and love of God, and after the day of judgment the being of the body and the being of the soul are one being in the divine actuality. According to the most reliable authorities, statements of theirs regarding creatures are not to be construed to mean that John went body and soul to heaven ; no more did others of our Lord’s friends either, of whom report says they are body and soul in God, transcending time in eternity. It is not possible. In ‚God can be nothing but God, not mouth nor nose nor hand nor foot nor any creature pertaining to the body. So they cannot be held to have got there in the body. We may reasonably suppose that when the time came for John to go, God caused to befall him what was due to happen on the day of judgment. He did this for true love’s sake, because he was so pure. The being of his soul, taking with it, God helping, the being of his body, was drawn up. We may take it that his body, which was destined to perish here on earth, was disintegrated in the air, so that there entered into God only the being of the body, which would have accompanied the soul at the last day. Thus it befell Mary and all of whom it is related that they attained to God in the body.’
“ Tis well argued,’ he said. ‘ But you must know the question is in hot dispute among the theologians.’ Said she, ‘I will give you the key to its golution. Pass to our Lord Jesus Christ and see what happened at his ascension. He was at meat when he ascended. As you well know, the food was lost in transit, with everything adventitious that Christ had taken on, which all remained in time. He could only take with him into the Father that which came out of the Father. The being of Christ’s soul took with it the being of the noble manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ in its divine actuality. The persons subsist in the Father as one with the Father. Even so are all those in the Father who conquer by grace what Christ has by nature : not that they take with them the life of the body when they go hence; that waits till doomsday. The being of the body reverts to the being of the soul only when all things have perished, according to the vulgar teaching. You doubtless know that whom God deigns to favour he treats as he treated St John.’ Quoth he, ‘I wot that well. If I did as St Dominic, I should be as St Dominic. St Dominic sold his book and all he possessed and gave to the poor for God’s sake. We do not this, daughter, nor do we practise numerous other virtues of St Dominic. We are as we are through pretending a priesthood we do not possess. St Francis was a simple soul wherefor God greatly favoured him. He approached God in perfect simplicity of life and so grew familiar with God. Now in those parts there was a priest who sorely hated a profane to be so intimate with God. Going to visit him, he said, ““ What
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shall we make of this, brother ? The scriptures say we must rebuke
men for their sins.” —‘‘ Assuredly,” said St Francis.—*‘ But,” said . the priest, “‘ did I rebuke a man, he might repay me twofold.”— “How should he ? ” said St Francis. “I can rede you the scriptures
better than that: we are to cultivate the true and perfect life,
within and without, till we become a living rebuke to all mankind.”
—‘‘ True, brother,” said the priest ashamed.—Know that to do as
St Francis is to become as St Francis. Further, I hold: when
we depart this life, grace departs from us. And again: to be less
than St John is to be more than St John.’—* Thank God, you
know it,’ she exclaimed. He said, ‘I have known it for long, and
I ween it is true, though I do not live it.—‘ That I rue,’ she
said.
Quoth she, ‘ You have told: me of nine heavens. Now tell me what I ask. Advise me what sort of life to lead, for you know my life better than anyone.’—‘ Indeed I will,’ said he, “and gladly. Eat when thou art hungry, drink when thou art thirsty, wear fine linen, sleep and take thine ease ; gratify thy tastes in meats and drinks and, for a season, study thyself, live for thyself alone. An thou shouldst see God’s whole creation swallowed up before thine eyes, avert it not with so much as an Ave Maria, but summon all creatures at will to do thy bidding to theglory of God. Wear delicate, beautiful raiment, and, abiding in one place, carry all things up to God. Dost thou choose to enjoy creatures, it is seemly so to do, seeing that any creature thou enjoyest thou dost render to its cause. Thou wilt know full well that everything thou enjoyest is in God to God’s glory.’ She said, ‘I know right well that all you say is true but you must understand I never shall want anything except to be a beggar till I die. —‘ Thou art mistook,’ he said.—‘ Then mistaken I will remain,’ said she. ‘I choose poverty and exile; that none can take from me.’—‘ On my soul, thou art false to God,’ he cried.—‘ How so ? ’ she asked. * Just pleasing thyself,’ he answered. Quoth she, ‘God knows I am but keeping on the lines that led me to eternal happiness. The natural error of those lines in time and in eternity shall be mine too in eternity and time. I will not deviate from the rule of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ He said, ‘ Thou shouldst know that. God prosper thee.’ Then she: ‘Believe me, I do take more ease ; my discipline is not so strict as heretofore. If only I might forward on their way good souls approaching their eternal happiness but lacking certainty, that I fain would do; I would fain succour the whole world from sin for God’s sake. Since our Lord Jesus Christ made use of all his faculties up to his death, ’tis meet I should do likewise. My outer faculties shall occupy themselves with the exalted life and noble manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ
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and with his lofty teachings, during my life in time. The highest powers of my soul will, as you know, be working in Christ’s soul in his heavenly Father, subsistent in one nature they never stoop from. The Holy Ghost flows from the Father through these powers into my soul and back from my soul into God, each several power doing its own work, here in the Holy Ghost and, in the Father, with his Son our Lord Jesus Christ. Regard it as an intercourse. He knows all my days from the time I discerned good and evil.’
‘Tell me, daughter,’ he said, ‘ doctors declare that in heaven a thousand angels can stand on the point of a needle. Now rede me the meaning of this?’ She answered, ‘The doctors are right. You can see it in this way. The soul that enters into God owns neither time nor space nor anything nameable to be expressed in words. But it stands to reason, if you consider it, that the space occupied by any soul is vastly greater than heaven and earth and God’s entire creation. I say more: God might make heavens and earths galore yet these, together with the multiplicity of creatures he has already made, would be of less extent than a single needle-tip compared with the standpoint of a soul atoned in God.’ —So the daughter went on, till her talk turning upon God, she waxed most eloquent, the father urging her at intervals : ‘ Say on, daughter.’ She imparted to him so much concerning the immen- sity of God, the might of God and the providence of God, that he took leave of his outer senses and they had to carry him into a neighbouring cell where he lay for long ere coming to himself again. Returning to himself, he desired his daughter to come to him. Admitted to his presence, his daughter inquired, * How is it now with you ? ’—‘ Excellently well,’ he answered. ° God be praised for sending thee to a man. . Thou didst show me the way to my eternal happiness, and I have been deep in divine contemplation where there was given me the realization of all I have heard from thy lips. Daughter I adjure thee, by thy love to God, help me by word and deed to win a permanent abode where now I am.’ Quoth she, ‘ Impossible. You are not tempered to it. When, soul and faculties, you are as used to going up and down as a courtier is to going to and fro at court ; when you recognise the various members of the heavenly company and everything God ever made and fail in nothing but know them as the good man knows the members of his household, then you will distinguish between God and Godhead; then too you see the difference between spirit and spirituality. Till then you are not qualified for confirmation. Do not run away ; wrestle awhile with creatures till you are independent of them and they, as such, of you. So shall you cultivate your faculties without going demented. This
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do until your soul-powers are stimulated to the consciousness we have been speaking of.’
Blessed and praised be the sweet name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Signs of the True Ground
According to one master, many people arrive at specific under- standing, at formal, notional knowledge, but there are few who get beyond the science and the theory ; yet one man whose mind is free from notions and from forms is more dear to God than the hundred thousand who have the habit of discursive reason. God cannot enter in and do his work in them owing to the restlessness of their imagination. If they were free from pictures they could be caught and carried up beyond all rational concepts, as St Diony- sius says, and also have the super-rational light of faith at its starting-point, where God finds his rest and peace to dwell and work in as he will and when he will and what he will. God is unhindered in his work in these so he can do in them his most precious work of all, working them up in faith into himself. These people no one can make out ; their life is an enigma, and their ways, to all who do not live the same. To this truth and to this blessed life, to this high and perfect consummation no one can attain except in abstract knowledge and pure understanding.
Many a lofty intellect, angels not excepting (for in life and nature an angel is nothing but pure mind), has erred and lapsed eternally from the eternal truth and this may happen also to those who, like the angels, preserve their idiosyncrasy and find satis- faction in the exercise of their own intelligence. Hence the masters urge, and the saints as well, the use and the necessity of careful observation and close scrutiny to test the light which flashes in, the light of understanding and of vision which man has here in time, lest he be the subject of hallucination. If you would know and recognise the really sane and genuine seers of God, - whom nothing can deceive nor misinform, they can be detected by four and twenty signs. .
The first sign is told us by the chief exponent of knowledge and wisdom and transcendental understanding, who is himself the truth, our Lord Jesus Christ. He says, ‘ Thereby ye shall know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another and keep my commandment. What is my commandment? That ye love one another as I have loved you,’ as though to say, ye may be my disciples in knowledge and in wisdom and high understanding but without true love it shall avail you little if anything at all.