impracticable. That would be to tax Him with ignorance or weakness. When He promised to be with his Church to the end of the world, He engaged to give such graces as were necessary to raise us above our natural weaknesses.
Penances forced are seldom lasting.
The Priest, under the Law, could not accept the offering of a leper, nor allow him to partake of the sacrifice, till he had received convincing tokens of his cleanness; no more ought the Christian Priest to treat sinners as cured, till he sees the proof. Quesn.
Matt. xvi. 19. "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Those ministers that know not what it is to bind and loose sinners, reject one half of their commission.
Excommunication is the last remedy reserved for the incorrigible in the case of enormous sins. They who despise it, know not what it is to be an heathen in God's sight,—to be without God for a Father, Christ for a Saviour, the Church for a Mother, and Christians for brethren.
A true penitent is always willing to bear the shame and confusion of his sin and folly before men, that he may escape the anger of God.
Heb. xii. 15. "Looking diligently, lest any more fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright;" that is, such as for a short pleasure forfeit their eternal inheritance.
Happy that sinner, whom God does not abandon to the hardness of his heart, but awakens him by his judgments, or the visitations of his grace.
Luke viii. 28. "I beseech thee torment me not." These were the words of the Devil to our Lord, and these are the suggestions in the hearts of all sinners, wherever he has got possession. When a minister of Christ, by his sermons, rebukes, &c., or the Church, by her disciplines, attempts to disturb the sinner,
