Not that His grace and will are irresistible, as
the foolish man against whom St. Paul argues fancies: but that we
can resist God's will, and that our destruction comes only by
resisting His will; in short, that God's will is no brute material
necessity and fate, but the will of a living, loving Father.
And the very same lesson is taught us in Ezek. xviii., of which I
spoke just now; for if we read that chapter we shall find that the
Jews had a false notion of God that He had changed His character, and
had become in their time unmerciful and unjust. They fancied that
God was, if I may so speak, obstinate--that if His anger had once
arisen, there was no turning it away, but that He would go on without
pity, punishing the innocent children for their father's sin; and
therefore they fancied God's ways were unfair, self-willed, and
arbitrary, without any care of what sort of person He afflicted;
punishing the righteous as well as the wicked, after He had promised
in His law to reward the righteous and punish the wicked. They
fancied that His way of governing the world had changed, and that He
did not in their days make a difference between the bad and the good.
Therefore Ezekiel says to them: "When the righteous man turneth away
from his righteousness, he shall die.
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