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Whereas they are unwilling to suffer [pain and labor] in order to gain the good things
of Our Lord, which would never fail, as the blessed
saints gained by a short and hard life which they
endured in this world and which seemed nothing other than a
goodly delight to those who undertook it willingly. And in the end
it seemed to them that they gained Paradise for little or no effort.
And every person can have this and share in the good things of Our Lord,
and have the glory and the joys of heaven, if he does not remain in himself.
But those who desire the glory and the honors of this world debase themselves
so much that they neither learn nor understand anything good for
their salvation. They love too much the ease and
consolations of the body, which they will so soon be deprived of
and led to suffering and pain, rather than loving the ease of
the soul which lasts forever. Nor do they value at all the sense
or understanding of the man who does not live well
in the world and who does not have many temporal goods by which
he would be distinguished in the world. And so they say that he is silly and
foolish because he does not recognize their malice and deceitfulness.
But all of those people who take pains to please the world
by any means they can are cursed by God through the mouth