were approved. He hath Himself rendered us holy, but then we must continue holy. A holy man is he who is a partaker of faith; a blameless man is he who leads an irreproachable life. It is not however simply holiness and irreproachableness that He requires, but that we should appear such “before Him.” For there are holy and blameless characters, who yet are esteemed as such only by men, those who are like whited sepulchres, and like such as wear sheep’s clothing. It is not such, however, He requires, but such as the Prophet speaks of; “And ac- cording to the cleanness of my hands.” (Ps. xviii. 24.) What cleanness? That which is so “in His eyesight.” He requires that holiness on which the eye of God may look. Having thus spoken of the good works of these, he again recurs to His grace. “In love,” saith he, “having predestinated us.” Because this comes not of any pains, nor of any good 52 works of ours, but of love; and yet not of love alone, but of our virtue also. For if indeed of love alone, it would follow that all must be saved; whereas again were it the result of our virtue alone, then were His coming needless, and the whole dispensation. But it is the result neither of His love alone, nor yet of our virtue, but of both. “He chose us,” saith the Apostle; and He that chooseth, knoweth what it is that He chooseth. “In love,” he adds, “having foreordained us;” for virtue would never have saved any one, had there not been love. For tell me, what would Paul have profited, how would he have exhibited what he has exhibited, if God had not both called him from the beginning, and, in that He loved him, drawn him to Himself? But besides, His vouchsafing us so great privileges, was the effect of His love, not of our virtue. Because our being rendered virtuous, and believing, and coming nigh unto Him, even this again was the work of Him that called us Himself, and yet, notwithstand- ing, it is ours also. But that on our coming nigh unto Him, He should vouchsafe us so high privileges, as to bring us at once from a state of enmity, to the adoption of children, this is indeed the work of a really transcendent love. Ver. 4, 5. “In love,”177 saith he, “having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself.” Do you observe how that nothing is done without Christ? Nothing without the Father? The one hath predestinated, the other hath brought us near. And these words he adds by human will with divine grace in the work of conversion. Cassian, the founder of Semi-Pelagianism, was his pupil and appealed to his authority. We may say that in tendency and spirit he was a Catholic Semi-Pelagian or Syn- ergist before Semi-Pelagianism was brought into a system.” Prolegomena p. 20. Chrysostom’s exposition of this passage is inaccurate, inconsistent, illogical and untenable. If He chose us in order that we should be holy how can holiness, or “moral goodness,” as Chrysostom says, be an antecedent condition of His choosing us? See note on ch. ii. 10.—G.A.] 177 [These words, ἐν ἀγάπῃ, are in the Revised Version and in the text of Westcott and Hort joined with what precedes, ἁγίους καὶ ἀμώμους. So also Alford. Meyer and Ellicott, however, are in accord with Chrysostom and probably right in joining ἐν ἀγάπῃ with προορίσας, following.—G.A.] 100 Ephesians 1:1--2