Wete thou well that the end and the sovereignty of perfection
standeth in very onehead[154] of God and of a man's soul by perfect
charity. This onehead, then, is verily made when the mights of the
soul are reformed by grace to the dignity and the state of the first
condition; that is, when the mind is stabled sadly,[155] without
changing and vagation,[156] in God and ghostly things, and when the
reason is cleared from all worldly and fleshly beholdings, and from
all bodily imaginations, figures, and fantasies of creatures, and is
illumined by grace to behold God and ghostly things, and when the
will and the affection is purified and cleansed from all fleshly,
kindly, and worldly love, and is inflamed with brenning love of the
Holy Ghost. This wonderful onehead may not be fulfilled[157]
perfectly, continually, and wholly in this life, for the corruption
of the flesh, but only in the bliss of heaven. Nevertheless, the
nearer that a soul in this present life may come to this onehead,
the more perfect it is. For the more that it is reformed by grace to
the image and the likeness of its Creator here on this wise; the
more joy and bliss shall it have in heaven. Our Lord God is an
endless being without changing, almighty without failing, sovereign
wisdom, light, soothness without error or darkness; sovereign
goodness, love, peace, and sweetness. Then the more that a soul is
united, fastened, conformed, and joined to our Lord, the more stable
and mighty it is, the more wise and clear, good and peaceable,
loving and more virtuous it is, and so it is more perfect. For a
soul that hath by the grace of Jesu, and long travail of bodily and
ghostly exercise, overcome and destroyed concupiscences, and
passions, and unskilful stirrings[158] within itself, and without in
the sensuality, and is clothed all in virtues, as in meekness and
mildness, in patience and softness, in ghostly strength and