the precepts of the Law; that the Fear of God is of this class: that it depends not on God, but on the will of man. Lastly, the Jews admit liberty of indifference in its full extent It is true, some of them have owned a preventing Grace; and have affirmed, that Grace goes before the merits of the righteous: but the famous Manasseh-Ben-Israel, who wrote at Amsterdam in the last Century, R. Massé de fragilitate humana. §. 14. p. 116.confuted these Doctors who departed from Tradition. He asserts, that if Grace were to prevent the Will of Man, it would be no longer free. He lays down two sorts of assistance, and no more, which we are capable of receiving from God; one whereby he so orders it, that favourable opportunities are presented for man’s executing the good designs which he has form’d; and the other, whereby he is aiding to every man, when he first begins to live well. He acknowledges, that the concurrence of Providence is necessary in every good action; as a man who would lay a very heavy load upon his shoulders, calls some one to his aid, in order to help him up with it. And this probably was what Josephus meant, when he affirmed, that, according to the Pharisees, Fate was assisting to men in the practice of good works. Under the name of Fate, he might understand Providence.
They maintain, that by admitting a preventing and efficacious Grace, all the merit of works is destroyed; God is made the author of sin and corruption; and is supposed to have an unjust regard to persons. If he gives efficacious Grace to all, why are they not all saved? and if he does not give it to all, where is the equality of his justice? If man cannot do well without Grace, how can the evil be imputed to him which he is necessitated to perform? and why should he be refused such an assistance, without which he must be destroyed?
Eliezer Pirk. c. 15. p. 32.Another Rabbin introduces God opening the way of life and death to man, and giving him his choice of either. If he takes the way of death, God however does not as yet intirely forsake him: he hath placed seven Angels in this way; four of the seven are Angels of mercy, the other three are cruel Angels. The former take their post at every door to perdition, and do what they can to prevent men’s entering by them. At the first door, the Angel cries out to him, what art thou doing? there is no mercy here; thou art going to cast thy self into the fire. If he passes the first door, the second Angel stops him, and tells him, that he is going to incur God’s aversion. The third threatens him with being blotted out of the Book of Life. The fourth conjures him to stay there, and not to proceed any farther, till God comes to seek after Penitents. If he continues to go on, the cruel Angels seize on him, and conduct him into hell.
In all this we see only a general and natural Grace given to all the world, the ordinary effects of Providence, and assistances which are only external, very different from that inward attraction which acts immediately upon our souls, and inspires us with the love of good, and hatred of evil: wherein consists the medicinal Grace of Jesus Christ, acknowledged in his Church.
D’Herbelot Bibl. Orient. p. 469.The Mahometans have such sentiments of Grace, as it may not be unacceptable to have inserted in this place. Mahomet, in his Alcoran, in the chapter concerning Houd or Eber, says, that this Patriarch speaking to the people of Ad, uses these words; I have placed my whole confidence in God, who is mine and your Lord: for there is no creature upon earth whom he does not hold by the tuft of hair upon his forehead, in order to conduct him through the right way whither he pleases. The Interpreters of this passage maintain, that by this expression, to hold any one by a tuft of hair growing on the fore-part of his head, is meant, that such an one is absolute master of his person, so that he is able to do nothing but what the other pleases, who has him fast by this place.
They affirm, that God is in reality the author and principle of all the actions, and even of all the co-operations of the creatures; that he alone, by the order of his Providence, and the concurrence of second Causes established by him, attracts every thing to himself, according to the capacity and dispositions of the subject, and that herein consists the meaning of the passage above cited. An Arabian Poet has expressed the Action of God upon the creature in a verse to this purpose: God hath attracted him who hath attracted those by whom thou art thy self attracted, to the end that all may go and return to him. Another on the same subject has this remark: Since all the ways we meet with, either to the right or left, tend to him; thou mayst do what thou wouldst; whatever way thou takest, thou wilt go towards him, in order either to be rewarded, if thou hast kept to the right hand; or punished, if thou hast turned to the left. As every thing is originally derived from him, so must every thing likewise terminate in him.