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| Chapter XXVIII.
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Chapter
XXVIII.
With such dainties as these let the devil’s
guests be feasted. The places and the times, the inviter too, are
theirs. Our banquets, our nuptial joys, are yet to come. We cannot sit
down in fellowship with them, as neither can they with us. Things
in this matter go by their turns. Now they have gladness and we
are troubled. “The world,” says Jesus, “shall
rejoice; ye shall be sorrowful.”374
Let
us mourn, then, while the heathen are merry, that in the day of their
sorrow we may rejoice; lest, sharing now in their gladness, we share
then also in their grief. Thou art too dainty, Christian, if thou
wouldst have pleasure in this life as well as in the next; nay, a fool
thou art, if thou thinkest this life’s pleasures to be really
pleasures. The philosophers, for instance, give the name of pleasure to
quietness and repose; in that they have their bliss; in that they find
entertainment: they even glory in it. You long for the goal, and the
stage, and the dust, and the place of combat! I would have you
answer me this question: Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot
but with pleasure die? For what is our wish but the apostle’s, to
leave the world, and be taken up into the fellowship of our
Lord?375
You have your joys where you have your
longings.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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