with ye see me now afflicted, hath quite left me from the time I was first made a monk.
Then all the sins of a man's former life come rushing into his memory, representing themselves unto him, as it were in battle array, to destroy him, but especially, his grievous sins wherein he took greatest delight, are continually present to his fancy, which do so torment him that they drive him into a dangerous despair of his salvation, and the remembrance of those pleasures, which before were grateful, are now most bitter unto him. That the wise man saith true:[1] "Ne intuaris vinum quando flavescit cum splenduerit in vitro color ejus ingreditur hlaiide, et novissimo mordehit ut coluber, et sicut regulus venema difftundet." "Behold not wine when it waxeth yellow, when the color thereof shall shine in the glass; it goeth in pleasantly, but in the end it will bite like a snake, and as a basilisk it spreads abroad his passions."
Such a poisoned cup the enemy of mankind presenteth to the lovers of the world to drink. Such is the liquor of the outward gilded cup of Babylon.
Wicked man seeing himself environed with so many accusers, beginneth then to fear the success of his latter judgment, and to bewail himself with bitter outcries, O miserable and unhappy man that have lived thus long in
- ↑ Proverbs, xxiii.
