Especially since, V. in the work of the Anonymous author, there are not lacking explicit testimonies which show that the universal amplitude is referred to inward and special grace. For, having premised these words1:
Nor are the nations who2, “alienated from the fellowship of Israel, having no hope and without God in this world,” perished under the darkness of ignorance excusable for the reason that this abundance of grace which now irrigates the whole world did not previously flow with equal largess.
He immediately3 proceeds:
For there was always applied to all men a certain measure of heavenly doctrine which, although it was of a more scanty and hidden grace, nevertheless sufficed, as the Lord judged, for some unto remedy and for all unto testimony; so that it might appear not doubtfully but evidently that, unless4 where sin abounded grace also had superabounded, even now a similar impiety would blind the whole human race.
Then, discussing5 the general grace bestowed also upon those little children who perish, he writes:
But just as, with respect to adults, beyond that general grace which knocks more scantily and secretly upon the hearts of all men, the call of special grace is exerted by a more excellent operation, a more abundant gift,
and a more powerful efficacy, so also with respect to innumerable little children the same election is manifested. This indeed was not lacking to those who were not regenerated, in their parents; but it was present to those who were regenerated beyond their parents.
But when he proves6 that the goodness of God was present before the flood for instructing not only the holy but also the impious, he first says:
The goodness of God was not lacking even to that portion which did not stand in charity and from its beginning swelled with the venom of diabolical envy. For the Lord deigned by paternal counsel to mitigate the prince of the impious race, envying the merits of his holy brother and meditating his slaughter with a parricidal heart, saying7 to Cain…
But, after setting forth the words of the Lord, he adds:
Therefore, when God spoke such things to Cain, is it in any way doubtful that he willed, and acted insofar as the measure of healing sufficed, that Cain should return to wisdom from that fury of impiety? But his pertinacious malice was rendered the more inexcusable from that whence it ought to have been the more corrected.
But a heavenly gift which both is and is conjointly called heavenly doctrine, doctrine which renders men inexcusable, more scanty and hidden grace, grace which more scantily and secretly knocks upon the hearts of men, grace which suffices insofar as the measure of healing, and which in fact suffices for some unto remedy, and finally grace which Paul opposes to sin, is an inward gift, not an outward one, which opens and illuminates the ears and eyes of the heart and not of the flesh. Yet of such a kind are the properties, and of such a kind the marks, by which the Anonymous author explains the rationale of that gift whose excellence he praises and whose efficacy he commends. Therefore he praises and commends a gift not outward but inward, by which the will is bent and the mind is suffused with heavenly light. But of this very gift he writes that it was always conferred in some measure upon all men, and therefore that, as regards time, the gift is perpetual; as regards amplitude, it is universal; and to it both the rationale and name of general grace belong. Therefore it is interior grace whose universal amplitude
and perpetuity of time the Anonymous author maintains; so that according to his opinion the words of Bernard8 must be employed:
One need not labor in order to arrive at the hearing of this voice; the labor is rather to close the ears lest thou hear. The voice itself, namely, offers itself, thrusts itself upon thee, and meanwhile ceases not to knock at the doors of each. Finally: “For forty years I was near to this generation, and I said: These always err in heart.” He is still near to us, and perhaps there is no one who hears.