The Inner Way

   * INTRODUCTION
        o I
        o II
        o III
        o IV
        o V.
   * THE INNER WAY
        o SERMON I
        o SERMON II
        o SERMON III
        o SERMON IV
        o SERMON V
        o SERMON VI
        o SERMON VII
        o SERMON VIII
        o SERMON IX
        o SERMON X
        o SERMON XI
        o SERMON XII
        o SERMON XIII
        o SERMON XIV
        o SERMON XV
        o SERMON XVI
        o SERMON XVII
        o SERMON XVIII
        o SERMON XIX
        o SERMON XX
        o SERMON XXI
        o SERMON XXII
        o SERMON XXIII
        o SERMON XXIV
        o SERMON XXV
        o SERMON XXVI
        o SERMON XXVII
        o SERMON XXVIII
        o SERMON XXIX
        o SERMON XXX
        o SERMON XXXI
        o SERMON XXXII
        o SERMON XXXIII
        o SERMON XXXIV
        o SERMON XXXV
        o SERMON XXXVI
   * Three thoughtful Instructions and some useful Advice on Confession
        o INSTRUCTION I
        o INSTRUCTION II
        o INSTRUCTION III

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Typed by: Kathy Sewell, ksewell@gate.net, April 21, 1997

This book is in the public domain
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                                THE INNER WAY

                                   BEING

                             THIRTY-SIX SERMONS

                              FOR FESTIVALS BY

                                 JOHN TAULER

                              FRIAR PREACHER OF

                                  STRASBURG

                           A NEW TRANSLATION FROM

                           THE GERMAN EDITED WITH

                             AN INTRODUCTION BY

                              ARTHUR WOLLASTON

                                HUTTON, M.A.

                          RECTOR OF ST MARY-LE-BOW

                                  CHEAPSIDE

                                METHUEN & CO.

                              36 ESSEX ST. W.C.

                                   LONDON

                               SECOND EDITION

                          FIRST PUBLISHED MAY 1901

                        SECOND EDITION NOVEMBER 1909

                                INTRODUCTION

                                      I

                      Scope of the Present Publication


     In this volume are contained the thirty-seven Sermons of John Tauler,
which form the Third Part of the complete editions published at Frankfort in
1826 and at Prague (ed. Hamberger) in 1872. These are the Sermons for
Festivals (de sanctis), while the First and Second Parts contain the Sermons
for the Christian Year (de tempore); the total number being 145. Should this
volume of the Festal Sermons meet with a favourable reception, the Sermons
for the Christian Year may follow in two or three volumes. Up to the present
time only twenty-seven of Tauler's sermons have appeared in English, these
being contained in Miss Susanna Winkworth's well-known but now scarce
volume, to which Charles Kingsley contributed a preface.[1] Of the
thirty-seven Festal Sermons Miss Winkworth translated only three (nos. 4,
12, and 31 in the present volume) so that thirty-four of those now presented
to the reader appear here for the first time in English. The Sermons for the
Christian Year were translated into French by M. Charles Sainte-Foi, and
were published in Paris in 1855; but he did not include the Sermons de
sanctis. They are to be found, however, together with all else that is
rightly or wrongly ascribed to Tauler, in the Latin version, or rather
paraphrase, by Laurentius Surius, a Carthusian,[2] which was based on the
Cologne German edition of 1543, and which was reprinted at least twelve
times before the end of the seventeenth century, while it was also
translated into Italian, French and Dutch.
     Until the appearance of Hamberger's edition (Prague, 1872), the
standard German edition of the Sermons was that published at Frankfort, in
1826, without an editor's name. This was used by Miss Winkworth, and also by
M. Sainte-Foi; and it forms the basis of the present publication, as I have
only been able to refer to Hamberger's edition in the British Museum. In the
anonymous Introduction are indicated the MSS. sources on which the earlier
standard German editions (Leipzig, 1498; Augsburg, 1508; Basle, 1521;
Halberstadt, 1523; Cologne, 1543; Frankfort, 1565; Amsterdam, 1588; Antwerp,
1593; and Hamburg, 1621) were based. The original Leipzig edition (1498) was
printed from MSS. at Strasburg, said to be contemporary with Tauler, and to
have been corrected by him. The eighty-four sermons in this edition may
therefore be reckoned as authentic, with the exception of four, which are
known to have been Eckhart's. To the Basle edition of 1521 forty-two sermons
were added, the editor, John Rymann, saying of them that "they have been
more recently discovered and collected with great care and diligence.
Although there may be a doubt about some of them, let not that offend thee,
for it is certain that they have been written by a right learned man of that
age, and are all based on one foundation, namely, true self-surrender and
the preparation of the spirit for God." Some of these are probably to be
ascribed to Eckhart, Suso or Ruysbroek. Such of them as are found in this
volume are distinguished by the mark * in the Table of Contents. Of this
Basle edition it should be noted that it was issued in the interests of the
Reformation; and the article on Tauler in the new edition of the
Kirchenlexicon (1899) seems to ignore these forty-two additional sermons
altogether, and to admit as authentic only five of those added to the
Cologne edition presently to be referred to. Something is said below as to
the sense in which alone Tauler can be described as "a Reformer before the
Reformation"; but it may be convenient here to note that Luther, who in 1517
put forth an edition of the Theologia Germanica, the work of one of Tauler's
contemporaries, had in the previous year written to Spalatin a commendation
of Tauler's sermons, of which, as a recognition of their Protestant
tendency, too much has certainly been made. The fact that the words were
written when Luther was still Prior of Wittenberg, and before there was any
breach with Rome, should have sufficed to secure them from such
misinterpretation.[3] Finally, to the Cologne edition of 1543 (the standard
for all subsequent ones) Petrus Noviomagus, the editor, added twenty-five
sermons more, which he had found chiefly in the library of St Gertrude's
Convent in Cologne; and the authenticity of these is in a general way
supported, both by internal evidence, and by the fact that to the nuns at St
Gertrude's Tauler frequently preached. Of the Festal Sermons contained in
this volume, eighteen are to be found in the original Leipzig edition,
fifteen form part of the Basle supplement, and four are of those that were
added to the Cologne edition. Miss Winkworth, selecting from the whole
number of 145 sermons, took eleven from the original edition, eleven from
the Basle supplement, and five from the Cologne supplement. Of the Festal
Sermons she selected only three, her principle of selection being rather
edification than authenticity.
     But, on the general question of authenticity, it must be confessed that
not one of the 145 sermons can claim such as it would have possessed had it
been written by Tauler's own hand and been put forth by him as representing
what he said or desired to say on the occasion. His sermons were always
spoken; and the MSS. are at best only the reports of those who heard him;
and such reports, it is hardly necessary to say, do not reproduce the
sermons as they actually were delivered; though the way in which the sermons
have thus come down to us explains the differences of reading in various
editions and also the obscurity of certain passages. A critical edition of
Tauler's Sermons by a competent hand is doubtless a thing to be desired; but
it would be a misfortune, from the point of view of edification, if, in such
an edition, matter otherwise admirable found no place, on account of the
uncertainty of its authorship.
     The scope of Miss Winkworth's edition of Tauler's Sermons differed from
that of the present publication. She had learnt to admire them by hearing
some of them read in German Protestant households as a part of domestic
worship; and her idea was to introduce a previously unknown preacher to an
English audience, compiling "a volume of sermons for the Sundays and
Holy-days of the year, such as any head of a family might read to his
household, or any district visitor among the poor." But as she was very
properly anxious to publish in their entirety such sermons as she selected,
she felt compelled to omit such as, either in whole or in part, were "too
much imbued with references to the Romish ritual and discipline to be
suitable for the Protestant common people." I cannot say that any of the
sermons strike me as particularly suitable for such a purpose. They contain,
indeed, many thought that have become pulpit commonplaces since Tauler's
day, and other thoughts that might very well acquire such acceptance; but
for such a use as Miss Winkworth contemplated, the sermons need more than
mere translation. Their spirit must first be made his own by any man who is
to expound it profitably; and this he then must do in his own language. My
idea has therefore rather been to present these sermons of Tauler's in such
a form as may aid towards a more accurate historical appreciation of the man
and his teaching. I have had no thought of either pruning or adapting his
words. He was a Dominican friar of the fourteenth century, and he held all
the beliefs of his age and of his Church without any trace of reserve. The
ardour of his Marian devotion is especially noticeable; and it would be as
improper to omit this or to tone it down in a translation, as it would be to
correct any other illustrations of his beliefs and practices, crude and
almost grotesque as some of them undoubtedly are.[4] Indeed, in order to
preserve throughout the impression of a Catholic preacher addressing a
Catholic congregation, I have even gone out of my way to give the English
translation of the Scripture texts from the Douai version; since, though
that did not exist in Tauler's day any more than our own Authorized Version,
it is a faithful translation from the Vulgate, which Tauler used in the
pulpit, translating it into German for the benefit of his hearers. Such at
least has been my intention; though, from inadvertence and a greater
familiarity with King James' version, I may not have adhered to it
throughout. To the lady, by her own desire anonymous, to whose patient
labour the bulk of the translation of the Sermons is due, I desire here to
record my most sincere thanks. Tauler's sentences are sometimes obscure
because they are so long; and that obscurity the translator has in many
cases succeeded in removing by breaking up a sentence into two or more; but
it has not been found possible to remove in all cases the obscurity of the
original. (See, at the end of this Introduction, an illustration of the
methods used by some earlier translators of Tauler.) The version here
presented will, however, be found as a whole, readable and easy; and it
should serve to render more familiar one of the most notable figures in the
history of the Christian Church; one whose teaching shows how essential is
the unity that underlies a spiritual conception of the Christian Creed,
however much its exponents may differ as to matters of form.
     A word must be said in explanation of the title, "The Inner Way," which
the present volume bears. It is used merely by way of convenience, at the
urgent request of the publishers. For myself, I had thought that "Tauler's
Festal Sermons" would have amply sufficed to identify the contents of the
volume for all those whom it is likely to interest; and that any additional
title might even cause perplexity, especially to those who know that all the
spiritual works, except the sermons, once attributed to Tauler, are now
generally regarded as unauthentic. But it appears that, in book selling
regarded as a business, the word "Sermons" bears a fatal significance, and
must be avoided at any cost. Thus urged, I have selected a title which marks
the general character of Tauler's teaching, and which will not, I trust,
give rise to any misconception as to what the volume professes to be.


                                     II

                         Some Notes on Tauler's Life


     The historical criticism of the nineteenth century did not leave Tauler
undisturbed. When Miss Winkworth published her "History and Life of the
Reverend Doctor John Tauler" in 1857, no one had questioned, save on grounds
of religious sentiment, that he was the "Master in Holy Scripture" who was
converted by the "Friend of God from the Oberland," as is narrated in that
quaint and edifying legend. The story in question had, in fact, been printed
in every edition of Tauler's Sermons, and was regarded as an authentic and
almost contemporary document. Quetif and Echard, in their Scriptures Ordinis
Praedicatorum, had suggested, early in the eighteenth century, that the
legend should be regarded as an allegory;[5] and this view was supported by
Weiss, in his article on Tauler in the Biographie universelle (1826) already
referred to. But it was reserved to H.S. Denifle, a learned Dominican of our
own day, to point out that the story, as applied to Tauler, involves grave
historical difficulties, and is barely reconcilable with certain matters of
ascertained fact.[6] His criticisms would seem to have settled the question;
but to him Preger, a Protestant, whose life has been largely devoted to the
study of the German mystics, and who was selected to be the biographer of
Tauler in the "Universal German Biography," has made a detailed reply in the
third volume of his Deutsche Mystik (1893); and many will hold that he has
succeeded in rebuilding the edifice which Denifle was thought to have
destroyed. The latter's criticisms are however ably reinforced in the
article on Tauler by Von Loe, also a Dominican, in the eleventh volume
(1899) of the new edition of the Kirchenlexicon; and it would be impossible
for anyone who had not made a prolonged and independent study of the
question to decide between the disputants.
     Moreover, the controversy is mixed up with a further question, as to
whether Tauler did or did not submit to the Papal interdict, under which
Strasburg (and other cities that espoused the cause of the Emperor Louis the
Bavarian) lay for many years after 1329. The evidence certainly seems to
point to the conclusion that Tauler, and the Dominican house at Strasburg,
did submit. But Preger holds it as proved that a certain Merswin, a layman
who had withdrawn from a distinguished civic position and led a penitential
life as one of the "Friends of God," received the sacraments from Tauler
during the interdict. Specklin, however, the Strasburg chronicler, on whom
Preger relies for this assertion, also says that Tauler wrote a book (or two
books) in which he protested against people being allowed to die without the
sacraments during the interdict, and in obedience to it; and that his book
was condemned as heretical. To this his Catholic apologists reply that such
a thing was impossible, since such administration of the sacraments during
an interdict was not prohibited by the ecclesiastical law at that date. It
is a pity that so admirable a legend should have proved the occasion for so
keen a controversy.
     Proceeding now to sketch the undisputed facts of Tauler's life, we note
that he was born at Strasburg, about the year 1300, of a respectable citizen
family, dwelling in a house "near the Miller's Bridge." At an early age
(Preger says at fifteen) he entered the Dominican convent at Strasburg as a
novice; and he was through life a brother of that "Order of Preachers,"
known in England as the "Black Friars." He passed the two years of his
novitiate and the eight years of his preliminary study in his native city;
and then, as a brother of much promise, he was sent to the studium Generale
at Cologne for a further period of four years. It is interesting to note
that, during those early years at Strasburg, the nave of the Cathedral, as
we now see it, was fresh and white from the mason's chisel, while the great
western facade was in process of erection. There he would have heard the
sermons of his master, Eckhart, usually reckoned the most intellectual of
the German mystics and the founder of German philosophy. He would have heard
him again at Cologne, where Eckhart had the misfortune to be accused of
Pantheism, but was acquitted after trial by the Inquisition. At Strasburg
Tauler would also have known the mystic, John of Sternengassen, and the
theologian, John of Dambach; and he would have studied the authors he most
frequently quotes, Augustine, Gregory, Bernard, Hugo and Richard of St
Victor, Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus. Logic, Scripture, and the
Sentences of Peter Lombard formed part of the regular curriculum of his
preliminary training; and it is supposed that, when he proceeded to Cologne
at the age of twenty-five, he had already been ordained priest, and had
definitely adopted that mystical standpoint in religion by which he will
always be distinguished.
     At this date the Dominican order occupied a position similar to that of
the Jesuits two or three centuries later. It was the nursery of great
preachers and theologians, and royal confessors were usually chosen from it.
At Cologne Tauler would come to know several of the more learned men of his
order; and it was there that his training was probably completed. From a
passage in one of his sermons: it has been inferred that he proceeded to
Paris; but there is no certain trace of him in the Acta of that University;
and it is more likely that he returned direct from Cologne to Strasburg.
Neither is there any evidence that at Cologne he took the degree of "Master
in holy Scripture," (a degree equivalent to that of "Doctor in Theology");
and this he could only have done either at Paris or Cologne. In all the MSS.
previous to the fifteenth century he is described simply as "Brother John
Tauler"; and this is evidence against his being the anonymous "Master of
Holy Scripture" whom the lay "Friend of God" converted. Only in virtue of
that indification has he been described as "Dr. John Tauler."
     He would have returned to Strasburg about the year 1329, when the city
was laid under an interdict by John XXII. The validity of the interdict was
disputed among the city clergy, great pressure being put upon them by the
municipal authorities not to observe it. Even among the regulars (Dominicans
and Franciscans) there was a party that contended for its non-observance.
The General Chapter of the Dominicans admitted its validity; but, according
to Preger, not all the German houses--there were about 100--accepted the
decision. The Strasburg convent, he maintains, did not submit to it until
1339; and the friars were thereupon expelled for three years by the City
Council. But before this date Tauler appears to have been sent to Basle,
where, though the city was imperialist, the clergy were not called upon by
the civil authorities to defy the interdict, and where, moreover, the Pope
relaxed its observance from time to time. Here Tauler made a considerable
stay, and presumably delivered some, at least, of those sermons which were
included in the Basle edition of 1521. Here, too, he met Henry of Nordingen,
a secular priest who had come to Basle from Constance for the same reason
that Tauler had come there from Strasburg. He was a man of much piety and
influence, and he numbered many regulars among his spiritual children, one
of them being Margaret Ebner, a Dominican nun and an ecstatica, with whom
Tauler had later some correspondence, now lost.[7] He returned to Strasburg
not much later than 1346; and it was in the years following that his sermons
there attracted general attention and admiration. In 1357 he again visited
Cologne, and addressed a series of discourses to the nuns at St Gertrude's
in that city. Some of these were presumably the originals of the sermons
added to the Cologne edition of 1543. Four years later he died in Strasburg
(the date on his tomb is June 16, 1361), and was buried in the convent of
his order. He had died, however, outside the convent, in the guest-house of
an adjoining nunnery, over which his sister presided. A manuscript at
Colmar, giving an account of Tauler by one who had known him personally,
describes him as "a gifted and holy Friend of God"; but adds that he was
detained six years in purgatory for sundry faults, one of these being that
on his death-bed he allowed himself to receive too much attention from his
sister, "in whose guest-house he died." Other faults ascribed to him are
that he was irritable, that he was wanting in submission to his superiors,
and that he extolled too highly the "Friends of God," while towards others
he was harsh. According to the legend already referred to, the lay "Friend
of God," to whom he had owed his conversion, was with him again at his
death-bed, and received from "the Master" the notes of his conversion, to be
published after his death, describing him as "the Master," without any other
name.
     I have failed to obtain any portrait of Tauler, and I am doubtful
whether any vera effigies of him exists. But I have heard of a conventional
likeness, in which he is represented in the Dominican habit, holding in his
left hand the Holy Bible, stamped with the Agnus Dei, while he points to it
with his right. On his breast are the letters I H S and beneath them a T, an
allusion perhaps to his name or to his preaching of the Cross.

                                     III

                         Notes on Tauler's Teaching


     Only to Tauler's Sermons must recourse be had to ascertain his
teaching; and even of these, as has been noted, a critical edition is
desirable. The other works once attributed to him, and printed as his in the
Latin version of Surius, are now accounted doubtful, if not certainly
spurious. These works are: 1. "The Following of the Poor Life of Christ"; 2.
"Exercises on the Life and Passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ"; and 3.
"Divine Institutions," also called "The Marrow of the Soul." All these are
spiritual works of high value, and they deserve a place in any library of
devotion; but, as attributed to Tauler, they are not authentic. Such at
least is the present verdict of the critics.
     Judged then solely by his Sermons, Tauler is described by Von Loe, his
latest biographer, as "one of the foremost among the medieval German mystics
and preachers, uniting the intellectual depth of Eckhart with the interior
spirituality of Suso and the fervour of Berthold of Ratisbon." The
first-named was mystical; the last-named was practical; Suso was both; but
he was rather a director than a preacher. Tauler also was both, and, like
Berthold, he preached for his times. Herder criticizes him, saying that to
have read two of his sermons is to have read them all; but this is hardly a
verdict to be accepted; for his method varies largely, and the Sermon
numbered xi. in this volume, for the most part so dull and in places barely
intelligible, would strike a critic as not the work of the same author as
the Sermon numbered xv. which the German editors have described as "a most
precious and thoughtful exhortation," and perhaps the best example of
Tauler's method. Sometimes moreover he expounds a text like a homilist;
sometimes his text is barely referred to, and becomes a mere peg on which to
hang a discourse on a subject of which he was full. No doubt there are
readers to whom his allegorical interpretation of Scripture will be
distasteful. Kingsley admits that it is "fantastic and arbitrary"; and the
method is, of course, one that can easily be abused, especially when the
interpretation of numbers is in question. But it has its justification, both
in the fact that it is in accordance with Christian tradition--it is found
in St Paul, in the early Fathers (as Keble's Tract lxxxix. made abundantly
clear), and in the offices of the Church, whether those for the choir or
those for the altar, and traces of it are left in the Anglican Prayer
Book--and also in the experience of sympathetic souls, who find light and
consolation in its use. But Tauler's mysticism (of which more is said below)
by no means exhausted itself in the allegorical interpretation of Scripture.
To him, as to Keble and to Kingsley, the book of Nature was full of parables
of things spiritual; and, beyond that again, he clearly enjoyed (for he was
no hypocrite) an intuition of things divine, wherein he found more light and
certitude than in mere submission to the dogmatic magisterium of the Church.
     Further, as to his manner, he is eager and earnest in his presentation
of his subject; he uses homely illustrations from daily life, yet without
loss of dignity, and when he disparages, as he often does, "outward works,"
he is saying nothing against the performance of the duties, even the
humblest, of ordinary life; he is merely protesting against reliance on
ecclesiastical routine, such as fasting, self-discipline, long prayers, and
such-like; and this protest is of course quite compatible with Catholic
orthodoxy; nor is it unnecessary for these times any more than for his own.
But the manner of his sermons, as they have come down to us, is sometimes
hard and even menacing; and readers may not always find it easy to reconcile
his frequent use of the words "dear children" with such an apparent lack of
tenderness and sympathy. But, likely enough, this defect of manner was less
noticeable in the discourses as delivered, than it is in the reports as now
read.
     Readers will also fine it necessary to bear in mind that the mystical
standpoint in religion does not by itself free a man from contemporary views
and prepossessions. The mystic is of his own age and race; and it is amply
evident that the articles of Tauler's creed were just those of any other
Catholic believer of his time. There is throughout a spiritual element in
his teaching; but it does not exclude the use of what we should now account
popular and conventional language about the fall of man, the pains of hell,
and so forth. True, he says in one place, what indeed any Catholic preacher
may say, that the chief pain of hell is the consciousness of being excluded
from the Presence of God; but he does not go on to suggest, as a
spiritually-minded teacher might now, that all other language about the
pains of hell, "the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched,"
is merely figurative of that one pain, and that such language was and is
necessary to bring home men,--to all men in different degrees,--the
exceeding greatness of that pain or penalty, as it will hereafter be
realised. He is liberal indeed in extending to the spiritually-minded
heathen a sufficient knowledge of things divine. He holds that in the "inner
ground"[8] Plato and Proclus apprehended the Holy Trinity; he things that in
Plato can be found the whole meaning of the opening verses of St John's
Gospel, though in veiled words. He teaches that a king, remaining such, may
yet rise to the height of "interior poverty," if there is nothing that he is
not ready cheerfully to resign to God's Fatherly love. He extols the
"evangelical counsels"; but teaches also that the highest perfection is
attainable by a married cobbler working to maintain his family. His doctrine
of Purgatory does not differ from that usually held by Catholics; but he
regards it more as a place for the purging away of self-will than for the
expiation of sin. In his sermon for the second Sunday in Lent there is a
passage somewhat in disparagement of the invocation of Saints. A good soul,
he says, once prayed to the Saints; but they were so lost in God that they
did not heed her. Then she betook herself humbly to God direct, and
straightway she was lifted far about all media into the loving abyss of the
Godhead. But perhaps he comes nearest to the Protestant position in his
language about the "Friends of God." They are, he teaches, the true pillars
of the Church, and without them the world could not stand. In his sermon for
Laetare Sunday he bids his hearers "beg the dear Friends of God to help them
(in the way of perfection), and to attach themselves simply and solely to
God and to his chosen Friends." And there is a similar passage in the sermon
for All Saints (see pp. 218-222, and cf. pp. 93 and 174). But, in his
teaching, the "Friends of God" do not form, as they would have formed for
the later Puritans, "the Church invisible"; they constitute rather a second
visible Church, to which the hierarchical Church is in some respects
inferior. Some thirty years after Tauler's death the Inquisition at Cologne
condemned as heretical certain propositions of Martin of Mayence; one of
which was that these "Friends of God" (who were laymen) understood the
Gospel better than some of the Apostles, even better than St Paul; and
another was that submission to their teaching was necessary to perfection.
But Tauler never went so far as this.
     It may be added that, from the modern Christian social point of view,
Tauler's limitations are obvious. True, that in his sermon for Septuagesima
he exhorts his hearers to use "natural gifts" for God. But his conception of
"nature" is a very narrow one. Rightly it should include, besides those
natural gifts which constitute personal character, such social virtues as
patriotism, love for the community and for the family, a desire to master
the earth and to make it the seat of a well-ordered Christian society, a
realization of the Kingdom of God on earth. But Tauler manifests no
conception of anything of this. For the social elevation of mankind, here
and now, he has nothing whatever to say.
     Nevertheless, whatever were our author's limitations, Preger's judgment
on the value of Tauler's sermons is one to command general assent:--"Their
strength lies in the fact that Tauler knew how to put into them his whole
heart, the fulness of his moral being. So utterly and completely is he
penetrated by love of God and of Christ, so happily is the sublime and
unworldly zeal of the orator blended with gentleness and freedom, that he
masters the will unawares, and lays the heart open to the demands he makes
upon it ...His sermons will never cease to hold their place among the most
perfect examples of pure German speech, of fervid German faith, and of
German spirituality in all its depths.

                                     IV

                            Tauler and Mysticism


     It may be convenient to some of those into whose hands this little
volume will come, if a brief account is here given of that "Mysticism" to
which repeated reference has been made, and to which reference must be made,
when the significance of Tauler's teaching is under consideration. Although
the subject is now much better understood than it was in 1856, when Robert
Vaughan published his "Hours with the Mystics," a notable book, queerly put
together, interesting in its facts, but irritating in its manner, and one
that was sympathetically reviewed by Kingsley in "Fraser's Magazine,"[9]
there is still need to point out what mystics are not, more perhaps than
what they are. Mystics are not dreamers; they are not fanatics; they are not
fools; they are not a sect; and mysticism is not a religion. As a rule,
mystics are so termed by others; they do not use the term of themselves. But
thousands and millions of Christian believers have been and are mystics,
without themselves knowing the word. In fact, as Dr. Bigg says, "mysticism
is an element in all religion that is not mere formalism"; and it is
confined to no one form of Christianity. A Carthusian hermit, prostrate on
the floor of his cell in meditation, may or may not be a mystic; but so may
also be a grocer's assistant who occasionally attends a Methodist chapel.
When Cardinal Newman taught that in the act of faith the conclusion is more
certain than the premises, he (perhaps inadvertently) proclaimed himself a
mystic; and so, I think, did Ritschl, in spite of himself, when he affirmed
the certitude of the "value-judgment" by which a man lays hold on the
historic Christ; for mysticism is such a way of apprehending spiritual
truth; it is a way that is neither purely intellectual, nor purely
emotional; but one that employs, in one act, all the powers of a man's soul.
The mystical attitude towards truth is thus in harmony with Matthew Arnold's
lines:--

               "Affections, Instincts, Principles and Powers,
               Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control -
               So men, unraveling God's harmonious whole,
               Rend in a thousand shreds this life of ours.
               Vain labour! Deep and broad, where none may see,
               Spring the foundations of that shadowy throne,
               Where man's One Nature, queen-like, sits alone,
               Centered in a majestic unity."


     It is true that mysticism has to do with mystery; and that is why the
term is popularly held in disrepute. But the mysteries with which mysticism
chiefly has to do are neither numerous nor fantastic: they are God, and the
Soul, and Revelation; the last being the making known of the One to the
other: and, beyond this, Christian mysticism views the Eternal as approached
through Jesus Christ, the Door; a few texts from St Paul and St John
sufficing to state the whole case. Individual mystical writers have, no
doubt, gone far beyond this, and have said extravagant things; but the
essence of the whole lies herein; and (again to quote Dr. Bigg), "the Church
can never get rid of the mystic spirit; nor should she attempt to do so, for
it is, in fact, her life. It is another name for conscience, for freedom,
for the rights of the individual soul,for the grace and privilege of direct
access to the Redeemer, for the presence of the Divine Spirit in the
heart."[10]
     And further, most people are now familiar with the distinction between
the dreamy, unpractical mysticism of the East and the vigorous variety of
the same mode of thought in the West. In both cases it produces the same
consciousness of certitude and of interior peace; but in the one case that
tends to mere contemplation and self-introspection, while in the other it
inspires a Tauler of a Cromwell or a Coleridge; and from the latter's
mysticism, movements that are vigorous to-day have derived their spiritual
energy, though but few of those whom the movements affect may be aware of
the fact. It is also necessary to distinguish between mysticism as a way of
holding spiritual truth, and mysticism as an interpretation, sometimes
fantastic, of the world and of man; and again between this interpretation
and the mystical interpretation of Scripture, already referred to, which is
apt, indeed, to allegorise wantonly, though its fancies are almost always of
service in securing a broader and more edifying interpretation for texts
which, if regarded as mere history or legon, would lack religious
significance. The evolution of these other aspects of the subject from that
first mysticism, which is the apprehension of spiritual things by the soul,
a few moments reflection will make clear. The mystic, who sees God in all
things and all things in God, recognises more in nature than mere natural
phenomena, and more in the Word of God than its first literal significance.
To him every thing, every event, every person, is a vision from the Unseen,
a voice from the Inaudible. He lives in a world of parables, full of
spiritual significance; and, while for him there is a Real Presence
everywhere, he finds it also most truly and effectively where it is most
clearly discerned by faith. Nothing that might be accounted magical is
required to produce it, for it is there and everywhere already. So too, in
his interpretation of the Book, which contains, with whatever admixture, the
fullest record of that which has been revealed to man as necessary for the
salvation of his soul, he sees more than the mere student of the letter. In
God's dealings with man from first to last he perceives a harmony that
implies a foreshadowing of the last in the first, of the whole in the part;
and in this way he can find an interpretation of spiritual value even in the
thoughts of good men, who have pictured to themselves, inaccurately, it may
be, as to matters of fact, God's earlier work in the creation of the world
and of man. And, thus broadly understood, mysticism is now "in the air," and
is becoming recognised as a force that makes for unity among Christians, who
differ somewhat as to dogma, and more as to their methods of external
expression. Happily however, its interior and reserved character will always
hinder mysticism from being degraded, as external religion can be and is, to
the position of a mere badge or cry of an ecclesiastical party.[11]
     Not to know anything about mysticism is, according to Professor Royce,
not to know anything about a large part of human nature; for mysticism is
the philosophy of experience; the mystics are the only thorough-going
empiricists in the whole history of philosophy; and the realm of experience
is that which is decisive of truth. A complete history of mysticism would
cover a very large field in the history of the world; and that not only of
the world of thought; for, in the West at any rate, the mystics have
repeatedly built the platform on which great dramas have been played; and in
this sense (but in this sense only) Tauler and the "Friends of God" were
"precursors of the Reformation," much as the Puritans were the precursors of
the modern Revolution. It may be quite possible to show that Tauler was an
orthodox Catholic friar, and that his obedience to the Church was throughout
irreproachable; but, none the less, his mystical doctrine of the inner and
outer, of the letter and the spirit, tended irresistibly towards the
overthrow of Catholicism, so far as in his day is consisted in mere
formalism and obedience to external rule. The same doctrine in the teaching
of St Paul made short work of the Jewish Law; and again in our own day (for
there are symptoms of its revival) it will either destroy or will newly
inspire modern Catholicism, whether Roman or Anglican, which, without the
mystic spirit, must inevitably degenerate into mere Byzantinism, the
religion of credulity and of ceremonial routine.
     The earliest home of mysticism was in the East; but before the
Christian era it had passed over into Europe, or had an independent origin
there. So at least is the alternative stated by Professor Royce. But its
independent origin in the West, in the mystical teaching of Jesus Christ, as
we recognize it in the language used by St Paul and St John, must surely be
acknowledged as beyond question, save by those who hold that the Prophet of
Nazareth acquired mystical doctrines in the farther East, perhaps by
residence there; and of this there is at present absolutely no evidence that
can be termed historical. According to Professor Seth, it is a mode of
thought or of feeling, from its very nature insusceptible of exact
definition, in which reliance is placed on spiritual intuition or
illumination, believed to transcend the ordinary powers of the human
understanding. In this sense Plato (whom Eckhart quaintly describes as "the
great Parson"--der grosse Pfaffe), was a mystic. It is the endeavour of the
human soul (in its own judgment successful) to grasp the Divine Essence, or
the ultimate Reality of things, and to enjoy the blessedness of actual
communion with the Highest. Thus, mystical theology is that knowledge of God
and of things divine, which is derived, not from observation or from
argument, but from conscious spiritual experience; and, being thus based, it
possesses, for the individual who holds it, an irrefragable certainty.
     From Plato and from Aristotle's account of God's inner life, the Greek
mysticism, as a stream distinct from the mysticism of the New Testament
(i.e. of St Paul, and of the writings attributed to St John), passed into
Plotinus, and so, through Philo and the neo-Platonists, it became an element
in Christian theology; and the writer known as "pseudo-Dionysius" was its
chief prophet in the early Church. It would take long to trace, so far as it
can be traced, the filiation of the doctrine from the age of the
neo-Platonists to the fourteenth century; and it must suffice to say that
there existed in Tauler's day at least four Latin versions of the works of
Dionysius, that of Scotus Erigena being the one with which he was most
likely to be familiar. Dionysius was also commented on by the greatest
scholastics, incidentally even by St Thomas Aquinas, who sought to deal
justly with the mystics without endangering orthodoxy. Eckhart, whose
disciple Tauler in some sense way, had been trained in the school of St
Thomas; but he gradually emancipated himself from the scholastic yoke; and
he is commonly reckoned the spiritual ancestor of Kant and Hegel. Indeed, in
other ways and by a more direct descent, mysticism at this day largely
affects multitudes to whom its very name is unknown. The favourite
devotional books of all the churches, and many of our most popular hymns,
are essentially mystical. It has been defined above as philosophical
empiricism; but it is more than that, and much more than mere
sentimentality. Again to quote Professor Royce:--"It is the conception of
men whose piety has been won after long conflict, whose thoughts have been
dissected by a very keen inner scepticism, whose single-minded devotion to
an abstraction has resulted from a vast experience of painful complications
of life...It has been the ferment of the faiths, the forerunner of spiritual
liberty, the inaccessible refuge of the nobler heretics, the inspirer,
through poetry, of countless youth who know no metaphysics, the teacher,
through the devotional books, of the despairing, the comforter of those who
are weary of finitude; it has determined directly or indirectly, more than
half of the technical theology of the Church."
     With the above eloquent passage, written only the other day, may be
compared Kingsley's lament, written in 1856, that mysticism was a form of
thought and feeling then all but extinct in England. The Anglican divines,
he said, looked on it with utter disfavour; they used the word always as a
term of reproach; and they interpreted the mystical expressions in the
Prayer-book (chiefly to be found in the collects) in accordance with the
philosophy of Locke, being ignorant that these collects were really the work
of Platonist mystics. But meanwhile, he pointed out, it was the mysticism of
Coleridge "the fakir of Highgate," that had originated both the Oxford
Movement and Emersonian free-thought; while Carlyle, "the only contemporary
mystic of any real genius," was exercising more practical influence, and was
infusing more vigorous life into the minds of thousands of men and women,
than all the other teachers of England put together. If he had also
mentioned Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning and Ruskin, he would have made
still clearer how immense has been the power of our latter-day mysticism;
while the names of Neale and of Keble, of Faber and of Newman, can speak for
the same potent influence among those who were ecclesiastics by profession.
     This perhaps may suffice, if any need there was to secure or those who
read Tauler's sermons now for the first time, sympathy with him instead of
suspicion on account of his reputation as a mystic. There is no need to
follow him when he becomes subtle or extravagant; but of his generally broad
and spiritual teaching no one can doubt the wholesome influence. Ritschl, in
his zeal for his new rational Lutheranism, is bitter against the mystics;
yet even he admits that Tauler did good service in inculcating interior as
compared with mere ceremonial religion, and in lessening the great medieval
distinction between clergy and laity. There was in Tauler's day a great need
for a revival of the religion of the heart--when is there not such a
need?--but it was also necessary that the established methods of religion
should be respected and remain intact; for there existed no other social
bond equally fitted to hold men together. And this was the secret of
Tauler's influence. He was able to fill the old bottles with new wine from
an ancient vineyard without bursting them. Recent historical criticism may
have destroyed some of the romance with which his name was associated. But
if, as it now appears--and Harnack as well as Ritschl agree with Denifle in
this--he was not a "Reformer before the Reformation," and was not the
subject of a singular conversion in the midst of his successful career as
preacher, he still remains, and will always remain, a striking and venerable
figure in the medieval Church, a reformer at any rate of practical abuses,
and a prophet of righteousness in days that were corrupt as well as stormy.

                                     V.

                      The Versions of Tauler's Sermons


     That the editors and translators of Tauler have also been perforce to
some extent his interpreters, may conveniently be illustrated by the
following passage from his first Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Easter,
on the words Espedit vobis ut ego vadam, etc. I give the passage, first as
it stands in the archaic German of the original edition (1498); then in the
Latin version of Surius (1548); then in the modernised German of Hamberger's
edition (1872); then in the French translation of Sainte-Foi (1855); and
finally in the English translation of Archdeacon Hare, in his notes to "The
Mission of the Comforter," reproduced in Miss Winkworth's volume (1857).

     In the edition of 1498; Sermon XX. fol. 60

     "Kinder yr sollet nicht fragen nach grossen hoen Kunsten. dan ghet
einfeldiglichenn in eweren grunt inwendig. ufi lernet euch selber erkenne.
im geist un in natur. Und fraget nicht nach der verborgeheit gotes. von
seinenn aussflussen un einfliessen un dem icht in dem nicht ufi funcke der
sele in der istikeit. Wa xps iesus gesprochen hat Euch ist nicht zu wissen
vo der heimlikeit gotes un darub so solle wir halde einen ware ganzen
einfeldigen glaube in einem got in dreyfeldikeit detr Pson un nicht manigfel
digliche sundern einfeldiglichen und leuterliche."

     From the Latin Version of Surius (1548).

     "Et vos, charissimi, non ad subtilium sublimiumque artium et
scientiarum cognitionem aspiretis: sed in ipsum interiorem fundum vestrum
simpliciter ingredientes, illic vosipsos cognoscre discite: nihil vobis
magnopere curae sit scire secreta Dei, influxus et effluxus illius, de esse
et non esse, et quid sit animae scintilla in sua existentia. Non vobis
commissum est scire arcana Dei. Nihil plane utilius est quam ut veram
integram et simplicem fidem de uno Deo in personarum Trinitate, non
multipliciter sed simpliciter et pure retineamus."

     From Hamberger's edition, "in die jetzige Schriftsprache ubertragen"
(1872).

     "Kinder, ihr sollet nicht fragen nach hohen grossen Kunsten. Gehet
einfaltig in euern Grund inwendig, und lernet euch selber erkennen in Geist
und in Natur, und fraget nicht nach der Verborgenheit Gottes, von seinem
Ausfliessen, und Einfliessen, und von dem Icht (Etwas) in dem Night
(Nichts), und von dem Funken der Seele in der Istigkeit (dem Wesen der Seele
in ihrem Seyn): denn Christus hat gesprochen: "Euch ist nicht noth zu wissen
von der Heimlichkeit Gottes." Darum sollen wir halten dem wahren, ganzen,
einfaltigen Glauben, an den einem Gott, in Dreifaltigkeit der Person, und
nicht mannigfaltighich (nicht mit verwirrender Spitzfindigkeit), sondern
einfaltiglich."

     From the French translation of Sainte-Foi (1855).

     "Il ne s'agit point, mes enfants, d'affecter de grands airs. Entrez
simplement dans votre fond; apprenez a vous connatre tels que vous etes, et
spirituellement et naturellement: ne cherchez point a connaitre les secrets
de Dieu, tels que le flux et le reflux de I'etre au non-etre, l'essence de
l'ame. Car le Christ a dit que vous n'avez pas besoin de connaitre les
secrets de Dieu. Ayons une foi simple, vraie et entiere en un seul Dieu en
trois personnes, en un Dieu parfaitement simple, exempt de toute
multiplicite."

     From Archdeacon Hare's "Mission of the Comforter," apud Winkworth
(1857).

     "Children, ye shall not seek after great science. Simply enter into
your own inward principle, and learn to know what you yourselves are,
spiritually and naturally, and do not dive into the secret things of God,
asking questions about the efflux and reflux of the Aught into the Naught,
or the essence of the soul's spark; for Christ has said: "It is not for you
to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own
power." Therefore, let us maintain a true, entire, simple faith in one God
in a Trinity of Persons, and yet not as manifold but as one and simple."


                                THE INNER WAY



                                  SERMON I



                    ON THE FEAST OF ST ANDREW THE APOSTLE



Of Christ as our Master, and of the good things He will teach us in a few
words, such as will lead us on to the highest Perfection. Then, of where His
Dwelling is, how and where we may find Him, Who calls and invites us all to
come and see; as is clearly shown in what follows.



     Rabbi (quod est interpretatum Magister) ubi habitas? dixit eis:
     Venite et videte.

     Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master), where dwellest
     thou? He saith to them, Come and see.[12]


     We read in St John's Gospel that St John the Baptist was standing, and
two of his disciples, (one of them being Andrew, Simon Peter's brother),
and, when he saw Jesus pass by, he said: "Behold the Lamb of God." The two
disciples heard that, and saw them following, and said unto them: "What seek
ye?" They said unto Him, "Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted,
Master), where dwellest thou?" He saith unto them; "Come and see."
     These words teach us three things, first, the overflowing Wisdom of
Christ in the words of the Master, secondly, the Dwelling-place of His
inscrutable Being, the stronghold of all beings, for they said: "Where
dwellest thou?" and thirdly, the Comfort given to us by the invitation of
God to seek Him in spirit, in the resting-place of His Godhead, and to learn
at the Source of wisdom, that is, in the school of the Holy Trinity. He thus
speaks of it: "Come, O soul, abide with Me and in Me; and look that thou
mayest learn; I will open unto thee the depths of My Divine Heart, that thou
mayest learn and see all that is for thine eternal good."
     Now listen first to the Master: O Master, teach these daughters for me,
that not one of them may remain amongst the five foolish virgins. Then He
answered and said: Daughter, learn of Me that thou mayest be meek and lowly
of heart, as He also said to St Andrew and the other disciples. Now, if thou
bethinkest thyself again, this teaching is too hard for me; for sloth, care,
anger, cowardice and such-like resist me and afflict my heart, so that I
lose all meekness of spirit. Christ our Master replied: "How much will it
help thee, O man, if in thy service thou gainest the whole world and losest
thine own soul?" For from thence will many sorrows come upon thee, agitation
of mind, anguish and bitterness of heart, vexation in all good works,
indolence of mind, whereby the soul loses all meekness of temper. Thus it
comes to pass that the overflowing Spirit of Christ cannot pour joy or
consolation into the soul; for His tenderness cannot suffer the bitterness
of thy soul; for He is sweeter than honey. Therefore he that will have
nought to do with the deceitful comfort of man must receive the sweetness of
this Spirit. And therefore, dear child, begin manfully, follow this Master,
and cast thyself down before Him in the depths of humility, and say in thine
heart: "Lord, I am the least of all the creatures that Thou hast made," and
compose thyself in meekness of spirit; and then shalt thou know that God is
a short word which has a long meaning. Exercise thyself diligently therein,
grow not weary; and then shalt thou perceive that which before was hidden
from thee.
     At another time the soul will be attracted by the Dwelling-place of the
Divine Nature of our Master. Now, know that this question is one sought out
by all creatures; and therefore they long for the same nature themselves,
that they may find out the Nature of God; for all natural works are but a
seeking after and a questioning after the Dwelling-place of God. If it were
not so, the heavens and the elements could no longer exist. Dear child, what
askest thou outside thyself, and why seekest thou God in the strange lands
of mortal things? Thou canst not truly find Him; they all deny Him, and
point thee away from themselves. "We are not God," they say. But Augustine
writes: "Exalt thyself above us to the things eternal: for there is God."
     Now, mark that God may be found in many ways in which the soul receives
instruction. First, the soul finds God her Creator on the heights of penance
or penitence. Therefore the soul must, above all things, exert all her
strength to subdue her own free will, ready, for God's sake, to learn to
give up all things both great and small, to do hard penance, and to punish
herself for following the will she had forsaken. The more the soul exercises
herself in these works, the more will she find God in her, and herself in
God. This is shown in the Book of Love; for the Well-beloved says: "I will
get me up to the mountain of myrrh, and will speak unto my love." The
mountain of bitter myrrh is the height of the exalted spirit, which
transforms into bitterness the desire for all personal gratification and
deceitful delights in all things that are not according to God's Will. Thus
God speaks in spirit to the soul: "Thou art all fair my love, pure and
undefiled, there is no spot in thee." But he who lives according to his own
will, for his own pleasure, cannot thus find God, but will find Him as his
adversary in all his works. Thus man will spoil all that he begins; for the
works of the flesh will help but little, if the will and the affections of
the heart are not first subdued. A Psalm, said by one who has subdued his
will, is worth many Psalms: that is, the least work done by such a man is
more pleasing to God than the greatest work done by a man who follows his
own way.
     At another time man finds God in the wilderness, in the burning bush,
as Moses found Him. The bush in the wilderness signifies such a temper or
spirit that, withdrawn and estranged from all creatures, puts forth leaves
or blossoms on the heights of the Eternal Godhead. As the Divine Being
comprises within Himself three Persons, so also this spirit has laid hold of
God in His threefold powers, as the bush laid hold of the flames in its
blossoming branches; and this is of grace. This putting forth of leaves
causes the soul to grow steadily in light, in godlike virtues, day by day
without ceasing, until she, with the vision of angels, beholds God in Zion.
Now, mark, in the measure that thou hast found God, in that measure also
wilt thou find in thyself the divine training and virtues--more to-day than
yesterday. But he who will thus find God here, must cast off all carnal
desires, and, with Moses, he must come under the dominion of self-restraint
and the light of reason; for flesh and blood cannot posses the Kingdom of
God. I believe, dear children, that nearly all your daily shortcomings
proceed therefrom; that ye follow by word or deed the sudden impulses that
thrust themselves into the heart from without, before the light of
self-restraint can shine therein.
     Thirdly, God may be found on the mountain, in the cloud; for the union
(Testament) of Divine Light and of the commandment was written on the stone
by the finger of God. The mountain is like a high-minded, large-hearted man,
who has no pleasure in any of his works, neither can he find any rest in
them, unless, like St Paul, he is confirmed in all his works by an express
sign of the Will of God; so that the will of the soul does not even carry on
human actions according to his own will, but after the manner appointed by
the Divine Will, divinely. Thus the soul by her works sanctifies the body,
so that when the body does the soul does also; and again, on the other hand,
the works of the Divine Will and the works of the soul are at one; so that
the soul can say: I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; I work, yet
not I, but the power of Divine Being worketh in me. This takes place in the
cloud, in the eternal splendour of the Divine Light, for the light of all
creatures is as night compared with the Divine Light.
     Then God may be found in the cave with the prophet Elias. We read that
the prophet came into the wilderness, and that in his soul he longed that he
might die, for he had become weary in spirit with the turmoil of this world.
While he slept, an angel came, and placed at his head a cake baken on the
coals and a pitcher of water, and bade him arise and eat, because he had
still a long way before him that he must go. And he went in the strength of
that meat forty days and forty nights, until he came to the place where he
found God.
     Then a strong wind came rushing by, which rent the rocks and the
stones; but God was not in the wind; for God shows the spirit which is moved
by stormy winds to be like those which Daniel saw contending in the sea of
this world; that is in a worldly heart, in inordinate fear, hope, joy and
scorn; for all these things blind the light of the spirit with which a man
ought to seek after God. The stormy wind also signifies to us the restless
heart of a man, who in all things, both in his words and works, behaves so
unkindly and impatiently towards his fellow Christians, that it might grind
the stones to powder; that is, that large-minded men are often robbed of
their soul's peace thereby. Dear children, with God's help, beware of such
violence. Keep watch over yourselves; subdue your unmortified nature, that
it may not break out as violently as that of the wild, untamed beasts. It is
indeed a dreadful thing to see such a man, endowed with reason, to whom God
of His goodness has given so much light, and in whose nature He has
implanted that kind of courage which enables him even to tame the wild
beasts, if he chooses to exert his will, and follow the promptings of his
own integrity. Alas! sometimes we are even wilder than the bears and lions,
and a disgrace in the sight of God our Creator; living contrary to the
nature He gave us, as though the light of His countenance had never shone
upon us. I tell you in truth that we shall have to give an account to God
for all that we ruin by such storms. It may be that we shall ruin ourselves
(as often happens with the wrathful) or our neighbour, who is not only
disturbed thereby, but also angered, and hindered in much that is good--and
of this we are guilty. Then, when we say it grieves us, but it is our
nature, and we are obliged to do it, we are excusing ourselves falsely, and
we never learn to die unto ourselves. Verily, if we turned to God in earnest
fervent prayer and humble submission, these infirmities of our nature would
not overpower us, nor, as we say, oblige or force us to commit such faults.
     Then came a fire, and God was not in the fire. Fire is a thing which
can never say "Enough;" and it represents the heart of a man who is never
satisfied, either with his goods or with the gifts of God; but is always
burning to increase without measure those things which are neither divine
nor pure; desiring to receive comfort or other temporal things, and to find
love and pleasure in them. All this is a sign that the Spirit of God is not
there. I mean also all those people who make light of and belittle all the
gifts of God, as though God had never done them any good, and who say: "Why
did God make me? since I am so empty and barren of all that is good;" and
who do not perceive that God has preserved them from many a fall, and
protected them from many sins into which they would have fallen, if He had
not so carefully watched over them, and called them away from the world to a
spiritual state, in which they might have been pillars of all Christendom,
if only they had lived in accordance with that state.
     I tell thee, dear child, that such unthankfulness might well have dried
up the springs of love, of Divine Grace. Therefore, I beseech you, by the
Eternal Love of God, that ye be not quickly moved by the desire for these
things, as I have taught you all, with heartfelt earnestness, and as God
knows; and if any other spirit teach you otherwise, it is at the peril of
your salvation in the sight of God; as St Paul says to the Galatians: "If
any man preach to you a gospel beside that which we have preached to you,
even though it were an Angel from heaven, let him be anathema."
     There came a still small voice, like unto the sweet breezes of May; and
in that voice came God; for so saith the Scripture. This signifies to us one
who walks with God, in the eternal words of God, and whose thoughts and
words are holy according to the Word of God, and whose longing spirit
communes with God. Then it is that God comes; for in such spiritual sunbeams
a steady blessed light is borne in upon the soul from God. They are not
worthy of this blessedness, who, by strange forms of man's words (or even of
an Angel, As St Paul says) are drawn away from the good desires they had
received from God. This it is that the soul longeth after in the Book of
Songs, when she says to God that the north wind should depart and go away;
meaning thereby all that entereth into the spirit from the flesh, from
whence all evil comes. So saith also the prophet Jeremias; for he saw that
in the seething-pot all the budding spiritual gifts of God boiled and
withered away when it was turned towards the north wind. Then his spirit was
troubled within him, and he could no longer hold fast to the inner savour of
the north wind. Therefore, when the soul longs for God,she says: Come, O
south wind, (for it is sweet) blow through my garden, and let the aromatical
spices thereof flow; that is, that my works may have a godly savour.
     Fourthly, God is found above the Angels; for the soul must be exalted
above all Angels (though by nature below the Angels) if she would find God.
Therefore she finds Him in the Father; for thus the soul must bring all her
works, free from all self-seeking, as the Eternal Word uplifts Himself
eternally to God, if she would find Him, as he was found by the soaring Seer
of God, John the Evangelist, when he said: "In the beginning was the Word."
Then Andrew, and the loving souls that were with him, ask with earnest
longing: "Master, where dwellest Thou?" John answers: "In the Beginning was
the Word;" for in words we shall not find God, if we do not lift up our
souls in the Beginning. Therefore we must pierce through all things that are
beneath God and are not God, and the Beginning (from which we have our
being) seek earnestly again; for therein alone is our dwelling and the
future resting place of our eternal bliss. This must be done by turning
earnestly to the vision of the Divine Being and union with Him. As He said
to those two disciples: "Come and see;" as though He had said: Come, that is
turn away from the things by which ye are inordinately troubled and
absorbed, that hinder your eternal peace; for ye must be emptied of all
works, understanding and carnal desires. And see that ye come to the
knowledge that God the Lord is empty and bare of all; so that your spirits
may be guided to that pure and holy Being. For of necessity the soul must be
empty and bare of all, that would enter into the secret Presence. Therefore
man must divest himself of all those things of which he is conscious.
Dionysius said to Timothy: "O dear friend, we must no longer listen with our
outward ears to the sweet and loving words of our dear master, Paul; but we
must go to God, emptied of all things." This we can only do when our eyes
are blinded and our inmost desires are raised on high, in order that we may
learn to know His hidden Unity. May God help us all to this. Amen.



                                  SERMON II



            ON ST BARBARA'S DAY, OR THAT OF ANY OTHER HOLY VIRGIN



Of some ways by which man may with certainty attain to Union with God, and
may also have unceasing Communion with Him. How he may have peace with the
world, the evil enemy and his own flesh.



     Dilectus meus loquitur mibi, surge, propera, amica mea. "My
     beloved speaketh to me: arise, make haste, my love."


     Thus spake the Bride in the Book of Love. Now, he who wishes to be the
friend, and to know whether he be the spouse of our Lord, must take note of
the following marks, and see whether he possesses them. If he possesses
them, then he is, undoubtedly, a chosen spouse.
     The first is that he must have peace with our Lord, so that no created
being can disturb his inner peace. Thus saith the prophet: "He will give you
true peace in this place."[13] The spouse of our Lord must so comport
herself, that she readily renounces all things in humble confidence,
retaining her divine peace unimpaired within, and renouncing all things in
Him and by Him. Now wouldest thou ask, with whom thou shalt have peace? With
the world, the enemy, and thine own flesh. But how? With the world, by not
heeding what the world may do unto thee, either taking thee or leaving thee;
to this thou mayest attain with patience.
     Secondly, that thou mayest be at peace with the enemy; but man can
scarcely ever attain to this. The enemy is constantly striving with him, and
is always interfering in all man's works and actions in order to hinder him.
There is nothing by which man can so completely quench the fiery darts of
the enemy as by fervent and devout prayer; for it burneth and chaseth him
away, and forceth him to flee with all his lusts. Therefore, when man is
conscious of the fiery arrows which are shot at him, and which would deprive
him of his spiritual peace, let him at once betake himself to secret prayer
with all his might, and take no heed of hindrances; and thus he will be rid
of all hindrances, while nothing more grievous can happen to the enemy. Thus
we read of St Bartholomew, that he prayed, and then the devil cried our:
"Oh, thou burnest me with thy prayers, and thou hast bound me with fiery
bands."
     Thirdly, thou must have peace with thyself. But how? Thou must in all
things subject thy body to thy spirit, that in all things thou mayest have
dominion over it, that it may not hinder the in any work that God requires
of thee. Thus did the holy saints: for they had dominion over their own
bodies, and trained them so well, that that which the spirit desired, the
body sprang forward to do, as though it would say: "Here I am before thee."
We read that it was so with the humble Francis. There are four things that a
man must do, in order to acquire this dominion over his own body. First,
thou must deprive thy body of all that pleases it, whether eating, drinking,
sleeping or waking, and of all comfort. When thou seest that it is ready to
rebel, bridle it with a discipling that is still more severe. Secondly, thou
must renounce all thirst for and all the consolation of the world, and all
worldly things and cares. Let the dead bury their dead; follow thou God. If
thy friend dies; or joy, grief, honour or riches, or whatever it may be, is
thy portion or comes to thee, bear all patiently in God. A saint once said:
"With whomsoever thou rejoicest, and with whomsoever thou sorrowest, with
him wilt thou also be judged." St Paul says: "Reckon yourselves to be dead
unto the world." The dead man careth not whether he be praised or blamed,
whether goods are given him or withheld. A dead or a dying man careth
nothing for gold or jewels, for honour, friends, joy or consolation. Thou
must do as one of the old Fathers did, who dwelt in a wood. His own brother
came to him and said: "Dear brother, I am in great distress; a cart of mine,
laden with goods, has fallen into the water, help me to drag it out;" and he
cried and wept and besought him urgently. The old Father replied: "Go, and
ask that brother, who still dwells in the world, for help. Why comest thou
to me?" Then the man, who was a merchant, said: "That brother has been dead
a whole year." Then said the old man. "So have I been dead for twenty
years;" and thus he dismissed him, and troubled himself no more.
     Thirdly, thy mind must be always fixed on God. Thou must be always in
the Presence of God. Verily, if thou desirest to have the Creator of all
creatures, thou must renounce all creatures; for it cannot be otherwise, but
only insomuch as thy soul is emptied and bared; the less of the creature,
the more of God: this is but a bargain. St Augustine says: "That man is far
too covetous who is not satisfied with God; for what canst thou desire that
thou canst not find in Him? Remember that whatever such a heart can desire
is to be found a thousandfold in Him. Desirest thou love or faithfulness, or
truth, or consolation, or His constant Presence?--all, all can be found
without measure in Him. Desirest thou beauty? He is of all the most
beautiful; desirest thou riches? He is of all the richest; desirest thou
power? He is of all the most powerful. Whatever thy heart can desire, may be
found a thousandfold in Him; for in God alone canst thou find the best
blessings." Therefore drive out all creatures with all their consolations.
Say: "Get thee away: thou art not He Whom I seek; Whom I desire, Whom I
love." Whether it be honour, or riches, or joy, or friendship, say: "Get
thee away, flee from me, let me alone, let me be, I heed thee not."
     Whence comes it that God is so strange to thee, and that His loving
Presence is so often lost or withheld? There is but one reason; that thy
mind is not emptied and bared, and that thou troublest thyself about the
creature, and art corrupted thereby. St Bernard says contemplation is
nothing else than a cleaving to God, a forgetfulness of all earthly things.
St Augustine says: "He can contemplate who is free from all earthly
thoughts, and thinks of the things that are of God." and he also says: "O
good Jesus, my soul longs unspeakably for Thy love. I beseech Thee that I
may be enraptured with the vision, the Cross, and the most holy sweetness of
Thy Humanity. May I be able to withstand the vanity and the temptations of
the world, and long to be caught up into heaven, to fathom the mystery of
the Sacraments of God. May I so increase in spiritual things that I may be
caught up, as it were, to gaze on Thy Divine and Holy Trinity, so that in
all my works I may acknowledge Thy Divine Will, and be united with Thee.
And, though I sometimes let down to the first or second stage, may I have no
difficulty in rising up again; so that, when I see or hear of earthly
things, I may not heed them, but die unto them and live alone unto Thee.
There is one thing that thou must know; wert thou only freed from the
likeness of the creature thou mightest have God unceasingly; for He could
not refuse thee, either in heaven or in earth. He must come to thee. Had He
sworn, He must change His word, and come to thee, and completely fill thy
soul, if He found it empty; for, do what thou wilt, as long as the creature
reigns in thee, thou must do without God and remain in vanity. If thou
withholdest the least part of thyself from Him, assuredly He will take much
from thee of that which He is, an immense portion.
     There was once a fair and beautiful woman, who bare a child, that was
as black as a Moor. Master Albertus was told of this great trouble. He found
a picture of a Moor that the woman had seen and he said to her: "Woman, I
have found the father of your child." And he compared the matter to a hen
that was set in sight of a sparrow hawk, and all her young were fashioned
after the likeness of sparrow hawks. Thus all who are born after the Divine
Likeness are divine; and all that are born after the flesh are carnal.
     Fourthly, thou must subdue thy natural senses, and at all times hold
the mastery over them; thou must see, and yet not see, and never raise thine
eyes, nor listen with thine ears, nor open thy mouth, without good cause.
Thy hands, thy feet and all thy members must never be allowed their own way.
Thou must guard them carefully and keep them securely, that nothing may
suggest itself to them, or be heard or seen by them that is not divine. For,
St Augustine says: "We must die and yet not die, we must keep under our
nature and our senses by force." Then God will rule over us, and without
doubt we shall also rule over ourselves. Amen.



                                 SERMON III



              On the Conception of Our Lady, also on Her Birth



How men, when they are advancing, may learn to know their infirmities and
secret evil inclinations; how they may die unto them and be freed from them;
whether it be from the delights of things pertaining to the senses or the
mind, or to the powers of the soul, or whatever else it may be. How the
likeness of past habits must be driven out by the Likeness of the Life of
Jesus Christ, so that men may come to understand with all the saints, the
Height, the Depth, the Breadth and the Length of God.



     Transite ad me, omnes qui concupiscitis me. "Come over to me, all
     ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits. For my spirit is
     sweet above honey and the honeycomb."[14]

     Dear children, in the last sermon on these words, which were spoken (of
the Virgin Mary) by the Eternal Wisdom, I told you that these words referred
to our Lady, whose dignity and honour can in nowise be expressed by man in
words, for they surpass all knowledge in value. I described the works and
ways which were necessary to the man who, rising up, desired to enter into
the way of truth; then, what was necessary to him during his progress; and
then, how the perfect man might arrive at the goal, and what his end would
be.
     I told you how man must first put away all crying sins, such as pride,
impurity, covetousness, anger, and all the evil growths of the world, with
all foolish desires; and, above all, everything that pertaineth to the
flesh, whether of things animate or inanimate. In short, the man who does
not turn bravely to God with all his heart and with all his mind, who does
not love God from the bottom of his heart, and intend above all things to
serve Him, and to be found at his death in Him, will never come to God; even
though, as St Paul says, he were to do so as many good works as all men now
living, and were so wise that he spake with the tongue of Angels, and
allowed his body to be burned, and gave all his goods to feed the poor. Now,
how have they turned to God with all their love and with all their minds,
who give their hearts, of their own free will, to created beings, although
they know that they are thus occupying the places where God should dwell,
and of which they are consciously depriving Him? God careth not for works,
when He is deprived of the heart and of love. Of what use is the chaff to
Him, if another has the wheat?
     Now when these grosses sins are cut off in the growing man with a
diligence which is like unto a sharp steel, and of which I have already
spoken, he will be sharpened like a sharp knife, and whetted by the great
righteousness of God, which lets no word nor deed, however small they may
be, pass by unpunished. He must remember the secret and terrible judgments
of God; for no one knows how it will be with him; for no one knows whether
he is the subject of God's anger, or of His favour. Now, when this man has
begun be cutting off all wicked vices, he must then take heed of that which
is left in the bottom of his heart, namely the inclination thereto, which is
the result of old habits. For these old habits make excuses for themselves,
and strive to appear as though they were virtues; and yet they are only
counterfeits; when pride, which a man fondly imagines he had overcome, lies
hidden in his heart. For instance, care about dress and such-like matters
remains, and it is called cleanliness; or pleasure is found in things
pertaining to the senses, such as food or drink; and it is called necessity.
Then some men are so angry and wrathful, longing to inform against every man
and to judge him; and they are so suspicious and impatient; and then they
call it justice; while pure laziness is called illness.
     Children, if you insist on any of these things, and glory in your own
kindness and in your own judgment, and in your own lofty and wise works and
ways--when the end comes, the Devil will come and take away those with him
who fondly imagine that all is well with them. This will be the case,
especially, with those who conceal their pride beneath the appearance of
humility, and who, wise in their own conceit, should of right stand under
Lucifer's banner; for the higher they stand in their own esteem, the deeper
will they fall into the abyss.
     Children, look to yourselves. This is not a question of small things.
If ye were to be kept in a hot room a night and a day, ye would think it
very hard; I say nothing of burning heat for many a year, or perhaps for all
eternity. Therefore commune with your own selves, for the kingdom of God is
within you. See with whom ye associate, with whom ye readily stay; and
examine the reasons and the tendency to all evil habits. For if a man gives
way to a fault for a year or two, that fault takes such deep root in his
heart, that he can scarcely overcome it with all his might. Therefore young
men should guard themselves carefully, so that no evil tendencies may take
root in them. They must root out all infirmities at the beginning, when it
is far more easy to do so than later. Now there are four things, especially,
which man must guard against, four powers which are so injurious and evil
that they are like jagged teeth.
     The first is the love of visible things; and in this lies the strength
of desire. It is scarcely possible to imaging or describe the harm men do to
themselves thereby. Men who desire to be good, begin with this or that, with
one thing or another, and are so occupied with the seed-sowing, that they do
not keep to the full truth. They do not look into their own hearts, which
are closed up, like some unknown thing a thousand miles off; there outward
and visible things are of more importance to them. Thus they go on avoiding
themselves, so that they do not know where they are.
     The second power is anger. This is used inordinately; for it should
never be used outwardly, except in those things which are displeasing to
God. In itself it is a noble power; but in many men it produces very evil
growths. They suddenly fall with vehemence on anything whatsoever; and in
false righteousness desire to censure it, to judge of all works and ways;
and thus they deceive themselves and other men with their violence, their
unrestrained and bitter anger, and their loud, harsh, unkind and angry
words.
     The third evil is to be found in the power of the light of reason, to
which many men trust to their own hurt. They trust in their own reason and
glory in it, and they compare themselves with the all-wise and living and
essential Truth; for he, who says he possesses it, possesses it not. Thus
many a man deceives himself and imagines he possesses all things, because he
sees them in his own imagination, while they are hundreds of miles away; and
thus he misses that noble treasure, deep humility; and accepts the
counterfeit before him and also before other men.
     The fourth evil is the secret delight which is often taken in talent.
This holds sway in many men; they are deceived by its good appearance, and
pleasure attracts them more than divine love; they take pleasure for God,
and that which they imagine God is only pleasure. Thus, if their pleasure
were to vanish, so also would their diligence. Look well to yourselves; for
many a thing which seems as though it came from divine love, has so many
additions, that the enjoyment, the taste and the circumstances excite us
more than we imagine. Sometimes this arises from new emotions, from
inclination, or from fear of hell, or from the desire to be blessed; and
this is man's natural desire. Know, children, that those who do not seek God
from the heart, God will neither be their end nor their reward. All these
things of which ye have heard must be diligently cut off, as with a sharp
knife, which must be whetted on the severe judgments of God, and on His
unchangeable righteousness, which lets nothing escape.
     Now, when these outward infirmities have been cut off, there still
remains beneath the tendency to sin, the likeness of past habits; and this
must be driven out by the Likeness of Jesus Christ. As one nail must be
driven out by another, so must man imprint this Likeness devoutly and firmly
on the ground of his heart, so that all inequalities in him may be done away
and extinguished. Now, as God has given great power to minerals and herbs,
to drive out disease, by what power do ye believe that the Son of God will
drive out all the diseases of the soul, but by His holy Sufferings, His
Death, and His sacred Likeness. Now, because man can do nothing by himself,
he must exercise himself in holy suffering by means of prayer; he must cast
himself down secretly at the feet of the heavenly Father, and beseech Him
for the sake of His well-beloved Son, and by all His sufferings, to help
him; for without Him he cannot attempt or succeed in anything. He must train
himself never to allow the sacred Sufferings, nor the Likeness of his Lord
to forsake his heart; and he must allow no strange likeness to find a place
there. In order to do this, he must lift up his heart and mind to the
heights of the glory of the Godhead, on which he must gaze with holy fear
and longing desire. When he lays his dark and miserable ignorance before
God, he will understand what Job said: "A Spirit went before me." [15] This
leading of the Spirit causes a great disturbance in the heart of the man.
The clearer, the truer, the plainer this leading is, the stronger, the
quicker, the truer and the plainer will be the work, the strength and the
conversion of the man; and he will more plainly recognise his place of
abode. Then the Lord comes in a quick glance, and lights up the heart of the
man, and will be Lord of all his work. When the man becomes conscious of the
Lord's Presence, he must let his work alone and worship Him; all his powers
must be still, and there must be calm. Otherwise the works of man would be
but a hindrance, and his good works also; for he must do nothing but submit
himself to God. But when man is again left to himself, and he is no longer
conscious that God is working in him in any way that he can clearly
recognize, then he must begin again to work diligently, and to discipline
himself in holiness. Thus the man will sometimes work, and sometimes rest,
as he is moved of God and entreated; everyone must do as seems best to him,
either working or resting, so that he may be drawn to God. But he who cannot
rest alone must make use of sacred pictures, and of discipline, so that he
may be rooted and grounded in holy love, and may comprehend with all saints
the height, the length, the depth and the breath.
     To understand all this is impossible; but it is possible to cling to it
with love and pure intentions. The mind must lift itself up above all
visible things, and above all the lower things of sense, and realise that
God, Who can do all things, did not choose to make a creature so noble, that
with the help of his natural understanding he could attain to the knowledge
of the very essence of the Being of God. For the depth of the divine abyss
cannot be fathomed by deep humility. Therefore our Lady, taking no heed of
all the great blessings that God had poured out upon her, spake only of her
lowliness, for which all generations should call her blessed, because God
had regarded her only.
     The breadth of God must be understood as the universal love which He
manifests in all places, in all lands, and in all the works and ways that
are good. There is nothing so broad or so universal as God, nor so near to
the inmost heart of man; he who will seek Him there, shall find Him. Thus
every day we find Him in the Blessed Sacrament, in all the Friends of God,
and in all creatures. This breadth must be sought with an earnest, fervent
mind, that is, a mind that is empty and untroubled by all other things, and
that has secretly yielded itself up with all its powers in the Presence of
God. To that man will be given freedom of spirit and supernatural grace; he
will be exalted in mind above all forms and fashions, and will soar above
all created things. St Gregory speaks of it thus: "If we would come to the
knowledge of invisible things, we must look beyond all things that are
visible."
     The length is eternity, where there is no before and no after; but
where all is still and unchanging, and in which all things exist, in a
steady unchanging vision of Him, in whom all things exist. This length must
be sought by man in a steady, unchanging and humble spirit; unchanging in
God, and renouncing all love, all sorrow and all creatures, that he man be
satisfied in God, may rest in peace, and may leave all things to God. Thus
the noble word: Transite, will be accomplished; for man will overcome all
things, and will be filled with the divine Birth of this lovely, noble
Virgin, to whom all men should pay great honour. However highly they may be
exalted, they should give time and trouble to honour and serve her. May we
also follow her, that we may also come to that Birth by the help of God.
Amen.



                                  SERMON IV



                On the Feast of St Stephen or of St Lawrence



Of the three Grades of those who learn here to die to themselves in Nature
and Spirit, that they may (like the Grain of Wheat) bring forth much fruit;
viz. of those who are beginning, of those who are advancing, and of those
who are perfect.



     Nisi granum frumenti cadens in terram mortuum fuerit, ipsum solum
     manet. "Unless the grain of wheat, falling into the ground, dieth,
     itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much
     fruit."[16]


     By the Wheat we understand our Lord Jesus Christ, Who by His Death has
brought forth much fruit for all men, if they are but willing, not only to
reign with Him, but also, and in the first place, desire to follow Him in a
dying life. For this may be called a dying life, when a man for the love of
God refuses to gratify his senses and take his natural pleasure, and follow
his own will; and as many lusts as he dies to, so many deaths does he offer
to God, and so many fruits of life will he receive in return. For in what
measure a man dies to himself, and grows out of himself, in the same measure
does God, Who is our Life, enter into him.
     Now mark, dear children, that the path of a man thus dying may be
divided into three stages. Those who have entered on the lowest stage do
acts of self-denial from fear of hell and for the hope of heaven, with some
love to God mingled therewith, which leads them to shun the most flagrant
sins; but the love of God seldom works strongly in them, except it be
stirred up by the contemplation of hell or heaven: for by reason of their
blind self-love these men are terribly afraid of death, and are by no means
eager to set their hand to the work of mortifying their undisciplined nature
which shrinks therefrom; and they have little faith, which is the cause of
this timorous weakness, that leads them to be ever fearing for their own
safety; thus, just as formerly they sought and loved themselves in all kinds
of carnal enjoyments and worldly vanities, and avoided bodily pain and
inconvenience out of self-love, so now is the same motive at work, leading
them to shun sin on account of punishment, in order to escape hell and
obtain the rewards of heaven. And when they are still young in the love of
God, they are apt to taste little sweetness in loving God, save when they
hope to enjoy something from His love; as, for instance to escape hell and
get to heaven; and if sometimes they meditate on the Sufferings of our Lord,
and weep over them with strong emotion, it is because they think how He was
willing to suffer so much for their sakes, and to redeem them by His bitter
Death, still (because their love is small) they are much more inclined to
dwell upon the bodily sufferings that He endured in His human nature, than
to reflect how He manifested by His death the highest perfection of all
virtue, as humility, love and patience, and therein so greatly glorified His
Heavenly Father. For this sort of persons set out and begin to die while as
yet they love themselves far too well; hence they are not yet able to see
truly what it is to resign themselves to God, and to maintain a spirit of
submission; and, although God does all things for the best, yet this they
will never believe, and it is a perpetual stumbling-block to them. Thus they
often ask and wonder why our Lord chose to suffer so much and why He leads
his friends and followers to himself along such a path of suffering. And
when they are at the beginning of a dying life, and only half-way inclined
towards true perfection, nor perceive as yet wherein this consists, they
oft-times torment themselves with watching and fasting and an austere way of
life; for whatever is outwardly painful to the flesh they fancy to be
greatly and mightily regarded and prized by God. So, when they eagerly take
upon themselves all the hardships they can, then they think they have
reached the summit of perfection, and judge all other men, nay, even those
who are much more perfect then themselves, and think meanly of all who do
not practice outward austerities, calling them low-minded and ignorant in
spiritual things; and those who do not feel as they do they think to have
gone astray altogether from a spiritual course and desire that all men
should be as they are: and whatever methods of avoiding sin they have
practised and still make use of by reason of their infirmity, they desire,
nay, demand that everyone else should observe; and, if any do not do so,
they judge them and murmur at them, and say that they pay no regard to
religion.
     Now, while they thus keep themselves and all that belongs to them as it
were working in their own service, and in this self-love unduly regard
themselves as their own property, they cut themselves off from our Lord, and
from the universal charity. For they ought to cherish continually a general
love toward all men, both good and bad; but they remain absorbed in their
partial and separate affections, whereby they bring upon themselves much
disquiet, and remain a prey to their besetting sin of always seeking and
studying themselves. And they are very niggardly of their spiritual
blessings towards their fellow Christians; for they devote all their prayers
and religious exercises to their own behalf; and, if they pray or do any
other kind act for others, they think it a great thing, and fancy they have
done them a great service thereby. In short, as they look little within, and
are so little enlightened in the knowledge of themselves, so also they make
little increase in the love of God and their neighbour; for they are so
entangled with unregulated affections that they live alone in heart, not
thoroughly commingling their soul with any in the right sort of thorough
love. For the love of God, which ought to unite them to God and all mankind,
is wanting in them; and, although they appear to keep the ordinances of God
and of Holy Church, they do not keep the law of Love. What they do is more
out of constraint and fear than from hearty love; and, because they are
inwardly unfaithful to God, they dare not trust Him; for the imperfection
which they find in themselves makes a flaw in their love to God. Hence their
whole life is full of care, full of toil and ignoble misery; for they see
eternal life on the one side, and fear to lose it, and they see hell on the
other, and fear to fall into it; and all their prayers and religious
exercises cannot chase away their fear of hell, so long as they do not die
unto themselves. For the more they love themselves and take counsel for
their own welfare, the more the fear of hell grows upon them; insomuch that,
when God does not help them forward as much as they wish, they complain; and
they weep and sigh at every little difficulty they encounter, however small,
such as being tempted to vanity, wandering thoughts, and the like. They make
long stories of what is of no consequence, and talk about their great
difficulties and sufferings, as if they were grievously wronged; for they
esteem their works, although small, to be highly meritorious, and that God
Almighty owes them great honour and blessings in return. But our Lord will
tell them (as He does in fact afterwards, when He has enlightened them with
His grace) a poor fool loves his own wooden stick, or any other little
worthless article, as much as a rich and wise man loves his sword, or any
other great and precious thing.
     All such are standing on the lowest steps of a mortified life; and, if
they do not die to themselves more, and come to experience more of what a
mortified life is, it is to be feared that they will fall back from that
little whereunto they have attained, and may plunge into depths of folly and
wickedness, from which God keep us all! But before a man comes to such a
fall, God gives him great spiritual delight; and upon this he is so greatly
rejoiced that he cheerfully endures all sorts of austerities and penances;
and then he weepeth that he hath arrived at perfection, and begins to judge
his neighbours, and wants to shape all men after his own model, so greatly
does he esteem himself in his own conceits.
     Then God comes in His mercy to teach him what he is, and shows him into
what error he has fallen and permits the Enemy to set before him and make
him taste the sweetness of sin; and then, when he has thus tasted, he
conceives an inclination to one sin after another, and he cannot rid himself
of these inclinations. Then he wishes to flee sin that he may escape hell,
and begins to do outward good works; and yet it is a dreadful toil to
perform these good works as a mere labour, and to put himself to pain; thus
he is brought into an agonizing struggle with himself, and does not know
which way to turn; for he dimly sees that he has gone astray. Then must God
of His mercy come and raise him up, and he shall cry earnestly to God for
help; and his chief meditation shall be on the Life and Works and especially
the Sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ.
     The second degree in which the grain of wheat dies is when a man is
called upon to endure insult, contempt, and such-like deaths; and, so long
as his grace lasts, he would fain continue to suffer; for by the sense of
undeserved injury all his powers are but quickened and raised into a higher
state of activity. But when he is bereft of this gracious sense of the
Divine Presence, forasmuch as he is still far from perfection, he cannot
bear up under this spiritual destitution, and, through his infirmity, falls
a prey to mistrust of God, and fancies that God has forsaken him, and is not
willing to help him towards perfection. Often he is in a hundred minds what
to do or not do; and, if our Lord show him some kindness, then he feels as
if all were well between his soul and God, and he feels himself so rich, as
if he could never more be poor, and thinks to enjoy the Presence and Savour
of God (though s yet he is quite untried); just as if the Almighty were his
own personal, special Friend; and he is ready to believe that our Lord is,
so to speak, at his disposal, will comfort him in adversity, and enrich him
with all virtues. But, forasmuch as our gracious Lord sees that such a man
will be very apt to rely upon his imagined powers, and thus to fall
grievously, and sees also that the best and ripest fruit is being lost,
inasmuch as the man has not yet attained to that perfection to which our
Lord desires to lead him, therefore in due tine He withdraws from him all
that He had revealed to him, because the man was too much occupied with
himself, with thinking about his own perfection, wisdom, holiness and
virtues; He thus brings him through poverty to dissatisfaction with himself,
and a humble acknowledgement that he has neither wisdom nor worthiness; then
does he begin to reflect within himself how justly Almighty God has stayed
His hand from bestowing any sensible tokens of His mercy, because he fancied
that he was something; now he sees clearly that he is nothing. He was wont
to care for his good name and honour in the world, and to defend them as a
man stands up for his wedded wife, and to count them who spoke evil of him
as enemies to the common good. He was wont to desire and thirst after the
reputation of holiness, like a meadow after the dew of heaven. He weaned
that men's praises of him and proceeded altogether from real goodness and
sympathy of heart, and by God's ordination, and had wandered so far from
self-knowledge as not to see that he was in himself unsound from head to
foot; he fancied that he was really as he stood in man's opinion, and knew
nothing to the contrary.
     Here we must mark that he who wishes to heal himself of such-like
grievous mistakes, and subdue such an unmortified nature, must take note of
three points in himself. First, how much he has striven to endure
cheerfully, for the sake of goodness, all the rebuke, slander and shame that
has come upon him, patiently enduring it in his heart without outward
complaint. Secondly, how much in the time of his rebuke, shame and distress
he has praised and glorified God and his fellow-men, and shown kindness to
his neighbour in all ways, in spite of all contradiction against himself.
Thirdly, let him examine himself whether he have loved with cheerful and
willing heart the men or creatures who have thus persecuted him, and
sincerely prayed for them; and, if he finds that he has not done so, and is
unwilling to do so, but is hard and bitter in his grief, then he may surely
know, and ought to feel certain, that there is something false in him, and
some resting in the praise of men and in his own spiritual pride, and that
he is not dead. He has not yet come to the second step in a dying life.
     But our kind Lord, like a tender mother who is full of love, or a wise
physician who desires to restore a sick man to perfect health by his
powerful remedies, suffers him to fall many times that he may learn to know
himself; and thus he falls into fleshly unspiritual temptations, such as he
never experienced in those past days, in which he fancied himself very good
and spiritual-minded. Our of mercy God deprives him of all understanding,
and overclouds all the light in which he walked aforetime, and so hedges him
in with thorns of an anguished conscience, that he thinks nothing else but
that he is cast off from the light of God's countenance; and he moans
greatly, and often with many tears exclaims: "O my God, why hast thou cast
me off, and why go I thus mourning all the days of my pilgrimage?"
     And when he finds himself thus, from the crown of his head to the sole
of his foot, unlike God and at variance with Him, he is filled with the
sense of his own unworthiness, and with displeasure at himself, insomuch
that he can hardly abide himself; and then he thinks many miserable things
about himself from passages of Holy Scripture, and sheds many tears in the
sense of his sinfulness, till he is weighed down to the earth with the
pressure of God's hand, and exclaims with the prophet: "My sins are more in
number than the sands of the sea; they have taken hold upon me that I am not
able to look up; for I have stirred up God's anger against me, and done much
evil in His sight." These things he saith, and more the like. And at times
he is not even able thus to weep and lament, and then he is still more
tormented with tribulation and assaults; for on the one hand he feels a
strong desire to cast himself down humbly, and die to himself, and on the
other he is conscious of great pride and arrogance about himself, till he is
so exasperated at himself that, but for the dishonour to God, he would fain
kill himself. I believe that all such conflict greatly wears out the
intellectual and natural powers for it is so excessive, that one would
rather suffer oneself to be put to death than endure it. Yet one grace is
left him, namely, that he looks on it all as of no moment, whatever may be
poured out over him, if only he may not knowingly offend God. After a while
the grace of tears comes back to him, and he cried to God and says: "O Lord,
rise, why sleepest thou?" and asks Him why He hath sealed up the fountains
of His mercy; he calls upon the holy Angels and blessed spirits to have pity
on him. He asks the heavens why they have become as brass, and the earth
wherefore she is as iron, and beseeches the very stones to have compassion
on his woes. He exclaims: "Am I become as the blasted hill of Gilboa, which
was cursed of David that no rain or dew should fall on it? And how should my
wickedness alone vanquish the invisible God, and force Him to shut up His
mercies, Whose property it is to have mercy and to help?"
     In the second stage of the dying life God leads the soul through these
exercises and operations of His hand, as through fire and water by turns,
until the workings of self-sufficiency are driven out from all the secret
corners of the spirit, and the man henceforward is so utterly ashamed of
himself, and so casts himself off, that he can never more ascribe any
greatness to himself, but thoroughly perceives all his own weakness, in
which he now is and always has been; and whatever he does or desires to do,
or whatever good thing may be said of him, he does not take it to his own
credit, for he knows not how to say anything of himself but that he is full
of all manner of infirmity. Then he has reached the end of this stage; and
he who has arrived at this point is not far from the threshold of great
mercies, by which he shall enter into the Bride-chamber of Christ. Then,
when the day of his death shall come, he shall be brought in by the
Bridegroom with great rejoicing.
     It is hard to die. We know that little trees do not strike their roots
deep into the earth, and therefore they cannot stand long; so it is with all
humble hearts, who do not take deep root in earth, but in heaven. But the
great trees which have waxed high, and are intended to endure long upon the
earth, these strike their roots deep, and spread them out wide into the
soil. So it is with the men who in old times and now at this present have
been great upon earth; they must needs through many a struggle and death die
unto themselves, before all the self-sufficiency of their heart can be
broken down, and they can be surely and firmly rooted for ever in humility.
It does however happen sometimes that the Holy Spirit finds easier ways than
those of which we have spoken, whereby He brings such souls to Himself.
     The third degree in which the grain of wheat dies belongs only to the
perfect, who with unflagging diligence and ceaseless desire are ever
striving to approach perfection. These men's state is one of mingled joy and
sorrow, whereby they are tossed up and down; for the Holy Spirit is trying
and sifting them, and preparing them for perfection with two kinds of grief
and two kinds of joy and happiness which they have ever in their sight. The
first grief is an inward pain and an overwhelming sorrow of heart, in the
sense of the unspeakable wrong done to the Holy Trinity by all creatures,
and specially by the bad Christians, who are living in mortal sin. The
second grief consists in their fellow-feeling for and experience of all the
grief and pain which the Human Nature of Christ has undergone.
     The first of the two joys lies in this dying; it is clear intuition and
a perfect fruition to which they are raised in Christ by the power of the
Holy Spirit, that they may enjoy the fruition of Him, and triumph in all the
joys which they hope and believe after this life to behold in all their
perfect fullness. The second triumph is that they are fulfilled in all the
joys which the Human Nature of Christ possessed. This joy such a man hopes
to share as a member of Christ; and, even if he cannot fathom the Abyss of
God, he rejoices therein, for he sees that the overflowings of God's mercy
are unspeakable, and feels that it is good for him that he is vanquished in
the effort to comprehend God's power, and bends down beneath God in his
self-dying.
     To this state a man cannot attain except he unite his will with God,
with an entire renunciation and perfect denial of himself and all selfish
love of himself; and all delight in having his own will be over-mastered and
quenched by the shedding abroad in his heart of the Holy Spirit in the Love
of God; so that it seems as if the Holy Spirit Himself were the man's will
and love, and he were nothing and willed nothing on his own account. Yea,
even the Kingdom of Heaven he shall desire for God's sake and God's glory,
because Christ hath earned it in order to supply his needs, and chooseth to
bestow it on him as one of His sons. When in this stage, a man loveth all
things in their right order, God above all things--next the blessed (Human)
Nature of Christ, and after that the blessed Mother of Christ, and the
Saints of all degrees, each according to the rank which God hath enabled him
to attain. When his affections are thus regulated, he sets himself in the
lowest place at the wedding-feast of the Bridegroom. And when the Bridegroom
comes Who has bidden him to the feast, He saith unto him: "Friend, go up
higher." Then is is endowed with a new life, and illuminated with a new
light, in the which he clearly perceives and sees that he alone is the cause
of his own evil, that he cannot with truth throw the blame either on nature,
the world, or the devil. Yea, he confesses that God has appointed him all
these exercises and assaults out of His great love, in order that he may
glorify God in overcoming these, and deserve a higher crown. Further, he
perceives and sees that it is God alone Who has upheld him and stayed his
steps, so that he has no longer an inclination to sin, and Who has removed
the occasion to sin that he might not fall. Yea, what is still worse, he is
forced to confess that he has often been dissatisfied that he was not able
to derive more enjoyment from his sins. Thus all his being is swallowed up
in sorrow and remorse for that he is still laden with his boundless
infirmity.
     But he hath delight and joy in that he seeth that the goodness of God
is as great as his necessities, so that his life may well be called a dying
life, by reason of such his griefs and joys which are conformable and like
unto the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ, which from beginning to end was
always made up of mingled grief and joy. Grief, in that he left His heavenly
throne and came down into this world; joy, in that He was not severed from
the glory and honour of the Father. Grief, in that He was a Son of Man; joy,
in that He nevertheless was and remained the Son of God. Grief, because He
took upon Him the office of servant; joy, in that He was nevertheless a
great Lord. Grief, because in human nature He was mortal, and died upon the
Cross; joy, because He was immortal according to His Godhead. Grief, in His
birth, in that He was once born of His Mother; joy, in that He is the
only-begotten of God's Heart from everlasting to everlasting. Grief, because
He became in time subject to time; joy, because He was eternal before all
time, and shall be so for ever. Grief, in that the Word was born into the
flesh, and hath dwelt in us; joy, in that the Word was in the beginning with
God, and God Himself was the Word. Grief, in that it behooved Him to be
baptized like any human sinner by St John the Baptist in the Jordan; joy, in
that the voice of His Heavenly Father said of Him: "This is my beloved Son
in Whom I am well pleased." Grief, in that like others, sinners, He was
tempted of the Enemy; joy, in that the Angels came and ministered unto Him.
Grief, in that He oftentimes endured hunger and thirst; joy, because He
Himself the Lord of men and Angels. Grief, in that He was often wearied with
His labours; joy, because He is the rest of all loving hearts and blessed
spirits. Grief, forasmuch as His holy life and sufferings should remain in
vain for so many human beings; joy, because He should thereby save His
friends. Grief, in that He must needs ask to drink water of the heathen
woman at the well; joy, in that He gave to that same woman to drink of
living water, so that she should never thirst again. Grief, in that He was
wont to sail in ships over the sea; joy, because He was wont to walk
dry-shod over the waves. Grief, in that He wept with Martha and Mary over
Lazarus; joy, in that He raised their brother Lazarus from the dead. Grief,
in that He was nailed to the Cross with nails; joy, in that He promised
Paradise to the thief by His side. Grief, in that He thirsted when hanging
on the Cross; joy, in that He should thereby redeem His elect from eternal
thirst. Grief, when He said: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
joy, in that He would with these words comfort all sad hearts. Grief, in
that His soul was parted from His body; and He died and was buried; joy,
because on the third day He rose again from the dead with a glorified body.
     Thus was all His life, from the Manger to the Cross, a mingled web of
grief and joy. Which life He hath left as a sacred testament to His
followers in this present time, who are converted unto His dying life, that
they may remember Him when they drink of His cup, and walk as He hath
walked. May God help us so to do! Amen.



                                  SERMON V



                       On St John the Evangelist's day



How men must receive all that God gives, and ordains for those who truly
seek him in all things, as from His Hand, and as for the best. How willingly
God gives great gifts, when, in lowliness of mind, we esteem ourselves of
small repute; and how all things are as nothing without God.



     Hic est discipulus ille, quem diligebat Jesus. "This is that
     disciple whom Jesus loved."[17]

     Dear children, though God is no respecter of persons, and loves all the
things that He has made, still He has His Friends (those who are most
conscious of His favour, and turn to Him with all their might) who are
especially dear to Him; and it is not His fault that all men do not turn to
Him of their own free will. He is always ready to receive us; and He lets
the sun of His grace shine on the good and on the evil.
     Now St John especially was conscious of the grace of God from his
youth, and was always the dearly loved disciple of our Lord, on account of
his virginal purity, his perfect love, his keen vision, and all his other
virtues. If therefore we would be the dear disciples of God, we must first
follow St John by dying wholly to ourselves, by resigning ourselves and all
our affections to God; and by receiving all things from His hand; we must
deny ourselves all pleasure in the love of created things apart from God.
Those men who thus resign themselves, and submit entirely to God, seek
earnestly all that God gives them; for it is, and it seems to them the best.
Thou mayest (as truly as God lives) be certain that it must of necessity be
the very best, and that no other way could be better than it is, though
another might appear so; yet it would not be so good for thee, for God has
chosen this and no other way; therefore it must needs be the best. It may be
sickness, poverty, hunger or thirst; whatever it may be that God ordains or
does not ordain, it is still the best for thee. It may be devotion or
fervour, or that thou art to possess neither, as long as it is not caused by
thine own neglect; only make up thy mind to seek God's honour in all things,
in all that thou hast or hast not, then all that He sendeth thee will be for
the best.
     Now thou mightest say perhaps: "How do I know whether it is the will of
God or not?" Know this, that if it were not the will of God, it could not
happen. Thou hast neither days of sickness, nor anything else, except it be
the will of God. Now, if thou knowest it is God's will, thou oughtest to
have so much pleasure and delight therein, that thou wouldest not heed pain
as pain, even though it were extreme. It would be wrong for thee to be
sensible of pain or suffering; for thou oughtest to accept it from God as
the very best for thee. It is His very life, to desire only the best;
therefore I ought to desire it, and nothing ought to please me better. Now,
if there were a man whom I was most desirous to please, and I knew for
certain that I should please him better in a gray garb than in any other,
however good it might be, that gray garb would seem to be more desirable
than any other though it were ever so good. Oh! take heed to yourselves, see
how your love is fashioned! If ye truly loved God, nothing would delight you
more than doing that which pleased Him best, and desiring that His will
should be fully accomplished in us. However severe pain and discomfort may
seem, if thou hast not as great delight in them as in comfort and pleasure,
all is not well with thee.
     There is one thing which I am wont to say constantly, and which is also
true, that we cry out every day and say in the Lord's Prayer: "Lord, Thy
Will be done!" but then we feel angry, and are not so content with His will
as that all He does should seem for the best. They who do accept it as the
best, are kept in perfect peace in all things. Now, sometimes ye say: "Oh!
if it had only been otherwise it would have been better," or, "if it had not
happened thus it might have happened better." As long as thou art of this
mind, thou wilt never attain to peace; thou must accept all as the very
best.
     Now, mark, God is the Giver of all gifts, and all things that are best
and highest are His real and most peculiar gifts. God gives nothing so
willingly as great gifts, for it is natural to Him to give great things;
therefore, the better things are, the more of them there are, the noblest
creatures, the Angels, are especially wise; they have no bodily nature, and
there are more of them in number than of all other created beings. Great
things are really great gifts; and they are what I can best make my own and
most desire.
     I speak also of that which may actually be expressed in word, and which
must come out from within quite freely; it must not come from without into
the heart; but that must come out from within, which really dwells in the
inmost heart. There all things are present unto thee, and live and move and
have their being, in Him, who is the Holy and Sovereign God. Why dost thou
not find it thus? Because thou are not at home there. The nobler a thing is,
the commoner it is. I have my natural sense in common with animals; and life
in common with trees; and my being, which is still more to me, in common
with all creatures. Heaven is more than all that is thereby; therefore it is
also nobler. The nobler things are, the commoner they are. Love is noble,
because it is universal. It seems hard to do that which our Lord has
commanded, and to love our neighbours as ourselves. Common people say, "We
ought to love them as we love God; for we love ourselves too well." But no,
it should be otherwise. We must therefore love them very much, just as we
love ourselves; and this is not hard; for, if ye would only see it, this
command is more of a reward than a command. A command seems hard, but a
reward is desirable. He, who loves God as he ought to love Him, yea, and as
he must love Him, whether he will or no, and as all creatures love Him, must
love his neighbour as himself. He must joy in his joys, as though they were
his own; he must be as desirous for his honour as though it were his own;
and he must treat a stranger as though he were dear unto him. Then that man
will be always rejoicing, always useful, and always honourable. It will seem
like heaven to him; and he will have far more joy, that if he rejoiced only
in his own good.
     Now, know of a truth, that if thine own honour is of more importance to
thee, and dearer than that of another man, thou doest wrongfully. Know this,
that if thou seekest something that is thine own, thou seekest not God only;
and thou wilt never find Him. Thou art acting as though thou madest a candle
of God to seek for something; and, when thou hast found it, thou castest the
candle away. Therefore, when thou doest this, that which thou seekest with
God, whatever it may be, it is nothing; gain, reward, fervour, or whatever
it may be, thou seekest nothing, therefore wilt thou find nothing. There is
no other cause for finding nothing, but that thou seekest nothing. All
creatures are absolutely nothing. That which has no being is nothing. And
creatures have no being, because they have their being in God; if God turned
away for a moment, they would cease to exist. He who desired to have all the
world with God, would have nothing more than if he had God alone. All
creatures have, without God, nothing more than a man has, who has a mite, or
absolutely nothing, without Him; neither more nor less.
     Listen, I beseech you, to a true saying. A man might give a thousand
marks to build churches and monasteries, and it would be a great gift; but
he who careth nought for a thousand marks has done more and given more. When
God created all creatures, they were so vile and mean that He could not live
and move in them. Then He made the soul of man, like unto and in harmony
with Himself, that unto him He might give Himself; for all else that He gave
him, man heeded not. God must give Himself to me as my own, as He is in
Himself, or I have nothing and care for nothing. He, who would receive God
in full measure, must give himself wholly to God; he must go our of himself.
He will receive the like from God, all that He has as his own, as God
Himself has it, and as He has given it to our Lady and to all that are in
heaven. Those who have thus gone forth, and have given themselves, shall
also, all alike, receive all in all and nothing less.
     Now know, that of ourselves, we have nothing; for this and all other
gifts are from above. Therefore he who would receive from above, must of
necessity place himself beneath, in true humility. And know of a truth, that
if he leave anything out, so that all is not beneath, he will have nothing
and receive nothing. Dost thou trust to thyself, or to anything else, or
anybody else? thou art not beneath, and wilt receive nothing; but if thou
hast placed thyself beneath, then Thou wilt receive all things fully. It is
God's nature to give; and He lives and moves that He may give unto us when
we are humble. If we are not lowly, and yet desire to receive, we do Him
violence, and kill Him, so to speak; and, though we may not wish to do this,
yet we do it, as far as in us lies. That thou mayest truly give Him all
things, see to it, that thou castest thyself in deep humility at the Feet of
God, and beneath all created beings; that thou exaltest God in thy heart,
and that thou confessest Him. The Lord our God sent His only-begotten Son
into the world. God sent His Son in the fulness of time, for the sake of our
souls, and that we might be filled with Him. When a soul is freed from place
and time, the Father sends His Son into that soul to be born there. Nothing
can hinder God in us, or us in God, if in our hearts we neither hang on to,
nor cleave to time and place, nor exalt ourselves above time and place in
Eternity, which is God Himself. Amen.



                                  SERMON VI



                  Of the Feast of the Holy Virgin St Agnes



How outward purity of body, and inner chastity of mind, may be attained and
preserved. Especially, how purity of mind may be preserved, in spite of the
outward attacks of human love and imaginations; and that no man, however
spiritually minded he may be, can ever be sure, while he is still here in
the body, that his frail nature has been completely killed, so that he can
never be tempted to impurity. Of three snares that are laid for those who
are spiritually minded, into which they may fall and against which they must
guard themselves, be they never so perfect.



     Virgo cogitat, quae Domini sunt, ut sit sancta et corpore et
     spiritu. "A virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord, that she
     may be holy both in body and spirit."[18]


     A virgin, says St Paul, thinks and meditates on the things of the Lord,
that she may be holy in body and soul. Four things are needful for virgins,
that they may be pure in body and pure in spirit. To purity of body pertain
spotlessness of the flesh, and moderation in the use of all bodily
necessaries, in eating or drinking, sleeping or waking. A virgin must
refrain from talking; she must be modest in all her ways; she must abstain
from mixing in dissolute society or amusements, and be lowly and simple in
her daily life; industrious in good and seemly work, or in works of penance
and such-like; for all these things tend to external chastity. He who seeks
to perfect or preserve his chastity in any other way, will find he has been
deceived; for that which is visible must be visibly overcome; or else the
impurity of the flesh will overcome the purity of the spirit. It is plain
that he who tries to tame the flesh by the flesh will not effect much. And
now we will say no more of this, but say a little about the chastity of the
spirit, how it may be lost or preserved; and this is a useful subject, which
all those who are spiritually minded will do well to consider and remember.
     Purity of spirit consists in a clean, pure and humble conscience; for a
humble conscience is a pure mind and a clean heart. A pure mind is to be
gained by exercise in the Holy Scriptures. From thence come holy meditations
which fill the heart of man; and therefore it is the sooner freed from all
vain and wicked thoughts. Be sure, nothing doubting, that the man, who
devotes himself to diligent study of the Holy Scriptures, will be preserved
and guarded from the grosser temptations to impurity. This is shown by St
Jerome, when he says: "Love to search the Scriptures, and then ye will not
care for the lusts of the flesh, nor delight in them." But a clean heart
must be gained by driving out all desire for the creature, and especially
for man; for a good and holy man is so easily grieved and disturbed in his
heart by the inordinate love of man, that it often takes him a long time to
drive out that love from his heart, which had entered in a moment.
Therefore, unless man shuns the causes which minister to the flesh, he can
get no further, and he must receive a hurt that will grieve him. It is here
that man is most easily wounded, on account of his natural
short-sightedness, which is so deeply rooted in inordinate desire, that he
will be kept occupied all the days of his life; though many a man, who does
not realize it, is as bold and joyful as though he had conquered in every
strife and had overcome.
     Now, dear children, though ye had conquered in a thousand fights, and
had gained the victory, ye must not trust to it; for as long as body and
soul are joined together, to none is freedom assured on earth. That which
may not happen in a hundred years, often comes in one moment; so that many a
good and pure man has been tempted and led astray in such a manner that he
hardly knew how it came about. Not that such men are spotted by outward
deeds, or fall into open carnal sins, though sometimes even this occurs; but
then they are molested by the charm of evil desire, dangerous, transitory
and carnal love, which darkens their understanding and judgment, and the
fervour which they had before experienced; and they are cast into a hell of
distress and scorn, and feel the gnawings of conscience. Thus man seems to
be going to the gates of hell and of external darkness, just like one who is
about to be killed, and, who in great fear and horror of death, loses his
senses and reason. This comes from lack of watchfulness; but it is at times
also ordained by God, that the man may ground himself in true humility, and
may learn to know his own infirmity, and may be able to feel for other men
in theirs. This is especially the case with those who afflict themselves, in
order to overcome and to kill the inner, reasoning and upright man, because
they long to attain to absolute poverty of spirit. It is necessary that
they, more than all men, should guard themselves in the presence of those
who are unlike them. For the Tempter, who never rests, does not forget his
cunning when he finds a good opportunity. Now if such men strive diligently
to destroy the inner man absolutely, and to walk in all singleness of heart,
they will exert themselves to overcome all inner troubles, so that they may
uncomplainingly and unresistingly submit themselves to God in all things,
whenever and however it may please Him. They must not endeavour to get their
own way in His work, but must desire that His will may be done, without any
choosing on their part. See, by this means, man will attain to such
simplicity of heart, and such peace, both outwardly and inwardly, and also
in his nature, that he will be scarcely conscious of any resistance in
himself. Neither is he conscious of any shame, nor yet of the burden of a
guilty conscience; and, to use a simile, it seems as though he had returned
to his original ignorance and innocence, and were like a young child who
follows the dictates of nature without shame. In the same way a child might
thus naturally go his own way, and grow up, according to nature, taking no
care or pains to tame his unruly passions. Thus it would come to pass that
his passions would grow stronger and stronger; and, as understanding and
desire increased, sin also would increase. This might also happen to a pure
and spiritually-minded man, however child-like his innocence might be, who
had long lived a life of seclusion, and who seemed to have so conquered his
outer and lower nature that he was scarcely conscious at any time of
temptation, either sleeping or waking; and who, were the occasion to arise,
or where he incited to it, would take no pleasure in it, but would imagine
he could easily withstand all these attacks and temptations. Yea, it would
even seem to him as though for him in such things, than there would be for a
man who was dead; in seeing, hearing, speaking, or in anything else
possible. Now see, nature seems quite dead; and yet none should put their
trust in it, either men or women, however sure of themselves they may be,
and even satisfied as to their condition. Now, however perfect and holy the
man in truth may be, however dead he may seem to all these things, if he
will not flee from temptations, his heart will of necessity be wounded by
sensual desires; and it will be agitated and tempted by the love of a
friend, more for one than for another.
     Now mark, dear children, how this takes place, and how by degrees man
falls into such snares. First of all, love is felt for people on account of
their grace, their piety and their spirituality; and this is all-sufficing
to the heart, and seems to be all spiritual, and is accepted with great
thankfulness to God and to these men. If man does not continue to strive to
chase away these emotions, the longing creeps in to show these people
outwardly a little kindness out of pure friendliness. He recognises them by
pleasant words and gestures, by laughing and bowing, by touching their
clothes, or taking them by the hand, or embracing them, or by bowing the
head to them, and by many such like things. These are all signs of natural
human love, and show that the heart has been wounded by unregulated love. It
may be, if the man does not shun it, that he will be still more deeply
wounded; and it may go so far, that spiritual pleasure is turned into carnal
pleasure; and the man, thus entangled in this net of the devil's and of
carnal desires, cannot easily escape from it without great injury and danger
of sin in his heart. Yea, it may even go so far that he dallies with such
pleasure till at last he consents to it; and that would be a sin unto death;
and, if even then he did not become conscious of it, he might fall into
great spiritual sin without any opposition on his part.
     See, dear children, a good man may thus fall into all kinds of sin, if
he does not at once resist the temptation. Yea, and even though he had
attained to the highest and most perfect state of virtue, if he does not
flee from these sins, he may stand in great danger from them, greater danger
than he was ever in before. Never was it more necessary for him to shun them
than it would be now; for no one is free from these temptations and
incitements, as long as his breath is in his body; and, however holy he may
be, it is possible for him to fall into sin and to endanger his salvation,
unless he keeps watch over himself.
     As all teachers point out to us, three snares are laid for the
spiritually-minded, into which they may fall. The first is a man's holiness.
The second is when people are of one family, and belong to each other by
birth and nature, or are related, that as being brothers and sisters, and so
forth. The third snare is personal holiness, and that in the long practice
of virtue, so that the occasion of sin is not shunned. Thi