Thirdly, I restrict myself, my brethren, as much as possible in order to execute without exceeding my limits the plan I have conceived; and proceed to consider Felix as an avaricious man:  to find in this disposition a further cause of his fear.  Felix was avaricious, and St. Paul instantly transported him into a world in which avarice shall receive its appropriate and most severe punishment.  For you know that the grand test by which we shall be judged is charity.  “I was hungry, and ye gave me meat”; and of all the constructions of charity covetousness is the most obstinate and insurmountable.

This unhappy propensity renders us insensible of our neighbor’s necessities.  It magnifies the estimate of our wants; it diminishes the wants of others.  It persuades us that we have need of all, that others have need of nothing.  Felix began to perceive the iniquity of this passion, and to feel that he was guilty of double idolatry:  idolatry, in morality, idolatry in religion; idolatry in having offered incense to gods, who were not the makers of heaven and earth; idolatry in having offered incense to Mammon.  For the Scriptures teach, and experience confirms, that “covetousness is idolatry.”  The covetous man is not a worshiper of the true God.  Gold and silver are the divinities he adores.  His heart is with his treasure.  Here then is the portrait of Felix:  a portrait drawn by St. Paul in the presence of Felix, and which reminded this prince of innumerable prohibitions, innumerable frauds, innumerable extortions; of the widow and the orphan he opprest.  Here is the cause of Felix’s fears.  According to an expression of St. James, the “rust of his gold and silver began to witness against him, and to eat his flesh as with fire” (James v., 3).

Fourthly, consider Felix as a voluptuous man.  Here is the final cause of his fear.  Without repeating all we have said on the depravity of this passion, let one remark suffice, that, if the torments of hell are terrible at all, they must especially be so to the voluptuous.  The voluptuous man never restricts his sensual gratification; his soul dies on the slightest approach of pain.  What a terrific impression must not the thought of judgment make on such a character.  Shall I, accustomed to indulgence and pleasure, become a prey to the worm that dieth not and fuel to the fire which is not quenched?  Shall I, who avoid pain with so much caution, be condemned to eternal torments?  Shall I have neither delicious meats nor voluptuous delights?  This body, my idol, which I habituate to so much delicacy, shall it be “cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever?” And this effeminate habit I have of refining on pleasure, will it render me only the more sensible of my destruction and anguish?

Such are the traits of Felix’s character; such are the causes of Felix’s fear.  Happy, if his fear had produced that “godly sorrow, and that repentance unto salvation not to be repented of.”  Happy if the fear of hell had induced him to avoid its torments.  But, ah no! he feared, and yet persisted in the causes of his fear.  He trembled, yet said to St. Paul, “Go thy way for this time.”  This is our last reflection.