Then he proceeds to describe an error, ‘yet more dangerous than this,’ as follows:—‘Those who compose this class call themselves God-seeing (_Gott schauende_) men. You may know them by the natural rest they profess to experience, for they imagine themselves free from sin and immediately united to God. They fancy themselves free from any obligation to obey either divine or human laws, and that they need no longer be diligent in good works. They believe the quiet to which they have devoted themselves so lofty and glorious a thing that they cannot, without sin, suffer themselves to be hindered or disturbed therein. Therefore will they be subject to no man—will work not at all, either inwardly or outwardly, but lie like an idle tool awaiting its master’s hand. They think, if they were to work, God’s operation within them would be hindered; so they sit inactive, and exercise themselves in no good work or virtue. In short, they are resolved to be so absolutely empty and idle that they will not so much as praise and thank God—will not desire or pray for anything—will not know or learn anything. All such things they hold to be mischievous—persuade themselves that they possess already all that can be requested, and that they have the true spiritual poverty because, as they flatter themselves, they live without any will of their own, and have abandoned all choice. As to the laws and ordinances of the Church, they believe that they have not only fulfilled them, but have advanced far beyond that state for which such institutions were designed. Neither God nor man (they say) can give or take from them aught, because they suffered all that was to be suffered till they passed beyond the stage of trial and virtue, and finally attained this absolute Quiet wherein they now abide. For they declare expressly that the great difficulty is not so much to attain to virtue as to overcome or surpass it, and to arrive at the said Quiet and absolute emptiness of all virtue. Accordingly they will be completely free and submit to no man,—not to pope or bishops, or to the priests and teachers set over them; and if they sometimes profess to obey, they do not in reality yield any obedience either in spirit or in practice. And just as they say they will be free from all laws and ordinances of the Holy Church, so they affirm, without a blush, that as long as a man is diligently striving to attain unto the Christian virtues he is not yet properly perfect, and knows not yet what spiritual poverty and spiritual freedom or emptiness really are. Moreover, they believe that they are exalted above the merits of all men and angels; that they can neither add to their virtues nor be guilty of any fault or sin, because (as they fancy) they live without will, have brought their spirit into Quiet and Emptiness, are in themselves nothing, and veritably united unto God. They believe, likewise, madly enough, that they may fulfil all the