If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land:
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Scripture promised these good things to the faithful when it said, “You shall eat the good things of the land.” That we may obtain the good things, let us be like that good, the good that is without iniquity and without deceit and without severity but is with grace and holiness and purity and benevolence and love and justice. Thus goodness, like a prolific mother, embraces all the virtues. - "Flight from the World 6.36"
There is also the Pelagians’ second wickedness, for they so attribute free will to their human powers that they believe that they can devise or enact some good of their own accord without God’s grace.… You interpret these and similar passages most perversely, believing that people take the first step of their good intentions of their own accord and subsequently obtain the help of the Godhead, so that (to express the matter sacrilegiously) we are the cause of his kindness and he is not the cause of his own. - "Exposition of the Psalms 50.7"
Who understands clearly how the sum of salvation is attributed to our will?…
What does this all mean except that in each of these cases both the grace of God and our freedom of will are affirmed, since even by his own activity a person can occasionally be brought to a desire for virtue, but he always needs to be helped by the Lord. - "Conference 13.9.2, 4"
Perhaps one will say, “I am willing (and no one is so void of understanding as not to be willing) but to will is not sufficient for me.” No, it is sufficient, if you be duly willing and do the deeds of one that is willing. But as it is, you are not greatly willing.…
[One] that wills a thing as he ought puts also his hand to the means which lead to the object of his desire. - "Homilies on 1 Corinthians 14.5 (3)"
Do you perceive that there is need only of the will? Of the will—not merely that faculty which is the common possession of all people—but good will. To be sure, I know that all people even now wish to fly up to heaven, but it is necessary to bring that desire to fruition by one’s works. - "Homilies on the Gospel of John 1"
This passage means the blessings that await the flesh when in the kingdom of God it shall be renewed, and made like the angels, and waiting to obtain the things “which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man.” - "On the Resurrection of the Flesh 26"
