Learn, then, my brethren, to keep yourselves in the presence of God. To forget God, what is it, but to plunge ourselves into sin and misery. To remember God, what is it, but to be strong and happy. "Walk before Me, and be thou perfect," said God to Abraham. That is the secret of perfection, the way to heaven. It is not necessary to go out of your own mind. It is not necessary to lift the eye to heaven, or bend the knee. Closer than the union of soul and body is the union between God and thee. Quicker than thought is the communion between thy soul and its Maker. "Thou shalt cry," says the Almighty, "and I will say: Here I am—yea, even before thy call, I will hear, and even while thou art yet speaking I will answer." [Footnote 182]
[Footnote 182: Isai. lviii. 9; lxv. 24.]
Practise, then, attention to the presence of God. I do not speak so much now of daily prayers, and of your devotions in the church. But when you are abroad in the busy world, or in your homes, accustom yourselves from time to time to think of God. Complicated pieces of machinery require the care of an overseer from time to time, lest they get out of gear. So we must think of God from time to time during the day, and keep the powers of our soul in harmony with the will of God, lest they fall into disorder, and the work of life be hindered. It is not a work of very great difficulty. The chief difficulty lies in its simplicity. It is so much easier to pray than we think, that oftentimes we have already prayed when we are perplexing ourselves how to pray, and busying ourselves with preparing to pray. God is in us, in the very centre of our soul. He knows its most secret thoughts, and thus a simple act of the will is enough to bring us into communion with Him. To realize this is to be men of prayer, to be as happy as it is possible for us to be in this life, and to begin here that contemplation of God which will constitute our everlasting beatitude in heaven.
Sermon XXIII.
Keeping The Law Not Impossible.
(Ninth Sunday After Pentecost.)
"I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me."
—Phil. VI. 13.
If I am not mistaken, a very great number of the sins that men commit, are committed through hopelessness. The pleasures of sin are by no means unmixed. Indeed, sin is a hard master; and all who practise it find it so. I never met a man who said it was a good thing, or that it made him happy. On the contrary, all lament it, and say that it makes them miserable. Why, then, do they commit it? Very often, I am persuaded, because they think they have no power to resist it. They feel in themselves strong passions; they have yielded to them in times past, they see that others yield to them, and so they come to think it impossible not to yield to them. The law of God is too difficult, they say. It is impossible to keep it. It may do for priests or nuns who are cut off from the world, or for women, or for the old, or for children, but for us who mix in the world, whose blood is warm, and whose passions are strong, it is too high and pure. It is all very well to talk about; it is all very well to hold up a high standard to us, but you must not expect us to attain it. The utmost that you can expect of us is to stop sinning, now and then, and make the proper acknowledgments to God by going to confession; but actually to try not to sin, to keep on endeavoring not to sin at any time, or under any circumstances, that is impossible, or at least so extremely difficult that, practically speaking, it is impossible. Are there none of you, my brethren, who recognise this as the secret language of your hearts? Is there not an impression in your minds that the law of God is too strict, or at least that it is too strict for you, and that you cannot keep it? If so, do not harbor it. It is a fatal error. No; it is not impossible to keep God's law. It is not impossible to keep from mortal sin. It is, I admit, impossible to keep from every venial sin, though even here we can do a great deal, if we try. Such is the frailty of human nature that even the best men, as time goes on, fall into some slight faults, only the Blessed Virgin having been able, as we believe, to pass a whole life without even in the smallest thing offending God. But it is possible for all of us to keep from mortal sin, at all times and under all circumstances. This, I think, you will acknowledge when you consider the character of God, the nature of God's law, and the power of God's grace which is promised to us.
I say the character of God is a pledge of our ability to keep from mortal sin. God requires us to be free from mortal sin, and He requires it under the severest penalties, and therefore it must be possible for us. You may say, "God requires us to be free from venial sin too, and yet you have just said we cannot avoid every venial sin." But the case is far different. A venial sin does not separate us from God, and does not receive extreme punishment from Him—nay, those venial sins which even good men commit, and which are only in small part voluntary, are very easily forgiven—but a mortal sin cuts us off entirely from God, and deserves eternal punishment. You know, one mortal sin is enough to damn a man—one single sin of drunkenness, for instance, or impurity; a cherished hatred, a false oath, or an act of grave injustice. One such sin is sufficient to sink a man in hell, and although we know very little in particular of the torments of hell, we have every reason to believe that they are most bitter, and we know that they are eternal. Now, can it be thought that a being of justice and goodness, as we know God to be, would inflict so extreme a punishment for an offence which was unavoidable, or could only be avoided with the utmost difficulty? Holy Scripture sends us to an earthly parent for an example of that tenderness and affection which we are to expect from our Heavenly Father. "If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him." [Footnote 183]
[Footnote 183: St. Matt. vii. 11.]