Dialogues on the Supersensual Life Part 10

MASTER

St Paul saith: In the Resurrection one shall differ from another in glory, as do the Sun, Moon and Stars. Therefore know that the Blessed shall indeed all enjoy the divine working in and upon them, but their virtue and illumination or glory shall be very different according as they have endured in this life with different measures and degrees of power and virtue in their painful workings.

SCHOLAR

How shall all people and nations be brought to judgment?

MASTER

The Eternal Word of G.o.d, out of which every creaturely spiritual Life hath proceeded will move itself at that hour, according to Love and Anger, in every Life which is come out of the Eternity, and will draw every Creature before the Judgment of Christ, to be sentenced by this motion of the Word. The Life will then be manifested in all its works, and every Soul shall see and feel its judgment and sentence in itself.

For the Judgment is, indeed, immediately at the departure of the Body manifested in and to every Soul. And the last Judgment is but a return of the spiritual Body, and a separation of the World, when the Evil shall be separated from the Good, in the substance of the World, and of the human Body, and everything enter into its eternal receptacle. And thus it is a manifestation of the Mystery of G.o.d in every substance and life.

SCHOLAR

How will the sentence be p.r.o.nounced?

MASTER

Here consider the words of Christ. He will say to those on his right hand; _Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in; naked and ye clothed me. I was sick and ye visited me, in prison and ye came unto me._

_Then shall they answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, or in prison, and ministered thus unto thee?_

Then shall the King answer and say unto them; _Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me._

And unto the wicked on his left hand he will say; _Depart from me, ye Cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his Angels.

For I was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, and in prison, and ye ministered not unto me._

And they shall also answer him and say; _When did we see thee thus and ministered not unto thee?_

And he will answer them, _Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have not done it unto one of the least of these, ye did it not to me._

_And these shall depart into everlasting punishment, but the Righteous into Life Eternal._

SCHOLAR

Loving Master, pray tell me why Christ saith, _What you have done to the least of these you have done to me; and what you have not done to them, neither have you done it to me_? And how doth a Man this _so_, as that he doth it to Christ himself?

MASTER

Christ dwelleth really and essentially in the faith of those that wholly yield up themselves to him, and giveth them his Flesh for food and his Blood for drink; and thus possesseth the ground of their faith, according to the interior or inward Man. And a Christian is called a Branch of the Vine Christ, and a Christian, because Christ dwelleth spiritually in him; therefore, whatsoever good any shall do to such a Christian in his bodily necessities, it is done to Christ himself, who dwelleth in him. For such a Christian is not his own, but is wholly resigned to Christ, and become his peculiar possession, and consequently the good deed is done to Christ _himself_. Therefore also whosoever shall withhold their help from such a needy Christian, and forbear to serve him in his necessity, they thrust Christ away from themselves, and despise him in his members. When a poor person that belongeth thus to Christ asketh anything of thee, and thou deniest it him in his necessity, thou deniest it to Christ himself. And whatsoever hurt any shall do to such a Christian, they do it to Christ himself. When any mock, scorn, revile, reject, or thrust away such an one they do all that to Christ, but he that receiveth him, giveth him meat, and drink, or apparel, and a.s.sisteth him in his necessities, doth it likewise to Christ, and to a fellow-member of his own Body. Nay he doth it to himself if it be a Christian; for we are all one in Christ, as a tree and its branches are.

SCHOLAR

How then will those subsist in the day of the last Judgment, who afflict and vex the poor and distressed, and deprive them of their very sweat, necessitating and constraining them by force to submit to their wills, and trampling upon them as their footstools, only that they themselves may live in pomp and power, and spend the fruits of this poor people's sweat and labour in voluptuousness, pride, and vanity?

MASTER

Christ suffereth in the persecution of his members. Therefore all the wrong that such hard executors do to the poor wretches under their control is done to Christ himself; and falleth under his severe sentence and judgment. And besides that by such oppression of the Poor they draw them off from Christ, and make them seek unlawful ways to fill their bellies. Nay, they work for and with the Devil himself, doing the very same thing which he doth: who, without intermission opposeth the Kingdom of Christ, which consisteth only in Love. All these oppressors, if they do not turn with their whole hearts unto Christ, and minister to or serve him, must go into h.e.l.l-fire, which is fed and kept alive by nothing else but such mere Self, which they have exercised over the Poor here.

SCHOLAR

But how will it fare with those who in this time do so fiercely contend about the kingdom of Christ, and slander, revile and persecute one another for their religion?

MASTER

All such have not yet known Christ; and they are but as a type or figure of Heaven and h.e.l.l, striving for each other for the victory.

All rising, swelling pride, which contendeth about opinions, is an image of Self. And whosoever hath not faith and humility, nor liveth in the Spirit of Christ, which is Love, is only armed with the Anger of G.o.d, and helpeth forward the victory of the imaginary Self, that is, the Kingdom of Darkness, and the Anger of G.o.d. For at the day of Judgment all Self shall be given to the Darkness as shall also all the unprofitable contentions of men; in which they seek not after Love, but merely after their imaginary Self. All such things belong to the Judgment, which will separate the false from the true; and then all images or opinions shall cease, and all the Children of G.o.d shall dwell for ever in the Love of Christ, and _that_ in them. For in Heaven all serve G.o.d their Creator in humble love.

SCHOLAR

Wherefore then doth G.o.d suffer such strife and contention to be in this time?

MASTER

The Life itself standeth in strife, that it may be made manifest, sensible, and palpable, and that the wisdom may be made separable and known.

The Strife also const.i.tuteth the Eternal Joy of the victory. For there will arise great praise and thanksgiving in the Saints from the experimental sense and knowledge that Christ in them hath overcome Darkness, and all the Self of Nature, and that they are at length totally delivered from the Strife, at which they shall rejoice eternally. And therefore G.o.d suffereth all Souls to stand in a free-will, that the Eternal Dominion both of Love and Anger, of Light and of Darkness, may be made manifest and known; and that every Life might cause and find its own sentence in itself. For that which is now a strife and pain to the Saints in their wretched warfare here, shall in the end be turned into great joy to them; and that which hath been a joy and pleasure to unG.o.dly persons in this world, shall afterwards be turned into eternal torment and shame to them. Therefore the joy of the Saints must arise to them out of death, as the light ariseth out of a candle by the destruction and consumption of it in its fire, that so the Life may be freed from the painfulness of Nature, and possess another World.

And as the Light hath quite another property than the Fire has, for it giveth and yieldeth itself forth; whereas the Fire draweth in and consumeth itself, so the holy Life of Meekness springeth forth through the Death of Self-will, and then G.o.d's Will of Love only ruleth, and doth all in all. For thus the Eternal One hath attained Feeling and Separability, and brought itself forth again with the feeling, through Death, in great Joyfulness, that there might be an Eternal Delight in the Infinite Unity, and an Eternal Cause of Joy; and therefore that which was before Painfulness, must now be the Ground and Cause of this motion or stirring to the Manifestation of all Things. And herein lyeth the Mystery of the hidden Wisdom of G.o.d.

_Every one that asketh receiveth, every one that seeketh findeth, and to every one that knocketh it shall be opened. The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of G.o.d, and the Communion of the Holy Ghost, be with us all. Amen._

DIALOGUE IV

THE WAY FROM DARKNESS TO TRUE ILLUMINATION

There was a poor Soul that had wandered out of Paradise, and come into the kingdom of this World; where the Devil met it, and said to it: Whither dost thou go, thou Soul that art half blind?

THE SOUL SAID

I would see and speculate into the Creatures of the World, which their Creator hath made.

THE DEVIL SAID

How wilt thou see and speculate into them, when thou canst not know their essence and property? Thou wilt look upon their outside only, as upon a graven image, and canst not know them thoroughly.

THE SOUL SAID

How may I come to know their essence and property?

THE DEVIL SAID

Thine eyes would be opened to see them thoroughly, if thou didst but eat of _that_, from whence the Creatures themselves are come to be _good_ and _evil_. Thou wouldst then be as G.o.d himself is, and know what the Creature is.