study.xeb.ai · mystics · the showings
The Fourteenth Revelation
Chapter LVII

"In Christ our two natures are united"

❧

AND anent our Substance He made us noble, and so rich that evermore we work His will and His worship. (Where I say "we," it meaneth Man that shall be saved.) For soothly I saw that we are that which He loveth, and do that which Him pleaseth, lastingly without any stinting: and [that by virtue] of the great riches and of the high noble virtues by measure come to our soul what time it is knit to our body: in which knitting we are made Sensual.

And thus in our Substance we are full, and in our Sense-soul we fail: which failing God will restore and fulfil by working of Mercy and Grace plenteously flowing into us out of His own Nature-Goodness.1 And thus His Nature-Goodness maketh that Mercy and Grace work in us, and the Nature-goodness that we have of Him enableth us to receive the working of Mercy and Grace.

1"kynde godhede."

I saw that our nature is in God whole: in which [whole nature of Manhood] He maketh diversities flowing out of Him to work His will: whom Nature keepeth, and Mercy and Grace restoreth and fulfilleth. And of these none shall perish: for our nature that is the higher part is knit to God, in the making; and God is knit to our nature that is the lower part, in our fleshtaking: and thus in Christ our two natures are oned. For the Trinity is comprehended in Christ, in whom our higher part is grounded and rooted; and our lower part the Second Person hath taken: which nature first to Him was made-ready.2 For I saw full surely that all the works that God hath done, or ever shall, were fully known to Him and aforeseen from without beginning. And for Love He made Mankind, and for the same Love would be Man.

2v

The next3 Good that we receive is our Faith, in which our profiting beginneth. And it cometh [out] of

3or the first.

the high riches of our nature-Substance into our Sensual soul, and it is grounded in us through the NatureGoodness of God, by the working of Mercy and Grace. And thereof come all other goods by which we are led and saved. For the Commandments of God come therein: in which we ought to have two manners of understanding: [the one is that we ought to understand and know] which are His biddings, to love and to keep them; the other is that we ought to know His forbiddings, to hate and to refuse them. For in these two is all our working comprehended. Also in our faith come the Seven Sacraments, each following other in order as God hath ordained them to us: and all manner of virtues.

For the same virtues that we have received of our Substance, given to us in Nature by the Goodness of God,—the same virtues by the working of Mercy are given to us in Grace through the Holy Ghost, renewed: which virtues and gifts are treasured to us in Jesus Christ. For in that same4time that God knitted Himself to our body in the Virgin's womb. He took our Sensual soul:5 in which taking He, us all having enclosed in Him, oned it to our Substance: in which oneing He was perfect Man. For Christ having knit in Him each6 man that shall be saved, is perfect Man. Thus our Lady is our Mother in whom we are all enclosed and of her born,7 in Christ: (for she that is

4"ilk"="same."
5Here, as above, the MS. term for the "Sensual soul" is the "Sensualite,"
6"ilk" = "each."
7The MS. word is in both cases " borne," which may mean either born or borne. S. de Cressy gives << born " both for the first word and the second. See Ix. "He sustaineth us within Himself in love," etc.; and lxiii. " In the taking of our nature He quickened us," etc.

Mother of our Saviour is Mother of all that shall be saved in our Saviour;) and our Saviour is our Very Mother in whom we be endlessly borne,8 and never shall come out of Him.

8See foot-note 4, p. 139.

Plenteously and fully and sweetly was this shewed, and it is spoken of in the First, where it saith: We are all in Him enclosed and He is enclosed in us. And that [enclosing of Him in us] is spoken of in the Sixteenth Shewing, where it saith: He sitteth in our soul.

For it is His good-pleasure to reign in our Understanding blissfully, and sit in our Soul restfully, and to dwell in our Soul endlessly, us all working into Him: in which working He willeth that we be His helpers, giving to Him all our attending, learning His lores, keeping His laws, desiring that all be done that He doeth; truly trusting in Him.

For soothly I saw that our Substance is in God.9

9From The Scale [or Ladder] of Perfection, by Walter Hilton (Fourteenth century), edition of 1659, Part III. ch. ii.:—<br />"The soule of a man is a life consisting of three powers, Memory, Understanding, and Will, after the image and likeness of the blessed Trinity. . . . Whereby you may see, that man's soule (which may be called a created Trinity) was in its natural state replenished in its three powers, with the remembrance, sight, and love of the most blessed uncreated Trinity, which is God. . . . But when Adam sinned, choosing love and delight in himselfe, and in the creatures, he lost all his excellency and dignity, and thou also in him." Ch. III. Sec. i. " And though we should prove not to be able to recover it fully here in this life, yet should we desire and endeavour to recover the image and likeness of the dignity we had, so that our soul might be reformed as it were in a shadow by grace to the image of the Trinity which we had by nature, and hereafter shall have fully in bliss., . ." Sec. ii. "Seeke then that which thou hast lost, that thoumayest finde it; for well I wote, whosoever once hath an inward sight, but a little of that dignity and that spirituall fairness which a soule hath
Julian’s Middle English — not yet established

Warrack translated this chapter from British Library, Sloane MS 2499, a seventeenth-century copy — no manuscript in Julian’s own hand survives. No public-domain transcription of the Middle English exists, so the text for chapter 57 has not been established here. What that would take, and why nothing is printed in its place, is set out in This Edition.

Warrack’s Notes

1"kynde godhede." ↩

2v ↩

3or the first. ↩

4"ilk"="same." ↩

5Here, as above, the MS. term for the "Sensual soul" is the "Sensualite," ↩

6"ilk" = "each." ↩

7The MS. word is in both cases " borne," which may mean either born or borne. S. de Cressy gives << born " both for the first word and the second. See Ix. "He sustaineth us within Himself in love," etc.; and lxiii. " In the taking of our nature He quickened us," etc. ↩

8See foot-note 4, p. 139. ↩

9From The Scale [or Ladder] of Perfection, by Walter Hilton (Fourteenth century), edition of 1659, Part III. ch. ii.:—<br />"The soule of a man is a life consisting of three powers, Memory, Understanding, and Will, after the image and likeness of the blessed Trinity. . . . Whereby you may see, that man's soule (which may be called a created Trinity) was in its natural state replenished in its three powers, with the remembrance, sight, and love of the most blessed uncreated Trinity, which is God. . . . But when Adam sinned, choosing love and delight in himselfe, and in the creatures, he lost all his excellency and dignity, and thou also in him." Ch. III. Sec. i. " And though we should prove not to be able to recover it fully here in this life, yet should we desire and endeavour to recover the image and likeness of the dignity we had, so that our soul might be reformed as it were in a shadow by grace to the image of the Trinity which we had by nature, and hereafter shall have fully in bliss., . ." Sec. ii. "Seeke then that which thou hast lost, that thoumayest finde it; for well I wote, whosoever once hath an inward sight, but a little of that dignity and that spirituall fairness which a soule hath ↩