VIII. 24. 1. 214 The future condition of the impenitent. TREAT. accursed, and a devouring punishment of lively flames; nor will there be that from whence their torments can ever receive either repose or end. Souls with their bodies will be saved unto suffering, in tortures infinite. There that man will be seen by us for ever, who made us his spectacle here for a season; what brief enjoyment those cruel eyes received from the persecutions wrought upon us, will be balanced against a spectacle eternal; according to the truth of Holy 1s. 66, Scripture, thus speaking; Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be for a vision to Wisd.5, all flesh. And again; Then shall the righteous men stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted them, and have taken away their labours. When they see it, they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the strangeness of his salvation, beyond all that they looked for; and they repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit shall say within themselves, These are they whom we had sometimes in derision and a proverb of reproach; we fools accounted their life madness, and their end to be without honour; how are they numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints! Therefore have we erred from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness hath not shined upon us, and the sun rose not on us. We wearied ourselves in the way of wickedness and destruction; we have gone through deserts where there lay no way; but as for the way of the Lord, we have not known it. What hath pride profited us? or what good hath riches with our vaunting brought us? All those things are passed away like a shadow. Then will there be pain of punishment without the profitableness of penitence, lamentation will be vain, and entreaty ineffectual. Too late will they believe in an eternal punishment, who refused to believe in the life eternal. Wherefore, while it may be done, give heed to safety and life. 14. We offer you the saving aid of our mind and counsel; and since we may not hate, but we please God the more, by rendering no return for injury, we exhort you while means there are, while time yet yields its remnant, to make satisfa- your peace with God, and emerge into the bright light of true religion, from the deep and murky night of super cere. Repentance ever avails in the life, never afterwards. 215 stition. We have no grudge against your welfare, nor do we make any concealment of the bounties divine; we render good-will for your hatred, and point out paths of salvation, in return for the torments and the sufferings, which have been inflicted on us. Believe, and live; you have been our persecutors in time: in eternity, be companions of our joy. 15. Once gone forth from hence, there is no more place for repentance; no satisfaction can be accomplished; it is here that life is either lost or saved; it is here that eternal salvation is provided for, by the worship of God and the fruit of faith. Let a man be withheld, neither by his sins nor by his years, from coming to make good his salvation : while he remains in this world, no repentance is too late; the approach to God's indulgence is open, and an easy access is given to those who enquire for and admit the truth. You, if you should entreat for your offences, even in the very exit and close of your life below, if you should implore that God who is One and True, in the confession and faith of acknowledging Him, the pardon is given to you when you confess; the saving indulgence from God's pity is granted to you when you pietate. believe; nay in the very hour of death a transit is secured sub ipsâ to immortality. This grace Christ grants, this work of His morte. mercy He puts in our possession, by subduing death in the trophy of the Cross, by redeeming the believer with the price of His blood, by reconciling man to God the Father, and giving life to one who is mortal by heavenly regeneration. Him, if it be possible, let us all follow; let us be enlisted under His Sacrament and Sign; He opens to us the path of life, He brings us back to Paradise, He will guide us into the kingdom of heaven. With Him we shall ever live, made by Him the sons of God; with Him we shall for ever rejoice, the creatures of His bloodshedding. We Christians will be partakers in glory with Christ, in the blessedness of God the Father, rejoicing with perpetual gladness, in the presence of God for ever, and for ever yielding Him thanks. For he cannot be other than for ever happy and thankful, who, after living under liability to death, is rendered secure of immortality. TREATISE IX. ON THE MORTALITY. [This Treatise was written at the same time with the foregoing, in order to encourage and console Christians under the visitation which forms the subject of it.] TREAT. IX. ALTHOUGH in most of you, dearest brethren, there is a stedfast mind, firm faith, and soul devout, which wavers not before the manifold instances of this present mortality, and like a bold and rooted rock, under the swelling storms of this world, and the fierce floods of time, repels, not suffers from, their blow, and is but proved, not overcome by temptations; yet since I observe amongst your number some, who either through weakness of spirit, or poverty of faith, or the satisfactions of the life below, or tenderness of sex, or (what is a greater thing) through wandering from truth, do less strongly stand, and put not forth the divine unconquerable energy of their breast, there must be no dissembling or hiding of the matter, but so far as my poor powers extend, we must in the fulness of vigour and in words collected from the lessons of the Lord, extinguish the cowardice of a softened temper, so that he who has begun to be the servant of God and Christ, may before God and Christ be found walking worthy. he, dearest brethren, who fights for God, who, stationed in the heavenly camp, breathes things divine, ought to own himself to be what he is, in order that we may not be trembling or faultering amid the storms and tempests of this world; since the Lord foretold that these things would come; and with the instructive exhortation and doctrine of His For The end of the world at hand. 217 warning voice, training and establishing the people of His 31. 2. Dearest brethren, the kingdom of God has begun to be nigh at hand; reward of life, and joy of eternal salvation, and perpetual happiness, aud possession of Paradise lately lost, already, while the world passes away, are coming nigh; already heavenly things are succeeding to earthly, and great to small, and eternal to transient. What place is here, for anxiety and solicitude? Who amid these things is tremulous and mournful, except in whom hope and faith are wanting? It is for him to be afraid of death, who hath not willingness to come to Christ; and for him to be unwilling to come to Christ, who does not believe that he has begun to reign with Christ. For it is written that the just lives by faith. If thou Hab. 2, art just, and livest by faith, if thou truly believest in God, why, as one who will be with Christ, and secure of the promise of the Lord, dost thou not embrace that call to Christ which is given thee, and for that thou art delivered from the devil, make thyself joyful in the deliverance? Symeon of a surety, that just man, who was truly just, who kept the commandments of God in fulness of faith; when it had been divinely told him, that he should not die before he had seen Christ, and the infant Christ had come with His Mother in the Temple, acknowledged in spirit that Christ was now born, concerning whom the prophecy had been a Vid. supr. viii. 2. In like manner S. Ambrose; "None are witnesses to [Christ's] heavenly words more than we, whom the end of the world has found. For how many battles and rumours of battles have we not heard of! &c. What general famine, what TREAT. made to him, and having seen whom, he knew that he was 29. IX. soon to die. Rejoicing therefore in the nearness now of death, and secure of being presently called away, he took the Child into his hands, and blessing God, cried out and said, Luke 2, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation;—proving surely and bearing testimony, that then for the servants of God is peace, then free, then tranquil rest, when, rescued from these turmoils of earth, we gain the port of rest and of eternal security; when we put away this death, and come to immortality. 3. That is peace for us; that is a faithful tranquillity; that is rooted and firm and perpetual security. Meanwhile in this world what is it, but the waging of a daily warfare against the Devil? Against his darts and weapons, in what successive conflicts do we engage! Our contest is with avarice, with unchastity, with anger, with ambition; with carnal vices, with worldly allurements, we have an abiding and weary wrestling. The mind of man, on all sides besieged and compassed with the assaults of the Devil, scarcely in each point fronts the enemy, scarcely holds against him. So soon as Avarice has been laid prostrate, Lust uprises; when Lust is crushed, Ambition follows; if Ambition has been set at nought, Anger embitters, Pride inflates, Drunkenness entices, Envy destroys harmony, and Jealousy severs Friendship. You are forced to utter curses, which the divine law forbids; you are compelled to take oaths, which it suffers not. So many persecutions does the mind daily undergo, with so many perils is the breast beset, and it delights to tarry long here amid the Devil's weapons, when rather it should be our longing and our desire, by death coming to our aid more speedily, to hasten to Christ, according to His John 16, own instruction and word; Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Who does not desire to be freed from sorrow? Who does not hasten to attain to joy? And when our sorrow is turned into joy, the Lord Himself does further declare and John 16, say, I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man shall take from you. Since therefore to see 20. 22. |