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Page:MeditationsOnTheMysteriesOfOurHolyV1.djvu/222

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thing" [1] to have divided themselves from their God, and to have abandoned His holy fear.

Colloquy. — Fear, O my soul, the terribleness of this second death, that thou mayest avoid the iniquity of the first death! " Enter" in spirit " into these holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth," [2] and hide thyself in them, beholding quietly what passeth there, that thou mayest fear the wrath of the Almighty and escape His fury!

2. I will likewise consider how "the just," as David says, " shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge" [3] that God's justice takes on the wicked, for although among the damned there may be their father or mother, brother or friend, they shall receive no pain, but rather joy, to see the great reason that Almighty God has for what He does; so that they shall sing the song that Moses sung when the Egyptians were drowned in the sea, " The depths have covered them, they are sunk to the bottom like a stone. Thy right hand, O Lord, is magnified in strength: Thy right hand, O Lord, hath slain the enemy;" [4] or the song of the Lamb, which St. John makes mention of, saying, " Great and wonderful are Thy works, O Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Thy ways, O King of Ages! Who shall not fear Thee, 0 Lord, and magnify Thy name? for Thou only art holy," because Thy judgments are manifest " to all." [5]

3. Hence I will go on to consider the execution of the sentence of the righteous, beholding how all the blessed are carried above the air, following their captain Jesus, singing a thousand songs of jubilation, and glorifying Almighty God for having delivered them from such and so great peril, with those words of the Psalmist, " Blessed be our Lord, who hath not given us to be a prey to their teeth!

  1. Jer. ii. 19.
  2. Isa. ii. 10.
  3. Ps. lvii. 11.
  4. Exod. xv. 1.
  5. Apoc. xv. 3.