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AND whenever it begins in any degree to overcome any one, it either
makes him stay in his cell idle and lazy, without making any spiritual
progress, or it drives him out from thence and makes him restless and a
wanderer, and indolent in the matter of all kinds of work, and it makes him
continually go round, the cells of the brethren and the monasteries, with
an eye to nothing but this; viz., where or with what excuse he can
presently procure some refreshment. For the mind of an idler cannot think
of anything but food and the belly, until the society of some man or woman,
equally cold and indifferent, is secured, and it loses itself in their
affairs and business, and is thus little by little ensnared by dangerous
occupations, so that, just as if it were bound up in the coils of a
serpent, it can never disentangle itself again and return to the perfection
of its former profession.
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