serving God, adopt the only wise plan which man can pursue upon the earth? Are you not wearied out with struggling against those remorses which tear you, that sadness of guilt which weighs you down, that emptiness of the world which every where pursues you? And do you not wish to finish at last your misfortunes and your disquietudes, by finishing your crimes?
What shall we reply to that inward monitor which hath so long spoken in the bottom of our hearts? What pretext shall we oppose? First, that we are not, as yet, furnished by God with the succours necessary to enable us to quit the unhappy state in which we live. Secondly, that we are at present too much engaged by the passions to think of a new life. That is to say, that we start two pretexts for delaying our conversion: the first drawn from the part of God; the second from within ourselves. The first which justifies us, by accusing God of being wanting to us; the second which comforts us, by alleging to ourselves our inability of, as yet, returning to him. Thus we delay our conversion, under the belief that grace is wanting, and that, as yet, God desireth us not; we delay our conversion, because we flatter ourselves that some future day we shall be less attached to the world and to the passions, and more in a situation to begin a Christian and an orderly life: — two pretexts which are continually in the mouth of sinners, and which I now mean to overthrow.
Part I. — It is not of to-day that men have dared to accuse even God himself for their transgressions, and have tried to render his wisdom and his goodness responsible for their iniquitous weaknesses. It may be said, that this blindness entered with sin into the world: the first man sought not elsewhere an excuse for his guilt; and, far from appeasing the Lord whom he had so lately disobeyed, by an humble confession of his wretchedness, he accused him of having been himself the cause of his disobedience, in associating with him the woman.
And such, my brethren, is the illusion of almost all souls living in guilt, and who delay to a future day that conversion required of them by God. They are continually repeating, that conversion does not depend upon us; that it is the Lord who must change their heart, and bestow upon them that faith and grace which they, as yet, have not. Thus they are not satisfied with provoking his anger, by delaying their conversion; they even insult him, by laying upon him the blame of their obstinacy and of the delay of their penitence. Let us now overthrow the error and the impiety of this disposition; and, in order to render the criminal soul more inexcusable in his impenitence, let us deprive him at least of the pretext.
You tell us, then, first, that if you had faith, and were thoroughly convinced of the truth of religion, you would be converted; but that faith is a gift of God which you expect from him alone, and that as soon as he shall have given it to you, you will easily and heartily begin to adopt your party. — First pretext; the want of faith, and it is God alone who can give it.
