It follows that not even the just can wholly avoid venial sin. Hence the most devout and pious Christian may truthfully repeat the petition of the Lord’s Prayer which says: “Forgive us our trespasses,(364) as we forgive those who trespass against us.”(365) Profoundly conscious of the sinfulness of the entire human race, the author of the Book of Proverbs exclaims: “Who can say, My heart is clean, I am pure from sin?”(366) Other Scripture texts commonly cited in confirmation of our thesis lack cogency, because they either deal exclusively with mortal sin or do not refer to sin at all. Thus Prov. XXIV, 16: “A just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again,” is meant of temporal adversities.(367) Eccles. VII, 21: “There is no just man upon earth, that doth good and sinneth not,”(368) can scarcely be understood of venial sin, because the sacred writer continues: “For thy conscience knoweth that thou also hast often spoken evil of others.”(369) 1 John I, 8: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,”(370) would be a splendid argument for our thesis, could it be shown that the Apostle had in mind only the venial sins committed in the state of justification. This is, however, unlikely, as the term _peccatum_ throughout St. John’s first Epistle(371) is obviously employed in the sense of mortal sin.(372) b) Tradition is again most effectively voiced by St. Augustine, who writes: “There are three points, as you know, which the Catholic Church chiefly maintains against them [the Pelagians]. One is, that the grace of God is not given according to our merits.... The second, that no one lives in this corruptible body in righteousness of any degree without sins of any kind. The third, that man is born obnoxious to the first man’s sin....”(373) To Pelagius’ objection: “If all men sin, then the just must die in their sins,” the holy Doctor replies: “With all his acuteness he [Pelagius] overlooks the circumstance that even righteous persons pray with good reason: ‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.’... Even if we cannot live without sin, we may yet die without sin, whilst the sin committed in ignorance or infirmity is blotted out in merciful forgiveness.”(374) In another chapter of the same treatise he says: “If ... we could assemble all the afore-mentioned holy men and women, and ask them whether they lived without sin, ... would they not all exclaim with one voice: ‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’?”(375) c) We come to the theological argument. The moral impossibility of avoiding venial sin for any considerable length of time results partly from the infirmity of human nature (_infirmitas naturae_), partly from God’s pre-established plan of salvation (_ordo divinae providentiae_).