{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-5069","native_reference":{"book_number":330,"chapter_from":36,"chapter_to":36,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":26,"verse_to":26},"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>Augustine of Hippo</b>: Free will is always present in us, but it is not always good. For it is either free of justice, while serving sin, and then it is evil; or it is free of sin, while serving justice, and then it is good. But the grace of God is always good and brings about a good will in a person who before was possessed of an evil will. It is by this grace, too, that this same good will, once it begins to exist, is expanded and made so strong that it is able to fulfill whatever of God's commandments it wishes, whenever it does so with a strong and perfect will.<br/><i>— ON GRACE AND FREE WILL 15:31</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: God by his grace takes away the stony heart from unbelievers and forestalls merit in people of good will in such a way that their will is prepared by what goes before grace, but that grace is not given through some merit of human will.<br/><i>— LETTER 217</i></p><p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: John who had been exiled by the Emperor Marcion, said, 'One day we went into Syria to see Poemen for we wanted to ask him about hardness of heart. But he did not know Greek and we did not have an interpreter. When he saw we were embarrassed, he began to speak in Greek saying, 'The nature of water is soft, the nature of stone is hard; but if a bottle is hung above a stone letting water drip down, it wears away the stone. It is like that with the word of God; it is soft and our heart is hard, but if a man hears the word of God often, it will break open his heart to the fear of God.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>Fulgentius of Ruspe</b>: God gives a new heart so that we may walk in his justifications, which are about beginning a good will. He also gives it so that we may observe and do his judgments, which are about doing good works.<br/><i>— TO MONIMUS 1:8.3</i></p><p><b>Isaac of Nineveh</b>: The image of Christ is formed in us through the Spirit of wisdom and the revelation of the knowledge of Him.<br/><i>— ASCETICAL HOMILIES 37</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: And it is to be considered that a new heart and a new spirit are given through the effusion and sprinkling of water. When, however, a new heart and a new spirit are given, then all hardness, which is compared to stone, will be removed from the Jewish heart, so that the heart may be a fleshy, soft, and tender one, which can receive the spirit of God within itself and be inscribed with saving words. Then they will walk in the precepts of the Lord and keep His judgments, and they will dwell in the land of confession, which He had given to their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to all the holy ones and prophets, and they will become the people of God, and the Lord will be their God, as is proven in the present time.<br/><i>— Commentary on Ezekiel</i></p><p><b>Sahdona the Syrian</b>: The word of God is at the same time the seed and the water; and even though we have a heart like stone, it will be softened and split up by the water of the Spirit, so that it can bring forth holy fruit that is pleasing to God.<br/><i>— BOOK OF PERFECTION 53</i></p><p><b>Theodoret of Cyrus</b>: He means by these things a change of attitude. Your heart, he says, will incline to better things, no longer following your previous preference for what is worse. That \"I will give\" in no way damages free will, for by words and deeds and endless miracles, not only among them but in all races, so that they start to live piously; he persuades, he does not compel. And although he does not compel but persuades, he says that he has inclined their minds toward better things.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Ezekiel 11:14.36</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"61121065652ac4519dbeecfdbfa37753955dad332dc120f516e55fe8da12d860","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":5069,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"906ce962a40d2dc39fdfd41b69225bbc23d5af1787cb0ef1cdfc8c4b9018c35e","translator":null,"work":null}