kind of effort after virtue," we must say,
on the contrary, that it is because there is mercy in God that we must make
every kind of effort.
498. It is true there is difficulty in entering into godliness. But this
difficulty does not arise from the religion which begins in us, but from the
irreligion which is still there. If our senses were not opposed to
penitence, and if our corruption were not opposed to the purity of God,
there would be nothing in this painful to us. We suffer only in proportion
as the vice which is natural to us resists supernatural grace. Our heart
feels torn asunder between these opposed efforts. But it would be very
unfair to impute this violence to God, who is drawing us on, instead of to
the world, which is holding us back. It is as a child, which a mother tears
from the arms of robbers, in the pain it suffers, should love the loving and
legitimate violence of her who procures its liberty, and detest only the
impetuous and tyrannical violence of those who detain it unjustly. The most
cruel war which God can make with men in this life is to leave them without
that war which He came to bring. "I came to send war," He says, "and to
teach them of this war. I came to bring fire and the sword." Before Him the
world lived in this false peace.
499. External works.--There nothing so perilous as what pleases God and man.
For those states, which please God and man, have one property which pleases
God, and anothe