his afflictions are without resource, his evils without consolation, even his pleasures without enjoyment; his anxieties upon the present, endless: his reflections on the past and on the future, gloomy and sad; his faith is the source of all his anguish; his lights of all his despair. What a situation! What a miserable lot! What shocking changes are operated by one act of guilt, both internally and externally, on man! How dearly does he purchase eternal misery! And, is it not true that the way of the world and of the passions is still infinitely more arduous and painful than that of the Gospel; and that there is more toil and vexation of spirit in gaining the kingdom of hell, if it be proper to speak in this manner, than in gaining the kingdom of heaven? O innocence of heart, what blessings dost thou not bring with thee to man! O man, what losest thou not, when thou losest thine innocence of heart! Thou losest all the consolations of faith, the sweetest occupation of the piety of the righteous; but thou also deprivest thyself of all the comforts of grace by which the lot of the godly is rendered so truly enviable here below.
Part II. — When comforts and consolations, says St. Augustine, are promised to worldly souls in the observance of the law of God, they consider our promises as a pious mode of speaking, employed to give credit and consequence to virtue; and, as a heart which has never tasted of these chaste delights is also incapable of comprehending them, we are obliged, continues that holy father, to reply to them, " How wouldst thou that we convince thee?" We cannot say unto thee, * O taste and see that the Lord is good P? seeing a diseased and vitiated heart can have no relish for the things in heaven. Give us a heart that loves, and it will feel the truth of every thing we say.
My design, therefore, here, is not so much to enlarge upon all the inward operations of grace in the heart of the just, as to contrast the happy situation in which it places them, here below, with the melancholy lot of sinners, and, by this comparison, to overwhelm vice and to encourage virtue. Now, I say, that grace provides two kinds of consolations here below to the godly: the one internal and secret, the other external and sensible; both of them so essential to happiness in this life, that no earthly gratification can ever compensate for them.
The first internal benefit accruing to the believing soul from grace, is the establishment of a solid peace in his heart, and a reconciliation with himself. For, my brethren, we all bear within us natural principles of equity, of modesty, and of rectitude. We come into the world, as the apostle says, with the precepts of the law written in the heart. If virtue be not our first bent, we at least, feel that it is our first duty. In vain does passion sometimes undertake secretly to persuade us that we are born for pleasure; and that, after all, tendencies implanted by nature, and which every one finds within himself, can never be crimes. This foreign persuasion is ineffectual in quieting the criminal soul. It is a desire, for
