ree will to choose whether he will
be under GOD or the fiend; and when, with his will, he chooses to serve
the fiend, he cannot after, when he would, come out of his bonds. And
therefore, worldly men who are bound in sin say to them who counsel them
to amend their lives, "fain would we rise, but we cannot." No, they
cannot through might of themselves, but through GOD'S grace helping them
they can. The third grace is most special; for it is given only to those
who receive the second grace; and with their free-will fulfil it in
deed, and can say as S. Paul said, "The grace of GOD was not in vain in
me." And S. Austin says; "GOD, working with us, fulfils that which He,
through grace stirring, began in us." For neither without His helping
can we do good to ourselves, nor please Him: as GOD says Himself
"without Me, thou canst no nothing." GOD'S grace stirring, goes before
good will, and stirs it to do the good and leave the ill.

Grace, when it comes first to visit man's soul, wakens him as out of a
slumbering and inquires of him with those sharp words: "Where art thou?
Whence comest thou? Whither shalt thou?" First he says, "Where art
thou?" as if he said, "Bethink thee, unhappy wretch, how foul thou art
cast down, and what peril thou art in. For, for thy sin thou art fallen
into the enemy's hands, who above all things dost covet to work thy woe;
and naught may deliver thee out of the foe's hands, but Almighty GOD,
thy good Lord, Whom thou hast forsaken." After he says: "Whence comest
thou?" as if he said, "thou wretch, behold how thou hast wasted thy life
in sin; thou comest from the fiend's tavern--Where are all the goods
that GOD has given thee to help thee with, and to worship Him? Sorrily
hast thou lost them. Thy Lord made thee rich, and thou art become a poor
wretch." After, he inquires, "Whither wendest thou?" "Woeful wretch thou
wendest to the woeful doom, that GOD dooms men to; for as thou hast
served so shalt thou be judged. So awful shalt thou see GOD there, that
thou shalt for fear be out of thy wits; and to the mountains and hills
thou shalt cry with a grisly noise, and pray them to fall on thee and
hide thee, that thou see Him not. Woeful wretch, thou wendest to hell,
if thou dost forth as thou hast begun, where thou shalt find fire so hot
and so raging, that all the water in the sea, though it ran through it,
should not slake a spark thereof. And because thou stinkest here to GOD,
for thy foul sin, there thou