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AND therefore though in many things, indeed in everything, it can be
shown that men always have need of God's help, and that human weakness
cannot accomplish anything that has to do with salvation by itself alone,
i.e., without the aid of God, yet in nothing is this more clearly shown
than in the acquisition and preservation of chastity. For as the discussion
on the difficulty of its perfection is put off for so long, let us
meanwhile discourse briefly on the instruments of it. Who, I ask, could,
however fervent he might be in spirit, relying on his own strength with no
praise from men endure the squalor of the desert, and I will not say the
daily lack but the supply of dry bread? Who without the Lord's consolation,
could put up with the continual thirst for water, or deprive his human eyes
of that sweet and delicious morning sleep, and regularly compress his whole
time of rest and repose into the limits of four hours? Who would be
sufficient without God's grace to give continual attendance to reading and
constant earnestness in work, receiving no advantage of present gain? And
all these matters, as we cannot desire them continuously without divine
inspiration, so in no respect whatever can we perform them without His
help. And that we may ensure that these things are not only proved to us by
the teaching of experience, but also made still clearer by sure proof and
arguments, does not some weakness intervene in the case of many things
which we wish usefully to perform, and though the full keenness of our
desire and the perfection of our will be not wanting, yet interfere with
the wish we have conceived, so that there is no carrying out of our
purpose, unless the power to perform it has been granted by the mercy of
the Lord, so that, although there are countless swarms of people who are
anxious to stick faithfully to the pursuit of virtue, you can scarcely find
any who are able to carry it out and endure it, to say nothing of the fact
that, even when no weakness at all hinders us, the opportunity for doing
everything that we wish does not lie in our own power. For it is not in our
power to secure the silence of solitude and severe fasts and undisturbed
study even when we could use such opportunities, but by a chapter of
accidents we are often very much against our will kept away from the
salutary ordinances so that we have to pray to the Lord for opportunities
of place or time in which to practise them. And it is clear that the
ability for these is not sufficient for us unless there be also granted to
us by the Lord an opportunity of doing what we are capable of (as the
Apostle also says: "For we wanted to come to you once and again, but Satan
hindered us"), so that sometimes we find for our advantage we are called
away from these spiritual exercises in order that while without our own
consent the regularity of our routine is broken and we yield something to
weakness of the flesh, we may even against our will be brought to a
salutary patience. Of which providential arrangement of God the blessed
Apostle says something similar: "For which I besought the Lord thrice that
it might depart from me. And He said to me: My grace is sufficient for
thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness:" and again: "For we know
not what to pray for as we ought."
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