CHAPTER VI
How that which is best and noblest should also be loved above all
Things by us, merely because it is the best.
A Master called Boetius saith, "It is of sin that we do not love that which is
Best." He hath spoken the truth. That which is best should be the dearest of
all things to us; and in our love of it, neither helpfulness nor unhelpfulness,
advantage nor injury, gain nor loss, honour nor dishonour, praise nor blame,
nor anything of the kind should be regarded; but what is in truth the noblest
and best of all things, should be also the dearest of all things, and that for
no other cause than that it is the noblest and best.
Hereby may a man order his life within and
without. His outward life: for among the creatures one is better than another,
according as the Eternal Good manifesteth itself and worketh more in one than
in another. Now that creature in which the Eternal Good most manifesteth
itself, shineth forth, worketh, is most known and loved, is the best, and that
wherein the Eternal Good is least manifested is the least good of all
creatures. Therefore when we have to do with the creatures and hold converse
with them, and take note of their diverse qualities, the best creatures must
always be the dearest to us, and we must cleave to them, and unite ourselves to
them, above all to those which we attribute to God as belonging to Him or
divine, such as wisdom, truth, kindness, peace, love, justice, and the like.
Hereby shall we order our outward man, and all that is contrary to these
virtues we must eschew and flee from.
But if our inward man were to make a leap and
spring into the Perfect, we should find and taste how that the Perfect is
without measure, number or end, better and nobler than all which is imperfect
and in part, and the Eternal above the temporal or perishable, and the fountain
and source above all that floweth or can ever flow from it. Thus that which is
imperfect and in part would become tasteless and be as nothing to us. Be
assured of this: All that we have said must come to pass if we are to love that
which is noblest, highest and best.