we would heartily wish to be lawful whatever pleases us; but it is not a real conviction. It is a sayings for it appears honourable to be above all vulgar prejudices; but it is not a feeling. Thus, we always carry within us an incorruptible judge, who incessantly adopts the cause of virtue against our dearest inclinations; who blends with our most headstrong passions the troublesome ideas of duty; and who renders us unhappy even amidst all our pleasures and abundance.
Such is the state of an impure and a sullied conscience. The sinner is the secret and constant accuser of himself; go where he will, he carries a torment within which the hand of man cannot allay. Unhappy in being unable to conquer his lawless tendencies: more unhappy still in being unable to stifle his incessant remorses. Enticed by his weakness, and withheld by his lights, the permission of every crime is a conflict with himself: he reproaches himself for the iniquitous gratification, even in the moment of its enjoyment. What shall he do? Shall he combat his lights in order to appease his conscience? Shall he suspect his faith to sin in tranquillity? But unbelief is still a more horrible state than even guilt. To live without God, without worship, without principle, and without hope! to believe that the most abominable transgressions and the purest virtues are merely names! to consider all men as only the vile and fantastical puppets of a low theatre, and merely intended for the amusement of the spectators! to consider himself as the offspring of chance, and the eternal possession of nonentity! these thoughts have something, I know not what, of gloomy and horrible, that the soul cannot look upon without horror; and it is true that unbelief is rather the despair of the sinner than the refuge of the sin. What, then, shall he do? Continually obliged to fly himself, lest he find himself alone with his conscience, he ranges from object to object, from passion to passion, from precipice to precipice. He thinks to compensate the emptiness and the insufficiency of pleasures by their variety; there is none which he does not try. But, in vain is his heart successively offered to all the created; all the objects of his passions reply to him, says St. Augustine, (i Deceive not thyself in loving us; we are not that happiness of which thou art in search; we cannot render thee happy: raise thyself above the created, and, mounting to heaven, see if He who hath formed us be not greater and more worthy of being loved than we." Such is the lot of the sinner.
Not that the heart of the just enjoys a tranquillity so unalterable but that they, in their turn, experience troubles, disgusts, and anxieties here below. But these are passing clouds, which shade, as I may say, only the surface of their soul. A profound calm always reigns within, — that serenity of conscience, that simplicity of heart, that equality of mind, that lively confidence, that mild resignation, that calm of the passions, that universal peace, which begins, even from this life, the felicity of innocent souls. Vain creatures, what control have ye over a heart which ye have not made, and which is not made for you? — First consolation of grace, namely, peace of heart.
