some public testimony of the efficacy of His death, or show some extraordinary proof of mercy on the occasion of the consummation of His Passion and Death? And yet (O my God! who should not fear?) it was only one to whom that mercy was shown; the other thief, who was also at the side of the dying Saviour, was hurried off to hell by the demons. “There is one, do not despair; it is the only one, do not trust too presumptuously.”
An example that should weaken, not strengthen, the sinner’s hope. St. Ambrose and Eusebius of Emyssa do not allow you even this one example in support of your hope. You say that the thief repented at the end of his life, exclaims Eusebius; but it was not in the last, but the first hour that he repented;[1] the first in which he had been enlightened by the grace of God. You allege that he deferred his conversion; while I, on the other hand, says St. Ambrose, rather wonder at the suddenness of it; “the Lord pardoned him quickly because he was soon converted.”[2] The thief had never heard any of Our Lord’s exhortations to penance, nor seen any of His miracles; all the Jews had been witnesses of those wonders, and yet they were so hardened as to nail the Author of them to a cross; the thief, on the other hand, enlightened by a single ray of divine grace, acknowledges and at once adores the Crucified as his God, and in the sorrow of his heart begs forgiveness of his sins. And now, O sinner! do you still rely on this example in support of your hope? You who for so many years have had opportunities of seeing the true light and hearing the voice of God, and who have still remained deaf to His calls, and still continue in sin? Do you not see that the readiness of the good thief to correspond with grace condemns your persistent malice? And where do you expect to find an instance in support of your hope, if even this so well-known one condemns it and serves only for your greater damnation?
While there are countless instances in Scripture of sinners who failed to repent. If time permitted I could brins; forward a hundred examples from Scripture and Ecclesiastical History of people whose experience on their death-beds has been quite the contrary, and who were condemned to hell without mercy; such as an Abimelech, a Sennacherib, a Saul, and a whole host of kings who died, as they lived, in their wickedness. What St. Paul writes of Esau seems most mournful; ho had been living a bad life, and still hoped to inherit the blessing: “Afterwards when he desired to
