Manete in me (Joh. 15,); beatus vir, qui in sapientia morabitur (Eccl. 14,,). ‘ Abide in me,’ says our Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel; and the other text from the epistle says, ‘ Blessed is the man that shall continue in wisdom.’ Both mean exactly the same thing. Mark then what is required of a man to dwell in him, 2.e. in God. He requires three things. First, to renounce himself and all things, not cleaving to aught that is grasped by the senses within nor abiding in any creature existing in time or in eternity. Again, he must love neither this good nor that good: he must love good for good’s sake, since nothing is good or desirable except in so far as God is therein. We ought to love things no whit more than just as much as we love God in them ; nor is it right to love God for his heaven’s sake nor for the sake of anything at all except the good he is in his own self. Whoso loves him for aught abides not in him, but abides in the thing he is loving him for. If then ye desire to dwell in him, ye must love him for naught but himself. Thirdly, he must take God not as good nor as right, but he must apprehend him in his pure and virgin substance where he is apprehending himself. Goodness and right are the garment of God which is covering him. Do thou then strip God of all cover- ings: discover him in his vestibule bare, just in his naked self. So shall ye abide in him.
Whoso abides in him thus has five things. First, betwixt him and God there is no difference at all, they are one. Angels are many, beyond number, they can do nothing without number ; they are numberless because of their simplicity. The three Persons in God, who counts as three, they, again, have number. But betwixt man and God is not alone no difference but no multi- plieity: nothing but one. The second is, that he is conceiving his happiness in that same virgin nature where God is conceiving himself and conserving himself. Thirdly, his knowledge is one with God-knowledge, and this knowing consists in co-operation and con-science in God’s operation and science, to wit, the actual energy and gnosis at work towards the end that God may be ever being born in man.
How is God ever being born in man? Look you. Suppose a
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man hews out and brings to light the divine form which God has wrought into his nature, then God’s image in him stands revealed. Birth must be taken in the sense of revelation, the Son being said to be born of the Father because he reveals the Father as father. So the more and the more clearly God’s image shows in man the more evidently God is born in him. And by God’s eternal birth in him we understand that his image stands fully revealed. The fifth thing is that this man is ever being born in God. How can a man be ever being born inGod? Lo! by revealing this form in a man the man grows like unto God, for the form of man is the same as the image of God which is God in every respect. The more he is like God the more he is one. So man’s eternal birth in God we understand to mean ideal man refulgent in God’s image, which is God in form and matter, wherewith man is the same. This oneness of man and God is a matter of likeness of form, man being Godlike in form. So when we talk of man being one with God and take him to be one with God by nature, we refer to the exemplary element in him which is on a par with God, and not to his created nature. When we look at him as God we are blind to him as creature; remembering his deity we forget his creature-nature ; withal this same oblivion must not be construed to mean the negation of his created nature, rather the affirmation of God in him whom we are regarding as God. Christ, for example, who is both God and man: what time we are considering his manhood we disregard his Godhead ; not that we are denying him his Godhood, we simply ignore it for the nonce. And hence the explanation of St Augustine’s dictum, ‘What a man loves a man is.’ If heloves a stone he is that stone, if he loves a man he is that man, if he loves God—nay, I durst not say more; were I to say, he is God, ye might stone me. I do but teach you the scriptures. Man being all meet for God is conformed to, in- formed with and transformed into, the divine uniformity wherein he is one with God. Allthis man gets by abiding within.
Now mark the fruits borne by a man when he is one with God: together with God he is bearing all creatures and big with beatitude for every creature in virtue of being one with him.
The other text from the epistle says, ‘ Blessed is the man that continues in wisdom.’ He says, ‘in wisdom,’ wisdom being a
‘feminine noun and feminine nouns denote passivity. Now in God we posit both action and passion, for the Father is doing and the Son is suffering, this being characteristic of born natures. Eternal born wisdom, wherein all things stand distinct, is the Son, and that is why he says, ‘ Blessed is the man that continues in wisdom.’ ‘Blessed is the man,’ he says. Now as I have often told you, there are two powers in the soul : one is the man and the other is
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the woman. He says, ‘Blessed is the man.’ The faculty of soul we call the man is the chief power of the soul, wherein God is a naked light ; for nothing but God enters into this power and this power is ever in God: the man who has gotten all things in this power has gotten them not as being things, he has them as being in God. We ought to abide all the time in this power because in this power allthings arethesame. Thus abiding in all things alike and knowing them all in God as the same, man possesses all things ; he has discarded their grossest part and has gotten them now in their good and desirable nature. In this wise he possesses them yonder for God in his own nature is unable to forbear, he is obliged to give thee everything he ever made and his own self to boot. Blessed is the man who abides all the time in this power, he is ever-abiding in God. May we abide at all times in God, So help us our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Swift River
Fluminis impetus letificat civitatem dei: sanctificavit tabernacu- lum suum altissimus (Psalm 45,;). ‘The sudden or swift river makes glad the city of God.’ Here we must note three things. First, the swift stream; next, the city it serves; thirdly, the benefit it brings.
The prophet knows not how to stem the torrent of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost flows into the soul as fast as she is poured forth in humility and so far as she has gotten the capacity. He fills all the room he can find. Consider, next, what city it is it flows through. It is really the soul. A city is something enclosed and centred within. And so must the soul be whereinto God flows. She must be safe from outside alarms, her forces assembled within. According to St John, the twelve apostles were gathered together when they received the Holy Ghost. Even so the soul must be gathered and brought to herself in order to welcome this divine stream which fills to the full her cup of delight.
I sometimes say, beginners of the virtuous life should do as he does who describes a circle: the starting-point once fixed, he keeps it so and then the trace is good. In other words, learn first to fix the heart on God, on good and on good works. Great deeds performed with shifting heart profit but little if at all. There were once two doctors. One of them declared that the good man cannot be moved. The other disagreed. What I say is, the good man may forsooth be moved, but he cannot be
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changed for the worse. Itrow the good man is not easily hindered. But if aught can worsen him he is not perfect.
Thirdly, the good of it. Which is, the prophet says, that “God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.’ , It is the soul he means. Soul would not that God wrought with her aught that is mixed with creature. Some things God does with help of creature and some unaided. If the grace which is a help and which is coming through my words could enter your heart without means, as though spoken by God, your soul would forthwith be converted and she could not help it. By pronouncing God’s word I become a co-worker with God and grace is mingled in me, God speaking it through me, and since I am to you as the means, it is not received intact in your soul. But the grace which is uttered by the Holy Ghost itself is received direct and imprinted unaltered in the soul what time the soul is recollected into the single power which has intuition of God. Grace springs up in the heart of the Father and flows into his Son, and in their mutual love it proceeds from the wisdom of the Son into the gift of the Holy Ghost and in the Holy Ghost is sent into the soul; and this grace is the face of God and is sealed in the soul by the Spirit of God, without means and unchanged, making the soul like God. This God does by himself unaided by creature.
No creature is noble enough to help in this work ; God has not graced their nature with such excellence. But he can do it easily enough in his own perfect nature. God will not let a creature assist him in this work, so for the nonce he elevates the soul to a much higher level than her natural habitat, where she is out of reach of any creature. It were well within the compass of an angel’s noble nature, provided God would let an angel serve. - But that would offend the soul for in that hour she disdains the slightest taint of creature ; even the light of grace wherein she is atoned would be flouted by the soul did she not know she cannot pass it by. After all, it is not natural to her, it is quite supernatural, her flouting at that moment everything that is not God, for God leads forth his bride out of creaturely values into himself and speaks with her in her heart, that is, he makes her like himself in grace. For this exalted act the soul must recollect herself.
The powers of the soul are filled full of delight by this pure infusion of grace. Grace is to God as the shine to the sun; it is one with him and it carries the soul into God and makes her exactly the same as God and as such she enjoys God’s perfection. To the soul that has gotten and enjoyed divine perfection all that is not God has a bitter, nauseous savour. Then again, the soul wants the highest of all,.so she cannot abide aught above her. I say, aye, and I durst maintain, she cannot even bear God being