sition of vanity, we make a boast of being tranquil in our errors; we glory in a peace which thy mercy is still willing to disturb; and, far from publishing the riches of thy grace upon our soul, which leaves us still open to the truth, we vaunt an obstinacy and a blindness which, sooner or later, shall be realized, and shall at last be the just punishment of an ingratitude and of a deceit so injurious to thy grace. — First character of the evidence of the law of God: it is evident in the conscience of the sinner; but it is likewise so in the simplicity of its rules.
Part II. — Since man is the work of God, man can no longer live but conformably to the will of his author; and since God hath of man made his work, and his most perfect work, he could never leave him to live by chance upon the earth without manifesting to him his will; that is to say, without pointing out to him what he owed to his Creator, to his fellow-creatures, and to himself. Therefore, in creating him, he imprinted in his being a living light, incessantly visible to his heart, which regulated all his duties. But all flesh having perverted its way, and the abundance of iniquity which had prevailed over the earth, (unable, it is true, to efface that light entirely from the heart of men,) no longer permitting them to reflect or to consult it, and apparently no longer even maintaining itself in them, unless to render them more inexcusable; God, whose mercies seem to become more abundant in proportion as the wickedness of men increases, caused to be engraven, on tables of stone, that law which nature, that is to say, which himself, had engraven on our hearts: he placed before our eyes the law which we bear within us, in order to recall us to ourselves. Nevertheless, the people, who were its first depositaries, having again disfigured it by interpretations which adulterated its purity, Jesus Christ, the wisdom and the light of God, came at last upon the earth to restore it to its original beauty; to purge it from the alterations of the synagogue; to dissipate the obscurities which a false learning and human traditions had spread through it; to lay open all its sublimity; to apply its rules to our wants; and, in leaving to us his Gospel, no longer to leave an excuse, either to the ignorance or to the wickedness of those who violate its precepts.
Nevertheless, the second pretext which is opposed in the world to the evidence of the law of God, is the pretended ambiguity of its rules; they accuse us of making the Gospel to say whatever we wish; they contest, they find answers, they spread obscurities through all, and they darken the law in such a manner that the world itself insists on having the Gospel on its side.
Now I say, that, besides the evidence of the conscience, the law of God is also evident in the simplicity of its rules, and consequently that the sinners, who wish thus to justify their iniquitous ways, shall one day be overthrown, both by the testimony of their own heart and by the evidence of the holy rules.
Yes, my brethren, the law of God, says the prophet, is pure, enlightening the eyes even of those who would wish to conceal it from
