CHAPTER XIX
OF FAIRNESS OF MIND: VANITY OF THE WORLD: LOVE OF GOD: AND
UNION WITH OUR NEIGHBOUR: AND WHETHER PERFECT LOVE CAN BE LOST AND GOTTEN IN
THIS WAY
If thou be gladdened in fairness know it
well, for the fairness of thy mind shall make thee beloved of the highly Fair
if for love of Him only thou keepest it undefiled. Soothly the corruptible
flesh with all its beauty is full feeble and to be despised, because, soon
passing, it beguiles all its lovers. Therefore the virtue of our life stands in
this: that vanity being despised and spurned, we cleave unpartingly to
truth.
All earthly things which are desired on earth are
vain; true soothly are the heavenly and eternal which can not be seen. Ilk
Christian man in this shows himself truly chosen of God, that he sets these
earthly things at nought; his desires are altogether spread in God, and he
receives thereof a privy sound of love that no man umbelapped with worldly
desires knows, being wretchedly withdrawn from the savour of heavenly joy. But
no marvel that the shining soul, utterly intent is the love of the everlasting
and inwardly desiring Christ, is wont to have his heart's capacity fulfilled
with plenteousness of sweetness; so that in this flesh made merry, as it were
with angels life, they are gladdened with songful mirth.
Therefore if our love be pure and perfect,
whatever our heart loves it is God. Truly if we love ourself, and all other
creatures that are to be loved, only in God and for God, what other in us and
in them love we but Him? For when our God truly is loved by us with a whole
heart and all virtue, then, without doubt, our neighbour and all that is to be
loved, is most rightly loved. If therefore we shed forth our heart before God
and in the love of God being bound with Him, and holden with God, what more is
there by which we can love any other creature?
Truly in the love of God is the love of my
neighbour. Therefore as he that loves God knows not but to love man, so he that
truly knows to love Christ is proved to love nothing in himself but God. Also
all that we are loved by and love--all to God the Well of love we yield:
because He commands that all the heart of man be given to Himself. All desires
also, and all movings of the mind, He desires be fastened in Him. He forsooth
that truly loves God feels nothing in his heart but God, and if he feel none
other thing nought else has he; but whatso he has he loves for God, and he
loves nought but that God wills he should love; wherefore nothing but God he
loves and so all his love is God. Forsooth the love of this man is true, for he
conforms himself to his Maker, the which has wrought all things for Himself;
and so he loves all things for God.
Soothly when the love of the everlasting is truly
kindled in our souls, without doubt all vanity of this world and all fleshly
love is held but as foulest filth; and whiles the soul is given to continual
devotion, she desires nothing but the pleasance of the Maker. Marvellously she
burns in herself with the fire of love, that, slowly profiting and growing in
ghostly good, henceforth she falls not into the slippery way and the broad that
leads to death, but rather, raised up by a heavenly fire, she goes and ascends
into contemplative life.
Truly contemplative life is not perfectly gotten
of any man in this vale of tears, even a little, unless first his heart is
inflamed from its depths with the torches of eternal love so that he feels it
burn with the fire of love, and his conscience he knows molten with heavenly
sweetness. So no marvel a man is truly made contemplative whiles both tasting
sweetness and feeling burning he nearly dies for the greatness of love. And
therefore he is fastened in the halsing, as it were bodily, of endless love;
for contemplating unceasingly with all his desire, he busies him to go up to
see that undescried light. Forsooth such a man knows to grant no comfort in his
soul but God's, in whose love now languishing to the end of his life he is made
to desire, crying grievously with the psalmist: Quando veniam et apparebo
ante faciem Dei? that is to say: `When shall I come and appear before the
face of my God?'
This is perfect love. But it may not incongrously
be asked whether this standing in love, once had, may at any time be lost.
Truly whiles man can sin he can lose charity; but not to be able to sin belongs
not to the state of this way but to the country abovce: wherefore ilk man,
howsoever holy he be in this life, yet he can sin and mortally; for the dregs
of sin are fully slakened in no pilgrim of this life after common law. Truly if
there were any such the which neither desire nor could be tempted, they should
belong to the state of heaven rather than of this way; nor wee it of meed to
them not to default, whiles they can not sin. I wot not if any such be living
anywhere in flesh for, I speak for myself, the flesh desires against the
spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and after the inward man I am glad in
God's law, but I know not yet so mickle love that I could utterly slake all
fleshly desire.
Nevertheless I trow that there is a degree of
perfect love, the which whosoever attains he shall never afterwards lose. For
truly it is one thing to be able to lose, and another alway to hold, what he
will not leave although he can.
The perfect truly abstain themselves, as mickle
as in them is, from ilk thing by which their perfection can be destroyed or
else let. Truly with the freeness of their choice they are fulfilled with the
grace of God, with which they are busily stirred to love, to speak and do good;
and they are withdrawn from ill of heart, mouth, and work.
When a man is therefore perfectly turned to
Christ he despises all passing things, and he fastens himself immovably to the
desire only of his Maker, as far as he is let by mortality because of the
corruption of the flesh. Then no marvel, manly using his might, first the
heaven as it were being opened, with the eye of his understanding he beholds
the citizens of heaven; and afterward he feels sweetest heat as it were a
burning fire. Then he is imbued with marvellous sweetness, and henceforth he is
joyed by a songly noise.
This therefore is perfect charity, which no man
knows but he that receives it; and he that has received never leaves it:
sweetly he lives, and sickerly shall he die.