{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050358.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050358.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050358.htm","text":"(22.) Passages to Show that God\u2019s Commandments are Not Grievous.\nHe afterwards adduces those passages which represent God as recommending His own commandments as not grievous: let us now attend to their testimony. \u201cBecause,\u201d says he, \u201cGod\u2019s commandments are not only not impossible, but they are not even grievous. In Deuteronomy: p. 167 \u2018The Lord thy God will again turn and rejoice over thee for good, as He rejoiced over thy fathers, if ye shall hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments, and His ordinances, and His judgments, written in the book of this law; if thou turn to the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul. For this command, which I give thee this day, is not grievous, neither is it far from thee: it is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who will ascend into heaven, and obtain it for us, that we may hear and do it? neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who will cross over the sea, and obtain it for us, that we may hear and do it? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thine heart, and in thine hands to do it.\u2019 1455 In the Gospel likewise the Lord says: \u2018Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.\u2019 1456 So also in the Epistle of Saint John it is written: \u2018This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous.\u2019\u201d 1457 On hearing these testimonies out of the law, and the gospel, and the epistles, let us be built up unto that grace which those persons do not understand, who, \u201cbeing ignorant of God\u2019s righteousness, and wishing to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.\u201d 1458 For, if they understand not the passage of Deuteronomy in the sense that the Apostle Paul quoted it,\u2014that \u201cwith the heart men believe unto righteousness, and with their mouth make confession unto salvation;\u201d 1459 since \u201cthey that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick,\u201d 1460 \u2014they certainly ought (by that very passage of the Apostle John which he quoted last to this effect: \u201cThis is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous\u201d 1461 ) to be admonished that God\u2019s commandment is not grievous to the love of God, which is shed abroad in our hearts only by the Holy Ghost, not by the determination of man\u2019s will by attributing to which more than they ought, they are ignorant of God\u2019s righteousness. This love, however, shall then be made perfect, when all fear of punishment shall be cut off.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise Concer...","type":"page"}