new confidence and a firm resolve to abide always with God. For to
consent to sin, or to the animal desires of the bodily nature, is a
separation from God.

Purity of body means that a man abstains from impure actions of
every kind, when his conscience assures him that they are impure and
contrary to the commandments, to the glory, and to the will of God.

Thanks to these three kinds of purity, the seventh deadly sin, that
of wantonness, is conquered and driven away. Wantonness is a
voluptuous inclination of the spirit, leading away from God towards
a created thing; it is the impure act of the flesh outside what
Holy Church permits, and the carnal occupation of the heart in some
taste or desire for a creature. I do not here refer to those sudden
stirrings of love or desire which none can escape.

You now know that purity of spirit preserves men in the likeness of
God, without care for the creatures, inclined towards God and united
to Him. The chastity of the body is compared to the whiteness of the
lily and to the purity of the angels. In its resistance to
temptation, it is compared to the redness of the rose, and to the
nobility of the martyrs. If it is preserved for love of God and in
His honour, it is then perfect, and it is compared to the
heliotrope, for it is one of the highest adornments of nature.

Purity of heart renews and increases the grace of God. In purity of
heart all the virtues are inspired, practised, and preserved. It
keeps and preserves the outer senses, it subdues and binds the
animal desires within, and it is the ornament of all the inner life.
It is the exclusion of the heart from things of earth and from all