they shall toil and labor to
kill the flesh and accustom it to death, because for all such as
are baptised their baptism has made the repose, the ease, the
plenty of this life a very poison, and a hindrance to its work.
For in these things no one learns to suffer, to die with
gladness, to get rid of sin, and to live in accordance with
baptism; but instead of these things there grows love of this
life and horror of eternal life, fear of death and unwillingness
to blot out sin.

[Sidenote: Baptism and Good Works]

XVII. Now behold the lives of men. Many there are who fast and
pray and go on pilgrimage and exercise themselves in such things,
thinking thereby only to heap up merit, and to sit down in the
high places of heaven. But fasting and all such exercises should
be directed toward holding down the old Adam, the sinful nature,
and accustoming it to do without all that is pleasing for this
life, and thus daily preparing it more and more for death, so
that the work and purpose of baptism may be fulfilled. And all
these exercises and toils are to be measured, not by their number
or their greatness, but by the demands of baptism; that is to
say, each man is to take upon him so much of these works as is
good and profitable for the suppressing of his sinful nature and
for fitting it for death, and is to increase or diminish them
according as he sees that sin increases or decreases. As it is,
they go their heedless way, take upon themselves this, that, and
the other task, do now this, now that, according to the
appearance or the reputation of the work, and again quickly leave
off, and thus become altogether inconstant, till in the end they
amount to nothing; nay, some of them so rack their brains over
the whole thing, and so abuse nature, that they are of no use
either to themselves or others.

All this is the fruit of that doctrine with which we have been so
possessed as to think that after repentance or baptism we are
without sin, and that our good works are to be heaped up, not for
the blotting out of sin, but for their own sake, or as a
satisfaction for sins already done. This is encouraged by those
preachers who preach unwisely the legends and works of the
blessed Saints, and make of them examples for all. The ignorant
fall eagerly upon these things, and work their own destruction
out of the examples of the Saints. God has given every saint a
special way and a special grace by which to live according to his
bapti