TWELFTH SERMON.
ON THE WORTHLESSNESS OF A DEATH-BED REPENTANCE.
Subject.
Firstly: the grace of true repentance and a happy death is far too great for the sinner to expect it in his last moments. Secondly: the sick man is then far too weak to correspond with divine grace, so as to repent sincerely.—Preached on the fifth Sunday after Pentecost.
Text.
Vade prius reconciliari fratri tuo.—Matt. v. 24.
“Go first to be reconciled to thy brother.”
Introduction.
These words of Our Lord in their obvious sense are to be understood of reconciliation with those with whom we have been at variance or enmity. “If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee, leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother: and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift,” and God will accept it. But how much more necessary is not this exhortation for you, O sinner! who are living at variance and enmity with the great God? Yet you hope and desire one day to offer your soul into the hands of your Creator, to die a happy death and so to go to heaven; is not that so? But you have something to do first; “be reconciled to God,”[1] as St. Paul advises you. And when do you mean to do that? After a while? Ah, that is too dangerous, as we have seen already. At the end, in your last illness, when you are recommending your soul to God? Oh, that is far worse, your state will be even desperate then! Go first and be reconciled to your God. When death is at hand it will be too late; God Himself denies you all hope of conversion then, and experience denies it you also, as I have shown in my last sermon. But why so? one may think. Why should repentance in the last moment be such a desperate chance? God is still as merciful and desirous of our
- ↑ Reconciliamini Deo.—II. Cor. v. 20.
