"Jesus Christ that doeth Good against evil is our Very Mother: we have
our Being of Him where the Ground of Motherhood beginneth,--with all
the sweet Keeping by Love, that endlessly followeth."
And all this bliss we have by Mercy and Grace: which manner of bliss we
might never have had nor known but if that property of Goodness which
is God had been contraried: whereby we have this bliss. For wickedness
hath been suffered to rise contrary to the Goodness, and the Goodness
of Mercy and Grace contraried against the wickedness and turned all to
goodness and to worship, to all these that shall be saved. For it is
the property in God which doeth good against evil. Thus Jesus Christ
that doeth good against evil is our Very Mother: we have our Being of
Him,--where the Ground of Motherhood beginneth,--with all the sweet
Keeping of Love that endlessly followeth. As verily as God is our
Father, so verily God is our Mother; and that shewed He in all, and
especially in these sweet words where He saith: _I it am_.[1] That is
to say, _I it am, the Might and the Goodness of the Fatherhood; I it
am, the Wisdom of the Motherhood; I it am, the Light and the Grace that
is all blessed Love: I it am, the Trinity, I it am, the Unity: I am the
sovereign Goodness of all manner of things. I am that maketh thee to
love: I am that maketh thee to long: I it am, the endless fulfilling of
all true desires._
For there the soul is highest, noblest, and worthiest, where it is
lowest, meekest, and mildest: and [out] of this _Substantial Ground_ we
have all our virtues in our Sense-part by gift of Nature, by helping
and speeding of Mercy and Grace: without the which we may not profit.
Our high Father, God Almighty, which is Being, He knew and loved us
from afore any time: of which knowing, in His marvellous deep charity
and the foreseeing counsel of all the blessed Trinity, He willed that
the Second Person should become our Mother. Our Father [willeth], our
Mother worketh, our good Lord the Holy Ghost confirmeth: and therefore
it belongeth to us to love our God in whom we have our being: Him
reverently thanking and praising for[2] our making, mightily praying to
our Mother for[3] mercy and pity, and to our Lord the Holy Ghost for[4]
help and grace.
For in these three is all our life: Nature, Mercy, Grace: whereof we
have meekness and mildness; patience and pity; and hating of sin and
of wickedness,--for it belongeth properly to virtue to hate sin and
wickedness. And thus is Jesus our Very Mother in Nature [by virtue] of
our first making; and He is our Very Mother in Grace, by taking our
nature made. All the fair working, and all the sweet natural office of
dearworthy Motherhood is impropriated[5] to the Second Person: for in
Him we have this Godly Will whole and safe without end, both in Nature
and in Grace, of His own proper Goodness. I understood three manners of
beholding of Motherhood in God: the first is grounded in our Nature's
_making_; the second is _taking_ of our nature,--and there beginneth
the Motherhood of Grace; the third is Motherhood of _working_,--and
therein is a forthspreading by the same Grace, of length and breadth
and height and of deepness without end. And all is one Love.
[1] it is I.
[2] MS. "of."
[3] MS. "of."
[4] MS. "of."
[5] Or "appropriated to"; MS. "impropried" = made to be the property
of; assigned and consigned to.