back, who belie themselves, and who dishonour piety, by their inconstancy and inequality of conduct, by a life sometimes blended with virtue and retirement, and at others devoted to the world and weaknesses. And I appeal to yourselves, my brethren, if, when you see in the world a person relax from his first fervour; gradually mingle himself in the pleasures and societies he had lately so scrupulously and severely denied himself; insensibly abate his love of retirement, his modesty, circumspection, prayers, and exactitude to fulfil his religious duties, — you say not to yourselves, that he is not far from returning to what he formerly was? Are not these relaxations regarded by you as a prelude to his ruin; and that virtue is nearly extinct, when once you see it weakened? Do you even require so much to arouse your censures and malicious presages against piety? Unjust that you are, you condemn a cold and unfaithful virtue, while you condemn us for requiring of you a virtue faithful and fervent! You pretend, that, in order to continue, you must begin with moderation, while you prophesy that a total departure from virtue is not far distant, when once it begins to be followed with coolness and negligence!
From a relaxation alone, therefore, we are to dread a return to our former courses, and a departure from virtue. It is not by giving ourselves up without reserve to God, that we become disgusted with piety and are forsaken by him. The way to come gloriously off in battle, is not by sparing, but overcoming the enemy. There is no dread, therefore, of doing too much, lest we should be unable to support it; on the contrary, to merit the grace necessary to our support, we ought, from the first, to leave nothing undone. What illusion, my brethren! We dread zeal, as dangerous to perseverance; and it is zeal alone which can obtain it. We fix ourselves in a lukewarm and commodious life, as the only one which can subsist; and it is the only one which proves false. We shun fidelity, as the rock of piety; and piety without fidelity is never far from shipwreck.
It is thus that lukewarmness removes from the infidel soul the grace of protection: of which the absence depriving our faith of all its strength, and the yoke of Jesus Christ of all its consolations, leaves us in a state of imbecility, that, to be lost, innocence requires only to be attacked. But if the loss of righteousness is inevitable on the part of grace which is withdrawn, it is still more so on account of the passions which are fortified within us.
Part II. — What renders vigilance so necessary to Christian piety, is, that all the passions which oppose themselves in us to the law of God, only die, as I may say, with us. We undoubtedly are able to weaken them, by the assistance of grace, and a fervent and lively faith; but the roots always continue in the heart; we always carry within us the principles of the same errors our tears have effaced. Guilt may be extinguished in our hearts; but sin, as the apostle says, that is to say, the corrupted inclinations which have formed our guilt, inhabits and lives there still. And that fund
