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Through inward charity and loving inclination and the faithfulness
of God, there arises the second rill from the fulness of grace
within the unity of the spirit; and it is a ghostly light which
flows forth and shines into the understanding, discerning diverse
things. For this light shows and proves in truth the distinctions
between all the virtues; but this does not lie wholly in our
power. For, even if we always had this light within our souls, it
is God Who makes it to be silent and to speak, and He may show it
and hide it, give it and take it away, in any time and place; for
this light is His. And He therefore works in this light when He
wills, and where He wills, and for whom He wills, and what He
wills. These men have no need of revelations, neither of being
caught up above the senses; for their life, and dwelling-place,
their way, and their being, are in the spirit, above the senses
and above sensibility. And there God shows to such men what is His
good pleasure, and what is needful for them or for other men.
Nevertheless God could, were such His will, deprive such men of
their outward senses, and show them from within unknown
similitudes and future things in many ways.
Now Christ wills that this man go out and walk in this light, in
the way of this light. Therefore this enlightened man shall go out
and shall mark his state and his life from within and from
without, and see whether he is perfectly like unto Christ,
according to His manhood and according to His Godhead. For we have
been created in the image and after the likeness of God. And he
shall raise his enlightened eyes, by means of the illuminated
reason, to the intelligible Truth, and mark and behold in a
creaturely way the most high Nature of God and the fathomless
attributes which are in God: for to a fathomless Nature belong
fathomless virtues and activities.
The most high Nature of the Godhead may thus be perceived and
beheld: how it is Simplicity and Onefoldness, inaccessible Height
and bottomless Depth, incomprehensible Breadth and eternal Length,
a dark Silence, a wild Desert, the Rest of all saints in the
Unity, and a common Fruition of Himself and of all saints in
Eternity. And many other marvels may be seen in the abysmal Sea of
the Godhead; and though, because of the grossness of the senses to
which they must be shown from without, we must use sensible
images, yet, in truth, these things are perceived and beheld from
within, as an abysmal and unconditioned Good. But if they must be
shown from without, it must be done by means of diverse
similitudes and images, according to the enlightenment of the
reason of him who shapes and shows them.
The enlightened man shall also mark and behold the attributes of
the Father in the Godhead: how He is omnipotent Power and Might,
Creator, Mover, Preserver, Beginning and End, the Origin and Being
of all creatures. This the rill of grace shows to the enlightened
reason in its radiance. It also shows the attributes of the
Eternal Word: abysmal Wisdom and Truth, Pattern of all creatures
and all life, Eternal and unchanging Rule, Seeing all things and
Seeing Through all things, none of which is hidden from Him;
Transillumination and Enlightenment of all saints in heaven and on
earth, according to the merits of each. And even as this rill of
radiance shows the distinctions between many things, so it also
shows to the enlightened reason the attributes of the Holy Ghost:
incomprehensible Love and Generosity, Compassion and Mercy,
infinite Faithfulness and Benevolence, inconceivable Greatness,
outpouring Richness, a limitless Goodness drenching through all
heavenly spirits with delight, a Flame of Fire which burns all
things together in the Unity, a flowing Fountain, rich in all
savours, according to the desire of each; the Preparation of all
saints for their eternal bliss and their entrance therein, an
Embrace and Penetration of the Father, the Son, and all saints in
fruitive Unity.All this is observed and beheld without
differentiation or division in the simple Nature of the Godhead.
And according to our perception these attributes abide as Persons
do, in manifold distinctions. For between might and goodness,
between generosity and truth, there are, according to our
perception great differences. Nevertheless all these are found in
oneness and undifferentiation in the most high Nature of the
Godhead. But the relations which make the personal attributes
remain in eternal distinction.
For the Father begets distinction.
For the Father incessantly begets his Son, and Himself is
unbegotten; and the Son is begotten, and cannot beget; and thus
throughout eternity the Father has a Son, and the Son a Father.
And these are the relations of the Father to the Son, and of the
Son to the Father. And the Father and the Son breathe forth one
Spirit, Who is Their common Will or Love. And this Spirit begets
not, nor is He begotten; but must eternally pour forth, being
breathed forth from both the Father and the Son. And these three
Persons are one God and one Spirit. And all the attributes with
the works which flow forth from them are common to all the
Persons, for They work by virtue of Their Onefold Nature.[52]
The incomprehensible richness and loftiness of the Divine Nature,
its outpouring generosity toward all in common, fills a man with
wonder. And, above all, he wonders at the universality of God and
His outpouring upon all things. For he beholds the
incomprehensible Essence as a common fruition of God and all
saints. And he sees the Divine Persons as a common outpouring and
a common activity in grace and in glory, in nature and above
nature, in all places and at all times, in saints and in men, in
heaven and on earth, in all creatures, rational, irrational, and
material, according to the merits, the need, and the receptivity
of each.
And he beholds heaven and earth, sun and moon, the four
elements, together with all creatures, and the course of the
heavens, created for all in common. God, with all His gifts, is
common to all: the angels are common: the soul is common to all
its powers, to the whole body, to all its members, yet in each
member is entire; for the soul cannot be divided, save by the
reason. For though, according to the reason, the highest powers
and the lowest, the spirit and the soul, are certainly divided;
yet, in nature, they are one. So too God is whole and special to
each, and yet common to all creation; for by Him all things are;
within Him and upon Him, heaven and earth and all nature depend.
When a man thus considers the wonderful wealth and loftiness of
the Divine Nature, and all the multiplicity of gifts which He
gives and offers to His creatures, then there grows up within him
a wonder at such manifold richness, at such loftiness, and at the
immeasurable faithfulness of God to His creatures. And thence
springs a particular inward gladness of the spirit, and a high
trust in God, and this inward gladness envelops and drenches all
the powers of the soul and the most inward part of the spirit.
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Now understand this: this man shall go out and observe God in His
glory with all saints. And he shall behold the rich and generous
outflowing of God, with glory, and with Himself, and with
inconceivable delights towards all the saints, according to the
longing of all spirits; and how these flow back, with themselves,
and with all that they have received and can achieve, towards that
same rich Oneness from which all bliss comes forth.
This flowing forth of God always demands a flowing back; for God
is a Sea that ebbs and flows, pouring without ceasing into all His
beloved according to the need and the merits of each, and ebbing
back again with all those who have been thus endowed both in
heaven and on earth, with all that they have and all that they
can. And of some He demands more than they are able to bring, for
He shows Himself so rich and so generous and so boundlessly good:
and in showing Himself thus He demands love and adoration
according to His worth. For God wishes to be loved by us according
to the measure of His nobility, and in this all spirits fail; and
therefore their love becomes wayless and without manner, for they
know not how they may fulfil it, nor how they may come to it.
For
the love of all spirits is measured: and for this reason their
love perpetually begins anew, so that God may be loved according
to His demand and to the spirit's own desires. And this is why all
blessed spirits perpetually gather themselves together and form a
burning flame of love, that they may fulfil this work, and that
God may be loved according to His nobility. Reason shows clearly
that to creatures this is impossible; but love always wills the
fulfilment of love, or else will be consumed, burned up,
annihilated in its own failure. Yet God is never loved according
to His worth by any creatures. And to the enlightened reason this
is a great delight and satisfaction: that its God and its Beloved
is so high and so rich that He transcends all created powers, and
can be loved according to His merits by none save Himself.
This rich and enlightened man shall distribute gifts to all the
angelic choirs, and all spirits, each in particular according to
its merits, out of the richness of his God and out of the
generosity of his own ground; which is illuminated and overflowing
with great and wonderful gifts. He passes through all choirs,
through all hierarchies and orders, and beholds how God dwells in
all according to the merit of each. This enlightened man goes
swiftly and in ghostly wise round and through all the heavenly
hosts, rich and overflowing with charity, and enriching and
inundating the whole celestial company with fresh glory out of the
Richness and Abundance of the Trinity and Unity of the Divine
Nature.
This is the first going out, towards God and towards all saints.
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