stones that lie on the
outcoasts of the Kingdom," and we do not put back to the infinite Sea
itself, where we become united and made one with His Life.[34]

The process of return is a process of denial and subtraction. The
"cockel-shells and pebble-stones" must be left, and one finite thing
after another must be dropped, and finally "all that thou callest I,
all that self ness, all that propriety that thou hast taken to thyself,
whatsoever creates in us Iness and selfness, must be brought to
nothing."[35] If we would hear God, we must still the noises within
ourselves. "All the Artillery in the World, were they all discharged
together at one clap, could not more deaf the ears of our bodies than
the clamorings of desires in the soul deaf its ears, so you see a man
must go into silence or else he cannot hear God speak."[36] All "the
minstrels" that are singing of self and self interests "must be cast
out." If "the creature" is to be loved and used at all, it must be
loved and used rightly and in balance, which is hard to do. "Thou must
love it and use it as if thou loved it not and used it not, not
appropriating it to thyself, and always being ready to leave it
willingly and freely; so that thou sufferest no rending, no tearing in
thy soul to part with it, and so thou usest it for God and in God and
to ends appointed by God."[37]

The result of this junction of finite and infinite in us is {250} that
a Christian life is bound to be a strenuous contest: "you must expect
to fight a great battel." "You are," Everard says again, "bidden to
fight with your own selves, with your own desires, with your own
affections, with your own reason, with your own will; and therefore if
you will finde your enemies, never look without. If you will finde out
the Devil and what he is and what his nature is, look within you.
_There_ you may see him in his colours, in his nature, in his power, in
his effects and in his working."[38]

In a word, the way to God is the way of the Cross. Christ Himself is
the pattern and His way of Life is the typical way for all who would
find God--"Christ Jesus is He that all visions tend to; He is the
substance of all the types, shadows, and sacrifices. He is the
_business_ that the whole Word was ever about, and only is, and shall
be about; He hath been, is, and shall be the business of all ages, in
one kinde or other."[39] "The Book of God," he says in another sermon,
"is a great Book, and many w