[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]if God stir thee to take these, I counsel not that thou leave them; I mean if thou shalt pray in words,
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and else not. For why, they be full short words. But although the shortness of prayer be greatly
commended here, nevertheless the oftness of prayer is never the rather refrained. For as it is said
before, it is prayed in the length of the spirit; so that it should never cease, till the time were that it
had fully gotten that that it longed after. Ensample of this have we in a man or a woman afraid in
the manner beforesaid. For we see well, that they cease never crying on this little word out, or
this little word fire, ere the time be that they have in great part gotten help of their grief.
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The Cloud of Unknowing Anonymous
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
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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
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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.
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The Cloud of Unknowing Anonymous
HERE BEGINNETH THE ONE AND FORTIETH CHAPTER
That in all other works beneath this, men should keep discretion; but in this none.
AND furthermore, if thou ask me what discretion thou shalt have in this work, then I answer thee
and say, right none! For in all thine other doings thou shalt have discretion, as in eating and in
drinking, and in sleeping and in keeping of thy body from outrageous cold or heat, and in long
praying or reading, or in communing in speech with thine even-christian. In all these shalt thou
keep discretion, that they be neither too much nor too little. But in this work shalt thou hold no
measure: for I would that thou shouldest never cease of this work the whiles thou livest.
I say not that thou shalt continue ever therein alike fresh, for that may not be. For sometime
sickness and other unordained dispositions in body and in soul, with many other needfulness to
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