When a man is quite idle, when his intellect is at rest within him, then God takes up the work: he himself is the agent who produces himself in the passive intellect. What happens is this. The active intellect cannot give what it has not got: it cannot have two ideas together, but first one and then the other. What though light and air show multitudes of forms and colours all at once, thou canst only observe them one after another. And so with thy active intellect, which resembles the eye. But when God acts in lieu of thy active intellect he engenders many images together . in one point. Suppose God prompts thee to some one good deed, thy powers are all proffered for all virtuous things, thy mind being straightway set on good in general. All thy possibilities for good take shape and come into thy mind collectively, focussed to one point. Clearly this is not the work of thine own intellect which has in no wise the perfection nor plenitude for it ; rather is it the work and product of him who has all forms at once in himself. As Paul says: ‘I can do all things in him who strengtheneth me; in him I am undivided.’ Know then, the ideas of these acts are not thine own: they belong to the author of thy nature who has planted therein both their energy and form. Lay no claim thereto, for it is his not thine. True, thou receivest it temporally, but it is gotten and born of God beyond time, in eternity above images.
Thou wilt say, perhaps: From the moment my intellect is divested of its natural activity and no longer has either form or action of its own, what is preserving it? It must have a hold ‘somewhere; the powers, whether memory, intellect or will, are bound to have some lodgment somewhere, some place to work in.
The answer is this. Intellect’s object and sustenance is essence, not accident, just pure unadulterated being in itself. On descrying something real the intellect forthwith relies upon it, comes to rest thereon, pronouncing its intellectual word concerning the object attained. As long as intellect fails to find the actual truth of things, does not touch bedrock in them, it stays in a condition of quest and expectation, it never settles down to rest, but labours incessantly to trace things to their cause, that is, it is seeking and waiting. It spends perhaps a year or more in research on some natural fact, finding out what it is, only to work as long again stripping off what it is not. All this time it has nothing to go by, it makes no pronouncement at all in the absence of experimental
knowledge of the ground of truth. Intellect never rests in this * 2
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life. However much God shows himself in this life it is nothing to what he really is. Truth lies in the ground, but veiled and concealed from the intelleet. And meanwhile the mind has no support to rest on as on something permanent. It gets no rest at all, but goes on .expecting and preparing for something still to come but so far hidden. There is no knowing what God is. Something we do know, namely, what God is not. This the dis- cerning soul rejects. Intellect, meantime, finding no satisfaction in any mortal thing, is waiting, as matter awaits form. As matter is insatiable for form, so is intellect unsatisfied except with the essential, all-embracing truth. Only the truth will do, and this God keeps withdrawing from it step by step, purposing to arouse its zeal and lure it on to seek and grasp the actual causeless good : that, not content with any mortal thing, she may clamour more and more for the highest good of all.
But thou wilt say: ‘ Alas, Sir, you laid so much stress on our quieting our faculties and now this calm resolves itself into yearn- ing and lamenting : to a muckle moan and clamour for something not possessed, which puts an end to peace and quiet. This may be desire or purpose or praise or thanksgiving or any of their brood, but it is not perfect peace and absolute stillness.’
I answer that, when thou hast emptied thyself entirely of thine own self and all things and of every sort of selfishness and hast transferred, united and abandoned thyself to God in perfect faith and complete amity, then everything that is born in thee or that enters into thee, external or internal, joyful or sorrowful, sour or sweet, is no longer thine own ai all, but is altogether thy God’s to whom thou hast abandoned thyself. Tell me, whose is the spoken word ? His who speaks it or his who hears it? Though it fall to the hearer ‘it really belongs to the speaker, to him who gives it
birth. The sun, for example, throws out light into the air and-
the air receives the light and transmits it to the earth. Now, although the light seems in the air, it is really in the sun: the light is actually from the sun, originating in the sun, not in the air : the air entertains it and passes it on to anything that can be lighted up. And so with the soul. God begets in the soul his child, his Word, and the soul conceiving it passes it on to her powers in varied guise, now as desire, now as good intent, now as charity, now as gratitude, or as it may take thee: It is his, not thine at all. What is thus wrought by God take thou as his and not thine own, as it is written, ‘ The Holy Ghost asketh in us with unutterable yearnings.” He prays in us, not we ourselves. St Paul says, ee one is able to say, Lord Jesus Christ, except in the Holy ost.
Above all, lay no claim to anything. Let go thyself and let
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God act for thee and in thee as he pleases. This work is his, this Word is his, this birth is his and all thou art to boot. For thou hast abandoned thyself and art gone out of thy faculties and thy personal nature. God installs himself in thy nature and powers when, self-bereft of all belongings, thou dost take to the desert, as it is written, ‘ A voice crying in the wilderness.’ Let this eternal voice cry on in thee at its sweet will and do thou be a desert in: respect of self and creatures.
Maybe thou wilt say: ‘ But, Sir, what must one do to become this desert, void of self and creatures? Should one stay waiting for God all the time and do nothing oneself or should one do some- thing between whiles, such as praying or reading or some good occupation like going to church or studying the Bible? Not, of course, taking things in from without, but everything from within, from one’s God. Besides, is there not something we miss by neglecting these things ? ’
My answer is this : Outward works were instituted and appointed for the purpose of directing the outer man to God and training him to ghostly life and virtues lest haply he should stray out of himself into ineptitudes: to act as a curb upon his inclination to run away from self to things abroad ; so that when God shall choose to work in him he shall find him close at hand and not first have to fetch him back from things gross and alien. The greater is the pleasure in external things the harder work it is to leave them ; the stronger the love the sharper the pain when it comes to parting.
All pious practices—praying, reading, singing, watching, fasting, penance, or whatever discipline it be—were contrived to catch and keep us from things alien and ungodly. Suppose one feels God’s spirit is not working in one, but rather that one’s inner man is God- forsaken, that is the proper moment for the outward man to exer- cise the practical virtues, and particularly such as are most feasible and useful to him ; not for his own selfish ends, but that, respect for truth preserving him from being led away by what is gross, he may stick straitly to God who will not need to seek him far afield, but will find him there at hand when he chooses to return and carry on his own work in his soul. But given that a man has genuine experience of the interior life, then let him boldly drop all outward disciplines, even those practices which thou art vowed to and from which neither pope nor prelate can release thee. From vows made to God no man can excuse thee: such vows are a bond between thyself and God. But supposing one has taken solemn vows of fasting, say, or prayer or pilgrimage, then on entering some order, one is‘released from them forthwith : in the order, obligation is to goodness as a whole, to God himself.
And so I say here. Whatever one’s vows to manifold things,
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initiation into the real interior life releases from them. While the interior experience lasts, maybe a week, a month, a year, no hours are neglected by the monk or nun, for God who occupies - them will also answer for them. On returning to himself the religious shall perform his vows for the time present, but the time elapsed and lost, as thou dost think, ’tis no business of thine to make good. God makes good any time he takes up. Think not to make it good by any act of creature, for the smallest act of God outweighs all the work of creatures put together. I am speak- ing here of clerks and those enlightened souls who are illumined by God and by the scriptures. But what about the poor profane who, ignorant of corporal discipline, has assumed some vow or other, praying or the like? My view is this. If he finds it hampering and that he draws much nigher God and much more easily without it, let him boldly give it up, for whatever brings nearest to God is the best. Paul implied this when he said: ‘ But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.’ Vows taken before priests, vows of marriage, for example, are very different from these other obligations which amount to solemn promises of oneself to God. Vows taken with the laudable intention of binding oneself to God are for the moment the best way. But supposing that we find a better way, a way we feel and know to be much better, then the first may be deemed null and void.
The Eternal Birth
Et cum factus esset Jesus annorum duodecim etc. (Luc. 24). We read in the gospel that when our Lord was twelve years old he went with Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem into the temple; and when they went out, Jesus remained behind in the temple without their knowing it. And when they reached home and missed him, they sought him among acquaintances and among strangers, among their kindred, and among the multitude, and found him not ; they had lost him in the crowd. So there was nothing for it but to return whence they were come; and when they got back to their starting-point, into the temple, there they found him.
If thou wilt find this noble birth, verily thou must quit the multitude and return to the starting-point, into the ground out of which thou art come. The powers of the soul and their works, these are the multitude : memory, understanding and will; these all diversify thee, therefore thou must leave them all: sensible perception, imagination and everything wherein thou findest
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thyself and hast thyself in view. Thereafter thou mayest find this birth, but, believe me, not otherwise. He has never been found among friends, nor among kindred nor acquaintances, there rather does one lose him altogether.