Page:Spiritualcombat.djvu/237

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
222
OF NEED OF SUCCOUR

because God first made, and then redeemed it, and day by day, by new benefits, lays claim to it, saying: "My son, give Me thy heart."

Thus, the heart of man belonging wholly to God, for many reasons which shall be given hereafter, and being all too little to discharge its obligations to Him, every one should be most jealous over it, that it love God Alone, and the things which are pleasing to God, and in the degree and manner which are most pleasing to Him.

We must exercise the same jealousy in watching over the passion of hatred (for on the two passions, hatred and love, rests the whole fabric of perfection), so as to hate nothing but sin, and whatever leads to sin.


CHAPTER VII.

That the Human Will stands in need of Succour.

OUR will, thus under the influence of the passions, is very weak in resisting and overcoming them, and making them submissive to God, and to His obedience. (As experience well shows, for even when it desires and proposes to mortify itself, yet is it often stifled by its passions, and all its purposes and resolutions vanish,