"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.
[1] MS. "adyte to" = ordained to, made ready for.
[2] MS. "Witt."
[3] "in our substantiall makyng."
[4] "buxum."
[5] S. de Cressy gives the "in" twice missed in the Brit. Mus. MS.