III. That wheresoever we are, we live and move and have our being in God, so long as we have Him within us
St. Anselm The Devotions of Saint Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury a privilege in thy creation but that He desired thee to give thyself to His praises with out ceasing?
Thou wast then created to praise thy Creator, so that, being occupied in nothing else than His praises, thou mightest here by the service of thy righteousness draw nearer unto Him and hereafter attain to the life of blessedness. For His praise makes thy righteousness in this world, and thy happiness in the world to come. But if thou praisest, praise Him from thy whole heart, praise Him by loving
Him. For this is the rule of praising that is given to the Saints: With all his heart he praised the Lord and loved God that made him.72
Praise therefore, and praise with thy whole heart, and love Him whom thou praisest. For he praiseth, but not with his whole heart, whom prosperity persuadeth to bless God, but adversity restraineth from the office of blessing. Again he praiseth but loveth not, who in the praises of God, seeketh to have anything by his praising beside God Himself.
Praise therefore, and praise worthily, so that to the utmost of thy power there be in thee no charge, no thought, no contemplation, no carefulness of mind, that is void of the praise of God. Let no worldly prosperity divert thee, nor any worldly adversity restrain thee from His praise. For thus thou wilt praise the Lord with thy whole heart and with love also; thou wilt seek from Him nothing else than Himself, that He may Himself be the goal of thy desire and the reward of thy labours, thy consolation in this life of shadows and thy possession in the blessed life to come. Hereunto wast thou created, that thou shouldst bear a part in His praises for ever and ever, and this thou shalt more fully understand, when thou, being lifted up by the blessed vision of Him, shalt see that by His mere free bounty thou, when thou wast not, wert out of nothing created to such happiness, and created, called, justified, glorified73 unto such unspeakable bliss. For the contemplation of such things will give to thee a love that shall not weary of praising Him for ever, of whom and by whom and in whom thou shalt rejoice that thou art blessed with good things so great and so unchangeable.
III That wheresoever we are, we live and move and have our being in God, so long as e we have Him within us.
BUT leaving that felicity which is to be, with the mind's eye look for awhile also upon the greatness of the favour which He hath abundantly bestowed upon Thee even in this transitory life. He who dwelleth in heaven, who reigneth among the angels, to whom heaven and earth and all that in them
Ecclesiasticus xvii. 8, acc. to Vulgate.
Rom. viii. 30.
St. Anselm The Devotions of Saint Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury is, do reverence, He hath given Himself to be thy dwelling; He hath prepared for thee His presence as an abode, for as the Apostle Paul teacheth, in Him we live and move and have our being.74 Life is sweet, movement is pleasant, being is desirable. For what can be sweeter than to have life in Him, who is the Blessed Life itself? what pleasanter than to order all the course of our will and deed toward Him and in Him who maketh us strong with everlasting stability? what more desirable than by prayer and conversation to be continually in Him, in whom alone is true being, nay rather who alone is true being, without whom nothing can have wellbeing. I, saith He, am that I am.75
This is a saying most excellent. For He Himself alone hath true being, whose being is unchangeable.
Thus He, whose being is so excellent, may be said to be in so especial a sense, that He may be said alone in very truth to be; in comparison of whom all being beside His is nothing; when He, I say, created thee for a so great a height of dignity that thou canst not even comprehend the glory of thine own natural dignity, where did He appoint thy dwelling? what abiding-place did He prepare for thee? Hear what He saith unto His own in the Gospel: Abide in Me, and I in you.76 O inestimable dignity, O blessed abiding-place, O glorious intercourse between God and man! How great the condescension of the Creator that it should be His will that His creature should dwell in Him! How incomprehensible the blessedness of the creature, that he should abide in his Creator! How great the glory of the rational creature to have communion with his Creator in so blessed an intercourse, that the Creator Himself should abide in the creature, the creature itself in the Creator! So excellently then were we by His will created, so mercifully was He pleased that we should abide in Him; even
He who is above all things, ruling over all things, yet without carefulness; who upholdeth all things, as the foundation of all things, yet without labour: surpasseth all things in excellence, yet without pride; comprehendeth all things in His embrace, yet without distinction of parts; filling all things with His fulness, yet without limitation of Himself.
He then, though He is nowhere absent, chose for Himself a kingdom of delight within us, according to the witness of the Gospel, where it is said, The kingdom of God is within you.77 But if the kingdom of God is within us, and God dwelleth in His kingdom, doth He not abide in us, since
His kingdom is within us? Certainly He doth; for if God is wisdom, and the soul of the righteous is the seat of wisdom,78 then he who is truly righteous has God abiding in him. For the temple of
Acts xvii. 28.
Exod. iii. 14.
John xv. 4.
Luke xvii. 21.
Prov. xiv. 33.