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How blessed is he who reaches the fourth degree of
love, wherein one loves himself only in God!
Thy righteousness standeth like the strong
mountains, O God. Such love as this is God's hill,
in the which it pleaseth Him to dwell. 'Who shall
ascend into the hill of the Lord?' 'O that I had
wings like a dove; for then would I flee away and be
at rest.' 'At Salem is His tabernacle; and His
dwelling in Sion.' 'Woe is me, that I am constrained
to dwell with Mesech! ' (Ps. 24.3; 55.6; 76.2;
120.5). When shall this flesh and blood, this
earthen vessel which is my soul's tabernacle, attain
thereto?
When shall my soul, rapt with divine love and
altogether self-forgetting, yea, become like a
broken vessel, yearn wholly for God, and, joined
unto the Lord, be one spirit with Him? When shall
she exclaim, 'My flesh and my heart faileth; but God
is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever'
(Ps. 73.26). I would count him blessed and holy to
whom such rapture has been vouchsafed in this mortal
life, for even an instant to lose thyself, as if
thou wert emptied and lost and swallowed up in God,
is no human love; it is celestial.
But if sometimes a poor mortal feels that
heavenly joy for a rapturous moment, then this
wretched life envies his happiness, the malice of
daily trifles disturbs him, this body of death
weighs him down, the needs of the flesh are
imperative, the weakness of corruption fails him,
and above all brotherly love calls him back to duty.
Alas! that voice summons him to re-enter his own
round of existence; and he must ever cry out
lamentably, 'O Lord, I am oppressed: undertake for
me' (Isa. 38.14); and again, 'O wretched man that I
am! who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?' (Rom. 7.24).
Seeing that the Scripture saith, God has made all
for His own glory (Isa. 43.7), surely His creatures
ought to conform themselves, as much as they can, to
His will. In Him should all our affections center,
so that in all things we should seek only to do His
will, not to please ourselves. And real happiness
will come, not in gratifying our desires or in
gaining transient pleasures, but in accomplishing
God's will for us: even as we pray every day: 'Thy
will be done in earth as it is in heaven' (Matt.
6.10).
O chaste and holy love! O sweet and gracious
affection! O pure and cleansed purpose, thoroughly
washed and purged from any admixture of selfishness,
and sweetened by contact with the divine will! To
reach this state is to become godlike. As a drop of
water poured into wine loses itself, and takes the
color and savor of wine; or as a bar of iron, heated
red-hot, becomes like fire itself, forgetting its
own nature; or as the air, radiant with sun-beams,
seems not so much to be illuminated as to be light
itself; so in the saints all human affections melt
away by some unspeakable transmutation into the will
of God.
For how could God be all in all, if
anything merely human remained in man? The substance
will endure, but in another beauty, a higher power,
a greater glory. When will that be? Who will see,
who possess it? 'When shall I come to appear before
the presence of God?' (Ps. 42.2). 'My heart hath
talked of Thee, Seek ye My face: Thy face, Lord,
will I seek' (Ps. 27.8). Lord, thinkest Thou that I,
even I shall see Thy holy temple?
In this life, I think, we cannot fully and
perfectly obey that precept, 'Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy
mind' (Luke 10.27). For here the heart must take
thought for the body; and the soul must energize the
flesh; and the strength must guard itself from
impairment. And by God's favor, must seek to
increase. It is therefore impossible to offer up all
our being to God, to yearn altogether for His face,
so long as we must accommodate our purposes and
aspirations to these fragile, sickly bodies of ours.
Wherefore the soul may hope to possess the fourth
degree of love, or rather to be possessed by it,
only when it has been clothed upon with that
spiritual and immortal body, which will be perfect,
peaceful, lovely, and in everything wholly subjected
to the spirit. And to this degree no human effort
can attain: it is in God's power to give it to whom
He wills. Then the soul will easily reach that
highest stage, because no lusts of the flesh will
retard its eager entrance into the joy of its Lord,
and no troubles will disturb its peace.
May we not think that the holy martyrs enjoyed
this grace, in some degree at least, before they
laid down their victorious bodies? Surely that was
immeasurable strength of love which enraptured their
souls, enabling them to laugh at fleshly torments
and to yield their lives gladly. But even though the
frightful pain could not destroy their peace of
mind, it must have impaired somewhat its perfection. |