HERE BEGINNETH THE TWO AND SIXTIETH CHAPTER
How a man may wit when his ghostly work is beneath him or
without him, and when it is even with him or within him, and when it is above
him and under his God.
AND for this, that thou shalt be able better to wit how they shall be conceived
ghostly, these words that be spoken bodily, therefore I think to declare to
thee the ghostly bemeaning of some words that fall to ghostly working. So that
thou mayest wit clearly without error when thy ghostly work is beneath thee and
without thee, and when it is within thee and even with thee, and when it is
above thee and under thy God.
All manner of bodily thing is without thy
soul and beneath it in nature, yea! the sun and the moon and all the
stars, although they be above thy body, nevertheless yet they be beneath thy
soul.
All angels and all souls, although they be
confirmed and adorned with grace and with virtues, for the which they be above
thee in cleanness, nevertheless, yet they be but even with thee in nature.
Within in thyself in nature be the powers of thy
soul: the which be these three principal, Memory, Reason, and Will; and
secondary, Imagination and Sensuality.
Above thyself in nature is no manner of thing but
only God.
Evermore where thou findest written thyself in
ghostliness, then it is understood thy soul, and not thy body. And then all
after that thing is on the which the powers of thy soul work, thereafter shall
the worthiness and the condition of thy work be deemed; whether it be beneath
thee, within thee, or above thee.