Page:Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon.djvu/52

26 ones of persons of my rank, age, and situation in life? Am I with the great number? Then I am not in the right path. I am losing myself. The great number in every station is not the party saved." Far from reasoning in this manner, we say to ourselves, "I am not in a worse state than others. Those of my rank and age live as I do: why should I not live like them?" Why, my dear hearers? For that very reason: the general mode of living cannot be that of a Christian life. In all ages, the holy have been remarkable and singular men. Their manners were always different from those of the world; and they have only been saints, because their lives had no similarity to those of the rest of mankind. In the time of Esdras, in spite of the defence against it, the custom prevailed of intermarrying with stranger women: this abuse became general: the priests and the people no longer made any scruple of it. But what did this holy restorer of the law: did he follow the example of his brethren? Did he believe, that guilt, in becoming general, became more legitimate? No: he recalled the people to a sense of the abuse. He took the book of the law in his hand, and explained it to the affrighted people,—corrected the custom by the truth. Follow, from age to age, the history of the just; and see if Lot conformed himself to the habits of Sodom, or if nothing distinguished him from the other inhabitants; if Abraham lived like the rest of his age; if Job resembled the other princes of his nation; if Esther conducted herself, in the court of Ahasuerus, like the other women of that prince; if many widows in Israel resembled Judith; if, among the children of the captivity, it is not said of Tobias alone that he copied not the conduct of his brethren, and that he even fled from the danger of their commerce and society. See, if in those happy ages, when Christians were all saints, they did not shine like stars in the midst of the corrupted nations; and if they served not as a spectacle to angels and men, by the singularity of their lives and manners: if the pagans did not reproach them for their retirement, and shunning of all public theatres, places, and pleasures: if they did not complain that the Christians affected to distinguish themselves in every thing from their fellow-citizens; to form a separate people in the midst of the people; to have their particular laws and customs; and if a man from their side embraced the party of the Christians, they did not consider him as for ever lost to their pleasures, assemblies, and customs: in a word, see, if in all ages the saints whose lives and actions have been transmitted down to us, have resembled the rest of mankind.

You will perhaps tell us, that all these are singularities and exceptions, rather than rules which the world is obliged to follow. They are exceptions, it is true: but the reason is, that the general rule is to throw away salvation; that a religious and pious soul in the midst of the world, is always a singularity approaching to a miracle. The whole world, you say, is not obliged to follow these examples; but is not piety the general duty of all? To be saved, must we not be holy? Must heaven, with difficulty and sufferance,