Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/126

 pity on the obstinate sinner The Lord pardons sins, but he cannot pardon those who are determined to offend him. Nor can we demand from God a reason why he pardons one a hundred sins, and takes others out of life, and sends them to hell, after three or four sins. By his Prophet Amos, God has said: ”For three crimes of Damascus, and for four, I will not convert it." (i. 3.) In this we must adore the judgments of God, and say with the Apostle: ”the depth of the riches, of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments. ” (Rom. xi. 33.) He who receives pardon, says St. Augustine, is pardoned through the pure mercy of God; and they who are chastised are justly punished. ”Quibus datur misericordia, gratis datur: quibus non datur ex justitia non datur." (1 de Corrept.) How many has God sent to hell for the first offence? St. Gregory relates, that a child of five years, who had arrived at the use of reason, for having uttered a blasphemy, was seized by the devil and carried to hell. The divine mother revealed to that great servant of God, Benedicta of Florence, that a boy of twelve years was damned after the first sin. Another boy of eight years died after his first sin and was lost. You say: I am young: there are many who have committed more sins than I have. But is God on that account obliged to wait for your repentance if you offend him? In the gospel of St. Matthew (xxi. 19) we read, that the Saviour cursed a fig tree the first time he saw it without fruit. ”May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And immediately the fig tree withered away." You must, then, tremble at the thought of committing a single mortal sin, particularly if you have already been guilty of mortal sins. 3. ”Be not without fear about sins forgiven, and add not sin to sin." (Eccl. v. 5.) Say not then, O sinner; As God has forgiven me other sins, so he will pardon me this one if I commit it. Say not this; for, if to the sin which has been forgiven you add another, you have reason to fear that this new sin shall be united to your former guilt, and that thus the number will be completed, and that you shall be abandoned. Behold how the Scripture unfolds this truth more clearly in