Book III · Chapter 33

Of the Spiritual Goods distinctly cognisable by the Intellect and, the Memory. The conduct of the Will with respect to Joy in them.

The active night of memory and will: hope empties memory, and charity orders every joy toward God.

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My labour would be great here if I had now to treat of the manifold apprehensions of the Intellect and the Memory, teaching how to govern the Will with regard to rejoicing in them, if I had not already discussed them at considerable length in the second and in this book. Having there said how these two faculties are to be directed amid these apprehensions to the Divine union, and that the same applies to the will also, it is not necessary to return to the subject here, it being sufficient to repeat that as these two faculties are to be emptied of all such apprehensions, so the will also

is to repress all joy whatever in them.

What I have there said of emptying the Memory and the Intellect of all these apprehensions is applicable to the Will; for seeing that the intellect and the other faculties cannot admit or reject without the intervention of the will, it is clear that the same principle applies to the one as well as to the other. Every explanation, therefore, that the subject requires may be found there, for all the evils and dangers there enumerated will befall the soul if it does not refer unto God all the joy of the will in these apprehensions.