the Saviour? This--that we obey, and that we renounce our own will,
accepting and abiding by the Will of God: and this self-lending,
self-surrender, this sacrifice of self-will is counted to us for sufficient
righteousness to merit heavenly life. But from first to last we remain
conscious that we have no righteousness of our own, that we are
very small and full of weaknesses, and remain unable to think or say,
"This is my righteousness, I am righteous," any more than a man
standing bathed in, or receiving the sunlight can say or think, "I am
the sun." Is all this, then, as much as to say that we can sit down and
do nothing; but, leaving all to Christ, we merely believe, and
because of this believing our redemption is accomplished? No, for
we have an active part to play, a part that God never dispenses
with--the active keeping of the will in an active state of practical
obedience, submission, humble uncomplaining endurance through
every kind of test. What will these perhaps too much dreaded tests
be that He will put us through? He will make use of the difficulties,
opportunities, temptations, and events of everyday life in the world
(which difficulties we should have to pass through whether we
become regenerated or not) down to the smallest act, the most secret
thought, the most hidden intention and desire. But through it all it is
the Great Physician Himself who cures, and we are no more able to
perform these changes of regeneration in heart and mind than we are
able to perform a critical operation on our own body. So He takes
our vanities and, one by one, strews them among the winds, and we
raise no protest; takes our prides and breaks them in pieces, and we
submit; takes our self-gratifications and reduces them to dust, and
we stand stripped but patient; takes the natural lusts of the creature
and transfigures them to Holy Love. And in all this pain of transition,
what is the Divine Anaesthetic that He gives us? His Grace.
Having submitted to all that Christ esteems necessary for our
regeneration, what does He set us to? Service. Glad, happy service
to all who may need it. He has wonderful ways of making us
acquainted with His especial friends, and it pleases Him to make us
the means of answering the prayers of His poor for help, to their
great wonder and joy and to the increase of their faith in Him. Also
He uses us as a human spark, to ignite the fires of another man's
heart: when He uses us in this way, it will seem to one like the
opening of a window--to another a magnetism. One will see it as a
light flashed on dark places, another receives it as the finding of a
track where before was no track. But however many times we may
be used in this way, the working remains a mystery to us.
What is our reward whilst still in this world for our patient
obediences and renunciations? This--that all becomes well with us
the moment the process is brought to the stage where the aim of our
life ceases to be the enjoyment of worldly life and becomes fixed
upon the Invisible and upon God: and all this by and because of love,
for it is love alone which can make us genuinely glad to give up our
own will and which can keep us from sinning.
We commence by qualifying through our human love, meagre and
fluctuating as it is, for God's gift of holy love--of divine reciprocity,
and with the presentation of this divine gift immediately we find
ourselves in possession of _a new set of desires,_ which for the first
time in our experience of living prove themselves completely
satisfying in fruition. God does not leave us in an arid waste,
because He would have us to be holy, and nowhere are there such
ardent desires as in heaven; but He transposes and transfigures the
carnal desires into the spiritual by means of this gift of divine
reciprocity which is at once access to and union with Himself. Now,
and only now do we find the sting pulled out of every adverse
happening and every woe of life, and out of death also.
And the whole process is to be gone through just where and how and
as we find ourselves--in our own home or in the home of another,
married or single, rich or poor,--with these three watchwords,
Obedience, Patience and Simplicity.
But it is not sufficient to have once achieved this union with God: to
rest in happiness the soul must continually achieve it. It follows then
that our need is not an isolated event but a _life,_ a life lived with
God, and in experience we find that this alone can satisfy us. A life
in which we receive hourly the breath of His tenderness and pity,
His infinite solace to a pardoned soul.
_Of the Interchange of Thought without Sound_
Many persons know what it is to have the experience with another
person of a simultaneous exactitude of thought--speaking aloud the
same words in the same instant. Others experience in themselves the
power to exchange thought and to know the mind of another
without the medium of sound, though not without the medium of
word-forms, this last being a capacity possessed only by the soul in
communion with the Divine. We name these experiences thought-waves,
mind-reading, mental telepathy, and understand very little about them;
but beyond this mind-telepathy there is a telepathy of the
soul about which we understand nothing whatever. This is the
divine telepathy, with words or _without word-forms,_ by which
Christ instructs His followers. The telepathy of the mind is the
indicator to the existence of a telepathy of the soul; for the mind
indicates to us that which should be sought and known by the soul,
and without we come to divine things first in a creaturely way
(being creatures) we shall never come to them at all. The mind
desires and indicates, the soul achieves.
This telepathy with Christ is the means by which the soul learns in a
direct manner the will and the teaching and the mind of Christ, and
it is by this means she gains such wisdom as it is God's will she shall
have. The soul seeks this telepathy during the second stage, vaguely,
not knowing or understanding the mode of it, receiving it rarely and
with great difficulty.
In the third stage she obtains it in abundance, at times briefly, at
others at great length.
* * *
That God has his dwelling-place at an incalculably great distance
from ourselves is a true knowledge of the soul: but a further
knowledge reveals to us that this calamity is mitigated, and for short
periods even annulled, by provision of His within the soul to
annihilate this distance, and be the means of bringing the soul into
such immediate contact with Himself as she is able to endure. But
the Joy-Energy of God being insupportable to the very nature of
flesh, in His tender love and pity He provides us, through the Person
of His Son, with degrees of union of such sweet gentleness that we
may continually enjoy them through every hour of life; and through
His Son He comes out to meet the prodigal "while yet afar off."
This is strongly observable, that as the process of Christ proceeds
and grows in us, though our joys in God are individual, yet they
become also clothed in a garment of the universal, so that the soul,
when she enters the fires of worship and of blessing and of
conversing with God--without any forethought, but by a cause or
need now become a part of herself,--enters these states and gives to
Him no longer as I, but as We--which is to say, as All Souls.
* * *
Many of us look to death to work a miracle for us, thinking the mere
cessation of physical living will give entry to paradise or even
heaven, so long as we are baptised and call ourselves Christians.
This is a great delusion. In character, personality, cleanliness,
goodwill we are, after death, exactly as far advanced as we were
before death, and no further. What then is needed, since death will
not help us? The Seed of Divine love and life planted and
consciously _growing_ in us whilst we are still in this world. And
what is this Seed?--the Redeemer.
* * *
What is paradise, what is heaven? The progressive gradations of
conditions of a perfect reciprocity of love, and the greater the
perfection of this reciprocity the greater the altitudes attained of
heaven. Thus we see in Scripture that the angels who stand nearest
to God or highest in heaven are the cherubim--that is to say, they are
those who have attained a greater reciprocity than all other angels.
Now this Divine love is incomprehensible to us until we are initiated
into its mystery as a gift, and cannot be understood nor guessed at
by comparisons with any human loves however great, noble, or pure;
but this burning fiery essence of joy, this radiant glory of delight,
this holy and ineffable fulfilment of the uttermost needs, longings,
and requirements of the soul must be personally experienced by us
to be comprehended.
What madness in us is it that can count as an added cross or burden
any means by which we reach such perfection of bliss for ever? The
Cross is for us the misery of our own blinding sins and selfishnesses.
The burden is the weight of our own distance from God. "Take up
thy cross (which is our daily life of ignorance and sin), take up thy
cross, and follow Me," says the voice of the Saviour; and as we do it
and follow Him the distance between God and ourselves diminishes,
and finally the burden and the cross _disappear,_ and behold God!
awaiting us with His consolations.
It is the stopping half-way that causes would-be followers of Christ
such distress. It is necessary that we follow Him all the way and not
merely a part of it--that He may complete His process in us. When
we are living altogether in a creaturely, natural, or unregenerated
way, absorbed in the ambitions and interests of a worldly life, we
are perhaps content. When we live regenerated and in the spirit, we
are in great joy; but when we try to live between the two and would
serve God and worldly interests at the same time we are in gloomy
wretchedness, vacillation, depression.
The Master said, "The kingdom of heaven is within you," which
signified that within us was the potentiality to have entrance to, and
to know, the mystery of the Divine Secret, and to participate whilst
still living here, in the early degrees or manifestations of Divine
Love--that Power which glorifies the angels, and is Heaven.
_Of the three Stages of God-Consciousness_
_(Which more properly expressed is the gift of immediate access of
the soul of God)_
There are three principal stages on the way of progress--three
separate degrees of God-Consciousness. The first is the
Consciousness of the Presence of Jesus, the Perfect Man. We take
Him into the heart, accept and know Him, love and obey Him. In the
second stage we receive Jesus as the Christ and recognise Him as
the Messiah (of which the mind was not sure in the first stage). We
rejoice in Him, giving Him a more perfect obedience. In the third
the soul is given the Consciousness of the Father, and, being filled
with a very great love and joy, worships Him as the Known God.
Now life immediately becomes totally changed, fear and sin are
swept away, and love rules the Universe.
It is now that God makes us know His glamour; that He casts over
the soul His golden net of spiritual delights, and by them seems to
challenge her, saying to the soul, "Now that I reveal Myself to thee,
canst thou ever return to the joys of the world, canst thou find its
pleasures sweet, canst thou be satisfied with any human love; canst
thou by any means resist Me now that I show Myself?" And the soul
answers Him, "Nay Lord, in truth I cannot."
The remembrance of these powers and these spells of God make for
the soul a sure foundation of repose and certainty in the days of the
testing of fidelity that still lie before her: they also further reveal to
her His consummate care of her exact requirements, for she cannot
pass beyond a certain stage without a direct personal assurance is
given her. First He demands of us that we have, and actively
maintain, a clean will to turn and cleave to Him, without any
assurance beyond written assurance (Scripture); and having given
Him a thorough proof of fidelity, He then grants us the personal
assurance. Having been given these rapturous concessions, what
would perfection demand of us--a total withdrawal from the world--a
hiding away in secret with our soul's treasure of delights? Maybe
for some; but a higher perfection calls us back to service in the
wretched turmoil of the world, to work and to stand in the House of
Rimmon and never bow the knee, to carry with us everywhere the
Divine Consciousness and preserve its light undimmed in every
sordid petty circumstance of daily life, to endure with perfect
patience the follies and the prides of the unenlightened. Whoever
can achieve those things may find himself at last a saint.
Very early in this third stage a miracle is performed in us: without
knowing how it came about or what day it was done, we suddenly
know that the heart and the mind _have become virgin_--and this
without any variation. Every kind of lust, whether of eye, body,
heart, or mind, has been removed from us, and never again has any
power over us, for the will has become superior to lust, and there is
a finish to all such contending: this moral healing is more impressive
than any physical healing. Before this miracle is performed for us,
we have suffered many things, as much as we can bear: subtle and
astonishing temptations of mind and body and spirit "call to
remembrance the former days in which after ye were illuminated ye
endured a great fight of afflictions" (Heb. x. 32).
This person that writes formerly supposed that no creature was
admitted to the blessedness of being in any way with God in Spirit
without they were already become a saint; but this is not so, and He
accepts the sinner long before he is a saint (if ever we become one in
this world, which is doubtful), provided the will is always held good
towards God.
This is the mighty Process of Christ which he desires to perform for
all. Of the tears we shed over it the less mention the better; they are
precious tears, necessary tears, cleansing tears, and if we will not
lend ourselves to this Process of Christ we may have as many tears
for our portion and no benefit from them in the way of advancement.
Let us weep the tears that God Himself will wipe away.
So then in the first stage the Soul tastes of the sweet companionship
of Jesus. In the second, of the might and graciousness of Christ; in
the third, of the fullness of God and His unspeakable delights. "Thou
shalt give them to drink of Thy pleasures, as out of the river" (Psalm
xxxvi.).
In the third stage of God-Consciousness a great change takes place
in our relationship to God. Besides the magnitude of the alterations
of the inner life--the sweeping spiritual changes--the body also
shares in a change, for, whilst we formerly prayed to God with a
bowed head and a hidden face, we now become unable to pray or
approach Him except with a raised head and an uncovered face. This
change is not from any thought or intention of our own, but we are
forced to it by a sweet necessity. In a company of persons praying,
all those in the third stage could be immediately known by this
necessity of the raised and bared face if we were not taught by the
Holy Spirit never to reveal to others that we are in the third stage
except in special instances. For this reason it is not possible to enter
true communion with God in a public place of worship unless we
can conceal ourselves from others. For the face undergoes a change
in communion with God, and it is not pleasing to Him that this
should be seen by any eye but His own.
If anyone finds great difficulty (and the most of us do) in coming to
the first stage--that of taking Jesus into the heart--he must pray every
day in a few short words _from the heart_ that God will give him to
Jesus, and in due time he will be heard.
In the third stage of progress we have the home-coming of the soul
as far as we are able to know it in the flesh: "We taste of the powers
of God" (Hebrews).
But the fullness of home-coming is reserved for that day in which
the greatest of all the mysteries will be revealed to us--the mystery
of the Relation of the Soul to God.
In that great day we shall know God by His Own Name.
* * *
We do not find God by denying the existence of things not pleasing
to Him. We do not find the Eternal Goodness by saying that Evil
does not exist. We do not find true health of spirit because we deny
all sickness, pain, and disease. Such a mode of Christianity may give
a sense of comfort, lend a false security to the heart and mind at
once weary of God-searching, and disenchanted with the world; but
it is not the Christianity which regenerates. It is a narcotic, not a
Redemption. It is the way of a mind unwilling to face truths because
they pain. If there was anything made plain by Christ it is that the
way of Redemption lies through heroism and not cowardice. Let
those of us who too much fear a passing pain of sacrifice of will
remember that the deepest of all pains, the last word in the tragedy
of life, is to come to old age and descend to the grave without
having found the Saviour. For our calamity is that we are lost souls.
Our opportunity is that in this world we find the track of Christ
which leads us home.
* * *
God does not create a new world on purpose for His lovers
immediately to live in, yet though we remain our full time in this
same world it is not the same world. We see a person in a severe
illness and again in full health. It is the same person, and not the
same person. We see a garden filled with flowers in the rain under
grey clouds, and again the same garden filled with mellow sunlight
under blue skies; it is the same garden, and not the same garden.
These changes could never be described or conveyed to the man
blind from birth; neither can spiritual changes be described or
conveyed till we ourselves gain similarity of experience. God
transposes our pleasures, taking the glamour from the guilty and
transferring it to the blameless; by this transforming our lives. He
increases the pleasure of unworldly enjoyments so we are
independent of the worldly ones. But we cannot remain in this
transformed world of His unless we are at peace both with ourself
and all persons around us.
Though from earliest childhood we may have found in the beauties
of Nature a great delight, when we become the lover of God He
passes His fingers over our hearts and our eyes and opens them to
marvellous new powers for joy. Oh, the ecstasy that may be known
in one short walk alone with God! The overflowing heart cries out to
Him, What other lover is there can give such bliss as this, and what
is all Nature but a lovely language between Thee and me! Then the
soul spreads wings into the blue and sings to Him like soaring lark.
But do not let us seek Him only because of His Delights, for so we
might miss Him altogether. But let it be because it is His wish:
because Perfection calls, and mystery calls to mystery, and love to
love, and Light calls to the darkness and the Dawn is born.
The glamour of God is come down about my soul,
And He who made all loveliness has decked my heart in spring,
And garlanded me round about with tender buds
Of flowers and scented things, and love and light.
I see no rain, no sad grey skies,
For the glamour of God has come down about mine eyes,
And the Voice of the Maker of all loveliness
Calling to my soul, leads me enchanted
Up the glittering mysteries of Infinity.
------
[Transcriber's notes: The name of the author, Lilian Staveley, is not
mentioned on the title page of this text, but I have added it here.
Also I have made two spelling changes:
"subsitute another picture" to "substitute another picture"
"accepts the sinner long long before he is a saint" to
"accepts the sinner long before he is a saint".]
End of Project Gutenberg's The Romance of the Soul, by Lilian Staveley