are you so to Jesus Christ? The infirmities with which God afflicts
you, the enemies He raised up against you, the disgraces and losses
with which He tries you--do you receive them all as you ought, with
humble submission to His will? Or, rather, far from finding in them
occasions of penitence, do you not turn them into the objects of new
crimes? It is the duty of an innocent soul to receive with submission
the chastisements of the Almighty; to discharge with courage the
painful duties of the station allotted to him, and to be faithful to
the laws of the gospel. But do sinners owe nothing beyond this? And
yet they pretend to salvation! Upon what claim? To say that you are
innocent before God, your own consciences will witness against you. To
endeavor to persuade yourselves that you are penitent, you dare not;
and you would condemn yourselves by your own mouths. Upon what then
dost thou depend, O man! who thus livest so tranquil?

These, my brethren, as I have already told you, are not merely advices
and pious arts; they are the most essential of our obligations. But,
alas! who fulfils them? Who even knows them? Ah! my brethren, did you
know how far the title you bear, of Christian, engages you; could you
comprehend the sanctity of your state, the hatred of the world, of
yourself, and of everything which is not of God that it enjoys, that
gospel life, that constant watching, that guard over the passions, in
a word, that conformity with Jesus Christ crucified, which it exacts
of you--could you comprehend it, could you remember that you ought to
love God with all your heart, and all your strength, so that a single
desire that has not connection with Him defiles you--you would appear
a monster in your own sight. How! you would exclaim. Duties so holy,
and morals so profane! A vigilance so continual, and a life so
careless and dissipated! A love of God so pure, so complete, so
universal, and a heart the continual prey of a thousand impulses,