CHAPTER VI.

Of other sufferings of the soul in this night.
The third kind of suffering and pain for the soul comes from the meeting of two extremes, the human and the divine : the latter is the purgative contemplation ; the human, is the soul itself. The divine touches the soul to renew it and to ripen it, in order to make it divine, to detach it from the habitual affections and qualities of the old man, to which it clings and conforms itself. The divine extreme so breaks and bruises the soul, swallow- ing it up in profound darkness, that the soul, at the sight of its own wretchedness, seems to perish and waste away, by a cruel spiritual death, as if it were swallowed up and devoured by a wild beast, suffering the pangs of Jonas in the belly of the whale. For it must lie buried in the grave
* Job xix. 21.
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of a gloomy death that it may attain to the spiritual resurrection for which it hopes. David describes this kind of pain and suffering — though it really baffles description — when he says, ‘ The sorrows of death have compassed me . . . the sorrows of hell have compassed me. ... In my tribulation I have called upon our Lord, and have cried to my God/*
fli. But the greatest affliction of the sorrowful soul in / this state is the thought that God has abandoned it, of I which it has no doubt ; that He has cast it away into \ darkness as an abominable thing. The thought that He has abandoned it is a grievous and pitiable affliction. David experienced the same trials when he said, ‘ As the wounded sleeping in the sepulchres, of whom Thou art mindful no more ; and they are cast off from Thy hand. They have put me in the lower lake, in the dark places, and in the shadow of death. Thy fury is confirmed upon me ; and all Thy waves Thou hast brought in upon me/f
3. For, in truth, when the soul is in the pangs of the purgative contemplation, the shadow of death and the pains and torments of hell are most acutely felt, that is, the sense of being without God, being chastised and abandoned in His wrath and ^eavy displeasure. All this and even more the soul feels now, for a fearful apprehension has come upon it that thus it will be with * Ps. xvii. 5, 6, 7. t Ib * lxxxvii. 6 , 7, 8.
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CHAP. VI.] OF THE SOUL.
it for ever. It has also the same sense of abandonment with respect to all creatures, and that it is an object of contempt to all, especially to its friends ; and so the Psalmist continues, saying, ‘ Thou hast put away my acquaintance far from me ; they have set me an abomination to themselves/*
4. The prophet Jonas also, as one who had experience of this, both bodily and spiritually, witnesses to the same truth, saying, ‘ Thou hast cast me forth into the depth, in the heart of the sea, and a flood hath compassed me : all Thy surges and Thy waves have passed over me. And I said, I am cast away from the sight of Thine eyes : but yet I shall see Thy holy temple again/ — this is the purgation of the soul that it may see God — ‘ the waters have compassed me even to the soul, the depth hath enclosed me, the sea hath covered my head. I am descended to the extreme parts of the mountains : the bars of the earth have shut me up for ever/f The bars of the earth here are the imperfections of the soul which hinder it from having any joy in this sweet contempla- tion.
5. The fourth kind of pain is caused by another excellence peculiar to this dim contemplation, a sense of God’s majesty and greatness, which makes it conscious $£ the other extreme, its own poverty and misery ; this is one of the chief sufferings of this purgation. The
* lb. 9. t J on - “• 4 — 7*
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soul is conscious of a profound emptiness, and destitution of the three kinds of goods, natural, temporal, and spiritual, which are ordained for its comfort ; it sees itself in the midst of the opposite evils, miserable im- perfections and aridities, emptiness of the understanding, and abandonment of the spirit in darkness*
0. Inasmuch as God is now purifying the soul in its sensual and spiritual substance, its interior and exterior powers, it is necessary for it that it should be in all its relations empty, poor and abandoned, in aridity, emptiness, and darkness. For the sensual part is purified in aridities, the faculties in the emptiness of their powers, and the spirit in the thick darkness.
7. All this God brings about by means of this dim contemplation, in which the soul is made to suffer from the failure and withdrawal of its natural powers, which is a most distressing pain. It is like that of a person being suffocated, or hindered from breathing. But this contemplation is also purifying the soul, undoing or emptying it, or consuming in it, as fire consumes the rust and mouldiness of the metal all the affections and habits of imperfection which it had contracted in the whole course of its life. But inasmuch as these habits are deeply rooted in the soul, the interior sufferings and trials it has to undergo are heavy, and are, in addition to the destitution and emptiness, natural and spiritual, of which I have spoken.
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• 8. The words of the prophet Ezechiel are now ful-
filled : ‘ Heap together the bones which I will burn with fire : the flesh shall be consumed, and the whole com- position shall be sodden, and the bones shall dry away/* This describes the pain which the soul suffers in the sensual and spiritual parts when in this state of emptiness and poverty. Then the prophet proceeds, saying : ‘ Set it also upon hot burning coals empty, that the brass thereof may wax hot and be melted ; and let the filth of it be melted in the midst thereof, and let the rust thereof be consumed/f
9. This is the heavy trial of the soul in the purifying fires of contemplation. The prophet says that, in order to purge away and consume the filth of the affections which are within the soul, it is necessary for it, in a certain way to be annihilated and undone, because its passions and affections have become natural to it. The soul, therefore, because it is purified in this furnace, like gold in a crucible, according to the words of Wisdom, ‘ as gold in the furnace He hath proved them/J feels itself utterly consumed in its innermost substance in this absolute poverty wherein it is as it were lost. This is taught us by the Psalmist, saying of himself ; ‘ Save me, O God, because waters are entered unto my soul. I stick fast in the mire of the depth ; and there is no sure standing. I am come into the depth of the sea : and a * Ezech. xxiv. 10. f lb. xxiv. 11. J Wisd. iii. 6 .
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tempest hath overwhelmed me. I have laboured crying, my jaws are made hoarse, my eyes have failed, whilst I hope in my God/*
io. Here God is humbling the soul that He may exalt it much hereafter, and if it were not His will that these feelings, when they rise, should be quickly lulled again, the soul would almost immediately depart from the body, but they occur only at intervals in their greatest violence. They are occasionally felt so acutely that the soul seems to see hell and perdition open before it. Of these, are they who go down alive into hell, and have their purgatory in this life ; for this is the purgation to be endured there for venial sins. And thus the soul which passes through this state in the present life, and is perfectly purified, either enters not into purgatory, or is detained there but a moment, for one hour here is of greater profit than many there.