Bishop Challoner's Meditations ~ Wednesday After Low Sunday

ON THE EVIL OF FALLING FROM THE GRACE OF BAPTISM

Consider first, that how much the greater the dignity is to which we are raised in baptism, and how much the more excellent the advantages are which we there receive, together with the inestimable treasures of baptismal innocence, grace, and sanctity: so much the more dismal is that fall, by which we forfeit, and lose in a moment, all that dignity, with all those advantages and treasures. A dreadful fall indeed! by which the poor soul falls from heaven to hell; from God to the devil; from being a child of God to be a slave of Satan and of sin, that is worse than Satan; from being the spouse of Christ to be the prostitute of unclean spirits; from being the temple of the Holy Ghost, to be the habitation of the wicked one. This abominable tyrant, in the very moment she sins, enters in and takes possession of her; he robs her at once of all her treasures of virtue, grace, and merit; of all her share in Jesus Christ, of all her true right and title to his kingdom, and of all true peace and joy; and in exchange for all these good things he offers her nothing but husks of swine, which cannot satisfy her appetite; nothing but mere toys and fooleries, poisonous baits, which delude her with a momentary sweetness, presently followed with a bitter remorse, and a long train of other evils, ending in death and hell.

Consider 2ndly, the folly and madness of the soul that consents to such an exchange. Alas! she exchanges all her good at present, and all her title to any good hereafter, either in time or eternity, for a mere bubble, a brutish passion, an irksome slavery, an eternal misery! Ah! unhappy sinner, open thy eyes and see the wretched bargain thou hast made! See how strangely thou hast been deluded to part with thy God and all thy good for something so base, vile, empty, filthy, foolish, and miserable, accompanied by so much remorse, by so much danger, and by so much falsehood and deceit. Before thy sin heaven was thine, God himself was thine; but now thou hast parted with thy God, thou hast sold him for a mere nothing, thou art no longer his, thou hast made him thy enemy, thou hast exchanged heaven for hell, thou standest upon the very brink of a miserable eternity, thou are just ready to fall down that dreadful precipice. Can any folly or madness bear the least comparison with this?

Consider 3rdly, the enormity of the treason which the soul is guilty of, when she falls from the grace of baptism. She renounces her allegiance to her King and God; she rebels against him to follow Satan, she even drives him from his throne, which he held within her; she expels him out of his temple, to make room for his enemy. She sets up an idol in the house of God, which she worships in contempt of the living God. She violates all her solemn vows; she sacrilegiously profanes the temple consecrated to God; she breaks his holy covenant; she treads under foot the precious blood of his Son; and, as much as lies in her, she crucifies him again. O my soul, hast thou had no share in all this guilt ? Alas! how early didst thou fall from thy baptismal grace into the bottomless pit of sin and misery! How quickly didst thou exchange thy God for Satan! Thou wast strictly bound in consequence of thy creation, thy redemption, thy baptismal dedication, and the covenant then made in thy name, to turn thyself to God, as soon as thou wast capable of knowing him, and to consecrate thy whole self to his love and service for evermore: and instead of this, hast thou not, at thy very first coming to the use of reason, like the rebel angels, turned away front thy God, by running after empty toys and lying follies, in preference to him, and thinking but little or nothing of him.

Conclude, if thy conscience charge thee with this guilt, to bewail for the whole remainder of thy life the loss thou hast sustained, the misery thou hast incurred, the folly and madness, the heinousness and the enormity of this thy fall from God. And in order to make amends, after the best manner thou art capable of; endeavour now at least, and for every day and hour thou hast yet to come, to make a frequent offering of thy whole self without reserve, to the love and service of the divine majesty.