{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-6941","native_reference":{"book_number":290,"chapter_from":1,"chapter_to":1,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":19,"verse_to":19},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrose of Milan</b>: Scripture promised these good things to the faithful when it said, \"You shall eat the good things of the land.\" That we may obtain the good things, let us be like that good, the good that is without iniquity and without deceit and without severity but is with grace and holiness and purity and benevolence and love and justice. Thus goodness, like a prolific mother, embraces all the virtues.<br/><i>— FLIGHT FROM THE WORLD 6:36</i></p><p><b>Cassiodorus</b>: There is also the Pelagians' second wickedness, for they so attribute free will to their human powers that they believe that they can devise or enact some good of their own accord without God's grace.… You interpret these and similar passages most perversely, believing that people take the first step of their good intentions of their own accord and subsequently obtain the help of the Godhead, so that (to express the matter sacrilegiously) we are the cause of his kindness and he is not the cause of his own.<br/><i>— EXPOSITION OF THE Psalms 50:7</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: (Verse 19, 26.) If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Free will is preserved, so that on either side, not by the prejudice of God, but by the merits of each individual, there may be either punishment or reward. By the good of the land, I believe those things are meant that we read of in the psalm: I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (Psalms 27:13); and: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (Matthew 5:3). Certainly, because he spoke to the Jews, who were not yet able to understand spiritual things, he promises them the goods of the present age, so that they may at least be enticed by the present things and do what is commanded. And because they did not want to listen, but on the contrary provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, therefore the sword devoured them, that is, the Roman army destroyed them. And he says that all these things will happen because the mouth of the Lord has spoken. His judgment, with the sins of men remaining, cannot be changed.<br/><i>— Commentary on Isaiah</i></p><p><b>John Cassian</b>: Who understands clearly how the sum of salvation is attributed to our will?…What does this all mean except that in each of these cases both the grace of God and our freedom of will are affirmed, since even by his own activity a person can occasionally be brought to a desire for virtue, but he always needs to be helped by the Lord.<br/><i>— CONFERENCE 13:9.2, 4</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"If ye be willing and obedient,\" He saith, \"ye shall eat the good of the land.\" Seest thou that there needs the will only? will—not the common wishing of the multitude—but earnest will. For I know that all are wishing to fly up to heaven even now; but it is necessary to show forth the wish by works. The merchant too wishes to get rich; but he doth not allow his wish to stop with the thought of it; no, he fits out a ship, and gets together sailors, and engages a pilot, and furnishes the vessel with all other stores, and borrows money, and crosses the sea, and goes away into a strange land, and endures many dangers, and all the rest which they know who sail the sea. So too must we show our will; for we also sail a voyage, not from land to land, but from earth to heaven.<br/><i>— HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF John 1</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"If ye be willing, and will hearken unto me, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye be not willing, the sword shall devour you.\" But perhaps one will say, \"I am willing; (and no one is so void of understanding as not to be willing;) but to will is not sufficient for me.\" Nay, but it is sufficient, if thou be duly willing, and do the deeds of one that is willing. But as it is, thou art not greatly willing.… For he that wills a thing as he ought, puts also his hand unto the means which lead to the object of his desire. Thus, when hunger compels thee to take nourishment, thou waitest not for the viands to come unto thee of their own accord, but omittest nothing to gather victuals together. So in thirst, and cold and all other such things, thou art industrious and duly prepared to take care of the body. Now do this in respect of God's kingdom also, and surely thou shalt obtain it.<br/><i>— HOMILIES ON 1 Corinthians 14:5 (3)</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: This passage means the blessings that await the flesh when in the kingdom of God it shall be renewed, and made like the angels, and waiting to obtain the things \"which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man.\"<br/><i>— ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH 26</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"c9272d3dfa3b63c7f42d9b934e455253efe3f0312f5ea24df436ceb828c1449e","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":6941,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"eb392913c777ecb2635bf14471a30a4c1725679878e556fae0303a45fa64bdfd","translator":null,"work":null}