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I. Every action or force produces its adequate effect, and this, according to Scripture, is often attributed to God. Resistance to grace has as its effect the hardening of the heart and the aversion of the will from God. This is spoken of as a punishment inflicted by God: "The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he hearkened not to them" (Ex. ix. 12). And of rebellious Israel the Lord says: "I will show you what I will do to My vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof and it shall be wasted. . . . And I will make it desolate; it shall not be pruned and it shall not be digged, but briars and thorns shall come up: and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it" (Isa. v. 5, 6). The more literally correct aspect of punishment is set forth elsewhere: "Israel hearkened not to Me. So I let them go according to the desires of their heart: they shall walk in their own inventions" (Ps. Ixxx. 12, 13). The punishment inflicted by God and the natural consequence of the resistance to grace are one and the same thing. Considering it in one aspect, it is necessary always to bear in mind the other. God works out salvation indeed in us and with us; but our eternal loss He does not work out in us or with us, any more than He works in us sin, and the rejection of grace, and hardness of heart. "Destruction is thine own, O Israel: only in Me is thy help" (Osee xiii. 9). The severity and sternness and rigour of God are not so much in Him as in yourself; but still they are a dread reality which you may easily incur.
II. The withdrawal of grace and the abandonment of the sinner do not properly mean that God loses patience, that His pity changes to resentment, and that He withholds the necessary means of conversion and salvation; but a change which has that same effect has been worked by the sinner in himself. The whole of this life is a time of probation, and God never really abandons any man, or passes sentence of reprobation before the time. However, subject always to the possibility of later repentance, the sinner gradually advances during this life in the privation of God's grace. At each moment he reaps what he has already sown. Indifference to grace leads to strenuous resistance, this becomes spontaneous and almost indeliberate; insensibility to grace sets in, and this verges into judicial blindness, which is the incipient stage of reprobation. Powerful graces become inefficient; the brain responds at once to the impulses of passion and sense from constant yielding; there is an increasing blindness to the truth of one's real position; moral sensitiveness goes, change of heart becomes almost hopeless, and the soul falls under the dominion of Satan. This is the filling up of the measure of iniquity. No punishment can be more fearful than what the sinner thus inflicts on himself. You have no reason to doubt of the infinity of God's patience and mercy; but you may well fear for your own gradual deterioration and obstinacy, and their direct consequences. Pray God to guard you against yourself.
III. The venial sins of the just have something of the same effect. The higher graces of God are more sensitive to counteracting influences; as increased rapidity of motion is impeded in a still higher increasing ratio by the resistance of the air. As souls approach nearer to God, so does it become more important for them to avoid every minute negligence and infidelity to grace. Any relaxation of spiritual tension leads to an immense loss of the higher favours of God; and all defects become more visible in the brighter light, like stains on cloth or motes in the sunbeams. The smaller infidelities to grace have also a great effect on the efficiency of our works for Christ. They cause sterility of action, sterility of word, sterility of thought, sterility of affections, sterility of purpose, sterility of God's consolations (Rich, a St. Vict.). Who can tell how much you have thus lost! How much more would the all-powerful grace of God have wrought in you for your own advancement and the good of others but for the petty obstacles of venial sins, for remissness in renouncing self and in giving yourself up entirely to God!
Read from the Original Book.
