Page:Catechismoftrent.djvu/356



THIS should be the prayer of all who desire to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Christ our Lord has said, " Not every one that, says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven;" and therefore does this petition immediately succeed that which prays for the coming of his kingdom.

But in order that the faithful may appreciate the necessity of the object of this petition, and may estimate the numerous and salutary gifts which we obtain through its concession, the pastor will direct their attention to the misery and wretchedness in which primeval guilt has involved mankind. From the beginning, God implanted in all creatures an inborn desire of pursuing their own happiness, that, by a sort of natural impulse, they may seek and desire their proper end, an end from which they never deviate, unless impeded by some external obstacle which opposes their progress. This propensity existed originally in man, and, endowed, as he is, with reason and judgment, was in him a noble and exalted principle, impelling him earnestly to desire God: but, whilst irrational creatures, which, coming from the hand of God, were good, preserved their instinctive impulse, and thus continued, and still continue, in their original state and condition, man, unhappy man, no longer guided by the innate principle of his being, ran into a devious course, and lost not only original justice, with which he had been supernaturally gifted and adorned, but, also, weakened the predominant desire of the soul, infused into it by the Creator, the love of virtue. " All have gone aside: they are become unprofitable together; there is none that doth good, no, not one." " Man is inclined to evil from his youth." Hence, it is not difficult to perceive, that of himself no man is wise unto salvation; that all are prone to evil; and that man is a slave to innumerable corrupt propensities, which hurry him along with precipitancy to anger, hatred, pride, ambition, and almost to every species of evil.

Although continually beset by these evils, yet, and this is the greatest evil of all, many of them appear to us not to be evils, a melancholy proof of the calamitous condition of fallen man, who, blinded by passion, sees not that what he deems salutary generally contains a deadly poison; whilst those things which are really good and virtuous, are shunned as the contrary. Of this false estimate and corrupt judgment of man, God thus expresses his detestation: " Wo to you that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter."