opposite to every thing pious, have been those in whom grace hath operated the most wonderful change. And, without mentioning the sinner of our gospel, the Augustines, the Pelagiuses, the Fabioleses, those worldly and dissipated souls, so obstinate and rooted in their debaucheries, and so diametrically opposite, it would seem, to piety, what progress have they not since made in the ways of God! And their former propensities have, as I may say, only paved the way for their penitence. The same soil which nourishes and produces great passions, gives birth likewise to the greatest virtues, when it pleases the Lord to change the heart. My God! thou hast made us all for thee; and in the incomprehensible arrangement of thy providence, and of thy mercy toward man, even our weaknesses are to conduce toward our sanctification. It is thus that our sinner made reparation for the iniquitous use which she had made of her heart.
But, secondly, the love which she had for Jesus Christ was not one of those vain and indolent sensibilities which are rather the natural emotions of an easily affected heart than real impressions of grace, and which never produce any thing in us farther than that of rendering us satisfied with ourselves, and persuading us that our heart is changed: the sacrifices, and not the feelings, prove the reality of love.
Thus, the second disorder of her sin having been the criminal and almost universal abuse of all creatures; the second reparation of her penitence, is the rigorously abstaining from all those things which she had abused in her errors. Her hair, her perfumes, the gifts of body and of nature, had been the instruments of her pleasures; for none is ignorant of the use to which a deplorable passion can apply them; this is the first step of her penitence: the perfumes are abandoned, and even consecrated to a holy ministry; her hair is neglected, and no longer serves but to wipe the feet of her deliverer; beauty, and every attention to the body are neglected, and her eyes are blinded with tears. Such are the first sacrifices of her love: she is not contented with giving up cares visibly criminal, she even sacrifices such as might have been looked upon as innocent, and thinks that the most proper way of punishing the abuse she had formerly made of them, is by depriving herself of the liberty she might still have had of employing them.
In effect, by having once abused them, the sinner loses the right he had over them: what is permitted to an innocent soul, is no longer so to him who has been so unhappy as to deviate from the right path. Sin renders us, as it were, anathematized to all creatures around us, and which the Lord had destined to our use. Thus, there are rules for an unfaithful soul, not made for other men: he no longer enjoys, as I may say, the common right, and he must no more judge of his duties by the general maxims, but by the personal exceptions which concern him.
Now, upon this principle, you are continually demanding of us, if the use of such and such an artifice in dress be a crime? If such and such public pleasures be forbidden? I mean not here to decide
