{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050378.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050378.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050378.htm","text":"(42.) God\u2019s Promises Conditional. Saints of the Old Testament Were Saved by the Grace of Christ.\nHe, however, thought he had discovered a great support for his cause in the prophet Isaiah; because by him God said: \u201cIf ye be willing, and hearken unto me, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye be not willing, and hearken not to me, the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken this.\u201d 1582 As if the entire law were not full of conditions of this sort; or as if its commandments had been given to proud men for any other reason than that \u201cthe law was added because of transgression, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made.\u201d 1583 \u201cIt entered, therefore, that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.\u201d 1584 In other words, That man might receive commandments, trusting as he did in his own resources, and that, failing in these and becoming a transgressor, he might ask for a deliverer and a saviour; and that the fear of the law might humble him, and bring him, as a schoolmaster, to faith and grace. Thus \u201ctheir weaknesses being multiplied, they hastened after;\u201d 1585 and in order to heal them, Christ in due season came. In His grace even righteous men of old believed, and by the same grace were they holpen; so that with joy did they receive a foreknowledge of Him, and some of them even foretold His coming,\u2014whether they were found among the people of Israel themselves, as Moses, and Joshua the son of Nun, and Samuel, and David, and other such; or outside that people, as Job; or previous to that people, as Abraham, and Noah, and all others who are either mentioned or not in Holy Scripture. \u201cFor there is but one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,\u201d 1586 without whose grace nobody is delivered from condemnation, whether he has derived that condemnation from him in whom all men sinned, or has afterwards aggravated it by his own iniquities.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise Concer...","type":"page"}