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The Spiritual Combat Together with the Supplement and the Path of Paradise
The Spiritual Combat Together with the Supplement and the Path of Paradise Author:Lorenzo Scupoli Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: because of the offence against God, he at once resumes his efforts, and pursues his enemies with new resolution and energy even to the death. I wish that some... more » persons—who think themselves spiritual—would well consider these things; who cannot, or will not, give themselves a moment's peace, when they have committed a fault . Such persons rush off to their spiritual father chiefly to relieve themselves of their anxiety and vexation, which arise from self-love more than from any thing else, although their first concern should be to be cleansed from the stain of their sins, and to be fortified against temptation by the most holy Sacrament. CHAPTER V. Of tlie mistake of manp, tofio boln lTimmitp for J Virtue. MANY persons fall into this error. These consider the fearfulness and restlessness which follow upon sin a virtuous feeling, (for it is accompanied by a certain dissatisfaction with one's self,) and do not see that it springs from a secret pride and from presumption, which are based on self-trust and self-reliance. Thinking themselves to be something, they have placedtoo much trust in their own strength. Their fall has obliged them to make the discovery that they do not possess this strength, and thus they are cast down and are full of wonder, as if something extraordinary had happened; and they become timid, because that trust in themselves, upon which they had foolishly leant, had given way. The humble man knows no such experience, for his sole trust is in God. He places no reliance on his own powers. When he falls into any fault he is indeed sorry, but he is neither disquieted nor surprised, for he knows, as the light j of truth has clearly manifested to him, that the fall is the result of his own weakness and misery. CHAPTER VI. further anbtte as to obtain...« less