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Even as things are, if your
thought is to spend this period of existence in enjoyments, how are you so
ungrateful as to reckon insufficient, as not thankfully to recognize the many
and exquisite pleasures God has bestowed upon you? For what more delightful
than to have God the Father and our Lord at peace with us, than revelation of
the truth than confession of our errors, than pardon of the innumerable sins of
our past life? What greater pleasure than distaste of pleasure itself, contempt
of all that the world can give, true liberty, a pure conscience, a contented
life, and freedom from all fear of death? What nobler than to tread under foot
the gods of the nations--to exorcise evil spirits--to perform cures--to seek
divine revealings--to live to God? These are the pleasures, these the
spectacles that befit Christian men--holy, everlasting, free. Count of these as
your circus games, fix your eyes on the courses of the world, the gliding
seasons, reckon up the periods of time, long for the goal of the final
consummation, defend the societies of the churches, be startled at God's
signal, be roused up at the angel's trump, glory in the palms of martyrdom. If
the literature of the stage delight you, we have literature in abundance of our
own--plenty of verses, sentences, songs, proverbs; and these not fabulous, but
true; not tricks of art, but plain realities. Would you have also fightings and
wrestlings? Well, of these there is no lacking, and they are not of slight
account. Behold unchastity overcome by chastity, perfidy slain by faithfulness,
cruelty stricken by compassion, impudence thrown into the shade by modesty:
these are the contests we have among us, and in these we win our crowns. Would
you have something of blood too? You have Christ's.
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