THE GREAT

CHAPTER II.

CHRISTIAN TRUTHS FROM A GENERAL

POINT OF VIEW.-DOGMATIC, CONTROVERSIAL, AND MORAL DISCOURSES.

SECTION I.

DOGMATIC DISCOURSES-THEIR UTILITY AND NECESSITY.

Y the Christian Truths we understand, in this place, the attributes and perfections of God-the benefits bestowed upon the creature by his Creator-and the Four Last Things. It would be mere loss of time to attempt to prove that these are amongst the most sublime, as they are amongst the most natural subjects which can, and ought, engage the attention of the sacred orator on those occasions, when he may deem it his duty to prepare a set sermon for his people.

Before, however, proceeding to consider these great truths more in detail, it may be well to view them in their universality; to weigh the general principles which are more or less applicable to each class of them, and the two-fold method according to which they may be treated.

The great Christian truths may be treated either

dogmatically, or from a moral point of view. By a dogmatic sermon on these or kindred subjects, we understand a discourse in which the preacher proposes to himself to establish some point of belief by arguments drawn from the very foundations of Christian truth, with a view to strengthen his hearers more and more firmly in their faith, and to cause that faith to bring forth more and more plentifully the fruit of good works. These great truths are said to be treated from a moral point of view, when they are presented by the preacher, more as motives for the practice of Christian virtue, than as grounds for Christian belief. Each mode of treatment has its own special advantages, and is guided by its own special rules.

And in the first place, it is certainly a matter of the utmost importance, and of the highest utility, to establish and strengthen the faith of our hearers in these great fundamental truths of Christianity, by solid and unanswerable proofs. There is nothing which awakens such a grand idea of their religion and such a high esteem of it, in the hearts of the faithful, as to show them that every article of their faith rests upon proofs which are irrefragable, and upon a certitude which is unassailable. The Christian faith is a grand and mighty edifice, every stone of which bears the impress of the finger of God. These marks of the Divinity penetrate the soul to which they are clearly presented, and fill it with esteem and veneration for a religion which has so evidently come to man from God. At this grand spectacle the irresistible convictions of the intellect act upon the will, and excite it to a holy

enthusiasm, rendering it strong, invincible, and ready for every sacrifice. The man who is penetrated with a profound conviction of the eternal truth of the faith which he professes, is prepared for every trial. It was this conviction which sustained the martyrs in their conflicts, the confessors in their prisons, and the holy anchorets in their deserts. It was this conviction which, in every age, brought forth so many saints in the Church of God, to adorn her with their virtues during their pilgrimage on earth, and to shine like stars for all eternity in the kingdom of her divine Spouse.

But, in order that the pastor may secure in his parish those inestimable results, which are the fruit of a strong and lively conviction, he must, from time to time, awaken and reanimate the faith of his people, by bringing before them the leading dogmas of their religion, establishing those dogmas by solid reasoning and by logical proofs, which shall acquire a doubleforce from the accents of true and deep conviction, in which he shall give them expression. Unless he act in this manner, the faith of his people will soon begin to languish and grow cold. It will soon become a dead faith-a faith without works; and it will be well if it be not, sooner or later, altogether extinguished.

In these days we live amidst an atmosphere of influences which are adverse to every prompting of Christian truth, and to every conviction which is founded on the simplicity of Christian faith. The doubts which are raised in our own hearts by him who was a liar from the beginning; those which are suggested by the very books which we read, by the

newspapers and periodicals which we take up, by the anti-religious productions, which the zeal of the scoffer and the infidel scatters with such reckless profusion, and by the discourses to which we are every day obliged to listen in our ordinary and inevitable intercourse with the world-all these things, and a thousand more of the like nature, inevitably tend to undermine and to weaken the simplicity of Christian faith. And how are our Catholic people to be protected against these evils, and strengthened against these insidious and ceaseless attacks of the world and the devil upon the priceless jewel of their faith, unless by the frequent exposition, and the clear and solid establishment, of the dogmas and the teachings of Christian truth? Their faith must be sustained by dogmatic teaching, and strengthened against all the assaults of the enemy. Thus strengthened, they will easily resist his fiercest attacks. Deprived of this teaching and instruction, their faith will be in danger of irretrievable shipwreck. Would that we had no experience, deplorable beyond measure, to bring to bear upon this matter ! How many young men of promise, who were born for, and should have laid their hand on better things, have made a shipwreck of their faith, and been swallowed up in the abyss of vaunting unbelief, because the priest who catechised them in their childhood, or who had charge of them in the opening years of their manhood, did not take sufficient care to lay the foundation of its faith deep in that young soul, which was then so susceptible of good, and, alas, of evil impressions! Led astray by the force of his passions or the deadly influences of evil companions, even

he who has been thoroughly instructed in his faith, and carefully reared in the sanctifying influences of a religious home, may for a time prove unfaithful to the one and the other, and wander away from the paths of duty, and of truth. But, the chances are a hundred to one that, sooner or later, such a one will return to himself, to his duty, and to his God. The salutary influences of his youth, and the saving truths which were then firmly established in his soul, will, one day or other, re-assert themselves and lead him back again into the path of rectitude, from which he may have but too long strayed

away.

But, on the other hand, take a young Catholic who has never been thoroughly taught his religion and the grounds of his faith, and throw him amongst the evil and pernicious influences with which a young man is now-adays almost inevitably surrounded in the world, and there is every reason to fear that he will succumb to those influences; that he will fall before the force of the three-fold concupiscence to whose glorification the whole world seems to be devoted; and that, falling, he will fall to rise no more. And what is said of the young man may be said with equal truth, positis ponendis, of every one who has to fight the battle of life, and make his way to heaven through the pit-falls of the world.

It surely, then, requires no further argument to show that, in these days, the establishment of the great Christian truths by clear, solid, and convincing arguments, is one of the noblest and most useful themes which can engage the attention of the sacred orator,