Tuesday 6 April 2021

Augustine on Common Grace?

It would be erroneous and anachronistic to insert modern debates about common grace into the works of St. Augustine. However this except from his commentary on Psalm 78 is rather interesting and touches somewhat on that topic.

But without doubt the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven was veiled in the Old Testament, which in the fullness of time should be unveiled in the New.  For, says the Apostle, they did drink of the Spiritual Rock following them, but the Rock was Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:4 In a mystery therefore theirs was the same meat and drink as ours, but in signification the same, not in form; because the same Christ was Himself figured to them in a Rock, manifested to us in the Flesh. But, he says, not in all of them God was well pleased. 1 Corinthians 10:5 All indeed ate the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink, that is to say, signifying something spiritual: but not in all of them was God well pleased. When, he says, not in all:there were evidently there some in whom was God well pleased; and although all the Sacraments were common, grace, which is the virtue of the Sacraments, was not common to all. Just as in our times, now that the faith has been revealed, which then was veiled, to all men that have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Matthew 28:19 the Laver of regeneration is common; but the very grace whereof these same are the Sacraments, whereby the members of the Body of Christ are to reign together with their Head, is not common to all. For even heretics have the same Baptism, and false brethren too, in the communion of the Catholic name.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801078.htm

Here Augustine says the Sacraments are common to all who will join the Church but the grace imparted by the Sacrament which makes it effective, its virtue he says, is not common to all as false brethren and heretics also partake of the same Sacraments. 

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