HERE BEGINNETH THE NINE AND FORTIETH CHAPTER
The substance of all perfection is nought else but a good will; and how that all
sounds and comfort and sweetness that may befall in this life be to it but as it
were accidents.
AND therefore I pray thee, lean listily to this meek stirring of love in thine
heart, and follow thereafter: for it will be thy guide in this life and bring
thee to bliss in the tother. It is the substance of all good living, and without
it no good work may be begun nor ended. It is nought else but a good and an
according will unto God, and a manner of well-pleasedness and a gladness that
thou feelest in thy will of all that He doth.
Such a good will is the substance of all perfection. All sweetness
and comforts, bodily or ghostly, be to this but as it were accidents, be they
never so holy; and they do but hang on this good will. Accidents I call them,
for they may be had and lacked without breaking asunder of it. I mean in this
life, but it is not so in the bliss of heaven; for there shall they be oned with
the substance without departing, as shall the body in the which they work with
the soul. So that the substance of them here is but a good ghostly will. And
surely I trow that he that feeleth the perfection of this will, as it may be had
here, there may no sweetness nor no comfort fall to any man in this life, that
he is not as fain and as glad to lack it at God's will, as to feel it and have
it.
our kind sponsors.
