George Hay

“ What will it profit a man to know all things else, if he be ignorant of his God and of his Saviour? What though he understand the motions of the stars, the measure of the earth, and the whole circle of human sciences, if he be ignorant of that important science, the science of the saints, which alone will conduct him to eternal bliss? " If any man consents not," says St Paul, " to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to that doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but sick about questions and strifes of words," I Tim. ”

“ Would not a man be a fool to prefer his own interpretation of the civil law of the land in opposition to the unanimous decision of the whole body of judges and lawyers? Besides, in so delicate a matter as religion, in which experience shows how jealous men commonly are of their own opinions, does not such unanimity evidently show the finger of God to be there? What but an overruling Providence could keep such multitudes of men united in religion who so widely differ in everything else? ”

“ A. From this plain reason, that as heaven is a place of infinite happiness and never-ending bliss, great must be the malignity of sin, which alone can deprive us of that kingdom, and banish us for ever from all good. And as hell is a place of infinite misery and never-ending woe, dreadful must be the malice of sin, which alone condemns a soul to that never-ending torment. Now sin is the only thing that can do either of these things. The malice of men and devils can never deprive us of heaven, nor bring us to hell, if we be free from the guilt of sin. ”

“ In like manner the prophet Isaias describes it in these awful terms: " Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of indignation, and of wrath, and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and their brightness shall not display their light; the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the moon shall not shine with her light; and I will visit the evils of the world, and against the wicked for their iniquity, and I will make the pride of infidels to cease, and will bring down the arrogance of the mighty. ”

“ They not only show the weakness of our love for God, but the oftener they are repeated the more they cool and diminish it; for our love of God is always in proportion to the grace of God in our souls: the more the grace of God abounds in our souls, the more we love Him; and the greater our love of Him, the more His grace abounds in us. Now as every deliberate venial sin weakens the grace of God in the soul, of course it also cools the fervour of our love for Him. ”

“ So that though a person had been guilty of the most enormous sins, yet if upon his sincere repentance he receives the grace of baptism, and should die in that happy state, his soul would go at once to heaven, having nothing to hinder its entrance into that seat of bliss and happiness. And this is the reason why, when grown-up persons are baptized, no penitential works are imposed upon them, which is one great difference between this sacrament and that of penance, in which latter, though the guilt and eternal punishment be remitted, yet a debt of temporal punishment still remains to be paid. ”

“ At the end of the world the Son of Man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all scandals, and them that work iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth: then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father," Mat. xiii. 41 . Thus the whole posterity of Adam shall receive their eternal doom either in heaven or hell, in eternal happiness or eternal misery. ”

“ And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; the earth is filled with iniquity through them, and I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark of timber planks - behold I will bring the waters of a great flood upon the earth to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life under heaven. ”

“ In every mortal sin, then, there are these two enormous evils - to wit, the turning away from God, Who is infinitely good, and the very fountain of goodness and life, and the embracing in His stead the monster sin, by the allurements of some deceitful appearance of an imaginary happiness, justly compared to a broken cistern that can hold no water, but only filth and mud. ”

“ It beautifies the soul, and renders us agreeable and delightful in the eyes of our Creator, resembling Jesus Christ by the union we have with Him through grace, just as the fire, when it thoroughly penetrates a mass of iron, not only takes away all its natural blackness, but makes it bright and glowing like the fire itself. ”

“ This sacred sign of the cross is a means of reminding us of the two great and most important truths of our holy religion, the Unity and Trinity of God, and the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ, which two mysteries are the sum of all Christian knowledge; for there are two things in this life which it is chiefly important to know - our last end, for which we were created, to which all our desires ought to tend, and in which our true and perfect happiness is only to be found ”

“ Where we are persuaded of these two things, we can have no reasonable doubt of the truth of what we hear; but if either of these be wanting, we can have no certain faith in such testimony. Now, though in the ordinary course of life the testimony of other men is a very general and extensive source of knowledge, and in many cases must be entirely depended upon; yet, as all men are liable to be mistaken themselves, or to deceive us, therefore human faith, properly speaking, cannot be said to carry an absolute certainty along with it. ”

“ We are composed of a body and a soul; and in our present state of weakness and corruption, the latter is in such subjection to the former that things purely spiritual seldom make a proper impression upon us; nay, by far the greater part of mankind are so enslaved to their senses, that they seem incapable of comprehending anything but what falls under the notice of these organs; so that even the great truths of religion, which they are bound to know, must be suited to their capacity, and made easy and familiar to them by similitudes taken from sensible objects. ”

“ Is it not an infinitely greater loss for their souls, to lose the grace and favour of God, by robbing Him of that portion of their time which He demands from them, and by bringing upon themselves the guilt of mortal sin? ”

“ In the sacrament of baptism, Almighty God, with the most unbounded mercy, applies the merits of Christ to our souls without restriction, and accepts of His satisfaction in its full extent, so as to deliver us at once from all our sins, both original and actual, and from the punishment due to them, adopts us as His children, and gives us a full right and title to His eternal kingdom. So that whatever sins a person may have committed before baptism, yet if, after receiving that sacrament worthily, he should immediately die, nothing could hinder him from the immediate possession of eternal bliss. ”

“ It makes us sensible of the grievousness of our sins. Our great misfortune is, that we have not a just idea of sin; we think too lightly of it; and if we had nothing to suffer for it in this world, we would be apt to lose all horror of it, and consequently would take no care to avoid it; but when we see that Almighty God absolutely requires that we should do penance for sin, this shows us that there is something more dreadful in sin than we had imagined. ”

“ A. The knowledge of the Church is certainly one of the most necessary points of the Christian religion, because the Church is the very foundation of all the rest, being the sacred rule appointed by Jesus Christ by which we come to the knowledge of all the truths of revelation, even of the Scriptures themselves, and of the true sense and interpretation of them; the Church is the organ of God, by which He speaks to His people, and discovers to them the great truths of eternity ”

“ As true faith in Jesus Christ, or the belief of all those Divine truths which He has revealed, is so strictly required by Almighty God from all as a condition of salvation, how can we possibly know what those truths are which He has revealed, and which we are obliged to believe? ”

“ I have often thought that the great truths of Christianity, if digested in a regular orderly method, so that the establishing one point should be a prelude and preparation to the next, would show that Divine religion in a more amiable point of view, and be a great ease and help both to those who are to instruct others, and to those who are learners: this idea has been confirmed by frequent experience, and I hope that the method which I have found so useful may prove equally beneficial to others. ”

“ Not that grace takes away all the effects of sin from the soul; for concupiscence, or that proclivity to sin which followed upon the loss of original justice, still remains; neither does it destroy those evil habits which we have contracted by actual sin; but it strengthens the soul against both, and enables us to fight against and overcome them: for these effects of sin are not sins in themselves, except in as far as we consent to them; when we faithfully resist them they cannot hurt us, but are the field of our victory, and the increase of our crown. ”