{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1051072.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1051072.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1051072.htm","text":"Chapter 36.\u2014God Chose the Righteous; Not Those Whom He Foresaw as Being of Themselves, But Those Whom He Predestinated for the Purpose of Making So.\n\u201cTherefore,\u201d says the Pelagian, \u201cHe foreknew who would be holy and immaculate by the choice of free will, and on that account elected them p. 516 before the foundation of the world in that same foreknowledge of His in which He foreknew that they would be such. Therefore He elected them,\u201d says he, \u201cbefore they existed, predestinating them to be children whom He foreknew to be holy and immaculate. Certainly He did not make them so; nor did He foresee that He would make them so, but that they would be so.\u201d Let us, then, look into the words of the apostle and see whether He chose us before the foundation of the world because we were going to be holy and immaculate, or in order that we might be so. \u201cBlessed,\u201d says he, \u201cbe the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us in all spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ; even as He hath chosen us in Himself before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted.\u201d 3530 Not, then, because we were to be so, but that we might be so. Assuredly it is certain,\u2014assuredly it is manifest. Certainly we were to be such for the reason that He has chosen us, predestinating us to be such by His grace. Therefore \u201cHe blessed us with spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ Jesus, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and immaculate in His sight, in order that we might not in so great a benefit of grace glory concerning the good pleasure of our will. \u201cIn which,\u201d says he, \u201cHe hath shown us favour in His beloved Son,\u201d\u2014in which, certainly, His own will, He hath shown us favour. Thus, it is said, He hath shown us grace by grace, even as it is said, He has made us righteous by righteousness. \u201cIn whom,\u201d he says, \u201cwe have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, which has abounded to us in all wisdom and prudence; that he might show to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure.\u201d In this mystery of His will, He placed the riches of His grace, according to His good pleasure, not according to ours, which could not possibly be good unless He Himself, according to His own good pleasure, should aid it to become so. But when he had said, \u201cAccording to His good pleasure,\u201d he added, \u201cwhich He purposed in Him,\u201d that is, in His beloved Son, \u201cin the dispensation of the fulness of times to restore all things in Christ, which are in heaven, and which are in earth, in Him: in whom also we too have obtained a lot, being predestinated according to His purpose who worketh all things according to the counsel of His will; that we should be to the praise of His glory.\u201d","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on the...","type":"page"}