not only in great matters, but even in the smallest, is said to be truly liberal towards God, and in return God will recompense him liberally. For God is always pleased to make those, who are thus faithful to him, his chief favourites, and pours his blessings on them in greater abundance; nor does he confine himself to that general assistance which is sufficient to resist temptations, but he bestows on them special and efficacious graces, whereby they always triumph over the assaults of the devil. But if you are not liberal towards God, how can you expect he should be so towards you, and if you offer your gifts to him with a parsimonious hand, must you not expect that he will treat you in the same manner? If you are afraid of doing too much for him, if you hold always the compass in hand to measure what you are obliged to under pain of sin, and examine whether the omission be mortal or only venial; if, in fine, you intend to give God no more, than what you think to be precisely his right, you plainly shew you are a miser, and oblige him to be more sparing of his blessings towards you. For he will give you only what he is bound to by his promise, to wit, he will give you the general aid which he grants to every one, i.e. such aid as is necessary and sufficient to overcome temptations; but you have reason to apprehend, that he will not bestow on you that special and efficacious grace, which he usually gives to those who deal more liberally with him, and it is to be feared, that for want of it, you will at last yield to the assaults of the enemy, and fall into some grievous crime.
It is in this sense we are to understand the opinion of divines, and holy men in general, when they say that a subsequent sin is usually the punishment of a former, because by our first sin we render ourselves unworthy of God's particular grace, and thereby easily fall into a second sin. They also say the same of venial sins, and extend it even to very slight faults; they even maintain that a certain negligence, into which we suffer ourselves to fall, is alone sufficient to render a man unworthy of this special and efficacious grace, by aid of which, he would have overcome the temptation, and through want of which he miserably falls. Some of them explain in the same manner the words of the Wise Man, " He that contemneth small things, shall fall by little and little" (Ecclus. xix. 1); and say, that in consequence of this neglect and contempt, we deserve to be deprived of the extraordinary assistance of God's grace, through want of which these cold and tepid Christians afterwards run into great disorders. Divines give the same interpretation of this passage of the Apocalypse: " Because thou art neither
