CHAPTER VII.

The same subject continued. Other afflictions and trials of
the will.
The afflictions and distress of the will now are also very great ; they occasionally pierce the soul with a sudden recollection of the evils that environ it, and of the uncertainty of relief. To this is superadded the memory * Ps. lxviii. 2 — 4.
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of past happiness ; for they who enter this night have, generally, had much sweetness in God, and served Him greatly ; but now, to see themselves strangers to so much happiness, and unable to recover it, causes them the greatest affliction.
2. Job also, having learnt this by experience, declares it in these words : ‘ I sometime that wealthy one,
suddenly am broken ; He hath held my neck, broken me, and set me to Himself, as it were a mark. He hath compassed me with His spears, He hath wounded my loins, He hath not spared, and hath poured out on the earth my bowels. He hath cut me with wound upon wound : He hath come violently upon me as it were a giant. I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and have covered my flesh with ashes. My face is swollen with weeping, and my eyelids are dim/* So many and so great are the torments of this night, and so many the places in the Holy Writings, which may be quoted to this effect, that time and strength would fail me were I to enumerate them. For no doubt, all that can be said will fall short ; something may be gathered on the matter from the texts already before us.
2. And now to conclude the subject of the first line of the stanza, and to show what this night is to the soul, I will repeat how it was felt by the prophet Jeremias : ‘ I, the man that see my poverty in the rod of His * Job xvi. 13 — 1 7.
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indignation. He hath led me and brought me into darkness, and not into light. Only against me He hath turned, and hath converted His hand all the day. He hath made my skin old and my flesh ; He hath broken my bones. He hath built round about me, and He hath compassed me with gall and labour. In dark places He hath placed me as the everlasting dead. He hath built round about against me, I go not forth. He hath aggravated my fetters. Yea, and when I shall cry and ask. He hath excluded my prayer. He hath shut up my ways with square stones. He hath subverted my paths. He is become unto me a bear lying in wait ; a lion in secret places. He hath subverted my paths, and hath broken me ; He hath made me desolate. He hath bent His bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath shot in my reins the daughters of His quiver. I am made a derision to all my people, their song all the day. He hath replenished me with bitterness, He hath inebriated me with wormwood. And He hath broken my teeth by number ; He hath fed me with ashes. And my soul is repelled from peace ; I have forgotten good things. And I said : Mine end is perished and mine hope from our Lord. Remember my poverty and transgression, the wormwood and the gall. Remember- ing I will be mindful ; and my soul shall languish in me/*
* Lament, iii. i — 20.
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3. These are the lamentations of the prophet over these pains and trials, whereby he most vividly depicts the sufferings of the soul, which come upon it in this purgation and spiritual night. That soul is worthy of all compassion which God leads into this dreadful and horrible night. For, although it is well with it because of the great blessing of which this night is the source, for as Job saith, God will raise up good things for it out of this darkness, and bring light over the shadow of death : ‘Who revealeth profound things out of darkness, and bringeth forth the shadow of deathjnto light :** so t hat h is light shall be as the darkness ; ‘ the darkness thereof so also the light thereof/ as David speaks.f Nevertheless, because of the excessive pain it endures, and the great uncertainty of relief, it imagines now, as the prophet says, that its calamities will never come to an end. God, in the words of David, having made it to 4 dwell in darkness as those that have been dead of old/ the spirit being in anguish within it, and 4 the heart within ’ it 4 troubled/ it is a very painful and pitiable state.
4. Besides, the soul derives no consolation now in the advice that may be given it, or from its spiritual director, because of the loneliness and desolation of this dark night. Though its confessor may set before it in many ways good reasons why it should be comforted
* Job xii. 22. f Ps. cxxxviii. 12.
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because of the blessings which these pains supply, the soul will not believe him. For as it is so filled with and overwhelmed by its sense of these evils, whereby it discerns so clearly its own misery, it imagines that its spiritual director, not seeing that which itself sees and feels, speaks as he does without comprehending its state, and, instead of being comforted, is pained anew, for it considers that his counsel cannot relieve its misery ; and in truth so it is, for until our Lord shall have perfected the purification of the soul, according to His will, no help and no remedy can be of any service or profit in this pain.
5. Moreover, the soul can do so little in this state ; like a prisoner in a gloomy dungeon, bound hand and foot, it cannot stir, neither can it see or feel any relief, either from above or below, until the spirit is softened, humbled, and purified; until it becomes so refined, simple, and pure, as to become one with the Spirit of Gpd in that degree of the union of love which He in His mercy intends for it, and corresponding to which is the greater or less violence, the longer or shorter duration, of this purgation.
^6. But if this purgation is to be real it will last, notwithstanding its vehemence, for some years, but /admitting of intermissions and relief, during which, by | the dispensation of God, the dim contemplation divested [of its purgative form and character assumes that of the
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illuminative and of love. Under this form of it, the soul, like one escaped from the dungeons of its prison into the comfort of space and freedom, enjoys the sweetness of peace, and the loving tenderness of God in the flowing abundance of spiritual communications. This is to the soul a sign of the spiritual health which is being wrought within by this purgation, and a fore- taste of the abundance it hopes for. So much so is this at times that it thinks all its trials are over. For such is the nature of spiritual things in the soul, when they are most purely spiritual, that the soul thinks when trials return, they will never end, and that all its blessings have perished ; and when it prospers in its spiritual course it thinks all its calamities are past, and that it shall always abound in good things. Thus it was with David when he said : ‘ In my abund ance I said : I shall never be moved/*
7. The reason of this is that the actual presence of one thing in the mind is naturally inconsistent with the presence and sense of its contrary ; this is not so much so in the sensual part of the soul, because of the weak- ness of its apprehension. But as the spirit is not yet wholly purified and cleansed from the imperfections contracted by its lower nature, though more resolute and consistent now, it is liable to further sufferings, so far as it is under the dominion of these affections, as we see in
* Ps. xxix. 7.
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the many afflictions and distress of David after the change, though he had said in the day of his prosperity,
1 1 shall never be moved/
8. In the same way the soul, amidst the abundance of spiritual blessings, but not observing the root of imperfection and impurity which still remains, thinks that all its trials are over. This thought, however, is of rare occurrence, for until the spiritual purgation is com- plete, the sweet communications are rarely so abundant as to conceal the root that remains behind, in such a way that the soul shall not be inwardly conscious of some deficiency, or that something still is to be done. Nor is the communication such as to allow it to enjoy the relief that is offered it perfectly, for it feels as if an enemy were lurking within, who, though he may be as if subdued and asleep, the soul fears it may yet return in his strength and 'assault it as before.
9. And so it comes to pass, for when the soul is most secure it returns, drags down the soul and then plunges it at once into another affliction heavier, darker, and sadder than the previous one, and which, perhaps, will be of longer continuance. The soul again is convinced that all its good is gone from it for ever. Experience cannot teach it : the blessings that followed its former trials, during which it thought that its sufferings would never end, cannot hinder it from believing, during its present trials, that all its good has perished, and that it
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will never be again with it as it was before. For, as I am saying, this belief, so persistent, is wrought in the soul by the present impression made on the mind, which destroys within it all the occasions of joy.
io. Thus the soul in this purgation, though it seems to love God greatly, and is ready to die for Him a thousand deaths — and that is true, for souls thus tried love God with great sincerity, nevertheless they find no relief, but rather an increase of pain herein. For seeking God alone, and nought else, seeing also its own great misery, it doubts whether God be not angry with it. It cannot then persuade itself that there is anything in it worthy of love, but rather is convinced that there is that in it which should make it hated not only of God, but of all creatures also for ever ; it grieves to see that of itself it deserves to be abandoned of Him Whom ft so loves and so longs for.