SERMON XXVII.
FOR THE DAY OF THE EPIPHANY.
" For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him." — Matthew ii. 2.
Truth, that light of Heaven, figured by the star which on this day appears to the magi, is the only thing here below worthy of the cares and the researches of man. It alone is the light of our mind, the rule of our heart, the source of solid joys, the foundation of our hopes, the consolation of our fears, the alleviation of our evils, the cure for all our afflictions: it alone is the refuge of the good conscience, and the terror of the bad; the inward punishment of vice, the internal recompense of virtue: it alone immortalizes those who have loved it, and renders illustrious the chains of those who suffer for it; attracts public honours to the ashes of its martyrs and defenders, and bestows respectability on the abjection and the poverty of those who have quitted all to follow it: lastly, it alone inspires magnanimous thoughts, forms heroical men, souls of whom the world is unworthy, sages alone worthy of that name. All our attentions ought therefore to be confined to know it; all our talents to manifest it; all our zeal to defend it. In men we ought then to look only for truth, to have no wish of pleasing them but by truth, to esteem in them only truth, and to be resolved that they never shall please us but by it. In a word, it would appear that it should have only to show itself, as on this day to the magi, to be loved; and that it shows us to ourselves in order to teach us to know ourselves.
Nevertheless, it is astonishing what different impressions the same truth makes upon men. To some it is a light which directs their steps, and, in pointing out their duty, renders it amiable to them: to others it is a troublesome light, and as it were, a kind of dazzling, which vexes and fatigues them: lastly, to many it is a thick mist which irritates, inflames them with rage, and completes their blindness. It is the same star which, on this day, appears in the firmament: the magi see it; the priests of Jerusalem know that it is foretold in the prophets; Herod can no longer doubt that it hath appeared, seeing wise men come from the extremities of the east, to seek, guided by its light, the new King of the Jews. Nevertheless, how dissimilar are the dispositions with which they receive the same truth manifested to them!
In the magi it finds a docile and sincere heart: in the priests, a heart mean, deceitful, cowardly, and dissembling: in Herod, a corrupted and hardened heart. Consequently, it forms worshippers in the magi, dissemblers in the priests, and in Herod a persecutor. Now, my brethern, such is still at present among us the lot of truth: it is a celestial light which is shown to us, says St. Augustine; but few receive it, many hide and dim it, and a still greater number contemn and persecute it: it shows itself to all, but how many indocile souls who reject it! How many mean and cowardly souls who dissemble it! How many black and hardened hearts who oppress and persecute it! Let us collect these three marked characters in our Gospel, which are to instruct us in all our duties relative to truth: truth received, truth dissembled, truth persecuted. Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth, destroy in us the spirit of the world, that spirit of error, of dissimulation, of hatred against the truth; and in this holy place, destined to form ministers, who are to announce it even in the extremities of the earth, render us worthy of loving the truth, of manifesting it to those who know it not, and of suffering all for its sake.
Part I. — I call truth that eternal rule, that internal light incessantly present within us, which, in every action, points out to us what we ought, and what we ought not to do; which enlightens our doubts, judges our judgments; which inwardly condemns or approves us, according as our behaviour is agreeable or contrary to its light; and which, in certain moments more splendid and bright, more evidently points out to us the way in which we ought to walk, and is figured to us by that miraculous light which on this day, conducts the magi to Jesus Christ.
Now, I say, that the first use which we ought to make of truth, being for ourselves, the church, on this day, proposes to us, in the conduct of the magi, a model of those dispositions which alone can render the knowledge of truth beneficial and salutary to us. There are few souls, however they may be plunged in the senses and in the passions, whose eyes are not at times opened upon the vanity of the interests they pursue, upon the grandeur of the hopes which they sacrifice, and upon the ignominy of the life which they lead. But, alas! their eyes are opened to the light, only to be closed again in an instant; and the sole fruit which they reap, from the truth which is visible to, and enlightens them, is that of adding to the misfortune of having hitherto been ignorant of it, the guilt of having afterward known it in vain.
Some confine themselves to vain reasonings upon the light which strikes them, and turn truth into a subject of controversy and vain philosophy: others, with minds yet unsettled, wish, it would appear, to know it; but they seek it not in an effectual way, because they would, at bottom, be heartily sorry to have found it: lastly, others, more tractable, allow themselves to be wrought upon by its evidence, but, discouraged by the difficulties and the self-denials which it presents to them, they receive it not with that delight and that gratitude which, when once known, it inspires. And behold the rocks, which the dispositions of the sages of the east toward that light of Heaven, which comes to show new routes to them, teach us to shun.
Accustomed, in consequence of a public profession of wisdom and philosophy, to investigate every thing, and reduce it to the judgment of a vain reason, and to be far above all popular prejudices, they stop not, however, before commencing their journey, upon the faith of the celestial light, to examine if the appearance of this new star might not be solved by natural causes; they do not assemble from every quarter scientific men, in order to reason on an event so uncommon; they sacrifice no time to vain difficulties, which generally arise, more from the repugnance we feel to truth, than from a sincere desire of enlightening ourselves, and of knowing it. Instructed by that tradition of their fathers which the captive Israelites had formerly carried into the east, and which Daniel and so many other prophets, had announced there, relative to the Star of Jacob which should one day appear, they at once comprehended, that the vain reflections of the human mind have no connexion with the light of heaven; that the portion of light which heaven shows them is sufficient to determine and to conduct them; that grace always leaves obscurities in the ways to which it calls us, in order not to deprive faith of the merit of submission; and that, whenever we are so happy as to catch a single gleam of truth, the uprightness of the heart ought to supply whatever deficiency may yet remain in the evidence of the light.
Nevertheless, how many souls in the world, wavering upon faith, or rather enslaved by passions which render doubtful to them that truth which condemns them; how many souls thus floating, clearly see, that, at bottom, the religion of our fathers hath marks of truth which the most high-flown and proudest reason would not dare to deny to it; that unbelief leads to too much; that after all, we must hold to something; and that total unbelief is a choice still more incomprehensible to reason than the mysteries which shock it; who see it, and who struggle, by endless disputes, to lull that worm of the conscience which incessantly reproaches their error and their folly; who resist that truth, which proves itself in the bottom of their heart, under the pretence of enlightening themselves; who apply for advice only that they may say to themselves, that their doubts are unanswerable; who have recourse to the most learned, only to have the power of alleging, as a fresh motive of unbelief, the having had recourse in vain! It would seem that religion is no longer but a matter of discourse; it is no longer considered as that important affair in which not a moment is to be lost; it is a simple matter of controversy, as formerly in the Areopagus; it fills up the idle time; it is one of those unimportant questions which fill up the vacancies of conversation, and amuse the languor and the vanity of general intercourse.
But, my brethern, "the kingdom of God cometh not with observation." Truth is not the fruit of controversy and dispute, but of tears and groanings; it is by purifying our heart in meditation and in prayer that we alone must expect, like the magi, the light of heaven, and to become worthy of distinguishing and knowing it. A corrupted heart, says St. Augustine, may see the truth; but he is incapable of relishing or of loving it; in vain do you enlighten and instruct yourselves: your doubts are in your passions: religion will become evident and clear from the moment that you shall become chaste, temperate, and equitable; and you will have faith from the moment that you shall cease to have vice. Consequently, from the instant that you cease to have an interest in finding religion false, you will find it incontestable; no longer hate its maxims, and you will no longer contest its mysteries.
Augustine himself, already convinced of the truth of the Gospel, still found, in the love of pleasure, a source of doubts and perplexities which checked him. It was no longer the dreams of the Manicheans which kept him removed from faith; he was fully sensible of their absurdity and fanaticism: it was no longer the pretended contradictions of our holy books; Ambrose had explained their purport and their adorable mysteries. Nevertheless, he still doubted; the sole thought of having to renounce his shameful passions in becoming a disciple of faith, rendered it still suspicious to him. He would have wished either that the doctrine of Jesus Christ had been an imposition, or that it had not condemned his voluptuous excesses, without which, indeed, he was then unable to comprehend how either a happy or a comfortable life could be led. Thus, always floating and unwilling to be settled; continually consulting, yet dreading to be instructed; by turns the disciple and admirer of Ambrose, and racked by the perplexities of a heart which shunned the truth, he dragged his chain, as he says himself, dreading to be delivered from it; he continued to start doubts merely to prolong his passions; he wished to be yet more enlightened because he dreaded to be it too much; and, more the slave of his passions than of his errors, he rejected truth, which manifested itself to him, merely because he looked upon it as a victorious and irresistible hand which was at last come to break asunder those fetters which he still loved. The light of Heaven finds, therefore, no doubts to dissipate in the minds of the magi, because it finds no passion in their hearts to overcome; and they well deserve to be the first-fruits of the Gentiles, and the first disciples of that faith which was to subjugate all nations to the Gospel.
Not but it is often necessary to acid, to our own light, the approbation of those who are established, to distinguish whether it be the right spirit which moves us; fallacy is so similar to truth, that it is not easy to avoid being sometimes deceived. Thus the magi, in order to be more surely confirmed in the truth of the prodigy which guides their steps, come straight to Jerusalem: they consult the priests and the scribes, as the only persons capable of discovering to them that truth which they seek; they boldly and openly demand in the midst of that great city. " Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" They propose their question with no palliations calculated to attract an equivocal answer; they are determined to be enlightened; and wish not to be flattered; from their heart they seek the truth, and for that reason, they find it.
New disposition, sufficiently rare among believers. Alas! we find not truth, because we never seek it with a sincere and upright heart; we diffuse a kind of mist over every attempt to find it, which conceals it from our view: we consult, but we place our passions in so favourable a light, we hold them out in colours so softened, and so similar to the truth, that we procure a reply of its being really so: we wish not to be instructed; we wish to be deceived, and to add, to the passion which enslaves us, an authority which may calm us.
Such is the illusion of the majority of men, and frequently even of those who, become contrite, have quitted the errors of a worldly life. Yes, my brethren, let us search our own hearts, and we shall find, that, however sincere our conversion may otherwise be, yet there is always within us some particular point, some secret and privileged attachment, upon which we are not candid; upon which we never but very imperfectly instruct the guide of our conscience; upon which we seek not with sincerity the truth; upon which, in a word, it would even grieve us to have found it; and from thence it is, that the weaknesses of the pious and good always furnish so many traits to the derision of the worldly; from thence we attract upon virtue continual reproaches and censures, which ought to light only upon ourselves. Nevertheless, to hear us speak, we love the truth; we are desirous of having it shown to us. But a convincing proof of that being only a vain mode of speaking, is, that whatever concerns, or has any allusion to this cherished passion, is carefully avoided by all around us; our friends are silent upon it; our superiors are obliged to use an artful delicacy, not to injure our feelings; our inferiors are upon their guard, and employ continual precautions; we are never spoken to but with lenitives which draw a veil over our sore; we are almost the only persons ignorant of our defect: the whole world sees it, yet no one has the courage to make it known to ourselves: it is clearly seen that we seek not with sincerity the truth; and that, far from curing us, the hand which should dare to probe our sore, would only succeed in making a fresh one.
David knew not, and respected not, the sanctity of Nathan, till after that prophet had spoken to him, with sincerity, of the scandal of his conduct; from that day, and ever afterward, he considered him as his father and deliverer; but, with us, a person loses all his merit from the moment that he has forced us to know ourselves. Before that, he was enlightened, prudent, full of charity; he possessed every talent calculated to attract esteem and confidence; the John the Baptists were listened to with pleasure, as formerly by an incestuous king: but, from the moment that they have undisguisedly spoken to us; from the moment that they have said to us, " It is not lawful for thee," they are stripped, in our opinion, of all their grand qualities: their zeal is no longer but whim; their charity but an ostentation, or a desire to censure and contradict; their piety but an imprudence or a cheat, with which they cover their pride; their truth but a mistaken phantom. Thus, frequently convinced in our minds of the iniquity of our passions, we would wish others to give them their approbation; forced, by the inward testimony of the truth, to reproach them to ourselves, we cannot endure that they should be mentioned to us by others: we are hurt and irritated that others should join us against ourselves. Like Saul, we exact of the Samuels, that they approve, in public, what we inwardly condemn; and, through a corruption of the heart, perhaps more deplorable than our passions themselves, unable to silence truth in the bottom of our heart, we would wish to extinguish it in the hearts of all who approach us. I was right, therefore, in saying, that we all make a boast of loving the truth, but that few court it, like the magi, with an upright and a sincere heart.
Thus, the little attention which they pay to the difficulties which seemed to dissuade them from that research, is a fresh proof of its sincerity and heartiness. For, my brethren, how singular must not this extraordinary step, which grace proposed to them, have at first appeared to their mind! They alone, of all their nation, among so many sages and learned men, without regard to friends and connexions, in spite of public observations and derisions, while all others either contemn this miraculous star, or consider the attention paid to it, and the design of these three sages, as an absurd undertaking and a popular weakness, unworthy of their mind and knowledge, — they alone declare against the common opinion; they alone entrust themselves to the new guide, which Heaven sends them; they alone abandon their country and their children, and reckon as nothing a singularity, the necessity and wisdom of which the celestial light discloses to them.
Last instruction. The cause, my brethren, of truth being always unavailingly shown to us, is, that we judge not of it by the lights which it leaves in our soul, but by the impression which it makes on the rest of men with whom we live: we never consult the truth in our heart; we consult only the opinions which others have of it. Thus, in vain doth the light of Heaven a thousand times intrude upon us, and point out the ways in which we ought to go; the very first glance which we afterward cast upon the example of others who live like us, revives us, and spreads a fresh mist over our heart. In those fortunate moments when we consult the sole truth of our own conscience, we condemn ourselves; we tremble over a futurity; we promise to ourselves a new life; yet, a moment after, when returned to the world, and no longer consulting but the general example, we justify ourselves, and regain that false security which we had lost. We have no confidence in the truth which the common example disproves; we sacrifice it to error and to the public opinion; it becomes suspicious to us, because it has chosen out us alone to favour with its light, and the very singularity of the blessing is the cause of our ingratitude and opposition. We cannot comprehend, that, to work out our salvation, is to distinguish ourselves from the rest of men; is to live single amidst the multitude; is to be an individual supporter of our own cause, in the midst of a world which either condemns or despises us; is, in a word, to count examples as nothing, and to be affected by our duty alone. We cannot comprehend, that, to devote ourselves to destruction, it requires only to live as others do; to conform to the multitude; to form with it only one body and one world; seeing the world is already judged; that it is that body of the antichrist which shall perish with its head and members; that criminal city, accursed and condemned to an eternal anathema. Yes, my brethren, the greatest obstacle in our hearts, to grace and truth, is the public opinion. How many timid souls, who have not the courage to adopt the righteous side, merely because the world, to whose view they are exposed, would join against them! Thus, the king of Assyria durst not declare himself for the God of Daniel, because the grandees of his court would have reprobated such a step. How many weak souls, who, disgusted with pleasures, only continue to pursue them through a false honour, and that they may not distinguish themselves from those who set an example of them! Thus, Aaron, in the midst of the Israelites, danced around the golden calf, and joined them in offering up incense to the idol which he detested, because he had not the courage, singly, to resist the public error and blindness. Fools that we are! it is the sole example of the public which confirms us against truth; as if men were our truth, or that it were upon the earth, and not in heaven, that we ought, like the magi, to search for that rule and that light which are to guide us.
It is true, that, frequently, it is not respect for the world's opinion, but the sufferings and self-denials it holds out to us, which extinguish truth in our heart: thus, it makes us sorrowful, like that young man of the Gospel, and we do not receive it with that delight testified by the magi on seeing the miraculous star. They had beheld the magnificence of Jerusalem, the pomp of its buildings, the majesty of its temple, the splendour and grandeur of Herod's court; but the Gospel makes no mention of their having been affected by that vain display of human pomp: they behold all these grand objects of desire without attention, pleasure, or any exterior marks of admiration or surprise; they express no wish to view the treasures and the riches of the temple, as those ambassadors from Babylon formerly did to Hezekiah: solely taken up with the light of Heaven manifested to them, they have no eyes for any earthly object; feeling to the truth alone which has enlightened them, every thing else is an object of indifference, or a burden to them; and their heart, viewing all things in their proper light, no longer acknowledges either delight, interest, or consolation to be found in any thing but the truth.
On our part, my brethren, the first rays of truth which the goodness of God shed on our heart, probably excited a sensible delight. The project we at first formed of a new life; the novelty of the lights which shone upon us, and upon which we had not as yet fully opened our eyes; the lassitude itself, and disgust of those passions of which our heart now felt only the bitterness and the punishment; the novelty of the occupations which we proposed to ourselves in a change; all these offered smiling images to our fancy: for novelty itself is pleasing: but this, as the Gospel says, was only the joy of a season. In proportion as truth drew near, it assumed to us, as to Augustine, yet a sinner, an appearance less captivating and smiling. When, after our first glance, as I may say, of it, we had leisurely and minutely examined the various duties it prescribed to us; the grievous separations which were now to be a law to us; retirement, prayer, the self-denials which it proved to be indispensable; that serious, occupied, and private life in which we were to be engaged; — ah! we immediately, like the young man of the Gospel, began to draw back sorrowful and uneasy; all our passions roused up fresh obstacles to it; every thing now presented itself in gloomy and totally different colours; and that which we had at first thought to be so attractive, when brought near, was no longer in our eyes but a frightful object, a way rugged, terrifying, and impracticable to human weakness.
Where are the souls, who, like the magi, after having once known the truth, never afterward wish to see but it alone; have no longer eyes for the world, for its empty pleasures, or for the vanity of its pompous shows; who feel no delight but in the contemplation of truth: in making it their resource in every affliction, the spur of their indolence, their succour against temptation, and the purest delight of their soul? And how vain, puerile, and disgusting doth the world, with all its pleasures, hopes, and grandeurs, indeed appear to a soul who hath known thee, O my God! and who hath felt the truth of thine eternal promises; to a soul who feels that whatever is not thee is unworthy of him: and who considers the earth only as the country of those who must perish for ever! Nothing is consolatory to him but what opens the prospect of real and lasting riches; nothing appears worthy of his regard but what is to endure for ever; nothing has the power of pleasing him but what shall eternally please him: nothing is longer capable of attaching him but that which he is no more to lose; and all the trifling objects of vanity are no longer, on his part, but the embarrassments of his piety, or gloomy monuments which recall the remembrance of his crimes.
Behold, in the instance of the magi, truth received with submission, with sincerity, and with delight; in the conduct of the priests, let us see the truth dissembled; and, after being instructed in the use which we ought to make of truth with regard to ourselves, let us learn what is our duty, respecting it, to others.
Part II. — The first duty required of us by the law of charity toward our brethren, is the duty of truth. We are not bound to bestow on all men our attentions, our cares, and our officious services: to all we owe the truth. The different situations in which rank and birth place us in the world, diversify our duties with regard to our fellow-creatures: in every situation of life that of truth is the same. We owe it to the great equally as the humble; to our subjects as to our masters; to the lovers of it, as to those who hate it; to those who mean to employ it against ourselves, as to those who wish it only for their own benefit. There are conjunctures in which prudence permits to hide and to dissemble the love which we bear for our brethren: none can possibly exist in which we are permitted to dissemble the truth: in a word, truth is not our own property, we are only its witnesses, its defenders, and its depositaries. It is that spark, that light of God, which should illuminate the whole world; and, when we dissemble or obscure it, we are unjust toward our brethren, and ungrateful toward the Father of Light who hath spread it through our soul.
Nevertheless, the world is filled with dissemblers of the truth. We live, it would appear, only to deceive each other: and society, the first bond of which ought to be truth, is no longer but a commerce of dissimulation, duplicity, and cunning. Now, in the conduct of the priests of our Gospel, let us view all the different kinds of dissimulation of which men render themselves every day culpable toward truth; we shall there find a dissimulation of silence, a dissimulation of compliance and palliation, a dissimulation of disguise and falsehood.
A dissimulation of silence. Consulted by Herod on the place on which the Christ was to be born, they made answer, it is true, that Bethlehem was the place marked in the prophets for the fulfilment of that grand event; but they add not, that the star foretold in the holy books, having at last appeared, and the kings of Saba and of Arabia coming with presents to worship the new chief who was to lead Israel, it was no longer to be doubted that the overshadowed had at last brought forth the righteous. They do not gather together the people, in order to announce this blessed intelligence; they do not run first to Bethlehem, in order, by their example, to animate Jerusalem. Wrapped up in their criminal timidity, they guard a profound silence — they iniquitously retain the truth; and while strangers come from the extremities of the east, loudly to proclaim in Jerusalem that the king of the Jews is born, the priests, the scribes are silent, and sacrifice, to the ambition of Herod, the interests of truth, the dearest hope of their nation, and the honour of their ministry.
What a shameful degradation of the ministers of truth! The good-will of the prince influences them more than the sacred deposit of the religion with which they are intrusted; the lustre of the throne stifles, in their heart, the light of Heaven; by a criminal silence, they flatter a king who applies to them for the truth, and who can learn it from them alone; they confirm him in error by concealing that which might have undeceived him; and how, indeed, shall truth ever make its way to the ear of sovereigns, if even the Lord's anointed, who surround the throne, have not the courage to announce it, but join their efforts, with those who dwell in courts, to conceal and stifle it?
But this duty, my brethren, is, in certain respects, common to you as to us; yet, nevertheless, there are few persons in the world, even of those who set an example of piety, who do not, almost every day, render themselves culpable, toward their brethren, of the dissimulation of silence. They think that they render to truth all that they owe to it, when they do not declare against it; when they hear virtue continually decried by the worldly, the doctrine of the world maintained, its abuses and maxims justified, those of the Gospel opposed or weakened, the wicked often blaspheming what they know not, and setting themselves up as judges of that faith which shall judge them: that they listen to them, I say, without joining in their impiety, is true, but they do not boldly show their disapprobation, and content themselves with merely authorizing their blasphemies or their prejudices by their suffrage.
Now, I say that, being all individually intrusted with the interests of truth, to be silent when it is openly attacked in our presence, is to become, in a measure, its persecutor and adversary. But, I add, that you, above all whom God hath enlightened, you then fail in that love which you owe to your brethren, seeing your obligations with regard to them augment in proportion to the grace with which God hath favoured you; you also render yourselves culpable toward God of ingratitude; you do not make a proper return for the blessing of grace and of truth with which he hath favoured you in the midst of your extravagant passions. He hath illuminated your darkness; he hath recalled you to himself, while wandering in treacherous and iniquitous ways; he, no doubt, in thus shedding light through your heart, hath not had your benefit alone in view; he hath meant that it should operate as the instruction or as the reproach of your connexions, your friends, your subjects, or your masters; he hath intended to favour your age, your nation, your country, in favouring you; for his chosen are formed only for the salvation or the condemnation of sinners. His design has been to place in you a light which might shine amid the surrounding darkness, and be a salutary guide to your fellow-creatures; which might perpetuate truth among men, and render testimony to the righteousness and to the wisdom of his law, amidst all the prejudices and all the vain conclusions of a profane world.
Now, by opposing only a cowardly and timid silence to the maxims which attack the truth, you do not enter into the views of God's mercy upon your brethren; you render unavailing to his glory and to the aggrandizement of his kingdom, that talent of the truth which he had intrusted to you, and of which he will one day demand a particular and severe reckoning: I say, more particularly of you who had formerly, with so much eclat, supported the errors and profane maxims of the world, and who had at once been its firmest and most avowed apologist. He surely had a right to exact of you, that you should declare yourselves with the same courage in favour of truth; nevertheless, from a zealous partisan of the world, his grace hath only succeeded in making a timid disciple of the Gospel. That grand air of confidence and of intrepidity with which you formerly apologised for the passions, has forsaken you ever since you have undertaken the defence of the interests of virtue: that audacity which once imposed silence on truth, is now itself mute in the presence of error; and truth, which, as St. Augustine says, gives confidence and intrepidity to all who have it on their side, has rendered you only weak and timid.
I admit, that there is a time to be silent as well as a time to speak; and that the zeal of truth hath its rules and measures; but I would not that the souls, who know God and serve him continually, hear the maxims of religion subverted, the reputation of their brethren attacked, the most criminal abuses of the world justified, without having the courage to adopt the cause of that truth which they dishonour. I would not that the world have its avowed partisans, and that Jesus Christ hath no one to stand up for him. I would not that the pious and good, through a mistaken idea of good-breeding, dissemble upon those irregularities of sinners which they are daily witnessing; while sinners, on the contrary, consider it as giving themselves an important and fashionable air, to defend and to maintain them in their presence. I would that a faithful soul comprehend that he is responsible to the truth alone; that he is upon the earth solely to render glory to the truth: I would that he bear upon his countenance that noble and, I may say, lofty dignity, which grace inspires; that heroical candour which contempt of the world and all its glory produces: that generous and Christian liberty, which expects only eternal riches, which has no hope but in God, which dreads nothing but the internal judge, which pays court to, and spares nothing but the interests of righteousness and of charity, and which has no wish of making itself agreeable but by the truth. I would that the sole presence of a righteous soul impose silence on the enemies of virtue; that they respect that character of truth which he should bear engraven on his forehead; that they crouch under his holy greatness of soul, and that they render homage, at least by their silence and their confusion, to that virtue which they inwardly despise. Thus, the Israelites, taken up with their dances, their profane rejoicings, and their foolish and impious shouts around the golden calf, stop all in a moment, and keep a profound silence on the sole appearance of Moses, who comes down from the mountain, armed with the law of the Lord and with his eternal truth. First dissimulation of the truth, — a dissimulation of silence.
The second manner in which it is dissembled, is that of softening it by modifications, and by condescensions which injure it. The magi, no doubt, could not be ignorant that the intelligence which they came to announce to Jerusalem would be highly displeasing to Herod. That foreigner, through his artifices, had seated himself on the throne of David; he did not so peaceably enjoy the fruit of his usurpation, but that he constantly had a dread lest some heir of the blood of the kings of Judah should expel him from the heritage of his fathers, and remount a throne promised to his posterity. With what eye must he then regard men who come to publish, in the midst of Jerusalem, that the King of the Jews is born, and to proclaim him to a people so attached to, and so zealous for the blood of David, and so impatient under every foreign rule! Nevertheless, the magi conceal nothing of what they had seen in the east: they do not soften that grand event by measured expressions less proper to arouse the jealousy of Herod. They might have called the Messiah whom they seek, the messenger of Heaven, or the longed-for of nations; they might have designed him by titles less hateful to the ambition of Herod; but, full of the truth which hath appeared to them, they know none of these timid and servile time-servings; persuaded that those who are determined to receive the truth only through the means of their errors, are unworthy of knowing it. They are unacquainted with the art of covering it with disguises and considerations for individuals, which dishonour it: they boldly come to the point, and demand, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? " and, not satisfied with considering him as the sovereign of Judea, they declare that heaven itself is his birthright; that the stars are his, and make their appearance in the firmament only in obedience to his orders.
The priests and scribes, on the contrary, forced, by the evidence of the Scriptures, to render glory to the truth, soften it by guarded expressions. They endeavour to unite that respect which they owe to the truth, with that complaisance which they wish still to preserve for Herod; they suppress the title of king, which the magi had given to him, and which had so often been bestowed by the prophets upon the Messiah; they design him by a title which, might equally mark an authority of doctrine or of superior power; they announce him rather as a legislator established to regulate the manners, than as a sovereign raised up for the deliverance of his people from bondage. And, notwithstanding that they themselves expect a Messiah, King, and Conqueror, they soften the truth which they wish to announce, and complete the blindness of Herod, with whom they temporise.
Deplorable destiny of the great! The lips of the priests quiver in speaking to them: from the moment that their passions are known, they are temporised with; truth never offers itself to them but with a double face, of which one side is always favourable to them; the servants of God wish not avowedly to betray their ministry and the interests of truth; but they wish to conciliate them with their own interest; they endeavour to save, as it were, both the rule and their passions, as if the passions could subsist with that rule which condemns them. It seldom happens that the great are instructed, because it seldom happens that the intention is not to please in instructing them. Nevertheless, the greater part would love the truth were it once known to them: the passions and the extravagancies of the age, nourished by all the pleasures which surround them, may lead them astray; but a remaining principle of religion renders truth always respectable to them. We may venture to say, that ignorance condemns more princes and persons of high rank than people of the lowest condition; and that the mean complaisance which is paid to them is more dishonourable to the ministry, and is the cause of more reproach to religion, than the most notorious scandals which afflict the church.
The conduct of these priests appears base to you, my brethren: but, if you are disposed to enter into judgment with yourselves, and to follow yourselves through the detail of your duties, of your friendships, of your conversations, you will see that all your discourses and all your proceedings are merely mollifications of the truth, and temporisings, in order to reconcile it with the prejudices or the passions of those with whom it is your lot to live. We never hold out the truth to them but in a point of view in which it may please; in their most despicable vices we always find some favourable side; and, as all the passions have always some apparent resemblance to some virtue, we never fail to save ourselves through the assistance of that resemblance.
Thus, in the presence of an ambitious person, we never fail to hold forth the love of glory, and the desire of exalting one's self, only as tendencies which give birth to great men; we flatter his pride; we inflame his desires with hopes and with false and chimerical predictions; we nourish the error of his imagination by bringing phantoms within his reach, upon which he incessantly feasts himself. We perhaps venture, in general terms, to pity men who interest themselves so deeply for things which chance alone bestows, and of which death shall perhaps deprive us to-morrow; but we have not the courage to censure the madman, who, to that vapour, sacrifices his quiet, his life, and his conscience. With a vindictive person we justify his resentment and anger; we justify his guilt in his mind, by countenancing the justice of his accusations; we spare his passion in exaggerating the injury and fault of his enemy. We perhaps venture to say, how noble it is to forgive; but we have not the courage to add, that the first step toward forgiveness, is the ceasing to speak of the injury received.
With a courtier equally discontented with his own fortune, and jealous of that of others, we never fail to expose his rivals in the most unfavourable light: we artfully spread a cloud over their merit and their glory, lest they should injure the jealous eyes of him who listens to us; we diminish, we cast a shade over the fame of their talents and of their services; and, by our iniquitous crouchings to his passions, we nourish it, we assist him in blinding himself, and induce him to consider, as honours unjustly ravished from himself, all those which are bestowed upon his brethren. What shall I say? — With a prodigal, his profusions are no longer, in our mouths, but a display of generosity and magnificence. With a miser, his sordid callousness of heart, in which every feeling is lost, is no longer but a prudent moderation, and a laudable domestic economy. With a person of high rank, his prejudices and his errors always find in us ready apologies; we respect his passions equally as his authority, and his prejudices always become our own. Lastly, we catch the infection, and imbibe the errors of all with whom we live; we transform ourselves, as I may say, into other selves; our grand study is to find out their weaknesses, that we may appropriate and apply them to our own purposes: we have, in fact, no language of our own; we always speak the language of others; our discourses are merely a repetition of their prejudicies; and this infamous debasement of truth we call knowledge of the world, a prudence which knows its own interest, the grand art of pleasing and of succeeding in the world. O ye sons of men! how "long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing?"
Yes, my brethren, by that we perpetuate error among men; we authorize every deceit; we justify every false maxim; we give an air of innocence to every vice; we maintain the reign of the world, and of its doctrine, against that of Jesus Christ; we corrupt society, of which truth ought to be the first tie; we pervert those duties and mutual offices of civil life, established to animate us to virtue, into snares, and inevitable occasions of a departure from righteousness; we change friendship, which ought to be a grand resource to us against our errors and irregularities, into a commerce of dissimulation and mutual deception; by that, in a word, we render truth hateful and ridiculous by rendering it rare among men; and, when I say we, I mean more especially the souls who belong to God, and who are intrusted with the interests of truth upon the earth. Yes, my brethren, I would that faithful souls had a language peculiar to them amid the world; that other maxims, other sentiments were found in them than in the rest of men; and while all others speak the language of the passions, that they alone speak the language of truth, I would that, while the world hath its Balaams, who, by their discourses and counsels, authorize irregularity and licentiousness, piety had its Phineases, who durst boldly adopt the interests of the law of God, and of the sanctity of its maxims; that, while the world hath its impious philosophers and false sages, who think that it does them honour, openly to proclaim that we ought to live only for the present, and that the end of man is, in no respect, different from that of the beast, piety had its Solomons, who, undeceived by their own experience, durst publicly avow, that, excepting the fear of the Lord and the observance of his commandments, all else is vanity and vexation of spirit: that while the world hath its charms and enchantments, which seduce kings and the people by their delusions and flatteries, piety had its Moseses and Aarons, who had the courage to confound, by the sole force of truth, their imposition and artifice; in a word, that, while the world had its priests and its scribes, who, like those of the Gospel, weaken the truth, piety had its magi, who dread not to announce it in the presence even of those to whom it cannot but be displeasing.
Not that I condemn the modifications of a sage prudence, which apparently gives up something to the prejudices of men, only that it may more surely recall them to rule and duty. I know that truth loves neither rash nor indiscreet defenders; that the passions of men require a certain deference and management; that they are in the situation of sick persons, to whom it is often necessary to disguise and render palateable their medicines, and to cure them without their privity. I know that all deferences paid to the passions, when their tendency is to establish the truth, are not weakeners, but auxiliaries of it; and that the grand rule of the zeal of truth, is prudence and charity. But such is not the intention when they weaken it by nattering and servile adulations: they seek to please, and not to edify; they substitue themselves in the place of truth; and their sole wish is to attract those suffrages which are due to it alone. And let it not be said that it is more through sourness and ostentation, than through charity, that the just claim a merit in disdaining to betray truth. The world, which is always involved in deceit, of which the commerce and mutual ties revolve only upon dissimulation and artifice, which considers these even as an honourable science, and which is totally unacquainted with this noble rectitude of heart, cannot suppose it in others; it is its profound corruption which is the cause of its suspecting the sincerity and the courage of the upright: it is a mode of acting which appears ridiculous, because it is new to it; and, as it finds in it so marked a singularity, it loves better to suppose that it is rather the consequence of pride, or folly, than of virtue.
From thence it is that the truth is not only disguised, but is likewise openly betrayed. Last dissimulation of the priests of our Gospel, — a dissimulation of falsehood. They are not satisfied with quoting the prophecies in obscure and mollified terms: but, seeing that the magi did not return to Jerusalem, as they had intended, they add, no doubt in order to calm Herod, that, ashamed of not having been able to find that new King of whom they came in search, they have not had the courage to return: that they are strangers little versed in the knowledge of the law and of the prophets; and that the light of Heaven, which they pretended to follow, was nothing but a vulgar illusion, and a superstitious prejudice of a rude and credulous nation. And such must indeed have been their language to Herod, since they themselves act according to it, and do not run to Bethlehem to seek the new-born King, in order, it appears, to complete the persuasion of Herod, that there was more credulity than truth in the superstitious research of these magi.
And behold to what we at last come: in consequence of a servile compliance with the passions of men, and of continually wishing to please them at the expense of truth, we at last openly abandon it; we cowardly and downrightly sacrifice it to our interest, our fortune, and our reputation; we betray our conscience, our duty, and our understanding; and, consequently, from the moment that truth becomes irksome to us, or renders us displeasing, we disavow it; and deliver it up to oppression and iniquity; like Peter, we deny that we have ever been seen as its disciple. In this manner we change our heart into a cowardly and grovelling one, to which any profitable falsehood costs nothing; into an artificial and pliable heart, which assumes every form, and never possesses any determinate one; into a weak and flattering heart, which has not the courage to refuse its suffrage to any thing but the unprofitable and the unfortunate virtue; into a corrupted and interested heart, which makes subservient to its purposes, religion, truth, justice, and all that is most sacred among men; in a word, a heart capable of every thing except that of being true, noble, and sincere. And think not that sinners of this description are so very rare in the world. We shun only the notoriety and shame of these faults; secret and secure basenesses find few scrupulous hearts; we often love only the reputation and glory of truth.
It is only proper to take care that, in pretending to defend the truth, we are not defending the mere illusions of our own mind. Pride, ignorance, and self-conceit, every day furnish defenders to error, equally intrepid and obstinate as any of whom faith can boast. The only truth worthy of our love, of our zeal, and of our courage, is that held out to us by the church; for it alone we ought to endure everything; beyond that, we are no longer but the martyrs of our own obstinacy and vanity.
O my God! pour then through my soul that humble and generous love of the truth, with which thy chosen are filled in heaven, and which is the only characteristic mark of the just upon the earth. Let my life be only such as to render glory to thine eternal truths; let me honour them through the sanctity of my manners; let me defend them through zeal for thy interests alone, and enable me continually to oppose them to error and vanity: annihilate in my heart those human fears, that prudence of the flesh which dreads to lay open to persons their errors and their vices. Suffer not that I be a feeble reed which bends to every blast, nor that I ever blush to bear the truth imprinted on my forehead, as the most illustrious title with which thy creature can glorify himself, and as the most glorious mark of thy mercies upon my soul. In effect, it is not sufficient to be the witness and depository of it, it is also necessary to be its defender: character contrasted with that of Herod, who is, in our Gospel at present, its enemy and persecutor. Last instruction with which our Gospel furnishes us, — the truth persecuted.
Part III. — If it is a crime to withstand the truth when it shines upon us, iniquitously to withhold it when we owe it to others; it is the fulness of iniquity, and the most distinguished character of reprobation, to persecute and combat it. Nevertheless, nothing is more common in the world than this persecution of truth; and the impious Herod, who, on the present occasion, sets himself up against it, has more imitators than is supposed.
For, in the first place, he persecutes it through that repugnancy which he visibly shows to the truth, and which induces all Jerusalem to follow his example; and this is what I call a persecution of scandal. Secondly, he persecutes it by endeavouring to corrupt the priests, and even by laying snares for the piety of the magi; and this is what I call a persecution of seduction. Lastly, he persecutes it by shedding innocent blood; and this is a persecution of power and violence. Now, my brethren, if the brevity of a Discourse permitted me to examine these three descriptions of persecution of the truth, there is not perhaps one of them of which you would not find yourselves culpable.
For, first, who can flatter himself with not being among the number of the persecutors of truth, under the description of scandals? I even speak not of those disorderly souls who have erected the standard of guilt and licentiousness, and who pay little, if indeed any, attention to the public opinion: the most notorious scandals are not always those which are most to be dreaded; and avowed debauchery, when carried to a certain degree, occasions, in general, more censures upon our conduct than imitations of our excesses. I speak of those souls delivered up to the pleasures, to the vanities, and to all the abuses of the age, and whose conduct, in other respects regular, is not only irreproachable in the sight of the world, but attracts even the praises and the esteem of men; and I say that they persecute the truth through their sole examples; that they undo, as much as in them lies, the maxims of the Gospel in every heart; that they cry out to all men, that shunning of pleasure is a needless precaution; that love of the world and the love of virtue are not at all incompatible; that a taste for theatres, for dress, and for all public amusements, is entirely innocent; and that it is easy to lead a good life even while living like the rest of the world. This worldly regularity is therefore a continual persecution of the truth; and; and so much the more dangerous, as it is an authorized persecution which has nothing odious in it, and against which no precaution is taken; which attacks the truth without violence, without effusion of blood, under the smiling image of peace and society: and which, through these means, occasions more deserters from the truth than ever all tyrants and tortures formerly did.
I speak even of those good characters who only imperfectly fulfil the duties of piety, who still retain, too, public remains of the passions of the world and of its maxims: and I say, that they persecute the truth through these unfortunate remains of infidelity and weakness; that they are the occasion of its being blasphemed bv the impious and other sinners; that they authorize the senseless discourses of the world against the piety of the servants of God; that they are the cause of souls being disgusted with virtue, who might otherwise feel themselves disposed to it; that they confirm, in the path of error, those who seek pretexts to remain in it: in a word, that they render virtue either suspicious or ridiculous. Thus, still every day, as the Lord formerly complained, through his prophet Jeremiah, the backsliding Israel, that is to say, the world, justifies herself more than treacherous Judah, that is to say, the weaknesses of the good: I mean to say, that the world thinks itself secure when it sees that those souls, who profess piety, join in its pleasures and frivolities; are warm, like the rest of men, upon fortune, upon favour, upon preferences, and upon injuries; pursue their own ends, have still a desire of pleasing, eagerly seek after distinctions and favours, and sometimes make even piety subservient toward more surely attaining them. Ah! it is then that the world triumphs, and that it feels itself comforted in the comparison; it is then that, finding such a resemblance between the virtue of the good' and its own vices, it feels tranquil upon its situation, and thinks that it is needless to change, since, in changing the name, the same things are still retained.
And it is here that I cannot prevent myself from saying, with the apostle Peter, to you whom God hath recalled, from the ways of the world and of the passions, to those of truth and righteousness: let us act in such a manner among the worldly, that, in place of decrying virtue as they have hitherto done, and of despising or censuring those who practise it; the good works which they shatl behold in us, our pure and holy manners, our patience under scorn, our wisdom and our circumspection in discourse, our modesty and humility in exaltation, our equality of mind and submission under disgrace, our gentleness toward our inferiors, our regard for our equals, our fidelity toward our masters, our universal charity toward our brethern, force them to render glory to God, make them to respect and even to envy the destiny of virtue, and dispose their hearts to receive the grace of light and of truth when it shall deign to visit them, and to enlighten them upon their erroneous ways. Let us shut up the mouth of all the enemies of virtue by the sight of an irreprehensible life: let us honour piety, that it may honour us: let us render it respectable, if we wish to gain partisans to it: let us furnish to the world examples which condemn it, and not censures which justify it: let us accustom it to think, that godliness is profitable unto all things, having promises not only of the life to come, but also peace, satisfaction, and content, which are the only good, and the only real pleasures of the present life.
To this persecution of scandal, Herod adds a persecution of seduction: he tempts the sanctity and the fidelity of the ministers of the law; he wishes to make the zeal and the holy boldness of the magi instrumental to his impious designs: in a word, he neglects nothing to undo the truth before he openly attacks it.
And behold a fresh manner in which we continually persecute the truth. In the first place, we weaken the piety of the just by accusing their fervour of excess, and by struggling to persuade them that they do too much; we exhort them, like the grand tempter, to change their stones into bread; that is to say, to abate from their austerity, and to change that retired, gloomy, and laborious life, into a more ordinary and comfortable one: we give them room to dread that the sequel will not correspond with the beginnings: in a word, we endeavour to draw them nearer to us, being unwilling to rise ourselves to a level with them. Secondly, we perhaps tempt even their fidelity and their innocence, by giving the most animated descriptions of those pleasures from which they fly: like the wife of Job, we blame their simplicity and weakness: we exaggerate to them the inconveniencies of virtue and the difficulties of perseverance: we shake them by the example of unfaithful souls, who, after putting their hand to the plough, have cast a look behind, and abandoned their labour: — what shall I say? We perhaps attack even the immoveable groundwork of faith, and we insinuate the inutility of self-denials it proposes, from the uncertainty of its promises. Thirdly, we harass, by our authority, the zeal and the piety of those persons who are dependent upon us: we exact duties of them, either incompatible with their innocence, or dangerous to their virtue: we place them in situations either painful or trying to their faith: we interdict them from practices and observances, either necessary for their support in piety, or profitable toward their progress in it: in a word, we become domestic tempters with respect to them, being neither capable of tasting good ourselves, nor of suffering it in others, and performing toward these souls, the office of the demon, who only watches in order to destroy. Lastly, we render ourselves culpable of this persecution of seduction, by making our talents instrumental to the destruction of the reign of Jesus Christ: the talents of the body in inspiring iniquitous passions; in placing ourselves in hearts where God alone ought to be; in corrupting the souls for whom Jesus Christ gave his blood; the talents of the mind in inducing to vice: in embellishing it with all the charms most calculated to hide its infamy and horror; in presenting the poison under the most alluring and seductive form; and in rendering it immortal by lascivious works, through the means of which, a miserable author shall, to the end of ages, preach up vice, corrupt hearts, and inspire his brethren with every deplorable passion which had enslaved himself during life; shall see his punishment and his torments increased in proportion as the impious fire he has lighted up shall spread upon the earth; shall have the shocking consolation of declaring himself, even after death, against his God, of gaining souls from him whom he had redeemed, of still insulting his holiness and majesty, of perpetuating his own rebellion and disorders even beyond the tomb, and of making, even to the fulfilment of time, the crimes of all men his own crimes. Woe, saith the Lord, to all those who rise up against my name and glory, and who lay snares for my people! I will take vengeance of them on the day of my judgment: I will demand of them the blood of their brethren whom they have seduced, and whom they have caused to perish: and I will multiply upon them, and make them for ever to feel, the most dreadful evils, in return for that glory which they have ravished from me.
But a last description of persecution, still more fatal to truth, is that which I call a persecution of power and violence. Herod, having gained nothing by his artifices, at last throws off the mask, openly declares himself the persecutor of Jesus Christ, and wishes to extinguish in its birth, that light which comes to illuminate the whole world.
The sole mention of the cruelty of that impious prince strikes us with horror; and it does not appear that so barbarous an example can ever find imitators among us: nevertheless, the world is full of these kinds of public and avowed persecutors of the truth: and, if the church be no longer afflicted with the barbarity of tyrants, and with the effusion of her children's blood, she is still every day persecuted by the public derisions which the worldly make of virtue, and by the ruin of those faithful souls, whom she, with grief, so often beholds sinking under the dread of their derisions and censures.
Yes, my brethren, those discourses which you so readily allow yourselves against the piety of the servants of God, of those souls who, by their fervent homages, recompense his glory for your crimes and insults; those derisions of their zeal and of their holy intoxication for their God: those biting sarcasms which rebound from their person upon virtue itself, and are the most dangerous temptation of their penitence; that severity, on their account, which forgives them nothing, and changes even their virtues into vices; that language of blasphemy and of mockery, which throws an air of ridicule over the seriousness of their compunction; which gives appellations of irony and contempt to the most respectable, practices of their piety; which shakes their faith, checks their holy resolutions, disheartens their weakness, makes them, as it were, ashamed of virtue, and often is the cause of their returning to vice: — behold what, with the saints, I call an open and declared persecution of the truth. You persecute in your brother, says St. Augustine, that which the tyrants themselves have never persecuted: they have deprived him only of life; your scheme is to deprive him of innocence and virtue: their persecution extended only to the body: you carry yours even to the destruction of his soul.
What, my brethren! is it not enough that you do not yourselves serve the God for whom you are created? (This is what the first defenders of faith, the Tertullians and the Cyprians, formerly said to the Pagan persecutors of the faithful; and must it be that we, alas! have the same complaints to make against Christians?) Is it not enough? Must you also persecute those who serve him? You are then determined neither to adore him yourselves, nor to suffer that others do it? You every day forgive so many extravagancies to the followers of the world, so many unreasonable passions; you excuse them; — what do I say? you applaud them in the inordinate desires of their heart; in their most shameful passions you find constancy, fidelity, and dignity: you give honourable names to their most infamous vices; and it is a just and faithful soul alone, a servant of the true God, who has no indulgence to expect from you, and is certain of drawing upon himself your contempt and censures? But, my brethren, theatrical and other amusements are publicly licensed, and nothing is said against them: the madness of gambling has its declared partisans, and they are quietly put up with: ambition has its worshippers and slaves, and they are even commended: voluptuousness has its altars and victims, and no one contests them; avarice has its idolators, and not a word is said against them; all the passions, like so many sacrilegious divinities, have their established worship, without the smallest exception being taken; and the sole Lord of the universe, and the Sovereign of all men, and the only God upon the earth, either shall not be served at all, or it shall not be with impunity, and without every obstacle being placed in the way of his service?
Great God! avenge then thine own glory; render again to thy servants that honour and that lustre which the impious unceasingly ravish from them: do not, as formerly, send ferocious beasts from the depths of their forests to devour the contemners of virtue and of the holy simplicity of thy prophets; but deliver them up to their inordinate desires, still more cruel and insatiable than the lion or the bear, in order, that, worn out, racked by their internal convulsions and the frenzies of their own passions, they may know all the value and all the excellence of that virtue which they contemn, and aspire to the felicity and to the destiny of those souls who serve thee.
For, my brethren, you whom this discourse regards, allow me, and with grief, to say it here, — must you be the instruments which the demon employs to tempt the chosen of God, and, if it were possible, to lead them astray? Must it be that you appear upon the earth merely in order to justify the prophecies of the holy books with regard to the persecutions, which, even to the end, are inevitable to all those who shall wish to live in godliness which is in Jesus Christ? Must you alone be the means of sustaining the perpetuity of that frightful succession of persecutors of faith and of virtue, which is to endure as long as the church? Must you, in default now of tyrants and of tortures, continue to be the rock and the scandal of the Gospel? Renounce, then, yourselves the hope which is in Jesus Christ; join yourselves with those barbarous nations, or with those impious characters who blaspheme his glory and his divinity, if to you it appears so worthy of derision and laughter to live under his laws, and according to his maxims. An infidel or a savage might suppose that we, who serve and who worship him, are under delusion; he might pity our credulity and weakness, when he sees us sacrificing the present to a futurity, and a hope which, in his eyes, might appear fabulous and chimerical: but he would be forced, at least, to confess, that, if we do not deceive ourselves, and if our faith be justly grounded, we are the wisest and the most estimable of all men. But for you, who would not dare to start a doubt of the certitude of faith, and of the hope which is in Jesus Christ, with what eyes, with what astonishment would that infidel regard the censures which you so plentifully bestow upon his servants! You prostrate yourselves before his cross, he would say to you, as before the pledge of your salvation; and you laugh at those who bear it in their heart, and who ground their whole hope and expectation in it! You worship him as your Judge; and you contemn and load with ridicule those who dread him, and who anxiously labour to render him favourable to their interests! You believe him to be sincere and faithful in his word; and you look upon, as weak minds, those who place their trust in him, and who sacrifice every thing to the grandeur and to the certainty of his promises! O man, so astonishing, so full of contradictions, so little in unison with thyself, would the infidel exclaim, how great and how holy must the God of the Christians therefore be, seeing that, among all those who know him, he hath no enemies but such as are of thy description!
Let us, therefore, respect virtue, my brethren; let us honour, in his servants, the gifts of God, and the wonders of his grace. Let us merit, by our deference and our esteem for piety, the blessing of piety itself. Let us regard the worthy and pious as the souls who alone continue to draw down the favours of Heaven upon the earth, as resources established to reconcile us one day with God, as blessed signs, which prove to us that the Lord still looketh upon men with pity, and continueth his mercies upon his church. Let us encourage by our praises, if we cannot strengthen by our example, the souls who return to him: let us applaud their change, if we think it impossible, as yet to change ourselves; let us glory in defending them, if our passions will not, as yet, permit us to imitate them. Let us reverence and esteem virtue? Let us have no friends but the friends of God. Let us count upon the fidelity of men only in proportion as they are faithful to their Master and Creator. Let us confide our sorrows and our sufferings only to those who can present them to him, who alone can console them: let us believe to be in our real interests only those who are in the interests of our salvation. Let us smooth the way to our conversion: let us, by our respect for the just, prepare the world to behold us one day, without surprise, just ourselves. Let us not, by our derisions and censures, raise up an invincible stumbling-block of human respect, which shall for ever prevent us from declaring ourselves disciples of that piety which we have so loudly and so publicly decried. Let us render glory to the truth; and, in order that it may deliver us, let us religiously receive it, like the magi, from the moment that it is manifested to us: let us not dissemble it, like the priests, when we owe it to our brethren; let us not declare against it, like Herod, when we can no longer dissemble it to ourselves, in order that, after having walked in the ways of truth upon the earth, we may all together one day be sanctified in truth, and perfected in charity.