"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_.
[1] "he," that is, the soul.
[2] A naturally-loving, filial human soul.
[3] A naturally-loving, filial human soul.
_THE FOURTEENTH REVELATION._