"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.
[1] "a touch."
[2] "buxumhede."
[3] "liketh."