CHAPTER XI
OF THE LOVE OF GOD
O sweet and delectable light that is my
Maker unmade; enlighten the face and sharpness of my inward eye with clearness
unmade, that my mind, pithily cleansed from uncleanness and made marvellous
with gifts, may swiftly flee into the high mirth of love; and kindled with Thy
savour I may sit and rest, joying in Thee, Jesu. And going as it were ravished
in heavenly sweetness, and made stable in the beholding of things unseen,
never, save by godly things, shall I be gladdened.
O Love everlasting, enflame my soul to love God,
so that nothing may burn in me but His embraces. O good Jesu, who shall grant
me to feel Thee that now may neither be felt nor seen? Shed Thyself into the
entrails of my soul. Come into my heart and fill it with Thy clearest
sweetness. Moisten my mind with the hot wine of Thy sweet love, that forgetful
of all ills and all scornful visions and imaginations, and only having Thee, I
may be glad and joy in Jesu my God. Henceforward, sweetest Lord, go not from
me, continually biding with me in Thy sweetness; for Thy presence only is
solace to me, and Thy absence only leaves me heavy.
O Holy Ghost that givest grace where Thou wilt,
come into me and ravish me to Thee; change the nature that Thou hast made with
Thy honeyed gifts, that my soul fulfilled with Thy liking joy, may despise and
cast away all things in this world. Ghostly gifts she may take of Thee, the
Giver, and going by songful joy into undescried light she may be all melted in
holy love. Burn my reins and my heart with Thy fire that on Thine altar shall
endlessly burn.
O sweet and true Joy, I pray Thee come! Come O
sweet and most desired! I pray Thee come! Come O sweet and most desired! Come
my Love, that art all my comfort! Glide down into a soul longing for Thee and
after Thee with sweet heat. Kindle with Thy heat the wholeness of my heart.
With Thy light enlighten my inmost parts. Feed me with honeyed songs of love,
as far I may receive them by my powers of body and soul.
In these, and such other meditations be glad,
that so thou mayest come to the pith of love. Love truly suffers not a loving
soul to bide in itself, but ravishes it out to the Lover; so that the soul is
more there were it loves, than where the body is that by it lives and feels.
There are soothly three degrees of Christ's love,
by one or another of which he that is chosen to love profits. The first is
called, unable to be overcome; the second, unable to be parted; the third is
called singular.
Then truly is love unovercomeable when it can not
be overcome by any other desire. When it casts away lettings, and slakes all
temptations and fleshly desires; and when it patiently suffers all griefs for
Christ, and is overcome by no flattery nor delight. All labour is light to a
lover, nor can a man better overcome labour than by love.
Love truly is undeparted when the mind is kindled
with great love, and cleaves to Christ with undeparted thought. Forsooth it
suffers Him not to pass from the mind a minute, but as if he were bound in
heart to Him it thinks and sighs after Him, and it cries to be holden with His
love that He may loose him from the fetters of mortality, and may lead him to
Him Whom only he desires to see. And most this name JESU he in so mickle
worships and loves that It continually rests in his mind.
When therefore the love of Christ is set so
mickle in the heart of God's lover and the world's despiser that it may not be
overcome by other desire of love, it is called high. But when he holds
undepartedly to Christ, ever thinking of Christ, by no occasion forgetting Him,
it is called everlasting and undeparted. And if this be high and
everlasting, what love can be higher or more?
Yet there is the third degree that is called
singular. It is one thing to be high, and another to be alone; as it is
one thing to be ever presiding, and another to have no fellow. Truly we may
have many fellows and yet have a place before all.
Truly if thou seekest or receivest any comfort
other than of thy God, and if peradventure thou lovest the highest, yet it is
not singular. Thou seest therefore to what the greatness of worthiness must
increase, that when thou art high thou mayest be alone. Therefore love ascends
to the singular degree when it excludes all comfort but the one that is in
Jesu; when nothing but Jesu may suffice it.
The soul set in this degree loves Him alone; she
yearns only for Christ, and Christ desires; only in His desire she abides, and
after Him she sighs; in Him she burns; she rests in His warmth. Nothing is
sweet to her, nothing she savours, except it be made sweet in Jesu; whose
memory is as a song of music in a feast of wine. Whatever the self offers to
her besides it or comes into mind, is straightway cast back and suddenly
despised if it serve not His desire or accord not with His will. She suppresses
all customs that she sees serve not to the love of Christ. Whatever she does
seems unprofitable and intolerable unless it runs and leads to Christ, the End
of her desire. When she can love Christ she trows she has all things that she
wills to have, and withouten Him all things are abhorrent to her and wax foul.
But because she trows to love Him endlessly she steadfastly abides, and wearies
not in body nor heart but loves perseveringly and suffers all things gladly.
And the more she thus lives in Him the more she is kindled in love, and the
liker she is to Him.
No marvel loneliness accords with such a one that
grants no fellow among men. For the more he is ravished inwardly by joys, the
less is he occupied in outward things; nor is he let by heaviness or the cares
of this life. And now it seems as if the soul were unable to suffer pain, so
that not being let by anguish, she ever joys in God.
O my soul, cease from the love of this world and
melt in Christ's love, that always it may be sweet to thee to speak, read,
write, and think of Him; to pray to Him and ever to praise Him. O God, my soul,
to Thee devoted, desires to see Thee! She cries to Thee from afar. She burns in
Thee and languishes in Thy love. O Love that fails not, Thou hast overcome me!
O everlasting Sweetness and Fairness Thou hast wounded my heart, and now
overcome and wounded I fall. For joy scarcely I live, and nearly I die; for I
may not suffer the sweetness of so great a Majesty in this flesh that shall
rot.
All my heart truly, fastened in desire for JESU,
is turned into heat of love, and it is swallowed into another joy and another
form. Therefore O good Jesu have mercy upon a wretch. Show Thyself to me that
longs; give medicine to my hurt. I feel myself not sick, but languishing in Thy
love. He that loves Thee not altogether loses all; he that follows Thee not is
mad. Meanwhile therefore be Thou my Joy, my Love, and Desire, until I may see
Thee, O God of Gods, in Syon.
Charity truly is the noblest of virtues, the most
excellent and sweetest, that joins the Beloved to the lover, and everlastingly
couples Christ with the chosen soul. It reforms in us the image of the high
Trinity, and makes the creature most like to the Maker.
O gift of love, what is it worth before all other
things, that challenges the highest degree with the angels! Truly the more of
love a man receives in this life, the greater and higher in heaven shall he be.
O singular joy of everlasting love that ravishes all His to the heavens above
all worldly things, binding them with the bands of virtue.
O dear charity, he is not wrought on earth
that--whatever else he may have--has not Thee. He truly that is busy to joy in
Thee, is forthwith lift above earthly things. Thou enterest boldly the
bedchamber of the Everlasting King. Thou only art not ashamed to receive
Christ. He it is that thou hast sought and loved. Christ is thine: hold Him,
for He cannot but receive thee, whom only thou desirest to obey. For withouten
thee plainly no work pleases Him. Thou makest all things savoury. Thou art a
heavenly seat; angels fellowship; a marvellous holiness; a blissful sight; and
life that lasts endlessly.
O holy charity, how sweet thou art and
comfortable; that remakest that that was broken. The fallen thou restorest; the
bond thou deliverest; man thou makest even with angels. Thou raisest up those
sitting and resting, and the raised thou makest sweet.
In this degree or state of love is love chaste,
holy, and wilful; loving what is loved for the self, not for goods, and
fastening itself altogether on that that is loved. Seeking nothing outward,
pleased with itself: ardent, sweet-smelling, heartily binding love to itself in
a marvellously surpassing manner. In the loved one joying; all other things
despising and forgetting; thinking without forgetfulness; ascending in desire;
falling in his love; going on in halsing; overcome by kissing; altogether
molten in the fire of love.
Thus truly Christ's lover keeps no order in his
loving nor covets no degree, because however fervent and joyful he be in the
love of God in this life, yet he thinks to love God more and more. Yea, though
he might live here evermore yet he should not trow at any time to stand still
and not progress in love, but rather the longer he shall live the more he
should burn in love.
God truly is of infinite greatness, better than
we can think; of unreckoned sweetness; inconceivable of all natures wrought;
and can never be comprehended by us as He is in Himself in eternity. But now,
when the mind begins to burn in the desire for its Maker, she is made able to
receive the unwrought light, and so inspired and fulfilled by the gifts of the
Holy Ghost--as far as is lawful to mortals--she has heavenly joy. Then she
overpasseth all things seen, and is raised up in height of mind to the
sweetness of everlasting life. And whiles the soul is spread with the sweetness
of the Godhead and the warmness of Creating Light, she is offered in sacrifice
to the everlasting King, and being accepted is all burned up.
O merry love, strong, ravishing, burning, wilful,
stalwart, unslakened, that brings all my soul to Thy service and suffers it to
think of nothing but Thee. Thou challengest for Thyself all that we live; all
that we savour; all that we are.
Thus therefore let Christ be the beginning of our
love, whom we love for Himself. And so we love whatever is to be loved
ordinately for Him that is the Well of love, and in whose hands we put all that
we love and are loved by. Here soothly is perfect love shown: when all the
intent of the mind, all the privy working of the heart, is lift up into God's
love; so that the might and mirth of true love be so mickle that no worldly
joy, nor fleshly merchandise, be lawful nor liking.
O love undeparted! O love singular! Although
there were no torments for the wicked, nor no meed in heaven should be trowed
for chosen souls, yet shouldst thou never the sooner loose thee from thy Love.
More tolerable it wee to thee to suffer an untrowed grief than once to sin
deadly. Therefore truly thou lovest God for Himself and for no other thing, nor
thyself except for God; and thereof it follows that nothing but God is loved in
thee. How else should God be all in ilk thing, if there be any love of man in a
man?
O clear charity, come into me and take me into
thee and so present me before my Maker. Thou art savour well tasting; sweetness
well smelling, and pleasant odour; a cleansing heat and a comfort endlessly
lasting. Thou makest men contemplative; heaven's gate thou openest; the mouths
of accusers thou sparrest; thou makest God be seen and thou hidest a multitude
of sins. We praise thee, we preach thee, by the which we overcome the world; by
whom we joy and ascend the heavenly ladder. In thy sweetness glide into me: and
I commend me and mine unto thee withouten end.