to come forth and quicken our works.
W hat a galling reproach (if we have not stifled every senti-
ment which grace is wont to inspire) that faith hath surmounted
all human power conspired against her, and hath not removed the
insignificant obstacles that obstruct our conversion ! For, what
stops our progress ? A foolish passion, a sordid lucre, a point of
honour, a fleeting pleasure, difficulties magnified in the mirror of
imagination, which our faith, though victorious, is unable to con-
quer. With how great reason should I own my fault, if I did
but consider in the presence of God, and in the bitterness of my
soul, that this same faith shoidd stand her ground, and even gather
strength, amidst bloody persecutions, and that I made her every
day vail to trivial persecutions, which the world raises against
her in my person : that is, to a word, to a jest, to a worldly con-
sideration, or, rather, should I say, to my own weakness and
pusillanimity ? For here lies my guilt, here lies my shame. Had
I but the courage to declare myself openly, and disregard the
world, long since had I been addicted to the service of God. But
inasmuch as I stand in awe of the world, and cannot resolve to
150 ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
give it displeasure, I there stop short, find, against my inclination,
keep my faith captive, and suffer her to languish in the bondage
of sin.
Ah ! my God, what answer shall I make when you show me that
this faith, which disproved the errors of idolatry and superstition,
could not rid my mind of I know not how many erroneous prin-
ciples and maxims with which I am prepossessed ? What shall I
alleo-e in my own behalf when you show me that this faith, which
brought down and subjected the pride of the Cresars to the humi-
lity of the cross, could not tear from my heart that worldly vanity,
that secret ambition, that love of myself, which hath been my
destruction ? What, in short, shall I say to you, when you show
me that this faith, which sanctified the world, could not sanctify a
certain world within me, a world more pernicious than the great
one that surrounds me ? Shall I have wherewithal to sustain the
weight of these accusations ? Shall I throw it upon you, O Lord ?
Shall I arraign Faith ? Shall I say that she made not sufficient
impression, and that I wanted conviction to be sufficiently affected ?
Ah ! Christians, perhaps our infidelity is risen to that pitch as to
try to gain credit by this pretext. But this pretext it is that will
make our guilt more palpable : for, . the very infidelity into which
we are fallen, God will place before us, as a prodigy we have
opposed to the miracle of faith ; a prodigy which comes not from
God, but from ourselves, and which I am going to enlarge upon in
the second part.
Part II. To be an infidel without ever having had any know-
ledge of the Christian religion, is a case, how dreadful and deplo-
rable soever, in which there is nothing, if rightly considered, sur-
prising or prodigious. Thus (says St. Chrysostom) infidelity in a
pagan may be blindness of mind, a criminal blindness ; but it cannot
at all times be said that this blindness, though criminal, is a pro-
digy. To conceive, therefore, rightly the prodigy of infidelity,
we must imagine it in a Christian, who, according to the various
irregularities into which he hath fallen, either renounces his faith,
or corrupts his faith, or belies and contradicts his faith ; renounces
his faith, by a licentiousness of belief, which makes him refuse to
submit his understanding, and which fixes in his mind by little and
little ; corrupts his faith, by a secret, or over attachment to hete-
rodox opinions that impugn it, and destroy its unity, purity, and
integrity ; belies and contradicts his faith, by irregular manners and
ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. \5l
a vicious life, which bring upon it dishonour, reproach and scandal.
Three deviations these from rectitude, which in a perverted Chris-
tian have something I know not how monstrous in them, and which
I call, on that account, not merely irregularities, but prodigies of
irregularity. Three situations these in religion, in which to consi-
der only what may, and what ought to pass for an evident prodigy,
man affords the Deity unquestionable reason for his condemnation.
Bend all your mind to these three reflections.
1st. To begin with that which is most scandalous, the licen-
tiousness of belief, which grows upon them into custom, and the
nature of which is to renounce the faith. Is it not astonishing,
beloved Christians, that persons brought up in the centre of Chris-
tianity, persons who prize themselves, in other respects, for the
extent of their capacity, and the prudence of their conduct, should
lay aside all religion, and inwardly withdraw from the precepts of
faith, without any possibility of assigning one reason, I do not say
absolutely solid and convincing, but even capable to satisfy their
own understandings ? Is it not inconceivable, that, without exami-
nation, without knowledge of the matter, through warmth of
temper, through passion, through levity, through vain ostentation,
shameful attachment to infamous pleasures, with less wisdom than
thoughtless children, in an affair, too, of the greatest moment, an
affair which regards their eternal lot, they should quit that faith,
of which they have received the character by baptism, and in virtue
of which they bear the name of Christian ; that faith so necessary,
supposing the truth of it, and to which they allow salvation is
annexed ; that faith, by which alone, as they are well apprised,
they can hope to find grace, if there be any room for them to hope
for grace ; that faith, according to the quality of which they grant
their eternity will hereafter be decreed, if ever they should hear
the decrees of God ? Can this be imagined ? Such, however, is
the woful disposition of almost all the libertines of the age.
Observe, and you shall view them in this portrait.
Should anyone among them, upon mature deliberation, after long
application, all things considered, and weighed in as exact scales
as possible, take up a resolution to relinquish the faith, I should
deplore his misfortune, and should think it the most terrible ven-
geance which God could pour out upon him, as he never punishes,
according to the scriptures, with greater severity, than when he
permits the heart of man to fall into blindness : " Blind the heart
152 ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
heart of this people." Isaiah vi. But still in all this there would
be nothing prodigious. In his veiy blindness there would be some
vestiges of candour and uprightness, which would make him pitia-
ble, if not pardonable. But they whom I address (and in this
number I comprehend almost all the freethinkers of these times,
in the midst of whom, and with whom we live) are convinced suf-
ficiently, that they did not arrive at the summit of libertinism by such
means, and that their resolution to renounce the faith derived from
motives of a different nature. And besides (give me leave to make
this remark) how criminal and how inexcusable soever they may
be, I can find them a resource and a kind of consolation, as men
more easily return from libertinism founded in no principle, than
from one which proceeds, by false reasoning, from a particular
opinion, and a positive and consummate want of religion. But be
that as it may, the kind of infidelity which I am now impugning,
and which seems the most general, must own that it labours under
this difficulty : that it is evidently rash, and destitute of proof.
For, ask a libertine why he ceases to believe what he once believed,
and you soon will find, that in what he alleges in his own defence,
there is not the shadow or appearance of solidity. Ask him, whether
by strength of reasoning he hath found a demonstration against
the infallible revelation to which he had submitted. Oblige him
to tell you with frankness, if ever he examined the matter : if ever
he sought the truth with a candid and pure intention, and took
proper measures to come to the knowledge of it ; if ever lie com-
muned with, and consulted persons capable to undeceive him, and
resolve his doubts ; if ever he read what the fathers have written
upon religious topics, which he cannot relish, because he doth not
understand them, nor makes it his business to weigh their argu-
ments ; if ever he seriously attempted to dive to the bottom of diffi-
culties ; in a word, if he always did all those things which every
judicious and prudent man, in the like conjuncture, ought to do,
in order to receive instruction, and clear up these points. Let him
be interrogated upon each particular, and let him give you his
answer without reserve. He will own that he never took so much
pains, nor made so much inquiry. All this, however, he ougl: ': to
have done, before he ventured to take so bold; so dangerous a step,
as that of withdrawing from obedience to the faith. And yet,
Christians, he withdrew from it, and withdrew, too, at a much
more easy and compendious rate. He took the resolution, at the
ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 153
risk of whatever might be the consequence, to believe no longer,
without conviction, nay, without reflection ; without ascertainment,
or any fixed rule, how far to proceed in the dreadful gulf into
which he plunged. This I call a prodigy : and tell me, is it not
every day accomplished in numberless worldlings ?
But you will object : as this libertinism results not from reason,
by what other means can a Christian be perverted to that degree
as to become an unbeliever ? Ah ! beloved hearers, I say it again,
his perversion arises from a thousand circumstances, directly con-
trary to a wise conduct and the rules of prudence, but which I
take to be the greater prodigies, as they run counter to and clash
with reason. A prodigy of infidelity : he renounces his faith — and
(and here I shall adduce no proof but that of your own experience,
your own knowledge of the world) he renounces his faith through
a spirit of singularity, to have the ridiculous advantage and satis-
faction of thinking differently from other men, of saying what no
one ever said before, of contradicting what all the world allows ;
to represent a religion to himself as he lists, a God after his mind,
a Providence just such as he would have it to be : forming chime-
rical systems, which he raises up or pulls down, according as the
present humour affects him ; following blindly his extravagant
ideas, and thereby not well knowing either what he believes, or
believes not ; rejecting to-day what he yesterday maintained, and
perpetually, in the view of opposing God, at cross-purposes with
his own understanding. A prodigy of infidelity : he renounces
his faith through a sentiment of pride, fantastic pride, disdaining
to submit his short-sighted reason to the word of God, though he
deem it a virtue, and even finds it necessary, to submit it every
day to the words of men : confessing, in many temporal affairs,
that he stands in need of being governed by another, but vainly
pretending, that in his researches for eternal truths, he is clear-
sighted enough to regulate his conduct ; humbly acknowledging
his insufficiency relatively to the least secrets of nature, and boldly
deciding in whatever regards the mysteries of God. A prodigy of
infidelity : he renounces his faith from the joint motives of con-
venience and despair, because it importunes him, interrupts his
pleasures, thwarts his designs, upbraids him with injustice, and is
the only means by which he can ^deaden the stings and remorses
that gall his heart. He chooses to be destitute of all faith, rather
than be actuated by a faith that would incessantly censure and con-
L
154 ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
demn him ; and by a strange depravation of reason, which is always
consequent to sinful courses, he believes things to be not what
they are, but what he could wish them, and what he imagines
it his interest they should be ; as if it depended on him
that they should be either one thing or the other, and that
truth and falsehood were to be determined by his affection. He
renounces his faith through prejudice, valuing himself upon this,
that he is not prepossessed with regard to all other things, though
particidarly so in religious matters ; taking no offence at the empty
figments and paradoxical opinions of a wild y presumptuous, new-
fangled philosophy, and naturally disposed to scrutinize and
censure, wdth critical nicety, the decisions of the church ; appre-
hending perpetually too great credulity, and never apprehending
too little belief; alleging, to exculpate himself on this head, that
simplicity is weakness, and not wiping off the imputation arising
from a still greater weakness, wilfulness ; in a word, avoiding, as
narrowness of mind, what would be equity with regard to faith,
and taking that for clearness and strength of understanding, which
I denominate obstinacy against faith. For, not to expatiate on
oilier kinds of libertinism, analogous to this, from what I have
said, you may conceive how libertinism makes daily progress, and
how faith loses ground.
The libertine not only abandons his faith, but, what should
appear to you still more strange, he abandons it against reason, and
in spite of reason ; and whereas, according to the sacred history,
the merit of Abraham consisted in believing even against faith,
and in hoping even against hope, the freethinker's crime is to be an
infidel even against reason, and a deserter of the faith even against
prudence. For, the faith Avhich we profess is grounded upon mo-
tives, which, considered separately, might well hold the place of a
weighty reason ; but which, united, and taken all collectively, irre-
fragably demonstrate that they have something in them exalted
and divine. And, in reality, they have appeared to be forcible, as
to affect and convince the chief personages of the world, What
doth the libertine do ? He steels his breast, and makes open oppo-
sition to all these motives. To instance only in that which I choose
for the groundwork of this discourse, and which is drawn from
miracles. He is told that God confirmed our faith by illustrious
miracles
The falsity, however, of these miracles, and the want
of veracity in all those witnesses who report them, and declare
ON THE CHIUSTIAN RELIGION. 155
they give ocular testimony, lie undertakes to prove. And as there
are some, among these miracles, that are evident and incontestible,
of which only I speak, and to which all preachers ought solely to
adhere ; miracles of the first and highest order, on which Christi-
anity is essentially founded ; miracles acknowledged by the very
enemies of the Christian faith, verified by all the proofs that render
facts authentic, and winch cannot be contradicted, without having
recourse to untenable suppositions ; (for example — that the evange-
lists were impostors and madmen : impostors, who agreed to lead
us into error, and madmen, who, in order to support their impos-
ture, delivered themselves up to the most cruel torments : that St.
Paul imagined falsely he was struck from heaven, and cast upon
the ground in his way to Damascus ; and that he knavishly imposed
upon, or rather that he jeered, the people of Corinth, when he bade
them call to mind the miraculous deeds he had wrought in their
presence : that St. Augustin must be a man of mean understand-
ing, to let himself, like others, be borne away by the tide of popular
error, when he imagined, and protested he had seen at t Carthage
that which in reality he had not seen) — as there are, I say, miracles
of this nature, and as the libertine is unable to elude the force of
them, otherwise than by such extravagant notions, he gives them
admission, however extravagant ; he adopts them, and that which
he would blush to say, he blushes not to think, and boldly gives
the lie to what is most holy and venerable in antiquity. Now, is
anything more deserving of the name of prodigy ? O my God, is
it then true, that impiety can pervert the heart of man to so great
a degree, and involve it, by estranging it from you and your ways,
in such horrible darkness ?
I should never have done, should I try to pursue so ample a
subject through all its parts, and discuss it minutely in its full
extent. I shall, therefore, say only a word or two of the second
prodigy : that is, of the corruption of faith by a secret concurrence,
or even public adherence, to the opposite errors, particularly heresy.
2ndly. Tertullian confesses it was beyond his power, whenever
he attempted it, to find out the depth of this abyss, and fathom the
unmeasurable judgment of God. And yet I affirm, that in this
abyss certain irregularities were not perceptible in the days of
Tertullian, which have been so glaring in these later ages. For,
without attempting to analyze heresy, which the fathers have re-
garded as a monster composed of whatever an ungovernable and
l2
156 ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION,
perverse mind is capable of producing, suffice it at present to
borrow the great reflection of a great cardinal : to wit, that among
so many, who, of late years, have corrupted the purity and inte-
grity of their faith, few there are, whose sincerity and uprightness
will plead their excuse, I don't say before God, but even before
men ; and consequently whose apostacy was not a kind of prodigy.
I should need no more than to set forth the heresy of the last
century, and what story relates of it. I should need no more than
to point out Catholics without number, who, following the crowd,
and carried away with the torrent, declared publicly for Calvin's
sect, some without knowing, or being at any pains to clear up dif-
ficulties and controverted points ; others, perhaps positively, con-
vinced and assured of its erroneous principles. How many of them
abhorred the doctrine of that heresiarch concerning reprobation, yet
listed under his banners, and were his zealous partisans ? But if
it should be urged : why then did they adhere to him ? Why !
Another prodigy this, Christians, and equally surprising. I should
give for answer, and the testimony of history would make good the
assertion, that in this procedure they were influenced by scanda-
lous and unjust motives : some by vexation, and hatred to the
church, and a general spirit of opposition to her sentiments ; per-
sons, who in the days of Anus would infallibly have heen Arians,
and in the time of Pelagius would certainly have been Pelagians i
others by a particular spleen and antipathy, impugning the truth
for no other reason, than because such truths were held by their
enemies ; and determined to defend it, if their supposed enemies
had undertaken to impugn it : some by interest, others by a factious
spirit ; some by curiosity, and to be thought of consequence ;
others by a wretched ambition to be seen at the head of a party :
the great, by policy, making it a reason of state ; the vulgar, by
necessity, as they depended on the great : the women, by a sordid
desire of appearing learned and penetrating : the men, by a com-
plaisance for them still more fond, so as to regulate, by such caprice,,
their religious observances : the little wits, by hopes of gaining
the reputation attached to novelty ; the men of geniu3 by fear of
incurring the ill-will, and of being exposed to the shafts and malice
of innovators. Friends were drawn in by friends, and neighbours
wrought upon by neighbours. The populace were induced by no
other reason than the general prevalence, and because all the world
went that way. Every one was directed by the impulse of passion.
ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 157
Are not these prodigies, nay, prodigies capable of staggering our
faith, if the prediction of the apostle, in so dangerous a temptation,
had not dissipated our fears, by warning us not only that all these
tilings would in time come to pass, but that they were necessary
for the separating of the elect of God from the reprobate : " There
must be heretics, that they who are approved may be made mani-
fest among you." 1 Cor. xi.
3rdly. But not to insist any longer on this, let us conclude,
Christians, with the last prodigy, which concerns ourselves, and
which is neither a renouncing to faith, nor a corruption of faith,
but a dreadful contrariety between our life and our faith. My
meaning is this : we are Christians by profession, and live like
pagans ; we have faith in theory, and in practice our conduct is
nothing but infidelity ; we have one mode of belief, and another
of action. In every other respect, our actions and affections are
conformable to our opinions and knowledge of things ; for we love
and hate, we slum and seek, we undergo and undertake, according
to the insight we have into them. In nothing but what concerns
the salvation of our souls do we act perversely. We shun what
we judge is our sovereign good, and we seek what we judge is our
sovereign evil. We profane the thing which we know to be
adorable, and idolize that which we heartily despise. We abhor
what would save us, and cherish what destroys us. Were we real,
and not merely nominal Christians, and lived agreeably to the faith
we profess, our life, it is true, would be a continual miracle, but
yet in that there would be nothing prodigious. Were we pagans
by profession, and destitute of faith, and lived in conformity to the
flesh and the senses, hoAvever lost we might be to all hope, in such
irregularity there would be nothing unnatural. But the prodigy
is, that we want no faith, yet live like infidels ; a prodigy which
the faithless will not admit, ridiculously pretending that life and
creed have an interchange of influence, and that we live as we
believe, and believe as we live, in order to attribute their irregular
demeanour to their want of conviction, and not to the perverse
disposition of their hearts. But to remove this error would be no
hard matter, as to possess faith, and to act against it, is not more
difficult than to possess reason, and to act against it. Now, is not
this, by their own confession, what they do every day ?
Ah! Christians, let us stop the progress of these prodigies.
Let us be consistent with ourselves. Let our morals and our faith
158 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST.
keep equal pace. Otherwise what have we not to fear on account
of this faith so profaned, this faith so scandalized, this faith so dis-
honoured ? Let us make it instrumental to a sincere repentance,
if we have forsaken its ways. Let us make it instrumental to our
perseverance, if we are already penitent, or have never swerved
from our pious resolutions. Let us go on with the help of these
divine lights, and let us not put them out by delivering ourselves
up to our blind passions, and carnal appetites ; for, nothing more
exposes us to lose the faith, than the indulging in a sensual and
voluptuous life. By these means it was, that thousands of repro-
bates lost it ; and by these means it is, that they still persist in
their libertine ways. Ah ! my Lord, you have many chastise-
ments in the treasures of your justice, by which you may inflict
due punishment for our trespasses. Strike, my God ! and if in your
wisdom you should find it necessary to afflict us with all temporal
calamities, pour your vengeance on our heads ; but preserve our
faith. Nor is this enough. Enliven and rouse this drooping faith,
this expiring faith, nay, this faith dead without good works. In
the same degree that it shall live in us, we shall live by it, and in
the end it will lead us to everlasting life.
SEKMON VIII.
For the Second Sunday in Lent ; or for the Feast of the Transfiguration of our
Lord, August 6. ,
ON THE LAW OF CHRIST.
; < TVJiile he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud over shadowed them,
and behold, a voice out of the cloud, which said: This is my
beloved Son, in zvhom lam well pleased : Hear ye him" Mat. xvii.
This is the mystery, beloved Christians, of which the apostle
speaks in his epistle to the Hebrews, where he tells them, that
" God who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in times
past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days
spoken unto us by his Son." Heb. i. It is in the transfiguration
of our blessed Saviour, which is the subject of this day's gospel,
that this declaration of St. Paul is palpably verified. God
Almighty had given his law, of which the interpretation and pro-
ON THE LAW OF CHRIST. 15!)
mulgation were intrusted to Moses on Mount Sinai to mankind.
In process of time lie had raised up prophets to explain it to