CHAPTER XXIV.

Concludes the explanation of the second stanza.
My home being now at rest .
This is as much as saying, My higher nature and my lower nature also, each in its desires and powers, being now at rest, I went forth to the divine union of the love of God.
2. As in the warfare of the dark night, as I said
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CHAP. XXIV.] OF THE SOUL.
before,* the soul undergoes a twofold contest and purgation : that is, in the sensual and the spiritual part, with their senses, powers, and passions, so also, in the sensual and spiritual parts, with all their powers and desires, does it attain to a twofold peace and rest. For this reason it repeats the words, as I said before, t 4 My house being now at rest/ at the end of the second stanza, because of the two parts of the soul, spiritual and sensual, which, if they are to go forth into the divine union of love, must first of all be changed, ordered, and tranquillised with regard to all the things of sense and spirit, after the likeness of the state of innocence in Adam, notwithstanding that the soul be not wholly delivered from the temptations of the lower part. These words, therefore, which in the first stanza are understood of the tranquillity of the lower and sensual part, now, in the second stanza, are understood particularly of the higher and spiritual part ; and this is the reason of the repetition.
3. The soul obtains this tranquillity and rest of the spiritual house, habitually and perfectly — so far as it is possible in this life — through the substantial touches of the divine union, of which I have just spoken, { and which, in secret, hidden from the turmoil of satan, sense, and passion, it receives from the Divinity, whereby it
♦ Bk. 1, ch. viii. § 1, Bk. 2, ch. i. § 1. f Ch. xiv. § 1.
J Ch. xxiii. § 11.
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has been tranquillised, purified, strengthened, and con- firmed, so as to become an effectual partaker of that union which is its divine betrothal to the Son of God. The instant the two houses of the soul are tranquil and confirmed, with the whole household of its powers and desires sunk in sleep and silence, as to all things of heaven and earth, the divine Wisdom, immediately in a new bond of loving possession, unites itself to the soul, and that is fulfilled which is written, ‘ While quiet silence contained all things and the night was in the mid-way of her course, Thy omnipotent Word sallying out of heaven from the royal seats/* The same truth is set before us in the Canticle, where the bride, after passing by those who took her veil away and wounded her, saith, 4 When I had a little passed by them, I found Him whom my soul loveth/f
4. This union is unattainable without great purity, and this purity is attainable only by detachment from all created things and sharp mortifications. This is signified by the robbery of the veil and the wounding of the bride in the night when she went forth searching after her beloved ; for the new veil of the betrothal cannot be put on till the old veil be taken away. He, therefore, who will not go out in this dark night to seek the Beloved, who will not deny and mortify his own will, but seek him at his ease on his bed, as the bride
* Wisd. xviii. 14. f Cant. iii. 4.
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CHAP. XXV.] OF THE SOUL.
once did,* will never find Him. The soul says here that it found Him, as the soul says of itself that it found Him by going forth in the dark, and in the anxieties of love.