Book II, Part 1, Chapter 1. Of the firm Resolution a good Christian is to make, never to commit any mortal Sin

1. These two principles being presupposed as the main foundations of this spiritual building, the first and chief thing which he that is seriously resolved to give himself up to God's service, and to the study of virtue, ought to do, is to fix in his soul a sincere resolution never to commit any mortal sin. For by this alone we lose the grace and friendship of our Lord, and with it many other favors and benefits. This is the chief basis of a virtuous life *, by this we are to keep ourselves in God's favor, and to preserve his friendship, and the right we have to the kingdom of heaven. In this consists charity, and the spiritual life of the soul depends on it. It is this makes men the children of God, the temples of the Holy Ghost, and the living members of Jesus Christ ; and, consequently, as such, partakers of all the privileges of the church. As long as the soul keeps this resolution, she remains in charity and in the state of grace ; but as soon as ever she falls from it, she is immediately blotted out of the book of life, and put down in that of perdition, and banished into the kingdom of darkness.

2. This matter being duly considered, it appears that, as all things, whether natural or artificial, are composed of substance and accidents, with this difference, that the substance always remains, though the accidents be changed ; as a house is said to be still standing (when the carved work and painting is quite defaced), though not so perfect as it was at first ; but when the house falls, all fall ; so the soul, as long as it stands firmly to this resolution, still retains the substance of virtue ; but when once this fails, all the structure falls to the ground : the reason of it is, because the whole, being of a virtuous life, consists in charity, that is, in loving God above all things. And he loves God after this manner, who hates mortal sin above all things ; there being nothing but this that can make a man lose the love and friendship of God. So that as there is nothing more injurious than adultery to a marriage-bed, there is nothing more prejudicial to, and more destructive of a virtuous life, than mortal sin, because it destroys charity, which maintains and nourishes life.

3. This is the reason why all the martyrs willingly endured the sinner's guidi 279 such dreadful torments ; for this cause they suffered themselves to be burned, to be impaled alive, to be racked, to have their flesh pulled off with pincers, and to be torn in pieces rather than commit a mortal sin, which would in a moment have deprived them of the friendship and grace of God. They knew that if they had sinned mortally, they might have repented of their crime and have obtained pardon, as St. Peter did for denying our Saviour; and yet they rather chose to undergo all the torments in the world, than to be ever so short a space out of God's favor.

4. We have three great examples of this sort in three noble women ; one in the Old Testament, the mother of seven sons, and two in the New, called Felicitas and Symphorosa, who had also each of them seven sons. These holy women were all of them present at the sufferings and martyrdoms of their own children, and were so far from being frightened at the lamentable sight, when they beheld them torn in pieces before their faces, that, on the contrary, they exhorted and encouraged them to die bravely for the faith and service of God ; and gave up their own lives with them, with courage and resolution, for the same cause.

5. St. Jerome, in his Life of St. Paul, the first hermit, gives us an example (I am doubtful whether not preferable to these) of a young man, whom, after having tried all other means, the tyrants would have forced to offend God ; and to this purpose they laid him on his naked back on a soft bed, under a shade of trees, in a very fresh and pleasant garden, tying down his arms and his hands wTith silken cords, that he might neither fly nor defend himself; then they sent a lewd wroman to him, richly dressed, to use all the arts -they could think of, to overcome his resolution and constancy. What could the soldier of Christ do in this distress ? What course could he take to avoid such a disgrace, when he was naked, and had his hands and feet tied ? Yet the power of Heaven, and the presence of the Holy Ghost, did not forsake him ; for he was immediately inspired to deliver himself from his present danger, by a stratagem more strange and heroic than any we read of either in the Greek or Roman historians. For out of the great fear he had of offending God, and out of the horror of sin, he bit off his tongue with his teeth, the only part of him then at liberty, and spit it into the impudent woman's face: thus, by so strange and unheard-of an action, terrifying and obliging her to fly, and at the same time cooling the natural heat of the flesh by the pain he put it to. This is sufficient to let us briefly see, to what a degree all the saints have hated and abhorred mortal sin. I could here give you the examples of some persons, who rolled themselves quite naked among briers and thorns ; and of others who have flung themselves into the snow, in the very depth of winter, to quench the fire of lust, which the enemy had kindled in them.

6. He, therefore, that designs to walk in the same path, must endeavor to fix this resolution deep in his soul, esteeming the friendship of God more than all the treasures of the world, and choosing, when occasion offers, to part freely with things of small value, for those that are of inestimable worth. Let this be the very basis of his life ; it is to this all his actions are to tend ; it is what he ought to beg earnestly of God in all his prayers ; it is for this he is to frequent the sacraments ; this is the fruit he must reap, by hearing sermons and reading good books ; it is the lesson he is to learn from the form and beauty of the world, with all the creatures that are in it. This is the chief benefit he is to make of the passion of our Saviour, and of all the rest of the Almighty's favors and graces, to wit, never to offend him to whom he is so infinitely indebted ; and it is this holy fear and firm resolution by which he is to measure his progress in virtue, looking on himself to have advanced so much the more or less, as he has been the more or less observant of his resolution.

7. And as a man that would drive a nail up to the head, is not content to give it three or four strokes, but continues hammering till he has drove it in ; so it is not enough to make this resolution any how, but a man must endeavor every day to apply whatsoever he shall see, hear, read or meditate on, to his further advance in the love of God, and in detestation of sin ; because the greater progress he makes in this hatred, the more forward he advances in that love, and consequently in all sorts of virtue.

8. He is, for his greater confirmation in this design, to be thoroughly convinced, that if all the ill accidents and all the pains that have ever been in the world, from its creation to this very day, with all the torments that the damned suffer in hell, were put together in one scale, and mortal sin into another, this would, without doubt, weigh down all the torments, as being a much greater evil, and, by consequence, such a one as deserves more to be avoided than all these pains and torments ; though the dreadful blindness and darkness of this Egypt make men imagine these things to be quite different from what they are in effect. But, after all, what wonder is it, that neither the blind should see so great an evil, nor the dead be sensible of so deep a wound, since it is impossible for the blind to see any thing, though ever so great, or for the dead to feel any wound, though it be mortal?

§ I. — 9. The subject of this second book being the doctrine of virtue, to which sin is directly opposite, the first part of it shall be spent in treating of the horror we ought to have of it, and of such particular remedies as may be applied to it ; because, if we can but once root these bad weeds out of the soul, it will be no hard matter to set the plants of virtues in their places ; whereof we will treat in the second part. We will seek here, not only of mortal but of venial sins ; not that these take away the life of the soul, but because they weaken and dispose it for death. And for this same reason we will here speak of the seven capital or deadly sins, which are the very heads and sources of all others ; not that they always happen to be mortal, but that they very often are so, when a commandment of God or of the church is broken, or any thing done contrary to charity.

10. In this doctrine, he that finds himself powerfully tempted by any vice may find remedies for all his distempers. Some of them, it is true, are general against all kinds of sins spoken of in the Memorial of a Christian Life, where I have given fifteen or sixteen remedies against sin ; others are particular and applicable only to particular sins, as to pride, covetousness, anger and the like. These are what we shall treat of at present, by applying to every peculiar vice its proper remedy, and by furnishing those persons, who are resolved to fight against sin, with spiritual weapons.

11. But you must here carefully observe, that, for fighting of this battle, wTe have more need of eyes to see what is done, than of hands to fight, or feet to run away. The eyes are the chief weapons man can use in this war, which is carried on, not against flesh and blood, but against the evil angels, which are spiritual creatures. The reason of this is, because the very first root of all sin is the error and deceit of the understanding, which counsels and directs the will ; and, therefore, our adversary's chief endeavor is to pervert the understanding*. For if this be perverted, the will, which is governed by it, must necessarily go the same way. For the better effecting of this, they color evil over with the appearance of good, and make vice pass for virtue, and cover the temptation so cunningly, that it appears to be necessity and reason, not a temptation. So that if, for example, they have a mind to tempt us by ambition, avarice, anger, or the desire of revenge, they endeavour to make us believe it is highly reasonable to desire what we do, and that to do the contrary would be to act against reason. Thus they make reason serve as a cloak to the temptation, that so they may by this means the better deceive even those who follow the dictates of reason. It is necessary, therefore, on this account, that a man should have eyes to discover the hook, which lies under the bait, and not to be deceived by the base form and appearance of good.

12. It is also requisite to have eyes here, to see the malice, the deformity, the danger, the losses, and all other inconveniences, which the vice we are tempted to perpetually carries along with it, that so we may keep our appetite in, and be afraid to taste that which, if once tasted, will infallibly be death to us. For this reason the mysterious animals in Ezekiel, which are the figures of the saints, were full of eyes all over, though their other members were but single, to give us to understand how necessary

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these spiritual eyes are to the servants of God, to seoure them against the snares of vice ; Ezek. ii. This is the chief remedy we shall make use of on this occasion ; to which we will join all others, that may be thought any ways necessary, as will appear hereafter.