Page:Post-Mediaeval Preachers.djvu/212

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drew is a blessed child of the Cross. He shows how that to him the Cross was as a second mother, guiding him through life, sus-taining him and embracing him in death.

IX. The love of Christ’s Cross regenerates us, assures us of our sonship, and is an earnest of our inheritance.

At our birth into this world we are placed in divers positions by the will of God and by no appointment of our own. So some are born to be kings, some to be slaves, some to be philosophers, others to be fools.

But at the regeneration it will not be so. Our position then will be regulated by our own selves, for we shall be nearer to, or more remote from, Christ; be princes or subjects according to our love for the Cross of Christ during our earthly existence, according to the closeness of our walk in the bloody footprints of our Master, bearing our crosses after Him, in the season of our probation.

And in conclusion, Deza makes an eloquent and earnest appeal to his hearers to redeem the time because the days are evil.


The following is a translation of the seventh section of this most striking sermon, which exhibits at the same time his power and his weakness, his merits and his defects:

“Behold!” will say the Judge, with threatening voice, to that great throng of accused; “behold! on this Cross