How God speaks to the Soul in Three Places.
In the first of these places does the devil also speak, which he cannot do in the other two.
The first place is the mind of man, and this stands open not to God only, but to the devil and to all creatures, who enter in as they will, and hold converse with the soul through the mind.
The second place in which God speaks, is in the soul itself. And into the soul none can enter but God only. When God speaks to the soul, it is without the aid of the senses. It is in a mighty, strong, and swift communication, in a speech the mind cannot comprehend, unless the mind is so humbled as to take the lowest place amongst created things.
The third place where God speaks with the soul is in heaven, when God draws the soul up thither, and brings her into His secret place, where He shows her all His wonders.
Of False Love.
All, who do not in all things cleave to the truth of God, must fall with bitter loss. For love, which has not humility for her mother, and holy fear for her father, will be a barren love.
Matilda’s Faith.
Thus far in the five first books of Matilda’s writings can we trace the history of her soul before she found her last refuge in the convent of Hellfde.
Preger’s remarks are valuable as showing how Matilda, in expressions which she borrowed from the common stock of the writings of the mystics, as well as in expressions of her own, might appear to have wandered into the regions of Pantheism. That she herself attached a meaning to these expressions, which those who were simply mystics, and not believers in Christ as their Saviour, could not understand, seems, however, clear. But the expressions were open to the danger of being thus misunderstood. To those who were mystics, and nothing more, intercourse with God was a vague sentiment; and what they called the love of God, was merely a name given to their own human thoughts of God, the God of their imagination.