Citizens and criminals are not lodged in like abodes; so also the life and conduct of those whose faults call for sighs and tears should not resemble those of men who have remained innocent and have nothing to expiate.
Were it otherwise, how would the guilty, great though their crimes may have been, differ in their punishment and expiation from the innocent? Iniquity would then be more free than innocence. Renounce all, therefore, contemn all, separate thyself from all, that thou mayest lay deep the foundations of sincere penance.
He who truly loves Jesus Christ, and sorrows for Him, who bears Him in his heart and in his body, will have no thought, or care, or solicitude for aught else. Such a one will sincerely mourn over his sins and offences, will long after eternal happiness, will remember the Judgment and will think diligently on his last end in lowly fear. He, then, who wishes to arrive speedily at a blessed impassibility and to reach God, counts that day lost on which he has not been ill-spoken of and despised.
What is this impassibility but freedom from the vices and passions, purity of heart, the adornment of virtue?
Count thyself as already dead, since thou must needs die some day.
And now, but one word more. Let this be the test of thy thoughts, words, and deeds. If they render thee more humble, more recollected in God, more strong, then they are according to God. But if thou findest it otherwise, then fear lest all is not according to God, acceptable to Him, or profitable to thyself.
CHAPTER XVI
OF THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD, WHICH WATCHES OVER ALL THINGS