Chapter 37

§ 1.

And in that He saith, How often would I have gathered thy children and thou wouldst not: He declared the ancient law of man’s liberty: how that God made him free from the beginning, having power of himself,¹ as he had a soul of his own, to act upon God’s decree voluntarily, and not upon compulsion from God. For in God is no violence: but a good mind is always where He is. And therefore, while He gives good counsel to all, He hath set in man the power of choice, as also in the Angels (for the Angels have reason): so that on the one side they who have been obedient, may deservedly keep the good thing which they have, God’s gift, but preserved by themselves:² but those who have not obeyed, will deservedly be found far from good, and will receive condign punishment: because that when God mercifully gave what was good, they did not diligently keep it, nor count it precious, but despised His excess of bounty. Therefore casting away what is good, and in a manner spewing it out, they will all of them deservedly incur the just judgment of God, as also the Apostle Paul testified in his Epistle to the Romans, saying thus:³ Despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up unto thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.⁴—But glory and peace, saith he, to every one that worketh good. God then gave what is good, as the Apostle also testifieth in the same epistle: and such as work it shall receive glory and honour, for working good, when they might have declined working it: but such as work it not, shall receive the just judgment of God for not having wrought good when they had the power to work it.

§ 2.

If some are by nature born bad and others good,⁵ neither are these praised for being good, since they were framed such; nor the others blamed, being so born. But because they are all of the same nature, and able to retain and do what is good, and able on the contrary to reject it and do it not: justly even among men who are well governed, and much more with God, are the one praised, and meet witness borne unto them, of their general choice of what is good, and perseverance in it; the others blamed, and due punishment set upon them, for rejecting what is right and good. And therefore the Prophets (as we have shewn at large) used to exhort men to do righteously, and to fulfil what is good: as though that kind of thing were in our own power, and men’s great carelessness were the cause of their falling into forgetfulness, and being destitute of that sound judgment, which the good God by His Prophets hath enabled men to form.

§ 3.

Therefore also saith the Lord, Let your light shine (such was His expression) before men,⁶ that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven. And,⁷ Take heed to yourselves lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life. And,⁸ Be your loins girded and your lights burning, and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he shall return from the wedding, that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him. Blessed is that servant, whom, when his Lord cometh, he shall find so doing. And again,⁹ The slave who knoweth his Lord’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.¹⁰ And, Why say ye to Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?¹¹ And again, But if the slave say in his heart, My Lord delayeth, and begin to beat his fellow servants,¹² and to eat and drink and be drunken: his Lord shall come in a day when he expecteth not, and divide him, and set his portion with the hypocrites.

For all these sayings set forth the free will of man, and how God is a counsellor to us, exhorting us to submit to Him, and turning us aside¹³ from disobeying Him, but not using any compulsion.

§ 4.

Since even with regard to the Gospel itself, if a man be unwilling to follow it, it is free for him, though not good. For disobedience to God and loss of what is good is indeed in a man’s power, but it brings no ordinary harm and loss.¹⁴ And therefore Paul saith, All things are permitted, but all things are not expedient; both rehearsing man’s liberty,¹⁵ by reason of which even all things are permitted, God using no compulsion towards him, and declaring the sense of the phrase, It is not expedient, that we may not abuse ourliberty for a cloak of malitiousness:¹⁶ for this is not expedient.¹⁷ And again he saith, Speak ye the truth every man with his neighbour;¹⁸ And, Let no evil speech come out of your mouth, nor filthiness,¹⁹ nor foolish talking, nor buffoonery, which is nothing to the purpose: but rather giving of thanks.²⁰ And, For ye were at one time darkness, but now light in the Lord: As children of light walk honestly;²¹ not in riotings and drunkennesses, not in chamberings and wantonnesses, not in strife and envying.²² And these things some of you were, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified in the name of our Lord.

If then it were not in us to do these things or not to do them, what cause had the Apostle, and long before the Lord Himself, to give counsel that one should do some things and abstain from some other? But because man from the beginning has his determination free, and God, in whose likeness he is made, hath free determination, in every instance advice is given him, to retain that good thing which is perfected by obedience towards God.

§ 5.

And not in works only, but also in faith the Lord hath kept man’s choice free and independent: saying, According to thy faith be it unto thee:²³ signifying that it is a man’s own faith, because he hath his own proper judgment.²⁴ And again, All things are possible to him that believeth; and, Go, as thou hast believed, be it unto thee.²⁵ And all such places shew that Man is in his own power concerning faith.²⁶ And for this cause he that believeth Him hath everlasting life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God shall abide on him. On this principle then the Lord, at once declaring His own goodness, and implying that man is in the hand of his own will and his own power, said to Jerusalem, How often would I have gathered thy sons,²⁷ as a hen her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not! Wherefore your house shall he left unto you desolate.

§ 6.

But they who maintain the contrary,²⁸ bring in a Lord without power, as if, forsooth, He could not accomplish what He would: or again, as though He discerned not those who by nature are earthly (so these men speak), and those who cannot receive His incorruption. “Yea, He ought not, it is said, to have made either Angels such as to have power to transgress, nor men, who presently would prove ungrateful to Him.” Because they were made reasonable, with faculties to examine and to judge, and not—(like irrational or inanimate things, which can do nought of their own will, but are drawn towards good by necessity and force; who have one only thought, and one only way)—these are not, I say, made unchangeable, and without judgment, so as not to be capable of being anything but what they were made, And so to them neither would that which is good be pleasant, nor the communion of God precious, nor good greatly desirable, seeing that it grew up to them without any movement, care, or study of their own, yea, as a spontaneous and untended plant. Thus there would be no energy in their goodness, they being what they are rather by nature than by will, and having good of itself, not by choice, and consequently not realizing so much as this, That what is good, is fair, and not enjoying it. For what enjoyment is there of Good in those who know it not? And what glory to those who have not exerted themselves for it? And what crown to those who have not won the same as conquerors in a struggle?

§ 7.

Wherefore also the Lord said that the Kingdom of Heaven was subject to violence,²⁹ and the violent, saith He, despoil it; i.e., they take its spoils, who watch earnestly, with might and intense struggling. And so again Paul the Apostle saith to the Corinthians:³⁰ Know ye not, that they which run in a race, run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain. And every one who striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things: they indeed to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. Now I so run, not for an uncertainty; so I fight, not as beating the air; but I bruise my body, and bring it into slavery, lest haply preaching to others I myself become reprobate.³¹ The good Champion, you see, exhorts us to the fight of incorruption, that we may be crowned, and may account the crown precious, I mean that acquired for us by struggling, not one which grew on us of its own accord. And so much the more precious is it, as it comes to us by struggling; and the more precious it is, the more let us always love it. But by no means is the same fondness felt when things come of their own accord as when they are found with much anxious toil. Because therefore it was for our good to love God more, the Lord taught us to obtain this with labour, and the Apostle handed on the lesson. Moreover, on the other supposition our good would be unfelt, from not being exerted. Yea, and sight would not be so desirable to us, had we not learned how bad it is not to see; and good health too is rendered more precious by the sick man’s experience; and light, by comparison with darkness; and life, with death. So too is the heavenly Kingdom more precious to those who have known the earthly one. But the more precious, so much the more we love it; and the more we love it, the more glorious shall we be with God.

The Lord therefore on our behalf endured all these things, that we being by all disciplined,³² might in all be on our guard for the time to come, and might persevere in all love towards Him, being taught by reason to love God: God for His part exhibiting longsuffering in the revolt of man, and man being disciplined by the same: even as the Prophet speaks;³³ Thy departure shall correct thee; God predetermining all for man’s perfection, and for the efficacy and manifestation of His arrangements; that so both Goodness may be exhibited, and Righteousness perfected, and the Church be framed after the fashion of His Son’s image, and so at the last Man may attain his full growth, ripening as he is by so great means for the sight and comprehension of God.