You come, after that, to tell us that good- will is not wanting; that the moment is not yet come. How, indeed, should it come in the midst of every thing that repels it? But what is that good will, shut up within you, which has never any consequence, which never leads to any thing real, and never seriously adopts a single measure toward a change? That is to say, that you would wish to change, could it be done for nothing; you would wish to work out your salvation by the same conduct which occasions your destruction; you would wish that the same manners which have separated your heart from God should approach you to him; and that what has hitherto been the cause of your ruin should itself become the way and the mean of your salvation. Begin by removing the occasions which so often have been, and still continue to be, the rock of your innocence: remove the stone which shuts up the entry of grace to your soul; after that, you shall be entitled to demand of God the completion of this work in you. Then, separated from those objects which nourished iniquitous passions within you, you shall have it in your power to say to him, It is thy part now, O my God! to change my heart; to thee I have sacrificed every attachment which might still fetter it; I have removed all the rocks upon which my weakness might still have split; as much as in me lay, I have changed the outward man; thou alone, O Lord, canst change the heart; it depends upon thee now to complete what yet remains to be done, to break the invisible chains, to overcome all internal obstacles, and totally to triumph over my corruption: I have removed the fatal stone which prevented me from hearing thy voice; let it now resound, even through the abyss in which I am still buried; command me to depart from that fatal tomb, that place of infection and putrescence, but command me with that Almighty word which makes itself to be heard even by the dead, and is to them a word of resurrection and life; give me in charge to thy disciples, to be unloosed from those chains which hold captive all the powers of my soul; and let the ministry of thy church put the last seal to my resurrection and my deliverance.
And behold, my brethren, the last mean held out in our Gospel. Immediately, on the removal of the stone, our Saviour cries, with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! Lazarus comes forth, still bound hand and foot, and Jesus Christ remits him to his disciples to be unloosed.
Observe here, that Jesus Christ doth not order his disciples to unloose Lazarus till after he had entirely quitted the tomb. We must manifest ourselves to the church, says a holy father, before we can, through its ministry, receive the blessing of our deliverance. Lazarus, come forth! that is to say, continues that father, how long wilt thou remain concealed and buried inwardly in thy conscience? How long wilt thou conceal thine iniquity within thy breast?
You undoubtedly are not ignorant, my brethren, that remission of our sins is only granted through the ministry of the church, and that it is necessary to lay open and to present our bonds to the piety
