Chrysostom That we ought to be as ready to go forth of the World as Criminalls are ready to go forth of their Prison when one brings to them the Princes pardon p. 122. XVI Article The Fifth Instruction of St. Chrysostom That if we lived as beseems true Christians we should not have any difficulty to conceive Death to be the most desirable of all good things p. 128. XVII Article The Sixth Instruction of St. John Chrysostom That the Death of Christ Jesus should have cured us from the fear of Dying and that the Ceremonies of the Church in the Funerals of the Faithfull ought to give us Joy and Comfort p. 134. XVIII Article An Exhortation of St. John Chrysostom where he declaims with much vehemence against the lazy and imperfect Christians who fear Death and instructs after an admirable manner the zealous and perfect Christians who desire Death p. 146. XIX Article The Sentiments of St. Jerome concerning the Advantages which Death brings to Christians and the Obligation they have to prepare themselves for it and to think continually upon it p. 154. XX. Article St. Jerome teaches us what temper we ought to observe in the disgust of Life and in the desire of Death p. 160. XXI Article An Excellent Instruction of the same St. Jerome p. 173. XXII Article St. Jerome or the Authour of some Epistles attributed to him which are at the end of his Works presses this Doctrin farther and expresly teaches That a Christian ought not only not to fear Death wherein he would do no more than many Pagans have done but that he ought also to represent it often to himself to desire it and to love it if he will imitate Christ Jesus p. 177. XXIII Article We return following the Order of the time of St. Augustin and we relate some more Sentiments of this holy Doctour which confirm the Truths we have establish'd by his Principles p. 181. An Excellent Moral of St. Augustin against them who fear a temporal Death and dread not the Eternal Death p. 182. XXIV Art A pithy Reflexion of St. Augustin upon the shortness of the Life of the Body and upon the Eternity of the Life of the Soul p. 188. XXV Art A most true and edificatory Observation of St. Augustin That God by a particular Mercy besprinkles the most pleasing Sweets of this World with Bitterness and permits his Elect to be afflicted with Infirmities which Contradictions with Calumnies and with Crosses to oblige them to despise Life and to desire Death p. 193. XXVI Article St. Augustin teaches in several places of his writings as an assured Doctrine That the most solid Virtue of Christians and the most Visible Character of the Predestinate is to sigh continually in the expectation of Death and in the Hope of another Life p. 197. XXVII Article A Comparison of Faithful Christians with the Faithful Isralites In which St. Augustin shews That as the first coming of the Messias was the object of the continual Desires and of the devotion of the true Isralites so also the second coming of Christ Jesus ought to be the Aym of the most solid Piety and of the most fervent Desires of Christians p. 203. XXVIII Article An Instruction of S. Isidore of Damiet to all Christians to excite in them a perfect desire of Death p. 213. XXIX Article St. Eucherius Arch-Bishop of Lion exhorts Christians to observe attentively the different Agitations of human Passions the shortnesse of Life and the uncertainty of Death to the end they may never engage themselves in the Tumults of the World and that they may be evermore prepared to die p. 216. XXX Article St. Fulgentius and St. Paulinus prove That Death is a Recompence for the Just and a Chastisement for the Wicked That Life is to be counted by the quantity of good Works which one hath done and not by the number of Years one hath lived p. 223. XXXI Article Reflections of St. Gregory Pope upon the Subject which is proposed in this work p. 231. 1. Reflexion That the continual view of Death is the most assured means to lead a Holy and Quiet Life p. 231. XXXII Art 2. Reflexion of St. Gregory That naturally all the Desires and all the Actions of Man tend to Death That Grace should do in us that which Nature doth of it self c. p. 233. XXXIII Art 3. Reflexion of St. Gregory That they who love the World have some reason to fear the end thereof but That they who serve Christ Jesus ought not to be apprehensive of the Worlds destruction c. p. 238. XXXIV Art 4. Reflexion of St. Gregory That there are few Just persons who can truly say with St. Paul god forbid that I should glory in any other thing than in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ because the World is dead and crucified to me as I am Dead and Crucified to the World p. 241. XXXV Art A pithy Description which St. Gregory the Great makes of the necessities and of the Myseries of the Body and of the Soul whence this holy Pope concludes That men ought to desire Death for â—he enjoyment of a better Life in which they shall no longer be exposed either to Sorrow or to Sin p. 257. XXXVI Art S. John Climachus distinguishes the Desires of Death which the Devil suggests unto us from those which Grace inspires into us and he composed one Degree of his holy Ladder upon this subject where he shews That the Meditation of Death is the most profitable of all Spiritual Practices p. 270. XXXVII Art St. Bernard Teaches us That Hope is the portion of true Christians and That this Virtue makes them to love Death and to suffer patiently all the evils of this Life p. 277. XXXVIII Art St. Bernard proves That to the end we may not dread Death but receive it which Patience and even with Joy we must prepare our selves for it every day by 〈◊〉 true Repentance That by this meanâ— Grace overcomes Nature That what appears so terrible to a sinful man becomes pleasing to a just man but particularly to such as have embraced a Religious and solitary Life p. 288. XXXIX Art The Sentiments of St. Bernard touching the Comtempt which perfect Christians ought to have of Life and of Health From whence he takes Occasion to speak of the Patience which they ought to have in their Infirmities and of the Joy which the continual thought of Death ought to afford them p. 294. XXXX Art An Extract of some passages of the Book of the Imitation of Christ where it is treated of the Contempt of Life and of the desire of Death p. 299. XXXXI Art The admirable Prayses which St. Laurence Justinian gives to Death From whence he concludes That it is no wonder if they who are the most perfect among Christians are they who most desire it p. 311. XXXXII. Art A Collection of some of the admirable Sentiments which St. Teresa hath left us in her Writings touching the
pardonable in a Child Let us then open our Eyes let 's act as reasonable men let 's live like Christians 'T is high time to conceive a horrour of our Prison and to shake off the chains which detain us in it Let 's reflect that there is another Life than this let 's awaken our Faith let 's excite our Hope and finally let us comfort our selves le ts rejoyce that our near Relations have acquired an eternal Happiness by the loss of a miserable Life le ts burn with a holy Desire of Death let 's seek with ardour and receive with joy that which will put an end to our afflictions and give a beginning to our Felicity Article X. Among all the Fathers of the Church St. Ambrose is one of them who hath spoken best of Death He made a particular Treatise De bono mortis Of the good of Death S. Ambrose where he says That it frees us from the miseries of this Life and from the servitude of Sin He teaches That 't is Death which procures Immortality to our Soul and a glorious Resurrection to our Body and finally That 't is Death which gives us the means to testify our Gratitude our Love and our Zeal to Christ Jesus Whence he concludes that if we have Faith we ought to desire Death Life is a burthen the weight whereof oppresses us and Death is the only succour which can discharge us of it Life is a punishment and Death is the sole means which remains for us to be releas'd of it Did one ever see Slaves and miserable Wretches fear to be set at freedom and to be comforted 'T is from Death alone that we must expect this Comfort and this liberty Now if we ought to love it because its frees us from the miseries of Life ought we not to love it more because it delivers us from the bondage of Sin For the most innocent of men is a Sinner as long as he is living he must die to the end he may sin no more and his Death is no less the end of his Sin than of his Life But Death doth yet much more it breaks not the bonds of Sin but to procure us the glorious liberty of the Elect. 'T is Death which re-unites men to their beginning makes them find their greatness and their felicity in the loss of their Lives 'T is Death finally which delivering them from corruption introduces them into an incorruptible and eternal Life For as soon as Sin had given birth to Death God drew from thence the Resurrection to the end that Sin ceasing by Death Nature might always subsist by the Resurrection and that man dying to the Earth and to Sin might live eternally in Glory Then this Word of the sacred Scripture wild be accomplished Death hath been absorp'd and destroyed by an entire victory 1 Cor. 15. v. 55. and we shall be able to say with the Apostle O Death where a thy victory O Death where is thy sting But the greatest advantage which we derive from Death is That it gives us the means to imitate the Charity of Christ Jesus and to do for him in some sort the same thing he hath done for us We may be in dying the Victims of his glory as he hath been the Victim of our Salvation and we may testify our gratitude by voluntarily offering to him this Sacrifice In effect how will it be possible for us to satisfy otherwise our so great obligations And moreover if we well consider it Rom. 8. What proportion is there between the sufferings of the present Life and the felicitie of the other Life between the torments of Death and that immortal glory which God is one day to discover in us Article XI An Excellent Doctrine of St. Ambrose which establishes two manners of Living and of Dying set down in the Sacred Scripture The first is that of just men who Live of Life that is who being in the Grace of God enjoy the Life of Body and of Soul And the second is that of Sinners and wicked men who Live being dead and who leading an exteriour life upon Earth are dead interiourly before God As to the two manners of dying the One is of them who die of death that is who in dying impenitent endure a double Death that of the Soul and that of the Body and the Other is of the Sole Predestinate who die to live which is understood of the Elect who endure the corporal Death with patience and with joy to go to possess an eternal and glorious Life WHen it is said in the sacred Scripture That the man who shall keep Gods Commandments De Paradiso c. 9. and shall exercise Justice and Mercy towards his Neighbour Ezech. 18. shall live the Life we must not believe that the Holy Ghost made use without design of such an extraordinary expression To live the Life or of Life is to have a double Life One of which is exteriour and corporal and the Other interiour and spiritual 't is to lead the life of a Man and of an Angel both together 't is to enjoy at the same time Health and Grace 't is to live of a general Virtue which includes all the natural and supernatural functions finally 't is the estate in which good people live upon Earth an Estate truly happy for the time but from which one may fall unless one labours continually to disengage himself from all adhesions to Life by the thought and by the desire of Death On the contrary to die the Death or of the Death Gen. 2. Exod. 21. what is it else according to the language of the Scripture but to suffer a double Death of the Body and of the Soul I mean to be deprived of the ordinary use of this transitory Life and of the possession of eternal Life And this is it which makes the misery of the reprobate who for having over much loved a criminal Life die miserably in their crimes There is moreover among Christians another manner of dying which is of them who die to life or who die in living that is who are dead and living both together And these are they who live of the life of the Body who enjoy a perfect health who have beauty strength and dexterity and yet who are dead to the Life of Grace and are not animated with the Spirit of God 'T is of these men that it is said in the Scripture That they descend alive into Hell And 't is in this sence that the words of the Apostle are to be understood Psal 54.16 The Widow who lives in delights is dead 1 Tim. 56. altho' she seems to be living And it is also the deplorable state of the wicked in this life out of which they may nevertheless get forth by sincere penance Finally the fourth kind of Christians in relation to Life and to Death and the most happy of all is of them who live by Death such are all
difficulty to undeceive themselves from the vanities of the World to contemn Life and even to take an extreme pleasure in seeking after Death because they are assured that no one can be perfectly happy S. Gregory of Nazian untill he dies for Christ Jesus and untill he reigns with him in his Heavenly Kingdom St. Gregory of Nazian in his Funeral Orations furnishes excellent thoughts concerning the obligations which Christians have to despise Life and to desire Death and particularly in the Elogium he composed for his Brother Cezarius WHen I consider the happiness which our Kindred have acquired by dying and the little they have lost in loosing this unhappy Life so far am I from afflicting my self that I feel my self transported with joy and I say to God When shall it be O Lord that you will take us as you have them out of this strange Land and that we shall go into our lovely Countrey to joyn our selves with them who are there arrived before us When shall it be that Death shall put us in a condition to partake with them the pleasures of Paradise and to lead together an eternally happy Life In effect my Brethren what can we expect during the short time which remains of our Life but to see day after day more miseries to-suffer more evils and to câ—mmit more Sins than we have hitherto committed 'T is therefore this consideration and not the loss of our Freinds 't is the danger of offending God to which we are exposed during our Life and not the grief for their Death which ought to be the true subject of our Tears Let 's weep my Brethren but let us weep as David did for that our Pilgrimage is prolonged Le ts afflict our selves for that our Exile is not ended Le ts weep because we love a Life subject to so many miseries and which incessantly exposes us to lose the Grace of God This is my Brethren a just cause 〈◊〉 our sighs and tears 〈◊〉 therefore sigh over our selves with the holy Apostle and let us say 2 Cor. c. 4. and 5. This base Cottage built of clay wherein we now lodg shall it never be destroy'd Shall we not soon dwell in that other house which is not made by the hand of man and which shall endure eternally For how long shall we yet ly oppress'd under the weight of this mortal Body And till when must we trayl after us in all places a living Sepulcher where our Soul is as it were buried in the Flesh and infected with a corruption greater than that of reall Graves 〈◊〉 my Brethren if the â—â—â—th of Sin is not the subject of your griefs and affliction you have no subject that is legitimate But that which ought to cover us with shame is That we love this Life all miserable as it is and that we make much of this Body which detain's our Soul captive 'T is true that we are unwilling to offend God but we are willing to continue in a state of offending him at least 't is that which we desire when we desire to Live Do you then know for what a true Christian ought not to afflict himself I repeat it over again to you a true Christian ought not to afflict himself 〈…〉 he lives too long 〈…〉 thing that delays his 〈◊〉 delays also his happiness but what happiness A happiness which is pure in its enjoyment immense in its greatness and eternal in its duration Finally a happiness which comprehends the possession of God himself and which consequently surpasses the intilligence and the desire of man Behold that which ought to make us sigh without creasing towards Heaven and to say with the Prophet Psal 118 v. 81. My Soul languishes O Lord she falls almost into a swoun in the expectation of your Salvation For my own part through 〈…〉 of God I fear 〈…〉 my Body should 〈◊〉 since it's nature is to be perishable I am perswaded that the ruine of that which is materiall and terrestriall in me cannot chuse but be very advantagious unto me Let 's leave to the wicked the care to flatter a Body which kills the Soul and which one cannot keep long alive Those unhappy wretches tast not the goods of the Spirit because they have no feeling of Hope for another Life And surely I do not at all wonder that they place their soveraign good in this mortall Life in Health in good cheer and in the other pleasures of the senses But for us my Brethren who are convinced that all those goods are but vanity and that they will be dissipated in less time than the dew of the morning let us say with the Apostle would to God that by a lively Faith and by an ardent Charity I had so mortified my Body that it were not capable to detain my Soul for if I could totally bury my self with Christ Jesus I should be assured to be resuscitated and to live with him eternally Article IX S. Gregory Nisse St. Gregory Bishop of Nisse hath made a Discourse to shew That we should be so far from lamenting them who go forth of this Life that we ought to envy and desire their happiness He proves this Truth by many reasons which we give in brief and in the end be explicates it by an excellent comparison of the state of men in this present Life wiih the state of an Infant enclosed in his Mothers Belly He says afterwards That they who lament the Death of their Neighbour or who are afraid to die are as little reasonable as Children who cry when they are born into the World because they are not sensible of the happiness they have in being delivered out of the most dismal of all Prisons THey who excessively afflict themselves at the Death of their Kindred and Friends Orat. de mortuis To 3. are for the most part very weak Spirits who suffer themselves to be ledd by the movings of Nature and of Custom They weep ordinarily because 't is the custome to weep upon such occasions They grieve for themselves in the person of another because in losing him they lose some advantage which they reaped from him or else they weep because they fancy a false honour of appearing to be of a tender and good nature There is moreover a certain pleasure in Tears and one delights to draw compassion or esteem from others by weeping Finally in whatever manner we weep over the Dead 't is always a weakness and we should never fall into it if we gave our selves time to consider That the orders of Providence are unalterable and that human things change incessantly For is it not a folly to grieve for the Dead as if they could have lived always and to live so as if one were never to die To get forth of this errour we need only to consider a little the difference there is between the solid and infinite goods we hope for in heaven and Goods so vain and so short
the Holy Martyrs who expose not themselves to die but in hopes to live the Body dies for a time and the soul lives for an eternity Ah my Brethren let us beware of being like to them who live outwardly being dead within Let us desire to be rather of the number of those happy Dead who die in apparence to live in effect This was the sentiment of St. Paul in those celebrious Words I desire to be disengaged from the bonds of this Body Philip. 1.23 and to be with Christ Jesus It was also the thought of David when he exclaims in one of his Psalms Alas Psal 119.5 how irksom is my exile I live here as a Stranger my Soul is troubled to remain so long among the Enemies of peace Behold this is properly the state of the Predestinate who are afflicted at their stay upon Earth among the snares and the miseries wherewith this Life is replenished instead of going to enjoy in Heaven those infinit Goods in their full greatness as well as in their eternal duration and which are the sole object of their Hope and of their Desires Article XII The Homelies of St. John Chrysostom are full of excellent Instructions concerning Death We have made choyce of such as seem'd most proper for this Work 1. S. Chrysost Instruction of St. John Chrysostom where he shews what it is to be a Christian and that his principal Character is to desire and to love Death A Christian evermore considers himself upon Earth as a man going onward in his way Hom. 24. in Epist ad Hebr. In Psal 119. and the continual reflexion which he makes upon this quality of a Stranger and of a Traveller Ad Theod lapsum c. 3. is the foundation of all his Virtues For he who hath sojourned upon Earth as a Stranger shall be a Citizen in the Kingdom of Christ Jesus What is the care of a Traveller 'T is to cumber himself with nothing but what is necessary for his journey to take the path which is shortest and most secure to use all the diligence he possibly can and not to fix his heart upon any thing he finds in his way because he reserv's all his affections for his dear Countrey According as he draws nearer to it he feels his impatience encrease to arrive at it and as soon as he discovers it he is so transported with Joy that he forgets the pain he hath endured and the dangers he hath incurred or if he keeps them in his memory 't is but as a valiant Champion remembers his wounds after he hath gain'd the Victory In effect what is it that a Christian can love or fear upon Earth which is not unworthy his affection or his fear Can all the favours of fortune give him a more glorious Title than that of Son of the most High and of Brother of Christ Jesus For 't is Christ Jesus himself who honours with this quality all them who have receiv'd his Word And when the Pharisees say that 't is to commit a Blasphemy to give this honour to men Jesus answers John 10.34 Is it not written in your Law I have said you are Gods Can the Scripture fail Wherefore O Christians labour so long as you please to agrandise your selves in the World Endeavour to become Rich Learned Conquerours Princes Kings if you will Procure even if it is possible that your Kingdom may be extended over the whole Earth what is there in all this which can be compared with the Kingdom which God hath promised you You have therefore nothing to hope for in the World Let us see now what you have to fear Hunger or Thirst say you But hath not God said Mat. 5.6 Blessed are they who are Hungry and Thirsty for they shall be satisfied Is it Poverty He hath also said Blessed are the Poor for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them v. 3. Do you fear Injuries Persecutions Afflictions Sicknesses On the contrary it is Written Rejoyce give your minds to gladness v. 11. and 12. you who endure couragiously all these things for the glory of our Master because you shall receive an ample reward in Heaven You have then nothing else to dread O Christians but the delay of these rewards And what can forward them but Death It is not therefore an Evil as men of the vulgar sort believe on the contrary 't is a Good for them who have Faith not an ordinary Good but the greatest of all transitory Goods For if our soveraign Good is to possess the Celestial Kingdom our greatest Good is surely that which hastens the possession hereof Wonder not therefore after this O you Sensualists if a Christian fully perswaded of these Truths run's to Death with more ardour than you run after Pleasures Be no more surprized that he disdains your promises that he despises your threats that he treads under his feet your Idols and that he triumphs over your Tyranny Know that it shall sooner be drained dry in inventing torments than the constancy of Christians will be shaken with your cruelty because Death is a desirable Good for them who hope another Life and because our Kingdom is not of this World John 18.36 For were our Kingdom of this World we would fight to defend it against our Enemies Nevertheless do not fancy that the Christian remains upon the Earth altogether stupid and insensible as the trunk of a barren tree which expects nothing but the mortal blow which must separate it from its roots 'T is true that the Christian desires Death because it will end his pains but yet he ceases not to make a holy use of Life He employs all the moments thereof in good works but whatever he doth in this Life is only to procure him a happy end of it For these holy Desires of Death do not hinder him from cherishing his Neighbours from serving his Friends from loving his Brethren and from acquitting himself of all Christian duties more faithfully than they who perform them having only profane ends in their Friendships But doth God ordain that he should quit them to come to him he is evermore ready to depart and although according to the resentments of Nature his Heart is as much afflicted in being separated from his Freinds as his Body in being separated from his soul yet he ceases not to desire to be separated from them to the end he may always possess them with God and he prefers this eternal enjoyment before a possession of longest durance from which one can only derive a weak and uncertain consolation Wherefore he says at all times with the Apostle Christ Jesus is my Life and Death is a gain for me Philip. 1.21 Unhappy man that I am Who will deliver me from the bonds of this mortal Body Rom. 7 24. that I may no longer be fastned to any thing but to Christ Jesus 'T is in effect the property of a Christian and of
desire it and to love it if he will imitate Christ Jesus 'T Is a small matter not to dread Death since Pagan Philosophers who imagined they lost all in losing Life were free from this fear Is it a matter of more difficulty to overcome Death with the Christian Faith than with the profane Phylosophy Let us familiarize our selves with this Bugbeare it affrights only them who dare not look near at hand upon it But it suffices not to learn to die when old Age or Diseases threaten us with Death 'T is in the flourishing years of Youth and in the vigour of Health that we should most seriously apply our selves to this study For who told us that we should have time enough to prepare our selves thereto Since it's blows are unavoydable let us resolve to endure them So many Martyrs so many Virgins have affronted it with courage why shall we not imitate them God doth not always demand these bloody Sacrifices but as for the sacrifice of our Will he demands it every hour and I dare say that there is more merit to offer unto him our Life in all the moments wherein he conserves it unto us than to lose it once by the cruelty of the Executioners Let us aspire yet to a greater Perfection since we are Christians Let us change our Dread into Desire and our Aversion into Affection We have the honour to be Heyrs to a Man-God who hath changed the punishment of our Crime into a Sacrifice of Piety Let us desire Death as he desired it le ts love Death and le ts seek it even between the arms of the Cross as Christ Jesus there sought it Le ts render to him in dying the same Obedience which he rendred to his Eternal Father Finally let us rejoyce to go to find our Master since we are his Disciples Let us depart with alacrity to come to our Father since we are his Children For if we have no love for him nor Desire to be near him we are supposititious Children Children of darkness unworthy to see the Light and to reign one day with Christ Jesus Article XXIII The order of time demands now that we return to St. Augustin For besides the Principles of Doctrine upon which we in the beginning established the whole design of this Treatise there are moreover found in his Writings an infinity of pithy passages where he repeats and deeply prosecutes this matter S. Augustin An Excellent Morall of St. Augustin against them who fear Temporal death and who do not apprehend Eternal Death ALL men are apprehensive of the Death of the Body Tract 49. in Joan. but few there are who fear the Death of the Soul All the World strives to hinder that first from seizing on them which nevertheless will infallibly one day come upon him and scarcely and one labours to avoid that Death of the Soul Epist 45. ad Armamentarium which will no less infallibly follow unless timely prevented Was there ever any greater extravagancy than this For the Death of the Body is but the shadow and the Image of the Death of the Soul The Man who must necessarily die upon Earth uses all his endeavours not to die there and the same man who is designed to live eternally in Heaven uses no diligence to render himself worthy of that happy Life Thus having a will to do that which he cannot and having no will to do that which he ought his endeavours are useless and criminal When he attentively considers that Death is inevitable he troubles and disquiets himself to retard it at least for some Months But why doth he not rather consider that by leading a holy life he would secure an infinite happiness he would suffer no disquiet and that he should die even with joy because he might justly hope to live happily in Eternity We expose our selves dayly to contempt to a thousand perplexities and to all sorts of vexations and even to the dangers of losing our Lives in seeking out the means to conserve it And this passion of living long doth so strangely blind men that they sometimes die with the sole-fear of dying To fly from a furious Beast they cast themselves headlong into a River To avoid a Shipwreck they throw their Victuals into the Sea Fear doth that in them which rashness could not do An affrighted man knows no longer any danger Such a one to escape the kind of Death which he dreaded exposes himself to a thousand Deaths more terrible than that wherewith he was threatned What torments doth not the Iron and the Fire cause them to suffer who put them selves into the Chirurgions hands They endure to have a part of their Body cut off to save the other A man who loves his health submits himself as a Slave to all that the Physitians ordain him to do or suffer and although he knows the vanity of their Art he omits not to obey them in all things nor can his own experience nor the uselesness of their applications nor the uncertainty of their skill undeceive him This man more sick of Imagination than of any other Disease feeds himself with a false hope of being cured try's all sorts of remedies and hastens his Death by the Medicines which are given him to prolong a little while his Life But the most horrible of all the effects which are caus'd by so blind and so irregular a passion is That Men to live a little longer adventure sometimes to offend him mortally who is the very Source of Life For fearing to lose a Life which must necessarily end they lose a life which must never end And yet God commands us but few things and those very easy to deliver us from the true Death which we nevertheless neglect to put in practise We our selves only are to be blamed if we obtain not a Life which will eternally preserve it self without the help of men and whereof our Enemies can never deprive us But as for this death which we so much fear we cannot possibly avoid it and are most sure to suffer it though never so much against our will Article XXIV A pithy reflection of St. Augustin upon the shortness of this Life and upon the Eternity of the other to stir up Christians to unfetter themselves more and more from the Earth and ardently to breath after Heaven O Men In Psal 36. Serm. 107. de diversis who are engaged in the course of this Life and who prepare your selves to end it well do not bound your consideration only upon the places through which you must pass consider that place where you are to arrive You shall indeed suffer much in this journey but you surely shall come at the end to an eternal rest Cast your Eyes upon the recompense which is prepared for you and you will look with contempt upon the miseries you endure on Earth For if you compare the Evils you suffer with the felicity which is promised you you will be
dead to the World yet the World ceases not to live to them and to ly every where in wait to entrap them sometimes by applauding their Virtues and other times by extolling their Actions It besieges them it pursues them it enchains them by secret confidences by continual visits by an ardent seeking of their freindship All these things seem only to tie an innocent knot and which may have a very good end Nevertheless the danger is great and it is a temerarious confidence to expose ones self thereto without an extreme necessity The World loses nothing in this traffick on the contrary it serves it very frequently for an honest Veil to hide its Vices but the Just man runs a great hazard thereby and sits down always with the loss The Devil who is but too ingenious to deceive us employs a thousand subtil crafts disguises himself into all manner of shapes and even into that of Virtue in order to seduce us At first he distills light distractions little solicitudes vain desires unprofitable curiosities which diminish by little and little the fervour of our devotions and which estrange from our memory the thoughts of Death Then the same Spirit which cools the Love of God enkindles insensibly in our Soul those former affections which repentance and Charity had there as it were stifled and buried Alas how few Just persons are found who entirely imitate S. Paul in this double Death of the Christian to the World and of the World to the Christian Where are they whose Conscience renders to them the same testimony as it did to this great Apostle and who have put themselves into a perfect liberty by breaking not oniy all the Chains which kept them fast tyed to the World but moreover those which tyed the World to them For 't is not enough to have despised and abandoned the World we must so order it that the World may despise and abandon us This is that which the Apostle intends to teach us when he says The World is dead and crucified for me as I am dead and crucified for the World The World was crucified to him because it was dead in his heart and was no more any thing to him but the object of his contempt and of his hatred but besides this he was also crucified to the World because having made appear an insensibility for the concerns of the Earth the world ceased to seek after him and did no longer so much as think of him If we take not heed we shall find that even in the most retired professions in the greatest disgust of the vanities of the infidelities and of the corruptions of the world when we fancy that we are for ever freed from them yet there still remain some roots thereof in our Heart We hold no more of the world but it holds us yet by imperceptible bonds We make a shew of shuning it and yet we are not sorry that it should seek after us and that it should come sometimes to trouble our solitude which would otherwise appear to us dismal and insupportable Finally with a mean Virtue one may forget the world but one must have an extraordinary Virtue to wish to be forgotten by the world This is that which holy Souls aym at which are perfectly unfettered from the world They not only suffer themselves not to be drawn by the World but moreover they draw not the World to themselves And 't is to them that may be applyed the saying of S. Paul Man and the World are reciprocally Crucified one in regard of the other because they not seeking one another nor mutually loving each other are as two dead things which can no longer have any communication But alas how few there are who can come to he happiness of this double Death The greatest Saints all crucified as they are to the World cannot without the succour of an extraordinary Grace crucify the World entirely in themselves Therefore it is that they incessantly mortify themselves and they cry out with David Lord Psal 90. save my Soul from the Ambushes of her Enemies defend her against the cunning of deceitfull Tongues deliver me from the snares of the Hunters and from the corruption of the World For altho' the Just man flies the World and is perfectly disengaged from it he evermore apprehends that he hath something in himself which engages the world to follow him But if God covers him with his Wings to make use of the Royal Prophets words what ever endeavours the world makes to seek him out it will not find him or if it finds him 't will find him Dead as to all earthly concerns doing nothing to please it nor to allure it being deaf to it's prayses insensible to it's blandishments indifferent to its interests without curiosity without pretention without disquiet doing good for goodness sake and little caring to have confederates or admirers of his Virtue On the contrary if in labouring for Gods glory he encreases his own glory he will so far humble himself in his own interiour and before others that the aversion which he will testify against all flatteries will foyl his Flatterers Finally the World which will not entertain any traffick with the Just but upon some motive of interest or of pleasure will cease to seek after him and finding there no more nourishment to live upon will die and crucify it self in him For 't is most certain that the World is in that like unto the Sea which swallows up and detains within its bosom the living Bodies but rejects the dead carkasses and leaves them upon the sands So the World lays hold upon that only which is yet living and sensible for it and abandons that which is devoyd of feeling and of Life for all such things as any way concern it Article XXXV A pithy Description made by the Great St. Gregory of the Necessities and of the Miseries of the Body and of the Soul From whence this holy Man concludes That men should desire to die in order to enjoy a better Life in which they shall be no longer exposed either to Sorrow or to Sin ONe cannot express all the Miseries to which Man is exposed by Sin Lib. Moral in c. 7. Job His Body is subject to a thousand sorts of infirmities it is expos'd to the injuries of the Ayr and of all the Elements to Dangers to Diseases to the ignorance of Physitians which is some times more to be dreaded than the Diseases themselves The natural Heat which sustains his Life devours its proper substance as soon as it wants nourishment If he reposes sloath renders him unweldy if he is employed labour drains him if he eats the meat overcharges him thirst dries him up the excess of drink makes him brutish sleep oppresses him watching wearies him cold pinches him heat stifles him and that which eases him of one incommodity casts him presently into another Finally on which ever side he turns himself he is tormented by the
from the Cell to Heaven The weight of earthly of affections hinders not her flight thither The Love of God wherewith she is enflamed lifts her above the Earth by a secret force like that of the Adamant They who are in so sublime an estate have not only acquired Sanctity but moreover the perfection of Sanctity and the very height of perfection it self But let them give thanks to the Authour of these Favours with a profound Humility For as Pride caus'd the most perfect Angells to fall from the height of Heaven so the same Pride hath caus'd many Solitary persons to perish If God inspires us with a contempt of this Life and an ardent desire of Death let us attribute to his sole Bounty such Sentiments which are so contrary to our Nature and let us humbly expect that he will hear our Prayers Article XXXIX Reflections of St. Bernard concerning the contempt which perfect Christians ought to have of Health and of Life From whence he takes occasion to speak of the Patience they are to practise in their Infirmities and of the Joy which the continual thought of Death affords them if they are true Disciples of Christ Jesus Hypocrates pretends to teach us the method of preserving and prolonging our Life Scr. 30. in Cant. Epicurus seeks the means to make us pass it over pleasantly But Christ Jesus instructs us to despise it and to lose it or to render it more short and more painfull Which side will you take To which of these Masters will you become Disciples In my Judgement the choyce contains no difficulty I am not in pain to determine my self either concerning the Sentiments which I ought to follow or concerning the Doctrine which I am to propose unto you I am no Disciple either of Hypocrates or of Epicurus I am the Disciple of Christ Jesus and I speak to the Disciples of Christ Jesus I should be a Prevaricator if I should teach you other Maxims than his Hypocrates undertakes to preserve the health of the Body Epicurus would banish from it all sorrow and cause Pleasure to reign in the Soul On the eontrary Christ Jesus my Master ordains us to endure Sicknesses to love Sorrows and to shun Pleasures Thus the Physitian ayms only to entertain for a long time the union of the Soul and of the Body the Phylosopher thinks on nothing but how to render this Union delightfull and both of them finally confine their spirit to this mortal and perishable Life which they cannot with all their Science either prolong one day or exempt one hour from miseries But Christ Jesus who levells his Doctrine only at an immortal Life and who knows that the Labours and Pains of the transitory Life are absolutly necessary to deserve the repose and the pleasures of Eternity speaks of nothing but of hating our selves and of loving sufferings and Death Doth he not tell us in the sacred Scripture He who hath a desire to save himself John 12.26 let him lose himself and he who shall lose himself for the love of me and of the Gospel shall save himself And what is it to lose ones self if it is not to abandon ones self to the misfortunes and to the pains of Life as a Martyr or to afflict ones self by voluntary Mortifications as a Penitent For 't is a kind of Martyrdom to suffer constantly Sicknesses or the injuries of Fortune and to Mortify the Flesh by a severe Penance and by a continual meditation of Death We have hereupon the example of the Holy Fathers I pist 384. and of our blessed Predecessours Why think you did they make choyce of shady low and moyst Valleys for the building of their Monasteries It was surely to the end that the bad Ayr causing frequent Infirmities to befall the Religious there residing those sicknesses might exercise their Patience and render Death to them more familiar and more desirable In a word my Brethren the Science of the saints consists in suffering for some time Pains and Afflictions Serm. 21. de dversis in order to acquire a happyness full of Joy and of Rest in Eternity Article XXXX Altho' the Book of the Imitation of Christ is in every ones hands yet it will not be unprofitable to extract out of it some pithy passages concerning the contempt of Life There is if we may say it a Moysture and an Vnction of Sanctity in all the Words of that Authour Imitation of Ch. which penetrate even to the bottom of the heart and which give an admirable Idea of the Death of the Saints There is surely Just cause of admiration that so many persons of Piety who continually read this Work and approve of it should still nevertheless passionatly love Life and tremble with fear when one speaks to them of Death FAir day of Eternity which art not darkned by the return of Night Calm and cleer day in which sparkle all the lights of soverain truth Lib. 3. c. 48. and cl 20. Celestial City Happy habitation of the Saints Residence full of joy Place of rest and of delights Lib. 1. c. 23. the possession whereof is not troubled by any of those changes which overthrow the felicities of the Earth Lib. 3. c. 49. c. When will this happy day shine for us When O Lord shall we see this dear Countrey And why do we not uncloath our selves even at this hour of every thing that hinders us from arriving there Alas the brightness of that day shines not yet to us but only afar off We make our interview of it only through the thick darkness of our ignorance Whilst the Citizens of that holy Jerusalem abandon themselves to the transports of their joy and incessantly chant forth Canticles to the glory of the Most high to the glory of his thrice holy Name the Children of Eve unfortunate Heyrs of her Chastisement creep upon the Earth and sigh at the length of their banishment Is that call'd a Living which we live here below All our days are full of darkness of bitterness and of sorrow Our Soul is there upon the rack through a continual fear of Sin Our Heart is there disquieted by a thousand solicitudes dissipated by curiosity transported by ambition blinded by errour beaten down by labour beseiged by temptations effeminated by delights languishing in poverty in Sicknesses and in all sorts of Calamities O Man acknowledge that if it is grievous unto thee to die it ought to be yet more grievous unto thee to live O the Strange stupidity of the human Heart amidst so many miseries Man is to day and to morrow he appears no more Nevertheless he scarcely ever thinks of the uncertainty of his condition Senseless that he is he makes projects for many years as if he were assured to live a long time he who hath not one sole day certain How many men have we seen whom Death hath surpriz'd in the height of their great enterprises How often
Meditation upon Eternity and upon the Desire of Death p. 318. The Conclusion of this whole Collection How as from the beginning of this Treatise we have drawn from St. Augustin such Principles as were proper to establish this Proposition That perfect Souls desire Death and receive it with Joy So we end this Collection with a Discourse which the same holy Doctour made upon the same Subject wherein he pretends to engage all Men by their proper Interest to desire to pass forth of this World p. 326. To the devout Peruser of these Collections IF in the Mouth of two or three Witnesses every word is established Mat. 18.16 You have here devout Reader above six times that number of irrefragable Testifiers of that Truth which is intended to be established in this short Treatise to wit That Christians ought to despise Life and desire Death I. S. Augustin Leads the Van whose Principles are the Basis of the following Building He was one of the most famous and learned Fathers of the Church and the renowned Bishop of Hippo in Africa where he flourished in admirable Sanctity in year of our Redemption 400. and died in the year 433. The Fathers who preceded and who followed S. Augustin deliver the same Doctrin upon the same subject to wit II. Tertullian Who flourished in the Year 230. III. St. Cyprian The most Eloquent and holy Bishop of Carthage who was crown'd with Martyrdom in the Year 250. IV. St. Gregory Bishop of Nazian surnam'd the Divine the equal of St. Basil and the Companion of his studies who flourished in the Year 370. V. St. Basil Surnam'd the Great Arch-Bishop of Cesarea in Cappadocia who flourished at the same time to wit 370. VI. St. Gregory Bishop of Nyce the Brother of St. Basil who flourish'd in the Year 380. VII St. Ambrose Bishop of Milan who died in the Year 397. VIII St. John Chrysostom Bishop of Constantinople who died about the Year 407. IX St. Ireneus Bishop of Lyons in France who suffered under Severus in the Y. 180. X. St. Jerome Priest and Doctour of the Church who died in the Year 420. XI St. Isidor Bishop of Sevil in Spain who died in the Year 636. XII St. Eucherius Bishop of Lyons in France who died about the Year 433. XIII St. Fulgentius Bishop of Ruspen in Africa who died in the Year 529. XIV St. Paulinus Bishop of Nola in Campania who died in the Year 431. XV. St. Gregory The first most holy Hope of that Name deservedly sirnamed the Great who died in the Year 604. XVI St. John Climacus A holy Abbot in Mount Sina who flourished in the Year 560. XVII St. Bernard Abbot of Claraval an Apostolical man of great Sanctity who died in the Year 1153. XVIII The Author Of the Books of the Imitation of Christ XIX St. Laurence Justinian The 1. Patriark of Venice died in the Year 455. XX. St. Teresa A holy Virgin in Spain who lived and dyed in the last age Vpon the view of these many Evidences and multitudes of Authorities and upon the frequent perusall of these Collections you will undoubtedly by degrees render your Life more easy unto you and remove that vulgar and universal errour out of your mind concerning the dreadful apprehension of Death which you will familiarly behold and hourly expect as the happy period of your painfull and dangerous Pilgrimage and as the desirable passage opening to eternal Life eternal rest eternal felicity THE Holy Desires OF DEATH Article I. The First Principle of St. Augustin S. Aug. That the Difference which is between a Perfect and Imperfect Christian is That the first desires Death with Ardour and endures Life with Patience whereas the second only receives Death with Submission and hath not yet quitted all the Tyes which ordinarily fasten men to Life WIll you know what Progresse you have made in Charity In Epist â— Joan. tract 9. Examin your-self upon these Words of St. John The Perfection of our Love towards God consists in having an entire Confidence in him for the day of Judgment So that Charity is perfect in all them who have this Confidence What is it to have this Confidence for the day of Judgment 'T is not to dread its comming Some there are who do not believe this day will come I speak not of these impious Wretches for what likelyhood is there that they can either desire of dread that which they believe will never come to pass Epist 1. Joan. c. 4. v. 18. But as soon as a man begins to believe the day of Judgment he must also begin to fear it True it is that so long as he only fear's it he hath not yet Confidence because he is not replenish'd with this Charity which animates Faith Nevertheless this Fear ceases not to produce excellent Effects It is a beginning of Mortification and of good Works and it ordinarily falls out that by these exercises of Virtue they come to desire what formerly they only dreaded Then a Soul looks no longer upon that last day but as the first of her Happiness nor doth she go against her own Sen timents when she Prays-saying Lord Let your Kingdom come In effect He who fears lest the Kingdom of God should come fears also lest his Prayer should be heard Judg now in what manner one Prays when one fears to obtain what one demands whereas he who Prays with that Considence which perfect Charity gives him desires effectually that what he demands may be speedily granted him We may therefore say that there are yet some imperfect persons to whom Sufferings and Death serve only for an exercise of their Patience and of their Courage and who are not yet strong enough to desire to Suffer or to Die These because they desire to live longer simply suffer Death when it befalls them But there are others more perfect who are so unfetter'd from Life that in lieu of loving it as a good thing they endure it as an Evil. All that the former can do is to conquer the repugnance of Nature and to submit themselves to the Will of God because finally they like rather to conform themselves to what he hath ordained concerning them than to leave themselves to be transported with a bootless weakness in following their own will Thus altho ' the desire of this present Life struggles in their Heart against the necessity of Dying yet they arm themselves with Fortitude and with Patience to receive Death with Peace and with Submission One may say That the Christians who are in this Estate suffer Death with Patience But the Others who desire with the Apostle that their Souls may be untyed from their Bodies to be united to Christ Jesus are not content to suffer Life as a necessary Evil but they receive Death it self with Joy as a great Good because they find nothing in this present Life but subjects of Disquiet and of Sorrow and that they find in Death the end of all these
Pains and the beginning of an Eternal Felicity Article II. The Second Principle of St. Augustin That proportionally as the Christian feels his Love for Virtue to encrease he feels also the Desire of Death to encrease within him WHen a man hath a lively and sincere Faith which gives him a sight of the place whether he is to walk during his abode upon Earth and of that where he shall arrive one day after his going forth of this World the Desire of Death ought to encrease in him according to the encrease of his Piety because it sussiceth not that Faith makes him see that Celestial dwelling where he is to be setled for euer but Charity must also make him love it and desire speedily to obtain it Now 't is impossible for him to have this Disposition in his Spirit and in his Heart without being glad to go forth of this Life An Excellent Passage of one of St. Augustins Disciples who made a Collection of his Sentences and of his chief Maxims where the tow precedent Principles are united This Collection is attribution to St. Prosper IF we consult our Faith and have the Sentiments which it ought to inspire into us we shall acknowledg that Sanctity of Life and a Desire of Death are things inseparable For one cannot be truly a Christian if one loves not God and if one aspires not to that Eternal Life which he hath promis'd to all them who love him We see it by Faith we expect it by Hope we love it and we desire it by Charity According as a man advances in the practice of these Virtues he advances also in the exercise of this holy Desire The more ardour he hath for eternal Life the less adhesion he hath to the temporal Life and considering Death as the sole issue out of this World and as the entrance into that Celestial Life which ought to be the object of all our Defires he looks with Joy upon that last moment which is to take him from off the face of the Earth So that when Faith and Charity are perfect in a Soul the Desire of Death is there at the same time so perfect that it raises it-self above that love of Life which blind and material Nature inspires into us But when Virtue is yet imperfect although Faith perswades us that Death is advantagious unto us yet Nature thwart's in us this holy Thought and we then feel that we possess Life with pleasure and should lose it with pain and difficulty whereas perfect Christians endure Life with pain and lose it with pleasure Article III. St. Augustin having establish'd these two Principles proposes to himself the Objection of some persons of Piety who fear the Judgments of God and who say That they do not believe they should do well in desiring Death and that it seems better to them to demand of God Time for Mortification and for becoming more Perfect I Know not upon what they can ground themselves Quaest Evan in Mat. q. 17. who having a sincere Faith can say nevertheless that they would not dye so soon to the end they might have more time to labour for their Salvation and their Perfection For 't is certain that the most infallible Mark which a Soul can have of her advancement in Virtue is when she advances in this holy disposition which makes her desire Death If then these persons will speak according to truth Let them not say I desire not to die so soon to the end I may have time to become more virtuous but let them rather say I desire to live longer because I am not virtuous enough to love Death Thus not to be willing to die so soon is not to the Faithfull a means to acquire more Virtue but 't is a signe that they have not yet acquired any Let them therefore who have hitherto said that they would not die to the end they might become more perfect say henceforth That they desire to die and this will make it appear that they are arrived at Christian Perfection Article IV. The Third Principle of S. Augustin That there are among Christians two sorts of Fear to displease God One of which is destroyed and the Other strengthened by Charity From whence this holy Doctor concludes That Faithful Souls which are the true Spouses of Christ Jesus fear nothing so much as to be for a long time separated from this Divine Bridegroom THere is a Fear which is banish'd by Charity In Psal 127. Tr. 9. n Epist i Joan. pass 1 Joan. 28 according to that word of Saint John Fear is not found with Charity but perfect Charity drives out Fear and he who fears is not perfect in Charity There is another Fear which the Royal Prophet calls the Fear of our Lord that pure and chaste Fear Psa 18 10. which remains for ever and ever Which gives us occasion to observe That there are two forts of the Fear of God one of which will subsist in Heaven with Charity and the other will be banish'd thence the one will perish with Life the other will remain eternally I cannot better explain unto you the Nature and the Properties of these two Fears then in placing before your Eyes a Comparison which seems to me very just and very sensible Figure to your selves two Women One of them chaste and the Other unfaithful to her Husband Is it not true that when their Husbands are absent the unfaithful Woman fears at every hour the return of her Husband and that on the contrary the chaste Woman fears lest her Husband should stay too long from coming Our Souls are the Spouses of Christ Jesus and during the state of this mortal life this Divine Bridegroom is separated from his Spouses Now if you agree to this truth there remains no more my Brethren but to ask your selves concerning the nature of the Fear which you feel to see whether it is either that imperfect Fear which Charity ought to exclude or that other tender and awful Fear which is to remain eternally O Christian Souls do not neglect this occasion which I present unto you to know well your selves Question your Conscience Will you know whether you truly love this Divine Bridegroom Do you desire that he should come presently or that he should yet for some time delay his coming Behold my Brethren and consider how your Heart is thereupon disposed and from thence you shall know what your Fear is and what is your love Alas How many Christians are there to whom if one should tell this News Christ Jesus will come to morrow to take you out of this World they would say Lord stay a little longer I have only begun to taste Life I have Youth and Health about me my House is not yet well established my Children are in their tender age and cannot pass without me I have in my mind great designs for the publick good the Poor have need of my assistance I perform
many good Works I render Justice without Passion and without Interest another will possess my place who will not perchance acquit himself so worthily Rather take away from the Earth those Wicked ones who only incommode the good people It concerns the honour of your sacred Name to exterminate those Atheists who contemn you it concerns your Glory to confound that Tyrant who abuses his power Why strike you not with Death that Usurer who heaps up treasures at the charge of the Widow and of the Orphan Why take you not an exemplary chastisement upon that publick Blood sucker who ruines a multitude of families But as for us who continually bless you who give Alms and who spread abroad in all places the effects of our cares and of our Liberalities leave us to live to honour you 'T is thus that the major part of Christians would speak But as for them who are arrived at such a degree of Perfection as to despise Life the World and themselves they I say who aspire to nothing else but to unite themselves to God for evermore they would make use of another manner of language Come they would say Come O thou too long exdected Hour of the Bridegrooms arrival Our Souls always burning with a desire to be with him find that all the moments of this miserable Life which separates us from him are so many ages Why do you stay O Lord Have not our Sighs given you sufficiently to understand that we lang 〈…〉 with the love of your beauty 〈…〉 You need but only knock at the door our Heart watches even whilst our Eyes seem to be shut up by Sleep Article V. Other Principles of St. Augustin That we are not happy in this Life but by the Hope and by the Desire of Eternal Goods That to be worthy to enter into the Celestial Countrey we must be willing to go forth of our Exile That the whole Life of a Christian is but a holy Desire of things to come and a generous Contempt of present Goods In Psal 83. aâ—os WE are here in the Region of Death but we are not thanks be to God to remain here always We are to pass from the Region of the Dead to that of the Living In the mean while there is nothing in this Region of the Dead but labour sorrow fear affliction temptation The persons who are unhappy in the World are there truly unhappy but they who believe themselves to the there happy do there enjoy but a false happiness and a false happiness is a true unhappiness Thus to speak truth there are none but only they who suffer not themselves to be blinded by the false felicities of this Life who can enjoy in this World a true Comfort and who can hope to enjoy one day a true Felicity in the other You then who agree to this that one is miserable in this Life listen to the Saviour of the World who tells you Mat. 5.5 Happy are they who weep and lament O how mysterious is the Felicity of these Tears Nothing is so agreeable to Misery as to Sigh and to Weep nothing is so opposite to misery as to be Happy Why then O Lord do you speak of a certain kind of men who are afflicted and who at the same time are Happy Let us endeavour my Brethren to comprehend the truth of these Words Why doth Christ Jesus call them Happy who Weep and what Happiness do they possess in lamenting This Happiness O Christians 't is the Contempt of Life 't is the Desire of Death They lament the length of their Banishment they weep out of compassion for the blindness of them who are tyed to the Earth they weep finally out of the impatience they have to come to that dear Countrey which God hath promis'd them and whatever Beauty presents it-self to their eyes upon the banks of the Rivers of Babylon they stay not upon them but to weep Blessed are they who weep in this manner because they shall be comforted Mat. 5.5.12 and because a great recompense is reserved for them in Heaven But the better to know their Happiness let us mark a little the misfortune of such as are in Criminal Joy of Worldlings Their Heart is only sensible of the objects of their Passions they make it their whole study to seek out new Pleasures yet whatever care they employ in it a disgust so closely follows the enjoyment that all their industry cannot soon enough furnish new inventions to entertain this diversity The excess of good Cheer takes away their appetit and ruins their Health a tender and constant Freindship tire's them the best entertainment grows tedious to them their own greatness perplexes and combers them if they are in company they would be alone and yet they cannot endure solitude The Rich envy 's the tranquillity of the Poor the Ambitious wishes for wealth to raise himself to honour the Voluptuous finds that every thing incommodes him and creates to himself a true torment by his solicitude in seeking for his pleasure Finally if we look upon things but only with human aspects they are extremely unhappy But the most terrible of all their miseries is That the disgust they conceive of this Life doth not move them to desire another They languish they sigh they weep sometimes in the middle of their delights but their delights will soon have an end and their tears will never be dried up And after they have wept in this Life they shall be plonged in darkness of Hell where Despair and Rage shall make them weep eternally Consequently to this Maxim St. Augustin teaches moreover elsewhere Ep. ad Probam Tract 4. in Ep. Joan passim in Psal That all the Life of a Christian ought to be but a holy desire of Death and of the goods of Eternity No man says this great Saint going from Earth shall arrive at Heaven to be there satiated with that eternal Justice which makes up all the joy of the Blessed unless he hath had an ardent thirst and an unsatiable hunger thereof whilst he was yet in the world And therefore it is Written That they who have an Hunger and they who have a Thirst of Justice Mat. 5.6 shall be happy because they shall be satiated It is then most certain That all the Justice of Man upon earth is no other thing than a Thirst and an ardent desire of the Eternal Justice But how can one desire that Eternal Justice if one love's Life if one dreads Death and if one doth not even desire to die in order to possess in Heaven this Justice which one cannot possess upon Earth For the Felicity of a Christian cannot be perfect unless his Charity is also perfect and the perfection of Charity is no other thing than this Eternal Justice which consists in knowing God and in possessing him perfectly 'T is for this reason that the true Christians look not upon all the things of the Earth but with
which we possess upon Earth and we shall clearly see That if Christians ought to weep 't is not for that their Friends are too soon dead but for that they themselves live too long For the greatest of all miseries is to languish in the World amidst all manner of Evils and to be for a long time deprived of the happiness which those very Freinds possess whose loss we lament I demand therefore of you my Brethren in the first place wherein do you believe that Mans soveraign Good doth consist For if we will reason acccording to the Rules of Christian Phylosophy the only Good which deserves to be eall'd Good is that which belongs to all and for always The Pagan Phylosophy which reasons only upon false lights gave formerly the name of Good to such things as regard only either mens Bodies of their Fortunes But is it not a horrid blindness to establish the soverain Good in Beauty in Strength in Dexterity and in such other like exteriour Qualities These wise profane people did they not perceive that these things which are given but to a few diminish with age perish in a short time and are accompanied with so many misfortunes that one must be very stupid not to aspire after a better happiness Did they not see I say what we now see That Riches Dignities and even Crowns which without doubt raise men to the highest pitch of this false Felicity pass from one Family to another that the most elevated Thrones fall down to the ground that the most glittering Fortune is but a smoke which is dissipated in an instant and which leaves nothing else behind it but the smut of the bad actions which were done to acquire it These men who affected the name of Wise were they senseless enough not to know That the best grounded Glory is subject to the darts of Detraction and that the people by one and the same capriciousness sets up and pulls down the reputation of the greatest men If one makes use of Treasures they are consumed if one hides them they are useless But what matters it whether it be Covetuousness or Prodigality which makes us poor since the miseries which accompany poverty are not so unsupportable as are the disquiets which attend upon riches Finally these Wise persons who had so great a knowledge of human things could they not comprehend that all the Goods of this Life are meer illusions they who had every day the experience thereof Ha my Brethren it was because Faith did not clear them it was because in the darkness of Paganism Pride being the soul of all their thoughts and of all their actions they sought in themselves a Good which cannot be found without renouncing those false Goods and ones own self It is not so with Christians they seek their soveraign happiness in Humility in the contempt of Life and in their self-annihilation because they are perswaded that one possesses all in possessing God and one possesses not him but by uncloathing ones self of all things and by consequence that one must make no other provision for Heaven but that of good Works For there one shall neither suffer hunger nor cold nor the injuries of Ayr nor the cruelties of the wicked One shall not there be embusied in labouring nor in sowing the earth in sayling on the Sea in building Palaces in traficking in pleading in filling the Spirit with Sciences in inventing laws nor in causing them to be kept There will neither be War nor Process nor Tyranny nor Malady nor Poverty and as the Goods there will be without end and without mixture so nothing can there either corrupt or change them Surely when I consider the weakness of them who afflict themselves for their Freinds departure out of the world and who themselves fear to follow them I cannot sufficiently admire it If a man after he had pass'd the time of his tender Youth in an obscure Prison and liv'd as it were in a continuall night should be displeas'd with them who obtain'd his liberty to go forth to contemplate the Sun the Starrs the Earth cover'd with fruits and the other Beauties of the Univers and finally to place him in a full liberty what would you think of this man who had such strange humours Without doubt my Brethren you would believe that he had lost his Wits and you would strive to cure him of so extravagant a folly Permit me to tell you that your selves are in the same state and that your errour is perhaps more deplorable than his You are displeas'd at the happiness which your Freinds enjoy in being delivered out of this miserable Prison of the Body and your selves fear to go forth of it to go to contemplate in his glory the Creator of the Sun of the Starrs and of all the Beauties of the Universe For my part I avouch to you that I cannot conceive the cause of so great a straying in the human spirit unless it is that the criminal curiosity of the first man hath plunged all his posterity in such a profound ignorance that men know not even what is convenient for them One may say that we are become like unto a Child who being yet shut up in his Mothers Belly hath not so much as the use of his Senses This Child hath Eyes and he sees not he hath Ears and he hears not he hath a rational Soul and he knows not he neither understands what he is nor what must become of him finally he hath no knowledg of Life which nevertheless is the sole Good in which he ought to be concerned Is it not true that if this Child could reason he would surely judge that Nature had not furnished him with all these faculties and all these organs to be always deprived of their functions That having a Mouth he was not to be nourished like a Plant That having Feet and Hands and all the other parts which compose his Body he was not design'd to be always a lump of Flesh nor to live among nastinesses and to be close shut up in a Dungeon Is it not true I say that by making these reflexions he would assuredly come to the knowledge of the Life he was to lead upon Earth But because this Child doth not reason that which should rejoyce him afflicts him he receives as an Evil all the advantages of his birth and of his liberty and as if he lost a great Good in going forth of his Mothers Belly he complains as soon as he comes into the World Behold if I am not deceived an image very much resembling these weak men whom I undertook to convince Now if there is any of them who hear me who is of the number of those blind persons who will not see the light Ah my dear Brethren I conjure you to take some compassion of his blindness 'T is surely a shame for a Christian to lament for the Death of his Freinds and to fear his own Death This weakness is only
account O thou ungrateful and insolent creature thou unfortunate work of the hand of the Allmighty thou kneaded vessel of clay by what right darest thou murmure against the God who created thee since instead of this gross form which is subject to corruption he will give thee another perfect and incorruptible Our Lord Jer. 18.6 says the Prophet hath commanded me to go down into the house of the Potter I found him turning a Vessel upon the wheel but the work was spoiled as soon as it was out of the hands of the workman he broke it in pieces and made another as himself pleased And shall not I have the same power as hath this Artist And the people of Israel are they not in my hands as the Clay is in the hands of the Potter O man what art thou adds the Apostle who darest dispute against God Rom. 9.20 The Work can it say to the Workman who formed it Why have you made me so Let us therefore thank him for the Life he hath given us perishable as it is since 't is the first favour we have received from his Bounty But let us look upon it as perishable and let 's demand of him a holy Death as the happy passage to that immortal Life which he hath promised us Article XIV 3. Instruction of St. Chrysostom That Death is that which most humbles man and That Humility being the foundation of all the Virtues it follows that to be virtuous we must incessantly meditate on Death talk of it at all times familiarise our selves with it visit Sepulchers and assist dying persons because nothing doth more edify and comfort than to see the Saints die and nothing more deterrs from impiety than to see the wicked die WHether Man labours to acquire Glory In c. 5. Genes hom 67. or to raise himself into Dignities or to heap up Riches Ser. de fide lege nat nothing doth so much humble him and makes him better to resent the vanity of all these things than Death A Conquerour who makes whole Provinces desolate and who breathes nothing but Blood and Murder may in vain blind himself with a fond passion of rendring his reputation immortal if Death which he brings into all places hath spared him for some time yet he is no less sure to die and to see the course of his conquests cut off by the same lot by which he hath made thousands perish before his eyes What avails it to this Magistrate to this Minister of State to this Favorit to have a troop of adorers attending him to have honour given him and to hear himself praised to the skies 'T is in vain for Flatterers to endeavour to raise up their birth by alotting to them Ancestours they never had 'T is frivolous to labour to justify their conduct which the Publick condemns and to predict to them a long Prosperity which so many accidents can overturn Death the faithfull councellour of those people to whom none dares speak truth presents it self unto them at every hour in publick in private in the height of their employments and even amidst their pleasures but in a shape much more terrible than it appears to ordinary persons and reads to them this affrighting Lesson Remember Man that thou art made of Earth and that thou art to return to Earth I have there laid all thy Predecessours Know that had not God commanded me to leave thee hitherto in the World to exercise the Good and to punish the Wicked 't is long since that the horrour of thy crimes would have obliged me to take thee from off the face of Earth The Rich and the Covetous are no more exempt from these threats than the Ambitious and altho' they are perpetually taken up with the care of keeping their treasures they cease not to hear the voyce of Death which secretly whispers in their Ears Luc. 12.20 To morrow I will fetch back thy Soul All thou hast been heaping up so many years shall be dissipated in the space of Six Months by thy Heirs Law-suits shall consume one part Riot shall swallow up the other part and among all thy Successours not one shall be found who will so much as remember to pray for thee Thus it is that the very wicked receive instructions from Death and that they learn of it to humble themselves in the enjoyment of their false Goods to which they would adhere yet more than they do if they were not averted by these wholsom advertisements But this Lesson hath never more force than in the mouth of dying persons Certainly there 's nothing more edifies a Christian and affords him greater comfort than to see a man breath forth well his last breath in producing acts of Piety of Love and of Confidence towards God The tranquillity which appears in his countenance is an effect of the quiet of his Conscience The Charities which he hath exercised the services which he hath rendred to the poor the Pardon which he hath granted to his Enemies his Watchings his Fastings his Mortifications and finally all his good works are as so many Angel-Gardians encompassing his Soul to defend her against the assaults of the Devil In this estate he explicates his last will without any trouble of Spirit he comforts and instructs them who assist him he demands of them to joyn their Prayers with his and after the tender embraces of the Cross of his Redeemer he renders up his Soul upon that adorable instrument of his dear Saviours Passion his Life is extinguished as a Light which hath no more nourishment his beautiful Soul fly's to Heaven and his Eyes are closed with that peaceable Sleep of the Just which doth not separate the Soul from the Body but to reunite them one day in Eternity What Christian well perswaded of the truth of his Religion would not desire to die in this manner and would not avouch that this Death is more desirable a thousand times than Life The Death of the Wicked is a far different Lesson but which doth no less instruct them who know how to make their profit of it One may there observe visible signes of Gods anger a terrible effect of those celebrious Words of the Scripture You who have had no other Gods but your own passions and who have contemned my Counsells and my Chastisements wicked wretches I will render speedily unto you with usurie the taunting scoffs which you have darted against me When you shall be in the arms of Death I will abandon you to despair and to fury I will no otherwise look upon you than with disdain and I will take pleasure to insult over your misery with a mocking laughter In effect those Athiests who braved Death when they conceived it to be far from them are a thousand times more weak than others when it is near at their dores The remorse of their Crimes begins to gnaw their Hearts and yet their Ears are shut against all holy instructions They
only with wild Roots my Imagination ingenious to persecute me ceased not to entertain it self with the delights of the Roman Citty I pass'd the day in sighing and the night in weeping for my Sins But the more I strove to quench with my Tears the secret fire of my Concupiscence the more that rebell was enkindled even in the marrow of my bones If sometimes the wearinesses of my penance forced me to abandon my self to sleep I paid not that tribute to Nature but against my will and to free my self quickly from it I suffer'd my body to fall to the ground it being extenuated with watchings and as it were broken with all sorts of macerations I had no other Pillow than a Stone no other Garment then a Hayr-cloath no other Drink than Water nor other Food than Herbs and Roots and when the weakness of my Stomack obliged me to eat them boyled for a more easy disgestion I durst not satisfy my hunger fearing to commit an excess in making good cheer This Abstinence and the heat of the Climat joyned to the ardour of my temper had dryed me up like a Skeleton and one might have counted all the Nerfs through a Skin more tawny than that of the Ethiopians In this sad estate I had more horrour of my self than of the Scorpions and of the Serpents which were round about me and yet my Spirit would escape on a sodain even amidst my most holy Meditations and quit Prayer to dream of the Roman Dames running over all the assemblies I had frequented formerly where the Devil had laid his mortall Baits to entrap Chastity Then being irritated at the revolt of my Senses which these thoughts had excited against me I massacred my breast with a thousand blows and I left not off striking it untill the Grace of our Lord had calmed my Passions He knows what my sorrow was after such strange Conflicts I blushed with shame Life was insupportable unto me All the corners of my Grot all the Rocks of my Solitude seem'd to me so many Censurers of my Life and so many Witnesses of my Weaknesses For this cause I often chang'd my habitation hoping to find out some one where I might have more quiet but my evil did not change because I bore every where about me the subject of my disquiet I avouch that in the height of my torments I ardently desired to die and that I could have wished it had been permitted me to go forth of the World When one day I was press'd with this thought more violently than I was wont I took up the Book of the sacred Scripture which was my sweetest comfort and as God would have it I fell upon that passage where the Prophet Amos says these terrible Words Joel 2.11 Accursed be they who inconsiderately desire the day of our Lord. Soph. 1.15 Who urges you thus to desire it That day of our Lord is a day without Light Amos. 1.18 a day of darkness and obscurity When you shall be weary of your misery overwhelm'd with infirmities persecuted with temptations rejected by the injustices of others when you shall be disgusted with the whole World and irksom to your self expect the hour of our Lord with patience Amos. â— 19 For what doth it avail a man to shun the meeting of a Lion if he falls into the paws of a Bear S. Ierom. It is not in his power to hinder his Soul from going forth when that hour shall be come Eccl. 8.8 and he hath no right to hasten or to slacken the day of his Death After this sacred Instruction I suffered Life patiently being resolv'd to employ all the moments thereof in doing good works and being perswaded that we may well desire Death but that it is not permitted us to advance or further it nor even so much as to demand it of God with overmuch impatience because although we ought to contemn Life yet we must not omit to conserve it Article XXI An Excellent Instruction of the same St. Jerome That Death ought to be looked on as an order of the Divine Providence rather than as an effect of human Infirmity and that so we ought to die by Obedience and by Love A True Christian looks upon Death not only as upon a subject of consolation Lib. 9. in Isaiam alibi but moreover as upon an object of love and of respect because it must be granted that it is God who makes us live and die when he pleases and that the end of our days is more an effect of the Divine Will than of human infirmity For if the fall of the least Sparrows happens not without the order of God as himself says in the Gospell we ought to believe by a stronger reason That the last fall of our Body never happens but according to the immutable decree of his Will We should therefore look on Death with Love considering it as an effect of the eternal Providence We must take from it that which Nature finds horrible in it and think that God sends it not to them whom he loves but to the end they should always love him In effect the greatest testimony he can give them of his love is to withdraw them out of the World and to free them from the slavery of their Body and of Sin to render them Saints and make them eternally happy I say yet much more we are in some sort made partakers even upon Earth of this happiness when we submit to his will with this Confidence And as the last mark we can give of our Love towards God is to receive Death with an entire Obedience and even with Joy when it summons us to go forth of the World so the most perfect act of our Faith and of our Piety towards Christ Jesus is to resign our selves before hand to what ever God shall ordain of our Life and of our Death Let us therefore with David say to him Ps 89. Behold we are ready O Lord Cut of the threed of our miserable Life when you please And surely what is the duration of our days They pass away more speedily than the Word We live ordinarily but Seaventy Years and the stronger scarcely pass Fourscore But should our Life endure a Thousand years before your eyes a Thousand years are no more then yesterday which is past and gone Death hurries them away as a Whirlwind and they disappear as a Dream So that how long soever our Life is it will be counted for nothing unless it is pleasing to you Grant then Sap. 3. O Lord that we may count our days by our Good Works and that we may know their shortness to the end we may acquire Wisdom of Heart Article XXII St. Jerome or the Authour of some Epistles attributed to him which are placed at the end of his Works urges this Doctrine yet farther and teaches That a Christian ought not only not to dread Death but that he ought also to
astonished that such light and short pains should procure you a happiness so great and a felicity so infinite In effect my Brethren it seems that an exact Justice would require that one should not purchase an Eternal repose but by an Eternity of pains and it seems that you ought to labour and suffer without end to enjoy a happiness which hath no end But also on the other side if your labour should have no end how should you obtain an endless recompence It is therefore necessary that the pains should last but for a time to the end that they being ended you may taste a pleasure which shall never end God might without overmuch rigour exact of us much longer pains and much harder labours for the Eternity of pleasures which he promises us Yes my Brethren If you Labours and our Tribulations were to last many Ages If God should prolong our miseries for the space of a Thousand years What are a Thousand years in regard of Eternity Is there any proportion between the Finit and and the Infinit One cannot compare with Eternity either a Thousand years or Ten-times an Hundred Thousand years nor Millions of Millions of Ages if we were designed to live all that time But that which should exceedingly comfort us is That God would not have our pains to be either long or extreme Life is so short that it cannot make a man for any long time miserable But what do I say miserable I am sure That if a Man is good the interiour joy and sweetness which God gives him to tast of amidst the bitterness of this Life do more touch him than all his Pains and all his Afflictions Article XXV A most true and edificatory observation S. Augustin That God by a particular mercy besprinkles the greatest Sweets of this World with bitterness and permits that his Elect should be afflicted with Diseases with contradictions and with Calumnies thereby to give them cause to contemn Life and to desire Death A Soul which hath not yet a sufficient courage to walk without weariness in the way of Heaven Tract 6. in Joan. seeks among the goods of the Earth for some mitigation of the pains which she meets withall in her march In Ps 83. passim The difficulty which this Soul finds in keeping her self in a continual disposition to follow the Divine Inspirations makes her to roam after that which she conceives capable to untire her in her labours This is one of the nicest temptations which persons of piety endure But God who by a singular mercy never abandons his Servants and will unfetter them from this Life frequently intermixes bitterness among those things which we esteem to be the most innocent Why think you doth he sometimes render the Goods of the Earth so unsavoury but to take from us the gust of them and to make us desire the Goods of Heaven And when God will exercise his Elect and hinder them from dwelling upon any object which may divert them from their Salvation be takes pleasure if we may say so in raising against them Afflictions both within and without and in giving them occasions at every moment to merit new degrees of Glory by new actions of Patience and of Love for Christ Jesus Perhaps should he less frequently send them Mortifications their zeal would cool and relent at least one may be assured that they would have less Merit And it is a very particular favour of God when he makes us employ profitably for the other Life all the days of a Life so short as this is We see how they who walk faithfully in the narrow way of Heaven are upon earth as the Grapes are under the Press according to the thought of the Prophet They crush the Grapes they tread them under their feet to draw from them a Juyce which serves for the Life of men In like manner they oppress they persecute the Just in the World they are incessantly exposed to all sorts of injuries and miseries but God so permits it in order to draw from thence Good Works which serve for the perfection of the Christian by disengaging him from all that is material and impure within him to elevate him to that soverain honour which the World cannot give him Article XXVI St. Augustin teaches in many places of his Writings as an assured Doctrine That the most solid virtue of Christians and the most visible character of the Predestinate is to sigh continually in the expectation of Death and in the hope of another Life 'T Is not for this World In Psalm 53.145.247.148 that you are Born and Regenerated in Christ Jesus 'T is for Heaven It is the Celestial Kingdom you are to seek for Tract 5. in Joan. c. The sorrow for being so long separated from so great a Good is that which ought to cause all your Sighs and all your Tears Interiour sighing is a gift of the Holy Ghost When we are once enflamed with his Love how shall we chuse but sigh and languish in this our Banishment knowing that we have no true Countrey but Heaven and that this exile which separates us from it is the punishment of our Sin Carnal Christians who breath nothing but the Goods and the Pleasures of the Earth and who content themselves with a vain and transitory Felicity are afflicted at the loss of Goods at sicknesses at Imprisonments at Banishments at Shipwrecks at Calumnies They sigh but their sighing proceeds from their self love and from the adhesion they have to earthly Goods It is not the Holy Ghost nor the love of Celestial Goods which causes their affliction 't is the sorrow for their losses which makes them lament But Faithfull Souls who aspire only to the soverain Good who desire nothing but to be separated from the impurities of the Body sigh in the most peaceable enjoyment of all perishable Goods and 't is the Holy Ghost that forms these Sighs in the bottom of their Heart to the end they may be advertised by this interiour sadness of the vanity of all worldly pleasures He who looks upon them in this estate only with Carnal Eyes is perswaded that a true Christian leads a very unhappy Life and this errour hath averted many from piety But if they could comprehend the consolation which God mingles with these Sighs the secret satisfaction which he spreads in the Soul of a good man the peace the pleasure the joy which is tasted even amidst the tears poured forth in these transports of Divine Love they would surely change their opinion But certainly Sensual Souls cannot penetrate into these Mysteries they must have felt these Celestial sweetnesses who will rightly conceive them Happy and holy Experience how powerfull art thou upon Hearts Divine transports of the Love of Christ Jesus 't is you which give a contempt of this Life 't is you which make Death to be desired and you more perswade this truth in a moment then can all the
Love to the end we may behold him face to face in a blessed Eternity S. Isidor Article XXVIII An Instruction of St. Isidore of Damiet to all Christians to excite them to a perfect desire of Death SOme persons even the most pious perswade themselves oftentimes In Epist passim that they have no longer any tye and adhesion to Life nor to any thing of this World But 't is an Errour to fancy that one is entirely untyed from it if he feels not in his Heart a true desire of Death Let him who believes himself to be in so perfect an estate enter seriously into himself and he shall undoubtedly perceive that the Will of Man reigns yet in his Soul and that he is not totally uncloathed of the love of Life Let him severely examin himself let him question himself and ask of his Soul Do we no longer fear Death Doth nothing fasten us any longer to Life If we were to die within one Year within one Month within one Day if we were to die in this Moment should we be ready to render an accompt to God of our Actions And should we have no reluctancy to quit our freinds our relations our dwelling our works For we adhere to all and this adhesion is sometimes more violent for small matters than for the greatest Yet if there remains any thing that chains our Will to the World the Love which we have for God is not perfect Our Life upon Earth is a continual Warfare We bear Arms for the Glory of God He commands us to march to fight to pour forth our blood for him Why shall we not do for an Eternal Recompense that which men do for the reputation of a few days Let us then seriously examin our selves and let us see whether our heart is wholly submitted to this holy discipline of the Warfare of Christ Jesus Let us see whether according to St. Pauls precept we have taken for the Armour of our breast and back Faith and Charity Thes 5.8 and for our Helmet the Hope of Salvation For if our submission is perfect our Love will also be perfect and Death will afford us joy instead of giving us terrour Article XXIX St. Eucherius Arch-Bishop of Lyon exhorts Christians to observe attentively the different agitations of human Passions the shortness of Life and the uncertainty of Death to the end they may never engage themselves in the tumults of the World S. Eucherius and that they may be evermore prepared to die HAve you never contemplated from the Sea-shore Epist ad Valerianum the combat of the Winds disputing among themselves for the Empire of the Waves That dreadfull bellowing of the Billows which rush one upon another and push them with such violence against the Rocks whilst the mountains of Water and of Froth seem to ascend to the skyes and then sodainly to descend to the abysmus Doth not this sight inspire I know not what horrour which is nevertheless accompanyed with some pleasure and which insensibly engages the beholder to meditate upon those mervails This is the most lively and the most resembling Image we can find of the Agitations of the World But to behold them well we must stand upon the Shore and consider according to the spirit of God the joys and the afflictions the hatred and the freindship the quarrells and the reconciliations the fortune and the misfortune of men the flux and the reflux of their interests of their designs and of all their actions how they do and undo how they seek and shun the same things how one generation succeeds another how the Grandfather makes place for the Father and the Father for the Son not any of them thinking seriously during the whole course of their Life of the rapidness of this motion which trails them towards their Death Certainly this spectacle is a learned Lesson for them who know how to make their profit of it and we may say that it also affords some satisfaction when one reflects upon himself and finds that he is exempt from that trouble which overthrows the reason of all the rest of men Happy Tranquillity Adorable Peace of the love of Christ Jesus How sweet is it to them whom you have timely placed in the haven of their Salvation to behold in safety the fury of the Tempest without fearing either the winds or the waves or the rocks or the quick sands But as for us who have escaped Shipwreck by a sincere penance we I say who know the dangers out of which you our good God have delivered us give us we beseech you a holy horrour upon the sight of this terrible spectacle of the Tempests of the World and an ardent desire to be freed from them for ever by a Christian Death And surely we must not expect to enjoy a perfect calm so long as we sojourn upon Earth Should we live longer we should not be more happy The Life of our Fathers is ended our own slides dayly away Let us make place for them who are to follow us a little sooner or a little later the difference is small for they will not long survive us Finally in the same manner as the Surges of the Sea follow push and press upon one another by a precipitated motion and as the Waves which are raysed up highest fall down afterward the lowest to make room for a second the second for a third which is driven away by an infinity of other followers all which in the sequell come to be dissipated upon the shore even so the Life of one man succeeds that of another man one is elevated and the other is humbled according to the capriciousness of fortune But by how much their elevation is higher by so much the abysmus into which they sink is deeper and all terminate in Death Article XXX S. Fulgen St. Fulgentius and S. Paulinus prove That Death is a Recompense for the Just and a Chastisement for the Impious That the length of Life is to be computed by the number of Good Works one hath performed and not by the number of days one hath lived THe bad man trembles at the bare Name of Death Hath he the least indisposition Fulg. Epist 5. ad Gall. He believes 't is a mortal Sickness Paulin. Ep. 37. ad Pam. If one talks to him of God he falls into a fury He complains of the impotency of Remedies He is pierced with the apprehension of the least danger His Soul Prov. 12. and 28. says Solomon is perpetually perplexed with vain terrours Sap. 3. and 4. c. He flies when no one pursues him But the Just looks upon the danger without being affrighted and marches on like a Lion who is secure of his strength and of his courage Nothing that befalls him contristates him and if he were threatned even with Death he would be so far from being afraid that he would rejoyce at it because his Heart is in the
Evil or by the Remedy The Soul hath no less weak nesses and miseries than the Body You see her one day deceived by Hope and on the morrow troubled with Fear Anger transports her Sadness dejects her Joy dissipates her Envy gnaws her and nothing contents her One Passion follows another and sometimes for one that is destroy'd there spring up a thousand The sacred Scripture compares this agitation to the dreadful Tempests which are raised upon the Waters Isa 57 20. Who can then says the Prophet number all the Waves of the Sea Nevertheless 't is yet a harder task to count the desires of Man who goes astray in the errour of his Heart Jacob. v. 6. He will and he will not at the same time the same things He seeks with impatience what he hath not and he is presently disgusted with what he possesses Vice is followed with remorse Virtue is accompanied with pains he knows not to which of the two he should apply himself His first motion inclines him to Good and yet he doth the Evil by reflexion at the same time when he condemns it The Apostle St. Paul says Rom. 7.18 I find in my self a Will to do Good but I find not the means to accomplish it For I do not the Good to which I have a will and I do the Evil which I would not There is nothing good in Man He is submitted both together to the Law of God according to the Spirit and to the Law of Sin according to the Flesh God and the World draw him by turns He is a Compound of all that which is most motley in Nature always and in every thing unlike to himself His manners his opinions his desires all his actions all his thoughts are in a continuall instability Finally one may sooner stop the course of the Winds and the rapidity of a Torrent than fix his inconstancy by the sole force of Reason Thus the more our Soul examins her self the less she knows her self Who am I for example I who make so many reflections upon others What is the Beginner that stirs all the parts of my Body By what means do they come to know the orders of my Will How can they execute them with so much readiness But this will what makes it spring up in me Whence proceeds this intelligence which guides it these lights which clear it these darknesses which sometimes encompass it It walks upon the wings of the winds upon the points of the Waves it penetrates the highest Heavens it descends into the center of the Earth it carries its curiosity into every corner and yet the most common and the most sensible objects hide themselves from its knowledge in a word it knows not what it self is Man thinks and he knows not what it is to think he reasons and he cannot say what reason is The Soul is united to the Body and she conceives not how she is united to it she enters not there and she goes not from thence when she pleases the matter which she animates serves her for a Prison and by an inclination opposit to her nature she loves this Prison which keeps her captive The Senses which should be in all things subject unto her revolt incessantly against her deceive her and corrupt her 'T is an assembly of qualities which are mortal and immortal which are corruptible and incorruptible Water is not so contrary to Fire as these Qualities are contrary among themselves yet all agree together in one and the same subject notwithstanding that 't is impossible to say either what makes their mutual intelligence or what breaks it One cannot number all the kinds of Diseases which may separate the Soul from the Body and yet the Soul acts as if nothing were able to separate her from it She heaps up designs upon designs hopes upon hopes and there needs no more than a blast to overturn all O Man thou confused Pile of uncertainties and of miseries Eccles. 7 and 8. learn not to pry into that which is above thee since thou knowest not thy own self since thou art ignorant of that which is proper to thy self during thy Life and in this little number of days design'd for thy Pilgrimage upon Earth which pass as the shadow of a smoak 'T is the Wisest among men who hath said No one knows how he is to finish his course And even as the Fishes are caught by the hook of the Fisher and Birds are taken in the Nets of the Fowler so Men fall into the ambushes of Death when they least dream of it What is Man O my God that he should by you be so highly honoured Why do you east your eyes and employ your thoughts upon a Vessel so feeble and so full of iniquity Job 7.19 You visit him in the Morning and presently you exercise him by strong Tryalls He hath scarcely begun to see the day light before he falls into Darkness Psal 15. His Body is but a heap of dust and his Life fleets away as the Grass it blooms in Morning like the Flowers of the Field and in the Evening the smallest blast of wind withers it it dwindles away and there remains no track of the place where it but now flourished It seems as if after you had formed man you had abandon'd him to his own conduct Eceli 15. You have set before his eyes the Water and the Fire Life and Death Good and Evil to the end you might leave him the liberty of choyce which is almost always unlucky to him There are none who have understanding Psal 13. and light There are none who seek God They are gon astray from the right path They are all corrupted There is not any one who of himself doth good no there is not one Lord why do you leave them to be a prey to their Passions and to the hardness and malignity of their own Heart Know you not that our fall is inevitable as soon as you withdraw your hand from holding us up Do not then estrange your self from us O Lord you who are our only prop and our strength Draw us out of the mire of the World that we may not sink down and be drown'd in it Deliver us from those worldlings who have made choyce of this present Life for their portion S. Gregory Overwhelm them with an abundance of your riches and of your treasures wherewith they may satiate their cupidity But as for us who have placed our treasure in Heaven our Heart is where our Treasure is Grant then O my God that we may perfectly renounce all the goods of the Earth and that we may surmount all the miseries of our Nature 2 Cor. 4. Grant that we may carry evermore in our Body the death of our Lord Jesus to the end that the Life of Jesus may appear also in our Body For we who live for him are every hour deliver'd up to Death for him that we may live
Let him who rests assured upon the darkness and upon the uncertainty of this Life learn that Death hath no respect for Treasures for the greatness nor for the glory of men It neither pardons the lustre of birth De morum conversione nor of manners nor of age except only that it is at the dore of old men and that it lies in wait for young ones To ground ones hope upon all these things is to imitate that senseless person of whom the Gospel says He built his house upon the Sands Mat. 7.29 the Rain fell the Rivers overflowed the Winds blew and setting upon this house it was soon overturned and great was its ruine because it was hurried away before its time and when the owner thought least of it The Torrent hath devoured all even to the foundations Job 21. What a folly is it to consume in a perishable work the time which one ought to employ in acquiring an eternal happiness Do we not consider that this Life is but a Vapour which vanishes O thou Ambitious person hast thou obtained at last the Dignity for which so many years thou underhand laboured'st The weight of it will quickly oppress thee O thou Covetous man hast thou stuff'd thy Coffers with money Take care of losing it and beware of Theives the Harvest hath been plentifull pull down thy Barns to build greater change and re-change thy Edifices toyl heap up pole and pillage on all sides and then sit down and say Lâ—◠〈…〉 19. O my Soul how happy are we now We have Goods in store for the whole remainder of our Life Ah! how long will this Life yet last Perhaps not one Year perhaps but one Day perhaps but a Moment and perhaps in that fatal Moment in which thou makest in thy Soul these vain projects of a long possession of all these Goods God will re-demand this Soul and then who shall enjoy the fruit of thy labours It is not so with them who place all their hope in God who uncloath themselves of all affection to worldly goods who are evermore ready to quit the Earth and always enflam'd with the desire of the Heavenly goods because they have heaped such goods together as the Worms cannot devour nor the Theives purloin from them The blind Lovers of the World believe that we in this estate lead a life here below full of bitterness but 't is because the blindness of their Spirit renders them uncapable to conceive the sweetnesses wherewith the Love of Christ Jesus incessantly fills the Soul of the Just even whilst she is yet a captive within the Prison of her Flesh Surely we must not imagine that this Paradise of inward delights whereof God gives sometimes a tast even in this world to his Elect is a place which is sensible and material 'T is not the feet 't is the motion of the Heart which conducts to this enclosed Garden to this sealed Fountain which causes to issue forth of the only source of Wisdom the living water of the four Virtues In this delicious place Hope makes us feel the excellent Odours of this tree of Life of this Pomegranet-tree of the Canticles more precious than all the trees of the Forests under the shadow whereof the Bridegroom delights to refresh himself There it is that one tast's by advance with a holy greediness the incomparable pleasures of the Divine Love Nevertheless these pleasures which the eye of the sensual man cannot behold and which the spirit of the World cannot comprehend are not counted among the rewards of the eternal Life 't is but a pay of the temporal Warfare Tast says David and acknowledg the delights of our Lord. Ps 33 8. 'T is a Manna which satiates without giving any disgust But O Christians let not us imitate our Fathers who fed upon the Manna and are dead let us make provision only to continue our Journey and to get strength to overcome the difficulties of the way An incorruptible Food expects us in Heaven 't is that Celestial nourishment after which we must have an insatiable hunger Let us demand of God that he will introduce us to this delicious banquet of the Lamb without blemish where we shall sit at his Table in the company of Saints and of Angells in a happy Eternity Article XXXVIII S. Bernard proves That to the end we may not fear Death but may endure at with patience and even receive it with Joy we must prepare our selves dayly for it by sincere Repentance That by this means Grace overcomes Nature That what appears so terrible to a sinful man becomes pleasing to a just man but particularly to them who have embraced the Religious and solitary Life T Is a constant truth the more one mortifies himself De div Ser. 18. in Cant. Ser. 26 the more one hopes for Mercy and by consequence one less needs to apprehend Death A Christian who mortifies his Body In Vigil Nativ Ser. 2 Tract de Vita Solitâ—ria who entirely disengages himself from the Earth and who exercises himself in all sorts of Virtues during his Life feels his Courage and even his Joy redoubled when he is to die He looks on Death as a Sanctuary and a secure Harbour He leaps over this passage which is so short as a Bridge to thwart the impetuous torrent of this Lives bitterness Finally he desires Death as the term of his banishment as the day in which he is to shake off his fetters and to free himself for ever from the miseries which oppressed him Now if God gives this Grace to persons remaining in the World he gives it yet more abundantly to good Religious and such as are truly Solitary because they have embraced a profession into which they enter by a Spiritual Death by separating themselves from all things which affoard any adhesion to the Life of the Body In effect what is it that a true Solitary person can fear in Death or rather what will he not there find to desire He learns in his little Cell to uncloath himself of all that is in the World He makes it in his retrait his continual study to contemplate the felicity of Paradise A Cell and Heaven have a near relation to one another what is done in Heaven is done also in a Cell one is there employ'd upon God there one enjoys God and the society of Angells there one leads a Life altogether Celestial The Cell is a holy place 't is a sacred Mountain where the Soverain Master of the World uncloathing himself if we may say it of all his Majesty frequently entertains himself with his Servant without witness without reserve as one freind with another And even as the Temple is the Sanctuary of God so the Cell is the Sanctuary of a true Religious man Whether his Soul raises up her self to the enjoyment of the blessed Eternity either by fervent Prayer or by a holy Death she finds a short and easy way
have you heard say of them who were seen yesterday so flourishing One of them was murdered the other was drown'd another died in playing and he who seem'd to have most health expir'd sitting at table One should never have done if one should run over all the manners of Death wherewith dayly and dismall examples strike our eyes and yet what profit do we make thereof He surely is wise and happy who passes on his Life without adhering to it who sees all it's moments slide away as if each of them were to be the last and who prepares himself at the beginning of each day with the same care which he would take upon the day of his Death One acquires this happy foresight by the contempt of the World by the desire of advancing in Virtue by a sincere repentance by a blind obedience to the orders of Providence by an uncloathing and despising of ones self accompanied with a firm resolution to suffer all for Christ Jesus Let us say to him with St. Paul Lord 2 Tim. 4. I am as a Victime which hath already the aspersion to be sacrificed the time of my departure draws near I have finished my course and no more now remains for me but to expect the crown of Justice which is reserved for them who have fought valiantly Behold the state in which a true Christian should be setled Ibid. for he who hath not fought according to the Law shall not be crowned Wherefore make your profit of the strength which God hath given you and whilst you you are in health lay up a treasure of good works for the other Life Perhaps you will not be any longer in the state of performing them when you shall fall into sickness and infirmity You are not surely so great a fool as to fancy you shall always enjoy health Alas how the sentiments of man change in the bed of Death All that he esteemed great in the World appear then to him little and despicable the sin which seem'd to him small and inconsiderable becomes great and monstrous But the change of his reason serves him no more but to plunge him in Despair Learn this sacred doctrine from the mouth of Christ Jesus Lib. 3. c. 49. He who loves his Soul shall lose it Joh. 12.15 Do not imitate those self-lovers of whom the Apostle St. Paul speaks with execration Tim. 3. For nothing is worthy of your love but God alone no not even your own Soul 2 Pet. 3. Jud. 10.8 which is the most perfect image of the Divinity Mat. 16.26 If you love it you shall lose it and if you lose your Soul Mark 8. what will it avail you to have gained the whole World For having once lost your Soul by what exchange can you recover it But we shall never comprehend this truth unless the love of Jesus serves us for our Master O love of my God when wilt thou clear my spirit When wilt thou set my Heart on fire When shall I enjoy thy delights When shall I contemplate the glory of thy Kingdom Comfort me in my Banishment Sweeten my Affliction I sigh after nothing but to be with you my beloved Lord for all the comfort the World offers me doth but augment my impatience and my sorrow When I have a will to raise up my self towards Heaven my Passions draw me towards the Earth Tottering between two so opposit motions I am a burden to my self and I desire ardently to die that so there may be an end of all these combats which put me in perpetual danger to be overcome by the Enemy of my Salvation If I had still any affection for the World I would entreat you to leave me in it but since I have setled all my affections upon you what is there that should stay me upon Earth If God doth you the favour to afford you these feelings do not attribute them to your self Rom. 12. I exhort you not to elevate your selves beyond that which you ought in the sentiments you have of your selves but to contain your selves within the limits of moderation according to the measure of the gift of Faith which God hath imparted to each one of you Jer. 13. 'T is to me alone to whom glory appertains says our Lord. Do not glorify your selves because I have spoken unto you Give to me the glory of all before darkness surprizes you By this means you will profit more and more in Virtue and I will give you a tast of all the sweetnesses of a holy Death Article XXXXI The admirable Prayses which St. Laurence Justinian gives to Death from whence he concludes that 't is no wonder if the most perfect among Christians are they who most desire it WE need not mervail that the Faithful who are penetrated with the Love of Christ Jesus De incendijs Divini amoris desire to die S. Laurence since he hath rendred Death desirable by dying for us In effect 't is no longer a punishment 't is a favour and a favour by so much the greater by how much the sooner obtained For that which was a chastisement of Sin is now a temporal recompense of good Works We ought therefore to look now upon it as the object of our sweetest hopes and not as the subject of our Fears O Death thou art no longer bitter thou art no longer cruel to the Disciples of Christ Jesus as thou wert formerly to the Children of Adam Let us bless our Lord for having made the most terrible of all Evils to be so wholesome and so universal a remedy which frees us from all sorts of infirmities and miseries which exempts us from the misfortunes of poverty from the outrages of our enemies from the attacks of envy from the disquiets of avarice and of ambition in a word from the tyranny of all our passions c which is yet more desirable which exempts us from Sin Death having thus changed its nature Christians have no longer any aversion against it but on the contrary they desire it as much as other men dread it and they invite to their assistance that which the World avoyds as the cause of its destruction Now altho' all true Christians have these thoughts we must nevertheless acknowledge that the Saints are infinitly more pierced therewith As they have more love for Christ Jesus they have also a greater desire for Death The ardour of this Love gives them such an absolute contempt of Life and such an impatience to get out of it that there is not a moment in which they wish not the separation of their Soul from their Body Nothing more nearly touches than these Words of David when having his Heart transfixed with the darts of Divine Love and as it were transported out of himself by a happy and holy fury he exclams Psal 83. â— My Soul languishes and is consumed with a desire to enter into the house of our Lord. My Heart burns with
an ardent thirst to enjoy God the living God and my Body is dryed up in this desire Happy they who placing in you all their confidence have no other thought but to advance themselves towards you O Lord for one sole day in your House is more worth than a Thousand any where else I had rather be the last and upon the step of the dore in the House of my God than dwell in the tents of the Wicked In effect it seems that a Soul enflamed with the desire of seeing her God unties her self from her Body by continual Extasies and to make use of Davids expression Melts away in these transports Psal 21. as Wax melts with the heat of the Sun They who are arriv'd at so high a degree of perfection which renders them equal to Angels forget oftentimes to take such nourishment as is necessary for their Body because they are devoured by a Hunger much more pressing than that which is satisfied by food The Spiritual aliment which fills them takes from them all gust of corporal sustenance and the flames of Charity do so stifle in them the flames of concupiscence that they become insensible both as to the necessities of the Body and as to the pleasures of the Earth O Lord said a great Saint Why do we preserve with so much precaution a miserable Life Should we not laugh at a Prisoner who should spend all his time in raysing up the walls of his Prison Yet this is that which men do when they pamper their Bodies Since we must die to see you O God and since no one can entirely possess you but by losing his Life I accept the condition even from this hour Do that to day which you will do one day Behold I am ready to follow you and I demand of you this cheif favour That I may see you to the and I may die S. Teresa and that I may die to the end I may see you eternally S. Aug. Article XXXXII. It may perhaps seem strange that we should place the thoughts of St. Teresa in a collection of those of the Fathers But the Writings of this great Saint are replenish'd with so sublime a piety that one may compare them in this point to the most beautious Works which the Spirit of God ever dictated to men Wherefore we conceiv'd that it might not only be permitted but that it would prove profitable to insert here some of the admirable Sentiments she hath left us upon the meditation of Eternity and upon the desire of Death O Jesu soverainly amiable A pious exclamation after Communion sole object of my affections shall I always languish with the impatient desire of seeing you What solace will you give to a Soul which nothing upon Earth comforts and which can take no rest but in you alone O that this banishment is long O that Life is irksom to one who burns with the desire of possessing you I die because I cannot die You know it O my God you who died for the love of me know whether it is to live when one long expects what one loves No my Life is not a Life 't is a continual torment 't is a fire which devours 't is a punishment which would be as terrible as those of Hell if one had lost the Hope of seeing an end of it O Life thou enemy of my happiness Life more cruel a thousand times than Death why is it not permitted me in this moment to break the chains wherewith thou keepest me in captivity But I preserve thee because my God protects thee I have a care of thee because thou belongest to him Do not then any longer abuse his bounty nor my obedience and cease at last to oppose thy self to the impatience of my affection O desirable Death and too long expected O Sanctuary inaccessible to all the tempests of the World happy end of our miseries destruction of Sin beginning of our true Life make haste to deliver me from the Death of the World O let me die to the end I may not die 'T is the Death of Sin which I dread 'T is the Life of Grace which I desire But this dread and this desire consume me in such sort that I do not live and yet I cannot die My Life is all out of me because all my Hope is in Christ Jesus who hath promis'd unto me a better Life Alas It is very true That Love is more dreadfull then Death Cant. 2. O Love of Jesus how piercing are your darts how stinging are your wounds The rudest blows of Death are endured with less difficulty than yours There is too much of it O Lord there 's too much Turn a little aside your looks Cant. 6. for I want strength to support them Eyther burn me no longer or make an end to reduce me into ashes How will you have my Soul to divide herself between that which you demand of her and that which my Bodie requires of her Be gon from me O all you Earthly Consolations a Heart wounded with the Love of Jesus cannot be cured but by Jesus All human Remedies are too weak to asswage a Divine Sickness 'T is you my Saviour who cure and who wound when you please O Faithful Bridegroom of the Faithfull Soul with what bounty what sweetness what pleasure what ravishments what testimonies of tenderness do you heal the hurts which your Love hath made in us O my Soul let us expect yet a little and he will take compassion on our languishing condition His impatience is no less then ours we sometimes believe him to be far off when he is very near at hand Behold him descending from the mountains and traversing the hills he runs he flies to draw near unto us he knocks at the dore he calls us Enter Lord I slept but my heart watched Alas I was ready to follow you and you have stoll'n your self from me I seek you and I find you no more I call you and you do not answer What have we done my Soul who hath driven away your Bridegroom Is it not that our impatience displeases him Is it not that we love him overmuch or that we love him not enough For he is a Jealous God Exod. 34. who will be loved more than all things and will have us love nothing but himself Perhaps he will surprize us Thes 2.2 His day comes when it is least thought on as the Thief who comes in the night Let us expect with humility that dreadfull day If Jesus loves us he will not slack his coming if he doth not love us he will come but too soon for us The Conclusion of all this Collection S. Aug. As at the beginning of this Treatise we drew from St. Augustin Principles to establish this Proposition That perfect Souls desire Death and receive it with Joy we thought fit to finish this Collection with a discourse wherein the same holy Doctour shews That all