[Footnote 166: Provo i. 17.]
Yes, the birds and beasts are cunning enough to avoid an open snare; but you go rashly into dangers that are apparent to all but you. Sinners lie in wait for you. They say, in the language of Scripture: "Come, let us lie in wait for blood; let us hide snares for the innocent without cause. Let us swallow him up alive like hell, and whole as one that goeth down into the pit"—and you trust yourself in their power. Oh, fly from them! Consider the treasure you carry. "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Will you sin against your own soul? you that are made after God's likeness; you that are princely and of noble rank, will you defile that image, and degrade yourselves to a level with the brutes that perish?
But there are others whose offence is of another kind. They let their salvation go by sheer neglect. If a man plants a seed, he must water it, or it will not grow. So the soul needs the dew of God's grace; and prayer and the sacraments are the channels of God's grace. Yet how men neglect the Sacraments! Even at Easter, when we are obliged to receive them, some absent themselves. It has been a matter of the keenest pain to us to miss some members of this congregation during the late Paschal season. You say, you have nothing on your conscience, and it is not necessary to go to confession. But is it not necessary to go to communion? Will you venture to deprive yourselves of that food of which, unless ye eat, the Saviour has said, "Ye have no life in you?" Or; you have a sad story to tell. You have fallen into mortal sin, and you are afraid to come. But do you think we have none of the charity of the Angels? Only convert truly, for it is a true conversion that gives the Angels joy, and we can give you the promise that Thomas à Kempis puts into the mouth of Him whose place we fill: "How often soever a man truly repents and comes to Me for grace and pardon, as I live, saith the Lord, who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live, I will not remember his sins any more, but all shall be pardoned him."
And to you, my brethren, who, during the Easter season just past, have recovered the grace of God, I have a word of advice to give in conclusion. Keep your souls with all diligence. Keep your souls; that is your chief, your only care. Keep them by fleeing from the occasions of sin. Keep them by overcoming habitual sins. Nourish them by prayer and the sacraments. How great a disgrace, that all the irrational world should do the will of God, and you, the rulers of the world, should not do it! "The kite in the air hath known her time; the turtle, and the swallow, and the stork have observed the time of their coming; but my people have not known the judgment of the Lord." [Footnote 167]
[Footnote 167: Jer. viii. 7.]
How great an evil it is in a state when an unworthy ruler is at its head. The people mourn and languish, and at last rebel. So, when a man neglects the end for which he was made, the whole creation cries out against him. The stones under his feet cry out. The air he breathes, the food he eats, protest against the abuse he makes of them. Balaam's ass rebuked the madness of the prophet; so, when you live in sin, the very beasts cry out: "If we had souls, we would not be as you. Now we serve God blindly, and of necessity; but if we had souls, it would be our pride and happiness to give Him our willing service." All things praise the Lord;—"showers and dew;" "fire and heat;" "mountains and hills;" "seas and rivers;" "beasts and cattle." O sons of men, make not a discord in the universal harmony! Receive not your souls in vain! Serve God; "praise Him and exalt Him forever."
Sermon XXI.
The Catholic's Certitude Concerning
The Way Of Salvation.
(Fifth Sunday After Pentecost.)
"I know whom I have believed, and I am certain that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day."
—II. Tim. I. 12.
No one can deny that this sentiment of the Apostle is a very comfortable one. To be confident of salvation is surely an excellent and desirable thing. But the question with many will be, is it possible to attain it? Now, there is one sense in which we cannot have a security of our salvation. We cannot have personally an infallible assurance that we are now and shall always continue in the grace of God, and shall at last taste the joys of heaven. Our free-will forbids such an assurance, and neither our happiness nor the attributes of God demand it. But there is another sense in which a man may be said to have a security of his salvation, viz.: that he has within his reach, beyond all doubt, the proper and necessary means for attaining that end; for if the means are certain, it is plain that in the use of those means he may acquire a moral certainty that he is doing those things which God requires of him, and a well-grounded hope of everlasting life. Such a security it would seem a man ought to be able to attain. Without it the service of God must be slavish. There can be no free and generous service where there is not confidence. When one is travelling at night on a road he is ignorant of, he goes slow, he falters; but in the broad daylight, in a road he is sure of, he walks with a free, bold step. So in religion, if we have no security that we are right, we can never do much for God. Man is not an abject being; he is erect; he looks up to heaven; he seems to face his Maker and to demand from Him to know the terms on which he stands toward Him. A confidence, then, at least of being able to secure our salvation, must be within our reach. The only question is, how is it to be attained? I answer, the Catholic has within his reach the security of his salvation, and he alone.