SERMON XV.
THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER.
" And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster-box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment." — Luke vii. 37, 38.
From such abundant tears, so sincere a confusion, and a proceeding so humiliating and uncommon, it may easily be comprehended how great must once have been the influence of the passions over the heart of this sinner, and what grace now operateth within her. Palestine had long beheld her as the shame and the reproach of the city; the Pharisee's household views her to-day as the glory of grace and a model of patience. What a change, and what a spectacle!
This soul, fettered, but a moment ago, with the most shameful and the most indissoluble chains, finds nothing now capable of stopping her; and, without hesitation, she flies to seek, at the feet of Jesus Christ, her salvation and deliverance: this soul, hitherto plunged in the senses, and living totally, for voluptuousness, in a moment sacrifices their liveliest charms and their dearest ties: this soul, lastly, impatient till then of every yoke, and whose heart had never acknowledged other rule than the caprice of its inclinations, commences her penitence by the most humiliating proceedings and the most melancholy subjections. How admirable, O my God, are the works of thy grace! and how near to its cure is the most hopeless wretchedness, when once it becomes the object of thine infinite mercies! And how rapid and shortened are the ways by which thou conductest thy chosen.
But whence comes it, my brethren, that such grand examples make so trifling an impression upon us? From two prejudices, apparently the most opposite to each other, yet nevertheless, which proceed from the same principle, and lead to the same error.
The first is, that we figure to ourselves that conversion of the heart required by God as merely a cessation of guilt, the abstaining from certain excessive irregularities, which even decency itself holds out as improper. And as we are at last brought to that, either by age, new situations, or even our own inclinations, which time alone has changed, we never think of going farther; we believe that all is completed, and we listen to the history of the most affecting conversions, held out to us by the church, as to lessons which no longer, in any degree, regard us.
The second goes to another extreme: we represent Christian penitence to ourselves as a horrible situation, and the despair of human weakness; a state without comfort or consolation, and attended by a thousand duties, every one more disgusting than another to the heart; and, repulsed through the error of that gloomy image, the examples of a change find us little disposed to be affected, because they always find us discouraged.
Now, the conversion of our sinner confutes these two prejudices, so dangerous to salvation. First, her penitence not only terminates her errors, it likewise expiates and makes reparation for them. Secondly, her penitence begins, it is true, her tears and sorrow; but it is likewise the commencement to her of new pleasures. Whatever she had despoiled Jesus Christ of in her errors, she restores to him in her penitence: behold their reparation! But with Jesus Christ she finds in her penitence, that peace and those comforts which she had never experienced in her errors: behold their consolations! The reparations, and the consolations of her penitence are the whole history of her conversion, and the subject of this Discourse.
Part I.— The office of penitence, says St. Augustine, is that of establishing order wherever sin hath introduced corruption. It is false, if it be not universal; for order solely results from a perfect subordination of all desires and emotions which spring up in our hearts: every thing must be in its place, in order that that divine harmony, which sin had disturbed, may be restored; and, while the smallest particular there remains deranged, in vain do you labour to repair the rest; you only rear up an edifice, which, being improperly arranged, is continually giving way in some of its parts, and confusion and disorder prevail through the whole.
Now, behold the important instruction held out to us in the conversion of this sinner! Her sin comprised several disorders: first, an iniquitous use of her heart, which had never been taken up but with creatures: secondly, a criminal abuse of all natural gifts, which she had made the instruments of her passions: thirdly, a shameful abasement of her senses, which she had always made to contribute to her voluptuousness and ignominy: lastly, a universal scandal in the notoriety of her errors. Her penitence makes reparation for all these disorders: all, consequently, are forgiven; for nothing is neglected in the repentance.
I say, first, an iniquitous use of her heart. Yes, my brethren, every love, which has for its object only the creatures, degrades our heart: it is a disorder, to love for itself that which can neither be our happiness nor our perfection, nor, consequently, our ease; for to love, is to seek our felicity in that which we love; it is the hope of finding, in the object beloved, whatever is wanting to our heart; it is the calling it in aid against that shocking void which we feel within ourselves, in the confidence that they shall be able to fill it: to love, is to look upon the object beloved as our resource against all our wants, the cure of all our evils, and the author of all our good. Now, as it is in God alone that we can find all these advantages, it is a disorder, and a debasement of the heart, to seek for them in a vile creature.
And, at bottom, we feel sensibly the injustice of that love: however passionate it be, we quickly discover, in the creatures which inspire it, weaknesses and defects which render them unworthy of it: we soon find them out to be unjust, fanciful, false, vain, and inconstant: the deeper we examine them, the more we say to ourselves, that our heart has been deceived, and that this is not the object which it sought. Our reason inwardly blushes at the weakness of our passion; we no longer submit to our chains, but with pain; our passion becomes our burden and our punishment. But, punished without being undeceived in our error, we seek, in a change, a remedy for our mistake: we wander from object to object, and if some one at last chance to fix us, it is not that we are satisfied with our choice, it is that we are tired of our inconstancy.
Our sinner hath wandered in these ways: iniquitous loves had been the cause of all her misfortunes and of all her crimes; and, born to love God alone, he alone it was whom she had never loved. But scarcely hath she known him, says the gospel, when, blushing at the meanness of her former passions, she no longer acknowledges but him alone to be worthy of her heart; all in the creature appears to her empty, false, and disgusting: far from finding those charms, from which her heart had formerly with such difficulty defended itself, she no longer sees in them but their frivolity, their danger, and their vanity. — The Lord alone, in her sight, appears good, real, faithful, constant to his promises, magnificent in his gifts, true in his affection, indulgent even in his anger, alone sufficiently great to fill the whole immensity of our heart; alone sufficiently powerful to satisfy all its desires; alone sufficiently generous to soften all its distresses; alone immortal, and who shall for ever be loved: lastly, to love whom can be followed by the sole repentance of having loved him too late.
It is love, therefore, my brethren, which makes true penitence: for penitence is only a changing of the heart; and the heart does not change but in changing its love: penitence is only the re-establishment of order in man; and man is only in order when he loves the Lord, for whom he is made: penitence is only a reconciliation with God; and your reconciliation is fictitious, if you do not restore to him your heart: in a word, penitence obtains the remission of sins, and sins are remitted only in proportion to our love.
Tell us no more, then, my brethren, when we hold out these grand examples for your imitation, that you do not feel yourselves born for devotion, and that your heart is of such a nature that every thing which is denominated piety is disagreeable to it. What! my dear hearer, your heart is not made for loving its God? Your heart is not made for the Creator who hath given it to you? What! you are born then for vanity and falsehood? Your heart so grand, so exalted, and which nothing here below can satisfy, has been bestowed on you solely for pleasures which weary you, creatures which deceive you, honours which embarrass you, a world which tires or disgusts you? God alone, for whom you are made, and who hath made you what you are, should find nothing for himself in the principle of your being. Ah! you are unjust toward your own heart: you know not yourself, and you take your corruption for yourself. And, in effect, if not born for virtue, what then is the melancholy mystery of your lot? For what are you born? What chimera then are you among men? You are born then only for remorse and gloomy care? The Author of your being hath drawn you from nonentity, only to render you miserable? You are gifted then with a heart only to pursue a happiness which either is visionary or which flies from you, and to be a continual burden to yourself?
O man! open here thine eyes; fathom to the bottom the destiny of thy heart, and thou wilt acknowledge that these turbulent passions, which fill thee with such repugnances to virtue, are foreign to thy nature; that such is not the natural state of thy heart; that the Author of nature and of grace hath bestowed on thee a more sublime lot; that thou wert born for order, for righteousness, and for innocence; that thou hast corrupted a happy nature, by turning it toward iniquitous passions; and that, if not born for virtue, we know not what thou art, and thou becomest incomprehensible to thyself.
But you are mistaken, when you consider, as inclinations incompatible with piety, those warm propensities toward pleasure which are born with you. From the instant that grace shall have sanctified them, they will become dispositions favourable for salvation. The more you are animated in the pursuit of the world and its false pleasures, the more eager shall you be for the Lord, and for true riches: the more you have been found tender and feeling by creatures, the easier shall be the access of grace to your heart: in proportion as your nature is haughty, proud, and aspiring, the more shall you serve the Lord, without fear, without disguise, without meanness: the more your character now appears easy, light, and inconstant, the easier it will be for you to detach yourself from your criminal attachments, and to return to your God. Lastly, your passions themselves, if I may venture to speak in this manner, will become the means of facilitating your penitence. Whatever had been the occasion of your destruction, you will render it conducive toward your salvation; you will see and acknowledge, that to have received a tender, faithful, and generous heart, is to have been born for piety, and that a heart which creatures have been able to touch, holds out great and favourable dispositions toward grace.
Peruse what remains to us of the history of the just, and you will see that those who have, at the first, been dragged away by mad passions, who were born with every talent calculated for the world, with the warmest propensities toward pleasures, and the most opposite to every thing pious, have been those in whom grace hath operated the most wonderful change. And, without mentioning the sinner of our gospel, the Augustines, the Pelagiuses, the Fabioleses, those worldly and dissipated souls, so obstinate and rooted in their debaucheries, and so diametrically opposite, it would seem, to piety, what progress have they not since made in the ways of God! And their former propensities have, as I may say, only paved the way for their penitence. The same soil which nourishes and produces great passions, gives birth likewise to the greatest virtues, when it pleases the Lord to change the heart. My God! thou hast made us all for thee; and in the incomprehensible arrangement of thy providence, and of thy mercy toward man, even our weaknesses are to conduce toward our sanctification. It is thus that our sinner made reparation for the iniquitous use which she had made of her heart.
But, secondly, the love which she had for Jesus Christ was not one of those vain and indolent sensibilities which are rather the natural emotions of an easily affected heart than real impressions of grace, and which never produce any thing in us farther than that of rendering us satisfied with ourselves, and persuading us that our heart is changed: the sacrifices, and not the feelings, prove the reality of love.
Thus, the second disorder of her sin having been the criminal and almost universal abuse of all creatures; the second reparation of her penitence, is the rigorously abstaining from all those things which she had abused in her errors. Her hair, her perfumes, the gifts of body and of nature, had been the instruments of her pleasures; for none is ignorant of the use to which a deplorable passion can apply them; this is the first step of her penitence: the perfumes are abandoned, and even consecrated to a holy ministry; her hair is neglected, and no longer serves but to wipe the feet of her deliverer; beauty, and every attention to the body are neglected, and her eyes are blinded with tears. Such are the first sacrifices of her love: she is not contented with giving up cares visibly criminal, she even sacrifices such as might have been looked upon as innocent, and thinks that the most proper way of punishing the abuse she had formerly made of them, is by depriving herself of the liberty she might still have had of employing them.
In effect, by having once abused them, the sinner loses the right he had over them: what is permitted to an innocent soul, is no longer so to him who has been so unhappy as to deviate from the right path. Sin renders us, as it were, anathematized to all creatures around us, and which the Lord had destined to our use. Thus, there are rules for an unfaithful soul, not made for other men: he no longer enjoys, as I may say, the common right, and he must no more judge of his duties by the general maxims, but by the personal exceptions which concern him.
Now, upon this principle, you are continually demanding of us, if the use of such and such an artifice in dress be a crime? If such and such public pleasures be forbidden? I mean not here to decide for others; but I ask of you who maintain their innocency, whether you have never made a bad use of them? Have you never made these cares of the body, these amusements, and these artifices, instrumental toward iniquitous passions? Have you never employed them in corrupting hearts, or in nourishing the corruption of your own? What! your entire life has perhaps been one continued and deplorable chain of passions and evils; you have abused every thing around you, and have made them instrumental to your irregular appetites; you have called them all in aid to that unfortunate tendency of your heart; your intentions have even exceeded your evil; your eye hath never been single, and you would willingly never have had that of others to have been so with regard to you; all your cares for your person have been crimes; and when there is question of returning to your God, and of making reparation for a whole life of corruption and debauchery, you pretend to dispute with him for vanities, of which you have always made so infamous a use? You pretend to maintain the innocency of a thousand abuses, which, though permitted to the rest of men, would be forbidden to you? You enter into contestation, when it is intended to restrict you from the criminal pomps of the world; you, to whom the most innocent, if such there be, are forbidden in future, and whose only dress ought henceforth to be sackcloth and ashes? Can you still pretend to justify cares which are your inward shame, and which have so often covered you with confusion at the feet of the sacred tribunal? And should so much contestation and so many explanations be required, where your own shame alone should amply suffice.
Besides, the holy sadness of piety no longer looks upon, but with horror, that which has once been a stumbling-block to us. The contrite soul examines not whether he may innocently indulge in it; it suffices for him to know, that it has a thousand times been the rock upon which he has seen his innocence split. Whatever has been instrumental in leading him to his evils, becomes equally odious in his sight as the evils themselves; whatever has been assisting to his passions, he equally detests as the passions themselves; whatever, in a word, has been favourable to his crimes, becomes criminal in his eyes. Should it even happen that he might be disposed to accord it to his weakness, ah! his zeal, his compunction, would reject the indulgence, and would adopt the interests of God's righteousness against men; he could not prevail upon himself *to permit abuses, which would be the means of recalling to him his past disorders; he would always entertain a dread that the same manner of acting might recall the same dispositions, and that, engrossed by the same cares, his heart would find itself the same; the sole image of his past infidelities disturbs and alarms him; and, far from bearing about with him their sad remains, he would wish to have it in his power to remove even from the spots, and to tear himself from the occupations which renew their remembrance. And, surely, what kind of a penitence must that be which still permits us to love all those things which have been the occasion of our greatest crimes? And, while yet dripping from a shipwreck can we too strenuously form the resolution of for ever shunning those rocks upon which we had so lately split?
Lastly, true penitence causes us to find every where matter of a thousand invisible sacrifices. It does not confine itself to certain essential privations; every thing which flatters the passions, every thing which nourishes the life of the senses, every superfluity which tends solely to the gratification of self-love, all these become the subject of its sacrifices; and, like a sharp and grievous sword, it every where makes divisions and separations painful to the heart, and cuts even to the quick, whatever in the smallest degree approached too near to the corruption of our propensities. The grace of compunction at once leads the contrite soul to this point; it renders him ingenuous in punishing himself, and arranges matters so well that every thing serves in expiation of his crimes; that duties, social intercourse, honours, prosperity, and the cares attendant upon his station, become opportunities of proving his merit; and that even his pleasures, through the circumspection and faith with which they are accompanied, become praiseworthy and virtuous actions.
Behold the divine secret of penitence! As it officiates here below toward the criminal soul, says Tertullian, as the justice of God; and as the justice of God shall one day punish guilt by the eternal privation of all creatures which the sinner hath abused, penitence anticipates that terrible judgment; it every where imposes on itself the most rigorous privations; and if the miserable condition of human life render the use of present things still requisite, it employs them much less to flatter than to punish the senses, by the sober and austere manner in which it applies them.
You have only to calculate thereupon the truth of your penitence. In vain do you appear to have left off the brutal gratification of the passions, if the same pomp and splendour are requisite toward satisfying that natural inclination which courts distinction through a vain magnificence; the same profusions, in consequence of not having the courage to deprive self-love of accustomed superfluities; the same pleasures of the world, in consequence of being unable to do without it; the same advantages on the part of fortune, in consequence of the continual desire of rising superior to others: in a word, if you can part with nothing, you exclude yourself from nothing; even admitting that all those attachments which you still preserve should not be absolute crimes, your heart is not penitent; your manners are apparently different, but all your passions are still the same; you are apparently changed, but you are not converted. How rare, my brethren, are true penitents! How common are vain and superficial conversions! And how many souls, changed in the eyes of the world, shall one day find themselves the same before God!
But it is not enough to have attained to that degree of self-denial which keeps us without the circle of attraction of the allurements of guilt; those laborious atonements must likewise be added, which wash out its stains. Thus, in the third place, the sinner of our gospel is not contented with having sacrificed her hair and her perfumes to Jesus Christ; she prostrates herself at his feet, she washes them with her tears, she wipes, she kisses them: and, as the third disorder of her sin had been a shameful subjection of her senses, she begins the reparation of these criminal lewdnesses, by the humiliation and disgust of these lowly services.
New instruction: — it is not sufficient to remove from the passions those allurements which incite them; it is likewise necessary that laborious exertions of such virtues as are most opposite to them, insensibly repress, and recall them to duty and order. You were fond of gaming, pleasures, amusements, and every thing which composes a worldly life; it is doing little to cut off from these pleasures that portion which may still conduct to guilt; if you wish that the love of the world be extinguished in your heart, it is necessary that prayer, retirement, silence, and acts of charity, succeed to these dissolute manners; and that, not satisfied with shunning the crimes of the world, you likewise fly from the world itself. By giving yourself up to boundless and shameful passions, you have fortified the empire of the senses and of the flesh; it is necessary that fasting, watching, the yoke of mortification, gradually extinguish these impure fires, weaken these tendencies, become ungovernable through a long indulgence of voluptuousness, and not only remove guilt from you, but operate, as I may say, to dry up its source in your heart. Otherwise, by sparing, you only render yourself more miserable: the old attachments which you shall have broken without having weakened, and, as it were, rooted them from your heart by mortification, will incessantly be renewing their attacks; your passions, become more violent and impetuous by being checked and suspended, without your having weakened and overcome them, will make you undergo agitations and storms, such as you had never experienced even in guilt: you will behold yourself on the point, every moment, of a melancholy shipwreck; you will never taste of peace in this new life. You will find yourself more weak, more exhausted, more animated for pleasure, more easy to be shaken, and more disgusted with the service of God, in this state of imperfect penitence, than you had even been formerly in the midst of dissipation; every thing will become a rock to you; you will be a continual temptation to yourself; you will be astonished to find within you a still greater repugnance to duties; and, as it is hardly possible to stand out long against yourself, you will soon become disgusted with a virtue by which you suffer so much; and, in consequence of your having wished to be only a tranquil and mitigated penitent, you will be an unhappy one, without consolation, without peace, and, consequently, without perseverance. To augment and multiply the sacrifices is to abridge the sufferings in virtue; and whatever we are induced to spare to the passions, becomes rather the punishment and the disgust, than the softening of our penitence.
The last disorder which had accompanied the sin of the woman of our gospel, was the publicity of the scandal attending the corruption of her conduct. The scandal of the law, which was dishonoured in the opinion of the Romans and of so many other Gentiles, spread throughout Palestine, and who, witnessing the ill-conduct of our sinner, took occasion, no doubt, from it, to blaspheme the name of the Lord, to despise the sanctity of his law, to harden themselves in their impious superstitions, and to look upon the hope of Israel and the wonders of God, as related in the holy books, as fictions invented to amuse a credulous people.
Scandal of place. Her ill conduct had been conspicuous in the city, that is to say, in the capital of the country, from whence the report of such accidents was soon circulated throughout Judea. Now behold the scandals for which her penitence makes reparation,— the scandal of the law, by renouncing the superstitious traditions of the Pharisees, who had adulterated their precepts; and by confessing Jesus Christ, who was the end and the fulfilment of them. For, too frequently, after having dishonoured religion in the minds of the impious, through our excesses and scandalous conduct, we again dishonour it through our pretended piety; we create for ourselves a kind of virtue altogether worldly, superficial, and pharisaical; we become superstitious without becoming penitent; we make the abuses of devotion succeed to those of the world; the only reparation we make for the scandal of our debaucheries, is that of a sensual piety; and we reflect more disgrace upon virtue through the weaknesses and the illusions which we mingle with it, than we did by our open and avowed excesses. Thus the impious are more hardened in their iniquity, and more removed from conversion, by the example of our false penitence, than ever they had formerly been by the example even of our vices.
Lastly, the scandal of place. That same city which had been the theatre of her shame and of her crimes, becomes that of her penitence. She goes not into retired places to give vent to her sorrows and her tears; she takes no advantage, like Nicodemus, of the shades of night to come to Jesus Christ, nor waits the opportunity of his being in a retired corner of the city, in order to conceal from the eyes of the public the first steps of her conversion. In the face of that great city which she had scandalized by her conduct, she enters into the house of the Pharisee, and is not afraid of submitting to have, as spectators of her penitence, those who had been witnesses of her former crimes. For often, after having despised the world's opinion in debauchery, it becomes dreaded in virtue: the eyes of the public did not appear formidable to us during our dissipation; they become so in our penitence; our vices are carelessly laid open to view; our virtues are backward and cautious: we dare not at first declare openly for Jesus Christ; we are ashamed to show ourselves in a light so new to us; we have gloried in vice as if it had been a virtue, and we blush for being virtuous, as though it were a shame.
As our fortunate sinner had not been timid in evil, so she is not timid in good; she bears, even with a holy insensibility, the reproaches of the Pharisee, who recounts, in the presence of all the guests, the infamy of her past manners. For the world, typified by that Pharisee, feels a gratification in the mean pleasure of recalling the former errors of those whom grace hath touched: far from reaping any edification from their present good conduct, it is continually dwelling upon their past irregularity; it tries to weaken the merit of what they now do, by renewing upon every occasion the remembrance of what they have done; it would appear that the errors which they lament authorize those which we love, and in which we still continue to live; and that it is more allowable for us to be sinners, since real and sincere penitents repent of having been so. It is thus, O my God! that every thing worketh out our destruction, and that, instead of blessing and praising the riches of thy mercy when thou withdrawest worldly and dissolute souls from the ways of perdition, and instead of being excited by these grand examples, to have recourse to thy clemency, always so ready to receive the repentant sinner, insensible and blind to his penitence, we are occupied only in recalling his errors, as if we were entitled from thence to say to ourselves, that we have nothing to dread in debauchery; that one day or other we shall likewise become contrite; and that the sincerest penitents having once been perhaps still more deeply involved than we in mad passions, we need not despair of one day or other being able to quit them as well as they! O inexplicable blindness of man, that finds inducements to debauchery even in the examples of penitence I
Such were the reparations of our sinner But, if it be an error to represent to ourselves a change of life as the simple cessation of our former debaucheries, without adding to that those expiations which wash them out; it is likewise another not less dangerous, the considering these expiations as involving you in a situation, gloomy, wretched, and hopeless. Thus, after having mentioned to you the reparations of her penitence, it is proper that I now lay before you the consolations.
Part II. — Come unto me, says Jesus Christ, all ye who are weary of the ways of iniquity; take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
This promise, addressed to all criminal souls, who are always miserable in debauchery, is completely fulfilled in the instance of the sinner of our gospel. In effect, every thing which had formerly been to her, in her dissipations, an inexhaustible fund of disgust, becomes now, in her penitence, a fruitful source of consolation; and with Jesus Christ she is happy,, through the same means which, during her guilt had occasioned all her miseries.
Yes, my brethren, an iniquitous love had been her first guilt, and the first source of all her distresses: the first consolation of her penitence is a holy dilection for Jesus Christ, and the wide difference between that divine and new love, and the profane love which had hitherto engrossed her heart. I say, the difference in the object, in the proceedings, and in the correspondence.
In the object: the depravity of her heart had attached her to men, corrupted, inconstant, deceitful, rather companions of her debauchery than real friends, less watchful to render her happy than attentive to the gratification of their own inordinate passions; to men, who always join contempt to a gratified passion; to Amnons, in whose eyes, from the moment that they have obtained their wishes, the unfortunate object of their love becomes vile and hateful; to men, whose weaknesses, artifices, transports, and defects, she well knew, and whom she inwardly acknowledged to be unworthy of her heart, and to whom she paid any attention, more through the unfortunate bias of passion, than the free choice of her reason; in a word, to men, who had never yet been able to fix the natural instability and love of change of her heart. Her penitence attaches her to Jesus Christ, the model of all virtue, the source of all grace, the principle of all light: the more she studies him, the more does she discover his greatness and sanctity; the more she loves him, the more does she find him worthy of being loved: to Jesus Christ, the faithful, immortal, and disinterested friend of her soul, who is concerned for her eternal interests alone; who is interested only in what may render her happy; who is even come to sacrifice his ease, his glory, and his life, in order to secure her immortal happiness; who has distinguished her from among so many women of Judah, by an overflowing of mercy, when she had rendered herself the most conspicuous of her sex, by the excess of her wretchedness; who expects nothing from her, but is willing to bestow on her far more than she could ever have hoped; lastly, to Jesus Christ, who has tranquillized her heart, by purifying it; who has fixed its inconstancy, and subdued the multiplicity of its desires; who has filled the whole extent of her love; who has restored to her that internal peace which creatures had never been able to bestow.
O my soul! how long shalt thou continue to love, in creatures, what is but thine affliction and punishment? Wouldst thou suffer more by breaking asunder thy chains, than thou now dost in bearing them? Would virtue and innocence be more painful than those shameful passions which at present debase and rend thee? Ah! thou shalt find every thing light and easy, in comparison with the cruel agitations which render thee so unhappy in guilt. — Difference in the object of her love.
Difference in the steps. The excess of passion had led her to a thousand steps, in opposition to her inclination, her glory, and her reason; — had led her to make a sacrifice to men of her quiet, her inclinations, her honour, and her liberty; to shameful condescensions and disagreeable submissions; to important sacrifices, for which the only return was their thinking themselves more entitled from thence to exact still more: for such is the ingratitude of men; the more you allow them to become masters of your heart, the more they erect themselves its tyrant: in their opinion, the excess of your attachment to them diminishes its merit; and they punish you for the fervour and the shame of your transports, by taking occasion even from thence, to suffer all, even to their gratitude, to be cooled.
Behold the ungrateful returns experienced by our sinner in the ways of the passions! But in her penitence every thing is reckoned; the slightest step which she takes for Jesus Christ is noticed, is praised, is defended by Jesus Christ himself. The Pharisee vainly endeavours to lessen her merit (for the world never studies but to diminish the value of the virtues of the just); the Saviour undertakes her defence: "Seest thou this woman?" said he to him; as if he thereby meant to say, Knowest thou all the merit of the sacrifices which she makes to me, and how far the strength and the excess of her love for me extend? She hath not ceased to wash my feet with tears, and to wipe them with the hairs of her head. He reckons, he observes every thing; a sigh, a tear, a simple movement of the heart: nothing is lost upon him of whatever is done for him; nothing escapes the exactness of his glances, and the tenderness of his heart; we are well assured that we serve no ungrateful master; he overvalues even the slightest sacrifices. "Seest thou this woman? " He would, it appears, that all men view her with the same eyes that he did: that all men should be as equitable estimators as himself of her love, and of her tears: he no longer sees her debaucheries; he forgets a whole life of error and guilt: he sees only her repentance and her tears.
Now, what consolation for a contrite soul to have it in her power to say to herself, Till now, I have lived only for error and vanity. My days, my years, my cares, my inquietudes, my distresses, are all hitherto lost, and no longer exist, even in the memory of those men for whom alone I have lived, for whom alone I have sacrificed every thing. My rectitude, my attentions, my anxieties, have never been repaid but with ingratitude; but henceforth, whatever I do for Jesus Christ will receive its full estimation: my sufferings, my afflictions, the slightest sacrifices of my heart; my sighs, my tears, which I have so often shed in vain for creatures, all shall be written in immortal characters in the book of life: all these shall eternally exist in the remembrance of that faithful Master whom I serve; all these, in spite of the defects mingled with them by my weakness and my corruption, shall be excused, and even purified through the grace of my Redeemer, and he will crown his gifts by rewarding my feeble deserts. I no longer live but for eternity; I no longer labour in vain; my days are real, my life is no longer a dream. O, my brethren, what a blessed gain is piety; and how great are the consolations which a soul recalled to Jesus Christ receives, in compensation for the trifling losses which he sacrifices to him!
Lastly, difference in the certitude of the correspondence. That love of creatures which actuated our sinner, had always been attended with the most cruel uncertainties. One is always suspicious of an equal return of love: the heart is ingenious in rendering itself unhappy, and in tormenting itself with vain fears, suspicions, and jealousies: the more generous, true, and frank it is itself, the more doth it suffer; it is the martyr of its own distrusts. You know this well; and it does not belong to me to pretend to speak from this place the language of your extravagant passions.
But what a new destiny in the change of her love! Scarcely is her love of Jesus Christ commenced, when she is certain of being loved. She hears from his divine mouth the favourable sentence, which, in remitting her sins, confirms to her the love and the affection of him who remits them. Not only are her debaucheries forgotten, but she is urged to be convinced, in her own mind, that they are forgotten, pardoned, and washed out. All her fears are prevented, and ground is no more left for mistrust or uncertainty; nor can she longer suspect the love of Jesus Christ, without at the same time suspecting his power and the faithfulness of his promises.
Such is the lot of a contrite soul on quitting the tribunal where Jesus Christ, through the ministry of the priest, has remitted debaucheries, which he has washed out with his tears and his love. In spite of that uncertainty inseparable from the present state of life, whether he be worthy of love or hatred, an internal peace bears testimony in the bottom of his heart that he is restored to Jesus Christ: he experiences a calm and a joy in his conscience which can be the fruit of righteousness alone. Not that he is entirely delivered from alarm and apprehension on account of his past infidelities, and that, in certain moments, more forcibly struck with horror at his past errors, and the severity of God's judgments, he is not tempted to consider all as hopeless to him; but Jesus Christ, who himself excites these storms in his heart, has quickly calmed them; his voice still inwardly says to him, as formerly to Peter, alarmed upon the waves, f? O thou of little faith, wherefore doubtest thou?" Have I not given thee sufficient proofs of my kindness and my protection? Reflect upon all that I have done in order to withdraw thee from the ways of iniquity. I seek not with such perseverance the sheep that I love not; I recall them not from so far, to let them perish before my eyes. Distrust, then, no more my affection; dread only thine own lukewarmness or inconstancy. First consolation of her penitence; — the difference of her love.
The second is the sacrifice of her passions. She throws at the feet of Jesus Christ, her perfumes, her hair, all the attachments of her heart, all the deplorable instruments of her vanities and of her crimes; and do not suppose that in acting thus she sacrifices her pleasures; she sacrifices only her anxieties and her punishments.
In vain is it said that the cares of the passions constitute the felicity of those possessed by them; it is a language in which the world glories, but which experience belies. What punishment to a worldly soul, anxious to please, are the solicitous cares of a beauty which fades and decays every day! What attentions and constraints they must take upon themselves, upon their inclinations, upon their pleasures, upon their indolence! What inward vexations, when these cares have been unavailing, and when more fortunate charms have attracted the general attention! What tyranny is that of custom! It must, however, be submitted to, in spite of deranged affairs, a remonstrating husband, tradesmen who murmur, and who dearly sell the remissions perhaps required. I say nothing of the cares of ambition: what a life is that passed in designs, projects, fears, hopes, alarms, jealousies, subjection, and meannesses! I speak not of a profane connexion: what terrors lest the mystery be laid open, — what eyes to shun,— what spies to deceive, — what mortifying repulses to undergo from the very person for whom they have perhaps sacrificed their honour and their liberty, and of whom they dare not even complain! To all these, add those cruel moments when passion, less unruly, allows us leisure to inspect ourselves, and to feel the whole infamy of our situation; those moments in which the heart, born for more solid joys, wearies of its own idols, and finds ample punishment in its disgusts and in its own inconstancy. World profane! If such be the felicity thou vauntest so much, distinguish thy worshippers, and, by crowning them with such a happiness, punish them for the faith which they have so credulously given to thy promises.
Behold what our sinner casts at the feet of Jesus Christ! Her bonds, her troubles, her slavery; in appearance, the instruments of her pleasures, — in truth, the source of all her afflictions. Now, granting that this were the only consolation of virtue, is it not a sufficiently grand one, that of deliverance from the keenest anxieties of the passions? To have your happiness no longer dependent upon the inconstancy, the perfidy, and the injustice of creatures; to have placed yourself beyond the reach of events; to possess in your own heart all that is wanting toward your happiness, or to suffice, as I may say, to yourself? What do you lose in sacrificing gloomy and anxious cares, in order to find peace and inward joy; and to lose all for Jesus Christ, is it not, as the apostle says, to have gained all? Thy faith hath made thee whole, said the Saviour to the woman; go in peace. Behold the treasure which she receives in return for the passions sacrificed to him; behold the reward and the consolation of her tears and of her repentance, — that peace of mind, which she had never as yet been able to find, and which the world had never bestowed. Fools! says a prophet; misery to you, then, who drag on the load of your passions, as the ox in labouring drags on the chains of the yoke which galls him, and who rush on to your destruction, by the way even of anguish, subjection, and constraint.
Lastly, by her sin she had been degraded in the eyes of men: they beheld with contempt the shame and the infamy of her conduct; she lived degraded from every right which a good reputation and a life free from reproach bestow; and the Pharisee is even astonished that Jesus Christ should condescend to suffer her at his feet.
For the world, which authorizes whatever leads to dissipation, never fails to cover dissipation itself with infamy: it approves, it justifies the maxims, the habits, and the pleasures which corrupt the heart; and yet it insists, that innocency and regularity of manners be united with corruption of heart; it inspires all the passions, yet it always blames the consequences of them; it requires you to study the art of pleasing, and it despises you from the moment that you have succeeded; its lascivious theatres resound with extravagant praises of profane love, and its conversations consist only of biting satires upon those who yield themselves up to that unfortunate tendency; it praises the graces, the charms, the miserable talents which light up impure desires, and it loads you with everlasting shame and reproach from the moment that you appear inflamed with them. O, how infinitely above description wretched are those who drag on in a still beloved world, and which they find themselves incapable of doing without, the miserable wrecks of reputation, either blasted or but feebly confirmed; and wherever they showthemselves, to arouse the remembrance or the suspicion of their crimes!
Such had been the afflictions and the disgraces with which the passions and the debaucheries of our sinner were followed; but her penitence restores to her more honour and more glory than had been taken from her by the infamy of her crimes. This sinner, so despised in the world, whose name was never mentioned without a blush, is praised for the very things which even the world considers as most honourable, namely, kindness of heart, generosity of sentiments, and the fidelity of a holy love; this sinner, with whom no comparison durst ever be made, and whose scandal was without example in the city, is exalted above the Pharisee; the truth, the sincerity of her faith, of her compunction, of her love, merits at once the preference over a superficial and pharisaical virtue: lastly, this sinner, whose name was concealed, as if unworthy of being pronounced, and whose only appellation is that of her crimes, is become the glory of Jesus Christ, the praise of grace, and an honour to the Gospel. O matchless power of virtue!
Yes, my brethren, virtue renders us a spectacle, worthy of God, of angels, and of men: it once more exalts a fallen reputation: it renews our claim, even here below, to rights and honours which we had forfeited: it washes our stains, which the malignity of men would wish to be immortal: it rejoins us to the servants of Jesus Christ, and to the society of the just, of whose intercourse we were formerly unworthy: it calls forth in us a thousand laudable qualities, which the vortex of the passions had almost for ever ingulfed: lastly, it attracts more glory to us than our past manners had attached shame and contempt. While Jonah is rebellious to the will of God, he is the curse of heaven, and of the earth; even idolaters are under the necessity of separating him from their society, and of casting him out as a child of infamy and malediction; and the belly of a monster is the only asylum in which he can conceal his reproach and shame. But, touched with contrition, scarcely hath he implored the eternal mercies of the God of his fathers, when he becomes the admiration of the proud Nineveh; when the grandees and the people unite to render him honours till then unheard of; when the prince himself, full of respect for his virtue, descends from the throne, and covers himself with sackcloth and ashes, in obedience to the man of God. Those passions which the world praises and inspires, had drawn upon us the contempt even of the world; virtue, which the world censures and combats, attracts to us, however unwillingly on its part, its veneration and homages.
What, my dear hearer, prevents you then from terminating your shame, and your inquietudes, with your crimes? Is it the reparations of penitence which alarm you? But the longer you delay, the more they multiply, the more debts are contracted, the more you increase the necessity of new rigours to your weakness. Ah! if the reparations discourage you at present, what shall it one day be, when, your crimes multiplied to infinity, almost no punishment whatever shall be capable of expiating them? They shall then plunge you into despair; and you will adopt the miserable part of casting off all yoke, and of no longer reckoning upon your salvation; you will raise up to yourself new maxims and modes of reasoning, in order to tranquillise your mind in freethinking; you will consider as needless a penitence which will then appear to you impossible. When the embarrassments of the conscience come to a certain point, we feel a kind of gloomy satisfaction in persuading ourselves that no resource is left; we calm ourselves on the foundations of truths, when we see ourselves so far removed from what they prescribe; we fly to unbelief for a remedy from the moment that we believe it is no longer to be found in faith; from the moment that the chaos becomes inexplicable to us, we* have soon settled it in our minds that all is uncertain. And, besides what should there be so melancholy and so rigorous in reparations, whose only merit ought to spring from love?
Unbelieving soul! you dread being unable to support the holy sadness of penitence; yet you have hitherto been able to bear up against the internal horrors of guilt: virtue in your eyes seems wearisome beyond sufferance; yet you have long dragged on under the stings of an ulcerated conscience, which no joy could enliven. Ah! since you have hitherto been able to bear up against all internal anguish, the bitterness, the disgusts, the gloomy agitations of iniquity, no longer dread those of virtue: in the pains and sufferances inseparable from guilt, you have undergone trials far beyond what may be attached to virtue; and doubly so, because grace softens, and renders even pleasing, the sufferings of piety, while the only sweetener of guilt is the bitterness of guilt itself.
My God! is it possible, that, for so many years past, I have had strength to wander in such arduous and dreary ways, under the tyranny of the world and of the passions, and that I should be unable to live with thee, under all the tenderness of thy regards, under the wings of thy compassion, and under the protection of thy arm? Art thou then so cruel a master? The world, which knows thee not, believes that thou renderest miserable those who serve thee: but we, O Lord, we know that thou art the gentlest and best of masters, the tenderest of all fathers, the most faithful of all friends, the most munificent of all benefactors; and that thou givest a foretaste, by a thousand inward consolations with which thou indulgest thy servants here below, of that eternal felicity which thou preparest for them hereafter.