Chapter LXXXIII
“Life, Love, and Light”
I HAD, in part, touching, sight, and feeling in three properties of God, in which the strength and effect of all the Revelation standeth: and they were seen in every Shewing, and most properly in the Twelfth, where it saith oftentimes: [It is I.] The properties are these: Life, Love, and Light.[1] In life is marvellous homeliness, and in love is gentle courtesy, and in light is endless Nature-hood. These properties were in one Goodness: unto which Goodness my Reason would be oned, and cleave to it with all its might.
I beheld with reverent dread, and highly marvelling in the sight and in the feeling of the sweet accord, that our Reason is in God; understanding that it is the highest gift that we have received; and it is grounded in nature.
Our faith is a light by nature coming of our endless Day, that is our Father, God. In which light our Mother, Christ, and our good Lord, the Holy Ghost, leadeth us in this passing life. This light is measured discreetly, needfully standing to us in the night. The light is cause of our life; the night is cause of our pain and of all our woe: in which we earn meed and thanks of God. For we, with mercy and grace, steadfastly know and believe our light, going therein wisely and mightily.
And at the end of woe, suddenly our eyes shall be opened, and in clearness of light our sight shall be full: which light is God, our Maker and Holy Ghost, in Christ Jesus our Saviour.
Thus I saw and understood that our faith is our light in our night: which light is God, our endless Day.
- Cf. chs. lxxxv. and lxxxvi. These words might be (as Life, Light, and Love) for the Trinity of Might("the Father willeth"), Wisdom ("the Son worketh"), Love ("the Holy Ghost confirmeth"): one Goodness: or as it is sometimes denoted, the Trinity of Might, Wisdom, Goodness: one Love. But here the thought seems to be centred in Light as the manifestation of Being (of Kyndhede = relationships, correspondences of nature): of the Triune Divine Light which in Man is corresponding Reason, Faith, Charity: Charity keeping man, while here, in Faith and Hope; Charity leading him from and through and into the Eternal Divine Love. ↵