HERE BEGINNETH THE SEVEN AND FORTIETH CHAPTER
A slight teaching of this work in purity of spirit; declaring
how that on one manner a soul should shed his desire unto God, and on ye
contrary unto man.
LOOK thou have no wonder why that I speak thus childishly, and as it were
follily and lacking natural discretion; for I do it for certain reasons, and as
me thinketh that I have been stirred many days, both to feel thus and think
thus and say thus, as well to some other of my special friends in God, as I am
now unto thee.
And one reason is this, why that I bid thee
hide from God the desire of thine heart. For I hope it should more clearly come
to His knowing, for thy profit and in fulfilling of thy desire, by
such an hiding, than it should by any other manner of shewing that I trow thou
couldest yet shew. And another reason is, for I would by such a hid shewing
bring thee out of the boisterousness of bodily feeling into the purity and
deepness of ghostly feeling; and so furthermore at the last to help thee to
knit the ghostly knot of burning love betwixt thee and thy God, in ghostly
onehead and according of will.
Thou wottest well this, that God is a Spirit; and
whoso should be oned unto Him, it behoveth to be in soothfastness and deepness
of spirit, full far from any feigned bodily thing. Sooth it is that all thing
is known of God, and nothing may be hid from His witting, neither bodily thing
nor ghostly. But more openly is that thing known and shewed unto Him, the which
is hid in deepness of spirit, sith it so is that He is a Spirit, than is
anything that is mingled with any manner of bodilyness. For all bodily thing is
farther from God by the course of nature than any ghostly thing. By
this reason it seemeth, that the whiles our desire is mingled with any matter
of bodilyness, as it is when we stress and strain us in spirit and in body
together, so long it is farther from God than it should be, an it were done
more devoutly and more listily in soberness and in purity and in deepness of
spirit.
And here mayest thou see somewhat and in part the
reason why that I bid thee so childishly cover and hide the stirring of thy
desire from God. And yet I bid thee not plainly hide it; for that were the
bidding of a fool, for to bid thee plainly do that which on nowise may be done.
But I bid thee do that in thee is to hide it. And why bid I thus? Surely
because I would that thou cast it into deepness of spirit, far from any rude
mingling of any bodilyness, the which would make it less ghostly and farther
from God inasmuch: and because I wot well that ever the more that thy spirit
hath of ghostliness, the less it hath of bodilyness and the nearer
it is to God, and the better it pleaseth Him and the more clearly it may be
seen of Him. Not that His sight may be any time or in any thing more clear than
in another, for it is evermore unchangeable: but because it is more like unto
Him, when it is in purity of spirit, for He is a Spirit.
Another reason there is, why that I bid thee do
that in thee is to let Him not wit: for thou and I and many such as we be, we
be so able to conceive a thing bodily the which is said ghostly, that
peradventure an I had bidden thee shew unto God the stirring of thine heart,
thou shouldest have made a bodily shewing unto Him, either in gesture or in
voice, or in word, or in some other rude bodily straining, as it is when thou
shalt shew a thing that is hid in thine heart to a bodily man: and insomuch thy
work should have been impure. For on one manner shall a thing be shewed to man,
and on another manner unto God.