The Garden of the Mind

of earthly things: of which nevertheless
the hearing / the eyes are constantly full / yes, what
is more / they hinder the influence of God /
which otherwise would fill the heart with a wonder-
ful sweetness original: "zoetigheid." A term frequently used in 17th-century Dutch devotional literature to describe the experiential joy of God's presence. / for which
sweetness mankind feels a great inclination /
but presumes to obtain it through
a wrong path. Therefore, whoever
feels hunger and thirst in his soul / let him go
to the place where he can be helped:
but where is that? The voice of Christ original: "Christi." Latin genitive form of Christ.
shall make it known to you; for thus he says: Whoever
thirsts, let him come to me and drink. This
Jesus spoke on the most glorious feast-
day A reference to the Feast of Tabernacles mentioned in John 7. / but now he does not appear vis-
ibly / and yet he calls us to him.
So we can in some manner ap-
proach him / namely / through the Spirit:
For through him we both have access
in one Spirit to the Father. Ephesians 2:18. This emphasizes that spiritual connection is internal rather than physical.
For this is the purest approaching, which
happens in the spirit / seeing that the approaching
of the body has provided no benefits /
where the Spirit was not present. Thus,
God being a Spirit / deals with our
spirit in the hidden being / and gives the
same food and drink / when the place
of hunger is not filled with vain things.
Therefore we shall refuse to be sat-
isfied with that which is not God / or
that which might lead us to God / so that we