Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/164

 for your past confessions can scarcely have been valid. Go forth instantly from the slavery of the devil. Attend to the advice of the Holy Ghost. "Give not thy ears to the cruel." (Prov. v. 9.) Why will you serve the devil, your enemy, who is so cruel a master who makes you lead a life of misery here, to bring you to a life of still greater misery in hell for all eternity? “Lazarus, come forth. ”Go out of the pit of sin; give yourself immediately to God, who calls you, and is ready to receive you if you turn to him. Tremble! this may be for you the last call, to which if you do not correspond, you shall be lost.

I HOPE, my dear Christians, that, as Christ is risen, you have in this holy paschal time, gone to confession, and have risen from your sins. But, attend to what St. Jerome teaches that many begin well, but few persevere. "Incipere multorem est, perseverare paucorum." Now the Holy Ghost declares, that he who perseveres in holiness to death, and not they who begin a good life, shall be saved. "But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved." (Matt. xxiv. 13.) The crown of Paradise, says St. Bernard, is promised to those who commence, but it is given only to those who persevere. ”Inchoantibus præmium promittitur, perseverantibus datur." (Ser. vi. Deinodo bene viv.) Since, then, brethren, you have resolved to give yourselves to God, listen to the admonition of the Holy Ghost: ”Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thyself for temptation." (Eccl. ii. 1.) Do not imagine that you shall have no more temptations, but prepare yourself for the combat, and guard against a relapse into the sins you have confessed; for, if you lose the grace of God again, you