The Mind’s Ascent to God by a Ladder of Created ThingsFourth step. CONSIDERATION OF WATERS AND CHIEFLY OF FOUNTAINS

Water holdeth the second place among the elements: and if rightly looked upon, a step may be made of it to assist the heart’s ascent towards God. And first let us consider water in general, and afterwards the particular ascent towards God which we learn from wells. Water is moist and cold, and on this account it has, as it were, five properties: it washes and wipes away stains; it quenches fire; refreshes and tempers the heat of thirst; joins many and different things into one whole; and lastly, so low as it sinks, so high will it rise again. All these properties are plain symbols and footsteps of that God who is the Creator of all things. -

Water washes off bodily stains; God washes off those that are spiritual. ‘Thou shalt wash me,’ says David, ‘and I shall be whiter than snow.’ For though we say contrition cleanses the heart from sin, that is from stain, and sacraments, priests, almsgiving, and other works of piety, cleanse: yet all these are either the instruments or dispositions, and the author of the cleansing is God alone. ‘I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake.’! And so the Pharisees, who murmured against Christ, said, “Who can forgive sins but God alone ?’1 They were not mistaken in attributing to God alone the supreme power of forgiving sins, but they were wrong in not believing Christ to be God, and therefore they were blaspheming and speaking truth at the same time. And not only does God cleanse the stains of the heart after the manner of water, but he wills to be called by the Name: for thus writes Saint John: ‘He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.’ ‘Therefore the Holy Spirit, who is indeed God, is the living water, and of this water Ezekiel says, ‘I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness.” 3

And since that heavenly uncreated water far surpasses in power created and earthly water, we will note three differences between the washing of created and uncreated. water. First, created water washes the stains of the body, but not all: for there are many which it is powerless to cleanse without the help of soap or other instruments; but uncreated water entirely cleanses all stains; thus we read in a passage shortly before that quoted above, ‘And ye shall be cleansed from all your iniquities.’ Secondly, created water seldom so Wipes away all stains as to leave no trace or mark of the stain; but uncreated water so cleanses that the thing cleansed is made more shining and beautiful than it was before it was defiled. ‘Thou shalt wash me,’ saith David, ‘and J shall be whiter than snow’; 4 and the Lord saith by Isaiah, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’5 And lastly, created water cleanses natural stains which do not withstand the person who cleanses; but uncreated water washes away voluntary stains which cannot be washed unless the soul itself be willing, and yields willingly to the cleanser. But so great and admirable is the virtue of this water that it sweetly penetrates. hearts of stone: and it is resisted by no hardened heart, but it makes it unable to resist, as Saint Augustine aptly reminds us.

Who can understand, O Lord, how wonderfully thou dost breathe faith into the hearts of the unbelieving, and pourest humility into the hearts of the proud, and instillest charity into the hearts of thine enemies, so that a man who a short time before was breathing threats and slaughter and persecuting thee in the persons of thy disciples, is suddenly changed, and for thy sake and for thy Church willingly bears the threats and blows of persecutors ?! It is too much for me to penetrate into these thy secrets and I had rather know the efficacy of thy grace by experience than by search. And as I know that that water of thine is a gracious rain, refreshing thine inheritance, as thy prophet sang,? I would humbly beseech thee that I may be found in thine inheritance and that it may please thee to cause thy grace to descend upon the soil of my heart, that it continue not as a land without water, dry and barren before thee, such as it is in itself, and unable even to think anything good. But let us pass on to the rest.

Water quenches fire, and that heavenly water, namely the grace of the Holy Spirit, in a wondrous manner quenches the fire of carnal desires. Fasting and afflicting of the body indeed avail much in this quenching, but only when they are used as means of the grace of the Holy Ghost: otherwise of themselves alone they are of no great value. For love it is which controls the affections and movements of the mind; it rules all men, and to it all men submit. Love will not be forced, and if it be hindered in one path it will find a passage by another. Love fears nothing, it ventures everything, conquers all things, thinks nothing hard or impossible for itself: in short, love yields to nothing but a greater or more powerful love. Thus a love altogether carnal, whether it pursues riches or pleasures, yields only to the love of God, and as soon as the water of the Holy Spirit begins to be instilled into the heart of a man, carnal love forthwith begins to cool. Saint Augustine may be our witness, who when he was accustomed to indulge his lust, considered it impossible to do without alliance with a woman: yet when he began to taste the grace of the Holy Spirit he exclaimed: ‘How sweet did it at once become to me, to waive the sweetness of those toys! and what I feared to be parted from was now a joy to part with. For thou didst cast them forth from me, thou true and highest sweetness. Thou castedst them forth, and for them enteredst in thyself, sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more hidden than all depths, higher than all honour, but not to the high in their own conceits.’ !

Besides this, water slakes thirst: and nothing but that heavenly water can put an end to the various troublesome and wellnigh infinite desires of the human heart. Thus the Truth itself, speaking to the woman of Samaria, taught plainly, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.’ The case is plainly this, that ‘the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.’ 2 Nothing that is offered to a man can satisfy his desires, since he is capable of an infinite good, and all created things are circumscribed within certain limits: but he who begins to drink the heavenly water, in which all things exist, seeks for nothing else and desires nothing more. But of this we have spoken above, in our discourse concerning the soul’s rest in God as the Creator of its being.

Water joins together and reduces to one such things as it would seem scarcely possible to unite: thus many grains of flour are wrought into one loaf by being mingled with water, and many particles of earth by the addition of water to them are made into bricks. But with far greater ease and permanence doth the water of the Holy Spirit work, making many men to be ‘of one heart and of one soul,’ which in the book of the Acts of the Apostles 3 is said of the first Christians, upon whom the Holy Ghost had immediately before descended. And the Lord, when about to go to the Father, commends and foretells this unity which the water of the Holy Spirit should accomplish when he said, ‘I pray not for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and |

St. John iv. 13. 2 Eccles. i. 8. 3 Acts iv. 32.

in thee, that they also may be one in us,’ and a little after, ‘That they may be one, as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.’ . And to this unity the Apostle exhorts in the Epistle to the Ephesians, * Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.’ O happy union, which makes many persons to be one body of Christ, which is ruled by one head, eating of the one bread, drinking of one cup, living by one Spirit, and cleaving to God becomes one spirit with him !3 What can a servant more desire than to become not only a sharer in all the goods of his Lord, but also to be made one with him in an indissoluble bond of love, one with him the Omnipotent, all-wise, and altogether lovely, Lord? And this does the grace of the Holy Spirit accomplish, as living and life-giving water, when it is received in a devout heart and preserved with all diligence and care.

A cataract of water rises to a height corresponding to the depth to which it has sunk. And since the Holy Spirit comes down from the highest heaven upon earth, so in the man who receives him into his heart, he becomes a ‘well of water springing up unto everlasting life,’ 4 as the Lord said to the woman of Samaria; that is to say, when a man is born again of water and the Holy Spirit and bears in his heart that indwelling Spirit, he lifts the fruit of grace up to the point whence that grace descended to him. Therefore, my soul, since thou hast been taught and stirred by the words of the Holy Scriptures, do thou again and again, with groans unspeakable, cry to thy Father, ‘Give me this water which shall cleanse me from all stain, which shall quench the heat of passion, which shall assuage all thirst, and satisfy every desire’: the water which shall make thee one spirit with thy God, which may become in thee a well of water springing up unto life eternal, that thou mayst send on before thee thy good works thither, where thou hopest thyself to dwell for ever.

With good reason did the Son of God say, ‘If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?’ He did not say, he will give bread, or raiment, or wisdom, or charity, or the kingdom of heaven, or eternal life; but he said, ‘he will give the Holy Spirit’: for all things are contained in that gift. Cease not then daily to remind the Father of his Son’s promise, and say with great devotion and sure hope of obtaining it: Holy Father, I pour forth my prayer to thee, not trusting in mine own righteousness, but in the promise of thine only-begotten Son. It was he who said to us, “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?’ Assuredly thy Son is the Truth itself and doth not deceive us; therefore fulfil the promise of thy Son who glorified thee upon the earth, and was obedient to thee unto death, ‘even the death of the cross.”2 Give the Holy Spirit unto me who beseech thee, give me the spirit of fear and love, that thy servant may fear nothing but to offend thee, and may love nothing beside thee and his neighbour in thee: ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me: cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me: give me the comfort of thy help again and stablish me with thy free Spirit.’ 3

r St, Luke xi. 13. 2 Phil. ii. 8. 3 Ps, li. 10.

I come now to the likeness to God which we see in springs of water; for thence the mind may rise to contemplate the exceeding and wondrous excellence of the Creator. Not without cause does Holy Scripture speak of God as the ‘well of life,’ ‘the fountain of wisdom,’ ‘the fountain of living waters.’ And that he is the fount of being may be gathered from the words of God himself spoken to Moses, ‘I am that I am: I AM hath sent me unto you.’ And all these names the Apostle seems to have gathered into one, when he says, ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’ For in him we exist as in the fountain of being, in him we live as in the fountain of life, and in him we move as in the fountain of wisdom, for “Wisdom is more moving than any motion: she passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness.’

Here among ourselves, water has this quality, namely, that from it rivers spring, and if they cease to draw from their source they gradually become dry: but the spring itself is not dependent on rivers because it does not receive its waters from them, but holds them in itself, and shares them with others. This is a true symbol and picture of the Divinity, for God is the very true fountain of being: he receives being from no other, and all things receive their being from him: God receives his being from no other because the Essence of God is his existence and his existence is his Essence, so that it can neither happen nor be conceived that God should not always have existed, or that he will not always exist. Other things may exist for a time, and a while after cease to be; since existence does not of necessity belong to their essence: as, for example, from the nature of man, since man is a reasonable creature, he cannot be a man without being a reasonable creature: and if existence were of the essence of a man, it would be impossible that he should not always exist, but since existence is not of ‘the essence of his being, it is possible for him both to exist and not to exist. God is the fount of being because in his own Essence is included the act of always existing. And this is signified by the words, ‘I am that I am,’ that is, I am Being Itself and I receive not my Being from any other, but I have it within myself: to me alone it belongs that my Essence is to be. And hence it is that eternity and immortality are proper to God, as the Apostle saith, ‘To the King eternal, immortal, the only God,’ and ‘Who only hath immortality.’ And indeed all other things receive their being from God, so that unless they are always in dependence on him and preserved by a certain inflow from him, they must forthwith come to naught: hence the same Apostle saith that ‘He bears all things along by the word of his power,’ because unless created things are sustained by God they cease to exist. Therefore, my soul, consider and wonder at the infinite goodness of thy Maker, who so lovingly bears up and preserves all things, though he himself needs them not, and wonder no less at the patience of thy Creator, and imitate it, since ‘He is so kind to the unthankful and to the evil,’ that he sustains those who blaspheme him and preserves those who deserve to be brought to naught, and let it not seem to thee burdensome if thou art sometimes required to bear the infirmities of thy brethren, and to do good to them that hate thee.

But the pre-eminence of him that is the fountain of being does not consist only in receiving his being from no other fountain and in communicating being to all other things. Waters of springs and waters of rivers are of the same nature, and although the waters of springs do not receive their waters from other springs, they yet have some other causes of their being, namely mists, and they again have other causes, until we reach the final Cause, which is God. Now, my soul, God is thy Creator, and his Being is not of the same kind as the being of created things, but is separated from them by an infinite distance of dignity and nobility and excellence, and he is truly and really the fountain of being, but he is wholly without any cause.

A well of created water, as was said, is not derived from other water, yet it is from another source: the uncreated fountain of being has nothing before himself, depends on nothing, lacks nothing: nothing can hurt him, but all things depend upon him and he is able to extinguish all created things and ‘at a beck can cast down all the world’ as the most valiant Maccabees says. Admire, O my soul, this pre-eminence, this beginning without beginning, cause without cause, infinite, boundless, immense, and absolutely necessary Being, since all other things in comparison with him are mere contingencies.

And perchance it was of him that the Truth himself spake, ‘One thing only is necessary,’ therefore cleave unto him alone, serve him alone, take thy delight in the love and desire of him alone: in comparison with him despise all other things, or at least do not disturb thyself with care about much business, seeing but one thing is necessary for thee, and that will suffice for thyself and for all others; let this one care be thine, that thou never fall from his grace, and study always and everywhere to please him.

And in truth we most rightly say that God is the fountain of life, for he lives and has life in himself, yea is himself eternal life. ‘This is the true God and eternal life,’ saith Saint John,! and all things that live receive life from that fountain, and if he ceased to bestow life they would fail and turn again into their dust as the holy prophet David says.?

To beget a being like unto oneself is a property of living beings. God begets his Son, wholly like unto himself, God God, and the Living One the Living One: for ‘as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself,’ as Saint John witnesseth in his Gospel.3 Now the Father hath life in himself because he is the fountain of life and receiveth life from no other: and he hath given to the Son to have life in himself, because he hath given him the same life which he himself hath, and for this reason the Son also is a fountain of life, but a fountain of life from the fountain of life, as he is God from God, and Light from Light. Who can explain, nay, who can conceive, what that life of God is, and what is that fountain of life in which living things in earth and in heaven have their source? Life as it is known to us in this state of exile is nothing else than an inward principle of movement: for those things are said by us to be alive which in some way move themselves; and for this reason we commonly speak of the waters of rivers as living waters, and those in pools as dead, since the former appear to be moved of themselves and the latter cannot move unless they be driven by winds, or by some other external force. Thy God, O my soul, doth most truly live, and he is the author and r 1 St. John. 20. 2 Ps. civ. 29. 3 St. John v. 26. the fountain of life. For he himself impresses this truth on us in many passages of Holy Scripture: ‘I live, saith the Lord’; and the prophets often repeat, “As the Lord liveth *; ;¹ and God, lamenting over his people, saith, ‘They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters.’3 And nevertheless he Tee moves, nor is he moved by any other: ‘I am God, I change not,’ 4 and elsewhere, ‘God is not the son of man that he should repent.’ 5 And in the Church’s hymn which we say daily :—

O God, Creation’s secret force,

‘Thyself unmoved, all motion’s source,

Who from the morn till evening’s ray,

Through all its changes guid’st the day.6

And though God begets the Son, he begets him without changing; and although he sees, hears, speaks, loves, pities, judges, it is without moving that he does all these things; and although he creates and preserves things or, on the contrary, destroys and scatters them, and again renews and changes them, yet he himself works resting and changes things while himself unmoved,

How then doth he live if he moveth not, and how can he not live if he is the fountain and author of life? This difficulty is easily removed. For to be alive it is quite sufficient for the living thing to act of itself and not to be moved by another: for the most part, life in created things is a principle of internal movement, because created things are imperfect and need many things in order that they may fulfil the functions of life, but God is infinite perfection and needs nothing outside himself: he acts of himself and is not moved by another, and he has no need of movement or change. Created things need change that they may generate and be generated; because they beget outside themselves and the thing which is begotten must be changed from not being into being: but God begets the Son within himself, and within himself produces the Holy Spirit. ‘The Son needs not to undergo change, nor is the Holy Spirit changed from not being to being, because they receive that being that always was; -and that they receive not in time but in eternity. Created things need movement for increase, because they are born imperfect: but God the Son is born most perfect, and God the Holy Ghost is breathed forth also and produced most perfect.

Created things need the movement of alteration, that they may obtain the various qualities of which they are in need: but God is in need of nothing, seeing his Essence is absolute perfection.

Created things require to move from place to place, because they are not everywhere: but God is wholly everywhere.

Besides this, created things need many things in order to see, hear, speak, or work, because though indeed they have a certain life, yet it is imperfect and very poor: but God needs nothing outside himself in order to see and hear all things, to speak or to work all things in all; because he has not only life, but life most rich and happy, and he himself is life and the fountain of life.

Let us take an example in the act of seeing: in order that a man may see he needs power of vision which is. distinct from the soul which properly lives: he needs an object, some coloured body placed outside himself: he needs sunlight or else light from some other luminous body: he needs a medium, that is a clearly-marked object: he needs a sensible species which can be drawn from the object to his sight: he needs the bodily organ, that is the eye, made of various humours and fleshy membranes: he needs sensitive spirits, and optic nerves through which those spirits may pass: he needs distance duly proportioned: he needs the application of power.

See how many minute things men and other creatures need that they may accomplish one vital action: but God, who in truth holds all life within himself, is in need of nothing at all: his infinite Essence is for him power, object, species, light, and all things else of himself, by himself, and in himself. God sees all things that are, that have been, that will be; and what they can be he clearly knows: and before the world was, God saw all things and nothing new has increased his knowledge or vision by the creation of all things. What therefore shalt thou be, O my soul, when thou art a partaker of his life? What great demand did God make upon thee when he bid thee lay down that bodily, animal life, imperfect as it is, and needy, lay it down for thy brethren and for God himself, that thou mayst become partaker of an eternal life most rich and blissful? And if this command to despise life is not a great demand, how slight and small it should seem to thee to be hidden to bestow freely thy dead riches on the poor, and to abstain from carnal pleasures, truly to renounce the devil and his pomps, and to yearn with the whole affection of thy heart after that life which alone is the true life.

It is now time for us to ascend, in such manner as we are able, to the fountain of wisdom. ‘The word of God most high is the fountain of wisdom,’! and he rightly says ‘most high,’ or ‘in the highest’: for the fountain of wisdom flows down most abundantly and richly upon the holy angels and the souls of the blessed dwelling in heaven; but to us who are wanderers in the desert, it is not so much wisdom itself that comes, but as it were an effluence or fragrance of wisdom. Wherefore, my soul, seek not after higher things than it becomes thee to seek, ‘Scan not the majesty lest thou be oppressed by the glory.” Marvel at the wisdom of him of whom the Apostle speaks as the - only wise God.?

Congratulate those happy souls who drink of the fountain of wisdom, and although they do not comprehend God, because his Being is the fountain of wisdom, yet they see the face of God, that is of the first cause, without any veil, and illuminated by his splendour, they rightly judge concerning all things, and in that noonday light of wisdom they fear not the darkness of error, nor the obscurity of ignorance, nor the dimness of opinions.

Aspire to that bliss, and that thou mayst safely attain to it, love the Lord Jesus Christ with all thy heart; in him are all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God: 3 and he himself said in the Gospel, ‘He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.’ 4 And what is that ‘I will manifest myself to him’ but, I will manifest all the treasures of the knowledge and wisdom of God which are hidden in myself? Most certainly all men naturally desire knowledge, and though at the present time many persons find a certain satisfaction in worldly pleasures, yet when we lay down the body which is corruptible and now weighs down the soul, we shall find the fire of this desire for knowledge blazes above all other desires. How great then will be thy happiness, O soul, when Christ thy Lover and thy Beloved shall show thee all the treasures of the knowledge and the wisdom of God !_ But in order that thou be not defrauded of so great a hope, be diligent in keeping the commandments of Christ: for he hath said, ‘If a man love me, he will keep my words, . . . and he that loveth me not, keepeth not my sayings.’ ! And in the meanwhile let thy wisdom be that which holy Job describes, ‘The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.’ 2 And what good soever thou seest in creatures, know that it flows down from God, the fountain of all goodness, and so with blessed Francis learn to taste of the fount of all good in each created thing, even though it be but in small streams.

Concerning this matter read the ninth chapter of Saint Bonaventura’s life of Saint Francis.

t St. John xiv. 23. 2 Job xxviii. 28.