The Sermon on the Mount (Bossuet)/Day 31
Thirty-first Day
We are not to be like the heathen. — Matt. vi. 32.
'FOR after all these things do the heathens seek.’ Observe how constantly Our Lord requires us to rise above the vices — and even above the virtues — of the heathen. Just before this, He had said: ' Do not even the publicans do the same? ’ [1] Let us consider well wherein we surpass them. Jesus Christ did not say without reason that 'the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it.’ [2] Of what use to us is Christianity, if we lead heathen lives? Yet, alas! how much paganism there is amongst the faithful: — how many Christians living as though they knew not God! There exists, in fact, no God for them. Where shall we find tears enough wherewith to mourn our blindness?