bliss without end. What should it then aggrieve thee to suffer awhile y seeing it is my will and my worship?
It is God's will that we take His behests[1] and His comfortings as largely and as mightily as we may take them, and also He willeth that we take our abiding and our troubles[2] as lightly as we may take them, and set them at nought. For the more lightly we take them, and the less price we set on them, for love, the less pain we shall have in the feeling of them, and the more thanks and meed we shall have for them.
CHAPTER LXV
"The Charity of God maketh in us such a unity that, when it is truly seen, no man can part himself from other"
AND thus I understood that what man or woman with firm will[3] chooseth God in this life, for love, he may be sure that he is loved without end: which endless love worketh in him that grace. For He willeth that we be as assured in hope of the bliss of heaven while we are here, as we shall be in sureness while we are there. And ever the more pleasance and joy that we take in this sureness, with reverence and meekness, the better pleaseth Him, as it was shewed. This reverence that I mean is a holy courteous dread of our Lord, to which meekness is united: and that is, that a creature seeth the Lord marvellous great, and itself marvellous little. For these virtues are had endlessly by the loved of God, and
