XCIII
THE CROSSING
Exhibite
membra vestra servire justitiae in sanctificationem (Rom. 619).
St Paul says, 'Yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness, for
the wages of sin is death but the reward of virtue is eternal life.' The soul
has but two members to offer for the service of the sort acceptable to God,
these are will and understanding.
One master says, God exerts the whole
force of his will in loving the soul. But my point is that God's sole object in
loving the soul is to make her love him in return. Again, I contend that God
devotes his divine nature to pleasing the soul, to making her like him and enjoy
his society and be friendly with him and love him. Thirdly, I hold that this
love which comes up in the ground of the soul, sprouting out of the ground of
the Godhead, that is (I say) is the self-same love wherewith God loves his
one-begotten Son, and nothing less. And fourthly, if so be that man is planted
in God as he is in creature, then I maintain it is in the very ground of the
Holy Ghost's being and becoming, the very ground where the Holy Ghost is coming
out in blossom.
St Paul does well to say, 'Yield your
members.' For intellect, albeit natural, is too exalted to be moved by mundane
things. Yet, rendered to the sources whence it proceeded forth it is absorbed in
God, and that which absorbs it it becomes. Will, that is will proper, is as such
omnipotent. But thousands die without acquiring this genuine will.
Doubtless they had desires and inclinations like other animals. One man does
something trifling, does it just once and sends it on the wings of praise and
thankfulness up to its source. Another one does some important work which
occupies him long and constantly, and yet this little thing done once is more
acceptable to God than the other man's great work which cost him so much time
and trouble. Why? I will tell you. Because the trivial act was carried up past
time into the now of eternity, therefore it was to God's entire satisfaction.
Though one should live through all the time from Adam and all the time to come
before the judgment day doing good works, yet he who, energising in his highest,
purest part, crosses from time into eternity, verily in the sight of God this
man conceives and does far more than anyone who lives throughout all past and
future time, because this now includes the whole of time.
One master says that in this crossing
over time into the now, each power of the soul will surpass itself. The five
powers must pass into her collective power (or common sense), and common sense
will vanish into the formless power wherein nothing forms. Intellect and will
are transcended. True, grace is a creature, but by no means altogether. The soul
has no inherent grace excepting in his ground, and above this ground of the soul
grace is indigenous. Therein grace does nothing, although it is effective in the
uses of her powers; but in the ground of the soul grace, happiness and God's
ground are one and the same life wherein God is living. There the power behind
the eye is as noble as the understanding; there foot and eye rank equal. What
the soul is in her ground has never been determined. But Paul says, 'The grace
of God is eternal life.' Paul also says, 'The wages of sin is death.' The death
men die are all of them as nothing to the death of the soul who is divorced from
God, from which may God preserve us. Amen.