Page:Spiritualcombat.djvu/235

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OF LOVE OF SELF

lack the companionship of some one of the passions, it must needs either love or hate, desire or shun, rejoice or regret, hope or despair, be fearful or daring, or be angry.

When you find it to be influenced by some passion, not as God wills, but as its own self-love wills, take pains to bend it from the love of self to the love of God, and to the observance of the precepts of God, and of His Law. And this you should do, not only with strong passions, such as those which lead to mortal sins, but also with those which are the occasion of venial faults; for these, when they are allowed, though they move lightly and tread very softly, keep us nevertheless weak and without vigour, and in great peril of falling into mortal sin.


CHAPTER VI.

How by removing the first Passion, which is Love of the Creature and of Self, and by giving it to God, all the rest will be well Regulated and Ordered.

THAT you may free your will in a speedy and orderly manner from inordinate passions, you must set yourself wholly to subdue and regulate the first passion, which is love; for when this is brought into order, all the rest will