has three properties--intuition,
purity of spirit, and nudity of mind; (7) the ineffable, unnameable
transcendence of all knowledge and thought. This arbitrary schematism
is the weakest part of Ruysbroek's writings, which contain many deep
thoughts. His chief work, _Ordo spiritualium nuptiarum_, is one of the
most complete charts of the mystic's progress which exist. The three
stages are here the active life (_vita actuosa_), the internal,
elevated, or affective life, to which all are not called, and the
contemplative life, to which only a few can attain. The three parts of
the soul, sensitive, rational, and spiritual, correspond to these
three stages. The motto of the active life is the text, "_Ecce sponsus
venit; exite obviam ei_." The Bridegroom "comes" three times: He came
in the flesh; He comes into us by grace; and He will come to judgment.
We must "go out to meet Him," by the three virtues of humility, love,
and justice: these are the three virtues which support the fabric of
the active life. The ground of all the virtues is humility; thence
proceed, in order, obedience, renunciation of our own will, patience,
gentleness, piety, sympathy, bountifulness, strength and impulse for
all virtues, soberness and temperance, chastity. "This is the active
life, which is necessary for us all, if we wish to follow Christ, and
to reign with Him in His everlasting kingdom."

Above the active rises the inner life. This has three parts. Our
intellect must be enlightened with supernatural clearness; we must
behold the inner coming of the Bridegroom, that is, the eternal truth;
we must "go out" from the exterior to the inner life; we must go to
_meet_ the Bridegroom, to enjoy union with His Divinity.

Finally, the spirit rises from the inner to the contemplative life.
"When we rise above ourselves, and in our ascent to God are made so
simple that the love which embraces us is occupied only with itself,
above the practice of all the virtues, then we are transformed and die
in God to ourselves and to all separate individuality." God unites us
with Himself in eternal love, which is Himself. "In this embrace and
essential unity with God all devout and inward spirits are one with
God by living immersion and melting away into Him; they are by grace
one and the same thing with Him, because the same essence is in both."
"For what we are, that we intently contemplate; and what we
contemplate, that we are; for our mind, our life, and our