Hunolt Sermons/Volume 10/Sermon 58

To neglect the observance of one single commandment of God, and to depend for one’s salvation on any works of devotion and piety is a false and deceitful hope.—Preached on Trinity Sunday.

Docentes eos servare omnia quæcunquæ mandavi vobis.—Matt. xxviii. 20.

“Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”

There we have again the real foundation and true basis of our hopes of heaven. “All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth,” says Our Lord to His disciples; as if He wished to say, I am able to bring all men to heaven. My will and desire is that all should be saved; but this will is not enough to ensure the salvation of all; he who wishes to go to heaven must contribute his share to that effect. “Going therefore teach ye all nations.” He who wishes to go to heaven must belong to the true faith; but faith alone in Me is not enough to secure salvation. He who desires to be saved must be baptized: “Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” But even this will not suffice: “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” He who desires heaven must keep My commandments, and indeed all of them. Truly then, my dear brethren, false and deceitful is the hope of those Christians who desire and hope to gain heaven, but do not earnestly strive to keep all the commandments with constancy, as we have seen on the last occasion. Now there are many—how shall I call them? simple-minded or superstitious?—who found their hopes of heaven partly on different pious practices that they are wont to perform, partly on some attempts at self-justification with which they try to excuse their sins. That these may not find out their mistake too late I now say to them:

To neglect the observance of even one of the commandments, and to build one’s hopes of salvation on any works of piety or attempts at self-justification is a false and deceitful hope. Such is the whole subject of this instruction, to the honor and glory of the Blessed Trinity and the profit and salvation of souls; that if we are earnestly minded to go to heaven, we may devote our whole attention to the full observance of everything that God and His only-begotten Son have commanded us to observe.

Holy Ghost, do Thou give us Thy light and grace to this end; we beg this of Thee through the merits of Mary, the Mother of God, and the intercession of our holy guardian angels.

There is no devotion to which we can trust our salvation if we do not keep all the commandments. Fervent prayer, daily hearing holy Mass, generous almsdeeds and charity to the poor, frequent fasting, venerating the relics of the saints, devotion towards God and the Mother of God and to the saints—what beautiful, salutary, and precious works! What powerful means to gain and to preserve the grace and favor of God! And if they are made use of in the state of grace, with a good intention, how much they add to our sanctifying grace and merit here, and to eternal glory hereafter in heaven! Ah, is it possible for a Christian who is wont diligently to perform those works to be excluded from heaven and condemned to hell forever? Truly, my dear brethren, there is no doubt of it; if he who does those good works is wanting in true repentance for his sins, if he does not lead a pious life and keep all the commandments, lie will certainly go to hell, and unfortunately there are Catholics, and not a few of them, who build their hopes of salvation on a foundation of the kind, and are certain of saving their souls, although at the time they are living in sin, and neglect certain duties of their state and condition to which they are bound in the sight of God. Frail building! Vain hope!

Hence false is the hope that many found on certain prayers. There are some very pleasing forms of prayer in which one finds a special devotion, and interior comfort and savor. It is a good and praiseworthy thing to say these often in the day with due devotion; no one could be found fault with for doing that. But some are so simple-minded and credulous as to believe firmly that all who say those prayers constantly as they are prescribed, and never omit them, will not die unrepentant, but by the merit of those prayers will receive the grace of final perseverance. Now that is a deceit of the devil, who thus makes fools of many, and ​brings them under his yoke. For they place all their hopes of salvation in those prayers, and take little care to amend their lives, nay, sin all the more recklessly sometimes. To spend hours in the church praying, and then to swear, curse, and grumble the whole day long at home; to bring up children to vanity and idleness, to give them a bad example and yet to hope to get to heaven, oh, truly, that is a vain, deceitful hope! Hear what Our Lord says: “Not every one that saith to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doth the will of My Father who is in heaven,” and keeps all His commandments, “he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.”^[1]

Even if those prayers are supported by alleged revelations and examples. But they say there are instances related on good authority and approvals of the Holy See and divine revelations to prove that no one will be lost, or die without the last sacraments, or in the state of sin, who says this or that prayer as prescribed constantly; this or that saint has made use of that prayer and has had an apparition from heaven in approval of it; and all this is stated in approved prayer-books. But is everything you find in books bound to be true? I do not wish to run down the prayers; I let them stand at their own value; nor is it my business to examine into the truth of those alleged apparitions; but I do say that many of those so-called apparitions and approvals of the Pope that are printed and found even in prayer-books are only empty dreams and fables that deserve as little attention as the croaking of a raven. “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,” says the infallible Gospel of Jesus Christ, whose truth should make more impression on us than all the books in the world, “and the violent bear it away.”^[2] And you think you can get hold of it so easily by saying a few prayers?

For heaven is not won so easily by prayers of the kind. Then indeed you poor hermits were laboring in vain when practising austerities in the wilderness! And the holy martyrs were fools to endure the torments inflicted on them by the tyrants to whom they freely gave themselves up. And the apostles have deceived us by binding every one who wishes to go to heaven to such a strict law, telling us that we must not live according to the usages of the world, that we must always mortify the flesh with its appetites, that we must crucify ourselves and bear our cross daily with patience, that we must wean our hearts from worldly desires, and so on. To no purpose has Christ ​given us the exhortation: “Strive to enter by the narrow gate;”^[3] do violence to yourselves by penance that you may enter heaven. All this would be to no purpose if it were possible to save our souls by saying a few prayers. No; it is not so easy to walk into heaven. A pure conscience, a pious, innocent life, the way of the cross and penance, that is the only road to heaven, and no one can get there otherwise, although he were to say thousands of prayers, confirmed by thousands of revelations, and to say them with tears and sighs of fervor. Do you know what you merit by such prayers when you say them in the state of mortal sin? Even as much as you would gain by giving medicine to a dead body in the hope of restoring it to health. Prayer is necessary to gain heaven, there is no doubt of that, and it must not be omitted. It is necessary for the just man to keep him free from sin: “Pray that ye enter not into temptation,”^[4] so says Our Lord Himself. It is necessary also for the sinner that he may obtain from God the grace of repentance and sincere conversion. Pray then fervently and diligently, but pray first of all for a contrite and penitent heart for all your sins; pray, but at the same time amend your life. Keep all the commandments of God; do all that God requires of you according to your state of life. If you fail in this, then you honor God only with the lips, while by actions you drive Him out of your heart, and all your praying will not help you to heaven.

Shown by an example. The venerable Bede tells us of a noble warrior who used to flatter himself that he need not be troubled about the salvation of his soul because he always used to say his prayers and perform other works of devotion every day. Falling grievously ill, he was in danger of death, and had a terrible apparition; he saw two most beautiful youths in costly array (they were angels) entering his room; one of them produced a small book, and showing it to him, said: read, read. The sick man did not require much time nor have to turn over many leaves, so little was written in that book; it contained the account of the good actions of his life. “I saw,” said the sick man, relating what had happened to him, “all the good I had ever done written down, and it was very small and trifling indeed.” When the angels had retired a little to one side, a great number of demons entered, one of whom produced a large book, and showing it to the sick man, said to ​him: read, read. The sick man read, and saw that the book contained the account of his sins, and there were so many of them that the book was quite filled. Then the devils said to the angels: “Why do you remain here, knowing as you do that this man is ours? that he cannot go with you to heaven, but must come with us to hell.” “You speak truly,” replied the angels; “take him, and place him among the number of your lost souls.” Thereupon the two heavenly spirits disappeared, and left the man to the devils. The poor man sighed, and howled, and raved. His friends and domestics hastened in; the priest came also; all exhorted him to repent; alas! said the unhappy man, there is no more time for me! The demons have me already in their power; I have been given into their hands! He then related the apparition he had seen, and immediately afterwards gave up the ghost in terrible torments and despair. Think of this, daring Christian, who trust your salvation to a few prayers. If at the end of your life the two books were brought to you in which are written your good and bad actions, what would you see in them? In the book of your sins you would see the account of all the bad thoughts and desires in which you took voluntary pleasure; all the unchaste glances in the church and on the streets; all your impure acts in houses and gardens; all the uncharitable talk you were guilty of in company with others; all your acts of injustice, gluttony, drunkenness, and hosts of sins of the kind, almost without number. And what would you see in the other book? A short prayer to the Blessed Virgin, that, according to a revelation that you read of in some book, would be sure to keep you from an unhappy death if you said it daily. Is that all? Yes; that is all. And by doing that little do you think you will gain the protection of the Mother of God, the angels, and saints? With that little will you be able to drive away the legion of devils who will bring the book of your many sins, and to send them back to hell? Oh, no! with all your prayers you will have to go to hell.

They, too, are deceived who fix their hopes on certain devotions. Others put their trust in certain pious practices which they do at stated times; they give candles for the altar, promise and actually go on pilgrimages to miraculous pictures, churches, and chapels; they always wear blessed things, crosses, and indulgenced pennies; they get others to go to holy Communion for them and to pray for them; they fast every Friday or Saturday in the year, and on Good Friday eat nothing till evening; and when they have done those things they imagine they cannot be lost, but ​must save their souls and go to heaven. But they give themselves little trouble to live in conformity with the laws of God and the Gospel of Christ. . They give generous alms to the poor, and think that thus they pay off the debt contracted by their sins, although they do not repent or confess, or take any steps to amend their lives. They appeal to the advice that Daniel gave the wicked king Nabuchodonosor: “Redeem thou thy sins with alms, and thy iniquities with works of mercy to the poor,” but they pay no attention to the words that follow: “perhaps He will forgive thy offences.”^[5] That is, it may be that the Lord will give you the grace of true repentance, which will be followed by forgiveness. They find great consolation in their wicked lives in the words of the elder Tobias to his son: “Alms deliver from all sin, and from death, and will not suffer the soul to go into darkness;” but they do not attach the right meaning to those words, and they forget what Tobias said in his exhortation: “All the days of thy life have God in thy mind; and take heed thou never consent to sin, nor transgress the commandments of the Lord, our God.”^[6] Ah, vain and deceitful is the hope of the sinner that is built on such a foundation!

Fasting and almsgiving are very meritorious, but they do not help to heaven him who does not keep the commandments. Truly, “prayer is good with fasting and alms,”^[7] but there must be a pure conscience with it, or at least the earnest will and determination to confess one’s sins with a contrite heart, and to amend one’s life. The Pharisee prayed in the temple; he fasted twice in the week; he gave the tenth part of all his goods to the poor (there you have almost all the pious practices I am speaking of); moreover he took God to witness that he did not live in grievous sin like other men; and yet on account of pride alone all his good works did not help to his justification. Generosity to the poor has, indeed, according to a divine promise, a special power of freeing from sin and eternal death; but how? Without true repentance and amendment of life? Oh, no! Hear what St. Paul says: “If I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor,…and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”^[8] And how do alms-deeds free from sin? We are to understand ​these words of the punishment still due to sin after the guilt has been remitted by penance; or otherwise that alms-deeds are able to move the Almighty to touch the heart of the sinner, and to give him plentiful graces that he may repent and amend, and so be freed from the state of sin and from eternal death. But if a man is determined to persist in his evil ways and unlawful habits, and refuses to live according to the divine law, then I would say to him at once: unhappy, foolish man, you are deceiving yourself with all your pious works; with all your candles and pilgrimages, and blessed objects, and indulgenced pennies, and prayers, and Communions that others offer for yon, with your fasting on Fridays and Saturdays, with your generous almsdeeds, you are going to hell! All you do is not of the least use to gain heaven for you!

Shown from Scripture. It is true that an act of perfect contrition or perfect charity is a small thing in one who is conscious of mortal sin, yet God has promised to accept it and to forgive the sin. Small too are all the works of a penitent who goes to confession, yet God has promised to accept them, and by the absolution of the priest to free the person from sin. “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them.”^[9] But never has God said that He will accept the works of a dead piety, that is, works of devotion performed in the state of mortal sin; nor has He promised to reward them with the assurance of escaping eternal damnation; on the other hand, He has often given us clearly to understand that He will not accept them, that He has no pleasure in them. “Say not,” says the Holy Ghost by the wise Ecclesiasticus: “God will have respect to the multitude of my gifts, and when I offer to the most high God He will accept my offerings.” And again: “The Most High approveth not the gifts of the wicked, neither hath He respect to the oblations of the unjust, nor will He be pacified for sins by the multitude of their sacrifices.” And again: “So a man that fasteth for his sins, and doth the same again, what doth his humbling himself profit him? who will hear his prayer?”^[10] See how God looks on your fasting, your alms-deeds, and all your pious practices, when they ​proceed from a mind that is defiled with sin and persists in sin. God will not accept those things, nor approve of them, nor look at them, nor be appeased by them; you will not be heard. “Who will hear?” Hear what lie says by the Prophet Jeremias, speaking to those who live on recklessly in sin, flattering themselves that they will not die in sin because they have visited the holy temple of Jerusalem, and there placed their offerings on the altar. You, He says, are building your hopes on a false, insecure, and most dangerous foundation. “Behold, you put your trust in lying words which shall not profit you.” You do nothing but add sin to sin, and then come to My temple to pray, and think that you can thus easily make everything right again, and escape the punishment due to your sins. “To steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely,” etc. “And you have come and stood before Me in this house, in which My name is called upon, and have said: We are delivered because we have done all these abominations.” But is My temple then built as a place of refuge and safety for murderers, thieves, adulterers, and such like godless rabble? “Is this house then…become a den of robbers? I am He: I have seen it, saith the Lord. And I will cast you away from before My face.…For I spoke not to your fathers, and I commanded them not…concerning the matter of burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this thing I commanded them, saying: Hearken to My voice, and I will be your God,”^[11] etc. See now with what confidence you can rely on your voluntary works of piety, if you do not fulfil what God has so expressly commanded, and avoid what He has forbidden under the pain of incurring His anger. With reason does St. Augustine say: “As the venial sins, without which one cannot live on this earth, do not hinder the just man from gaining eternal life, so the few good works that are found in the lives of even the most abandoned will not help the wicked man to salvation.” Rarely will you find a man, at least among Catholics, who, no matter how bad he is, does not sometimes go to a church, hear Mass on week-days, give an alms to the poor, and say a few prayers; but just as those venial sins, which can hardly all be avoided by a just man, do not hin​der him from saving his soul, so the works of devotion which even a sinner can hardly live without will not save him from eternal damnation.

Confirmed by an example. You have doubtless often heard of that unhappy priest, Sapricius, of whom the Bollandists write in the life of the holy martyr, Nicephorus. Sapricius and Nicephorus had been intimate friends for a long time, but at last they conceived such a violent hatred for each other that they would not speak to or greet each other, but kept rigorously apart. After a considerable time Nicephorus sent some of his friends to Sapricius to beg his pardon for having offended him. But the latter, persisting in his hatred, refused to grant the pardon prayed for. The penitent Nicephorus sent again, and renewed his prayers with still greater earnestness, but was again unsuccessful. Sapricius remained doggedly obstinate. A third time did Nicephorus humble himself still farther, and offered to make any satisfaction that the scandal of their enmity might be removed from the eyes of the Christian people; he reminded him that now, during the persecution, ail Christians must be ready and willing to give their lives for the faith; that one should prepare for such a beautiful death by pardoning all injuries and living in brotherly love; but all to no purpose; Sapricius refused to yield. Meanwhile the persecution was carried on with more cruelty than ever under the emperors Valerian and Gallus; Sapricius was arrested as a Christian and brought before the prefect. He confessed that he was a Christian and a priest, and professed his readiness to suffer all kinds of torments rather than deny his faith or offer incense to the gods. He was cast into a gloomy dungeon, and bore that; he was racked and tortured most frightfully, and bore that too; his whole body was one wound, but he still kept in his heart his hatred of Nicephorus. At last the judge, seeing that his constancy could not be overcome, sentenced him to be beheaded. He heard this sentence with joy, and thought that, as he was giving his life for the faith. God would surely not abandon him. As he was led forth to execution, Nicephorus met him twice on the road, and falling on his knees before him with downcast eyes, honored him with the name of martyr, and begged his forgiveness: “Martyr of Christ, forgive me!” But Sapricius turned his face away and would not answer him. He still refused to forgive. At the place of execution Nicephorus again fell at his feet and renewed ​his prayer with the utmost humility, and shedding bitter tears; but all to no purpose; Sapricius would not forgive. Consider now for a moment, O tepid Christian! how much more that unhappy priest had done than you in order to gain the mercy of God. He had made public profession of his faith, endured frightful torments for it; he was not guilty of any attempt at revenge, nor of impurity, or deceit, or injustice; he only nourished in his heart a deadly enmity. Can you point to anything of the kind that you have done for the divine honor? You have not endured chains or torments, nor even shed one drop of blood for God’s sake. All that you can allege in your favor is that, influenced by a sort of lifeless piety, you have now and then given an alms to the poor, or mortified yourself in food or drink, or visited a church, or said some short prayers every day. This is all you can boast of having done for the honor of God. Let us return to Sapricius. After all his glorious exploits, which, however, were performed in the state of mortal sin, how did he end? I shudder when I think of it. When the executioner told him to bend his knee to receive the fatal stroke, he suddenly changed completely, and abandoned by God on account of his obstinacy, he asked: why do you wish to cut off my head? The executioner answered: because you refuse to obey the emperors, and to adore our gods. Wait, then, said Sapricius, do not strike; I will do as the emperors wish, and sacrifice to the gods. Thus he lost the faith, became an idolater, and was ruined forever. The crown of martyrdom which he threw away so foolishly fell to the share of the hated Nicephorus, who on the same day, in the same place, gained the palm of martyrdom, and gloriously gave up his life for the faith of Jesus Christ. See how true are the words of the Almighty: “To whom shall I have respect, but to him that is poor and little, and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My words?”^[12] To whom shall I show mercy? I will look with favor on him who humbles himself before Me; who fears My justice, and endeavors to keep My commandments. But you neither humble yourself before God, nor fear His justice, nor keep His commandments; and yet, trusting in some lifeless good works, you hope that He will regard you with an eve of mercy, and actually admit you into heaven. Ah, you deceive yourself most grossly; your confidence is vain and unfounded.

​Others, too, are deceived, who put their trust in various sodalities. A third class place their hopes of salvation in certain sodalities and confraternities, in which they are enrolled. True, it was a holy thought inspired by God that led to the foundation of those sodalities and confraternities, under the name of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, or of the Blessed Mother of God, or of the Memorial of the Passion of Christ, or the Death-Agony of Our Lord, or in honor of a saint; for souls are thus bound spiritually together in Christ, much good is effected, and special graces are obtained from heaven. But as there is nothing so holy that the devil does not try to work something out of it to further his own ends (as the saying is, where God builds a church the devil builds a chapel), that spirit of evil tries to do mischief by those very sodalities, and though they were intended to further the welfare of souls he by his craft turns them into a means of destruction, by persuading silly people that if they are enrolled in those sodalities and keep their rules they cannot be damned. And many trust to this, place no restraint on their evil passions, and indulge freely in sin. This is a most detestable error and a deceit of the evil one. For, without waiting to examine into the truth or falsehood of those alleged revelations which are adduced in support of the statement that members of those bodies cannot be lost forever, it is quite certain and an undoubted truth of faith that no confraternity, or work, or prayer, or devotion will be of any help to the supernatural merit or salvation of one who is in the state of mortal sin; and such a man may wear all the cords, scapulars, rosaries, blessed pennies, etc., he pleases; he will assuredly be lost if he continues in the state of mortal sin and does not do penance before his death. The many indulgences granted by the popes to those sodalities are of no avail to take away sin; they help only to remit the punishment due to sin, and that, too, only to those who are free from the guilt of mortal sin and in the state of grace. No absolution, not even the General Absolution, can free the soul from sin, save and except sacramental absolution alone, given in confession to him who is truly and sincerely sorry for having offended God.

To be a member of a sodality and live in sin causes deeper damnation. I am a sodalist, you say, a member of this or that confraternity; therefore, on account of the spiritual tie which unites us, I receive my share of the good works done by my fellow-sodalists. Truly you do! And for your comfort I will tell you something more: you are a Catholic, and consequently a member of the ​true Church of Christ; therefore you are in the Communion of saints, as you say in the Apostles’ Creed; that is, you receive a share of all the prayers and good works of every Catholic in the world. But if you are in the state of sin, you are a dead and rotten member of the confraternity, of the Church, and therefore you can derive as little fruit from the good works done therein as an amputated or mortified finger can receive from the food and drink which the rest of the healthy body consumes. The most you can expect is that the other members who are in the state of grace may by their prayers and good works obtain for you from God the grace of true conversion. Be enrolled then in a sodality; that is a good thing for all; but be careful that you are enrolled also among the beloved children of God. Sodalities and confraternities are established with the view of making their members more holy and pious, and that by mutual good example they may spur one another on to virtue and the fear of the Lord, so that after a holy life they may die a happy death, and love forever in heaven the God whom they loved together on earth. See from this what a fearful abuse you make of this excellent means of furthering the interests of your soul, and what a strict account you will have to render in the judgment for having made your title as member of a sodality an excuse for sinning all the more freely, relying on the fact of your membership as being enough to save you from all danger of being damned. A vain and treacherous hope! For you may take it for granted that yon will burn all the deeper in hell because you led such a wicked life in such holy company.

They, too, are deceived who place all their hope in a false devotion to the Blessed Virgin. A fourth class place their hopes in their so-called love for and devotion to the Mother of God, and they live on carelessly in sin. No one who is devout to the Blessed Virgin can be lost; that is their favorite saying. A vain (ah! must I say it? Forgive me, dear Mother Mary; my only object in speaking is to increase thy honor in a true sense!)—a vain, deceitful hope! Most Blessed Virgin! all the Fathers of the Church are unanimous on the point, countless great sinners have experienced it and still experience it every day; I must and will always maintain before the world with grateful heart that I know by my own experience, in myself and others, that next to God thou art the only hope of sinners, the Mother of grace, the Mother of mercy, the Refuge of all, the Advocate of sinners; whose prayers often move the otherwise implacable God to withhold the scourge and ​receive man again into His grace. I acknowledge, too, that none of thy children shall be lost forever; but wilt thou reckon in their number, and protect by thy intercession, and bring to eternal salvation those whose love and devotion to thee consists only in a few prayers that they say every day as a cloak for their wickedness, who honor thee only with the lips that they may all the more freely offend thee and thy divine Son? Presumptuous sinners, your hope, I repeat, is a vain and deceitful one. Yours is not the love and devotion that characterizes the true child of Mary. On a future occasion I shall speak of this more in detail.

Or on the sayings of some learned men. Finally, there are very many who rely for salvation on blind guides, whom they allow to lead them; that is, they excuse this or that vice to which they are addicted, and which they imagine they cannot avoid without the greatest difficulty; and they persuade themselves that they are not bound under pain of grievous sin to avoid it, or they say this or that custom is not one that will hinder them from walking on the narrow road to heaven. And that conclusion they arrive at either because they have read in some book or other that the vice may be excused from mortal sin, a thing they are very glad to learn, or because they have come across some confessor or other who is pious, as we must suppose them all to be, but does not understand the matter clearly, or has not considered it properly, or has not fully understood the doubt proposed to him, or has never noticed anything wrong in the act or custom through simplicity, a solitary life, or piety, or who was afraid to give his penitent a disagreeable answer, an unwelcome exhortation, and to speak the truth out boldly. Those people seek confessors of that kind, for they know well that other learned priests will not answer them as they wish. Thus they go on the authority of what the confessor has said to them, and pretend that there is no grievous obligation on them to alter their mode of life; or else they ground their position on the fact that the confessor has never asked or exhorted them concerning the matter. There yon have the whole basis of their hope; relying on that, they say, the thing is lawful; I may do it and still go to heaven. Such and such a confessor has told me so; if there was anything wrong in it he would have warned me, although I have never asked him about it. So that I can go on in good faith. Oh, what a false and presumptuous hope! Just as there is no law-suit so unjust that somewhere in this wicked ​world a lawyer may not be found to defend it, so too there is no opinion so false, no custom so unlawful and vicious that will not find patrons in the perverse world to approve of it. But can any sensible man depend on the silence or approval of such patrons in a matter that concerns his eternal welfare, and depend on them too against the sound teaching of all the holy Fathers, the judgment of men enlightened by God, the warnings and exhortations of the apostles, and the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? God will not judge us according to what this or that man says, but according to the laws and rules of His eternal truths. What will it help us then to say: this or that person sees no harm in this; he told me I could go on safely. Will that person act as your advocate on the day of judgment, and save you from the sentence of eternal death? If you find that to be the case, I shall congratulate you; otherwise it will then be too late for you to try to mend matters.

Or on the general custom of the world. The same blind hope is entertained by many who excuse and defend their bad habits by appealing to the conduct of men of the world at the present day. Others do so, they say; why should it not be lawful for me as well? The greater number do so; they have consciences too; amongst them are many good and pious souls who wish to go to heaven, so that the thing cannot be so very bad after all. And even if it were not altogether right, custom has prescribed against the law. At all events I did not begin it, and therefore I am free from sin. But what a perverse mode of reasoning! Those people are like the thieves who asked the judge to do away with the gallows; the judge said to them: Do you give up stealing, and then I will do away with the gallows. But the thieves replied: We did not introduce thieving, and we will not abolish it. Nor, said the judge, did I introduce the gallows, nor will I abolish it. If that style of argument were admissible, then you might go and do what you please; wallow in impurity whenever you have the opportunity; it is lawful, for, alas! many others make a habit of that vice. Drink until you are bereft of your senses; there is nothing to prevent you; for drunkenness has now become so fashionable that men are no longer ashamed of it. Curse and swear as well as you know how; you are quite at liberty to do so, for there are few houses nowadays in which that hellish speech is not indulged in by young and old frequently in the day. In all these things you can appeal to the argument: many others do it, therefore it is law​ful for me too. And further: at all events I did not commence it, and so the sin is not to be laid at my door. What do you think of this? Will you trust to it to excuse those sins? But just as little can you defend other abuses that are contrary to the law of the Gospel by appealing to custom, to what others are wont to do, although those abuses are looked on as honorable in the eyes of the vain world. No! no custom or prescription can hold against the law of God, the fundamental truths of the Gospel of Christ. If I do anything that does not harmonize with that Gospel, although others and even the majority of men do the same, I sin with them; and if I persist in sin I shall be damned with them, no matter how numerous they may be.

These latter are the most foolish of all. Oh, what blindness! With reason does the Holy Ghost say by the Wise Man: “The eyes of a wise man are in his head; the fool walketh in darkness.”^[13] But have not all men, sinners as well as the just, their eyes in their heads? Yes, as far as the eyes of the body are concerned, but not the eyes of the mind. “The fool,” says Cornelius à Lapide, “lives as if his eye were in his heel, not in his head.”^[14] How is that? If a man had eyes only in the soles of his feet he could see nothing but the steps of others in which he treads; but he could have no idea of what lies before him, of where the road leads to, and what will be at the end of it. In that blind and stupid manner many walk on the road to eternity; they have eyes only in the soles of their feet; they can see nothing but the footprints of others; they live as they see others live; like sheep, they follow one another, and have not the least idea of where the others are leading them. This is the broad way of which Our Lord says: “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat.”^[15] Therefore when in doubt as to the lawfulness of a certain custom, the very fact that it is followed by many who live according to the rules of the vain world should make me suspect it, and resolve rather to imitate those who reject that custom for the sake of their soul’s salvation, because they know that many sensible, learned, and pious servants of God have good reasons founded on the word of God for considering that custom unlawful. It is these, I say, whom I should imitate if I wish to act sensibly; for thus I am certain ​that I do no wrong, but rather good; better that than to follow the multitude, and live in doubt as to whether I am sinning with them, and accompanying them on the broad road to ruin. This one reflection should and must suffice to make me resolve on that course of action in a matter on which depends my eternal happiness or misery, a matter in which I should clearly adopt the safest course. To say: perhaps I shall be saved although I adopt this or that custom that so many follow, is as much as saying that I shall not be saved at all. All those who are now in hell could also have saved their souls, but they did not. Therefore if I wish to make sure of my salvation, I must not let it depend on a perhaps, nor on the custom of others, but on a more certain foundation. I shall not be asked by my Judge what others have done, but what I have done myself, and how I have lived with others. “For we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil.”^[16]

Conclusion and resolution to live with the few and keep the commandments constantly. Forget not the warning of Cassianus with which I conclude: “Imitate in your life the few, that you may merit to be elected with the few, and to find a place in heaven.”^[17] Do sincere penance; repent of and confess your sins and amend your life; live according to the rules laid down for us by Our Lord in His holy Gospel. Live as He lived; as His faithful servants live; keep the commandments of God, keep them all without exception, keep them constantly; in all things, at all times, in all circumstances do what you know to be the will of God. To build one’s hopes of salvation on anything else, no matter how holy it is,—prayers, confraternities, works of devotion—is a vain, false, deceitful hope, that can have only one ending, that of the reprobate in hell. “Therefore we have erred,”^[18] and have lost the right road to heaven. Ah, my God, how often have I not deceived myself with those false hopes, and done so wilfully that I might not be obliged to do what I was unwilling to do, or to avoid what I did not wish to avoid! I am sorry from my heart for my wilful blindness! While I still have time I will return to the right way of Thy elect, the way of Christian humility and modesty, of the cross and mortification, the way of Thy law, that ​with Thy servant David I may be able to say joyfully at the end of my life: “I have run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou didst enlarge my heart.”^[19] I have kept all Thou hast told me to keep; now I expect the reward Thou hast promised, that is, none other but Thyself in Thy kingdom of heaven which Thou hast prepared for me. Amen.