42. Of the Six Fruits of Grace and of Glory, of Which Three Belong to the Active, Three to the Affective Life

LET us now deal with a few fruits which are displayed in the light of grace and glory. For all external actions and exercises of virtue receive their end at some time ; but their fruits will be our food and drink in eternal life. For the six fruits and the kinds of a sensible taste are shown in action to men of this kind, and, so far, the mind looks downward both in the light of grace and glory ; however not all in grace or in glory taste or feel equally. The first fruit and the first taste, (which indeed are necessary to all who wish to be saved, although now they happily perceive or taste, however many spend a blessed life in Heaven with God), is the mind, compliant, obedient and submissive beneath the most high power of God. 209 p

2io FRUITS OF GRACE

And this submissive obedience towards the precepts and prohibitions of God as has been already said, is necessary to whomsoever desires to be saved. The secon'd fruit is to feel oneself of goodwill towards all, and to be benevolent and generous to all, kind and well intentioned in judging, and patient and gentle in adverse matters. The third fruit is to perceive and know in oneself the before-mentioned submissive and humble obedience, and in the same way, the benevolence and also the patient gentleness to be not other than one's own proper essence. And these are the fruits of the active life. Moreover the fourth fruit is a resolute, sensible love towards God, and this together with the soul and body and all their powers ; the sensible disposition or desire whereby any one strives with the very core of the soul, so that both itself and all creatures which a most beneficent God has established and ordered for His praise and honour may ful fil this very end outwardly and inwardly, and with its whole faculty may maintain and accomplish it ; and if anywhere they may not fulfil it, or fall from thence, it brings

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forth perpetual grief for that of which it can never be forgetful. The fifth fruit of the eternal kingdom is the sensible, impatient love which is moved or attained from above without intermission, and ever eagerly as pires and looks towards union with Him whom it loves, nor is ever able to cease from acts of virtues, seeing that this nobility of dignity is inborn in it. The sixth fruit of the same kingdom is the clear contemplation of all these fruit's, and all the consideration of this perception or experience. Besides which, such a man contemplates the sensible kingdom, not only as it now is, but even as it will be endlessly, and in the same way his own natural kingdom, as God has created and adorned it both naturally and above nature, even as He will adorn the same in glory. He will behold also all blessed spirits of angels and men, as these flow and reflow in the praise of God. He gazes also upon the benevolence and generosity of God, since He is the chief cause of all virtues and of all perception and experience, and since He, the Same, flows forth together with Himself and all His gifts, which thing renders a man

FRUITS OF GRACE impatient with love, whilst he seeks to obtain His likeness and vehemently to be united to Him in eternal fruition. And these are the fruits of the life which they call the affective.