seeking my own pleasure, omitting that of Almighty God and of my neighbours; and it is called my oumb ecause my will being the workmanship of Almighty God, created to conform itself with His divine will, I rebel against this, and appropriate it to myself alone, as if it were my own, and use it to seek only that which is to my own liking. For what theft is more unjust and what robbery more tyrannical than to steal and rob from Almighty God the will that He gave me, and by that means to rebel, always contradicting His will? And what wickedness is there more horrible than that my will, entering into conflict with the will of God, mine should remain vanquisher and God's will be vanquished, treading His mil under foot in regard of my own? [1]
Colloquy. — O omnipotent God, by Thy infinite mercy, permit not in me such injustice!
2. Then consider how self-will is the root of all the vices and sins that I commit and of all that are committed in the world; all which we may reduce to three heads, i. The first is, a general disobedience to all that Almighty God commands by Himself or by His ministers, so that our own will is the capital enemy of all laws, both divine and human, but especially of religious laws; for all religion is founded upon the mortification of self-will, which if it lives religion dies, and if religion is to live self-will must die. ii. The second vice is, to wrest and make abortive the intention, in the good that it does; doing it, not because it is the will of Almighty God, but for other ends of its own vain, interested, and sensual pleasures, by which the good is converted into evil, and that which might have been pleasing to Almighty God becomes displeasing [2] to Him. As our Lord Himself said by the prophet Isaias, " In the day of your fast your own will is found." iii. The third vice is, to appro-
