Revelations of Divine Love · 91 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack

Chapter LIX

"Jesus Christ that doeth Good against evil is our Very Mother: we have our Being of Him where the Ground of Motherhood beginneth,—with all the sweet Keeping by Love, that endlessly followeth." And all this bliss we have by Mercy and Grace: which manner of bliss we might never have had nor known but if that property of Goodness which is God had been contraried: whereby we have this bliss. For wickedness hath been suffered to rise contrary to the Goodness, and the Goodness of Mercy and Grace contraried against the wickedness and turned all to goodness and to worship, to all these that shall be saved. For it is the property in God which doeth good against evil. Thus Jesus Christ that doeth good against evil is our Very Mother: we have our Being of Him,—where the Ground of Motherhood beginneth,—with all the sweet Keeping of Love that endlessly followeth. As verily as God is our Father, so verily God is our Mother; and that shewed He in all, and especially in these sweet words where He saith: I it am . That is to say, I it am, the Might and the Goodness of the Fatherhood; I it am, the Wisdom of the Motherhood; I it am, the Light and the Grace that is all blessed Love: I it am, the Trinity, I it am, the Unity: I am the sovereign Goodness of all manner of things. I am that maketh thee to love: I am that maketh thee to long: I it am, the endless fulfilling of all true desires. For there the soul is highest, noblest, and worthiest, where it is lowest, meekest, and mildest: and [out] of this Substantial Ground we have all our virtues in our Sense-part by gift of Nature, by helping and speeding of Mercy and Grace: without the which we may not profit. Our high Father, God Almighty, which is Being, He knew and loved us from afore any time: of which knowing, in His marvellous deep charity and the foreseeing counsel of all the blessed Trinity, He willed that the Second Person should become our Mother. Our Father [willeth], our Mother worketh, our good Lord the Holy Ghost confirmeth: and therefore it belongeth to us to love our God in whom we have our being: Him reverently thanking and praising for our making, mightily praying to our Mother for mercy and pity, and to our Lord the Holy Ghost for help and grace. For in these three is all our life: Nature, Mercy, Grace: whereof we have meekness and mildness; patience and pity; and hating of sin and of wickedness,—for it belongeth properly to virtue to hate sin and wickedness. And thus is Jesus our Very Mother in Nature [by virtue] of our first making; and He is our Very Mother in Grace, by taking our nature made. All the fair working, and all the sweet natural office of dearworthy Motherhood is impropriated to the Second Person: for in Him we have this Godly Will whole and safe without end, both in Nature and in Grace, of His own proper Goodness. I understood three manners of beholding of Motherhood in God: the first is grounded in our Nature's making ; the second is taking of our nature,—and there beginneth the Motherhood of Grace; the third is Motherhood of working ,—and therein is a forthspreading by the same Grace, of length and breadth and height and of deepness without end. And all is one Love.

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Themes

◆Anthropomorphismtheology

Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.

The central theme is the attribution of human maternal characteristics ('Very Mother', 'sweet Keeping') to God and Jesus Christ.

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◆Bhakti

The path of loving devotion and self-surrender to a personal deity as itself sufficient means of liberation — the Gita's 'to those constantly devoted, I come forward as their deliverer,' Kabir's and the Sant poets' love-religion, the devotional stream that parallels Sufi love-mysticism. Distinct from mystical_union (the resulting state), fana_annihilation (the ego's unmaking at the path's end), ladder_of_love (eros staged toward Beauty), and prayer (the practice of address): bhakti names devotion as the soteriological road itself.

The passage emphasizes 'Love' as the primary mode of relationship with God, urging believers to 'love our God' and pray to their 'Mother' for mercy.

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◆Divine Lighttheology

The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.

The text mentions 'Light' as one of the attributes of the divine ('I it am, the Light and the Grace'), though it is not the central metaphor.

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◆Divine Providencetheology

Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.

The text details God's 'foreseeing counsel' and active will in becoming Mother to save humanity, demonstrating a divine ordering of history toward salvation.

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◆Divine Simplicitytheology

The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.

The text asserts that God is 'the Trinity' and 'the Unity' simultaneously, suggesting a non-composite nature where distinct persons are one sovereign Goodness.

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◆Evil As Privationtheology

Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.

The passage argues that wickedness is merely a contrariety to Goodness which God turns back into goodness, implying evil has no independent positive being but is overcome by the Good.

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◆Living Godtheology

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

God is depicted as dynamically active ('doeth Good', 'worketh', 'confirmeth') and personally responsive rather than an abstract principle.

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◆Logoscosmology

The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.

The passage explicitly identifies Jesus Christ as the 'Second Person' who becomes Mother and embodies the 'Wisdom of the Motherhood,' functioning as the mediating divine principle.

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◆Paradox As Teachingethics

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

The passage uses the paradox that the soul is 'highest' where it is 'lowest' and that God is both Father and Mother to convey spiritual truth.

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◆Theosis Deificationsoteriology

The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.

The text describes how humans receive their 'Being' from God and are transformed by Grace to possess the 'Godly Will whole and safe,' indicating a participation in the divine nature.

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