The Ascent of Mount CarmelChapter V. Continuation of the same subject. Proofs from Scripture of the necessity of drawing near unto God through the dark. night of mortified desires

I HAVE now explained how great is the distance between created things and God, and how souls which set their affections thereon are equally distant from Him, because —as I have said¹ love begets equality and likeness. This was well understood by S. Augustine when, considering his own inclination towards the creature, he thus spoke unto God: ‘Miserable man that I am, what fellowship hath my perverseness with Thy uprightness? Thou art truly good, I wicked; Thou art full of compassion, I am hard of heart; Thou art holy, I am miserable; Thou art just, am unjust; Thou art light, I am darkness; Thou art life, and I am death; Thou art medicine, I am sick; Thou art sovereign truth, and I utter vanity. This the saint said of subjection to created things.

2. It is, therefore, supreme ignorance for any one to think that he can ever attain to the high estate of union with God before he casts away from him the desire of natural things, and of supernatural also, so far as it concerns self-love, because the distance between them and that which takes place in the state of pure transformation in God is the very greatest. For Christ our Lord hath said, instructing us in this way, ‘Every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be my disciple.’² This is plain, for the doctrine of Christ which He came into the world to teach, is contempt of all things, that we may thereby have power to receive the reward of the Spirit of God. For he who does not withdraw himself from the things of the world, is not qualified to receive the Spirit of God in the pure transformation.

3. This truth is foreshadowed in the book of Exodus, where we read that God did not give the manna to the people of Israel till the corn they had brought from Egypt had failed them, thereby showing us that everything must be given up, for the bread of angels is not given to, neither is it meant for, that palate which is pleased with the bread of man. He who feeds on strange meats, and is delighted therewith, not only disqualifies himself for the reception of the Holy Ghost, but also provokes God to anger exceedingly, as all do who, while they seek spiritual food, are not content with God only, but intermingle therewith carnal and earthly satisfactions. This appears from the same history, where it is said the people cried, ‘Who will give us flesh to eat ?³ They were not satisfied with food so pure, for they desired and demanded the flesh of beasts. God was grievously offended because they would mingle flesh, so vile and coarse, with the pure and heavenly bread which, though always the same, had in it ‘the sweetness of every taste,⁴ for, as David saith, the wrath of God in fire from heaven consumed many thousands of them, while ‘their meat was in their mouth the wrath of God came upon them, and He slew the fat ones amongst them, and brought down the chosen men of Israel.’ t God regarded it as an evil wish to desire other food when He was giving them the bread of heaven.

4. Oh, would that spiritual persons knew how they are losing the good things of the Spirit, abundantly furnished, because they will not raise up their desires above trifles, and how they might have the sweetness of all things in the pure food of the Spirit if they would only forego them. But as they will not, so they shall not have such sweetness. The people of Israel perceived not the sweetness of every taste in the manna, though it was there, because they would not limit their desires to it alone. The sweetness and strength of the manna was not for them, not because it was not there, but because they longed for other meats beside it. He who loves any other thing with God makes light of Him, because he puts into the balance with Him that which is infinitely beneath Him. We know by experience that the will, when set on a particular object, magnifies it above all others, if it has no pleasure in them, though they may be of greater importance than what it desires. And if it should desire two things together, it does wrong to the chief of the two, because it establishes an unjust equality between them. There is nothing in the whole world to be compared with God; and, therefore, he who loves anything together with Him, wrongs Him. And if this be true, what does he do who loves anything more than God?

5. This truth is set before us in the book of Exodus. When God commanded Moses to go up into mount Sinai, He bade him go up alone; the children of Israel were to remain below, and even the cattle were not to feed in sight of the mountain. ‘Thou shalt stand with Me on the top of the mount. Let no man go up with thee, and let not any man be seen throughout all the mount: neither let the oxen nor the sheep feed over against it.'⁵ He, therefore, that will go up into the mount of perfection and hold communion with God, must not only abandon everything, but restrain even his desires, the sheep and the cattle from feeding in sight of the mount—that is, upon anything which is not simply God, in Whom, that is, in the state of perfection, every desire must cease. This journey or ascent must therefore be a perpetual struggle with our desires to make them cease, and the more earnest we are the sooner shall we reach the summit. But until the desires cease we can never reach it, notwithstanding our many virtues, for virtue is not perfectly acquired before our souls are empty, detached, and purified from all desire.

6. Of this truth we have a lively figure in the history of the patriarch Jacob. When he was on his way to Bethel to build an altar for sacrifice unto God, he commanded his household the observance of three things: the casting away of strange gods, self-purification, and the changing of their garments. ‘Jacob having called together all his household, said, cast away the strange gods that are among you, and be cleansed and change your garments.’⁶ He, therefore, who will ascend to the mount of perfection, to build an altar there, whereon to offer unto God the sacrifice of pure love, praise, and adoration, must first of all perfectly fulfil the three commandments of Jacob. He must cast away the strange gods, the earthly affections and attachments. He must purify himself from the impressions which the desires have made on the soul, in the obscure night of sense, denying them and doing penance duly for them, and, in the third place, he must change his garments. This God himself will do during the observance of the first two commandments; He will change them from old into new, by infusing into the soul a new understanding of God in God, the human understanding being set aside, and a new love of God in God, the will being detached from its old desires and human satisfactions, by bringing the soul into a state of new knowledge and of deep delight, all other knowledge and old imaginings being cast away; and, finally, by causing that which is of the old man to cease which is our natural aptitude, and investing us with a new supernatural aptitude, corresponding with the powers of the soul, so that all that is human in the action of the soul may become divine. This is the object gained in the state of union, in which the soul is nothing else but an altar of God whereon the sacrifice of praise and love is offered, and where He dwells alone.

7. This is the reason why, under the old law, the altar of sacrifice was to be hollow within. ‘Thou shalt not make it solid, but empty and hollow in the inside.' It is the will of God that the soul should be empty of all created things, so that it may become a fitting altar of His Majesty. He would not endure strange fires on the altar, nor that His own should fail. ‘Nadab and Abiu, the sons of Aaron, taking their censers, put fire therein, and incense on it, offering before the Lord strange fire: which was not commanded them, and fire coming out from the Lord destroyed them, and they died before the Lord.' Because Nadab and Abiu, sons of Aaron the high priest, offered strange fire on the altar, God in his anger slew them before it. That soul, therefore, which would become a fitting altar, must not be without the love of God, nor mingle therewith any other and strange love. God will never dwell there where aught is present beside Himself. Thus we read in the first book of the Kings, that when the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the temple of Dagon, their idol was thrown to the ground, and at last broken to pieces.

8. One desire only doth God allow, and suffer, in His presence, that of perfectly observing His law, and of carrying the cross of Christ. We do not read in the divine writings that He commanded anything except the book of the law, to be laid up with the ark where the manna was preserved.—‘Take this book, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your

“Seas, + lenin x. 1 ae +1 Kings v. 1-5. God ’⁷—and the rod of Aaron, type of the cross. ‘Take. back the rod of Aaron into the tabernacle of the testimony.' That soul which has no other aim than the perfect observance of the law of God, and the carrying of the cross of Christ, will be a true ark containing the true manna, which is God.