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.”28    John xvi. 20. 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?29    Phil. i. 23. You have your joys where you have your longings.

CAPUT XXVIII.

Saginentur ejusmodi dulcibus convivae sui, et loca et tempora et invitator ipsorum est. Nostrae coenae, nostrae nuptiae nondum sunt, non possumus cum illis discumbere, quia nec illi nobiscum. Vicibus disposita res est. Nunc illi laetantur, nos conflictamur (Joan., XVI). Saeculum (inquit) gaudebit, vos tristes eritis. Lugeamus ergo dum ethnici gaudent, ut quum lugere coeperint, gaudeamus, ne pariter nunc gaudentes, tunc quoque pariter lugeamus. Delicatus es, christiane, si et in saeculo voluptatem concupiscis, imo nimium stultus, si hoc existimas 0659B voluptatem. Philosophi quidam hoc nomen quieti et tranquillitati dederunt, in ea gaudent, in ea avocantur, in ea etiam gloriantur. Tu mihi metas et scenas et pulverem et arenas suspiras. Dicas velim; non possumus vivere sine voluptate, qui mori cum voluptate debebimus? Nam quod est aliud votum nostrum, quam quod et Apostoli, exire de saeculo, et recipi apud Dominum (Phil. I)? Hic voluptas, ubi et votum.