Revelations of Divine Love · 109 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack
Chapter LXXIIa
"As long as we be meddling with any part of sin we shall never see clearly the Blissful Countenance of our Lord" But now behoveth me to tell in what manner I saw sin deadly in the creatures which shall not die for sin, but live in the joy of God without end.
I saw that two contrary things should never be together in one place.
The most contrary that are, is the highest bliss and the deepest pain.
The highest bliss that is, is to have Him in clarity of endless life, Him verily seeing, Him sweetly feeling, all-perfectly having in fulness of joy.
And thus was the Blissful Cheer of our Lord shewed in Pity: in which Shewing I saw that sin is most contrary,—so far forth that as long as we be meddling with any part of sin, we shall never see clearly the Blissful Cheer of our Lord.
And the more horrible and grievous that our sins be, the deeper are we for that time from this blissful sight.
And therefore it seemeth to us oftentimes as we were in peril of death, in a part of hell, for the sorrow and pain that the sin is to us.
And thus we are dead for the time from the very sight of our blissful life.
But in all this I saw soothfastly that we be not dead in the sight of God, nor He passeth never from us.
But He shall never have His full bliss in us till we have our full bliss in Him, verily seeing His fair Blissful Cheer.
For we are ordained thereto in nature, and get thereto by grace.
Thus I saw how sin is deadly for a short time in the blessed creatures of endless life.
And ever the more clearly that the soul seeth this Blissful Cheer by grace of loving, the more it longeth to see it in fulness.
For notwithstanding that our Lord God dwelleth in us and is here with us, and albeit He claspeth us and encloseth us for tender love that He may never leave us, and is more near to us than tongue can tell or heart can think, yet may we never stint of moaning nor of weeping nor of longing till when we see Him clearly in His Blissful Countenance.
For in that precious blissful sight there may no woe abide, nor any weal fail.
And in this I saw matter of mirth and matter of moaning: matter of mirth: for our Lord, our Maker, is so near to us, and in us, and we in Him, by sureness of keeping through His great goodness; matter of moaning: for our ghostly eye is so blind and we be so borne down by weight of our mortal flesh and darkness of sin, that we may not see our Lord God clearly in His fair Blissful Cheer.
No; and because of this dimness scarsely we can believe and trust His great love and our sureness of keeping.
And therefore it is that I say we may never stint of moaning nor of weeping.
This "weeping" meaneth not all in pouring out of tears by our bodily eye, but also hath more ghostly understanding.
For the kindly desire of our soul is so great and so unmeasurable, that if there were given us for our solace and for our comfort all the noble things that ever God made in heaven and in earth, and we saw not the fair Blissful Cheer of Himself, yet we should not stint of moaning nor ghostly weeping, that is to say, of painful longing, till when we [should] see verily the fair Blissful Cheer of our Maker.
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 explicitly states that sin is 'deadly' and causes a temporary state of death or blindness to the divine, implying it is an absence of the 'Blissful Countenance' rather than a positive entity co-equal with God.
The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.
God is depicted as dynamically present, 'clasping' and 'enclosing' the soul with tender love, actively dwelling within the believer rather than being a distant abstract principle.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
The text describes the ultimate goal as 'verily seeing' and 'sweetly feeling' God in 'fulness of joy,' where the soul and God are so united that 'we be not dead in the sight of God' and He never passes from us.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The text centrally describes the soul's condition as being 'dead for the time' and 'blind' due to sin, creating a profound sense of exile from the 'Blissful Cheer' of God despite His constant presence.