CHAPTER XI
THAT PERFECT LOVE BINDS TO GOD WITHOUT LOOSING AND MAKES MAN
MINDFUL OF HIS GOD; BUT LOVE OF THE WORLD FALLS TO NOUGHT. AND OF THE NATURE OF
TRUE LOVE, STABLE AND AY-LASTING, SWEET, SOFT, AND PROFITABLE: AND OF FALSE
LOVE; VENOMOUS, FOUL, AND
UNCLEAN
This work is perfect if we depart our
minds pithily from love of creatures and join them truly to God without
departing. And in this work the more perfect we be the better we are. This deed
is above all others, for all that we do is referred to this end, so that we be
knitted and oned perfectedly to God. And from this onehead many things draw;
that is to say, liking beauty of this world, vanity of men and women, riches
and honours, praise and favour of people. Therefore we must exercise ourselves
to fulfill this work, putting back and forgetting all things that might let
us.
Certain the love to which we ascend in this work
is quicker than a burning coal, and shall produce its effect in us, for it
shall make our souls both burning and shining. This is the love that can not be
beguiled by a creature or scorned in heaven nor put from meed. We could long
suffer the flame of this fire if it should ay last in one measure; but ofttimes
it is tempered, lest it waste nature that through the body corrupts and grieves
the soul; for the corruptible flesh suffers not our mind to be continually
borne to God.
Certain the heat of very devotion is sometimes
hindered as by sleep, and the misuse of the body or labour; and yet the burning
is not slaked, but it is not felt as it was before. It comes again to us truly
whiles we turn again to God, and makes us mend from sickness of mind and gives
sweetness. It delivers the body also from many sicknesses, and whiles it keeps
us in temperance and soberness it raises our souls to heavenly desires so that
we have no delight in low things.
This is the love that ravishes Christ into our
hearts and makes our minds sweet, so that within we burst out in songs of
praise, and as it were in spiritual music we sing. I suppose no delight he like
to this, for it moistens with clear sweetness and gladdens with holy liking.
The soul that receives it is purged with blessed fire and in it bides no rust
nor filth, but it is altogether thirled with heavenly joy, so that our inward
nature seems turned into godly joy and song of love. Thus forsooth everlasting
love gladdens and insheds plenteous delight, so that the friends thereof are
not compelled to bow to any desire for a creature of this world but they may
freely melt in praise and love of Jesus Christ.
Learn therefore to love thy Maker if thou desire
to live when thou passest hence; so do that thou mayest love God in thy life if
thou wilt live after thy death. Give all thy mind to Him that He may keep it
from temporal and eternal sorrows. Beware that thy heart be not sundered from
Him though thou be set in adversity or wretchedness; for so shalt thou be
worthy to have Him with joy, and to love Him withouten end. If thou suffer not
the memory of God to slip whether prosperity come or grief; in that certain
thou showest thyself a true lover.
O good Jesu, that gavest me life, lead me
desiring into Thy love. Take unto Thee all mine intent so that Thou mayest be
all my desire, nor nothing beyond Thee shall my heart desire. Sorrow certain
and all heaviness would pass from me, and that I desire come to me, if my soul
had received or heard the song of Thy praise. Thy love would ever unwearily
bide in us, so that we can perceive it. Take therefore my mind into Thy power
and make it stable that it come not to nought with vain and unprofitable
fantasies, nor be scorned by errors, nor be bowed to earthly felicity or love
or praise, but my mind being so settled in Thee may in Thy love so burn that by
no sudden nor avised chance it may be cooled.
If certain I love any creature of this world that
shall in all kinds please my wish and set my joy and the end of my solace in
it, when it should come to me I well might have dread of the burning and bitter
parting. For all felicity that I have in such love is but greeting and sorrow
in the end, and that pain, when it draws near, most bitterly will punish the
soul. All pleasure also that men have beholden in this exile is likened to hay
that now flourishes and waxes green, but suddenly vanishes as if it had not
been.
No marvel that to them that behold rightly, the
joy of this world thus seems; and to them following the solace of those bound
in sin; it never abides in one estate but passes until it come to nought.
Nevertheless all stand in labour and grief, and no man can eschew that. The
nature certain of true love and not feigned is this, that it stands ay stable
and is changed by no new thing.
Therefore the life that can find love and truly
know it in mind, shall be turned from sorrow to joy unspoken and is conversant
in the service of melody. Song certain it shall love, and, singing in Jesu,
shall be likened to a bird singing to the death. And peradventure in dying the
solace of charitable song shall not want,--if it happen to him to die and not
go swiftly to his love. After this passage forsooth he shall be marvellously
lifted up into the praise of his Maker, and singing shall overflow with
delights more than may be trowed, and into the song of the seraphim shall
forthwith rise, so that in praising he shall give light, and continually and
endlessly burn. There shall be halsing of love, and the sweetness of lovers
shall be coupled in heart, and the joining of friends shall stand for ever. The
sweet mouth shall give liking kisses and their love shall never cease.
The presence of my Love begets to me gladness
unmeasured and sickerness, and with him I have mind of no heaviness; all
adversity vanishes and all other desires appear not, but are stilled and
dispersed; and He alone, that my mind has alone burningly desired, wholly
refreshes and in-laps me. Truly if thou love Christ with all thy will, thou
hatest all filth of wickedness, and thou givest thy heart to Him that bought it
so that He may be thy Lord by grace and not the fiend by sin. As Christ has
truly and unfeared sought thy soul, and would not cease in seeking until the
time thou foundest Him, so to endless joy thou shalt be led and be near to God
in a blessed seat. Therefore I counsel Thee to love as I have expounded, and
take thy place with the angels.
Beware thou sellest not this joy and honour for
foul vanity of fleshly lust; wisely consider that the love of creatures exclude
thee not from the love of God. Hate thou no wretchedness on earth except that
they thy pure love can cast over and disturb; for perfect love is strong as
death, true love is hard as hell. Love forsooth is a light burden, not charging
but lightening the bearer; the which makes glad the young with the old; in the
which the discomfiters of fiends joy, having taken their prey; in which
fighters are defended against the flesh and the world. Love is ghostly wine
moistening the minds of the chosen and making them bold and manly, so that they
have forgotten the venomous likings of the world nor have no care thereof but
rather great scorn.
Therefore by holy love no lover can lose but
needs win mickle if he keep it truly in his heart. Love without pain bides in
the soul of a lover, as lovers have shown, for love makes perfect and pain
destroys. Making perfect and destroying are contrary, therefore the heart,
loving perfectly, feels no pain nor heaviness, nor is it sorry nor disturbed.
Thus soothly perfect love and wretched heaviness stand not together. Moreover,
that that is done gladly is not done painfully. Soothly a lover works wilfully
and gladly, therefore he has no wretchedness in his work but he is happy; not
constrained, not heavy, but ay showing himself glad and merry.
Love therefore is the sweetest and most
profitable thing that ever reasonable creature received. Love is most
acceptable and liking to God; it not only binds the mind with bands of
sweetness and wisdom and joins to God, but also it constrains flesh and blood
that man slip not into beguiling sweetness and into divers desires of errors.
In this love our life should stand and wax mighty and strong. A better dwelling
place nor sweeter found I never, for it has made me and my love one, and made
one out of two.
Yet worldly love shall grow and perish as the
flower of the field in summer, and shall be joying no more but as it were one
day, so sickerly shall it last a short while, but after that end in sorrow. And
so doubtless it shall be bitter to fond lovers. Their pride and play in false
beauty shall be cast into filth, that shall be with them endlessly when they
are downcast into torments. These shall not pass; as did their false felicity
and the joy they had in shining beauty, which have gone into voidness, and all
that they enjoyed has swiftly vanished.
God truly gives fairness to men and women not
that they should burn together in love despising their Maker--as all nearly do
now--but, knowing it as God's gift, they should glorify and love Him
unceasingly with all their heart, and should continually desire that heavenly
beauty, in comparison to which all worldly beauty is nought. For if a lovely
form is shown in the servants of this world, what shall be the beauty of God's
children set in heaven? Therefore let us love burningly, for if we love we
shall sing in heavenly mirth to Christ with melody, whose love overcomes all
things. Therefore let us live and also die in love.