And then shall we see God face to face, homely and fully. The creature that is made shall see and endlessly behold God which is the Maker. For thus may no man see God and live after, that is to say, in this deadly life. But when He of His special grace will shew Himself here, He strengtheneth the creature above its self, and He measureth the Shewing, after His own will, as it is profitable for the time. [1] "supple and buxum." [2] To express the fulness of spiritual perception the mystic seizes on all the five sense-perceptions as symbols. For the last word S. de Cressy gives again the word "smelling" (rendered here, above, by "in-breathing"). Collins reads the Brit. Mus. MS. as "following"; but the word there is "swelowyng" = swallowing. _ANENT CERTAIN POINTS IN THE FOREGOING FOURTEEN REVELATIONS_ CHAPTER XLIV "God is endless, sovereign Truth,--Wisdom,--Love, not-made; and man's Soul is a creature in God which hath the same properties made" God shewed in all the Revelations, oftentimes, that man worketh evermore His will and His worship lastingly without any stinting. And _what_ this work is, was shewed in the First, and that in a marvellous example: for it was shewed in the working of the soul of our blissful Lady, Saint Mary: [that is, the working of] Truth and Wisdom.[1] And _how_ [it is done] I hope by the grace of the Holy Ghost I shall tell, as I saw. Truth seeth God, and Wisdom beholdeth God, and of these two cometh the third: that is, a holy marvellous[2] delight in God; which is Love. Where Truth and Wisdom are verily, there is Love verily, coming of them both. And all of God's making: for He is endless sovereign Truth, endless sovereign Wisdom, endless sovereign Love, unmade; and man's Soul is a creature in God which hath the same properties _made_,[3] and evermore it doeth that it was made for: it seeth God, it beholdeth God, and it loveth God. Whereof God enjoyeth in the creature; and the creature in God, endlessly marvelling. In which marvelling he seeth his God, his Lord, his Maker so high, so great, and so good, in comparison with him that is made, that scarcely the creature seemeth ought to the self. But the clarity and the clearness of Truth and Wisdom maketh him to see and to bear witness[4] that he is made for Love: in which God endlessly keepeth him. [1] See chap. iv. [2] _i.e. marvelling._ [3] chaps. liv., lv. [4] "beknowen." CHAPTER XLV "All heavenly things and all earthly things that belong to Heaven are comprehended in these two judgments"