29. * But even good people are now and then perturbed : have they then no light ? —When our Lord Jesus Christ was drawing near his passion, his agony of suffering pierced his soul and called forth the rebuke to Judas at the table and St Peter on the mount, to whom he said, “ Couldst thou not watch with me a while ? Thou who didst promise to be with me unto death.” But he did not on this account lose the light of unity. Once more har- monious with his Father’s will he was filled with joy at having in
‚accord therewith submitted willingly to pain. The fact of being moved involves no loss of light: anything conceived in time is moved in time. While we are in time we are affected by time. But the more imperturbable one is the more one is established in eternity. By their deeds ye shall know them. |
80. He alone can do God’s will who resigns his own. We are strong in proportion as we are inspired with divine power to withstand the things that come between ourselves: and God. When we stand in our primitive innocence, then at last we begin to live.
81. “But when is a man in a state of primitive innocence ? ’— Primitive innocence is not attained without divine light. Simple, primitive innocence reigns when the pattern of all virtues is present in a man and he stands without impediment of nature in the eternal truth. It is only by treading upon creature that we reach the bottom rung of Godhood.—‘ What is the bottom rung of Godhood ? ’—It is spiritualised nature.
82. ‘Sir, is it better having and giving or not having and letting ? —Letting is better than giving. Giving adds more lustre, letting shows more spirituality. We shed our blood; the saints let their blood be shed.
83. ‘ Will you tell me, Sir, what causes the decay of tenderness ? ’ — What is the tenderness you mean ?—‘ I mean interior tenderness.’ — To have it is a sign of immaturity ; to lose it betokens ado- lescence. The father pets his child when the child is young but as it gets to know its father’s will he grows seemingly less fond and this less obvious fondness is an indication of the child’s approach to man’s estate. With the soul it is the same. His tenderness to her proclaims her immature, but as she grows in knowledge and _ constant harmony with the will of God he inspires her with less irrational fondness and this is a sign she is developing.
85. That alone is perfect which does not seek for aught outside
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‚itself. Whatever we can say about perfection to that we can attain.—A gentle man is one whose serenity no trouble can dis- turb.—We stand before God while we do not cross the will of God.
36. When does God work in man unhindered ?—God finds no hindrance in a man who takes both good and ill from God with the
‚same thankfulness.
87. Sure proof of true humility is the fearful joy of being praised. For on coming into touch with truth and finding in himself a witness of it, a man is sensible of pleasure but fears it as a likely cause of his undoing.
88. The right loyal heart receives with bitterness inventions of the soul which are not sent by God.—That heart is kind whose graciousness is proof against every good and ill.
89. The treasure of God is loss of possessions, people’s despisery, sickness and submission to God.
41. Our Lord Jesus Christ waxed not at all in eternal light ; but the things he taught, in beholding these he took peculiar pleasure.
42. Pious folk should imitate the deified man, Christ. By imitating Christ I mean becoming Godlike. What I mean by Godlike is, your words, deeds, conduct, being free from human wont. By human I mean imperfect. In proportion to his im- perfection a man is moveable by aught or anybody can be (moved) by him.—‘ What do you mean by moveable ? —By moveable I mean not impatience only : moveable I call anything affected by either good or ill and that can in anywise be anything to anyone or to whom anyone can as such be anything, and I call immoveable only that which nothing can affect and which affects nothing. That man then I call immoveable to whom good and ill are just the same ; who is as far as possible exempt from the agitations of both joy and sorrow. It will never be natural to him that his emotions stir not independently of mind. But once the mind takes charge, it is all over and as it was before and then the man is not a mortal man, he is man deified.
43. Good people have three sorts of expert knowledge. In the first place the intelligence is sharpened so that it estimates correctly the smallest thing presented to it: its more or less amount of sensible admixture they gauge to a nicety and can act accord- ingly.—In the second place, when they have to do a thing they can always tell whether it proceeds from the ground of God. or the ground of nature. Thirdly, so subtile is their understanding that any ghostly form, the very faintest light, which appears to them, they recognise for fiend or spirit.
44. The true test of interior perfection is that nothing thou doest from without casts any shadow within.
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45. When the Godhead began to inquire how mankind could be
restored to its original perfection, the Father sat in counsel in the ‚chamber of the Holy Trinity. The Father said, ‘ Who shall we send to save mankind ?’ Answered him the Son and said, ‘ Father, send me: I will save mankind.’ Then stooped him down the eternal Word of the heavenly Father, that is to say, his Son, who is the middle Person of the Holy Trinity, and clad himself in human nature. Remaining what he was he took upon him that which he was not and was thus obedient to his Father in heaven and not in heaven only but on earth as well. Obedience to his Father and love towards mankind constrained him to perfect all his Father’s work. .
46. ‘Sir, for God’s sake, may I ask you something that I want to know, something very subtle ?’—By all means. Whatever it may be and however subtle, I will try and answer. Ask me what you will.— Well, what I want to know is this: was our Lord Jesus Christ hindered in any way by doing outward works ?’ —I can give you a definite answer to that. The soul of Christ was never an independent entity as such. It no sooner was than it was Christ; directly it was made, straightway it was united ; first one and then the other it is true but yet both timeless. At his first appearance Christ was snatched from independence into the keeping of the middle Person of the Trinity where in essential wisdom he gazes without blenching at the naked fullness of the divine perfection. From the moment when Christ’s soul and body were united with the Godhead his soul has been gazing at the Godhead as it is doing to this day. As to the lower powers of his soul which function in the body making possible his preaching and his teaching and the other things he did, there the joy of contemplation was diminished somewhat: not the vision but the pleasure of the sight. But the higher powers of his soul, wherein he was united, these remained always in unveiled contemplation. Now I have explained how Christ was hindered and at the same time not. One thing more and let that suffice as giving you the key to the whole matter. The hindrance was physical not psychic. But even so he never failed in the minutest point to fulfil the mission on which his Father sent him, preaching and teaching and doing outward works whereby he earned reward and honour.
47. ‘ Could Christ earn reward ? ’—There are two rewards ; one of them Christ earned, the other not. One of the rewards we earn by our good works is the vision of the Godhead. This reward Christ did not earn since from the moment Christ’s body was united with the Godhead, his soul has been gazing at the Godhead, as it is doing to this day. The other reward we earn by our good
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works is the glorification of the body with the soul after the day of judgment and this-reward Christ earned by his holy life, his body being glorified together with his soul at his resurrection. Now thou knowest how Christ did earn reward and also not.
48. ‘ Just one other thing.’ —Tell me, what is that ?—‘ You say that Christ gained honour. What honour did he gain? — Christ has the title of The Head of Holy Christendom and this honour Christ has won by his holy life.
49. ‘A man to whom eternal light is given, is he prone to sin in time ? ’—One to whom eternal light is given may well stoop to imperfection and sometimes falls an easier prey to frivolity and suchlike venial sins than another man.—‘ What is the cause of this propensity ? ’—It comes from being engrossed in one simple thing ; multitudinous images disturb the soul, tossing her about with their various conceits. Once conceiving unity she is dis- tracted by diversity. But as soon as she begins to see, it is as though it had never been and she can free herself completely without the slightest effort ; which is a sign that she has eternal light. To see and be unable to escape would argue lack of eternal light. You know now how it is that people, even with eternal light, are prone to sin. St Paul sinned after he had been caught up.
50. The first and noblest work of God is motionlessness : divine rest. It stands to reason that the maker of the motionless is him- self unmoved. Were God not immoveable there could nothing motionless be made.
Aristotle says all moving things proceed from rest and from necessity and moving things are all seeking rest. Man likewise then ought to be as motionless as possible.—* When is a man motionless ? ’—The soul is motionless when nothing whatever can perturb her; when she is neither glad nor sad and cannot be gladdened nor yet saddened. And she must be unnecessitous.— “When is she unnecessitous ? —The soul is unnecessitous when she has no need to cleave to any creature and not only has no need, it is hell-pain to her to dwell upon the form of creature since there is no rest for her save in the formless form of God. She is un- necessitous when she has come into her rights and, with no need of change, rests in the unnecessitous nothingness of his unchanging nature.
51. ‘Sir, what did St Paul mean by saying, ‘‘ We shall be one spirit with God?” When is the soul one spirit with God ? ’—She is one spirit with God when she has no image or anything between. And she is turned to spirit when she is not subject to any creature love or appetite.
52. ‘Sir, what is perfect love ? ’—Perfect love leaves nothing
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less than God.—‘ Pray tell me what you mean.’—I mean, having hold of nothing but God they cannot leave go of less than God, who are as they should be. Natural ties have been cut.
53. * Tell me, Sir, for the love of God, is it possible to pray or ask of God quite unselfishly ?’—Oh yes. I will tell you how. There are two cases of unselfish prayer. The first is on our own account, that we may be rid of some imperfection which comes between us and eternal truth. The second case is prayer for some other person’s sin, knowing all the facts and that he desires to be free. For these things we may pray and with avidity. But our human will must confine itself to the will of God, as thus : ' Lord, thou knowest I desire not nor do I will aught save what thou dost will: an thou know something better, give me that,’ so losing thine own and keeping his.
54. ‘Sir, what about the man they talk of sometimes among pious folk, who sets such store by physical austerities and long- winded prayers ; is that the best or is there something better ? ’— The most perfect bond that we can have is innocence, a blame- less life, and being wholly without guile it is best to drop words altogether for words are interlopers between ourselves and God.