humility when occasions offered themselves; believe that you have lost so much time, and make a firm resolution not to let the remaining part of the day pass in the same manner. You will find it impossible to observe this rule, without gradually advancing, and making in a short time a considerable progress in the way of perfection.
CHAPTER XII.
In order to attain Perfection, we should never deliberately commit any Faulty nor be remiss in our Endeavours to become perfect.
In order to attain perfection, to which during life we should continually aspire, it is of the utmost importance never to commit any fault deliberately. This being premised, we must understand that there are two sorts of venial sins: one, into which those who fear God most, often fall, through frailty, ignorance, and inadvertence; although there is generally a little negligence mixed with these frailties. They who serve God faithfully and with an upright heart, should find in these faults rather a subject of humiliation than of affliction: for God will not on that account abandon them, but on the contrary, will afford them his divine grace, and animate them with fresh courage, when upon these occasions they humbly address themselves to him. There is another species of venial sins, into which they who are cold and remiss in the service of God wilfully and deliberately fall. These faults are a very great obstacle to those graces which God in his infinite goodness would have bestowed on us, if we had not committed them. These are also the cause why we find no comfort or satisfaction in prayer, and that God ceases to impart to us those spiritual consolations and favours, which he was accustomed to bestow. So that if we intend to advance in Christian perfection, and to engage Almighty God to continue his favours towards us, we must be very careful never to commit a wilful or deliberate fault. Those we daily commit, through ignorance or inadvertence, are but too many, and therefore we should not multiply greater faults. Our distractions in prayer, springing from the natural -inconstancy and wanderings of the imagination, are but too great, without voluntarily diverting our minds to other objects: and the faults which through frailty we often commit, contrary to what is required by the strictness of our rule and profession, are such, as we need not aggravate by consent.
