SERMON XVI.
THE WORD OF GOD.
"It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." — Matthew iv. 4.
Nothing can give a better idea of the power and of the sublimity of the word of the Gospel, than the images employed by Jesus Christ to foretel its effects. One while it is a sacred sword, which is to divide father from child, husband from wife, brother from sister, and man from himself; to bend all minds under the yoke of faith, to subjugate the Caesars, to triumph over sages and the learned, and to exalt the standard of the cross upon the wrecks of idols and of empires: through that is represented to us its might, which the whole world hath been unable to resist.
One while it is a divine fire, spread in an instant throughout the earth, which goes to dissolve the mountains, to depopulate the cities, to people the forest, to reduce into ashes the profane temples, to inflame the minds of men, and to make them fly, like madmen, to death in the sight of nations; and under these parabolical traits are figured to us the promptitude of its operations and the rapidity of its victories.
One while it is a mysterious leaven, which joins and reunites the whole mass; which binds all its parts together, and impresses upon them one general efficacy and virtue; which overthrows the distinctions of Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, and gives to all the same name and the same being: and here you comprehend how great must be its sanctity and inward might, seeing it hath purified the whole universe, and of all nations hath made but one people.
But at present Jesus Christ compares it to bread, which serves as the food of man; and he thereby means to inform us that the word of the Gospel is a powerful and solid nourishment, often pernicious to such as receive it into a diseased and corrupted heart, and useful only to souls who, with a holy appetite, nourish themselves with it, and who bring to this place a heart prepared to listen to it.
To confine myself, then, to this idea, I shall say nothing of the wonders which this word, announced by twelve poor and humble men, formerly wrought throughout the universe, I shall pass over in silence the sanctity of its doctrine, the sublimity of its counsels, the wisdom of its maxims; and, limiting myself to the instruction, and to that which may render the word of the Gospel, which we announce, beneficial to you, I shall inform you, firstly, what are the dispositions which ought to accompany you to this holy place for the purpose of hearing it; and, secondly, in what mind you ought afterward to listen to it: two duties, not only neglected, but even unknown to the greatest part of the believers who run in crowds to the feet of these Christian pulpits, and which are the ordinary cause of our ministry being attended with so little fruit.
Part I. — It is not the body of external works, says St. Augustine, which distinguishes the just from the carnal Christian: it is the invisible spirit which animates them. Pious actions are frequently common to the good and to the wicked; it is the disposition of the heart which discriminates them. All run, says the Apostle, but all reach not the goal, for it is not the same spirit which impels them.
Now, to apply this maxim to my subject: of all the duties of Christian piety, there is undoubtedly none of which the external is more equally fulfilled by the worldly, and by the pious, than that of coming to hear the word of the Gospel. All run in crowds, like the Israelites formerly to the foot of the holy mountain, to hear the words of the law. Our temples are hardly sufficient to contain the multitude of believers: profane assemblies break up to swell the number of the holy assembly at the hours of instruction; and the ages which have seen the zeal of Christians so relaxed on every other duty of religion, have not, it would seem, witnessed it in this. Nevertheless, of all the ministries confided to the church for the consummation of the chosen, there is scarcely any so unprofitable as that of the word; and the most efficacious means which the church hath, in every age, employed for the conversion of men, is become, at present, its feeblest resource. You, my brethren, are yourselves a melancholy proof of this truth. Never were instructions more frequent than in our days, and never were conversions so rare.
It is of importance, therefore, to explain the causes of so common and so deplorable an abuse. Now, the first is undoubtedly the want of those dispositions which ought to accompany you to this holy place, in order to listen to the word of salvation. And, surely, if St. Paul formerly commanded all believers to purify themselves before coming to eat of the bread of life, — if he declared to them, that not to distinguish it from ordinary food was to render themselves guilty of the body of the Lord, we have no less reason to tell you that you ought to prove yourselves, and to prepare your soul before you come to participate in that spiritual food which we break to the people: and that not to distinguish it from the word of men, in your manner of listening to it, is to render yourselves guilty even of the word of Jesus Christ.
The first disposition required of you by the sanctity of this word, when you come to hear it, is a sincere desire that it may be useful to you. Before coming to our temples, you ought, privately, in your own house, to address yourself to the Father of Light, to entreat him to bestow upon you that ear of the heart which alone makes his voice to be heard; to give to his word that efficacy, that inward unction, those attractions so powerful and so successful in the conversion of sinners, that he may overcome that insensibility which you have opposed to all the truths hitherto heard; that he fix those momentary feelings which you have so often experienced while listening to us, but which have never been productive of any consequences toward your salvation; that to us he give that zeal, that wisdom, that dignity, that fulness of his Spirit, those piercing lights, that divine vehemence which carries conviction to the heart, and which never speaks in vain; that he form in our hearts the relish of those truths which he putteth in our mouths; that he render us insensible to your praises, or to your censures, in order that we may be more useful to your wants; that the ardent desire to accomplish your salvation fully compensate the want of those talents denied to us by nature; and that we honour our ministry, not by seeking to please, but to save you.
And, surely, if the Israelites, before approaching Mount Sinai to hear the words of the law which the angel was to announce to them, were obliged, by the order of the Lord, to purify themselves, to wash their garments, and even to abstain from the holy duties of marriage, in order to prepare themselves for that grand operation, and to carry nothing to the foot of the mountain unworthy of the sanctity of the law they went to hear; is it not, says a holy father, much more reasonable, when you come to hear the words of a more holy law, that you bring there at least those precautions of faith, of piety, of external respect, which mark in you a sincere desire of conforming your manners to those maxims which we are to announce to you? What, my brethren! are the precepts of Jesus Christ, the words of eternal life, to be listened to with less precaution than the ordinances of a figurative law? Is it because they are no longer announced to you by an angel from heaven? But are not we equally as he, the instruments of God to promulgate his word, and, like him, do we not speak in his place? Did the angel upon the mountain bear more the mark of Divinity than we bear of him? He wrote the law upon tables of stone; the grace of our ministry engraves it on hearts. He promised milk and honey; and we announce real and everlasting riches. The thunders of heaven, which accompanied his menaces against the transgressors of the law, overthrew the people struck with terror at the foot of the mountain; but what were these threatenings and temporal maledictions, their cities demolished, their wives and children led into captivity, when compared to that eternal misery which we are instructed continually to foretel to the violaters of the law of God? Separate what we are from the ministry which we fill, and what is there here, either less awful or less respectable than upon Mount Sinai?
And, nevertheless, what preparations accompany you to an action so holy and so worthy of respect? A vain curiosity which you wish to gratify; an irksome leisure which you are well pleased to have amused; a religious spectacle, the pleasure of which you wish to share; a custom which you follow, because the world hath adopted it? What do I know? The pleasure, perhaps, of pleasing a master, by imitating his respect for the word of the Gospel, and far more in order to attract his regards than those of divine mercy? Once more, what do I know? Perhaps views still more criminal, and of which we cannot speak without degrading the dignity of our ministry. No motive of salvation leads you here; no view of faith prepares you, no sentiment of piety accompanies you to this place; in short, your coming to listen to the holy word is no work of religion.
First cause of the inutility of our ministry. For, how is it possible that a proceeding altogether profane send a disposition to grace; and that, in this multitude of believers, assembled in this holy place, the goodness of God distinguished you from among the crowd, to open your heart to the word of life; you who have brought hither only those dispositions which are most calculated to keep at a distance that mercy? My brethren, as religion hath nothing grander, in one sense, than the charge of the doctrine and of truth; so piety likewise knows nothing so important, and which requires more religious precautions, than a proper attention to, and the being well instructed in them.
The second disposition which ought to accompany you to this holy place, is, a disposition of grief and shame, founded on the little fruit you have hitherto reaped from so many truths already heard. You ought to reflect upon all those feelings of compunction, which the Lord, through the ministry of the word, hath operated in your hearts, yet which have never been attended with any success toward your salvation; so many pious resolutions, inspired in this place, which seemed to promise a change of life, yet which have all vanished on the first temptation. For, what in this ought most to alarm you, is, that all those truths which have made only such momentary impressions on you, are so many witnesses, who shall one day depose against you before the tribunal of Jesus Christ: in proportion to the times that the word of the Gospel hath failed to touch you even to repentance, so many times hath it rendered you more unworthy of obtaining the grace of repentance. Faith, on this point, admits of no medium; and, if you depart unchanged, you depart, in some respect, more culpable than before, because, to all your other crimes, you have added that of contempt of the holy word.
Behold the reflections which ought to occupy your faith; and, when you enter the assembly of believers, you ought, while trembling over the past, to demand of yourself, — am I going to hear a word which shall judge me, or truths which shall deliver me? Am I going to offer up to the compassion of God a docile and willing heart, or to his justice fresh motives of condemnation against myself? It is now so long since truths have been announced to me, the force of which my utmost deference to the passions cannot weaken in my mind; for, in spite of myself, they make me inwardly acknowledge the error of my ways: yet, have I taken a single step toward quitting them? I have so long been warned, that the body of a Christian is the temple of God; have T, in consequence, become more temperate and chaste? I have so long heard it said, that, "if thine eye be evil, pluck it out, and cast it far from thee;" have I attained strength for such separations which I know to be so indispensable toward my salvation? I have so long been told, that to defer, as I have done, from day to day, my penitence, is to be determined to die in sin; do I, even now, find myself more disposed to quit my deplorable situation, and with a willing heart to begin the work of my salvation?
Great God! cease not to give me a heart susceptible to truths, which always affect, but never change me; and punish not the abuse which I make of thy word, by depriving it, with regard to me, of that efficacy which thou still permittest it to have, in order to recall me from my errors to penitence! And, my brethren, how many believers who listen to me, formerly alive to those truths which we announce, no longer offer to them now but a tranquil and a hardened heart! They neglected those happy times when grace was yet willing to open this way of conversion; and, ever since so continued and so fatal a negligence, they listen to us with indifference, and the most terrible truths in our mouths are no longer in their ears but sounding brass, and a tinkling cymbal.
Now, I ask your own hearts, my brethren, if this feeling of sorrow, for the little advantage you have hitherto reaped from so many instructions, is even known to you? Doth that outward pomp, with which you come here, worldly women, announce that disposition? Do not the same indecent and vain cares, which fit you for profane spectacles, accompany you to our instructions, where the world is condemned? Do you make the smallest difference there in your appearance? And doth it not seem, either that we are to announce the foolish maxims of the theatres, or that you come for the sole purpose of insulting, by an indecent carriage, even in the eyes of the world, the holy maxims of the Gospel?
But what do I say, my dear hearer? Far from reproaching to yourselves so many truths, heard hitherto without fruit, alas! you are perhaps delighted at your insensibility; you perhaps pride yourselves and indulge a deplorable vanity, in listening to us with indifference; you perhaps consider it as giving you an air of consequence, and as a proof of superiority of mind, that what others are affected by, should leave you tranquil and calm; you perhaps make a vain boast of your insensibility. It seems, that in you it would be a weakness to be affected by truths which formerly triumphed over philosophers and Ceesars; by truths, evidently come down from heaven, and which bear with them such divine marks of sublimity and wisdom; by truths which do such honour to man, and alone worthy of reason; by truths, so soothing and consolatory to the heart, and alone calculated to bestow internal tranquillity and peace. Lastly, by truths, which propose to us such grand interests, and toward which we can never be indifferent, without folly and madness. You vaunt the little success of our zeal, and that all our discourses leave you exactly as they found you; and, in declaring this, you think you are doing honour to your reason. I do not say to you, that you make a boast of being in that depth of the abyss, and in that state of reprobation which is now almost beyond resource, and which is worthy both of horror and pity; but I say to you, that the surest and most established mark of a light and frivolous mind, of a weak and limited reason, of an ill-formed heart, equally incapable of elevation and dignity, is that of finding nothing which strikes, which astonishes, which satisfies, and which interests you, in the wise and sublime truths of the morality of Jesus Christ.
For the sinners of another character still preserve at least some remains of respect for, and a certain consciousness of, the truth which subsists with a life altogether criminal, but which is always the mark of a good heart, of a heart which still retains a relish for good, of a judicious reason, which, though led away by the world and the passions, knows to do justice to itself, still feels the force of that truth which condemns it, and leaves within us resources of salvation and repentance. These sinners, at least, acknowledge that we are right: they change nothing, it is true, of their manners; but the truth at least affects, disturbs, agitates, and excites within them some feeble desires of salvation and hopes of a future conversion; they are sorry to find themselves even too susceptible of the terrors of faith; they are almost afraid of listening to us, lest they lose that false tranquillity which is the only comfort of their crimes; on quitting our instructions, they seek, in dissipation, to enliven a fund of anxiety and sadness which the truths they come from hearing have left in their soul; they immediately hurry into the world and its pleasures, with that inward sting which the word of God hath left in their heart, there to seek out a soothing and deceitful hand which may draw it out, and which may close up that wound from which alone its cure ought to flow; they dread the breaking of their chains; they turn away their head, that they may not see that light which comes to disturb the comfort of their sleep. They love their passions, I confess, but at least they insult not the truth; on the contrary, they render glory to its might, by erecting defences against it; they are feeble sinners, who, dreading their incapability of defence against God, fly from, and shun him. But for you, you make a vain-glorious boast of listening to him with indifference, and of not dreading him; you find it grand and philosophical to have placed yourselves above all these vulgar terrors; you believe that the pride of your reason would be dishonoured by any religious dread; and while you are internally the meanest and the most cowardly soul, the most dejected by the first danger which threatens you, the most disheartened by the smallest accident, the very shuttlecock of every frivolous hope and fear of the earth, you pique yourself upon an undaunted courage against the truth; that is to say, that you are possessed of every thing which is mean and vulgar in fear, and you are ashamed of having that only portion of it which is dignified and reasonable; you have no resistance to offer against the world, and you make a vain parade of a senseless valour against God.
Second disposition which ought to accompany you to our instructions,— a sorrow for the little fruit you have hitherto reaped from them. The last disposition is a grateful feeling for that mean of salvation still provided for you by God, in preserving the sacred trust of the truth, and in continuing amid you the succession of those ministers alone authorized to announce to you the holy word.
In effect, the most terrible chastisement with which God formerly struck the iniquities of his people, was that of rendering his word rare and precious among them. As he saith, through his prophet Amos, "And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the east even to the west; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." And, not only he ceased to raise up true prophets in Israel, but he likewise permitted false teachers to spring up among his people, who turned the tribes away from his worship, and preached gods to them which their fathers had never known.
Now, my brethren, it is a signal mercy of God, that, notwithstanding the iniquities which seem to have attained to their utmost height among you, he still raiseth up to you prophets and pastors who hold out a sound and a faultless word. It is a most singular protection of the Lord, that error hath not been permitted to prevail over truth among us. And what have you done to merit the being thus distinguished from so many other nations? Why is it that you are not involved in the same condemnation? Why have you dwelt in that happy land of Goshen, alone shone upon by the lights of heaven, while all the rest of Egypt was enveloped in darkness? Is it not the sole mercy of God who hath marked you out from among so many nations which applaud themselves in their error? You are still under the care of your pastors; you still receive from their mouths the doctrine of the apostles; truth still flows upon you in a pure and divine stream; Christian pulpits still resound in every part with the maxims of faith and of piety; and by preserving to you the doctrine and the blessings of instruction, the goodness of God still provides for you a thousand means of salvation.
Nevertheless," when you come to listen to us, do you bring a heart filled with gratitude? Do you consider, as a signal blessing of God, the charge of the truth and of the holy word, which he hath preserved, and permitted still to be announced to you? Do you ever say, with the prophet, " He hath not dealt so with any nation; and as for his judgments, they have not known them?"
Alas! you bring here only vanity and irreligious disgust. The most wearisome of your moments are those which you employ in listening to truths which ought to compose the whole consolation of your life. We are even obliged to respect your languors and disgusts, by often mingling human ornaments with the truth, which is thereby weakened. It would indeed appear, that we come here to speak to you for ourselves; and you give the same attention to us as you do to troublesome mendicants who are soliciting your favour. You have no regret for moments occupied by the frivolous pleasures of a profane spectacle. There alone it is that every thought of business, of fortune, and of family, is rejected as an intrusion, and that, all else forgotten, the mind, formed for more serious matters, feasts with avidity on chimerical adventures. It is from thence that you always come out occupied and delighted with the lascivious maxims promulgated by a criminal theatre. You dwell with transports on those parts which have made the most dangerous impressions upon the heart; you come filled with their remembrance even to the foot of the altar. These images, so fatal to innocence, can no longer be effaced; while, on quitting the word, the only portion retained by your memory is perhaps the defects of him who hath announced it to you.
My brethren, God no longer punisheth in a grievous manner the contempt of his word. He, no doubt, might still transport his Gospel amidst those barbarous nations who have never heard his name, and abandon anew his heritage; he might draw from out of their deserts ferocious and infidel nations, and deliver up to them our temples and our habitations, as he formerly delivered up those churches so celebrated, which the Tertullians, the Cyprians, the Augustines had illustrated, and where now not a trace of Christianity remains but in the insults which Jesus Christ there receives, and in the shackles with which believers are there loaded: he might do it; but he avengeth himself more secretly, and perhaps more terribly. He leaveth to you still the spectacle and all the outward ceremony of the preaching of the Gospel, but he turneth the whole fruit of it upon the simple and ignorant inhabitants of the country; the terrors of faith are no longer but for them. He no longer withdraweth his prophets from cities; but he taketh away from them, if I may venture to say so, the power and the influence of their ministry: he striketh these holy clouds with dryness and unfruitfulness: he raiseth up to you such as render truth flowery and beautiful, but who do not render it amiable; who please, but who do not convert you: he permitteth the holy terrors of his doctrine to be weakened in our mouths: he no longer draweth forth, from the treasures of his mercy, grand characters like those raised up in the ages of our forefathers, who renewed cities and kingdoms, who led the great and the people, and who changed the palaces of kings into houses of penitence: he permitteth that we, weak men, succeed to these apostolic men.
What more shall I add? We assemble here, like Paul formerly in Athens, idle and curious spectators, whose only view is that of hearing something new; while those who perform the functions of their ministry among your vassals, see with consolations at their feet, like Esdras formerly, simple Israelites, who are unable to retain their tears in hearing only the words of the law. We amuse the leisure and the idleness of princes and the great of the earth, while, in the country, holy ministers bring forth Jesus Christ, and reap an abundant harvest: in a word, we preach, and they convert. It is thus, O my God, that in secret thou exercisest severe and terrible judgments.
But, my brethren, why may not we say here to you, what Paul and Barnabas formerly said to the unbelieving Jews? " It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but, seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo! we turn to the Gentiles." We shall therefore turn toward the nations hitherto abandoned, toward those humble and poor people buried in ignorance, who cultivate your lands, and who will, with faith and gratitude, receive that grace which you reject. Ah! our labours there would be much more availing, our yoke more easy, our ministry more consoling: we should not then, it is true, reckon among our hearers, names celebrated in history; but we would reckon the names of those who are written in heaven: we should not see there assembled all those titles and splendid dignities, which form the whole glory of the world which passeth away; but we would there see faith, piety, and innocence, which compose the whole glory of the Christian who eternally endureth: we should not hear there vain applauses given to the language of the man, and not to that of faith; but we would behold those tears flowing which are the immortal praise of grace: our pulpits might not, indeed, be surrounded with so much pomp; but our hearers would be a spectacle worthy of angels, and of God.
Such are the dispositions which ought to prepare you for our instructions. It is necessary now to instruct you on the mind in which you ought to listen to us.
Part II. — In order toward instructing you on the mind in which you ought to listen to the holy word, it is required only to establish at first what are its authority and its end. Its authority, which is divine, demands a respectful and docile mind; its end, which is the conversion of hearts, demands a spirit of faith, which searches in it only such lights as may enable it to quit its errors, and such remedies as may cure its evils.
First. I say that its authority is divine. Yes, my brethren, the word which we announce to you is not our word, but the word of him who sendeth us. From the moment that we are established by him in the holy ministry, through the way of a legitimate call, he willeth that you consider us as sent by him, as speaking to you here on his part, and as only lending our weak voice to his divine words. We bear, it is true, that treasure in vessels of earth; but it thereby loses nothing of its majesty. Like those pitchers which Gideon formerly employed against the enemies of the Lord, the sound may be mean and contemptible; but truth, that divine light which God hath placed within us, is not from thence, less descended from heaven, or destined, like the lamps of Gideon, still to strike with terror unfaithful souls.
Now, you owe, in the first place, to the authority of this divine word, a pious docility and an attention to it, rather in the light of disciples than of judges. In effect, we expose to you the rules of worship and of piety, the decisions of the Gospel, the laws of the church, and the maxims of the holy. We come not here to give you our own opinions, our prejudices, our thoughts; this is not a pulpit of controversy, it is the place of truth: nothing which can afford room for disputation ought ever to find place in the pulpit of peace and of unity; we speak here in the name of the church, and are only the interpreters of her faith and of her doctrine.
Nevertheless, how many of those men, so wise in their own conceit, and who pique themselves upon sagacity and reason, come here with a mind set against, and, as it were, watchfully upon guard against all the terrors of the holy word! They make not a boast, like the sinners we have lately mentioned, of being callous to all truth; but they look upon our ministry as an art of exaggeration and hyperbole; the most holy emotions of zeal are only, in their opinion, studied tricks of human artifice; the most awful threatenings, only the sallies of a vain eloquence; the most incontrovertible maxims, only discourses adapted rather to custom than to truth. Such, my brethren, is the deplorable situation in which the greatest part of you find yourselves here. You always inwardly oppose, to that truth which we announce, the maxims and the prejudices of the world, which contradict it; you are ingenious in weakening in your own breast, by specious reasons, the pretended excess of our maxims; you come here to combat, and not to yield to the force, or to the light of truth; you come here, it would seem, only in order to enter into contestation with God, to invalidate the eternal immutability of his word, to undertake the interests of error against the glory of truth, and to be the inward apologists of the world and of the passions, even in that holy place destined to condemn and to combat them. Ah! suffer that truth, at least, to triumph in its own temple; dispute not with it that feeble victory, which has formerly triumphed over the whole universe; oppress it, and welcome, amidst the world, and in those assemblies of vanity which error collects, and where error is enthroned. Is it not enough that you have banished it from the world, and that it dare no longer show itself without being exposed to derisions and censures? Leave to us, at least, the melancholy consolation of daring still to publish it in the face of those altars which it hath raised up, and which ought surely to serve it, at least, as a place of refuge.
You accuse us of exaggeration. Great God! And thou wilt one day perhaps judge us for weakening the force and the influence of thy word, in consequence of not giving sufficient consideration to it at the feet of the altars! And thou wilt one day perhaps reproach us for having accommodated the holy severities of thy Gospel to the indulgences and the softenings of our age! And thou wilt perhaps range us one day among the workers of iniquity, because the lukewarmness and negligence of our manners have taken from the word, which we announce, that terror and that divine vehemence which can only be found in a mouth consecrated by piety and by penitence!
How, my brethren! The truths of salvation, such as Jesus Christ hath set forth to us, would be incapable of alarming consciences, were the mind of man not to add extraneous terrors to them? Paul formerly exaggerated, then, when the Roman governor, in spite of the pride of a false wisdom, and all the prejudices of an idolatrous worship, trembled, says St. Luke, while hearing him speak of righteousness, of temperance, and of the awful spectacle of a judgment to come? Paul, then, exaggerated, when the inhabitants of cities came striking their breasts, melting in tears at his feet, and bringing into the middle of the public places the lascivious or impious books, and all the other instruments of their passions, in order to make a sacrifice of them to the Lord?
You accuse us of adding additional terrors to the words of the Gospel; but where are the consciences which we disturb? Where are the sinners whom we alarm? Where are the worldly souls, who, seized with dread on their departure from our discourses, go to conceal themselves in the deepest solitudes, and, by holy excesses of penitence, to expiate the dissoluteness of their past manners? The ages which have preceded us have often been such examples. Do we ever witness such instances now? Ah! would to God, said formerly a holy father, that you could convict me of having inspired a single soul with these salutary terrors! Would to God, said he to some worldly sages of his time, who accused him of exaggerating the dangers and the corruption of the world, that a single instance might support your assertion! And I may say to you here, with even more reason than that grand character, Would to God that the consequences of so blessed an indiscretion could be shown to me! Would to God that you had examples with which to reproach us, in justification of your censures! Ah! we with pleasure would suffer the blame, could but the success be shown to us with which we are reproached!
Alas! we manage only too much, perhaps, your weakness; we respect, perhaps too much, customs which a long usage has consecrated, in the fear of appearing to censure the grand examples by which they are authorized; we dare scarcely speak of certain irregularities, lest our censures should appear to fall rather on the persons than on the vices; we are obliged to content ourselves with showing truths to you from afar, which we ought to place immediately under your eye; and even your salvation frequently suffers through the excess of our precautions and our timid prudence. What shall I say? Weakness often extorts from us praises, where zeal ought to place anathemas and censures: like the world, we allow ourselves to be dazzled by names and titles; that which formerly encouraged the Ambroses intimidates us; and, because we owe you respect, we often keep back from you that truth which we ought still more to respect: yet, after all this, you accuse us of exaggerating, of overstraining truths, and of fashioning from them phantoms of our own brain, in order to alarm those who listen to us.
But what advantage could we draw from an artifice so unworthy of that truth confided to us? These overstrained and puerile declamations might suit the venal eloquence of those Sophists, who, amid the Grecian schools, anxiously sought to attract disciples to themselves, by vaunting the wisdom of their sect. But for us, my brethren, ah! our wish would be to have it in our power to render your path more easy, far from throwing fresh obstacles in the way. Wherefore should we dishearten you in the enterprise of salvation, by starting chimerical difficulties? It is our duty to smooth such as may actually be found in it, and to tender you an assisting hand, in order to sustain your weakness.
Meditate, my brethren, upon the law of Jesus Christ. What do I say? Only open the Gospel, and read; then shall you find that we draw' a veil of discretion over the severity of its maxims; then, far from complaining of our excesses, you will yourselves supply the deficiencies of our silence and of our softenings, and will say to yourselves what we dread to say, because ye could never bear it. Great God! To bear his cross every day, to despise the world and all it contains, to live as a stranger upon the earth, to attach himself to thee alone, to renounce all which flatters the senses, incessantly to renounce himself, to consider as happy those who weep or who are afflicted, — behold the substance of thy holy law, and which every Christian undertakes. O! what can the human mind add to the rigour of this doctrine? What could we announce to you more melancholy or more formidable to self-love? Consequently, your reproaches are merely a vain language of the world, and one of those fashions of speaking which no one examines, and each adopts; your conscience inwardly belies it; and when you speak candidly, you confess that we are in the right, and that the Gospel is a preacher much more severe and more fearful for the world, and for those who love it, than it could be possible for us ever to be.
First duty which the authority of the holy word exacts of you, namely, a docile spirit.
Secondly. You owe to the authority of this holy word, a spirit of sincerity, and inward application of it to yourself; that is to say, to be a rigorous examinator here of your own conscience; to have incessantly before your eyes, on one side, the state of your soul, and, on the other, the truths which we announce; to measure yourself according to that rule; to search into yourself by that light; to judge yourself by that law; to listen to, as if addressed to you alone, the holy maxims announced to the multitude; to consider yourself as alone here before Jesus Christ, who speaks to you alone through our mouth, and who sends us here perhaps for you alone. For, my brethren, no one here takes to himself that truth which attacks and condemns him; no one thinks himself an interested personage: it would seem that we form at pleasure to ourselves phantoms of the brain, for the purpose of combating them, and that the reality of that sinner whom we attack is no where in existence. The lewd and dissolute person recognizes not himself in the most animated and most striking traits of his passion. The man, loaded with ill-acquired wealth, and perhaps with the blood and spoils of the people, joins with us in deprecating that very iniquity in others, and sees not that he judges himself. The courtier, consumed with ambition, and who sacrifices conscience and integrity every day to that idol, frankly admits of the meanness of that passion in his equals, and looks upon it as a virtue, and as a deep experience of the court, in himself. Every one continually views himself by certain favourable sides, which effectually hinder him from ever knowing himself such as he is. In vain do we mark you, as I may say, in the most pointed manner; you always inwardly find out some softened traits, which alter the resemblance. You whisper to yourself, I am not this man. And, while the public makes application of such striking truths to us, we alone either succeed in being convinced that they are not drawn for us, or we only find in them the defects of our brethren: in our own exactest portraits, we search out foreign likenesses; we are ingenious in turning the blow upon others, which truth hath given to us alone; the malignity of the application is the only fruit which we reap from that picture of our vices made from the pulpit, and we rashly judge our brethren where we ought to have judged only ourselves. And thus it is, O my God! that men become corrupted, misapply every thing, and that even the light of truth seals up their eyes upon their own errors, and opens them only to see in others either what is not, or what it ought to have kept entirely hid from them.
Such are the duties which the authority of the holy word exacts of you. Let us now proceed to those attached to its end. Its end, my brethren, you know, is the conversion of hearts, the establishment of truth, the destruction of error and of sin, and the sanctification of the name of Jesus Christ. All there is grand, elevated, important, and worthy of the most sublime function of the hierarchy; and, consequently, it is from thence to be inferred, that you ought to listen to us with a respectful and religious spirit, which despises not the simplicity of our discourses, and with a spirit of faith which seeks nothing human in it, nothing frivolous, nothing which does not correspond with the excellency and the dignity of its end.
I say, a spirit of religious respect, which despises not the simplicity of our discourses; for, however enlightened you may in other respects be, you ought not, in consequence of your pretended lights, to claim a title to neglect the instructions of the church to believers. The unction of the Spirit will always inform you of something here, of which you would perhaps have remained ignorant. If possessed of that knowledge which is the cause of pride, you will be strengthened in that charity which edifies. If your mind acquire nothing new, your heart shall perhaps be made to feel new things: you will there, at least, learn that your knowledge is nothing, if you be ignorant of the science of salvation; that you are but a cloud without moisture, — elevated, it is true, above other men, by your talents, and by the superiority of your knowledge, but empty of grace, and the sport of every wind and of every passion in the sight of God; and, lastly, that a simple and pure soul shall, in an instant, be taught the whole in the bosom of God, and shall be transformed from light to light; while, on the contrary, that you, after an entire life of watchings and ardent study, and the attainment of a useless mass of knowledge and lights, shall perhaps reap for your portion only eternal darkness.
What a mistake, my brethren, to banish yourselves from these holy assemblies, under pretence that you already know enough, and likewise that you are already sufficiently versed in all the duties of piety, which you have long professed; and that Christian reading, and a small degree of reflection in private, go a greater way, and are attended with more benefit, than all our discourses! But, my dear hearer, if you profess piety and righteousness, what sweeter consolation can you enjoy, than that of hearing the wonders of the Lord published, the ordinances of his holy law, truths which you love and practise, and of which you ought to wish the knowledge to be given to all men? What sight more soothing and consoling to you than that of your brethren assembled here at the foot of the altar, attentive to the words of life, absent from the spectacles of the world, and removed from the occasions of sin, forming holy desires, opening their hearts to the voice of God, perhaps conceiving the promises of the Holy Spirit, and the commencement of their penitence, and to be enabled to join yourself with them, in order to obtain from the Father of mercies, the completion in their soul of the work of salvation, which he hath begun to operate within them?
Not but that the most consolatory resources are furnished to Christian piety, by the meditation of the divine writings. But the Lord hath attached graces to the power of our ministry, and to the legitimate calling, which you will not find elsewhere. The most simple truths in the mouths of the pastors, or of those who speak to you in their place, draw an efficacy from the grace of their mission, which is not inherent to them. The same book of Isaiah, which, when read from a chariot by that officer of the queen of Ethiopia, was to him as a book sealed up, and only amused his leisure without enlightening his faith, — explained by Philip, instantly became to him a word of life, and of salvation. And, lastly, you owe that example to your brethren, that edification to the church, that respect to the word of Jesus Christ, that uniformity to the spirit of peace and of unity, which binds us together. O, banish yourselves, and so much the better, from those profane and criminal assemblies, where piety, alas! is always a stranger, suffering, and constrained: but here is its place, and its home; this is the assembly of the holy, seeing it is only toward their formation that our ministry hath been established, and still continues to endure in the church.
I have said, in the second place, a spirit of faith; and in this disposition, two others are comprised: — a love of the holy word, independent of the talents of the man who announces it to you; a taste, formed by religion, which comes not here in search of vain ornaments, but of the solid truths of salvation; that is to say, to listen to it, neither with a spirit of censure nor with a spirit of curiosity.
And, in effect, your love of the word of Jesus Christ ought to render you blind, as I may say, to the defects of those who announce it to you: in a mouth even rude and unpolished, you ought to find it lovely, divine, and worthy of all your homage; in whatever shape it be presented to you, decked with pompous ornaments, or simple and neglected, provided that its celestial traits are still to be recognised, it preserves the same rights over your heart. And, indeed, is any portion of its sanctity lost by passing through less brilliant and less copious channels? Did the holy word of the Lord lose any thing of its dignity, whether he formerly gave it out from a bush, mean and despicable to the sight, or from a cloud of glory; — whether he gave out his oracles in the midst of the desert, and in a tabernacle covered with the skins of animals, or in the temple of Solomon, the most magnificent which hath ever been raised up to the glory of his name? And did the faith of Israel make any distinction, when it was the same Lord who every where spake?
Nevertheless, how few among all those who listen to us, who do not constitute themselves judges and censurers of the holy word! They come here merely for the purpose of deciding on the merit of those who announce it, of drawing foolish comparisons, of pronouncing on the difference of the lights and of the instructions; they think it an honour the being difficult to please; they pass without attention over the most striking truths, and which might be of the most essential benefit to all; and the only fruit reaped by them from a Christian discourse is confined to the miserable pride of having, better than any other, remarked its defects. This is so truly the case, that we may with justice apply to the greatest part of our hearers what Joseph, become the preserver of Egypt, said, through pure artifice, to his brethren: — It is not to seek food that you are come here; it is as spies, to see the nakedness of the land. It is not to nourish yourselves with the bread of the word, or to seek assistance and efficacious remedies for your evils, that you come to listen to us; it is in order to find out cause for applying some vain censures, and to show your skill in remarking our defects; which defects are perhaps a terrible punishment upon you of the Lord, who, in consequence of your crimes, refuseth more accomplished labourers in his vineyard, who would have been enabled to recall you to repentance.
But candidly, my brethren, however weak our language may be, do we not always say enough to overthrow you, to dissipate your errors, and to make you inwardly confess irregularities which you are unable to justify to yourselves? Are such sublime talents required to tell you that fornicators, extortioners, and men without mercy, shall never enter the kingdom of God; that unless you become penitent, you shall perish; and that it matters little to become master of the whole world, if you thereby lose your soul? Is it not, in fact, that very simplicity which constitutes the whole force, and gives such energy to these divine truths? And ought they to be less alarming to the criminal souls, though in the mouth of the most obscure individual of the ministry?
And besides, granting that it were here permitted us to recommend ourselves, as the apostle formerly said to ungrateful believers, more attentive to censure the simplicity of his appearance and of his language, and, as he says himself, his contemptible figure in the eyes of men, than touched with the endless fatigues and dangers which he had surmounted, in order to announce to them the Gospel, and to convert them to truth; were it permitted, we might say to you, my brethren, we sustain, solely on your account, the whole weight of a painful and laborious ministry; our cares, our watchings, our prayers, the endless toilings which qualify us for, and accompany us in, these Christian pulpits, have no other object but that of your salvation. O! do not our pains entitle us at least to your respect and gratitude? Is it possible that that zeal which suffers all, in order to secure your salvation, can ever become the melancholy subject of your derisions and censures? Demand of God, good and well, that, for the glory of the church and for the honour of his Gospel, he raise up to his people labourers powerful in speech, of those men whom the sole unction of the Spirit of God renders nervous and eloquent, and who announce the Gospel in a manner worthy of its elevation and sanctity. But likewise demand, that, when we happen therein to fail, your faith may supply the deficiencies of our discourses; that your piety may render the truth, in your own hearts, that which it loses in our mouths; and that, through your unrighteous distastes, you force not the ministers of the Gospel to have recourse, in order to please you, to the vain artifices and colouring of a human eloquence, to shine rather than to instruct, and like the Israelites formerly, to go down to the Philistines to sharpen their instruments, destined solely to cultivate the earth: — I mean to say, to seek in profane learning, or in the language of a hostile world, foreign ornaments to embellish the simplicity of the Gospel; and to give to instruments, and to talents destined to increase, to multiply, and to strengthen the holy seed, a vain brilliancy and a subtlety which blunt its energy and its virtue, and which substitute a false splendour in the place of truth and zeal.
And now, my brethren, behold the last fault inimical to that spirit of faith; it is a spirit of curiosity. You do not sufficiently distinguish the holy gravity of our ministry from that vain and frivolous art which has nothing in view but the arrangement of the Discourse and the glory of eloquence; you assist at our discourses with the same view as Augustine, still a sinner, did in former times at those of Ambrose. It was not, says that illustrious penitent, in order to learn from the mouth of the man of God the secrets of eternal life, which I had so long sought, nor the desire of finding in them remedies for the shameful and inveterate wounds of my soul, and which thou, O my God! alone art acquainted with; it was in order to examine whether his eloquence corresponded with his great reputation, and if his discourses warranted the unbounded applauses which his hearers bestowed upon him. The truths which he announced interested me not; I was moved only by the beauty and the charms of the Discourse.
And such is still, at present, the deplorable situation of far too many believers who listen to us; who, like Augustine, loaded with crimes, and fettered with the most shameful passions, far from coming here to seek remedies for their evils, come in search of vain ornaments, which amuse without curing the afflicted, which are the means of our pleasing the sinner, but have no influence toward making the sinner displeased with himself. They come here, it would appear, to say to us what the inhabitants of Babylon formerly said to the captive Israelites, — " Sing us one of the songs of Zion." They come in search of harmony and delight, in the serious and important truths of the morality of Jesus Christ; in the sighs of the sorrowful Zion, captive in a strange land; and require of us that we flatter the ear while publishing the threatenings and the rigid maxims of the Gospel.
O! you who now listen to me, and whom this Discourse regards, reflect for a moment, I entreat of you, upon yourselves! Your case is, as it were, desperate in the eyes of God; your wounds, become virulent through their long-standing, no longer leave almost a hope of cure; your evils press; time is short; God, wearied with having so long borne with you, is at last on the point of striking and of surprising you: behold the eternal miseries which we foretel to you, and which happen every day to your equals. You are not far distant from the fulfilment: we show you the terrible sword of the Lord suspended over your head, and ready to fall upon you; and, far from shuddering at the after part of your destiny, or taking any measures to avoid the impending blow, you childishly amuse yourselves in examining whether it shine and have a lustre! and you search, even in the terrors of the prediction, for the puerile beauties of a vain eloquence. Great God! how despicable and how worthy of derision doth the sinner appear when we view him through thy light!
For, my brethren, are we then here upon a profane tribunal, for the purpose of courting, with artificial words, the suffrages of an idle assembly, or in a Christian pulpit, and in the place of Jesus Christ, to instruct, to reprove, and to sanctify you, in the name and under the eyes of him who sends us? Is it here a dispute for worldly fame, an idle exercise of the faculties, or the most holy and the most important ministry of faith? O! why do you come to loiter away with our feeble talents, or to seek human qualifications where God alone speaketh and acteth? Are not the humblest instruments the most suitable to the mightiness of his grace? Do not the walls of Jericho fall when he pleaseth, at the sound of the weakest trumpets? O! what matters it to us that we please, if we do not change you? Of what consequence is it to us, the being eloquent, if you continue always sinners? What fruit can we reap from your applauses, if you reap none yourselves from our instructions? Our only praise, our only glory, is the establishment of the reign of God in your hearts; your tears alone, much rather than your applauses, can prove our eulogium; and we covet no other crown than yourselves, and your eternal salvation.