Page:Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon.djvu/51

Ser. 2. to the general voice. Such, my brethren, are your only comforters against all the terrors of religion. None act up to the law. The public example is the only guarantee of our morals. We never reflect, that, as the Holy Spirit says, the laws of the people are vain: that our Saviour has left us rules, in which neither times, ages, nor customs, can ever authorize the smallest change: that the heavens and the earth shall pass away; that customs and manners shall change; but that the divine laws will everlastingly be the same.

We content ourselves with looking around us. We do not reflect, that what, at present, we call custom, would, in former times, before the morals of Christians became degenerated, have been regarded as monstrous singularities; and, if corruption has gained since that period, these vices, though they have lost their singularity, have not lost their guilt. We do not reflect, that we shall be judged by the gospel, and not by custom; by the examples of the holy, and not by men's opinions;—that the habits, which are only established among believers by the relaxation of faith, are abuses we are to lament, not examples we are to follow;—that, in changing the manners, they have not changed our duties;—that the common and general example which authorizes them, only proves that virtue is rare, but not that profligacy is permitted;—in a word, that piety and a real Christian life are too unpalatable to our depraved nature ever to be practised by the majority of men. Come now, and say, that you only do as others do. It is exactly by that you condemn yourselves. What! the most terrible certainty of your condemnation shall become the only motive for your confidence! Which, according to the Scriptures, is the road that conducts to death? Is it not that which the majority pursues? Which is the party of the reprobate? Is it not the multitude? You do nothing but what others do. But thus, in the time of Noah, perished all who were buried under the waters of the deluge: all who, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, prostrated themselves before the golden calf: all who, in the time of Elijah, bowed the knee to Baal: all who, in the time of Eleazer, abandoned the law of their fathers. You only do what others do; but that is exactly what the Scriptures forbid: Do not, say they, conform yourselves to this corrupted age. Now, the corrupted age means not the small number of the just, whom you endeavour not to imitate; it means the multitude whom you follow. You only do what others do: you will consequently experience the same lot. Now, "Misery to thee," (cried formerly St. Augustine,) "fatal torrent of human customs; wilt thou never suspend thy course? To the end wilt thou drag in the children of Adam to thine immense and terrible abyss?"

In place of saying to ourselves, "What are my hopes? In the church of Jesus Christ there are two roads; one broad and open, by which almost the whole world passes, and which leads to death; the other narrow, where few indeed enter, and which conducts to life eternal; in which of these am I? Are my morals the usual