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Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
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Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
CHAPTER I “A Revelation of Love—in Sixteen Shewings”
CHAPTER II “A simple creature unlettered.—Which creature afore desired three gifts of God”
CHAPTER III “I desired to suffer with Him”
CHAPTER V “God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself —only in Thee I have all”
CHAPTER VII “The Shewing is not other than of faith, nor less nor more”
CHAPTER IX “If I look singularly to myself, I am right nought”
CHAPTER X “God willeth to be seen and to be sought: to be abided and to be trusted”
CHAPTER XI “All thing that is done, it is well done: for our Lord God doeth all.” “Sin is no deed”
CHAPTER XIII “The Enemy is overcome by the blessed Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ ”
CHAPTER XVI “A Part of His Passion”
CHAPTER XVIII “When He was in pain, we were in pain”
CHAPTER XXIII “The Glad Giver” “All the Trinity wrought in the Passion of Jesus Christ”
CHAPTER XXVI “It is I, it is I”
CHAPTER XXIX “How could all be well, for the great harm that is come by sin to the creature?”
CHAPTER XXXVIII In Heaven “the token of sin is turned to worship.”— Examples thereof
CHAPTER XLI “ I am the Ground of thy beseeching.
CHAPTER XLIII “Prayer uniteth the soul to God”
CHAPTER LV “Christ is our Way”—“Mankind shall be restored from double death”
CHAPTER LVII “In Christ our two natures are united”
CHAPTER LX “The Kind, loving, Mother”
CHAPTER LXIV “ Thou shalt come up above
CHAPTER LXIX “I was delivered from the Enemy by the virtue of Christ’s Passion”
CHAPTER LXXI “Three manners of looking seen in our Lord’s Countenance”
CHAPTER LXXIV “There is no dread that fully pleaseth God in us but reverent dread”
CHAPTER LXXVI “The soul that beholdeth the fair nature of our Lord Jesus, it hateth no hell but sin”
CHAPTER LXXII “In falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love ”
CHAPTER LXXXIII “Life, Love, and Light”
CHAPTER LXXXV “Lord, blessed mayest Thou be, for it is thus: it is well”
AND when God Almighty had shewed so plenteously and joyfully of His Goodness, I desired to learn assuredly as to a certain creature that I loved, if it should continue in good living, which I hoped by the grace of God was begun. And in this desire for a singular Shewing, it seemed that I hindered myself: for I was not taught in this time. And then was I answered in my reason, as it were by a friendly intervenor [1]: Take it GENERALLY, and behold the graciousness of the Lord God as He sheweth to thee: for it is more worship to God to behold Him 69
in all than in any special thing. And therewith I learned that it is more worship to God to know all-thing in general, than to take pleasure in any special thing. And if I should do wisely according to this teaching, I should not only be glad for nothing in special, but I should not be greatly distressed for no manner of thing : for ALL shall be well. For the fulness of joy is to behold God in all: for by the same blessed Might, Wisdom, and Love, that He made all-thing, to the same end our good Lord leadeth it continually, and thereto Himself shall bring it; and when it is time we shall see it. And the ground of this was shewed in the First [Revelation], and more openly in the Third, where it saith: I saw God in a point.
All that our Lord doeth is rightful, and that which He suffereth is worshipful: and in these two is comprehended good and ill: for all that is good our Lord doeth, and that which is evil our Lord suffereth. I say not that any evil is worshipful, but I say the sufferance of our Lord God is worshipful: whereby His Goodness shall be known, without end, in His marvellous meekness and mildness, by the working of mercy and grace.
Rightfulness is that thing that is so good that [it] may not be better than it is. For God Himself is very Rightfulness, and all His works are done rightfully as they are ordained from without beginning by His high Might, His high Wisdom, His high Goodness. And right as He ordained unto the best, right so He worketh continually, and leadeth it to the same end; and He is ever full-pleased with Himself and with all His works. 70
And the beholding of this blissful accord is full sweet to the soul that seeth by grace. All the souls that shall be saved in Heaven without end be made rightful in the sight of God, and by His own goodness: in which rightfulness we are endlessly kept, and marvellously, above all creatures.
And Mercy is a working that cometh of the goodness of God, and it shall last in working all along, as sin is suffered to pursue rightful souls. And when sin hath no longer leave to pursue, then shall the working of mercy cease, and then shall all be brought to rightfulness and therein stand without end.
And by His sufferance we fall; and in His blissful Love with His Might and His Wisdom we are kept; and by mercy and grace we are raised to manifold more joys.
Thus in Rightfulness and Mercy He willeth to be known and loved, now and without end. And the soul that wisely beholdeth it in grace, it is well pleased with both, and endlessly enjoyeth.