st it is
made so fleshly, so worldly, and so malicious, so wicked, and so
froward, that now plainly of itself, without suggestion of any other
spirit, it gendereth and bringeth forth in itself, not only lusty
thoughts of the flesh, and vain thoughts of the world, but that
worst of all these, as are bitter thoughts and wicked, in backbiting
and deeming, and evil suspicion of others. And when it is thus with
our spirit, then, I trow, it may not lightly be known when it is our
own spirit that speaketh, or when it heareth any of the other three
spirits speaking in it as it is touched before. But what maketh it
matter[303] who speaketh, when it is all one and the same thing that
is spoken? What helpeth to know the person of him that speaketh,
when it is siker and certain that all is evil and perilous that is
spoken? If it be thine enemy, consent not to him, but meek thee to
prayer and to counsel, and so mayst thou mightily withstand thine
enemy. If it be thine own spirit, reprove him bitterly, and
sighingly sorrow that ever thou fell in[304] so great wretchedness,
bondage, and thraldom of the devil. Shrive thee of thy customed
consents, and of thine old sins, and so mayst thou come (by grace)
to recover thy freedom again; and by the gracious freedom mayst thou
soon come to, wisely for to know, and soothfastly for to feel by the
proof, when it is thine own spirit that speaketh these evils, or it
be these other evil spirits that speaketh them in thee. And so may
this knowing be a sovereign mean and help of againstanding, for
often times unknowing is cause of much error, and, againward,
knowing is cause of much truth; and to this manner of knowing mayst
thou win thus as I say to thee.

If thou be in doubt or in were[305] of these evil thoughts when they
come, whether that they be the speech of thine own spirit, or of any
of the others of thine enemies; look then busily by the witness of
thy counsel and thy conscience, if thou have been shriven and
lawfully amended after the doom[306] of thy confessor, of all the
consents that ever thou consented to that kind of sin, that thy
thought is aware of. And if thou have not been shriven shrive thee
then, as truly as thou mayst, by grace and by counsel; and then wete
thou right well that all the thoughts that come to thee after thy
shrift, stirring thee oft times to the same sins, they are the words
of other spirits than thine own (I mean some of the three touched
before). And thou fo