The motions of grace, hardness of heart, external circumstances.
Grace will ever be in the world, and nature also, so that grace is in some sort natural. Thus there will be always Pelagians, always Catholics, always strife.
Because the first birth constitutes the one, and the grace of regeneration the other.
It will be one of the confusions of the damned to see themselves condemned by their own reason, by which they have thought to condemn the Christian religion.
When it is said that Jesus Christ died not for all, you take advantage of a defect inherent in men who immediately apply this exception to themselves, which is to favour despair instead of turning men from it to favour hope. For so we accustom ourselves to interior virtues by exterior customs.
There is heresy in always explaining omnes by 'all,' and heresy in not explaining it sometimes by 'all.' Bibite ex hoc omnes, the Huguenots are heretics in explaining it by 'all.' In quo omnes peccaverunt, the Huguenots are heretics in excepting the children of the faithful. We must then follow the Fathers and tradition to know when to do so, since there is heresy to be feared on one side or the other.
A point of form.—When Saint Peter and the apostles consulted about the abolition of circumcision, when it was a question of acting in contradiction to the law of God, they did not consult the prophets, but considered simply the reception of the Holy Spirit in the persons uncircumcised. They judged it more certain that God approved those whom he filled with his spirit, than it was that the law must be observed.
They knew that the end of the Law was none other than the Holy Spirit, and thus as men certainly had this without circumcision, circumcision was not needful.
But to preserve pre-eminence to himself he gives prayer to whom he pleases.
Why God has established prayer.