For confess it, my dear hearer, inveterate sinner as you are, abiding, as you tranquilly do, in iniquitous passions, in the midst even of all the solemnities of religion, and of all the terrors of the holy word, upon the foolish hope of one day, at last, quitting this deplorable state; you cannot deny that it is at least doubtful whether you shall retrieve yourself, or, even to the end, remain in your sin. I even admit you to be full of good desires: but you are not ignorant that desires convert nobody, and that the greatest sinners are often those who most long for their conversion. Now, the doubt here only equal, would you be prudent in remaining careless? What! In the frightful uncertainty whether you shall die in your irregularity, or if God shall withdraw you from it; floating, as I may say, between heaven and hell; on the poise between these two destinies, you could be indifferent on the decision? Hope is the sweetest and most flattering choice; and for that reason you would incline to its side? Ah! my dear hearer, were there no other reason to be afraid than that of hoping, you would not be prudent to live in this profound calm.
But such is not even your case; things are far indeed from being equal; in this shocking doubt which every sinner may inwardly form, — ei Shall I expire in mine iniquity, in the sin in which I actually and have so long lived; or shall I not die in it?" — the first part is infinitely the most probable. For, first, your own powers are not sufficient to regain that sanctity you have lost; a foreign, supernatural, and heavenly aid is necessary, of which nobody can assure you; in place of which, you need only yourself to remain in your sin: there is nothing in your nature which can resuscitate the grace lost, no seed of salvation, no principle of spiritual life; and you bear in your heart a fatal source of corruption which may every day produce fresh fruits of death: it is more likely, therefore, that you shall die in your guilt than it is that you shall be converted. Secondly, not only is a foreign and divine aid necessary, but also an aid uncommon, rare, denied to almost all sinners; in short, a miracle for your conversion; for the conversion of the sinner is one of the greatest prodigies of grace, and you know yourself that such instances are extremely rare in the world; now and then some fortunate soul whom God writhdraweth from licentiousness. But these are remarkable exertions of the Divine mercy, and not in the common track. In place of which, you have only to let things pursue their natural course, and you shall die such as you are: God hath only to follow his ordinary laws, and your destruction is certain; the possibility of your salvation is founded solely on a singular effort of his power and mercy; the certitude of your condemnation is founded upon the commonest of all rules: in a word, that you perish, is the ordinary lot of sinners who resemble you; that you are converted, is a singularity of which there are few examples. Thirdly, in order to continue in your present state, you have only to follow your inclinations, to yield yourself up to yourself, and quietly to allow yourself to be carried down by the stream; to do this you have occasion for neither effort nor violence; but to re-
