"kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the "world. For I was an hungered, and ye gave me "meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was "a stranger, and ye took me in; I was naked, and ye "clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me: For ❝inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least "of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

SERMON XII.

ON AFFLICTIONS.

MATTHEW xi. 6.

And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended

in me.

Ir is therefore my brethren a blessing, and it is a rare blessing, not to be offended in Jesus Christ. But what was there or what could there be in him, who is wisdom itself, the glory of the father, and the substantial image of all perfection, which could afford a subject of scandal to men? It is his cross, my dearest brethren-that cross which was formerly the shame of the Jews; and is, and shall be, to the end of ages, the shame of the greatest part of Christians. But, when I say that the cross of the Saviour is the shame of most Christians, I mean not only the cross that He bore, but more especially that which we are obliged, from his example, to bear; without which He rejects us from the number of his disciples, Vol. I.

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and denies as any participation of that glory into which He has entered, through the cross alone.

This is what displeases us, and what we find to complain of in our divine Saviour. We would wish, that, since it was necessary for him to suffer, his sufferings bad been a title, as it were, of exemption, by which we should merit the privilege of not suffering with him. Let us dispel this error, my dearest brethren. The only thing which depends on us, is to render our sufferings meritorious; but to suffer, or not to suffer, is not left to our choice. Providence has so wisely dispensed the good and evil of this life, that each in his station, however happy his lot may appear, finds crosses and af flictions, which always counterbalance his pleasures. There is no perfect happiness on earth; for this is not the time of consolation, but the time of suffering. Grandeur hath its slavery and its uneasiness; obscurity, its humiliation and its slights; the world, its cares and its caprices; retirement, its sadness and weariness; marriage, its antipathies and its madness; friendship, its losses or its perfidies; piety itself, its bitterness and its disgusts in a word, by a destiny inevitable to the children of Adam, each one finds his own path strewed with brambles and thorns. The apparently happiest condition hath its secret sorrows, which poison all its felicity: the throne is the seat of chagrin equally with the lowest place; the palace of the noble as well as the hut of the humble labourer has its care and discontent; and, lest our place of exile should become endeared to us, we always feel, in a thousand different ways, that something is yet wanting to our happiness.

Destined, nevertheless as we are to suffer, we cannot love our sufferings; continually stricken with some af

fliction, we are unable to make a merit of our pains; and we never render our crosses useful to us, which have now become necessary. We are ingenious in depriving ourselves of the merit of all our suffering. At one time we seek, in the weakness of our own heart, an excuse for our peevishness and murmurings; at another, in the excess or in the nature of our afflictions; and again, in the obstacles which they seem to us to cast in the way of our salvation; that is to say, at one time we complain of being too weak to bear our sufferings with patience; at another, that they are too excessive; and, lastly, that it is impossible in that situation to pay attention to salvation.

Such are the three pretexts continually made use of by the world in opposition to the Christian use of affliction the pretext of self weakness; the pretext of the excess or the nature of our afflictions; the pretext of the obstacles which they seem to place in the way of our salvation. These are the pretexts we have now to overthrow, by placing in opposition to them the rules of faith. Listen then, I beseech you, be ye whom ye may, and learn that the enjoyment of pleasures is not the only cause of condemnation to most men; they, alas! are rare on the earth, and closely followed by disgust: but it is likewise the unchristian use they make of afflictions.

PART I. The pretext most common to the souls af flicted by the Lord, is that of alleging their own weakness, in order to justify the unchristian use they make of their afflictions. They complain that they are not endowed with a force of mind sufficient to preserve in them a submissive and a patient heart; that nothing is more conducive to happiness than the want of feeling;

that this character saves us from endless vexations and inevitable chagrins; but that we cannot fashion our heart according to our own wishes; that religion doth not render those unfeeling and stoical who are born with the tender feelings of humanity; and that the Lord is too just, to make a crime of our misfortunes.

But, to overthrow an illusion so common and so unworthy of piety; I beg you to observe, in the first place, that when Jesus Christ hath commanded all believers to bear with submission and with love, the crosses prepared for us by his goodness; He hath not added, that an order so just, so consoling, so conformable to his example, should have regard only to unfeeling and impatient souls. He hath not distinguished among his disciples, those whom nature, pride, or reflection, had rendered firmer and more constant, from those whom tenderness and humanity had endowed with more feeling, in order to enjoin on the first a patience and insensibility which cost them almost nothing, and to absolve the others, to whom they become more difficult.

On the contrary, His Divine precepts are intended as remedies; and the more we are inimical to them through the character of our heart, the more are they proper for, and become necessary to us. It is because you are weak, and that the least contradiction always excites you so much against troubles, that the Lord must purify you by tribulation and sorrow for it is not the strong who have occasion to be tried, but the weak.

In effect, what is it to be weak and sensitive? It is in other words only an excess of self-love; it is the giving up all to nature, and nothing to faith; it is the giving way to every impulse of inclination, and living solely for ease and self-enjoyment, as if they constituted the