.  .  .  Hence,  they  who  are  aiming  at  perfection  must,  above
all  things,  avoid  the  bond  of  marriage,  which,  in  a  pre-eminent
degree,  entangles  men  in  earthly  concerns.  .  .  .  Therefore,
the  second  means  whereby  a  man  may  be  more  free  to  devote
himself  to  God,  and  to  cleave  more  perfectly  to  Him,  is  by  the
observance  of  perpetual  chastity.  But  continence  possesses  the
further  advantage  of  affording  a  peculiar  facility  to  the  acquire-
ment of  perfection.  For  the  soul  is  hindered  in  its  free  access
to  God  not  only  by  the  love  of  exterior  things,  but  much  more
by  force  of  interior  passions."  ^

"It  is  not  only  necessary  for  the  perfection  of  charity  that  a
man  should  sacrifice  his  exterior  possessions;  he  must  also,  in  a
certain  sense,  relinquish  himself.  .  .  .  This  practice  of  salu-
tary self-abnegation  and  charitable  self-hatred  is,  in  part,  neces-
sary for  all  men  in  order  to  salvation,  and  is  partly  a  point  of
perfection.  .  .  .  It  is  in  the  nature  of  divine  love  that  he  who
loves  should  belong,  not  to  himself,  but  to  the  one  beloved.  It  is
necessary,  therefore,  that  self-abnegation  and  self-hatred  be  pro-
portionate to  the  degree  of  divine  love  existing  in  an  individual
soul.  It  is  essential  to  salvation  that  a  man  should  love  God  to
such  a  degree  as  to  make  Him  his  end,  and  to  do  nothing  which
he  believes  to  be  opposed  to  the  Divine  love.  Consequently,  self-
hatred  and  self-denial  are  necessary  for  salvation.  .  .  .  But
in  order  to  attain  perfection,  we  must  further,  for  the  love  of
God,  sacrifice  what  we  might  lawfully  use,  in  order  thus  to  be
more  free  to  devote  ourselves  to  Him.  It  follows,  therefore,  that
self-hatred  and  self-denial  pertain  to  perfection.  .  .  .  Now,
the  more  dearly  a  thing  is  loved  according  to  nature,  the  more


'Op.  cit.,  pp.  26-28.
