Intravit Jesus in templum dei et ejiciehat omnes vendentes et emeyites etc. (Matt. 21 We read in the gospel that our Lord went into the temple and cast out all them that sold and bought and said to them that sold doves : ‘ Take these things hence ! ’ It was his p\irpose to have the temple cleared, as though he said : This temple is by rights mine own and I want it to myself to be lord therein. This temple that God means to rule in is man’s soul which he has made exactly like himself, as saith the Lord, ‘ We will make man in our image and likeness.’ Which he did. So like himself God made man’s soul that nothing else in earth or heaven resembles God so closely as the human soul. God wants this temple cleared of everything but himself. This is because this temple is so agreeable to him and he is so comfortable in this temple when he is there alone.
Now consider who they were that sold and bought therein and who they are still. Mark me well : 1 name none but the virtuous. Yet, even so, I can point out who the merchants were, and still are to this day, that thus buy and sell : those whom our Lord drove forth and cast out. He still does so to those that buy and sell in this temple : he would not leave a single one therein. Lo, they are merchants all who, while avoiding niorhd sin and wishing to be virtuous, do good works to the glory of God, fasts, for example, vigils, prayers, etc., all of them excellent, but do them with a view to God’s giving them somewhat, doing to thein somewhat, they wish for in return. All such are merchants. This is plain to see, for they reckon on giving one thing for another and so to barter with our Lord, though they are mistook as to the bargain. For all they have and have the power to do, they have from God and do effect by means of God alone. God has no call to do to them or give to them anything unless he choose to. For what they are they are from God and what they have they get from God, not from themselves. God is in no wise boimden to requite their acts or gifts, except he care to do so of his own free will, apart from what they do or give ; for they give not of their own nor do they act of their own selves, as God says, ‘ Without me ye can do nothing.’ They be sorry fools who bargain with our Lord like this ; they know little or nothing of the truth. God cast them out of the temple and drove them forth. For light and darkness cannot dwell together. God is the truth, he is the light itself. When God enters the temple he drives out ignorance and darkness, revealing himself in the light of truth. Merchants go when the
Sermons and Coixations
truth appears, for the truth needs no tnerchanting. God seeks not his own, he is perfectly free in all his acts, which he does in true love. So does the man who is at one with God : he is perfectly free in all his deeds ; he docs them out of love and without why, just to glorify God, not seeking his own therein, God energising in him.
Moreover I maintain : as long as we work at all for gain, while we desire aught God may have given or may give, we rank with these merchants. Woiildst thou be free from any taint of trade ? then do what good thou canst and do it solely to God’s glory, as exempt from it th 3 self as though thou wert not. Ask nothing whatever in return. So done 1 hy works are ghostly and godly ; the merchants are driven from the tem])le and God is there alone when one has no intention but God. Behold thy temple cleared of merchants. The man who is intent on God alone and on God’s glory, verily he is free from any taint of commerce in his deeds, nor is he in any wise self-seeking.
T have related further how Jesus said to them that sold doves :
‘ Take these things hen(e ! ’ These peoj3lc‘ he did not drive forth nor rebuked them harshly : he said quite mildly : ‘ Take these things away ! ’ As though to say, it is not wrong albeit a hindrance to the pure and simple truth. These are virtuous folk, working for God impersonally though subject to personal limitations, to time and numljer, to before and after. Their activities keep them from the highest truth, from being absolutely free like our Lord Jesus Christ who is receiving himself afresh incessantly and a-temporally from his heavenly Father and in that same now is borne back again unceasingly with praise and thanksgiving into the Father, perfect, vicing with him in his majesty. Even so, to be receptive to the sovran truth, a man must be without before and after, without the hindrance of any acts or images that are wiihin his ken, but freely receiving the divine gift in the perennial now and bearing it back unhindered in th(‘ liglit of the same with praise and thanksgiving in our Lord Jesus Christ. Then the doves are gone, to wit, the obstacle of ownership in actions, good in themselves, wdicrcin one has any self-interest at all. ‘ Tak(‘ these things hence ! ’ said our Lord, as though to say, they are blameless but they ar(‘ in the way.
When the tem])le is free from obstructions (possessions and strangers to wit), it looks right beautiful, shilling out bright and clear above cverdJiing God has created and through everything (iod has created, so that none (an compare with it but the uncreated God alone. In very truth, there is none like this tein]Jc but the uncreated God himself. Nothing below the angels is the least like this temple. The very highest angels are the same as this temple of the human soul in many ways, but not entirely. This partial likeness with the soul they have in love and knowledge. But there is a limit set them which they cannot pass. The soul goes on beyond. Suppose the soul to be identical with the highest human being here in time, natheless that man has the potential freedom to soar to untold heights above the angels in the now of each, new without number, that is, without mode : above the angelic mode and every created intelligence. God who alone is uncreated is her sole peer in freedom, though not in uncrcatedness, for the soul is created. Emerging into the unclouded light she in her naught leaps so far into his naught that she is helpless to regain the state of her created aught. God with his uncreatedness supports her nothing-at-all, preserving the soul in his all-in-all. The soul has dared to come to naught and, failing by herself to reach herself, she swoons away ere God comes to her rescue. It must needs be so.
Jesus, as 1 said, went into the temple and east out them that bought and sold and he began to command the rest, ‘ Take these things hence ! ’ The words I have here read, Jesus went in and began to say, “ Take these things hence ! ” ’ Observe, there was no one there but Jesus when he began to speak in the tenijlc of the soul. Be sure of this : while anyone else is speaking ii the temple {i,e, the soul) but Jesus, Jesus is silent, as thougli he were away, nor is he at home in the soul while she has strange guests to talk to. For Jesus to s])eak in the soul slic must be all alone, and she has to be quiet to hear what he says. VV(11 then, he comes in and starts speaking. What is it he says ? He says what he is. What is he, then ? lie is the Word of the Father. In this same Word the Father speaks himself, all his divine nature, all that God is, just as he knows it, and he knows it as it is, for he is perfect in knowledge and j)ower. It follows that he is ])crfcet in s])eeeh too. In pronouncing the Word he utters himself and all things in another Person to whom he gives the nature that he has himself, and speaks all intelligences in echo of the actual Word, according to the indwelling image ; like the sun-rays shining forth, so each (intelligence) is a word in itself, not the same in all respects as the Word, but : they have the power to receive by grace the same nature as the actual Word, and this Word as it is in itself the Father sj)oke entire by the Word and everything in that Word.
If this is what the Father said, then what is Jesus saying in the soul ? As I have told : the Father speaks his Word ; he speaks in this Word and no otherwhere, and Jesus speaks in the soul. His manner of speaking is to reveal himself and what the Father said in him, so far as the soul is able to receive it. He reveals the
Father in the soul in infinite power. Experiencing this power in the Son the soul waxes powerful in like emanation till she is the same in might and virtue and every perfection, so that neither joy nor sorrow nor aught that God has made in time avails to destroy that soul, she standing staunch as it were in this divine power against which all else is insignificant and futile.
Secondly : Jesus reveals himself in the soul in infinite wisdom, himself to wit, the wisdom wherein the Father knows himself in full paternal power. The very Word, whieh is wisdom itself, and all that is therein, is, at the same time, one alone. When wisdom is in union with the soul, doubt, error and illusion are entirely removed, she is set in the bright pure light of God himself, as saith the prophet, ‘ Lord in thy light shall we see light.’ Then God is known by God in the soul ; she discerns with his wisdom both herself and all things. She knows not this same wisdom with herself, but with this widsom she discerns the Father fruitful in travail and his real being in impartible oneness void of all distinctions.
Jesus manifests himself further in infinite suavity and fullness in all receptive hearts. When Jesus reveals himself in this plenitude of sweetness, uniting with the soul, then on this amiable tide the soul floats into herself and out of herself and beyond the things of grace, back in unmitigated power into her first source. Thus the outward man is obedient, even unto death, to the inner man now established in peace in the service of God for ever.
May Jesus enter into us and clear out and east away all hindrances of soul and body to the end that we are one with him here upon earth and there in heaven. So help us God. Amen.