Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 2.djvu/263

and He said, I will turn my face away from them, and I will show what shall come on them at the last; for it is a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God, they have provoked me to anger with their idols; and I will move them to jealousy with that which is not a nation, I will provoke them to anger with a foolish people. For a fire is kindled from mine anger, and it shall burn to Hades. It shall consume the earth and her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains; I will heap mischief on them.'^[1] And after that Righteous One was put to death, we flourished as another people, and shot forth as new and prosperous corn; as the prophets said, 'And many nations shall betake themselves to the Lord in that day for a people: and they shall dwell in the midst of all the earth.'^[2] But we are not only a people, but also a holy people, as we have shown already.^[3] 'And they shall call them the holy people, redeemed by the Lord.'^[4] Therefore we are not a people to be despised, nor a barbarous race, nor such as the Carian and Phrygian nations; but God has even chosen us, and He has become manifest to those who asked not after Him. 'Behold, I am God,' He says, 'to the nation which called not on my name.'^[5] For this is that nation which God of old promised to Abraham, when He declared that He would make him a father of many nations; not meaning, however, the Arabians, or Egyptians, or Idumæans, since Ishmael became the father of a mighty nation, and so did Esau; and there is now a great multitude of Ammonites. Noah, moreover, was the father of Abraham, and in fact of all men; and others were the progenitors of others. What larger measure of grace, then, did Christ bestow on Abraham? This, namely, that He called him with His voice by the like calling, telling him to quit the land wherein he dwelt. And He has called all of us by that voice, and we have left already the way of living in which we used to spend our days, passing our time in evil after the fashions of the other inhabitants of the earth; and

1. Deut. xxxii. 16–23.
2. Zech. ii. 11.
3. See chap. cx.
4. Isa. lxii. 12.
5. Isa. lxv. 1.