Page:Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon.djvu/45

Ser. 2. new traits to the terrors of these images. I might have spoken to you of two roads,—of which one is narrow, rugged, and the path of a very small number; the other broad, open, and strewed with flowers, and almost the general path of men: that every where, in the holy writings, the multitude is always spoken of as forming the party of the reprobate; while the saved, compared with the rest of mankind, form only a small flock, scarcely perceptible to the sight. I would have left you in fears with regard to your salvation; always cruel to those who have not renounced faith and every hope of being amongst the saved. But what would it serve to limit the fruits of this instruction to the single point of proving how few persons are saved? Alas! I would make the danger known, without instructing you how to avoid it; I would show you, with the prophet, the sword of the wrath of God suspended over your heads, without assisting you to escape the threatened blow; I would alarm the conscience without instructing the sinner.

My intention is therefore to-day, in our morals and manner of life, to search for the cause of this number being so small. As every one flatters himself he will not be excluded, it is of importance to examine if his confidence be well founded. I wish not, in marking to you the causes which render salvation so rare, to make you generally conclude, that few will be saved; but to bring you to ask of yourselves, if, living as you live, can you hope to be so. Who am I? What is it I do for heaven; and what can be my hopes in eternity? I propose no other order, in a matter of such importance. What are the causes which render salvation so rare? I mean to point out three principal ones, which is the only arrangement of this discourse. Art and far-sought reasonings would here be ill-timed. O attend, therefore, be whom you may! No subject can be more worthy your attention, since it goes to inform you what may be the hopes of your eternal destiny.

.—Few are saved; because in that number we can only comprehend two descriptions of persons;—either those who have been so happy as to preserve their innocence pure and undefiled; or those who, after having lost, have regained it by penitence:—first cause. There are only these two ways of salvation; and heaven is only open to the innocent or the penitent. Now, of which party are you? Are you innocent? Are you penitent?

Nothing unclean shall enter the kingdom of God. We must consequently carry there, either an innocence unsullied, or an innocence regained. Now, to die innocent, is a grace to which few souls can aspire; and to live penitent, is a mercy, which the relaxed state of our morals renders equally rare. Who indeed will pretend to salvation, by the claim of innocence? Where are the pure souls in whom sin has never dwelt; and who have preserved to the end the sacred treasure of grace confided to them by baptism, and which our Saviour will re-demand at the awful day of punishment?