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AND of these passions as the occasions are recognized by everybody as
soon as they are laid open by the teaching of the elders, so before they
are revealed, although we are all overcome by them, and they exist in every
one, yet nobody knows of them. But we trust that we shall be able in some
measure to explain them, if by your prayers that word of the Lord, which
was announced by Isaiah, may apply to us also--"I will go before thee, and
bring low the mighty ones of the land, I will break the gates of brass, and
cut asunder the iron bars, and I will open to thee concealed treasures and
hidden secrets"--so that the word of the Lord may go before us also, and
first may bring low the mighty ones of our land, i.e. these same evil
passions which we are desirous to overcome, and which claim for themselves
dominion and a most horrible tyranny in our mortal body; and may make them
yield to our investigation and explanation, and thus breaking the gates of
our ignorance, and cutting asunder the bars of vices which shut us out from
true knowledge, may lead to the hidden things of our secrets, and reveal to
us who have been illuminated, according to the Apostle's word, "the hidden
things of darkness, and may make manifest the counsels of the hearts,"
that thus penetrating with pure eyes of the mind to the foul darkness of
vices, we may be able to disclose them and drag them forth to light; and
may succeed in explaining their occasions and natures to those who are
either free from them, or are still tied and bound by them, and so passing
as the prophet says, through the fire of vices which terribly inflame
our minds, we may be able forthwith to pass also through the water of
virtues which extinguish them unharmed, and being bedewed (as it were) with
spiritual remedies may be found worthy to be brought in purity of heart to
the consolations of perfection.
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