HERE BEGINNETH THE SIXTIETH CHAPTER
That the high and the next way to heaven is run by desires,
and not by paces of
feet.
BUT now peradventure thou sayest, that how should it then be? For thee thinkest
that thou hast very evidence that heaven is upwards; for Christ ascended the
air bodily upwards, and sent the Holy Ghost as He promised coming from above
bodily, seen of all His disciples; and this is our belief. And therefore thee
thinkest since thou hast thus very evidence, why shalt thou not direct thy mind
upward bodily in the time of thy prayer?
And to this will I answer thee so feebly as I
can, and say: since it so was, that Christ should ascend bodily and
thereafter send the Holy Ghost bodily, then it was more seemly that it was
upwards and from above than either downwards and from beneath, behind, or
before, on one side or on other. But else than for this seemliness, Him needed
never the more to have went upwards than downwards; I mean for nearness of the
way. For heaven ghostly is as nigh down as up, and up as down: behind as
before, before as behind, on one side as other. Insomuch, that whoso had a true
desire for to be at heaven, then that same time he were in heaven ghostly. For
the high and the next way thither is run by desires, and not by paces of feet.
And therefore saith Saint Paul of himself and many other thus; although our
bodies be presently here in earth, nevertheless yet our living is in heaven. He
meant their love and their desire, the which is ghostly their life. And surely
as verily is a soul there where it loveth, as in the body that Doeth by it and
to the which it giveth life. And therefore if we will go to heaven
ghostly, it needeth not to strain our spirit neither up nor down, nor on one
side nor on other.