Speculum amatorum mundi

According to Hieronymus Jerome, it is interpreted as the house of confusion. And it is rightly said to signify this world where even now, everywhere on earth, confusion reigns, just as we all observe in shameful attire and other things. Therefore, flight from the world is a more powerful remedy against vices and sins; to which flight the Lord exhorts us in the aforementioned word through the prophet Jeremiah. Indeed, the blessed Bernard carries out this word, saying: "Flee from Babylon," that is, the world, where chastity is endangered by delights, humility by riches, and truth by excessive speech. To this world, which is therefore to be fled, is the religious life, which is a safer way as it is more truly believed. Let him who desires to be saved flee, so that he may decline and evade intolerable and horrible eternal punishments, and may possess the kingdom of heaven, pleasant and joyful, with the saints and the elect, through their merits and prayers. May He deign to grant this to us, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for endless ages. Amen.

Concerning the vanity of the world to be fled and the homeland to be embraced.

When I revolve with my whole heart, in what filth the world lies, the whole world runs away, and the heart, whole, feels remorse for itself. When I revolve with a pure mind, how vain is the care of the world. So that the mind may be able to care for itself, it wishes to avoid the care of the world. When I remember with a pure mind, the world falls, how suddenly, lest the mind fall with the falling one. The mind flees the world attentively. When I remember with a sound mind, how foolish is the worldly hope. From hope, I turn my mind to hope, and with hope, I subvert the hope of the world. When I remember the care of the world, how depraved it is, how harsh it is, I deem the mind to be hard, which lives under the rule of the world. When I revolve the play of the world, and its fruit, thus its fruit is to me, so that there is nothing worse than the world. When I remember the flower of the world, and what odor the flower has. Just as a flower quickly withers, so the world vanishes. When