Author: Girolamo Savonarola

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 60

ISBN-13: 9781230352282

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ...by men wifh the-gamp arHnnr nrf mnctanry that they have shown in following Him. This is the reason why Christians are so closely united together; f5f we see that they love Jesus Christ above all things. For His sake they likewise love each other, or wnatsoever race and country they may be; and the more their faith in Christ increases, the stronger grows their brotherly love. This could not be the case were their faith not true. For fallacy and error cause, not harmony, but discord. Again. The soul enjoys greater happiness in proportion as, by love and contemplation, it draws nearer to its last end. But the happiness enjoyed by Christians far surpasses all pleasures oi understanding and sense. This trtrttrts" proved byTKeTnvincible constancy of the martyrs, who went to death rejoicing and exulting; by the numberless monks and hermits who, relinquishing all things, and living in the practice of the greatest austerity, have yet enjoyed incomparable happiness; and by the numerous philosophers who have found such delight in the study of Holy Scripture, that, in order to devote themselves to it, they have abandoned every other branch of learning. Hence we see that the joy which souls find in Christ exceeds all other happiness. If, then, felicity be synonymous with proXllliily Ur our last end, Christ, in whom all happiness is found, must be the Last End of human life. In order to comprehend, collectively, all the properties of our Last End we reason thus. As all things of the same species tend naturally to the same end, be it proximate or ultimate, it follows that men, who are all of the same species, must be fitted for some one thing which is the common end of human life. Now, all men agree in professing that they tend towards a last end;...