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ssss1 See ch. xix. § 4.

ssss1 Ch. xv. § 1.

ssss1 See Relation, viii. § 6; and Way of Perfection, ch. liii., but ch xxxi. of former editions. See also Concept. of the Love of God, ch. vii.

ssss1 See Relation, viii. § 17.

ssss1 Ch. xiv. § 4. See also Way of Perfection, ch. liii., but ch. xxxi. of the old editions.

ssss1 Ch. xiv. § 6.

ssss1 § 7.

ssss1

The Fourth State of Prayer. The Great Dignity of the Soul Raised to It by Our Lord. Attainable on Earth, Not by Our Merit, But by the Goodness of Our Lord.

1. May our Lord teach me words whereby I may in some measure describe the fourth water. ssss1 I have great need of His help--even more than I had while speaking of the last; for in that the soul still feels that it is not dead altogether. We may thus speak, seeing that to the world it is really dead. But, as I have said, ssss1 it retains the sense to see that it is in the world, and to feel its own loneliness; and it makes use of that which is outward for the purpose of manifesting its feelings, at least by signs. In the whole of the prayer already spoken of, and in all the states of it, the gardener undergoes some labour: though in the later states the labour is attended with so much bliss and comfort of the soul, that the soul would never willingly pass out of it,--and thus the labour is not felt as labour, but as bliss.