Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

¹⁵ I am now treating of my counsel with you, holy Brethren. In Christ's Name you are the people of God, you are a Catholic people, you are members of Christ; you are not divided from unity. You are in communion with the members of the Apostles, you are in communion with the memories of the Holy Martyrs, who are spread over the whole world, and you belong to my cure, that I may render a good account of you. Now my whole account, what it is you know. “Lord, You know that I have spoken, You know that I have not kept silence, You know in what spirit I have spoken, You know that I have wept before You, when I spoke, and was not heard.”

This I imagine is my whole account. For the Holy Spirit by the prophet Ezekiel has given me sure hope. You know this passage concerning the watchman; “O son of man,” says He, “I have set you a watchman unto the house of Israel; if when I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, you shall die the death, you do not speak;” that is (for I speak to you that you may speak), “if you do not announce it, and the sword,” that is, what I have threatened on the sinner, “come, and take him away; that wicked man indeed shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.” Why?

Because he did not speak. “But if the watchman see the sword coming, and blow the trumpet,” that he may fly, and he took not to himself, that is, amend not himself, that it find him not in the punishment which God threatens, and “the sword shall come and take any one away; that wicked man indeed shall die in his iniquity; but you,” says He, “hast delivered your own soul.” And in that place of the Gospel, what else says He to the servant? When he said, “Lord, I knew You to be a” difficult or “hard Man, in that Thou reapest where You have not sowed, and gatherest where You have not scattered; and I was afraid, and went and hid Your talent in the earth, lo, You have that is Yours.”

And He said, “'Thou wicked and slothful servant,' because you knew Me to be a difficult and hard Man, to reap where I have not sown, and to gather where I have not scattered, My very covetousness ought the more to teach you, that I look for profit from My money. 'You ought therefore to have given My money to the exchangers, and at My coming I should have required My own with usury.'” Did He say, “You ought to give, and require”? It is we then, Brethren, who give, He will come to require. Pray ye, that He may find us prepared.