1. The third point to notice is the phrase "separated unto the Gospel of God"; and in the Epistle to the Galatians the Apostle says the same thing about himself: "When it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me even from my mother's womb, to reveal his son in me." They who do not understand that any one who is predestined through the foreknowledge of God is the cause of the events foreknown, take hold of such expressions as these, and think they can by them establish their doctrine that men are so constituted by nature that they must be saved. And some employ such passages to destroy man's Free Will, and also make use of the words in the Psalms, "The wicked are estranged from the womb." We may |209 easily meet this by asking them to explain what comes next; for it is written, "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent." And we will ask those who insist on the clearness of the words, whether the wicked who were estranged from the womb, as soon as they were born went astray and erred from the way of salvation, and whether this was their own doing. And how could the wicked who were estranged from the womb, both go astray as soon as they were born and also speak lies? For our opponents, I suppose, will never be able to show that in the moment of birth they uttered an articulate cry, and told lies. If, however, we observe the steps by which we approach predestination in the argument of the epistle which we are examining, we shall, once we have disposed of what inclines the simpler sort of readers to justify the charge of injustice brought against God's decree, be able to defend Him Who separated from his mother's womb, and separated unto the Gospel of God, Paul the servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle. The words stand thus: "We know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren: and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."