IV.
Pray, Pray Always!
WE are perfectly inexcusable if we neglect prayer, for the grace of prayer is given to even* one. It is always in our power to pray if we only wish to do so. God will have all nun to be saved (1 Tim. ii. 4). Luther and Calvin asserted therefore a blasphemy when they said that since Adam's sin the observance of God's law is impossible to mortals; and Jansenius was equally guilty when he asserted that we have been deprived of that grace which would have rendered the fulfilment of the divine precepts possible to us. The Church has condemned these doctrines; the holy Council of Trent has declared that God commands nothing that is impossible, but that He tells us to do our best aided by ordinary grace, and to ask of Him the increase of grace which is necessary to enable us to accomplish that which, without that help, we could not perform; and then by making up for our weakness He renders all things possible to us. [1] Hence it ensues that God gives, or at any rate offers, to all men either the proximate grace necessary for the observance of His Commandments, or, at any rate, the remote grace, i.e., the grace of prayer, by means of which each person can obtain the proximate grace of which he has need to fulfil the duties imposed upon him by the law of God.
However, it cannot be doubted that, in the present state of our corrupt nature, the observance of the divine law is very difficult, and even morally impossible, without the special help of God and a greater help than was necessary when we were in a state of innocence. Now, this special help, God,
- ↑ Sess. 6, cb. 11,
