which He so much desires; and because of its utter opposition to His Divine Perfections. For being Himself the Sovereign Good, Pure Light, and Infinite Beauty, He cannot but infinitely abhor and detest sin, which is nothing but darkness, defect, and an insufferable deformity of our souls.
So burning, indeed, is the hatred of the Lord against sin, that all that He has wrought both in the Old Testament and in the New had for its end the destruction of sin; above all, the most holy Passion of His Son, Who (as some of God's enlightened servants have said) would, if needful, expose Himself anew to a thousand deaths, to destroy in us every fault, even the smallest.
These reflections will aid you to form an idea, however imperfectly, of the intensity with which the Lord desires to enter into your heart, in order that He might drive out and exterminate every enemy both of Himself and of you; and thus will you yourself be stirred up with a lively desire to receive Him, for the same object.
The hope of the arrival of our Heavenly Captain will encourage and inspirit us to challenge repeatedly the passion which we have set ourselves to overcome, and to repress it by a constant and deadly opposition, and to make acts of the contrary virtue; and this you should
