Illustration of balance minimal concept, scales of justice
In every sinful man and woman that is bound in deadly sin, are three wretchednesses, the which bring them to the death of hell. The first is: Default of spiritual strength. That they are so weak within their heart, that they can neither stand against the temptations of the fiend, nor can they lift their will to yearn for the love of God and follow thereto. The second is: Use of fleshly desires:—for they have no will nor might to stand, they fall into lusts and likings of this world; and because they think them sweet, they dwell in them still, many till their lives’ end, and so they come to the third wretchedness. The third is, Exchanging a lasting good for a passing delight: as who say they give endless joy for a little joy of this life.
If they will turn them and rise to penance, God will ordain their dwelling with angels and with holy men. But because they choose the vile sin of this world, and have more delight in the filth of their flesh than in the fairness of heaven, they lose both the world and heaven. For he that hath not Jesus Christ loses all that he hath, and all that he is, and all that he might get. For he is not worthy of life, nor to be fed with swine’s-meat. All creatures shall be stirred in His vengeance in the day of Doom.
These wretchednesses that I have told you of are not only in worldly men and women, who use gluttony, lust, and other open sins: but they are also in others who seem in penance and godly life. For the devil that is enemy to all mankind, when he sees a man or a woman among a thousand, turn wholly to God, and forsake all the vanities and riches that men who love this world covet, and seek lasting joy, a thousand wiles he has in what manner he may destroy them. And when he can not bring them into such sins which might make all men wonder at them who knew them, he beguiles many so privily that they cannot oftentimes feel the trap that has taken them.
Excerpted from The Form of Perfect Living by Richard Rolle. Public domain.
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