Of natural and imaginary apprehensions. Their nature. They cannot be proportionate means of union. The evil results of not knowing how to detach oneself from them in time.

BEFORE discussing the imaginary visions which are wont to be represented supernaturally to the interior sense, the imagination and the fancy, it is expedient that I should now

—to proceed orderly—speak of the natural apprehensions incident to the same interior bodily sense. I adopt this course that we may advance from the less to the greater— from that which is more outward to that which is more inward—to that most interior recollection wherein the soul is united unto God. This too is the course I have hitherto observed. In the first place, I treated of the detachment of the soul from the natural apprehensions of exterior objects, and, consequently, from the natural powers of the desires. This I did in the first book, while speaking of the night of sense. I then treated in detail of detachment from exterior supernatural apprehensions, to which the exterior senses are liable — as in the preceding chapter — so that I may guide the steps of the soul into the night of the spirit in this second book.

Now the first subject of discussion is the interior bodily

sense, the imagination and fancy, out of which we must cast all imaginary forms and apprehensions naturally incident thereto, and show how impossible it is for the soul to attain to inion with God until their operations shall have ceased, because they can never be the proper and proximate means of union. The senses of which I am now speaking particularly are two, bodily and interior, called imagination and fancy, which in their order subserve each other. In the one there is something of reasoning, though imperfect and in an imperfect way; the other, the imagination, forms the image. For our purpose the discussion of either is equivalent to that of the other, and therefore when I do not mention them both let it be understood that what is said of the one is applicable to the other also, and that I am speaking indifferently of both, without distinguishing between them. All, therefore, that the senses perceive and fashion are called imaginations and fancies—that is, forms represented to the senses in bodily shape and likeness. These may take place in two ways—supernaturally when, without the action of the senses, they may and do become present passively before them. These are imaginary visions wrought supernaturally, of which I shall speak hereafter. The other way is natural, when the senses actively effect them by their own operation, through forms, figures, and images. These two powers serve for meditation, which is a discursive act by means of imagery, forms, and figures, wrought and fashioned in the senses. We picture to ourselves Christ on the cross, or bound to the pillar, or God sitting on His Throne in great majesty. So also we imagine glory as a most beautiful light, and represent before ourselves any other object, human or Divine, of which the faculty of imagination is capable. All these imaginations and apprehensions are to be emptied ut of the soul, which must remain in darkness so far as it VOL. I. H

not mate, means union God.

Its

1. 2.

perceptions.

image or of

concerns the senses, in order that we may attain to the Divine union, because they bear no proportion to the proximate means of union with God; as neither do corporeal things, the objects of the five exterior senses.

The reason is, that nothing enters the imagination but through the exterior senses. The eye must have seen, or the ear must have heard, or the other senses must first have become cognisant of all that isin it. Or at the utmost, we can only form pictures of what we have seen, heard, or felt; and these forms are not more excellent than what the. imagination has received through the senses. Though we picture in our imagination palaces of pearls and mountains of gold, because we have seen gold and pearls, yet after all this is nothing more than one piece of gold or a single pearl, even though the imagination ranges them in a certain order. And as all created things cannot have any proportion with the Being of God, it follows that all the conceptions of the imagination, which must resemble them, cannot serve as proximate means of union with Him. Those persons, therefore, who represent God to their minds under any sort of figure, or as a great fire or light, or anything else, thinking Him to be like them, are very far from drawing near unto Him. For though such considerations, forms, and methods of meditation may be necessary for beginners, in order to inflame and fill their souls with love, through the instrumentality of sense, as I shall explain hereafter—and though they may serve as remote means of union, through which souls must usually pass to the goal and resting-place of spiritual repose—-still they must so make use of them as to pass beyond them, and not dwell upon them for ever.

If we dwell upon them we shall never reach the goal, which is not like the remote means, neither has it any proximate

relation with them. Thé steps of a ladder have no proximate

relation with the goal and place to which we ascend by it,

towards which they are but means; so if he who climbs does not leave behind all the steps so that none remain, or if he rests upon one of them, he will never ascend to the summit, to the peaceful resting of the goal. The soul, therefore, that will ascend in this life to the Supreme Good and Rest must pass beyond all these steps of considerations, forms, and notions, because they bear no likeness or proportion to the end, which is God, towards which it tends. ‘We must not suppose,’ saith the Apostle, ‘ the Divinity to be like unto gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art and device of man.’* Great, therefore, is the mistake of those spiritual persons who, having laboured to draw near unto God by means of imagery, forms, and meditations, such as become beginners— while God would attract them to more spiritual, interior, and unseen good, by depriving them of the sweetness of discursive meditation—do not accept the guidance, neither venture nor know how to detach themselves from these palpable methods to which they have been accustomed. They retain these methods still, seeking to advance by them and by meditation upon exterior forms, as before, thinking that it must be so always. They take great pains in the matter, but find very little sweetness or none—yea, rather dryness, weariness, and disquiet of soul increase and grow the more they search after the sweetness they had before—it being now impossible for them to have it as they had it at first. The soul has no more pleasure in its first food, which was of the senses, but requires

another of greater delicacy, interior, and less cognisable by

the senses, consisting, not in the travail of the imagination, but in the repose of the soul, and in that quietness thereof, which is more spiritual. The more the soul advances in spirituality, the more it ceases from the operations of its faculties on particular objects; for it then gives itself up to

* Acts xvii. 29. H 2

useful

one sole, pure, and general act; and so its powers cease from the practice of that method by which they once travelled towards the point to which the soul was tending; as the feet cease from movement and are at rest when the journey is over; for if all were movement, there would be no goal to reach, and if all things are means, where or when shall we enjoy the end? How sad it is to see men who, when the soul would be at peace in the repose of interior quiet, where God fills it with refreshment and peace, disturb it, draw it away to outward things, compel it to travel again along the road it had passed, and to abandon the goal, where it reposes, for the sake of the means and considerations which guided it to its rest. This is not effected without loathing and repugnance on the part of the soul, which would repose in this tranquillity as in its proper place—as it happens to him who after toilsome labour has attained repose; for when he is made to return to his work he feels it painfully. And as they do not understand the secret of their new condition, they imagine themselves to be idle, doing nothing; and so do not ‘suffer themselves to be at rest, but strive to reproduce their former reflections and discursive acts. They are therefore full of dryness and trouble, because they seek there for sweetness where there is no longer sweetness for them. To them the proverb applies, ‘the more it freezes the more it binds;’ the more obstinately they cling to this way the worse it becomes for them, because they lead their soul further away from spiritual peace. This is to abandon what.is greatest for what is least, to travel backwards along the road they came, and do again what they have done before.

To these my counsel is—learn to abide with attention in loving waiting upon God in the state of quiet; give no heed to your imagination, nor to its operations, for now, as I have said, the powers of the soul are at rest, and are not exercised,

except in the sweet and pure waiting of love. If at times they are excited, it is not violently, nor with meditation elaborately prepared, but by the sweetness of love, more under the influence of God than by the ability of the soul, as I shall hereafter clearly explain.

Let this, for the present, suffice to show how necessary it is for those who would make progress, to abandon these methods and ways of the imagination at the proper time, when their growth, in that state wherein they are, requires it. And that we may know when this time is come, I shall describe certain signs which the spiritual man is to observe, that he may thereby recognise the time when he may freely avail himself of the goal already mentioned, and leave behind him all intellectual reflections and all the acts of the imagination.