Untitled - Saints' Books

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262 Material for Instructions. [PART n.
advice of the Wise Man," says Abelly, we should pray
to God with our whole heart." Hence St. Cyprian
teaches that the first means of obtaining chastity is to
ask it of God. 2 And before him Solomon said: And as
I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave
it y
and this also was a point of wisdom, to know whose gift
it
was : I went to the Lord, and besought Him, and said with
m\>
whole heart?
We should then, says St. Cyprian, instantly resist the
first carnal solicitations with which the devil assails us,
and not permit the serpent, that is, the temptation, to
grow strong. 4 St. Jerome gives this same advice: You
must not permit bad thoughts to grow in your mind;
to kill
no, kill the enemy when he is small." It is
easy
a lion when he is small, but not when he has grown to
his full size.
Let us guard against reasoning with temptations con
trary to chastity: let us endeavor instantly to banish
them. And, as the spiritual masters teach, the best
means of banishing such temptations is not to combat
them directly face to face, by making contrary acts of
the will, but to get rid of them indirectly by acts of the
love of God, or of contrition, or at least by turning the
mind to other things.
1 "
Idcirco, juxta Sapientis monitum (Wisd. viii 21) adeundus est
Dominus, et ex totis praecordiis deprecandus." Saceni. Chr. p. 5,
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2
c. 14.
Inter haec, imo et ante haec omnia, de divinus castris auxilium
De Disc, et Bono pudic.
Et ut scivi quoniam aliter non possem esse continens,
petendum est."
3 "
nisi Deus
det, et hoc ipsum erat sapientiae, scire cujus esset hoc donum, adii
Dominum, et deprecatus sum ilium, et dixi ex totis praecordiis meis."
Wisd. viii. 21.
4
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Primis diaboli titillationibus obviandum est, nee foveri debet
5 "
coluber donee in draconem formetur." De Jej. et Tent. Chr.
Nolo sinas cogitationem crescere; dum parvus est hostis, interfice."
Ep. ad Etistocli.