unto the truth and the truth it selfe then art both the way unto the life of the understanding and the life it selfe Thou art the odour of the food of gladnesse and also the taste that maketh glad Be thou therefore O sweet Iesu blessed for ever more That without Jesus therei is no possible felicity CHAP 21. IEsu the end of all in whom as in the last of their perfection all Creatures rest thou art utterly unknowne to all the wise men of this world because of thee we affirme contradictories to be most true thou being both the Creator and the Creature the attracting and the attracted the finite and also the infinite they say it is folly to beleeve this possible They flye thy name therefore and receive not that light wherewith thou hast enlightned us but thinking themselves wise they continue fooles and ignorant and blinde for ever But if they would beleeve that thou Christ God and man and would receive and entertain the words of the Gospell as the words of so great a Master then would they clearly see that all things in comparison of that light that there is hid in the simplicity of thy words are most thick and palpable darknes and ignorance Therefore only the little ones that beleeve do obataine this most gratious and quickening Revelation for there is hid in thy most sacred Gospell which is the heavenly food all desireable sweetnesse which cannot be tasted but by him that beleeveth and eateth And if any man beleeve and receive it hee shall finde it most true by experience that thou camest downe from Heaven and art the only Master of truth O good Iesu thou art the tree of lif in the Paradice of delights for no man can be fed with desirable life but from thy fruit Thou O Iesu art the forbidden food to all the sons of Adam which being expulsed out of Paradice doth seek their living in the earth in which they labour It behoveth every one therefore to put off the old man of presumption and put on the new man of humility which is according to thy selfe if he hope ever to tast of the food of life within the Paradice of delights There is a nature of the new and old Adam but it is in the old Adam animall and in the new Adam spirituall because in thee Iesus it is united to God which is a spirit Every man therefore must as by humane nature common to him and thee so in one spirit be united to thee O Iesus that so in his nature which is common to thee O Iesus hee may come to God the father which is in Paradice To see God the Father therefore and Iesus Christ his Son is to be in Paradice and Glory Ioy everlasting because hee that is without Paradice cannot have such a vision seeing neither God the Father nor thou O Iesus art to be found without Paradice every man therefore hath attained felicity which is united to thee O Iesus as a member to the head no man can come to the Father except hee be drawne by the Father Thy Father therefore O Iesus drew thy humanity by his Son and by thee O Iesus the Father deaweth all men As therefore thy manhood O Iesus is united to the son of God the Father as to a meane by which the Father drew it so every mans humanity is united unto thee O Iesâ—s as to the only meane by which the Father drawes all men Thou art therefore Iesu without whom it is impossible that any man should attaine felicity Thou art O Iesu the Revelation of the Father for the Father is invisible to all men and only visible to his Son and next thee to him who shall by thee and thy Revelation bee found worthy to see him Thou art therefore hee that unitest every blessed man and every blessed man subsisteth in thee as the united with the uniting Not one of the wise men of this world is capable of happinesse not knowing thee No happie man can see the Father but with thee O Iesus within Paradice Of the happie contradictories are verified as of thee O Iesus seeing he is united unto thee in a reasonable naturall and one spirit for every happy spirit subsists in thine as the quickned in thee quickning Every happy spirit sees the invisible God in thee O Iesus is united unto the unapproachable and immortall God and so in thee the infinite is united to the Infinite and the incomprehensible is comprehended by eternall fruition which is the most pleasant felicity that can never bee wasted nor spent have mercy upon me O Iesus have mercy upon me and grant that I may revealedly see thee and then my soule is safe How Iesus seeeth and worketh CHAP. 22. Never can the eye of the minde be satisfied with the sight of thee O Iesus because thou art the complâ—ment and fulnes of all mentall beauty And in this Picture I guesse at the wonderfull and stupendious sight O more then blessâ—d Iesus for thou Iesus whilst thou didst walke in this sensible world didst use fleshly eyes like unto us for with them no otherwise than we do thou didest see one thing and one thing for there was in thine eyes a certaine spirit which was the forme of the Organ as the sensible soule in the body of a living wight In that spirit there was a noble discretive or discerning power by which O Lord thou didst clearely and distinctly see this thing coloured thus and that other thing otherwise And more highly yet by the figures of the face and eyes of the men thou sawest thou wast a true Iudge of the Passions of the soule anger gladnesse sorrow and yet more subtilly by a few signes didst thou comprehend that which lay hid in the minde of man for there is nothing conceived in the minde which is not in some sort signified in the face and principally in the eyes being the Messengers of the heart for in all these Iudicia or signes thou didst much more truely reach the inwards of the soule than any created spirit for from some one though very â—mal signe thou didst see the whole conception of a man as understanding men do by a few words see through a long preconceived speech which is to be explicated at length and as well learned men if they cast their eyes never so little upon a booke are able to recite the whole intent of the writer as though they had read it through In this kinde of seeing thou O Iesus didst far excell all the perfection swiftnesse and sharpnes of all men past present and to come and yet this vision was but humane which was not done without a Carnall eye neverthelesse it was stupendious and admirable for if there be men found that by long and subtill discussion are able to dicipher any Carracter and to read the minde of the writer in Characters and signes then newly invented and never seene before thou O Iesus didst certainly see all things under
testimoney of thy blood and shewed by bodily death that truth is the life of the reasonable spirit the seed grew in the good ground and brought forth good fruit thou shewest me O Lord how my soule is the breath of life in regard of my body into which it breatheth and infloweth life And it is not in regard of thee O God but as it were a power or possibility of life And because thou canst not but grant the things that are asked if they be asked with a most attentive faith thou inflowest or inspirest me that there is in a Child a soule which hath a vegetative power and force in act for the Childe groweth It hath likewise a sencitive power in act for the Childe feeleth it hath likewise an imaginative power but not yet act it hath likewise a discursive power whose act is yet more distant And it hath an intellectuall virtue but in a power yet more remote further off so we finde by experience that one and the same soule is first in act inregard of the inferior powers and afterwards in regard of the superior that first he is an animall man before a spirituall man So likewise we know by proofe that there is a certaine numerall virtue in the Bowells of the earth which may also be called a spirit and that it is first in power or possibility to be made a minera of stone and another to bee made a minera of Salt and another of Mettall and that there are divers such spirits according to the diversity of Sones Salts and Mettalls but yet that there is one spirit of the Minera of Gold which by the influence of the Sun or of the Heaven is continually more and more purified and at length fixed into such Gold as is not by any Element to be corrupted or distroyed and that in it there shines exceeding much of the incorruptible light of heaven for it is very like the corporall light of the Sun And the like wee finde also of the vegitable and sensitive spirit for the sensitive spirit in a man doth much conforme it selfe unto the moving and influentiall virtue of Heaven and doth successively take increase under the influence of Heaven untill it be put in perfect act And it is brought out of the power or possibility of the body and therefore the perfection of it ceaseth as soone as the perfection of the body faileth Then is there an intellectuall spirit which in the act of its perfection depends not of the body but is united unto it by meanes of the sensitive virtue This spirit because it dependeth not of the body is not subject to the influence of the heaven by bodies neither depends it of the sensitive spirit and so not of the moving power of Heaven but as the movers of the heavenly Orbs are subject to the first mover so likewise this mover which is the understanding but because it is united to the bodie by the meane of the sensitive power therefore it is not perfected without the sences for all that comes unto it from the sensible world comes unto it by meanes of the sences And therefore there can bee nothing in the understanding which hath not first bin in the sence And by how much the sense is purer and perfecter and the imagination clearer and the discourse bitter by so much the understanding in its intellectuall operations is lesse hindered and more perspicatious Now the understanding is fed by the word of life under whose ifluence it is placed as the movers of the Orbs but differently as also the spirits that are subject to the influences of Heaven are differently perfected And it is not perfected but accedentally by the sensible spirit as the Image doth not perfect although it excite to enquire the truth of the samplar or patterne as the Image of the Crucified doth not inflow devotion but stirsup the memory that devotion may be inflowed and because the intellectuall spirit is not necessitated by the influence of Heaven but is wholy free therefore except it do by faith subject it selfe unto the influence of the word of God it is not perfected as a Schollar that is free and in his owne power unlesse he subject himselfe unto the word of his Master by beleeveing hee is not perfected for hee must trust and heare his Master And the understanding is perfected by the word of God and growes and is made every day more capable and apt and more like to the word And this perfection which thus comes from the word from whence it had its being is not a corruptible perfection but a perfection deiforme or formed by God as the perfection of Gold is not corruptible but of the forme of heaven And every understanding must by faith subject it selfe to the word of God and most attentively harken to that internall teaching of the highest Mr. and by hearing what the Lord saith in it It shall bee perfected Wherefore thou O Jesus the only Master hath preached that faith is necessary for every one that comes to the fountaine of life and hast shewne that according to the degree of faith the influence of the divine power is present O Saviour Christ two things only hast thou taught Faith and Love By faith the understanding comes to the word and by love it is united to it By how much more it comes unto it by so much more it is increased in power and by how much more it loveth by so much more it is fixed to the light thereof and the word of God is within it the understanding and it needs not seeke for it without it selfe for hee shall finde it within and by faith hee shall approach unto it And that hee may come neerer hee shall obtaine by prayers for the word will increase faith by the Communication of its light I give thee thanks O Jesus because by thy light I am come thus farre for in thy light I see the light of my life how thou the word inflowest life to all that beleeve and perfectest all that love thee What other Doctrine was ever so short and effectuall as thine O good Jesus thou perswadest nothing but to beleeve and thou commandest nothing but to love What is more easie then to beleeve God what more sweet than to love him How sweet is thy Yok and how light is thy burthen O ray Mr. thou promisest to them that keepe this Doctrine whatsoever can be desired for thou requirest nothing that is hard to him that beleeves nothing denied to him that loves Such are the promises thou makest to thy Disciples and they are most true because thou art truth which canst promise nothing but true things nay thou promisest nothing but thy selfe who art the perfection of every thing that may be perfected To thee bee praise to thee be Glory to thee be thanksgiving through all ages Amen How Iesus is the consumation CHAP. 25. YEt what may that be O Lord that thou sendest into the
shouldest thou necessitate libearty seeing thou canst not be mine except I be mine owne And because thou hast put this in my liberty therefore dost thou not necessitate but expect that I should choose to be mine owne the fault therefore is in me not in thee O Lord which contractest not thy greatest goodnes but powrest it out most plentifully upon all that are capable And thou O Lord art my goodnesse and how shall I bee mine owne except thou O Lord shalt teach mee But this thou teachest me that sence should obey reason and reason beare rule If therefore sence obey reason I am mine owne yet hath reason nothing to direct her but thee O Lord which art the word and the reason of reasons Whereupon I now see that if I heare thy word which ceaseth not to speake within me and which shineth continually in reason I shall be mine own free and not the servant of Sin and thou wilt be mine and give me the sight of thy face and then I shall be safe blessed be thou O God in thy guifts which only art able to comfort my soule and to erect and quicken it up unto a hope of attaining and enjoying thee as thine owne gift and the infinite treasure of all desierable things How Gods seeing is his loving Causing Reading and Containing all things in himselfe CHAP. 8. REstlesse is my heart O God because thy love hath inflamed it with such a deâ—â—re that it cannot rest but in thee alone I began to pray the Lords Prayer and thou inspiredst me to consiâ—er how then art our Father Thy loving is thy seeing thy Fatherhood is thy seeing which doth so fatherly embrace us all for we say Our Father for thou art the universall and singular Father And every one saying our Father implyes that thy Fatherly love comprehends thy Sonnes all and every one for a Father so loves all his Children that he loves every one because he is the Father of all as well as of every one and loves every one of his Sonnes so that every one thinks himselfe preferred before all the rest If therefore thou act a Father and Our Father surely the love of a Father to his Sonne preventeth the love of a Sonne to his Father as long as we are thy sons and looke upon thee as soones thou ceasest not to looke upon us as a Father therefore thou shaâ—t be our fatherly putveyor having a Fatherly care or us Thy seeing is thy providence If we thy sounes do abdicate thee Our Father we cease to be sonnes nor are we then free sons in our owne power but we goe into a farre Country separating our selves from thee and then we undergoe a grievous slavery under a Prince which is Enemy to thee O God But thou O Father though for the liberty given us as being the sonnes of thee which art liberty it selfe thou suffer us to goe away and spend our liberty and best substance after the corrupt desires of our fences Yet dost thou not forsake us utterly but art present continually solliciting us speaking in us and calling us back to returne to thee ready alwayes to look upon us with the former fatherly eye if we return and convert to thee O God of pitty look upon me who being prickt with compunction for the miserable slavery of the slippery filthinesse of Swine where I dyed for hunger do now returne that I may howsoever it pleaseth thee be fed in thy house feed me with thy sight O Lord and teach me how thy sight sees all that sees and every thing that may be seen every Act of seeing and every seeing power and every power that may be seene and every thing that ariseth from them forthy seeing is causing Teach me O Lord how at one glance thou deservest them all together and severally when I open the Booke to read I see confusedly the whole lease and if I will distinguish every letter and word I must of necessity turne my selfe particularly to every one in Order I cannot read but one letter after another and one line after another but thou O Lord lookest upon and readest all the paper together without any delay of time and if two of us read the same thing one a pace and the other slowly thou readest with both and seemest to read in time because thou readest with them that read and seest and readest all things together above time Thy seeing is thy reading thou from eternity hast seene and read together beyond al delay of time all the Bookes which have beene or may be written and at the same instant thou readest them successively with them that do so read them neither dost thou read one thing in eternity and another with them that read in time but being alwayes the same and after the same manner because thou art not changeable being fixed Eternity and eternity in that it forsakes not time seems to be moved with time a thong indeed motion and eternity is rest Lord thou seest and hast eyes thou art therefore an eye because with thee to have is to be and for this Cause in thy selfe thou seeft all things for if in me seeing were the Eye as it is in thee my God then could I see all things in my selfe because the eye is of the nature of Glasse and a glasse though never so little will figuratively represent a great Mountaine and all things that are in the surface thereof and so the species of all things are in a glasly eye yet because our sight doth not by meanes of the glasly eye see any thing but that particular whereunto it turnes it selfe because the power thereof cannot but be particularly determined by the object therefore it seeth not all things that are contained in the Glasse of the Eye but thy sight being an Eye or a living Glasse seeth a l things in it selfe nay being the Cause of all visible things therefore it containes and sees all things in the Cause and reason of all things that is in it selfe Thy eye O Lord proceedeth to all things without turning our Eye turneth it selfe to the object because our sight sees by a corner that hath quantity but the Corner of thy Eye O God hath no quantity but is infinite being a Circle nay an infinite Sphere for thy sight is an Eye of infinite Sphericity or roundnesse and perfection it seeth therefore all things round about and above and below O how wonderfull is thy sight which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God â—o all that search for 〈◊〉 How faire and amiable to all thâ—â— love thee How terrible to all that have for saken thee O my God for thou by thy sight O Lord quickâ—est every spirit makest glad every one that is blessed and puttest to flight all sorrow looke therefore mercifully upon mee and my soule is safe How the sight of God is both universall and Particular and what is the way thereto CHAP. 9. DEare Lord I cannot but
nature pas into another nature as when the Image is united to its truth for it cannot then be said to bee altered but rather to goe backe from its alterity because it is united unto its proper truth which is inalterability it selfe Nor canst thou O sweet Jesu be said to be a middle nature betweene divine and humane when as betweene them there cannot be any middle nature partaking of both for the divine nature is not partakeable being wholly absolutely most simple Nor couldst thou then O blessed Iesus be either God or man But I see thee O Lord Iesus one supposition above all understanding because thou art one Christ after the same manner that I see thy one human soule in which as in the soule of any man I see there was a corruptible sensible nature which did subsist in an incorruptible intellectuall nature Nor yet was that soule compounded of corruptible and in corruptible neither did the sensible soule coinside with the intellectuall but I see an intellectuall soule to be united to the body by a sensible power quickning the body And if the intellectuall soule should cease to Quicken and Enlighten the Body though it were not separated from the body yet would that man be dead because his life would cease notwithstanding the body were not separated from life being the understanding is the life thereof As when a man intellectually labours and seeks by the meanes of his sight to discerne one that is comming and yet being carried away with other considerations his attention ceaseth about that inquirie though his eyes be still fastened upon it his eye is not separated from the Soule though it bee separated from the discretive or discerning attention of the Soule But if that rapture should not only cease from the discretive quickning but also from the sensitive quickening that eye were dead because it were not quickened Yet for all that it were not separated from the intellective forme which is the form giving being As a dry hand is united to the forme which unites the whole body There are sound men as Saint Augustine relates which can retract or draw back the vivifying spirit and so they appeare dead and feele nothing supposing it to be so In this close the intellectuall nature would remaine united to the body which body would not be under any other forme than it was before nay it would have the same forme and remaine the same body neither would the quickening force cease to be but would remaine in union with the intellectuall nature although actually it did not extend it selfe into the body I see that man truly dead because hee wants the vivifying life for death is the want of the quickner and yet that body would not be dead separated from the life which is the Soule thereof After the same manner most mercifull Iesus I do behold absolute life which is God inseparably united to the humane understanding and by it into the body for that union is such a one that a greater cannot be and a separable union is much inferior to such a union as cannot be greater Therefore it was never true nor ever shall be that thy divine nature was separated from thy humane consequently neither from the soule nor the body which are those things without which humane nature cannot be although it bee most true that thy Soule ceased to quicken thy body and that thou didst truly suffer death and yet wast never separated from the truth of life If that Priest whom Saint Augustine mentions had whatsoever power it were to take vivification out of his body by drawing it up unto the soule as if a candle that enlighteneth a Chamber were alive and should draw up those beames by which it enlightens the Chamber into the Center of its light and its drawing up were nothing but a ceasing to inflame what marvell is it if thou Iesus being the most free and living light hast power to lay downe and to take up thy quickinnig soule and when thou wouldest take it up thou sufferedest death and when thou wouldst resume it by thine owne thou didst rise againe Now an intellectuall nature is called a humane soule when it quickens or animates a body And the soule is said to be taken away when … ane understanding ceaseth to quicken for when the understanding ceaseth from the Office of quickening and in this respect separateth it selfe from the body it is not therefore simply separated These things thou inspirest o Iesus that thou mightest shew thy selfe to most unworthy mee as far as I am capable and that I may in thee contemplate that mortall humane nature hath put on immortality that all men of the same humane nature may in thee attaine resurrection and divine life What then can bee sweeter what more pleasant then to know this that in thee O Iesu we finde all things that are in our nature which only canst do all things and givest most liberally and up bradest no man O inexpresible mercy and pity thou God which art goodnesse it selfe couldst 〈◊〉 satisfie thy infinite clemency and bounty except thou gavest us thy selfe Neither could this be don more conveniently for us that are the receivers then that thou shouldest assume our nature because we could not approach unto thine so thou camest to us and art named Iesus the Saviour blessed for evermore How Iesus is the word of life CHAP. 24. THy gift thy best and greatest guift inables me to contemplat thee my Jesus preaching the words of life and bountefully sowing the Divine seeds in the hearts of the hearers And I see them go away which receved not the things of the spirit But I see thy Disciples abiding it which began to tast the sweetnesse of that Doctrine which quickneth the soule for all whom that first and chiefest of all the Appostls Peter confest that thou Iesus hadst the word of life and wondered that they which seeke life would go from thee Paul heard from thee Iesus in a rapture the words of life and then neither sword nor famine of body separate him from thee No man could ever forake thee that had tasted the words of life who can separate a Beare from Hony after hee hath once tasted the sweetnesse of it How great is the sweetnesse of truth how most delectable a life doth it give above all bodily sweetnesse for it is absolute sweetnesse from whence floweth all that by any tast is desired What is stronger than love by which every lovely thing hath to bee loved If the knot or Bond of contracted love be sometimes so great that the feare of death cannot breake it what a knot is there of that love rasted from whence is all love I wonder not that all cruelty of paines was accounted nothing by other of thy Souldiers of Jesus to whom thou gavest thy selfe the life to be tasted aforehand O Jesus my love thou hast sowed the seed of life in the field of beleevers and watered it with the
which appeares unto me to be most simple and that I may so say most one is not most naturall and most perfect without the things before named The essence therefore is threefould and yet there are not three things in it because it is most simple The plurality therefore of the three forenamed is so a plurality that it is neverthelesse a unity and so is the unity a unity that it is also a plurality the plurality of three is a plurality without a plural number for a plural number cannot be a simple unity because it is a plurall number There is therefore no numerall distinction of the three because that is essentiall one number being essentially distinct from another And because the unity is Tryne it is not a unity of the singular number for the unity of the singular number is not Trine O most wonderfull God which neither art of the singular nor plurall number but above all plurality and singularity one in three and three in one I see therefore in the Walls of Paradice where thou my God art plurality coincide with singularity and that thou dwellest farre farre beyond that Teach me O Lord how I may conceive that possible which I see to be of necessity for there meets an impossibility that the plurality of three without which I cannot conceive thee to be perfect and naturall love is a plurality without number As hee that sayes one one one thrice sayes thrice one and yet hee sayes not three but one and this one thrice one hee cannot say thrice without three although hee say not three for when he saies one thrice he repeats the same and doth not number for to number is to altar one but to repeat one and the same thrice as to plurifie without number Therefore that plurality which I see in my God is an alterality without alterity because it is an alterity which is Identitie For when I see the loving is not the lovely and that the bond is neither the loving nor the lovely yet do I not so see the loving not to bee the lovely as though the loving were one and the loving the lovely and the Bond. There is therefore one love without the which none of the three could be I am one which am the loving I am the same which am the lovely and I likewise am all one which am the Bond arrising from the love wherewith I love my selfe and yet I am one and not three things Suppose then that my love be my essence as it is in my God then in the unity of my essence there would be the unity of the three foresaid and in the Trinity of the three foresaid unity of essence and they would bee all in my essence contractedly after the manner that I see them to be in thee truely and absolutely yet for all that love loving would not be love lovely nor the bond and that I finde by this practise and experiment For by love loving which I beare to another thing without my selfe as it were to an extrinficall lovely there followeth a Bond of my essence whereby I am bound to that thing as much as in me lyeth which thing is not joyned to be by that Bond because paradventure it loves me not whereupon though I love it so that my loving love extends it selfe upon it yet my loving love doth not draw with it or to it my lovely love for I am not lovely to it for it cares not for me though I love it extreamely as the Sun sometimes cares not for his Mother though shee love him never so tenderly And so I finde by experience that love loving is neither love lovely nor the Bond but I see the loving is distinguished from the lovely and the Bond which distinction neverthelesse is not in the Essence of love because I cannot love either my selfe or any thing else besides my selfe without love so love is of the essence of all the three And so I see that the essence of those three foresaid is most simple though among themselves they bee distinct I have in a similitude O Lord expressed some manner of foretaste of thy nature but mercifully spare mee for attempâ—ing to figure out the unfigurable tast of thy sweetnes for if the sweetnes of an unknowne Apple be unfigurable by any Picture or figure and unexpressible by all words who am I miserble sinner that go about to shew thee that art unshewable to figure the visible that art invisible and to offer or present to the tast that infinite and utterly in expressible sweetnesse of thine which I never yet deserved to tast and by those things which I expresse I rather make it appeale little than great But so great is thy goodnesse O my God that thou sufferest even the blinde men to speak of light and to set forth the praise thereof of which notwithstanding they neither do nor can know any thing that can bee revealed unto them But Revelation goes not so farre as tast the eare of faith reacheth not that sweetnesse which is utterly untasteable And this thou hast revealed to me O Lord that the Eare hath not heard nor hath it entered into the heart of man the infinitnesse of thy sweetnes which thou hast prepared for them that love thee This thy great Appostle Paul hath revealed unto us which was ravished beyond the Wall of Coincidence into Paradice where only thou that art the fountaine of delights canst be revealedly seene I have laboured to subject my selfe to a rapture trusting to thine infinite goodnesse that I might see thee that art invisibâ—e and might reveale an unreveleable vision and how far I have gone thou knowest but I know not howsoever sufficient for mee is thy grace whereby thou assurest me thou art incomprehensible and erectest me to a firme hope that thou being my guide I shall at length come to the fruition of thee That unlesse God were trine or three in one hee were not felicity CHAP 18. DId all men open the eyes of their minde which they have by thy gift O Lord attained they might see with me how thou a jealous God because love loving canst hate nothing for in thy selfe a lovely God thou complicatest all things lovely thou lovest every loving thing that so they might see as I doe by what bond or league thou art united unto all things Thou O Lord inlargest thy love unto all men and lovest so all things in generall that withall thou lovest every thing in particular But many are they that do not love thee because they prefer something before thee But if love lovely were not distinct from love loving thou wouldest be so lovely unto all men that they could love nothing besides thee and all reasonable spirits would be necessitated to the love of thee But thou art so noble O my God that thou wilt have it in the liberty of reasonable soules whether they will love thee or no wherefore upon thy loving it followeth not that thou art
loved Thou therefore O my God art by the bond of love united unto al things because housprea dest abroad thy love upon every Creature of thine but every rationall spirit is not united unto thee because it bestowes not its love upon thy lovelinesse but upon some other thing whereunto unto it is united and knit Thou hast espoused every reasonable soule by thy loving love but not every spouse loveth thee her husband but for the most part some other whereunto she cleaveth but how could the soule of man thy spouse O my God attaine thy end except thou wert lovely that so by loving thee that art lovely shee might reach the bond and most happie union Who therefore can deny thee to be God three in one when hee sees that thou wert neither a noble naturall nor perfect God nor his spirit had free will nor himselfe could come to the fruition of thee and his owne happinesse except thou wert three and one For because thou art the understanding that understandeth the understanding intelligible and the Bond of both therefore the understanding created may attaine in thee its intelligible God union with thee and felicity So being thou art the love lovely the created loving will may in thee its lovely God attaine union and felicity for hee that receiveth thee God the reasonable receptible light may come to such a union of thee that he may be united to thee as a Sun to his Father I see O God by thy illumination that a reasonable nature cannot attaine to a union with thee but because thou artaminable and intelligible wherefore mans nature is not possible to be united to thee a loving God for so thou art not his object but hee may bee united to thee as his lovely God because that which is lovely is the object of that which loveth So in like manner that which may be understood is the object of the understanding and wee call that the truth which is the object Wherefore thou my God because thou art the intelligible truth the created understanding may be united unto thee and so I see that mans reasonable nature may be united only to thy divine and amiable nature and that man receiving thee the receptible God passeth into that Bond which may for the strictnesse thereof bee called by the name of filiation or sonne-ship for then the Bond of filiation we know no stricter And if this Bond of union be the greatest then which a greater cannot be this must needs come to passe because if thou the lovely God canst be more beloved by a man then is that Bond come to the most perfect filiation that that filiation may be perfection complicating all possible filiation by which all sonnes do attaine their last felicity and perfection In which highest sonne filiation is as Art in the Master or the light in the Sunne but in others as Art in the Schollars or light in the Starrs How Iesus is the union of God and Man CHAP. 19. I Give unspeakeable thanks to thee my God the life and light of my soule for now I see the faith which by the Revelation of the Appostles the Catholike Church holdeth namely how thou a loving God begettest of thy selfe a lovely God and that thou the lovely begotten God att the absolute Mediator for by thee is every thing that is or can be for thou the willing or loving God in thy selfe the lovely God complicatest all things for every thing that thou O God willest or conceivest is complicated in thee the lovely God for there cannot bee any thing except thou will it to be All things therefore in thy lovely conception have their cause or reason of being neither is there any other cause of all things but because it so pleaseth thee nothing pleaseth the lover as a lover but the lovely Thou therefore a lovely God art the Son of God a loving father for in thee is all the complaisance of the Father So all being creatable is complicated in thee the lovely God Thou therefore a loving God when as of thee is a lovely God as the Sonne of the Father in as much as thou art God the loving Father of God thy lovely Son art the Father of all things that are for thy conception is thy Sonne and all things in him and thy union and thy conception is the Act and operation arising in which is the act and explication of all things as therefore of thee the loving God is generated the lovely God which Generation is conception So from thee the loving God and thy lovely conception begotten by thee proceeds thy act and thy conception which is the knot knitting and the God uniting thee and thy conception as to love unites the loving and the lovely in love and this knot is called the spirit for the spirit is as motion proceeding from the mover and the moveable consequently motion is the explication of the conception of the mover All things therefore are to be expâ—icated in thee God the holy Ghost as they are conceived in thee God the sonne I see then because thou God dost so enlighten me how all things in thee God the sonne are God the Fathers as in the reason conception cause or samplar and have the sonne is the medium of all things as the reason or forme for by the mediation of reason and wisdome thou God the Father workest all things and the spirit or motion puts the conception of reason in effect as we finde by experience that the Arke in minde of the Artificer is put in effect by the mediation of the motive power which is in the hands Then I see O my God thy Son is the medium or mean of the union of all things that all things by the mediation of thy Son may rest in thee And I see blessed Iesus the son of man most Highly united to thy son and that the son of man could not be united to thee God the Father but by mediation of thy son the absolute Mediator Who is not most highly ravished that doth attentively consider these things Thou my God openest unto mee wretch such a secret that I see man cannot understand thee the Father but in thy son which is intelligible and the Mediator and that to understand thee is to be united unto thee Man may therefore be united unto thee by thy son which is the meane of the union and humane nature most highly united unto thee in what man soever in be cannot be more united to the meane then it is united for without the medium it cannot be united unto thee It is therefore most united to the meane yet it is not made the meane whereupon though it cannot be made the meane seeing it cannot be united unto thee without a meane yet it is so joyned to the absolute meane that betweene it and the sonne who is the absolute meane nothing can mediate for if any thing could mediate betweene mans nature and the absolute meane tâ—en