NOW we are about to speak of another mode of the coming of Christ, in interior exercises, which adorn, enlighten, and enrich a man, according to the three supreme faculties of his soul. We shall compare this coming to a life-giving fountain from which flow three rivers.
This fountain is the fullness of divine grace in the unity of our spirit. There resides grace essentially in its permanence, like a full fountain, and it flows out actively by its rivers into each of the faculties of the soul, according to their needs. These rivers are a special influx, or operation of God in the highest faculties, in which God operates in various manners by the intermediary of His grace.
HOW THE FIRST RIVER FLOWS INTO THE MEMORY
THE first river of grace, which God causes to flow in this coming, is a pure simplicity which shines without distinction in the spirit. This river takes its source in the fountain, in the unity of the spirit, and flows directly downwards, and penetrates all the faculties of the soul, both higher and lower, and lifts them up out of all multiplicity and all over-occupation, and makes a simplicity in a man, and gives and shows him an internal bond in the unity of his spirit. A man is thus lifted up according to his memory, and delivered from strange and irrelevant thoughts, and from inconstancy. Now Christ in this light demands a going forth, according to the mode of this light and this coming. Then the man goes forth, and observes himself that by virtue of the simple light that is spread abroad in him he is united, established, penetrated and fixed in the unity of his spirit or of his thoughts. Here the man is exalted and established in a new essence; he turns his thoughts inwards, and rests his memory on the naked truth, above all sensuous images and above all multiplicity. There the man possesses essentially and supernaturally the unity of his spirit, for his own dwelling, and as an heritage of his own for ever. He always has an inclination towards that same unity, and this unity will have an eternal and loving inclination towards the more sublime unity where the Father and the Son are united with all the saints in the bands of the Holy Spirit.
HOW THE SECOND RIVER ENLIGHTENS THE INTELLIGENCE
THROUGH internal love, and loving inclination towards union with God, is born the second river from the fullness of grace, in unity of spirit, and this is a spiritual brightness which flows and sheds light through the intelligence, but with distinctions in the diverse modes. For this light shows and gives to the spirit, in the truth, the discretion in all the virtues. But this light is not placed altogether in our power, for though we have it always in our soul, God makes it speak or keep silence, and He can manifest or hide it, give or withdraw it, at all times and under all conditions, for this light is His. Such men do not absolutely need revelations, nor to be drawn up above sense, for their life and abode and habits and essence are in the spirit above sense and sensibility. And God shows them what He wills and what is necessary for them. Nevertheless God, if He wished, could withdraw their exterior sense, and show them, from within, unknown symbols and future things, in diverse manners.
Now Christ desires that this man should go forth, and go into the light, according to the mode of this light. This enlightened man will therefore go forth and observe his state and his life within and without, in order to know if he is perfectly like Christ according to His humanity and also according to His divinity. And this man will lift up his eyes, enlightened by enlightened reason, in intelligible truth, and will observe and consider, as a creature can, the sublime nature of God, and the unlimited attributes which are in God.
It is then necessary to consider and examine the sublime nature of God; how it contains simplicity and purity, inaccessible height and abysmal depth, incomprehensible extension and eternal duration; dark silence and wild waste; repose of all the saints in unity and joy in itself and in all the saints in eternity. This enlightened man will also examine the attributes of the Father in the Godhead, how He is all-powerful, the creator, mover, preserver, beginning and end, cause and existence of all creatures; this is what the bright river of grace shows to the enlightened reason. It shows also the attributes of the eternal Word, abysmal wisdom and truth, model of every creature and of all life, eternal norm of things, unveiled contemplation and intuition into everything, brightness and illumination of all saints, according to their merits, in heaven and on earth. But this bright river shows also to the enlightened reason the attributes of the Holy Spirit; inconceivable charity and generosity, pity and mercy, infinite watchfulness and faithfulness, immense and inconceivable riches flowing with delights through all heavenly spirits, ardent flame consuming all in unity, effluent fountain, preparation of all the saints for their eternal blessedness, and their introduction thereto; enveloping and penetrating the Father, the Son, and all the saints in joyous unity.
ON THE STATE OF AMAZEMENT AT THE DIVINE EFFLUENCE
THE incomprehensible wealth and sublimity, and the universal generosity which flow from the divine nature, bring a man into a state of amazement; and above all he admires the communication of God and His effluence above everything, for he sees the inconceivable essence, which is the common joy of God and all the saints. And he sees that the three divine Persons are a common effluence in works, in graces, and in glory, in nature and above nature, in all conditions and in all times, in the saints and in men, in heaven and on earth, in all reasonable and irrational creatures, according to each one's merits, needs, and powers of receiving. God is common to all, with all His gifts, the angels are common, the soul is common in all its faculties, in all life, in all the members, and all in each, for one cannot divide it, except by reason. For the higher and lower faculties, the spirit and the soul, are distinct according to reason, but one in nature. Thus God is entirely and specially present to each one, and nevertheless common to all the creatures, for by Him are all things, and on Him depend the heaven, the earth, and the whole of nature. When a man thus observes the astonishing wealth and sublimity of the divine nature, and all the manifold gifts which He grants and offers to His creatures, he is lifted up internally by wonder at such manifold riches and sublimity; and from thence arises a singular inward joy of spirit, and a vast confidence in God; and this internal joy surrounds and penetrates all the faculties of the soul in inwardness of spirit.