*Thesis II: The sinner, even after he has received the faith, stands in absolute need of prevenient and co-operating grace for every single salutary act required in the process of justification.* This proposition also embodies an article of faith. Proof. The Semipelagians ascribed the dispositions necessary for justification to the natural efforts of the will, thereby denying the necessity of prevenient grace. This teaching was condemned as heretical by the Second Council of Orange (A. D. 529),(332) and again by the Council of Trent, which defined: “If any one saith that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and without His help, man can believe, hope, love, or be penitent as he ought, so that the grace of justification may be bestowed upon him; let him be anathema.”(333) a) The Scriptural texts which we have quoted against Pelagianism(334) also apply to the Semipelagian heresy. Our Lord’s dictum: “Without me you can do nothing,”(335) proves the necessity of prevenient and co-operating grace, not only at the beginning of every salutary act, but also for its continuation and completion. St. Augustine clearly perceived this. “That he might furnish a reply to the future Pelagius,” he observes, “our Lord does not say: Without me you can with difficulty do anything; but He says: Without me you can do _nothing_.... He does not say: Without me you can _perfect_ nothing, but _do_ nothing. For if He had said _perfect_, they might say that God’s aid is necessary, not for beginning good, which is of ourselves, but for perfecting it.... For when the Lord says, Without me you can do nothing, in this one word He comprehends both the beginning and the end.”(336) St. Paul expressly ascribes the salvation of man to grace when he says: “... with fear and trembling work out your salvation; for it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish.”(337) The Tridentine Council, as we have seen, designates the four salutary acts of faith, hope, love, and penitence as a preparation for justification. Now St. Paul teaches: “The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope and in the power of the Holy Ghost;”(338) and St. John: “Charity is of God.”(339) b) The argument from Tradition is chiefly based on St. Augustine, who in his two treatises against the Semipelagians, and likewise in his earlier writings, inculcates the necessity of grace for all stages on the way to salvation.