6. Let us now, I pray you, take courage at His love to man, and let us
show forth an anxious repentance, before the day come on, which permits
us not to profit thereby. For as yet all depends on us, but then He
that judges has alone control over the sentence. "Let us therefore
come before His face with confession;" [580] let us bewail, let us
mourn. For if we should be able to prevail upon the Judge before the
appointed day to forgive us our sins, then we need not so much as enter
into the court; as on the other hand, if this be not done, He will hear
us publicly in the presence of the world, and we shall no longer have
any hope of pardon.
For no one of those who have not done away with
their sins here, when he has departed there shall be able to escape
his account for them; but as they who are taken out of these earthly
prisons are brought in their chains to the place of judgment, even so
all souls, when they have gone away here bound with the manifold
chains of their sins, are led to the awful judgment-seat. For in truth
our present life is nothing better than a prison. But as when we have
entered into that apartment, we see all bound with chains; so now if we
withdraw ourselves from outward show, and enter into each man's life,
into each man's soul, we shall see it bound with chains more grievous
than iron: and this most especially if you enter into the souls of
them that are rich.
For the more men have about them, so much the more
are they bound. As therefore with regard to the prisoner, when you
see him with irons on his back, on his hands, and often on his feet
too, you do therefore most of all account him miserable; so also as
to the rich man, when you see him encompassed with innumerable
affairs, let him not be therefore rich, but rather for these very
things wretched, in your account. For together with these bonds, he
has a cruel jailer too, the wicked love of riches; which suffers him
not to pass out of this prison, but provides for him thousands of
fetters, and guards, and doors, and bolts; and when he has cast him
into the inner prison, persuades him even to feel pleasure in these
bonds; that he may not find so much as any hope of deliverance from the
evils which press on him.
And if in thought you were to lay open that man's soul, you would
see it not bound only, but squalid, and filthy, and teeming with
vermin. For no better than vermin are the pleasures of luxury, but even
more abominable, and destroy the body more, together with the soul
also; and upon the one and upon the other they bring ten thousand
scourges of sickness.
On account then of all these things let us entreat the Redeemer of our
souls, that He would both burst asunder our bands, and remove this our
cruel jailer, and having set us free from the burden of those iron
chains, He would make our spirits lighter than any wing. And as we
entreat Him, so let us contribute our own part, earnestness, and
consideration, and an excellent zeal. For thus we shall be able both in
a short time to be freed from the evils which now oppress us, and to
learn in what condition we were before, and to lay hold on the liberty
which belongs to us; unto which God grant we may all attain, by the
grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory
and power forever and ever. Amen.
May you be greatly blessed,
+William
Monk Michael
Web Page;
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