Page:Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon.djvu/366

 other resorts? What shall  it  be  to  make  instrumental  to  guilt, what in  religion  is  most  holy;  to  choose  thy  presence,  great  God! to conceal  the  secret  of  an  impure  passion,  and  to  make  thy  holy temple a  rendezvous  of  iniquity,  a  place  more  dangerous  than  even those assemblies  of  sin,  which  religion  interdicts  to  believers? What guilt,  to  come  to  crucify  afresh  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  very  place where he  offers  himself  up  for  us  every  day  to  his  Father! What guilt, to  employ,  in  order  to  forward  our  own  ruin,  the  very  hour in which  the  mysteries  of  salvation,  and  the  redemption  of  all  men, are operated! What madness,  to  come  to  choose  the  eyes  of  our Judge to  render  him  the  witness  of  our  crimes,  and  of  his  presence to make  the  most  horrible  cause  of  our  condemnation! What a neglect  of  God,  and  what  a  mark  of  reprobation,  to  change  the sacred asylums  of  our  reconciliation  into  opportunities  of  debauchery and  licentiousness!

Great God! when insulted  on  Mount  Calvary,  where  thou  wert still a  suffering  God,  the  tombs  opened  around  Jerusalem;  the  dead arose, as  if  to  reproach  to  their  descendants  the  horror  of  their  sacrilege. Ah! reanimate, then,  the  ashes  of  our  fathers  who  await, in this  holy  temple,  the  blessed  immortality;  let  their  bodies  rise out of  these  pompous  tombs  which  our  vanity  hath  erected  to them;  and,  inflamed  with  a  holy  indignation  against  irreverences which crucify  thee  afresh,  and  which  profane  the  sacred  asylum  of the  remains  of  their  mortality,  let  them  appear  upon  these  monuments;  and,  since  our  instructions  and  our  threatenings  are  unavailing, let  them  come  themselves  to  reproach  to  their  successors their irreligion  and  their  sacrileges. But if  the  terror  of  thy  presence, O  my  God! be insufficient  to  retain  them  in  respect,  were the dead  even  to  rise  up,  as  thou  hast  formerly  said,  they  would,  in consequence  of  it,  be  neither  more  religious  nor  more  believing.

But if  the  presence  of  a  holy  God  require  here,  as  of  the  blessed in heaven,  a  disposition  of  purity  and  innocence,  the  presence  of  a God,  terrible,  and  full  of  majesty,  requires  one  of  dread  and  of  internal collection. — Second disposition,  marked  by  the  profound  humiliation of  the  blessed  in  the  heavenly  temple;  "  And  they  fell before  the  throne  on  their  faces,  and  worshipped  God."

Part II. — God is  spirit  and  truth,  and  it  is  in  spirit  and  in truth  that  he  requireth  principally  to  be  honoured. That disposition of  profound  humiliation  which  we  owe  to  him  in  our  temples, consists  not,  therefore,  solely  in  the  external  posture  of  our bodies; it  also  comprises,  like  that  of  the  blessed  in  heaven,  a spirit  of  adoration,  of  praise,  of  prayer,  and  of  thanksgiving;  and such is  that  spirit  of  religion  and  humiliation  which  God  demandeth  of  us  in  the  holy  temple,  similar  to  that  of  the  blessed  in  the heavenly temple.

I say  a  spirit  of  adoration;  for  as  it  is  here  that  God  manifesteth his wonders  and  his  supreme  greatness,  and  descendeth  from  heaven to  receive  our  homages,  the  first  sentiment  which  should  be formed  within  us,  on  entering  into  this  holy  place,  is  a  sentiment