Sixty-second chapter.
The love of God suffrith never His chosen to lose tyme, for all their troble is turnyd into endless joye; and how we arn al bownden to God for kindness and for grace. For every kind is in man, and us nedyth not to seke out to know sondry kindes, but to Holy Church.
For in that time He showed our frailty and our failings,
our breakings and our naughtings,
our angers and our castings out,
and all our woe, as much
as I thought possible in this life.
And in this He showed His blessed might,
His blessed wisdom,
His blessed love;
that He keeps us in this time
[that is to say, this earthly life]
as tenderly and as sweetly to His worship
and as securely to our salvation,
as He does when we are in most solace and comfort.
And therto He raises us
spiritually and highly in Heaven,
and turns it all to His worship
and to our joy without end.
For His love suffers us never to lose time.
[never to lose time:
‘lose time’ in Middle English is ‘waste time’,
His love never lets us waste our earthly time.
for in every fall and every loss
He teaches and keeps us fully secure.]
And all this is of God’s natural goodness
by the working of grace.
God’s nature in His being;
that is to say,
that Goodness,
that is kindred to us,
that is our Nature,
is God.
He is the ground,
He is the substance,
He is that which is natural;
and He is very Father and very Mother of our nature;
and all kinship that He has made
to flow out of Him to work His will,
shall be restored and brought again
into Him by man’s salvation,
through the working of grace.
For His kindred, which He has set,
in part, in various creatures,
in man is all whole –
in fullness and in virtue,
in fairness and in goodness,
in royalty and nobility,
in all manner of solemnity
of preciousness
and worship.
Here we see,
we are all bound to God in kindred;
we are all bound to God in grace.
Here may we see we need
not seek very far
to know these kindred things,
but to Holy Church,
into our Mother’s breast,
that is to say,
into our own soul
where our Lord dwells;
and there shall we find all;
now, in faith and in understanding,
and afterward, truly in Himself,
clearly,
in bliss.
But no man nor woman
may take this personally,
for it is not so;
it is general.
For it is our precious Christ,
and to Him was this fair nature given,
for the worship and nobility of man’s making
and for the joy and bliss of man’s salvation
jist as He saw, wished, and knew
from out-with all beginning
At that time ‘man’ was not mainly a gender term
but was usually a species one,
just as ‘mankind’ and ‘humankind’ today are species terms.
Gender terms were also formed from a fluid mix:
husband-man, wif-man, wo-man.
Just a few centuries earlier
‘he’ could mean either ‘that male’ or ‘that female’.
Sixty-third chapter
Synne is more peynfull than Hell, and vile, and hurting kinde; but grace savith kinde and destroyith synne. The children of Jesus be not yet all borne, which pass not the stature of childhood livying in febilnes till thei come to Hevyn wher joys arn ever new begynnand without end.
Here may we see
that we truly, by nature, hate sin,
that we truly, by grace, hate sin.
For our nature is good and fair in itself;
and grace was sent to save our nature
and destroy sin,
and bring our fair nature again to God,
from whence it came,
with greater nobility and worship,
by the virtuous working of grace.
For it shall be seen before God,
in all His holiness, in joy without end,
that nature has been tried in the fire of tribulation,
and there was found no lack, no default.
For nature and grace are of one accord,
for grace is God,
as nature is God.
He is two working together,
as one in love.
Neither of them works without the other;
they are inseparable.
And when we,
by God’s mercy and with His help,
reconcile ourselves to nature and grace,
we shall see truly that sin is far viler
and more painfull than Hell;
more than anything else,
for it is contrary to our fair nature.
For as surely as sin is unclean,
as surely it is unnatural,
it is a horrible thing
in the sight of the loved soul
that would be fair and shining
in the sight of God.
So nature and grace teach
We should not be in awe of this,
but inasmuch as awe may make us hasty
we should meekly make our communion
with our precious Mother,
and He shall sprinkle us
with His precious blooe,
and make our soul fully soft and mild,
and heal us fully fair in process of time,
as is most worshipful to Him
and joy to us without end.
And of this sweet, fair work
He shall never cease nor stint
till all His precious children
are born and brought forth.
He showed that when He showed His spiritual thirst,
the love-longing that shall last ’till doomsday.
Our life is grounded in Mother Jesus
in His forseeing wisdom
from without beginning,
with the high might of the Father,
and the high, sovereign goodness
of the Holy Spirit.
And in taking our nature,
He quickened us;
in his blessed dying upon the Cross,
He bore us to endless life;
from that time, and now,
and ever, until doomsday,
He feeds us and furthers us,
just as that high sovereign kindness of Motherhood,
and the natural need of childhood asks.
Fair and sweet is our heavenly Mother
in the sight of our soul;
precious and lovely are the gracious children
in the sight of our heavenly mother,
with mildness and meekness
and all the fair virtues
that are natural to children.
For it is not the child’s nature
to despair of the Mother’s love;
it is not in the Child’s nature
to take itself for granted;
naturally the Child loves the Mother,
and equally one for each other.
These are the fair virtues,
with all others like them,
with which our heavenly Mother is served
and pleased.
And I knew no higher stature
in this life than childhood,
in feebleness and failing of might and of wit,
until the time our gracious Mother
has brought us up to our Father’s bliss.
And then it shall truly be made known to us
His meaning in these sweet words where He said,
All shall be well, and you yourself shall see
that all manner of thing shall be well.
And than shall the bliss
of our Mother in Christ
be a new beginning
in the joys of our God,
which new beginning shall last without end,
eternally, new beginning .
Thus I knew
that all His blessed children
which have come out of Him by nature
shall be bought again into Him by grace.
anthonyinuk 