THIRD CHAPTER

How this pious man privately reveals to the doctor in part his own hidden holiness, and convicts the Master that he is still walking in the night of ignorance, and has an unclean vessel, and therefore is yet a Pharisee.

WHEN this sermon was ended, the man went home to his lodging, and wrote it down word for word as the Master had spoken it. And when he had finished he went to the Master, and said, “I have written out your sermon, and if it be not troublesome I should like to read it to you.” The Master replied, “I shall be glad to hear it.” Thereupon the man read the sermon over, and then said to the Master, “Dear sir, pray tell me if there be a word wanting, that if so I may set it down.” The Master said, “Dear son, thou hast written every word and phrase just as it came out of my mouth. I tell thee, if any one would give me much money for it, I could not write down every word so exactly as thou hast done it here, unless I set to afresh to draw it from the Scripture. I confess that I am greatly astonished at thee to think that thou hast been concealed from me so long, and I should never have perceived how full of wit thou art, and so often as thou hast confessed to me, thou shouldst so have 50hidden thy talent that I have never perceived it in thee.” Then the man made as though he would depart, and said, “Dear Master, if God will I am purposed to go home again.” But the Master said, “Dear son, what shouldst thou do at home? Thou hast neither wife nor child to provide for; thou must eat there as well as here: for if God will, I am minded to preach again of a perfect life.” Then said the man, “Dear Master, you must know that I have not come hither for the sake of your preaching, but because I thought, with God’s help, to give you some good counsel.” Quoth the Master, “How shouldst thou give counsel, who art but a layman, and understandest not the Scriptures; and it is, moreover, not thy place to preach if thou wouldst. Stay here a little longer; perchance God will give me to preach such a sermon as thou wouldst care to hear.” Then the man said, “Dear Master, I would fain say somewhat to you, but I fear that you would be displeased to hear it.” But the Master answered, “Dear son, say what thou wilt; I can answer for it that I shall take it in good part.” Hereupon, the man said, “You are a great clerk, and have taught us a good lesson in this sermon, but you yourself do not live according to it; yet you try to persuade me to stay here that you may preach me yet another sermon. Sir, I give you to know that neither your sermons, nor any outward words that man can speak, have power to work any good in me, for man’s words have in many ways hindered me much more than they have helped me. And this is the reason: it often happened that when I came away from the sermon, I brought certain false notions away with me, which I hardly got rid 51of in a long while with great toil; but if the highest Teacher of all truth shall come to a man, he must be empty and quit of all the things of time. Know ye that when this same Master cometh to me, He teaches me more in an hour than you or all the doctors from Adam to the Judgment Day will ever do.” Then said the Master, “Dear son, stay here, I pray thee, and celebrate the Lord’s Death with me.” Whereon the man answered, “Seeing that you adjure me so solemnly, it may be that, in obedience to God, I ought to stay with you; but I will not do it unless you promise to receive all that I have said to you, and all I may yet say to you, as under the seal of confession, so that none may know of it.” Quoth the Master: “Dear son, that I willingly promise, if only that thou wilt stay here.” Then said the man, “Sir, ye must know, that though you have taught us many good things in this sermon, the image came into my mind while you were preaching, that it was as if one should take good wine and mix it with lees, so that it grew muddy.” Quoth the Master: “Dear son, what dost thou mean by this?” The man said, “I mean that your vessel is unclean, and much lees are cleaving to it, and the cause is, that you have suffered yourself to be killed by the letter, and are killing yourself still every day and hour, albeit you yourself know full well that the Scripture saith, ‘The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.’ Know, that same letter which now killeth you will make you alive again, if so be you are willing; but in the life you are now living, know that you have no light, but you are in the night, in which you are indeed able to understand the letter, but have not 52yet tasted the sweetness of the Holy Ghost; and, withal, you are yet a Pharisee.” Then said the Master, “Dear son, I would have thee to know that, old as I am, I have never been spoken to in such fashion all my life.” The man said, “Where is your preaching now? Do you see now what you are when you are brought to the proof? And although you think that I have spoken too hardly to you, you are in truth guilty of all I have said, and I will prove to you from your own self that it is true.” Then said the Master, “I ask for no more, for I have ever been an enemy to all Pharisees.” Quoth the man, “I will first tell you how it is that the letter is killing you. Dear sir, as you know yourself, when you were arrived at the age to understand good and evil, you began to learn the letter, and in so doing you sought your own welfare, and to this day you are in the same mind; that is to say, you are trusting to your learning and parts, and you do not love and intend God alone, but you are in the letter, and intend and seek yourself, and not the glory of God, as the Scripture teacheth us to do. You have a leaning towards the creatures, and specially towards one creature, and love that creature with your whole heart above measure, and that is, moreover, the cause why the letter killeth you. And whereas I said that your vessel is unclean; that is also true, inasmuch as you have not in all things a single eye to God. If you look into yourself, you will, for one thing, find it out by the vanity and love of carnal ease whereby your vessel is spoiled and filled with lees; wherefore, when the pure unmixed wine of godly doctrine has gone through this unclean vessel, it comes to pass that your teaching is without 53favour, and brings no grace to pure, loving hearts. And whereas I further said that you were still in darkness, and had not the true light; this is also true, and it may be seen hereby that so few receive the grace of the Holy Spirit through your teaching. And whereas I said that you were a Pharisee, that is also true; but you are not one of the hypocritical Pharisees. Was it not a mark of the Pharisees that they loved and sought themselves in all things, and not the glory of God? Now examine yourself, dear sir, and see if you are not a proper Pharisee in the eyes of God. Know, dear Master, that there are many people in the world who are all called Pharisees in God’s sight, be they great or small, according to what their hearts or lives are bent upon.”

As the man spoke these words the Master fell on his neck and kissed him, and said: “A likewise has come into my mind. It has happened to me as it did to the heathen woman at the well. For know, dear son, that thou hast laid bare all my faults before my eyes; thou hast told me what I had hidden up within me, and specially that I have an affection for one creature; but I tell thee of a truth that I know it not myself, nor do I believe that any human being in the world can know of it. I wonder greatly who can have told thee this of me? But doubt not that thou hast it from God. Now, therefore, I pray thee, dear son, that thou celebrate our Lord’s Death, and be thou my ghostly father, and let me be thy poor sinful son.” Then said the man, “Dear sir, if you speak so contrary to ordinances, I will not stay with you, but ride home again; that I assure you.” Hereupon said the Master, “Ah, no! I pray thee, for God’s 54sake, do not so; stay awhile with me; I promise thee readily not to speak thus any more. I am minded, with God’s help, to begin a better course, and I will gladly follow thy counsel, whatsoever thou deemest best, if I may but amend my life.” Then said the man, “I tell you of a truth, that the letter and learning lead many great doctors astray, and bring some into purgatory and some into hell, according as their life here hath been,—I tell you of a truth, it is no light matter that God should give a man such great understanding and skill, and mastery in the Scripture, and he should not put it in practice in his life.”