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Ezech. 18:31,32. Return to me, I await you
with open arms ready to receive and pardon you

Doubt not of this, O sinner, continues the Lord. Learn to do well .. And then come and accuse Me,
saith the Lord: if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow.  Is. 1:17 Take
courage, saith the Lord, change your life, come to me, and if I do not pardon you, accuse me. As
if he were to say, Accuse me of lying and bad faith; but, no, I shall not be unfaithful: your
conscience now so black, shall be my grace become as white as snow. No; I will not chastise you
if you reform, says the Lord, because I am God, not man. I will not execute the fierceness
of My wrath, ... because I am God, and not man.  Osee 6:9. He says besides, that men never
forget an injury, but that when he sees a sinner penitent, he forgets all his offences. I will
not remember all his iniquities that he hath done.  Ezech. 18:2. Let us then at once return to
God, but let it be at once. We have offended him enough already, let us not
tempt his anger any further. Behold him, he calls us, and is ready to pardon us if we repent of
our evil deeds, and promise him to change our lives.

SECOND DISCOURSE

Sinners will not Believe in the Divine Threats until the Chastisement has come upon Them.

"Except you do penance, you shall all
likewise perish. " -Luke 13:5.

After our Lord had commanded our first parents not to eat of the forbidden fruit, unhappy Eve
approached the tree and was addressed from it by the serpent who said to her: Why has God
forbidden you to eat of this delightful fruit? Why hath God commanded you? Eve replies: God
hath commanded us

that we should not eat, and that we should
not touch it, lest perhaps we die. Gen. 3:3. Behold the weakness of Eve! The Lord had absolutely
threatened them with death, and she now begins to speak of it as doubtful: Lest perhaps we die. If
I eat of it, she said, I shall perhaps die. But the devil, seeing that Eve was little in fear of
the divine threat, proceeded to encourage her by saying: No, you shall not die the death  Gen
3:4; and thus he deceived her, and caused her to prevaricate and eat the apple. Thus, even now,
does the enemy continue to deceive so many poor sinners. God threatens: Stop, sinners, and do
penance, because if not you shall damn yourselves, as so many others have done: "Except you do
penance, you shall all likewise perish." The devil says to them: "No. you shall not die the death."
Fear nothing, sin on, continue to enjoy yourselves, because God is merciful; he will pardon you by
and by, and you shall be saved. "God," says St. Procopius; "inspires one with fear, the devil
takes it away." God only desires to terrify them by his threats, in order that they may depart from
sin, and thus be saved. The devil wishes to destroy that fear, in order that they may persevere in
sin, and thus be lost. Many are the wretches who believe the devil in preference to God, and are
thus miserably damned. At present, behold the Lord displays his anger and threatens us with
chastisement.
Who knows how many there may be in this country who have no thought of changing
their lives, in the hope that God will be appeased,
 and that it will be nothing. Hence the subject of the present discourse: SINNERS WILL NOT
BELIEVE IN THE DIVINE THREATS, UNTIL THE CHASTISEMENT SHALL HAVE COME UPON
THEM. My brethren, if we do not amend, the
chastisement will come; if we do not put an
end to our crimes, God will.
When Lot was warned by the Lord that he was about to destroy Sodom, Lot at once in-

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