thou speakest not of the difficulty of salvation for the great and the powerful, but in terms which would seem to deprive them of all hope of pretending to it, if we knew not that thou wishest the salvation of all men, and that thy grace is still more powerful for our sanctification than prosperity for our corruption.
And surely, my brethren, if grandeur and elevation were to render our condition more fortunate and more favourable with regard to salvation, in vain would the doctrine of Jesus Christ teach us to dread grandeurs and human prosperities; in vain would it be said to us, that blessed are they who weep, and who suffer here below; that woe unto those who laugh now, for they shall mourn and weep; and unto those who are rich, for they have received their consolation; and that, to receive our reward in this world, through the transitory riches and honours which we there receive, is almost a certain sign that we are not to receive it in the other. On the contrary, grandeur and prosperity would become a state worthy of envy, even according to the rules of faith: against the maxim of Jesus Christ, it would be necessary to call those happy who are immersed in pleasures and in opulence; since, besides the comforts of a smiling fortune, they would likewise find there a way of salvation more mild and more easy than in an obscure state; those who suffer, and who weep here below, would then be the most miserable of all men; since to all the bitterness of their condition, would likewise be added those of a Gospel, more rigorous and more austere for them than for the persons born in abundance. What new Gospel would it then be necessary to announce to you, if such were the rules of the morality of Jesus Christ!
But I say not even enough. Granting that prosperity should not exact more rigid precautions, in consequence of the dangers which surround it, it would exact, at least, more rigorous reparations, through the crimes and excesses which are inseparable from it. Alas! my brethren, is it not among you that the passions no longer know any bounds; that the jealousies are more keen, the hatreds more lasting, revenge more honourable, evil speaking more cruel, ambition more boundless, and voluptuousness more shameful? Is it not among the great that the most shocking debauchery even refines upon the common crimes; that dissipations become an art; and that, in order to prevent those disgusts inseparable from licentiousness, resources are sought in guilt against guilt itself? What indulgence, then, can you promise yourselves on the part of religion? If the most righteous be responsible for the whole law, should the greatest sinners be discharged from it? Measure your duties upon your crimes, and not upon your rank; judge of yourselves by the insults which you have offered to God, and not by the vain homages which are paid to you by men; number the days and the years of your crimes which shall be the eternal titles of your condemnation, and not the years and the ages of the antiquity of your race, which are only vain titles written upon the ashes of your tombs; examine what you owe to God, and not what men owe to you. If the world were to judge you, you
