It is time, now, to take up the exclamation of the Prophet: "O that
my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might
weep for the wounded of the daughter of my people!"--Jer. ix. i.
For, although they are wrapped in profound silence, and lie quite
stupefied by their calamity, and deprived, by their deadly wound,
even of the very sense of suffering, yet it does not become us to
withhold our tears over so sad a fall. For if Jeremiah deemed those
worthy of countless lamentations who had received bodily wounds in
battle, what shall we say when souls are involved in so great a
calamity? "Thy wounded," says the Prophet, "are not wounded with
the sword, and thy dead are not the dead of war." But my
lamentation is for grievous sin, the sting of the true death, and
for the fiery darts of the wicked, which have cruelly kindled a
flame in both body and soul. Well might the laws of God groan
within themselves, beholding such pollution on earth, those laws
which always utter their loud prohibition, saying in olden time,
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife"; and in the Gospels,
"That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart." But now they behold the
very bride of the Lord--her of whom Christ is the head--
committing adultery without fear or shame. Yes, the very spirits of
departed saints may well groan, the zealous Phineas, that it is not
permitted to him now to snatch the spear and to punish the loathsome
sin with a summary corporeal vengeance; and John the Baptist, that
he cannot now leave the celestial abodes, as he once left the
wilderness, and hasten to rebuke the transgression, and if the
sacrifice were called for, to lay down his head sooner than abate
the severity of his reproof. Nay, let us rather say that, like
blessed Abel, John "being dead yet speaketh," and now lifts up his
voice with a yet louder cry than in the case of Herodias, saying,
"It is not lawful for thee to have her." For, although the body of
John, yielding to the inevitable sentence of God, has paid the debt
of nature, and his tongue is silent, yet "the word of God is not
bound." And he who, when the marriage covenant had been violated in
the case of a fellow-servant, was faithful even unto death with his
stern reproofs, what must he have felt if he had seen the holy
bride-chamber of the Lord thus wantonly outraged?
But as for thee, O thou who hast thus cast off the yoke of that
divine union, and deserted the undefiled chamber of the true King,
and shamefully fallen into this disgraceful and impious defilement,
since thou hast no way of evading this bitter charge, and no method
or artifice can avail to conceal thy fearful crime, thou boldly
hardenest thyself in guilt. And as he who has once fallen into the
abyss of crime becomes henceforth an impious despiser, so thou
deniest thy very covenant with the true bridegroom; alleging that
thou wast not a virgin, and hadst never taken the vow, although thou
hast both received and given many pledges of virginity. Remember
the good confession which thou hast made before God and angels and
men. Remember that venerable assembly, and the sacred choir of
virgins, and the congregation of the Lord, and the Church of the
saints. Remember thy aged grandmother in Christ, whose Christian
virtues still flourish in the vigor of youth; and thy mother in the
Lord, who vies with the former, and strives by new and unwonted
endeavors to dissolve the bands of custom; and thy sister likewise,
in some things their imitator, and in some aspiring to excel them,
and to surpass in the merits of virginity the attainments of her
progenitors, and both in word and deed diligently inviting thee, her
sister, as is meet, to the same competition. Remember these, and
the angelic company associated with them in the service of the Lord,
and the spiritual life though yet in the flesh, and the heavenly
converse upon earth. Remember the tranquil days and the luminous
nights, and the spiritual songs, and the melodious psalmody, and the
holy prayers, and the chaste and undefiled couch, and the progress
in virginal purity, and the temperate diet so helpful in preserving
thy virginity uncontaminated. And where is now that grave
deportment, and that modest mien, and that plain attire which so
become a virgin, and that beautiful blush of bashfulness, and that
comely paleness--the delicate bloom of abstinence and vigils, that
outshines every ruddier glow. How often in prayer that thou
mightest keep unspotted thy virginal purity hast thou poured forth
thy tears! How many letters hast thou indited to holy men,
imploring their prayers, not that thou mightest obtain these human
--nuptials, shall I call them? rather this dishonorable defilement
--but that thou mightest not fall away from the Lord Jesus? How
often hast thou received the gifts of the spouse! And why should I
mention also the honors accorded for his sake by those who are his
--the companionship of the virgins, journeyings with them, welcomes
from them, encomiums on virginity, blessings bestowed by virgins,
letters addressed to thee as to a virgin! But now, having been just
breathed upon by the aerial spirit that worketh in the children of
disobedience, thou hast denied all these, and hast bartered that
precious and enviable possession for a brief pleasure, which is
sweet to thy taste for a moment, but which afterward thou wilt find
bitterer than gall.
Besides all this, who can avoid exclaiming with grief, "How is Zion,
the faithful city, become an harlot!" Nay, does not the Lord
himself say to some who now walk in the spirit of Jeremiah, "Hast
thou seen what the virgin of Israel hath done unto me?" "I
betrothed her unto me in faith and purity, in righteousness and in
judgment, and in loving-kindness and in mercies," even as I promised
her by Hosea, the prophet. But she has loved strangers; and even
while I her husband lived, she has made herself an adulteress, and
has not feared to become the wife of another husband. And what
would the bride's guardian and conductor say, the divine and blessed
Paul? Both the ancient Apostle, and this modern one, under whose
auspices and instruction thou didst leave thy father's house, and
join thyself to the Lord? Would not each, filled with grief at the
great calamity, say, "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon
me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me," for "I espoused
you unto one husband, that I might present you as a chaste virgin to
Christ"; and I was always fearful, lest in some way as the serpent
beguiled Eve by his subtilty, so thy mind should sometime be
corrupted. And on this account I always endeavored, like a skillful
charmer, by innumerable incantations, to suppress the tumult of the
passions, and by a thousand safeguards to secure the bride of the
Lord, rehearsing again and again the manner of her who is unmarried,
how that she only "careth for the things of the Lord, that she may
be holy both in body and in spirit"; and I set forth the honor of
virginity, calling thee the temple of God, that I might add wings to
thy zeal, and help thee upward to Jesus; and I also had recourse to
the fear of evil, to prevent thee from falling, telling thee that
"if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy." I
also added the assistance of my prayers, that, if possible, "thy
whole body, and soul, and spirit might be preserved blameless unto
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ," But all this labor I have
spent in vain upon thee; and those sweet toils have ended in a
bitter disappointment; and now I must again groan over her of whom I
ought to have joy. For lo, thou hast been beguiled by the serpent
more bitterly than Eve; for not only has thy mind become defiled,
but with it thy very body also, and what is still more horrible--I
dread to say it, but I cannot suppress it; for it is as fire burning
and blazing in my bones, and I am dissolving in every part and
cannot endure it--thou hast taken the members of Christ, and made
them the members of a harlot. This is incomparably the greatest
evil of all. This is a new crime in the world, to which we may
apply the words of the Prophet, "Pass over the isles of Chittim, and
see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there
be such a thing. Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no
gods?" For the virgin hath changed her glory, and now glories in
her shame. The heavens are astonished at this, and the earth
trembleth very exceedingly. Now, also, the Lord says, the virgin
hath committed two evils, she hath forsaken me, the true and holy
bridegroom of sanctified souls, and hath fled to an impious and
lawless polluter of the body, and corrupter of the soul. She hath
turned away from God her Savior, and hath yielded her members
servants to imparity and iniquity; she bath forgotten me, and gone
after her lover, by whom she shall not profit.
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck,
and he cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of the
Lord's virgins to offend. What impudent servant ever carried his
insane audacity so far as to fling himself upon the couch of his
lord? Or what robber has ever become so madly hardened as to lay
hands upon the very offerings devoted to God?--but here it is not
inanimate vessels, but living bodies, inhabited by souls made in the
image of God. Since the beginning of the world was any one ever
heard of, who dared, in the midst of a great city, in broad midday,
to deface the likeness of a king by inscribing upon it the forms of
filthy swine? He that despises human nuptials dies without mercy
under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, suppose
ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son
of God, and defiled his espoused wife, and done despite to the
spirit of virginity? . . .
But, after all this, "shall they fall and not arise? shall he turn
away and not return?" Why hath the virgin turned away in so
shameless an apostasy?--and that, too, after having heard Christ,
the bridegroom, saying by Jeremiah, "And I said, after she had
lewdly done all these things, turn thou unto me. But she returned
not," "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?
Why, then, is not the health of the daughter of my people
recovered?" Truly thou mightest find in the Divine Scriptures many
remedies for such an evil--many medicines that recover from
perdition and restore to life; mysterious words about death and
resurrection, a dreadful judgment, and everlasting punishment; the
doctrines of repentance and remission of sins; those innumerable
examples of conversion--the piece of silver, the lost sheep, the
son that had devoured his living with harlots, that was lost and
found, that was dead and alive again. Let us use these remedies for
the evil; with these let us heal our souls. Think, too, of thy last
day (for thou art not to live always, more than others), of the
distress, and the anguish, as the hour of death draws nearer, of the
impending sentence of God, of the angels moving on rapid wing, of
the soul fearfully agitated by all these things, and bitterly
tormented by a guilty conscience, and clinging pitifully to the
things here below, and still under the inevitable necessity of
taking its departure. Picture to thy mind the final dissolution of
all that belongs to our present life, when the Son of Man shall come
in his glory, with his holy angels; for he "shall come, and shall
not keep silence," when he shall come to judge the living and the
dead, and to render to every man according to his work; when the
trumpet, with its loud and terrible echo, shall awaken those who
have slept from the beginning of the world, and they shall come
forth, they that have done good to the resurrection of the life, and
they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation. Remember
the divine vision of Daniel, how he brings the judgment before our
eyes. "I beheld," says he, "till the thrones were placed, and the
Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the
hair of his head like the pure wool; his throne was like the fiery
flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and
came forth from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him,
and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the judgment
was set, and the books were opened," revealing all at once in the
hearing of all men and all angels, all things, whether good or bad,
open or secret, deeds, words, thoughts. What effect must all these
things have on those who have lived viciously? Where, then, shall
the soul, thus suddenly revealed in all the fullness of its shame in
the eyes of such a multitude of spectators--Oh, where shall it
hide itself? In what body can it endure those unbounded and
intolerable torments of the unquenchable fire, and the tortures of
the undying worm, and the dark and frightful abyss of hell, and the
bitter howlings, and woeful wailings, and weeping, and gnashing of
teeth; and all these dire woes without end? Deliverance from these
after death there is none; neither is there any device, nor
contrivance, for escaping these bitter torments. But now it is
possible to escape them. Now, then, while it is possible, let us
recover ourselves from our fall, let us not despair of restoration,
if we break loose from our vices. Jesus Christ came into the world
to save sinners. "Oh, come, let us worship and bow down," let us
weep before him. His word, calling us to repentance, lifts up its
voice and cries aloud, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest." There is, then, a way to be
saved, if we will Death has prevailed and swallowed us up; but be
assured, that God will wipe away every tear from the face of every
penitent. The Lord is faithful in all his words. He does not lie,
when he says, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as
white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as
wool." The great Physician of souls is ready to heal thy disease;
he is the prompt Deliverer, not of thee alone, but of all who are in
bondage to sin. These are his words,--his sweet and life-giving
lips pronounced them,--"They that be whole need not a physician, but
they that are sick. I am not come to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance." What excuse, then, remains to thee, or to
any one else, when he utters such language as this? The Lord is
willing to heal thy painful wound, and to enlighten thy darkness.
The Good Shepherd leaves the sheep who have not strayed, to seek for
thee. If thou give thyself up to him, he will not delay, he in his
mercy will not disdain to carry thee upon his own shoulders,
rejoicing that he has found his sheep which was lost. The Father
stands waiting thy return from thy wanderings. Only arise and come,
and whilst thou art yet a great way off he will run and fall upon
thy neck; and, purified at once by thy repentance, thou shalt be
enfolded in the embraces of his friendship. He will put the best
robe on thy soul, when it has put off the old man with his deeds; he
will put a ring on thy hands when they have been washed from the
blood of death; he will put shoes on thy feet, when they have turned
from the evil way to the path of the Gospel of peace; and he will
proclaim a day of joy and gladness to the whole family of both
angels and men, and will celebrate thy salvation with every form of
rejoicing. For he himself says, "Verily I say unto you, that joy
shall be in heaven before God over one sinner that repenteth." And
if any of those that stand by should seem to find fault, because
thou art so quickly received, the good Father himself will plead for
thee, saying, "It was meet that we should make merry and be glad;
for this my daughter was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and
is found."