which would be necessary to bring him to true repentance; he leaves him with the sufficient graces with which he can, but will not, save his soul. The darkness of his understanding, the hardness of his heart, and the bad habits which he has contracted, will render his conversion morally impossible. Thus, he shall not be absolutely but morally abandoned. ” I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted." (Isa. v. 5.) When the master of the vineyard destroys its hedges, does he not show that he abandons it? It is thus that God acts when he abandons a soul. He takes away the hedge of holy fear and remorse of conscience, and leaves the soul in darkness, and then vices crowd into the heart. ” Thou hast appointed darkness, and it is night: in it shall all the beasts of the wood go about. ” (Ps. ciii. 20.) And the sinner, abandoned in an abyss of sins, will despise admonitions, excommunications, divine grace, chastisement, and hell: he will make a jest of his own damnation. ” The wicked man, when he is come into the depth of sin, contemneth." (Prov. xviii. 3.)
8. ” Why," asks the Prophet Jeremias, ” doth the way of the wicked prosper?" (Jer. xii. 1.) He answers: ” Gather them together as sheep for a sacrifice." (v. 3.) Miserable the sinner who is prosperous in this life! The prosperity of sinners is a sign that God wishes to give them a temporal reward for some works which are morally good, but that he reserves them as victims of his justice for hell, where, like the accursed cockle, they shall be cast to burn for all eternity. "In the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers: Gather up the first cockle, and bind it in bundles to burn." (Matt. xiii. 30.)
9. Thus, not to be punished in this life is the greatest of God’s chastisements on the wicked, and has been threatened against the obstinate sinner by the Prophet Isaias. ” Let us have pity on the wicked, but he will not learn justice." (Isa. xxvi. 10.) On this passage St. Bernard says: This mercy I do not wish for: it is above all wrath. ” Misericordiam hanc nolo; super oimiem iram misericordia ista." (Serin, xlii., in Cant.) And what greater chastisement than to be abandoned into the Lands of sin, so that, being permitted by God to fall from sin to sin, the sinner must in the end go to suffer
