give advice more suitable to our condition; and opens our hearts, that we may with more confidence express ourselves in our future confessions. Speaking, then, of a general renewing of our hearts, and of an entire conversion of our souls to God, by means of a devout life, it seems reasonable to me, Philothea, that I recommend this general confession.
CHAPTER VII.
The second Purification, which is that from affection to sin.
All the Israelites departed, indeed, out of the land of Egypt, but they did not all depart heartily and willingly; wherefore, in the wilderness, many of them repined that they had not the onions and flesh-pots of Egypt. Thus there are penitents who, in effect, forsake sin, but not from their hearts: that is, they purpose to sin no more; but it is with a certain reluctance of heart to abstain from the mischievous delights of sin. Their hearts renounce sin, and avoid it, but they cease not to look back often that way, as Lot's wife did towards Sodom. They abstain from sin, as sick men do from melons, which they abstain from because the physician threatens them with death if they eat them ; but it is troublesome to them to refrain: they talk of them and are unwilling to believe them hurtful; they would at least smell them, and account those happy who may eat them. Thus those weak and faint-hearted penitents abstain from sin for a time, but to their grief: they would like to sin without running the risk of damnation; they speak of sin with a kind of satisfaction and relish, and think those happy who deliver themselves up to it.
A man resolved to revenge himself will renounce the desire in confession; but soon after he will be
