soul which she conceives in wisdom than that which is common to mankind. The soul must serve God here with her lower powers and in eternity with her higher ones, for she is not made of time nor of eternity: she is made from naught of the nature of them both. Leaning to the temporal she is unstable; keeping to the eternal she is strong and stable and superior to change.
The bridegroom of the soul is the Lord Jesus of sevenfold like- ness. First, in his beauty with which the sun is nothing to compare, for it is not self-luminous: God provides the light wherewith it lights the air. And his bride should be the same in thought and word and deed. For this God has to brighten all her tarnishes of sin, making luminous the place of her abode.—Secondly, her Lord is of noble lineage : in heaven he has a Father but no mother and on earth a mother but no father, parentage too strange for any mind to grasp. And his bride, the soul, by birth adorns a rank higher than anything inferior to God.—Thirdly, her Lord is immensely rich: heaven and earth belong to him with all the creatures in it. Accordingly his bride, the soul, may freely confide her every care to him and have no doubt of his providing, for he is readier to give than we are to receive.—Fourthly, his wisdom is so lucid, it lights the ground of every heart and nothing is hidden from his eyes. Wherefore his bride, the soul, must be very careful not to do anything she thinks may be displeasing in his sight.—Fifthly, his power is prodigious; by it all things have come to be and are preserved in being. And his bride, the soul, has corresponding hope in times of trouble or in any kind of suffer- ing or struggle. For what she cannot do he can to whom all things are possible.—Sixthly, he is sweet-tempered. He is called in the scriptures a lamb without blemish, for he is free from anger and bears no resentment. Likewise the soul, his bride, must be gentle, kind and patient in whatever he shall send her to his glory.—Lastly, her Lord, Jesus Christ, has .eternal health and deathlessness. And the soul, his bride, should be cheerfully indifferent to disease, not caring for anything so much but she would always be as glad to do without as keep it, just as her bridegroom pleases, and finding no pain so hard to bear but she would suffer it as lief as not. God’s justice to her is as precious as his mercy. This soul is just as pleased with God’s gifts to others as herself.
It is written, ‘ The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God’ who keeps them too tightly to his sides to be gotten out. Also he made them separate as his handiwork ; their guerdon in eternal life, himself ; for God alone did make the soul, unhelped by any crea- ture ; in power according.to his might ; in intellect according to his wisdom and according to his goodness in her will, as he from
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eternity knew how to make her ınighty in his power and, blessed in his infinite good. The soul is not made of the nature of God but in the image of the Holy Trinity, and being bound to God by love alone she, seeking perfect rest in him, proclaims her fitness to be his pleasant temple. He went into his temple and drove out the buyers and the sellers, commanding them, Take these things hence. So he made it known that he would have the temple of the soul swept clean, with nothing in it but himself alone. The soul should take example by the angels who disregard all outward things and are without intention except to do the perfect will of God. So bent are they upon the will of God, upon its being done in them, that were it to pick nettles or anything like that, they would do it with a will, as though their whole happiness depended on it.
Any soul devoted thus to the will of God and seeking not her own Jesus takes delight and will work wonders in. When she goes out of her own will all things go in with Jesus and she becomes so full of light that God alone rivals her in splendour. For though the angels do to some extent resemble the soul in the joys of the hereafter, they have a limit set which they cannot pass beyond. The soul can transcend it in good works, and having once, in grace, drawn level here with the highest angel, her will, free now from all good works, carries her incalculably higher than the angels, provided she can leave her body.
The uncreated God alone is free and the soul’s virgin nature is the same but not her creature nature: it was she who chose to come to naught, but it is left to God to fetch her back. For Jesus to be in the soul she has to recollect herself and be quiet and listen to his Word. When her spirit is receiving power in the Son her every word is pregnant of purity and virtue and perfection. Such a soul nothing can disturb: she stands firm and unshaken as in the power of God.
And Jesus reveals himself in the soul in his infinite wisdom wherein the Father knows himself in all his fatherly authority, to- gether with his Word which is wisdom’s self and all that therein is and the oneness of it. When this same wisdom is embodied in the soul, doubt, error, obstacles of all sorts fade away and leave her in the clear, pure light which is God himself. God in this soul is seen with God: she knows herself and all things with his wisdom.—Also Jesus manifests himself with passing sweetness in the power of the Holy Ghost, and with him the soul flows into herself and beyond herself and transcending all things in grace, plunges directly into her first cause.
Richardus says, commenting upon the Book of Virtue: When the divine light strikes into the soul she finds her own activities
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exceedingly insipid, and unable to tolerate herself in her own powers she confines herself to enjoying God. Now St Augustine says, ‘ My soul is where she loves rather than where she is giving life.’ At this rate God is nearer me than I am to myself; and any loving soul who follows God so far as to rise above herself, nor rests with pleasure in herself or any creature, such a soul, I say, will have no pleasure either in God’s gifts: what she desires is God himself. When the soul is rid of things she has certain knowledge of and is nothing lacking in the image of God, her mind is wide open to the eternal truth. The eternal sun sheds its light into this soul and permeates her powers, each separate faculty feeling the physical contingency of the visitation according _ to its individual nature. And the light of the eternal sun raises all the soul-powers to the power of itself in the wholly intelligible image. When the soul undergoes this operation, as it is per- formed by God, in essential understanding, then the soul’s under- standing becomes the light (or knowledge) of all God is bringing about in her by grace. And her mind being enhanced, as we have said, her faculties are raised above the things of time, so that come what may her powers are unhindered by anything infernal and are always being augmented, never getting less. For divine understanding we depend upon God’s bounty ; but it is his nature to give himself to us and the soul’s nature is to give herself to him who gives himself to her, thus giver and gift, doer and deed are one. The Lord Jesus said, ‘I go to him that sent me.’ And the soul too may say in her ascent to God, ‘ I go to him I came from.’
She goes to the Father, first, in her fixed intention no longer to disobey his will by cumbering herself with untoward creatures. Secondly, she goes the perfect way of answering every call God makes upon her; and thirdly, she goes in the sweet savour of God’s love wherein her suffering is no suffering. Fourthly, she goes in the four cardinal virtues, prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice, over time and creatures. And she goes in the three virtues of faith, hope and charity, without which no one gets to God. Who knows to what wonders the soul may not attain by committing herself into the hands of God ? Every blessed soul keeps open heart to God’s consolation, and such as she receives from him she passes on to her inferior powers wherewith she knows not God else were he dishonoured in the weak intelligence of these lower faculties. And because all souls have not the same aptitude for God, the vision of God is not enjoyed the same by all any more than the sunshine affects all eyes alike.
It is written, ‘ There shall come forth a stem out of the root of Jesse.’ Here let us consider three things : what this root is out of which God is born in the soul, and what and what measure
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of profit does it bring? ‘ Root of Jesse’ is a term for the fiery nature which attracts and transmutes all comers to itself. It is: the fiery nature of God: drawing the soul it converts her into itself and she is spiritually born in understanding ; for the soul has in common with the angels a light wherein she can see God, and this light she is provided with is her intellect which is cease- lessly conveying God’s wisdom to the soul. But it darkens when poured into the body. +
We read of three kings bringing Christ their offerings. These we take to mean the three inferior powers of the soul, things by ~ rights at the disposal of her superior powers. I am going now to speak of these superior powers, showing how they are the kings and what gifts of lower powers it is they bring.
The first king is memory, bearing the produce of his kingdom. When the soul calls to mind how noble God has made her there flows from this perception a passionate desire which ascends to God, flinging behind it all the things of time. Then indeed King Memory comes offering the gold of love to God, together with - surrender of all else.—The second king of the soul is understanding. This corresponds with her other power, reason or judgment. When the soul sees that by grace she is enabled to fulfil the will of God, she is never weary of subjugating creatures to please God and each one the more in proportion to the merit she acquires from God. Understanding then, comes rich with patience and grateful acceptance of whatever lot God destines for her in the body here and with this she has the fruit of incense, the union of all virtues, so that what would otherwise be hard and difficult her love makes - feasible and easy.—The soul’s third king is will. When in the flower of his strength he brings the soul the fire of love, which tries her through and through and consumes away all the sinful affections of her nature, then she is fixed, and neither life nor death nor any creature can separate her from the love of God. So they bring her myrrh to keep her from the rot of temporal things which to the soul are a fertile source of evil. St Ambrose says, ‘God pours forth the soul creating and pouring forth he creates her.” And when she is in love with him, immediately he comes to her, as his spiritual bride admits where she says in the Book of Love, ‘ While I was at rest upon my bed my love came tapping at my window and he put in his hand and touched me.’ This suggests that when the soul comes to know herself she withdraws from all the things which are present to her here, for she herself is of greater worth and higher status than any of the other things in time. When now the loving soul has gone out of all creatures and herself, then the eternal truth comes forth as well to meet the loving soul and touch her understanding and exalt it with his