{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050183.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050183.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050183.htm","text":"Chapter 7 [V.]\u2014What is Proposed to Be Here Treated.\nWe will, however, consider, if you please, the whole of this passage of the apostle and thoroughly handle it, as the Lord shall enable us. For I want, if possible, to prove that the apostle\u2019s words, \u201cThe letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life,\u201d do not refer to figurative phrases,\u2014although even in this sense a suitable signification might be obtained from them,\u2014but rather plainly to the law, which forbids whatever is evil. When I shall have proved this, it will more manifestly appear that to lead a holy life is the gift of God,\u2014not only because God has given a free-will to man, without which there is no living ill or well; nor only because He has given him a commandment to teach him how he ought to live; but because through the Holy Ghost He sheds love abroad in the hearts 728 of those whom he foreknew, in order to predestinate them; whom He predestinated, that He might call them; whom He called, that he might justify them; and whom he justified, that He might glorify them. 729 When this point also shall be cleared, you will, I think, see how vain it is to say that those things only are unexampled possibilities, which are the works of God,\u2014such as the passage of the camel through the needle\u2019s eye, which we have already referred to, and other similar cases, which to us no doubt are impossible, but easy enough to God; and that man\u2019s righteousness is not to be counted in this class of things, on the ground of its being properly man\u2019s work, not God\u2019s; although there is no reason for supposing, without an example, that his perfection exists, even if it is possible. That these assertions are vain will be clear enough, after it has been also plainly shown that even man\u2019s righteousness must be attributed to the operation of God, although not taking place without man\u2019s will; and we therefore cannot deny that his perfection is possible even in this life, because p. 86 all things are possible with God, 730 \u2014both those which He accomplishes of His own sole will, and those which He appoints to be done with the cooperation with Himself of His creature\u2019s will. Accordingly, whatever of such things He does not effect is no doubt without an example in the way of accomplished facts, although with God it possesses both in His power the cause of its possibility, and in His wisdom the reason of its unreality. And should this cause be hidden from man, let him not forget that he is a man; nor charge God with folly simply because he cannot fully comprehend His wisdom.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on the...","type":"page"}