Innocent XI, 1676-1689

in this manner God lives and reigns in us, and the soul annihilates itself in operative being.

1226. 6. The interior way is that in which neither light, nor love, nor resignation is recognized, and it is not necessary to understand God, and in this way one makes progress correctly.

1227. 7. A soul ought to consider neither the reward, nor punishment, nor paradise, nor hell, nor death, nor eternity.

1228. 8. He ought not to wish to know whether he is progressing with the will of God, or whether or not with the same resigned will he stands still; nor is it necessary that he wish to know his own state or his own nothingness; but he ought to remain as an inanimate body.

1229. 9. The soul ought not to remember either itself, or God, or anything whatsoever, and in the interior life all reflection is harmful, even reflection upon its human actions and upon its own defects.

1230. 10. If one scandalizes others by one's own defects, it is not necessary to reflect, as long as the will to scandalize is not present, and not to be able to reflect upon one's own defects, is a grace of God.

1231. 11. It is not necessary to reflect upon doubts whether one is proceeding rightly or not.

1232. 12. He who gives his own free will to God should care about nothing, neither about hell, nor about heaven; neither ought he to have a desire for his own perfection, nor for virtues, nor his own sanctity, nor his own salvation, the hope of which he ought to remove.

1233. 13. After our free will has been resigned to God, reflection and care about everything of our own must be left to that same God, and we ought to leave it to Him, so that He may work His divine will in us without us.

1234. 14. It is not seemly that he who is resigned to the divine will, ask anything of God; because asking is an imperfection, since the act is of one's own will and election, and this is wishing that the divine will be conformed to ours, and not that ours be conformed to the divine; and this from the Gospel: "Seek you shall find" [John 16:24], was not said by Christ for interior souls who do not wish to have free will; nay indeed, souls of this kind reach this state, that they cannot seek anything from God.

1235. 15. Just as they ought not ask anything from God, so should they not give thanks to Him for anything, because either is an act of their own will.

1236. 16. It is not proper to seek indulgences for punishment due to one's own sins, because it is better to satisfy divine justice than to seek divine mercy, since the latter proceeds from pure love of God, and the former from an interested love of ourselves, and that is not a thing pleasing to God and meritorious, because it is a desire to shun the cross.

1237. 17. When free will has been surrendered to God, and the care and