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Rh desire and seek from Him only such things as are conducive to the love of His Divine Goodness, and to the fulfilment of His Will.

Every other petition and inquiry springs from self-love, pride, and the deceit of the devil.

If you follow these counsels you will escape many snares; for when the wily serpent sees that the will of those who are aiming at a spiritual life is strong and resolute, he uses his endeavours to overthrow their understanding, that he may thus master both the one and the other.

His plan is to instil into their minds—especially if they have an acute and subtle intellect, and are likely to be puffed up with pride—lofty and curious ideas; so that, being taken up with the pleasure of investigating such subjects, in which they falsely imagine that they are delighting in God, they may neglect to cleanse their hearts, and to acquire self-knowledge and true mortification. Thus, falling into the snare of pride, they make an idol of their own intellect.

Hence, gradually and imperceptibly, they come to the conviction that they have no need of the guidance or instruction of others, accustomed as they have been, in all cases, to lean upon the idol of their own judgment.

Such a condition is a perilous one, and not easily cured, for pride of the understanding is far