CHAPTER XXXVII
How in God, as God, there can neither be Grief, Sorrow,
Displeasure, nor the like, but how it is otherwise in a Man who is "made a
Partaker of the Divine Nature."
In God, as God, neither sorrow nor grief nor displeasure can have place, and
yet God is grieved on account of men's sins. Now since grief cannot befall God
without the creature, this cometh to pass where He is made man, or when He
dwelleth in a Godlike man. And there, behold, sin is so hateful to God, and
grieveth Him so sore, that He would willingly suffer agony and death, if one
man's sins might be thereby washed out. And if He were asked whether He would
rather live and that sin should remain, or die and destroy sin by His death, He
would answer that He would a thousand times rather die. For to God one man's
sin is more hateful, and grieveth Him worse than His own agony and death. Now
if one man's sin grieveth God so sore, what must the sins of all men do? Hereby
ye may consider, how greatly man grieveth God with his sins.
And therefore where God is made man, or when
He dwelleth in a truly Godlike man, nothing is complained of but sin, and
nothing else is hateful; for all that is, and is done, without sin, is as God
will have it, and is His. But the mourning and sorrow of a truly Godlike man on
account of sin, must and ought to last until death, should he live till the Day
of Judgment, or for ever. From this cause arose that hidden anguish of Christ,
of which none can tell or knoweth ought save Himself alone, and therefore is it
called a mystery.
Moreover, this is an attribute of God, which He
will have, and is well pleased to see in a man; and it is indeed God's own, for
it belongeth not unto the man, he cannot make sin to be so hateful to himself.
And where God findeth this grief for sin, He loveth and esteemeth it more than
ought else; because it is, of all things, the bitterest and saddest that man
can endure.
All that is here written touching this divine
attribute, which God will have man to possess, that it may be brought into
exercise in a living soul, is taught us by that true Light, which also teacheth
the man in whom this Godlike sorrow worketh, not to take it unto himself, any
more than if he were not there. For such a man feeleth in himself that he hath
not made it to spring up in his heart, and that it is none of his, but
belongeth to God alone.