Spiritual Guide Which Disentangles the Soul - Michael de Molinos - 1st Book - Chapter 9 and 10

9

Repeating the point.
We are so broken that we would be undone. Therefore God in compassion assaults us with temptations so that we might know ourselves and be humble. Then, the infinite goodness humbles us, giving us the most wholesome medicine.

It may seem at some point like these temptations are an early beginning of the suffering of eternal punishments. The Spiritual Director must comfort them.

So all these temptations are caused by the Devil, and received by the hand of God, for our gain and profit.

The neighbors molestation of you is not prevented by God because God wills not the sin of another, but he wills his own effect in you, and the trouble that accrues from another's fault, that God may see you emproved by the benefit of patience.
[Michael obviously never encountered a battered spouse; good to know this is not the teaching of the Church now.]

The passion and death of Jesus were the effects of the wicked Pilot, yet God willed the death of his son for our redemption.

10

In order to purify the heart, God causes these temptations so that we may be confident in our inability to stand up to these without God.

The remedy, or response to these temptations, is to despise them, neglect them.

So there is no way to proceed on the path to internal peace than to go through the valley of temptation.