ase God and man, have one property which
pleases God, and another which pleases men; as the greatness of Saint
Teresa. What pleased God was her deep humility in the midst of her
revelations; what pleased men was her light. And so we torment ourselves
to imitate her discourses, thinking to imitate her conditions, and not
so much to love what God loves, and to put ourselves in the state which
God loves.

It is better not to fast, and thereby humbled, than to fast and be
self-satisfied therewith. The Pharisee and the Publican.[188]

What use will memory be to me, if it can alike hurt and help me, and all
depends upon the blessing of God, who gives only to things done for Him,
according to His rules and in His ways, the manner being as important as
the thing, and perhaps more; since God can bring forth good out of evil,
and without God we bring forth evil out of good?

500

The meaning of the words, good and evil.

501

First step: to be blamed for doing evil, and praised for doing good.

Second step: to be neither praised, nor blamed.

502

Abraham[189] took nothing for himself, but only for his servants. So the
righteous man takes for himself nothing of the world, nor the applause
of the world, but only for his passions, which he uses as their master,
saying to the one, "Go," and to another, "Come." _Sub te erit appetitus
tuus._[190] The passions thus subdued are virtues. Even God attributes
to Himself avarice, jealousy, anger; and these are virtues as well as
kindness, pity, constancy, which are also passions. We must employ them
as slaves, and, leaving to them their food, prevent the soul from taking
any of it. For, when the passions become masters, they are vices; and
they give their nutriment to the soul, and the soul nourishes itself
upon it, and is poisoned.

503

Philosophers have consecrated the vices by placing them in God Himself.
Christians have consecrated the virtues.

504

The just man acts by faith in the least things; when he reproves his
servants, he desires their conversion by the Spirit of God, and prays
God to correct them; and he expects as much from God as from his own
reproofs, and prays God to bless his corrections. And so in all his
other actions he proceeds with the Spirit of God; and his actions
deceive us by reason of the ... or suspension of the Spirit of God in
him; and he repents in his affliction.

505

All things can be deadly to us, even the things made to