Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/299

 death, he has loved the danger of his damnation, and therefore God will justly permit him to perish in the danger in which he wished to live till death. 4. St. Augustine says, that he who is abandoned by sin before he abandons it, will scarcely detest it as he ought at the hour of death; for he will then detest it, not through a hatred of sin, but through necessity. ” Qui prius a peccato relinquitur, quam ipse relinquat, non libere, sed quasi ex necessitate condemnat." But how shall he be able to hate from his heart the sins which he has loved till death? He must love the enemy whom till then he has hated, and he must hate the person whom he has till that moment loved. Oh! what mountains must he pass! He shall probably meet with a fate similar to that of a certain person, who kept in confinement a great number of wild beasts in order to let them loose on the enemies who might assail him. But the wild beasts, as soon as he unchained them, instead of attacking his enemies, devoured himself. When the sinner will wish to drive away his iniquities, they shall cause his destruction, either by complacency in objects till then loved, or by despair of pardon at the sight of their numbers and enormity. "Evils shall catch the unjust man unto destruction." (Ps. cxxxix. 12.) St. Bernard says, that at death the sinner shall see himself chained and bound by his sins. ” We are your works; we will not desert you." We will not leave you; we will accompany you to judgment, and will be your companions for all eternity in hell. Second Point. The dying sinner shall be tortured by the assaults of the devils. 5. ” The devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time." (Apoc. xii. 12.) At death the devil exerts all his powers to secure the soul that is about to leave this world; for he knows, from the symptoms of the disease, that he has but little time to gain her for eternity. The Council of Trent teaches that Jesus Christ has left us the sacrament of Extreme Unction as a most powerful defence against the temptations of the devil at the hour of death. “Extremæ Unctionis sacramento finem vitæ tanquam