by us to our great prejudice in spirituality, and prove hindrances and stumbling-blocks in our way to perfection.

they stand

who are

entirely in

3. And upon this same step stand also another Here also rank of holy persons, who have brought their inward man to an entire indifferency in all different, things, who are neither puffed up by prosperity nor dejected by adversity, who have their Lord's will for the sole law of their actions, and His only love for their 'All in all.' They desire to be truly conformable to their crucified Saviour, and to keep an internal quiet, content, and constancy in all desolation and dereliction; they are well grounded and settled in a simple and sincere affection to their Lord God, which enables them, not only to do great and heroic things, but also to suffer all grievous and hard matters.*

in God's

favours

with some

4. These illuminated souls receive many sweet and but yet rest secret graces from the hands of the heavenly bounty, as rewards of their sincere fidelity. propriety. Their understandings are replenished with light, their memories are possessed with objects of piety, their wills are burned and consumed with perfect charity; but yet these abundances of divine favours may sometimes turn to their prejudice, when they rest in them with even the slightest spiritual gust and propriety.

5. Here, furthermore, are seated those almost per

See the Fourth Degree of Love, § i. Also Appendix to the following Treatise-The Ladder of Divine Love, p. 334.

they stand

satisfied with God

only,

fect souls who have really resigned themselves Here also and all purely to God's pleasure, are fully who are contented with Him alone, and remain wholly wi satisfied with all that He either sends or suffers, looking upon Him only, and not upon any of His gifts or goods.

6. These are yet more frequently visited from above with divine illustrations, and solaced with high but are not and heavenly comforts; but because they are to leave not as really resigned to leave them and to

as willing

divine

to have them.

be favours as bereft of them as they are ready and willing to have and enjoy them, they seem to have yet a little point of secret propriety left within them, and must, therefore, take yet a higher flight before they can perch upon the uppermost step of this spiritual ladder, which is the seventh and highest degree of perfection.

THE SEVENTH AND HIGHEST DEGREE OF PERFECTION.

seventh

step stand

contempla

1. Whereunto those elevated and perfect souls are soared which are thoroughly inflamed, ab- On the sorbed, and ecstasied in divine contemplation, the perfect wholly dead to the world, abstracted from flesh tives, and blood, and living, as it were, only by the vivacity of God's love, and by the quickening of His holy Spirit within them.

2. These are the dear darlings, blessed minions, holy favourites, and happy spouses of the Most God's faithHigh, though they sometimes live here below favourites.

ful friends

and dear

in perpetual oblivion and obscurity. They are brimful

of heavenly gifts and graces, lifted up above themselves to taste the inexplicable sweetnesses and behold the unspeakable glimpses of the Divinity. Yet they rest not in these sublime prerogatives with the least pleasure or propriety, but utterly renounce all self-seeking and interest, being securely grounded in solid faith, clothed only with naked charity, and accompanied with abyssal humility, counting themselves worthy of all abjection, conceiving themselves the very worst of all creatures, and contenting themselves to be by all so taken and treated. Their whole comfort is in the Cross of Christ:* they neither look for such plentiful showers of heavenly feelings, visitations, illuminations, and influences of the Spirit, nor ungratefully neglect them, but remain in perfect indifferency, and offer themselves up as obedient instruments to all that the Holy Ghost shall vouchsafe to operate by or in them. They receive all things from their Creator's hands into their open and disinterested souls, as if they felt them not, ever praising the divine piety, admiring His liberality, returning all to His honour, resigning all to His will, and being satisfied with His providence and disposition in all temporal and spiritual events whatsoever. Finally, their outward man desires no earthly consolation; their inward man breathes nothing but the pure love of God; and their whole being begs nothing but a perfect conformity to his cruci

* Such was the sublime perfection of St. John of the Cross, who upon being asked by our Lord what he desired in reward for all the sufferings he had endured for the love of God, answered: Domine, pati et contemni pro Te-O Lord, to suffer and to be despised for Thee.'

fied Lord and Master in all things, but especially in self-denial and abnegation, the only safe and secure guide of each step in this his long pilgrimage towards perfection.

Y

Fourth Treatise.

OF THE STEPS AND DEGREES OF DIVINE SERAPHICAL LOVE.

Tell my beloved that I languish with love. Cant. v. 8.
My beloved to me, and I to him. Cant. ii. 16.

THE FIRST DEGREE OR STEP OF THE LADDER OF DIVINE

LOVE.

1. UPON this first step stands the pious soul, which after a long experience in the way of the Spirit, the soul is and a serious application of herself to the prac

In the first degree

wounded

with love, tice of solid virtue, having truly entered into her own interior, and happily ascended the steep mountain of perfection, is become deeply wounded with love, sweetly sick of love, and heartily languishing with love; so that she cries out with that fainting spouse in the Canticles :-0, tell my beloved that I languish with love.*

rest in crea

2. This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of and finds no God; for the soul in this state defies all sin, tures. deserts whatsoever is not God, and desires Him only she grows weary and sick of all creatures, and aspires after the embraces of her Creator. And as an infirm person loseth appetite and loathes all the wonted contents of nature, so here the soul feels no gust, takes no pleasure, finds no comfort in any earthly objects. She lies sick, and seized by this mystical fever, caused † John xi. 4.

* Cant. v. 8.