“To reach the lowest place is to have no longer any desire towards evil; and as we have always some sin to forsake, so long as we are in this mortal life, we never reach the lowest place, for to die is to attain, not according to the senses, but in a spiritual paradox. And if any one were to say that to be steeped in humility is to have reached the lowest place, I should not contradict his opinion. But it seems to me that to bathe oneself in humility is to bathe oneself in God, for God is the source of humility, and He is at the same height and the same depth above and below all places. And between self-abasement and the attainment of the lowest place, there is, to my mind, a difference. For to reach the lowest place is to have no longer any desire towards evil, and to experience self-abasement is to be steeped in humility, and that is self-annihilation in God and death in God. Now, we have always something to forsake so long as we live, and to have nothing more to forsake is to have reached the lowest place. This is why we cannot attain to the lowest place. For what man was ever so humble that he could not have been more humble still? and who ever loved so fervently that he could not have loved more fervently still? Except Christ, assuredly not one. And so let us never be satisfied while in this dying life, for we may always become more humble than we are to-day. It is a most joyful thought that we have so great and good a God that we can never give Him sufficient homage and praise. Yes, not even if each single man could give every moment that which is given by all men and by all angels. But if we steep ourselves in humility, that is enough, and we please God by Himself, for in that immersion we are one life in Him, not according to nature, but by being bathed in humility, because by humility we have descended below our creation, and we have flowed into God, who is the source of humility. And there we lack nothing, for we are beyond ourselves and in God, and there is neither giving nor receiving, nor anything which can be called there, for it is neither there nor here, but I know not where.”
From the same book I transcribe the following passage on detachment from all things:—
“Now, he who has found God thus reigning in him by His grace, and who dwells in God above the measure of his human strength, may remain insensible to joy, to grief, and to the multitude of creatures. For God is essenced in him, and he is more disposed to introversion than to extroversion; and this essence is recalled to him wherever man is found; and this inclination and this essence are never forgotten, unless the man should deliberately turn away from God; and this he will not readily do, for he who has experienced God in this way cannot easily turn away from Him. I do not say that this can never happen, for no one is certain of anything in this mortal life, except of certain revelations.
“God takes by His divine power the man whom he has essenced in himself in this way, and enlightens him in everything, for everything is full to him of divine enjoyment; for he who refers all things to the glory of God, enjoys God in all things, and he sees in them the image of God. For he takes all from the hand of God, thanks Him and praises Him in everything, and God shines ever brightly before him, for he watches God with close attention, and never willingly turns away to worthless things. And as soon as he sees that he has turned towards worthless things, he at once turns away from them with great bitterness against himself, and bewails his unfaithfulness to God and resolves never again to turn knowingly towards worthless things. For all is bare and empty in which there is not either the glory of God or the good of our neighbour or our own salvation. He who thus watches over himself is less and less distracted, for his friend is often present with him, and that delights him above all. He is like to one who has a burning thirst. In his thirst he does nothing but drink. He may think of many other things besides the thirst which consumes him; but whatever he does, and whoever he is, or of whatever object he thinks, the image of drink does not disappear from his mind so long as he suffers from thirst. And the longer the thirst endures, the greater is the suffering of the man. And it is even so with the man who loves anything so passionately that he has no taste for aught besides, while nothing really touches his heart except that with which he is busied, and on which his love is set. Wherever he may be, with whomsoever he may find himself, nothing removes from him that which he so ardently loves. And he sees in all things the image of the beloved object; and the greater and more powerful his love, the more vividly that image is present to him. He does not seek repose and idleness that he may enjoy it, for no distraction hinders him from having the image of the beloved abiding ever with him.”
Let us glance next at the little work on Christian Faith, to which Surius gives the title De fide et judicio, tractatulus insignis. Its twenty pages form a kind of catechism, splendid in its precision, from which I take the following fragment on the happiness of the elect:—
“We shall behold with our inward eyes the mirror of the wisdom of God, in which shall shine and be illumined all things which have ever existed and which can rejoice our hearts. And we shall hear with our outward ears the melody and the sweet songs of saints and angels, who shall praise God throughout eternity. And with our inner ears we shall hear the inborn Word of the Father; and in this Word we shall receive all knowledge and all truth. And the sublime fragrance of the Holy Spirit shall pass before us, sweeter than all balms and precious herbs that ever were; and this fragrance shall draw us out of ourselves, towards the eternal love of God, and we shall taste His everlasting goodness, sweeter than all honey, and it shall feed us, and enter into our soul and our body; and we shall be ever an hungered and athirst for it, and because of our hunger and thirst, these delights and this nourishment shall remain with us for ever, ever more renewed; and this is eternal life.
“We shall understand by love and we shall be understood by love, and God shall possess us and we Him in unity. We shall enjoy God, and, united to Him, we shall rest in blessedness. And this measureless delight, in that super-essential rest, is the ultimate source of blessedness, for we are then swallowed up in satisfaction beyond all possibility of hunger. Hunger can have no place in it, for there is nothing here but unity; all loving spirits shall here fall asleep in super-essential darkness, and nevertheless they shall live and wake for ever in the light of glory.”
Next we come to The Book of the Sparkling Stone, De Calculo, sive de perfectione filiorum Dei, libellus admirabilis, as Surius adds. Here the subject is the mysterious stone of which the Spirit says in the Apocalypse: Et dabo illi (vincenti) calculum candidum, et in calculo nomen novum scriptum, quod nemo scit nisi qui accepit (Rev. ii. 17). This stone, according to the monk of the forest of Soignes, is the symbol of Christ, given to His loved ones only, and like a flame which images the love of the eternal Word. And then again we have glimpses of those dark shadows of love, from which break forth uninterrupted sobs of light, seen in awful flowers through the gradual expansions of contemplation and above the strange verdure of an unequalled gladness. Let us examine this passage:—
“And hence follows the third point, that is to say, an inward exercise above reason and without restraint; for that union with God which every loving spirit has possessed in love continually attracts and draws towards the inmost centre of its essence the divine persons and all loving spirits; and all those who love feel this attraction, more or less, according to their love and their holy exercises. And he who keeps guard over this attraction and clings closely to it cannot fall into deadly sin. But the contemplative one, who has renounced his own being and all things else, does not experience an expulsive force, because he no longer possesses anything, but is emptied of all; and so he can always enter naked and imageless into the secret place of his spirit. There he sees the eternal light revealed, and in that light he feels an eternal craving for union with God. And he himself feels a constant fire of love which desires above all things to be one with God. And the more he observes that attraction and that craving, the more keenly he feels it; and the more he feels it, the more he desires to be one with God, for he longs to pay the debt which God calls on him to pay. This eternal craving for union with God causes the spirit to glow evermore with love; but as the spirit uninterruptedly continues paying its debt, a perpetual consumption goes on within it; for in the refreshment of unity all spirits grow weary in their task, and feel only the absorption of everything into simple unity with God. This simple unity can be felt and possessed by none save by those who stand before the immense brightness and before love, above reason and without restraint. In this presence the spirit feels itself perpetually inflamed with love; and in this glow of love it finds neither beginning nor end. And it feels itself one with that burning fire of love. The spirit remains always on fire in itself, for its love is eternal, and it feels itself always consumed away in love; for it is attracted towards the refreshment of union with God, in which the spirit burns with love. If it observes itself, it finds a distinction and a difference between itself and God, but where it burns it is pure and has no distinction, and that is why it feels nothing else but unity; for the immeasurable flame of the divine love consumes and swallows up all that it has enveloped in its essence.
“And you may thus understand that the attracting unity of God is nothing else save boundless love, which lovingly draws inwards, in eternal enjoyment, the Father, the Son, and all who live in love. And we desire to burn and be consumed in that love everlastingly, for in it the blessedness of all spirits is found. And so we ought all to found our lives on a fathomless abyss; we shall thus be able to descend evermore in love, and to plunge ourselves beyond ourselves into its unsounded depths; and by the same love we shall rise and go beyond ourselves into its inconceivable height, and we shall wander in that measureless love, and it will lead us away into the boundless expanse of the love of God. And there will be a flow and outflow beyond ourselves, in the unknown pleasure of the divine goodness and riches. There will be an eternal fusion and transfusion, absorption and perabsorption of ourselves in the glory of God. See how, in each of these comparisons, I have shown to the contemplative mind its essence and its inward exercises. But no other can understand me, for no man can teach contemplation to his fellow. But when the eternal truth is revealed to the spirit, it is instructed in all that is needful.”