Page:Theartofdyingwel00belluoft.djvu/27

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own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." And in another place: " I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me." Here Christ clearly tells us, that by the " world" those are meant, who, with their prince the devil, shall hear at the last day: " Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." St. John adds also in his Epistle: " Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the concupiscence thereof. But he that doth the will of God abideth for ever." (1 Epist. ii.)

Let us now hear how St. James speaks in his Epistle: " Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a Mend of the world, becometh an enemy to God." (chap. iv. 4.)

Thus St. Paul, that vessel of election, speaketh; in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, writing to all the faithful, he says:

You must needs go out of this world;" and in another place in the same Epistle:

But whilst we are judged, we are chastised by the Lord: that we be not condemned with this world." (chap. xi. 32.)