(4) And yet she wist well, and felt well in herself in a sad soothfastness, that she was a wretch most foul of all other, and that her sins had made a division betwixt her and her God that she loved so much: and also that they were in great part cause of her languishing sickness for lacking of love. But what thereof? Came she therefore down from the height of desire into the deepness of her sinful life, and searched in the foul stinking fen and dunghill of her sins; searching them up, by one and by one, with all the circumstances of them, and sorrowed and wept so upon them each one by itself? Nay, surely she did not so. And why? Because God let her wit by His grace within in her soul, that she should never so bring it about. For so might she sooner have raised in herself an ableness to have oft sinned, than to have purchased by that work any plain forgiveness of all her sins.

(1) AND, therefore, if thou wilt stand and not fall, cease never in thine intent: but beat evermore on this cloud of unknowing that is betwixt thee and thy God with a sharp dart of longing love, and loathe for to think on aught under God, and go not thence for anything that befalleth. For this is only by itself that work that destroyeth the ground and the root of sin. Fast thou never so much, wake thou never so long, rise thou never so early, lie thou never so hard, wear thou never so sharp; yea, and if it were lawful to do—as it is not—put thou out thine eyes, cut thou out thy tongue of thy mouth, stop thou thine ears and thy nose never so fast, though thou shear away thy members, and do all the pain to thy body that thou mayest or canst think: all this would help thee right nought. Yet will stirring and rising of sin be in thee.

(2) But in this sorrow needeth thee to have discretion, on this manner: thou shalt be wary in the time of this sorrow, that thou neither too rudely strain thy body nor thy spirit, but sit full still, as it were in a sleeping device, all forsobbed and forsunken in sorrow. This is true sorrow; this is perfect sorrow; and well were him that might win to this sorrow. All men have matter of sorrow: but most specially he feeleth matter of sorrow, that wotteth and feeleth that he is. All other sorrows be unto this in comparison but as it were game to earnest. For he may make sorrow earnestly, that wotteth and feeleth not only what he is, but that he is. And whoso felt never this sorrow, he may make sorrow: for why, he felt yet never perfect sorrow. This sorrow, when it is had, cleanseth the soul, not only of sin, but also of pain that it hath deserved for sin; and thereto it maketh a soul able to receive that joy, the which reeveth from a man all witting and feeling of his being.

BUT it is not so with them that continually work in the work of this book. For their meditations be but as they were sudden conceits and blind feelings of their own wretchedness, or of the goodness of God; without any means of reading or hearing coming before, and without any special beholding of any thing under God. These sudden conceits and these blind feelings be sooner learned of God than of man. I care not though thou haddest nowadays none other meditations of thine own wretchedness, nor of the goodness of God (I mean if thou feel thee thus stirred by grace and by counsel), but such as thou mayest have in this word SIN, and in this word GOD: or in such other, which as thee list. Not breaking nor expounding these words with curiosity of wit, in beholding after the qualities of these words, as thou wouldest by that beholding increase thy devotion. I trow it should never be so in this case and in this work. But hold them all whole these words; and mean by sin, a lump, thou wottest never what, none other thing but thyself. Me think that in this blind beholding of sin, thus congealed in a lump, none other thing than thyself, it should be no need to bind a madder thing, than thou shouldest be in this time. And yet peradventure, whoso looked upon thee should think thee full soberly disposed in thy body, without any changing of countenance; but sitting or going or lying, or leaning or standing or kneeling, whether thou wert, in a full sober restfulness.

(21) The writing of these memoranda of mine, I well know, is weak when compared with that spirit, full of grace, which I was privileged to hear. But it will be an image to recall the archetype to him who was struck with the thyrsus. For "speak," it is said, "to a wise man, and he will grow wiser; and to him that hath, and there shall be added to him." And we profess not to explain secret things sufficiently - far from it - but only to recall them to memory, whether we have forgot aught, or whether for the purpose of not forgetting. Many things, I well know, have escaped us, through length of time, that have dropped away unwritten. Whence, to aid the weakness of my memory, and provide for myself a salutary help to my recollection in a systematic arrangement of chapters, I necessarily make use of this form. There are then some things of which we have no recollection; for the power that was in the blessed men was great. There are also some things which remained unnoted long, which have now escaped; and others which are effaced, having faded away in the mind itself, since such a task is not easy to those not experienced; these I revive in my commentaries. Some things I purposely omit, in the exercise of a wise selection, afraid to write what I guarded against speaking: not grudging - for that were wrong - but fearing for my readers, lest they should stumble by taking them in a wrong sense; and, as the proverb says, we should be found "reaching a sword to a child." For it is impossible that what has been written should not escape, although remaining unpublished by me. But being always revolved, using the one only voice, that of writing, they answer nothing to him that makes inquiries beyond what is written; for they require of necessity the aid of some one, either of him who wrote, or of some one else who has walked in his footsteps.

(2) I grant well, that to them that have been in accustomed sins, as I am myself and have been, it is the most needful and speedful cause, to be meeked under the remembrance of our wretchedness and our before‑done sins, ever till the time be that the great rust of sin be in great part rubbed away, our conscience and our counsel to witness. But to other that be, as it were, innocents, the which never sinned deadly with an abiding will and avisement, but through frailty and unknowing, and the which set them to be contemplatives—and to us both if our counsel and our conscience witness our lawful amendment in contrition and in confession, and in making satisfaction after the statute and the ordinance of all‑Holy Church, and thereto if we feel us stirred and called by grace to be contemplatives also—there is then another cause to be meeked under as far above this cause as is the living of our Lady Saint Mary above the living of the sinfullest penitent in Holy Church; or the living of Christ above the living of any other man in this life; or else the living of an angel in heaven, the which never felt—nor shall feel— frailty, is above the life of the frailest man that is here in this world.

AND from the time that thou feelest that thou hast done that in thee is, lawfully to amend thee at the doom of Holy Church, then shalt thou set thee sharply to work in this work. And then if it so be that thy foredone special deeds will always press in thy remembrance betwixt thee and thy God, or any new thought or stirring of any sin either, thou shalt stalwartly step above them with a fervent stirring of love, and tread them down under thy feet. And try to cover them with a thick cloud of forgetting, as they never had been done in this life of thee nor of other man either. And if they oft rise, oft put them down: and shortly to say, as oft as they rise, as oft put them down. And if thee think that the travail be great, thou mayest seek arts and wiles and privy subtleties of ghostly devices to put them away: the which subtleties be better learned of God by the proof than of any man in this life.

(1) BUT it is not thus of the remembrance of any man or woman living in this life, or of any bodily or worldly thing whatsoever that it be. For why, a naked sudden thought of any of them, pressing against thy will and thy witting, although it be no sin imputed unto thee—for it is the pain of the original sin pressing against thy power, of the which sin thou art cleansed in thy baptism—nevertheless yet if this sudden stirring or thought be not smitten soon down, as fast for frailty thy fleshly heart is strained thereby: with some manner of liking, if it be a thing that pleaseth thee or hath pleased thee before, or else with some manner of grumbling, if it be a thing that thee think grieveth thee, or hath grieved thee before. The which fastening, although it may in fleshly living men and women that be in deadly sin before be deadly; nevertheless in thee and in all other that have in a true will forsaken the world, and are obliged unto any degree in devout living in Holy Church, what so it be, privy or open, and thereto that will be ruled not after their own will and their own wit, but after the will and the counsel of their sovereigns, what so they be, religious or seculars, such a liking or a grumbling fastened in the fleshly heart is but venial sin. The cause of this is the grounding and the rooting of your intent in God, made in the beginning of your living in that state that ye stand in, by the witness and the counsel of some discreet father.

(47) And we must further a consider, that when the Shriek [or Crack] makes its Dwelling-house, in its strong Breaking-through, out of the Gate of the anxious Darkness, viz. the Tongue, that the Shriek [or Crack] has not then yet seen the Virgin; but when it reflected [or shined] back again into the Heart, into the opened Darkness, and found her so habitable, there then first sprung up its Joy, and Pleasantness, and it became paradisical, and desired not [to go] into the Tongue again, but into the Head, and [desired] there to have its Region out of the Source of the Heart. Therefore the Tongue ought not in all [or altogether] to be believed, for it sits not in the heavenly Region, as the friendly pleasant Virtue [does;] but it has its Region in the Crack and Flash, and the Flash is as near the hellish Region, as the Crack is, for they are both generated in the Sharpness of the Stars, in the Essences, and the Tongue speaks both Lyes and Truth; in which of the two the Spirit arms itself, according to that it speaks: Also it many Times speaks Lies in great Men; when it is armed from the Essences, then it speaks in the Crack, like a Rider in his [haughty, surly, vaunting State,] or high Mindedness. The Life of the Soul. The Gate.

(19) Thus the Soul stood with great Longing and Desire; also was many Times in great Combat with the Hunter, who would still throw it to the Ground. When it set itself in Opposition against him, then he took all the Vices (which stuck in Flesh and Blood) and cast them upon the Soul, that he might intangle it with them, and hinder it from comprehending the Virgin again; he made a great Mountain of the Sins in the Flesh and Blood, and therewith covered and shut close up the Mercy of God, viz. the new Man in Christ, and the Gates of Heaven, which stood open before, were shut up close: Misery and great Trouble were heaped upon the Soul, till at length once again, from the Breath of God (which came into it again) it was moved to break the Devil's Chains in Pieces, and it entered into Combat with him, so that he was quite thrown to the Ground, and its Covering was rent in Pieces, and then the Soul saw its beloved Virgin again. What friendly Welcoming there was then, I had rather the Reader might find by Experience, than that I should write of it.

(1) In this tale there is a warning for thee, O Soul, That thou mayest acquiesce in God's ordinances, And be wary and not doubt God's benevolence, Let others grow pale from fear of ill fortune, Do thou smile like the rose at loss and gain; For the rose, though its petals be torn asunder, Still smiles on, and it is never cast down. It says, "Why should I fall into grief in disgrace? I gather beauty even from the thorn of disgrace."

(4) Thyself, then, assign their due limit to passion and anger and reason. And to thyself, let the divine Leitourgoi assign the due limit, and to these, the priests, and to the priests, hierarchs, and to the hierarchs, the Apostles and the successors of the Apostles. And if, perchance, any, even among these, should have failed in what is becoming, he shall be put right by the holy men of the same rank; and rank shall not be turned against rank, but each shall be in his own rank, and in his own service. So much for thee, from us, on behalf of knowing and doing one's own business. But, concerning the inhuman treatment towards that man, whom thou callest "irreverent and sinner," I know not how I shall bewail the scandal of my beloved. For, of whom dost thou suppose thou wast ordained Therapeutes by us? For if it were not of the Good, it is necessary that thou shouldst be altogether alien from Him and from us, and from our whole religion, and it is time for thee both to seek a God, and other priests, and amongst them to become brutal rather than perfected, and to be a cruel minister of thine own fierceness. For, have we ourselves, forsooth, been perfected to the altogether Good, and have no need of the divine compassion for ourselves, or do we commit the double sin, as the Oracles say, after the example of the unholy, not knowing in what we offend, but even justifying ourselves and supposing we see, whilst really not seeing? Heaven was startled at this, and I shivered, and I distrust myself. And unless I had met with thy letters (as know well I would I had not), they would not have persuaded me if indeed any other had thought good to persuade me concerning thee, that Demophilus supposes, that Almighty God, Who is good to all, is not also compassionate towards men, and that he himself has no need of the Merciful or the Saviour; yea further, he deposes those priests who are deemed worthy, through clemency, to bear the ignorances of the people, and who well know, that they also are compassed with infirmity. But, the supremely Divine Priest pursued a different (course), and that as the Oracles say, from being separate of sinners, and makes the most gentle tending of the sheep a proof of the love towards Himself; and He stigmatizes as wicked, him who did not forgive his fellow-servant the debt, nor impart a portion of that manifold goodness, graciously given to himself; and He condemns him to enjoy his own deserts, which both myself and Demophilus must take care to avoid. For, even for those who were treating Him impiously, at the very time of His suffering, He invokes remission from the Father; and He rebukes even the disciples, because without mercy they thought it right to convict of impiety the Samaritans who drove Him away. This, indeed, is the thousand times repeated theme of thy impudent letter (for thou repeatest the same from beginning to end), that thou hast avenged, not thyself, but Almighty God. Tell me (dost thou avenge) the Good by means of evil?

(2) Lo! here may men see what a privy pressing of love may purchase of our Lord, before all other works that man may think. And yet I grant well, that she had full much sorrow, and wept full sore for her sins, and full much she was meeked in remembrance of her wretchedness. And so should we do, that have been wretches and accustomed sinners; all our lifetime make hideous and wonderful sorrow for our sins, and full much be meeked in remembrance of our wretchedness.

(71) Criminals and sinners, even in the course of sinning, Their sins are veiled among the heart's secrets, Yet the criminal himself exposes them to view, Saying, "Behold me wearing a pair of horns, A cow of hell in sight of all men." Thus, even here, in the midst of thy sin, thy hand and foot Thy secret thought is as a governor who says to thee, "Tell forth thy convictions, withhold them not;" Especially in seasons of passion and angry talk Thy secret sins and crimes govern hand and foot,

(440) that when a man’s desires violently prevail over his reason, he reviles himself, and is angry at the violence within him, and that in this struggle, which is like the struggle of factions in a State, his spirit is on the side of his reason;— but for the passionate or spirited element to take part with the desires when reason decides that she should not be opposed 3 , is a sort of thing which I believe that you never observed occurring in yourself, nor, as I should imagine, in any one else? Certainly not. Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he is the less able is he to feel indignant at any suffering, such as hunger, or cold, or any other pain which the injured person may inflict upon him—these he deems to be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them. True, he said. But when he thinks that he is the sufferer of the wrong, then he boils and chafes, and is on the side of what he believes to be justice; and because he suffers hunger or cold or other pain he is only the more determined to persevere and conquer. His noble spirit will not be quelled until he either slays or is slain; or until he hears the voice of the shepherd, that is, reason, bidding his dog bark no more. The illustration is perfect, he replied; and in our State, as we were saying, the auxiliaries were to be dogs, and to hear the voice of the rulers, who are their shepherds. I perceive, I said, that you quite understand me; there is, however, a further point which I wish you to consider.

(79) Therefore, O thou beloved Mind! examine thyself to what thou art inclined; whether thou art inclined to Righteousness, Love, Fidelity, and Truth, also to Chastity, Modesty, and Mercifulness; if so, it is well for thee; but if not, then dive into thy Bosom, and consider thy fleshly Heart, and try it, wrap thy Heart, that the Elements in thee may quake and tremble. The flattering and lying Devil (who has possessed thy fleshly Heart) shall feel these 1 strokes (which he will not like) and then he Earnest Zeal of Repentence. must be gone, and thou will be of another Mind: This is no therefore it shall stand for a Memorial, and a continual Monitor; and whosoever pleases, let him try it, and he shall find Wonders indeed.

(5) Then will He sometimes peradventure send out a beam of ghostly light, piercing this cloud of unknowing that is betwixt thee and Him; and shew thee some of His privity, the which man may not, nor cannot speak. Then shalt thou feel thine affection inflamed with the fire of His love, far more than I can tell thee, or may or will at this time. For of that work, that falleth to only God, dare I not take upon me to speak with my blabbering fleshly tongue: and shortly to say, although I durst I would do not. But of that work that falleth to man when he feeleth him stirred and helped by grace, list me well tell thee: for therein is the less peril of the two.

(5) My dear Mind, thou supposest thou art very sound, but thou art so beaten, that thou feelest thy Disease no more. Art thou not very near unto Death, how then canst thou account thyself to be sound? O my dear Soul, boast not of thy Soundness, thou liest fettered in heavy Bonds, yea in a very dark Dungeon; thou swimmest in a deep Water, which rises up to thy very Lips, and thou must continually expect Death. Besides, the Hunter is behind thee with a great Company of thy worst Enemies, whereby he draws thee continually down by his Chains into the horrible Deep, into the Abyss of Hell, and his Crew thrust thee on behind thee, and run upon thee on all Sides, yelling and hunting, as if they had the Hind they hunt after.

(2) For in this work, a soul drieth up in it all the root and the ground of sin that will always live in it after confession, be it never so busy. And, therefore, whoso will travail in this work, let him first cleanse his conscience; and afterward when he hath done that in him is lawfully, let him dispose him boldly but meekly thereto. And let him think, that he hath full long been holden therefrom. For this is that work in the which a soul should travail all his lifetime, though he had never sinned deadly. And the whiles that a soul is dwelling in this deadly flesh, it shall evermore see and feel this cumbrous cloud of unknowing betwixt him and God. And not only that, but in pain of the original sin it shall evermore see and feel that some of all the creatures that ever God made, or some of their works, will evermore press in remembrance betwixt it and God. And this is the right wisdom of God, that man, when he had sovereignty and lordship of all other creatures, because that he wilfully made him underling to the stirring of his subjects, leaving the bidding of God and his Maker; that right so after, when he would fulfil the bidding of God, he saw and felt all the creatures that should be beneath him, proudly press above him, betwixt him and his God.

(2) I was greatly troubled in my groaning. I will bathe my bed and my cover each night with my tears. I have become old in the midst of all my enemies. Depart from me, all you who work at lawlessness, for look, the lord has heard the cry of my weeping and the lord has heard my prayer.