CHAPTER IX.

p low this night enlightens the mind though it brings dark- ness over it.
It remains for me now to explain that this blessed night, though it darkens the mind, does so only to give it light in every thing ; and though it humbles it and makes it miserable, does so only to raise it up and set it free ; and though it impoverishes it and empties it of all its natural self and liking, it does so only to enable it to reach forward divinely to the possession and fruition of all things, both of heaven and earth, in perfect liberty of spirit. As it is fitting that the primary elements, that they may enter into the composition of all natural substances, should have no colour, taste, nor smell peculiar to themselves, in order that they may combine with all colours, all tastes, and all smell, so the mind must be pure, simple, and detached from all kinds of natural affections, actual and habitual, in order that it may be able to participate freely in the largeness of spirit of the divine wisdom, wherein by reason of its pureness it tastes of the sweetness of all things in a certain pre-eminent way. And without this purgation it is altogether impossible to taste of the abundance of these spiritual delights. For one single affection remaining in the soul, or any one matter to which the mind clings either habitually or actually, is sufficient to prevent all perception and all communication of the
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tender and interior sweetness of the spirit of love, which contains within itself all sweetness supremely. £_
2. As the children of Israel, merely on account " 5 ^ that single affection for, and remembrance of, the fleshpots of Egypt, could not taste the delicious bread of angels, the manna in the desert, which as the divine writings tell us, had ‘ the sweetness of all taste/ and
1 turned to that every man would/* so the mind which is still subject to any actual or habitual affection or particular or narrow mode of apprehending, or under- standing anything, cannot taste the sweetness of the spirit of liberty, according to the desire of the will. The reason is this : the affections, feelings, and appre- hensions of the perfect spirit, being of so high an order and specially divine, are of another kind and different from those which are natural ; and in order to be actually and habitually enjoyed, require the annihilation^ of the latter.
3. It is therefore very expedient and necessary, if the soul is to advance to these heights, that the dark night of contemplation should first bring it to nothing, and undo it in all its meannesses, bringing it into darkness, aridities, loneliness, and emptiness ; for the ^ light that is to be given it is a certain divine light of the highest nature, surpassing all natural light, and not naturally cognisable by the understanding. If the
* Wisd. xvi. 20, 21.
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understanding is to be united with that light, and become divine in the state of perfection, it must first of all be purified and annihilated as to its natural light, which must be brought actually into darkness by means of this dim contemplation.
4. This darkness must continue so long as it is necessary to destroy the habit, long ago contracted, of understanding things in a natural way, and until the divine enlightening shall have taken its place. And therefore inasmuch as the power of understanding, previously exerted, is natural, the result is that the darkness now endured is awful, and most afflictive, because it reaches to, and is felt in, the innermost depths of the spirit. In the same way, inasmuch as the affection of love, communicated in the divine union, is divine, and therefore most spiritual, subtile, delicate, and most interior, surpassing all sense and affection, natural and imperfect, of the will and every desire of the same, it is necessary for the fruition, in the union of love, of this divine affection and most exquisite delight, that the will should be first purified and annihilated, as to all its affections and feelings, left in darkness and distress proportional to the intensity of the habit of natural affections it had acquired, in respect both of human and divine things.
5. And this must be done, in order that the will, in the fire of dim contemplation, wasted, withered, and
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deprived of all selfishness — like the liver of the fish which Tobias laid on the burning coals* — may acquire a pure and simple disposition, a purified and sound taste, so as to feel those sublime and wonderful touches of divine love when it shall be divinely transformed ; all its former contrarieties actual and habitual being expelled.
6. Moreover, in order to attain to the divine union, for which the dark night disposes it, the soul must be endowed and replenished with a certain glorious mag- nificence in the divine communication, which includes innumerable blessings and joys, surpassing all the abundance which the soul can naturally possess — so speak the prophet Isaias and S. Paul, c Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man what things God hath prepared for them that love Him/t it is necessary for it that it should be first brought into a state of emptiness and spiritual poverty, detached from all help and consolation in all the things of heaven and earth, that being thus empty it may be really poor in spirit and divested of the old man, and may live that new and blessed life to which it attains in this dark night which is the state of union with God.
7. And because the soul is to attain to the possession of a certain sense, and divine knowledge, most generous and full of sweetness, of all human and divine things
* Tob. viii. 2 . f Is * h°v. 4 »* 1 Cor. 9*
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which do not fall within the common-sense and natural perceptions of the soul — it views them with different eyes now ; as the light and grace of the Holy Ghost differ from those of sense, the divine from the human — it is necessary that the spirit should be brought low, and inured to hardships in all that relates to the natural and common sense. It must suffer hardships and afflictions in the purgative contemplation, and the memory must become a stranger to all pleasing and peaceful knowledge, with a most interior sense and feeling of being a stranger and a pilgrim here, so that all things shall seem strange to it, and other than they were wont to seem.
8. For this night is drawing the spirit away from its ordinary and common sense of things, that it may draw it towards the divine sense, which is a stranger and an alien to all human ways ; so much so that the soul seems to be carried out of itself. At other times it looks upon itself as if under the influence of some charm or spell, and is amazed at all that it hears and sees, which seem to it to be most strange and out of the way, though in reality they are as they usually are, the same. The reason is this : the soul has bec o me a stranger to the ordinary sense of things, in order that being brought to nothing therein, it might be informed in the divine. Now this belongs more to the next life than to this.
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9. The soul suffers all these afflictive purgations of the spirit that it may be born again to the life of the spirit through the divine inflowing, and in these pangs bring forth the spirit of salvation, fulfilling the words of Isaias : ‘ So are we become in Thy presence, O Lord. We have conceived, and been as it were in labour, and have brought forth the spirit ** of salvation. Moreover, as in the night of contemplation the soul is prepared for that tranquillity and inward peace which is such and so full of delight as, in the words of Scripture, to ‘ pass all understanding,' t it is necessary for the soul that all its former peace, which, because involved in so many imperfections, was no peace, though it seemed to be a twofold peace, namely, of sense and spirit, because it was pleasing, should first of all be purified, and the soul withdrawn from and disturbed in that imperfect peace, as Jeremias felt and lamented in the words cited before to express the trials of the night that is now past, namely: ‘My soul is repelled from peace/ J
10. This is a painful unsettling, full of misgivings, imaginations, and inward struggles, in which the soul, at the sight and in the consciousness of its own misery, imagines itself to be lost, and all its good to have perished for ever. In this state the spirit is pierced by sorrow so profound as to occasion strong spiritual groans and cries, to which at times it gives utterance,
* Is. xxvi. 1 7, 18. f Phil. iv. 7. { Lam. iii. 17.
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and tears break forth, if there be any strength left for them, though this relief is bujt rarely granted. The royal prophet David has well described this state, being one who had great experience of it, saying, ‘ I am afflicted and humbled exceedingly ; I roared with the groaning of my heart/* This roaring proceeds from great pain ; for sometimes the sudden and sharp recol- lection of the miseries that environ the soul, makes it feel such pain and grief that I know not how it can be explained otherwise than by the words of Job : ‘as overflowing waters so is my roaring/f For as waters sometimes overflow, drown and fill all places, so this roaring, and sense of pain, become occasionally so strong as to flow over and into the soul, filling all its deepest affections and energies with spiritual pain and sorrow which defy all exaggeration.
11. Such is the work wrought in the soul by this night that hideth the hopes of the light of day. It was in reference to it that Job said, ‘In the night my mouth is pierced with sorrows, and they that feed upon me do not sleep/* The mouth here is the will, pierced by these sorrows which cease not to tear the soul, neither do they sleep, for the doubts and misgivings which harass it are never at rest.
12. This warfare and combat are deep, because the peace hoped for is most deep : the spiritual sorrow is
* Ps. xxxvii. 9. f J°b iii- 24. { Job xxx. 17.
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interior, refined, and pure, because the love to be enjoyed must be also most interior and pure. The more interior and perfect the work, the more interior, perfect, and pure must the labour be that produces it ; and the stronger the building, the more solid it is.
‘ My soul fadeth within myself/ saith Job, 1 and the days of affliction possess me.* So, in the same way, because the soul has to attain to the enjoyment and possession, in the state of perfection to which it journeys in this purgative night, of innumerable blessings, of gifts, and virtues, both in the substance of the soul and in the powers thereof, it is necessary that it should first consider and feel itself generally a stranger to and deprived of them all, and regard them as so far beyond its reach as to be persuaded that it never can attain to them, and that all goodness is perished from it. This is the meaning of those words of Jeremias, ‘I have forgotten good things.f
13. Let us now see why the light of contemplation,! so sweet and lovely to the soul that nothing is more desirable — for it is that, as I said before, + whereby the divine union takes place, and whereby the soul in the state of perfection finds all the good it desires — produces, when it strikes the soul, these painful beginnings and terrible effects. The answer is easy, and is already given in part ; there is nothing in contemplation and
* Job xxx. 16. f Lam. iii. 17. J Bk. ii. ch. v. §§ I, 2.
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the divine inflowing, to cause pain, but rather much sweetness and joy, as the soul will find later. The cause is the imperfection and weakness of the soul, and dispositions not fit for the reception of this sweetness. And so, when the divine light beats upon the soul, it [makes it suffer in the way described.