above her and I can prove it thus. For if the soul were spirited away far beyond things to perfect freedom from them and came in touch with God in his abstraet divinity, natheless she would never rest till, thrusting into that, he shall have drowned her in "himself and drowned himself in her alone. What though God be far above her in nobility of nature, she cannot rest till she has gotten God, so far as it is possible to creature to conceive him. The greatest happiness in earth or heaven lies in likeness to God, which divine nature makes in the highest degree : to wit, the image of itself. And this is what the soul is striving for seeing no soul can throughly follow God without having in her the image of God. It is for us to see whether the grace we have received is every whit divine, whether it smacks of God’s perfection, whether it is in common with and is emanating in his grace into whatever can receiveit. Even so ought man to be flowing out into whatever can receive him. So help us God. Amen.
The Just Live for Ever
Justi autem in perpetuum vivent et apud dominum est merces eorum (Sap. 5,,). ‘The just (or righteous) live for ever and their reward is with God.’ Let us look at this carefully. : It sounds quite trite and commonplace, whereas it is, in fact, a most remarkable and precious dictum. ‘The just live.’ Who are the just? One scripture says, That man is just who gives to each his own. So the just are they that give to God his due and to the saints and angels theirs and to his fellow what is his. God’s is glory. Who are they that glorify God ? Those who having gone out of them- selves seek not their own in anything whatever it may be, or great or small; who look for nothing over them nor under them nor yet beside them; not mindful of possessions, of honours, comfort, pleasure, nor inwardness nor holiness nor of reward nor heaven. They have finished with all that is theirs. God glorifies them and they truly glorify God and render him what is his due.
We ought to give the saints and angels joy. Wonder of wonders ! Can a man in this life give joy to those in life eternal? Aye, surely. Marvellous, incredible to tell, every saint rejoices, takes ineffable delight in each virtuous deed, each good desire or inten- tion ; their joy no tongue is able to express nor any heart conceive, as I have said. And why? Because their love to God is so immeasurably great, they hold him so right dear, that his glory is to them more than their happiness. Not alone the saints and angels, but very God himself is as much pleased thereat as though
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it touched his own felieity and was vital to him, to his own delight and satisfaction. Remember then, even if we serve God for no other reason than for the exceeding joy of those in life eternal and of God himself, yet we ought to do so gladly and with all diligence. Also, we ought to help those that are in hell and succour those still living.
A man of this sort is in one way just, but in another sense the just are they that take everything alike from God no matter what it is, big and little, good and bad, all the same, no more nor less, - but one thing like another. If one thing is to thee of more moment than another then thou art unjust. Thou must be rid of own-will altogether. :
I was thinking just now: if God does not will what I do then I must will what he does. Some folks always want their own way; that is bad, that way lies sin. Those others are a trifle better who would like to dé God’s will and have no mind to go against it, yet when they are sick they wish God would choose to make them well. These people would have God, then, con- forming to their will rather than they to his. We condone this although it is wrong. The just have no will at all: whatever God wills, it is all one to them, regardless of the hardship.
The just are so set on justice that were God not just they would not care a fig for God; they are so staunch to right, so perfectly indifferent to self, they reck not of the pains of hell nor of the joys of heaven nor anything whatever. Were all the pangs of those in hell and all the pain borne or to bear on earth to be the fruits of justice, they would not mind one jot, so true they are to God and right. To the just man nothing gives more pain, there is no greater hardship, than what is contrary to just- ness, equipoise.—How so ?—If one thing can cheer and another can depress, you are not equable ; to be cheerful one moment and less or not at all so in the next is uneven-tempered. But the devotee of right is so stable that what he loves is his very life, nothing can upset him, nor does he care for aught beside. St Augustine says, Where the soul loves there she is, rather than where she gives life——Our text sounds plain and commonplace enough, but there are few who realize the actual meaning of it. One who grasps the import of justice and the just will understand all I have to say.
é The just live.’ There is nothing in the world so dear as life or so desirable. No life so bad or hard but man would go on living. It is written, the nearer to death the greater the pain. But however distressful life is there is still the desire to live. Why dost thou eat? Why sleep? To live. Why long for good or glory? That knowest thou right well. But a
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live? For the sake of living, albeit thou ignorest for what reason thou dost live. Life is so desirable in itself, we want it for its own sake. Those who are in hell in eternal pain have no desire to lose their life, whether fiend or soul ; their life is such a noble thing, flowing as it does straight from God to them. That is the reason why they want to live. What is life? God’s exist- ence is my life. If my life is God’s existence then God’s being is my being and God’s is-ness is my is-ness, neither more nor less. They live eternally with God, on a par with him, not below him nor above. All their works are wrought with God and God’s with them. St John says, ‘the Word was with God.’ It was exactly like and side by side with him, neither under nor over but equal.
When God created man he took the woman out of the man’s side that she might be his equal.. Not out of his head nor out of his feet did he make her, i.e. neither man nor woman, but his peer. So the just soul is like to God, by the side of God, on a level with him, not under nor yet over.
Who are they that are his like? They that are nothing like, they alone are Godlike. God’s essence nothing is like, therein is no image nor form. Those souls who are his equals, to them the Father gives as. equals withholding nothing from them. All the Father has to give he bestows upon this soul, provided she is just and no more to ‘herself than to another. Her own honour, her own profit, aught of hers, she neither wants nor thinks of more than any stranger’s. Personal belongings are repugnant to her, -alien and remote, be they bad or good. All love of this world is based on love of self. Leave this and thou hast left the world.
In eternity the Father is bringing forth his Son just like himself. “The Word was with God and the Word was God ’: the same in the same nature. I say, moreover: he has brought him forth in my soul. Not merely is she with him and he equally with her but he is in her: the Father gives birth to his Son in the soul in the very same way as he gives him birth in eternity, and in none other. He must do, willy-nilly. The Father is begetting his Son un- ceasingly, and furthermore, I say, he begets me his Son, as his very own Son. Moreover I declare, not only does he beget me his Son, he begets me himself and himself me: me his essence and his nature. In his nethermost deep I come welling up in his holy Breath, where there is one life, one being and one act. God’s activity is one; he begets me his Son then without difference. My bodily father is not my real father except for one small portion of his nature and I am different from him: he may be dead and I alive. My heavenly Father is my real father; I am his and all I have I get from him; I am the son of him and of none other. Since the Father performs a single act therefore he
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makes me his Son without any distinction. As St Paul says, “We are wholly transformed into God and changed.’
Take an illustration. In the sacrament the bread is changed into the body of our Lord, and however much bread there is it becomes no more than the one body. Likewise were the bread to be changed into my finger it would make no more than the one finger. But suppose my finger is changed back to the bread, then the one is as much as the other ; for when one thing changes to another it is identical therewith. Even so if I be changed into him and he makes me one and the same with himself, then by the living God it is also true that there is no distinction. The Father gives birth to his Son without ceasing. Once the Son is born he takes nothing from the Father, for he has it all; but while in the act of being born he is receiving from the Father.
The moral of this is that it’is not right of us to ask from God as from a stranger. ‘I call you not servants but friends,’ said our Lord. The servant asks, the master pays. I was wondering lately whether I am willing to ask or to accept anything from God. I must take earnest counsel with myself, for by accepting anything from God I make myself inferior to God, like a servant to his master, in respect of giving. That is not the case with us in eternal life.
I once said here, and it is very true: When a man goes out of himself to find or fetch God, he is wrong. I do not find God outside myself nor conceive him excepting as my own and in me. A man ought not to work for any why, not for God nor for his glory nor for anything at all that is outside him, but only for that which is his being, his very life within him.
Some simple folk fondly imagine they are going to see God as it were standing there and they here. Not so. God and I are one in knowing. When I take God into me in loving I am going into God. Some say that happiness does not lie in knowledge but in will alone. They are wrong ; if it were merely a matter of will it would not be one. Working and becoming are the same. When the carpenter stops working the house will stop becoming. Still the axe and stop the growth. God and I are one in operation: he works and I become. Fire changes to itself the fuel cast upon it, which is converted to its nature. The wood does not assimilate the fire, the fire assimilates the wood. ‘ We shall be changed into God so that we shall know him as he is,’ says St Paul. And the manner of our knowing shall be this, I him as he me, not more or less: just the same. ‘ The just live eternally, and their reward is with God’: identity with him, as I have said. Let us love justice for its own sake and God without a why, So help us God. Amen.