"_Thou shalt come up above._" "A very fair creature, a little
Child--nimble and lively, whiter than lily"
Afore this time I had great longing and desire of God's gift to be
delivered of this world and of this life. For oftentimes I beheld the
woe that is here, and the weal and the bliss that is being there: (and
if there had been no pain in this life but the absence of our Lord,
methought it was some-time more than I might bear;) and this made me
to mourn, and eagerly to long. And also from mine own wretchedness,
sloth, and weakness, me liked not to live and to travail, as me fell to
do.
And to all this our courteous Lord answered for comfort and patience,
and said these words: _Suddenly thou shalt be taken from all thy pain,
from all thy sickness, from all thy distress[1] and from all thy woe.
And thou shalt come up above and thou shalt have me to thy meed, and
thou shalt be fulfilled of love and of bliss. And thou shalt never have
no manner of pain, no manner of misliking, no wanting of will; but ever
joy and bliss without end. What should it then aggrieve thee to suffer
awhile, seeing that it is my will and my worship?_
And in this word: _Suddenly thou shalt be taken_,--I saw that God
rewardeth man for the patience that he hath in abiding God's will, and
for his time, and [for] that man lengtheneth his patience over the
time of his living. For not-knowing of his time of passing, that is a
great profit: for if a man knew his time, he should not have patience
over that time; but, as God willeth, while the soul is in the body it
seemeth to itself that it is ever at the point to be taken. For all
this life and this languor that we have here is but a point, and when
we are taken suddenly out of pain into bliss then pain shall be nought.
And in this time I saw a body lying on the earth, which body shewed
heavy and horrible,[2] without shape and form, as it were a swollen
quag of stinking mire.[3] And suddenly out of this body sprang a full
fair creature, a little Child, fully shapen and formed, nimble[4] and
lively, whiter than lily; which swiftly[5] glided up into heaven.
And the swollenness of the body betokeneth great wretchedness of our
deadly flesh, and the littleness of the Child betokeneth the cleanness
of purity in the soul. And methought: _With this body abideth[6] no
fairness of this Child, and on this Child dwelleth no foulness of this
body_.
It is more blissful that man be taken from pain, than that pain be
taken from man;[7] for if pain be taken from us it may come again:
therefore it is a sovereign comfort and blissful beholding in a loving
soul that we shall be taken from pain. For in this behest[8] I saw
a marvellous compassion that our Lord hath in us for our woe, and a
courteous promising[9] of clear deliverance. For He willeth that we be
comforted in the overpassing;[10] and _that_ He shewed in these words:
_And thou shalt come up above, and thou shalt have me to thy meed, and
thou shalt be fulfilled of joy and bliss_.
It is God's will that we set the point of our thought in this blissful
beholding as often as we may,--and as long time keep us therein with
His grace; for this is a blessed contemplation to the soul that is led
of God, and full greatly to His worship, for the time that it lasteth.
And [when] we fall again to our heaviness, and spiritual blindness,
and feeling of pains spiritual and bodily, by our frailty, it is God's
will that we know that He hath not forgotten us. And so signifieth He
in these words: _And thou shalt never more have pain; no manner of
sickness, no manner of misliking, no wanting of will; but ever joy and
bliss without end. What should it then aggrieve thee to suffer awhile,
seeing it is my will and my worship?_
It is God's will that we take His behests[11] and His comfortings as
largely and as mightily as we may take them, and also He willeth that
we take our abiding and our troubles[12] as lightly as we may take
them, and set them at nought. For the more lightly we take them, and
the less price we set on them, for love, the less pain we shall have
in the feeling of them, and the more thanks and meed we shall have for
them.
[1] "disese."
[2] "uggley."
[3] a "bolned quave of styngand myre."
[4] "swifie" = agile, quick.
[5] "sharply."
[6] "beleveth."
[7] "full blissful ... mor than."
[8] _i.e._ promise, proclamation.
[9] "behoting."
[10] _i.e._ the exceeding fulness of heavenly bliss.
[11] See note 8 above.
[12] "diseases" = discomforts, distresses.