"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.
[1] "feythyn."
[2] "of."
[3] "sensualite."
[4] Wisdom, Truth, Love or Goodness, p. 93.
[5] the Sense-soul.
[6] the Substance.
[7] "sensualite."
[8] "wher I myte not for the mene profir lokyn up on to hevyn." "mene"
= 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."