than they are in this; even as the image hewn and graven in gold _ so the types of all things are onefold in the soul. A master says, The soul has a natural gift for being impressed with the forms of all things. Another one says, Never did soul get to her virgin nature without finding all things imaged therein in the intelligible world which is incomprehensible, unthinkable. Gregory says: All reasoning in words about divine things is but a stammering.
One word more about the soul and Ihave done. ‘O ye daughters of Jerusalem, look not upon me because I am brown! The sun hath coloured me and the children of my mother have striven against me’ (Cant. 1,). She refers to the children of this world, to them the soul speaks. The sun is the lust of this world: the visible, tangible things thereof do turn me swarthy and brown. Brown is not a pure colour: it is part light and part darkness. When the soul thinks or acts with her powers how enlightened soever these be, still, there is confusion. And therefore she says, * My mother’s children have striven against me.’ These children being the lower powers of the soul, all clashing and at strife with her. The heavenly Father is our father and christendom is our mother. What though she be fair and well-favoured and good at her work, yet this is not perfect. Wherefore he cries, ‘O thou fairest among women go forth and depart.’ This world is like a woman, weak. But why does he address her, ‘O fairest among women?’ The angels are fair and are far above the soul. He says, ‘fairest’: in her light-nature. ‘Go forth and depart’: go forth from this world and depart from such things as thy soul is still prone to. And anything grasped let her hate.
The Lord Put Forth His Hand
Misit dominus manum suam et teligit os meum et diwit mihi etc. (Jer.1,). ‘The Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth and said unto me.’ Dharshcidenhete
When I preach it is my wont to speak about detachment, of the duty of ridding ourselves of self and of things. Or again, of return to the impartible good, God to wit. And thirdly, on the duty of remembering the high and noble nature God has put into the soul so that mortals may wonder about God. Fourthly, about the pure nature of God, the ineffable splendour of God. God is a word, an unspoken word. Augustine says: ‘ All scripture is vain.’ We say that God is unspoken, but he is unspeakable. Grant he is somewhat: who can pronounce this word? None but the Word. God is the Word which pronounces itself. Where God exists he
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is saying this Word; where he does not exist he says nothing. God is spoken and unspoken. The Father is the speaking energy
and the Sun is the speech energising. What is in me goes forth
“of me; I have but to think and my word goes forth, at the same
time abiding within. Even so does the Father speak forth his Son who meanwhile remains in him unspoken. I have repeatedly
‚said, God’s exit is his entrance. In proportion to my nearness to
God does he speak himself into me. In the case of rational’
‘\ereatures ‘the more they go out of themselves in their_works the
more they get into themselves. Not so with.corporal things :
_»rthe more active these are the further they get from themselves.
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All creatures desire to speak God in their works: they all of them speak him as well as they can but they cannot really pronounce him. Willy-nilly, in weal or in woe they are all trying to utter God who yet remains unspoken.
David said, ‘The Lord is his name.’ Lord means one set in authority ; knave means an underling. Some names are proper to God and forbidden to aught beside God. God is the name peculiar to God just as man is the name for mankind. A man is a man be he foolish or wise. Seneca says, ‘’Tis a vile man that excels not humanity.’ Another name we associate with God is paternity. When we call a man father, we take for granted a son. No father can be without having a son. True, they merge, beyond time, into eternal nature. The third name in its higher sense relates to God and in its lower one to time. God is called by many names in scripture. Now I say, anything we can think of in God or put any name to, that God is not. God transcends name, transcends nature. We hear of one good man who in prayers besought God for his name. Then, ‘ Peace!’ quoth a brother, ‘thou art abasing God.’ We can find no name to give to God; but we are permitted to use the names his saints have called him by, those whose hearts inspired by God were flooded with his divine light. Hence we learn, first, how to pray to God. We ought to say, Lord, in those very names which thou didst instil into the hearts of saints, suffusing them with thy light, we praise thee and adore thee. And secondly we learn that in giving God no name at all we praise and honour him sufficiently since God is above name and ineffable.
Out of the fullness of his power the Father speaks the Son and
_in him all things. _All creatures are the utterance of God. Like
as my lips proclaim and tell forth God so does a stone’s existence, and we can glean more from the fact than from the telling of it. Work wrought by highest nature in its sovran power a lower nature cannot comprehend. If it did the selfsame work then
would it not be lower, but the same. Creatures all want to copy
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»God in all they do. But it is precious little they are able to reveal. Even the highest angels, inasmuch as they ascend and come in touch with God, are no more like than black and white to that which is in God. It is altogether different, what creatures have received, yet they all desire to speak as nearly as possible the same. The prophet says : ‘ Lord, thou sayest one and I understand two.’ When God speaks into the soul, as it falls it divides. The higher we soar in our understanding the more we are in him. In eternity, the Father is speaking his Son all the time and pouring forth all creatures in him. They all have a call to return whence they came forth. Their whole life and nature is a vocation, a flight back to what they came out of.
The prophet says: ‘The Lord sent forth his hand,’ meaning the Holy Ghost. He says, ‘he touched my mouth,’ and straightway there follow the words, ‘he spake unto me.’ The mouth of the soul is the highest part of the soul and she has this in mind when she says, ‘ he hath put his Word into my mouth,’
. this being the kiss of the soul ; mouth to mouth the Father conveys his Son into the soul, then he speaks to her, saying, ‘ Lo, this day I have chosen thee to set thee over nations and over kingdoms.’ God says he will choose us to-day. Yonder in eternity, where time is not, there is ever to-day. ‘And I have set thee over nations,’ i.e. above this world which thou must be rid of; “and over kingdoms,’ meaning, that more than one thing is too much ; it behoves thee to die to.all things.and-get- back to the height where we dwell in the Holy-Ghost. Amen. Lak Wot ehem
The Spirit of the Lord
Spiritus domini replevit orbem terrarum etc. (Sap. 1,). * The spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world.’
A philosopher says, All creatures bear witness to the divine nature whence they proceeded forth, in their will to emulate the Deity they came from.
Creatures proceed forth in two ways. The first is a radical process, like roots coming out of a tree. The second emanation is by mode of will. Behold the twofold emanation of divinity. One the descent of the Son from the Father, this after the manner of a birth. The other, the outpouring of the love of Father and Son, the Holy Ghost, to wit, for in him they love one another. All creatures proclaim their origin, their divine descent betrays itself in their works. According to a Greek philosopher, God
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keeps all creatures in leash, as it were, and they must follow where he leads. Hence nature is aye making for the highest.
The second emanation is the Holy Ghost, by mode of will. Nature would fain make nothing but the Son; were she allowed she would do father’s work, so nature would be ever giving sons did she not suffer accidental lapses. When nature is working in time and space then father and son are different. One master explains that a carpenter building a house will erect it first in his mind and, were the house subject enough to his will, then, materials apart, the only difference between them would be that of begetter and suddenly begotten. Lo, thus it is in God, for since there is no time nor place in him, therefore they are one God, there being no distinction save outpouring and outpoured.
According to the scriptures, ‘ The spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world.’ Why is he called Lord? Because he fills us. Why is he called spirit ? Because he unites us with himself. A lord is known by three signs. First, he is rich. Rich means possessing all things without stint. Hence none is really rich but God in whom all things are harboured indivisibly. So he can give all things and this is the second sign of riches. A philosopher says, God hawks himself to all creatures and each takes as much as it wants. I trow God offers himself to me as he does to the highest angel and were I as apt as he is I should receive as he does. As I have often observed, God always behaves as though he was trying to please the soul. The third sign of riches is, giving for love; whoso giveth for aught is not really rich. God’s richness is shown by his giving all his gifts gratis. As saith the prophet, ‘ Thou art my God, thou needest not my possessions.’ He alone is the Lord and the spirit. I say, he is spirit; our happiness lies in union with him.
The most excellent work of God in creature is being. My father gives me my, nature but he does not give me my being: God does that, none beside. That is why everything that exists takes such a shrewd delight in being. The being of the soul receives the influx of God’s light ; not pure and limpid as God sends it forth but in ambient undulations. We can see the sunlight where it falls upon a tree or any other object, but we fail to appre- hend the sun itself. And so with any gift of God: these are all meted out according to the taker not according to the giver.
A philosopher says, ‘God is the standard of measure,’ and so far
‘as one mortal contains more God than another, to that extent he
lis wiser and nobler and better than the other. To have more of God simply means being more like him : the more God’s likeness
" ‘exists in us the more spiritual we are. A philosopher says, ‘ Where
the lowest spirit ends the highest bodily thing begins.’ All of