a
great
impurity.
However,
it
has
now
happened
seasonably,
and
to
endeavour
to
order
things
other-wise,
would
be
to
purify
ourselves
in
a
different
way
from
that
which
God
desires,
and
therefore
to
defile
ourselves
anew.
This
does
not
prevent
our
making
mistakes
in
this
outward
development
of
the
senses;
but
the
confusion
which
it
occasions
us,
and
our
fidelity
in
making
use
of
it,
is
the
furnace
in
which
we
are
most
quickly
purified,
by
dying
the
soonest
to
our-selves.
It
is
here
also
that
we
lose
the
esteem
of
men.
They
look
on
us
with
contempt,
and
say,
"
Are
not
these
the
persons
whom
we
formerly
admired
?
How
are
they
become
thus
disfigured
?
"
"Alas!"
we
reply,
"look
not
upon
me,
because
I
am
black
"
(Cant.
I
6).
"
It
is
the
sun
which
has
thus
discoloured
me."
It
is
at
this
point
that
we
suddenly
enter
the
third
degree,
that
of
burial
and
decay.
