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Besides the benefits which the soul gains by being
delivered from the three evils aforementioned through
its renunciation of this joy, it acquires two
excellent benefits. The first is that it magnifies
and exalts God: the second is that it exalts itself.
For God is exalted in the soul after two manners:
first, by the withdrawal of the heart and the joy of
the will from all that is not God, in order that they
may be set upon Him alone. This David signified in
the verse which we quoted when we began to speak of
the night of this faculty; namely: 'Man shall attain
to a lofty heart, and God shall be exalted.'[653]
For, when the heart is raised above all things, the
soul is exalted above them all.
2. And, because in this way the soul centres
itself in God alone, God is exalted and magnified,
when He reveals to the soul His excellence and
greatness; for, in this elevation of joy, God bears
witness of Who He Himself is.
This cannot be done save if the will be voided of
joy and consolation with respect to all things, even
as David said also, in these words: 'Be still and see
that I am God.'[654] And again he says: 'In a desert
land, dry and pathless, have I appeared before Thee,
to see Thy power and Thy glory.'[655]
And, since it is true that God is exalted by the
fixing of the soul's rejoicing upon detachment from
all things, He is much more highly exalted when the
soul withdraws itself from the most wondrous of these
things in order to fix its rejoicing on Him alone.
For these, being supernatural, are of a nobler kind;
and thus for the soul to cast them aside, in order to
set its rejoicing upon God alone, is for it to
attribute greater glory and excellence to God than to
them. For, the more and the greater things a man
despises for the sake of another, the more does he
esteem and exalt that other.
3. Furthermore, God is exalted after the second
manner when the will is withdrawn from this kind of
operation; for, the more God is believed and served
without testimonies and signs, the more He is exalted
by the soul, for it believes more concerning God than
signs and miracles can demonstrate.
4. The second benefit wherein the soul is exalted
consists in this, that, withdrawing the will from all
desire for apparent signs and testimonies, it is
exalted in purest faith, which God increases and
infuses within it much more intensely.
And, together with this, He increases in it the
other two theological virtues, which are charity and
hope, wherein the soul enjoys the highest Divine
knowledge by means of the obscure and detached habit
of faith; and it enjoys great delight of love by
means of charity, whereby the will rejoices in naught
else than in the living God; and likewise it enjoys
satisfaction in the memory by means of hope. All this
is a wondrous benefit, which leads essentially and
directly to the perfect union of the soul with God. |