continual longing to become like unto Jesus Christ! it is an indefatigable application in rooting out from ourselves whatever may be inimical to a life of faith. There is an unbelief of the heart equally dangerous to salvation as that of the mind. A man who obstinately refuses belief, after all the proofs of religion, is a monster, whom we contemplate with horror; but a Christian who believes, yet lives as though he believed not, is a madman, whose folly surpasseth comprehension: the one procures his own condemnation, like a man desperate; the other, like an indolent one, who tranquilly allows himself to be carried down by the waves, and thinks that he is thereby saving himself. Make your faith then certain, my brethren, by your good works; and if you shudder at the sole name of an impious person, have the same horror at yourselves, seeing we are taught by faith that the destiny of the wicked Christian shall not be different from his, and that his lot shall be the same as that of the unbeliever. Live conformably to what you believe. Such is the faith of the righteous, and the only one to which the eternal promises have been made.
SERMON XXIII.
DOUBTS UPON RELIGION.
"Howbeit we know this man, whence he is; but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is." — John vii. 27.
Such is the grand pretext opposed by the unbelief of the Jews to the doctrine and to the ministry of Jesus Christ; doubts upon the truth of his mission. We know who thou art, and whence thou comest, said they to him: but the Christ whom we expect, when he cometh, no man knoweth whence he is. It is far from clear, then, that thou art the Messiah promised to our fathers; perhaps it is an evil spirit which, through thee, operates these wonders before our eyes, and imposes upon the credulity of the vulgar; so many deceivers have already appeared in Judea, who, giving themselves out for the great Prophet who is to come, have seduced the people, and at last drawn down upon themselves the punishment due to their imposture. Keep us no longer in doubt: if thou be the Christ, tell us plainly, and in such a way as that room shall no longer be left either for doubt or for mistake.
I would not dare to say this here, my brethren, were the language of doubts upon faith not become so common now among us, that precaution is needless in undertaking to confute it: behold the almost universal pretext employed in the world to authorize a life altogether criminal. We every where meet with sinners who coolly tell us, that they would be converted were they well assured that all we tell them of religion were true; that perhaps there is nothing after this life; that they have doubts and difficulties upon
