Page:The Christian's Last End (Volume 2).djvu/289
Resolution of the just to love Mary sincerely. But as for ourselves, my dear brethren, let us love Mary more and more, and love her always and constantly; and especially as children are apt to watch their mother and to imitate what they see in her, so let us endeavor, as far as we can, to follow the example of our heavenly Mother. Oh, yes, dearest Mother, what good reason I have to begin at last to do this! I must acknowledge that I am one of those presumptuous beings who have dared to make thee a cloak for their sins. Ah, do not therefore reject me from the number of thy children. I desire henceforth to remain in thy service, only that I may promote thy honor all the more in myself and in others. This shall be the object of all my daily prayers and devotions, so that thou mayest obtain for me a true, zealous, and perfect love for thee; that thou mayest increase it, and preserve it in me constantly to the end. Thus I shall live in the assured confidence of ascending one day to thee in heaven, where I shall see, praise, and love thee, my hope, my sweetness, my refuge, my life, for all eternity. Amen.
SIXTIETH SERMON.
ON THE FALSE HOPES OF HEAVEN OF THE SINNER WHO TRUSTS IN THE MERCY OF GOD.
Subject.
The presumption of which sinners are guilty in hoping for heaven because God is merciful is a sure sign of eternal reprobation: first, because it is a most outrageous act of contempt towards God; secondly, because God is, as it were, forced to condemn him who acts thus presumptuously.—Preached on the third Sunday after Pentecost.
Text.
Hic peccatores recipit, et manducat cum illis.—Luke xv. 2.
“This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.”
Introduction