Book I, Part 1, Chapter 7. Of the seventh Motive that obliges us to the Pursuit of Virtue, which is Death, the first of the four last Things,

1. Any one of the aforementioned motives ought to be sufficient to persuade men to give themselves up entirely to the service of a master that has obliged them with so many favors. But, because duty and justice have less influence over the generality of mankind than profit and interest, I will, therefore, add those great advantages which are proposed as the recompense and reward of virtue, both in this life, and in the next, and shall first speak of the two greatest, viz. the glory we shall acquire, and the punishment we shall avoid, by faithfully adhering to it. These are the two oars that are so serviceable to us in this voyage ; they are, as it were, the compass by which we may steer our course more steadily and securely. This is the reason why St. Francis and St. Dominick, in their rules, both of them moved by the same spirit, and making use of the very same words, commanded the preachers of their orders, never to take any other subjects of their sermons but virtue and vice, heaven and hell ; the one to instruct us how to live well, the other to incline us to it. It is a received opinion among philosophers, that reward and punishment are, as it were, the two springs which make the wheels of a man's life turn round in regular motion. For such, alas ! is our unhappiness, and so great the corruption of our nature, that no one can endure naked virtue, that is to say, if the fear of punishment does not go along with it, or the hope of a reward attend it. But since there is no punishment or reward which can so justly deserve our consideration as those which are never to have an end, we will, therefore, speak here of everlasting glory and everlasting torments, together with those other two things that are to precede them, which are death and judgment. For any one of these points, considered with attention, may be infinitely advantageous to the making us love virtue and hate vice, according to the wise man, where he says : In all that thou undertakest, remember thy last end, and thou shalt never do amiss ; Eccl. vii. 40. He means here those four things we have just now mentioned, and which we are going to discourse on.

§ 1. — 2. To begin with the first, which is death. The reason why this, of all the rest, works most on us, is its being the most certain, the most frequent, and the most familiar of them all, especially if we reflect upon the particular judgment that is to be given on the whole course of our lives at that time, which, when once past, will not be reversed on the general judgment day ; for whatsoever is then decreed shall stand good for ever. But how rigorous this judgment will be, and how severe an account will be taken of our actions, I do not desire you should believe upon my bare allegation, but that you give credit to a passage, related by St. John Climachus upon this point, to which he himself was an eye-witness, and is, indeed, one of the most dreadful I ever read in my life. He tells us, " there was a certain monk in his time called Hesychius, who lived in a cell on Mount Horeb. Having led a very careless and negligent sort of life, during the whole time of his retirement, without so much as ever thinking of his salvation, he was at last taken very ill, and, being past all hopes of recovery, lay for about the space of an hour as if he had been quite dead. But afterwards coming to himself again, he earnestly desired that we would all go out of his cell. And as soon as ever we had left him, he walled up his door, and remained thus, shut up within his cell, for twelve years, never speaking one word to any person during all that time. He lived upon nothing but bread and water ; and continued always sitting, keeping his whole thoughts, as if it had been in perpetual ecstacy, so bent upon what he had seen in his vision, that he never so much as once altered the posture he was in, but remaining, as it were, always out of his senses, and in deep silence, wept most bitterly. A little before his death we broke open his door, and went into his cell, earnestly desiring him to speak some words of edification. But all we could get from him was ; ' Pardon me, my brethren, if I have nothing else to say to you but this, that he who has the thoughts of death deeply imprinted upon his mind, can never sin.'" These are St. John Climachus's own words, who was present when this happened, and relates nothing but what he saw ; so that, though the passage may seem incredible, there is no cause to mistrust the truth of it, since we have it from so grave and credible an author. There is nothing which we ought not to fear, when we consider the life this holy man led, but much more if we inquire into the frightful vision that was the occasion of his long penance ! This evidently makes out the truth of that saying of the wise man : Be mindful of thy last end, and thou shalt neve?' do amiss ;, Eccl. vii. 40. If, then, this consideration be of such force to make us avoid sin, let us briefly reflect upon the most remarkable circumstances that attend it, to the end we may by this means obtain so great a benefit. •

3. Remember, tnerefore, that you are a man and a Christian. As man, you know you are to die, and as a Christian, you know you are to give an account of your life as soon as dead. Daily experience will not permit us to doubt the one, nor the faith we profess let us call the other into question. Every one of us all lies under this necessity. Kings and popes must submit to it. The day will come when you shall not live to see night, or a night when you shall not survive till day. The day will come and you know not whether it may not be this very day or to-morrow, when you yourself, who are now reading this treatise in perfect health, and who perhaps think the number of your days will be answerable to your business and wishes, shall be stretched out in your bed, with a taper in your hand, expecting the last stroke of death, and the execution of that sentence which is passed upon all mankind, and from which there is no appeal. Consider, then, the uncertainty of this hour, for generally it surprises us when we least think of it, and is, therefore, said to come like a thief in the night ; that is, when men are fastest asleep. A violent and mortal sickness is the usual forerunner of death and of all its attendants. Pains, aches, distractions, griefs, ravings, long and tedious nights, which quite tire and wear us out, are but so many ways and dispositions towards it. And as we see that an enemy, before he can force his entrance into a town, must batter down the walls, so the forerunner of death is some raging distemper, which so furiously, without intermission, batters down our natural vigor and breaks in upon the chief parts of the body, that the soul, not able to hold out longer, is obliged to surrender.

4. But when the sickness grows desperate, and the physician or the distemper itself undeceive us, by leaving us no hopes of life, how great is our anguish at that time ! Then it is we begin with concern and sorrow to think of departing this life, and of forsaking whatsoever we held most dear. Wife, children, friends, relations, estates, dignities, employments, all vanish when we die. Next follows those last accidents, that attend us just at our going off, which are much more grievous than all the rest ; the feet grow cold, the nose shrinks in, the tongue stammers and is incapable of performing its duty ; in fine, all the senses and members are in confusion and disorder on so sudden and hasty a departure. Thus man, at his going out of the world, by his own sufferings, pays back those pains he put others to when he came into it ; so that there is no great difference, as to the matter of suffering, between his birth and his death, since they are both of them attended wTith grief, the first with what his mother endured, and the last what he endured himself.

5. Nor is this all that makes this last passage so terrible ; for after this violent anguish, there appears before him the approach of death, the end of life, the horror of the grave, the miserable condition of the body, just ready to be preyed on by worms ; but what is more dreadful yet than all the rest, is the lamentable state of the poor soul, as yet shut up in the body, but knowing not where she shall be within two hours ; it is then you will imagine yourself before the judgment seat of Almighty God, and all your sins rising up against you ; it is then, unhappy man, you will be sensible of the heinousness of those crimes you committed with so little concern ; it is then you will curse a thousand times the day in which you sinned, and those pleasures which were the occasions of your offences: your condition will be so deplorable, that you will never be able sufficiently to deplore your own blindness and folly, when you shall see for what trifles (for all you have so foolishly set your affections on are no better) you have exposed yourself to the dangers of suffering most exquisite torments, which you will even then be sensible of: for the pleasure being now all over, and the judgment that is to be passed on them approaching, that, which of itself was little, and now ceases to be, seems nothing, and that, which of itself is of so much weight and consequence, being present, appears just as it is; thus will you become sensible of the danger you have exposed yourself to, of losing so much bliss for the enjoyment of mere vanities, and which way soever you turn your eyes, you will see you are surrounded with subjects of sorrow and trouble ; for you have no time left to do penance, the glass of your life is run out, nor must you expect the least assistance from your friends or from those idols you have hitherto adored ; nay, what you have had the most affection for will be the greatest torment and affliction to you then. Tell me now, if you can, what your thoughts will be at that time, when you shall see yourself reduced to such extremities ? whither will you run ? what will you do ? or to whom will you have recourse ? To go back is impossible, to go forward is intolerable, to continue as you are is not allowed : what is it then you will do ? Then, says God, by the mouth of his prophet, the sun shall go down at noonday, and I ivill darken the earth in the clear day, and I will turn your /'easts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation, and your last day into a day of bitterness ; Amos vii. 9, 10. Is there any thing more dreadful than these words? God says, the sun shall go down at mid-day, because then the^ wicked having the multitude of their sins laid before them, and perceiving God's justice is beginning to shorten the course of their life, many of them shall be seized with such dread and despair, as to imagine that God has entirely removed his mercy from them. So that, though they are still in broad day, that is, within the bounds of life, a time to merit good or evil, they persuade themselves that, do what they can, it is lost, since it is impossible to obtain pardon. Fear is a very powerful passion ; it makes those things which are little seem great, and gives us a near view of that which is furthest from us. If a light apprehension has been able sometimes to do so much, what must a certain and real danger do ? Though they see they have a little left, and all their friends about them, yet they fancy they already begin to feel the torments of the damned in hell. They look on themselves as between life and death, and, grieving at the loss of the goods of this life, which they are just ready to part with, they begin to suffer the pains of the next, which they apprehend. They think those men happy whom they leave behind, and envying the condition of others, increase their own misery. It is then the sun shall truly set to them at noon, when, which way soever they look, the way to heaven shall seem to be blocked up against them, and they shall not see so much as the least glimmering light. If they look up towards God's mercy, they think themselves unworthy of it ; if they reflect on his justice, they imagine it is now going to fall on them ; that till then it has been their day, but now it is the day of God's wrath ; if they consider their lives past, there is scarce one moment but what rises up in judgment against them ; if they reflect on the present time, they see themselves on their deathbeds ; if they look forward, they imagine they see the judge waiting for them. What can they do, or whither can they fly from so many objects of fear and terror ?

6. The prophet tells them, that God will darken the earth in the clear day ; which is, that those things, which they have most delighted in before, shall now become the greatest occasions of their sorrow. A man in perfect health loves to see his children, his friends, his family, his riches, and whatsoever else can be any way agreeable to him ; but this light shall be then turned into darkness, because all these things will be a great affliction to a dying man ; and there is nothing will be a greater torment to him than what he most delighted in. For as we naturally are pleased in the possession of what we love, so are we equally troubled and concerned at the loss of it. This is the reason why they will not let a man's children come near him when he is dying ; and why women, that are unwilling to lose their husbands, keep from them at this time, for fear the sight of one another should increase grief and sorrow. And, though the journey is so long, and the period of absence endless, yet grief breaks through all, and scarcely allows hirn that is departing leisure to bid his friends farewell. If you have ever been in this condition, you cannot but acknowledge all that I say to be true ; but if you have never yet made the experiment, believe those that have. Let them who have been at sea recount the dangers they have met with there ; Eccl. xliii. 26.

§ II. — 7. If the circumstances which go before death are so frightful, what must those be which follow it ? Death has no sooner closed the sick man's eyes, than he is brought before the judgment-seat of Almighty God, to render his accounts to him, who will avenge himself with severity and terror for the crimes which have been committed against him. For the understanding of this, you are not to inquire of the men of the world, who, living in Egypt, that is, in darkness and ignorance, are always exposed to mistakes and errors. Ask the saints, who dwell in the land of Jessen, where the light of this truth shines always in its full vigor. They will tell you, not only by their words, but by their actions, how terrible this account will be.

For David, though so holy a man, was so prepossessed with this fear, and with the just apprehensions of the account he was to give, that he begged of God, saying, Enter not into judgment with thy servant, 0 Lord, for in thy sight no man living shall be justified; Ps. cxlii. 2. Arsenius was a great saint, who had lived a very virtuous and rigid life for several years in the desert ; and yet, finding that he had but a very little time to live, was seized with such apprehensions of this judgment, that his disciples, who were all gathered together about him, perceiving it, asked him this question : " Father, are you afraid now?" To which the holy man made answer : " This is no new fear, which you observe in me, my children ; it is what I have been sensible of all my lifetime." They write that St. Agatho, when he was near his death, was seized with the same apprehensions, and, being asked what he could be afraid of, who had lived so virtuously, said, "Because the judgments of God are quite different from those of men." St. John Climachus gives us another no less dreadful example of a holy monk, which, being very remarkable, I will here relate it in the saint's own words. " There was a certain religious man," says he, "called Stephen, that lived in this place, after having spent a great many years in a monastery, where he was in much repute, on account of his tears and fasting, and where he had enriched his soul with several Other excellent virtues ; but having an extreme desire to lead a solitary and retired life, he built himself a cell at the bottom of Mount Horeb, where the prophet Elias had the honor to see God. This man, notwithstanding his great austerity and rigor, thinking that what he did was not enough, but aspiring to a more rigid and severe way of living, went to another place called Siden, where some holy anchorets lived. Here he continued for some years in the severest and strictest life imaginable, destitute of all human comfort and conversation, having seated his hermitage about three score and ten miles from any town. But the good old man, towards the end of his life, came back again to his first cell, at the foot of Mount Horeb, having there with him two disciples that were natives of Palestine, who had retired thither not long before he came back. Within a few days after his return, he fell into his last sickness. The day before he died, being in a kind of ecstacy, but with his eyes open, and gazing first on one side of his bed, and then on the other, just as if he saw persons there, who made him give an account of his life, he answered so loud that every person could hear him, sometimes saying, ' Yes, I confess it : that is true ; but I have fasted so many years in atonement for the sin.' Sometimes he was heard to say, i That is false ; you wrong me : I never did any such thing.'

60 the sinner's guide.*

Immediately after, ' As to that, I acknowledge it. You are in the right, but I have bewailed the same, and have done penance for it, by serving my neighbor upon such and such occasions.' Then again he cried out, i That is not true ; you are all impostors.' But to other accusations, he answered, c It is true, and I have nothing to say to that point, but that our God is a God of mercy.' Certainly this invisible judgment, being so severe, could not but be terrible and frightful. And what ought to make it more dreadful, they laid such crimes to his charge as he had never been guilty of. O my God ! if a hermit, after about forty years spent in religious and solitary life, after having obtained the gift of tears, declared that he had nothing to say for himself, as to some sins that are brought against him, what will become of such a miserable and unhappy wretch as I am ? Nay, what is yet more, I have been credibly informed by several, that, whilst he lived in the desert, he used to feed a leopard with his own hands. He died as he was giving this account of himself, leaving us in an entire uncertainty of the end of this judgment, and of the sentence that was passed on him." Thus far St. John Climachus. By this, we may plainly see, what apprehensions a man that has lived idly and carelessly must be in, when he comes to die, since such great saints as these have been so hard put to it at that moment.

8. Should you ask one, what there is in death that can affright such holy men, I will answer you out of St. Gregory's fourth book of Morals (ch. 16, 17, 18)* where he says, " The saints, seriously considering how just the Judge is, to whom they are to give an account of all their actions, are continually thinking on the last moment of their lives, and carefully examining themselves on what answer they shall make to every question their Judge shall put to them. But if they find themselves free from all those sinful actions, which they might have committed, another subject of their apprehension is, lest they should have consented to those bad thoughts to which man's corruption always exposes him. For let us suppose that the overcoming of such temptations as lead to the performance of some sinful action, is no very hard matter, yet you will not find it so easy to secure yourself against the continual war, raised by bad thoughts. And though these holy men are always afraid of the secret judgments of so just a Judge, yet they then particularly fear them most, when they are at the point of discharging the common debt of nature, and when they perceive themselves advancing nigher to their sovereign Master. But this fear of theirs is much greater, at that time when the soul is just going to quit the body. Then it is that the mind is no longer filled with idle thoughts, nor the imagination drawn away by impertinent fancies. Neither does he, that is now done with this world, think of any thing that is in it. Dying men think of nothing but themselves and God who is just before them. They look on every thing else as no concern of theirs. But if, whilst they are in this condition, they cannot think of any good action, which they have knowingly omitted, they are afraid lest they might have omitted that which they did not know; because they cannot pass a true judgment on themselves, nor have perfect knowledge of their own failings. This is the reason of their being seized at death with such great and secret apprehensions, because they know they are on entering into a state, which they shall never afterwards be able to change." These are St. Gregory's own words, which plainly show us there is much more to be feared in this judgment, and at this hour, than worldly men imagine.

9. If this judgment is so rigorous, and has been so much and so justly dreaded by holy men, what apprehensions ought theirs to be, who are not so? they who have spent the greatest part of their lives in vanities and trifles, who have so frequently despised God and his commandments, who have scarce so much as ever thought of their salvation, and have taken so little pains to prepare themselves for their last hour? If the just man be ready to sink under the weight of his fear, how shall the sinner be able to keep up ? If the cedar of Lebanon be thus shaken, what will become of the reed in the wilderness? And, in short, If, as St. Peter says, the just man shall scarcely he saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? 1 Pet. iv. 18. Tell me now, after all this, what will be your thoughts at that hour, when, having left this world, you appear before the divine tribunal, in a lonely, poor and naked condition, without any other assistance but what your own good works will bring you, without any other company but that of your own conscience; and if your accounts . fall short, how miserable will your condition be ? To what shame and confusion will your past neglects put you? The princes of Judah were, without doubt, very much surprised when they saw the conqueror Sesach, king of Egypt, putting all Jerusalem to the sword. Their present punishment brought them to a sense of their former crimes ; and yet what was all this in comparison with the trouble and disorder the wicked shall be in, when thev are near their end? What shall they do ? whither shall they go ? or wnat defence shall they be able to make ? Their tears will be then unprofitable to them, their repentance will not avail, their prayers will not be taken notice of, nor their promises of future amendment regarded : they will have no more time given them to do penance ; and as for their riches, their honors, or the respect the world gave them, they will signify least of all. For according to the wise man, riches shall not be profitable in the day of vengeance, but justice will deliver a man from death ; Prov. xi. 4. What will a poor soul do, when it sees itself surrounded with so many miseries? what will it do but cry out, with the royal psalmist, The sorrows of death have encompassed me, and the dangers of hell have found me out? Ps. cxiv. 3. Unhappy wretch that I am! To what a miserable condition have my sins reduced me? how unexpectedly has this unfortunate hour stolen on me ? how suddenly has it surprised me when I least thought of it ? what good will all my former titles and honors do me now ? All my friends and servants, those riches and revenues which I have once been master of, what service can I expect from them now ? Six or seven feet of clay at the most, with a poor winding sheet to bury me in, is to be my whole inheritance ; and to complete my misery, all that money I have been so long hoarding up, with so much pains and injustice, I must now leave behind me, to be squandered away by an extravagant heir, whilst the sins I have been guilty of in getting it, will pursue me to the next world to condemn me to eternal torments. Where is now the delight I took in all my former recreations and pleasures ? They are now at an end for ever, and nothing but the pangs of them remain; that is, the scruples and remorse of my guilty conscience, the stings of which pierce my very heart, and will torment me for all eternity. Why did I not rather employ my time in preparing myself for this last hour? How often have I been forewarned of what I suffer, but would never give ear to the advice ? Why have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof ; and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to them that instructed me ? Prov. v. 12, 13. I have committed all kinds of sins and iniquities, in the very bosom of the church, and in the sight of all the world.

10. See here what anxieties and disquietudes the wicked will be rent with. See here what a burden their own thoughts will be to them in this miserable condition. But to preserve you from falling into the same misfortunes, I here advise you to gather, from what has been said, these three considerations, and to keep them continually in your mind. The first is, that of the trouble you will be in at the hour of your death, for all those sins you have committed against God during the whole course of your life. The second is, how you will wish to have served him, that he might be favorable to you at this moment. The last is, what a rigid penance you would willingly undergo in this world, if you could but obtain the favor of returning thither, that you might begin, from that very moment, to live as you will then desire to have lived before.