of thankfulness or gratitude answers to the moral debt,
and is paid spontaneously. Hence thanksgiving is less thankful when
compelled, as Seneca observes (De Beneficiis iii).

Reply Obj. 3: Since true friendship is based on virtue, whatever
there is contrary to virtue in a friend is an obstacle to friendship,
and whatever in him is virtuous is an incentive to friendship. In
this way friendship is preserved by repayment of favors, although
repayment of favors belongs specially to the virtue of gratitude.
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SECOND ARTICLE [II-II, Q. 106, Art. 2]

Whether the Innocent Is More Bound to Give Thanks to God Than the
Penitent?

Objection 1: It seems that the innocent is more bound to give thanks
to God than the penitent. For the greater the gift one has received
from God, the more one is bound to give Him thanks. Now the gift of
innocence is greater than that of justice restored. Therefore it
seems that the innocent is more bound to give thanks to God than the
penitent.

Obj. 2: Further, a man owes love to his benefactor just as he owes
him gratitude. Now Augustine says (Confess. ii): "What man, weighing
his own infirmity, would dare to ascribe his purity and innocence to
his own strength; that so he should love Thee the less, as if he had
less needed Thy mercy, whereby Thou remittest sins to those that turn
to Thee?" And farther on he says: "And for this let him love Thee as
much, yea and more, since by Whom he sees me to have been recovered
from such deep torpor of sin, by Him he sees himself to have been
from the like torpor of sin preserved." Therefore the innocent is
also more bound to give thanks than the penitent.

Obj. 3: Further, the more a gratuitous favor is continuous, the
greater the thanksgiving due for it. Now the favor of divine grace is
more continuous in the innocent than in the penitent. For Augustine
says (Confess. iii): "To Thy grace I ascribe it, and to Thy mercy,
that Thou hast melted away my sins as it were ice. To Thy grace I
ascribe also whatsoever I have not done of evil; for what might I not
have done? . . . Yea, all I confess to have been forgiven me, both
what evils I committed by my own wilfulness, and what by Thy guidance
committed not." Therefore the innocent is more bound to give thanks
than the penitent.

_On the contrary,_ It is written (Luke 7:43): "To whom more is
forgiven, he loveth more [*Vulg.: 'To whom less is forgiven, he
loveth less' Luke 7:47]." Ther