can never be satisfied." In the _German Theology_, the
necessity of rising above the "I" and "mine" is treated as the great
saving truth. "When the creature claimeth for its own anything good,
it goeth astray." "The more of self and me, the more of sin and
wickedness. Be simply and wholly bereft of self." "So long as a man
seeketh his own highest good _because_ it is his, he will never find
it. For so long as he doeth this, he seeketh himself, and deemeth that
he himself is the highest good." (These last sentences are almost
verbally repeated in a sermon by John Smith, the Cambridge Platonist.)

The three stages of the mystic's ascent appear in Tauler's sermons. We
have first to practise self-control, till all our lower powers are
governed by our highest reason. "Jesus cannot speak in the temple of
thy soul till those that sold and bought therein are cast out of it."
In this stage we must be under strict rule and discipline. "The old
man must be subject to the old law, till Christ be born in him of a
truth." Of the second stage he says, "Wilt thou with St. John rest on
the loving breast of our Lord Jesus Christ, thou must be transformed
into His beauteous image by a constant, earnest contemplation
thereof." It is possible that God may will to call thee higher still;
then let go all forms and images, and suffer Him to work with thee as
His instrument. To some the very door of heaven has been opened--"this
happens to some with a convulsion of the mind, to others calmly and
gradually." "It is not the work of a day nor of a year." "Before it
can come to pass, nature must endure many a death, outward and
inward."

In the first stage of the "dying life," he says elsewhere, we are much
oppressed by the sense of our infirmities, and by the fear of hell.
But in the third, "all our griefs and joys are a sympathy with Christ,
whose earthly life was a mingled web of grief and joy, and this life
He has left as a sacred testament to His followers."

These last extracts show that the Cross of Christ, and the imitation
of His life on earth, have their due prominence in Tauler's teaching.
It is, of course, true that for him, as for all mystics, Christ _in_
us is more than Christ _for_ us. But it is unfair to put it in this
way, as if the German mystics wished to contrast the two views of
redemption, and to exalt one at the expense of the other. Tauler's
wish is to give the historical redemption its true significance, by
showing that