and willeth not.” That man wishes to save his soul, and at the same time does not wish, because he does not use the necessary means.
Nay, very many do quite the contrary, and work to be shut out from heaven. Nay, people often do quite the contrary; they run at top speed where there is no hope of salvation; they travel on the road the end of which is eternal ruin. If the Son of God had come down from contrary, heaven to announce to us a law of idleness, vanity, comfort-seeking, pleasure, dissolute living—if He had given us the days, weeks, months, years of our lives only to be spent in useless things, so that a part of them was to be devoted to sleep, another part to dressing and tricking ourselves out in vain apparel, a third to eating and drinking, a fourth to useless conversation and idle company, a fifth to gambling and other amusements, and we should pass our time in that way; if moreover He had not required of us any good works, or acts of Christian devotion, or recollection of eternity, or examen of conscience, or the reading of spiritual books, or the hearing of sermons, or alms-giving, fasting, or penance in order to gain heaven; if we were bound by the Gospel of Christ so restore the old abuses of heathenism, and publicly to practise them; if Christ had caused the images of false gods and demons to be removed from the altars, out of the churches, only so that He Himself might pose as the Protector and Defender of pride, avarice, injustice, intemperance, impurity; if, I say, God had promised His heaven only to those who pass their lives in those vices, could any other kind of life be required then but that which, as we know, is led by most people in the world, even by those who boast that they are Christians, although the Gospel of Christ teaches us quite the contrary? Is not this the mode of life of many vain men of the world who hardly recognize any other God but themselves and their bodies? Is not this the course followed by so many of both sexes who think of nothing but amusing themselves? Is it not the life of those voluptuaries whose only care is to gratify their senses? Is it not the life of so many tepid Christians, who know nothing of any pious practices beyond hearing Mass on Sundays and holy-days, abstaining from flesh-meat on forbidden days, if they do even that much, and going to confession and holy Communion at Easter? Is it not the life of so many libertines, whose luxurious habits lead them into all sorts of sin and wickedness?
Thus the
And yet all these people hope and desire to go to heaven. Ask