19. Since the case is so,
what is man, while in this life he uses his own proper will, ere he
choose and love God, but unrighteous and ungodly? “What,” I
say, “is man,” a creature going astray from the Creator, unless
his Creator “be mindful of him,”2683
and choose
2684
him freely, and
love2685
him
freely? Because he is himself not able to choose or
love, unless
being first chosen and
loved he be
healed, because by choosing
blindness he perceiveth not, and by
loving laziness is soon
wearied. But perchance some man may say: In what manner is it that
God first chooses and
loves unjust men, that He may
justify them,
when it is written, “Thou hatest,
Lord, all that
work
iniquity?”
2686
In what
way, think we, but in a wonderful and ineffable manner? And yet
even we are able to conceive, that the good
Physician both
hates
and
loves the sick man: hates him, because he is sick; loves him,
that he may drive away his sickness.
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