But I ought first to ask you, how have you then lost that faith so precious? You have received it in your baptism; a Christian education hath cherished it in your heart; it had grown up with you; it was an inestimable talent which the Lord had intrusted to you in discerning you from so many infidel nation s, and in marking you, from the moment you quitted your mother's womb, with the seal of salvation. What have you then done with the gift of God? Who hath effaced from your forehead that sign of eternal election? Is it not the corruptions of the passions, and that blindness which has been their just punishment? Did you suspect the faith of your fathers before you became dissolute and abandoned? Is it not yourself who hath extinguished in the dirt that celestial torch, which the church, in regenerating you, had placed in your hand, to enlighten your way through the obscurities and the dangers of this life? Why then accuse God of that waste which you have made of his favours? He has the right of reclaiming his own gift; to him it belongs to make you accountable for the talento which he had entrusted to your care; to say to you, "Wicked and ungrateful servant, what had I done for others that I had not done for thee? I had embellished thy soul with the gift of faith, and with the mark of my children: thou hast cast that precious jewel before unclean animals; thou hast extinguished faith, and the light that I had placed within thee. I have long, in spite of thyself, preserved it in thy heart: I have caused it to outlive all the impious efforts which, because it was become troublesome to thy debaucheries, thou hast made to extinguish it: thou knowest how much it hath cost thee to throw off the yoke of faith, and to be what thou now art; and this dreadful state, which is the justest punishment of thy crimes, should now become their only excuse? And thou sayest that the want of faith is no fault of thine, seeing it depends not on man, — thou, who hast had such difficulty in tearing it from the bottom of thy soul? And thou pretendest that it is I who ought to give it to thee, if I wish thee to serve me, — I, who reclaim it from thee, and who so justly complain that thou hast lost it?" Enter into judgment with your Lord, and justify yourself, if you have any reply to make to him.
And to make you, my dear hearer, more sensible of all the weakness of this pretext; you complain that you want faith; you say that you would wish to have it; that happy are those who are feelingly convinced, and that, in that state, no suffering can affect them. But, if you wish for faith, if you believe that nothing is so fortunate as that of being truly convinced of the truths of salvation, and of the illusion of all that passeth away; if you envy the lot of those souls who have attained to that desirable state; if this be, behold then that faith which you await, and which you thought to have lost. What more do you require to know, in order to terminate a criminal life, than the happiness of those who have forsaken it, to labour toward their salvation? You say that you would wish faith; but you have it from the moment that you think it worthy of a wish; at least you have enough of it to know, that the greatest happiness of man is that of sacrificing all his promises. Now,
