Elizabeth impletum est teinpm pariendi et peperit filium {Luc. I57). ‘ Now Elizabeth’s full time came that she should be delivered and See Greith, p. 102.
she brought forth a son and called him John. Then said the people, What manner of child shall this be, for the hand of the Lord is with him.’ One scripture says, ‘ The greatest gift is that we are God’s child ’ : that he begets his Son in us. The soul who is God’s child, in whom the Son of God is born, in her shall nothing else be brought to birth. God’s ultimate purpose is birth. He is not content until he brings his Son to birth in us. Nor is the soul content until the Son of God is born in her. It is thence grace springs. Grace is infused therein, grace doing nothing : its work is its becoming. It flows out of the essence of God and into the essence of the soul, not into her powers.
When the time was fully come grace was born. Time is fulfilled when time is done. He who in time has his heart established in eternity and in whom all temporal things are dead, in him is the fullness of time. ‘ Rejoice in God all the time,’ says St Paul. He rejoices all the time who rejoices above time and apart from time. Three things prevent a man from knowing God at all. The first is time, the second body, and the third is multiplicity or number. As long as these three things are in me God is not in me nor is he working in me really. St Augustine says, ‘ Because the soul is greedy, because she wants to have and hold so much, therefore she reaches into time and, snatching at the things of time and number, loses what she already has.’ While there is more and less in thee God cannot dwell nor work in thee. These things must go out for God to come in ; except thou have them in a higher, better way : multitude summed up to one in thee. Then the more of multiplicity the more there is of unity, for the one is changed into the other.
I said on one occasion, unity unifies multiplicity but multiplicity unites not unity. Once having gotten over things, everything in us raised up to a higher power, we sliall never be cast down. If I minded God and God alone, had nothing over me but God, then nothing would be hard and surely nothing troublesome. St Augustine says, ‘ Lord, when I turn to thee, all hardship, suffering and toil are taken from me. Once gotten beyond time and temporalities we are free and joyous all the time ; then is the fullness of time, then the Son of God is born in thee. I once said that in the fullness of time God sent his Son. If aught is born in thee except the Son thou hast gotten nothing of the Holy Ghost and neither is grace working in thee. The origin of the Holy Ghost is the Son. Were there no Son there would be no Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost does not proceed, it cannot blossom forth, except where the Father is in travail with his Son. Then he gives him all he has, natural and essential. It is in this giving that the holy Breath wells out. And it is God’s intention to give himself entirely to us. As fire, to consume the wood must penetrate the wood, finding the wood unlike. That is a matter of time. First it makes it warm, then hot, then it smokes and crackles, on account of its unlikencss ; and the hotter the wood grows the quieter and stiller it becomes, and the liker to the fire the more peaceful it becomes till at last it turns to fire altogether. For fire to consume the wood there must be no unlikeness.
In truth, which is God, if thou intendest aught but God or seekest aught but God alone, the work thou doest is not thine nor is it God’s. Thy intention in thy work that also is thy work. That which energises in me is my father and I am subordinate to him. It is impossible in nature that one should have two fathers : in nature one father is the rule. When other things are all fulfilled and done with, then there is this birth. A thing that fills is everywhere in contact with its boundary, nowhere falling short ; it has length, breadth, height and depth. If it had height and no length, breadth or depth it would not fill. St Paul says, ‘ Pray that ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the height, breadth, length and depth.
These three things stand for three kinds of knowledge. The first is sensible. The eye sees from afar what is outside it. The second is rational and is a great deal higher. The third corresponds to an exalted power of the soul, a power so high and noble it is able to see God face to face in his own self. This power has naught in common with naught, it knows no yesterday or day before, no morrow or day after (for in eternity there is no yesterday or morrow) : therein it is the present now ; the happenings of a thousand years ago, a thousand years to come, are there in the present and the antipodes the same as here. This power descries God in his vestibule. ‘ In him, over him, through him,’ says the scripture. In means, in the Father ; over him is in the Son ; through him, in the Holy Ghost. There is no truth but contains the whole of truth, as St Augustine says. This power knows all things in the truth. From this power nothing is veiled. According to the scriptures, men’s heads should be bare, the women’s covered. The women are the lower powers, which are veiled. The man is the power which is bare and face to face.
‘ What wonders shall come from this child ? ’ Speaking lately to some people who are very likely here to-day, I said, nothing is so hidden but it shall be revealed. All that is naught shall be done away, hidden and not thought of any more. We shall know nothing of naught, shall have nothing in common with naught. All creatures are a mere naught. That which is not here or there, which is an oblivion of all creatures, that is fullness of being. I told them how nothing that is in us shall be hid, that we shall disclose and give up to God everything we find within ourselves, willing or unwilling, good or bad, whatever we are prone to we shall die to in the truth. If we discover everything to God he shall discover to us in return everything he has : he shall hide from us in truth absolutely nothing of all that he has gotten, not wisdom, truth nor holiness nor deity nor nothing whatsoever. As God lives this is in truth the ease. If we disclose nothing to him, no wonder if he reveals nothing to us : we must both do the same, as we to him so he to us.
It is lamentable how some people think themselves so far advanced, so one with God, although they have not yet abandoned self at all but hug themselves, like trivial things, in fortune and misfortune. They are precious far from what they think. They are full of notions and intentions. I sometimes say, if a man who seeks nothing finds nothing, what right htus he to con\plain ? After all, he has found what he sought. To seek or purpose aught is to seek or purpose naught and to pray for aught is to get nothing. But a man with no ulterior motive, who sets his mind on God and God alone, to that man God unbosoms himself wholly and gives him all the things concealed within his heart and for his very own as they are God’s own, no more nor less, provided he is after God and not things in between. What wonder if a sick man does not relish meat and wine ? He cannot taste the meat and wine ; his tongue wherewith he tastes is covered with a coating which is nasty and bitter by reason of the sickness of the man : he does not taste the proper flavour, everything tastes bitter. He is right ; things are rendered bitter by means and hindrances. When the hindrance is removed he tastes things properly. As long as there is anything between, God will never taste like himself to us and life will seem very hard and bitter.
I once said that virgins follow the lamb wherever it goes, close behind. Some are virgins, some are not, whatever they appear. Wherever this lamb goes the virgins follow, some only while it leads them in the pleasant places that they like. When it takes them into suffering, travail and discomfort they turn back and refuse to follow, and these are not virgins for all they seem to be. Some say. Lord, I want to go in honour, riches, comfort. Well, if the lamb has led you by that way I wish you well in following his footsteps. True virgins will follow the lamb through the highways and byways, whithersoever it may lead, and have no pity on themselves, befall what may. ‘ In the fullness of time there was born John, that is, grace, as I have explained. May all things be fulfilled in us and grace be born in us, So help us God. Amen.