to love, is to look upon the object beloved as our resource against all our wants, the cure of all our evils, and the author of all our good. Now, as it is in God alone that we can find all these advantages, it is a disorder, and a debasement of the heart, to seek for them in a vile creature.
And, at bottom, we feel sensibly the injustice of that love: however passionate it be, we quickly discover, in the creatures which inspire it, weaknesses and defects which render them unworthy of it: we soon find them out to be unjust, fanciful, false, vain, and inconstant: the deeper we examine them, the more we say to ourselves, that our heart has been deceived, and that this is not the object which it sought. Our reason inwardly blushes at the weakness of our passion; we no longer submit to our chains, but with pain; our passion becomes our burden and our punishment. But, punished without being undeceived in our error, we seek, in a change, a remedy for our mistake: we wander from object to object, and if some one at last chance to fix us, it is not that we are satisfied with our choice, it is that we are tired of our inconstancy.
Our sinner hath wandered in these ways: iniquitous loves had been the cause of all her misfortunes and of all her crimes; and, born to love God alone, he alone it was whom she had never loved. But scarcely hath she known him, says the gospel, when, blushing at the meanness of her former passions, she no longer acknowledges but him alone to be worthy of her heart; all in the creature appears to her empty, false, and disgusting: far from finding those charms, from which her heart had formerly with such difficulty defended itself, she no longer sees in them but their frivolity, their danger, and their vanity. — The Lord alone, in her sight, appears good, real, faithful, constant to his promises, magnificent in his gifts, true in his affection, indulgent even in his anger, alone sufficiently great to fill the whole immensity of our heart; alone sufficiently powerful to satisfy all its desires; alone sufficiently generous to soften all its distresses; alone immortal, and who shall for ever be loved: lastly, to love whom can be followed by the sole repentance of having loved him too late.
It is love, therefore, my brethren, which makes true penitence: for penitence is only a changing of the heart; and the heart does not change but in changing its love: penitence is only the re-establishment of order in man; and man is only in order when he loves the Lord, for whom he is made: penitence is only a reconciliation with God; and your reconciliation is fictitious, if you do not restore to him your heart: in a word, penitence obtains the remission of sins, and sins are remitted only in proportion to our love.
Tell us no more, then, my brethren, when we hold out these grand examples for your imitation, that you do not feel yourselves born for devotion, and that your heart is of such a nature that every thing which is denominated piety is disagreeable to it. What! my dear hearer, your heart is not made for loving its God? Your heart is not made for the Creator who hath given it to you? What! you are born then for vanity and falsehood?
