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Fifty-second chapter.

God enjoyeth that He is our fadir, mother, and spouse, and how the chosen have here a medlur of wele and wo, but God is with us in three manner; and how we may eschew synne but never it perfectly as in heaven.

And thus I saw that God
delights to be our father, our mother,
our true spouse, with our soul as His beloved wife.
And Christ delights to be our brother,
Jesus, to be our Savior.

These five high joys in Him
he wishes us to have for our delight,
praising, thanking, loving,
and endlessly blessing Him.

In all that shall be saved,
through all this earthly life,
is found a wondrous medley,
a song of weal and woe.

By Christ we are kept, steadfastly,
raised by the touch of Grace,
certain of salvation.

We feel broken by Adam’s fall so many ways.
We are made so dark and blind by sins and pains
we scarcely take comfort.
In faith we wait on God,
trusting His mercy and grace.

His work, His goodness in us,
opens the eyes of our mind.
giving us sight,
sometimes more,
sometimes less,
as He leads us to understand.

We are raised up now to one thing,
now suffered to fall to another.
Such a medley of feelings we scarcely know
how we or fellow Christians stand.

But that holy acceptance
we give when we feel God,
willing to be with Him
with all our heart,
with all our soul,
with all our might,
make us hate and despise evil stirrings,
that prompt physical and spiritual sin.

When this sweetness is hidden,
we fall into blindness,
many distresses and trials.

This then is our comfort:
that we know in our faith,
that by the virtue of Christ, our keeper,
we never assent to it,
we groan against it,
enduring pain and woe,
praying for the time He shows Himself to us again.

We stand in this mingled medley
all the days of our life,
but He wishes us to trust,
He is with us always,
in three ways.

He is with us in Heaven, drawing us up,
He is with us in earth, leading us on,
He is with us in our soul,
endlessly dwelling,
ruling and caring for us.

This last, His presence in our soul,
will be shown in the sixteenth revelation
as I shall say later.

So in the servant was shown
the mischief and blindness of Adam’s fall,
and the wisdom and goodness of God’s Son.

And in the lord was shown
the care and pity, for Adam’s woe;
the nobility and endless worship mankind gained
by the passion and death of God’s dear Son,
who delights that His falling is turned,
to our height and fullness of bliss,
surpassing all we should have had
if He had not fallen.

To see this surpassing nobility
my thoughts were led to God
in the same moment that I saw the servant fallen.

We have now matter of mourning,
for our sin is the cause of Christ’s pains.
And a lasting matter of joy,
for what led him to suffer
was His endless love.

And so the creature
that sees and feels the working of love by grace
hates nothing but sin.
For of all things,
to my sight,
love and hate are hard, unmeasurable contraries.

Nevertheless I saw
and understood our Lord
to mean we may not keep from sin
as holy and fully clean in this life
as we shall in Heaven.
But by grace
we may keep from sins which lead to endless pains,
as Holy Church teaches us,
and eschew venial ones in reason by our own might.
And if any time we fall
by our blindness and wretchedness,
that we readily rise,
knowing the sweet touch of grace,
and wilfully mend our ways
in the teaching of Holy Church,
inasmuch as the sin is grievous,
and go straight to God in love;
neither on one side over-inclined to despair,
nor on the other over-reckless
as if we did not care,
but nakedly, knowing our feebleness,
knowing we cannot stand a twinkling of an eye but by grace,
and reverently cleave to God,
trusting Him only.

For there is God’s view, and man’s,
for it is for man to meekly accuse himself,
and the proper goodness of our Lord God
to courteously excuse man.

In the double regard
in which the lord beheld his beloved servant’s fall
there were two parts:
one outward, meekly and mildly
with great ruth and pity,
and endless love.

Our Lord wills that we accuse ourself,
wilfully and truly see and know our failing
and all the harm that comes of it;
knowing we may never restore it,
and truly knowing His everlasting love,
His overflowing mercy for us;
to graciously to see and know both together
is the meek accusing our Lord asks of us,
and works it where it is.

And this is the lower part of man’s life,
shown in the outward regard,
in which I saw two parts:
one, the rueful falling of man;
the other the worshipful love our Lord has made for man.

The other regard was shown inwardly,
and was higher and fully one.
For the life and virtue we have in the lower part
is of the higher.
It comes down to us
of the natural love of the self by grace.

There is nothing between that one and the other.
It is all one blessed love
which now has in us a double working.
For in the lower part are pains and passions,
ruths and pities,
mercies and forgiveness,
and such other that are profitable.
But in the higher part are none of these,
but one high love and marvelous joy,
in which all pains are highly restored.

In this our good Lord showed not only our excusing,
but the worshipful nobility He shall bring us to,
turning all our blame into endless worship.