The Cell of Self-Knowledge : seven early English mystical treatises printed by Henry Pepwell in 1521 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 118 pages of information about The Cell of Self-Knowledge .

The Cell of Self-Knowledge : seven early English mystical treatises printed by Henry Pepwell in 1521 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 118 pages of information about The Cell of Self-Knowledge .
almighty without failing, sovereign wisdom, light, soothness without error or darkness; sovereign goodness, love, peace, and sweetness.  Then the more that a soul is united, fastened, conformed, and joined to our Lord, the more stable and mighty it is, the more wise and clear, good and peaceable, loving and more virtuous it is, and so it is more perfect.  For a soul that hath by the grace of Jesu, and long travail of bodily and ghostly exercise, overcome and destroyed concupiscences, and passions, and unskilful stirrings[158] within itself, and without in the sensuality, and is clothed all in virtues, as in meekness and mildness, in patience and softness, in ghostly strength and righteousness, in continence, in wisdom, in truth, hope and charity; then it is made perfect, as it may be in this life.  Much comfort it receiveth of our Lord, not only inwardly in its own privy substance,[159] by virtue of the onehead to our Lord that lieth in knowing and loving of God, in light and ghostly brenning of Him, in transforming of the soul in to the Godhead; but also many other comforts, savours, sweetnesses, and wonderful feelings on sere[160] or sundry manners, after that our Lord vouchethsafe to visit His creatures here in earth, and after that the soul profiteth and waxeth in charity.  Some soul, by virtue of charity that God giveth it, is so cleansed, that all creatures, and all that he heareth, or seeth, or feeleth by any of his wits, turneth him to comfort and gladness; and the sensuality receiveth new savour and sweetness in all creatures.[161] And right as beforetime the likings in the sensuality were fleshly, vain, and vicious, for the pain of the original sin; right so now they are made ghostly and clean, without bitterness and biting of conscience.  And this is the goodness of our Lord, that sith the soul is punished in the sensuality, and the flesh is partner of the pain, that afterward the soul be comforted in the sensuality, and the flesh be fellow of joy and comfort with the soul, not fleshly, but ghostly, as he was fellow in tribulation and pain.  This is the freedom and the lordship, the dignity, and the worship that a man[162] hath over all creatures, the which dignity he may so recover by grace here, that every creature savour to him as it is.  And that is, when by grace he seeth, he heareth, he feeleth only God in all creatures.  On this manner of wise a soul is made ghostly in the sensuality by abundance of charity, that is, in the substance of the soul.  Also, our Lord comforteth a soul by angel’s song.  What that song is, it may not be described by no bodily likeness, for it is ghostly, and above all manner of imagination and reason.  It may be felt and perceived in a soul, but it may not be shewed.  Nevertheless, I shall speak thereof to thee as me thinketh.  When a soul is purified by the love of God, illumined by wisdom, stabled by the might of God, then is the eye of the soul opened to behold ghostly things, as virtues and angels and holy souls, and heavenly things.[163]
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The Cell of Self-Knowledge : seven early English mystical treatises printed by Henry Pepwell in 1521 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.