Chapter XIV, Part 2

Showeth forth the Fourth Mode of Loving.

AND thus the Fourth Mode is a state of emptiness, made one with God in bare love and in Divine Light, free and empty of all the observances of love, above actions, and enduring a pure and simple love, which consumeth and annihilateth in itself the spirit of a man, so that he forgetteth himself, and knoweth neither himself nor God, nor any creature, nor aught else but Love alone, which he tasteth and feeleth and possesseth in simple emptiness.

He feeleth himself one Breadth with Love, Which is measureless, comprehending all things, and Itself for ever remaining incomprehensible.

He seeth himself made one with the eternal Length, which is immovable, without beginning or ending, going before and following after all created things.

ioo THE BOOK OF

He realiseth himself as uplifted in one Height with God, Who ruleth and governeth in Heaven and on earth, and over all creation.

He seeth himself also as Depth, and uplifted in his superbeing, which is the Being of God33.

There he findeth himself, with God and all His saints, one fathomless bliss, which, being natural to God, to us is super-natural.

The same is above all and beneath all, being the void foundation that upholdeth without a base both God and all created things. Henceforth it is known only by its own being ; and it is to God a quiet and essential knowing, and to us a nonknowledge that is beyond our apprehension. When we know and understand, then are we blessed and made one with God in love ; but where our knowledge faileth, there are we in the bliss of rest with God, above our created being, far outside and beyond our spirit, abroad in our super-natural blessedness, and in the fathomless abyss that is the Being of God, and that shall never more be disturbed by Him or any creature34.

T^rr,..

«<?\

^i *•'

And so we realise a distinction and a differentiation according to our reason, between God and the Godhead, between action and repose.

The fruitful nature of the Persons, of Whom is the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity, ever worketh in a living differentiation. But that Simple Being of God, according to the nature Thereof, is an Eternal Repose of God and all created things ; wherein we all, according to our super-nature, enjoy without differentiation a fathomless bliss, which is natural to God alone and to us super-natural ; wherein we are above our created being, far outside and beyond our spirit, abroad in our super-natural blessedness, in the abyss which is henceforth known only by its own being.

And although we are all, in our supernature, above our created being, with God in eternal rest and inaction ; we are also one with God in the Fruitful Trinity of Persons, living and working beyond all created being.

We understand that we are One in Eternal Life with our Heavenly Father, Who is our Origin, and hath created us.

We find ourselves also One in living Truth with His Son, Who is our Archetype, in Whom we live a higher life than our own, each distinct in creation, foreordained and foreknown in His Eternal Wisdom.

We realise ourselves also in the Holy Spirit, That hath loved us from all Eternity and hath desired all virtues for us, and that we are One with Him in Love.

He sendeth us forth full of grace and gifts, to fulfil His Will in all goodness and virtue, to live after His beloved Will, and to follow after Christ to the utmost of our understanding and our power.

Just as the Father hath sent us His Son Jesus Christ, to serve us, to live for us, and to die for our sake, so doth Jesus Christ His Son35 send and give unto us His Spirit, that we may live one with another in love, and in all goodness and virtue. So are we His disciples if we keep His law and His commandments, abiding in mutual love and loyalty to one another : so can we grow and perfect ourselves in grace, in virtue, and in likeness to the Life of Our Lord Jesus

Christ ; and so groweth in us from more to more the Grace of God, and the hunger and thirst for virtue and for truth, as I have already shown in speaking of the beginning of the Life of Holiness36.