Among the same Martène and Durand, in the place indicated in the preceding notice, this sermon too and the one that follows are read inscribed to St. Maximus. Some days ago we set forth that there lies upon us the necessity of not keeping silent, and lest others be imperiled by our peril, we observed that we ought to rise up with a cry to preach. For we must cry out in the Church, lest we cry out in punishment. For thus says the Lord through the prophet: Cry aloud vehemently, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their sins (Isa. 58). We are commanded therefore to cry out, and to cry out vehemently, and not to spare our voice, lest we perish as to salvation:
Spare not, it says; that is, do not by keeping silence pass over the sinner's iniquity, lest, while you have regard for his shame, you fail to have regard for his health. For his wounds, which by crying out you ought to have cut away, you have by keeping silence nourished for the worse. We are commanded therefore to cry out; and lest anyone should say he did not hear, or lest the voice escape anyone, the priests are commanded to cry out vehemently; and, lest perhaps this might by no means suffice, he added, saying: lift up your voice like a trumpet (Isa. 58). We know that the trumpet does not so much sound for hearing as for terror, nor so much bring delight as strike in dread. For the trumpet is necessary for sinners, which should not only penetrate their ears but also shake their hearts, which should not delight by song but chasten by the hearing;
and let it exhort the vigorous to justice and deter the sluggish from offenses. For as in battle it casts down the mind of the fearful soldier and kindles the spirit of the brave man, so also the priestly trumpet humbles the mind of the sinner and strengthens the soul of the holy man, and by one and the same sound imposes exhortation on the one, how he may be stronger toward unity, and strikes fear into the other, how he may be more timid toward sin. For this is the nature of the trumpet, that it destroys the works of the offenders and confirms the deeds of these. Finally, the walls of Jericho fell by the priestly trumpets, because they held within themselves a sinful people. No battering-ram struck them, no siege-engine took them; but, what is wonderful, the priestly dread of the sound overthrew them.
The walls which had stood impregnable against iron collapsed at the sacred voice of the trumpets. For who would not be astonished that at that blast the rocks were rent, the foundations shaken by the clangor, and thus everything overthrown, so that, while the victors' hands harmed nothing, yet nothing remained standing among the adversaries; but although no one touched those walls, they were nevertheless taken: by the sound of the just from without, from without the dwellings of sinners for this reason gave way. Should they then have withstood these? Should they have protected those in anything? They opened a defense to the just already, and denied it to the faithless. Therefore, brethren, the sound of the priestly voice availed so much even in that time, when in true confusion of their state it sounded forth I know not what;
how much more do we believe that the priestly living voice itself can now avail, which, while it speaks Christ by the word, accomplishes something magnificent in the stead of the command of the Lord Saviour, when even the elements gave way at the sound of bronze, or how could things sensible have withstood, when even things insensible could not bear the sacred terror! For we believe that hearts can be softened more easily by the words of priests than stones, and that sins can be loosed more quickly than the mortar was loosed. For the voice of the concurring Spirit destroys the stain of sin more easily than the material bulwark of stone is loosed. Here it ends.