of thy sacred passion, with a spirit of humility and contrition, and with hearts elevated to Heaven. O may thy precious blood plead our cause, cancel our iniquities, purify our souls, and open for us the gates of life everlasting. Which is the happiness I wish you all, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.

On Referring all our Deliberate Actions to the Honour and Glory of God.

Præceptor, per totam noctem laborantes nihil cepimus.—Luc. c. v. v. 5.

Master, labouring all night we have taken nothing.—St. Luke, c. v. v. 5,

THE Gospel of this day informs us, that as our Blessed Saviour, on a certain day, was standing near the Lake of Genesareth, the zealous multitude pressed upon him with so ardent a desire to hear the word of God, and to learn the science of salvation from his mouth, that he went into a ship belonging to Simon Peter, which was near the shore, and embraced the favourable opportunity to instruct the people and break unto them the bread of life. The ship of Peter, in which he preached to them, was a figure of the Holy Catholic Church, wherein the pure word of God is announced, and from which the faithful are to learn the divine Law, and to receive the orders of Heaven with due submission. The prodigious draught of fishes which, as the Gospel relates, Peter and his companions caught when he launched forth into the deep, and let loose his nets in the name and by the orders of Jesus, denotes the many different nations and tribes of the earth that have been included in the pale of the Church, and converted to the Christian religion by the labours and preaching of the twelve Apostles and their lawful successors in the ministry, who were appointed and constituted the fishers of mens' souls, and who were legally sent as Christ was sent by his heavenly Father, to teach all nations all that is necessary to be believed and to be practised in order to obtain salvation. The great draught of fish also signifies the wonderful power and efficacy of the word of God; and the happy fruits it should produce in us are represented by the conversion of Simon Peter and his companions, who were present at the sermon that our Saviour preached to the pious multitude assembled on the shore; for Simon, first of all, was so deeply penetrated with the heavenly doctrine of Jesus, that

he threw himself at his feet and confessed himself to be an unworthy sinner, undeserving of the honour of being favoured with his divine presence. His companions were no less sensibly affected. From that instant they became disciples of Christ. and without the least hesitation devoted themselves entirely to his service and tuition. Relying on divine Providence, they cheerfully forsook all they possessed, and all their hopes and prospects in the world, in order to amass spiritual treasures for their souls in the kingdom of Heaven. They had laboured all night without any success, until they cast out their nets in the name of Jesus, which shews, that if we wish to see our poor endeavours crowned with success, we must place our confidence in God alone, and implore his divine aid and concurrence. If we rely solely on our own force and natural strength, our expectations will be blasted, and we shall meet with disappointments in the end; for of ourselves, without the assistance of God's grace, we cannot do the least thing, either in thought, word or deed, towards our salvation.

Human pride recoils at this truth, which is the very foundation of true Christian humility, and a convincing proof of our weakness and inability to do good and avoid evil, without the actual grace and preventing mercy of God exciting, strengthening, drawing and moving us thereto. We stand in need of his continual assistance and concurrence in every thing we undertake, as it is in him we live, in him we move and subsist. We should therefore consult him in all our enterprizes, and all our actions should begin with him and terminate in him, as all the lines drawn from the circumference of a circle terminate in the centre. Unless we act in his name, and labour for his honour and glory, the day will come when we shall have reason to cry out with Simon Peter and his companions before their conversion, Muster, labouring all night we have taken nothing ; we have laboured in vain and mispent our time to no purpose, in grasping at empty shadows and pursuing delusive vanities; we have undergone much toil and fatigue in the world without any reference to the Lord our God, or a proper regard to the real and permanent joys of his heavenly kingdom. To guard you, my Brethren, against the like misfortune, I will endeavour to shew you, First, how incumbent it is on you to refer all your deliberate actions and employments to the honour and glory of God; and secondly, I will point out the signal advantages that are derived from a faithful compliance with this important duty. Let us previously implore the divine assistance, through the intercession of the blessed Virgin, greeting her with the words of the Angel, Ave Maria.

It is beyond all dispute that God has created us for no other end but to love and serve him in this life, and to see and enjoy him in the next. The very title of our Creator gives him an indefeasible right to our love and service. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first cause, the beginning and the last end

of all things. He should then be the constant object of our most ardent desires, the centre of all our undertakings, and the end of all our pursuits and designs. To him we are indebted for every thing, and without him we can do nothing. He is our sovereign Lord and absolute Master. We have our existence only for his service and pleasure, and are therefore bound in the strictest justice to obey, honour, and glorify him in all things. Our Blessed Saviour says of himself, I came down from Heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of him that sent me, Jo. c. vi. v. 38. It is no less true of us, that we have been created by the Almighty God, and placed in this world not to do our own will, but the will of him that created us. This is the very end of our being, and to deviate from it is to frustrate the gracious designs of our Creator, and oppose his supreme dominion and unlimited jurisdiction over us and all his creatures. Every day, every hour, every moment of cur life belongs to him, and should be employed in serving him in our respective stations. All our thoughts, words, and actions, and all the motions of our souls are a debt we owe to his infinite goodness. We ought of course to offer, refer, and direct them to him, and in all our proceedings to aim at promoting his honour and glory. This is not only our duty, but likewise our interest; for they only who glorify him will be entitled on the last day to receive that never-fading Crown of Glory which he promises to his faithful servants, 1 Kings, c. ii. v. 30. where he expressly says, Those who glorify me I will crown with glory. He is satisfied to leave the profit and utility of all our works and actions entirely to ourselves, but he reserves all the glory of them to himself alone; for, as the Prophet Isaias tells us, c. xlii, He will not part with his glory, nor give it to another. It is his unalienable right, and he will not suffer it to be invaded with impunity.

Reason, as well as religion, teaches us that nothing is more just than that we should have his honour and glory constantly in view, and act always with a pure intention of pleasing him and complying with his holy will in all things. All Christian virtue depends on this purity of intention. By it the lowest and the least important of our actions are ennobled, elevated to a superior order, and made acts of virtue and works of salvation. Without it, actions the highest, the most brilliant, the most esteemed by men, and the most admired by the world, are good for nothing in the sight of God. Though we should distribute all our substance to the poor, and deliver up our bodies to the flames; though we should convert thousands of souls, and practice all the austerities of the ancient fathers in the desert, yet it avails us nothing in order to life everlasting, if our intention or leading principle be nothing but disguised pride, vain glory and ostentation; for when the intention, which is the eye of the soul, is turned off from God and viciously directed, the action itself, though good in its own nature,

becomes vitiated and infected, and the whole work is darksome, according to these words of the Gospel, If thy eye be simple, thy whole body will be lightsome; but if thy eye be evil, thy whole body shall be darksome, Mac. c. vi. v. 22. This plainly shews the necessity of rectifying our intention, and acting always upon a proper motive in all our proceedings; it is not sufficient that what we do and say be good in itself, it must also be good in all its circumstances; it must be done with a good intention; otherwise, it will not be worthy of God's complacency and acceptance, neither will it be placed to our account on the last day by the Sovereign Judge and Searcher of hearts, who will not reward with eternal glory those actions that are not done for his sake, nor referred to the honour and glory of his holy name. Then alas! many Christians who, on account of some external practices of devotion and exercises of piety, to which they are accustomed, flatter themselves that they are amassing spiritual treasures, and that they are rich in virtue and good works, shall find themselves wretched and miserable, poor, blind, bare and naked, as the Scripture says of the bishop in the Apocalypse; they shall find their hands empty and void of merits, and their souls as unprovided with good works as they were when they first entered into the world. It may be truly said of them what Simon Peter said in this day's Gospel, that they labour all night and take nothing, for they work in the dark, and when the fatal night of death arrives they will be entitled to no other reward than that of hypocrites, because instead of labouring for God they sacrifice their actions to human applause, to blind self-love, and to the inclinations of natural constitution. Their alms-deeds, their fasts, their long prayers, their very best actions are tainted and poisoned in their very root; their pretended virtues are no better than Pagan or Pharisaical virtues; their whole merit is destroyed, and they are unworthy of God's acceptance, because they are not actuated by the spirit of God, but influenced only by the selfish motives of interest and sensuality. They neither labour with God, nor for God, but for a worldly and human respect, which they blindly make their last end.

To guard against this misfortune, we should aim at perfection in all our works, as the scripture recommends, Eccles. c. xxxiii. v. 23. We should consider attentively what spirit it is that moves us, what it is we do, and for whom we do it. We should begin each day with an oblation of ourselves to God, direct all our actions to his greater honour and glory, and from time to time renew our intentions of performing them with a view and desire of pleasing him; we should shut our eyes against all human respect, and raise our hearts and thoughts to Heaven in the course of the day, and then if vain glory should happen to come and claim a part of what we do, we may say with St. Bernard, You come too late, all is already given to God; I neither began for your sake, nor will I leave off for your sake.

Tertullian informs us, that the primitive Christians were accustomed to sign themselves with the sign of the Cross at the be ginning of each work they undertook, and to offer it to the honour and glory of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, to signify thereby, that they performed all their actions in his name, and in conjunction with his sufferings and laborious life here on earth, in hopes of finding acceptance with God the Father through his beloved Son Jesus, and rendering their own works valuable and meritorious in his sight, by being united to his infinite merits; for, as the Scripture says, There is no other name given to men under Heaven by which we can be saved; neither is there salvation in any other, Acts, c. iv. v. 12. Whatever we do independently of him, however laudable it may appear in the eyes of the world, cannot contribute towards our eternal salvation; for nothing can be conducive in any degree towards it but through the merits of Christ, which are applied to our souls only by his grace. We are not sufficient, says St. Paul, 2 Cor. c. iii. v. 5. to think any thing of ourselves, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. Whatever progress we make in virtue or Christian perfection, flows from his mercy and grace through Jesus Christ. It is he who worketh in us, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good pleasure, Phil. c. ii. v. 13. It is he who begins the good work in us, and who also perfects it, Phil. c. I. v. 6. What we do in union with his grace, actually moving us thereto, partakes of his merits, but the moral actions that are done by the mere strength of nature do not partake of his merits, and consequently do not merit a supernatural reward, though they may receive from God some temporal recompense in this life. Hence St. Paul, says, 1 Cor. c. xii. v. 3. No man can say Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Spirit, that is, so as to conduce to his eternal happiness; and Christ himself also says, Without me you can do nothing, Jo. c. x. v. 5.

However, it is certain that we may abound to every good work, 2 Cor. c. ix. v. 8. with the assistance of the actual grace of God exciting and aiding us thereto. I can do all things in him who strengthened me, says St. Paul, Phil. c. iv. v. 13. Though our nature has been greatly vitiated by original sin; though our service is of no manner of use to God, and cannot add the smallest mite to his happiness; though all we do is in itself contemptible, of no value, and unworthy of his acceptance, yet he is willing to reward us in the most ample manner, as if he derived some great advantage from our poor endeavours. He treats us not as servants, but as children; he knows our weakness, has compassion on our miseries, and treats our frailties with the greatest indulgence; even when we offend him he pities and spares us, and is ready to embrace us again with open arms upon our repentance. He has the strictest right to all our works and actions, and yet such is his bounty and liberality, that he does not demand our service gratis, but solemnly engages his sacred word to