Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/295

 answer? He shall be covered with confusion, and shall remain silent, like the man found without the nuptial garment. ” But he was silent." (Matt. xxii. 12.) His very sins shall shut the sinner’s mouth. "And all iniquity shall stop her mouth." (Ps. cvi. 42.) There,, says St. Thomas of Villanova, there shall be no intercessor to whom the sinner can have recourse. ” There, there is no opportunity of sinning; there, no intercessor, no friend, no father shall assist." Who shall then save you? Is it God? But how, asks St. Basil, can you expect salvation from him whom you have despised? ” Who shall deliver you? Is it God, whom you have insulted ?" (S. Bas., Or. 4, de Fen.) Alas! the guilty soul that leaves this world in sin, is condemned by herself before the Judge pronounces sentence. Let us come to the sentence of the Judge. Third Point. Terror of the soul when she shall be condemned. 11. How great shall be the joy of a soul when, at death, she hears from Jesus Christ these sweet words: ” Well done, good and faithful servant; because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." (Matt. xxv. 21.) Equally great shall be the anguish and despair of a guilty soul, that shall see herself driven away by the Judge with the following words: ” Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire" (verse 41). Oh! what a terrible thunderclap shall that sentence be to her! ” Oh! how frightfully," says the Carthusian, "shall that thunder resound!" Eusebius writes, that the terror of sinners at hearing their condemnation shall be so great that, if they could, they would die again. “The wicked shall be seized with such terror at the sight of the Judge pronouncing sentence that, if they were not immortal, they should die a second time." But, brethren, let us, before the termination of this sermon, make some reflections which will be profitable to us. St. Thomas of Villanova says, that some listen to discourses on the judgment and condemnation of the wicked with as little concern as if they themselves were secure against these things, or as