Jan Pascha

2016-04-07

Jan Pascha

Spiritual Pilgrimage of Jerusalem (c. 1604-05)

“Seeing it is so (my Catholic brother) that this present life is no other thing but a continual Pilgrimage which we are to make upon the earth: and that all the time of our life is a term prefixed of God the Creator, during which space we ought to accomplish this voyage, which when we have faithfully walked, we may come to the City of heavenly Jerusalem, which is our kingdom and most proper country: were it not great folly or negligence in us, if we should forget, or to say more truly, despise, and not accompt,1 of the principal place of our repose, but like unwise men rather to sit down and rest ourselves in the middle of our journey, to wit in the filthy and dirty ways of this wretched and wicked world? The traveller or foot Post, which is ordinarily hired to go some journey, although his journey be long, the weather foul, and the ways very unclean, yet hinder not his voyage for the difficulty he conceives of the labour, but knowing he gets his living by means of the gains, and that he shall well cherish, and refresh himself, when he is arrived at his Inn, with great facility supporting the asperity of the travail, upon hope of the recompense which he afterwards expects. We then (dear brethren expecting the Crown of everlasting glory), which Our Lord has promised to such as love him, shall we appear more unwilling, or weary for the obtaining hereof, then we would be for the gaining only of some temporal commodity? Let us behold therefore what care or pains our living Lord hath taken of our salvation, let us learn to travail courageously and like devout and holy pilgrims to follow his steps, who hath left us an example of his blessed life and passion, and ruminate in our hearts every day apart, some several points thereof, and after well to practice the same in ourselves (for such ought to be the end of all our spiritual exercises) by which means we may attain to the happy end that we desire whereof having found this little Treatise of A Spiritual Pilgrim, offering myself that it would be a thing very agreeable to all manner of devout and pious persons, I thought good to bring the same to light. I beseech the gentle Reader to accept of this little gift, and to respect more my hardy affection, than the littleness of the thing. The rest I remit to the disposition of Almighty God the Creator of all things, whose only honour and glory I desire herein, Amen.”


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