Chapter 12. On Flying from the City of This World.

HAVING spoken of the city of God, it only remains that we now explain in a few words what is especially required, as the condition of our being enrolled citizens of this most blessed kingdom. This can be mentioned in one word ; that we renounce the world, and live in it as strangers and pilgrims. We cannot be citizens of the world and of heaven at the same time ; and there is no one who flies from the world, who is not immediately received into the midst of the city of God. But let us consider the whole subject more at length.

Two cities are mentioned in the Holy Scripture; the city of this world which commenced in Cain, for he was the first who founded one, as we read in the book of Genesis; and the city of heaven which began in Abel, the founder of which was not Abel, but God, as St. Paul mentions. Babylon was a figure of the first, which signifies "confusion;*' but of the latter,

Jerusalem was typical, the City of our great king, which^ means the "vision of peace." Those are inhabitants of the earthly city who dwell therein, not only in body, but also in heart, who love the earth, pant after its pleasures, struggle for them, contend for them. Of this city the devil is prince, who having been cast down from heaven, possessed the government of the earth. For although our Lord said when his Passion drew nigh, " now is the judgment of the world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out ;" and although He truly cast him out by His cross, and triumphed over him, according to St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians, " And despoiling the principalities and powers, he hath exposed them confidently in open show, triumphing over them in himself;" yet we must not suppose that the devil was entirely "cast out" of the world, or that he has completely lost the dominion of the world, but only that he was ^ cast out of all those, and has lost dominion over them who united themselves with Christ and his heavenly city, and fled from this earthly one. But that the devil hath yet power over the city of this world, the Apostle teaches us in his Epistle to the Ephesians: "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places." (chap. vi. 12.) Wherefore Satan, together with his

satellites, yet has power in the world, and is the "ruler" thereof; that is, of earthlyminded men, inhabitants of this earthly city, of which St. John says, " It is seated in wickedness." As if he had said, the world is united with its chief, who is wicked, or the world is under the power and dominion of a " wicked" demon.

But the inhabitants of the heavenly city, are those who reign happily in its kingdom, and those also, who although they dwell on. earth in their mortal body, are far from it in their heart, for their conversation is in heaven, and " they desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. 9 ' But because whilst on earth they are mixed up with its citizens, therefore the Holy Scripture saith, that they are in the world, but not of the world, and in the world, not as citizens, but as strangers and pilgrims ; thus St. Peter teacheth, " Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims to refrain yourselves from carnal desires which war against the soul;" on the contrary, the citizens of the world are said in Holy Scripture to be, " Strangers to the Testament, having no hope of the promise, and without God in this world." These words St. Paul makes use of in his Epistle to the Ephesians. Since, then, this is the truth, let no one deceive himself, let no one imagine that he can be a citizen of the world and a citizen of heaven at the same time. Citizens of the world are of the world, citizens of heaven are not of the

world. To be of the world, and not to be of the world, are contradictory terms, therefore they cannot be united. Hence those whom earthly objects delight, can have no place in the heavenly city, unless they first flee from the world, unless they renounce it, unless they despise its pleasures.

And since these considerations are important and understood by few, or not considered as they ought to be, therefore that no one may plead ignorance at the Last day, the apostles and evangelists inculcate and repeat them over and over again ; hear our Lord : " You are of this world, I am not of this world ;" and to the Apostles He says, " If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, bat I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you ;" hear St. Paul: "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God;" and again,

" You must needs go out of this world that we be not condemned with it;" hear St. James: " Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God;" and St. Peter saith: " Fly the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world:" and St. John; "Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the chanty of the Father is not in him." Hear, in fine, our Lord himself, in his prayer to his

Father : " I pray for them, not for the world do I pray ; but for them whom thou hast given me And the world hath

hated them, because they are not of the world, as I also am not of the world." Here we can most clearly perceive, that the world is thus condemned and excommuni cated by God, that Christ does not pray for it all. But if Christ does not pray for the world, how can He say in another place, " God so loved the world as to give his own beloved Son?" Doth the Father love the world, and the Son hate it ? Or how doth the Son exclude the world from His prayer, whom the Father doth not exclude from His love ? St. Augustine, explaining this question, says, that the $ world for which Christ did not pray, signifies only the wicked, as St. Paul mentions in his first Epistle to the Corinthians ; " That we be not condemned with this world." It may also be said that Christ did not pray for the world, because what He then was asking for the Apostles, did not in the least regard the world ; for He prayed for the gift of perse verance : " Keep them in thy name." And at the same time He prayed that they might possess eternal glory, when He said, (t Father, I will that where I am, they also whom thou hast given me may be with me, that they may see my glory." (St. John, chap. xvii. 24.) Now these words cannot apply to the world, for it is not fit for the kingdom of heaven, unless it be first puri-

fied ; as a man covered with dirt and mire, would not .be fit to enter the chamber of a king. But God loved the world, and deli vered his Son for it, that he might cleanse it, and make it fit for his kingdom. Where fore Christ prayed for his enemies, not that they might remain in their wickedness, but that his Father might pardon them, and thereby cleanse them, that so they might not be of the world. This our Saviour observed in his prayer, when he said, " Not for the world do I pray," for he added a little lower, " That the world may believe that thou hast sent me." The conclusion, therefore, is, Christ prayed for his friends, not for the world, because unless we first leave the world before wo leave the body, we cannot arrive at the kingdom of God.

Wherefore, whoever loveth this heavenly city, let him hasten to depart from the world, lest the last day suddenly come upon him, and he be snatched from life, when there will be no hope of his salvation. And when in spirit he shall have left the world, let him forget it and its pleasures, and re member continually the city of the Lord alone, vowing with the prophet David : " If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee : if I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy." (Psalm cxxxvi.) This is a true mark of being citizens of the eternal city, if truly from our heart we prefer rather to

be deprived of our tongue and of our hands, than to do or say any thing against the love of God our Father, and our heavenly country: and if "the beginning of our joy " be indeed that City, which maketh its inha bitants so blessed as not to take pleasure in any earthly happiness, and the mere re membrance and expectation of future joys, be alone sufficient to gladden our heart in this our exile.

We will now conclude this book with a passage from St. Augustine, that those who may not perhaps believe my words, may a,t least credit those of so great a man. In his Explanation of the 61st Psalm, he men tions what are the true marks of the citizens of the world, and of the inhabitants of the city of God : " All who seek after earthly things," he saith, " all who prefer the happiness of the world before God, all who mind their own interests, and not those of Jesus Christ, belong to that city which is mystically called Babylon, and have for their king, the Devil ; but all ' who mind the things that are above;' who meditate on heavenly truths ; who live in the world with fear lest they should offend God, and who when they do offend him, are not ashamed to confess their sins ; the mild, the holy, and just, and good, all these belong to that city which hath Christ for its King."

THE

ETERNAL HAPPINESS OF THE SAINTS.