Julian of Norwich — Revelations of Divine Love

REVELATIONS

of DIVINE LOVE

Recorded by JULIAN,

Anchoress at _NORWICH_

ANNO DOMINI 1373

_In lumine tuo videbimus lumen_

A version from the MS.

in the BRITISH MUSEUM

edited by

GRACE WARRACK

Methuen & Company

36 Essex Street Strand

London

1901

DOMINI, REFUGIUM FACTUS ES NOBIS, A GENERATIONE IN GENERATIONEM.

RESPICE IN SERVOS TUOS, ET IN OPERA TUA: ET DIRIGE FILIOS EORUM.

ET SIT SPLENDOR DOMINI DEI NOSTRI SUPER NOS, ET OPERA MANUUM

NOSTRARUM DIRIGE SUPER NOS: ET OPUS MANUUM NOSTRARUM DIRIGE.

"Truth seeth God, and Wisdom beholdeth God, and of these two cometh the

third: that is a holy, marvelling delight in God; which is Love."

CONTENTS

PAGE

I.

NOTES ON MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS OF THIS BOOK. xi

II.

NOTE AS TO TWO JULIANS. xv

III.

INTRODUCTION:--

Part I. The Lady Julian. xvii

Part II. The Manner of the Book. xxxiii

Part III. The Theme of the Book. lv

IV.

"REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE":--

(_editorial account_)

i.

A List of Contents, called "A Particular of the

Chapters". 1

ii.-iii.

Autobiographical. 3

iv.-ix.

_The First Revelation_: The Trinity is shewn,

through the Suffering of Christ, as Goodness,

or Love all-working. 8

x.

_The Second Revelation_: Man's Sight of God's

Love is but partial because of sin's darkness. 21

xi.

_The Third Revelation_: All Being is Being of

God and is good: Sin is no Being. 26

xii.

_The Fourth Revelation_: The stain of sin through

lacking of human love is cleared away by the

Death of Christ in His Love. 29

xiii.

_The Fifth Revelation_: By Love's Sacrifice,

in Christ, the evil suffered, for Love's

Increase, to rise, is overcome for ever. 30

xiv.

_The Sixth Revelation_: The travail of Man

against evil on earth is a glory accepted

by Love in Heaven. 33

xv.

_The Seventh Revelation:_ It is of God's Will,

for our learning, that on earth we change between

joy of light and pain of darkness. 34

xvi.-xxi.

_The Eighth Revelation:_ Of the oneness

of God and Man in the Passion of Christ, through

Compassion of the Creature with Christ and of

Christ with the Creature. All compassion in men

is Christ in men. 36

xxii.-xxiii.

_The Ninth Revelation_: Of the worshipful entering

of Man's soul into the Joy of Love Divine in the

Passion. 46

xxiv.

_The Tenth Revelation_: Of the thankful entering

of the soul into the Peace of _the Endless Love_

opened up for Man in the time of the Passion. 51

xxv.

_The Eleventh Revelation:_ Of Christ's Raising,

Fulfilling Love to the souls of men, as beheld

in the love between Him and His Mother. 52

xxvi.

_The Twelfth Revelation:_ All that the soul

lives by and loves is God, through Christ. 54

xxvii.-xl.

_The Thirteenth Revelation:_ Man's finite love

was suffered by Infinite Love to fail, that

falling thus through sin into pain and death

of darkness, the creature therein might more

deeply know his need and more highly know, in

its succouring strength, the Creator's Love,

as the Saviour's; that so being raised, and for

ever held clinging to that through the grace of

the Holy Ghost, he might rise to fuller and

higher and endless oneness with God. 55

xli.-xliii.

_The Fourteenth Revelation:_ Beginning on

earth, Prayer makes the soul one with God. 84

xliv.-lxiii.

Regarding these Revelations and the Christian

Life of Love's travail on earth against sin. 93

lxiv.-lxv.

_The Fifteenth Revelation_ (Closing): Of

Love's Fulfilment in Heaven. 159

lxvi.

Autobiographical: The fall through frailty of

nature, by self-regarding, into doubt of the

Shewing of Love; the rescue by mercy; the

assaying of faith and the overcoming by grace. 164

lxvii.-lxviii.

_The Sixteenth Revelation_ (Confirming): The

Indwelling of God In the Soul, now and for ever.

"_Thou shalt not be overcome._" 167

lxix.

Autobiographical: The second assaying of faith,

through the horror of spiritual darkness; the

overcoming by virtue of the Passion of Christ,

with help from the Common Belief of the

Christian Fellowship. 170

lxx.-lxxxv.

The Life of Faith is kept by Charity,

led on by Hope 172

lxxvi.

The Meaning of the Whole. Of learning more on

earth and In Heaven of the One thing taught

in the Revelation: _the Endless Love_; in

Which Life is everlasting. 201

V.

POSTSCRIPT

BY AN EARLY TRANSCRIBER OF THE MANUSCRIPT. 204

VI.

GLOSSARY. 205

_The Title-page is from a design by Phoebe Anna Traquair._

NOTES ON MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS

This English book exists in two Manuscripts: No. 30 of the Bibliothèque

Nationale, Paris (_Bibliotheca Bigotiana_, 388), and No. 2499 _Sloane_,

in the British Museum.

The Paris Manuscript is of the Sixteenth Century, the Sloane is in a

Seventeenth Century handwriting; the English of the Fourteenth Century

seems to be on the whole well preserved in both, especially perhaps in

the later Manuscript, which must have been copied from one of mixed

East Anglian and northern dialects. This manuscript has no title-page,

and nothing is known as to its history. Delisle's catalogue of the

_Biblioth. Bigot._ (1877) gives no particulars as to the acquisition of

No. 388. The two versions may be compared in these sentences:--

Chap. II., _Paris_ MS.: "This revelation was made to a Symple creature

unlettyrde leving in deadly flesh the yer of our Lord a thousande and

thre hundered and lxxiii the xiii Daie of May."

_Sloane_: "These Revelations were shewed to a simple creature that

cowde no letter the yeere of our Lord 1373 the xiij day of may."

Chap. LI., _Paris_ MS.: "The colour of his face was feyer brown whygt

with full semely countenaunce. his eyen were blakke most feyer and

semely shewyng full of lovely pytte and within hym an heyward long

and brode all full of endlesse hevynlynes. And the lovely lokyng that

he lokyd on his servant contynually. And namely in his fallyng ÷ me

thought it myght melt oure hartys for love. and brek them on twoo for

Joy."

_Sloane_: "The color of his face was faire browne, with ful semely

features, his eyen were blak most faire and semely shewand ful of

lovely pety and within him an heyward long and brode all full of endles

hevyns, and the lovely lokeing that he loked upon his servant continuly

and namely in his fallyng me thowte it myte molten our herts for love &

bresten hem on to for joy."

The Sloane MS. does not mention the writer of the book, but the copyist

of the Paris version has, after the _Deo Gratias_ with which it ends,

added or transcribed these words: _Explicit liber Revelationem Julyane

anatorite_ [sic] _Norwyche cujus anime propicietur Deus_.

Blomefield, in his _History of Norfolk_ (iv. p. 81), speaks of "an

old vellum Manuscript, 36 pages of which contained an account of

the visions, etc.," of the Lady Julian, anchoress at St. Julian's,

Norwich, and quotes the title written by a contemporary: "Here es a

Vision shewed by the godenes of God to a devoute Woman: and her name

is Julian, that is recluse at Noryche, and yett is on life, Anno

Domini mccccxlii. In the whilke Vision er fulle many comfortabyll

words, and greatly styrrande to alle they that desyres to be Crystes

Looverse"--greatly stirring to all that desire to be lovers of Christ.

This Manuscript, possibly containing the writing of Julian herself,

was in the possession of the Rev. Francis Peck (1692-1743). The

original MSS. of that antiquarian writer went to Sir Thomas Cave, and

ultimately to the British Museum, but his general library was sold in

1758 to Mr T. Payne (of Payne & Foss), bookseller, Strand, and this old

Manuscript of the "Revelations," which has been sought for in vain in

the catalogues of public collections, may perhaps have been bought and

sold by him.[1] It may be extant in some private library.

Tersteegen, who, in his _Auserlesene Beschreibungen Heiliger Seelen_,

gives a long extract from Julian's book (vol. iii. p. 252, 3rd ed.

1784), mentions in his preface that he had seen "in the Library of the

late Poiret" an old Manuscript of these Revelations. Pierre Poiret,

author of several works on mystical theology, died in 1719 near Leyden,

but the Manuscript has not found its way to the University there.

Poiret himself refers thus to Julian and her book in his _Catalogus

Auctorum Mysticorum_, giving to her name the asterisk denoting

greatness: "_Julianae Matris Anachoretae, Revelationes de Amore Dei.

Anglice. Theodidactae, profundae, ecstaticae._" (_Theologiae Pacificae

itemque Mysticae_, p. 336. Amsterdam, 1702.)

The earliest printed edition of Julian's book was prepared by the

Benedictine Serenus de Cressy, and published in 1670 by permission of

his ecclesiastical Superior, the Abbot of Lambspring, under the title

of _Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love_. It agrees with the Manuscript

now in Paris, but the readings that differ from the Sloane Manuscript

are very few and are quite unimportant. This version of de Cressy's

is in Seventeenth Century English with some archaic words, which are

explained on the side margins; it was re-printed in 1843. A modernised

version taken from the Sloane MS. was published, with a preface, by

Henry Collins in 1877 (T. Richardson & Sons).

These three, the only printed editions, are now all of great rarity.

For the following version, the editor having transcribed the Sloane

MS., divided its continuous lines into paragraphs, supplied to many

words capital letters, and while following as far as possible the

significance of the commas and occasional full stops of the original,

endeavoured to make the meaning clearer by a more varied punctuation.

As the book is designed for general use, modern spelling has been

adopted, and most words entirely obsolete in speech have been rendered

in modern English, though a few that seemed of special significance

or charm have been retained. Archaic forms of construction have

been almost invariably left as they are, without regard to modern

grammatical usage. Occasionally a word has been underlined for the sake

of clearness or as a help in preserving the measure of the original

language, which in a modern version must lose a little in rhythm, by

altered pronunciation and by the dropping of the termination "en" from

verbs in the infinitive. Here and there a clause has been put within

parentheses. The very few changes made in words that might have any

bearing on theological or philosophical questions, any historical or

personal significance in the presentment of Julian's view, are noted on

the margin and in the Glossary. Where prepositions are used in a sense

now obscure they have generally been left as they are (_e.g., of_ for

_by_ or _with_), or have been added to rather than altered (_e.g., for_

is rendered by the archaic but intelligible _for that_, rather than

by _because_, and _of_ is amplified by words in square brackets, as

[_by virtue_] _of_, [_out_] _of_ rather than changed into _through_ or

_from_). The editor has desired to follow the rule of never omitting

a word from the Manuscript, and of enclosing within square brackets

the very few words added. It may be seen that these words do not alter

the sense of the passage, but are interpolated with a view to bringing

it out more clearly, in insignificant references (_e.g._ "in this

[Shewing]"), and once or twice in a passage of special obscurity (see

chap. xlv).

NOTE AS TO THE LADY JULIAN, ANCHORESS AT ST JULIAN'S, AND THE LADY

JULIAN LAMPET, ANCHORESS AT CARROW

In _Carrow Abbey_, by Walter Rye (privately printed, 1889), is given a

list of Wills, in which the name of the Lady Julian Lampet frequently

occurs as a legatee between the years 1427 (Will of Sir John Erpingham)

and 1478 (Will of William Hallys). Comparing the Will of Hallys with

that of Margaret Purdance, which was made in 1471 but not proved till

1483, and from which the name of Lady Julian Lampet as a legatee is

stroked out, no doubt because of her death, we find evidence that this

anchoress died between 1478 and 1483. As even the earlier of these

dates was a hundred and thirty-six years after the birth of the writer

of the "Revelations," who in May 1373 was over thirty years of age,

the identity of the "Lady Julian, recluse at Norwich," with the Lady

Julian Lampet, though it has naturally been suggested, is surely an

impossibility. There were anchorages in the churchyards both of St

Julian's, Conisford (which belonged to the nuns of Carrow in the sense

of its revenues having been made over to them by King Stephen for the

support of that Priory or "Abbey"), and of St Mary's, the Convent

Church of the nuns. See the Will of Robert Pert--proved 1445--which

left "to the anchoress of Carhowe 1s., to ditto at St Julian's 1s.,"

and that of the Lady Isobel Morley, who in 1466 left bequests to "Dame

Julian, anchoress at Carrow, and Dame Agnes, anchoress at St Julian's

in Cunisford"--no doubt the same Dame Agnes that is mentioned by

Blomefield as being at St Julian's in 1472. This Agnes may have been

the immediate successor of Julian the writer of the "Revelations," who

is spoken of as "yet in life"--as if in great age--in 1442, when she

would be a hundred years old.

Perhaps the almost invariable use of the surname of the Carrow

Dame Julian (who was, no doubt, of the family of Sir Ralph

Lampet--frequently mentioned by Blomefield and in the _Paston Letters_)

may go to establish proof that there had been before her and in her

earlier years of recluse life another anchoress Julian, who most likely

had been educated at Carrow, but who lived as an anchoress at St

Julian's, and was known simply as Dame or "the Lady" Julian.

* * * * *

From Blomefield's _History of Norfolk_, vol. iv. p. 524: "Carhoe or

Carrow stands on a hill by the side of the river, about a furlong from

Conisford or Southgates, and was always in the liberty of the City

[of Norwich].... Here was an ancient Hospital or Nunnery, dedicated

to Saint Mary and Saint John, to which King Stephen having given

lands and meadows without the South-gate, Seyna and Lescelina, two of

the sisters, in 1146 began the foundations of a new monastery called

Kairo, Carrow, Car-hou, and sometimes Car-Dieu, which was dedicated to

the Virgin Mary and Saint John, and consisted of a prioress and nine

(afterwards twelve) Benedictine black nuns.... Their church was founded

by King Stephen and was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and had a

chapel of St John Baptist joined to its south side, and another of St

Catherine to its north; there was also an anchorage by it, and in 1428

Lady Julian Lampet was anchoress there." ... "This nunnery for many

years had been a school or place of education for the young ladies of

the chief families of the diocese, who boarded with and were educated

by the nuns."

From Dr Jessopp's _Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich_, 1492-1532,

Introduction, p. xliv.: "The priory of Carrow had always enjoyed a good

reputation, and the house had for long been a favourite retreat for the

daughters of the Norwich citizens who desired to give themselves to a

life of religious retirement."

INTRODUCTION

PART I

THE LADY JULIAN

_Beati pauperes spiritu: quoniam ipsorum est regnum coelorum_

_S. Matth. v._ 3

Very little is known of the outer life of the woman that nearly five

hundred years ago left us this book.

It is in connection with the old Church of St Julian in the parish of

Conisford, outlying Norwich, that Julian is mentioned in Blomefield's

_History of Norfolk_ (vol. iv. p. 81): "In the east part of the

churchyard stood an anchorage in which an ankeress or recluse dwelt

till the Dissolution, when the house was demolished, though the

foundations may still be seen (1768). In 1393 Lady Julian, the ankeress

here was a strict recluse, and had two servants to attend her in her

old age. This woman was in these days esteemed one of the greatest

holiness. In 1472 Dame Agnes was recluse here; in 1481, Dame Elizabeth

Scott; in 1510, Lady Elizabeth; in 1524, Dame Agnes Edrygge."

The little Church of St Julian (in use at this day) still keeps from

Norman times its dark round tower of flint rubble, and still there

are traces about its foundation of the anchorage built against its

south-eastern wall. "This Church was founded," says the History of

the County, "before the Conquest, and was given to the nuns of Carhoe

(Carrow) by King Stephen, their founder; it hath a round tower and

but one bell; the north porch and nave are tiled, and the chancel is

thatched. There was an image of St Julian in a niche of the wall of

the Church, in the Churchyard." Citing the record of a burial in "the

churchyard of St Julian, the King and Confessor," Blomefield observes:

"which shews that it was not dedicated to St Julian, the Bishop, nor St

Julian, the Virgin."

The only knowledge that we have directly from Julian as to any part

of her history is given in her account of the time and manner in

which the Revelation came, and of her condition before and during and

after this special experience. She tells how on the 13th day of May,

1373,[1] the Revelation of Love was shewed to her, "a simple creature,

unlettered," who had before this time made certain special prayers from

out of her longing after more love to God and her trouble over the

sight of man's sin and sorrow. She had come now, she mentions, to the

age of thirty, for which she had in one of these prayers, desired to

receive a greater consecration,--thinking, perhaps, of the year when

the Carpenter's workshop was left by the Lord for wider ministry,--she

was "thirty years old and an half." This would make her birth-date

about the end of 1342, and the old Manuscript says that she "was yet in

life" in 1442. Julian relates that the Fifteen consecutive "Shewings"

lasted from about four o'clock till after nine of that same morning,

that they were followed by only one other Shewing (given on the night

of the next day), but that through later years the teaching of these

Sixteen Shewings had been renewed and explained and enlarged by the

more ordinary enlightenment and influences of "the same Spirit that

shewed them." In this connection she speaks, in different chapters, of

"fifteen years after and more," and of twenty years after, "save three

months"; thus her book cannot have been finished before 1393.

Of the circumstances in which the Revelations came, and of all matters

connected with them, Julian gives a careful account, suggestive of

great calmness and power of observation and reflection at the time,

as well as of discriminating judgment and certitude afterwards. She

describes the preliminary seven days' sickness, the cessation of all

its pain during the earlier visions, in which she had spiritual

sight of the Passion of Christ, and indeed during all the five hours'

"special Shewing"; the return of her physical pain and mental distress

and "dryness" of feeling when the vision closed; her falling into

doubt as to whether she had not simply been delirious, her terrifying

dream on the Friday night,--noting carefully that "this horrible

Shewing" came in her sleep, "and so did none other"--none of the

Sixteen Revelations of Love came thus. Then she tells how she was

helped to overcome the dream-temptation to despair, and how on the

following night another Revelation, conclusion and confirmation of

all, was granted to strengthen her faith. Again her faith was assayed

by a similar dream-appearance of fiends that seemed as it were to be

mocking at all religion, and again she was delivered, overcoming by

setting her eyes on the Cross and fastening her heart on God, and

comforting her soul with speech of Christ's Passion (as she would have

comforted another in like distress) and rehearsing the Faith of all

the Church. It may be noted here that Julian when telling how she was

given grace to awaken from the former of these troubled dreams, says,

"anon all vanished away and I was brought to great rest and peace,

without sickness of body or dread of conscience," and that nothing in

the book gives any ground for supposing that she had less than ordinary

health during the long and peaceful life wherein God "lengthened her

patience." Rather it would seem that one so wholesome in mind, so

happy in spirit, so wisely moderate, no doubt, in self-guidance, must

have kept that general health that _she_ could not despise who speaks

of God having "no disdain" to serve the body, for love of the soul, of

how we are "soul and body clad in the Goodness of God," of how "God

hath made waters plenteous in earth to our service and to our bodily

ease,"[2] and of how Christ waiteth to minister to us His gifts of

grace "unto the time that we be waxen and grown, our soul with our body

and our body with our soul, either of them taking help of other, till

we be brought unto stature, as nature worketh."[3]

Julian mentions neither her name not her state in life; she is "the

soul," the "poor" or "simple" soul that the Revelation was shewed

to--"a simple creature," in herself, a mere "wretch," frail and of no

account.

Of her parentage and early home we know nothing: but perhaps her own

exquisite picture of Motherhood--of its natural (its "kind") love and

wisdom and knowledge--is taken partly from memory, with that of the

kindly nurse, and the child, which by nature loveth the Mother and

each of the other children, and of the training by Mother and Teacher

until the child is brought up to "the Father's bliss" (lxi.-lxiii.).

The title "Lady," "Dame" or "Madame" was commonly accorded to

anchoresses, nuns, and others that had had education in a Convent.[4]

Julian, no doubt, was of gentle birth, and she would probably be sent

to the Convent of Carrow for her education. There she would receive

from the Benedictine nuns the usual instruction in reading, writing,

Latin, French, and fine needlework, and especially in that Common

Christian Belief to which she was always in her faithful heart and

steadfast will so loyal,--"the Common Teaching of Holy Church in which

I was afore informed and grounded, and with all my will having in use

and understanding" (xlvi.).

It is most likely that Julian received at Carrow the consecration

of a Benedictine nun; for it was usual, though not necessary, for

anchoresses to belong to one or other of the Religious Orders.

The more or less solitary life of the anchorite or hermit, the

anchoress or recluse, had at this time, as earlier, many followers in

the country parts and large towns of England. Few of the "reclusoria"

or women's anchorholds were in the open country or forest-lands

like those that we come upon in Medieval romances, but many churches

of the villages and towns had attached to them a timber or stone

"cell"--a little house of two or three rooms inhabited by a recluse who

never left it, and one servant, or two, for errands and protection.

Occasionally a little group of recluses lived together like those three

young sisters of the Thirteenth Century for whom the _Ancren Riwle_,

a Rule or Counsel for "Ancres," was at their own request composed.

The recluse's chamber seems to have generally had three windows: one

looking into the adjoining Church, so that she could take part in the

Services there; another communicating with one of those rooms under

the keeping of her "maidens," in which occasionally a guest might be

entertained; and a third--the "parlour" window--opening to the outside,

to which all might come that desired to speak with her. According to

the _Ancren Riwle_ the covering-screen for this audience-window was

a curtain of double cloth, black with a cross of white through which

the sunshine would penetrate--sign of the Dayspring from on high.

This screen could of course be drawn back when the recluse 'held a

parliament' with any that came to her.[5]

Before Julian passed from the sunny lawns and meadows of Carrow, along

the road by the river and up the lane to the left by the gardens and

orchards of the Coniston of that day, to the little Churchyard house

that would hide so much from her eyes of outward beauty, and yet leave

so much in its changeful perpetual quietude around her (great skies

overhead like the ample heavenly garments of her vision "blue as azure

most deep and fair"; little Speedwell's blue by the crannied wall of

the Churchyard--_Veronika_, true Image, like the Saint's "Holy Vernacle

at Rome") her vow[6] might be: "I offering yield myself to the divine

Goodness[7] for service, in the order of anchorites: and I promise to

continue in the service of God after the rule of that order, by divine

grace and the counsel of the Church: and to shew canonical obedience to

my ghostly fathers."

The only reference that Julian makes to the life dedicated more

especially to Contemplation is where she is speaking, as if from

experience, of the temptation to despair because of falling oftentimes

into the same sins, "especially into sloth and losing of time. For

that is the beginning of sin, as to my sight,--and especially to the

creatures that have given themselves to serve our Lord with inward

beholding of His blessed Goodness."[8]

"_One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I

may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold

the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple_"--His Sanctuary

of the Church or of the soul. _That_ was her calling. She had heard the

Voice that comes to the soul in Spring-time and calls to the Garden of

lilies, and calls to the Garden of Olive-trees (where all the spices

offered are in one Cup of Heavenly Wine): _"Surge, propera amica mea:

jam enim Hyems transiit, imber ambiit et recessit. Surge, propera amica

mea, speciosa mea, et veni." "Arise: let us go hence."[9] "For this is

the natural yearnings of the soul by the touching of the Holy Ghost:

God of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself, for Thou art enough to me; ...

and if I ask anything that is less, ever me wanteth; but only in Thee I

have all"_ (v.).

"A soul that only fasteneth itself on to God with very trust, either

by seeking or in beholding, it is the most worship that it may do to

Him, as to my sight" (x.). "To enquire" and "to behold"--no doubt it

was for these that Julian sought time and quiet. For she had urgent

questionings and "stirrings" in her mind over "the great hurt that is

come by sin to the creature"--"afore this time often I wondered why by

the great foreseeing wisdom of God the beginning of sin was not letted"

("mourning and sorrow I made over it without reason and discretion");

and also she was filled with desire for God: "the longing that I had to

Him afore" (xxvii.).

Moreover, this life to which Julian gave herself was to be a life of

"meek continuant prayers" "for enabling" of herself in her weakness,

and for help to others in all their needs. For thought and worship

could only be held together by active prayer: the pitiful beholding

of evil and pain and the joyful beholding of Goodness and Love would

be at war, as it were, with each other, unless they were set at peace

for the time by the prayer of intercession. And _that_ is the call of

the loving soul, strong in its infant feebleness to wake the answering

Revelation of Love to faith that "all shall be well," and that "all is

well" and that when all are come up above and the whole is known, all

shall be seen to be well, and to have been well through the time of

tribulation and travail.

"At some time in the day or night," says the _Ancren Riwle_,

which Julian perhaps may have read, though as to such prayers her

compassionate heart was its own director--"At some time in the day

or night think upon and call to mind all who are sick and sorrowful,

who suffer affliction and poverty, the pain which prisoners endure who

lie heavily fettered with iron; think especially of the Christians who

are amongst the heathen, some in prison, some in so great thralldom

as is an ox or an ass; compassionate those who are under strong

temptations; take thought of all men's sorrows, and sigh to our Lord

that He may take care of them and have compassion and look upon them

with a gracious eye; and if you have leisure, repeat this Psalm, _I

have lifted up mine eyes. Paternoster. Return, O Lord, how long, and

be intreated in favour of Thy servants: Let us pray._ 'Stretch forth,

O Lord, to thy servants and to thy handmaids the right hand of thy

heavenly aid, that they may seek thee with all their heart, and obtain

what they worthily ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.'" Julian tells

how in her thinking of sin and its hurt there passed before her sight

all that Christ bore for us, "and His dying; and all the pains and

passions of all His creatures, ghostly and bodily; _and the beholding

of this_--with all pains that ever were or ever shall be" (xxvii).

From sin, except as a general conception, Julian's natural instinct

was to turn her eyes; but with this Christly compassion in her heart

in looking on the sorrows of the world she could not but take account

of its sin. As she came to be convinced that "though we be highly

lifted up into contemplation, it is needful for us to see our own

sin,"--albeit we should not accuse ourselves "overdone much" or "be

heavy or sorrowful indiscreetly"--so when sins of others were brought

before her she would seek with compassion to take the sinner's part of

contrition and prayer. "The beholding of other man's sins, it maketh

as it were a thick mist afore the eyes of the soul, and we cannot,

for the time, see the fairness of God, but if we can behold them with

contrition with him, with compassion on him, and with holy desire to

God for him" (lxxvi.).

And notwithstanding all the stir and eager revival of the Fourteenth

Century in religion, politics, literature and general life, there

was much both of sin and of sorrow then to exercise the pitiful

soul--troubles enough in Norwich itself, of oppression and riot and

desolating pestilence--troubles enough in Europe, West and East,--wars

and enslaving and many cruelties in distant lands, and harried Armenian

Christians coming to the Court of Edward to plead for succour in

their long-enduring patience. There was trouble wherever one looked;

but to prayer, and to that compassion which is in itself a prayer,

the answer came. Indeed the compassion was its own first immediate

answer: for "then I saw that each kind compassion that man hath on his

_even-Cristen_ (his fellow-Christians) with charity, _it is Christ in

him_." This is the comfort that both comforts in waiting and calls to

deeds of help. And such "charity" of social service was not beyond the

scope of the life "enclosed,"--whether it might be by deed or, as more

often, by speech.[10]

It is in her seeking for truth and her beholding of Love that we best

know Julian. Of the opening of the Revelation she says: "In all this

I was greatly stirred in charity to mine even-Christians, that they

might see and know the same that I saw: for I would it were comfort to

them," and again and again throughout the book she declares that the

"special Shewing" is given not for her in special, but for all--for all

are meant to be one in comfort as all are one in need. "Because of the

Shewing I am not good, but if I love God the better: and in as much as

ye love God the better it is more to you than to me.... For we are all

one in comfort. For truly it was not shewed me that God loved me better

than the least soul that is in grace; for I am certain that there be

many that never had any Shewing nor sight but of the common teaching of

Holy Church that love God better than I. For if I look singularly to

myself I am right nought; but in general [manner of regarding] I am, I

hope, in oneness of charity with all mine even-Christians. For in this

oneness standeth the life of all mankind that shall be saved, and that

which I say of me, I say in the person of all mine even-Christians: for

I am taught in the Spiritual Shewing of our Lord God that He meaneth

it so. And therefore I pray you for God's sake, and counsel you for

your own profit that ye leave the beholding of a worthless creature [a

"wretch"] it was shewed to and mightily, wisely and meekly behold God

that of His special goodness would shew it generally, in comfort of us

all" (ix.).

Thus Julian turns our eyes from looking _on_ her to looking _with_ her

on the Revelation of Divine Love.

Yet surely in her we have also "a shewing"--a shewing of the same.

She tells us little of her own story, and little is told us of her

by any one else, but all through her recording of the Revelation the

simple creature to whom it was made unconsciously shews herself, so

that soon we come to know her with a pleasure that surely she would

not think too "special" in its regard. (For she herself in speaking

of Love makes note that the general does not exclude the special).

Perhaps we are helped in this friendly acquaintanceship by those

endearingly characteristic little formulas of speech disavowing any

claim to dogmatic authority in the statements of her views of truth:

those modest parentheses "as to my sight," "as to mine understanding."

"Wisdom and truth and love," the dower that she saw in the Gracious

soul, were surely in the soul of this meek woman; but enclosing

these gifts of nature and grace are qualities special to Julian:

depth of passion, with quietness, order, and moderation; loyalty in

faith, with clearest candour--"I believe ... but this was not shewed

me"--(xxxiii., lxxvii., lxxx.) pitifulness and sympathy, with hope and

a blithe serenity; sound good sense with a little sparkle upon it--as

of delicate humour (that crowning virtue of saints); and beneath all,

above all, an exquisite tenderness that turns her speech to music. "_I

will lay thy Stones with fair Colours._"

"Thou hast the dews of thy youth." Hundreds of years have gone since

that early morning in May when Julian thought she was dying and was

"partly troubled" for she felt she was yet in youth and would gladly

have served God more on earth with the gift of her days--hundreds

of years since the time that her heart would fain have been told by

special Shewing that "a certain creature I loved should continue in

good living"--but still we have "mind" of her as "a gentle neighbour

and of our knowing." For those that love in simplicity are always

young; and those that have had with the larger Vision of Love the gift

of love's passionate speech, to God or man, in word or form or deed, as

treasure held--live yet on the earth, untouched by time, though their

light is shining elsewhere for other sight.

"From that time that the Revelation was shewed I desired oftentimes to

learn what was our Lord's meaning. And fifteen years afterwards and

more, I was answered in ghostly understanding, saying thus: _Wouldst

thou learn thy Lord's meaning in this thing? Learn it well: Love was

His meaning. Who shewed it thee? Love. What shewed He thee? Love.

Wherefore shewed it He? For Love. Hold thee therein and thou shalt

learn and know more in the same. But thou shalt never know nor learn

other thing without end._"

And if we, with no special shewing, might ask and, in trust of

"spiritual understanding," might answer more--asking _to whom_, and

_for whom_ was the Revelation shewed, we might answer: _To one that

loved_; for all that would learn in love.

"_Ecco chi crescerà li nostri amori_"[11]

"Here is one who shall increase our love."

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Christ--for Easter Sunday of 1373 was on the 17th of April (O.S.). So

when the Revelation finally closed and Julian was left to "keep it in

the Faith"--the Common Christian Faith--it was Sunday morning, and

the words and voices she would hear through her window opening into

the Church would be from the early worship of "the Blessed Common"

assembled there.

counsels to anchoresses as to judicious care of the body: diet,

washing, needful rest, avoidance of idleness and gloom, reading, sewing

for Church and Poor, making and mending and washing of clothes by the

anchoress or her servant. "Ye may be well content with your clothes, be

they white, be they black; only see that they be plain, and warm, and

well made--skins well tanned; and have as many as you need.... Let your

shoes be thick and warm."

Juliana." The old name was _Julian_. The Virgin-Martyr of the Legend

entitled "The Life of St Juliana" (Early English Text Society) is

called in the Manuscripts, Iulane, Juliene, and Juliane and Julian.

So also _Lady Julian Berners_ is a name in the history of Fifteenth

Century books.

asked Sir Percival what he would. 'Madam,' said he, 'I am a knight of

King Arthur's Court and my name is Sir Percival de Galis.' So when the

recluse heard his name, she had passing great joy of him, for greatly

she loved him before all other knights of the world; and so of right

she ought to do, for she was his aunt."--Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_,

xiv. i.

fo. lxix. _Servitium includendorum._

and losing of time," "unskilful [unpractical, unreasoning] heaviness

and vain sorrow," seem to be all akin to that dreaded sin, besetting

particularly the Contemplative life, _Accidia_. See _Ancren Riwle_ p.

287. "_Accidies salue is gestlich gledshipe._ The remedy for indolence

is spiritual joy, and the consolation of joyful hope from reading and

from holy meditation, or when spoken by the mouth of man. Often, dear

sisters, ye ought to pray less, that ye may read more. Reading is

good prayer. Reading teacheth how, and for what ye ought to pray. In

reading, when the heart feels delight, devotion ariseth, and that is

worth many prayers. Everything, however, may be overdone. Moderation is

always best."--(Pub. by the Camden Society).

that come to her," in "The Scale of Perfection," by Walter Hilton (died

1396), edition of 1659, p. 106. "Since it is so that thou oughtest not

to goe out of thy house to seek occasion how thou mightest profit thy

Neighbour by deeds of Charity, because thou art enclosed; ... therefore

who so will speake with thee ... be thou soon ready with a good will to

aske what his will is ... for thou knowest not what he is, nor why he

cometh, nor what need he hath of thee, or thou of him, till thou hast

tryed. And though thou be at prayer, or at thy devotions, that thou

thinkest loth to break off, for that thou thinkest that thou oughtest

not leave God for to speake with any one, I think not so in this case,

for if thou be wise, thou shalt not leave God, but thou shalt find him,

and have him, and see him in thy Neighbour as well as in prayer, onely

in another manner. If thou canst love thy Neighbour well, to speake

with thy Neighbour with discretion shall be no hindrance to thee....

If he come to tell thee his disease [distress] or trouble, and to be

comforted by thy speech, heare him gladly, and suffer him to say what

he will for ease of his own heart; And when he hath done, comfort him

if thou canst, gladly, gently, and charitably, and soon break off. And

then, after that, if he will fall into idle tales, or vanities of the

World, or of other men's actions, answer him but little, and feed not

his speech, and he will soon be weary, and quickly take his leave," etc.

PART II

THE MANNER OF THE BOOK

As an hert desirith to the wellis of watris:

so thou God, my soule desirith to thee....

The Lord sent his merci in the day:

and his song in the nyght.

Ps. '_Quemadmodum_'; from the _Prymer_.

Without any special study of the literature of Mysticism for purposes

of comparison, in reading Julian's book one is struck by a few

characteristics wherein it differs from many other Mystical writings

as well as by qualities that belong to most or all of that general

designation.

The silence of this book both as to preliminary ascetic exercises and

as to ultimate visions of the Absolute, might be attributed to Julian's

being wholly concerned with giving, for comfort to all, that special

sight of truth that came to her as the answer to her own need. She sets

out not to teach methods of any kind for the gradual drawing near of

man to God, but to record and shew forth a Revelation, granted once, of

God's actual nearness to the soul, and for this Revelation she herself

had been prepared by the "stirring" of her conscience, her love and

her understanding, in a word of her _faith_, even as she was in short

time to be left "neither sign nor token," but only the Revelation to

hold "in faith." Moreover, the means that in general she looks to for

realising God's nearness, in whatever measure or manner the revelation

of it may come to any soul, is the immediate one of faith as a gift

of nature and a grace from the Holy Ghost: faith leading by prayer,

and effort of obedience, and teachableness of spirit, into actual

experience of oneness with God. The natural and common heritage of

love and faith is a theme that is dear to Julian: in her view, longing

toward God is grounded in the love to Him that is native to the human

heart, and this longing (painful through sin) as it is stirred by the

Holy Spirit, who comes with Christ, is, in each naturally developed

Christian, spontaneous and increasing;--"for the nearer we be to our

bliss, the more we long after it" (xlvi., lxxii., lxxxi.). "This is

the kinde [the natural] yernings of the soule by the touching of the

Holy Ghost: _God of Thy goodness give me Thyself: for Thou art enow

to me, and I may nothing ask that is less that may be full worshippe

to Thee_." God is the first as well as the last: the soul begins as

well as ends with God: begins by Nature, begins again by Mercy, and

ends--yet "without end"--by Grace. Certainly on the way--the way of

these three, by falling, by succour, by upraising--to the more perfect

knowing of God that is the soul's Fulfilment in Heaven, there is a less

immediate knowledge to be gained through experience: "_And if I aske

anything that is lesse, ever me wantith_," for "It needyth us to have

knoweing of the littlehede of creatures and to nowtyn all thing that

is made, for to love and have God that is onmade." But this knowing

of the littleness of creatures comes to Julian first of all in a sight

of _the Goodness of God_; "For [to] a soule that seith the Maker of

all, all that is made semith full litil." By the further beholding,

indeed, of God as Maker and Preserver, that which has been rightly

"noughted" as of no account, is seen to be also truly of much account.

For that which was seen by the soul as so little that it seemed to be

about to fall to nothing for littleness, is seen by the understanding

to have "three properties":--God made it, God loveth it, God keepeth

it. Thus it is known as "great and large, fair and good"; "it lasteth,

and ever shall, for God loveth it."--Yet again the soul breaks away

to its own, with the natural flight of a bird from its Autumn nest at

the call of an unseen Spring to the far-off land that is nearer still

than its nest, because it is in its heart. "But what is to _me_ sothly

[in verity] the Maker, the Keper and the Lover,--I cannot tell, for

till I am Substantially oned [deeply united] to Him, I may never have

full rest ne very blisse; that is to sey, that I be so festined to

Him, that there is right nowte that is made betwix my God and me" (v.,

viii.). This "fastening" is all that in Julian's book represents that

needful process wherein the truth of asceticism has a part. It is not

essentially a process of detaching the thought from created things of

time--still less one of detaching the heart from created beings of

eternity--but a process of more and more allowing and presenting the

man to be fastened closely to God by means of the original longing

of the soul, the influence of the Holy Ghost, and the discipline of

life with its natural tribulations, which by their purifying serve to

strengthen the affections that remaining pass through them. "_But only

in Thee I have all._" On the way this discovery of the soul at peace

must needs be sometimes a word for exclusion, in parting and pressing

onward from things that are made: in the end it is the welcome,

all-inclusive. And Julian, notwithstanding her enclosure as a recluse,

is one of those that, happy in nature and not too much hindered by

conditions of life, possess for large use _by the way_ the mystical

peace of fulfilled possession through virtue of freedom from bondage

to self. For it is by means of the tyranny of the "self," regarding

chiefly itself in its claims and enjoyments, that creature things can

be intruded between the soul and God; and always, in some way, the meek

inherit the earth. "All things are yours; and ye are Christ's."

The life of a recluse demanded, no doubt, as other lives do, a daily

self-denial as well as an initiatory self-devotion, and from Julian's

silence as to "bodily exercises" it cannot of course be assumed that

she did not give them, even beyond the incumbent rule of the Church,

though not in excess of her usual moderation, some part in her

Christian striving for mastery over self. Nor could this silence in

itself be taken as a proof that ascetic practices had not in her view a

preparatory function such as has by many of the Mystics been assigned

to them during a process of self-training in the earlier stages of

the soul's ascent to aptitude for mystical vision. It is, however, to

be noted that neither in regard to herself nor others do we hear from

Julian anything about an undertaking of this kind. To her the "special

Shewing" came as a gift, unearned, and unexpected: it came in an

abundant answer to a prayer for other things needed by every soul.[1]

Julian's desires for herself were for three "wounds" to be made more

deep in her life: contrition (in sight of sin), compassion (in sight

of sorrow) and longing after God: she prayed and sought diligently for

these graces, comprehensive as she felt they were of the Christian life

and meant for all; and with them she sought to have for herself, in

particular regard to her own difficulties, a sight of such truth as it

might "behove" her to know for the glory of God and the comfort of men.

According to Julian the "special Shewing" is a gift of comfort for all,

sent by God in a time to some soul that is chosen in order that it may

have, and so may minister, the comfort needed by itself and by others

(ix.). In her experience this Revelation, soon closed, is renewed by

influence and enlightenment in the more ordinary grace of its giver,

the Holy Ghost. But a still fuller sight of God shall be given, she

rejoices to think, in Heaven, to _all_ that shall reach that Fulfilment

of blessed life--the only mount of the soul set forth in this book.

Thither, by the high-road of Christ, all souls may go, making the steep

ascent through "longing and desire,"--longing that embodies itself in

desire towards God, that is, in Prayer.

Nothing is said by Julian as to successive stages of Prayer, though

she speaks of different _kinds_ of prayer as the natural action of the

soul under different experiences or in different states of feeling

or "dryness." Prayer is _asking_ ("beseeching"), with submission

and acquiescence; or _beholding_, with the _self_ forgotten, yet

offered-up; it is a thanking and a praising in the heart that sometimes

breaks forth into voice; or a silent joy in the sight of God as

all-sufficient. And in all these ways "Prayer oneth the soul to God."

To Julian's understanding the only Shewing of God that could ever be,

the highest and lowest, the first and the last, was the Vision of Him

as Love. "Hold thee therin and thou shalt witten and knowen more in the

same. But thou shalt never knowen ne witten other thing without end.

Thus was I lerid that Love was our Lord's menyng" (lxxxvi.). Alien to

the "simple creature" was that desert region where some of the lovers

of God have endeavoured to find Him,--desiring an extreme penetration

of thought (human thought, after all, since for men there is none

beyond it) or an utmost reach of worship (worship from fire and ice) in

proclaiming the Absolute One not only as All that _is_, but as All that

is _not_. Julian's desire was truly for God in Himself, through Christ

by the Holy Spirit of Love: for God in "His homeliest home," the soul,

for God in His City. Therefore she follows only the upward way of the

light attempered by grace, not turning back to the _Via Negativa_, that

downward road that starting from a conception of the Infinite "as the

antithesis of the finite,"[2] rather than as including and transcending

the finite, leads man to deny to his words of God all qualities known

or had by human, finite beings. Julian keeps on the way that is natural

to her spirit and to all her habits of thought as these may have been

directed by reading and conversation: it does not take her towards

that Divine Darkness of which some seers have brought report. Hers was

not one of those souls that would, and must, go silent and alone and

strenuous through strange places: "homely and courteous" she ever found

Almighty God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Julian's mystical sight was not a negation of human modes of thought:

neither was it a torture to human powers of speech nor a death-sentence

to human activities of feeling. "He hath no despite of that which He

hath made" (vi.). This seer of the littleness of all that is made saw

the Divine as containing, not as engulfing, all things that truly are,

so that in some way "all things that are made" because of His love last

ever. Certainly she passes sometimes beyond the language of earth,

seeing a love and a Goodness "more than tongue can tell," but she is

never inarticulate in any painful, struggling way--when words are

not to be found that can tell all the truth revealed, she leaves her

Lord's "meaning" to be taken directly from Him by the understanding of

each desirous soul. So is it with the Shewing of God as the Goodness

of everything that is good: "It is I--it is I" (xxvi.). Certainly

Julian looks both downward and upward, sees Love in the lowest depth,

far below sin, below even Mercy; sees Love as the highest that can

be, rising higher and higher far above sight, in skies that as yet

she is not called to enter: "abysses" there are, below and above,

like Angela di Foligno's "double abyss"; but here is no desert region

like that where Angela seems as "an eagle descending"[3] from heights

of unbreathable air, baffled and blinded in its assault on the Sun,

proclaiming the Light Unspeakable in anguished, hoarse, inarticulate

cries; here is a mountain-path between the abysses and the sound as of

a chorus from pilgrims singing:

"Praise to the Holiest in the height

And in the depth be praise";--

'ALL IS WELL: ALL IS WELL: ALL SHALL BE WELL.'

Moreover, Julian while guided by Reason is _led_ by the "Mind" of her

soul--pioneer of the path through the wood of darkness though Reason

is ready to disentangle the lower hindrances of the way; and where

her instructed soul "finds rest," those things that are hid from the

wisdom and prudence of Reason only are to its simplicity of obedience

revealed. Even as her Way is Christ-Jesus, and her walk by "longing

and desire" is of faith and effort, so the End and the Rest that she

seeks is the _fulness_ of God, in measure as the soul can enter upon

His fulness here and in that heavenly "oneing" with Him which shall

be by grace the "fulfilling" and "overpassing" of "Mankind." "The

Mid-Person willed to be Ground and Head of this fair End," "out of

Whom we ben al cum, in Whom we be all inclosid, into Whom we shall all

wyndyn, in Him fynding our full Hevyn in everlestand joye" (liii.).[4]

The soul that participates in God cannot be lost in God, the soul

that wends into oneness with God finds there at last its Self. Words

of the Spirit-nature fail to describe to man, as he is, this fulness

of personal life, and Julian falls back in one effort, daring in its

infantine concreteness of language, on acts of all the five senses to

symbolise the perfection of spiritual life that is in oneness with God

(xliii.).

It may be noted that in these "Revelations" there is absolutely no

regarding of Christ as the "Bridegroom" of the individual soul: once

or twice Julian in passing uses the symbol of "the Spouse," "the Fair

Maiden," "His loved Wife," but this she applies only to the Church. In

her usual speech Christ when unnamed is our "Good" or our "Courteous"

Lord, or sometimes simply "God," and when she seeks to express

pictorially His union with men and His work for men, then the soul is

the Child and Christ is the Mother. In this symbolic language the love

of the Christian soul is the love of the Child to its Mother and to

each of the other children.

Julian's Mystical views seem in parts to be cognate with those of

earlier and later systems based on Plato's philosophy, and especially

perhaps on his doctrine of Love as reaching through the beauties of

created things higher and higher to union with the Absolute Beauty

above, Which is God--schemes of thought developed before her and in

her time by Plotinus, Clement, Augustine, Dionysius "the Areopagite,"

John the Scot, Eckhart, the Victorines,[5] Ruysbroeck, and others.

One does not know what her reading may have been, or with what people

she may have conversed. Possibly the learned Austin Friars that were

settled close to St Julian's in Conisford may have lent her books by

some of these writers, or she may have been influenced through talks

with a Confessor, or with some of the Flemish weavers of Norwich,

with whom Mystical views were not uncommon. Yet the Mysticism of the

"Revelations" is peculiarly of the English type. Less exuberant in

language than Richard Rolle, the Hermit of Hampole, Julian resembles

him a little in her blending of practical sense with devotional

fervour; but the writer to whom she seems, at any rate in some of

her phrases, most akin is Walter Hilton, her contemporary.[6] Hilton,

however, is very rich in quotations from the Bible, while Julian's

only direct quotations from any book--beyond her reference to the

legend of St Dionysius--are one that belongs to Christ: "I thirst"

(xvii.), and two that belong to the soul: "Lord, save me: I perish!"

"Nothing shal depart me from the charite of Criste" (xv.). (And indeed

these three are a fit embodiment of the Christian Faith as seen in

her "Revelations.") But Julian, while perhaps more speculative than

either of these typical English Mystics, is thoroughly a woman. Lacking

their literary method of procedure, she has a high and tender beauty

of thought and a delicate bloom of expression that are her own rare

gifts--the beauty of the hills against skies in summer evenings, of an

orchard in mornings of April. Again and again she stirs in the reader

a kind of surprised gladness of the simple perfection wherewith she

utters, by few and adequate words, a thought that in its quietness

convinces of truth, or an emotion deep in life. Of a little child

it has been said: "He thought great thoughts simply," and Julian's

deepness of insight and simplicity of speech are like the Child's.[7]

"For ere that He made us He loved us, and when we were made we loved

Him" (liii.). "I love thee, and thou lovest me, and our love shall

not be disparted in two" (lxxxii.). "_Thou art my Heaven._" "I had

liefer have been in that pain till Doomsday than have come to Heaven

otherwise than by Him." "Human is the vehemence," says a writer on

Julian's "Revelations," of that reiterated exclusion of all other

paths to joy. 'Me liked,' she says, 'none other heaven.' Once again

she touches the same octave, condensing in a single phrase which has

seldom been transcended in its brief expression of the possession that

leaves the infinity of love's desire still unsatiated: '_I saw Him

and sought Him, I had Him, and I wanted Him._' Fletcher's tenderness,

Ford's passion lose colour placed side by side with the utterances

of this worn recluse whose hands are empty of every treasure."[8]

Sometimes with her subject her language assumes a majestic solemnity:

"The pillars of Heaven shall tremble and quake" (lxxv.); sometimes it

seems to march to its goal in an ascent of triumphal measure as with

beating of drums: "The body was in the grave till Easter-morrow and

from that time He lay nevermore. For then was rightfully ended" ...

(close of Chap. li.). Generally, perhaps, the style in its movement

recalls the rippling yet even flow of a brook, cheerfully, sweetly

monotonous: "If any such lover be in earth which is continually kept

from falling, I know it not: for it was not shewed me. But this was

shewed: that in falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in

one love" (lxxxii.). But now and again the listener seems to be caught

up to Heaven with song, as in that time when her "marvelling" joy in

beholding love "breaks out with voice":--"Behold and see! the precious

plenty of His dearworthy blood descended down into Hell, and braste her

bands, and delivered all that were there that belonged to the Court of

Heaven. The precious plenty of His dearworthy blood overfloweth all

Earth and is ready to wash all creatures of sin which be of goodwill,

_have_ been and _shall_ be. The precious plenty of His dearworthy blood

ascended up into Heaven to the blessed body of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and there is in Him, bleeding and praying for us to the Father, and is

and shall be as long as it needeth; and ever shall be as long as it

needeth; and evermore it floweth in all Heavens, enjoying the salvation

of all mankind that _are_ there, and _shall_ be--fulfilling the Number

that faileth" (xii.).

The Early English Mystics make good reading,--even as to the mere

manner of their writings we might say, if it were possible to separate

the style from the freshness of feeling and the pointedness of thought

that inform it; and though we do not, of course, have from Julian,--a

woman writing of the _Revelations of Love_,--the delightfully

trenchant, easy address of Hilton in his counsels as to how to scale

the _Ladder of Perfection_--counsels both wise and witty--yet Julian,

too, with all her sweetness, is full of this every day vigour and

common sense. And sometimes she puts things in a naïve, engaging way

of her own, grave and yet light--as if with a little understanding

smile to those to whom she is speaking:--"Then ween we, who _be_ not

all wise"; "That the outward part should draw the inward to assent _was

not shewed to me_, but that the inward draweth the outward by grace and

both shall be oned in bliss without end by the virtue of Christ, _this_

was shewed" (lxi., xix.).

Rolle, Hilton, and more especially the _Ancren Riwle_, give examples

of that custom of allegorical interpretation of Sacred Scriptures that

has fascinated many mystical authors, but one can scarcely suppose

that this method would ever have been a favourite one with Julian

even if she had been in the way of dealing with literary parallels

and references. For though she uses "examples," or illustrations

(sometimes calling them "shewings," or "bodily examples") and also

metaphorically figurative speech, she does not shew any interest in

elaborate, arbitrary symbolism. At any rate she is too directly simple,

it seems, and too much in the centre of realities, to be a writer that

(without constraint of following the lines of others) would take as

foundation for an argument or an exposition outward resemblances or

verbal connections, fit perhaps to illustrate or enforce the truth

in question, but lacking in relation to it that inward vital oneness

whereby certain things that to man seem below him may become symbolic

to him of others that he beholds as within or above him.

Exposition by analysis has been reckoned to be characteristic of the

Schoolmen rather than of the Mystics,[9] though surely a mystical sight

may be served by an analytical process, and to see God in a part before

or while He is seen in the whole is effected not without analysis of

the subtlest kind. So we find analysis in Julian's sight (Rev. iii.):

"_I saw God in a point_"; and in her conclusions from this: "_By

which sight I saw that He is in all things_"; and in her immediate

raising, from this conclusion, of the question: "_What is sin?_" and

throughout her treatment of the problem in the scheme of her book.

Even for the merely formal task of distinguishing by number, Julian,

we see, will set briskly forward (though we may not feel much inclined

to follow) and often she begins her careful dissections with: "In this

I see"--four, five, or six things, as the case may be. Her speech of

spiritual Revelations is, however, helped out less by numbers than by

living and homely things of sight: the mother and the children and the

nurse; lords and servants, kings and their subjects (with echoes of

the language of Court and chivalry); the deep sea-ground, waters for

our service; clothing, in its warmth, grace and colour; the light that

stands in the night, the hazel-nut, the scales of herrings.[10]

As one grows familiar with the "Revelations" one finds oneself in the

midst of a great scheme: a network of ideas that cross and re-cross

each other in a way not very clear at first, perhaps, but not really in

confusion. All through this treatise from its beginning, the Revelation

as a whole is in the mind of Julian; interpolation by another writer is

out of the question: the book is all of a piece, both as the expression

of one person, in mind and character, and as the setting forth of

a theological system. From the first we find Julian holding her

diverse threads of nature and mercy and grace for the fabric of love

she is weaving, and all through she guides them in and out, with no

hesitation, till at last the whole design lies fair before her, shewing

the _Goodness of God_.

With regard to this scheme it may be noted that apart from her merely

intellectual pleasure in arithmetical methods of statement, Julian

shews throughout a mystical sense of numerical correspondences. Life,

both as being and action, is, to her sight, in its perfection full of

_trinities_; while there are _doubles_,--incident to its imperfection,

as we may put it, perhaps, though the book itself does not mark this

distinction in so many words--there are doubles wherein two things are

partially opposed and require for their reconciling a third that will

complete them into trinity. First, as the Centre of all, there is the

BLESSED TRINITY: All-Might, All-Wisdom, All-Love: one Goodness: FATHER

and SON and HOLY GHOST: one Truth. To the First, Second, and Third

Persons correspond the verbs MAY, for all-powerful freedom to do; CAN,

for all-skilful ability to do; WILL, for all-loving will to do. So also

"the Father _willeth_, the Son _worketh_, the Holy Ghost _confirmeth_."

Another nomenclature of the Holy Trinity is, Might, Wisdom, Goodness:

one Love; but that of Might, Wisdom, Love (employed by Abelard,

Aquinas, and the Schoolmen generally) is the usual one, while _Truth,

Wisdom, Love,_ is employed in reference to that Image of God wherein

Man is made: for man has not _created might_: his might is all in the

uncreated might of God. Man in his essential Nature is "made-trinity,"

"like to the unmade Blessed Trinity"--a human trinity of truth, wisdom,

love; and these respectively _see, behold, and delight in_ the Divine

Trinity of Truth, Wisdom, Love.

Man possesses _Reason,_ which _knows, Mind,_ or a feeling wisdom, which

_wits,_ and _Love,_ which _loves_. The making of Man by the Son of

God as Eternal Christ, is the work of _Nature_; the falling of Man is

"suffered" (allowed), and afterwards healed, by _Mercy_; the raising

of Man to a higher than his first state is the work of _Grace_. "In

Nature we have our Being; in Mercy we have our Increasing; in Grace

we have our Fulfilling." The work of grace by means of our natural

Reason enlightened by the Holy Ghost to see our sins, is _Contrition_;

by means of our naturally-feeling Mind, touched by the Holy Ghost

to behold the pain of the world, is _Compassion_; by means of our

nature-and grace-inspired Love, which loves our Maker and Saviour

(still by the separation of sin partially, painfully, hid from our

sight) is greater _Longing toward God_. This longing must become an

active "desire": for the chief work that we can do as fellow-workers

with God in achieving full oneness with Him is _Prayer_; of which there

are three things to understand: its _Ground_ is God by whose Goodness

it springeth in us; its _use_ is "to turn our will to the will of our

Lord"; its _end_ is "that we should be made one with and like to our

Lord in all things." And lastly we have for this life, both by nature

and grace, the comprehensive virtue of _Faith_, "in which all our

virtues come to us" and which has in its own nature three elements:

_understanding, belief,_ and _trust_. With Faith, which belongs perhaps

chiefly to Reason,--Faith is "nought else but a right understanding,

with true belief and sure trust, of our Being: that we are in God, and

God in us, Whom we see not," "A light by nature coming from our endless

Day, that is our Father, God" (liv., lxxxiii.)--is also _Hope_, which

belongs to our feeling Mind (our Remembrance) and to the work of Mercy

in this our fallen state: "Hope that we shall come to our Substance

(our high and heavenly nature) again." Moreover, "Charity keepeth us

in Hope and Hope leadeth us in Charity; and in the end all shall be

_Charity_" (lxxxv.).

With these trinities and groups of threes are others, belonging to God

and man, mentioned successively in the closing chapters of the book:

three manners of God's Beholding (or Regard of Countenance): that of

the Passion, that of Compassion, and that of Bliss; three kinds of

longing God has: to teach us, to have us, to fulfil us; three things

that man needs in this life from God: Love, Longing, and Pity--"pity in

love," to keep him now, and "longing in the same love" to draw him to

heaven; three things by which man standeth in this life and by which

God is worshipped: "use of man's reason natural; common teaching of

Holy Church; inward gracious working of the Holy Ghost";--and last of

all, "three properties of God, in which the strength and effect of all

the Revelation standeth," "_Life, Love and Light_."

Again, Julian speaks of things that are _double_, and this double state

seems to be one of imperfection, though she does not explicitly say

so. Man's nature, she says, was created "double": "_Substance_" or

Spirit essential from out of the Spirit Divine, and "_Sensuality_" or

spirit related to human senses and making human faculties, intellectual

and physical. These two, the Substance and Sense-soul, in their

imperfection of union through the frailty of created love (which needs

the divine in its might to support it), became partially sundered

by the failing of love. "For failing of love on our part, therefore,

is all our travail"--from that comes the falling, the dying, and the

painful travail between death from sin and life from God--both in the

race and the individual. But Christ makes the double into trinity:

for Christ is "the Mean [the medium] that keepeth the Substance and

Sense-soul together" in his Eternal, Divine-Human Nature, because of

His perfect love; and Christ-Incarnate in His Mercy, by this same

perfect love brings these two parts anew and more closely together;

and Christ uprisen, indwelling in the soul thus united, will keep them

forever together, in oneness growing with oneness to Him. Moreover, Man

being double also as "soul and body," needs to be "saved from double

death," and this salvation, given, is Jesus-Christ, who joined Himself

to us in the Incarnation and "yielded us up from the Cross with His

Soul and Body into His Father's hands."

In a mere reading of the Book these repeated correspondences may be

felt as wearisome, formal, fantastic,--or rather they may seem so when,

as here, they are brought together and noted, for Julian herself simply

speaks of these different groups as they come in her theme. But when

one tries to follow the _thought_ of this book amongst the heights

and depths of the things that are seen and temporal and the things

unseen and eternal, these likenesses, found in all, seem to afford

one guidance and surety of footing, like steps cut out in a steep

and difficult path. And as one goes on, and the whole of the meaning

takes form, these significations of something all-prevailing give one a

partial understanding such as Julian perhaps may have had: the feeling,

the "Mind," of a certain half-caught measure in "all things that are,"

a proportion, a oneness. We are amongst free nature's mountains, but

they do not rise haphazard: they shew a strange, a balanced beauty

of line and light and shade, as convincing, if not as clear in its

intention as the sunrise-lines and colouring of the euphrasy flower

at our feet. We hear as we walk the wandering sound of "the vagrant,

casual wind," but there is something in its rise and fall, and rising

again, that has kinship with the flow and ebb and onrush of the

lingering, punctual waves on the shore. _Sursum Corda._

sickness" does not seem to have had any connection in her mind with

special Revelation: it was desired neither as in any way a sign

of invisible things nor as a direct means of beholding them. And

probably, as a matter of fact, the sickness that was granted helped

her in the way that she had desired, helped her to the sight of the

Revelation, not directly, but by drawing her spirit to that utter

dependence on and trust in God that is death's first lesson for all,

that uttermost self-devotion to God that is life's last exercise.

This spiritual state, with all that through years had gone before

of feeling and thought and life's experience, made her ready to

be shewn with special largeness and clearness God's love: how it

filled the empty place of sin and pain and sorrow with its divine

fulness. As to the "bodily sight" introducing the Revelation, a

sight of "parts of the Passion," which may be compared with "The XV.

Oos"--'_Orationes_'--Passion-prayers each beginning with '_O_' (_v.

Hora_ of Sarum), it was recognised by Julian herself, even at the

time of her seeing it, as being a sight of things "not in substance

or nature." In this recognition it was proved to be neither _mental

delusion_ nor mere "raving" delirium. But it would, it seems, be

natural that in her weakness of body and her exaltation of spirit (so

tense that the strength of her self-surrender to death seemed to cast

her back upon bodily life in the painless world between the two) some

sort of _physical illusion_ should be brought about by her prolonged

gaze upon the Face of the Crucifix, and that in her desire to enter

into the sufferings of the Passion as fully as those friends of her

Lord's that beheld it, Julian thus gazing in the midst of night's

shadows and the dim light of dawn should seem to herself to behold

the sacred drops, depicted beneath the painted or sculptured Crown of

Thorns, flow down "right plenteously." Julian gave thanks for this

and all the "bodily sight" as a gift from God. By Him sickness and

illusion, as well as things evil, are "suffered" to come, and by Him

Revelation is given according to sundry times in diverse manners. Gain

of the spirit through failure of the body--and no less by illusions of

fever than by trance-state visions their seers speak of, when Death

passes the Spirit half through the gates--would indeed be accordant

with the truth of the Shewing that came to Julian, how man is raised

through shame and death into glory and life, since in the weakness of

failing men the strength of Christ is made perfect.

111.)

Bienheureuse Angèle de Foligno_, traduit par Ernest Hello. Paris, 1895.

"When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home."

Names._" Cap. iv. (tr. by Parker). S. Aug. _Conf._: b. i. ch. 2; iii.

7; iv. 10-16; vii. 12-18.

1899). Some of the thoughts of children,--some of the rising thoughts

of a very little child who, like Julian, faced the darkness of time

(steadfast as Dürer's pilgrim Knight, gentle as Chaucer's,) and

beheld on his journey the shining of the Eternal City,--might be set

beside words of the Mystics as shewing, perhaps, through their very

simplicity, the oneness of truth that there is to see, and the oneness

of souls that see it. Here are convictions that the Cause of love,

felt within, "must be Jesus' Good Spirit"; comfort in discovering of

death's unreality (for if only the body, not the spirit, dies, "Oh,

then it is only _pretending-dying_!"); a flash of discernment, perhaps,

as to the passing away of lifeless evil since although, to the child,

indeed "it is a pity that some one did not come and kill the devil;

and then he would be dead," yet he has his own eschatology: "Well,

when _we_ are all dead, the devil will be dead too." More significant

is a sudden overawed realisation of the great universe (setting pause

to his own run round in play), one door to a quick perception in the

child's devout spirit of analogy binding truths unseen by sense: "Is

this world always going round, _now_?" ('Yes.') "It stays still!

still!--Jesus is looking down now: we don't see Him."--Here, too, are

habitual references to the things that are _meant to be_,--musings

over the goodness and knowledge, the braveness and courtesy "meant to

be" in a _man_; and here is a grateful, trusting sense of the real

'kindness' of 'wild' creatures and of hurting remedies. Many of those

simple utterances, careless yet arresting like a blackbird's song, and

personal with the ardent love and clear reason of a child faithfully

living and bravely dying, seem to attest a kinship with seers of

truth to whom longer trial has offered a sterner strength of complex

thinking, for wider service here, but who, although they may have

learnt thus '_more_' in the knowledge of love, "shall never know nor

learn _other_ thing without end."--"I understood none higher stature in

this life than childhood."

"It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be.

* * * * *

A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night,

It was the plant and flower of Light."

For all of the Company of saints have the sight of One Vision, and be

it in the steadfast fulfilment of labour, or from out of the merriment

of play,--through the strong, bright peace of endurance, or the silent

acquiescence of the will, led along valleys of darkness,--or again in

some swift rush of prayer into the morning light,--_all_ of the saints,

the babe and the ancient, beholding "the Blissful Countenance" say

"with one voice": "IT IS WELL." "_Amen. Amen._"

1896.

as "the one analytical mystic." _Ruysbroeck and the Mystics_, p. 19.

PART III

THE THEME OF THE BOOK

"The phase of thought or feeling which we call Mysticism has its

origin in ... that dim consciousness of the _beyond_ which is part of

our nature as human beings.... Mysticism arises when we try to bring

this higher consciousness into relation with the other contents of our

minds. Religious Mysticism may be defined as the attempt to realise

the presence of the living God in the soul and in nature, or, more

generally, as the attempt to realise in thought and feeling, the

immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal in the

temporal."--W. R. Inge, _Christian Mysticism_. The Bampton Lectures for

1900, p. 4.

"What is Paradise? All things that are; for all are goodly and

pleasant and therefore may fitly be called a Paradise. It is said

also that Paradise is an outer Court of Heaven. Even so this world

is an outer court of the eternal, or of Eternity, and especially

whatever in time, or any temporal creature manifesteth or remindeth

us of God or Eternity; for the creature is a guide and a path to God

and Eternity."[1] "God is althing that is gode, as to my sight," says

Julian, "and the godenes that althing hath, it is He" (viii.).

"_Truth seeth God_," and every man exercising the human gift of

Reason may in the sight and in the seeing of truths, attain to some

sight of God as Truth. But "_Wisdom beholdeth God_," and although

the enlightenment of the Spirit of Wisdom for the discernment of

vital truth is a grace that is granted in needful measure to him that

seeks to be guided by it, it is perhaps those receivers of grace that

are mystics by nature and habit that are the most ready in reaching

forward while still on earth to Wisdom's fullest and most immediate

beholding of God as All in all. For theirs in the largest (and it

may be the highest) efficiency, and in the fullest accordance with

man's first gift of "Reason Natural," is the further gift that Julian

calls "_Mind_": the gift of a certain spiritual sensitiveness whereby

they are quick to take impression of eternal things unseen (seeing

them either within or beyond the things of time that are seen) with

surrender of self to partake of their life. For in this Beholding of

Wisdom, response of the heart in purity and insight of the imagination

in faith enhance each other, while the vision of the soul through both

takes clearness.

The mystic, who sees the wide-ruling oneness of God with all that is

good--and thus, as the Mystics say, with all that _is_,--may begin at

any point the beholding of Goodness and therein the beholding of God.

"He is in the mydde poynt of all thyng, and all He doeth" (xi.). It is

in the way of those thus fully endowed for the reaching to truth in its

highest wisdom here, while they walk amongst the many manifestations of

earth, to take them as delicate partial signs instinct with a single

meaning. Here is mystical perception:--

"To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower;

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour";[2]

by a blackbird's sudden song overhear, "in woodlands within," a joy

out of the heart of the Life of life.[3] Speaking of the spiritual

sight Julian relates: "I saw God in a point.--by which sight I saw

that He is in all things." To the mystical soul, quiet to listen to

"the music of the spheres," all sweet accordant sounds are singing

_Holy, Holy, Holy_; to the mystical soul, "full of eyes within"--like

those _Creatures of Life_ seen on the plain by the prophet of the Law

of life as renewed for Hope, and seen in the heights by the herald

of the Evangel of life as fulfilled in Love--all symmetrical sights

are as doors that are opened in Heaven. But it is most of all in the

music and the symmetry made of adverse life and death by the power of

love, as this is seen from highest to lowest, from lowest to highest,

that the Revelation of God as Love that is All in all is received. And

looking thereon in the highest manifestation, the manifestation of

Christ, which is made for all men, the mystics meet other beholders,

who are not called "mystics," yet who have not merely in greater or

less degree, with them, the common gift of Reason, but, after their

different manner and in their own share, the gift of the feeling

"Mind." For both from the seeing of Truth and from the beholding of

Wisdom comes the "holy wondering delight in God" that is simply delight

of love in Love. So they of the East and they of the West sit down

together to partake of the Bread and the Wine of the Table of God in

His Kingdom.

There is no other than one Food of the Divine Life consecrated and

made ready and offered to man for his human spirit to feed on;

but the Christian mystic finds an offering of that Food, which is

the sanctified Life of the Christ of God, not only in its constant

presentment to the spirit alone, by the Spirit of God through Christ.

To him, as to other Christians, the sight and the offering of the

Life in God is given in that memorial, mediate, expectant Sacrament

consecrated for the spirit's nurture through those elected Symbols of

sense that are the most perfect and sacred symbols because in their

earlier, natural use they most immediately minister to the whole human

life on earth of the Giver and of the receivers. But along with this

chosen Sacrament, and as one with it, there is shewn to the mystic the

Life Divine in diverse manners of working: he sees God's Christ from

afar, _fore-sees_ the Eucharistic Sacrament of His most sacred Death

and Life, _now_ raised in the Bread and the Wine on high,--seeing its

promise low in the ground in the earliest, ageless life of the wheat

and the vine: seed cast away, bruised corn of wheat, and dying Body,

and broken Bread, and daily obedience; a hidden root, crushed fruit of

the vine, and Blood poured forth, and uplifted Wine, and joy of Love

over Death: one Life.

Sometimes there is for the mystics a partaking of these lesser

"wayside sacraments," sometimes a turning aside from their symbols;

sometimes the old song of life in the lower creation awakens singing,

sometimes it scarcely is heard. But always the _spirit_ of nature's

signs as interpreted in Man, above all in Christ, lays its claim on

the soul; always as sung by the chorus of human spirits that live on

the "Righteousness, Peace, and Joy" of the Will of God, the New Song

of Life through Death has in it a summons and receives from one and

another here, passing through much tribulation, its fuller concord of

human achievement, or at least the desirous _Amen_. So whether the

mystic dwell much or little with the sights and sounds of sense, those

things that are seen and heard by the _soul_ bear to him the command

of his home, and the merest doorway glimpses, the echoes most distant,

making their proffer of more and more within and beyond, say _Come_.

"I give you the end of a golden string:

Only wind it into a ball,

It will lead you in at Heaven's Gate,

Built in Jerusalem wall."[4]

(Although this "following on to know," this winding of the truth

caught hold of into a "perfect round" of thought and will and life, is

probably not more easy for the mystics than for other people.

"Amore, amor, tu sei cerchio rotondo!"[5])

God is in all; but "our soul may never have rest in things that are

beneath itself" (lxvii.). "Well I wot," says Julian, "that heaven and

earth and all that is made is great and large, fair and good," yet "all

that is made" is seen as a little thing, the size of a hazel nut, held

in the palm of her hand, when along with it her spiritual sight beholds

the Maker. And though we may find the Maker in all things, we find

Him, both as Maker and Restorer, first and best, First and Last, in

the soul. There He is _Alpha_, there _Omega_. "It is readier to us to

come to the knowing of God than to know our own Soul" (in its fullest

powers). "For our soul is so deep-grounded in God and so endlessly

treasured, that we may not come to the knowing thereof till we have

first knowing of God, which is the Maker, to whom it is oned." And yet,

"we may never come to full knowing of God till we know first clearly

our own soul" (lvi.). The knowledge begins with God, but it begins

with Him in the lowest place of the soul rescued from sin by mercy and

entered by grace. "For Himself is nearest and meekest, highest and

lowest, and doeth all" (lxxx.). To the soul that looks on Christ a

remembrance rises of its own "fair nature" made in His image; yet "our

Lord of His mercy sheweth us our sin and our feebleness by the sweet

gracious light of Himself" (lxxviii.). Thus in the working of grace

the soul comes to the knowledge both of its higher and lower parts.

For in finding in itself both a natural response to the working of

grace by its love and its longing after God, and a contrariness to the

goodness of grace by its often failing and falling, it experiences both

the action of the "Godly Will" (which is within it as a part of, and

a gift from, its higher nature, "the Substance") and the action of a

"beastly will" (from the simple animal nature) which can will no moral

good and which, "failing of love," falls into sin: whereby comes pain,

with all the "travail" of good and evil in conflict during the course

of restoration. But it is only when the Sense-soul (wherein the higher

will must overcome the lower) is at last brought up to heaven, enriched

by all the profits of tribulation, and is united to the Substance

waiting there, "hid with Christ in God," that we come to the perfect

knowledge of God. For that knowledge, perfect in kind though always

growing, can only begin when, being in our "full powers" and "all fully

holy," we come to know clearly our own united perfected Soul. This

seems to be Julian's view (lvi., etc.).

Julian says elsewhere that we have in us here such a "medley" of good

and evil that sometimes we hardly know of others or of ourselves

wherein we stand, but that each "holy assent" that we make (by the

Godly Will) to the grace and will of God, is a witness that we are of

God. A witness to our sonship, it might be said; and perhaps, taking

Julian's view for the time, we might think that as the Lost Son "came

to himself," so the soul comes to the consciousness of the Godly Will;

that as he arose and came to his Father and found Him, or rather was

found by his Father, so the soul receives the healing of Christ in

Mercy and the leading of the Holy Ghost in Grace; and that as at last,

the son not only found his father but found his lost sonship--yet a

better sonship than ever he had known before--so the soul comes at last

to find, more and more fully, that new sonship which is of its nature,

yet is more than its nature. For it finds the nature oneness which by

creation it had with the Son of God, enhanced and for ever sustained by

grace.

Sometimes, truly, the Mystical doctrine leads by tracks that are not

easily followed, but it is perhaps only when her views are regarded in

single parts, that any harm could be found in Julian's statements--all

qualified as they are by her "as to my sight." At first indeed it may

startle one to read of her saints that are known in the Church and in

Heaven "by their sins," to hear that the wounds left by sin are made

"medicines" on earth and turned to "worships" in Heaven; but then

we remember the joy that shall be in Heaven over "one sinner that

repenteth," the love that loves much because much is forgiven. And yet

we remember the little children in _their_ high faith and love and

innocent days; and of such is the Kingdom of God. But the Child, with

many "fair virtues," albeit imperfect, was likewise Julian's type of

the Christian soul: "I understood no higher stature in this life than

Childhood."

"To know our own soul"--it behoveth us to know our own soul--our

high-nature soul, which is enclosed in God, and also our soul on the

earth which Christ-Jesus inhabits, which has in it the "medley": "we

have in us our Lord Jesus uprisen, we have in us the wretchedness and

the mischief of Adam's falling, dying" (lii.). But elsewhere Julian

gives this name "our own soul" to the Church, seeing the Church

likewise as the dwelling and working-place of Christ (lxii.). She has

been speaking of the Divine Wisdom being as it were the Mother of the

soul, and now she seems to lead us to the Church as to the Nursery

where He tends His children. "For one single person may oftentimes

be broken, but the whole Body of Holy Church was never broken, nor

ever shall be, without end. And therefore a sure thing it is, a good

and a gracious, to will meekly and mightily to be fastened to our

Mother, Holy Church, that is Christ Jesus. For the Food of Mercy that

is His dearworthy blood and precious water is plenteous to make us

fair and clean; the sweet gracious hands of our Mother be ready and

diligently about us. For He in all this working useth the office of a

kind nurse that hath not else to do but to entend about the salvation

of her child" (lxi.). Each soul is indeed the soul of a person and

most intimately knows itself in its personal experience, through which

indeed alone it can come to knowledge of others. Yet the single soul

knows itself _best_ in the souls of all the saints, in the fellowship

of the "Blessed Common," where every virtue is found, not in each, at

this time, but in _all_--not now in the perfect height nor the fairest

flowering, but at growth in that ground where each plant holds some

likeness to Christ.

With Julian the Christian Faith is not a thing added to the Mystical

sight: these are, as again and again she says, seen both as one. It

is the _inherent_ Christianity of her system that makes her teaching

always, in a large way, practical. For the system came at first to

be seen by prayerful searching made out of her practical need of an

answer to the problem of sin and sorrow; the Mystical Vision came with

"contrition, compassion, and longing after God," those wounds that

her contrite, pitiful, longing heart had desired should be made more

deep in her life. It is through the work of grace that Julian reaches

back to the gift of nature, its ground; and from the depths of this

root-ground she rises soon again to the "springing and spreading"

grace. So in the First of her Shewings the "higher" truth is seen:

"we are all in Him beclosed," but in the Last--the conclusion and

confirmation of all--the lower, yet nearer, truth, which _all_ may

know: "and He is beclosed in us." And speaking of this dwelling within

the soul she speaks of His working us all into Him: "in which working

He willeth that we be His helpers, giving to Him all our entending,

learning His lores, keeping His laws, desiring that all be done that He

doeth; truly trusting In Him" (lvii.).

Julian had prayed to feel Christ's dying pains, if it should be God's

will, in order that she might feel compassion, and the visionary sight

of His pain in the Face of the Crucifix filled her with pain as it grew

upon her. "How might any pain be more to me than to see Him that is

all my life, all my bliss, and all my joy suffer?" Yet the Shewing of

Pain was but the introduction to, and for a time the accompaniment of,

the Revelation; the Revelation, itself, as a whole, was of Love--the

Goodness or Active Love of God. So the First Shewing, as the Ground of

all the rest, was a large view of this Goodness as the Ground of all

Being. Although through these earlier Shewings the Saviour's bodily

pain is felt by Julian so fully in "mind" that she feels it indeed

as if it were bodily anguish she bore, it is in this very experience

that the shewing of Joy is made to her spirit. So when in the opening

of the Revelation she tells of beholding the Passion of Christ, her

first unexpected word is of sudden joy from the inner sight of the

Love that God is: the sight of the Trinity:--"And in the same Shewing

suddenly the Trinity fulfilled my heart most of joy. (For where JESUS

appeareth, the blessed Trinity is understood, as to my sight.)" And

even as Julian finds afterwards that the Last Word of the Revelation is

the same as the First: "_Thou shalt not be overcome_," so the opening

Sight already shews her that which shall be revealed all through, for

learning of "more in the same," and uplifts her heart to the fulness

of joy that is shewn at the close. For she feels that this shock, as

it were, of Revelation--this sudden joy of seeing Love in the midst of

earth's evil, beyond and beneath and in the pain that is passing, is

the entrance into the joy of the Lord. "Suddenly the Trinity fulfilled

my heart with utmost joy.--And so I understood it shall be in heaven

without end to all that shall come there" (iv.). So at the close, when

the vision was not of the Love Divine in that bending Face beneath the

Crown of Thorns, but of the human love that shall spring up to meet

the Divine out of the lowness of earth,--the vision of how from this

body of death, as from an unsightly, shapeless, and stagnant mass of

quagmire, there "sprang a full fair creature, a little Child, fully

shapen and formed, agile and lively, whiter than lily; which swiftly

glided up into heaven"--the spiritual shewing to the soul is this:

"_Suddenly thou shalt be taken from all thy pain ... and thou shalt

come up above and thou shalt have me ... and thou shalt be fulfilled

of love and of bliss_" (lxiv.). And so in that early experience of

Julian's when in her love, abandoned to pity and worship, she would

not look up to Heaven from the Cross, it was also the inward sight by

the higher part of her soul of the higher part of Christ's life, that

Heavenly Love that could only rejoice, that overcame her frailty of

flesh unwilling to suffer, and made her choose "only Jesus in weal and

in woe." "Thou art my Heaven" (xix.-lv.). "All the Trinity wrought

in the Passion of Jesus Christ," though only the Son of the Virgin

suffered, and in seeing this, Julian saw "the Bliss of Christ's works,"

"the joy that is in the blissful Trinity [by reason] of the Passion of

Christ"; "the Father willing all, the Son working all, the Holy Ghost

confirming all."

This complexity of the Divine-Human life in the Son of God, this union

in Christ Jesus of serene untouched blessedness in the heavenly regions

of His spirit with His bearing, in the active joy of a "glad giver,"

all the sin and sorrow of the world, is revealed as the comfort and

confidence of man, whose own deepest experience is love that suffers,

whose highest worship therefore must be of Love that is strong to

suffer.

It was a double joy that was shewn in Christ besides the bliss of the

impassible Godhead, which is the bliss of Love without all time and

beyond all deeds. For there was joy in the Passion itself: "_If I

might suffer more, I would suffer more_," and joy in its fruits: "_If

thou art pleased, I am pleased_." Thus, too, we are told of three ways

in which our Lord would have us behold His Passion: first, "the hard

pains He suffered on earth"; second, "the love that made Him to suffer

passeth as far all His pains as Heaven is above earth"; third, "the joy

and the bliss that made Him to be well-satisfied in it."--"With a glad

countenance He looked unto His wounded Side, rejoicing" (xxii., xxiii.,

xxiv.).

From the sight of Love that is higher than pain comes the sight of

Love that is deeper than sin. Julian had had the mystical shewing that

God is all that is good,[6] and is only good, is the life of all that

is, and doeth all that is done, and she had reasoned, as others before

her had reasoned, that therefore "sin hath no substance" and "sin is

no deed." But perhaps it is those that are most concerned with God in

creature things, that suffer most shaking from the sight of evil. Those

that seek God's Kingdom in this present world, finding "the dark places

of the earth" full of the habitations of cruelty, have continually the

enemy as with a sword in their bones saying within them: "Where is now

thy God?" "I saw," says Julian, "that He is in all things. I beheld and

considered, with a soft dread, and thought: _What is sin?_" (xi.). So

also it is immediately after the coming of the mystical Shewing made

"yet more highly": "_It is I, it is I, it is I that am all_," that the

memory of her own experience is brought to her and she sees how in

her longings after God, who is all the time so close about us, around

us and within,--she had always been hindered from seeing and reaching

Him fully by the darkening, disturbing power of sin. "And so I looked

generally upon us all, and methought: _If sin had not been, we should

have all been clean, and like to our Lord as He made us_" (xxvii.).

Thus came again the stirring of that old question over which "afore

this time often I wondered," with "mourning and sorrow," "why the

beginning of sin was not letted--for then, methought, all should have

been well."

To this darkness, crying to God, the light came first as by a soft

general dawning of comfort for faith. "_Sin is behoveable_ (it behoved

that sin should be suffered to rise) _but all shall be well, and all

shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well._" Yet Julian,

unable to take comfort to her heart over that which was still so dark

to her intellect, stands "beholding things general, troublously and

mourning," saying thus in her thoughts: "_Ah good Lord, how might all

be_ well, for the great hurt that is come by sin to the creature?"

(xxix.).

The answer to this double question as to sin and pain is the central

theme of the Revelation, though much is still hidden and much is but

dimly revealed as yet to faith. In brief account, the sight, enough

for us now, is this: "Mercy, by love, suffereth us to fail [of love]

in measure, and in as much as we fail, in so much we die: for it needs

must be that we die in so much as we fail of the sight and feeling of

God that is our life.... And grace worketh our dreadful failing into

plenteous, endless solace, and grace worketh our shameful falling

into high, worshipful rising; and grace worketh our sorrowful dying

into holy, blissful life" (xlviii.). "By the assay of this falling we

shall have an high marvellous knowing of love in God, without end. For

strong and marvellous is that love that may not and will not be broken

for trespass. And this is one understanding of our profit. Another

is the lowness and meekness that we shall get by the sight of our

falling" (lxi.). "And by this meek knowing after this manner, through

contrition and grace, we shall be broken from all that is not our Lord.

And then shall our blessed Saviour perfectly heal us and one us to Him"

(lxxviii.).

_Theodidacta, Profunda, Ecstatica_--so Julian has been designated;

perhaps she might in fuller truth be called _Theodidacta, Profunda,

Evangelica_. She is indeed a mystic, evangelical, practical. With all

her fellow-Christians and in the most deeply personal concern she

looks with a tender mind on the redeeming work of God by Christ in the

"glorious satisfaction" ("_Asseth_"), and in fervent response of love

and thankfulness trusts in the blessed Passion of Christ, and in His

sure keeping, and in all the restoring, fulfilling work by the Holy

Ghost. But after the Mystical manner she seeks "the beyond": that is,

while in no way leaving the works of mercy and grace she seeks to go

back to the ground or source of them, the Goodness of God,--yes, to God

Himself. "I could not have perceived of the part of Mercy but as it

were alone in Love." "The Passion was a noble worshipful deed done in a

time, but Love was without beginning, is, and shall be without ending."

The Mystical Vision is that which in outward nature sees the unseen

within the seen, but it is also that which in spiritual things sees

behind and beyond the temporal means, the eternal causes and ends

(vi.). And it is surely here in the spiritual things, in the heart

and centre of human existence, in the stress of sin and suffering,

rather than amongst the gentle growing things, and flaming lights,

and songs, and blameless creatures of Nature that the Beatific Vision

on earth is at its highest. For here are found united the _Evangel_

and the _Vision_ and the _Life_ of love. "There the soul is highest,

noblest, and worthiest, where it is lowest, meekest, and mildest":

it is not in nature's goodness alone that we have our life, "all our

life is in three," in nature, in mercy, in grace; "whereof we have

meekness, mildness, patience and pity" (lviii., lix.). Man's "spirit,"

the higher nature that Julian talks of, may indeed be there in the

Heavenly places, as an infant's angel lying in the Father's arms,

always beholding His Face in love's silence of waiting; but here in

earthly places is the Prodigal Son returning, here too is the Father's

embrace, and here is His earliest greeting of the son that was lost and

is found. And already here in the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth (where

_all_ grow pure in the sonship obedience of Jesus Christ), are those

that are kept from the first as little children, taken up in His arms

and suffered to sing their Hosannahs, which perfect His praise.

The Revelation of Love is all centred in the Passion, and looking on

the Passion in time the soul sees, in vision, the Lamb that was slain

from the foundation of the world, the mind conceives how before all

time the Divine Love took to itself in the Wisdom of God the mode of

Manhood, and in time created Man in the same, and how thus God could

be and do all that man could be and do, could exercise Love Divine in

human Faith and Courage: could "take our flesh" and live on the earth

as "the Man, Christ-Jesus," "in all points tempted like as we are,"

finding His daily Bread in the will of the Father, drinking with joy

of the Wine of life in the evening cup of Death. "Pain is passing,"

says Julian, but in passing it leads forth love in man to its deepest

living, its fairest height of pureness and strength and fulfilment.

Thus it behoved the Captain of man's salvation to have His perfection

here through suffering. It is the _Lamb_ in the midst of the Throne,

the Almighty Love that was slain, that is Shepherd to the Martyrs,

leading them unto living fountains of waters. He that bore the yoke

gives rest to the heavy-laden; blessed is He that mourned: for He

comforteth with His comfort.

So in the Mediæval story,[8] the highest Mystical Vision, the sight of

the Holy Grail, comes only to him that is pure from self, and looks on

the bleeding wound that sin has left in man, and is compassionate, and

gives himself to service and healing.--_Can ye_ drink _of the Cup I

drank of?_--Love's Cup that is Death and Life.--

Wine of Love's joy I see thy cup

Red to the trembling brim

With Life outpoured, once lifted up,

I drink, remembering Him.--

It is the mourners who are comforted: those that bear griefs of their

own, or bear griefs of others fully, do not despair, though the mere

onlooker may well despair. Thus the compassionate Julian's vision is of

_Comfort_--comfort not for herself "in special," but for "the general

Man"--for all her fellow-Christians. She who had long time mourned

for the hurt that is come by sin to the creature, came to the sight

of comfort not by turning her eyes away but by deeper compassion that

found through the very wounds the healing of Love on earth, the glory

of Love in Heaven. She was "filled with compassion for the Passion of

Christ," and thus she saw _His joy_; so afterwards, she tells, "I was

fulfilled in part with compassion of all mine even-Christians, for that

well, well-beloved people that shall be saved. For God's servants,

Holy Church, shall be shaken in sorrow and anguish and tribulation

in this world, as men shake a cloth in the wind. And as to this our

Lord answered in this manner: A great thing shall I make hereof in

Heaven of endless worship and everlasting joys. Yea so far forth as

this I saw: that our Lord joyeth of the tribulations of His servants,

with ruth and compassion." "For He saith: _I shall wholly break you

of your vain affections and of your vicious pride: and after that I

shall together gather you, and make you mild and meek, clean and holy,

by oneing to me_" (xxviii.). Sin is indeed "the sharpest scourge,"

"viler and more painful than hell, without comparison," "an horrible

thing to see for the loved soul that would be all fair and shining in

the sight of God, as Nature and Grace teacheth." And darkness, which

overhangs the soul while here it is "meddling with any part of sin,"

"so that we see not clearly the Blissful Countenance of our Lord," is

a lasting, life-long "natural penance" from God, the feeling of which

indeed does not depart with actual sinning: "for ever the more clearly

that the soul seeth this Blissful Countenance by grace of loving, the

more it longeth to see it in fulness" (lxxii.). All this is in man's

experience, with many other pains--pains which in individual lives have

no proportionate relation to sin, though, in general, "sin is cause of

pain" and "pain purgeth."--("_For I tell thee, howsoever thou do thou

shalt have woe_"), (lxxvii., xxvii.). But the Comfort Revealed shews

how sin, which "hath no part of being" and "could not be known but by

the pain it is cause of," (sin which in this view may be compared to

the nails of the Passion--mere dead matter, though with power to wound

unto death for a time the blessed Life), sin, which is failure of human

love,--leaves, notwithstanding all its horror, an opening for a fuller

influx of Divine love and strength.[9] And as to _darkness_, "seeking

is as good as beholding, for the time that God will suffer the soul to

be in travail" (x.). And as to tribulation of every kind, "the Passion

of our Lord is comfort to us against all this, and so is His blessed

will" (xxvii.).

The parts may seem to come by chance and to be "amiss," but the whole,

and in the whole each part, is ordered. "And when we be all brought

up above, then shall we see clearly in God the secret things which be

now hid to us. Then shall none of us be stirred to say: _Lord, if it

had been thus, then it had been full well_: but we shall all say with

_one_ voice: _Lord, blessed mayst Thou be, for it is thus: it is well;

and now we see verily that all things are done as it was then ordained

before that anything was made_" (xi., lxxxv.). "Moreover He that shall

be our bliss when we are there, is our Keeper while we are here"; and

the Last Word of the Revelation is the same as the First; "_Thou shalt

not be overcome._" "He said not: _Thou shalt not be tempested, thou

shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be distressed_; but He said:

_Thou shalt not be overcome._"

This is God's comfort. And that here, meanwhile, we should take His

comfort is Julian's chief desire and instruction. For Julian, who

speaking so much of sin as a strange and troubling sight, yet gives as

examples of sin only a slothful mistrusting despondency,--speaks indeed

of faith and hope and charity, compassion and meekness, but scarcely

_exhorts_ except to the cheerful enduring of tribulation. So she gives

counsel as to "rejoicing more in His whole love than sorrowing in our

often fallings"; as to "living gladly and merrily for love's sake"

in our penance of darkness (lxxii.-lxxxi.). And in general, for all

experiences of life, "It is God's will that we take His promises and

His comfortings as largely and as mightily as we may take them, and

also He willeth that we take our abiding and our troubles as lightly as

we may take them, and set them at nought" (lxiv., lxv., xv.).

"We are all one in comfort," says Julian, "all the gracious comfort

was for all mine even-Christians." Sin separates, pain isolates, but

salvation and comfort unite.

And lastly, in this mystical vision of the oneness of man with God

in Christ, man is seen not only as united in himself in the diverse

parts of his nature, and as one with his fellow man, but as joined

to that which is below him. How often of one good and another, as of

that fair and sacred "service of the Mother"--"nearest, readiest, and

surest"--"in the creatures by whom it is done," do we hear Julian's

confident word of Sacramental declaration: "_It is Christ_." "For God

is all that is good, as to my sight, and God hath made all that is

made: and he that loveth generally all his even-Christians for God, he

loveth all that is. For in Mankind that shall be saved is comprehended

all: that is to say, all that is made and the Maker of all. For in Man

is God, and God is in all. And I hope," adds Julian, in words that

are fitting to take for her courteous, her tender, "_Good Speed_" ere

we pass to her book--altogether like her as they are, even to the

careful, conditional "if" (for _nothing,_ not even comfort, behoves

to be "overdone much"), "I hope by the grace of God he that beholdeth

it thus shall be truly taught and mightily comforted, if he needeth

comfort" (ix.).

_Deus ubique est, et totus ubique est._ All things are gathered up in

Man, and Man is gathered up in Christ; and Christ is gathered up in the

Bosom of the Father. So the world of the lower creation makes promise:

_All things are yours_; and the Church says over its offering, lifted

up: _Ye are Christ's_; and from the stillness the voice of peace is

heard: _And Christ is God's_. "All the promises of God in HIM are _Yea_

and in HIM _Amen_, unto the glory of God by us." All the promises of

God: the blossom that floated to the ground; "the lily of a day" that

"fell and died that night"; the "little Child, whiter than lily, that

swiftly glided up into Heaven"--all the utterances silenced here--in

Him are _Yea_ and in Him _Amen: Yea_ on earth and _Amen_ for ever. "_He

turneth the shadow of death into the morning._"

_May_ 1901.

Francis of Assisi).

xix. 17.

Ellis.

finite creature, as a wave from the shore, it "suffers" sin's void

to appear. But this lack of itself is allowed for the time, that so

returning again in its force, to which evil is nothing, it may cover

the desolate nature with deepness and highness and fulness unknown

before. (See lvii.).

REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE

"A Revelation of Love--in Sixteen Shewings"

This is a Revelation of Love that Jesus Christ, our endless bliss, made

in Sixteen Shewings, or Revelations particular.

Of the which the First is of His precious crowning with thorns;

and therewith was comprehended and specified the Trinity, with the

Incarnation, and unity betwixt God and man's soul; with many fair

shewings of endless wisdom and teachings of love: in which all the

Shewings that follow be grounded and oned.[1]

The Second is the changing of colour of His fair face in token of His

dearworthy[2] Passion.

The Third is that our Lord God, Allmighty Wisdom, All-Love, right as

verily as He hath made everything that is, all-so verily He doeth and

worketh all-thing that is done.

The Fourth is the scourging of His tender body, with plenteous shedding

of His blood.

The Fifth is that the Fiend is overcome by the precious Passion of

Christ.

The Sixth is the worshipful[3] thanking by our Lord God in which He

rewardeth His blessed servants in Heaven.

The Seventh is [our] often feeling of weal and woe; (the feeling

of weal is gracious touching and lightening, with true assuredness

of endless joy; the feeling of woe is temptation by heaviness and

irksomeness of our fleshly living;) with ghostly understanding that we

are kept all as securely in Love in woe as in weal, by the Goodness of

God.

The Eighth is of the last pains of Christ, and His cruel dying.

The Ninth is of the pleasing which is in the Blissful Trinity by the

hard Passion of Christ and His rueful dying: in which joy and pleasing

He willeth that we be solaced and mirthed[4] with Him, till when we

come to the fulness in Heaven.

The Tenth is, our Lord Jesus sheweth in love His blissful heart even

cloven in two, rejoicing.

The Eleventh is an high ghostly Shewing of His dearworthy Mother.

The Twelfth is that our Lord is most worthy Being.

The Thirteenth is that our Lord God willeth we have great regard to

all the deeds that He hath done: in the great nobleness of the making

of all things; and the excellency of man's making, which is above all

his works; and the precious Amends[5] that He hath made for man's sin,

turning all our blame into endless worship.[6] In which Shewing also

our Lord saith: _Behold and see! For by the same Might, Wisdom, and

Goodness that I have done all this, by the same Might, Wisdom, and

Goodness I shall make well all that is not well; and thou shalt see

it._ And in this He willeth that we keep us in the Faith and truth of

Holy Church, not desiring to see into His secret things now, save as it

belongeth to us in this life.

The Fourteenth is that our Lord is the Ground of our Prayer. Herein

were seen two properties: the one is rightful prayer, the other is

steadfast trust; which He willeth should both be alike large; and thus

our prayer pleaseth Him and He of His Goodness fulfilleth it.

The Fifteenth is that we shall suddenly be taken from all our pain and

from all our woe, and of His Goodness we shall come up above, where we

shall have our Lord Jesus for our meed and be fulfilled with joy and

bliss in Heaven.

The Sixteenth is that the Blissful Trinity, our Maker, in Christ Jesus

our Saviour endlessly dwelleth in our soul, worshipfully ruling and

protecting all things, us mightily and wisely saving and keeping, for

love; and we shall not be overcome of our Enemy.

"A simple creature unlettered.--Which creature afore desired three

gifts of God"

These Revelations were shewed to a simple creature unlettered,[1] the

year of our Lord 1373, the Thirteenth day of May. Which creature [had]

afore desired three gifts of God. The First was mind of His Passion;

the Second was bodily sickness in youth, at thirty years of age; the

Third was to have of God's gift three wounds.

As to the First, methought I had some feeling in the Passion of Christ,

but yet I desired more by the grace of God. Methought I would have

been that time with Mary Magdalene, and with other that were Christ's

lovers, and therefore I desired a bodily sight wherein I might have

more knowledge of the bodily pains of our Saviour and of the compassion

of our Lady and of all His true lovers that saw, that time, His pains.

For I would be one of them and suffer with Him. Other sight nor shewing

of God desired I never none, till the soul were disparted from the

body. The cause of this petition was that after the shewing I should

have the more true mind in the Passion of Christ.

The Second came to my mind with contrition; [I] freely desiring that

sickness [to be] so hard as to death, that I might in that sickness

receive all my rites of Holy Church, myself thinking that I should die,

and that all creatures might suppose the same that saw me: for I would

have no manner of comfort of earthly life. In this sickness I desired

to have all manner of pains bodily and ghostly that I should have if

I should die, (with all the dreads and tempests of the fiends) except

the outpassing of the soul. And this I meant[2] for [that] I would be

purged, by the mercy of God, and afterward live more to the worship of

God because of that sickness. And that for the more furthering[3] in my

death: for I desired to be soon with my God.

These two desires of the Passion and the sickness I desired with a

condition, saying thus: _Lord, Thou knowest what I would,--if it be

Thy will that I have it--; and if it be not Thy will, good Lord, be not

displeased: for I will nought but as Thou wilt._

For the Third [petition], by the grace of God and teaching of Holy

Church I conceived a mighty desire to receive three wounds in my life:

that is to say, the wound of very contrition, the wound of kind[4]

compassion, and the wound of steadfast[5] longing toward God.[6] And

all this last petition I asked without any condition.

These two desires aforesaid passed from my mind, but the third dwelled

with me continually.

xxxix.

"I desired to suffer with Him"

And when I was thirty years old and a half, God sent me a bodily

sickness, in which I lay three days and three nights; and on the fourth

night I took all my rites of Holy Church, and weened not to have lived

till day. And after this I languored forth[1] two days and two nights,

and on the third night I weened oftentimes to have passed;[2] and so

weened they that were with me.

And being in youth as yet, I thought it great sorrow to die;--but for

nothing that was in earth that meliked to live for, nor for no pain

that I had fear of: for I trusted in God of His mercy. But it was to

have lived that I might have loved God better, and longer time, that I

might have the more knowing and loving of God in bliss of Heaven. For

methought all the time that I had lived here so little and so short in

regard of that endless bliss,--I thought [it was as] nothing. Wherefore

I thought: _Good Lord, may my living no longer be to Thy worship!_[3]

And I understood by my reason and by my feeling of my pains that I

should die; and I assented fully with all the will of my heart to be at

God's will.

Thus I dured till day, and by then my body was dead from the middle

downwards, as to my feeling. Then was I minded to be set upright,

backward leaning, with help,--for to have more freedom of my heart to

be at God's will, and thinking on God while my life would last.

My Curate was sent for to be at my ending, and by that time when he

came I had set my eyes, and might[4] not speak. He set the Cross before

my face and said: _I have brought thee the Image of thy Maker and

Saviour: look thereupon and comfort thee therewith_.

Methought I was well [as it was], for my eyes were set uprightward unto

Heaven, where I trusted to come by the mercy of God; but nevertheless I

assented to set my eyes on the face of the Crucifix, if I might;[5] and

so I did. For methought I might longer dure to look even-forth[6] than

right up.

After this my sight began to fail, and it was all dark about me in

the chamber, as if it had been night, save in the Image of the Cross

whereon I beheld a common light; and I wist not how. All that was

away from[7] the Cross was of horror to me, as if it had been greatly

occupied by the fiends.

After this the upper[8] part of my body began to die, so far forth

that scarcely I had any feeling;--with shortness of breath. And then I

weened in sooth to have passed.

And in this [moment] suddenly all my pain was taken from me, and I was

as whole (and specially in the upper part of my body) as ever I was

afore.

I marvelled at this sudden change; for methought it was a privy working

of God, and not of nature. And yet by the feeling of this ease I

trusted never the more to live; nor was the feeling of this ease any

full ease unto me: for methought I had liefer have been delivered from

this world.

Then came suddenly to my mind that I should desire the second wound of

our Lord's gracious gift: that my body might be fulfilled with mind

and feeling of His blessed Passion. For I would that His pains were

my pains, with compassion and afterward longing to God. But in this I

desired never bodily sight nor shewing of God, but compassion such as a

kind[9] soul might have with our Lord Jesus, that for love would be a

mortal man: and therefore I desired to suffer with Him.

longer to Thy worship?_

the Creating Son of God, the type and the Head of Mankind,--therefore

loving, and sympathetic with Him, and compassionate of His earthly

sufferings: Who, Himself, for Love's sake, suffered as man.

_THE FIRST REVELATION_

"I saw ... as it were in the time of His Passion.... And in the same

Shewing suddenly the Trinity filled my heart with utmost joy"

In this [moment] suddenly I saw the red blood trickle down from under

the Garland hot and freshly and right plenteously, as it were in the

time of His Passion when the Garland of thorns was pressed on His

blessed head who was both God and Man, the same that suffered thus for

me. I conceived truly and mightily that it was Himself shewed it me,

without any mean.[1]

And in the same Shewing suddenly the Trinity fulfilled my heart most

of joy. And so I understood it shall be in heaven without end to all

that shall come there. For the Trinity is God: God is the Trinity; the

Trinity is our Maker and Keeper, the Trinity is our everlasting love

and everlasting joy and bliss, by our Lord Jesus Christ. And this was

shewed in the First [Shewing] and in all: for where Jesus appeareth,

the blessed Trinity is understood, as to my sight.

And I said: _Benedicite Domine!_ This I said for reverence in my

meaning, with mighty voice; and full greatly was astonied for wonder

and marvel that I had, that He that is so reverend and dreadful will be

so homely with a sinful creature living in wretched flesh.

This [Shewing] I took for the time of my temptation,--for methought by

the sufferance of God I should be tempted of fiends ere I died. Through

this sight of the blessed Passion, with the Godhead that I saw in

mine understanding, I knew well that _It_ was strength enough for me,

yea, and for all creatures living, against all the fiends of hell and

ghostly temptation.

In this [Shewing] He brought our blessed Lady to my understanding. I

saw her ghostly, in bodily likeness: a simple maid and a meek, young of

age and little waxen above a child, in the stature that she was when

she conceived. Also God shewed in part the wisdom and the truth of her

soul: wherein I understood the reverent beholding in which she beheld

her God and Maker, marvelling with great reverence that He would be

born of her that was a simple creature of His making. And this wisdom

and truth: knowing the greatness of her Maker and the littleness of

herself that was made,--caused her to say full meekly to Gabriel: _Lo

me, God's handmaid!_ In this sight[2] I understood soothly that she

is more than all that God made beneath her in worthiness and grace;

for above her is nothing that is made but the blessed [Manhood][3] of

Christ, as to my sight.

sight_,--insight--beholding (vii., xliv., lxv.). See Rev. xi. ch. xxv.,

"For our Lord shewed me nothing in special but our Lady Saint Mary;

and her He shewed three times." The first shewing is here (a _sight_

referred to in ch. vii. and elsewhere); the second, in ch. xviii.; the

third, in ch. xxv.

"God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself;--only in Thee I have all"

In this same time our Lord shewed me a spiritual[1] sight of His homely

loving.

I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us:

He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us, claspeth us, and all

encloseth[2] us for tender love, that He may never leave us; being to

us all-thing that is good, as to mine understanding.

Also in this He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut,

in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked

thereupon with eye of my understanding, and thought: _What may this

be?_ And it was answered generally thus: _it is all that is made._

I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly

have fallen to naught for little[ness]. And I was answered in my

understanding: _It lasteth, and ever shall [last] for that God loveth

it._ And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God.

In this Little Thing I saw three properties. The first is that God

made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God keepeth

it. But what is to me verily the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover,--I

cannot tell; for till I am Substantially oned[3] to Him, I may never

have full rest nor very bliss: that is to say, till I be so fastened to

Him, that there is right nought that is made betwixt my God and me.

It needeth us to have knowing of the littleness of creatures and to

hold as nought[4] all-thing that is made, for to love and have God that

is unmade. For this is the cause why we be not all in ease of heart

and soul: that we seek here rest in those things that are so little,

wherein is no rest, and know not our God that is All-mighty, All-wise,

All-good. For He is the Very Rest. God willeth to be known, and it

pleaseth Him that we rest in Him; for all that is beneath Him sufficeth

not us. And this is the cause why that no soul is rested till it is

made nought as to all[5] things that are made. When it is willingly

made nought, for love, to have Him that is all, then is it able to

receive spiritual rest.

Also our Lord God shewed that it is full great pleasance to Him that

a helpless soul come to Him simply and plainly and homely. For this

is the natural yearnings of the soul, by the touching of the Holy

Ghost (as by the understanding that I have in this Shewing): _God, of

Thy Goodness, give me Thyself: for Thou art enough to me, and I may

nothing ask that is less that may be full worship to Thee; and if I ask

anything that is less, ever me wanteth,--but only in Thee I have all._

And these words are full lovely to the soul, and full near touch they

the will of God and His Goodness. For His Goodness comprehendeth all

His creatures and all His blessed works, and overpasseth[6] without

end. For He is the endlessness, and He hath made us only to Himself,

and restored us by His blessed Passion, and keepeth us in His blessed

love; and all this of His Goodness.

"The Goodness of God is the highest prayer, and it cometh down to the

lowest part of our need"

This Shewing was made to learn our soul wisely to cleave to the

Goodness of God.

And in that time the custom of our praying was brought to mind: how we

use for lack of understanding and knowing of Love, to take many means

[whereby to beseech Him].[1]

Then saw I truly that it is more worship to God, and more very delight,

that we faithfully[2] pray to Himself of His Goodness and cleave

thereunto by His Grace, with true understanding, and steadfast by love,

than if we took all the means that heart can think. For if we took all

these means, it is too little, and not full worship to God: but in His

Goodness is all the whole, and _there_ faileth right nought.

For this, as I shall tell, came to my mind in the same time: We pray

to God for [the sake of] His holy flesh and His precious blood, His

holy Passion, His dearworthy death and wounds: and all the blessed

kindness,[3] the endless life that we have of all this, is His

Goodness. And we pray Him for [the sake of] His sweet Mother's love

that Him bare; and all the help we have of her is of His Goodness. And

we pray by His holy Cross that he died on, and all the virtue and the

help that we have of the Cross, it is of His Goodness. And on the same

wise, all the help that we have of special saints and all the blessed

Company of Heaven, the dearworthy love and endless friendship that

we have of them, it is of His Goodness. For God of His Goodness hath

ordained means to help us, full fair and many: of which the chief and

principal mean is the blessed nature that He took of the Maid, with all

the means that go afore and come after which belong to our redemption

and to endless salvation. Wherefore it pleaseth Him that we seek Him

and worship through means, understanding that He is the Goodness of all.

For the Goodness of God is the highest prayer, and it cometh down to

the lowest part of our need. It quickeneth our soul and bringeth it on

life, and maketh it for to waxen in grace and virtue. It is nearest in

nature; and readiest in grace: for _it_ is the same grace that the soul

seeketh, and ever shall seek till we know verily that He hath us all in

Himself enclosed.

For He hath no despite of that He hath made, nor hath He any disdain to

serve us at the simplest office that to our body belongeth in nature,

for love of the soul that He hath made to His own likeness.

For as the body is clad in the cloth, and the flesh in the skin, and

the bones in the flesh, and the heart in the whole,[4] so are we, soul

and body, clad in the Goodness of God, and enclosed. Yea, and more

homely: for all these may waste and wear away, but the Goodness of God

is ever whole; and more near to us, without any likeness; for truly our

Lover desireth that our soul cleave to Him with all its might, and that

we be ever-more cleaving to His Goodness. For of all things that heart

may think, this pleaseth most God, and soonest speedeth [the soul].

For our soul is so specially loved of Him that is highest, that it

overpasseth the knowing of all creatures: that is to say, there is no

creature that is made that may [fully] know[5] how much and how sweetly

and how tenderly our Maker loveth us. And therefore we may with grace

and His help stand in spiritual beholding, with everlasting marvel of

this high, overpassing, inestimable[6] Love that Almighty God hath

to us of His Goodness. And therefore we may ask of our Lover with

reverence all that we will.

For our natural[7] Will is to have God, and the Good Will of God is to

have us; and we may never cease from willing nor from longing till we

have Him in fullness of joy: and then may we no more desire.

For He willeth that we be occupied in knowing and loving till the time

that we shall be fulfilled in Heaven; and therefore was this lesson of

Love shewed, with all that followeth, as ye shall see. For the strength

and the Ground of all was shewed in the First Sight. For of all things

the beholding and the loving of the Maker maketh the soul to seem less

in his own sight, and most filleth him with reverent dread and true

meekness; with plenty of charity to his even-Christians.[8]

Letters_, 1422-1509 A.D.--"Our Soverayn Lord hath wonne the feld, &

uppon the Munday next after Palmesunday, he was resseved in York with

gret solempnyte & processyons. And the Mair & Comons of the said cite

mad ther menys to have grace be [by] Lord Montagu & Lord Barenars,

which be for the Kyngs coming in to the said cite, which graunted hem

[them] grace." _Letter_ 472 (from Margaret Paston).--"Your ryth wele

willers have kounselyd me that I xuld kownsell you to maken other menys

than ye have made, to other folks, that wold spede your matyrs better

than they have done thatt ye have spoken to therof" (ed. by James

Gairdner, vol i.). See ch. iv. p. 8.

like "oninestimable" with the "on" blotted or erased.

_Hamlet_, Act v. Sc. i. "great folk ... more than their even Christian."

"The Shewing is not other than of faith, nor less nor more"

And [it was] to learn us this, as to mine understanding, [that] our

Lord God shewed our Lady Saint Mary in the same time: that is to say,

the high Wisdom and Truth _she_ had in beholding of her Maker so great,

so holy, so mighty, and so good. This greatness and this nobleness of

the beholding of God fulfilled her with reverent dread, and withal she

saw herself so little and so low, so simple and so poor, in regard

of[1] her Lord God, that this reverent dread fulfilled her with

meekness. And thus, by this ground [of meekness] she was fulfilled with

grace and with all manner of virtues, and overpasseth all creatures.

In all the time that He shewed this that I have told now in spiritual

sight, I saw the bodily sight lasting of the plenteous bleeding of the

Head. The great drops of blood fell down from under the Garland like

pellots, seeming as it had come out of the veins; and in the coming

out they were brown-red, for the blood was full thick; and in the

spreading-abroad they were bright-red; and when they came to the brows,

then they vanished; notwithstanding, the bleeding continued till many

things were seen and understood. The fairness and the lifelikeness

is like nothing but the same; the plenteousness is like to the drops

of water that fall off the eaves after a great shower of rain, that

fall so thick that no man may number them with bodily wit; and for the

roundness, they were like to the scale of herring, in the spreading on

the forehead. These three came to my mind in the time: pellots, for

roundness, in the coming out of the blood; the scale of herring, in the

spreading in the forehead, for roundness; the drops off eaves, for the

plenteousness innumerable.

This Shewing was quick and life-like, and horrifying and dreadful,

sweet and lovely. And of all the sight it was most comfort to me that

our God and Lord that is so reverend and dreadful, is so homely and

courteous: and this most fulfilled me with comfort and assuredness of

soul.

And to the understanding of this He shewed this open example:--

It is the most worship that a solemn King or a great Lord may do a poor

servant if he will be homely with him, and specially if he sheweth

it _himself_, of a full true meaning, and with a glad cheer, both

privately and in company. Then thinketh this poor creature thus: _And

what might this noble Lord do of more worship and joy to me than to

shew me that am so simple this marvellous homeliness? Soothly it is

more joy and pleasance to me than [if] he gave me great gifts and were

himself strange in manner._

This bodily example was shewed so highly that man's heart might be

ravished and almost forgetting itself for joy of the great homeliness.

Thus it fareth with our Lord Jesus and with us. For verily it is the

most joy that may be, as to my sight, that He that is highest and

mightiest, noblest and worthiest, is lowest and meekest, homeliest and

most courteous: and truly and verily this marvellous joy shall be shewn

us all when we see Him.

And this willeth our Lord that we seek for and trust to, joy and

delight in, comforting us and solacing us, as we may with His grace

and with His help, unto the time that we see it verily. For the most

fulness of joy that we shall have, as to my sight, is the marvellous

courtesy and homeliness of our Father, that is our Maker, in our Lord

Jesus Christ that is our Brother and our Saviour.

But this marvellous homeliness may no man fully see in this time of

life, save he have it of special shewing of our Lord, or of great

plenty of grace inwardly given of the Holy Ghost. But faith and belief

with charity deserveth the meed: and so it is had, by grace; for in

faith, with hope and charity, our life is grounded. The Shewing, made

to whom that God will, plainly teacheth the same, opened and declared,

with many privy points belonging to our Faith which be worshipful to

know. And when the Shewing which is given in a time is passed and hid,

then the faith keepeth [it] by grace of the Holy Ghost unto our life's

end. And thus through the Shewing it is not other than of faith, nor

less nor more; as it may be seen in our Lord's teaching in the same

matter, by that time that it shall come to the end.

note to ch. iv. p. 9.

"In all this I was greatly stirred in charity to my fellow-Christians

that they might see and know the same that I saw"

And as long as I saw this sight of the plenteous bleeding of the Head I

might never cease from these words: _Benedicite Domine!_

In which Shewing I understood six things:--The first is, the tokens of

the blessed Passion and the plenteous shedding of His precious blood.

The second is, the Maiden that is His dearworthy Mother. The third is,

the blissful Godhead that ever was, is, and ever shall be: Almighty,

All-Wisdom, All-Love. The fourth is, all-thing that He hath made.--For

well I wot that heaven and earth and all that is made is great and

large, fair and good; but the cause why it shewed so little to my sight

was for that I saw it in the presence of Him that is the Maker of all

things: for to a soul that seeth the Maker of all, all that is made

seemeth full little.--The fifth is: He that made all things for love,

by the same love keepeth them, and shall keep them[1] without end.

The sixth is, that God is all that is good, as to my sight, and the

goodness that each thing hath, it is He.[2]

And all these our Lord shewed me in the first Sight, with time and

space to behold it. And the bodily sight stinted,[3] but the spiritual

sight dwelled in mine understanding, and I abode with reverent dread,

joying in that I saw. And I desired, as I durst, to see more, if it

were His will, or else [to see for] longer time the same.

In all this I was greatly stirred in charity to mine even-Christians,

that they might see and know the same that I saw: for I would it were

comfort to them. For all this Sight was shewed [with] general [regard].

Then said I to them that were about me: _It is to-day Doomsday with

me_. And this I said for that I thought to have died. (For that day

that a man dieth, he is judged[4] as shall be without end, as to mine

understanding.) This I said for that I would they might love God the

better, for to make them to have in mind that this life is short, as

they might see in example. For in all this time I weened to have died;

and that was marvel to me, and troublous partly: for methought this

Vision was shewed for them that should live. And that which I say of

me, I say in the person of all mine even-Christians: for I am taught in

the Spiritual Shewing of our Lord God that He meaneth so. And therefore

I pray you all for God's sake, and counsel you for your own profit,

that ye leave the beholding of a poor creature[5] that it was shewed

to, and mightily, wisely, and meekly behold God that of His courteous

love and endless goodness would shew it generally, in comfort of us

all. For it is God's will that ye take it with great joy and pleasance,

as if Jesus had shewed it to you all.

al thing hath, it is he."

"If I look singularly to myself, I am right nought"

Because of the Shewing I am not good but if I love God the better: and

in as much as ye love God the better, it is more to you than to me. I

say[1] not this to them that be wise, for they wot it well; but I say

it to you that be simple, for ease and comfort: for we are all one

in comfort. For truly it was not shewed me that God loved me better

than the least soul that is in grace; for I am certain that there be

many that never had Shewing nor sight but of the common teaching of

Holy Church, that love God better than I. For if I look singularly to

myself, I am right nought; but in [the] general [Body] I am, I hope, in

oneness of charity with all mine even-Christians.

For in this oneness standeth the life of all mankind that shall be

saved. For God is all that is good, as to my sight, and God hath made

all that is made, and God loveth all that He hath made: and he that

loveth generally all his even-Christians for God, he loveth all that

is. For in mankind that shall be saved is comprehended all: that is to

say, all that is made and the Maker of all. For in man is God, and God

is in all. And I hope by the grace of God he that beholdeth it thus

shall be truly taught and mightily comforted, if he needeth comfort.

I speak of them that shall be saved, for in this time God shewed me

none other. But in all things I believe as Holy Church believeth,

preacheth, and teacheth. For the Faith of Holy Church, the which I

had aforehand understood and, as I hope, by the grace of God earnestly

kept in use and custom, stood continually in my sight: [I] willing and

meaning never to receive anything that might be contrary thereunto. And

with this intent I beheld the Shewing with all my diligence: for in all

this blessed Shewing I beheld it as one in God's meaning.[2]

All this was shewed by three [ways]: that is to say, by bodily sight,

and by word formed in mine understanding, and by spiritual sight. But

the spiritual sight I cannot nor may not shew it as openly nor as fully

as I would. But I trust in our Lord God Almighty that He shall of His

goodness, and for your love, make you to take it more spiritually and

more sweetly than I can or may tell it.

Shewing were both from God and were seen to be at one.

_THE SECOND REVELATION_

"God willeth to be seen and to be sought: to be abided and to be

trusted"

And after this I saw with bodily sight in the face of the crucifix

that hung before me, on the which I gazed continually, a part of His

Passion: despite, spitting and sullying, and buffetting, and many

languoring pains, more than I can tell, and often changing of colour.

And one time I saw half the face, beginning at the ear, over-gone with

dry blood till it covered to the mid-face. And after that the other

half [was] covered on the same wise, the whiles in this [first] part

[it vanished] even as it came.

This saw I bodily, troublously and darkly; and I desired more bodily

sight, to have seen more clearly. And I was answered in my reason: _If

God will shew thee more, He shall be thy light: thee needeth none but

Him._ For I saw Him sought.[1]

For we are now so blind and unwise that we never seek God till He

of His goodness shew Himself to us. And when we aught see of Him

graciously, then are we stirred by the same grace to seek with great

desire to see Him more blissfully.

And thus I saw Him, and sought Him; and I had Him, I wanted Him. And

this is, and should be, our common working in this [life], as to my

sight.

One time mine understanding was led down into the sea-ground, and there

I saw hills and dales green, seeming as it were moss-be-grown, with

wrack and gravel. Then I understood thus: that if a man or woman were

under the broad water, if he might have sight of God so as God is with

a man continually, he should be safe in body and soul, and take no

harm: and overpassing, he should have more solace and comfort than all

this world can tell. For He willeth we should believe that we see Him

continually though that to us it seemeth but little [of sight]; and in

this belief He maketh us evermore to gain grace. For He will be seen

and He will be sought: He will be abided and he will be trusted.

This Second Shewing was so low and so little and so simple, that my

spirits were in great travail in the beholding,--mourning, full of

dread, and longing: for I was some time in doubt whether it was a

Shewing. And then diverse times our good Lord gave me more sight,

whereby I understood truly that it was a Shewing. It was a figure and

likeness of our foul deeds' shame that our fair, bright, blessed Lord

bare for our sins: it made me to think of the Holy Vernacle[2] at

Rome, which He hath portrayed with His own blessed face when He was in

His hard Passion, with steadfast will going to His death, and often

changing of colour. Of the brownness and blackness, the ruefulness

and wastedness of this Image many marvel how it might be, since that

He portrayed it with His blessed Face who is the fairness of heaven,

flower of earth, and the fruit of the Maiden's womb. Then how might

this Image be so darkening in colour[3] and so far from fair?--I desire

to tell like as I have understood by the grace of God:--

We know in our Faith, and believe by the teaching and preaching of Holy

Church, that the blessed Trinity made Mankind to[4] His image and to

His likeness. In the same manner-wise we know that when man fell so

deep and so wretchedly by sin, there was none other help to restore

man but through Him that made man. And He that made man for love, by

the same love He would restore man to the same bliss, and overpassing;

and like as we were like-made to the Trinity in our first making, our

Maker would that we should be like Jesus Christ, Our Saviour, in heaven

without end, by the virtue of our again-making.

Then atwix these two, He would for love and worship of man make

Himself as like to man in this deadly life, in our foulness and our

wretchedness, as man might be without guilt. This is that which is

meant where it is said afore: it was the image and likeness of our foul

black deeds' shame wherein our fair, bright, blessed Lord God was hid.

But full certainly I dare say, and we ought to trow it, that so fair a

man was never none but He, till what time His fair colour was changed

with travail and sorrow and Passion and dying. Of this it is spoken in

the Eighth Revelation, where it treateth more of the same likeness. And

where it speaketh of the Vernacle of Rome, it meaneth by [reason of]

diverse changing of colour and countenance, sometime more comfortably

and life-like, sometime more ruefully and death-like, as it may be seen

in the Eighth Revelation.

And this [dim] vision was a learning, to mine understanding, that the

continual seeking of the soul pleaseth God full greatly: for it may

do no more than seek, suffer and trust. And this is wrought in the

soul that hath it, by the Holy Ghost; and the clearness of finding,

_it_ is of His special grace, when it is His will. The seeking, with

faith, hope, and charity, pleaseth our Lord, and the finding pleaseth

the soul and fulfilleth it with joy. And thus was I learned, to mine

understanding, that seeking is as good as beholding, for the time that

He will suffer the soul to be in travail. It is God's will that _we

seek Him_, to the beholding of Him, for by _that_[5] He shall shew us

Himself of His special grace when He will. And how a soul shall have

Him in its beholding, He shall teach Himself: and that is most worship

to Him and profit to thyself, and [the soul thus] most receiveth of

meekness and virtues with the grace and leading of the Holy Ghost. For

a soul that only fasteneth it[self] on to God with very trust, either

by seeking or in beholding, it is the most worship that it may do to

Him, as to my sight.

These are two workings that may be seen in this Vision: the one is

seeking, the other is beholding. The seeking is common,--that every

soul may have with His grace,--and ought to have that discretion and

teaching of the Holy Church. It is God's will that we have three

things in our seeking:--The first is that we seek earnestly and

diligently, without sloth, and, as it may be through His grace, without

unreasonable[6] heaviness and vain sorrow. The second is, that we abide

Him steadfastly for His love, without murmuring and striving against

Him, to our life's end: for it shall last but awhile. The third is that

we trust in Him mightily of full assured faith. For it is His will that

we know that He shall appear suddenly and blissfully to all that love

Him.

For His working is privy, and He willeth to be perceived; and His

appearing shall be swiftly sudden; and He willeth to be trusted. For He

is full gracious[7] and homely: Blessed may He be!

English and Scottish 'forbye that' = _besides that_.

Cressy, "unreasonable."

_THE THIRD REVELATION_

"All thing that is done, it is well done: for our Lord God doeth all."

"Sin is no deed"

And after this I saw God in a Point,[1] that is to say, in mine

understanding,--by which sight I saw that He is in all things.

I beheld and considered, seeing and knowing in sight, with a soft

dread, and thought: _What is sin?_

For I saw truly that God doeth all-thing, be it never so little. And I

saw truly that nothing is done by hap nor by adventure, but all things

by the foreseeing wisdom of God: if it be hap or adventure in the sight

of man, our blindness and our unforesight is the cause. For the things

that are in the foreseeing wisdom of God from without beginning, (which

rightfully and worshipfully and continually He leadeth to the best

end,) as they come about fall to us suddenly, ourselves unwitting; and

thus by our blindness and our unforesight we say: these be haps and

adventures. But to our Lord God they be not so.

Wherefore me behoveth needs to grant that all-thing that is done, it

is well-done: for our Lord God doeth all. For in this time the working

of creatures was not shewed, but [the working] of our Lord God in the

creature: for He is in the Mid-point of all thing, and all He doeth.

And I was certain He doeth no sin.

And here I saw verily that sin is no deed: for in all this was not sin

shewed. And I would no longer marvel in this, but beheld our Lord, what

He would shew.

And thus, as much as it might be for the time, the rightfulness of

God's working was shewed to the soul.

Rightfulness hath two fair properties: it is right and it is full.

And so are all the works of our Lord God: thereto needeth neither the

working of mercy nor grace: for they be all rightful: wherein faileth

nought.

But in another time He gave a Shewing for the beholding of sin nakedly,

as I shall tell: where He useth working of mercy and grace.

And this vision was shewed, to mine understanding, for that our

Lord would have the soul turned truly unto the beholding of Him,

and generally of all His works. For they are full good; and all His

doings are easy and sweet, and to great ease bringing the soul that is

turned from the beholding of the blind Deeming of man unto the fair

sweet Deeming of our Lord God. For a man beholdeth some deeds well

done and some deeds evil, but our Lord beholdeth them not so: for as

all that hath being in nature is of Godly making, so is all that is

done, in property of God's doing. For it is easy to understand that

the best deed is well done: and so well as the best deed is done--the

highest--so well is the least deed done; and all thing in its property

and in the order that our Lord hath ordained it to from without

beginning. For there is no doer but He.

I saw full surely that he changeth never His purpose in no manner of

thing, nor never shall, without end. For there was no thing unknown to

Him in His rightful ordinance from without beginning. And therefore

all-thing was set in order ere anything was made, as it should stand

without end; and no manner of thing shall fail of that point. For He

made all things in fulness of goodness, and therefore the blessed

Trinity is ever full pleased in all His works.[2]

And all this shewed He full blissfully, signifying thus: _See! I am

God: see! I am in all thing: see! I do all thing: see! I lift never

mine hands off my works, nor ever shall, without end: see! I lead all

thing to the end I ordained it to from without beginning, by the same

Might, Wisdom and Love whereby I made it. How should any thing be

amiss?_

Thus mightily, wisely, and lovingly was the soul examined in this

Vision. Then saw I soothly that me behoved, of need, to assent, with

great reverence enjoying in God.

blessed Point from which nature came: that is, God." See also xxi. p.

45, "Where is now any point of thy pain?" (least part) and xxi. p.

46, "abiding unto the last point"; and lxiv. p. 161, "set the point

of our thought." These uses of the word may be compared with the

following:--From the _Banquet of Dante Alighieri_, tr. by K. Hillard

(Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.), Bk. II. xiv. 12, "_Geometry moves between

the print and the circle_"; as Euclid says, "the point is the beginning

of Geometry, and according to him, the circle is the most perfect

figure, and therefore may be considered its end.... The point by reason

of its indivisibility is immeasurable, and the circle by reason of

its arc cannot be exactly squared, and therefore cannot be measured

with precision." Notes by Miss Hillard: "This is why the Deity is

represented by a _point. Paradiso_, xxviii. 16: 'A point beheld I,'

'Heaven and all nature, hangs upon that point,' etc. Bk. IV. 6, quoting

Aristotle's _Physics_: '_The circle can be called perfect when it is

a true circle._ And this is when it contains a point which is equally

distant from every part of its circumference.' In the _Vita Nuova_ Love

appearing, says--'I am as the centre of a circle, to which all parts of

the circumference bear an equal relation' ('_Amor che muove il sole e

l'altre stelle_')." From _Neoplatonism_, by C. Bigg, D.D. (S.P.C.K.),

p. 122: "Thus we get a triplet--Soul, Intelligence, and a higher

Intelligence. The last is spoken of as One, as a point, as neither good

nor evil because above both."

xlv., xxxv., xxxvii., lxxxii.

_THE FOURTH REVELATION_

"The dearworthy blood of our Lord Jesus Christ as verily as it is most

precious, so verily it it most plenteous"

And after this I saw, beholding, the body plenteously bleeding in

seeming of[1] the Scourging, as thus:--The fair skin was broken full

deep into the tender flesh with sharp smiting all about the sweet body.

So plenteously the hot blood ran out that there was neither seen skin

nor wound, but as it were all blood. And when it came where it should

have fallen down, then it vanished. Notwithstanding, the bleeding

continued awhile: till it might be seen and considered.[2] And this was

so plenteous, to my sight, that methought if it had been so in kind[3]

and in substance at that time, it should have made the bed all one

blood, and have passed over about.

And then came to my mind that God hath made waters plenteous in earth

to our service and to our bodily ease for tender love that He hath to

us, but yet liketh Him better that we take full homely His blessed

blood to wash us of sin: for there is no water[4] that is made that

He liketh so well to give us. For it is most plenteous as it is most

precious: and that by the virtue of His blessed Godhead; and it is

[of] our Kind, and all-blissfully belongeth to us by the virtue of His

precious love.

The dearworthy blood of our Lord Jesus Christ as verily as it is most

precious, so verily it is most plenteous. Behold and see! The precious

plenty of His dearworthy blood descended down into Hell and burst her

bands and delivered all that were there which belonged to the Court of

Heaven. The precious plenty of His dearworthy blood overfloweth all

Earth, and is ready to wash all creatures of sin, which be of goodwill,

have been, and shall be. The precious plenty of His dearworthy blood

ascended up into Heaven to the blessed body of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and there is in Him, bleeding and praying for us to the Father,--and

is, and shall be as long as it needeth;--and ever shall be as long

as it needeth. And evermore it floweth in all Heavens enjoying the

salvation of all mankind, that are there, and shall be--fulfilling the

number[5] that faileth.

_THE FIFTH REVELATION_

"The Enemy is overcome by the blessed Passion and Death of our Lord

Jesus Christ"

And after this, ere God shewed any words, He suffered me for a

convenient time to give heed unto Him and all that I had seen, and all

intellect[1] that was therein, as the simplicity of the soul might

take it.[2] Then He, without voice and opening of lips, formed in my

soul these words: _Herewith is the Fiend overcome_. These words said

our Lord, meaning His blessed Passion as He shewed it afore.

On this shewed our Lord that the Passion of Him is the overcoming

of the Fiend. God shewed that the Fiend hath now the same malice

that he had afore the Incarnation. And as sore he travaileth, and

as continually he seeth that all souls of salvation escape him,

worshipfully, by the virtue of Christ's precious Passion. And that is

his sorrow, and full evil is he ashamed: for all that God suffereth

him to do turneth [for] us to joy and [for] him to shame and woe. And

he hath as much sorrow when God giveth him leave to work, as when he

worketh not: and that is for that he may never do as ill as he would:

for his might is all taken[3] into God's hand.

But in God there may be no wrath, as to my sight: for our good Lord

endlessly hath regard to His own worship and to the profit of all that

shall be saved. With might and right He withstandeth the Reproved,

the which of malice and wickedness busy them to contrive and to do

against God's will. Also I saw our Lord scorn his malice and set at

nought his unmight; and He willeth that we do so. For this sight I

laughed mightily, and that made them to laugh that were about me, and

their laughing was a pleasure to me. I thought that I would that all

mine even-Christians had seen as I saw, and then would they all laugh

with me. But I saw not Christ laugh. For I understood that we may

laugh in comforting of ourselves and joying in God for that the devil

is overcome. And when I saw Him scorn his malice, it was by leading

of mine understanding into our Lord: that is to say, it was an inward

shewing of verity, without changing of look.[4] For, as to my sight, it

is a worshipful property of God's that [He] is ever the same.

And after this I fell into a graveness,[5] and said: _I see three

things: I see game, scorn, and earnest. I see [a] game, in that the

Fiend is overcome; I see scorn, in that God scorneth him, and he shall

be scorned; and I see earnest, in that he is overcome by the blissful

Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ that was done in full

earnest and with sober travail._

When I said, _he is scorned_,--I meant that God scorneth him, that

is to say, because He seeth him now as he shall do without end. For

in this [word] God shewed that the Fiend is condemned. And this

meant I when I said: _he shall be scorned_: [he shall be scorned] at

Doomsday, generally of all that shall be saved, to whose consolation

he hath great ill-will.[6] For then he shall see that all the woe and

tribulation that he hath done to them shall be turned to increase of

their joy, without end; and all the pain and tribulation that he would

have brought them to shall endlessly go with him to hell.

understand it.--See xxiv.

_THE SIXTH REVELATION_

"The age of every man shall be acknowledged before him in Heaven, and

every man shall be rewarded for his willing service and for his time"

After this our good Lord said: _I thank thee for thy travail, and

especially for thy youth._

And in this [Shewing] mine understanding was lifted up into Heaven

where I saw our Lord as a lord in his own house, which hath called

all his dear worthy servants and friends to a stately[1] feast. Then

I saw the Lord take no place in His own house, but I saw Him royally

reign in His house, fulfilling it with joy and mirth, Himself endlessly

to gladden and to solace His dearworthy friends, full homely and

full courteously, with marvellous melody of endless love, in His own

fair blessed Countenance. Which glorious Countenance of the Godhead

fulfilleth the Heavens with joy and bliss.[2]

God shewed three degrees of bliss that every soul shall have in Heaven

that willingly hath served God in any degree in earth. The first is

the worshipful thanks of our Lord God that he shall receive when he is

delivered of pain. This thanking is so high and so worshipful that the

soul thinketh it filleth him though there were no more. For methought

that all the pain and travail that might be suffered by all living

men might not deserve the worshipful thanks that one man shall have

that willingly hath served God. The second is that all the blessed

creatures that are in Heaven shall see that worshipful thanking, and

He maketh his service known to all that are in Heaven. And here this

example was shewed:--A king, if he thank his servants, it is a great

worship to them, and if he maketh it known to all the realm, then

is the worship greatly increased.--The third is, that as new and as

gladdening as it is received in that time, right so shall it last

without end.

And I saw that homely and sweetly was this shewed, and that the age of

every man shall be [made] known in Heaven, and [he] shall be rewarded

for his willing service and for his time. And specially the age of them

that willingly and freely offer their youth unto God, passingly is

rewarded and wonderfully is thanked.

For I saw that whene'er what time a man or woman is truly turned to

God,--for one day's service and for his endless will he shall have all

these three decrees of bliss. And the more the loving soul seeth this

courtesy of God, the liefer he[3] is to serve him all the days of his

life.

masculine pronoun; the feminine pronoun is never used, in any of its

cases; the neuter sometimes occurs.

_THE SEVENTH REVELATION_

"It is not God's will that we follow the feeling of pains in sorrow and

mourning for them"

And after this He shewed a sovereign ghostly pleasante in my soul. I

was fulfilled with the everlasting sureness, mightily sustained without

any painful dread. This feeling was so glad and so ghostly that I was

in all peace and in rest, that there was nothing in earth that should

have grieved me.

This lasted but a while, and I was turned and left to myself in

heaviness, and weariness of my life, and irksomeness of myself, that

scarcely I could have patience to live. There was no comfort nor none

ease to me but faith, hope, and charity; and these I had in truth, but

little in feeling.

And anon after this our blessed Lord gave me again the comfort and the

rest in soul, in satisfying and sureness so blissful and so mighty that

no dread, no sorrow, no pain bodily that might be suffered should have

distressed me. And then the pain shewed again to my feeling, and then

the joy and the pleasing, and now that one, and now that other, divers

times--I suppose about twenty times. And in the time of joy I might

have said with Saint Paul: _Nothing shall dispart me from the charity

of Christ_; and in the pain I might have said with Peter: _Lord, save

me: I perish!_

This Vision was shewed me, according to mine understanding, [for]

that it is speedful to some souls to feel on this wise: sometime to

be in comfort, and sometime to fail and to be left to themselves. God

willeth that we know that He keepeth us even alike secure in woe and in

weal. And for profit of man's soul, a man is sometime left to himself;

although sin is not always the cause: for in this time I sinned not

wherefore I should be left to myself--for it was so sudden. Also I

deserved not to have this blessed feeling. But freely our Lord giveth

when He will; and suffereth us [to be] in woe sometime. And both is one

love.

For it is God's will that we hold us in comfort with all our might: for

bliss is lasting without end, and pain is passing and shall be brought

to nought for them that shall be saved. And therefore it is not God's

will that we follow the feelings of pain in sorrow and mourning for

them, but that we suddenly pass over, and hold us in endless enjoyment.

_THE EIGHTH REVELATION_

"A Part of His Passion"

After this Christ shewed a part of His Passion near His dying.

I saw His sweet face as it were dry and bloodless with pale dying. And

later, more pale, dead, languoring; and then turned more dead unto

blue; and then more brown-blue, as the flesh turned more deeply dead.

For His Passion shewed to me most specially in His blessed face (and

chiefly in His lips): there I saw these four colours, though it were

afore fresh, ruddy, and pleasing, to my sight. This was a pitiful

change to see, this deep dying. And also the [inward] moisture clotted

and dried, to my sight, and the sweet body was brown and black, all

turned out of fair, life-like colour of itself, unto dry dying.

For that same time that our Lord and blessed Saviour died upon the

Rood, it was a dry, hard wind, and wondrous cold, as to my sight, and

what time [all] the precious blood was bled out of the sweet body that

might pass therefrom, yet there dwelled a moisture in the sweet flesh

of Christ, as it was shewed.

Bloodlessness and pain dried within; and blowing of wind and cold

coming from without met together in the sweet body of Christ. And these

four,--twain without, and twain within--dried the flesh of Christ by

process of time. And though this pain was bitter and sharp, it was full

long lasting, as to my sight, and painfully dried up all the lively

spirits of Christ's flesh. Thus I saw the sweet flesh dry in seeming by

part after part, with marvellous pains. And as long as any spirit had

life in Christ's flesh, so long suffered He pain.

This long pining seemed to me as if He had been seven nights dead,

dying, at the point of outpassing away, suffering the last pain. And

when I said it seemed to me as if He had been seven night dead, it

meaneth that the sweet body was so discoloured, so dry, so shrunken,

so deathly, and so piteous, as if He had been seven night dead,

continually dying. And methought the drying of Christ's flesh was the

most pain, and the last, of His Passion.

"How might any pain be more to me than to see Him that is all my life,

and all my bliss, and all my joy suffer?"

And in this dying was brought to my mind the words of Christ: _I

thirst_.

For I saw in Christ a double thirst: one bodily; another spiritual, the

which I shall speak of in the Thirty-first Chapter.

For this word was shewed for the bodily thirst: the which I understood

was caused by failing of moisture. For the blessed flesh and bones

was left all alone without blood and moisture. The blessed body dried

alone long time with wringing of the nails and weight of the body. For

I understood that for tenderness of the sweet hands and of the sweet

feet, by the greatness, hardness, and grievousness of the nails the

wounds waxed wide and the body sagged, for weight by long time hanging.

And [therewith was] piercing and pressing of the head, and binding

of the Crown all baked with dry blood, with the sweet hair clinging,

and the dry flesh, to the thorns, and the thorns to the flesh drying;

and in the beginning while the flesh was fresh and bleeding, the

continual sitting of the thorns made the wounds wide. And furthermore

I saw that the sweet skin and the tender flesh, with the hair and

the blood, was all raised and loosed about from the bone, with the

thorns where-through it were rent in many pieces, as a cloth that were

sagging, as if it would hastily have fallen off, for heaviness and

looseness, while it had natural moisture. And that was great sorrow and

dread to me: for methought I would not for my life have seen it fall.

How it was done I saw not; but understood it was with the sharp thorns

and the violent and grievous setting on of the Garland of Thorns,

unsparingly and without pity. This continued awhile, and soon it began

to change, and I beheld and marvelled how it might be. And then I saw

it was because it began to dry, and stint a part of the weight, and set

about the Garland. And thus it encircled all about, as it were garland

upon garland. The Garland of the Thorns was dyed with the blood, and

that other garland [of Blood] and the head, all was one colour, as

clotted blood when it is dry. The skin of the flesh that shewed (of the

face and of the body), was small-rimpled[1] with a tanned colour, like

a dry board when it is aged; and the face more brown than the body.

I saw four manner of dryings: the first was bloodlessness; the second

was pain following after; the third, hanging up in the air, as men hang

a cloth to dry; the fourth, that the bodily Kind asked liquid and there

was no manner of comfort ministered to Him in all His woe and distress.

Ah! hard and grievous was his pain, but much more hard and grievous it

was when the moisture failed and began to dry thus, shrivelling.

These were the pains that shewed in the blessed head: the first wrought

to the dying, while it had moisture; and that other, slow, with

shrinking drying, [and] with blowing of the wind from without, that

dried and pained Him with cold more than mine heart can think.

And other pains--for which pains I saw that all is too little that I

can say: for it may not be told.

The which Shewing of Christ's pains filled me full of pain. For I wist

well He suffered but once, but [this was as if] He would shew it me

and fill me with mind as I had afore desired. And in all this time of

Christ's pains I felt no pain but for Christ's pains. Then thought-me:

_I knew but little what pain it was that I asked_; and, as a wretch,

repented me, thinking: _If I had wist what it had been, loth me had

been to have prayed it_. For methought it passed bodily death, my pains.

I thought: _Is any pain like this?_ And I was answered in my reason:

_Hell is another pain: for there is despair. But of all pains that

lead to salvation this is the most pain, to see thy Love suffer. How

might any pain be more to me than to see Him that is all my life, all

my bliss, and all my joy, suffer?_ Here felt I soothfastly[2] that I

loved Christ so much above myself that there was no pain that might be

suffered like to that sorrow that I had to [see] Him in pain.

"When He was in pain, we were in pain"

Here I saw a part of the compassion of our Lady, Saint Mary: for

Christ and she were so oned in love that the greatness of her loving

was cause of the greatness of her pain. For in this [Shewing] I saw a

Substance of Nature's[1] Love, continued by Grace, that creatures have

to Him: which Kind Love was most fully shewed in His sweet Mother, and

overpassing; for so much as she loved Him more than all other, her

pains passed all other. For ever the higher, the mightier, the sweeter

that the love be, the more sorrow it is to the lover to see that body

in pain that is loved.

And all His disciples and all His true lovers suffered pains more than

their own bodily dying. For I am sure by mine own feeling that the

least of them loved Him so far above himself that it passeth all that I

can say.

Here saw I a great oneing betwixt Christ and us, to mine understanding:

for when He was in pain, we were in pain.

And all creatures that ought suffer pain, suffered with Him: that is to

say, all creatures that God hath made to our service. The firmament,

the earth, failed for sorrow in their Nature in the time of Christ's

dying. For it belongeth naturally to their property to know Him for

their God, in whom all their virtue standeth: when He failed, then

behoved it needs to them, because of kindness [between them], to fail

with Him, as much as they might, for sorrow of His pains.

And thus they that were His friends suffered pain for love. And,

generally, _all_: that is to say, they that knew Him not suffered

for failing of all manner of comfort save the mighty, privy keeping

of God. I speak of two manner of folk, as they may be understood by

two persons: the one was Pilate, the other was Saint Dionyse[2] of

France, which was [at] that time a Paynim. For when he saw wondrous

and marvellous sorrows and dreads that befell in that time, he said:

_Either the world is now at an end, or He that is Maker of Kind

suffereth._ Wherefore he did write on an altar: THIS IS THE ALTAR

OF UNKNOWN GOD. God that of His goodness maketh the planets and the

elements to work of Kind to the blessed man and the cursed, in that

time made withdrawing[3] of it from both; wherefore it was that they

that knew Him not were in sorrow that time.

Thus was our Lord Jesus made-naught for us; and all we stand in this

manner made-naught with Him, and shall do till we come to His bliss; as

I shall tell after.

"Thus was I learned to choose Jesus for my Heaven, whom I saw only in

pain at that time"

In this [time] I would have looked up from the Cross, but I durst not.

For I wist well that while I beheld in the Cross I was surely-safe;

therefore I would not assent to put my soul in peril: for away from the

Cross was no sureness, for frighting of fiends.

Then had I a proffer in my reason,[1] as if it had been friendly said

to me: _Look up to Heaven to His Father_. And then saw I well, with

the faith that I felt, that there was nothing betwixt the Cross and

Heaven that might have harmed me. Either me behoved to look up or else

to answer. I answered inwardly with all the might of my soul, and said:

_Nay; I may not: for Thou art my Heaven._ This I said for that I would

not. For I would liever have been in that pain till Doomsday than to

come to Heaven otherwise than by Him. For I wist well that He that

bound me so sore, He should unbind me when that He would. Thus was I

learned to choose Jesus to my Heaven, whom I saw only in pain at that

time: meliked no other Heaven than Jesus, which shall be my bliss when

I come there.

And this hath ever been a comfort to me, that I chose Jesus to my

Heaven, by His grace, in all this time of Passion and sorrow; and that

hath been a learning to me that I should evermore do so: choose only

Jesus to my Heaven in weal and woe.

And though I as a wretched creature had repented me (I said afore if I

had wist what pain it would be, I had been loth to have prayed), here

saw I truly that it was reluctance and frailty of the flesh without

assent of the soul: to which God assigneth no blame. Repenting and

willing choice be two contraries which I felt both in one at that time.

And these be [of our] two parts: the one outward, the other inward. The

outward part is our deadly flesh-hood, which is now in pain and woe,

and shall be, in this life: whereof I felt much in this time; and that

part it was that repented. The inward part is an high, blissful life,

which is all in peace and in love: and this was more inwardly felt; and

this part is [that] in which mightily, wisely and with steadfast will I

chose Jesus to my Heaven.

And in this I saw verily that the inward part is master and sovereign

to the outward, and doth not charge itself with, nor take heed to, the

will of that: but all the intent and will is set to be oned unto our

Lord Jesus. That the outward part should draw the inward to assent

was not shewed to me; but that the inward draweth the outward by

grace, and both shall be oned in bliss without end, by the virtue of

Christ,--_this_ was shewed.

"For every man's sin that shall be saved He suffered, and every man's

sorrow and desolation He saw, and sorrowed for Kinship and Love"

And thus I saw our Lord Jesus languoring long time. For the oneing with

the Godhead gave strength to the manhood for love to suffer more than

all men might suffer: I mean not only more pain than all men might

suffer, but also that He suffered more pain than all men of salvation

that ever were from the first beginning unto the last day might tell or

fully think, having regard to the worthiness of the highest worshipful

King and the shameful, despised, painful death. For He that is highest

and worthiest was most fully made-nought and most utterly despised.

For the highest point that may be seen in the Passion is to think and

know what He is that suffered. And in this [Shewing] He brought in part

to mind the height and nobleness of the glorious Godhead, and therewith

the preciousness and the tenderness of the blessed Body, which be

together united; and also the lothness that is in our Kind to suffer

pain. For as much as He was most tender and pure, right so He was most

strong and mighty to suffer.

And for every man's sin that shall be saved He suffered: and every

man's sorrow and desolation He saw, and sorrowed for Blindness and

love. (For in as much as our Lady sorrowed for His pains, in so much He

suffered sorrow for her sorrow;--and more, in as greatly as the sweet

manhood of Him was worthier in Kind.) For as long as He was passible

He suffered for us and sorrowed _for_ us; and now He is uprisen and no

more passible, yet He suffereth _with_ us.

And I, beholding all this by His grace, saw that the Love of Him was so

strong which He hath to our soul that willingly He chose it with great

desire, and mildly He suffered it with well-pleasing.

For the soul that beholdeth it thus, when it is touched by grace, it

shall verily see that the pains of Christ's Passion pass all pains:

[all pains] that is to say, which shall be turned into everlasting,

o'erpassing joys by the virtue of Christ's Passion.

"We be now with Him in His Pains and His Passion, dying. We shall be

with Him in Heaven. Through learning in this little pain that we suffer

here, we shall have an high endless knowledge of God which we could

never have without that"

It is God's will, as to mine understanding, that we have Three[1]

Manners of Beholding His blessed Passion. The First is: _the hard Pain

that He suffered_,--[beholding it] with contrition and compassion. And

that shewed our Lord in this time, and gave me strength and grace to

see it.

And I looked for the departing with all my might, and thought to have

seen the body all dead; but I saw Him not so. And right in the same

time that methought, by the seeming, the life might no longer last and

the Shewing of the end behoved needs to be,--suddenly (I beholding in

the same Cross), He changed [the look of] His blessed Countenance.[2]

The changing of His blessed Countenance changed mine, and I was as glad

and merry as it was possible. Then brought our Lord merrily to my mind:

_Where is now any point of the pain, or of thy grief?_ And I was full

merry.

I understood that we be now, in our Lord's meaning, in His Cross with

Him in His pains and His Passion, dying; and we, willingly abiding

in the same Cross with His help and His grace unto the last point,

suddenly He shall change His Cheer to us, and we shall be with Him in

Heaven. Betwixt that one and that other shall be no time, and then

shall all be brought to joy. And thus said He in this Shewing: _Where

is now any point of thy pain, or thy grief?_ And we shall be full

blessed.

And here saw I verily that if He shewed now [to] us His _Blissful_

Cheer, there is no pain in earth or in other place that should aggrieve

us; but all things should be to us joy and bliss. But because He

sheweth to us time of His Passion, as He bare it in _this_ life, and

His Cross, therefore we are in distress and travail, with Him, as our

frailty asketh. And the cause why He suffereth [it to be so,] is for

[that] He will of His goodness make us the higher with Him in His

bliss; and for this little pain that we suffer here, we shall have an

high endless knowing in God which we could[3] never have without that.

And the harder our pains have been with Him in His Cross, the more

shall our worship[4] be with Him in His Kingdom.

_THE NINTH REVELATION_

"The Love that made Him to suffer passeth so far all His Pains as

Heaven is above Earth"

Then said our good Lord Jesus Christ: _Art thou well pleased that I

suffered for thee?_ I said: _Yea, good Lord, I thank Thee; Yea, good

Lord, blessed mayst Thou be._ Then said Jesus, our kind Lord: _If thou

art pleased, I am pleased: it is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying

to me that ever suffered I Passion for thee; and if I might suffer

more, I would suffer more._

In this feeling my understanding was lifted up into Heaven, and there I

saw three heavens: of which sight I marvelled greatly. And though I see

three heavens--and all in the blessed manhood of Christ--none is more,

none is less, none is higher, none is lower, but [they are] even-like

in bliss.

For the First Heaven, Christ shewed me His Father; in no bodily

likeness, but in His property and in His working. That is to say, I saw

in Christ that the Father is. The working of the Father is this, that

He giveth meed to His Son Jesus Christ. This gift and this meed is so

blissful to Jesus that His Father might have given Him no meed that

might have pleased Him better. The first heaven, that is the pleasing

of the Father, shewed to me as one heaven; and it was full blissful:

for He is full pleased with all the deeds that Jesus hath done about

our salvation. Wherefore we be not only His by His buying, but also by

the courteous gift of His Father we be His bliss, we be His meed, we

be His worship, we be His crown. (And this was a singular marvel and a

full delectable beholding, that we be His crown!) This that I say is so

great bliss to Jesus that He setteth at nought all His travail, and His

hard Passion, and His cruel and shameful death.

And in these words: _If that I might suffer more, I would suffer

more_,--I saw in truth that as often as He _might_ die, so often He

_would_, and love should never let Him have rest till He had done it.

And I beheld with great diligence for to learn how often He would die

if He might. And verily the number passed mine understanding and my

wits so far that my reason might not, nor could, comprehend it. And

when He had thus oft died, or should, yet He would set it at nought,

for love: for all seemeth[1] Him but little in regard of His love.

For though the sweet manhood of Christ might suffer but once, the

goodness in Him may never cease of proffer: every day He is ready to

the same, if it might be. For if He said He would for my love make new

Heavens and new Earth, it were but little in comparison;[2] for this

might be done every day if He would, without any travail. But to die

for my love so often that the number passeth creature's reason, it is

the highest proffer that our Lord God might make to man's soul, as to

my sight. Then meaneth He thus: _How should it not be that I should not

do for thy love all that I might of deeds which grieve me not, sith

I would, for thy love, die so often, having no regard[3] to my hard

pains?_

And here saw I, for the Second[4] Beholding in this blessed Passion

_the love that made Him to suffer passeth as far all His pains as

Heaven is above Earth._ For the pains was a noble, worshipful deed done

in a time by the working of love: but[5] Love was without beginning,

is, and shall be without ending. For which love He said full sweetly

these words: _If I might suffer more, I would suffer more._ He said

not, _If it were needful to suffer more:_ for though it were not

needful, if He _might_ suffer more, He would.

This deed, and this work about our salvation, was ordained as well as

God might ordain it. And here I saw a Full Bliss in Christ: for His

bliss should not have been full, if it might any better have been done.

comparison with].

force of "but."

"The Glad Giver" "All the Trinity wrought in the Passion of Jesus

Christ"

And in these three words: _It is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying

to me_, were shewed three heavens, as thus: For the joy, I understood

the pleasure of the Father; and for the bliss, the worship of the

Son; and for the endless satisfying,[1] the Holy Ghost. The Father is

pleased, the Son is worshipped, the Holy Ghost is satisfied.[2]

And here saw I, for the Third Beholding in His blissful Passion: that

is to say, _the Joy and the Bliss that make Him to be well-satisfied

in it._ For our Courteous Lord shewed His Passion to me in five

manners: of which the first is the bleeding of the head; the second

is, discolouring of His face; the third is, the plenteous bleeding of

the body, in seeming [as] from the scourging; the fourth is, the deep

dying:--these four are aforetold for the pains of the Passion. And

the fifth is [this] that was shewed for the joy and the bliss of the

Passion.

For it is God's will that we have true enjoying with Him in our

salvation, and therein He willeth [that] we be mightily comforted and

strengthened; and thus willeth He that merrily with His grace our soul

be occupied. For we are His bliss: for in us He enjoyeth without end;

and so shall we in Him, with His grace.

And all that He hath done for us, and doeth, and ever shall, was never

cost nor charge to Him, nor might be, but only that [which] He did in

our manhood, beginning at the sweet Incarnation and lasting to the

Blessed Uprise on Easter-morrow:[3] so long dured the cost and the

charge about our redemption in _deed_: of [the] which deed He enjoyeth

endlessly, as it is aforesaid.

Jesus willeth that we take heed to the bliss that is in the blessed

Trinity [because] of our salvation and that _we_ desire to have as much

spiritual enjoying, with His grace, (as it is aforesaid): that is to

say, that the enjoying of our salvation be [as] like to the joy that

Christ hath of our salvation as it may be while we are here.

All the Trinity wrought in the Passion of Christ, ministering abundance

of virtues and plenty of grace to us by Him: but only the Maiden's Son

suffered: whereof all the blessed Trinity endlessly enjoyeth. All this

was shewed in these words: _Art thou well pleased?_--and by that other

word that Christ said: _If thou art pleased, then am I pleased;_--as if

He said: _It is joy and satisfying enough to me, and I ask nought else

of thee for my travail but that I might well please thee_.

And in this He brought to mind the property of a glad giver. A glad

giver taketh but little heed of the thing that he giveth, but all his

desire and all his intent is to please him and solace him to whom he

giveth it. And if the receiver take the gift highly and thankfully,

then the courteous giver setteth at nought all his cost and all his

travail, for joy and delight that he hath pleased and solaced him that

he loveth. Plenteously and fully was this shewed.

Think also wisely of the greatness of this word "_ever_." For in it

was shewed an high knowing of love[4] that _He_ hath in our salvation,

with manifold joys that follow of the Passion of Christ. One is that He

rejoiceth that He hath done it in deed, and He shall no more suffer;

another, that He bought us from endless pains of hell.

_THE TENTH REVELATION_

"Our Lord looked unto His [wounded] Side, and beheld, rejoicing....

_Lo! how I loved thee_"

Then with a glad cheer our Lord looked unto His Side and beheld,

rejoicing. With His sweet looking He led forth the understanding of His

creature by the same wound into His Side within. And then he shewed a

fair, delectable place, and large enough for all mankind that shall be

saved to rest in peace and in love.[1] And therewith He brought to mind

His dearworthy blood and precious water which he let pour all out for

love. And with the sweet beholding He shewed His blessed heart even

cloven in two.

And with this sweet enjoying, He shewed unto mine understanding,

in part, _the blessed Godhead_, stirring then the poor soul[2] to

understand, as it may be said, that is, to think on,[3] the _endless_

Love that was without beginning, and is, and shall be ever. And with

this our good Lord said full blissfully: _Lo, how that I loved thee,_

as if He had said: _My darling, behold and see thy Lord, thy God that

is thy Maker and thine endless joy, see what satisfying and bliss I

have in thy salvation; and for my love rejoice [thou] with me._

And also, for more understanding, this blessed word was said: _Lo,

how I loved thee! Behold and see that I loved thee so much ere I died

for thee that I would die for thee; and now I have died for thee and

suffered willingly that which I may. And now is all my bitter pain and

all my hard travail turned to endless joy and bliss to me and to thee.

How should it now be that thou shouldst anything pray that pleaseth me

but that I should full gladly grant it thee? For my pleasing is thy

holiness and thine endless joy and bliss with me._

This is the understanding, simply as I can say it, of this blessed

word: _Lo, how I loved thee._ This shewed our good Lord for to make us

glad and merry.

endless heavens"; "He hath, beclosed in Him, all heavens and all joy

and bliss."

_THE ELEVENTH REVELATION_

"I wot well that thou wouldst see my blessed Mother...." "Wilt thou see

in her how thou art loved?"

And with this same cheer of mirth and joy our good Lord looked down

on the right side and brought to my mind where our Lady stood in the

time of His Passion; and said: _Wilt thou see her?_ And in this sweet

word [it was] as if He had said: _I wot well that thou wouldst see

my blessed Mother: for, after myself, she is the highest joy that I

might shew thee, and most pleasance and worship to me; and most she

is desired to be seen of my blessed creatures._ And for the high,

marvellous, singular love that He hath to this sweet Maiden, His

blessed Mother, our Lady Saint Mary, He shewed her highly rejoicing, as

by the meaning of these sweet words; as if He said: _Wilt thou see how

I love her, that thou mightest joy with me in the love that I have in

her and she in me?_

And also (unto more understanding this sweet word) our Lord speaketh to

all mankind that shall be saved, as it were all to one person, as if He

said: _Wilt thou see in her how thou art loved? For thy love I made her

so high, so noble and so worthy; and this pleaseth me, and so will I

that it doeth thee._

For after Himself she is the most blissful sight.

But hereof am I not learned to long to see her bodily presence while I

am here, but the virtues of her blessed soul: her truth, her wisdom,

her charity; whereby I may learn to know myself and reverently dread my

God. And when our good Lord had shewed this and said this word: _Wilt

thou see her?_ I answered and said: _Yea, good Lord, I thank Thee; yea,

good Lord, if it be Thy will._ Oftentimes I prayed this, and I weened

to have seen her in bodily presence, but I saw her not so. And Jesus in

that word shewed me ghostly sight of her: right as I had seen her afore

little and simple, so He shewed her then high and noble and glorious,

and pleasing to Him above all creatures.

And He willeth that it be known; that [so] all those that please them

in Him should please them in her, and in the pleasance that He hath

in her and she in Him.[1] And, to more understanding, He shewed this

example: _As if a man love a creature singularly, above all creatures,_

he willeth to make all creatures to love and to have pleasance in that

creature that he loveth so greatly. And in this word that Jesus said:

_Wilt thou see her?_ methought it was the most pleasing word that He

might have given me of her, with that ghostly Shewing that He gave me

of her. For our Lord shewed me nothing in special but our Lady Saint

Mary; and her He shewed three times.[2] The first was as she was with

Child; the second was as she was in her sorrows under the Cross; the

third is as she is now in pleasing, worship, and joy.

lyken in hir and in the lykyng that he hath in hir and she in him."

_THE TWELFTH REVELATION_

"It is I, it is I"

And after this our Lord shewed Himself more glorified, as to my sight,

than I saw Him before [in the Shewing] wherein I was learned that our

soul shall never have rest till it cometh to Him, knowing that He is

fulness of joy, homely and courteous, blissful and very life.

Our Lord Jesus oftentimes said: _I it am, I it am: I it am that is

highest, I it am that thou lovest, I it am that thou enjoyest, I it

am that thou servest, I it am that thou longest for, I it am that thou

desirest, I it am that thou meanest, I it am that is all. I it am that

Holy Church preacheth and teacheth thee, I it am that shewed me here to

thee._ The number of the words passeth my wit and all my understanding

and all my powers. And they are the highest, as to my sight: for

therein is comprehended--I cannot tell,--but the joy that I saw in

the Shewing of them passeth all that heart may wish for and soul may

desire. Therefore the words be not declared here; but every man after

the grace that God giveth him in understanding and loving, receive them

in our Lord's meaning.

_THE THIRTEENTH REVELATION_

"Often I wondered why by the great foreseeing wisdom of God the

beginning of sin was not hindered: for then, methought, all should have

been well." "Sin is behovable--[playeth a needful part]--; but all

shall be well"

After this the Lord brought to my mind the longing that I had to Him

afore. And I saw that nothing letted me but sin. And so I looked,

generally, upon us all, and methought: _If sin had not been, we should

all have been clean and like to our Lord, as He made us._

And thus, in my folly, afore this time often I wondered why by the

great foreseeing wisdom of God the beginning of sin was not letted: for

then, methought, all should have been well. This stirring [of mind]

was much to be forsaken, but nevertheless mourning and sorrow I made

therefor, without reason and discretion.

But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is needful to

me, answered by this word and said: _It behoved that there should be

sin;[1] but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of

thing shall be well._

In this naked word _sin_, our Lord brought to my mind, generally, _all

that is not good_, and the shameful despite and the utter noughting[2]

that He bare for us in this life, and His dying; and all the pains

and passions of all His creatures, ghostly and bodily; (for we be all

partly noughted, and we shall be noughted following our Master, Jesus,

till we be full purged, that is to say, till we be fully noughted of

our deadly flesh and of all our inward affections which are not very

good;) and the beholding of this, with all pains that ever were or ever

shall be,--and with all these I understand the Passion of Christ for

most pain, and overpassing. All this was shewed in a touch and quickly

passed over into comfort: for our good Lord would not that the soul

were affeared of this terrible sight.

But I saw not _sin_: for I believe it hath no manner of substance nor

no part of being, nor could it be known but by the pain it is cause of.

And thus[3] pain, _it_ is something, as to my sight, for a time; for

it purgeth, and maketh us to know ourselves and to ask mercy. For the

Passion of our Lord is comfort to us against all this, and so is His

blessed will. And for the tender love that our good Lord hath to all

that shall be saved, He comforteth readily and sweetly, signifying

thus: _It is sooth[4] that sin is cause of all this pain; but all shall

be well, and all shall be well, and all manner [of] thing shall be

well._

These words were said full tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me

nor to any that shall be saved. Then were it a great unkindness[5] to

blame or wonder on God for my sin, since He blameth not me for sin.

And in these words I saw a marvellous high mystery hid in God, which

mystery He shall openly make known to us in Heaven: in which knowing we

shall verily see the cause why He suffered sin to come. In which sight

we shall endlessly joy in our Lord God.[6]

manner of thyng shal be wele."

Augustine:--"All things that exist, therefore, seeing that the Creator

of them all is supremely good, are themselves good. But because they

are not like their Creator, supremely and unchangeably good, their good

may be diminished and increased. But for good to be diminished is an

evil, although, however much it may be diminished, it is necessary, if

the being is to continue, that some good should remain to constitute

the being. For however small or of whatever kind the being may be, the

good which makes it a being cannot be destroyed without destroying the

being itself.... So long as a being is in process of corruption, there

is in it some good of which it is being deprived; and if a part of the

being should remain which cannot be corrupted, this will certainly

be an incorruptible being, and accordingly the process of corruption

will result in the manifestation of this great good. But if it do

not cease to be corrupted, neither can it cease to possess good of

which corruption may deprive it. But if it should be thoroughly and

completely consumed by corruption, there will then be no good left,

because there will be no being. Wherefore corruption can consume the

good only by consuming the being. Every being, therefore, is a good; a

great good, if it cannot be corrupted; a little good, if it can: but in

any case, only the foolish or ignorant will deny that it is a good. And

if it be wholly consumed by corruption, then the corruption itself must

cease to exist, as there is no being left in which it can dwell."

Chap. x. "By the Trinity, thus supremely and equally and unchangeably

good, all things were created; and these are not supremely and equally

and unchangeably good, but yet they are good, even taken separately.

Taken as a whole, however, they are very good, because their _ensemble_

constitutes the universe in all its wonderful order and beauty."--_The

Works of Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo_, (Edited by the Rev.

Marcus Dods, D.D.), vol. ix.

"Each brotherly compassion that man hath on his fellow Christians, with

charity, it is Christ in him"

Thus I saw how Christ hath compassion on us for the cause of sin.

And right as I was afore in the [Shewing of the] Passion of Christ

fulfilled with pain and compassion, like so in this [sight] I was

fulfilled, in part, with compassion of all mine even-Christians--for

that well, well beloved people that shall be saved. For God's servants,

Holy Church, shall be shaken in sorrow and anguish, tribulation in this

world, as men shake a cloth in the wind.

And as to this our Lord answered in this manner: _A great thing shall I

make hereof in Heaven of endless worship and everlasting joys._

Yea, so far forth I saw, that our Lord joyeth of the tribulations of

His servants, with ruth and compassion. On each person that He loveth,

to His bliss for to bring [them], He layeth something that is no blame

in His sight, whereby they are blamed and despised in this world,

scorned, mocked,[1] and outcasted. And this He doeth for to hinder the

harm that they should take from the pomp and the vain-glory of this

wretched life, and make their way ready to come to Heaven, and up-raise

them in His bliss everlasting. For He saith: _I shall wholly break you

of your vain affections and your vicious pride; and after that I shall

together gather you, and make you mild and meek, clean and holy, by

oneing to me._

And then I saw that each kind compassion that man hath on his

even-Christians with charity, it is Christ in him.

That same noughting that was shewed in His Passion, it was shewed again

here in this Compassion. Wherein were two manner of understandings

in our Lord's meaning. The one was the bliss that we are brought to,

wherein He willeth that we rejoice. The other is for comfort in our

pain: for He willeth that we perceive that it shall all be turned to

worship and profit by virtue of His passion, that we perceive that

we suffer not alone but with Him, and see Him to be our Ground, and

that we see His pains and His noughting passeth so far all that we may

suffer, that it may not be fully thought.

The beholding of this will save us from murmuring[2] and despair in the

feeling of our pains. And if we see soothly that our sin deserveth it,

yet His love excuseth us, and of His great courtesy He doeth away all

our blame, and beholdeth us with ruth and pity as children innocent and

unloathful.

& dispisyd in thys world, scornyd" (a word like "rapyd"--probably

"mokyd," as in S. de Cressy) "& outcasten."

"How could all be well, for the great harm that is come by sin to the

creature?"

But in this I stood beholding things general, troublously and mourning,

saying thus to our Lord in my meaning, with full great dread: _Ah! good

Lord, how might all be well, for the great hurt that is come, by sin,

to the creature?_ And here I desired, as far as I durst, to have some

more open declaring wherewith I might be eased in this matter.

And to this our blessed Lord answered full meekly and with full lovely

cheer, and shewed that Adam's sin was the most harm that ever was

done, or ever shall be, to the world's end; and also He shewed that

this [sin] is openly known in all Holy Church on earth. Furthermore

He taught that I should behold the glorious Satisfaction[1]: for this

Amends-making[2] is more pleasing to God and more worshipful, without

comparison, than ever was the sin of Adam harmful. Then signifieth our

blessed Lord thus in this teaching, that we should take heed to this:

_For since I have made well the most harm, then it is my will that thou

know thereby that I shall make well all that is less._

"Two parts of Truth: the part that is open: our Saviour and our

salvation;--and the part that is hid and shut up from us: all beside

our salvation"

He gave me understanding of two parts [of truth]. The one part is our

Saviour and our salvation. This blessed part is open and clear and fair

and light, and plenteous,--for all mankind that is of good will, and

shall be, is comprehended in this part. Hereto are we bounden of God,

and drawn and counselled and taught inwardly by the Holy Ghost and

outwardly by Holy Church in the same grace. In this willeth our Lord

that we be occupied, joying in Him; for He enjoyeth in us. The more

plenteously that we take of this, with reverence and meekness, the more

thanks we earn of Him and the more speed[1] to ourselves, thus--may we

say--enjoying _our_ part of our Lord. The other [part] is hid and shut

up from us: that is to say, all that is beside our salvation. For it is

our Lord's privy counsel, and it belongeth to the royal lordship of God

to have His privy counsel in peace, and it belongeth to His servant,

for obedience and reverence, not to learn[2] wholly His counsel. Our

Lord hath pity and compassion on us for that some creatures make

themselves so busy therein; and I am sure if we knew how much we should

please Him and ease ourselves by leaving it, we would. The saints that

be in Heaven, they will to know nothing but that which our Lord willeth

to shew them: and also their charity and their desire is ruled after

the will of our Lord: and thus ought we to will, like to them. Then

shall we nothing will nor desire but the will of our Lord, as they do:

for we are all one in God's seeing.

And here was I learned that we shall trust and rejoice only in our

Saviour, blessed Jesus, for all thing.

in pece, and it longyth to his servant for obedience and reverens not

to wel wetyn his counselye."

"The Spiritual Thirst (which was in Him from without beginning) is

desire in Him as long as we be in need, drawing us up to His Bliss"

And thus our good Lord answered to all the questions and doubts that I

might make, saying full comfortably: _I may make all thing well, I can

make all thing well, I will make all thing well, and I shall make all

thing well; and thou shalt see thyself that all manner of thing shall

be well._

In that He saith, _I may_, I understand [it] for the Father; and in

that He saith, _I can_, I understand [it] for the Son; and where He

saith, _I will_, I understand [it] for the Holy Ghost; and where He

saith, _I shall_, I understand [it] for the unity of the blessed

Trinity: three Persons and one Truth; and where He saith, _Thou shalt

see thyself_, I understand the oneing of all mankind that shall be

saved unto the blessed Trinity. And in these five words God willeth we

be enclosed in rest and in peace.

Thus shall the Spiritual Thirst of Christ have an end. For this is the

Spiritual Thirst of Christ: the love-longing that lasteth, and ever

shall, till we see that sight on Doomsday. For we that shall be saved

and shall be Christ's joy and His bliss, some be yet here and some be

to come, and so shall some be, unto that day. Therefore this is His

thirst and love-longing, to have us altogether whole in Him, to His

bliss,--as to my sight. For we be not now as fully whole in Him as we

shall be then.

For we know in our Faith, and also it was shewed in all [the

Revelations] that Christ Jesus is both God and man. And anent the

Godhead, He is Himself highest bliss, and was, from without beginning,

and shall be, without end: which endless bliss may never be heightened

nor lowered in itself. For this was plenteously seen in every Shewing,

and specially in the Twelfth, where He saith: _I am that [which] is

highest_. And anent Christ's Manhood, it is known in our Faith, and

also [it was] shewed, that He, with the virtue of Godhead, for love, to

bring us to His bliss suffered pains and passions, and died. And these

be the works of Christ's Manhood wherein He rejoiceth; and that shewed

He in the Ninth Revelation, where He saith: _It is a joy and bliss and

endless pleasing to me that ever I suffered Passion for thee._ And

this is the bliss of Christ's _works_, and thus he signifieth where He

saith in that same Shewing: we be His bliss, we be His meed, we be His

worship, we be His crown.

For anent that Christ is our Head, He is glorified and impassible; and

anent His Body in which all His members are knit, He is not yet fully

glorified nor all impassible. Therefore the same desire and thirst

that He had upon the Cross (which desire, longing, and thirst, as to

my sight, was in Him from without beginning) the same hath He yet, and

shall [have] unto the time that the last soul that shall be saved is

come up to His bliss.

For as verily as there is a property in God of ruth and pity, so verily

there is a property in God of thirst and longing. (And of the virtue of

this longing in Christ, _we_ have to long again to Him: without which

no soul cometh to Heaven.) And this property of longing and thirst

cometh of the endless Goodness of God, even as the property of pity

cometh of His endless Goodness. And though longing and pity are two

sundry properties, as to my sight, in this standeth the point of the

Spiritual Thirst: which is _desire in Him as long as we be in need_,

drawing us up to His bliss. And all this was seen in the Shewing of

Compassion: for that shall cease on Doomsday.

Thus He hath ruth and compassion on us, and He hath longing to have us;

but His wisdom and His love suffereth not the end to come till the best

time.

"There be deeds evil done in our sight, and so great harms taken, that

it seemeth to us that it were impossible that ever it should come to

good end." "That Great Deed ordained ... by which our Lord God shall

make all things well"

One time our good Lord said: _All thing shall be well_; and another

time he said: _Thou shalt see thyself that all_ MANNER _[of] thing

shall be well_; and in these two [sayings] the soul took sundry

understandings.

One was that He willeth we know that not only He taketh heed to noble

things and to great, but also to little and to small, to low and to

simple, to one and to other. And so meaneth He in that He saith: ALL

MANNER OF THINGS _shall be well_. For He willeth we know that the least

thing shall not be forgotten.

Another understanding is this, that there be deeds evil done in our

sight, and so great harms taken, that it seemeth to us that it were

impossible that ever it should come to good end. And upon this we look,

sorrowing and mourning therefor, so that we cannot resign us unto the

blissful beholding of God as we should do. And the cause of this is

that the use of our reason is now so blind, so low, and so simple, that

we cannot know that high marvellous Wisdom, the Might and the Goodness

of the blissful Trinity. And thus signifieth He when He saith: THOU

SHALT SEE THYSELF _if[1] all manner of things shall be well_. As if He

said: _Take now heed faithfully and trustingly, and at the last end

thou shalt verily see it in fulness of joy_.

And thus in these same five words aforesaid: _I may make all things

well_, etc., I understand a mighty comfort of all the works of our Lord

God that are yet to come. There is a Deed the which the blessed Trinity

shall do in the last Day, as to my sight, and when the Deed shall be,

and how it shall be done, is unknown of all creatures that are beneath

Christ, and shall be till when it is done.

["The Goodness and the Love of our Lord God will that we wit [know]

that it shall be; And the Might and the Wisdom of him by the same Love

will hill [conceal] it, and hide it from us what it shall be, and how

it shall be done."][2]

And the cause why He willeth that we know [this Deed shall be], is for

that He would have us the more eased in our soul and [the more] set at

peace in love[3]--leaving the beholding of all troublous things that

might keep us back from true enjoying of Him. This is that Great Deed

ordained of our Lord God from without beginning, treasured and hid in

His blessed breast, only known to Himself: by which He shall make all

things well.

For like as the blissful Trinity made all things of nought, right so

the same blessed Trinity shall make well all that is not well.

And in this sight I marvelled greatly and beheld our Faith, marvelling

thus: Our Faith is grounded in God's word, and it belongeth to our

Faith that we believe that God's word shall be saved in all things;

and one point of our Faith is that many creatures shall be condemned:

as angels that fell out of Heaven for pride, which be now fiends; and

man[4] in earth that dieth out of the Faith of Holy Church: that is

to say, they that be heathen men; and also man[5] that hath received

Christendom and liveth unchristian life and so dieth out of charity:

all these shall be condemned to hell without end, as Holy Church

teacheth me to believe. And all this [so] standing,[6] methought it was

impossible that all manner of things should be well, as our Lord shewed

in the same time.

And as to this I had no other answer in Shewing of our Lord God but

this: _That which is impossible to thee is not impossible to me: I

shall save my word in all things and I shall make all things well._

Thus I was taught, by the grace of God, that I should steadfastly hold

me in the Faith as I had aforehand understood, [and] therewith that I

should firmly believe that all things shall be well, as our Lord shewed

in the same time.

For this is the Great Deed that our Lord shall do, in which Deed He

shall save His word and He shall make all well that is not well. How it

shall be done there is no creature beneath Christ that knoweth it, nor

shall know it till it is done; according to the understanding that I

took of our Lord's meaning in this time.

letten us of trew enjoyeng in hym." S. de Cressy: "let us of true

enjoying in him."

"It is God's will that we have great regard to all His deeds that He

hath done, but evermore it needeth us to leave the beholding what the

Deed shall be"

And yet in this I desired, as [far] as I durst, that I might have full

sight of Hell and Purgatory. But it was not my meaning to make proof of

anything that belongeth to the Faith: for I believed soothfastly that

Hell and Purgatory is for the same end that Holy Church teacheth, but

my meaning was that I might have seen, for learning in all things that

belong to my Faith: whereby I might live the more to God's worship and

to my profit.

But for [all] my desire, I could[1] [see] of this right nought, save

as it is aforesaid in the First Shewing, where I saw that the devil is

reproved of God and endlessly condemned. In which sight I understood

as to all creatures that are of the devil's condition in this life,

and therein end, that there is no more mention made of them afore God

and all His Holy than of the devil,--notwithstanding that they be of

mankind--whether they be christened or not.

For though the Revelation was made of goodness in which was made

little mention of evil, yet I was not drawn thereby from any point

of the Faith that Holy Church teacheth me to believe. For I had

sight of the Passion of Christ in diverse Shewings,--the First, the

Second, the Fifth, and the Eighth,--wherein I had in part a feeling

of the sorrow of our Lady, and of His true friends that saw Him in

pain; but I saw not so properly specified the Jews that did Him to

death. Notwithstanding I knew in my Faith that they were accursed and

condemned without end, saving those that converted, by grace. And I

was strengthened and taught generally to keep me in the Faith in every

point, and in all as I had before understood: hoping that I was therein

with the mercy and the grace of God; desiring and praying in my purpose

that I might continue therein unto my life's end.

And it is God's will that we have great regard to all His deeds that

He hath done, but evermore it needeth us to leave the beholding what

the Deed shall be. And let us desire to be like our brethren which

be saints in Heaven, that will right nought but God's will and are

well pleased both with hiding and with shewing. For I saw soothly in

our Lord's teaching, the more we busy us to know His secret counsels

in this or any other thing, the farther shall we be from the knowing

thereof.

"All that is speedful for us to learn and to know, full courteously

will our Lord shew us"

Our Lord God shewed two manner of secret things. One is this great

Secret [Counsel] with all the privy points that belong thereto: and

these secret things He willeth we should know [as _being_, but as]

_hid_ until the time that He will clearly shew them to us. The other

are the secret things that He willeth to make open and known to us; for

He would have us understand that it is His will that we should know

them. They are secrets to us not only for that He willeth that they

be secrets to us, but they are secrets to us for our blindness and

our ignorance; and thereof He hath great ruth, and therefore He will

Himself make them more open to us, whereby we may know Him and love

Him and cleave to Him. For all that is speedful for us to learn and to

know, full courteously will our Lord shew us: and [of] that is this

[Shewing], with all the preaching and teaching of Holy Church.

God shewed full great pleasance that He hath in all men and women that

mightily and meekly and with all their will take the preaching and

teaching of Holy Church. For it is His Holy Church: He is the Ground,

He is the Substance, He is the Teaching, He is the Teacher, He is the

End, He is the Meed for which every kind soul travaileth.

And _this_ [of the Shewing] is [made] known, and shall be known to

every soul to which the Holy Ghost declareth it. And I hope truly that

all those that seek this, He shall speed: for they seek God.

All this that I have now told, and more that I shall tell after, is

comforting against sin. For in the Third Shewing when I saw that God

doeth all that is done, I saw no sin: and then I saw that all _is_

well. But when God shewed me for sin, then said He: _All_ SHALL _be

well_.

"I desired to learn assuredly as to a certain creature that I loved....

It is more worship to God to behold Him in _all_ than in any special

thing"

And when God Almighty had shewed so plenteously and joyfully of His

Goodness, I desired to learn assuredly as to a certain creature that

I loved, if it should continue in good living, which I hoped by the

grace of God was begun. And in this desire for a _singular_ Shewing,

it seemed that I hindered myself: for I was not taught in this time.

And then was I answered in my reason, as it were by a friendly

intervenor[1]: _Take it_ GENERALLY, _and behold the graciousness of the

Lord God as He sheweth to thee: for it is more worship to God to behold

Him in all than in any special thing_. And therewith I learned that

it is more worship to God to know all-thing in general, than to take

pleasure in any special thing. And if I should do wisely according to

this teaching, I should not only be glad for nothing in special, but

I should not be greatly distressed for no manner of thing[2]: for ALL

_shall be well_. For the fulness of joy is to behold God in _all_: for

by the same blessed Might, Wisdom, and Love, that He made all-thing, to

the same end our good Lord leadeth it continually, and thereto Himself

shall bring it; and when it is time we shall see it. And the ground

of this was shewed in the First [Revelation], and more openly in the

Third, where it saith: _I saw God in a point_.

All that our Lord doeth is rightful, and that which He suffereth[3] is

worshipful: and in these two is comprehended good and ill: for all that

is good our Lord doeth, and that which is evil our Lord suffereth. I

say not that any evil is worshipful, but I say the sufferance of our

Lord God is worshipful: whereby His Goodness shall be known, without

end, in His marvellous meekness and mildness, by the working of mercy

and grace.

_Rightfulness_ is that thing that is so good that [it] may not be

better than it is. For God Himself is very Rightfulness, and all His

works are done rightfully as they are ordained from without beginning

by His high Might, His high Wisdom, His high Goodness. And right as He

ordained unto the best, right so He worketh continually, and leadeth

it to the same end; and He is ever full-pleased with Himself and with

all His works. And the beholding of this blissful accord is full

sweet to the soul that seeth by grace. All the souls that shall be

saved in Heaven without end be made rightful in the sight of God, and

by His own goodness: in which rightfulness we are endlessly kept, and

marvellously, above all creatures.

And _Mercy_ is a working that cometh of the goodness of God, and it

shall last in working all along, as sin is suffered to pursue rightful

souls. And when sin hath no longer leave to pursue, then shall the

working of mercy cease, and then shall all be brought to rightfulness

and therein stand without end.

And by His sufferance we fall; and in His blissful Love with His Might

and His Wisdom we are kept; and by mercy and grace we are raised to

manifold more joys.

Thus in Rightfulness and Mercy He willeth to be known and loved, now

and without end. And the soul that wisely beholdeth it in grace, it is

well pleased with both, and endlessly enjoyeth.

compare chaps. xix., lv.

"My sin shall not hinder His Goodness working.... A deed shall be

done--as we come to Heaven--and it may be known here in part;--though

it be truly taken for the general Man, yet it excludeth not the

special. For what our good Lord will do by His poor creatures, it is

now unknown to me"

Our Lord God shewed that a deed shall be done, and Himself shall do

it, and I shall do nothing but sin, and my sin shall not hinder[1] His

Goodness working. And I saw that the beholding of this is a heavenly

joy in a fearing soul which evermore kindly by grace desireth God's

will. This deed shall be begun here, and it shall be worshipful to God

and plenteously profitable to His lovers in earth; and ever as we come

to Heaven we shall see it in marvellous joy, and it shall last thus in

working unto the last Day; and the worship and the bliss of it shall

last in Heaven afore God and all His Holy [ones] for ever.

Thus was this deed seen and understood in our Lord's signifying: and

the cause why He shewed it is to make us rejoice in Him and in all

His works. When I saw His Shewing continued, I understood that it

was shewed for a great thing that was for to come, which thing God

shewed that He Himself should do it: which deed hath these properties

aforesaid. And this shewed He well blissfully, signifying that I should

take it myself faithfully and trustingly.

But what this deed should be was kept secret from me.

And in this I saw that He willeth not that we dread to know the things

that He sheweth: He sheweth them because He would have us know them; by

which knowing He would have us love Him and have pleasure and endlessly

enjoy in Him. For the great love that He hath to us He sheweth us all

that is worshipful and profitable for the time. And the things that He

will now have privy, yet of His great goodness He sheweth them _close_:

in which shewing He willeth that we believe and understand that we

shall see the same verily in His endless bliss. Then ought we to

rejoice in Him for all that He sheweth and all that He hideth; and if

we steadily[2] and meekly do thus, we shall find therein great ease;

and endless thanks we shall have of Him therefor.

And this is the understanding of this word:--That it shall be done for

me, meaneth that it shall be done for the general Man: that is to say,

all that shall be saved. It shall be worshipful and marvellous and

plenteous, and God Himself shall do it; and this shall be the highest

joy that may be, to behold the deed that God Himself shall do, and man

shall do right nought but sin. Then signifieth our Lord God thus, as

if He said: _Behold and see! Here hast thou matter of meekness, here

hast thou matter of love, here hast thou matter to make nought of[3]

thyself, here hast thou matter to enjoy in me;--and, for my love, enjoy

[thou] in me: for of all things, therewith mightest thou please me

most_.

And as long as we are in this life, what time that we by our folly turn

us to the beholding of the reproved, tenderly our Lord God toucheth us

and blissfully calleth us, saying in our soul: _Let be all thy love, my

dearworthy child: turn thee to me--I am enough to thee--and enjoy in

thy Saviour and in thy salvation_. And that this is our Lord's working

in us, I am sure the soul that hath understanding[4] therein by grace

shall see it and feel it.

And though it be so that this deed be truly taken for the general Man,

yet it excludeth not the special. For what our good Lord will do by His

poor creatures, it is now unknown to me.

But this deed and that other aforesaid, they are not both one but two

sundry. This deed shall be done sooner (and that [time] shall be as we

come to Heaven), and to whom our Lord giveth it, it may be known here

in part. But that Great Deed aforesaid shall neither be known in Heaven

nor earth till it is done.

And moreover He gave special understanding and teaching of working of

miracles, as thus:--_It is known that I have done miracles here afore,

many and diverse, high and marvellous, worshipful and great. And so as

I have done, I do now continually, and shall do in coming of time_.

It is known that afore miracles come sorrow and anguish and

tribulation[5]; and that is for that we should know our own feebleness

and our mischiefs that we are fallen in by sin, to meeken us and make

us to dread God and cry for help and grace. Miracles come after that,

and they come of the high Might, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, shewing

His virtue and the joys of Heaven so far at it may be in this passing

life: and that to strengthen our faith and to increase our hope, in

charity. Wherefore it pleaseth Him to be known and worshipped in

miracles. Then signifieth He thus: He willeth that we be not borne over

low for sorrow and tempests that fall to us: for it hath ever so been

afore miracle-coming.

has perception.

"In every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented

to sin, nor ever shall."--"For failing of Love on our part, therefore

is all our travail"

God brought to my mind that I should sin. And for pleasance that I had

in beholding of Him, I attended not readily to that shewing; and our

Lord full mercifully abode, and gave me grace to attend. And this

shewing I took singularly to myself; but by all the gracious comfort

that followeth, as ye shall see, I was learned to take it for all mine

even-Christians: _all in general and nothing in special_: though our

Lord shewed me that I should sin, by me alone is understood all.

And therein I conceived a soft dread. And to this our Lord answered:

_I keep thee full surely_. This word was said with more love and

secureness and spiritual keeping than I can or may tell. For as it

was shewed that [I][1] should sin, right so was the comfort shewed:

secureness and keeping for all mine even-Christians.

What may make me more to love mine even-Christians than to see in God

that He loveth all that shall be saved as it were all one soul?

For in every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never

assented to sin, nor ever shall. Right as there is a beastly will in

the lower part that may will no good, right so there is a Godly Will in

the higher part, which will is so good that it may never will evil, but

ever good. And therefore we are that which He loveth and endlessly we

do that which Him pleaseth.

This shewed our Lord in [shewing] the wholeness of love that we stand

in, in His sight: yea, that He loveth us now as well while we are here,

as He shall do while we are there afore His blessed face. But for

failing of love on our part, therefore is all our travail.

above: "that I should sin."

In Heaven "the token of sin is turned to worship."--_Examples thereof_

Also God shewed that sin shall be no shame to man, but worship. For

right as to every sin is answering a pain by truth, right so for every

sin, to the same soul is given a bliss by love: right as diverse sins

are punished with diverse pains according as they be grievous, right so

shall they be rewarded with diverse joys in Heaven according as they

have been painful and sorrowful to the soul in earth. For the soul that

shall come to Heaven is precious to God, and the place so worshipful

that the goodness of God suffereth never that soul to sin that shall

come there without that the which sin shall be rewarded; and it is made

known without end, and blissfully restored by overpassing worship.

For in this Sight mine understanding was lifted up into Heaven, and

then God brought merrily to my mind David, and others in the Old Law

without number; and in the New Law He brought to my mind first Mary

Magdalene, Peter and Paul, and those of Inde;[1] and Saint John of

Beverley[2]; and others also without number: how they are known in the

Church in earth with their sins, and it is to them no shame, but all is

turned for them to worship. And therefore our courteous Lord sheweth

[it thus] for them here in part like as it is there in fulness: for

there the token of sin is turned to worship.

And Saint John of Beverley, our Lord shewed him full highly, in

comfort to us for homeliness; and brought to my mind how he is a dear

neighbour,[3] and of our knowing. And God called him _Saint John of

Beverley_ plainly as we do, and that with a most glad sweet cheer,

shewing that he is a full high saint in Heaven in His sight, and a

blissful. And with this he made mention that in his youth and in his

tender age he was a dearworthy servant to God, greatly God loving and

dreading, and yet God suffered him to fall, mercifully keeping him that

he perished not, nor lost no time. And afterward God raised him to

manifold more grace, and by the contrition and meekness that he had in

his living, God hath given him in Heaven manifold joys, overpassing

that [which] he should have had if he had not fallen. And that this is

sooth, God sheweth in earth with plenteous miracles doing about his

body continually.

And all this was to make us glad and merry in love.

carried to India by these Apostles.

and was afterwards Archbishop of York. "He founded the monastery of

Beverley in the midst of the wood called Deira, among the ruins of the

deserted Roman settlement of Pentuaria. This monastery, like so many

others of the Anglo-Saxons, was a double community of monks and nuns.

In 718 John retired for the remaining years of his life to Beverley,

where he died in 721 on the 7th of May.... He was canonised in 1037.

Henschenius the Bollandist, in the second tome of May, has published

books of the miracles wrought at the relicks of St John of Beverley

written by eye-witnesses. His sacred bones were honourably translated

into the church of Alfric, Archbishop of York, in 1037. A feast in

honour of his translation was kept on the 25th of October."--Alban

Butler's _Lives of the Saints_, etc.

Perhaps the fact that the Saint's original Feast Day of the 7th of

May occurred on the second day of Julian's illness, had something to

do with his being brought to her mind a few days after with so much

vividness.

knowyng"--_i.e._ he was a countryman of our own. "hende" = near,

urbane, gentle.

"Sin is the sharpest scourge.... By contrition we are made clean, by

compassion we are made ready, and by true longing towards God we are

made worthy"

Sin is the sharpest scourge that any chosen soul may be smitten with:

which scourge thoroughly beateth[1] man and woman, and maketh him

hateful in his own sight, so far forth that afterwhile[2] he thinketh

himself he is not worthy but as to sink in hell,--till [that time] when

contrition taketh him by touching of the Holy Ghost, and turneth the

bitterness into hopes of God's mercy. And then He beginneth his wounds

to heal, and the soul to quicken [as it is] turned unto the life of

Holy Church. The Holy Ghost leadeth him to confession, with all his

will to shew his sins nakedly and truly, with great sorrow and great

shame that he hath defouled the fair image of God. Then receiveth he

penance for every sin [as] enjoined by his doomsman[3] that is grounded

in Holy Church by the teaching of the Holy Ghost. And this is one

meekness that greatly pleaseth God; and also bodily sickness of God's

sending, and also sorrow and shame from without, and reproof, and

despite of this world, with all manner of grievance and temptations

that we be cast in,[4] bodily and ghostly.

Full preciously our Lord keepeth us when it seemeth to us that we are

near forsaken and cast away for our sin and because we have deserved

it. And because of meekness that we get hereby, we are raised well-high

in God's sight by His grace, with so great contrition, and also

compassion, and true longing to God. Then they be suddenly delivered

from sin and from pain, and taken up to bliss, and made even high

saints.

By contrition we are made clean, by compassion we are made ready, and

by true longing toward God we are made worthy. These are three means,

as I understand, whereby that all souls come to heaven: that is to say,

that have been sinners in earth and shall be saved: for by these three

medicines it behoveth that every soul be healed. Though the soul be

healed, his wounds are seen afore God,--not as wounds but as worships.

And so on the contrary-wise, as we be punished here with sorrow and

penance, we shall be rewarded in heaven by the courteous love of our

Lord God Almighty, who willeth that none that come there lose his

travail in any degree. For He [be]holdeth sin as sorrow and pain to

His lovers, to whom He assigneth no blame, for love. The meed that we

shall receive shall not be little, but it shall be high, glorious, and

worshipful. And so shall shame be turned to worship and more joy.

But our courteous Lord willeth not that His servants despair, for often

nor for grievous falling: for our falling hindereth[5] not Him to love

us. Peace and love are ever in us, being and working; but we be not

alway in peace and in love. But He willeth that we take heed thus that

He is Ground of all our whole life in love; and furthermore that He is

our everlasting Keeper and mightily defendeth us against our enemies,

that be full fell and fierce upon us;--and so much our need is the more

for [that] we give them occasion by our falling.[6]

have "him," not "hem" = them. The reading here might be: "For we give

_Him_ occasion by our failing"--occasion to keep and defend us: and so

in lxxviii.: "He keepeth us mightily and mercifully in the time that

we are in our sin and among all our enemies that are full fell upon

us;--and so much we are in the more peril. For we give Him occasion

thereto and know not our own need." Or possibly the sense is (1): He

defendeth us "so much [as] our need is the more" [so much more as]; and

(2) "so much [more as] we are in the more peril." But S. de Cressy's

version has in both passages "them," and this reading agrees with chap.

lxxvi.: "We have this [fear] by the stirring of our enemy and by our

own folly and blindness"--we who "fall often into sin."

"True love teacheth us that we should hate sin only for love." "To me

was shewed no harder hell than sin." "God willeth that we endlessly

hate the sin and endlessly love the soul, as God loveth it"

This is a sovereign friendship of our courteous Lord that He keepeth

us so tenderly while we be in sin; and furthermore He toucheth us

full privily and sheweth us our sin by the sweet light of mercy and

grace. But when we see our self so foul, then ween we that God were

wroth with us for our sin, and then are we stirred of the Holy Ghost

by contrition unto prayer and desire for the amending of our life with

all our mights, to slacken the wrath of God, unto the time we find a

rest in soul and a softness in conscience. Then hope we that God hath

forgiven us our sins: and it is truth. And then sheweth our courteous

Lord Himself to the soul--well-merrily and with glad cheer--with

friendly welcoming as if it[1] had been in pain and in prison, saying

sweetly thus: _My darling I am glad thou art come to me: in all thy

wo I have ever been with thee; and now seest thou my loving and we be

oned in bliss_. Thus are sins forgiven by mercy and grace, and our soul

is worshipfully received in joy like as it shall be when it cometh to

Heaven, as oftentimes as it cometh by the gracious working of the Holy

Ghost and the virtue of Christ's Passion.

Here understand I in truth that all manner of things are made ready

for us by the great goodness of God, so far forth that what time we be

ourselves in peace and charity, we be verily saved. But because we may

not have this in fulness while we are here, therefore it falleth to

us evermore to live in sweet prayer and lovely longing with our Lord

Jesus. For He longeth ever to bring us to the fulness of joy; as it is

aforesaid, where He sheweth the Spiritual Thirst.

But now if any man or woman because of all this spiritual comfort that

is aforesaid, be stirred by folly to say or to think: _If this be true,

then were it good to sin [so as] to have the more meed_,--or else to

charge the less [guilt] to sin,--beware of this stirring: for verily

if it come it is untrue, and of the enemy of the same true love that

teacheth us that we should hate sin only for love. I am sure by mine

own feeling, the more that any kind[2] soul seeth this in the courteous

love of our Lord God, the lother he is to sin and the more he is

ashamed. For if afore us were laid [together] all the pains in Hell and

in Purgatory and in Earth--death and other--, and [by itself] sin, we

should rather choose all that pain than sin. For sin is so vile and so

greatly to be hated that it may be likened to no pain which is not sin.

And to me was shewed no harder hell than sin. For a kind[3] soul hath

no hell but sin.

And [when] we give our intent to love and meekness, by the working of

mercy and grace we are made all fair and clean. As mighty and as wise

as God is to save men, so willing He is. For Christ Himself is [the]

ground of all the laws of Christian men, and He taught us to do good

against ill: here may we see that He is Himself this charity, and doeth

to us as He teacheth us to do. For He willeth that we be like Him in

wholeness of endless love to ourself and to our even-Christians: no

more than His love is broken to us for our sin, no more willeth He that

our love be broken to ourself and to our even-Christians: but [that we]

endlessly hate the sin and endlessly love the soul, as God loveth it.

Then shall we hate sin like as God hateth it, and love the soul as God

loveth it. And this word that He said is an endless comfort: _I keep

thee securely_.

_THE FOURTEENTH REVELATION._

"_I am the Ground of thy beseeching._" "Also to prayer belongeth

thanking"

After this our Lord shewed concerning Prayer. In which Shewing I see

two conditions in our Lord's signifying: one is rightfulness, another

is sure trust.

But yet oftentimes our trust is not full: for we are not sure that God

heareth us, as we think because of our unworthiness, and because we

feel right nought, (for we are as barren and dry oftentimes after our

prayers as we were afore); and this, in our feeling our folly, is cause

of our weakness.[1] For thus have I felt in myself.

And all this brought our Lord suddenly to my mind, and shewed these

words, and said: _I am Ground of thy beseeching: first it is my will

that thou have it; and after, I make thee to will it; and after, I make

thee to beseech it and thou beseechest it. How should it then be that

thou shouldst not have thy beseeching?_

And thus in the first reason, with the three that follow, our good Lord

sheweth a mighty comfort, as it may be seen in the same words. And in

the first reason,--where He saith: _And thou beseechest it_, there He

sheweth [His] full great pleasance, and endless meed that He will give

us for our beseeching. And in the second reason, where He saith: _How

should it then be?_ etc., this was said for an impossible [thing].

For it is most impossible that we should beseech mercy and grace, and

not have it. For everything that our good Lord maketh us to beseech,

Himself hath ordained it to us from without beginning. Here may we see

that our beseeching is not cause of God's goodness; and that shewed

He soothfastly in all these sweet words when He saith: _I am [the]

Ground_.--And our good Lord willeth that this be known of His lovers in

earth; and the more that we know [it] the more should we beseech, if it

be wisely taken; and so is our Lord's meaning.

Beseeching is a true, gracious, lasting will of the soul, oned and

fastened into the will of our Lord by the sweet inward work of the

Holy Ghost. Our Lord Himself, He is the first receiver of our prayer,

as to my sight, and taketh it full thankfully and highly enjoying; and

He sendeth it up above and setteth it in the Treasure, where it shall

never perish. It is there afore God with all His Holy continually

received, ever speeding [the help of] our needs; and when we shall

receive our bliss it shall be given us for a degree of joy, with

endless worshipful thanking from[2] Him.

Full glad and merry is our Lord of our prayer; and He looketh

thereafter and He willeth to have it because with His grace He maketh

us like to Himself in condition as we are in kind: and so is His

blissful will. Therefore He saith thus: _Pray inwardly,[3] though thee

thinketh it savour thee not: for it is profitable, though thou feel

not, though thou see nought; yea, though thou think thou canst not.

For in dryness and in barrenness, in sickness and in feebleness, then

is thy prayer well-pleasant to me, though thee thinketh it savour thee

nought but little. And so is all thy believing prayer in my sight._ For

the meed and the endless thanks that He will give us, _therefor_ He is

covetous to have us pray continually in His sight. God accepteth the

goodwill and the travail of His servant, howsoever we feel: wherefore

it pleaseth Him that we work both in our prayers and in good living,

by His help and His grace, reasonably with discretion keeping our

powers[4] [turned] to Him, till when that we have Him that we seek, in

fulness of joy: that is, Jesus. And that shewed He in the Fifteenth

[Revelation], farther on, in this word: _Thou shalt have me to thy

meed_.

And also to prayer belongeth thanking. Thanking is a true inward

knowing, with great reverence and lovely dread turning ourselves

with all our mights unto the working that our good Lord stirreth us

to, enjoying and thanking inwardly. And sometimes, for plenteousness

it breaketh out with voice, and saith: _Good Lord, I thank Thee![5]

Blessed mayst Thou be!_ And sometime when the heart is dry and feeleth

not, or else by temptation of our enemy,--then it is driven by reason

and by grace to cry upon our Lord with voice, rehearing His blessed

Passion and His great Goodness; and the virtue of our Lord's word

turneth into the soul and quickeneth the heart and entereth[6] it by

His grace into true working, and maketh it pray right blissfully. And

truly to enjoy our Lord, it is a full blissful thanking in His sight.

S. de Cressy: "And thus in our feelings our folly is cause of our

weakness."

"Prayer is a right understanding of that fulness of joy that is to

come, with accordant longing and sure trust"

Our Lord God willeth that we have true understanding, and specially

in three things that belong to our prayer. The first is: _by whom and

how that our prayer springeth. By whom_, He sheweth when He saith:

_I am [the] Ground_; and _how_, by His Goodness: for He saith first:

_It is my will._ The second is: _in what manner and how we should

use our prayer_; and that is that our will be turned unto the will

of our Lord, enjoying: and so meaneth He when He saith: _I make thee

to will it_. The third is that we should know _the fruit and the end

of our prayers_: that is, that we be oned and like to our Lord in

all things; and to this intent and for this end was all this lovely

lesson shewed. And He will help us, and we shall make it so as He saith

Himself;--Blessed may He be!

For this is our Lord's will, that our prayer and our trust be both

alike large. For if we trust not as much as we pray, we do not full

worship to our Lord in our prayer, and also we tarry[1] and pain our

self. The cause is, as I believe, that we know not truly that our Lord

is [the] Ground on whom our prayer springeth; and also that we know not

that it is given us by the grace of His love. For if we knew this, it

would make us to trust to have, of our Lord's gift, all that we desire.

For I am sure that no man asketh mercy and grace with true meaning, but

if mercy and grace be first given to him.

But sometimes it cometh to our mind that we have prayed long time, and

yet we think to ourselves that we have not our asking. But herefor

should we not be in heaviness. For I am sure, by our Lord's signifying,

that either we abide a better time, or more grace, or a better gift. He

willeth that we have true knowing in Himself that He is Being; and in

this knowing He willeth that our understanding be grounded, with all

our mights and all our intent and all our meaning; and in this ground

He willeth that we take our place and our dwelling, and by the gracious

light of Himself He willeth that we have understanding of the things

that follow. The first is our noble and excellent making; the second,

our precious and dearworthy again-buying; the third, all-thing that

He hath made beneath us, [He hath made] to serve us, and for our love

keepeth it. Then signifieth He thus, as if He said: _Behold and see

that I have done all this before thy prayers; and now thou art, and

prayest me_. And thus He signifieth that it belongeth to us to learn

that the greatest deeds be [already] done, as Holy Church teacheth; and

in the beholding of this, with thanking, we ought to pray for the deed

that is now in doing: and that is, that He rule and guide us, to His

worship, in this life, and bring us to His bliss. And therefor He hath

done all.

Then signifieth He thus: that we [should] see that He doeth it, and

that we [should] pray therefor. For the one is not enough. For if we

pray and see not that He doeth it, it maketh us heavy and doubtful; and

that is not His worship. And if we see that He doeth, and we pray not,

we do not our debt, and so may it not be: that is to say, so is it not

[the thing that is] in His beholding. But to see that He doeth it, and

to pray forthwithal,--so is he worshipped and we sped. All-thing that

our Lord hath ordained to do, it is His will that we pray therefor,

either in special or in general. And the joy and the bliss that it is

to Him, and the thanks and the worship that we shall have therefor, it

passeth the understanding of creatures, as to my sight.

For prayer is a right[2] understanding of that fulness of joy that is

to come, with well-longing and sure trust. Failing of our bliss that we

be kindly ordained to, maketh us to long; true understanding and love,

with sweet mind in our Saviour, graciously maketh us to trust. And in

these two workings our Lord beholdeth us continually[3]: for it is our

due part, and His Goodness may no less assign to us.

Thus it belongeth to us to do our diligence; and when we have done it,

then shall us yet think that [it] is nought,--and sooth it is. But

if we do as we can, and ask, in truth, for mercy and grace, all that

faileth us we shall find in Him. And thus signifieth He where He saith:

_I am Ground of thy beseeching_. And thus in this blessed word, with

the Shewing, I saw a full overcoming against all our weakness and all

our doubtful dreads.

continually.' See above: "so is it not in His beholding," and chap.

xliii. "for He beholdeth us in love and would make us partners of His

good deed."

"Prayer uniteth the soul to God"

Prayer oneth the soul to God. For though the soul be ever like to

God in kind and substance, restored by grace, it is often unlike in

condition, by sin on man's part. Then is prayer a witness that the soul

willeth as God willeth; and it comforteth the conscience and enableth

man to grace. And thus He teacheth us to pray, and mightily to trust

that we shall have it. For He beholdeth us in love and would make us

partners of His good deed, and therefore He stirreth us to pray for

that which it pleaseth him to do. For which prayer and good will, that

we have of His gift, He will reward us and give us endless meed.

And this was shewed in this word: _And thou beseechest it_. In this

word God shewed so great pleasance and so great content, as though He

were much beholden to us for every good deed that we do (and yet it

is _He_ that doeth it) because that we beseech Him mightily to do all

things that seem to Him good: as if He said: _What might then please me

more than to beseech me, mightily, wisely, and earnestly, to do that

thing that I shall do?_

And thus the soul by prayer accordeth to God.

But when our courteous Lord of His grace sheweth Himself to our soul,

we have that [which] we desire. And then we see not, for the time,

what we should more pray, but all our intent with all our might is

set wholly to the beholding of Him. And this is an high unperceivable

prayer, as to my sight: for all the cause wherefor we pray it, is oned

into the sight and beholding of Him to whom we pray; marvellously

enjoying with reverent dread, and with so great sweetness and delight

in Him that we can pray right nought but as He stirreth us, for the

time. And well I wot, the more the soul seeth of God, the more it

desireth Him by His grace.

But when we see Him not so, then feel we need and cause to pray,

because of failing, for enabling of our self, to Jesus. For when the

soul is tempested, troubled, and left to itself by unrest, then it is

time to pray, for to make itself pliable and obedient[1] to God. (But

the soul by no manner of prayer maketh God pliant to it: for He is ever

alike in love.)

And this I saw: that what time we see needs wherefor we pray, then

our _good Lord followeth us_, helping our desire; and when we of His

special grace plainly behold Him, seeing none other needs, then _we

follow Him_ and He draweth us unto Him by love. For I saw and felt that

His marvellous and plentiful Goodness fulfilleth all our powers; and

therewith I saw that His continuant working in all manner of things is

done so goodly, so wisely, and so mightily, that it overpasseth all our

imagining, and all that we can ween and think; and then we can do no

more but behold Him, enjoying, with an high, mighty desire to be all

oned unto Him,--centred to His dwelling,--and enjoy in His loving and

delight in His goodness.

And then shall we, with His sweet grace, in our own meek continuant

prayer come unto Him now in this life by many privy touchings of sweet

spiritual sights and feeling, measured to us as our simpleness may bear

it. And this is wrought, and shall be, by the grace of the Holy Ghost,

so long till we shall die in longing, for love. And then shall we all

come into our Lord, our Self clearly knowing, and God fully having;

and we shall endlessly be all had in God: Him verily seeing and fully

feeling, Him spiritually hearing, and Him delectably in-breathing, and

[of] Him sweetly drinking.[2]

And then shall we see God face to face, homely and fully. The creature

that is made shall see and endlessly behold God which is the Maker.

For thus may no man see God and live after, that is to say, in this

deadly life. But when He of His special grace will shew Himself here,

He strengtheneth the creature above its self, and He measureth the

Shewing, after His own will, as it is profitable for the time.

on all the five sense-perceptions as symbols. For the last word S.

de Cressy gives again the word "smelling" (rendered here, above, by

"in-breathing"). Collins reads the Brit. Mus. MS. as "following"; but

the word there is "swelowyng" = swallowing.

_ANENT CERTAIN POINTS IN THE FOREGOING FOURTEEN REVELATIONS_

"God is endless, sovereign Truth,--Wisdom,--Love, not-made; and man's

Soul is a creature in God which hath the same properties made"

God shewed in all the Revelations, oftentimes, that man worketh

evermore His will and His worship lastingly without any stinting. And

_what_ this work is, was shewed in the First, and that in a marvellous

example: for it was shewed in the working of the soul of our blissful

Lady, Saint Mary: [that is, the working of] Truth and Wisdom.[1] And

_how_ [it is done] I hope by the grace of the Holy Ghost I shall tell,

as I saw.

Truth seeth God, and Wisdom beholdeth God, and of these two cometh the

third: that is, a holy marvellous[2] delight in God; which is Love.

Where Truth and Wisdom are verily, there is Love verily, coming of

them both. And all of God's making: for He is endless sovereign Truth,

endless sovereign Wisdom, endless sovereign Love, unmade; and man's

Soul is a creature in God which hath the same properties _made_,[3]

and evermore it doeth that it was made for: it seeth God, it beholdeth

God, and it loveth God. Whereof God enjoyeth in the creature; and the

creature in God, endlessly marvelling.

In which marvelling he seeth his God, his Lord, his Maker so high, so

great, and so good, in comparison with him that is made, that scarcely

the creature seemeth ought to the self. But the clarity and the

clearness of Truth and Wisdom maketh him to see and to bear witness[4]

that he is made for Love: in which God endlessly keepeth him.

"All heavenly things and all earthly things that belong to Heaven are

comprehended in these two judgments"

God deemeth us [looking] upon our Nature-Substance, which is ever

kept one in Him, whole and safe without end: and _this_ doom is

[because] of His rightfulness [in the which it is made and kept]. And

man judgeth [looking] upon our changeable Sense-soul, which seemeth

now one [thing], now other,--according as it taketh of the [higher or

lower] parts,--and [is that which] showeth outward. And _this_ wisdom

[of man's judgment] is _mingled_ [because of the diverse things it

beholdeth]. For sometimes it is good and easy, and sometimes it is hard

and grievous. And in as much as it is good and easy it belongeth to the

rightfulness; and in as much as it is hard and grievous [by reason of

the sin beheld, which sheweth in our Sense-soul,] our good Lord Jesus

reformeth it by [the working in our Sense-soul of] mercy and grace

through the virtue of His blessed Passion, and so bringeth it to the

rightfulness.

And though these two [judgments] be thus accorded and oned, yet both

shall be known in Heaven without end. The first doom, which is of

God's rightfulness, is [because] of His high endless life [in our

Substance]; and this is that fair sweet doom that was shewed in all the

fair Revelation, in which I saw Him assign to us no manner of blame.

But though this was sweet and delectable, yet in the beholding only of

this, I could not be fully eased: and that was because of the doom of

Holy Church, which I had afore understood and which was continually

in my sight. And therefore by _this_ doom methought I understood that

sinners are worthy sometime of blame and wrath; but these two could

I not see in God; and therefore my desire was more than I can or may

tell. For the higher doom was shewed by God Himself in that same time,

and therefore me behoved needs to take it; and the lower doom was

learned me afore in Holy Church, and therefore I might in no way leave

the lower doom. Then was this my desire: that I might see in God in

what manner that which the doom of Holy Church teacheth is true in His

sight, and how it belongeth to me verily to know it; whereby the two

dooms might both be saved, so as it were worshipful to God and right

way to me.

And to all this I had none other answer but a marvellous example of a

lord and of a servant, as I shall tell after: and that full mistily

shewed.[1] And yet I stand desiring, and will unto my end, that I might

by grace know these two dooms as it belongeth to me. For all heavenly,

and all earthly things that belong to Heaven, are comprehended in

these two dooms. And the more understanding, by the gracious leading

of the Holy Ghost, that we have of these two dooms, the more we shall

see and know our failings. And ever the more that we see them, the

more, of nature, by grace, we shall long to be fulfilled of endless joy

and bliss. For we are made thereto, and our Nature-Substance is now

blissful in God, and hath been since it was made, and shall be without

end.

"It is needful to see and to know that we are sinners: wherefore we

deserve pain and wrath." "He is God: Good, Life, Truth, Love, Peace:

His Clarity and His Unity suffereth Him not to be wroth"

But our passing life that we have here in our sense-soul knoweth not

what our Self is. [And when we verily and clearly see and know what

our Self is][1] then shall we verily and clearly see and know our Lord

God in fulness of joy. And therefore it behoveth needs to be that the

nearer we be to our bliss, the more we shall long [after it]: and

that both by nature and by grace. We may have knowing of our Self in

this life by continuant help and virtue of our high Nature. In which

knowing we may exercise and grow, by forwarding and speeding of mercy

and grace; but we may never fully know our Self until the last point:

in which point this passing life and manner of pain and woe shall have

an end. And therefore it belongeth properly to us, both by nature and

by grace, to long and desire with all our mights to know our Self in

fulness of endless joy.

And yet in all this time, from the beginning to the end, I had two

manner of beholdings. The one was endless continuant love, with

secureness of keeping, and blissful salvation,--for of this was all

_the Shewing_. The other was of the common teaching of Holy Church, in

which I was afore informed and grounded--and with all my will having in

use and understanding. And the beholding of _this_ went not from me:

for by the Shewing I was not stirred nor led therefrom in no manner

of point, but I had therein teaching to love it and find it good[2]:

whereby I might, by the help of our Lord and His grace, increase and

rise to more heavenly knowing and higher loving.

And thus in all the Beholding methought it was needful to see and to

know that we are sinners, and do many evils that we ought to leave,

and leave many good deeds undone that we ought to do: wherefore we

deserve pain and wrath. And notwithstanding all this, I saw soothfastly

that our Lord was never wroth, nor ever shall be. For He is God: Good,

Life, Truth, Love, Peace; His Clarity[3] and His Unity suffereth Him

not to be wroth. For I saw truly that it is against the property of

His Might to be wroth, and against the property of His Wisdom, and

against the property of His Goodness. God is the Goodness that may not

be wroth, for He is not [other] but Goodness: our soul is oned to Him,

unchangeable Goodness, and between God and our soul is neither wrath

nor forgiveness in His sight. For our soul is so fully oned to God of

His own Goodness that between God and our soul may be right nought.

And to this understanding was the soul led by love and drawn by might

in every Shewing: _that it is thus_ our good Lord shewed, and _how it

is thus in truth of His great Goodness_. And He willeth that we desire

to learn it--that is to say, as far as it belongeth to His creature

to learn it. For all things that the simple soul[4] understood, God

willeth that they be shewed and [made] known. For the things that He

will have privy, mightily and wisely Himself He hideth them, for love.

For I saw in the same Shewing that much privity is hid, which may never

be known until the time that God of His goodness hath made us worthy

to see it; and therewith I am well-content, abiding our Lord's will in

this high marvel. And now I yield me to my Mother, Holy Church, as a

simple child oweth.

of part of this sentence. See lvi., lxxii. The dim sight of God comes

before the dim sight of the Self, but the clear sight of God comes

after the clear sight of the Self.

and His Unity," etc.

xxxii. p. 64.

"We fail oftentimes of the sight of Him, and anon we fall into our

self, and then find we no feeling of right,--nought but contrariness

that is in our self"

Two things belong to our soul as duty: the one is that we reverently

marvel, the other that we meekly suffer, ever enjoying in God. For He

would have us understand that we shall in short time see clearly in

Himself all that we desire.

And notwithstanding all this, I beheld and marvelled greatly: _What

is the mercy and forgiveness of God?_ For by the teaching that I had

afore, I understood that the mercy of God should be the forgiveness of

His wrath after the time that we have sinned. For methought that to a

soul whose meaning and desire is to love, the wrath of God was harder

than any other pain, and therefore I took[1] that the forgiveness of

His wrath should be one of the principal points of His mercy. But

howsoever I might behold and desire, I could in no wise see this point

in all the Shewing.[2]

But how I understood and saw of the work of mercy, I shall tell

somewhat, as God will give me grace. I understood this: Man is

changeable in this life, and by frailty and overcoming falleth into

sin: he is weak and unwise of himself, and also his will is overlaid.

And in this time he is in tempest and in sorrow and woe; and the cause

is blindness: for he seeth not God. For if he saw God continually,

he should have no mischievous feeling, nor any manner of motion or

yearning that serveth to sin.[3]

Thus saw I, and felt in the same time; and methought that the sight and

the feeling was high and plenteous and gracious in comparison with that

which our common feeling is in this life; but yet I thought it was but

small and low in comparison with the great desire that the soul hath to

see God.

For I felt in me five manner of workings, which be these: Enjoying,

mourning, desire, dread, and sure hope. Enjoying: for God gave me

understanding and knowing that it was Himself that I saw; mourning:

and that was for failing; desire: and that was I might see Him ever

more and more, understanding and knowing that we shall never have

full rest till we see Him verily and clearly in heaven; dread was:

for it seemed to me in all that time that that sight should fail, and

I be left to myself; sure hope was in the endless love: that I saw I

should be kept by His mercy and brought to His bliss. And the joying

in His sight with this sure hope of His merciful keeping made me to

have feeling and comfort so that mourning and dread were not greatly

painful. And yet in all this I beheld in the Shewing of God that this

manner of sight may not be continuant in this life,--and that for His

own worship and for increase of our endless joy. And therefore we fail

oftentimes of the sight of Him, and anon we fall into our self, and

then find we no feeling of right,--naught but contrariness that is in

our self; and that of the elder root of our first sin,[4] with all the

sins that follow, of our contrivance. And in this we are in travail and

tempest[5] with feeling of sins, and of pain in many divers manners,

spiritual and bodily, as it is known to us in this life.

first fall of man.

"I beheld the property of Mercy, and I beheld the property of Grace:

which have two manners of working in one love"

But our good Lord the Holy Ghost, which is endless life dwelling in

our soul, full securely keepeth us; and worketh therein a peace and

bringeth it to ease by grace, and accordeth it to God and maketh it

pliant.[1] And this is the mercy and the way that our Lord continually

leadeth us in as long as we be here in this life which is changeable.

For I saw no wrath but on man's part; and that forgiveth He in us.

For wrath is not else but a forwardness and a contrariness to peace

and love; and either it cometh of failing of might, or of failing of

wisdom, or of failing of goodness: which failing is not in God, but is

on our part. For we by sin and wretchedness have in us a wretched and

continuant contrariness to peace and to love. And that shewed He full

often in His lovely Regard of Ruth and Pity.[2] For the ground of mercy

is love, and the working of mercy is our keeping in love. And this was

shewed in such manner that I could[3] not have perceived of the part of

mercy but as it were alone in love; that is to say, as to my sight.

Mercy is a sweet gracious working in love, mingled with plenteous pity:

for mercy worketh in keeping us, and mercy worketh turning to us all

things to good. Mercy, by love, suffereth us to fail in measure and

in as much as we fail, in so much we fall; and in as much as we fall,

in so much we die: for it needs must be that we die in so much as we

fail of the sight and feeling of God that is our life. Our failing is

dreadful, our falling is shameful, and our dying is sorrowful: but in

all this the sweet eye of pity and love is lifted never off us, nor the

working of mercy ceaseth.[4]

For I beheld the property of mercy, and I beheld the property of

grace: which have two manners of working in one love. Mercy is a

pitiful property which belongeth to the Motherhood in tender love; and

grace is a worshipful property which belongeth to the royal Lordship

in the same love. Mercy worketh: keeping, suffering, quickening, and

healing; and all is tenderness of love. And grace worketh: raising,

rewarding, endlessly overpassing that which our longing and our travail

deserveth, spreading abroad and shewing the high plenteous largess[5]

of God's royal Lordship in His marvellous courtesy; and this is of

the abundance of love. For grace worketh our dreadful failing into

plenteous, endless solace; and grace worketh our shameful falling into

high, worshipful rising; and grace worketh our sorrowful dying into

holy, blissful life.

For I saw full surely that ever as our contrariness worketh to us here

in earth pain, shame, and sorrow, right so, on the contrary wise, grace

worketh to us in heaven solace, worship, and bliss; and overpassing.

And so far forth, that when we come up and receive the sweet reward

which grace hath wrought for us, then we shall thank and bless our

Lord, endlessly rejoicing that ever we suffered woe. And that shall be

for a property of blessed love that we shall know in God which we could

never have known without woe going before.

And when I saw all this, it behoved me needs to grant that the mercy of

God and the forgiveness is to slacken and waste _our_ wrath.

ne the werkyng of mercy cesyth not."

"Where our Lord appeareth, peace is taken, and wrath hath no place."

"Immediately is the soul made at one with God when it is truly set at

peace in itself"

For this was an high marvel to the soul which was continually shewed in

all the Revelations, and was with great diligence beholden, that our

Lord God, anent Himself may not forgive, for He may not be wroth: it

were impossible. For this was shewed: that our life is all grounded and

rooted in love, and without love we may not live; and therefore to the

soul that of His special grace seeth so far into the high, marvellous

Goodness of God, and seeth that we are endlessly oned to Him in love,

it is the most impossible that may be, that God should be wroth.

For wrath and friendship be two contraries. For He that wasteth and

destroyeth our wrath and maketh us meek and mild,--it behoveth needs

to be that He [Himself] be ever one in love, meek and mild: which is

contrary to wrath.

For I saw full surely that where our Lord appeareth, peace is taken and

wrath hath no place. For I saw no manner of wrath in God, neither for

short time nor for long;--for in sooth, as to my sight, if God might

be wroth for an instant,[1] we should never have life nor place nor

being. For as verily as we have our being of the endless Might of God

and of the endless Wisdom and of the endless Goodness, so verily we

have our keeping in the endless Might of God, in the endless Wisdom,

and in the endless Goodness. For though we feel in ourselves, [frail]

wretches, debates and strifes, yet are we all-mannerful enclosed in

the mildness of God and in His meekness, in His benignity and in His

graciousness.[2] For I saw full surely that all our endless friendship,

our place, our life and our being, is in God.

For that same endless Goodness that keepeth us when we sin, that we

perish not, the same endless Goodness continually treateth in us a

peace against our wrath and our contrarious falling, and maketh us to

see our need with a true dread, and mightily to seek unto God to have

forgiveness, with a gracious desire of our salvation. And though we, by

the wrath and the contrariness that is in us, be now in tribulation,

distress, and woe, as falleth to our blindness and frailty, yet are we

_securely_ safe by the merciful keeping of God, that we perish not.

But we are not _blissfully_ safe, in having of our endless joy, till

we be all in peace and in love: that is to say, full pleased with God

and with all His works, and with all His judgments, and loving and

peaceable with our self and with our even-Christians and with all that

God loveth, as love beseemeth.[3] And this doeth God's Goodness in us.

Thus saw I that God is our very Peace, and He is our sure Keeper when

we are ourselves in unpeace, and He continually worketh to bring us

into endless peace. And thus when we, by the working of mercy and

grace, be made meek and mild, we are fully safe; suddenly is the soul

oned to God when it is truly peaced in itself: for in Him is found no

wrath. And thus I saw when we are all in peace and in love, we find

no contrariness, nor no manner of letting through that contrariness

which is now in us; [nay], our Lord of His Goodness maketh it to us

full profitable. For that contrariness is cause of our tribulations

and all our woe, and our Lord Jesus taketh them and sendeth them up to

Heaven, and there are they made more sweet and delectable than heart

may think or tongue may tell. And when we come thither we shall find

them ready, all turned into very fair and endless worships. Thus is

God our steadfast Ground: and He shall be our full bliss and make us

unchangeable, as He is, when we are there.

"The blame of our sin continually hangeth upon us." "In the sight of

God the soul that shall be saved was never dead, nor ever shall be dead"

And in this life mercy and forgiveness is our way and evermore leadeth

us to grace. And by the tempest and the sorrow that we fall into on our

part, we be often dead as to man's doom in earth; but in the sight of

God the soul that shall be saved was never dead, nor ever shall be.

But yet here I wondered and marvelled with all the diligence of my

soul, saying thus within me: _Good Lord, I see Thee that art very

Truth; and I know in truth[1] that we sin grievously every day and be

much blameworthy; and I may neither leave the knowing of Thy truth,[2]

nor do I see Thee shew to us any manner of blame. How may this be?_

For I knew by the common teaching of Holy Church and by mine own

feeling, that the blame of our sin continually hangeth upon us, from

the first man unto the time that we come up unto heaven: then was this

my marvel that I saw our Lord God shewing to us no more blame than if

we were as clean and as holy as Angels be in heaven. And between these

two contraries my reason was greatly travailed through my blindness,

and could have no rest for dread that His blessed presence should pass

from my sight and I be left in unknowing [of] how He beholdeth us in

our sin. For either [it] behoved me to see in God that sin was all done

away, or else me behoved to see in God how He seeth it, whereby I might

truly know how it belongeth to me to see sin, and the manner of our

blame. My longing endured, Him continually beholding;--and yet I could

have no patience for great straits[3] and perplexity, thinking: _If I

take it thus that we be no sinners and not blameworthy, it seemeth as I

should err and fail of knowing of this truth[4]; and if it be so that

we be sinners and blameworthy,--Good Lord, how may it then be that I

cannot see this true thing[5] in Thee, which art my God, my Maker, in

whom I desire to see all truths?_[6]

For three points make me hardy to ask it. The first is, because it is

so low a thing: for if it were an high thing I should be a-dread. The

second is, that it is so common: for if it were special and privy, also

I should be a-dread. The third is, that it needeth me to know it (as

methinketh) if I shall live here for knowing of good and evil, whereby

I may, by reason and grace, the more dispart them asunder, and love

goodness and hate evil, as Holy Church teacheth. I cried inwardly,

with all my might seeking unto God for help, saying thus: _Ah! Lord

Jesus, King of bliss, how shall I be eased? Who shall teach me and tell

me that [thing] me needeth to know, if I may not at this time see it in

Thee?_

"He is the Head, and we be His members." "Therefore our Father nor may

nor will more blame assign to us than to His own Son, precious and

worthy Christ"

And then our Courteous Lord answered in shewing full mistily a

wonderful example of a Lord that hath a Servant: and He gave me sight

to my understanding of both. Which sight was shewed doubly in the

Lord and doubly in the Servant: the one part was shewed spiritually

in bodily likeness, and the other part was shewed more spiritually,

without bodily likeness.

For the first [sight], thus, I saw two persons in bodily likeness: that

is to say, a Lord and a Servant; and therewith God gave me spiritual

understanding. The Lord sitteth stately in rest and in peace; the

Servant standeth by afore his Lord reverently, ready to do his Lord's

will. The Lord looketh upon his Servant full lovingly and sweetly, and

meekly he sendeth him to a certain place to do his will. The Servant

not only he goeth, but suddenly he starteth, and runneth in great

haste, for love to do his Lord's will. And anon he falleth into a

slade,[1] and taketh full great hurt. And then he groaneth and moaneth

and waileth and struggleth, but he neither may rise nor help himself by

no manner of way.

And of all this the most mischief[2] that I saw him in, was failing of

comfort: for he could not turn his face to look upon his loving Lord,

which was to him full near,--in Whom is full comfort;--but as a man

that was feeble and unwise for the time, he turned his mind[3] to his

feeling and endured in woe.

In which woe he suffered seven great pains. The first was the sore

bruising that he took in his falling, which was to him feelable pain;

the second was the heaviness of his body; the third was feebleness

following from these two; the fourth, that he was blinded in his reason

and stunned in his mind, so far forth that almost he had forgotten his

own love; the fifth was that he might not rise; the sixth was most

marvellous to me, and that was that he lay all alone: I looked all

about and beheld, and far nor near, high nor low, I saw to him no help;

the seventh was that the place which he lay on was a long, hard, and

grievous [place].

I marvelled how this Servant might meekly suffer there all this woe,

and I beheld with carefulness to learn if I could perceive in him any

fault, or if the Lord should assign to him any blame. And in sooth

there was none seen: for only his goodwill and his great desire was

cause of his falling; and he was unlothful, and as good inwardly as

when he stood afore his Lord, ready to do his will. And right thus

continually his loving Lord full tenderly beholdeth him. But now with

a _double_ manner of Regard: one outward, full meekly and mildly,

with great ruth and pity,--and this was of the first [sight], another

_inward,_ more spiritually,--and this was shewed with a leading of mine

understanding into the Lord, [in the] which I saw Him highly rejoicing

for the worshipful restoring that He will and shall bring His Servant

to by His plenteous grace; and this was of that other shewing.

And now [was] my understanding led again into the first [sight]; both

keeping in mind. Then saith this courteous Lord in his meaning: _Lo,

lo, my loved Servant, what harm and distress he hath taken in my

service for my love,--yea, and for his goodwill. Is it not fitting that

I award him [for] his affright and his dread, his hurt and his maim

and all his woe? And not only this, but falleth it not to me to give

a gift that [shall] be better to him, and more worshipful, than his

own wholeness should have been?--or else methinketh I should do him no

grace._

And in this an inward spiritual Shewing of the Lord's meaning descended

into my soul: in which I saw that it behoveth needs to be, by virtue of

His great [Goodness] and His own worship, that His dearworthy Servant,

which He loved so much, should be verily and blissfully rewarded, above

that he should have been if he had not fallen. Yea, and so far forth,

that his falling and his woe, that he hath taken thereby, shall be

turned into high and overpassing worship and endless bliss.

And at this point the shewing of the example vanished, and our good

Lord led forth mine understanding in sight and in shewing of the

Revelation to the end. But notwithstanding all this forth-leading, the

marvelling over the example went never from me: for methought it was

given me for an answer to my desire, and yet could I not take therein

full understanding to mine ease at that time. For in the Servant that

was shewed for Adam, as I shall tell, I saw many diverse properties

that might in no manner of way be assigned[4] to single Adam. And

thus in that time I stood for much part in unknowing: for the full

understanding of this marvellous example was not given me in that time.

In which mighty example three properties of the Revelation be yet

greatly hid; and notwithstanding this [further forthleading], I saw and

understood that every Shewing is full of secret things [left hid].

And therefore me behoveth now to tell three properties in which I

am somewhat eased. The first is the beginning of teaching that I

understood therein, in the same time; the second is the inward teaching

that I have understood therein afterward; the third, all the whole

Revelation from the beginning to the end (that is to say of this Book)

which our Lord God of His goodness bringeth oftentimes freely to the

sight of mine understanding. And these three are so oned, as to my

understanding, that I cannot, nor may, dispart them. And by these

three, as one, I have teaching whereby I ought to believe and trust in

our Lord God, that of the same goodness of which He shewed it, and for

the same end, right so, of the same goodness and for the same end He

shall declare it to us when it is His will.

For, twenty years after the time of the Shewing, save three months,

I had teaching inwardly, as I shall tell: _It belongeth to thee to

take heed to all the properties and conditions that were shewed in the

example, though thou think that they be misty and indifferent[5] to thy

sight_. I assented willingly, with great desire, and inwardly [beheld]

with heedfulness[6] all the points and properties that were shewed in

the same time, as far forth as my wits and understanding would serve:

beginning my beholding at the Lord and at the Servant, and the manner

of sitting of the Lord, and the place that he sat on, and the colour of

his clothing and the manner of shape, and his countenance without, and

his nobleness and his goodness within; at the manner of standing of the

Servant, and the place where, and how; at his manner of clothing, the

colour and the shape; at his outward having and at his inward goodness

and his unloathfulness.

The Lord that sat stately in rest and in peace, I understood that He is

God. The Servant that stood afore the Lord, I understood that it was

shewed for Adam: that is to say, one man was shewed, that time, and his

falling, to make it thereby understood how God beholdeth All-Man and

his falling. For in the sight of God all man is one man, and one man

is all man. This man was hurt in his might and made full feeble; and

he was stunned in his understanding so that he [was] turned from the

beholding of his Lord. But his will was kept whole in God's sight;--for

his will I saw our Lord commend and approve. But himself was letted and

blinded from the knowing of this will; and this is to him great sorrow

and grievous distress: for neither doth he see clearly his loving Lord,

which is to him full meek and mild, nor doth he see truly what himself

is in the sight of his loving Lord. And well I wot when these two are

wisely and truly seen, we shall get rest and peace here in part, and

the fulness of the bliss of Heaven, by His plenteous grace.

And this was a beginning of teaching which I saw in the same time,

whereby I might come to know in what manner He beholdeth us in our sin.

And then I saw that only Pain blameth and punisheth, and our courteous

Lord comforteth and sorroweth; and ever He is to the soul in glad

Cheer, loving, and longing to bring us to His bliss.

The place that the Lord sat on was simple, on the earth, barren and

desert, alone in wilderness; his clothing was ample and full seemly,

as falleth to a Lord; the colour of his cloth was blue as azure, most

sad and fair, his cheer was merciful; the colour of his face was

fair-brown,--with full seemly features; his eyes were black, most fair

and seemly, shewing [_outward_] full of lovely _pity_, and [shewing],

_within_ him, an high Regard,[7] long and broad, all full of endless

heavens. And the lovely looking wherewith He looked upon His Servant

continually,--and especially in his falling,--methought it might melt

our hearts for love and burst them in two for joy. The fair looking

shewed [itself] of a seemly mingledness which was marvellous to behold:

the one [part] was Ruth and Pity, the other was Joy and Bliss. The

Joy and Bliss passeth as far Ruth and Pity as Heaven is above earth:

the Pity was earthly and the Bliss was heavenly: the Ruth and Pity of

the Father was [in regard] of the falling of Adam, which is His most

loved creature; the Joy and Bliss was [in regard] of His dearworthy

Son, which is even with the Father. The Merciful Beholding of His

Countenance[8] of love fulfilled all earth and descended down with Adam

into hell, with which continuant pity Adam was kept from endless death.

And thus Mercy and Pity dwelleth with mankind unto the time we come up

into Heaven.

But man is blinded in this life and therefore we may not see our

Father, God, as He is. And what time that He of His goodness

willeth to shew Himself to man, He sheweth Himself homely, as man.

Notwithstanding, I reason, in verity[9] we ought to know and believe

that the Father is not man.

But his sitting on the earth barren and desert, is to signify this:--He

made man's soul to be His own City and His dwelling-place: which is

most pleasing to Him of all His works. And what time that man was

fallen into sorrow and pain, he was not all seemly to serve in that

noble office; and therefore our Lord Father would prepare Himself

no other place, but would sit upon the earth abiding mankind, which

is mingled with earth, till what time by His grace His dearworthy

Son had brought again His City into the noble fairness with His hard

travail. The blueness of the clothing betokeneth His steadfastness; the

brownness of his fair face, with the seemly blackness of the eyes, was

most accordant to shew His holy soberness. The length and breadth of

his garments, which were fair, flaming about, betokeneth that He hath,

beclosed in Him, all Heavens, and all Joy and Bliss:[10] and this was

shewed in a touch [of time], where I have said: _Mine understanding

was led into the Lord_; in which [inward shewing] I saw Him highly

_rejoice_ for the worshipful restoring that He will and shall bring His

servant to by His plenteous grace.

And yet I marvelled, beholding the Lord and the Servant aforesaid. I

saw the Lord sit stately, and the Servant standing reverently afore his

Lord. In which Servant there is double understanding, one _without_,

another _within. Outwardly_:--he was clad simply, as a labourer which

were got ready for his toil;[11] and he stood full near the Lord--not

evenly in front[12] of him, but in part to one side, on the left. His

clothing was a white kirtle, single, old, and all defaced, dyed with

sweat of his body, strait-fitting to him, and short--as it were an

handful beneath the knee; [thread]bare, seeming as it should soon be

worn out, ready to be ragged and rent. And of this I marvelled greatly,

thinking: this is now an unseemly clothing for the Servant that is so

greatly loved to stand in afore so worshipful a Lord. And _inwardly_ in

him was shewed a ground of love: which love that he had to the Lord was

even-like[13] to the love that the Lord had to him.

The wisdom of the Servant saw inwardly that there was one thing to

do which should be to the worship of the Lord. And the Servant, for

love, having no regard to himself nor to nothing that might befall

him, hastily he started and ran at the sending of his Lord, to do that

thing which was his will and his worship. For it seemed by his outward

clothing as he had been a continuant labourer of long time, and by the

_inward sight_ that I had both of the Lord and the Servant it seemed

that he was a[14] new [one], that is to say, new beginning to travail:

which Servant was never sent out afore.

There was a treasure in the earth which the Lord loved. I marvelled and

thought what it might be, and I was answered in mine understanding: _It

is a food which is delectable and pleasant to the Lord_. For I saw the

Lord sit as a man, and I saw neither meat nor drink wherewith to serve

him. This was one marvel. Another marvel was that this majestic Lord

had no servant but one, and him he sent out. I beheld, thinking what

manner of labour it might be that the Servant should do. And then I

understood that he should do the greatest labour and hardest travail:

that is, he should be a gardener, delve and dyke, toil and sweat,

and turn the earth upside-down, and seek the deepness, and water the

plants in time. And in this he should continue his travail and make

sweet floods to run, and noble and plenteous fruits to spring, which he

should bring afore the Lord to serve him therewith to his desire. And

he should never turn again till he had prepared this food all ready as

he knew that it pleased the Lord. And then he should take this food,

with the drink in the food, and bear it full worshipfully afore the

Lord. And all this time the Lord should sit in the same place, abiding

his Servant whom he sent out.

And yet I marvelled from whence the Servant came. For I saw in the Lord

that HE hath within Himself endless life, and all manner of goodness,

save that treasure that was in the earth. And [also] _that_ [treasure]

was grounded in the Lord in marvellous deepness of endless love, but

it was not all to His worship till the Servant had thus nobly prepared

it, and brought it before Him in himself present. And without the Lord

was nothing but wilderness. And I understood not all what this example

meant, and therefore I marvelled whence the Servant came.

In the Servant is comprehended the Second Person in the Trinity; and

in the Servant is comprehended Adam: that is to say, All-Man. And

therefore when I say the _Son_, it meaneth the Godhead which is even

with the Father; and when I say the _Servant_, it meaneth Christ's

Manhood, which is rightful Adam. By the nearness of the Servant is

understood the Son, and by the standing on the left side is understood

Adam. The Lord is the Father, God; the Servant is the Son, Christ

Jesus; the Holy Ghost is Even[15] Love which is in them both.

When Adam fell, God's Son fell: because of the rightful oneing which

had been made in heaven, God's Son might not [be disparted] from Adam.

(For by Adam I understand All-Man.) Adam fell from life to death, into

the deep[16] of this wretched world, and after that into hell: God's

Son fell with Adam, into the deep[17] of the Maiden's womb, who was the

fairest daughter of Adam; and for this end: to excuse Adam from blame

in heaven and in earth; and mightily He fetched him out of hell.

By the wisdom and goodness that was in the Servant is understood

God's Son; by the poor clothing as a labourer standing near the left

side, is understood the Manhood and Adam, with all the scathe[18] and

feebleness that followeth. For in all this our good Lord shewed His own

Son and Adam but _one_ Man. The virtue and the goodness that we have is

of Jesus Christ, the feebleness and the blindness that we have is of

Adam: which two were shewed in the Servant.

And thus hath our good Lord Jesus taken upon Him all our blame, and

therefore our Father nor may nor will more blame assign to us than to

His own Son, dearworthy Christ. Thus was He, the Servant, afore His

coming into earth standing ready afore the Father in purpose, till what

time He would send Him to do that worshipful deed by which mankind was

brought again into heaven;--that is to say, notwithstanding that He is

God, even with the Father as anent the Godhead. But in His foreseeing

purpose that He would be Man, to save man in fulfilling of His Father's

will, so He stood afore His Father as a Servant, willingly[19] taking

upon Him all our charge. And then He started full readily at the

Father's will, and anon He fell full low, into the Maiden's womb,

having no regard to Himself nor to His hard pains.

The white kirtle is the flesh; the singleness is that there was right

nought atwix the Godhead and Manhood; the straitness is poverty; the

eld is of Adam's wearing; the defacing, of sweat of Adam's travail; the

shortness sheweth the Servant's labour.

And thus I saw the Son saying in His meaning[20]: _Lo! my dear Father,

I stand before Thee in Adam's kirtle, all ready to start and to run: I

would be in the earth to do Thy worship when it is Thy will to send me.

How long shall I desire?_ Full soothfastly wist the Son when it would

be the Father's will and how long He should desire: that is to say,

[He wist it] anent the Godhead: for He is the Wisdom of the Father;

wherefore this question was shewed with understanding of the _Manhood_

of Christ. For all mankind that shall be saved by the sweet Incarnation

and blissful Passion of Christ, all is the Manhood of Christ: for He

is the Head and we be His members. To which members the day and the

time is unknown when every passing woe and sorrow shall have an end,

and the everlasting joy and bliss shall be fulfilled; which day and

time for to see, all the Company of Heaven longeth. And all that shall

be under heaven that shall come thither, their way is by longing and

desire. Which desire and longing was shewed in the Servant's standing

afore the Lord,--or else thus in the Son's standing afore the Father in

Adam's kirtle. For the longing[21] and desire of all Mankind that shall

be saved appeared in Jesus: for Jesus is All that shall be saved, and

All that shall be saved is Jesus. And all of the Charity of God; with

obedience, meekness, and patience, and virtues that belong to us.

Also in this marvellous example I have teaching with me as it were

the beginning of an A.B.C., whereby I have some understanding of

our Lord's meaning. For the secret things of the Revelation be hid

therein;--notwithstanding that _all_ the Shewings are full of secret

things. The _sitting_ of the Father betokeneth His Godhead: that is

to say, by shewing of rest and peace: for in the Godhead may be no

travail.[22] And that He shewed Himself as _Lord_, betokeneth His

[governance] to our manhood. The _standing_ of the Servant betokeneth

travail; _on one side_, and on the _left_, betokeneth that he was not

all worthy to stand even-right afore the Lord; his _starting_ was the

Godhead, and the _running_ was the Manhood: for the Godhead started

from the Father into the Maiden's womb, falling into the taking of our

Kind. And in this falling he took great sore: the _sore_ that He took

was our flesh, in which He had also swiftly feeling of deadly pains.

That he stood _adread_ before the Lord and not even-right, betokeneth

that His clothing was not seemly[23] to stand in even-right afore the

Lord, nor _that_ might not, nor should not, be His office while He

was a labourer; nor also He might not sit in rest and peace with the

Lord till He had won His peace rightfully with His hard travail; and

that he stood by the _left_ side [betokeneth] that the Father left

His own Son, willingly,[24] in the Manhood to suffer all man's pains,

without sparing of Him. By that _his kirtle was in point to be ragged

and rent_, is understood the blows, the scourgings, the thorns and the

nails, the drawing and the dragging, His tender flesh rending. (As

I saw in some part [before] how the flesh was rent from the skull,

falling in pieces until the time when the bleeding ceased, and then

it began to dry again, cleaving to the bone.) And by the _struggling

and writhing, groaning and moaning,_ is understood that He might never

rise almightily from the time that He was fallen into the Maiden's

womb, till his body was slain and dead, He yielding the soul into the

Father's hands with all Mankind for whom He was sent.

And at this point He began first to shew His might: for He went into

Hell, and when He was there He raised up the great Root out of the deep

deepness which rightfully was knit to Him in high Heaven. The body was

in the grave till Easter-morrow, and from that time He lay nevermore.

For then was rightfully ended the struggling and the writhing, the

groaning and the moaning. And our foul deadly flesh that God's Son

took on Him, which was Adam's old kirtle, strait, [worn]-bare, and

short, was then by our Saviour made fair, new, white and bright and of

endless cleanness; loose and long[25]; fairer and richer than was then

the clothing which [before] I saw on the Father: for that clothing was

blue, but Christ's clothing is [coloured] now of a fair seemly medlour,

which is so marvellous that I can it not describe: for it is all of

very worships.

Now sitteth not the Son on earth in wilderness, but He sitteth in

His noblest Seat, which He made in Heaven most to His pleasing. Now

standeth not the Son afore the Father as a Servant afore the Lord

dreadingly, meanly clad, in part naked; but He standeth afore the

Father even-right, richly clad in blissful largeness, with a Crown

upon His head of precious richness. For it was shewed that _we be His

Crown_: which Crown is the Joy of the Father, the Worship of the Son,

the Satisfying of the Holy Ghost, and endless marvellous Bliss to all

that be in Heaven. Now standeth not the Son afore the Father on the

left side, as a labourer, but He sitteth on His Father's right hand,

in endless rest and peace.[26] (But it is not meant that the Son

sitteth on the right hand, side by side, as one man sitteth by another

in this life,--for there is no such sitting, as to my sight, in the

Trinity,--but He sitteth on His Father's right hand,--that is to say:

in the highest nobleness of the Father's joys.) Now is the Spouse,

God's Son, in peace with His loved Wife, which is the Fair Maiden of

endless Joy. Now sitteth the Son, Very God and Man, in His City in rest

and peace: which [City] His Father hath adight to Him of His endless

purpose; and the Father in the Son; and the Holy Ghost in the Father

and in the Son.

hevyns." Cressy and Collins transcribe this word without explanation,

but give "heavenliness" for "heavens." It seems most likely that "hey"

has been written as if affixed to "ward" (_i.e. "regard," "deeming,"_

or _"reward"_), or else to _"reward,"_ meaning, as usual, _regard_

("Beholding"). See pp. 108 and 113.

If "_an heyward_"--"long and brode all full of endless hevyns,"--were

to be rendered as "an high reward," revealed for the future along

with, though less clearly than, the divine pity for the pains of the

present, reference might be made to Revelation ix. pp. 47, 50: "It is

a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying to me that ever suffered Passion

for thee." ... "In this feeling mine understanding was lifted up into

Heaven: and there I saw three heavens"; and to Rev. x. p. 51: "then

with a glad Cheer our Lord looked into His Side and beheld, rejoicing.

With His sweet looking He led forth the understanding of His creature

by the same wound into His Side within. And then He shewed a fair

delectable place, and large enough for all mankind that shall be saved

to rest in peace and in love."

But "Regard" (scope of true, continuing, divine Sight, Insight,

All-comprehending sight) seems more likely to be the true rendering.

"Long and broad" go strangely with the word, but on p. 113 the _length

and breadth_ of the garments is interpreted immediately after the

colour of the eyes, and is said to betoken that "He hath in Him, all

Heavens, and all Joy and Bliss," and indeed these words but fill out

the idea of the more frequently used "high" to signify the "enclosing"

of "endless heavens:" that Sphere of "fulness" which is infinite.

With this passage may be compared one below, on p. 113: "The Merciful

Beholding of His loving Cheer fulfilled all earth and descended

down with Adam into hell, ... and thus Mercy and Pity dwelleth with

mankind unto the time we come up into Heaven." The other, the Inward,

the _high_ Beholding or Regard it not said to "fill" Heaven, but to

be "full of" endless Heavens. So elsewhere it is said that in our

_Sense-soul_, the lower part of human nature, _God dwells_, but that

our _Substance_, the higher part, _dwells in God_. (The regard of Mercy

and Pity is with the Sense-soul; the high Regard of Joy and Bliss is

with the Substance.) P. 132, chap. lv.: "I saw that our Substance is in

God, and also I saw that in our Sense-soul God is." lvi. p. 135:" The

worshipful City that our Lord Jesus sitteth in, it is our Sense-part,

in which He is enclosed; and our Nature-Substance is beclosed in Jesus,

with the blessed Soul of Christ sitting in rest in the Godhead."

love that also embraces created souls, p. 118.

the Godhead ruleth and careth for heaven and earth and all that is"

(lxvii.).

"We have now matter of mourning: for our sin is cause of Christ's

pains; and we have, lastingly, matter of joy: for endless love made Him

to suffer"

And thus I saw that God rejoiceth that He is our Father, and God

rejoiceth that He is our Mother, and God rejoiceth that He is Very

Spouse and our soul is His loved Wife. And Christ rejoiceth that He

is our Brother, and Jesus rejoiceth that He is our Saviour. These are

five high joys, as I understand, in which He willeth that we enjoy; Him

praising, Him thanking, Him loving, Him endlessly blessing.

All that shall be saved, we have in us, for the time of this life, a

marvellous mingling[1] both of weal and woe: we have in us our Lord

Jesus uprisen, we have in us the wretchedness and the mischief of

Adam's falling, dying. By Christ we are steadfastly kept, and by His

grace touching us we are raised into sure trust of salvation. And by

Adam's falling we are so broken, in our feeling, in diverse manners

by sins and by sundry pains, in which we are made dark, that scarsely

we can take any comfort. But in our intent[2] we abide in God, and

faithfully trust to have mercy and grace; and this is His own working

in us. And of His goodness He openeth the eye of our understanding, by

which we have sight, sometime more and sometime less, according as God

giveth ability to receive. And now we are raised into the one, and now

we are suffered to fall into the other.

And thus is this medley so marvellous in us that scarsely we know

of our self or of our even-Christian in what way we stand, for the

marvellousness of this sundry feeling. But that same Holy Assent,

_that_ we assent to God when we feel Him, truly setting our will to be

with Him, with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our

might. And then we hate and despise our evil stirrings and all that

might be occasion of sin, spiritual and bodily.[3] And yet nevertheless

when this sweetness is hid, we fall again into blindness, and so into

woe and tribulation in diverse manners. But then is this our comfort,

that we _know in our faith_ that by virtue of Christ which is our

Keeper, we assent never thereto, but we groan there-against, and dure

on, in pain and woe, praying, unto that time that He sheweth Him again

to us.

And thus we stand in this medley all the days of our life. But He

willeth that we trust that He is lastingly with as. And that in

three manner.--He is with us in Heaven, very Man, in His own Person,

us updrawing; and that was shewed in [the Shewing of] the Spiritual

Thirst. And He is with us in earth, us leading; and that was shewed

in the Third [Shewing], where I saw God in a Point. And He is with us

in our soul, endlessly dwelling, us ruling and keeping; and that was

shewed in the Sixteenth [Shewing], as I shall tell.

And thus in the Servant was shewed the scathe and blindness of Adam's

falling; and in the Servant was shewed the wisdom and goodness of

God's Son. And in the Lord was shewed the ruth and pity of Adam's woe,

and in the Lord was shewed the high nobility and the endless worship

that Mankind is come to by the virtue of the Passion and death of His

dearworthy Son. And therefore mightily He joyeth in his falling for the

high raising and fulness of bliss that Mankind is come to, overpassing

that we should have had if he had not fallen.--And thus to see this

overpassing nobleness was mine understanding led into God in the same

time that I saw the Servant fall.

And thus we have, now, matter of mourning: for our sin is cause of

Christ's pains; and we have, lastingly, matter of joy: for endless love

made Him to suffer. And therefore the creature that seeth and feeleth

the working of love by grace, hateth nought but sin: for of all things,

to my sight, love and hate are [the] hardest and most unmeasureable

contraries. And notwithstanding all this, I saw and understood in our

Lord's meaning that we may not in this life keep us from sin as wholly

in full cleanness as we shall be in Heaven. But we may well by grace

keep us from the sins which would lead us to endless pains, as Holy

Church teacheth us; and eschew venial [ones] reasonably up to our

might. And if we by our blindness and our wretchedness any time fall,

we should readily rise, knowing the sweet touching of grace, and with

all our will amend us upon the teaching of Holy Church, according as

the sin is grievous, and go forthwith to God in love; and neither, on

the one side, fall over low, inclining to despair, nor, on the other

side, be over-reckless, as if we made no matter of it[4]; but nakedly

acknowledge our feebleness, finding that we may not stand a twinkling

of an eye but by Keeping of grace, and reverently cleave to God, on Him

only trusting.

For after one wise is the Beholding by[5] God, and after another wise

is the Beholding by[6] man. For it belongeth to man meekly to accuse

himself, and it belongeth to the proper Goodness of our Lord God

courteously to excuse man. And these be two parts that were shewed in

the double Manner of Regard with which the Lord beheld the falling of

His loved Servant. The one was shewed outward, very meekly and mildly,

with great ruth and pity; and that of endless Love. And right thus

willeth our Lord that we accuse our self, earnestly and truly seeing

and knowing our falling and all the harms that come thereof; seeing

and learning[7] that we can never restore it; and therewith that we

earnestly and truly see and know His everlasting love that He hath to

us, and His plenteous mercy. And thus graciously to see and know both

together is the meek accusing that our Lord asketh of us, and Himself

worketh it where it is. And this is the lower part of man's life, and

it was shewed in the [Lord's] _outward_ manner of Regard. In which

shewing I saw _two_ parts: the one is the rueful falling of man, the

other is the worshipful Satisfaction[8] that our Lord hath made for man.

The other manner of Regard was shewed _inward_: and that was more

highly and all [fully] _one_.[9] For the life and the virtue that we

have in the lower part is of the higher, and it cometh down to us [from

out] of the Natural love of the [high] Self, by [the working of] grace.

Atwix [the life of] the one and [the life of] the other there is right

nought: for it is all one love. Which one blessed love hath now, in us,

double working: for in the lower part are pains and passions, mercies

and forgiveness, and such other that are profitable; but in the higher

part are none of these, but all one high love and marvellous joy:

in[10] which joy all pains are highly restored. And in this [time] our

Lord showed not only our Excusing[11] [from blame, in His beholding of

our higher part], but the worshipful nobility that He shall bring us

to [by the working of grace in our lower part], turning all our blame

[that is therein, from our falling] into endless worship [when we be

oned to the high Self above].[12]

of our selfe or of our evyn Cristen in what way we stonden for the

marveloushede of this sundry felyng. But that ilke holy assent that we

assenten to God when we feel hym truly willand to be with him with al

our herte, with al our soule and with al our myte, and than we haten

and dispisen our evil sterings and al that myte be occasion of synne

gostly and bodily."

being, which is the better, and that I may speak more openly what I

ought to speak, his very self, is immortal; but on the other side,

which is weak and fallen, and which alone is known to those who have

no faith except in sensible things, he is obnoxious to mortality and

mutability."--From the _Didascolon_ of Hugo of St Victor, as quoted in

F. D. Maurice's _Mediæval Philosophy_, p. 147.

"In every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented

to sin, nor ever shall." "Ere that He made us He loved us, and when we

were made we loved Him"

And I saw that He willeth that we understand He taketh not harder the

falling of any creature that shall be saved than He took the falling of

Adam, which, we know, was endlessly loved and securely kept in the time

of all his need, and now is blissfully restored in high overpassing

joy. For our Lord is so good, so gentle, and so courteous, that He may

never assign default [in those] in whom He shall ever be blessed and

praised.

And in this that I have now told was my desire in part answered, and my

great difficulty[1] some deal eased, by the lovely, gracious Shewing of

our good Lord. In which Shewing I saw and understood full surely that

in every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented

to sin, nor ever shall: which Will is so good that it may never will

evil, but evermore continually it willeth good; and worketh good in the

sight of God. Therefore our Lord willeth that we know this in the Faith

and the belief; and especially that we have all this blessed Will whole

and safe in our Lord Jesus Christ. For that same Kind[2] that Heaven

shall be filled with behoveth needs, of God's rightfulness, so to have

been knit and oned to Him, that therein was kept a Substance

which might never, nor should, be parted from Him; and _that_ through

His own Good Will in His endless foreseeing purpose.

But notwithstanding this rightful knitting and this endless oneing, yet

the redemption and the again-buying of mankind is needful and speedful

in everything, as it is done for the same intent and to the same end

that Holy Church in our Faith us teacheth.

For I saw that God _began_ never to love mankind: for right the same

that mankind shall be in endless bliss, fulfilling the joy of God as

anent His works, right so the same, mankind hath been in the foresight

of God: known and loved from without beginning in his[3] rightful

intent. By the endless assent of the full accord of all the Trinity,

the Mid-Person willed to be Ground and Head of this fair Kind: out of

Whom we be all come, in Whom we be all enclosed, into Whom we shall

all wend,[4] in Him finding our full Heaven in everlasting joy, by the

foreseeing purpose of all the blessed Trinity from without beginning.

For ere that He made us He loved us, and when we were made we loved

Him. And this is a Love that is _made_, [to our Kindly Substance], [by

virtue] of the Kindly Substantial _Goodness_ of the Holy Ghost; Mighty,

in Reason, [by virtue] of the _Might_ of the Father; and Wise, in Mind,

[by virtue] of the _Wisdom_ of the Son. And thus is Man's Soul made by

God and in the same point knit to God.

And thus I understand that man's Soul is made of nought: that is to

say, it is made, but of nought that is made. And thus:--When God

should make man's body He took the clay of earth, which is a matter

mingled and gathered of all bodily things; and thereof He made man's

body. But to the making of man's Soul He would take right nought, but

made it. And thus is the Nature-made rightfully oned to the Maker,

which is Substantial Nature not-made: that is, God. And therefore it is

that there may nor shall be right nought atwix God and man's Soul.

And in this endless Love man's Soul is kept whole, as the matter of the

Revelations signifieth and sheweth: in which endless Love we be led

and kept of God and never shall be lost. For He willeth we[5] be aware

that our Soul is a life, which life of His Goodness and His Grace shall

last in Heaven without end, Him loving, Him thanking, Him praising. And

right the same that we shall be without end, the same we were treasured

in God and hid, known and loved from without beginning.

Wherefore He would have us understand that the noblest thing that ever

He made is mankind: and the fullest Substance and the highest Virtue is

the blessed Soul of Christ. And furthermore He would have us understand

that His[6] dear worthy Soul [of Manhood] was preciously knit to Him in

the making [by Him of Manhood's Substantial Nature] which knot is so

subtle and so mighty that (it)[7]--[man's soul]--is oned into God: in

which oneing it is made endlessly holy. Furthermore He would have us

know that all the souls that shall be saved in Heaven without end, are

knit and oned in this oneing and made holy in this holiness.

willed...."

meaning is, perhaps, that the Manhood-Substance, or Soul of Christ,

was in its making, by the Second Person in the Trinity, so united to

Himself that Man's Substance and each man's soul (in salvation), being

one with it, are one with God the Son. See li. p. 117.

"Faith is nought else but a right understanding, with true belief and

sure trust, of our Being: that we are in God, and God is in us: Whom we

see not"

And because of this great, endless love that God hath to all Mankind,

He maketh no disparting in love between the blessed Soul of Christ and

the least soul that shall be saved. For it is full easy to believe and

to trust that the dwelling of the blessed Soul of Christ is full high

in the glorious Godhead, and verily, as I understand in our Lord's

signifying, where the blessed Soul of Christ is, there is the Substance

of all the souls that shall be saved by Christ.

Highly ought we to rejoice that God dwelleth in our soul, and much more

highly ought we to rejoice that our soul dwelleth in God. Our soul is

_made_ to be God's dwelling-place; and the dwelling-place of the soul

is God, Which is _unmade_. And high understanding it is, inwardly to

see and know that God, which is our Maker, dwelleth in our soul; and an

higher understanding it is, inwardly to see and to know that our soul,

that is made, dwelleth in God's Substance: of which Substance, God, we

are that we are.

And I saw no difference between God and our Substance: but as it were

all God; and yet mine understanding took that our Substance is in God:

that is to say, that God is God, and our Substance is a creature in

God. For the Almighty Truth of the Trinity is our Father: for He made

us and keepeth us in Him; and the deep Wisdom of the Trinity is our

Mother, in Whom we are all enclosed; the high Goodness of the Trinity

is our Lord, and in Him we are enclosed, and He in us. We are enclosed

in the Father, and we are enclosed in the Son, and we are enclosed

in the Holy Ghost. And the Father is enclosed in us, and the Son is

enclosed in us, and the Holy Ghost is enclosed in us: Almightiness,

All-Wisdom, All-Goodness: one God, one Lord.

And our faith is a Virtue that cometh of our Nature-Substance into our

Sense-soul by the Holy Ghost; in which all our virtues come to us: for

without that, no man may receive virtue. For it is nought else but a

right understanding, with true belief, and sure trust, of our Being:

that we are in God, and God in us, Whom we see not. And this virtue,

with all other that God hath ordained to us coming therein, worketh

in us great things. For Christ's merciful working is in us, and we

graciously accord to Him through the gifts and the virtues of the Holy

Ghost. This working maketh that we are Christ's children, and Christian

in living.

"Christ is our Way"--"Mankind shall be restored from double death"

And thus Christ is our Way, us surely leading in His laws, and Christ

in His body mightily beareth us up into heaven. For I saw that

Christ, us all having in Him that shall be saved by Him, worshipfully

presenteth His Father in heaven with us; which present full thankfully

His Father receiveth, and courteously giveth it to His Son, Jesus

Christ: which gift and working is joy to the Father, and bliss to the

Son, and pleasing to the Holy Ghost. And of all things that belong to

us [to do], it is most pleasing to our Lord that we enjoy in this joy

which is in the blessed Trinity [in virtue] of our salvation. (And this

was seen in the Ninth Shewing, where it speaketh more of this matter.)

And notwithstanding all our feeling of woe or weal, God willeth that

we should understand and hold[1] by faith that we are more verily in

heaven than in earth.

Our Faith cometh of the natural Love of our soul, and of the clear

light of our Reason, and of the steadfast Mind which we have from[2]

God in our first making. And what time that our soul is inspired into

our body, in which we are made sensual, so soon mercy and grace begin

to work, having of us care and keeping with pity and love: in which

working the Holy Ghost formeth, in our Faith, _Hope_ that we shall come

again up above to our Substance, into the Virtue of Christ, increased

and fulfilled through the Holy Ghost. Thus I understood that the

sense-soul is grounded in Nature, in Mercy, and in Grace: which Ground

enableth us to receive gifts that lead us to endless life.

For I saw full assuredly that our Substance is in God, and also I saw

that in our sense-soul[3] God is: for in the self-[same] point that

our Soul is made sensual, in the self-[same] point is the City of God

ordained to Him from without beginning; into which seat He cometh,

and never shall remove [from] it. For God is never out of the soul:

in which He dwelleth blissfully without end. And this was seen in the

Sixteenth Shewing where it saith: _The place that Jesus taketh in our

soul, He shall never remove [from] it_. And all the gifts that God may

give to creatures, He hath given to His Son Jesus for us: which gifts

He, dwelling in us, hath enclosed in Him unto the time that we be waxen

and grown,--our soul with our body and our body with our soul, either

of them taking help of other,--till we be brought up unto stature, as

nature worketh. And then, in the ground of nature, with working of

mercy, the Holy Ghost graciously inspireth into us gifts leading to

endless life.

And thus was my understanding led of God to see in Him and to

understand, to perceive and to know, that our soul is _made-trinity_,

like to the unmade blissful Trinity,[4] known and loved from without

beginning, and in the making oned to the Maker, as it is aforesaid.

This sight was full sweet and marvellous to behold, peaceable, restful,

sure, and delectable.

And because of the worshipful oneing that was thus made by God

betwixt the soul and body, it behoveth needs to be that mankind shall

be restored from double death: which restoring might never be until

the time that the Second Person in the Trinity had taken the lower[5]

part of man's nature; to Whom the highest[6] [part] was oned in the

First-making. And these two parts were in Christ, the higher and the

lower: which is but one Soul; the higher part was one in peace with

God, in full joy and bliss; the lower part, which is sense-nature,[7]

suffered for the salvation of mankind.

And these two parts [in Christ] were seen and felt in the Eighth

Shewing, in which my body was fulfilled with feeling and mind of

Christ's Passion and His death, and furthermore with this was a subtile

feeling and privy inward sight of the High Part which I was shewed in

the same time when I could not, [even] for the friendly[8] proffer

[made to me], look up into Heaven: and that was because of that mighty

beholding [that I had] of the Inward Life. Which Inward Life is that

High Substance, that precious Soul, [of Christ], which is endlessly

rejoicing in the Godhead.

= medium, is perhaps a sub. in the gen. = intervenor's, intermediary's.

See xix. p. 42 and xxxv. p. 70, S. de Cressy has: "Where I might not

for the mean profer look up"; Collins: "for the meanwhile."

"God is nearer to us than our own soul" "We can never come to full

knowing of God till we know first clearly our own Soul"

And thus I saw full surely that it is readier to us to come to

the knowing of God than to know our own Soul. For our Soul is so

deep-grounded in God, and so endlessly treasured, that we may not come

to the knowing thereof till we have first knowing of God, which is the

Maker, to whom it is oned. But, notwithstanding, I saw that we have,

for fulness, to desire wisely and truly to know our own Soul: whereby

we are learned to seek it where it is, and that is, in God. And thus by

gracious leading of the Holy Ghost, we should know them both in one:

whether we be stirred to know God or our Soul, both [these stirrings]

are good and true.

God is nearer to us than our own Soul: for He is [the] Ground in whom

our Soul standeth, and He is [the] Mean that keepeth the Substance

and the Sense-nature together so that they shall never dispart. For

our soul sitteth in God in very rest, and our soul standeth in God in

very strength, and our Soul is kindly rooted in God in endless love:

and therefore if we will have knowledge of our Soul, and communing and

dalliance therewith, it behoveth to seek unto our Lord God in whom it

is enclosed. (And of this enclosement I saw and understood more in the

Sixteenth Shewing, as I shall tell.)

And as anent our Substance and our Sense-part, both together may

rightly be called our Soul:[1] and that is because of the oneing that

they have in God. The worshipful City that our Lord Jesus sitteth in is

our Sense-soul, in which He is enclosed: and our Kindly Substance is

enclosed in Jesus with the blessed Soul of Christ sitting in rest in

the Godhead.

And I saw full surely that it behoveth needs to be that we should be

in longing and in penance unto the time that we be led so deep into

God that we verily and truly know our own Soul. And truly I saw that

into this high deepness our good Lord Himself leadeth us in the same

love that He made us, and in the same love that He bought us by Mercy

and Grace through virtue of His blessed Passion. And notwithstanding

all this, we may never come to full knowing of God till we know first

clearly our own Soul. For until the time that our Soul is in its full

powers[2] we cannot be all fully holy: and that is [until the time]

that our Sense-soul by the virtue of Christ's Passion be brought up to

the Substance, with all the profits of our tribulation that our Lord

shall make us to get by Mercy and Grace.

I had, in part, [experience of the] Touching [of God in the soul],

and it is grounded in Nature. That is to say, our Reason is grounded

in God, which is Substantial Naturehood.[3] [Out] of this Substantial

Naturehood Mercy and Grace springeth and spreadeth into us, working all

things in fulfilling of our joy: these are our Ground in which we have

our Increase and our Fulfilling.

These be three properties in one Goodness: and where one worketh, all

work in the things which be _now_ belonging to us. God willeth that we

understand [this], desiring with all our heart to have knowing of them

more and more unto the time that we be fulfilled: for fully to know

them is nought else but endless joy and bliss that we shall have in

Heaven, which God willeth should be begun here in knowing of His love.

For only by our Reason we may not profit, but if we have evenly

therewith Mind and Love: nor only in our Nature-Ground that we have

in God we may not be saved but if we have, coming of the same Ground,

Mercy and Grace. For of these three working all together we receive

all our Goodness. Of the which the first [gifts] are goods of Nature:

for in our First making God gave us as full goods as we might receive

in our spirit alone,[4]--and also greater goods; but His foreseeing

purpose in His endless wisdom willed that we should be double.

soule."

sey, our reson is groundid in God, which is substantial kyndhede."

godes as we myte receivin only in our spirite." In the MS. the word

"spirit" is used only here, where it means "the Substance."

"In Christ our two natures are united"

And anent our Substance He made us noble, and so rich that evermore we

work His will and His worship. (Where I say "we," it meaneth Man that

shall be saved.) For soothly I saw that we are that which He loveth,

and do that which Him pleaseth, lastingly without any stinting: and

[that by virtue] of the great riches and of the high noble virtues by

measure come to our soul what time it is knit to our body: in which

knitting we are made Sensual.

And thus in our Substance we are full, and in our Sense-soul we fail:

which failing God will restore and fulfil by working of Mercy and Grace

plenteously flowing into us out of His own Nature-Goodness.[1] And thus

His Nature-Goodness maketh that Mercy and Grace work in us, and the

Nature-goodness that we have of Him enableth us to receive the working

of Mercy and Grace.

I saw that our nature is in God whole: in which [whole nature of

Manhood] He maketh diversities flowing out of Him to work His will:

whom Nature keepeth, and Mercy and Grace restoreth and fulfilleth. And

of these none shall perish: for our nature that is the higher part is

knit to God, in the making; and God is knit to our nature that is the

lower part, in our flesh-taking: and thus in Christ our two natures are

oned. For the Trinity is comprehended in Christ, in whom our higher

part is grounded and rooted; and our lower part the Second Person hath

taken: which nature first to Him was made-ready.[2] For I saw full

surely that all the works that God hath done, or ever shall, were fully

known to Him and aforeseen from without beginning. And for Love He made

Mankind, and for the same Love would be Man.

The next[3] Good that we receive is our Faith, in which our

profiting beginneth. And it cometh [out] of the high riches of our

nature-Substance into our Sensual soul, and it is grounded in us

through the Nature-Goodness of God, by the working of Mercy and Grace.

And thereof come all other goods by which we are led and saved. For the

Commandments of God come therein: in which we ought to have two manners

of understanding: [the one is that we ought to understand and know]

which are His biddings, to love and to keep them; the other is that we

ought to know His forbiddings, to hate and to refuse them. For in these

two is all our working comprehended. Also in our faith come the Seven

Sacraments, each following other in order as God hath ordained them to

us: and all manner of virtues.

For the same virtues that we have received of our Substance, given to

us in Nature by the Goodness of God,--the same virtues by the working

of Mercy are given to us in Grace through the Holy Ghost, _renewed_:

which virtues and gifts are treasured to us in Jesus Christ. For in

that same[4] time that God knitted Himself to our body in the Virgin's

womb, He took our Sensual soul:[5] in which taking He, us all having

enclosed in Him, oned it to our Substance: in which oneing He was

perfect Man. For Christ having knit in Him each[6] man that shall be

saved, is perfect Man. Thus our Lady is our Mother in whom we are all

enclosed and of her born,[7] in Christ: (for she that is Mother of our

Saviour is Mother of all that shall be saved in our Saviour;) and our

Saviour is our Very Mother in whom we be endlessly borne,[8] and never

shall come out of Him.

Plenteously and fully and sweetly was this shewed, and it is spoken of

in the First, where it saith: _We are all in Him enclosed and He is

enclosed in us_. And that [enclosing of Him in us] is spoken of in the

Sixteenth Shewing, where it saith: _He sitteth in our soul_.

For it is His good-pleasure to reign in our Understanding blissfully,

and sit in our Soul restfully, and to dwell in our Soul endlessly,

us all working into Him: in which working He willeth that we be His

helpers, giving to Him all our attending, learning His lores, keeping

His laws, desiring that all be done that He doeth; truly trusting in

Him.

For soothly I saw that our Substance is in God.[9]

"_Sensualite_."

or _borne_. S. de Cressy gives "born" both for the first word and the

second. See lx. "He sustaineth us within Himself in love," etc.; and

lxiii. "In the taking of our nature He quickened us," etc.

(Fourteenth century), edition of 1659, Part III. ch. ii.:--

"The soule of a man is a life consisting of three powers, _Memory,

Understanding,_ and _Will,_ after the image and likeness of the blessed

Trinity.... Whereby you may see, that man's soule (which may be called

a created Trinity) was in its natural state replenished in its three

powers, with the remembrance, sight, and love of the most blessed

uncreated Trinity, which is God.... But when Adam sinned, choosing

love and delight in himselfe, and in the creatures, he lost all his

excellency and dignity, and thou also in him."

Ch. III. Sec. i. "And though we should prove not to be able to recover

it fully here in this life, yet should we desire and endeavour to

recover the image and likeness of the dignity we had, so that our soul

might be reformed as it were in a shadow by grace to the image of the

Trinity which we had by nature, and hereafter shall have fully in

bliss...." Sec. ii. "Seeke then that which thou hast lost, that thou

mayest finde it; for well I wote, whosoever once hath an inward sight,

but a little of that dignity and that spirituall fairness which a soule

hath by creation, and shall have again by grace, he will loath in his

heart all the blisse, the liking, and the fairnesse of this world....

Nevertheless as thou hast not as yet seen what it is fully, for thy

spiritual eye is not yet opened, I shall tell thee one word for all, in

the which thou shalt seeke, desire, and finde it; for in that one word

is all that thou hast lost. This word is Jesus.... If thou feelest in

thy heart a great desire to Jesus ... then seekest thou well thy Lord

Jesus. And when thou feelest this desire to God, or to Jesus (for it

is all one) holpen and comforted by a ghostly might, insomuch that it

is turned into love, affection, and spiritual fervour and sweetnesse,

into light and knowing of truth, so that for the time the point of thy

thought is set upon no other created thing, nor feeleth any stirring

of vain-glory, nor of selfe-love, nor any other evill affection (for

they cannot appear at that time) but this thy desire is onely enclosed,

rested, softened, suppled, and annoynted in Jesus, then hast thou found

somewhat of Jesus; I mean not him as he is, but a shadow of him; for

the better that thou findest him, the more shalt thou desire him. Then

observe by what manner of Prayer or Meditation or exercise of Devotion

thou findest greatest and purest desire stirred up in thee to him, and

most feeling of him, by that kind of prayer, exercise, or worke seekest

thou him best, and shalt best finde him....

"See then the mercy and courtesie of Jesus. Thou hast lost him, but

where? soothly in thy house, that is to say, in thy soul, that if

thou hadst lost all thy reason of thy soule, by its first sinne, thou

shouldst never have found him again; but he left thee thy reason, and

so he is still in thy soule, and never is quite lost out of it.

"Nevertheless, thou art never the nearer him, till thou hast found

him. He is in thee, though he be lost from thee; but thou art not in

him, till thou hast found him. This is his mercy also, that he would

suffer himself to be lost onely where he may be found, so that thou

needest not run to _Rome_, nor to _Jerusalem_ to seeke him there, but

turne thy thoughts into thy owne soule, where he is hid, as the Prophet

saith; _Truly thou art the hidden God_, hid in thy soule, and seek him

there. Thus saith he himselfe in the Gospel; _The kingdome of heaven is

likened to a treasure hid in the field, the which when a man findeth,

for joy thereof, he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that

field_. Jesus is a treasure hid in the soule....

"As long as Jesus findeth not his image reformed in thee, he is

strange, and the farther from thee: therefore frame and shape thyself

to be arrayed in his likenesse, that is in humility and charity, which

are his liveries, and then will he know thee, and familiarly come

to thee, and acquaint thee with his secrets. Thus saith he to his

Disciples; _Who so loveth me, he shall be loved of my Father, and I

will manifest my selfe unto him_. There is not any vertue nor any good

work that can make thee like to our Lord, without Humility and Charity,

for these two above all other are most acceptable ('most leyf') to

him, which appeareth plainly in the Gospel, where our Lord speaketh of

humility thus; _Learn of me, for I am meeke and humble in heart_. He

saith not, learn of me to go barefoot, or to go into the desart, and

there to fast forty dayes, nor yet to choose to your selves Disciples

(as I did) but learne of me meeknesse, for I am meek and lowly in

heart. Also of charity he saith thus; _This is my Commandment, that ye

love one another as I loved you, for by that shall men know you for

my Disciples_. Not that you worke miracles, or cast out Devills, or

preach, or teach, but that each one of you love one another in charity.

If therefore thou wilt be like him, have humility and charity. Now thou

knowest what charity is, _viz._ To love thy neighbour as thy selfe."

Chap. IV. Sec. 1.... "Now I shall tell thee (according to my feeble

ability) how thou mayest enter into thy selfe to see the ground of sin,

and destroy it as much as thou canst, and so recover a part of thy

souls dignity.... Draw in thy thoughts ... and set thy intent and full

purpose, as if thou wouldst not seek nor find any thing but onely the

grace and spiritual presence of Jesus."

"This will be painful; for vaine thoughts will presse into thy heart

very thick, to draw thy minde down to them. And in doing thus, thou

shalt find somewhat, but not Jesus whom thou seekest, but onely a naked

remembrance of his name. But what then shalt thou finde? Surely this;

A darke and ill-favoured image of thy owne soule, which hath neither

light of knowledge nor feeling of love of God.... This is not the image

of Jesus, but the image of sin, which St Paul calleth a _body of sinne

and of death_.... Peradventure now thou beginnest to thinke with thy

selfe what this image is like, and that thou shouldst not study much

upon it, I will tell thee. It is like no bodily thing; What is it then

saist thou? Verily it is _nought_, or no reall thing, as thou shalt

finde, if thou try by doing as I have spoken; that is, draw in thy

thoughts into thy selfe from all bodily things, and then shalt thou

find right _nought_ wherein thy soule may rest.

"This _nothing_ is nought else but darknesse of conscience, and a

lacking of the love of God and of light; as sin is nought but a want

of good, if it were so that the ground of sin was much abated and

dryed up in thee, and thy soule was reformed right as the image of

Jesus; then if thou didst draw into thy selfe thy heart, thou shouldst

not find this _Nought_, but thou shouldst find Jesus; not only the

naked remembrance of this name, but Jesus Christ in thy soule readily

teaching thee, thou shouldst there find light of understanding, and

no darknesse of ignorance, a love and liking of him; and no pain of

bitternesse, heavinesse, or tediousenesse of him....

"And here also thou must beware that thou take Jesus Christ into thy

thoughts against this darknesse in thy mind, by busie prayer and

fervent desire to God, not setting the point of thy thoughts on that

foresaid _Nought_, but on Jesus Christ whom thou desirest. Think

stifly on his passion, and on his Humility, and through his might thou

shalt arise. Do as if thou wouldst beate downe this darke image, and

go through-stitch with it. Thou shalt hate ('agryse') and loath this

darknesse and this _Nought_, just as the Devill, and thou shalt despise

and all to break it ('brest it').

"For within this Nought is Jesus hid in his joy, whom thou shalt not

finde with all thy seeking, unlesse thou passe this darknesse of

conscience.

"This is the ghostly travel I spake of, and the cause of all this

writing is to stir thee thereto, if thou have grace. This darknesse

of conscience, and this _Nought_ is the image of the first _Adam_: St

Paul knew it well, for he said thus of it; As we have before borne the

_image of the earthly man_, that is the first _Adam, right so that we

might now beare the image of the heavenly man_, which is Jesus, the

second _Adam_. St _Paul_ bare this image oft full heavily, for it was

so cumbersome to him, that he cryed out of it, saying thus; _O who

shall deliver me from this body and this image of death_. And then he

comforted himselfe and others also thus: _The grace_ of God through

Jesus Christ."

"All our life is in three: 'Nature, Mercy, Grace.' The high Might of

the Trinity is our Father, and the deep Wisdom of the Trinity is our

Mother, and the great Love of the Trinity is our Lord"

God, the blessed Trinity, which is everlasting Being, right as He is

endless from without beginning, right so it was in His purpose endless,

to make Mankind. Which fair Kind first was prepared[1] to His own

Son, the Second Person. And when He would, by full accord of all the

Trinity, He made us all at once; and in our making He knit us and oned

us to Himself: by which oneing we are kept as clear and as noble as

we were made. By the virtue of the same precious oneing, we love our

Maker and seek Him, praise Him and thank Him, and endlessly enjoy Him.

And this is the work which is wrought continually in every soul that

shall be saved: which is the Godly Will aforesaid. And thus in our

making, God, Almighty, is our Nature's Father; and God, All-Wisdom, is

our Nature's Mother; with the Love and the Goodness of the Holy Ghost:

which is all one God, one Lord. And in the knitting and the oneing He

is our Very, True Spouse, and we His loved Wife, His Fair Maiden: with

which Wife He is never displeased. For He saith: I love thee and thou

lovest me, and our love shall never be disparted in two.

I beheld the working of all the blessed Trinity: in which beholding

I saw and understood these three properties: the property of the

Fatherhood, the property of the Motherhood, and the property of the

Lordhood, in one God. In our Father Almighty we have our keeping and

our bliss as anent our natural Substance, which is to us by our making,

without beginning. And in the Second Person in skill[2] and wisdom

we have our keeping as anent our Sense-soul: our restoring and our

saving; for He is our Mother, Brother, and Saviour. And in our good

Lord, the Holy Ghost, we have our rewarding and our meed-giving for our

living and our travail, and endless overpassing of all that we desire,

in His marvellous courtesy, of His high plenteous grace.

For all our life is in _three_: in the first we have our Being, in the

second we have our Increasing, and in the third we have our Fulfilling:

the first is Nature, the second is Mercy, and the third is Grace.

For the first, I understood that the high Might of the Trinity is our

Father, and the deep Wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother, and the great

Love of the Trinity is our Lord: and all this have we in Nature and in

the making of our Substance.[3]

And furthermore I saw that the Second Person, which is our Mother as

anent the Substance, that same dearworthy Person is become our Mother

as anent the Sense-soul. For we are double by God's making: that is

to say, Substantial and Sensual. Our Substance is the higher part,

which we have in our Father, God Almighty; and the Second Person of

the Trinity is our Mother in Nature, in making of our Substance: in

whom we are grounded and rooted. And He is our Mother in Mercy, in

taking of our Sense-part. And thus our Mother is to us in diverse

manners working: in whom our parts are kept undisparted. For in our

Mother Christ we profit and increase, and in Mercy He reformeth us

and restoreth, and, by the virtue of His Passion and His Death and

Uprising, oneth us to our Substance. Thus worketh our Mother in Mercy

to all His children which are to Him yielding[4] and obedient.

And Grace worketh with Mercy, and specially in two properties, as it

was shewed: which working belongeth to the Third Person, the Holy

Ghost. He worketh _rewarding_ and _giving_. Rewarding is a large

giving-of-truth that the Lord doeth to him that hath travailed;

and giving is a courteous working which He doeth freely of Grace,

fulfilling and overpassing all that is deserved of creatures.

Thus in our Father, God Almighty, we have our being; and in our Mother

of Mercy we have our reforming and restoring: in whom our Parts are

oned and all made perfect Man; and by [reward]-yielding and giving in

Grace of the Holy Ghost, we are fulfilled.

And our Substance is [in] our Father, God Almighty, and our Substance

is [in][5] our Mother, God, All-wisdom; and our Substance is in our

Lord the Holy Ghost, God All-goodness. For our Substance is whole in

each Person of the Trinity, which is one God. And our Sense-soul is

only in the Second Person Christ Jesus; in whom is the Father and the

Holy Ghost: and in Him and by Him we are mightily taken out of Hell,

and out of the wretchedness in Earth worshipfully brought up into

Heaven and blissfully oned to our Substance: increased in riches and in

nobleness by all the virtues of Christ, and by the grace and working of

the Holy Ghost.

"Jesus Christ that doeth Good against evil is our Very Mother: we have

our Being of Him where the Ground of Motherhood beginneth,--with all

the sweet Keeping by Love, that endlessly followeth."

And all this bliss we have by Mercy and Grace: which manner of bliss we

might never have had nor known but if that property of Goodness which

is God had been contraried: whereby we have this bliss. For wickedness

hath been suffered to rise contrary to the Goodness, and the Goodness

of Mercy and Grace contraried against the wickedness and turned all to

goodness and to worship, to all these that shall be saved. For it is

the property in God which doeth good against evil. Thus Jesus Christ

that doeth good against evil is our Very Mother: we have our Being of

Him,--where the Ground of Motherhood beginneth,--with all the sweet

Keeping of Love that endlessly followeth. As verily as God is our

Father, so verily God is our Mother; and that shewed He in all, and

especially in these sweet words where He saith: _I it am_.[1] That is

to say, _I it am, the Might and the Goodness of the Fatherhood; I it

am, the Wisdom of the Motherhood; I it am, the Light and the Grace that

is all blessed Love: I it am, the Trinity, I it am, the Unity: I am the

sovereign Goodness of all manner of things. I am that maketh thee to

love: I am that maketh thee to long: I it am, the endless fulfilling of

all true desires._

For there the soul is highest, noblest, and worthiest, where it is

lowest, meekest, and mildest: and [out] of this _Substantial Ground_ we

have all our virtues in our Sense-part by gift of Nature, by helping

and speeding of Mercy and Grace: without the which we may not profit.

Our high Father, God Almighty, which is Being, He knew and loved us

from afore any time: of which knowing, in His marvellous deep charity

and the foreseeing counsel of all the blessed Trinity, He willed that

the Second Person should become our Mother. Our Father [willeth], our

Mother worketh, our good Lord the Holy Ghost confirmeth: and therefore

it belongeth to us to love our God in whom we have our being: Him

reverently thanking and praising for[2] our making, mightily praying to

our Mother for[3] mercy and pity, and to our Lord the Holy Ghost for[4]

help and grace.

For in these three is all our life: Nature, Mercy, Grace: whereof we

have meekness and mildness; patience and pity; and hating of sin and

of wickedness,--for it belongeth properly to virtue to hate sin and

wickedness. And thus is Jesus our Very Mother in Nature [by virtue] of

our first making; and He is our Very Mother in Grace, by taking our

nature made. All the fair working, and all the sweet natural office of

dearworthy Motherhood is impropriated[5] to the Second Person: for in

Him we have this Godly Will whole and safe without end, both in Nature

and in Grace, of His own proper Goodness. I understood three manners of

beholding of Motherhood in God: the first is grounded in our Nature's

_making_; the second is _taking_ of our nature,--and there beginneth

the Motherhood of Grace; the third is Motherhood of _working_,--and

therein is a forthspreading by the same Grace, of length and breadth

and height and of deepness without end. And all is one Love.

of; assigned and consigned to.

"The Kind, loving, Mother"

But now behoveth to say a little more of this forthspreading, as I

understand in the meaning of our Lord: how that we be brought again by

the Motherhood of Mercy and Grace into our Nature's place, where that

we were made by the Motherhood of Nature-Love: which kindly-love, it

never leaveth us.

Our Kind Mother, our Gracious Mother,[1] for that He would all wholly

become our Mother in all things, He took the Ground of His Works full

low and full mildly in the Maiden's womb. (And that He shewed in the

First [Shewing] where He brought that meek Maid afore the eye of mine

understanding in the simple stature as she was when she conceived.)

That is to say: our high God is sovereign Wisdom of all: in this low

place He arrayed and dight Him full ready in our poor flesh, Himself to

do the service and the office of Motherhood in all things.

The Mother's service is nearest, readiest, and surest: [nearest, for

it is most of nature; readiest, for it is most of love; and surest][2]

for it is most of truth. This office none might, nor could, nor ever

should do to the full, but He alone. We know that all our mothers'

bearing is [bearing of] us to pain and to dying: and what is this but

that our Very Mother, Jesus, He--All-Love--beareth us to joy and to

endless living?--blessed may He be! Thus He sustaineth[3] us within

Himself in love; and travailed, unto the full time that He would suffer

the sharpest throes and the most grievous pains that ever were or ever

shall be; and died at the last. And when He had finished, and so borne

us to bliss, yet might not all this make full content to His marvellous

love; and that sheweth He in these high overpassing words of love: _If

I might suffer more, I would suffer more_.

He might no more die, but He would not stint of working: wherefore then

it behoveth Him to feed us; for the dearworthy love of Motherhood hath

made Him debtor to us. The mother may give her child suck of her milk,

but our precious Mother, Jesus, He may feed us with Himself, and doeth

it, full courteously and full tenderly, with the Blessed Sacrament

that is precious food of my life; and with all the sweet Sacraments He

sustaineth us full mercifully and graciously. And so meant He in this

blessed word where that He said: _It is I[4] that Holy Church preacheth

thee and teacheth thee._ That is to say: _All the health and life of

Sacraments, all the virtue and grace of my Word, all the Goodness that

is ordained in Holy Church for thee, it is I_. The Mother may lay the

child tenderly to her breast, but our tender Mother, Jesus, He may

homely lead us into His blessed breast, by His sweet open side, and

shew therein part of the Godhead and the joys of Heaven, with spiritual

sureness of endless bliss. And that shewed He in the Tenth [Shewing],

giving the same understanding in this sweet word where He saith: _Lo!

how I loved thee_; looking unto [the Wound in] His side, rejoicing.

This fair lovely word _Mother_, it is so sweet and so close in Nature

of itself[5] that it may not verily be said of none but of _Him_;

and to her that is very Mother of Him and of all. To the property of

Motherhood belongeth natural love, wisdom, and knowing; and it is

good: for though it be so that our bodily forthbringing be but little,

low, and simple in regard of our spiritual forthbringing, yet it is He

that doeth it in the creatures by whom that it is done. The Kindly,[6]

loving Mother that witteth and knoweth the need of her child, she

keepeth it full tenderly, as the nature[7] and condition of Motherhood

will. And as it waxeth in age, she changeth her working, but not her

love. And when it is waxen of more age, she suffereth that it be

beaten[8] in breaking down of vices, to make the child receive virtues

and graces. This working, with all that be fair and good, our Lord

doeth it in them by whom it is done: thus He is our Mother in Nature by

the working of Grace in the lower part for love of the higher part. And

He willeth that we know this: for He will have all our love fastened

to Him. And in this I saw that all our duty that we owe, by God's

bidding, to Fatherhood and Motherhood, for [reason of] God's Fatherhood

and Motherhood is fulfilled in true loving of God; which blessed love

Christ worketh in us. And this was shewed in all [the Revelations] and

especially in the high plenteous words where He saith: _It is I that

thou lovest_.

version.

"By the assay of this falling we shall have an high marvellous knowing

of Love in God, without end. For strong and marvellous is that love

which may not, nor will not, be broken for trespass"

And in our spiritual forthbringing He useth more tenderness of keeping,

without any likeness: by as much as our soul is of more price in His

sight. He kindleth our understanding, He directeth our ways, He easeth

our conscience, He comforteth our soul, He lighteneth our heart, and

giveth us, in part, knowing and believing in His blissful Godhead,

with gracious mind in His sweet Manhood and His blessed Passion, with

reverent marvelling in His high, overpassing Goodness; and maketh us

to love all that He loveth, for His love, and to be well-pleased with

Him and all His works. And when we fall, hastily He raiseth us by

His lovely calling[1][2] and gracious touching. And when we be thus

strengthened by His sweet working, then we with all our will choose

Him, by His sweet grace, to be His servants and His lovers lastingly

without end.

And after this He suffereth some of us to fall more hard and more

grievously than ever we did afore, as us thinketh. And then ween we

(who be not all wise) that all were nought that we have begun. But this

is not so. For it needeth us to fall, and it needeth us to see it.

For if we never fell, we should not know how feeble and how wretched

we are of our self, and also we should not fully know that marvellous

love of our Maker. For we shall see verily in heaven, without end, that

we have grievously sinned in this life, and notwithstanding this, we

shall see that we were never hurt in His love, we were never the less

of price in His sight. And by the assay of this falling we shall have

an high, marvellous knowing of love in God, without end. For strong

and marvellous is that love which may not, nor will not, be broken for

trespass. And this is one understanding of [our] profit. Another is the

lowness and meekness that we shall get by the sight of our falling:

for thereby we shall highly be raised in heaven; to which raising

we might[3] never have come without that meekness. And therefore it

needeth us to see it; and if we see it not, though we fell it should

not profit us. And commonly, first we fall and later we see it: and

both of the Mercy of God.

The mother may suffer the child to fall sometimes, and to be hurt in

diverse manners for its own profit, but she may never suffer that any

manner of peril come to the child, for love. And though our earthly

mother may suffer her child to perish, our heavenly Mother, Jesus, may

not suffer us that are His children to perish: for He is All-mighty,

All-wisdom, and All-love; and so is none but He,--blessed may He be!

But oftentimes when our falling and our wretchedness is shewed us, we

are so sore adread, and so greatly ashamed of our self, that scarcely

we find where we may hold us. But then willeth not our courteous Mother

that we flee away, for Him were nothing lother. But He willeth then

that we use the condition of a child: for when it is hurt, or adread,

it runneth hastily to the mother for help, with all its might. So

willeth He that we do, as a meek child saying thus: _My kind Mother, my

Gracious Mother, my dearworthy Mother, have mercy on me: I have made

myself foul and unlike to Thee, and I nor may nor can amend it but with

thine help and grace_. And if we feel us not then eased forthwith, be

we sure that He useth the condition of a wise mother. For if He see

that it be more profit to us to mourn and to weep, He suffereth it,

with ruth and pity, unto the best time, for love. And He willeth then

that we use the property of a child, that evermore of nature trusteth

to the love of the mother in weal and in woe.

And He willeth that we take us mightily to the Faith of Holy Church and

find there our dearworthy Mother, in solace of true Understanding, with

all the blessed Common. For one single person may oftentimes be broken,

as it seemeth to himself, but the whole Body of Holy Church was never

broken, nor never shall be, without end. And therefore a sure thing it

is, a good and a gracious, to will meekly and mightily to be fastened

and oned to our Mother, Holy Church, that is, Christ Jesus. For the

food of mercy that is His dearworthy blood and precious water is

plenteous to make us fair and clean; the blessed wounds of our Saviour

be open and enjoy to heal us; the sweet, gracious hands of our Mother

be ready and diligently about us. For He in all this working useth the

office of a kind nurse that hath nought else to do but to give heed

about[4] the salvation of her child.

It is His office to save us: it is His worship to do [for] us,[5] and

it is His will [that] we know it: for He willeth that we love Him

sweetly and trust in Him meekly and mightily. And this shewed He in

these gracious words: _I keep thee full surely_.

Morton, D.D.), p. 231: "The sixth comfort is, that our Lord, when He

suffereth us to be tempted, playeth with us, as the mother with her

young darling: she flies from him, and hides herself, and lets him

sit alone, and look anxiously around, and call _Dame! Dame!_ and weep

awhile; and then she leapeth forth laughing, with outspread arms,

and embraceth and kisseth him, and wipeth his eyes. In like manner,

our Lord sometimes leaveth us alone, and withdraweth His grace, His

comfort, and His support, so that we feel no delight in any good that

we do, nor any satisfaction of heart; and yet, at that very time, our

dear Father loveth us never the less, but doth it for the great love

that He hath to us."

p. 135: "The fourth reason why our Lord hideth Himself is, that thou

mayest seek him more earnestly, and call, and weep after Him, as the

little baby doth after his mother" ("ase deth thet lutel baban"--in

another manuscript 'lite barn'--"efter his moder").

us," possibly for to work at us, carry out our salvation to perfection,

or, to take in hand for us, "to _do_ for us." See _The Paston Letters_,

vol. ii. (Letter 472), _May_ 1463, "he prayid hym that he wold don for

hym in hys mater, and gaf hym a reward; and withinne ryth short tym

after, his mater sped."

"God is Very Father and Very Mother of Nature: and all natures that He

hath made to flow out of Him to work His will shall be restored and

brought again into Him by the salvation of Mankind through the working

of Grace"

For in that time He shewed our frailty and our fallings, our

afflictings and our settings at nought,[1] our despites and our

outcastings, and all our woe so far forth as methought it might befall

in this life. And therewith He shewed His blessed Might, His blessed

Wisdom, His blessed Love: that He keepeth us in this time as tenderly

and as sweetly to His worship, and as surely to our salvation, as He

doeth when we are in most solace and comfort. And thereto He raiseth us

spiritually and highly in heaven, and turneth it all to His worship and

to our joy, without end. For His love suffereth us never to lose time.

And all this is of the Nature-Goodness of God, by the working of Grace.

God is Nature[2] in His being: that is to say, that Goodness that is

Nature, it is God. He is the ground, He is the substance, He is the

same thing that is Nature-hood.[3] And He is very Father and very

Mother of Nature: and all natures that He hath made to flow out of Him

to work His will shall be restored and brought again into Him by the

salvation of man through the working of Grace.

For of all natures[4] that He hath set in diverse creatures by part,

in man is all the whole; in fulness and in virtue, in fairness and

in goodness, in royalty and nobleness, in all manner of majesty, of

preciousness and worship. Here may we see that we are all beholden to

God for nature, and we are all beholden to God for grace. Here may we

see us needeth not greatly to seek far out to know sundry natures, but

to Holy Church, unto our Mother's breast: that is to say, unto our own

soul where our Lord dwelleth; and there shall we find all now in faith

and in understanding. And afterward verily in Himself clearly, in bliss.

But let no man nor woman take this singularly to himself: for it is

not so, it is general: for it is [of] our precious Christ, and to Him

was this fair nature adight[5] for the worship and nobility of man's

making, and for the joy and the bliss of man's salvation; even as He

saw, wist, and knew from without beginning.

"As verily as sin is unclean, so verily is it unkind"--a disease or

monstrous thing against nature. "He shall heal us full fair."

Here may we see that we have verily of Nature to hate sin, and we have

verily of Grace to hate sin. For Nature is all good and fair in itself,

and Grace was sent out to save Nature and destroy sin, and bring again

fair nature to the blessed point from whence it came: that is God; with

more nobleness and worship by the virtuous working of Grace. For it

shall be seen afore God by all His Holy in joy without end that Nature

hath been assayed in the fire of tribulation and therein hath been

found no flaw, no fault.[1] Thus are Nature and Grace of one accord:

for Grace is God, as Nature is God: He is two in manner of working and

one in love; and neither of these worketh without other: they be not

disparted.

And when we by Mercy of God and with His help accord us to Nature and

Grace, we shall see verily that sin is in sooth viler and more painful

than hell, without likeness: for it is contrary to our fair nature. For

as verily as sin is unclean, so verily is it unnatural,[2] and thus an

horrible thing to see for the loved[3] soul that would be all fair and

shining in the sight of God, as Nature and Grace teacheth.

Yet be we not adread of this, save inasmuch as dread may speed us:

but meekly make we our moan to our dearworthy Mother, and He shall

besprinkle us in His precious blood and make our soul full soft and

full mild, and heal us full fair by process of time, right as it is

most worship to Him and joy to us without end. And of this sweet fair

working He shall never cease nor stint till all His dearworthy children

be born and forthbrought. (And that shewed He where He shewed [me]

understanding of the ghostly Thirst, that is the love-longing that

shall last till Doomsday.)

Thus in [our] Very Mother, Jesus, our life is grounded, in the

foreseeing Wisdom of Himself from without beginning, with the high

Might of the Father, the high sovereign Goodness of the Holy Ghost. And

in the taking of our nature He quickened us; in His blessed dying upon

the Cross He bare us to endless life; and from that time, and now, and

evermore unto Doomsday, He feedeth us and furthereth us: even as that

high sovereign Kindness of Motherhood, and as Kindly need of Childhood

asketh.

Fair and sweet is our Heavenly Mother in the sight of our souls;

precious and lovely are the Gracious Children in the sight of our

Heavenly Mother, with mildness and meekness, and all the fair virtues

that belong to children in Nature. For of nature the Child despaireth

not of the Mother's love, of nature the Child presumeth not of itself,

of nature the Child loveth the Mother and each one of the other

[children]. These are the fair virtues, with all other that be like,

wherewith our Heavenly Mother is served and pleased.

And I understood none higher stature in this life than Childhood,

in feebleness and failing of might and of wit, unto the time that

our Gracious Mother hath brought us up to our Father's Bliss.[4] And

then shall it verily be known to us His meaning in those sweet words

where He saith: _All shall be well: and thou shalt see, thyself, that

all manner of things shall be well_. And then shall the Bliss of our

Mother, in Christ, be new to begin in the Joys of our God: which new

beginning shall last without end, new beginning.

Thus I understood that all His blessed children which be come out of

Him by Nature shall be brought again into Him by Grace.

_THE FIFTEENTH REVELATION_

"_Thou shalt come up above._" "A very fair creature, a little

Child--nimble and lively, whiter than lily"

Afore this time I had great longing and desire of God's gift to be

delivered of this world and of this life. For oftentimes I beheld the

woe that is here, and the weal and the bliss that is being there: (and

if there had been no pain in this life but the absence of our Lord,

methought it was some-time more than I might bear;) and this made me

to mourn, and eagerly to long. And also from mine own wretchedness,

sloth, and weakness, me liked not to live and to travail, as me fell to

do.

And to all this our courteous Lord answered for comfort and patience,

and said these words: _Suddenly thou shalt be taken from all thy pain,

from all thy sickness, from all thy distress[1] and from all thy woe.

And thou shalt come up above and thou shalt have me to thy meed, and

thou shalt be fulfilled of love and of bliss. And thou shalt never have

no manner of pain, no manner of misliking, no wanting of will; but ever

joy and bliss without end. What should it then aggrieve thee to suffer

awhile, seeing that it is my will and my worship?_

And in this word: _Suddenly thou shalt be taken_,--I saw that God

rewardeth man for the patience that he hath in abiding God's will, and

for his time, and [for] that man lengtheneth his patience over the

time of his living. For not-knowing of his time of passing, that is a

great profit: for if a man knew his time, he should not have patience

over that time; but, as God willeth, while the soul is in the body it

seemeth to itself that it is ever at the point to be taken. For all

this life and this languor that we have here is but a point, and when

we are taken suddenly out of pain into bliss then pain shall be nought.

And in this time I saw a body lying on the earth, which body shewed

heavy and horrible,[2] without shape and form, as it were a swollen

quag of stinking mire.[3] And suddenly out of this body sprang a full

fair creature, a little Child, fully shapen and formed, nimble[4] and

lively, whiter than lily; which swiftly[5] glided up into heaven.

And the swollenness of the body betokeneth great wretchedness of our

deadly flesh, and the littleness of the Child betokeneth the cleanness

of purity in the soul. And methought: _With this body abideth[6] no

fairness of this Child, and on this Child dwelleth no foulness of this

body_.

It is more blissful that man be taken from pain, than that pain be

taken from man;[7] for if pain be taken from us it may come again:

therefore it is a sovereign comfort and blissful beholding in a loving

soul that we shall be taken from pain. For in this behest[8] I saw

a marvellous compassion that our Lord hath in us for our woe, and a

courteous promising[9] of clear deliverance. For He willeth that we be

comforted in the overpassing;[10] and _that_ He shewed in these words:

_And thou shalt come up above, and thou shalt have me to thy meed, and

thou shalt be fulfilled of joy and bliss_.

It is God's will that we set the point of our thought in this blissful

beholding as often as we may,--and as long time keep us therein with

His grace; for this is a blessed contemplation to the soul that is led

of God, and full greatly to His worship, for the time that it lasteth.

And [when] we fall again to our heaviness, and spiritual blindness,

and feeling of pains spiritual and bodily, by our frailty, it is God's

will that we know that He hath not forgotten us. And so signifieth He

in these words: _And thou shalt never more have pain; no manner of

sickness, no manner of misliking, no wanting of will; but ever joy and

bliss without end. What should it then aggrieve thee to suffer awhile,

seeing it is my will and my worship?_

It is God's will that we take His behests[11] and His comfortings as

largely and as mightily as we may take them, and also He willeth that

we take our abiding and our troubles[12] as lightly as we may take

them, and set them at nought. For the more lightly we take them, and

the less price we set on them, for love, the less pain we shall have

in the feeling of them, and the more thanks and meed we shall have for

them.

"The Charity of God maketh in us such a unity that, when it is truly

seen, no man can part himself from other"

And thus I understood that what man or woman with firm will[1] chooseth

God in this life, for love, he may be sure that he is loved without

end: which endless love worketh in him that grace. For He willeth that

we be as assured in hope of the bliss of heaven while we are here, as

we shall be in sureness while we are there. And ever the more pleasance

and joy that we take in this sureness, with reverence and meekness, the

better pleaseth Him, as it was shewed. This reverence that I mean is

a holy courteous dread of our Lord, to which meekness is united: and

that is, that a creature seeth the Lord marvellous great, and itself

marvellous little. For these virtues are had endlessly by the loved of

God, and this may now be seen and felt in measure through the gracious

presence of our Lord when it is [seen]: which presence in all things

is most desired, for it worketh marvellous assuredness in true faith,

and sure hope, by greatness of charity, in dread that is sweet and

delectable.

It is God's will that I see myself as much bound[2] to Him in love as

if He had done for me all that He hath done; and thus should every soul

think inwardly of its[3] Lover. That is to say, the Charity of God

maketh in us such a unity that, when it is truly seen, no man can part

himself from other. And thus ought our soul to think that God hath done

for it[4] all that He hath done.

And this sheweth He to make us to love Him and nought dread but Him.

For it is His will that we perceive that all the might of our Enemy

is taken into our Friend's hand; and therefore the soul that knoweth

assuredly this, he[5] shall not dread but Him that he loveth. All

other dread he[6] setteth among passions and bodily sickness and

imaginations. And therefore though we be in so much pain, woe, and

distress that it seemeth to us we can think [of] right nought but [of]

that [which] we are in, or [of] that [which] we feel, [yet] as soon as

we may, pass we lightly over, and set we it at nought. And why? For

that God willeth we know [Him]; and if we know Him and love Him and

reverently dread Him, we shall have peace, and be in great rest, and

it shall be great pleasance to us, all that He doeth. And this shewed

our Lord in these words: _What should it then aggrieve thee to suffer

awhile, sith it is my will and my worship?_

Now have I told you of Fifteen Revelations, as God vouchsafed to

minister them to [my] mind, renewed by lightings and touchings, I hope

of the same Spirit that shewed them all.

Of which Fifteen Shewings the First began early in the morn, about

the hour of four; and they lasted, shewing by process full fair and

steadily, each following other, till it was nine of the day, overpassed.

"All was closed, and I saw no more." "For the folly of feeling a little

bodily pain I unwisely lost for the time the comfort of all this

blessed Shewing of our Lord God"

And after this the good Lord shewed the Sixteenth [Revelation] on the

night following, as I shall tell after: which Sixteenth was conclusion

and confirmation to all Fifteen.

But first me behoveth to tell you as anent my feebleness, wretchedness

and blindness.--I have said in the beginning: _And in this [moment] all

my pain was suddenly taken from me:_ of which pain I had no grief nor

distress as long as the Fifteen Shewings lasted following. And at the

end all was close, and I saw no more. And soon I felt that I should

live and languish;[1] and anon my sickness came again: first in my head

with a sound and a din, and suddenly all my body was fulfilled with

sickness like as it was afore. And I was as barren and as dry as [if]

I never had comfort but little. And as a wretched creature I moaned

and cried for feeling of my bodily pains and for failing of comfort,

spiritual and bodily.

Then came a Religious person to me and asked me how I fared. I said I

had raved to-day. And he laughed loud and heartily.[2] And I said: _The

Cross that stood afore my face, methought it bled fast_. And with this

word the person that I spake to waxed all sober and marvelled. And anon

I was sore ashamed and astonished for my recklessness, and I thought:

_This man taketh in sober earnest[3] the least word that I might say_.

Then said I no more thereof. And when I saw that he took it earnestly

and with so great reverence, I wept, full greatly ashamed, and would

have been shriven; but at that time I could tell it no priest, for I

thought: _How should a priest believe me? I believe not our Lord God._

This [Shewing] I believed verily for the time that I saw Him, and so

was then my will and my meaning ever for to do without end; but as a

fool I let it pass from my mind. Ah! lo, wretch that I am! this was a

great sin, great unkindness, that I for folly of feeling of a little

bodily pain, so unwisely lost for the time the comfort of all this

blessed Shewing of our Lord God. Here may you see what I am of myself.

But herein would our Courteous Lord not leave me. And I lay still till

night, trusting in His mercy, and then I began to sleep. And in the

sleep, at the beginning, methought the Fiend set him on my throat,

putting forth a visage full near my face, like a young man's and it was

long and wondrous lean: I saw never none such. The colour was red like

the tilestone when it is new-burnt, with black spots therein like black

freckles--fouler than the tilestone. His hair was red as rust, clipped

in front,[4] with full locks hanging on the temples. He grinned on me

with a malicious semblance, shewing white teeth: and so much methought

it the more horrible. Body nor hands had he none shapely, but with his

paws he held me in the throat, and would have strangled me, but he

might not.

This horrible Shewing was made [whilst I was] sleeping, and so was none

other. But in all this time I trusted to be saved and kept by the mercy

of God. And our Courteous Lord gave me grace to waken; and scarcely

had I my life. The persons that were with me looked on me, and wet my

temples, and my heart began to comfort. And anon a light smoke came

in the door, with a great heat and a foul stench. I said: _Benedicite

Domine! it is all on fire that is here!_ And I weened it had been a

bodily fire that should have burnt us all to death. I asked them that

were with me if they felt any stench. They said, Nay: they felt none. I

said: _Blessed be God!_ For then wist I well it was the Fiend that was

come to tempest me. And anon I took to that [which] our Lord had shewed

me on the same day, with all the Faith of Holy Church (for I beheld it

is both one), and fled thereto as to my comfort. And anon all vanished

away, and I was brought to great rest and peace, without sickness of

body or dread of conscience.