Quoth our Lord, ‘ Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!’ If I am to hear God speaking in me I must be wholly estranged from all that is mine, as strange as I am to things under the sea, and especially from time. The soul is as young in herself as when she was made, for age as relating to her is an affair of the body, affecting her use of its senses. As one philosopher observes, an old man with the eyes of youth would see just as well as a boy. I made a statement yesterday which seems almost incredible, I said that Jerusalem is as near my soul as the ground I stand on now. ‘ Aye, in good sooth, a thousand leagues beyond Jerusalem is every whit as nigh my soul as my own body is, of that I am as sure as of my being a man, and to any learned clerk it is not hard to understand.’ Know then that my soul is as young as-when I was created, aye, much younger. And I tell you, I should be ashamed were she not younger to-morrow than to-day.
The soul has two powers which have nothing whatever to do with the body, namely intellect and will, which function above time. Oh, if only the soul’s eyes were opened so that her under-
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standing might behold the truth! Then it would be as easy to a man to give up everything as to give up peas and lentils, aye upon my soul, to him all things would be but vanity. There are some who give up things for love albeit greatly prizing what they leave. But to this man who knows in truth, it matters not one whit that he should leave himself and everything, for anyone who - takes this course has all things for his own in truth.
There is one power in the soul to which all things are alike sweet; the very worst and the very best are all the same in this power which takes things above here and now. Now meaning time and here meaning place. This place I am in now, suppose I went out of myself and were entirely empty, why then I ween the heavenly Sire would bear his only Son within my mind so clearly that my spirit would bear him back again. Verily, were my spirit as ready as the soul of our Lord Jesus Christ then would the Father energise in me as perfectly as in his one-begotten Son, no less, seeing that he loves me with the selfsame love wherewith he loves himself.
St John said, ‘ In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.’ Now to hear this Word in the Father (where it is absolutely silent), a man must be quite quiet and wholly free from images, aye, and forms as well. A man must be so true to God that nothing whatever can gladden him or sadden him. He must see all things in God, as they are there.
He says, * Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!’ Meaning to effect this thing himself. If someone tells me to carry one stone he may as well tell me a hundred if he is going to do it himself. If he orders a hundredweight load he may just as well make it a thousand if it is for his own back. And God will do this work himself if only we will wait and not resist. If the soul would but stay within, she would have everything there. There is one power . In the soul and that not merely power but being; and not merely being: it radiates life, and is so pure, so high and so innately noble that creatures cannot live in it; none but God can abide therein. Nay, even God himself is forbidden there so far as he is subject to condition. God cannot enter there in any guise: God is only there in his absolute divinity.
Then, the fact of his speaking the words, ‘ Young man, I say unto thee.’ What is God’s speaking? It is his working, and God’s work is so noble, so sublime, that God alone can do it. You must understand then, that our whole perfection, our entire happiness, will lie in traversing and transcending all creatureliness, all time and all limitation and getting into the cause which is causeless. We pray thee O Lord, that we may be one and indwelling. So help us God. Amen.
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I Have Chosen You
_ Ego elegi vos de mundo (Joh. 15,,). These words which I quote in the Latin are from the gospel of to-day, the feast of one of the saints, Barnabas by name, who is commonly referred to in the scriptures as being an apostle. Our Lord says, ‘I have elected you, selected you, chosen you out of the world, from all created things, that ye should bring forth much fruit and that your fruit should remain,’ for it is very good to bring forth fruit and for the fruit to remain, and the fruit does remain if we dwell in love. At the end of this gospel our Lord says, ‘ Love one another as I have ever loved you; my Father hath loved me eternally and so have I loved you; keep my commandments, so shall ye remain in my love.’
All God’s commandments come from love, from the kindness of his nature; did they not come from love they would not be God’s law, for God’s law is the goodness of his nature and his nature his benignant law. Whoso dwells in love dwells in the goodness of his nature: he dwells in God’s love, and love is without why. Suppose I had a friend and loved him for benefits received and because of getting my own way, I should not love my friend, I should be loving my own self. I ought to love my friend on his own account, for his virtues, for his own intrinsic worth: I love my friend aright loving him like this. And so with the man abiding in God’s love, seeking not his own in God nor in himself nor in any thing but loving God simply for his kindness, for the goodness of his nature, for what he is in himself: that is true love. Love of virtue is the flower, the ornament of virtue, aye, the mother of all virtue, all perfection and all happiness: it is God, for God is the fruit of virtue, and it is this fruit which remains to man. When a man works for fruit and the fruit remains to him he rejoices greatly. Suppose he has a vineyard or a field and makes it over to his man to work while keeping all the produce; he may give into the bargain all the things thereto belonging and still be much rejoiced to have the fruits remain in payment. Even so a man rejoices in the fruit of virtue ; he has no worries, no vexations, because he has made over himself and everything.
Our Lord says, ‘ Whoso shall leave anything for me and for my name’s sake, to him will I restore an hundredfold and eternal life to boot.’ But if thou leave it for that hundredfold and for the sake of eternal life, thou art leaving nothing ; nay, so thou leave it for a thousandfold reward thou art leaving nothing: leave thyself, give up self altogether, that is real riddance. A man once came
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to me (it was not long ago), and told me he had given up a quantity of land and goods to save his soul. Alack! I thought, how paltry, how inadequate, the things thou hast resigned. It is blindness and folly so long as thou dost care a jot for what thou hast forsworn. Forswear thyself, that is true resignation.
The man who has resigned himself is so impartial, this world will have none of him, as I said here not long ago. The devotee of justice is given up to justice, seized of justice, identified with justice. I once wrote in my book: The just man serves neither God nor creature: he is free; and the more he is just the more he is free and the more he is freedom itself. Nothing created is free. While there is aught above me, excepting God himself, it must constrain me, however small it be or however (great); even love and knowledge, so far as it is creature and not actually God, confines me with its limits. The unjust man, whether he would ‘or no, is the servant of illusion : serving the world and creature he is the bondman of sin.
I was thinking lately : that I am a man belongs to other men in common with myself; I see and hear and eat and drink like any other animal ; but that I am belongs to no one but myself, not to man nor angel, no, nor yet to God excepting in so far as I am one with him. All God’s work he puts into his one replica of him- self, and though radically differing in their operation, (creatures) all tend to reproduce themselves. In my father nature took its normal course. In the course of nature I should be a father like himself. The tendency is ever towards self-repetition, towards the preservation-of the species: it is every man’s intention that his work should be himself. Any shifting or hindering of his nature and the result is woman: thus where nature stops God begins to work and to create ; for without woman there would be no men. The child as conceived within its mother’s womb has shape and colour and material being; so much is wrought by nature. That lasts for forty days and forty nights, and on the fortieth day God creates the soul in much less than the twinkling of an eye. Now ends the work of nature, all nature can contrive in colour, form and matter. The activity of nature goes out altogether, and as the natural energy is finally withdrawn it is restored intact in the rational soul. This then is the work of nature and the creation of God. In created things (as I have said repeatedly) there is no truth.
There is something, transcending the soul’s created nature, not accessible to creature, non-existent; no angel has gotten it, for his is a clear (intelligible) nature, and clear and overt things have no concern with this. It is akin to Deity, intrinsically one, having naught in common with naught. Many a priest finds
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it a baffling thing. It is one; rather unnamed than named, ‚rather unknown than known. . If thou couldst naught thyself an instant, less than an instant, I should say, allthat this is in itself would belong to thee. But while thou dost mind thyself at all thou knowest no more of God than my mouth does of colour or my eye of taste: so little thou knowest, thou discernest, what God is.
Plato, that great priest, who occupied himself with lofty matters, makes reference to this thing. He speaks about a light which is not in this world; not in the world and not out of the world ; not in time nor in eternity: it has neither in nor out. God the eternal Father, the fullness and the sink of all his deity does he give birth to here in his one-begotten Son, so that we are that very Son, and his birth is his presence within and his abiding within is his bringing forth. That remains ever the same which comes welling up in itself. Ego, the word I, is proper to none but to God himself in his sameness. Vos, the word implies your collective unity, so that ego and vos, I and you, stand for unity. May we be the unity itself, unity abiding, So help us God. Amen.
THE FEAST OF MARTYRS:
In occasione gladii mortui sunt (Hebr. 11;,). We read of the blessed martyrs, whom we commemorate to-day, that they were slain with the sword. Quoth our Lord to his disciples, ‘ Blessed are ye when ye suffer for my name’s sake.’ And according to the scriptures these martyrs suffered death for Christ’s name, being put to the sword.