Part 22
But still, in spite of this general security which we now have against being deceived by the persuasions of those who would lead us into error, nay, even on account of this very security which we feel, we do not obey quite carefully enough our Lord's warning. We think we are in no danger from these false prophets, and so we are willing enough to hear what they say. We would not join with them; far from it; but we think there is no harm in hearing or reading their discourses, or acquainting ourselves with their books. We do not, in short, beware of them; we think that there is no need to do so.
Really, however, there is. When our Lord said, "Beware of these false prophets," he meant just what he said. He knew that they would do us harm if we did not beware; that, if they did not destroy our faith, they would at least mar its purity or diminish its intensity if we did not take care to avoid them and their teachings in every way. And the church has always acted on the principle which her Divine Founder here laid down, in her instructions to her children. She does not wish even her priests to concern themselves with heretical or infidel doctrines, except with the intention of confuting them as their office requires, fortified though they be with the most thorough instruction in and knowledge of the truth.
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We are none of us perfectly wise and above the reach of even the most absurd errors, especially when our nature, corrupted by sin, is enlisted on the side of those errors; and, if not in danger of actually falling into any of them in particular, we may at least, by acquainting ourselves with those into which great men have been led, be likely to fall into the most dangerous of all errors, that of believing that truth is so hard to find that it cannot be expected that all should find it, and that it makes no difference what a man believes, as long as he does what seems to the world in general to be right.
The true course for us is, then, to beware of false guides in religion by keeping out of their way altogether; and, on the other hand, to study as far as we can the truth, which, if we learn it and grasp it as we should, conveys in itself the answer to them all. Listen to the true prophets, and leave the false ones alone; that is the highest wisdom from the mouth of our Divine Lord himself.
Sermon CI.
The Last Sin.
_For the wages of sin is death; but the grace of God, life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord._ --From this Sunday's Epistle.
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This is not the only place in Holy Writ, my brethren, where eternal life and death are set before us as the wages we shall some day be paid. The word of God frequently admonishes us of the choice we are compelled to make between eternal sorrow and eternal joy, and for this most evident reason: we are always actually engaged in making the choice. The very essence of our merit hereafter will be that we shall have freely and deliberately chosen Almighty God and his friendship, in preference to any and everything besides. And the reason, and the only reason, why a man will lose his soul will be because he committed mortal sin and died unrepentant--that is to say, choosing to love what God bids him hate. What we call the choice between virtue and vice St. Paul calls the choice between life and death. And with that choice we are constantly confronted. Not that we always realize it, nor do I mean to say that the first time one grievously offends God he settles his fate eternally; but that each mortal sin really earns the wages of eternal death, and only the blessed mercy of God saves us from our deserved punishment. And furthermore, it is some mortal sin or other that at last breaks down God's patience. If at any particular occasion he does not see fit to take us at our word, so to speak, and leave us for ever in that state of enmity that we have chosen, it is not because we do not deserve it; it is because he is a loving Father to us, and is often willing to stand a great deal of wickedness on our part; or because we have some dear friends who are servants of God and who pray for us; or because the Blessed Virgin has acquired some special attachment to us and intervenes for us; or because God reserves us for a later day, when he will make such an example of us as will save other sinners; or because, again, he saves us for a later day to make us models of true penance.
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But just look around you, brethren; just call to mind what you have heard or perhaps seen of God's judgments, and the Apostle's lesson becomes object-teaching. Have you not heard of a sudden and unprovided death and then remembered how years ago that man started a disreputable business? It was thus that he made his decision for all eternity. On the other hand, a man now temperate, once a drunkard, will tell you that long ago he took the pledge and broke it, and broke it again, but still persevered, and finally, by the grace of God, has managed to keep it. He was fighting the battle of fate and he won the victory. That dreadful appetite overcome, the practice of religion became easy to him.
In another case a man is led away little by little from the rules of honest dealing; at last he refuses to pay a certain just debt, one that he can easily pay if he wishes. After that avarice eats into the core of his heart and he is lost for ever.
And, brethren, what a relief to hear after a sudden death that the poor soul was a monthly communicant!
Many are tested by Almighty God demanding that they shall withdraw from the proximate occasions of mortal sin. The voice of conscience, a sermon heard in the church, the private advice of some good friend--for all these are the voice of God--admonish[ing] them against what leads them to mortal sin; against very bad company, or the saloon, or the Sunday excursion, or dangerous reading, or lonely company-keeping. Perhaps one's conduct about such dangers has more to do with his choice in eternity than any thing else.
I do not mean to say that this fateful decision is a mere lottery, but it is a moment at the end of years of rebellion against God when an effort is made by the grace of God to save the sinner; and for weal or for woe it is the last chance. Some time or other the last sin will be committed, the last grace will be granted.
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O my brethren! how very reasonable is the holy fear of God. Oh! how wise are they who have joined fear and love of God together so that the fire of love has burned the dross of slavishness out of fear, and fear has mingled reverence and humility with love. Alas! that so many should live as if eternal life and death had no meaning for the present hour.
Some are like that millionaire I heard of. Walking home one day, a heavy shower of rain began, he stopped a hack and asked what the driver would take him home for. Fifty cents, was the answer. he began to beat him down, and finally, refusing more than twenty-five cents, he walked home in the rain. But he caught cold, went to bed, and died. He had played the miser many a time before, but the last time had come. So many a one thinks his one sin more, his one other rejection of grace, is but like the multitude of other such offences gone before; and all the time he is deciding an eternal fate.
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_Eighth Sunday after Pentecost._
Epistle. _Romans viii._ 12-17.
Brethren: We are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die. But if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. For whosoever are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear: but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba (Father). For the Spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God. And if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ.
Gospel. _St. Luke xvi._ 1-9.
At that time: Jesus spoke to his disciples this parable: There was a certain rich man who had a steward: and the same was accused unto him, that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said to him: What is this I hear of thee? Give an account of thy stewardship: for now thou canst not be steward. And the steward said within himself: What shall I do, because my lord taketh away from me the stewardship? To dig I am not able, to beg I am ashamed. I know what I will do, that when I shall be put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. Therefore calling together every one of his lord's debtors, he said to the first: How much dost thou owe my lord? But he said: A hundred barrels of oil. And he said to him: Take thy bill and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then he said to another: And how much dost thou owe? Who said: A hundred quarters of wheat. He said to him: Take thy bill and write eighty. {339} And the lord commended the unjust steward, forasmuch as he had done wisely: for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. And I say to you: Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity, that when you shall fail they may receive you into everlasting dwellings.
Sermon CII.
Spirit And Flesh.
_For if you live according to the flesh you shall die. But if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh you shall live._ --Romans viii. 13.
What does the Apostle mean by this? This only, that the flesh with its concupiscence and lusts must never get such power over our will that it will carry us along with it and make us obey its longings and desires when we know these are forbidden by Almighty God. I say "this only" because to have the flesh is no sin; neither is it a sin to feel the disorderly movements of the flesh that lead to sin; but it is a sin to consent to these and to follow them. For this reason we are told that if we mortify the deeds of the flesh, to which these movements of the flesh lead us, we shall live. But what does the word "mortify" mean? It means to destroy that which makes the life of a thing. Notice here the Apostle does not tell us to mortify the flesh itself but the deeds of the flesh. To do this we need not then attempt to kilt the flesh, but we must destroy all that gives life to its deeds.
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What are the deeds of the flesh? They are the seven capital sins--pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth. Can we kill them? In the most important sense we can. We can get them so under our control that, after awhile, they will move us but slightly and cannot influence us to any great degree. We shall feel from time to time that they are still present in us, but that cannot disturb us much. We shall have taken their strength away. We shall have made them so weak that we can check them easily.
Ought not each one of us strive to get ourselves into that blessed state? But how can we do it? Make up your mind to do it. Form a good resolution, one that will not change but that will be firm for life. Then live according to that resolution. When pride is aroused, refuse to follow its promptings; when covetousness moves the heart, stop the eager desire for gain; when lust would lead you away, contend against the thought until it is driven out; when anger disturbs, seal the lips with the sign of the holy cross; when gluttony makes you long for feasting and drinking, refuse to go where these things are going on; when envy racks the soul, pray for the one who is the object of envy; when sloth tempts you to self-indulgence and inactivity, stir up the fear of God and holy shame within the soul, for sloth is a destroyer indeed of all that is truly manly and heroic in us.
But all this is about as hard to do as anything a man can do, some may say. Yes, it is hard to do, but the success is _sure_. Shall a man do less for God than for himself? See the time and labor spent to secure that which is necessary for the body and success in the life of only a few years in this world. Shall a man not do as much for the good of his soul and for eternal life in the next world?
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Is it really so hard as it seems? By no means. We make it harder than it really is by putting it all together and by thinking we are to do it all at once. This is not true. It must be done by degrees, slowly, patiently, perseveringly, but surely.
The devil makes us think it harder by telling us, when we feel the sharpness of the first struggle, "You can't bear it this way, for life." You can if God wills it and gives you the grace. And most people, almost all Christian souls, do not have it "this way, for life." Those who keep up the struggle get stronger day by day. In them the flesh and the movements of sin grow less day by day. The devil, however, wishes us to believe the lie he tells, to make us give up the struggle. Do not listen to the lie and it cannot hurt you. Remember always, it is a lie, and the mind will not take hold of it.
We can make it all the easier by trusting God, who will always help us in the struggle. _Pray_ more. Go to confession often. The confessor will then help us and remove much of the burden by good advice. Go to Communion often, and God himself will make it easier for us than we imagine by giving his own strength to the soul at that time. Only begin earnestly to control the flesh, continue perseveringly to use confession and Communion. This, with daily morning and evening prayer, will take away very many difficulties. Soon we shall find we have truly mortified the deeds of the flesh, and then indeed we shall live, for the flesh will then be dead or dying fast and too weak to hurt the soul. Keep, then, in the mind the text from the Epistle of to-day: "For if you live according to the flesh you shall die. But if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh you shall live."
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Sermon CIII.
The Business Of The Soul.
_The Lord commended the unjust steward, forasmuch as he had done wisely._ --Words Taken From To-day's Gospel.
One of the things which strikes us most forcibly in reading the instructions of our Blessed Lord as we have them in the holy Gospels is the matter-of-fact, common-sense, business-like manner in which he sets before us the way we must act in order to save our souls. We find no sentimentalism, no rhetoric, no fine-sounding flights of eloquence which delight the imagination and please the fancy indeed, but which are too fleeting and flimsy to serve as a basis of every-day action. No; with our Lord this matter of the salvation of our souls is a matter of infinite business, a question of eternal profit and loss. Let me recall a few examples: "The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking good pearls, who, when he had found one of great price, went his way and sold all he had and bought it." Here the way in which we are to act in order to get the kingdom of heaven is compared to the way in which the man of business acts who finds a good article--something worth his money. What does he do? Why, if it is really worth it--and the kingdom of heaven, the salvation of our souls is worth it--he sells all that he has and buys it. {343} And yet again our Lord places before us the salvation of our souls as based upon a calculation of what is the more profitable course to take in those words the realization of which has called forth the highest heroism of the greatest of the saints: "If thy eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee." Why? Because "it is better for thee with one eye to enter the kingdom of God than, having two eyes, to be cast into the hell of fire." Here again it is a calculation of loss and gain--the loss of an eye in this world as against that of the whole body in the next. Shall I, on the principle that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, keep my two eyes; or shall I, for the sake of saving the whole body, pluck out the eye, cut off the foot or hand? But of all the places where this way of looking at things and of acting is inculcated and enforced, the most striking is in the parable read in to-day's Gospel. Here our Lord, in order to lead us to take a practical, hard-headed way of acting with reference to the salvation of our souls, brings before us the conduct of the unjust steward, and, strange to say, actually praises it. And how did this unjust steward act? The unjust steward was a dishonest man. He had been placed in a position of trust, but had wasted his master's goods--perhaps speculated with his money, made false entries in his books, or something else of that kind. Well, the truth came out at last, as it generally does sooner or later, and he was at his wits end what to do. No thought of repentance enters into his head; he has got on a wrong road, and he found it, as we all find it, very hard to get out of it. {344} And so, knowing the men with whom he has to deal, he sends for some of his master's debtors, and, in order to make them his friends and to establish a claim on them for help and assistance when he gets into trouble, he alters their bills and makes them less. "And the Lord commended the unjust steward because he had done wisely." Our Lord does not commend, of course, the dishonesty of his conduct; this we all understand. But he commends his clearness of sight as to what was for his worldly interest, and his promptitude in taking wise and suitable means to further that interest. What our Lord wants to teach us is that we must act for our highest interest in the same clear-sighted, determined, wise, and prudent way in which this specimen of a worldly man acted for the sordid and selfish and foolish ends of men of this world. Well, my brethren, take these thoughts home with you, and ask yourselves, each and every one of you, how you are acting. Have you an intelligent view of the end you have to attain, of its value and importance, and of the means by which it is to be attained, and are you acting earnestly in order to attain that end?
Sermon CIV.
The Judgments Of God.
_Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity; that when you shall fail they may receive you into everlasting dwellings._ --Gospel of the Day.
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My dear brethren, there will come to each one of us a day when all those earthly goods we now enjoy shall fail us, when we shall have to turn our backs on the world and all that it has to give us, and prepare ourselves to stand before him to whom all things that we had and enjoyed belong, and give an account to him of the uses which we have made of them. We have, like the steward in to-day's Gospel, a Lord and Master; and to him we must sooner or later give an account of our stewardship.
And it is only too likely, we may say it is indeed certain, that when that dread moment comes at which this world must be left behind, the charge will also be made against us, as against the steward in this parable, that we have wasted our Master's goods. Our consciences will rise up and condemn us, and anticipate the accusation which shall be brought against us when we shall actually come face to face with God. Then all the security we have had in the thought that we are not murderers, robbers, or adulterers shall vanish; we shall not be able to console ourselves with the idea that we have done no great harm to any one. We shall see how selfish and how sensual our lives have been; that we have wasted for the pleasure of a passing moment the greater part of those gifts which God gave us for his service. Wasted our time, our strength, our knowledge, and our abilities in getting for ourselves the means of gratification or amusement, or in raising ourselves for our own sake to a position of honor or of wealth. We shall see what we might have been, what God meant that we should be, and compare it with what we are.
Fain would we then be able to say with St. Paul, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course." Our faith indeed we shall, it is to be hoped, have kept; but we shall feel that our fight has been but a poor and cowardly one, and that we, instead of finishing the course which our Lord laid out for us, have gone over only a very small part of it, and that its goal is far, far away.
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What, then, shall be our hope? For hope we must have if we would not offend God even more then than through life. He commands us to hope; but in what shall our hope be placed?
Where or in what but his mercy? He will take us, grievously deficient as we are, and make the little, miserable offerings which we have to present to him, the remnant of what he gave us, into some kind of a crown of eternal life, if only we will turn to him with our whole hearts; if we will at least, at that last moment, really believe in him, hope in him, and love him. He that perseveres to the end, he that will not die in mortal sin, shall be saved.
But what shall obtain for us at that last moment the faith, hope, and charity which we need? Who will help us to persevere when the enemies of our salvation are making the most of their last chance to snatch it from us? Will those with whom we have enjoyed life then stand by to help us? It is to be feared that they and all that they have done for us will not avail us much then. No, the friends who will then be most valuable to us will be those, if indeed we have such, whom we have not sought for our own sake, but whom we loved for God's sake. And it is not the riches which we amassed that will then be precious to us, but such as we have given away to those who needed it more than we.
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These are the friends which our Lord, in to-day's Gospel, tells us to make, that they may help us at the hour when our eternal destiny hangs trembling in the balance. These are the friends which may be made by that mammon of iniquity, those worldly riches which are too often the occasion of sin, and whose prayers and blessings may indeed be the means of our being received, in spite of our unprofitableness, into everlasting habitations. Happy is the man who, when he comes to die, knows that God's poor have prayed for him, and have blessed his name.
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_Ninth Sunday after Pentecost._
Epistle. 1 _Corinthians x._ 6-13.
Brethren: We should not covet evil things, as they also coveted. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them: as it is written: "The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ: as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur: as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure; and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh himself to stand, take heed lest he fall. Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as is human. And God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able; but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it.
Gospel. _St. Luke xix._ 41-47.