The Foundations of the Spiritual Life - Drawn From the Book of the Imitation of Jesus Christ #271618

Sinfulness and His Holiness, our own boundless misery and His boundless Mercy, is the condition for prayer, the preparation for Sacraments, the ground of penitence, the element of faith, hope, and love. Of course, this must not be understood negatively, (as it too often is,) to the exclusion or disparagement of any truth not distinctly expressed in it, (this were at once heretical,) but as entering into all; not as a distinct confession of faith, but as the outline of it, and the life of all our practice.