There is no truth, my brethren, which Holy Church is more earnest in impressing upon us than that our salvation from first to last is the gift of God. It is true indeed that we merit eternal life by our works of obedience; but that those works are meritorious of such a reward, this takes place, not from their intrinsic worth, but from the free appointment and bountiful promise of God; and that we are able to do them at all, is the simple result of His grace. That we are justified is of His grace; that we have the dispositions for justification is of His grace; that we are able to do good works when justified is of His grace; and that we persevere in those good works is of His grace. Not only do we actually depend on His power from first to last, but our destinies depend on His sovereign pleasure and inscrutable counsel. He holds the arbitration of our future in His hands; without an act of His will, independent of ours, we should not have been brought into the grace of the Catholic Church; and without a further act of His will, though we are now members of it, we shall not be brought on to the glory of the kingdom of Heaven. Though a soul justified can merit eternal life, yet neither can it merit to be justified, nor can it merit to remain justified to the end; not only is a state of grace the condition and the life of all merit, but grace brings us into that state of grace, and grace continues us in it; and thus, as I began by saying, our salvation from first to last is the gift of God.
Precise and absolute as is the teaching of Holy Church concerning the sovereign grace of God, she is as clear and as earnest in teaching also that we are really free and responsible. Every one upon earth might, without any verbal evasion, be saved, as far as God’s assistances are concerned. Every man born of Adam’s seed, simply and truly, might save himself, if he would, and every man might will to save himself; for grace is given to every one for this end. How it is, however, that in spite of this real freedom of man’s will, our salvation still depends so absolutely on God’s good pleasure, is unrevealed; divines have devised various modes of reconciling two truths which at first sight seem so contrary to each other; and these explanations have severally been received by some theologians, and not received by others, and do not concern us now. How man is able fully and entirely to do what he will, while God accomplishes His own supreme will also, is hidden from us, as it is hidden from us how God created out of nothing, or how He foresees the future, or how His attribute of justice is compatible with His attribute of love. It is one of those “hidden things which belong unto the Lord our God;” but “what are revealed,” as the inspired writer goes on to say, “are for us and our children even for everlasting”. And this is what is revealed, viz.:—on the one hand, that our salvation depends on ourselves, and on the other, that it depends on God. Did we not depend on ourselves, we should become careless and reckless, nothing we did or did not do having any bearing on our salvation; did we not depend on God, we should be presumptuous and self-sufficient. I began by telling you, my brethren, and I shall proceed in what is to come more distinctly to tell you, that you depend upon God; but such admonitions necessarily imply your dependence upon yourselves also; for, did not your salvation in some sufficient sense depend on yourselves, what would be the use of appealing to you not to forget your dependence on God? It is because you have so great a share in your own salvation, that it avails, that it is pertinent, to speak to you of God’s part in it.
He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, as of all things, so of our salvation. We should have lived and died, every one of us, destitute of all saving knowledge and love of Him, but for a gift which we could not do anything ourselves to secure, had we lived ever so well,—but for His grace; and now that we have known Him, and have been cleansed from our sins by Him, it is quite certain that we cannot do anything, even with the help of grace, to purchase for ourselves perseverance in justice and sanctity, though we live ever so well. His grace begins the work, His grace also finishes it; and now I am going to speak to you of His finishing it; I mean of the necessity under which we lie of His finishing it; else it will never be finished, or rather will be reversed; I am going to speak to you of the gift of perseverance in grace, of its extreme preciousness, and of our utter hopelessness, in spite of all that we are, without it.
It is this gift which our Lord speaks of, when He prays His Father for His disciples, before He departs from them: “Holy Father, keep in Thy name those whom Thou hast given Me; … I ask not that Thou take them out of the world, but that Thou preserve them from evil”. And St. Paul intends it when he declares to the Philippians that “He who had begun a good work” in His disciples, “would perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus”. St. Peter, too, when he says in like manner, that “God, who had called His brethren into His eternal glory, would perfect, confirm, and establish them”. And so the Prophet in the Psalms prays that God would “perfect his walking in His paths, that his steps might not be moved;” and the Prophet Jeremias declares in God’s name, “I will put My fear in their hearts, that they draw not back from Me”. In these and many other passages of Scripture the blessing spoken of is the gift of final perseverance, and I will tell you how and why it is necessary.