Sermons (Massillon)/Sermon 1
SERMONS.
SERMON I.
ON SALVATION.
"My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready." John vii. 6.
The 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 acquirement of wealth and glory, 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 deceitful ways they follow, but an eternal agitation, where the passions 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 secure their happiness: how can we comprehend, that so much toil and agitation has nothing in view but a fortune, whose duration 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?
Nevertheless, a mistake, which the slightest investigation is sufficient 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 verges 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 laboured 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 and prudence: with fervour, in order not to be repulsed; with prudence in order not to be mistaken.
Part I. - Undoubtedly nothing in 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 occupations attached to our places, to our rank, to our situations in life, ought to be only different modes of labouring toward our salvation.
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 pursuits, give place to them all in the detail of our actions; this care so amiable, and to which the promises of faith, and the consolations 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 business of our eternal salvation; we pursue it without esteem, without preference, and without inclination. Let us investigate and illustrate these ideas.
It is a very deplorable error, that mankind has attached the most pompous names to all the enterprises of the passions; and that the cares of 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 negotiations which arm mankind against each other, and which frequently make the ambition 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 business 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 limited souls, and have nothing which exalt them in the eyes of men. Such, my brethren, is the first cause of our indifference 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 history of the sinners whose names adorn the present age, will be effaced from the remembrance of men; the works 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 recompense us; and there is no other who has that power but God himself. Is it the dignity of the occupations to which they engage 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 worthy of man than the cares of eternity? Prosperities are honourable anxieties; splendid enjoyments an illustrious servitude; reputation is frequently a public error; titles and dignities 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 pleasure of our illicit desires. We view with a tranquil eye the prodigy 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 religion and faith: — what shall I say? we become, perhaps, the censurers of their virtues: we seek elsewhere than in the infinite treasures of grace, the secret motives of their change; to the work of God we give views entirely worldly; and our deplorable censures become the most dangerous trials of their repentance. It is thus, O, my God! that Thou sheddest avenging darkness over iniquitous 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 actions there may always be found some which relate to our salvation; 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 arrangements, passions, and pleasures, their times and their moments marked in our days; — where do we place the work of salvation? 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 eternity, which you do not for the world an hundred-fold? You sometimes 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 compensated 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 regular 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 sensibly the injustice and the danger of your own conduct. You confess, 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 tranquillize yourselves, you say, that some future day, when you shall be more at ease; when affairs of a certain nature shall be terminated; 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 painful 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 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 sacrifices to the Almighty, and of making your most hurried and tumultuous occupations the sources of holy reflections, or of praiseworthy 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; nevertheless, 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 tranquillity 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 regard 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 stations, 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 employment, 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; 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 enemies of the Christians; it would seem that you look upon it as incompatible with the duties of prince, courtier, public character, and father of a family: like them, you seem to believe, that the gospel proposes only maxims unfortunate and inimical to society; 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 humanity, of authority, which unite 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 gentle 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 be more humble, more patient, more moderate, more virtuous, more penitent? Alas! it is not external agitations which check you; it is the disorder within; it is the tumultuous ardour 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 inclinations you will never be able to free yourselves with the same facility as from your cares and embarrassments; they will afterwards be even more lively, more unconquerable than ever: besides this fund of weakness which they draw from your corruption, 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 external 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 believe 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 quitting them, you may rid yourselves of it; it has gained root in your flesh. 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 Judea 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 occupations 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 affair of our eternal salvation, — is because we fulfil the duties necessary to accomplish it without pleasure, and, as it were, against our will. The slightest obligations of piety appear hard to us; whatever we do for heaven tires us, exhausts us, displeases us: prayer confines our mind too much; retirement wearies us; holy reading, from the first, fatigues the attention; 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, which 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 attributing to virtue what springs from your own 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 dispositions, and the yoke will appear light to you; restore to your heart that taste of which sin has deprived it, and you will experience how pleasing the Lord is: hate the world, and you will comprehend 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 condition 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 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; 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 burning sands of the desert. 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 pleasing. 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. We must familiarize ourselves with virtue, in order to be acquainted 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 weariness, 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 weighed 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, 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 yourselves 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 retrench 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 struggled within her; and, as if worn out by her tortures, she intreated of the Lord either death or deliverance. Be not surprised, said a voice from heaven to her, if your sufferings are extreme, 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 irreconcileable, 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 jealousies, 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 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 sincere, 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 fastings 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 invisible 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 innocence which reigns within. It is there that the Father of mercies, and the God of all 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 accomplishing 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 an ungrateful, changeable, 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 prefer 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 business of our 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 mistakes 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 enterprise of salvation, it would be needless to waste time in proving here, and equally so for you to doubt. The only object of importance, 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 examine all, independent of usages and customs which may authorise 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 affair 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 upright 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 before 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, advances 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, attentive, diffident, active to discover any errors concealed under the common prejudices, — it is in salvation alone that nothing can 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, exempt even from great crimes, — that this life, I say, is not a Christian one, and consequently is a life of reprobation and infidelity: it is the doctrine of that religion in which you were 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 hesitate between two contending parties, particularly where our salvation 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 examining 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, meannesses, 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 delicacies 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 prescribe 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 innocence. 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 violence 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. Before 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 maxims?
What, my brethren! in the affair of your eternity, without examination or attention, you adopt common prejudices, merely because they are established? You blindly 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 business 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 precaution 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 extreme, perhaps, your mode of thinking on every other point, upon salvation alone you think with the crowd, and it appears that reason is denied to you on this grand interest alone. What, my brethren! when you are asked, in the steps which you take to ensure success to your worldly expectations, the reasons which have induced you to prefer one party to another, you advance such solid and prudent motives; you justify your choice by prospects so certain 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 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 dissemble 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 conscience, and to connect his criminal weaknesses with the law of God, he bethought himself of seeking, in the answers of a deceitful oracle, some authority favourable to his passions. Love the truth, and you will soon acquire a knowledge of it. A clear conscience 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, besides, if you seek the Lord in sincerity, and your lights are insufficient, 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 propose 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 suffrage 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. 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, overcome 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 continued 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 ourselves, if possessing such principles; if, to a certain degree, delivering ourselves up to resentment; if employing a certain degree of duplicity; \f not denying ourselves a certain gratification, be a crime, or a venal fault; you always hang between these two destinies; 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 uncertain 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 whether 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 indifferent 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, 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 which 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 saythat they are praiseworthy; that they are happy who can assume such a command over themselves; that it is much 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 advancement, our temporal interests, are ]we capable of such imprudence? Of all the various ways which present themselves to ambition, do we leave those where every appearance seems favourable to our success, and make choice of such as lead to nothing; where fortune is tardy and doubtful; and which have hitherto been only productive 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 determined 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 which, 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 danger of your situation, 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 safety of retirement succeed to the inutility and the dangers of society; the habit of prayer to the dissipation of gaming and amusements: the guard of the senses to the indecency of dress, and the danger of public spectacles; Christian mortification to the softness 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. WThy do you accomplish your perdition with so much constraint? In place of those scruples, 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 kingdom of God; overleap these bounds, and no longer place any limits to your guilt, but those of your cupidity: in place of those loose 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 despair, in order to inspire you with a just horror at them: it is a tender artifice of zeal, which only assumes the appearance of exhorting 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 reason that the Lord hath 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 are 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 moment 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 possess a superior mind, capable of every exertion, and rare and shining talents; if you err with regard to your eternal salvation, you are a child. Solomon, so esteemed in the East for his wisdom, is a madman, whose folly we can now with difficulty comprehend. All worldly reason is but a mockery, a dazzling of the senses, if it mistakes the decisive points of eternity. There is nothing important in life but this single object; all the rest is a dream, in which any mistake is of little consequence. Trust not yourselves, therefore, to the multitude, which is the party of those who err; take not as guides men who can never be your sureties; leave nothing 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 who 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.