The Cell of Self-Knowledge Part 5

Who so will not consent, but meeketh him truly to prayer and to counsel, shall graciously be delivered of all these deceits.[301]

But it is sorrow for to say, and more for to feel, that sometime[302] our own spirit is so overcome peradventure with each of these three spirits, of the flesh, of the world, and of the fiend, and so brought into danger, bounden in bondage, in thraldom and in service of them all, that sorrow it is to wit. In great confusion and loss of itself, it doth now the office of each one of them itself in itself. And this befalleth when, after long use, and customable consenting unto them when they come, at the last it is made so fleshly, so worldly, and so malicious, so wicked, and so froward, that now plainly of itself, without suggestion of any other spirit, it gendereth and bringeth forth in itself, not only l.u.s.ty thoughts of the flesh, and vain thoughts of the world, but that worst of all these, as are bitter thoughts and wicked, in backbiting and deeming, and evil suspicion of others. And when it is thus with our spirit, then, I trow, it may not lightly be known when it is our own spirit that speaketh, or when it heareth any of the other three spirits speaking in it as it is touched before. But what maketh it matter[303] who speaketh, when it is all one and the same thing that is spoken? What helpeth to know the person of him that speaketh, when it is siker and certain that all is evil and perilous that is spoken? If it be thine enemy, consent not to him, but meek thee to prayer and to counsel, and so mayst thou mightily withstand thine enemy. If it be thine own spirit, reprove him bitterly, and sighingly sorrow that ever thou fell in[304] so great wretchedness, bondage, and thraldom of the devil. Shrive thee of thy customed consents, and of thine old sins, and so mayst thou come (by grace) to recover thy freedom again; and by the gracious freedom mayst thou soon come to, wisely for to know, and soothfastly for to feel by the proof, when it is thine own spirit that speaketh these evils, or it be these other evil spirits that speaketh them in thee. And so may this knowing be a sovereign mean and help of againstanding, for often times unknowing is cause of much error, and, againward, knowing is cause of much truth; and to this manner of knowing mayst thou win thus as I say to thee.

If thou be in doubt or in were[305] of these evil thoughts when they come, whether that they be the speech of thine own spirit, or of any of the others of thine enemies; look then busily by the witness of thy counsel and thy conscience, if thou have been shriven and lawfully amended after the doom[306] of thy confessor, of all the consents that ever thou consented to that kind of sin, that thy thought is aware of. And if thou have not been shriven shrive thee then, as truly as thou mayst, by grace and by counsel; and then wete thou right well that all the thoughts that come to thee after thy shrift, stirring thee oft times to the same sins, they are the words of other spirits than thine own (I mean some of the three touched before). And thou for none such thoughts, be they never so thick, so foul, nor so many (I mean for their first coming in), but if it be for recklessness of againstanding,[307] art no blame worthy. And not only releasing of purgatory that thou hast deserved for the same sins done before, what so they be, thou mayst deserve, if thou stiffly againstand them, but also much grace in this life, and much meed in the bliss of heaven. But all those evil thoughts coming in to thee, stirring thee to any sin, after that thou hast consented to that same sin, and before that thou hast sorrow for that consent, and art in will to be shriven thereof, it is no peril to thee to take them to thyself,[308] and for to shrive thee of them, as of thoughts of thine own spirit; but for to take to thyself all other thoughts, the which thou hast by very proof, as it is shewed before, by the speeches of other spirits than of thyself, therein lieth great peril, for so mightest thou lightly misrule thy conscience, charging a thing for sin the which is none; and this were great error, and a mean to the greatest peril. For if it were so that each evil thought and stirring to sin were the work and the speech of none other spirit, but only of man's own spirit; then it would follow by that that a man's own spirit were a very fiend, the which is apertly false and a d.a.m.nable woodness;[309] for though all it be so that a soul may, by frailty and custom of sinning, fall in to so much wretchedness, that it taketh on itself by bondage of sin the office of the devil, stirring itself to sin ever more and more, without any suggestion of any other spirit (as it is said before), yet it is not therefore a devil in kind, but it is a devil in office, and may be cleped devilish, for it is in the doing like to the devil, [that is to say, a stirrer of itself unto sin, the which is the office of the devil].[310] Nevertheless yet, for all this thraldom to sin and devilishness in office, it may by grace of contrition, of shrift, and of amending, recover the freedom again, and be made saveable--yea, and a full special G.o.d's saint in this life, that before was full d.a.m.nable and full cursed in the living.[311] And, therefore, as great a peril as it is a soul that is fallen in sin, not for to charge his conscience therewith, nor for to amend him thereof, as great a peril it is, and, if it may be said, a greater, a man for to charge his conscience with each thought and stirring of sin that will come in him; for, by such nice charging of conscience, might he lightly run in to error of conscience, and so be led in to despair all his life time. And the cause of all this is lacking of knowing of discretion of spirits, the which knowing may be gotten by very experience; who so redely will look soon after that a soul have been truly cleansed by confession as it is said before. For fast after confession a soul is, as it were, a clean paper leaf, for ableness that it hath to receive what that men will write thereupon. Both they do press[312]

for to write on the soul, when it is clean in itself made by confession: G.o.d and His angel on the one party, and the fiend and his angel on the other party; but it is in the free choice of the soul to receive which that it will. The receipt of the soul is the consent of the same soul. A new thought and a stirring to any sin, the which thou hast forsaken before in thy shrift, what is it else but the speech of one of the three spirits the which are thine enemies (touched before), proffering to write on thy soul the same sin again? The speech of thyself, is it not; for why, there is no such thing written in thy soul, for all it is wasted away before in thy shrift, and thy soul left naked and bare; nothing left thereupon, but a frail and a free consent, more inclining to the evil, for custom therein, than it is to the good, but more able to the good than to the evil, for cleanness of the soul and virtue of the sacrament of shrift; but, of itself, it hath nought then, where through it may think or stir itself to good or to evil; and, therefore, it followeth that what thought that cometh then in it, whether that it be good or evil, it is not of itself, but the consent to the good or to the evil, whether that it be, that is ever more the work of the same soul.

And all after the worthiness and the wretchedness of this consent, thereafter it deserveth pain or bliss. If this consent be to evil, then as fast it hath, by c.u.mbrance of sin, the office of that same spirit that first made him suggestion of that same sin; and if it be to the good, then as fast it hath, by grace, the office of that same spirit that first made him stirring[313] to that same good. For as oft as any healful thought cometh in our mind, as of chast.i.ty, of soberness, of despising of the world, of wilful poverty, of patience, of meekness, and of charity, without doubt it is the spirit of G.o.d that speaketh, either by Himself or else by some of His angels--that is to say, either His angels of this life, the which are true teachers, or else His angels of His bliss, the which are true stirrers and inspirers of good. And as it is said of the other three evil spirits, that a soul, for long use and customable consenting unto them, may be made so fleshly, so worldly, and so malicious, that it taketh upon it the office of them all; right so it is againward[314] that a soul, for long use and custom in goodness, may be made so ghostly by cleanness of living and devotion of spirit against the spirit of the flesh, and so heavenly against the spirit of the world, and so G.o.dly by peace and by charity, and by restfulness of heart, against the spirit of malice, of wrath, and of wickedness, that it hath them now of office all such good thoughts to think when him list, without forgetting, in as great perfection as the frailty of this life will suffer. And thus it may be seen how that each thought that smiteth on our hearts, whether that it be good or evil, it is not evermore the speech of our own spirit, but the consent to the thought, what so ever it be, that is ever of our own spirit. Jesu grant us His grace, to consent to the good and againstand the evil. Amen.

FINIS. DEO GRATIAS