In effect, we sensibly feel ourselves the danger and the imprudence of the choice we make: even the more we find the oracle complying, the more we mistrust his lights; the more he respects our passions, the less we respect his ministry; he is frequently made the subject even of our derisions; we turn into ridicule that very indulgence which we have sought; we vaunt the having found a protector so convenient for the human weaknesses; and, through a blindness which, cannot be mentioned without tears, the soul and eternal salvation are confided to a man who is believed unworthy, not only of respect, but even of attention and decency; like those Israelites, who, a moment after having bowed the knee to the golden calf, and expected from it their salvation and their deliverance, broke it in pieces with disgrace, and reduced it to ashes.
But, after all, when the ignorance or the weakening of ministers should even be an oceasion of error, the examples of the holy undeceive you. You see what, from the beginning, hath been the path of those who have obtained the promises, and whose memory and holy toils we still honour upon the earth: you see that none of them hath accomplished his salvation by that way which the world vaunts as being so safe and so innocent: you see that all the holy have repented, crucified the flesh, despised the world with its pleasures and maxims: you see that those ages, so opposite to each other for their manners and customs, have never made any change in the manners of the just; that the holy of the first times were the same as those of the last; that the countries, even the most dissimilar for their disposition and behaviour, have produced holy men, all resembling each other; that those of the most distant climates, and the most different from our own, resemble those of our own nation; that, in every tongue and in every tribe, they have all been the same; lastly, that their situations have been different; that some have wrought out their salvation in obscurity, others in elevation; some in poverty, others in abundance; some in the dissipation of dignities and of public cares, others in silence and in the calm of solitude; in a word, some in the cottage, others on the throne; but that the cross, violence, and self-denial hath been the common path of all.
What then art thou, to pretend to reach heaven by other ways? And thou flatterest thyself that, in that crowd of illustrious servants of the living God, thou alone shalt be privileged. My God! with what lustre hast thou not surrounded the truth, in order to render man inexcusable! His conscience shows it to him; thy holy law guards it for him; the voice of the church makes it to resound in his ears; the example of the holy incessantly places it before his eyes; every thing rises up against guilt; all take the interests of thy holy law against his false peace; from every quarter proceed rays of light which go to bear the truth even to the bottom of his soul: no place, no situation can protect him from those divine sparks emitted from thy bosom, which every where pursue him, and which, in enlightening, rack him: the truth, which ought to deliver him, renders him unhappy; and, unwilling to love its light, he is forced, beforehand, to feel its just severity.
