the law of God, which shall judge the affected uncertainties and the false interpretations of sinners. And thus it is, O my God 1 that thy holy law shall judge the world, and that the criminal conscience shall one day be confounded before thy tribunal, both by the lights of his own conscience and by the perspicuity of thy heavenly maxims.
Part I. — It is rather surprising that the greatest part of worldly souls, in justification of the abuses of the world, and the danger of its maxims, allege to us the candour and the tranquillity of their conscience. Besides, that peace and security, in the false paths of iniquity, are rather their punishment than their excuse; and that, were it even true that the conscience should reproach them with nothing in manners regulated solely according to the false judgments of the world, that state would still be only so much the worse, and more hopeless of salvation. It appears that, of all tribunals, that of conscience is the last to which an unbelieving soul should appeal; and that nothing is less favourable to the errors of a sinner than the sinner himself.
I know that there are hardened souls, to whom no ray of grace or of light can carry conviction; who live without remorse and without anxiety in the horrors of an infamous licentiousness; in whom all conscience seems extinguished, and who carry the excess of their blindness, says St. Augustine, so far as even to glory in their blindness. But these are only dreadful examples of God's justice upon men; and if such have appeared upon the earth, they only prove how far his neglect and the power of his wrath may sometimes go.
Yes, my brethren, whether we affect boldly and openly to cast off the authority of the law, like the impious and the licentious; whether we endeavour to mollify and artificially to reconcile it with our passions, by favourable interpretations, like the greatest part of worldly souls and common sinners; our conscience renders a twofold testimony within us to this divine law: a testimony of truth to the equity and to the necessity of its maxims, and a testimony of severity to the exactitude of its rules.
I say in the first place, a testimony of truth to the equity of its maxims. For, my brethren, God is too wise not to love order; and he is, at the same time, too good not to wish our welfare. His law must consequently bear these two characters, — a character of equity, and a character of goodness: a character of equity, which regulates all the duties; a character of goodness which makes us to find our peace and our happiness here below, in duty and in regularity.
Thus, we feel, in the bottom of our hearts, that these rules are just and reasonable; that the law of God commands nothing but what is consistent with the real interests of man; that nothing is more consonant to the reasonable creature than gentleness, humanity, temperance, modesty, and all the virtues recommended in the Gospel; that the passions prohibited by the law are the sole source of all our troubles; that the more we deviate from the pre-
