The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 49 of 124

Second Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension

Ascending on high. He led captivity captive. — Hph. lv, &

There are five kinds of captivity in this life, and they are very hard; but Christ has taken us out of them all, if He has spiritually ascended in onr souls.

The first is onr enslavement to creatures, whether living or dead, unless our captivity to them be on God’s account. This arises from human love, a very intimate power of our nature on account of our kinship to one another. The injury done us is quite beyond description, and is twofold. One class know themselves to be involved in it, dread it, suffer deep pain of mind, offer hard resistance and suffer keenly; all this is a good sign that they are not abandoned by God. God leaves such a soul in its misery day and night, whether eating or drinking. But when its ears are not shut to Him, soon a happier state is reached.

The other class of men are in this hurtful captivity of attachment to creatures, and abide in it with all security of feeling, wholly deaf and blind to their misery. They live on quite free from anxiety, and must have themselves reckoned as pious men. They do many good things, sing and read piously, or keep the rule of silence; they serve and pray much. Their purpose, however, by all this is that they may be approved as devout souls by their fellows, and may have some feeling of being natural vagaries mislead them, and they are assailed by grievous temptations. It were better for a man in this state that he quit praying as he does, for he prays for what is against his own best interests — far better that he sank into oppression of soul and woe and sorrow. This would much sooner lead him to a release from his deadly captivity; for he is under the power of Satan, and is in danger of dying so and being eternally lost.

The second captivity is that of men who have, indeed, been released from the slavish love of creatures and external things, but have then fallen into the slavery of self-love. And it is marvelous how virtuous this seems, and how complacently they regard it. No one reproves them for it, least of all do they reproach themselves. They are arrayed in seeming beauty of virtue — not a word can be said against them. And yet they seek themselves in everything — self-love guides them to seek their own personal advantage, enjoyment, consolation and honor. They are so deep sunk in self that they seek self in everything, even in Qod. Getting to the bottom of this evil, what shall we find in a state so false and yet so well-seeming? How hard it is to help men so selfindulgent, and yet so full of reasons and methods — how can they be freed from captivity? Who can help one who is piously absorbed in mere nature? Surely none but God alone. Such a man finds a thousand things necessary — his needs are everywhere and about everything, and his health is so delicate. Touch anything of his, his room, a friend, his goods, his honor, interfere in the least with his comfort, and he offends God with a furious outburst of passionate words or even deeds, sometimes by detraction and calumny. He is no longer a man — he is rather a snarling dog, a savage wolf. How lamentable is the captivity of self-love!

The third captivity is that of the intelligence, and some men are sorely injured by it. Whatsoever their brains can produce turns to their hurt. They glory in learning, in knowledge of doctrine, in their bright understanding, and their talent for speaking. It all lifts them up high and honorable — but it never changes for the better their mode of living, nor leads to good works. Even the sweet image of our Lord they view only from reason’s standpoint. If they attempt to discourse in the supernatural spirit, it is in strong contrast with what is the real spirit. Their mind, compared to the spiritual mind, is like a candle

Divinely enlightened man sinks down deep in search of the root of life from which he has sprung. And his quest is full of energy. Hence the great difference between those who live up to the scripture and those who just read it. These latter seek praise for their knowledge of it, and at the same time they despise those who live up to its maxims. They consider such souls foolish, even perverse. They go so far as to curse them, scorn them and condemn them outright. Those who actually live according to the teaching of the scripture deem themselves sinners, and as to the others, they have a kindly, merciful feeling for them. And as the lives of these two classes are so different, so also is their end different: one class finds life and the other death. This is according to St. Paul: “For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (II Cor. iii, 6).

The fourth captivity is sweetness of devotion, and many men go astray in this, yielding up to it and sticking fast in it. It seems a great good thing; but it is only poor human nature cleaving to its own self in much joy, meanwhile dreaming that it cleaves to God. Hence let us carefully distinguish between God and self in all our spiritual feelingB. Here is a test: when the sweet feeling of devotion passes away, dost thou feel unhappy, unrestful and distressed? Dost thou find thyself less faithful and willing in God’s work? If so, then it is plain that God was not the cause of thy sensible pleasure in His service. Forty years of sensible devotion may suddenly end, and thou shalt be in danger of gravely falling away from God. And if a man had the highest degree of these natural feelings in his religious practices, and died in them, God alone knows whether or not he would be saved — he might, indeed, be lost.

The fifth captivity is self-will. By this I mean the state of a man who is set on having his own way, and that in Divine things, nay, even as to God Himself. If by an act of my own will I could be freed from the

Humble and voluntary subjection to the sense of deprivation, in a true spirit of detachment from one’s own will, this is infinitely more profitable than any efforts inspired by one’s own will. I had much rather see a man really detached from his own will and having no great show of religious works, than one less detached from self-choice and abounding in high and showy works of virtue.

While our Lord lived with His disciples, they so deeply and blindly loved His humanity, that it hindered their attaining to His divinity. Hence He said to them: “It is expedient to you that I go; for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you (John xvi, 7). And He must remain with them forty days longer, before He could win their entire souls to a heavenly state, and bear them with Himself upward to God; and even then they must wait ten more days before the Holy Ghost was sent them. What those ten days were to them, so many years must be to us; for since they were to be our foundation, their preparation was to ours as a day is to a year.

Let a man do what he pleases, he shall never have true peace, he shall never be essentially a heavenly man, until he has passed the equivalent of those forty days between the Lord’s resurrection and His ascension— until he has finished, as it were, his forty years of preparation. He can never be what God would have him to be, before God’s allotted time is passed and over. Such a one has much to do with men by necessity of nature, driven now this way and again that way, nature often ruling every motive; and yet he thinks that God is his motive — and this may be called his forty years’ probation. This again is followed by ten years more of waiting — like the additional ten days’ waiting of the Lord’s disciples — before the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, is received; that Spirit that teaches the soul all things. When the disciples at last were given the Holy Spirit, it was after they had resigned life’s dearest treasures for Jesus’ sake. They had made the best preparation; they loved God above all things; He had carried their hearts and souls with

Him into Heaven. This preparation having all been completed by their last ten days of patient waiting, the Holy Ghost came down upon them.

They were assembled together in deep seclusion, and thus they waited. So must we be, as we end, so to speak, our forty years of preparation, having meanwhile overcome depraved nature, and celebrated the festival of our heavenly transformation. Even after that, we must wait ten years longer. We must have a maturity of preparation equal to fifty years of self-renunciation, ere we shall receive the Holy Ghost in the most perfect manner, so that He may teach us all truth. During that final period of probation, natural defects are at last quite overcome, and the soul enters upon a Godlike existence. A man turns inward, and sinks into God, being blended with the one, pure, Divine Good. The light of his life is now returned into the Divine flame from which is first flashed forth. When this overflow of the soul into God is perfect, then all its debt of sin is fully paid, were it as heavy as that of all sinful men put together from the beginning of the world. Then all the grace and joy destined for the soul is granted to it. Then, in fine, the soul is made Godlike. Such men as these are the pillars of the world, the mainstay of the Church. May God grant us some share of this happiness. Amen.