assessment of sins is not the same for all: to some God pardons a hundred, to others a thousand sins; He casts another into hell after the second sin. How many has the Lord sent there after the first sin? When our Blessed Lord in the gospel had cursed the barren fig-tree, we are told that " presently the fig-tree withered away." (S. Matt. xxi. 19.) The Prophet tells us that the Lord said, " For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof." (Amos i. 3.) Perhaps some presumptuous man may demand of God, why He wills to pardon three sins and not four? In this matter we must adore the Divine judgments, and say with the Apostle, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out." (Rom. xi. 33.)
S. Augustine says that " God knows well whom He may spare, and whom not. To whom mercy is given, it is granted as a favour; to whom it is not given, it is denied of justice."
The obstinate sinner will plead, " But I have so often offended God, and He has pardoned me, and therefore I trust that He will pardon this other sin." But I reply, And because God has not punished you as yet, will He ever thus spare you? No; He will fill up the measure, and He will punish you. Samson, continuing to wanton with Delilah, hoped nevertheless to liberate himself from the hands of the Philistines as he had done before. " I will go out, as at other times before, and shake myself." (Judg. xvi. 20.) But this last time he was taken, and lost his life. " Say not, I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me? for the Most High is a patient rewarder." (Ecclus. v. 4.) That is to say, the time will come when He will repay all; and by how much greater has been this mercy, by so much greater will be this punishment. S. Chrysostom holds that God "is more to be feared when He bears with sin, than when He quickly punishes it; " " because," as S. Gregory says, " those whom He waits for a long time, He condemns the more heavily; and often those who have been borne with for a long time are suddenly snatched away by death, so that there was no time even to be converted before death." Especially since the greater has been the light which God has given, the greater
