Grace And Labour

Audi apostolum laborem cum gratia humili confessione miscentem: gratia autem Dei sum id, quod sum, et gratia illius in me vacua non fuit, sed abundantius illis omnibus laboravi: non ego autem, sed gratia Dei mecum. Vide quomodo ad gratiae donum semper subiungit laboris obsequium: non ego autem. Quia mentionem solius laboris intulerat, cito quasi ad amplexum matris gratiae recucurrit dicens: sed gratia Dei mecum. Gratia, inquit, Dei sum. Primas partes soli gratiae pie subiectus adscripsit, media quaeque labori magister oboedientiae deputavit, utrumque in consummatione moderatus gratiam laboremque coniunxit. Non dixit: ego sine gratia vel gratia sine me, sed gratia Dei mecum. Quae prius singillatim distincta protulerat, quam bene in sermonis fine conexuit. Ac sic apud regeneratos, quando gratia sine labore vel labor sine gratia in scripturis ponitur, supprimitur, non separatur. Cum unum sine altero dicitur, tacetur alterum, non negatur secundum illam regulam, quam antistes Augustinus insinuat: non omnia quae tacentur negantur. Sanctus Faustus Reiensis, De Gratia, V Source: Migne PL 58.806c-807b

Hear the Apostle mixing grace with labour in humble confession: 'For by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace in me was not in vain, but more abundantly I worked than all of them, and yet not I, but the grace of God in me.' 1 See how he always joins the service of labour to the gift of grace, 'and yet not I'. For introducing the subject of labour alone, quickly, as returning to the embrace of a mother, he speaks of grace: 'but the grace of God with me.' By the grace of God I am, he says. In the first parts, as a subject he piously writes of grace alone, in the middle part he speaks as a master of obedient labour, and then as a moderate man he unites both grace and labour in perfection. He does not say, 'I without grace', or 'grace without me', but 'the grace of God with me.' Which things first introducing as distinct, he then joins together at the end of his words. And so for those reborn, when grace without labour, or labour without grace, is spoken of in Scripture, one there is suppressed, not separated. When one without the other is spoken of, one is passed over in silence, not denied, according to that rule, which the bishop Augustine refers to when he says, 'Not everything which is passed over in silence is denied.' Saint Faustus of Riez, On Grace, 5 1 Cor 15.10