SERMON V.
THE CERTAINTY OF THE LOSS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN A STATE OF LUKEWARMNESS.
" And he rose out of the syangogue, and entered into Simon's house: and Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her." — Luke iv. 38.
Since Simon thought the presence of our Saviour necessary for the cure of his mother-in-law, it would appear, my brethren, that the evil was pressing, and threatened an approaching death. The usual remedies must have been found ineffectual, and nothing but a miracle could operate her cure, and draw her from the gates of death: nevertheless, the Scriptures mention her being attacked by only a common fever. On every other occasion, we never find that they had recourse to our Saviour, but to raise people from the grave, to cure paralytics, restore sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf, from their birth: in a word, to cure diseases incurable by any other than the sovereign Master of life and death. In this instance he is called upon to restore health to a person attacked by a simple fever.
Whence comes it that the Almighty power is employed on so slight an occasion? It is, that this fever, being a natural image of lukewarmness in the ways of God, the Holy Spirit has wished to make us understand by it, that this disease, apparently so slight, and of which they dread not the danger, — this lukewarmness, so common in piety, is a disease which inevitably destroys the soul, and that a miracle is necessary to rescue it from death.
Yes, my brethren, of all the maxims of Christian morality, there is none upon which experience allows us less to deceive ourselves, than the one which assures us, that contempt for the smallest points of our duty insensibly leads us to a transgression of the most essential; and that negligence in the ways of God, is never far from a total loss of righteousness. He who despises the smaller objects of religion, says the Holy Spirit, will gradually fall: he who despises them, that is to say, who deliberately violates them; who lays down, as it were, a plan of this conduct: for if, through weakness or surprise, you fail in them sometimes, it is the common destiny of the just, and this discourse would no longer regard you; but to despise them in the sense already mentioned, which can happen only with lukewarm and unfaithful souls, is a path which must terminate in the loss of righteousness; — in the first place, because the special grace necessary toward perseverance in virtue is no longer granted; — secondly, because the passions are strengthened which lead us on to vice; — thirdly, because all the external succours of piety become useless.
Let us investigate these three reflections. They contain important instructions in the detail of a Christian life: useful, not only to those who make a public profession of piety, but likewise to those who make all virtue to consist in that regularity of conduct and propriety of behaviour which even the world requires.
Part I. — It is a truth of salvation, says a holy father, that the innocence of even the most upright has occasion for the continual assistance of grace. Man, delivered up to sin by the wickedness of his nature, no longer finds in himself but principles of error and sources of corruption: righteousness and truth, originally born with us, are now become as strangers; all our inclinations, revolted against God and his law in spite of ourselves, drag us on toward illicit objects; insomuch, that, to return to the law, and submit our heart to order, it is necessary to resist, without ceasing, the impressions of the senses; to break our warmest inclinations, and to harden ourselves continually against ourselves. There is no duty but what now costs us something; no precept in the law but combats some of our passions; no step in the paths of God against which our heart does not revolt.
To this load of corruption, which renders duty so difficult and irksome, and iniquity so natural, add the snares which surround us, the examples which entice us, the objects which effeminate us, the occasions which surprise us, the compliances which weaken us, the afflictions which discourage us, the properties which corrupt us, the situations which blind us, and the contradictions which we experience; every thing around us is indeed only one continued temptation. I speak not of the miseries which are natural to us, or the particular opposition to order and righteousness, which our past morals, and our first passions, have left in our hearts; that love for the world and its pleasures; that dislike to virtue and its maxims; that empire of the senses, fortified by a voluptuous life; that invincible indolence, to which every thing is a burden, and to which whatever is a burden becomes almost impossible; that pride, which knows neither how to bend nor break: that inconstancy of heart, incapable of end or uniformity, which presently tires of itself; which cannot submit to rule, because that is always the same; which wishes, and wishes not; passes in a moment from the lowest state of dejection to a vain and childish joy, and leaves scarcely the interval of a moment between the sincerest resolution and the infidelity which violates it.
Now, in a situation so miserable, what, O my God, can the most just accomplish, delivered up to his own weakness and all the snares which surround him; bearing in his heart the source of all his errors, and in his mind the principles of every illusion? The grace of Jesus Christ, therefore, can alone deliver him from so many miseries; enlighten him in the midst of so much darkness; support him under so many difficulties; restrain him from following the dictates of so many rapid desires, and strengthen him against so many attacks. If left a moment to himself, he inevitably stumbles, and is lost. If an Almighty hand ceases an instant to retain him, he is carried down by the stream. Our consistency in virtue is, therefore, a continual grace and miracle. All our steps in the ways of God are new motions of the Holy Spirit; that is to say, of that invisible guide which impels and leads us on. All our pious actions are gifts of Divine mercy; since every proper use of our liberty comes from him, and he crowns his gifts in recompensing our merits. All the moments of our Christian life are like a new creation, therefore, in faith, and in piety: that is to say, (this spiritual creation does not suppose a non-existence in the just, but a principle of grace, and a liberty which co-operates with it,) that as, in the order of nature, we should again return to our nonentity, if the Creator ceased for an instant to preserve the being he has given us; in the life of grace, we should again fall into sin and death, did the Redeemer cease a single moment to continue, by new succours, the gift of righteousness and holiness, with which he had embellished our soul. Such is the weakness of man, and such is his continual dependence on the grace of Jesus Christ. The fidelity of the just soul is therefore the fruit of continual aids of grace; but it is likewise the principle. It is grace alone which can accomplish the fidelity of the just; and it is the fidelity alone of the just which merits the preservation and increase of grace in the heart.
For, my brethren, the ways of God toward us being full of equity and wisdom, there must necessarily be some order in the distribution of his gifts and grace. The Lord must communicate himself more abundantly to the soul which faithfully prepares its heart for his ways; he must bestow more continual marks of his protection and mercy on the upright heart which gives him constant proof of love and fidelity; and the servant who improves his talent, must necessarily be recompensed in proportion to the profit he has known how to reap from it. It is just, on the contrary, that a lukewarm and unfaithful heart, who serves his God with negligence and disgust, should find the Almighty cold and disgusted toward him. The misery inseparable from coldness is therefore the privation of the grace of protection. If you become cold, the Almighty becomes so toward you; if you limit yourself with regard to him, to those essential duties which you cannot refuse him without guilt, he confines himself with regard to you, to those general succours which will not support you far. He retires from you in proportion as you retire from him; and the measure of fidelity with which you serve him, is the measure of protection you may expect to receive.
Nothing can be more equitable than this conduct; for you enter into judgment with your God. You neglect every opportunity where you might give him proofs of your fidelity: you dispute every thing with him, of which you think you could avoid the payment; you carefully watch lest you do any thing for him beyond what duty requires. It appears you say to him, what he formerly said to the unfaithful servant, Take that thine is, and go thy way. You reckon with God, as I may say. All your attention is engaged in prescribing limits to the right he has over your heart; and all his attention likewise, if I may be permitted to speak in this manner, is to put bounds to his mercies to your soul, and to pay your indifference with the same. Love is the price of love alone; and if you do not sufficiently feel all the terror and extent of this truth, allow me to explain to you its consequences.
The first is, that this state of lukewarmness and infidelity removing the soul from the grace of protection, leaves him, as I may say, empty of God, and in the hands, as it were, of his own weakness. He may, undoubtedly, with the common succours left him, still preserve the fidelity he owes to God. He has always enough to support him in well-doing; but his lukewarmness deprives him of the ability to apply them to any purpose; that is to say, that he is still aided by those succours which may enable him to go on, but no longer by those with which he may infallibly persevere; there is no peril, therefore, in this situation, but makes a dangerous impression upon him, and leads him to the brink of ruin.
I grant, that a happy natural disposition, some remains of modesty, and fear of God, a conscience still afraid of guilt, and a reputation to preserve, may for some time defend him against himself; but as these resources, drawn mostly from nature, cannot extend far; as the sensual objects, in the midst of which he lives, make every day new wounds in his heart, and grace, less abundant, repairs not the loss, — alas! his strength exhausts every moment, faith relaxes, and truth is obscured; the more he advances, the worse he becomes. Such souls feel perfectly, that they no longer retire from the world and its dangers, equally innocent as formerly; that they carry their weaknesses and compliance much farther: that they encroach upon limits which they formerly respected: that loose conversations find them more indulgent, evil-speaking more favourable, pleasure less guarded, and the world more anxious for it; that they bring into it a heart already half-gained; that they are sensible of their losses, but feel nothing to repair them: — in a word, that God is almost withdrawn from them, and there is no longer any barrier but their own weakness, between guilt and them. Behold the situation in which you are, and from that judge of the one in which you will soon be.
I know that this state of relaxation and infidelity troubles and disturbs you; that you say every day, that nothing can bestow greater happiness than a detachment from every thing worldly; and that you envy the destiny of those Christians who give themselves up to God without reserve, and no longer keep any terms with the world. But you are deceived: it is not the faith or the fervour of these faithful Christians you envy; you only covet their lot, that happiness and peace which they enjoy in the service of their Master, and which you are incapable of partaking; you only envy them that insensibility and happy indifference to which they have attained for the world and every thing it esteems, your love for which occasions all your troubles, remorses, and secret anguish: but you envy them not the sacrifices they were under the necessity of making, to arrive at their present state of tranquillity; you envy them not the trials they have undergone, in order to merit the precious gift of a lively and fervent faith; you envy the happiness of their state, but you would not wish it to cost you the illusion and sensuality of your own.
The second consequence I draw from the refusal of the grace of protection to the lukewarm Christian, is, that the yoke of our Saviour, to him, becomes burdensome, hard, and insupportable. For, my brethren, by the irregularity of our nature, having lost all taste for righteousness and truth, which, in a state of innocence, formed the happiness of man, we no longer have any feeling or desire but for objects which gratify the senses and passions. The duties of the law of God, which recall us from the senses to the spirit, and make us sacrifice the present impressions of pleasure to the hope of future promises: — these duties, I say, presently fatigue our weakness, because they are continual efforts we make against ourselves. It requires the unction of grace, therefore, to soften the yoke; it is necessary that grace spread secret consolations over its bitterness, and change the sadness of duty into a holy and sensible joy. Now, the lukewarm soul, deprived of this unction, feels only the weight of the yoke, without the consolations which soften it. In this manner, all the duties of piety and religion become insipid to you; works of salvation become wearisome; your conscience, restless and embarrassed by your relaxations and infidelities, of which you cannot justify the innocence, no longer allows you to enjoy either peace or happiness in the service of God. You feel all the weight of the duties to which some remains of faith, and love of ease, hinder you from being unfaithful; but you feel not the secret testimony of a clear conscience, which soothes and supports the fervent Christian. You shun, perhaps, certain occasions of pleasure, where innocence is sure of being shipwrecked; but you only experience, in the retreat which divides you from them, a wearisomeness, and a more lively desire for the same pleasures from which you have forced yourself to refrain. You pray, but prayer is no longer but a fatigue; you frequent the society of virtuous persons, but their company becomes so irksome as almost to disgust you with virtue itself. The slightest violence you do upon your inclinations for the sake of heaven, costs you such efforts, that the pleasures and amusements of the world must be applied to, to refresh and invigorate you after this fatigue; the smallest mortification exhausts your body, casts uneasiness and chagrin through your temper, and only consoles you by an immediate determination to abandon its practice. You live unhappy, and without consolation, because you deprive yourself of a world you love, and substitute in its place duties which you love not. Your whole life is but a melancholy fatigue, and a perpetual disgust with yourself. You resemble the Israelites in the desert, disgusted, on the one part, with the manna upon which the Lord had ordered them to subsist; and, on the other, not daring to return to the food of the Egyptians, which they still loved, and which the dread alone of the Almighty's anger induced them to deny themselves. Now, this state of violence cannot endure; we soon tire of any remains of virtue which do not quiet the heart, comfort the reason, and even flatter our selflove; we soon throw off the remains of a yoke which weighs us down, and which we no longer carry through love, but for decency's sake. It is so melancholy to be nothing at all, as I may say, — neither just nor worldly, attached neither to the world nor to Jesus Christ, enjoying neither the pleasures of the senses, nor those of grace, — that it is impossible this wearisome situation of indifference and neutrality can be durable. The heart, and particularly those of a certain description, requires an avowed object to occupy and interest it: if not God, it will soon be the world. A heart, lively, eager, always in extremes, and such as the generality of men possess, cannot be fixed but by the feelings; and to be continually disgusted with virtue, shows a heart already prepared to yield to the attractions of vice.
I know, in the first place, that there are lazy and indolent souls, who seem to keep themselves in this state of equilibration and insensibility; who offer nothing decided, either for the world or virtue; who appear equally distant, by their dispositions, either from the ardours of a faithful piety, or the excesses of profane guilt; who in the midst of the pleasures of the world, preserve a fund of retention and regularity which proves the existence of some remains of virtue, and, in the midst of their religious duties, a fund of carelessness and laxity which still breathes the air and maxims of the world. These are indolent and tranquil hearts, animated in nothing, in whom indolence almost supplies the place of virtue, and who, notwithstanding they never arrive at that degree of piety which the faithful accomplish, never proceed to those lengths in iniquity which criminal and abandoned souls do.
I know it, my brethren, but I likewise know, that this indolence of heart defends us only from crimes which would cost us trouble; makes us avoid only those pleasures which we would be obliged to purchase at the expense of our tranquillity, and which the love of ease alone prevents us from enjoying. It leaves us virtuous only in the eyes of men, who confound the indolence which dreads embarrassment with the piety which flies from vice; but it does not defend us against ourselves, against a thousand illicit desires, a thousand criminal compliances, a thousand passions, more secret and less painful because shut up in the heart; from jealousies, which devour us; ambition, which domineers over us; pride, which corrupts us; a desire of pleasure, which engrosses us; an excess of self-love, which is the principle of all our conduct, and infects all our actions: that is to say, that this indolence delivers up our heart to all its weaknesses, at the same time that it serves as a check against the most striking and tumultuous passions, and that what appears only indolence in the eyes of men, is always before God a secret ignominy and corruption.
I know, in the second place, that this love of piety, and this unction which softens the practice of religious duties, is a gift frequently refused even to holy and faithful Christians. But there are three essential differences between the faithful soul, to whom the Lord denies the sensible consolations of piety, and the lukewarm and worldly one, whom the weight of the yoke oppresses, and who is capable of enjoying the things of God.
The first is, that a faithful Christian, in spite of his repugnances, preserving a firm and solid faith, finds his state, and the exemption from guilt in which he lives, since touched by God, a thousand times more happy than that in which he lived when delivered up to his passions; and, penetrated with horror at his former excesses, he would not change his lot, or re-engage himself in his former vices, for all the pleasures of the earth. In place of which, the lukewarm and unfaithful heart, disgusted with virtue, enviously regards the pleasures and vain happiness of the world; and his disgusts being only the consequence and sufferings of his weakness and the lukewarmness of his faith, to plunge into sin begins to appear as the only resource left him from the weariness and gloominess of piety.
The second difference is, that the faithful Christian, in the midst of his disgusts and hardships, at least bears a conscience which reproaches him not with guilt. He at least is supported by the testimony of his own heart, and by a certain degree of internal peace, which, though neither warm nor very sensible, fails not, however, to establish within us a calm which we never experienced in the paths of error. On the contrary, the lukewarm and unfaithful soul, allowing himself, against the testimony of his own conscience, a thousand daily transgressions, of which he knows not the wickedness, bears always an uneasy and suspicious conscience; and being no longer sustained by love for his duties, nor the peace and testimony of his conscience, this state of agitation and weariness soon terminates in the miserable peace of sin.
The last reason is, that the disgusts of the faithful Christian being only trials, to which, for his purification, God exposes him, he supplies, in a thousand ways, the sensible consolations of virtue which he refuses him; he replaces them by a more powerful protection, by a merciful attention to remove every danger which might seduce him, and by more abundant succours of grace; for the Almighty wishes neither to lose nor discourage him; he wishes only to prove him, and make him expiate, by the afflictions and hardships of virtue, the unjust pleasures of sin. But the disgusts of an infidel soul are not trials, — they are punishments: it is not a merciful God who suspends the consolations of grace, without suspending grace itself; it is not a tender father, who supplies, by the solidity of his tenderness, and by effectual assistances, the apparent rigours he is under the necessity of using: it is a severe judge, who only begins to deprive the criminal of a thousand indulgences, because the sentence of death is prepared for him. The hardships of virtue find a thousand resources in virtue itself: those of lukewarmness can find them only in the deceitful pleasures of vice.
Such, my brethren, is the inevitable lot of lukewarmness in the ways of God, — the misery of losing righteousness. Will you tell us, after this, that you wish to practise only a degree of virtue which may continue; that these great exertions of zeal cannot be supported; that it is much better not to begin so high, and by these means to accomplish the end; and that they never go far who exhaust themselves at the beginning of their journey?
I know that every excess, even in piety, comes not from the Spirit of God, which is a spirit of wisdom and discretion; that the zeal which overturns the order of our state and duties, is not the piety which comes from above, but an illusion born in ourselves; that indiscretion is a source of false virtues; and that we often give to vanity what we think is given to truth.
But I tell you from God, that, to persevere in his ways, we must give ourselves up to him without reserve; that, in order to support the fidelity due to the essential parts of our duty, we must unceasingly endeavour to weaken the passions which oppose it; and that keeping terms with these passions, under the pretext of not going too far, is to dig for ourselves a grave. I tell you, that it is only the faithful and fervent Christians, who, not contented with shunning sin, shun also every thing which can lead to it; that it is these alone who persevere, who sustain themselves, who honour piety by a supported, equal, and uniform conduct; and, on the contrary, it is lukewarm and relaxed souls, who have begun their penitence by limiting their piety, and accommodating it to the pleasures and maxims of the world; it is these souls who draw back, who belie themselves, and who dishonour piety, by their inconstancy and inequality of conduct, by a life sometimes blended with virtue and retirement, and at others devoted to the world and weaknesses. And I appeal to yourselves, my brethren, if, when you see in the world a person relax from his first fervour; gradually mingle himself in the pleasures and societies he had lately so scrupulously and severely denied himself; insensibly abate his love of retirement, his modesty, circumspection, prayers, and exactitude to fulfil his religious duties, — you say not to yourselves, that he is not far from returning to what he formerly was? Are not these relaxations regarded by you as a prelude to his ruin; and that virtue is nearly extinct, when once you see it weakened? Do you even require so much to arouse your censures and malicious presages against piety? Unjust that you are, you condemn a cold and unfaithful virtue, while you condemn us for requiring of you a virtue faithful and fervent! You pretend, that, in order to continue, you must begin with moderation, while you prophesy that a total departure from virtue is not far distant, when once it begins to be followed with coolness and negligence!
From a relaxation alone, therefore, we are to dread a return to our former courses, and a departure from virtue. It is not by giving ourselves up without reserve to God, that we become disgusted with piety and are forsaken by him. The way to come gloriously off in battle, is not by sparing, but overcoming the enemy. There is no dread, therefore, of doing too much, lest we should be unable to support it; on the contrary, to merit the grace necessary to our support, we ought, from the first, to leave nothing undone. What illusion, my brethren! We dread zeal, as dangerous to perseverance; and it is zeal alone which can obtain it. We fix ourselves in a lukewarm and commodious life, as the only one which can subsist; and it is the only one which proves false. We shun fidelity, as the rock of piety; and piety without fidelity is never far from shipwreck.
It is thus that lukewarmness removes from the infidel soul the grace of protection: of which the absence depriving our faith of all its strength, and the yoke of Jesus Christ of all its consolations, leaves us in a state of imbecility, that, to be lost, innocence requires only to be attacked. But if the loss of righteousness is inevitable on the part of grace which is withdrawn, it is still more so on account of the passions which are fortified within us.
Part II. — What renders vigilance so necessary to Christian piety, is, that all the passions which oppose themselves in us to the law of God, only die, as I may say, with us. We undoubtedly are able to weaken them, by the assistance of grace, and a fervent and lively faith; but the roots always continue in the heart; we always carry within us the principles of the same errors our tears have effaced. Guilt may be extinguished in our hearts; but sin, as the apostle says, that is to say, the corrupted inclinations which have formed our guilt, inhabits and lives there still. And that fund of corruption which removed us so far from God, is still left us in our penitence, to serve as a continual exercise to virtue; to render us, by the continual occasions of combat it raises up for us, more worthy of an eternal crown; to humble our pride; to keep us in remembrance, that the duration of our present life is a time of war and danger; and, by a destiny inevitable to our nature, that there is only one step between relaxation and guilt.
It is true that the grace of Jesus Christ is given us to repress these corrupted inclinations which survive our conversion; but in a state of lukewarmness, as I have already said, grace offering us only common succours, and the grace of protection, of which we are become unworthy, being either more rare, or entirely suspended, it is evident that the passions must acquire new strength. But I say, that not only the passions are strengthened in a lukewarm and infidel life, because the grace of protection which checked them is more rare, but likewise by the state itself of relaxation and coldness: for that life being only a continued indulgence of all the passions; a simple easiness in granting, to a certain degree, every thing which flatters the appetites; a watchfulness, even of self-love, to remove whatever might repress or restrain them; and a perpetual usage of all things capable of inflaming them; — it is evident, that by these means they must daily acquire new force.
In a word, my brethren, we are not to imagine, that, in pushing our indulgence for our passions only to certain lengths permitted, we appease them, as I may say; that we allow sufficient to satisfy them, and not enough to stain our soul, or carry trouble and remorse through our conscience; or fancy that we can ever attain a certain degree of equilibration between virtue and sin, where, on the one side, our passions are satisfied by the indulgence allowed them; and, on the other, our conscience is tranquil, by the absence of guilt which we shun. For such is the plan adopted by the lukewarm soul: favourable to his indolence, because he equally banishes every thing, either in virtue or in sin, which can disturb him. To the passions he refuses whatever might trouble his conscience; and to virtue, whatever might be disagreeable to or mortify his self-love; but this state of equilibrium is a perfect chimera. The passions know no limits or bounds in guilt; how, therefore, could they possibly be restrained to those of the lukewarm soul? Even the utmost excess cannot restrain or fix them; how, then, could simple indulgences do it? The more you grant, the more you deprive yourself of the power to refuse them any thing. The true secret of appeasing, is not by favouring them to a certain degree; it is by opposing them in every thing; every indulgence only renders them more fierce and unmanageable; it is a little water thrown upon a great fire, which, far from extinguishing, increases its fury. Every thing which flatters the passions, renders them more keen, and diminishes the probability of being able to conquer them.
Now, such is the state of a lukewarm and unfaithful soul. It allows itself every animosity which extends not to avowed revenge; it justifies every pleasure in which guilt is not palpable; it delivers itself up without reserve to every worldly desire and gratification, by which no individual, it supposes, is injured; every omission, which seems to turn on the arbitrary duties, or but slightly interest the essential ones, it makes no scruple of; every action of selflove, which leads not directly to guilt, it regards as nothing; all that nicety with regard to rank and personal fame, which is compatible with that moderation even the world requires, it regards as a merit. Now, what happens in consequence of this? Listen, and you shall know; and I beg you will attend to the following reflections.
In the first place: all the inclinations within us, which oppose themselves to order and duty, being continually strengthened, order and duty at last find in us insurmountable difficulties: insomuch, that, to accomplish them on any essential occasion, or when required by the law of God, is like remounting against the stream of a rapid flood, where the current drags us down in spite of every effort to the contrary; or like a furious and unmanageable horse which it is necessary to stop short on the brink of a precipice. Thus your insensibility and pride are nourished to such a degree of strength, that you abandon your heart to all their impressions. Thus your care and anxiety have so fortified in your heart the desire of worldly praise, that, on any important occasion, where it would be necessary to sacrifice the vanity of its suffrages to duty, and expose yourself, for the good of your soul, to its censure and derision, you will always prefer the interests of vanity to those of truth, and the opinions of men will be much more powerful than the fear of God. Thus those anxieties with regard to fortune and advancement have rendered ambition so completely sovereign of your heart, that, in any delicate conjuncture, where the destruction of a rival would be necessary toward your own elevation, you will never hesitate, but will sacrifice your conscience to your fortune, and be unjust toward your brother, lest you fail toward yourself. Thus in a word, to avoid a long detail, those suspicious attachments, loose conversations, ridiculous compliances, and desires of pleasing, too much attended, have filled you with dispositions so nearly allied to guilt and debauchery, that you are no longer capable of resistance against any of their attacks; the corruption prepared by the whole train of your past actions, will be lighted up in an instant; your weakness will overcome your reflection; your heart will go against glory, duty, and yourself. We cannot long continue faithful, when we find in ourselves so many dispositions to be otherwise.
Thus you will yourself be surprised at your own weakness: you will ask at yourself, what are become of all those dispositions of modesty and virtue, which formerly inspired you with such horror at sin? You no longer will know yourself: but this state of guilt will gradually appear less frightful to you. The heart soon justifies to itself whatever pleases it: whatever is agreeable to us, does not long alarm us; and to the misery of a departure from virtue, you will add the misery of ignorance and security.
Such is the inevitable lot of a lukewarm and unfaithful life: passions which we have too much indulged. " Young lions," says a prophet, which " have been nourished without precaution, at length grow up, and devour the careless hand which has even assisted to strengthen and render them formidable." The passions, arrived to a certain point, gain a complete ascendancy: in vain you then try to regain yourself. The time is past; you have fostered the profane fire in your heart, it must at last break out; you have nourished the venom within you, it must now spread and gain upon you, and the time is past for any application to medicine; you should have taken it in time. At the commencement the disease was not irremediable; you have allowed it to strengthen, you have irritated it by every thing which could inflame and render it incurable; it must now be conqueror, and you the victim of your own indiscretion and indulgence.
Do you not likewise say, my brethren, that you have the best intentions in the world; that you wish you could act much better than you do; and though you have the sincerest desires for salvation, yet a thousand conjunctures happen in life, where we forget all our good intentions, and must be saints to resist their impressions? This is exactly what we tell you; that in spite of all your pretended good intentions, if you do not fly, struggle, watch, pray, and continually take the command over yourself, a thousand occasions will occur where you will no longer be master of your own weakness. This is what we tell you, that nothing but a mortified and watchful life can place us beyond the reach of temptation and danger; that it is ridiculous to suppose we shall continue faithful in those moments when violently attacked, when we bear a heart weakened, wavering, and already on the verge of falling; that none but the house built upon a rock can resist the winds and the tempest; and, in a word, that we must be holy, and firmly established in virtue, to live free from guilt.
And when I say that we must be holy, — alas! my brethren, the most faithful and fervent Christians, with every inclination mortified as far as the frailty of our nature will permit; imaginations purified by prayer, and minds nourished in virtue and meditation on the law of God, frequently find themselves in such terrible situations that their hearts sink within them; their imaginations become troubled and deranged; they see themselves in those melancholy agitations where they float for a long time between victory and death; and like a vessel struggling against the waves, in the midst of an enraged ocean, they can only look for safety from the Almighty commander of winds and tempests. And you, with a heart already half seduced, with inclinations at least bordering upon guilt, would wish your weakness to be proof against all attacks, and the most powerful temptations to find you always tranquil and inaccessible? You would wish, with your lukewarm, sensual, and worldly morals, that on these occasions your soul should be gifted with that strength and faith which even the most tender and watchful piety sometimes cannot give? You would wish passions flattered, nourished, and strengthened, to remain tractable, quiet, and cold, in the presence of objects most capable of lighting them up? Those which, after years of austerities, and a life devoted to prayer and watching, awake sometimes in a moment, far even from danger, and, by melancholy examples, make the most upright feel that we never should be off our guard, and that the highest point of virtue is sometimes the instant which precedes a departure from and total loss of it. Such is our lot, my brethren, to be quick-sighted only toward the dangers which regard our fortune or our life, and not even to know those which threaten our salvation. But let us undeceive ourselves. To shun guilt, something more is required than the lukewarmness and indolence of virtue; and vigilance is the only mean left us by our Saviour to preserve our innocence.— First reflection.
A second reflection to be made on this truth is, that the passions, daily strengthening in a lukewarm and infidel life, not only duty finds in us insurmountable repugnances, but guilt likewise, as I may say, polishes itself; and at last we feel no more repugnance to it than to the simplest fault. Indeed, by these daily infidelities inseparable from lukewarmness, the heart, as if by insensible steps, at last arrives at those dangerous limits, which, by a single line, separate life from death, guilt from innocence, and makes the final step almost without perceiving it; only a little way remaining for him to go, and having no occasion for any new exertion to accomplish it, he does not believe he has exceeded his former bounds. He had replenished himself with dispositions so nearly bordering on guilt, that he has brought forth iniquity without pain, repugnance, visible movement, or even perceiving it himself. Similar to a dying person, whom the languors of a long and painful malady have so attenuated, and so nearly approached to his end, that the departing sigh resembles those which have preceded it, costs him no greater effort than the others, and even leaves the spectators uncertain whether his last moment is come, or if%he still breathes. And this is what renders the state of a lukewarm and infidel soul still more dangerous, that they are commonly dead to grace, without knowing it themselves; they become enemies to God, while they still live with him as with a friend; they are still in the commerce of holy things, when they have lost the grace which entitles us to approach them.
Thus, let those souls whom this Discourse regards, no longer deceive themselves, because they believe to have hitherto avoided a gross departure from virtue: their state before God is undoubtedly only more dangerous. Perhaps the most formidable danger of lukewarmness is, that already dead in the sight of God, they live, in their opinion, without any visible or marked guilt; that they compose themselves tranquilly in death, depending on an appearance of life which comforts them; that to the danger of their situation they add a false peace, which confirms them in this path of illusion and darkness: it is, in a word, that the Lord, by terrible and secret judgments, strikes them with blindness, and punishes the corruption of their heart by permitting them to be ignorant of it. A gross fall from virtue, if I may venture to say so, would to them be a mark of the goodness and mercy of God. They would then at least open their eyes; naked and manifest guilt would then carry trouble, vexation, and uneasiness through their conscience; the disease at last discovered, would perhaps induce them to have recourse to the remedy; in place of which, this life, apparently regular, composes and calms them, renders useless the example of fervent Christians, persuades them that this great fervour is unnecessary; that it is much more the effect of temperament than of grace; that it is an emotion of zeal, rather than of duty; and makes them listen to, as vain exaggerations, all that we say with regard to a lukewarm and infidel life. — Second reflection.
In a word, the last reflection to be made on this great truth, is, that such is the nature of our heart, always to remain much below what it at first proposed. A thousand times we have formed pious resolutions; we have projected to carry to a certain point the detail of our duties and conduct, but the execution has always much diminished from the ardour of our projects, and has rested at a degree much below the one to which we wished to raise ourselves. Thus, the lukewarm Christian, proposing to himself no higher point of virtue than to shun guilt, looking precisely to precept, that is to say, to that rigorous and precise point of the law, immediately below which is prevarication and death, he infallibly rests below, and never reaches that essential point which he had proposed to himself. It is, therefore, an incontestable maxim, that we must undertake much to execute little, and look very high to attain at least the middle. Now, this maxim, so sure with regard even to the most just, is much more so with respect to the lukewarm and infidel soul; for coldness more strongly binding all his ties, and augmenting the weight of his corruption and misery, it is principally him who ought to take his grand flight, in order to attain at least the lowest degree; and, in his counsels with himself, propose perfection, if he wishes to rest even at the observance of precept. Above all, it is to him we may truly say, that by settling in his mind only to shun guilt, loaded as he is with the weight of his coldness and infidelities, he will always alight at a place very distant from the one he expected to reach; and the line of guilt being immediately below this commodious and sensual virtue, the very same efforts he made, as he thought, to shun it, will only serve to conduct him to it. These are reasons, drawn entirely from the weakness the strengthened passions leave to the lukewarm and infidel soul, and which inevitably lead it to ruin.
The only reason, however, you allege to us for persevering in this dangerous state, is, that you are weak, and totally unable to support a more retired, limited, mortified, and perfect manner of life. But surely, it is because you are weak, that is to say, full of disgust for virtue, of love for the world, and of subjection to your appetites, that a retired and mortified life becomes indispensable. It is because you are weak, that with more caution you ought to shun every danger; take a greater command over yourself; pray, watch, refuse yourself every improper gratification, and attain even to holy excesses of zeal and fervour, in order to accomplish a barrier against your weakness. You are weak? And, because you are weak, you think you are entitled to expose yourself more than another; to dread danger less; with more tranquillity and indifference to neglect the necessary remedies; to allow more to your appetites; to preserve a stronger attachment to the world, and every thing which can corrupt the heart? What illusion! You make your weakness, then, the title of your security? In the necessities you have to watch and pray, you find, then, the privilege of dispensing with them! And since, whence is it that the sick are authorized to allow themselves greater excesses, and make use of less precaution, than those who enjoy a perfect health? Privation has always been the way of the weak and the infirm; and to allege your weakness as a right of dispensation from a more fervent and Christian life, is like enumerating your complaints, in order to persuade us that you have no occasion for medicine. — Second reason, drawn from the passions, which are strengthened in a state of lukewarmness, and which proves that this state always ends in a departure from virtue and the loss of righteousness.
To all these reasons I should add a third, drawn from the external succours of religion necessary to the support of piety; and which become useless to the lukewarm and infidel soul.
The holy sacrament not only becomes of no utility, but even dangerous to him; either by the coldness with which he approaches it, or by the vain confidence with which it inspires him: it is no longer a resource for him; it has lost its effect: like medicines too frequently made use of, it amuses his languor, but cannot cure him: it is like the food of the strong and healthy, which, so far from reestablishing, completes the ruin of the weak stomach: it is the breath of the Holy Spirit, which, unable to re-illuminate the still smoking spark, entirely extinguishes it; that is to say, that the grace of the holy sacrament, received in a lukewarm and infidel heart, no longer operating there an increase of life and strength, never fails, sooner or later, to operate the death and condemnation attached to the abuse of these divine remedies.
Prayer, that channel of grace; that nourishment to a faithful heart; that sweetener of piety; that refuge against all attacks of the enemy; that cry of an affected soul, which renders the Lord so attentive to his necessities: — prayer, without which the Almighty no longer makes himself felt within us; without which we no longer know our Father; we no longer render thanks to our benefactor, nor appease our judge; we expose no longer our wounds to our physician; we live without God in the world: — prayer, in a word, so necessary to the most established virtue, to the lukewarm soul is no longer but the wearisome occupation of a distracted mind; of a heart dry and shared between a thousand foreign affections. He no longer experiences that love, those consolations, which are the fruit of a fervent and faithful life: he no longer, as if with a new light, sees the holy truths, which confirm the soul in its contempt for the world and love for the things of heaven; and which, after its departure hence, make it regard, with new disgust, every thing which foolish man admires: he leaves it, no longer filled with that lively faith which reckons as nothing all the obstacles and disgusts of virtue, and with a holy zeal devours all its sorrows: he no longer feels, after it, more love for his duty and horror at the world; more determination to fly from its dangers; more light to know its nothingness and misery, and strength to hate and struggle with himself; more terror for the judgments of God, and compunction for his own weaknesses: he leaves it only more fatigued than before with virtue; more filled with the phantoms of the world, which, in the moment when at the feet of the Almighty, have, it appears, agitated more briskly his imagination, blasted and stained by all those images; more happy, by being quit of a burdensome duty, where he has experienced nothing so agreeable as the pleasure of finding it over; more eager, by amusements and infidelities, to supply this moment of weariness and pain; in a word, more distant from God, whom he has irritated by the infidelity and irreverence of his prayer. Such, my brethren, is the fruit which he reaps from it. In a word, all the external duties of religion, which support and rouse piety, are no longer to the lukewarm Christian but dead and inanimate customs where his heart is not; where there is more of habit than of love or spirit of piety; and where the only disposition he brings is the weariness and languor of always doing the same thing.
Thus, my brethren, the grace of this soul, being continually attacked and weakened, either by the practices of the world, which it allows itself, or by those of piety, which it abuses; either by sensual objects, which nourish its corruption, or by those of religion, which increase its disgusts; either by the pleasures which enervate it, or by the duties which fatigue it; all uniting to make it bend toward ruin, and nothing supporting it; — alas! what fate can it promise itself? Can the lamp without oil long continue to give light? The tree which no longer draws nourishment from the earth, can it fail to wither and be devoted to the fire? Now, such is the situation of the lukewarm Christian: entirely delivered up to himself, nothing supports him; surrounded by weariness and disgusts, nothing reanimates him; full of weakness and languor, nothing protects him: every consolation of the just soul is to him an increase of languor; every thing which gives support to a faithful Christian, disgusts and overpowers his; whatever renders the yoke more easy to others, makes him more burdensome; and the succours of piety are no longer but his fatigues or his crimes. Now, in this state, O my God! almost abandoned by thy grace, tired of thy yoke, disgusted with himself, as well as with virtue, weakened by diseases and their remedies, staggering at every step, a breath overturns him; he himself leans toward his fall, without any additional or foreign impression; and, to see him fall, there is no necessity for his being attacked. These are the reasons which prove the certainty of the loss of righteousness in a lukewarm and infidel life. But are so many proofs necessary, my dear hearer, when your own misfortunes have so sadly instructed you? Remember, from whence you are fallen, as the Holy Spirit of God formerly said to a lukewarm and infidel soul. Remount to the source of the disorders under which you still bend. You will find it in the negligence and infidelity of which we speak. A birth of passion too feebly rejected, an occasion of danger too much frequented, practices of piety too frequently omitted or despised, convenience too sensually sought after, desires of pleasing too much listened to, dangerous writings too little avoided;— the source is almost" imperceptible. The torrent of iniquity proceeding from it has completely inundated the capacity of your soul. It was only a spark which has lighted up this great conflagration; it was a morsel of leaven, which, in the end, has fermented and corrupted the whole mass. You never believed it possible that you could be what at present you are. Whatever was said to you on this subject, you heard as exaggerations of zeal and spirituality. You would then have come forward of your own accord, in order to clear yourself of certain steps, for which you now feel not the smallest remorse. Remember from whence you are fallen; consider the depth of the abyss into which you are plunged: it is relaxation and slight infidelities which by degrees have conducted you to it. Once more, remember it, and see if that can be denominated a sure or durable state, which has brought you to the precipice.
Such is the usual artifice of Satan. He never at first proposes guilt; that would frighten away his prey, and remove it beyond the reach of his surprises. Too well he knows the road for entering the heart; he knows that he must gradually confirm the timid conscience against the horror of guilt, and propose nothing at first but honest purposes and certain limits in pleasure. It is not boldly, like the lion, he at first attacks; it is warily like the serpent: he does not lead you straight to the gulf; he conducts you there by winding paths. No, my brethren, crimes are never the first essays of the heart. David was imprudent and slothful, before he became an adulterer; Solomon had allowed himself to be seduced and enervated by the delights and magnificence of royalty, before he publicly appeared in the midst of lewd women; Judas had given up his heart to money, before he put a price upon his Master; Peter was presumptuous, before he renounced the truth. Vice has its progress as well as virtue. As the day, says the prophet, instructs the day, thus the night gives melancholy lessons to the night; and there is not much difference between a state which suspends all the grace of protection, fortifies all the passions, renders useless all the succours of piety, and a state where it is entirely extinct.
What, then, my dear hearer, can confirm or comfort you in this life of negligence and infidelity? Is it that exemption from guilt you have hitherto preserved? But I have shown you that it is either guilt itself, or that it will not fail soon to lead you to it. Is it the love of ease? But in that you enjoy neither the pleasures of the world nor the consolations of virtue. Is it the assurance that the Almighty requires no more of you? But how can the lukewarm and unfaithful soul satisfy or please him, when from his mouth he rejects him? Is it the irregularity in which the generality of men live, and who carry it to an excess which you avoid? But their fate is perhaps less to be mourned, and less desperate than your own: they at least know their malady, while you regard your own as a state of perfect health. Is it the dread of being unable to support a more mortified, watchful, and Christian life? But since you have hitherto been able to support some remains of virtue and innocence, without the comfort and consolations of grace, and in spite of the wearinesses and disgusts which your lukewarmness has spread through all your duties, what will it be when the Spirit of God shall soften your yoke, and when a more fervent and faithful life shall have restored to you all the grace and consolation of which your lukewarmness has deprived you? Piety is never sad or insupportable but when it is cold and unfaithful.
Rise, then, says a prophet, wicked and slothful soul; break the fatal charm which lulls and chains thee to thine indolence. The Lord, whom thou believest to serve, because thou dost not openly affront him, is not the God of the wicked, but of the faithful; he is not the rewarder of idleness and sloth, but of tears, watchings, and combats: he establisheth not in his abode, and in his everlasting city, the useless, but the vigilant and laborious servant; and his kingdom, says the apostle, is not of flesh and blood, that is to say, of an unworthy effeminacy and a life devoted to the appetites, but the strength and virtue of God; namely, a continued vigilance, a generous sacrifice of all our inclinations, a constant contempt of all things which pass away, and a tender and ardent desire for those invisible blessings which fade not nor ever pass away: which may God, in his infinite mercy, grant to all assembled here. Amen.