John Tauler · 91 of 121

The third way of a poor, perfect life, when you contemplate God internally, is, that a man do not fly from what may kill him in spiritual things. · 78.

It is wonderful that these beings are never abandoned by God; they have begun in love, which is Christ, and Jesus must support them, and keep them with him for eternity. It also happens that their seduction will be attempted by nature, but the will bound to God with the determination to give up all things, can resist all other temptations. Such men then are the servants of God. All that bringeth the good to default is that their own will was never serious, for when a man standeth on his own responsibility he must fall, and cannot remain upright. But he who forceth on himself the atonement for the sufferings of Jesus, this earnest determination is aided by God, who raiseth him to godliness, and never letteth him fall again into a human will: this determination can therefore resist deadly falls. The following giveth us an example:—“A king who hath an enemy seeketh to catch him, and if he getteth him into his power he punisheth him, taketh his goods from him, and perchance killeth him.” So is it also with the “will,” when man standeth on it unaided. It is the enemy of God, God seeketh to get it into his power, He sendeth forth scouts, and those are the men who announce the word of God, and the warnings of conscience which God giveth: if the man through the light of his reason is led to recognise all that he had formerly sought he waxeth wrathful, and wisheth to leave all evil and that is a cause of evil. Thus now God persecuteth him, punisheth him with mental and external sufferings, taketh from him all his goods and greed; He killeth him entirely, and draweth all away from him which is deadly and not of God; thus is earthly attraction crushed and conquered by God. Those are blessed who thus die in God, as St. John says, “Blessed are those who die in God” (Rev. xiv. 13).