down to hell. Such was the sermon preached to the heretics by St. Jerome.
But sinners generally refuse to believe that calamities come from God. Therefore, my dear brethren, in our times, too, public calamities and troubles are proofs and effects of the divine mercy and goodness to sinners. But, alas! I must again ask, how do we receive them? Do we not generally act as the wicked will act towards the end of the world, when they shall behold the portents that announce the last day? The good and pious pray and cry out to Heaven, and redouble their penances and works of devotion to avert the punishments impending over us; but they who are almost the sole cause of the evil, who for years and years have been indulging in sin, how do they act? How are they affected? If there is nothing more than menaces at first; if there are signs of plagues, war, or famine in the distance to warn them to repent and amend, oh, they think, like the incredulous Israelites when warned of impending chastisement by the prophets, “the evil shall not come upon us: we shall not see the sword and famine. The prophets have spoken in the wind.”[1] No, there is no danger; preachers are talking of it, but their words are mere empty threats to frighten children; we have heard them often and not seen them fulfilled. We shall go on in the old way; “the evil shall not come upon us.” Others may feel the rod a little, but we shall remain unharmed. And if they, too, feel the chastising hand so that they are convinced that the threats are not idle, how do they act then? Do they amend their lives? Very few of them do; the most remain obstinate and refuse to see what is before their eyes. “O Lord, Thy eyes are upon truth,” so speaks the Prophet Jeremias to God: “Thou hast struck them and they have not grieved; Thou hast bruised them and they have refused to receive correction; they have made their faces harder than the rock, and they have refused to return.”[2] But, holy prophet, how is that possible? If they have been beaten, surely they must have felt the blows? How then is it that they had no sorrow or repentance? I will tell you, answers the prophet; “they have denied the Lord, and said: It is not He.”[3] They feel the rod and it hurts them, but they refuse to believe that it is wielded
- ↑ Neque veniet super nos malum; gladium et famem non videbimus. Prophetæ fuerunt In ventum locuti.—Jer. v. 12, 13.
- ↑ Domine, oculi tui respiciunt fidem; percussisti eos, et non doluerunt; attrivisti eos, et renuerunt accipere disciplinam; induraverunt facies suas supra petram, et noluerunt rererti.—Ibid. 3.
- ↑ Negaverunt Dominum, et dixerunt: non est ipse.—Ibid. 12.
