Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/293

 confessions, communions, and prayers shall be examined. "When I shall take a time, I will judge justices." (Ps. lxxiv. 3.) But if every glance, every idle word, and even good works, shall be judged, with what rigour shall immodest expressions, blasphemies, grievous detractions, thefts, and sacrileges be judged? Alas! on that day every soul shall, as St. Jerome says, see, to her own confusion, all the evils which she has done. ” Videbit unusquisque quod fecit." 7. ” Weight and balance are judgments of the Lord.  ” (Prov. xvi. 11.) In the balance of the Lord a holy life and good works make the scale descend; but nobility, wealth, and science have no weight. Hence, if found innocent, the peasant, the poor, and the ignorant shall be rewarded. But the man of rank, of wealth, or of learning, if found guilty, shall be condemned. "Thou art weighed in the balance," said Daniel to Belthassar, ” and art found wanting." (Dan. v. 27.) ” Neither his gold nor his wealth," says Father Alvares, ” but the king alone was weighed." 8. At the divine tribunal the poor sinner shall see himself accused by the devil, who, according to St. Augustine, ” will recite the words of our profession, and will charge us before our face with all that we have done, will state the day and hour in which we sinned." (Con. Jud., tom. 6.) ” He will recite the words of our profession" that is, he will enumerate the promises which we have made to God, and which we afterwards violated. ” He will charge us before our face ;" he will upbraid us with all our wicked deeds, pointing to the day and hour in which they were committed. And he will, as the same saint says, conclude his accusation by saying: "I have suffered neither stripes nor scourges for this man." Lord, I have suffered nothing for this ungrateful sinner, and to make himself my slave he has turned his back on thee who has endured so much for his salvation. He, therefore, justly belongs to me. Even his angel-guardian will, according to Origen, come forward to accuse him, and will say: "I have laboured so many years for his salvation; but he has despised all my admonitions." "Unusquisque angelorum perhibet testimonium, quot annis circa eum laboraverit, sed ille