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 2222 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 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 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 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.”

226 And this blind abandonment is the permanent condition of the soul of which I speak; because having become one with God, it can see nothing but God; for having lost all separateness, self-possession, and distinction, it can no longer be abandoning itself, because, in order to abandon ourselves, we must do something, and have the power of disposing of ourselves.

The soul is in this condition “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. iii. 3); mingled with Him, as the river of which we have spoken is mingled with the sea, so that it can be separated no more. It has the ebb and flow of the sea, no longer by choice, will, and liberty, but by nature: the immense sea having absorbed its shallow limited waters, it participates in all the movements of the sea. It is the sea which bears it, and yet it is not borne, since it has lost its own being; and having no other motion than that of the sea, it acts as the sea acts: not because it naturally possesses the same qualities, but because, having lost all its natural qualities, it has no others but those of the sea, without having the power of ever 227 being anything but sea. It is not, as I have said, that it does not so retain its own nature, that, if God so willed it, in a moment it could be separated from the sea; but He does not do this. Neither does it lose the nature of the creature; and God could, if He pleased, cast it off from His divine bosom: but He does not do it, and the creature acts as it were divinely.

But it will be said that by this theory I deprive man of his liberty. Not so; he is no longer free except by an excess of liberty, because he has lost freely all created liberty. He participates in the uncreated freedom, which is not contracted, bounded, limited by anything; and the soul's liberty is so great, so broad, that the whole earth appears to it as a speck, to which it is not confined. It is free to do all and to do nothing. There is no state or condition to which it cannot accommodate itself; it can do all things, and yet takes no part in them. O glorious state! who can describe thee, and what hast thou to fear or to apprehend? O Paul! thou couldst say, “who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” “I am persuaded,” 228 says the great apostle, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. viii. 35, 38, 39). Now these words, “I am persuaded,” exclude all doubt. But what was the foundation of Paul's assurance? It was in the infallibility of God alone. The epistles of this great apostle, this mystical teacher, are often read, but seldom understood; yet all the mystic way, its commencement, its progress, its end, are described by St Paul, and even the divine life; but few are able to understand it, and those to whom the light is given see it all there clearer than the day.

Ah! if those who find it so difficult to leave themselves to God could only experience this, they would confess that though the way might be arduous, a single day of this life was a sufficient recompense for years of trouble. But by what means does God bring the soul here? By ways altogether opposed to natural wisdom and imagination. 229 He builds up by casting down; He gives life by killing. Oh! if I could tell what He does, and the strange means which He uses to bring us here. But silence! men are not able to hear it; those who have experienced it know what it is. Here there is no need of place or time; all is alike, all places are good; and wherever the order of God may take us, it is well, because all means are useless and infinitely surpassed: when we have reached the end, there is nothing left to wish for.

Here all is God: God is everywhere and in everything, and therefore to the soul all is the same. Its religion is God Himself, always the same, never interrupted; and if sometimes God pours some stream of His glory upon its natural powers and sensibilities, it has no effect upon the centre, which is always the same. The soul is indifferent either to solitude or a crowd: it no longer looks forward to deliverance from the body in order that it may be united to God. It is now not only united, but transformed, changed into the Object of its love, which causes it no longer to think of loving; for it loves God with His own love, and naturally, though not inamissibly.