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,”57    Ps. viii. 4 and choose58    Eligere him freely, and love59    Diligere 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?”60    Ps. v. 5 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.

CAPUT XXII.

19. Ante gratiae electionem injusti 0622 omnes. Quod cum ita sit, quid est homo utens in hac vita propria voluntate, antequam eligat et diligat Deum, nisi injustus et impius? Quid est, inquam, homo aberrans a Creatore creatura, nisi Creator ejus memor sit ejus (Psal. VIII, 5), et eligat eum gratis, et diligat gratis? Quia ipse non potest eligere vel diligere, nisi prius electus dilectusque curetur, qui caecitate eligenda non cernit, et languore diligenda fastidit. Sed forte quis dicat: Quomodo Deus prius eligit et diligit iniquos, ut justificet eos, cum scriptum sit, Odisti, Domine, omnes operantes iniquitatem (Psal. V, 7)? Quomodo putamus, nisi miro et ineffabili modo? Et tamen etiam nos possumus cogitare, quod medicus bonus aegrotum et odit et diligit: odit enim, quia aegrotat; diligit, ut aegritu dinem pellat.