what He pleaseth, to suffer what He permitteth. And because this resignation is the key to her true progress, she makes frequent and fervent acts of resignation in this or the like manner :

own.

resignation.

5. Take my will totally to Thee, O my God; govern it absolutely, and submit it perfectly to Thine Acts of And because I cannot deliver it up, O my dear Lord, as Thou desirest, take it from me by violence, cut off all impediments, break all my fetters for me, bring me forcibly and bend me absolutely to a blessed conformity to Thy will and pleasure.

Let my whole employment in this life be the practice of this point. Let me neither think of pain nor look upon recompense, but resignedly behold Thee, because Thou art in Thyself so good, so great, so glorious, so amiable, so admirable.

I give up my will, O divine Artist, to be plunged, purified, polished, hammered, filed, and fired in the furnace of Thy love. O, do with it and with me as Thou best knowest and pleasest! It is for this that I now come to prayer, and for this only, that I may be taught this happy lesson of denying my own and doing Thy will. Or thus briefly :—

Lord, I put my will and all that concerns me, inwardly, outwardly, temporally, eternally, into Thy holy hands; dispose of all as Thou pleasest, and direct me in all to do Thy divine will.

6. Having made this act and oblation, let us reflect seriously upon what we have said and done, act of resig

When an

nation has and that in giving away our will we have put

been once

made, it should never be recalled.

the best pledge we have into God's hands, and out of our own power. Let us, then, beware of so infamous and ignoble an action as to recall the gift so solemnly delivered, or to do again our own will in anything whatsoever.

THE NINTH MAXIM.

That a Contemplative Soul must lay a solid Groundwork, to serve her in Time of Desolation.

No soul can always be absorbed in God;

1. For no soul can in this life be always elevated to the Divinity, and therefore will sometimes need a stay to rest upon till she can take breath and repair her forces, in order to her higher soarings in contemplation.

resting

2. This resting-place may most fitly be the Hubut needs a manity of Christ,* which is the very way and place, as the door to the Divinity, and upon which, when she returns to herself after she has been absorbed into the divine light, she may confidently rely

Humanity

of Christ.

* When a soul finds herself growing weary of pure introversion, and that she can no longer keep her powers free of all images and fixed on the pure Divinity, 'in such cases,' says F. Baker, it not only may be permitted, but ought to be enjoined, unto a soul to give ease unto herself by quitting for a time such painful introversions and addresses to the pure Divinity, and instead thereof, exercise herself in producing other acts less painful, because less introverting, as acts or affections to the Humanity of our Lord, to angels, saints, &c. Yea, she may sometimes address her internal speech to her own soul, or to some persons or creatures absent, yet all with reference to God, for otherwise it would not be an act of religion, nor profitable to the soul.' Sancta Sophia, vol. ii. treat. 3, sect. 3, chap. ii. § 17.

and repose.

And without this prop, the higher she

ascends, the lower will be her fall back again.

THE TENTH MAXIM.

That in this high Exercise of Recollection, the three Theological Virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, must perfect and possess the three Powers of our Souls, Understanding, Memory, and Will.

That a soul cannot

united im

1. Ir is, in the first place, to be observed as an undoubted truth, that a soul cannot in this life be united to God immediately by her under- here be standing, memory, will, imagination, or other sense, power, or faculty whatsoever, only by means of Faith in her Understanding, by Hope in her Memory, by Love in her Will.

any mediately by means of

to God, save

but

faith, hope, and charity,

possess re

our under

memory,

2. These three virtues must therefore be introduced, by our coöperating with the divine grace, into which must the three powers of our souls, in the purest spectively and perfectest manner that is possible, if we standing, will arrive at the height of divine union. 1. and will, Faith must so possess our understanding as to deprive it for the time of all other knowledge than that of God alone.* 2. Hope must blot out of our memory all

* This takes place when the soul is so transported and ravished into God, that she forgets all human things, and is illuminated from above by the pure Divinity in such a manner that the brightness of its light darkens and eclipses in her soul all gross and earthly knowledge. To this supernal state our author refers when he speaks of 'treading down and transcending all things under God, by discreetly forgetting and unknowing them' (Maxim 3). This 'unknowing' is that 'darkness'-caligo-of Exodus xix. into which Moses is said to have ascended, as St. Maximus testifies (Schol. S. Maximi et Paraphr.

images and thoughts of possessing anything but God alone. 3. Charity must unclothe our wills of all affections, joys, contents, satisfactions in anything that is not God only. For Faith tells us of things which cannot be understood by natural light and reason; Hope looks upon such things as we have not, hold not, possess not; and Charity removes our love from all creatures to employ it all on our Creator.

perfect the

powers of

our soul,

3. The three powers, therefore, of our soul must be and thereby perfected by these three virtues: our underthree standings must be informed with this pure Faith; our memories freed from all distracting images by this pure Hope; and our wills filled with divine affections by this pure Charity; thus refusing, denying, and emptying our whole souls of all that is not this perfect Faith, Hope, and Charity.

it inviolable

snares of

and of self

love.

4. In this divine practice is found an absolute and render assurance against all the subtle snares of the against the devil and self-love. For a soul which is thus the devil entirely stripped and bared of all active knowledge, proprietorship, and love of things created must needs remain in God in a certain tranquillity, passiveness, cessation, sleep, annihilation, absorption; so that out of God there can be found nothing for Satan, sin, or sensuality to assail.

But to facilitate the understanding and practice of

Pachym. in Epistola i. tom. 2). And of it St. Denis writes :-'Illa perfectissime in bonam partem ignorationem, notitia est ejus qui est supra omnia quæ in cognitionem cadunt' (Epist. i. Caio).

this high matter, upon which the whole edifice of this holy Recollection and divine Union stands as on a. foundation, let us particularly explain and exemplify how the understanding is to be placed in pure Faith, the memory in pure Hope, and the will in pure Charity.

THE ELEVENTH MAXIM.

That our Understanding must be settled in pure Faith.

under

may be

1. THE practice of this point is thus:-Having conceived some mystery of our Saviour's Passion, How the or the like, for the subject of our prayer, we standing ponder a while upon it, not so much to admire established our Lord Jesus as to imitate Him; and we desire to know His virtues, that we may practise them in our own persons by His perfect example.

in pure faith.

Make an

I

2. Then we make an act of Faith, saying:-I firmly believe that this my suffering Saviour is not act of Faith. only a man, but also my Sovereign Lord God. believe that He, being Almighty, submitted Himself to Pilate, being the Creator became a creature, being immortal became mortal; and that inasmuch as He is God, He is with me, within me, without me, about me, above me, beneath me, and so in all creatures which have

a being.

my

3. Afterwards we speak further to our Saviour:—0 dearest Lord and Love, teach me now my assistance.

Beg Christ's