enough of people who were condemned for having sinned. for those and similar sins? Millions of angels, creatures of afar higher order and much more capable of serving God than we are, sinned only by a momentary thought, and at once, without mercy, without having a minute granted them for repentance, like lightning they were hurled by the divine justice into the abyss of hell. That we have believed. Our forefather Adam sinned against the divine command by eating one mouthful of an apple, and he was at once turned out of paradise and condemned to eternal death with all his posterity. We still feel and suffer the hard punishments of this first sin; to atone for it the God of infinite justice and mercy allowed His only Son to be crucified on the gibbet of the cross, and cruelly done to death. That we have believed. Countless human beings have been condemned to hell for their sins, and they are burning there now and will burn forever. That we have believed. And yet it has not had the slightest influence on us; we have sinned without hesitation, shame, or fear. Can such guilt be attributed to mere misfortune? Can it be called deserving of mercy or pity? Does it not rather resemble the conduct of the thief who robs his very judge on the place of execution, while another thief is being put to death for a similar crime?
Because he wilfully persisted in sin without repentance. And how could we lay the blame of our sins on human weakness if we remained in them without doing penance? It is true, says St. Gregory, that a man sometimes commits a sin on account of a very alluring occasion, or because he gives way to temptation through the violence of his evil passions and inclinations; but after the sin he enters into himself, repents, and heartily detests the guilty action. Such a case indeed deserves pity, and can well be ascribed to human weakness; for “to sin is human, but to persist in sin diabolical.”[1] But not to rise again after the fall, to remain in sin for a long tine, to put off repentance and wilfully expose one’s self to danger while death is liable to surprise one at any moment, and bring with it eternal damnation; that indeed is devilish, nay, worse than devilish, for the demons have never had a moment granted them in which to repent. And is not this the very state of him who dies in mortal sin? Does not the divine mercy concede him time and opportunity enough to repent of and confess his sins, and free himself from his misery if he wishes? Meanwhile he has not profited of that time, but has remained for weeks, months, and years in sin, until
- ↑ Peccare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum.
