"In falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love"
But here shewed our courteous Lord the moaning and the mourning of
the soul, signifying thus: _I know well thou wilt live for my love,
joyously and gladly suffering all the penance that may come to thee;
but in as much as thou livest not without sin thou wouldest suffer, for
my love, all the woe, all the tribulation and distress that might come
to thee. And it is sooth.[1] But be not greatly aggrieved with sin that
falleth to thee against thy will._
And here I understood that [which was shewed] that the Lord beholdeth
the servant with pity and not with blame.[2] For this passing life
asketh[3] not to live all without blame and sin. He loveth us
endlessly, and we sin customably, and He sheweth us full mildly, and
then we sorrow and mourn discreetly, turning us unto the beholding
of His mercy, cleaving to His love and goodness, seeing that He is
our medicine, perceiving that we do nought but sin. And thus by the
meekness we get by the sight of our sin, faithfully knowing His
everlasting love, Him thanking and praising, we please Him:--_I love
thee, and thou lovest me, and our love shall not be disparted in two:
for thy profit I suffer [these things to come]._ And all this was
shewed in spiritual understanding, saying these blessed words: _I keep
thee full surely_.
And by the great desire that I saw in our blessed Lord that we shall
live in this manner,--that is to say, in longing and enjoying, as all
this lesson of love sheweth,--thereby I understood that that which is
contrarious to us is not of Him but of enmity; and He willeth that we
know it by the sweet gracious light of His kind love. If any such lover
be in earth which is continually kept from falling, I know it not:
for it was not shewed me. But this was shewed: that in falling and in
rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love. For in the Beholding of
God we fall not, and in the beholding of self we stand not; and both
these [manners of beholding] be sooth as to my sight. But the Beholding
of our Lord God is the highest soothness.[4] Then are we greatly bound
to God[5] [for] that He willeth in this living to shew us this high
soothness. And I understood that while we be in this life it is full
speedful to us that we see both these at once. For the higher Beholding
keepeth us in spiritual solace and true enjoying in God; [and] that
other that is the lower Beholding keepeth us in dread and maketh us
ashamed of ourself. But our good Lord willeth ever that we hold us much
more in the Beholding of the higher, and [yet] leave not the knowing of
the lower, unto the time that we be brought up above, where we shall
have our Lord Jesus unto our meed and be fulfilled of joy and bliss
without end.
[1] _i.e._ truth. See xxvii., "It is sooth that sin it cause of all
this pain."
[2] ch. li.
[3] _i.e._ "demandeth not that we live."
[4] sooth, soothness: _i.e._ truth, trueness. "Both these ben soth, as
to my syte. But the beholdyng of our Lord God is the heyest sothnes."
See chaps. xlv., liii., etc., the two "Deemings": the Beholding by God
of the higher Self and the Beholding by man of the lower self.
[5] in gratitude, obligation.