Page:Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon.djvu/323

 facilities which  the  rank,  to  which,  through  Providence,  you  are born, presents  to  your  discharge  of  the  duties  of  a  Christian  life.

Great temptations,  I  confess,  are  attached  to  your  station;  but it has  likewise  as  great  resources. People of  rank  are  born,  it  would seem, with  more  passions  than  the  rest  of  men;  yet  have  they  also the opportunity  of  practising  more  virtues:  their  vices  are  followed with more  consequences;  but  their  piety  becomes  also  more  beneficial:  in  a  word,  they  are  much  more  culpable  than  the  people, when they  forget  their  God;  but  they  have  likewise  more  merit  in remaining  faithful  to  him.

My intention,  therefore,  at  present,  is  to  represent  to  you  the extensive good,  or  the  boundless  evils,  which  always  accompany your virtues  or  vices;  to  convince  you  of  what  influence  the  elevated rank  to  which  you  are  born,  is  toward  good,  or  toward  evil; and, lastly,  to  render  irregularity  odious  to  you,  by  unfolding  the inexplicable consequences  which  your  passions  drag  after  them; and piety  amiable,  through  the  unutterable  benefits  which  always follow your  good  examples. It would  matter  little  to  point  out  the dangers of  your  station,  were  the  advantages  of  it  not  likewise  to be  shown. The Christian  pulpit  declaims  in  general  against  the grandeurs and  glory  of  the  age;  but  it  would  be  of  little  avail  to  be continually  speaking  of  your  complaints,  were  their  remedies  not held out  to  you  at  the  same  time. These are  the  two  truths  which I mean  to  unite  in  this  Discourse,  by  laying  before  you  the  endless consequences of  the  vices  of  the  great  and  powerful,  and  what  inestimable benefits  flow  from  their  virtues.

Part I. — " A  sore  trial  shall  come  upon  the  mighty,  says  the Spirit  of  God;  for  mercy  will  soon  pardon  the  meanest;  but  mighty men  shall  be  mightily  tormented."'

It is  not,  my  brethren,  because  he  is  mighty  himself,  that  the Lord, as  the  Scriptures  say,  rejects  the  great  and  the  mighty,  or that  rank  and  dignity  are  titles  hateful  in  his  eyes,  to  which  his favours are  denied,  and  which,  of  themselves,  constitute  our  guilt. With the  Lord  there  is  no  exception  of  persons:  he  is  the  Lord of the  cedars  of  Lebanon,  as  well  as  of  the  humble  hyssop  of  the valley: he  causes  his  sun  to  rise  over  the  highest  mountains,  as well  as  over  the  lowest  and  obscurest  places:  he  hath  formed  the stars of  heaven,  as  well  as  the  worms  which  crawl  upon  the  earth: the great  are  even  more  natural  images  of  his  greatness  and  glory, the ministers  of  his  authority,  the  means  through  which  his  liberalities and  generosity  are  poured  out  upon  his  people. And I come  not  here  my  brethren  in  the  usual  language,  to  pronounce anathemas against  human  grandeurs,  and  to  make  your  station  a crime,  since  that  very  station  comes  from  God,  and  that  the  object in question  is  not  so  much  to  exaggerate  the  perils  of  it,  as  to  point out the  infinite  ways  of  salvation  attached  to  that  rank  to  which, through the  will  of  Providence,  you  have  been  born.

But, I  say,  that  the  sins  of  the  great  and  powerful  have  two characters of  enormity  which  render  them  infinitely more  punish-