hy, perfection
standeth not in them. But this counsel may I give thee generally, to
hold thee by in these stirrings, and in all other like unto these;
evermore where thou findest two contraries, as are these--silence
and speaking, fasting and eating, onliness and company, common
clothing of Christian religion and singular habits of divers and
devised brotherhoods, with all such other what so they be, the which
in themself are but works of kind[253] and of men. For thou hast it
by kind and by statute of thine outer man now for to speak and now
for to be still, now for to eat and now for to fast, now for to be
in company and now to be only, now to be common in clothing and now
to be in singular habit, ever when thee list, and when thou
seest[254] that any of them should be speedful and helply to thee in
nourishing of the heavenly grace working within in thy soul; but if
it be so (which God forbid), that thou or any other be so lewd and
so blinded in the sorrowful temptations of the midday devil, that ye
bind you by any crooked avow to any such singularities, as it were
under colour of holiness feigned under such an holy thraldom,[255]
in full and final destroying of the freedom of Christ, the which is
the ghostly habit of the sovereign holiness that may be in this
life, or in the other, by the witness of saint Paul saying thus: Ubi
spiritus Domini, ibi libertas: "There where the spirit of God is,
there is freedom."[256] And thereto when thou seest that all such
works in their use may be both good and evil; I pray thee leave them
both, for that is the most ease for thee for to do, if thou wilt be
meek, and leave the curious beholding and seeking in thy wits to
look whether is better. But do thou thus: set the one on the one
hand, and the other on the other, and choose thee a thing the which
is hid between them; the which thing, when it is had, giveth thee
leave in freedom of spirit to begin and to cease in holding any of
the others at thine own full list, without any blame.

But now thou askest me, what is that thing. I shall tell thee what I
mean that it is: It is God; for whom thou shouldest be still, if
thou shouldest be still; and for whom thou shouldest speak if thou
shouldest speak; and for whom thou shouldest fast, if thou shouldest
fast; and for whom thou shouldest eat, if thou shouldest eat; and
for whom thou shouldest be only, if thou shouldest be only; and for
whom thou shouldest be in company, if thou shouldes