good pleasure, who has also given him
His Holy Spirit.

The Catechism, in short, takes for granted that the child knows his
duty; but it takes for granted also that he does not know how to do
that duty. It takes for granted, that in every child there is as
St. Paul says, 'a law in his members warring against the law of his
mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin' (literally,
of short coming, or missing the mark) 'which is in his members.'
Now man's natural inclination is to suppose that good thoughts are
part of himself, and therefore that a good will to put them in
practice is in his own power. I blame no one for making that
mistake: but I warn them, in the name of the Bible and of the
Catechism, that it is a mistake, and one which every man, woman, and
child will surely discover to be a mistake, if they try to act on
it. Good thoughts are not our own; they are Jesus Christ's; they
come from Him, The Life and The Light of men; they are His voice
speaking to our hearts, informing us of His laws, showing us what is
good. And good desires are not our own: they come from the Holy
Spirit of God, who strives with men, and labours to lift their
hearts up from selfishness to love; from what is low and foul, to
what is noble and pure; from what is sinful and contrary to God's
will, to what is right and according to God's will.

This is the lesson which you and I and every man have to learn:
that in ourselves dwells no good thing; but that there is One near
us mightier than we, from whom all good things do come; and that He
loves us, and will not only teach us what is good, but give us the
power to do the good we know. But if we forget that, if we take any
credit whatsoever to ourselves for the good which comes into our
minds, then we shall be surely taught our mistake by sore
afflictions and by shameful falls; by God's leaving us to ourselves,
to try our own strength, and to find it weakness; to try our own
wisdom, and find it folly; to try our own fancied love of God, and
find that after all our conceit of ourselves, we love ourselves
better, when it comes to a trial, than we love what is right; until,
in short, we are driven with St. Paul to feel that, howsoever much
our hearts may delight in the Law of God, there is a corrupt nature
in us which fights against our delight in God's law, and will surely
conquer it, and make us slaves to our own fancies, slaves to our
passions, slaves to ourselves, ay,