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.
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