The first is, confidence in Jesus Christ. Lord, says Mary, the sister of Lazarus, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died; but I know that, even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. I am the resurrection and the life, said Jesus unto her; believest thou this? Yes, Lord, said she, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. It is through this that the miracle of raising up Lazarus begins, namely, the perfect confidence that Jesus Christ is able to deliver him from death and corruption.
For, my brethren, the delusion continually employed by the demon, in order to render our desires of conversion unavailing, and to counteract their progress, is that of despondency and mistrust: he warmly retraces to our imagination the horrors of an entire life of guilt; he says to us, in secret, that which the sisters of Lazarus say to Jesus Christ, though in a different sense, — that we ought, at a much earlier period, to have checked our career; that it is now impossible, when so far advanced, to return; that the time for attempting a change is now passed: and that the virulency and age of our wounds no longer admit a resource. Upon this they abandon themselves to languor and indolence; and, after having incensed the righteousness of God through our debaucheries, we insult his mercy through the excess of our mistrust.
I confess that a soul long dead in sin must suffer much in returning to God; that it is difficult, after so many years of dissipation, to form to one's self a new heart and new inclinations; and that it is even fit that the obstacles, the sufferings, and the difficulties, which always attend the conversion of souls of that description, should make great sinners feel how dreadful it is to have been almost a whole life-time removed from God.
But I say, that from the moment a truly contrite soul wishes to return to him, his wounds, however virulent or old, ought no longer to alarm his confidence: I say, that his wretchedness ought to increase his compunction, but not his despondency: I say, that the first step of his penitence ought to be that of adoring Jesus Christ as the resurrection and the life; a secret confidence that our wants are always less than his mercies; a firm persuasion that the blood of Jesus Christ is more powerful in washing out our stains than our corruption can be in contracting them: I say, that the fewer resources of strength a criminal soul may find in himself, the more ought he to expect from him who taketh delight in rearing up the work of grace upon the nothingness of nature; and that the more he is inwardly opposed to grace, the more does he, in one sense, become an object worthy of divine power and mercy, for God wisheth that all good shall evidently appear as coming from above, and that man shall attribute nothing to himself.
And, in effect, my dear hearer, whatever may the horror of your past crimes be, the Lord will not long refuse you grace, from the moment that he hath inspired you with the desire and the resolution of asking it. It is written in Judges, that the father of Samson, terrified by the apparition of the angel of the Lord, who, after
