O abandonment! what gladness canst thou impart to the soul, and what progress it might have made if [p 218] it had found thee at first; from how much weariness it might have been delivered if it had known how to let God work! But, alas! men are not willing to abandon themselves, and to trust only in God. Even those who appear to do it, and who think themselves well established in it, are only abandoned in imagination, and not in reality. They are willing to abandon themselves in one thing and not in another; they wish to compromise with God, and to place a limit to what they will permit Him to do. They want to give themselves up, but on such and such conditions. No; this is not abandonment. An entire and total abandonment excepts nothing, keeps back nothing, neither death, nor life, nor perfection, nor salvation, nor heaven, nor hell. O poor souls! give yourselves up utterly in this abandonment; you will get only happiness and blessing from it. Walk boldly on this stormy sea, relying on the word of Jesus, who has promised to take upon Himself the care of all those who will lose their own life, and abandon themselves to Him. But if you sink like Peter, ascribe it to the weakness of your faith. If we had the faith calmly, and without hesitation, to face all dangers, what good should we [p 219] not receive! What do you fear, trembling heart? You fear to lose yourself? Alas! for all that you are worth, what would that matter? Yes, you will lose yourself if you have strength to abandon yourself to God, but you will be lost in Him. O happy loss! I do not know how sufficiently to repeat it. Why can I not persuade every one to make this abandonment? and why do men preach anything less? Alas! men are so blind that they regard all this as folly, as something fit for women and weak minds; but for great minds it is too mean; they must guide themselves by their own meagre share of wisdom. This path is unknown to them, because they are wise and prudent in themselves; but it is revealed to babes, who can suffer self to be annihilated, and who are willing to be moved by God at His pleasure, leaving Him to do with them as He will, without resistance, without considering what others will say. Oh, how difficult it is to this proper prudence to become nothing both in its own eyes and in the sight of others! Men say that their one object in life is to glorify God, while it is really their own glorification. But to be willing to be nothing in the sight of God, to live in an entire abandonment, in utter [p 220] self-despair, to give themselves to Him when they are the most discouraged, to leave themselves in His hands, and not to look at self when they are on the very edge of the abyss; it is this that is so rare, and it is this which constitutes perfect abandonment. There sometimes occur in this life wonderful manifestations to the natural senses, but this is not usual; it is like Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration.
[p 221]
CHAPTER II.
STABILITY, EXPERIENCES, ELEVATION, EXTREME PURITY, AND PEACE OF THE SOUL IN THE CONDITION OF ABANDONMENT—ALL IS PURELY GOD TO IT—FOR ITS LOST LIBERTY IT FINDS THAT OF GOD—STATE IN WHICH ALL IS DIVINELY SURE, EQUAL, AND INDIFFERENT.
The soul having attained a divine state, is, as I have already said, an immovable rock, proof against all blows or shocks, unless it be when the Lord desires it to do something contrary to custom; then, if it does not yield to His first promptings, it has to suffer the pain of a constraint to which it can offer no resistance, and is compelled by a violence, which cannot be explained, to obey His will.
It is impossible to tell the strange proofs to which God subjects the hearts which are perfectly abandoned, and which offer no resistance to Him in anything; neither, if I could speak of them, should I be understood. All that I can say is, that He does not [p 222] leave them the shadow of anything that could be named, either in God or out of God. And He so raises them above all by the loss of all, that nothing less than God Himself, either in earth or heaven, can stop them. Nothing can harm them, because there is no longer anything hurtful for them, by reason of their union with God, which, in associating with sinners, contracts no defilement, because of its essential purity.
This is more real than I can express: the soul participates in the purity of God; or rather, all natural purity having been annihilated, the purity of God alone exists in its nothingness; but so truly, that the heart is in perfect ignorance of evil, and powerless to commit it, which does not however prevent the possibility of its falling; but this seldom happens here, because the profound nothingness of the soul does not leave anything that can be appropriated to itself; and it is appropriation alone which can cause sin, for that which no longer exists cannot sin.
The peace of those in this condition is so invariable and so profound, that nothing either in earth or hell can disturb it for a moment. The senses are still susceptible to suffering; but when [p 223] they are overpowered by it, and cry out with the anguish, if they are questioned, or if they examine themselves, they will find nothing in themselves that suffers: in the midst of the greatest pain, they say that they suffer nothing, being unable to admit that they are suffering, because of the divine state of blessedness which reigns in the centre or supreme part.
And then there is such an entire and complete separation of the two parts, the inferior and the superior, that they live together like strangers; and the most extraordinary trouble does not interrupt the perfect peace, tranquillity; joy, and rest of the superior part; as the joy of the divine life does not prevent the suffering of the inferior.
If you wish to attribute any goodness to those who are thus transformed in God, they will object to it, not being able to find anything in themselves that can be named, affirmed, or heard. They are in a complete negation. It is this which causes the difference of terms and expressions employed by writers on this subject, who find a difficulty in making themselves understood, except by those whose experience accords with their own. Another [p 224] effect of this negation is, that the soul having lost all that was its own, God having substituted Himself, it can attribute nothing either to itself or to God; because it knows God only, of whom it can say nothing. Here all is God to the soul, because it is no longer a question of seeing all in God; for to see things in God is to distinguish them in Him. For instance, if I enter a room, I see all that is there in addition to the room itself, though it be placed within it; but if all could be transformed into the room itself, or else were taken out of it, I should see nothing but the room alone. All creatures, celestial, terrestrial or pure intelligences, disappear and fade away, and there remains only God Himself, as He was before the creation. The soul sees only God everywhere; and all is God; not by thought, sight, or light, but by an identity of condition and a consummation of unity, which rendering it God by participation, without its being able to see itself, prevents it seeing anything anywhere; it can see no created being out of the Uncreated, the only uncreated One being all and in all.
Men would condemn such a state, saying it [p 225] makes us something less than the meanest insect; and so it does, not by obstinacy and firmness of purpose, but by powerlessness to interfere with ourselves. You may ask one in this condition, “Who leads you to do such and such a thing? Is it God who has told you to do it, or has made known to you His will concerning it?” He will reply, “I know nothing, and I do not think of knowing anything: all is God and His will; and I no longer know what is meant by the will of God, because that will has become natural to me.” “But why should you do this rather than that?” “I do not know: I let myself be guided by Him who draws me.” “Why so?” “He draws me because I, being no longer anything, am carried along with God, and am drawn by Him alone. He goes hither and thither: He acts; and I am but an instrument, which I neither see nor regard. I have no longer a separate interest, because by the loss of myself I have lost all self-interest. Neither am I capable of giving any reason for my conduct, for I no longer have a conduct: yet I act infallibly so long as I have no other principle than that of the Infallible One.”