But our courteous Lord willeth not that His servants despair, for often nor for grievous falling: for our falling hindereth[5] not Him to love us. Peace and love are ever in us, being and working; but we be not alway in peace and in love. But He willeth that we take heed thus that He is Ground of all our whole life in love; and furthermore that He is our everlasting Keeper and mightily defendeth us against our enemies, that be full fell and fierce upon us;--and so much our need is the more for [that] we give them occasion by our falling.[6] [1] "al forbetyth." S. de Cressy: "all to beateth," Judges ix. 53. [2] "otherwhile." [3] S. de Cressy: "Dome's-man, _i.e._ Confessarius." [4] MS. "will be cast in." [5] letteth not Him to love us. [6] See chap. lxviii. Inx both passages the Brit. Mus. MS. seems to have "him," not "hem" = them. The reading here might be: "For we give _Him_ occasion by our failing"--occasion to keep and defend us: and so in lxxviii.: "He keepeth us mightily and mercifully in the time that we are in our sin and among all our enemies that are full fell upon us;--and so much we are in the more peril. For we give Him occasion thereto and know not our own need." Or possibly the sense is (1): He defendeth us "so much [as] our need is the more" [so much more as]; and (2) "so much [more as] we are in the more peril." But S. de Cressy's version has in both passages "them," and this reading agrees with chap. lxxvi.: "We have this [fear] by the stirring of our enemy and by our own folly and blindness"--we who "fall often into sin." CHAPTER XL "True love teacheth us that we should hate sin only for love." "To me was shewed no harder hell than sin." "God willeth that we endlessly hate the sin and endlessly love the soul, as God loveth it" This is a sovereign friendship of our courteous Lord that He keepeth us so tenderly while we be in sin; and furthermore He toucheth us full privily and sheweth us our sin by the sweet light of mercy and grace. But when we see our self so foul, then ween we that God were wroth with us for our sin, and then are we stirred of the Holy Ghost by contrition unto prayer and desire for the amending of our life with all our mights, to slacken the wrath of God, unto the time we find a rest in soul and a softness in conscience. Then hope we that God hath forgiven us our sins: and it is truth. And then sheweth our courteous Lord Himself to the soul--well-merrily and with glad cheer--with friendly welcoming as if it[1] had been in pain and in prison, saying sweetly thus: _My darling I am glad thou art come to me: in all thy wo I have ever been with thee; and now seest thou my loving and we be oned in bliss_. Thus are sins forgiven by mercy and grace, and our soul is worshipfully received in joy like as it shall be when it cometh to Heaven, as oftentimes as it cometh by the gracious working of the Holy Ghost and the virtue of Christ's Passion.