Page:Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon.djvu/124

 as the greatest of evils, its deprivation for ever; and we almost equally dread the obligation to support its weariness and duration. It is a treasure which we would wish to retain for ever, yet which we cannot suffer to remain in our possession.

This time, however, of which we make so little estimation, is the only mean of our eternal salvation. We lose it without regret, which is a crime; we employ it only for worldly purposes, which is a madness. Let us employ the time which God allows us, because it is short. Let us employ it only in labouring for our salvation, because it is only given us that we may be saved; that is to say, let us be sensible of the value of time, and let us lose it not : let us know the use of it, and employ it only for the purpose it was given. By these means, we shall avoid both the dangers of a slothful and the inconveniences of a hurried life. This is the subject of the present Discourse.

Part I. Three circumstances, in general, decide upon the value of things among men: the great advantages which may accrue to us from them; the short space we have to enjoy them; and, lastly, every hope destroyed of ever regaining them, if once lost. Now, behold, my brethren, the principal motives which ought to render time precious and estimable to every wise man: in the first place, it is the price of eternity: in the second place, it is short, and we cannot make too much haste to reap the benefit of it: and, lastly, it is irreparable; for, once lost, it can never be regained. It is the price of eternity. Yes, my brethren, man, condemned to death by the sin of his birth, ought to receive life only to lose it, even from the moment he has received it. The blood alone of Jesus Christ has effaced this sentence of death and punishment pronounced against all mankind in the person of the first sinner. We live, though the offspring of a father condemned to death, and inheritors ourselves of his punishment, because the Redeemer died for us. The death of Jesus Christ is, therefore, the source, and the only claim of right we have to life; our days, our moments, are the first blessings which have flowed to us from his cross; and the time which we so vainly lose, is the price, however, of his blood, the fruit of his death, and the merit of his sacrifice.

Not only as children of Adam, we deserve no longer to live; but even all the crimes we have added to those of our birth are become new sentences of death against us. So many times as we have violated the law of the Author of life, so many times, from that moment, ought we to have lost it.

Every sinner is, therefore, a child of death and anger; and every time the mercy of God has suspended, after each of our crimes, the sentence of condemnation and death, it is a new life, as it were, his goodness has granted, in order to allow us time to repair the criminal use we had hitherto made of our own.

I even speak not of the diseases, accidents, and numberless dangers which so often have menaced our life; which so often we have seen to terminate that of our friends and nearest connexions; and