This is why it is so necessary to renounce ourselves and all our own works to follow Jesus; for we cannot follow Him unless we are animated with His Spirit. In order that the Spirit of Christ may dwell in us, our own spirit must give place to Him. “He that is joined to the Lord,” says St Paul, “is one spirit” (1 Cor. vi. 17). “It is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God” (Ps. lxxiii. 28). What is this “drawing near”? It is the beginning of union.
Union has its beginning, its continuation, its completion, and its consummation. The commencement of union is an inclination towards God. When the soul is converted in the manner I have described, it has an inclination to its centre, and a strong tendency to union: this tendency is the commencement. Then it adheres, which happens when it approaches nearer to God; then it is united to Him, and finally becomes one with Him—that is, it becomes one spirit with Him; and it is then that [p59] this spirit, which proceeded from God, returns to Him as its end.
It is, then, necessary that we should enter this way, which is the divine motion, and the Spirit of Jesus Christ. St Paul says, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Rom. viii. 9). To be Christ’s, then, we must suffer ourselves to be filled with His Spirit, and emptied of our own: our hearts must be evacuated. St Paul, in the same place, proves to us the necessity of this divine motion: he says, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom. viii. 14).
The divinely-imparted Spirit is the Spirit of divine sonship; therefore, the same apostle continues, “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Rom. viii. 15). This spirit is no other than the Spirit of Christ, by whom we participate in His Sonship; and this “Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God.”
As soon as the soul leaves itself to be moved by [p60] the Spirit of God, it experiences the witness of this divine sonship; and this witness serves the more to increase its joy, as it makes it know that it is called to the liberty of the sons of God, and that the spirit it has received is not a spirit of bondage, but of liberty.
The Spirit of the divine motion is so necessary for all things, that Paul founds this necessity upon our ignorance of the things that we ask for. “The Spirit,” he says, “helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered.” This is conclusive: if we do not know what to pray for, nor how to ask as we ought for what is necessary for us, and if it is needful that the Spirit who is in us, to whose motion we abandon ourselves, should ask it for us, ought we not to leave Him to do it? He does it “with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
This Spirit is the Spirit of the Word, who is always heard, as He says Himself: “I know that Thou hearest me always” (John xi. 42). If we leave it to the Spirit within us to ask and to pray, we shall always be answered. Why so? O great apostle, mystic [p61] teacher, so deeply taught in the inner life! teach us why. “It is,” he adds, “because He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God;” that is to say, this Spirit only asks that which it is God’s will to give. It is God’s will that we should be saved and that we should be perfect. He asks, then, for all that is necessary to our perfection. Why, after this, should we be burdened with superfluous cares, and be wearied in the greatness of our way, without ever saying, There is no hope in ourselves, and therefore resting in God? God Himself invites us to cast all our care upon Him, and He complains, in inconceivable goodness, that we employ our strength, our riches, and our treasure, in countless exterior things, although there is so little joy to be found in them all. “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness” (Isa. lv. 2).
Oh, if it were known what happiness there is in thus hearkening unto God, and how the soul is [p62] strengthened by it! All flesh must be silent before the Lord (see Zech. ii. 13). All self-effort must cease when He appears. In order still further to induce us to abandon ourselves to Him without reserve, God assures us that we need fear nothing from such abandonment, because He has a special individual care over each of us. He says, “Can a woman forget her sucking-child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee” (Isa. xlix. 15). Ah, words full of consolation! Who on hearing them can fear to abandon himself utterly to the guidance of God?