CHAPTER VII
Of the Eyes of the Spirit wherewith Man looketh into Eternity and
into Time, and how the one is hindered of the other in its Working.
Let us remember how it is written and said that the soul of Christ had two
eyes, a right and a left eye. In the beginning, when the soul of Christ was
created, she fixed her right eye upon eternity and the Godhead, and remained in
the full intuition and enjoyment of the divine Essence and Eternal Perfection;
and continued thus unmoved and undisturbed by all the accidents and travail,
suffering, torment and pain that ever befell the outward man. But with the left
eye she beheld the creature and perceived all things therein, and took note of
the difference between the creatures, which were better or worse, nobler or
meaner; and thereafter was the outward man of Christ ordered.
Thus the inner man of Christ, according to
the right eye of His soul, stood in the full exercise of His divine nature, in
perfect blessedness, joy and eternal peace. But the outward man and the left
eye of Christ's soul, stood with Him in perfect suffering, in all tribulation,
affliction and travail; and this in such sort that the inward and right eye
remained unmoved, unhindered and untouched by all the travail, suffering, grief
and anguish that ever befell the outward man. It hath been said that when
Christ was bound to the pillar and scourged, and when He hung upon the cross,
according to the outward man, yet His inner man, or soul according to the right
eye, stood in as full possession of divine joy and blessedness as it did after
His ascension, or as it doth now. In like manner His outward man, or soul with
the left eye, was never hindered, disturbed or troubled by the inward eye in
its contemplation of the outward things that belonged to it.
Now the created soul of man hath also two eyes.
The one is the power of seeing into eternity, the other of seeing into time and
the creatures, of perceiving how they differ from each other as afore-said, of
giving life and needful things to the body, and ordering and governing it for
the best. But these two eyes of the soul of man cannot both perform their work
at once; but if the soul shall see with the right eye into eternity, then the
left eye must close itself and refrain from working, and be as though it were
dead.
For if the left eye be fulfilling its office
toward outward things; that is, holding converse with time and the creatures;
then must the right eye be hindered in its working; that is, in its
contemplation. Therefore whosoever will have the one must let the other go; for
"no man can serve two masters."