it is an universal as well as a particular fact. When he
says, "We should worship Christ's humanity only in union with this
divinity," he is giving exactly the same caution which St. Paul
expresses in the verse about "knowing Christ after the flesh."

In speaking of the highest of the three stages, passages were quoted
which advocate a purely passive state of the will and intellect.[273]
This quietistic tendency cannot be denied in the fourteenth century
mystics, though it is largely counteracted by maxims of an opposite
kind. "God draws us," says Tauler, "in three ways, first, by His
creatures; secondly, by His voice in the soul, when an eternal truth
mysteriously suggests itself, as happens not infrequently in morning
sleep." (This is interesting, being evidently the record of personal
experience.) "Thirdly, without resistance or means, when the will is
quite subdued." "What is given through means is tasteless; it is seen
through a veil, and split up into fragments, and bears with it a
certain sting of bitterness." There are other passages in which he is
obviously under the influence of Dionysius; as when he speaks of
"dying to all distinctions"; in fact, he at times preaches
"simplification" in an unqualified form. But, on the other hand, no
Christian teachers have made more of the _active will_ than these
pupils of Eckhart.[274] "Ye are as holy as ye truly will to be holy,"
says Ruysbroek. "With the will one may do everything," we read in
Tauler. And against the perversion of the "negative road" he says, "we
must lop and prune vices, not nature, which is in itself good and
noble." And "Christ Himself never arrived at the 'emptiness' of which
these men (the false mystics) talk." Of contemplation he says,
"Spiritual enjoyments are the food of the soul, and are only to be
taken for nourishment and support to help us in our active work."
"Sloth often makes men fain to be excused from their work and set to
contemplation. Never trust in a virtue that has not been put into
practice." These pupils of Eckhart all led strenuous lives themselves,
and were no advocates of pious indolence. Tauler says, "Works of love
are more acceptable to God than lofty contemplation": and, "All kinds
of skill are gifts of the Holy Ghost.[275]"

The process of deification is thus described by Ruysbroek and by
Tauler. Ruysbroek writes: "All men who are exalted above their
creatureliness into a contemplative life are one with this Divine
glory-