"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.
[1] So S. de Cressy has it. There is evidently an omission in the MS.
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.
[2] "like it."
[3] Cressy has: "He is Peace; and His Might, His Wisdom, His Charity,
and His Unity," etc.
[4] Chap. ii. "a simple creature"; "the soul," xxiv., xiii., etc., and
xxxii. p. 64.