A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church Volume 3; St. Augustin on the Holy Trinity. Doctrinal Treatises. Moral Treatises (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 Excerpt: ...herbs, so in the former passage we may understand by "all men," every sort of men. And we may interpret it in any other way we please, so long as we are not compelled to believe that the omnipotent God has willed anything to be done which was not done: for, setting aside all ambiguities, if "He hath done all that He pleased in heaven and in earth,"2 as the psalmist sings of Him, He certainly did not will to do anything that He hath not done. CHAP. Io4.--GOD, FOREKNOWING THE SIN OF THE FIRST MAN, ORDERED HIS OWN PURPOSES ACCORDINGLY. 'Wherefore, God would have been willing to 'pres'erve even the first man in that state of salvation in which he was created, and after he had begotten sons to remove him at a fit time, without the intervention of death, to a better place, where he should have been not only free from sin, but free even from the desire of sinning, if He had foreseen that man would have the steadfast will to persist in the state of innocence in which he was created. But as He foresaw that man would make a bad use of his free-will, that is, would sin, God arranged His own designs rather with a view to do good to man even in his sinfulness, that thus the good will of the Omnipotent might not be made void by the evil will of man, but might be fulfilled in spite of it. CHAP. 1o5.--MAN WAS SO CREATED AS TO BE ABLE TO CHOOSE EITHER GOOD OR EVIL: IN THE FUTURE LIFE, THE CHOICE OF EVIL WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE. Now it was expedient that man should be 'at first so created, as to have it in his power both to will what was right and to will what was wrong; not without reward if he willed the former, and not without punishment if he willed the latter. But in the future life it shall not be in his power to will evil; and yet this will constitute n...