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after a diligent pursuit, brought it home to his flock upon his own shoulders, with more joy than what he felt at the safety of ninety-nine other sheep which he left in the desert. After all this, who can ever despair of God's mercy? Far from giving up to despondence, my brethren, though your crimes should happen to be as red as scarlet, or as numerous as the sands of the sea, throw yourselves with an entire trust and confidence into the arms of his tender mercy; approach him in the person of his representatives here on earth, and water his feet with tears of compunction, flowing from a contrite and humbled heart. He is the very fountain of all goodness and sweetness, infinitely rich in every perfection, but particu larly rich in mercy, Eph. c. ii. v. 4. If you be weak, his grace is strong; if your prayers be unworthy, when they are joined with his mediation, and put up in his name, you may be sure of finding acceptance with his eternal Father. If

your sins be many and grievous, his sacred blood is of infinite

value, and sufficient to cancel the sins of ten thousand worlds. If you be undeserving of any favour yourselves, there is no favour which God can grant but what he has merited for you; there is no blessing but what you may obtain through his merits by a strong confidence in him, and an humble diffidence in yourselves.

O merciful Jesus, who never forsakest those who put their whole trust in thee, we repose our trust in thee, and hope that thou wilt not suffer us to be eternally miserable, since thou are infinitely good. Preserve us, we beseech thee, from rejecting thy graces, or frustrating the designs of thy mercy through our own obstinacy and perverseness. Grant us the grace of a sincere contrition for our past transgressions, and of a faithful perseverance in thy service during the remainder of our life, that nothing either in life or death may ever separate us from thee, or prevent our admission into the sacred mansions of heavenly Jerusalem, which thou hast purchased for us with the price of thy blood, and the enjoyment of which I wish you all, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.

On the dangerous Sin of Pride and Vain-Glory.

Omnis qui əs exaltat, humiliabitur; et qui se humiliat exaltabitur. Luk. c. xviii. v. 14.

Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalteth. St. Luke, c. xviii. v. 14.

THERE is no virtue more admired, esteemed, and recommended than humility, and no vice more condemned and decried in the sacred Scriptures than the opposite vice of pride; yet no virtue is less practised than true Christian huinility, and no vice more common than that of pride. The parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, recorded in this day's Gospel, plainly shews the pernicious effects of pride in the one, and the salutary effects of humility in the other. These two men, as our Blessed Saviour tells us, went up to the Temple of Jerusalem to pray; but O strange contrast! the Pharisee, instead of prostrating himself in the presence of the Almighty God, as a criminal, with a feeling sense of his own unworthiness and misery, stood upright in the Temple, with' an air of confidence and arrogance, and began to sound his own praise and plead his own merits. Instead of making an humble confession of his faults, which the pride of his heart concealed from him, he recited a long catalogue of the good works he had done, and was so taken up with the thoughts of his own righteousness, that he regarded the rest of men with contempt and disdain, particularly the poor Publican, whom he despised in his own heart as an unworthy sinner. My God I give thee thanks, said he, that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unjust dealers, adulterers, nor such as this publican. On the contrary, the publican sued for pardon by a sincere acknowledgment of his guilt. Though he ventured to come into the Temple of God, he kept at a distance from the Sanctuary, and prostrated himself in the most submissive posture, without even presuming to lift up his eyes to Heaven, but knocked his breast with sorrow, and supplicated for mercy and pardon of his sins in the following words: 0 God, be merciful to me a sinner. What was the consequence? His humble petition pierced through the clouds of Heaven in an instant, and he was received into favour, and returned home justified, whilst the presuming saint, who was puffed up

with a favourable opinion of his own merits, and boasted of his imaginary virtues, was despised, rejected and condemned by the Son of God, who repeatedly declares in the Gospel, that every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. To excite you to a just abhorrence and detestation of the dangerous sin of pride and vain-glory, and to the love and practice of the opposite virtue of humility, is the design of the following discourse, wherein I shall endeavour to shew you, that as no vice is more odious to God or more pernicious to man than pride, so no virtue is more acceptable to God, or more salutary to man than humility. Let us first implore the divine assistance, through the intercession of the blessed Virgin, who on account of her profound humility, was exalted to the super eminent dignity of the Mother of God. Ave Maria.

Pride, according to the description that St. Augustine gives of it, L. 14. de Civ. c. 13. is an inordinate self-sove or complacency in one's own self, that makes a person refer every thing to himself, and have nothing in view but selfexaltation and self esteem instead of attaching himself to God, and referring all things to his honour and glory. This sin is justly ranked at the head of the seven capital sins, because it is an universal sin, the poisonous source and root of all sin, and makes an essential ingredient of the malice of every other sin. The Scriptures calls it the beginning of all sin, and says, that it is hateful before God, and that he that holdeth it shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end, Eccles. c. x. v. 7, 15. For this reason, the venerable old Tobias gave his son the following advice: Never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, or in thy words, for from it all perdition took its beginning. When it is not resisted, but wilfully cherished in the heart, and suffered to reign in the soul without controul, it is looked upon by spiritual writers to be one of the most evident marks of reprobation, as it is one of the greatest obstacles to God's grace, and of course, the most dangerous enemy of our souls. What renders it of all other crimes the most odious, the most detestable and offensive in the sight of God is, the extreme opposition it bears to the Glory of God; for the proud withdraw themselves in their own idea from the subjection they owe to God, and upon the essential dependance which they have upon him; they stand upon their own bottom, as if they had no need of him, and could do without him; they affect a self-excellence, which belongs to God alone, and which is as essential to God as his self-existence and independence. They fall off from God, says Eccles. c. x. v. 14. and their heart departs from him that made them. By this rebellion they separate themselves from the principle of all that is good, and instead of giving all honour and glory to him alone, to whom all praise and glory are due, they pretend to rival God and attribute the pure

VOL. II.

effects of his bounty and liberality to their own merit, if not in express terms, at least in the pride of their own hearts, and in the whole tenor of their conduct. Thus they set themselves up, as it were, in the throne of God, and Satanlike invade God's right, dispute his prerogative, and by looking on his gifts as their own property, they attempt to rob him of that glory which essentially belongs to him, and of which he is so jealous that he declares, through the mouth of the Prophet Isaias, c. xlii. v. 8. I the Lord, this is my name, I will not give my glory to another.

This made St. Augustine cry out, in c. 16. of his Soliloquies: "He, O Lord, who seeks not thy glory, but his own, in the good he does, and desires to be praised for thy gifts, "is a robber, and resembles the devil himself, who pretended "to rob thee of thy glory." But God, who severely punished pride in his Angels, will not tolerate it in man, who is but a Jump of clay and a handful of dust and ashes. Nay, he seems to take pleasure in defeating the projects of the proud and high-minded, who thus appropriate to themselves his incommunicable prerogative, by withdrawing his hand from them, and permitting them sometimes, through an effect of his justice, to fall openly into shameful disorders, in order to pull down their pride and arrogance. How odious pride is in his sight, appears evidently from the fall of Lucifer and his apostate confederates, who, instead of meriting an increase of happiness, by paying unto the Lord the homage of their adoration, and referring the gifts of nature and grace with which they were adorned, to the great Source and Principle of Perfection, forfeited the glory of Heaven through their own fault, and were doomed to the gloomy regions of hell, because they proudly valued themselves on their dazzling beauty and excellent gifts, as if they had not received them from God, but had them from themselves, Isaias, c. xiv. v. 13. The dreadful judgments denounced against Pharao, King of Egypt, Exod. c. v. v. 1. against Nabuchodonosor, King of Babylon, Dan. c. iv. v. 27. and against Sennacherib, King of Assyria, Isaias, c. xxxvii. v. 10. 36. to punish whose pride an Angel, sent from Heaven, slew one hundred and eighty-five. thousand of his army in one night, are manifest proofs of the hatred that the Almighty bears to the proud, who attribute to themselves the good qualifications they possess, and who value themselves and seek to be esteemed, praised and honoured on that account, instead of referring all to God and giving glory to him who is the Author of all good, and to whom alone all praise, glory and honour are due for ever and ever, 1 Tim. c. i. v. 17. Every proud man, who, thus forgetful of God, exults in the fumes of his own supposed excellency and perfection, and glories in himself, as if his riches, power, strength, valour, knowledge and beauty were his own property, to be solely attributed to his merit, industry, courage and conduct, is an abomination to the Lord, as the wise man says, c. xvi. v. 4.

~St. Gregory, in his 23d Book of Morals, distinguishes four different branches of pride, which are diametrically opposite to the four distinguishing characters of humility. The four branches of pride are ambition, presumption, vain-glory and hypocrisy. They are called the daughters of pride, and are the different ways that this odious and pernicious vice shews itself. That branch of pride which is called Vain-glory, be. cause it has for its object an imaginary excellence in the way of glory, that is, in the way of being known, admired, praised and esteemed by others, is the fruitful parent of a numerous offspring of other pernicious evils. This was the darling vice of the Scribes and Pharisees; this was the idol of their hearts, to which they sacrifiecd their fasts, their prayers, and their almsdeeds. They performed all their outward works of piety and devotion that they might be seen, honoured and esteemed by men; for which reason our Blessed Saviour pronounced so many dreadful woes against them in the Gospel, and declared that they were entitled to no other recompense but what they had received here, the empty breath of sinners, the vain, precarious praises and applauses of the unthinking multitude, Mat. c. vi. v. 5. Such is the malignity of the sin of pride and vain-glory, and so pernicious are its effects, that it robs a man in the sight of God of the merit and reward of all his good works; it corrupts the very vitals of the soul, and leaves nothing sound in it; it poisons the root of every virtue, and like unto a worm corrodes and eats up the substance of the very best actions. St. Basil compares it to an insidious thief, that lies in wait for good works in order to destroy their value and merit. Other writers compard it to a snake, that creeps insensibly into the soul, lurks unnoticed in the inmost recesses of the heart, and as St. Gregory remarks, often hides itself under sackcloth and ashes. Nothing is to be dreaded more by pious Christians, in the performance of their spiritual duties and devotional exercises. The greater progress they have made in the way of perfection, the more they are exposed to this vice, and the greater danger they are in of forfeiting their crown and losing the fruit of all their labours, unless they be constantly upon their guard to resist the suggestions of pride and vainglory. Other vices are the vices of sinners, have something evil for their object, and are not to be gratified but by the perpetration of wicked actions; but this vice chiefly arises from objects that are good, and as it first began among the Angels, it usually attacks heavenly souls, and is one of the most subtle and most delicate temptations that the enemy of mankind makes use of to insinuate a deadly poison into the secret foldings of their hearts. He takes no extraordinary pains to tempt notorious profligates and scandalous libertines, as he thinks he is sure of them, and expects that they will of course fall one day into his hands, and become an easy prey to his malice; but when lie sees Christians devoted to the service of God, intent

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