"of my humiliation and fufferings. Your toils have en" dured but for an inftant; the happiness you go to enjoy "fhall be without end."

Then, turning to the left hand, vengeance and fury in his eyes, here and there cafting the most dreadful looks, Jike avenging thunderbolts, on that crowd of guilty; with a voice, fays a prophet, which fhall burft open the bowels of the abyss to fwallow them up, be fhall fay, not as upon the cross, Father, pardon them, for they know not what they do, but," Depart from me, ye curfed, into everlast"ing fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. You "were the chosen of the earth, you are the curfed of my "Father; your pleasures have been fleeting and tranfitory, "your anguifh fhall be eternal." The juft, then, mounting with the Son of Man, fhall begin to fing this heavenly fong, Thou art rich in mercy, Lord, and thou haft crowned thy gifts in recompenfing our good actions. Then fhall the impious curfe the Author of their being, and the fatal day which brought them forth; or, rather, they shall enter into wrath against themselves, as the authors of their mifery and deftruction. The abyfs fhall open; the heavens shall bow down; the reprobate, fays the gospel, fhall go into everlasting punishment, and the just into life eternal. Behold a lot which fhall change no more.

After a relation fo awful, and fo proper to make an im preffion on the moft hardened hearts, I cannot conclude without addreffing to you the fame words which Mofes formerly addreffed to the Ifraelites after having laid before them the dreadful threatenings, and the foothing promifes contained in the Book of the Law." Children of Ifrael, "behold I fet before you this day a bleffing and a curfe a bleffing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your

"God

"God which I command you this day; and a curse, if ye "will not obey the commandments of the Lord

your God, "but turn aside, out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods which ye have not known."

66

Behold, my brethren, what I fay to you in concluding a fubject fo terrible. It now belongs to you to choose and to declare yourselves; the right hand and the left are before you: the promises and the threatenings: the bleffings and the curfes. Your destiny turns on this awful alternative: you either shall be on the fide of fatan and his angels, or you shall be chofen with Jefus Chrift and his faints. Here there is no middle way: I have pointed out the path which leads to life, and that which leads to perdition. In which of these two do you now walk? And on which fide do you believe that you fhould find yourselves, were you, at this moment, to appear before the awful tribunal? We die as we have lived: tremble left your destiny of this day be your everlasting deftiny. Quit, and, from this moment, the ways of the finful; begin now to live like the juft, if you wish, on that laft day, to be placed at the right hand, and to mount, along with them, into the abode of a bleffed immortality.

SERMON

SERMON XV.

THE HAPPINESS OF THE JUST.

MATTHEW v. 4.

Bleffed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

SIRE,

If the world were to speak to you in place of Jesus Christ, it undoubtedly would not fay, "mourn."

"bleffed are they who

Happy, would it fay, the prince who has never fought but to conquer, and whose mind has always been fuperior either to the danger or to the victory: who, during the courfe of a long and a profperous reign, has enjoyed, and ftill 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 conquefts, the splendour of his actions, the wisdom of his laws, and the auguft profpe&t of a numerous pofterity; and who has nothing left now to defire, but the continuance of what he poffeffes.

In this manner would the world fpeak; but, Sire, Jefus Chrift does not speak like the world.

Happy,

Happy, fays 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 hiftory will immortalize in the remembrance of men; but he whofe tears fhall have effaced the history of his fins from the remembrance even of God; for he fhall be for ever confoled. Not him who, by new conquefts, fhall have extended the bounds of his empire; but he who has fucceeded in confining his defires and his paffions 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 righteoufnefs; for he fhall be filled. Not him to whom men have given the pompous titles of great and invincible; but he to whom the wretched fhall give, before the tribunal of Jefus Chrift, the title of father and of merciful; for he fhall be treated with mercy. Laftly, Happy, not him who, always disposer of the lot of his enemies, has more than once more given peace to the earth; but he who has been enabled to give it to himfelf, and to banish from his heart, all the vices and diforderly inclinations which disturb its tranquillity; for he shall be called a child of God.

Such, Sire, are those whom Jefus Chrift 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 profperities, with which thou haft 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 fanctify, man can never make the happinefs of man. What ever does not place thee, O my God! in an heart, places only vanities which leave it empty, or real evils which fill it with difquiet; and a pure confcience is the only résourcé of real enjoyments.

It is to this truth the church, on the occafion of this folemnity, confines its whole fruit. As the common error, that the life of the faints has been gloomy and difagreeable, 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 fame time, that not only they now enjoy an immortal félicity in heaven, but also that they have been the only happy of the earth, and that he who carries iniquity in his bofom carries terror and anxiety; and that the lot of the godly is a thousand times more tranquil and more fatisfactory, even in this world, than that of finners. !

But, in what does the happiness of the juft in this life confift? It confifts, ftly, In the manifeftation of truth concealed from the fages of the world. 2dly, In the reliff of charity denied to the lovers of the world. In the lights of faith which foften all the fufferings of the believing foul, and which render those of the finner ftill more bitter: this is my firft point. In the comforts of grace which calm all the paffions, and which, denied to a corrupted heart, leave it a prey to itfelf: is the laff. Let us examine these two truths fo calculated to render virtue amiable, and the example of the faints beneficial.

PART