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of God. If people today really understood
this saying they would more willingly accept
the doctrines that come from the mouth of the Creator
and Maker of all things. But the large incomes
that they have, and the large treasures in their coffers,
are the reason why they cut short their days with their disordered
appetites, which damage them so much. If nature cannot
hold and sustain them well, then they should give themselves
instead to the spirit. For their income and their
treasures and all the good things in which they delight steal away
their lives, their hearts, and their senses all together. So
when death comes and they must die, they have lost their wit
and understanding, so that many of them, who were not able to help
themselves nor know when they were most in need, are
[now] dead and damned. They did not live like those
who, to save themselves from peril, studied the sciences and
lived their lives in such a way that they wished to merely sustain
their bodies for as long as they might be in this world, like those who knew
that their lives lasted only a short while.
They did not desire anything else except