The divine life in three treatises

8. Thy thoughts are but sordid, dishonourable and low, if God be not the chiefest in them. They reach no higher then the habitation of beasts; nor do they attain to any sweeter employment then to meditate on the felicity of a brute: Thou choosest with the fly to feed on dung and filthy ulcers, and as maggots to live on stinking carrion, when thou mightst have free access to God himself, and mightst be entertained in the Court of heaven, and welcomed thither by the holy Angels: ⟨p. 217⟩Thou wallowest in the mire with the swine, or diggest thy self a house in the earth, as worms and moles do, when thy thoughts might be soaring up to God, and might be taken up with high and holy and everlasting things. What if your thoughts were employed for preferment, wealth and honour in the world? Alas what silly things are these, in comparison of what your souls are capable of? You will say so your selves when you see how they will end, and fail your expectations. Imprison not your minds in this infernal cell, when the superior regions are open to their access: confine them not to this narrow vessel of the body, whose tossings and dangers on these boisterous seas will make them restless, and disquiet them with tumultuous passions, when they may safely land in Paradise and there converse with Christ. God made you men, and if you reject not his grace, will make you Saints: Make not your selves like beasts or vermin. God gave you souls that can step in a moment from earth to heaven, and there foretaste the endless joys: Do not you stick then fast in clay, and setter them with worldly cares, or intoxicate them with fleshly pleasures, nor employ them in the worse-then-childish toys of ambitious, sensual, worldly men: Your thoughts have Manna, Angels food, provided them by God: If you will loath this and refuse it, and choose with the serpent to feed on the dust, or upon the filth of sin, God shall be judge, and your consciences one day shall be more faithful witnesses, whether you have dealt like wise men or like fools; like friends or enemies to your selves; and whether you have not chosen baseness, and denied your selves the advancement which was offered you.

8. Thy thoughts are but sordid, dishonourable and low, if God be not the chiefest in them. They reach no higher then the habitation of beasts; nor do they attain to any sweeter employment then to meditate on the felicity of a brute: Thou choosest with the fly to feed on dung and filthy ulcers, and as magots to live on stinking carrion, when thou mightst have free access to God himself, and mightst be entertained in the Court of heaven, and wellcomed thither by the holy Angels: