Part 20

Humble itself.

Pleasant.

Pepwell reads: "wits."

Lest.

Pepwell reads: "strait."

Jer. ix. 21: "Quia ascendit mors per fenestras nostras" (Vulgate). Pepwell reads: "as saint Jerome saith"! Cf. Walter Hilton, The Ladder of Perfection, I. pt. iii. cap 9: "Lift up thy lanthorn, and thou shalt see in this image five windows, by which sin cometh into thy soul, as the Prophet saith: Death cometh in by our windows. These are the five senses by which thy soul goeth out of herself, and fetcheth her delight and seeketh her feeding in earthly things, contrary to the nobility of her own nature. As by the eye to see curious and fair things and so of the other senses. By the unskilful using of these senses willingly to vanities, thy soul is much letted from the sweetness of the spiritual senses within; and therefore it behoveth thee to stop these windows, and shut them, but only when need requireth to open them" (ed. Dalgairns, p. 115).

Ignorant.

Where natural and acquired knowledge alike fall shorts.

Fully.

Nature.

Pepwell has: "when thou dost feel."

Pepwell inserts: "I mean except the solemn vows of holy religion."

2 Cor. iii. 17.

Cf. St. Catherine of Siena, Letter 308 (ed. Gigli): "Love harmonises the three powers of our soul, and binds them together. The will moves the understanding to see, when it wishes to love; when the understanding perceives that the will would fain love, if it is a rational will, it places before it as object the ineffable love of the eternal Father, who has given us the Word, His own son, and the obedience and humility of the son, who endured torments, inuries, mockeries, and insults with meekness and with such great love. And thus the will, with ineffable love, follows what the eye of the understanding has beheld; and with its strong hand, it stores up in the memory the treasure that it draws from this love."

Losing.

Cant. iv. 9.

To exercise love.

Divers.

1 Cor. i. 26, vii. 20; Eph. iv. 1.

Luke x. 42.

Pepwell inserts "Him list thee to see, and."

Pepwell reads: "Let be good and all that is good, and better with all that is better."

Luke x. 42.

To know how to speak, etc.

Banishing from thy soul's vision.

Be able to.

Pepwell reads: "privily." Cf. Wyclif (Select English Works, ed. cit., i. p. 149): "And after seith Crist to his apostles, that thes thingis he seide bifore to hem in proverbis and mystily."

Pepwell reads: "rest."