John Tauler · 24 of 121

Secondly, of the work and knowledge of grace. · 78.

If, in this condition, a man resist sturdily and invoketh God that He may help him to overcome the evil spirit, if he should then overcome the evil, this spirit of iniquity maketh himself like unto a good angel and counselleth to the man virtue. But this virtue ib above the power of nature, and the evil one overdoeth this in order to destroy nature, and that man should come into a state of sickness, so as to lose his senses. For the virtue which the evil one counselleth is irregular and without measure; and the end of the virtue is evil, for it teacheth not the mean and stretcheth over it to grasp the end. For example, fasting and watching without measure, and other such severe exercises, which result in a man getting ill, all this is neither useful to God nor to himself, nor any one, and has for its result that he must intermit in the performance of many good works. And this is what the evil one proposeth by his counsel, that a man should utterly perish.