skilful 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).

[250]Ignorant.

[251]Where natural and acquired knowledge alike fall shorts.

[252]Fully.

[253]Nature.

[254]Pepwell has: "when thou dost feel."

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

[256]2 Cor. iii. 17.

[257]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."

[258]Losing.

[259]Cant. iv. 9.

[260]To exercise love.

[261]Divers.

[262]1 Cor. i. 26, vii. 20; Eph. iv. 1.

[263]Luke x. 42.

[264]Pepwell inserts "Him list thee to see, and."

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

[266]Luke x. 42.

[267]To know how to speak, etc.

[268]Banishing from thy soul's vision.

[269]Be able to.

[270]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."

[271]Pepwell reads: "rest."

[272]Pepwell modernises "conne" to "learn to" throughout this
passage.

[273]Harl. MS. 674 reads: "stirring"; the other MS, as Pepwell.

[274]Harl. MS. 674 reads: "have."

[275]Pepwell reads: "else."

[276]Manifestly, i.e. unless they clearly show that they do not know
how to act as they should. Pepwell has: "in a part."

[277]i.e. take their advice, but do not simply imitate them. I
follow the MSS. in preference to Pepwell, who reads: "Work after no
men's counsel, but sith that know well their own disposition; for
such men should," etc.

[278]1 John iv. 1-6.

[279]Ps.