John Tauler · 94 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. · 81.

We can here make use of the expression of Augustin, “What one doth not understand one doth not love,” Thus love springeth from the understanding. If, therefore, the eternity of God is beyond understanding, is it therefore impossible by volition to love His eternity? I answer, love is twofold, one springeth from the understanding, and with this will one cannot love Him in His eternity; the other ariseth from faith, and loveth Him for the sake of His eternity. As we can and must believe that God is without beginning and without end, so also can the will love Him entirely from the light of faith, as an always existing and everlasting God. According as the will loveth Him, so also will He reward it; He loveth it indeed as if it had been an eternal will, and equal will be the recompense. As Christ says, “With the same measure that ye measure out, will also be measured back, and a heaped up and overflowing measure will they give into your lap.” Equal measure is equal love; God giveth not less to the soul than she loveth Him; He will measure out to her according to the summit of His love. The heaped up, overflowing measure is God Himself; when also the will understands God then more superfluity remaineth to her than she can comprehend; and in this godlike abundance the will hath more joy than in that which it comprehendeth. But God rewards the will with eternal love, for the will doth not rouse itself to love God, but the Holy Ghost is the love from which the will loveth, and as the Holy Ghost is without beginning or end, so also it loveth God without beginning and without end. But the will loves God thus in the love of the Holy Ghost only, when it has raised itself above the beginning and end of the creature world. If this is the case, then it goeth forth in the unending God, with whom there is neither beginning nor end. Then man loveth all in an essential manner, and will accordingly be rewarded. All suffering that hath been suffered and will yet be suffered, he wisheth may also occur to him; for the sake of the sufferings of Jesus Christ let him add his own sufferings, so that the suffering and reward may be complete. St. Paul had this love when he said, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is troubled, and I am not troubled? Yes, I am all things to all men. that I might make you all holy.”