HERE BEGINNETH THE FIVE AND FORTIETH CHAPTER
A good declaring of some certain deceits that may befall in this work.
BUT one thing I tell thee, that in this work may a young disciple that hath not
yet been well used and proved in ghostly working, full lightly be deceived; and,
but he be soon wary, and have grace to leave off and meek him to counsel,
peradventure be destroyed in his bodily powers and fall into fantasy in his
ghostly wits. And all this is along of pride, and of fleshliness and curiosity
of wit.
And on this manner may this deceit befall. A young man or a woman new set to the
school of devotion heareth this sorrow and this desire be read and spoken: how
that a man shall lift up his heart unto God, and unceasingly desire
for to feel the love of his God. And as fast in a curiosity of wit they conceive
these words not ghostly as they be meant, but fleshly and bodily; and travail
their fleshly hearts outrageously in their breasts. And what for lacking of
grace and pride and curiosity in themselves, they strain their veins and their
bodily powers so beastly and so rudely, that within short time they fall either
into frenzies, weariness, and a manner of unlisty feebleness in body and in
soul, the which maketh them to wend out of themselves and seek some false and
some vain fleshly and bodily comfort without, as it were for recreation of body
and of spirit: or else, if they fall not in this, else they merit for ghostly
blindness, and for fleshly chafing of their nature in their bodily breasts in
the time of this feigned beastly and not ghostly working, for to have their
breasts either enflamed with an unkindly heat of nature caused of
misruling of their bodies or of this feigned working, or else they conceive a
false heat wrought by the Fiend, their ghostly enemy, caused of their pride and
of their fleshliness and their curiosity of wit. And yet peradventure they ween
it be the fire of love, gotten and kindled by the grace and the goodness of the
Holy Ghost. Truly, of this deceit, and of the branches thereof, spring many
mischiefs: much hypocrisy, much heresy, and much error. For as fast after such a
false feeling cometh a false knowing in the Fiend's school, right as after a
true feeling cometh a true knowing in God's school. For I tell thee truly, that
the devil hath his contemplatives as God hath His.
This deceit of false feeling, and of false knowing following thereon, hath
diverse and wonderful variations, after the diversity of states and the subtle
conditions of them that be deceived: as hath the true feeling and knowing
of them that be saved. But I set no more deceits here but those with the
which I trow thou shalt be assailed if ever thou purpose thee to work in this
work. For what should it profit to thee to wit how these great clerks, and men
and women of other degrees than thou art, be deceived? Surely right nought; and
therefore I tell thee no more but those that fall unto thee if thou travail in
this work. And therefore I tell thee this, for thou shalt be wary therewith in
thy working, if thou be assailed therewith.
our kind sponsors.
