| Romans 8:29
| For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son: that he might be the first-born amongst many brethren.
| For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son, in suffering with Christ, in following his doctrine, in imitating his life. This foreknowledge of God, according to St. Augustine,{ Ver. 29 St. Augustine, de dono persev. Romans 18. praedestinatione Deus ea praescivit, quae fuerat ipse facturus. And again, Romans 14. Praedestinatio est praescientia et praeparatio beneficiorum, quibus certissimè liberantur quicunque liberantur. See Bellarmine and Petau, as to St. Augustine's opinion. But I never in these short notes touch upon any thing that regards the opinions in Catholic schools; my design being no more than a literal exposition of the text.|} is not merely a foreseeing of what men will do by the assistance and graces of God's ordinary providence, much less a foreseeing of what they will do by their own natural strength, as the Pelagian heretics pretended: but is a foreknowledge including an act of the divine will, and of his love towards his elect servants; (as to know in the Scriptures, when applied to God, is many times the same as to approve and love) God therefore hath foreseen or predestinated, or decreed that these elect, by the help of his special graces, and by the co-operation of their free-will, should be conformable to the image of his Son, that so his Son, even as man, might be the first-born, the chief, and the head of all that shall be saved. (Witham) --- God hath preordained that all his elect shall be conformable to the image of his Son. We must not here offer to dive into the secrets of God's eternal election: only firmly believe that all our good, in time and eternity, flows originally from God's free goodness; and all our evil from man's free will. (Challoner)
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