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HERE BEGINNETH THE FORTIETH CHAPTER
That in the time of this work a soul hath no special beholding to any vice in itself nor to any virtue in itself
DO thou, on the same manner, fill thy spirit with the ghostly bemeaning of this word "sin," and without any special beholding unto any kind of sin, whether it be venial or deadly: Pride, Wrath, or Envy, Covetyse, Sloth, Gluttony, or Lechery. What recks it in contemplatives, what sin that it be, or how muckle a sin that it be? For all sins them thinketh—I mean for the time of this work—alike great in themselves, when the least sin departeth them from God, and letteth them of their ghostly peace.
And feel sin a lump, thou wottest never what, but none other thing than
