Now the food of the passions, as we have already stated many times, consists of sense-impressions. They nourish the passions by attacking the soul with a succession of mental fantasies or idols. This is why Moses put screens of latticework round the altar in the tabernacle (cf. Exod. 27:4), signifying that if we wish to keep our mind pure like a tabernacle we should do the same. Just as the lattices round the altar prevented anything unclean from entering, so we should weave a mental barrier against the senses by reflecting on the terrors of the coming judgment, and so bar the entry to unclean
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