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| No Goodness Without Liberty.
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Chapter
XXVI.—No Goodness Without Liberty.
To this Simon answered: “Was not He
able to make us all such that we should be good, and that we should not
have it in our power to be otherwise?” Peter
answered: “This also is an absurd question. For if He
had made us of an unchangeable nature and incapable of being moved away
from good, we should not be really good, because we could not be aught
else; and it would not be of our purpose that we were good; and what we
did would not be ours, but of the necessity of our nature.684
| 684 [Comp. Homily XIX.
15.—R.] | But how can that be called good
which is not done of purpose? And on this account the world
required long periods, until the number of souls which were predestined
to fill it should be completed, and then that visible heaven should be
folded up like a scroll, and that which is higher should appear, and
the souls of the blessed, being restored to their bodies, should be
ushered into light; but the souls of the wicked, for their impure
actions being surrounded with fiery spirit, should be plunged into the
abyss of unquenchable fire, to endure punishments through
eternity. Now that these things are so, the true Prophet. has
testified to us; concerning whom, if you wish to know that He is a
prophet, I shall instruct you by innumerable declarations. For of
those things which were spoken by Him, even now everything that He said
is being fulfilled; and those things which He spoke with respect to the
future are believed to be about to be fulfilled, for faith is given to
the future from those things which have already come to
pass.”
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