Page:Massillon's sermons for all the Sundays and festivals throughout the year.djvu/136

122 unless you reform your lives; they who live like you will not be saved; the multitude will not be saved".

Who then will be saved? The man who, in these days of irreligion and vice, walks in the footsteps of the primitive Christian—"whose hands are innocent, and whose heart is pure; who has not received his soul in vain"—Ps., xxiii. 4; who has successfully struggled against the torrent of worldly example, and purified his soul; who is a lover of justice, "and swears not deceitfully against his neighbour"—ib.; who is not indebted to double dealing for an increase of fortune; who returns good for evil, and heaps favours on the enemy that had laboured for his destruction; who is candid and sincere, and never sacrifices truth to interest, nor conscience to civility; who is charitable to all in distress, and a friend to all in affliction; who is resigned in adversity, and penitent even in prosperity.

He, my dear brethren, will be saved, and he only. Oh! how alarming is this truth! And nevertheless, all—the chosen few only excepted, who work out their salvation with fear and trembling—all, I say, live on in the greatest peace and tranquillity of mind. They know that the greater number is lost; but they flatter themselves with the assurance that, although they live like the world, they shall die like the just: each one supposes that God will favour him with a particular grace: each one looks for ward with confidence to a happy death.

These are your expectations likewise. I will therefore say no more about the rest of mankind, but address myself solely to you as if you were the only inhabitants of the Earth. Now this is the thought which occupies my mind, and strikes terror into the very centre of my soul. I suppose that the last day is arrived; that the trumpet has sounded; that you are risen from the dead; that you are assembled together in this place, to await the coming of the great Judge; that the heavens are about to open; and that you will shortly behold the Son of Man descending with great power and majesty to pronounce upon you the sentence either of election or reprobation.

Rouse your attention, my brethren. Are your accounts in order? Are you prepared for the trial? Are you ready to meet your Judge? Do not say that you will prepare yourselves here after. This is a delusive hope. What you are now, the same will you probably be at the hour of death. The intention of reforming your conduct, which has so long occupied your thoughts without effect, will continue without effect as long as you live. This is testified by the experience of ages.

Now I ask you—I ask you with dismay, and without meaning to separate my lot from yours: Were the Son of Man to appear in this assembly, and separate the good from the bad, the innocent from the