“Word in him, as it comes pouring eternally out of the ground of itself. Thirdly, we can recognise the eternal Word in our Lord’s friends who, having followed this eternal Word, have gotten proof of it in life eternal, and also those that follow it in time, such, namely, as are quick in our Lord Jesus Christ. Fourthly, we have the eternal Word as spoken in the virgin soul by God himself ; wordlessly, to wit, since the soul is not able to express him.
I would have you know that the eternal Word is being born within the soul, its very self, no less, unceasingly. I tell you, the soul knows the eternal Word better than all the doctors can ex- pound it. What we can express is all too little, so for the nonce she is bearing the eternal Word in mind. According to the masters we ought by rights to go to school where the Holy Ghost is teacher ; and know, where he is teacher and is bound to be, there he finds students properly equipped to profit by his lofty teaching which issues from out the Father’s heart. So the soul has, if she will, the Father and the Son and Holy Ghost : she goes flowing into the one where naked in naked is revealed to her. Our masters say that no one can attain to this so long as he retains of nether things as much as a needle-point can carry. Into the naked Godhead none may get except he be as naked as he was when he was spilt from God.
The masters say, giving us wise counsel, that leaving God his glory we ought to get all things direct from him and not from creatures. We shall leave God his glory by leaving him to work just how he will and when he will, we staying idle and free. For
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we must see that God does all for the best. And so I trow it lies with us, so far as it is in us, to help God to preserve his glory.
A master says, Little recks the king of those of his retainers who perform the drudgery. He notices the ones about his privy chambers and gratifies their every want. God does the same with his chosen friends, the intimates of his mysterious privacy : he never turns a deaf ear to their prayer. Withal the masters do affirm that numbers go to heaven who know no more of God on earth than, as it were, of sun in forest gloom. Desiring this supremely it rests with us to compass it by practice and by strength of will. Amen.
I Know a Man in Christ
Scio hominem in Christo ante annos quatuordecim etc. (2 Cor. 12,). St Paul declares: ‘I know a man who fourteen years ago was caught up into the third heaven ; whether in the body or no I cannot tell: God knoweth.’ Now granting Paul was there at, any time, then either body and soul both turned to spirit or else his soul took wing out of his body. It is certain that his soul left not his body, for she was giving life unto his body; she must then have seen God in her and herself in him.
The soul has three powers: mind, will and rage. These three powers are in league with deity. Will cleaving unto God can do all things. God seized of his divinity bestows upon her power and fecundity. Mind cleaving to the Son knows with the Son; it knows with the Son when it is void of knowledge. The third power is the power of attack, which is connected with the Holy Ghost. This power is ever making for the source whence it proceeded forth and the Holy Ghost is its initiator into the eternal nature: it floods the secret chamber of the soul, and lo! she loses time and place in the eternal, in time transcending time. But for the soul this is not enough: had she enough she would have time in lieu of her eternity. Let us not flag. Not ours the blame if, being ready and atoned in will, God hides himself so that we cannot do all things with him although he plays his part just as the sun gives out its light and fire gives out its heat. Woodapples cannot check the letting of their gall, but God contrives from time to time to reach out to the longing soul if he is very near to her. So let her, never doubting, with hearty longing, hail God frequently : ‘O Friend of me, how long am I to wait for thee ie
He says, to Christ was given a new name: one by the angel, another by St Paul, a third by his heavenly Father. The angel gave him the name Jesus Christ. Joseph and Mary called him by
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this name which signifies Weal of the World. The name is given to the wounded soul. Alas, we are too frail! We should be well of our infirmities being raised up and gotten in; we should be raised if we were destitute and unattached. For the exalted spark wherein we see the light divine, that never parts from God nor is there anything between. What matter then if good and ill and pain betide, they do but touch the lower faculties.
St Paul gave him three names and called him the reflection of the Father. He says, the wounded soul is given the mystic heavenly bread. Whence comes her wound ?—From longing. What is longing ?—It is love. What is nobler than longing ? What we pray God for humbly and with longing he durst not refuse: desire ablush with modesty he leads into the triple chamber of the Holy Trinity.
Paul called him also the fecundity of the Father and the image in the Father, working with the Father to bring forth his Person. Verily I say, the soul will bring forth Person if God laughs into her and she laughs back to him. To speak in parable, the Father laughs into the Son and the Son laughs back to the Father; and this laughter breeds liking, and liking breeds joy, and joy begets love, and love begets Person, and Person begets the Holy Ghost. In this wise does he travail with his Father.
The third name he gave was, The Majesty of the Substance of God. Majesty is the essence of his divine substance, this substance being the elemental matter of the three Persons. The soul is called majesty when she gives up mode: then she knows the Father and paternity, the Son and filiation, and the Persons of them twain she comprehends in unity. The Father gave him five names, ineffable. God keep us every whit in him. So help us God. Amen.
Paul Rose From the Ground
Surrexit autem Saulus de terra apertisque occulis nihil videbat (Act. 9,). This statement which I quote in Latin is made in St Luke’s narrative about St Paul. It records that ‘ Paul rose from the ground with open eyes and seeing nothing.’ The words are open to four interpretations. One is, that when he rose up from the ground he was gazing wide-eyed at naught, that naught being God, for the vision of God he would describe as the naught. Another explanation is that when he got up he saw nothing but God. - The third, he saw naught but God in all things. The fourth, that in the divine vision he beheld all things as a naught. He previously tells how light came suddenly from heaven and felled
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him to the ground. Mark you, he says that the light came from heaven. According to our doctors, though heaven is fraught with | light it does not shine. The sun is full of light and shines withal.. Our doctors teach that fire does not give any light in the simple, natural perfection of its highest state. Its nature is too pure for eye in any wise to see. So subtle is it, so unlike the eye, that were it here below within our view it could not stimulate our eyes to sight. And yet, forsooth, we see it is absorbed by different things, such as a lump of coal, a piece of wood.
By the light of heaven we see the light that is God whereto no mind of man is able to attain. As St Paul hath it: ‘God dwells in a light that no man can approach unto.’ He says, * God is light inaccessible.’ There is no admittance to God. No man still on the ascent, still on the increase in grace and in light, has ever yet got into God. God is no crescent light: we get to him by growing. In the growing process God is unseen. When God is seen it is in the light that is God himself. A master says, In God there is no more nor less nor this nor that. Whiles we are on the way we are not there.
He says, ‘A light from heaven shone round about him.’ Implying the capture of his entire soul. A master says that in this light all the soul-powers are exalted and raised to a higher power, the outward senses we see and hear with as well as the inner senses we call thoughts: the reach of these and their pro- fundity are most amazing. I can think as easily about things overseas as close at hand. Above thought comes the intellect, as seeker. She goes about looking, casting her net here and there, gaining and losing. Above intellect the seeker there is another intellect which does not seek but rests in its pure and simple essence in the realm of light. And I say it is in this light that all the soul-powers are exalted. Senses rise to thoughts. How high, how fathomless these are, that no one knows except God and the soul.
Our theologians teach, and it is a knotty question, that angels know nothing about thoughts unless the thoughts take wing and rise up into intellect—intellect the seeker; and this intellect, the seeker, soars up into the intellect which does not seek, which is the pure light in itself. This light embraces all the powers of the soul. Accordingly he says, ‘The heavenly light encircled him.’
One master lays it down that anything which has an emanation is exempt from these lower things. God emanates into all creatures without being affected by any. He does not need them. God energises nature and her first work is the heart. Wherefore some doctors would pretend the soul is altogether in the heart and flows thereout as life into the other members. Notso. The
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soul is in each member, whole. True, her chief work is in the heart. The heart being in the middle gets protection on all sides, just as heaven is protected from outside influence and intrusion. It contains all things. It moves all things and itself remains unmoved. Not even fire, exalted though it be in its most high estate, can lick the heavens.