There cannot in this world be a worse mind than for a man to delight and take comfort in any commodity that he taketh by sinful means. For it is the very straight way toward the taking of boldness and courage in sin, and finally to falling into infidelity and thinking that God careth not or regardeth not what things men do here nor of what mind we be. But unto such-minded folk speaketh holy scripture in this wise: "Say not, I have sinned and yet there hath happed me none harm, for God suffereth before he strike." But, as St. Austine saith, the longer he tarrieth ere he strike, the sorer is the stroke when he striketh. And therefore, if you will do well, reckon yourself very sure that when you deadly displease God for the getting or the keeping of your goods, God shall not suffer those goods to do you good. But either he shall shortly take them from you, or else suffer you to keep them for a little while to your more harm and afterward, when you least look for it, take you away from them. And then, what a heap of heaviness will there enter into your heart, when you shall see that you shall so suddenly go from your goods and leave them here in the earth in one place, and that your body shall be put in the earth in another place, and--which then shall be the most heaviness of all--when you shall fear (and not without great cause) that your soul first forthwith, and after that at the final judgment your body, shall be driven down deep toward the centre of the earth into the fiery pit and dungeon of the devil of hell, there to tarry in torment, world without end! What goods of this world can any man imagine, the pleasure and commodity of which could be such in a thousand years as to be able to recompense that intolerable pain that there is to be suffered in one year? Yea, or in one day or one hour, either? And then what a madness is it, for the poor pleasure of your worldly goods of so few years, to cast yourself both body and soul into the everlasting fire of hell, which is not diminished by the amount of a moment by lying there the space of a hundred thousand years? And therefore our Saviour, in few words, concluded and confuted all these follies of those who, for the short use of this worldly substance, forsake him and his faith and sell their souls unto the devil for ever. For he saith, "What availeth it a man if he won all the whole world, and lost his soul?" This would be, methinketh, cause and occasion enough, to him who had never so much part of this world in his hand, to be content rather to lose it all than for the retaining or increasing of his worldly goods to lose and destroy his soul.