CONSIDERATION VIII
The Death of the Just
"Right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Ps. cxvi. 13.
First Point.
WHEN we view death according to the senses, it terrifies and affrights us, but when we view it with the eye of faith, it consoles us and makes us desire it. It appears terrible to sinners, but lovely and very precious to saints. S. Bernard tells us, that "death is precious as the end of labours, the consummation of victory, the gate of life." "The end of labour," yes, truly, does death put an end to our labours and toil. "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." (Job xiv. i.)
Behold what our life is; it is short, it is full of misery, infirmities, fears, and passions. The worldly, who desire a long life, what do they seek, observes Seneca, but a longer time of suffering? If we continue to live, do we not continue to suffer? as S. Augustine himself remarks. Yes, indeed, because, according to S. Ambrose, our present life was not given to us for repose, but for work, and by that work to make ourselves worthy of eternal life. When God, as Tertullian justly observes, shortens the life of any one, He shortens his suffering. Hence it is, that although death was given to man as a punishment for sin, yet, notwithstanding this, the miseries of this life are such, as S. Ambrose remarks, that death would appear to be given to us rather as a relief than a punishment. God calls those who die
