precepts and in the ordinances of the law, have experienced inconveniencies in which righteousness itself seemed to authorize the transgression of the rules; have encountered 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 proceedings, justify them in our eyes, in spite of the evidence of rules which condemn them, only because we love our glory and our fortune more than the rules themselves.
Let us die to the world and to ourselves, my brethren; let us restore to our heart the sentiments of love and of preference, which it owes to its Lord: then every thing shall appear possible; difficulties shall, in an instant, be done away; and what we call inconveniencies 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 always 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 violate piety itself; and that we have recourse to holy pretexts to authorize 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 enabled 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.
