r none such thoughts, be they never so thick, so
foul, nor so many (I mean for their first coming in), but if it be
for recklessness of againstanding,[307] art no blame worthy. And not
only releasing of purgatory that thou hast deserved for the same
sins done before, what so they be, thou mayst deserve, if thou
stiffly againstand them, but also much grace in this life, and much
meed in the bliss of heaven. But all those evil thoughts coming in
to thee, stirring thee to any sin, after that thou hast consented to
that same sin, and before that thou hast sorrow for that consent,
and art in will to be shriven thereof, it is no peril to thee to
take them to thyself,[308] and for to shrive thee of them, as of
thoughts of thine own spirit; but for to take to thyself all other
thoughts, the which thou hast by very proof, as it is shewed before,
by the speeches of other spirits than of thyself, therein lieth
great peril, for so mightest thou lightly misrule thy conscience,
charging a thing for sin the which is none; and this were great
error, and a mean to the greatest peril. For if it were so that each
evil thought and stirring to sin were the work and the speech of
none other spirit, but only of man's own spirit; then it would
follow by that that a man's own spirit were a very fiend, the which
is apertly false and a damnable woodness;[309] for though all it be
so that a soul may, by frailty and custom of sinning, fall in to so
much wretchedness, that it taketh on itself by bondage of sin the
office of the devil, stirring itself to sin ever more and more,
without any suggestion of any other spirit (as it is said before),
yet it is not therefore a devil in kind, but it is a devil in
office, and may be cleped devilish, for it is in the doing like to
the devil, [that is to say, a stirrer of itself unto sin, the which
is the office of the devil].[310] Nevertheless yet, for all this
thraldom to sin and devilishness in office, it may by grace of
contrition, of shrift, and of amending, recover the freedom again,
and be made saveable--yea, and a full special God's saint in this
life, that before was full damnable and full cursed in the
living.[311] And, therefore, as great a peril as it is a soul that
is fallen in sin, not for to charge his conscience therewith, nor
for to amend him thereof, as great a peril it is, and, if it may be
said, a greater, a man for to charge his conscience with each
thought and stirring of sin that will come