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V.48. Prayer to be evermore delivered from all adversity.

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XLVIII. Touching continual deliverance in the world from all adversity, their conceit is that we ought not to ask it of God by prayer, forasmuch as in Scripture there is no promise that we shall be evermore free from vexations, calamities, and troubles1.

Minds religiously affected are wont in every thing of weight and moment which they do or see, to examine according unto rules of piety what dependency it hath on God, what reference to themselves, what coherence with any of those duties whereunto all things in the world should lead, and accordingly they frame the inward disposition of their minds sometime to admire God, sometime to bless him and give him thanks, sometime to exult in his love, sometime to implore his mercy. All which different elevations of spirit unto God are contained in the name of prayer. Every good and holy desire though it lack the form, hath notwithstanding in itself the substance and with him the force of a prayer, who regardeth the very moanings, groans, and sighs of the heart of man. Petitionary prayer belongeth only to such as are in themselves impotent, and stand in need of relief from others. We thereby declare unto God what our own desire is that he by his power should effect. It presupposeth therefore in us first the want of that which we pray for; secondly, a feeling of that want; thirdly, an earnest willingness of mind to be eased therein; fourthly, a declaration of this our desire in the sight of God, not as if he should be otherwise ignorant of our necessities, but because we this way shew that we honour him as our God, and are verily persuaded that no good thing can come to pass which he by his omnipotent power effecteth not.

Now because there is no man’s prayer acceptable whose person is odious, neither any man’s person gracious without faith, it is of necessity required that they which pray do believe. The prayers which our Lord and Saviour made were for his own worthiness accepted; ours God accepteth not but with this condition, if they be joined with2 belief in Christ.

The prayers of the just are accepted always, but not always those things granted for which they pray. For in prayer if faith and assurance to obtain were both one and the same thing, seeing that the effect of not obtaining is a plain testimony that they which prayed were not sure they should obtain, it would follow that their prayer being without certainty of the event, was also made unto God without faith, and consequently that God abhorred it. Which to think of so many prayers of saints as we find have failed in particular requests, how absurd were it! His faithful people have this comfort, that whatsoever they rightly ask, the same no doubt but they shall receive, so far as may stand with the glory of God, and their own everlasting good, unto either of which two it is no virtuous man’s purpose to seek or desire to obtain any thing prejudicial, and therefore that clause which our Lord and Saviour in the prayer of his agony did express, we in petitions of like nature do always imply, Pater, si possibile est, “If it may stand with thy will and pleasure.” Or if not, but that there be secret impediments and causes in regard whereof the thing we pray for is denied us, yet the prayer itself which we make is a pleasing sacrifice to God, who both accepteth and rewardeth it some other way. So that sinners in very truth are denied when they3 seem to prevail in their supplications, because it is not for their sakes or to their good that their suits take place; the faithful contrariwise, because it is for their good oftentimes that their petitions do not take place, prevail even then when they most4 seem denied. “Our Lord God in anger hath granted some impatient men’s requests5, as on the other side the Apostle’s suit he hath of favour and mercy not granted,” saith St. Augustine.

To think we may pray unto God for nothing but what he hath promised in Holy Scripture we shall obtain, is perhaps an error. For of prayer there are two uses. It serveth as a mean to procure those things which God hath promised to grant when we ask; and it serveth as a mean to express our lawful desires also towards that, which whether we shall have or no we know not till we see the event. Things in themselves unholy or unseemly we may not ask; we may whatsoever being not forbidden either nature or grace shall reasonably move us to wish as importing the good of men, albeit God himself have nowhere by promise assured us of that particular which our prayer craveth. To pray for that which is in itself and of its own nature apparently a thing impossible, were not convenient. Wherefore though men do without offence wish daily that the affairs which with evil success are past might have fallen out much better, yet to pray that they may have been any other than they are, this being a manifest impossibility in itself, the rules of religion do not permit. Whereas contrariwise when things of their own nature contingent and mutable are by the secret determination of God appointed one way, though we the other way make our prayers, and consequently ask those things of God which are by this supposition impossible, we notwithstanding do not hereby in prayer transgress our lawful bounds.

That Christ, as the only begotten Son of God, having no superior, and therefore owing honour unto none, neither standing in any need, should either give thanks, or make petition unto God, were most absurd. As man what could beseem him better, whether we respect his affection to Godward, or his own necessity, or his charity and love towards men? Some things he knew should come to pass and notwithstanding prayed for them, because he also knew that the necessary means to effect them were his prayers. As in the Psalm it is said, “Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the ends of the earth for thy possession6.” Wherefore that which here God promiseth his Son, the same in the seventeenth of John7 he prayeth for: “Father, the hour is now come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee according as thou hast given him power over all flesh.”

But had Christ the like promise concerning the effect of every particular for which he prayed? That which was not effected could not be promised. And we know in what sort he prayed for removal of that bitter cup, which cup he tasted, notwithstanding his prayer8.

To shift off this example9 they answer first10, “That as other children of God, so Christ had a promise of deliverance as far as the glory of God in the accomplishment of his vocation would suffer.”

And if we ourselves have not also in that sort the promise of God to be evermore delivered from all adversity, what meaneth the sacred Scripture to speak in so large terms, “Be obedient, and the Lord thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thy hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of the land for thy wealth11.” Again, “Keep his laws, and thou shalt be blest above all people, the Lord shall take from thee all infirmities12.” “The man whose delight is in the Law of God, whatsoever he doth it shall prosper13.” “For the ungodly there are great plagues remaining; but whosoever putteth his trust in the Lord mercy embraceth him on every side14.” Not only that mercy which keepeth from being overlaid or oppressed15, but mercy which saveth from being touched with grievous miseries, mercy which turneth away the course of “the great water-floods,” and permitteth them not to “come near16.”

Nevertheless, because the prayer of Christ did concern but one calamity, they are still bold to deny the lawfulness of our prayer for deliverance out of all, yea though we pray with the same exception that he did, “If such deliverance may stand with the pleasure of Almighty God and not otherwise.” For they have secondly found out a rule17 that prayer ought only to be made for deliverance “from this or that particular adversity, whereof we know not but upon the event what the pleasure of God is.” Which quite overthroweth that other principle wherein they require unto every prayer which is of faith an assurance to obtain the thing we pray for. At the first to pray against all adversity was unlawful, because we cannot assure ourselves that this will be granted. Now we have license to pray against any particular adversity, and the reason given because we know not but upon the event what God will do. If we know not what God will do, it followeth that for any assurance we have he may do otherwise than we pray, and we may faithfully pray for that which we cannot assuredly presume that God will grant.

Seeing therefore neither of these two answers will serve the turn, they have18 a third, which is, that to pray in such sort is but idly mispent labour, because God already hath revealed his will touching this request, and we know that the suit we make is denied before we make it. Which neither is true, and if it were, was Christ ignorant what God had determined touching those things which himself should suffer? To say19, “He knew not what weight of sufferances his heavenly Father had measured unto him.” is somewhat hard; harder that although “he knew them” notwithstanding for the present time they were “forgotten through the force of those unspeakable pangs which he then was in.” The one against the plain express words of the holy Evangelist, “he knew all things that should come upon him20;” the other less credible, if any thing may be of less credit than what the Scripture itself gainsayeth. Doth any of them which wrote his sufferings make report that memory failed him? Is there in his words and speeches any sign of defect that way? Did not himself declare before whatsoever was to happen in the course of that whole tragedy? Can we gather by any thing after taken from his own mouth either in the place of public judgment or upon the altar of the cross, that through the bruising of his body some part of the treasures of his soul were scattered and slipped from him? If that which was perfect both before and after did fail at this only middle instant, there must appear some manifest cause how it came to pass. True it is that the pangs of his heaviness and grief were unspeakable: and as true that because the minds of the afflicted do never think they have fully conceived the weight or measure of their own woe, they use their affection as a whetstone both to wit and memory, these as nurses to feed grief, so that the weaker his conceit had been touching that which he was to suffer, the more it must needs in that hour have helped to the mitigation of his anguish. But his anguish we see was then at the very highest whereunto it could possibly rise; which argueth his deep apprehension even to the last drop of the gall which that cup contained, and of every circumstance wherein there was any force to augment heaviness, but above all things the resolute determination of God and his own unchangeable purpose, which he at that time could not forget.

To what intent then was his prayer, which plainly testifieth so great willingness to avoid death? Will, whether it be in God or man, belongeth to the essence and nature of both. The Nature therefore of God being one, there are not in God divers wills although Godhead be in divers persons, because the power of willing is a natural not a personal propriety. Contrariwise, the Person of our Saviour Christ being but one there are in him two wills, because two natures, the nature of God and the nature of man, which both do imply this faculty and power. So that in Christ there is a divine and there is an human will, otherwise he were not both God and man. Hereupon the Church hath of old condemned Monothelites as heretics, for holding that Christ had but one will. The works and operations of our Saviour’s human will were all subject to the will of God, and framed according to his law, “I desired to do thy will O God, and thy law is within mine heart21.”

Now as man’s will so the will of Christ hath two several kinds of operation, the one natural or necessary, whereby it desireth simply whatsoever is good in itself, and shunneth as generally all things which hurt; the other deliberate, when we therefore embrace things as good, because the eye of understanding judgeth them good to that end which we simply desire. Thus in itself we desire health, physic only for health’s sake. And in this sort special reason oftentimes causeth the will by choice to prefer one good thing before another, to leave one for another’s sake, to forego meaner for the attainment of higher desires, which our Saviour likewise did.

These different inclinations of the will considered, the reason is easy how in Christ there might grow desires seeming but being not indeed opposite, either the one of them unto the other, or either of them to the will of God. For let the manner of his speech be weighed22, “My soul is now troubled, and what should I say? “Father, save me out of this hour. But yet for this very cause am I come into this hour.” His purpose herein was most effectually to propose to the view of the whole world two contrary objects, the like whereunto in force and efficacy were never presented in that manner to any but only to the soul of Christ. There was presented before his eyes in that fearful hour on the one side God’s heavy indignation and wrath towards mankind as yet unappeased, death as yet in full strength, hell as yet never mastered by any that came within the confines and bounds thereof, somewhat also peradventure more than is either possible or needful for the wit of man to find out, finally himself flesh and blood left23 alone to enter into conflict with all these24; on the other side, a world to be saved by one, a pacification of wrath through the dignity of that sacrifice which should be offered, a conquest over death through the power of that Deity which would not suffer the tabernacle thereof to see corruption, and an utter disappointment of all the forces of infernal powers, through the purity of that soul which they should have in their hands and not be able to touch. Let no man marvel that in this case the soul of Christ was much troubled. For what could such apprehensions breed but (as their nature is) inexplicable passions of mind, desires abhorring what they embrace, and embracing what they abhor? In which agony “how should the tongue go about to express” what the soul endured? When the griefs of Job were exceeding great, his words accordingly to open them were many; howbeit, still unto his seeming they were undiscovered: “Though my talk” (saith Job) “be this day in bitterness, yet my plague is greater than my groaning25.” But here to what purpose should words serve, when nature hath more to declare than groans and strong cries, more than streams of bloody sweats, more than his doubled and tripled prayers can express, who thrice putting forth his hand to receive that cup, besides which there was no other cause of his coming into the world, he thrice pulleth it back again, and as often even with tears of blood craveth, “If it be possible, O Father: or if not, even what thine own good pleasure is,” for whose sake the passion that hath in it a bitter and a bloody conflict even with wrath and death and hell is most welcome26.

Whereas therefore we find in God a will resolved that Christ shall suffer; and in the human will of Christ two actual desires, the one avoiding, and the other accepting death; is that desire which first declareth itself by prayer against that wherewith he concludeth prayer, or either of them against his mind to whom prayer in this case seeketh? We may judge of these diversities in the will, by the like in the understanding. For as the intellectual part doth not cross itself by conceiving man to be just and unjust when it meaneth not the same man, nor by imagining the same man learned and unlearned, if learned in one skill, and in another kind of learning unskilful, because the parts of every true opposition do always both concern the same subject, and have reference to the same thing, sith otherwise they are but in show opposite and not in truth: so the will about one and the same thing may in contrary respects have contrary inclinations and that without contrariety. The minister of justice may for public example to others, virtuously will the execution of that party, whose pardon another for consanguinity’s sake as virtuously may desire. Consider death in itself, and nature teacheth Christ to shun it; consider death as a mean to procure the salvation of the world, and mercy worketh in Christ all willingness of mind towards it27. Therefore in these two desires there can be no repugnant opposition. Again, compare them with the will of God, and if any opposition be, it must be only between his appointment of Christ’s death, and the former desire which wisheth deliverance from death. But neither is this desire opposite to the will of God. The will of God was that Christ should suffer the pains of death. Not so his will, as if the torment of innocency did in itself please and delight God, but such was his will in regard of the end whereunto it was necessary that Christ should suffer. The death of Christ in itself therefore God willeth not, which to the end we might thereby obtain life he both alloweth and appointeth. In like manner the Son of man endureth willingly to that purpose those grievous pains, which simply not to have shunned had been against nature, and by consequent against God.

I take it therefore to be an error that Christ either knew not what himself was to suffer, or else had forgotten the things he knew. The root of which error was an over-restrained consideration of prayer, as though it had no other lawful use but only to serve for a chosen mean, whereby the will resolveth to seek that which the understanding certainly knoweth it shall obtain: whereas prayers in truth both ours are and his were, as well sometime a presentation of mere desires, as a mean of procuring desired effects at the hands of God. We are therefore taught by his example, that the presence of dolorous and dreadful objects even in minds most perfect, may as clouds overcast all sensible joy; that no assurance touching future victories can make present conflicts so sweet and easy but nature will shun and shrink from them, nature will desire ease and deliverance from oppressive burdens; that the contrary determination of God is oftentimes against the effect of this desire, yet not against the affection itself, because it is naturally in us; that in such case our prayers cannot serve us as means to obtain the thing we desire; that notwithstanding they are unto God most acceptable sacrifices, because they testify we desire nothing but at his hands, and our desires we submit with contentment to be overruled by his will, and in general they are not repugnant unto the natural will of God which wisheth to the works of his own hands in that they are his own handy work all happiness, although perhaps for some special cause in our own particular a contrary determination have seemed more convenient; finally, that thus to propose our desires which cannot take such effect as we specify, shall notwithstanding otherwise procure us His heavenly grace, even as this very prayer of Christ obtained Angels to be sent him as comforters in his agony28. And according to this example we are not afraid to present unto God our prayers for those things which that he will perform unto us we have no sure nor certain knowledge.

St. Paul’s prayer for the church of Corinth was that they might not do any evil29, although he knew that no man liveth which sinneth not, although he knew that in this life we always must pray, “Forgive us our sins30.” It is our frailty that in many things we all do amiss, but a virtue that we would do amiss in nothing, and a testimony of that virtue when we pray that what occasion of sin soever do offer itself we may be strengthened from above to withstand it. They pray in vain to have sin pardoned which seek not also to prevent sin by prayer, even every particular sin by prayer against all sin; except men can name some transgression wherewith we ought to have truce. For in very deed although we cannot be free from all sin collectively in such sort that no part thereof shall be found inherent in us, yet distributively at the least all great and grievous actual offences as they offer themselves one by one both may and ought to be by all means avoided. So that in this sense to be preserved from all sin is not impossible31.

Finally, concerning deliverance itself from all adversity, we use not to say men are in adversity whensoever they feel any small hinderance of their welfare in this world, but when some notable affliction or cross, some great calamity or trouble befalleth them. Tribulation hath in it divers circumstances, the mind sundry faculties to apprehend them: it offereth sometime itself to the lower powers of the soul as a most unpleasant spectacle, to the higher sometimes as drawing after it a train of dangerous inconveniences, sometime as bringing with it remedies for the curing of sundry evils, as God’s instrument of revenge and fury sometime, sometime as a rod of his just yet moderate ire and displeasure, sometime as matter for them that spitefully hate us to exercise their poisoned malice, sometime as a furnace of trial for virtue to shew itself, and through conflict to obtain glory. Which different contemplations of adversity do work for the most part their answerable effects. Adversity either apprehended by sense as a thing offensive and grievous to nature; or by reason conceived as a snare, an occasion of many men’s falling from God, a sequel of God’s indignation and wrath, a thing which Satan desireth and would be glad to behold; tribulation thus considered being present causeth sorrow, and being imminent breedeth fear. For moderation of which two affections growing from the very natural bitterness and gall of adversity, the Scripture much allegeth contrary fruits which affliction likewise hath, whensoever it falleth on them that are tractable32, the grace of God’s Holy Spirit concurring therewith.

But when the Apostle St. Paul teacheth33, “That every one which will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution,” and “by many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of heaven34,” because in a forest of many wolves sheep cannot choose but feed in continual danger of life; or when St. James exhorteth to “account it a matter of exceeding joy when we fall into divers temptations35,” because “by the trial of faith patience is brought forth;” was it, suppose we, their meaning to frustrate our Lord’s admonition, “Pray that ye enter not into temptation?” When himself pronounceth them blessed that should for his name’s sake be subject to all kinds of ignominy and opprobrious malediction, was it his purpose that no man should ever pray with David, “Lord, remove from me shame and contempt36?”

“In those tribulations” (saith St. Augustine37) “which may hurt as well as profit, we must say with the Apostle, What we should ask as we ought we know not; yet because they are tough, because they are grievous, because the sense of our weakness flieth them, we pray according to the general desire of the will of man that God would turn them away from us, owing in the meanwhile this devotion to the Lord our God, that if he remove them not, yet we do not therefore imagine ourselves in his sight despised, but rather with godly sufferance of evils expect greater good at his merciful hands. For thus is virtue in weakness perfected.”

To the flesh (as the Apostle himself granteth) all affliction is naturally grievous38. Therefore nature which causeth to fear teacheth to pray against all adversity. Prosperity in regard of our corrupt inclination to abuse the blessings of Almighty God, doth prove for the most part a thing dangerous to the souls of men. Very ease itself is death to the wicked, “and the prosperity of fools slayeth them39;” their table is a snare, and their felicity their utter overthrow. Few men there are which long prosper and sin not. Howbeit even as these ill effects although they be very usual and common are no bar to the hearty prayers whereby most virtuous minds wish peace and prosperity always where they love, because they consider that this in itself is a thing naturally desired: so because all adversity is in itself against nature, what should hinder to pray against it, although the providence of God turn it often unto the great good of many men? Such prayers of the Church to be delivered from all adversity are no more repugnant to any reasonable disposition of men’s minds towards death, much less to that blessed patience and meek contentment which saints by heavenly inspiration have to endure what cross or calamity soever it pleaseth God to lay upon them, than our Lord and Saviour’s own prayer before his passion was repugnant unto his most gracious resolution to die for the sins of the whole world.

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Footnotes

  1. T. C. lib. i. p. 136. [107. ap. Whitg. Def. 491.] “Forasmuch as there is no promise in the Scripture that we should be free from all adversity and that evermore, it seemeth that this prayer might have been better conceived, being no prayer of faith, or of the which we can assure ourselves that we shall obtain it.” [He adds, “Whatsoever can be alleged for the defence of it, yet every one which is not contentious may see that it needeth some caution or exception.”] ↩

  2. “Oratio quæ non fit per Christum non solum non potest delere peccatum, sed etiam ipsa fit [in] peccatum.” Aug. Enar. in Psal. cviii. [§ 9. t. iv. 1219.] ↩

  3. Numb. xi. 33: 1 Sam. viii. 7: Job i. 12; ii. 6: Luke viii. 32. ↩

  4. 2 Cor. xii. 7-9. ↩

  5. Aug. Epist. ad Probam viduam, Ep. 121. [al. 130. c. 14. ii. 392 B. “Nonnullis impatientibus Dominus Deus quod petebant concessit iratus, sicut contra Apostolo negavit propitius.”] ↩

  6. Psalm ii. 8. ↩

  7. John xvii. 1, 2. ↩

  8. Matt. xxvi. 39; Mark xiv. 36; Luke xxii. 42. ↩

  9. [Which had been alleged by Whitg. Def. 492. “Christ himself prayed to have the cup of his passion removed from him; which undoubtedly he knew before would not be granted unto him.”] ↩

  10. T. C. lib. iii. p. 200. “Neither did our Saviour Christ pray without promise; for as other the children of God to whose condition he had humbled himself have, so had he a promise of deliverance so far as the glory of God in the accomplishment of his vocation would suffer.” ↩

  11. Deut. xxx. 9. ↩

  12. Deut. vii. 15. ↩

  13. Psalm i. 4. ↩

  14. Psalm xxxii. 11. ↩

  15. [T. C. iii. 201. “He citeth the ninety-first Psalm, that ‘no evil shall come to thee.’ . . It must not be understood that the afflictions shall not touch us; which is manifest, in that, assigning the manner of performance of these promises, he saith, that ‘the Lord will be with him in his trouble, and deliver him; noting that he shall be in trouble, which is contrary to that, that ‘he shall be free from all trouble.’ So that, to accord the Scripture with itself, the meaning of the promise must needs be, that he shall not be overlaid or oppressed, but contrarily, that the afflictions shall serve, as the Apostle saith, to his good.”] ↩

  16. Psalm xxxii. 7. ↩

  17. T. C. lib. iii. p. 201. ↩

  18. T. C. lib. iii. p. 201. “We ought not to desire to be free from all adversity if it be his will, considering that he hath already declared his will therein.” ↩

  19. T. C. lib. iii. p. 201. [“I deny that at that time he made that prayer to his holy Father he ‘knew he should not obtain.’ For although he knew that he should suffer, yet if I answer that as touching his humanity he knew not the most infinite and extreme weight of sufferance which God his heavenly Father had measured unto him; or knowing them had through the unspeakable force of the pangs which he then was in forgotten them; I see not how this answer may not be maintained as a Christian and catholic answer.” Cartwright finishes his paragraph with the following sentence. “He” (Whitgift) “hath much other fog to this purpose, but not worth the naming.”] ↩

  20. John xviii. 4. ↩

  21. Psalm xl. 8. ↩

  22. John xii. 27. ↩

  23. “Non potuit divinitas humanitatem et secundum aliquid deseruisse, et secundum aliquid non deseruisse? Subtraxit protectionem, sed non separavit unionem. Sic ergo dereliquit ut non adjuvaret, sed non dereliquit ut recederet. Sic ergo humanitas a divinitate in passione derelicta est. [derelictam se clamabat.] Quam tamen mortem quia non pro sua iniquitate sed pro nostra redemptione sustinuit, quare sit derelicta requirit, non quasi adversus Deum de pœna murmurans sed nobis innocentiam suam in pœna demonstrans.” Hug. [de S. Victore 1097-1140.] de Sacram. lib. ii. part. 1. cap. 10. Deus meus, utquid dereliquisti me? vox est nec ignorantiæ, nec diffidentiæ, nec querelæ, sed admirationis tantum, quæ aliis investigandæ causæ ardorem et diligentiam acuat. ↩

  24. Matt. xxvii. 46. ↩

  25. Job xxiii. 2. ↩

  26. [Compare Pearson on the Creed, p. 190, 191. ed. 1692.] ↩

  27. Isa. liii. 10; John x. 15. ↩

  28. Luke xxii. 43. ↩

  29. 2 Cor. xiii. 7. ↩

  30. T.C. lib. iii. p. 200. “We may not pray in this life to be free from all sin, because we must always pray, Forgive us our sins.” ↩

  31. [Chr. Letter, p. 15. “Whether you meane, that it is possible for all Christians to be preserved from all great sinnes: and if so, why should it not be as possible from all small offences: and if from small and great, why doe we not keepe our robe pure and without spot untill the comming of Christ, and so bee justified more and more by our works, as the popish canons teach?”Hooker, MS. note. “Vid. August. de Civ. Dei, lib. xiv. cap. 9.” (“Illa quæ ἀπάθεια Græce dicitur, quæ si Latine posset, impassibilitas diceretur, si ita intelligenda est, … . . ut sine his affectionibus vivatur, quæ contra rationem accidunt, mentemque perturbant, bona plane et maxime optanda est, sed nec ipsa est hujus vitæ. Non enim qualiumcunque hominum vox est, sed maxime piorum multumque justorum atque sanctorum, Si dixerimus quoniam peccata non habemus, nos ipsos seducimus, et veritas in nobis non est. Tunc itaque ἀπάθεια ista erit, quando peccatum in homine nullum erit. Nunc vero satis bene vivitur, si sine crimine: sine peccato autem qui se vivere existimat, non id agit ut peccatum non habeat, sed ut veniam non accipiat.”)“Apostolus ordinandos præcipit non qui sine peccato sunt, sed qui sine crimine.” (He seems to refer to 1 Tim. iii. 2; Tit. i. 7.) “Nam alias nemo ordinari possit, teste Johanne epist. prima. Having bent yourself before against the necessitie of all vertue, you are now an enemie to the invocation of God’s aid against all vice.“Vid. August. Enchirid. c. 64, de discrimine criminis et peccati.” (“Filii Dei … sic Spiritu Dei excitantur, … . . ut etiam spiritu suo, maxime aggravante corruptibili corpore, tanquam filii hominum quibusdam humanis motibus deficiant ad seipsos, et ideo peccent. Interest quidem quantum; neque enim quia peccatum est omne crimen, ideo crimen est omne peccatum. Itaque sanctorum hominum vitam quamdiu in hâc mortali vivitur, inveniri posse dicimus sine crimine: ‘Peccatum autem si dixerimus quia non habemus,’ ut ait tantus Apostolus, ‘nosmet ipsos seducimus, et veritas in nobis non est.’ ”) t. vi. 220. ↩

  32. Psalm cxix. 71. ↩

  33. 2 Tim. iii. 12. T. C. lib. iii. p. 200. “To pray against persecution, is contrary to that word which saith, that every one which will live godly in Christ Jesu must suffer persecution.” ↩

  34. Acts xiv. 22.] ↩

  35. James i. 2, 3. ↩

  36. Psalm cxix. 22. ↩

  37. Aug. Epist. cxxi. [al. cxxx.] c. 14. [t. ii. 392. “In his ergo tribulationibus, quæ possunt et prodesse et nocere, quid oremus sicut oportet nescimus: et tamen quia dura, quia molesta, quia contra sensum nostræ infirmitatis sunt, universali humana voluntate ut a nobis auferantur oramus. Sed hoc devotionis debemus Domino Deo nostro, ut si ea non abstulerit, non ideo nos ab eo negligi existimemus, sed potius pia patientia malorum bona speremus ampliora; sic enim virtus in infirmitate perficitur.”] ↩

  38. [Heb. xii. 11.] ↩

  39. Prov. i. 32. ↩

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