Whether there be any real connection between Savonarola’s teaching and the following passages from Colet’s exposition, I leave the reader to judge.
‘Wherefore St. Paul concludes, men are justified by faith, and trusting in God alone by Jesus Christ, are reconciled to God and restored into grace; so that with God they stand, and remain themselves sons of God.... If He loved us when alienated from Him, how much more will He love us when we are reconciled; and preserve those whom He loves. Wherefore we ought to be firm and stable in our hope and joy, and, nothing doubting, trust in God through Jesus Christ, by whom alone men are reconciled to God.’—MS. fol. 5. After speaking of that grace which where sin had abounded did much more abound unto eternal life, Colet proceeds:—‘But here it is to be noted that this grace is nothing else than the love of God towards men—towards those, i.e. whom He wills to love, and, in loving, to inspire with His Holy Spirit; which itself is love and the love of God; which (as the Saviour said, according to St. John’s Gospel) blows where it lists. But, loved and inspired by God, they are also called; so that accepting this love, they may love in return their loving God, and long for and wait for the same love. This waiting and hope springs from love. This love truly is ours because He loves us: not (as St. John writes in his 2nd Epistle) as though we had first loved God, but because He first loved us, even when we were worthy of no love at all; but indeed impious and wicked, destined by right to eternal death. But some, i.e. those whom He knew and chose, He also loved, and in loving called them, and in calling them justified them, and in justifying them glorified them. This gracious love and charity in God towards men is in itself the calling and justification and glorification.... And when we speak of men as drawn, called, justified, and glorified by grace, we mean nothing else than that men love in return God who loves them.’—MS. Gg. 4, 26, fol. 6.
Again: ‘Thus you see that things are brought about by a providing and directing God, and that they happen as He wills in the affairs of men, not from any force from without (illata)—since nothing is more remote from force than the Divine action—but by the natural desire and will of man, the Divine will and providence secretly and silently, and, as it were, naturally accompanying (comitante) it, and going along with it so wonderfully, that whatever you do and choose was known by God, and what God knew and decreed to be, of necessity comes to pass.’—MS. fol. 18.
The following passage is from Colet’s exposition of the Epistle to the Corinthians (MS. 4, 26, p. 80). ‘The mind of man consists of intellect and will. By the intellect we know: by the will we have power to act (possumus). From the knowledge of the intellect comes faith: from the power of the will charity. But Christ, the power of God, is also the wisdom of God. Our minds are illuminated to faith by Christ, “who illumines every man coming into this world, and He gives power to become the sons of God to those who believe in His name.” By Christ also our wills are kindled in charity to love God and our neighbour; in which is the fulfilment of the law. From God alone therefore, through Christ, we have both knowledge and power; for by Him we are in Christ. Men, however, have in themselves a blind intellect, and a depraved will, and walk in darkness, not knowing what they do.... Those who by the warm rays of his divinity are so drawn that they keep close in communion with Him, are indeed they whom Paul speaks of as called and elected to His glory,’ &c.
For the Latin of these extracts see [Appendix (A)].
In further proof that Colet’s views (like Savonarola’s) were not Augustinian upon the question of the ‘freedom of the will,’ may be cited the following words of Colet (see infra, chap, iv.): ‘But in especial is it necessary for thee to know that God of his great grace hath made thee his image, having regard to thy memory, understanding, and free-will.’ Probably both Colet and Savonarola, in common with other mystic theologians, had imbibed their views directly or indirectly from the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius and the Neo-Platonists.
[87] ‘Ex quodam nostro studio et pietate in homines ... non tam verentes legentium fastidium, quam cupientes confirmacionem infirmorum et vacillantium.’—Fol. 22b.
[88] MS. Gg. 4, 26, fols. 13b to 15a.
[89] Ibid. fol. 3b.
[90] Ibid. fols. 28b and 29.