good use of their free will, while others will not, he has preordained some to glory, and others he has condemned. Of the use of freedom we judge in the following manner: since divine goodness has given us the divine grace, which, like the light illuminating the path of those who walk in darkness, guides us all, those who wish freely to submit. to it (for it assists those who have it, and who do not oppose it) and to fulfil its commands, which are absolutely necessary for salvation, for that reason receive a special grace, which, coöperating with them and strengthening and constantly perfecting them in divine love, that is, in those good works, which God demands of us (and which also the premonitory grace has demanded), justifies them and makes them preordained; but those, on the contrary, who will not obey and follow grace, and who therefore do not fulfil the divine commandments, but, following the instigation of Satan, make ill use of their freedom, which God has given them for the purpose of arbitrarily doing good, are given over to eternal condemnation. But what the blasphemous heretics say of God’s preordaining and condemning, without paying any attention to the works of the preordained or the condemned, we regard as madness and ungodliness.” (pp. 255 and 256.)
The error cannot be rendered in one’s own words; here it is:
“In regard to the nature of the sanctification or justification, as taken in its broad meaning, the Protestants assert that it consists: (a) not in that the divine grace acts inwardly on man and actually, on the one hand, purifies him from all sins, and, on the other, cooperates with the renovated, righteous, holy; (b) but in this, that, by God’s will, the sins are pardoned only externally and are not put against the man, though in reality they remain in him,—that Christ’s righteousness is put to his account only in an external manner. Such is the
