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Not by deliberate ascetic practices, not by refusal of the world, not by intellectual striving, but by actively loving and choosing, by that which a modern psychologist has called "the synthesis of love and will" does the spirit of man achieve its goal.
"For silence is not God," he says in the Epistle of Discretion, "nor speaking is not God; fasting is not God, nor eating is not God; loneliness is not God, nor company is not God; nor yet any of all the other two such contraries.
He is hid between them, and may not be found by any work of thy soul, but all onl...
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For the author of the Cloud all human virtue is comprised in the twin qualities of Humility and Charity. He who has these, has all. Humility, in accordance with the doctrine of Richard of St. Victor, he identifies with self-knowledge; the terrible vision of the soul as it is, which induces first self-abasement and then self-purification--the beginning of all spiritual growth, and the necessary antecedent of all knowledge of God.
As all man's feeling and thought of himself and his relation to God is comprehended in Humility, so all his feeling and thought of God in Himself is comprehended in Charity; the self-giving love of Divine Perfection "in Himself and for Himself" which Hilton calls "the sovereign and the essential joy." Together these two virtues should embrace the sum of his responses to the Universe; they should govern his attitude to man as well as his attitude to God. "Charity is nought else . . . but love of God for Himself above all creatures, and of man for God even as thyself." Charity and Humility,
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The "little word God," and "the little word Love," are the only ideas which may dwell in the contemplative's mind. Anything else splits his attention, and soon proceeds by mental association to lead him further and further from the consideration of that supersensual Reality which he seeks. The primal need of the purified soul, then, is the power of Concentration.
GOD, unto whom all hearts be open, and unto whom all will speaketh, and unto whom no privy thing is hid. I beseech Thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that I may perfectly love Thee, and worthily praise Thee. Amen.
