SERMON LXXX1V.
THAT THE SOUL, SEEKING GOP, IS ANTICIPATED BY HIM; AND IN WHAT CONSISTS THAT SEARCH FOR GOD IN WHICH IT IS THUS ANTICIPATED.
* By night on my bed I sought Him whom my soul loveth.1 — Cant. iii. I.
IT is a great good to seek God. I think that, among all the blessings of the soul, there is none greater than this. It is the first of the gifts of God; the last degree of the soul's progress. By no virtue is it preceded; to none does it give place. To what virtue is that added which is not preceded by any? And to which should that give way which is the consummation of all virtues? For what virtue can be ascribed to him who is not seeking God, or what limit prescribed to one who is seeking Him? Seek His Face evermore (Ps. cv. 4), says the Psalmist; nor do I think that when a soul has found Him, it will cease from seeking. God is sought, not by the movement of the feet, but by the desires of the heart; and when a soul has been so happy as to find Him, that sacred desire is not extinguished, but, on the contrary, is increased. Is the consummation of the joy the extinction of the desire? It is rather to it as oil poured upon a flame; for desire is, as it were, a flame. This is, indeed, the case. The joy will be fulfilled; but the fulfilment will not be the ending of the desire, nor therefore of the seeking. But think, if you can, of this earnest love of seeking God as being without any deprivation of Him, and of the desire for Him as without anxiety or trouble of mind. His Presence excludes the one, and the abundance of His graces prevents the other.
2. But now observe why I have made these introductory remarks. It is that every soul among you which is seeking God should know that it has been anticipated by Him, and has been sought by Him before it began to seek Him. For without this knowledge it might be that out of a great blessing might arise great harm, if, when it has been filled with the good gifts of the Lord, it treats those gifts as if they had not been received from Him, and so does not render to God the glory of them. It is, doubtless, in this way that some who appeared very great before men, because of the graces which had been conferred upon them, were counted as the least before God, inasmuch as they did not render back to Him the glory which was due on their account. But in saying this, I have used inadequate terms. To spare you, I have spoken of ' greatest ' and of * least,' but I have not thus expressed my thought in all its force. I will make clearer the distinction which I have tried to mark. I cught to have said that he who is the best of men becomes in this way the worst. For it is a thing certain and without doubt that such a person becomes as blameable as he before was praiseworthy, if he ascribe to himself the praise of that which was excellent in him. For this is one of the worst of crimes. Someone will perhaps say, * God forbid that I should be of that mind; I fully recognize that by the grace of God I am what I am; but suppose that a person should try to take for himself a little spark of glory for the grace that he has received, is he, therefore, a thief and a robber?' Let one who speaks thus listen to the words: Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant (Matt, xix. 22). For what can be more wicked than the servant usurping to himself the glory which belongs to his Lord?
3. By night on my bed I sought Him whom my soul loveth. The soul seeks the Word, but it had been previously sought by the Word. For otherwise, when it had been once driven out or cast forth from the presence of the Word, it would have returned no more to obtain the sight of the good things it had lost if it had not been sought by
THE SOUL, SEEKING GOD, IS ANTICIPATED BY HIM
the Word. Our soul, if abandoned to itself, is a spirit which goes to and fro, but does not return. Listen to a fugitive and wandering soul, and learn what it complains of, and what it seeks: / have gone astray like a lost sheep: seek Thy servant (Ps. cxix. 176). O man, dost thou desire to return? But if that depends upon thy own will, why dost thou entreat help? Why dost thou ask for from another what thou hast in abundance in thy own self? It is plain that he does desire this, and is not able to perform it; he is a spirit which goes to and fro, and returns not; though he who has not even the wish to return is farther removed still. Yet I would not say that the soul which longs to return, and desires to be sought, is wholly exposed and abandoned. For from whence, comes this willingness which is in it? It comes, if I do not mistake, from its having been already sought and visited by the Word; nor is that visitation fruitless, since it has so worked in the soul as to produce that good will, without which a return would not be possible. But it does not suffice to be sought once only, so great is the languor of the soul, and so great the difficulty of the return. What if the will of a soul is to return? The will lies inoperative, if it be not supported by the power to do so. For, to will is present with me> says the Apostle, but how to perform that which is good 1 find not (Rom. vii. 18). What is it, then, that the Psalmist seeks in the passage which I have quoted? He plainly seeks nothing else than to be sought: which he would not seek if he had not been sought; and yet again, which he would not seek if he had been sought sufficiently. This latter grace, indeed, is what he entreats: Seek Thy servant; that is, that what it has been granted to him to desire, it may be granted to him also perfectly to attain, according to the good pleasure of God.
4. Yet it does not seem to me that the present passage is capable of being applied to a soul such as this, which has not attained the second grace, and, though desiring to approach Him whom she loves, has not the ability to do so. For how can the words which follow be made to apply to such a soul; namely, that she rises and goes about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways seeks her Beloved (iii. 2), seeing that she herself needs to be sought? Let her do this as she is able; only let her remember that, as she was first beloved, so she was first sought; and to that she owes it that she herself loves and is engaged in seeking. Let us, too, pray, beloved, that those mercies may speedily anticipate us, for we are brought into extreme need of them. But I do not say this of you all; for I know that very many of you are walking in the love wherewith Christ hath loved us, and are seeking Him in simplicity of heart But there are some (I say it with sorrow) who have not yet given us any mark of this saving and preventing grace being in them, and therefore no sign of their salvation; they are men who love their own selves, not the Lord, and seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.
5. I have sought, says the Bride, Him whom my soul lo%}eth. It is to this that the goodness of Him who has anticipated you in seeking you and loving you first, it is to this that His goodness is calling and arousing you. You would not seek Him at ail, O soul, nor love Him at all, if you had not been first sought and first loved. You have been anticipated by a twofold benediction, that of love and of seeking. The love is the cause of the seeking; the seeking is the fruit and the clear proof of the love. You have been loved, so that you might not fear that you were sought for to be punished; you were sought for, that you might not complain that you were loved to no purpose. Each of these two great and unmistakable favours has given you courage, has removed shyness and timidity, has touched your feelings, and disposed you to return. Hence arises that zeal and ardour in seeking Him whom thy soul loveth; because, just as you were not able to seek Him, until you had first been sought, so now that you have been sought, you are not able to do otherwise than seek Him.
6. Again, never forget whence it is that you have come hither. And that I may apply the better to myself what has been said (which is the safer course), is it not thou, O my soul, who, having left thy first Bridegroom, by whose side all had been well with thee, hast broken the faith first pledged to Him, and gone after others? And now that thou hast sinned with them to the full, and art perhaps fallen into contempt with them, dost thou impudently and with effrontery desire to return to Him, to whom thou hast behaved with so much pride and insolence? What? when thou art fit only to hide thyself, dost thou seek the light, and though more deserving of correction than favour, dare to run unto the Bridegroom? Wonderful it will be if you do not find a Judge to condemn you instead of a husband to receive you. Happy is he who shall hear his soul replying to these reproaches: ' I do not fear because I love, and also I am loved; nor could I have loved unless He had first loved me. Let those fear who have no love; but for the soul that loves there is nothing to be feared. How can those who have no love do otherwise than be under constant apprehension of injury? But because I love, I no more doubt that I am loved than I doubt of my own love; nor can I possibly fear His countenance, whose affection for me I have assuredly felt. In what have I felt it, do you inquire? In this: that not only has He sought me, unhappy as I am, but has caused me to seek Him, and to feel sure of succeeding in my search. Why should I not respond to Him in His search, to whom in His affection I respond? Why should He be angry at my seeking Him, who, when I showed contempt for Him, forgave it? He sought me when I contemned Him, why should He contemn me when I seek Him? Benign and gentle is the Spirit of the Word, and gentle is His greeting to me; He makes me aware of His kindness towards me, He whispers to me and convinces me of the earnest love of the Word for me, which cannot be hidden from Him. For He searcheth the deep things of God, and knows that the Divine thoughts are thoughts of peace, and not purposes of vengeance. How can I be otherwise than encouraged to seek Him, who have had experience of His clemency, and am persuaded of His reconciliation with me?'
7. My brethren, to think seriously of these truths is to be sought by the Word; to be persuaded of them is to be found by Him. But not all are capable of receiving that Word. What shall we do for the little children among us, I mean those who are still in the stage of beginners (incipientes), and yet are far from being without understanding (insipientes), since they possess already the beginning of wisdom, being subject one to the other in the fear of Christ? How, I say, shall we cause them to believe that the spiritual life of the Bride is marked by such experiences as these, since they know nothing as yet of such feelings themselves? But I send them to one, to whom they cannot refuse credence. Let them read in a book [of Scripture] that which they fail to discern in the heart of a fellow man, and therefore will not believe. For it is written in one of the Prophets: If a man put aiuay his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted f but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet return again to Me, saith the Lord (Jer. iiL i). They are the words of the Lord, and it is not permitted to doubt or hesitate. Let them believe what they have not experienced, that by the merit of their faith they may one day attain the fruit of experience. I think that now it has been sufficiently explained what it is to be sought by the Word, and how this is necessary, not for the Word, but for the soul, so that the soul which has experienced this knows Him both more fully and more happily. It remains to be treated of in the next discourse how souls that thirst for Christ seek Him by whom they have been sought; or rather that we should learn that from her, who is brought before us in these verses, as seeking Him whom her soul loveth, Him who is the Bridegroom of the soul, Jesus Christ our Lord,