Or, it might have been in less striking ways that grace did its work. It may have been a book, a word, an interior inspiration, some of the seasons of the holy Church, holy communion, some of the lesser changes of life, a fit of sickness, a violent temptation: these may have been the instruments which God made use of, from time to time, to convey special graces to your soul. Sometimes the aim of these graces was to arouse you out of some deeply-seated habit of sin; sometimes to draw your heart away from the world to heaven; sometimes it was a call to prayer; sometimes a warning of danger: in fine, for some purpose bearing on your salvation, there they are, those visits of grace in your past life, as distinct and unmistakable as any other part of your history. When we read the Bible story of such saints as Abraham, Moses, and Elias, what strikes us as most wonderful and most beautiful is the familiarity in which they lived with God, how God drew near to them and spoke to them. Now, such passages have a parallel in the history of each one of us. There are times in our lives, and not a few such times, when God draws near to the soul, when He confronts it, makes special demands upon it, addresses it no longer in general, but particularly and individually; when He says to the soul, Go and do this, Do not do that, as unmistakably as when He said to Abraham: "Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father's house, and come into the land which I shall show thee." [Footnote 83]
[Footnote 83: Gen. xii. 1.]
And if this be so, the mode in which we receive these divine communications must have a great deal to do with our guilt or innocence before God. We read in the Book of Judges, that on a certain occasion an angel of the Lord appeared to Manne and his wife, with a message from on high. He appeared to them in a human shape, and spoke with a human voice, and they did not know that he was an angel. It was not until they saw him ascend to heaven in the flame from the altar that they understood that they had been talking with one of the heavenly host. Then they said: "We shall certainly die because we have seen God!" [Footnote 84]
[Footnote 84: Judges xiii. 22.]
Now, there is a sense in which this exclamation is neither superstitious nor strange, as the expression, that is, of their anxiety lest in their ignorance they might have treated their heavenly visitor in some unseemly way. O my brethren, it is no light thing for God to draw near to a human soul. It is no light thing for Him to speak to us. When He speaks we cannot be as if He had not spoken. "His word shall not return to Him void." The relation between the Creator and the creature is such, that the moment He speaks our position is altered. When He calls we must either follow or refuse to follow; there is no neutrality possible.
Oh, what a thought, that if indeed God has spoken to us often in our past lives, if He has given us special calls and warnings, we must often have resisted Him! There are many of us, I fear, who have altogether too little conscience on this subject. A man comes to confession after an absence of several years. He confesses his more prominent sins against the divine commandments, but perhaps he does not even mention his failure to perform each year his Easter duty. And if the confessor calls his attention to it, he has nothing to say but, "Oh, yes, I neglected that." You see, he does not realize at all that God has been calling him from year to year, has met him again and again, and exhorted him to repent, and he has refused.
Another man hears a sermon which thoroughly awakens his conscience. He sees in the clearest light the danger of his besetting sin. His conscience is stirred, he almost resolves to break off his sin, but he does not quite come to the point, he postpones his conversion, and, after a little, dismisses the subject from his mind. Now here again, you see, is a distinct resistance to grace. The man has not only continued in sin, but has continued in sin in spite of God's warning.
Again, a person, free from the grosser forms of sin, has some radical fault of character; some fault which is apparent to everyone but himself; a deep obstinacy; a dangerous levity; an inveterate slothfulness; an overbearing temper; a domineering spirit—faults which are the source of innumerable difficulties—and he is plainly warned of these faults, but refuses to acknowledge them, strengthens himself in his self-deception, and clings to these faults as if they were a necessary part of his character. What is he doing, but frustrating the designs of God, despising His reproof, and rejecting the grace which was meant to make him so much better, so much happier, so much more useful?