Augustine of Hippo : There is a passage in the first book of the same Chronicles that declares the choice of the will: "And you, Solomon, my son, know you the God of your father and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts; if you seek him, he will be found of you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever." But these people find some room for human merit in the clause "if you seek him," and then the grace is thought to be given according to this merit in what is said in the ensuing words, "he will be found of you." And so they labor with all their might to show that God's grace is given according to our merits, in other words, that grace is not grace. For, as the apostle most expressly says, to them who receive reward according to merit "the recompense is not reckoned of grace but of debt." — ON GRACE AND FREE WILL 11 Jerome : "Do you know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, him will God destroy." And in another place: "The Lord is with you as long as you are with him. If you abandon him, he also will abandon you." — Against the Pelagians 3.1