esteemed their life madness, and their end without honor;” these are the people whom we considered miserable, whose humility we deemed ridiculous folly: “Behold how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints.”[1] But we are rejected among the goats and demons; we wretches have to burn in unquenchable fire, while they enter in triumph into eternal joys!
The consideration and expectation of it should now encourage us to despise the invitations of the devil, the world, and the flesh. Ah, joyful words, Come, ye blessed! May I hear you one day! My dear brethren, I do not doubt that during the meditation every one of you forms the same wish and desire in his heart, and says to himself: may I too be among the number of the elect on that day to receive that blissful invitation! And who could help forming such a wish? If we had a thousand lives, should we not cheerfully give them all to have the good fortune of hearing that sentence from the lips of Jesus Christ? But we can have it, if we wish, and that too with one life only, and a very short and uncertain life, if we only serve God truly while we are in it. The treacherous world often invites us now with nattering words: Come, it says; “let us eat and drink.”[2] “Let us enjoy the good things that are present.…Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments;” let us spend our short lives in dancing and amusing ourselves; who knows when we shall die? The corrupt flesh says to us: “Let us crown ourselves with roses before they be withered.”[3] Let us enjoy ourselves while we are young and have the opportunity! Come! cries out perfidious Satan; I will make you great and honored before the world; I will fill your coffers with gold; I will raise you to great power and influence. Christians, do not listen to those invitations! They all lead on to the broad way of destruction; they are invitations that shall one day be followed by the terrible sentence of the Judge, Depart, you cursed! They are invitations that seem delightful at first, but that lead to an evil end, and if we now listen to them we shall have no chance of ever hearing the joyful words, “Come, ye blessed.”
And to bear Now our Saviour and future Judge gives us another invitation:
- ↑ Videntes turbabuntur timore horribili, et mirabuntur in subitatione insperatæ salutis. Dicentes intra se, pœnitentiam agentes, et præ angustia spiritus gementes: hi sunt quos habuimus aliquando in derisum, et in similitudinem improperii. Vitam illorum æstmabamus insaniam, et finem illorum sine honore. Ecce quomodo computati sunt inter filios Dei, et inter sanctos sors illorum est.—Wis. v. 2–5.
- ↑ Comedamus et bibamus.—Is. xxii. 13.
- ↑ Fruamur bonis quæ sunt. Vino pretioso et ungruentis impleamus. Coronemus nos rosis antequam marcescant.—Wis. ii. 6–8.
