Page:TheParadiseOfTheChristianSoul.djvu/144

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

PART II.


OF THE HONOUR AND VENERATION OF THE SAINTS WHO REIGN WITH CHRIST IN HEAVEN.

FOR MONDAY.


CHAPTER I.

Colloquy between Christ and Man on Ike method and practice of honouring the Saints.


MAN. How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs and faints for thy courts! For, when I contemplate the happiness of thy elect, who now feast with thee in thy kingdom, and are inebriated with the plenty of thy house, and are made to drink of the torrent of thy pleasure, my soul, too, thirsts after thee, the strong living God; when shall I come, and appear before the face of God? My soul is weary of my life, that is full of so many miseries and pains. Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly, and be at rest? For better is one day in thy courts above thousands. Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged! Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I long to be dissolved, and to be with thee, my Christ Jesus. Oh, how blessed are they that dwell in. thy house, O Lord! They shall praise thee for ever and ever.

Christ. Have a little more patience, my son; and, to be the more sure of arriving there, first learn the way whereby the saints my friends have attained to glory. Mark their footsteps, if thou wilt win the same race. See thou refuse not the toils and the wrestlings of those whose rewards delight thee. None will be crowned but he who strives lawfully. Were not they, and even I myself, obliged to toil and suffer, and so enter into glory? And see, my elect too, amidst those miseries of the flesh, endured to live while they longed to die; but they had