them in His rage.”[1] I am Jesus, He will cry out, who meant so well with you; who so often and truly defended your case; who would so willingly have had you with Himself in heaven, but whom you have rejected and persecuted! I am Jesus, infinite Power, whom you, vile worm of the earth, have despised; infinite Goodness, whom you have abused; Meekness, Patience, and Long-suffering, whom you have so daringly provoked to anger! Here I am now, and you stand before Me. I am Jesus; do you know Me now? But I know you well! I am He for whom you lost all respect in church, to whom you were ashamed to bend your knees because you knew that I was hidden under the humble appearance of bread! I am He whose holy name you have often invoked as a witness of your falsehood, as if I were the outcast of men! I am He whom you have so often sold for a piece of money, a vain breath of popular favor, a brutal pleasure! Do you not know Me yet? I am He who created you for the sole purpose of serving Me, and you have misused Me as your servant and intermediary in the most shameful actions: “Thou hast made Me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied Me with thy iniquities.”[2] I am Jesus, the Judge of the living and the dead, the Lord and Master of a twofold, long eternity; now I have you in My power, and can take vengeance on you for despising My friendship and fidelity. Oh, what terrible words those are for the sinner! Holy St. John, it is not necessary for thee to describe our future Judge as a fierce lion opening his jaws to swallow up his enemies; the mere words spoken by such a true Friend are more than enough to precipitate into hell through fear one who knows himself guilty! But there is still another point, my dear brethren, which shall add to the sinner’s confusion. And what is that? The unheard-of love shown to men by the Creator, a love which they have scorned, will accuse the sinner, and bring a still severer damnation upon him, as we shall see in the
Second Part.
The greater the love has been the greater the Never is anger and displeasure greater than when it succeeds to great love: that is, when one is forced to hate him whom he loved before; just as the coals in a smith’s forge are sprinkled
