But, my brethren, you condemn youfelves out of your own mouth; for, (without refuting here that abfurd manner of fpeaking, by those grand and fublime proofs which religion furnishes against impiety, and which we have else. where employed,) candidly, is it not a more arduous and a more astonishing miracle, that a foul, delivered up to fin, and to the most shameful paffions, born with every propenfity to voluptuoufness, pride, revenge, and ambition, and more diftant than any one, by the nature of his heart, from the kingdom of God, and from all the maxims of Chriftian piety; that, all at once, that foul fhould renounce all his gratifications, break asunder all his warmest attachments, reprefs his livelieft paffions, change his moft rooted inclinations, forget injuries, attention to the body and to fortune; no longer have a relish but for prayer, retirement, the practice of the most gloomy and difgufting duties, and hold out to the eyes of the public, in a change, in a resurrection so palpable, the spectacle of a life so different from the former, that the world, that free-thinking itself fhall be forced to render glory to the truth of his change, and that they fhall no longer know him to be the fame; is it not, I fay, a more arduous and more aftonif ing miracle?

Now, doth not the mercy of Jefus Christ operate such miracles almost every day before your eyes? Doth not his holy word, though in a weak and languishing mouth, ftill raise up, every day, new Lazarufes from the dead? You behold them; you know and you appear astonished at them; yet, nevertheless, do they touch you? Do these wonders which, with fo much majefty, the finger of God maketh to fhine forth, recal you to truth and to the light? Do these changes, a thousand times more miraculous than the raifing up of the dead, convince you? Do they bring you

nearer

nearer to Jefus Chrift, or restore to you that faith which you have loft ?

Alas! your whole care, like the Jews, is to ftand out against or to weaken their truth. You deny that grace hath any part in the glory of these wonders; you feek to trace their motives in caufes altogether worldly; you confider them as delufions and impofitions; you attribute to the ar tifices of man the most fhining operations of the holy Spir it; you infift that fuch a new life is only a fresh fnare to entrap the public credulity, and a new path more fecurely to attain fome worldly purpose. Thus, the works of the Almighty power of Jefus Chrift harden you; thus, even the wonders of his grace complete your blindness; thus you make every thing conducive towards your destruction: Jefus Chrift becomes to you a ftumbling-block, when he ought to have been a fource of life and falvation. The examples of finners ftain and corrupt you; their penitence revolts and hardens you.

: Great God! fuffer then, in order that a life altogether criminal at last be terminated, that I now raise my voice to thee out of the depths in which I have, for fo many years, languished the impure chains with which I am bound, attach me by fo many folds, to the bottom of the gulf in which I drag on my gloomy days, that, in fpite of all my good defires, I ftill remain fettered, and almoft incapable of effort towards diséngaging myself and returning to thee, O my God, whom I have forfaken. But, Lord, out of the depths even in which thou feeft me, like another Lazarus, fettered and buried, I have, at leaft, the voice of the heart free to send up, even to the foot of the throne, my forrows, my lamentations, and my tears.

any

VOL. II.

E 3

The

The voice of a repentant finner is always agreeable, O Lord, to thine ear; it is that voice of Jacob which awakens all thy tenderness, even when it offers to thy fight but hands of Efau, and ftill covered with blood and crimes.

Ah! thine holy ears, O Lord, have now fufficiently been turned away from my licentious and blafphemous words; let them now be attentive to the voice of my fupplications'; and let the fingularity of the words which I now address to thee, O my God! attract a more favourable attention to my prayer.

I come not here, great God! to excufe my diforders in thy fight, by alledging to thee the occafions which have feduced me, the examples which have led me aftray, the misfortune of my engagements, and the nature of my heart and of my weakness: cover thine eyes, O Lord, upon the horrors of my past life; the only poffibility of excufing them is, not to behold or to know them: alas! if I am unable myself to fupport even their view; if my crimes dread and fly from mine own eyes, and if my terrors and my weakness render it abfolutely neceffary to turn my fight from them, how, O Lord fhould they be able to fuftain the fanctity of thy looks, if thou fearch into them with that eye of feverity which finds ftains in the purest and most laudable life?

But thou, O Lord, are not a God like unto man, to whom it is always fo difficult to pardon and to forget the injuries of an enemy; goodness and mercy dwell in thine eternal bofom; clemency is the first attribute of thy fupreme Being; and thou haft no enemies but those who refufe to place their truft in the abundant riches of thy mercy.

Yes,

Yes, Lord! be the hour what it may when a criminal foul cafts himself upon thy mercy; whether in the morning of life or in the decline of age; whether after the errors of youthful manners or after an entire life of dissipation and licentioufnefs, thou wouldft, O my God! that their hope in thee be not extinguifhed; and thou affureft us that the highest point of our crimes is but the lowest degree of thy mercy.

But, likewife, great God! if thou liften to my defires; if, once more, thou restore to me that life and that light which I have loft; if thou break afunder my chains of death which fill fetter me; if thou ftretch out thine hand to withdraw me from the gulph in which I am plunged, ah! never, O Lord, fhall I cease to proclaim thine eternal mercies: I will forget the whole world, that I may be occupied only with the wonders of thy grace towards my foul: I will every moment of my life render glory to the God who fhall have delivered me: my mouth for ever shut against vain things, fhall with difficulty be able to express all the transports of my love and of my gratitude; and thy creature who still groans under the dominion of the world and of fin, then reftored to his true Lord, fhall, henceforth and for ever more, blefs his deliverer.

SERMON

SERMON XIV.

ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.

LUKE xxi. 27.

Then fhall they fee the Son of Man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory.

SUCH will be that last spectacle which shall terminate the eternal revolutions which the afpect of this world is continually offering to our eyes, and which either amufe us through their novelty, or feduce us by their charms. Such will be the coming of the Son of Man, the day of his revelation, the accomplishment of his kingdom, and the complete redemption of his mystical body. Such the day of the manifestation of consciences, that day of misery and despair to one portion of men, and of peace, confolation, and ineffable delight to the other: the sweet expectation of the juft, the dread of the wicked; the day which is to determine the destiny of all men.

It was the image, ever present to their minds, of that terrible day which rendered the first believers patient under perfecution, delighted under fufferance, and illuftrious under injury and reproach. It is that which hath fince fupported the faith of martyrs, animated the conftancy of virgins, and smoothed to the anchorite all the horrors of a def

ert;