The benefits of withdrawing the soul from the Apprehensions of the Imagination, Answer to an objection. The difference between the Natural and Supernatural Imaginary Apprehensions.

of The benefits that result from emptying the imaginative faculty of these imaginary forms become manifest by the consideration of the five evils which they inflict on the soul, if it would retain them, as I said before of the natural forms. But, beside these benefits, there are others of perfect rest and tranquillity of mind. For, putting aside that natural rest which the soul enjoys when it has set itself free

from the dominion of images and forms, it is also delivered

from the anxiety of ascertaining whether they are good or evil, and what conduct it ought to observe with reference to the one and the other. It also escapes from troubling and wasting the time of its confessors, for it does not require them to determine whether these things are good or evil, or the nature of them,— matters the knowledge of which is not necessary for it, for all it has to do is to reject them in the sense I have already explained, and to give no attention whatever to them. The time and strength, thus wasted, will be then employed in a better and more profitable way, in conforming the will to God, in earnestly striving after detachment, poverty of sense and spirit, which consists in a willing real privation of all consoling and tangible support, interior as well as exterior. This we practise well when we seek and strive to separate ourselves from these forms; the issue of which will be that inestimable blessing of drawing near unto God, who has neither image, form, nor figure; and that blessing will be proportional to our estrangement from all forms, images, and figures.

You will here perhaps object, and say, Why, then, do many spiritual directors counsel us to profit by these Divine communications and impressions, and to desire the gifts of God that we may have wherewithal to give to Him in return, for if He gives nothing, we too have nothing to give unto Him? Why does S. Paul say, ‘ Extinguish not the Spirit’?* Why does the Bridegroom say to the Bride, ‘ Put Me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm’?ft This seal signifies some apprehensions. And yet, according to this teaching, we are not only not to seek them, but, even if God sends them, to reject them. It is also certain that God, when He sends them, sends them for our good, and that their effects will be good. Pearls are not to be thrown

* 1 Thess. v. 19, + Cant. viii. 6.

away. Yea, it is even a sort of pride not to yield a willing reception to God’s communications, as if we could do without them in our own strength.

I refer the reader, for a solution of this difficulty, to the

- fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the second book, where

the objection has been in great measure replied to. I said there that the benefits of the Supernatural Apprehensions, when they are from God, are passively wrought in the soul, at the time of their presentation to the senses, without the cooperation of our faculties. An act of the will admitting them is therefore unnecessary, for, as I have said, if the soul will then exert its own faculties, the effect of that natural and inferior exertion will be to impede the supernatural effects then wrought by God through their intervention, rather than any profit from that active exertion. Yea, rather, inasmuch as the fruit of these Imaginary Apprehensions is passively communicated to the soul; so the soul on its part must be passively disposed in their regard without any interior or exterior acts, as I have already explained. This is really to preserve the Divine impressions, for by this conduct we shall not destroy them by inferior actions of our own. This, too, is the way not to extinguish the Spirit, for we should extinguish Him if we attempted to walk in a way along which God does not lead us. We should be doing that if, when God communicates His Spirit to us passively, as He does in these apprehensions, we should then actively exert our intellect, or seek anything in them beside and beyond that which God communicates through them.

This is evident; for if the soul then exerts itself its action will be only natural, or, at the utmost, if supernatural, far inferior to that which God wills. In its own strength the soul cannot do more, seeing that it neither does, nor can, influence itself supernaturally; it is God that so influences it, but with its own consent. If, then, the soul will do anything

itself, it will, necessarily, so far as itself is concerned, impede the communication of God, that is, the Spirit; because it has recourse to its own operations, which are of another kind and far inferior to those of God. This, then, is to extinguish the Spirit. The inferiority of this exertion is clear, for the powers of the soul, in their ordinary and natural course, cannot act or reflect but upon some figure, form, or image; and these are but the rind and accidents of the substance and of the Spirit hidden beneath them. This substance and Spirit unite not with the powers of the soul in true intelligence and love, until the reflex and imperfect action of those powers shall have ceased. The end and aim of the soul in this exertion is to receive in itself the substance, understood and loved, which those forms involve. The difference therefore between the active and passive operation, and the superiority of the latter, is the same as that between a work in the course of performance, and the same work already performed; between the search after an object, and that object sought and found.

If the soul, then, will actively exert its faculties on those Supernatural Apprehensions, in which God, as I have said, communicates passively the spirit of them, it will do nothing else but forsake what is already done, in order to do it anew; and so will have no enjoyment of it, neither will its own exertions have any other effect than to frustrate what God hath wrought. Because, as I have said, the powers of the soul can never of themselves attain to the Spirit, which God communicates independently of them. If we were to attach any importance to these Imaginary Apprehensions, we should directly extinguish the Spirit which God infuses through them into the soul: we must therefore put them aside, and observe a passive conduct in their regard, for God is then lifting up the soul to things above its power and its knowledge. This is the meaning of the Prophet when he said, ‘ I

will stand upon my watch, and fix my foot upon the tower; and I will watch to see what will be said to me.’* That is, I will keep guard over my faculties, and will not suffer them to move a step, and so shall I be able to see what will be said to me; that is, I shall understand and enjoy what God will communicate to me supernaturally. As to the objection founded on the words of the Bridegroom, those words refer to that love which He demands, the function of which is to make the beloved ones resemble each other. And therefore He saith to her, ‘Put Me as a seal upon thy heart’t— where the arrows strike that are shot forth from the quiver of love, that is, the actions and motives of love —so that all the arrows of love might strike Him, being there as a target for them, and that all

may thus reach Him, and the soul become like unto Him through the actions and motions of love until it becomes transformed in Him. He says also, ‘as a seal upon thy arm.’ The arm implies the exercise of love, for it is that which comforts and sustains the Beloved. Therefore all we have to do with these Apprehensions, which come upon us from above, as well imaginary as of every other kind, whether Visions, Locutions, Impressions, or Revelations, is, making no account of the letter or the outward veil — that is, the significative and intelligible fact—to attend only to

the preservation of the Love of God which they cause interiorly in the soul. It is in this sense that we are to make

much of these impressions; not of the sweetness and delight

of them, nor of the figures, but of the impressions of love which produce it. And with this object only in view we may probably at times call to mind that image and apprehension, which have been the occasion of love, in order to furnish ourselyes with motives of love. For though the

* Habac. ii. 1. + Cant. viii. 6.

effect of that apprehension be not so great when recalled

to mind as it was when it was first communicated, still at

the recollection of it our love is renewed and our minds elevated unto God; especially when the recollection is of one of those supernatural images, figures, or impressions which usually so impress themselves on the soul that they continue for some time there, and can scarcely be driven away.

These images, thus imprinted on the soul, produce, whenever they are adverted to, the Divine effects of love, sweetness, and light, sometimes more, sometimes less, for that is the end for which they are impressed. He with whom God thus deals receives a great gift; for he has a mine of blessings within himself. The images which produce such effects as these are vividly grounded in the spiritual memory, and resemble not those which the fancy preserves. It is not therefore necessary when we would remember them to have recourse to the fancy, because we have them in

ourselves, as an image seen in a mirror. And whenever a

soul has them formally, it may then profitably recall them to that effect of love; because they will not impede the Union of Love in Faith, when we do not dwell upon them, but make use of them, towards exciting our love, and, when that is done, instantly dismiss them: in this way they will be of service to us towards the attainment of the Divine union.

It is difficult to determine when these images touch directly the spiritual part of the soul, and when they are only in the fancy. Those of the fancy are usually very frequent, for the imagination and the fancy of some people are full of imaginary visions, abundantly present in one form; whether it be the result of the great vigour of that organ which, after the slightest effort of thought, represents at once and portrays in the fancy the usual forms, whether it be the work of Satan, or whether it be the work

of God, but not formally impressed on the soul. But, however, we may determine their nature by their effects. Those that are natural or diabolic in their origin, however accurately remembered, produce no good effect, neither do they spiritually renew the soul, and the recollection of them issues only in dryness; while those which are from God produce, whenever remembered, some good effect, as at the first when originally presented to the soul. The formal images, those which are impressed on the soul, almost always when remembered, produce some effect. He who has these will easily distinguish the one from the other, for the difference between them will be most evident after experience. I have one thing, however, to say; those which are formally and durably impressed on the soul are of very rare occurrence. But of whatever kind they may be, the good of the soul consists in not seeking to comprehend anything save God alone by Faith in Hope.

Finally as to that objection which charges him with pride who rejects these things when they are good, I reply that it is a prudent humility to use them in the best way, as I have shown, and to guide our steps by the road that is safest.