. It rarely happens that the decisions of our inclinations are found the same with those of the holy rules; nevertheless, it is that which decides on all our preferences in the business of salvation.— Second step of our imprudence in the affair of our eternal salvation. — In effect, there is scarcely a doubt with regard to our duties, which conceals from us the precise obligation of the law on every step. We know the paths by which Jesus Christ and the saints have passed; they are still pointed out to us every day; we are invited by the success which they have had, to walk in their steps. In this manner, say they to us, with the apostles, did those men of God who have preceded us, overcome the world, and obtain the performance of the promises. We see, that, by imitating them, we may hope for all, and, in the way in which we walk, that every thing is to be dreaded. Ought we to hesitate on this alternative? Nevertheless, in every thing we resist our own lights; every where we prefer danger to safety; our whole life is, indeed, one continued danger: in all our actions we float, not between the more or less perfect, but between guilt and simple errors. Every time we act, the question is not to know whether we are doing the greatest good, but if we are committing only a slight fault, worthy of indulgence. All our duties are limited to the inquiry at ourselves, if possessing such principles; if, to a certain degree, delivering ourselves up to resentment; if employing a certain degree of duplicity; \f not denying ourselves a certain gratification, be a crime, or a venal fault; you always hang between these two destinies; and your conscience can never render you the testimony, that on any occasion you made choice of the part in which there was no danger.
Thus, you know, that a life of pleasure, of gaming, of show, of amusement, when even nothing gross or criminal is mingled with it, is a part very doubtful for eternity; no saint, at least, has left you such an example. You are sensible, that more guarded and more Christian manners would leave you nothing similar to dread: nevertheless, you love an accommodating doubt better than an irksome safety; you know that grace has moments which never return; that nothing is more uncertain than the return of holy impulses, once rejected; that salvation deferred, almost always fails; and that to begin to-day is prudently assuring ourselves of success: you know it: yet you prefer the uncertain hope of a grace to come, to the present salvation which offers itself to you. Now, my brethren, I only demand of you two reflections, and I shall finish. In the first place, when, even in this path which you tread, the balance were equal, that is to say, when it were equally suspicious whether you are to be saved or lost, did the smallest portion of faith remain to you, you would be plunged in the most cruel alarms; it ought to appear horrible to you that your eternal salvation was become a problem, upon which you knew not what to decide, and upon which, with equal appearances of truth, you might determine for the happiness or the misery of your everlasting lot, in the same manner as upon those indiffer-
