I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ftraight the way of the Lord. Ir is that he may enter into our hearts that Jefus Chrift announces, by John the Baptift, that we have the way to make ftraight for him, by removing all thofe obftacles which, like a wall of feparation, rife up betwixt his mercy and our wretchednefs. Now, these obstacles are the crimes with which we fo often flain ourselves, which always fubfift, because it would be neceffary to expiate them by penitence, and we expiate them not: thefe obftacles are the paffions by which our heart foolishly allows itself to be carried away, which are always living, because, in order to deftroy, it would be neceffary to conquer them; and we never conquer them: thefe obftacles are the occafions against which our innocence hath so often split, and which are ftill every day the rock fatal to all our refolutions, because, in place of yielding to that inward inclination which leads us to wards them it would be neceffary to fhun them; and we fhun them not in a word, the true and only manner of making ftraight the way of our hearts for Jefus Chrift, is that of changing our life, and of being fincerely converted. VOL. II. B But, But, though the business of our converfion be the most important with which we can be entrusted here below, fee ing that through it alone we can draw Jefus Chrift into our hearts; though it be the only one truly interesting to us, fince on it depends our eternal happiness; yet, O deplorable blindness! it is never confidered by us a matter either' of urgency or of importance; it is continually put off to fome other time, as if times and feasons were at our difpofal. What wait you, Chriftians, my brethren? Jefus Christ ceaseth not to forewarn you, by his minifters, of the evils which threaten your impatience, and the delay of your converfion; he hath long announced to you, through our mouth, that, unless you repent, you most affuredly fhall perish. Nor is the fatisfied with publicly warning you through the voice of his ministers, he speaks to you in the bottom. of your hearts, and continually whispers to you, Is it not time now to withdraw yourself from that guilt in which, for fo many years, you have been plunged, and from which almost nothing but a miracle can now extricate you ? Is it not time to restore peace to your heart, to banifh from it that chaos of paffions which has occafioned all the misfortunes of your life; to prepare for yourself at least some few happy and tranquil days, and, after having lived fo long for a world which hath always left you empty and uneafy, at last to live for a God who alone can give peace and tranquillity to your heart? Will you not at last bestow a thought upon your eternal interefts, and, after a life wholly frivolous, return to the true one, and, in ferving God, adopt the only wife plan which man can purfue upon earth? Are you not wearied out with struggling against those remorfes which tear you, that sadness of guilt which weighs you down, that emptiness of the world which ev ery |