John Tauler · 50 of 121

Secondly, of the work and knowledge of grace. · 104.

The man who wisheth to be a friend of God, he must also hate what his Friend hateth. But what doth God hate in us? Sin, and this must we hate if we wish to be the friends of God. But it might be now insinuated: God is Love; this is not accidental but essential, therefore no accident can enter into God. But to hate is an accident; how then can a man say that God hatelh sin? This is to be understood in the following way. God is a pure being, unified in Himself with essential love, and no accident is possible with Him. God hath also made man alter His image, as St. Austin saith, “Lord, Thou hast made us after Thy likeness, and my heart is in unrest till it resteth in Thee.” If now man is laden with faulty accidents, he cannot come to God. That man in this way turneth away from God is what rouseth His wrath, but not in God as in man, but only anger or displeasure that the image which He hath stamped upon the soul and created after His likeness, is now moved away from Him, and not formed out as He wished. It is the disorder that man stirs up against God’s order that causeth His wrath, but not a wrath from accident or hatred, but it is His divine justice which is not shut out by His love. For real hatred is only in man and not in God, and God willeth it not Therefore the man who wisheth to be God’s friend must also not will what God willeth not. This is faulty accident from which man ought to be free, if he wisheth to be a friend of God and one spirit with God. If, then, a poor man is free from all faulty accidents, he is this in fact.