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Strength Against Temptations (Part II)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 August 2024
Extract
Saint Austin says, then are holy men most speedfully heard of God, when he gives them not that that they covet (but after that he knows the best for them). God gives unto some men sweetness of devotion in the beginining of their turning for to (draw them out from the love I of worldly things) and for to make them sad and stable in his love. Which sweetness afterward he withdraws that they should get them more meed and higher to be crowned (in the bliss of heaven). For since virtues, as says the philosopher, stands in that thing that a man may not come to (without strength and hardness), therefore that this is most hard to get is most of virtue when it is gotten. [But to be stable and lasting in the love of God and soothfast belief, in time of temptation and withdrawing of all actual and sensible devotion, is more hard than it is when a man feels sweetness and devotion and therefore it is more needful.]
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © 1950 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
* Note. The passages in brackets are proper to Hilton.
1 cruel
2 for his fear of
3 by himself alone
4 'lyuand'
5 in this way
6 recovering
7 obligatory times of prayer
8 Compare following section with Scale II. ph. 22 (p. 312 sq.) and 11. ch. 11 (p. 265) and Scale I. ch. 37 and 38, Underhill edition.
9 This state of conscience
10 text ‘roght nought’
11 practice of confession
12 caution
13 surrounds, embraces. See similar phrase in Scale II, ch. 4: ‘thou art so belapped with this image of sin', etc.
14 See Scale I, ch. 37: ugsomeness, horrors.
15 causes him more to cleave.
16 skill. O.F. cointise.
17 members of the household
18 See Seals I, chs. 59 ami 63.
19 opinion
20 timid
21 cruelly
22 evil serpent
23 yea, go thy way
24 thus wise
25 The final Latin text is omitted. There follows here both in Bodl. 131 and the Latin Bodl. 43 a chapter from the pseudo-Bonaventure Stimulus Amoris (Book III, ch. 2 in prt. Latin ed.), namely on the xisefulness of temptations. This beautiful addition has been taken for Flete's work in other MSS. where the addition is not marked as such. The translation in Bodl. 131 differs from Hilton's’ version of the Stimulus (Vernon and other MSS.) and if made by him must have been made at another time.