At the beginning then, bow thee entirely to thy Lord JESUS Christ. That
turning to JESUS is naught else but turning from all the covetousness
and the liking and the occupations and business of worldly things and of
fleshly lust and of vain love: so that thy thought, that was ever
downward, burrowing in the earth, whilst thou wert in the world, now
should be aye upward like fire; seeking the highest place in heaven,
right to thy Spouse, where He sits in His bliss. To Him thou art turned,
when His grace illumines thine heart; and forsakes all vices, and
conforms it to virtues and good manners, and to all manner of compliance
and debonairness. And that thou mayst last and grow in the goodness
that thou hast begun without slowness, and sorriness, and irking of thy
life; four things shalt thou have in thy thought, till thou beest in
perfect love. For when thou art come thereto, thy joy and desire will
aye be burning in Christ. One is: _the measure of thy life here, that it
is so short that scarcely is it anything_. For we live but in a
point--that is the least thing that may be. And soothly, our life is
less than a point, if we liken it to the life that lasts aye. Another
is: _uncertainty of our ending_. For we wot never when we shall die, nor
where we shall die, nor how we shall die, nor whither we shall go when
we are dead; and that GOD wills that this be uncertain to us, for He
wills that we be aye ready to die. The third is: _that we shall answer
before the righteous Judge_, for all the time that we have been here,
how we have lived, what our occupation has been and why, and what good
we might have done when we have been idle. Therefore said the prophet:
"He has called thee times again," that is every day He has lent us here
for to spend in good use, and in penance, and in GOD'S service. If we
waste it in earthly love and in vanities, full grievously must we be
condemned and punished; for that is one of the greatest sorrows that may
be: unless we try manfully in the love of GOD, and do good to all that
we may, while our short time lasts. And every time that we think not on
God we may count it as the thing that we have lost. The fourth is: _that
we think how great the joy is that they have who last in GOD'S love to
their ending_. For they shall be brethren and fellows with angels and
holy men, loving and thanking, praising and seeing the King of Joy in
the beauty and in the shining of His majesty. The which sight shall be
reward and food, and all delights that any creature may think, and more
than any can tell, to all His lovers, without end. It is much easier to
come to that bliss than to describe it. _Also think what pain and what
sorrow and tormenting they shall have_ who love not GOD above all things
that one sees in this world, but defile their body in the pleasures and
lusts of this life, in pride and greed and other sins; they shall burn
in the fire of hell with the devil whom they served, as long as GOD is
in heaven with His servants, that is evermore.