Augustine of Hippo, on Ezek 11:19

“And I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh:”

“If God is not able to remove from the human heart even its obstinacy and hardness, he would not say, through the prophet, "I will take from them their heart of stone and will give them a heart of flesh." … Now can we possibly, without extreme absurdity, maintain that there previously existed in any person the good merit of a good will, to entitle him to the removal of his stony heart, when all the while this very heart of stone signifies nothing else than a will of the hardest kind and such as is absolutely inflexible against God?”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.