Part 5
I perceive this, Sir, to be very true; and this it is which causes a continual Combat in me, and creates to me greater Anxiety than I am able to express. Nor am I unacquainted with the Disease of my own Soul, which you have so clearly declared. Alas! I feel such irregular and convulsive Motions drawing me on this Side and that Side. The Spirit sees not as the Flesh sees; neither doth, or can the Flesh sees as the Spirit sees. Hence the Spirit wills against the Flesh; and the Flesh wills against the Spirit in me. This has been my hard Case. And how shall it be remedied? O how may I arrive at the Unity of Will, and how come into the Unity of Vision? Master: Mark now what I say: The Right Eye looks forward in you into Eternity. The Left Eye looks backward in you into Time. If now you suffer yourself to be always looking into Nature, and the Things of Time, and to be leading the Will, and to be seeking Somewhat for yourself in the Desire, it will be impossible for you ever to arrive at the Unity, which you wish for. Remember this; and always be upon your Watch. Give not your Mind leave to enter into, nor to fill itself with, that which is without you; neither look you backward upon yourSELF; but quit yourSELF, and look forward upon Christ. Let not your Left Eye deceive you, by making continually one Representation after another, and stirring up thereby an earnest Longing in the SELF-Propriety; but let your Right Eye command back this Left, and attract it to you, so that it may not gad Abroad into the Wonders and Delights of Nature. Yea, it is better to pluck it quite out, and to cast it from you, than to suffer it to proceed forth without Restraint into Nature, and to follow its own Lusts. However there is for this no Necessity, since both Eyes may become very useful, if ordered aright; and both the Divine and natural Light may in the Soul subsist together, and be of mutual Service to each other. But never shall you arrive at the Unity of Vision or Uniformity of Will, but by entering fully into the Will of our Saviour Christ, and therein bringing the Eye of Time into the Eye of Eternity; and then descending by Means of this united through the Light of God into the Light of Nature.
Disciple: So then if I can but enter into the Will of my LORD, and abide therein, I am safe, and may both attain to the Light of God in the Spirit of my Soul, and see with the Eye of God, that is, the Eye of Eternity in the Eternal Ground of my Will; and may also at the same Time enjoy the Light of this World nevertheless; not degrading but adorning the Light of Nature; and beholding as with the Eye of Eternity Things Eternal, so with the Eye of Nature Things Natural, and both contemplating therein the Wonders of God, and sustaining also thereby the Life of my outward Vehicle or Body. Master: It is very right. You have well understood; and you desire now to enter into the Will of God, and to abide therein as in the Supersensual Ground of Light and Life, where you may in His Light behold both Time and Eternity, and bring all the Wonders created of God for the exterior into the interior Life, and so eternally rejoice in them to the Glory of Christ; the Partition of your Creaturely Will being broken down, and the Eye of your Spirit simplified in and through the Eye of God manifesting Itself in the Center of your Life. Let this be so now, for it is God's Will. Disciple: But it is very hard to be always looking forwards into Eternity; and consequently to attain to this single Eye, and Simplicity of Divine Vision. The Entrance of a Soul naked into the Will of God, shutting out all Imaginations and Desires, and breaking down the strong Partition which you mention, is indeed somewhat very terrible and shocking to human Nature in its present State. O what shall I do, that I may reach this which I so much long for? Master:
My Son, let not the Eye of Nature with the Will of the Wonders depart from that Eye which is introverted into the Divine Liberty, and into the Eternal Light of the holy Majesty; but let it draw to you those Wonders by Union with that heavenly internal Eye, which are externally wrought out and manifested in visible Nature. For while you are in the World, and have an honest Employment, you are certainly by the Order of Providence obliged to labor in it, and to finish the Work given you, according to your best Ability, without Repining or Complaining in the least and to seek out and manifest for God's Glory, the Wonders of Nature and Art. Since let the Nature be what it will, it is all the Work and Art of God; and let the Art also be what it will, it is still God's Work, and His Art, rather than any Art or Cunning of Man. And all both in Art and Nature serves but abundantly to manifest the wonderful Works of God; that He for all, and in all may be glorified. Yea, all serves but to recollect you more inward if you know rightly how to use them, and to draw your Spirit into that majestic Light, wherein the original Patterns and Forms of Things visible are to be seen. Keep therefore in the Center, and stir not out from the Presence of God revealed within your Soul; let the World and the Devil make never so great a Noise and Bustle to draw you out, mind them not; they cannot hurt you. It is permitted to the Eye of your Reason to seek Food, and to your Hands, by their Labor, to get Food for the terrestrial Body. But then this Eye ought not with its Desire to enter into the Food prepared, which would be Covetousness; but must in Resignation simply bring it before the Eye of God in your Spirit, and then you must seek to place it close to this very Eye, without letting it go. Mark this Lesson well. Let the Hands or the Head be at Labor, your Heart ought nevertheless to rest in God. God is a Spirit; dwell in the Spirit, work in the Spirit, pray in the Spirit, and do every Thing in the Spirit; for remember you also are a Spirit, and thereby created in the Image of God. Therefore see that your Desire attract not Matter unto you, but as much as possible abstract yourself from all Matter whatever; and so, standing in the Center, present yourself as a vacant, naked Spirit before God, in Simplicity and Purity; and be sure your Spirit draw in nothing but Spirit. You will yet be greatly enticed to draw Matter, and to gather
that which the World calls Substance, thereby to have somewhat visible to trust to. But by no Means consent to the Tempter, nor yield to the Lusting of your Flesh against the Spirit. For in so doing you will infallibly obscure the Divine Light in you; your Spirit will stick in the dark covetous Root, and from the fiery Source of your Soul will it blaze out in Pride and Anger; your Will shall be chained in Earthliness, and shall sink through the Anguish into Darkness and materiality; and never shall you be able to reach the still Liberty, or to stand before the Majesty of God. Since this is opening a Door for him who reigns in the Corruption of Matter, possibly the Devil may roar at you for this Refusal; because nothing can vex him worse than such a silent Abstraction of the Soul, and Controversion thereof to the Point of Rest from all that is worldly and circumferential. But regard him not; neither admit into you the least Dust of Matter which he may pretend any Claim to. It will be all Darkness to you, as much Matter as is drawn in by the Desire of your Will. It will darken God's Majesty to you; and will close the seeing Eye, by hiding from you the Light of His beloved Countenance. This the Serpent longs to do; but in vain, except you permitt your Imagination upon his Suggestion, to receive in the alluring Matter; else he can never get in. Behold then, if you desire to see God's Light in your Soul, and be divinely illuminated and conducted, this is the short Way that you are to take; not to let the Eye of your Spirit enter into Matter, or fill itself with any Thing whatever, either in Heaven or Earth; but to let it enter by naked Faith into the Light of the Majesty; and so receive by pure Love the Light of God, and attract the Divine Power into itself, putting on the Divine Body, and growing up in it to the full Maturity of the Humanity of Christ. Disciple: As I said before, so I say again, this is very hard. I conceive indeed well enough that my Spirit ought to be free from the Contagion of Matter, and wholly empty, so that it may admit into it the Spirit of God. Also, that this Spirit will not enter, but where the Will enters into Nothing, and resigns itself up in the Nakedness of Faith, and in the Purity of Love, to Its Conduct; feeding magically upon the Word of God, and
clothing itself thereby with a Divine Substantiality. But alas, how hard it is for the Will to sink into Nothing, to attract Nothing, to imagine Nothing! Master: Let it be granted that it is so. Is it not surely worth your Time and Effort, and all that you can ever do? Disciple: It is so, I must needs confess. Master: But perhaps it may not be so hard as at first it appears to be; make but the Trial, and be in earnest. What is there required of you, but to stand still, and see the Salvation of your God? And couldst you desire any Thing less? Where is the Hardship in this? You have Nothing to care for, Nothing to desire in this Life, Nothing to imagine or attract. You need only cast your Care upon God, who cares for you, and leave Him to dispose of you according to His Good Will and Pleasure, even as if you hadst no Will at all in you. For He knows what is best; and if you can but trust Him, He will most certainly do better for you, than if you were left to thine own Choice. Disciple: This I most firmly believe. Master: If you believest, then go and do accordingly. All is in the Will, as I have shown you. When the Will imagines after Somewhat, then enters it into that Somewhat, then presently that same Somewhat takes the Will into itself, and overclouds it, so that it can have no Light, but must
dwell in Darkness, unless it return back out of that Somewhat into Nothing. For when the Will imagines or lusts after Nothing, then it enters into Nothing, where it receives the Will of God into itself, and so dwells in Light, and works all its Works in that Light. Disciple: I am now satisfied that the Main Cause of any one's Spiritual Blindness is his letting his Will into Somewhat, or into that which he has wrought, of what Nature soever it be, Good or Evil, and his setting his Heart and Affections upon the Work of his own Hands or Brain; and that when the earthly Body perishes, then the Soul must be imprisoned in that very Thing which it shall have received and let in; and if the Light of God be not in it, being deprived of the Light of this World, it cannot but be found in a dark Prison. Master: This is a very precious Gate of Knowledge; I am glad you take it into such Consideration. The understanding of the whole Scripture is contained in it; and all that has been written from the Beginning of the World to this Day, may be found herein, by him that having entered with his Will into Nothing, has there found All Things by finding God; from Whom, and to Whom, and in Whom are All Things. By this Means you shall come to hear and see God; and after this earthly Life is ended, to see with the Eye of Eternity all the Wonders of God and of Nature, and more particularly those which shall have been wrought by you in the Flesh, or all that the Spirit of God shall have given you to labor out for yourself and your Neighbor, or all that the Eye of Reason enlightened from above, may at any Time have manifested to you. Delay not therefore to enter in by this Gate, which if you see in the Spirit, as some highly favored Souls have seen it, you see in the Supersensual Ground, all that God is, and can do; you see also therewith, as one has said who was taken thereinto, through Heaven, Hell, and Earth, and through the Essence of all Essences. Whosoever finds It, has found All that he can possibly desire. Here is the Virtue
and Power of the Love of God displayed. Here is the Height and Depth; here is the Breadth and Length thereof manifested, as ever the Capacity of your Soul can contain. By this you shall come into that Ground out of which all Things are originated, and in which they subsist; and in It you shall reign over all God's Works, as a Prince of God. Disciple: Pray tell me, dear Master, where dwells It in Man? Master: Where Man dwells not, there It has Its Seat in Man. Disciple: Where is that in a Man, where Man dwells not in himself? Master: It is the resigned Ground of a Soul, to which NoThing cleaves. Disciple: Where is the Ground in any Soul, to which there will NoThing stick? Or, where is that which abides and dwells not in SomeThing? Master: It is the Center of Rest and Motion in the resigned Will of a truly contrite Spirit, which is crucified to the World. This Center of the Will is impenetrable consequently to the World, the Devil, and Hell; Nothing in all the World can enter into it, or adhere to it, though never so many Devils should be in the Confederacy against it; because the Will is dead with Christ unto this World, but quickened with Him in
the Center thereof, after His Blessed Image. Here it is where Man dwells not; and where no SELF abides, or can abide. Disciple: O where is this naked Ground of the Soul void of all SELF? And how shall I come at the hidden Center where God dwells, and not Man? Tell me plainly, loving Sir, where it is, and how it is to be found by me, and entered into? Master: There where the Soul has slain its OWN Will, and wills no more any Thing as from itSELF, but only as God wills, and as His Spirit moves upon the Soul, shall this appear. Where the Love of SELF is banished, there dwells the Love of God. For so much of the Soul's OWN Will as is dead unto itSELF, even so much Room has the Will of God, which is His Love, taken up in that Soul. The Reason whereof is this; Where its OWN Will did before sit, there is now Nothing; and where Nothing is, there alone is it that the Love of God works. Disciple: But how shall I comprehend It? Master: If you go about to comprehend It, then It will fly away from you; but if you dost surrender yourself wholly up to It, then It will abide with you, and become the Life of your Life, and be natural to you. Disciple: And how can this be without dying, or the whole Destruction of my Will?
Master: Upon this entire Surrender and Yielding up of your Will, the Love of God IN THEE becomes the Life of your Nature; It kills you not, but quickens you, who are now dead to yourSELF in thine own Will, according to Its proper Life, even the Life of God. And then you livest, yet not to your own Will; but you live to Its Will, forasmuch as your Will is henceforth become Its Will. So then it is no longer your Will, but the Will of God; no longer the Love of yourSELF, but the Love of God, which moves and operates in you; and then, being thus comprehended in It, you are dead indeed as to yourSELF, but are alive unto God. So being dead you livest, or rather God lives IN THEE by His Spirit; and His Love is made to you Life from the Dead. Never couldst you with all your seeking, have apprehended It; but It has apprehended you. Much less couldst you have comprehended It. But now It has comprehended you; and so the Treasure of Treasures is found. Disciple: How is it that so few Souls do find It, when yet all would be glad enough to have It? Master: They all seek It in Somewhat, and so they find It not. For where there is Somewhat for the Soul to adhere to, there the Soul finds but that Somewhat only, and takes up its Rest therein, until she sees that It is to be found in Nothing, and goes again out of the Somewhat into Nothing, even into that Nothing out of which all Things may be made. The Soul here says, " I have Nothing, for I am utterly empty and stripped of every Thing; I can do Nothing, for I have no Manner of Power, but am as Water poured out; I am Nothing, for all that I am is no more than an Image of Being, and only God is to me I AM; and so sitting down in my own Nothingness, I give Glory to the Eternal Being, and will Nothing of mySELF, that so God may will All in me, being unto
me my God and All Things." Herein now that it is that so very few find this most precious Treasure in the Soul, though every one would so fain have It; and might also have It were it not for this or that Somewhat into which every one letts. Disciple: But if the Love should proffer Itself to a Soul, could not that Soul find It, nor lay hold on It, without going for It into Nothing? Master: No verily. Men seek and find not, because they seek It not in the naked Ground where It lies; but in SomeThing or Other where It never will be, neither can be. They seek It in their OWN Will, and they find It not. They seek It in their Self-Desire, and they meet not with It. They look for It in an Image, or in an Opinion, or in an Affection, or a natural Devotion and Fervour, and they lose the Substance by thus hunting after a Shadow. They search for It in Something sensible or imaginary, in Somewhat which they may have a more peculiar natural Inclination for, and Adhesion to; and so they miss of what they seek, for Want of diving into the Supersensual and Supernatural Ground where the Treasure is hid. Now should the Love graciously condescend to proffer Itself to such as these, and even to present Itself evidently before the Eye of their Spirit, yet would It find no Place in them at all, neither could It be held by them, or remain with them. Disciple: Why not, if the Love should be willing and ready to offer Itself, and to stay with them? Master: Because the Imaginariness which is in their own Will has set up itself in the Place thereof; and so this Imaginariness would have the Love in
it; but the Love flees away, for it is Its Prison. The Love may offer Itself; but It cannot abide where the Self-Desire attracts or imagines. That Will which attracts Nothing, and to which Nothing adheres, is the only Will capable of receiving It, for It dwells only in Nothing as I said, and therefore they find It not. Disciple: If It dwell only in Nothing, what is now the Office of It in Nothing? Master: The Office of the Love here is to penetrate incessantly into Something; and if It penetrate into, and find a Place in Something which is standing still and at Rest, then Its Business is to take Possession thereof. And when It has there taken Possession, then It rejoices therein with Its flaming Love-Fire, even as the Sun does in the visible World. And then the Office of it, is without Intermission to enkindle a Fire in this Something, which shall burn it up; and then with the Flames thereof exceedingly to enflame Itself and raise the Heat of the Love-Fire by It, even seven Degrees higher. Disciple: O loving Master, how shall I understand this? Master: If It but once kindle a Fire within you, my Son, you shall then certainly feel how It consumes all that which It touches; you shall feel It in the burning up of your SELF, and swiftly devouring all Egoity, or that which you call I and Me, as standing in a separate Root, and divided from the Deity, the Fountain of your Being. And when this Enkindling is made in you, then the Love does so exceedingly rejoice in your Fire, as you wouldst not for all the World be out of It; yea, wouldst rather suffer yourself to be killed, than to enter into your Something again.
This Fire now must grow hotter and hotter, till It shall have perfected Its Office with respect to you, and therefore will not give over, till It come to the seventh Degree. Its Flame hence also will be so very great, that It will never leave you, though It should even cost you your temporal Life; but It would go with you in Its sweet loving Fire into Death; and if you went also into Hell, It would break Hell in Pieces also for your Sake. Nothing is more certain than this; for It is stronger than Death and Hell. Disciple: Enough, my dearest Master, I can no longer endure that any Thing should divert me from It. But how shall I find the nearest Way to It? Master: Where the Way is hardest, there go thou; and what the World casts away, that take you up. What the World doth, that do you not; but in all Things walk you contrary to the World. So you come the nearest Way to that which you are seeking. Disciple: If I should in all Things walk contrary to other People, I must need be in a very unquiet and sad State; and the World would not fail to account me for a Madman. Master: I bid you not, Child, to do Harm to any one, thereby to create to yourself any Misery or Unquietness. This is not what I mean by walking contrary in every Thing to the World. But because the World, as the World, loves only Deceit and Vanity, and walks in false and treacherous Ways; thence, if you have a Mind to act a clean contrary Part to the Ways thereof, without any Exception or Reserve whatsoever, walk you only in the right Way, which is called the Way of
Light, as that of the World is properly called the Way of Darkness. For the right Way, even the Path of Light, is contrary to all the Ways of the World. But whereas you are afraid of creating to yourself hereby Trouble and Inquietude, that indeed, will be so according to the Flesh. In the World you must have Trouble, and your Flesh will not fail to be unquiet, and to give you Occasion for continual Repentance. Nevertheless in this very Anxiety of Soul, arising either from the World or the Flesh, the LOVE does most willingly enkindle Itself, and Its cheering and conquering Fire is but made to blaze forth with greater Strength for the Destruction of that Evil. And whereas you dost also say, that the World will for this esteem you mad, it is true the World will be apt enough to censure you for a Madman in Walking contrary to it. And you are not to be surprised if the Children thereof laugh at you, calling you silly Fool. For the Way to the Love of God is Folly to the World, but is Wisdom to the Children of God. Hence, whenever the World perceives this holy Fire of Love in God's Children, it concludes immediately that they are turned Fools, and are beside themselves. But to the Children of God, that which is despised of the World is the greatest Treasure; yea, so great a Treasure It is, as no Life can express, no Tongue so much as name what this inflaming, allconquering Love of God is. It is brighter than the Sun; It is sweeter than any Thing that is called sweet; It is stronger than all Strength; It is more nutrimental than Food; more cheering to the Heart than Wine, and more pleasant than all the Joy and Pleasantness of this World. Whosoever obtains It, is richer than any Monarch on Earth; and he who gets It, is nobler than any Emperor can be, and more potent and absolute than all Earthly Power and Authority. "Behold, I stand at the Door and knock: if any man HEAR My voice, and open the Door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." "He that is of God HEARS God's Words; ye therefore HEAR them not, because ye are not of God." "My Sheep HEAR My Voice; and I know them, and they follow Me... And a Stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the Voice of Strangers." "He that has Ears to HEAR, let him HEAR."