Speculum amatorum mundi

Therefore, let him who wishes to rejoice in the eternal good perform penance. To which the Savior exhorts us in Matthew 3, saying:

Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven will approach.

Concerning which penance a certain scripture says:

O happy penance and mature conversion, for it is secure.

He, however, who commits himself to late penance will be doubtful and uncertain, because he does not know whether he repents truly or falsely. Gregory in the 12th homily:

He who promised pardon to the repentant sinner did not promise tomorrow to the one who sins.

For true penance frees the soul from the servitude of the devil, sanctifies it, adorns it with the gifts and virtues of the Holy Spirit, and places it under the protection of God. It presents it to be crowned in the deep of paradise, and pleads for it, which, alas, the lovers of this world—namely the proud, avaricious, gluttonous, voluptuous, those greedy for vain glory, the angry, the lovers of their own pleasure or will, the contemners of divine will and goodness—very little heed, choosing to make a short feast in this world and a long vigil in eternal torments in hell. Thus, indeed, says blessed Gregory:

That which delights is momentary, but that which torments is eternal.

Alas, alas, how many are there among whom all the aforesaid profits little? I speak to the lovers of the world; they turn away their face so that they may not look toward the end.

They have eyes and do not see; they have ears and do not hear.

They judge that they will live for a long time. And because they do not fear an unexpected death, therefore, the wretches despise foreseeing its damages. They are to be deemed similar to the foolish who lived impiously unto death and did things worthy of death, and yet they do not fear the death that is near. They are blind and similar to foolish beasts, not foreseeing their last things and what is to be after death. Whence Augustine:

Many are eternally damned and finally in