ness;[1] where there is nought but the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life.[2] Hence it is that he sees another law in his members, fighting against the law of his mind.[3] Oh, conflict how great and grievous! oh, victory how difficult and infrequent!
Assuredly all this has ever appeared so burdensome and painful to my friends, that while they endured their life in patience, they wished for death. Hence arose their many groanings and complaints. Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged![4] My soul is weary of my life![5] Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?[6] &c.
Besides, the life of man is but a passage, a prison, an exile; yet in these he who fears to die desires to remain. What! art thou weary of the journey, and yet wouldst not have it ended? Shut up in a noisome and filthy prison, yet wouldst not be released from it? Who is there that, if situated in a foreign land, above all, in the midst of many dangers and enemies, would not wish to return speedily to his own? Who is there that would not account himself happy, if he were shortly to be delivered from exile? He who is unwilling to die prefers misery to happiness, exile to his own country, darkness to light, earth to heaven!
MAN. Our life, O Lord, is nought else, indeed, but a warfare, a temptation, a perpetual conflict upon earth. Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged amid so many dangers, and snares, and wiles of Satan, the world, and the flesh! What is long life to a man else than a lengthening of torment, whether that arise from the perception or from the apprehension of evils; for combats are without, fears within.[7] Few and evil are the days of our pilgrimage,[8] yet such is our blindness, that we wish for a long life. We fear to die, and wish to postpone, though we cannot escape it; whereas death either is, or ought to be, the end of our misery, the limit of our guilt, the gate of life, the entrance to our Home, and the vision of thy Presence!
As long as we live we are miserable; and the more so, because, as we grow older, we seldom or never become better; and even love our misery because we know it not. Open, I pray thee, my eyes, that I may see where I am, — in banishment, &c.; and to what I should aspire, namely, to reach my Home; and that I may no more fear to die,
