It was not thus that that pious and humble teacher thought—I speak of the most blessed Cyprian—when he said "that we must boast in nothing, since nothing is our own."6 And in order to show this, he appealed to the apostle as a witness, where he said, "For what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received it, why boastest thou as if thou hadst not received it?" [1 Cor. 4.7.] And it was chiefly by this testimony that I myself also was convinced when I was in a similar error, thinking that faith whereby we believe on God is not God's gift, but that it is in us from ourselves, and that by it we obtain the gifts of God, whereby we may live temperately and righteously and piously in this world. For I did not think that faith was preceded by God's grace, so that by its means would be given to us what we might profitably ask, except that we could not believe if the proclamation of the truth did not precede; but that we should consent when the gospel was preached to us I thought was our own doing, and came to us from ourselves. And this my error is sufficiently indicated in some small works of mine written before my episcopate... "Incline my heart unto Thy testimonies;" [Psalm 119.36.] or, "The steps of a man are ordered by the Lord, and He will will His way;" [Psalm 37.23.] or, "The will is prepared by the Lord;" [Prov. 8. see LXX.] or, "Let our Lord be with us as with our fathers; let Him not forsake us, nor turn Himself away from us; let Him incline our hearts unto Him, that we may walk in all His ways;" [1 Kings 8.57,58.] or, " I will give them a heart to know me, and ears that hear;" [Baruch 2.31.] or, "I will give them another heart, and a new spirit will I give them." [Ezek. 11.19.] Let them also hear this, "I will give my Spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my righteousnesses; and ye shall observe my judgments, and do them." [Ezek. 36.27.] Let them hear, "Man's goings are directed by the Lord, and how can a man understand His ways?" [Prov. 20.24.] Let them hear, "Every man seemeth right to himself, but the Lord directeth the hearts." [Prov. 21.2.] Let them hear, "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed." [Acts 13.48.] Let them hear these passages, and whatever others of the kind I have not mentioned in which God is declared to prepare and to convert men's wills, even for the kingdom of heaven and for eternal life... ...although in my former little treatises I had proved by sufficiently appropriate proofs that faith also was the gift of God, there was found this ground of contradiction, viz., that those testimonies were good for this purpose, to show that the increase of faith was God's gift, but that the beginning of faith, whereby a man first of all believes in Christ, is of the man himself, and is not the gift of God,—but that God requires this, so that when it has preceded, other gifts may follow, as it were on the ground of this merit, and these are the gifts of God; and that none of them is given freely, although in them God's grace is declared, which is not grace except as being gratuitous. And you see how absurd all this is. Wherefore I determined, as far as I could, to set forth that this very beginning also is God's gift. And if I have done this at a greater length than perhaps those on whose account I did it might wish, I am prepared to be reproached for it by them, so long as they nevertheless confess that, although at greater length than they wished, although with the disgust and weariness of those that understand, I have done what I have done: that is, I have taught that even the beginning of faith, as continence, patience, righteousness, piety, and the rest, concerning which there is no dispute with them, is God's gift.
I would encourage you to actually read Augustine rather than cite clips form the internet approved by Rome. Read the book.
And from this you get TULIP? No free will, double predestination, totally depraved, limited atonement?
Sorry.
“”I would encourage you to actually read Augustine rather than cite clips form the internet approved by Rome””
I have read Blessed Augustine and agree with him when he is in line with consistent church teaching
Blessed Augustine had some error in thought like we all do sometimes but always submitted to the Church. and stayed within the Church.
The late Fr Willam Most explains some of Augustine’s error in thinking .
http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/AUGUSTIN.HTM
The Eastern Fathers, absolutely all of them, and Westerners before Augustine, and even after him, saw that there is no reprobation, not even negative, except in consideration of demerits. Augustine did not see that, and the unfortunate massa damnata theory, which said the whole human race by original sin became a massa damnata et damnabilis: God could throw the whole damned race into hell for original sin alone, without waiting for any personal sin.
God wanted to display mercy and justice. To display mercy, He chose a small percent to rescue; the rest He deserted and so they would go to hell.
He thought God picked those to rescue blindly, without any consideration of how they lived. He picked them not that He had any love for them, but merely to make a point. Augustine did not see it, but that was a denial of God’s love. For to love is to will good to another for the other’s sake. If I will good to another not for that other’s sake, but for some outside purpose of mine, I am not loving that person, but using him.
So in that theory, God does not really love anyone, He merely uses the few for His own purposes, not for their sake. Hence, as we shall son see, he explicitly denied several times that “God wills all to be saved: (1 Tim 2:4) . He even said, as we shall soon see below, that it means
nothing to God that most persons are damned, without a chance.
Of course Augustine did not see this fact, or he would surely have stayed away from his theory. Actually, as we shall see later on, in about six places he implies the opposite of that theory, when his sense of God’s goodness took over his thinking