sand ways, towards your last end. How could you find it in your heart to abuse so kind and so affectionate a benefactor and friend! "Is this the return thou makest to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is not He thy Father, that hath possessed thee, and made thee, and created thee? — Thou hast forsaken the God that begot thee, and hast forgotten the Lord that created thee." (Deut. xxxii. 6.)
III. How much you ought to be ashamed of your unblushing ingratitude, how much you should be afflicted for having offended your God and Saviour! Do not abuse any longer so much goodness and such patience, but immediately commence a life of penance; "otherwise thou treasurest up to thyself wrath against the day of wrath." (Rom. ii. 5.)
Mortal Sin.— III. Baseness of the Offender.
I. It would be deemed a high offence if one prince were to strike another, but much less than if a subject were thus to insult his sovereign; because the offence is proportioned to the inequality that exists between the offending and the offended parties. Now what greater inequality can there be than between God and yourself? Reflect who you are, who dare insult the living God and the Lord of hosts, and in His very presence commit the most enormous crimes, as if there were no power in heaven to punish you. As to your body, you are a contemptible worm, formed of the slime of the earth. "Man's days are as grass; as the flower of the field, so shall he flourish. For the wind shall pass over it and it shall not be, and one shall know its place no more" (Ps. cii. 15). "Your life is a vapor which appeareth for a little while." (James iv 15.) Never lose sight of the sentence
