CHAPTER VI
CONCERNING HERETICS: AND FAITH IN THE
TRINITY
The plenteousness and the whole of holy
truth shows itself to them that seek it; and to the children of unity hidden
mysteries are open. Wherefore, soothly, springs the frowardness of heretics but
from an untaught and inordinate mind, which is blinded by desire of its own
excellence? For truly they cease not to resist God within themselves by vain
desires; and it is also by their earning that with open arguments they
gainstand the truth outwardly.
When the Christian religion wills to cut away all
that is contrary, and fully accord in unity of love, the manner of heretics and
the proud is to get new opinions, and to make known questions, unwont and from
the saying of holy kirk; and so those thing that true Christian men hold holy
they joy to scatter with their vanities.
Whose errors casting away we say: Truly the Son
of God, even to the Father, and without beginning, is evermore to be trowed and
understood; for except the Father had begotten Him without beginning, truly the
full Godhead should not have been in Him. Soothly if God had been at sometime
the Father when He had no Son, then no marvel He was less than afterward, when
He had gotten a Son; that shall no man of good mind say.
Therefore God unchangeable begets God
unchangeable; and whom He has begotten from eternity He ceases not this day
also to beget. For neither might the substance of the Son be called at any time
unbegotten, nor the being of the Getter ever be conscious of Himself without
any only begotten Son of Himself. Truly even as the beginning of the Godhead
may not be found of reason or wit because it has not beginning, so the
generation of the Son with the eternal Godhead unchangingly abides.
When truly the marvel and worship of God almighty
shows itself clearly in infinity, without beginning, to what end shall man's
folly raise itself in striving to make known to the ears of mortal men a
sacrament unable to be spoken? He truly knows God perfectly that feels Him
incomprehensible and unable to be known. Nothing, soothly, is perfectly known
unless the cause thereof, how and in what wise it is, be perfectly known. In
this present life we know in part and we understand in part; in the life to
come, truly, we shall know perfectly and fully, as is lawful or speedful to
creatures. Forsooth he that desires to know of our Everlasting Maker above that
that is profitable, without doubt falls fonder from perfect knowledge of
Him.
Thou askest what God is? I answer shortly to
thee: such a one and so great is He that none other is or ever may be of like
kind or so mickle. If thou wilt know properly to speak what God is, I say thou
shalt never find an answer to this question. I have not known; angels know not;
archangels have not heard. Wherefore how wouldest thou know what is unknown and
also unteachable? Truly God that is almighty may not teach thee what He Himself
is. For if thou knew what God is thou shouldest be as wise as God is: that
neither thou nor any other creature may be.
Stand therefore in thy degree, and desire not
high things. For if thou desirest to know what God is, thou desirest to be God;
the which becomes thee not. Wot thou well God alone knows Himself, and may
know. Truly it is not of God's unpower that He may not teach thee Himself as He
is in Himself, but for His inestimable worthiness; for such a one as He is,
none other may be. Soothly if He might be truly known, then were He not
incomprehensible. It is enough for thee therefore to know that God is; and it
were against thee if thou would know what God is.
Also it is to be praised to know God perfectly;
that is to say, He being unable to be fully conceived: knowing Him to love Him;
loving Him to sing in Him; singing to rest in Him, and by inward rest to come
to endless rest. Let it not move thee that I have said to know God perfectly,
and I have denied that He may be known: since the prophet in the psalm has
said: Praetende misericordiam tuam scientibus te, that is to say: `Thy
mercy show to them knowing Thee.' But thus understand this authority if thou
wilt not err: `To them knowing Thee,' that is to say: God is to be loved, to be
praised, to be worshipped and glorified, the only Maker of all things; above
all things; through all things; and in all things; that is blessed in the world
of worlds. Amen.