John Tauler · 8 of 121

Secondly, of the work and knowledge of grace. · 62.

This is also of grace, that a man should acknowledge his faults; as St. Gregory saith, “It is a great perfection that a man should know his imperfection, for sin blindeth a man, so that he may not understand his faults.” When then a man feeleth displeasure of sins, a light springeth up in him, showing him his defects, so that he knoweth what a sin is, and thus he leaveth his sins and turneth to virtue. And this understanding is of grace. When then a poor man feels a thorough disgust at all sins, he thereby has a divine light, showing him all sins,—and not only sins, but also the causes of sins,—and not only gross sins, but also spiritual and intellectual sins,—which occur in the reason and in the will. And a man must have very much light who understandeth all sins; and this knowledge can no one have save a singly and purely poor man, who stands there in denial of himself and of all things. He alone understandeth perfectly all sins, whether spiritual or bodily. For this reason is perfection placed in poverty, for in poverty alone is all truth understood, all good, all evil, without any doubt. In thorough poverty no one can be deceived, for deception is in a manner a cleaving to and taking possession, whether it be of a spiritual or temporal good, or what seemeth a good. And it is in this point that we are liable to be deceived; but in true detachment and in genuine self-denial, and in essential truth, no one can be really deceived. When then a poor man hath given himself up to God, and has thoroughly denied himself, and he doth not take truth according to appearance, or show, or splendour, but in its essence, which is undisguisedly God or godlike, without all this or that (appendages), in this state he cannot be deceived, either in himself or in other men. A teacher saith, “That all men can be deceived, except he alone cannot be deceived in whom the heavenly Father begetteth His eternal Word.” And this is only in the man who has given himself up entirely to God, and is thoroughly self-denying, and has gone out entirely from himself, and who has taken the being of things according to their essence and not according to appearance. And no deception can be hid in this, all is manifest, so that the man knows what is evil; and in this state he leaveth the evil and chooseth the good.