what is visible, and leaves to the Lord to judge of the intentions and thoughts; lastly, according to the rules of goodness and humanity, which always oblige us to presume in favour of our brethren. What would there be in such a mistake to alarm you? How noble for the mind when the deception proceeds from a motive of humanity and kindness! What honour do not such mistakes render to a good heart; for none but the virtuous and the sincere are capable of them! But you, alas! not being such, prefer that deception which degrades the virtuous and pious man from that estimation which is his due, to hazarding the chance of not covering the hypocrite with the shame he deserves.
But, besides, whence spring this zeal and inveteracy against the abuse, made by the hypocrite, of real virtue? Is the glory of God so warmly taken to heart by you, that you wish to avenge him on the impostors who dishonour him? What matters it to you, who neither serve nor love him, whether the Lord be served by a double or a sincere heart? What is there which can so strongly interest you for the integrity or the hypocrisy of his worshipper, — you who know not how he is even worshipped? Ah! were he the God of your heart, did you love him as your Lord and Father, were his glory dear to you, we might then indeed pardon, as an excess of zeal, the boldness with which you rise up against the outrage done to God and his worship by the simulated piety of the hypocrite. The just, who love and serve him, are surely more entitled to cry out against an abuse so injurious to sincere piety; but you, who live like the Pagans, who, sunk in debauchery, are without hope, and whose whole life is one continued guilt, ah! it belongs little to you to take the interest of God's glory against the fictitious piety which is the cause of so much disgrace and sorrow to the church; whether he be faithfully served, or merely through grimace is no affair of yours. Whence then comes a zeal so misplaced? Would you wish to know? It is not the Lord whom you wish to avenge, nor is it his glory which interests you; it is the good name of the pious which you wish to stain; it is not hypocrisy which irritates your feelings, it is piety which displeases you; you are not the censurer of vice, you are only the enemy of virtue; in a word, you hate in the hypocrite only the resemblance of the pious.
In effect, did your censures proceed from a fund of religion and true zeal, ah! with grief alone would you recall the history of these impostors, who have sometimes succeeded in deceiving the world. What do I say? Far from alleging to us, with an air of triumph, these examples, you would lament over the scandals with which they have afflicted the church; far from applauding yourselves, when you renew their remembrance, you would wish that such melancholy events were for ever effaced from the memory of men. The law cursed him who should dare to uncover the shame and turpitude of those who had given him life; but it is the shame and dishonour of the church, your mother, which you expose with such pleasure to public derision. Do you carefully recall certain humiliating circumstances to the house from which you spring, and
