Page:Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon.djvu/430

 descendants one  day  receive  them;  lastly,  such  shall  the  blessed in heaven  eternally  love  and  adore  them. The fervour  or  the licentiousness of  ages  adds  or  diminishes  nothing  to  their  indulgence, or  from  their  severity;  the  zeal  or  the  complaisance  of  men renders them  neither  more  austere  nor  more  accommodating;  the intolerant rigour,  or  the  excessive  relaxation  of  opinions  and  tenets leaves them  all  the  wise  sobriety  of  their  rules;  and  they  form  that eternal gospel  which  the  angel,  in  the  Revelation,  announces  from on high  in  heaven,  from  the  beginning,  to  every  tongue  and  to every  nation.

Nevertheless, my  brethren,  when  in  the  manners  of  the  primitive believers,  we  sometimes  represent  to  you  all  the  duties  of  the Gospel exactly  fulfilled, — their  freedom  from  the  world,  their  absence from  theatres  and  public  pleasures,  their  assiduity  in  the temples, the  modesty  and  the  decency  of  their  dress,  their  charity for their  brethren,  their  indifference  for  all  perishable  things,  their continual desire  of  going  to  be  reunited  to  Jesus  Christ;  in  a word,  that  simple,  retired,  and  mortified  life,  sustained  by  fervent prayer, and  by  the  consolation  of  the  holy  books,  and  such,  in effect,  as  the  gospel  prescribes  to  all  the  disciples  of  faith; — when we bring  forward  to  you,  I  say,  these  ancient  models,  in  order  to make  you  feel,  by  the  difference  between  the  primitive  manners and yours,  how  distant  you  are  from  the  kingdom  of  God:  far from being  alarmed  at  finding  yourselves  dissimilar  to  such  a  degree, that  hardly  could  it  be  believed  that  you  were  disciples  of the  same  Master  and  followers  of  the  same  law;  you  reproach  us with  continual  recalling,  even  to  weariness,  these  primitive  times, of never  speaking  but  of  the  primitive  church,  as  if  it  were  possible to regulate  our  manners,  upon  manners  of  which  every  trace  hath long been  done  away,  impracticable  at  present  among  us,  and which the  times  and  customs  have  universally  abolished. You say, that  men  must  be  taken  as  they  are;  that  it  were  to  be  wished that the  primitive  fervour  had  been  kept  up  in  the  church;  but that every  thing  becomes  relaxed  and  weakened  through  time,  and that, to  pretend  to  bring  us  back  to  the  life  of  the  primitive  ages, is not  holding  out  means  of  salvation,  but  is  merely  preaching  up that  nobody  can  now  pretend  to  it.

But I  demand  of  you,  in  the  first  place,  my  brethren,  if  the times and  the  years,  which  have  so  much  adulterated  the  purity of Christianity,  have  adulterated  that  of  the  gospel? Are the rules become  more  pliable  and  more  favourable  to  the  passions, because men  are  become  more  sensual  and  more  voluptuous? And hath the  relaxation  of  manners  softened  the  maxims  of  Jesus Christ? When he  hath  foretold  in  the  gospel  that,  in  the  latter times, that  is  to  say,  in  the  ages  in  which  we  have  the  misfortune to live,  faith  should  almost  no  longer  be  found  upon  the  earth; that his  name  should  hardly  be  known  there,  that  his  maxims should be  destroyed,  that  the  duties  should  be  incompatible  with the customs,  and  that  the  just  themselves  should  allow  themselves to be  almost  infected  by  the  universal  contagion,  and  to  be  dragged