This is the law: Abandon everything that is dangerous to the new life, whatever ignites passions, brings vanity and extinguishes spirit. And how many such things there are! Let the measure of this be each person's heart, sincerely seeking salvation without deceit and not only for show. Now is the time to cease from all theaters, balls, dances, music, singing, travels, strolls, acquaintances, jokes, sarcasm, laughter, and idle time. It is time even to change the time or arising from bed, sleep, eating and so on. At other times and in different places it may be otherwise. But the measuring stick is always the same: Abandon what is harmful and dangerous to life, whatever extinguishes the spirit.
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The thought that you could live like a Christian while holding on to the world and worldliness is an empty, deluded thought. Whoever lives by this thought will never learn anything more than pharisaism and imaginary life, that is, he will be Christian only in his own opinion, and not in fact. At first he will destroy with one hand what he created with another, that is, what he gathered while away from the world will be stolen from him at his first re-entrance into it. From this it is a direct path to opinion, for what was stolen from the heart may still remain in the memory and imagination.
