The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose TreatisesRolle, Richard, of Hampole
Religion
The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises
Rolle, Richard, of Hampole
Christian life; Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 1290?-1349
undevoutly and without reverence: backbiting; flattering: lying:
abusing: cursing: defaming: quarrelling: threatening: sowing of discord:
treason: false-witness: ill counsel: scorn: unbuxomness in speech: to
turn good deeds to ill: to make them be holden ill who do them: (we
ought to wrap up our neighbours' deeds in the best not the worst);
exciting any man to ire: reprehending in another what one does one's
self: vain speech: much speech: foul speech: to speak idle words: or to
speak words not needful: praising: polishing of words: defending sin:
shouting with laughter: making grimaces at any man: to sing secular
songs and to love them: to praise ill-deeds: to sing more for the glory
of men than of GOD. _The sins of deed are these_: gluttony: lechery:
drunkenness: simony: witch-craft: breaking of the holy-days: sacrilege:
to receive GOD'S Body in deadly sin: breaking of vows: apostacy:
dissipation in GOD'S service: to set example of ill deeds: to hurt any
man in his body, or in his goods, or in his fame: theft: rapine: usury:
deceit: selling of righteousness: to hearken ill: to give to harlots: to
withhold necessaries from the body, or to give it to excess: to begin a
thing that is above our might: custom to sin: falling often into sin:
feigning of more good than we have: for to seem holier, more learned
and wiser than we are: to hold office that we do not suffice to: or to
hold one that cannot be held without sin: to lead dances: to bring up
new fashions: to be rebellious against one's Sovereign: to insult those
who are less: to sin in sight, in hearing, in smelling, in touching, in
handling, in swallowing: in means: in signs: in beggings: writings. To
receive the circumstances, that is to say time, place, manner, number,
person, dwelling, knowledge, age, that makes thee sin more or less. To
desire a sin or to be tempted: to constrain one to sin. Other many sins
there are _of omission_, that is, of leaving good undone: when men leave
the good they should do. Not thinking about GOD, nor dreading, nor
praising Him, nor thanking Him for His gifts: to do not all that one
does for love of GOD: to sorrow not for one's sins as one should do: not
to dispose one's self to receive grace. And if one have taken grace,
not to use it as one ought; not to keep it: to turn not to the
inspiration of GOD: to conform not one's will to GOD'S will: to give not
attention to one's prayers, but mutter on and never reck save that they
be said; to do negligently what one was bound by vow to do, or by
command, or else enjoined in penance: to draw out at length what should
be done soon: having no joy at one's neighbour's profit as at one's own;
not sorrowing at his ill-faring: standing not against temptations:
forgiving not those who have done one harm: keeping not faith with one's
neighbour as one would that he did to one's self: and yielding not a
good deed for another if one can. Amending not those sins before one's
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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