C
H A P T E R ~ V
How
we are to take that Saying, that we must come to be without Will, Wisdom,
Love, Desire, Knowledge, and the like.
CERTAIN men
say that we ought to be without will, wisdom, love, desire, knowledge, and
the like. Hereby is not to be understood that there is to be no knowledge
in man, and that God is not to be loved by him, nor desired and longed for,
nor praised and honoured; for that were a great loss, and man were like
the beasts [and as the brutes that have no reason]. But it meaneth that
man's knowledge should be so clear and perfect that he should acknowledge
of a truth [that in himself he neither hath nor can do any good thing, and
that none of his knowledge, wisdom and art, his will, love and good works
do come from himself, nor are of man, nor of any creature, but] that all
these are of the eternal God, from whom they all proceed. [As Christ Himself
saith, "Without Me, ye can do nothing." St. Paul saith also, "What
hast thou that thou hast not received?" As much as to say — nothing.
"Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst
not received it?" Again he saith, "Not that we are sufficient
of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of
God."] Now when a man duly perceiveth these things in himself, he and
the creature fall behind, and he doth not call anything his own, and the
less he taketh this knowledge unto himself, the more perfect doth it become.
So also is it with the will, and love and desire, and the like. For the
less we call these things our own, the more perfect and noble and Godlike
do they become, and the more we think them our own, the baser and less pure
and perfect do they become.
Behold on this
sort must we cast all things from us, and strip ourselves of them; we must
refrain from claiming anything for our own. When we do this, we shall have
the best, fullest, clearest and noblest knowledge that a man can have, and
also the noblest and purest love, will and desire; for then these will be
all of God alone. It is much better that they should be God's than the creature's.
Now that I ascribe anything good to myself, as if I were, or had done, or
knew, or could perform any good thing, or that it were mine, this is all
of sin and folly. For if the truth were rightly known by me, I should also
know that I am not that good thing and that it is not mine, nor of me, and
that I do not know it, and cannot do it, and the like. If this came to pass,
I should needs cease to call anything my own.
It is better
that God, or His works, should be known, as far as it be possible to us,
and loved, praised and honoured, and the like, and even that man should
vainly imagine he loveth or praiseth God, than that God should be altogether
unpraised, unloved, unhonoured and unknown. For when the vain imagination
and ignorance are turned into an understanding and knowledge of the truth,
the claiming anything for our own will cease of itself. Then the man says:
"Behold! I, poor fool that I was, imagined it was I, but behold! it
is and was, of a truth, God!"
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