O how senseless are these men and unbelieving in heart, who lie so deeply sunk in the earth, that they can relish nothing but carnal things. But miserable as they are, they shall in the end feel to their cost how vile and how nothing that was which they loved. Whereas the saints of God and all the devout friends of Christ regarded not those things which pleased the flesh, nor those which were in repute in this life, but longed after the everlasting riches with their whole hope and earnest effort. Their whole desire was carried upwards to things durable and invisible, that the desire of things visible might not draw them to things below. 5. my brother, cast not away thy confidence of making progress in godliness; there is yet time, the hour is not yet passed. Why wilt thou defer thy good purpose from day to day? Arise and begin in this very instant, and say, Now is the time to be doing, now is the time to be striving, now is the fit time to amend myself. When thou art ill at ease and much troubled, then is the time of earning thy reward. Thou must pass through fire and water before thou come to a wealthy place. Unless thou doest violence to thyself, thou shalt never get the victory over sin. So long as we carry about us this frail body of ours, we can never be without sin, nor live without weariness and pain. We would gladly have rest from all misery, but seeing that by sin we have lost our innocency, we have together with that lost also the true felicity.