Chapter XVI — Part
2
Shows forth the fifth and sixth Points.
HEREAFTER follows the fifth Point that wholly perfects us in the observances of Eternal Love, as I have said before; wherein we, beyond all our labour, are wrought on by the Spirit of Our Lord.
There are we emptied of ourselves and of every creature, and made One with God in Love. But between us and God this unity for ever ceaselessly renews itself, since the Spirit of God, overflowing and indrawing, touches and stirs our spirit, urging us to live according to the beloved Will of God, and to love Him after His deserving.
This stirring, that mediates between us and God, we can never pass beyond; and what that stirring is in its essence, and what Love is in itself, we can never know. Where we exhaust ourselves in labour, there we begin anew, since the gifts of God do not allow us to be idle. The outflowing of the Holy Spirit makes us rich, and fills the vessels of our craving with divine gifts, with Everlasting Food, and with Spiritual Drink: and yet there remains with us a hunger and a thirst and an eternal longing to follow after and to attain to Him Who is measureless.
And this is impossible for us. And therefore must we strive, abiding for ever at our labour in hunger and thirst.
And although we feed on God, night and day craving and desiring Him with open mouth, yet can we not apprehend Him, nor consume and make Him wholly ours; but we must for ever be striving, since here, where we have no abiding city, hunger and thirst and eternal longing cannot be silenced.
And just as God sends us forth, with all His gifts, to live according to His beloved Will, so His Spirit draws us within, to love Him after His deserving.
And His deserving urges our spirit to love Him without measure; for He is Himself measureless, and He loves us with Himself and as He is Himself; and His Love is terrible, drawing inwards, and consuming all that it toucheth. And we experience these things beyond the reason, and there our love is modeless and without manner; for we cannot know the way of answering His Love, a Love so eager that It devours and consumes in Itself all that approaches It.
Our love must fail before this Love; we cannot defend ourselves; since here our love becomes quite bare and empty and inactive.
And the Love of God is a Consuming Fire, which draws us out of ourselves and swallows us up in Unity with God, where we are satisfied and overflowing, and with Him, beyond ourselves, eternally fulfilled.
Yet in ourselves we abide for ever hungry, where we live in separation, loving the law of obedience.
And thus are we, beyond ourselves, for ever satisfied, with God in Unity; and, in ourselves, we are famished, where we love and live in righteousness.
And this it is to be satisfied and hungry, to work and to enjoy, and to live in truth.
Beyond this is the sixth Point that is Fruition in itself. This Fruition of God, and supernatural fruition of all of us who are One with Him in Love, is a still and glorious and essential Oneness beyond the differentiation of the Persons; where there is neither an outpouring nor an indrawing of God; but the Persons are still, and One in Fruitful Love, which is their calm and glorious Unity. There all is fathomless rest and fruition and joy, and there all loving spirits, according to their super-nature, are one with God in a blessed Fruition without differentiation.
This Fruition of God is a Oneness of Persons, bare Repose, overflowing Joy, fathomless Bliss, the Crown and Recompense of Love made perfect in Eternity.
Where we are made one with God in love, by His grace and our good actions, there each receives his special grace and glory, according as he deserves and has earned in grace with the help of God; and there are we all differentiated, and each of us receives grace, merit, rank, and praise, according to the just and wise ordinance of God, our Super-nature.
But where we are One with God, without intermediary, beyond all separation, there is God our Fruition and His own, in an Eternal and Fathomless Bliss.
You must know that, although, in our way of seeing, we give God many Names, His Nature is One in Three different Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One Fruitful Nature in a Trinity of Persons.
Lo, thus are we to understand, this are we to experience, and hereafter are we to live, and hereto God created and called every one of us that is born of the seed of Adam. But heathens and Jews and all unbelievers who despise that Call of God, are therefore accursed; and those bad Christians who live in a state of mortal sin, and hypocrites passing for good men and so living and dying, are alike reprobate and condemned of God. Yet Christian men who have been baptised in the Blood of Christ are called and summoned to the Eternal Joy of God.
But if we would be received and chosen for that, we must be clothed with the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, made one with Him, in ourselves, by virtue of His Grace and our good actions, so that He lives in us and we in Him, in the measure of His Grace and the holiness of our lives. And, beyond ourselves, we must also be One with God in Love and Fruition.
So are we One with Him; and so are we One Love and One Fruition with Him, fulfilled in Everlasting Bliss. And between this likeness which is in us and this Oneness which is in God, there mediates the spark of the soul, which is the Light and Fire of the Holy Spirit. The Light shows us that we are One with God in Love and in Fruition, and like to Him by His Grace and our virtue; and the Fire burns and consumes all unlikeness in us and holds us continually in communion and in love, giving us all comfort and a foretaste of the Glory of God, and assuring us of our Eternal Bliss.
They who understand this, who have experience of it, and who live thereafter, these are the Chosen People.
May the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, One True God in Three Persons, Who is our Reward and Crown, so grant to all of us. Amen.