-minent danger of stepping beyond the fatal limits, and falling into the deep abyss of mortal sin. Who can assure us that those continual endeavours to

please ourselves, that this eagerness to flatter our senses, and to avoid every -constraint, though at the expence of some or other of our lesser duties, are not something more than venial sins? Who can assure us that self-love does not, on those occasions, so far predominate, as to exercise perfect dominion over our souls, to the exclusion of divine charity? Who can say that, on those occasions when the demon of impurity holds before our unguarded, imagination his delusive phantoms, we do not take too much complacency in them, or that our resistance is sufficiently speedy and vigorous? Who can decide positively, that those antipathies and dislikes, which we entertain without scruple, do not amount to the guilt of hatred? Who knows whether

that sensibility, that impatience under the pains, or losses, or contradictions which we feel, is not indulged to such a length as to incur the guilt of a cri.minal opposition to the orders of Providence? Who can determine whether that anxious solicitude to improve our fortune, that love of dress, and those -endeavours to heighten the beauty of our persons, are not pursued with such ardour as to involve us in the crime of ambition, of avarice, or of wanton vanity? or whether that nice attention to the delicacies of the table, and that assiduity in flattering the sensual appetite, is not accompanied with such pleasure, beyond the bounds of necessity, as to lead us into the sin of intemperance?

Great God! how is it possible for man to trace the increase, or the insensible diminution of thy grace in the soul? Who has ever discovered the fatal boundaries of life and death?

Who can weigh the guilt of sin, and determine which is mortal, and which is venial? A little less, or a little more complacency; a consent of the heart more deliberate, or more unguarded'; an act of the will more or less complete; an omission, in which there is more or less contempt; a thought consented to with deliberation not sufficient to cause the guilt of mortal sin, or a little beyond the limits; ah! who can determine these points! It is not human wisdom that can do it. They are secrets, which ought to strike us with terror: they are secrets, which will not be disclosed until the great day of vengeance arrive. And yet we live on unconcerned, in a state in which, perhaps, every sin that we consider as venial, is a mortal crime in the eyes of God!

The greatest saints, whose consciences did not convict them of sin who chastised their bodies, and re

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duced them into subjection; who maintained a constant watchfulness over themselves, and were careful to resist the first motions of temptation; who abstained even from lawful pleasures, when they apprehended that scandal would be given to their neighbour by indulging in them; who worked out their salvation with continual fear and trembling; these men, I say, were terrified at the idea of the uncertainty I am alluding to, and declared that they knew not whether they were worthy of love or hatred. Is it possible then, that the man who is solicitous only to avoid what are evidently mortal sins; who is unfaithful in lesser things without scruple; who is in imminent danger every instant of stepping beyond the mark; who cannot determine, whether in any of these sins he has actually stepped beyond it or not; is it possible that he should flatter himself with the idea that he

possesses the precious gift of charity, that he is the friend of God, and that he is entitled to an eternal reward? Suffer not yourselves to be deluded: examine the reasonableness of your hopes, and be your own judges.

Fourthly, although it must be acknowledged that all sins are not mortal; and that some are properly said only to contristate the Holy Spirit, while others are known to banish him entirely from the soul; yet the rules by which they are to be distinguished from each other, can neither be positive nor general in their application to particular cases. The enormity and the malice of sin can only be determined by the dispositions of the heart: the same sin is sometimes venial and some-times mortal: venial, when it does not proceed from any deliberate malice, as, indeed, it seldom does in minds that are turned to piety; mortal, when committed by the sinner through the