Page:Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon.djvu/54

28 into the number of believers, and marked with the indefeasible seal of salvation, upon the faith that you have sworn to the Lord, to love neither the world, nor what the world loves. Had you then answered, what you now repeat every day, that you find not the world so black and pernicious as we say; that, after all, it may innocently be loved; and that we only decry it so much, because we do not know it; and since you are to live in the world, you wish to live like those who are in it: had you answered thus, the church would not have received you into its bosom; would not have connected you with the hope of Christians, nor joined you in communion with those who have overcome the world. She would have advised you to go and live with those infidels who know not our Saviour. For this reason it was, that in former ages, those of the Catechumen, who could not prevail upon themselves to renounce the world and its pleasures, put off their baptism till death; and durst not approach the holy altar, to contract, by the sacrament, which regenerates us, engagements of which they knew the importance and sanctity; and to fulfil which they felt themselves still unqualified. You are therefore required, by the most sacred of all vows, to hate the world; that is to say, not to conform yourselves to it. If you love it, if you follow its pleasures and customs, you are not only, as St. John says, the enemy of God, but you likewise renounce the faith given in baptism; you abjure the gospel of Jesus Christ; you are an apostate from religion, and trample under foot the most sacred and irrevocable vows that man can make. Now, what is this world which you ought to hate? I have only to answer, that it is the one you love. You will never mistake it by this mark. This world is a society of sinners, whose desires, fears, hopes, cares, projects, joys, and chagrins, no longer turn but upon the successes or misfortunes of this life. This world is an assemblage of people who look upon the earth as their country; the time to come as an exilement; the promises of faith as a dream; and death as the greatest of all misfortunes. This world is a temporal kingdom, where our Saviour is unknown; where those acquainted with his name, glorify him not as their Lord, hate his maxims, despise his followers, and neglect or insult him in his sacraments and worship. In a word, to give a proper idea at once of this world, it is the great number: behold the world which you ought to shun, hate, and combat against by your example!

Now, is this your situation in regard to the world? Are its pleasures a fatigue to you; do its excesses afflict you; do you regret the length of your pilgrimage here? Are not its laws your laws; its maxims your maxims? What it condemns, do you not condemn? Do you not approve what it approves? And should it happen, that you alone were left upon the earth, may we not say, that the corrupt world would be revived in you; and that you would leave an exact model of it to your posterity? When I say you, I mean, and I address myself to almost all men.

Where are those who sincerely renounce the pleasures, habits, maxims, and hopes of this world? We find many who complain of