able before God than the sins of the commonalty of believers. First, the scandal; secondly, ingratitude.
The scandal. There is no crime to which the gospel leaves less hopes of forgiveness than that of being a stumbling-block to our brethren: " Woe unto the man," said Jesus Christ, (e who shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me; it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." First, because you destroy a soul which ought eternally to have enjoyed God. Secondly, because you occasion your brother to perish, for whom Jesus Christ hath died. Thirdly, because you become the minister of the devil's designs for the destruction of souls. Fourthly, because you are that man of sin, that antichrist, of whom the apostle speaks; for Jesus Christ hath saved man, and you destroy him; Jesus Christ hath raised up true worshippers to his Father, and you deprive him of them; Jesus Christ hath gained us by his blood, and you snatch his conquest from him; Jesus Christ is the physician of souls, and you are their corrupter; he is their way, and you are their snare; he is the shepherd who comes in search of his perishing sheep, and you are the ravenous wolf which slays and destroys those his Father had given him. Fifthly, because all other sins die, as I may say, with the sinner; but the fruit of his scandals will outlive him, and his crimes will not go down with him into the tomb of his fathers.
Achan was punished with so much rigour for having taken only a wedge of gold from among the spoils which were consecrated to the Lord: My God! what then shall be the punishment of him who deprives Jesus Christ of a soul which was his precious spoil, redeemed not with gold and silver, but with all the divine blood of the Lamb without stain? The golden calf was reduced into powder for having occasioned the prevarication of Israel: great God! and could all the splendour which surrounds the great and the powerful shelter them from thy wrath, when their exaltation becomes only a stumbling-block and a source of idolatry to the people? The brazen serpent itself, that sacred monument of God's mercies upon Judah, was broken to pieces for having been an occasion of scandal to the tribes: my God! and the sinner already so odious through his own crimes, shall he be spared when he becomes a snare and a stumbling-block to his brethren?
Now, my brethren, such is the first character which always accompanies your sins, you who are exalted through rank or birth, over the commonalty of believers: — the scandal. The obscure and vulgar live only for themselves. Mingled in the crowd, and concealed by the abjectness of their lot from the eyes of men, God alone is the secret witness of their ways, and the invisible spectator of their backslidings: if they fall, or if they remain steadfast, it is for the Lord alone, who sees and who judges them; the world, which is unacquainted even with their names, is equally uninstructedby their examples; their life is without consequence; they may depart from the right path, but they quit it alone; and if they
