nations, who had brought to the truths of faith all the prejudices of the superstitions and of the most infamous voluptuousnesses authorized even by their worship. Did the Gospel contain the smallest obscurities favourable to the passions, it surely ought to have been those first disciples of faith who should have made the mistake. Nevertheless, whence comes it they never proposed to the apostles and to their successors the same difficulties which you continually oppose to us, in support of the abuses of the world and of the interests of the passions? Whence comes it, that, with more inclinations and more prejudices than we for pleasures, those blessed believers at once comprehended how far, in order to obey the Gospel, it was necessary to deny them to themselves?
Ah! it was that, night and day, they had the book of the law in their hands; it was that patience, and the consolation of the Scriptures, were the sweetest occupation of their faith; it was that the letters of the holy apostles, and the relation of the life, and of the maxims of Jesus Christ, were the sole bond and the daily conversations of these infant churches: in a word, it is that, to whoever reads the gospel, whatever regards the duties is quickly decided. — Fourth reflection.
Lastly, I say, even admitting that some obscurities should be found there, doth not the law of God find all its evidence in instruction and in the ministry? The Christian pulpits announce to you the purity of the holy maxims; the pastors publicly preach them; men, full of zeal and of knowledge, convey them down to posterity, in works worthy of the better times of the church: never had the piety of believers more aids; no age ever was more enlightened, or better knew the spirit of faith and the whole extent of duties. We no longer live in those ages of ignorance, in which the rules subsisted only in the abuses which had adulterated them; in which the ministry was often an occasion of error and of scandal for believers, and in which the priest was considered as more enlightened, whenever he was more superstitious than his people.
It would seem, O my God! that in order to render us more inexcusable, in proportion as the wickedness of men increases on the one side, the knowledge of the truth, which is to condemn them, augments on the other; in proportion as the manners become corrupted, the rules become more evident; in proportion as faith becomes languid, it is cleared up and purified; like those fires, which, in expiring give a momentary flash, and never display their lustre with such brilliancy as when on the eve of being extinguished.
Not that there are not still among us many blind guides and prophets who announce their own dreams. But the snare is to be dreaded only by those who are willing to be deceived. When sincerely inclined to seek the Lord, we soon find the hand which knows to lead us to him. It is not, then, properly speaking, the false guides who lead us astray, it is ourselves who seek them, because we wish to err with them: they are not the first authors of our ruin, they are only the encouragers of it: they do not lead us into the path of perdition, they only leave us there; and we are already determined to perish before we apply for their suffrage.
