Momentary and small is both the consolation and the tribulation of the present life; eternal and greatest is both the consolation and the tribulation of the life to come. Therefore they are fools who despise the consolation or the tribulation of the life to come. The first proposition of this argument is known through experience; the second is most surely known through the Scripture of the Holy Spirit; the third follows from the two preceding. If anyone, then, wishes to master the art of dying well easily and quickly, let him not be content with reading this book or others like it; but let him consider attentively, not once but often, not with a mind to learn, but with the intention of living well and dying happily, how far eternal things surpass momentary ones, and the most grievous surpass the slightest. And if he desires to be most firmly confirmed in this most useful truth, let him consider the examples of those who were before us, whether they were wise or foolish — that is, whether by living well they died happily, or by living badly they perished eternally. And to spare my readers the labor of seeking out examples, I will myself bring forward three pairs of examples: one of kings, another of private men, a third of ecclesiastics; and I will set them all forth, drawn from the sacred Scriptures.
The first will be that of Saul and David. Saul, the first king of the Hebrews, when he was a private and poor man, was so upright that, as Scripture testifies (1 Sam. 9:2), there was not a better man than he among the children of Israel. Once made king, he changed his life and his ways, so that now no worse man than he could be found. He persecuted the innocent David even to death, for no other reason than that he suspected David would be king after him. At last, when he had reigned twenty years, he was slain in battle and went down to hell. David, faithful and devout, declared king after Saul's long persecution, governed the kingdom most justly for forty years, during which he endured many tribulations, and at last rested in peace. Let us now compare the consolations and tribulations of each, and see which of them learned better the art of living well and dying happily. While Saul lived, he did not enjoy the pleasure of ruling — which is usually the greatest of all — in its purity and fullness, because of the hatred with which he persecuted David. Thus for twenty years he tasted the sweetness of reigning, but not without the gall of envy. When those years had run their course, all the joy of life fled from him, and pure and eternal calamity took its place; and now for some two thousand and seventy years his nobler part, which is the soul, has lived in the greatest pains — and, what is more miserable still, in pains that will endure without end. David, on the contrary, lived seventy years and reigned forty. And although he tasted tribulations neither small nor few, yet he also experienced consolations most great and most frequent, from the divine revelations which he expressed in his sweetest Psalms; and after death he passed not to punishments but to refreshment, into Abraham's bosom with the holy Patriarchs; and after the resurrection of Christ the Lord, he ascended with Christ Himself to the eternal kingdom of heaven. Let the reader now judge whether the departure from the body of wicked men, even of kings or emperors, is not most unhappy, and the departure of the just, even though they be kings or emperors, most happy. Saul, as I have said, reigned twenty years; after his death he remained in the fire of hell for two thousand years and more, without any relief. What comparison is there between twenty years and two thousand? Who would choose twenty years of the highest and purest pleasure, if he knew for certain that on account of that pleasure he would remain in a most burning furnace for two thousand years and more? And would any man be so senseless as to consent to undergo the greatest of all torments for, I will not say two thousand, but two hundred years, in order afterwards to enjoy for twenty years a pleasure however great? What if we now add that the torment of hell will not last two thousand years, but will have no end?
Surely this eternity of torments alone, destined to endure without any cessation and without any relief, is such that it can bend an iron heart and a brazen breast to penance. The reader may add the same consideration for himself concerning the momentary and light tribulation of David, compared with the greatest and eternal glory and delight which this same David obtained after death in the heavenly kingdom — although the torments of hell move us no more than the joys of paradise.
The second example will be that of the rich glutton (Dives) and Lazarus, from the Gospel of St. Luke. The rich glutton rejoiced for a short time with his friends, for he was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day; Lazarus, on the contrary, a beggar and sick, lay at the rich glutton's gate full of sores, and longed to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and no one gave him any. But a little later all was changed: the rich glutton died and went down to hell; Lazarus also died and was carried by the angels to the place of refreshment, into Abraham's bosom. And indeed the rich glutton, after his briefest consolation, began to be tormented in the flame of eternal fire; he is tormented even now, and without any relief or respite he will be tormented for ever and ever. Lazarus, devout and patient, after his brief tribulation passed to rest in Abraham's bosom; then, after the resurrection of Christ, he departed to the heavenly and most happy kingdom, where he will be blessed without end. Certainly, if we too had been among the living at that time, few or none of us would have wished to be like Lazarus, but all or most of us would have wished to be like the rich glutton; yet now we all judge Lazarus most happy and the rich glutton most miserable. Why, then, now that the choice is given us, do we not choose the virtue of Lazarus rather than the vices of the rich glutton? For riches are not to be blamed, since Abraham (Luke 16), David, and many others among the saints were exceedingly rich; but what is to be condemned is drunkenness, luxury, vanity, mercilessness, and the other vices which brought the rich glutton down to hell.
Nor do we consider in Lazarus only his poverty and his sores; we extol his patience and piety. But this is truly astonishing: although we know all these things, and judge the rich glutton most foolish and Lazarus most wise, yet still not a few are found who never cease to imitate the rich glutton in their manner of life, though they can be most certain that they will be like him in his punishments, whose likeness they have chosen to copy in his vices.
There remains a third example: that of Judas the traitor and of St. Matthias, who succeeded Judas in the apostolate. Judas, utterly unhappy in this world and most unhappy in the other, followed the Lord and Savior for three years, striving to fill his purse by sacrilegious theft, and not content with the moneys he used to take for himself from the common alms; until, goaded on by the disease of avarice, he came to the point of selling his Lord and Master. But a little afterward, driven by the Devil to despair, he gave back the money and hanged himself, losing at once both temporal and eternal life. And so the Lord pronounced that dreadful sentence upon Judas: "It were good for him if he had not been born." (Matt. 26:24.) St. Matthias, who succeeded Judas — that is, was chosen in his place — endured a momentary labor and sorrow, not without an abundance of heavenly delights; but now, with every labor and sorrow ended, he reigns in bliss with Christ in heaven, whom he served most faithfully on earth. This comparison of Judas with Matthias applies to bishops and religious. For Judas was an Apostle of Christ, and by that very fact a bishop designate: it was of Judas and Matthias that St. Peter explained those words of the Psalm, "His bishopric let another take." (Ps. 108:8.) And the same Judas was numbered among religious men, since St. Peter said in the name of all the Apostles: "Behold, we have left all things and have followed You; what then shall we have?" (Matt. 19:27.) Judas, then, the most unhappy of all men, when he had fallen from that most lofty state of perfection, lost by restoring it even the little gain he had wickedly acquired; and becoming his own executioner, he was condemned to eternal torments. He can serve as a warning to all ecclesiastics and religious, that they may see how they walk, and what danger hangs over them unless they answer to the perfection of their state by holy living. For Saul and the rich glutton passed by dying from temporal happiness to eternal misery; but Judas had no temporal happiness at all, only a shadow of it, or rather the hope of happiness — and yet by killing himself he went down to eternal ruin, and to a ruin indeed more dreadful than was the ruin of Saul and of the rich glutton. But even if Judas, by heaping up wealth, had surpassed the riches of all mortals, and had afterward still come, as in fact he now has, to eternal poverty and to the torments of hell that shall endure without end, what would that heap of riches have availed him?
Let the firm and true reasoning therefore stand, which we set down at the beginning of this chapter, and which we then found in the words of the Apostle: "That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation worketh for us, above measure exceedingly, an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Cor. 4:17–18.)