The Worlds Great Sermons, Volume 3 | Page 3

witnesses horrors with which our
forefathers were unacquainted.
Behold, then, already one path of salvation shut to the generality of men. All have erred.
Be ye whom ye may, listen to me now, the time has been when sin reigned over you. Age
may perhaps have calmed your passions, but what was your youth? Long and habitual
infirmities may perhaps have disgusted you with the world; but what use did you
formerly make of the vigor of health? A sudden inspiration of grace may have turned
your heart, but do you not most fervently entreat that every moment prior to that
inspiration may be effaced from the remembrance of the Lord?
But with what am I taking up time? We are all sinners, O my God! and Thou knowest our
hearts! What we know of our errors is, perhaps, in Thy sight, the most pardonable; and
we all allow that by innocence we have no claim to salvation. There remains, therefore,
only one resource, which is penitence. After our shipwreck, say the saints, it is the timely
plank which alone can conduct us into port; there is no other means of salvation for us.
Be ye whom ye may, prince or subject, high or low, penitence alone can save you. Now
permit me to ask where are the penitent? You will find more, says a holy father, who
have never fallen, than who, after their fall, have raised themselves by true repentance.
This is a terrible saying; but do not let us carry things too far: the truth is sufficiently
dreadful without adding new terrors to it by vain declamation.
Let us alone examine as to whether the majority of us have a right, through penitence, to
salvation. What is a penitent? According to Tertullian, a penitent is a believer who feels
every moment his former unhappiness in forsaking and losing his God; one who has his
guilt incessantly before his eyes; who finds everywhere the traces and remembrance of it.
A penitent is a man instrusted by God with judgment against himself; one who refuses
himself the most innocent pleasures because he had formerly indulged in those the most
criminal; one who puts up with the most necessary gratification with pain; one who
regards his body as an enemy whom it is necessary to conquer--as an unclean vessel
which must be purified--as an unfaithful debtor of whom it is proper to exact to the last
farthing. A penitent regards himself as a criminal condemned to death, because he is no
longer worthy of life. In the loss of riches or health he sees only a withdrawal of favors

that he had formerly abused: in the humiliations which happen to him, only the pains of
his guilt: in the agonies with which he is racked, only the commencement of those
punishments he has justly merited. Such is a penitent.
But I again ask you--Where, among us, are penitents of this description? Now look
around you. I do not tell you to judge your brethren, but to examine what are the manners
and morals of those who surround you. Nor do I speak of those open and avowed sinners
who have thrown off even the appearance of virtue. I speak only of those who, like
yourselves, live as most live, and whose actions present nothing to the public view
particularly shameful or depraved. They are sinners and they admit it: you are not
innocent, and you confess it. Now are they penitent? or are you? Age, vocation, more
serious employments, may perhaps have checked the sallies of youth. Even the bitterness
which the Almighty has made attendant on our passions, the deceits, the treacheries of the
world, an injured fortune, with ruined constitution, may have cooled the ardor, and
confined the irregular desires of your hearts. Crimes may have disgusted you even with
sin itself--for passions gradually extinguish themselves. Time, and the natural
inconstancy of the heart will bring these about; yet, nevertheless, tho detached from sin
by incapability, you are no nearer your God. According to the world you are become
more prudent, more regular, to a greater extent what it calls men of probity, more exact in
fulfilling your public or private duties. But you are not penitent. You have ceased your
disorders but you have not expiated them. You are not converted: this great stroke, this
grand operation on the heart, which regenerates man, has not yet been felt by you.
Nevertheless, this situation, so truly dangerous, does not alarm you. Sins which have
never been washed away by sincere repentance, and consequently never obliterated from
the book of life, appear in your eyes as no longer existing; and you will tranquilly leave
this world in a state of impenitence, so much the more dangerous as you will die