Chapter 38 [XX.]--The Power of God's Grace is Proved.
That this is true we do not surmise by human conjecture, but we discern by the most evident authority of the divine Scriptures. It is read in the books of the Chronicles: "Also in Judah, the hand of God was made to give them one heart, to do the commandment of the king and of the princes in the word of the Lord." [2609] Also by Ezekiel the prophet the Lord says, "I will give them another heart, and a new spirit will I give them; and I will take away their stony heart out of their flesh, and I will give them an heart of flesh, that they may walk in my commandments and observe my judgments and do them." [2610] And what is that which Esther the queen prays when she says, "Give me eloquent speech in my mouth, and enlighten my words in the sight of the lion, and turn his heart to hatred of him that fighteth against us"? [2611] How does she say such things as these in her prayer to God, if God does not work His will in men's hearts? But perchance the woman was foolish in praying thus. Let us see, then, whether the desire of the petitioner was vainly sent on in advance, and whether the result did not follow as of one who heard. Lo, she goes in to the king. We need not say much. And because she did not approach him in her own order, under the compulsion of her great necessity, "he looked upon her," as it is written, "like a bull in the impulse of his indignation. And the queen feared, and her colour was changed through faintness, and she bowed herself upon the head of her maid, who went before her. And God changed him, and converted his indignation into mildness." [2612] Now what need is there to relate what follows, where the divine Scripture testifies that God fulfilled what she had asked for by working in the heart of the king nothing other than the will by which he commanded, and it was done as the queen had asked of him? And now God had heard her that it should be done, who changed the heart of the king by a most secret and efficacious power before he had heard the address of the woman beseeching him, and moulded it from indignation to mildness,--that is, from the will to hurt, to the will to favour,--according to that word of the apostle, "God worketh in you to will also." Did the men of God who wrote these things--nay, did the Spirit of God Himself, under whose guidance such things were written by them--assail the free will of man? Away with the notion! But He has commended both the most righteous judgment and the most merciful aid of the Omnipotent in all cases. For it is enough for man to know that there is no unrighteousness with God. But how He dispenses those benefits, making some deservedly vessels of wrath, others graciously vessels of mercy,--who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counsellor? If, then, we attain to the honour of grace, let us not be ungrateful by attributing to ourselves what we have received. "For what have we which we have not received?"
[2609] 2 Chron. xxx. 12.
[2610] Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27.
[2611] Esther xiv. 13.
[2612] Esther xv. 5 ff.
[2613] 1 Cor. iv. 7.
Chapter 39 [XXI.]--Julian's Fifth Objection Concerning the Saints of the Old Testament.
"We say," says he, "that the saints of the Old Testament, their righteousness being perfected here, passed to eternal life,--that is, that by the love of virtue they departed from all sins; because those whom we read of as having committed any sin, we nevertheless know to have amended themselves." Of whatever virtue you may declare that the ancient righteous men were possessed, nothing saved them but the belief in the Mediator who shed His blood for the remission of their sins. For their own word is, "I believed, and therefore I spoke." [2614] Whence the Apostle Paul also says, "And we having the same Spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak." [2615] What is "the same Spirit," but that Spirit whom these righteous men also had who said such things? The Apostle Peter also says, "Why do ye wish to put a yoke upon the heathen, which neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? But, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we believe that we shall be saved, even as they." [2616] You who are enemies to this grace do not wish this, that the ancients should be believed to have been saved by the same grace of Jesus Christ; but you distribute the times according to Pelagius, [2617] in whose books this is read, and you say that before the law men were saved by nature, then by the law, lastly by Christ, as if to men of the two former times, that is to say, before the law and under the law, the blood of Christ had not been necessary; making void what is said: "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." [2618]
[2614] Ps. cxvi. 10.
[2615] 2 Cor. iv. 13.
[2616] Acts xv. 10, 11.
[2617] See above, On Original Sin, 30.
[2618] 1 Tim. ii. 5.