sense before we can erect, it would appear, the standard of piety; that, may God preserve you from such madness; that you endeavour to be an honest man, but, God be praised you are no devotee? What language! — that is to say, that God be praised you are already marked with the stamp of the reprobate; that with confidence you can say to yourself, " I shall never alter, but shall die exactly such as I am." What impiety! And yet it is among Christians that such discourses are every day ostentatiously, and with apparent satisfaction, repeated.
Ah! my brethren, permit my sorrow to vent itself here in one reflection. The patriarchs, those men so venerable, so powerful, even according to the world, never had communication with the kings and nations of the different countries, where they were conducted by the order of the Lord, but in the following religious terms: " I fear the Lord." They claimed no respect from the grandeur of their race, whose origin was almost coeval with the world itself, from the lustre of their ancestors, from the splendour of the blood of Abraham, that man, the conqueror of kings, the model of all sages of the earth, and the only hero of whom the world could then boast. " We fear the Lord." Behold their most pompous title, their most august nobility, the only character by which they wished to be distinguished from other men: such was the magnificent sign which appeared at the head of their tents and flocks, which shone on their standards, and every where bore with them the glory of their name, and that of the God of their fathers. And we, my brethren, we shun the reputation of a man just and fearing God, as a title of reproach and shame; we pompously dwell upon the vain distinctions of rank and birth; wherever we go, the frivolous mark of our names and dignities precedes and announces us; and we hide the glorious sign of the God of our fathers; we even glorify ourselves in not being among the number of those who fear and adore him. O God! leave, then, to these foolish men a glory so hideous; confound their folly and impiety, by permitting them to the end to glorify themselves in their confusion and ignominy.
Nor is this all. By these deplorable derisions not, only do you render virtue useless to yourselves, but you likewise render it odious and useless to others; that is to say, not only do you bar against yourselves every path which leads to God, but you likewise shut it against an infinity of souls, whom grace still urges in secret to relinquish their crimes, and to live in a Christian manner; who dare not declare themselves, lest they should be exposed to the lash of your satire and profane railleries; who, in a new life, dread only the ridicule which you cast upon virtue; who, in secret, oppose only that single obstacle to the voice of Heaven which calls upon them; and tremblingly hesitate, in the grand affair of eternity, between the judgments of God and your senseless and impious derisions.
That is to say, that you thereby blast the fruit of that Gospel which we announce, and render our ministry unavailing; you deprive religion of its terrors and majesty, and spread through the
