{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050330.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050330.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050330.htm","text":"Chapter 83 [LXIX.]\u2014God Enjoins No Impossibility, Because All Things are Possible and Easy to Love.\nBut \u201cthe precepts of the law are very good,\u201d if we use them lawfully. 1346 Indeed, by the very fact (of which we have the firmest conviction) p. 151 \u201cthat the just and good God could not possibly have enjoined impossibilities,\u201d we are admonished both what to do in easy paths and what to ask for when they are difficult. Now all things are easy for love to effect, to which (and which alone) \u201cChrist\u2019s burden is light,\u201d 1347 \u2014or rather, it is itself alone the burden which is light. Accordingly it is said, \u201cAnd His commandments are not grievous;\u201d 1348 so that whoever finds them grievous must regard the inspired statement about their \u201cnot being grievous\u201d as having been capable of only this meaning, that there may be a state of heart to which they are not burdensome, and he must pray for that disposition which he at present wants, so as to be able to fulfil all that is commanded him. And this is the purport of what is said to Israel in Deuteronomy, if understood in a godly, sacred, and spiritual sense, since the apostle, after quoting the passage, \u201cThe word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart\u201d 1349 (and, as the verse also has it, in thine hands, 1350 for in man\u2019s heart are his spiritual hands), adds in explanation, \u201cThis is the word of faith which we preach.\u201d 1351 No man, therefore, who \u201creturns to the Lord his God,\u201d as he is there commanded, \u201cwith all his heart and with all his soul,\u201d 1352 will find God\u2019s commandment \u201cgrievous.\u201d How, indeed, can it be grievous, when it is the precept of love? Either, therefore, a man has not love, and then it is grievous; or he has love, and then it is not grievous. But he possesses love if he does what is there enjoined on Israel, by returning to the Lord his God with all his heart and with all his soul. \u201cA new commandment,\u201d says He, \u201cdo I give unto you, that ye love one another;\u201d 1353 and \u201cHe that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law;\u201d 1354 and again, \u201cLove is the fulfilling of the law.\u201d 1355 In accordance with these sayings is that passage, \u201cHad they trodden good paths, they would have found, indeed, the ways of righteousness easy.\u201d 1356 How then is it written, \u201cBecause of the words of Thy lips, I have kept the paths of difficulty,\u201d 1357 except it be that both statements are true: These paths are paths of difficulty to fear; but to love they are easy?\nSee 1 Tim. i. 8.\n151:1347 151:1348 151:1349 151:1350\nAccording to the Septuagint, which adds after \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03af\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 the words \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c7\u03b5\u03c1\u03c3\u03af \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5. This was probably Pelagius\u2019 reading. Compare Qu\u00e6stion. in Deuteron. Book v. 54.\n151:1351 151:1352 151:1353 151:1354 151:1355 151:1356 151:1357","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on Nat...","type":"page"}