SERMON XXXI.
THE HAPPINESS OF THE JUST.
"Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted." — Matthew v. 4.
Sire, — If the world were to speak to you in the place of Jesus Christ, it undoubtedly would not say, " Blessed are they who mourn." Happy, would it say, the prince who has never fought but to conquer, and whose mind has always been superior either to the danger or to the victory: who, during the course of a long and a prosperous reign, has enjoyed, and still continues to enjoy, at his ease, the fruits of his glory, the love of his people, the esteem of his enemies, the advantage of his conquests, the splendour of his actions, the wisdom of his laws, and the august prospect of a numerous posterity; and who has nothing left now to desire but the continuance of what he possesses.
In this manner would the world speak: but, Sire, Jesus Christ does not speak like the world.
Happy, says he to you, not him who is the admiration of his age; but he who makes his study of the age to come, and lives in the contempt of himself and of all the things of the earth; for to him is the kingdom of heaven. Not him whose reign and actions history will immortalize in the remembrance of men; but he whose tears shall have effaced the history of his sins from the remembrance even of God; for he shall be for ever consoled. Not him who, by new conquests, shall have extended the bounds of his empire; but he who has succeeded in confining his desires and his passions within the limits of the law of God; for he shall inherit a kingdom more durable than the empire of the universe. Not him who, exalted by the voice of nations above all preceding princes, tranquilly enjoys his greatness and his fame; but he who finding nothing even on the throne worthy of his heart, seeks no perfect happiness on this earth but in virtue and in righteousness; for he shall be filled. Not him to whom men have given the pompous titles of great and invincible; but he to whom the wretched shall give, before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, the title of father and of merciful; for he shall be treated with mercy. Lastly, happy not him who, always disposer of the lot of his enemies, has more than once given peace to the earth; but he who has been able to give it to himself, and to banish from his heart all the vices and disorderly inclinations which disturb its tranquillity; for he shall be called a child of God.
Such, Sire, are those whom Jesus Christ calls happy: and the Gospel acknowledges no other happiness on the earth than virtue and innocence.
Great God! it is not, then, that long train of unexampled prosperities, with which thou hast favoured the glory of his reign, that can render him the happiest of kings. He is thereby great: but he is not thereby happy. His felicity has commenced with his piety. Whatever does not sanctify man, can never make the happiness of man. Whatever does not place thee, O my God! in a heart, places only vanities which leave it empty, or real evils which fill it with disquiet; and a pure conscience is the only resource of real enjoyments.
It is to this truth that the church, on the occasion of this solemnity, confines its whole fruit. As the common error, that the life of the saints has been gloomy and disagreeable, is one of the principal artifices employed by the world in order to prevent us from imitating them, the church, in renewing their memory on this day, gives us to remember, at the same time, that not only they now enjoy an immortal felicity in heaven, but also that they have been the only happy of the earth, and that he who carries iniquity in his bosom always carries terror and anxiety: and that the lot of the godly is a thousand times more tranquil and more satisfactory, even in this world, than that of sinners.
But in what does the happiness of the just in this life consist? It consists, first, in the manifestation of truth concealed from the sages of the world. Secondly, in the relish of charity denied to the lovers of the world. In the lights of faith which soften all the sufferings of the believing soul, and which render those of the sinner still more bitter: this is my first point. In the comforts of grace which calm all the passions, and which, denied to a corrupted heart, leave it a prey to itself, is the last. Let us examine these two truths, so calculated to render virtue amiable and the example of the saints beneficial.
Part I. — Our sorrows proceed, in general, from our errors; and we are unhappy only because we are inadequate judges of what is really good and evil. The just, who are children of light, are, therefore, much happier than sinners, because they are more enligntened. The same lights which correct their judgments alleviate their suffering; and faith, which shows the world to them such as it is, changes, into sources of consolation for them, the very same events in which souls, delivered up to the passions, find the principle of all their disquiets.
And, in order to make you sensible of a truth so honourable to virtue, observe, I pray you my brethren, that, whether a contrite soul recall the past, and those times of error which preceded his penitence; whether he pay attention to what passes before his eyes in the world; or, lastly, whether he look forward to the future, every thing consoles, every thing strengthens him in the cause of virtue which he has adopted, every thing unites in rendering his condition infinitely more pleasing than that of a soul who lives in dissipation, and who finds, in these three situations, only bitterness and inward terrors.
For, in the first place, however the sinner may be delivered up to all fervency of his heart, he is not so violently hurried away, by present gratifications, but that he sometimes gives a look back to those years of iniquity which he amasses behind him. Those days of darkness, which he has consecrated to debauchery, have not so completely perished, but that, in certain moments, they obtrude themselves upon his remembrance. Gloomy and troublesome images force themselves upon his soul, and, from time to time, arouse him from his lethargy by holding out, as if collected into one point, that shocking mass of crimes which make less impression, during their commission, because he only sees them in succession. At one glance of his eye he sees favours always contemned, inspirations always rejected, a vile perversion of a disposition naturally good and originally formed, it appears, for virtue; weaknesses at which he now blushes, phantoms and horrors against which he would wish for ever to shut his eyes.
Such is what the sinner leaves behind him. He is miserable if he looks back to the past. His whole happiness is, as it were, shut up in the present moment; and, to be happy, he must never think, but allow himself, like the dumb creation, to be led away by the attraction of the present objects; and, to preserve his tranquillity, he must either extinguish or brutify his reason. And thence those maxims so unworthy of humanity, and so circulated in the world, that too much reason is a sorry advantage; that reflection spoils all the pleasures of life; and that, to be happy, the less we think the better. O man! was it for thy misery, then, that Heaven had given thee that reason by which thou art enlightened, or to assist thee in search of the truth, which alone can render thee happy? Could that divine light which embellishes thy being, be a punishment rather than a gift of the Creator? And should it so gloriously distinguish thee from the beast, only that thy condition may be more wretched?
Yes, my brethren, such is the lot of an unbelieving soul. Intoxication, delirium of passion, and the extinction of all reason, alone can render him happy; and, as that situation is merely momentary, the instant the mind becomes calm and regains itself, the charm ceases, happiness takes wing, and man finds himself alone with his conscience and his crimes.
But how different, O my God, is the lot of a soul who walks in thy ways, and how much to be pitied is the world which knows thee not? In effect, the sweetest thoughts of a righteous soul are those by which the past is recalled. He there encounters, it is true, that portion of his life which had been engrossed by the world and the passions: and the remembrance, I confess, fills him with shame before the sanctity of his God, and forces from him tears of compunction and sorrow. But what consolation in his tears and in his grief!
For, my brethren, a contrite soul can never retrace the whole train of his past errors, without discovering all the proceedings of God's mercy upon him: the singular ways by which his wisdom hath gradually, and, as it were, step by step, couducted him to the blessed moment of his conversion: so many unexpected favourable circumstances, so many accidents of disgrace, of loss, of death, of treachery, and of affliction; all provided by a watchful Providence to facilitate the means of breaking asunder his chains: those special attentions of God, even when in the paths of iniquity: those disgusts, even in the midst of his pleasures, provided for him by his goodness: those inward calls which incessantly whispered to him, Return to virtue and to duty: that internal monitor, which, go where he would, never left him, and unceasingly repeated to him, as formerly to St. Augustine, Fool! how long wilt thou hunt after pleasures which can never make thee happy? When, by terminating thy crimes, wilt thou terminate thy troubles? What more is yet required to open thine eyes upon the world, than thine own experience itself, of thy weariness and unhappiness while serving it? Try if, in belonging to me, thou shalt not be more happy, and if I suffice not to fill the soul which possesses me.
Such is what the past offers to a contrite soul. It there sees the accomplices of its former pleasures still delivered up, by God^s justice, to the errors of the world and of the passions, and it alone chosen, separated, and called to the knowledge of the truth.
With what peace and consolation does that reflection fill the believing soul! " How infinite, O my God," cries he, with the prophet, ft are thy mercies! Thou hast covered me in my mothers womb: thou hast compassed my path, and my lying down, and all my ways have been known to thee. What have I done for thee more than so many other sinners whose eyes thou deignest not to open, and to manifest the severity of thy judgments and of thy justice? How marvellous, O God! are all thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well P — First advantage of righteous souls; the remembrance even of their past infidelities consoles them.
But, secondly, if they find sources of solid consolation in reviewing the past, their piety is not less comforted while viewing the present occurrences of the world. And here, my brethren, you will presently see how essentially requisite is virtue to the happiness of life, and how that very world, which gives birth to all the passions, and, consequently, to all the disquietudes of sinners, becomes the sweetest and most consolatory exercise of the faith of the just.
What, indeed, is the world even to the worldly themselves, who love it, who seem intoxicated with its delights, and who cannot do without it? The world? It is an eternal servitude, where no one lives for himself, and where, in order to be happy, we must bring ourselves to hug our chains, and to love our slavery. The world? It is a daily revolution of events, which successively arouse, in the hearts of its partisans, the most violent and the most melancholy passions, cruel antipathies, hateful perplexities, torturing fears, devouring jealousies, and corroding cares. The world? It is a land of curse, where even its pleasures are productive of only bitternesss and thorns. Gaming fatigues and exhausts by its frenzies and by its caprices: conversation becomes wearisome through the contrariety of tempers and the opposition of sentiments; passions and criminal attachments are followed with their disgusts, their disappointments, and their unpleasant reports: theatres, no longer having as spectators but souls grossly dissolute and incapable of being roused but by the most shocking excesses of debauchery, become insipid while moving only those delicate passions, which only serve to show guilt from afar, and to lay snares for innocence. Lastly, the world is a place where hope itself, considered as a passion so sweet and so pleasing, renders all men unhappy; where those who have nothing more to hope, believe themselves still more miserable; where every thing that pleases soon ceases to please: and where inanity or listless insipidity is almost the best and the most supportable lot to be expected. Such is the world, my brethren; nor is this that obscure world, to which neither the great pleasures, nor the charms of prosperity, of favour, and affluence are known: it is the world in its most brilliant point of view; it is the world of the court; it is you yourselves who now listen to me. Such is the world; nor is this one of those fanciful paintings of which the reality is no where to be found. I paint the world after your own heart, that is to say, such as you know it to be, and such as you yourselves continually experience it.
Such, nevertheless, is the place in which all sinners seek their happiness. That is their country. There they would willingly eternize themselves. Such is that world which they prefer to the eternal inheritance, and to all the promises of faith. Great God! how just art thou in punishing man through his passions themselves, and to permit that, wishing to seek his happiness elsewhere than in thee, who alone art the true peace of his heart, he forms for himself a ridiculous felicity of his fears, his disgusts, his wearinesses, and his disquietudes!
But that which is so fortunate here for virtue, is, that the same world, so tiresome and so insupportable to sinners who seek their happiness in it, becomes a source of the most soothing reflections to the righteous, who consider it as an exilement and a foreign land.
For, in the first place, the inconstancy of the world, so dreaded by those delivered up to it, supplies a thousand motives of consolation to the believing soul. Nothing appears to him either constant or durable upon the earth; neither the most flourishing fortunes, nor the warmest friendships, nor the most brilliant reputations, nor the most envied favour. He sees a sovereign wisdom through all, which delights, it would appear, in making a sport of men, by alternately exalting them on the ruins of each other; by hurling down those at the top of the wheel, in order to elevate those who, only a moment before, were groveling at the bottom: by introducing every day, on the theatre of life, new heroes to eclipse all those who formerly played on it so brilliant a part; by incessantly giving new scenes to the universe. He sees men passing their whole life in ferments, projects, and plots; ever on the watch to surprise each other, or to avoid being surprised; always eager and active to profit of the retreat, the disgrace, or the death of a rival; and of these grand lessons, so fitted to inculcate contempt of the world; make only fresh motives of ambition and cupidity; always engrossed either by their fears or by their hopes; always uneasy either for the present or for the future; never tranquil, all struggling for quiet, yet every moment removing themselves farther and farther from it.
O man! why art thou so ingenious in rendering thyself miserable? Such is, then, the reflection of the believing soul. That happiness thou seekest is more easily attained. It is necessary neither to traverse seas nor to conquer kingdoms. Depart not from thyself, and thou wilt be happy.
How sweet do the sorrows of virtue then appear to the godly man, when he compares them with the cruel chagrins and the endless agitations of sinners! How transported to have at last found a place of rest and of safety, while he sees the lovers of the world still sadly tossed about, at the mercy of the passions and of human hopes! Thus the Israelites, formerly escaped from the danger of the Red Sea, seeing from afar Pharaoh and all the nobility of Egypt still at the mercy of the waters, felt all the luxury of their own safety, thought the barren paths of the desert delightful, and were insensible to every hardship of their journey; and comparing their lot with that of the Egyptians, far from giving vent to a complaint or a murmur, they sung with Moses that divine hymn of praise and of thanksgiving, in which are celebrated, with such magnificence, the wonders and the tender mercies of the Lord.
Secondly. The injustice of the world, so humbling to those who love it, when they see themselves forgotten, neglected, and sacrificed to unworthy rivals, is also a fund of soothing reflections to a soul who despises it and fears only the Lord. For, what resource is left to a sinner who, after having sacrificed his ease, his conscience, his wealth, his youth, and his health, to the world and to his masters; after having submitted in silence to every circumstance the most mortifying to the mind, sees at once, and without knowing why, the gates of favour and advancement for ever shut against him; sees places snatched from him to which he was entitled by his services, and of which he thought himself already certain; threatened, should he dare to murmur, with the loss of those he still enjoys; forced to crouch to more fortunate rivals, and to be at the beck of those whom, only a little before, he had deemed unworthy of even receiving his orders? Shall he retire far from the world, to evaporate, in continual invectives against it, the spleen and the rancour of his heart, and thus revenge himself of the injustice of men? But of what avail will be his retirement? It will afford only more leisure for retrospection, and fewer relaxations from chagrin. Shall he try to console himself with similar examples? But our misfortunes never, as we think, resemble those of others; and, besides, what consolation can it be to have our sorrows renewed by seeing their image reflected from others? Shall he entrench himself in strength of mind, and in a vain philosophy? But, in solitude, reason soon descends from its pride; we may be philosophers for the public, but we are only men with ourselves. Shall he fly, as a resource, to voluptuousness, and to other infamous pleasures? But, in changing the passion, the heart only changes the punishment. Shall he seek, in indolence and inactivity, a happiness he has never been able to find in all the fervency of hopes and pretensions? A criminal conscience may become indifferent, but it is not thereby more tranquil. One may cease to feel misfortune and digrace, but infidelities and crimes must always be felt. No, my brethren, the unhappy sinner is so without resource. Every comfort is for ever fled from the worldly soul from the moment that he is deserted by the world.
But the righteous man learns to despise the world even in the contempt which the world has for him. The injustice of men, with respect to him, only puts him in mind that he serves a more equitable Master, who can neither be influenced nor prejudiced; who sees nothing in us but what, in reality, there is; who determines our destinies upon our hearts alone, and with whom we have nothing but our own conscience to dread: consequently, that they are happy who serve him; that his ingratitude is not to be feared; that every thing done for him is faithfully recorded; that, far from concealing or neglecting our sufferings and our services, he gives us credit even for our good wishes; and that nothing is lost with him but what is not done solely for him.
Now, in these lights of faith, what a fresh fund of consolation for a believing soul! How little is the world, in this point of view, with all its scorns and ill usage, capable of affecting him! Then it is that, throwing himself into the bosom of God, and viewing, with Christian eyes, the nothingness and vanity of all human things, he feels in a moment all his inquietudes, inseparable from nature, changed into the sweetest peace; a ray of light shines in his soul, and re-establishes serenity; a trait of consolation penetrates his heart, and every sorrow is alleviated. Ah! my brethren, how sweet to serve him, who alone can render happy those who serve him! Why, O blessed condition of virtue, art thou not better known to men! And wherefore art thou held out as a disagreeable and sorrowful lot, thou who alone canst console the miseries and alleviate all the sufferings of his banishment?
Lastly, the judgments of the world, source of so many chagrins for the worldly, complete still more the consolation of the believing soul. For the torture of the lovers of the world is that of being continually exposed to the judgments, that is to say, to the censures, to the derisions, to the malignity of each other. In vain do we despise the men: we wish to be esteemed even by those we despise. In vain are we exalted above others: the more we are exalted, we are only the more exposed to the criticisms and to the observations of the multitude, and we much more poignantly feel the censures of those from whom homages alone were to have been expected. In vain may the suffrage of the public be in our favour; contempt is so much the more stinging as it is unusual and rare. In vain may we retaliate with censures yet mo^e biting and keen; resentment and revenge always suppose a sense of guilt; and, be sides, the chagrin of having encountered scorn is so much more lively than any pleasure that can accrue from retorting it. Lastly, from the moment that you live solely for the world, and that your pleasures or your vexations depend wholly on it, the judgments of the world can never be indifferent to you.
Nevertheless, it is in the midst of all these vexations that happiness must be at least professed. Every thing attributed to you, either by truth or vanity, is called in question: your birth, your talents, your reputation, your services, your success, your prudence, and even your honour. If you go to wreck, your incapacity accounts for it: if successful, the honour is given to chance, or to your inferiors: if you enjoy the good opinion of the public, the judgment of the more knowing is appealed to from the popular error: if possessed of the art of pleasing, it is immediately said that you have made a thorough use of your talents, and that you have been only too agreeable: if your conduct be superior to any attack, the most poignant ridicule is directed against your temper. Lastly, be whom ye may, high or low, prince or subject, the most desirable situation for your vanity is that of being unacquainted with the world's opinion of you. Such is the life of the world. The same passions which bind us together, disunite us: envy and detraction blacken our noblest qualities: and our gratifications find censurers in those who copy them.
But a believing soul is sheltered from all these uneasinesses. As he courts not the esteem of men, neither does he fear their scorn; as he has no intention of laying himself out to please, neither is he surprised to find that he has not done it. God, who sees him, is the only Judge he fears, and who, at the same time, consoles him for the judgments of men. His glory is the testimony of his own conscience. His reputation he seeks in the fulfilment of his duty. He considers the suffrages of the world as the rock of virtue or as the reward of vice; and, without even paying attention to its judgments, he is satisfied with giving it good examples. But what do I say, my brethren? The world itself, all worldly as it is, so full of censures, malignity, and contempt for its own worshippers, is forced to respect the virtue of those who hate and despise it. It appears that virtue imprints on the person of a real righteous man, a dignity, a something, I know not what, of divine, which attracts the veneration and almost the worship of worldly souls; it appears that this intimate union with Jesus Christ occasions his being irradiated, as I may say, like the three disciples on the holy mount, with a part of that celestial splendour which the Father shed around his well-beloved Son, and by which all liberty ceases of refusing homage. It is an inalienable right which virtue has over the heart of men; and, by a deplorable caprice, the world despises the passions it inspires, and respects the virtue it strives against. Not that the esteem of the world, so worthy itself of being despised, can be any great consolation to the believing soul. But this consolation is, that he sees the world condemned even by the world, its pleasures decried even by those who hunt after them, sinners become the apologists of virtue, and the life of the world to pass sorrowfully away in doing what they condemn, and flying from what they approve.
Such is the manner in which the present age becomes a source of consolatory reflections to a Christian soul; but, in the thought of futurity, he also finds consolations which are changed into inward and continual terrors for sinners: last advantage drawn by the just from the lights of faith. The magnificence of its promises sustains and consoles them: they await the blessed hope, and that happy moment when they shall be associated with the church of heaven, reunited to their brethren whom they had left on the earth, received eternal citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, incorporated in that immortal assembly of the elect, where charity will be the law that shall unite them; truth, the flame that shall enlighten them; and eternity the measure of their felicity.
These thoughts are so much the more consoling to the godly, as they are founded on the truth of God himself. They know that, in sacrificing the present, they sacrifice nothing; that in the twinkling of an eye, all shall have passed away; that whatever must have an end cannot long endure; that this moment of tribulation ought to be reckoned as nothing, when put in competition with that eternal weight of glory which he prepareth for us; and that the rapid passage of present things scarcely deserves that we should be at the pains of numbering the years and the ages,
I know that faith may subsist with criminal manners; and that the sanctifying grace is often lost without losing a sincere submission to the truths revealed to us by the Spirit of God. But the certitude of faith, so consoling to the righteous soul, is no longer for the sinner who still believes but an inexhaustible fund of inward anxieties and cruel terrors. For, the more that sinners like you, who bear upon your conscience the sink of a whole life of irregularity, are convinced of the truths of faith, the more inevitable must the punishments and the misery appear with which it threatens such sinners. All the truths offered to your faith, in the holy doctrine, excite fresh alarms in your breast. Those divine lights, which are the source of all consolation to believing souls, become, within you, only avenging lights, which disquiet, agonize, and judge you; which, like a mirror, hold up continually to your sight what you would wish never to see; which enlighten you, in spite of yourselves, on what you would wish to be for ever ignorant. Your faith itself constitutes your punishment before-hand. Your religion is, here below, if I may venture to say so, your hell: and the more you are convinced of the truth, the more unhappy do you live. O God! how great is thy goodness toward man, in having rendered virtue necessary even to his quiet, and in thus attracting him to thee, by making it impossible for him to be happy without thee!
And here, my dear hearer, allow me to recall you to yourself. When the lot of a criminal soul should not be so fearful for the age to come, see if, even in this world, it appears much to be envied: his afflictions are without resource, his evils without consolation, even his pleasures without enjoyment; his anxieties upon the present, endless: his reflections on the past and on the future, gloomy and sad; his faith is the source of all his anguish; his lights of all his despair. What a situation! What a miserable lot! What shocking changes are operated by one act of guilt, both internally and externally, on man! How dearly does he purchase eternal misery! And, is it not true that the way of the world and of the passions is still infinitely more arduous and painful than that of the Gospel; and that there is more toil and vexation of spirit in gaining the kingdom of hell, if it be proper to speak in this manner, than in gaining the kingdom of heaven? O innocence of heart, what blessings dost thou not bring with thee to man! O man, what losest thou not, when thou losest thine innocence of heart! Thou losest all the consolations of faith, the sweetest occupation of the piety of the righteous; but thou also deprivest thyself of all the comforts of grace by which the lot of the godly is rendered so truly enviable here below.
Part II. — When comforts and consolations, says St. Augustine, are promised to worldly souls in the observance of the law of God, they consider our promises as a pious mode of speaking, employed to give credit and consequence to virtue; and, as a heart which has never tasted of these chaste delights is also incapable of comprehending them, we are obliged, continues that holy father, to reply to them, " How wouldst thou that we convince thee?" We cannot say unto thee, * O taste and see that the Lord is good P? seeing a diseased and vitiated heart can have no relish for the things in heaven. Give us a heart that loves, and it will feel the truth of every thing we say.
My design, therefore, here, is not so much to enlarge upon all the inward operations of grace in the heart of the just, as to contrast the happy situation in which it places them, here below, with the melancholy lot of sinners, and, by this comparison, to overwhelm vice and to encourage virtue. Now, I say, that grace provides two kinds of consolations here below to the godly: the one internal and secret, the other external and sensible; both of them so essential to happiness in this life, that no earthly gratification can ever compensate for them.
The first internal benefit accruing to the believing soul from grace, is the establishment of a solid peace in his heart, and a reconciliation with himself. For, my brethren, we all bear within us natural principles of equity, of modesty, and of rectitude. We come into the world, as the apostle says, with the precepts of the law written in the heart. If virtue be not our first bent, we at least, feel that it is our first duty. In vain does passion sometimes undertake secretly to persuade us that we are born for pleasure; and that, after all, tendencies implanted by nature, and which every one finds within himself, can never be crimes. This foreign persuasion is ineffectual in quieting the criminal soul. It is a desire, for we would heartily wish to be lawful whatever pleases us; but it is not a real conviction. It is a sayings for it appears honourable to be above all vulgar prejudices; but it is not a feeling. Thus, we always carry within us an incorruptible judge, who incessantly adopts the cause of virtue against our dearest inclinations; who blends with our most headstrong passions the troublesome ideas of duty; and who renders us unhappy even amidst all our pleasures and abundance.
Such is the state of an impure and a sullied conscience. The sinner is the secret and constant accuser of himself; go where he will, he carries a torment within which the hand of man cannot allay. Unhappy in being unable to conquer his lawless tendencies: more unhappy still in being unable to stifle his incessant remorses. Enticed by his weakness, and withheld by his lights, the permission of every crime is a conflict with himself: he reproaches himself for the iniquitous gratification, even in the moment of its enjoyment. What shall he do? Shall he combat his lights in order to appease his conscience? Shall he suspect his faith to sin in tranquillity? But unbelief is still a more horrible state than even guilt. To live without God, without worship, without principle, and without hope! to believe that the most abominable transgressions and the purest virtues are merely names! to consider all men as only the vile and fantastical puppets of a low theatre, and merely intended for the amusement of the spectators! to consider himself as the offspring of chance, and the eternal possession of nonentity! these thoughts have something, I know not what, of gloomy and horrible, that the soul cannot look upon without horror; and it is true that unbelief is rather the despair of the sinner than the refuge of the sin. What, then, shall he do? Continually obliged to fly himself, lest he find himself alone with his conscience, he ranges from object to object, from passion to passion, from precipice to precipice. He thinks to compensate the emptiness and the insufficiency of pleasures by their variety; there is none which he does not try. But, in vain is his heart successively offered to all the created; all the objects of his passions reply to him, says St. Augustine, (i Deceive not thyself in loving us; we are not that happiness of which thou art in search; we cannot render thee happy: raise thyself above the created, and, mounting to heaven, see if He who hath formed us be not greater and more worthy of being loved than we." Such is the lot of the sinner.
Not that the heart of the just enjoys a tranquillity so unalterable but that they, in their turn, experience troubles, disgusts, and anxieties here below. But these are passing clouds, which shade, as I may say, only the surface of their soul. A profound calm always reigns within, — that serenity of conscience, that simplicity of heart, that equality of mind, that lively confidence, that mild resignation, that calm of the passions, that universal peace, which begins, even from this life, the felicity of innocent souls. Vain creatures, what control have ye over a heart which ye have not made, and which is not made for you? — First consolation of grace, namely, peace of heart. The second is love, which mitigates to the just all the rigours of the law, and, according to the promise of Jesus Christ, changes his yoke, so insupportable to sinners, into a sweet and consoling yoke for them. For a believing soul loves his God still more fervently, more tenderly, and more truly, than he had ever loved the world. Every thing, therefore, even the most rigorous, that he undertakes for him, is either no longer a trial to his heart, or becomes its sweetest care. For the attribute of the holy love, when master of the heart, is either to mitigate the sufferings it occasions, or to change them even into holy pleasures. Thus a soul enamoured of God, if I may dare to speak in this manner, pardons with joy, suffers with confidence, mortifies itself with pleasure, flies from the world with delight, prays with consolation, and fulfils every duty with a holy satisfaction. The more his love increases, the more does his yoke become easy. The more he loves, the happier he is: for it is the height of happiness to love what is become essential and necessary to us.
But the sinner, the more he loves the world, the more unhappy he is: for the more he loves the world, the more do his passions multiply, the more do his desires inflame, the more do his schemes get perplexed, and the more do his anxieties become sharpened. His love is the cause of all his evils: its vivacity is the source of all his sufferings; because the world, which is the cause of them, is incapable of furnishing him with their cure. The more he loves the world, the more is his pride stung by a preference; the more does his haughtiness feel an injury, the more does he sink under a disconcerted project; the more does a disappointed desire afflict him, the more does an unexpected loss weigh him down. The more he loves the world, the more do pleasures become necessary to him; and, as no one can fill the immensity of his heart, the more insupportable does his weariness become: for weariness is the inseparable attendant of every pleasure; and, with all its amusements, the world, ever since it was a world, complains of its lassitude.
And think not that, to accredit virtue, I here affect to exaggerate the misery of worldly souls. I know that the world seems to have its happiness; and that, amid all that whirlwind of cares, motions, fears, anxieties, a small number of fortunate individuals is seen, whose happiness is envied, and who seem, in appearance to enjoy a smiling and tranquil lot. But investigate these vain outsides of happiness and gladness, and you will find real sorrows, distracted hearts, and agitated consciences. Draw near to these men who, in your eyes, appear the happy of the earth, and you will be surprised to find them gloomy, anxious, and sinking under the weight of a criminal conscience. Hear them in those serious and tranquil moments, when the passions, more cooled, allow some influence to reason. They all confess that they are any thing but happy; that the blaze of their fortune shines only at a distance, and appears worthy of envy only to those who know it not. They confess that, amidst all their pleasures and prosperity, they have never been able to taste any pure and unadulterated joy; that the world, a little searched into, is nothing; that they are astonished themselves how it can be loved when known; and that happy are they alone, here below, who can do without it and serve God. Some long for the opportunity of an honourable retreat; others are continually proposing to themselves more orderly and more Christian manners. All admit the happiness of the godly; all wish to become so; all bear testimony against themselves. They are the forced rather than the voluntary followers of pleasure. It is no longer inclination, it is habit, it is weakness, which retains them in the shackles of the world and of sin. They feel this; they lament it; they acknowledge it; and they give way to the current of so wretched a lot. Deceitful world! render happy, if in thy power, those who serve thee, and then will I forsake the law of the Lord to attach myself to the vanity of thy promises.
You yourself, my dear nearer, since the many years that you served the world, have you greatly forwarded your happiness? Put in a balance, on the one side, all the agreeable moments and days you have passed in it, and, on the other, all the sorrows and vexations you have there experienced, and see which scale will preponderate. In certain moments of pleasure, of excess, and of frenzy, you have, perhaps, said, " It is good for us to be here f but that was only a momentary intoxication, the illusion of which the following moment discovered to you, and plunged you into all your former anxieties. Even now, when speaking to you, question your own heart: are you at peace within? Is nothing wanting to your happiness? Do you fear, do you wish for nothing? Do you never feel that God is not with you? Would you wish to live and die such as you are? Are you satisfied with the world? Are you unfaithful to the Author of your being without remorse? There are twelve hours in the day: are they all equally agreeable to you? And have you, as yet, been able to succeed in fashioning a conscience so as to remain tranquil in guilt?
Even then, when you have plunged to the very bottom of the sea of iniquity to extinguish your remorses, and have succeeded, as you thought, in stifling that remnant of faith which still pleads in your heart for virtue, hath not the Lord commanded the serpent as he saith in his prophet Amos, to follow and sting you even in the abyss where you had fled for shelter? And, even there, have you not felt the secret gnawings of the ravenous worm? Is it not true that the days you have consecrated to God by some religious duty have been the happiest of your life; and that you have never lived, as I may say, but when your conscience has been pure, and that you have lived with God? No, says the prophet, with a holy pride, the God whom we worship is not a deceitful God, nor is he, like the gods which the world worships, unable to reward those who serve him; let the world themselves be the judges here.
Great God! what then is man, thus to wrestle his whole life against himself, to wish to be happy without thee, in spite of thee, in declaring himself against thee; to feel his wretchedness, and yet to love it; to know his true happiness, and yet to fly from it? What is man, O my God! and who shall fathom his ways, and the eternal contradiction of his errors?
Would I could finish what I had at first intended, and prove to you, my brethren, that the lot of the godly is still more worthy of all our wishes; for this reason, that, when the internal consolations happen even to fail them, yet they have the external aids of piety to strenghen and to assist them: the support of the sacrament, which, to the reluctant sinner, is no longer but a melancholy tribute to decency, equally tiresome and embarrassing; the example of the holy, and the history of their wonders, from which the sinner averts his eyes, lest he see in them his own condemnation: the holy thanksgivings and prayers of the church, which, to the sinner, become a melancholy fatigue: and, lastly, the consolation of the divine writings, in which he no longer finds but menaces and anathemas.
What invigorating refreshment, in effect, my brethren, to the mind of a believer, when, after quitting the vain conversations of the world, where the only subjects have been the exaltation of a family, the magnificence of a building, the individuals who act a brilliant part on the theatre of the universe, public calamities, the faults of those at the head of affairs, the events of war, and the errors with which the government is continually accused: lastly, where, earthly, they have spoken only of the earth; what a refreshment, after quitting these, when, in order to breathe a little from the fatigue of these vain conversations, a believing soul takes up the book of the law, and finds, every where in it, that it matters little to man to have gained the whole world, if he thereby lose his soul; that the most vaunted conquest shall sink into oblivion with the vanity of the conquerors; that the heavens and the earth shall pass away; that the kingdoms of the earth and all their glory shall waste away like a garment: but that God alone will endure for ever; and, consequently, that to him alone we ought to attach ourselves! The foolish have repeated vain things to me, O my God! says then this soul with the prophet; but, O how different from thy law!
And, certainly, my brethren, what soothing promises in these holy books! What powerful inducements to virtue! What happy precautions against vice! What instructive events! what sublime ideas of the greatness of God, and of the wretchedness of man! What animated paintings of the deformity of sin, and the false happiness of sinners! We have no need of thine assistance, wrote Jonathan and all the Jewish people to the Spartans; for, having the holy books in our hands to comfort us, we have no occasion for the aid of men. And who, think you, my brethren, were these men who spake in this manner? They were the unfortunate remains of Antiochus's cruelty, wandering in the mountains of Judea, despoiled of their property and fortunes, driven from Jerusalem and the temple, where the abomination of idols had taken place of the worship of the holy God; and, scarcely emerged from so afflicting a situation, they are in need of nothing, for they have the holy books in their hands. And, in an extremity so new, surrounded on all hands by nations of enemies, having no longer, in the midst of their army, either the ark of Israel or the holy tabernacle; their tears still flowing for the recent death of the invincible Judas, who was alike the safeguard of the people and the terror of the uncircumcised; having seen their wives and children murdered before their eyes; they themselves on the point every day of sinking under the treachery of their false brethren or the ambuscades of their enemies; — the book of the law is alone sufficient to comfort and to defend them; and they think themselves in a situation to disclaim that assistance which an ancient treaty and alliance entitled them to demand.
I am not surprised, after this, that, in the consolation of the Scriptures, the first disciples of the Gospel should forget all the rage of persecution; and that, unable to bring themselves to lose sight of that divine book during life, they should desire it to be inclosed in their tomb after death, as if to guarantee to their ashes that immortality it had always promised to them; and likewise, as it would appear, to present it to Jesus Christ on the day of revelation, as the sacred claim by which they were entitled to heavenly riches, and to all the promises made to the righteous.
Such are the consolations of believing souls upon the earth. How terrible, then, my brethren, to live far from God under the tyranny of sin: always at war with one^s self; destitute of every real joy of the heart; without relish often for pleasures alike as for virtue; odious to men through the meanness of our passions; insupportable to ourselves through the capriciousness of our desires; hated of God through the horrors of our conscience; deprived of the comforts of the sacrament, seeing our crimes permit us not to approach it: deprived of all consolation from the holy books, seeing we find in them only threatenings and anathemas; without the resource of prayer, seeing the practice of it is forbidden, or at least the habit of it lost by a life wholly dissolute. What then is the sinner but the outcast of heaven and of the earth!
Thus, know ye, my brethren, what shall be the regrets of the reprobate on that great day, when to each one shall be rendered according to his works? You probably think that they will regret their past felicity, and shall say, " Our days of prosperity have slipped away like a shadow, and that world, in which we had spent so many sweet moments, is now no more: the duration of our pleasures has been like that of a dream: our happiness is flown, but, alas! our punishments are to begin." You are mistaken; this will not be their language. Hear how they speak in the Book of Wisdom, and such, as we are ussured by the Spirit of God, they shall one day speak: " We never tasted pure delight in guilt; we have erred from the ways of truth, and the Sun of righteousness hath never risen upon us: alas! and yet that was only the beginning of our misfortunes and sufferings; we wearied ourselves in the way of wickedness and destruction; our passions have always been a thousand times more intolerable to us than could ever have been the most austere virtues: and we have suffered more in working our own destruction, than would have been necessary to secure our salvation, and to be entitled to mount up now with the chosen into the realms of immortality. Fools that we are! by a sorrowful and unhappy life to have purchased miseries which must endure for ever! "
Would you then, my dear hearer, live happy on the earth, live Christianly. Piety is universally beneficial. Innocence of heart is the source of true pleasures. Turn to every side; there is no rest, says the Spirit of God, for the wicked. Try every pleasure; they will never eradicate that disease of the mind, that fund of lassitude and gloom, which, go where you will, continually accompanies you. Cease, then, to consider the lot of the godly as a disagreeable and sorrowful lot; judge not their happiness from appearances which deceive you. You see their countenance bedewed with tears; but you see not the invisible hand which wipes them away; you see their body groaning under the yoke of penitence; but you see not the unction of grace which softens it: you see sorrowful and austere maimers; but you see not a conscience always cheerful and tranquil. They are like the ark in the desert: it appeared covered only with the skins of animals: the exterior is mean or unattractive; it is the condition of that melancholy desert. But, could you penetrate into the heart, into that divine sanctuary, what new wonders would rise to your eyes! You would find it clothed in pure gold: you would there see the glory of God with which it is filled: you would there admire the fragrance of the perfumes, and the fervour of the prayers which are continually mounting upwards to the Lord; the sacred fire which is never extinguished on that altar; that silence, that peace, that majesty which reigns there; and the Lord himself, who hath chosen it for his abode, and who hath delighted in it.
Let their lot inspire you with a holy emulation. It depends wholly on yourself to be similar to them. They perhaps have formerly been the accomplices of your pleasures; why could you not become the imitators of their penitence? Establish, at last, a solid peace in your heart; begin to be weary of yourself. Hitherto you have only half lived; for it is not living to live at enmity with one's self. Return to your God, who calls and who expects you: banish iniquity from your soul, and you will banish the source of all its sorrows; you will enjoy the peace of innocence; you will live happy upon the earth; and that temporal happiness will be only the commencement of a felicity which shall never fade nor be done away.