" But,
as St. Austine saith, the longer he tarrieth ere he strike, the
sorer is the stroke when he striketh.
And therefore, if you will do well, reckon yourself very sure that
when you deadly displease God for the getting or the keeping of
your goods, God shall not suffer those goods to do you good. But
either he shall shortly take them from you, or else suffer you to
keep them for a little while to your more harm and afterward, when
you least look for it, take you away from them.
And then, what a heap of heaviness will there enter into your
heart, when you shall see that you shall so suddenly go from your
goods and leave them here in the earth in one place, and that your
body shall be put in the earth in another place, and--which then
shall be the most heaviness of all--when you shall fear (and not
without great cause) that your soul first forthwith, and after that
at the final judgment your body, shall be driven down deep toward
the centre of the earth into the fiery pit and dungeon of the devil
of hell, there to tarry in torment, world without end! What goods
of this world can any man imagine, the pleasure and commodity of
which could be such in a thousand years as to be able to recompense
that intolerable pain that there is to be suffered in one year?
Yea, or in one day or one hour, either? And then what a madness is
it, for the poor pleasure of your worldly goods of so few years, to
cast yourself both body and soul into the everlasting fire of hell,
which is not diminished by the amount of a moment by lying there
the space of a hundred thousand years?
And therefore our Saviour, in few words, concluded and confuted all
these follies of those who, for the short use of this worldly
substance, forsake him and his faith and sell their souls unto the
devil for ever.
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