Faith

17. The way of faith is sound and safe, and along this souls must journey on from virtue to virtue, shutting their eyes against every object of sense and of clear and particular perception.

18. When the inspirations are from God they are always in the order of the motives of His law, and of the faith, in the perfection of which the soul should ever draw nearer and nearer to God.

19. The soul that travels in the light and verities of the faith is secured against error, for error proceeds ordinarily from our own proper desires, tastes, reflections, and understanding, wherein there is generally too much or too little ; and hence the inclination to that which is not seemly.

20. By the faith the soul travels protected against the devil, its strongest and craftiest foe ; and St. Peter knew of no stronger defence against him when he said : ' Resist him, strong in the faith/

21. The soul that would draw near unto God and unite itself with Him, must do so by not comprehending rather than by comprehending, in utter forgetfulness of created things ; because it must change the mutable and comprehensible for the immutable and the incomprehensible, Who is God.

22. Outward light enables us to see that we may not fall ; it is otherwise in the things of God, for there it is better not to see, and the soul is in greater security.

23. It being certain that in this life we know God better by what He is not than by what He is, it is necessary, if we are to draw near unto Him, that the soul must deny, to the uttermost, all that may be denied of its apprehensions, both natural and supernatural.

24. All apprehension and knowledge of supernatural things cannot help us to love God so much as the least act of living faith and hope made in detachment from all things.

25. As in natural generation no new form results without the corruption of the one previously existing — for this hinders the former by reason of the contrariety between them — so while the soul is under the dominion of the sensual and animal spirit, the pure and heavenly spirit can never enter.

26. Let no created thing have a place in your heart if you would have the face of God pure and clear in your soul ; yea, rather empty your spirit of all created things, and you will walk in the divine light ; for God resembles no created thing.

27. The greatest shelter of the soul is Faith ; for the Holy Ghost gives it light : the more pure and refined the soul in a perfect living faith, the greater the infusion of charity, and the greater the communication of supernatural gifts and light.

28. One of the greatest gifts of God to the soul in this life — not permanent but transient — is that deep sense and understanding of God by which it feels and understands clearly, that it can neither understand nor feel Him at all.

29. The soul that leans upon its own understanding, sense, or feeling of its own — all this being very little and very unlike to God — in order to travel on the right road, is most easily led astray or hindered, because it is not periectly blind in faith, which is its true guide.

30. There is one thing in our day that ought to make us afraid : persons who have hardly begun to make their meditations if they seem to hear anything in a brief recollection, pronounce it to have come from God ; and so imagine, saying, God has spoken or I have had an answer from God, and it is not so : these persons have been speaking to themselves, out of a longing for such communications.

31. He who should now inquire of God by vision or revelation would offend Him, because he does not fix his eyes upon Christ alone. To such an one the answer of God is : This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased, hear Him, and do not seek for new instructions, for in Him I have spoken and revealed all that may be desired and asked for ; I have given Him to be your brother, master, companion, ransom, and reward.

32. We must be guided in all things by the teaching of Christ and His Church, and thereby seek the remedy for our spiritual ignorances and infirmities : it is thus that we shall obtain abundant relief ; and all that goes beyond this is not only curiosity but great rashness.

33. You are not to believe that which you hear in a supernatural way, but only that which you learn through the teaching of Christ and His ministers.

34. The soul that seeks after revelations sins venially at least ; so does the director who encourages or allows that seeking, be the end sought never so good ; there is no necessity at all for this, seeing that we have our natural reason and the evangelical law to guide us in all things.

35. The soul that desires revelations undermines the perfect guidance of the faith, and opens a door for Satan to deceive it by false revelations ; for he knows well how to disguise them so as to make them appear good.

36. The wisdom of the saints consists in knowing how to direct the will courageously to God, in the perfect fulfilment of His law and His holy counsels.