3. For the inward man is very much burdened with the necessities of the body in this world.
And therefore the prophet devoutly prays to be freed from them, saying: From my necessities deliver me, O Lord. Psalms xxiv.
But wo to them that know not their own misery, and more wo to them that love this miserable and corruptible life.
For some there are who love it to that degree, although they can scarce get necessaries by labouring or begging, that if they could live always here, they would not care at all for the kingdom of God.
4. O senseless people, and infidels in heart, who lie buried so deep in earthly things, as to relish nothing but the things of the flesh!
Miserable wretches! they will in the end find to their cost, how vile a nothing that was which they so much loved.
But the saints of God, and all the devout friends of Christ, made no account of what pleased the flesh, or flourished in this life; but their whole hope and intentions aspired to eternal goods.
Their whole desire tended upwards to things everlasting and invisible; for fear lest the love of visible things should draw them down to things below.
Lose not, brother, thy confidence of going forward to spiritual things; there is yet time, the hour is not yet past.