Chapter X.
How no one can obtain perfect virtue and the promised
bliss by his own strength alone.
For
the will and course
of no one, however eager and anxious,
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is sufficiently ready for him, while still enclosed in the flesh which
warreth against the spirit, to reach so great a prize of perfection,
and the palm of uprightness and purity, unless he is protected by the
divine compassion, so that he is privileged to attain to that which he
greatly desires and to which he runs. For “every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of
lights.”
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“For what
hast thou which thou didst not receive? But if thou hast received it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?”
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Quamvis ferventis
et cupientis
(Petschenig):
Quamvis volentis et currentis
(Gazæus).
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S.
James i. 17
.
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1 Cor. iv. 7
.