JOHN OF RUYSBROECK

THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE
THE SPARKLING STONE 
THE BOOK OF SUPREME TRUTH

TRANSLATED FROM THE FLEMISH BY
C. A. WYNSCHENK DOM

EDITED
WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY
EVELYN UNDERHILL

BV5080 J33

"In tantum Deus cognoscitur, in quantum amatur"

     ST BERNARD

CONTENTS
Introduction

THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE

THE FIRST BOOK

Prologue

I. Of the Active Life

II. Showing how we shall consider the Coming of Christ in Three 
Ways

III. Of Humility

IV. Of Charity

V. Of Patient Endurance

VI. Of the Second Coming of Christ

VII. Of the Blessed Sacraments

VIII. Of the Third Coming of Christ

IX. Showing what Christ will do in the Day of Doom

X. Of the Five Kinds of Men who shall appear at the Judgment

XI. Of a Spiritual Going Out with all Virtues

XII. How Humility is the Foundation of all other Virtues

XIII. Of Obedience

XIV. Of the Renunciation of Self-Will

XV. Of Patience

XVI. Of Meekness

XVII. Of Kindliness

XVIII. Of Compassion

XIX. Of Generosity

XX. Of Zeal and Diligence

XXI. Of Temperance and Sobriety

XXII. Of Purity

XXIII. Of Three Enemies to be overcome by Righteousness

XXIV. Of the Kingdom of the Soul

XXV. Of a Spiritual Meeting of God and Ourselves

XXVI. Of the desire to know the Bridegroom in His Nature

THE SECOND BOOK

Prologue

I. How we achieve Supernatural Sight in our Inward Workings

II. Of a Three-fold Unity which is in us by Nature

III. Of the Inflow of the Grace of God into our Spirit 

IV. Showing how we should found our Inward Life on a Freedom from 
Images

V. Of a Three-fold Coming of our Lord in the Inward Man

VI. Of the Second Coming of our Lord in the Inward Man

VII. Of the Third Coming of our Lord

VIII. How the First Coming has Four Degrees 

IX. Of Unity of Heart

X. Of Inwardness

XI. Of Sensible Love

XII. Of Devotion

XIII. Of Gratitude

XIV. Of Two Griefs which arise from Inward Gratitude

XV. A Similitude how we should perform the First Degree of our 
Inward Exercise

XVI. Another Similitude concerning the same Exercise

XVII. Of the Second Degree of our Inward Exercise, which increases 
Inwardness by Humility

XVIII. Of the Pure Delight of the Heart and the Sensible Powers

XIX. Of Spiritual Inebriation

XX. What may hinder a Man in this Inebriation

XXI. A Similitude how a Man should act and bear himself in this 
case

XXII. Of the Third Degree of the Spiritual Coming of Christ

XXIII. Of the Pain and Restlessness of Love

XXIV. Of Ecstacies and Divine Revelations

XXV. An Example showing how one is hindered in this Exercise

XXVI. Another Example

XXVII. A Parable of the Ant

XXVIII. Of the Fourth Degree of the Coming of Christ

XXIX. Showing what the Forsaken Man should do

XXX. A Parable: How one may be hindered in this Fourth Degree

XXXI. Of another Hindrance

XXXII. Of Four Kinds of Fever wherewith a Man may be Tormented

XXXIII. Showing how these Four Degrees in their Perfection are 
Found in Christ

XXXIV. Showing how a Man should Live if he would be Enlightened

XXXV. Of the Second Coming of Christ, or, the Fountain with Three 
Rills

XXXVI. The First Rill adorns the Memory

XXXVII. The Second Rill enlightens the Understanding

XXXVIII. The Third Rill establishes the Will to every Perfection

XXXIX. Showing how the Established Man shall go out in Four Ways

XL. He shall go out towards God and towards all Saints

XLI. He shall go out towards all Sinners

XLII. He shall go out towards his Friends in Purgatory

XLIII. He shall go out towards himself and towards all Good Men

XLIV. Showing how we may recognise those Men who fail in Charity 
to all

XLV. How Christ was, is, and ever will be the Lover of all

XLVI. Reproving all those who live on Spiritual Goods in an 
Inordinate Manner

XLVII. Showing how Christ has given Himself to all in common in 
the Sacrament of the Altar

XLVIII. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Trinity of the 
Persons

XLIX. Showing how God possesses and moves the Soul both in a 
Natural and a Supernatural way

L. Showing how a Man should be adorned if he is to receive the 
most Inward Exercise

LI. Of the Third Coming of Christ

LII. Showing how the Spirit goes out through the Divine Stirring

LIII. Of an Eternal Hunger for God

LIV. Of a Loving Strife between the Spirit of God and our Spirit

LV. Of the Fruitful Works of the Spirit, the which are Eternal

LVI. Showing the way in which we shall meet God in a Ghostly 
Manner both with and without Means

LVII. Of the Essential Meeting with God without Means in the 
Nakedness of our Nature

LVIII. Showing how one is like unto God through Grace and unlike 
unto God through Mortal Sin

LIX. Showing how one possesses God in Union and Rest, above all 
likeness through Grace

LX. Showing how we have need of the Grace of God, which makes us 
like unto God and leads us to God without Means

LXI. Of how God and our Spirit visit each other in the Unity and 
in the Likeness

LXII. Showing how we should go out to meet God in all our Works

LXIII. Of the ordering of all the Virtues through the Seven Gifts 
of the Holy Ghost

LXIV. Of the Highest Degree of the most Interior Life

LXV. Of Three Kinds of most Inward Practices

LXVI. Showing how some Men live contrary to these Exercises

LXVII. Of another kind of Perverted Men

THE THIRD BOOK

I. Showing the Three Ways by which one enters into the God-Seeing 
Life

II. How the Eternal Birth of God is renewed without interruption 
in the nobility of the Spirit

III. How our Spirit is called to go out in Contemplation and 
Fruition

IV. Of a Divine Meeting which takes place in the Hiddenness of our 
Spirit

THE SPARKLING STONE

Prologue

I. Through Three Things a Man becomes Good

II. Through Three Things a Man becomes Inward

III Through Three Things a Man becomes God-Seeing

IV. Of the Sparkling Stone, and of the New Name written in the 
Book of the Secrets of God

V. Of the works which God works in all in common, and of Five 
Kinds of Sinners

VI. Of the difference between the Hirelings and the Faithful 
Servants of God

VII. Of the difference between the Faithful Servants and the 
Secret Friends of God

VIII. Of the difference between the Secret Friends and the Hidden 
Sons of God

IX. How we may become Hidden Sons of God, and attain to the God-
Seeing Life

X. How we, though One with God, must eternally remain Other than 
God

XI. Of the great difference between the Brightness of the Saints 
and the Highest Brightness to which we can attain in this Life

XII. Of the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Thabor 

XIII. How we ought to have Fruition of God

XIV. Of that Common Life which comes from the Contemplation and 
Fruition of God

THE BOOK OF SUPREME TRUTH

Prologue

I. Wherefore this Book was Written

II. A short repetition of all the Highest Teachings written by the 
Author

III. Of the Union through Means

IV. Of the Men who practise a False Vacancy

V. Of the Union without Means

VI. Of Heavenly Weal and Hellish Woe

VII. Showing wherefore all Good Men do not attain to the 
Unmediated Union with God

VIII. Showing how the Inward Man should exercise himself, that he 
may be united with God without Means

IX. Of the Inward Working of God's Grace

X. Of the Mutual Contentment of the Divine Persons, and the Mutual 
Contentment between God and Good Men

XI. How Good Men in their Contemplation have the Love of God 
before them, and how they are lifted up into God

XII. Of the Highest Union, without Difference or Distinction

XIII. Of the Three-fold Prayer of Christ, that we might be one 
with God

XIV. Here the Author declares that he submits all that he has 
written to the judgment of Holy Church

Notes

INTRODUCTION

I

JAN VAN RUYSBROECK-three of whose most important works are here 
for the first time presented to English readers-is the greatest of 
the Flemish mystics, and must take high rank in any list of 
Christian contemplatives and saints. He was born in 1273, at the 
little village of Ruysbroeck or Ruusbroeck between Brussels and 
Hal, from which he takes his name; and spent his whole life within 
his native province of Brabant. At eleven years old, he is said to 
have run away from home and found his way to Brussels; where he 
was received by his uncle Jan Hinckaert, a canon of the Cathedral 
of St Gudule. Hinckaert, who was a man of great piety, lived with 
another devout priest named Francis van Coudenberg in the most 
austere fashion; entirely devoted to prayer and good works. The 
two ecclesiastics brought the boy up, and gave him a religious 
education, which evidently included considerable training in 
theology and philosophy: subjects for which he is said to have 
shown, even in boyhood, an astonishing aptitude. In 1317 he took 
orders, and obtained through his uncle's influence a prebend's 
stall in St Gudule; a position which he occupied for twenty-six 
years.

During youth and early middle-age, then, Ruysbroeck lived in 
Brussels, fulfilling the ordinary duties of a cathedral chaplain: 
and here some of his earlier works may have been written. Here no 
doubt he developed that shrewd insight into human character to 
which his books bear witness; and here gained his experience of 
those "false mystics" and self-sufficient quietists so vividly 
described and sternly condemned in the second book of The 
Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, in The Book of Truth, and 
other places. In the early fourteenth century a number of 
heretical sects, of which the Brethren of the Free Spirit were 
typical, flourished in the Low Countries. Basing their doctrine on 
a pantheistic and non-Christian conception of the Godhead, they 
proclaimed the "divinity of man," and preached a quietism of the 
most soul-destroying kind, together with an emancipation from the 
fetters of law and custom which often resulted in actual 
immorality.1 As Ruysbroeck grew in knowledge of the true 
contemplative life, the dangers attending on its perversion became 
ever more clear to him: and he entered upon that vigorous campaign 
against the heretical quietists which was the chief outward event 
of his Brussels period.

As to his spiritual development during these years, we can have no 
certain knowledge: since none of his works are exactly dated, and 
the order in which they should be arranged is a matter of 
inference. But it is inherently probable that he was experiencing 
the early stages of that mysterious growth of the soul which he 
describes so exactly in the first two books of The Adornment of 
the Spiritual Marriage: the hard self-discipline, the 
enlightenment, raptures, and derelictions, of the "active" and 
"interior" life. At this period, he had made little impression on 
his contemporaries. The Augustinian canon Pomerius, who had known 
in their old age some of Ruysbroeck's friends and followers, and 
who wrote his Life2 in the year 1420, describes him as a simple, 
quiet, rather shabby-looking person, who "went about the streets 
of Brussels with his mind lifted up into God." Yet it is certain 
that great force of character, much shrewd common sense, and 
remarkable intellectual qualities lay behind this meek appearance. 
We know how greatly he disliked "singular conduct" in those who 
had given themselves to the spiritual life. They should be, he 
thought, like "other good men";3 and this ideal found expression 
in his own life. A devout and orthodox Catholic, well read in 
scholastic theology and philosophy, on the mental and social side 
at least, he was a thorough man of his time; apparently accepting 
without criticism its institutions and ideas. Many passages in his 
works indicate this: for instance, his constant and unquestioning 
use of the categories of mediaeval psychology, or his quiet 
assumption4 that "putting to the torture" is part of the business 
of a righteous judge. But on the spiritual side his period 
influenced him little. There, his concern was with truths which 
lie, as he says, "outside Time" in the Eternal Now; and when he is 
trying to interpret these to us the Middle Ages and their 
limitations fall away. Then we catch fragments which Plato or 
Plotinus on one hand, Hegel on the other, might recognise as the 
reports of one who had known and experienced the Reality for which 
they sought. "My words," said Ruysbroeck, "are strange, but those 
who love will understand": and this indeed is true, for he 
possessed in an extraordinary degree the power-which so many great 
mystics have lacked-of giving verbal and artistic expression to 
his soaring intuitions of Eternity.

In 1343, when he was fifty years old, the growing sense of 
contrast between those intuitions and the religious formalism and 
unreality of the cathedral life, the distracting bustle of the 
town, reached a point at which it seems to have become unendurable 
to him. Together with Hinckaert and Coudenberg-both now old men-he 
left Brussels for ever; all three intending to settle in some 
lonely country place, where they could devote themselves to the 
life of prayer and contemplation. They were given the old 
hermitage of Groenendael, or the Green Valley, in the forest of 
Soignes outside Brussels. There they were presently joined by 
disciples, and formed a small community, which was eventually 
placed under the rule of the Augustinian canons. Coudenberg became 
the provost and Ruysbroeck the prior; and under their government 
the priory of Groenendael soon became known as the home of a 
special holiness.

We shall probably be right if we identify his thirty-eight years, 
sojourn in the forest with the "God-seeing" stage of Ruysbroeck's 
mystical life.5 Here without doubt all his greatest works were 
written. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage must have been 
composed soon after his retreat from Brussels, for we know that in 
1350 he sent a copy of it to the group of Rhenish mystics who 
called themselves the Friends of God. The Sparkling Stone and The 
Book of Truth-both written at the request of friends, to explain 
difficult points in his earlier books-belong to a later date. We 
need not feel surprised that the full flowering of his genius 
should coincide with his abandonment of the world. In one form or 
another such abandonment has been found imperative by all the 
great explorers of Eternity; whose inward quest of the One nearly 
always entails some withdrawal from the multiplicity of things. 
But beyond this, there was in Ruysbroeck's mysticism-at once so 
intimate in its feeling so vast in its reach-a deeply poetic 
strain. The silence and growing beauty of the forest ministered to 
this: and many passages in his books show how easily he discovered 
intimations of divinity through the loving contemplation of 
natural things. A beautiful tradition tells us that he would go 
out alone into the woods when he felt that the inspiration of God 
was upon him; and there, sitting under his favourite tree, would 
write as the Holy Ghost dictated. The brethren used to declare 
that once, having been absent many hours from the priory, he was 
at last found in this place, rapt in ecstacy and surrounded by a 
brilliant aura of divine light-a legend which closely resembles 
many similar stories in the lives of the saints.

Such ecstatic absorption in God, however, formed only one side of 
Ruysbroeck's religious life. True to his own doctrine of the 
"balanced career" of action and contemplation as the ideal of the 
Christian soul6 his rapturous ascents towards Divine Reality were 
compensated by the eager and loving interest with which he turned 
towards the world of men. In the daily life of the priory he 
sought perpetually for opportunities of service, especially those 
of the most menial kind. As time passed, and his great mystical 
gifts became known, many disciples came to him: amongst them 
Gerard Groot, afterwards the founder of the Brothers of the Common 
Life and hence spiritual ancestor of Thomas a Kempis. To all these 
he gave patient help and robust advice; initiating them, so far as 
it was possible, into the secrets of the true spiritual life, and 
ruthlessly exposing the pious pretensions of those who sought only 
a reputation for sanctity. It is clear even from his writings that 
he possessed to a remarkable degree the "gift of the discernment 
of spirits"-in other words, that his shrewd judgment of humanity 
seldom failed him. All know the story of the two priests, who came 
from Paris to ask his opinion of their spiritual state: merely to 
receive the truthful but disconcerting reply, "You are as holy as 
you wish to be!"

The thirty-eight years which Ruysbroeck passed at Groenendael 
were, from the point of view of the earthly biographer, almost 
devoid of incident. True, he formed many friendships with the most 
spiritual men of his time, and seems occasionally to have left his 
priory in order to visit them. We possess a charming account of 
one such visit; that to Gerard Naghel, the Prior of Herines, at 
whose suggestion The Book of Truth was written. "His peaceful and 
joyful countenance, his humble good-humoured speech," says Gerard, 
made him loved by all with whom he came into contact: a sentence 
which brings to mind Ruysbroeck's own picture of those happy men 
who walk in the way of love.

"Those who follow the way of love
Are the richest of all men living:
They are bold, frank, and fearless,
They have neither travail nor care,
For the Holy Ghost bears all their burdens.
They seek no outward seeming,
They desire nought that is esteemed of men,
They affect not singular conduct,
They would be like other good men."7

Further, he saw during these years the rapid growth of the 
community-now swiftly becoming one of the chief centres of 
spiritual life in the Low Countries-and the wide dissemination of 
his own works. He even lived to see certain passages in those 
works criticised, as supporting a pantheistic and heretical view 
of the union of the soul with God. The Book of Truth was written 
to refute this accusation. But the true events of these years took 
place for him in that supernal world of high contemplation which 
it was his special province to disclose to his fellow-men. There 
his real life was fixed. There his loving ardour was for ever 
young. Thither he drew those treasures of mystical knowledge which 
he is said to have poured forth to his brethren in long ecstatic 
discourses when the Spirit impelled him to speak: for he never 
taught or spoke unless he felt himself inspired thereto by God. 
When old age came upon him, though his ghostly vision never lost 
its keenness his earthly eyes grew dim: and his later works were 
dictated, when the Spirit moved him, to one of the younger 
brothers of the house. At eighty-eight years of age his strength 
failed: and after a short illness, which never clouded the 
radiance of his spirit, he died upon December 2nd, 1381.

II

Ruysbroeck wrote all his works in the dialect of his native 
province of Brabant: which stands in much the same relation to 
modern Flemish as Chaucer's English stands to our own speech. 
Eleven of these works have come down to us in various MS. 
collections; and all of them, with one or two others of doubtful 
authenticity, are included in the great standard Latin translation 
made in the sixteenth century by the Carthusian monk Laurentius 
Surius.8

The authentic writings are these:

1. The Spiritual Tabernacle: a long symbolic treatise on the 
tabernacle of the Israelites, considered as a type of the 
spiritual life.

2. The Twelve Points of True Faith: a short mystical 
interpretation of the Creed.

3. The Book of the Four Temptations: an oblique attack on false 
mystics.

These are probably early works.

4. The Kingdom of God's Lovers.

5. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage.

Two elaborate and orderly treatises on the threefold life and 
development of the soul, which probably belong to the first years 
at Groenendael.

6. The Mirror of Eternal Salvation: written before 1359.

7. The Seven Cloisters: written before 1363.

8. The Seven Degrees of Love: written before 1372.

This group of works, forming a graduated instruction on the 
ascetic and mystical life, seems to have been written for Dame 
Margaret Van Meerbeke, a nun in the Convent of Poor Clares at 
Brussels.

9. The Book of the Sparkling Stone.

10. The Book of Supreme Truth.

11. The Twelve Beguines.

These three books, the substance of which is now accessible to 
English readers,9 contain the finest fruit of Ruysbroeck's genius. 
The Twelve Beguines is partly written in the rough rhymed verse 
which he uses in many parts of The Kingdom of God's Lovers and 
other places; as if at times his ecstatic apprehensions presented 
themselves to the surface mind in a rhythmic form and "prayer into 
song was turned." There is a short example of this in The Book of 
Truth. Such verse, however, though its uncouth strangeness gives 
to it an impressive quality, is a far less successful medium for 
the expression of his subtle mystical perceptions than the 
vigorous prose style of his best passages; for instance, the 
wonderful ninth chapter of The Sparkling Stone.10

When we come to examine the character of these mystical 
perceptions, we find that Ruysbroeck was one of the few mystics 
who have known how to make full use of a strong and disciplined 
intellect, without ever permitting it to encroach on the proper 
domain of spiritual intuition. An orderly and reasoned view of the 
universe is the ground plan upon which the results of those 
intuitions are set out: yet we are never allowed to forget the 
merely provisional character of the best intellectual concepts 
where we are dealing with ultimate truth. Ultimate truth, he says, 
is not accessible to the human reason: "the What-ness of God" we 
can never know.11 Yet this need not discourage us from exploring, 
and describing as well as we can, those rich regions of 
approximate truth and life-giving experience which await us beyond 
the ramparts of the sensual world. The intellectual ideas and 
symbols which he uses most often are taken to a large extent from 
the Bible and the Liturgy, and the works of his great predecessors 
and contemporaries; and conform to the main lines of the Christian 
mystical tradition. St Paul and St Augustine, in particular, have 
influenced his thought. The notion popularised by M. Maeterlinck, 
that Ruysbroeck was an "ignorant monk" who became in his ecstacies 
a profound philosopher, is contradicted by the reminiscences of 
Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, the many quotations from Dionysius 
the Areopagite, St Augustine, Richard of St Victor, St Bernard, 
and other mystical authors, which we find in his works. Indeed, 
only those familiar with these great seers and thinkers are in a 
position to recognise the sources and unravel the meaning of his 
more difficult passages. He was in fact almost as well equipped on 
the intellectual as on the contemplative side: and hence was 
enabled to interpret to others, in language with which all 
educated Christians in his day were more or less familiar, 
something at least of the adventures of his spirit in the 
fathomless Ocean of God.

Those intellectual concepts, however, of which he availed himself, 
are constantly used by him in an original way: and always as a 
means of expressing the results of direct personal inspiration and 
experience. Particularly characteristic is the living quality with 
which he invests theological formulae that for us have become 
fixed and sterile. As Dante, without deviating from the narrow 
path of scholastic philosophy, brings us at last into the presence 
of "that Eternal Light which loves and smiles,"12 so Ruysbroeck 
leads us back by way of the most orthodox Trinitarian doctrine to 
the very heart of Reality: the eternal and abysmal Fountain of 
life-giving life.

In the three books which are now translated we shall find all his 
most characteristic ideas, though here it is only possible to 
touch upon a few of them.13 For Ruysbroeck, as for St Augustine, 
Reality is both Being and Becoming: one-fold and changeless in 
essence, active and diverse in expression-a dualism aptly 
represented by the theological dogma of the Trinity in Unity. So 
too man, the image of God, is a unity who manifests himself in 
diversity; "made trinity, like to the unmade Blessed Trinity," as 
our own mystic Julian of Norwich has it.14 The ultimate truth is 
the Godhead: the Divine Unity of religion, the Absolute of 
philosophy. It is Simple, not with the simplicity of negation but 
with the simplicity of complete affirmation: gathering up into its 
unity all the rich complexities of power, wisdom, and love. In its 
essence it is "dark," "naked," "wayless"; inaccessible to all the 
processes of thought. Yet it is alive through and through; the 
eternal "lifegiving ground" from which all comes. The ideas of 
"Fatherhood", and "Sonhood" represent its quickening 
fruitfulness;15 the Holy Ghost is the name of the Divine energy 
and love which pours forth into the created world, and thence, 
like a strong ebb-tide, draws all things back into their Origin.16 
Though the soul plunged in God, "sunk in His unity," seems to 
itself to experience a profound rest and stillness, yet it is 
really surrendered to the movement of this mighty power: for "God 
is an ocean that ebbs and flows."

The ideas, then, of movement, effort, and growth are central for 
Ruysbroeck's thought. Again and again we are impressed by his 
almost modern sense of life and action as the substance of the 
real: his freedom from merely static conceptions. Therefore we 
find that the theme of all his more important books is the growth 
and development of the soul: the forms in which God's energy plays 
upon it, the forms which should be taken by its response. The goal 
of this development is the unified state of "pure simplicity" in 
which it is able to "lose itself in the Fathomless Love" and enter 
into the complete and beatific enjoyment, possession, or use of 
God-for all these meanings are included in the word ghebruken, 
usually translated "fruition," which is his favourite term for the 
consummation of the mystical life.17

In The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage this growth is divided 
into the three stages of the Active, Interior, and Superessential 
Life: called in The Sparkling Stone by the old names of the state 
of Servant, Friend, and Son. Man, we know, has a natural, active 
life; the only one that he usually recognises. This he may "adorn 
with the virtues" and make well-pleasing to God (Book I.). But 
beyond this he has a spiritual or "interior" life, which is 
susceptible of grace, the Divine energy and love; and by this can 
be remodelled in accordance with its true pattern or archetype, 
the Spirit of Christ (Book II.). Beyond this, again, he has a 
superessential or "God-seeing life," in virtue of the spark of 
Divine life implanted in him. By the union of his powers of reason 
will and feeling with this spark-a welding of the several elements 
of his being into unity-he may enter into his highest life; the 
dual and God-like existence of fruition in God and work for God, 
alternate action and rest (Book III.). The correspondences of the 
active life are with that moral order which we recognise as 
binding on all men of good will. Those of the interior life are 
with the experiences which we usually recognise as religious and 
spiritual. But the correspondences of the superessential life are 
with a plane of being which lies beyond thought, and has, so far 
as our intellectual perceptions go, no condition. It is a wayless 
state, "above reason, not without reason";18 dark with excess of 
light. This state is the Being of God; but for us it is "beyond 
being."

The First Book, then, is almost wholly concerned with the 
development of the Christian character: the only solid and 
enduring foundation of the mystical life. It treats of the virtues 
which adorn our human nature and make it ready for the coming of 
the Spirit of Christ; and of the primary importance of intention, 
the stretching out of the loving will toward God, "having Him in 
mind" in all things. "Mean only God," said the old English 
mystics. So for Ruysbroeck meyninghe en minnen-will and love-sum 
up the obligations of the soul at this stage of its growth, and 
prepare it for the greater experiences of the interior life. 
Though he never uses the traditional formula of the Mystic Way, we 
may regard this active life as more or less equivalent to the Way 
of Purgation. The same stage is treated in the 1st and 6th 
chapters of The Sparkling Stone and the 3rd chapter of The Book of 
Truth.

The Second Book goes on from moral training to spiritual training, 
and includes all that ascetic writers mean by the "Illuminative 
Way." It deals with those "ghostly exercises," the deliberate 
responses of the soul to the invitation of God, which form the 
first degrees of our interior life, and with the dawning of the 
true mystical consciousness. It falls into three chief divisions, 
treating of three ways in which the Spirit of God comes into our 
inner man (caps. 5, 6, and 7).

In the first division (caps. 8-32) Ruysbroeck treats of the action 
of grace on the "lower powers," or sense life. In the allegory of 
the Seasons, he describes the normal development of the 
illuminated life in its emotional aspect: its joys and ardours, 
reactions and despairs. The Holy Ghost "hunting the spirit of man" 
(cap. 3) has seized and transfigured those "desirous, affective 
and irascible" powers of the soul which, according to the doctrine 
of medieval psychology, make up natural life of normal men.19

In the second division (caps. 35-38) this process is extended to 
the "higher powers" of the soul: the memory or mind, the 
understanding, and the will. The experience of God is, for these 
higher powers, an experience of fresh enlightenment and fresh 
ardour; in Ruysbroeck's favourite imagery, of light and fire. 
Grace, which dwells like a living fountain at the heart of our 
personality-the "unity of the spirit"-thence pours forth into each 
faculty in three streams of radiance: claerheit, a word expressive 
at once of pervading brightness and limpid clearness, which occurs 
on almost every page of his writings. The sense of this supernal 
clarity, veritably experienced-a viva luce, a quickening light, of 
which we become aware when we open the soul's eyes-is found in 
nearly every mystical writer from the time of St John, and 
probably originates in that consciousness of enhanced lucidity 
which frequently accompanies spiritual exaltation. It was 
crystallised by the schoolmen in the doctrine of the lumen 
gloriae-the Divine light which transfigures the soul and makes it 
like to God20-and much of Ruysbroeck's work is really a poetic 
elaboration of this idea. As a "simple light" this Radiance now 
frees the mind from the teasing complexity of distracting images: 
as a "spreading light" it illuminates the understanding: as a 
burning flame, it enkindles the will. The self thus becomes 
capable of the first form of contemplation, adherence to God by 
means of the purified reason and will: responding to the "loving 
drawing-nigh" of God-dat minlike neyghen Gods-with an ardent 
outstretching of himself towards that seeking and compelling 
power.

The powers of the soul, then, in the second stage of illumination, 
become inundated by the divine claerheit. It "drenches them"; and 
the result of this is seen in the state of perfect charity to 
which the self now attains: the condition of equable outflowing 
love to God and all manner of men (caps. 39-43). In the third and 
highest stage (caps. 49-65), we pass beyond the enhancement and 
enlightenment of the separate powers of our nature to the 
"essential being" of the self: that unity of the spirit of which 
Ruysbroeck is always speaking, and wherefrom the powers proceed, 
as the Divine Persons proceed from the Unity of God.21 Whether our 
mental and emotional powers as such participate in the spiritual 
life, is for him a secondary consideration. They may do so, if 
they be wholly surrendered to God. But our true union with Him 
takes place in the abysmal deeps of our being-our "ground"-and 
ever abides there: for here our life, as it were, buds out from 
the Divine life, and here God dwells eternally "according to His 
essence." If we learn to enter within, passing beyond the powers 
to the unity of the spirit, we become conscious of this.22 There 
we experience His mysterious touch and stirrings; feel and respond 
to the thrust and invitation of His love, as He drives each 
created spirit forth to work His will, and draws it home again 
towards His heart. There, outside Time, the Eternal Birth takes 
place (caps. 57-61).

As a result of this practice in introversion, this simplification 
of consciousness, the self now first becomes capable of the second 
form of contemplation, described in The Twelve Beguines as

"A knowing which is in no wise;
For ever abiding above the reason."23

and enters upon that profound yet simple communion with God which 
Ruysbroeck calls the most inward of all exercises. For this his 
favourite image is that of feeding: the soul tastes God (cap. 65), 
eats, devours, assimilates Him, and in her turn is eaten and 
consumed24-language which probably reflects his great personal 
devotion to the Eucharist. With this mystical savouring and 
feeding upon Reality, the self reaches the term of the interior 
life, and the full stature of that "secret friend of God" 
described with such marvellous subtlety in the 8th chapter of The 
Sparkling Stone.

It is at this point that the dangers of a false mysticism make 
themselves felt. Here, then, Ruysbroeck enters upon a vigorous and 
acute criticism of Quietism (caps. 66-67): especially valuable to 
us at the present day, when so many irresponsible apostles of "new 
mysticism" are recommending voluntary passivity of this type as a 
substitute for the stern discipline and perpetual willed effort 
involved in the Christian science of prayer. Ruysbroeck describes 
the interior blankness and silence of the quietist as a psychic 
trick: a deliberate sinking down into the subconscious-the subsoil 
of human nature-where it is true that the Divine Life dwells and 
supports our created life, but where we are below instead of above 
the levels of normal consciousness. Here, indeed, the soul 
experiences a sensation of rest and peace: but it is merely 
resting in its own emptiness, a false repose which demands no 
exercise of virtue, no tension of the will, and is a caricature of 
the active and loving surrender taught by the Christian saints. 
The true emptiness and idleness of which Ruysbroeck speaks as an 
essential preparation of the contemplative state, is a condition 
of meek and passive attentiveness to God, which excludes 
consciousness of the ordinary objects of perception and thought; 
sweeps and garnishes the interior castle. Here the virtue is not 
in the emptiness and idleness, but in the humble and eager 
yielding of ourselves. Although man cannot by his own effort reach 
God, yet without such deliberate loving effort we shall never 
possess Him.25

Beyond even the highest point of this interior life, in which the 
contemplative feels himself to be living "in God,"26 is that 
transfigured or deified life, as the Platonic mystics named it, 
which Ruysbroeck calls overwesen-superessential-the life of the 
"God-seeing man" (Book III). Whereas in the interior life we may 
be said to re-discover the lost inheritance of our spirit, in this 
life there is a genuine transcendence, a passing beyond that 
spirit's created being: for the Being of God, in which this 
consummation is found, is "more than being" to us. It abides 
beyond all the concepts of reason, beyond anything that we can 
name or describe, outside Time, in the bosom of Divine Reality: 
that deep Quiet of the Godhead which cannot be moved. Those who 
ascend thereto have passed from the state of "secret friends" to 
that of the "hidden sons" of God, and completed the soul's journey 
to its home.27 Then they find themselves, so far as their separate 
consciousness persists, in a place that is placeless and a way 
that is wayless: in the abysmal Onwise of God, a word for which we 
have no exact equivalent, but which embodies one of Ruysbroeck's 
most important conceptions, and is the occasion of some of his 
most mysterious utterances. It represents that world of spiritual 
reality which is beyond all attributes and conditions; which is 
neither This nor That, which is "in no wise"-the Absolute wherein 
all ways and modes of being, all wise, are swallowed up, and all 
our finite perceptions die into ignorance and darkness (cap. 4).28

"The splendour of That which is in no wise is as a fair mirror
Wherein shines the everlasting light of God:
It has no attributes,
And in it all the activities of reason fail.
It is not God
But it is the light whereby we see Him:
Those who walk in the divine light thereof
Discover in themselves the Unwalled."29

Seen from the synthetic and spiritual point of view, this supernal 
world of experience is the Essential Unity, wherein the richness 
of Eternal Life consists, and where the surrendered soul enjoys 
the peaceful fruition of God. But seen from the analytic and 
intellectual point of view it is the Essential Nudity, the 
"nought" or "divine dark" of Dionysius the Areopagite: for it has 
been stripped of every character of which we can think.30 Here the 
mystic feels himself, as regards his essential being, to be poured 
out into God, melted and merged in Him as a river in the sea: and, 
as regards his own separate consciousness, apprehends Him in one 
simple act of absorbed attention "seeing and staring" with wide-
open eyes. It is in this one act, sometimes felt by us as a 
passing beyond ourselves, sometimes as a fixed ecstatic vision, 
"beholding that which we are, and becoming that which we behold" 
that the self at last knows itself to be one life and one spirit 
with God.31

The mystic has now entered into union with the three wise, the 
three modes or ways, under which Divine Love imparts itself in the 
spirit of man: characteristically distinguished by Ruysbroeck as 
three forms of movement. First this energetic love pours itself 
out from the Godhead into us as grace: and we, in receiving it and 
making it ours by our virtues and good works, are united to God 
"through means." This is the function of the active life 
harmonising man's work with God's work. Then, as a compelling 
tide, it draws us within its own flood back towards God. This is 
the union "without means"' wherein we are wholly surrendered to 
His love: it is the proper condition of the interior life. But 
when we have reached the superessential life, and seem to our own 
feeling to be lost in the Darkness, burned up in the Brightness, 
and sunk in the Eternal Stillness of God-that "dark silence where 
all lovers lose themselves,"32-then the circle is complete. We are 
made part of His divine fruition or "content the eternal 
satisfaction and eternal activity of Perfect Love; achieving thus 
the "union without distinction," though not union without 
"otherness."33 Henceforward we can participate in God's dual life 
of rest and work, transcendent fruition and immanent fruitfulness: 
abiding in restful possession of Him, yet perpetually sent down 
from the heights to serve the whole world.34

The final state of the Christian mystic, then, is not annihilation 
in the Absolute. It is a condition wherein we dwell wholly in God, 
one life and truth with Him; yet still "feel God and ourselves," 
as the lover feels his beloved, in a perfect union which depends 
for its joy on an invincible otherness. The soul, transfused and 
transfigured by the Divine Love as molten iron is by the fire, 
becomes, it is true, "one simple blessedness with God"35 yet ever 
retains its individuality: one with God beyond itself, yet other 
than God within itself.36 The "deified man" is fully human still, 
but spiritualised through and through; not by the destruction of 
his personality, but by the taking up of his manhood into God. 
There he finds, not a static beatitude, but a Height, a Depth, a 
Breadth of which he is made part, yet to which he can never 
attain: for the creature, even at its highest, remains finite, and 
is conscious that Infinity perpetually eludes its grasp and leads 
it on. So heaven itself is discovered to be no mere passive 
fulfillment, but rather a forward-moving life:37 an ever new 
loving and tasting, new exploring and enjoying of the Infinite 
Fulness of God, that inexhaustible Object of our knowledge and 
delight. It is the eternal voyage of the adventurous soul on the 
vast and stormy sea of the Divine.

EVELYN UNDERHILL

THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE HERE BEGINS

THE FIRST BOOK

PROLOGUE

Ecce sponsus venit,
    exile obviam ei.

BEHOLD, THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH, GO YE OUT TO MEET HIM. These words 
were written by St Matthew the Evangelist, and Christ spoke them 
to His disciples and to all other men in the parable of the 
virgins. This Bridegroom is Christ, and human nature is the bride; 
the which God has made in His own image and after His likeness. 
And in the beginning He had set her in the highest and most 
beautiful, the richest and most fertile place in all the earth: 
that is, in Paradise. And He had given her dominion over all 
creatures; and He had adorned her with graces; and had given her a 
commandment, so that by obedience she might have merited to be 
confirmed and established with her Bridegroom in an eternal troth, 
and never to fall into any grief, or any sin.

Then came a beguiler, the hellish fiend, full of envy, in the 
shape of a subtle serpent, and he beguiled the woman; and they 
both beguiled the man, in whom above all the whole of our nature 
consists. And the fiend seduced that nature, the bride of God, 
with false counsel; and she was driven into a strange country, 
poor and miserable and captive and oppressed, and beset by her 
enemies; so that it seemed as though she might never attain 
reconciliation and return again to her native land.

But when God thought the time had come, and had mercy on the 
suffering of His beloved, He sent His Only Begotten Son to earth, 
in a fair chamber, in a glorious temple; that is, in the body of 
the Virgin Mary. There He was married to this bride, our nature, 
and He united her with His own person through the most pure blood 
of this noble Virgin. The priest who married the bride was the 
Holy Ghost; the angel Gabriel brought the offer; the glorious 
Virgin gave her consent. Thus Christ, our faithful Bridegroom, 
united our nature with His person; and He has sought us in strange 
countries, and taught us heavenly customs and perfect 
faithfulness, and has laboured for us and fought as our champion 
against the adversary. And He has broken open our prison, and won 
the victory, and by His death slain our death; and He has redeemed 
us by His blood, and made us free through His living waters of 
baptism, and enriched us with His sacraments and with His gifts: 
that we might go out (as He says) with all the virtues, to meet 
Him in the house of glory and to enjoy Him without end in 
eternity.

Now Christ, the Master of Truth, says: BEHOLD THE BRIDEGROOM 
COMETH, GO YE OUT TO MEET HIM. In these words, Christ our Lover 
teaches us four things. First, He gives us a command, in that He 
says: BEHOLD. Those who neglect this command and remain blind are 
all damned. Secondly, He shows us what we shall see, that is, the 
coming of the Bridegroom; for He says, THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH. In 
the third place, He teaches and commands us what we shall do, for 
He says: GO YE OUT. And in the fourth place, by saying: TO MEET 
HIM, He shows us the use and the purpose of our labour and of all 
our life; that is to say, the loving meeting with our Bridegroom.

These words we shall now declare and set forth in three ways. 
First, according to the common way relating to the life of 
beginners, which is called the Active Life, and which is necessary 
for all men who wish to be saved. Secondly, we will explain these 
same words in their relation to the interior, exalted, and God-
desiring life, at which many men may arrive by their virtues and 
by the grace of God. Thirdly, we will expound them in respect of a 
superessential, God-seeing life, which few men can attain or 
taste, by reason of the sublimity and high nobility of that life.

CHAPTER I

OF THE ACTIVE LIFE

SINCE the time of Adam, Christ, the Wisdom of the Father, has said 
to all men, and He says so still, inwardly according to His 
Divinity: BEHOLD. And this beholding is needful. Now mark this 
well: that for anyone who wishes to see, either in a bodily or a 
ghostly manner, three things are necessary.

The first thing is that, if a man will see bodily and outwardly, 
he must have the outward light of heaven, or some other material 
light, to illuminate the medium, that is, the air, through which 
he will see. The second thing is, that he must permit the things 
which he wishes to see to be reflected in his eyes. And the third 
thing is that the organs, the eyes, must be sound and flawless, so 
that gross bodily things can be subtly reflected in them. If a man 
lack any of these three things his bodily sight is wanting. Of 
this sight, however, we shall say nothing more; but we shall speak 
of a ghostly and supernatural sight, in which all our bliss 
abides.

For all who wish to see in a ghostly and supernatural manner three 
things also are needful. The first is the light of Divine grace; 
the second is a free turning of the will to God, the third is a 
conscience clean from any mortal sin.

Now mark this: God being a common good, and His boundless love 
being common to all, He gives His grace in two ways: prevenient 
grace, and the grace by which one merits eternal life. Prevenient 
grace is common to all men, Pagan and Jew, good and evil. By 
reason of His common love, which God has towards all men, He has 
caused His name and the redemption of human nature to be preached 
and revealed to the uttermost parts of the earth. Whosoever wishes 
to turn to Him can turn to Him. All the sacraments, baptism and 
every other sacrament are made ready for all men who wish to 
receive them according to the needs of each; for God wishes to 
save all men and to lose not one. At the day of Judgment, no one 
shall be able to complain that, had he wished to be converted, but 
little was done for him. Thus God is a common light and a common 
splendour enlightening heaven and earth, and every man, each 
according to his need and worth.38

But although, even as God is common to all, the sun shines upon 
all trees, yet many a tree remains without fruits, and many a tree 
brings forth wild fruits of little use to men. And for this reason 
such trees are pruned, and shoots of fruitful trees are grafted 
into them, so that they may bear good fruits, savoury and useful 
to man.

The light of Divine grace is a fruit-bearing shoot, coming forth 
from the living paradise of the eternal kingdom; and no deed can 
bring refreshment or profit to man if it be not born of this 
shoot. This shoot of Divine grace, which makes man pleasing to 
God, and through which he merits eternal life, is offered to all 
men. But it is not grafted into all, because some will not cut 
away the wild branches of their trees; that is, unbelief, and a 
perverse and disobedient will opposed to the commandments of God.

But if this shoot of God's grace is to be grafted into our souls, 
there must be of necessity three things: the prevenient grace of 
God, the conversion of one's own free will, and the purification 
of conscience. The prevenient grace touches all men, God bestowing 
it upon all men. But not all men give on their part the conversion 
of the will and the purification of conscience; and that is why so 
many lack the grace of God, through which they should merit 
eternal life.

The prevenient grace of God touches a man from without and from 
within. From without through sickness; or through the loss of 
external goods, of kinsmen, and of friends; or through public 
disgrace. Or he may be stirred by a sermon, or by the examples of 
the saints or of good men, their words, or their deeds; so that he 
learns to recognize himself as he is. This is how God touches a 
man from without.

Sometimes a man is touched also from within, through remembering 
the sorrows and the sufferings of our Lord, and the good which God 
has bestowed upon him and upon all other men; or by considering 
his sins, the shortness of life, the fear of death and the fear of 
hell, the eternal torments of hell and the eternal joy of heaven, 
and how God has spared him in his sins and has awaited his 
conversion. Or he may ponder the marvellous works of God in heaven 
and in earth, and in all creatures. Such are the workings of the 
prevenient grace of God, stirring men from without and from 
within, in many ways. And besides this, man has a natural tendency 
towards God, because of the spark of the soul, and because of that 
highest reason, which always desires the good and hates the evil. 
In all these ways God touches all men, each one according to his 
need; so that at times a man is smitten, reproved, alarmed, and 
stands still within himself to consider himself. And all this is 
still prevenient grace, and not yet efficacious grace. Thus does 
prevenient grace prepare the soul for the reception of the other 
grace, through which eternal life is merited. For when the soul 
has thus got rid of evil willing and evil doing, it is perplexed 
and smitten with fear of what it should do, considering itself, 
its wicked works, and God. And from this there arise a natural 
repentance of its sins and a natural good-will. Such is the 
highest work of prevenient grace.

If a man does all he can, and cannot do more because of his 
feebleness, it rests with the infinite goodness of God to finish 
the work. Then, straight as a sunbeam, there comes a higher light 
of Divine grace, and it is shed into the soul according to its 
worth, though neither merited nor desired. For in this light God 
gives Himself out of free goodness and generosity, the which never 
creature can merit before it has received it. And this is an 
inward and mysterious working of God in the soul, above time; and 
it moves the soul and all its powers. Therewith ends prevenient 
grace and begins the other grace, that is to say, the supernatural 
light.

This light is the first point necessary, and from it there arises 
a second point, and that on the part of the soul; namely, the free 
conversion of the will, in a single moment of time. And here it is 
that charity is born of the union of God with the soul. These two 
points hang together, so that the one cannot be fulfilled without 
the other. Where God and the soul come together in the union of 
love, then God, above time, gives His light; and the soul, in a 
single moment of time, gives, by virtue of the grace received, its 
free conversion to Him. And there charity is born of God and of 
the soul in the soul, for charity is a bond of love, tying God to 
the loving soul.

Of these two things-that is to say, the grace of God and the free 
conversion of the will enlightened by grace-charity, that is, 
Divine love, is born. And from this Divine love the third point 
arises; that is, the purification of conscience. And these three 
points belong together in such a way that one cannot exist long 
without the others; for whosoever has Divine love has also perfect 
contrition for his sins.

Yet here we must take heed to the order of Divine and creaturely 
things as they are here shown. For God gives His light, and by 
this light man gives his willing and perfect conversion: and of 
these two is born a perfect love towards God. And from this love 
there come forth perfect contrition and purification of 
conscience. And these arise from the consideration of misdeeds and 
all that may defile the soul: for when a man loves God he despises 
himself and all his works. This is the order of every conversion. 
From it there come true repentance, a perfect sorrow for every 
evil thing which one has done, and an ardent desire never to sin 
again and evermore to serve God in humble obedience. Hence too an 
open confession, without reserve, ambiguity, or excuse; a perfect 
satisfaction according to the counsel of a prudent priest; and the 
beginning of virtue and of all good works.

These three things, as you have heard, are needful to a spiritual 
or godly sight. If you have them, Christ is saying within you: 
BEHOLD, and you are beholding in truth. And this is the first of 
the four chief points; namely, that in which Christ our Lord says: 
BEHOLD.

CHAPTER II

SHOWING HOW WE SHALL CONSIDER THE COMING OF CHRIST IN THREE WAYS

Now, by saying: THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH, He shows us further what we 
shall see. Christ, our Bridegroom, spoke this word in Latin: 
VENIT. And this word implies two tenses, the past and the present; 
and yet here it denotes the future too.

And that is why we shall consider three comings of our Bridegroom, 
Jesus Christ. In the first coming He became man, for man's sake, 
out of love. The second coming takes place daily, often and many 
times, in every loving heart, with new graces and with new gifts, 
as each is able to receive them. The third coming we shall see as 
the coming in the Judgment, or at the hour of death. And in all 
these comings there are three things to be considered: the why and 
the wherefore, the inward way, and the outward work.

The reason why God created the angels and man, was His 
unfathomable goodness and nobleness whereby He willed to do it; 
that the bliss and the richness which He is Himself might be 
revealed to rational creatures, so that they might taste Him in 
time, and enjoy Him outside time in eternity.

The reason why God became man was His incomprehensible love, and 
the need of all men; for man had been corrupted by the Fall, and 
could not amend himself.

But the reason why Christ, according to His Godhead and according 
to His manhood, wrought all His works on earth, this reason is 
fourfold: His Divine love which is without measure; the created 
love, called charity, which He had in His soul through union with 
the Eternal Word and through the perfect gift of His Father; the 
great need of man; and the glory of His Father. These are the 
reasons for the coming of Christ our Bridegroom, and for all His 
works, both outward and inward.

Now, if we would follow Christ our Bridegroom in virtue, so far as 
we are able, we must consider in what wise He was inwardly and the 
works which He wrought outwardly; that is to say, His virtues and 
the deeds of these virtues.

In what wise He was according to His Godhead, this is inaccessible 
and incomprehensible to us; for it is that according to which He 
is born of the Father without ceasing, and wherein the Father, in 
Him and through Him, knows, creates, orders and rules all things 
in heaven and on earth. For He is the Wisdom of the Father, and 
they breathe forth one Spirit, that is, one Love, which is a 
common bond between Them and all saints, and all good men in 
heaven and on earth. Of this condition we shall not speak any 
more; but we shall speak of that condition which He had through 
Divine gifts and according to His created manhood.39 And this 
condition was manifold. For as many inward virtues as Christ 
possessed, so many were His inward conditions: for every virtue 
has its special condition. The sum of the virtues and conditions 
in the soul of Christ, this is above the understanding and above 
the comprehension of all creatures. But we shall take three of 
them: namely, humility, charity, and patient suffering, in inward 
and outward things. These are the three chief roots and beginnings 
of all virtues and all perfection.

CHAPTER III

OF HUMILITY

NOW understand this: we find in Christ, according to His Godhead, 
two kinds of humility.

The first kind is this: that He willed to become man, and took 
upon Himself that very nature which had been banished and cursed 
to the bottom of hell, and willed to become one with it according 
to His personality; so that now any man, either good or evil, can 
say: Christ, the Son of God, is my brother.

The second kind of humility according to His Godhead consists in 
this; that He chose a poor maiden, and not a king's daughter, for 
His mother, so that a poor maiden should be the mother of God, who 
is Lord of heaven and earth and all creatures.

And further, we can say of all the works of humility which Christ 
ever wrought, that they were wrought by God Himself.

Now let us take the humility which was in Christ according to His 
manhood and through the grace and the gifts of God. In this 
humility His soul with all its powers bowed down in reverence and 
adoration before the most high might of the Father; for a bowed 
down heart is a humble heart. And therefore He wrought all His 
works for the praise and for the honour of His Father, and never 
and in nothing sought His own glory according to His humanity.

He was humble and subject to the old law, and to the commandments, 
and also to custom whenever such was right. And that is why He was 
circumcised, and taken into the temple, and redeemed in the 
customary way; and He paid His tribute money to Caesar like any 
other Jew. And He was humble and subject to His mother and to the 
lord Joseph; and that is why He served them with true reverence 
according to all their needs. He chose poor and outcast people for 
His comrades, to live with, and wherewith to convert the world: 
these were the Apostles. And He was lowly and meek among them and 
among all other men. And He was ever ready for all men in whatever 
inward or outward need they might be: as if he were the servant of 
all the world.

This is the first point which we find in Christ our Bridegroom.

CHAPTER IV

OF CHARITY

THE second point is charity, beginning and origin of all virtues. 
This charity upheld the higher powers of His soul in quietness, 
and in a fruition of that very bliss which He now enjoys. And this 
charity kept Him constantly uplifted to His Father in reverence, 
in love, in adoration, in praise; with fervent prayers for the 
needs of all men, and with an offering up of all His works to the 
glory of His Father.

It was also this same charity that made Christ stoop with loving 
faithfulness and kindness to the bodily and ghostly needs of all 
men. And in this He gave an example to all men, teaching them by 
His life how to live. He fed in ghostly wise with true and inward 
teachings all those men who could understand them: and others from 
without through the senses with signs and wonders. And sometimes 
He fed them also with bodily food, as when they had followed Him 
into the desert and were in need of it. He made the deaf hear and 
the lame walk straight, and the blind see, and the dumb speak, and 
cast forth devils from men. He raised up the dead; and this should 
be understood both in a bodily and a ghostly way. Christ, our 
Lover, has laboured for us from without and from within, with true 
faithfulness. His charity we cannot fathom and understand, for it 
flows out of the unfathomable fountain of the Holy Ghost, and 
transcends all that creatures have ever experienced of charity; 
for Christ was God and man in one Person.

And this is the second point: that is to say, charity.

CHAPTER V

OF PATIENT ENDURANCE

THE third point is patient endurance. We should mark this point 
carefully, for it adorned Christ our Bridegroom during all His 
life. For His sufferings began very early, as soon as He was born; 
they began with poverty and cold. Then He was circumcised and shed 
His blood; He was driven to a strange country; He served the lord 
Joseph and His mother; He suffered hunger and thirst, shame and 
contempt, the vile words and works of the Jews. He fasted, He 
watched, and He was tempted by the devil. He was subject to all 
men; He wandered from country to country, from town to town, with 
much labour and great zeal, that He might preach the Gospel.

At last He was taken prisoner by the Jews, who were His enemies, 
though He was their friend. He was betrayed, mocked and insulted, 
scourged and buffetted, and condemned by false witness. He bore 
His cross with great pains up to the highest point of the land. He 
was stripped stark naked. So fair a body neither man nor woman 
ever saw so cruelly ill-used. He suffered shame, and anguish, and 
cold, before all the world: for He was naked, and it was cold, and 
a searching wind cut into His wounds. He was nailed to the wood of 
the cross with blunt nails, and so stretched out that His veins 
were torn asunder. He was lifted up and then flung down, and 
because of the blow His wounds began to bleed again. His head was 
crowned with thorns; His ears heard the Jews cry in their fury: 
CRUCIFY HIM, CRUCIFY HIM, with many other infamous words. His eyes 
saw the hardness and malice of the Jews, and the anguish of His 
mother. And His eyes overflowed with the bitterness of sorrow and 
death; His nose smelt the filth which the Jews spat out of their 
mouths into His face; His mouth and tongue dripped with vinegar 
mingled with gall, and every sensitive part of His body had been 
wounded by the scourge.

Christ our Bridegroom, wounded to the death, forsaken of God and 
of all creatures, dying on the cross, hanging like a log for which 
no one cared, save Mary, His poor mother, who could not help Him!

Christ also suffered spiritually, in His soul, because of the 
hardened hearts of the Jews and of those who were putting Him to 
death; for whatever signs and wonders they saw, they remained in 
their wickedness. And He suffered because of their corruption and 
because of the vengeance for His death; for He knew that God would 
avenge it on them, body and soul. Also He suffered from the 
distress and anguish of His mother and His disciples, who were in 
great affliction. And He suffered still more, because His death 
would be of no profit to so many men, and because of the 
ingratitude of man and because of the false oaths which many would 
swear, reviling and blaspheming Him Who had died out of love for 
us all. And also His bodily nature and His lower reason suffered, 
because God had withdrawn the inflow of His grace and of His 
consolations, and had left them alone in such distress. And of 
this Christ complained, exclaiming: MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU 
FORSAKEN ME? But as to all His sufferings our Lover was silent; 
and cried to His Father saying: FATHER, FORGIVE THEM; FOR THEY 
KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO. And Christ was heard of His Father because 
of His reverence; for those who acted from ignorance were soon 
afterwards converted.

These then were Christ's inward virtues: humility, charity, and 
patient endurance. These three virtues Christ our Bridegroom 
practised during all His life, and He died with them, and paid our 
debt according to justice. And of His generosity He has opened His 
side. Thence flow forth the rivers of well-being and the 
sacraments of bliss. And He has ascended in power, and sits at the 
right hand of the Father, and reigns in eternity.

This is the first coming of our Bridegroom, and it is wholly past.

CHAPTER VI

OF THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST

THE second coming of Christ our Bridegroom takes place every day 
within good men; often and many times, with new graces and gifts, 
in all those who make themselves ready for it, each according to 
his power. We would not speak here of a man's first conversion, 
nor of the first grace which was given to him when he turned from 
sin to the virtues. But we would speak of an increase of new gifts 
and new virtues from day to day, and of the present coming of 
Christ our Bridegroom which takes place daily within our souls.

Now we must consider the why and the wherefore, the way and the 
working of this coming. Its wherefore is fourfold: God's mercy and 
our destitution, God's generosity and our desire. These four 
things cause the growth of virtue and of nobleness.

Now understand this: when the sun sends its beams and its radiance 
into a deep valley between two high mountains, and, standing in 
the zenith, can yet shine upon the bottom and ground of the 
valley, then three things happen: the valley becomes full of light 
by reflection from the mountains, and it receives more heat, and 
becomes more fruitful, than the plain and level country. And so 
likewise, when a good man takes his stand upon his own littleness, 
in the most lowly part of himself, and confesses and knows that he 
has nothing, and is nothing, and can nothing, of himself, neither 
stand still nor go on, and when he sees how often he fails in 
virtues and good works: then he confesses his poverty and his 
helplessness, then he makes a valley of humility. And when he is 
thus humble, and needy, and knows his own need; he lays his 
distress, and complains of it, before the bounty and the mercy of 
God. And so he marks the sublimity of God and his own lowliness; 
and thus he becomes a deep valley. And Christ is a Sun of 
righteousness and also of mercy, Who stands in the highest part of 
the firmament, that is, on the right hand of the Father, and from 
thence He shines into the bottom of the humble heart; for Christ 
is always moved by helplessness, whenever a man complains of it 
and lays it before Him with humility. Then there arise two 
mountains, that is, two desires; one to serve God and praise Him 
with reverence, the other to attain noble virtues. Those two 
mountains are higher than the heavens, for these longings touch 
God without intermediary, and crave His ungrudging generosity. And 
then that generosity cannot withhold itself, it must flow forth; 
for then the soul is made ready to receive, and to hold, more 
gifts.

These are the wherefore, and the way of the new coming with new 
virtues. Then, this valley, the humble heart, receives three 
things: it becomes more radiant and enlightened by grace, it 
becomes more ardent in charity, and it becomes more fruitful in 
perfect virtues and in good works. And thus you have the why, the 
way, and the work of this coming.

CHAPTER VII

OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENTS

THERE is still another coming of Christ our Bridegroom, taking 
place every day, with growth of grace and renewal of gifts. That 
is, when a man receives some sacrament with a humble heart void of 
anything contrary thereto. In this way he receives new gifts and 
more ample grace, because of his humility and through the 
mysterious working of Christ in the sacraments. Those things which 
are contrary to the sacraments are unbelief in Baptism, a lack of 
repentance in Confession, and approaching the Sacrament of the 
Altar in the state of mortal sin or with an evil intention; and so 
on as regards the other sacraments. Those who act thus receive no 
new grace; rather does their sinfulness increase.

This is the other coming of Christ our Bridegroom, which is 
present with us every day. We should consider it with a desiring 
heart, lest it should not take place within us; for it is needful, 
if we are to remain steadfast and to go forward in eternal life.

CHAPTER VIII

OF THE THIRD COMING OF CHRIST

THE third coming, which is yet to be, will take place at the 
Judgment, or in the hour of death. The wherefore of this coming is 
the fitting time, the due cause, and the righteousness of the 
Judge.

The time which is fitting for this coming is the hour of death, 
and the Last Judgment of all men. When God created the soul out of 
nothing and united it with the body, He set a fixed day and a 
fixed hour known only of Him, when it should have to give up 
temporal things and to appear in His presence.

The due cause: for the soul must then account for every word 
spoken and for every deed done, before the Eternal Truth.

The righteousness of the Judge, for it is to Christ that this 
Judgment and this Verdict belong; for He is the Son of Man and the 
Wisdom of the Father, and to this Wisdom all judgment is given, 
since all hearts, in heaven, and on earth, and in hell, are clear 
and open to It. And therefore these three points are the occasions 
of the general coming in the Day of Doom, and of the particular 
coming to each man in the hour of his death.

CHAPTER IX

SHOWING WHAT CHRIST WILL DO IN THE DAY OF DOOM

IN this Judgment Christ, our Bridegroom and our Judge, will reward 
and punish, according to justice; for He will give every man that 
which he has earned. He will give to the good, for every good work 
done in God, a wage without measure, that is to say, God's very 
Self, Whom no creature of itself can earn. But when God works 
these works with and through the creature, then by His power the 
creature gains His very Self as wage. And with due justice He will 
give eternal woe and eternal sorrow to the damned; for these 
despised and rejected the Eternal Good for a good that cannot 
endure. And of their own free will they have turned away from God, 
and have set themselves against His glory and His will, and have 
sought after creatures; and so shall they be justly condemned.

Those who bear witness at the Judgment are the angels and the 
conscience of men. And the adversary is the hellish fiend; and the 
Judge is Christ, Whom none can deceive.

CHAPTER X

OF THE FIVE KINDS OF MEN WHO SHALL APPEAR AT THE JUDGMENT

FIVE kinds of men shall appear before this Judge.

The first, and the worst, are those Christians who have died in 
mortal sin, without repentance and without regret; for these have 
despised the death of Christ and His sacraments, or else they have 
received them unworthily and in vain. And they have not practised 
the works of mercy, showing charity toward their neighbours, as 
God has commanded. And for this they are doomed to the depths of 
hell.

The second kind are the unbelievers, Pagans and Jews. These must 
all appear before Christ, though they were damned already during 
their lives; for, in their time, they possessed neither Divine 
grace nor Divine love, and for this reason they have always dwelt 
in the eternal death of damnation. But these shall have less pain 
than the evil Christians; for, since they received fewer gifts of 
God, they owed Him less loyalty.

The third kind are those good Christians who, from time to time, 
fell into sin, and rose again through contrition and penance; but 
who have not made full satisfaction for their sins according to 
justice. These belong to purgatory.

The fourth kind consists of those men who have kept God's 
commandments; or, when they broke them, they have returned to God 
with contrition and with penance, and with works of charity and 
mercy and so have made satisfaction; so that their souls coming 
forth from their mouths go straight to heaven, without passing 
through purgatory.

The fifth kind are all those who, above all outward works of 
charity, have their sojourn in heaven, and are noughted and lost 
in God, and God in them, so that there is no other thing between 
God and them but time and their mortal nature. When these men are 
made free from their bodies, they enjoy, in that very moment, 
eternal bliss; and they are not judged, but shall themselves judge 
other men, with Christ, in the Day of Doom. And then all mortal 
life, and all temporal sorrows, both on earth and in purgatory, 
shall end, and all the souls of the damned, together with the 
Fiend and his companions, shall sink and disappear in the deeps of 
hell, in a corruption and everlasting horror without end. And in 
the twinkling of an eye the blessed shall be with Christ their 
Bridegroom in eternal glory; and they shall see and taste and 
enjoy the fathomless riches of the Being of God, eternally and for 
ever.

This is the third coming, which all of us await, and which is 
still to happen. The first coming, when God became man and lived 
in humility among us, and died for the love of us, this coming we 
should imitate, outwardly by fulfilling the perfect moral virtues, 
inwardly by the practice of charity and true humility. In the 
second coming, which happens in the present time, He comes with 
grace within each loving heart; and this coming we should long for 
and pray for every day, that we may remain steadfast and grow in 
new virtues. The third coming, at the Judgment, or in the hour of 
death, we should expect with longing, with trust, and with awe; 
that we may be set free from this misery and enter into the house 
of glory.

This coming in its three ways is the second point of the four 
chief points, wherein Christ says: Sponsus venit, THE BRIDEGROOM 
COMETH.

CHAPTER XI

OF A SPIRITUAL GOING OUT WITH ALL VIRTUES

NOW understand and mark this: Christ says, at the beginning of 
this precept, BEHOLD; and this is done through charity and a pure 
conscience, as you have heard before. Then He has shown us what we 
shall see, that is, the threefold coming.

Now He commands us what we shall do next, and says: GO YE OUT. If 
you possess the first point, that is, if you are able to see, 
through grace and through charity; and if, further, you have gazed 
well upon your pattern Christ and His going out; then, there 
arises within you, out of charity, and out of the loving 
observation of your Bridegroom, a righteousness,40 namely, that 
thereafter you long to follow Him in the virtues. Then Christ is 
saying within you: GO YE OUT. This going out must be done in three 
ways: we must go out towards God, towards ourselves, and towards 
our neighbours, and this we must do by means of charity and 
righteousness. For charity ever strives towards the height, 
towards the kingdom of God, which is God Himself; for He is the 
source from which unmediated charity flows forth, and wherein it 
abides in the Unity. And righteousness, which is born of charity, 
wills the perfection of all the moral and all the other virtues 
which are honourable and proper to the kingdom of God, that is the 
soul.

Charity and Righteousness: these two lay the foundation of the 
kingdom of the soul where God would dwell. And this foundation is 
humility.

These three virtues prop and bear the whole weight and the whole 
edifice of all the other virtues and of all transcendence. For 
charity always confronts man with the unfathomable goodness of 
God, from which it has flowed forth, that thereby he may live 
worthily and remain steadfast before God, and grow in true 
humility and all other virtues. And righteousness places man face 
to face with the eternal truth of God, that he may know truth, and 
become enlightened, and may fulfil all virtue without erring. But 
humility brings man face to face with the most high mightiness of 
God, that he may always remain little and lowly, and may surrender 
himself to God, and may not stand upon his selfhood. This is the 
way in which a man should hold himself before God, that thereby he 
may grow continually in new virtues.

CHAPTER XII

HOW HUMILITY IS THE FOUNDATION OF ALL OTHER VIRTUES

NOW consider this: as we have laid down humility as a foundation, 
so therefore we shall speak of humility first.

Humility, that is lowliness or self-abasement, is an inward bowing 
down or prostrating of the heart and of the conscience before 
God's transcendent worth. Righteousness demands and orders this, 
and through charity a loving heart cannot leave it undone. When a 
lowly and loving man considers that God has served him so humbly, 
so lovingly, and so faithfully; and sees God so high, and so 
mighty, and so noble, and man so poor, and so little, and so low: 
then there springs up within the humble heart a great awe and a 
great veneration for God. For to pay homage to God by every 
outward and inward act, this is the first and dearest work of 
humility, the most savoury among those of charity, and most meet 
among those of righteousness. The loving and humble heart cannot 
pay homage enough, either to God or to His noble manhood, nor can 
it abase itself as much as it would. And that is why a humble man 
thinks that his worship of God and his lowly service are always 
falling short. And he is meek, reverencing Holy Church and the 
sacraments. And he is discreet in food and drink, in speech, in 
the answers which he makes to everybody; and in his behaviour, 
dress, and lowly service he is without hypocrisy and without 
pretence. And he is humble in his devotions, both outwardly and 
inwardly, before God and before all men, so that none are offended 
because of him. And so he overcomes and casts out Pride, which is 
the source and origin of all other sins. By humility the snares of 
the devil, and of sin, and of the world, are broken, and man is 
set in order, and established in the very condition of virtue. And 
heaven is opened to him, and God stoops to hear his prayers, and 
he is fulfilled with grace. And Christ, that strong rock, is his 
foundation. Whosoever therefore grounds his virtues in humility, 
he shall never err.

CHAPTER XIII

OF OBEDIENCE

FROM this humility there springs obedience, for none can be 
inwardly obedient save the humble man.

Obedience means an unassuming, submissive, and pliable humour, and 
a will in readiness for all that is good. Obedience makes a man 
submit to the biddings, the forbiddings, and the will of God; it 
subjects the senses and the animal powers to the higher reason, so 
that a man may live decently and reasonably. And it makes men 
submissive and obedient to Holy Church, to the sacraments, to the 
prelates and their teaching, to their commandments and their 
counsels, and to all the good customs practised by Holy 
Christendom. It also makes a man ready and supple in his 
intercourse with other men, in deed and counsel, in ghostly and 
bodily business, with prudent discretion, according to the needs 
of each.

And it casts out disobedience, that daughter of pride, more to be 
abhorred than venom or poison. To be obedient in will and deed 
adorns and enlarges and reveals the humility of a man. It makes 
peace in the cloister. If it is in the prelate, as it ought to be, 
it will draw to him all those whom he rules. It makes for peace 
and unanimity between equals; and he who has it is loved by his 
superiors and by those who are set over him; whilst by God he is 
advanced, and enriched with His gifts, which are eternal.

CHAPTER XIV

OF THE RENUNCIATION OF SELF WILL

FROM this obedience there springs the renunciation of one's own 
will and one's own opinion, for none can submit his own will in 
all things to the will of another, save the obedient man: though 
one may obey in outward things and yet remain self-willed.

The forsaking of one's own will causes a man to live without 
preference for either this or that, in doing or leaving undone, in 
those things which are strange and special in the saints, in their 
precepts and in their practice; but it makes him to live always 
according to the glory and the commandments of God, and the will 
of his prelates, and in peace with all men in his neighbourhood, 
so far as true prudence permits.

By renouncing self-will in doing, in leaving undone, and in 
suffering, the material and occasion of pride are wholly cast out, 
and humility is made perfect in the highest degree. And God 
becomes the Lord of the man's whole will; and the man's will is so 
united with the will of God that he can neither will nor desire in 
any other way. This man has put off the old man, and has put on 
the new man, who is renewed and made according to the dearest will 
of God. Of all such Christ says: BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT-
that is to say, those who have renounced self-will-FOR THEIRS IS 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.41

CHAPTER XV

OF PATIENCE

FROM the renunciation of self-will springs patience; for none can 
be perfectly patient in all things save the man who has subjected 
his own will to the will of God, and also in all profitable and 
seemly things, to the will of all other men.

Patience is a peaceful endurance of all things that may befall a 
man either from God or from the creatures. Nothing can trouble the 
patient man; neither the loss of earthly goods, of friends and 
kinsmen, nor sickness, nor disgrace, nor life, nor death, nor 
purgatory, nor devil, nor hell. For he has abandoned himself in 
perfect charity to the will of God, and as he is not burdened by 
mortal sin, everything that God imposes on him, in time and in 
eternity, is light to him. By this patience a man is also adorned 
and armed against peevishness and sudden wrath, and impatience in 
suffering; which often stir a man from within and from without, 
and lay him open to many temptations.

CHAPTER XVI

OF MEEKNESS

FROM this patience there spring meekness and kindliness, for none 
can be meek in adversity save the patient man.

Meekness gives a man peace and rest in all things. For the meek 
man can bear provoking words and ways, uncivil looks and deeds, 
and every kind of injustice towards himself and his friends, and 
yet in all things remain in peace, for meekness is peaceful 
endurance.

By meekness the irascible or repulsive power remains unmoved, in 
quietude; the desirous power is uplifted toward virtue; the 
rational power, perceiving this, rejoices. And the conscience, 
tasting it, rests in peace; for the second mortal sin, Anger, 
fury, or wrath, has been cast out. For the Spirit of God dwells in 
the humble and the meek; and Christ says: BLESSED ARE THE MEEK, 
FOR THEY SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH, that is, their own nature and 
all earthly things, in meekness; and after that the Country of 
Life in Eternity.

CHAPTER XVII

OF KINDLINESS

OUT of the same source wherein meekness takes its rise springs 
kindliness, for none can be kind save the meek man.

This kindness makes a man show a friendly face, and give a cordial 
response, and do compassionate deeds, to those who are 
quarrelsome, when he hopes that they will come to know themselves 
and mend their ways.

By gentleness and kindness, charity is kept quick and fruitful in 
man, for a heart full of kindness is like a lamp full of precious 
oil; for the oil of mercy enlightens the erring sinner with good 
example, and with words and works of comfort it anoints and heals 
those whose hearts are wounded or grieved or perplexed. And it is 
a fire and a light for those who dwell in the virtues, in the fire 
of charity; and neither jealousy nor envy can perturb it.

CHAPTER XVIII

OF COMPASSION

OUT of kindliness springs compassion, which is a fellow-feeling 
with all men; for none can share the griefs of all, save him who 
is kind.

Compassion is an inward movement of the heart, stirred by pity for 
the bodily and ghostly griefs of all men. This compassion makes a 
man suffer with Christ in His passion; for he who is compassionate 
marks the wherefore of His pains and the way of His resignation; 
of His love, His wounds, His tenderness; of His grief and His 
nobleness; of the disgrace, the misery, and the shame He endured; 
of the way in which He was despised; of His crown; of the nails; 
of His mercifulness; of His destruction and dying in patience. 
These manifold and unheard-of sorrows of Christ, our Saviour and 
our Bridegroom, move all kindly men to pity and compassion with 
Christ.

Compassion makes a man look into himself, and recognize his 
faults, his feebleness in virtues and in the worship of God, his 
lukewarmness, his laziness, his many failings, the time he has 
wasted and his present imperfection in moral and other virtues; 
all this makes a man feel true pity and compassion for himself. 
Further, compassion marks the errors and disorders of our fellow-
creatures, how little they care for their God and their eternal 
blessedness, their ingratitude for all the good things which God 
has done for them, and the pains He suffered for their sake; how 
they are strangers to virtue, unskilled and unpractised in it, but 
skilful and cunning in every wickedness; how attentive they are to 
the loss and gain of earthly goods, how careless and reckless they 
are of God, of eternal things, and their eternal bliss. When he 
marks this, a good man is moved to compassion for the salvation of 
all men.

Such a man will also regard with pity the bodily needs of his 
neighbours, and the manifold sufferings of human nature; seeing 
men hungry, thirsty, cold, naked, sick, poor, and abject; the 
manifold oppressions of the poor, the grief caused by loss of 
kinsmen, friends, goods, honour, peace; all the countless sorrows 
which befall the nature of man. These things move the just to 
compassion, so that they share the sorrows of all. But their 
greatest pain springs from this: that men are so impatient of this 
suffering, that they lose their reward, and may often earn hell 
for themselves. Such is the work of compassion and of pity.

This work of compassion and of common neighbourly love overcomes 
and casts out the third mortal sin, that is hatred or Envy. For 
compassion is a wound in the heart, whence flows a common love to 
all mankind and which cannot be healed so long as any suffering 
lives in man; for God has ordained grief and sorrow of heart 
before all the virtues. And this is why Christ says: BLESSED ARE 
THEY THAT MOURN: FOR THEY SHALL BE COMFORTED. And that shall come 
to pass when they reap in joy that which now, through compassion 
and pity, they sow in tears.

CHAPTER XIX

OF GENEROSITY

FROM this compassion springs generosity; for none can be generous 
in a supernatural way, with faithfulness and goodwill towards all, 
save him who has a pitiful heart-though a man may often show 
generosity to a particular person without charity and without 
supernatural generosity.

Generosity is a liberal flowing forth of the heart which has been 
touched by charity and pity. When a man considers with compassion 
the sufferings and the sorrows of Christ, therefrom springs 
generosity; which makes him offer to Christ, for His pains and for 
His love, praise and thanks, worship and adoration, with a joyful 
and humble surrender of body and soul, in time and in eternity. If 
a man considers himself with compassion, and has pity on himself, 
and thinks upon the good which God has done to him, and his own 
failings: then he must pour himself forth into the generosity of 
God, taking refuge in His faithfulness and His mercy, turning to 
Him with trust and with a perfect and free intention to serve Him 
for evermore. And the generous man who sees the errors and 
disorders of others, and their unrighteousness, beseeches and 
prays God, with ardent faith, that He will let His Divine gifts 
flow forth, that He will show His generosity to all men, and they 
may know Him and turn to the Truth. The generous man also marks 
with compassion the bodily needs of all men, and he serves, and he 
gives, and he lends, and he consoles everyone, according to the 
needs of each, in so far as he is able, with prudent discretion.

Because of this generosity men are wont to practise the seven 
works of mercy; the rich do them by their alms and because of 
their riches, the poor by their good-will and by their hearty 
desire to do as the rich if they could. And thus the virtue of 
generosity is made perfect.

By generosity of heart all other virtues are increased, and all 
the powers of the soul are adorned; for the generous man is always 
blithe in spirit and untroubled of heart, and he flows forth with 
desire and in his works of virtue, to all men in common. Whosoever 
is generous, and loves not earthly goods how poor soever he be, he 
is like God: for all that he has in himself, and all that he 
feels, flow forth and are given away. And in this way he has cast 
out the fourth mortal sin, which is covetousness or Avarice. Of 
all such Christ says: BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL, FOR THEY SHALL 
OBTAIN MERCY in that day when they shall hear these words: COME, 
YE BLESSED OF MY FATHER, INHERIT THE KINGDOM PREPARED FOR YOU-
because of your mercy,-FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.

CHAPTER XX

OF ZEAL AND DILIGENCE

OUT of this generosity there spring a supernatural zeal and 
diligence in all virtues and all that is seemly. And none can feel 
this zeal save him who overflows with generosity. It is an inward 
restless striving after every virtue, after the likeness of Christ 
and of all His saints. In this zeal a man longs to devote his 
heart and his senses, his soul and his body, and all that he is, 
and all that he has and all toward which he aspires, to the glory 
and praise of God.

This zeal makes a man grow in reason and prudence, and practise 
the virtues, both of soul and of body, in righteousness. Through 
this supernatural zeal all the powers of the soul are laid open to 
God, and are made ready for all virtues. And the conscience 
rejoices, and the grace of God is increased; the virtues are 
practised with joy and gladness, and the outward works are 
adorned.

Whosoever has received this living zeal from God has cast out the 
fifth mortal sin, which is indolence of the mind or Sloth, as 
regards the virtues which it is needful that we should practise. 
And sometimes, this living zeal also casts out the sloth and 
indolence of the natural body. Of all such Christ says: BLESSED 
ARE THEY WHICH DO HUNGER AND THIRST AFTER RIGHTEOUSNESS: FOR THEY 
SHALL BE FILLED, and this shall come to pass when the glory of God 
shall be manifest to them, and shall fill them, each according to 
his love and righteousness.

CHAPTER XXI

OF TEMPERANCE AND SOBRIETY

FROM this zeal there spring temperance and sobriety, both inward 
and outward; for none can possess the right measure of sobriety 
save him who is greatly zealous and diligent to keep his soul and 
body in righteousness. Sobriety divides the higher powers from the 
animal powers; it saves a man from intemperance and from excess. 
Sobriety wishes neither to taste, nor to know, those things which 
are forbidden.

The incomprehensible and most high Nature of God transcends all 
creatures in heaven and on earth. For all that a creature can 
comprehend is of the creature; but God is above all creatures and 
within and without all creatures, and every created comprehension 
is too narrow to comprehend Him. But if a creature is to 
comprehend and to understand God, it must be caught up beyond 
itself into God, and comprehend God with God. Whosoever then would 
know and understand what God is-which is not permitted-he would go 
mad. Behold, all created light is powerless to know what God is. 
What God is in Himself, transcends all creatures, but that God 
exists, is testified by nature, and by Holy Writ, and by every 
creature. We should believe the articles of faith, and not desire 
to understand them, for this is impossible as long as we are here 
below: such is sobriety. The mysterious and subtle teachings of 
Holy Writ, inspired by the Holy Ghost, should not be explained and 
understood in any other way than in their bearing upon the lives 
of Christ and His saints. Man should consider nature, and the 
Scriptures, and all creatures, and take from these that which 
profits him and nothing more. Such is sobriety of spirit.

A man should keep his senses in sobriety and should restrain the 
animal powers by means of the reason; so that the lusts of the 
flesh do not enter too far into the savouring of food and of 
drink; but he should eat and drink as the sick take their physic, 
because it is needful to support his strength, that he may serve 
God therewith. This is sobriety of body. He should also observe 
method and moderation in doing and in leaving undone, in words and 
in works, in silence and in speaking, in food and in drink, 
according to the custom of Holy Church, and after the example of 
the saints.

By inward and ghostly temperance and sobriety a man preserves 
firmness and constancy of faith, purity of intelligence, that 
tranquillity of reason necessary to the comprehension of truth, an 
impulse towards all virtues according to the will of God, peace of 
heart, and serenity of conscience. And herewith he possesses an 
enduring peace, in God and in himself.

And by temperance and sobriety of the outward bodily senses, a man 
often preserves the health and the soundness of his natural body, 
the dignity of his outward life, and a good reputation. And thus 
he lives in peace with himself and with his neighbours; for by his 
temperance and sobriety he draws to himself and pleases all men of 
good-will. And thus he casts out the sixth mortal sin, which is 
intemperance, greed or Gluttony. Of all such Christ says: BLESSED 
ARE THE PEACEMAKERS: FOR THEY SHALL BE CALLED THE CHILDREN OF GOD; 
for they are like unto the Son, Who has made peace in every 
creature who desired peace. And whosoever makes peace in himself 
through his temperance and sobriety shall partake with Him of the 
inheritance of His Father; and shall possess it with Him in 
eternity.

CHAPTER XXII

OF PURITY

FROM this temperance there springs purity both of soul and of 
body, for none can be perfectly pure in body and in soul save him 
who is temperate in body and in soul.

Purity of spirit is this: that a man should not cleave to any 
creature with desirous affection, but to God alone; for we should 
use all creatures, but enjoy only God. Purity of spirit makes a 
man cleave to God, above all understanding, and above all 
feelings, and above all the gifts which God may pour into his 
soul: for all that a creature receives in his understanding and in 
his feeling, purity will pass by, to rest in God. Go therefore to 
the Sacrament of the Altar, not for the sake of refreshment, nor 
because of desire, nor for pleasure, nor for peace, nor for 
satisfaction, nor for sweetness, nor for anything else than the 
glory of God and your own growth in all virtues. This is purity of 
spirit.

Purity of heart is this: that a man, in every bodily temptation or 
natural inclination, of his own free will, and with an ever-
renewed confidence and without hesitation, turns to God; with an 
ever-renewed faithfulness and with a firm will ever to remain with 
Him. For consenting to those sins or satisfactions, which the 
bodily nature seeks like a beast, is a departure from God.

Purity of body is this: that a man withdraws from, and bewares of, 
all unchaste deeds, in whatsoever manner they be, which his 
conscience teaches and declares to be unchaste, and contrary to 
the commandments, the honour, and the will of God.

By these three kinds of purity the seventh mortal sin is overcome 
and cast out; that is, Unchastity. And this is a consenting and 
turning of the spirit from God to some creaturely thing; it is the 
unchaste work of the body contrary to the dispensation of Holy 
Church; it is a sensual dwelling of the heart upon the taste or 
enjoyment of some creature, whatsoever it be. But thereby I do not 
mean those sudden movements of appetite and desire, which no one 
can prevent.

Now you should know that purity of spirit keeps a man in the 
likeness of God, untroubled by any creature and inclined towards 
God, and united with Him.

Purity of body is likened to the whiteness of lilies and to the 
cleanness of the angels. In withstanding, it is likened to the 
redness of roses and to the nobleness of martyrs. If it is kept 
for the love and the glory of God, it is perfect. And so it is 
likened to the sunflower, for it is one of the highest ornaments 
of nature.

Purity of heart works a renewal and increase of the grace of God. 
By purity of heart all the virtues are prompted, practised and 
preserved. It guards and keeps the senses from without; it quells 
and restrains the animal lusts from within; it is an adornment of 
all inwardness. And it is the door of the heart; barred against 
all earthly things and all deceit, but opened to all heavenly 
things and to all truth. And of all such Christ says: BLESSED ARE 
THE PURE IN HEART: FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD; and in this vision 
consist our eternal joy, our reward and our entrance into bliss. 
Therefore men should be sober and temperate in all things, and 
beware of all intercourse and occasion whereby purity, whether of 
soul or of body, may be defiled.

CHAPTER XXIII

OF THREE ENEMIES TO BE OVERCOME BY RIGHTEOUSNESS

NOW, if we wish to possess these virtues, and to cast out their 
opposites, we must possess righteousness, and we must practise and 
preserve it in purity of heart unto death; for we have three 
powerful adversaries, who tempt us and make war on us at all 
times, in all places, and in many ways. If we make peace with one 
of these three, and become subject to him, we are vanquished; for 
the three of them agree together in all iniquity.

These three adversaries are the devil, the world and our own 
flesh; and this last is the nearest to us and often the worst and 
most harmful of all three to us; for our fleshly lusts are the 
weapons with which our enemies make war on us. Idleness and 
indifference to virtue and the glory of God, these are the causes 
and the occasions of the struggle. But the weakness of our nature, 
our carelessness and ignorance of truth, these are the swords with 
which our enemies often wound, and sometimes conquer us.

And for this reason we should build up a wall and make a 
separation within ourselves. And the lower part of ourselves, 
which is beastly and contrary to the virtues, and which wills our 
separation from God, we should hate and persecute, and we should 
torment it by means of penances and austerity of life; so that it 
be always repressed, and subject to reason, that thereby 
righteousness and purity of heart may always have the upper hand 
in all the works of virtue. And all the suffering, grief, and 
persecution, which God sends us through these enemies of virtue, 
we should gladly bear for the glory of God, and for the honour of 
the virtues, and that we may obtain and possess righteousness in 
purity of heart; for Christ says: BLESSED ARE THEY WHICH ARE 
PERSECUTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS SAKE: FOR THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM OF 
HEAVEN. For a righteousness which is maintained in suffering and 
in virtuous deeds is like the penny which is counted as heavy as 
the kingdom of God; and with it is bought eternal life.

And with these virtues a man goes out towards God, towards 
himself, and towards his neighbour, in good customs, in virtues, 
and in righteousness.

CHAPTER XXIV

OF THE KINGDOM OF THE SOUL

WHOSOEVER wishes to obtain and to keep these virtues should adorn 
and possess and rule his soul like a kingdom. Free-will is the 
king of the soul. It is free by nature and still more free by 
grace. It shall be crowned with a crown that is called charity. 
The crown and the kingdom shall be received from the Emperor, Who 
is Lord and Master and King of kings; and the kingdom should be 
possessed, ruled, and maintained in His name. This king, free-
will, should dwell in the chief city of the kingdom; namely, in 
the desirous power of the soul. And he should be clad and adorned 
with a garment of two parts. The right side of his garment should 
be a virtue called strength, that therewith he may be strong and 
mighty to overcome all hindrances, and to ascend up to heaven, 
into the palace of the most high Emperor, and to bow down his 
crowned head before the most high King, with love, and with self-
surrendered desire. This is the proper work of charity: through it 
the crown is received, through it the crown is adorned, through it 
the kingdom is maintained and possessed in eternity. The left side 
of the garment should be a cardinal virtue called moral force. 
Through it, free-will, the king, shall quell all immorality, and 
fulfil all virtues, and shall possess his kingdom in power, even 
unto death.

This king should also choose councillors in his kingdom: the 
wisest in the country. These should be two divine virtues: 
knowledge and discretion, enlightened by the light of Divine 
grace. They should dwell near the king, in a palace called the 
rational power of the soul, and they should be clad and adorned 
with a moral virtue called temperance, so that the king may always 
do or leave undone according to their counsels. By means of 
knowledge our conscience shall be cleansed of all its failings and 
adorned with all virtues; and by help of discretion we shall give 
and take, do and leave undone, be silent and speak, fast and eat, 
listen and reply, and act in all things according to knowledge and 
discretion, clad in the moral virtue called temperance or 
sobriety.

This king, free-will, should also appoint in his kingdom a judge: 
that is, righteousness. This is a divine virtue when it springs 
from love, and it is one of the highest of moral virtues. This 
judge should dwell in the heart, in the midst of the kingdom, in 
the irascible power. And he should be adorned with a moral virtue 
called prudence; for righteousness cannot be perfect without 
prudence. This judge, righteousness, should travel through the 
kingdom with the king's own power and majesty, and furnished with 
the wisdom of the councillors, and with his own prudence. And he 
should set up and cast down, judge and condemn, kill and leave 
alive, put to the torture, blind and restore sight, raise and 
suppress, scourge and chastise, extirpate all vices, and order all 
things according to righteousness.

The common people of the kingdom are all the other powers of the 
soul, which should be grounded in humility and godly fear, and 
should be subject to God in all virtues, each power according to 
its own character.

Whosoever possesses, maintains, and has ordered, the kingdom of 
his soul in this way, has gone out with love and with virtue 
towards God, towards himself and towards his neighbour.

And this is the third of the four principal points which we would 
consider.

CHAPTER XXV

OF A SPIRITUAL MEETING OF GOD AND OURSELVES

WHEN a man through the grace of God is able to behold, and his 
conscience is clean, and he has considered the three comings of 
Christ our Bridegroom, and when he has gone out with the virtues: 
then there ensues the meeting with the Bridegroom, and that is the 
fourth point and the last. In this meeting lies all our bliss, the 
beginning and end of all virtue; and without this meeting no 
virtue has ever been fulfilled.

Whosoever wishes to meet Christ as his beloved Bridegroom, and to 
possess in Him, and with Him, eternal life; he must now, in time, 
go out to meet Christ at three points or in three ways. The first 
point is that he shall have God in mind in all things through 
which we earn eternal life. The second point is that there shall 
be nothing that he means or loves more than God or even so much as 
God. And the third point is that he shall with great zeal seek to 
rest in God, above all creatures and above all God's gifts, above 
all the works of virtue and above all feelings that God may infuse 
into soul and body.

Now grasp this well: whosoever means God must have God present in 
his mind under some godly attribute; and thereby he should mean 
only Him Who is the Lord of heaven and earth and all creatures, 
Who died for him, and Who can, and will, give him eternal bliss. 
In whatever way or under whatever name we represent God to 
ourselves, if it be as the Lord over all creatures, that is always 
right. If we conceive one of the Divine Persons, and in Him the 
being and the might of the Divine Nature, that is right. If we set 
God before us as Maintainer, Redeemer, Creator, Ruler; as Bliss, 
Power, Wisdom, Truth, Goodness, and all this as within the abysmal 
properties of the Divine Nature, that is right.

Though the names which we give to God are many, the most high 
Nature of God is a Simplicity which cannot be named by any 
creature. But because of His incomprehensible nobility and 
sublimity, which we cannot rightly name nor wholly express, we 
give Him all these names. This is the way and the manner of 
apprehension in which we should have God present in our mind; for, 
to mean God, this is to see God in ghostly wise. And to this 
intention charity and love also belong; for to know God and to be 
without charity has no savour, neither does it help or further us. 
That is why a man should always in all his works stretch towards 
God with love; Whom, above all things, he aims at and loves. And 
this is going out to meet God by intention and by love.

If a sinner would turn from his sins with full and true 
repentance, he must go out to meet God in contrition and of his 
own free-will, and with an upright purpose and intention to serve 
Him thenceforward and never to sin any more. Then, in this 
meeting, he shall receive through the mercy of God a sure hope of 
eternal bliss and the remission of his sins; and he shall further 
receive the foundation of all virtue: namely, Faith, Hope, and 
Charity, and a good-will toward all other virtues.

If this man wishes to go forward in the light of faith, and lay 
hold of all the works of Christ, and all His suffering; all the 
things He promised us and did to us and will do to us until the 
Day of Doom and in eternity; if that man wishes to lay hold of 
these that they may avail to his salvation: then he should go out 
to meet Christ once more, and should have Him ever in his sight, 
with praise and thankfulness and with a worthy acknowledgment of 
all His gifts, and all that He has done, and will do, in eternity. 
Then his faith will be strengthened; and he will be more often, 
and more ardently impelled towards all virtues.

If, then, he wishes to go forward in the works of virtue, he must 
also go out to meet Christ with self-renunciation, neither seeking 
himself, nor pursuing things alien from God; but let him be wise 
and discreet in all that he does, having in mind in all things God 
alone, and God's praise and glory, and let him continue therein 
even unto death. Thereby his reason is enlightened, and his 
charity is increased, and he grows in piety and in the aptitude 
for all virtues.

We should have God in mind in all our good works; in evil works we 
cannot do this. We should not have in mind two ends; that is to 
say, we should mean God alone and nothing else. All other ends 
should be subordinate to God, not opposed to God; they should be, 
in their order, a help and a furtherance, that we may the better 
come to God. And then we are in the right way.

We should also rather seek our rest upon Him and in Him Whom we 
mean and love, than in any of the messengers He sends; that is to 
say, His gifts. The soul should also rest in God above all the 
jewels and all the gifts which it may send back to God by its own 
messengers. The messengers of the soul are intention, love, and 
desire: these carry all good deeds and all virtues up to God. But 
above all these things, above all multiplicity, the soul should 
rest in its Beloved. In this way and in this wise we should go out 
to meet Christ with an upright intention during all our lives, and 
in all our works, and in all our virtues; so that we may also meet 
Him in the light of glory at the hour of death.

This method and this way, of which you have now heard, is called 
the Active Life. It is needful for all men; and these, at least, 
should not live contrary to virtue, even though they may not 
possess all the virtues in this perfection. For, to live contrary 
to virtue is to live in sin; for Christ says: HE THAT IS NOT WITH 
ME IS AGAINST ME. Whosoever is not humble, he is proud; and 
whosoever is proud and not humble does not belong to God. And thus 
it is with all the sins and all the virtues; either a man has the 
virtue and lives in grace, or else he has its opposite and lives 
in sin. Let each man try himself, and live according to that which 
has here been shown.

CHAPTER XXVI

OF THE DESIRE TO KNOW THE BRIDEGROOM IN HIS NATURE

A MAN who lives this life in its perfection, as it has here been 
shown, and who is offering up his whole life, and all his works, 
to the worship and praise of God, and who wills and loves God 
above all things, is often stirred by a desire to see, to know, 
and to prove what, in Himself, this Bridegroom Christ is; Who for 
man's sake became man and laboured in love unto death, and 
delivered us from sin and the devil, and has given us Himself and 
His grace, and left us His sacraments, and has promised us His 
kingdom and Himself as an eternal wage; Who also gives us all that 
is needful for the body, and inward consolation and sweetness, and 
innumerable gifts of all kinds, according to the needs of each.

When a man beholds all this, he feels an unmeasured impulse to see 
Christ his Bridegroom, and to know Him as He is in Himself. Though 
he knows Him in His works, this does not seem to him enough. Then 
he must do as the publican Zaccheus did, who longed to see Jesus, 
who He was. He must run before the crowd, that is the multiplicity 
of creatures; for these make us so little and so low that we 
cannot see God. And he must climb up into the tree of faith, which 
grows from above downwards, for its roots are in the Godhead. This 
tree has twelve branches, which are the twelve articles of faith. 
The lower speak of the Divine Humanity, and of those things which 
belong to our salvation of soul and of body. The upper part of the 
tree tells of the Godhead, of the Trinity of Persons, and of the 
Unity of the Nature of God. And the man must cling to that unity, 
in the highest part of the tree; for there it is that Jesus must 
pass with all His gifts.

Here comes Jesus, and sees the man, and shows to him, in the light 
of faith, that He is according to His Godhead immeasurable and 
incomprehensible and inaccessible and abysmal, transcending every 
created light and every finite conception. And this is the highest 
knowledge of God which any man may have in the active life: that 
he should confess in this light of faith that God is 
incomprehensible and unknowable. And in this light Christ says to 
man's desire: MAKE HASTE AND COME DOWN, FOR TO-DAY I MUST ABIDE AT 
THY HOUSE. This hasty descent, to which he is summoned by God, is 
nothing else than a descent through desire and through love into 
the abyss of the Godhead, which no intelligence can reach in the 
created light. But where intelligence remains without, desire and 
love go in. When the soul is thus stretched towards God, by 
intention and by love, above everything that it can understand, 
then it rests and dwells in God, and God in it. When the soul 
climbs with desire above the multiplicity of creatures, and above 
the works of the senses, and above the light of nature, then it 
meets Christ in the light of faith, and becomes enlightened, and 
confesses that God is unknowable and incomprehensible. When it 
stretches itself with longing towards this incomprehensible God, 
then it meets Christ, and is filled with His gifts. And when it 
loves and rests above all gifts, and above itself, and above all 
creatures, then it dwells in God, and God dwells in it.

This is the way in which we shall meet Christ on the summit of the 
active life. When you have laid the foundation of righteousness, 
charity, and humility; and have established on it a dwelling-
place, that is, those virtues which have been named heretofore; 
and have met Christ through faith, by intention and by love; then 
you dwell in God and God dwells in you, and you possess the true 
active life.

And this was the first of which we would speak.

THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK

HERE BEGINS

THE SECOND BOOK

PROLOGUE

THE wise virgin, that is the pure soul, having abandoned earthly 
things, and living according to the virtues for God, has taken in 
the vessel of her heart the oil of charity and of godly deeds, 
with the lamp of an unsullied conscience. But when Christ the 
Bridegroom tarries with His consolations, and the renewed 
inpouring of His gifts, the soul becomes drowsy, sleepy, and 
inert. Then, at midnight, when it is least expected, a ghostly cry 
is made within the soul: BEHOLD, THE BRIDEGROOM, COMETH, GO YE OUT 
TO MEET HIM. Of this beholding, and of the inward coming of 
Christ, and of a man's ghostly going out, and of his meeting with 
Christ; of these four points we will now speak, and we will 
explain and apply them according to an inward, lofty, God-desiring 
life, which all cannot reach, but which many men attain through 
the moral virtues and inward zeal.

By these words Christ teaches us four things. First, that He wills 
that our understanding should be enlightened by supernatural 
light; this we learn from the word which He speaks: BEHOLD. 
Secondly, He shows us what we ought to see: namely, the inward 
coming of our Bridegroom, the Eternal Truth; this we understand 
from His saying: THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH. Thirdly, He commands us to 
go out through inward exercises according to righteousness; for 
this reason He says: GO YE OUT. And, by the fourth point, He shows 
us the end and the aim of the whole; that is, the meeting with our 
Bridegroom Christ, in the fruitive unity of the Godhead.

CHAPTER I

HOW WE ACHIEVE SUPERNATURAL SIGHT IN OUR INWARD WORKINGS

NOW concerning the first point. Christ says: BEHOLD. Whosoever 
wishes to see in a supernatural way in his inward exercises must 
have three things. The first is the light of Divine grace, and 
this in a more lofty degree than that which we can experience in 
the outward and active life without earnest inward diligence. The 
second thing is the casting out of all distracting images and 
attachments from the heart; so that the man may be free and 
imageless, released from all attachments, and empty of all 
creatures. The third thing is a free turning of the will, with a 
gathering together of all our powers, both bodily and ghostly, 
cleansed from every inordinate love. Thereby the will flows forth 
into the unity of God and into the unity of the mind; and thus the 
rational creature may obtain and possess the most high unity of 
God in a supernatural manner. For this God has created heaven and 
earth and everything; and for this reason He became man, and 
taught us, and lived for our sake, and has Himself become the Way 
to the unity. And He died in the bonds of love, and has ascended 
and has opened to us that very unity, in which we may possess 
eternal bliss.

CHAPTER II

OF A THREE-FOLD UNITY WHICH IS IN US BY NATURE

NOW mark this with diligence: a threefold unity is found in all 
men by nature, and also in all good men according to a 
supernatural manner.

The first and highest unity of man is in God; for all creatures 
depend upon this unity for their being, their life, and their 
preservation; and if they be separated in this wise from God, they 
fall into the nothingness and become nought. This unity is in us 
essentially, by nature, whether we be good or evil. And without 
our own working it makes us neither holy nor blessed. This unity 
we possess within us and yet above us, as the ground and the 
preserver of our being and of our life.

The second unity or union is also in us by nature. It is the unity 
of our higher powers; forasmuch as these spring naturally as 
active powers from the unity of the mind or of the spirit. This is 
that same unity which depends upon God; but with this difference, 
that here it is active and there essential. Nevertheless, the 
spirit is wholly and perfectly understood according to the fulness 
of its substance, in each unity. This unity we possess within us, 
above our senses; and from it there proceed memory, understanding, 
and will, and all the powers of ghostly action. In this unity, the 
soul is called "spirit."

The third unity which is in us by nature is the source of all the 
bodily powers, in the unity of the heart; origin and beginning of 
the bodily life. This unity the soul possesses in the body and in 
the quickening centre of the heart, and therefrom flow forth all 
bodily activities, and the five senses. And therein the soul is 
called "soul"; for it is the forming principle of the body, and 
quickens this carcase; that is, gives it life and keeps it 
therein.

These three unities abide in man by nature as one life and one 
kingdom. In the lowest we are sensible and animal; in the middle 
we are rational and spiritual; and in the highest we are kept 
according to our essence. And thus are all men by nature.

Now these three unities, as one kingdom and one eternal dwelling-
place, are adorned and inhabited in a supernatural way by the 
moral virtues through charity and the active life. And they are 
still more gloriously adorned and more excellently perfected by 
inward exercises united with a spiritual life. But they are most 
gloriously and blessedly adorned by a supernatural and 
contemplative life.

The lowest unity, being of the body, is supernaturally adorned and 
perfected through outward works and moral perfection, according to 
the way of Christ and His saints: and through bearing the cross 
with Christ, and through subordinating nature discreetly according 
to its powers to the commandments of Holy Church and to the 
doctrines of the saints.

The second unity, being in the spirit and wholly spiritual, is 
supernaturally adorned and perfected through the three divine 
virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity; and through the inflow of the 
grace and the gifts of God; and through a good-will to follow the 
examples of Christ and Holy Christendom in all virtues.

The third and highest unity is above the comprehension of our 
reason, and yet essentially within us. We possess it in a 
supernatural way when in all our works of virtue we have in mind 
the praise and glory of God, and above all aims, above ourselves, 
and above all things would rest only in Him. This is that unity 
wherefrom we have come forth as creatures, and wherein, according 
to our being, we are at home. And by means of the virtues here 
named, these three unities are adorned in the active life.

Now we will show how these three unities are more highly adorned 
and more nobly fostered through an inward exercise joined to the 
active life. Whenever a man, because of his charity and his 
upright intention, lifts himself up with all his works and with 
his whole life toward the glory and the praise of God, ever 
seeking to rest in God above all things: then, in humble patience 
and self-surrender, yet with a sure trust, he will await new 
riches and new gifts, but without anxiety as to whether it be 
God's good pleasure to give or not to give.

In this way one prepares and makes oneself ready to enter on the 
inward and God-desiring life. And, when the vessel is made ready, 
then the noble vintage is poured into it. And there is no vessel 
more noble than the loving soul, neither a vintage more wholesome 
than the grace of God. So a man should devote all his acts and all 
life to God, with a simple and upright intention directed to God; 
and should rest, above intentions, and above himself, and above 
all things in that most high unity, in which God and the loving 
spirit are united without intermediary.

CHAPTER III

OF THE INFLOW OF THE GRACE OF GOD INTO OUR SPIRIT

FROM this unity, wherein the spirit is united with God without 
intermediary, grace and all gifts flow forth: and out of this same 
unity, where the spirit rests above itself in God, Christ the 
Eternal Truth says: BEHOLD, THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH, GO YE OUT TO 
MEET HIM. Christ, who is the light of Eternal Truth, says: BEHOLD: 
for through Him we become seeing; for He is the light of the 
Father, and without Him there were no light, neither in heaven nor 
on earth. This speaking of Christ within us is nothing else than 
an inrush of His light and His grace. This grace pours into us in 
the unity of our higher powers and of our spirit; wherefrom, 
through the power of the grace received, the higher powers flow 
out to become active in all virtues, and whereto, because of the 
bond of love, they ever return again.

In this unity lie the power for, and beginning and end of, every 
natural and supernatural work of the creature in so far as it is 
wrought in a creaturely way, through grace and Divine gifts, and 
by the creature's own strength. And therefore God pours His grace 
into the unity of the higher powers, that therewith man may always 
fulfil the virtues, through the power and the richness and the 
thrust of grace. For God gives us grace, therewith to work; and 
above all graces He gives Himself, for fruition and for rest. The 
unity of our spirit is our dwelling-place, in the peace of God and 
in the riches of charity; and there all the manifold virtues are 
gathered together, and live in the simplicity of the spirit.

Now the grace of God, pouring forth from God, is an inward thrust 
and urge of the Holy Ghost, driving forth our spirit from within 
and exciting it towards all virtues. This grace flows from within, 
and not from without; for God is more inward to us than we are to 
ourselves, and His inward thrust or working within us, be it 
natural or supernatural, is nearer to us and more intimate to us, 
than our own working is. And therefore God works in us from within 
outwards; but all creatures work from without inwards. And thus it 
is that grace, and all the gifts of God, and the Voice of God, 
come from within, in the unity of our spirit; and not from 
without, into the imagination, by means of sensible images.

CHAPTER IV

SHOWING HOW WE SHOULD FOUND OUR INWARD LIFE ON A FREEDOM FROM 
IMAGES

NOW Christ says in ghostly wise in the man who is turned within: 
BEHOLD. Three things, as I have said, make a man seeing in his 
inward exercise. The first is a shining forth of the grace of God. 
The grace of God in a soul is like a candle in a lantern or in a 
glass vessel; for it enlightens, and brightens, and shines 
through, the vessel, that is, the righteous man. And it manifests 
itself to the man who has it within him, if he be observant of 
himself. And it manifests itself through him, to other men, in 
virtues and in good example. This flash of divine grace inwardly 
stirs and moves a man with swiftness, and this swift movement is 
the first thing which makes us see. Of this swift movement of God 
there springs from the side of man the second thing, which is a 
gathering together of all inward and outward powers in the unity 
of the spirit, in the bonds of love. The third point is the 
freedom which allows the man to turn inwards, without hindrance 
from sensible images, as often as he wills and thinks upon his 
God. This means that a man must be indifferent to gladness and 
grief, profit and loss, rising and falling, to strange cares, to 
delight and to dread, and never be attached to any creature. These 
three things make a man seeing in his inward exercise. If you have 
these three, you have the foundation and the beginning of the 
inward practice and the inward life.42

CHAPTER V

OF A THREE-FOLD COMING OF OUR LORD IN THE INWARD MAN

EVEN though the eye be clear and the sight keen, if there were no 
loveworthy and desirable object, clearness of sight would neither 
please nor profit a man. And this is why Christ shows to the 
enlightened eyes of the understanding what they shall see, to wit, 
the inward coming of Christ their Bridegroom.

Three ways of this special inward coming of God are found in those 
men who exercise themselves with devotion in the inward life; and 
each of these three comings raises a man to a higher degree and to 
a more inward exercise.

The first coming of Christ in inward working drives and urges a 
man in his inward feeling; it draws him with all his powers 
upwards to heaven, and it calls him to unite himself with God. 
This driving and drawing we feel in the heart, and in the unity of 
all the bodily powers, and especially in the desirous power. For 
this coming stirs, and works in, the lower part of man; for this 
must be wholly purged and adorned, and inflamed and drawn inwards. 
This inward urge of God gives and takes, makes rich and poor, 
brings weal and woe upon a man; it causes hope and despair; it 
burns and it freezes. But no tongue can tell of those gifts and 
works and contraries that here come to pass.

This coming with its working is parted into four degrees, each one 
higher than the other, as we will show afterwards. And with it the 
lower part of man is adorned in the inward life.

CHAPTER VI

OF THE SECOND COMING OF OUR LORD IN THE INWARD MAN

THE second way in which Christ comes inwardly, with a higher 
nobleness, more after His likeness, with increased gifts, and with 
a greater radiance, is a pouring forth of the riches of His Divine 
gifts into the higher powers of the soul, whereby the spirit is 
strengthened, enlightened, and enriched in many ways. This 
streaming of God into us demands of us a flowing out and a flowing 
back, with all these riches, into that same Source from which that 
torrent has flowed. And in this torrent God gives to us and shows 
to us great wonders; but He asks back from the soul all His gifts, 
increased beyond anything that any creature could accomplish. This 
exercise and this way is more noble and more like unto God than 
the first; and by it the three higher powers of the soul are 
adorned.

CHAPTER VII

OF THE THIRD COMING OF OUR LORD

THE third way in which our Lord comes inwardly is by an inward 
stirring or touch in the unity of the spirit, wherein are the 
higher powers of the soul; wherefrom they flow forth, and to which 
they return again, and with which they always remain united in the 
bonds of love and through the natural unity of the spirit. In this 
coming consists the highest and most interior condition of the 
inward life; and by it the unity of the spirit is adorned in many 
ways.

Now, in each coming, Christ desires of us a special going out of 
ourselves, toward a life that shall accord with the way of His 
coming. And therefore He says in ghostly wise within our hearts at 
each coming: GO YE OUT in your lives and in your practices in the 
way in which My graces and My gifts shall urge you. For according 
to the manner and way in which the Spirit of God urges, and 
drives, and draws, and streams into us, and stirs us; in this way 
we must go out and progress in our inward practices, if we are to 
become perfect. But if we withstand the Spirit of God by a life 
that does not accord with it, we lose that inward urge, and then 
the virtues will depart from us.

These are the three comings of Christ, in inward exercises. We 
will now explain and set forth each coming separately. Attend 
therefore with diligence; for he who never has himself felt or 
experienced this he shall not easily understand it.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW THE FIRST COMING HAS FOUR DEGREES

THE first coming of Christ in the exercise of desire is, as we 
have said, an inward and sensible thrust of the Holy Ghost, urging 
and driving us towards all virtues. This coming may be likened to 
the splendour and the power of the sun, which, from the moment 
when it rises, enlightens and brightens and warms the whole 
world.43 So likewise Christ, the eternal Sun, beams and shines, 
dwelling above the summit of the spirit; and enlightens and 
enkindles the lowest part of man, namely, the fleshly heart and 
the sensible powers. And this happens in a moment of time, shorter 
than the twinkling of an eye; for God's work is swift. But that 
man in whom this should take place must be inwardly seeing, with 
the eyes of the understanding.

In the higher lands, in the middle region of the world, the sun 
shines upon the mountains, bringing an early summer there, with 
good fruits and strong wine, and filling that land with joy. The 
same sun gives its splendou