souls that the Spirit of God relieth, and taketh delight in his working wonders; on the contrary, " he despiseth the presumptuous sinner, and knoweth him afar off."
Thirdly. The grace of conversion which you so confidently expect, is, as you know, the greatest of all gifts. Nevertheless, as you know still better, there is scarcely a sinner more unworthy of it than yourself; unworthy through the nature of your disorders, of which you alone know the infamy and the enormity; unworthy through the lights and inspirations you have a thousand times misused; unworthy through the favours of the mysteries and of the truths which you have always neglected; unworthy through the sequel, even of your natural inclinations, which heaven, at your birth, had formed so happy and so tractable to truth, and which you have turned into melancholy means of vice; unworthy through the iniquitous derisions which you have made of piety, and those impious desires, so injurious to the truth of God, which have a thousand times led you to wish that all we say of a future state were a fable; lastly, unworthy through that profound security in which you live, which, before God, is the worst of all your crimes. Now, I ask nothing here but equity; if only a single sinner were to be excluded from that grace of conversion which you expect, you would have every reason to dread that the exclusion fell upon you, and that you were to be that single child of curse, separated as an anathematized from all his brethren. But, if almost all be deprived of that blessing, ah! my dear hearer, ought you to reckon upon it as secure? And what have you but a superabundance of sins to distinguish you from others? If the hope of the presumptuous sinner perish in general with himself, can you suppose that your salvation shall be accomplished by the same way in which all others perish? I know that we ought never to despair; but humble confidence is very different from presumption: humble confidence, after having tried all, counts upon nothing, and you depend upon all without having ever tried any thing. Humble trust considers the mercy of the Lord only as the supplement of the defects of penitence, and you make it the refuge of your crimes; humble trust, with fear and trembling, awaits the pardon of those faults it hath lamented, and you coolly expect that those should be forgiven of which you never mean to repent. I know, and I again repeat, that we ought never to despair; but were it possible that despair could be legitimate, ah! it would be when hope is presumptuously encouraged.
But age will mellow the passions, says inwardly the sinner here: enticing opportunities will not always come in the way; circumstances more favourable for salvation will occur; and what is at present impossible, shall one day perhaps be done when a thousand actual impediments shall be removed. My God! in this manner doth the unfortunate soul deceive himself; and it is through an illusion so palpable that the demon seduces almost all men, the wisest as the most foolish, the most enlightened as the most credulous, the great as the common people. For, say, my dear hearer, when you promise yourself that one day the Lord shall at last have
