224. [227] How Englishmen who wish to acquire a reputation for erudition compose their discourses with great elegance and as it were profound wisdom, especially concerning the influx of faith, and the endeavor to the doing of good, and of man's state then as to affection, reception and enlightenment by the Holy Spirit. Some of the English complained, saying that these elegancies delight their ears and are pleasing to them while they listen; but when they wish to apply anything therefrom to themselves they know not what the preachers have said, and whether it is allowable to adjoin the will, and thus to openly will, and act, or not. When they ask them, they say such sounding words as, that they may, and may not, and finally that it is a transcendent mystery. They speak in this manner so that their hearers, being able to gather either meaning from them, may praise them. And yet, by reason of these words with their double meaning in which something lies hidden like a snake in the grass, those hearers do not love them. They tell them that they should remain in the doctrine that is taught in the exhortation used at the Holy Supper, and that if they do not so from the will, the devil will, perchance, enter into them as he entered into Judas. Their discourses are also filled with the perception of trust and confidence in themselves.