By this may the soul, whose pilgrimage is made long and far away, by
this may she understand, if she now thirsts for Thee, if her tears
be now become her bread, while they daily say unto her, Where is Thy
God? if she now seeks of Thee one thing, and desireth it, that she may
dwell in Thy house all the days of her life (and what is her life, but
Thou? and what Thy days, but Thy eternity, as Thy years which fail
not, because Thou art ever the same?); by this then may the soul
that is able, understand how far Thou art, above all times, eternal;
seeing Thy house which at no time went into a far country, although it
be not coeternal with Thee, yet by continually and unfailingly
cleaving unto Thee, suffers no changeableness of times. This is in Thy
sight clear unto me, and let it be more and more cleared unto me, I
beseech Thee, and in the manifestation thereof, let me with sobriety
abide under Thy wings.
There is, behold, I know not what formlessness in those changes of
these last and lowest creatures; and who shall tell me (unless such
a one as through the emptiness of his own heart, wonders and tosses
himself up and down amid his own fancies?), who but such a one would
tell me, that if all figure be so wasted and consumed away, that there
should only remain that formlessness, through which the thing was
changed and turned from one figure to another, that that could exhibit
the vicissitudes of times? For plainly it could not, because,
without the variety of motions, there are no times: and no variety,
where there is no figure.
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