The necessity of divine assistance.
If you wish therefore to escape the threatening law, flee to the Spirit who helps. For what the law commands, faith hopes for. Call to your God, let Him help you. Do not remain condemned under the letter, but let God help you with His Spirit: lest you be similar to the proud Jew. For when the sting of death was sin, and the strength of sin was the law; what would human weakness do, in which the will was fatigued? "To will," he says, "is present with me; but to perform what is good I do not find." What then should he do? Behold the sting of death is sin, behold the strength of sin is the law. But the law entered, that the offense might abound. For if the law could give life, righteousness would certainly be of the law. But the Scripture has confined all under sin. How has it confined? Lest you should wander, lest you should be precipitated, lest you should be submerged; the law made barriers for you, that not finding a way to escape, you might flee to grace. But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise. The one who promises, promises what he makes, not what you do. If you would accomplish it, God would be a foreteller, not a promiser. But it confined, he says, the Scripture all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Listen: might be given. What do you boast of? Listen: might be given. For what do you have that you did not receive? Therefore, since the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; and this is of the good providence of God, that men might be confined under sin, and seek a helper, seek grace, seek God, not presume on their own strength; therefore, when he had said: The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; why do you fear? Why do you labor? Why do you sweat? Listen to what follows: But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly you do not give yourself victory? Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The help of God must be invoked.
Therefore, when you begin to struggle, fighting against the desires of the flesh, walk in the spirit, invoke the spirit, and seek the gift of God. And if the law in your members resists the law of your mind, from the lower part, that is, from the flesh, it holds you captive under the law of sin; and this will be corrected, and this will pass into the laws of victory. You only cry out, you only invoke. It is necessary always to pray and not to falter. Invoke entirely, invoke for help. While you are still speaking, He says, behold I am here. After you understand, you hear Him saying to your soul: I am your salvation. Therefore, when the law of the flesh begins to resist the law of the mind and leads you captive under the law of sin which is in your members; by praying say, by confessing say: Wretched man that I am. For what else is man? What is man unless that you remember him? Say: Wretched man that I am; for if the Son of Man had not come, man would have perished. Shout out in distress: Who will deliver me from this body of death? Where the law in my members resists the law of my mind. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man. Who will deliver me from this body of death? If you say this faithfully, if you say this humbly, it is most truly answered: The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Turned to the Lord...