always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do you also' (Acts vii. 51).
31. Why should we particularly avoid these sins?
Because they obstruct the entrance of God's grace into the heart, and therefore hinder our conversion, or render it very difficult.
Speaking of these sins, Jesus Christ says 'that they shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, nor in the world to come ' (Matt. xii. 32); that is to say, that they are hardly ever forgiven, because it is very, very seldom that people truly repent of them.
32. Which are the Four Sins crying to Heaven for vengeance?
1. Wilful murder; 2. Sodomy; 3. Oppression of the poor, of widows and orphans; 4. Defrauding laborers of their wages.
1. 'The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the earth' (Gen. iv. 10). 2. 'The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous. We will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord' (Gen. xviii. 20, and xix. 13). 3. 'Do not the widow's tears run down the cheek, and her cry against him that causeth them to fall? From the cheek they go up even to Heaven' (Ecclus. XXXV. 18, 19). 4. 'Behold the hire of the laborers, which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth, and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth' (James v. 4).
33. Why are they called sins crying to Heaven for vengeance?
Because, on account of their heinous malice, they cry, as it were, for vengeance, and call on Divine Justice to punish them signally.
34. In how many ways may we become accessory to another person's sin, and be answerable for it?
In these nine ways: 1. By counsel; 2. By command; 3. By consent; 4. By provocation; 5. By praise or flattery; 6. By silence;1 7. By connivance;2 8. By partaking; 9. By defence of the ill done.
1 When we could and should prevent another's sin either by kindly admonishing him or by giving information to his parents,
