not the Lord, of those barbarous nations who have never heard his name. Doth God not rule over the hearts of all men? Who hath ever withstood his will? Is he not able to make his light shine through the profoundest darkness, to change into lambs the fiercest lions, and to turn his enemies into the most intrepid confessors of his name? Is the heart of an Indian, or of a savage, a more arduous conquest to him than that of a presumptuous sinner? Is not every thing alike easy to him? He hath only to say, and it is done. — Yet, nevertheless, would you thereupon be willing that your eternal destiny should run the same hazard as that of a savage, who, in the heart of his forests, almost inaccessible to the preaching of the Gospel, worships absurd and monstrous divinities? God may raise up in his favour, evangelical ministers, who, along with the lights of faith, shall bring grace and salvation to his soul. You say that it requires one of those miraculous efforts of the Almighty power to overcome all the difficulties which apparently render the conversion of that unfortunate creature impossible: on the contrary, that you, surrounded with the aids of sacrament, with the light of the doctrine and of instruction, are surely in a situation much more likely to secure your salvation, and consequently, that you have infinitely more ground to promise it to yourself. Ah! my dear hearer, you deceive yourself, and I assure you, that, to me, the salvation of that infidel appears less hopeless than yours. He has never abused favours, which he has never received; and hitherto you have unworthily rejected all those which have been offered to you: he has never resisted that truth which he has never known, and you iniquitously withstand it: the first impulse of grace will triumph over his heart, and the strongest impressions are ineffectual against the inflexibility of yours: a single ray of light will disclose to him errors and truths till then unknown, and all the lights of faith are unable to disturb the tranquillity of your passions: he holds out to the mercy of God only the misfortune of his birth, only sins almost involuntary, only wretchedness rather than crimes, all of them proper motives to affect him, and you hold out to him affected acts of ingratitude and vile perseverance in obstinacy, all subjects calculated to remove him for ever from you. Ah! it is easy for the Lord to bear upon the wings across the seas apostolical men; his angels, when he pleaseth, know to transport his prophets from the land in which he is worshipped, even into Babylon, in order to visit a just man exposed to the fury of lions; but if any thing were difficult to him, it would be that of conquering a rebellious heart, of recalling a soul born in the kingdom of light, surrounded with all the succours of faith, penetrated with all the feelings of grace, aided by all the examples of piety, and, nevertheless, always firm in its errors. It is an illusion, therefore, in his power to search for vain motives of security; God could operate so many other prodigies in favour of a thousand sinners whom he forsaketh, although they be not so unworthy as you of his grace. It is a dangerous maxim to regulate his will upon his power.
The second error which authorizes false trust, has its foundation
