On the Reasons of the Holy Spirit, Book II

the world is eternal from beginning to end, an error I have already sufficiently addressed in the first book in the chapter on the world and God, and on whether the eternity of the world exists. That one argument destroys all false syllogisms regarding eternity: whatever is made sensible, that is necessarily made. If it is made, then it is made by another, and by a certain first cause, so that there is no infinite regress in causes. For there is nothing that can create or make itself, since it does not yet exist before it exists. Action and motion, which occurs in the whole of nature for the sake of rest, teaches that it will experience an end, as Aristotle also teaches. It is certain that there will be a transformation of matter, for all things will be consumed by fire, as I taught in the book on judgment, and in the last chapter of the first volume of On the Concord of the World. For fire will consume impurity and will refine all things.

Man. Chapter 4.

A decorative initial letter M features floral motifs inside a square frame.
It is surprising with what license some have encroached upon this excellence of the microcosm. For some claim that he is in such an integral condition that he cannot sin, nor does he need grace for salvation, while others, conversely, hold that he does everything out of necessity and is not the master of his own actions. Palingenesius, in the Zodiaco vitae Zodiac of Life, strikes heavily against him and the scope of the world when he says, contrary to the opinion of all philosophers and theologians, that the world was not made for his sake. Certain philosophers acknowledge the pitiable face of depraved nature in man, and not a few lament it, and it is no wonder they do so, as they believe only in this life. Since it is established that man is composed of body and soul together, I will speak first of the whole, then of the parts. Pelagius, asserting that human nature could attain salvation by its own power alone, was sinning most gravely, not recognizing the manifest corruption, which almost all have recognized and lamented as a burden up to the very threshold of death. For it could not be that man, as he now is in his pure natural state, as they say, could so freely plot the ruin of others for the sake of his own love and desire, unless he had departed from the prescription of the Creator, who founded man for the sake of helping another, which is to be attributed to the highest misery, imperfection, and unhappiness. Therefore it is evident that man has fallen so far from his nature that he has now decayed into wickedness. It is therefore as impossible for him to rise to salvation by himself as it is for a collapsed house to restore and rebuild itself. This scoundrel removes the grace conferred by Christ as if it were superfluous. The German Ceneuangelistae New-Gospelers, following Wycliffe, and I know not how many sects of impious men risen from them, affirm that all things happen out of necessity, and that the will can do nothing, so that while they pretend that the merit of the Redeemer is diminished by [the doctrine of] free will and good works, they sponsor such things through everything, such that they despair that they can withdraw anything from them. A flock has arisen from them that casts its own sins back onto God as the author, of which I have treated in the Concord of the Koran and the Evangelists. I am certainly ashamed to speak of Palingenesius, who, while being most instructed in all knowledge of human affairs, seems to wish to confuse and approve of only Lucretius, Christ, and Luther. He says the world was not made for the sake of man, and that he who says so is in error. Indeed, he is in the greatest error who asserts the contrary. For