Home, where thou art awaited by the vast company of them that love thee, of Angels, Apostles, Martyrs, Virgins, and all my Elect, the sight and conversation of whom will be to thee far more delightful than ever was any friendship upon earth. Shouldst thou not pant rather after their society? Forget, therefore, thy father’s house.[1] Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred;[2] for thy portion is in the land of the living. Wouldst thou not be brought into a land flowing with honey and milk, and be with me in Paradise?
Why art thou afraid to go forth? My Elect rejoiced when they received the answer of death, and when the laying away of their tabernacle was at hand.[3] Behold, my Vessel of election, how he desired to be dissolved and to be with me, and reckoned death for gain![4]
MAN. Why should not Paul desire to be dissolved? He had fought a good fight, he had kept the faith, he had finished his course;[5] as to the rest, he knew that there was laid up for him a crown of justice, which thou, the just Judge, wouldst render to him; nay, he was certain that nothing would be able to separate him from thee.[6] But it is because I am a sinner that I desire not to be dissolved; nay, I dread it, because I know that the death of the sinner is very evil.[7] And how can it be other than evil, when it is not to be succeeded by life? I am afraid to go forth, and I begin to tremble all over at the very entrance of the harbour, while I fear that none is standing by to receive me when I go forth. For how can I go forth in safety, if thou, O Lord, keep not my coming in and my going out? Alas! I shall be the sport and the prey of the thieves that would intercept me, while none is near to redeem me or to save! Blessed, indeed, are the dead that die in the Lord! But man, O Lord, knows not, alas! whether he is worthy of love or of hate, and what lot that is which awaits him after death; and how can it be that he should not fear and shrink from death, the issue of which to him is so very uncertain?
CHRIST. Fear, therefore, not to die, but to live ill. To what purpose is it to shrink from that which thou canst not escape, and so to live as to incur a serious danger thereby? But yet my will is, that with fear and trembling[8]
