{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/103/1030357.htm","path":"chr/ecf/103/1030357.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/103/1030357.htm","text":"Chapter 107.\u2014Eternal Life, Though the Reward of Good Works, is Itself the Gift of God.\nWherefore, even eternal life itself, which p. 272 is surely the reward of good works, the apostle calls the gift of God. \u201cFor the wages of sin,\u201d he says, \u201cis death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.\u201d 1300 Wages (stipendium) is paid as a recompense for military service; it is not a gift: wherefore he says, \u201cthe wages of sin is death,\u201d to show that death was not inflicted undeservedly, but as the due recompense of sin. But a gift, unless it is wholly unearned, is not a gift at all. 1301 We are to understand, then, that man\u2019s good deserts are themselves the gift of God, so that when these obtain the recompense of eternal life, it is simply grace given for grace. Man, therefore, was thus made upright that, though unable to remain in his uprightness without divine help, he could of his own mere will depart from it. And whichever of these courses he had chosen, God\u2019s will would have been done, either by him, or concerning him. Therefore, as he chose to do his own will rather than God\u2019s, the will of God is fulfilled concerning him; for God, out of one and the same heap of perdition which constitutes the race of man, makes one vessel to honor, another to dishonor; to honor in mercy, to dishonor in judgment; 1302 that no one may glory in man, and consequently not in himself.\nComp. Rom. 11.6Rom. xi. 6\n272:1302","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III: Doctrinal Treat...","type":"page"}