consider now his words, who said,
_Without me ye can do nothing_ (John xix. 5) and defer not to apply
thyself unto him, who is the strength of thy salvation, and the _power_
of thy life; and _with whom thou canst do all things_, by the faith
which he waketh in thee. But unless thou wholly givest thyself up to the
life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and resignest thy Will wholly to him, and
desirest nothing and willest nothing without him, thou shalt never come
to such a rest as no creature can disturb. Think what thou pleasest,
and be never so much delighted in the activity of thine own reason, thou
shalt find that, in thine own power and without such a total surrender
to God and to the life of God, thou canst never arrive at such a rest as
this, or the true Quiet of the Soul, wherein no creature can molest
thee, or even so much as touch thee. Which when thou shalt, with Grace,
have attained to, then with thy Body thou art in the World, as in the
properties of outward Nature; and, with thy Reason, under the Cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ; but with thy _Will_ thou walkest in heaven, and
art at the end from whence all creatures are proceeded forth, and _to_
which they return again. And then thou canst in this End, which is the
same with the _Beginning_, behold all things outwardly with _reason_ and
liberally with the _mind_; and so mayest thou rule in all things and
over all things, with Christ; unto whom all power is given both in
heaven and on earth.

DISCIPLE

O, Master, the creatures which live in me do withhold me, so that I
cannot so wholly yield and give up myself as I willingly would. What am
I to do in this case?

MASTER

Let not this trouble thee. Doth thy Will go forth from the creatures?
Then the creatures are forsaken in thee. They are in the world, and thy
body, which is in the world, is with the creatures. But spiritually thou
walkest with God, and conversest in heaven; being in thy mind redeemed
from earth, and separated from creatures, to live the life of God. And
if thy Will thus leaveth the creatures, and goeth forth from them, even
as the spirit goeth forth from the body at death; then are the creatures
dead in it, and do live only in the body in the world. Since if thy Will
do not bring itself into them, they cannot bring themselves into it,
neither can they by any means touch the soul. And hence St Paul saith,
_Our conversation is in heaven; and also, Ye are the temple of God, and
the Spirit of God