Divisioi. .,,.« Section „,^.ri / O " No, LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. BY D'ALEiMBERT. JOHN-BAPTIST MASSILLON was bom in 1663. at Hieres, in Provence. His father was a poor citizen of that small cit)^ The obscurity of his birth, which gives such a relief to the splendour of his personal merit, should be the first topic of his praise; and it may be said of him, as of that illustrious Roman who owed nothing- to his ancestors, " Videtur ex se natus, — He was the son of himself alone." But his humble origin not only reflects high honour upon his own person; it is still more honourable to that enlightened government, which, having taken him from the midst of the people to place him at the head of one of the most extensive diocesses of the kingdom, confronted the prejudice too com- mon even in our days, that Providence has not destined great places to the genius which it has produced in the lower ranks of society: if the disposers of ecclesiastical dignities had not possessed the wisdom, courage, or good fortune, sometimes to forget this maxim of human vanity, the French clergy would have been deprived of the glory of reckoning the eloquent Massillon among their bishops. After finishing his grammatical studies, at the age of seven- teen he entered into the Oratory. Resolved to consecrate his labours to the church, he preferred, to indissoluble bonds which he might have assumed in some one of our very numerous rehgious orders, the free engagements contracted in a congregation on which the great Bossuet has bestowed this rare eulogy, — " That every one obeys, yet no one com- mands." Massillon preserved to the close of his hfe the most tender and pleasing recollection of the lessons he had received and the principles he had imbibed in this truly re- b ii LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. spectable society, which, without intrigue and ambition, cherishing and cultivating hterature through the sole wish of being useful, has acquired a distinguished name in the annals of art and science; and which, sometimes persecuted, and almost always little favoured, even by those from whom it might expect support, has done all the good it was permitted to do, without injuring a single person, even an enemy; which, in fine, has at all times obtained the regard of the wise by practising religion without littlene||L and preaching it without fanaticism. Massillon's superiors soon formed a presage, from his first essays, of the honour he would confer on the congregation. They destined him to the pulpit; but it was only from obe- dience that he consented to fulfil their intentions: he alone did not foresee the celebrity with which they flattered him, and which was to be the recompense of his modesty and sub- mission. There are some confident minds which recognize, as it were by instinct, the object marked out for them by na- ture, and seize it with vigour; while others, humble and timid, require to be apprised of their powers, and by this honest ignorance of themselves are rendered only the more interesting, and the more worthy of being snatched from ob- scurity and presented to the renown which awaits them. The young Massillon at first did what he could to withdraw himself from this glory. He had already, from pure obedi- ence, while yet in the province, pronounced funeral orations on M. de Villeroy, archbishop of Lyons, and M. de Villars, archbishop of Vienne; and these two discourses, which were indeed first attempts, but attempts of a young man who al- ready announced what he afterward became, had the most brilliant success. The humble orator, affrighted at his rising reputation, and fearing, as he said, " the demon of pride," resolved to escape from him for ever, by devoting himself to the profoundest and even most austere retirement. He went and buried himself in the abbey of Sept-fons, where the same rule is followed as at La Trappe, and there took the habit. During his noviciate, the Cardinal de Noailles sent to the abbot of Sept-fons, whose virtue he respected, a charge which he had just published . The abbot, more religious than eloquent, but still retaining a degree of self-love, at least on LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. lU account of his community, wished to make the prelate a reply worthy of his charge. He committed the task to his exora- torian novice, and Massillon executed it with as much success as promptness. The cardinal, astonished at receiving from this Thebais a work so well written, was not afraid of wound- ing the vanity of the pious abbot by asking him who was the author. The abbot named Massillon; and the prelate told him that it was not fit such a genius should, in the Scripture-phrase, remain " hidden under a bushel." He re- quired the novice to quit his habit, and resume that of the Oratory; and he placed him in the seminary of St. Magloire, at Paris, with an exhortation to cultivate pulpit eloquence. At the same time he took upon himself, as he said, the young orator's ^br^//;/e; which Massillon hmited to that of the apos- tles, that is, to the merest necessaries, and the most exem- plary simplicity. His first sermons produced the effect that his superiors and the Cardinal de Noailles had foreseen. Scarcely did he begin to show himself in the pulpits of Paris, thaii he eclipsed almost all those wdio at that period shone in the same career. He had declared " that he would not preach like them," not through a presumptuous confidence in his superiority, but through an equally just and mature idea that if the minister fails with such a theme, he must be destitute of Christian eloquence. He was persuaded that if the preacher of God's word on the one hand degrades himself by uttering common truths in trivial language; on the other, he misses his pur- pose by thinking to captivate his audience with a long chain of reasoning which they are incapable of following: he knew that if all hearers are not blessed with an informed mind, all have a heart, whence the preacher ought to seek his arms; that, in the pulpit, man ought to be shown to himself, not so much to disgust him by a shocking portrait, as to afflict him by the resemblance; and, in fine, that if it is sometimes use- ful to alarm and disquiet him, it is still more so to draw from him those tears of sensibility which are much more efficacious than the tears of despair. Such was the plan Massillon proposexl to himself, and he executed it like one who had conceived it; that is, like a master. He excels in that part of oratory which may stand b 2 IV LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. instead of all the rest, — that eloquence which goes right to the soul, but which agitates without confounding, appals without crushing, penetrates without lacerating it: he goes to the bottom of the heart in search of those hidden folds in which the passions are enwrapt, — those secret sophisms which they so artfully employ to blind and seduce us. To combat and destroy these sophisms it merely suffices him to develope them ; but he does it in a language so affectionate and ten- der, that he subdues less than he attracts ; and, even in dis- playing before us the picture of our vices, he knows how to attach and please us. His diction, always easy, elegant, and pure, never deviates from that noble simplicity without which there is neither good taste nor genuine eloquence. This sim- plicity, being joined in Massillon to the softest and most se- ducing harmony, borrows from it still new graces; and, what completes the charm of this enchanting style is, that so many beauties are felt to flow freely from the spring, without expense to their author. Sometimes, even, there escape from him, either in the expressions, the turns, or the sweet melody of his periods, negligencies which may be called happy, since they perfectly efface not only the stamp, but even the suspicion, of labour. It was by this inattention to self that Massillon made as many friends as auditors: he knew that the more an orator seems occupied in catching admiration, the less his hearers are disposed to grant it; and that this ambition is the rock fatal to so many preachers, who, intrusted (if I may so express myself) with the interests of God himself, choose to mix with it the little interests of their vanity. Massillon, on the contrary, thought it a very empty pleasure " to have to do," as Montaigne expresses it, "with people who always admire and make way for us;" especially at those seasons when it is so delightful to forget one's self, in order to be solely occupied with those unfortunate beings whom duty enjoins to console and instruct. He com- pared the studied eloquence of profane preachers to those flowers which stifle the products of harvest, and, though very agreeable to the sight, are equally hurtful to the crop. It seemed wonderful that a man, devoted by station to re- tirement, should know the world so well as to draw such exact pictures of the passions, especially of self-love. " I LIFK OK THJB AUIIIOR. V have learned to draw them," he candidly said, " by studying myself." He proved it in a manner equally energetic and in- genuous, by his confession to one of his brethren, who con- gratulated him on the success of his sermons : "The devil," he replied, " has already told it me mOre eloquently than you," Massillon derived another advantage from that eloquence of the soul which he so well understood : as, in speaking to the heart of man, he spoke the language of all conditions. All went to hear his sermons; even unbelievers attended upon him, and often met with instruction where they only sought amusement. The reason wafe, that Massillon knew how to descend on their account to the only language they would hear, that of a philosophy, purely human in appear- ance, but which, finding every access to their hearts open, prepared the way for the Christian orator to approach them without effort and unresisted, and to obtain a conquest even without a combat. His action was perfectly suited to his species of eloquence. On entering the pulpit, he appeared thoroughly penetrated with the great truths he was about to utter: with eyes de- clined, a modest and collected air, without violent motions, and almost without gestures, but animating the whole with a voice of sensibility, he diffused over his audience the religious emotion which his own exterior proclaimed, and caused him- self to be listened to with that profound silence by which elo- quence is better praised than by the loudest applauses. The reputation of his manner alone induced the celebrated Baron to attend on one of his discourses : on leaving the church, he said to a friend who accompanied him, "This man is an orator, and we are only players." The court soon wished to hear him, or rather to judge him. Without pride, as without fear, he appeared on this great and formidable theatre. He opened with distinguished lustre; and the exordium of his first discourse is one of the master-strokes of modern eloquence. Louis XIV. was then at the summit of power and glory, admired by all Europe, adored by his subjects, intoxicated with adulation, and sati- ated with homage. Massillon took for his text a passage of Scripture apparently least applicable to such a prince, — " Blessed are they that mourn;" and from this he had the art to VI LIFE OF THE AtTTHOR. draw a eulogy the more noble and flattering, as it seemed dictated by the gospel itself, and such as an apostle might liave made: "Sire," said he, " if the world were here speak- ing to your majesty, it would not address you with ' Blessed are they that mourn;' 'Blessed,' would it say, 'the prince who never fought but to conquer; who has filled the universe with his name; who, in the course of a long and flourishing reign, has enjoyed with splendour all that men admire, the greatness of his conquests, the love of his people, the esteem of his enemies, the wisdom of his laws:' — but. Sire, the gospel speaks not as the world speaks." The audience of Versailles, accustomed as they were to the Bossuets and Bourdaloues, were unacquainted with an eloquence at the same time so delicate and so noble; in consequence, it excited in the assembly, notwithstanding the gravity of the place, an involuntary expression of admiration. There only wanted, to render this passage still more impressive, that it should have been pronounced in the midst of the misfortunes which suc- ceeded our triumphs, and at a time when the monarch, who, during fifty years, had experienced nothing but prosperity, lived only to sorrow. If ever Louis XIV. heard a more elo- quent exordium, it was perhaps that of a religious missionary, who, on his first appearance before the king, thus began his discourse: — " Sire, I mean not to pay a compliment to your majesty, I have found none in the gospel." Truth, even when it speaks in the name of God, ought to content itself with knocking at the door of kings, and should never break it open. Massillon, convinced of this maxim, did not imitate some of his predecessors, who had displayed their zeal by preaching Christian morality in the mansions of vice with an austerity capable of rendering it odious, and of exposing religion to the resentment of haughty and offended power. Our orator was always firm, but always respectful, while he announced to his sovereign the will of the Judge of kings. He filled the measure of his ministry, but he never surpassed it; and the monarch, who might have left his chapel discontented with the liberty of some other preachers, never left it after a sermon of Massillon, but " discontented with himself." These were the very words of the prince to this orator; words which contained the highest eulogy he J.IFE OF THK AUTHOR. Vll could give; yet one, which so many preachers before and since Massillon have not even wished to obtain, while they were more solicitous to please the critics than to convert sinners. Successes so brilliant and repeated did bot fail of their usual effect; they created Massillon implacable enemies, especially among those who considered themselves as his rivals. Their aim was, if possible, to shut the mouth of so formidable a competitor; but this was only to be done by an accusation against his doctrine, and on this delicate point the preacher gave not the least scope to their charitable intentions. He was, indeed, member of a congregation, the opinions of which were then much the object of suspicion; and through this pious consideration several of his brethren had been dexterously excluded from the pulpit of . Versailles. But Massillon's sentiments, daily exposed to court criticism, were so irreproachably orthodox that they baffled the keenest scru- tiny of hatred. The church and the nation already destined him to the episcopacy; and envy, usually blind to its own interests, might, with subtler policy, have regarded this dig- nity as a decent mode of burying his talents, by banishing him to a distance from Paris and the court. It did not carry so far its dangerous penetration; but, considering a bishopric only in the light of a splendid recompense, it resolved to make a last effort to deprive the orator of what he had so well me- rited. The means employed were to calumniate his morals; and, according to custom, ears were found ready to hear, and hearts to believe, the charge. The sovereign himself, so art- ful is falsehood in insinuating itself to the presence of mo- narchs, was shaken, if not convinced : and the same prince, who had told Massillon, " that he meant to hear him every two years," seemed to fear giving to another church the orator he had reserved to himself. Louis XIV. died; and the Regent, who honoured the ta- lents of Massillon, and despised his enemies, nominated him to the bishopric of Clermont. He wished also that the court should hear him once more ; and engaged him to preach a Lent course before the King, then nine years of age. These sermons, composed in less than three months, are known by the name of Petit Care me (Little Lent). They are. \'U1 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. perhaps, if not the master-piece, at least the true model, of pulpit eloquence. The great sermons of this orator may have more animation and vehemence : the eloquence of the Petit Careme is more pathetic and insinuating; and the charm re- sulting from it is augmented by the interesting nature of the subject, and by the inestimable value of those simple and af- fecting lessons which, intended to penetrate with equal force and softness, the heart of a monarch yet a child, seem to pre- pare.the happiness of millions of men, by showing what they have a right to expect from the prince who is to govern them. Here the preacher places before the eyes of sovereigns the dan- gers and the evils of supreme power; truth flying the throne, and concealing herself even from the princes who seek her; the unmeasured confidence with which even the justest praises may inspire them; the almost equal danger of that weakness which has no opinion of its own, and that pride which never listens to another's; the fatal influence of their vices in cor- rupting and debasing a whole nation ; the detestable glory of conquering kings cruelly purchased by blood and tears; in fine, the Supreme Being himself, placed between oppressor kings and oppressed people, to intimidate the one and avenge the other: such is the object of the Petit Careme, worthy of being learned by all children destined to the throne, and meditated by all men intrusted with governing the world. Some severe censurers, however, have charged these excellent discourses with being too uniform and monotonous: they con- tain, according to them, but a single idea constantly recurring — that of the kindness and /beneficence due from the great and powerful of the earth to the little and feeble, whom nature has created their fellows, humanity has made their brethren, and fortune has doomed to wretchedness. But, without in- quiring into the justice of this censure, we may say that the truth here mentioned is so consolatory to all who groan under affliction, so precious in the education of a prince, and es- pecially so necessary to be impressed on the callous hearts of courtiers, that humanity may bless the orator who has incul- cated it with so much force and perseverance. The year in which Massillon pronounced these Discourses, was that in which he entered the French Academy. The date of his admission was February 23d, 1719. The Abbe LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. IX Fleury, who received him in his capacity of director, among other praises, gave him that of having accommodated his in- struction to the tender age of the king. " You seem," said he, "to have imitated the prophet, who, in order to resus- citate the son of the Shunamite, contracted as it were his dimensions, by placing his mouth upon the mouth, his eyes upon the eyes, his hands upon the hands of the child; and, having thus recalled the vital heat, restored him alive and vigorous to his mother." The director's discourse contains another passage equally edifying and remarkable. Massillon had just been conse- crated a bishop ; and no place at court, no business, no pre- text could be urged to keep him from his diocess. The Abbe Fleury, an inflexible observer of the canons, while he ad- mitted the new member, had his eyes fixed upon the rigorous duties which the episcopacy imposed upon him, in comparison with which, those of academician entirely disappeared. Far, then, from inviting him to frequent attendance on the aca- demy, he exhorted him to a perpetual absence; and he ren- dered his counsel more cogent by the obliging manner in which he expressed his regret for its necessity. " We foresee "with grief,'' said he, " that we are about to lose you^br ever, and that the indispensable law of residence will sequester you without return from our assemblies : we cannot hope to see you again, but when some vexatious husiness, shall, m spite of yourself, tear you from your church." This counsel had the more weight, as he to whom it was addressed had already given it himself. He departed for Clermont, and only returned on indispensable, consequently rare, occasions. He gave all his cares to the happy flock intrusted to him by Providence. He did not conceive that his episcopal function, which he had acquired in consequence of his success in the pulpit, gave him a dispensation from again ascending it, and that he ought to cease being useful because he had been rewarded. He consecrated to the in- struction of the poor, those talents which had so often been applauded by the great; and preferred, to the noisy praises of courtiers, the simple and serious attention of a less brilliant but more docile audience. Perhaps the most eloquent of his discourses are his conferences with his clergy. He preaches to X LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. them the virtues of which he gave the example; — disinterest- edness, simpUcity, forgetfuhiess of self, the active and pru- dent ardour of enlightened zeal, widely different from that fanaticism which is only a blind, and often a very suspicious zeal: moderation was, indeed, his ruling character. He loVed to assemble at his country seat, Oratorians and Jesuits, whom he accustomed to endure, and almost to love each other. He set them to play together at chess, and exhorted them never to engage in more serious warfare. The conciliatory spirit which shone in his conduct, and his well-known senti- ments on the scandal of theological quarrels, caused the go- vernment to wish that he should try to bring to an agreement the Cardinal de Noailles, and those who attacked the doctrine of this pious archbishop ; but this impartiality in this negotia- tion produced its usual effect, of dissatisfying both parties. His sage remonstrances in favour of peace and union were fruitless; and he learned, by his own experience, that it is often easier to persuade unbelievers, than to reconcile those who have so much interest in uniting to confound them. Deeply penetrated with the real obligations of his station, Massillon was especially attentive to fulfil that first and most respectable of episcopal duties, the duty, or rather the plea- sure, of beneficence. He reduced his rights as bishop to very moderate sums, and would entirely have abolished them, had he not thought himself obliged to respect the patrimony of his successors, that is, to leave them wherewith to perform good actions. Within two years he sent twenty thousand Uvres to the hospital of Clermont. All his revenue belonged to the poor. His diocess preserves the remem- brance of his deeds after thirty years; and his memory is daily honoured with the most eloquent of funeral orations — that of the tears of one hundred thousand distressed objects. During his life-time he had anticipated this testimony. When" he appeared in the streets of Clermont, the people prostrated themselves before him, crying, " Long live our father!" Hence it was a frequent observation of this virtu- ous prelate, that his episcopal brethren did not sufficiently feel the degree of consideration and authority they might derive from their station; not, indeed, by pomp, or by a punctilious devotion, still less by the grimaces and in- LIFE OK THK AUTHOK, trigues of hypocrisy, but by those virtues which are recog- nised by the hearts of the people, and which, in a minister of true rehgion, represent to all eyes that just and beneficent Being of which he is the image. Among the countless alms he gave, there w-ere some which he concealed with the greatest care, not only to favour the delicacy of unfortunate individuals, but sometimes to spare whole communities the sensation of inquietude and fear, however groundless, which these donations might occasion them. A numerous convent of nuns, had, for several days, been without bread. The sisterhood had resolved to perish rather than make known their shocking distress, through the apprehension that it might cause the suppression of their house, to which they were more attached than to life. The Bishop of Clermont learned at the same time their extreme necessity and the motive of their silence. Eager to give them relief, he was fearful of alarming them by seeming in- formed of their situation ; he therefore secretly sent them a very considerable sum, which rendered their subsistence secure, till he had found means to provide them with other resources ; and it was not till after his death that they became acquainted with the benefactor to whom they were so greatly indebted. He not only lavished his fortune upon the indigent; he farther assisted them, with equal zeal and success, by his pen. Being a witness, in his diocesan visits, of the wretch- edness under which the inhabitants of the country groaned, and finding his revenue insufficient to supply with bread so many miserable creatures who asked it, he wrote to the court in their favour ; and, by the strong and affecting pic- ture he drew of their necessities, he obtained for them either donations, or a considerable diminution of their taxes. His letters on this interesting subject are said to be master- pieces of pathetic eloquence, superior to the most touching of his sermons. The more sincerely he respected religion, the more he despised the superstitions which degrade it, and the more zealous he was to destroy them. He abolished, though not without difiiculty, some very ancient and very indecent pro- cessions which the barbarism of the dark ages had established xii LIFE OF rilK AUTHOR. in his diocess, and which travestied the divine worship into a scandalous masquerade. The inhabitants of Clermont were used to run to these exhibitions in crowds, some through a stupid devotion, others to turn this religious farce into ridi- cule. The clergy of the city, through fear of the people, who were attached to these shows in proportion to their absurdity, dared not publish the mandate for their suppression. Mas- sillon ascended the pulpit, published his own mandate, and caused himself to be heard by a tumultuous audience who would have insulted any other preacher: — such was the fruit of his virtue and beneficence ! He died, as Fenelon died, and as every bishop ought to die, without money and without debts. It was on the 28th of September, 1742, that the church, eloquence, and huma- nity, sustained this irreparable loss. A recent incident, well calculated to affect feeling hearts, affords a proof how dear the memory of Massillon is, not only to the indigent, whose tears he dried, but to all who have known him. Some years since, a traveller who hap- pened to be at Clermont, wished to see the country-seat where the prelate was accustomed to pass great part of the year. He applied to an ancient.grand-vicar, who, since tfee bishop's death, had not had resolution to return to this country mansion, now deprived of its inhabitants. He con- sented, however, to satisfy thp traveller's desire, notwith- standing the pain he expected from revisiting a spot so sadly dear to his remembrance. They went together, and the grand-vicar showed every thing to the stranger. " Here," said he, with tears in his eyes, " is the alley where this worthy prelate took his walks v/ith us : here is the arbour under which he used to repose while he read : this is the garden which he cultivated with his own hands." They then entered the house, and when they came to the chamber in which Massillon had breathed his last, " This," said the grand-vicar, "is the place where we lost him;" and, as he spoke these words, he fainted away. The shade of Titus or Marcus Aurelius might have envied such a homage ! Massillon has been compared with Bourdaloue, as often as Cicero with Demosthenes, and Racine with Corneille. Parallels of this kind, fertile topics for antithesis, iirove LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. XIU nothing more than the degree of ingenuity in him who makes them. We shall resign this common-place matter without regret, and confine ourselves to a single reflection. When Bourdaloue appeared, the pulpit was yet barbarous ; rivalling, as Massillon himself observed, the theatre in buffoonery, or the schools in dryness. That Jesuit orator, was the first who gave to Religion a language worthy of her : it was solid, se- rious, and, above all, strictly and closely logical. If he who entei's an untrodden path has many thorns to obstruct him,- he also enjoys great advantages, for his advance is more marked, and his immediate celebrity greater, than those of his successors. The public, long accustomed to the reign of Bourdaloue, who had been the first object of their venera- tion, w^ere long persuaded that he could have no rival, es- pecially while Massillon was living, and Bourdaloue from his tomb no longer heard the cry of the multitude in his favour. At length. Death, which brings justice in its train, has as- signed to each orator his proper place : and Envy, which had excluded Massillon from that which was his due, may now seat him in it without the fear of his enjoying it. We shall, however, refrain from giving him a pre-eminence which grave authorities would disallow : it is Bourdaloue's greatest glory, that the superiority of Massillon is still disputed; but if it were to be decided by the number of readers, the ad- vantage would be on the side of Massillon. Bourdaloue is little read but by preachers and devotees ; his rival is in the hands of all who read ; and we must be permitted to say, as completing his Eulogy, that the most celebrated writer of our age and nation, is particularly assiduous in the perusal of this great orator's sermons; that Massillon is his model for prose, as Racine is for verse; and that the Petit Cartme is always laid on his table by the side of Athaliah. If, however, a kind of parallel were to be drawn between these two illustrious orators, we might say, with an intelli- gent judge, that Bourdaloue argues the best, and Massillon is the most pathetic; and that a sermon excellent in all re- spects would be one, of which Bourdaloue should write the first head, and Massillon the second. Perhaps a still more perfect discourse would be one in which they should not ap- LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. pear apart, but their talents, melted together, should, as it were, mutually penetrate each other, and the logician should at the same time write with pathos and sensibility. We ought not to conceal, that all the sermons of our elo- quent academician, as well as his Petit Cartme, are accused of the fault of frequently presenting in the same page only a single idea, varied, indeed, with all the richness of expres- sion, but, by its fundamental uniformity, somewhat drag- ging in its enunciation. The same criticism has been made upon Seneca, but with more justice: that writer, solely am- bitious of astonishing his reader by the profusion of wit with which he overwhelms him, becomes the more wearisome, as he seems to weary himself by a pompous display of riches, which he collects on all sides with manifest effort. Massillon, having his heart solely filled with -the interest of his hearer, ap- pears to present before him in many forms the truth he wishes to impress upon him, only through fear lest he should not en- grave it deeply enough on his soul. Not only, therefore, do we pardon him these tender repetitions, but we feel obliged to him for the motive which has multiplied them: we are convinced that they proceed from one who delights in the love of his fellow- creatures, and whose overflowing sensibility requires room for expansion. It is surprising that the French clergy, who possessed so eminent an orator, should not once have nominated him to preach in their assemblies. He never desired this honour, but left to moderate capacities and ambitious tempers a petty glory of which he had no need. He was even rarely chosen a member of the Assembly; and readily consented, as he said, that prelates less attached than himself to residence should have recourse to this decent excuse for intermitting it. The marked indifference which his episcopal brethren seemed to display toward him was neither intentional on their parts nor even voluntary : it was the obscure work of some men in place, who, from motives worthy of them, se- cretly kept Massillon out of the view of the court, not as an intriguer, — for they knew him too well to believe him one, — but as an illustrious and respected prelate, whose superiority, viewed too near, might have shone with a lustre which power- LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. XV ful men of inferior capacity can never bear. But what a loss to such an auditory was a preacher such as Massillon ! What could be a more interesting topic than to address the assem- bled princes of the church on the august duties imposed on them by their dignity; on the great examples expected from them by a whole people ; on the right they may acquire, from the sanctity of their character and of their lives, to speak the truth to kings, and to lay at the foot of the throne the complaint of the innocent and the oppressed? Could it be thought that Massillon was unworthy to treat so grand a sub- ject, or was it rather feared that he would treat it with too much eloquence? This great orator, either before or after becoming a bishop, pronounced some funeral orations, the merit of which was eclipsed by that of his sermons. If he had not that inflexibi- lity which proclaims the truth with harshness, he had that candour which does not permit to disguise it. Even through the praises which in these discourses he grants to decorum, or perhaps to truth, the secret judgment of his own heart concerning the persons whom it was his office to celebrate, escapes from his natural frankness, and swims on the surface, as it were, in spite of himself: and it is apparent, on reading them, that there are some of his heroes whose history he would rather have composed than their eulogy. Once alone, a failure of memory happened to him on preach- ing. Deceived by the mortification this slight accident caused him, he thought it would be much better to read than to re- peat his sermons. We venture to differ from him in this point. Reading forces an orator either to renounce that free action which is the soul of the pulpit, or to render it ri- diculous by an air of preparation and exaggeration which , destroys its nature and truth. Massillon seems himself to have been sensible that the greatest merit in an oratorical dis- course, with regard to effect, is, that it should appear pro- duced on the spot, without any trace of premeditation ; for, when he was asked, which of his sermons he thought the best, he replied, " that which I recollect the best." Though by taste and duty devoted to Christian eloquence, he sometimes, by way of relaxation, exercised his faculties LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. upon other objects. It is asserted that he left in manuscript a hfe of Corregio. He could not have selected for his subject a painter whose talents were more analogous to his own ; for he himself was, if the expression may be allowed, the Cor- regio of orators. It may be added, that as Corregio had formed himself by opening a new track after Raphael and Titian, so Massillon, who had also found out a new walk of pulpit eloquence, might have said, on comparing himself to other orators, what Corregio did on viewing the pictures of other artists, — " I too am a painter." SERMONS, SERMON I. ON SALVATION, ** My time is not yet come ; but your time is always ready." — John vii. 6. JL HE reproach which is here directed by Jesus Christ, against his relations according to the flesh, who pressed him to show himself to the world, and to go up to Jerusalem, in order to acquire those honours which were due to his great talents, may with propriety be directed against the greatest part of this audience. The time which they give to their fortune, to their advancement, to their pleasures, is always ready; it is always time to labour toward the acquire- ment of wealth and gloiy,and to satisfy their passions: that is the time of man ; but the time of Jesus Christ, that is to say, the time of working out their salvation, is never ready; they delay, they put it off ; they always expect its arrival, and it never arrives. The slightest worldly interests agitate them, and make them undertake every thing ; for what is the world itself, whose de- ceitful ways they follow, but an eternal agitation, where the pas- sions set every thing in motion ; where tranquillity is the only pleasure unknown ; where cares are honourable ; where those who are at rest think themselves unhappy; where all is toil and affliction of spirit ; in a word, where all are in motion, and all are deceived ? Surely, my brethren, when we see men so occupied, so interested, so patient in their pursuits, we would suppose them labouring for everlasting ages, and for riches which ought to se- cure their happiness : how can we comprehend, that so much toil and agitation has nothing in view but a fortune, whose dura- tion scarcely equals that of the labours which have gained it ; and that a life so rapid is spent with so much fatigue, in the search of wealth which must perish along with it? 2 ON SALVATION. Nevertheless, a mistake, which the slightest investigation is suffi- cient to expose, is become the error of by far the majority. In vain does religion call us to more necessary and more important cares ; in vain it announces to us, that to labour for what must pass away, is only amassing, at a great expense, heaps of sand, which tumble upon our heads, as fast as we raise them up ; that the highest pitch of elevation to which we can attain here below, is always that which veroes upon our death, and is the gate of eternity ; and that nothing is worthy of man, but what will endure as long as man. The cares of the passions are always weighty and important : the steps alone which we take for heaven, are weak and languid : salvation alone we consider as an amusement : we toil for frivolous riches, as if we la- boured for eternal possessions ; we labour for eternal possessions, as if we toiled for frivolous riches. Yes, my brethren, our cares for this world are always animated ; obstacles, fatigues, disappointments, nothing can repulse us : our cares for this world are always prudent ; dangers, snares, perplexities, competitions, nothing can make us mistake our aim : whereas, our cares for salvation bear a very different character ; nothing can be more languid, or less interesting to us, although obstacles and disgusts there, are so much to be dreaded; nothing' can be more inconsiderate, although the multiplicity of ways, and the number of rocks for us to split upon, render mistakes in it so familiar and common. We must labour, therefore, toward its accomplishment, with fervour aixd prudence : with fervour, in order not to be repulsed ; with prudence in order not to be mistaken. Part I. — Undoubtedly nothing Jn this life ought to interest us more than the care of our eternal salvation. Besides that this is the grand affair upon which our all depends, we even have not, properly speaking, any other upon the earth ; and the infinite and divers oc- cupations attached to our places, to our rank, to our situations in life, ought to be only different modes of labouring toward our salva- tion. Nevertheless, this care so glorious, to which every thing we do, and whatever we are, relate, is of all others the most despised ; this chief care, which should be at the head of all our other pur- suits, gives place to them all in the detail of our actions ; this care so amiable, and to which the promises of faith, and the consola- tions of grace, attach so many comforts, is of all others become for us the most disgusting, and the most melancholy. And, behold, my brethren, from whence springs this want of fervour in the busi- ness of our eternal salvation ; we pursue it without esteem, without preference, and without inclination. Let us investigate and illus- trate these ideas. It is a very deplorable error, that mankind has attached the most pompous names to all the enterprises of the passions ; and ON SALVATION. , 3 that the cares for our salvation have not, in the opinions of men, been capable of meriting the same honour and the same esteem. Military toils are regarded by us as the path of reputation and glory; the intrigues and the commotions which contribute to our advancement in the world, are looked upon as the secrets of a profound wisdom ; schemes and negociations which arm man- kind against each other, and which frequently make the ambi- tion of an individual the source of public calamities, pass for extent of genius and superiority of talents ; the art of raising, from an obscure patrimony, a monstrous and overgrown fortune, at the expense often of justice and probity, is the science of busi- ness and individual good management. In a word, the world has found out a secret of setting off, by honourable titles, all the different cares which are connected with the things of this earth. The actions of faith alone, which shall endure eternally, which shall form the history of the age to come, and shall be engraven during all eternity upon the immortal columns of the heavenly Jerusalem, are accounted idle and obscure occupations, the lot of weak and Hmited souls, and have nothing which exalt them in the eyes of men. Such, my brethren, is the first cause of our indif- ference toward the business of our salvation : we do not sufficiently esteem that holy undertaking, to labour at it with fervour. Now I do not think it necessary to stop here, and combat an illusion, which so flagrantly violates right reason. For what is it that can render a work glorious to the person who undertakes it? Is it the duration and the immortality which it promises in the memory of man ? Alas ! all the monuments of pride will perish with the world which has reared them up ; whatever we do for the earth, will experience the same destiny which it will one day undergo : victories and conquests, the most splendid enterprises, and all the histoiy of the sinners whose names adorn the pre- sent age, will be effaced from the remembrance of men ; the w^orks of the just alone will be immortal, and, written for ever in the book of life, will survive the entire ruin of the universe. Is it the recompense which is held out to us for it ? But whoever is unable to render us happy, is consequently unable to recom- i3ense us; and there is no other who has that power but God himself. Is it the dignity of the occupations to which they en- gage you ? But the most honourable cares of the world are merely games, on which our error and absurdity have bestowed serious and pompous names. Here, on 'the contrary, every thing is great : we love the Author of our existence alone ; we adore the Sovereign of the universe ; we serve an Almighty Master ; we covet only eternal riches ; we form projects for heaven alone ; we labour for an immortal crown. What is there upon the earth, then, more glorious or more w^orthy of man than the cares of. eternity? Prosperities are honourable anxieties ; splendid enjoyments an illustrious ser^ B 2 ■ ' 4 ON SALVATION. vJtude ; reputation is frequently a public error; titles and dig- nities are rarely the fruit of virtue, and, at the most, serve only to adorn our tombs and embellish our ashes ; great talents, if faith does not regulate their use, are only great temptations : deep knowledge, a wind which inflates and corrupts, if faith does not correct its venom ; all these are only grand, by the use which may be made of them toward salvation : virtue alone is estimable for itself. Nevertheless, if our competitors are more successful and more elevated than we in the world, we view their situation with envious eyes; and their aggrandisement, in humbling our pride, reanimates the fervour of our designs, and gives new life to our expectations ; but it happens sometimes, that the accomplices of our pleasures, changed suddenly into new men, nobly break all the shameful bonds of the passions, and, borne upon the wings of grace, enter, in our sight, into the path of salvation, whilst they leave us behind them, to wander still unfortunately at the plea- sure of our illicit desires. We view with a tranquil eye the pro- digy of their change ; and their lot, far from exciting our envy, and awaking in us any weak desires of salvation, only induces us, perhaps, to think on replacing the void which their retreat has made in the world : of elevating ourselves to those dangerous offices from which they have just descended through motives of rehgion and faith.: — what shall I say ? we become, perhaps, the censu- rers of their virtues : we seek elsewhere than in the infinite trea- sures of grace, the secret motives of their change ; to the work of God we give views entirely worldly ; and our deplorable cen- sures become the most dangerous trials of their repentance. It is thus, O, my God ! that Thou sheddest avenging darkness over ini- quitous passions ! Whence comes this ? We want esteem for the holy undertaking of salvation : this is the first cause of our indifference. In the second place, we labour in it with indolence, because we do not make. a principal object of its attainment, and because we never give a preference to it over our other pursuits. In effect, my brethren, we all wish to be saved ; the most deplorable sinners do not renounce this hope ; we even wish, that amongst our ac- tions there may always be found some which relate to our salva- tion ; for none deceive themselves so far as to believe, that they shall be entitled to the glory of the holy, without having ever made a single exertion toward rendering themselves worthy of it ; but the point in which we commonly deceive ourselves is, the rank which we give to those works, amidst the other occupations which divide our life. The trifles, the attentions which we lavish so profusely in our intercourse with society, the functions of a charge, domestic ar- rangements, passions and pleasures, their times and their mo- ments marked in our days ; — where do we place the work of sal- ON SALVATION. 5 "vation ? What rank do we give to this special care, above our other cares ? Do we even make a business of it ? And, to enter into the particulars of your conduct, what do you perform for eter- nity, which you do not for the world an hundred-fold ? You some- times employ a small portion of your wealth in religious charities ; but what are these when compared to the sums which you sacrifice every day to your pleasures, to your passions, and to your caprices ? In the morning you, perhaps, raise up your mind to the Lord in prayer; but does not the world, in a moment, resume its place in your heart, and is not the remainder of the day devoted to it ? You regularly attend, perhaps, in order to fulfil the external duties of religion ; but, without entering into the motives which frequently carry you there, this individual exercise of religion, is it not com- pensated by devoting the remainder of the day to indolent and worldly pursuits ? You sometimes correct your inclinations ; you perhaps bear with an injury ; you undertake the discharge of some pious obligation ; but these are individual and insulated exertions, out of the common track, and which are never followed by any re- gular consequences ; you will be unable to produce, before the Lord, a single instance of these in your favour, without the enemy having it at the same time in his power to reckon a thousand against you : salvation occupies your intervals alone ; the world has, as I may say, the foundation and the principal : the moments are for God, our entire life is for ourselves. I know, my brethren, that, with regard to this, you feel sen- sibly the injustice and the danger of your own conduct. You con- fess, that the agitations of the world, of business, and of pleasures, almost entirely occupy you, and that a very little time, indeed, remains for you to reflect upon salvation: but, in order to tran- quilhze yourselves, you say, that some future day, when you shall be more at ease ; when affairs of a certain nature shall be termi- nated ; when particular embarrassments shall be at an end ; and, in a word, when certain circumstances shall no longer exist, you will then think seriously upon your salvation, and the business of eternity shall then become your principal occupation. But, alas ! your deception is this, that you regard salvation as incompatible with the occupations attached to the station in which Providence has placed you. For, cannot you employ that station as the means of your sanctification ? Can you not exercise in it all the Christian virtues ? Penitence, should these occupations be pain- ful and distressing; clemency, pity, justice, if they establish you in authority over your fellow-creatures ? Submission to the will of Heaven, if the success does not correspond sometimes with your expectations? A generous forgiveness of injuries, if you suffer oppression or calumny in that station ? Confidence in God alone, if in it you experience the injustice or the inconstancy of your masters ? Do not many individuals of your rank and station, in the same predicament as you find yourselves, lead a pure and 6 ON SALVATION. Christian life ? You know well, that God is to be found every where ; for, in those happy moments when you have sometimes been touched with grace, is it not true, that every thing recalled you to God ? That even the dangers of your station became the vehicles of instruction, and means of cure for you ; that the world disgusted you even with the world; that you found, continually and every where, the secret of offering up a thousand invisible sa- crifices to the Almighty, and of making your most hurried and tumultuous occupations the sources of holy reflections, or of praise- worthy and salutary examples ? Why do you not cultivate these impressions of grace and salvation ? It is not your situation in life, it is your infidelity and weakness, which have extinguished them in your heart- Joseph was charged with the management of a great kingdom ; he alone supported the whole weight of the government; never- theless, did he forget the Lord, who had broken asunder his chains and justified his innocence ? Or, in order to serve the God of his fathers, did he delay till a successor should come and restore that tranquiUity to him which his new dignities had necessarily deprived him of? On the contrary, he knew how to render serviceable, toward the consolation of his brethren, and the happiness of the people of God, a prosperity which he acknowledged to be held . only from his Almighty hand. That officer of the Queen of Ethiopia, who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, had the sole government of her immense riches : every particular with re- gard to tribute and subsidies, and the administration of all the public revenues, were intrusted to his fidelity. Now, this abyss of cares and embarrassments did not deprive him of leisure to seek, in the prophecies of Isaiah, the salvation he expected, and the words of eternal life. Place yourselves in the most agitated sta- tions, you will find examples of upright souls, who in them have wrought their sanctification. The court may become the asylum of virtue, as well as the cloister ; places and employments may be the aids, as well as the rocks of piety ; and when, in order to return to God, we delay till a change of station shall take place, it is a convincing proof that we do not as yet wish to change our heart. Besides, when we say that salvation ought to be your sole em- ployment, we do not pretend that you should renounce all other pursuits ; for you would then depart from the order of God : we only wish you to connect them with your salvation '5 that piety may sanctify your occupations; that faith may regulate them; that religion may animate them ; that the fear of the Lord may moderate them : in a word, that salvation may be as the centre to which they all tend. For, to wait till you shall be in a more tranquil situation, and less involved in worldly perplexities, is not only an illusion which Satan employs to delay your repentance, but it is also an outrage upon the religion of Jesus Christ. You thereby justify the reproaches formerly made against it by the ON SALVATION, / enemies of the Christians ; it would seem that you look upon it as incompatible with the duties of prince, courtier, public charac- ter, and father of a family : like them, you seem to believe, that the gospel proposes only maxims unfortunate and inimical to so- ciety; and that, were it believed and strictly observed, it would be necessary to quit all ; to exclude ourselves from the world ; to renounce all public concerns ; to break all the ties of duty, of hu- manity, of authority, which unites us to the rest of mankind; and to live as if we were alone upon the earth : in place of which, it is the gospel alone which makes us fulfil all these duties as they ought to be fulfilled : it is the religion of Jesus Christ which can alone form pious princes, incorruptible magistrates, mild and gen- tle masters, and faithful subjects, and maintain, in a just harmony, that variety of stations and conditions, upon which depend the peace and tranquillity of the people, and the safety of empires. But, in order to impress more sensibly upon you the illusion of this pretext, when you shall be free from embarrassment, and disengaged from those external cares which at present detach your thoughts from salvation, will your heart be free from passions? Will those iniquitous and invisible bonds which now stop you, be broken asunder ? Will you be restored to yourselves ? Will you bo more humble, more patient, more moderate, more vir- tuous, more penitent ? Alas ! it is not external agitations which check you ; it is the disorder within ; it is the tumultuous ar- dour of the passions. It is not from the cares of fortune, and the embarrassments of events and business, says a holy father, that confusion and trouble proceed ; it is from the irregular desires of the soul : a heart in which God reigns, is tranquil every where. Your cares for the world are only incompatible with salvation because the affections which attach you to it are criminal. It is not your stations, but your inclinations, which become rocks of destruction to you. Now, from these inclina- tions you will never be able to free yourselves with the same facility as from your cares and embarrassments ; they will after- wards be even more lively, more unconquerable than ever : be- sides this fund of weakness which they draw from your cor- ruption, they will have that force and strength acquired by habit through time and years. You think, that, in attaining rest, every thing will be accomplished ; and you will feel, that your passions, more lively in proportion as they no longer find ex- ternal resources to employ them, will turn all their violence against yourselves ; and you will then be surprised to find, in your own hearts, the same obstacles which at present you be- lieve to be only in what surrounds you. This leprosy, if I may venture to speak in this manner, is not attached to your clothes, to your places, to the walls of your palaces, so that, by quit- ting them, you may rid yourselves of it; it has gained root ON SALVATION. in your liesh. It is not by renouncing your cares, therefore, that you must labour toward curing yourselves ; it is by purifying yourselves that you must sanctify your cares. Every thing is pure to those who are pure, otherwise your wound will follow you, even into the leisure of your solitude ; like that king of J udea mentioned in the book of Kings, who in vain abdicated his throne, delivered up all the insignia, as well as the cares of royalty, into the hands of his son, and withdrew himself into the heart of his palace : he carried with him the leprosy with which the Lord had struck him, and beheld that shameful disease pursue him even into his retreat. External cares find neither their innocency nor their malignity but in our own hearts ; and it is ourselves alone who render the occu- pations of the world dangerous, as it is ourselves alone who render those of heaven insipid and disgusting. And behold, my brethren, the last reason why we show so little fervour and animation in the aftair of our eternal salvation, — is because we fulfil the duties necessary to accomplish it without plea- sure, and, as it were, against our will. The slightest obligations of piety appear hard to us ; whatever we do for heaven tires us, ex- hausts us, displeases us : prayer confines our mind too much ; re- -tirement wearies us ; holy reading, from the first, fatigues the at- tention ; the intercourse of the upright is languid, and has nothing sprightly or amusing in it ; in a word, we find something, I know not what, of melancholy in virtue, vvhich occasions us to fulfil its obligations only as hateful debts, which we always discharge with a bad grace, and never till we see ourselves forced to it. But, in the first place, my brethren, you are unjust in attribu- ting to virtue what springs from your ovrn corruption ; it is not piety which is disagreeable, it is your heart which is disordered; it is not the cup of the Lord which is to be accused of bitterness, says a holy father, it is your own taste which is vitiated. Every thing is bitter to a diseased palate : correct your disposi- tions, and the yoke will appear light to you; restore to your heart that taste of which sin has deprived it, and you will expe- rience how pleasing the Lord is : hate the world, and you will com- prehend how much virtue is amiable. In a word, Jesus Christ once become the object of your love, you will then feel the truth of every thing I say. Do the upright experience those disgusts for pious works which you feel? Interrogate them : demand if they consider your con- dition as the happiest. They will answer, that, in their opinion, you appear worthy of compassion ; that they are feelingly touched for your errors ; to see you suffering every thing for a world which either despises you, wearies you, or cannot render you happy ; to see you frequently running after pleasures more insipid to you than even the virtue from which you fly : they will tell you, that they would not change their pretended melancholy for all the felicities ' ON SALVATION, 9 of the earth. Prayer consoles them; retirement supports them ; holy reading animates them ; works of piety shed a holy unction through their soul ; and their happiest days are those which they pass with the Lord. It is the heart which decides our pleasures. While you continue to love the world, you will find virtue insupportable. In the second place, if you wish to know why the yoke of Jesus Christ is so hard, and so burdensome to you, it is because you carry it too seldom : you give only a few rapid moments to the care of your salvation j certain days which you consecrate to piety \ certain religious works of which you sometimes acquit yourselves ; and, in accomplishing their immediate discharge, you experience only the disgusts attending the first efforts ; you do not leave to grace the time necessary to lighten the weight ; and you anticipate the comforts and the consolations which it never fails to shed upon the sequel. Those mysterious animals which the Philistines made choice of to carry the ark of the Lord beyond their frontiers, emblematic of unbelieving souls little accustomed to bear the yoke of Jesus Christ, bellowed, says the Scripture, and seemed to groan under the grandeur of that sacred weight : in place of which, the children of Levi, a natural image of the upright, accustomed to that holy ministry, made the air resound with songs of mirth and thanksgivings, while carrying it with majesty, even over the burn- ing sands of the desart. The law is not a burden to the upright soul, accustomed to observe it. It is the worldly soul alone, little familiarized to the holy rules, who groans under a weight so pleas- ing. When Jesus Christ declares that his yoke is light and easy, he commands us, at the same time, to bear it every day. The unction is attached to the habit and usage of it : the arms of Saul were heavy to David, only because he was not accustomed to them. W^e must familiarize ourselves with virtue, in order to be acquaint- ed with its holy attractions. The pleasures of sinners are only superficially agreeable ; the first moments alone are pleasant ; descend deeper, and you no longer find but gall and bitterness ; and the deeper you go, the more will you find the void, the weari- ness, and the satiety that are inseparable from sin. Virtue, on the contrary, is a hidden manna : in order to taste all its sweetness, it is necessary to dig for it ; but the more you advance, the more do its consolations abound ; in proportion as the passions are calmed, the path becomes easy ; and the more will you applaud yourselves for having broken asunder chains which Aveighed you down, and which you no longer bore but with reluctance and secret sorrow. Thus, while you confine yourselves to simple essays in virtue, you will taste only the repugnances and the bitterness of it ; and, as you will not possess the fidelity of the upright, you can have no right, consequently, to expect their consolations. In a word, you perform the duties of piety without inclination. 10 ON SALVATION. not only because you do them too seldom, but because you only, as I may say; half perform them. You pray, but it is without recollection ; you abstain, perhaps, from injuring your enemy, but it is without loving him as your brother ; you approach the holy mysteries, but without bringing there that fervour which alone can enable you to find in them those ineffable comforts which they communicate to the religious soul ; you sometimes separate your- selves from the world, but you carry not with you into retirement the silence of the senses and of the passions, without which it is only a melancholy fatigue. In a word, you only half carry the yoke. Now, Jesus Christ is- not divided. That Simon of Cyrene, who bore only a part of the^ cross, was overcome by it, and the soldiers were under the necessity of using violence to force him to continue this melancholy office to the Saviour of the world. The fulness alone of the law is consolatory ; in proportion as you re- trench from it, it becomes heavy and irksome ; the more you wish to soften it, the more it weighs you down. On the contrary, by sometimes adding extraneous rigours, you feel the load diminished, as if you had applied additional softness. Whence comes this? It is that the imperfect observance of the law takes its source from a heart which the passions still share. Now, according to the word of Jesus Christ, a heart divided, and which nourishes two loves, must be a kingdom and a theatre full of trouble and desolation. Would you wish a natural image of it, drawn from the holy Scriptures ? Rebecca, on the point of her delivery of Jacob and Esau, suffered the most cruel anguish : the two children strug- gled within her ; and, as if worn out by her tortures, she in- treated of the Lord either death or deliverance. Be not sur- prised, said a voice from heaven to her, if your sufferings are ex- treme, and that it costs you so much to become a mother ; the reason is, you carry two nations in your womb. Such is your history, my dear hearers ; you are surprised that it costs you so much to accomplish a pious work ; to bring forth Jesus Christ, the new man in your heart. Alas ! the reason is, that you still preserve there two loves which are ireconcilable, Jacob and Esau, the love of the world and the love of Jesus Christ ; it is because you carry within you two nations, as I may say, who make continual war against each other. If the love of Jesus Christ alone possessed your heart, all there would be calm and peaceable ; but you still nourish iniquitous passions in it ; you still love the world, the pleasures and distinctions of fortune ; you cannot endure those who eclipse you ; your heart is full of jealou- sies, of animosities, of frivolous desires, of criminal attachments ; and from thence it comes that your sacrifices, like those of Cain, being always imperfect, like his, are always gloomy and disagreeable. Serve, then, the Lord with all your heart, and you will serve ON SALVATION. 11 him with joy. Give yourself up to him without reserve, without retaining the smallest right over your passions. Observe the righteousnesses of the law, in all their fulness, and they will shed holy pleasures through your heart: for, thus saith the prophet, " The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart." Think not that the tears of penitence are always bitter and gloomy. The mourning is only external ; when sijicere, they have a thousand secret recompenses. The upright soul resembles the sacred bush ; nothing strikes our view but prickles and thorns, but you see not the glory of the Lord which dwells within it; you see only fast- ings and bodily sufferings, but you perceive not the holy unction which soothes and softens them ; you see silence, retirement, flight from the world and its pleasures, but you behold not the in- visible Comforter, who replaces, with so much usury, the society of men, now become insupportable, since they have begun to taste that of God ; you see a life apparently gloomy and tiresome, but you are incapable of seeing the peace and the joy of that in- nocence which reigns within. It is there that the Father of mercies, and the God of aH, consolation, so liberally sheds his favours; and that the soul, unable sometimes to support their fulness and excess, is obliged to intreat the Lord to suspend the torrent of his kindness, and to measure the abundance of his gifts by the weakness of his creature. Come yourself, my dear hearer, and make a happy experience of it ; come, and put the fidelity of your God to the trial ; it is here he wishes to be tried ; come, and prove whether or not we render false testimonies to his mercies ; if we attract the sinner by false hopes, and if his gifts are not still more abundant than our promises. You have long tried the world ; you have found it destitute of fidelity ; it flattered you with hopes of accomphshing every thing ; pleasures, honours, imaginary happiness ; it has deceived you ; you are unhappy in it ; you have never been able to attain a situation answerable to your wishes or expectations; come, and see if your God will be more faithful to you ; if only bitterness and disgusts are to be found in his service ; if he promises more than he bestows; if he is ah ungrateful, change- able, or capricious master ; if his yoke is a cruel servitude, or a sweet liberty ; if the duties which he exacts from us are the punishment of his slaves, or the consolation of his children ; and if he deceives those who serve him. My God ! how little wouldst thou be worthy of our hearts, wert thou not more amiable, more faithful, and more worthy of being served, than this miserable world ! But, in order to serve him as he wishes to be served, we must esteem the glory and the happiness of his service ; we must pre- fer this happiness to all others, and labour in it with sincerity, without reserve, and with a ripe and watchful circumspection : for if it is a common fault to want fervour in the busmess of our 12 ON^ SALVATION. eternal salvation, and to become disgusted with it, it is likewise a much more general one to fail of prudence, and to mistake our path toward it. Part II. — An enterprise, where the dangers are daily, and mis- takes common; where, amongst so many different routes which appear safe, there is, however, only one true and unerring, and the success of which must, nevertheless, decide our eternal destiny; — an enterprise of this nature surely requires uncommon exertions ; and never had we occasion, in the conduct of any other, for so much circumspection and prudence. Now, that such is the enter- prise of salvation, it would be needless to waste time in proving here, and equally so for you to doubt. The only object of impor- tance, then, to establish, is, the rules and the marks of this prudence which is to guide us in so dangerous and so essential an affair. The first rule is, not to determine ourselves by chance amongst that multiplicity of ways which mankind pursue ; carefully to ex- amine all, independent of usages and customs which may authorize them ; in the affair of our salvation, to give nothing to opinion or example. The second is, when we have finally determined to leave nothing to the uncertainty of events, and always to prefer safety to danger. Such are the common rules of prudence adopted by the children of the age, in the pursuit of their pretensions and their temporal expectations. Eternal salvation is the only affair in which they are neglected. In the first place, no person examines if his ways are sure : nor does he ever require any other pledge of his safety than the crowd which he sees marching before him. Secondly, in the doubts which spring up during our proceedings, the party the most dangerous to salvation, having always self-love in its favour, is always preferred : two important and common errors in the af- fair of eternal salvation, which it is necessary to combat here. The first rule is, not to determine by chance, and in the affair of eternity to give nothing to opinion or example. Indeed, the up- right is every where represented to us in the holy writings, as a judicious and prudent man, who calculates, who compares, who examines, who discriminates, who tries whatever may be the most proper, who does not lightly believe every fancy, who carries be- fore him the torch of the law, that his steps may be enlightened, and that he may not be in danger of mistaking his way. The sinner, on the contrary, is there held out as a foolish man, who marches by chance, and who, in the most dangerous passes, ad- vances forward with confidence, as if he was travelling in the straightest and most certain path. Now, my brethren, such is the situation of almost all men in the affair of salvation. In every other matter, prudent, atten- tive, diffident, active to discover any errors concealed under the common prejudices, — it is in salvation alone that nothing can ON SALVATION. 13 equal our credulity and imprudence. Yes, my brethren, we tell you every day, that the life of the world, which is to say, that life of amusement, of inutility, of vanity, of show, of effeminacy, ex- empt even from great crimes, — that this life, I say, is not a Chris- tian one, and consequently is a life of reprobation and infidelity : it is the doctrine of that religion in which you was born ; and since your infancy you have been nourished in these holy truths. The world, on the contrary, affirms this to be the only life which persons of a certain rank can lead ; that not to conform themselves to it, would betray a barbarity of manners, in which there would be more singularity and meanness than reason or virtue. I even consent that it may still be considered as dubious, whether the world or we have reason on our side, and that this grand dispute may not yet be decided ; nevertheless, as a horrible alternative depends upon it, and that any mistake here is the worst of all evils, it appears that prudence requires us to clear it up at least, before we take the final step. It is surely natural to hesi- tate between two contending parties, particularly where our sal- vation is the subject of dispute. Now, I ask you, entering into the world, and adopting its manners, its maxims, and its customs, as you have adopted them, have you begun by examin- ing whether it had reason on its side, and if we were wrong and false deceivers ? The world wishes you to aspire to the favours of fortune, and to neglect neither cares, exertions, mean- nesses, nor artifices, to procure them : you follow these plans ; but have you examined if the gospel does not contradict and forbid them ? The world boasts of luxury, of magnificence, of the deli- cacies of the table; and, in matters of expense, it deems nothing excessive but what may tend to derange the circumstances. Have you informed yourselves, whether the law of God does not pre- scribe a more holy use of the riches which we hold only from him? The world authorizes continual pleasures, gaming, theatres, and treats with ridicule whoever dares venture even to doubt their in- nocence. Have you found this decision in the sorrowful and crucifying maxims of Jesus Christ ? The world approves of certain suspicious and odious ways of increasing the patrimony of our fathers, and places no other bounds to our desires than those of the laws, which punish vio- lence and manifest injustice. Can you assure us, that the rules of the conscience do not observe more narrowly, and, with regard to these matters, do not enter into discussions which the world is totally unacquainted with ? The world has declared, that a gentle, effeminate, and idle life, is an innocent life ; and that virtue is not so rigid and austere as we wish to make it. Be- fore giving credit to this, merely upon its assertion, have you consulted whether the doctrine brought us by Jesus Christ from heaven, subscribed to the novelty and to the danger of these 14 ON SALVATIOlSf. What, my brethren! in the affair of your eternity, without examination or attention, you adopt common prejudices, merely because they are estabhshed ? You bhndly follow those who march before you, without examining where the path leads to which they keep ? You even deign not to inquire at yourselves whether or not you are deceived ? You are satisfied in knowing that you are not the only persons mistaken ? What ! in the busi- ness which must decide your eternal destiny, you do not even make use of your reason ? You demand no other pledge of your safety than the general error ? You have no doubt or suspicion ? You think it unnecessary to inform yourselves? You have no mistrust ? All is good, and, in your opinion, as it ought to be ? You who are so nice, so difficult, so mistrustful, so full of precau- tion when your worldly interests are in question, in this grand affair alone you conduct yourselves by instinct, by fancy, by foreign impressions ? You decide upon nothing, but indolently allow yourselves to be dragged away by the multitude, and the torrent of example ? You who, in every other matter, would blush to think like the crowd ; you who pique yourselves upon superiority of genius, and upon leaving to the common people, and to weak minds, all vulgar prejudices ; you who carry to a ridiculous ex- treme, perhaps, your mode of thinking on every other point, upon salvation alone you think with the crowd, and it appears that rea- son is denied to you on this grand interest alone. What, my bre- thren ! when you are asked, in the steps which you take to insure success to your worldly expectations, the reasons which have in- duced you to prefer one party to another, you advance such solid and prudent motives ; you justify your choice by prospects so cer- tain and decisive; you appear to have so maturely considered them before adopting their execution ; and when we demand of you whence it comes, that in the affair of your eternal salvation you prefer the abuses, the customs, the maxims of the world, to the examples of the saints,, who certainly did not live like you, and to the rules of the gospel^ which condemn all those who live as you do ; you have nothing to answer but that you are not singular, and that you must live like the rest of the world ? Great God ! to what purpose are great abilities in the conduct of projects which will perish with us ! We have reasons and arguments in support of vanity, and we are children with regard to the truth. We pique ourselves on our wisdom in the affairs of the world ; and, alas ! in the business of our eternal salvation, we think it no disgrace to be ignorant and foolish. You will tell us, perhaps, that you are neither wiser, nor more able than all the others who live like you ; that you cannot enter into discussions which are beyond your reach ; that, were we to be believed, it would be necessary to cavil at and dispute every thing ; and that piety does not consist in refining to such an extreme. But I ask you, — Is so much subtlety required ON SALVATION. 15 to know that the world is a deceitful guide ; that its maxims are rejected in the school of Jesus Christ; and that its customs can never subvert the law of God ? Is not this the most simple and the most common rule of the gospel, and the first truth in the plan of salvation ? To know our duty, it requires only to walk in simplicity of heart. Subtleties are only necessary in order to dis- semble with ourselves, and to connect, if possible, the passions with the holy rules ; there it is that the human mind has occasion for all its industry, for the task is difficult. Such is exactly your case; you who pretend, that to recall customs to the law is a ridiculous refinement. To know our duty, it only requires a conference with ourselves. While Saul continued faithful, he had no occasion to consult the sorceress with regard to what he should do ; the law of God sufficiently instructed him. It was only after his guilt, that, in order to calm the inquietudes of a troubled con- science, and to connect his criminal weaknesses with the law of God, he bethought himself of seeking, in the answers of a deceit- ful oracle, some authority favourable to his passions. Love the ti'uth, and you will soon acquire a knowledge of it. A clear con- science is the best of all instructors. Not that I wish to blame those sincere researches which an honest and timid soul makes to enlighten and instruct itself; I wish only to say, that the majority of doubts with regard to our duties, in those hearts delivered up like you to the world, springs from a ruling principle of cupidity, which, on the one side, would wish not to interfere with its infamous passions ; and, on the other, have the authority of the law to protect it from the remorses which attend a manifest transgression. For, be- sides, if you seek the Lord in sincerity, and your lights are in- sufficient, there are still prophets in Israel ; consult, in proper time, those who preserve the form of the law, and of the holy doctrine, and who teach the way of God in truth. Do not pro- pose your doubts with those colourings and softenings which always fix the decision in your favour; do not apply in order to be deceived, but to be instructed ; seek not favourable, but sure and enlightened guides ; do not content yourselves even with the testimony of men ; consult the Lord frequently, and through different channels. The voice of Heaven is uniform, because the voice of truth, of which it is the interpreter, is the same. If the testimonies do not accord, prefer always what places you farthest from danger ; always mistrust the opinion which pleases, and which already had the sufterage of your self-love. It rarely happens that the decisions of our inclinations are found the same with those of the holy rules ; nevertheless, it is that which decides on all our preferences in the business of salvation. — Second step of our imprudence in the affair of our eternal salvation. — In effect, there is scarcely a doubt with regard to our duties, which conceals from us the precise obligation of the law on every step. 16 ON SALVATION. We know the paths by which Jesus Christ and the saints have passed ; they are still pointed out to us every day ; we are invited, by the success which they have had, to walk in their steps. In this manner, say they to us, with the apostles, did those men of God who have preceded us, ovei'come the world, and obtain the performance of the promises. We see, that, by imitating them, we may hope for all, and, in the way in which we walk, that every thing is to be dreaded. Ought we to hesitate on this alternative ? Nevertheless, in every thing we resist our own lights ; every where we prefer danger to safety; our whole life is, indeed, one con- tinued danger ; in all our actions we float, not between the mOre or less perfect, but between guilt and simple errors. Every time we act, the question is not to know whether we are doing the greatest good,. but if we are committing only a slight fault, worthy of indulgence. All our duties are limited to the inquiry at our- selves, if possessing such principles ; if, to a certain degree, deli- vering ourselves up to resentment ; if employing a certain degree of duplicity ; if not denying ourselves a certain gratification, be a crime, or a venial fault ; you always hang between these two des- tinies ; and your conscience can never render you the testimony, that on any occasion you made choice of the part in which there was no danger. Thus, you know, that a life of pleasure, of gaming, of show, of amusement, when even nothing gross or criminal is mingled with it, is a part very doubtful for eternity ; no saint, at least, has left you such an example. You are sensible, that more guarded and more Christian manners would leave you nothing- similar to dread : nevertheless, you love an accommodating doubt better than an irksome safety ; you know that grace has moments which never return ; that nothing is more un- certain than the return of holy impulses, once rejected ; that salvation deferred, almost always fails ; and that to begin to-day is prudently assuring ourselves of success: you know it; yet you prefer the uncertain hope of a grace to come, to the present salvation which offers itself to you. Now, my brethren, I only demand of you two reflections, and I shall finish. In the first place, when, even in this path which you tread, the balance were equal, that is to say, when it were equally suspicious whe- ther you are to be saved or lost, did the smallest portion of faith remain to you, you would be plunged in the most cruel alarms; it ought to appear horrible to you that your eternal salvation was become a problem, upon which you knew not what to decide, and upon which, with equal appearances of truth, you might determine for the happiness or the misery of your everlasting lot, in the same manner as upon those indiffer- ent questions which God has yielded up to the controversies of men. You ought to undertake every thing, and to employ every exertion, to place appearances, at least, in your favour, ON SALVATION. 17 and to find out a situation where prejudices would be on your side : and here, where every thing concludes against you, — ^where the law is unfavourable, — where you have nothing in your favour but some fallacious appearances of reason, upon which you would not hazard the smallest of your temporal interests, — and with manners, which to this period have saved none, and in whicli you only strengthen and comfort yourselves by the example of those who perish with you, — you are tranquil in this path; you admit of and acknowledge the wisdom of those who have chosen a more certain one : you say that they are praisewortliy ; that they are happy who can assume such a command over them- selves; that it is mucli safer to live as they do; you say this, and you think it needless to imitate or follow their example ! Madman ! cries the apostle, what delusion is it which blinds thee? and wherefore dost thou not obey that truth which thou knowest? Ah ! my brethren, in a choice which interests our glory, our ad- vancement, our temporal interests, are we capable of such im- prudence? Of all the various ways which present themselves to ambition, do we leave those where every appearance seems favour- able to our success, and make choice of such as lead to nothing ; where fortune is tardy and doubtful; and which have hitherto been only pi'oductive of misfortune? Of salvation alone, therefore, we make a kind of speculation, if I may venture to speak in this manner; that is to say, an undertaking without arrangement, without precaution, which we abandon to the uncertainty of events, and of which the success can alone be expected from chance, and not from our exertions. In a word, as my last reflection, allow me to ask. Why you search for, and allege to us so many specious reasons, as a justification to yourselves of the manners in which you live ? Either you wish to be saved, or you are de- termined to be lost. Do you wish to be saved ? Choose, then, the most proper means of attaining what you aspire to. Quit those doubtful paths, by v/hich none have hitherto been conducted to it : confine yourselves to that which Jesus Christ has pointed out to us, and which alone can safely lead us to it. Do not apply yourselves to lessen in your own sight the dangers of your situa- tion, and to view them in the most favourable light, in order to dread them less; rather magnify the danger to your mind: we cannot dread too much what we cannot shun too much; and salvation is the only concern where precaution can never be excessive, because a mistake in it is without remedy. See if those who once followed the same deceitful paths in which you tread, and who employed the same reasons that you make use of for their justification, have confined themselves to them from the moment that grace had operated in their hearts serious and sincere desires of salvation : they regarded the dangers in which you live as incompatible with their design : they sought more solid and certain paths ; they made the holy 18 ON SALVATION. safety of retirement succeed to the inutility and the dangers of so- ciety; the habit of prayer to the dissipation of gaming and amuse- ments ; the guard of the senses to the indecency of dress, and the danger of pubHc spectacles; Christian mortification to the soft- ness of an effeminate and sensual life; the gospel to the world: they considered that it would be absurd to wish their salvation through the same means by which others are lost. But, if you are determined to perish, alas ! why will you still preserve measures with religion? Why will you always seek to place some specious reasons on your side, to conciliate your manners with the gospel, and to preserve, as I may say, appearances still with Jesus Christ? Why are you only half-sinners, and still leave to your grossest passions the useless check of the law? Cast off the remains of that yoke which is irksome to you; and which, in lessening your pleasures, lessens not your punishment. Why do you accomplish your perdition with so much constraint? In place of those scru- ples, which permit you only doubtful gains, and deny you still certain low, and manifestly wicked profits, but which place you in the number of those reprobates who shall never possess the king- dom of God; overleap these bounds, and no longer place any limits to your guilt, but those of your cupidity : in place of those loo&e and worldly manners, which will equally prove your ruin, refuse nothing to your passions, and, like the beasts of the earth, yield to the gratification of every desire. Yes, sinners, perish with all the fruits of iniquity, seeing you will equally reap tears and eternal punishment. But, no, my dear hearer, we only give you these counsels of des- pair, in order to inspire you with a just horror at them : it is a tender artifice of zeal, which only assumes the appearance of ex- horting you to destruction, that you may not consent yourselves. Alas ! follow rather those remains of light, which still point out the truth to you at a distance. It is not without I'eason that the Lord has hitherto preserved within you these seeds of salvation, and has not permitted all, even to the principles, to be blotted out ; it is a claim which he still preserves to your heart : take care only, that you found not upon this, the vain hope of a future conversion : we arc not permitted to hope till we have begun to labour. Begin, then, the grand work of your eternal salvation, for which alone the Almighty has placed you upon the earth; and on which you have never as yet bestowed even a thought. Esteem so important a care ; prefer it to all others ; find your only pleasures in applying to it ; examine the surest and most proper means to succeed, and fix upon them, whatever they cost, from the mx)ment you have found them out. Such is the prudence of the gospel, so often recommended by Jesus Christ; beyond that, all is vanity and error. You may pos- sess a superior mind, capable of every exertion, and rare and shining talents ; if you err \vitli regard to your eternal salvation. ON THE SMALL NUMBER, &C. IH you are a child. Solomon, so esteemed in the East for his wisdom, IS a madman, Avhose tolly we can now with difficulty comprehend. All worldly reason is but a mockery, a dazzling of the senses, if it mistakes the decisive point of eternity. There is nothing impor- tant in life but this single object; all the rest is a dream, in which any mistake is of little consequence. Trust not yourselves, there- fore, to the multitude, which is the party of those who err; take not as guides men who can never be your sureties; leave nothino- to chance, or to the uncertainty of events; it is the height of folly where eternity is concerned : remember that there is an infinity of paths, which appear right to men, yet, nevertheless, conduct to death ; that almost all whcr perish do it in the belief that they are in the way of salvation; and that all reprobates, at the last day, when they shall hear their sentence pronounced, will be surprised, says the gospel, at their condemnation ; because they all expected the inheritance of the just. It is thus, that, after having waited for it in this life, according to the rules of faith, you will for ever enjoy it in heaven. Now to God, &c. SERMON 11. ON THE SMALL NUMBEBOF THE SAVED. *' And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet ; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian." — Luke iv. 27. Every day, my brethren, you continue to demand of us, if the road to heaven is really so difficult, and the number of the saved is indeed so small, as we say! To a question so often proposed, and still oftener resolved, our Saviour answers you at present, that there were many widows in Israel afflicted with famine; but the widow of Sarepta was alone found worthy the succour of the prophet Elias : tiiat the number of lepers was great in Israel in the time of the prophet Eliseus ; and that Naaman was the only one cured by the man of God. Were I here, my brethren, for the purpose of alarming, rather than instructing you, I needed only to recapitulate what in the holy writings we find dreadful with regard to this great truth ; and I'unning over the history of the just, from age to age, to show you, that, in all times, the number of the saved has been very small . 20 ON THE SMALL NUMBER The family of Noah alone saved from the general flood; Abraham chosen from amongst men to be the sole depositary of the covenant with God; Joshua and Caleb the only two of six hundred thousand Hebrews who saw the Land of Promise; Job the only upright man in the land of Uz, — Lot, in Sodom. To representations so alarm- ing would have succeeded the sayings of the prophets. In Isaiah you would see the elect as rare as the grapes which are found after the vintage, and have escaped the search of the gatherer ; as rare as the blades which remain by chance in the field, and have escaped the scythe of the mower. The Evangelist would still have added new traits to the terrors of these images. I might have spoken to you of two roads, — of which one is narrow, rugged, and the path of a very small number; the other broad, open, and strewed with flowers, and almost the general path of men : that every where, in the holy writings, the multitude is always spoken of as forming the party of the reprobate; while the saved, compared with the rest of mankind, form only a small flock, scarcely perceptible to the sight. I would have left you in fears with regard to your sal- vation; always cruel to those who have not renounced faith and every hope of being amongst the saved. But what would it serve to limit the fruits of this instruction to the single point of proving how few persons are saved ? Alas ! I would make the danger known, without instructing you how to avoid it; I would show you, with the prophet, the sword of the wrath of God suspended over your heads, without assisting you to escape the threatened blow"; I would alarm the conscience, without instructing the sinner. My intention is therefore to-day, in our morals and manner of life, to search for the cause of this number being so small. As every one flatters himself he will not be excluded, it is of import- ance to examine if his confidence be well founded. I wish not, in marking to you the causes which render salvation so rare, to make you generally conclude, that few will be saved; but to bring you to ask of yourselves, if, living as you live, you can hope to be so. Who am I? What is it I do for heaven; and what can be my hopes in eternity? I propose no other order, in amatter of such im- portance. What are the causes which render salvation so rare? I mean to point out three principal ones, which is the only arrange- ment of this discourse. Art and far-sought reasonings would here be ill-timed. O attend, therefore, be whom you may! No subject can be more worthy your attention, since it goes to inform you what may be the hopes of your eternal destiny. Part I. — Few are saved; because in that number we can only comprehend two descriptions of persons; — either those who have been so happy as to preserve their innocence pure and undefiled; or those who, after having lost, have regained it by penitence : — first cause. There are only these two ways of sal- OF THE SAVED. 21 vation; and heaven is only open to the innocent or the penitent. NoVv, of which party are you ? Are you innocent ? Are you penitent? Nothing unclean shall enter the kingdom of God. We must consequently carry there, either an innocence unsullied, or an in- nocence regained. Now, to die innocent, is a grace to which few souls can aspire ; and to live penitent, is a mercy, which the re- laxed state of our morals renders equally rare. Who indeed will pretend to salvation, by the claim of innocence ? Where are the pure souls in whom sin has never dwelt; and who have preserved to the end the sacred treasure of grace confided to them by bap- tism, and which our Saviour will re-demand at the awful day of punishment? In those happy days, when the whole church was still but ah assembly of saints, it was very uncommon to find an instance of a believer, who, after having received the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and acknowledged Jesus Christ in the sacrament, which regenerates us, fell back to his former irregularities of life. Ananias and Sapphira were the only prevaricators in the church of Jerusalem ; that of Corinth had only one incestuous sinner. Church-penitence was then a remedy almost unknown ; and scarcely was there found among these true Israelites one single leper, whom they were obliged to drive from the holy altar, and separate from communion with his brethren. But, since that time, the number of the upright diminishes, in proportion as that of believers increases. It would appear, that the world, pretending now to have become almost generally Christian, has brought with it into the church its corrup- tions and its maxims. Alas ! we all go astray, almost from the breast of our mothers ! The first use which we make of our heart is a crime ; our first desires are passions ; and our reason only ex- pands and increases on the wrecks of our innocence. The earth, says a prophet, is infected by the corruption of those who inhabit it: all have violated the laws, changed the ordinances, and broken the alliance which should have endured for ever: all commit sin; and scarcely is there one to be found who does the work of the Lord. Injustice, calumny, lying, treachery, adultery, and the blackest crimes have deluged the earth. The brother lays snares for his brother; the father is divided from his children; the husband from his wife : there is no tie which a vile interest does not dissolve. Good faith and probity are no longer virtues • but among the simple people ; animosities are endless; reconcilia- tions feints ; and never is a former enemy regarded as a brother : they tear, they devour each other. Assemblies are no longer but for the purpose of public and general censure. The purest virtue is no longer a protection from the malignity of tongues. Gaming is become either a trade, a fraud, or a fury. Repasts, those innocent ties of society, degenerate into excesses, of which we dare not speak. Our age witnesses horrors, with which our Tl ON THB SMALL NUMBER forefathers were unacquainted. Behold, then, already one path of salvation shut to the generality of men. All have erred. Be whom you may, who listen to me at present, the time has been, when sin reigned over you. Age may perhaps have calmed your passions; but what was your youth ? Long and habitual infirmities may perhaps have disgusted you with the world; but what use did you formerly make of the vigour of health ? A sudden inspiration of grace may have turned your heart; but do you not most fervently entreat, that every moment prior to that inspiration may be effaced from the re- membrance of the Lord ? But with what am I taking up ray time ? We are all sinners, O my God ! and thou knowest our hearts. What we know of our errors, is perhaps in thy sight the most pardonable; and we all allow, that by innocence we have no claim to salvation. There remains, therefore, only one resource, which is penitence. After our shipwreck, say the saints, it is the happy plank which alone can conduct us into port ; there is no other mean of salvation for us. Be whom you may, prince or subject, great or low, penitence alone can save you. Now, permit me to ask, — Where are the penitent ? You will find more, says a holy father, who have never fallen, than who, after their fall, have raised themselves by true re- pentance. This is a terrible saying; but do not let us carry things too far: the truth is sufficiently dreadful, without adding new terrors to it by vain declamation. Let us only examine if the majority of us have a right, through penitence, to salvation. What is a penitent? According to Ter- tulHan, a penitent is a believer, who feels every moment the unhap- piness which he formerly had, to forget and lose his God ; who has his guilt incessantly before his eyes ; who finds every where the traces and remembrance of it. A penitent is a man, intrusted by God with judgment against himself; who refuses himself the most innocent pleasures, because he had formerly indulged in the most criminal; who puts up with the most necessary ones with pain ; who now regards his body as an enemy, whom it is necessary to conquer, — as an unclean vessel which must be purified, — as an unfaithful debtor, of whom it is proper to exact to the last farthing. A penitent regards him- self as a criminal condemned to death, because he no longer is worthy of life. In the loss of riches or health, he sees only a pri- vation of favours that he had formerly abused ; in the humiliations which happen to him, but the pains of his guilt; in the agonies with which he is racked, but the commencement of those punishments he has justly merited: such is a penitent. But I again ask you, — Where amongst us are penitents of this description? Now, look around you. I do not tell you to judge your brethren, but to examine what are the manners and morals of those who surround you; nor do I speak of those open and avowed sinners, who have thrown off" even the appearance of virtue ; I speak only of those who, OF THK SAVKD. like yourselves, live like the generality, and whose actions pre- sent nothing to the public view particularly shameful or depraved. They are sinners, and they admit of it : you are not innocent, and you confess it yourselves. Now, are they penitent; or are you? Age, avocations, more serious employments, may perhaps have checked the sallies of youth : even the bitterness which the Al- mighty has made attendant on our passions; the deceits, the treacheries of the world; an injuted fortune, with ruined consti- tution, may have cooled the ardour, and confined the irregular desires of your heart : crimes may have disgusted you even with crimes ; for passions gradually extinguish themselves. Time, and the natural inconstancy of the heart, will bring these about ; yet nevertheless, though detached from sin by incapability, you are no nearer your God . According to the world, you are become more prudent, more regular, more what it calls men of probity ; more exact in fulfilling your public or private duties; but you are not penitent. You have ceased from your disorders, but you have not expiated them : you are not converted ; this great stroke, this grand change of the heart, which regenerates man, has not yet been felt by you. Nevertheless, this situation, so truly dangerous, does not alarm you : sins, which have never been washed away by sincere repentance, and consequently never obliterated from the book of life, appear in your eyes as no longer existing ; and you will tranquilly leave this world in a state of impenitence, so much the more dangerous, as you will die without being sensible of your danger. What I say here, is not merely a rash expression, or an emotion of zeal ; nothing is more real, or more exactly true : it is the situation of almost all men, even the wisest and most esteemed by the world. The morality of the younger stages in life is always lax, if not licentious. Age, disgust, and estabUshments for life, fix the heart, and withdraw it from debauchery : but where are those who are converted ? Where are those who expiate their crimes by tears of sorrow and true repentance ? Where are those who, having begun as sinners, end as penitents ? Show me, in your manner of living, the smallest trace of penitence. Are your graspings at wealth and power, your anxieties to attain the favour of the great, (and by these means an increase of employments and iniiuence,) — are these proofs of it? Would you wish to reckon even your crimes as virtues? — that the sufferings of your ambition, pride, and avarice, should discharge you from an obligation which they themselves have imposed? You are penitent to the world, but are you so to Jesus Christ? The infirmities with which God afilictsyou; the enemies he raises up against you ; the disgraces and losses with which he tries you ; do you receive them all as you ought, with humble submission to his \Vill, and, far from finding in them occasions of penitence, do you not turn them into the objects of new crimes? 24 ON THE SMALL NUMBER It is the duty of an innocent soul to receive with submission the chastisements of the Ahiiighty ; to discharge, with courage, the painful duties of the station allotted to him, and to be faithful to the laws of the gospel; but do sinners owe nothing beyond this? And yet they pretend to salvation ; but upon what claim ? To say that you are innocent before God, your own conscience will bear tes- timony against you. To endeavour to persuade yourselves that you are penitent, you dare not ; and you would condemn yourselves through your own mouths. Upon what, then, dost thou depend, O, man ! who thus livest so tranquil ? And what renders it still more dreadful is, that, acting in this manner, you only follow the torrent : your morals are the morals of almost all men. You may, perhaps, be acquainted with some still more guilty (for I suppose you to have still remaining some sentiments of religion, and regard for your salvation) ; but do you know any real penitents ? I am afraid we must search the deserts and solitudes for them. You can scarcely particu- larize, among persons of rank and usage of the world, a small number whose morals and mode of life, more austere and more guarded than the generality, attract the attention, and very likely the censure of the public : all the rest walk in the same path. I sec clearly that every one comforts himself by the example of his neighbour : that, in that point, children succeed to the false security of their fathers ; that none live innocent ; that none die penitent : I see -it, and I cry, O God ! if thou have not de- ceived us; if all thou hast told us with regard to the road to eter- nal life, shall be fulfilled to a point; if the number of those who must perish shall not influence thee to abate from the severity of thy laws, what will become of that immense multitude of creatures which every hour disappears from the face of the earth ? Where are our friends, our relations, who have gone before us, and what is their lot in the eternal regions of death ? What shall we ourselves be one day ? When formerly a prophet complained to the Lord, that all Israel had forsaken his protection, he replied, that seven thousand still remained who had not bowed the knee to Baal : behold the number of pure and faithful souls which a whole kingdom then contained ! But couldst thou still, O my God ! comfort the anguish of thy servants to-day by the same assurance? I know that thine eye discerns still some upright amongst us; that the priesthood has still its Phineases ; the magistracy its Samuels; the sword its Joshuas; the court its Daniels, its Esthers, and its Davids : for the world only exists for thy chosen, and all would pei'ish were the number accomplished. But those happy remains of the children of Israel who shall inherit salvation, what are they, compared to the grains of S',.xd in the sea ; I mean, to that number of sinners who combat for their own destruction ? Yon come after this, my brethren, to inquire if it be OF THE SAVED. 26 true, that few shall be saved ? Thou hast said it, O my God ! and consequently it is a truth which shall endure for ever. But, even admitting that the Almighty had not spoken thus, I would wish, in the second place, to review, for an instant, what passes among men : — the laws by which they are governed ; the maxims by which the multitude is regulated : this is the second cause of the paucity of the saved; and, properly speak- ing, is only a developement of the first, — the force of habit and customs. Part II. — Few people are saved, because the maxims most universally received in all countries, and upon which depend, in general, the morals of the multitude, are incompatible with salva- tion. The rules laid down, approved, and authorized by the world, with regard to the application of wealth, the love of glory. Christian moderation, and the duties of offices and conditions, are diametrically opposite to those of the evangelists, and consequently can lead only to death. I shall not, at present, enter into a detail too extended for a discourse, and too little serious, perhaps, for Christians. I need not tell you, that this is an established custom in the world, to allow the liberty of proportioning expenses to rank and wealth ; and, provided it is a patrimony we inherit from our ances- tors, we may distinguish ourselves by the use of it, without restraint to our luxury, or without regard, in our profusion, to any thing but our pride and caprice. But Christian nioderation has its rules. We are not the absolute masters of our riches ; nor are we entitled to abuse what the Al- mighty has bestowed upon us for better purposes. Above all, while thousands of unfortunate wretches languish in poverty, what- ever we make use of beyond the wants and necessary expenses of our station, is an inhumanity to, and a theft from, the poor. These are refinements of devotion, say they; and, in matters of expense and profusion, nothing is excessive or blameable, according to the world, but what may tend to derange the fortune. I need not tell you, that it is an approved custom, to decide our lots, and to regulate our choice of professions or situations in life, by the order of our birth, or the interests of fortune. But, O my God ! does the ministry of thy gospel derive its source from the worldly considerations of a carnal birth ? We cannot estabhsh all, says the world, and it would be melancholy to see persons of rank and birth in avocations unworthy of their dignity. If born to a name distinguished in the world, you must get forward by dint of intrigue, meanness, and expense. Make fortune your idol. That ambition, however much condemned by the laws of the gospel, is only a sen- timent worthy your name and birth. You are of a sex and rank which introduce you to the gaieties of the world: you cannot but do as others do; you must fre- 26 ON THE SMALL NUMBER quent all the public places, where those of your age and rank as- semble; enter into the same pleasures; pass your days in the same frivolities; and expose yourself to the same dangers: these are the received maxims, and you are not made to reform them. Such is the doctrine of the world. Now, permit me to ask you here. Who confirms you in these ways? By what rule are they justified to your mind? Who au- thorizes you in this dissipation, which is neither agreeable to the title you have received by baptism, nor perhaps to those you hold from your ancestors? Who authorizes those public pleasures, which you only think innocent, because your soul, already too familiarized with sin, feels no longer the dangerous impressions or tendency of them ? Who authorizes you to lead an effeminate and sensual life, without virtue, sufferance, or any religious exercise? — to live like a stranger in the midst of your own family, disdaining to inform yourself with regard to the morals of those dependent upon you ? — through an affected state, to be ignorant whether they believe in the same God; whether they fulfil the duties of the reh- gion you profess? Who authorizes you in maxims so little Chris- tian? Is it the gospel of Jesus Christ? Is it the doctrine of the apostles and saints? For surely some rule is necessary to assure us that we are in safety. What is yours? Custom: that is the only reply you can make. We see none around us, but what con- duct themselves in the same way, and by the same rule. Entering into the world, we find the manners already established : our fathers lived thus, and from them we copy our customs: the wisest con- form to them : an individual cannot be wiser than the whole world, and must not pretend to make himself singular, by acting contrary to the general voice. Such, my brethren, are your only comforters against all the terrors of rehgion. None act up to the law. The public example is the only guarantee of our morals. W~e never reflect, that, as the Holy Spirit says, the laws of the people are vain: that our Saviour has left us rules, in which neither times, ages, nor customs, can ever authorize the smallest change : that the heavens and the earth shall pass away; that customs and manners shall change; but that the divine laws will everlastingly be the same. We content ourselves with looking around us. We do not reflect, that what at present we call custom, would, in former times, before the morals of Christians became degenerated, have been regarded as monstrous singularities; and, if corruption has gained since that period, these vices, though they have lost their singularity, have not lost their guilt. We do not reflect, that we shall be judged by the gospel, and not by custom; by the exam- ples of the holy, and not by men's opinions; — that the habits, which are only established among believers by the relaxation of faith, are abuses we are to lament, not examples we are to follow; — that, in changing the manners, they have not changed our duties ; — OF THK SAVKD. 27 that the common and general example which authorizes them, only proves that virtue is rare, but not that profligacy is permitted ; ' — in a vi'ord,that piety and a real Christian life are too vmpalatable to our depraved nature ever to be practised by the majority of men. Come now, and say, that you only do as others do. It is exactly by that you condemn yourselves. What! the most terrible cer- tainty of your condemnation shall become the only motive for your confidence ! Which, according to the Scriptures, is the road that conducts to death? Is it not that which the majority pursues? Which is the party of the reprobate? Is it not the multitude? You do nothing but what others do. But thus, in the time of Noah, perished all who were buried under the waters of the deluge : all who, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, prostrated themselves before the golden calf: all who, in the time of Elijah, bowed the knee to Baal : all who, in the time of Eleazer, abandoned the law of their fathers. You only do what others do; but that is exactly what the Scriptures forbid: Do not, say they, conform yourselves to this corrupted age. Now^ the corrupted age means not the small number of the just, whom you endeavour not to imitate; it means the multitude whom you follow. You only do what others do: you will consequently experience the same lot. Now, " Misery to thee," (cried formerly St. Augustine,) " fatal torrent of human customs ; wilt thou never suspend thy course ? To the end wilt thou dras: in the children of Adam to thine immense and terrible In place of saying to ourselves, " Wliat are my hopes ? In the church of Jesus Christ there are two roads ; one broad and open, by which almost the whole world passes, and which leads to death ; the other narrow, where few indeed enter, and which conducts to life eternal ; in which of these am I ? Are my morals the usual ones of persons of my rank, age, and situation in life ? Am I with the great number ? Then I am not in the right path. I am losing myself. The great number in every station is not the party saved." Far from reasoning in this manner, we say to ourselves, "I am not in a worse state than others. Those of my rank and age live as I do: why should I not live like them?" Why, my dear hearers? For that very reason: the general mode of living cannot be that of a Christian life. In all ages, the holy have been re- markable and singular men. Their manners were always different from those of the world ; and they have only been saints, because their lives had no similarity to those of the rest of mankind. In the time of Esdras, in spite of the defence against it, the custom prevailed of intermarrying with stranger women : this abuse became general : the priests and the people no longer made any scruple of it. But what did this holy restorer of the law: did he follow the example of his brethren? Did he believe, that guilt, in becoming general, became more legitimate? No: he recalled the people to a sense of the abuse. He took the 28 ON THE SMALL NUMBER book of the law in his hand, and explained it to the affrighted people, — corrected the custom by the truth. Follow, from age to age, the history of the just; and see if Lot conformed himself to the habits of Sodom, or if nothing distinguished him from the other inhabitants ; if Abraham lived like the rest of his age ; if Job resembled the other princes of his nation; if Esther con- ducted herself, in the court of Ahasuerus, like the other women of that prince ; if many widows in Israel resembled Judith ; if, among the children of the captivity, it is not said of Tobias alone that he copied not the conduct of his brethren, and that he even fled from the danger of their commerce and society. See, if in those happy ages, when Christians were all saints, they did not shine like stars in the midst of the corrupted nations ; and if they served not as a spectacle to angels and men, by the singularity of their lives and manners : if the Pagans did not reproach them for their retirement, and shunning of all public theatres, places, and pleasures : if they did not complain that the Christians af- fected to distinguish themselves in every thing from their fellow- citizens ; to form a separate people in the midst of the people ; to have their particular laws and customs; and if a man from their side embraced the party of the Christians, they did not consider him as for ever lost to their pleasures, assemblies, and customs : in a word, see, if in all ages the saints whose lives and actions have been transmitted down to us, have resembled the rest of mankind. You will perhaps tell us, that all these are singularities and ex- ceptions, rather than rules which the world is obliged to follow. They are exceptions, it is true : but the reason is, that the general rule is to throw away salvation; that a religious and pious soul in the midst of the world, is always a singularity approaching to a miracle. The whole world, you say, is not obliged to follow these examples; but is not piety the general duty of all? To be saved, must we not be holy ? Must heaven, with difficulty and sufferance, be gained by some, while with ease by others ? Have you any other gospel to follow; other duties to fulfil ; other promises to hope for, than those of the Holy Bible ? Ah ! since there was another way more easy to arrive at salvation, wherefore, ye pious Christians, who at this moment enjoy in heaven, that kingdom, gained with toil, and at the expense of your blood, did ye leave us examples so dangerous and useless? Wherefore have ye opened for us a road, rugged, disagree- able, and calculated to repress our ardour, seeing there was another you could have pointed out, more easy, and more likely to attract us, by facilitating our progress? Great God! how little does mankind consult reason in the point of eternal salvation ! Will you console yourselves, after this, with the multitude, as if the greatness of the number. could render the guilt unpunished, and the Almighty durst not condemn all those who hve like you ? OF THE SAVED. 29 But what are all creatures in the sight of God? Did the multitude of the guilty prevent him from destroying all flesh at the deluge ? from making fire from heaven descend upon the five iniquitous cities ? from burying, in the waters of the Red Sea, Pharaoh and all his army? from striking with death all who murmured in the desert ? Ah ! the kings of the earth may have regard to the number of the guilty, because the punishment becomes impossible, or at least dangerous, when the fault is become general. 13ut God, who wipes the impious, says Job, from ofi' the face of the earth, as one wipes the dust from off a garment ; God, in whose sight all people and nations are as if they were not, numbers not the guilty : he has regard only to the crimes ; and all that the weak and mise- rable sinner can expect from his unhappy accomplices, is to have them as companions in his misery. So few are saved, because the maxims most universally adopted are maxims of sin : so few are saved, because the maxims and duties most universally un- known, or rejected, are those most indispens^able to salvation. Last reflection, which is indeed nothing more than the proof and the explanation of the former ones. What are the engagements of the holy vocation to which we have all been called? The solemn promises of baptism. What have we promised at baptism? To renounce the world, the devil, and the flesh : these are our vows : this is the situation of the Christian : these are the essential conditions of our covenant with God, by which eternal life has been promised to us. These ■ truths appear familiar, and destined for the common people ; but it is a mistake. Nothing can be more sublime ; and, alas ! nothing is more generally unknown. It is at the courts of kings, and to the princes of the earth, that without ceasing we ought to announce them. Alas ! they are well instructed in all the aftairs of the world, while the first principles of Christian morality are frequently more unknown to them than to humble and simple hearts. At your baptism, you have then renounced the world. It is a promise you have made to God, before the holy altar ; the church has been the guarantee and depositary of it; and you have only been admitted into the number of believers, and marked with the indefeasible seal of salvation, upon the faith that you have sworn to the Lord, to love neither the world, nor what the world loves. Had you then answered, what you now repeat every day, that you find not the world so black and pernicious as we say ; that, after all, it may innocently be loved ; and that we only decry it so much, because we do not know it ; and since you are to live in the world, you wish to live like those who are in it : had you answered thus, the church would not have received you into its bosom; would not have connected you with the hope of Christians, nor joined you in communion with those who have overcome the world. She would have advised you to go and live with those infidels 30 ON THE SMALL NUMBER who know not our Saviour. For this reason it was, that, in former ages, those of the Catechumen, who could not prevail upon themselves to renounce the world and its pleasures, put off their baptism till death ; and durst not approach the holy altar, to contract, by the sacrament, which regenerates us, en- gagements of which they knew the importance and sanctity; and to fulfil which they felt themselves still unqualified. You are therefore required, by the most sacred of all vows, to hate the world ; that is to say, not to conform yourselves to it. If you love it, if you follow its pleasures and customs, you are not only, as St. John says, the enemy of God, but you likewise renounce the faith given in baptism ; you abjure the gospel of Jesus Christ ; you are an apostate from religion, and trample under foot the most sacred and irrevocable vows that man can make. Now, what is this world which you ought to hate? I have only to answer, that it is the one you love. You will never mistake it by this mark. This world is a society of sinners, whose desires, fears, hopes, cares, projects, joys, and chagrins, no longer turn but upon the successes or misfortunes of this life. This world is an assemblage of people who look upon the earth as their country ; the. time to come as an exilement; the promises of faith as a dream; and death as the greatest of all misfortunes. This world is a temporal kingdom, where our Saviour is unknown ; where those acquainted with his name, glorify him not as their Lord, hate his maxims, despise his followers, and neglect or insult him in his sacraments and worship. In a word, to give a proper idea at once of this world, it is the great number : behold the world which you ought to shun, hate, and combat against by your example ! Now, is this your situation in regard to the world ? Are its plea- sures a fatigue to you ; do its excesses afflict you ; do you regret the length of your pilgrimage here ? Are not its laws your laws ; its maxims your maxims ? What it condemns, do you not condemn? Do you not approve what it approves ? And should it happen, that you alone were left upon the earth, may we not say, that the corrupt world would be revived in you ; and that you would leave an exact model of it to your posterity ? When I say you, I mean, and I address myself to almost all men. Where are those who sincerely renounce tlie pleasures, habits, maxims, and hopes of this world ? We find many who complain of it, and accuse it of injustice, ingratitude, and caprice, who speak warmly of its abuses and errors ; but in decrying, they continue to love, to follow it; they cannot bring themselves to do without it; in complaining of its injustice, they are only piqued at it, they are not undeceived;theyfeelits hard treatment, butthey are unacquainted with its dangers ; they censure, but where are those who hate it ? And now, my brethren, you may judge if many can have a claim to salvation. OF THK SAVBD. _ 31 . In the second place, you have renounced the flesh at your bap- tism; that is to say, you are engaged not to Hve according to the sensual appetites ; to regard even indolence and effeminacy as crimes; not to flatter the corrupt desires of the flesh; but to chas- tise, crush, and crucify it. This is not an acquired perfection ; it is a vow; it is the first of all duties; the character of a true Chris- tian, and inseparable from faith. In a word, you have anathema- tized Satan and all his works. And what are his works? That which composes almost the thread and end of your life ; pomp, pleasure, luxury, and dissipation; lying, of which he is the father; pride, of which he is the model; jealousy and contention, of which he is the artisan. But I ask you, Avhere are those who have not withdrawn the anathema they had pronounced against Satan? Now, consequently, (to mention it as we go along,) behold many of the questions answered. You continually demand of us, if theatres, and other public places of amusement, be innocent recreations for Christians? In return, I have only one question to ask you : Are they the works of Satan or of Jesus Christ? for there can be no medium in religion. I mean not to say, but that many recreations and amusements may be termed indifferent. But the most -indifferent pleasures which religion allows, and which the w^eakness of our nature ren- ders even necessary, belong, in one sense, to Jesus Christ, by the facility with which they ought to enable us to apply ourselves to more holy and more serious duties. Every thing we do, every thing we rejoice or weep at, ought to be of such a nature as to have a connexion with Jesus Christ, and to be done for his glory. Now, upon this principle, the most incontestible, and most univer- sally allowed in Christian morahty, you have only to decide wdie- ther you can connect the glory of Jesus Christ with the pleasures of a theatre. Can our Saviour have any part in such a species of recreation? And before you enter them, can you, with confidence, declare to him, that, in so doing, you only propose his glory, and to enjoy the satisfaction of pleasing him? What! The theatres, such as they are at present, still more criminal by the public licentiousness of those unfortunate creatures Who appear on them, than by the impure and passionate scenes they represent,' — the theatres are works of Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ would animate a mouth, from whence are to proceed sounds lascivious, and calculated to corrupt the heart? But these blasphemies strike me with horror. Jesus Christ would preside in assemblies of sin, where every thing we hear weakens his doctrines; where the poi- son enters into the soul by all the senses ; where every art is em- ployed to inspire, awaken, and justify the passions he condemns? Now, says Tertullian, if they are not the works of Jesus Christ, they must be the works of Satan . Every Christian, therefore, ought to abstain from them. When he partakes of them, he violates the 32 ON THE SMALL NUMBER VOWS of baptism. However innocent he may flatter himself to be, in bringing from these places an untainted heart, it is sullied by being there ; since by his presence alone he has participated in ' the works of Satan, which he had renounced at baptism, and violated the most sacred promises he had made to Jesus Christ and to his church. These, my brethren, as I have already told you, are not merely advices and pious arts; they are the most essential of our obliga- tions. But, alas! who fulfils them? Who even knows them? Ah ! my brethren, did you know how far the title you bear, of Christian, engages you; could you comprehend the sanctity of your state; the hatred of the world, of yourself, and of every thing which is not of God, that it ordains you; that hfe according to the gospel, that continual watching, that guard over the pas- sions; in a word, that conformity with Jesus Christ crucified, which it exacts of you ; could you comprehend it, could you re- member, that as you ought to love God with all your heart, and all your strength, a single desire that has not connexion with him de- files you, you would appear a monster in your own sight. How ! would you say to yourself, duties so holy, and morals so profane ! A vigilance so continual, and a life so careless and dissipated ! A love of God so pure, so complete, so universal, and a heart the continual prey of a thousand impulses, either foreign or criminal! If thus it is, who, O my God! will be entitled to salvation? Few indeed, I am afraid, my dear hearers; at least it will not be you, (unless a change takes place,) nor those who resemble you ; it will not be the multitude. Who shall be saved? Those who work out their salvation with fear and trembling; who live in the world without indulging in its vices. Who shall be saved? That Christian woman, who, shut up in the circle of her domestic duties, rears up her children in faith and in piety ; divides her heart only be- tween her Saviour and her husband; is adorned with delicacy and modesty: sits not down in the assemblies of vanity; makes not a law of the ridiculous custonis of the world, but regulates those customs by the law of God; and makes virtue appear more amiable by her rank and example. Who shall be saved ? That believer, who, in the relaxation of modern times, imitates the manners of the first Christians; whose hands are clean, and his heart pure; watchful, " who hath not lift up his soul to vanity;" but who, in the midst of the dangers of the great world, continu- ally applies himself to purify it; just, who swears not deceitfully against his neighbour, nor is indebted to fraudulent ways for the innocent aggrandisement of his fortune; generous, who with benefits repays the enemy who sought his ruin ; sincere, who sacrifices not the truth to a vile interest, and knows not the part of rendering himself agreeable, by betraying his conscience; charitable, who makes his house and interest the refuge of OF THE SA\ KD. 33 his fellow-creatures, and himself the consolation of the afflicted ; regards his wealth as the property of the poor; humble in afflic- tion. Christian under injuries, and penitent even in prosperity. Who will merit salvation ? You, my dear hearer, if you will follow these examples; for such are the souls to be saved. Now these assuredly do not form the greatest number. While you continue, therefore, to live like the multitude, it is a striking proof that you disregard your salvation. These, my brethren, are truths which should make us tremble ; nor are they those vague ones which are told to all men, and which none apply to themselves. Perhaps, there is not in this assembly an individual, who may not say of himself, "I live like the great number;, like those of my rank, age, and situation; I am lost, should I die in this path." Now, can any thing be more capable of alarming a soul, in whom some remains of care for his salvation still exist? It is the multitude, nevertheless, who tremble not. There is only a small number of just, which operates apart its salvation, with fear and trembling; all the rest are tranquil. After having lived with the multitude, they flatter themselves they shall be particularized at death; every one augurs favourably for himself, and chimerically thinks he shall be an exception. On this account it is, my brethren, that I confine myself to you who at present are assembled here: I include not the rest of men; but consider you as alone existing on the earth. The idea which occupies and frighiens me, is this, — I figure to myself the pi'eseiit, as your last hour, and the end of the world; that the heavens are going to open above your heads ; our Saviour in all his glory, to appear in the midst of this temple; and that you are only as- sembled here to wait his coming, like trembling criminals, on whom the sentence is to be pronounced, either of life eternal, or of everlasting death ; for it is vain to flatter yourselves that you shall die more innocent than you are at this hour. . All those desires of change with which you are amused, will continue to amuse you till death 'arrives; the experience of all ages proves it; the only difference you have to expect, will most likely be only a larger balance against you than what you would have to answer for at present ; and from v/hat would be your destiny, were you to be judged this moment, you may almost decide upon what will take place at your departure from life. Now, I ask you, (and, connecting my own lot v/ith yours, I ask it with dread,) were Jesus Christ to appear in this temple, in the midst of this assembly, to judge us, to make the dreadful separation between the goats and sheep, do you believe that the greatest number of us would be placed at his right hand ? Do you believe that the number would at least be equal ? Do you believe there would even be found ten upright and faithful servants of the Lord, when formerly five cities could not furnish so many? I ask you. You know not; D 34 ON THK SMALL NUMBER and I know it not. Thou alone, O my God ! knowest who belong to thee. But if we know not who belong to him, at least we know that sinners do not. Now, who are the just and faithful assembled here at present? Titles and dignities avail nothing ; you are stripped of all these in the presence of your Saviour. Who are they? Many sinners who wish not to be converted ; many more who wish, but always put it off; many others, who are only converted in appear- ance, and again fall back to their former courses: in a word, a great number, who flatter themselves they have no occasion for con- version. This is the party of the reproljate. Ah ! my brethren, cut off from this assembly these four classes of sinners, for they will be cut off at the great day. And now appear, ye just: where are ye? O God! where are thy chosen? And what a portion remains to thy share ! My brethren, our ruin is almost certain; yet we think not of it. When, even in this terrible separation which will one day take place, there should be only one sinner in this assembly on the side of the reprobate, and that a voice from heaven should assure us of it, without particularizing him, who of us would not tremble, lest he should be the unfortunate and devoted wretch? Who of us would not immediately apply -^to his conscience, to examine if its crimes merited not this punishment ? Who of us, seized with dread, would not demand of our Saviour, as the apostles formerly did, and say, "Lord, is it I?" And should a small respite be allowed to our prayers, who of us would not use every effort, by tears, supplica- tions, and sincere repentance, to avert the misfortune ? Are we in our senses, my dear hearers? Perhaps, among all who listen to me, ten just would not be found, perhaps fewer. What do I know, O my God? I dare not with a fixed eye regard the depths of thy judgments and justice. More than one, perhaps, would not be found amongst us all. And this danger affects you not, my dear hearer? You persuade yourself, that in this great number who shall perish, you will be the happy individual; you, who have less reason, perhaps, than any other to believe it; you, upon whom alone the sentence of death should fall, were only one of all who hear me to suffer. Great God ! how little are the terrors of thy law known to the world ! In all ages, the just have shuddered with dread, in reflecting on the severity and extent of thy judgments upon the destinies of men. Alas! what do they prepare for the children of Adam ! But what are we to conclude from these grand truths ? That all must despair of salvation? God forbid ! The impious alone, to quiet his own feelings in his debaucheries, endeavours to persuade himself that all men shall perish as well as he. This idea ought not to be the fruit of the present discourse. It is meant to undeceive you with regard to the general error, that any one may do whatever others do; to convince you, that, in OF TUB SAVED. 35 , order to merit salvation, you must distinguish yourself from the rest; in the midst of the world, lead a life to the glory of God, and re- semble not the multitude. When the Jews were led in captivity from Judea to Babylon, a little before they quitted their own country, the prophet Jeremiah, whom the Lord had forbid to leave Jerusalem, spoke thus to them: "Children of Israel, when you shall arrive at Babylon, you will behold the inhabitants of that country, who carry upon their shoul- ders gods of silver and gold. All the people will prostrate them- selves, and adore them. But you, far from allowing yourselves, by these examples, to be led to impiety, say to yourselves in secret, It is thou, O Lord ! whom we ought to adore." Let me now finish, by addressing to you the same words. At your departure from this temple, you go to enter into another Babylon ; you go to see idols of gold and silver, before which all men prostrate themselves ; you go to regain the vain objects of human passions, wealth, glory, and pleasure, which are the gods of this world, and which almost all men adore; you will see those abuses which all the world permits, those errors which custom authorizes, and those debaucheries which an infamous fashion has almost constituted as laws. Then, my dear hearer, if you wish to be of the small number of true Israelites, say, in the secrecy of your heart. It is thou alone, O my God ! whom we ought to adore. I wish not to have connexion with a people which know thee not ; I will have no other law than thy holy law ; the gods which this foolish multitude adores, are not gods : they are the work of the hands of men ; they will perish with them : thou alone, O my God ! art immortal ; and thou alone deservest to be adored. The customs of Babylon have no connexion with the holy laws of Jerusalem. I will continue to worship thee with that small number of the children of Abraham, which still, in the midst of an infidel nation, composes thy people ; with them I will turn all my desires toward the holy Zion. The singularity of my manners will be regarded as a weak- ness ; but blessed weakness, O my God ! which will give me strength to resist the torrent of customs, and the seduction of exam- ple. Thou wilt be my God in the midst of Babylon, as thou wilt one day be in Jerusalem. Ah ! the time of the captivity will at last expire ; thou wilt call to thy remembrance Abraham and David ; thou wilt deliver thy people ; thou wilt transport us to the holy city ; then wilt thou alone reign over Israel, and over the nations which at present know thee not. All being destroyed ; all the empires and sceptres of the earth ; all the monuments of human pride annihilated, and thou alone remaining eternal, we then shall know that thou art the Lord of hosts, and the only God to be adored.. Behold the fruit which you ought to reap from this discourse; live apart ; think, without ceasing, that the great number work their D 2 36 THE DISGUSTS own destruction ; regard as nothing all customs of the earth, unless authorized by the law of God ; and remember, that holy men have, in all ages, been always looked upon as singular. It is thus, that, after distinguishing yourselves from the sinful on earth, you will be gloriously separated from them in eternity. Now, to God the Father, &c. SERMON III. THE DISGUSTS ACCOMPANYING VIRTUE. •' Then the Jews took up stones again, to stone him." — John x. 31. Behold then, my brethren, the marks of gratitude which Jesus Christ receives from men ; behold the consolations which Heaven prepares for him in the painful exercise of his ministry. There he is treated as a Samaritan, and as one possessed by the devil : here they take up stones to stone him. It is thus that the Son of God has passed all the time of his mortal life, continually exposed to the most obstinate contradiction, finding only hearts insensible to his kindnesses, and rebellious to the truths which he announced to them : yet never did he allow the smallest sign of impatience, or the least complaint to escape him. And we, my brethren, we, his members and his disciples, alas ! the smallest disgusts, the smallest contradictions we experience in the practice of virtue, revolt our delicacy. From the moment we cease to relish those attractions, that sensibility which softens every thing to be found painful in duty, there is nothing but complaint and murmurs : troubled, discouraged, we are tempted almost to abandon God, and to return to the world, as a more agreeable and commodious master. In a word, we would wish to find nothing in the service of God but pleasure and con- solation. But our divine Master, in calling us to his service, has he not declared, in express terms, that the kingdom of heaven is only to be gained by conquest ; and that none but those who do violence upon themselves can force it ? And what do these words signify, unless that, entering into the service of God, we are not to promise ourselves that we shall always find in it a certain sweetness, a certain relish, which deprives it of all pain, and causes it to be loved ? On the contrary, it is almost certain, that in it we shall experience disgusts and contradic- ACCOMPANYING VIRTUE. 37 tions which will exercise our patience, and put our fidelity to fre- quent trials ; that we shall often feel the weight of the yoke, with- out feeling the unction of grace which renders it light and easy, because piety essentially opposes the gratification of our former tastes and original inchnations, for which we always preserve some unhappy remains of tenderness, and which we cannot mortify, without making the heart suffer; that, besides, we shall have to undergo the eternal caprices of an inconstant and volatile heart, so difficult to fix, that, without reason or foundation, it is disgusted in a moment with what it formerly loved most. Behold, my brethren, what we ought to have expected when we embraced the cause of virtue. Here, it is the time of combat and trials; peace and fehcity are only for heaven; but, notwithstanding this, I say that it is unjust to form, from the disagreeable circumstances which may accompany virtue in this life, a pretext either to abandon God when we have begun to serve him, or to be afraid to serve him when we have begun to know him. Behold my reasons: in the first place, because disgusts are inevitable in this life ; secondly, because those of piety are not so bitter as we imagine them to be; thirdly, because they are less so than those of the world; fourthly, because, were they equally so, they yet possess resources which those of the world have not. Let us investigate those edifying truths, and im- plore the assistance of divine grace toward their proper expla- nation. Reflection I. — I say, in the first place, because disgusts are inevitable in this life. Alas! we complain that the service of God disgusts us; but such is the condition of this miserable life. Man, born fully to enjoy God, cannot be happy here below, where he can never but imperfectly possess him. Disgusts are a neces- sary consequence of the inquietude of a heart which is out of its place, and is unable to find it on the earth ; which seeks to fix itself, but cannot with all the created beings which surround it; which, disgusted with every thing else, attaches itself to God; but being unable to possess him as fully as it is capable of doing, feels always that something is wanting to its happiness; agitates itself, in order to attain it, but can never completely reach it here; finds in virtue almost the same void and the same disgusts it had found in sin, because, to whatever degree of grace it may be exalted, there still remains much to accompfish before it can arrive at that fulness of righteousness and love which will possess bur whole heart— will fill all our desires— extinguish all our pas- sions— occupy all our thoughts— and which we can never find but in heaven. Were it possible to be happy in this world, we should undoubt- edly be so in serving God, because grace calms our passions, mo- derates our desires, consoles our sufferings, and gives us a foretaste 38 THK DISGUSTS of that perfect happiness we expect, and which we shall not enjoy but in a blessed immortality. Of all the situations in which man can find himself in this life, that of righteousness undoubtedly brings him nearest to felicity ; but as it always leaves him in thp path which conducts to it, it leaves him likewise still uneasy, and, in one sense, miserable. We are therefore unjust to complain of the disgusts which ac- company virtue. Did the world make its followers happy, we should then have reason to be dissatisfied at not being so in the serviee of God. We might then accuse him of using his servants ill; of depriving them of a happiness which is due to them alone; that, far from attracting, he rejects them; and that the world is preferable to him, as a more consoling and faithful master. But examine all stations; interrogate all sinners; consult in rotation the partisans of all the different pleasures which the world pro- mises and the difterent passions which it inspires; the envious, the ambitious, the voluptuous, the indolent, the revengeful, — none are happy, each complains, no one is in his place, every condition has its inconveniences, and sorrows are attached to every station in life. The world is the habitation of the discontented ; and the disgusts which accompany virtue, are much more a consequence of the condition of this mortal life, than any imperfection in virtue itself. Besides, the Almighty has his reasons for leaving the most up- right souls below in a state, in some respects, always violent and disagreeable to nature: by that, he wishes to disgust us with this miserable life; to make us long for our deliverance, and for that immortal country where nothing shall more be wanting to our happiness. I feel within me (says the apostle) a fatal law in opposition to the law of God; the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O, wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? — Behold the most natural effect which the disgusts attached to virtue ought to inspire in a Christian heart: hatred of ourselves; contempt of the present life; a desire for eternal riches; an eager anxiety to go and enjoy God, and to be delivered from all the miseries inseparable from this mortal life. Besides, were virtue always to be accompanied with sensible consolations; did it continually form for man a happy and tranquil state in this world, it would become a temporal recom- pense; in devoting ourselves to God, we should no longer seek the good of faith, but the consolations of self-love ; we would ACCOMPANYING VIRTUE. >^ seek ourselves, while pretending to seek God ; we would pro- pose to ourselves in virtue, that conscious tranquillity, in which it places the heart, by delivering it from those violent and rest- less passions which tear it continually, rather than the observance of the rules and the duties which the law of God imposes on us. The Lord would then have only mercenary and interested worshippers, who would come, not to carry his yoke, but to repose themselves under the shadow of his voice ; workmen, who would offer themselves, not so much to labour in his vineyard, and support the fatigues of the day, and the oppression of the heat, as in order to taste in tranquillity the fruits ; servants, who, far from improving their talent for the benefit of their master, would turn it to their own utility, and employ it only for their own advantage. The upright live by faith : now faith hopes, but enjoys not in this world ; all is yet to come for Christians ; their country, their riches, their pleasures, their inheritance, their kingdom ; the present is not for them. Here, it is the time of tribulation and affliction ; here, it is a place of exile, and a foreign country, where tears and sighs become the only consolation of the faithful. Surely, then, it is unreasonable to expect delights in a place where every thing recalls the remembrance of our miseries ; where every thing presents new dangers to us ; where we live surrounded by rocks ; where we are a prey to a thousand enemies ; where every step en- dangers our destruction ; where all our days are marked by some new infidelity ; where, delivered up to ourselves, and without the assistance of Heaven, we do nothing but evil; where we spread the corruption of our heart over the small portion, even of good, which grace enables us to accomplish ; — it is un- reasonable, I say, to seek felicity and human consolations in a residence so melancholy and disagreeable to the children of God. The days of our mourning and sadness are in this world ; those of peace and joy will come afterward. If, by abandoning God, we could acquire real happiness, our inconstancy would seem at least to have an excuse ; but, as I have already said, the world has its disgusts as well as virtue ; by changing our master, we only change our punishment ; in diversifying our passions, we only diversify our sorrows. The world has more smiling aspects, I confess, than virtue ; but every where the reality is only trouble and vexation of Spirit ; and since cares are inevitable in this life, and we must en- counter disgusts, either on the part of the world or of virtue, can we hesitate for a moment ? Is it not preferable to suffer meritoriously than to suffer in vain, and be able to place our sufferings only amongst the number of our crimes ? First truth : — Disgusts are inevitable in this life. Reflection II. — But I say, in the second place, that those of piety are not so bitter as we represent them to ourselves. 40 TRJi, DISGUSTS For, my brethren, although we agree that the kingdom of God suffers violence ; that Jesus Christ is come, in order to make separations and retrenchments which cost much to our nature ; that the period of the present life is the time of the birth of the new man, and always followed by pain and sorrows ; and that, in order to reconcile us to God, we must begin by waging a cruel war against ourselves ; yet it does not follow, that the lot of a soul who serves the Lord, is to be pitied, and that the disgusts wliich accompany virtue are so bitter as the world represents. Virtue has only the prejudices of the senses and of the passions again&t it ; it has nothing melancholy but the tirst glance ; and its bitter- ness is not such as to render it a condition which we ought to fly from as insupportable and wretched. For, in the first place, we are sheltered in it from the disgusts of the world and the passions ; and were virtue to possess only the single advantage of placing us safe from the tempests of the pas- sions; from frenzies, jealousies, suspicions, and bitterness of heart; from the void of a worldly life ; when, by turning to God, we should gain only our freedom from the yoke of the world ; our being placed above the reach of its hopes, of its revolutions, troubles, and eternal changes ; the becoming masters of our own hearts, and being dependent on none but ourselves ; our having none but God to account with; our no longer fatiguing ourselves in vain, by run- ning after phantoms, which continually elude our grasp ; — alas ! the lot of a just soul would always be worthy of envy; whatever might be the bitter circumstances accompanying virtue, they would still be a thousand times more supportable than the pleasures of the world ; and to mourn with the people of God, would be infinitely preferable to participating in the insipid and childish pleasures of the children of the age. Secondly. If virtue does not protect us from the afflictions and disgraces inevitable upon this earth, it at least softens their asperity : it makes our heart submissive to God ; it makes us kiss the hand which is raised up against us ; it discovers, in the blows with which the Lord afflicts us, either a cure for our passions, or the just punishment of our crimes. And were virtue to have only the privilege of diminishing our griefs, by diminishing our attachments ; of rendering us less feeling to our losses, by gradually detaching us from all the objects which we may one day lose; of preparing our soul for affliction, by keeping it continually submissive to God ; were virtue to possess this consolation alone, alas ! ought we tp lament and complain of any bitterness which attends it ? What more can be desired in this miserable life, where almost all our days are distinguished by new afflictions and adversities ; where every thing escapes our grasp ; where our relations, friends, and protectors are every moment snatched fiom us, and continually falling around us ; where our fortune has no set- tlement, but changes its appearance every day; alas! what mon re ACCOMPANYING VIRTUE. ^1 can be desired than a situation which consoles us on these events ; supports u9 in these storms; calms us in these agitations; and which, in the eternal changes which take place here below, leaves us at least always the same? Thirdly. Those reluctances and disgusts which revolt us so strongly against virtue, in reality consist only in repressing the passions which render us unhappy, and are the source of all our pains. They are remedies a little grievous to be sure, but they serve to cure evils which are infinitely more so. It is a constraint which fatigues us, but which, in fatiguing, delivers us from a slavery which weighed us down ; it is a bitterness which mortifies the pas- sions, but which, in mortifying, weakens and calms them; it is a sword which pierces the heart to the quick, but which makes the corrupted and defiled matter to flow from it ; insomuch, that, in the very moment of the wound's greatest agony, we experience the comfort and certainty of a cure. These are maxims which revolt our nature and inclinations ; but which, in revolting, recall them to order and rule. Thus, the bitterness and the thorns of virtue have always at least a present utility, which recompenses their harshness: in disgusting, they purify us; in probing, they cure us; in paining, they calm us. These are not like the disgusts of the world, of which nothing remains to us but the bitterness of those fatigues, of those constraints which our passions impose on us; and whose only fruit is, that of augmenting our miseries, by fortifying our iniquitous passions: these are not the worldly vio- lences which lead to nothing, are of no value, and frequently serve only to render us hateful to those whom we would wish to please ; which remove to a greater distance from us the favours we wish to merit by them; which always leave us our hatreds, our desires, our uneasinesses, and our pains : these are violences which ad- vance the work of our sanctification, which by degrees destroy within us the work of sin ; which perfect, which adorn us ; which add every day a new splendour to our soul, a new solidity to our virtues, a new force to our faith, a new facility to our approaches toward salvation, a new firmness to our good desires, and which bear along with them the fruit that rewards and con- soles us. I do not add, that the source of our disgusts is in ourselves rather than in virtue; that it is our passions which give birth to our repugnances ; that virtue has nothing in itself but what is amiable; that were our hearts not depraved through love to the flesh, we would find nothing sweet and consoling but the pleasures of innocence; that we are born for virtue and righteousness; that these ought to be our first inclinations, as they are our first distinc- tion; and if we find different dispositions within us, at least wc have not virtue, but only ourselves to blame. I could add, that perhaps it is the peculiar character of our heart, which spreads 42 THE DISGUSTS for us so much bitterness through the detail of a Christian hfej that, being born perhaps with more hvely passions, and a heart more sensible to the world and to pleasure, virtue appears more melancholy and insupportable to us; that, not finding in the ser- vice of God the same attraction which we have found in that of the world, our heart, accustomed to lively and animated pleasures, is no longer capable of reconciling itself to the expected dreariness of a Christian life ; that the endless dissipation in which we have lived, renders the uniformity of duties more irksome to us; the agitation of parties and pleasures, retirement more disgusting; our total submission to the passions, prayer more painful ; the frivo- lous maxims with which our minds are occupied, the truths of faith more insipid and more unknown; that our mind, being filled with only vain things, with fabulous reading, if nothing worse, with chi- merical adventures, and theatrical phantoms, is no longer capable of relishing anything solid ; that, never having accustomed ourselves to any thing serious, it is rare that the seriousness of piety does not disgust us, and that we find not God to our taste, if I dare speak in this manner, we who have never relished any thing but the world and its vain hopes. This being the case, what happiness when we bring back to virtue a heart yet uncorrupted by the world ! What happiness to enter into the service of God, with happy inclinations and some remains of our original innocence ! — -when we begin early to know the Lord; when we return to him in that first season of our life, when the world has not yet made such profound and des- perate impressions; when the passions, still in their growth, bend easily toward good, and make virtue, as it were, a natural inclina- tion to us ! What happiness when we have been able to put an early check upon our heart; when we have accustomed it to bear the yoke of the Lord; and when we have arrested, almost in their infancy, passions which render us. miserable in our guilt, and which likewise occasion all the bitterness of our virtues ! How many un- easinesses, how many pangs does it prevent! How many consola- tions does it prepare! How many comforts spread through the rest of life! and what a difference for the ease and tranquillity of our future years, between days whose primitive ones have been pure, and those which, infected in their source, have felt flow from thence a fatal bitterness, which has blasted all their joys, and spread itself through all the remainder of their career ! It is our- selves alone, says a holy father, who render virtue disagreeable; and we are wrong to complain of an evil, in which we have such a share ourselves, or to attribute faults to virtue, which are our own handy-work. But granting these reflections to have even less solidity; were it even true, that we are not the first and original cause of our disgusts at virtue ; it is at least incontestable, that the longer we defer our return to God, the more invincible do we render ACCOMrANYlNG VIRTUE. 43 that distaste which separates us from him; that the more we shrink and draw back, the more do we fortify that repugnance within us to virtue; that if the Christian hfe offers at present only melancholy and tedious duties, they will appear more insup- portable in proportion as we grow old in the ways of the world, and in the taste for its iniquitous pleasures. Could the delay of our conversion sweeten the bitter and painful portion of virtue, by holding out a little longer against grace ; could we obtain a more favourable composition, as 1 may say, and, as an article of it, stipu- late, that piety should afterward be presented to us with more charms and graces, and with conditions more agreeable and flat- tering;— alas I whatever risks we may run by deferring it, the hopes of softening our pains and sufferings might serve in some measure to excuse our delays. But delay only prepares new sorrows for us; the more we accustom our heart to the world, the more do we render it unfit for virtue. It is no longer, says the prophet, but a polluted vase, to which the passions we have allowed to settle in it have communicated a taste and smell of death, which generally last the remainder of life. Thus, my brethren, when, after a long course of crimes and deeply-rooted passions, we must return to God, what obstacles do not these frightful dispositions present! What insensibihty toward good do we not find within ourselves! Those hearts which the world has always engrossed, and who afterward wish to consecrate to God the remains of a life entirely mundane; what a buckler of brass, says the prophet, do they not oppose to grace ! What hardness of heart to the holy consolations of virtue! They may find it just, but it is impossible, they say, to find it amiable : they may return to God, but they enjoy him no more : they may nourish themselves with the truth, but It is no more for them but the bread of tribulation and bit- terness: they may seek the kingdom of God, and the treasure of the gospel, but it is like unfortunate slaves, condemned to search for gold in the bowels of the earth, and waste their strength against the opposing rocks : they may draw for water from the wells of Jacob, but they can only reap the toil; they can never partake of those comforts and consolations which bear peace and refreshment to the soul: they wish to draw near to God, yet everything separates them from him; they wish to fly from the world, yet, wherever they go, there they carry it with them in their heart: they seek the society of virtuous people, yet in their com- pany they find a weariness, and a melancholy stiffness, which dis- gust them with piety itself: they apply themselves to holy books, and, alas! it is only a tiresome and fatiguing decency which sup- ports their patience. It appears, that in virtue they act a borrowed character, so little does it become them, and so much does their part constrain and tire them; and although, in reahty, they seek salvation, yet there appears a something so foreign and constrained 44 THE DISGUSTS in their efforts, that v,'e beUeve they only assume the semblance of it; and that, feeling themselves not born to virtue, they wish at least to give themselves the appearance of it. Disgusts and wearinesses should not, therefore, drive us from virtue; since, in proportion as we retire from it, they become every day more violent and insupportable. But candidly, my bre- thren, is it for us to reproach God that we weary in his service? Ah ! did our slaves and domestics make us the same reproach ; had they to lament the weariness they experience in our service, they would certainly be entitled to complain of it. Our eternal humours, from which they suffer so much; our fancies and caprices, to which they must accommodate themselves ; our hours and moments, to which they must subject themselves; our plea- sures and tastes, to which they must sacrifice their rest and liberty; our indolence, which alone costs them so much, makes them endure so much weariness, pass so many melancholy mo- ments, without our even deigning to observe it; they undoubtedly would be entitled to complain of their cruel situation and sufferings. Nevertheless, should they venture to say, that they weary in our service; that they reap not the smallest satisfaction from it; that they feel no inclination for us, and that every service they perform is disgusting to a degree scarcely supportable ; — alas! we would regard them as fools: we would find them too happy in having to support our humours and caprices; we would think them sufficiently honoured, by being permitted to be near us, and fully recompensed for all their fatigues. Ah, my brethren ! and God, does he not sufficiently recompense those who serve him, that they should support any little disgusts or wearinesses which may be found in his service? Are we not still too happy, by his acceptance of our services, in spite of the repugnances which render them cold and languid ? Does he not sufficiently load us with blessings, to be entitled to exact our sufferance of a few slight sorrows for his sake? Does he not promise us still more, sufficiently precious to sweeten the trifling disgusts attached to the fulfilment of his ordinances? Must not he find it strange, that vile creatures, who hold all from him, who . exist only through him, and who expect all from him, should complain of dislike to his service? That worms of the earth, whose only boast is the honour of belonging to him, dare complain of feeling no inclination for him, and that it is both melancholy and wearisome to serve or to be faithful to him? Is he, then, a master like us ; fanciful, intolerant, indolent, entirely occupied with himself, and who seeks only to render himself happy, at the expense of the peace and comfort of those who serve him? Unjust that we are! We dare offer reproaches to the Almighty, which we would regard as outrages upon ourselves, from the mouths of our slaves ! ACCOMPANYING VIRTUE. 45 Second truth : — The disgusts which accompany virtue are not so bitter as we represent them to ourselves. Reflection III. — But even were they so, I have said, in the third place, that they would still be infinitely less than those of the world. And it is here, my brethren, that the testimony of the world itself, and the self-experience of worldly souls, answer every purpose of a proof. For if you continue in the v/" ys of the world and of the passions^ what is your whole life but a continual weariness, where, by diversifying your pleasures, you only diversify your disgusts and uneasinesses ? What is it but an eternal void where you are a burden to yourself? What is it but a pompous circulation of duties, atten- tions, ceremonies, amusements, aud trifles, v/hich, incessantly re- volving, possess one single advantage, that of unpleasantly filling up moments which hang heavy upon you, and which you know not otherwise to employ ? What is your life but a flux and reflux of desires, hatreds, chagrins, jealousies, and hopes, which poison all your pleasures, and are the cause that, surrounded by every thing which ought to insure your happiness, you cannot succeed in being contented with yourselves ? What comparison is there between the frenzies of the passions the chagrin of a striking neglect, the sensibility of a bad ofiice, and the slight sorrows of virtue ? What comparison between the un- limited subjections to ambition; the fatigues and toils of pretensions and expectancies; the pains to insure success; the exertions and submissions necessary to please ; the cares, uneasinesses, and agita- tions, in order to exalt ourselves ; and the slight violences which assure to us the kingdom of heaven ? What comparison between the frightful remorses of the conscience, that internal worm, which incessantly gnaws us; that sadness of guilt, which undermines and brings us low indeed; that weight of iniquity, which over- whelms us; that internal sword which pierces us to the quick; which we know not how to draw forth, and carry with us wherever we go; and the amiable sorrow of that penitence which secures salvation ? My God ! can we complain of thee, after knowing the world ? Can thy yoke appear grievous, after quitting that of the passions? And the thorns of thy cross, are they not flowers, when compared to those which the ways of iniquity and the world have sown? Thus every day we hear the worshippers of the world decry the world they serve ; complain with the utmost dissatisfaction of their lot; utter the keenest invectives against its injustice and abuses ; censure, condemn, and despise it : but find me, if you can, any truly pious souls, who send forth invectives against virtue ; who condemn or despise it; and who detest their lot of being em- barked in a voyage so full of chagrin and bitterness. The world itself continually envies the destiny of the virtuous, and acknow- ledges that none are happy but the upright; but find me a truly 46 THE DISGUSTS pious soul, who envies the destiny of the world; who publishes that none are happy but its partisans ; who admires the wisdom of their choice, and regards his own condition as the most misera- ble and the most foolish: — what shall I say? We have frequently seen sinners, who, through despair and disgust at the world, have fled to opposite extremes; lose rest, health, reason, and life; fall into states of horror, and the blackest melancholy, and no longer regard life but as the greatest torment. But where are the righteous, whom the disgusts which accompany virtue have thrown into such dreadful extremities? They sometimes complain of their sorrows; but they still prefer them to the pleasures of the passions : virtue, it is true, may sometimes appear melancholy and unpleasing to them; but, with all her sadness, they love her much more than guilt : they would wish a few more sensible supports and consola- tions from the Father of Mercies, but they detest those of the world: they suffer, but the same hand which proves, supports them, and they are not tempted beyond their strength : they feel what you call the weight of the yoke of Jesus Christ; but, in re- calling the load of iniquity, under which they had so long groaned, they find their present lot happy, and the comparison calms and comforts them. In effect, my brethren, in the first place, the violences which we do to ourselves, are much more agreeable than those which come from without, and happen in spite of us. Now, the violences of virtue are at least voluntary: these are crosses which we choose from reason, and impose upon ourselves from duty: they are often bitter, but we are consoled by the reflection of having chosen them. But the disgusts of the world are forced crosses, which come without our being consulted: it is a hateful yoke, which is imposed on us against our will: we wish it not; we detest it; yet, nevertheless, we must drink all the bitterness of the cup. In virtue, we only suffer, because it is our inclination to suffer: in the world, we suffer so much the more, in proportion as we wish it less, and as our inclinations are inimical to our sufferings. Secondly. The disgusts accompanying virtue are a burden only to indolence and lazin'ess; these are repugnances, bitter only to the senses: but the disgusts of the world, ah ! they pierce to the quick; they mortify all the passions; they humble pride, pull down vanity, light up envy, mortify ambition, and none of our feelings escape the influence of their sadness and bitterness. Thirdly. Those of virtue are sensible only in their first opera- tion: the first efforts cost us much; the sequel softens and tran- quillizes them. The passions, which are generally the occasion of any disgust at virtue, have this in particular, that the more we repress them, the more tractable they become; the violences we do to them, gradually calm the heart, and leave us less to suffer ACCOMPANYING VIRTUE. 47 from those to come : but the disgusts of the world are always new ; as they always find in us the same passions, they always leave us the same bitternesses ; those which have gone before only render those that follow more insupportable. In a word, the disgusts of the world inflame our passions, and consequently increase our sufferings ; those of virtue repress them, and by these means gradually establish peace and tranquilhty in our soul. Fourthly. The disgusts of the world happen to those who most faithfully serve it : it does not treat them better, because they are more devoted to its party, and more zealous for its abuses ; on the contrary, the hearts most ardent to the world, are almost always those who experience the largest share of its mortifications ; because they feel more sensibly its neglect and injustice : their ardour for it is the source of all their uneasinesses. But with God, we have only our coldness to dread ; for the disgusts which may accompany virtue, in general, have only relaxation and idleness for principle ; the more our ardour for the Lord increases, the more do our disgusts diminish ; the more our zeal inflames, the more do our repugnances weaken ; the more we serve him with fidelity, the more charms and consolations do we find in his service. It is by relaxing, that we render our duties disagreeable ; it is by lessening our fervour, that we add a new weight to our yoke ; and if, in spite of our fidelity, the disgusts continue, they are then trials, and not punishments : it is not that consolations are refused, it is a new occasion of merit which is prepared for us : it is not an irritated God, who shuts his heart to us, it is a merciful God, who purifies our own; it is not a dis- contented master, who suspends his favours, it is a jealous Lord, who wishes to prove our love : our homages are not rejected, our submissions and services are only anticipated; it is not meant to repulse, but to assure to us the price of our sufferings, by rejecting every thing which might still mingle the man with God, ourselves with grace, human supports with the gifts of Heaven, and the riches of faith with the consolations of self-love. Behold, my bre- thren, the last truth with which I shall terminate this discourse: — Not only the disgusts'accompanying virtue, are not so bitter as those of the world, but they likewise possess resources which those of the world have not. Reflection IV. — I say resources: alas! my brethren, we find none but in virtue. The world wounds the heart, but it furnishes no remedies; it has its chagrins, but nothing to comfort them; it is full of disgusts and bitterness, but we find no resources in it. But in virtue there is no sorrow which has not its consolation ; and if in it we find repugnances and disgusts, we find likewise a thou- and resources which soothe them. In the first place, peace of mind, and the testimony of the con- 48 THE DISGUSTS science. What luxury, to be at peace with ourselves ; no longer to carry within us that importunate and corroding worm which pursued us every where; no longer to be racked by eternal re- morses, which poisoned every comfort of life: in a word, to be de- livered from iniquity ! The senses may still suffer from the sorrows of virtue, but the heart at least is tranquil. Secondly. The certainty that our sufferings are not lost; that our sorrows become a new merit for us; that our repugnances, in pre- paring for us new sacrifices, secure an additional claim to the pro- mises of faith ; that were virtue to cost us less, it would likewise bear an inferior price in the sight of God ; and that he only renders the road so difficult, in order to render our crown more brilliant and glorious. Thirdly. Submission to the orders of God, who has his reasons for refusing to us the visible consolations of virtue; whose wisdom consults our interest more than our passions ; and who has preferred bringing us to himself by a less agreeable road, because it is a more secure one. Fourthly. The favours with which he accompanies our sorrows; which sustain our faith at the same time that our violences lower self-love; which fortify our heart in truth, at the same time that our senses are disgusted with it; which make our mind prompt and fervent, although the flesh is weak and feeble, insomuch, that he renders our virtue so much the more solid as to us it seems melan- choly and painful. Fifthly. The external succours of piety, which are so many new resources in our faintings and thirst: the holy mysteries, where Jesus Christ, himself the comforter of faithful souls, comes to con- sole our heart; the truths of the divine writings, which promise nothing in this world to the upright but tribulation and tears, — calm our fears, by informing us that our pleasures are to come ; and that the sufferings which discourage us, far from making us distrust our virtue, ought to render our hope more animated and certain: in a word, the history of the saints, who have undergone the same disgusts and trials; consequently, we have so much the less reason to complain, as characters so infinitely more pious than we, have experienced the same lot; that such has almost always been the conduct of God towards his servants; and that, if any. thing in this hfe can prove his love toward us, it is that of his leading us by the same path that he did the saints, and treating us in this world in the same manner as he did the upright. Sixthly. The tranquillity of the life and the uniformity of the duties which have succeeded to the frenzies of the passions and the tumult of a worldly life, which have provided for us much more happy and peaceful days than those we had ever passed in the niidst of dissipation, and which, though they still leave us something to suffer, yet occasion us to enjoy a more tranquil and supportable lot. ' . ACCOMPANYING VIRTUK. 49 Lastly. Faith, which brings eternity nearer to us ; which dis- covers to us the insignificancy of worldly affairs ; that we approach the happy term ; tliat the present life is but a rapid instant ; and consequently, that our sufferings cannot endure long, but that this fleeting moment of tribulation assures to us a glorious and immor- tal futurity, which will endure as long as God himself. What re- sources for a faithful heart ! What disproportion between the suffer- ings of virtue and those of guilt ! It is in order to make us feel the difference that God often permits the world to possess us for a time ; that in youth we deliver ourselves up to the sway of the passions, on purpose, that, when he afterward recalls us to him- self, we may know by experience how much more easy is his yoke than that of the world. I will permit, says he in the Scriptures, that my people serve the nations of the earth for some time ; that they allow themselves to be seduced by their profane superstitions, in order that they may know the difference between my service and the service of the kings. of the earth ; and that they may feel how much more easy is my yoke than the servitude of men. Happy the souls, who, in order to be undeceived, have had no occasion for this experience, and who have not so dearly bought the knowledge of this world's vanity, and the melancholy lot of iniquitous passions. Alas ! since at last we must be undeceived, and must abandon and despise it; since the day will come, when we shall find it frivolous, disgusting, and insupportable ; when, of all its foolish joys, there shall no longer remain to us but the cruel remorse of having yielded to them ; the confusion of having fol- lowed them ; the obstacles to good which they will have left in our heart; why not anticipate and prevent such melancholy regrets ? Why not do to-day what we ourselves allow must one day be done ? Why wait till the world has made such deep wounds in our heart, to run afterward to remedies, which cannot re-establish us without greater pain, and costing us doubly dear? We complain of some slight disgusts which accompany virtue ; but, alas ! the first be- lievers, who, to the maxims of the gospel, sacrificed their riches, reputation, and life ; who run to the scaffolds to confess Jesus Christ; who passed their days in chains, in prisons, in shame and in sufferance, and to whom it cost so much to serve Jesus Christ ; did they complain of the bitterness of his service ? Did they re- proach him with rendering unhappy those who served him ? Ah! they glorified themselves in their tribulation ; they preferred shame and disgrace with Jesus Christ, to all the vain pleasures of Egypt ; they reckoned as nothing, wheels, fires, and every instrument of torture, in the hopes of a blessed immortality, which would amply recompense their present sufferings : in the midst of torments they chaunted hymns; and regarded as a gain, the loss of all, for the interest of their Master. What a life, in the eyes of the fiesh, is that of these unfortunate men, proscribed, persecuted, driven from 50 THE DISGUSTS, &C. their country, having only dens and caverns for their habitation, regarded every v^^here as the horror of the universe ; become exe- crable to their friends, their fellow-citizens, and their relations ! They esteemed themselves happy in belonging to Jesus Christ. In their opinion, they could not too dearly purchase the glory of being his disciples, and the consolation of pretending to his pro- mises. And we, my brethren, in the midst of too many of the con- veniences of hfe ; surrounded by too much abundance, prosperity, and worldly glory ; finding, perhaps for our misfortune, in the ap- plauses of the world, which cannot prevent itself from esteeming worth, the recompense of virtue ; in the midst of our relations, our children, and our friends, — we complain that it costs us too much to serve Jesus Christ ; we murmur against the slight bitterness we experience in virtue ; we almost persuade ourselves that God re- quires too much of his creatures. Ah ! when the compai'ison shall one day be made between these little disgusts which we exagge- rate so much, and the crosses, the wheels, the fires, and all the tor- tures of the martyrs ; the austerities of the anchorites ; the fasts, the tears, and sufferings of so many holy penitents ; alas ! we shall then blush to find ourselves almost single before Jesus Christ ; we, who have suffered nothing for him ; to whom his kingdom has cost nothing ; and who, individually bearing before his tribunal more iniquities than a number of saints together, cannot, however, in assembling all our works of piety, compare them united to a sin- gle instance of their exertions. Let us cease, therefore, to complain of God, since he has so many reasons to complain of us. Let us serve him, as he wishes to be served by us. If he softens our yoke, let us bless his goodness, which prepares these consolations for our weakness ; if he makes us feel the whole extent of its weight, let us still esteem ourselves happy that he deigns, at that price, to accept of our works and homage. With equal gratitude, let us receive from his hand con- solation or affliction, since every thing which proceeds from him alike conducts us to him. Let us learn to be, as the apostle, in want or abundance, provided we belong to Jesus Christ : the essen- tial part is not to serve him with pleasure, it is to serve him with fidehty. In reality, my brethren, in spite of all the disgusts or repugnances which may accompany virtue, there is no real or true pleasure but in serving God ; there is no sohd consolation to be reaped but by attaching ourselves to him. No, said the sage, it is still better to feed upon the bread of wormwood and gall, with the fear of the Lord, than to live in the midst of pleasure and profane joys, under the lash of his wrath and indignation. Alas ! of what pleasure can vi^e be capable, when we are the enemies of God ? What pleasure can we taste, when we bear in our heart only the anguish and bitterness of guilt ? No, says the sage once more, the fear of God can alone charm our weariness, soften our moments STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. 51 of melancholy, soothe our endless anguishes, and enable us to find a certain degree of sweetness even in the evils incident to our nature. It is that which renders retirement sweet, and enables us to enjoy repose, far from the world and its amusements : it is that which makes days pass quickly, and occupies in peace and tran- quillity every moment ; and though apparently it allows us more leisure than a worldly life, yet it leaves a much smaller portion to weariness. Great God ! what honour does not the world unintentionally pay to thy service ! What an affecting eulogium on the destiny of the upright is the lot of sinners ! How well, my God, thou knowest to extort glory and praise from even thy enemies ! and how little ex- cuse thou leavest to those souls who depart from thy paths, since, in order to draw them to virtue, thou makest a resource to them even of their crimes, and employest their wants to recall them to thy eternal mercies. Now to God, &c. ■ SERMON IV. THE UNCERTAINTY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN A STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. And he arose out of tlie syHagogue, and entered into Simon's house : and Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her."— Luke iv. 38. Nothing more naturally represents the situation of a languid and lukewarm soul, than the state of infirmity in which the gospel here describes Peter's mother-in-law to have been. It may be said, that coldness and indolence in the ways of God, though otherwise accompanied with a life free from enormities, is a kind of secret and dangerous fever, which gradually undermines the powers of the si)ul, changes all its good dispositions, weakens its faculties, insensibly corrupts its inward parts, alters its propensities, spreads a universal bitterness through all its duties, disgusts it with every thing proper, with all holy and necessary nourishment; and finishes at last by a total extinction and an inevitable death. This languor of the soul, in the path of salvation, is so much the more dangerous as it is less observed. E 2 52 STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. Our exemption from open irregularity gives us confidence. The external regularity of conduct, which attracts from men those praises due only to virtue, flatters us ; and the secret comparison we make of our morals with the excesses of those avowed sinners whom the world and their passions govern, unites to bhnd us. We regard our situation as a state, less perfect indeed, but always certain of salvation ; seeing our conscience can only reproach us with indolence and negligence in the discharge of our duties; too lenient a correction of our appetites ; self-love, and some slight infidelities, which do not bring death to the soul. Nevertheless, since the holy writings represent the adulterous and the lukewarm soul as equally rejected by God ; and as they pronounce the same anathema against those who despise the works of the Lord, and those who perform them with negligence, this state of coldness and languor in the ways of God must necessarily be very suspicious with regard to salvation, both from the present dispositions which it gives to the soul, and from those to which, sooner or later, it never fails to lead it. I say, in the first place, from the present dispositions it gives to the soul ; namely, a fund of indolence, self-love, disgust at virtue, infidelity, and deliberate disregard to every thing they believe not absolutely essential in their duties ; dispositions that form a state very doubtful of salvation. Secondly. From those to which, sooner or later, lukewarmness conducts us ; namely, forgetfulness of God, and an open and shame- ful departure from every thing sacred. From these I wish to establish two capital truths in this matter, which expose the danger of a lukewarm and infidel life ; and which, from their importance, will furnish us with subject for two Dis- courses. The first, that it is very doubtful, whether, in this habi- tual state of coldness and languor, the lukewarm soUl (as it believes) preserves the righteousness and sanctifying grace upon which it grounds its security. The second, that were it even less doubtful, whether it had pre- served or lost, before God, the sanctifying grace, at any rate it is certain of being unable long to preserve it. The uncertainty of righteousness in a state of lukewarmness. This first truth will be the subject of the present Discourse. The certainty of a departure from righteousness in that state, is the second truth, upon which, in the following one, I shall endea- vour to instruct you. Part I. — " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive our- selves, and the truth is not in us," says the apostle. The purest virtue below is never free, therefore, from blemish. Man, full of STATK OF LUKEWARMNESS. 53 darkness and passions, since the entrance of sin into the world, cannot always be so attentive to regularity but that he must some- times be deceived and err; nor so impressed with invisible good but he will allow himself to be sometimes caught by worldly and ostensible riches ; because their impressions on the mind are lively and quick, and they always find in our hearts dispositions too favourable to their dangerous seductions. The fidehty which the law of God exacts from just souls, excludes not, therefore, a thousand imperfections, inseparable from our nature, and from which the most guarded and watchful piety cannot defend itself; but of these there are two descriptions. The first, which happen through our weakness, are less infidelities than sur- prises, where the weight of corruption yjreponderates over the in- clination or choice ; and which the Lord, says St. Augustine, per- mits to remain in the most faithful souls, in order to nourish their humility, excite their lamentations, reanimate their desires, their disgusts at their present exilement, and their longings for its ter- mination. The second class are those which please us ; which we justify to ourselves ; which it appears impossible for us to renounce ; which we look upon as necessary sweeteners of virtue ; in which we see nothing criminal, because we perceive not the guilt ; which form a part of the deliberate and general system of our morals and conduct, and constitute that state of indolence and coldness in the ways of God, which is the cause of condemnation to so many, born otherwise, perhaps, with principles of virtue, detestation of iniquity, a fund of religion and fear of God, and happy dispositions for salvation. Now, I say, that this state of relaxation and infidelity ; this tranquil and continued negligence of every thing which perhaps appears not essential in our duties; this effeminate indulgence of all our desires, so long as they offer not actual guilt to our sight ; in a word, this life altogether according to our animal nature, our humours, temperaments, and self-love, so common with those who make a public profession of piety, so safe in appearance, so glorious even in the eyes of men, and to which the general error attaches the names of virtue and regularity ; — I say, that this is a state extremely doubtful to attain salvation ; that it derives its source from an irregular heart, where the Holy Spirit no longer reigns ; and that all the rules of faith induce us to think, that a soul of this description is already, without being sensible of it, fallen from righteousness and grace : in the first place, because the desire of perfection essential to Christian piety is extinguished in his heart. Secondly, because the rules of faith, almost always very uncertain in the distinction of guilt from venial errors, with regard to other sinners, are infinitely more so with respect to the unfaithful and lukewarm heart. Thirdly, because, of all the ex- ternal marks of a living and habitual charity, there is not in it the 54 STATE OP LUKEWARMNESS. smallest appearance of one. Let us investigate these truths ; for they are indeed worthy of our attention. Every Christian soul is obliged to bend every effort toward the perfection of his state. I say obliged, for, although the degree of perfection be not comprised in the precept, to endea- vour at, to labour for perfection, is nevertheless a command- ment, and a duty essential to every believer. Be ye perfect, says our Saviour, because the heavenly Father whom ye serve is perfect. I can perceive but one essential point, said St. Paul, namely, to forget whatever I have done to this period (and what, my brethren, was he to forget ? His endless labours, continual sufferings, and apostolic courses : so many nations converted to faith ; so many illustrious churches founded ; so many revelations and prodigies ?) — and, incessantly advancing, to direct my views to the attainment of what I have yet to perform. The desire of perfection, the continued efforts to attain it, the holy inqui- etudes in consequence of the innumerable obstacles which check our progress, do not therefore comprise only a simple advice, and a practice reserved for the cloister and the desert alone, — they form the essential state of a Christian, and the life accord- ing to faith on this earth. For the life according to faith, which the just man leads, is only an uninterrupted desire that the kingdom of God may be accomplished in our hearts ; a holy eagerness to form a perfect resemblance in us to Jesus Christ, and to increase even to the plentitude of the new man ; a continual lamentation, excited by the internal sensibility of our own miseries, and by the load of corruption which oppresses the soul, and makes it to bear so many marks still of the worldly man ; a daily struggle between the law of the Spirit, which continually wishes to raise us above our sensual appetites, and the dominion of the flesh, which in- cessantly draws us back toward ourselves : such is the state of faith, and of Christian piety. Whoever you be, great or of humble rank, prince or subject, courtier or recluse, behold the perfection to which you are called ; behold the ground-work and the spirit of your vocation. The austerities of an anchorite, the silence and solitude of the desert, the poverty of the cloister, are not demanded of you;- but you are required to labour in- cessantly toward the repression of those internal desires which oppose themselves to the law of God ; to mortify those rebel- lious inclinations which so unwillingly submit to order and duty ; in a word, to advance, as mvich as possible, your perfect con- formity with Jesus Christ. Behold the degree of perfection to which Christian grace calls you, and the essential duty of a just soul. Now, from the moment you give way to every inclination, pro- vided it extends not to the absolute infraction of the precept, from STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. 55 the moment you confine yourselves to the essentials of the law ; that you establish a kind of system of coldness and negligence ; that you say to yourselves, " We are unable to support a more exact or more exemplary life;" — from that moment you renounce the desire of perfection. You no longer propose to yourselves an unceasing advancement toward that point of piety and holiness to which the Almighty calls you, and toward which his grace never ceases to impel you in secret; you no longer grieve over those miseries and weaknesses so inimical to your progress; you no longer wish the kingdom of God to be established in your hearts ; you abandon, therefore, from that moment, the great work of righ- teousness, at which you are commanded to labour ; you neglect the care of your soul ; you enter not into the designs of grace : on the contrary, you check its holy impressions; you are no longer Christian : that is to say, that this disposition alone, this formal intention of limiting yourselves to the essentials, and of re- garding all the rest as laudable excesses, and works of supereroga- tion, is a state of sin and death, since it is an avowed contempt of that great commandment which requires us to be perfect, that is to say, to labour toward becoming so. Nevertheless, when we come to instruct you with regard to Christian perfection, you look upon it as to be found only in cloisters and solitudes, and scarcely will you deign to give the smallest attention to our instructions. You deceive yourselves, my brethren. The individuals who adopt retirement, certainly em- ploy austerities, fastings, and watchings, as means to succeed in that mortification of the passions to which we are all equally in- vited. They engage themselves to a perfection of means, which I confess our state will not admit of; but the perfection of the end to which these means conduct, namely, the command and regula- tion of the affections, proper contempt of the world, detachment from ourselves, submission of the senses and the flesh to the Spirit, and renovation of the heart, are the perfection of all states, the en- gagement of all Christians, and the covenant of our baptism. To renounce this perfection, therefore, by limiting ourselves from choice, or in consequence of our rank in the world, to an effeminate, sensual, and worldly life, exempt only from striking enormities, is to renounce the Christian calling, and change the grace of faith, which has made us members of Jesus Christ, into a shameful and unworthy indolence : — first reason. But, were this state even not so dubious for salvation, with re- spect to the desire of that perfection essential to a Christian life, and which is extinguished in a lukewarm and unfaithful soul, it would become so by the imbecility which it occasions, and in which it places itself, of distinguishing in its conduct the infideli- ties which may extend to guilt, from those which may be termed simple errors. For though it is true that all sins arc not sins which bring death, as St. John observes, and that Christian 56 STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. morality acknowledges errors, which only grieve the Holy Spirit within us, and others which extinguish it altogether m the soul; nevertheless, the rules which it furnishes to distinguish these, can neither be always certain nor general at the moment they are applied ; some circumstances relative to ourselves continually change their nature. I speak not here of those manifest and absolute transgressions of the precepts marked in the law, which leave no hesitation respeeting the enormity of the offence. I speak of a thousand doubtful and daily transgressions ; of hatred, jea- lousy, evil-speaking, sensuality, vanity, idleness, duplicity, negli- gence in the practice of our duties, and an'ibition ; in all which it is extremely difficult to define how far the precept may be violated : now, I say, that it is by the disposition alone of the heart that the measure and guilt of these faults can be decided ; that the rules there, are always uncertain and changeable ; and that frequently what is only weakness or surprise in the just, is guilt and corrup- tion not only in the sinner, but likewise in the lukewarm and un- faithful soul. This is proved by the following examples taken from the holy writings. Saul, in disobedience to the order of the Lord, spared the king of the Amalekites and the most precious spoils of that infidel prince. The crime does not appear considerable ; but, as it proceeded from a fund of pride, of relaxation in the ways of God, and a vain com- plaisance in his victory, this action is the commencement of his reprobation, and the Spirit of God withdraws itself from him. Joshua, on the contrary, too credulous, spares the Gibeonites, whom the Lord had commanded him to exterminate ; he went not before the ark to consult him, previous to his alliance with these impos- tors. But this infidelity being an act of precipitancy and surprise, rather than a disobedience, and proceeding from a heart still faith- ful, religious,- and submissive to God, it appears slight in his eyes, and the pardon almost immediately follows the crime. Now, if this principle be incontrovertible, upon what do you depend when you regard your daily and habitual infidelities as slight ? Are you acquainted with all the corruption of your heart, from which they proceed ? God knows it, who is the searcher and judge; and his eyes are very different from those of men. But if it be permitted to judge before the time, say, if this fund of indolence and infidelity which is in you; of voluntary perseverance in a state displeasing to God ; of deliberate contempt for all the duties which you consider as not essential ; of attention and care, as I may say, to labour only for the Lord when he opens before you the gates of punishment and destruction ; — say, if all these can constitute in his sight a state worthy of a Christian heart; and if faults, which proceed from so corrupted a principle, can in reality be slight, or worthy of indulgence ? Paul, my brethren, that miraculous man, to whom the secrets of heaven had been revealed ; Paul, who no longer lived for him- STATK OF LUKKWARMNfiSS. 57 self, but in whom Jvsus Christ alone lived ; Paul, who earnest- ly longed every moment for the dissolution of his earthly body, that he might "be clothed with immortality; this apostle, always ready to sacrifice his life for his Master, and a willing victim to faith; this elected instrument of our Lord and Saviour, whose conscience could reproach him with nothing, knew not, however, whether he merited the love or hatred of his Lord ; whether he still possessed in his heart, or had forfeited, the invisible treasure of charity ; and in these melancholy doubts, the testimony of his conscience was insufficient to calm his dread and uncertainty. David, that king so penitent, whose delights were centered in the constant meditation of the law of God, and whom the Holy Spirit calls a king after God's own heart ; — David trembles, however, lest the iniquity of his crimes be not sufficiently known to him ; lest the corruption of his heart conceals not from him their enormity. He figures to himself unknown gulfs in his conscience, which cause him to shed torrents of tears; to prostrate himself before the Majesty and Holiness of his God, and supplicate his assistance toward his purification from secret infidelities, by making him sensible of them. And you, who watch not, nor search your hearts; you who, devoted to lukewarm and sensual habits, with dehberate coolness allow your- selves every day a thousand infidelities, upon the iniquity of which you are utterly ignorant what judgment the Almighty may form : you, who every moment experience these suspicious ebul- litions of passion, where, in spite of all your self-indulgence, you find it so difficult to prove that the will has not accompanied the gratification, and that you have not overstepped that critical and dangerous line which distinguishes actual guilt from involun- tary error : you, in whom almost every action is suspicious ; who every moment may be demanding at your own heart, " Have I not gone too far?" who, in your own conscience, feel movements and regrets which you will never quiet : you who, in spite of so many just subjects of dread, believe the state of your conscience to be perfectly known to you ; that the decisions of your own self- love, with regard to your infidelities, are the decisions of the Almighty ; and that the Lord, whom you serve with so much cold- ness and negligence, does not yield you up to your own blindness, and punish your crimes, by making you mistake them : you can possibly believe that you still preserve your righteousness, and the grace of sanctification, and can quiet yourselves upon your visible and habitual guilt, by a pretended invisible exercise of righteousness, of which you can produce neither mark nor proof? O man ! how httle art thou acquainted with the illusions of the human heart, and the terrible judgments of God upon those souls which resemble thee ! Thou sayest to thyself, I am rich, I am 58 STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. loaded with the good things of this world ; (with this our Saviour formerly reproached a cold and unbelieving soul ;) and thou per- ceivest not, continued he, (for blindness and presumption are the distinguishing character of coldness,) that in my sight, thou art poor, miserable, blind, and lost to every thing. It is the destiny, therefore, of a lukewarm and unfaithful soul, to live in error and illusion ; to believe himself just and acceptable to God, while, alas ! before him, he is lost, without knowing it, to both grace and righte- ousness. And one reflection, which I beg you to make here, is, that the confidence of such souls is so much the more illusive and ill-founded, as there exists not a soul less capable of judging of his own heart than the lukewarm and unfaithful one. For the avowed sinner cannot conceal his crimes from himself; and he is sensible that he must assuredly be dead to the Lord. The just man, although ig- norant whether he merits the love or hatred of his Master, enjoys, nevertheless, a conscience free from reproach. But the cold and un- faithful soul is involved in a state of continual and inexplicable mystery to itself; for this lukewarmness in the ways of God, en- feebling in us the lights of faith, and strengthening our passions, increases our darkness. Every infidelity is like an additional cloud, overspreading the mind and heart, which darkens to our sight the truths of salvation. In this manner the heart is gradually enveloped, the conscience becomes embarrassed, the lights of the mind are weakened ; you are no longer that spiritual Christian, capable of a proper judgment. Insensibly you adopt maxims in secret, which, as you think, diminish your guilt; the blindness increases in the same proportion as the lukewarmness. The more you admit of this relaxation, in a more altered light do your duties and rules appear. What formerly appeared essential, no longer appears but a vain scruple. The omissions, which, in the period of fervour for duty and religion, would have excited in you the warmest compunctions, are now no longer regarded even as faults. The principles, the judgment, the light of the mind, are all changed. Now, in this situation, who has told you, that, in the judg- ment which you form on the nature of your infidelities and your daily departure from virtue, you do not deceive yourselves ? Who has told you, that the errors which you think so slight are in reality so ; and that the distant boundaries which you prescribe to guilt, and within which every thing to you appears venial, are really the limits of the law ? Alas ! the most enlightened guides know not how to distinguish clearly in a cold and unbe- lieving conscience. These are what I may call the evils of that languor in which we know nothing ; where the wisest of us can say nothing with certainty ; and of which the secret cause is al- ways an enigma. You are sensible yourselves, that, in this state of relaxation, you experience in your hearts certain doubts STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. 59 and embarrassments which you can never sufficiently clear up ; that in your consciences there always remains something secret and inexplicable, which you never wish to search into, or above half expose. These are not exaggerations, it is the real state and bottom of your soul, which you feel a reserve to lay open. You are sensible, that, even when prostrating yourselves before the Almighty, the confession of your guilt never entirely corresponds with the most intimate dispositions of your heart; that it never paints your internal situation such as in reality it is ; and, in a word, that there always exists in your heart something more cri- minal than what in any statement of it you can bring yourselves to avow. And, indeed, how can you be certain, that in those con- tinual self-gratifications ; in that effeminacy of manners which composes your life ; in that attention to every thing which may flatter the senses, or remove disquiet from you ; to sacrifice to indolence and laziness, all which appears not essential in your duties ; how can you be certain, I say, that your self«-love is not arrived at that fatal point which serves to give it dominion over your heart, and for ever banish from it Christian charity ? Who is able to inform you, in those frequent and voluntary infidelities, where, comforted by their pretended insignificancy, you oppose the internal grace which endeavours to turn you from them ; you continually act contrary to your own reason and judgment; whe- ther this internal contempt of the voice of God, this formal and daily abuse of your own lights and grace from God, be not an outrage upon the Divine goodness ; a criminal contempt of his gifts ; a wickedness in your deviations from virtue which leaves no excuse ; and a deliberate preference to your passions and your- selves over Jesus Christ, which can alone proceed from a heart where the love of all order and righteousness is extinguished ? Who can tell you, if, in these recollections Vv'here your listless mind has a thousand times dwelt upon objects or events dangerous to modesty, your indolence in combating them has not been criminal ; and if the efforts which you afterward made, were not an artifice of self-love, in order to disguise their criminality, and quiet you on the indul- gence you had already yielded to your crimes? Who would dare to determine, if, in these secret antipathies and animosities, which you give yourselves but little trouble to restrain, (and that always more for the sake of appearances than through piety,) you have never exceeded that slippery hne beyond which dwell hatred and death to the soul ? If, in that excess of sensibility, which in gene- ral accompanies all your afflictions, infirmities, losses, and disgraces, those which you call feelings attached and inevitable to nature, are not irregularities of the heart, and a revolt against the decrees of Providence ? If, in all those attentions and eagernesses with which we see you occupied, to manage either the interests of your worldly atlairs, or the preservation of a vain beauty, there 60 STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. is not either as much forwardness as may amount to the crime of illegal ambition, or complaisance for yourself, and desire of plea- sing, as may sully your heart with the guilt of sensuality ? Great God ! thou hast well discerned, as thy servant Job formerly re- marked, the fatal limits which separate life from death, and light from darkness, in the heart. These are the gulfs and abysses over which mankind, little instructed in them, must tremble ; and of which Thou reservest the manisfestation till the terrible day of thy vengeance shall arrive. — Second reason, drawn from the uncertainty of the rules, which leaves the state of a lukewarm soul very suspi- cious, and even renders it incapable of knowing itself. But a final reason, which to me appears still more decisive, and more dreadful to the lukewarm soul, is, there not being an appear- ance from which we can presume that it still preserves the sancti- fying grace ; on the contrary, every thing induces us to suppose it forfeited • that is to say, that, of all the symptoms of a habitual and living charity, there is not a vestige of one in it. For, my brethren, the first character of charity is to fill us with that spirit of adoption in children, which leads us to love God as our heavenly Father, to love his law, and the justice of his com- mandments, and to dread the forfeiture of his love more than all the evils with which he threatens us. Now, the attention alone with which a lukewarm soul examines whether an oflfence be venial, or extends farther; of disputing with God every article he may refuse him, without actual guilt ; of studying the law, only for the purpose of knowing to what de- gree it may be violated ; of unceasingly preferring the interests of his own cupidity to those of grace; and always justifying those things which flatter the passions, in opposition to the rules which check or forbid them ; — this attention, I say, can only proceed from a heart destitute of faith and charity ; from h heart in which the Spirit of God, that Spirit of love and kindness, apparently no longer reigns. For no children but the prodigal are capable of quibbling in this manner with their father and protector ; of exercising to the utmost length of severity any claims they may have, and of seizing all they may think themselves entitled to. Now, in order to give this reflection all its weight, — that dis- position, which deliberately allows itself every infidelity which will not, it believes, be followed by eternal punishment, is the disposition of a slave and hireling ; that is to say, that, could they promise themselves the same impunity and indulgence from the Almighty, for the transgression of the essential points of the law, they would violate them with the same indiflerence as they violate the least ; for, were cruel and avowed revenge, calunmy of the blackest nature, and criminal attachments, to be attended in futu- rity with no worse consequences than slight and momentary resentments, accidental and careless evil-speaking, or too much STATE OK LUKEWAUMNKSS. 61 self-love, they would feel no more horror in the commission of the former than the last-mentioned crimes ; that is to say, that when faithful to the commandments, it is not from a love of righteous- ness, but the dread of that punishment which would attend their infraction ; it is not to order and to the law that they submit them- selves, it is to their chastisement ; it is not the Lord they have in view, it is themselves ; for, while his glory alone is interested, and no serious consequences may be expected to follow our infidelities, from their apparent slightness, we are not afraid of displeasing him; we even justify to ourselves in secret these kinds of trans- gressions, by saying, that, notwithstanding they ortend, and are displeasing to the Lord, yet they bring not death nor eternal pu- nishment to the soul. We are not affected by what regards only him, his glory goes for nothing in the distinction we make between actions allowed or forbidden ; our interest alone regulates our fidelity, and nothing can warm our coldness but the dread of ever- lasting punishment. We are even delighted at the impunity of those trivial transgressions ; of being able to gratify our inclina- tions, without any greater misfortune attending, than the displea- sure of the Almighty. We love this wretched liberty, which seems to leave us the right of being unpunished, though unfaithful. We are the apologists of it ; we carry it even farther than in reality it goes ; we wish all to be venial ; gaming, dress, sensual pleasures, passion, animosities, public spectacles ; — what shall I say ? We would wish this freedom to be universal ; that nothing which gratifies our appetites should be punished ; that the Almighty were neither just, nor the avenger of iniquity; and that we might yield ourselves up to the gratification of every passion, and violate the sanctity of his law, without any dread of. the severity of his justice. Provided a lukewarm soul will descend to an examination of itself, it will feel, that this is truly the principle of its heart, and its real disposition. Now, I ask you, is this the situation of a soul in which the sanctifying charity and grace is still preserved ; that is to say, a soul which loves its Maker more than the world, more than all created beings, more than all pleasures or riches, more than itself; — of a soul which can feel no joy but in his possession ; which dreads only his loss, and knows no misfor- tune but that of his displeasure '{ Does the charity you flatter yourselves still to preserve, seek, in this manner, its proper interest? Does it regard as nothing, the displeasure of him it loves, provi- ded its infidelities remain unpunished ? Does it think of dis- puting, like you every day, to what degree it may safely of- fend him, in order to take its measures accordingly, and then allow itself every transgression to which impunity is attached ? Does it see nothing amiable in its God, or capable of attaching the heart, but his chastisements ? Were he not even an Almighty 62 STATE OP LUKEWARMNESS. and an avenging God, would it be less affected by his infinite mer- cies, his truth, holiness, v/isdom, fatherly tenderness, and pro- tection? Ah! lukewarm and infidel soul!, thou lovest him no longer: thou lovest, thou livost only for thyself. The small re- mains of fidelity, which still keep thee from sin, are nothing but a fund of sloth, timidity, and self-love. Thou wishest to live in peace with thyself : thou dreadest the embarrassments of a pas- sion, and the remorse of a sullied conscience ; iniquity is become a fatigue, and that alone displeases thee with it. Thou lovest thine own ease; and that is thy sole religion. Indolence is the only bar- rier which stops thee, and all thy virtue is limited to thyself. Assuredly, thou wouldst wish to know whether this infidelity be a venial transgression, or if it extends farther. Thou acknowledg- est, that it displeases God, (for that point admits of no doubt,) yet is that not sufficient to turn thee from it ? Thou wouldst wish to know, whether it so far displeases him as to provoke his everlast- ing wrath ? Ah ! thou seest very well, that this investigation tends to nothing by thyself; that thy disposition leads thee to think guilt nothing, as an offence a'nd a displeasure to God, — a powerful reason, however, why it should be detestable to thee ; that thou no longer servest the Lord in truth and in charity ; that thy pretended virtue is only a natural timidity, which dares not expose itself to the terrible threatenings of the law ; that thou art nothing but a vile and wretched slave, to restrain whom, it is necessary to keep scourges continually in thy sight ; that thou resemblest that unfaithful servant, who secreted his talent, because he knew that his master was severe, and, but for that reason, would have wasted it in dissipation ; and that, in the preparation of the heart, to which alone the Almighty looketh, thou hatest his law : thou lovest every thing it forbids ; thou art no longer in charity ; thou art a child of death and perdition. The second character of charity is to be timorous, and to magnify to ourselves our smallest deviations ; not that charity deceives or conceals from us the truth, but, disengaging the soul from the senses, it purifies our view of faith, and renders it more quick-sighted in spiritual affairs ; and besides, whatever is in the smallest de- gree displeasing to the only object of our love, appears serious and considerable to the soul which loves. Thus charity is always hum- ble, timid, and distrustful of itself ; unceasingly agitated by its pious perplexities, which leave it in suspense respecting its real state ; always alarmed by those delicacies of grace, which make it tremble at every action ; which make a kind of martyrdom of love, from the uncertainty in which they leave it ; and by which, however, it is purified. These are not the vain and puerile scruples which we blame in weak minds. They are those pious fears of charity and of grace inseparable from every faithful and religious soul. It works its salvation with fear and trembhng ; and even frefjuently ' STATE OK LUKEWARMNESS. 63 regards as crimes actions which are often virtues in the sight of God; and which, at most, can only be regarded as simple weak- nesses. These are the holy perplexities of charity, which derive their source even from the lights of faith. This path has, in all ages, been the path of the just. Yet, nevertheless, it is that pretended charity, of which, in the midst of a vicious life, and of all your inhdelities, you believe yourselves still possessed, that makes them apjiear slight to you ; it is that charity itself, which you suppose not to have lost, that comforts and encourages you ; that diminishes your faults in your own sight, and fixes you in a state of peace and security : in a word, that not only banishes from your heart all those pious alarms inseparable from real piety, but makes you regard them as weak- nesses, and even the excesses of piety. Now tell me, I beg of you, is not that an inconsistency ? Does charity contradict itself in that manner? Or can you place much dependence on a love which so nearly resembles hatred? The last character of charity is to be active and diligent in the ways of God. We find how much the apostle dwells on its activity and fecundity in the heart of a Christian. It operates wherever it is ; it cannot, say the saints, be idle : it is a celestial fire, which no power can hinder from showing itself, and from acting: it may sometimes indeed be overwhelmed, and greatly weakened, by the multitude of our weaknesses, but, while not entirely extinguished, there always proceed from it, as I may say, some sparks of sighs, wishes, lamentations, efforts, and deeds. The Holy Sacrament reanimates it; prayer arouses it; pious reading, affliction, dis- grace, bodily infirmity, all rekindle it, when not utterly extin- guished. It is mentioned in the second book of the Maccabees, that the sacred fire, which the Jews had concealed during their captivity, was found at their return apparently extinct. But as the surface alone was obscured, and the sacred fire still internally preserved all its virtue, scarcely was it exposed to the rays of the sun, when they saw it instantaneously rekindle, and present to their sight a brightness altogether new, and an activity altogether astonishing. Behold, my brethren, a faithful representation of the coldness of a truly just soul; and which likewise would be your case, had the multitude of your infidelities done no more than cover and relax, as I may say, without extinguishing, the sacred fire of charity within you: — behold, I say, what ought to be your situa- tion, when you approach the Holy Sacrament, or listen to the word of God. When Jesus Christ, the Sun of righteousness, darts upon you some rays of his grace and light, and inspires you with holy desires, your heart ought then to be seen rekindled, and your fervour renewed; you ought then to appear all fire and animation 64 STATK OF LUKEVVARMNKSS. in the practice of your duty, and astonish even the most confident witnesses of your former life by the renovation of your morals and zeal. Alas ! nothing, however, reanimates you. Even the Holy Sa- crament leaves you all your coldness. The words of the gospel, which you listen to, fall upon your heart like corn upon a sterile land, where it immediately dies. The sentiments of salvation which grace operates within you, are never followed with any effect in the melioration of your morals. You continually drag on in the same indolence and languor. You depart from the holy altar equally cold, equally insensible, as you approached it. We see not in you those renewals of zeal, piety, and fervour, so common in just souls, and of which the motives are to be found in their deviations from duty. What you were yesterday, you are to-day ; the same infi- delities, the same weaknesses, you advance not a single step in the road to salvation ; all the fire of heaven could scarcely rekindle in the bottom of your heart this pretended charity upon which you depend so much. Alf! my dear hearer, how much I dread that it is extinct, and that you ai'e dead in the sight of the Lord! I wish not to anticipate the secret judgments of God upon the consciences; but I must tell you, that your state is very far from being safe ; I even tell you, that, if we are to judge by the rules of faith, you are in disgrace with, and hated of the Lord; I tell you likewise, that a coldness so durable and constant cannot sub- sist with a principle of heavenly and eternal life, which always, from time to time at least, betrays external movements and signs, raises, animates itself, and takes wing, as if to disengage itself from the shackles which weigh it down; and that a charity so mute, so indolent, and so constantly insensible, exists no more. But the great danger of this state, my brethren, is, that a lukewarm soul is so without scruple; it feels that it might carry its fervour and fidelity to a much greater length, but it looks upon that zeal, and that exactitude, as a perfection and a grace reserved only for certain souls, and not as a general duty. In this manner they fix themselves in that degree of coldness into which they are fallen. They have not made, nor scarcely attempted, the smallest progress in virtue, since the first ardours of conversion. It would appear, that, having exhausted all their fervour against the criminal passions with which they had at first to combat, they imagine that nothing now remains but to enjoy in peace the fruits of their victory. A thousand damages which still remain from their first shipwreck, they think no more of repairing. So far from endea- vouring to repress a thousand weaknesses and corrupted incli- nations left them by their first irregularities, they love and cherish them. The Holy Sacrament no longer reanimates or invigorates their faith; it only amuses it. Conversion is no longer the end they propose, they believe it already done : and, alas ! their con- STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. 65 fessions, even to the Almighty, are more for the purpose of amusing and lulling their consciences, than the effects of piety and real contrition. We impose greatly upon ourselves, my brethren, with regard to our consciences reproaching us with nothing criminal ; for we see not, that it is even that tranquillity which constitutes the danger, and perhaps the guilt likewise of it. We believe ourselves in security in our state, because it perhaps offers to our sight more innocence and regularity than that of disorderly souls; and indeed, we wish not to conceive how a life purely natural should not be a life of grace and of faith ; or that a state of habitual idleness and sensual gratification, should be a state of sin and death in a Chris- tian life. Thus, my dear hearer, you whom this discourse regards, re- animate yourself without ceasing in the spirit of your vocation • according to the advice of the apostle, raise yourself every day by prayer, by mortification of the senses, by vigilance over your passions, and by a continual retrospection to, and investigation of, your own heart, — ^^that first grace, which operates to draw you from the errors and wanderings of the world, and fits you to enter into the paths of God. Depend upon it, that piety has nothino- sure or consoling but fidelity; that, in relaxing from it, you only augment your troubles, because you multiply your bonds; that, in retrenching from your duty, zeal, fervour, and exactitude, you likewise retrench all its sweets and pleasures ; that, in deprivino- your state of fidelity, you deprive it of security; and that, in limit- ing yourself simply to shun iniquity, you lose the most precious fruits of virtue. And after all, since you have already sacrificed the essential, why will you still attach yourselves to the frivolous parts? After having accomplished the most laborious and painful exertions toward salvation, must you perisli for not finishing the slightest and most easy ? When Naaman, little convinced, because the pro- phet, for the cure of his leprosy, had only ordered him to bathe in the waters of the Jordan, retired full of contempt for the man of God, and believing it impossible that his recovery could be accom- plished by so simple a remedy, the people who accompanied him made him sensible of his error, by saying to him, " But, master, had the prophet bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather, then, when he saitii to thee Wash, and be clean?" And now, my brethren, attend to what I have to say, while I finish this Discourse. You have abandoned the world, and the idols which you formerly worshipped in it; you are come from afar into the paths of God ; you have had so many passions to over- come, and obstacles to surmount, so many things to sacrifice, and difficult exertions to make, there remains only one step more to accomplish, which is a faithful and constant vigilance over your- F G6 STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. selves, if a sacrifice of the criminal passions were not already made, and you were required to do it, you would not, I believe, hesitate a moment; cost what it might, you would make it: and, in the mean while, when simple purifications are only demanded of you; nay, when you are required, as I may say, almost the same things which you do, but only to be practised with more fervour, fidelity, faith, and vigilance, are you excusable in declining them ? Why will you render useless all your former efforts, by the refusal of a thing so easy? Why should you have renounced the world, and all its criminal pleasures, only to find in piety the same rock, which by flying from sin you thought to have escaped ? And would it not be lamentable, if, after having sacrificed to God the principal parts, you should lose yourselves, by wishing still to dis- pute with him a thousand little sacrifices, much less painful to the heart and to nature? Finish, then, in us, O my God! that which thy grace has already begun : triumph over our languors and our weaknesses, since thou hast already triumphed over our crimes: give us a heart fervent and faithful, since thou hast already deprived us of a criminal and corrupted one : inspire us with that willing submis- sion which the just possess, since thou hast extinguished in us that pride and obstinacy which occasion so many sinners. Leave not, O my God ! thy work unfinished ; and, since thou hast already made us enter into the holy career of salvation, render us worthy of the holy crown promised to those who shall have legally fought for it. Now to God, &c. Amen. SERMON V. THE CERTAINTY OF THE LOSS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN A STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. " And he rose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house : and Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever ; and they besought him for her." — LCke iv. 38. Since Simon thought the presence of our Saviour necessary for the cure of his mother-in-law, it would appear, my brethren, that the evil was pressing, and threatened an approaching death. The usual remedies must have been found ineffectual, and nothing but a miracle could operate her cure, and draw her from the gates STATH OF LUKKVVARMNESS. 67 of death ; nevertheless, the Scriptures mention her being attacked by only a common fever. On every other occasion, we never find that they had recourse to our Saviour, but to raise people from the grave, to cure paralytics, restore sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf, from their birth: in a word, to cure diseases incurable by any other than the sovereign Master of life and death. In this instance he is called upon to restore health to a person attacked by a simple fever. Whence comes it that the Almighty power is employed on so slight an occasion ? It is, that this fever, being a natural image of lukewarmness in the ways of God, the Holy Spirit has wished to make us understand by it, that this disease, apparently so slight, and of which they dread not the danger, — this lukewarmness, so common in piety, is a disease which inevitably destroys the soul, and that a miracle is necessary to rescue it from death. Yes, my brethren, of all the maxims of Christian morality, there is none upon which experience allows us less to deceive ourselves, than the one which assures us, that contempt for the smallest points of our duty insensibly leads us to a transgression of the most essential; and that neghgence in the ways of God, is never far from a total loss of righteousness. He who despises the smaller objects of rehgion, says the Holy Spirit, will gradually fall : he who despises them, that is to say, who deliberately violates them; who lays down, as it were, a plan of this conduct: for if, through weakness or surprise, you fail in them sometimes, it is the common destiny of the just, and this discourse would no longer regard you; but to despise them in the sense already mentioned, which can happen only with lukewarm and unfaithful souls, is a path which must terminate in the loss of righteousness ; — in the first place, because the special grace necessary toward perseverance in virtue is no longer granted; — secondly, because the passions are strengthened which lead us on to vice ; — thirdly, because all the external succours of piety become useless. Let us investigate these three reflections. They contain im- portant instructions in the detail of a Christian life : useful, not only to those who make a public profession of piety, but likewise to those who make all virtue to consist in that regu- larity of conduct and propriety of behaviour which even the world requires. Part I. — It is a truth of salvation, says a holy father, that the innocence of even the most upright has occasion for the continual assistance of grace. Man, delivered up to sin by the wickedness of his nature, no longer finds in himself but principles of error and sources of corruption : righteousness and truth, originally born with us, are now become as strangers ; all our inclinations, re- volted against God and his lav/ in spite of ourselves, drag us on toward illicit objects; insomuch, that, to return to the law, and DO STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. ' submit our heart to order, it is necessary to resist, without ceasing, the impressions of the senses; to break our warmest inclinations, and to harden ourselves continually against ourselves. There is no duty but what now costs us something; no precept in the law but combats some of our passions; no step in the paths of God against which our heart does not revolt. To this load of corruption, which renders duty so difficult and irksome, and iniquity so natural, add the snares which surround us, the examples which entice us, the objects which effeminate' us, the occasions which surprise us, the compliances which weaken us, the afflictions which discourage us, the propei'ties which cor- rupt us, the situations which blind us, and the contradictions which we experience; every thing around us is indeed only one continued temptation. I speak not of the miseries which are natural to us, or the particular opposition to order and righteous- ness, which our past morals, and our first passions, have left in our hearts; that love for the world and its pleasures; that dislike to virtue and its maxims; that empire of the senses, fortified by a voluptuous life; that invincible indolence, to which every thing is a bvu'den, and to which whatever is a burden becomes almost impossible ; that pride, which knows neither how to bend nor break; that inconstancy of heart, incapable of end or unifor- mity, which presently tires of itself; which cannot submit to rule, because that is always the same; which wishes, and wishes not; passes in a moment from the lowest state of dejection to a vain and childish joy, and leaves scarcely the interval of a mo- ment between the sincerest resolution and the infidelity which violates it. Now, in a situation so miserable, what, O my God, can the most just accomplish, delivered up to his own weakness and all the snares which surround him; bearing in his heart the source of all his errors, and in his mind the principles of every illusion? The grace of Jesus Christ, therefore, can alone deliver him from so many miseries; enlighten him in the midst of so much dark- ness; support him under so many difficulties; restrain him from following the dictates of so many rapid desires, and strengthen him against so many attacks. If left a moment to himself, he inevitably stumbles, and is lost. If an Almighty hand ceases an instant to retain him, he is carried down by the stream. Our consistency in virtue is, therefore, a continual grace and miracle. All our steps in the ways of God are new motions of the Holy Spirit; that is to say, of that invisible guide which impels and leads us on. All our pious actions are gifts of Divine mercy; since every proper use of our liberty comes from him, and he crowns his gifts in recom- pensing our merits. All the moments of our Christian life are like a new creation, therefore, in faith, and in piety; that is to say, (this spiritual creation does not suppose a non-existence in the just, but a principle of grace, and a liberty which co-operates with STATK OF LUKKWARMNESS. OU it,) that as, in the order of nature, we should again return to our nonentity, if the Creator ceased for an instant to preserve the being- he has given us; in the life of grace, we should again fall into sin and death, did the Redeemer cease a single moment to continue, by new succours, the gift of righteousness and holiness, with which he had embellished our soul. Such is the weakness of man, and such is his continual dependence on the grace of Jesus Christ. The fidelity of the just soul is therefore the fruit of continual aids of grace; but it is likewise the principle. It is grace alone which can accomplish the fidelity of the just; and it is the fidelity alone of the just which merits the preservation and increase of grace in the heart. For, my brethren, the ways of God toward us being full of equity and wisdom, there must necessarily be some order in the distribution of. his gifts and grace. The Lord must communicate himself more abundantly to the soul which faithfully prepares its heart for his ways ; he roust bestow more continual marks of his protection and mercy on the upright heart which gives him con- stant proof of love and fidelity; and the servant who improves his talent, must necessarily be recompensed in proportion to the profit he has known how to reap from it. It is just, on the contrary, that a lukewarm and unfaithful heart, who serves his God with negligence and disgust, should find the Almighty cold and disgusted toward him. The misery inseparable from cold- ness is therefore the privation of the grace of protection. If you become cold, the Almighty becomes so toward you; if you limit yourself, with regard to him, to those essential duties which you cannot refuse him without guilt, he confines himself, with regard to you, to those general succours which will not support you far. He retires from you in proportion as you retire from him ; and the measure of fidelity with which you serve him, is the measure of protection you may expect to receive. Nothing can be more equitable than this conduct ; for you enter into judgment with your God. You neglect every oppor- tunity where you might give him proofs of your fidelity : you dispute every thing with him, of which you think you could avoid the payment: you carefully watch lest you do any thing for him beyond what duty requires. It appears you say to him, what he formerly said to the unfaithful servant. Take that thine is, and go thy way. You reckon with God, as I may say. All your attention is engaged in prescribing limits to the right he has over your heart ; and all his attention likewise, if I may be per- mitted to speak in this manner, is to put bounds to his mercies to your soul, and to pay your indifference with the same. Love is the price of love alone ; and if you do not sufficiently feel all the terror and extent of this truth, allow me to explain to you its consequences. The first is, that this state of lukewarmness and infidelity re- 70 STATE OF LUKEWAllMNESS. moving the soul from the grace of protection, leaves him, as I may say, empty of God, and in the hands, as it were, of his own weakness. He may, undoubtedly, with the common suc- cours left him, still preserve the fidelity he owes to God. He has always enough to support him in well-doing; but his lukewarm- ness deprives him of the ability to apply them to any purpose; that is to say, that he is still aided by those succours which may enable him to go on, but no longer by those with which he may infallibly persevere : there is no peril, therefore, in this situation, but makes a dangerous impression upon him, and leads him to the brink of ruin. I grant, that a happy natural disposition, some remains of modesty, and fear of God, a conscience still afraid of guilt, and a reputation to preserve, may for some time defend him against himself; but as these resources, drawn mostly from nature, can- not extend far; as the sensual objects, in the midst of which he lives, make every day new wounds in his heart, and grace, less abundant, repairs not the loss, — alas ! his strength exhausts every moment, faith relaxes, and truth is obscured ; the more he advances, the worse he becomes. Such souls feel perfectly, that they no longer retire from the world and its dangers, equally innocent as formerly; that they carry their weaknesses and com- pliance much farther ; that they encroach upon limits which they formerly respected ; that loose conversations find them more in- dulgent, evil-speaking more favourable, pleasure less guarded, and the world more anxious for it; that they bring into it a heart ab-eady half-gained ; that they are sensible of their losses, but feel nothing to repair them : — in a word, that God is almost with- drawn from them, and there is no longer any barrier but their own weakness, between guilt and them. Behold the situation in which you are, and from that judge of the one in which you will soon be. I know that this state of relaxation and infidelity troubles and disturbs you; that you say every day, that nothing can be- stow greater happiness than a detachment from every thing worldly ; and that you envy the destiny of those Christians who give themselves up to God without reserve, and no longer keep any terras with the world. But you are deceived: it is not the faith or the fervour of these faithful Christians you envy; you only covet their lot, that happiness and peace which they enjoy in the service of their Master, and which you are incapable of partaking; you only envy them that insensibility and happy in- difference to which they have attained for the world and every thing it esteems, your love for which occasions all your troubles, remorses, and secret anguish : but you envy them not the sacri- fices they were under the necessity of making, to arrive at their present state of peace and tranquillity ; you envy them not the trials they have undergone, in order to merit the precious gift of a STATE OF LUKEWARMNKSS. 71 lively and fervent faith ; you envy the happiness of their state, but you would not wish it to cost you the illusion and sensuality of your own. The second consequence I draw from the refusal of the grace of protection to the lukewarm Christian, is, that the yoke of our Saviour, to him, becomes burdensome, hard, and insupportable. For, my brethren, by the irregularity of our nature, having lost all taste for righteousness and truth, which, in a state of inno- cence, formed the happiness of man, we no longer have any feel- ing or desire but for objects which gratify the senses and passions. The duties of the law of God, which recall us from the senses to the spirit, and make us sacrifice the present impressions of plea- sure to the hope of future promises, — these duties, I say, presently fatigue our weakness, because they are continual efforts we make against ourselves. It requires the unction of grace, therefore, to soften the yoke ; it is necessary that grace spread secret consola- tions over its bitterness, and change the sadness of duty into a holy and sensible joy. Now, the lukewarm soul, deprived of this unction, feels only the weight of the yoke, without the consolations which soften it. In this manner, all the duties of piety and reli- gion become insipid to you; works of salvation become wearisome ; your conscience, restless and embarrassed by your relaxations and infidelities, of which you cannot justify the innocence, no longer allows you to enjoy either peace or happiness in the service of God. You feel all the weight of the duties to which some remains of faith, and love of ease, hinder you from being unfaithful; but you feel not the secret testimony of a clear conscience, which soothes and supports the fervent Christian. You shun, perhaps, certain occasions of pleasure, where innocence is sure of being shipwrecked ; but you only experience, in the retreat which divides you from them, a wearisomeness, and a more lively desire for the same pleasures from which you have forced yourself to re- frain. You pray, but prayer is no longer but a fatigue ; you fre- quent the society of virtuous persons, but their company becomes so irksome as almost to disgust you with virtue itself. The slightest violence you do upon your inclinations for the sake of heaven, costs you such efforts, that the pleasures and amusements of the world must be applied to, to refresh and invigorate you after this fatigue; the smallest mortification exhausts your body, casts uneasiness and chagrin through your temper, and only con- soles you by an immediate determination to abandon its practice. You live unhappy, and without consolation, because you deprive yourself of a world you love, and substitute in its place duties which you love not. Your whole life is but a melancholy fatigue, and a perpetual disgust with yourself. You resemble the Israelites in the desert, disgusted, on the one part, with the manna upon which the Lord had ordered them to subsist ; and, on the other. 72 STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. not daring to return to the food of the Egyptians, which they still loved, and which the dread alone of the Almighty's anger induced them to deny themselves. Now, this state of violence cannot endure ; we soon tire of any remains of virtue which do not quiet the heart, comfort the reason, and even flatter our self- Jove; we soon throw off the remains of a yoke which weighs us down, and which we no longer carry through love, but for decency's sake. It is so melancholy to be nothing at all, as I may say, — neither just nor worldly, attached neither to the world nor to Jesus Christ, enjoying neither the pleasures of the senses, nor those of grace, — that it is impossible this wearisome situa- tion of indifference and neutrality can be durable. The heart, and particularly those of a certain description, requires an avowed object to occupy and interest it : if not God, it will soon be the world. A heart, lively, eager, always in extremes, and such as the genei'ality of men possess, cannot be fixed but by the feelings ; and to be continually disgusted with virtue, shows a heart already pre- pared to yield to the attractions of vice. I know, in the first place, that there are lazy and indolent souls, who seem to keep themselves in this state of equilibration and in- sensibility ; who offer nothing decided, either for the world or virtue ; who appear equally distant, by their dispositions, either from the ardours of a faithful piety, or the excesses of profane guilt ; who, in the midst of the pleasures of the world, preserve a fund of retention and regularity which proves the existence of some remains of virtue, and, in the midst of their religious duties, a fund of care- lessness and laxity which still breathes the air and maxims of the world. These are indolent and tranquil hearts, animated in nothing, in whom indolence almost supplies the place of virtue, and who, notwithstanding they never arrive at that degree of piety which the faithful accomplish, never proceed to those lengths in iniquity which criminal and abandoned souls do. I know it, my brethren,, but I likewise know, that this indo- lence of heart defends us only from crimes which would cost us trouble; makes us avoid only those pleasures which we would be obliged to purchase at the expense of our tranquillity, and which the love of ease alone prevents us from enjoying. It leaves us virtuous only in the eyes of men, who confound the indolence which dreads embarrassment with the piety which flics from vice; but it does not defend us against ourselves, against a thousand illicit desires, a thousand criminal compliances, a thousand pas- sions, more secret and less painful because shut up in the heart; from jealousies, which devour us ; ambition, which domineers over us; pride, which corrupts us; a desire of pleasure, which engrosses us; an excess of self-love, which is the principle of all our conduct, and infects all our actions : that is to say, that this indolence delivers up our heart to all its weaknesses, at STATE OF LUKEWAUMNKSS. 73 the same time that it serves as a check apaiast the most striking and tumultuous passions, and that what appears only indolence in the eyes of men, is always before God a secret ignominy and corruption. 1 know, in the second place, that this love of piety, and this unction which softens the practice of religious duties, is a gift fre- quently refused even to holy and faithful Christians. But there are three essential differences between the faithful soul, to whom the Lord denies the sensible consolations of piety, and the luke- warm and worldly one, whom the weight of the yoke oppresses, and who is capable of enjoying the things of God. The first is, that a faithful Christian, in spite of his repug- nances, preserving a firm and solid faith, finds his state, and the exemption from guilt in which he lives, since touched by God, a thousand times more happy than that in which he lived when de- livered up to his passions ; and, penetrated with horror at his for- mer excesses, he would not change his lot, or re-engage himself in his former vices, for all the pleasured of the earth. In place of which, the lukewarm and unfaithful heart, disgusted with virtue, enviously regards the pleasures and vain happiness of the world ; and his disgusts being only the consequence and sufferings of his weakness and the lukewarmness of his faith, to plunge into sin begins to appear as the only resource left him from the w^eariness and gloominess of piety. The second difference is, that the faithful Christian, in the midst of his disgusts and hardships, at least bears a conscience which reproaches him not with guilt. He at least is supported by the testimony of his own heart, and by a certain degree of internal peace, which, though neither warm nor very sensible, fails not, however, to establish within us a calm which we never experienced in the paths of error. On the contrary, the lukewarm and unfaith- ful soul, allowing himself, against the testimony of his own con- science, a thousand daily transgressions, of which he knows not the wickedness, bears always an uneasy and suspicious conscience; and being no longer sustained by love for his duties, nor the peace and testimony of his conscience, this state of agitation and weari- ness soon terminates in the miserable peace of sin. . The last reason is, that the disgusts of the faithful Christian being only trials, to which, for his purification, God exposes liim, he supplies, in a thousand ways, the sensible consolations of virtue which he refuses him ; he replaces thei^ by a more powerful pro- tection, by a merciful attention to renwve every danger which might seduce him, and by more abundant succours of grace ; for the Almighty wishes neither to lose nor discourage him ; he wishes only to prove him, and make him expiate, by the afflictions and hardships of virtue, the unjust pleasures of sin. But the disgusts of an infidel soul are not trials, — they are punishments : it is not a merciful God who suspends the consolations of grace, without sus- 74 STATE OF LUKKWARMNESS. pending grace itself; it is not a tender father, who supplies, by the solidity of his tenderness, and by effectual assistances, the apparent rigours he is under the necessity of using: it is a severe judge, -who only begins to deprive the criminal of a thousand indul- gences, because the sentence of death is prepared for him. The hardships of virtue find a thousand resources in virtue itself: those of lukewarmness can find them only in the deceitful pleasures of vice. Such, my brethren, is the inevitable lot of lukevi^armness in the ways of God, — the misery of losing righteousness. Will you tell us, after this, that you wish to practise only a degree of virtue which may continue ; that these great exertions of zeal cannot be sup- ported ; that it is much better not to begin so high, and by these means to accomplish the end ; and that they never go far who ex- haust themselves at the beginning of their journey ? I know that every excess, even in piety, comes not from the Spirit of God, which is a Spirit of wisdom and discretion ; that the zeal which overturns the order of our state and duties, is not the piety which comes from above, but an illusion born in ourselves ; that indiscretion is a source of false virtues ; and that we often give to vanity what we think is given to truth. But I tell you from God, that, to persevere in his ways, we must give ourselves up to him without reserve ; that, in order to sup- port the fidelity due to the essential parts of our duty, we must unceasingly endeavour to weaken the passions which oppose it ; and that keeping terms with these passions, under the pretext of not going too far, is to dig for ourselves a grave. I tell you, that it is only the faithful and fervent Christians, who, not contented with shunning sin, shun also every thing which can lead to it ; that it is these alone who persevere, who sustain themselves, who honour piety by a supported, equal, and uniform conduct ; and, on the contrary, it is lukewarm and relaxed souls, who have begun their penitence by limiting their piety, and accommodating it to the pleasures and maxims of the world ; it is these souls who draw back, who belie themselves, and who dishonour piety, by their inconstancy and inequality of conduct, by a life sometimes blended with virtue and retirement, and at others devoted to the world and weaknesses. And I appeal to yourselves, my brethren, if, when you see in the world a person relax from his first fervour ; gradually mingle himself in the pleasures and societies he had lately so scrupulously and severely denied himself; insensibly abate his love of retirement, his modesty, circumspection, prayers, and exactitude to fulfil his religious duties, — you say not to your- selves, that he is not far from returning to what he formerly was ? Are not these relaxations regarded by you as a prelude to his ruin ; and that virtue is nearly extinct, when once you see it weakened ? Do you even require so much to arouse your censures and mali- cious presages against piety ? Unjust that you are, you condemn STATE OK LUKEWARMNJiSS. 7^ a cold and unfaithful virtue, while you condemn us for requiring of you a virtue faithful and fervent ! You pretend, that, in order to continue, you must begin with moderation, while you prophesy that a total departure from virtue is not far distant, when once it begins to be followed with coolness and negligence ! From a relaxation alone, therefore, we are to dread a return to our former courses, and a departure from virtue. It is not by giving ourselves up without reserve to God, that we become disgusted with piety and are forsaken by him. The way to come gloriously off in battle, is not by sparing, but overcoming the enemy. There is no dread, therefore, of doing too much, lest we should be unable to support it ; on the contrary, to merit the grace necessary to our support, we ought, from the first, to leave nothing undone. What illusion, my brethren ! We dread zeal, as dangerous to perseve- rance; and it is zeal alone which, can obtain it. We fix ourselves in a lukewarm and commodious life, as the only one which can subsist ; and it is the only one which proves false. We shun fide- lity, as the rock of piety ; and piety without fidelity is never far from shipwreck. It is thus that lukewarmness removes from the infidel soul the grace of protection ; of which the absence depriving our faith of all its strength, and the yoke of Jesus Christ of all its consolations, leaves us in a state of imbecility, that, to be lost, innocence re- quires only to be attacked. But if the loss of righteousness is in- evitable on the part of grace which is withdrawn, it is still more so on account of the passions which are fortified within us. Part II. — What renders vigilance so necessary to Christian piety, is, that all the passions which oppose themselves in us to the law of God, only die, as I may say, with us. We undoubt- edly are able to weaken them, by the assistance of grace, and a fervent and lively faith ; but the roots always continue in the heart; we always carry within us the principles of the same errors our tears have effaced. Guilt may be extinguished in our hearts ; but sin, as the apostle says, that is to say, the corrupted inclina- tions which have formed our guilt, inhabits and lives there still. And that fund of corruption which removed us so far from God, is still left us in our penitence, to serve as a continual exercise to virtue ; to render us, by the continual occasions of combat it raises up for us, more worthy of an eternal crown ; to humble our pride ; to keep us in remembrance, that the duration of our present hfe is a time of war and danger ; and, by a destiny inevitable to our nature, that there is only one step between relaxation and guilt. It is true that the grace of Jesus Christ is given us to repress these corrupted inclinations which survive our conversion ; but in a state of lukewarmness, as I have already said, grace offer- 76 ' STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. ing us only common succours, and the grace of protection, of which we are become unworthy, being either more rare, or entirely suspended, it is evident that the passions must acquire new strength. But I say, that not only the passions are strengthened in a lukewarm and infidel life, because the grace of protection which checked them is more rare, but likewise by the state itself of relaxation and coldness : for that life being only a continued in- dulgence of all the passions ; a simple easiness in granting, to a certain degree, every thing which flatters the appetites ; a watchful- ness, even of self-love, to remove whatever might repress or re- strain them ; and a perpetual usage of all things capable of infla- ming them ; — it is evident, that by these means they must daily acquire new force. In a word, my brethren, we are not to imagine, that, in pushing our indulgence for our passions only to certain lengths permitted, we appease them, as I may say ; that Ave allow sufficient to satisfy them, and not enough to stain our soul, or carry trouble and remorse through our conscience ; or fancy that we can ever attain a certain degree of equilibration between virtue and sin, where, on the one side, our passions are satisfied by the indulgence allowed them ; and, on the other, our conscience is tranquil, by the absence of guilt which Ave shun. For such is the plan adopted by the luke- warm soul : favourable to his indolence, because he equally ba- nishes every thing, either in virtue or in sin, which can disturb him. To the passions he refuses whatever might trouble his con- science ; and to virtue, whatever might be disagreeable to or mor- tify his self-love : but this state of equilibrium is a perfect chimera. The passions know no limits or bounds in guilt; how, therefore, could they possibly be restrained to those of the lukewarm soul ? Even the utmost excess cannot restrain or fix them ; how, then, could simple indulgences do it ? The more you grant, the more you deprive yourself of the power to refuse them any thing. The true secret of appeasing, is not by favouring them to a certain degree ; it is by opposing them in every thing ; every indulgence only ren- ders them more fierce and unmanageable ; it is a little water thrown upon a great fire, which, far from extinguishing, increases its fury. Every thing which flatters the passions, renders them more keen, and diminishes the probability of being able to conquer them. Now, such is the state of a lukewarm and unfaithful soul. It allows itself every animosity which extends not to avowed revenge; it justifies every pleasure, in which guilt is not palpable ; it de- livers itself up without reserve to every worldly desire and gratifi- cation, by which no individual, it supposes, is injured ; every omission, which seems to turn on the arbitrary duties, or but slight- ly interest the essential ones, it makes no scruple of; every action of self-love, which leads not directly to guilt, it regards as nothing; all that nicety, with regard to rank and personal fame, which STATE OF LUKKWARMNESS. T] is compatible with that moderation even the world requires, it re- gards as a merit. Now, what happens in consequence of this? Listen, and you shall know ; and I beg you will attend to the fol- lowing reflections. In the first place : all the inchnations within us, which oppose themselves to order and duty, being continually strengthened, order and duty at last find in us insurmountable difliculties ; inso- much, that, to accomplish them on any essential occasion, or when required by the law of God, is like remounting against the stream of a rapid flood, where the current drags us down in spite of every eftbrt to the contrary; or like a furious and unmanageable horse which it is necessary to stop short on the brink of a preci- pice. Thus your insensibdity and pride are nourished to such a degree of strength, that you abandon your heart to all their impres- sions. Thus your care and anxiety have so fortified in your heart the desire of worldly praise, that, on any important occasion, where it would be necessary to sacrifice the vanity of its sufl^rages to duty, and expose yourself, for the good of your soul, to its cen- sure and derision, you will always prefer the interests of vanity to those of truth, and the opinions of men will be much more powerful than the fear of God. Thus those anxieties with regard to fortune and advancement have rendered ambition so completely sovereign of your heart, that, in any delicate conjuncture, where the destruction of a rival would be necessary toward your own elevation, you will never hesitate, but will sacrifice your conscience to your fortune, and be unjust toward your brother, lest you fail toward yourself. Thus, in a word, to avoid a long detail, those suspicious attachments, loose conversations, ridiculous Compliances, and desires of pleasing, too much attended to, have filled you with dispositions so nearly allied to guilt and debauchery, that you are no longer capable of resistance against any of their at- tacks; the corruption, prepared by the whole train of your past actions, will be lighted up in an instant ; your weakness will over- come your reflection ; your heart will go against glory, duty, and yourself. We cannot long continue faithful, when we find in our- selves so many dispositions to be otherwise. Thus you will yourself be surprised at your own weakness : you will ask at yourself, what are become of all those disposi- tions of modesty and virtue, which formerly inspired you with such horror at sin ? You no longer will know yourself: but this state of guilt will gradually appear less frightful to you. The heart soon justifies to itself whatever pleases it: whatever is agree- able to us, does not long alarm us ; and to the misery of a depar- ture from virtue, you will add the misery of ignorance and security. Such is the inevitable lot of a lukewarm and unfaithful life : passions which we have too much indulged. ** Young lions," says a prophet, which " have been nourished without precaution, at 78 stj\te of lukbwarmness. length grow up, and devour the careless hand which has even assisted to strengthen and render them formidable." The passions, arrived to a certain point, gain a complete ascendancy : in vain you then try to regain yourself. The time is past ; you have fos- tered the profane fire in your heart, it must at last break out ; you have nourished the venom within you, it must now spread and gain upon you, and the time is past for any application to medi- cine ; you should have taken it in time. At the commencement the disease was not irremediable ; you have allowed it to strengthen, you have irritated it by every thing which could inflame and ren- der it incurable ; it must now be conqueror, and you the victim of your own indiscretion and indulgence. Do you not likewise say, my brethren, that you have the best intentions in the world ; that you wish you could act much better than you do ; and though you have the sincerest desires for salvation, yet a thousand conjunctures happen in life, where we forget all our good intentions, and must be saints to resist their impressions ? This is exactly what we tell you ; that in spite of all your pretended good intentions, if you do not fly, struggle, watch, pray, and continually take the command over yourself, a thousand occasions will occur where you will no longer be master of your own weakness. This is what we tell you, that nothing but a mortified and watchful life can place us beyond the reach of temptation and danger; that it is ridiculous to suppose we shall continue faithful in those moments when vio- lently attacked, when we bear a heart weakened, wavering, and already on the verge of falling ; that none but the house built upon a rock can resist the winds and the tempest; and, in a word, that we must be holy, and firmly established in virtue, to live free from guilt. And when I say that we must be holy, — alas ! my brethren, the most faithful and fei^vent Christians, with every inclination mortified as far as the frailty of our nature will permit ; imagi- nations purified by prayer, and minds nourished in virtue and meditation on the law of God, frequently find themselves in such terrible situations that their hearts sink within them ; their imaginations become troubled and deranged ; they see them- selves in those melancholy agitations where they float for a long- time between victory and death ; and, like a vessel strugghng against the waves, in the midst of an enraged ocean, they can only look for safety from the Almighty commander of winds and tem- pests. And you, with a heart already half seduced, with inchna- tions at least bordering upon guilt, would wish your weakness to be proof against all attacks, and the most powerful temptations to find you always tranquil and inaccessible ? You would wish, with your lukewarm, sensual, and worldly morals, that on these occa- sions your soul should be gifted with that strength and faith which even the most tender and watchful piety sometimes carmot give ? STATE OF LUKEWAKMNESS. J9 You would wish passions flattered, nourished, and strengthened, to remain tractable, quiet, and cold, in the presence of objects most capable of lighting them up? Those which, after years of auste- rities, and a life devoted to prayer and watching, awake sometimes in a moment, far even from danger, and, by melancholy examples, make the most upright feel that we never should be off our guard, and that the highest point of virtue is sometimes the instant which precedes a departure from and total loss of it. Such is our lot, my brethren, to be quick-sighted only toward the dangers which regard our fortune or our life, and not even to know those which threaten our salvation. But let us undeceive ourselves. To shun guilt, something more is required than the lukewarmness and indolence of virtue ; and vigilance is the only mean left us by our Saviour to preserve our innocence. — First reflection. A second reflection to be made on this truth is, that the pas- sions, daily strengthening in a lukewarm and infidel life, not only duty finds in us insurmountable repugnancies, but guilt likewise, as I may say, polishes itself ; and at last we feel no more repugnance to it than to the simplest fault. Indeed, by these daily infidelities inseparable from lukewarmness, the heart, as if by insensible steps, at last arrives at those dangerous limits, which, by a single hne, separate life from death, guilt from in- nocence, and makes the final step almost without perceiving it ; only a little way remaining for him to go, and having no occasion for any new exertion to accomplish it, he does not believe he has exceeded his former bounds. He had replenished him- self with dispositions so nearly bordering on guilt, that he has brought forth iniquity without pain, repugnance, visible move- ment, or even perceiving it himself. Similar to a dying person, whom the languors of a long and painful malady have so atte- nuated, and so nearly approached to his end, that the departing sigh resembles those which have preceded it, costs him no greater effort than the others, and even leaves the spectators uncertain whether his last moment is come, or if he still breathes. And this is what renders the state of a lukewarm and infidel soul still more dangerous, that they are commonly dead to grace, without knowing it themselves ; they become enemies to God, while they still live with him as with a friend ; they are still in the commerce of holy things, when they have lost the grace which entitles us to approach them. Thus, let those souls whom this Discourse regards, no longer deceive themselves, because they believe to have hitherto avoided a gross departure from virtue : their state before God is undoubt- edly only more dangerous. Perhaps the most formidable danger of lukewarmness is, that, already dead in the sight of God, they live, in their opinion, without any visible or marked guilt ; that they compose themselves tranquilly in death, depending on an 80 STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. appearance of life which comforts them ; that to the danger of their situation they add a false peace, which confirms them in this path of illusion and darkness ; it is, in a word, that the Lord, by- terrible and secret judgments, strikes them with blindness, and punishes the corruption of their heart by permitting them to be ignorant of it. A gross fall from virtue, if I may venture to say so, would to them be a mark of the goodness and mercy of God. They would then at least open their eyes ; naked and manifest guilt would then carry trouble, vexation, and uneasiness through their conscience ; the disease at last discovered, would perhaps induce them to have recourse to the remedy ; in place of which, this hfe, apparently regular, composes and calms them, renders useless the example of fervent Christians, persuades them that this great fervour is unnecessary ; that it is much more the effect of temperament than of grace ; that it is an emotion of zeal, rather than of duty ; and makes them listen to, as vain exag- gerations, all that we say with regard to a lukewarm and infi- del life. — Second reflection. In a word, the last reflection to be made on this great truth, is, that such is the nature of our heart, always to remain much below what it at first proposed. A thousand times we have formed pious resolutions ; we have projected to carry to a cer- tain point the detail of our duties and conduct, but the execu- tion has always much diminished from the ardour of our projects, and has rested at a degree much below the one to which we wished to raise ourselves. Thus, the lukewarm Christian, proposing to himself no higher point of virtue than to shun guilt, looking precisely to precept, that is to say, to that rigorous and precise point of the law, immediately below which is prevarication and death, he infallibly rests below, and never reaches that essential point which he had proposed to himself. It is, therefore, an incontestible maxim, that we must undertake much to execute little, and look very high to attain at least the middle. Now, this maxim, so sure with regard even to the most just, is much more so with respect to the lukewarm and infidel soul ; for cold- ness more strongly binding all his ties, and augmenting the weight of his corruption and misery, it is principally him who ought to take his grand flight, in order to attain at least the lowest de- gree ; and, in his counsels with himself, propose perfection, if he wishes to rest even at the observance of precept. Above all, it is to him we may truly say, that by settling in his mind only to shun guilt, loaded as he is with the weight of his coldness and infidelities, he will always alight at a place very distant from the one he expected to reach ; and the line of guilt being imme- diately below this commodious and sensual virtue, the very same efforts he made, as he thought, to shun it, will only serve to con- duct him to it. These are reasons, drawn entirely from the STATE OF LUKEWARM NKSS. gft weakness tlie strengthened passions leave to the lukewarm and infidel soul, and which inevitably lead it to ruin. The only reason, however, you allege to us for pcrseverino- in this dangerous state, is, that you are weak, and totally unable to support a more retired, limited, mortified, and perfect manner of life. But surely, it is because you are weak, that is to say, full of disgust for virtue, of love for the world, and of subjection to your appetites, that a retired and mortified life becomes indispensable. It is because you are weak, that with more caution you ouoht to shun every danger; take a greater command over yourself; pray, watch, refuse yourself every improper gratification, and attain even to holy excesses of zeal and fervour, in order to accomplish a barrier against your weakness. You are weak? And, because you are weak, you think you are entitled to expose yourself more than another; to dread danger less; with more tranquillity and indifference to neglect the necessary remedies ; to allow more to your appetites; to preserve a stronger attachment to the world, and every thing which can corrupt the heart? What illusion! You make your weakness, then, the title of your security? In the ne- cessities you have to watch and pray, you find, then, the privilege of dispensing with them ! And since, whence is it that the sick are authorized to allow themselves greater excesses, and make use of less precaution, than those who enjoy a perfect health? Privation has always been the way of the weak and infirm ; and to allege your weakness as a right of dispensation from a more fervent and Christian life, is like enumerating your complaints, in order to per- suade us that you have no occasion for medicine. — Second reason, drawn from tlie passions, which are strengthened in a state of luke- warmness, and which proves that this state always ends in a depar- ture from virtue and the loss of righteousness. To all these reasons I should add a third, drawn from the external succours of religion necessary to the support of piety; and which become useless to the lukewarm and infidel soul. The holy sacrament not only becomes of no utility, but even dangerous to him ; either by the" coldness with which he approaches it, or by the vain confidence with which it inspires him: it is no longer a resource for him ; it has lost its effect : like medicines too frequently made use of, it amuses his languor, but cannot cure him : it is like the food of the strong and healthy, which, so far from re- establishing, completes the ruin of the weak stomach : it is the breath of the Holy Spirit, which, unable to re-illuminate the still smoking spark, entirely extinguishes it; that is to say, that the grace of the holy sacrament, received in a lukewarm and infidel heart, no longer operating there an increase of life and strength, never fails, sooner or later, to operate the death and condemnation attached to the abuse of these divine remedies. Prayer, that channel of grace; that nourishment to a faithful heart; that sweetener of piety; that refuge against all attacks of iSS STATE OF LUKKWARMNESS. the enemy ; that cry of an affected soul, which renders the Lord so attentive to his necessities : — prayer, without which the Almighty no longer makes himself felt within us ; without which we no longer know our father; we no longer render thanks to our bene- factor, nor appease our judge ; we expose no longer our wounds to our physician ; we live without God in the world : — prayer, in a word, so necessary to the most established virtue, to the luke- warm soul is no longer but the wearisome occupation of a distracted mind; of a heart dry, and shared between a thousand foreign af- fections. He no longer experiences that love, those consolations, which are the fruit of a fervent and faithful life : he no longer, as if with a new light, sees the holy truths, which confirm the soul in its contempt for the world and love for the things of heaven; and which, after its departure hence, make it regard, with new dis- gust, every thing which foolish man admires: he leaves it, no longer filled with that lively faith which reckons as nothing all the obstacles and disgusts of virtue, and with a holy zeal devours all its sorrows: he no longer feels, after it, more love for his duty and horror at the world ; more determination to fly from its dangers; more light to know its nothingness and misery, and strength to hate and struggle with himself; more terror for the judgments of God, and compunction for his own weaknes- ses: he leaves it only more fatigued than before with virtue; more filled with the phantoms of the world, which, in the moment when at the feet of the Almighty, have, it appears, agitated more bi'iskly his imagination, blasted and stained by all those images; more happy, by being quit of a burdensome duty, where he has experienced nothing so agreeable as the pleasure of finding- it over; more eager, by amusements and infidelities, to supply this moment of weariness and pain; in a word, more distant from God, whom he has irritated by the infidelity and irreverence of his prayer. Such, my brethren, is the fruit which he reaps from it. In a word, all the external duties of religion, which support and rouse piety, are no longer to the lukewarm Christian but dead and inanimate customs where his heart is not; where there is more of habit than of love or spirit of piety ; and where the only dis- position he brings is the weariness and languor of always doing the same thing. Thus, my brethren, the grace of this soul, being continually attacked and weakened, either by the practices of the world, which it allows itself, or by those of piety, which it abuses; either by sensual objects, which nourish its corruption, or by those of religion, which increase its disgusts; either by the pleasures which enervate it, or by the duties which fatigue it; all uniting to make it bend toward ruin, and nothing supporting it; — alas! what fate can it promise itself? Can the lamp without oil long continue to give light ? The tree which no longer draws nourishment from the earth, can it fail to wither and be devoted STATE OF LUKEWARMNJiSS. 83 to the fire ? Now, such is the situation of the hikewarm Chris- tian : entirely delivered up to himself, nothing supports him ; surrounded by weariness and disgusts, nothing reanimates him ; full of weakness and of languor, nothing protects him : every consolation of the just soul is to him an increase of languor; every thing'^which gives support to a faithful Christian, disgusts and overpowers him ; whatever renders the yoke more easy to others, makes him more burdensome ; and the succours of piety are no longer but his fatigues or his crimes. Now, in this state, O my God ! almost abandoned by thy grace, tired of thy yoke, disgusted with himself, as well as with virtue, weakened by diseases and their remedies, staggering at every step, a breath overturns him ; he himself leans toward his fall, without any additional or foreign impression ; and, to see him fall, there is no necessity for his being attacked. These are the reasons which prove the certainty of the loss of righteousness in a lukewarm and infidel life. But are so many proofs necessary, my dear hearer, when your own misfortunes have so sadly instructed you ? Remember from whence you are fallen^ as the Holy Spirit of God formerly said to a lukewarm and infidel soul. Remount to the source of the disorders under which you still bend. You will find it in the negligence and infidelity of which we speak, A birth of passion too feebly rejected, an occasion of danger too much frequented, practices of piety too frequently omitted or despised, convenience too sensually sought after, desires of pleasing too much listened to, dangerous writings too little avoided ; — the source is almost imperceptible. The torrent of iniquity proceeding from it has completely inundated the capa city of your soul. It was only a spark which has lighted up this great conflagration; it was a morsel of leaven, which, in the end, has fermented and corrupted the whole mass. You never believed it possible that you could be what at present you are. Whatever was said to you on this subject, you heard as exaggerations of zeal and spirituality. You would then have come forward of your own accord, in order to clear yourself of certain steps, for which you now feel not the smallest remorse. Remember from whence you are fallen ; consider the depth of the abyss into which you are plunged : it is relaxation and slight infidelities which by degrees have conducted you to it. Once more, remember it, and see if that can be denominated a sure or durable state, which has brought you to the precipice. Such is the usual artifice of Satan. He never at first proposes guilt; that would frighten away his prey, and remove it beyond the reach of his surprises. Too well he knows the road for entering the heart ; he knows that he must gradually confirm the timid con- science against the horror of guilt, and propose nothing at first but honest purposes and certain limits in pleasure. It is not boldly, like the lion, he at first attacks; it is warily like the s^erpent: G 2 84 STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS. he does not lead you straight to the gulf; he conducts you there by winding paths. No, my brethren, crin;ies are never the first essays of the heart. David was imprudent and sloth- ful, before he became an adulterer ; Solomon had allowed himself to be seduced and enervated by the delights and magnificence of royalty, before he publicly appeared in the midst of lewd women ; Judas had given up his heart to money, before he put a price upon his Master; Peter was presumptuous, before he renounced the truth. Vice has its progress as well as virtue. As the day, says the prophet, instructs the day, thus the night gives melancholy lessons to the night ; and there is not much dif- ferende between a state which suspends all the grace of protection, fortifies all the passions, renders useless all the succours of piety, and a state where it is entirely extinct. What, then, my dear hearer, can confirm or comfort you in this life of negligence and infidelity ? Is it that exemption from guilt you have hitherto preserved? But I have shown you, that it is either guilt itself, or that it will not fail soon to lead you to it. Is it the love of ease? But in that you enjoy neither the pleasures of the world nor the consolations of virtue. Is it the assurance that the Almighty requires no more of you ? But how can the lukewarm and unfaithful soul satisfy or please him, when from his mouth he rejects him ? Is it the irregularity in which the generahty of men live, and who carry it to an excess which you avoid ? But their fate is perhaps less to be mourned, and less desperate than your own : they at least know their malady, while you regard your own as a state of perfect health. Is it the dread of being unable to support a more mortified, watchful, and Christian life? But since you have hitherto been able to support some remains of virtue and innocence, without the com- fort and consolations of grace, and in spite of the wearinesses and disgusts which your lukewarmness has spread through all your du- ties, what will it be when the Spirit of God shall soften your yoke, and when a more fervent and faithful life shall have restored to you all the grace and consolation of which your lukewarmness has de- prived you ? Piety is never sad or insupportable but when it is cold and unfaithful. Rise, then, says a prophet, wicked and slothful soul ; break the fatal charm which lulls and chains thee to thine indolence. The Lord, whom thou believest to serve, because thou dost not openly, affront him, is not the God of the wicked, but of the faithful ; he is not the rewarder of idleness and sloth, but of tears, watchings, and combats : he establisheth not in his abode, and in his everlasting city, the useless, but the vigilant and laborious servant ; and his kingdom, says the apostle, is not of flesh and blood, that is to say, of an unworthy effeminacy and a life devoted to the appetites, but the strength and virtue of God ; namely, a continued vigilance, a generous sacrifice of all our inclinations, a con- stant contempt of all things which pass away, and a tender ON BVIL-SPEAKING. 85 and ardent desire for those invisible blessings which fade not nor ever pass away : which may God, in his infinite mercy, grant to all assembled here. Amen. SERMON VI. ON EVlL-SPEAKlNG, But Jesus did uot commit himself unto them; because he knew ail men.' John ii, 24. These were the same Pharisees, who a little before had been decrying to the people the actions of Jesus Christ, and, endea- vouring to poison the purity and sanctity of his words, now make a show of believing in him, and classing themselves among his disciples. And such is the character of the evil-speaker; under the mask of esteem, and the flattering expressions of friendship, to conceal the keen invectives of slander. Now, although this be, perhaps, the only vice which no circum- stance can palliate, it is the one we are most ingenious in conceal- ing from ourselves, and to which piety and the world at present show the greatest indulgence. Not that the character of a slan- derer is not equally odious to men, as, according to the expression of the Holy Spirit, it is abominable in the sight of God ; but in that number they comprise only particular defamers, of blacker and more avowed malignity, who deal their blows indiscriminately, and without art; and who, with sufficient malice to censure, are desti- tute of the wit necessary to please. Now, the defamers of that des- cription are more rare; and had we only them to address ourselves to, it would be sufficient at present to point out, how much unwor- thy of reason and religion this vice is, to inspire with a just detesta- tion of it those who feel themselves guilty. But there is another description of slanderers who condemn the vice, yet allow themselves the practice of it; who, without regard, defame their brethren, yet applaud themselves for circumspection and moderation; who carry the sting to the heart, but, because it is more brilliant and piercing, perceive not the wound it has made. Now, defamers of this character are every where to be found : the world is filled with them ; even the holy asylums are not free : this vice is the bond of union to the assemblies of sinners ; it often finds 86 ON JiVIL-SPEAKlNG. its way even into the society of the just; and we may safely say, that all are tainted with it; and there is not one who has pre- served his tongue pure, and his lips undefiled. It is proper, then, my brethren, to expose at present the illusion of the pretexts made use of every day in the world, in justification of this vice, and to attack it in the circumstances where you believe it most innocent; for, were I to describe it to you, in general, with all its meanness, cruelty, and irreparability, you would no longer apply it to yourselves; and, far from inspiring you with horror at it, I should be accessary toward your persuasion that you are free from its guilt. Now, what are the pretexts, which, in your eyes, soften or jus- tify the vice of evil-speaking ? In the first place, it is the ligiit- ness of the faults you censure: we persuade ourselves, that as it is not a matter of culpability, there cannot likewise be much harm in censuring it. Secondly, it is the public notoriety, by which, those to whom we speak being already informed of what is reprehensible in our brother, no loss of reputation can be the consequence of our discourses. Lastly, zeal for truth and the glory of God, which does not permit us to be silent on those disorders which dishonour him. Now, to these three pretexts, let us oppose three incontro- vertible truths. To the pretext of the lightness of the faults; that the more the faults which you censure are light, the more is the slander unjust: — first truth. To the pretext of the public noto- riety; that the more the faults of our brethren are known, the more cruel is the slander which censures them: — second truth. To the? pretext of zeal; that the same charity, which, in piety, makes us hate sinners, makes us likewise cover the multitude of their faults : —last truth. Part I. — The tongue, says the apostle James, is a devouring fire, a world of iniquity, an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. And, behold, what I would have applied to the tongue of the evil- speaker, had I undertaken to give you a just and natural idea of all the enormity of this vice,— I would have said, that the tongue of the slanderer is a devouring fire, which tarnishes whatever it touches; which exercises its fury on the good grain, equally as on the chaff; on the profane, as on the sacred; which, wherever it passes, leaves only desolation and ruin; digs even into the bowels of the earth, and fixes itself on things the most hidden ; turns into vile ashes, what, only a moment before, had appeared to us so pre- cious and brilhant; acts with more violence and danger than ever, in the time when it was apparently smothered up and almost ex- tinct; which blackens what it cannot consume, and sometimes sparkles and delights before it destroys. I would have told you, that evil-speaking is an assemblage of iniquity; a secret pride, which discovers to us the mote in our brother's eye,' but hides the beam which is in our own; a mean envy, which, hurt at the talents ON KVIL-SPEAKING. * 87 or prosperity of others, makes them the subject of its censures, and studies to dim the splendour of whatever outshines itself; a disguised hatred, which sheds, in its speeches, the hidden venom of the heart,' an unworthy duplicity, which praises to the face, and tears to pieces behind the back; a shameful levity, which has no command over itself or words, and often sacrifices both fortune and comfort to the imprudence of an amusing conversation; a deliberate barbarity, which goes to pierce your absent brother; a scandal, where you become a subject of shame and sin to those who listen to you; an injustice, where you ravish from your brother what is dearest to him. I would have said, that slander is a restless evil, which disturbs society, spreads dissension through cities and countries, disunites the strictest friendships, is the source of hatred and revenge, fills, wherever it enters, with distur- bances and confusion, and everywhere is an enemy to peace, com- fort, and Christian good-breeding. Lastly, I would have added, that it is an evil full of deadly poison; whatever flows from it is infected, and poisons whatever it approaches; that even its praises are empoisoned, its applauses malicious, its silence criminal, its gestures, motions, and looks, have all their venom, and spread it each in their way. Behold, what in this Discourse it would have been my duty, more at large, to have exposed to your view, had I not proposed only to paint to you the vileness of the vice, which I am now going to combat; but, as I have already said, these are only gene- ral invectives, which none apply to themselves. The more odious the vice is represented, the less do you perceive yourselves con- cerned in it; and though you acknowledge the principle, you make no use of it in the regulation of your manners ; because, in these general paintings, we always find features which resemble us not. I wish, therefore, to confine myself at present to the single object of making you feel all the injustice of that description of slander which you think the most innocent; and, lest you should not feel yourselves connected with what I shall say, t shall at- tack it only in the pretexts which you continually employ in its justification. Now, the first pretext which authorizes in the world almost all the defamations, and is the cause that our conversations are now continual censures upon our brethren, is the pretended insig- nificancy of the vices we expose to view. We would not wish to tarnish a man of character, or ruin his fortune, by dishonouring him in the world; to stain the principles of a woman's conduct, by entering into the essential points of it: that would be too infamous and mean. But upon a thousand faults, which lead our judgment to believe them capable of all the rest; to inspire the minds of those who listen to us with a thousand suspicions which point out what we dare not say; to make satirical remarks, which discover a mystery, where no person before had perceived the PO ON EVIL-STEAKING. least intention of concealment; by poisonous interpretations, to give an air of ridicule to manners which had hitherto escaped observation ; to let every thing, on certain points, be clearly under- stood, while protesting that they are incapable theinselves of cunning or deceit, — is what the world makes little scruple of; and though the motives, the circumstances, and the effects of these discourses be highly criminal, yet gaiety and liveliness excuse their malignity, to those who listen to us, and conceal from ourselves their atrocity. I say, in the first place, the motives. I know that it is, above all, by the innocency of the intention that they pretend to justify themselves; that you continually say, that your design is not to tarnish the reputation of your brother, but innocently to divert yourselves with faults which do not dishonour him in the eyes of the world. You, my dear hearer, to divert yourself with his faults ! But what is that cruel pleasure, which carries sorrow and bitter- ness to the heart of your brother? Where is the innocency of an amusement, whose source springs from vices which ought to in- spire you with compassion and grief? If Jesus Christ forbid us in the gospel to invigorate the languors of conversation by idle words, shall it be more permitted to you to enliven it by derisions and censures ? If the law curse him who uncovers the nakedness of his relations, shall you, who add raillery and insult to the disco- very, be more protected from that malediction? If whoever call his brother fool, be worthy, according to Jesus Christ, of eternal fire, shall he who renders him the contempt and laughing-stock of a profane assembly, escape the same punishment? You, to amuse yourself with his faults? But does charity delight in evil? Is that rejoicing in the Lord, as commanded by the apostle? If you love your brother as yourself, can you delight in what afflicts him? Ah! the church formerly held in horror the exhibitions of gladiators, and denied that believers, brought up in the tenderness and benignity of Jesus Christ, could innocently feast their eyes with the blood and death of these unfortunate slaves, or form a harmless recreation of so inhuman a pleasure. But you renew more detestable shows, to enliven your languor: you bring upon the stage, not infamous wretches devoted to death, but members of Jesus Christ, your brethren; and there you entertain the spec- tators with wounds which you inflict on persons rendered sacred by baptism. Is it then necessary that your brother should suffer, to amuse you? Can you find no delight in your conversation, unless his blood, as I may say, is furnished toward your iniquitous pleasures? Edify each other, says St. Paul, by words of peace and charity; relate the wonders of God toward the just, the history of his mercies to sinners; recall the virtues of those who, with the sign of faith, have preceded us; make an agreeable relaxation to yourselves, in reciting the pious examples of your brethren ON EVIL-SPKAKING. tSif with whom you live ; with a religious joy, speak of the vic- tories of faith, of the aggrandisement of" the kingdom of Jesus Christ, of the establishment of truth, and the extinction of error, of the favours which Jesus Christ bestows on his church, by raising up in it faithful pastors, enlightened members, and re- ligious princes ; animate yourselves to virtue, by contemplating the little solidity of the world, the emptiness of pleasures, and the unhappiness of sinners, who yield themselves up to their unruly passions. Are these grand objects not worthy the delight of Christians? It was thus, however, that the first behevers rejoiced in the Lord, and, from the sweets of their conversations, formed one of the most holy consolations to their temporal calami- ties. It is the heart, my brethren, which decides upon our plea- sures: a corrupted heart feels no delight but in what recalls to him the image of his vices : innocent delights are only suitable to virtue. In effect, you excuse the malignity of your censures by the innocency of your intentions. But fathom the secret of your heart: whence comes it that your sarcasms are always pointed ' to such an individual, and that you never amuse yourself with more wit, or more agreeably, than in recalling his faults? May it not proceed from a secret jealousy? Do not his talents, fortune, credit, station, or character, hurt you more than his faults ? Would you find him so fit a subject for censure, had he fewer of those qualities which exalt him above you? Would you experience such pleasure in exposing his foibles, did not the world find qualities in him both valuable and praiseworthy? Would Saul have so often repeated with such pleasure that David was only the son of Jesse, had he not considered him as a rival, more deserving than himself of the empire? Whence comes it, that the faults of all others find you more indulgent? That elsewhere you excuse every thing, but here every circumstance comes empoisoned from your mouth? Go to the source, and examine if it is not some secret root of bit- terness in your heart? And can you pretend to justify, by the in- nocency of the intention, discourses which flow from so corrupted a principle ? You maintain that it is neither from hatred nor jealousy against your brother: I wish to believe it; but in your sarcasms, may there not be motives, perhaps, still more shameful and mean? Is it not your wish to render yourself agreeable, by turning your brother into an object of contempt and ridi- cule ? Do you not sacrifice his character to your fortune ? Courts are always so filled with these adulatory and sordidly interested satires on each other! The great are to be pitied whenever they yield themselves up to unwarrantable aversions. Vices are soon found out, even in that virtue itself which dis- pleases them. But, after all, you do not feel yourselves guilty, you say, of all these vile motives; and that it is merely through indiscre- 90 ON EVIL-SPEAKING. tion, and levity of speech, if it sometimes happen that you defame your brethren. But is it by that you can suppose yourself more innocent? Levity and indiscretion! that vice, so unworthy of the gravity of a Christian, so distant from the seriousness and solidity of faith, and so often condemned in the gospel, can it justify another vice? What matters it to the brother whom you stab, whether it be done through indiscretion or malice ? Does an arrow, unwittingly drawn, make a less dangerous or slighter wound than if sent on purpose? Is the deadly blow which you give to your brother, more slight, because it v/as lanced through imprudence and levity? And what signifies the innocency of the intention, when the action is a crime ? But, besides, is there no criminality in indiscretion, with regard to the reputation of your brethren ? In any case whatever, can more circumspection and prudence be re- quired ? Are not all the duties of Christianity comprised in that of charity? Does not all rehgion, as I may say, consist in that? And to be incapable of attention and care, in a point so highly essential, is it not considering, as it were, all the rest as a sport? Ah ! it is here he ought to put a guard of circumspection on his tongue, weigh every word, put them together in his heart, says the sage Ecclesiasticus, and let them ripen in his mouth. Do any of these inconsiderate speeches^ever escape you, against your- self? Do you ever fail in attention to what interests your honour or glory? What indefatigable cares ! what exertions and industry, to make them prosper! To what lengths we see you go, to increase your interest or improve your fortune! If it ever happen that you take blame to yourself, it is always under circumstances which tend to your praise: you censure in yourself only faults which do you honour; and, in confessing your vices, you wish only to recapitulate your virtues : self-love connects every thing with yourself. Love your brother as you love yourself, and every thing will recall you to him; you will be incapable of indiscretion, where his interest is concerned, and will no longer need our instructions, in respect to what you owe to his character and glory. But if these slanders, which you call trivial, be criminal in their motives, they are not less so in their circumstances. In the first place, I should make you observe, that the world, familiarized with guilt, and accustomed to see the most heinous vices now become the vices of the multitude, is no longer shocked at them; denominates hght, defamations which turn upon the most criminal and shameful weaknesses: suspicions of infidel- ity, in the sacred bond of marriage, are no longer a marked discredit or an essential stain, — they are sources of derision and pleasantry : to accuse a courtier of insincerity and double-dealing, is no attack upon his honour; it is only casting a ridicule on the protestations of sincerity with which he amuses us : to spread the suspicion of hypocrisy, in the sincercst piety. ON KVIL-SPKAKING. 91 is not an insult to God through his suints ; it is a language of arable, with respect to the works of penance and reparation, of which, in a certain period of life, we are capable, but are no longer so, when we wait the infirmities of a more advanced age. For, after all, it is in vain to say then, that God expects not impossibilities ; that there is a penance for every age ; and that religion does not wish us to hasten our days, under the pretext of expiating our crimes. It is you who have placed yourselves in this state of impossibility : your sins diminish not your obligations : guilt must be punished, in order to be effaced. The Almighty had allowed you both time and strength to satisfy this immutable and eternal law : this time you have wasted in accu- mulating new debts ; this strength you have exhausted, either by new excesses, or at least without making any use of it, to further the designs of God respecting you : the Almighty must therefore do, what you have never done yourselves, and punish, after your death, the crimes you have never been inclined to expiate during your life. This is to say, in order to concentrate all these reflections, that with every moment of our life it is as with our death. We die only once, and from thence we conclude, that we must die in a proper state, because there is no longer a possibility of returning, to repair, by a second death, the evil of the first. In like manner, we only once exist, such and such moments ; we cannot return upon our steps, and, by commencing a new road, repair the errors and faults of our first path : in like manner, every moment of our life which we sacrifice becomes a point fixed for our eternity ; that moment lost, shall change no more : it shall eternally be the same j it will be recalled to us, such as we had passed it, and will be marked with that ineffaceable stamp. How miserable, then, is cm' blindness, my brethren ; we, whose life is only one continued attention to lose the time which returns no more, and, with so rapid a course, flies to precipitate itself into the abyss of eternity ! Great God! Thou who art the sovereign dispenser of times and moments ; thou, in whose hands are our days and our years, with what eyes must thou behold us losing and dissipating the moments of which thou alone knowest the duration ; of which, in irrevocable characters, thou hast marked the course and the 112 ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. measure; moments, which thou drawest from the treasure of thine eternal mercies, to allow us time for penitence; moments which, every day, thy justice presses thee to abridge, as a punishment for their abuse ; moments which, every day before our eyes, thou refusest to so many sinners, less culpable than we, whom a terrible death surprises and drags into the gulf of thine eternal vengeance; moments, in a word, which we shall not perfiaps long enjoy, and of which thou soon intendest to terminate the melanclioly career! Great God ! Behold the greatest and the best part of my life already past and wholly lost. In all my days, there has not hitherto been a single serious one, — a single day for thee, for my salvation, and for eternity : my whole life is but a vapour, which leaves nothing real or solid in the hand of him who recalls it. Shall I, to the end, drag on my days in this melancholy inutility; in this weariness which pursues me, in the midst of my pleasures, and the efforts which unavailingly I make to avoid it ? Shall the last hour surprise me, loaded with the void of my whole years ? And, in all my course, shall there be nothing serious or important but the last moment, which will terminate it for ever, and decide my everlasting destiny? Great God! what a hfe for a soul des- tined to serve thee, called to the immortal society of thy Son and thy saints, enriched with thy gifts, and, in consequence of them, capable of works worthy of eternity ! What a life is that life which, in reality, is nothing, has nothing in view, and fills up a time which is decisive of its eternal destiny, in doing nothing, and reckoning as well passed those days and hours which imper- ceptibly slip away! But if inutility be opposite to the price of time, irregularity and multiplicity of occupations are not less so to the proper order of time, and to the Christian use we ought to make of it. You have just seen the dangers of a slothful, and I will now lay before you the inconveniences of a hurried life. Part II. — To every thing we have hitherto said, my brethren, the majority of those who listen to me have, no doubt, secretly opposed, that their life is any thing but slothful and useless ; that scarcely can they suffice for the duties, good offices, and endless engagements of their stations; that, they live in an eternal vicissi- tude of occupations and business which absorbs their whole life ; and that they think themselves happy when they can accomplish a moment for themselves, and enjoy, at leisure, the situation which their fortune denies to them. Now this, my brethren, is a new way of abusing time, still more dangerous than even inutility and indolence. In effect, the Christian use of time is not merely the filling up of all its moments; it is that of filling them up in order, and according to the will of the Lord, who gives them to us.' The life of faith ON THE KMPLOyMENT OF TIME. 113 is a life of regularity and wisdom : fancy, passion, pride, and cupi- dity, are false principles of conduct, since they themselves are only a derangement of the mind and heart; and that order and reason ought to be our only guides. Nevertheless, the life of the majority of men is a life always occupied and always useless ; always laborious, ai\d always void : their passion give birth to all their motions : these are the great springs which agitate men; make them run here and there like madmen; and leave them not a single moment's tranquillity ; and, in filling up all their moments, they seek not to fulfil their duties, but to deliver themselves up to their restlessness, and to satisfy their iniquitous desires. But in what doth this order consist, which ought to regulate the measure of our occupations and to sanctify the use of our time ? It consists, in the first place, in limiting ourselves to the oc- cupations attached to our stations; in not seeking places and situa- tions which may multiply them ; and in not reckoning, among our duties, the cares and embarrassments which anxiety, or our passions, alone generate within us. Secondly, however agitated may be our situations, amidst all our occupations, to regard as the most essential, and the most privileged, those we owe to our salvation. I say, in the first place, not to reckon, amongst the occupations which sanctify the use of our time, those which restlessness or the passions alone generate. Restlessness ! Yes, my brethren, we all wish to avoid ourselves. To the generality of men nothing is more melancholy and dis- agreeable than to find themselves alone, and obliged to review their own hearts. As vain passions carry us away, as many cri- minal attachments stain us, and as many thousand illicit desires- occupy every moment of our heart, in entering into ourselves, we find only an answer of death, a frightful void, cruel remorses, dark thoughts, and melancholy reflections. We search, therefore, in the variety of occupations and continual distractions, an oblivion of ourselves : we dread leisure as the signal of weariness ; and we expect to find, in the confusion and multiplicity of external cares, that happy intoxication which enables us to go on with- out perceiving it, and makes us no longer to feel the weight of ourselves. But, alas ! we deceive ourselves : weariness is never found but in irregularity, and in a life of confusion, where every thing is out of its place : it is in living by hazard that we are a burden to our- selves; that we continually search after new occupations, and that disgust soon obliges us to repent that we ever sought for them; that we incessantly change our situation, in order to tiy from our- selves ; and, that wherever we go, we carry ourselves : in a word, that our whole life is but a diversified art to shun weariness, and a miserable talent to find it. Wherever order is not, weariness J 14 ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. must necessarily be found ; and, far from a life of irregularity and confusion being a remedy, on the contrary, it is the most fruitful source and universal cause of it. The just souls who live in regularity; they who yield nothing to caprice and temper, whose every occupation is exactly where it ought to be/ijwhose moments are filled up, according to their destination, and to the will of the Lord who directs them, find, in order, a perfect remedy against, and protection from, weariness. That wise uniformity in the practice of duties which appear so gloomy in the eyes of the world, is the source of their joy, and of that happy equality of temper which nothing can derange: never embarrassed with the present time which stated duties occupy; never in pain with regard to the future, for which new duties are arranged; never delivered up to themselves by the change of occu- pations which succeed each other; their days appear as moments, because every moment is in its place ; time hangs not upon them, because it always has its distinction and use; and in the arrange- ment of an uniform and occupied life they find that peace and that joy which the rest of men in vain search for in the confusion of a continual agitation. Restlessness, by multiplying our occupations, leaves us therefore a prey to weariness and disgust; nor yet does it sanctify the use of our time : for if the moments, not regulated by the order of God, are moments lost, however occupied they may otherwise be ; if the life of man ought to be a life of wisdom and regularity, where every occupation has its allotted place; what caii be more opposite to such a life than this inconsistency, these eternal fluctuations in which restlessness makes us pass our time ? But the passions which keep us in perpetual motion do not form for us more legiti- mate employments. Yes, my brethren, I know that it is only at a certain age of life that we appear occupied with frivolity and pleasures. More serious caires ahd more solid avocations succeed to the indolence and to the vain amusements of our younger years: and, after wasting; our youth in sloth and in pleasures, we appropriate our maturity to our country, to fortune, and to ourselves; but still, with respect to heaven we continue the same. I confess, that we owe our ser- vices to our country, to our sovereign, and to the national caress- that amongst the number of duties prescribed to us by religion, it places that of zeal for our sovereign and for the interest and glory of our country; and that religion alone can form faithful subjects, and citizens ever ready to sacrifice their all for the general good. But religion wishes not that pride and ambition should rashly plunge us in public affairs, and that we should anxiously endea- vour, by all possible means, by intrigue and solicitations, to attain, places, where, owing every thing to others, not a moment is left for ourselves: religion wishes us to dread these tumultuous situa- tions; to give ourselves up to them with regret and trembling. ON THR KMPLOYMENT OF TIME. 115 when the order of God and the authority of our masters call us to them; and, were the choice left to us, always to prefer the safety and leisure of a private station to the dangers and eclat of dignities^ and places. Alas! we have a short time to exist upon the earth, and the salvation or eternal condemnation which awaits us is so near, that every other care ought to be melancholy and burden- some to us ; and every thing which diverts our attention from that grand object, for which we are allowed only a small portion of days, ought to appear as the heaviest misfortune. This is not a maxim of pure spirituality; it is the first maxim and the founda- tion of Christianity. Nevertheless, ambition, pride, and all our passions, unite to render a private life insupportable to us. What in life we dread most, is a lot and a station which leave us to ourselves, and do not establish us upon others. We consult neither the order of God, nor the views of religion, nor the dangers of a too agitated situation, nor the happiness which faith points out in a private and tranquil station, where we have nothing but ourselves to answer for, and frequently not even our talents ; we consult only our passions, and that insatiable desire of raising ourselves above our brethren ; we wish to figure upon the stage of life, and become great personages, and upon a stage, alas ! which to-morrow shall disappear, and leave us nothing real but the puerile trouble and pain of having acted upon it. Even the more these stations appear surrounded with tumult and embarrass- ment, the more do they appear worthy of our pursuit: we wish to be in every thing: that leisure so dear to a religious soul, to us appears shameful and mean: every thing which divides us be- tween the public and ourselves ; every thing which gives to others an absolute right over our time ; every thing which plunges us into that abyss of cares and agitations, which credit, favour, and consideration drag after them, affects, attracts, and trans- ports us. Thus, the majority of men inconsiderately create to themselves a tumultuous and agitated life, which the Almighty never required of them, and eagerly seek for cares where they cannot be in safety, unless the order of God had prepared them; for us. Indeed, we sometimes hear them complaining of the endless agitations inseparable from their places ; sighing for rest, and envying the lot of a tranquil and private station; repeating, that it should indeed be time to live for themselves, after having so long lived for others. But these are merely words of course : they seem to groan under the weight of affairs ; but with much more uneasiness and grief would they support the weight of leisure and of a private condition: they employ one part of their life in struggling against each other for the tumult of places and employments, and the other they employ in lamenting the mis-- fortune of having obtained them. It is a language of vanity: I 2 116 ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. they would wish to appear superior to their fortune; and they are not so to the smallest reverse, or the slightest symptom of coldness which threatens them. Behold how our passions create occupations and embarrassments, which God required not, and deprive us of a time whose value we shall be ignorant of till we reach that moment when time finishes and eternity begins. Yet still, my brethreYi, in the midst of the endless occupations attached to your stations, were you to regard as the most privi- leged those connected with your salvation, you would, in some measure at least, repair the dissipation of that portion of your hfe, which the world and the cares of this earth entirely occupy. But it is still on this point that our blindness is deplorable ; we cannot find time for our eternal salvation. That which we bestow on fortune, the duties of a charge, the good ofhces expected from our station, the care of the body, and attention to dress; that which we o-ive to friendship, society, recreation, and custom, all appear essential and indispensable : we even dare not encroach upon or limit these ; we carry them beyond the bounds even of reason and necessity ; and as life is too short, and our days too rapid to suffice for all, whatever we retrench is from the cares of our salvation : in the multiplicity of our occupations we are sure to sacrifice those which we ought to bestow on eternity. Yes, my brethren, in place of retrenching from our amusements, from the duties which ambi- tion multiplies, from the ceremonies which idleness alone has established, from the cares and attentions we bestow on a vain dress which custom and effeminacy have rendered endless; in place of retrenching from these, at least, some little time every day, scarcely do they leave us some accidental remains which by chance have escaped from the world and pleasure ; some rapid moments the world wishes not, with which we are perhaps embarrassed, and which we know not how to dispose of otherwise. So long as the world chooses to engage us; so long as it continues to offer pleasures, duties, trifles, and complaisances, we yield ourselves up to it with delight. When all is over, and we no longer know how to fill up our vacatit hours, we then consecrate to some languid practices of religion those outcast moments which weariness or a deficiency of pleasures leaves us : properly speaking, they are mo- ments of recreation which we bestow upon ourselves rather than upon God ; an interval we place between the world and us, in order to return to it with more relish, and breathe a little from the fatio-ue, the disgust, and the satiety which are the necessary con- sequences of a life devoted to the world and pleasures, which, pro- longed beyond a certain measure, are immediately followed by weariness and lassitude. Such is the use which even persons who deck themselves' out with a reputation for virtue make of their time. Their whole life is one continued and criminal preference given to the ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. H7 world, fortune, ceremony and pleasures, above the business of their salvation ; all is filled up by what they give to their masters, friends, places, and appetites, and nothing- remains for God and for eternity. It would appear that time is given to us, in the first place, for the world, ambition, and earthly cares ; and should any portion of it happen afterward to remain, that we are entitled to praise when we bestow it on our salvation. Great God ! for what purpose dost thou leave us on the earth but to render ourselves worthy of thine eternal possession ? Every thing we do for the world shall perish with it ; whatsoever we do for thee shall be immortal. All our cares and attentions here are in general for masters, ungrateful, unjust, difficult to please, weak, and incapable of rendering us happy. The duties we render to thee are given to a Lord and Master, faithful, just, compassionate, almighty, and who alone can recompense those who serve him. The cares of the earth, however brilhant, are foreign to us ; they are unworthy of us ; it is not for them we are created ; we ought only to devote ourselves to them as they pass, in order to satisfy the transitory ties they exact from us, and which connect us with mankind : the cares of eternity alone are worthy of the nobility of our hopes, and fill all the grandeur and dignity of our destiny. Without the cares of salvation, those of this earth are profane and sullied ; they are no longer but vain, fruitless, and almost always criminal agitations. The cares of salvation alone consecrate and sanctify them, give to them reality, elevation, the price and the merit which they wanted. All other cares wound, trouble, har- den, and render us miserable, but the duties we render to thee leave us a real and heartfelt joy: they strengthen, calm, and console us, and even soften the anguish and bitterness of the others. In a word, we owe ourselves to thee, O my God ! be- fore masters, superiors, friends, or connexions. Thou alone hast the first right over our hearts and reason, which are the gifts of thy liberal hand ; it is for thee, therefore, that in the first place we ought to make use of them; and we are Christians before we are princes, subjects, public characters, or any thing else on the earth. You will perhaps tell us, my brethren, that, in fulfilling the painful and endless duties attached to your station, you believe that you serve God, accomplish your measure of righteousness, and labour toward your salvation. I grant it; but we must fulfil these duties according to the views of the Lord, from motives of faith, and in the true spirit of religion and piety. God reckons only what we do for him ; of all our pains, fatigues, submissions, and sacrifices, he accepts only those which are offered to bis glory, and not to our own ; and our days are only full in his sight when they are full for eternity. All actions, which have nothing for their object but the world; a fame limited to this earth; a perishable fortune; some praises they may attract to us from 118 ON TilK KMPLOyMENT OF TIME. men, or some degree of grandeur and reputation to which they may raise us here below, are nothing in his presence, or, at least, are only puerile amusements, unworthy of the majesty of his regards. Thus, my brethren, how different are the judgments of God from those of the world ! In the world we call beautiful that splendid life in which great actions are numbered, victories gained, difficult negotiations concluded, undertakings successfully conducted, illustrious employments supported with reputation, eminent digni- ties acquired by important services, and exercised with glory ; a life which passes into history, fills the public monuments, and of which the remembrance shall be preserved to the latest posterity. Such, according to the world, is a beautiful life. But if, in all this, they have sought more their own than the glory of God ; if they have had nothing more in view th"?ln to erect to themselves a perishable edifice of grandeur on the earth ; in vain shall they have furnished a splendid career to the eyes of men ; in the sight of God, it is a life lost : in vain shall history record us ; we shall be effaced from the book of life, and from the eternal histories : in vain shall our actions be the admiration of ages to come ; they shall not be written on the immortal columns of the heavenly .temple : in vain shall we have acted a dignified part upon the stage of all earthly ages; in the eternal ages we shall be as those who never were : in vain shall our titles and dignities be preserved upon the marble and brass ; as the fingers of men have written them, they shall perish with them, and what the finger of God shall have written will alone endure as long as himself: in vain shall our life be proposed as a model to the ambition of our descendants; its reality, existing only in the passions of men, from the moment they shall cease to have passions and the objects which inflame them, shall be annihi- lated; this life shall be nothing, and shall be replunged into nonen- tity, with the world which admire it. For, candidly, my brethren, can you really wish that in that awful and terrible day, when righteousness itself shall be judged, the Almighty should give you credit for all the pains, cares, and disgusts you have experienced and devoured, in order taraise your- selves in the world ? That he should regard, as well employed, the time you have sacrificed to the world, fortune, glory, and the eleva- tion of your name and race, as if you were upon the earth only for yourselves ? That he should place, among the number of your works of salvation, those which have only had for principle, ambi- tion, pride, envy, and self-interest ; and that he should reckon your vices amongst your virtues. And what will you be able to say to him on the bed of death, when he shall enter into judgment with you, and demand an ac- count of the time which he had only granted you to be employed in glorifying and serving him? Will you say to him. Lord, 1 have gained many victories ; I have usefully and gloriously served my ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIMK. 1^9 prince and country ; I have established to myself a great name amongst men ? Alas ! you have never been able to gam a victory over yourself; you have usefully served the kings of the earth, and you have neglected, with contempt, the service of the King of kings. Vou have established to yourself a great name amongst men, and your name is not known amongst the chosen of God : — time lost for eternity. Will you say to him, I have conducted the most difficult negotiations ; I have concluded the most important treaties ; I have managed the interests and fortunes of princes ; I have been in the secrets and in the councils of kings ? Alas ! you have concluded treaties and alliances with men, and you have a thousand times vio- lated the holy covenant you have entered into with God ; you have managed the interests of princes, and you have never known how to manage the interests of your salvation ; you have entered into the secrets of kings, and you have ever been ignorant of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven : — time lost for eternity. Will you say to him. My whole life has been only an incessant toil and a painful and continued occupation ? Alas ! you have always toiled, and you have never been able to do any thing to save your soul :-^time lost for eternity. Will you say to him, 1 have established my chil- dren in the world ; I have exalted my relations ; I have been useful to my friends ; I have augmented the patrimony of my ancestors ? Alas ! you have bequeathed great establishments to your children, and you have not left them the fear of the Lord, by bringing them up and establishing them in faith and piety : you have augmented the patrimony of your ancestors, and you have dissipated the gifts of grace and the patrimony of Jesus Christ ; — time lost for eternity. Will you say to him, I have made the most profound studies ; I have enriched the public with useful and curious works ; I have perfected the sciences by new discoveries ; I improved my great talents, and rendered them useful to mankind ? Alas ! the great talent confided to you was that of faith and grace, of which you have made no use : you have rendered yourself learned in the sciences of men, and you have always been ignorant in the science of the holy : — time lost for eternity. In a word, will you tell him, I have passed my hfe in fulfilling the duties and good offices of my station ; I have gained friends; I have rendered myself useful and agreeable to my masters ? Alas ! you have had friends to boast of on the earth, and you have acquired none to yourself in heaven; you have made every exertion to please men, and you have done nothing to please the Almighty : — time lost for eternity. No, my brethren, what a frightful void the greatest part of men, who had governed states and empires, who appeared to regulate the whole universe, and had filled in it the most distinguished places; who were the subjects of every conversation, and of the desires and hopes of men ; who engrossed, almost alone, the whole attentions of the earth ; what a frightful void will they, on the bed of death, find their whole life to be ! Whilst the days of the pious 120 THE CERTAINTY OF and retired soul, regarded by them as obscure and indolent, shall appear full, complete, occupied, marked each by some victory of faith, and worthy of being celebrated by the eternal songs. Meditate, my brethren. On these holy truths. Time is short; it is irreparable ; it is the price of your eternal felicity ; it is given to you only in order to render you worthy of that felicity. Calculate, therefore, what portion of it you should bestow on the world, plea- sures, fortune, and on your salvation. My brethren, says the apos- tle, time is short ; let us therefore use the world, as not abusing it; let us possess our riches, places, dignities, and titles, as though we possessed them not; let us enjoy the favour of our superiors, and the esteem of men, as though we enjoyed them not : they are only shadows which vanish and leave us for ever ; and let us only reckon upon as real, in our whole life, the moments which we have employed for heaven . SERMON Vlll. THE CERTAINTY OF A FUTURE STATE. '^ And these shall go away into everlasting punishment ; but the righteous into life eternal." — Matt. xxv. 46. Behold, to what at last shall be brought the desires, hopes, counsels, and enterprises of men. Behold, upon what at last shall split the vain reflections of sages and freethinkers, the doubts and eternal uncertainties of unbelievers, the vast projects of conquerors, the monuments of human glory, the cares of ambition, the distinc- tion of talents, the disquietudes of fortune, the prosperity of em- pires, and all the insignificant revolutions of the earth. Such shall be the awful conclusion which will unravel the mysteries of Provi- dence on the divers lots of the children of Adam, and justify its conduct in the government of the universe. This life is, therefore, but a rapid instant, and the commencement of an eternal futurity. Torments without end, or the delights of an immortal felicity, shall be our lot as well as that of all men. Nevertheless, the view of this grand object, which formerly had been able to startle the ferocity of tyrants, to shake the fortitude of philosophers, to disturb the effeminacy and voluptuousness A FUTURE STATE. 121 of Gaesars, to soften the most barbarous nations, to form so many martyrs, to people the deserts, and to bring the whole universe sub- missive to the yoke of the cross ; this image, so terrifying, is now almost destined to alarm the timidity of merely the common people ; — these grand objects are become like vulgar paintings, which we dare no longer expose to the false delicacy of the great and connoissieurs of the world : and the only fruit we generally reap from this sort of discourses, is, to make it be inquired, perhaps, after quitting them, whether every thing shall take place as we have said. For, my brethren, we live in times in which the faith of many has been wrecked ; in which a wretched philosophy, like a mortal venom, spreads in secret, and undertakes to justify abominations and vices, against the belief of future punishment and rewards. This evil has passed from the palaces of the great even to the people, and every where the piety of the just is insulted by the dis- courses of irreligion and the maxims of freeth inking. And, certainly, I am not surprised that dissolute men should doubt of a future state, and endeavour to combat or weaken a truth so capable of disturbing their criminal sensualities. It is horrible to look forward to everlasting misery. The world has no pleasure which can endure a thought so shocking ; consequently, it has always endeavoured to efface it from the heart and mind of man. It well knows, that the belief of a future state is a trouble- some check on the human passions, and that it will never succeed in making tranquil and resolute libertines, without having first made unbelievers. Let us deprive, then, the corruption of the human heart of so wretched and weak a support : let us prove to dissolute souls that they shall survive their debaucheries ; that all dies not with the body; that this life shall finish their crimes, but not their misery; and, more completely to confound impiety, let us attack it in the vain pretexts on which it depends. First. Who knows, say the impious, that all dies not with us ? Is that other hfe, of which we are told, quite certain ? Who has ever returned to inform us of it ? Secondly. Is it worthy of the majesty of God, say they again, to demean himself by any attention to what passes among men ? What matters it to him, that worms of the earth, like us, murder, deceive, and tear each other, live in luxury or in temperance ? Is it not presumptuous in any man to suppose that an Almighty God is occupied with him ? Lastly. What likelihood, add they, that God, having made man such as he is, will punish, as crimes, inherent inclinations to plea- sure which nature has given us. Behold the philosophy of the voluptuary; the uncertainty of a future state ; the majesty of God, which a vile creature cannot offend ; and the weakness of man. 122 THE CERTAINTY OF which, behig born with him, he would be unjust of it to constitute a crime. Let us then prove, in the first place, against the uncertainty of the impious, that the truth of a future state is justified by the purest hghts of reason. Secondly, against the unworthy idea, grounded upon the greatness of God, that this truth is justified by his wisdom and glory. Lastly, against the pretext, drawn from the weakness of man, that it is justified even by the testimony of his own conscience. The certainty of a future state ; the necessity of a future state ; the inward acknowledgment of a future state. Behold the subject and arrangement of my discourse. O God ! attend not to the insults which the blasphemies of impiety oifer to thy glory : regard only, and see, of what reason is capable when thy light is withdrawn. In the wickedness of the human mind, behold all the severity of thy justice, when it abandons it, that the more I expose the foolish blasphemies of the impious soul, the more may he become, in thy sight, an object worthy of thy pity, and of the treasures of thine infinite mercy. Part L — It surely is melancholy to have to justify, before believers, the most consolatory truth of faith ; to come to prove to men, to whom Jesus Christ has been declared, that their being is not a wild assemblage, and the wretched offspring of chance ; that a wise and an almighty Artificer has presided at our formation and birth ; that a spark of immortality animates our clay ; that a portion of us shall survive ourselves ; and that, on quitting this earthly mansion, our soul shall return to the bosom of God, from whence it came, and go to inhabit the eternal region of the living, where to each one shall be rendered according to his works. It was with this truth that Paul began to announce faith before the Athenian judges. We are the immortal race of God, said he to that assembly of sages; and he has appointed a day to judge the unirerse. By that the Apostles spread the first principles of the doctrine of salvation through infidel and corrupted nations. But we, who come after the revolution of ages, when the plenitude of nations has entered into the church, when the whole universe has professed to believe, when all the mysteries have been cleared up, all the prophecies accomplished, Jesus Christ glorified, the path of heaven laid open ; we, who appear in these latter times, when the day of the Lord is so much nearer than when our fathers be- lieved, alas ! what ought our ministry to be, unless to dispose be- lievers for that grand hope, and to instruct them to hold themselves in readiness to appear before Jesus Christ, who will quickly come; far from having still to combat these shocking and foolish maxims A FUTURE STATJi. 123 which the first preaching of the gospel had effaced from the uni- verse. The pretended uncertainty of a future state is, then, the grand foundation of the security of unbelievers. We know nothing, say they, of that other world of which you tell us so much. None of the dead have ever returned to inform us ; perhaps there is nothing beyond the grave : let us enjoy, therefore, the present, and leave to chance a futurity which either exists not, or is meant to be con- cealed from our knowledge. Now, I say, that this uncertainty is suspicious in the principle which produces it, foolish in the proofs on which it depends, and frightful in its consequeiaces. Refuse me not here your attention. Suspicious in the principle wliich produces it. For, how has this uncertainty of a future state been formed in the mind of the unbeliever ? It requires only to trace the origin of an opinion, to know whether the interests of truth, or the passions, have estab- lished it on the earth. At his birth, the impious man bore the principles of natural religion common to all men : he found written on his heart a law which forbade violence, injustice, treachery, and every action to another, which he would not have done to himself. Education fortified these sentiments of nature : he was taught to know a God, to love and fear him : virtue was shown to him in the rules ; it was rendered amiable to him in the examples ; and though, within himself, he felt inclinations in opposition to duty, yet, when he yielded to their seductions, his heart secretly espoused the cause of virtue against his own weakness. Thus did the impious man at first live on the earth. With the rest of mankind, he adored a Supreme Being, respected his laws, dreaded his chastisements, and expected his promises. Whence comes it, then, that he no longer acknowledges a God ; that crimes appear to him as human policies ; hell a vulgar prejudice ; a future state a chimera ; and the soul a spark which is extinguished with the body ? By what exertion has he attained to the knowledge of things so new and so surprising ? By what means has he suc- ceeded to rid himself of these ancient prejudices, so rooted among - men, so consistent with the feelings of his heart and the lights of reason? Has he searched into, and maturely examined, them? Has he adopted every solid precaution, which an affair, the most important in hfe, requires? Has he withdrawn himself from the commerce of men, in solitude, to allow leisure for reflection and study? Has he purified his heart, lest the passions may have mis- led him ? What anxious attentions and solicitude to investigate the truth are required, to reject the first feelings which the soul has imbibed ! Listen, my brethren, and adore the justice of God on these cor- rupted hearts whom he delivers up to the vanity of their own 124 THE CERTAINTY OF judgment. In proportion as his manners become dissolute, the rules have appeared suspicious ; in proportion as he became de- based, he has endeavoured to persuade himself that man is like the beast. He is become impious only by shutting up every avenue which might lead him to the truth ; by no longer regarding religion as an important concern; by searching into it only for the purpose of dishonouring it by blasphemies and sacrilegious witticisms. He is become impious only by seeking to steel himself against the cries of his own conscience, and deli- vering himself up to the most infamous gratifications. It is by .that path that he has attained to the wonderful and sublime science of unbelief; it is to these grand efforts that he owes the discovery of a truth, of which the rest of men before him had either been ignorant, or had detested. Behold the source of unbelief, the corruption of the heart. Yes, my brethren, find me, if you can, men wise, temperate, pure, regular, and lovers of truth, who believe not a God, who look forward to no future state, who look upon adulteries, abo- minations, and incests, as the inclinations and innocent pastimes of nature. If the world has seen impious characters, who bore the semblance of wisdom and temperance, it was either that they better concealed their irregularities, in order to give more credit to their impiety, or the satiety of pleasures which had brought them to that feigned temperance, debauchery, had been the original source of their irreligion; their hearts were corrupted before their faith was wrecked ; they had an interest to believe that all dies with the body, before they succeeded in persuading themselves of it ; and a long indulgence of luxury had fully dis- gusted them with guilt, but had not rendered virtue more amiable to them. What consolation for us who believe, that we must first re- nounce probity, modesty, manners, and all the feelings of hu- manity, before we can renounce faith ; and, to be no longer Chris- tian, must first cease to be man ! Behold, then, the uncertainty of the impious, already suspicious in its principle ; but, secondly, it is foolish in the proofs on which it depends. For, surely, very decisive and convincing proofs must be re- , quired to make us espouse the cause of unbelief, and to render us tranquil on what we are told of an eternal state to come. It is not natural that man would hazard an interest so serious as that of eternity on light and frivolous proofs ; still less so, that he would thereon abandon the general opinion, the belief of his fathers, the reUgion of all ages, the agreement of all na- tions, and the prejudices of his education, had he not, as it were, been forced to it by the evidence of the truth. Unless absolutely convinced that all dies with the body, nothing can bear a comparison with the madness and folly of the unbeliever. A FUTURK STATE. 125 Now, is he completely convinced ? What are the grand reasons which have determined him to adopt this vile cause ? We know not, says he, what happens in that other world of which you tell us : the good die equally as the wicked : man as the beast ; and no one returns to say which was in the error. Press him a little farther, and you will be shocked to see the weakness of unbelief: vague discourses, hackneyed suspicions, everlasting un- certainties, and chimerical suppositions, on which nobody in their senses would wish to risk the happiness or disquiet of a single day, and upon which he, however, hazards an eternity. Behold the insurmountable proofs which the freethinker op- poses to the belief of the universe; behold that evidence, which, in his mind, prevails over all that is most clear and most established on the earth. We know nothing of what passes in that other world of which you tell us. O man ! open here thine eyes. A single doubt is sufficient to render thee impious, and all the proofs of religion are too weak to make thee a believer. Thy mind hesi- tates to believe in a future state, and, in the mean time, thou livest as though there were none. The only foundation thou hast for thine opinion, is thine uncertainty, and thou reproachest to us, that faith is a vulgar credulity. But I ask. On what side here is credulity ? Is it on that of the freethinker or the believer ? The latter believes in a future state, on the authority of the divine writings, that is to say, the book, without contradiction, which most deserves belief; on the deposition of holy men, that is to say, just, pure, and miraculous characters, who have shed their blood to render glory to the truth, and to that doctrine of which the conver- sion of the universe has rendered a testimony that to the end of ages shall rise up against the impious ; on the accomplishment of the prophecies, that is to say, the only character of truth which the impostor cajinot imitate ; on the tradition of all ages, that is to say, on facts which, since the creation of the world, have appeared certain to all the greatest characters, the most ac- knowledged just men, the wisest and most civilized nations the universe could ever boast of : in a word, on proofs at least pro- bable. The freethinker denies a futurity on a simple doubt, a mere suspicion. Who knows it? says he; who has returned from it ? He has no argument, either solid or decisive, to overturn the truth of a future state. For, let him avow it, and then will we submit. He only mistrusts that there be any thing after this life, and upon that he believes that all dies with him. Now I demand. Which here is the credulous ? Is it he, who, ift support of his belief, has whatever is probable among men, and most calculated to make impression on reason ; or he who is re- solved to deny a future state on the weakness of a simple doubt ? Nevertheless, the freethinker imagines that he exerts his reason more than the believer : he looks down upon us as weak and ere- 126 THE CERTAINTY OF dulous men ; and he considers himself as a superior genius, exalted above all vulgar prejudices, and whom reason alone, and not the public opinion, determines. O God! how terrible art thou when thou deliverest up a sinner to his own infatuation ! and how well thou knowest to draw glory to thyself even from the efforts which thine enemies make to oppose it. But I go still farther : When, even in the doubt, formed by the unbeliever, of a future state, the arguments should be equal, and the trifling uncertainties, which render him incredulous, should balance the solid and evident truths which promise im- mortality to us ; I say, that even in an equality of proofs, he at least ought to wish that the opinion of faith, with regard to the nature of our soul, were true ; an opinion which is so honour- able to man ; which tells him that his origin is celestial and his hopes eternal ; he ought to wish that the doctrine of impiety were false ; a doctrine so melancholy, so humiliating to man ; which confounds him with the beast; which makes him live only for the body ; gives him neither purpose, destination, nor hope; and limits his lot to a small number of rapid, restless, and sorrowful days, which he passes on the earth. All things equal, a reason born with any degree of elevation would prefer being deceived by what is honourable to itself rather than adopt a side so disgraceful to its being. What a soul, then, must the unbeliever have received from nature, to prefer, in so great an inequality of proofs, the belief that he is created only for this earth, and favourably to regard himself as a vile assem- blage of dirt and the companion of the ox and bull ! What do I say ? What a monster in the universe must be the unbeliever, who mistrusts the general belief only because it is too glorious for his nature ; and believes that the vanity of men has alone in- troduced it on the earth, and has persuaded them that they are immortal. . But no, my brethren ! These men of flesh and blood, with reason reject the honour which religion does to their nature, and persuade themselves that their soul is merely of earth, ancj that all dies with the body. Sensual, dissolute, and effeminate men, who have no other check than a brutal instinct ; no other rule than the vehemence of their desires ; no otlier occupation than to awaken, by new artifices, the cupidity already satiated ; men of that character can have httle difficulty to believe that no principle of spiritual life exists within them ; that the body is their only being ; and, as they imitate the manners of beasts; they are pardonable in attributing to themselves the s.ame nature. But let them not judge of all men by themselves : there are sttH on earth chaste, pure, and temperate souls : let them not ascribe to nature the shameful tendencies of their own mind ; let them not degrade humanity in general, because they have unworthily debased themselves. Let them seek out among men such as themselves ; and. A FUTURE STATK. 127 finding that they are almost single in the universe, they shall then see that they are rather monsters than the ordinary productions of nature. Besides, not only is the freethinker foolish, because that, even in an equality of proofs, his heart and glory should decide him in favour of faith, but likewise his own interest : for, as 1 have already said. What does he risk by believing ? What disagree- able consequences will follow his mistake? He will live with honour, probity and innocence; he will be mild, affable, just, sincere, rehgious, a generous friend, a faithful husband, and an equitable master; he will moderate his passions, which would otherwise have occasioned all the misfortunes of his life : he will abstain from pleasures and excesses which would have prepared for him a painful and premature old age, or a deranged fortune: he will enjoy the character of a virtuous man, and the esteem of mankind. Behold what he risks. — When all should even finish with this life, that surely is still the way to pass it with happiness and tranquillity : such is the only inconveniency I can find. If no eternal recompense shall follow, what will he have lost by expecting it ? He has lost some sensual and mo- mentary gratifications, which would soon have either fatigued him by the disgust which always follows their enjoyment, or tyrannized over him by the new desires they light up. He has lost the wretched satisfaction of being, for the instant he ap- peared on earth, cruel, unnatural, voluptuous, without faith, morals, or constancy ; perhaps despised and disgraced in the midst of his own people. I can see no other misfortune : he sinks back to his original non-existence, and his error has no other con- sequence. But if there be a future state, and he should deceive himself in rejecting faith, what does he not riskj? The loss of eternal riches ; the possession of thy glory, O my God ! which would for ever have rendered him happy. But even that is only the commencement of his misery : he goes to experience punishment without end or measure, an eternity of horror and wrath. Now, compare these two destinies : what party here will the free- thinker adopt ? Will he risk the short duration of his days, or a whole eternity ? Will he hold by the present, which must finish to-morrow, and in which he even cannot be happy ? W"ill he tremble at a futurity which has no other limits than eternity, and can never finish but with God himself? Where is the pru- dent man, who in an uncertainty even equal, durst here ba- lance ? And what name shall we give to the unbeliever, who, with nothing in his favour but frivolous doubts, while on the side of truth, beholding the authority, example, prescription, proof, and voice of all ages, the entire world, singly adopts the wretched cause of unbelief; dies tranquil, as though he were no longer to have existence ; leaves his eternal destiny in the hands of chance, and carelessly prepares to encounter so awful a scene. 128 THE CERTAINTY OF O God! is this a man conducted by cool reason; or, is it a mad- man, who looks forward to no resource but despair? The uncer-. tainty of the freethinker is therefore foohsh in the proofs on which it depends. But, lastly, it is still more dreadful in its consequences. And here, my brethren, allow me to lay aside the deep reasonings of erudition and doctrine ; I wish to speak only to the conscience of the unbeliever, and to confine myself to the proofs which his own feelings acknowledge. Now, if all shall finish with us, if man have nothing to expect after this life, and that here is our country, our origin, and the only happiness we can promise ourselves, why are we not happy ? If only created for the pleasures of the senses, why are they un- able to satisfy us ? and why do they always leave a fund of weari- ness and sorrow in the heart? If man have nothing superior to the beast, why, like it, do not his days flow on without care, uneasiness, disgust, or sorrow, in sensual and carnal enjoyments? If man have no other felicity to expect than merely a temporal happiness, why is he unable to find it on the earth? Whence comes it that riches serve only to render him uneasy ; that honours fatigue him ; that pleasures exhaust him ; that the sciences, far from satisfying, confound and irritate his curiosity ; that repu- tation constrains and embarrasses him ; that all these united can- not fill the immensity of his heart, and still leave him something to wish for ? All other beings, contented with their lot, appear happy in their way in the situation the Author of nature has placed them ; the stars, tranquil in the firmament, quit not their station to illuminate another world ; the earth, regular in its movements, shoots not upwards to occupy their place ; the animals crawl in the fields, without envying the lot of man, who inhabits cities and sumptuous palaces. The birds carol in the air without troubling themselves whether there be happier creatures in the earth than themselves; all are happy, as I may say; every thing in nature i& in its place. Man alone is uneasy and discontented ; man aloiie is a prey to his desires, allows himself to be torn by fears, finds his punishment in his hopes, and becomes gloomy and unhappy in. the midst even of his pleasures : man alone can meet with nothing here to fix his heart. Whence comes this, O man ? Must it not be that here thou art not in thy place ; that thou art made for heaven ; that thy heart is greater than the world; that the earth is not thy country; and that whatever is not God is nothing to thee ? Answer, if thou canst, or rather question thy heart, and thou wilt believe. Secondly. If all die with the body, who has been able to persuade all men, oif every age, and of every country, that their soul was immortal? From whence has this strange idea' of immortality; descended to the human race? How could an opinion, so dis- A FUTURE STATK. ' f§9 ttnit from the nature of man, were he born only for the functions ot the senses have pervaded the earth ? For if man, hke the beast, be created only for the present, nothing ought to be more incom- prehensible to him than even the idea of immortality. Could machmes of clay, whose only object should be a sensual happiness have ever been able to form, or to find in themselves, an opinion so exalted, an idea so sublime ? Nevertheless, tliis opinion, so ex- traordinary, is become that of all men ; this opinion, so opposite even to the senses, since man, like the beast, dies wholly, in our sight IS established on the earth ; this opinion, whfch ought not to have even found an inventor in the universe, has been received with a universal docility of belief amongst all nations,— the most savage as the most cultivated, the most polished as the most bru- tal the most incredulous as the most submissive to faith. For go back to the beginning of ages, examine all nations, read the history of kingdoms and empires, listen to those who return from the most distant isles ; the immortality of the soul has always been and still is, the belief of every people on the face of the earth. The knowledge of one God may have been obliterated ; his glory, power, and immensity, may have been effaced, as I may say, from the hearts and minds of men ; obstinate and savage nations may still live without worship, religion, or God, in this world ; but they all look forward to a future state : nothing has ever been able to eradicate the opinion of the immortality of the soul; they all figure to themselves a region which our souls shall inhabit after death ; and, in forgetting God, they have never dis- carded the idea of that provision for themselves. Now, whence comes it that men so different in their dispositions worship, country, opinions, interests, and even figure, that scarcely do they seem of the same species with each other, unanimously agree, however, on this point, and expect immortality ? There is no collusion here ; for how is it possible to assemble together men of all countries and ages ? It is not a prejudice of education ; for manners habits, and worship, which are generally the consequences ot prejudices, are not the same among all nations : the opinion of immortality is common to all. It is not a sect ; for, besides that it is the universal religion of the world, that tenet has had neither head nor protector. Men have adopted it themselves, or rather nature has taught them to know it without the assistance of teachers • and, since the beginning of things, it alone has passed troni father to son, and has been always received as an indisputable truth. O thou, who believest thyself to be only a mass of clay quit the world, where thou findest thyself single in belief; go, and m other regions search for men of another species, and similar to the beast; or rather be struck with horror to find thyself sino-l^, as It were, in the universe, in revolt against nature, and disav'owinff thine own heart, and acknowledge, in an opinion common to all 130 THE CERTAINTY OF men, the general impression of the Author who has formed them all ! Lastly. And with this proof I conclude. The universal fellowship of men, the laws which unite one to the other, the most sacred and inviolable duties of civil life, are all founded only on the certainty of a future state. Thus, if all die with the body, the universe must adopt other laws, manners, and habits, and a total change must take place in every thing. If all die with the bodjr, the maxims of equity, friendship, honour, good faith, and gratitude, are only popular errors ; since we owe nothing to men who are no- thing to us, to whom no general bond of worship and hope unites us, who will to-morrow sink back to their original nonentity, and who are already no more. If all die with us, the tender names of child, parent, father, friend, and husband, are merely theatrical appellations and a mockery ; since friendship, even that springing from virtue, is no longer a lasting tie ; since our fathers, who pre- ceded us, are no more ; since our children shall not succeed us, for the nonentity in which we must one day be has no consequence ; since the sacred society of marriage is only a brutal union, from which, by a strange and fortuitous concurrence, proceed beings who resemble us, but who have nothing in common with us but their nonentity. What more" shall I add ? If all dies with us, domestic annals and the train of our ancestors are only a collection of chimeras ; since we have no forefathers, and shall have no descendants, anxieties for a name and posterity are therefore ridiculous ; the honours we render to the memory of illustrious men, a childish error, since it is absurd to honour what has no existence ; the sa- cred respect we pay to the habitations of the dead, a vulgar illusion ; the ashes of our fathers and friends, a vile dust which we should cast to the winds as belonging to no person ; the last wishes of the dying, so sacred amongst even the most barbarous nations, the last sound of a machine which crumbles in pieces ; and, to comprise all in a word, if all die with us, the laws are then a foolish subjection; kings and rulers phantoms, whom the imbecility of the people has €xalted; justice a usurpation on the liberties of men; the law of marriage a vain scruple ; modesty a prejudice ; honour and probity chimeras ; incests, parricides, and the blackest villainies, pastimes of nature, and names which the policy of legislators has invented. Behold, to what the sublime philosophy of the freethinker amounts ! Behold that force of argument, that reason, and that wisdom, which they are continually vaunting to us ! Agree to their maxims, and the entire universe sinks back to a frightful chaos ; all is overturned on the earth ; all ideas of virtue and vice are re- versed, and the most inviolable laws of society vanish ; the institution of morals perishes ; the government of states and empires is without direction ; all harmony in the body politic falls. The A FUTURK STATE. 131 human species is only an assemblage of fools, barbarians, volup- tuaries, madmen, and villains, who own no law but force ; no other check than their passions and the terror of authority ; no other bond than impiety and independence ; and no other God than themselves. Behold the world of the freethinker ! and if this hi- deous plan of a republic pleases you, constitute, if you can, a so- ciety of these monsters. The only thing that remains for us to say, is, that you are fully qualified to occupy a place in it. How worthy, then, of man to look forward to an eternal destiny, to regulate his manners by the law, and to live as having one day to render account of his actions before Him who shall weigh us all in the balance. The uncertainty of the believer is then suspicious in its prin- ciple, foolish in its proofs, and horrible in its consequences. But, after having shown you that nothing can be more repugnant to sound reason than the doubt which he entertains of a future state, let us completely confound his pretexts, and prove that nothing is more opposite to the idea of a wise God and to the opinion of his own conscience. Part II. — It is no doubt astonishing that the freethinker should seek, even in the greatness of God, a shelter to his crimes ; and that, finding nothing within himself to justify the horrors of his soul, he can expect to find in the awful Majesty of the Supreme Being an indulgence which he cannot find even in the corruption of his own heart. Indeed, says the unbeliever, is it worthy the greatness of God to pay attention to what passes among men, — to calculate their virtues or vices, — to study even their thoughts, and their trifling and endless desires ? Men, worms of the earth, who sink into nothing before the majesty of his looks, are they worthy his atten- tive inspection ? And is it not degrading a God, whom we are taught to believe so great, to give him an employment by which even man would be dishonoured ? But, before I make you sensible of the whole absurdity of this blasphemy, I beg you will observe, that it is the freethinker himself who thus degrades the majesty of God, and brings him to a level with man : for, has the Almighty occasion narrowly to observe men, in order to know every thought and deed? Are cares and at- tentions necessary for him, to see what passes on the earth ? Is it not in him that we are, that we live, that we act ? And can we shun his looks, or can he even avert them from our crimes ? What folly, then, in the freethinker, to suppose that it requires care and observation from the Divinity, if he wishes to remark what passes on the earth ! His only employment is to know and en- joy himself. This reflection admitted, I answer, in the first place. If it be- come the greatness of God to leave good and evil without punish- K 2 132 THE CERTAINTY OF mentor reward, it is then equally indifferent, whether we be just, sincere, friendly, and charitable, or cruel, deceitful, perfidious, and unnatural : God, consequently, does not love virtue, modesty, rec- titude, religion, more than debauchery, perjury, impiety, and vil- lainy; since the just and the impious, the pure and the impure, shall experience the same lot, and an eternal annihilation equally awaits them all in the grave. What do I say ? God even seems to declare in favour of the im- pious here against the just. He exalts him like the cedar of Leba- non, loads him with riches and honours, gratifies his desires, and assists his projects ; for the impious are in general the prosperous on the earth. On the contrary, he seems to neglect the upright man ; he humbles, afflicts, and delivers him up to the falsity and power of his enemies ; for disgrace and affliction are the common portion of the good below. What a monster of a Supreme Being, if all must finish with man, "and if neither miseries nor rewards, except those of this life, be to be expected ! Is he, then, the protector of adulteries, profanations, and the most shocking crimes; the persecutor of innocence, modesty, piety, and all the purest virtues? Are his favours the price of guilt, and his punishments the recompense of virtue? What a God of darkness, im- becility, confusion, and iniquity does the freethinker form to himself! What, my brethren ! It would become his greatness to leave the world he has created, in a general confusion ; to see the wicked al- most always prevail over the upright; the innocent crushed by the usurper; the father the victim of an ambitious and unnatural son? From the height of his greatness, God would amuse himself with these horrible transactions, without any interest in their commis- sion ? Because he is great, he should be either weak, unjust, or cruel? Because men are insignificant, they should have the pri- vilege of being dissolute without guilt, or virtuous without merit? O God ! if such be the character of thy Supreme Being, — if it be thee whom we adore under such shocking ideas, I know thee no more then as my heavenly Father, my protector, the con- soler of my sufferings, the support of ray weakness, and the re- warder of my fidelity ! Thou art then only an indolent and capri- cious tyrant, who sacrificest all men to thy vain pride, and hast drawn them from nothing only to serve as the sport of thy leisure or caprice! For, lastly, if there be no future state, what design, worthy of his wisdom, could God have proposed in creating man ? What, in forming them, had he no other view than in forming the beast ? Man, that being so noble, who is capable of such subhme thoughts, such vast desires, and such grand sentiments, — sus- ceptible of love, truth, and justice ; man, of all creatures, alone worthy of a great destination, that of knowing and loving the Author of his being ; that man should be made only for the earth, to pass a small portion of days, like the beast, in trifling A FUTURE STATK. 5133 employments, or sensual gratifications ; he should fulfil his purpose, by acting so risible and so pitiable a part; and afterward should sink back to nonentity, without any other use having been made of that vast mind and elevated heart which the Author of his being had given him ? O God ! where would here be thy wisdom, to have made so grand a work for the duration only of a moment ; to have exhibited men upon the earth only as a playful essay of thy power ; or to amuse thy leisure by a variety of shows ! The deity of the freethinker is not grand, therefore, but because he is more unjust, capricious, and despicable than men ! Pursue these reflec- tions, and support, if you can, all the extravagance of their folly. How worthy, then, of God, my brethren, to watch over the uni- verse; to conduct man, whom he has created, by the laws of jus- tice, truth, charity, and innocence ; to make virtue and reason the bond of union and the foundation of human society ! How worthy of God to love in his creatures those virtues which render himself amiable ; to hate the vices which disfigure in them his image ; not to confound for ever the just with the impious ; to render happy with himself those souls who have lived only for him ; and to de- liver up to their own misery those who believed they had found a happiness independent of him ! Behold the God of the Christians; behold that wise, just, and holy Deity whom we adore ; and the advantage we have over the freethinker is, that ours is the God of an innocent and pure heart ; the God whom all creatures manifest to us ; whom all ages have invoked ; whom the sages, even of Paganism, have acknowledged ^ and of whom nature has deeply engraven the idea on the very foun- dation of our being ! But, since God is so just, ought he to punish, as crimes, inclina- tions for pleasure born with us ; nay, which he alone has given us? Last blasphemy of impiety, and last part of this Discourse. I shall abridge it, and conclude. But, in the first place, be whom you may, who hold this ab- surd language, if you pretend to justify all your actions by the inclinations which induce you to them ; if whatever we wish become legitimate; if our desires ought to be the only regula- tion of our duties ; on that principle, you have only to regard vvfith an envious eye the fortune of your brother, to acquire a right to despoil him of it : his wife, with a corrupted heart, to be authorized to violate the sanctity of the nuptial bed, in oppo- sition to the most sacred rights of society and nature. You have only to suspect, or dislike an opponent, to become entitled to destroy him ; to bear, with impatience, the authority of a fa- ther, or the severity of a master, to imbrue your hands in their blood : in a word, you have only to bear within you the impressions of every vice, to be permitted the gratification of all ; and, as each finds the fatal seeds in himself, jinne would be exempted from this 134 THE CKRTAINTY OF horrible privilege. It is necessary, therefore, that man conduct himself by other laws than his inclinations, and another rule than his desires. Even the Pagan ages acknowledged the necessity of a philo- sophy, that is to say, of a light superior to the senses, which regulated their practice, and made reason a check to the human passions. Nature alone led them to this truth, and taught them that blind instinct ought not to be the sole guide of the actions of men : this instinct, therefore, either is not the original institution of nature, or it must be a corruption of it, since all the laws ever framed on earth have avowedly been made to restrain it, — that all those who, in every age, have borne the character of wise and virtuous, have re- jected its impressions, — that, amongst all nations, those infamous individuals who yielded themselves up without reserve or shame to brutal sensuality, have been always considered as monsters, and the disgrace of humanity, — and, the maxim once established, that our inclinations and desires cannot be considered as crimes, society can no longer exist ; men must separate to be in safety, must bury themselves in the forests, and live solitary like the beasts. Besides, let us render justice to men, or rather to the Author who has formed us. If we find within us inclinations to vice and voluptuousness, do we not also find sentiments of virtue, nvodesty, and innocence? If the law of the members drag us toward the pleasures of the senses, do we not also bear, written in our hearts, another law, which recalls us to chastity and temperance ? Now, between these two tendencies, why does the freethinker decide that the inclination which impels us toward the senses is most con- formable to the nature of man ? Is it from being the most violent? But its violence alone is a proof of its disorder ; and whatever proceeds from nature ought to be made moderate. Is it from being the strongest? But there are just and believing souls in whom it is always subject to reason. Is it from being more agreeable ? But a sure proof that this pleasure is not made to render man happy, is, that disgust immediately follows it ; and likewise that, to the good, virtue has a thousand times more charms than vice. Lastly, is it from being more worthy of man ? You dare not say so, since it is through it that he confounds himself with the beast. Why, then, do you decide in favour of the senses, against reason, and insist, that it is more conformable to man to live like the beast than to be a reasonable being ? Lastly, were all men corrupted, and, like the animals, not gifted with reason ; did they blindly yield themselves up to their brutal instinct, and to the empire of the senses and passions, — you, then, perhaps, might have reason to say that these are inclinations inse- parable from nature, and in example find a sort of excuse for your excesses. But, look around you : do you no longer find any up- right characters on the earth ? There is no question here of those A FUTURE STATE. 136 vain discourses you so frequently hold against piety, and of which you feel yourselves the injustice. Speak candicuy, and render gloiy to the truth : are there no longer chaste, faithful, and righteous souls, who live in the fear of the Lord, and in the observ- ance of his holy law ? Whence comes it, then, that you have not the same empire over your passions as enjoyed by these just men ? Have they not inhe- rited from nature the same inclinations ? Do the objects of the passions not awaken in their hearts the same sensations as in yours ? Do they not bear within them the sources of the same troubles ? What have the just superior to you, but that command over them- selves, and fidelity, of which you are destitute ? O man ! thou imputest to God a weakness which is the work of thine own disorders ! Thou accusest the Author of nature of the irregularities of thy own will. It is not enough to offend him ; thou wishest to make^ him responsible for thy deeds, and pretendest that the fruit of thy crimes becomes the title of thine innocence ! With what chimeras is a corrupted heart not capable of feeding its delu- sions, in order to justify to itself the shame and infamy of its vices ! God is then just, my brethren, when he punisheth the transgres- sions of his law. And let not the freethmker here say to himself that the recompense of the just shall then be resurrection to eter- nal Hfe, and the punishment of the sinner the everlasting annihila- tion of his soul ; for behold the last resource of impiety. But what punishment would it be to the freethinker to exist no more ? He wishes that annihilation ; he looks forward to it as his sweetest hope : amidst his pleasures he lives tranquil only in that expectation. What ! the just God would punish a sinner by af- fording him a destiny according to the summit of his wishes ? Ah ! it is not thus that God punisheth. For what would the freethinker find so shocking in a return to nonentity ? Would it be the depri- vation of his God ? But he loves him not ; he knows him not ; he desires no communication with him ; for his only god is himself. Would it be to exist no more ? But what could be more desirable to a monster, who knows that, beyond the term of his crimes, he cannot live but in sufferance, and in the expiation of the horrors of an infamous life ? Would it be by having for ever lost the worldly pleasures he enjoyed, and the different objects of his passions ? But, when he exists no more, the love of these must equally be extin- guished. A more desirable fate cannot therefore be pointed out to the freethinker. It indeed would be the happy conclusion of all his excesses, horrors, and blasphemies. No, my brethren ! The hopes of the freethinker, but not his crimes, shall perish : his torments shall be as eternal as his de- baucheries would have been, had he been master of his own destiny. He would willingly have eternized himself on the earth, in the prac- tice of every sensual vice. Death has bounded his crimes, but has not limited his criminal desires. The just and upright Judge, who 136 THE CKRTAINTV, 5vC. fathoms the heart, will therefore proportion the punishment to the guilt. What are we to conclude from this Discourse? That the free- thinker is to be pitied for grounding the only consolation of his future destiny on the uncertainty of the truths of the gospel : that he is to be pitied because his only tranquillity must be in living without faith, worship, confidence, or God ; because the only hope he can indulge, is, that the gospel is a fable ; the belief of all ages a childish creduhty ; the universal opinion of men a popular error; the first principles of nature and reason prejudices of edu- cation ; the blood of so many martyrs, whom the hopes of a future state supported under all their sufferings and tortures, a mere tale concerted to deceive mankind ; the conversion of the world a hu- man enterprise ; and the accomplishment of the promises a mere stroke of chance : in a word, that every thing, the best established, and the most consistent with truth and reason in the world, must all be false, to accomplish the only happiness he can promise him- self, and to save him from eternal misery. O man ! I will point out to thee a much surer way to render thyself tranquil, and to enjoy the sweets of internal peace. Dread that futurity thou forcest thyself to disbelieve. Question us no more what they do in that other world of which we tell thee ; but ask thyself, without ceasing, what thou art doing in this? Quiet thy conscience by the innocency of thy life, and not by the im- piety of thy unbelief ; give repose to thy heart by calhng upon God, and not by doubting that he pays attention to thee. The peace of the unbeliever is despair. Seek, then, thy happiness, not by freeing thyself from the yoke of faith, but by tasting how sweet and agreeable it is. Follow the maxims it prescribes to thee, and thy reason will no longer refuse submission to the mysteries it com- mands thee to believe. A future state'will cease to appear incre- dible to thee from the moment thou ceasest to live like those who centre all their happiness in the fleeting moments of this life. Then, far from dreading a futurity, thy wishes will anticipate it. Thou wilt sigh for the arrival of that happy day, when the Son of man, the Father of all future ages, shall come to punish the unbelieving, and to conduct thee to his kingdom, along with those who have lived on the earth in the expectation and hope of a blessed immor- tality. That you, my brethren, may be partakers of this eternal felicity, is my fervent prayer. Amen. ON DKATH. 137 SERMON IX. ON DEATH. Now, when lie came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man tarried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." — Luke vii. 12. Was death ever accompanied with more affecting circumstances? It is an only son, sole successor to the name, titles, and fortune of his ancestors, whom death snatches from an afflicted mother and widow ; he is ravished from her in the flower of age, and almost at his entry into life ; at a period when, happily past the dangers of infancy, and attained to that first degree of strength and reason which commences man, he seemed least exposed to the shafts of death, and at last allowed maternal tenderness to breathe from the fears which accompany the uncertain progress of education. The citizens run in crowds, to mingle their tears with those of the dis- consolate mother ; they assiduously seek to lessen her grief, by the consolation of those vague and common-place discourses to which profound sorrow little attends ; with her they surround the mournful bier, and they deck the obsequies with their mourning and presence ; the train of this funeral pomp to them is a show ; but is it an instruction? They are struck and affected, but are they from it less attached to life ? And will not the remembrance of this death perish in their minds, with the noise and decorations of the funeral ? To similar examples, we every day bring the same dispositions. The feelings which an unexpected death awakens in our hearts are the feelings of a day, as though death itself ought to be the concern of a day. We exhaust ourselves in vain reflections on the inconstancy of human things ; but, th,e object which struck us once out of sight, the heart, become tranquil, finds itself the same. Our projects, our cares, our attachments to the world, are not less lively than if we were labouring for eternal ages; and, at our de- parture from a melancholy spectacle, where we have sometimes seen birth, youth, titles, and fame, wither in a moment, and for ever buried in the grave, we return to the world more occupied with, and more eager than ever after all those vain objects of which we so lately had seen with our eye^^ and almost felt with our hands, the insignificancy and meanness. 138 ON DEATH. Let us at present examine the reasons of so deplorable a mis- take. Whence comes it that men reflect so little upon death, and that the thoughts of it make such transitory impressions ? It is this : the uncertainty of death amuses us, and removes from our mind its remembrance ; the certainty of death appals, and forces us to turn our eyes from the gloomy picture : the uncer- tainty of it lulls and encourages us ; whatever is awful and certain, with regard to it, makes us dread the thoughts of it. Now, I wish at present to combat the dangerous security of the first, and the improper dread of the other. Death is uncertain ; you are there- fore imprudent not to be occupied with the thoughts of it, but to allow it to surprise you. Death is certain; you then are foolish to dread the thoughts of it, and it ought never to be out of your sight. Think upon death, because you know not the hour it will arrive : think upon death, because it must arrive. This is the subject of the present Discourse. Part I. — ^The first step which man makes in life, is likewise the first toward the grave : from the moment his eyes open to the light, the sentence of death is pronounced against him ; and, as though it were a crime to live, it is sufficient that he lives to make him deserving of death. That was not our first destiny. The Author of our being had at first animated our clay with a breath of immortality : he had placed in us a seed of life, which the revolution of neither years nor time could have weakened or extin- guished: his work was so perfect, that it might have defied the duration of ages, while nothing external could have dissolved or even injured its harmony. Sin alone withered this divine seed, overturned this blessed order, and armed all created beings against man: and Adam became mortal from the moment he became a sinner: " By sin," said the apostle, " did death enter into the world." From our birth, therefore, we all bear it within us. It appears, that, in our mother's womb, we have sucked in a slow poison, with which we come into the world; which makes us languish on the earth, some a longer, others a more limited period, but which always terminates in death. We die every day; every moment deprives us of a portion of fife, and advances us a step toward the grave : the body pines, health decays, and every thing which surrounds assists to destroy us ; food corrupts, me- dicines weaken us; the spiritual fire, which internally animates, consumes us ; and our whole life is only a long and painful sickness. Now, in this situation, what image ought to be so familiar to man as death ? A criminal condemned to die, which- ever way he casts his eyes, what can he see but this melancholy object? And does the longer or shorter period we have to live, make a sufficient difference to entitle us to think ourselves im- mortal on this earth? ON DKATH. lev It is true, tlmt the measure of our lots is not alike : some, in peace, see their days grow upon them to the most advanced age, and, inheritors of the blessings of their primeval age, expire full of years in the midst of a numerous posterity : others, arrested in the middle of their course, see, like king Hezekiah, the gates of the grave open for them while yet in their prime; and, like him, " seek in vain for the residue of their years:" there are some who only show themselves as it were on the earth, who finish their course with the day, and who, like the flowers of the field, leave scarcely an interval between the instant which views them in their bloom and that which sees them withered and cut off. The fatal moment marked for each is a secret written in the book of life, which the Lamb of God alone has a right to open. We all live, then, uncer- tain of the duration of our life ; and this uncertainty, of itself so fit to render us watchful of our last hour, even lulls our vigilance. We never think on death, because we know not exactly in what age of life to place it : we even regard not old age as the term, at least sure and inevitable : the doubt of ever reaching that period, which surely ought to fix and limit our hopes to this side of de- crepitude, serves only to stretch them beyond it. Unable to settle itself on any thing certain, our dread becomes a vague and con- fused feeling, which fixes on nothing; insomuch that the uncer- tainty, which ought only to dwell on the length or brevity of it, renders us tranquil on our existence itself. Now I say, in the first place, that of all dispositions, this is the rashest and most imprudent; I appeal tp yourselves for this truth. Is an evil which may take place every day, to be more disregarded than another which threatens you only at the expira- tion of a number of years ? What ! because your soul may every moment be recalled, you would tranquilly live as though you were never to lose it? Because the danger is always present, circum- spection becomes less necessary? But in what other situation or circumstance of life, except that of our eternal salvation, does un- certainty become an excuse for security and neglect ? Does the conduct of that servant in the gospel, who, under pretence that his master delayed to return, and that he knew not the hour when he should arrive, applied his property to his own purposes, as if he never were to render account of it, appear to you a prudent dis- charge of his duty? What other motives hds Jesus Christ made use of to exhort us to incessant watching? and what in religion is more proper to awake our vigilance than the uncertainty of this last day ? Ah ! my brethren, were the hour unalterably marked for each of us; were the kingdom of God, like the stars, to come at a known and fixed revolution; at our birth, were our portions written on our foreheads, the number of our years, and the fatal day which shall terminate them ; that fixed and certain object, however dis- tant, would incessantly employ our thoughts, would agitate and 140 ON DEATH. deprive us of every tranquil moment; we would always regard the interval before us as too short; that object, in spite of us, always present to our mind, would disgust us with every thing; would render every pleasure insipid, fortune indifferent, and the whole world tiresome and a burden : that terrible moment, which we would no more lose sight of, would repress our passions, extinguish our animosities, disarm revenge, calm the revolts of the flesh, and mingle itself in all our schemes; and our life, thus limited to a cer- tain number of days, fixed and known, would be only a preparation for that last moment. Are we in om- senses, my brethren? Death seen at a distance, at a sure and fixed point, would fill us with dread, detach us from the world and ourselves, call us to God, and incessantly occupy our thoughts; and this same death, uncertain, which may happen every day, every instant, — this same death, which must surprise us when we least expect it, which is perhaps at the gate, engages not our attention, and leaves us tranquil,— what do I say? — leaves us all our passions, our criminal attach- ments, our ardour for the world, pleasures, and fortune : and, be- cause it is not certain that we shall die to-day, we live as if we were to live for ever. Observe, ray brethren, that this uncertainty is in effect accom- panied with all the circumstances most capable of alarming, or at least of engaging the attention of a prudent man, who makes any use of his reason. In the first place, the surprise of that last day you have to dread, is not one of those rare and singular accidents which befall only soine unfortunate wretches, and which it is more prudent to disregard than to foresee. In order to be surprised by death, the question at present is not that the thunder should fall upon your heads, that you should be buried under the ruins of your palaces, that you should be swallowed up by the waves, nor many other accidents, whose singularity renders them more terrible, though less dreaded ; it is a common evil; not a day passes, with- out furnishing some examples ; almost all men are surprised by death ; all see it approach, while they believe it yet at a distance; all say to themselves, like the foohsh man in the gospel, " Why should I be afraid? I have many years yet to come." In this manner have you seen depart, your relations, friends, and almost all those whese death you have witnessed; every instance surprised you; you expected it not so soon ; and you endeavoured to account for it by human reasons, such as the imprudence of the patient, or the want of proper advice and medicines; but the only and true reason is, that the hour of the Lord always takes us by surprise. The earth is like a vast field of battle, ' where we are every day engaged with the enemy. You have happily escaped to-day; but you have witnessed the fall of many, who, like you, ex- pected to survive: to-morrow you again must enter the lists; and who has told you that fortune, so capricious witli regard to ON DEATH. 141 Others, to you alone will continue favourable? And since you at last must perish there, are you prudent in building a fixed and per- manent habitation, on the very spot, perhaps, intended for your tomb? Place yourselves in any possible situation, there is not a moment but may be your last, and has actually been so to some of your brethren ; no brilliant action, but may terminate in the eternal shades of the graves; and Herod is struck in the midst of the ser- vile and foolish applauses of his people : no day set apart for the solemn display of worldly magnificence, but may conclude with your funeral pomp; and Jezebel was precipitated, the very day she had chosen to show herself in her greatest pride and ostenta- tion, from the windows of her palace : no festival but may be the feast of death ; and Belshazzar expired in the midst of a sump- tuous banquet: no repose but may conduct you to an everlasting sleep; and Holofernes, in the heart of his army, and conqueror of so many kingdoms and provinces, fell under the stroke of a simple Jewish woman : no disease, but may be the fatal term of your course; and every day you see the slightest complaints deceive the opinions of the most skilful and the expectations of the patient, and almost in an instant take the turn of death: — in a word, figure yourselves in any possible stage or station of life, and with difli- culty can you number those who have been surprised in a similar situation ; and what right have you to expect, that you alone shall be exempted from a lot common to all? You allow, you confess this; but these confessions are merely words of course, and are never followed by a single precaution to secure you from the danger. Secondly. Did this uncertainty turn only on the hour, the place, or the manner of your death, it would appear less shocking ; for, after all, says a holy father, what matters it to a Christian, whether he shall expire in the midst of his connexions or in the country of strangers ; in the bed of sorrow or the abyss of the waves ; pro- vided he dies in piety and righteousness? But what renders this terrible, is, the uncertainty whether you shall die in the Lord or in sin; that you shall know not what will be your lot in that other region where conditions change no more; into whose hands, at its departure from the body, your soul, trembling, a stranger and alone, shall fall; whether it shall be surrounded with light, and carried to the foot of the throne on the wings of blessed and happy spirits, or enveloped in darkness, and cast headlong into the gulf: you hang between these two eternities; you know not to which you shall be attached : death alone will disclose the secret; and in this uncertainty you remain tranquil, and indolently wait its approach, as though it were a matter of no importance to you, nor to determine your eternal happiness or misery? Ah ! my brethren, were it even true that all ends with us, the impious man would still be foolish in saying, " Let us think not on death ; let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." The more 142 ON DEATH, lie found life agreeable, the more reason would he have to be afraid of death, which to him would, however, be only a cessa- tion of existence. But we, to whom faith opens prospects of punishment or eternal rewards beyond the grave j we, who must reach the gates of death, still uncertain of this dreadful alter- native, is there not a folly, — what^o I say? — a madness, (not, to be sure, in professing the sentiments of the impious, " Let us ei\t and drink, for to-morrow we die,)" in living as though we thought like him ! Is it possible we can remain a single instant unoc- cupied with that decisive moment, and without allaying, by the precautions of faith, that trouble and dread into which this un- certainty must cast a soul who has not yet renounced his eternal hopes ? Thirdly. In all other uncertainties, the number of those who share the same danger may inspire us with confidence ; or resources, with which we flatter ourselves, may leave us more tranquil ; or, even at the worst, the disappointment becomes a lesson, which teaches us, to our cost, to be more guarded in future. But, in the dreadful uncertainty in question, the number of those who run the same risk can diminish nothing from our danger; all the re- sources with which we may flatter ourselves on the bed of death, are, in general, merely illusive ; and religion itself, which furnishes them, dare ground but small hopes on them: in a word, the mis- take is irremediable ; we die only once, and our past folly can no more serve as a lesson to guard us from future error. Our misfor- tunes indeed open our eyes; but these new lights, which dissipate our bUndness, become useless, by the immutability of our state, and are rather a cruel knowledge of our misery, which prepares to tear us with eternal remorse, ,and to occasion the most grievous portion of our punishment, than wise reflections which may lead us to repentance. . Upon what, then, can you justify this profound and incompre- hensible neglect of your last day, in which you live ? On youth, which may seem to promise you many years yet to come ? Youth ! But the son of the widow of Nain was young. Does death respect ages or rank ? Youth ! But that is exactly what makes me tremble for you : licentious manners, pleasures to excess, extravagant passions, ambitious desires, the dangers of war, thirst for renown, and the sallies of revenge ; is it not during the pursuit or gratification of some one of these passions, that the majority of men finish their career? Adonias, but for his debaucheries, might have lived to a good old age ; Absalom, but for his ambition ; the king of Sachem's son, but for his love of Dinah ; Jonathan, had glory not dug a grave for him in the mountains of Gilboa. Youth ! Alas ! it is the season of dangers, and the rock upon which Hfe generally splits. Once more, then, upon what do you found your hopes ? On the strength of your constitution ? But \yhat is the best-estab- • ON DEATH. 143 lished health ? A spark which a breath shall extinguish : a single day's sickness is sufficient to lay low the most robust. I examine not after this, whether you do not even flatter yourselves on this point; if a body, exhausted by the irregularities of youth, do not announce to your own minds the sentence of death; if habitual infirmities do not lay open before you the gates of the grave ; if disagreeable indications do not menace you with some sudden accident. I wish you to lengthen out your days even beyond your hopes. Alas! my brethren, can any period appear long which must at last come to an end ? Look back, and see where now are your youthful years? What trace of solid joy do they leave in your remembrance? Not more than a vision of the night; you dream that you have lived, and behold all that is left to you of it : all that interval, elapsed from your birth to the present day, is like a rapid flash, whose passage the eye, far from dwelling on, can with difficulty see. Had you begun to live even with the world itself, the past would now appear to you neither longer nor more real : all the ages elapsed down to the present day you would look upon as fugitive instants; all the nations which have appeared and disappeared on the earth; all the revolutions of empires and kingdoms; all those grand events which embellish our histories, to you would be only the different scenes of a show which you had seen concluded in a day. Recollect the victories, the captured cities, the glorious treaties, the magnificence, the splendid events of the first years of this reign; most of you have not only wit- nessed, but have shared in their danger and glory ; our annals will convey them down to our latest posterity; but to you they are already but a dream, but a momentary flash, which is extinguished, and which every day effaces more and more from your remem- brance. What, then, is this small portion you have still to accom- plish ? Can you believe that the days to come have more reality than those already past? Years appear long while yet at a dis- tance; arrived, they vanish, they slip from us in an instant; and scarcely shall we have looked around us, when, as if by enchant- ment, we shall find ourselves at the fatal term, which still appeared so distant that we rashly concluded it would never arrive. View the world, such as you have seen it in your youthful days, and such as you now see it : new personages have mounted the stage ; the grand parts are filled by new actors; there are new events, new intrigues, new passions, new heroes in virtue as well as in vice, which engage the praises, derisions, and censures of the public ; a new world, without your having perceived it, has insensibly risen on the wrecks of the first ; every thing passes with and like you ; a velocity, which nothing can stop, drags all into the gulf of eternity : yesterday our ancestors cleared the way for us ; and to- morrow we shall do the same for those who are to follow. Ages succeed each other; the appearance of the world incessantly changes; the dead and the living continually replace and succeed 144 ON DKATH. each other. Nothing stands still; all changes, all wastes away, all has an end. God alone reraaineth always the same: the torrent of ages, which sweeps away all men, flows before his eyes; and, with indignation, he sees weak mortals, carried down by that rapid course, insult him while passing; wish, of that transitory instant, to constitute all their happiness; and, at their departure from it, fall into the hands of his vengeance and wrath. Where, says the apostle, amongst ns, are now ^the wise? And a man, were he even capable of governing the world, can he merit that name from the moment that he forgets what he is and what he must be? Nevertheless, my brethren, what impression on us does the in- stability of every thing worldly make? The death of our relations, friends, competitors, and masters? We never think that we are immediately to follow them ! we think only of decking ourselves out in their spoils; we think not on the little time they had en- joyed them, but only on the pleasure they must have had in their possession: we hasten to profit ourselves from the wreck of each other: we are like those foolish soldiers, who, in the heat of battle, when their companions are every moment falling around them, eagerly load themselves with their clothes; and scarcely are they put on, when a mortal blow at once deprives them of their absurd decorations and life. In this manner, the son decks himself with the spoils of the father; closes his eyes; succeeds to his rank, fortune, and dignities ; conducts the pomp of his funeral, and leaves it more occupied with, more affected by, the new titles with which he is now invested, than instructed by the last advices of a dying parent; than afilicted for his loss, or even undeceived with regard to the things of the earth, by a sight which places before his eyes their insignificancy, and announces to him the same destiny soon. The death of our companions is not a more useful lesson to us : such a person leaves vacant an office which we hasten to obtain; another promotes us a step in the service; claims expire with this one, which might have greatly embarrassed us; that one now leaves us the undisputed favourite of our sovereign; another brings us a step nearer to a certain dignity, and opens the road to a rank which his death alone could render attainable ; and, on these occasions, our spirits are invigorated ; we adopt new measures, and form new projects; and, far from our eyes being opened, by the examples of those whom we see- disappear, there issue, even from their ashes, fatal sparks, which inflame all our desires and attachments to the world; and death, that gloomy picture of our misery, reanimates more passions among men than even all the illusions of life. What, then, can detach us from this wretched world, since death itself seems only to knit more strongly the bonds, and strengthen us in the errors which bind us to it. Here, my brethren, I require nothing from you but reason. What are the natural consequences which good sense alone ought to draw from the uncertainty of death ? ON DEATH. 145 First. The hour of death is uncertain : every year, every day, every moment, may be the last of our Me. It is absurd, then, by attaching ourselves to what must pass away in an instant, to sacri- fice the only riches which are eternal ; every thing you do for the earth ought therefore to appear as lost, since you have no interest there; you can depend on nothing there, and can carry nothino- from it, but what you shall have done for heaven. The kiqgdoms of the earth, and all their glory, ought not then for a moment to balance the interests of your eternal welfare, since the greatest for- tune cannot assure you of a day more than the most humble ; and, since the only consequence which can accrue from it is a more deep and bitter sorrow on the bed of death, when you shall be obliged for ever to part from them, every care, every movement, every desire, ought therefore to centre in estalilishing for your- selves a permanent and unchangeable fortune, an eternal happi- ness, which fadeth not away. Secondly. The hour of your death is uncertain : you ought then to expect it every day ; never to permit yourselves an action, in which you would wish not to be surprised ; to consider all your proceedings as those of a dying man, vv'ho every moment expects his soul to be recalled ; to act, in every thing, as though you were that instant to render account of your conduct; and, since you cannot answer for the time which is to come, in such a manner to regulate the present that you may have no occasion for the future to repair its errors. Lastly. The hour of your death is uncertain: delay not, tlien, your repentance. Time presses; hasten, then, your conversion to the Lord ; you cannot assure yourselves of a day, and you defer it to a distant and uncertain period to come. Were you unfortu- nately to swallow a mortal poison, would you put off to another day the trial of the only antidote which might save your life? Would the agent of death, which you carried in your bowels, allow of delays and neglect ? Such is your state. If you be wise, have instant recourse to your precautions. You carry death in your soul, since in it you carry sin ; hasten to apply the remedy, since every moment is precious to him who cannot depend on one. The poisonous beverage which infects your soul cannot long be trifled with ; the goodness of God still holds out to you a cure ; hasten, once more 1 say, to secure it, while it is not yet too late. Should entreaties be necessary to determine your compliance, ought not the prospect of relief to be suflicient ? Is it necessary to exhort an unfortunate wretch, just sinking in the waves, to exert his en- deavours to save himself? Ought you, in this matter, to have occasion for our ministry ? Your last hour approaches ; you soon shall have to appear before the tribunal of God. You may use- fully employ the moment which yet remains to you ; almost all those, whose departure from this world you are daily witnessing, L 146 ON DEATH. allow it to slip from them, and die without having reaped any ad- vantage from it. You imitate their neglect ; the same surprise awaits you, and, like them, you will be cut off before the work of reformation has commenced. They had been warned of it, and in the same manner we warn you ; their misery touches you not ; and the unfortunate lot which awaits you, will not more sensibly affect those to whom we shall one day announce it ; it is a succes- sion of blindness, which passes from father to son, and is perpetu- ated on the earth : we all wish to live better, and we all die before we have begun to reform. Such, ray brethren, are the prudent and natural reflections which the uncertainty of our last hour should lead us to make. But if, on account of its uncertainty, you are imprudent in paying no more attention to it, than as if it were never to arrive, the fearful portion attending its certainty «till less excuses your folly, in s.triving to remove that melancholy image from your mind, under the pretence of its only tending to empoison every comfort, and to destroy the tranquilhty of life. This is what I have still to lay before you. Part II. — Man loves not to dwell upon his nothingness and meanness ; whatever recalls to him his origin, puts him in mind also of his end, wounds his pride, interests his self-love, attacks the foundation of all his passions, and gives birth to gloomy and disagreeable ideas. To die, to disappear from the earth, to enter the dark abyss of eternity, to become a carcase, the food of worms, the horror of men, the hideous inmate of a tomb ; that sight alone revolts every sense, distracts reason, blackens imagination, and empoisons every comfort in life ; we dare not fix our looks on so hideous an image ; we reject that thought, as the most gloomy and bitter of all. We dread, we fly from every thing which may force its remembrance on our mind, as though it would hasten the approach of the fatal hour. Under a pre- tence of tenderness, we love not to hear mention of our departed friends ; care is taken to remove our attention from the places in which they have dwelt, and from every thing which, along with their idea, at the same time awakens that of death which has deprived us of them. We dread all melancholy recitals ; in that respect we carry our terrors even to the rnost childish supersti- tion ; in every trifle our fancy sees fatal prognostications of death ; in the wanderings of a dream, in the nightly sounds of a bird, in the casual number of a company, and in many other circumstances still more ridiculous ; every where we imagine it before us ; and, for that very reason, we endeavour to expel it from our thoughts. Now, my brethren, these excessive terrors were pardonable in Pagans, to whom death was the greatest misfortune, seeing ON DEATH. J47 they had no expectation beyond the grave ; and that, living with- out hope, they died without consolation. But, that death should be so terrible to Christians is a matter of astonishment ; and that the dread of that image should even serve as a pretext to remove its idea from their minds, is still more so. For, in the first place, I grant that you have reason to dread that last hour ; but, as it is certain, I cannot conceive v,'hy the terrors of it should prevent your mind from dwelling upon, and endeavour- ing to anticipate its evils ; on the contrary, it seems to me, that in proportion as the danger is great, to which you are exposed, you ought more constantly to keep it in view, and to use every precau- tion that it may not take you unawares- ,What ! the more the danger alarms you, the more it should render you indolent and careless ! The excessive and improper terrors of your imagination should cure you, even of that prudent dread which operates your salvation; and, because you dread too much, you should abandon every thought of it ! But, where is the man whom a too lively sense of danger renders calm and intrepid ? Were it necessary to march through a narrow and steep defile, surrounded on all sides by precipices, would you order your eyes to be bound, that you might not see your danger, and lest the depth of the gulf below should turn your head ? Ah ! my dear hearer, you see the grave open before you, and that spectacle alarms you ; but, in place of taking all the precautions offered to you by religion, to prevent you falling headlong into the gulf, you cover your eyes that you may not see it ; — you fly to dissipation, to chase its idea from your mind ; and, like those unfortunate victims of Paganism, you run to the stake, your eyes covered, crowned with flowers, and sur- rounded by dancing and songs of joy, that you may not have lei- sure to reflect mi the fatal term to which this pomp conducts, and lest you should see the altar, that is to say, the bed of death, where you are immediately to be sacrificed. Besides, by repelling that thought, could you likewise repel death, your terrors would then at least have an excuse. But think, or think not on it, death always advances ; every effort you make to exclude its remembrance brings you nearer to it ; and at the appointed hour it will come. What, then, do you gain by turning your mind from that thought ? Do you lessen the danger ? On the contrary, you augment it, and render a surprisal inevitable. By averting your eyes, do you soften the horror of that spectacle ? Alas ! you only multiply its terrors. Were you to familiarize your- selves more with the thoughts of death, your mind, weak and timid, would insensibly accustom itself to it. You would gi'adually ac- quire courage to view it without anguish, or at least with resigna- tion on the bed of death ; it would no longer be an unusual and strange sight. A Jong anticipated danger astonishes not : death is only formidable the first time that tlie imagination dwells L 2 148 ON DEATH. upon it; and it is only when not expected, and no provision made against it, that it is to be dreaded. But, when that thought should even disquiet, and fill you with impressions of dread and sorrow, where would be the disappoint- ment? Are you, upon the earth, to live only in an indolent ease, and solely engrossed by agreeable and smiling objects ? We should lose our reason, say you, were w^e to devote our attention to this dismal spectacle, without the relaxation of pleasures. We should lose our reason ! Jiut so many faithfid souls, who, in all their ac- tions, mingle that thought; who make the remembrance of that last hour the check to curb their passions, and the most powerful inducement to fidelity; so many illustrious penitents, who have buried themselves alive in their tombs, that they might never lose sight of that object ; the holy who every day suffered death, like the apostle, that they might live for ever, have they in consequence of it, lost their reason ? You should lose your reason ! that is to say, you would regard the world as an exilement, pleasures as an intoxica- tion, sin as the greatest of evils ; places, honours, favour, and for- tune, as dreams ; and salvation as the grand and only object worthy of attention. Is that to lose your reason? Blessed folly! And would that you, from this moment, were amongst the number of these foolish sages. You would lose your reason ! Yes, that false, worldly, proud, carnal, and mistaken reason, which seduces you ; that corrupted reason, which obscures faith, authorizes the passions, makes us prefer the present moment to eternity, takes the shadow for the substance, and leads all men astray. Yes, that deplorable reason, that vain philosophy, which looks upon as a weakness the dread of a future state, and, because it dreads it too much, seems, in appearance, or endeavours to force itself, not to believe it at ajl. But that prudent, enlightened, moderate, and Christian reason, that wisdom of the serpent, so recommended in the gospel, it is in that remembrance that you would find it : that wisdom, says the Holy Spirit, preferable to all the treasures and honours of the earth ; that wisdom so honourable to man, and which exalts him so much above himself; that wisdom which has formed so many Christian heroes ; it is the image always present of your last hour, which will embellish your soul with it. ]3ut that thought, you add, should we take it into our head to enter deeply into, and to dwell conti- nually upon it, would be fit to make us renounce all, and to form the most violent and overstrained resolutions ; that is to say, would detach you from the world, your vices, passions, the infamy of your excesses, and make you lead a chaste, regular, and Christian life, alone worthy of reason. These are what the world calls violent and overstrained resolutions. But hkewise, under pretence of shunning pretended excesses, would you refuse to adopt the most necessary resolutions ? Make a beginning at any rate ; the first transports Boon be<'in to abate ; and it is much more easy to moderate the ON DKATH,. 140 excesses of piety than to animate its coldness and indolence. Dread nothing from the excessive fervour and transports of your zeal; you can never, in that respect, go too far. An indolent and sensual heart, such as yours, nursed ni pleasures and effeminacy, and void of all taste for whatever pertains to the service of God, does not promise any very great indiscretions in the steps of a Christian life. You know not yourselves; you have never ex- perienced what obstacles all your inclinations will cast in the way of your simplest exertions in piety. Take measures only against coldness and discouragement, which are the only rocks you have to dread. What blindness! In the fear of doing too much for God, we do nothing at all; the dread of bestowino- too much attention on our salvation, prevents us from labouring toward it; and we lose ourselves for ever, lest we should too surely attain salvation : we dread chimerical excesses of piety, and we are not afraid of a departure from, and an actual contempt of piety itself. Does the fear of doing too much for fortune and rank check your exertions, or cool the ardour of your ambition ? Is it not that very hope which supports and animates them? Nothing is too much for the world, but all is excess for God : we fear, and we reproach our- selves, lest we never do enough for an earthly establishment; and we check ourselves, in the dread of doing too much for an eternal fortune. But I go farther, and say, that it is a criminal ingratitude toward God to reject the thought of death, merely because it disquiets and alarms you ; for that impression of dread and terror is a special grace with which you are favoured by God, Alas ! how many impious characters exist, who despise it, who claim a miserable merit in beholding with firmness its apj^roach, and who regard it as the annihilation of their being ! How many sages and philoso- phers in Christianity, who, without renouncing faith, limit all their reflections, all the superiority of their talents, to the tranquil view of its arrival ; and who, during life, exert the powers of their reason only in preparing for that last moment ; a constancy and serenity of niind equally absurd as the most vulgar terrors ; a purpose the most imprudent to which reason can be applied. It is, therefore, a special grace bestowed on you by God, when he permits that thought to have such an energy and ascendancy in your soul; in all probability it is the way by which he wishes to recall you to himself: should you ever quit your erroneous and iniquitous courses, it will be through its influence : your salvation seems to depend on that remedy. Tremble, my dear hearer, lest your hearts should fortify itself against these salutary terrors ; lest God should withdraw from you this mean of salvation, and harden you against all the terrors of religion. A favour, not only despised but even regarded as a punishment, is soon followed with the indignation, or at least the indilfercnce, of the benefactor. Should that unfortunately 150 ON DEATH. be ever the case, then will the image of death leave you all your tranquillity : you will fly to an entertainment the moment you have quitted the solemnity of a funeral; with the same eyes will you behold a hideous carcase, or the criminal object of your passion; then will you be even pleased with yourself for having soared above all these vulgar fears, and even applaud yourself for a change so terrible toward your salvation. Profit, then, to- ward the regulation of your manners, by that sensibility, while it is yet left to you by God. Let your mind dwell on all the objects proper to recall that image, while yet it has influence to disturb the false peace of your passions. Visit the tomb of your ancestors, in the presence of their ashes, to meditate on the vanity of all earthly things. Go and ask. What now, in these dark habitations of death, remains to them of all their pleasures, dignities, and splendour? Open yourself these gloomy dwellings, and, reflect- ing on what they had formerly been in the eyes of men, see what they now are ; spectres, whose presence you with difficulty can support ; loathsome masses of worms and putrefaction : such are they in the eyes of men; but what are they in the sight of God? Descend, in idea, into these dweUings of horror and infec- tion, and choose beforehand your own place ; figure yourself, in that last hour, extended on the bed of anguish, struggling with death, your limbs benumbed and already seized with a mortal coldness ; your tongue already bound in the chains of death ; your eyes fixed, covered with a cloud of confusion, and before which all things begin to disappear; your relations and friends around you, offering up ineffectual wishes for your recovery, and augmenting your fears and regrets by the tenderness of their sighs and the abundance of their tears : reflect upon that sight, so instructive, so interesting; you then, in the dismal struggles of that last com- bat, proving that you are still in life only by the con\ailsions which announce your death; the whole world annihilated to you; despoiled for ever of all your dignities and titles ; accompanied Solely by your works, and ready to appear in the presence of God, This is not a prediction; it is the history of all those who die every day to your knowledge, and it is the anticipation of your own. Think upon that terrible moment; the day, perhaps, is not far removed, yet, however distant it may be, you will at last reach it, and the interval will seem to you only an instant; and the only consolation you then can have, shall be, to have made the study of, and preparation for death, the employment of your life. Lastly. As ray final argument : — trace to their source these ex- cessive errors, which render the image and thoughts of death so terrible, and you will undoubtedly find them originating from the disorders of a criminal conscience : it is not death which you dread, it is the justice of God which awaits you beyond it, to ON DEATH. 161 punish the infidelities and crimes of your life : it is, that, covered as you are with the most shameful wounds, which disfigure in you his image, you are not in a state to present yourselves before him; and that to die in your present situation, must be to perish for ever. Purify, then, your conscience, put an end to, and expiate your criminal passions; recall God to your heart; no longer offer to his sight any thing worthy of his anger or punishment ; place your- selves in a state to hope something, after death, from his infinite mercy: then shall you see that last moment approach with less dread and trembling; and the sacrifice which you shall have already made to God, of the world and your passions, will not only render easy, but even sweet and consoling, the sacrifice you will then make to him of your life. For say, What has death so fearful to a faithful soul ? From what does it separate him? From a world which shall perish, and which is the country of the reprobate; from his riches, which torment him, of which the use is surrounded with dangers, and which he is forbid to use in the gratification of the senses ; from his relations and friends, whom he precedes only by a moment, and who shall soon follow him; from his body, which hitherto had been either a rock to his innocence or a perpetual obstacle to his holy desires ; from his oflices and dignities, which, in multi- plying his duties, augmented his dangers; lastly, from life, which to him was only an excilement, and an anxious desire to be deli- vered from it. What does death bestow on him, to compensate for what it takes away? It bestows unfading riches, of which none can ever deprive him; eternal joys, which he shall enjoy without fear or remorse ; the peaceable and certain possession of God himself, from which he can never be degraded ; deliverance from all his passions, which had ever been a constant source of disquiet and distress ; an unalterable peace, which he never could find on the earth; and, lastly, the society of the just and happy, in place of that of sinners, from whom it separates him. What then, O my God ! has the world so delightful, to attach a faithful soul? To him it is a vale of tears, where dangers are infinite, combats daily, victories rare, and defeats certain ; where every gratification must be denied to the senses; where all tempts, and all is forbidden to us ; where we must fly from and dread most, what most pleases us ; in a word, where, if you suffer not, if you weep not, if you resist not to the utmost extremity, if you combat not with- out ceasing, if you hate not yourself, you are lost. What, then, do you find so amiable, so alluring, so capable of attaching a Christian soul? And to die, is it not a gain and a triumph for him ? Besides, death is the only object he looks forward to; it is the only consolation which supports the fidelity of the just. Do they bend under afflictions ? They know that their end is near ; 152 ON DEATH. that the short and fleeting tribulations of this life shall soon be followed by a load of eternal glory; and in that thought they find an inexhaustible source of patience, fortitude, and joy. Do they feel the law of the members warring against the law of the spirit, and exciting commotions which bring innocence to the very brink of the precipice ? They are not ignorant, that, after the dissolu- tion of the earthly frame, it shall be restored to them pure and celestial ; and that, delivered from these bonds of misery, they shall then i-esemble the heavenly spirits : and that remembrance soothes and strengthens them. Do they groan under the weight of the yoke of Jesus Christ; and their faith, more weak, is it on the point of relaxing and sinking under the rigid duties of the gospel ? Ah ! the day of the Lord is nigh ; they almost touch the blessed recompense; and the end of their course, which they already see, animates, and gives them fresh vigour. Hear in what manner the apostle consoled the first Christians: My brethren, said he to them, time is short, the day approaches, the Lord is at the gate, and he will not delay; rejoice then; I again say to you, rejoice. Such was the only consolation of men, per- secuted, insulted, proscribed, trampled upon, regarded as the scum of the earth, the disgrace of the Jews, and the scoff of the Gentiles. They knew that death would soon dry up their tears ; that for them there would then be neither mourning, sorrow, nor sufferance ; that all would be changed ; and that thought softened every pain. Ah ! whosoever had told these generous justifiers of faith, that the Lord would never make them know death, but would leave them to dwell for ever on the earth, would have shaken their faith, tempted their constancy, and, by rob- bing them of that hope, would have deprived them of every consolation. You, my brethren, are, no doubt, little surprised at this, because death must appear a refuge to men afflicted and unhappy as they were. You are mistaken ; it was neither their persecutions nor sufTerings which occasioned their distress and sorrow; these were their joy, consolation, and pride : we glory, said they, in tribula- tions ; it was the state of separation in which they still lived from Jesus Christ, that alone was the source of their tears, and what rendered death so desirable. While we are in the body, said the apostle, we are sepa- rated from the Lord ; and that separation was a state of anguish and sorrow to these faithful Christians. Piety consists in wish- ing for a re-union with Jesus Christ, our Head ; in sighing for the happy moment which shall incorporate us with the chosen of God, in that mystical body, which, from the beginning of the world, is forming, of every tongue, every tribe, and every nation ; which is the completion of the designs of God, and which will glorify him, with Jesus Christ, to all eternity. Hero ON DKATH. 153 we are like branches torn from their stem ; like stran^rers wander- ing in a foreign land ; like fettered captives in a jirison, waiting their deliverance ; like children, banished for a time from their pa- ternal inheritance and mansion : in a word, like members separated from their body. Since Jesus Christ, our Head, ascended to hea- ven, the earth is no longer the place of our establishment : we look forward, in blessed expectation, to the coming of the Lord. That desire constitutes all our piety and consolation ; and a Christian, not to long for that happy moment, but to dread, and even look upon it as a misfortune, is to fly in the fiice of Jesus Christ; to renounce all communication with him ; to reject the promises of faith and the glorious title of a citizen of heaven; it is to centre our happiness on the things of the earth, to doubt of a future state, to regard religion as a dream, and to believe that all dies with us. No, my brethren, death has nothing to a just soul but what is pleasing and desirable. Arrived at that happy moment, he, without regret, sees a world perish*, which he had never loved, and which to him had never appeared otherwise than a confu- sion of vanities : his eyes close with pleasure on all those vain shows which the earth offers, which he had always regarded as the splendour of a moment, and whose dangerous illusions he had never ceased to dread : he feels, without uneasiness, — what do I say? — with satisfaction, that mortal body, which had been the subject of all his temptations, and the fatal source of all his weaknesses, become clothed with immortality: he re- grets nothing on the earth, where he leaves nothing, and from whence his heart flies along with his soul : he even complains, not that he is carried off in the middle of his career, and that his days are concluded in the flower of his age ; on the con- trary, he thanks his deliverer for having abridged his sufferinps with his years, for having exacted only a portion of his debt as the price of his eternity, and for having speedily consum- mated his sacrifice, lest a longer residence in a corrupted world should have perverted his heart. His trials, his mortifications, which had cost so much to the weakness of the flesh, are then his sweetest reflections : he sees that all now vanishes, except what he has 4one for God ; that all now abandon him, his riches, relations, friends, and dignities, his works alone remain- ing; and he is transported with joy, to think that he had never placed his trust in the favour of princes, in the children of men, in the vain hopes of fortune, in things which must soon perish, but in the Lord alone, who remaineth eternally, and in whose bosom he goes to experience that peace and tranquillity which mortals cannot bestow. Thus tranquil on the past, des- pising the present, transported to touch at last that futurity, the sole object of his desires, already seeing the bosom of Abra- ham open to receive him, and the Son of Man,x seated at the right hand of his Father, holding out for him the crown of 154 THE DEATH OF A SINNEIl, AND immortality, he sleeps in the Lord : he is waited by blessed spirits to the habitation of the holy, and returns to the place from whence he originally came. May you, ray brethren, in this manner see your course ter- minated. SERMON X. ON IHE DEATH OF A SINNER, ANT) THAT OF A RIGHTEOUS CHARACTER. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." — Rev. xiv. 13. There is something peculiarly striking and incomprehensible in the human passions. All men wish to live : they look upon death as the most dreadful of all evils : all their passions attach them to life : yet, nevertheless, those very passions incessantly urge them toward that death for which they feel such horror ; nay, it should even seem, that their only purpose in life is to accelerate the mom/ent of death. All men flatter themselves that they shall die the death of the righteous ; they wish it, they expect it. Knowing the impossibi- lity of remaining for ever on this earth, they trust that, before the arrival of their last moment, the passions which at present pollute and hold them in captivity, shall be completely overcome. They figure to themselves, as horrible, the lot of a sinner who expires in his iniquity and under the wrath of God ; yet, nevertheless, they, tranquilly prepare for themselves the same destiny. This dreadful period of human life, which is death in sin, strikes and appals them ; yet, like fools, they blindly and merrily pursue the road which leads to it. In vain do we announce to them, that, in general, men die as they have lived. They wish to live the life of a sinner, yet, nevertheless, to die the death of the righteous. My intention, at present, is not to undeceive you with regard to an illusion so common and so ridiculous, (let us reserve this subject for another occasion) ; but, since the death of the righteous ap- pears so earnestly to be wished for, and that of the sinner so dread- ful to you, I mean, by a representation of them both, to excite your desires for the one, and to awaken your just terrors for the other. As THAT OF A RIGHTEOUS CHARACTER. 155 you must finally quit this world in one of these two situations, it is proper to familiarize yourselves with a view of them both, that, by placing before your eyes the melancholy spectacle of the one, and the soothing consolations of the other, you may be enabled to judge which of the lots awaits you ; and, consequently, to adopt the necessary means to secure the decision in your favour. In the picture of the expiring sinner, you will see in what the world, with all its glory and pleasures, terminates ; from the recital of the last moments of the righteous man, you will learn to what virtue conducts, in spite of all its momentary checks and troubles. In the one, you will see the world from the eyes of a sinner in the moment of death ; and how vain, frivolous, and different from what is seems at present, will it then appear to you ! In the other, you will see virtue from the eyes of the expiring righteous man : how grand and inestimable will your heart then acknowledge it to be ! In the one, you will comprehend all the misery of a soul which has lived forgetful of its God ; in the other, the happiness of him who has lived only to please and to serve him : in a word, the picture of the death of the sinner will make you wish to hve the life of the righteous; and the image of the death of the just will inspire you with a holy horror at the life of the sinner. Part I. — In vain do we repel the image of death : every day brings it nearer. Youth glides away ; years hurry on ; and, like water, says the scripture, spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, we rapidly course toward the abyss of eternity, where, for eve^ swallowed up, we can never return upon our steps to appear once more upon the earth. I know that the brevity and uncertainty of life are continual sub- jects of conversation to us. The deaths of our relations, our friends, our companions, frequently sudden, and always unexpected, fur- nish us with a thousand reflections on the frailty of every thing terrestrial. We are incessantly repeating that the world is nothing, that life is but a dream, and that it is a striking folly our interest- ing ourselves so deeply for what must pass so quickly away. But these are merely words : they are not the sentiments of the heart: they are discourses offered up at the shrine of custom; and that very custom occasions their being immediately and for ever forgot. Now, my brethren, form to yourselves a destiny on this earth agreeable to your own wishes : lengthen out, in your own minds, your days to a term beyond your most sanguine hopes. I even wish you to indulge in the enjoyment of so pleasing an illusion : but, at last, you must follow the track which your forefathers have trod ; you will at last see that day arrive, to which no other shall succeed ; and that day will be the day of your eternity. Happy if 156 THK DEATH OF A SINNKR, AXD you die in the Lord : miserable if you depart in sin. One of these lots awaits you. In the. final decision upon all men there will be only two sides — the right and the left : two divisions — the goats and the sheep. Allow me, then, to recall you to the bed of death, and to expose to your view the double spectacle of this last hour, so terrible to the sinner, and so consolatory to the righteous man. I say, terrible to the sinner, who, lulled by vain hopes of a conversion, at last reaches this fatal moment, full of desires, empty of good works, having ever lived a stranger to the Lord, and unable now to make any offering to him but of his crimes, and the anguish of seeing a period put to those days which he vainly believed would have endured for ever. Now, nothing can be more dreadful than the situation of this unfortunate wretch in the last moments of his life ! Whichever way his mind is employed, whether in recalling the past, or considering what is acting around him : in a word, whether he penetrates into that awful futurity upon the brink of which he hangs, or limits his feflections to the present moment, these objects, the only ones which can occupy his thoughts, or present themselves to his fancy, only open to him the blackest prospects, which overwhelm him with despair. For what can the past offer to a sinner, who, extended upon the bed of death, begins now to yield up dependence upon life, and reads, in the countenances of those around him, the dreadful intelligence that all is over with him ? What now does he see in that long course of days which he has run through upon the earth ? Alas ! he sees only vain cares and anxieties ; pleasures which passed away before they could be enjoyed, and iniquities which must endure for ever. Vain cares. — His w^hole life, which now appears to have oc- cupied but a moment, presents itself to him, and in it he views nothing but one continued restraint and a useless agitation. He recalls to his mind all he has suffered for a world which now flies from him; for a fortune which now vanishes; for a vain reputation, which accompanies him not into the presence of God ; for friends, whom he loses : for masters, who will soon for- get him ; for a name, which will be written only on the ashes of his tomb. What regret must agitate the mind of this unfortunate wretch, when he sees that his whole life has been one continued toil, yet that nothing to the purpose has been accomplished for himself! What regret, to have so often done violence to his inclinations, without gaining the advance of a single step toward heaven ! — to have always believed himself too feeble for the service of God, and yet to have had the strength and the constancy to fall a martyr to vanity and to a world which is on the eve of perishing ! Alas ! it is then that the sinner, overwhelmed, terrified at his THAT OF A UIGHTEOUS CHARACTKR. 157 own blindness and mistake, no longer finding but an empty space in a life which the world had alone engrossed ; perceiving, that, after a long succession of years upon the earth, he has not yet \ begun to live ; leaving history, perhaps, full of his actions, the public monuments loaded with the transactions of his life, the world filled with his name, and nothing, alas ! which deserves to be written in the book of eternity, or which may follow him into the presence of God . Then it is, though too late, that he begins to hold a language to himself, which we have frequent opportunities ^ of hearing. " I have lived, then, only for vanity? Why have I /^V'^iot served my God as I have served my masters '? Alas ! were so many anxieties, and so much trouble, necessary to accomplish my own destruction ? Why, at least, did I not receive my consolation in this world ? I should have enjoyed the present, that fleeting moment which passes away from me ; and I should not then have lost all. But my life has been always filled with anxieties, subjec- tions, fatigues, and restraints, and all these in order to prepare for me everlasting misery. What madness, to have suflered more toward my own ruin, than was required to have accomplished my salvation; and to have regarded the life of the upright as a melan- choly and an insupportable one ; seeing they have done nothing so difiicult for God, that I have not performed an hundred-fold for the world, which is nothing, and from which I have consequently nothing to expect." Yes, my brethren, it is in that last moment that your whole life will present itself to your view ; but in very different co- lours from those in which it appears to you to-day. At present you count upon services performed for the state ; places which you have filled ; actions in which you have distinguished your- selves; wounds, which still bear testimony to your valour; the number of your campaigns ; the splendour of your orders ; all these appear objects of importance and reality to you. The pubhc applauses which accompany them ; the rewards with which they are followed ; the fame which publishes them ; the distinctions attached to them ; all these only recall your past days to you, as days full, occupied, marked each by some me- morable action, and by events worthy of be^ng for ever pre- served to posterity. You even distinguish yourselves, in your own minds, from those indolent characters of your own rank, who have led an obscure, idle, and useless life, and disho- noured their names by that slothful efTeminacy which has kept them always groveling in the dust. But, on the bed of death, in that last moment when the world flies off and eternity ap- proaches, your eyes will be opened ; the scene will be changed ; the illusion, which at present magnifies these objects, will be dissipated. You will see things as they really are; and that which formerly appeared so grand, so illustrious, as it was done 158 THE DEATH OF A SInVuR, AND only for the sake of the world, of glory, of fortune, will no longer appear of the least importance to you. You will no longer find any thing real in your life but what you shall have done for God ; nothing praiseworthy but works of faith and of piety ; nothing great but what will merit eternity ; and a single drop of cold water in the name of Jesus Christ, a single tear shed in his presence, and the slightest mortification suffered for his sake, will all appear more precious, more estimable to you, than all the wonders which the world admires, and which shall perish with it. Not that the dying sinner finds only cares and anxieties thrown away in his past life, he finds the remembrance likewise of his pleasures ; but this very remembrance depresses and overwhelms him : pleasures, which have existed only for a moment : he now perceives that he has sacrificed his soul, and his eternal welfare, to a fugitive moment of passion and voluptuousness. Alas ! life had appeared too long to him to be entirely consecrated to God. He was afraid to adopt too early the side of virtue, lest he should be unable to support its duration, its weariness, and its conse- quences. He looked forward to the years he had still to run as to an immense space, through which he must travel under the weight of the cross, and separated from the world in the practice of Christian works. This idea alone had always suspended his good intentions; and, in order to return to God, he waited the last stage of hfe as the one in which perseverance is most certain. What a surprise in this last hour, to find that what had to him appeared so long has in reality been but an instant ; that his infancy and old age so nearly touch each other, that they only form, as I may say, one day ; and that, from his mother's breast, he has made but one step toward the grave. Nor is this the bitterest pang which he experiences in the remembrance of his pleasures : they have vanished like a dream ; but he, who formerly claimed an honour to himself from their gratification, is now covered with confusion and shame at their recollection : so many shameful excesses ; such weakness and debauchery. He, who piqued himself upon reason, elevation of mind, and haughtiness toward man ; O my God ! he then finds himself the weakest, the most despicable of sinners ! Apparently, perhaps, a life of prudence, yet sunk in all the infamy of the senses and the pue- rility of the passions ! A life of glory in the eyes of men ; but, in the sight of God, the most shameful, the most deserving of contempt and disgrace ! A life which success, perhaps, had continually accompanied ; yet, nevertheless, in private, the most absurd, the most trifling, the most destitute of reflection and wisdom ! Pleasures, in a word, which have been the source of all his chagrins ; which have empoisoned every enjoyment of life ; THAT Ol- A RIGHTKOUS CUAIIACTKR. 169 which have changed his happiest days into days of madness and lamentation. Pleasures for which he has ever paid dear, and of which he has never experienced but the anxieties and the bitterness : such are the foundations of this frivolous happiness. His passions alone have rendered life miserable to him ; and the only moments of tranquil- lity he has enjoyed in the whole course of his life, are those in which his heart has been sheltered from their influence. *' The days of my pleasures are fled," says the sinner then to himself, but in a disposition of mind very different from that of Job : " Those day<5 which have occasioned all the sorrows of my life, by which my rest has been broken, and the calm stillness of the night changed into the blackest thoughts and uneasinesses : yet, nevertheless, great God ! thou wilt still punish the sorrows and distresses of my unfortunate life ! All the bitterness of my passions is marked against me in the book of thy wrath ; and thou preparest for me, in addition to gratifications which have always been the source of all my miseries, a misery without end, and boundless." Behold what the expiring sinner experiences in the remem- brance of the past : crimes which shall endure for ever ; the weaknesses of childhood ; the dissipations of youth ; the pas- sions and the disorders of a more advanced period : what do I know, perhaps even the shameful excesses of a licentious old age. Ah ! my brethren, whilst in health, we perceive only the surface of our conscience ; we recall only a vague and confused remembrance of our life ; we see only the passions which actually enchain us ; a complete Ufe, spent in the habits of iniquity, appears to us only a single crime : but, on the bed of death, the darkness spread over the conscience of the sinner is dissipated. The more he searches into his heart, the more does he discover new stains ; the deeper he enters into that abyss, the more do new monsters of horror present themselves to his sight. He is lost in the chaos, and knows not how to proceed. To enlighten it, an entire new life would be necessary : alas ! and time flies : scarcely do a few moments now remain to him, and he must precipitate a confession for which the greatest leisure would hardly suffice, and which can precede but an instant the awfuljudgment of the justice of God. Alas ! we often complain, during life, of a treacherous memory, — that we forget every thing,' — that the minister of God is under the necessity of remedying our inattention, and of assisting us to know and to judge of ourselves: but in that last moment the expiring sinner shall require no assistance to recall the remem- brance of his crimes : the justice of God, which had delivered him up during health to all the profundity of his darkness, wmII then enhghten him in his wrath. Every thing around his bed of death awakens the remembrance of some new crime : servants, whom he has scandalized by his ex- ample ; children, whom he has neglected ; a wife, whom he has 160 THE DEATH OF A SINNER, AND rendered miserable by unlawful attachments ; ministers of the church, whom he has despised ; riches, which he has abused ; the luxury which surrounds him, for which the poor and his cre- ditors have suffered ; the pride and magnificence of his edifices, which have been reared up upon the inheritance of the widow and the orphan, or perhaps by the public calamity : every thing, in a word, the heavens and the earth, says Job, shall reveal his iniquity, and rise up against him ; shall recall to him the frightful history of his passions and of his crimes. Thus, the recollection of the past forms one of the most dreadful situations of the expiring sinner ; because in it he finds nothing but labours lost ; pleasures which have been dissipated the mo- ment almost of their existence ; and crimes which shall endure for ever. But the scenes around him are not less gloomy to this unfortu- nate soul : his surprises, his separations, his changes. His surprises. — He had always flattered himself that the hour of the Lord would not surprise him. Whatever had been said to him on the subject from the pulpit had not prevented him from assuring himself that his conscience should be properly arranged before the arrival of this dreaded moment. He has reached it, however, still loaded with all his crimes, without preparation, without the per- formance of a single exertion toward appeasing the wrath of the Almighty : he has reached it while he least thought of it, and he is now to be judged. His surprises. — God strikes him in the zenith of his passions, — • in the time when the thoughts of death were most distant from his mind, — when he had attained to places he had long ardently struggled for, and when, like the foolish man in the gospel, he had exhorted his soul to repose itself, and to enjoy in peace the fruit of its labours : it is in this moment that the justice of God surprises him, and he sees life, with every imaginary hope of hap- piness, blasted for ever. His surprises. — ^He is on the brink of the gulf, and the Almighty willeth that no one shall dare to inform him of his situation. His re- lations flatter him ; his friends leave him undeceived : they already lament him in secret as dead, yet they continue to speak of his re- covery : they deceive him, in order that he may deceive himself. The Scriptures must be fulfilled : the sinner must be taken by sur- prise in this last moment. Thou hast said it, O my God ! and thy words are the words of truth. His surprises. — Abandoned by all the succours of art, deli- vered up alone to anguish and disease, he still cannot persuade himself that death is near. He flatters himself; he still hopes: the justice of God, it would seem, leaves him a remnant of rea- son, for the sole purpose of seducing himself. From his ter- rors, his astonishment, his inquietudes, we see clearly that he THAT OF A RIGfiTEOUS CHARACTER. 161 still comprehends not the necessity of death. lie torments, he agitates himself, as if by these means he could escape death ; but his agitations are only occasioned by regret for the loss of life, and are not the effects of grief for having wickedly spent it. The blinded sinner must be so to the end ; and his death must be similar to his life. In a word, his surprises. — He sees now that the world has all along deceived him; that it has continually led him from illusion to illusion, and from hope to hope ; that things have never taken place exactly as he had promised himself; and" that he has always been the dupe of his own errors. He cannot comprehend how his blindness could possibly be so constant ; that for such a series of years he could obstinately continue to make such sacrifices for a world, for masters, whose only payment has been vain promises; and that his entire life has been one continued indifierence on the part of the world to him, and an intoxication on his to the world. But what overpowers him is, the impossibility of remedy- ing the mistake ; that he can die only once ; and that, after having badly run his race, he can no more recall the past, or, by retracing his steps, undertake a new trial. Thou art just, O my God! and thou wiliest that the sinner should in advance pronounce against himself, in order that he may afterward be judged from his own mouth. The surprises of the dying sinner are, therefore, overwhelming; but the separations which take place in that last moment are not les-s so for him. The more he was attached to the world, to life, to all its works, the more does he suffer when a separation becomes inevitable. Every tie, which now must be broken asunder, be- comes a wound which rankles in his heart ; every separation be- comes a new death to his mind. Separation from the riches which, with such constant and laborious attention he' had accumulated, by means, perhaps, re- pugnant to salvation; in the possession of which he obstmately persisted, in spite of all the reproaches of his conscience, and which he had cruelly refused to the necessities of his brethren. — They now, however, escape from him; the mass of earth is dissipated before his eyes ; his love, his regret for their loss, and the guilt of having acquired them, are the only remaining proofs that they were once in his possession. Separation from the magnificence which surrounds him ; from his proud edifices, in whose stately walls he once fondly believed he had erected an asylum against death ; from the vanity and luxury of his furniture, of all which no portion shall now remain to him but the mournful cloth which is to encircle him in the tomb; from that air of opulence in the midst of which he had always Hved. All escape from him; all abandon him; and he begins to look upon himself as a stranger in the 'midst of his palaces; where, indeed, he ought always to have considered himself as such; as an 162 THE DKATH OF A SINNKR, AND iinknown, who no longer possesses any thing there; as an unfor- tunate wretch, whom they are on the point of stripping before his eyes, and whom they only allow to gratify his sight v/ith the spoils for a little while, in order to augment his regret and his punishment. Separation from his honours and ofiices, which he leaves, per- haps to a rival ; to which he had at last attained, by wading through so many dangers, so many anxieties, so many meannesses, and which he had enjoyed with so much insolence and pride. He is already onUhe bed of death, stripped of all the marks of his dig- nities, and of all his titles, preserving that of a sinner alone, which he in vain, and now too late, bestows upon himself. Alas! in this last moment, he would gladly embrace the most servile conditioiv; he would accept, as a favour, the most obscure and the most gro- velling station, could but his days be prolonged on these condi- tions; he envies the lot of his slaves, whom he leaves behind him; he rapidly advances toward death, and turns back his eyes with regret, to take a lingering look of Hfe. Separation from his body, for whose gratification he had always lived, and with which, by favouring all its passions, he had con- tracted such lively and intimate ties. He feels that the house of mud is crumbling into dust; he feels the approaches of death in each of his senses; he no longer holds to life, but by a carcase which moulders away; by the cruel agonies which his diseases make him feel ; by the excess of his love for it, and which becomes more lively in proportion as he advances toward the moment of separation: from his relations, from his friends, whom he sees surrounding his bed, and whose tears and lamentations wring his heart, and make him cruelly feel the anguish of losing them for ever. Separation from the world, where he had enjoyed so many distinguished offices ; where he had established, aggrandized, and arranged himself, as if it had been intended for the place of his eternal residence ; from the world, in whose smiles he only lived ; on whose stage he had ever been one of the principal actors ; in whose transactions he had always taken such an active part, and where he had figured with so much splendour, and so many talents, to render himself conspicuous in it. His body now quits it; but his heart and all his affections are centered in it still: the world dies to him, but he himself, in expiring, dies not to the world. Then it is that the Almighty is great in the eyes of the expiring sinner. It is in that terrible moment, that the whole world, crumbling; disappearing from his sight, he sees only God who re- maineth, v/ho fiUeth all, who alone changeth not, and passeth not away. Formerly he used to complain, with an impious and ironical air, that it is very difficult to feel any fervent emotions for a God whom we see not, and not to love beings whom we perceive, and THAT OF A RIGHTEOUS CHARACTER. ^ 163 who interest all our senses. Ah ! in this last moment, he shall see only God ; the hitherto invisible will now be visible to him ; his senses, already extinguished, will reject all sensual objects; all shall vanish around him ; and God will take the place of those delusions which had misled and deceived him through life. Thus every thing changes to this unfortunate wretch ; and these changes, w^ith his separations and surprises, occasion the last bit- terness of the spectacle of death. Change in his credit and in his authority. — From the moment that nothing farther is to be expected from his life, the world ceases to reckon upon him ; his pretended friends withdraw; his dependants already seek, elsewhere, other protectors, and other masters; even his slaves are employed in securing to themselves, after his death, an establishment which may suit them ; scarcely does a sufficient number remain ai'ound him to catch lys last sighs. All abandon him ; all withdraw themselves ; he no longer sees around him that eager crowd of worshippers; it is a successor, perhaps, upon whom they already lavish the same attentions ; whilst he, says Job, alone in the bed of his anguish, is no longer surrounded but by the horrors of death ; already enters into that frightful solitude which the grave prepares for him, and makes bitter reflections on the inconstancy of the world and the little dependence to be placed on men. Change in the public esteem, with which he had been so flat- tered, so intoxicated. — Alas ! that world, by which he had been so celebrated, has already forgotten him. The change which his death shall necessarily occasion in the scene, may perhaps engage, for a few days, the public attention; but this. short interval over, and he shall be plunged in oblivion ; scarcely will it be remem- bered that he has existed ; every tongue will now be employed in celebrating the abilities of a successor, and exalting his character upon the wrecks of his memory and reputation. He already per- ceives this neglect; that he has only to die, and the blank will speedily be filled up; that no vestige of him shall even remain in the world ; and that the upright alone, who had seen him sur- rounded with all his pomp, will say to themselves. Where is he now ? Where now are those flatteries which his greatness attracted? Behold to what the world conducts, and what is to be the portion of those who serve it ! Change in his body. — That flesh, which he had flattered, idolized so much ; that vain beauty, which had attracted so many glances, and corrupted so many hearts, is already but a spectacle of horror, wlKise sight is hardly supportable ; it is no longer but a carcase, which is approached with dread. That unfortunate creature, who had lighted up so many unjust passions: alas! his friends, his relations, even his slaves avoid him, conceal themselves, dare not approach him but with precaution, and no longer bestow upon him but the common offices of decency, and even these with reluc- M 2 164 THE DEATH OF A SINNER, AND tance. He himself shrinks with horror, and shudders at himself. " I," says he to himself, who formerly attracted every look, " I call my servants, and they give me no answer : my breath is corrupt ; my days are extinct ; the grave is ready for me." — Job xix. 17. ' Lastly, change in every thing which surrounds him. — His eyes seek some resting-place, some object of comfort, and no where do they find but the dreary representations of death. Yet even still, the remembrance of the past, and the view of the present, would be little to the expiring sinner ; could he confine himself to these, he would not be so completely miserable ; but the thoughts of a futurity convulse him with horror and despair. That futurity, that incomprehensible region of darkness, which he now approaches, conscience his only companion ; that futurity, that unknown land from which no traveller has ever returned, where he knows not whom he shall find, nor what awaits him; that futurity, that fathomless abyss, in which his mind is lost and bewildered, and into which he must now plunge, ignorant of his destiny ; that futurity, that tomb, that residence of horror, where he must now occupy his place amongst the ashes and the carcases of his ancestors ; that futurity, that incomprehensible eternity, even the aspect of which he cannot support; that futurity, in a word, that dread- ful judgment to which, before the wrath of God, he must now appear, and render account of a life of which every moment almost has been occupied by crimes. Alas ! while he only looked forward to this terrible futurity, at a distance, he made an infamous boast of not dreading it ; he continually demanded, with a tone of blasphemy and derision, Who is returned from it? He ridi- culed the vulgar apprehensions, and piqued himself upon his undaunted courage. But from the moment that the hand of God is upon him ; from the moment that death approaches near, that the gates of eternity open to receive him, and that he touches upon that terrible futurity, against which he seemed so fortified; ah! he then becomes either weak, trembhng, dis- solved in tears, raising up suppliant hands to heaven, or gloomy, silent, agitated, revolving within himself the most dreadful thoughts, and no longer expecting more consolation or mercy, from his weak tears and lamentations, than from his frenzies and despair. Yes, my brethren, this unfortunate wretch, who had always lulled himself in his excesses ; always flattered himself, that one good moment alone was necessary, one sentiment of com- punction before death, to appease the anger of God, despairs then of his clemency. In vain is he told of his eternal mercies : he feels to what a degree he is unworthy of them : in vain the minister of the church endeavours to soothe his terrors, by opening to him the bosom of his divine mercy ; these pro- mises touch him little, because he knows well that the charity THAT OK A RIGHTKOUS CHARACTER. 165 of the church, which never despairs of salvation tor its chil- dren, cannot, however, alter the awful justice of the judgments of God. In vain is he promised forgiveness of his crimes; a secret and terrible voice resounds from the bottom of his heart, and tells him that there is no salvation for the impious, and that he can have no dependence upon promises which are given to his miseries rather than to the truth. In vain is he exhorted to apply to those last remedies which the church offers to the dying : he regards them as desperate reliefs, which are haaarded when hope is over, and which are bestowed more for the consolation of the living than from any prospect of utility to those who are departing. Servants of Jesus Christ are called in to support him in this last moment ; whilst all he is enabled to do, is, secretly to envy their lot, and to detest the misery of his own. His friends and relations are assembled round his bed, to receive his last sighs, and he turns away from them his eyes, because he finds still amidst them the remem- brance of his crimes. Death, however, approaches ; the minis- ter endeavours to support, by prayer, the spark of life which still remains : " Depart, Christian soul !" says he. He says not to him. Prince, grandee of the world, depart. During his life, the public monuments were hardly sufficient for the number and pride of his titles : in this last moment they give him that title alone which he had received in baptism ; the only one to which he had paid no attention, and the only one which can remain to him for ever De- part, Christian soul. Alas ! he had lived as if the body had formed his only being and treasure : he had even tried to persuade himself that his soul was nothing, that man is only a composition of flesh and blood, and that every thing perishes with us : he is now in- formed that it is his body, which is nothing but a morsel of clay now on the point of crumbling into pieces, and his only immortal being is that soul, that image of Divinity, that intelligence, alone capable of knowing and loving its Creator, which now prepares to quit its earthly mansion and appear before his awful tribunal. — Depart, Christian soul. You had looked upon the earth as your country ; and it was only a place of pilgrimage from which you must depart. The church thought to have announced glad tidings to you, the ex- piration of your exilement, in announcing the dissolution of your earthly frame : alas ! and it only brings you melancholy and frightful news, and opens the commencement of your miseries and anguish ! Depart, then. Christian soul. — Soul, marked with the seal of sal- vation, which you have effaced, — redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, which you have trampled underfoot, — purified by the grace of regeneration, which you have a thousand times stained, — en- lightened by the lights of the faith, which you have always re- jected,— loaded with all the tender mercies of heaven, which you liave always unworthily profaned — depart, Christian soul. Go, 166 TMK DKATH OF A SlNNEKj AND and carry before Jesus Christ that august title, which should have been the illustrious mark of thy salvation, but which now becomes the greatest of thy crimes. Then, the expiring sinner, no longer finding in the remembrance of the past but regrets which overwhelm him,— in all which takes place around him but images which afflict him, — in the thoughts of futurity but horrors which appal him, — no longer knowing to whom to have recourse, — neither to created beings, who nov/ leave him, — nor to the world, which vanishes, — nor to men, who cannot save him from death, — nor to the j ust God, whom he looks upon as a declared enemy, and from whom he has no indulgenceto expect — a thousand horrors occupy his thoughts ; he torments, he agitates himself, in order to fly from death, which grasps him, or at least to fly from himself : from his expiring eyes issue something, I know not what, of dark and gloomy, which expresses the fury of his soul. In his anguish he utters v/ords, interrupted by sobs, which are unintelli- gible, and to which they know not whether repentance or despair gives birth. He is seized with convulsions, which they are igno- rant whether to ascribe to the actual dissolution of his body, or to the soul which feels the approach of its Judge. He deeply sighs, and they know not whether the remembrance of his past crimes, or the despair of quitting life, forces from him such groans of anguish. At Itfst, in the midst of these melancholy exertions, his eyes fix, his features change, his countenance becomes disfigured, his livid lips convulsively separate, his whole frame quivers, and, by this last effort, his unfortunate soul tears itself reluctantly from that body of clay, falls into the hands of its God, and finds itself alone at the foot of the awful tribunal. My brethren, in this manner do those expire who forget their Creator during life. Thus shall you yourselves die, if your crimes accompany you to that last moment. Every thing will change in your eyes, and you shall not change yourselves : you shall die, and you shall die in sin as you have lived ; and your death will be similar to your life. Prevent this misery, O my brethren ! live the life of the righteous, and your death, similar to theirs, will be accompanied with joy, peace, and con- solation. This is what I mean to explain in the second part of this Discourse. Part II. — I know, that even to the most upright souls there is al- ways something terrible in death. The judgments of God, whose pro- found secrecy they dread, — the darkness of their own conscience, in which they continually figure to themselves hidden stains, known to the Almighty alone, — the liveliness of their faith, and of their love, which in their own sight magnifies their smallest faults ; in a word, the dissolution itself of their earthly frame, and the natural horror we feel for the grave, — all these occasion death to be at- THAT OF A RIGHTEOUS CHARACTER. 167 tended by a natural sensatiou of dread and repugnance, insomuch that as St.Paul says, the most upright themselves, who anxiously long to be clothed with that immortality promised to them, would yet willingly attain it without being divested of the mortality which en- compasses them. It is not less true, however, that in them grace rises superior to that horror of death which springs from nature ; and in that mo- ment, whether they recall the past, consider the present, or look forward to the future, they find in the remembrance of the past the end of their troubles, — in the consideration of the present a novelty which moves them with a holy joy, — in their views tovvard the fu- ture the certainty of an eternity which fills them with rapture, in- somuch, that the same situations which are the occasion of despair to the dying sinner, become then an abundant source of consolation to the faithful soul. I say, whether they recall the past; and here, my brethren, figure to yourselves a righteous character on the bed of death, who has long, by the practice of Christian works, prepared himself for this last moment, has amassed a treasure of righte- ousness, that he may not appear empty-handed in the presence of his Judge, and has lived in faith, that he may die in peace, and in all the consolations of hope ; figure to yourselves this soul, reaching at last that final hour of which he had never lost sight, and with which he had always connected all the troubles, all the wants, all the self-denials, aU the events of his mortal life : I say that nothing is more soothing to him than the re- membrance of the past, — of his sufferings, of his mortifications, of all the trials which he has undergone. Yes, my brethren, it appears frightful to you at - present to sutler for God ; the smallest exertions upon yourselves, required by religion, seem to overpower you ; you consider as unhappy those who bear the yoke of Jesus Christ, and who, to please him, renounce the world and all its charms : but, on the bed of death, the most soothing reflection to a faithful soul is the remembrance pf what he has suffered for his God. He then comprehends all the merit of penitence, and how absurd men are to dispute with God a moment of constraint which will be entitled to the re- compense of a felicity without end and without measure ; for then his consolation is, that he has sacrificed only the gratifica- tions of a moment, of which there would only remain to him now the confusion and the shame, — that whatever he might have suffered for the world, would in this moment be lost to him; on the contrary, that the smallest suffering for God, a tear, a mortification, a vain pleasure sacrificed, an improper desire re- pressed, will never be forgotten, but shall last as long as God himself. What consoles him is, that of all the human luxuries and enjoyments, alas ! on the bed of death, there remain no 168 THK DEATH OF A SINNER, AND riiore to the sinner who has always indulged in them, than to the righteous man who has always abstained from them; that they arc equally past to them both ; but that the one shall bear eternally the guilt of having delivered himself up to them, and the other the glory of having known how to vanquish them. This is what the past offers to a faithful soul on the bed of death : sufferings, afflictions, which have endured but a little while, and which are now to be eternally rewarded, — the time of dangers and temptations past, — the attacks made by the world upon his faith at last terminated, — the trials in which his innocence had run so many risks, at last disappeared, — the occasions in which his virtue had so nearly been shipwrecked, at last, for ever removed, — the continual combats which he had to sustain against his passions, at last ended, — and every obstacle which flesh and blood had always placed in the way of his piety, for ever annihilated. How sweet it is, when safely arrived in port, to recall the remembrance of past dangers and tempests ! When victorious in the race, how pleasing to retrace, in imagination, our exertions, and to review those parts of the course most distinguished by the toils, the obstacles, and the difficulties which have rendered them celebrated. The righteous man, then, appears to me, like another Moses, expiring on the holy mountain, where the Lord had marked out to him his grave : " Get thee up into the mountain Abarim, and die," &c., Deut. xxxii. 49; who, before he expired, looking down from that sacred place, and casting his eyes' over that extent of country, the nations and kingdoms he had traversed, and now leaves behind him, — reviews, in imagination, the numberless dangers he had es- caped,— his battles with so many conquered nations,-^the fatigues of the desert, — the snares of Midian, — the murmurs and calamities! of his brethren, — the rocks split in pieces, — the dangers of Egypt avoided, — the waters of the Red Sea got over, — hunger, thirst, and weariness struggled against, — and touching at last the happy term of so many labours, and viewing from afar that country promised to his father, he sings a song of thanksgiving and praise to God, dies transported with joy, both at the remembrance of so many dangers avoided, and at the prospect of that place of rest which the Lord shows him from afar, and looks upon the holy mountain, where he is to expire, as the reward of his toils, and the happy term of his course. Not that the remembrance of the past, in recalling to the dy- ing righteous soul the trials and dangers of his past life, does not also remind him of his infidelities and wanderings ; but these are errors expiated by the sighs of repentance, wander- ings which have fortunately been followed by a renewal of fer- vour and fidelity, wanderings, which recall to him the mercies of God to his soul, who hath made his crimes the means of his repentance, his passions of his conversion, and his errors of his salvation. The grief for his faults, in his last moment, becomes THAT OF A KIGHTJiOUS CHARACTER. 1<59 oijly a sorrow of consoiution and tenderness ; the tears which this remembrance draws from him still are no longer but the tears of joy and gratitude. The former mercies of God to his soul fill him with confidence, and inspire him with* a just hope of more; the past conduct of God, with regard to him, comforts his heart, and seems to answer for what he shall experience in future. He no longer, as in the days of his penitence and mourning, figures to himself the Al- mighty under the idea of a terrible and severe Judge, whom he had insulted, and whom it was necessary to appease; but as the Father of Mercies, and a God of all consolation, who prepares to receive him into his bosom, and there shelter him from all his afflictions. " Awake, righteous soul," says then to him, in secret, his Lord and his God ; " Thou who hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, thou shalt no more drink it again ; the days of thy tri- bulation are past. Shake thyself from the dust, arise, and sit down ; loose thyself from the bands of thy neck. O, captive daugh- ter of Zion ! put on thy strength, put on thy beautiful garments : enter into the everlasting joy of thy Lord, where thou shalt ob- tain gladne^ss and peace, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away ;" Isaiah h. 17, &c. First consolation of the upright soul in the bed of death ; the remembrance of the past.'— But all which takes place around him; the world which flies from him; all created beings which dis- appear; all that phantom of vanity which vanishes; this change, this novelty, is the source still of a thousand consolations to him. We have just seen, that the despair of the dying sinner, in viewing what passes around him, is occasioned by his surprises, his separations, his changes ; these are precisely the sources of consolation to the faithful soul in this last moment. -Nothing sur- prises him ; he is separated from nothing ; in his eyes nothing is changed. Nothing surprises him. — The hour of the Lord surprises him not ; he expected, he longed for it. The thought of this last moment accompanied all his actions, entered into all his projects, regulated all his desires, and animated his whole conduct through life. Every hour, every moment, seemed to him the one which the upright Judge had appointed for that dreadful reckoning, where righteousness itself shall be judged. Thus had he lived, incessantly preparing his soul for that last hour. Thus he expires, tranquil, consoled, without surprise or dread, in the peace of his Lord ; death never approaching nearer to him than he had always beheld it ; and experiencing no difference between the day of his death and the ordinary ones of his life. Besides, what occasions the surprise and the despair of the sin- ner on the bed of death, is to see that the world, in which he had 170 THE DEATH OF A SINNER, AND ever placed all his coniidence, is nothing, is but a dream, which vanishes and is annihilated. But the faithful soul, in this last moment, ah ! he sees the world in the same light he liad always viewed itj as a shadow which tlittcth away ; — as a vapour which deceives at a distance, but, when approached, has neither reality nor substance. He feels, then, the holy joy of having estimated the world according to its merit; of having judged with propriety ; of never being attached to what must one day slip from him in a moment; and of having placed his confidence in God alone, who remaineth for ever, eternally to reward those who trust in him. ^. How sweet, then, to a faithful soul, to say to himself, I have made the happiest choice ; how fortunate for me that I attached myself only to God, since he alone will endure to me for ever ! My choice was regarded as a folly ; the world laughed it to scorn, and found mc whimsical and singular in not conforming myself to its ways ; but now this last moment verifies all. It is death that decides on which side are the wise or the foolish, and which of the two has judged aright, the worldly or the faithful. Thus does the upright soul, on the bed of death, view the world and all its glory. When the ministers of the church come to con- verse with him of God and the nothingness of all human things, these holy truths, so new to the sinner in that last moment, are subjects familiar to him, objects of which he had never lost sight. These consolatory truths are then his sweetest occupation ; he me- ditates upon, he enjoys them, he draws them from the bottom of his heart, where they had alvv^ays been cherished, to place them full in his view, and he contemplates them with joy. The minister of Jesus Christ speaks no new or foreign language to him ; it is the language of his heart: they are the sentiments of his whole life. Nothing soothes him so much, then, as to hear that God spoken of whom he had always loved ; those eternal riches, which he had always coveted ; that happiness of another life, for which he had always sighed ; and the nothingness of that world which ho. had always despised. All other subjects of conversation become in- sipid to him ; he can listen only to the mercies of the God of his fathers, and he regrets the moments as lost, which must necessa- rily be devoted to the regulation of an earthly mansion and the succession of his ancestors. Great God ! what knowledge ! what peace ! what delicious transports ! what holy emotions of love, of joy, of confidence, of thanksgiving, then fill the soul of this righteous character! His faith is renewed ; his love is invigorated ; his fervour is excited ; his compunction is awakened. The nearer the dissolution of the earthly man approaches, the more is the new man completed and perfected ! The more his mansion of clay crumbles, the more is his soul purified and exulted ! In proportion as the body falls into ruin, the spirit is disengaged THAT OF A lUGHTEOUS CHARAC FKU. 171 and renewed ; like a pure and brilliant llunio, which ascends and shines forth with additional splendour, in proportion as it dis- engages itself from the remains of matter which held it down, and as the substance to which it was attached is consumed and dissipated. Alas ! all discourses upon God fatigue the sinner on the bed of death : they irritate his evils ; his head suffers by them, and his rest is disturbed. It becomes necessary to manage his weakness, by venturing only a few words at proper periods ; to do it with precaution, lest their length should incommode him ; to choose the moments for speaking to him of the God who is ready to judge him, and whom he has never known. Holy artifices of charity are required, nay, deception is even necessary sometimes, to make him bestow a thought upon his salvation. Even the ministers of the church but rarely approach him, because they well know that their presence is only an intrusion. They are excluded as disagreeable and melancholy prophets ; his friends around him carefully turn the conversation from salvation, as conveying the news of death, and as a dismal subject which wearies him ; they endeavour to en- liven his spirits by relating the affairs and vanities of the age, which had engrossed him during life. Great God ! and thou per- mittest that this unfortunate wretch should bear, even to death, his dislike to truth ; that worldly images shall still occupy him in this last moment ; and that they shall dread to speak to him of his God whom he has always dreaded to serve and to know ! But let us not lose sight of the faithful soul. Not only he sees nothing on the bed of death which surprises him, but he is likewise separated from nothing which he laments or regrets. For what can death separate him from to occasion either regret or tears ? From the world ? Alas ! from a world in which he had always lived as an exile ; in which he had found only shame- ful excesses which grieved his faith ; rocks, at which lys inno- cence trembled ; attentions, which were troublesome to him ; subjections, which, in spite of himself, still divided him between heaven and the earth : we feel little regret for the loss of what we have never loved. From his riches and wealth ? Alas ! his treasure was in heaven : his riches had been the riches of the poor : he loses them not ; he only goes to regain them for ever in the bosom of God. From his titles and his dignities? Alas! it is a yoke from which he is delivered. The only title dear to him was the one he had received in baptism, which he now bears to the presence of God, and vv'hich constitutes his claim to the eternal promises. From his relations and friends? Alas ! he knows that he only precedes them by a moment ; that death cannot separate those whom charity hath joined upon the earth ; and that, soon united together in the bosom of God, they shall again form the same church and the same people, and shall enjoy the delights of an immortal society. From his children ?, 172 THK DEATH OF A SINNER, AND He leaves to thera the Lord as a father; his example and his in- structions as an inheritance; his good wishes and his blessing as a final consolation. And, like David, he expires in intreating for his son Solomon, not temporal prosperities, but a perfect heart, love of the law, and the fear of the God of his fathers. From his body ? Alas ! from that body which he had always chastised, crucified ; which he considered as his enemy ; which kept him still dependent upon the senses and the flesh; which overwhelmed him under the weight of so many humiliating wants ; from that house of clay which confined him prisoner; which prolonged the days of his banishment and his slavery, and retarded his union with Jesus Christ. Ah ! like St. Paul, he earnestly wishes its dissolution : it is an irksome clothing from which he is delivered; it is a wall of separation from his God, which is destroyed, and which now leaves him free and qualified to take his flight toward the eternal moun- tains. Thus, death separates him from nothing, because faith had already separated him from all. I do not add, that the changes which take place on the bed of death, so full of despair to the sinner, change nothing in the faith- ful soul. His reason, it is true, decays ; but, for a long time past, he had subjected it to the yoke oif" faith, and extinguished its vain lights before the light of God and the profundity of his mys- teries. His expiring eyes become darkened, and are closed upon all visible objects ; but long ago they had been fixed on the Invi- sible alone. His tongue is immoveable ; but he had long before planted the guard of circumspection on it, and meditated in silence the mercies of the God of his fathers. All his senses are blunted and lose their natural use ; but, for a long time past, he had himself interdicted their influence. He had eyes, and saw not; ears, and heard not; taste, and relished only the things of heaven. Nothing is changed, therefore, to this soul on the bed of death. His body falls in pieces ; all created beings vanish from his eyes; light retires ; all nature returns to nothing; and, in the midst of all these changes, he alone changeth not; he alone is always the same. How grand, my brethren, does faith render the righteous on the bed of death ! How worthy of God, of angels, and of men, is the sight of the upright soul in that last moment ! It is then that the faithful heart appears master of the world, and of all the created ; it is then that, participating already in the greatness and the immutability of the God to whom he is on the eve of being united, he is elevated above all ; in the world, without any connexion with it ; in a mortal body, without being chained to it ; in the midst of his relations and friends, without seeing or knowing them ; in the midst of the embarrassments and changes which his death opens to his sight, without the smallest interruption to his tranquillity. He is already fixed in the bosom of God, in the midst of the destruction of all things. THAT OF A RIGHTEOUS CHARACTER. 173 Once more, my brethren, how grand is it to have lived in the ob- servance of the law of the Lord, and to die in his fear ! With what, dignity does not faith then display itself in the righteoi>s soul ! It is the moment of his glory and triumph ; it is the centre at which the whole lustre of his life and of his virtues unite. How beautiful to see the righteous man, then, moving with a tranquil and majestic pace toward eternity ! And with reason did the false prophet cry out, when he saw the triumphal march of the Israelites into the Land of Promise, — " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my end be like his ;" Numb, xxiii. 10. And behold, my brethren, what completely fills with joy and consolation the faithful soul on the bed of death : it is the thought of futurity. The sinner, during health, looks forward to a future state with a tranquil eye : but in this last moment, beholding its approach, his tranquilHty is changed into shudderings and terror. The upright man, on the contrary, during the days of his mortal life, durst never regard, with a fixed eye, the depth and the extent of God's judgments: he wrought out his salvation with fear and trembhng ; he shuddered at the very thought of that dreadful futurity, where even the just, if judged without mercy, shall hardly be saved : but, on the bed of death, ah ! the God of peace, who displays himself to him, calms his agitations ; his fears immediately cease, and are changed into a sweet hope. He already pierces, with expiring eyes, through that cloud of mortality which still surrounds hin^i, and sees the throne of glory, and the Son of man at his Father's right-hand, ready to receive him; that immortal country, for which he had longed so much, and upon which his mind had always dwelt ; that holy Zion, which the God of his fathers filleth with his glory and his presence ; where he overfloweth the elect with a torrent of delights, and maketh them for ever to enjoy the incomprehensible riches which he hath prepared for those who love him ; that city of the people of God, the residence of the saints, the habitation of the just, and of the prophets, where he shall again find his brethren, with whom charity had united him on the earth, and with whom he will bless eternally the tender mercies of the Lord, and join with them in hallelujahs to his praise. Ah ! when also the ministers of the church come to announce to this soul that the hour is come, and that eternity approaches ; when they come to tell him in the name of the church, which sends them ; " Depart, Christian soul ; quit at last that earth where you have so long been a stranger and a captive : the time of trial and tribulation is over: behold at last the upright Judge, who comes tp strike off the chains of your mortality : return to the bosom of God from whence you came: quit now a world which was unworthy of you : the Almighty hath at last been touched with your tears ; he at last openeth to you the gate of 174 THE DEATH OF A SINNER, &C. eternity, the gate of the upright : depart faithful soul ; go and unite thyself to the heavenly church which expects thee: only remember your brethren whom you leave upon the earth still ex- posed to temptations and to storms: be touched with the melan- choly state of tlie church here below, which has given you birth in Jesus Christ, and which envies your departure : intreat the end of her captivity, and her re-union with her spouse, from whom she is still separated. Those who sleep in the Lord perish not for ever : we only quit you on the earth in order to regain you in a little time with Jesus Christ in the kinodom of the holy : the body, which you are on the point of leaving a prey to worms and to putrefaction, shall soon follow you, immortal and glorious. Not a hair of your head shall perish. There shall remain in your ashes a seed of immortality, even to the clay of revelation, when your parched bones shall be vivified, and again appear more resplendent than light : what happiness for you to be at last quit of all the miseries which still afflict us ; to be no longer exposed, like your brethren, to lose that God whom you go to enjoy; to shut your eyes at last on all the scandals which grieve us; on that vanity which seduces us ; on those examples which lead us astray ; on those attachments which engross us; and on those troubles which consume us ! What happiness to quit at last a place where every thing tires and every thing sullies us ; where we are a burden to ourselves, and where we only exist in order to be unhappy; and to go to a residence of peace, of joy, of quiet, where our only occupation will be to enjoy the God whom we love!" What blessed tidings, then, of joy and immortality to this righteous soul! What blessed arrangement! With what peace, what confidence, what thanksgivings, does he not accept it ! He raises, like old Simeon, his dying eyes to heaven ; and viewing the Lord, who cometh inwardly, says to him, " Break, O my God ! when thou pleasest, these remains of mortality ; these feeble ties which still keep me here : I wait, in peace and in hope, the effects of thine eternal promises." Thus, purified by the expiation of a holy and Christian life, fortified by the last remedies of the church, washed in the blood of the Lamb, supported by the hope of the promises, and ripe for eternity, he shuts his eyes with a holy joy on all sublunary creatures: he tranquilly goes to sleep in the Lord, and returns to the bosom of that God from whence he came. My brethren, any observation here would be useless. Such is the end of those who have lived in the fear of the Lord : their death is precious before God, hke their life. Such is the deplorable end of those who have neglected him to that last hour: the death of sinners is abominable in the eyes of the Lord equally as tlieir life. If you live in sin, you will die in all the horrors and in all the useless regrets of the sinner, and your death shall be an eternal OJ< CHARITY. 175 death. If you live in righteousness, you will die in peace, and in the confidence of the just, and your death will be only a passage to a blessed immortality. Now, to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, now, henceforth, and for ever- more. Amen. SERMON XI. ON CHARITY. *♦ And Jesus took the loaves, and, when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the discipl«s to them tliat were set down." — John vi. 11. It is not without design that our Saviour associates the disciples, in the prodigy of multiplying the loaves, and that he makes use of their ministry in distributing the miraculous food among a people pressed with hunger and want. He might again, no doubt, have made manna to rain upon the desert, and saved his disciples the trouble of so tedious a distribution. But might he not, after raising up Lazarus from the dead, have dispensed with their assistance in unloosing him ? Could his almighty voice, which had just broken asunder the chains of death, have found any resistance from the feeble bands which the hand of man had formed? It is because he wished to point out to them, before-hand, the sacred exercise of their ministiy; the part they were afterward to have in the spiritual resurrection of sinners ; and that whatever they should unloose upon the earth should be un- loosed in heaven. Again, when there was question of .paying tribute to Caesar, he needed not to have recourse to the expedient of Peter's casting his hook into the sea for the purpose of producing a piece of money out of the bowels of a fish : he who, even from stones, was able to raise up children to Abraham, might surely with greater ease have converted them into a precious metal, and thereby fur- nished the amount of the tribute due to Caesar. But, in the cha- racter of the Head of the Church, he meant to teach his ministers to respect those in authority; and, by rendering honour and tribute to the powers established by God, to set an example of submission to other believers. J 76 ON CHARITY. Thus, in making use, upon this occasion, of the intervention of the apostles to distribute the loaves to the multitude, his design, is, to accustom all his disciples to compassion and liberality toward the unfortunate : he establishes you the ministers pf his providence, and multiplies the riches of the earth in your hands, for the sole purpose of being distributed from thence among that multitude of unfortunate fellow-creatures which surrounds you. He, no doubt, might nourish them himself, as he formerly nou- rished Paul and Elijah in the desert; without your interference he might comfort those creatures which bear his image ; he, whose invisible hand prepares food even for the young ravens which in- voke him in their want; but he wishes to associate you in the merit of his liberality ; he wishes you to be placed between him- self and the poor, like refreshing clouds, always ready to shower upon them those fructifying streams which you have only received for their advantage. Such is the order of his providence; it was necessary that means of salvation should be provided for all men : riches would corrupt the heart, if charity were not to expiate their abuse ; indigence would fatigue and weary out virtue, if the succours of compassion were not to soften its bitterness; the poor facilitate to the rich the pardon of their pleasui-es ; the rich animate the poor not to lose the merit of their sufferings. Apply yourself, then, oe whom you may, to all the conse- quence of this gospel. If you groan under the yoke of poverty,, the tenderness and the care of Jesus Christ toward all the wants of a wandering and unprovided people will console you : if born to ojmlence, the example of the disciples will now instruct you. You will there see, first, the pretexts which they oppose to the duty of charity confuted : secondly, you will learn what ought to be its rules. That is to say, that in the first part of this Dis- course we shall establish this duty against all the vain excuses of avarice; in the second we shall instruct you in the manner of fulfilling it against even the defects of charity; it is the most natural instruction with which the history of the gospel pre- sents us. Part I. — It is scarcely a matter of controversy now in the world, wdiether the law of God make a precept to us of charity. The gospel is so pointed on this duty; the spirit and the ground- work of religion lead us so naturally to it; the idea alorre which we have of Providence, in the dis]7ensation of temporal things, leaves so little- room on that point to opinion or doubt, that, though many are ignorant of the extent of this obligation, yet there are almost none who do not admit of the foundation and principle. Who, indeed, is ignorant that the Lord, whose providence hath regulated all things with an order so admirable and beau- ON CHARITY. {"JJ tiful, and prepared food even for the beasts of the field, would never have left men, created after his own image, a prey to hunger and indigence, whilst he would liberally shower upon a small number of happy individuals the blessings of heaven and the fat of the earth, if he had not intended that the abundance of the one should supply the necessities of the other. Who is ignorant, that originally every thing belonged in com- mon to all men ; that simple nature knew neither property nor portions; and that at first, she left each of us in possession of the universe : but that, in order to put bounds to avarice, and to avoid trouble and dissensions, the common consent of the people established that the wisest, the most humane, and the most up- right, should likewise be the most opulent ; that, besides the por- tion of wealth destined to them by nature, they should also be charged Avith that of the weakest, to be its depositaries, and to de- fend it against usurpation and violence : consequently, that they were established by nature itself as the guardians of the unfortu- nate, and that whatever surplus they had was only the patrimony of their brethren confided to their care and to their equity ? Who, lastly, is ignorant that the ties of religion have still more firmly cemented the first bonds of union which nature had formed among men ; that the grace of Jesus Christ, which brought forth the first believers, made of them not only one heart and one soul, but also one family, where the idea of individual property was exploded j and that the gospel, making it a law to us to love our brethren as ourselves, no longer permits us to be ignorant of their wants, or to be insensible to their sorrows ? But it is with the duty of charity as with all the other duties of the law : in general, the obligation is not, even in idea, denied ; but does the circumstance of its fulfilment take place ? A pretext is never wanting, either to dispense with it entirely, or at least to be quit for a moiety of the duty. Now, it would appear that the Spirit of God hath meant to point out to us all these pretexts, in the answers which the disciples made to Jesus Christ in order to excuse themselves from assisting the famished multitude which had followed him to the desert. In the first place, they remind him that they had scarcely where- withal to supply their own wants ; and that only five loaves of barley and two fishes remained : behold the first pretext, made use of by covetousness, in opposition to the duty of compassion. Scarcely have they suflicient for themselves ; they have a name and a rank to support in the world ; children to establish ; credi- tors to satisfy ; public charges to support ; a thousand expenses of pure benevolence, to which attention must be paid ; now, what is any income, not entirely unlimited, to such endless demands ? In this manner the world continually speaks ; and a world the most brilliant, and the most sumptuous. N 178 ON CHARITY. Now, I well know, that the Umits of what is called a sufficiency, are not the same for all stations ; that they extend in proportion to rank and birth ; that one star, says the apostle, must differ in lustre from another ; that, even from the apostolic ages, men were seen in the assemblies of believers, clothed in robes of distinction, with rings of gold, while others, of a more obscure station, were forced to content themselves with the apparel necessary to cover their nakedness ; that, consequently, religion does not confound stations.; and that, if it forbid those who dwell in the palaces of kings to be effeminate in their manners, and indecently luxurious in their dress, it doth not at the same time prescribe to them the poverty and the simphcity of those who dwell in cottages, or of those who form the lower ranks of the people : I know it. But, my brethren, it is an incontestable truth, that, whatever surplus you may have, belongs not to you ; that it is the portion of the poor ; and that you are entitled to consider as your own, only that proportion of your revenues which is necessary to support that station in which Providence hath placed you. I ask, then, is it the gospel or covetousness, which must regulate that suffi- ciency ? Would you dare to pretend, that all those vanities of - which custom has now made a law, are to be held, in the sight of God, as expenses inseparable from your condition? That every thing which flatters, and is agreeable to you, which nourishes your pride, gratifies your caprices, and corrupts your heart, is for that reason necessary to yon ? That all which you sacrifice to the for- tune of a child, in order to raise him above his ancestors ; all which you risk in gaming ; that luxury, which either suits not your birth, or is an abuse of it: would you dare to pretend, that all these have incontestable claims on your revenues, which are to be preferred to those of charity? Lastly, would you dare to pretend, that, be- cause your father, perhaps obscure, and of the lowest rank, may have left to you all his wealth, and perhaps his crimes, you are entitled to forget your family and the house of your father, in or- der to mingle with the highest ranks, and to support the same eclat, because you are enabled to support the same expense ? If this be the case, my brethren, if you consider as a surplus only, that which may escape from your pleasures, from your ex- travagancies, and from your caprices, you have only to be volup- tuous, capricious, dissolute, and prodigal, in order to be wholly dispensed from the duty of charity. The more passions you shall have to satisfy, the more will your obligation to charity diminish ; and your excesses, which the Lord hath commanded you to ex- piate by acts of compassion, will themselves become a privilege to dispense yourselves from them. There must necessarily, there- fore, be some rule here to observe, and some limits to appoint ourselves, different from those of avarice ; and behold it, my bre- thren,— the rule of faith. Whatever tends to nourish only the ON liHAlUTY. 179 life of the senses, to flatter the passions, to countenance the vain pomp and abuses of the world, is superfluous to a Christian : these are what you ought to retrench, and to set apart; these are the funds and the heritage of the poor ; you are only their deposi- taries, and you cannot encroach upon them without usurpation and injustice. The gospel reduces to very little the sufficiency of a Christian, however exalted in the world ; religion retrenches much from the expenses ; and, did we live all according to the rules of faith, our wants, which would no longer be multiplied by our passions, would still be fewer ; the greatest part of our wealth would be found entirely useless; and, as in the first age of faith, indigence would no longer grieve the church, nor be seen among believers. Our expenses continually increase, because our passions are every day multiplied ; the opulence of our fathers is no longer t6 us but an uncomfortable poverty ; and our great riches can no longer suffice, because nothing can satisfy those who refuse them- selves nothing. And, in order to give this truth all the extent which the sub- ject in question demands, I ask you, secondly, do the elevation and abundance in which you are born dispense you from simplicity, frugality, modesty, and holy restraint? By being born great, you are not the less Christians. In vain, like those Israelites in the desert, have you amassed more manna than your brethren ; you cannot preserve for your use more than the measure prescribed by the law. Were it not so, our Saviour would have forbidden pomp, luxury, and worldly pleasures but to the poor and unfortunate, those to whom the misery of their condition renders needless that defence. Now, this grand truth admitted, if, according to the rule of faith, it be not permitted to you to employ your riches in the gra- tification of your appetites ; if the rich be obhged to bear the cross, continually to renounce themselves, and to look for no consolation in this world, equally as the poor ; what can the design of Provi- dence have been in pouring upon you all the riches of the earth, and what advantage could even accrue to you from them ? Could it be in order to administer to your irregular desires ? But you are no longer bound to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. Could it be in order to support the pride of rank and birth ? But whatever you give to vanity, you cut off* from charity. Could it be for the purpose of hoarding up for your posterity ? But your treasure should be only in heaven. Could it be in order that you might pass your life more agreeably ? But if you weep not, if you suffer not, if you combat not, you ai-e lost. Could it be in order to attach you more strongly to the world ? But the Christian is not of this world ; he is citizen of the age to come. Could it be for the purpose of aggrandizing your possessions and your inheri- tances ? But you would never aggrandize but the place of your exile ; and the gain of the whole world would be vain, if you N 2 180 ON CHARJTY. thereby lost your soul. Could it be that your table might be loaded with the most exquisite dishes ? But you well know, that the gospel forbids a life of sensuality and voluptuousness, equally to the rich as to the indigent. Review all the advantages, which, according to the world, you can reap from your prosperity, and you will find almost the whole of them forbidden by the law of God. It has not, therefore, been his design, that they should be merely for your own purposes, when he multiplied in your hands the riches of the earth. It is not for yourself that you are born to grandeur ; it is not for yourself, as Mordecai formerly said to the pious Esther, that the Lord hath exalted you to this point of pros- perity and grandeur ; it is for the sake of his afflicted people ; it is to be the protector of the unfortunate. If you fulfil not the inten- tions of God, with regard to you, continued that wise Israelite, he will employ some other, who shall more faithfully serve him ; he will transfer to them that crown which was intended for you ; he will elsewhere provide the enlargement and deliverance of his afflicted people ; for he will not permit them to perish ; but you, and your father's house shall perish. In the designs of the Almighty, you therefore are but the ministers of his providence toward those who suffer ; your great riches are only sacred deposits, which his good- ness hath entrusted to your care, for security against usurpation and violence, and in order to be more safely preserved for the widow and the orphan : your abundance, in the order of his wisdom, is destined only to supply their necessities ; your authority, only to protect them ; your dignities, only to avenge their interests ; your rank, only to console them by your good offices : whatsoever you be, you are it only for them ; your elevation would no longer be the work of God, and he would have cursed you, in bestowing on you all the riches of the earth, had he given them to you for any other use. Ah ! allege, then, no more to us, as an excuse for your hard- heartedness toward your brethren, wants which are condemned by the law of God ; rather justify his providence toward all who suf- fer ; by entering into his order, let them know., that there is a God for them as well as for you ; and make them bless the adorable designs of his wisdom, in the dispensation of earthly things, which hath sup- plied them, through your abundance, with such resources of consolation. But, besides, what can the small contributions required from you retrench from those wants, the urgency of which you tell us so much ? The Lord exacteth not from you any part of your posses- sions and heritages, though they belong wholly to him, and he hath a right to despoil you of them. He leaveth you tranquil possessors of those lands, of those palaces, which distinguish you and your people, and with which the piety of your ancestors for- merly enriched our temples. He doth not command you, like the young man in the gospel, to renounce all, to distribute ON CHARITY. 181 your whole wealth among the poor, and to follow him : he maketh it not a law to you, as formerly to the first believers, to bring all your riches to the feet of your pastors : he doth not strike you with anathema, as formerly Annanias and Sapphira, for daring to retain only a portion of that wealth which they had received from their ancestors ; — you, who only owe the aggrandizement of your fortunes perhaps to public calamities, or other shameful means of acquirement, he consenteth that, as the prophet saith, you shall call the land by your name, and that you transmit to your posterity those posses- sions which you have inherited from your ancestors; — he vrisheth that you lay apart only a portion for the unfortunate, whom he leaveth in indigence : he wisheth that, while in the luxury and splendour of your apparel you bear the nourishment of a whole people of unfortunate fellow-creatures, you spare wherewith to co- ver the nakedness of his servants who languish in poverty, and ,know not where'to repose their head : he wisheth that, from those tables of voluptuousness, where your great riches are scarcely suf- ficient to supply your sensuality and the profusions of an extravagant delicacy, you drop at least a portion for the rehef of the Lazaruses pressed with hunger and want : he wisheth that, while paintings of the most absurd and the most boundless price are seen to cover the walls of your palaces, your revenues may suffice to honour the living images of your God : he wisheth, in a word, that while no- thing is spared toward the gratification of an inordinate passion for gaming, and every thing is on the verge of being for ever swallowed up in that gulf, you come not to calculate your exr penses, to measure your ability, to allege to us the mediocrity of your fortune and the embarrassment of your affairs, when there is question of consoling an afflicted Christian. He wish- eth it ; and with reason doth he wish it. What ! shall you be rfch for evil, and poor for good ! — your revenues be amply suf- ficient to effect your destruction, and not suffice to save your soul, and to purchase heaven ! — and, because you carry self-love to the extreme, that every barbarity of heart should be permitted you toward your unfortunate brethren ? But whence comes it that, in this single circumstance, you wish to lower the opinion that the world has- of your riches ? On every other occasion you wish to be thought powerful ; you give yourselves out as such ; you even frequently conceal, under appearances of the greatest splendour, affairs already ruined, merely to support the vain reputation of wealth. This vanity, then, does not abandon you but when you are put in re- membrance of the duty of compassion. Not satisfied then with confessing the mediocrity of your fortune, you exaggerate it, and sordidness triumphs in your heart, not only over truth, but even over vanity. Ah ! the Lord formerly reproached to the angel of the church of Laodicea, " Because thou sayest, I am rich and in- 182 OxN CHARITY. creased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that in my sight thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and bhnd, and naked." But at present he ought, with regard to you, to change that reproach and to say, " O ! you complain that you are poor and destitute of every thing, and you will not see that you are rich and loaded with wealth ; and that in times when almost all around you suffer, you alone want for nothing in my sight." This is the second pretext made use of in opposition to the duty of charity — the general poverty. Thus the disciples reply, in the second place, to our Saviour, as an excuse for not assisting the fa- mishing multitude — that the place is desert and barren, that it is now late, and that he ought to send away the people that they might go to the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread, for they had nothing to eat. A fresh pretext they make use of to dispense themselves from compassion' — the misery of the times, the sterility and irregularity of the seasons. But, first, might not our Saviour have answered to the disciples, as a holy father says, It is because the place is barren and desert, and that this people knows not where to find food to allay their hunger, that they should not be sent away fasting, lest their strength fail them by the way. And, behold, my brethren, what I might also reply to you — the times are bad, the seasons are unfavourable. Ah ! for that very reason you ought to enter with a more feeling concern, with a more lively and tender anxiety, into the wants of your fellow-creatures. If the place be desert and barren even for you, what must it be for so many unfortunate people ! If you^ with all your resources, feel so much the misery of the times, what must they not suffer, those who are destitute of every comfort ! If the plagues of Egypt obtrude even into the palaces of the great, and of Pharaoh, what must be the desolation in the hut of the poor and of the labourer ! If the princes of Israel, afflicted in Samaria, no longer find consolation in their palaces, to what dreadful ex- tremities must the common people not be reduced ! Reduced, alas ! perhaps like that unfortunate mother, not to nourish herself with the blood of her child, but to make her innocence and her soul the melancholy price of her necessity. But, besides, these evils with which we are afflicted, and of which you so loudly complain, are the punishment of your hard- ness toward the poor : God avengeth upon your possessions the iniquitous use to which you apply them : it is the cries and the groanings of the unfortunate, whom you abandon, which draw down the vengeance of Heaven upon your lands and territories. It is in these times, then, of public calamity, that you ought to hasten to appease the anger of God by the abundance of your charities : it is then that, more than ever, yen should interest the poor in your behalf. Alas ! you bethink yourselves of addressing your general ON CHARITY. 183 supplicatious to the Almighty, through these to obtain mor« fa- vourable seasons, the cessation of public calamities, and the return of peace and abundance; but it is not there alone that your vows and your prayers ought to be carried. You can never expect that the Almighty will attend to your distresses while you remain callous to those of your fellow-creatures. You have here on the earth the masters of the winds and of the seasons : address yourselves to the poor and the afflicted ; it is they who have, as I may say, the keys of heaven ; it is their prayers which regulate the times and the seasons, — which bring back to us days of peace or of misery, — which arrest or attract the blessings of heaven : for abundance is given to the earth only for their consolation, and it is only on their account that the Almighty punish eth or is bountiful to you. But, completely to confute you, my brethren, you who so strongly allege to us the evil of the times, does the pretended rigour of these times retrench any thing from your pleasures ? What do your passions suffer from the 4)ublic calamities ? If the misfortune of the times oblige you to retrench from your expenses, begin with those of 'which religion condemns the use ; regulate your tables, your apparel, your amusements, your fol- lowers, and your edifices, according to the gospel; let your retrench- ings in charity at least only follow the others. Lessen your crimes before you begin to diminish from your duties. When the Al- mighty strikes with sterility the kingdoms of the earth, it is his intention to deprive the great and the powerful of all occa- sions of debauchery and excess : enter, then, into the order of his justice and his wisdom : consider yourselves as public criminals, whom the Lord chastiseth by public punishments. Say to him, like David, when he beheld the hand of the Lord weighing down his people, " Lo, I have sinned, and have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me and against my father's house." Behold your model. By terminating your disorders, terminate the cause of the public evils : in the persons of the poor, offer up to God the retrenchment of your pleasures and of your profu- sions, as the only righteous and acceptable sacrifice which is capable of disarming his anger ; and seeing these scourges fall upon the earth only in punishment of the abuses which you have made of your abundance, bear you likewise, in lessening these abuses, their anguish and bitterness. But that the public misfortunes should be perceivable neither in the splendour and pride of your equipages, nor in the sensuahty of your repasts, nor in the magnificence of your palaces, nor in your rage for gaming and every criminal pleasure, but solely in your inhumanity toward the poor ; that every thing abroad, the theatres, the pro- fane assembhes of every description, the public festivals, should con- tinue with the same vigour and animation, while charity alone shall 184 ON CHARITY. be chilled; that luxury should every day increase, while compas- sion alone shall diminish ; that the world and Satan should lose nothing through the misery of the times, while Jesus Christ alone shall suffer in his afflicted members ; that the rich, sheltered in their opulence, should see only from afar the anger of Heaven, while the poor and the innocent shall become its melancholy vic- tims : great God ! thou wouldst then overwhelm only the unfortu- nate in sending these scourges upon the earth ! Thy sole intention then should be to complete the destruction of those miserable wretches, upon whom thy hand was already so heavy in bringing them forth to penury and want ! The powerful of Egypt should alone be exempted by the exterminating angel, while thy whole wrath would fall upon the afflicted Israelite, upon his poor and un- provided roof, and even marked with the blood of the Lamb ! Yes, my brethren, the public calamities are destined to punish only the rich and powerful, and the rich and the powerful are those who alone suffer not : on the contrary, the public evils, in multiplying the unfortunate, furnish an additional pretext toward dispensing themselves from the duty of compassion. Last excuse of the disciples, founded on the great number pf the people who had followed our Saviour into the desert : These people are so numerous, said they, that two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little. Last pretext which they oppose to the duty of charity — the multitude of the poor. Yes, my brethren, that which ought to excite and to ani- mate charity, extinguishes it : the multitude of the unfortunate hardens you to their wants : the more the duty increases, the more do you think yourselves dispensed from its practice, and you become cruel by having too many occasions of being charitable. But, in the first place, whence comes, 1 pray you, this mul- titude of poor, of which you so loudly complain ? I know that the misfortune of the times may increase their number : but wars, pestilences, and irregularity of seasons, all of which we at present experience, have happened in all ages ; the calami- ties we behold are not unexampled : our forefathers have wit- nessed them, and even much more melancholy and dreadful : civil dissensions, the father armed against the child, the brother against brother, countries ravaged and laid waste by their own inhabitants, the kingdom a prey to foreign enemies, no person in safety under his own roof: we see not these miseries; but liave they seen what we witness — so many public and concealed miseries, so many families worn out, so many citizens, formerly distinguished, now low in the dust, and confounded with the meanest of the people ? Arts become almost useless? The image of hunger and death spread over the cities and over the fields ? What shall I say ? — so many hidden iniquities brought every day to light, the dreadful consequences of despair and horrible ON CHARITY. 185 necessity? Whence come this, my brethren? Is it not from a luxury unknown to our fathers, and which engluts every thing ? From your expenses which know no bounds, and which necessarily drag along with them the extinction of charity ? Ah! was the primitive church not persecuted, desolated, and afflicted ? Do the calamities of our age bear any comparison with the horrors of those times? Proscription of property, exilement and imprisonment were then daily ; the most burdensome charges of the state fell upon those who were suspected of Christianity : in a word, so many calamities were never beheld; and, nevertheless, there was no poor among them, says St. Luke, nor any that lacked. Ah ! it is, because riches of simplicity sprung up, even from their poverty itself, according to the expression of the apostle ; it is, because they gave according to their means, and even beyond them ; it is, because the most distant provinces, through the care of the apostolic ministers, flowed streams of charity, for the con- solation of their afflicted brethren in Jerusalem, more exposed than the rest to the rage and hatred of the synagogue. But more than all that; it is, because the most powerful of the primitive believers were adorned with modesty ; and that our great riches are now scarcely sufficient to support that mon- strous luxury, of which custom has made a law to us ; it is, that their festivals were repasts of sobriety and charity ; and that the holy abstinence itself, which we celebrated, cannot moderate among us the profusions and the excesses of the table, and of feasts; it is, that, having no fixed city here below, they did not exhaust themselves in forming brilliant establishments, in order to render their names illustrious, to exalt their posterity, and to ennoble their own obscurity and meanness ; they thought only of securing to themselves a better establishment in the celestial country; and that at present no one is contented with his station; every one wishes to mount higher than his ancestors; and that their patrimony is only employed in buying titles and dignities, which may obliterate their name and the meanness of their origin : in a word, it is, because the frugality of these first believers con- stituted the whole wealth of their afflicted brethren, and that at present our profusions occasion all their poverty and want. It is our excesses, then, my brethren, and our hardness of heart toward them, which multiply the number of the unfortunate : excuse no more then, on that head, the failing of your charities; that would be making your guilt itself your excuse. Ah ! you complain that the poor overburden you; but they would have reason in retorting the charge one day against you : do not then accuse them for your insensibility; and reproach them not with that, which they un- doubtedly shall one day reproach to you before the tribunal of Jesus Christ. If each of you were, according to the advice of the apostle, to appropriate a certain portion of your wealth toward the sub- 186 ON CHARITY. sistence of the poor ; if, in the computation of your expenses and of your revenues, this article were to be always regarded as the most sacred and the most inviolable one, then should we quickly see the number of the afflicted to diminish : we should soon see renewed in the church that peace, that happiness, and that cheer- ful equality which reigned among the first Christians : we should no longer behold with sorrow that monstrous disproportion, which, elevating the one, places him on the pinnacle of prosperity and opulence, while the other crawls on the ground, and groans in the gulf of poverty and affliction : no longer should there be any unhappy except the impious among us ; no secret miseries except those which sin operates in the soul ; no tears except those of penitence; no sighs but for heaven; no poor, but those blessed disciples of the gospel, who renounce all to follow their Master. Our cities woi:ild be the abode of innocence and compassion ; reli- gion a commerce of charity; the earth the image of heaven, where, in different degrees of glory, each is equally happy; and the enemies of faith would again, as formerly, be forced to render glory to God, and to confess that there is something of divine in a religion which is capable of uniting men together in a manner so new. But, in what the error here consists, is, that, in the practice, nobody considers charity as one of the most essential obligations of Christianity; consequently, they have no regulation on that point; if some bounty be bestowed, it is always arbitrary ; and, however small it may be, they are equally satisfied with them- selves, as if they had even gone beyond their duty. Besides, when you pretend to excuse the scantiness of your charities, by saying that the number of the poor is endless ; what do you believe to say? You say that your obligations, with respect to them, are become only more indispensable ; that your compas- sion ought to increase in proportion as their wants increase; and that you contract new debts whenever any increa'^se of the unfor- tunate takes place on the earth. It is then, my brethren, it is during these public calamities that you ought to retrench even from expenses which at any other period might be permitted, and which might even be proper; it is then that you ought to consider yourselves but as the principal poor, and to take as a charity what- ever you take for yourselves; it is then that you are no longer either grandee, man in office, distinguished citizen, or woman of illustrious birth; you are simply believer, member of Jesus Christ, brother of every afflicted Christian. And surely say, — while that cities and provinces are struck with every calamity; that men, created after the image of God, and redeemed with his whole blood, browse like the animal, and through their necessity go to search in the fields a food which nature has not intended for man, and which to them becomes a food of death; would you have the resolution to be the only one exempted from the general evil? While the face of a whole kingdom is changed, ON CHARITY. \l^ and that cries and lamentations alone are heard around your superb dwelling; would you preserve, within, the same appearance of happiness, pomp, tranquillity, and opulence? And where, then, would be humanity, reason, religion? In a pagan republic,* you would be held as a bad citizen; in a society of sages and worldly, as a soul, vile, sordid, without nobility, without generosity, and without elevation ; and, in the church of Jesus Christ, in what light, think you, can you be held? Oh! as a monster, unworthy of the name of Christian which you bear, of that faith in which you glorify yourself, of the sacrament which you approach, and even of entry into our temples where you come, — seeing all these are the sacred symbols of that union which ought to exist among believers. Nevertheless, the hand of the Lord is extended over our people in the cities and in the provinces; you know it, and you lament it : Heaven is deaf to the cries of this afflicted kingdom; wretched- ness, poverty, desolation, and death, walk every where before us. Now, do any of those excesses of charity, become at present a law of prudence and justice, escape you? Do you take upon your- selves any part of the calamities of your brethren ? What shall I say? Do you not perhaps take advantage of the public misery? Do you not perhaps turn the general poverty into a barbarous profit? Do you not perhaps complete the stripping of the unfor- tunate in affecting to hold out to them an assisting hand ? And are you unacquainted with the inhuman art of deriving individual profit even from the tears and the necessities of your brethren? Bowels of iron ! when you shall be filled, you shall burst asunder ; your felicity itself will constitute your punishment, and the Lord will shower down upon you his war and his wrath. My brethren, how dreadful shall be the presence of the poor before the tribunal of Jesus Christ to the greatest part of the rich in this world ! How powerful shall be these accusers ! And how little shall remain for you to say, when they shall reproach to you the scantiness of the succour which was required to soften and to relieve their wants: that a single day cut off from your profusions, would have sufficed to remedy the indigence of one of their years ; that it was their own property which you withheld, since whatever you had beyond a sufficiency belonged to them ; that consequently you have not only been cruel, but also unjust in refusing it to them ; but that, after all, your hard-heartedness has served only to exercise their patience and to render them more worthy of immor- tality, while you, for ever deprived of those riches which you were unwilling to lodge in safety in the bosom of the poor, shall receive for your portion only the curse prepared for those who shall have seen Jesus Christ suffering hunger, thirst, and nakedness in his • " This Discourse was pronounced in 1709, when France was almost desolated by war, pestilence, and famine." 188 - ON CHARITY. members, and shall not have relieved hhn. Such is the illusion of the pretexts employed to dispense themselves from the duty of charity: let us now determine the rules to be observed in ful- filling it; and, after having defended this obligation against all the vain excuses of avarice, let us endeavour to save it from even the defects of charity. Part II. — Not to sound the trumpet in order to attract the public attention in the compassionate offices which we render to our brethren; to observe an order even of justice in charity, and not to prefer the wants of strangei's to those with whom we are connected ; to appear feeling for the unfortunate, and to know how to soothe the afflicted by our tenderness and affability, as well as by our bounty: in a word, to find out, by our vigilance and atten- tion, the secret of their shame; behold the rules which the pre- sent example of our Saviour prescribes to us in the practice of compassion. First. He went up into a desert and hidden place, says the gospel ; he ascended a mountain, where he seated himself with his disciples. His design, according to the holy interpreters, was to conceal from the eyes of the neighbouring villages the miracle of multiplying the loaves, and to have no witnesses of his compassion except those who were to reap the fruits of it. First instruction, and first rule; the secrecy of charity. Yes, my brethren, how many fruits of compassion are every day blasted in the sight of God, by the scorching wind of pride and of vain ostentation! How many charities lost for eternity! How many treasures, which were believed to have been safely lodged in the bosom of the poor, and which shall one day appear corrupted with vermin, and consumed with rust ! In truth, those gross and bare-faced hypocrites are rare which openly vaunt to the world the merit of their pious exertions : pride is more cunning, and it never altogether unmasks itself: but, how diminutive is the number of those who, moved with the true zeal of charity, like our Saviour, seek out solitary and private places to bestow, and, at the same time, to conceal their holy gifts ! We now see only that ostentatious zeal, which nothing but neces- sities of eclat can interest, and which piously wishes to make the public acquainted with every gift : they will sometimes, it is true, adopt measures to conceal them, but they are not sorry when an indiscretion betrays them ; they will not perhaps court public attention, but they are delighted when the public attention sur- prises them, and they almost consider as lost any liberality which remains concealed. Alas ! our temples and our altars, are they not every where marked with the gifts and with the names of their benefactors ; that is to say, are they not the public monuments of our fore- fathers and of our own vanity? If the invisible eye of the ON CHARITY. 189 heavenly Fath^ alone was meant to have witnessed them, to what purpose all that vain ostentation ? Are you afraid that the Lord forgets your offerings? If you wish only to please him, why ex- pose your gifts to any other eye ? Why these titles and these in- scriptions which immortalize, on sacred walls, your gifts and your pride ? Was it not sufficient that they were written, even by the hand of God, in the book of life ? Why engrave on a perishable marble the merit of a deed which charity would have rendered immortal? Solomon, after having completed the most superb and the most magnificent temple of which the earth could ever boast, engraved the awful name of the Lord alone upon it, without presuming to mingle any memorial of the grandeur of his race with those of the eternal majesty of the King of kings. We give an appellation of piety to this custom ; it is thought that these public monu- ments excite the liberality of believers. But the Lord, hath he charged your vanity with the care of attracting gifts to his altars ? And hath he permitted you to depart from modesty, in order to make your brethren more charitable ? Alas ! the most powerful among the primitive believers, carried humbly as the most obscure their patrimony to the feet of the apostles : they beheld with a holy joy their names and their wealth confounded among those of their brethren who had less than they to offer : they were not dis- tinguished in the assembly of the faithful in proportion to their gifts : honours and precedency were not yet the price of gifts and offerings, and they knew better than to exchange the eternal recompense which they awaited from the Lord for any frivolous glory they could receive from men ; and now the church has not privileges enough to satisfy the vanity of her benefactors : their places are marked out in the sanctuary; their tombs appear even under the altar, where only the ashesof martyrs should repose. Custom, it is true, authorizes this abuse J but custom does not always justify what it authorizes. Charity, my brethren, is that sweet-smelling savour of Jesus Christ which vanishes and is extinguished from the moment that it is exposed, I mean not that public acts of compassion are to be refrained from : we owe the edification and example of them to our brethren : it is proper that they see our works ; but we ought not ourselves to see them, and our left hand should be ignorant of what our right bestows : even those actions which duty renders the most shining, ought always to be hidden in the preparation of the heart : we ought to entertain a kind of jealousy of the public view on their account, and to believe their purity in safety only when they are exposed to the eyes of God alone. Yes, my brethren, those liberalities which have flowed mostly in secret, reach the bosom of God much more pure than others, which, even contrary to our wishes, having been exposed to the eyes of men, become troubled and defiled. 190 ON CHARITY. as I may say, in their course by the inevitable flatteries of self-love, and by the applauses of the beholders : like those rivers whicjh have flowed mostly under ground, and which pour their streams into the ocean pure and undefiled ; while, on the contrary, those which have traversed plains and countries, exposed to the day, carry there, in general, only muddy waters, and drag along with them the wrecks, carcases, and slime which they have amassed in their course. Be- hold, then, the first rule of charity which our Saviour here lays down — to shun show and ostentation in all works of compassion — to be unwilling to have your name mentioned in them, either on account of the rank which you may here hold, or from the glory of having been the first promoter, or from the noise which they may make in the world, and not to lose upon the earth that which cha- rity had amassed only for heaven. The second circumstance which I remark in our gospel, is, that no one, of all the muhitude who present themselves to Jesus Christ, is rejected : all are indiscriminately relieved ; and we do not read that with regard to them our Saviour hath used any distinction or preference. Second rule : charity is universal ; it banishes those capricious liberalities which seem to open the heart to certain wants, only in order to shut it against all others. You find persons in the world, who, under the pretext of having stated charities and places destined to receive them, are callous to all other wants. In vain would you inform them that a family is on the brink of ruin, and that a very small assistance would extricate it ; that a young per- son hangs over a precipice, and must necessarily perish, if some friendly and assisting hand be not held out ; that a certain meri- torious and useful establishment must fall, if not supported by a renewal of charity : these are not necessities after their taste ; and, in placing elsewhere some trifling bounties, they imagine to have purchased the right of viewing with a dry eye and an indif- ferent heart every other description of misery. I know that charity hath its order and its measure ; that in its practice it ought to use a proper distinction ; that justice requires a preference to certain wants : but I would not have that methodical charity (if I may thus speak) which tor a point knows where to stop, — which has its days, its places, its persons, and its limits, — which, beyond these, is cruel, and can settle with itself to be affected only in certain times and by certain wants. Ah ! are we thus masters of our hearts when we truly love our brethren ? Can we at our will mark out to ourselves the moments of warmth and of in- diflerence ? Charity, that holy love, is it so regular when it truly inflames the heart ? Has it not, if I may so say, its transports and its excesses ? And do not occasions sometimes occur so truly aflect- ing, that, did but a single spark of charity exist in your heart, it would show itself, and in the instant would open your bowels of compassion and your riches to your brethren. ON CHARITY. 191 I would not have that rigidly circumspect charity which is never done with its scrutiny, and which always mistrusts the truth of 'the necessities laid open to it. See if, in that multi- tude which our Saviour fiUeth, he apply himself to separate those whom idleness or the sole hope of corporeal nourishment had perhaps attracted to the desert, and who might still have had sufficient strength left to go and search for food in the neighbouring villages ; no one is excepted from his divine bounty. Is the being reduced to feign wretchedness not a sufficient misery of itself? Is it not preferable to assist fictitious wants, rather than to run the risk of refusing aid to real and melancholy objects of compassion ? When an impostor should even deceive your charity, where is the loss ? Is it not always Jesus Christ who receives it from your hand ? And is your recompense at- tached to the abuse which may be made of your bounty, or to the intention itself which bestows it? From this rule there springs a third, laid down in the history of our gospel, at the same time with the other two : it is, that not only ought charity to be universal, but likewise mild, affiible, and compassionate. Jesus Christ, beholding these people wandering and unprovided at the foot of the mountain, is touched with com- passion ; he is affected at the sight, and the wants of the multi- tude awaken his tenderness and pity. Third rule: the gentleness of charity. We often accompany pity with so much asperity toward the unfortunate, while stretching out to them a helping hand, — we look upon them with so sour and so severe a countenance, that a simple denial had been less galling to them than a charity so harshly and so unfeelingly bestowed ; for the pity which ap- pears affected by our misfortunes, consoles them almost as much as the bounty which relieves them. We reproach to them their strength, their idleness, their wandering and vagabond manners ; we accuse their own conduct for their indigence and wretched- ness : and, in succouring, we purchase the right of insulting them. But, were the unhappy creature whom you outrage permitted to reply, — if the abjectness of his situation had not put the check of shame and respect upon his tongue. What do you reproach to me ? would he say. An idle life, and useless, and vagabond manners. But what are the cares which in your opulence engross you ? The cares of ambition, the anxieties of fortune, the impulses of the passions, the refinements of volup- tuousness. I may be an unprofitable servant ; but are you not yourself an unfaithful one ? Ah ! if the most culpable were al- ways to be the poorest and the most unfortunate in this world, would your lot be superior to mine ? You reproach me with a strength which I apply to no purpose ; but to what use do you apply your own ? Because I work not, I ought not to have food ; J 92 ON CHARITY. but are you dispensed yourself from that law? Are you rich merely that you may pass your life in a shameful effeminacy and sloth ? Ah! the Lord will judge between you and me, and, before his aw- ful tribunal, it shall be seen whether your voluptuousness and pro- fusion were more allowable in you than the innocent artifice which I employ to attract assistance to my sufferings. Yes, my brethren, let us at least offer to the unfortunate, hearts feeling for their wants. If the mediocrity of our fortune permit us not altogether to relieve our indigent fellow-creatures, let us, by our humanity, at least soften the yoke of poverty. Alas ! we give tears to the chimerical adventures of a theatrical personage, — we honour fictitious misfortunes with real sensibility, — we depart from a re- presentation with hearts still moved for the disasters of a fabulous hero, — and a member of Jesus Christ, an inheritor of heaven, and your brother, whom you encounter in your way from thence, per- haps sinking under disease and penury, and who wishes to inform you of the excess of his sufferings, finds you callous ; and you turn your eyes with disgust from that spectacle, and deign not to listen to him ; and you quit him even with a rudeness and brutality which tend to wring his heart with sorrow ! Inhuman soul ! have you, then, left all your sensibihty on an infamous theatre? Doth the spectacle of Jesus Christ suffering in one of his members offer nothing worthy of your pity ? And, that your heart may be touched, must the ambition, the revenge, the voluptuousness, and all the other horrors of the pagan ages be revived. But, it is not enough that we offer hearts feeling for the dis- tresses which present themselves to our view : charity goes far- ther : it does not indolently await those occasions whicli' chance may throw in its way ; it knows how to search them out, and even to anticipate them itself. Last rule: the vigilance of cha- rity. Jesus Christ waits not till those poor people address them- selves to him and lay open their wants : he is the first to dis- cover them : scarcely has he found them out, when, with Philip, he searches the means of relieving them. That charity which is not vigilant, anxious after the calamities of which it is yet ignorant, ingenious in discovering those which endeavour to remain concealed, which require to be solicited, pressed, and even importuned, resembles not the charity of Jesus Christ. We must watch, and penetrate the obscurity which shame op- poses to our bounties. This is not a simple advice : it is the con- sequence of the precept of charity. The pastors, who, according to faith, are the fathers of the people, are obliged to watch over their spiritual concerns; and that is one of the most essential functions of their ministry. The rich and the powerful are es- tablished by God the fathers and the pastors of the poor ac- cording to the body: they are bound, then, to watch continu- ally over their necessities. If, through want of vigilance, they ON CHAIUTY. 193 escape their attention, they are guilty before God of all the conse- quences, which a small succour in time would have prevented. It IS not, that you are required to find out all the secret necessities of a city; but care and attention are exacted of you: It IS required, that you, who, through your wealth or birth, hold the first rank in a department, shall not be surrounded, unknown to you, with thousands of unfortunate fellow-creatures, who pine in secret, and whose eyes are continua^ly wounded with the pomp of your train, and who, besides their wretchedness, suft'er ao-ain, as I may say, in your prosperity: it is required, that you, who! amid all the pleasures of the court, or of the city, see flowing into your hands the fruits of the sweat and of the labour of so many unfortunate people, who inhabit your lands and your fields; it is required that you be acquainted%vith those whom the toils of industry and of age have exhausted, and who, in their humble dwellings, drag on the wretched remains of dotage and poverty; those whom a languishing health renders incapable of labour, their only resource against indigence and want; those whom sex and age expose to seduction, and whose innocence you mioht have been enabled to preserve. Behold what is required, and what, with every right of justice, is exacted from you; behold the poor with whom the Lord hath charged you, and for whom you shall answer to him; the poor, whom he leaveth on the earth only for your sake and to whom his providence hath assigned no other resource than your wealth and your bounty. Now, are they even known to you? Do you charo-e their pastors to make them known to you? Are these the cares wliich occupy you, when you show yourself in the midst of your lands and possessions? Ah! it is with cruelty to screw your claims trom the hands of these unfortunate people ; it is to tear from their bowels the innocent price of their toil, without regard to their want, to the misery of the times which you allege to us, to their tears, and often to their despair:— what shall I sa^r? It is perhaps to crush down their weakness, to be their tyrant, and not their lord and their father. O God! cursest thou not these cruel generations, and these riches of iniquity? Dost thou not stamp upon them the marks of misfortune atid desolation, and which shall soon blast the source of their families; which wither the root ot a proud posterity; which produce domestic discord, public dis- graces, the fall and total extinction of houses? Alas! we are sometimes astonished to see fortunes apparently the best esta- b ished, go to wreck in an instant; those ancient', and formerly so illustrious names fallen into obscurity, no longer to offer to our view but the melancholy wrecks of their ancient splendour; and their estates become the property of their rivals, or perhaps of their own servants. Ah! could we investigate the source of their mis- fortunes; if their ashes, and the pompous wrecks, which in the priae of their monuments remain to us of their glory, could speak, ■ 194 ON CHARITY. Do you see, they would say to us, these sad marks of our grandeur? It is the tears of the poor, whom we neglected, whom we oppressed, which have gradually sapped, and at last have totally overthrown them: their cries have drawn down the thunder of Heaven upon our palaces. The Lord hath blown upon our superb edifices, and upon our fortune, and hath dissipated them like dust. Let the name of the poor be honourable in your sight, if you wish that your names may never perish in the memory of men. Let com- passion sustain your houses, if you wish that your posterity be not buried under their ruins. Become wise at our cost; and let our misfortunes, in teaching you our faults, teach you also to shun them. And behold, my brethren, (that I may say something respecting it, before I conclude,) the first advantage of Christian charity; blessings even in this world. The bread, blessed by our Saviour, multiplies in the hands of the apostles who distribute it; five thousand are satisfied; and twelve baskets can hardly contain the remnants gathered up: that is to say, that the gifts of charity are riches of benediction, which multiply in proportion as they are distributed, and which bear along with them into our houses a source of happiness and abundance. Yes, my brethren, charity is a gain; it is a holy usury; it is a principle which returns, even here below, an hundred fold. You sometimes complain of a fatality in your affairs : nothing succeeds with you ; men deceive you ; rivals supplant you; masters neglect you; the elements conspire against you ; the best-concerted schemes are blasted : — associate with you the poor ; divide with them the increase of your fortune ; in proportion as your prosperity augments, do you augment your benefactions; flourish for them as well as for yourself; and God himsejf shall then be interested in your success; you shall have found out the secret of engaging him in your fortune, and he will preserve, — what do I say? — he will bless, he will multiply riches, in which he sees blended the portion of his afflicted member. This is a truth, confirmed by the experience of all ages : charita- ble families are continually seen to prosper; a watchful Providence presides over all their affairs; where others are ruined, they become rich : they are seen to flourish, but the secret canal is not per- ceived, which pours in upon them their property : they are the fleeces of Gideon, covered with the dew of heaven, while all around is barren and dry. Such is the first advantage of compassion, I say nothing even of the pleasure, which we ought to feel in the delightful task of soothing those who suffer, in making a fellow-creature happy, in reigning over hearts, and in attracting upon ourselves the innocent tribute of their acclamations and their than^ks. O! were we to reap but the pleasure of bestowing, would it not be an ample re- compense to a worthy heart? What has even the majesty of the ON CHAIUTV. 195 throne more delicious than the power of dispensing favours ? Would princes be much attached to their grandeur, and to their power, were they confined to a solitary enjoyment of them? No, my brethren, make your riches as subservient as you will, to your pleasures, to your profusions, and to your caprices; but never will you employ them in a way which shall leave a joy so pure, and so worthy of the heart, as in that of comforting the unfortunate. What, indeed, can be more grateful to the heart, than the confi- dence that there is not a moment in the day in which some afliicted souls are not raising up their hands to heaven for us, and blessing the day which gave us birth? Hear that multitude whom Jesus Christ hath filled ; the air resounds with their blessings and thanks : they say to themselves. This is a prophet ; they wish to establish him their king. Ah ! were men to choose their masters, it would neither be the most noble, nor the most valiant; it would be the most compassionate, the most humane, the most charitable, the most feeling: masters who, at the same time, would be their fathers. Lastly, I need not add that Christian charity assists in expiating the crimes of abundance ; and that it is almost the only mean of salvation which Providence hath provided for you, who are born to prosperity. Were charity insufficient to redeem our offences, we might certainly think ourselves entitled to complain, says a hoty father; we might take it ill, that God had deprived men of so easy a mean of salvation ; at least might we say that, could we but open the gates of heaven through the means of riches, and purchase with our whole wealth the glory of the holy, we then should be happy. Well, my brethren, continues the holy father, profit by this privilege, seeing it is granted to you; hasten, before your riches moulder away, to deposit them in the bosom of the poor, as the price of the kingdom of heaven. The malice of men might perhaps have deprived you of them; your passions might have perhaps swallowed them up ; the turns of fortune might have transferred Hh era to other hands; death, at last, would sooner or later have separated you from them : Ah ! charity alone deposits them beyond the reach of all these accidents; it renders you their everlasting possessor; it lodges them in safety in the eternal taber- nacles, and gives you the right of for ever enjoying them in the bosom of God himself. Are you not happy in being able to assure to yourself admit- tance into heaven by means so easy ; — in being able, by clothing the naked, to efface from the book of divine justice the obscenities, the luxury, and the irregularities of yoiir younger years; — in being able, by filling the hungry, to repair all the sensuahties of your life; — lastly, in being able, by sheltering innocence in the asylums of compassion, to blot out from the remembrance of God the ruin o 2 1901 ON AFFLICTIONS. of SO many souls, to whom you have been a stumbhng-block? Great God ! what goodness to man, to consider as meritorious a virtue which costs so little to the heart; to number in our favour feelings of humanity of which we could never divest ourselves, without being, at the same time, divested of our nature; to be willing to accept, as the price of an eternal kingdom, frail riches, which we even enjoy only through thy bounty, which we could never continue to possess, and from which, after a momentary and fleeting enjoyment, we must at last be separated! Nevertheless, mercy is promised to him who shall have shown it ; a sinner, still feeling to the calamities of his brethren, will not continue long insensible to the inspirations of Heaven; grace still reserves claims upon a heart in which charity has not altogether lOst its influence ; a good heart cannot long continue a hardened one ; that principle of humanity alone, which operates in rendering the heart feeling for the wants of others, is a preparation, as it were, for penitence and salvation ; and while charity still acts in the heart, a happy conversion is never to be despaired of. Love, then, the poor as your brethren; cherish them as your offspring; respect them as Jesus Christ himself, in order that he say to you on the great day, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared " for you from the foundation of the world. For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; I was naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me : for, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." SERMON XII. ON AFFLICTIONS. " And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." — Matteiew xi. 6. It is a blessing, and a rare blessing, then, not to be offended in Jesus Christ. But what was there, or what could there be in him, who is the wisdom itself, and the glory of the Father, the substantial image of all perfection, which could give subject of scandal to men?' His cross, my dearest brethren, which was formerly the shame of the Jews, and is, and shall be, to the end ON AFFLICTIONS. 19/ of ages, the shame of the greatest part of Christians. But, when I say- that the cross of the Saviour is the shame of the most of Christians, I mean not only the cross that he bore, I mean more especially that which we are obliged, from his example, to bear; without which, he rejects us as his disciples, and denies us any participation of that glory into which he has entered, through the cross alone. Behold what displeases us, and what we find to complain of in our divine Saviour. We would wish, that, since he was to suffer, his sufferings had been a title, as it were, of exemption, which had merited to us the privilege of not suffering with him. Let us dis- pel this error, my dearest brethren : the only thing which depends on us, is that of rendering our sufferings meritorious ; but to suffer, or not to suffer, is not left to our choice. Providence has so wisely dispensed the good and evil of this life, that each in his station, however happy his lot may appear, finds crosses and afilic- tions, which always counterbalance the pleasures of it. There is no perfect happiness on the earth ; for it is not here the time of consolations, but the time of sufferance. Grandeur hath its sub- jections and its disquiets; obscurity, its humiliations and its scorns ; the world, its cares and its caprices; retirement, its sadness and weariness ; marriage, its antipathies and its frenzies ; friendship, its losses or its perfidies ; piety itself, its repugnances and its dis- gusts. In a word, by a destiny inevitable to the children of Adam, each one finds his own path strewed with brambles and thorns. The apparently happiest condition hath its secret sorrows, which empoison all its felicity. The throne is the seat of chagrins equally as the lowest place ; superb palaces conceal the most cruel discon- tents, equally as the hut of the poor and of the humble labourer ; and, lest our place of exile should become endeared to us, we always feel, in a thousand different ways, that something is yet wanting to our happiness. Nevertheless, destined to suffer, we cannot love the suffer- ances ; continually stricken with some affliction, we are unable to make a merit of our pains ; never happy, our crosses, become necessary, cannot at least become useful to us. We are ingenious in depriving ourselves of the merit of all our sufferances. One while we seek, in the weakness of our own heart, the excuse of our peevishness and of our murmurings ; another, in the ex- cess or in the nature of our afflictions ; and again, in the ob- stacles which they seem to us to cast in the way of our salvation ; that is to say, one while we complain of being too weak to bear our sufferings with patience ; another, that they are too ex- ' cessive ; and lastly, that it is impossible in that situation to pay attention to salvation. Such are the three pretexts continually opposed in the world to the Christian use of affliction : the pretext of self-weakness ; the pretext of the excess or the nature of our afflictions ; the pre- text of the obstacles which they seem to place in the way of our 198 ON AFFLICTIONS. salvation. -These are the pretexts we have now to overthrow, by- opposing to them the rules of faith. Attend, then, be whom ye may, and learn that the cause of condemnation to most men is not pleasures alone ; — alas ! they are so rare on the earth, and so nar- rowly followed by disgust ; — it is hkewise the unchristian use they make of afflictions. Part I. — The language most common to the souls afflicted by the Lord, is that of alleging their own weakness in order to justify the unchristian use they make of their afflictions. They complain that they are not endowed with a force of mind sufficient to pre- serve under them a submissive and a patient heart; that nothing is more conducive to happiness than the want of feeling ; that this character saves us endless vexations and chagrins inevit- able in life ; but that we cannot fashion to ourselves a heart according to our ovi^n wishes ; that religion doth not render unfeel- ing and stoical those who are born with the tender feelings of hu- manity, and that the Lord is too just to make a crime to us even of our misfortunes. But, to overthrow an illusion so common and so unworthy of piety, remark, in the first place, that when Jesus Christ hath com- manded to all believei's to bear with submission and with love the crosses proposed for us by his goodness, he hath not added that an order so just, so consoling, so conformable to his examples, should concern only the unfeeling and impatient souls. He hath not distinguished among his disciples those whom nature, pride, or reflection had rendered firmer and more constant, from those whom tenderness and humanity had endowed with more feeling, in order to make a duty to the first of a patience and an insensibility which cost them almost nothing, and to excuse the others to whom they become more difficult. On the contrary, his divine precepts are cures ; and the more we are inimical to them through the character of our heart, the more are they proper for, and become necessary to us. It is because you are weak, and that the least contradictions always excite you so m.uch against sufferances, that the Lord must purify you by tri- bulations and sorrows : for it is not the strong who have occasion to be tried, it is the weak. In effect, what is it to be weak and repining ? It is an excessive self-love ; it is to give all to nature, and nothing to faith ; it is to give way to every impulse of inclination, and to live solely for ease and self-enjoyment, as constituting the chief happiness of man. Now, in this situation, and with this excessive fund of love for the world and for yourself, if the Lord were not to provide afflic- tions for your weakness ; if he did not strike your body with an habitual languor which renders the world insipid to you ; if he did not send losses and vexations, which force you, through decency, to regularity and retirement ; if he did not overthrow certain pro- ON AFFLICTIONS. 1^ jects, which, leaving your fortune more obscure, remove you from the great dangers ; if he did not place you in certain situations where irksome and inevitable duties employ your best days ; in a word, if he did not place between your weakness and you a barrier which checks and stops you, alas ! your innocence would soon be wrecked ; you would soon make an improper and fatal use of peace and prosperity, — you who find no security even amid afflictions and troubles. And seeing that, afflicted and separated from the world and from pleasures, you cannot return to God, what would it be did a more happy situation leave you no other check to your desires than yourself? The same weakness and the same load of self-love which render us so feeling to sorrow and affliction, would render us still more so to the dangerous impressions of pleasures and of human prosperities. Thus, it is no excuse for our despondency and murmurs, to con- fess that we are weak and little calculated to support the strokes with which we are afflicted by God. The weakness of our heart proceeds only from the weakness of our faith ; a Christian soul ought to be a valiant soul, superior, says the apostle, to persecu- tion, disgrace, infirmities, and even death. He may be oppressed, continues the apostle, but he cannot be vanquished ; he may be despoiled of his wealth, reputation, ease, and even life, but he can- not be robbed of that treasure of faith and of grace which he has locked up in his heart, and which amply consoles him for all these fleeting and frivolous losses. He may be brought to shed tears of sensibiUty and of sorrow, for religion does not extinguish the feelings of nature ; but his heart immediately disavows its weak- ness, and turns its carnal tears into tears of penitence and of piety. What do I say ? A Christian soul even delights in tribulations ; he considers them as proofs of the tender watchfulness of God over him, as the precious pledge of the promises to come, as the blessed features of resemblance to Jesus Christ, and which give him an assured right to share after this life in his immortal glory. To be weak and rebellious against the order of God under sufferance, is to have lost faith, and to be no longer Christian. I confess that there are hearts more tender and more feeling to sorrow than others ; but that sensibility is left to them only to in- crease the merit of their sufferings, and not to excuse their impa- tience and murmurings. It is not the feeling, it is the immode- rate use, of sorrow which the gospel condemns. In proportion as we are born feeling for our afflictions, so ought we to be so to the consolations of faith. The same sensibility which renders our heart susceptible of chagrin, should open it to grace which soothes and supports it. A good heart has many more resources against afflictions, in consequence of grace finding easier access to it. Im- moderate grief is rather the consequence of passion than of the goodness of the heart ; and to be unable to submit to God, or to ^ 200 ON AFI-LICTIONS. taste consolation in our troubles, is to be, not tender and feeling, but intractable and desperate. Moreover, all the precepts of the gospel require strength, and if you have not enough to support Vv-ith submission the crosses with which the Lord pleaseth to afflict you, you must equally want sufficient for the observance of the other duties prescribed to you by the doctrine of Jesus Christ. It requires strength of mind to ,' forgive an injury ; to speak well of those who traduce us ; to con- ceal the faults of those who wish to dishonour even our virtues. It requires fortitude to be enabled to fly from a world which is agreeable to us ; to tear ourselves from pleasures toward which we are impelled by all our inclinations ; to resist examples authorized by the multitude, and of which custom has now almost established a law. Strength of mind is required to make a Christian use of prosperity ; to be humble in exaltation, mortified in abundance, poor of heart amidst perishable riches, detached from all when possessed of all, and filled with desires for heaven amidst all the pleasures and felicities of the earth. It is required to be able to conquer ourselves; to repress a rising desire ; to stifle an agree- able feeling ; to recall to order a heart which is incessantly straying from it. Lastly, among all the precepts of the gospel, tliere is not one which does not suppose a firm and noble soul ; everywhere self-denial is required ; everywhere the kingdom of God is a field to be brought into cultivation, a vineyard where toil and the heat of the day must be endured, a career in which continual and valiant combating is required ; in a word, the disciples of Jesus Christ can never be weak without being overcome ; and every thing, even to the smallest obligations of faith, requires exertion, and bears the mark of the cross, which is its ruling spirit ; and if you fail but for an instant in fortitude, you are lost. To say then that we are weak, is to say that the entire gospel is not made for us, and that we are inca- pable of being not only submissive and patient, but likewise of being ehaste, humble, disinterested, mortified, gentle, and charitable. But however weak we may be, we ought to have this confi- dence in the goodness of God, that we are never tried, afflicted, or tempted beyond our strength ; that the Lord always propor- tioneth the afilictions to our weakness; that he dealeth out his chastisements like his favours, by weight and measure ; that in striking he raeaneth not to destroy, but to purify and to save us; that he himself aideth us to bear the crosses which he im- poseth; that he chastiseth us as a father, and not as a judge; that the same hand which strikes sustains us ; that the same rod which makes the wound bears the oil and the honey to soften its pain. He knoweth the nature of our hearts, and how far our weakness goes ; and as his intention in afflicting us is to sanctify and not to destroy us, -he knoweth what degree of weight to give to his hand in order to diminish nothing from ^ ON AFFLICTIONS. 201 our merit, if too light, and, on the other side, not to lose it alto- gether, if beyond our strength. Ah! what other intention could he have in shedding sorrows through our life ? Is he a cruel God, who delighteth only in the misery of his creatures ? Is he a barbarous tyrant, who finds his greatness and his security only in the blood and in the tears of the subjects who worship him ? Is he an envious and morose mas- ter, who can taste of no happiness while sharing it with his slaves? Is it necessary that we should sufier, groan, and perish, in order to render him happy ? It is on our own agcount alone, therefore, that he punisheth and chastiseth us : his tenderness suffers, as I may s,?y, for our evils ; but as his love is a just and enlightened love, he preferreth to leave us to suffer, because he foresees that, in ter- minating our pains, he would augment our wretchedness. He is, says a holy father, like a tender physician, who pities, it is true, the cries and the sufferings of his patient, but who, in spite of his cries, cuts, even to the quick, the corrupted part of his wound. He is never more gentle and more compassionate than when he appears most severe ; and afflictions must indeed be useful and necessary to us, since a God so merciful and so good can prevail upon him- self to afflict us. It is written, that Joseph, exalted to the first office in Egypt, could hardly retain his tears, and felt his bowels yearn toward his brethren in the very time that he affected to speak most harshly to them, and that he feigned not to know them. It is in this manner that Jesus Christ chastiseth us. He affects, if it be permitted to speak in this manner, not to acknowledge in us his co-heirs and his brethren ; he strikes, and treats us harshly, as strangers : but his love suffers for this constraint. He is unable long to maintain this character of severity, which is so foreign to him. His favours soon come to soften his blows : he soon shows himself such as he is ; and his love never fails to betray these appearances of rigour and an- ger. Judge, then, if the blows which come from so kind and so friendly a hand can be otherwise than proportioned to your weakness. Let us accuse then only the corruption and not the weakness of our heart, for our impatience and murmurs. Have not weak young women formerly defied all the barbarity of tyrants ? Have not children, before they had learned to support even the ordinary toils of life, run with joy to brave all the rigours of the most frightful death? Have not old men, already sinking under the weight of their own body, felt, like the eagle, their youth renewed amidst the torments of a long martyrdom ? You are weak ; but it is that very weakness which is glorious to faith and to the rehgion of Jesus Christ : it is even on that ac- count that the Lord hath chosen you to display in your instance how much more powerful grace is than nature. If you were born with more fortitude and strength, you would do less ho- nour to the power of grace : to man would be attributed a pa- 202 ON AFFLICTIONS. tience which should be a gift of God. Thus, the weaker you are, the fitter instrument you become for the designs and for the glory of God. When his hand hath been heavy, he hath chosen only the weak, that man might attribute nothing to himself, and to overthrow, by the example of their constancy, the vain fortitude of sages and of philosophers. His disciples were only weak lambs, when he dispersed them through the universe, and exposed them amidst the wolves. They rendered glory in their weakness to the power of grace, and to the truth of his doctrine. They are those earthen vessels which the Lord taketh delight in breaking, like those of Gideon, to make the light and the power of faith shine forth in them with greater magnificence; and if yua entered into the designs of his wisdom and of his mercy, your weakness, which in your opinion justifies your murmurs, would constitute the sweetest consolation of your sufferings. Lord, would you say to him, I ask not that proud reason which seeks in the glory of suffering with constancy the whole consolation of its pains : I ask not from thee that insensibility of heart, which either feels not, or contemns its misfortunes. Leave me, O Lord, that weak and timid reason, that tender and feeling heart, which seems so little fitted to sustain its tri- bulations and sufferings ; only increase thy consolations and fa- vours. The more I shall appear weak in the sight of men, the greater wilt thou appear in my weakness : the more shall the chil- dren of the age admire the power of faith, which alone can exalt the weakest and most timid souls to that point of constancy and firmness to which all philosophy hath never been able to attain. First pretext, taken in the weakness of man, confuted, we have now to expose the illusion of the second, which is founded on the ex- cess or the nature of the afflictions themselves. Part H. — Nothing is more usual with persons afflicted by God, than to justify their complaints and their murmurs by the excess or the nature of their afflictions. We always wish our crosses to have no resemblance to those of others ; and, lest the example of their fortitude and of their faith condemn us, we seek out differences in our grievances, in order to justify that of our dispositions and of our conduct. We persuade ourselves that we could bear with re- signation crosses of any other description ; but that those with which we are overwhelmed by the Lord, are of such a nature as to preclude consolation : that the more we examine the lot of others, the more do we find our own misfortunes singular, and our situation unexampled : and that it is impossible to preserve patience ai>d serenity in a state where chance seems to have collected, solely for us, a thousand afflicting circumstances which never before had happened to others. But, to take from self-love a defence so weak and so unworthy of faith, I would have only forthwith to answer you, that the ON AFFLICTIONS. 203 more extraordinary our afflictions appear, the less ought we to believe them the effects of chance ; the more evidently ought we to see in them the secret and inscrutable arrangements of a God singularly watchful over our destiny; the more should we presume that, under events so new, he doubtless concealeth new views, and singular designs of mercy upon our soul ; the more should we say to ourselves, that he consequently meaneth us not to perish with the multitude, which is the party of the reprobate, seeing that he leadeth us by ways so uncommon and so little trodden. This singularity of misfortunes ought, in thereyes of our faith, to be a soothing distinction. He hath always conducted his chosen, in matters of affliction as well as in other things, by new and extraordinary ways. What melan- choly and surprising adventures in the life of a Noah, a Lot, a Jo- seph, a Moses, and a Job ! Trace, from age to age, the history of the just, and you will always find, in their various vicissitudes, something, I know not what, of singular and incredible, which has staggered even the belief of the subsequent ages. Thus, the less your afflictions resemble those of others, the more should you con- sider them as the afflictions of God's chosen : they are stamped with the mark of the just : they enter into that tradition of singu- lar calamities which, from the beginning of ages, forms their his- tory. Battles lost, when victory seemed certain ; cities, looked upon as impregnable, fallen at the sole approach of the enemy ; a kingdom, once the most flourishing in Europe, stricken with every evil which the Lord in his wrath can pour upon the people ; the court filled with mourning, and all the royal race almost extinct. Such, Sire, is what the Lord in his mercy reserved for your piety ; and such are the unprecedented misfortunes which he prepared for you, to purify the prosperities of a reign the most brilliant in our annals. The singularity of the unfortunate events with which God afflicteth you, is intended for the sole purpose of rendering you equally pious as a Christian, as you have been great as a King. It would seem, that every thing was to be singular in your reign, the prosperities as the misfortunes, in order that, after your glory before men, nothing should be wanting to your piety before God. It is a striking example, prepared by his goodness for our age. And behold, my dear hearer, a striking instance, both to instruct and confute you, when you complain of the excess of your misfor- 4;unes and of your sufferings. The more God afflicteth, the greater ! is his love and his watchfulness over you. More common misfor- \ tunes might have appeared to you as the consequences merely of natural causes ; and though all events are conducted by the secret springs of his providence, you might perhaps have had room to suppose that the Lord had no particular design upon you, in provid- ing for you only certain^fflictions which happen every day to the rest 204 ON AFFLICTIONS. of men. But, in the grievous and singular situation in which he placeth you, you can no longer hide from yourself that his regards are fixed on you alone, and that you are the special object of his merciful designs. Now, what more consoling in our sufferings ! God seeth me ; he numbereth my sighs ; he weigheth mine afflictions ; he be- holdeth my tears to flow; he maketh them subservient to mine eternal sanctification. Since his hand hath weighed so heavily, and in so singular a way, upon me, and since no earthly resource seems now to be left me, I consider myself as having at last become an object moje worthy of his cares and of his regards. Ah ! if I still enjoyed a serene and happy situation, his looks would no longer be upon me ; he would neglect me, and I should be blended before him with so many others who are the prosperous of the earth. Beloved sufferings, which, in depriving me of all human aids, restore me to my God, and render him mine only re- source in all my sorrows ! Precious afflictions, which in turning me aside from all creatures, are the cause that I now become the continual object of the remembrance and of the mercies of my Lord ! I might reply to you, in the second place, that common and momentary afflictions would have aroused our faith but for an instant. We would soon have found, in every thing around us, a thousand resources to obliterate the remembrance of that slight misfortune. Pleasures, human consolations, the new events which the world is continually offering to our sight, would soon have beguiled our sorrow, and restored our relish for the world, and for its vain amusements; and our heart, al- ways in concert with all the objects which flatter it, would soon have been tired of its sights and of its sorrows. But the Lord, in sending afflictions in which religion alone can become our re- source, hath meant to preclude all return toward the world, and to place between our weakness and us a barrier which can never be shaken by either time or accidents : he hath antici- pated our inconstancy, in rendering precautions necessary to us, which might not perhaps have always appeared equally useful. He read, in the character of our heart, that our fidelity in flying the dangers of, and separating ourselves from the world, would not extend beyond our sorrow ; that the same moment which beheld us consoled would witness our change; that, in forget- ting our chagrins, we would soon have forgotten our pious reso- lutions ; and that short-lived afflictions would have made us only short-lived righteous. He hath therefore established the con- tinuance of our piety upon that of our sufferings ; he hath lodged fixed and constant afflictions as sureties for the constancy of our faith : and lest, in leaving our soul in our own power, we should again restore it to the world, he hath resolved to render it safe. ON AFFLICTIONS. 205 by attaching it for ever to the foot of the cross. We are thoroughly- sensible ourselves that a great blow was required to rouse us from our lethargy; that we had been little benefited by the slight afflic- tions with which the Lord hath hitherto been pleased to visit us ; and that scarcely had he stricken us, when we had forgotten the hand that had inflicted so salutary a wound. Of what, then, O my God, should I complain? That excess which I find in my troubles, is an excess of thy mercies. I do not consider that the less thou sparest the patient, the more thou hastenest his cure, and that all the utility and all the security of our sufferings con- sist in the rigour of thy blows. My sweetest consolation in the afflicting state in which thy providence, O Lord, hath been pleased to place me, shall then be, in future, to reflect, that at least thou sparest me not; that thou measurest thy rigours and thy remedies upon my wants, and not upon my desires; and that thou hast more regard to the security of my salvation than to the injustice of my complaints. I might still reply to you: Enter into judgment with the Lord, you who complain of the excess of your sufferings; place in a balance, on the one side your crimes, and on the other your afflic- tions ; measure the rigour of his chastisements upon the enormity of your offences ; compare that which you suffer with that which you ought to suffer ; see if your afflictions go the same length as your senseless pleasures have done ; if the keenness and the conti- nuance of your sorrows correspond with those of your profane debaucheries; if the state of restraint in which you live equals the licentiousness and the depravity of your former manners; and should your afflictions be found to overbalance your iniquities, then boldly reproach the Lord for his injustice. You judge of your sufferings by your inclinations, but judge of them by your crimes. What! not a single moment of your worldly life but what has perhaps made you deserving of an eternal misery, and you murmur against the goodness of a God who commuteth these everlasting torments, so often merited, into a few rapid and momentary afflictions, and even against which the consolations of faith hold out so many resources ! What injustice! what ingratitude! Ah! have a care, unfaithful soul, lest the Lord listen to thee in his wrath ; have a care lest he punish thy passions, by providing for thee, here below, whatever is favourable to them ; lest thou be not found worthy in his sight of these temporal afflictions; lest he reserve thee for the time of his justice and of his vengeance, and that he treat thee like those unfortunate victims who are ornamented with flowers, who are nursed and fattened with so much care, only because they are destined for the sacrifice, and that the knife which is to stab, and the pile which is to consume them, are in readiness upon the altar. He is terrible in his gifts as in his wrath ; and seeing that guilt must be punished either with fleeting punishments here below, or 206 ON Al'^FLICTIONS. with eternal pains after this hfe, nothing ought to appear more fearful in the eyes of faith, than to be a sinner and yet prosperous on the earth. Great God ! let it be here then for me the time of thy ven- geance; and since my crimes cannot go unpunished, hasten, O Lord, to satisfy thy justice. The more I am spared here, the more shalt thou appear to me as a terrible God, who refuseth to let me go for some fleeting afflictions, and whose wrath can be appeased by nothing but mine eternal misery. Lend not thine ear to the cries of ray grief, nor to the lamentations of a corrupted heart, which knows not its true interests. I disown, Lord, these too hu- man sighs which the sadness of my state still continually forces from me; these carnal tears which affliction so often maketh me to shed in thy presence. Listen not to the intreaties which I have hitherto made to obtain an end to my sufferings ; complete rather thy vengeance upon me here below; reserve nothing for that dread- ful eternity, where thy chastisement shall be without end and without measure. I ask thee only to sustain my weakness; and, in shedding sorrows through my life, shed likewise upon it thy grace, which consoles and recompenses with such usury an afflicted heart. To all these truths, so consoling for an afflicted soul, I might still add, that our sufferings appear excessive only through the excess of the corruption of our heart ; that the keenness of our afflictions springs solely from that of our passions; that it is the impropriety of our attachments to the objects lost, which renders their loss so grievous; that we are keenly afflicted only when we had been keenly attached ; and that the excess of our afflictions is always the punishment of the excess of our iniquitous loves. I might add, that we always magnify whatever regards ourselves; that the very idea of singularity in our misfortunes flatters our vanity, at the same time that it authorizes our murmurs; that we never wish to resemble others; that we feel a secret pleasure in per- suading ourselves that we are single of our kind ; we wish all the world to be occupied with our misfortunes aTone, as if v/e were the only unfortunate of the earth. Yes, my brethren, the evils of others are nothing in our eyes: we see not that "all around us are, perhaps, more unhappy than we; that we have a thousand resources in our afflictions, which are denied to others; that we derive a thou- sand consolations in our infirmities, from wealth, and the number of persons watchful over our smallest wants ; that, in the loss of a person dear to us, a thousand means of softening its bitterness still remain from the situation in which Providence hath placed us; that, in domestic divisions, we find comforts in the tender- ness and in the confidence of our friends, which we had been unable to procure among our relatives; lastly, that we find a thousand human indemnifications to our misfortunes, and that, were we to place in a balance, on the one side our consolations, and on the other our sufferings, we should find, that there are still remaining in ON AFFLICTIONS. 207 our state more comforts capable of corrupting us, than crosses cal- culated to sanctify us. Thus, it is almost solely the great and the prosperous of the world who complain of the excess of their misfortunes and suf- ferings. The unfortunate majority of the earth, who are born to, and live in, penury and distress, pass in silence, and almost in the neglect of their sufferings, their wretched days. The smallest gleam of comfort and ease restores serenity and cheerfulness to their heart : the slightest consolations obliterate their troubles : a mo- ment of pleasure makes up for a whole year of sufferance ; while those fortunate and sensual souls, amidst all their abundance, are seen to reckon, as an unheard-of misfortune, the disappointment of a single desire. We view them turning into a martyrdom for themselves, the weariness and even the satiety of pleasures ; drawing from imaginary evils the source of a thousand real vexa- tions ; feehng ten-fold more anguish for the failure of a single acquisition, than pleasure in the possession of all they enjoy : in a word, considering as the greatest misfortune the least interruption, however trifling, to their sensual happiness. Yes, ray brethren, it is the great and powerful alone who com- plain ; who continually imagine themselves the only unhappy ; who never have enough of comforters ; who, on the slightest re- verse, see assembled around them, not only those worldly friends whom their rank and fortune procure, but likewise all the pious end enlightened ministers of the gospel, distinguished by the public esteem, and whose holy instructions would, in general, be much better bestowed on so many other unfortunate individuals who are destitute of every worldly resource and religious assist- ance, and to whom they would likewise be so much more bene- ficial. But, before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, your afflictions shall be weighed with those of so many of your unfortunate fellow-creatures, and whose misfortunes are so much the more dreadful as they are more hidden and more neglected. It will then be demanded of you, if it belonged to you to complain and to murmur. It will be demanded, if you were entitled to lay such stress upon calamities which would have been conso- lations to so many others : if it was your business to murmur so highly against a God who treated you with such indulgence, while his hand was so heavy on such an infinity of unhappy fellow- creatures : if they had less right to the riches and to the pleasures of the earth than you : if their soul was less noble, and less pre- cious before God, than yours : in a word, if they were either more criminal, or of another nature, than you ? Alas ! it is not only our own self-love, but it is likewise our hardness toward our brethren, which magnifies to us our own misfortunes. Let us enter those poor, unprovided dwellings, where shame conceals such bitter and affecting poverty; let us 208 ON AFFLICTIONS. view those asylums of public compassion where every calamity seems to reign : it is there that we shall learn to appreciate our own afflictions : it is there that, touched to the heart with the excess of so many evils, we shall blush to give even a name to the slightness of ours : it is there that our murmurs against Heaven shall be changed into thanksgivings, and that, less taken up with the slight crosses sent us by the Lord, than with so many others from which he spareth us, we shall begin to dread his indulgence, far from complaining of his severity. My God ! how awful shall be the judgment of the great and the mighty, since, besides the inevitable abuse of their prosperity, the afflictions, which oyght to have sanctified its use and expiated its abuses, shall become themselves their greatest crimes! But how employ afflictions in sanctifying the dangers of their station, or in working out salvation, since they seem to cast such invincible obstacles in their way? This is the last pretext drawn from the incompatibility which afflictions seem to have with our salvation. " Part III. — It is very surprising, that the corruption of the human heart finds, even in suflerances, obstacles to salvation, and that Christians continually justify their murmurs against the wisdom and the goodness of God, by accusing him of sending crosses incompatible with their eternaU salvation. Nothing is more common, however, in the world, than this iniquitous lan- guage ; and when we exhort the souls afflicted by God to convert these fleeting afiiictions into the price of heaven and of eternity, they reply, that, in this state of distress, they are incapable of every thing- that the obstacles and vexations which they are continually encoun- tering, far from recalling them to order and to duty, serve only to irritate the mind, and to harden the heart ; and that tranquillity must be restored before they can turn their thoughts toward God. Now, I say, that, of all the pretexts employed in justification of the unchristian use made of afflictions, this is the most absurd and the most culpable. The most culpable, for it is blasphem- ing Providence to pretend, that it places you in situations incom- patible with your salvation. Whatever it doth or permitteth here below, it only doth or permitteth in order to facilitate to men the ways of eternal life : every event, prosperous or unpros- perous, in the measure of our lot, is meant by it as a mean of salvation, and of sanctification ; all its designs upon us tend to that sole purpose ; whatever we are, even in the order of nature, our birth, our fortune, our talents, our age, our dignities, our protectors, our subjects, our masters ! — all this, in its views of mercy upon us, enters into the impenetrable designs of our eter- nal sanctification. All this visible world itself is made only for the age to come ; whatever passeth, hath its secret connexions with that eternal age, where things shall pass no more ; what- ON AFFLICTIONS. 209 ever we see, is only the image and trust of the invisible thing?. The world is worthy of the cares of a wise and niorciful God, only inasmuch as, by socict and adorable relations, its diverse revolu- tions are to form that heavenly church, that iunnortal assembly of chosen, where he shall for ever be gloiified. To pietend, then, tliat he placeth us in situations, which not oidy have no relation to, but are even incompatible with our eternal interests, is to make a temporal God of him, and to blaspheme his adorable wisdom. But, not only nothing is more culpeible than this pretext, — T say, likewise, that nothing is more foolish : for, it is only by detaching itself from this miserable world, that a bouI returns to God ; and nothing, says St. Augustine, so eHectually detaches from this miserable world, as when the Lord sheddeth salutary sorrows over its dangerous pleasures. " Lord," said a holy king of Judah, ** I had neglected thee in prosperity and in abundance ; the plea- sures oi" royalty, and the splendour of a long and glorious reign, had corrupted my heart; the flatteries and the deceitful words of the wicked had lulled me into a profound and a fatal sleep ; but thine hand hath been upon me, in pouring out upon my people all the scourges of thy wrath, in raising up against me mine own children and subjects, whom I had loaded with favours ; and I awoke. Thou hast humbled me, and I have had recourse to thee; thou hast afflicted me, and I have sought thee, and I have found out that [ ought not to have my trust in men ;" that prosperity is a dream ; glory a mistake ; the talents which men admire, vices con- cealed under the brilliant outsides of hinnan virtues ; the whole world a deception, which feeds us with only vain phantpms, and leaves nothing solid in the heart ; and that thou alone art worthy to be served, for thou alone forsakest not those who serve tliee." ]]ehold the most natural effect of afflictions ; they facilitate all the duties of religion ; hatred of the world in rendering it more dis- agreeable to us ; indifierence toward all creatures, by giving us experience, either of their perfidy by infidelities, or of their frailty by unexpected losses; privation of ])leasures, by placing obstacles in their way; the desire of eternal riches, and consoling returns toward God, by leaving us almost no consolation among men ; lastly, all the obligations of faith become more easy to the afflicted soul ; his good desires find fewer obstacles, his weakness fewer rocks, his faith more aids, his lukewarmness more resources, his passions more checks, and even his virtue more meritorious opportunities. Thus the church was never more fervent and purer than when she was afflicted ; the ages of her suilerings and persecutions were the ages of her splendour and of her zeal. ''iVanquiliity after- ward corrupted her manners ; her days became less pure and less innocent as soon as they became more fortunate and powerful ; her glory ended almost with her misfortunes; and her peace, as thy I' 210 ON AFFLICTIONS. prophet said, was more bitter, through the licentiousness of her children, than even her troubles had ever been through the barba- rity of her enemies. Even you who complain that the crosses with which the Lord afHicteth you discourage you, and check any desire of labouring toward your salvation ; you well know that happier days have not been for you more holy and more faithful ; you well know that then, intoxicated with the world and its pleasures, you lived in a total neglect of your God, and that the comforts of your situation were only the spurs of your corruption, and the instruments of your iniquitous desires. But such is the perpetual illusion of our self-love. When fortu- nate, when every thing answers to our wishes, and the world smiles upon us, then we allege the dangers of our state to justify the errors of our worldly manners : we say that it is very difficvdt, at a certain age and in a certain situation, when a rank is to be sup- ported, and appearances to be kept up with the world, to condemn ourselves to solitude, to prayer, to flight from pleasures, and to all the duties of a gloomy and a Christian life. But, on the other side, when under 'affliction ; when the body is struck with lassi- tude, and fortune forsakes us ; when our friends deceive, and our masters neglect us ; when our enemies overpower, and our relations become our persecutors ; we complain that every thing estranges us from God in this state of bitterness and sorrow ; thai^ the mind is not sufficiently tranquil to devote any thoughts to salvation ; that the heart is too exasperated to feel any thing but its own mis- fortunes ; that amusements and pleasures, now become necessary, must be sought to lull its grief, and to prevent the total loss of reason, in giving way to all the horrors of a profound melancholy. It is thus, O my God ! that by our eternal contradictions we jus- tify the adorable ways of thy wisdom upon the lots of men, and that we provide for thy justice powerful reasons to overthrow one day the illusion and the falsity of our pretexts. For, besides, be our sufferings what they may, the history of religion holds out righteous characters to our example, who, in the same situation as we are, have held their soul in patience, and turne'd their afflictions into a resource of salvation. Do you weep the loss of a person dear to your heart ? Judith in a similar afflic- tion found the increase of her piety and faith, and changed the tears of her widowhood into those of retirement and penitence. If a pining health render life more gloomy and bitter than even death itself. Job found in the wrecks of an ulcerated body, motives of compunction, longings for eternity, and the hopes of an immortal resurrection. If your character in the world be stained by calumnies, Susanna held out an unshaken soul under the blackest aspersions ; and knowing that she had the Lord in testimony of her innocence, she left to him the care of avenging her upon the injustice of men. ON AFFLICTIONS. 211 If your fortune be the victim of treachery, David, dethroned, con- sidered the humiliation of his new state as the just punishment of the abuse he had made of his past prosperity. If an unfortunate union become your daily cross, Esther found, in the caprices and frenzies of a faithless husband, the proof of her virtue, and the merit of her meekness and patience. In a word, place yourself in the most dismal situations, and you will find righteous men, who have wrought out their salvation, in the same ; and, without ap- plying to former ages for examples, look around, (the hand of the Lord is not yet shortened,) and you will see souls, who, loaded with the same crosses as you, make a very different use of them, and find means of salvation in the very same events where you find only a rock to your innocence or a pretext for your murmurs. What do I say ? — you will see souls v/hom the mercy of God hath recalled from their errors, by pouring out salutary sorrows upon their life ; by overturning an established fortune ; by chilling an envied favour ; by sapping a health apparently unalterable ; by terminating a profane connexion through a glaring inconstancy. You yourself, then, a witness of their change and of their conver- sion, have lessened the merit of it, from the facilities provided by chagrin and afflictions ; you have placed little confidence in a virtue which misfortunes had rendered as if necessary ; you have said that it required little exertion to forsake a world which was become tired of us ; that at the first gleam of good fortune, pleasures would soon be seen to succeed to all this great show of devotion, and that they had devoted themselves to God only because they had nothing better to do. Unjust that you are ! and at present, when there is question of returning to him in your affliction, you say that it is not possible ; that a heart pressed and bowed down with sorrow is incapable of paying attention to any thing but its grief, and that we are more hardened than touched in this state of distress and misfortune; and after having censured and cast a stain upon the piety of afflicted souls, as a measure too easy, and to which little merit is attached, as it required almost no exertion, you excuse yourself from adopting it in your affliction, and from making a Christian use of it, because you pretend that it is not possible in it to pay attention to any thing but to your sorrow. Answer, or rather tremble, lest you find the rock of your salvation in a situa- tion which ought to be its surest resource. After having abused prosperity, tremble lest you now make your misfortunes the fatal in- struments of your destruction, and lest you shut upon yourself all the ways of goodness which God might open to you in order to recall you to him. When, O my God ! will the time come that my soul, exalting itself through faith above all creatures, shall no longer worship but thee in them ; shall no longer attribute events to them of which thou alone art the author; shall recognize, in the diverse situations in 212 ON AFFLICTIONS. which thou placest it, the adorable arrangements of thy providence; and, even amid all its crosses, shall taste that unalterable peace which the world, with all its pleasures, can never bestow ? How melancholy, in effect, my brethren, when visited and afflicted of God, to seek for consolation in rising up against the hand which strikes us; in murmuring against his justice; in casting ourselves off from him, as it were in a frenzy of rage, des- pair, and revenge, and to seek consolation in our own madness ! What a horrible situation is that of a foolish soul whom God af- flicteth, and who for consolation flies in the face of his God ; seeks to ease his troubles in multiplying his trespasses; yields liimself up to debauchery, in order to drown his sorrows ; and makes the ovei whelming sadness of guilt a horrible resource against the sad- ness of his afflictions ! No, my brethren, religion alone can truly console us in our mis- fortunes. Philosophy checked complaints, but it did not soften the anguish. The world lulls cares, but it does not cure them : and, amidst all its senseless pleasures, the secret sting of sadness always remains buried in the heart. God alone can comfort our afflictions ; and is another necessary to a faithful soul ? Weak creatures ! You may easily, by vain speeches, and by that cus- tomary language of compassion and tenderness, make yourselves to be understood by the ears of the body ; but there is none but the God of all consolation who can speak to the heart : in the excess of my pains, I have vainly sought consolation among ye: I have sharpened my sufferings, while thinking to soften them, and thy vain consolations have been to me only fresh sorrows. Great God ! it is at thy feet, that I mean henceforth to pour out all the bitterness of mine heart. It is with thee alone, that I mean to forget all my grievances, all my sufferings, all creatures. Hitherto I have given way to chagrins and to sadness altogether human ; a thousand times have I wished that thy wisdom were re- gulated by the mad projects of my heart': my thoughts have wan- dered; my mind hath formed a thousand delusive dreams; my heart hath pursued these vain phantoms. I have longed for a higher birth, more fortune, talents, fame, and health. I have lulled myself in these ideas of an imaginary happiness. Fool that I am ! as if I were capable of altering at my pleasure the immutable order of thy Providence ! As if I had been wiser or more enlightened than thee, O my God, upon my true interests ! I have never entered into thine eternal designs upon me. I have never considered the sorrows of my situation as entering into the order of my eternal destination ; and, even to this day, my joys and my sorrows have depended upon the created alone ; consequently my joys have never been tranquil, and my sorrows have always been without resource. But henceforth, O my God ! thou shalt be my only comforter, and I will seek, in the meditation of thy ON PRAYJ5R. 213 holy law, and in my submission to thine eternal decrees, those solid consolations which I have never found in the world, and which, in softening our afflictions here below, secure to us, at the same time, their immortal reward hereafter. SERMON XIII. ON PRAYER Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David." — Matt. xv. 22. Such is the lamentation of a soul touched with its wretchedness, and which addresses itself to the sovereign Physician, in whose compassion alone it hopes to find relief. This was formerly the prayer of a woman of Canaan, who wished to obtain from the Son of David the recovery of her daughter. Persuaded of his power, and expecting every thing from his usual goodness to the unfortu- nate, she knew no surer way of rendering him propitious, than the cry of her affliction, and the simple tale of her misfortune. And this is the model which the church now proposes to us, in order to animate and to instruct us how to pray; that is to say, in order to render more pleasing, and more familiar to us, this most essential duty of Christian piety. For, my brethren, to pray is the condition of man ; it is the first duty of man ; it is the sole resource of man ; it is the whole conso- lation of man ; and, to speak in the language of the Holy Spirit, it is the whole man. Yes, if the entire world, in the midst of which we live, be but one continued temptation ; if all the situations in which we may be, and all the objects which environ us, seem united with our cor- ruption, for the purpose of either weakening or seducing us ; if riches corrupt, and poverty exasperate ; if prosperity exalt, and affliction depress ; if business prey upon, and ease render effemin- ate; if the sciences inflate, and ignorance lead us into error; if mutual intercourse trivially engage us too much, and solitude leave us too much to ourselves; if pleasure seduce, and pious works ex- cite our pride ; if health arouse the passions, and sickness nourish either lukewarmness or murmurings ; in a word, if, since the fall of nature, every thing in, or around us, be a fresh danger to be dreaded ; in a situation so deplorable, what hope of salvation, O, my God ! could there be still remaining to man, if, from the bot- 214 ON PRAYKR. toni of his wretchedness, he had it not in his power to make his lamentations to be continually mounting toward the throne of thy mercy, in order to prevail that thou thyself may come to his aid ; that thou may interfere to put a check upon his pas- sions, to clear up his errors, to sustain his weakness, to lessen his temptations, to abridge his hours of trials, and to save him from his backslidings ? The Christian is therefore a man of prayer ; his origin, his situ- ation, his nature, his wants, his place of abode, all inform him that prayer is necessary. The church herself, in which he is incorpo- rated through the grace of regeneration, a stranger here below, is always plaintive and fuil of lamentation ; she recognizes her chil- dren only through their sighs, which they direct toward their coun- try; and the Christian who does not pray, cuts himself off from the assembly of the holy, and is worse than an unbeliever. How comes it then, my brethren, that a duty not only so essen- tial, but even so consoling for man, is at present so much neglected? How comes it that it is considered either as a gloomy and tiresome duty, or as appropriated solely for retired souls ; insomuch, that our instructions upon prayer scarcely interest those who listen to us, who seem as if persuaded that they are more adapted to the cloister than to the court ? Whence comes this abuse, and this universal neglect in the world of prayer ? From two pretexts, which I now mean to over- throw. First, they do not pray, because they know not, say they, how to pray ; and, consequently, that it is lost time. Secondly, they do not pray, because they complain that they find nothing in prayer but wanderings of the mind, which render it both insipid and disagreeable. First pretext, drawn from their ignorance of the manner in which they ought to pray. Second pretext, founded on the disgusts and the difficulties of prayer. You must be taught, therefore, how to pray, since you know it not. And, secondly, the habit of prayer must be rendered easy to you, since you find it so troublesome and difficult. Part I. — "The commandments which I command you," said formerly the Lord to his people, " are neither above your strength nor the reach of your mind ; they are not hidden from you, nor far off, that you should say. Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring them uuto us, that we may hear them and do them? Ndr are they beyond the sea, that you should say. Who shall go over the sea for us and bring them unto us, that we may hear them and do them ? But the word is very nigh unto you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it." Now, what the Lord said in general of all the precepts of the law, that we have no occasion to seek beyond ourselves for the knowledge of them, but that they may be all accomplished in our heart and in our mouth, may more particularly be said of ON PRAVKR. 215 the precept of prayer, which is, as if the first and tlic most essen- tial of all. Nevertheless, what they commonly oppose in the world against this duty is, that, when they come to prayer, they know not what to say to God, and that praying is a secret of which they have never as yet been able to comprehend any thing. I say, then, that the source of this pretext springs fwrn three iniquitous dispositions : the first is, that they are mistaken in the idea which they form of prayer ; the second is, that they are not sufficiently sensible of their own wretchedness and wants ; and the third is, that they do not love their God. First. I say that they are mistaken in the idea which they form of prayer. In effect, prayer is not an exertion of the mind, an ar- rangement of ideas, a profound knowledge of the mysteries and counsels of God ; it is a simple emotion of the heart ; it is a lamen- tation of the soul, deeply affected at the sight of its own wretch- edness ; it is a keen and inward feeling of our wants and of our weakness, and a humble confidence which it lays before its Lord, in order to obtain rehef and deliverance from them. Prayer sup- poses, in the soul which prays, neither great lights, uncommon knowledge, nor a mind more cultivated and exalted than that of the rest of men ; it supposes only more faith, more contrition, and a warmer desire of deliverance from its temptations and from its wretchedness. Prayer is neither a secret nor a science which we learn from men ; nor is it an art, or private method, upon which it is necessary to consult skilful teachers, in order to be master of its rules and precepts. The methods and the maxims thereupon, pre- tended to be laid down to us in our days, are either singular ways which are not to be followed, or the vain speculations of an idle mind, or a fanaticism which may stop at nothing, and which, far from edifying the church, hath merited her censures, and hath fur- nished to the impious matter of derision against her, and to the world fresh pretexts of contempt for, and disgusts at, prayer. Prayer is a duty upon which we are all born instructed : the rules of this divine science are written solely in our hearts ; and the Spirit of God is the sole master to teach it. A holy and innocent soul, who is penetrated with the greatness of God, struck with the terror of his judgments, touched with his infinite mercies, who only knows to humble himself before him, to acknowledge, in the simphcity of his heart, his goodness and won- ders, to adore the orders of his providence upon him, to accept be- fore him of the crosses and afflictions imposed upon him by the wisdom of his councils ; who knows no prayer more sublime than to be sensible before God of all the corruption of his heart ; to groan over his own hardness of heart, and opposition to all good ; to intreat of him, with fervent faith, to change him, to destroy in him the man of sin, which, in spite of his firmest resolves, conti- 216 0\ PRAYER. nually forces him to make so many false steps in the ways of God : a soul of this description is a thousand times more instructed in the knowledge of prayer than all the teachers themselves, and may say, with the prophet, "I have more understanding than all my teachers." He speaks to his God as a friend to a friend ; he is sorry for having offended him ; he upbraids himself for not having, as yet, sufficient force to renounce all to please him ; he takes no pride in the sublimity of his thoughts; he leaves his heart to speak, and gives way to all its tenderness before the only object of his love. Even when his mind wanders, his heart watches and speaks for him : his very disgusts become a prayer, through the feelings which are then excited in his heart : he is tenderly affected, he sighs, he is displeased with, and a burden to, himself: he feels the weight of his bonds, he exerts himself as if to break and throw them off; he a thousand times renews his protestations of fidelity; he blushes and is ashamed at always promising, and yet being continually faithless : such is the whole secret and the whofe science of prayer. And what is there in all this beyond the reach of every believing soul ? Who had instructed the poor woman of Canaan in prayer? A stranger, and a daughter of Tyre and Sidon, who was un- acquainted with the wonders of the law and the oracles of the prophets ; who had not yet heard from the mouth of the Sa- viour the words of eternal life; who was still under the shadows of ignorance and of death : she prays, however ; her love, her con- fidence, the desire of being granted, teach her to pray; her heart being touched, constitutes the whole merit and the whole sublimity of her prayer. And surely, if, in order to pray, it were requisite to rise to those sublime states of prayer to which God exalteth some holy souls ; if it were necessary to be wrapped in ecstacy, and transported even up to heaven, like Paul, there to hear those ineffable secrets which God exposeth not to man, and which it is not permitted, even to man himself, to reveal; or, like Moses upon the holy mountain, to be placed upon a cloud of glory, and, face to face, to see God ; that is to say, if it were necessary to have attained to that degree of intimate union with the Lord, in which the soul, as if already freed from its body, springs up even into the bosom of its God ; contemplates at leisure his in- finite perfections; forgets, as I may say, its members which are still upon the earth; is no longer disturbed, nor even diverted by the phantoms of the senses ; is fixed, and as if absorbed in the contemplation of the wonders and the grandeur of God ; and already participating in his eternity, could count a whole age passed in that blessed state, as only a short and rapid mo- ment; if, I say, it were necessary, in order to pray, to be fa- voured with these rare and exceUent gifts of the Holy Spirit, ON PRAYKR. 217 you might tell us, like those new believers of whom St. Paul makes mention, that you have not yet received them, and that you know not what is even that Spirit which communicates them. But prayer is not a special gift set apart for privileged souls alone ; it is a common duty imposed upon every believer ; it is not solely a virtue of perfection, and reserved for certain purer and more holy souls ; it is, like charity, an indispensable virtue, requi- site to the perfect as to the imperfect, within ttie capacity of the illiterate equally as of the learned, commanded to the simple as to the most enlightened : it is the virtue of all men ; it is the science of every believer ; it is the perfection of every creature. Whoever has a heart, and is capable of loving the Author of his being, — whoever has a reason capable of knowing the nothingness of the creature, and the greatness of God, must know how to adore, to return him thanks, and to have recourse to him, to appease him when offended, to call upon him when turned away, to thank him when favourable, to humble himself when he strikes, to lay his wants before him, or to entreat his countenance and protection. Thus, when the disciples ask of Jesus Christ to teach them to pray, he doth not unfold to them the height, the sublimity, the depth- of the mysteries of God; he solely informs them, that, in order to pray, it is necessary to consider God as a tender, bounti- ful, and careful father; to address themselves to him with a re- spectful familiarity, and with a confidence blended with fear and love ; to speak to him the language of our weakness and of our wretchedness ; to borrow no expressions but from our heart ; to make no attempt of rising to him, but rather to draw him nearer to us : to lay our wants before him, and to implore his aid ; to wish that all men bless and worship him ; that his reign be es- tablished in all hearts; that his will be done, as in heaven, so in earth ; that sinners return to the paths of righteousness ; that be- lievers attain to the knowledge of the truth; that he forgive us our sins ; that he preserve us from temptation ; that he assist our weakness ; that he deliver us from our miseries. All is simple, but all is grand in this divine prayer; it recalls man to himself, and, in order to adopt it as a model, nothing more is required than to ^i feel our wants, and to wish deliverance from them. , 'z" And behold, why I have said that the second iniquitous disposi- "T' tion, from whence the pretext, founded upon not knowing how to f • pray proceeded, is, that they do not sufficiently feel the infinite wants of their soul : for, I ask you, my brethren, is it necessary to teach a sick person to entreat relief? Is a man pressed with hun- ger difficulted how to solicit food ? Is an unfortunate person, beaten with the tempest, and on the point of perishing, at a loss how to implore assistance ? Alas ! doth the urgent necessity alone not amply furnish expressions? In the sole sense of our evils, do we not find that animated eloquence, those persuasive emotions. 218 ON PRAYER. those pressing remonstrances which solicit their cure ? Has a suf- fering heart occasion for any master to teach it to complain 't In it every thing speaks, every thing expresses its affliction, every thing announces its sufferings, and every thing solicits relief: even its silence is eloquent. You yourself, who complain that you know not what method to take in praying, in your temporal afflictions, from the instant that a dangerous raalaclj'- threatens your hfe, that an unlooked-for event endangers your property and fortune, that an approaching death is on the point of snatching from you a person either dear or neces- sary, then you raise your hands to heaven ; then you send up your lamentations and prayers ; you address yourself to the God who strikes and who relieves; you then know how to pray; you have no need of going beyond your own heart for lessons and rules to lay your afflictions before him, nor do you consult able teachers in order to know what is necessary to say to him ; you have occasion for nothing but your grief, your evils alone have found out the method of instructing you. Ah ! my brethren, if we felt the wants of our soul as we feel those of our body, — if our eternal salvation interested us as much as a fortune of dirt, or a weak and perishable health, we would soon be skilful in the divine art of prayer ; we would not complain that we had nothing to say in the presence of a God of whom we have so much to ask; the mind would be little difficulted in finding wherewith to entertain him; our evils alone would speak; in spite of ourselves, our heart would burst forth in holy effusions, like that of Samuel's mother before the ark of the Lord ; we would no longer be master of our sorrows and tears ; and the most cer-^ tain mark of our want of faith, and that we know ourselves not, is, that of not knowing what to say to the Lord in the space of a short prayer. And after all, is it possible that, in the miserable condition of this human life, surrounded as we 'are with so many dangers; made up ourselves of so many weaknesses ; on the point, every moment, of being led astray by the objects of vanity, corrupted by the illusions of the senses, and dragged away by the force of example ; a continual prey to the tyranny of our inclinations, to the dominion of our flesh, to the inconstancy of our heart, to the inequalities of our reason, to the caprices of our imagination, to the eternal variations of our temper ; depressed by loss of favour, elated by prosperity, enervated by abundance, soured by po- verty, led away by custom, shaken by accidents, flattered with praise, irritated ,by contempt ; continually wavering between our passions and our duties, between ourselves and the law of God ; is it possible, I say, that, in a situation so deplorable, we can be difficulted what to ask of the Lord, or what to say to him, when we appear in his presence? O my God! why then is man not ON PRAYKll. 219 less miserable? Or why is he not better acquainted with his wants ? Ah! if you told us, my dear hearer, that you know not where to begin in prayer; that your wants are so infinite, your miseries and your passions so multiplied, that, were you to pretend to expose them all to the Lord, you would never have done: if you said to iis, that the more you search into your heart, the more your wounds unfold, the more corruption and disorders do you discover in your- self, and that, despairing of being able to relate to the Lord the endless detail of your weaknesses, you present your heart wholly to him, you leave your evils to speak for you, you ground your whole art of prayer on your confusion, your humiliation, and your silence; and that, in consequence of having too much to say to him, you say nothing; if you spoke in this manner, you would speak the language of faith, and that of a penitent king, who, contemplating his repeated relapses, and no longer daring to speak to his God in prayer, said, " Lord, I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long; for mine iniquities are gone over my head ; as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My heart panteth, my strength faileth me; for I will declare mine iniquity, I will be sorry for my sin. Forsake me not, O Lord: Q my God ! be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation." Such is the silence of compunction which forms before God the true prayer. But to complain that you have no longer any thing to say, when you wish to pray : alaS ! my dear hearer, when you present your- self before God, do your past crimes hold out nothing for you to dread from his judgments, or to ask from his mercy? What! your whole life has perhaps been only a sink of debaucheries ; you have perverted every thing, grace, your talents, your reason, your wealth, your dignities, all creatures ; you have passed the best part of your days in the neglect of your God, and in aU the delusions of the world and of the passions ; you have vilified your heart by iniquitous attachments, defiled your body, disordered your imagination, weakened your lights, and even extinguished every happy disposition which nature had placed in your soul; and the recollection of all this furnishes you with nothing in the presence of God? And it inspires you with no idea of the method you ought to adopt, in having recourse to him, in order to obtain his forgiveness of such accumulated crimes? And you have nothing to say to a God whom you have so long offended? O man! thy salvation, then, must either be without resource, or thou must have other means of accompHshing it than those of the divine clemency and mercy. But, my dear hearer, I go farther. If you lead a Christian life ; if, returned from the world and from pleasures, you are at last entered into the ways of salvation, you are still more unjust in 220 ON PRAVER. complaining that you find nothing to say to the Lord in your prayers. What! the singular grace of having opened your eyes, of undeceiving you with regard to the world, and withdrawing you from the bottom of the abyss ; this blessing so rare, and denied to so many sinners, doth it give rise to no grateful feeling in your heart, when at his feet? Can this recollection leave you cold and insensible? Is nothing tender avv^akened by the presence of your benefactor, you who pride yourself upon having never for- gotten a benefit, and who so poQipously display the feeling and the excess of your gratitude tov/ard the creatures : Besides, if you feel those endless tendencies, which, in spite of your change of life, still rise up within you against the law of God ; that difficulty which' you still have in doing well; that unfortunate inclination which you still find within you toward evil; those desires of a more perfect virtue, which always turn out vain ; those resolutions to which you are always faithless; those opportunities in which you always find yourself the same ; those duties which always meet the same repugnance in your heart: in a word, if you feel that inexhaustible fund of weakness and of corruption which remains with you after your conversion, and which alarms so much your virtue, you will not only have ample matter to address the Lord in prayer, but your whole life will be one continual prayer. All the dangers which shall threaten your weakness, all the acci- dents which shall shake your faith, all the objects which shall open afresh the former wounds of your heart, all the inward emotions which shall prove that the man of sin lives always within you, will lead you to look upwards to Him from whom alone you expect dehverance from them. As the apostle said, every place will be to you a place of prayer; every thing will direct your atten- tion to God, because every thing will furnish you with Christian reflectioris upon yourself. Besides, my dear hearer, even granting that your own neces- sities sliould not be sufficient to fill the void of your prayer, employ a portion of it with the evils of the church ; with the dis- sensions of the pastors ; with that spirit of schism and revolt which seems to be forming in the sanctuary ; with the relaxation of believers; with the depravity of manners ; with the sad progress of unbelief, and the diminution of faith among men. Lament over the scandals of which you are a continual witness ; complain to the Lord, with the prophet, that all have forsaken him; that every one seeks his own interest; that even the salt of the earth hath become tasteless, and that piety is become a traffic. Entreat of the Lord the consummation of his elect, and the fulfilment of his designs upon his church ; religious princes, faithful pastors, humble and enlightened teachers, knowing and disinterested guides; peace to the churches; the extinction of error, and the return of ail wha have gone astray. ON IMIAVKR. 221 What more shall I add? Entreat the conversion of your rela- tions, friends, enemies, protectors, and masters; the conversion of those souls to whom you have been a stumbling-block ; of those whom you have formerly estranged from piety through your deri- sions and censures; of those who perhaps owe their irreligion and freethinking solely to the impiety of your past discourses; of those of whom your examples or solicitations have formerly either per verted the virtue or seduced the weakness. Is it possible that these great objects, at once so sad and so interesting, cannot furnish a moment's attention to your mind, or some feeling to your heart? Every thing which surrounds you teaches you to pray; every object, every accident which you see around you, provides you vvith fresh xDpportunities of raising yourself to God ; the world, retirement, the court, the righteous, the sinful, the public and domestic occurrences, the misfortunes of some, and tiie prosperity of others; every thing, in a word, which meets your eyes, supplies you with subject of lamentation, of prayer, of thanksgiving. Every thing instructs your faith ; every thing excites your zeal ; all grieves your piety, and calls forth your gratitude; and, amid so many subjects of prayer, you cannot supply a single instant of prayer! Surrounded with so many opportunities of raising yourself to God, you have nothing to say to him when you come to appear in his presence ? Ah ! my brethren, how far removed must God be from a heart which finds it such a punishment to hold converse with him, and how little must that master and friend be loved, to whom they never wish to speak ! And behold the last and the principal cause of our incapacity in prayer. They know not how to pray and to speak to their God, because they do not love him. When the heart loves, it soon finds out how to communicate its feelings, and to affect the object of its love; it soon knows what it ought to say: alas! it cannot express all that it feels. Let us establish regularity once more in our hearts, my brethren ; let us substitute God in place of the world; then shall our heart be no longer a stranger before God. It is the irregularity of our affections which is the sole cause of our incapacity in prayer; eternal riches can never be fervently asked when they are not loved; truths can never be well meditated upon when they are not relished; and little can be said to a God who is hardly known : favours which are not desired, and freedom from passions which are not hated, can never be very urgently solicited; in a word, prayer is the lan- guage of love; and we know not how to pray, because we know not how to love. But, as you will say, doth an inclination for prayer depend upon us? And how^ is it possible to pray, with disgusts and wanderings of the mind, which are not to be conquered, and which render it insupportable? Second pretext, drawn from the disgusts and the difficulties of prayer. 222 ON PRAYER. Part II. — One of the greatest excesses of sin is undoubtedly that backwardness, and, I may say, that natural dislike which we have to prayer. Man, innocent, would have founded his whole delight in holding converse with God. All creatures would have been as an open book, where he would have incessantly meditated upon his works and his wonders ; the impressions of the senses, under the command of reason, would never have been able to turn him aside, in spite of himself, from the de- light and the familiarity of his presence ; his whole life would have been one continued contemplation of the truth, and his whole happiness in his innocence would have been founded on his continual communications with the Lord, and the certainty that he would never forsake him. Man must therefore be highly corrupted, and sin must have made strange alterations in us, to turn into a punishment what ought to be our happiness. It is however only too true, that we almost all bear in our nature this backwardness and this dislike to prayer ; and upon these is founded the most universal pretext which is opposed to the discharge of this duty, so essential to Christian piety. Even persons, to whom the habit of prayer ought to be rendered more pleasing and more familiar, by the practice of virtue, continually complain of the disgusts and of the constant wanderings which they experience in this holy exercise ; insomuch, that, looking upon it either as a wearisome duty, or as a lost trou- ble, they abridge its length, and think themselves happily quit of a yoke and of a slavery, when this moment of weariness and restraint is over. Now, I say, that nothing is more unrighteous than to estrange ourselves from prayer, on account of the disgusts and wanderings of the mind, which render it painful and disagreeable to us ; for these disgusts and wanderings originate, — first, from our luke- warmness and our infidelities, — or, secondly, in our being little ac- customed to prayer, — or, thirdly, in the wisdom even of God, who tries us, and who wishes to purify our heart, by withholding for a time the sensible consolations of prayer. Yes, my brethren, the first and the most common source of the disgusts and the dryness of our prayers, is the lukewarmness and the infidelity of our life. It is, in effect, an injustice to pretend that we can bring to prayer a serene and tranquil mind ; a cool imagination, free from all the vain phantoms by which it is agitated ; a heart affected with, and disposed to relish the presence of its God, — while our whole life, though otherwise virtuous in the eyes of man, shall be one continual dissipation ; while we shall continue to live among objects the most calculated to move the imagination, and to make those lively impressions on us which are never done away ; in a word, while we shall preserve a thousand iniquitous attachments in our heart, which, though not absolutely criminal in our eyes, yet trouble, divide, and occupy ON PRAYER. 223 US, and which weaken in us, or even totally deprive us of any relish for God and the things of heaven. Alas ! my brethren, if the most retired and the most holy souls ; if the most recluse penitents, purified by long retreat, and by a life altogether devoted to Heaven, still found, in the sole remembrance of their past manners, disagreeable images, which force their way even into their solitude, to disturb the comfort and the tranquillity of their prayers ; do we expect that in a life, regular I confess, but full of agitations, of occasions by which we are led away, of objects which unsettle us, of temptations which disquiet, of pleasures which enervate, of fears and hopes which agitate us, we shall find ourselves, in prayer, all of a sudden new men, purified from all those images which sully our mind, freed from all those attach- ments which come to divide and perhaps to corrupt our heart, in tranquillity from all those agitations which continually make such violent and such dangerous impressions upon our soul ; and that, forgetting for a moment the entire world, and all those vain objects which we have so lately quitted, and which we still bear in our reriiembrance and in our heart, we shall, all of a sudden, find ourselves raised, before God, to the medita- tion of heavenly things, penetrated with love for eternal riches, filled with compunction for innumerable infidelities which we still love, and with a tranquillity of mind and of heart, which the profoundest retirement, and the most rigorous seclusion from the world frequently do not bestow? Ah! my brethren, how unjust we are, and into what terrible reproaches against our- selves shall the continual complaints made by us against the duties of piety one day be turned ! And, to go farther into this truth, and to enter into a de- tail which renders it more evident to you, you complain, in the first place, that your mind, incapable of a moment's attention in prayer, wanders from it, and flies off in spite of yourself. But how can it be otherwise ; or how can you find it attentive and col- lected, if every thing you do takes off its attention and unsettles it; if, in the detail of conduct, you never recollect yourself ; if you never accustom yourself to that mental reflection, to that life of faith, which, even amid the dissipations of the world, find ample sources of holy reflection ? To have a collected mind in prayer, you must bring it along with you; it is necessary that even your intercourse with sinners, when obhged to live among them, the sight of their passions, of their anxieties, fears, hopes, joys, chagrins, and wretchedness, supply your faith with reflections, and turn your views toward God, who alone bestows collectedness of mind and the tranquiUity of prayer. Then, even on quitting the world and those worldly conversations, where duty alone shall have engaged your presence, you will find no difficulty in going to recollect yourself before God, and in forgetting at his feel those vain agitations which you have so lately witnessed. On 224 ON PRAYKR. the contiary, the designs of faith which you shall there have preserved ; the blindness of the worldly, which you shall there have inwardly deplored, — will cause you to find new comforts at the feet of Jesus Christ ; you will there, with consolation, recreate yourself from the weariness of dissipation and of worldly nothings ; you will lament, with increased satisfaction, over the folly of men who so madly pursue after a vapour, a chimerical happiness, which eludes their grasp, and which it is irtipossible ever to attain, for the world in which they seek it cannot bestow it; you will there more warmly thank the Lord for having, with so much goodness, and notwithstanding your crimes, enlightened and se- parated you from that multitude which must perish ; you will there see, as in a new light, the happiness of those souls, who serve him, and whose eyes, being opened upon vanity, no longer live but for the truth. Secondly. You complain that your heart, insensible in prayer, feels nothing fervent for its God, but, on the contrary, a disgust which renders it insupportable. But how is it possible that your heart, wholly engrossed with the things of the earth, fdled with iniquitous attachments, inclination for the world, love of yourself, schemes for exalting your station, and desires perhaps of pleas- ing; how is it possible, I say, that your heart,, compounded with so many earthly affections, should still have any feeling for the things of heaven ? It is Vv-holly filled with the creatures ; where then should God find his place in it ? We cannot love both God and the world. Thus, when the Israelites had passed the Jordan, and had eaten of the fruits of the earth, " the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land, neither had the children of Israel maana any more ;" as if to show, that they could not enjoy at the same time both the heavenly nourish- ment and that of the earth. Love of the world, said St. Augustine, hke a dangerous fever, sheds a universal bitterness through the heart, which renders the invisible and eternal riches insipid and disgusting to us. Thus, you never come to prayer but with an insurmountable disgust. Ah ! it is a proof that your heart is diseased ; that a secret fever, and perhaps unknown to yourself, causes it to lan- guish, saps and disgusts it; that it is engrossed by a foreign love. Mount to the source of your disgusts toward God, and every thing connected with him, and see if they shall not be found in the iniquitous attachments of your heart; see if you are not still a slave to yourself, to the vain cares of dress, to frivolous friend- ships, to dangerous animosities, to secret 'envies, to desires of rank, to every thing around you. These are the source of the evil: apply the remedy to it; take something every day upon yourself; labour seriously toward purifying your heart; you will then taste the comforts and the consolations of prayer ; then the world no longer engrossing your affections, you will find ON PRAVBIl. 225 your God more worthy of beinp; loved : we soon ardently love the only object of our love. And, after all, render glory here to the truth. Is it not true, that the days in which you have been more guarded upon your- self,— the days in which you have made some sacrifices, to the Lord, of your inclinations, of your indolence, of your temper, of your aversions; is it not true, that, in these days, you have ad- dressed your prayers to the Lord with more peace, more consolation, and more delight ? We encounter, with double pleasure, the eyes of a master to whom we have lately given some striking proof of fidelity ; on the contrary, we are in pain before him when we feel that he has cause of a thousand just reproaches against us : we are then anxious and under restraint ; we endeavour to hide ourselves from his view, like the first sinner: we no longer address him with that overflowing heart, and that confidence, which a conscience pure and void of offence inspires ; and the moments when we are under the necessity of supporting his divine presence are anxiously counted. Thus, when Jesus Christ commands us to pray, he begins with or- dering us to watch. He thereby means us to understand that vigilance is the only preparation to prayer ; that to love to pray, it is necessary to watch ; and that fondness for, and consolation in prayer, are granted only to the recollection and to the sacrifices of vigilance. 1 know, that, if you do not pray, you can never watch over yourself and live holily ; but I likewise know, that, if you exert not that vigilance v/hich causes to live holily, you can never pray with comfort and with consolation. Prayer, it is true, obtains for us the grace of vigilance ; but it is yet more true, that vigilance alone can draw down upon us the gift and the usage of the prayer. And, from thence, it is easy to c'onclude, that a life of the world] even granting it to be the most innocent, that is to say, a life of pleasure, continual gaming, dissipation, and theatrical amusement, which you call so innocent, when attended with no other harm' than that of disqualifying you for prayer; when this worldly life, which you so strongly justify, should contain nothing more crimi- nal than that of disgusting you at prayer, of drying up your heart, of unsettling your imagination, of weakening your faith, and of fill- ing your mind with anxiety and trouble ; when we should judge of the security of this state merely from what you continually tell us, that you are incapable of arranging yourself for prayer, and that, on your part, it is always attended with an insupportable disgust and weariness ; I say, that, for these reasons alone, the most inno- cent worldly life is a life of sin and reprobation ; a life for which there is no salvation : for salvation is promised solely to prayer ; salvation is not attainable but through the aid of prayer ; salvatioji IS granted only to perseverance in prayer ; consequently, every life whicli places an invincible obstacle in the way of prayer, can "have 226 ON PRAYER. no pretensions to salvation. Now, you are fully sensible yourselves, my brethren, that a life of dissipation, of gaming, of pleasure, and of public places, puts an essential obstacle in the way of prayer ; that it places in your heart, in your imagination, in yoUr senses, an invincible disgust at prayer, an unsettled ness incompatible with the spirit of prayer : you continually complain of this ; you even make use of it as a pretext not to ])ray ; and from thence be as- sured that there is no salvation for the worldly life, even the most innocent ; for, wherever prayer is impossible, salvation must like- wise be so. First reason of the disgusts and of the wanderings of our prayers — the lukewarmness and the infidelity of our life. The second is our little usage of prayer. We pray with disgust, because we seldom pray. For, first, it is the practice alone of prayer which will gradually calm your mind, which will insensibly banish from it the images of the world and of vanity, which will disperse all those clouds which produce all the disgusts and the wanderings of your prayers. Secondly, you must ask for a long time before you can obtain ; you must press, solicit, and even im- portune ; the sweets and the consolations of prayer are the fruit and the reward of prayer itself. Thirdly, there must be familiarity in order to find pleasure in it. If you seldom pray, the Lord will be a strange and unknown God to you, as I may say, before whom you will feel yourself embarrassed, and under a kind of restraint ; with whom you will never experience those overflowings of heart, that sweet confidence, that holy freedom, which familiarity alone bestows, and which constitute the whole pleasure of the divine in- tercourse. God requires to be known, in order to be loved. The world loses by being examined ; the surface, and the first glance of it, are alone smiling. Search deeper, and it is no longer but emptiness, vanity, anxious care, agitation, and misery. But the Lord must be tasted, says the prophet, in order to feel how good he is. The more you know, the more you love him : the more you unite yourself to him, the more do you feel that there is no true happiness on the earth but that of knowing and of loving him. It is the use, therefore, of prayer, which alone can render prayer pleasing. Thus we see that the generality of persons who complain of the disgusts and of the wanderings of their prayers, seldom pray ; think this important duty fulfilled when they have bestowed upon the Cord a few hasty moments of thoughtlessness and restraint ; forsake it on the first symptom of disgust ; make no exertion to reduce and familiarize their mind to it ; and far from considering prayer as being rendered only more necessary to them, by their invincible repugnance to it, they regard that very repug- nance as a legal excuse, which dispenses them altogether from it. But how find time in the world, you will say, to make so long and so frequent a use of prayer? You, my dear hearer, not find time to pray ? But wherefore is time given to you, but to intreat ON PRAYER. ^7 of God to forget your crimes, to look upon you with eyes of com- passion, and to place you one day among the number of his holy ? You have not time to pray ? But you have not time, then, to be a Christian : for, a man who prays not, is a man who has no God, no worship, and no hope. You have not time to jjray t Lut prayer is the beginning of all good ; and if you do not pray, you have not yet performed a jingle work for eternal life. Ah ! my brethren, is time ever wanting to solicit the favours of the earth, to importune the master, to besiege those who are in place, to bestow upon pleasures, or upon idleness ? What useless mo- ments ! What languid and tiresome days, through the mere gloom which ever accompanies idleness ! What time lost in vain cere- monials, in idle conversations, in boundless gaming, in fruitless subjections, in grasping at chimeras which move larther and far- ther from us ! Great God ! and time is wanted to ask heaven of thee, to appease thy wrath, and to supplicate thine eternal mercies ! How humbly, O my God, must salvation be estimated, when time is wanted to entreat of thy mercy to save us ! And how much are we to be deplored, to find so many moments for the world, and to be unable to find a single one for eternity ! Second cause of the disgusts and of the wanderings of your prayers — the little use of prayer itself. It is true, my brethren, that this reason is not so general but that souls, the most faithful to prayer, are often seen to experience all those disgusts and those wanderings of which I speak ; but, I say, that these disgusts proceed from the wisdom of God, wlio means to purify them, and who leads them by that path, only in order to fulfil his eternal designs of mercy upon them. Last rea- son— that consequently, far from being repulsed by what they find gloomy and disagreeable in prayer, they ought to persevere in it with even more fidelity than if the Lord had shed upon them the most abundant and the most sensible consolations. First. Because you ought to consider these disgusts as the just punishment of your past infidelities. Is it not reasonable that God make you expiate the criminal voluptuousness of your worldly life by the disgusts and the sorrows of piety ? Weakness of temperament does not perhaps permit you to punish, by corporeal sufierings, the licentiousness of your past manners : is it not just that God supply that, by the punishment, and the inward afliictions of the mind"? Would you pretend to pass in an instant from the pleasures of the world to those of grace ; from the viands of Egypt to the milk and honey of the land of promise, without the Lord having first made you to undergo the barrenness and the fatigues of the desert; and, in a word, that he should not chastise the delights, if I may ven- ture to say so, of guilt, but by those of virtue ? Secondly. You have so long refused yourself to God, in spite of the most lively inspirations of his grace, which recalled you to the truth and.to the light ; you have so long suffered him to knock at q2 228 0>' PRAYER. the gate of your heart before you opened it to him ; you have dis- puted, struggled against, wavered, deferred so much, before you gave yourself to him ; is it not just that he leave you to solicit for some time before he give himself to you with all the consolations of his grace? The delays and the tarryings of the Lord are the just punishment of your own. But, even admitting these reasons to be less weighty, how do you know if the Lord thereby mean not to render this exilement and this separation in which we live from him, more hateful to you, and to increase the fervency of your longings for that immortal country where truth, seen in open day, will always appear lovely, because we shall see it as it is? How do you know if he thereby mean not to inspire you with new compunction for your past crimes, by making you sensible, at every moment, of the contrariety and disgust which they have left in your heart to the truth and to righteousness? Lastly, how do you know, if the Lord mean not, by these disgusts, to perfect the purification of what may as yet be too human in your piety; — if he mean not to establish your virtue upon that truth which is always the same, and not upon inchna- tion and fancy, which incessantly change ; upon rules which are eternal, and not upon consolations which are transi- tory ; upon faith which never fails to sacrifice the visible for the invisible riches, and not upon feeling, which leaves to the world almost the same empire that grace hath over your heart ? A piety wholly of fancy goes a short way, if not sustained and confirmed by the truth. It is dangerous to let our fidelity depend upon the feeling dispositions of a heart which is never an instant the same, and upon which every object makes new impressions. The duties which only please when they console, do not please long ; and that virtue which is solely founded on fancy can never sustain itself, because it rests only upon ourselves. For, after all, if you seek only the Lord in your prayers, provided that the way by which he leads you conduct to him, it ought to matter little to you whether it be by that of disgusts or of consolations, for, being the surest, it ought always to ap- pear preferable to all others. If you pray only to attract more aids from heaven in rehef of your wants, or in support of your weakness, faith teaching you that prayer, even when accompanied with those disgusts and those drynesses, obtains the same favours, produces the same effects, and is equally acceptable to God as that in which sensible consolations are found. What do I say? — that it may become even more agreeable to the Lord, through your acceptance of the difficulties which you there encounter; faith teaching you this, you ought to be equally faithful to prayer as if it held out the most sensible attractions, otherwise it would not be God whom you sought, but yourselves ; it would not be eternal riches, but vain and fleeting consolations ; it would not be the remedies of faith, but the supports of your self-love. ON PRAYER. 229 Thus, be whom you may who now listen to me, imitate the woman of Canaan ; be faithful to prayer, and, in the fulfilment of this duty, you will find all the rest sustained and rendered easy. If a sinner, pray : it was through prayer alone that the publican and the sinful woman of the gospel obtained feelings of compunc- tion and the grace of a thorough penitence ; and prayer is the only source and the only path of righteousness. If righteous, still pray : perseverance in faith and in piety is promised only to prayer ; and by that it was that Job, that David, that Tobias, persevered to the end^ If you live amid sinners, and your duty does not permit you to withdraw yourself from the sight of their irregularities and ex- amples, pray : the greater the dangers, the more necessary does prayer become ; and the three children in the flames, and Jonah in the belly of a monster, found safety only through prayer. If the engagements of your birth, or of your station, attach you to the court of kings, pray : Esther, in the court of Ahasuerus, Daniel in that of Darius, the prophets in the palaces of the kings of Israel, were solely indebted to prayer for their life and salvation. If you live in retirement, pray : solitude itself becomes a rock, if a con- tinual intercourse with God does not defend us against ourselves ; and Judith, in the secrecy of her house, and the widow Anna in the temple, and the Anthonies in the desert, found the fruit and the se- curity of their retreat"in prayer alone. If established in the church for the instruction of the people, pray : all the power and all the success of your ministry must depend upon your prayers; and the apostles converted the universe solely because they had appropria- ted nothing to themselves but prayer and the preaching of the gos- pel. Lastly, be whom you may, I again repeat it, in prosperity or in indigence, in joy or in affliction, in trouble or in peace, in fer- vency or in despondency, in lust or in the ways of righteousness, advanced in virtue, or still in the first steps of penitence, pray. Prayer is the safety of all stations, the consolation of all sorrows, the duty of all conditions, the soul of piety, the support of faith, the grand foundation of religion, and all religion itself. O my God ! shed, then, upon us that spirit of grace and of prayer which was to be the distinguishing mark of thy church, and the portion of a new people ; and purify our hearts and our lips, that we may be enabled to offer up to thee pure homages, fervent sighs, and jjrayers worthy of the eternal riches which thou hast so often promised to those who shall have well intreated them. 230 FORCIVIiNJibS OF INJURIKS. SERMON XIV. FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. Ye have heard that it hath been said. Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy : but I say unto you. Love your enemies." — Matt. v. 43. It is commonly believed that a degree of indulgence and caution had been used by the legislator of the Jews, in publishing the law on forgiveness of injuries, that obliged to accommodate it, in some respect, to the weakness of a carnal people, and otherwise per- suaded that of all virtues, that of loving an enemy was the most difficult to the heart of man, he was satisfied with regulating and prescribing bounds for revenge. It was only in order to prevent great excesses, says St. Augustine, that he meant to give authority to smallerones. That law, like all the others, had its sanctity, its good- ness, its justice ; but it was rather an establishment of polity than a rule of piety. It was calculated to maintain the internal tran- quillity of the state ; but it neither touched the heart nor struck at the root of hatreds and revenge. The only effect proposed, was either to restrain the aggressor, by threatening him with the same punishment with which he had grieved his brother, or to put a check upon the irritation of the oftended, by letting him see, that, if he exceeded in the satisfaction required, he exposed himself to undergo all the surplus of his revenge. Philosophers, in their morality, had also placed the forgiveness of injuries among the number of virtues ; but that was a pretext of vanity rather than a rule of discipline. It is because revenge seemed to them to carry along with it something, I know not what, of mean and passionate, which would have disfigured the portrait and the tranquillity of their ideal sage, that it appeared disgraceful to them to be unable to rise 'superior to an injury. The forgiveness of their enemies was solely founded, therefore, upon the contempt in which they held them. They avenged themselves by disdain- ing revenge ; and pride readily gave up the pleasure of hurting those who have injured us, for the pleasure which was found in despising them. 3ut the law of the gospel, upon loving our enemies, neither flat- ters pride, nor spares self-love. In the forgiveness of injuries, nothing ought to indemnify the Christian but the consolation of imitating Jesus Christ, and of obeying him ; but the claims FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 231 which, in an enemy, prove to him a brother ; but the hope of meeting, before the Eternal Judge, with the same indulgence which he shall have used toward men. Nothing ought to limit him in his charity, but charity itself, which hath no bounds, which ex- cepts neither places, times, nor persons, which ought never to be extiiiguished . And, should the religion of Christians have no other proof against unbelief than the sublime elevation of this maxim, it would always have this pre-eminence in sanctity, and conse- quently in apparent truth, over all the sects which have ever ap- peared upon the earth. Let us unfold, therefore, the motives and the rules of this essen- tial point of the law : the motives, by establishing the equity of the precept through the very pretexts which seem to oppose it; the rules, by laying open the illusions under which every one justifies to himself their infractions ; that is to say, the injustice of our hatreds, and the falsity of our reconciliations. Part I. — The three principles which usually bind men to each other, and by which are formed all human unions and friendships, are fancy, cupidity, and vanity. Fancy — We follow a certain prO' pensity of nature, which, being the cause of our finding, in some persons, a greater similarity to our own inclinations, perhaps also greater allowances for our faults, binds us to them, and occasions us to find, in their society, a comfort which becomes w^eariness in that of the rest of men. Cupidity — We seek out useful friends; from the moment that they are necessary to our pleasure or to our fortune, they become worthy of our friendship. Interest is a grand charm to the majority of hearts ; the titles which render us power- ful, are quickly transmuted into qualities which render us appa- rently amiable, and friends are never wanting when we can pay the friendship of those who love us. Lastly, Vanity — Friends who do us honour are always dear to us. It would seem that, in loving them, we enter, as it were, into partnership with them in that distinction which they enjoy in the world; we seek to deck our- selves, as I may say, with their reputation ; and, being unable to reach their merit, we pride ourselves in their, society, in order to have it supposed that, at least, there is not much between us, and that like loves like. These are the three great ties of human society. Religion and charity unite almost nobody ; and from thence it is, that, from the moment men offend our fancy, that they are unfavourable to our interests, or that they wound our reputation and our vanity, the human and brittle ties which united us to them are broken asunder; our heart withdraws from them, and no longer finds in itself, with respect to them, but animosity and bitterness. And behold the three most general sources of those hatreds which men nourish against each other; which change all the sweets of society into. 232 FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. endless inveteracies ; which empoison all the delight of convei'sa- tions, and all the innocency of mutual intercourse ; and which, at- tacking religion in the heart, nevertheless present themselves to us under appearances of equity which justify them in our eyes and strengthen us in them. I say, from the moment that men offend our fancy ; and this is the first pretext, and the first source of our withdrawing from, and of our hatreds against, our brethren. You say, that you cannot accord with such a person ; that every thing in him otlends and displeases you; that it is an antipathy v/hich you cannot conquer; that all his manners seem fashioned to irritate you ; that to see him woidd answer the sole purpose of augmenting the natural aver- sion which you have to him ; and that nature hath ]>laced within us hatreds and likings, conformities and aversions, for which she alone is to be answerable. To this I might at once answer, by establishing the foundations of the Christian doctrine upon loving our brethren. Is that man, in consequence of displeasing, and being disagreeable to your fancy, less your brother, child of God, citizen of heaven, member of Jesus Christ, and inheritor of the eternal promises ? Doth his humour, his character, whatever it ma,y be, eftace any one of those august traits which he hath received upon the sacred font, which unite him to you by divine and immortal ties, and which ought to render him dear and respectable to you ? When Jesus Christ com- mands us to love our brethren as ourselves, doth he mean to make a precept which costs nothing to the heart, and in the fulfilment of which we found neither difficulty nor hardship? Ah ! what occa- sion hath he to command us to love our brethren, if, in virtue of that commandment, we were obliged to love only those for whom we feel a natural fancy and inclination. The heart hath no occasion, on this point, for precept; it is its own law. The precept then sup- poses a difficulty on our part : Jesus Christ hatV, therefore, foreseen that it would be hard upon us to love our brethren ; that we should find within us antipathies and dislikes which would withdraw us from thein ; and behold why he hath attached so much merit to the observance of this single point, and hath so often declared to us, that, to observe it, was to observe the whole law. Aversion to our brethren, far, then, from justifying our estrangement from them, renders to us, on the contrary, the obligation of loving them more precise, and places us personally in the case of the precept. But besides, ought a Christian to be regulated by fancy and humour, or by the principles of reason, of faith, of religion, and of grace ? And since when is the natural fancy, which we are commanded by the gospel to oppose, become a privilege which dispenses us from its rules ? If the repugnance felt for duties were a title of exemption, where is the believer who would not be quit of the whole law, and who would not find his justification FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 233 and his innocency, in proportion as he felt a greater degree of corruption in his heart? Are our fancies our law? Is religion only the support, and not the remedy of nature ? Is it not a weak- ness, even in the eyes of the world, to regulate our steps and our sentiments, our hatreds and our love toward men, merely upon the caprices of a fancy for which we can give no reason ourselves? i)o men of this description do great credit, I do not say to rehgion, but to humanity? And are they not, even to the world itself, a spectacle of contempt, of derision, and of censure? What a chaos would society be, if fancy alone were to decide upon our duties, and upon reciprocal attentions, and if men were to be united by no other law ! Now, if the rules, even of society, exact, that fancy alone be not the sole principle of our conduct toward the rest of men, should the gospel be more indulgent , on that point? — the gospel, which preaches only self-denial; which every where commands us to do violence upon ourselves, and to strive against our fancies and our affections; which demands that we act through views superior to flesh and blood, and that we hesitate not to sacrifice to the sanctity of faith, and to the sublimity of its rules, not only our caprices, but our most legal inclinations ? It is therefore absurd to allege to us an aversion to your brother, which is itself your guilt. I might farther say: you complain that your brother is displeasing to you, and that it is not possible for you to bear, or to be in agreement, with him: but, do you suppose that you yourself are displeasing to none ? Can you guarantee to us, that you are universally liked, and that every one applauds and approves you? Now, if you exact, that every thing offensive in your manners be excused, upon the goodness of your heart, and on account of those essential qualities upon which you pride yourself; if to you it appear unreasonable to be offended at nothings, and by certain sallies which we cannot always command; if you insist upon being judged by the consequence, by the ground- work, 'by the rectitude of your sentiments and conduct, and not in consequence of those humours which sometimes involuntarily escape you, and upon which it is very difficult to be always guarded against one's self; have the same equity for your brother; apply the same rule to yourself; bear with him as you have occasion to be borne with yourself; and do not justify, by your estrangement from him, the unjust aversions which may be had to yourself. And this rule is so much the more equitable as that you have only to cast your eyes upon what is continually passing in the world, to be convinced that those who are loudest in trumpet- ing forth the faults of their brethren, are the very persons with whom nobody can agree, who are the pest of societies, and a grievance to the rest of men. And 1 might here demand of you, my dear hearer, if this principle of contrariety, which renders your brother so insu[)- 234 FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. jwrtable to you, be not more in yourself; that is to say, in yowr pride, in the capriciousness of your temper, in the contrariety of your character, than in his; — demand of you, if all the world see in him what you believe to see yourself; if his friends, his relations, his intimates, look upon him with the same eyes that you do? What do I know, I might demand of you, if that which displeases you in him be not perhaps his good qualities : if his talents, his reputation, his credit, and his fortune, have not perhaps a greater share in your aversion than his faults; and, if it be not his merit or his rank which have hitherto in your sight constituted his v>?hole crime? We are so easily deceived in this point ! Envy is a passion so masked, and so artful in disguising itself! As there is something mean and odious in it, and as it is a secret confession made to ourselves of our own mediocrity, it always shows itself to us under foreign outsides, which com- pletely conceal it from us; but fathom your heart, and you will see that all those, who either surpass, or who shine with too much lustre near you, have the misfortune to displease you; that you find amiable only those who have nothing to contest with you; that all who rise above, or are even equal to you, constrain and hurt you; and that, to hav.e a claim to your friend- ship, it is necessary to have none either to your pretensions or expectancies. But I go still farther, and I entreat you to listen to me. I admit your brother to have more faults than even you accuse him of having. Alas ! you are so gentle and so friendly toward those from whom you expect your fortune and your establishment, and whose temper, haughtiness, and manners shock you. You bear with all their pride, their repulses, their scorns; you swallow all their inequalities and caprices : you are never disheartened; your patience is always greater than your antipathy and your repug- nance, and you neglect nothing to please. Ah ! if you regarded your brother, as he upon whom depends your eternal salvation, as he to whom you are to be indebted, not for a fortune of dross, and an uncertain establishment, but for the fortune even of your eternity, would you follow, with regard to him, the caprice of your fancy? Would you not conquer the unjust antipathy which estranges you from him? Would you suffer so much in putting your inclinations in unison with your eternal interests, and in doing upon yourself so useful and so necessary a violence? You bear with every thing for the world and for vanity; and you cry out, how hard ! from the moment that a single painful proceeding is exacted of you for eternity. And say not that there are caprices of nature, of which no account can be given, and that we are not the masters of our fancies and likings. I grant this to a certain point; but there is a love of reason and of religion, which ought always to gain ascendency over that of nature. The gospel exacts not that you FORGIVENKSS OF INJURIES. 235 have a fancy for your brother, it exacts that you love him; that is to say, that you bear with him, that you excuse him, that you conceal his faults, that you serve him; in a word, that you do for him whatever you would wish to have done for yourself. Charity is not a blind and capricious fancy, a natural liking, a sympathy of temper and disposition; — it is a just, enlightened, and reasonable duty; a love which takes its rise in the impulses of grace, and in the views of faith. It is not rightly loving our brethren, to love them only through fancy; it is loving one's self. Charity alone enables us to love them as we ought, and it alone can form real and steadfast friends. For fancy is continually changing, and charity never dieth; fancy seeks only itself, and charity seeketh not its own interest, but the interest of whom it loves; fancy is not a proof against every thing, a loss, a proceed- ing, a disgrace, — and charity riseth superior to death : fancy loves only its own conveniency; and charity findeth nothing amiss, and suffereth every thing for whom it loveth : fancy is blind, and often renders even the vices of our brethren amiable to us; and charity never giveth praise to iniquity, and in others loveth only the truth. The friends of grace are therefore much more to be relied on than those of nature. The same fancy which unites the manners, is often, a moment after, the cause of separating them; but the ties formed by charity eternally endure. Such is the first source of our likings and of our hatreds, the injustices and the capriciousness of our fancy. Interest is the second; for nothing is more common than to hear you justifying your animosities, by telling us that such a man hath neglected nothing to ruin you ; that he has been the mean of blasting your fortune; that he continually excites vexatious matters against you ; that you find him an insuperable impediment in your way, and that it is difficult to love an enemy so bent on in- juring yon. But, granting that you speak the truth, I answer to you : to all the other ills which your brother hath caused to you, why should you add that of hating him, which is the greatest of all, since all the others have tended to ravish from you only fieeting and frivolous riches, while this is the cause of ruin to your soul, and deprives you for ever of your claim to an immortal kingdom? In hating him, you injure yourself much more than all his malignity with respect to you could ever do. He hath usurped the patrimony of your fathers : it may be so ; and, in order to avenge yourself, you renounce the inheritance of the heavenly Father, and the eternal patrimony of Jesus Christ. You take your revenge then upon yourself; and, in order to console yourself for the ills done to you by your brother, you provide for yourself one without end and without measure. And, moreover, does your hatred toward your brother restore 236 FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. any of those advantages which he hath snatched from you? Does it amehorate your condition ? What do you reap from your animosity and your rancour ? In hating him, you say that you console yourself; and this is the only consolation left to you. What a consolation, great God ! is that of hatred ; that is to say, of a gloomy and furious passion, which gnaws the heart, sheds anguish and sorrow through ourselves, and begins by punishing and rendering us miserable ! What a cruel pleasure is that of hating, that is to say, of bearing on the heart a load of rancour, which empoisons every other moment of hfe ! What a barbarous method of consoling one's self! And are you not worthy of pity, to seek a resource in your evils, v/hich answers no purpose but that of eternising, by hatred, a transitory injury ? But let us cease this human language, and speak that of the gospel, to which our mouths are consecrated. If you were Chris- tian, my dear hearer; if you had not lost faith, far from hating those whom God hath made instrumental in blasting your hopes and your projects of fortune, you would regard them as the instru- ments of God's mercies upon your soul, as the ministers of your sanctification, and the blessed rocks which have been the means of saving you from shipwreck. You would have been lost in credit and in elevation ; you would then have neglected your God ; your ambition would have increased with your fortune, and death would have surprised you in the vortex of the world of passions and of human expectancies.^ But, in order to save your soul, the Lord, in his great mercy, hath raised up obstacles which have stopped your course. He hath employed an envious person, a rival to supplant you, to keep you at a distance from favours, and to place himself between you and the precipice, into which you was running headlong, for ever to perish : he hath seconded, as I may say, his ambition; he hath favoured his designs; and, through an incomprehensible excess of goodness toward you, he hath crossed your worldly schemes : he hath raised up your enemy in time, in order to save you in eternity. You ought, therefore, to adore the eternal designs of his justice and of his mercy upon men ; to con- sider your brother as the blessed cause of your salvation ; to entreat of God, that, seeing his ambition or his bad intentions have been employed to save you, he may inspire him with sincere repentance, and that the person who hath been the instrument of your salva- tion be not permitted to perish himself. Yes, my brethren, our hatreds proceed entirely from our want of faith. Alas! if we regarded every thing which passes, as a vapour without substance ; if we were thoroughly convinced that all this is nothing, that salvation is the great and im- portant affair, and that our treasure and our true riches are only in eternity, where, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be ; if we were convinced of it, alas ! wc would consider men, KORGIVKNKSS OF INJURIES. 237 who passionately quarrel and dispute with each other for the dig- nities of the earth, as children who fall out among themselves for the playthings which amuse their eye, whose childish hatreds and animosities turn upoii nothings, which infancy alone, and the feeble state of reason, magnify in their eyes. Tranquil on the greatest and most important events, on the loss of the patrimony of their fathers, and the fall of their family, and keen even to ex- cess when deprived of any of the little trifling objects which delight their infancy, — thus, O my God, foolish and puerile men feel not the loss of their heavenly inheritance, of that immortal patrimony bequeathed to them by Jesus Christ, and which their brethren are already enjoying in heaven. They unconcernedly seethe kingdom of God, and the only true riches, pass away from them ; and, like children, they are inflamed with rage, and mutually arm against each other, from the instant that their frivolous possessions are en- croached upon, or that any attempt is made to deprive them of those .childish playthings, the only value or importance of which is that of serving to deceive their feeble reason, and to amuse their childhood. For a Christian, interest is therefore an unworthy and criminal pretext for his hatred toward his brethren ; but vanity, which is their last resource, is still less excusable. For, my brethren, we wish to be approved, and to have our faults as well as our virtues applauded ; and, although we feel our own weaknesses, yet we are so unreasonable as to exact that others see them not, and that they even give credit to us for certain qualities which we inwardly reproach to ourselves as vices. We would wish that all mouths were filled solely with our praises ; and that the world, which forgives nothing, which spares not even its masters, should admire in us what it censures in others. In effect, you complain that your enemy hath both privately and publicly decried you ; that he hath added calumny to slander ; that he hath attacked you in the tenderest and most feeling quarter, and that he hath neglected nothing to blast your honour and your re- putation in the opinion of men. But, before replying to this, I might first say to you, mistrust the reports which have been made to you of your brother : the most innocent speeches reach us so impoisoned, through the ma- lignity of the tongues which have conveyed them ; there are so many mean flatterers, who seek to be agreeable at the expense of those who are not so ; there are so many dark and wicked minds, whose only pleasure is in finding out evil where none is meant, and in sowing dissension among men ; there are so many volatile and imprudent characters, who unseasonably, and with an envenomed air, repeat what at first had been only said with the most innocent intentions ; there are ^so many men, naturally given to the hyper- bole, and in whose mouth every thing is magnified, and departs 238 ' FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. from the natural and simple truth. I here appeal to yourself: Has it never happened to you, that your most innocent sayings have been impoisoned, and circumstances added to your recitals, which you had never even thought of? Have you not then exclaimed against the injustice and the malignity of the repeaters? Why might not you, in your turn, have been deceived? And if every thing which passes through a variety of channels, be in general adulterated, and never reach us in its original purity, why should you suppose that discourses which relate to you alone, were ex- empted from the same lot, and were entitled to more attention and belief? You will no doubt reply, that these general maxims are not the point in question, and that the actions of which you complain are not doubtful, but positive. I admit it; and I ask, if your brother have not, on his side, the same reproaches io make to you ; if you have always been very lenient and very charitable to his faults ; if you have always rendered justice even to his good qualities; if you never permitted him to be reviled in your presence ; if you have not aided the malignity of such discourses by an affected moderation, which hath only tended to blow up the fire of detrac- tion, and to supply new traits against your brother? — I ask you, if you are even circumspect toward the rest of men ; if you readily forgive the weakness of others ; if your tongue be not, in general, dipt in wormwood and gall ; if the best established reputation be not always in danger in your hands ; and, if the saddest and most private histories do not speedily become matter of notoriety, through your malignity and imprudence ? O man ! thou pushest delicacy and sensibility to such lengths upon whatever regards thyself ! We have occasion for all the terror of our ministry, and for all the other most weighty inducements of rehgion, to bring thee to forgive to thy brother a single speech, frequently a word, which imprudence, which chance, which circumstances, which perhaps a just resentment hath forced from him; and the licen- tiousness of thy discourses toward others knows neither the bounds of politeness nor of that decency which the world itself prescribes. But, granting that you have nothing to reproach yourself on the part of moderation toward your brother, what do you gain by hat- ing him ? Do you thereby efface the fatal impressions which his discourses may have left on the minds of men? On the contrary, you inflict a fresh wound upon your heart ; you give yourself a stab which carries death to your soul ; you wrench the sword from his hands, if I may speak in this manner, in order to plunge it into yourself. By the innocency of your manners, and the integrity of your conduct, you make the injustice of his discourses evident; de- stroy, by a life free from reproach, the prejudices to vv^hich he may have given rise against you ; make the meanness and the inicjuity of his calumnies revert upon himself, by the practice of those vir- FORGIVKNKSS OF INJURIES. 239 tues exactly opposite to the faults which he imputes to you : such is the just and legal manner of revenging yourself. Triumph over his malice by your manners and by your silence : you will heap living coals upon his head ; you will gain the public on your side ; you will leave nothing to your enemy but the infamy of his passion and of his impositions. But hating him is the revenge of the weak, and the sad consolation of the guilty; in a word, it is the only refuge of those who can find none in virtue and in innocence. But let us now quit all these reasonings, and come to the essen- tial point. You are commanded to love those who despitefully use and calumniate you ; to pray for them, to entreat their con- version to God, that he change their rancorous heart, that he in- spire them with sentiments of peace and of charity, and that he place them among the nimiber of his holy. You are commanded to consider them as already citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, with whom you shall form only one voice in singing the immortal praises of grace. You are commanded to look upon injuries as blessings, as the punishment of your hidden crimes, for which you have so often merited to be covered with confusion before men ; as the price of the kingdom of God, which is promised to those alone who with piety bear with persecution and calumny. For, after all, it must come to this. Self-love alone would make us love those who love us, who praise us, who publish our virtues, false or true ; such was the whole virtue of the Pagans ; for, said Jesus Christ, if ye love those that love you, what reward have ye ; do not even the publicans so ? But religion goes far- ther : it requires us to love those who hate and persecute us : it fixes at that price the mercies of God upon us, and declares to us that no forgiveness is to be expected for ourselves, if we grant it not to our brethren. And, candidly, would you have God to forget the crimes and the horrors of your whole life, to be insensible to his own glory, which you have so often insulted, while you cannot prevail upon yourself to forget a word ; while you are so warm, so delicate, and so pas- sionate upon the interests of your glory ; you who perhaps enjoy a reputation which you have never merited ; you, who, were you to he known such as you are, would be covered with eternal shame and confusion ; you, in a word, of whom the most injurious dis- courses only imperfectly represent the secret wretchedness, and of which God alone knoweth the extent ? Great God ! how little shah sinners have to say for themselves when thou wilt pronounce against them the sentence of their eternal condemnation ! You will probably tell us that you perfectly agree to the duties which religion hereupon imposes^ but that the laws of honour have prevailed over those of religion ; that if discourses and proceedings of a certain description be tranquilly submitted to, lasting disho- nour and infamy in the sight of men must necessarily follow ; that 240 FORGIVENKSS OF INJURIES. to forgive through motives of religion, is nevertheless a stain of cowardice, which the world never pardons, and that on this point, honour acknowledges neither exception nor privilege. What is this honour, my brethren, which is to be bought only at the price of our souls and of our eternal salvation ? And how worthy of pity, if guilt alone can save from ignominy ! I know that it is here that the false laws of the world seem to ])revail over those of religion ; and that the wisest themselves, who ex- ecrate this abuse, are, however, of opinion that it must be submitted to. But I speak before a prince, who, wiser than the world, and filled with a just indignation against a madness so contrary to the maxims of the gospel, as well as to the interests of the state, hath shown to his subjects what is the true honour, and who, in forcing- criminal arms out of their hands, hath marked with lasting in- famy those barbarous modes of revenge to which the public error had attached a deplorable glory. What, my brethren, an abominable maxim, which the barba- rity of the first manners of our ancestors alone hath consecrated, and handed down to us, should prevail over all the rules of Chris- tianity, and all the most inviolable rules of the state ! It should be no dishonour to bathe your hands in your brother's blood, while it would be one to obey God, and the prince who holds his place in the world ! Glory would no longer then be but a madness, and cowardice but a noble respect for religion, and for our master. You dread passing for a coward ! Show your va- lour, then, by shedding your blood in the defence of your coun- try ; go and brave dangers at the head of our armies, and there seek glory in the discharge of your duty ; establish your repu- tation by actions worthy of being ranked among the memorable events of a reign so glorious ; such is that valour which the state -requires, and which religion authorizes. Then despise these brutal and personal vengeances ; look upon them as a childish ostentation of valour, which is often used as a cover to actual cowardice ; as the vile and vulgar refuge of those who have no- thing signal to establish their character; as a forced and an equivocal proof of courage, which the world wrests from us, and against which the heart often revolts. Far from imputing shame to you, the world itself will make it a fresh title of honour to you ; you will be still more exalted in its opinion ; and you will teach your equals that misplaced valour is nothing but a brutal fear ; that wisdom and moderation ever attend true glory ; that what- ever dishonours humanity can never do honour to men ; and that the gospel, which inculcates and commands forgiveness, hath made more heroes than the world itself, which preaches up revenge. You will perhaps say that these maxims do not regard you ; that you have forgotten all the subjects of complaint which you had against your brother ; and that a reconcilialion hath put an FORGfVPiNKSS OF INJUIUES. 241 end to the eclat of your misunderstandings and of your quarrel. J\ow 1 say, that it is more especially on this point that you are grossly deceived ; and, after having shown to you the injustice of our hatreds, it is my duty now to prove to you the falsity of our reconciliations. Part II.— There is not a precept in the law which leaves less room tor doubt or for mistake, than that which obliges us to love our brethren ; and, nevertheless, there is none upon which more Illusions and false maxims are founded. In effect, there is not al- most a person who doth not say, that he hath heartily forgiven his brother, and that his conscience is perfectly tranquil on that head ; and, nevertheless, nothing is more rare than sincere forgiveness, and there are few instances of a reconcilement which changes the iieart, and which is not merely a fidse appearance of renewed amity, whether it be considered in its principle, or whether the proceedings and consequences of it be examined. I say in its principle ; for, my brethren, in order that a reconci- liation be sincere and real, it is necessary that it take its source in charity, and in a Christian love of our brother. Now, human motives engross, in general, a work which can be the work of grace alone. A reconciliation takes place, in order not to persist against the pressing intreaties of friends ; in order to avoid a certain disagreeable eclat, which would necessarily follow an open hostility, and which might revert upon ourselves ; in order not to exclude ourselves from certain societies, from which we would be under the necessity of banishing ourselves were we obstinately to persist in being irreconcileable to our brother. A reconciliation takes place through deference to the great, who exact of us that compliance, ni order to acquire a reputation for moderation and greatness of soul; in order to avoid giving transactions to the public which would not correspond with that idea which we would wish it to have of us,; in order, at once, to cut short the continual complaints and the insulting discourses of an enemy, who knows us perhaps only too well, and who has once been too deep in our confidence, not to merit some caution and deference on our part, and that, by a reconciliation, we should endeavour to silence him. What more shall I say ? We are reconciled perhaps like Saul, in order more securely to ruin our enemy, and to lull his vio-ilance and pre- cautions. ° Such are, in general, the motives of those reconciliations which every day take place in the world, and what I say here is so true, that sinners who show no sign of piety on any other occasion, are, however, reconciled to their brethren In daily instances ; and they who cannot prevail over themselves in the easiest duties of a Chris- tian life, appear as heroes in the accomplishment of this one, which, of all others, is the most difficult. Ah ! it is because they 242 FORGIVENESS OF INJURfES. are heroes of vanity and not of charity : it is that they leave that part of the reconcihation which alone is heroical and arduous in the sightof God, namely, an oblivion upon the past injury, andatotal revolution of our heart toward our brother ; and they retain of it only that part which is glorious in the sight of men, namely, an ap- pearance of moderation, and a promptitude toward amity, which the world itself praises and admires. But, if the greatest part of reconciliations turn out to be false when these motives are examined, they are not less so if we consi- der them in their proceedings. Yes, my brethren, what measures and negotiations t what formalities and solicitudes in concluding them ! what attentions to bestow, and cautions to observe ! what interests to conciliate, obstacles to remove, and steps to accom- plish ! Thus your reconciliation is not the work of charity, but of the wisdom and skill of your friends : it is a worldly aiiair ; it is not a religious step : it is a treaty happily concluded ; it is not a duty of faith fulfilled : it is the work of man, but it is not the deed of God : in a word, it is a peace which comes from the earth, it is not the peace of heaven. For, candidly, have men been able, through their arrangements and the ingenuity of their measures, in reconcihng you with your brother, to revive that charity which was extinguished in your heart ? Have they been able to restore that treasure to yon which you had lost ? They have succeeded, indeed, in terminating the scandal of declared enmity, and establishing between you and your brother the outward duties of society ; but they have not changed your heart, which God alone can do ; they have not extinguished that hatred, which grace alone can extinguish. You are therefore reconciled, but you still love not your brother; and, in eflect, if you sincerely loved him, would so many mediators have been re- quired to reconcile you ? Love is its own mediator and interpreter. Charity is that brief word which would have saved to your friends all those endless toils which they have been obliged to employ in order to reclaim you ; it is not so measured ; it frankly confesses what it sincerely feels. Now, before giving way, you have insisted upoiva thousand conditions ; you have disputed every step ; you have been resolute in not going beyond a certain point; you have exacted that your brother should make the first advances toward meeting you. Charity knows nothing of all these rules ; it hath only one, and that is, oblivion upon the injury, and to love our brother as ourself. I grant that certain prudential measures are to be observed, and that too hasty or ill-timed advances might often be not only un- successful, but even the means of hardening your brother still more against you. But I say that charity ought to regulate these mea- sures, and not vanity ; I say, and I repeat it, that all these recon- ciliations which are with such difficulty concluded, where both FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 24S parties are resolute in yielding only to a certain point, and even that with precautions so strict and so precise ; where so many ex- pedients and so much mystery are necessary, — are the fruits of fleshly prudence : they correct the manners, but they affect not the heart; they bring the persons, but not the affections, nearer; they re-establish civilities, but leave the same sentiments ; in a word, they terminate the scandal of hatred, but not the sin. Thus Jesus Christ plainly commands us to go our way and be reconciled to our brother. He says not to us, do not go too far, lest your brother take advantage by it; be first convinced that he will meet you half-way; seek not after him, lest he consider your proceed- ing as an apology for his complaints, as a tacit acknowledgment of your blame, and a sentence pronounced against yourself. Jesus Christ plainly tells us, — go thy way, and be reconciled to thy brother. He desires that the reconciliation take place through charity alone ; he supposes, that, in order to love our brother, we have no occasion for mediators, and that our heart should be fully capable of every thing required without any foreign inter- ference. Such are the steps of reconciliations ; thence, the motives being almost always human, the proceedings faulty, their consequences can be only vain and of no effect. 1 say, the consequences ; for, my brethren, in what do the far greater part of those reconciliations, which every day take place in the world, terminate ? What is the fruit of them ? What is it which is commonly called a reconcilia- tion with our enemy? I shall explain it to you. You say, in the first place, that you are reconciled to your brother, and that you have heartily forgiven him ; but that you have taken your resolution to see him no more, and from henceforth to have no farther intercourse vvitii him. And upon this footing, you live tranquil ; you believe that nothing more is prescribed by the gospel, and that a confessor hath no title to demand more. Now I declare that you have not forgiven your brother, and that you are still, with respect to him, in hatred, in death, and in sin. For I demand of you, — do we dread the sight of those we love ? And if your enemy be now your brother, what can there be so hateful and so disagreeable to you in his presence ? You say, that you have forgiven, and that you love him ; but, in order to avoid all accidents, and that his presence may not arouse vexatious ideas, you find it more proper to exclude yourself from it. But what is that kind of love which the sole presence of the beloved object irritates against it, and inflames with hatred and wrath ? You love him ! that is to say, that perhaps you would not wish to in- jure, or to destroy him. But that is not enough ; religion com- mands you hkewise to love him : for honour, indolence, mode- ration, fear, and want of opportunity, are sufficient induce- u 2 244 FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. ments to prevent you from injuring him ; but you must be Christian to love him ; and that is precisely what you are not willing to be. And, candidly, would you that God loved you, upon the condi- tion that he should never see you ? Would you be satisfied with his goodness, and with his mercy, were he for ever to banish you from his presence ? P'or you well know that he will treat you, as you shall have treated your brother. Would you think yourself much in favour with the prince, were he to forbid you ever to pre- sent yourself before him I You constantly say, that a man is in diso-race, when he is no longer permitted to ajjpear before the mas- ter ; and you pretend to persuade us that you love your brother, and that no rancour remains in your heart against hirn, while his sole presence displeases and irritates you. And what less equivocal mark can be given of animosity against your brother, than that of being unable to endure his presence ? It is the very extreme of hatred and of rancour. For many settled hatreds exist, which yet are kept under a kind of check ; are, as far as possible, concealed, and even borrow the outward semblance of ■friendship and of decency ; and, though unable to reconcile the heart to duty, yet have sufficient command over themselves, to pre- serve appearances to the world. But your hatred is beyond all re- straint ; it knows neither prudence, caution, nor decency ; and you pretend to persuade us that it is now no more ! you still show the most violent proofs of animosity, and even these you would have us to consider as the indubitable signs of a Christian and sin- cere love ! But, besides, are Christians made to live estranged, and uncon- nected with each other ? Christians ! the members of one body, the children of the same Fathfer, the disciples of the same Mas- ter, the inheritors of. the same kingdom, the stones of the same building, the particles of the same mass ! Christians ! the parti- cipation of one same spirit, of one same redemption, of one same righteousness ! Christians ! sprung from one bosom, regenerated in the same water, incorporated in the same church, redeemed by one ransom, — are they made to fly each other, to make a punishment of seeing each other, and to be unable to endure each other ? All re- ligion binds, unites us together; the sacraments in which we join, the public prayers and thanksgivings which we sing, the ceremonies of that worship in which we pride ourselves, the assembly of be- lievers at which we assist ; all these externals are only symbols of that union which ties us together. All religion itself is but one holy society, a divine communication of prayers, of sacrifices, of works, and of well-doings. Every thing connects and unites us, every thing tends to make, of our brethren and of us, only one family, one body, one heart, and one soul ; and you be- lieve that vou love your brother, and that you preserve, with FORGIVENESS OF INJUftlKS. 245 respect to him, all the most sacred ties of religion, while you break through even those of society, and that you cannot endure even his presence ? I say much more : how shall you indulge the same hope with him ? For, by that common hope, you are eternally to live with him, to make his happiness your own, to be happy with him, to be reunited with him in the bosom of God, and with him to sing the eternal praises of grace. Ah ! how could the hope of being for ever united with him be the sweetest con- solation of your life, if it appear so desirable to live in separa- tion from him, and if you find even his presence a punish- ment? Renounce, then, the promises and all the hopes of faith; separate yourself as an accursed from the communion of believers; interdict to yourself the altar and the awful mysteries ; banish your- self from the assembly of the holy ; no longer come there to offer up your gifts and your prayers, since all these religious du- ties, supposing you in union with your brother, become deri- sions if you be not so ; depose against you in the face of the altars ; and command you to quit the holy assembly as a publican and a sinner. Perhaps, alarmed at these holy truths, you will finally tell us, that you will so far conquer yourself as to see your brotlier and to live on good terms with him ; that you will not be wanting in civi- lities ; but that, for the rest, you know where to stop, and that he need not reckon much upon your friendship. You will not be wanting in civilities ! And that, my dear hearer, you believe, is to pardon and to be reconciled with your brother, and to love him as yourself? But that charity which the gospel comiiiands is in the heart ; it is not a simple decorum, a vain outside, a useless ceremony ; it is real feeling, and an active love ; it is a sincere tenderness, ever ready to manifest itself in actions. You love as a Jew and as a Pharisee, but you love not as a Christian and as a disciple of Jesus Christ. The law of charity is the law of the heart ; it regulates the feelings, changes the inclinations, and pours the oil of peace and of lenity over the wounds of an angiy and wounded will ; and you turn it into a law wholly external, a pharisaical and superficial law, which regulates only the outside, which settles only the manners, and is fulfilled by vain appearances. But you are not commanded that you shall merely refrain from wounding the rules of courtesy, and that you shall pay to your brother all those duties which society naturally imposes ; it is the world which prescribes this law ; these are its rules and cus- toms : but Jesus Christ commands you to love him ; and, while your heart is estranged from him, it is of little importance that you keep up the vain externals of courtesy. You refuse to re- ligion the essential part ; and the only difierence between you and 246 FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. those sinners who persist in not seeing their brethren, is, that you know how to constrain yourself for the world, and you know not how to thwart yourself for salvation. And surely, my brethren, if men were united together by the sole ties of society, they no doubt would discharge their duty, by keeping up all the externals of politeness, and by maintaining that mutual commerce of cares, attentions, and courtesies, which constitute, as it were, the whole harmony of the body politic. But we are united together by the sacred and close ties of faith, of hope, of chanty, and of religion. In the midst of the world we form a society wholly internal and holy, of which charity is the invisible bond, and altogether distinct from that civil society which legislators have established. Consequently, by fulfilling, with regard to your brethren, the external courtesies, you sa- tisfy the claims which civil society hath upon you, but you do not satisfy those of religion ; you disturb not the political order, but you overturn the order of charity ; you are a peaceable citizen, but you are not a citizen of heaven ; you are a man of the age, but you are not a man of the age to come ; the world may acquit you, and demand no more, but what you do is a blank in the sight of God, because you are not in charity ; and your con- demnation is certain. Come and tell us, after this, that you will not be wanting in decorum, and that religion exacts no more of us. It exacts then only dissimulation, outsides, and vain appear- ances ! It exacts, then, nothing true, nothing real, nothing which changes the heart ! And the great precept of charity, which alone gives reality to all our works, would no longer then be but a false pretence and a vain hypocrisy ! And trust not solely to us on this point ; consult the public it- self. See if, in spite of all the appearances which you still keep up with your brother, it be not an established opinion in the world, that you love him not ; and if the world do not act in consequence of that persuasion. See if your creatures, if all who approach and who are attached to you, do not affect to keep at a distance from your brother. See if all those who hate him, or who are in interests opposite to his, do not court your friendship and form closer ties with you, and if all those who are inimical to your brother do not profess themselves your friends. See if those who have favours to expect from you do not begin by forsaking him, and that if they do not think that in so doing they arc paying court to you. You see that the world knows you better than you know yourself; that ■it is not mistaken in your real sentiments; and that, in spite of all these vain shows toward your brother, you are actually in hatred and in death, and that in this respect the world itself is of our opinion ; that world which, on every other occasion, we have con- stantly to combat. Behold in what terminate the greatest part of the reconciliations FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 24/ which are every day made in tli€ world. They once more see each other, but they are not reunited ; they promise a mutual friend- ship, but it is never given ; their persons meet, but their hearts are always estranged ; and I had reason to say, that the hatreds are unchangeable, and that almost all the reconciliations are mere pre- tences; that the injury may be forgiven, but that the offender is never loved ; that they may cease to treat their brother as an enemy, but that they never regard him as a brother. And, behold what takes place every day before our eyes. In the world are to be seen pubhc characters, families of illustrious names, who still preserve with each other certain measures of decency, which, indeed, they cannot break through without scan- dal ; yet, nevertheless, live in different interests, in pubhc and avowed sentiments of envy, of jealousy, and of mutual animo- sity; thwart and do every thing in their power to ruin each other, view each other with the most jealous eyes, and make all their creatures partisans in their resentments and aversions ; divide the world, the court,, and _ the city ; interest the public in their quarrel, and establish in the world the opinion and the scandal that they hate each other ; that they would mutually destroy each other; that they still, it is true, keep up appear- ances; but that, at bottom, their interests and affections are for ever estranged. Yet, notwithstanding all this, each party lives in a reputation of piety, and of the practice of good works ; they have distinguished and highly esteemed confes- sors ; in mutually discharging to each' other certain duties, yet living otherwise in a public and avowed hostihty, they frequent the sacraments, they are continually in the intercourse of holy things, they coolly approach the altar, they frequently and without scruple present themselves at the penitential tribunal, where, far from confessing their hatred before the Lord, and weeping over the scandal with which it afflicts the people, they make fresh complaints against their enemy; they accuse him, in place of accusing themselves ; they make a boast of the vain external duties which they pay to him, and allege them as marks of the heart not being rancorous. What shall I say ? And the very ministers of penitence, who should have been the judges of our hatred, frequently become its apologists, adopt a party with the public, enter into all the animosity and preju- dices of their penitents, proclaim the justice of their quarrel, and are the cause that the only remedy destined to strike at the root of the evil, answers no other purpose than that of de- corating it with the appearance of godliness, and of rendering it more incurable. Great God ! thou alone canst close the wounds which a proud sensibility hath made in my heart, by nourishing unrea- sonable and iniquitous hatreds which have corrupted it in thy sight. Enable me to forget fleeting and momentary injuries. 248 THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. in order that thou mayest forget the crimes of my whole life. Is it for me, O my God ! to be so feeling and so inexorable to the slight- est insults, I who have such necessity for thy mercy and indul- gence ? Are the injuries of which I complain to be compared with those with which I have a thousand times dishonoured thy supreme grandeur? Must the worm of the earth be irritated and inflamed at the smallest marks of disdain, while thy Sovereign Majesty hath so long, and with so much goodness, endured his rebellions and his offences ? Who am I, to be so keen upon the interests of my glory ; I who dare not in thy presence cast mine eyes upon my secret ignominy ; I who deserve to be the reproach of men, and the outcast of my people ; I who have nothing praiseworthy, according even to the world, but the good fortune of having concealed from it my infa- mies and my weaknesses ; I to whom the most biting reproaches would still be too gentle, and would treat me with too much indul- gence ; I, in a word, who have no salvation now to hope, if thou forget not thine own glory, which I have so often insulted ? But no, great God ! thy glory is in pardoning the sinner, and mine shall be in forgiving my brother. Accept, O Lord, this sa- crifice which I make to thee of my resentments. Estimate not its value by the puerility and the slightness of the injuries which I for- get, but by that pride which had magnified them, and had rendered me so feeling to them. And seeing thou hast promised to forgive us our trespasses whenever we shall have forgiven the trespasses of our brethren, fulfil, O Lord, thy promises. It is in this hope that I presume to reckon upon thine eternal mercies. SERMON XV. THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. And behold a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster -box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment."— Luke vii. 37, 38. From such abundant tears, so sincere a confusion, and a pro- ceeding so humiliating and uncommon, it may easily be com- THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. 249 prehended how great must once have been the influence of the pas- sions over the heart of this sinner, and what grace now operateth within her. Palestine had long beheld her as the shame and the reproach of the city ; the Pharisee's household views her to-day as the glory of grace and a model of patience. What a change, and what a spectacle ! This soul, fettered, but a moment ago, with the most shame- ful and the most indissoluble chains, finds nothing now capa- ble of stopping her; and, without hesitation, she flies to seek, at the feet of Jesus Christ, her salvation and deliverance : this soul, hitherto plunged in the senses, and living totally for volup- tuousness, in a moment sacrifices their liveliest charms and their dearest ties : this soul, lastly, impatient till then of every yoke, and whose heart had never acknowledged other rule than the caprice of its inclinations, commences her penitence by the most humiliat- ing proceedings and the most melancholy subjections. How ad- mirable, O ray God, are the works of thy grace! and how near to its cure is the most hopeless wretchedness, when once it becomes the object of thine infinite mercies ! And how rapid and shortened are the ways by which thou conductest thy chosen. But whence comes it, my brethren, that such grand examples make so trifling an impression upon us? From two prejudices, apparently the most opposite to each other, yet, nevertheless, which proceed from the same principle, and lead to the same error. The first is, that we figure to ourselves that conversion of tlie heart required by God as merely a cessation of guilt, the abstain- ing from certain excessive irregularities, which even decency itself holds out as improper. And as we are at last brought to that, either by age, new situations, or even our own inclinations, which time alone has changed, we never think of going farther ; we believe that all is completed, and we listen to the history of the most af- fecting conversions, held out to us by the church, as to lessons which no longer, in any degree, regard us. The second goes to another extreme : we represent Christian penitence to ourselves as a horrible situation, and the despair of human weakness ; a state without comfort or consolation, and at- tended by a thousand duties, every one more disgusting than ano- ther to the heart ; and, repulsed through the error of that gloomy image, the examples of a change find us little disposed to be af- fected, because they always find us discouraged. Now, the conversion of our sinner confutes these two preju- dices, so dangerous to salvation. First, her penitence not only terminates her errors, it likewise expiates and makes reparation for them. Secondly, her penitence begins, it is true, her tears and sorrow ; but it is likewise the commencement to h.er of new plea- sures. Whatever she had despoiled Jesus Christ of in her errors, she restores to him in her penitence : behold their reparation ! But 250 THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. with Jesus Christ she finds in her penitence, that peace and those coraforts which she had never experienced in her errors : behold their consolations ! The reparations, and the consolations of her penitence are the whole history of her conversion, and the subject of this Discourse. Part I. — The olhce of penitence, says St. Augustine, is that of establishing order wherever sin hath introduced corruption. It is false, if it be not universal ; for order solely results from a perfect subordination of all desires and emotions which spring up in our hearts : every thing must be in its place, in order that tliat divine harmony, which sin had disturbed, may be restored ; and, while the smallest particular there remains deranged, in vain do you la- lour to repair the rest ; you only rear up an edifice, which, being improperly arranged, is continually giving way in some of its parts, and confusion and disorder prevail through the whole. Now, behold the-important instruction held out to us in the con- version of this sinner ! Her sin comprised several disorders: first, an iniquitous use of her heart, which had never been taken up but with creatures : secondly, a criminal abuse of all natural gifts, which she had made the instruments of her passions : thirdly, a shameful abasement of her senses, which she had always made to contribute to her voluptuousness and ignominy : lastly, a universal scandal in the notoriety of her errors. Her penitence makes repara- tion for all these disorders : all, consequently, are forgiven ; for no- thing is neglected in the repentance. I say, first, an iniquitous use of her heart. Yes, my brethren, every love, which has for its object only the creatures, degrades our heart : it is a disorder, to love for itself that which can neither be our happiness nor our perfection, nor, consequently, our ease ; for to love, is to seek our felicity in that which we love ; it is the hope of finding, in the object beloved, whatever is wanting to our heart; it is the calling it in aid against that shocking void which we feel within ourselves, in the confidence that they shall be able to fill it : to love, is to look upon the object beloved as our resource against all our wants, the cure of all our evils, and the author of all our good. Now, as it is in God alone that we can find all these advan- tages, it is a disorder, and a debasement of the heart, to seek for them in a vile creature. And, at bottom, we feel sensibly the injustice of that love: however passionate it be, we quickly discover, in the creatures which inspire it, weaknesses and defects which render them un- worthy of it : we soon find them out to be unjust, fanciful, false, vain, and inconstant : the deeper we examine them, the more we say to ourselves, that our heart has been deceived, and that this is not the object which it sought. Our reason inwardly blushes at the weakness of our passion ; we no longer submit to our chains^ THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. 251 but with pain ; our passion becomes our burden and our punish- ment. But, punished without being undeceived in our error, we seek, in a change, a remedy for our mistake : we wander from object to object, and if some one at last chance to fix us, it is not that we are satisfied with our choice, it is that we are tired of our inconstancy. Our sinner hath wandered in these ways : iniquitous loves had been the cause of all her misfortunes and of all her crimes ; and, born to love God alone, he alone it was whom she had never loved. But scarcely hath she known him, says the gospel, when, blushing at the meanness of her former passions, she no longer ac- knowledges but him alone to be worthy of her heart ; all in the creature appears to her empty, false, and disgusting : far from finding those charms, from which her heart had formerly with such difficulty defended itself, she no longer sees in them but their fri- volity, their danger, and their vanity. — The Lord alone, in her sight, appears good, real, faithful, constant to his promises, magni- ficent in his gifts, true in his affection, indulgent even in his anger, alone sufficiently great to fill the whole immensity of our heart ; alone sufficiently powerful to satisfy all its desires ; alone suffi- ciently generous to soften all its distresses ; alone immortal, and who shall for ever be loved : lastly, to love whom can be followed by the sole repentance of having loved him too late. It is love, therefore, my brethren, which makes true penitence : for penitence is only a changing of the heart ; and the heart does not change but in changing its love : penitence is only the re- establishment of order in man ; and man is only in order when he loves the Lord, for whom he is made : penitence is only a reconci- liation with God ; and your reconciliation is fictitious, if you do not restore to him your heart : in a word, penitence obtains the re- mission of sins, and sins are remitted only in proportion to our love. Tell us no more, then, my brethren, when we hold out these grand examples for your imitation, that you do not feel your- selves born for devotion, and that your heart is of such a nature that every thing which is denominated piety is disagreeable to it. What! my dear hearer, your heart is not made for loving its God ? Your heart is not made for the Creator who hath given it to you ? What ! you are born then for vanity and false- hood ? Your heart, so grand, so exalted, and which nothing here below can satisfy, has been bestowed on you solely Tor pleasures which weary you, creatures which deceive you, ho- nours which embarrass you, a v/orld which tires or disgusts you ? God alone, for whom you are made, and who hath made you what you are, should find nothing for himself in the principle of your being. Ah ! you are unjust toward your own heart: you know not yourself, and you take your corruption for your- self. And, in effect, if not born for virtue, what then is the 252 THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. melancholy mystery of your lot ? For what are you born ? What chimera then are you among men ? You are born then only for remorse and gloOmy care .' The Author of your being hath drawn you from nonentity, only to render you miserable ? You are gifted then with a heart only to pursue a happiness which either is visionary or which flies from you, and to be a continual burden to yourself? O man ! open here thine eyes ; fathom to the bottom the destiny of thy heart, and thou wilt acknowledge that these turbulent pas- sions, which fill thee with such repugnances to virtue, are- foreign to thy nature ; that such is not the natural state of thy heart ; that the Author of nature and of grace hath bestowed on thee a more sublime lot ; that thou wert born for order, for righteousness, and for innocence; that thou hast corrupted a happy nature, by turning it toward iniquitous passions ; and that, if not born for virtue, we know not what thou art, and thou becomest incomprehensible to thyself. But you are mistaken, when you consider, as inclinations in- compatible with piety, those warm propensities toward pleasure which are born with you. From the instant that grace shall have sanctified them, they will become dispositions favourable for salva- tion. The more you are animated in the pursuit of the world and its false pleasures, the more eager shall you be for the Lord, and for true riches : the more you have been found tender and feeling by creatures, the easier shall be the access of grace to your heart : in proportion as your nature is haughty, proud, and aspiring, the more shall you serve the Lord, without fear, without disguise, without meanness : the more your character now appears easy, light, and inconstant, the easier it will be for you to detach yourself from your criminal attachments, and to return to your God. Lastly, your passions themselves, if I may venture to speak in this manner, will become the means of facilitating your penitence. Whatever had been the occasion of your destruction, you will ren- der it conducive toward your salvation; you will see and acknow- ledge, that to have received a tender, faithful, and generous heart, is to have been born for piety, and that a heart which creatures have been able to touch, holds out great and favourable disposi- tions toward grace. Peruse what remains to us of the history of the just, and you will see that those who have at the first been dragged away by mad passions, who were born with every talent calculated for the world, with the warmest propensities toward pleasures, and the most opposite to every thing pious, have been those in whom grace hath operated the mqst wonderful change. And, without mentioning the sinner of our gospel, the Augustines, the Pelagiuses, the Fabioleses, those worldly and dissipated souls, so obstinate and rooted in their debaucheries, and so diametri- THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNKU. 253 cally opposite, it would seem, to piety, what progress have they not since made ia the ways of God ! And their termer pro- pensities have, as 1 may say, only paved the way for their peni- tence. The same soil which nourishes and produces great pas- sions, gives birth likewise to the greatest virtues, when it pleases the Lord to change the heart. My God ! thou hast made us all for thee ; and in the incomprehensible arrangement of thy provi- dence, and of thy mercy toward man, even our weaknesses are to conduce toward our sanctification. It is thus that our sinner made reparation for the iniquitous use which she had made of her heart. But, secondly, the love which she had for Jesus Christ was not one of those vain and indolent sensibilities which are rather the natural emotions of an easily affected heart than real impressions of grace, and which never produce any thing in us farther than that of rendering us satisfied with ourselves, and persuading us that our heart is changed : > the sacrifices, and not the feelings, prove the reality of love. Thus, the second disorder of her sin having been the crimiual and almost universal abuse of all creatures ; the second reparation of her penitence, is the rigorously abstaining from all those things which she had abused in her errors. Her hair, her perfumes, the gifts of body and of nature, had been the instruments of her plea- sures; for none is ignorant of the use to v^hich a deplorable passion can apply them ; this is the first step of her penitence : the per- fumes are abandoned, and even consecrated to a holy ministry : her hair is neglected, and no longer serves but to wipe the feet of her deliverer; beauty, and every attention to the body are neg- lected, and her eyes are blinded with tears. Such are the first sacrifices of her love: she is not contented with giving up cares visibly criminal, she even sacrifices such as might have been looked upon as innocent, and thinks, that the most proper way of punishing the abuse she had formerly made of them, is by depriving herself of the liberty she might still have had of em- ploying them. In effect, by having once abused them, the sinner loses the right he had over them : what is permitted to an innocent soul, is no longer so to him who has been so unhappy as to deviate from the right path. Sin renders us, as it were, anathematized to all crea- tures around us, and which the Lord had destined to our use. Thus, there are I'ules for an unfaithful soul, not made for other men: he no longer enjoys, as I may say, the connnon right, and he must no more judge qf his duties by the general maxims, but by the personal exceptions which concern him. Now, upon this principle, you are continually demanding of us, if the use of such and such an artifice in dress be a crime ? If such and such public ])leasuresbe forbidden? I mean not hereto 254 THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNKR. decide for others ; but I ask of you who maintain their innocency, whether you have never made a bad use of them ? Have you never made these cares of the body, these amusements, and these artifices, instrumental toward iniquitous passions ? Have you never employed them in corrupting hearts, or in nourishing the corruption of your own ? What ! your entire life has perhaps been one con- tinued and deplorable chain of passions and evils ; you have abused every thing around you, and have made them instrumental to your irregular appetites ; you have called them all in aid to that unfor- tunate tendency of your heart ; your intentions have even exceeded your evil ; your eye hath never been single, and you would will- ingly never have had that of others to have been so with regard to you ; all your cares for your person have been crimes ; and when there is question of returning to your God, and of making repara- tion for a whole life of corruption and debauchery, you pretend to dispute with him for vanities, of which you have always made so infamous a use ? You pretend to maintain the innocency of a thousand abuses, which, though permitted to the rest of men, would be forbidden to you ? You enter into contestation, when it is intended to restrict you from the criminal pomps _of the world; you, to whom the most innocent, if such there be, are forbidden in future, and whose only dress ought henceforth to be sackcloth and ashes? Can you still pretend to justify cares which are your in- ward shame, and which have so often covered you with confusion at the feet of the sacred tribunal ? And should so much contesta- tion and so many explanations be required, where your own shame alone should amply suffice ? Besides, the holy sadness of piety no longer looks upon, but with horror, that which has once been a stumbling-block to us. The contrite soul examines not whether he may innocently indulge in it ; it suffices for him to know, that it has a thousand times been the rock upon which he has seen his innocence split. What- ever has been instrumental in leading him to his evils, becomes equally odious in his sight as the evils themselves ; whatever has been assisting to his passions, he equally detests as the passions themselves ; whatever, in a word, has been favourable to his crimes, becomes criminal in his eyes. Should it even happen that he might be disposed to accord it to his weakness, ah ! his zeal, his compunction, would reject the indulgence, and would adopt the interests of God's righteousness against men ; he could not prevail upon himself to permit abuses, which would" be the means of re- calling to him his past disorders ; he would always entertain a dread that the same manner of acting might recall the same dis- positions, and that, engrossed by the same cares, his heart would find itself the same ; the sole image of his past infidelities disturbs and alarms him ; and, far from bearing about with him their sad remains, he would wish to have it in his power to remove even THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNKR. 255 from the spots, and to tear himself from the occupations, which renew their remembrance. And, surely, what kind of a penitence must that be which still permits us to love all those things which have been the occasion of our greatest crimes'? And, while yet dripping from a shipwreck, can we too strenuously form the reso- lution of for ever shunning those rocks upon which we had so lately split? Lastly, true penitence causes us to find every where matter of a thousand invisible sacrifices. It does not confine itself to certain essential privations; ever^ thing which flatters the passions, every thing which nourishes the life of the senses, every superfluity which tends solely to the gratification of self-love, all these become the subject of its sacrifices; and, like a sharp and grievous sword, it every where makes divisions and separations painful to the heart, and cuts even to the quick, whatever in the smallest degree approached too near to the corruption of our propensities. The grace of compunction at once leads the contrite soul to this point ; it renders him ingenuous in punishing himself, and arranges mat- ters so well that every thing serves in expiation of his crimes; that duties, social intercourse, honours, prosperity, and the cares at- tendant upon his station, become opportunities of proving his merit; and that even his pleasures, through the circumspection and faith with which they are accompanied, become praiseworthy and virtuous actions. Behold the divine secret of penitence! As it officiates here below toward the criminal soul, says TertuUian, as the justice of God; and as the justice of God shall one day punish guilt by the eternal privation of all creatures which the sinner hath abused, penitence anticipates that terrible judgment; it every where im- poses on itself the most rigorous privations; and if the miserable condition of human life render the use of present things still requi- site, it employs them much less to flatter than to punish the senses, by the sober and austere manner in which it applies them. You have only to calculate thereupon the truth of your peni- tence. In va?n do you appear to have left off the brutal gratifica- tion of the passions, if the same pomp and splendour are requisite toward satisfying that natural inclination which courts distinction through a vain magnificence ; the same profusions, in consequence of not having the courage to deprive self-love of accustomed super- fluities; the same pleasures of the world, in consequence of being unable to do without it; the same advantages on the part of for- tune,.in consequence of the continual desire of rising superior to others: in a word, if you can part with nothing; you exclude yourself from nothing; even admitting that all those attachments which you still preserve should not be absolute crimes, your heart is not penitent; your manners are apparently different, but all your passions are still the same; you are apparently changed, but you are not converted. How rare, my brethren, are true penitents! 256 THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNKK, How common are vain and superficial conversions ! And how many souls, changed in the eyes of the world, shall one day find them- selves the same before God ! But it is not enough to have attained to that degree of self- denial which keeps us without the circle of attraction of the allurements of guilt; those laborious atonements must likewise be added, which wash out its stains. Thus, in the third place, the sinner of our gospel is not contented with having sacrificed her hair and her perfumes to Jesus Christ; she prostrates herself at his feet, she washes them with her tears, she wipes, she kisses them: and, as the third disorder of her sin had been a shame- ful subjection of her senses, she begins the reparation of these criminal lewdnesses, by the humiliation and disgust of these lowly services. New instruction : — -it is not sufficient to remove from the pas- sions those allurements which incite them ; it is likewise necessary that laborious exertions of such virtues as are most opposite to them, insensibly repress, and recall them to duty and order. You were fond of gaming, pleasures, amusements, and every thing which composes a worldly life; it is doing little to cut off from these pleasures that portion which may still conduct to guilt ; if you wish that the love of the world be extinguished in your heart, it is necessary that prayer, retirement, silence, and acts of charity, succeed to these dissolute manners; and that, not satisfied with shunning the crimes of the world, you likewise fly from the world itself. By giving yourself up to boundless and shameful passions, you have fortified the empire of the senses and of the flesh ; it is necessary that fasting, watching, the yoke of mortification, gra- dually extinguish these impure fires, weaken these tendencies, become ungovernable through a long indulgence of voluptuous- ness, and not only remove guilt from you, but operate, as I may say, to dry up its source in your heart. Otherwise, by sparing, you only render yourself more miserable : the old attachments which you shall have broken without having weakened, and, as it were, rooted them from your heart by mortification, will incessantly be renewing their attacks; your passions, become more violent and impetuous by being checked and suspended, without your having weakened and overcome them, will make you undergo agitations and storms, such as you had never ex- perienced even in guilt : you will behold yourself on the point, every moment, of a melancholy shipwreck ; you will never taste of peace in this new life. You will find yourself more weak, more exhausted, more animated for pleasure, more easy to be shaken, and more disgusted with the service of God, in this state of imperfect penitence, than you had even been formerly in the midst of dissipation; every thing will become a rock to you; you will be a continual temptation to yourself; you will be astonished to find within you a still greater re]Mignance to THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNKU. 25^7 duties; and, as it is hardly possible to stand out lon^ against yourself, you will soon become disgusted with a virtue by which you sutler so much ; and, in consequence of your having wished to be only a tranquil and mitigated penitent, you will be an un- happy one, without consolation, without peace, and, consequently, without perseverance. To augment and multiply the sacrifices is to abridge the sufferings in virtue; and whatever we are induced to spare to the passions, becomes rather the punishment and the disgust, than the softening of our penitence. The last disorder which had accompanied the sin of the woman of our gospel, was the publicity of the scandal attending the cor- ruption of her conduct. The scandal of the law, which was dis- honoured in the opinion of the Romans and of so many other Gentiles, spread throughout Palestine, and who, witnessing the ill-conduct of our sinner, took occasion, no doubt, from it, to blaspheme the name of the Lord, to despise the sanctity of his law, to harden themselves in their impious superstitions, and to look upon the hope of Israel and the wonders of God, as related in the holy books, as fictions invented to amuse a credulous people. Scandal of place. Her ill-conduct had been conspicuous in the city, that is to say, in the capital of the country, from whence the report of such accidents was soon circulated throughout Judea. Now, behold the scandals for which her penitence makes repara- tion,— the scandal of the law, by renouncing the superstitious tra- ditions of the Pharisees, who had adulterated their precepts; and by confessing Jesus Christ, who was the end and the fulfilment of them. For, too frequently, after having dishonoured religion in the minds of the impious, through our excesses and scandalous conduct, we again dishonour it through our pretended piety; we create for ourselves a kind of virtue altogether worldly, superficial, and Pharisaical; we become superstitious without becoming peni- tent; we make the abuses of devotion succeed to those of the world; the only reparation we make for the scandal of our de- baucheries, is that of a sensual piety; and we reflect more dis- grace upon virtue, through the weaknesses and the illusions which we mingle with it, than we did by our open and avowed excesses. Thus the impious are more hardened in their iniquity, and more removed from conversion, by the example of our false penitence, than ever they had formerly been by the example even of our vices. Lastly, the scandal of place. That same city which had been the theatre of her shame and of her crimes, becomes that of her penitence. She goes not into retired places to give vent to her sorrows and her tears ; she takes no advantage, like Nicodemus, of the shades of night to come to Jesus Christ, nor waits the opportunity of his being in a retired corner of the city, in order to conceal from the eyes of the public the first steps of her conver- 258 THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. sirni. In the face of that great city which she had scandalized by her conduct, she enters into the house of the pbarisee, and is not afraid of submitting to have, as spectators of her penitence, those who had been witnesses of her former crimes. For, often, after having despised the world's opinion in debauchery, it becomes dreaded in virtue : the eyes of the public did not appear formidable to us during our dissipation ; they become so in our penitence : our vices are carelessly laid open to view ; our virtues are back- ward and cautious: we dare not at first declare openly for Jesus Christ ; we are ashamed to show ourselves in a light so new to ws; we have gloried in vice as if it had been a virtue, and we blush for being virtuous, as though it were a shame. As our fortunate sinner had not been timid in evil, so she is not timid in good ; she bears, even with a holy insensibility, the reproaches of the pharisee, who recounts, in the presence of all the guests, the infamy of her past manners. For the world, typi- fied by that pharisee, feels a gratification in the mean pleasure of recalling the former errors of those whom grace hath touched : far from reaping any edification from their present good conduct, it is continually dwelling upon their past irregularity; it tries to weaken the merit of what they now do, by renewing upon every occasion the remembrance of what they have done ; it would appear that the errors which they lament authorize those which we love, and in which we still continue to live ; and that it is more allowable for us to be sinners, since real and sincere penitents repent of having been so. It is thus, O my God! that every thing worketh out our destruction, and that, instead of blessing and praising the riches of thy mercy when thou withdrawest worldly and dissolute souls from the ways of perdition, and instead of being excited, by these grand examples, to have recourse to thy clemency, always so ready to receive the repentant sinner; insensible and blind to his penitence, we are occupied only in re- calhng his errors, as if we were entitled from thence to say to our- selves, that we have nothing to dread in debauchery; that one day or other we shall likewise become contrite ; and that the sincerest penitents having once been perhaps still more deeply in* volved than we in mad passions, we need not despair of one day or other being able to quit them as well as they ! O inexplicable blindness of man, that finds inducements to debauchery even in the examples of penitence ! - Such were the reparations of our sinner. But, if it be an error to represent to ourselves a change of life as the simple cessation of our former debaucheries, without adding to that those expiations which wash them out; it is likewise another not less dangerous, the considering these expiations as involving you in a situation, gloomy, wretched, and hopeless. Thus, after having mentioned to you the reparations of her penitence, it is proper that I now lay before you the consolations. THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. 259 Part II. — Come unto me, says Jesus Christ, all ye who are weary of the ways of iniquity; take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls ; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. This promise, addressed to all criminal souls, who are always miserable in debauchery, is completely fulfilled in the instance of the sinner of our gospel. In effect, every thing which had formerly been to her, m her dissipations, an inexhaustible fund of disgust, becomes now, in her penitence, a fruitful source of consolation; and with Jesus Christ she is happy, through the same means which, during her guilt, had occasioned all her miseries. Yes, my brethren, an iniquitous love had been her first guilt, and the first source of all her distresses : the first consolation of her penitence is a holy dilection for Jesus Christ, and the wide difference between that divine and new love, and the profane love which had hitherto engrossed her heart. I say, the difference in the object, in the proceedings, and in the correspondence. In the object: the depravity of her heart had attached her to men, corrupted, inconstant, deceitful, rather companions of her debauchery than real friends, less watchful to render her happy than attentive to the gratification of their own inordinate passions; to men, who always join contempt to a gratified passion; to Am- nons, in whose eyes, from the moment that they have obtained their wishes, the unfortunate object of their love becomes vile and hateful ; to men, whose weaknesses, artifices, transports, and de- fects, she well knew, and whom she inwardly acknowledged to be unworthy of her heart, and to whom she paid any attention, more through the unfortunate bias of passion, than the free choice of her reason; in a word, to men, who had never yet been able to fix the natural instability and love of change of her heart. Her penitence attaches her to Jesus Christ, the model of all virtue, the source of all grace, the principle of all light: the more she studies him, the more does she discover his greatness and sanctity; the more she loves him, the more does she find him worthy of being loved : to Jesus Christ, the faithful, immortal, and disin- terested friend of her soul, who is concerned for her eternal inter- ests alone; who is interested only in what may render her happy; who is even come to sacrifice his ease, his glory, and his life, in order to secure her immortal happiness; who has distinguished her from among so many women of Judah, by an overflowing of mercy, when she had rendered herself the most conspicuous of her sex, by the excess of her wretchedness ; who expects nothing from her, but is willing to bestow on ber far more than she could ever have hoped; lastly, to Jesus Christ, who has tranquillized her heart, by purifying it; who has fixed its inconstancy, and subdued the multiplicity of its desires ; who has filled the whole extent of 260 THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. her love; who has restored to her that internal peace which crea- tures had never been able to bestow. O my soul ! how long shalt thou continue to love, in creatures, what is but thine affliction and punishment? Wouldst thou suffer more by breaking asunder thy chains, than thou now dost in bear- ing them? Would virtue and innocence be more painful than those shameful passions which at present debase and rend thee ? Ah ! thou shalt find every thing light and easy, in comparison with the cruel agitations which render thee so unhappy in guilt. — Difference in the object of her love. Difference in the steps. The excess of passion had led her to a thousand steps, in opposition to her inclination, her glory, and her reason ; — had led her to make a sacrifice to men of her quiet, her inchnations, her honour, and her liberty; to shameful condescen- sions and disagreeable submissions ; to important sacrifices, for which the only return was their thinking themselves more entitled from thence to exact still more : for such is the ingratitude of men ; the more you allow them to become masters of your heart, the more they erect themselves its tyrant: in their opinion, the excess of your attachment to them diminishes its merit; and they punish you for the fervour and the shame of your transports, by taking occasion, even from thence, to suffer all, even to their gratitude, to be cooled. Behold the ungrateful returns experienced by our sinner in the ways of the passions ! But in her penitence every thing is reckoned : the slightest step which she takes for Jesus Christ is noticed, is praised, is defended by Jesus Christ himself. The pharisee vainly endeavours to lessen her merit (for the world never studies but to diminish the value of the virtues of the just) ; the Saviour undertakes her defence: " Seest thou this woman?" said he to him; as if he thereby meant to say, Knowest thou all the merit of the sacrifices which she makes to me, and how far the strength and the excess of her love for me extend? She hath not ceased to wash my feet with tears, and to wipe them with the hairs of her head. He reckons, he observes every thing ; a sigh, a tear, a simple movement of the heart: nothing is lost upon him of whatever is done for him; no- thing escapes the exactness of his glances, and the tenderness of his heart; we are well assured that we serve no ungrateful master; he overvalues even the shghtest sacrifices. " Seest thou this woman?" He would, it appears, that all men view her with the same eyes that he did : that all men should be as equitable esti- mators as himself of her love, and of her tears : he no longer sees her debaucheries; he forgets a whole life of error and guilt; he sees only her repentance and her tears. Now, what consolation for a contrite soul to have it in her power to say to herself. Till now, I have lived only for error and vanity. My days, my years, my cares, my inquietudes, my THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. 261 distresses, are all hitherto lost, and no longer exist, even in the memory of those men for whom alone I have lived, for whom alone I have sacrificed every thing. My rectitude, my attentions, my anxieties, have never been repaid but with ingratitude; but hence- forth, whatever I do for Jesus Christ will receive its full estima- tion : my sufferings, my afflictions, the slightest sacrifices of my heart; my sighs, my tears, which I had so often shed in vain for creatures, all shall be written in immortal characters in the book of life : all these shall eternally exist in the remembrance of that faithful Master whom I serve; all these, in spite of the defects mingled with them by my weakness and my corruption, shall be excused, and even purified through the grace of my Redeemer, and he will crown his gifts by rewarding my feeble deserts. I no longer live but for eternity; I no longer labour in vain ; my days are real, my life is no longer a dream. O, my brethren, what a , blessed gain is piety ; and how great are the consolations which a soul recalled to Jesus Christ receives, in compensation for the' trifling losses which he sacrifices to him ! Lastly, difference in the certitude of the correspondence. That love of creatures which actuated our sinner, had always been attended with the most cruel uncertainties. One is always sus- picious of an equal return of love : the heart is ingenious in ren- dering itself unhappy, and in tormenting itself with vain fears, suspicions, and jealousies: the more generous, true, and frank it is itself, the more doth it suffer ; it is the martyr of its own dis- trusts. You know this well; and it does not belong to me to pre- tend to speak from this place the language of your extravagant passions. But what a new destiny in the change of her love ! Scarcely is her love of Jesus Christ commenced, when she is certain of being loved. She hears from his divine mouth the favourable sentence, which, in remitting her sins, confirms to her the love and the affec- tion of him who remits them. Not only are her debaucheries for- gotten, but she is urged to be convinced, in her own mind, that they are forgotten, pardoned, and washed out. All her fears are prevented, and ground is no more left for mistrust or uncertainty ; nor can she longer suspect the love of Jesus Christ, without at the same time suspecting his power and the faithfulness of his promises. Such is the lot of a contrite soul on quitting the tribunal where Jesus Christ, through the ministry of the priest, has remitted debaucheries, which he has washed out with his tears and his love. In spite of that uncertainty inseparable from the present state of life, whether he be worthy of love or hatred, an internal peace bears testimony in the bottom of his heart that he is re- stored to Jesus Christ: he experiences a calm and a joy in his conscience which can be the fruit of righteousness alone. Not that he is entirely delivered from alarm and apprehension on ac- 262 THK WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNKR. count of his past infidelities, and that, in certain moments, more forcibly struck with horror at his past errors, and the severity of God's judgments, he is not tempted to consider all as hopeless to him ; but Jesus Christ, who himself excites these storms in his heart, has quickly calmed them ; his voice still inwardly says to him, as formerly to Peter, alarmed upon the waves, " O thou of little faith, wherefore doubtest thou?" Have I not given thee sufficient proofs of my kindness and my protection ? Reflect upon all that I have done in order to withdraw thee from the ways of iniquity. I seek not with such perseverance the sheep that 1 love not; I recall them not from so far, to let them perish before my eyes. Distrust, then, no more my affection; dread only thine own lukewarmness or inconstancy. — First consolation of her penitence; — the difference of her love. The second is the sacrifice of her passions. She throws at the feet of Jesus Christ, her perfumes, her hair, all the attach- ments of her heart, all the deplorable instruments of her vanities and of her crimes; and do not suppose that in acting thus she sacrifices her pleasures ; she sacrifices only her anxieties and her punishments. In vain is it said that the cares of the passions constitute the felicity of those possessed by them; it is a language in which the world glories, but which experience belies. What punishment to a worldly soul, anxious to please, are the solicitous cares of a beauty which fades and decays every day! What attentions and constraints they must take upon themselves, upon their inclina- .tions, upon their pleasures, upon their indolence ! What inward vexations, when these cares have been unavailing, and when more fortunate charms have attracted the general attention! What tyranny is that of custom ! It must, however, be submitted to, in spite of deranged affairs, a remonstrating husband, tradesmen who murmur, and who dearly s^ll the remissions perhaps required. I say nothing of the cares of ambition : what a life is that passed in designs, projects, fears, hopes, alarms, jealousies, subjection, and meannesses ! I speak not of a profane connexion : what terrors lest the mystery be laid open, — what eyes to shun, — what spies to deceive, — what mortifying repulses to undergo from the very person for whom they have perhaps sacrificed their honour and their liberty, and of whom they dare not even complain ! To all these, add those cruel moments when passion, less unruly, allows us leisure to inspect ourselves, and to feel the whole infamy of our situation ; those moments in which the heart, born for mor^ solid joys, wearies of its own idols, and finds ample punishment in its disgusts and in its own inconstancy. World profane! If such be the felicity thou vauntest so much, distinguish thy worshippers, and, by crowning them with such a happiness, punish them for the faith which they have so credulously given to thy promises. Behold what our sinner casts at the feet of Jesus Christ! THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. 26S Her bonds, her troubles, her slavery ; in appearance, the instru- ments of her pleasures, — in truth, the source of all her afflictions. Now, granting that this were the only consolation of virtue, is it not a sufficiently grand one, that of deliverance from the keenest anxieties of the passions? To have your happiness no longer dependent upon the inconstancy, the perfidy, and the injustice of creatures; to have placed yourself beyond the reach of events; to possess in your own heart all that is wanting toward your hap- piness, or to suffice, as I may say, to yourself? What do you lose in sacrificing gloomy and anxious cares, in order to find peace and inward joy; and to lose all for Jesus Christ, is it not, as the apostle says, to have gained all? Thy faith hath made thee whole, said the Saviour to the woman; go in peace. Behold the treasure which she receives in return for the passions sacrificed to him; behold the reward and the consolation of her tears and of her repentance, — that peace of mind, which she had never as yet been able to find, and which the world had never bestowed. Fools ! says a prophet ; misery to you, then, who drag on the load of your passions, as the ox in labouring drags on the chains of the yoke which galls him, and who rush on to your destruction, by the way even of anguish, subjection, and (Constraint ! Lastly, by her sin she had been degraded in the eyes of men : they beheld with contempt the shame and the infamy of her conduct; she lived degraded from every right which a good repu- tation and a life free from reproach bestow ; and the pharisee is even astonished that Jesus Christ should condescend to suffer her at his feet. For the world, which authorizes whatever leads to dissipation, never fails to cover dissipation itself with infamy : it approves, it justifies the maxims, the habits, and the pleasures which corrupt the heart ; and yet it insists, that innocency and regularity of man- ners be united with corruption of heart; it inspires all the pas- sions, yet it always blames the consequences of them ; it requires you to study the art of pleasing, and it despises you from the moment that you have succeeded ; its lascivious theatres resound with extravagant praises of profane love, and its conversations consist only of biting satires upon thgse who yield themselves up to that unfortunate tendency ; it praises the graces, the charms, the miserable talents which light up impure desires, and it loads you with everlasting shame and reproach from the moment that you appear inflamed with them. O, how infinitely above descrip- tion wretched are those who drag on in a still beloved world, and which they find themselves incapable of doing without, the misera- ble wrecks of a reputation, either blasted or but feebly confirmed ; and wherever they show themselves, to arouse the remembrance or the suspicion of their crimes ! Such had been the afflictions and the disgraces with which the 264 THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. passions and the debaucheries of our sinner were followed ; but her penitence restores to her more honour and more glory than had been taken from her by the infamy of her crimes. This sin- ner, so despised in the world, whose name was never mentioned without a blush, is praised for the very things which even the world considers as most honourable, namely, kindness of heart, genero- sity of sentiments, and the fidelity of a holy love; this sinner, with whom no comparison durst ever be made, and whose scandal was without example in the city, is exalted above the pharisee ; the truth, the sincerity of her faith, of her compunction, of her love, merits at once the preference over a superficial and pharisaical virtue : lastly, this sinner, whose name was concealed, as if un- worthy of being pronounced, and whose only appellation is that of her crimes, is become the glory of Jesus Christ, the praise of grace, and an honour to the gospel. O matchless power of virtue ! Yes, my brethren, virtue renders us a spectacle, worthy of God, of angels, and of men : it once more exalts a fallen reputation ; it renews our claim, even here below, to rights and honours which we had forfeited : it washes out stains, which the malignity of men would wish to be immortal : it rejoins us to the servants of Jesus Christ, and to the society of the just, of whose intercourse we were formerly unworthy : it calls forth in us a thousand lauda- ble qualities, whi'ch the vortex of the passions had almost for ever ingulfed : lastly, it attracts more glory to us than our past man- ners had attached shame and contempt. While Jonah is rebellious to the will of God, he is the curse of heaven, and of the earth ; even idolaters are under the necessity of separating him from their society, and of casting him out, as a child of infamy and maledic- tion; and the belly of a monster is the only asylum in which he can conceal his reproach and shame. But, touched with contri- tion, scarcely hath he imploued the eternal mercies of the God of his fathers, when he becomes the admiration of the proud Nineveh ; when the grandees and the people unite to render him honours till' then unheard of; when the prince himself, full of respect for his virtue, descends from the throne, and covers himself with sack- cloth and ashes, in obedience to the man of God. Those passions which the world praises and inspires, had drawn upon us the con- tempt even of the world ; virtue, which the world censures and combats, attracts to us, however unwillingly on its part, its vene- ration and homages. What, my dear hearer, prevents you then from terminating your shame, and your inquietudes, with your crimes? Is it the reparations of penitence which alarm you ? But the longer you delay, the more they multiply, the more debts are contracted, the more you increase the necessity of new rigours to your weakness. Ah! if the reparations discourage you at present, what shall it one day be, when, your crimes multiplied to infi- nity, almost no punishment whatever sliall be capable of expi- THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SJNNER. 265 ating them ? They shall then plunge you into despair ; and you will adopt the miserable part of casting off all yoke, and of no longer reckoning upon your salvation ; you will raise up to yourself new maxims and modes of reasoning, in order to tranquillize your mind in freethinking ; you will consider as needless a penitence which will then appear to you impossible. When the embarrass- ments of the conscience come to a certain point, we feel a kind of gloomy satisfaction in persuading ourselves that no resource is left; we calm ourselves on the foundations of truths, when we see our- selves so far removed from what they prescribe ; we fly to unbelief for a remedy, from the moment that we believe it is no longer to be found in faith ; from the moment that the chaos becomes inexpli- cable to us, we have soon settled it in our minds that all is uncer- tain. And, besides, what should there be so melancholy and so rigorous in reparations, whose only merit ought to spring from love? Unbelieving soul ! you dread being unable to support the holy sadness of penitence ; yet you have hitherto been able to bear up against the internal horrors of guilt : virtue in your eyes seems weari- some beyond sufferance ; yet have you long dragged on under the stings of an ulcerated conscience, which no joy could enliven. Ah I since you have hitherto been able to bear up against all internal anguish, the bitternesses, the disgusts, the gloomy agitations of in- iquity, no longer dread those of virtue : in the pains and sufferances inseparable from guilt, you have undergone trials far beyond what' may be attached to virtue ; and doubly so, because grace softens, and renders even pleasing, the sufferings of piety, while the only sweetener of guilt is the bitterness of guilt itself. My God ! is it possible, that, for so many years past, I have had strength to wander in such arduous and dreary ways, under the tyranny of the world and of the passions, and that I should be un- able to hve with thee, under all the tenderness of thy regards, un- der the wings of thy compassion, and under the protection of thy arm ? Art thou then so cruel a master? The world, which knows thee not, believes that thou renderest miserable those who serve thee : but we, O Lord, we know that thou art the gentlest and best of masters, the tenderest of all fathers, the most faithful of all friends, the most munificent of all benefactors ; and that thou givest a foretaste, by a thousand inward consolations with which thou indulgest thy servants here below, of that eternal felicity which thou preparest for them hereafter. 266 THE WORD OF GOD. SERMON XVL THE WORD OF GOD. It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." — Matthew iv. 4. Nothing can give a better idea of the power and of the subh- mity of the word of the gospel, than the images employed by Jesus Christ to foretell its effects. One while it is a sacred sword, which is to divide father from child, husband from wife, brother from sis- ter, and man from himself; to bend all minds under the yoke of faith, to subjugate the Caesars, to triumph over sages and the learned, and to exalt the standard of the cross upon the wrecks of idols and of empires : through that is represented to us its might, which the whole world hath been unable to resist. One while it is a divine fire, spread in an instant throughout the earth, which goes to dissolve the mountains, to depopulate the cities, to people the forest, to reduce into ashes the profane temples, to inflame the minds of men, and to make them fly, like madmen, to death in the sight of nations ; and under these parabolical traits are figured to us the promptitude of its operations and the rapidity of its victories. One while it is a mysterious leaven, which joins and reunites the whole mass ; which binds all its parts together, and impresses upon them one general efficacy and virtue ; which overthrows the dis- tinctions of Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian, and gives to all the same name and the same being : and here you comprehend how great must be its sanctity and inward might, seeing it hath purified the whole universe, and of all nations hath made but one people. Another time it is a seed, which at first appears lost in the earth, but afterward springs up, and multiplies an hundred fold. And behold the first cause of the fecundity ! Not the husbandman who sows, but the invisible author who giveth the increase. But at present Jesus Christ compares it to bread, which serves as the food of man ; and he thereby means to inform us that the word of the gospel is a powerful and solid nourishment, often per- nicious to such as receive it into a diseased and corrupted heart, and useful only to souls who, with a holy appetite, nourish them- selves with it, and who bring to this place a heart prepared to hsten to it. To confine myself, then, to this idea, I shall say nothing of the THE WORD OF GOD. 26/ wonders which this word, announced by twelve poor and humble men, formerly wrought throughout the universe, I shall pass over in silence the sanctity of its doctrine, the sublimity of its counsels, the wisdom of its maxims; and, limiting myself to the instruc- tion, and to that which may render the word of the gospel, which we announce, beneficial to you, I shall inform you, firstly, what are the dispositions which ought to accompany you to this holy place for the purpose of hearing it; and, secondly, in what mind you ought afterward to listen to it : two duties, not only neglected, but even unknown to the greatest part of the believers who run in crowds to the feet of these Christian pulpits, and which are the ordinary cause of our ministry being attended with so little fruit. Part I. — It is not the body of external works, says St. Augus- tine, which distinguishes the just from the carnal Christian : it is the invisible spirit which animates them. Pious actions are fre- quently common to the good and to the wicked ; it is the disposi- tion of the heart which discriminates them. All run, says the apostle, but all reach not the goal, for it is not the same spirit which impels them. Now, to apply this maxim to my subject : of all the duties of Christian piety, there is undoubtedly none of which the external is more equally fulfilled by the worldly, and by the pious, than that of coming to hear the word of the gospel. All run in crowds, like the Israelites formerly to the foot of the holy mountain, to hear the words of the law. Our temples are hardly suflicient to contain the multitude of believers : profane assemblies break up to swell the number of the holy assembly at the hours of instruction ; and the ages which have seen the zeal of Christians so relaxed on every other duty of religion, have not, it would seem, witnessed it in this. Nevertheless, of all the ministries confided to the church for the consummation of the chosen, there is scarcely any so unprofitable as that of the word ; and the most efficacious means which the church hath, in every age, employed for the conversion of men, is become, at present, its feeblest resource. You, my brethren, are yourselves a melancholy proof of this truth. Never were instructions more frequent than in our days, and never were conversions so rare. It is of importance, therefore, to explain the causes of so com- mon and so deplorable an abuse. Now, the first is undoubtedly the want of those dispositions which ought to accompany you to this holy place, in order to listen to the word of salvation. And, surely, if St. Paul formerly commanded all believers to purify themselves before coming to eat of the bread of life, — if he declared to them, that not to distinguish it from ordinary food was to render themselves guilty of the body of the Lord, we have no less reason to tell you that you ought to prove yourselves, and to prepare your soul before you come to participate in that spiritual food which we -break to the people; and that not to distinguish it from the word 268 THK WORD OF GOD. of men, in your manner of listening to it, is to render yourselves guilty even of the word of Jesus Christ. The first disposition required of you by the sanctity of this word, when you come to hear it, is a sincere desire that it may be useful to you. Before coming to our temples, you ought privately, in your own house, to address yourself to the Father of Light, to en treat him to bestow upon you that ear of the heart which alone makes his voice to be heard ; to give to his word that efficacy, that inward unction, those attractions so powerful and so successful in the conversion of sinners, that he may overcome that insensibility which you have opposed to all the truths hitherto heard ; that he fix those momentary feelings which you have so often experienced while listening to us, but which have never been productive of any consequences toward your salvation ; that to us he give that zeal, that wisdom, that dignity, that fulness of his Spirit, those piercing lights, that divine vehemence which carries conviction to the heart, and which never speaks in vain; that he form in our hearts the re- lish of those truths which he putteth in our mouths ; that he ren- der us insensible to your praises, or to your censures, in order that we may be more useful to your wants ; that the ardent desire to accomplish your salvation fully compensate the want of those ta- lents denied to us by nature ; and that we honour our ministry, not by seeking to please, but to save you. And, surely, if the Israelites, before approaching Mount Sinai to hear the words of the law which the angel was to announce to them, were obliged, by the order of the Lord, to purify them- selves, to wash their garments, and even to abstain from the holy duties of marriage, in order to prepare themselves for that grand operation, and to carry nothing to the foot of the mountain unworthy of the sanctity of the law they went to hear; is it not, says a holy father, much more reasonable, when you come to hear the words of a more holy law, that you bring there at least those precautions of faith, of piety, of external respect, which mark in you a sincere desire of conforming your manners to those maxims which we are to announce to you ? What, my brethren ! are the precepts of Jesus Christ, the words of eternal life, to be listened to with less precaution than the ordinances of a figurative law ? Is it because they are no longer announced to you by an angel from heaven ? But are not we equally as he, the instruments of God to promulgate his word, and, like him, do we not speak in his place ? Did the angel upon the mountain bear more the mark of Divinity than we bear of him ? He wrote the law upon tables of stone ; the grace of our ministry engraves it on hearts. He promised milk and honey ; and we announce real and everlasting riches. The thunders of heaven, which ac- companied his menaces against the transgressors of the law, overthrew the people struck with terror at the foot of the moun- tain; but what were these threatenings and temporal maledic- THE WOIID OF COD. 269 tions, their cities demolished, their wives and children led into captivity, when compared to that eternal misery which we are in- structed continually to foretell to the violaters of the law of God ? Separate what we are from the ministry which we fill, and what is there here, either less awful or less respectable than upon mount Sinai ? And, nevertheless, what preparations accompany you to an action so holy and so worthy of respect? A vain curiosity which you wish to gratify; an irksome leisure which you are well pleased to have amused; a religious spectacle, the pleasure of which you wish to share; a custom which you follow, because the world hath adopted it? What do I know? The pleasure, perhaps, of pleasing a master, by imitating his respect for the word of the gospel, and far more in order to attract his regards than those of divme mercy ? Once more, what do I know? Perhaps views still more criminal, and of which we cannot speak without degrading the dignity of our ministry. No motive of salvation leads you here; no view of faith prepares you, no sentiment of piety accompanies you to this place; in short, your coming to listen to the holy word is no work of religion. First cause of the inutility of our ministry. For, how. is it possible that a proceeding altogether profane send a disposition to grace; and that, in this multitude of believers, assembled in this holy place, the goodness of God distinguish you from among the crowd, to open your heart to the word of life; you who have brought hither only those dispositions which are most calculated to keep at a distance that mercy? My brethren, as religion hath nothing grander, in one sense, than the charge of the doctrine and of truth ; so piety likewise knows nothing so important, and which requires more religious precautions, than a proper attention to, and the being well instructed in them. The second disposition which ought to accompany you to this holy place, is, a disposition of grief and shame, founded on the little fruit you have hitherto reaped from so many truths already heard. You ought to reflect upon all those feelings of compunc- tion, which the Lord, through the ministry of the word, hath operated in your hearts, yet which have never been attended with any success toward your salvation ; so many pious resolutions, in- spired in this place, which seemed to promise a change of life, yet which have all vanished on the first temptation. For, what in this ought most to alarm you, is, that all those truths which have made only such momentaiy impressions on you, are so many wit- nesses, who shall one day depose against you before the tribunal of Jesus Christ : in proportion to the times that the word of the gospel hath failed to touch you even to repentance, so many times hath it rendered you more unworthy of obtaining the grace of repentance. Faith, on this point, admits of no medium; and, if you depart unchanged, you depart, in some respect, more culpable 270 THE WORD OF GOD. than before, because, to all your other crimes, you have added that of contempt of the holy word. Behold the reflections which ought to occupy your faith ; and, when you enter the assembly of believers, you ought, while trem- bling over the past, to demand of yourself, — am I going to hear a word which shall judge me, or truths which shall deliver me? Am I going to offer up to the compassion of God a docile and willing heart, or to his justice fresh motives of condemnation against myself? It is now so long since truths have been announced to me, the force of which my utmost deference to the passions cannot weaken in my mind; for, in spite of myself, they make me in- wardly acknowledge the error of my ways : yet, have I taken a single step toward quitting them ? I have so long been warned, tha^ the body of a Christian is the temple of God; have I, in consequence, become more temperate and chaste? I have so long heard it said, that, " if thine eye be evil, pluck it out, and cast it far from thee;" have I attained strength for such sepa- rations which I know to be so indispensable toward my salvation? I have so long been told, that to defer, as I have done, from day to day, my penitence, is to be determined to die in sin ; do I, even now, find myself more disposed to quit my deplorable situation, and with a willing heart to begin the work of my salvation? Great God ! cease not to give me a heart susceptible to truths, which always affect, but never change me; and punish not the abuse which I make of thy word, by depriving it, with regard to me, of that efficacy which thou still permittest it to have, in order to recall me from my errors to penitence! And, my brethren, how many believers who listen to me, formerly alive to those truths which we announce, no longer offer to them now but a tranquil and a hardened heart! They neglected those happy times when grace was yet willing to open this way of conversion; and, ever since so continued and so fatal a negligence, they listen to us with indifference, and the most terrible truths in our mouths are no longer in their ears but sounding brass, and a tinkhng cymbal. Now, I ask your own hearts, my brethren, if this feeling of soi'row, for the little advantage you have hitherto reaped from BO many instructions, is even known to you? Doth that out- ward pomp, with which you come here, worldly women, an- nounce that disposition ? Do not the same indecent and vain cares, which fit you for profane spectacles, accompany you to our instructions, where the world is condemned ? Do you make the smallest difference there in your appearance? And doth it not seem, either that we are to announce the foolish maxims of the theatres, or that you come for the sole purpose of insulting, by an indecent carriage, even in the eyes of the world, the holy maxims of the gospel? But what do I say, my dear hearer? Far from reproaching to yourselves so many truths, heard hitherto without fruit. THE WORD OF COD. 2/1 alas ! you are perhaps delighted at your insensibility ; you perhaps pride yourselves and indulge a deplorable vanity, in listening to us with indifference; you perhaps consider it as giving you an air of consequence, and as a proof of superiority of nnnd, that what others are affected by, should leave you tranquil and calm ; you perhaps make a vain boast of your insensibility. It seems, that iu you it would be a weakness to be affected by truths which formerly triumphed over philosophers and Caesars ; by truths, evidently come down from heaven, and which bear with them such divine marks of sublimity and wisdom ; by truths which do such honour to man, and alone worthy of reason ; by truths, so soothing and consola- tory to the heart, and alone calculated to bestow internal tranquil- lity and peace. Lastly, by truths, which propose to us such grand interests, and toward which we can never be indifferent, without folly and madness. You vaunt the little success of our zeal, and that all our discourses leave you exactly as they found you ; and, in declaring this, you think you are doing honour to your reason. I do not say to you, that you make a boast of being in that depth of the abyss, and in that state of reprobation which is now almost beyond resource, and which is worthy both of horror and pity ; but I say to you, that the surest and most established mark of a light and frivolous mind, of a weak and limited reason, of an ill- formed heart, equally incapable of elevation and dignity, is that of finding nothing which strikes, which astonishes, which satisfies, and which interests you, in the wise and sublime truths of the morality of Jesus Christ. For the sinners of another character still preserve at least some remains of respect for, and a certain consciousness of, the truth which subsists with a life altogether criminal, but which is always the mark of a good heart, of a heart which still retains a relish for good, of a judicious reason, which, though led away by the world and the passions, knows to do justice to itself, still feels the force of that truth which condemns it, and leaves within us resources of salvation and repentance. These sinners, at least, acknowledge that we are right : they change nothing, it is true, of their manners ; but the truth at least affects, disturbs, agitates, and excites within them some feeble desires of salvation and hopes of a future conver- sion; they are sorry to find themselves even too susceptible of the terrors of faith ; they are almost afraid of listening to us, lest they lose that false tranquilhty which is the only comfort of their crimes ; on quitting our instructions, they seek, in dissipation, to enliven a fund of anxiety and sadness which the truths they come from hearing have left in their soul ; they immediately hurry into the world and its pleasures, with that inward sting which the word of God hath left in their heart, there to seek out a soothing and deceitful hand which may draw it out, and which may close up that wound from which alone its cui'e ought to flow ; they dread 2^2 THK WORD OF GOD. the breaking of their chains ; they turn away their head, that they may not see that hght which comes to disturb the comfort ot their sleep. They love their passions, I confess, but at least they insult not the truth ; on the contrary, they render glory to its might, by erecting defences against it ; they are feeble sinners, who. dread- ing their incapabUity of defence against God fly from and shun him But for you, you make a vain-glonous boast ot listening to him with indifference, and of not dreading him ; you find it grand and philosophical to have placed yourselves above all these vulgar terrors ; you believe that the pride of your reason would be dis- honoured by any religious dread ; and while you are internally the meanest and the most cowardly soul, the most dejected by the first danoer which threatens you, the most disheartened by the smallest accident, the very shuttlecock of every frivolous hope and fear ot the earth you pique yourself upon an undaunted courage against the truth; that is to say, that you are possessed of every tbmg which is mean and vulgar in fear, and you are ashamed ot having that only portion of it which is dignified and reasonable ; you have no resistance to offer against the world, and you make a vain parade of a senseless valour against God. Second disposition which ought to accompany you to our in- structions,—a sorrow for the httle fruit you have hitherto reaped from them. The last disposition is a grateful feeling for that mean of salvation still provided for you by God, in preservmg the sacred trust of the truth, and in continuing amid you the succession of those ministers alone authorized to announce to you the holy word. In effect the most terrible chastisement with which God for- merly struck the iniquities of his people, was that of rendering his word rare and precious among them. As he saith through his prophet Amos, " And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the east even to the west; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." And, not only he ceased to raise up trile prophets in Israel, but he likewise permitted false teachers to spring up among his people, who turned the tribes away from his worship, and preached gods to them which tneir fathers had never known. ^ ^ j .. ^ , -.u Now, my brethren, it is a signal mercy of God, that, notwith- standino- the iniquities which seem to have attained to their ut- most heTght among you, he still raiseth up to you prophets and pastors who hold out a sound and a faultless word. It is a most singular protection of the Lord, that error hath not been permitted to prevail over truth among us. And what have you done to merit the being thus distinguished from so many other nations? Why is it that you are not involved m the same condemnation? Why have you dwelt m that happy land of Goshen, alone shone upon by the lights of heaven while all the rest of Egypt was enveloped in darkness ? Is it not THE WORD OF GOD, J^3 the sole mercy of God who hath marked you out from among so many nations which applaud themselves in their error ? You are still under the care of your pastors ; you still receive from their mouths the doctrine of the apostles ; truth still flows upon you in a pure and divine stream ; Christian pulpits still resound in €very part with the maxims of faith and of piety ; and by pre- serving to you the doctrine and the blessings of instruction, the goodness of God still provides for you a thousand means of salvation. Nevertheless, when you come to listen to us, do you bring a heart filled with gratitude ? Do you consider, as a signal blessing of God, the charge of the truth and of the holy word, which he hath preserved, and permitted still to be announced to you ? Do you ever say, with the prophet, " He hath not dealt so with any nation; and as for his judgments, they have not known them?" Alas ! you bring here only vanity and irreligious disgust. The most vl4arisome of your moments are those which you employ in listening to truths wdiich ought to compose the whole consolation of your life. VVe are even obliged to respect your languors and disgusts, by often mingling human ornaments with the truth, which is thereby weakened. It would indeed appear, that we come here to speak to you for ourselves ; and you give the same attention to us as you do to troublesome mendicants who are soliciting your favour. You have no regret for moments occupied by the frivolous pleasures of a profane spectacle. There alone it is that every thought of business, of fortune, and of family, is rejected as an intrusion, and that, all else forgotten, the mind, formed for more serious mat- ters, feasts with avidity on chimerical adventures. It is from thence that you always come out occupied and delighted with the lascivi- ous maxims promulgated by a criminal theatre. You dwell with transport on those parts which have made the most dangerous im- pressions upon the heart; you come filled with their remembrance even to the foot of the altar. These images, so fatal to innocence, can no longer be effaced ; while, on quitting the word, the only por- tion retained by your memory is perhaps the defects of him who hath announced it to you. My brethren, God no longer punisheth in a grievous manner the contempt of his word. He, no doubt, might still transport his gos- pel amidst those barbarous nations who have never heard his name, and abandon anew his heritage ; he might draw from out of their deserts ferocious and infidel nations, and deliver up to them our temples and our habitations, as he formerly delivered up those churches so celebrated, which the TertuUians, the Cyprians, the Augustines had illustrated, and where now not a trace of Christianity remains but in the insults which Jesus Christ there receives, and in the shackles with which believers are there loaded : he might do it ; but he avengeth himself more secretly, and perhaps more ter- ribly. He leaveth to you still the spectacle and all the outward 2/4 THE WORD OF GOD. ceremony of the preaching of the gospel, but he turneth the whole fruit of it upon the simple and ignorant inhabitants of the country ; the terrors of faith are no longer but for them. He no longer with- draweth his prophets from cities ; but he taketh away from them, if I may venture to say so, the power and the influence of their minis- try: he striketh these holy clouds with dryness and unfruitfulness : he raiseth up to you such as render truth flowery and beautiful, but who do not render it amiable ; who please, but who do not convert you : he permitteth the holy terrors of his doctrine to be weakened in our mouths : he no longer draweth forth, from the treasures of his mercy, grand characters hke those raised up in the ages of our forefathers, who renewed cities and kingdoms, who led the great and the people, and who changed the palaces of kings into houses of penitence : he permitteth that we, weak men, succeed to these apostolic men. What more shall I add ? We assemble here, like Paul for- merly in Athens,' idle and curious spectators, whose oMy view is tliat of hearing something new ; while those who perform the functions of their ministry among your vassals, see with consolations at their feet, like Esdras formerly, simple Israe- lites, who are unable to retain their tears in hearing only the words of the law. We amuse the leisure and the idleness of princes and the great of the earth, while, in the country, holy ministers bring forth Jesus Christ, and reap an abundant harvest: in a word, we preach, and they convert. It is thus, O my God, that in secret thou exercisest severe and terrible judgments. But, my brethren, why may not we say here to' you, what Paul and Barnabas formerly said to the unbelieving Jews? " It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but, seeing ye put it from you, and judge your- selves unworthy of everlasting life, lo ! we turn to the Gentiles." We shall therefore turn toward the nations hitherto abandoned, toward those humble and . poor people buried in ignorance, who cultivate your lands, and who will, with faith and gratitude, receive that grace which you reject. Ah ! our labours there would be much more availing, our yoke more easy, our ministry more consoling : we should not then, it is true, reckon among our hearers, names celebrated in history ; but we would reckon the names of those who are written in heaven : we should not see there assembled all those titles and splendid dignities, which form the whole glory of the world which passeth away ; but we would there see faith, piety, and innocence, which compose the whole glory of the Christian who eternally endureth : we should not hear there vain applauses given to the language of the man, and not to that of faith ; but we would behokl those tears flowing which are the immortal praise of grace : our pulpits might not, indeed, be surrounded with so much THE WORD OF GOD. 27S pomp; but bur hearers would be a spectacle worthy of anoejs, ami of God. Such are the dispositions which ought to prepare you for our instructions. It is necessary now to instruct you on the mind in which you ought to listen to us. Part II. — In order toward instructing you on the mind in which you ought to listen to the holy word, it is required only to establish at first what are its authority and its end. Its authority, which is divine, demands a respectful and docile mind; its end, which is the conversion of hearts, demands a spirit of faith, which searches in it only such lights as may enable it to quit its errors, and such remedies as may cure its evils. First. I say that its authority is divine. Yes, my brethren, the word which we announce to you is not our word, but the word of him who sendeth us. From the moment that we are esta- blished by him in the holy ministry, through the way of a legitimate call, he willeth that you consider us as sent by him, as speaking to you here on his part, and as only lending our weak voice to his divine words. We bear, it is true, that treasure in vessels of earth; but it thereby loses nothing of its majesty. Like those pitchers which Gideon formerly employed against the enemies of the Lord, the sound may be mean and con- temptible; but truth, that divine light which God hath placed within us, is not, from thence, less descended from heaven, or destined, like the lamps of Gideon, still to strike with terror un- faithful souls. Now, you owe, in the first place, to the authority of this divine word, a pious docility and an attention to it, rather in the light of disciples than of judges. In effect, we expose to you the rules of worship and of piety, the decisions of the gospel, the laws of the church, and the maxims of the holy. We come not here to give you our own opinions, our prejudices, our thoughts; this is not a pulpit of controversy, it is the place of truth : nothing which can afford room for disputation ought ever to find place in the pulpit of peace and of unity ; we speak here in the name of the church, and are only the interpreters of her faith and of her doctrine. Nevertheless, how many of those men, so wise in their own conceit, and who pique themselves upon sagacity and reason, come here with a mind set against, and, as it were, watchfully upon guard against all the terrors of the holy word ! They make not a boast, like the sinners we have lately mentioned, of being- callous to all truth ; but they look upon our ministry as an art of exaggeration and hyperbole ; the most holy emotions of zeal are only, in their opinion, studied tricks of human artifice; the most awful threatenings, only the sallies of a vain eloquence; the most incontrovertible maxims, only discourses adapted rather to t2 276 THK WORD OF GOD. custom than to truth. Such, my brethren, is the deplorable situa- tion in which the greatest part of you find yourselves here. You always inwardly oppose, to that truth which we announce, the maxims and the prejudices of the world, which contradict it; you are ingenious in weakening in your own breast, by specious reasons, the pretended excess of our maxims ; you come here to combat, and not to yield to the force, or to the light of truth ; you come hero, it would seem, only in order to enter into contestation with God, to invalidate the eternal immutability of his word, to un- dertake the interests of error against the glory of truth, and to be the inward apologists of the world and of the passions, even in that holy place destined to condemn and to combat them. Ah! suifer that truth, at least, to triumph in its own temple; dispute not with it that feeble victory, which has formerly triumphed over the whole universe ; oppress it, and welcome, amidst the world, and in those assemblies of vanity which error collects, and where error is enthroned. Is it not enough that you have banished it from the world, and that it dare no longer show itself without being exposed to derisions and censures? Leave to us, at least, the melancholy consolation of daring still to publish it in the face of those altars which it hath raised up, and which ought surely to serve it, at least, as a place of refuge. You accuse us of exaggeration. Great God! And thou wilt one day perhaps judge us for weakening the force and the influ- ence of thy word, in consequence of not giving sufficient con- sideration to it at the feet of the altars ! And thou wilt one day perhaps reproach us for having accommodated the holy severity of thy gospel to the indulgences and the softenings of our age ! And thou wilt perhaps range us one day among the workers of iniquity, because the lukewarmness and negligence of our manners have taken from the word which we announce that terror and that divine vehemence which can only be found in a mouth consecrated by piety and by penitence ! How, my brethren! The truths of salvation, such as Jesus Christ hath set forth to us, would be incapable of alarming con- sciences, were the mind of man not to add extraneous terrors to them? Paul formerly exaggerated, then, when the Roman governor, in spite of the pride of a false wisdom, and all the pre- judices of an idolatrous worship, trembled, says St. Luke, while hearing him speak of righteousness, of temperance, and of the awful spectacle of a judgment to come? Paul, then, exaggerated, when the inhabitants of cities came striking their breasts, melting in tears at his feet, and bringing into the middle of the public places the lascivious or impious books, and all the other instru- ments of their passions, in order to make a sacrifice of them to the Lord? You accuse us of adding additional terrors to the words of the gospel; but where are the consciences which we disturb? THE WORD OF GOD. 2^7 Where are the sinners whom we alarm? Where are the worldly souls, who, seized with dread on their departure from our dis- courses, goto conceal themselves in the deepest solitudes, and, by- holy excesses of penitence, to expiate the dissoluteness of their past manners? The ages which have preceded us have often seen such examples. Do we ever witness such instances now? Ah! would to God, said formerly a holy father, that you could convict me of having inspired a single soul with these salutary terrors ! Would to God, said he to some worldly sages of his time, who accused him of exaggerating the dangers and the corruption of the world, that a single instance might support your assertion ! And I may say to you here, with even more reason than that grand character. Would to God that the consequences of so blessed an indiscretion could be shown to me ! Would to God that you had examples with which to reproach us, in justification of your cen- sures! Ah! we with pleasure would suffer the blame, could but the success be shown to us with which we are reproached ! Alas! we manage only too much, perhaps, your weakness; we respect, perhaps too much, customs which a long usage has consecrated, in the fear of appearing to censure the grand exam- ples by which they are authorized; we dare scarcely speak of certain irregularities, lest our censures should appear to fall rather on the persons than on the vices; we are obliged to content our- selves with showing truths to you from afar, which we ought to place immediately under your eye; and even your salvation fre- quently suffers through the excess of our precautions and our timid prudence. What shall I say? Weakness often extorts from us praises, where zeal ought to place anathemas and censures : like the world, we allow ourselves to be dazzled by names and titles ; that which formerly encouraged the Ambroses intimidates us; and, because we owe you respect, we often keep back from you that truth which we ought still more to respect: yet, after all this, you accuse us of exaggerating, of overstraining truths, and of fashion- ing from them phantoms of our own brain, in order to alarm those who listen to us. But what advantage could we draw from an artifice so un- worthy of that truth confided to us? These overstrained and puerile declamations might suit the venal eloquence of those Sophists, who, amid the Grecian schools, anxiously sought to attract disciples to themselves, by vaunting the wisdom of their sect. But for us, my brethren, ah ! our wish would be to have it in our power to render your path more easy, far from throw- ing fresh obstacles in the way. Wherefore should we dishearten you in the enterprise of salvation, by starting chimerical dif- ficulties? It is our duty to smooth such as may actually be found in it, and to tender you an assisting hand, in order to sustain your weakness. Meditate, my brethren, upon the law of Jesus Christ. What do 278 THE WOBD OF GOD. I say? Only open the gospel, and read; then shall you find that we draw a veil of discretion over the severity of its maxims; then, far from complaining- of our excesses, you will yourselves supply the deficiencies of our silence and of our softenings, and will say to yourselves what we dread to say, because ye could never bear it. Great God ! To bear his cross every day, to despise the world and all it contains, to live as a stranger upon the earth, to attach himself to thee alone, to renounce all which flatters the senses, incessantly to renounce himself, to consider as happy those who weep or who are afflicted, — behold the substance of thy holy law, and which every Christian undertakes. O! what can the human mind add to the rigour of this doctrine ? What could we announce to you more melancholy or more formidable to self-love? Consequently, your reproaches are merely a vain language of the world, and one of those fashions of speaking which no one ex- amines, and each adopts ; your conscience inwardly belies it ; and when you speak candidly, you confess that we are in the right, and that the gospel is a preacher much more severe and more fearful for the world, and for those who love it, than it could be possible for us ever to be. First duty which the authority of the holy word exacts of you, namely, a docile spirit. Secondly. You owe to the authority of this holy word, a spirit of; sincerity, and inward application of it to yourself; that is to say, to be a rigorous examinator here of your own conscience ; to have incessantly before your eyes, on one side, the state of your soul, and, on the other, the truths which we announce ; to measure yourself according to that rule; to search into yourself by that light; to judge yourself by that law; to hsten to, as if addressed to you alone, the holy maxims announced to the mul- titude; to consider yourself as alone here before Jesus Christ, who speaks to you alone through our mouth, and who sends us here perhaps for you alone. For, my brethren, no one here takes to himself that truth which attacks and condemns him; no one thinks himself an interested personage: it would seem that we form at pleasure to ourselves phantoms of the brain, for the pur- pose of combating them, and that the reality of that sinner whom we attack is nowhere in existence. The lewd and dissolute person recognizes not himself in the most animated and most striking traits of his passion. The man, loaded with ill-acquired wealth, and perhaps with the blood and spoils of the people, joins with us in deprecating that very iniquity in others, and sees not that he judges himself. The courtier, consumed with ambition, and who sacrifices conscience and integrity every day to that idol, frankly admits of the meanness of that passion in his equals, and looks upon it as a virtue, and as a deep experience of the court, in him- self. Every one continually views himself by certain favourable sides, which effectually hinder him from ever knowing himself THE WORD OF COD. ^ft such as he is. In vain do we mark you, as I may say, in the most jjointed manner; you always inwardly find out some softened traits, which alter the resemblance. You whisper to yourself, I am not this man. And, while the public makes appli- cation of such striking truths to us, we alone either succeed ni being convinced that they are not drawn for us, or we only find in them the defects of our brethren : in our own exactest portraits, we search out foreign likenesses; we are ingenious in turning the blow upon others, which truth had given to us alone ; the mahgnity of the application is the only fruit which we reap from that picture of our vices made from the pulpit, and we rashly judge our brethren where we ought to have judged only ourselves. And thus it is, O my God ! that men become cor- rupted, misapply every thing, and that even the light of truth seals up their eyes upon their own errors, and opens them only to see in others either what is not, or what it ought to have kept entirely hid from them. Such are the duties which the authority of the holy word exacts of you. Let us now proceed to those attached to its end. Its end, my brethren, you know, is the conversion of hearts, the establishment of truth, the destruction of error and of sin, and the sanctification of the name of Jesus Christ. All there is grand, elevated, important, and worthy of the most sublime function of the hierarchy ; and, consequently, it is from thence to be inferred, that you ought to listen to us with a respectful and religious spirit, which despises not the simplicity of our discourses, and v;itli a spirit of faith which seeks nothing human in it, nothing frivolous, nothing which does not correspond with the excellency and the dignity of its end. I say, a spirit of rehgious respect, which despises not the simplicity of our discourses ; for, however enlightened you may in other respects be, you ought not, in consequence of your pre- tended lights, to claim a title to neglect the instructions of the church to believers. The unction of the Spirit will always inform you of something here, of which you would perhaps have re- mained ignorant. If possessed of that knowledge which is the cause of pride, you will be strengthened in that charity whicli edifies. If your mind acquire nothing new, your heart shall perhaps be made to feel new things : you will there, at least, learn that your knowledge is nothing, if you be ignorant of the science of salvation ; that you are but a cloud without moisture, — elevated, it is true, above other men, by your talents, and by the supe- riority of your knowledge, but empty of grace, and the sport of every wind and of every passion in the sight of God; and, lastly, that a simple and pure soul shall, in an instant, be taught the whole in the bosom of God, and shall be transformed from light to hght; while, on the contrary, that you, after an entire life of watchings and ardent study, and the attainment of a useless mass 280 THK WORD OF GOD. of knowledge and lights, shall perhaps reap for your portion only eternal darkness. What a mistake, my brethren, to banish yourselves from these holy assemblies, under pretence that you already know enough, and likewise that you are already sufficiently versed in all the duties of piety, which you have long professed ; and that Christian reading, and a small degree of reflection in private, go a greater way, and are attended with more benefit, than all our discourses ! But, my dear hearer, if you profess piety and righteousness, what sweeter consolation can you enjoy, than that of hearing the wonders of the Lord published, the ordinances of his holy law, truths which you love and practise, and of which you ought to wish the knowledge to be given to all men? What sight more soothing and consoling to you than that of your brethren assembled here at the foot of the altar, attentive to the words of life, absent from the spectacles of the world, aiid removed from the occasions of sin, forming holy desires, opening their hearts to the voice of God, perhaps conceiving the promises of the Holy Spirit, and the commencement of their penitence, and to be enabled to join your- self with them, in order to obtain from the Father of mercies, the completion in their soul of the work of salvation, which he hath begun to operate witliin them ? Not but that the most consolatory resources are furnished to Christian piety, by the meditation of the divine writings. But the Lord tiath attached graces to the power of our ministry, and to the legitimate calling, which you will not find elsevv'here. The most simple truths in the mouths of the pastors, or of those who speak to you in their place, draw an efficacy from the grace of their mission, which is not inherent to them. The same book of Isaiah, which, when read from a chariot by that officer of the queen of Ethiopia, was to him as a book sealed up, and only amused his leisure without enlightening his faith, — explained by Philip, instantly became to him a word of life, and of salvation. And, lastly, you owe that example to your brethren, that edification to the church, that respect to the word of Jesus Christ, that uniformity to the spirit of peace and of unity, which binds us together. O, banish yourselves, and. so much the better, from those profane and criminal assemblies, where piety, alas ! is always a stranger, suf- fering, and constrained: but here is its place, and its home; this is the assembly of the holy, seeing it is only toward their formation that our ministry hath been established, and still continues to endure in the church. I have said, in the second place, a spirit of faith; and in this dis- position, two others are comprised : — a love of the holy word, inde- pendent of the talents of the man who announces it to you ; a taste, formed by religion, which comes not here in search of vain ornaments, but of the solid truths of salvation; that, is to say, to listen to it, neither with a spirit of censure nor with a spirit of curiosity. THK WORD OF GOD. 281 And, in effoct, your love of the word of Jesus Christ ought to render you blind, as I may say, to the defects of those who announce it to you: in a mouth even rude and unpolished, you ought to find it lovely, divine, and worthy of all your homage; in whatever shape it be presented to you, decked with pompous ornaments, or simple and neglected, provided that its celestial traits are still to be recognized, it preserves the same rights over your heart. And, indeed, is any portion of its sanctity lost by passing through less brilliant and less copious channels ? Did the holy word of the Lord lose any thing of its dignity, whether he formerly gave it out from a bush, mean and despicable to the sight, or from a cloud of glory ; — whether he gave out his oracles in the midst of the desert, and in a tabernacle covered with the skins of animals, or in the temple of Solomon, the most magnificent which hath ever been raised up to the glory of his name? And did the faith of Israel make any distinction, when it was the same Lord who every where spake ? Nevertheless, how few among all those who listen to us, who do not constitute themselves judges and censurers of the holy word! They come here merely for the purpose of deciding on the merit of those who announce it, of drawing foolish comparisons, of pro- nouncing on the difference of the lights and of the instructions; they think it an honour the being difficult to please; they pass without attention over the most striking truths, and which might be of the most essential benefit to all ; and the only fruit reaped by them from a Christian discourse is confined to the miserable pride of having, better than any other, remarked its defects. This is so truly the case, that we may with justice apply to the greatest part of our hearers what Joseph, become the preserver of Egypt, said, through pure artifice, to his brethren : — It is not to seek food that you are come here ; it is as spies, to see the nakedness of the land. It is not to nourish yourselves with the bread of the word, or to seek assistance and efficacious remedies for your evils, that you come to listen to us ; it is in order to find out cause for ap- plying some vain censures, and to show your skill in remarking our defects; which defects are perhaps a terrible punishment upon you of the Lord, who, in consequence of your crimes, refuseth more accomplished labourers in his vineyard, who would have been enabled to recall you to repentance. But candidly, my brethren, however weak our language may be, do we not always say enough to overthrow you, to dissipate your errors, and to make you inwardly confess irregularities which you are unable to justify to yourselves? Are such sublime talents required to tell you that fornicators, extortioners, and men without mercy, shall never enter the kingdom of God; that unless you be- come penitent, you shall perish; and that it matters little to become master of the whole world, if you thereby lose your soul? Is it not, in fact, that very simplicity which constitutes the whole force. 282 THE WORD OF GOD. and gives such energy to these divine truths? And ought they to be less alarming tso the criminal souls, though in the mouth of the most obscure individual of the ministry? And besides, granting that it were here permitted us to recom- mend ourselves, as the apostle formerly said to ungrateful believers, more attentive to censure the simplicity of his appearance and of his language, and, as he says himself, his contemptible figure in the eyes of men, than touched with the endless fatigues and dan- gers which he had surmounted, in order to announce to them the gospel, and to convert them to truth ; were it permitted, we might say to you, my brethren, we sustain, solely on your account, the whole weight of a painful and laborious ministry; our cares, our watchings, our prayers, the endless toilings which qualify us for> and accompany us in these Christian pulpits, have no other object but that of your salvation. O ! do not our pains entitle us at least to your respect and gratitude ? Is it possible that that zeal which suffers all, in order to secure your salvation, can ever become the melancholy subject of your derisions and censures? Demand of God, good and well, that, for the glory of the church and for the honour of his gospel, he raise up to his people labourers powerful in speech, of those men whom the sole unction of the Spirit of God renders nervous and eloquent, and who announce the gospel in a manner worthy of its elevation and sanctity. But hkewise de- mand, that, when we happen therein to fail, your faith may supply the deficiencies of our discourses; that your piety may render the truth, in your own hearts, that which it loses in our mouths; and that, through your unrighteous distastes, you force not the minis- ters of the gospel to have recourse, in order to please you, to the vain artifices and colouring of a human eloquence, to shine rather than to instruct, and, like the Israelites formerly, to go down to the Philistines to sharpen their instruments, destined solely to cultivate the earth : — I mean to say, to seek in profane learning, or in the language of a hostile world, foreign ornaments to embellish the simplicity of the gospel ; and to give to instruments, and to talents destined to increase, to multiply, and to strengthen the holy seed, a vain brilliancy and a subtlety which blunt its energy and its virtue, and which substitute a false splendour in the place of trfeth and zeal. And now, my brethren, behold the last fault inimical to that spirit of faith ; it is a spirit of curiosity. You do not sufficiently distinguish the holy gravity of our ministry from that vain and frivolous art which has nothing in view but the arrange- ment of the Discourse and the glory of eloquence; you assist at our Discourses with the same view as Augustine, still a sinner, did in former times at those of Ambrose. It was not, says that il- lustrious penitent, in order to learn from the mouth of the man of God the secrets of eternal life, which I had so long sought, nor the desire of finding in them remedies for the shameful and THE WORD OF GOD, inveterate wounds of my soul, and which thou, O my God ! alone art acquainted with; it was in order to examine whether his eloquence corresponded with his great reputation, and if his discourses warranted the unbounded applauses which his hearers bestowed upon him. The truths which he announced interested me not; I was moved only by the beauty and the charms of the discourse. And such is still, at present, the deplorable situation of far too many believers who listen to us ; who, like Augustine, loaded with crimes, and fettered with the most shameful passions, far from coming here to seek remedies for their evils, come in search of vain ornaments, which amuse without curing the afilicted, which are the means of our pleasing the sinner, but have no influence toward making the sinner displeased with himself. They come here, it would appear, to say to us what the inhabitants of Babylon for- merly said to the captive Israelites, — " Sing us one of the songs of Zion." They come in search of harmony and delight, in the serious and important truths of the morality of Jesus Christ; in the sighs of the sorrowful Zion, captive in a strange land ; and require of us that we flatter the ear while publishing the threatenings and the rigid maxims of the gospel. O ! you who now listen to me, and whom. this Discourse regards, reflect for a moment, I entreat of you, upon yourselves ! Your case is, as it were, desperate in the eyes of God ; your wounds, become virulent through their long-standing, no longer leave almost a hope of cure; your evils press ; time is short; God, wearied with having so long borne with you, is at last on the point of striking and of surprising you : behold the eternal miseries which we foretell to yovi, and which happen every day to your equals. You are not far distant from the fulfilment; we show you the terrible sword of the Lord suspended over your head, and ready to fall upon you; and, far from shuddering at the after part of your destiny, or taking any measures to avoid the impending blow, you childishly amuse your- selves in examining whether it shine and have a lustre ; and you search, even in the terrors of the prediction, for t]ie puerile beauties of a vain eloquence. Great God ! how despicable and how worthy of derision doth the sinner appear when we view him through thy light! For, my brethren, are we then here upon a profane tribunal, for the purpose of courting, with artificial words, the suffrages of an idle assembly, or in a Christian pulpit, and in the place of Jesus Christ, to instruct, to reprove, and to sanctify you, in the name and under the eyes of him who sends us ? Is it here a dispute for worldly fame, an idle exercise of the faculties, or the most holy and the most important ministry of faith ? O ! why do you come to loiter away with our feeble talents, or to seek human qualifications where God alone speakcth and acteth? Are not the humblest instruments the most suitable to the mightiness of his grace ? Do not the walls of 284 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. Jericho fall when he pleaseth, at the sound of the weakest trumpets? O ! what matters it to us that we please, if we do not change you ? Of what consequence is it to us, the being eloquent, if you continue always sinners? What fruit can we reap froiti your applauses, if you reap none yourselves from our instructions? Our only praise, our only glory, is the establishment of the reign of God in your hearts; your tears alone, much rather than your applauses, can prove our culogium; and we covet no other crown than yourselves, and your eternal salvation. SERMON XVil. ON THE DELAY OV CONVERSION. the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord." John i. 23. It is that he may enter into our hearts, that Jesus Christ an- nounces, by John the Baptist, that we have the way to make straight for him, by removing all those obstacles, which, like a wall of separation, rise up between his mercy and our wretchedness. Now, these obstacles are the crimes with which we so often stain ourselves, which always subsist because it would be necessary to expiate them by penitence, and we expiate them not: these obsta- cles are the passions by which our heart foolishly allows itself to be carried away, which are always living, because, in order to destroy, it would be necessary to conquer them ; and we never conquer them: these obstacles are the occasions against which our innocence hath so often split, and which are still every day the rock fatal to all our resolutions, because, in place of yielding to that inward inclination which leads us toward them, it would be necessary to shun them; and we shun them not: in a word, the true and only manner of making straight the way of our hearts for Jesus Christ, is that of changing our life, and of being sincerely converted . But, though the business of our conversion be the most im- portant with which we can be intrusted here below, seeing that through it alone we can draw Jesus Christ into our hearts; though it be the only one truly interesting to us, since on it depends our eternal happiness ; yet, O, deplorable blindness ! it is never considcFedby us as a matter either of urgency or of importance; ON THE DELAY OP CONVERSION. 285 it is continually put off to some other time, as if times and seasons were at our disposal. What wait you, Christians, my brethren ? Jesus Christ ceaseth not to forewarn you, by his ministers, of the evil which threaten your impenitence, and the delay of your conversion ; he hath lon^ announced to you, through our mouth, that, unless you repent, you most assuredly shall perish. Nor is he satisfied with publicly warning you through the voice of his ministers ; he speaks to you in the bottom of your hearts, and continually whispers to you, Is it not time now to withdraw yourself from that guilt in which, for so many years, you have been plunged, and from which almost nothing but a miracle can now extricate you ? Is it not time to restore peace to your heart to banish from it that chaos of passions which has occa- sioned all the misfortunes of your life, to prepare for yourself at least some few happy and tranquil days, and, after having lived so long for a world which hath always left you empty and uneasy, at last to~Iive for a God who alone can give peace and tranquillity to your heart ? Will you not at last bestow a thought upon your eternal interests, and, after a life wholly frivolous, return to the true one; and, in serving God, adopt the only wise plan which man can pursue upon the earth ? Are you not wearied out with struggling against those remorses which tear you, that sadness of guilt which weighs you down, that emptiness of the world which every where pursues you ? And do you not wish to finish at last your misfortunes and your disquietudes, by finishing your crimes ? What shall we reply to that inward monitor which hath so long spoken in the bottom of our hearts? What pretext shall we oppose? First, that we are not, as yet, furnished by God with the succours necessary to enable us to quit the unhappy state in which we live. Secondly, that we are at present too much engaged by the passions to think of a new life. That is to say, that we start two pretexts for delaying our conversion : the first drawn from the part of God ; the second from within ourselves. The first which justifies us, by accusing God of being wanting to us ; the second which comforts us, by alleging to ourselves our inability of, as yet, returning to him. Thus we delay our conversion, under the belief that grace is wanting, and that, as yet, God desireth us not; we delay our conversion, because we flatter ourselves that some future day we shall be less attached to the world and to the passions, and more in a situation to begin a Christian and an orderly life : — two pre- texts which are continually in the mouth of sinners, and which I now mean to overthrow. Part I.— It is not of to-day that men have dared to accuse even God himself for their transgressions, and have tried to render his wisdom and his goodness resnonsible for their iniquitous weak- 2ob ON TUB dp: LAY OF CONVERSION. nesses. It may be said, that this blindness entered with sin into the world : the first man sought not elsewhere an excuse for his guilt ; and, far from appeasing the Lord whom he had so lately disobeyed, by a humble confession of his wretchedness, he accused him of having been himself the cause of his disobedience, in asso- ciating with him the woman. And such, my brethren, is the illusion of almost all souls living in guilt, and who delay to a future day that conversion required of them by God. They are continually repeating, that conversion does not depend upon us ; that it is the Lord who must change their heart, and bestow upon them that faith and grace which they, as yet, have not. Thus they are not satisfied with provoking his anger, by delaying their conversion; they even insult him, by laying upon him the blame of their obstinacy and of the delay of their penitence. Let us now overthrow the error and the impiety of this disposition ; and, in order to render the criminal soul more inexcusable in his impenitence, let us deprive him at least of the pretext. You tell us, then, first, that if you had faith, and were thoroughly convinced of the truth of religion, you would be converted ; but that faith is a gift of God which you expect from him alone, and that as soon as he shall have given it to you, you will easily and heartily begin to adopt your party. — First pretext ; the want of faith, and it is God alone who can give it. But I ought first to ask you, how have you then lost that faith 80 precious ? You have received it in your baptism ; a Christian education hath cherished it in your heart ; it had grown up with you ; it was an inestimable talent which the Lord had in- trusted to you in discerning you from so many infidel nations, and in marking you, from the moment you quitted your mother's womb, with the seal of salvation. What have you then done with the gift of God ? Who hath effaced from your forehead that sign of eter- nal election ? Is it not the corruptions of the passions, and that blindness which has been their just punishment? Did you sus- pect the faith of your fathers before you became dissolute and abandoned ? Is it not yourself who hath extinguished in the dirt that celestial torch, which the church, in i-egenerating you, had placed in your hand, to enlighten your way through the obscurities and the dangers of this life? Why then accuse God of that waste which you have made of his favours ? He has the right of reclaiming his own gift ; to him it belongs to make you accountable for the ta- lent whith he had intrusted to your care ; to say to you, "Wicked and ungrateful servant, what had I done for others that I had not done for thee ? I had embellished thy soul with the gift of faith, and with the mark of my children : thou hast cast that precious jewel before unclean animals ; thou hast extin- guished faith, and the light that I had placed within thee. I have long, in spite of thyself, preserved it in thy heart : I have ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 287 caused it to outlive all the impious efforts which, because it was become troublesome to thy debaucheries, thou hast made to ex- tinguish it : thou knowest how much it hath cost thee to throw off tlie yoke of faith, and to be what thou now art ; and this dreadful state, which is the justest punishment of thy crimes, should no^v become their only excuse? And thou sayest that the want of faith is no fault of thine, seeing it depends not on man, — thou, who hast had such difficulty in tearing it from the bottom of thy soul? And thou pretendest that it is me who ought to give it to thee, if I wish thee to serve me, — I, who reclaim it from thee, and who so justly complain that thou hast lost it?" Enter into judgment with your Lord, and justify yourself, if you have any reply to make to him. And to make you, my dear hearer, more sensible of all the weak- ness of this pretext ; you complain that you want faith ; you say that you would wish to have it ; that happy are those who are feelingly convinced, and that, in that state, no suffering can affect themT But, if you wish for faith, if you believe that nothing is so fortunate as that of being truly convinced of the truths of salvation, and of the illusion of all that passeth away ; if you envy the lot of those souls who have attained to that desirable state; if this be, behold then that faith which you await, and which you thought to have lost. What more do you require to know, in order to termi- nate a criminal life, than the happiness of those who have forsaken it, to labour toward their salvation? You say that you would wish faith ; but you have it from the moment that you think it worthy of a wish ; at least you have enough of it to know, that the great- est happiness of man is that of sacrificing all to its promises. Now, the souls whom we daily see returning to their God, are not led by other lights: the righteous, who bear his yoke, are not sus- tained or animated by other truths ; we ourselves, who serve him, know nothing more of it. Cease, then, to deceive yourself, and to await what you already have. Ah ! it is not faith that is wanting to you, it is ithe inclina- tion to fulfil the duties it imposes on you : it is not your doubts, but your passions, which stop you. You know not yourself; you willingly persuade yourself that you want faith, because that pretext which you oppose to grace is less humiliating to solf-love than that of the shameful vices which retain you. But mount to the source; your doubts have sprung solely from your irregular mode of living: regulate, then, your manners, and you will see nothing in faith but what is certain and consoling: be chaste, modest, and temperate, and I answer for that faith which you believe to have lost : live uprightly, and you will find little diffi- culty in believing. And a proof of the truth of what I tell you is, that if, in order to be converted, nothing more were to be required than to bend your reason to mysteries which exceed our comprehension; if a 288 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. Christian life were accompanied with no other difficulties than certain apparent contradictions which it is necessary to believe without being able to comprehend them ; if faith proposed the ful- filment of no irksome duties; if, in order to change your life, it were not necessary to renounce passions the most lively, and attach- ments the most dear to your heart; if the matter in question were merely a point of opinion and of belief, without either the heart or the passions being interested in it, you would no longer have the smallest difficulty m yielding to it; you would view in the light of madmen those, who, for a moment, could hesitate between diffi- cnlties of pure speculation, of which the belief can be followed by no injury, and an eternity of misery, which, after all, may be the lot of unbelievers. Faith appears difficult to you, therefore, not because it holds out mysteries, but because it regulates the pas- sions : it is the sanctity of its maxims which shocks, and not the incomprehensibility of its secrets: you are therefore corrupted, but not an unbeliever. And, in effect, notwithstanding all your pretended doubts upon faith, you feel that avowed unbelief is a horrible cause to adopt ; you dare not determine upon it. It is a quicksand, under which you have a glimpse of a thousand gulfs which fill you with horror, in which you find no consistency, and on which you could not venture to tread with a firm and confident foot. You continually say to yourself, that there is no risk in devoting one's self to God; that, after all, and even admitting the uncertainty of any thing after this life, the alternative is too horrible not to require precautions, and that, even in an actual uncertainty of the truths of faith, the party of the godly would always be the wisest and the safest. Your state, therefore, is rather the vague determination of an agitated heart, which dreads to break its chains, than a real and actual sus- picion of faith, and a fear lest, in sacrificing to it all your iniquitous pleasures, your pains and time should be lost: your uncertainties are effiarts which you make to defend yourself against a remnant of faith, which still inwardly enlightens you, rather than a proof that you have already lost it. Seek no longer, then, to convince yourself; rather endeavour to oppose no more that internal con- viction which enlightens and condemns you. Follow the dictates of your own heart ; be reconciled to yourself; allow a conscience to speak, which never fails to plead within you for faith, against your own excesses; in a word, hearken to yourself, and you will be a believer. But it is admitted, you will say, that if nothing more were to be required than to believe, that would easily be subscribed to. This is the second pretext of the sinners who delay ; it is the want of grace, and they await it: conversion is not the work of man, and it belongs to God alone to change the heart. Now, I say, that this pretext, so vulgar, so often repeated in the world, and so continually in the mouth of almost all those ON THE DELAY OK CONVERSION. 280 who live in guilt; if we consider the sinner who alleges it, it is un- just; if we view it on the part of God, on whom he lays the blame, it is rash and ungrateful; if we examine it in itself, it is foolish a^id unwarrantable. In the tirst place, if we consider the sinner who alleges it, it is unjust; for you complain that God hath not yet touched you, that you feel no relish for devotion, and that you must wait the coming of that relish before you can think of changing your life. But, full of passions as you are, can you reasonably expect or exact of God that he shall ever make you to feel a decided inclination for piety ? Would you that your heart, still plunged in debauchery, feel the pure delights and the chaste attractions of virtue ? You are similar to a man who, nourishing himself with gall and wormwood, should afterward complain that every thing feels bitter to his pa- late. You say, that if God wish you to serve him, in his power alone it is to give you a relish for his service ; you, who every day defile your heart by the meanest excesses ; you who every moment place a fresh chaos between God and you ; you, in a word, who, by new debaucheries, finally extinguish in your soul even those senti- ments of natural virtue, those happy impressions of innocence and of regularity born with you, which might have been the means of recalling you to virtue and to righteousness. O man ! art thou then unjust only when there is question of accusing the wisdom and the justice of thy God? But I say farther, that were God even to operate in your heart that relish for, and those feelings of, salvaJ:ion, which you await, dissolute and corrupted as you are, would you even feel the opera- tion of his grace ? Were he to call upon you, plunged as you now are in the pleasures of a life altogether worldly, would you even hear his voice ? Were he to touch your heart, would that feeling of grace have any consequence for your conversion, extin- guished as it would immediately be by the ardour and the frenzy of profane passions? And, after all, this God of longanimity and of patience still operateth in your heart ; he still poureth out within you the riches of his goodness and of his mercy. Ah ! it is not his grace which fails you, but you receive it into a heart so full of corruption and wretchedness, that it is ineffectual ; it excites no feeling there of contrition ; it is a spark which, fall- ing into a sink of filth and of nastiness, is extinguished the mo- ment it falls. Reflect, then, my dear hearer, and comprehend all the injustice of your pretexts. You complain that God is wanting to you, and that you await his grace to be converted ; but is there a sinner in whose mouth that complaint would be more unjust than from your lips 1 Recall here the whole course of your life ; follow it from the earliest period down to this day. The Lord had anticipated you from your birth with his blessings; he had placed in you a happy disposition, a noble spirit, and all the incli- u 290 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. nations most favourable to virtue ; he had even provided for you, in the bosom of a family, domestic succours and pious and godly examples. The mercies of the Lord went still farther ; he hath preserved you from a thousand dangers; through his goodness you have outlived occasions where your friends, and perhaps the accomplices of your debaucheries, liave fallen a sacrifice to the scourge of war. To recall you to him, he hath spared neither afflictions, disgusts, nor disgraces ; he hath torn from you the criminal objects of your passions, even at the moment when your heart was most strongly attached to them ; he hath so mercifully conducted your destiny, that a thousand obstacles have continually thwarted your passions, that you have never been able to arrive at the accomplishment of all your criminal wishes, and that some- tiiing has always been wanting to your iniquitous happiness ; he has formed for you serious engagements and duties, which, in spite of yourself, have imposed the obligation of a prudent and regular life in the eyes of men ; he has not permitted your con- science to become hardened in iniquity, and you have never been able to succeed in calming your remorses, or in living tranquilly in guilt; not a day hath past in which you have not felt the emptiness of the world and the horror of your situation ; amidst all your pleasures and excesses, conscience hath awoke, and you have never succeeded in lulling your secret disquiets but by promising to yourself a future change. A just and a merciful God urges and pursues you every where : ever since you have forsaken him, he has fixed himself to you, said a ])rophet, like a worm which burrows in the vestment, continually to gnaw your heart, and to render the importunity of his biting a wholesome remedy to your soul. Even while I am now speaking to you, he worketh within you, fiUeth my mouth with these holy truths, and placeth me here to proclaim them to you, for the sole purpose of recalling perhaps you alone. What, then, is your whole life but one continued succession of favours? Who are you yourself but a child of dilection and the work of God's mercies ? Unjust that thou art ! And thou darest, after this, to complain that his grace is wanting, thou, on whom alone on the earth the Lord seeraeth to cast his regards ; thou, in whose heart he so continually operateth, as though, of all men, he had only thee to save; thou, in a word, whose every moment is a fresh grace, and whose greatest guilt shall one day be, that of having received too many, and of having constantly abused them. But, to finish your overthrow, upon what grounds do you say that you want grace? You doubtless say so, because you feel that in your present state conversion would require too many sacrifices ; but you then believe that, with grace, you are con- verted without any sacrifice on your part, without any self-denial, and almost without being sensible of it yourself? You believe, then, that to have grace is to have no more passions to ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION'. 201 conquer, no more charms to break, no more temptations to over- come; that it is to be regenerated through penitence, without tears, pain, or sorrow? Ah! I assure you that on this footing you will never possess that chimerical grace, for conversion must al- ways require many sacrifices; be the grace what it may, you will always be required to make heroical eiforts to repress your pas- sions, to tear j'^ourself from the most beloved objects, and to sacri- fice every thing which may yet captivate you. Look around, and see if no sacrifices are required of those who are daily returning to their God ; yet they are favoured with grace, since it is it which delivers them and changes their heart. Inquire of tliem, if grace render every thing easy .and smooth; if it leave nothing more for self-love to undergo. Ask them if they have not had a thousand straggles to sustam, a thousand obstacles to overcome, a thousand passions to moderate, and you will know if to have grace is to be converted without any exertion on your part. Conversion is, therefore, a painful sacrifice, a laborious baptism, a grievous deli- very, a victory which supposes combats and fatigues. Grace, I confess, softens them all; but it -by no means operates so as to leave nothing more to overcome; and if, in order to change your life, you await a grace of that nature, I declare to you, that such never existed, and that so absurdly to await your salvation and deliver- ance, is^to be absolutely bent upon perishing. • But, if the pretext of the default of grace be unjust on the side of the sinner who alleges it, it is not less rash and un- grateful with regard to God, on whom he pretends to fix the blame. For you say that God is the master, and that, when he shall want you, he will perfectly knov/ how to find you; that is to say, that you have only to leave him solely to act, and that, without giving yourself any trouble with respect to your salvation, he, when so inclined, will know how to change your heart; that is to say, that you have only to pass your life in pleasures and in guilt, and that, without any interference on your part, v.-ithout your be- stowing even a thought upon it, without bringing to that conver- sion, which you expect, other preparation than a whole life of de- bauchery and constant opposition to his grace, he will know how to obtain you, when his moment shall be come; that is to say, that your salvation, that grand, that only business which you have upon the earth, is no longer a concern of yours; and that the Lord, who hath given you that alone to manage, who hath commanded you to give it the preference over all others, and even to neglect every other in order to devote yourself tQ it alone, has, nevertheless, absolutely discharged you from the trust, in order to take it wholly upon himself. Show us, then, this promise in some new gospel, for you well know that it is no where to be found in that of Jesus Christ. " The sinner," says the prophet Isaiah, " hath nothing 292 ON THK DPiLAY OF CONVERSION. but foolish things wherewith to justify himself; and his heart worketh iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the Lord." Lastly. This pretext is foolish in itself, for you say that you want grace: I have already replied that you deceive yourself; that, if candid, you will acknowledge that grace has never been wanting to you; that you have more thaii once felt its salutary impressions; that, had so obstinate a resistance not been opposed by your hardness of heart and impenitence, it would have triumphed over your passions; that God, who wishes all men to be saved, who out of nothing has drawn reasonable beings, solely to praise, to bless, and to glorify him; in a word, who has only made us for himself, has opened to you, my dear hearer, as well as to so many other sinners, a thousand ways of conversion, which would have infallibly recalled you ere now to the right path, had you not obsti- nately shut your ears against his voice. You want grace, you say : well, what do you thereby pretend? Would it -be to have it un- derstood that God, who is our Father, and of whom we are the children, who has an affection for us infinitely surpassing that of the tenderest mother for an only son, that a God so good leaves us, through want of assistance, in the actual impossibility of well- doing? But do you refiect that such language would be a blas- phemy against the wisdom of God, and the justification of every crime? Are you then ignorant, that whatever be the blow given to our liberty by the fall of our first parent, it is still however left tons; that neither law nor duties would longer be imposed upon man, had he not the real and actual power of fulfilling them; that religion, far from being an aid and a consolation, would conse- quently be no longer but a vexation and a snare; that if, not- withstanding all the cares which God has for our salvation, we perish, it is always the fault of our own will, and not the default of grace; that we are individually the authors of our misery and de- struction ; that it has depended upon ourselves to have avoided them; and that a thousand sinners, with neither more grace nor succours than we, have broken their chains, and have rendered glory to God and to his mercies by a life altogether new ? But, granting that these truths were less certain, and that, in reality, you, my dear hearer, want grace, it would equally be true then that God hath altogether forsaken you; that you are marked with a character of repi'obation, and that your state cannot be worse. For, to be without grace is surely the most terrible of all situations, and th'e most certain presage of eternal condemnation. And it is that horrible thought, however, which comforts you, which justifies in your eyes your tranquillity in guilt, which makes you, without trouble or remorse, to delay your conversion, and which even serves as an excuse for all your excesses : that is to say, that you are delighted in the want of this precious grace ; ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 293 that you continually say, with satisfaction to yourself, God wishes me not as yet ; I have only to live, in the meanwhile, tranquilly in guilt; his grace will not come yet awhile : that is to say, that you wish it not, and that you would even be sorry were it to come to break those chains which you still love. To you, the want of grace ought to be the most fearful and the most powerful inducement to extricate yourself from your deplorable state, and it is the only one which quiets and stops you. Besides, the more you delay, the less will you have of grace; for the more you delay, the more do your crimes increase, the more does God estrange himself from you; his mercies wear out, his moments of indulgence slip away, your measure be- comes full, and the dreadful term of his wrath approaches; and if it be true, that you have not at present sufficient grace to be con- verted, you will not, in a little time, have wherewithal even to com- prehend that you have occasion either for penitence or conversion. It is not grace, then, that you have to accuse, it is yourself. Did Augustine, during his feeble desires of conversion, tax the Lord with the delay of his penitence ? Ah ! he went no farther for the reason of it than in the weakness and the licentiousness of his own heart. " I dragged on," said he, " a heart diseased and torn with remorse, accusing myself alone for all my evils, and for all the delays which I started against a new life. I turned me in my chains, as though they should break off themselves, without any effort on my part. For thee, Lord, never hast thou ceased to chastise my heart with inward sorrows, continually operating there, through a merciful severity, the most pungent remorses, which embittered every comfort of my hfe. Nevertheless, the amusements of the world, which I had always and still loved, withheld me; they se- cretly whispered to me. Thou meanest, then, to renounce every pleasure ? From this moment, then, thou biddest an eternal farewell to all that hath hitherto rendered life agreeable to thee? What! shall it no more be permitted to thee to see those persons who have been so dear to thee '. Thou shalt henceforth be separated from thy companions in pleasure, be banished from their assemblies, and be obhged to deny thyself the most innocent delights, and all the com-« forts of society. And is it possible that thou canst believe thyself capable of supporting the sad weariness of a life so gloomy, so void, so uniform, and so different from the one thou hast hitherto led V Behold where this half-contrite sinner found the reasons of his delays and of his resistance; it was the dread of having to renounce his passions, and of being unable to support the step of a new life, and not any default of grace : and such is precisely the situation in which you are, and what ypu say every day to yourself. For, after all, supposing that grace is wanting to you, what do you thence conclude ? That the crimes into which you con- 294 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. tinually plunge yourself will not condemn you, should death sur- prise you in that deplorable state? You would not dare to say so. That you have only to live tranquil in your debaucheries till God shall touch you, and till grace shall be given to you '? But it is the height of folly to expect grace while you render yourself every day more and more unworthy of it. That you are not guilty before God of the delay of your conversion, seeing it depends not on you? But all delaying sinners who die impenitent would then be justified, and hell would no longer be but for the just who are converted. That you ought no more to concern yourself with your salvation, but to leave it to chance, without giving yourself any uneasiness or trouble with regard to it? But that is the resolution of impiety and despair. That the moment of your conversion is marked, and that a little more or less of debauchery will neither advance nor retard it an instant? -But, according to that doctrine, you have only to pierce your heart or plunge yourself into the waves, under the pretext that the moment of your death is determined, and that such madness will neither hasten nor retard it a single instant. " O man !" cries the apostle, in replying to the folly and impiety of this pretext, " is it thus that thou contemnest the riches of the goodness of thy God ? Art thou ignorant, that his patience in suffering thy debaucheries, far from authorizing them, ought to recall thee to penitence; and, nevertheless, it is his long forbearance itself which hardens thee in guilt; and through thine obstinacy of heart thou amassest an over- flowing treasure of wrath for that terrible day which shall surprise thee, and on which shall be rendered te every one according to his works?" The only rational consequence, therefore, that you could be permitted to draw, supposing that grace is v/anting to you, is, that you, more earnestly than any other, ought to pray to obtain it; to neglect nothing to soften an irritated God, Avho has withdrawn himself from your heart; to overcome by your importunities his resistance; to remove, in the meanwhile, whatever removes his grace from your heart; to make straight the way for him; to throw aside all the obstacles which have hitherto rendered it 'ineffectual to you; to deny yourself every opportunity in which your innocence almost always finds nev/ rocks, and which com- pletely shut your heart against the holy inspirations: such is the Christian and prudent manner of rendering glory to God, of confessing that he alone is the master of hearts, and that every blessing and gift proceed from him. But to say, as you continually do, without cha.nging in any respect your disorderly manners, " When God shall want me, he knoweth how to find me," is to say, *'' I wish him not as yet; I have no occasion for him; I live happy and contented: when he shall force me, and I can no longer civoid him, then I will yield; but, in the mean time. ON THK DELAY OF CONVERSION. 296 I will enjoy my prosperity, and the privilege which he granteth to me of' delaying my conversion." What a shocking preparation for that precious grace which changeth the heart ! Such is, however, all that an impenitent soul can adduce for confidently awaiting it. Such are the pretexts which the sinner who delays his conversion draws from the part of God. Let us now examine those which he takes from within himself. Part II. — It is astonishing, my brethren, that, life being so short, the moment of death so uncertain, every instant so pre- cious, conversions so rare, the examples of those who are taken unawares so frequent, and futurity so awful, so many frivolous pretexts can be urged for delaying a change of life. In all other dangers which threaten either our life, our honour, or our property, the precautions are prompt and ready, the danger alone is dubious and distant; here the danger is certain and present, and the precautions are always uncertain and remote. It seems either that salvation is an arbitrary thing, or that our life is in our own hands, or that the time for our penitence hath been promised to us, or that to die impenitent is no great misfortune, — so strongly do all sinners lull themselves in this hope of being one day con- verted, without ever attempting a change of life. And what is still more incomprehensible in the delay of their penitence, is, that they all admit of the necessity of their conversion, of the bad state of their conscience, and that they all consider as the worst of evils, that of dying in that fatal state ; and, nevertheless, that they all defer withdrawing from it, under pretexts so childish, that even the gravity of the Christian pulpit suffers in refuting and overthrowing them. Age, the passions, the consequences of a change of life, which they dread the being able to support, — such are the vain pretexts inwardly alleged for delaying that conversion which God de- mands of us. I say, in the first place, the age. They wish to allow the years of youth to pass away, to which a consideration so important as piety seems little suited ; they wait a certain season of life, when, the bloom of youth effaced, the manners become more sedate, the attention more exact, the world less watchful upon us, even the mizid riper and more capable of supporting that grand undertaking; they promise themselves to labour at it, and that they will not then allow any thing to divert them from it. But, it would be natural to ask you first, who hath told you that you shall arrive at the term which you mark to yourself; that death shall not surprise you in the course of those years which you still allot to the world and to the passions ; and that the Lord, whom you do not expect till the evening, shall not arrive in the morning, and when you least think of it ? Is youth a certain safe- 296 ON THU DELAY OF CONVERSION. guard against death? See, without mentioning here what happens every day to the rest of men, if, even in confining yourself to the small number of your friends and of your relations, you shall find none for whom the justice of God hath dug a grave in the first years of their course; who, like the flower of the field, blooming to the morn, have withered before the close of day, and have left you only the melancholy regret of seeing so speedily blasted, a life of which the blossoms had promised so fair. Fool ! Thy soul is to be re-demanded perhaps at the opening of thy race ; and those projects of conversion which thou deferrest to a future pe- riod, what shall they avail thee ? And those grand resolutions which thou promisest to thyself to put in execution one day, what shall they change in thine eternal misery, should death anticipate them, as it every day doth in a thousand instances, and leave thee only the unavailing regret of having vainly formed them ? But, even granting that death shall not take you unawares, and I ask you, upon what foundation do you promise yourself, that age shall change your heart, and incline you more than you are at present to a new life? Did age change the heart of Solomon ? Ah ! it was then that his passions rose to the highest, and that his shameful frailty no longer knew any bounds. Did age prepare Saul for his conversion ? Ah ! it was then that, to his past errors, he added superstition, impiety, hardness of heart, and despair. Perhaps in advancing in age, you shall leave off certain loose manners, because the disgust alone which follows them shall havef withdrawn you from them; but you will not thereby be converted: you will no longer live in debauchery; but you will not repent, you will not do penance, your heart will not be changed ; you will still be worldly, ambitious, voluptuous, and sensual : you will live tranquil in that state, because you will no longer have but all the dispositions of these vices, without giving yourself up to their ex- cesses. Years, examples, long habit of the world, shall have served only to harden your conscience, to substitute indolence and a worldly wisdom in the room of the passions, and to efface that sense of religion which, in the youthful period of life, is left in the soul as yet fearful and timorous; you will die impenitent. And, if you suppose this to be merely a movement of zeal, and not a truth founded on experience, examine what passes every day before you ; view all the souls who have grown old in the world, and who, through age alone, have withdrawn from its ])leasures. The love of the world is extinguished only with them under dif- ferent exteriors, and which are changed solely through decency : you see the same relish for the world, the same inclinations, the same ardour for pleasures, a youthful heart in a changed and worn-out body. The delights of our younger years are recalled with satisfaction; the imagination dwells upon, and delights in reviving all that time and age have wrested from us ; a blooming- youth, and all its attendant amusements, are regarded with eni^y ; ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 297 all of them are entered into, which can be thought in any degree compatible with the sedateness proper to advanced age ; pretexts are formed for still mingling in certain pleasures with decency, and without being exposed to the public ridicule. Lastly, in propor- tion as the world flies from, and deserts us, it is pursued with more relish than ever: the long habit of it hath served only to render it more necessary to us, and to render us incapable of doing without it ; and age hath never as yet been the cause of conversion. But, even admitting that this misfortune were not to be dreaded, the Lord, is he not the God of all times, and of all ages? Is there a single one of our days which belongs not to him, and which he hath left to us for the world and for vanity ? Is he not even jealous of the first-fruits of our heart and of our life, figured by those first- fruits of the earth, which were commanded by the law to be offered up to him? Why then would you retrench from him the fairest portion of your years, to consecrate it to Satan and to his works? Is life too long to be wholly employed for the glory of the Lord who hath given it to us, and who promiseth to us an eternal one? Is youth too precious to be consecrated toward becoming worthy of the eternal possession of the Supreme Being? You reserve, then, for him, only the remains and the dregs of your passions and life ! And it precisely is, as if you said to him. Lord, so long as I shall be fit for the world and its pleasures, think not that I shall turn toward or seek thee ; so long as the world shall be pleased with me, I can never think of devoting myself to thee ; afterward, indeed, when it shall begin to neglect and to forsake me, then I will turn me toward thee; I will say to thee, Lo, I am here! I will pray thee to accept a heart which the world hath rejected, and which reluctantly finds itself under the hard necessity of bestow- ing itself on thee; but, till then, expect nothing from me but perfect indifference, and a thorough neglect. After all, thou art only entitled to our services when we ourselves are good for nothing else; we are always sure, at least, of finding thee; all times are the same to thee; but, after a certain season of life, we are unfitted for the world, and, while yet time, it is. proper to enjoy it before it deserts us. Soul, unworthy of ever confessing the mer- cies of a God whom you treat with such insult ! and do you believe that he will then accept of a homage so forced, and so disgraceful to his glory, he, who taketh no delight but in voluntary sacrifices, he, who hath no need of man, and who favour- eth him when he deigneth to accept even his purest vows and his sincerest homages? The prophet Isaiah formerly mocked, in these terms, those who worshipped vain idols : " You take," said he to them, " a cedar from Lebanon; you set apart the best and handsomest parts of it for your occasions, your pleasures, the luxury and ornament of your palaces; and when you know not how .to 298 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION, employ otherwise the remnant, you carve it into a vain idol, and offer up to it ridiculous vows and homages." And I, in my turn, might say to you. You set apart from your life the fairest and the most iiourishing of your years, to indulge your fancies and your iniquitous passions ; and when you know not to what purpose to devote the remainder, and it becomes useless to the world and to pleasures, then you make an idol of it; you make it serve for religion; you form to yourself of it a false, a super- ficial, and inanimate virtue, to which you reluctantly consecrate the wretched remains of your passions and of your debaucheries. O my God ! is this then regarding thee as a jealous God, whom the slightest stain in the purest offermgs wounds and offends, or as a vain idol, which feels not the indignity and the hypocrisy of the homages offered up to it? Yes, my brethren, nothing can be reaped in an advanced age but what has been sown in the younger years of life. If you sow in corruption, said the apostle, you will cut down in corruption. You are continually saying, yourselves, that we always die as we have lived; that the character and disposition change not; that we bear within us in old age all the defects and all the tendencies of our younger years ; and that nothing is so fortunate for us as to have formed laudable inclinations from an early period, and, as the prophet said, to have accustomed ourselves from the tenderest youth to bear the yoke of the Lord. And, in effect, when we should attend solely to the quiet of our life, when we should have no other interest in view than that of securing peaceful and happy days to ourselves here below, what happiness to anticipate, and to stifle in their birth, by bending from the first toward virtue, so many violent passions which after- ward tear the heart, and occasion all the sorrows and misery of our life ! ' What happiness to have grafted in ourselves only gentle and innocent ideas, to spare ourselves the fatal experience of so many criminal pleasures, which for ever corrupt the heart, defile the ima- gination, engender a thousand shameful and unruly fancies, which accompany us even in virtue, outlive our crimes, and frequently become new ones themselves! What happiness to have created innocent and tranquil pleasures for ourselves in these younger years, to have accustomed the heart to be contented with them, not to have contracted the sad necessity of being unable to do without violent and criminal gratifications, and not to have ren- dered insupportable, by a long habit of warm and tumultuous passions, the gentleness and the tranquillity of virtue and inno- cence ! How these younger years, passed in modesty and in horror at vice, attract blessings on the remainder of life ! How attentive to all our ways do they render the Lord ! And how much do they render us the well-beloved object of his cares and of his paternal kindness ! BTit nobody denies, you will say, the happiness of being curly ON THK DKLAY OK CONVKKSION. 299 devoted to God, and of having been able to resist all the tempta- tions of youth and of pleasure. But that such is not your case; you have followed the common track; the torrent of the world and of the passions has swept all before it; you find yourselves, even still, under engagements too intimate and powerful to think of breaking them; you wait a more favourable situation; and you promise yourselves that, when the passion which now enslaves you shall be extinguished, you will never again enter into new bonds, but will heartily range yourselves on the side of duty and of virtue. Second pretext; the passions and the engagements, from which it is impossible as yet to withdraw. But, in the first place, are you quite certain that this more fa- vourable situation which you await, in order to return to God, shall arrive? Who has revealed to you the course and the duration of the passions which at present retain you? Who has marked limits to them, and said, like the Lord to the troubled waters, " Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther?" When shall they have an end, do you know? Can you take upon you to say that they shall one day be l^rminated, — that they shall be ended at least before yourself? Would you be the first sinner surprised in his deplorable passions? Do not almost all around you die in that melancholy state? Do the ministei's, called in to the assistance of the dying, find many sinners on the bed of death, who, for a length of time, have quitted their former habits in order to prepare them- selves for that last moment? What do we find there but souls still bound with a thousand chains, which death alone shall break asunder; — but inexplicable consciences, if I may venture to say so, and still enveloped in the chaos of a life wholly dissolute? What indeed do we expect on these occasions, but unavailing re- grets on that dreadful surprisal, and vain protestations of the dif- ferent measures they would have adopted had they been able to have foreseen it? What are the usual offices of our ministry in these last moments? To enlighten consciences which ought then to need only consolation; to assist them in recalling crimes which we should then have only to exhort them to forget; to make the dying sinner sensible of his debaucheries, we who should then have to support and to animate him with the remembrance of his virtues; in a word, to open the dark concealments of his heart, we who should then have to open only the bosom of Abraham, and the treasures of an immortal glory, for the soul on the point of dis- engaging itself from the body. Such are the melancholy offices which we shall one day perhaps have to render to you; you, in your turn, will call upon us, and, in place of a soothing conversa- tion with you on the advantages which a holy death promises to the believer, we shall then be solely employed in receiving the nar- ration of the crimes of your life. But, should your passions not extend even to that last hour. 300 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. the more you delay, the deeper do you allow the roots of guilt to become, the more do your chains form new folds round your heart, the more does that leaven of corruption which you carry within you spread itself, ferment, and corrupt all the capacity of your soul. Judge of this by the progress which the passion has hitherto made in your heart. At first it was only timid liberties, and, to quiet yourself in which, you still sought some shadow of innocence ; afterward it was only dubious actions, in which it was still difficult to distinguish guilt from a venial trespass; hcentious- ness closely followed, but striking excesses were still rare; you reproached yourself in the very moment of their commission; you were unable to bear them long upon a conscience still alarmed at its state: the backslidings are insensibly multipHed; licentiousness is become a fiJced and habitual state; conscience has no longer but feebly cried out against the empire of the passion; guilt is become necessary to you; it has no longer excited remorse; you have swallowed it like water, which passes unfelt, and without tickhng the palate by any particular flavour. The more you advance, the more does the venom gain ; the weaker does any.residue of strength, which modesty, reason, and grace had placed in you, become, the more what was yet wholesome in your soul becomes infected and defiled. What folly, then, to allow wounds to become old and corrupted, under pretence that they will afterward be more easily cured ! And what do you, in delaying, but render your evils more incurable, and take away from the hope of your conversion every resource which might still be left to you? You perhaps flatter yourself that there are no lasting passions, and that, sooner or later, time and disgust shall withdraw you from them. To this I answer, first, that, in all probability, you shall indeed become tired of the objects which at present enslave you, but that your passions shall not be consequently ended. You will doubt- less form new ties, but you will not form to yourself a new heart. There are no eternal passions, I confess, but corruption and licen- tiousness are almost always so; the passions which are terminated solely by disgust, always leave the heart open for the reception of some other, and it is commonly a new fire which expels and ex- tinguishes the first. Call to your remembrance what has hitherto happened to you. You firmly thought that, were such an engage- ment once at an end, you should then be free, and wholly at liberty to return to your God ; you fixed upon that happy moment as the term for your penitence : that engagement has been ter- minated; death, inconstancy, disgust, or some other accident, has broken it, and nevertheless you are not converted; new opportunities have offered, you have formed new ties, you have forgotten your former resolutions, and your last state is be- come worse than the first. The passions which are not extin- ON THK DELAY OF CONVERSION. 301 gnished by grace serve merely to light up and to prepare the heart for new ohes. I answer, secondly, when all your criminal engagements should even be ended, and that no particular object should interest your heart, if time and disgust alone have eftected this, yet will not your conversion be more advanced. You will still hold to all, in no longer holding to any thing ; you will find yourself in a certain vague state of indolence and of insensibility, more removed from the kingdom of God than even the ardour of mad passions ; your heart, free from any particular passion, will be as if filled with a universal passion ; if I may speak in this manner, with an immense void which will wholly occupy it. It will even be so much the more difficult for you to quit this state, as you will have nothing sufficiently striking to catch at. You will find yourself without vigour, taste, or inclination for salvation ; it is a calm from which you will find it more difficult to extricate yourself than even from the tempest, for the same winds which cause the storm may some- times drive us fortunately into port ; but the greater the calm is, the more certainly it leads to destruction. But, lastly, you say.We would willingly change and adopt the party of a more reasonable and more Christian life ; we feel the utter emp- tiness of the world and of all its pleasures; we enter into amuse- ments, and into a certain dissipation, without relish, and as if with regret; we would wish to renounce them, and seriously to labour toward our salvation; but this first step startles us. It is a matter of notoriety which engages us toward the public, and which we have many doubts of being able to support; we are of a rank which renders the smallest change conspicuous; and we are afraid lest, like so many others, we act a part that will not be lasting, and consequently will leave us only the ridicule without the merit of devotion. You dread, my dear hearer, the being able to go through with it? What ! in delaying your conversion, you promise yourself that God shall one day touch you ; and, in being converted at' present, you dare not promise yourself that he will sustain you ? You depend upon his mercies while insulting him, and you dare not trust to them when glorifying him ? You believe that you have nothing to risk, on his part, in continuing to offend him, and you have no confidence in him when beginning to serve him? Oman! where is here that reason and that rectitude of judgment which thou vauntest so much? And must it"Ufe, that in the business of thy salvation alone thou art a sink of contradiction and an incompre- hensible paradox ? Besides, might we not with reason say to you. Make a be- ginning at least ; try if, in effect, you shall be unable to sus- tain yourself in the service of God ? Is it not worth the trouble of being tried"? Does a man, precipitated by the tempest into the sea, and who finds himself on the point of drowning, not 302 ON THK DELAY OF CONVERSION. strain every nerve, in the first place, to gain the shore by swimming, before he resigns himself to the mercy of the waves ? Would he say to himself, as an excuse for making no effort to save himself, " I shall perhaps be unable to go through with it; my strength will most likely fail me by the way?" Ah ! he tries, he makes every effort, he struggles against the danger, he labours to the last moment of his strength, and only gives way at last when, overpowered by the violence of the waves, he is forced to yield to the evil of his destiny. You perish, my dear hearer, the waves gain upon you, the torrent sweeps you away, and you hesitate whether you shall try to extricate yourself from the danger; you waste, in calculating your strength, the only moments left to provide for your safety ; and *you sacrifice, in deliberating, the little time that is left to you for the sole pur- pose of disengaging yourself from the peril, w^iicli is imminent, and in which so many others are continually perishing before your eyes I But, lastly, even granting that in the end the various hardships of virtue tire out your weakness, and that you find yourself under the necessity of retreating ; at any rate, you will always have passed some little time without offending your God ; you will always have made some efforts toward appeasing him ; you will always have devoted some days to the praise of his holy name ; at any rate, it will be a portion cut off from your criminal life, and from that treasure of iniquity which you amass for the terrible day of ven- geance; you will have acquired, at least, the right of representing your weakness to God, and of saying to him, " Lord, thou be- holdest my desires and my weakness; why, O my God ! have I not a heart more constant to thee, more determined in the cause of truth, more callous to the world, and more difficult to be led astray? Put an end, O Lord, to mine uncertainties and to mine inconstancy ; take from the world that dominion which it hath over my heart ; resume thine ancient rights over it, and no longer imperfectly attract me, lest I again fly off' from thee. I am covered with shame at the eternal variations of my life, and they make me that I am afraid to raise up mine eyes to thee, or to promise a constant fidelity. I have so often broken my promises after swear- ing to thee an eternal love ; my weakness hath so often led me to forget the happiness of that engagement, that I have no longer the courage to answer for myself. My heart betrays me every instant ; and a thousand times, on rising from thy feet, and with mine eyes still bathed in tears of sorrow for having offended thee, an opportunity hath seduced me; and the very same infidelities, of which I had so lately expressed mine abhorrence, have found me, as forme ily, weak and unfaithful: vnih a heart so light and so un- certain, what assurance, O my God ! can I give to thee? And what, indeed, could I presume to promise to myself? I have so often thought that my resolutions would now at last be constant ; ON FALSE TRUST. 303 I have found myself in moments so lively and so affecting of grace and of compunction, and which seemed for ever to fix the durability of my fidelity, that I see nothkig now which can either be capable of fixing- me, or of affording me a hope of that stability in virtue which 1 have hitherto been unable to attain. Let the danger of my situation touch thee, O my God ! The character of my heart dis- courages and alarms me; I know that inconstancy in thy ways is a presage of perdition, and that the versatile and changeable soul is cursed in thy holy books. But, while yet sensible of the holy in- spirations of thy grace, I will once more endeavour to enter into thy ways ; and, if I must perish, I prefer being lost while exerting myself to return to thee, O my God ! who permittest not the soul who sincerely seeketh thee to perish, and who art the only Lord worthy of being served, to the shocking tranquillity of an avowed and determined rebellion, and to the melancholy idea of renouncing all hope of those eternal riches which thou preparest for those who shall have loved and served thee." SERMON XVITI. ON FALSE TRUST. But we trusted that it had been he which should liavc redeemed Israel. * Luke xxiv. 21. In vain had Jesus Christ, during his mortal life, a thousand times declared to his disciples, that it was flattering themselves to count upon a reward which had not been merited by crosses and toils: this truth, so little agreeable to nature, had never been vv'ill- ingly received; and all the times that the Saviour had tried to un- deceive them on the opposite error, they heard not that word of the gospel, and it was not seen by them. Such is still at present the disposition of the two disciples to whom Jesus Christ con- descends to appear in their way to Emmaus; they expected that their Master should deliver Israel from the yoke of nations, and should cause them to be seated on twelve eartlily thrones, without any exertion being necessary on their part in order to mount them, without the Saviour himself having occasion to suffer, in order to triumph over his enemies. 304 ON FALSE TRUST. Besides the mistake which led them to consider Jesus Christ as a temporal deliverer, I likewise observe another, which appears to me not less dangerous in them, but which at present is more common among us: it is that false trust by which they are persuaded, that, without co-operating toward it themselves, and in leaving to Jesus Christ the whole management of their deliverance, they shall receive the fulfilment of the magnificent promises, which, in his conversa- tions with them upon the earth, he had so often reiterated. Now, my brethren, this false trust, which makes all to be expected by sinners from grace alone, without any co-operation on their part, and the reward of the holy to be hoped, although they labour not toward meriting it; this false trust, which always reckorws upon the goodness of God whom it oftends, which, without combating, pro- mises itself to be crowned, and which always hopes against proba- bility; this false trust, which is unwilling to purchase heaven, and yet expects it, is the most universal and most established error among Christians ; and when Jesus Christ shall once more appear upon the earth, he will find many of his unbelieving disciples, who shall have occasion to say to him, " we trusted." This, my brethren, is what induces me to occupy your time at present upon so important a matter, persuaded that a false trust is the source of condemnation to almost all sinners; that those who are afraid of perishing, never perish ; and that I could not better fulfil my ministry, than by establishing in your hearts those salu- tary feelings of mistrust which lead to precautions and to remedies, and which, in disturbing the peace of sin, leave, in its place, the peace of Jesus Christ, which surpasseth all feeling. Thus, in order to give a proper extension to so useful a subject, I reduce it to two propositions. There is no disposition more foolish than that of the sinner who presumes, without labouring toward his amendment, is the first: there is none more injurious to God, is the second. The folly of a false trust : the insult of a false trust. Let us explain these two truths. Part I. — I am not afraid of openly agreeing with you, my brethren, that the mercies of the Lord are always more abundant than our wickednesses, and that his goodness may furnish legiti- mate motives of trust to all sinners. The doctrine which I go to establish is sufficiently terrible, without adding to it new terrors by concealing part of those truths which may tend to soften it; and if caution be I'equired in this matter, it is rather in not bringing forward all that might alarm the conscience, than in concealing what might tend to console it. It is true, that every where the holy books give us magnifi- cent and soothing ideas of the goodness of God. One while he is a mild and long-forbearing master, who awaits the peni- tence of the sinner; who covers the sins of men, in order to lead them to repentance; who is silent and quiet; who is slow to ON FALSE TRUST. 305 punish, and delays in order that he may be prevented; who threatens in order to be disarmed: another while he is a tender friend, who is never weary of knocking at the gate of the heart; who flatters, intreats, and solicits us; and who, in order to draw us to himself, employs every thing which an ingenious love can in- vent, to recall a rebellious heart. Again, and lastly, for all would never be said, he is an indefatigable Shepherd, who goes even through the wildest mountains, in search of his strayed sheep; and, having at last found it, places it upon his shoulders, and is so transported with joy that even the celestial harmony are ordered to celebrate its happy return. It must surely be confessed, that the consolation of these images can receive no addition; and every sinner who, after this, despairs, or even gives way to despondency, is the most foolish of all men. But do not from thence conclude, that the sinner who presumes is less foolish, or that the mercy of the Lord can be a legitimate foundation of trust to those who are continually desiring their conversion, and yet, without labouring toward that great work,. promise every thing to themselves from a goodness which their very confidence insults. To convince you of this, before I enter into the main points of ray subject, remark, I beg of you, that, among that innumerable crowd of sinners, of every description, with which the world is filled, there is not one who hath not hopes of his conversion; not one who, before-hand, considers himself as a child of wrath, and doomed to perish ; not one who doth not flatter himself that at last the Lord shall one day have pity upon him: the lewd, the ambitious, the worldly, the revengeful, the unjust, all hope, yet no one repents. Now, I mean, at present, to prove to you, that this disposition of false trust is, of all others in which the creature can be, the most foolish : follow, I beg of you, my reasons; they appear worthy of your attention. In effect, when, in order to make the folly of false trust ap- parent, I should have only the uncertainty in which a sinner, who hath lost the sanctifying grace, is of his salvation, no other argument would be required to justify my first proposition. And, when I speak of the uncertainty of his salvation, you easily com- prehend that there is no question here of that uncertainty common to all believers, which occasions that no one can know whether he be worthy of love or of hatred; whether he shall per- severe to the end, or fall, never more to recover himself: terrible subject of dread, even for the most righteous! I speak of a more shocking uncertainty, since it does not suppose, in the sinner in question, a doubtful state of righteousness and Christian fears, upon backslidings to come; but because it is founded upon a certain state of sin, and upon a repentance which nobody can guarantee to him. Now, I say that it is the height of folly to presume in this state. For confess it, my dear hearer, inveterate sinner as you X 306 ON FALSE TRUST. are, abiding, as you tranquilly do, in iniquitous passions, in the midst even of all the solemnities of religion, and of all the terrors of the holy word, upon the foohsh hope of one day, at last, quit- ting this deplorable state; you cannot deny that it is at least doubt- ful whether you shall retrieve yourself, or, even to the end, remain in your sin. I even admit you to be full of good desires; but you are not ignorant that desires convert nobody, and that the greatest sinners are often those who most long for their conversion. Now, the doubt here only equal, would you be prudent in remaining careless? What! In the frightful uncertainty whether you shall die in your irregularity, or if God shall withdraw you from it; floating, as I may say, between heaven and hell ; on the poise be- tween these two destinies, you could be indifferent on the decision? Hope is the sweetest and the most flattering choice; and for that reason you would incline to its side? Ah! my dear hearer, were there no other reason to be afraid than that of hoping, you would not be prudent to live in this profound calm. But such is not even your case; things are far indeed from being equal; in this shocking doubt which every sinner may inwardly form, — *' Shall I expire in mine iniquity, in the sin in which I actually and have so long lived; or shall I not die in it?" — the first part is infinitely the most probable. For, first, your own powers are not sufficient to regain that sanctity you have lost; a foreign, supernatural, and heavenly aid is necessary, of which nobody can assure you; in place of which, you need only yourself to remain in your sin : there is nothing in your nature which can resuscitate the grace lost, no seed of salvation, no principle of spiritual fife; and you bear in your heart a fatal source of corruption which may every day produce fresh fruits of death : it is more likely, therefore, that you shall die in your guilt than it is that you shall be converted. Secondly, not only is a foreign and divine aid necessary, but also an aid uncommon, rare, denied to almost all sinners ; in short, a miracle for your conver- sion ; for the conversion of the sinner is one of the greatest prodi- gies of grace, and you know yourself that such instances are ex- tremely rare in the world; now and then some fortunate soul whom God withdraweth from licentiousness. But these are re- markable exertions of the Divine mercy, and not in the common tract. In place of which, you have only to let things pursue their natural course, and you shall die such as you are : God hath only to follow his ordinary laws, and your destruction is certain ; the possibility of your salvation is founded solely on a singular eflbrt of his power and mercy; the certitude of your condemnation is founded upon the commonest of all rules: in a word, that you perish, is the ordinary lot of sinners who resemble you; that you are converted, is a singularity of which there are few examples. Thirdly, in order to continue in your present state, you have only to follow your inclinations, to yield yourself up to yourself, and quietly ON FALSE TRUST. 307 to allow yourself to be carried down by tlie stream ; to do this you have occasion for neither effort nor violence : but to return, ah ! you must break through inclinations fortified by time ; you must hate and resist yourself, tear yourself from the dearest objects, break asunder the tenderest ties, make the most heroical efforts, you who are incapable of the commonest ones. Now, I demand, if, in a matter to come, or in uncertain events, we ever augur in favour of those who have most obstacles to surmount, and most difficulties to struggle against ? Doth not the most easy always appear the most probable ? Soften as much as you please this truth in your mind ; view it in the most favourable light ; this proposition on your eternal destiny is the most incontestible of the Christian morality. It is beyond comparison more certain that I shall never be converted, and that I shall die in my sin, than that the Lord shall have pity upon me, and at last withdraw me from it : this is your situation ; and, if you can still be indifferent, and flatter yourself in such a state, your security, my dear hearer, terrifies me. But I go farther, and I intreat you to listen to me. The sinner who, without labouring to reclaim himself, assures himself of conversion, presumes not in a fearful uncertainty, and where every thing seems to conclude against him, but also in spite of the moral certainty, as we are taught by faith, that he is lost. Here are my proofs : first, you expect that God shall convert you ; but how do you expect it? By continually placing new obstacles in the way of his grace ; by riveting your chains ; by aggravating your yoke ; by multiplying your crimes ; by neglecting every oppor- tunity of salvation, which, his solemnities, his mysteries, and even the terrors of his word offer to you; by always remaining in the same dangers ; by changing nothing in your manners, your pleasures, your intimacies ; in short, in every thing which continues to nourish in your heart that fatal passion from which you hope that grace shall deliver you. How ! the fooUsh virgins are rejected, solely for having negligently and without fervour awaited the bridegroom ; and you, faithless soul, who await him while completing the mea- sure of your crimes, you dare to flatter yourself that you shall be more favourably treated ? Secondly. Grace is accorded only to tears, to solicitations, to eager desires; it requires to belong courted. Now, do you pray? At least, do you intreat? Do you imitate the importunity of the widow of the gospel ? Do you labour, like Cornelius the Gentile, to attract that grace by charities and other Christian works? Do you say to the Lord, every day, with the prophet, " Hide not thy face from me, O Lord, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit?" Ah ! you say to him, " Lord, thou wilt draw me to thyself; in vain I resist thee ; thou wilt, at last, break asunder my chains ; however great be the corruption of my heart, thou wilt ultimately X 2 "^ • ■308 ON FALSE TRUST. chang;e it." Fool ! what more likely to repeal a gift than the teme- rity which exacts it, and even in the very moment when most un- worthy dares to claim it as a right ! Fresh argument against you ; o-race is reserved for the lowly and the fearful, who dread being refused what is not owing to them : it is upon these souls that the Spirit of God relieth, and taketh dehght in his working wonders; on the contrary, "he despiseth the presumptuous sinner, and knoweth him afar off." Thirdly. The grace of conversion which you so confidently expect, is, as you know, the greatest of all gifts. Nevertheless, as you know still better, there is scarcely a sinner more unworthy of it than yourself; unworthy through the nature of your disorders, of which you alone know the infamy and the enormity ; unworthy throuoh the lights and inspirations you have a thousand times mis- used ; unworthy through the favours of the mysteries and of the truths which you have always neglected ; unworthy through the sequel, even of your natural incHnations, which heaven, at your birth, had formed, so happy and so tractable to truth, and which you have turned into melancholy means of vice ; unworthy through the iniquitous derisions which you have made of piety, and those impious desires, so injurous to the truth of God, which have a thousand times led you to wish that all we say of a future state were a fable ; lastly, unworthy through that profound security in which you live, which, before God, is the worst of all your crimes. Now, I ask nothing here but equity; if only a single sinner were to be excluded from that grace of conversion which you expect, you would have every reason to dread that the exclu- sion fell upon you, and that you were to be that single child of curse, separated as an anathematized from all his brethren. But, if almost all be deprived of that blessing, ah ! my dear hearer, ought you to reckon upon it as secure? And what' have you but a superabundance of sins to distinguish you from others? If the hope of the presumptuous sinner perish in general with himself, can you suppose that your salvation shall be accomphshed by the same way in which all others perish ? I know that we ought never to despair ; but humble confidence is very different from presumption : humble confidence, after having tried all, counts upon nothing, and you depend upon all without having ever tried any thing. Humble trust considers the mercy of the Lord only as the supplement of the defects of penitence, and you make it the refuge of your crimes ; humble trust, with fear and trembling, awaits the pardon of those faults it hath lamented, and you coolly expect that those should be forgiven of which you never mean to repent. I know, and I again repeat, that we ought never to despair ; but were it possible that despair could be legitimate, ah ! it would be when hope is presumptuously encouraged. ON FALSE TRUST. 309 But age will mellow the passions, says inwardly the sinner here : enticing opportunities will not always come in the way; circum- stances more favourable for salvation will occur; and what is at present impossible, shall one day perhaps be done when a thousand actual impediments shall be removed. My God! in this manner doth the unfortunate soul deceive himself; and it is through an illusion so palpable that the demon seduces almost all men, the wisest as the most foolish, the most enlightened as the most cre- dulous, the great as the common people. For, say, my dear hearer, when you promise yourself that one day the Lord shall at last have pity upon you, you no doubt promise yourself that he will change your heart; now, why do you depend upon this change, so neces- sary to your salvation, more in future than at present? In the first place, shall your dispositions for penitence be then more favourable? Shall your heart find it easier to break asunder its chains? What! inclinations deeply rooted through time and years shall be more easily torn out ? A torrent which has already hol- lowed out its bed, shall be more easy to turn aside? Are you in your senses when you say so ? Ah ! even now, it appears so diffi- cult to repress your inordinate passions, though yet in their infancy, and consequently more tractable and easy to regulate! You delay your conversion only because it would cost you too much to con- quer yourself on certain points : how ! you are persuaded that it will cost you less in the end ; that this fatal plant, then become a tree, shall be more phable; that this wound, inveterate and of longer standing, shall be more easy to cure, and shall require less grievous remedies? You expect resources and facilities toward penitence from time; it is time, my brethren, which will deprive you of all those yet remaining. Secondly. Shall grace be either more frequent in future, or more victorious ? But, granting it even to be so, your cupidity, then more powerful, opposing greater impediments, the grace which would now triumph over your heart, and change yoii into a thorough penitent, will no longer then but slightly agitate you, and excite within you only weak and unavailing desires of repentance. But you have little reason to flatter yourself even with this hope : the more you irritate the goodness of God by delaying your conversion, the more will he withdraw himself from you : every moment diminishes in some measure his favours and his kindness. Recollect, that when you first began to deviate from his ways, not a day passed without his operating within you some movement of salvation, trou- bles, remorses, and desires of penitence. At present, if you attend to it, these inspirations are more rare : it is only on certain occa- sions that your conscience is aroused ; you are partly familiarized with your disorders. Ah ! my dear hearer, you easily see that your insensibility will be only increased in the sequel : God will more and more retire from you, and will dehver you up to a reprobate fcchng, and to that fatal tranquillity which is the consummation 310 ON FALSK TRUST. and the most dreadful punishment of iniquity. Now I ask, are you not absurd in thus marking out, for your conversion, a time in which you shall never have had fev/er aids on the part of grace, and less facility on the part of your heart? I might still add, that the more you delay, the more you accu- mulate debts; the more you enrich the treasure of iniquity, the more crimes you shall have to expiate, the more rigorous shall your reparation have to be, and consequently the more shall your penitence be difficult. Slight austerities, some retrenchments, some Christian charities, would perhaps suffice at present to acquit you before your Judge, and to appease his justice. But, in the sequel, when the abundance of your crimes shall have risen above your head, and time and years shall have blunted, if not totally destroyed, in your memory, the multitude and the flagrancy of your iniquities; ah! no reparation on your part shall then be sufficiently rigorous, no mortification sufficiently austere, no humi- liation sufficiently profound, no pleasure, however innocent, which you must not deny yourself, no indulgence which will not be criminal : holy excesses of penitence will , be necessary to compen- sate the duration and the enormity of your crimes ; it will require you to quit all, to tear yourself from every thing, to sacrifice your fortune, interests, and conveniency, perhaps to condemn yourself to a perpetual retreat, for it is only through these means that the great sinners are recalled. Now, if slight rigours, which would at present be sufficient amends, appear so insupportable, and disgust you at the idea of a change, shall penitence be more alluring, when more toils, and steps a thousand times more bitter, present themselves in its train ? My God ! upon the affair of salvation alone it is that men are capable of such wilful mis- takes. Ah ! my brethren, of whar avail are great lights, extent of genius, deep penetration, and solid judgment in the ma- nagement of earthly matters, and of vain undertakings which shall perish with us, if we are children in the grand work of eternity? And allow me to conclude this part of my Discourse with a final reason, which, I trust, will serve to convince you. You consider the vain hope of a conversion as a feeling of grace and salvation, and as a proof that the Lord visiteth you, and that he hath not yet delivered you up to all the inveteracy of sin. But, my dear hearer, the Lord cannot visit you in his mercy without in- spiring you with salutary troubles and fears on the state of your conscience: all the operations of grace begin with these; conse- quently, while you continue tranquil, it is evident that God treateth you according to all the rigour of his justice, and that he exerciseth upon you the most terrible of his chastisements; I mean to say, his neglect and the denial of his grace. Peace in sin, the security in which you live, is therefore the most infallible mark that God is no longer with you, and that this grace, which in the ON FAJLSK TUUST. 311 criminal soul always works trouble and anxiety, civead and distrust, is totally extinguished in yours. Thus you comfort yourself on what ought to excite your justest fears : the most deplorable signs of your reprobation form in your mind the most solid foundation of your hope : trust in sin is the most terrible chastisement with which God can punish the sinner, and you draw from it a prejudication of salvation and of penitence. Tremble, if any remains of faith be yet left you : this calm is the forerunner of a shipwreck ; you are stamped with the mark of the reprobate; reckon not upon a mercy which treats you so much the more rigorously, as it permits you to hope and to depend upon it. The error of the majority of sinners is that of imagining that the grace of conversion is one of those sudden miracles by which the whole face of things is changed in the twinkling of an eye ; which plants, tears up, destroys, rears up at the first stoke, and in an in- stant creates the new man, as the earthly man was formerly drawn from nothing. The grossest of all mistakes, my dear hearer ; con- version is in general a slow and tardy miracle, the fruit of cares, of troubles, of fears, and of bitter anxieties. The days, saith Jesus Christ, which are to precede the utter destruction of this visible world and the coming of the Son oT Man, shall be days of trouble and woe; nations shall rise against nations, and kings against kings ; horrible signs shall be seen m the firma- ment long before the King of Glory himself shall appear ; all nature shall announce, by its disorder, the approaching destruction and the coming of its God. Ah ! my dear hearer, behold the image of the change of your heart, of the destruction of that world of passions within you, of the coming of the Son of Man into your soul. Long before that great event, internal wars shall take place ; you shall feel your passions excited one against the -other; blessed signs of salvation shall appear upon your person ; all shall be shaken, all shall be disturbed; all within you shall announce the des- truction of the carnal man, the coming of the Son of God, the end of your iniquities, the renovation of your soul, a new heaven and a new earth . Ah ! when these blessed things shall come to pass, then lift up your head, and say that your redemption draweth nio-h ; then be confident, and adore the awful but consolatory pre- parations of a God who is on the eve of entering into your heart. But, while nothing is shaken within you, and no change appears in your soul ; while your heart faileth not for fear, and your passions, still tranquil, remain undisturbed but by the obstacles which retard their gratification ; ah ! mistrust those who shall tell you tliat the Lord draweth nigh ; that you will immediately find him in the Banctuary, I mean to say, in the participation of the sacrament in those retired places to which you shall perhaps go to comfort him in the person of his afflicted members; who will be continually saying, " Lo, here is Christ;" believe them not; they are false prophets, saith Jesus Christ : no sign of his coming hath taken 312 ON FALSK TRUST. place within you ; in vain you expect and presume ; it is not in this manner that he will come ; trouble and dread walk before him ; and the soul who continues tranquil, and yet trusts, shall never be visited by him. " Happy, therefore, is the man that feareth always :" he whose virtues do not entirely quiet him upon his eternal destiny, who tremble lest the imperfections mingled with his most laudable works not only destroy their whole merit before God, but even rank them among those which God shall puirish on the day of his wrath. But what idea, will some one say to me, do you give us of the God we worship ! An idea worthy of him, my brethren ; and, in my second part, I shall prove to you, that false trust is injurious to him, and forms to itself the idea of a God, who is neither true, wise, just, nor even merciful. Part II. — It is rather surprising, my brethren, that false trust should pretend to find even in religion motives which authorize it, and should mistake the most criminal of all dispositions, for a sen- timent of salvation, and a fruit of faith and of grace. In effect, the the sinner, who, without wishing to quit his irregularities, promises himself a change, alleges, in justification of his presumption, first, the power of God, who ruleth over the hearts of men, who can change in an instant the will, and to whom it is equally easy to produce the child of promise from the sterility of old age, as from the fecundity of youth. Secondly, his justice, for having formed man of clay, that is to say, weak, and with almost unconquerable tendencies to pleasure, he ought to have some consideration for his weakness, and more readily pardon faults which are, f.s it were, unavoidable to him. Lastly, his mercy, always ready to receive the repentant sinner. Now, my brethren, it is easy to take from false trust pretexts so unworthy of piety, and show that the dispo- sition of the presuming sinner insults God in all the above-mentioned perfections. Allow me to explain my reasons, and continue to ho- nour me with your attention. In the first place, when you conceive a powerful God, master of hearts, and changing at his pleasure the rebellious wills of men, is it not true, that you at the same time conceive a power regulated by wisdom, that is to say, which doth nothing but in conformity with that order it hath established ? Now, the presumptuous sinner attributes to God a blind power, which acts indiscriminately. For, though he can whatever he willeth, nevertheless, as he is infinitely wise, there is an order in his wills ; he willeth not at random, and whatever he doth hath its eternal reasons in the depth of his divine wisdom. Now, it is evident that this divine wisdom would not be sufficiently justified before men, if the grace of conversion were to be at last accorded to false trust. For say, in order to merit the greatest of all favours, it would then be sufficient to have a thousand times rejected it? The ON FALSE TRUST. 313 righteous man, who continually crucifies his flesh, who incessantly groans in order to obtain the precious gift of perseverance, would then have no better claim than the sinner, who, without having ever placed himself in a situation to merit it, hath always promised it to himself? It would then be perfectly indifferent either to serve the Lord, and to walk uprightly before him, or to pursue the erroneous ways of the passions, since, at the end, the lot of each would be the same? Much more, it would then be a misfortune, a. folly, a lost trouble, to have carried the yoke from youth, since nothing would be risked by delaying it? The maxims of debau- chery, on the love of pleasures in the early stage of life, and on de- ferring repentance to the years of decrepitude and debility, would then be the rules of wisdom and of rehgion? The wonders of grace would then serve but to tempt the fidelity of the just, but to authorize the impenitence of sinners, but to destroy the fruit of the sacrament, and to augment the ills of the church? Is this the God whom we worship ? And would he be so wonderful in his gifts, according to the expression of the prophet, if he were to dispense them with so little either of order or of wisdom? In effect, if the empire which God hath over hearts could serve as a resource for a presumptuous sinner, upon that footing the conversion of all men would be certain, even of those infidels who know not the Lord, of those barbarous nations who have never heard his name. Doth God not rule over the hearts of all men? Who hath ever withstood his will? Is he not able to make his light shine through the profoundest darkness, to change into lambs the fiercest lions, and to turn his enemies into the most intrepid confessors of his name? Is the heart of an Indian, or of a savage, a more arduous conquest to him than that of a presumptuous sinner? Is not every thing alike easy to him? He Jiath only to say, and it is done. Yet, nevertheless, would you thereupon be willing that your eternal destiny should run the same hazard as that of a savage, who, in the heart of his forests, almost inaccessible to the preaching of the gospel, worships absurd and monstrous divi- nities? God may raise up, in his favour, evangelical ministers, who, along with the lights of faith, shall bring grace and salvation to his soul. You say that it requires one of those miraculous efforts of the Almighty power to overcome all the difficulties which apparently render the conversion of that unfortunate creature im- possible: on the contrary, that you, surrounded with the aids of the sacrament, with the light of the doctrine and of instruction, are surely in a situation much more likely to secure your salvation and consequently, that you have infinitely more ground to promise it to yourself. Ah ! my dear hearer, you deceive yourself, and I assure you, that, to me, the salvation of that infidel appears less hopeless than yours. He has never abused favours which he has never received; and hitherto you have unworthily rejected all those 314 ON FALSE TRUST. which have been olfered to you: he has never resisted that truth which he has never known, and you iniquitously withstand it: the first impulse of grace will triumph over his heart, and the strongest impressions are ineffectual against the inflexibility of yours : a single ray of light will disclose to him errors and truths till then unknown, and all the lights of faith are unable to disturb the tranquillity of your passions: he holds out to the mercy of God only the misfortune of his birth, only sins almost involuntary, only wretchedness rather than crimes, all of them proper motives to affect him, and you hold out to him affected acts of ingratitude and vile perseverance in obstinacy, all subjects calculated to re- move him for ever from you. Ah ! it is easy for the Lord to bear upon the wings across the seas apostolical men; his angels, when he pleaseth, know to transport his prophets from the land in which he is worshipped, even into Babylon, in order to visit a just man exposed to the fury of lions; but if any thing were difficult to him, it would be that of conquering a rebellious heart, of recalling a soul born in the kingdom of hght, surrounded with all the succours of faith, penetrated with all the feelings of grace, aided by all the examples of piety, and, nevertheless, always firm in its errors. It is an illusion, therefore, in his power to search for vain motives of security; God could operate so many other prodigies in favour of a thousand sinners whom he forsaketh, although they be not so unworthy as you of his grace. It is a dangerous maxim to regulate his will upon his power. The second error which authorizes false trust, has its foundation in the unjust idea formed of the divine justice. They persuade themselves that, man being born with violent inclinations for plea- sure, our errors are more worthy of the pity than of the anger of the Lord; and that our weakness alone solicits his favour, in place of arming his indignation against us. But, in the first place, it might be said to you, that the corrup- tion of your nature comes not from the Creator; that it is the work of man, and the punishment of his sin; that the Lord had created man righteous; and consequently, that this unfortunate tendency, of which you complain, is an irregularity which God must punish whenever you fall under it; how then can you suppose that it shall serve you as an excuse? It is in consequence of it that you are a child of wrath and an outcast vessel: how do you pretend to draw reasons from thence, in order to enter into contestation even with God, and to challenge his justice? It is, in a word, in conse- quence of it that you are unworthy of all favours: how dare you to hold it out as a reason for demanding them? Secondly. It might be said to you, that, whatever be the weakness of our will, man is always master of his desires; that he hath been left under the charge of his own resolution ; that his passions have no more empire over him than what he himself ON FALSK TRUST. 315 chooses to allow them ; and that water, as well as fire, hath been placed in our way, in order to alloAv a perfect freedom of choice to our own will. Ah ! I could herein attest your own conscience, and demand of you, above all, of you my dear hearer, if, in spite of your weakness, whenever you have forsaken the law of God, you have not felt that it wholly depended upon yourself to have continued faithful? If piercing lights have not discovered to you all the horror of your transgression ; if secret remorses have not turned you away from it; if you have not then hesitated between pleasure and duty; if, after a thousand internal deliberations, and those secret vicissitudes, where one while grace, and the other while cu- pidity gained the victory, you have not at last declared for guilt, as if still trembling, and almost unable to harden yourself against yourself? I might go even farther, and demand of you, if, con- sidering the happy inclinations of modesty and of reserve, the dis- positions with which God had favoured you at your birth, the innocency of virtue would not have been more natural, more , pleasing, and more easy to you than the licentiousness of vice ; demand of you, if you have not suffered more by being unfaithful to your God, than it would have cost you to have been righteous; if you have not been obliged to encroach more upon yourself, to do more violence to your heart, to bear with more vexations, to force your way through more intricate and more arduous paths? Ah! what then can the justice of God find in your dissipations which doth not furnish to him fresh matter of severity and anger against you ? Lastly. It might be added, that, if you are born weak, yet the goodness of God hath environed your soul with a thousand aids ; that it is that well-beloved vine which he hath fostered with the tenderest care, which he hath fenced with a deep moat, and fortified with an inaccessible tower; I mean to say, that your soul hath been as if defended from its birth by the succours of the sacrament, by the lights of the doctrine, by the force of examples, by continual inspirations of grace, and perhaps by the special aids hkewise of a holy and a Christian education pro- vided for you by the Lord, and which so many others have wanted. Ingrate! wherein could you be able to justify your weakness before the Lord, and to interest his justice itself to use indulgence toward you ? Ah ! what do your transgressions present to him but the abuses of his grace, and means of salva- tion perverted, through the licentiousness of your will, into occasions of sin ? But let us leave all these reasons, and tell me, that weakness of which you complain, and for which you pretend that God will have consideration, is it not your own handwork, and the fruit of your own special irregularities ? Recollect here, those happy days when your innocecce had not been wrecked ; were your pas- sions then so difficult to be overcome? > Did modesty, temperance. 316 ON FALSE TRUST. fidelity, piety, then appear to you as impracticable virtues? Did you find it impossible to resist occasions? Were your tendencies to pleasure so violent that you were not then their master ? Ah ! whence comes it then that they now tyrannize with such dominion over your heart? Is it not, that having-, through a fatal negligence, allowed them to usurp the command, they have ever since been too powerful to be conquered ? Have you not forged, with your own hands, these chains? Look around you, and see if so many just, who bear (and from their earliest youth) the yoke, are even tempted in situations in which you are always certain to perish. Ah ! why then should you complain of a weakness which you have brought upon yourself? Why should you count, that what must irritate the Lord against you shall serve to appease him? What doth he see, when he sees the weak- ness of your inclinations? He sees the fruit of your crimes, the con- sequences of a licentious and sensual life. Is it here that you dare to appeal to justice itself, to that justice before which the righteous themselves entreat not to be judged? My God! upon what shall the sinner not flatter himself, since, in the most terrible of thy per- fections, he finds reasons of confidence? The only rational and legitimate conclusion which it is permitted to you to draw from your own weakness, and from these inclina- tions for the world, and for pleasures, which, in spite of your reso- lutions, hurry you away, is, that you have more occasion to watch, to lament, and to pray, than others; that, with more studious care, you ought to shun the dangers and the attractions of the senses and of the flesh. But then it is that you believe yourself invincible, when we exhort you to fly all profane conversations, suspicious inter- courses, doubtful pleasures, lascivious spectacles, and assemblies of sin. Ah ! you then defend yourself upon the ground that your innocence is in no degree injured there : you resign to weak souls all the precautions of flight and of circumspection: you tell us that every one must feel and know himself, and that those who are weak enough to be injured there, should in prudence keep away from them. But how can you expect that God shall have consideration for a weakness for which you have so little yourself ? You are weak when there is question of excusing your crimes to him ; you are no longer so, when, upon that ground, it is necessary to adopt painful measures in order to continue faithful to him. But you will say, that if every thing be to be dreaded from his justice, at least his mercies are infinite; when his goodness should find nothing in us proper to touch him, would it not find motives sufiiciently pressing in itself? This would be the third illusion of false trust which I should have to overthrow ; but, besides that I have elsewhere sufficiently mentioned it, it is almost time to con- clude. I mean, therefore, my dear hearer, to ask you only one question: When you say that the goodness of God is infinite, what do you pretend to say? That he never punishes guilt? You would not dare to mean so. That he never abandons the sinner ? The ON FALSE TRUST. 317 Sauls, the Antiochuses, the Pharaohs, have taught you the con- trary. That the immodest, the worldly, the revengeful, the ambi- tious, shall be alike saved as the just? You know that nothing unclean shall enter heaven. That he hath not created man to render him eternally miserable? But wherefore hath he prepared a hell? That he hath already given you a thousand marks of his goodness? But that is what ought to overwhelm your ingratitude on the past, and to make you to dread every thing for the future. That he is not so terrible as it is said? But nothing is told of hie justice but what he has told you himself. That he would be under the necessity of damning almost all men were all that we say true? But the gospel declares to you, in express terms, that few shall be saved : that he punisheth not but at the worst ? But every rejected grace may be the term of his mercies. That it costs him nothing to forgive ? But hath he not the interests of his glory to attend to? That little is required to disarm him ? But a change must take place, and the changing of the heart is the greatest of all his works. That that lively trust which you have in his good- ness can come only from him? But whatever leads not to him, by leading to repentance, can never come from him. What then do you mean to say? That he will not reject the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart? And behold, my dear hearer, what I have all along been preaching to you. Turn to the Lord, and then place your trust in him; whatever your crimes may be, his mercy is always open to the repentant sinner; throw yourself unreservedly upon his goodness for the permanence of your conversion, for per- severance in his service, for victory over the numerous obstacles which the enemy to salvation will continually be throwing in the way of your holy desires ; the grace which he doth, in inspiring the feelings of a sincere penitence, is always a blessed presage of those which he prepareth : never mistrust his mercy ; there is nothing but what may be expected from him, when it is the sorrow of having offended him which intreats it; never allow yourself to be cast down by the remembrance of your past iniquities ; whatever can be weeped can be pardoned : lock up in the bosom of his mercy the whole duration of the days which you have employed in offending him ; they will be as though they had never been : from the moment that you shall begin to serve him, ydu will begin to increase before him; a thousand years are only a day in his eyes, from the moment that your crimes are terminated by a sincere change : he is the God of sinners, the Benefactor of the ungrateful, the Father of prodigal children, the Shepherd of strayed sheep, the friend of Samaritans; in a word, all the consolations of faith seem to be for the repentant sinner. But if you continue to promise yourself, that, at last, the time will come, when you shall seriously think upon your salvation without doing it still; ah! remember, my dear hearer, that it is in that very way that almost all sinners have perished, and that it is 318 ON FALSE TRUST. the high-road to death in sin. Remember, that the sinner who often vainly desires is never converted. Even the more you feel within you these unproductive impulses of salvation, depend upon it that the more is your measure filled, and that every rejected grace draws you a degree nearer to hardness of heart : comfort yourself not upon desires which hasten your ruin, and which, in all times, have been the lot of the reprobate; and say often to the Lord, with the prophet, How long, O my God ! shall I amuse the secret anxieties of my soul with vain projects of penitence? How long shall I see my days flowing rapidly on in promising to my heart, in order to quiet it in its disorders, a sorrow and a repentance which are more and more distant from me ? How long shall the enemy, taking advantage of my weakness, employ so gross an error to seduce me? Ah! dissipate this illusion which leads me astray j regard these feeble desires of salvation as the cries of a conscience which cannot be happy without thee; accept these timid beginnings of penitence; favourably attend to them now, O my God! when to me it seems that thy grace renders them more lively and more sin- cere; and complete, by thy inward operation, what is yet wanting to the fulness and to the sincerity of this offer ; and perfect, in receiving, my desires, in order that they be worthy of the reward which thou promisest to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Hear, said the Lord in his prophet, to the unfaithful soul, you who live in ease and in pleasures, and who nevertheless hope in me, sterility and widowhood shall at once burst upon your heads; sterility, that is to say, that you shall no longer be fit to bear the fruits of penitence ; cultivation and watering shall be in vain; the power of my word, the virtue of my sacraments, the grace of my mysteries, all care shall be unavailing, and you shall no longer be but a withered tree allotted to the fire : widowhood, that is to say, I will for ever forsake you ; I will leave you single ; I will deliver you up to your inclinations, and to the false peace of your passions ; I will no longer be your God, your protector, your spouse; I will for ever forsake you. But may I here finish my ministry, my brethren, with the words formerly made use of by Jesus Christ, in finishing his mission to an ungrateful people ? You have refused to believe in me, said he to them a few days before his death; you have shut your eyes against the light; you have had ears, yet you heard not: I go, and you shall die in your blindness. If you were still blind, and if you had never known the truth, your sin would be more excusable ; but at present, you see, I have announced to you the truths which my Father had taught me, and therefore your sin is without excuse : your obstinacy is con- summate; you have rejected that salvation which shall be offered to you no more, and the guilt of the truth despised must for ever be upon your head . ON THE VICES AND VIRTUES, &C. 319 Great God ! should this th&n -be the price of my toils, and the whole fruit of ray ministry ? Could the unwortMness of the in- strument, which thou hast employed to announce thy word, have destroyed its efficacy, and placed a fatal impediment to the pro- gress of the gospel? No, my dear brethren, the virtue of the word of the cross is not attached to that of the minister who an- nounces it. In the hands of the Lord, clay can give sight to the blind ; and, when he pleaseth, the walls of Jericho fall at the sound of the weakest trumpets. I trust then in the Lord for you, my brethren, that having received his word with gladness, as Paul formerly said to the believers of Corinth, that, having received it, not as the word of man, but as the word of God, it shall fructify in you; and that, on the awful day of judgment, when account shall be demanded from me of my ministry, and from you of the fruit which you have reaped from it, I shall be your defence and your justification, and you my glory and my crown. So do I ardently wish it. SERMON XIX. ON THE VICES AND VIRTUES OF THE GREAT. " And the Devil showetb him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them : and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and wor- ship me." — Matthew iv. 8, 9. Human prosperities have always been one of the most danger^ ous wiles employed by the devil to entrap men. He knows that the love of fame and of distinction is so natural to us, that, in ge- neral, nothing is considered as too much for their attainment; and that the use of them is so seducing, and so apt to lead astray, that nothing is more rare than piety surrounded with pomp and power. Nevertheless, it is God alone who raiseth up the great and the powerful ; who placeth you above the rest, in order to be the fathers of the people, the comforters of the afflicted, the refuge of the help- less, the supports of the church, the protector of virtue, and the models of all believers.'' Suffer then, my brethren, that, entering into the spirit of our gospel, I here lay before you the dangers, as well as the advan- 320 ON THE VICES AND VIRTUES tages of your state; and that I point out to you the obstacles and the faculties which the rank, to which, through Providence, you are born, presents to your discharge of the duties of a Chris- tian life. Great temptations, I confess, are attached to your station ; but it has likewise as great resources. People of rank are born, it would seem, with more passions than the rest of men; yet have they also the opportunity of practising more virtues : their vices are followed with more consequences; but their piety become also more bene- ficial : in a word, they are much more culpable than the people, when they forget their God ; but they have likewise more merit in remaining faithful to him. My intention, therefore, at present, is to represent to you the extensive good, or the boundless evils, which always accompany your virtues or vices; to convince you of what influence the elevated rank to which you are born, is toward good, or toward evil; and, lastly, to render irregularity odious to you, by unfolding the inex- plicable consequences which your passions drag after them; and piety amiable, through the unutterable benefits which always follow your good examples. It would matter little to point out the dan- gers of your station, were the advantages of it not likewise to be shown. The Christian pulpit declaims in general against the grandeurs and glory of the age ; but it would be of little avail to be continually speaking of your complaints, were their remedies not held out to you at the same time. These are the two truths which I mean to unite in this Discourse, by laying before you the endless consequences of the vices of the great and powerful, and what inestimable benefits flow from their virtues. Part I. — "A sore trial shall come upon the mighty, says the Spirit of God; for mercy will soon pardon the meanest; but mighty men shall be mightily tormented." It is not, my brethren, because he is mighty himself, that the Lord, as the Scriptures say, rejects the great and the mighty, or that rank and dignity are titles hateful in his eyes, to which his favours are denied, and which, of themselves, constitute our guilt. With the Lord there is no exception of persons : he is the Lord of the cedars of Lebanon, as well as of the humble hyssop of the valley : he causes his sun to rise over the highest mountains, as well as over the lowest and obscures places : he hath formed the stars of heaven, as well as the worms which crawl upon the earth : the great are even more natural images of his greatness and glory, the ministers of his authority, the means through which his liberalities and generosity are poured out upon his people. And I come not here, my brethren, in the usual language, to pronounce anathemas against human grandeurs, and to make your station a crime, since that very station comes from God, and that the object in question is not so much to exaggerate OF THE GKKAT. 321 the perils of it, as to point out the infinite ways of salvation attached to that rank to which, throucrh the will of Providence, yon have been born. But, 1 say, that tlie sins of the great and powerful have two characters of enormity which render them infinitely more punishable before God than the" sins of the commonalty of believers. First, the scandal; secondly, ingratitude. The scandal. There is no crime to which the gospel leaves less hopes of forgiveness than that of being a stumbling-block to our brethren: "Wo unto the man," said Jesus Christ, "who shall oflfend one of these little ones which believe in me; it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." First, because you destroy a soul whicli ought eternally to have enjoyed God. Secondly, because you occasion your brother to perish, for whom Jesus Clirist had died. Thirdly, because you become the minister of the devil's designs for the destruction of souls. Fourthly, because you are that man of sin, that antichrist, of whom the apostle speaks ; for Jesus Christ hath saved man, and you destroy him; Jesus Christ hath raised up true worshippers to his Father, and you deprive him of them; Jesus Christ hath gained us by his blood, and you snatch his conquest from him ; Jesus Christ is the physician of souls, and you are their corrupter; he is their way, and you are their snare; he is the shepherd who comes in search of his perishing sheep, and you are the ravenous wolf which slays and destroys those his Father had given him. Fifthly, because all other sins die, as I may say, with the sinner; but the fruit of his scandals y.'dl outlive him, and his crimes will not go down with him into the touib of his fathers. Achan was punished with so much rigour for having taken only a wedge of gold from among the spoils which were consecrated to the Lord: My God! what then shall be the punishment of him who deprives Jesus Christ of a soul which was his precious spoil, redeemed not with gold and silver, but with all the divine blood of the Lamb without strain? The golden calf was reduced into powder for having occasioned the prevarication of Israel : Great God ! and could all the splendour which surrounds the great and the powerful shelter them from thy wrath, when their exaltation becomes only a stumbling-block and a source of idolatry to the people? The brazen serpent itself, that sacred monument of God's mercies upon Judah, was broken in pieces for having been an occasion of scandal to the tribes: My God ! and the sinner, already so odious through his own crimes, shall he be spared when he becomes a snare and a stumbling- block to his brethren ? Now, iny brethren, such is the first character which always accompanies your sins, you who are exalted, throusrh rank or birth, over the commonalty of believers :— the scandal. The obscure and vulgar hve only for themselves. Mingled in the crowd, and Y 322 ON THE VICES AND VIRTUES concealed by the abjectness of their lot from the eyes of men, God alone is the secret witness of their ways, and the invisible spectator of their backslidings: if they fall, or if they remain stedfast, it is for the Lord alone, who sees and who judges them; the world, which is unacquainted even with their names, is equally uninstructed by their examples; their life is without consequence; they may depart from the right path, but they quit it alone ; and if they accomplish not their own salvation, their ruin is, at least, confined to themselves, and has no influence over that of their brethren. But persons of an exalted station are like a public pageant, upon which all eyes are fixed ; they are those houses built upon a summit, the sole situation of which renders them visible from afar; those flaming torches, the splendour of which at once betrays and exposes them to view. Such is the misfortune of greatness and of rank; you no longer live for yourselves alone; to your destruction or to your salvation is attached the destruction or the salvation of almost all those around you : your manners form the manners of tire people ; your examples are the rules of the multitude ; your actions are as well known as your titles; it is impossible for you to err unknown to the public, and the scandal of your faults is always the melan- choly privilege of your rank. I say, the scandal, first, of imitation. Men always willingly copy after evil, but more especially when held out by great examples; they then ground a kind of vanity upon their errors, because it is through these that they resemble you. The people consider it as giving them an air of consequence to tread in your steps. The city thinks it an honour to adopt all the vices of the court. Your manners form a poison which penetrates even into the provinces; which infects all stations, and gives a total change' to the public manners; which decks out licentiousness with an air of nobility and spirit, and, in place of the simplicity of our ancient manners, substitutes the miserable novelty of your pleasures, of your luxury, of your profusions, and of your profane indecencies. Thus from you it is that obscene fashions, vanity of dress, those artifices which dishonour a visage where modesty alone ought to be painted, the rage of gaming, freedom of manners, licentiousness of conversations, unbridled passions, and all the corruption of our ages, pass to the people. And from whence, think you, my brethren, comes that unbridled licentiousness which reigns among the people? Those who live far from you, in the most distant provinces, still preserve, at least, some "remains of their ancient simplicity and the primitive innocence ; they live in a happy igiiorance of the greatest part of those abuses which are now, through your examples, become laws. But the nearer the countries approach to you, the more is the change of manners visible, the more is innocence adul- terated, the more the abuses are common, and the greatest OK TIIK GREAT. 323 crime of the people is to be acquainted with your manners and your customs. After the chiefs of the tribes had entered into the tents of the daughters of Midian, all Judah went aside from the Lord, and few were to be found who had kept free from the general guilt. Great God ! how terrible shall one day be the trial of the great and powerful, since, besides their own endless passions, they shall be made accountable to thee for the public irregularities, the depravity of the manners, and the corruption of their age ; and since even the sins of the people shall become their own special sins ! Secondly. A scandal of compliance. They endeavour to please, by imitating you; your inferiors, your creatures, your dependents, consider a resemblance to you as the high road to your favour : they copy your vices, because you hold them out to them as virtues; they enter into your fancies, in order to enter into your confidence ; they outrival each other in copying, or in surpassing you, because, in your eyes, their greatest merit is in resembling you. Alas! how many weak souls, born with the principles of virtue, and who, far from you, would have nursed only those dispositions favour- able to salvation, have had their innocence wrecked through the unfortunate necessity in which their fortune placed them of imi- tating you ? Thirdly. A scandal of impunity. You could never reprehend, in your dependants, those abuses and those excesses which you allow to yourself: you are under a necessity of suffering in them what you have no inclination to refuse to yourself: your eyes must be shut upon disorders which are authorized by your own manners ; and you are forced to pardon those who resemble you, lest you condemn yourself. A woman of the world, wholly devoted to the art of pleasing, spreads through all her household an air of licenti- ousness and of worldliness ; her house becomes a rock from whence innocence never departs uninjured ; every one imitates at home what she displays abroad ; and she must pass over these irregu- larities, because her own manners do not permit her to censure them. What excesses, in those houses kept open and appropriated to everlasting gaming, among that people, as I may say, of domes- tics, whom vanity has multiplied beyond all number! You know the truth of this, my brethren, and the dignity of the Christian pulpit does not forbid me from repeating it here. How dearly do these unfortunate wretches pay for your pleasures, who, out of your sight, and no check to restrain them, fill up the idle time which your pleasures leave to them, in every excess adapted to the meanness of their education and their abject nature, and which they think themselves authorized in doing by your examples ! O my God, if he who neglects his people be worse in thy sight than an infidel, what then is the guilt of him who scandalizes them, and is the cause of their finding death and condemnation where they Y 2 324 ON THE VICES AND VIRTUES ought to have found the succours of salvation and the asyhim of their innocence ? Fourthly. A scandal of employment and of necessity. How many unfortiuiate wretches perish in order to feed your pleasures and your iniquitous passions ! For you alone the dangerous arts subsist : the theatres are erected solely for your criminal recrea- tions; profane harmonies every where resound, and corrupt so many hearts only to flatter the corruption of yours ; the works, fatal to innocence, are transmitted to posterity solely through the favour of your names and protection. It is you alone, my brethren, who give to the world lascivious poets, pernicious authors, and profane writers : it is to please you that these corrupters of the public man- ners perfect their talents, and seek their exaltation and fortune in a success, the only end of which is the destruction of souls : it is you alone who protect, reward, and produce them ; who take from them, by honouring them with your familiarity, that mark of disgrace and infamy with which they had been stigmatized by the laws of the church and of the state, and which degraded them in theeyes of men. Thus it is through you that the people participate in these de- baucheries ; that this poison infects the cities and provinces ; that these public pleasures become the source of the public miseries and licentiousness ; that so many unfortunate victims renounce their modesty to gratify your pleasures, and, seeking to improve the me- diocrity of their fortune by the exercise of talents which your pas- sions alone have rendered useful and recommendable, come upon criminal theatres to express passions for the gratification of yours ; to perish in order to please ; to sacrifice their innocence, in occa- sioning the loss of it to those who listen to them ; to become public rocks, and the scandal of religion ; to bring n^isery and dissension even into your families, and to punish you, woman of the world, for the support and the credit which you give them by your presence and your applauses, by becoming the criminal object of the passion and of the ill-conduct of your children, and perhaps dividing with yourself the heart of your husband, and completely ruining his affairs and fortune. Fifthly. A scandal of duration. It is little, my brethren, that the corruption of our age is almost wholly the work of the great and powerful ; the ages to come will likewise be indebted to you, perhaps, for a part of their licentiousness and excesses. Those pro- fane poems, which have seen the light solely through your means, shall still corrupt hearts in the following ages : those dangerous authors, whom you honour with your protection, shall pass into the hands of your posterity ; and your crimes shall be multiplied with that dangerous venom which they contain, and which (shall be communicated from age to age. Even your passions, immortalized in history, after having been a scandal in their time, will also become one in the following ages : the reading or THK GREAT. 325 of your errors, preserved to posterity, shall raise up imitators after your death : instructions in guilt will be sought for in the narra- tive of your adventures; and your excesses shall not expire with you. The voluptuousness of Solomon still furnishes blasphemies and derisions to the impious, and motives of confidence to liber- tinism; the infamous passion of Potiphar's wife hath been pre- served down to us, and her rank hath immortalized her weakness. Such is the destiny of the vices and of the passions of the great and powerful: they do not live for their own age alone; they live for the ages to come, and the duration of their scandal hath no other limits than that of their name. You know this to be a truth, my brethren. Do tl^ey not, at present, continue to read, with new danger, those scandalous me- moirs composed in the age of our fathers, which have transmitted down to us the excesses of the preceding courts, and immortalized the paissions of the principal persons who figured in them? The irregularities of an obscure people, and of the rest of men who then lived, remain sunk in oblivion: their passions terminated with them; their vices, obscure as their names, have escaped history; and, with regard to us, they are as though they had never been ; and the errors of those who are distinguished in their age by their rank and birth, are all that now remains to us of these past times. It is their passions that continually inflame new ones, even at this day, through the licentiousness of, and the open manner in which they are mentioned by the authors who hand them down to us; and the sole privilege of their condition is, that, while the vices of the lower orders of people sink with themselves, those of the great and the powerful spring up again, as I may say, from their ashes, pass from age to age, are engraven on the public monuments, and are never blotted out from the memory of men. What crimes, great God ! which are the scandal of all ages, the rock of all sta- tions, and which, even to the end, shall serve as an excitement to vice, as a pretext to the sinner, and as a lasting model of debau- chery and licentiousness ! Lastly. A scandal of seduction. Your examples, in honouring vice, render virtue contemptible. The Christian life becomes so ridiculous, that those who profess it are almost ashamed of it be- fore you. The exterior of piety has an ungracious and awkward appearance, which is concealed in your presence, as if it were a bent which dishonours the mind. How many souls, touched by God, only resist his grace and his spirit through the dread of for- feiting with you that degree of confidence which a long society in pleasures hath given to them ! How many souls, disgusted with the world, yet who have not the courage to declare themselves, and return to God, lest they expose themselves to your senseless derisions, still continue to copy your manners, upon which they have been fully undeceived by grace, and, through an unrighteous complaisance and respect for your rank, take a thousand steps 326 ON THE VICES AND VIRTUES from which their new faith and likewise their inclination are equally distant! I speak not of the prejudices which you perpetuate in the world against virtue ; of those lamentable discourses against the godly, which your authority confirms ; which pass from you to the people, and keep up, in all stations, those ancient prepossessions against piety, and those continual derisions of the righteous, which deprive virtue of all its dignity, and harden sinners in vice. And from thence, my brethren, how many righteous seduced ! how many weak led astray ! how many wavering souls retained in sin ! how many impious and libertine souls strengthened ! What an obstacle do you become to the fruit of our ministry! How many hearts, already prepared, oppose, to the force of the truth which we announce, only the long engagements which bind them to your manners and to your pleasures, and find within themselves only you who serve as a vv^all and a buckler against grace ! My God ! what a scourge for the age, what a misfortune f6r the people, is a grandee according to the world, who lives not in the fear of thee, who knows thee not, and who acts in contempt of thy laws and eternal ordinances! It is a present which thou sendest to men in thy wrath, and the most dreadful mark of thine indignation upon the cities and upon the kingdoms. Yes, my brethren, behold what you are when you belong not to God. Such is the first character of your faults, — the scandal. Your lot decides in general that of the people: the excesses of the lower ranks are always the consequence of your excesses; and the transgressions of Jacob, said the prophet, that is to say, of the people and of the tribes, came only from Samaria, the seat of the great and of the mighty. But, even granting that no new degree of enormity should be specially attached to the great by the scandal inseparable from their sins, ingratitude, which forms the second character of them, would be amply sufficient to attract, upon their heads, that neglect of God by which his bowels are for ever shut to compassion and clemency. I say ingratitude: for God hath preferred you to so many unfortunate fellow-creatures who languish in obscurity and in want: he hath exalted you, and hath caused you to be born amid splendour and abundance; he hath chosen you above all the people, to load you with benefits; in you alone he hath as- sembled riches, honours, titles, distinctions, and all the advan- tages of the earth. It would seem that his providence watches only for you, while so many unfortunate millions eat the bread of tribulation and of sorrow. The earth seems to be produced for you alone; the sun to rise and to go down solely for you; even the rest of men seem born only for you, and to contribute to your grandeur and purposes. It would appear that the Lord is occupied solely with you, while he neglecteth so many obscure OF THK GKKAr. 327 &*ouIs, whose days are days of sorrow and want, and for whom it would seem that there is no God upon earth. Yot, nevertheless, you turn against God all t' {%t you have received from his hands; your abundance serves for the indulgence of your passions; your exaltation facilitates your criminal pleasures, and his blessings become your crimes. Yes, my brethren, while thousands of unfortunate fellow-crea- tures, upon whom his hand is so heavy; while an obscure populace, for whom life has nothing but hardships and toil, invoke and bless him, raise up their hands to him in the simplicity of their heart, regard hira as their father, and give him every mark of an unaf- fected piety, and of a sincere religion — you, whom he loads with his benefits; you, for whom the entire world seems to be made, you acknowledge him not; you deign not to lift up your eyes, to him; you never bestow even a moment's reflection whether there be or be not a God above you who interferes in the things of the earth; in place of thanksgivings, you return him insults, and reli- gion is only for the people. Alas ! you think it so mean and so ungenerous when those whose advancement was your work, neglect you, deny their obli- gations, and even employ that credit which they owe solely to you, in thwarting and in ruining you. But, my brethren, they only act by you as you do toward your God. Is not your exaltation his work? Is it not his hand alone which hath separated your ancestors from the crowd, and hath placed them at the head of the people? Is it not through his providence alone that you are born of an illus- trious blood, and that you enjoy, from your birth, what a whole life of care and toil could never have afforded you reason to expect? What had you in his eyes more than so many unfortunate fellow- creatures whom he leaveth in want ? Ah ! if he had paid regard only to the natural qualities of the soul, to probity, honesty, mo- desty, innocence, how many obscure souls, born with all these virtues, might have been preferred, and would now have been occupying your place ! If he had consulted only the use which you were one day to make of his benefits, how many unfortunate souls, had they been placed in your situation, would have been an example to the people, the protectors of virtue, and in their abun- dance would have glorified God, they who even in their indigence invoke and bless him; while you, on the contrary, are the cause of his name being blasphemed, and your example becomes a seduction for his people ! He chooseth you, however, and rejecteth them; he humbleth them, and exalteth you ; for them he is a hard and severe master, and for you a liberal and bountiful father. What more could he have done to engage you to serve and to be faithful to him ? What more powerful attraction, or more likely to secure the homages of hearts than benefits ? " Thine, O Lord," said David, at the height of all his prosperity, " is the greatness, and the power, and the 328 ON THE VICKS AND VIRTUES glory: both riches and honour come from thee; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. It is just, then, O my God, to glorify thye in thy gifts ; to measure what I owe thee upon what thou hast done for me ; and to render mine exaltation, my greatness, and all that I am, subservient to thy glory." Yet, nevertheless, my brethren, the more he hath done for you, the more do you raise yourselves up against him. It is the rich and the powerful who live without other God in this world than their iniquitous pleasures. It is you alone who dis- pute the slightest homages to him; who believe yourselves to be dispensed from whatever is irksome or severe in his law; who fancy yourselves born for the sole purpose of enjoying yourselves, of applying his benefits to the gratification of your passions, and who remit to the common people the care of serving him, of returning him thanks, and of religiously observing the ordinances of his holy law. Thus frequently the people worship, and you insult him; the people appease, and you provoke him ; the people invoke, and you neglect him ; the people zealously serve him , and you look down upon his servants; the people are continually raising up their hands to him, and you doubt whether he even exists, you who alone feel the effects of his liberality and of his power; his chas- tisements form worshippers to him, and his benefits are followed with only derisions and insults. I say ills benefits : for, with regard to you, he hath not confined them to the mere external advantages of fortune. He hath likewise produced you with more favourable dispositions to virtue than the simple people ; a heart more noble, and more exalted ; happier in- clinations ; sentiments more worthy of the grandeur of faith ; more understanding, elevation of mind, knowledge, instruction, and relish for good. You have received from nature, milder passions, more cultivated manners, and all the other incidental advantages of high birth; that politeness which softens the temper; that dig- nity which restrains the sallies of the disposition; that humanity whidi renders you more open to the impressions of grace. How many benefits do you then abuse, when you live not according to God ! What a monster is a man of high rank, loaded with honours and prosperity, who never lifts up his eyes to heaven to worship the hand which bestows them ! And whence, think you, come the public calamities, the scourges with which the cities and provinces are afflicted ? It is solely in punishment of your iniquitous abuse of abundance, that God sometimes striketh the land with barrenness. His justice, irritated that you turned his own benefits against him- self, withdraws them from your passions, curses the land, permits wars and dissensions, crumbles your fortunes into dust, extinguishes your families, withers the root of your posterity. OF THE GRKAT. 329 makes your titles and possessions to pass into the hands of stran- gers, and holds you out as striking examples of the inconstancy of human affairs and the anticipated monuments of his wrath against hearts equally ungrateful and insensible to the paternal cares of his providence. Such, my brethren, are the two characters inseparable from your sins, — the scandal and the ingratitude. Behold what you are when you depart from God ; and this is what you have never perhaps paid attention to. From the moment that you are guilty, you cannot be indifferently so. The passions are the same in the people and among the powerful; but very different is the guilt; and a single one of your crimes often leads to more miseries, and hath, before God, more extended and more terrible consequences, than a whole life of iniquity in an obscure and vulgar soul. But your virtues have also the same advantage and the same lot : and this is what remains for me to prove in the last part of this Discourse. Part II. — If scandal and ingratitude be the inseparable conse- quences of the vices and passions of persons of high rank, their virtues have also two particular characters, vv'hich render them far more acceptable to God than those of common believers : firstly, the example; secondly, the authority. And this, my brethren, is a truth highly consoling to you, who are placed by Providence in an exalted station, and well calculated to animate you to serve God, and to render virtue lovely to you. For it is an illusion to consider the rank to which you are born as an obstacle to salvation, and to the duties imposed upon us by religion. The rocks are more dangerous there, I confess, than in an obscure lot,— the temptation stronger and more frequent; and, while pointing out the advantages, with regard to salvation, of high rank, I pretend not to conceal those dangers which Jesus Christ himself hath pointed out to us in the gospel, as being attached to it. I mean only to establish this truth, — that you may do more for God than the common people; that infinitely more advantages accrue to religion from the piety of a single person of distinction, than from that of almost a whole people of believers; and that you are so much the more culpable when you neglect God, in proportion to the glory that he would draw from your fidelity, and that your virtues have more extended consequences for the edification of believers. The first is the example. A soul from among the people who fears God, glorifies him only in his own heart: he is a child of light, who walks, as I may say, amid darkness : he pays his own homage, but he attracts no others to him. Shut up in the obscurity of his fortune, he lives under the eyes of God alone; he wishes that his name be glorified, and, by these desires, he renders to him that glory which he cannot do by his examples : his virtues tend 330 OS THE VICES AND VIRTUES to his own salvation ; but they are as lost for the salvation of his brethren : he is here below as a treasure hidden in the earth, which the vineyard of Jesus Christ beareth unwittingly, and of which he maketh no use. But for you, my brethren, who live exposed to the view of the public, and whose eyes are always upon you, your virtuous examples become equally shining as your names : you spread the good savour of Jesus Christ wherever that of your rank and titles is spread : you make the name of the Lord to be glorified wherever your own is known. The same elevation which makes you to be known upon the earth, likewise informs all men what you do for heaven. The wonders of grace are every where seen in your national advantages: the people, the cities, the provinces, •who are continually hearing your names repeated, feel, awaken- ed with them, that idea of virtue which your examples have attached to them. You honour piety in the opinion of the public: you preach it to those whom you know not : you become, says the prophet, like a signal of virtue raised up amid the people : a whole kingdom has its eyes upon you, and speaks of your examples, and even abroad your piety becomes equally known as your birth. Now, amid this general estimation, what attraction to virtue for the people ! First, the great models are more striking, and, when countenanced by the great, piety becomes as it were fashionable with the people. Secondly, that idea of weakness commonly attached to virtue is dissipated from the moment that you ennoble it, as I may say, with your names, and that they can produce your examples in honour of it. Thirdly, the rest of men no longer blush at modesty and frugality, when they see, in your instance, that modesty is perfectly compatible with greatness ; and that to shun luxury and profusion is so far from being a subject of shame to any rank whatever, that, on the contrary, it adds lustre and dignity to the highest rank and birth. Fourthly, how many weak souls, who would blush at virtue, are confirmed by your example, are no longer afraid of acting as you act, and who even pride themselves in following your steps! Fifthly, how many souls, still too attached to worldly interests, would dread lest piety should be an obstacle to their advancement, and perhaps find, in this temptation, an effectual bar to all their penitential desires, if they were not taught, in seeing you, that piety is useful to all, and that, while attracting the favours of Heaven, they do not prevent those of the earth ! Sixthly, your inferiors, your creatures, and all who depend upon you, view virtue in a much more amiable light, since it is become a certain way of pleasing you, and that their progress in your confidence and esteem depends upon their advancement in piety. Lastly. What an honour to religion, when, in your persons, she proves that she is still capable of forming righteous men, OF THK GREAT. 331 who despise honours, dignities, and riches; who live amidst prosperity without being dazzled with it; who enjoy the first places without losing sight of eternal riches; who possess all, as though possessing nothing ; who are greater than the whole world, and consider as dirt all the advantages of the earth, whenever they become an obstacle to promises held out by faith in heaven ! What confusion for the wicked to feel, in seeing you treading the paths of salvation amidst every human pros- perity, that virtue is not an adoption of despair! that they vainly endeavour to persuade themselves, that recourse is had to God only when forsaken by the world, since you fail not, though loaded with all the favours of the world, to love the shame of Jesus Christ ! What consolation, even for our ministry, to be enabled to employ your examples in these Christian pulpits, in overthrowing the sinners of a more obscure lot; to cite your virtues to make them blush at their vices ; to cover with shame all their vain excuses, by proving your fidelity to the law of God; that their dangers are not greater than yours; that the objects of their passions are less seductive : that more charms and more illusions are not held out by the world to them than to you ; that if grace can raise up faithful hearts even in the palaces of kings, it must be equally able to form them under the roof of the citizen and of the magistrate, and, consequently, that salvation is open to all, and that our station becomes a favourable pretext to our passions, only when the corruption of our hearts is the true reason which authorizes them. Yes, my brethren, I repeat, that, in serving God, you give a new force to our ministry ; more weight to the truths announced by us to the people ; more confidence to our zeal ; more dignity to the word of Jesus Christ; more credit to our censures; more con- solation to our toils; and, in viewing you, the world is convinced of truths which it hath disputed with us. What benefits, then,, accrue from your examples ! You accredit piety, and honour reli- gion in the mind of the people; you animate the righteous of every station; you console the servants of God; you spread throughout a whole kingdom a savour of life that overthrows vice and counte- nances virtue ; you support the rules of the gospel against the maxims of the world ; you are cited in the cities and in the most distant provinces to encourage the weak, and to aggrandize the kingdom of Jesus Christ; fathers teach your names to their chil- dren, to animate them to virtue ; and, without knowing it, you become the model of the people, the conversation of the lower orders, the edification of families, the example of every station and of every class. Scarcely had the heads of the tribes in the desert, and the most distinguished women, brought to Moses their most precious ornaments for the construction of the tabernacle, when all the people, incited by their example, presented themselves in 332 ON THE VICES AND VIRTUES crowds to offer their gifts and presents; and Moses was even under the necessity of placing bounds to their pious alacrity, and of moderating the excess of their hberahties. Ah ! my brethren, what good, once more, may your examples da among the people ! Public dissipations discredited from the moment that you cease to countenance them; indecent fashions proscribed whenever you neglect them; dangerous customs anti- quated as soon as you forsake them ; the source of almost all dis- orders dried up from the moment that you live according to God. And how many souls thereby saved — what evils prevented — ^what crimes checked — what misfortunes hindered ! What gain for reli- gion is a single person of rank, who lives according to faith ! What a present doth God make to the earth, to a kingdom, to a people, when he bestoweth grandees who live in his fear! And, should the interest even of your own soul be insufficient to render virtue amiable to you, should not the interest of so many souls, to whom, by living according to God, you are an occasion of salvation, induce you to prefer the fear and the love of his law, to all the vain pleasures of the earth? Is the heart capable of tasting a more exquisite pleasure than that of being a source of salvation and of benediction to our brethren ? And what is yet more fortunate here for you, is, that you do not live for your own age alone. I have already observed that your examples will pass to the following ages : the virtues of the simple believers perish, as I may say, with them, but your virtues will be recorded in history with your names. You will become a pious model for our posterity, equally as you have been so for the people, of your own times. Connected, through your rank and your em- ployments, with the principal events of our age, you will be trans- mitted with them to the ages to come. Succeeding courts will still find the history of your piety and of your manners blended with the public history of our days. You will do credit to piety even in the ages to follow. The memory of your virtues, preserved in our annals, will still serve as an instruction to those of your descendants who shall read them ; and it shall one day be said of you, as of those men full of glory and of righteousness, mentioned by Scripture, that your piety has not finis.hed with you; that your bodies, indeed, are buried in peace, but that your name liveth for evermore, that your seed standeth for ever, and that your name shall not be blotted out. Nor is this all : the example renders your virtues a public good, which is their first character; but authority, which is their second, finishes and sustains the endless good which your examples have begun. And, in speaking of the authority, why can I not here unfold all the immensity of the fruitful consequences of the piety of the great, which this idea excites in my mind? First. The protection of virtue. Timid virtue is often oppressed OF TIIK CRKAT. 333 because it wants either boldness to show itself, or protection to defend it; obscure virtue is often despised, because nothino- exalts it to the eyes of the senses, and the world is deliohted to turn into a crime against piety the obscurity of those who practise it. But, so soon as you adopt its cause, ah ! virtue no longer wants protection: you become the interpreters of the godly with the prince, and the channels by which they find continual access to the throne ; you bring righteous characters into office, who become public examples; you bring to light servants of God, men of learning and of virtue, who would have remained in the dust, and who, through favour of your support, appear to the public, employ their talents, contribute to the edification of believers, to the'instruction of the people, to the consummation of the holy, teach the rules of virtue to those who know them not, will teach them to our descendants, and will hand down, to all ages to come, with the pious monuments of their own zeal, the immortal fruits of that protection with which you have honoured virtue, and of your love for the righteous. What shall I say? — You strengthen the zeal of the godly in holy undertakings; and your protection animates and enables them to conquer all the obstacles which the demon constantly throws in the way of works which are to glorify God and to contribute to the salvation of souls. What noble foundations and pious designs, now carried into execution, would have failed, if the authority of a righteous man in office had not removed the impediments which rendered their accomplishment apparently impossible ! What more shall I say? — By your examples you render virtue respectable to those v.'ho love it not, and they are no longer ashamed of being a Christian from the moment that they therein resemble you. You divest impiety of that air of confidence and of ostentation with which it dares to show itself, and free-thinking ceases to be fashionable as soon as you declare against it. You maintain the religion of our fathers amono' the people; you pre- serve faith to the following ages; and often it requires only a single person of rank in a kingdom, firm in faith, to stop the progress of error and innovation, and to preserve to a whole people the faith of their ancestors. The single Esther saved the people and the law of God in a great empire; Matthias individually stood out against foreign altars, and prevented superstitions from prevailing in the midst of Judah. Oh ! my brethren, how grand when you belong to Jesus Christ! And with what superior lustre and dignity- do your rank and your birth appear in the vast fruits of your piety, than in the luxury of your passions, and in all the vain pomp of human magnificence ! Secondly. The rewards of virtue. You render it honourable by giving it that preference which is its due, in the choice of places dependent upon you, and in intrusting with employments only those 334 ON THJi VICES AND VIRTUKS whose piety entitles them to the public confidence; by placing dependence upon the fidelity of your inferiors only in proportion as they are faithful to God, and, in men, looking principally for rectitude of heart and innocence of manners, without which all other talents no longer form but an equivocal merit, either injurious to themselves, or useless to the public. And from thence, what new weal to the public! What happiness for a kingdom in which the godly occupy the first places; where employments are the rewards of virtue; where the public affairs are intrusted only to those who have more the public interest in view than their own, and who consider as nothing the gain of the whole world if they thereby lose their soul! What advantage for the people when they find their fathers in their judges, — the protectors of their helplessness in the arbiters of their lot, — the consolers of their sufferings in the interpreters of their interests ! What abuses prevented! — what tears wiped away ! — what crimes avoided ! — what harmony in famiHes ! — what consola- tion for the unfortunate! What a compliment even to virtue, when the people are rejoiced to see it in office, and when the world, all worldly as it is, is, however, well pleased to have the godly for its defenders and judges! What an attraction to virtue, when it is seen to have the promise, not only of the life that now is, but of that also which is to come. And say not, my brethren, that, in rewarding virtue, sinners are not corrected, but only hypocrites multiplied. I know how far men may be carried by a thirst of advancement, and what abuses they are capable of making of religion in order to accomphsh their ends : but, at least, you force vice to hide itself; you divest it of that notoriety and security which spread and communicate it; you preserve the externals of religion among the people; you multiply the examples of piety among believers, and if licentiousness be not in reality diminished, at least the scandals are more rare ! Lastly. The holy liberalities of virtue. But I feel that my sub- ject leads me away, and it is time to conclude. Yes, my brethren, what an additional fund of comfort for the people in the Chris- tian and charitable use of your riches! You shelter innocence; you open asylums of penitence for guilt; you render virtue lovely to the unfortunate by the resources which they find in yours; you secure to husbands the fidelity of their wives, — to fathers the salvation of their children, — to pastors the safety of their flock; peace to families, comfort to the afflicted, innocence to the deserted widow, an aid to the orphan, good order to the public, and, to all, the support of their virtue, or the cure of their vices. And here, my brethren, could you but comprehend the wide- extended fruits of your virtue, and the inexplicable advantages OF THE GRPiA'l'. 335 accruing from it to the church, — what scandals avoided! — what crimes prevented ! — what public scourges checked ! — how many- weak preserved ! — how many righteous sustained ! — how many- sinners recalled ! — how many souls withdrawn from the precipice ! — how much you contribute to the aggrandizement of the king- dom of Jesus Christ, to the honour of religion, to the consumma- tion of the holy, and to the salvation of all believers ! — how many of the chosen of every tongue and of every tribe shall oi?e day, in heaven, place at your feet their crown of immortality, as iif publicly to acknowledge their obligation to you ! — what con- solation to be able to say to yourself, that, in serving God, you will attract other servants to him, and that your piety becomes a blessing upon the people! No, my brethren, if there be any thing flattering in rank, it is not those vain distinctions attached to it by custom ; it is the power of becoming, by serving God, the source of public blessings, the support of religion, the con- solation of the church, and the chief instruments employed by God for the accomplishment of his merciful designs upon men. Ah ! what then do you not lose when you do not live accord- ing to God ! What do we ourselves not lose when you are want- ing to us! Of how many advantages do you deprive believers! Of what consolations do you not deprive yourselves ! What joy in heaven for the conversion of a single great sinner in the age! How highly criminal when you live not according to God I You can neither be saved nor condemned alone. You resemble either that dragon of the Revelation, who, being cast out from heaven into the earth, drags after him in his fall so many of the stars; or that mysterious serpent spoken of by Jesus Christ, who, being exalted upon the earth, haply attracts all after him. You are established for the ruin or for the salvation of many; pubhc scourges or comforts. May you, my brethren, know your true interests; may you feel what you are in the designs of God, how much you have it in your power to do for his glory, how much he expecteth of you, how much the church, and even we our- selves, expect of you ! Ah ! you have so high an idea of your rank and of your stations with relation to the world ! But, ray brethren, permit me to say it to you, you are yet unacquainted with all their greatness ; you see but the humblest part of what you are; you are still greater with relation to piety, and the privileges of your virtue are much more illus- trious and more marked than those of your titles. May you, ray brethren, act up to your lot! And thou, O my God! touch, during these days of salvation, through the force of that truth with which thou fillest our mouths, the great and the powerful ; draw to thyself those hearts upon whose conquest depends that of the rest of believers; have compassion upon thy people by sanctifying those whom thy providence hath placed at their 336 INJUSTICE OF THIi WORLD head; save Israel, in saving those who rule it; give to thy church great examples, who perpetuate virtue from age to age; and who assist, even to the end, in forming that immoi'tal assembly of the righteous which shall bless thy name for ever and ever! SERMON XX. ON THE INJUSTICE OF THE WORLD TOWARD THE GODLY " Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner." — John ix. 24. What can the purest and most irreproachable virtue expect from the injustice of the world, seeing it hath formerly found subjects for scandal and censure in the sanctity even of Jesus Christ? If, before their eyes, he work wonderful miracles; if, on this occasion, he restore sight to the blind, the Jews accuse him of being a sabbath-breaker; of working miracles through Beelzebub rather than in the name of the Lord, and of only wishing, through these impostures, to overturn and to destroy the law of Moses; that is to say, that they attack his intentions, in order to render suspicious and to criminate his works. If he honour with his presence the table of the Pharisees, that he may have an opportunity of recalling and instructing them, he is looked upon as a sinner, and as a lover of good cheer: that is to say, that they make a crime to him of his works, when they find it convenient not to search into the integrity of his intentions. Lastly. If he appear in the temple, armed with zeal and severity, to avenge the profanations which disgrace that holy place, the zeal with which he is inflamed for the glory of his Father is no longer in their mouth, but an unjust usurpation of an authority which belongs not to him: that is to say, that they exercise themselves in vague and unfounded reproaches, when they have nothing to say against his intentions or his works. I say, and I say it with sorrow, that the piety of the godly doth not, at present, experience more indulgence amongst us, than the sanctity of Jesus Christ formerly met with in Judea. The pious are become objects of censure and derision to the public; and in an age where dissipation is become so general. TOWARD THE GODLY. 337 where scandalous excesses of every kind furnish such ample matter to the mahgnity of conversations and censures, favour is liberally shown to all, excepting to virtue and innocence. Yes, my brethren, If the conduct of the godly be apparently irreproachable, and furnish no materials for censure, you fix your- selves on their intentions which appear not ; you accuse them of labouring toward their own purposes, and of having their own par- ticular views and designs. If their virtue seem to draw nearer to an equality v^ith our own, and sometimes abate from its severity to attach us to God, by an ostensible conformity to our manners and customs ; without search- ing into, or giving yourselves any concern about their intentions, you constitute, as a crime in them, the most innocent complai- sances, and concessions the most worthy of indulgence. Lastly. If their virtue, inspired by a divine fire, no longer keep measures with the world, and leave nothing to be alleged against either their intentions or their works, then you exercise yourselves in vague discourses and unfounded reproaches against even their zeal and piety. Nov/, suffer me, my brethren, for once, to stand up against an abuse so disgraceful to religion, so injurious to that Being who forms the holy, so scandalous among Christians, so likely to draw down upon us those lasting curses which formerly turned the inhe- ritance of the Lord into a deserted and forsaken land, and so worthy of the zeal of our ministry. You attack the intentions, when you have nothing to say against the works of the godly ; and that is a temerity. You exaggerate their weaknesses, and you make a crime to them of the slightest imperfections ; and that is an inhumanity. You turn even their zeal and fervour into ridicule ; and that is an impiety. And behold, my brethren, the three descriptions of the world's in- justice toward the pious : — an injustice of temerity, which al- ways suspects their intentions ; an injustice of inhumanity, which gives no palliation to the slightest imperfections; an injustice of impiety, which, of their zeal and sanctity, makes a subject of contempt and derision. May these truths, O my God ! render to virtue that honour and glory which are due to it, and force the world itself to respect the pious characters whom it is unworthy to possess ! Part I. — Nothing is more sublime, or more worthy of veneration on the earth, than true virtue : the world itself is forced to acknow- ledge this truth. The elevation of sentiment, the nobility of motive, the empire over the passions, the patience under adversity, the gentleness under injuries, the contempt of one's self under praise, the courage under difficulties, the austerity in pleasures, the fidehty in duties, the equality of temper in all events with which philosophy hath decked out its imaginary sage, find their z 338 INJUSTICE OF THB WORLD reality only in the disciple of the gospel. The more our manners are even corrupted, the more our times are dissolute, the more doth a just soul, who, in the midst of the general corruption, knows how to preserve his righteousness and his innocence, merit the public admiration ; and if the Pagans themselves so highly respected Chris- tians, in a time when all Christians were holy, with much greater reason are those Christians, who act up to the name of Christian, worthy of our veneration and respect, at this period, when sanctity is become so rare among believers. How melancholy then for our ministry, that the corruption of manners should oblige us to do here what the first defenders of faith formerly did with so much dignity before the Pagan tribunals; that is to say, to make the apology of the servants of Jesus Christ; and that it should be necessary to teach Christians to honour those who profess themselves such ! Yet true it is ; for derision and censure against piety seem at present to be the most dominant language of the world. I confess, that the world ideally respects virtue; but it always despises those who make a profession of it: it acknowledges that nothing is more estimable than a solid and sincere piety ; but it complains that such is no where to be found ; and, by always separating virtue from those who practise it, it only makes a show of respecting the phantom of sanctity and righteousness, that it may be the better entitled to contemn and to censure the just. Now the first object, on which the ordinary discourses of the world fall against virtue, is the probity of the intentions of the just. As what is apparent in their actions gives little hold, in general, to malignity and censure, they confine themselves to the intentions : they pretend, and above all at present, when, under a prince equally great as religious, virtue, formerly a stranger, and dreaded at court, is now become the surest path to favour and re- ward,— they pretend that it is there to which all who make a public profession of it, point their aim ; that their only wish is to accom- plish their ends ; and that those who appear the most sanctified and disinterested, are superior to the rest only in art and cunning. If they excuse them from the meanness of such a motive, they give them others equally unworthy of the elevation of virtue and of Christian sincerity. Thus when a soul, touched for its errors, becomes contrite, it is not God, but the world, whom it seeks through a more cunning and concealed path ; it is not grace which hath changed the heart, it is age which begins to efface its attractions,* and to withdraw it from pleasures, only be- cause pleasures begin to fly from it. If zeal attaches itself to works of piety, it is not that they are charitable, it is because they wish to become consequential. If they shut themselves up in sohtude and in prayer, it is not their piety which dreads the dan- gers of the world, it is their singularity and ostentation which wish to attract its suffrages. Lastly, the merit of the most holy and the most virtuous actions is always disparaged in the TOWARD THE (,OniX. 839 mouth of the worldly, by the suspicions with which tliey endeavour to blacken the intentions. Now, in this temerity, I find three hateful characters, which ex- pose the absurdity and the injustice of it: it is a temerity of indis- cretion, seeing you judge, you decide upon what you know not: it is a temerity of corruption, seeing we generally suppose in others only what we feel in ourselves : lastly, it is a temerity of contra- diction, seeing you find unjust and foolish when directed against yourself, the very same suspicions which to you appear so well- founded against your brother. Lose not, I intreat of you, the con- sequence of these truths. I say, first, a temerity of indiscretion. For, my brethren, to God alone is reserved the judgment of intentions aiid thoughts : He alone who sees the secresy of hearts can judge them; nor will they be manifested till that terrible day when his light shall shine through and dispel every darkness. An impenetrable veil is spread here below, over the depth of the human heart; we must then wait till that veil shall be rent, before the shameful passion which it conceals, as the apostle says, can become manifest, and before the mystery of iniquity, which worketh in secret, can be revealed ; till then, whatever passes in the heart of men, buried from our knowledge, is interdicted to the temerity of our judgments: even when what is visible in the conduct of our brethren appears unfavourable to them, charity obliges us to suppose that what we see not makes amends for and rectifies it; and it requires us to excuse the faults of the actions which offend us by the innocency of the intentions which are con- cealed from our knowledge. Now, if religion ought to render us indulgent, and even favourable to their vices, will it suffer us to be cruel and inexorable to their virtues? Indeed, my brethren, what renders your temerity here more unjust, more black, and more cruel, is the nature of your suspicions. For, were your suspicions of the pious to be directed only toward some of those weaknesses inseparable from human nature, — for instance, too much sensibility of injury, too much attention to their interests, too much inflexibility in their opinions, — we would be entitled to reply to you, as we shall afterward tell you, that you exact from the virtuous an exemption from error, and a degree of perfection which exists not in life. But you rest not there : you attack their probity and integrity of heart ; you suspect them of atrocity, dissimulation, and hypocrisy ; of making the most holy things subservient to their own views and passions; of being public impostors; of sporting with God and man ; and all these through the ostensible appear- ances of virtue. What, my brethren ! you would not dare, after the most notorious guilt, to pronounce such a sentence on a con- victed criminal; you would rather consider his fault as one of those misfortunes which may happen to all men, and of which an evil moment may render us capable; and you decidedly give judgment against the virtuous ; and you suspect in a pious character, from z 2 340 INJUSTICE OF THE WORLD a holy and praiseworthy life, what you would not dare to suspect from the most scandalous and criminal conduct of a sinner? And you consider as a witticism, when directed against the servants of God, what would appear to you as a barbarity when against a man stained with a thousand crimes. Is virtue, then, the only crime un- worthy of indulgence; or is it sufficient, to serve Jesus Christ, to become unworthy of all respect? Do the holy practices of piety, which surely ought rather to attract respect and estimation to your brother, become the only titles which confound him, in your mind, with the infamous and the wicked? I allow that the hypocrite deserves the execration of both God and man; that the abuse which he makes of religion is the greatest of crimes ; that derisions and satires are too mild to decry a vice which deserves detestation and horror from the human race; and that a profane theatre errs in throwing only ridicule upon a cha- racter so abominable, so shameful, and so afflicting to the church ; for it ought to excite the tears and indignation rather than the laughter of believers. But I say, that this eternal inveteracy against virtue ; that the rash suspicions which always confound the pious man with the hypocrite ; that that malignity which, in making the most pompous eulogiums on righteousness, finds no character amongst the upright who is entitled to them; I say, that such language, of which so little scruple is made by the world, saps religion, and tends toward rendering all virtue suspicious : I say, that you thereby furnish arms to the impious in an age when too many other scandals coun- tenance and authorize impiety. You assist in making them believe that none, truly pious, exist on the earth; that even the saints, who have formerly edified the church, and whose memory we so warmly cherish, have held out to men only a false spectacle of virtue, of which, in reality, they had only the phantom and the appearances : and that the gospel hath never formed but pharisees and hypocrites. Do you, my brethren, comprehend all the guilt of these foolish derisions? You think that you are only deriding false virtue, and you are blaspheming religion. I repeat it ; in mistrusting the sincerity of the just whom you see, the freethinker concludes that all who have preceded them, and whom we see not, were equally insincere ; that the martyrs themselves, who met death with such fortitude, and who rendered to truth the most shining and least suspicious testimony which can be given by man, were only madmen, who sought a human glory by a vain ostentation of courage and heroism ; and lastly, that the venerable tradition of so many saints, who, from age to age, have honoured and edified the church, is merely a tradition of knavery and deceit. And would to God that this were onl-y a transport of zeal and exaggeration ! These blasphemies, which strike us with such horror, and which ought to have been buried with Paganism, we have still the sorrow to hear repeated among us. And you who shudder at them. TOWARD THE GODLY. 341 unknowingly put them, however, into the mouth of the freethinker; it is your continual sarcasms and censures upon piety which have rendered, in our days, impiety so general and so uncurbed. I do not add, that, by these'means, every thing in society becomes dubious and uncertain. There is no longer, then, either good faith, integrity, or fidelity among men. For, if we must no longer depend on the sincerity and virtue of the just; if their piety be only a mask to their passions, we assuredly will not place any confidence in the probity of sinners and worldly characters: all men are consequently only cheats and villains, of whom too much care cannot be taken, and with whom we ought to live as with enemies; and these so much the more to be dreaded, as, under a treacherous outside of friendship and humanity, they conceal the design of cither deceiving or ruining us. JVone but a heart profoundly wicked and corrupted can suppose such iniquity and corruption in that of others. And behold the second character of that temerity of which we speak. Yes, my brethren^ that fund of malignity, which sees guilt through the appearances even of virtue, and attributes criminal intentions to works of holiness, can proceed only from a black and corrupted heart. As the passions have poisoned your heart, you whom this discourse regards, — as you are capable yourself of every duplicity and meanness, — as you have nothing in your own breast right, noble, or sincere, — you easily suspect your brethren to be what you are; you cannot persuade yourself that there still exist simple, sincere, and generous hearts on the earth; you think that you every where see what you feel in yourself; you cannot comprehend how honour, fidelity, sincerity, and so many other virtues, always false in your own heart, should have more reality in the hearts of persons, even the most respectable for their rank and character; you resemble the courtiers of the king of the Ammonites, — having no other occupation than that of being incessantly on the watch to supplant and lay snares for each other, they had little difficulty in believing that David was not more upright in his intentions with regard to their master. You think, said they to that prince, that David means to honour the memory of your father, by sending comforters to you to condole with you on his death? They are not comforters, but spies, whom he sends to you : he is a villain, who, under the specious outside of an honourable and amicable embassy, seeks to discover the weaknesses of your kingdom, and to take measures to surprise you. Such is inore especially the misfortune of courts: bred up, and living in deceit, they see only dissimulation equally in virtue as in vice; as it is a stage upon which every one acts a borrowed character, they conclude that the pious man merely acts the personage of virtue; uncommon or unprofitable sincerity seems always impossible. A worthy heart, a heart upright, simple, and sincere, can hardly 342 INJUSTICE OP THE WORLO comprehend that there are impostors on the earth; he finds within himself the apology of other men, and, by what it would cost himself to be dishonest, he measures what it ought to cost others. Thus, my brethren, search into those who form these shameful and rash suspicions against the pious, and you will find that, in general, they are disorderly and corrupted characters, who seek to quiet themselves in their dissipations by the illusive supposition that their weaknesses are the weaknesses of all men ; that those who are apparently the most virtuous are superior to themselves only in the art of concealment; and that, were they narrowly examined, we should find them, in reality, made like other men : this idea is an iniquitous comfort to them in their debaucheries. They hai'den themselves in iniquity, by thus associating with themselves in it all whom the credulity of the people calls virtuous: they form and endeavour to establish in themselves a shocking idea of the human race, in order to be less shocked with what they are forced to entertain of themselves, and they try to persuade them- selves that virtue no longer exists, in order that vice may appear to them more excusable; as if, O my God! the multitude of criminals could disarm thy wrath, or deprive thy justice of the right to punish guilt. But, say you, one has seen so many hypocrites who have so long abused the world, whom it regarded as saints and the friends of God, and who, nevertheless, were only perverse and corrupted men. I confess it with sorrow, my brethren: but, from that, what would vou wish to conclude? That all the virtuous are similar to them? The conclusion is detestable; and what would become of mankind, were you, in this manner, to reason on the rest of men? We have seen many wives faithless to their honour and to their duty ; but, do modesty and fidelity no longer exist in the sacred bond of marriage? Many magistrates have sold their honour and disgraced their function; but are justice and integrity consequently banished from every tribunal? History hath preserved to us the remembrance of too many prefidious, dissembling, unfaithful, and dishonourable princes, equally faithless to their subjects, their allies, and their enemies; but are integrity, truth, and religion, for ever excluded from a throne? The past ages have seen many subjects, distinguished for their names, their offices, and the gifts of their sovereign, betray their prince and country, and keep up the most criminal intelligence with the enemy : would you find just the master whom you serve with so much zeal and courage, were he merely upon such grounds to suspect the truth of your fidelity? Why then is a suspicion, which excites the indignation of all other descriptions of men, only supportable when directed against the pious? Why is a conclusion, so ridiculous in every other case, only judicious when against virtue? Doth the perfidy of a single Judas give you grounds to conclude that all the TOVVAKD THE GODLY. 343 other disciples were traitors and without faith? Doth the hypocrisy of Simon the magician prove, that the conversion of the other dis- ciples who embraced faith was merely an artifice to accomplish their own pm-poses; and that, like him, they walked not uprightly in the path of the Lord? What can be more unjust or foolish, than of the guilt of an individual to constitute a general crime? It is dif- ficult, I confess, but that vice may sometimes assume the garb of virtue; that the angel of darkness may not sometimes have the appearance of an angel of hght; and that the passions, which ge- nerally strain every nerve to succeed, may not sometimes call in the appearances of piety to their aid, particularly under a reign when piety, held in honour, is almost a certain road to fortune and favour. But it is the height of folly to reflect upon all virtue for the impious use which some individuals may make even of piety; and to believe that some abuses, discovered in a holy aird venerable profession, universally dishonour all who have embraced it. The truth, my brethren, is, that we hate all men who are not similar to ourselves; and that we are delighted to be enabled to condemn piety, because piety itself condemns us. But one has so often been deceived, say you. I confess it: but, in reply, I say, that, granting you are even deceived while refusing to suspect your brethren, and while rendering to a fictitious virtue that esteem and honour w^hich are due to real virtue alone, what would be the consequence? By what would your credulity be followed, either sorrowful or disgraceful? You would have judged according to the rules of charity, which doth not easily believe in evil, and which delighteth in even the appearances of good ; ac- cording to the rules of justice, which is incapable of every malig- nity or deed to others which it would not wish to have done to itself; according to the rules of prudence, which judges only from what is visible, and leaves to the Lord to judge of the intentions and thoughts; lastly, according to the rules of goodness and hu- manity, which always oblige us to presume in favour of our bre- thren. What would there be in such a mistake to alarm you? How noble for the mind, when the deception proceeds from a motive of humanity and kindness! What honour do not such mistakes render to a good heart ; for none but the virtuous and the sincere are capable of them ! But you, alas ! not being such, prefer that deception which degrades the virtuous and pious man from that estimation which is his due, to hazarding the chance of not covering the hypocrite with the shame he deserves. But, besides, whence spring this zeal and inveteracy against the abuse, made by the hypocrite, of real virtue? Is the glory of God so warmly taken to heart by you, that you wish to avenge him on the impostors who dishonour him? What matters it to you, who neither serve nor love him, whether the Lord be served by a double or a sincere heart? What is there which can so strongly interest you for the integrity or the hypocrisy of his worshippers, — you 344 INJUSTICE OF THE WORLD who know not how he is even worshipped? Ah! were he the God of your heart, did you love him as your Lord and Father, were his glory dear to you, we might then indeed pardon, as an excess of zeal, the boldness with which you rise up against the outrage done to God and his worship by the simulated piety of the hypocrite. The just, who love and serve him, are surely more en- titled to cry out against an abuse so injurious to sincere piety; but you, who live like the Pagans, who, sunk in debauchery, are with- out hope, and whose whole life is one continued guilt, ah! it be- longs little to you to take the interest of God's g?ory against the fictitious piety which is the cause of so much disgrace and sorrow to the church; whether he be faithfully served, or merely through grimace, is no affair of yours. Whence then comes a zeal so mis- placed? Would you wish to know? It is not the Lord whom you wish to avenge, nor is it his glory which interests you; it is the good name of the pious which you wish to stain; it is not hy- pocrisy which irritates your feelings, it is piety which displeases you; you are not the censurer of vice, you are only the enemy of virtue; in a word, you hate in the hypocrite only the resemblance of the pious. In effect, did your censures proceed from a fund of religion and true zeal, ah ! with grief alone would you recall the history of these impostors, who have sometimes succeeded in deceiving the world. What do I say? Far from alleging to us, with an air of triumph, these examples, you would lament over the scandals with which they have afflicted the church; far from applauding your- selves, when you renew their remembrance, you would wish that such melancholy events were for ever effaced from the memory of men. The lav/ cursed him who should dare to uncover the shame and turpitude of those who had given him hfe; but it is the shame and dishonour of the church, your mother, which you expose with such pleasure to public derision. Do you carefully recall certain humiliating circumstances to the house from which you spring, and which have formerly disgraced the name and life of some one of your ancestors? Would you not wish for ever to efface these hate- ful vestiges of disgrace from the histories which hand them down to posterity ? Do you not consider as enemies to your name those who ransack the past ages, in order to lay open these hateful par- ticulars, and to revive them in the memory of men? Do vou not, in opposition to their malignity, loudly proclaim that maxim of equity, that faults are personal; and that it is unjust to attach the idea of dishonour to all who bear your name, merely because it has once been disgraced through the bad conduct of an individual? Apply the rule to yourself: the church is your house: the just alone are your relations, your brethren, your predecessors, your ancestors: they alone compose that family of first-born, to whom you ought to be eternally united. The wicked shall one day be as though they had never been : the ties of nature, of blood, and of TOWARD THK GODLY. 345 society, which now unite you to them, shall perish ; an immeasure- able and an eternal chaos shall separate them from the children of God; they shall no longer be your brethren, your forefathers, or your relatives; they shall be cast out, forgotten, effaced from the land of the living, vmnecessary to the designs of God, cut ofi" for ever from his kingdom, and no longer, by any tie, holding to the society of the just, who shall then be your only brethren, your ancestors, your people, your tribe. What do you then, when you uncover, with such pleasure, the ignominy of some false just who dishonour their history ? It is your house, your name, your relations, your ancestors, whom you dishonour: you come to stain the splendour of so many glorious actions, which, in all ages, have rendered their memory immortal by the infidelity of an individual, who, bearing the name they bear, stain it by manners and a conduct totally dissimilar : upon yourselves then it is that you make the dishonour fall; unless you have already renounced the society of the holy, and prefer to associate your eternal lot with that of the wicked and the unfaithful. But what is more particularly absurd in that temerity which is always so ready to judge and to blacken the intentions of the pious, is, that you thereby fall into the most ridiculous contradiction with yourselves : — last character of that temerity. Yes, my brethren, you accuse them of cunningly working toward their own point, of having their own views in the most holy actions, and of only acting the personage of virtue. But doth it become you, the inhabitants of a court, to make this reproach? Your whole life is one continued disguise; you every where act a part which is not your own; you flatter those whom you love not; you crouch to others whom you despise; you act the assiduous servant to those from whom you have emolument to expect, though, in your heart, you look up with envy to their rank, and think them unworthy of their elevation : in a word, your whole life is an assumed character. Your heart, on every occasion, belies your conduct; everywhere your countenance is in contradiction to your sentiments; you are the hypocrites of the world, of ambition, of favour, and of fortune; and it well becomes you, after that, to accuse the just of the same tricks, and so loudly to ring their dissimulation and pretended hypocrisy: when you shall have nothing in the same way with which to reproach yourselves, then will we listen to the temerity of your censures; or rather, you shall have reason to be jealous for the glory of artifice and meanness, and to be dissatisfied, that the pious should dare to interfere with a science which so justly belongs, and is so especially adapted to you. Besides, you so nervously clamour out against the world, when, too attentive to your actions, it maliciously interprets certain suspicious assiduities, certain animated looks ; you so loudly proclaim then, that, if things go on thus, no person will in future be innocent; 346 INJUSTICE OF THE WORLD that no woman in the world will be considered as a person of regular conduct; that nothing is more easy than to give an air of guilt to the most innocent things; that it will be necessary totally to banish one's self from society, and to deny one's self every intercourse with mankind; you then so feelingly declaim against the malignity of men, who, on the most trivial grounds, accuse you of criminal intentions. But do the pious give juster foundation for the suspicions which you form against them? And, if it be permitted to you to hunt for guilt in them, though hidden under the appearances of virtue, why are you so enraged that the world should dare to suppose it in you, and should believe you criminal under the appearances of guilt ? Lastly. O worldly women ! when we reproach you with your assiduity at theatres, and other places where innocence encounters so many dangers, or the indecency and immodesty of your dress, you reply that you have no bad intentions; that you wish injury to none ; you would wish indecent and criminal manners to be passed over, for the sake of a pretended innocency of intention, which your whole exterior belies ; and you cannot pass over to the pious, virtuous, and laudable manners, for the sake of an integrity of heart, to which every thing external bears ample testimony. You exact that they shall suppose your intentions pure, when your works are not so ; anti you think yourselves entitled to beUeve that the intentions of the pious are not mnocent, when all their actions are visibly so. Cease, then, either to justify your own vices, or to censure their virtues. It is thus, my brethren, that every thing poisons in our keeping, and that every thing removes us farther from God : the spectacle even of virtue becomes to us a pretext for vice ; and the examples themselves of piety are rocks to our innocence. It would seem, O my God, that the world doth not sufficiently furnish us with opportunities for our ruin : that the examples of sinners are not sufficient to authorize our errors ; for we seek a support for them even in the virtues of the just. But you will tell us, that the world is not so far wrong in censuring those who profess themselves people of piety ; that such are every day seen, who, if possible, are more animated than other men in the pursuit of a worldly fortune, more eager after pleasures, more delicate in submitting to injury, more proud in elevation, and more attached to their own interests. This is the second injustice of the world toward the pious: not only does it maliciously interpret their intentions, which is a temerity, but it also scrutinizes their slightest imperfections, which is an inhumanity. Part II. — It may truly be said, that the world is a more rigid and severer critic upon the pious than the gospel itself; that it exacts a greater degree of perfection from them, and that their TOWARD THE GODLY. 34^ weaknesses find less indulgence before the tribunal of men than they shall one day experience before the tribunal of God himself. Now, I say that this attention to exaggerate the slightest errors of the pious, (second injustice into which the world falls with regard to them,) is an inhumanity, considering the weakness of man, the difficulty of virtue, and, lastly, the maxims of the world itself. 1 intreat your attention here, my brethren. Inhumanity, considering the weakness of man. Yes, my brethren, it is an illusion to suppose that there are perfect virtues among men; it is not the condition of this mortal life: almost every one bears with him in piety, his faults, his humours, and his peculiar weaknesses ; grace corrects, but does not overturn nature ; the Spirit of God, which creates in us a new man, leaves still many remains of the old : conversion terminates our vices, but does not extinguish our passions; in a word, it forms the Christian within us, but it still leaves us men. The most righteous, consequently, still preserve many remains of the sinner : David, that model of penitence, still blended with his virtues a too great indulgence for his children, a secret pride at the number of his people and the prosperity of his reign; the mother of Zebedee's children, in spite of faith, through which she was so strongly attached to Jesus Christ, lost nothing of her anxiety for the elevation of her chil- dren, or of her concern toward procuring for them the first stations in an earthly kingdom ; the apostles themselves disputed rank and precedency witli each other : never shall we be divested of all these little weaknesses till we are delivered from this body of death, which is the fountain from which they spring. ,The most shining virtue here below, always, therefore, hath its spots and its flaws, which are not to be too narrowly examined : and the just must always in some points resemble the rest of men. All, then, that can be exacted from human weakness, is, that the virtues rise superior to the vices, the good to the evil; that the essential be regulated, and that we incessantly labour toward regu- lating the rest. And surely, my brethren, overflowing with passions, as we are in the wretched condition of this life; loaded with a body of sin, which oppresses the soul ; slaves to our senses and to the flesh ; bearing within us an eternal opposition to the law of God ; the continual prey of a thousand desires which combat against our soul; the everlasting sport of our inconstancy and the natural instability of our heart; finding nothing within us but what is repugnant to duty; eagerly pursuing whatever removes us from God; disgusted with every thing which brings us nearer to him; loving only what tends to our ruin; hating only what tends to our salvation ; weak in good ; always ripe for evil ; and, in a word, finding in virtue the rock of virtue itself, is it to be wondered at, that men, surrounded, filled with so many miseries, should some- 348 INJUSTICE OF THE WORLD times allow some of them to be visible ; that men, so corrupted, should not be always equally holy? And were you, in any measure, equitable, would you not rather find it worthy of admiration that some virtue still remained, than worthy of censure that they still preserve some vices ? Besides, God hath his reasons for still leaving, to the most pious, certain sensible weaknesses which strike and offend you. In the first place, he thereby wisheth to humble them, and to render their virtue more secure by concealing it even from them- selves. Secondly, he wisheth to animate their vigilance, for he leaveth not Amorites in the land of Canaan, that is to say, passions in the heart of his servants, but, lest, freed from all their enemies, they should lull themselves in idleness and in a dangerous security. Thirdly, he wisheth to excite in them a continual desire for the eternal land, and to render the exilement of this life more bitter, through a proper sense of those miseries from which they can never, here below, obtain a complete deliverance. Fourthly, perhaps not to discourage sinners by the sight of too perfect a virtue, which might probably induce them to cease every exertion, under the idea of never being able to attain it. Fifthly, in order to preserve to the just a continual subject of prayer and penitence, by leaving them a continual source of sin. Sixthly, to prevent those exces- sive honours which the world would render to virtue were it pure and sparkling, and lest it should find its recompense, in other words, its rock, in the vain applauses of men. What shall I lastly say; it perhaps is still more to lull and to blindfold the enemies of piety; by the weaknesses of the pious to strengthen you, who listen to me, in the foolish opinion that there is no real virtue on the earth; to authorize you in your disorders, by the supposition that they are similar to yourselves; and to render unavailing to you all the pious examples of the just. You triumph in the weaknesses of the pious; yet are there weaknesses perhaps punishments from God on you, and means employed by his justice to nourish your unjust prepossessions against virtue, and completely to harden you in guilt. God is terrible in his judg- ments ; and the consummation of iniquity, is, in general, the sequel of iniquity itself. But, secondly, were your censures on those weaknesses, which may still remain to the pious, not rendered barbarous and inhuman, when the natural weakness of man is considered, the difficulty alone of virtue would amply render them so. For, candidly, my brethren, doth it appear so easy to you to live according to God, and to walk in the straight path of salva- tion, that you should become so implacable against the pious, from the moment that they err but for an instant? Is it so easy continually to renounce one's self, to be ever guarded against one's own heart, to overcome its antipathies, to repress its likings, to lower its pride, and to fix its inconstancy? Is it so easy a TOWARD THK GODLY. 349 matter to restrain the sallies of the mind, to moderate its judg- ments, to disavow its suspicions, to soften its keenness, and to smother its malignity ? It is so easy to be the eternal enemy of one's own body, to conquer its indolence, to mortify its tastes, and to crucify its desires? Is it so natural to pardon injuries, to bear with contempt, to love, and even to load with benefits those who do evil to us, to sacrifice one's fortune in order not to fail to his conscience, to deny one's self pleasures to which all our incli- nations lead us, to resist example, and singly to maintain the cause of virtue against the multitude which condemns it? Do all these appear, in fact, so easy to you, that you deem those, who for an instant depart from them, unworthy of the least indulgence? How feelingly do you expatiate every day on the difticulties of a Christian life, when we propose to you these holy rules ! Is it so very astonishing, that, in a long march through rough and dange- rous ways, a man should sometimes stumble, or even fall, through fatigue and weakness ? Inhuman that we are! And, nevertheless, the shghtest imperfec- tion in the pious destroys, in our mind, all their most estimable qualities : far from excusing their weaknesses, in consideration of their virtue, it is their virtue itself which renders us doubly cruel and inexorable to their weaknesses. To be just is sufficient, it would appear, to forfeit every claim to indulgence : to their vices we are clear-sighted ; to their virtues we are blind ; a moment of weakness effaces from our remembrance a whole life of fidelity and innocence. But what renders your injustice toward the pious still more cruel, is, that it is your own examples, your irregularities, and even your censures, which stagger, Aveaken, and force them sometimes to imitate you ; it is the corruption of your manners which becomes the continual and the most dangerous snare to their innocence ; it is those foolish derisions with which you continually assault virtue, that force them reluctantly to shelter themselves under the appearances of guilt. And how can you suppose it possible that the piety of the most righteous should always preserve itself pure, in the midst of the present manners, in a perverse world, whose customs are abuses, and its communications crimes ; where the passions are the only bond of society, and where the wiisest and most virtuous are those who retrenched from guilt only its scandal and publicity? How can yon, suppose it possible, that, amidst these eternal derisions which ridicule the pious, which make them almost ashamed of virtue, and often oblige them to counter- feit vice ; that, in the midst of so many disorders, authorized by the public manners, by senseless applauses, by examples rendered res- pectable by rank and dignity, by the ridicule cast on those who dare to hesitate at them, and, lastly, by the weakness even of their own heart ; how do you think it possible that the pious should be always enabled to stem such a torrent, and that, ebhged continually 350 INJUSTICE OF THK WORLD to fortify themselves against so rapid and 8o impetuous a course, which hurries away the rest of men, watchfuhiess and vigour should not sometimes fail them for an instant, and that they should not sometimes feel a momentary influence of the fatal vortex? You are their seducers ; and you pretend to be displeased because they allow themselves to be seduced ? No longer, therefore, reproach to them your scandals, which weaken their faith, and which they shall one day reproach to you before the tribunal of Jesus Christ ; and triumph no more over their v/eaknesses, which are your own work, and for which they shall afterward demand vengeance against you. I have also said, that even your maxims cannot be excused from severity and extravagance with respect to the pious. Judge from what I shall now repeat. You are continually saying that such an individual, with all his devotion, fails not, however, to prosecute his own designs ; that another is very attentive in paying court to his superiors ; again, that a third has a piety so delioate and sensible, that the merest trifle wounds and shocks it; that such an individual pardons nothing ; that the other is not sorry to be thought still agreeable and amusing; that a third has a very commodious piety, and lives a very easy and agreeable life ; lastly, that another is full of caprice and fancies, and that none of her household can put up with her temper : such are your daily discourses ; nor do your satires stop there, for you boldly decide from thence that a devotion, blended with so many faults, can never lead them to sal- vation : behold your maxims. Yet, nevertheless, when we an- nounce to you, from this seat, that a worldly, idle, sensual, dissi- pated, and almost wholly profane life, such as you lead, can never be a way to salvation, you say that you cannot see any harm in it; you accuse us of severity, and of exaggerating the rules and duties of your station ; you do not believe that moreis required for salvation. But, my brethren, to which side here do severity and injustice be- long? You condemn the pious, because to their piety they add some particulars which resemble you ; because they mingle some of your faults with an infinity of virtues and good works, which amply repair the errors : and you believe yourselves in the path of salvation, you who have only their faults, without even the piety whic"k purifies them ? O man ! who then art thou that thus pre- tendest to save those whom the Lord condemneth, and to condemn those whom he justifieth ? Nor is this all ; and you shall immediately see how little, on this point, you are consonant with yourselves. In effect, when the pious live in total retirement ; when, no longer keeping any mea- sures with the world, they conceal themselves from the eyes of the public; when they resign certain places of emolument and dis- tinction, and divest themselves of all their employments and dignities, for the sole purpose of attending to their salvation ; when they lead a life of tears, prayer, mortification, and silence, TOWARD THK <;ODLY. 351 (and happily our age hath furnished such examples,) what have you then said? That they carried matters too far; that violent counsels had been given them; that their zeal was not accordino- to knowledge; that, were all to imitate them, public duties would be neglected ; that those services, incumbent on every citizen to his country and state, would no longer be given; that such an ex- treme of singularity is not required; and that real devotion proves itself, by living together and fulfilling the duties of the station in which God hath placed us : such are your maxims. But, on the other hand, when the virtuous unite with piety the duties of their station and the innoc^t interests of their fortune; when they still keep up a certain degree of intercourse and society with the world, and show themselves in places from which their rank does not al- low them to banish themselves ; when they still partake in certain public pleasures, which their station renders inevitable; in a word, when they are prudent in good, and simple in evil, — ah ! you then proclaim that they are made like other men; that it ap- pears veiy easy to you, at that price, to serve God; that you see nothing in their devotion to frighten you; and that if nothing- more were required, you would soon be yourself a great saint. In vain may piety assume every appearance; it is sufficient that it is piety, to displease and to merit your censures. Be consistent with yourselves ; you would have the pious to resemble yourselves, yet you condemn them from the moment that you can trace a resemblance. The obstinacy and injustice of the Jews, in our gospel, are re- newed in you. When John the Baptist appeared in the desert, clothed in goats' skins, neither eating nor drinking, and holding out to Judea an austerity of virtue which none of the preceding just or prophets had ever equalled, they considered, says Jesus Christ, the austerity of his manners as the illusion of a false spirit, which seduced and urged him on to these excesses, merely that, in a worldly vanity, he might find the recompense of his penance. On the contrary, the Son of Man afterward came, continues the Saviour, eating and drinking; exhibiting to them, in his conduct, the model of a virtue more consonant with human weakness, and serving as an example to all, by leading a simple and ordinary life which all may imitate: is he more sheltered from their censures? Ah! they declaim against him, as being a man of pleasure and a lover of good che^r ; and the bendings of his virtue are no longer, in their opinion, but a relaxation which stains and dishonours it. The most dissimilar virtues are successful only in attracting the same reproaches. Ah ! my brethren, how much to be pitied would the pious be, were they to be judged before the tribunal of men ! But they know that that world, which sits in judgment on them, is itself already judged. And what in this severity, with which you condemn the slightest 352 INJUSTICE OF THE WORLD imperfections of the pious, is more deplorable, is, that, if a notori- ous and infamous sinner, after a whole life of iniquity and crimes, but give, on the bed of death, some weak proof of repentance; if he but pronounce the name of that God whom he has never known, and has always blasphemed; if he at last consent, after many delays and repugnances, to receive the last offices of the church, which he formerly held in contempt; ah! you rank him among the saints; you maintain that he has died the death of a Christian; that he has attained to the state of repentance ; and that he has intreated forgiveness and mercy from God; upon these grounds you hope every thing for his salvation, and you no longer enter- tain a doubt but that the Lord hath shown him mercy : some re- luctant marks of religion, which have been extorted from him, are sufficient, in your idea, to secure to him the kingdom of God, into which nothing defiled shall ever enter; are sufficient, I say, in spite of the excesses and abominations of his whole life ; and an entire life of virtue is not sufficient, in your opinion, to render it certain to a faithful soul, from the moment that he mingles the smallest infidelity with his past conduct: you save the wicked on the most frivolous and equivocal appearances of piety, and you condemn the just on the slightest and most excusable proofs of humanity and weakness. I might add, my brethren, that, consulting only your own inte- rests, the imperfections of the pious ought to find you more indul- gent and favourable. For they alone, my brethren, spare you: they alone conceal your vices, smooth your faults, excuse your errors, and with pleasure dwell upon whatever may be praiseworthy in your virtue; while the world, your equals, your rivals, and your pretended friends, perhaps lessen your talents and services, speak with contempt of all your good qualities, ridicule your defects, number your misfor- tunes amongst your faults, exaggerate these very faults, and em- poison your most innocent words and actions; the virtuous alone excuse you, justify your heart, and are the eulogists of your vir- tues, or the prudent dissemblers of your vices; they alone break up those conversations in which your reputation is attacked ; they alone refuse to join with the public against you; and for them alone you are destitute of humanity, and to them alone you cannot pardon even the virtues which render them estimable. Ah ! my brethren, return them at least what they lend to you; spare your protectors and apologists, and by decrying them, do not debilitate the only favourable testimony which is left for you among men. But I speak too gently; not only the pious refuse to join with the malignity of the public against you, but they alone are your true friends; they alone are touched with your misfortunes, af- fected by your wanderings, and interested in your salvation; they carry you in their heart; while excusing your passions and TOWARD THE GODLY. 353 irregularities before men, they silently lament over them before God; they raise uj) their hands for you to heaven; they supplicate your conversion ; they entreat the forgiveness of your crimes; and you cannot bring yourselves to render justice even to their piety and innocence? Ah! they may make against you the 9^me complaint to the Lord, that the prophet Jeremiah formerly made against the Jews of his time, unjust censures of his piety and conduct: "Give heed to me, O Loi"d," said that man of God, " and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me. Shall evil be recompensed for good? For they have digged a pit for my soul; remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them." You are surely sensible, my brethren, of all the injustice of your conduct with regard to what I have been mentioning; but what would it be, if, in completing what I had at first intended, I were to show you, that not only you give corrupted motives to the good works of the pious, which is a temerity ; not only you exaggerate their slightest weaknesses, which is an inhumanity; but, likewise, when you have nothing to say against the probity of their intentions, and when their imperfections give no handle to your censures, that you fly to your last hold, that of casting an air of ridicule over their virtu© itself; which is an impiety. Yes, my brethren, an impiety. You make a sport, a comic scene of rehgion; you still introduce it, like the Pagans formerly, on an infamous theatre; and there you expose its holy mysteries, and all that is most sacred and most respectable on the earth, to the laughter of the spectators. You may apologize for your passions, through the weakness of temperament and human frailty ; but your derisions of virtue can find no excuse but in the impious contempt of virtue itself; nevertheless, this irreligious and blasphemous mode of speaking is now regarded as a pleasantry, as a sally of wit, and as a language from which vanity appropriates to itself peculiar honour. But, my brethren, you thereby persecute virtue, and render it useless to yourselves ; you dishonour virtue, and render it useless to others ; you try virtue, and render it insupportable to itself. You persecute virtue, and render it useless to yourselves. Yes, my dear hearer, the example of the pious was a mean of salvation provided for you by the goodness of God; now, his justice, incensed at your derisions on his mercies to his servants, for ever withdraws them from you, and punishes your contempt of piety, by denying to you the gift of piety itself. The kings of the earth take signal vengeance on those who dare to injure their statues, for these are to be considered as public and sacred monuments representing themselves. But the just, here below, are the living statues of the great King, the real images of a holy God ; in them he hath expressed the majesty of his purest and most resplendent features; and he for ever curseth those sacrilegious and cor- 2a 354 IJJ JUSTICE OF THE WORLD rupted hearts who dare to make them a subject of derision and insult. Besides, even granting that the Lord should not deny to you the gift of piety in punishment of your derisions, they still form an invincible human barrier which will for ever exclude you from its cause. For I demand, if, when tired of the world, of your disorders, of yourself, you wish to return to God, and to save that soul which you now labour to destroy, how shall you dare to declare for piety, you who have so often made it the butt of your public and profane pleasantries ? How shall you ever boast of the duties of religion, you who are every day heard to say, that, to become devout, is, in other words, to say that the senses are lost; that such an individual had a thousand good qualities which rendered his society agreeable to all, but that devotion has now altered him to such a degree, that he is fully as insupportable as he was formerly pleasing; that he affects to make hunself ridiculous; that we must renounce common sense before we can erect, it would appear, the standard of piety ; that, may God preserve you from such madness; that you endeavour to be an honest man, but, God be praised, you are no devotee? What language! — that is to say, that God be praised you are already marked with the stamp of the reprobate ; that with confidence you can say to yourself, " I shall never alter, but shall die exactly such as I am." What impiety ! And yet it is among Christians that such discourses are every day ostentatiously, and with apparent satisfaction, repeated. Ah ! my brethren, permit my sorrow to vent itself here in one reflection. The patriarchs, those men so venerable, so powerful, even according to the world, never had communication with the kings and nations of the different countries, where they were conducted by the order of the Lord, but in the following religious terms: " Lfear the Lord." They claimed no respect from the grandeur of their race, whose origin was almost coeval with the world itself, from the lustre of their ancestors, from the splendour of the blood of Abraham, that man, the conqueror of kings, the model of all the sages of the earth, and the only hero of whom the world could then boast. " We fear the Lord." Behold their most pompous title, their most august nobility, the only character by which they wished to be distinguished from other men : such was the magnificent sign which appeared at the head of their tents and flocks, which shone on their standards, and every where bore with them the glory of their name, and that of the God of their fathers. And we, my brethren, we shun the reputation of a man just and fearing God, as a title of reproach and shame; we pompously dwell upon the vain distinctions of rank and birth ; wherever we go, the frivolous mark of our names and dignities precedes and announces us; and we hide the glorious sign of the God of our fathers; we even glorify ourselves in not being among the number of those who fear and adore • him. TOWARD THE GODLY. 355 O God ! leave, then, to these foolish men a glory so hideous ; con- found their folly and impiety, by permitting them to the end to glorify themselves in their confusion and -ignominy. Nor is this, all. By these deplorable derisions not only do you render virtue useless to yourselves, but you likewise render it odious and useless to others ; that is to say, not only do you bar against yourselves every path which leads to God, but you like- wise shut it against an infinity of souls, whom grace still urges in secret to relinquish their crimes, and to live in a Christian manner; who dare not declare themselves, lest they should be exposed to the lash of your satire and profane railleries ; who, in a new life, dread only the ridicule which you cast upon virtue ; who, in secret, oppose only that single obstacle to the voice of Heaven which calls upon them ; and tremblingly hesitate, in the grand affair of eter- nity, between the judgments of God and your senseless and impious derisions. That is to say, that you thereby blast the fruit of that gospel which we announce, and render our ministry unavailing; you deprive religion of its terrors and majesty, and spread through the whole exterior of piety a ridicule which falls upon religion itself. You perpetuate in the world, and support among men, those pre- judices against virtue, and that universal illusion employed by Satan to deceive them, which is that of treating piety as perverse and a folly ; you authorize the blasphemies of freethinkers and of the wicked; you acciustom sinners to arrogate to themselves an ostentatious glory from vice and irregularity, and to consider debauchery as fashionable and genteel when contrasted with the ridicule of virtue. What, indeed, may I not say? Through your means piety becomes the fable of the world, the sport of the wicked, the shame of sinners, the scandal of the weak, and the rock even of the just; through you vice is held in honour, virtue is debased, truth is weakened, faith is extinguished, religion is annihilated, and corruption universally spreads; and, as foretold by the prophet, desolation perseveres even to the consummation and to the end. Let me likewise add, that, through you, virtue becomes insup- portable to itself: your derisions become a rock to the piety even of the just: you shake their faith; you discourage their zeal; you suspend their good desires; you stifle in their heart the liveliest impressions of grace; you stop them in a thousand deeds of fervour and virtue, which they dare not expose to the impiety of your censures ; in spite of themselves, you force them to conform to your habits and maxims, which they detest; to abate from their retirement, their mortifications, and their prayers; and to consecrate to these duties only those concealed moments which may escape your knowledge and railleries. Through these means, you deprive the church of their edifying example; you deprive the weak of those succours which they 2 A 2 356 INJUSTICE OF THK WORLD, &C. would otherwise find there ; sinners of that shame with which their presence would cover them; the just of that consolation which would animate them ; and religion of a sight which would do it honour. Alas ! my brethren, in former ages tyrants never derided Chris- tians, but in reproaching to them their pretended superstitions: they ridiculed the public honours which they saw them render to Jesus Christ, a person crucified, and the preference which was given to him by Christians over Jupiter and all the gods of the empire, whose worship was become respectable through the pomp and magnificence of their temples and altars, the an- tiquity of the laws, and the majesty of the Csesars : but, on the other hand, they bestowed loud and pubhc praises on their man- ners; they admired their modesty, frugality, charity, patience, innocent and mortified life, and their absence from theatres, or every other place of public amusement; they could not, without veneration, regard the wise, retired, modest, humble, and benevolent manners of those simple and faithful believers. You, on the contrary, more senseless, find no fault with them for adoring Jesus Christ, and for placing their confidence and hope of salvation in the mystery of the cross; but you find it ridi- culous that they should deny themselves every public pleasure ; that they should live in the practice of retirement, mortification, and prayer; but you find them worthy of your derision and censure, because they are humble, simple, chaste, and modest: and the Christian life, which found admirers and panegyrists even among tyrants, experiences from you only mockery and profane railleries. What folly, my brethren! to find worthy of laughter in the world, which is itself but a mass of trifles and absurdities, only those who know its frivolity, and whose only thoughts are bent on placing themselves secure from the wrath to come ! What folly, to despise in men the very qualities which render them displeasing to God, respectable to angels, and useful to their fellow-creatures! What folly, to be convinced that an eternal happiness or misery awaits us, yet to find ridiculous only those who are interested in so important an affair ! Let us hold virtue in respect, my brethren; it alone, on the earth, merits our admiration and praise. If we find ourselves still too weak to fulfil its duties, let us at least be equitable, and esteem its lustre and innocence; if we cannot live the life of the iust, let us wish to attain it, let us envy their lot; if we cannot as yet imitate their example, let us consider every derision on virtue not only as a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, but as an outrao-e on humanity, which virtue alone honours and digni- fies- far from reproaching the godly with those virtues which render them dissimilar to vis, let us reproach ourselves with the - vices which prevent us from resembling them; in a word, let us. RESPKCT IN THE TEMPI.KS OF GOD. 357 by a true and sincere respect for piety, deserve to obtain one day the gift of piety itself. And you, my brethren, who serve the Lord, remember, that the interests of virtue are in your hands; that the weaknesses, the stains with which you blend it, become, as I may say, stains on religion itself; consider how much the world expects from you, and what engagements you contract toward the public, when you espouse the cause of piety ; consider with what dignity, what fidelity, what respectabihty, you ought to support the character and per- sonage of a servant of Jesus Christ. Yes, my brethren, let us, with majesty, support the interests of piety against the sneers of those who despise it ; let us purchase the right of being insensible to their censures by giving no foundation for them ; let us force the world to respect what it cannot love ; let us not of the holy profession of piety make a sordid gain, a vile worldly interest, a life of ill-nature and caprice, a claim to effeminacy and idleness, a singularity from which we arrogate honour, a prejudice, a spirit of intolerance which flatters us, and a spirit of division which sepa- rates us from our fellow-creatures ; let us make it the price of eternity, the path to heaven, the rule of our duties, and the repara- tion of our crimes ; a spirit of modesty which makes us unassuming, a compunction which humbles us, a gentleness which draws us to our brethren, a charity which makes us bear with them, an indul- gence which attracts their regard, a spirit of peace which ties us to them ; and, lastly, a union of hearts, of desires, of affections, of good and evil on the earth, which shall be the forerunner and hope of that eternal union which charity is to consummate in heaven. SERMON XXI. RESPECT IN THE TEMPLES OF GOD. '• And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doxes." — Matthew xxi. 12. Whence comes this aspect of zeal and of indignation which Jesus Christ, on this occasion, allows his countenance to betray ? Is this, then, that King of Peace who was to appear in Zion armed with his meekness alone? We have seen him sitting as Judge over an adulteress, and he hath not even condemned her. We have 358 RESPECT IN THE seen at his feet the prostitute of the city, and he hath graciously forgiven her debaucheries and scandals. His disciples wanted the fire of heaven to descend upon an ungrateful and perverse city ; but he reproached them with being still unacquainted with that new spirit of mercy and of charity which he came to spread through- out the earth. He hath just been lamenting with tears the mi- series which threaten Jerusalem, that criminal city, the murderer of the prophets, which is on the eve of sealing the sentence of her reprobation by the iniquitous death she is so soon to inflict on him whom God had sent to be her Redeemer. On every occasion he hath appeared feehng and merciful ; and, in consequence of the excess of his meekness, he hath been called the friend even of pub- licans and sinners. What then are the outrages which now triumph over all his cle- mency, and arm his gracious hands with the rod of justice and of wrath ? The holy temple is profaned ; his Father's house is disho- noured ; the place of prayer, and the sacred asylum of the penitent, is turned into a house of traffic and of avarice : this is what calls the lightning into those eyes which wovdd wish to cast only looks of compassion upon sinners. Behold what obliges him to terminate a ministry of love and of reconciliation, by a step of severity and of wrath similar to that with which he had opened it. For remark, that what Jesus Christ doth here, in terminating his career, he had already done, when, after thirty-three years of a private life, he entered for the first time into Jerusalem, there to open his mis- sion, and to do the work of his Father. It might be said, that he had himself forgotten that spirit of meekness and of long- suffering which was to distinguish his ministry from that of the ancient covenant, and under which he was announced by the prophets. Many other scandals, besides those seen in the temple, doubtless took place in that city, and were perhaps no less \vorthy of the zeal and the chastisement of the Saviour ; but, as if his Father's glory had been less wounded by thenti, he can conceal them for a time, . and delay their punishment. He bursts not forth at once against the hypocrisy of the pharisees, and the corruption of the scribes and priests ; but the chastisement of the profaners of the temple can admit of no delay ; his zeal on this occasion admits of no bounds ; and scarcely is he entered into Jerusalem when he flies to the holy place, to avenge the honour of his Father there insulted, and the glory of his house which they dishonour. Of all crimes, in effect, by which the greatness of God is insulted, I see almost none more deserving of his chastisements than the profa- nations of his temples; and they are so much the more criminal, as the dispositions required of us by religion, when assisting there, ought to be more holy. For, my brethren, since our temples are a new heaven, where God dwellcth with men, they require the same dispositions of TEMPLES OF GOD. 359 US as those of the blessed in the heavenly temple; that is to say, that the earthly altar, being the same as that of heaven, and the Lamb, who offers himself and is sacrificed there, being the same, the dispositions of those around him ought to be alike. Now, the first disposition of the blessed before the throne of God and the altar of the Lamb, is a disposition of purity and innocence. The second, a disposition of religion and internal humiliation. Thirdly, and lastly, a disposition even of decency and of modesty in dress. Three dispositions, which comprise all the feelings of faith with which we ought to enter the temples of God; a disposition of purity and innocence ; a disposition of adoi'ation and internal humiliation ; a disposition even of external decency and modesty in dress. Part L — The whole universe is a temple which God filleth with his glory and with his presence. Wherever we go, says the apostle, he is always beside us ; in him we live, move, and have our being. If we mount up to the heavens, he is there; if we plunge to the centre, there shall we find him; if we tra- verse the ocean on the wings of the winds, it is his hand that guides us : and he is alike the God of the distant isles which know him not, as of the kingdoms and regions which invoke his name. Nevertheless, in all times, men have consecrated places to him which he hath honoured with a special presence. The patriarchs erected altars to him on certain spots where he had appeared. The Israelites, in the desert, considered the tabernacle as the place in which his glory and his presence continually resided; and, come afterward to Jerusalem, they no more invoked him with the solemnity of incense and of victims but in that august temple erected to him by Solomon. It was the first temple consecrated by men of the true God. It was the most holy place in the universe; the only one where it was permitted to offer up gifts and sacrifices to the Lord. From all quarters of the earth the Israelites were obliged to come there to worship him. Captives in foreign kingdoms, their eyes, their wishes, and their homages were incessantly bent toward that holy place : in the midst of Babylon, Jerusalem and her temple were always the source of their delight, of their regrets, and the object of their worship and of their prayers; and Daniel chose to expose himself to all the fury of the lions, rather than to fail in that pious duty, and to deprive himself of that consolation. Jerusalem, indeed, had often seen infidel princes, attracted by the sanctity and the fame of her temple, coming to render homage to a God whom they knew not; and Alexander himself, struck with the majesty of that place, and with the august gravity of its venerable pontiff, remembered that he was man, and bowed his proud head before the God of hosts whom they there worshipped. 360 RESPECT IN THE At the birth of the gospel, the houses of behevers were at first domestic churches. The cruelty of tyrants obliged those first disciples of faith to seek obscure and hidden places to conceal themselves from the rage of the persecutions, there to celebrate the holy mysteries, and to invoke the name of the Lord. The majesty of the ceremonies entered into the church only with that of the Ctesars. Religion had its Davids and its Solomons, who blushed to inhabit superb palaces, while the Lord had not whereon to lay his head : sumptuous edifices gradually rose up in our cities : the God of heaven and of the earth again, if I dare to say so, resumed his rights; and the temples themselves, where the demon had so long been invoked, were restored to him as to their rightful master, consecrated to his worship, and became his dwelling-place. But here they are no more empty temples like that of Jerusalem, where every thing took place figuratively. The Lord still dwelt in the heavens, said the prophet, and his throne was still above the clouds; but since he hath deigned to appear upon the earth, to hold converse with men, and to leave us, in the mystical benedictions, the real pledge of his body and of his blood, actually contained under these sacred signs, the heavenly altar hath no longer any advantage over ours; the victim which we there immolate is the Lamb of God; the bread in which we participate is the immortal food of the angels and blessed spirits ; the mystical wine we there drink is that new beverage with which they make glad in the kingdom of the heavenly Father; the sacred canticle we there sing is that which the celestial harmony makes continually to resound around the throne of the Lamb; lastly, our temples are those new heavens promised by the prophet to men. We see not fully there, it is true, all that is seen in the heavenly Jerusalem, for here below we see only mystically, and, as it were, through a veil; but we possess him, we enjoy him, and heaven hath no longer any advantage over the earth. Now, I say, that our temples being a new heaven, filled with the glory and the presence of the Lord, innocence and purity are the ifirst disposition by which we are entitled, like the blessed in the eternal temple, to appear there ; for the God before whom we appear is a holy God. In eflfect, my brethren, the sanctity of God, spread throughout the universe, is one of the greatest motives held out by religion to induce us every where to walk before him in purity and in innocence. As all creatures are sanctified by the intimate residence of the Divinity who dwelleth in them, and all places are full of his glory and immensity, the divine writings incessantly warn us every where to respect the ^presence of God, who seeth and who watcheth us; on no occasion to offer any thing to his eyes which may wound the sanctity of his regards; and not sully with our crimes that earth which wholly is his temple and the dwelling-place of his glory. TKMPLES OK GOD. 361 The sinner, who bears an impure conscience, is therefore a kind of profaner, unworthy of living upon the earth; for, by the sole situation of his corrupted heart, he every where dishonours the presence of the holy God who is ever beside him, and he pro- ianes every spot where he bears his crimes, for all places are sanc- tified through the immensity of the God who filleth and consecra- teth them. But, if the universal presence of God be a reason why we should every where appear pure and without stain to his eyes, doubtless those places which, in that universe, are particularly consecrated to him, our temples, in which the Divinity, as I may say, corporeally resides, much more require that we should appear in them pure and without stain, lest the sanctity of the God who filleth and dwelleth in them be dishonoured. Thus, when the Lord had permitted Solomon to erect, to his glory, that temple so famed for its magnificence, and so venerable through the splendour of its worship and the majesty of its cere- monies, what rigid precautions did he not take, lest men should abuse his goodness in choosing a special dwelling-place amid them, and lest they should dare to appear there, in his presence, covered with stains and defilements! What barriers did he not place be- tween himself, as I may say, and man; and, in drawing near to us, what an interval did not his holiness leave between the spot filled with his presence, and the eyes of the people who came to invoke him ! Yes, my brethren, take a description of it. Within the circle of that vast edifice which Solomon consecrated to the majesty of the God of his fathers, the Lord chose, for the place of his abode, only the most retired and the most inaccessible spot; that was the holy of holies, that is to say, the sole spot of that immense temple which was regarded as the dwelling-place and the temple of the Lord upon earth. And, besides, what terrible precautions de- fended its entry! An outer and far distant wall surrounded it; and there, the Gentiles and foreigners, who wished to be instructed in the law, could only approach. Secondly, another wall very distant concealed it; and there the Israelites alone were entitled to enter : yet was it necessary that they should be free from stain, and that they had carefully purified themselves, through stated fastings and ablutions, before they should dare to approach a place still so dis- tant from the holy of holies. Thirdly, another wall more advanced still separated it from the rest of the temple; and there the priests alone entered every day to offer sacrifices, and to renew the sacred loaves exposed upon the altar. The law required that every other Israelite who should dare to approach it, should be stoned as a sacrilegious profaner; and even a king of Israel, who thought himself entitled, through his regal dignity, to come there to offer up incense, was instantly covered with lejirosy, degraded from his royalty, and excluded for the rest of his life from all society and 362 RESPECT IN THE commerce with men. Lastly, after so many barriers and separa- tions, appeared the holy of hohes; that place, so terrible and so concealed, covered with an impenetrable veil, inaccessible to every mortal, to every righteous, to every prophet, even to every minister of the Lord, the sovereign pontiff alone excepted; and even he was entitled to appear there only once in the year, after a thousand strict and religious precautions, and bearing in his Hands the blood of the victim for which alone the gates of that sacred place were opened. Yet, after all, what did that holy of holies, that spot so formida- ble and so inaccessible, contain? The tables of the law, the manna, the rod of Aaron; empty figures, and the shadows of futurity : the holy God himself, who sometimes gave out from thence his oracles, yet dwelt not there as in the sanctuary of Christians, the gates of which are indiscriminately opened to every believer. Now, my brethren, if the goodness of God, in a law of love and grace, hath no longer placed these terrible barriers between him and us, if he hath destroyed that wall of separation which removed him so far from man, and hath permitted to every believer to approach the holy of holies, where he himself now dwelleth, it is not that his sanctity exacts less purity and innocence of those who come to present themselves before him. His design hath only been to render us more pure, more holy, and more faithful, and to make us feel what ought to be the sanctity of a Christian ; seeing he is every day obliged to support, at the foot of the altar, and of the terrible sanctuary, the presence of the God whom he invokes and whom he worships. And for this reason it is that Peter calls all Christians a holy nation; for they are all equally entitled to present themselves be- fore the holy altar: a chosen generation; for they are all separated from the world and from every profane custom, consecrated to the Lord, and solely destined to his worship and to his service : and, lastly, a royal priesthood; for they all participate, in one sense, in the priesthood of his Son, the High-priest of the new law, and because the privilege of entering into the holy of holies, formerly granted to the sovereign pontiff alone, is become the common and daily right of every believer. It is solely through the sanctity, then, of our baptism and of our consecration, that these sacred gates are opened to us. If impure, we, in some respect, forfeit this right; we have no longer a par in the altar: we are no longer worthy of the assembly of the holy, and the temple of God is no longer for us. Our temples, my brethren, ought therefore to be the house of the righteous alone. Every thing that takes place there supposes righteousness and sanctity in the spectators ; the mysteries which we there celebrate are holy and aAvful mysteries, and which require pure eyes; the victim we there offer up is the reconci- liation of the penitent, or the bread of the strong and perfect ; TEMPLES OK GOD. 363 the sacred anthems heard there are the groanings of a contrite heart, or the sighs of a chaste and believing soul. Asd on this account it is that the church takes care to purify even every thing that is to appear on the altar : she consecrates with prayers even the stones of these holy buildings, as if to render them worthy of sustaining the presence and the looks of the God who dwelleth in them : she exposes at the doors of our temples a water sanctitied by prayers, and recommends to believers to sprinkle it over their heads before they enter into the holy place, as if to complete their puri- fication from any slight stains which might still remain; lest the sanctity o^ the God before whom they come to appear should be injured by them. Formerly, the church permitted not, within the circle of her sacred walls, even tombs to the bodies of believers; she received not into that holy spot the spoils of their mortality; she did not believe that the temple of God, that new heaven filled with his presence and glory, should serve as an asylum to the ashes of those whom she numbered not as yet among the blessed. The public penitents themselves were for a long time excluded from assisting at the holy mysteries. Prostrated at the doors of the temple, covered with hair-cloth and ashes, even the assembly of believers was denied to them equally as to the anathematized: their tears and their mortifications alone could at length open to them these sacred gates. And what delight, when, after having groaned for, and supplicated their reconciliation, they found them- selves in the temple among their brethren; they once more beheld those altars, that sanctuary, those ministers so deeply engaged in the awful mysteries ; they heard their names pronounced at the altar with those of the believers, and sung with them hymns and holy songs ! What tears of rapture and of religion were then not shed ! What regret for having so long deprived themselves of so sweet a consolation! A single day, O my God, passed in thy holy house, cried they, no doubt, with the prophet, is more consoling to the heart than whole years spent in pleasure and in the tents of the wicked ! Such were formerly the temples of Christians. Far from these sacred walls, said then the minister with a loud voice to all the assembly of believers, — far from these sacred walls be the un- clean, the impure, the worshippers of idols, and whosoever loveth or maketh a lie. The church, it is true, no longer makes this rigorous discri- mination. The multitude of believers, and the depravation of manners, having rendered it impossible, she opens the gates of our temples indifferently to the righteous and to sinners: she draws the veil of her sanctuary in presence even of the profane; and, in order to begin the awful mysteries, her ministers no longer wait the departure of the sinful and unclean. But the church supposes that, if you be not righteous in coming here to appear before the majesty of a God so holy, you bring with you 364 RKSPECT IN THE at least desires of righteousness and of penitence : she supposes, that, if not yet altogether purified from your crimes, you "at least feel contrition for them ; that you come to lament them at the foot of the altar; and that your confusion and the sincere regret of your faults are now to begin here your justification and your innocence. If, sinners, it is your desires toward a more Christian life which alone can authorize your appearing in this holy place; and if you come not here to lament over yourx^rimes, but bring ■with you, even to the foot of the altar, the will, and the actual and rooted affection for them, the church, it is true, who sees not, nor judges the heart, excludes you not from these sacred walls; but God invisibly rejecteth you. In his eyes you are accursed and excommmunicated, and have no right in the altar or in the sacrifices ; you are one who comes to stain, by your sole presence, the sanctity of the awful mysteries, to seat yourself in a place where you have no right to be seated, and from whence the angel of the Lord, who watches at the gate of the temple, invisibly chases you, as he formerly chased the first sinner from that place of innocence and of sanctity which the Lord sanctified with his presence. And, in effect, to feel guilty of the most shameful crimes, and to come to appear here in the most holy place of the earth; to come to appear before God, without being, at least, touched with shame and sorrow, without thinking, at least, upon the means of quitting so deplorable a situation, without at least wishing it, and forming some sentiments of religion ; to bring even to the foot of the altar defiled bodies and souls; to force the eyes even o-f God, as I may say, to familiarize themselves with guilt, without at least confessing to him the sorrow of thus appearing before him covered with shame and reproach, and saying to him, like Peter, " Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man;" or, like the prophet, " Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities," that I may be worthy of appearing here in tliy presence, — is to profane the temple of God, to insult his glory and majesty, and the sanctity of his mysteries. For, my dear hearer, be whom ye may who come to assist here, you come to offer up spiritually with the priest the awful sacrifice : you come to present to God the blood of his Son, as the propitiation of your sins: you come to appease his justice, through the dignity and the excellence of these holy offerings ; and to represent to him the claim which you have upon his mercies, ever since the blood of his Son hath purified you; and that you no longer form, in one sense, with him, but one same priest and one same victim. Now, when you appear with a hardened and corrupted heart, without any sentiment of faith, or any desire of amendment, you disavow the ministry of the priest who oflbrs in your stead : you disavow the prayers he sends up TKMPLKS OF GOD. , 365 to the Lord, in which, through the mouth of the priest, you intreat him to cast his propitious looks on these holy offerings which are upon the altar, and to accept of them as the price of the abolition of your crimes : you even insult the love of Jesus Christ himself, who renews the grand object of your redemption, and who presents you to his Father as a portion of that pure and spotless church which he hath washed in his blood : you insult the piety of the church, who, believing you united in her faith and iii her charity, places in your mouth, through the hymns which accompany the holy mysteries, sentiments of religion, of sorrow, and of penitence. Lastly, — you receive the faith and the piety of the righteous there present, and who, considering you as forming with them only one heart, one mind, and one same sacrifice, join themselves with you, and ofler to the Lord your faith, your desires, your prayers, as their own. You are there, then, as an anathematized, separated from all the rest of your brethren : an impostor, who secretly disavows what you are publicly professino-, and who comes to insult religion, and to reject all share in the redemption and in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, in the very moment that he is renewing the memory, and offering up the price of it to his Father. What are we thence to conclude?— that, if a sinner, we are to banish ourselves from our temples, and from the holy mysteries ? God forbid ! Ah ! then it is, that we ought to come to this holy place in search of our deliverance; then it is, that we ought to come to solicit, at the foot of the altar, the tender mercies of the Lord, ever ready in that place to lend a favourable ear to sinners; then it is, that we ought to call in every religious aid held out to faith, to arouse in ourselves, if possible, some sentiments of piety and of repentance. And whither, O my brethren, shall we fly, when unhappily fallen under the displeasure of God? And what other resource could remain for us? It is here alone that sinners can find a refuge : here flow the quickening waters of the sacrament, which alone have the virtue of purifying the conscience: here the sacrifice of propitiation is offered up for them, alone capable of appeasing the justice of God, which their crimes have irritated: here the ti^uths of salvation, enforced upon their heart, inspire them with hatred against sin and love of righteousness: here their ignorance is enlightened, their errors dissipated, their weakness sustained, their good desires strengthened : here, in a word, religion offers remedies for all their ills. It is sinners, therefore, who ought most to frequent these holy temples; and the more their wounds are inveterate and hopeless, the more eagerly ought they to fly here in search of a cure. Such is the first disposition of innocence and of purity, which the presence here of a holy God requires of us, and of the blessed heaven : " For they are without fault before the throne of God." But if the sole state of guilt, without remorse, without any wish m 366 RESPECT IN THK for a change, and with an actual intention of persevering in it, be a kind of irreverence, by which the sanctity of our temples and of our mysteries is profaned ; what, O my God ! shall it be to choose these holy places, and the hour of the awful mysteries, to come to inspire infamous passions, — to permit themselves impure looks, — to form criminal desires, — to seek opportunities wTiich decency alone prevents them from seeking elsewhere, — to meet objects whom the vigilance of those who instruct us keeps at a distance in all other resorts? What shall it be to make instrumental to guilt, what in religion is most holy; to choose thy presence, great God! to conceal the secret of an impure passion, and to make thy holy temple a rendezvous of iniquity, a place more dangerous than even those assemblies of sin, which religion interdicts to believers? What guilt, to come to crucify afresh Jesus Christ, in the very place where he offers himself up for us every day to his Father! What guilt, to employ, in order to forward our own ruin, the very hour in which the mysteries of salvation, and the redemption of all men, are operated ! What madness, to come to choose the eyes of our Judge to render him the witness of our crimes, and of his presence to make the most horrible cause of our condemnation ! What a neglect of God, and what a mark of reprobation, to change the sacred asylums of our reconciliation into opportunities of debauchery and licentiousness! Great God! when insulted on Mount Calvary, where thou wert still a suffering God, the tombs opened around Jerusalem ; the dead arose, as if to reproach to their descendants the horror of their sacrilege. Ah ! reanimate, then, the ashes of our fathers who await, in this holy temple, the blessed immortality; let their bodies rise out of these pompous tombs which our vanity hath erected to them; and, inflamed with a holy indignation against irreverences which crucify thee afresh, and which profane the sacred asylum of the remains of their mortality, let them appear upon these monuments ; and, since our instructions and our threatenings are unavailing, let them come themselves to reproach to their successors their irreligion and their sacrileges. But if the terror of thy presence, O my God ! be insufficient to retain them in respect, were the dead even to rise up, as thou hast formerly said, they would, in consequence of it, be neither more religious nor more believing. But if the presence of a holy God require here, as of the blessed in heaven, a disposition of purity and innocence, the presence of a God, terrible, and full of majesty, requires one of dread and of internal collection. — Second disposition, marked by the profound humiliation of the blessed in the heavenly temple; " And they fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God." Part II. — God is spirit and truth, and it is in spirit and in TEMPLES OF GOD. 367 truth that he requireth principally to be honoured. That dispo- sition of profound humiliation which we owe to him in our tem- ples, consists not, therefore, solely in the external posture of our bodies; it also compiises, like that of the blessed in heaven, a spirit of adoration, of praise, of prayer, and of thanksgiving; and such is that spirit of religion and of humiliation which God de- mandeth of us in the holy temple, similar to that of the blessed in the heavenly temple. I say a spirit of adoration ; for as it is here that God manifesteth his wonders and his supreme greatness, and descendeth from hea- ven to receive our homages, the first sentiment which should be formed within us, on entering into this holy place, is a sentiment of terror, of silence, and profound recollection, of internal humili- ation, on viewing the majesty of the Most High and our own mean- ness; to be occupied with God alone who showeth himself to us; to fee! all the weight of his glory and of his presence ; to collect all our attention, all our thoughts, all our desires, our whole soul, to pay him the homage of it, and to cast it wholly at the feet of the God whom we w^orship ; to forget all the grandeurs of the earth ; to see only him; to be occupied only with him; and, by our profound humiliation, to confess, like the blessed in heaven, that he alone is almighty, alone immortal, alone great, alone worthy of all our love and of our homages. But, alas! my brethren, where, in our temples, are those re- spectful souls, who, seized with a holy dread at the sight of these sacred places, feel all the weight of the majesty of the God who dwelleth in them, and are incapable of supporting the splendour of his presence, otherwise than in the immobility of a humiliated body, and the profound religion of a soul who adores? Where are those who, losing sight-of all the grandeurs of the earth, are here occupied with that of God alone? Let us boldly say it before a king, whose profound respect, at thg foot of the altar, does equal honour to religion and to himself; it is not to honour the God who dwelleth here that too many enter into this holy temple; it is to cover themselves with the cloak of piety, and to make it instru- mental toward views and interests which sincere piety condemns. They come to bow the knee, as Haman bowed it before the profane altar, to attract the regards and to follow the example of the prince who worships; they come here to seek another God than he who appears on our altars; to make their court to another master than the Supreme Master; to seek other favours than the grace of Heaven; and to attract the kindness of another paymaster than the immortal Rewarder. Amid a crowd of worshippers, he is an unknown God in his own temple, as he formerly was in the pagan Athens. Every look here is for the prince, who hath none him- self but for God : all wishes are addressed to him ; and his pro- foimd humiliation at the foot of the altar, far from teaching us to respect here the Lord, before whom a great king bows his 368 RKSPEOT IN THE head and forgets all his greatness, teaches us only to take ad- vantage of his religion, and of the favours with which he ho- nours virtue, to adopt their semblance, and, through that de- ception, to exalt ourselves to new degrees of greatness upon the earth. O ray God! is not this what thou announcedst to thy disciples — that times would come when faith should be extin- guished, when piety would become an infamous traffic, and when men, living without God upon the earth, would no longer acknow- ledge thee but in order to make thee subservient to their iniqui- tous desires? A spirit of prayer is also comprised in this disposition of humi- liation ; for the more we are struck here with the greatness and with the power of the God whom we worship, the more do our endless wants warn us to have recourse to him from whom alone we can obtain relief and deliverance from them. Thus the tem- ple is the house of prayer, where every one ought to come to lay his secret wants before the Lord ; where, in public calamities, he is appeased by the general prayers; where the assembled minis- ters lift up their hands for the sins of the people ; and where the eyes of the Lord are ever open to our wants, and his ears attentive to our cries. Not but we may address ourselves to him, as the apostle says, in everyplace; but the temple is the spot where he is more pro- pitious, and where he hath promised to be always present to receive our homages, and to lend a favourable ear to our requests. Yes, my brethren, it is here that we ought to come to join in lamenta- tion with the church, over the scandals with which she is afflicted, over the divisions with which she is torn, and over the dangers which surround her; over the obstinacy of sinners, and the cold- ness of charity among believers: we come, with her, to solicit the mercies of the Lord upon his people; to intreat of him the cessa- tion of wars and other public scourges ; the extinction of schisms and errors; the knowledge and the love of righteousness and of truth for sinners; and perseverance for the just. You ought, therefore, to come with an attentive and collected mind, a prepared heart, and which offers nothing to the eyes of God that may avert the favours solicited by the church for you, and to appear with that exterior of a suppliant, which, of itself, shows that he prays and that he worships. Nevertheless, my brethren, while the ministers are lifting up their hands here for you; are supplicating the Lord for the pros- perity of your families, for abundance to your lands, for the preservation of your relations and children, who perhaps expose themselves for the welfare of their country, for the end of wars, dissensions, and all the miseries with which we are afflicted; while they are entreating remedies for your backslidings, and aids for your weakness; while they are speaking to the holy God in your favour, you deign not even to accompany their prayers TEMPLES OF GOD, 369 with your attention and your respect. You dishonour the holy gravity of the church's lamentations by a spirit of inattention, and by indecencies which would hardly become even those crimi- nal resorts where you listen to profane songs ; and the only differ- ence in your behaviour is, that, in the one, you are touched and rendered attentive by a lascivious harmony, while here you endure, with impatience, the divine songs in thanksgiving and in praise of the Lord. Thus, my brethren, in place of the public prayers arresting the arm of the Lord, so long impending over our heads ; in place of the supplications, which resound in every part of our temples, being able, as formerly, to suspend the scourges of Heaven, to bring back days of peace and of tranquillity, to reconcile nations and kings, and to attract peace from heaven to the earth ; alas ! the days of evil still endure ; the times of trouble, of mourning, and of desolation, cease not; war and fury seem to have for ever taken up their abode among men ; the desolate widow de- mands her husband ; the afflicted father in vain looks out for his child ; brother is divided from brother ; even our successes shed mourning and sorrow through our families, and we are forced to weep over our own victories. Whence comes this ? Ah ! it is that the prayers of the church, the only sources of the favours which God sheddeth u])on kingdoms and upon empires, are no lonoer listened to ; and that you force the Lord, through the irreverence with which you accompany them, to avert his ears, and to turn his attention from them, and which thereby renders them useless to the earth. But, not only ought you to appear here as suppliants, and in a spirit of prayer, since it is here that the Lord dealeth out his favours and his grace ; as it is here, likewise, that every thing renews to you the remembrance of those already received, you ought also to bring here a spirit of gratitude and of thanksgiving, seeing that, on whichever way you turn your eyes, every thing recalls to you the remembrance of God's blessings, and the sight of his eternal mer- cies upon your soul. And, first, it is here where, in the sacrauicnt by which we are rege- nerated, you have become believers : it is here that the goodness of God, in associating you, through baptism, to the hope of Jesus Christ, hath discerned you from so many heathens who know him not : it is here that you have engaged your faith to the Lord; your writ- ten promises are still preserved under the altar. Here is the book of the covenant which you have made with the God of your fathers : you should no longer, then, appear here but to ratify the engage- ments of your baptism, and to thank the Lord for the inestimable blessing which hath associated you with his people, and honoured you with the name of Christian ; you ought to feel all the tender- ness and respect of a child, for the blessed womb which hath 2 n 370 RESPECT IN THE brought you forth in Jesus Christ, and the glory of this house ought to be your glory. What are you then, when, in place of bringing your thanksgiv- ings to the leet of the altar for so singular and so distinguished a blessing, you come to dishonour it by your irreverences ? You are an unnatural child, who profane the place of your birth according to faith ; a perfidious Christian, who come to retract your promises before the very altars which witnessed them ; who come to break the treaty on the sacred spot where it was concluded ; to blot your- self out of the book of life, where your name was written with those of the faithful ; to abjure the religion of Jesus Christ on the very fonts where you had received it ; to make a pompous display of all the vanities of the age, at the feet of the altar where you had so- lemnly renounced them ; and to profess worldliness where you had made professions of Christianity. Nor is this all ; for, secondly, it is here that Jesus Christ hath so often said to you, through the mouth of his ministers, "My son, thy sins are forgiven thee ; go, and sin no more, lest a worse thing- befall thee." It is here, that, melting in tears, you have so often said to him, " Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee." Now, ray brethren, on the very spot where you have so often expe- rienced the grace of forgiveness, not only you forget the blessing, but you come to give new subject of oifence ; on the very spot where you have so often appeared penitent, you proclaim yourselves still worldly and profane. Ah ! far from coming to these holy tribu- nals to recapitulate the disorders of your life ; far from coming to renew those promises of penitence, those sentiments of compunc- tion, those emotions of shame and of confusion, of which they have so often been the depositories; you boldly appear before them with an unblushing countenance, your eyes wandering here and there, full, perhaps, of guilt and adultery, as the apostle says, to renew in their presence the same infidelities that your tears had once ex- piated, and to render them ocular witnesses of the same prevari- cations of which they had been the secret confidants and the blessed purgers ! What more shall I say, my brethren ? — In the third place, the temple is the house of doctrine and of tnith ; and it is here that, through the mouth of the pastors, the church announces to you the maxims of salvation, and the mysteries of tlie hea- venly kingdom, concealed from so many infidel nations: — fresh motive of gratitude on your part. But, alas ! it is rather a fresh subject of condemnation ; and even here, where, from these Christian pulpits, we are continually telling you from Jesus Christ that the unclean shall never enjoy the kingdom of hea- ven, you come to form profane desires ; even here, where you are warned that you shall one day have to render account of an idle word, you permit yourselves criminal ones : lastly, even rBMl'LKS OF GOD. 3/1 here, where you so often hear repeated that evil to him that scaiidaHzeth, you become yourself a stumbhng-block and a subject of scandal. Thus, my brethren, why do you believe that the word of the gospel, which we preach to princes and to the grandees of the earth, is no longer but a tinkling brass, and that our ministry is now become almost unnecessary? It may be that our private weaknesses place a bar to the fruit and to the progress of the gospel, and that God bless not a ministry, the ministers of which are not pleasing in his sight: but, besides this reason, so humiliating for us, and which we cannot, however, either dissemble from you, or even conceal from ourselves, it is, doubtless, the pro- fanation of the temples, and the indecent and disrespectful manner in which you listen to us, that deprive the word, of which we are the ministers, of all its energy and virtue. The Lord, estranged from this holy place through your profanations, no longer giveth increase to our toils, nor sheddeth his grace, which alone causeth his doctrine and his word to fructify : he no longer looketh upon these assembhes, formerly so holy, but as an assembly of worldly- minded, of voluptuous, of ambitious, and of profane. And how would you, that he turn iiot his countenance from them, and that the word of his gospel fructify there? Reconcile, in the first place, with him, by your homages, by your collected behaviour, and by your piety, these houses of the doctrine and of truth: then will he compensate for your deficiencies; he will open your hearts to our instructions, and his word shall no longer return empty to him. But a final reason, which renders your ir'reverential behaviour still more criminal and more disgraceful to religion, is, that it is in the temple where you come to offer up, in one sense, with the priest, the awful sacrifice, to renew the oblation of the cross, and to present to God the blood of his Son as the propitiation of your sins. Now, my brethren, while mysteries so august are celebrating ; during these awful moments when heaven opens above our altars; in a time when the affair of your salvation is agitated between Jesus Christ and his Father; while the blood of the Lamb is flowing upon the altar to wash you from stain; while the angels of heaven tremble and adore; while the solemnity of the ministers, the majesty of the ceremonies, and even the piety of the true be- lievers, all inspire fear, gratitude, and respect, scarcely do you bow the knee, scarcely do you cast a look upon the holy altar, where mysteries so blessed for you are consummating. It is even with reluctance that you are in the temple ; you measure the duration and the fatiguing length of the salutary sacrifice; you count the moments of a time so precious to the earth, and so replete with wonders and grace for men. You who are so embarrassed with your time, who sacrifice it to an eternal inutility and circle of nothings, and who are even difficultcd in contriving to kill it; you complain of the pious solemnity of the minister, and of the circumspection 2 R 2 372 RESPECT IN THE with which he treats the holy things. Ah ! you require such respect and such precaution in those who serve you; and you would that a priest clothed in all his dignity, that a priest representing Jesus Christ, and performing his office of mediator and high-priest with his Father, should treat the holy mysteries with precipitation, and dishonour the presence of the God whom he serves, and whom he immolates, by a shameful carelessness and haste? In what times, O my God, are we come? And was it to be expected that thy most precious and most signal kindnesses should become a burden to the Christians of our ages ? Alas ! the first believers, who met in the temple at stated hours of the day, to celebrate, in hymns and songs with their pastor, the praises of the Lord, they almost never quitted these sacred abodes, and that only with regret, when obliged to attend to the affairs of the age, and to the duties of their station. How beautiful, my brethren, to see in those happy times the holy assem- bly of believers in'^the house of prayer, each in the place adapted to his station; on one side, the recluse, the holy confessors, the common believers ; on the other, the virgins, the widows, the married women, — all attentive to the ho'fy mysteries, all beholding, with tears of joy and of religion, to flow upon the altar, the blood still reeking, as I may say, of the Lamb, and so lately crucified before their eyes ; praying for the princes, for the Caesars, for their -persecutors, for their brethren ; mutually exhorting each other to martyrdom; tasting all the consolation of the divine writings ex- plained by their holy pastors, and retracing, in the church of the earth, the joy, the peace, the innocence, and the profound medita- tion of the heavenly church! How beautiful and splendid were then the tents of Jacob, although the church was yet under oppres- sion and obscurity; and the enemies of faith, even the prophets of the idols, in viewing their good order, their innocence, and their majesty, with what difficulty did they refuse to them their admira- tion and their homages ! Alas ! and at present the rapid moments which you consecrate here to religion, and which ought to sanctify the remainder of the day, often become themselves the greatest guilt of it. Lastly, my brethren, to all these inward dispositions of prayer, of adoration, and of gratitude, which the sanctity of our temples exacts of you, there is likev/ise to be added the external modesty, and the decency of ornaments and of dress — last disposition of the blessed in the heavenly temple : but on this part I shall be very brief. And, in effect, should any instruction on our part be necessary to you on this point, O, worldly women ? for it is you whom this part of my discourse principally regards. To what purpose all that display, I say not only of ostentation and of vanity, but of immodesty and of impudence, with which you make your appear- ance in this house of tears and of prayer? Do you come here to TKMPLES OF GOD. 373 dispute with Jesus the looks and the homages of those who wor- ship him? Do you come to insult the mysteries which operate the salvation of believers, by seeking to corrupt their heart at the feet even of the altars, where these mysteries take place for them? Are you determined that innocence shall in no place of the earth, not even in the temple, that asylum of religion and piety, be pro- tected from your profane and lascivious nakedness? Doth the world not sufficiently furnish you with impure theatres, with as- semblies of dissipation, where you may make a boast of being a stumbling-block to your brethren? Even your houses, open to dissipation and to riot, do they not suffice for you to figure with an indecency which would formerly have been suited only to houses of debauchery and of guilt; and which is the cause that, not respecting yourselves, that respect is lost for you, of which the national politeness hath always been so jealous? For modesty alone is estimable, as St. Paul formerly reproached to behevers. Must the holy temple be also stained by your immodesties? Ah! when you appear before your earthly sovereign, you mark, by the dig- nity and by the propriety of your deportment, the respect which you know to be due to his presence ; and, before the Sovereign of heaven and of the earth, you make your appearance, not only without precaution, but even without decency or modesty; and you display under his eyes an effrontery which wounds even the eyes of the wise and respectable! You come to disturb the atten- tion of the believers who had expected to have found here a place of peace and of silence, and an asylum against all the objects of vanity; to disturb even the deep meditation and the holy gravity of the ministers, and to sully, by the indecency of your dress, the purity of their looks attentive to the holy things. Thus the apostle desired, that the Christian woman should be covered with a veil in the temple, on account of the angels; that is to say, of the priests, who are continually present there before God, and whose innocence and purity ought to equal that of the heavenly spirits. True it is, that thou thereby warnest us, O my God, what ought, in our temples, to be the holy gravity, and the inviolable sanctity of thy ministers; that it is for us to bear here, stamped upon our countenance, the holy dread of the mysteries which we offer up, and the lively and intimate sense of thy pre- sence; that it is for us to inspire here the people around us with respect, by the sole appearance of our modesty; that it is for us not to appear around the altar, and employed in the holy ministry, often more wearied, more careless, and more in haste than even the assisting multitude; and not to authorize their irreverences by our own. For, O my God! the desolation of the holy place hath commenced with the sanctuary itself; the respect of the people there hath become weakened only in consequence of being no longer supported by the holy gravity of the worship and the ma- jesty of the ceremonies; and thy house hath begun to be a house ^74 RESPECT IN THE TEMPLES OF GOD. of dissipation and of scandal, only since thy ministers have made of it a house of traffic, of weariness, and of avarice. But our ex- amples, in authorizing your profanations, do not excuse them, my brethren . And, in effect, it seems that God hath never left them unpun- ished. The shameful indecencies of the children of Levi, which had so long profaned his house, were followed with the most dis- mal calamities: the holy ark became a prey to the Philistines; it was placed at the side of Dagon, in an infamous temple ; the glory of Israel was blasted; the Lord withdrew himself from amidst his people; the lamp of Judah was extinguished; there was no high-priest, and Jacob was, all of a sudden, without altar and with- out sacrifice. There is little doubt, my brethren, but that the miseries of the last age have been the fatal consequences of the profanations and of the irreverences of our fathers. It was just that the Lord should abandon temples where he had so long been insulted J Dread, my brethren, lest we prepare for our posterity the same calamities, in imitating the disorders of those who have preceded us. Dread, lest an irritated God should one day abandon these temples which we profane, and lest they, in their turn, become the asylum of error. What do I know but that he is already preparing all these evils for us, in permitting the purity and the simplicity of faith to be adulterated in the minds, in multiplying those men so wise in their own conceit, and so common in this age, who mea- sure every thing by the lights of a weak reason, who would wish to fathom the secrecies of God, and who, far from making religion the subject of their worship and of their thanksgivings, make it the subject of their doubts and of their censures? Thou art ter- rible in thy judgments, O my God! and thy punishments are some- times so much the more rigorous, as they have been tardy and slow. Let us reflect, then, my brethren, on all these grand motives of religion ; let us bring into this holy place a tender and an at- tentive piety, a spirit of piety, of compunction, of collection, of thanksgiving, of adoration, and of praise; let us never quit our temples without bearing from them some new grace, since here is the throne of mercy from whence they are shed upon men; never quit them without an additional relish for heaven, without new desires of terminating your errors, and of attaching your- selves solely to God ; without envying the happiness of those who serve him, who have it in their power to be continually worship- ping him at the feet of the altar, and whose station and functions particularly consecrate them to this holy ministry. Say to him, as the queen of Sheba formerly said to Solomon, "Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continu- ally before thee, and that hear thy wisdom." And, should the duties of your station not permit you to come here to worship the Lord at the different hours of the day, when his ministers assemble THE TRUTH OF RELIGION. 375 to praise him; ah ! continually turn, at least, toward the holy place, like the Israelites formerly, your longings and your desires. Let our temples be the sweetest consolation of your troubles, the only asylum of your afflictions, the only resource of your wants, the most certain recreation from the confinements, the fatiguing attentions, and the painful subjections of the world : in a word, find there the beginning of that unalterable peace, the plenitude and the consum- mation of which you will find only with the blessed, in the eternal temple of the heavenly Jerusalem. SERMON XXII. THE TRUTH OF RELIGION. 'Verily T say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no not In Israel." Matthew viii. 10. Whence came, then, the incredulity with which Jesus Christ a present reproaches the Jews ; and what cause could they still have for doubting the sanctity of his doctrine and the truth of his minis- try ? They had demanded miracles, and, before their eyes, he had wrought such evident ones that no person before him had done the like. They had wished that his mission were authorized by testi- monies ; Moses and the prophets had amply borne them to him ; the precursor had openly proclaimed. Behold the Christ and the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world; a Gentile renders glory in our gospel to his almightiness ; the heavenly Father had declared from on high, that it was his well-beloved Son; lastly, the demons themselves, struck with his sanctity, quitted the bodies, confessing that he was the Holy, and the Son of the living God. What could the incredulity of the Jews still oppose to so many proofs and prodigies ? Behold, my brethren, what, with much greater surprise, might be demanded of those unbeHeving minds, who, after the fulfilment of all that had been foretold, after the consummation of the mysteries of Jesus Christ, the exaltation of his name, the manifestation of his gifts, the calling of his people, the destruction of idols, the con- version of Csesars, and the agreement of the universe, still doubt. 376 THE TRUTH OF RELIGION. and take upon themselves to confute and to overthrow what the toils of the apostolic men, the blood of so many martyrs, the prodi- gies of so many servants of Jesus Christ, the writings of so many great men, the austerities of so many holy anchorites, and the reli- gion of seventeen hundred years, have so universally and so divinely established in the minds of almost all people. For, my brethren, amid all the triumphs of faith, children of un- belief still privately spring up among us, whom God hath delivered up to the vanity of their own thoughts, and who blaspheme what they know not ; impious men, who change, as the apostle says, the gsrace of our God into wantonness, defile their flesh, contemn all rule, blaspheme majesty, corrupt all their ways like the animals not gifted with reason, and are set apart to serve one day as an exam- ple of the awful judgments of God upon men. Now, if, among so many believers assembled here through reli- gion, any soul of this description should happen to be, allow me, you, my brethren, who preserve with respect the sacred doctrine which you have received from your ancestors and from your pastors, to seize this opportunity either of undeceiving them or of confuting their incredulity. Allow me for once to do here what the first pas- tors of the church so often did before their assembled people, that is to say, to take upon myself the defence of the religion of Jesus Christ against unbelief ; and, before entering into the particulars of your duties during this long terra, allow me to begin by laying the first foundations of faith. It is so consoling for those who be- lieve to find how reasonable their submission is, and to be convinced that faith, wliich is apparently the rock of reason, is, however, its only consolation, guide, and refuge ! Here, then, is my whole design. The unbeliever refuses submis- sion to the revealed truths, either through a vain affectation of rea- son, or through a false sentiment of pride, or through an ill-placed love of independence. Now, I mean at present to shov/, that the submission which the unbeliever refuses, through a vain affectation of reason, is the most prudent use which he can make even of reason : that the submis- sion which he refuses through a false sentiment of pride, is the most glorious step of it ; and, lastly, that the submission which he rejects through an ill-placed love of independence, is the most indispensable sacrifice of it. And from thence I shall draw the three great characters of religior) : — it is reasonable, it is glorious, it is necessary. O my Saviour, eternal author and finisher of our faith, defend thyself, thy doctrine. Suffer not that thy cross, by which the universe hath been submitted to thee, be still the folly and the scandal of proud minds. Once more triumph at present, through the secret wonders of thy grace, over that same unbqhef which thou formerly triumphedst over through the striking operations of thy power J and by those lively lights, which enlighten THE TRUTH OF RKLIGIOX. 377 hearts, more efficacious than all our discourses, destroy every sen- timent of pride which may still rise up against the knowledge of thy mysteries. Pakt I. — Let us begin with admitting that it is faith, and not reason, which makes Christians; and that the first step exacted of a disciple of Jesus Christ, is to captivate his mind, and to believe what he may not comprehend. Nevertheless, I say, that we are led to that submission by reason itself; that the more even our lights are superior, the more do they point out the necessity of our submission ; and that unbelief, far from being the result of strength of mind and of reason, is, on the contrary, that of error and weakness. In faith, reason hath therefore its uses, as it hath its limits : and as the law, good and holy in itself, served oaily to conduct to Jesus Christ, and there stopped as at its term ; in the same way, reason, good and just in itself, since it is the gift of God, and a participa- tion of the sovereign reason, ought only to serve, and is given to us for the sole purpose of preparing the way for faith. It is forward, and quits the bounds of its first institution, when it attempts to go beyond these sacred limits. This taken for granted, let us see which of the two, namely, the believer or the unbeliever, makes the most prudent use of his reason. Submission to things held out to our belief, perhaps suspected of credulity, either on the side of the authority which proposes them ; if it be light, it is weakness to give credit to them : or on the side of the things of which they wish to persuade us; if they be in opposition to the principles of equity, of honour, of society, and of conscience, it is ignorance to receive them as true: or, lastly, on the side of the motives which are employed to persuade us; if they be vain, frivolous, and incapable of determining a wise mind, it is imprudence to give way to them. Now, it is easy to prove that the authority which exacts the submission of the believer, is the-great- est, the most respectable, and the best established, which can possibly be upon the earth; that the truths proposed to his belief are the only ones conformable to the principles of equity, of honour, of society, and of conscience; and, lastly, that the motives em- ployed to persuade him are the most decisive, the most triumphant, and the most proper to gain submission from the least credulous minds. When I speak of the authority of the Christian religion, I do not pretend to confine the extent of that term to the single authority of its holy assemblies, in which, through the mouths of its pastors, the church makes decisions, and holds out to all believers the infalhble rules of worship and of doctrine. As it is not heresy, but unbelief, which this discourse concerns, I do not here so much consider religion as opposed to the sects which the spirit of error hath sepa- rated from the unity, that is to say, as confined to the sole catholic 378 THE TRUTH OF RELIGION. church, but as forming, since the beginning of the world, a society apart, sole depository of the knowledge of a God, and of the pro- mise of a Mediator; always opposed to all the religions which have arisen in the universe; always contradicted, and always the same; and I say that its authority bears along with it such shining cha- racters of truth, that it is impossible, without folly, to refuse sub- mission to it. In the first place, in matters of religion, antiquity is a character which reason respects ; and, we may say, that a prepossession is already formed in favour of that belief, consecrated by the religion of the first men, and by the simplicity of the primitive times. Not but what falsehood is often decked out with the same titles, and that old errors exist among men, which seem to contest the, antiquity of their origin with the truth; but it is not difficult, to whoever wishes to trace their history, to go back even to their origin. Novelty is always the constant and most inseparable cha- racter of error ; and the reproach of the prophet may alike be made to them all: "They sacrifice to new gods that come newly up, whom their fathers feared not." In effect, if there be a true religion upon the earth, it must be the most ancient of all; for, if there be a true religion upon the earth, it must be the first and the most essential duty of man toward the God who wishes to be honoured by it. This duty must there- fore be equally ancient as man ; and, as it is attached to his nature, it must, as I may say, be born with him. And this, my brethren, is the first character by which the religion of Christians is at once distinguished from superstitions and sects. It is the most ancient religion in the world. The first men, before an impious worship was carved out of divinities of wood and of stone, worshipped the same God whom we adore, raised up altars, and offered sacrifices to him, expected from his liberality the reward of their virtue,, and from his justice, the punishment of their disobedience. The his- tory of the birth of this religion is the history of the birth of the world itself. The divine books which have preserved it down to us, contain the first monuments of the origin of things. They are themselves more ancient than all those fabulous productions of the human mind which afterward so miserably amused the credulity of the following ages; and, as error ever springs from the truth, and is only a faulty imitation of it, all the fables of Paganism are founded on some of the principal features of that divine history; insomuch, that it may be affirmed that every thing, even to error itself, renders homage to the antiquity and to the authority of our holy Scriptures. Now, my brethren, is there not already something respectable in this character alone ? The other religions, which have vaunted a more ancient origin, have produced nothing, in support of their antiquity, but fabulous legends, which sunk into nothing of themselves. They have disfigured the history of the world by THE TRUTH OF RELIGION. 379 a chaos of innumerable and imaginary ages, of which no event hath been left to posterity, and which the history of the world hath never known. The authors of these gross fictions did not write till many ages after the actions which they relate, and it is saying every thing to add, that that theology was the fruit of poesy, and the inventions of that art the most solid foundations of their religion. Here, it is a train of facts, reasonable, natural, and in agreement with itself. It is the history of a family continued from its first head down to him who writes it, and authenticated in all its cir- cumstances. It is a genealogy in which every chief is character- ised by his own actions, by events which still subsisted then, by marks which were still known in the places where they had dwelt. It is a living tradition, the most authenticated upon the earth, since Moses hath written only what he had heard from the children of the patriarchs, and they related only what their fathers had seen. Every part of it is coherent, hangs properly together, and tends to clear up the whole. The features are not copied, nor the adventures drawn from elsewhere, and accommodated to the subject. Before Moses, the people of God had nothing in writing. He hath left nothing to posterity but what he had verbally collected from his ancestors, that is to say, the whole tradition of mankind ; and the first he hath comprised in one volume, the history of God's wonders and of his manifestations to men, the remembrance of which had till then composed the whole religion, the whole knowledge, and the whole consolation of the family of Abraham. The candour and sin- cerity of this author appear in the simplicity of his history. He takes no precaution to secure belief, because he supposes that those for whom he writes require none to believe ; and all the facts which he relates being well known among them, it is more for the purpose of preserving them to their posterity than for any instruction in them to themselves. Behold, my brethren, which way the Christian religion begins to acquire influence over the mind of men. Turn on all sides, read the history of every people and of every nation, and you will find nothing so well estabhshed upon the earth. What do I say? — you will find nothing more worthy the attention of a rational mind. If men be born for a religion, they are born for this one alone. If there be a Supreme Being who hath manifested the truth to men, this alone is worthy of men and of him. Every where else the origin is fabulous ; here it is equally certain as all the rest; and the latter ages, which cannot be disputed, are, however, only the proofs of the certitude of the first. Therefore, if there be an authority upon the earth to which reason ought to yield, it is to that of the Christian religion. To the character of its antiquity must be added that of its per- petuity. Figure to yourselves here that endless variety of sects and of religions which have successively reigned upon the cartiu 380 THE TRUTH OF RELIGION. Follow the history of the superstitions of every people and of every country ; they have flourished a few years, and afterward sunk into oblivion along with the power of their followers. Where are the gods of Emath, of Arphad, and of Sepharvaim ? Recollect the history of those first conquerors : in conquering the people, they conquered the gods of the people ; and, in overturning their power, they overturned their worship. How beautiful, my brethren, to see the religion of our fathers alone maintaining itself from the first, surviving all sects ; and, notwithstanding the diverse fortunes of those who have professed it, alone passing from father to son, and braving every exertion to efface it from the heart of men ! It is not the arm of flesh which hath preserved it. Ah ! the people of God hath, almost always, been weak, oppressed, and persecuted. No: it is not, says the prophet, by their own sword that our fathers got the land in possession ; but thy right hand, O Lord, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them. One while slaves, another fugitives, another tributaries of various nations ; they a thousand times saw Chaldea, Assyria, Babylon, the most formidable powers of the earth, the whole universe, conspire their ruin and the total extinction of their worship ; but this people, so weak, oppressed in Egypt, wandering in the desert, and afterward carried in captivity into a foreign land, no power hath ever been able to exterminate, while so many others, more povv'erful, have followed the destiny of human things; and its worship hath always subsisted with itself, in spite of all the eftbrts made by almost every age to destroy it. Now, whence comes it, that a worship so contradicted, so arduous in its observances, so rigorous in its punishments upon transgressors, and even so liable to be established or to be over- thrown, through the mere inconstancy and ignorance of the people who was its first depository; whence comes it that it alone hath been perpetuated amid so many revolutions, while the superstitions supported by all the power of empires and of kingdoms, have sunk into their original oblivion? Ah! is it not God, and not man, who hath done all these things ? Is it not the arm of the Almighty which hath preserved his work ? And since every thing invented by the human mind has perished, is it not to be inferred that what hath always endured was alone the work of the divine wisdom? Lastly, if, to its antiquity and to its perpetuity, you add its uniformity, no pretext for resistance will be left to reason. For, my brethren, every thing changes upon the earth, because every thing follows the mutability of its origin. Occasions, the differ- ence of ages, the diverse humours of climates, and the neces- sity of the times, have introduced a thousand changes in all the human laws. Faith alone hath never changed. Such as our fathers received it, such have we it at preeent, and such shall THE TRUTH OF IIKLIGION. 381 our descendants one day receive it. It hath been unfolded through the course of ages, and likewise, I confess, through the necessity of securing it from the errors which have been attempted to be introduced into it; but every thing which once appeared to belong to it, hath always appeared as appertaining to it. There is little wonder in the duration of a religion, when accommodations are made to times and to conjunctures, and when they may add or diminish according to the fancy of the ages, and of those who go- vern ; but never to relax, in spite of the change of manners and of times; to see every thing change around, and yet be always the same, is the grand privilege of the Christian rehgion. And by these three characters, of antiquity, of perpetuity, and of unifor- mity, which exclusively belong to it, its authority is the only one upon the earth capable of determining a wise mind. J3at if the submission of the believer be reasonable on the part of the authority which exacts it, it is not less so on the part of the things which are proposed to his belief. And here, my brethren, let us enter into the foundation of the Christian worship. It is not afraid of investigation, like those abominable mysteries of idolatry, the infamy and horror of which were concealed by the darkest obscurity. A religion, says TertuUian, which would shun examination, and would dread being searched into, should ever be suspected. The more the Christian worship is, investigated, the more are beauties and hidden wonders found in it. Idolatry inspired men with foolish sentiments of the Divinity; philosophy, with very unreasonable ones of himself; cupidity, with iniquitous ones toward the rest of men. Now, admire the wis- dom of religion, which remedies all these three evils, which the reason of all ages had never been able either to eradicate or even to find out. And, first, what other legislator hath spoken of the Divinity, like that of the Christians'? Find elsewhere, if you can, more sublime ideas of his power, of his immensity, of his wisdom, of his grandeur, and of his justice, than those which are given us in our Scriptures. If there be over us a supreme and eternal Being, in whom all things live, he must be such as the Christian religion represents him. We alone compare him not to the likeness of man. We alone worship him seated above the cherubim, filling every where with his presence, regulating all by his wisdom, creating light and darkness, author of good, and punisher of vice. We alone honour him as he wishes to be honoured; that is to say, we make not the worship due to him, to consist in the multitude of victim.s, nor in the external pomp of our homages; but in ado- ration, in love, in praise, and in thanksgiving. We refer to him the good which is in us, as to its principal ; and we always attri- bute vice to ourselves, which takes its rise only in our corruption. We hope to find in him the reward of a fidelity which is the gift of his grace, and the punishment of transgressions, which are 382 THE TKUTH OF RELIGION. always the consequence of the bad use which we make of our liberty. Now, what can be more worthy of the Supreme Being than all these ideas! Secohdly. A vain philosophy either had degraded man to the level of the beast, by centering his felicity in the senses; or had foolishly exalted him even to the likeness of God, by persuading him that he might find his own happiness in his own wisdom. Now, the Christian morality avoids these two extremes : it with- draws man from carnal pleasures, by discovering to him the excel- lency of his nature and the holiness of his destination; it corrects his pridcy by making him sensible of his own wretchedness and meanness. Lastly. Cupidity rendered man unjust toward the rest of men. Now, what other doctrine than that of Christians hath ever so well regulated our duties on this head. It instructs us to yield obedi- ence to the powers established by God, not only through fear of their authority, but through an obligation of conscience: to respect our superiors, to bear with our equals, to be affable toward our inferiors, to love all men as ourselves. It alone is capable of form- ing good citizens, faithful subjects, patient servants, humble masters, incorruptible magistrates, clement princes, and zealous friends. It alone renders the honour of marriage inviolable, secures the peace of families, and maintains the tranquillity of states. It not only checks usurpations, but it prohibits even the desire of other's property; it not only requires us not to view with an en- vious eye the prosperity of our brother, but it commands us to share our own riches with him, if need require; it not only forbids to attempt his life, but it requires us to do good, even to those who injure us; to bless those who curse us, and to be all only of one heart and of one mind. Give me, said formerly St. Augustine to the heathens of his time, a kingdom all composed of people of this kind: good God, what peace! what felicity! what a representa- tion of heaven upon the earth ! Have all the ideas of philosophy ever come near to the plan of this heavenly republic? And is it not true, that if a God hath spoken to men, to lay open to them the ways of salvation, he could never have held any other language ? To all these maxims, so worthy of reason, it is true that religion adds mysteries which exceed our comprehension. But, besides that good sense should induce us to yield thereon to a rehgion so venerable through its antiquity, so divine in its morality, so supe- rior to every thing on the earth in its authority, and alone worthy of being believed, the motives it employs for our persuasion are sufficient to conquer unbelief. First. These mysteries were foretold many ages before their ac- complishment, and foretold with every circumstance of times and places; nor are the vague prophecies, referred to the credulity of the vulgar alone, uttered in a corner of the earth, of the same age as the events, and unknown to the rest of the universe. THE TRUTH OF RKLIGION. 383 They are prophecies which, from the beginning of the world, have constituted the religion of an entire people ; which fathers trans- mitted to their children as their most precious inheritance; which were preserved in the holy temple as the most sacred pledge of the divine promises ; and, lastly, to the truth of which the nation most inveterate against Jesus Christ, and their first depository, still at present bears witness in the face of the whole universe : prophecies, which were not mysteriously hidden from the people, lest their falsehood should be betrayed ; like those vain oracles of the Sybils, carefully shut up in the capitol, fabricated to support the Roman pride, exposed to the view of the pontiffs alone, and produced, piece-meal, from time to time, to authorize, in the mind of the people, either a dangerous enterprise or an unjust war. On the contrary, our prophetical books were the daily study of a whole people. The young and the old, women and children, priests and men of all ranks, princes and subjects, were indispensably obliged to have them continually in their hands ; every one was entitled to study his duties there, and to discover his hopes. Far from flattering their pride, they held forth only the ingratitude of their fathers; in every page they announced misfortunes to them as the just punishment of their crimes; to kings they reproached their dissipations, to the pontiffs their profusion, to the people their inconstancy and unbelief; and, nevertheless, these holy books were dear to them; and, from the oracles which they saw continually accomplishing in them, they awaited with confidence the fulfilment of those which the whole universe hath now witnessed. Now, the knowledge of what is to come is the least suspicious character of the Divinity. Secondly. These mysteries are founded upon facts so evidently miraculous, so well known in Judea, so agreed to then, even by those whose interest it was to reject them, so signalized by events which interested the whole nation, so often repeated in the cities, in the country, in the temple, and in the public places, that the eyes must be shut against the light to call them in question. The apostles have preached them, have written them, even in Judea, a very short time after their fulfilment; that is to say, in a time when the pontiffs, who had condemned Jesus Christ, still living, might so easily have controverted and proclaimed their imposture, had they really been a deception upon mankind. Jesus Christ, by ful- filling his"^ promise of rising again, confirmed his gospel, and it is not to be supposed, either that the apostles could be deceived on a fact so decisive and so essential for them, — on that fact so often foretold, and looked forward to, as the principal point on which all the rest was to turn; that fact so often confirmed, and that before so many witnesses; nor that they themselves wished to deceive us, and to preach a falsehood to men at the expense of their own ease, honour, and life, the only return which they had to expect for their imposture. Wovdd these men, who have left to us only such pious 384 THE TRUTH OF RKLfGION. and wise precepts, have given to th6 earth an example of folly hitherto unknown to every people, and, without view, interest, or motive, have coolly devoted themselves to the most excruciating tortures, and to a death suffered with the most heroical piety, merely to maintain the truth of a thing of which they themselves knew the falsehood ? Would these men have all tranquilly sub- mitted to death for the sake of another man who had deceived them, and who, having failed in his promise of rising again from the grave, had only imposed, during life, upon their credulity and weakness ? Let the impious man no longer reproach to us, as a credulity, the hicomprehensible mysteries of faith. He must be very credulous himself to be able to persuade himself of the possibility of supposi- tions so absurd. Lastly. The whole universe hath been docile to the faith of these mysteries; the Caisars, whom it degraded from the rank of gods; the philosophers, whom it convicted of ignorance and vanity; the voluptuous, to whom it preached self-denial and sufferance; the rich, whom it obhged to poverty and humility; the poor, whom it commanded to love even their abjection and indigence; all men, of whom it combated all the passions. This faith, preached by twelve poor men, without learning, talents, or support, hath subjected emperors, the learned equally as the illiterate, cities and empires; mysteries, apparently so absurd, have overthrown all the sects, and all the monuments of a proud reason, and the folly of the cross hath been wiser than all the wisdom of the age. The whole universe hath conspired against it, and every effort of its enemies hath only added fresh confir- mation to it. To be a believer, and to be destined to death, were two things inseparable; yet the danger was only an addi- tional charm; the more the persecutions were violent, the more progress did faith make; and the blood of the martyrs was the seed of believers. O God! who doth not feel thy finger here? Who, in these traits, would not acknowledge the character of thy work? Where is the reason which doth not feel the vanity of its doubts to sink into nothing here, and which still blushes to submit to a doctrine to which the whole universe hath yielded ? But not only is this submission reasonable, it is likewise glorious to men ? Part IL — Pride is the secret source of unbelief. In that osten- tation of reason, which induces the unbeliever to contemn the common belief, there is a deplorable singularity which flatters him, and occasions him to suppose in himself more vigour of mind and more light than in the rest of men, because he boldly ventures to cast off a yoke to which they have all submitted, and to stand up against what all the rest had hitherto been contented to worship. Now, in order to deprive the unbeliever of so wretched a con- THK TRUTH OF RELIGION'. 385 solation, it is only necessaiy to demonstrate, in the first place, that nothing- is more glorious to reason than faith ; glorious on the side of its promises for the future; glorious from the situation in which it places the believer for the present; lastly, glorious from the grand models which it holds out to his imitation. Glorious on the side of the promises contained in it. What are the promises of faith, my brethren? The adoption of God, an im- mortal society with him, the complete redemption of our bodies, the eternal felicity of our souls, freedom from the passions, our hearts fixed by the possession of the true riches, our minds pene- trated with the inefl'able light of the sovereign reason, and happy in the clear and always durable view of the truth. Such are the promises of faith ; it informs us that our origin is divine, and our hopes eternal. Now, I ask. Is it disgraceful to reason to believe truths which do such honour to the immortality of its nature ? What, my brethren, would it then be more glorious to man to believe himself of the same nature as the beasts, and to look forward to the same- end? What, the unbeliever would think himself more honoured by the conviction that he is only a vile clay, put together by chance, and which chance shall dissolve, without end, destination, hope, or any other use of his reason and of his body, than that of brutally plunging himself, like the brutes, into carnal gratifications ! What ! he would have a higher opinion of himself, when viewed in the light of an unfortunate wretch, accidentally placed upon the earth, who looks forward to nothing beyond life, whose sweetest hope is that of sinking back to nonentity, who relates to nothing but him- self, and is reduced to find his felicity in himself, though he can there find only anxieties and secret terrors! Is this, then, that miserable; distinction by which the pride of unbelief is so much flattered ? Great God ! how glorious to thy truth, to have no ene- mies but men of this character ! For my part, as St. Ambrose for- merly said to the unbelievers of his time, I glory in believing truths so honourable to man, and in expecting the fulfilment of promises so consolatory. To refuse belief to them is sorrily to punish one's self. Ah ! if I be deceived, in preferring the hope of one day en- joying the eternal society of the righteous in the bosom of God, to the humblingbelief of being of the same nature as the beasts, it is an error dear to me, which I delight in, and upon which I wish never to be undeceived. But if faith be glorious on the side of its promises for the future, it is not less so from the situation in which it places the believer for the present. And here, my brethren, figure to yourselves a truly righteous man, who lives by faith, and you will acknowledge that there is nothing on the earth more sublime. Master of his desires and of all the movements of his heart; exercising a glorious empire over himself; in patience and in equanimity enjoying his soul, and regulating all his passions by the bridle of temperance ; 2 c 386 THJB TRUTH OF RKUGION. humble in prosperity, firm under misfortunes, cheerful in tribula- tions, peaceful with those who hate peace, callous to injuries, feel- ing- for the afflictions of those who trespass against him, faithful in his promises, religious in his friendships, and unshaken in his duties; little affected with riches, which he contemns; fatigued with honours, which he dreads; greater than the world, which he con- siders only as a mass of earth — what dignity ! Philosophy conquered one vice only by another. It pompously taught contempt of the world, merely to attract the applauses of the world ; it sought more the glory of wisdom than wisdom itself. In destroying the other passions, it continually, upon their ruins, raised up one much more dangerous; I mean to say pride: like that prince of Babylon who overthrew the altars of the national gods, merely to exalt upon their wrecks his own impious statue, and that monstrous colossus of pride which he wanted the whole earth to worship. But faith exalts the just man above even his virtue. Through it he is still greater in the secrecy of his heart, and in the eyes of God, than before men. He forgives without pride; he is dis- interested without show ; he suffers without wishing it to be known; he moderates his passions without perceiving it himself; he alone is ignorant of the glory and of the merit of his actions ; far from graciously looking upon himself, he is ashamed of his virtues much more than the sinner is of his vices ; far from court- ing applause, he hides his works from the light, as if they were deeds of darkness; love of duty is the sole source of his virtue ; he acts under the eyes of God alone, and as if- there were no longer men upon the earth — what dignity! Find, if you can, any thing greater in the universe. Review all the various kinds of glory with which the world gratifies the vanity of men; and see, if,^ all toge- ther, they can bestow that degree of dignity to which the godly are raised by faith. Now, my dear hearer, what more honourable to man than this situation? Do you consider him as more glorious, more respecta- ble, more grand, when he follows the impulses of a brutal instinct; when he is the slave of hatred, revenge, voluptuousness, ambition, envy, and all those other m.onsters which alternately reign in his heart? For, are you, who make a boast of unbelief, thoroughly ac- quainted with what is an unbeliever? He is a man without morals, probity, faith, or chai'acter, who owns no rule but his passions,, no law but his iniquitous thoughts, no master but his desires, no check but the dread of authority, no God but himself: an unnatural child, seeing he believes that chance alone hath given him fathers ; a faithless friend, seeing he looks upon men, merely as the wretched fruits of a wild and fortuitous concur- rence, to whom he is connected only by transitory ties ; a cruel master, seeing he is convinced that the strongest and the most THE TRUTH OF RKLlfilON. 387 fortunate have always reason on their side. For, who could henceforth place any dependence upon you ? You no longer fear a God ; you no longer respect men ; you look forward to nothing after this lifej virtue and vice are merely prejudices of education in your eyes, and the consequences of popular credulity. Adulteries, revenge, blasphemies, the blackest treacheries, abomi- nations which we dare not even to name, are no longer, in your opinion, but human prohibitions, and regulations established through the policy of legislators. According to you, the most hor- rible crimes, or the purest virtues, are all equally the same, since an eternal annihilation shall soon equalize the just and the impious, and for ever confound them both in the dreary mansion of the tomb. What a monster must you then be upon the earth ! Does this re- presentation of you highly gratify your pride, or can you support even its idea? Besides, you pride yourself upon irreligion, as springing from your superiority of mind ; but trace it to its source. What hath led you to free-thinking? Is it not the corruption of your heart? Would you have ever thought of impiety had you been able to ally rehgion with your pleasures? You began to hesitate upon a doc- trine which incommoded your passions ; and you have marked it down as false from the moment that you found it irksome. You have anxiously sought to persuade yourself what you had such an mterestto believe; that all died with us; that eternal punishments were merely the terrors of education ; that inclinations born with us could never be crimes ; — what know I ? And all those maxims of free-thinking originating from hell. We are easily persuaded of what we wish. Solomon, worshipped the gods of foreign wo- men only to quiet himself in his debaucheries. If men had never had passions, or if religion had countenanced them, unbelief would never have appeared upon the earth. And a proof that what I say is true, is, that in the moments when you are disgusted with guilt, you imperceptibly turn toward religion; in the moments when your passions are more cool, your doubts diminish; you render, as if in spite of yourself, a secret homage in the bottom of your heart to the truth of faith : in vain you try to weaken it, you cannot succeed in extinguishing it ; at the first signal of death, you raise your eyes toward heaven, you acknowledge the God whose finger is upon you, you cast yourself upon the bosom of your Father and the Author of your being ; you tremble over a futurity which you had vaunted not to believe; and, humbled under the hand of the Almighty, on the point of falling upon and crushing you like a worm of the earth, you confess that he is alone great, alone wise, alone immortal, and that man is only vanity and lies. Lastly. If fresh proofs were necessary to my subject, I could prove to you how glorious faith is to man, on the side of the grand models which it holds out for our imitation. Consider Abra- 2 c 2 388 THE TRUTH OF RELIGION. ham, Isaac, -and Jacob, said formerly the Jews to their children. Consider the holy men who have gone before you, to whom their faith hath merited so honourable a testimony, said formerly St. Paul to the faithful, after having related to them, in that beautiful chap- ter of his Epistle to the Hebrews, their names, and the most won- derful circumstances of their history, from age to age. Behold the excellency of the Christian faith. Recollect all the great m'en who, in all ages, have submitted to it ; such magnani- mous princes, such religious conquerors, such venerable pastors, such enlightened philosophers, such estimable learned men, wits so vaunted in their age, such noble martyrs, such penitent anchorites, such pure and constant virgins, heroes in every description of virtue. Philosophy preached a pompous wisdom ; but its sage was no where to be found. Here what a cloud of witnesses ! What an uninter- rupted tradition of Christian heroes from the blood of Abel down to us ! Now, I ask, shall you blush to tread in the steps of so many illus- trious names ? Place on the one side all the great men whom, in all ages, religion hath given to the world, and on the other that small number of black and desperate minds whom unbelief hath produced. Doth it appear more honourable for you to rank yourself among the latter party ? To adopt for guides, and for your models, those men whose names are only recollected with horror, those monsters whom it hath pleased Providence to permit that nature should, from time to time, bring forth ; or the Abrahams, the Josephs, the Moseses, the Davids, the apostolic men, the righteous of the ancient and of modern times'? Support, if you can, this comparison. Ah ! said formerly St. Jerome, on a different occasion, if you believe me in error, it is glorious for me to be deceived with such guides. And here, my brethren, leaving unbelievers for a moment, allow nie to address myself to you. Avowed unbelief is a vice perhaps rare among us, but the simplicity of faith is not perhaps less so. We would feel a horror at quitting the belief of our fathers ; but we wish to refine upon our sincerity. We do not permit ourselves to doubt upon the main part of the mysteries ; but obedience is philo- sophically given, by imposing our own yoke, by weighing the holy truths, receiving some as reasonable, reasoning upon others, and measuring them by our own feeble lights ; and our age, more than any other, is full of these half believers, who, under the pretext of taking away from religion all that credulity or prejudice may have added to it, deprive faith of the whole merit of submission. Now, my brethren, sanctity ought only to be spoken of with a religious circumspection. Faith is a virtue almost equally deli- cate as modesty : a single doubt, a single word injures it ; a lareath, as I may say, tarnishes it. Yet, nevertheless, what license do they not allow themselves in modern conversations on all that is most respectable in the faith of our fathers 1 Alas ! the terrible name of the Lord could not be even pronounced under THE TRUTH OF RKLIGIOX. 389 the law by the mouth of man; and, at present, all that is most sacred and most august in religion is become a common subject of conversation ; there every thing is talked over, and freely decided upon. Vain and superficial men, whose only knowledge of reli- gion consists of a little more temerity than the iUiterate and the common people; producing, as their whole stock of learning, some common-place and hackneyed doubts, which they have picked up, but never had formed themselves ; doubts which have so often been cleared up, that they seem now to exist no longer but to glorify the truth ; men who, amid the most dissolute manners, have never devoted an hour of serious attention to the truth of religion, — act the philosopher, and boldly decide upon points which a whole life of study, accompanied with learning and piety, could scarcely clear up. Even persons of a sect, in whom ignorance on certain points would be meritorious, and who, though knowing, good-breeding and decency require that they should aifect to be ignorant; persons who are better acquainted with the world than with Jesus Christ ; who even know not of religion what is necessary to regulate their manners, — pretend doubts, wish to have them explained, are afiuid of believing too much, have suspicions upon the whole, yet have none upon their own miserable situation and the visible impropriety of their life. O God ! it is thus that thou deliverest up sinners to the vanity of their own fancies, and permittest that those who pre- tend to penetrate into thine adorable secrecies know not themselves. Faith is therefore glorious to man : this has just been shown to you: it now remains for me to prove that it is necessary to him. Part III. — Of all the characters of faith, the necessity of it is the one which renders the unbeliever most inexcusable. All the other motives which are employed to lead him to the truth, are foreign, as I may say, to him; this one is drawn from his own ground-work,' — I mean to say, from the nature itself of his reason. Now, I say that faith is absolutely necessary to man, in the gloomy and obscure paths of this life; for his reason is weak, and it requires to be assisted; because it is corrupted, and it requires to be cured; because it is changeable, and it requires to be fixed. Now, faith alone is the aid which assists and en- lightens it, the remedy which cures it, the bridle and the rule which retains and fixes it. Yet a moment of attention; I shall not misemploy it. I say, first, that reason is weak, and that an aid is necessary to it. Alas ! my brethren, we know not, neither ourselves, nor what is external to us. We are totally ignorant how we have been formed, by what imperceptible progressions our bodies have re- ceived arrangement and life, and what are the infinite springs, and the divine skill, which give motion to the whole machine. " I 390 THE TRUTH OF RELIGION. cannot tell," said that illustrious mother, mentioned in the Macca- bees, to her children, " how ye came into my womb; for I neither gave you breath nor life, neither was it I that formed the member!^ of every one of you: but doubtless the Creator of the world, who formed the generation of man, and found out the beginning of all things, will also, of his own mercy, give you breath and life again, a.s ye now regard not your own selves for his law's sake." Our body is itself a mystery, in which the human mind is lost and overwhelmed, and of which the secrets shall never be fathomed; for there is none but him alone who hath presided at its formation, who is capable of comprehending them. That breath of the Divinity which animates us, that portion of ourselves which renders us capable of loving and of knowing, is not less unknown to us ; we are entirely ignorant how its desires, its fears, its hopes, are formed, and how it can give to itself its ideas and images. None have yet been able to comprehend how that spiritual being, so different in its nature from matter, hath possibly been united in us with it by such indissoluble ties, that the two substances no longer form but one whole, and the good and evil of the one become the good and evil of the other. We are a mystery therefore to ourselves, as St. Augustine formerly said; and it would be difficult to say, what is even that vain curiosity which pries into every thing, or how it hath been formed in our soul. In all around us w^e still find nothing but enigmas; we live as strangers upon the earth, and amid objects which we know not. To man, nature is a closed book; and the Creator, to confound, it would appear, human pride, hath been pleased to overspread the face of this abyss with an impenetrable obscurity. Lift up thine eyes, O man! consider those grand luminaries suspended over thy head, and which swim, as I may say, through those immense spaces in which thy reason is lost. Who, says Job, hath formed the sun, and given a name to the infinite multitude of stars? Comprehend, if thou canst, their nature, their use, their properties, their situation^ their distance, their revolutions, the equality or the inequality of their movements. Our age hath penetrated a little into their obscurity, that is to say, it hath a little better conjectured upon them than the preceding ages; but what are its discoveries when compared to what we are still ignorant of? Descend upon the earth, and tell us, if thou knowest, what it is that keeps the winds bound up; what regulates the course of the thunders and of the tempests; what is the fatal boundary which places its mark, and says to the rushing waves, " Here you shall go, and no farther;" and how the prodigy so regular of its movements is formed ? Explain to us the surprising effects of plants, of metals, of the elements; findout in what manner gold is purified in the bowels of the earth; unravel, if thou canst. THK TRUTiJ OF RKLIGION. 391 the infinite skill employed in the formation of the very insects which crawl before us ; give us an explanation of the various in- stincts of animals — turn on every side ; nature in all her parts oft'ers nothing to thee but enigmas. O man ! thou knowest nothing of the objects, even under thine eyes, and thou wouldst pretend to fathom the eternal depths of faith ! Nature is a mys- tery to thee, and thou wouldst have a religion which had none ! Thou art ignorant of the secrets of man, and thou wouldst pre- tend to know the secrets of God! Thou knowest not thyself, and thou wouldst pretend to fathom what is so much above thee ! The universe, which God hath yielded up to thy curiosity and to thy disputes, is an abyss in which thou art lost; and thou wouldst that the mysteries of faith, which he hath solely ex- posed to thy docility and to thy respect, should have nothing which surpasses thy feeble lights ! — O, blindness ! Were every thing, excepting religion, clear and evident, thou then, with some show of reason, mightest mistrust its obscurities; but, since every thing around thee is a labyrinth in which thou art bewildered, ought not the secret of God, as Augustine formerly said, to render thee more respectful and more attentive, far from -being more incredulous? The necessity of faith is therefore founded, in the first place, upon the weakness of reason; but it is likewise founded upon its profound depravity. And, in effect, what was more natural to man than to confess his God, the author of his being and of his felicity, his end and his principle ; than to adore his wisdom, his power, his goodness, and all those divine perfections of which he hath en- graved upon his work such profound and evident marks ? These lights were born with us. Nevertheless, review all those ages of darkness and of superstition which preceded the gospel, and see how far man had degraded his Creator, and to what he had likened his God. There was nothing so vile in the created world but his impiety erected into gods, and man was the noblest divinity which was worshipped by man. If, from religion, you pass to the morality, all the principles of natural equity were effaced, and man no longer bore, written in his heart, the work of that law which nature has engraven on it. Plato, even that man so wise, and who, according to St. Augus- tine, had so nearly approached to the truth, nevertheless abolishes the holy institution of marriage; and, permitting a brutal con- fusion among men, he for ever does away all paternal names and rights, which, even in animals, nature hath so evidently respected ; and gives to the earth men all uncertain of theii origin, all coming into the world without parents, as I may say ; and, consequently, without ties, tenderness, affection, or humanity; all in a situation to become incestuous, or parricides, without even knowing it. Others came to announce to men, that voluptuousness was the 392 THE TllUTH OF RELIGION. sovereign good ; and whatever might have been the intention of the first author of this sect, it is certain that his disciples sought no other fehcity than that of brutes ; the most shameful debaucheries became philosophical maxims. Rome, Athens, Corinth, beheld excesses, where, it may be said, that man was no longer man. Even this is nothing ; the most abominable vices were con- secrated there: temples and altars were erected to them: lascivi- ousness, incest, cruelty, treachery, and other still more abandoned crimes, were made divinities of: the worship became a public debauch and prostitution : and gods, so criminal, were no longer honoured but by crimes ; and the apostle, who relates them to ns, takes care to inform us, that such was not merely the licentiousness of the people, but of sages and philosophers who had erred in the vanity of their own thoughts, and whom God had delivered up to the corruption of their own heart. — O God ! in permitting human reason to fall into such horrible errors, thou intendedst to let man know, that reason, when delivered up to its own darkness, is capable of every thing, and that it can never take upon itself to be its own guide, without plunging into abysses from which thy law and thy light are alone capable of withdrawing him. Lastly. If the depravity of reason so evidently expose the neces- sity of a remedy to cure it, its eternal inconstancies and fluctuations yet more instruct man that a check and a rule are absolutely neces- sary to fix it. And here, my brethren, if the brevity of a discourse would permit all to be said, what vain disputes, what endless questions, what different opinions, have formerly engrossed all the schools of the heathen philosophy! And think not that it was upon matters which God seems to have yielded up to the contestation of men; it was upon the nature even of God, upon his existence, upon the immortality of the soul, upon the true felicity. Some doubted the whole; others believed that they knew every thing. Some denied a God ; others gave us one of their own fashioning; that is to say, some of them slothful, an indolent spectator of human things, and tranquilly leaving to chance the management of his own Vv'ork, as a care unworthy of his greatness, and incompatible with his conveniency: some others made him the slave of fates, and subject to laws which he had no hand in imposing upon himself: others again incorporated, with the whole universe, the soul of that vast body, and composing, as it were, a part of that world which is entirely his work. Many others of which I know nothing, for I pretend not to recapitulate them all ; but as many schools, so many were the sentiments upon so essential a point. So many ages, so many fresh absurdities upon the immortality and the nature of the soul : here, it was an assemblage of atoms; there, a subtile fire; in another place, a minute and penetrating air; in another school, a portion of the Divinity. Some made it to die with the body; others would have THE TRUTH OF RELIGION. 393 it to have existed before the body: some again made it to pass from one body to another; from man to the horse, from the con- dition of a reasonable being to that of animals without reason. There were some who taught, that the true happiness of man is in the senses; a greater number placed it in the reason; others again found it only in fame and glory; many in sloth and indolence. And what is the most deplorable here is, that the existence of God, his nature, the immortality of the soul, the destination and the happiness of men, all points so essential to his destiny, so decisive with regard to his eternal misery or happiness, were, nevertheless, become problems, every where destined merely to amuse the leisure of the schools and the vanity of the sophists; idle questions, in which they were never interested for the prin- ciple of truth, but solely for the glory of coming off conqueror. Great God! it is in this manner that thou sportest with human wisdom. If from thence we entered into the Christian ages, who could enumerate that endless variety of sects which, in all times, hath broken the unity, in order to follow strange doctrines? What were the abominations of the Gnostics, the extravagant follies of the Valentinians, the fanaticism of Montanus, the contradic- tions of the Manicheans? Follow every age; as, in order to prove the just, it is necessary that there be heresies. You will find that in every age the church hath always been miserably rent with them. Recall to your remembrance the sad dissensions of only the past age. Since the separation of our brethren, what a monstrous variety in their doctrine! What endless sects sprung from only one sect! W"hat numberless particular assemblies in one same schism! — O faith! O gift of God ! O divine torch, which comes to clear up darkness, how necessary art thou to man ! O infallible rule, sent from heaven, and given in trust to the church of Jesus Christ, always the same in all ages, always independent of places, of times, of nations, and of interests, how requisite it is that thou served as a check upon the eternal fluctuations of the human mind! O pillar of fire, at the same time so obscure and so lumi- nous, of what importance it is that thou always conducted the camp of the Lord, the tabernacle and the tents of Israel, through all the perils of the desert, the rocks, the temptations, and the dark and unknown paths of this life ! For you, my brethren, what instruction should we draw from this discourse, and what should I say to you in concluding? You say that you have faith; show your faith by your works. What shall it avail you to have behoved, if your manners have belied your belief? The gospel is yet more the religion of the heart than of the mind. That faith which makes Christians is not a simple submission of the reason; it is a pious tenderness of tlie soul; it is a continual longing to become like unto Jesus Christ; it is an in- 394 DOUBTS UPON RELIGION, defatigable application in rooting out from ourselves whatever may be inimical to a life of faith. There is an unbelief of the heart equally dangerous to salvation as that of the mind. A man who obstinately refuses belief, after all the proofs of religion, is a mon- ster, whom we contemplate with horror; but a Christian who be- lieves, yet lives as though he believed not, is a madman, whose folly surpasseth comprehension : the one procures his own con- demnation, like a man desperate; the other, like an indolent one, who tranquilly allows himself to be carried down by the waves, and thinks that he is thereby saving himself. Make your faith then certain, my brethren, by your good works ; and if you shudder at the sole name of an impious person, have the same horror at yourselves, seeing we are taught by faith that the destiny of the wicked Christian shall not be different from his, and that his lot shall be the same as that of the unbeliever. Live conforma- bly to what you believe. Such is the faith of the righteous, and the only one to which the eternal promises have been made. SERMON XXIII. DOUBTS UPON RELIGION. ■ Howbeit we know this man, whence he is ; but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is." — John vii. 27. Sucii is the grand pretext opposed by the unbelief of the Jews to the doctrine and to the ministry of Jesus Christ; doubts upon the truth of his mission. We know who thou art, and whence thou comest, said they to him; but the Christ whom we expect, when he cometh, no man knoweth whence he is. It is far from clear, then, that thou art the Messiah promised to our fathers; perhaps it is an evil spirit which, through thee, operates these wonders before our eyes, and imposes upon the credulity of the vulgar; so many deceivers have already appeared in Judea, who, giving themselves out for the great Prophet who is to come, have seduced the people, and at last drawn down upon themselves the punishment due to their imposture. Keep us no longer in doubt: if thou be the Christ, tell us plainly, and in such a way as that room shall no longer be left either for doubt or for mistake. DOUBTS UPON RELIGION. 305 I would not dare to say this here, my brethren, were the lan- guage of doubts upon faith not become so common now among us, that precaution is needless in undertaking to confute it: behold the almost universal pretext employed in the world to autho- rize a life altogether criminal. We every where meet with sin- ners who coolly tell us, that they would be converted were they well assured that all we tell them of religion were true; that perhaps there is nothing after this hfe; that they have doubts and difficulties upon our mysteries, to which they can find no satisfactory answer; that, after all, the whole appears very un- certain ; and that, before engaging to follow all the rigid maxims of the gospel, it would be proper to be well assured that our toils shall not be lost. Now, my intention, at present, is not to overthrow unbelief, by the grand proofs which establish the truth of the Christian faith. Setting aside that elsewhere we have already established them, it is a subject far too extensive for a Discourse, and often beyond even the capacity of the majority of those who listen to us; it is frequently paying too much deference to the frivolous objections of those who give themselves out as free-thinkers in the world, to employ the gravity of our ministry in refuting and over- throwing them. We must take a shorter and more easy way, therefore, at present. My design is not to enter into the foundation of the proofs which render testimony to the truth of faith ; I mean only to expose the falsity of unbelief: I mean to prove, that the greatest part of those who call themselves unbehevers, are not so ; that almost all those sinners who vaunt, and are continually alleging to us their doubts, as the only obstacle to their conversion, have actually none; and that, of allthe pretexts employed as an excuse for not changing their life, that of doubts upon religion, now the most common, is the least true and the least sincere. It appears surprising at first, that I should undertake to prove to those who believe to have doubts upon rehgion, and are con- tinually objecting them to us, that they have actually none : never- theless, with a proper knowledge of men, and, above all, with a proper attention to the character of those who make a boast of doubting, nothing is more easy than this conviction. I say, to their character, in which are always to be found licentiousness, ignorance, and vanity; and such are the three usual sources of their doubts: they give the credit of them to unbelief, which has scarcely a share in them. First. It is licentiousness which proposes, without daring to believe them. First reflection. Secondly. It is ignorance which adopts, without comprehending them. Second reflection. Lastly. It is vanity which boasts, without being able to succeed in drawing any resource from them. Last reflection. 396 I>OUBTS UPON RELIGION. That is to say, that the greatest part of those who call themselves unbelievers, are licentious enough to wish to be so; too ignorant to be so in reality; and, nevertheless, sufficiently vain to wish to appear so. Let us unfold these three reflections, now become so important among us; and let us overthrow licentiousness rather than unbelief, by laying it open to itself. Part I. — It must at once be admitted, my brethren, and it is melancholy for us that we owe this confession to the truth, — it must be admitted, I say, that our age and those of our fathers have seen real unbelievers. In that depravity of manners in which we live, and amid all the scandals which have so long afflicted the church, it is not surprising that men have sometimes been found who have denied the existence of a God ; and that faith, so weakened in all, should in some be at last wholly extinguished. As chosen and ex- traordinary souls appear in every age, whom the Lord fiUeth with his grace, his lights, and his most shining gifts, and upon whom he delighteth in liberally pouring forth all the riches of his mercy; so, likewise, are seen others in whom iniquity is, as I may say, con- summate, and whom the Lord seems to have marked out, to dis- play in them the most terrible judgments of his justice, and the most fatal effects of his neglect and wrath. The church, where all these scandals are to increase even to the end, cannot therefore boast of being entirely purged from the scandal of unbelief: she hath, from time to time, her stars which enlighten, and her monsters who disfigure her; and, along with those great men, celebrated for their lights and for their sanctity, who in every age have served as her support and ornament, she hath also witnessed a list of impious men, whose names are still at present the horror of the universe, who have dared, in writings full of blasphemy and impiety, to attack the mysteries of God, to deny salvation and the promises made to our fai:hers, to overturn the foundation of faith,; and to preach free- thinking among believers. I do not pretend, therefore, to say, that, among so many wretches who speak the language of unbelief among us, there may not perhaps be found some one sufficiently corrupted in mind and in heart, and so far abandoned by God, as actually, and in effect, to be an unbeliever : I mean only to establish, that these men, grounded in impiety, are rare; and that, among all those who are continually vaunting their doubts and their unbelief, and make a deplorable ostentation of them, there is not perhaps a single one upon whose heart faith doth not still preserve its rights, and who doth not inwardly dread that Qod whom he apparently refuses to acknowledge. To overthrow, it is not always necessary to combat our pretended unbelievers; it would often be combating only phantoms; they require only to be displayed such as they are : the wretched declaration of unbelief quickly DOUBTS UPON RELIGION. 397 tumbles down, and nothing remains but their passions and their debaucheries. And, behold the first reason upon which I have established the general proposition, that the majority of those who make a boast of their doubts have actually none ; it is, that their doubts are those of licentiousness, and not of unbelief. Why, my brethren ? Because it is licentiousness which hath formed their doubts, and not their doubts licentiousness ; because that, in fact, it is to their passions and not to their doubts that they hold : lastly, because that, in general, they attack in religion only those truths inimical to their passions. Behold reflections which, in my opinion,are worthy of your attention ; I shall lay them before you without ornament, and in the same order in which they presented themselves to my mind. I say, in the first place, because their doubts have sprung from licentiousness, and not licentiousness from their doubts. Yes, my brethren : not one of all those who affect to profess themselves un- believers has ever been seen to begin by doubts upon the truths of faith, and afterward from doubts to fall into licentiousness: they begin with the passions; doubts come afterward: they first give way to the irregularities of the age and to the excesses of debau- chery ; and when attained to a certain length, and they find it no longer possible to return upon their steps, they then say, in order to quiet themselves, that there is nothing after this life, or at least, they are well pleased to find people who say so. It is not, therefore, the little certainty they find in religion, which authorizes their conclusion that we ought to yield ourselves up to pleasure, and that self-denial is needless, since every thing dies with us : it is the yielding of themselves up to pleasure which creates doubts upon religion, and, by rendering self-denial next to impossible, leads them to conclude that consequently it is needless. Faith becomes sus- pected only when it begins to be troublesome ; and to this day un- laelief hath never made a voluptuary, but voluptuousness hath made almost all the unbelievers. And a proof of what I say, you whom this Discourse regards, is, that while you have lived with modesty and innocence, you never doubted. Recollect those happy times when the passions had not yet corrupted your heart : the faith of your fathers had then nothing but what was august and respectable ; reason bent without pain to the yoke of authority ; you never thought of doubts or diffi- culties : from the moment your manners changed, your views upon religion have no longer been the same. It is not faith, therefore, which hath found new difliculties in your reason ; it is the practice of duties which hath encountered new obstacles in your heart. And, should you tell us, that your first impressions, so fa- vourable to faith, sprung solely from the prejudices of education and of childhood ; we shall answer, that the second, so favourable to impiety, have sprung solely from the prejudices of the passions 398 DOUBTS UPON RELIGION. and of debauchery ; and that, prejudices for prejudices, it appears to us, that it is still better to keep by those which are formed in innocence and lead us to virtue, than to those which are born in the infamy of the passions, and preach up only free-thinking and guilt. Thus nothing is more humihating for unbelief than recalling it to its origin ; it bears a false name of learning and of light : and it is a child of iniquity a.nd of darkness. It is not the strength of reason which has led our pretended unbelievers to scepticism ; it is the weakness of a corrupted heart, which has been unable to sur- mount its infamous passions ; it is even a mean cowardliness, which, unable to support and to view with a steady eye the terrors and the threatenings of religion, endeavours to shake off their thoughts by continually repeating, that they are childish terrors : it is a man who, afraid of the night, sings as he goes along, to prevent himself from thinking; debauchery always makes us cowardly and fearful; and it is nothing but an excess of fear of eternal punishments, which occasions a sinner to be continually preaching up and singing to us that they are doubtful ; he trembles, and wishes to strengthen him- self against himself; he cannot support, at the same time, the view of his crimes and that of the punishment which awaits them ; that faith, so venerable, and of which he speaks with such contempt, nevertheless terrifies and disquiets him still more than those other sinners, who, without doubting its punishments, yet are frequently not less unfaithful to its precepts; it is a coward, who hides his fear under a false ostentation of bravery. No, my brethren, our pretended free-thinkers give themselves out as men of courage and firmness ; examine them narrowly, and they are the weakest and most cowardly of men. Besides, it is not surprising that licentiousness leads us to doubt of religion : the passions require the aid of unbelief; for they are too feeble and too unreasonable to maintain their own cause. Our hghts, our feelings, our conscience, all struggle within us against them : we are under the necessity, therefore, of seeking a support for them, and of defending them against ourselves ; for, it is a matter of satisfaction to justify to one's self whatever is pleasing. We would neither wish that passions which are dear to us should be criminal, nor that we should continually have to support the in- terests of our pleasures against those of our conscience : we wish tran- quilly to enjoy our crimes, and to free ourselves from that troublesome monitor which continually espouses the cause of virtue against our- selves : while remorses contest the pleasure of our enjoyments, they must be very imperfectly tasted ; it is paying too great a price for guilt, to purchace it at the expense of that quiet which is sought in it : we must either terminate our debaucheries, or try to quiet ourselves in them ; and as it is impossible to enjoy peace of mind in them, and next to impossible to terminate them, the only refuge seems DOUBTS UPON- RELIGION. 399 that of doubting the truths which disquiet us; and, in order to attain to tranquillity, every eiTort is used to inculcate the persua- sion of unbelief. That is to say, that the great effort of licentiousness is that of leading us to the desire of unbelief; the horrible security of the unbeliever is coveted; total hardness of heart is considered as a happy state ; it is unpleasant to have been born with a weaker and more fearful conscience; the lot of those, apparently firm and un- shaken in impiety, is envied: while they, in their turn, perhaps a ])rey to the most gloomy remorses, and vaunting a courage they are far from having, view our lot with envy; for, judging of us from the language we hold upon free-thinking, they take us for what we take them ; that is to say, for what we are not, and for what both they and we would wash to be. And it is thus, O my God ! that these false heroes of impiety live in a perpetual illusion, continually deceive themselves, and appear what they are not, only because they would wish to be it. They would willingly have rehgion to be but a dream; they say in their heart, "There is no God;" that is to say, this impious language is the desire of their heart; they would ardently wish no God ; that that Being, so grand and BO necessary, were a chimera; that they were the sole masters of their own destiny; that they were accountable only to themselves for the horrors of their life and the infamy of their passions; that all finished with them ; and that, beyond the grave, there were no supreme and eternal Judge, the punisher of vice and the rewarder of virtue : they wish it; they destroy as much as they can, through the impious wishes of their heart, but they cannot efface from the foundation of their being, the idea of his power and the dread of his punishments. In effect, it would be too vulgar for a man, vain and plunged in debauchery, inwardly to say to himself, I am still too weak, and too much abandoned to pleasure, to quit it, or to lead a more re- gular and Christian life. That pretext would still leave all his re- morses. It is much sooner done to say to himself. It is needless to live otfierwise, for there is nothing after this hfe. This pretext is far more convenient, for it puts an end to every thing ; it is the most favourable to indolence, for it estranges us from the sacraments, and from all the other slaveries of religion. It is much shorter to say to himself, " There is nothing," and to live as if he were in effect persuaded of it ; it is at once throwing off every yoke and all re- straint; it puts an end to all the irksome measures which sinners of another description still guard with religion and with the con- science. This pretext of unbelief, by persuading us that we actu- ally doubt, leaves us in a certain state of indolence on every thing regarding religion, which prevents us from searching into ourselves and from making too melancholy reflections on our passions . We meanly allow ourselves to be swept away by the fatal course, upon the general prepossession that we believe nothing ; we have few 400 DOUBTS UPON RELIGION. remorses, for we think ourselves unbelievers, and because that sup- position leaves us almost the same security as impiety : at least, it is a diversion which dulls and suspends the sensibility of the conscience; and, by operating so as to make us always take our- selves for what we are not, it induces us to live as if we actually were what we wish to be. That is to say, that the greatest part of these pretended free- thinkers, and of these debauched and licentious unbelievers, ought to be considered as weak and dissolute men, who, not having the force to live christianly, nor even the hardiness to be atheists, remain in that state of estrangement from religion, as the most convenient to indolence; and, as they never try to quit it, they fancy that they actually hold to it; it is a kind of neu- trality between faith and irreligion, contrived by indolence for its own ease; for it requires exertion to adopt a side; and, in order to remain neuter, nothing more is required than not to think, and to live by habit; thus they never fathom, nor take any resolution upon themselves. Hardened and avowed impiety hath something, I know not what, which strikes with horror: religion, on the other hand, presents objects which alarm and are by no means convenient to the passions. What is to be done in these two extremities, of which the one shocks reason, and the other the senses ? They rest wavering and undecided ; in the mean time they enjoy the calm which is left by that state of indecision and indifference: they live without wishing to know what they are; for it is much more convenient to be nothing, and to live \^thout thinking, or any knowledge of themselves. No, my brethren, I repeat it, these are not unbelievers, they are cowards, who have not the courage to espouse a side; who know only to live voluptuously, without rule, without morality, and often without decency ; and who, without being atheists, live however without religion, for religion requires consistency, reason, elevation of mind, firmness, noble sentiments ; and of all these they are incapable. Such, however, are the heroes of whom impiety boasts ; behold the suffrages upon which it grounds its defence, and opposes to religion by insulting us; behold the par- tisans with whom it thinks itself invincible; and weak and wretched must its resources indeed be, since it is reduced to seek them in men of this description. First reason, which proves tliat licentiousness springs not from doubts, but doubts from licentiousness. The second reason is only a fresh proof of the first ; it is that actually, if they do not change their life, it is not to their doubts, but solely to their passions, that they hold. For I ask nothing of you here but candour, you who conti- nually allege your doubts upon our mysteries. When you some- times think of quitting that sink of vice and debauchery in which you live, and when the passions, more tranquil, allow you to re- DOUHTS UPON UELIGION. 401 flect,.do you then oppose your uncertainties upon religion ? Do you say to yourselves, " But if I return, it will be necessary to believe things which seem incredible?" Is this the grand difficulty? Ah! you inwardly say, but if I return, it will be necessary to break off this connexion, to deny myself these excesses, to terminate these societies, to shun these places, to proceed to things which I shall never support, and to adopt a manner of life to which all my incli- nations are repugnant. These are what check you ; these are the wall of separation which removes you from God. You speak so much to others of your doubts ; how comes it that you never speak of them to yourselves? This is not a matter, therefore, of reason and of belief; it is a matter of the heart and of licentiousness; and the delay of your conversion springs not from your uncertainties upon faith, but from the sole doubt in which the violence and the empire of your passions leave you of ever being able to free your- selves from their subjection and infamy. Such, my i)rethren, are the true chains which bind our pretended unbelievers to their own wretchedness. And this truth is more evident from this, that the majority of those who profess themselves unbelievers, live, nevertheless, in perpetual variations upon the point even of unbelief. In cer- tain moments they are affected with the truths of religion : they feel themselves torn with the keenest remorses ; they even apply to the servants of God most distinguished for their learning and piety, to hold converse with, and receive instructions from them : in others, they make game of these truths ; they treat the servants of God with derision, and piety itself as a chimera : there is scarcely one of these sinners, even of those who make the greatest ostenta- tion of their unbelief, whom the spectacle of an unexpected death, a fatal accident, a grievous loss, or a reverse of fortune, hath not cast into gloomy reflections on his situation, and excited desires of a more Christian life : there is hardly one who, in these trying situations, seeks not consolation in the support of the godly, and. takes not some step which leaves hopes of amendment. It is not to their companions in impiety and licentiousness that they then have recourse for consolation ; it is not by those impious railleries upon our mysteries, and by that horrible' phi- losophy, that they try to alleviate their sufferings : these are dis- courses of festivity and dissipation, and not of affliction and sorrow : it is the religion of the table, of pleasures, of riotings ; it is not that of solemn adversity and sadness : the relish of impiety vanishes with that of pleasures. Now, if their unbelief were founded in real uncertainties upon religion, so long as these uncertainties existed, unbelief should be the same; but, as their doubts spring only from their passions, and as their passions are not always the same, nor equally violent and masters of their heart, so their doubts continually fluctuate like their passions ; they increase, they diminish, they are eclipsed, they re-appear, they are 2 D 402 DOUBTS UPON RELIGION. mutable, exactly in the same degree as their passions. In a word, they share the lot of the passions, for they are nothing but the passions themselves. In effect, to leave nothing unsaid on this subject, and to make you thoroughly feel how much this vaunted profession of unbelief is despicable, observe this : reply to every difficulty of the boasting sinner, reduce him to have nothing more to say, and yet still he does not yield ; you have not thereby gained him ; he retires within himself, as if he had still more overpowering reasons which he disdains to bring forward : he keeps firm, and opposes a mysterious and decisive air to all those proofs which he cannot resolve. You then pity his madness and obstinacy : you are mistaken ; be touched only for his libertine life, and his want of candour ; for, let a mortal disease strike him on quitting you ; approach his bed of anguish, ah! you will find this pretended unbeliever convinced; his doubts cease, his uncertainties end, all that deplorable display of unbelief vanishes and tumbles in pieces ; there is no longer even question of it : he has recourse to the God of his fathers, and trembles at the judgments he made a show of not believing. The minister of Jesus Christ, called in, has no occasion to enter into controversy to undeceive him on his impiety : the dying sinner anticipates his cares and his ministry : he is ashamed of his past blasphemies, and rqjents of them ; he acknowledges their falsity and deception; he makes a public reparation gf them to the majesty and to the truth of religion ; he no longer demands proofs, he asks only consolations. Nevertheless, this disease hath not brought new lights upon faith ; the blow which strikes his flesh hath not cleared up the doubts of his mind ; ah ! it is be- cause it touches his heart, and terminates his riots ; in a word, it is that his doubts were in his passions, and that whatever tends to extinguish his passions, tends, at the same time, to extinguish his doubts. It happens, I confess, that sinners are sometimes found, who push their madness and impiety even to that last moment : who expire in vomiting forth, with their impious souls, blasphemies against the God who is to judge them, and whom they refuse to acknowledge. For, O my God ! thou art terrible in thy judg- ments, and sometimes permittest that the atheist die in his im- piety. But such examples are rare ; and you well know, my brethren, that an entire age scarcely furnishes one of these shock- ing spectacles. But view, in that last moment, all the others who vaunted their unbelief; see a sinner on the bed of death, who had hitherto appeared the firmest in impiety, and the most resolute in denying all belief; he even anticipates the proposal of having recourse to the church remedies : he lifts up his hands to heaven, and gives striking and sincere marks of a religion which was never effaced from the bottom of his heart : he no longer rejects, as childish bugbears, the threatenings and chas- DOUBTS UPON RELIGION. 403 tisements of a future life : what do I say? — this sinner, formerly so firm, so stately in his pretended unbelief, so much above the vulgar fears, then becomes weaker, more fearful, and more cre- dulous, than the lowest of the people; his fears are more ex- cessive, his very religion more superstitious, his practices of worship more silly, and more extravagant than those of the vul- gar; and, as one excess borders on its opposite excess, he is seen to pass in a moment from impiety to superstition ; from the firmness of the philosopher to all the weakness of the ignorant and simple. And here it is, that, with Tertullian, I would appeal to this dying sinner, and let him hold forth, in my stead, against unbelief; it is here that, to the honour of the religion of our fathers, I would wish no other testimony of the weakness and of the insincerity of the pretended atheist, than this expiring soul, who, surely, now can speak only the language of truth; it is here that I would assemble all unbelievers around his bed of death ; and, to overthrow them by a testimony which could not be suspicious, would say to him, with Tertullian, "Osoul! before thou quittest this earthly body, which thou art so soon to be freed from, suffer me to call upon thy testimony : speak, in this last moment, when vanity is no more, and thou owest all to the truth: say, if thou consider8rity and abundance, permitted to them no more pleasures and comforts here belov*^ than to the common and simple people. And, in effect, why should the first defenders of faith have regarded the conversions of Csesars, and of the power- ful of the age, as a proof of the truth and of the divinity of the gos- pel ? What would there be so surprising, that the rich and the powerful had embraced a doctrine which would distinguish them from the people by a greater indulgence ; which, while it would prescribe tears, fasting, self-denial, to others, would relax in favour of the great, and would consent that profusions, pleasures, sensua- lities, gaming, public places, all so rigorously forbidden to com- mon believers, become an innocent occupation for them ; and that what is "a road to perdition for others, should for them alone be a 442 IMMUTABILITY OF road c^ salvation ? It would then be the wisdom of the age which would have established the gospel, and not the folly of the cross ; it would be the artifices and the deferences of men, and not the arm of the Almighty; it would be flesh and blood, and not the power of God ; and the conversion of the universe would have no- thing more wonderful, than the establishment of superstitions and of sects. And candidly, my brethren, if the gospel had distinctions to make, and condescensions to grant; if the law of God could relax something of its severity, would it be in favour of those who are born to rank and to abundance? What! Would it preserve all its rigour for the poor and the unfortunate ? Would it condemn to tears, to fastings, to penitence, to poverty, those unfortunate souls whose days are mingled with almost nothing but sufferance and sorrow, and whose only comfort is that of eating with temper- ance the bread earned with the sweat of their brow ? And would it discharge from their rigorous duties the grandees of the earth ? And would it exact nothing painful of those whose days are only diversified by the variety of their pleasures? And would it reserve all its indulgence for those soft and voluptuous souls, who live oply for the senses, who believe they are upon the earth for the sole purpose of enjoying an iniquitous felicity, and who know no other god than themselves ? Great God ! It is the blindness which thy justice sheds over human prosperities : after having corrupted the heart, they hke- wise extinguish all the lights of faith. It rarely happens but that the great, so enlightened upon the interests of the earth, upon the ways to fortune and to glory, upon the secret springs which give motion to courts and empires, live in a profound ignorance of the ways of salvation. They have been so much accustomed to preferences by the world, that they are persuaded they ought likewise to find them in religion. Because men do them credit for the smallest steps taken in their favour, they believe, O my God ! that thou regardest them with the same eyes as men ; and that, in fulfilling some weak duties of piety, in taking some small steps for thee, they go even beyond what they owe to thee ; as if their smallest religious works acquired a new merit from their rank ; in place of which, they acquire it, in thy sight, only from that faith and from that charity which animates them. It is thus that the law of God, immutable in its extent, is the same for all stations, for the great and for the people. But it is likewise immutable in all the situations of life ; and it is neither a diflScult conjecture, nor perplexity, nor apparent danger, nor pre- text of public good, in which to violate, or even to soften it, becomes a legitimate and necessary modification. This was to have been my last reflection ; but I abridge and go on. Yes, my brethren, every thing becomes reason and necessity THE LAW OF GOD. 44S against our duties, that is to say, against the law of God ; situa- tions the least dangerous, conjunctures the least embarrassing, furnish us with pretexts to violate it with safety, and persuade us that the law of God would be unjust, and would exact too much of men, if, on these occasions, it were not to use indulgence with regard to us. Thus, the law of God commands us to render to each that which is his due ; to retrench, in order to pay those debts incurred through our excesses, and not to permit that our unfortunate cre- ditors suffer by our senseless profusions. Nevertheless, the general persuasion is, that, in a grand place, it is necessary to support the eclat of a public dignity ; that the honour of the master requires that mean and sorry externals disgrace not the elevated post which he hath confided to us ; that we are responsible to the sovereign, to the state, and to ourselves, before being so to individuals ; and that public property is then superior to the particular rule. Thus, the law of God enjoins us to tear out the eye which giveth offence, and to cast it from us ; to separate ourselves from an object which, in all times, hath been the rock of our innocence, and near to which we can never be in safety. Never- theless, the noise which a rupture would make, the suspicions which it might awaken in the public mind, the ties of society, of relationship, of friendship, which seem to render the separation impossible without eclat, persuade us that it is not then commanded, and that a danger, become as if necessary, becomes a security to us. Thus, the law of God commands us to render glory to the truth ; not to betray our conscience by iniquitously withholding it ; that is to say, not to dissemble it, through human interests, from those to whom our duty obliges us to announce it. Never- theless, we persuade ourselves that truths, which would be un- avaihng, ought to be suppressed ; and that a liberty, of which the only fruit would be that of risking our fortune, and of ren- dering ourselves hated, without rendering those better to whom we owe the truth, would rather be a!n indiscretion than a law of charity and of justice. Thus, the law of God prescribes to us to have in view, in pubUc cares, only the utility of the people, for whom alone the authority is intrusted to us ; to consider ourselves as charged with the interests of the multitude, as the avengers of injustice, the re- fuge against oppression and poverty. Nevertheless, we believe our- selves to be situated in conjunctures in which it is necessary to shut our eyes upon iniquity, to support abuses which we know to be untenable, to sacrifice conscience and duty to the necessity of the times, and, without scruple, to violate the clear- est rules, because the inconveniencies, which would arise from their observance, seem to render their transgression necessary. Lastly, human pretexts, interests, and inconveniencies, always 444 IMMUTABILITY OF make the balance to turn to their side ; and duty, and the law of God, always yield to conjunctures and to the necessity of the times. Now, my brethren, I do not tell you, in the first place, that the interest of salvation is the greatest of all interests ; that for- tune, life, reputation, the whole world itself, put in comparison with your soul, ought to be reckoned as nothing ; and that though heaven and the earth should change, that the whole world should perish, and every evil burst upon our head, these inconveniencies would always be infinitely less than the trans- gression of the law of God. Secondly. I do not tell you that the law hath always, at least, security in its favour against the pretext, because the ob- ligation of the law is clear and precise, in place of which, the pretext, which introduces the exception, is ahvays doubtful; and that, consequently, to prefer the pretext to the law, is to leave a safe way, and to make choice of another, for which no per- son can be answerable to you. Lastly. I do not tell you that, the gospel l\aving been only given to us in order to detach us from the world and from ourselves, and to make us die to all our terrestrial affections, it is deceiving ourselves to consider, as inconveniencies, certain consequences of that divine law, fatal either to our fortune, to our glory, or to our ease, and to persuade ourselves that it is then permitted to us to have recourse to expedients which mollify it, and conciliate its sieverity with the interests of our self-love. Jesus Christ hath never meant to prescribe to us easy and commodious duties, and which take nothing from the passions ; he came to bring the sword and separation to hearts, to divide man from his relations, from his friends, from himself; to hold out to us a way rugged and diffi- cult to keep. Thus, what we call inconveniencies and unheard-of extremities, are, at bottom, only the spirit of the law, the most natural consequences of the rules, and the end that Jesus Christ hath intended in prescribing them to us. That young man of the gospel regarded, as an inconveniency, the being unable to go to pay the last duties to his father, and to gather in what he had succeeded to, if he followed Jesus Christ ; and it was precisely that sacrifice which Jesus Christ exacted of him. Those men invited to the feast looked upon as an inconveniency, the one to forsake his country-house, the other his trade, the last to delay his marriage ; and it was in order to break asunder all these ties, which bound them still too much to the earth, that the father of the family invited them to come and seat themselves at the feast. Esther, at first, considered as an inconveniency to go to appear before Ahasue- rus, contrary to the law of the empire, and to declare herself a daughter of Abraham, and protectress of the children of Israel ; and, nevertheless, as the wise Mordecai represented to her, the THE LAW OF (;OD, 445 Lord had raised her to that point of glory and prosperity only for that important occasion. Whatever is a constraint to ns, appears a reason against the law; and we take for inconveniencies the ob- ligations themselves. Besides, my brethren, is it not certain that the principal merit of our duties is derived from the obstacles which never fail to op- pose their practice; that the most essential character of the law of Jesus Christ is that of exciting against it all the reasons of flesh and blood ; and virtue would resemble vice, if outwardly and in- wardly it found in us only facilities and conveniencies ? The righteous, my brethren, have never been peaceable observers of the holy rules. Abel found inconveniencies in the jealousy of his own brother ; Noah in the unbelief of his own citizens ; Abraham in the disputes of his servants ; Joseph in the dangers to which he was exposed through his love of modesty and the rage of a faith- less woman ; Daniel in the customs of a profane court ; the pious Esdras in the manners of the age; the noble Eleazar in the snares of a specious temperament: lastly, follow the history of the just, and you will see that, in all ages, all those who have walked in the precepts and in the ordinances of the law, have experienced incon- veniencies in which righteousness itself seemed to authorize the transgression of the rules ; have encovmtered obstacles in their way, where the lights of human reason seemed to decide in favour of the pretext against the law ; in a word, where virtue seemed to condemn virtue itself: and that, consequently, it is not new for the law of God to meet with obstacles ; but that it is new to pretend to find in these obstacles legitimate excuses for dispensing ourselves from the law of God. And the decisive argument which confirms this truth is, that our passions alone form the inconveniencies which authorize us in seeking mollifications to our duties and to the law of God ; and that views of fortune, of glory, of favour, engage us in certain pro- ceedings, justify them in our eyes, in spite of the evidence of rules which condemn them, only because we love our glory and our for- tune more than the rules themselves. Let us die to the world and to ourselves, my brethren; let us re- store to our heart the sentiments of love and of preference, which it owes to its Lord : then every thing shall appear possible ; diffi- culties shall, in an instant, be done away ; and what we call incon- veniencies either shall no longer be reckoned as any thing, or we shall consider them as inseparable proofs of virtue, and not as the excuses of vice. How easy is it to find pretexts when we love them ! Arguments are never wanting to the passions. Self-love is always ready in placing, at least, appearances on its side ; it al- ways changes our weaknesses into duties, and our inclinations soon become legitimate claims ; and what in this is most deplorable, says St. Augustine, is, that we call in even religion itself in aid of our passions ; that we draw motives from piety, in order to violato 446 FOR CHRISTMAS DAY. piety itself ; and that we have recourse to holy pretexts to autho- rize iniquitous desires. - It is thus, O my God ! that almost our whole life is passed in seducing ourselves ; that we employ the lights of our reason only in darkening those of faith ; that we consume the few days we have to pass upon the earth only in seeking authorities for our passions, in imagining situations in which we believe ourselves to be ena- bled to disobey thee with impunity ; that is to say, that all our cares, all our reflections, all the superiority of our views, of our lights, of our talents, all the wisdom of our measures and of our counsels, are limited to the accomplishment of our ruin, and to conceal from ourselves our eternal destruction. Let us shun this evil, my brethren ; let us reckon no way safe for us but that of the rules and of the law ; and let us remember that there shall be more sinners condemned through the pretexts which seem to authorize the transgressions of the law, than through the avowed crimes which violate it. It is thus that the law of God, after having been the rule of our manners upon the earth, shall be their eternal consolation in heaven. SERMON XXVI. FOR CHRISTMAS DAY, " For, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, wliich shall be to all people ; for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."— Luke ii. 10, U. Behold, in effect, the grand tidings which, for four thousand years, the world had expected ; behold the grand event which so many prophets had foretold, so many ceremonies had figured, so many righteous had awaited, and which all nature seemed to promise, and to hasten by the universal corruption spread through all flesh ; behold the grand blessing which God's goodness pre- pared for men, after the infidelity of their first parent had rendered them all subject to sin and death. The Saviour, the Christ, the Lord, at last appears this day on the earth. The over-shadowed brings forth the righteous ; the star of Jacob appears to the universe; the sceptre is departed from Judah, and he, who was to come, is arrived ; the age of darkness FOR CHRISTMAS DAY. 447 is accomplished ; the promised sign of the Lord to Judea hath ap- peared ; a virgin has conceived and brought forth, and out of Bethlehem comes the leader who is to enlighten and govern all Israel. What new blessings, my brethren, doth this birth not announce to men ! It would not, during so many ages, have been announced, awaited, desired ; it would not have formed the religion of a whole people, the object of all the prophecies, the unravelling of all the figures, the sole end of all the proceedings of God toward men, had it not been the grandest mark of his love which he could give them. What a blessed night is that which presides at this divine bring- ing forth ! It hath seen the light of the world shine forth in its darkness ; the heavens resound with joy and songs of thanksgiving. But, my brethren, we must participate in the blessings which this birth is meant to bring us, in order to enter into all the trans- ports of delight which it spreads through the ^leavens and the earth. The common joy is founded only on the common salvation which is offered to us ; and if, in spite of this aid, we still obstin- ately persist in perishing, the church weeps over us, and we min- gle mourning and sorrow with that joy with which such blessed tidings inspire it. Now, what are the inestimable blessings which this birth brings to men ? The heavenly spirits come themselves to make it known to the shepherds ; it comes to render glory to God, and peace to men ; and behold the whole foundation of this grand mystery laid open. To God, that glory of w'hich men had wished to deprive him; to men, that peace of which they had never ceased their struggles to deprive themselves. ^ Part I. — Man had been placed upon the earth for the sole pur- pose of rendering, to the Author of his being, that glory and that homage which were his due. All called him to these duties ; and every thing, which ought to have called, removed him from them. To his Supreme Majesty he owed his adoration and his homage; to his paternal goodness, his love ; to his infinite wisdom, the sa- crifice of his reason and of his lights. These duties, engraven on his heart, and born with him, were still also incessantly proclaimed to him by all creatures ; he could neither listen to himself, nor to all things around him, without finding them ; nevertheless, he for- gets, he effaces them from his heart. He no longer saw, in the work, that honour and that worship which were due to the sove- reign Architect ; in the blessings with which he loaded him, that love which he owed to his benefactor; in the obscurity spread through even natural causes, that impossibility, much less, of fathoming the secrecies of God, and that mistrust, in which he ought to live, of his own lights. Idolatry, therefore, rendered to the creature that worship which the Creator had reserved for him- 448 KOR CHRISTMAS DAY. self alone : the synagogue honoured him from the lip??, and that love, which it owed to him, was confined to external homages totally unworthy of him : philosophy lost itself in its own ideas, measured the lights of God by those of men, and vainly believed that reason, which knew not itself, was able to know all truth : three sores, spread over the face of the whole earth. In a word, God was no longer either known or glorified, and man was no longer known to himself. And, first, to what excesses had idolatry not carried its profane worship? The death of a person loved, quickly exalted him to a divinity; and his vile ashes, on which his nothingness was stamped in. characters so indelible, became themselves the title of his glory and of his immortafity. Conjugal love made gods to itself; im- pure love followed the example, and determined to have its altars : the wife and the mistress, the husband and the lover, had temples, priests, and sacrifices. The folly, or the general corruption, adopted a v/orship so ridiculous and so abominable ; the whole uni- verse was infected with it; the majesty of the laws of the empire authorized it ; and the magnificence of the temples, the pomp of the sacrifices, the immense riches of the images, rendered that folly respectable. Every people was jealous in having their gods ; in default of man they offered incense to the beast; impure homages became the worship of these impure divinities ; the towns, !the mountains, the fields, the deserts, were stained with them, and beheld superb edifices consecrated to pride, to lasciviousness, to revenge. The number of the divinities equalled that of the pas- sions; the gods were almost as numerous as the men ; all became god with man ; and the true God was the only one unknown to man. The world was plunged, almost from its creation, in the horror of this darkness ; every age had added to it fresh impieties. In proportion as the appointed time of the Deliverer drew near, the depravity of men seemed to increase. Rome itself, mistress of the universe, gave way to all the different worships of the nations she had subjugated ; and beheld, exalted within her walls, the differ- ent idols of so many conquered countries, that they became the public monuments of her folly and blindness, rather than of her victories. But, after all, though all flesh had corrupted his way, God no longer wished to pour out his wrath upon men, nor to exterminate them by a fresh deluge ; he wished to save them. He had placed in the heavens the sign of his covenant with the world ; and that sign was not the shining, though vulgar rainbow which appears in the clouds; it was Jesus Christ his only Son, the Word made flesh, the true seal of the eternal covenant, arid the sole light which comes to enlighten the whole world. He appears on the earth, and restores to his Father that glory of which the impiety of a public worship had wished to deprive FOR CHRISTMAS DAY. ' 449 Iiim. The homage rendered to him, by his holy soul united to the world, at once makes amends to his Supreme Majesty for all the honours which the universe had hitherto denied liim, in order to prostitute them to a creature. A Man-God adorer renders more glory to the Divinity than all idolatrous ages and nations had de- prived him of; and such homage must indeed have been agree- able to the sovereign God, seeing it alone effaced idolatry from the earth, made the blood of impure victims cease to flow, overturned the profane altars, silenced the oracles of demons, reduced to dust the vain idols, and changed their superb temples, till then the receptacle of every abomination, into houses of adoration and prayer. Thus was the universe changed : the only God, unknown even in Athens, and in those cities most celebrated for knowledge and polished manners, was worshipped : the world acknowledged its Author : God entered into his rights ; a worship worthy of him was established over the whole earth ; and he had every where adorers, who worshipped him in spirit and in truth. Behold the first blessing accruing from the birth of Jesus Christ, and the first glory which he renders to his Father. But, my brethren, is this grand blessing for us? We no longer worship vain idols, — an incestuous Jupiter, a lascivious Venus, a cruel and a revengeful Mars ; but is God, therefore, more glorified among us? In their place do we not substitute fortune, voluptuousness, court favour, the world, with all its pleasures ? For, whatever we love more than God, that we worship ; whatever we prefer to God, that becomes our god : whatever becomes the sole object of our thoughts, of our desires, of our affections, of our fears and hopes, becomes likewise the object of our worship ; and our gods are our passions, to which we sacrifice the true God. Now, what idols of this kind still remain in the Christian world ! You, that unfortunate creature, to whom you have prostituted your heart ; to whom you sacrifice your wealth, your fortune, your glory, your peace ; and from whom neither religious motives, nor even those of the world, can detach you, that is your idol ; and what less is she than your divinity, since, in your madness, you do not refuse her even the name ? You that court that fortune which en- grosses you, to which you devote all your cares, all your exertions, all your movements, in short, your whole soul, mind, will, and life, that is your idol ; and what criminal homage do you refuse from the moment that it is exacted of you, and that it may become the price of its favour? You, that shameful intemperance, which debases your name and birth ; which no longer accords even with pur manners ; which has drowned and besotted all your talents in the excesses of wine and debauchery; which, by rendering you callous to every thing else, leaves you neither relish nor feeling but for the brutal pleasures of the table, that is your idol : you think that you live only in those moments given to it ; and your 9 t: 450 FOR CHRISTMAS DAY. heart renders more homage to that infamous and abject god than your despicable and profane songs. The passions formerly made the gods ; and Jesus Christ hath destroyed these idols only by de- stroying the passions which had raised them up : you exalt them again, by reviving all the passions which had rendered the whole world idolatrous. And what matters it to know a single god, if you elsewhere bestow your homages ? Worship is in the heart; and if the true God be not the God of your heart, you place, like the pagans, vile creatures in his place, and you render not to him that glory which is his due. Thus, Jesus Christ doth not confine himself to manifesting the name of his Father to men, and to establishing, on the ruins of idols, the knowledge of the true God. He raiseth up worshippers, who reckon external homages as nothing, unless animated and sanctified by love; and who shall consider mercy, justice, and holiness, as the offerings most worthy of God, and the most shining attendants of their worship. — Second blessing from the birth of Jesus Christ, and second sort of glory which he renders to his Father. In effect, God was known, says the prophet, in Judea ; Jerusa- lem beheld no idols in the public places, usurping the homages due to the God of Abraham ; " There was neither iniquity in Jacob, nor perverseness in Israel :" that single portion of the earth was free from the general contagion. But the magnificence of its tem- ple, the pomp of its sacrifices, the splendour of its solemnities, the exactitude of its lawful observances, constituted the whole merit of its worship ; all I'eligion was confined to these external duties. Its morals were not less criminal. Injustice, fraud, falsehood, adul- tery, every vice subsisted, and was even countenanced by these vain appearances of worship : God was honoured from the lips ; but the heart of that ungrateful people was ever distant from him. Jesus Christ comes to open the eyes of Judea on an error so gross, so ancient, and so injurious to his Father. He comes to in- form them, that man may be satisfied with externals alone, but that God regards only the heart ; that every outward homage which withholds it from him, is an insult and a hypocrisy rather /than a true worship ; that it matters little to purify the external, if the internal be full of infection and putrefaction ; and that God is truly worshipped only by loving him. But, alas ! my brethren, is this mistake, so wretched, and so often reproached to the synagogue by Jesus Christ, not still the error of the majority of us ? To what, in fact, is the whole of our worship reduced ? To some external ceremonies ; to fulfil- ling certain public duties prescribed by the law ; and even this is the religion of the most respectable. They come to assist in the holy mysteries ; they do not, without scruple, depart from the laws of the church ; they repeat some prayers which custom FOR CHRISTMAS DAY. 451 has consecrated ; they go through the solemnities, and increase the crowd which runs to our temples : — behold the whole. But are they, in consequence, more detached from the world and from its criminal pleasures j — less occupied with the cares of a vain dress, or of fortune ; — more inclined to break off a criminal en- gagement, or to fly opportunities which have so often been a rock to their innocence .' Do they bring to these external practices of religion, a pure heart, a hvely faith, a guileless charity ? All their passions submit amid all these religious works, which are given to custom rather than to religion. And remark, I pray you, my brethren, that they would not dare to dispense themselves altogether from them ; to live, like the im- pious, without any profession of worship, and without fulfilling at least some of its public duties. They would consider themselves as anathematized, and worthy of the thunder of Heaven. And yet they dare to sully these holy duties by the most criminal manners ! and yet they do not view themselves with horror, w^hile rendering- useless these superficial remains of religion, by a life which reli- gion condemns and abhors ! and they dread not the wrath of God, in continuing crimes which attract it on our heads, and in limiting all that is his due to vain homages which insult him ! Nevertheless, as I have already said, of all the worldly, these are the most prudent, and, in the eyes of the world, the most regular. They have not yet thrown off" the yoke, like so many others ; they do not arrogate to themselves a shocking glory in not believ- ing in God ; they blaspheme not what they do not know ; they do not consider religion as a mockery and a human invention; they still wish to hold to it by some externals ; but they hold not to it by the heart ; but they dishonour it by their irregularities ; but they are not Christians but in name. Thus, even in a greater de- gree than formerly under the synagogue, the magnificent externals of religion subsist among us, along with a more profound and more general depravity of manners than ever the prophets reproached to the obstinacy and hypocrisy of the Jews : thus, that religion, in which we glory, is no longer, to the greatest number of believers, but a superficial worship : thus, that new covenant, which ought to be written only in the heart ; that law of spirit and life, which ought to render men wholly spiritual ; that inward worship, which ought to have given to God worshippers in spirit and in truth, — has given him only phantoms, only fictitious adorers ; the mere appearances of worship ; in a word, but a people still Jewish, which honours him from the lips, but whose corrupted heart, stained with a thousand crimes, chained by a thousand iniquitous passions, is always far distant from him. Behold the second blessing of the birth of Jesus Christ, in which we have no part. He comes to abolish a worship wholly external, which was confined to sacrifices of animals and lawful ceremonies, 2 G 2 452 FOR CHRrSTMAS DAY. and which, in not rendering to God the homage of our love, alone capable of glorifying him, rendered not to him that glory which is his due: in place of these appearances of religion, he comes to substitute a law which ought to be fulfilled wholly in the heart; a worship, of which the love of his Father ought to be the first and principal homage. Nevertheless, this holy worship, this new pre- cept, this sacred trust, which he hath confided to us, has miser- ably degenerated in our hands; we have turned it into a worship wholly Pharisaical, in which the heart has no part; which has no influence in changing our irregular propensities; which has no ef- fect upon our manners, and which only renders us so much the more criminal, as we abuse the blessing which ought to wash out and purify all our crimes. Lastly, men had likewise wished to ravish from God the glory of his providence and of his eternal wisdom. Philosophers, struck with the absurdity of a worship which multiplied gods to infinity, and forced, by the sole lights of reason, to acknowledge one sole Supreme Being, disfigured the nature of that Being by a thousand absurd opinions. Some figured to themselves an indolent god ; retired within himself, in full possession of his own happiness, disdaining to abase himself by paying attention to what passes on the earth, reckoning as nothing men whom he had created, equally insensible to their virtues as to their vices, and leaving wholly to chance the course of ages and seasons, the revolutions of empires, the lot of each individual, the whole machine of this vast universe, and the whole dispensation -of human things. Others subjected him to a fatal chain of events ; they made him a God without liberty and without power; and, while they regarded him as the master of men, they believed him to be the slave of destiny. The errors of reason were then the only rule of religion, and of the belief of those who were considered as even the wisest and most enlightened. , Jesus Christ comes to restore to his Father that glory of which the vain reasonings of philosophy had deprived him. He comes to teach to men that faith is the source of true light; and that the sacri- fice of reason is the first step of Christian philosophy. He comes to fix uncertainty, by instructing us in what we ought to know of the Supreme Being, and what, with regard to him, we ought not to know. It was not, in effect, sufficient that men, in order to render glory to God, should make a sacrifice to him of their life, as to the author of their being, and should, by that avowal, acknow- ledge the impiety of idolatry; that they should make a sacrifice to him of their love and of their heart, as to their sovereign felicity, and thereby proclaim the insufficiency and the inutility of the external and pharisaical worship of the synagogue; it was likewise required, that to him they should sacrifice their reason, as to their wisdom and to their eternal truth, and thus be un- FOft CHRISTMAS DAY. 453 deceived with regard to the vain researches and the conceited knowledge of philosophers. Now, the sole birth of a Man-God, the ineffable union of our nature with a divine person, disconcerts all human reason ; and this incomprehensible mystery held out to men as their whole knowledge, their whole truth, their whole philosophy, their whole religion, at once makes them feel that the truth, which they hitherto had in vain sought, must be sought, not by vain efforts, but by the sacrifice of reason and of our feeble lights. But, alas ! where among us are believers who make a thorough sacrifice of their reason to_faith; and who, rejecting their own lights, humble their eyes, in a respectful and silent adoration, before the majestic impenetrability of religion? I speak not of those impious, still to be found among us, who deny a God. Ah! we must leave them to the horror and the indignation of the whole universe which knows a Divinity, and which worships him ; or rather leave them to the horror of their own conscience, which inwardly invokes and calls upon him in spite of themselves, while outwardly they are glorifying themselves in professing not to know him. I speak of the majority of believers, who have an idea of the Divinity, almost equally false and equally human, as had formerly the pagan philosophers; who consider him as nothing in all the accidents of life; who live as if chance, or the caprice of men, determined all things here below ; and who acknowledge good-luck and bad-luck as two sole divinities which govern the world, and which preside over every thing relative to the earth. I speak of those men of little faith, who, far from adoring the secrecies of futurity in the profound and impenetrable councils of Providence, go to search for them in ridiculous and childish prophecies; attri- bute to man a knowledge which God hath solely reserved to him- self; with a senseless belief await, from the dreams of a false pro- phet, events and revolutions which are to decide the destiny of nations and empires ; found thereupon vain hopes for themselves, and renew either the folly of pagan augurs and soothsayers, or the impiety of the pythoness of Saul, and of the qracles of Delphi and Dodona. I speak of those who wish to penetrate into the eternal ways of God on our lots; and who, being unable, by the sole powers of reason, to solve the insurmountable difficulties of the mysteries of grace with regard to the salvation of men, far from crying out with the apostle, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God !" are tempted to believe, either that God doth not interfere in our salvation; or, if he do, that it is needless for us to interfere in it ourselves. I speak of those dis- solute characters in the world, who always find plausible and con- vincing, though, in fact, weak and foolish in the extreme, whatever unbelief opposes to faith; who are staggered by the first frivolous doubt proposed by the impious ; who appear as if they would be 454 FOR CHRISTMAS DAY. delighted that religion were false; and who are less touched with that respectable load of proofs which overpowers a conceited reason and its truth, than with a senseless discourse which opposes it, in which there is generally nothing important but the boldness of the impiety and of the blasphemy. - Lastly, I speak of many believers who turn over to the people the belief of so many wonderful actions which the history of religion has preserved to us; who seem to believe that whatever is above the power of man is likewise beyond the power of God; and who refuse credit to the miracles of a reli- gion which is solely founded on them, and which is itself the greatest of all miracles. Behold how we still snatched from God that glory which the birth of Jesus Christ had rendered to him. It had taught us to sacrifice our own lights to the incomprehensible mystery of his manifestation in our flesh, and no longer to live but by faith ; it had fixed the uncertainties of the human mind, and recalled it from the errors and the abyss in which reason had plunged it, to the way of truth and life, and we abandon it: and even under the empire of faith we wish still to walk as formerly, under the standards, if I may venture to speak in this manner, of a weak reason: the mysteries of religion, which we cannot comprehend, shock us; we suspect, we reform all; we would have God to think like man. Without altogether losing our faith, we suffer it to be inwardly weakened; we allow it to remain inactive : and it is this relaxation of faith which has corrupted our manners, multiphed vices, inflamed all hearts with a love of things present; extin- guished the love of riches to come; placed trouble, hatred, and dissension among believers, and effaced those original marks of innocence, of sanctity, and of charity, which at first had rendered Christianity so respectable even to those who refused submission to it. But not only doth the birth of Jesus Christ restore to God that glory of which men had wished to deprive him; it likewise restores to men that peace, of which they had never ceased to deprive themselves : " And on earth peace, good-will toward men." Part II. — A universal peace reigned throughout the universe, when Jesus Christ, the " Prince of Peace," appeared on the earth. All the nations subject to the Roman empire peaceably supported the yoke of those haughty masters of the world. Rome herself, after civil dissensions, which had almost depopulated her walls, filled the islands and deserts with her proscribed, and bathed Europe and Asia with the blood of her citizens, breathed from the horror of these troubles, and reunited under the authority of a Csesar, experienced, in slavery, a peace which she had never, during the enjoyment of her liberty, been able to accomplish. The universe was then at rest; but that was but a deceitful calm. Man, the prey of his own violent and iniquitous passions. FOR CHUISTMAS DAY. 455 experienced within himself the most cruel dissension and war : tar from God, delivered up to the agitations and frenzies of his own heart, combated by the multiplicity and the eternal con- trariety of his irregular propensities, he was unable to find peace, because he never sought it but in tlie source of all his troubles and disquiets. Philosophers made a boast of being able to bestow it on their followers; but that universal calm of the passions which they gave hopes of to their sage, and which they so emphatically announced, might suppress their sallies, but it left the whole venom in the heart. It was a piece of pride and ostentation ; it masked the outward man; but under that mask of ceremony, man always knew himself to be the same. Jesus Christ comes to-day upon the earth, to bring that true peace to men which the world had never hitherto been able to give them. He comes radically to cure the evil; his divine philo- sophy is not confined to the promulgation of pompous precepts, which might be agreeable to reason, but which cured not the wounds of the heart; and, as pride, voluptuousness, hatred, and re- venge, had been the fatal sources of all the agitations experienced by the heart of man, he comes to restore peace to him, by draining them off, through his grace, his doctrine, and his example. Yes, my brethren, I say that pride had been the original source of all the troubles which tore the heart of men. What wars, what frenzies, had that fatal passion not lighted upon the earth ! With what torrents of blood had it not inundated the universe ! And what is the history of nations and of empires, of princes and of conquerors, of every age and people, but the history of those cala- mities with which pride from the beginning had afflicted men ! The entire world was but a gloomy theatre, upon which that haughty and senseless passion every day exhibited the most bloody scenes. But the external operations were but a faint image of the troubles which the proud man inwardly experienced. Ambition was a virtue : moderation was looked upon as meanness : an indi- vidual overthrew his country, overturned the laws and customs, rendered millions miserable, in order to usurp the first place among his fellow-citizens ; and the success of his guilt insured him every homage; and his name, stained with the blood of his brethren, acquired only additional lustre in the public annals which pre- served its memory : and a prosperous villain became the grandest character of his age. That passion, descending among the crowd, became less striking; but it was neither less animated nor furious: the obscure was not more at his ease than the public man; each wished to carry off the prize from his equals : the orator, the philosopher, wrangled for, and tore from each other that glory, which, in fact, was the sole end of all their toils and watchings; and, as the desires of pride are insatiable, man, to whom it was then honourable totally to yield himself up to it, being unable to 456 FOR CHRISTMAS DAY. rest in any degree of elevation, was likewise incapable of peace and tranquillity. Pride, become the sole source of human honour and glory, was likewise become the fatal rock of the quiet and happiness of men. The birth of Jesus Christ, by correcting the world of this error, re-establishes on the earth that peace Vv'hich pride had banished from it. He might have manifested himself to men, with all the marks of splendour which the prophets attributed to him : he might have assumed the pompous titles of conqueror of Judah, of legislator of the people, of deliverer of Israel : Jerusalem, in these glorious marks, would have recognized him whom she awaited : but Jerusalem, in these titles, saw only a human glory; and Jesus Christ comes to undeceive, and to teach her, that such glory is nothing; that such an expectation had been unworthy of the oracles of so many prophets who had announced him : that the Holy Spirit, which inspired them, could hold out only holiness and eternal riches to men; that all other riches, far from rendering them happy, only increased their evils and crimes; and that his visible ministry was to correspond with the splendid promises, which had, for so many ages, announced him, only by being wholly spiritual, and that he should intend only tlie salvation of men. Thus, he is born at Bethlehem, in a poor and abject state, without external state or splendour ; he whose birth the songs of all the armies of heaven then celebrated : without title which might distinguish him in the eyes of men ; he who was exalted above all principality or power : he suffers his name to be written down among those of the obscurest subjects of Csesar; he whose name was above all other names, and who alone had the right of writing down the names of his chosen in the book of eternity: vulgar and simple shepherds alone came to pay hinl homage; he, before whom whatever is mighty on the earth, in heaven, and in hell, ought to bend the knee : lastly, whatever can confound human pride is assembled at the spectacle of his birth. If titles, rank, or prosperity, had been able to render us happy here below, and to shed peace through our heart, Jesus Christ would have made his appearance clothed in them, and would have brought all these riches to his disciples; but he brings peace to us only by holding them in contempt, and by teaching us to hold them equally in contempt : he comes to render us happy, only by coming to suppress desires which hitherto had occasioned all our disquiets : he comes to point out to us more sohd and more durable, riches, alone capable of calming our hearts, of filling our desires, of easing our troubles ; riches of which man cannot deprive us, and which require only to be loved and to be wished for, to be assured of posscssing them. FOR CHRrSTMAS DAY. 45/ Nevertheless, who tastes of this blessed peace ? Wars, trou- bles, frenzies, are they more rare since his birth ? Are those empires and states which worship him, in consequence more peaceful ? Does that pride which he came to destroy occasion less commotion and confusion among men '. Alas ! seek among Christians that peace which ought to be their inheritance, and where shall you find it ? — In cities ? Pride sets every thing there in motion ; every one wishes to soar above the rank of his ancestors : an individual, exalted by fortune, destroys the happiness of thousands who walk in his steps, without being able to attain the same point of prosperity. In the circle of domestic walls ? They conceal only distresses and cares : and the father of the family, solely occupied with the advancement rather than the Christian education of his offspring, leaves to them, for inhe-. ritance, his agitations and disquiets, which they, in their turn, shall one day transmit to their descendants. In the palaces of kings ? But there it is that a lawless and boundless ambition gnaws and devours every heart ; it is there that, under the specious mask of joy and tranquillity, the most violent and the bitterest passions are nourished ; it is there that happiness apparently resides, and yet where pride occasions the greatest number of discontented and mi- serable. In the sanctuary '.' Alas ! there ought surely to be found an asylum of peace; but ambition pervades even the holy place ; the efforts there are more to raise themselves above their brethren, than to render themselves useful to them ; the holy dignities of the church become, like those of the age, the reward of intrigue and caballing ; the religious circumspection of the prince cannot put a stop to solicitations and private intrigues ; we there see the same inveteracy and rivalships,the same sorrow in consequence of neglect, the same jealousy toward those who are preferred to us ; a ministry is boldly canvassed for, which ought to be accepted only with fear and trembling : they seat themselves in the temple of God, though placed there by other hands than his : they head the flock without his consent to whom it belongs, and without his having said, as to Peter, " Feed my sheep ;" and as they have taken the charge with- out call and without ability, the flock are led without edification and without fruit, alas! and often with shame. — O peace of Jesus Christ ! which surpassest all sense, sole remedy against the troubles w^hich pride incessantly excites in our hearts, who shall then be able to give thee to man ? But, secondly, if the disquiets of pride had banished peace from the earth, the impure desires of the flesh had not given rise to fewer troubles. Man, forgetting the excellency of his nature, and the sanctity of his origin, gave himself up, like the beasts, without scruple, to the impetuosity of that brutal instinct. Finding it the most violent and the most universal of his i)ropensities, he believed it to be also the most innocent and the most lawful. In order still 458 FOR CHRISTMAS DA\ . more to authorize it, he made it part of his worship, and formed to himself impure gods, in whose temples that infamous vice became the only homage which did honour to their altars : even a philoso- pher, in other respects the wisest of pagans, dreading that marriage should put a kind of check on that deplorable passion, had wished to abolish that sacred bond ; to permit among men, as among ani- mals, a brutal confusion, and only multiply the human race through crimes. The more that vice became general, the more it lost the name of vice : and, nevertheless, what a deluge of miseries had it not poured out upon the earth ! With what fury had it not been seen to arm people against people, kings against kings, blood against blood, brethren against brethren, every where carrying trouble and carnage, and shaking the whole universe ! Ruins of cities, wrecks of the most flourishing empires, sceptres and crowns overthrown, became the public and gloomy monuments which every age reared up, in order, it would seem, to preserve, to fol- lowing ages, the remembrance and the fatal tradition of those ca- lamities with which that vice had afflicted the human race. It be- came itself an inexhaustible source of troubles and anxieties to the man who then gave himself up to a boundless gratification of it : it held out peace and pleasure ; but jealousy, excess, frenzy, disgust, inconstancy, and black chagrin, continually walked in its steps; till then, that the laws, the religion, and the common example author- izing it, the sole love of ease, even in these ages of darkness and corruption, kept free from it a small number of sages. But that motive was too feeble to check its impetuous course, and to extinguish its fires in the heart of men ; a more powerful remedy was required, and that is the birth of the Deliverer, who comes to draw men out of that abyss of corruption, in order to render them pure and witliout stain ; to break asunder those shameful bonds, and to give peace to their hearts, by restoring to them that freedom and innocence, of which the slavery and tyranny of that vice had deprived them. He is born of a virgin- mother, and the purest of all created beings : he thereby gives estimation and honour to a virtue unknown to the world, and which even his people considered as a reproach. Besides, in uniting himself with us, he becomes our head, incorporates us with himself, makes us become members of his mystical body, of that body which no longer receives life and influence but from him, of that body whose every ministry is holy, which is to be seated at the right hand of the living God, and to glorify him for ever. Behold, my brethren, to what height of honour Jesus Christ, in this mystery, exalts our flesh ; he makes of it the temple of God, the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, the portion of a body in which the fulness of the Divinity resides, the object of the kindness and the love of his Father, But do we not still pro- fane this holy temple ? Do wc not still turn to shame the meiu- FOll CHRISTMAS DAY. 459 bers of Jesus Christ? Do we, in a higher degree, respect our flesh since it is become a holy portion of his mystical body ? Does that shameful passion not still exercise the same tyranny over Christians, that is to say, over the children of sanctity and liberty ? Does it not still disturb the peace of the universe, the tranquillity of empires, the harmony of families, the order of society, the confi- dence of marriage, the innocence of social intercourse, the lot of every individual ? Are not the most tragical spectacles still every day furnished to the world by it ? Does it respect the most sacred ties and the most respectable character ? Does it not reckon as nothing every duty ? Does it pay attention even to decency ? And does it not turn all society into a frightful confusion, where custom has effaced every rule ? Even you, who listen to me, from whence have arisen all the miseries and unhappinesses of your life? Is it not from that deplorable passion ? Is it not that which has over- turned your fortune, which has cast trouble and dissension through the heart of your family, which has swallowed up the patrimony of your fathers, which has dishonoured your name, which has ruined your health, and now makes you to drag on a gloomy and disgraceful life on the earth ? Is it not, at least, that which actually rends your heart, at present filled with it ? What goes on within you but a tumultuous revolution of fears, desires, jealousies, mistrusts, disgusts, and frenzies ? And since that pas- sion has stained your soul, have you enjoyed a moment of peace? Let Jesus Christ again be born within your heart; he alone can be your true peace : chase from it the impure spirits, and the mansion of your soul will be at rest ; become once more a child of grace : innocence is the only source of tranquillity. Lastly, the birth of Jesus Christ reconciles men to his Father ; it reunites the Gentile and the Jew ; it destroys all those hateful distinctions of Greek and Barbarian, of Roman and Scythian ; it extinguishes all animosities and hatreds : of all nations it makes only one people, of all his disciples only one heart and one soul : last kind of peace which it brings to men. Formerly they were united together neither by worship, a common hope, nor by the new co- venant, which, in an enemy, holds out to us a friend. They con- sidered each other almost as creatures of a difterent species : the diversity of religions, of manners, of countries, of languages, of in- terests, had, it would appear, as if diversified in them the same na- ture : scarcely did they recognise each other by that figure of hu- manity which was the only sign of connexion still remaining to them. Like wild beasts, they mutually exterminated each other : they centred their glory in depopulating the lands of their fellow- creatures, and in carrying in triumph their bloody heads as the splendid memorials of their victories : it might have been said that they held their existence from different irreconcilable creators, al- ways watchful to destroy each other, and who had placed them here below only to revenge their quarrel, and to terminate their 460 FOR CHRISTMAS DAY. disagreement by the general extinction of one of the two parties; every thing disunited man, and nothing bound tliem together but interest and the passions, which were themselves the sole source of their divisions and animosities. But Jesus Christ is become our peace, our reconciliation, the cor- ner-stone v/hich binds and unites the whole fabric, the living head which unites all its members, and makes but one body of the whole. Every thing knits us to him, and whatever knits us to him unites us to each other. It is the same Spirit which animates us, the same hope which sustains us, the same bosom which brings us forth, the same fold which assembles us, and the same Shepherd who conducts us : we are children of the same Father, inhe- ritors of the same promises, citizens of the same eternal city, and members of the same body. Now, my brethren, have so many sacred ties been successful in binding us together? Christianity, which ought to be but the union of hearts, the tie to knit behevers to each other, and Je- sus Christ to believers, and which ought to represent upon the earth an image of the peace of heaven ; Christianity itself is no longer but a horrible theatre of troubles and dissensions : war and fury seem to have established an eternal abode among Chris- tians; religion itself, which ought to unite, divides them. The unbeliever, the enemy of Jesus Christ, the children of the false prophet, who came to spread war and devastation through men, are at peace ; and the children of peace, and the disciples of him who, this day, comes to bring it to men, have their hands con- tinually armed with fire and sword against each other! Kings rise up against kings, nations against nations ; the seas, which separate, reunite them for their mutual destruction : a vile mor- sel of stone arms their fury and revenge ; and whole nations go to perish and to buiy themselves under its walls, in contesting to whom shall belong its ruins : the earth is not sufficiently vast to contain them and to fix them each one in the bonds which nature herself seems to have pointed out for states and empires ; each wishes to usurp from his neighbour ; and a miserable field of battle, which is scarcely sufficient to serve as a burial-place to those who have disputed it, becomes the prize of those rivers of blood with which it is for ever stained. O divine Reconcihator of men ! return then once more upon the earth, since the peace which thou broughest to it at thy birth still leaves so many wars and so many calamities in the universe ! Nor is this all : that circle itself, which unites us under the same laws, unites not the heart and affections; hatred and jea- 'lousies divide citizens equally as they divide nations; animosi- ties are perpetuated in families, and fathers transmit them to their children, as an accursed inheritance. In vain may the authority of the prince disarm the hand, it disarms not the heart ; in vain may the sword be wrested from them, with the FOR THE DAY OF TIIK f:i'IPUANY. 461 sword of the tongue they continue a thousand times more cruelly to pierce their enemy; hatred, under the necessity of confining itself within, becomes deeper and more rancorous, and to foro-ive is looked upon as a dishonourable weakness. Oh! my brethren, in vain then hath Jesus Christ descended upon the earth ! He is come to bring peace to us ; he hath left it to us as his inheritance • nothing hath he so strongly recommended to us as that of lovino- each other ; yet fellowship and peace seem as if banished from among us, and hatred and animosity divide court, city, and faiwilies ; and those whom the offices, the interests of the state, decency it- self, and blood, ought, at least, to unite, — tear, defame, would wish to destroy, and to exalt themselves on the ruins of each other : and religion, which shows us our brethren even in our enemies, is no longer listened to ; and that awful threatening, which gives us room to expect the same severity on the part of God which we shall have shown to our brethren, no longer touches or affects us ; and all these motives, so capable of softening the heart, still leave it filled with all the bitterness of hatred. We tranquilly live in this frightful state: the justice of our complaints with regard to our enemies calms us on the injustice of our hatred and of our rooted aversion toward them ; and if, on the approach of death, we ap- parently hold out to them the hand of reconciliation, it is not that we love them more, it is because the expiring heart hath no lono-er the force to sustain its hatred, that almost all our feelinos are ex- tinguished, or, at least, that we are no longer capable of feeling any thing but our own weakness and our approaching dissolution. Let us then unite ourselves to the newly-born Jesus Christ ; let us en- ter into the spirit of that mystery ; with him let us render to God that glory which is his due; it is the only means of rcstorino- to ourselves that peace, of which our passions have hitherto depri- ved us. SERMON XXVII. FOR THE DAY OF THE EPIPHANY. For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship hira." — Matt, ii, 2. Truth, that light of Heaven, figured by the star which on this day appears to the magi, is the only thing here below worthy of the cares and the researches of man. It alone is the li