truly love Him? What sort of an inheritance will He leave to His faithful servants, His intimate friends, His dear children? If He is so lavish with His goods to those who hardly deign to bestow a thought on Him during the day, what will He not give to those who for His sake have endured hunger and sorrow, trials and crosses with patience? If, in a word, He gives so many joys to sinners in this vale of tears, what will He not give to His elect on the eternal hills, in the very dwelling-place of joy, in the kingdom of heaven, where, as the prophet says, there are rivers and fountains of joys that inundate the city of God? O heavenly Jerusalem! holy city of God! wished-for fatherland! how shall I imagine what thou art like? For the only measure of thy glory will be the infinite God Himself, and that alone must be an endless infinite joy of which I can form no idea, until I actually, as I hope, partake in it.
Hence the wicked have reason to fear. Sinners! vain children of the world! mark this, if you have any common sense left: you have not the least title to this eternal joy, if you live as you have hitherto done; you have received your good things in this life. Oh, how poor you will be on that day! How confused you will be to see a poor peasant, or workman, or servant, a desolate widow, an orphan child whom you despised, nay, perhaps oppressed and persecuted, to see them entering into the house of God and gaining possession of everlasting joys, while you shall not be allowed to stand even behind the door, but shall have to suffer in flames like the rich glutton, and to sigh when too late, like those of whom the Wise Man speaks: “These are they whom we had sometime in derision and for a parable of reproach;” whom we looked on as the dust under our feet, or as silly people who did not know how to live in the world: “Behold, how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints.”[1] Fools that we are! we must lie in the midst of flames covered with shame and confusion!
And the afflicted just reason to rejoice. Pious, suffering Christians! to you I address my last words, Is there any of you who desires to receive from God the reward for his good acts in this life? Is there any one of you who would be willing to forfeit the future goods of eternity, if he might here share in the prosperity of the wicked? I can hardly think that any one in his right senses would be guilty of such folly. Is there any one of you, then, who would give away a part of his
- ↑ Hi sint quos habuimus aliquando in derisum, et in similitudinem improperii. Eoce quomodo computati sunt inter filios Dei, et inter sanctos sors illorum est.—Wis. v. 3, 5.
