have I attained strength for such separations which I know to be so indispensable toward my salvation? I have so long been told, that to defer, as I have done, from day to day, my penitence, is to be determined to die in sin; do I, even now, find myself more disposed to quit my deplorable situation, and with a willing heart to begin the work of my salvation?
Great God! cease not to give me a heart susceptible to truths, which always affect, but never change me; and punish not the abuse which I make of thy word, by depriving it, with regard to me, of that efficacy which thou still permittest it to have, in order to recall me from my errors to penitence! And, my brethren, how many believers who listen to me, formerly alive to those truths which we announce, no longer offer to them now but a tranquil and a hardened heart! They neglected those happy times when grace was yet willing to open this way of conversion; and, ever since so continued and so fatal a negligence, they listen to us with indifference, and the most terrible truths in our mouths are no longer in their ears but sounding brass, and a tinkling cymbal.
Now, I ask your own hearts, my brethren, if this feeling of sorrow, for the little advantage you have hitherto reaped from so many instructions, is even known to you? Doth that outward pomp, with which you come here, worldly women, announce that disposition? Do not the same indecent and vain cares, which fit you for profane spectacles, accompany you to our instructions, where the world is condemned? Do you make the smallest difference there in your appearance? And doth it not seem, either that we are to announce the foolish maxims of the theatres, or that you come for the sole purpose of insulting, by an indecent carriage, even in the eyes of the world, the holy maxims of the Gospel?
But what do I say, my dear hearer? Far from reproaching to yourselves so many truths, heard hitherto without fruit, alas! you are perhaps delighted at your insensibility; you perhaps pride yourselves and indulge a deplorable vanity, in listening to us with indifference; you perhaps consider it as giving you an air of consequence, and as a proof of superiority of mind, that what others are affected by, should leave you tranquil and calm; you perhaps make a vain boast of your insensibility. It seems, that in you it would be a weakness to be affected by truths which formerly triumphed over philosophers and Ceesars; by truths, evidently come down from heaven, and which bear with them such divine marks of sublimity and wisdom; by truths which do such honour to man, and alone worthy of reason; by truths, so soothing and consolatory to the heart, and alone calculated to bestow internal tranquillity and peace. Lastly, by truths, which propose to us such grand interests, and toward which we can never be indifferent, without folly and madness. You vaunt the little success of our zeal, and that all our discourses leave you exactly as they found you; and, in declaring this, you think you are doing honour to your reason. I do not say to you, that you make a boast of being in that depth of the abyss, and in that state of reprobation which is now almost
