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F sometimes the higher will should seem to you powerless against the lower, and its other enemies, because you do not feel that your will is effectually set against them, yet stand firm and do not leave off fighting; for you must regard yourself as victorious, until you can clearly see that you have given way.

For since the higher will can act without the lower, so the higher can never be compelled by the lower to yield, however hot the assaults of the latter may be.

God has, in truth, given to the will such liberty and such power, that, if all the senses, all evil spirits, and all the world were to conspire together, and with their combined strength to assault and oppress it, the will could still in spite of them will or will not whatever it liked with perfect freedom, and could assert itself when it liked, and as often as, for as long as, in what manner, and for whatever end, best pleased it.

And if these enemies should ever attack you and press you with such violence as almost to stifle your will, so as to leave you, as it were,