1 might still add, that the more you delay, the more you accumulate debts; the more you increase the mass of iniquity, the more crimes shall you have to expiate, the more rigorous shall your reparation be; and, consequently, the more difficult shall be your penitence. Slight austerities, moderate retrenchments, and 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 beyond your computation, and time and years shall have weakened in your memory, the multitude and the enormity of your iniquities; ah! no reparation on your part can then be suf ficiently rigorous, no mortification sufficiently austere, no humiliation sufficiently profound, no pleasure, however innocent, which you must not deny yourself, no gratification which will not be criminal: holy excesses of penitence will be necessary to compensate for the duration and the enormity of your crimes; it will be required of you to quit all, to tear yourself from every thing, to sacrifice your fortune, interests, and comfort, perhaps to condemn yourself to a perpetual exile; for it is only through these means that great sinners are recalled. Now, if slight rigours, which would at present be sufficient amends, appear so insupportable, and disgust you with the idea of a change, will 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 mistakes. Ah! my brethren, of what avail are great lights, extent of genius, deep penetration, and solid judgment in the management of

earthly matters, and of vain undertakings which shall perish with us, if we are mere 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 future conversion as a feeling of grace and of 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 inspiring you with salutary troubles and fears with regard to your conscience; all the operations of grace begin with these; consequently, 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 his grace, which in the criminal soul always works trouble and anxiety, dread and distrust, is totally extinguished in yours. Thus you comfort yourself on what ought to excite your most just fears; the most deplorable signs of your reprobation form in your mind the most solid foundation of your hope: confidence while in a state of 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 ship. wreck you are stamped with the mark of the reprobate; reckon not upon a mercy which treats you so VOL. II. 7

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 touch, and in an instant creates the new man, as the earthly man was formerly drawn from nothing. This is the grossest of all mistakes, my dear hearer; conversion 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 of Man, shall be days of trouble and wo; nations shall rise against nations, and kings against kings; horrible signs shall be seen in the firmament long before the King of Glory himself shall appear; all nature shall announce, by its disorder, its 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 be visible in your person; all shall be shaken, all shall be disturbed; all within you shall announce the destruction 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 nigh; then be confident, and adore the awful but consolatory preparations 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 that the Lord draweth nigh; that you will immediately find him in the sanctuary, I mean to say, in the participation of the sacrament, in those retired places to which you shall go perhaps to comfort him in the person of his afflicted members; mistrust those who shall be continually saying, "Lo! here is Christ ;" believe them not; they are false prophets, saith Jesus Christ: no sign of his coming hath taken 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 confident, shall never be visited by him.

66 Happy, therefore, is the man that feareth always :" he whose virtues even do not entirely quiet him upon his eternal destiny, who trembles 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 punish 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 vain confidence should pretend to find even in religion motives which warrant it, and should mistake the most criminal of all dispositions, for a sentiment of salvation, and a fruit of faith and of grace. In effect, the sinner, who, without wishing to abandon his irregularities, promises himself a change, alleges, in justification of his presumption, 1st, 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; 2dly, 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, as 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 to shew that the disposition of the presuming sinner offers an insult to God in all the abovementioned perfections. Allow me to explain my reasons, and continue to honour me with your attention.

In the first place, When you form an idea of 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 do whatever he willeth, nevertheless, as he is infinitely