city is peased,[78] then
beginneth a man to prove what the high peace of God is that passeth
man's wit. And therefore it is that Leah left bearing of children
unto this time that Gad and Asher were born of Zilpah, her maiden.
For truly, but if it be so that a man have refrained the lust and
the pain of his five wits in his sensuality by abstinence and
patience, he shall never feel inward sweetness and true joy in God
and ghostly things in the affection. This is that Issachar, the
fifth son of Leah, the which in the story is cleped "Meed."[79] [And
well is this joy of inward sweetness cleped "meed"];[80] for this
joy is the taste of heavenly bliss, the which is the endless meed of
a devout soul, beginning here. Leah, in the birth of this child,
said: "God hath given me meed, for that I have given my maiden to my
husband in bearing of children."[81] And so it is good that we make
our sensuality bear fruit in abstaining it from all manner of
fleshly, kindly, and worldly delight, and in fruitful suffering of
all fleshly and worldly disease; therefore our Lord of His great
mercy giveth us joy unspeakable and inward sweetness in our
affection, in earnest[82] of the sovereign joy and meed of the
kingdom of heaven. Jacob said of Issachar that he was "a strong ass
dwelling between the terms."[83] And so it is that a man in this
state, and that feeleth the earnest of everlasting joy in his
affection, is as "an ass, strong and dwelling between the terms";
because that, be he never so filled in soul of ghostly gladness and
joy in God, yet, for corruption of the flesh in this deadly life,
him behoveth bear the charge of the deadly body, as hunger, thirst,
and cold, sleep, and many other diseases; for the which he is
likened to an ass as in body; but as in soul he is strong for to
destroy all the passions and the lusts of the flesh by patience and
abstinence in the sensuality, and by abundance of ghostly joy and
sweetness in the affection. And also a soul in this state is
dwelling between the terms of deadly life and undeadly life. He that
dwelleth between the terms hath nearhand forsaken deadliness, but
not fully, and hath nearhand gotten undeadliness, but not fully; for
whiles that him needeth the goods of this world, as meat and drink
and clothing, as it falleth to each man that liveth, yet his one
foot is in this deadly life; and for great abundance of ghostly joy
and sweetness that he feeleth in God, not seldom but oft, he hath