made. And thus:—When God should make man's body He took the clay of earth, which is a matter mingled and gathered of all bodily things; and thereof He made man's body. But to the making of man's Soul He would take right nought, but made it. And thus is the Nature-made rightfully oned to the Maker, which is Substantial Nature not-made: that is, God. And therefore it is that there may nor shall be right nought atwix God and man's Soul.
And in this endless Love man's Soul is kept whole, as the matter of the Revelations signifieth and sheweth: in which endless Love we be led and kept of God and never shall be lost. For He willeth we[1] be aware that our Soul is a life, which life of His Goodness and His Grace shall last in Heaven without end, Him loving, Him thanking. Him praising. And right the same that we shall be without end, the same we were treasured in God and hid, known and loved from without beginning.
Wherefore He would have us understand that the noblest thing that ever He made is mankind: and the fullest Substance and the highest Virtue is the blessed Soul of Christ. And furthermore He would have us understand that His[2] dearworthy Soul [of Manhood] was preciously knit to Him in the making [by Him of Manhood's Substantial Nature] which knot is so subtle and so mighty that (it)[3]—[man's soul]—is oned into God: in
- ↑ "wetyn" = wit.
- ↑ S. de Cressy has "this"; the word in the MS. is more like "his."
- ↑ The pronoun "it" given by S. de Cressy is omitted in the MS. The meaning is, perhaps, that the Manhood-Substance, or Soul of Christ, was in its making, by the Second Person in the Trinity, so united to Himself that Man's Substance and each man's soul (in salvation), being one with it, are one with God the Son. See li. p. 117.
