Now no man can reach this condition of receptivity except by conformity with God, which comes from submission to God. Therefore put away forms and unite yourselves with formless Being, for God's spiritual comfort is only offered to those who despise earthly comfort. No bodily and fleshly delight can ever take place with out spiritual loss, for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. Therefore, the more a man fleeth from the created, the more the Creator hastens to him. Therefore sanctification is the best of all things, for it cleanses the soul, and illuminates the conscience, and kindles the heart, and wakens the spirit, and girds up the loins, and glorifies virtue and separates us from creatures, and unites us with God.
Nothing is sharper than suffering, nothing is sweeter than to have suffered.
This has only been said to thee that thou mightest know what the highest is, and that thou mightest have desires after it. But when thou losest sight of the Divine, thou shouldest feel as if bereft of thine eternal salvation, and shouldest long to recover it, and watch over thyself at all times, and direct thy aims and longing towards it. May God be blessed for ever. That is separation from all outward things. This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College.