Now, it is all very true that such talk as this is unjust and unfair, and that the very persons who say such things may really be much worse, at least considering their temptations, than those whom they find fault with. But still they have a right to find fault that those whom God has brought into the true church are not evidently as much better as they ought to be, than those whom he has not; and you cannot altogether blame them for finding fault with him rather than with yourselves, and saying that this Catholic Church of his is rather a poor instrument to save the world with.
Remember then, my brethren, that a bad Catholic is a disgrace to his church, and a dishonor to Almighty God, who founded it. A story is told of a man who, when drunk, would deny that he was a Catholic; he had the right feeling on this point, though he committed a greater sin to save a less one. Imitate him, not in denying your faith, but in taking care not to disgrace it; for God will surely require of you an account, not only of your sins, but also of the dishonor which they have brought on the holy name by which you are called.
Sermon CXLII.
As lightning cometh out of the east,
and appeareth even unto the west:
so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
—St. Matthew xxiv. 27.
These words of our Lord, my dear brethren, refer principally to the general judgment, which will come suddenly upon all, at least all of those who shall be alive at the time when it shall occur. And he could not have used a more striking comparison to show how sudden it will be; how it will take every one unawares, even of those who will be expecting it. You know that when you watch the flashes of lightning in a thunder-storm, though you are expecting them all the time, yet each one takes you by surprise; you hardly know that it has come till it has gone; you do not so much see it as remember it. So it will be at the last and awful day; all at once, without any warning, the heavens will open, and God will come suddenly, not this time in mercy, but in justice; not to save the world, but to judge it; there will be no time even for an act of contrition, but as every one is then found, so will he be for all eternity.
Probably you and I will not be in this world at the time of the general judgment; it is most likely that we shall die before it comes. We shall rise from our graves and be present at it, but we shall have been already judged; so that it will not be by it that we shall be saved or lost. But that judgment which we shall have gone through will perhaps also have come on us suddenly; as suddenly as the one on the last day. For it will come on us the instant that our souls leave the body; the moment after we die we shall appear before the throne of God to receive the sentence of eternal salvation or condemnation. So it may surprise us at any moment; for we may suddenly die.
There is not one of us here who has any certainty that he may not before to-day's sun sets, nay, even this very hour or minute, even before he can draw another breath, be standing before that terrible judgment seat, and receiving that sentence from which there is no appeal.