HERE BEGINNETH THE FORTIETH CHAPTER
That in the time of this work a soul hath no special beholding
to any vice in itself nor to any virtue in
itself.
DO thou, on the same manner, fill thy spirit with the ghostly bemeaning of this
word "sin," and without any special beholding unto any kind of sin, whether it
be venial or deadly: Pride, Wrath, or Envy, Covetyse, Sloth, Gluttony, or
Lechery. What recks it in contemplatives, what sin that it be, or how muckle a
sin that it be? For all sins them thinketh--I mean for the time of this
work--alike great in themselves, when the least sin departeth them from God,
and letteth them of their ghostly peace.
And feel sin a lump, thou wottest never what,
but none other thing than thyself. And cry then ghostly ever upon
one: a Sin, sin, sin! Out, out, out!" This ghostly cry is better learned
of God by the proof, than of any man by word. For it is best when it is in pure
spirit, without special thought or any pronouncing of word; unless it be any
seldom time, when for abundance of spirit it bursteth up into word, so that the
body and the soul be both filled with sorrow and cumbering of sin.
On the same manner shalt thou do with this little
word "God." Fill thy spirit with the ghostly bemeaning of it without any
special beholding to any of His works--whether they be good, better, or best of
all--bodily or ghostly, or to any virtue that may be wrought in man's soul by
any grace; not looking after whether it be meekness or charity, patience or
abstinence, hope, faith, or soberness, chastity or wilful poverty. What recks
this in contemplatives? For all virtues they find and feel in God; for in Him
is all thing, both by cause and by being. For they think that an
they had God they had all good, and therefore they covet nothing with special
beholding, but only good God. Do thou on the same manner as far forth as thou
mayest by grace: and mean God all, and all God, so that nought work in thy wit
and in thy will, but only God.
And because that ever the whiles thou livest in
this wretched life, thee behoveth always feel in some part this foul stinking
lump of sin, as it were oned and congealed with the substance of thy being,
therefore shalt thou changeably mean these two words--sin and God. With this
general knowing, that an thou haddest God, then shouldest thou lack sin: and
mightest thou lack sin, then shouldest thou have God.