No Fault or Error
 
      I can discern no trace of theological fault or error in this prayer of devotion and desire breathed long ago by this saint of God.
      “Oh God, fix my heart so I may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee!” Nothing extreme and fanatical there. The true child of God will say “Amen” to this desire within the being to perfectly love God and worthily praise Him.
      He points out, “I find four degrees and forms of Christian men’s living.” He names them: “common,” “special,” “singular” and “perfect.”
      He was frank in telling how Christians lived six centuries ago. I think this old saint would have been an outstanding and effective evangelist. If he had come around 600 years later, how we could have used him in our camps and conferences!
      He knew the categories among Christians then, and I believe we can see them today.
      There are “common” Christians, and God knows what a mob we are!
      There is also the “special” Christian. He has moved on a little. Then there is the “singular” Christian, and he is unusual.
      But now, this man who is our teacher for the time continues: “These first three stages, common, special and singular, may be begun and ended in this life. But the fourth, the perfect Christian may by the grace of God begin here but shall ever last on without end in the bliss of heaven.”
      So you see now that neither he nor I are “perfectionists” to the point that we would walk about with a benign St. Francis smile as if to say, “I am perfect; don’t bother me!” We will always find that there is ground yet to be taken even though we have entered into the beginning of spiritual perfection.
      There is an interesting admonition by the author of The Cloud of Unknowing in which he asks that only those who are serious about going on to perfection should read or consider his writings.
      He wrote: “Now, I charge thee and I beseech thee, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, that thou neither read this book nor write it nor speak it nor suffer it to be read, except it be such an one as hath by a true will and by a whole intent, purposed him to be a perfect follower of Christ.”
      He is saying, in other words, “This is such a serious and weighty matter, that no one should fool around with it, or be merely curious or casual about it—only those who have made up their minds and have a true will and a whole intent to be a perfect follower of Jesus Christ.”