Here he will only admit that man has freedom to pray for the right use of his freedom. But, as a matter of fact, even this liberty which might incite us to prayer, is non-existent. For in respect of anything that is good [whether natural or supernatural, he makes no distinction] we are only like raw metal or a wooden stick. Because God’s grace is the hand which works in us for good and which performs our vital acts within us, while we ourselves are quiescent and absolutely powerless, Luther says in Romans iii.: “I have frequently insisted before upon the fact, that it is impossible for us to have of ourselves the will or the heart to fulfil the law.” Why? “Because the law is spiritual.” Meditation on man’s enslaved condition as the result of concupiscence, he declares in another passage, proves my contention, no less than the terrible truth of predestination. “Luther felt in himself that belief in the eternal predestination by God [absolute election to grace] was the most powerful support of his experience of the complete inadequacy of human works and the efficacy of grace alone.” The Protestant theologian[673] who says this, to instance Luther’s faith in the action of grace, here quotes from the passages from the Commentary on Romans, according to which God on the one hand bestows His grace only on those He chooses, but on the other hand infallibly saves those He elects to save. “The Spirit,” Luther has it, “supports the latter by His presence in all their weaknesses, so that they prevail in circumstances where they would otherwise despair a thousand times.”[674] It is, however, remarkable that just after this explanation the cry bursts from Luther’s lips: “Where are now the good works, where the freedom of the will?” Here the irresistible “action of grace alone” appears as a direct consequence of Luther’s then views, though he refrains from expressing himself more clearly as to the nature of actual grace. Thus in his mind are combined two widely divergent ideas, viz. that God does everything in man who is devoid of freedom—and that man must draw nigh to God by prayer and works of faith. It is a strange psychological phenomenon to see how, instead of endeavouring to solve the contradiction and examine the question in the light of calm reason, he gives free play to feeling and imagination, now passionately proving to the infamous Observants that man is absolutely unable to do anything, now insisting on the need of preparation for grace, i.e. unconsciously becoming the defender of the Church’s doctrine of free will and human co-operation. The fact is, he still, to some extent, thinks with the Church. It was no easy task for him to break away from a view, which is so natural to man and so much in accordance with faith, viz. that there must be some preparation on man’s part for justification, in which however, actual grace, which comes to the assistance of his will and becomes part of it, also has its share.