"offer the sacrifice of justice, and trust in the Lord."[1] This is hope; any other confidence is presumption. The ark of the true Church will not save its unworthy members from the deluge of their iniquities, nor can you reap any benefit from the mercy of God if you seek His protection in order to sin with impunity.
"Men go to hell," says St. Augustine, "through hope, as well as through despair: through a presumptuous hope during life, and through despair at the hour of death."[2] I entreat you, therefore, O sinner! to abandon your false hope, and let God's justice inspire you with a fear proportioned to the confidence which His mercy excites in you. For, as St. Bernard tells us: "God has two feet, one of justice and the other of mercy. We must embrace both, lest justice separated from mercy should cause us to despair, or mercy without justice should excite in us presumption."[3]
CHAPTER XXVII.
OF THOSE WHO ALLEGE THAT THE PATH OF VIRTUE IS TOO DIFFICULT.
AS virtue is entirely conformable to reason, there is nothing in its own nature which renders it burdensome. The difficulty, therefore, which is here objected arises not from virtue, but from the evil inclinations
