The Living Flame of Love

^29. Thus it may be said to those who desire to advance, but who will not endure a lighter trial nor submit themselves thereto, in the words of Jeremias, 'If with running with footmen thou hast laboured how canst thou contend with horses? and whereas in a land of peace thou hast been secure, what wilt thou do in the pride of Jordan?'^[47:†] That is, if the ordinary trials of human life to which all men living are liable are wearisome and a burden for thee, how art thou to 'contend with horses'? that is, how canst thou venture out of the common trials of life upon others of greater violence and swiftness? If thou hast been unwilling to make war against the peace and pleasures of the earth, thine own sensuality, but rather seekest comfort and tranquillity on it, what wilt thou do in the pride of Jordan? that is, how wilt thou stand against the rushing waters of tribulations and the more interior trials of the spirit?

30. O souls that seek your own ease and comfort, if you knew how necessary for this high state is suffering, and how profitable suffering and mortification are for attaining to these great blessings, you would never seek for comfort anywhere, but you would rather take up the cross with the vinegar and the gall, and would count it an inestimable favour, knowing that by thus dying to the world and to your own selves, you would live to God in spiritual joy; in the patient endurance of your exterior afflictions you would merit at the hands of God, that He should look upon you, cleanse and purify you more and more in these spiritual tribulations. They whom He thus blesses must have served Him well and long, must have been patient and persevering, and their life most pleasing in His sight. The angel said unto Tobias 'Because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee.'^[48:*] Tobias was acceptable to God, therefore He tried him; He gave him the grace of tribulation, the source of greater graces still, and it is written of him that 'the rest of his life was in joy.'^[49:*]

31. The same truth is exemplified in the life of Job. God acknowledged him as His faithful servant in the presence of the angels good and evil, and immediately sent him heavy trials, that He might afterwards raise him higher, as He did, both in temporal and spiritual things.^[49:†]

32. This is the way God deals with those whom it is His will to exalt. He suffers them to be tempted, afflicted, tormented and chastened, inwardly and outwardly, to the utmost limit of their strength, that He may deify them, unite them to Himself in His wisdom, which is the highest state, purifying them, first in that wisdom, as David observed, saying that the 'words of our Lord are chaste words, silver, examined by fire,' tested in the earth of our flesh and purified ^[49:‡] seven times, that is, made perfectly pure.

33. It is not necessary I should stop here to say how each of these purgations tends to the divine wisdom, which in this life is as silver, for however pure it may be, yet is not comparable to the pure gold, which is reserved for everlasting glory.

34. But it is very necessary for the soul to endure these tribulations and trials, inward and outward, spiritual and corporal, great and small, with great resolution and patience, accepting all as from the hand of God for its healing and its good, not shrinking from them, because they are for the health of the soul. 'If the spirit of him that hath power,' saith the Wise Man, 'ascend upon thee, leave not thy place, because carefulness'—that is healing—'will make the greatest sins to cease.'^[50:*] 'Leave not thy place,' that is, the place of thy trial, which is thy troubles; for the healing which they bring will break the thread of thy sins and imperfections, which is evil habits, so that they shall proceed no further. Thus, interior trials and tribulations destroy and purge away the imperfect and evil habits of the soul. We are, therefore, to count it a great favour when our Lord sends us interior and exterior trials, remembering that they are few in number who deserve to be made perfect through sufferings so as to attain to so high a state as this.

35. I return to the explanation of the words before me. The soul now remembers that its past afflictions are most abundantly recompensed, for 'as the darkness so also the light thereof,'^[50:†] and that having once been 'a partaker of the sufferings,' it is now 'of the consolation,'^[50:‡] that its interior and exterior trials have been recompensed by the divine mercies, none of them being without its corresponding reward. It therefore acknowledges itself perfectly satisfied, and says, ‘paying the whole debt,’ as David did, ‘How great tribulations hast Thou shown me, many and evil, and turning Thou hast quickened me, and from the depths of the earth Thou hast brought me back again. Thou hast multiplied Thy magnificence, and turning to me Thou hast comforted me.’^[51:*]

36. Thus the soul which once stood without at the gates of the palace of God—like Mardochai weeping in the streets of Susan because his life was threatened, clothed with sackcloth and refusing the garments which Esther sent him, unrewarded for his faithful service in defending the king’s honour and life,^[51:†]—finds, also, like Mardochai, all its trials and service rewarded in one day. It is not only admitted within the palace and stands in royal robes before the king, but has also a diadem on its head, and in its hand a sceptre, and sitting on the royal throne with the king’s signet on its finger, symbols of its power in the kingdom of the Bridegroom. For those souls who attain to this high state obtain all their desires; the whole debt is amply paid: the appetites, their enemies which sought their life, are dead, while they are living in God. ‘In destroying death Thou hast changed it into life.’

'Thou hast changed death into life.'

37. Death is nothing else but the privation of life, for when life cometh there is no trace of death in that which is spiritual. There are two kinds of life, one beatific, consisting in the vision of God, and this must be preceded by a natural and bodily death, as it is written, 'We know if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven.'^[52:*] The other is the perfect spiritual life, consisting in the possession of God by the union of love. Men attain to this through the mortification of their evil habits and desires. Until this be done, the perfection of the spiritual life of union with God is unattainable, 'For,' as the Apostle saith, 'if you live according to the flesh, you shall die: but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live.'^[52:†]

38. By 'death' here is meant the old man, that is, the employment of our faculties, memory, understanding, and will, upon the things of this world, and the desire on the pleasure which created things supply. All this is the old life; it is the death of the new life which is spiritual, and which the soul cannot live perfectly unless to the old man it be perfectly dead, for so the Apostle teaches, when he bids us put 'away according to the old conversation, the old man... and put on the new man, which, according to God, is created in justice and holiness of the truth.'^[53:*] In this new life, when the soul shall have attained to perfect union with God, all its affections, powers, and acts, in themselves imperfect and vile, become as it were divine. And as everything that lives, to use the expression of philosophers, lives in its acts, so the soul, having its acts in God by virtue of its union with Him, lives the life of God, its death being changed into life.

39. This is so, because the understanding, which, previous to its union with God, understood but dimly by means of its natural light, is now under the influence and direction of another principle, and of a higher illumination of God. The will, which previously loved but weakly, is now changed into the life of divine love, for now it loves deeply with the affections of divine love, moved by the Holy Ghost in whom it now lives. The memory, which once saw nothing but the forms and figures of created things, is now changed, and keeps in 'mind the eternal years,'^[53:†] as David spoke. The desire, which previously longed for created food, now tastes and relishes the food that is divine, influenced by another and more efficacious principle, the sweetness of God.

40. Finally, all the motions and acts of the soul, proceeding from the principle of its natural and imperfect life, are now changed in this union with God into motions divine. For the soul, as the true child of God, is moved by the Spirit of God, as it is written, 'Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.'^[54:*] The substance of the soul, though it is not the substance of God, because inconvertible into Him, yet being united to Him and absorbed in Him, is by participation God. This is accomplished in the perfect state of the spiritual life, but not so perfectly as in the other; hence is it well said: 'While slaying thou hast changed death into life.'

41. The soul, therefore, has good reason for saying with St. Paul, 'I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.'^[54:†] What in the soul is dead and cold, becomes changed into the life of God, the soul 'swallowed up of life'^[54:‡] in fulfilling the words of the Apostle, 'Death is swallowed up in victory,'^[54:§] and those of Osee, 'I will be thy death, O death.'^[54:‖]

[47:†] Jerem. xii. 5.

[48:*] Tob. xii. 13.

[49:*] Tob. xiv. 4.

[49:†] Job i. 8–20.

[49:‡] Ps. xi. 7.

[50:*] Eccles. x. 4.

[50:†] Ps. cxxxviii. 12.

[50:‡] 2 Cor. i. 7.

[51:*] Ps. lxx, 20.

[51:†] Esth. iv. 1–6.

[52:*] 2 Cor. v. 1.

[52:†] Rom. viii. 13.

[53:*] Ephes. iv. 22, 24.

[53:†] Ps. lxxvi. 6.

[54:*] Rom. viii. 14.

[54:†] Gal. ii. 20.

[54:‡] 2 Cor. v. 4.

[54:§] 1 Cor. xv. 54.

[54:‖] Os. xiii. 14.