Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/304

 300 FAMILIAR COLLOQUIES. ing to trouble more people when he went out of the world than he did when he came into it. Ma. I want to hear .this story out. Ph. You shall hear it presently. Thursday came, and finding himself extremely weak, he kept his bed. The parish priest being then called, gave him the extreme unction, and again the sacrament ; but he made no confession, for he said he had no scruple upon his mind. The parson then began to talk to him about his burial, with what pomp and in what place he would be buried. Bury me, says he, as you would bury the meanest Chris- tian ; nor do I concern myself where you lay this worthless body of mine it will be found all one at the day of judgment wheresoever you lay it ; and as to the pomp of my funeral, I matter it not. When he came to mention the ringing of bells and saying masses (tricenary and anniversary), pardons, and purchasing a communion of merits, he replied, My good pastor, I shall find myself never the worse if no bell be rung at all; if you will afford me but one funeral office it will abundantly content me, but if there be anything else that the public custom of the church has made necessary, and that cannot well be omitted without scandal to the weak, I leave that to your pleasure. Nor am I at all desirous to buy any man's prayers or rob any man of his merits; there is merit enough in Christ, and to spare; and I trust that I myself shall be the better for tke prayers and merits of the whole church, if 1 be but a living member of it. My whole hope is in these two assurances : the one is, that the Lord Jesus, the chief Shepherd, hath taken all my sins upon Him, nailing them to His cross ; the other is, that which Christ Himself hath signed and sealed with His own holy blood, which gives us assurance of eternal salvation if we place all our trust in Him. Far be it from me to insist upon being furnished with merits and pardons, and provoke my God to enter into judgment with His servant, in whose sight no flesh living shall be jus- tified ; because His mercy is boundless and unspeakable, to it I appeal from His justice. The parson hearing this went away; and Cornelius, with great joy and cheerfulness (as one transported with the hope of a better life), caused some texts to be read out of the Holy Scriptures, that confirm the hope of the resurrection and set before him the rewards of immor- tality ; as that out of Isaiah, concerning the death of Hezekiah, together with the hymn ; and then the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, the death of Lazarus out of John, but espe- cially the history of Christ's passion out of the Gospels. But, oh, with what affection did he take in all these scriptures, sighing at some passages, folding his hands, as in thankfulness, at others ; one while rapt and overjoyed at some passages, and another time sending up short ejaculations. After dinner, having taken a little rest, he ordered the twelfth chapter of St. John to be read to the end of the story. Here you would have said the man was transfigured and possessed with a new spirit. When it grew towards evening he called for his wife and children, and raising himself as well as he* could, he thus bespake them : My dear wife, the same God that once joined us together doth now part us, but only in our bodies, and that too for a short time. That care, kind- ness, and piety that thou hast hitherto used to divide betwixt me and the tender pledges of our mutual love, do thou now transfer wholly to