Meditations on Our Last End

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Excerpt from Meditations on Our Last End: And on Sin and the Sacrament of PenanceWith the exception of love, nothing more powerfully determines the human will than hope and fear. Hope supports man, it encourages and stimulates him in his progress toward virtue, by pointing out the crown prepared for him at the end of his career, fear keeps him in the path of virtue, by showing him the abyss into which he would fall should he retrace his steps or turn aside to the right or the left. Hope gives the just man a foretaste in this life of that happiness which he is meriting by his good works, fear oppresses the sinner by the anticipation of the punishments awaiting him. Hope gives us strength in the combat, and patience under trials, and when every other sentiment seems to yield to the enemy of salvation, fear is our protection in the most violent temptations, and is, in our regard, the beginning of wisdom. (Ps. ex. 10.)There is nothing, then, that urges us more forcibly to advance in the right path than these sentiments of hope and fear. Now what subjects of meditation are more calculated to produce this result than those on the "last end of man"? Is it not chiefly by the consideration of the precious advantages of a good death, of the happy sentence awaiting the just, of the beauties of heaven and the unending joy of the elect, that hope is kept alive in our breasts?About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.