# Sermons (Massillon)/Sermon 28

SERMON XXVIII.
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST.
"His name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel." — Luke ii. 21.
A God lowering himself so far as even to become man, astonishes and confounds reason; and into what an abyss of errors is it not plunged, if the light of faith come not speedily to its aid, to discover the depth of the divine wisdom concealed under the apparent absurdity of the mystery of a Man-God! Thus, in all times, this fundamental point of our holy religion, I mean the divinity of Jesus Christ, hath been the object most exposed to the foolish oppositions of the human mind. Men, full of pride, whose mouths ought to be filled with only thanksgivings for the ineffable gift, made to them by the Father of mercies, of his only Son, have continually insulted him, by vomiting forth the most impious blasphemies against that adorable Son; — full of blindness, who have not seen that the sole name of Jesus, which is given to him on this day, that name which he at first receives in heaven, and which an angel conveys to the earth, to Mary and Joseph, is the incontestable proof of his divinity. That sacred name establishes him the Saviour of mankind; Saviour, in that, through the effusion of blood, which becomes our ransom, he delivers us from sin, and from the consequences inseparable from it, namely, the tyranny of the demon and of hell: Saviour, in that, attracting upon his own head the chastisement due to our transgressions, he reconciles us with God, and opens to us afresh the entry of the eternal sanctuary, which sin had shut against us. But, my brethren, if the Son of Mary be but a mere man, of what value, in the eyes of God, will be the oblation of his blood? If Jesus Christ be not God, how will his mediation be accepted, while he would himself have occasion for a mediator to reconcile him with God?
This proof, which I only touch upon here, and so many others with which religion furnishes me, would quickly stop the mouth of the ungodly, and confound his impiety, if I undertook to show them in all their light, and to give an extension in proportion to their importance. But, God forbid that I should come here, into the holy temple, where the altars of our divine Saviour are raised up, where his worshippers assemble, to enter into contestation, as if I spake in the presence of his enemies, or to make the apology of the mystery of the Man-God, before a believing people, and a sovereign whose most illustrious and most cherished title is that of Christian. It is not, therefore, to combat these ungodly, that, on this day, I consecrate my discourse to the divinity, and to the eternal glory of Jesus, Son of the living God; I come for the sole purpose of con​soling our faith, while recounting the wonders of him who is its Author and Perfecter; and to reanimate our piety in exposing to you the glory and the divinity of our Mediator, who is its object and its sweetest hope.
It is even proper to renew, from time to time, these grand truths in the minds of the great and of the princes of the people, in order to strengthen them against those discourses of infidelity which they, in general, are only too much in the way of hearing; and it is expedient sometimes to raise up the veil which covers the sanctuary, that they may have a view of those hidden beauties which religion only holds out to their respect and their homages.
Now, the divinity of the Mediator can only be proved by his ministry; his titles can appear only in his functions; and, in order to know whether he be descended from heaven, and equal with the Most High, it requires only to relate the purposes for which he came upon the earth. He came, my brethren, to form a holy and a believing people; a believing people, who subject their reason to the sacred yoke of faith; a holy people, whose conversation is in heaven, and who are no longer responsible to the flesh, to live according to the flesh: such is the grand design of his temporal mission.
The lustre of his ministry is the firmest foundation of our faith: the spirit of his ministry, the sole rule of our morals. Now, if he was only a man commissioned of God, the lustre of his ministry would be the inevitable occasion of our superstition and idolatry; the spirit of his ministry would be the fatal snare to entrap our innocence. Thus, whether we consider the lustre or the spirit of his his ministry, the glory of his divinity remains equally and invincibly established.
O Jesus, sole Lord of all, accept this public homage of our confession and of our faith! While impiety blasphemes in secret, and under the shades of darkness, against thy glory, allow us the consolation of publishing it with the voice of all ages in the face of these altars; and form, in our heart, not only that faith which confesses and worships thee, but also that which follows and which imitates thee.
Part I. — God can manifest himself to men, only in order to teach them what he is, and what men owe to him; and religion is, properly speaking, but a divine light, which discovers God to man, and which regulates the duties of man toward God. Whether the Most High show himself to the earth, or whether he fill extraordinary men with his spirit, the end of all his proceedings can be only the knowledge and the sanctification of his name in the universe, and the establishment of a worship in which they render to him what is due to him alone.
Now, if the Lord Jesus, come in the fulness of time, was nothing more than an upright and innocent man, only chosen to be the messenger of God upon the earth, the principal end of his ministry would have been that of rendering the world idolatrous, and of ​ravishing from the Divinity that glory which is his due, in order to appropriate it to himself.
In effect, my brethren, whether we consider the lustre of his ministry in that pompous train of oracles and of figurative allusions which have preceded him, in the wonderful circumstances which have accompanied him, and, lastly, in the works which he hath operated; the lustre of it is such, that, if Jesus Christ was only a man, similar to us, God, who hath sent him upon the earth, arrayed in such glory and power, would himself have deceived us, and would be culpable of the idolatry of those who worship him.
The first signal character of the ministry of Jesus Christ is, that, from the beginning of the world, it was foretold and promised to men. Scarcely had the fall of Adam taken place, when the Restorer, whom his guilt had rendered necessary to the earth, is shown to him from afar. In the following ages, God, it would appear, is only occupied in preparing mankind for his coming: if he manifest himself to the patriarchs, it is in order to confirm their faith in that expectation; if he inspire prophets, it is in order to announce him; if he choose to himself a people, it is for the purpose of making it the depositary of that grand promise; if he prescribe sacrifices and religious ceremonies to men, it is in order to trace out in them, as from afar, the history of him who was to come. Whatever took place upon the earth seems to lead to that grand event: empires and kingdoms fall or rise only in order to prepare the way for it: the heavens are only opened to promise it: and, as St. Paul says, the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain to bring forth the Righteous, who is to come for the redemption of our body from the bondage of corruption and sin.
Now, my brethren, to inspire, from the beginning of all ages, the earth with the expectation of a man, and to announce him to it from heaven, is already, in fact, to prepare men to receive him with a kind of religion and worship; and even granting that Jesus Christ were to have only the eclat of that particular circumstance which distinguishes him from all other men, the superstition of the people, with regard to him, were he only a simple creature, had been to dread. But even the circumstance of Jesus Christ being foretold is not so wonderful as those in which he hath been, which are more surprising than even the prophecies themselves. In effect, if Cyrus and John the Baptist had been foretold, long before their birth, in the prophecies of Isaiah and of Malachi, these are only individual prophecies, without consequence or train, and which are found in a single prophet; predictions which announce only particular events, and by which the religion of the people could never be caught or surprised: Cyrus to be the re-establisher of the walls of Jerusalem; John the Baptist to prepare the way for him who has to come: both in order to confirm, by the accomplishment of their particular prophecies, the truth and the divinity of all the prophecies which announce Jesus Christ.
But here, my brethren, it is a Messenger of Heaven, foretold by ​a whole people, announced, during four thousand years, by a long train of prophecies, desired of all nations, figured by all the ceremonies, expected by all the just, and shown from afar in all ages. The patriarchs expire in wishing to see him: the just live in that expectation: fathers instruct their children to wish for him: and this desire is like a domestic religion which is perpetuated from age to age. The prophets themselves of the Gentiles, see the Star of Jacob shining from afar; and this great event is announced even in the oracles of idols. Here, it is not for a particular event; it is to be the resource of the condemned world, the legislator of all people, the light all nations, the salvation of Israel; it is in order to blot out iniquity from the earth, to bring an eternal righteousness, to fill the universe with the spirit of God, and to be the blessed bearer of an immortal peace to all men. What a pompous train! What a snare for the religion of all ages, if such magnificent preparations announce only a simple creature; and, more especially, in times when the credulity of the people so easily placed extraordinary men in the rank of gods!
Besides, when John the Baptist appears on the borders of the Jordan, afraid, it would seem, that the single oracle which had foretold him might become an occasion of idolatry to the people, whom the fame of his sanctity attracted around him, he performs no miracles; he never ceases to say, P I am not he whom you expect; but one mightier than me cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose;" he is only watchful, it would appear, to prevent superstitious honours. Jesus Christ, on the contrary, whom four thousand years of expectation, of allusions, of prophecies, of promises, had with so much magnificence announced to the earth; Jesus Christ, far from preventing the superstition of the people with regard to himself, comes in full authority and might; he does miracles and deeds which no one had ever done before him; and, not only does he raise himself above John the Baptist, but he gives out that he is equal with God himself. Had the error been to dread, and, if to render to him divine honours had been idolatry, where would be his zeal for the glory of him who sends him, or where would be his love for men?
And yet more, my brethren: all the extraordinary men of which the preceding ages could boast, all the just of the law and of the age of the patriarchs, had been only the imperfect types of the Christ; and again, each of them represented only some individual trait of his life and ministry: Melchizedek, his priesthood; Abraham, his quality of Head and Father of believers; Isaac, his sacrifice; Job, his persecutions and sufferings; Moses, his office of Mediator; Joshua, his triumphant entry into the land of the living with a chosen people. All these men, however, so venerable and so miraculous, were only rude sketches of the Messiah to come; and how great must have been that Messiah himself, seeing his figures were so illustrious and so shining! But, deprive Jesus Christ of his divinity and of his eternal origin, and the reality has nothing superior to the figure. I know, as we shall afterward say, that, ​when we narrowly examine the lustre of his wonders, we shall see them marked with divine characters which are only to be found in the life of those great men. But, to judge of them by the eyes of the senses alone, the parallel would not be favourable to Jesus Christ. Is he greater than Abraham; that man so great, that the Lord himself, among his most pompous names, had taken that of the God of Abraham, as if in order to proclaim to the world that the homages of a man, so righteous and so extraordinary, were more glorious to his sovereignty than the title of God of empires and of nations: so great, that the Jews believed themselves superior to all other nations of the earth, only because they were the posterity of that famous chief so cherished of Heaven; and that fathers, in recounting to their children the wonders of their nation, and the history of their ancestors, animated them to virtue, only by putting them in remembrance that they were the children of Abraham and the members of a holy race? Is he more wonderful than Moses; that man, mighty in words and in deeds, mediator of a holy covenant, who broke the yoke of Egypt, and delivered his people from bondage; that man, who was established the god of Pharaoh, who seemed the master of nature, who covered the earth with plagues, who divided seas, who made a new nourishment to be showered from heaven; that man, who saw the Lord face to face upon the holy mountain, and who appeared before Israel all resplendent in light? What is there more astonishing or more magnificent in the life of Jesus Christ? Nevertheless, these were only rude sketches of his glory and might: he was to be the last finishing and perfection of them. Now, if Jesus Christ were not the image of the substance of his Father, and the eternal splendour of his glory, he at the utmost, could only be equalled with these first men; and the credulity of the Jews might, without blasphemy, demand of him, " Art thou greater than our father Abraham, or than the prophets which are dead? Whom makest thou thyself r" I have then justly said, that if, in the first place, you will estimate his ministry from that pompous train of oracles and of figures which have announced him, the splendour is such, that, if Jesus Christ be but a man similar to us, the wisdom itself of God would be culpable of the mistake of those who worship him.
But, my brethren, the Christ hath been foretold with his members; we are comprised in the prophecies which have announced him to the earth; we have been promised as a holy race, a spiritual people, who were to bear the law engraven on their heart, who were to sigh only after eternal riches, and who were to adore in spirit and in truth: like Jesus Christ, we have composed the expectation of the just of ancient times, and the desire of nations: we are that new Jerusalem, pure and undefiled, so often announced in the prophets, where God alone was to be known and worshipped; where faith was to be the sole light to illuminate us, charity the only bond of union, and the land of promise the only hope to animate us. Now, do we answer an expectation so illustrious and so holy? Are we worthy of having been the earnest desire of all ​those distant ages which have preceded us? Do we merit to have been looked forward to like celestial men, who were to fill the earth with sanctity and righteousness? Have not those ages been deceived in their expectation of the Christian people? Were the just of those distant times to return upon the earth, could we present ourselves to them, and say, Behold those celestial, spiritual, temperate, believing, and charitable men, whom you expected? Alas! my brethren, the just of former times were Christians before the birth of faith; and we are still Jews, under all the advantages of the Gospel: we live solely for the earth: we know no true riches but the present good: our whole religion is grounded in the senses: we have received more assistances, but we are not more believing.
To the lustre of the prophecies which have announced Jesus Christ, we must add that of his works and of his miracles: — second resplendent character of his ministry. Yes, my brethren, even admitting that Heaven had not promised him to the earth with such magnificence; that the manner in which he was to appear to the earth had not constituted, during all these first ages, the sole occupation and expectation of the universe; did ever man appear more wonderful, more divine in his actions, and in all the circumstances of his life?
I say, first, in his actions and in his miracles. I know, and we come from saying it, that, in the ages which preceded him, extraordinary men had appeared upon the earth, to whom the Lord seemed to have delegated his omnipotence and virtue: in Egypt and in the desert Moses appeared the master of heaven and earth; in the following ages Elijah came to present the same sight to men. But, when we narrowly examine their power itself, we find that all these miraculous men always bore with them the marks of weakness and dependence.
Moses only operated his miracles with his mysterious rod; without it he was no longer but a weak and powerless man; and it would seem that the Lord had attached the virtue of miracles to that morsel of parched wood for the purpose of making the Israelites sensible that, in his hands, Moses himself was but a weak and fragile instrument, whom he was pleased to employ in the operation of grand effects: Jesus Christ operates the grandest miracles, even without speaking; and the sole touch of his garment cures inveterate infirmities. Moses communicates not to his disciples the power of operating miracles; for it was an extraneous gift which he had received from Heaven, and which he had not the power of delegating: Jesus Christ leaves to his disciples a still greater efficacy than had appeared even in himself. Moses always acts in the name of the Lord: Jesus Christ operates all in his own name; and the works of his Father are his. Nevertheless, this Moses, who had not been prophesied of like Jesus Christ, who remitted not sins as he did, who never gave himself out as equal to God, but only as his faithful servant, — this Moses, dreading that, after his death, his miracles should make him pass for a god, takes ​precautions lest, in the revolution of ages, the credulity of his people render to him divine honours: he goes up alone to the mountain, to expire far from the sight of his brethren, in the fear of their coming to offer up victims upon his tomb, and for ever removes his body from the superstition of the tribes: he does not show himself to his disciples after his death; he contents himself with leaving to them the law of God, and employs every mean to obliterate himself from their remembrance. And Jesus Christ, after all the miracles which he operates in Judea, after all the prophecies which had announced him, after having appeared as a God upon the earth, his tomb is known to all the universe, exposed to the veneration of all people and ages; even after his death he shows himself to his disciples. Was superstition, then, less to be dreaded here? Or is Jesus Christ less zealous than Moses, for the glory of the Supreme Being and for the salvation of men?
Elijah, it is true, raises up the dead; but he is obliged to stretch himself out upon the body of the child whom he recalls to life; and it is easily seen that he invokes a foreign power; that he withdraws from the empire of death a soul which is not subjugated to him; and that he is not himself the master of life and death. Jesus Christ raised up the dead as easily as he performs the most common actions; he speaks as master of those who repose in an eternal sleep; and it is thoroughly felt that he is the God of the dead as of the living, never more tranquil and calm than when he is operating the grandest things.
Lastly. The poets represented to us their sybils and their priestesses as mad women, while foretelling the future: it would seem that they were unable to sustain the presence of the false spirit which dwelt within them. Even our own prophets, when announcing future things, without losing the use of their reason, or departing from the solemnity and the decency of their ministry, partook of a divine enthusiasm: the soft sounds of the lyre were often necessary to arouse in them the prophetic spirit; it was easily to be seen that they were animated by a foreign impulse, and that it was not from their own funds they drew the knowledge of the future, and those hidden mysteries which they announced to men. Jesus Christ prophesies as he speaks; the knowledge of the future has nothing either to move, disquiet, or surprise him, because all times are contained in his mind; the future mysteries which he announces are not sudden and infused lights to his soul; they are familiar objects to him, always present to his view, and the images of which he finds within himself; and all ages to come, under the immensity of his regards, are as the present day which illuminates us. Thus, neither the resurrection of the dead, nor the foretelling of the future, ever injures his natural tranquillity; he sports himself, if I may venture to say so, in operating miracles in the universe; and if he, at times, appear to tremble and to be troubled, it is solely when viewing the sin and the perversity of his people; because the more exalted one is in sanctity, the more does sin offer new horrors; and that the only thing which a Man-God can ​view with trembling, is the spectacle of a conscience stained with crimes.
Such is the omnipotency of Jesus Christ: his miracles bear no •mark of dependence; and, not satisfied with thereby showing to us that he is equal to God, he also advertises us, that, whatever wonder is operated by his Father upon the earth, he likewise operates; and that his Fathers works are his. Hath any prophet, down to the period of Jesus Christ, spoken in this manner; and who, far from rendering glory to God as the author of every excellent gift, hath attributed to himself all the grand things which it had pleased the Lord to operate through his ministry?
But, my brethren, if we have also been prophesied with Jesus Christ, we are moreover participators of his sovereignty over all creatures. Through faith the Christian is master of nature: all is subjected to him, because he himself is inferior only to God; all his actions ought to be miraculous, because they ought all to proceed from a sublime and divine principle, and far above the powers of human weakness. We ought to be, as I may say, miraculous men, masters of the world, in contemning it; exalted above the laws of nature, by overcoming them; sovereign disposers of events, by a thorough and tranquil submission to them; more powerful than death itself, by wishing for it. Such is the sublimity of the Christian: and how great must Jesus Christ have been to have exalted human weakness to such a pinnacle of grandeur and might!
Finally. The last splendid character of his ministry is the marvellous, and, till then, unheard-of circumstances which compose the whole course of his mortal life. I know that he came in nakedness and humiliation; but, through these obscure and contemptible externals, what lustre are not even the enemies of his divinity forced to acknowledge there!
In the first place, although they consider him as a man similar to us, they, nevertheless, believe him to have been formed, through the invisible operation of the Most High, in the womb of a virgin of Judah, in opposition to the common law of the children of Adam. What glory already for a simple creature!
Secondly. Scarcely is he born, when celestial legions sing the praises of the Lord, and give us to understand, that this birth renders glory to the Most High, and brings an eternal peace upon the earth. What then is this creature who can render glory to the Most High, whose glory is in himself alone? Immediately after this a new star calls the wise men from the heart of the East; and, guided by that miraculous light, those righteous men come from the extremities of the earth to worship the new King of the Jews.
Trace all the circumstances of his life. If Mary bring him to the temple, a righteous man and a holy woman proclaim his future greatness; and, transported with a holy joy, they die with pleasure, after having seen him whom they call the salvation of the world, the light of nations, and the glory of Israel. The doctors, assembled in the temple, behold, with terror, his infancy to be wiser ​and more enlightened than all the wisdom of old men. In proportion as he grows up, his glory unfolds itself: John the Baptist, that man, the greatest of the children of men, humbles himself before him, and says that he is not worthy of performing the meanest offices to him. A voice from Heaven declares that he is the well-beloved Son. The affrighted demons fly from before him, are unable to support the sole presence of his sanctity, and confess that he is the holy of God. Collect together testimonies so different and so new, circumstances so unheard-of and so extraordinary; what is this man who appears upon the earth with so much eclat? And are not the people who have worshipped him at least excusable?
But these are only weak preludes of his glory. If he privately withdraw himself upon the Tabor, accompanied with three disciples, his glory, impatient, if I dare to say it, at having hitherto been held captive under the veil of humanity, openly bursts forth: he appears all resplendent in light; the heavenly Father, who then, it would appear, lest the glory of Jesus Christ should become an occasion of error and idolatry to the astonished disciples, spectators of this sight, ought to have warned them that this Jesus, whom they beheld so glorious, was nevertheless only his servant and messenger, declares to them, on the contrary, that this is his well-beloved Son, in whom he his well pleased, and affixes no bounds to the homages which, according to his pleasure, they are to render to him. When Moses appeared surrounded with glory, and, as it were transfigured on Mount Sinai, afraid lest the Israelites, always superstitious, should consider him as a god descended upon the earth, the Lord, amid a flame of fire, declared at the same time from on high, " I am that I am, and thou shalt worship only me." Moses himself appears before the people with only the tables of the law in his hands, as if to let them know that, notwithstanding the glory with which they had seen him arrayed, he nevertheless was only the minister, and not the author of the holy law; that he could offer it to them only engraven on stone, and that it belonged solely to God to engrave it on hearts. But on the Tabor, Jesus Christ appears as the legislator himself: the new law is not given to him by his Father to bear it to men; he only commandeth them to listen to him, and from his own mouth he proposeth him as their legislator, or rather as their living and eternal law.
What more shall I say, my brethren? If from the Tabor we pass to Mount Calvary, that place, in which all the ignominy of the Son of Man was to be consummated, is not less, however, the theatre of his glory and divinity. All nature, disorganized, confesses its Author in him; the stars which are hidden; the dead who arise; the stones of the tombs, which open of their own accord, and break in pieces; the veil of the temple, which is rent from top to bottom; even incredulity itself, which confesses him through the mouth of the centurion; all feel that it is not an ordinary man who dies, and that things take place upon that mount totally new and extraordinary.
​Many righteous before him had died for the truth, by the hands of the impious. The head of the forerunner had lately been seen in the palace of Herod, as the price of voluptuousness. Isaiah, by a grievous death, had rendered glory to God; and, notwithstanding his royal blood, his august birth was ineffectual in sheltering him from those persecutions which are always the recompense of truth and zeal. Many others have died for the sake of righteousness; but nature seemed not wholly interested in their sufferings; the dead forsook not their tombs, to come, and, as it were, reproach to the living their sacrilege; nothing, in any degree similar, had, as yet, appeared upon the earth.
Survey the rest of his mysteries; everywhere you will find traits which distinguish him from all other men. If he rise up from among the dead, besides that it is through his own efficiency, (which no eye had ever yet beheld,) it is not, like so many others, who had been raised up through the ministry of the prophets, to return once more into the empire of death: he arises, never more to die; and, even here below, he receives an immortal life, which is what had never yet been accorded to any creature.
If he is carried up into heaven, it is not in a flaming chariot that he vanishes in the twinkling of an eye; he ascends with majesty, and allows all leisure to his affectionate disciples to worship him, and to accompany their divine Master with their eyes and their homages. The angels, as if to receive him into his empire, come to greet this King of Glory and comfort the affliction of the disciples, by promising him once more to the earth, surrounded with glory and immortality. All here announces the God of heaven, who returns to the place from whence he came, and who goes to resume the possession of his own glory; at least, every thing inclines men to believe so.
And, in truth, my brethren, when Elijah is taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, a single disciple is the only spectator of that miraculous ascension; it takes place in a retired spot, removed from the view of the other children of the prophets, who, perhaps more credulous and less enlightened than Eliseus, might have been inclined to render divine honours to that miraculous man. But Jesus Christ surrounded with glory, mounts up to heaven before the eyes of five hundred disciples: the weakest and those who are least confirmed in the faith of his resurrection, are the first who are invited to the holy mountain: nothing is dreaded from their credulity: on the contrary, their adorations are equally permitted as their regrets and tears; and a life full of prodigies, till then so unheard-of on the earth, is at last terminated by a circumstance still more wonderful, and sufficient of itself to make him to be regarded as a God, and to immortalize error and idolatry among men.
In effect, if the pagan ages, in order to justify the ridiculous and impious homages which they paid to their legislators, to the founders of empires, and to other celebrated men, gave it out, in their historians and poets, that these heroes were not dead, but had only disappeared from the earth; and that, being of the same nature ​with the gods, they had ascended to heaven in order to assume their station among the other stars, which, according to them, were so many divinities who enlighten us, and for the purpose of there enjoying that immortality to which their divine birth entitled them: if so very vulgar a fiction had of itself been able to render men so long idolatrous, what impression must the reality of that fable not have made upon the people! And if the universe had worshipped impostors, who were falsely said to have mounted up to heaven, would it not have been excusable to worship a miraculous man, whom men, with their own eyes, had seen exalted above the stars? But observe, my brethren, that the occasion of error finishes not with Jesus Christ; it is announced to us that, at the end of ages, he will again appear in the heavens, surrounded with power and majesty, and accompanied with all the heavenly host; all assembled nations shall, with trembling, await at his feet the decision of their eternal destiny: he will sovereignly pronounce their decisive sentence. The Abrahams, the Moseses, the Davids, the Elijahs, the John the Baptists, and all that ages have produced of great and most wonderful, shall be submitted to his judgment and to his empire; he will himself be exalted above all power, all dominion, and all which is termed great in heaven and in the earth: he will erect his throne above the clouds, and sit on the right hand of the Most High: he will appear Master, not only of life and death, but the immortal King of ages, the Prince of eternity, the chief of a holy people, the supreme Arbiter of all the created. What then is this man to whom the Lord hath delegated such power? And the dead themselves who shall appear in judgment before him, shall they be condemned for having worshipped him, when they shall see him clothed with such glory, majesty, and power.
And one reflection, which I beg you to make in finishing this part of my Discourse, is, that, if only one extraordinary and divine trait were to be found here in the course of a long life, we might be inclined to believe that it sometimes pleaseth the Lord to allow his glory and his power to shine forth in his servants. Thus Enoch was carried up, Moses appeared transfigured on the holy mountain, Elijah was raised up to heaven in a fiery chariot, John the Baptist was foretold. But, besides that these were individual circumstances, and that the language of those miraculous men and of their disciples, with respect to the Divinity and to themselves, left no room for superstition and mistake; here, it is an assemblage of wonders, which all, or even taken separately, would have been sufficient to deceive the credulity of men; here, all the different traits, dispersed among all these extraordinary men, who had been considered almost as gods upon the earth, are collected together in Jesus Christ, but in a manner a thousand times more glorious and more divine. He prophecies, but more loftily, and with more striking characters, than John the Baptist: he appears transfigured in the holy mount, but surrounded with more glory than Moses: he ascends to heaven, but with more marks of power and majesty ​than Elijah: he penetrates into the future, but with more accuracy and clearness than all the prophets: he is produced, not only from a barren womb like Samuel, but likewise by a pure and innocent virgin. What shall I say? And not only he does not undeceive men by certain precise expressions upon his origin as purely human; but his sole language, with respect to his equality to the Most High, nay, the sole doctrine of his disciples, who tell us that he was in the bosom of God from all eternity, and that all hath been made through him, who call him their Lord and their God, who inform us that he is all and in all things, would justify the errors of those who worship him, had even his life been, in other respects, an ordinary one, and similar to that of other men.
O you! who refuse to him his glory and his divinity,, yet nevertheless, consider him as a messenger sent by God to instruct men, complete the blasphemy, and confound him with those impostors who have come to seduce the world, since, far from tending to establish the glory of God and the knowledge of his name, the splendour of his ministry has answered the sole purpose of erecting himself into a divinity, of placing him at the side of the Most High, and of plunging the whole universe into the most dangerous, the most durable, the most inevitable, and the most universal of all idolatries.
For our part, my brethren, we who believe in him, and to whom the mystery of the Christ hath been revealed, let us never lose sight of that divine model which the Father shows to us from on high on the holy mount. Let us enter into the spirit of the divers mysteries of which his whole mortal life is composed; they are merely the different states of the life of the Christian on this earth; let us confess the new empire which Jesus Christ came to form in our hearts. The world, which we have hitherto served, hath never been able to deliver us from our grievances and wretchedness. We vainly sought in it, freedom, peace, and comfort of life; and we have found only slavery, disquiet, bitterness, and the curse of life. Behold a new Redeemer, who comes to bring peace to the earth; but it is not as the world promises it that he gives it to us. The world had wished to conduct us to peace and happiness through the pleasures of the senses, indolence, and a vain philosophy: it hath not been successful; by favouring our passions it hath only augmented our punishments. Jesus Christ comes to propose a new way for the attainment of that peace and happiness which we search after: detachment from, and contempt of the world, mortification of the senses, self-denial; behold the new riches which he comes to display to men. Let us be undeceived; we have no happiness to expect, even in this life, but by repressing our passions, and by refusing ourselves the gratification of every pleasure which disquiets and corrupts the heart: there is no philosophy, but that of the Gospel, which can bestow happiness, or make real sages, because it alone regulates the mind, fixes the heart, and, by restoring man to God, restores him to himself. All those who have pursued other ways, have found only vanity and ​vexation of spirit; and Jesus Christ alone, in bringing the sword and separation, is come to bring peace among men.
O my God! I know only too well that the world and its pleasures make none happy! Come, then, and resume thy influence over a heart which in vain endeavours to fly from thee, and which its own disgusts recall to thee in spite of itself: come to be its Redeemer, its peace, and its light, and pay more regard to its wretchedness than to its crimes.
Behold how the lustre of the ministry of Jesus Christ would operate as an inevitable occasion of idolatry in men, were he only a simple creature. Let us now see how the spirit of his ministry would become the snare of our innocence.
Part II. — The lustre of the ministry of Jesus Christ is not the most august and most magnificent side of it. However dignified he hath appeared, in consequence of all the oracles which have announced him, the works which he hath operated, and the shining circumstances of his mysteries, these are merely the outward appearances, as I may say, of his glory and of his grandeur; and, in order to know all that he is, we must enter into the principle and spirit of his ministry. Now, in the spirit of his ministry are comprised his doctrine, his favours, and his promises. Let us display these in their proper extent, and prove, either that we must deny to Jesus Christ his quality of a righteous man, and of a messenger of the Almighty God, which the enemies of his divinity grant him to have been, or we must admit that he is himself a God manifested in the flesh, and come down upon the earth in order to save mankind.
Yes, my brethren, this is an inevitable alternative: if Jesus Christ be holy, he is God; and if his ministry be not a ministry of deceit and imposition, it is the ministry of Eternal Truth itself, which hath been manifested for our instruction. Now, the enemies of his" divine birth, are forced to admit, that he hath been a man righteous, innocent, and a friend of God: and if the world hath beheld dark and impious minds, who have likewise dared to blaspheme against his innocence, and to confound him with seducers, these have been only some individual monsters who were held in abhorrence by the human race, and whose names, too odious to all nature, are for ever buried in the same darkness from which the horror of their impiety originally came.
In effect, what man, till then, had appeared upon the earth with more incontestable marks of innocence and sanctity than Jesus, Son of the living God? In what philosopher had ever been observed such a love of virtue, so sincere a contempt of the world, so much charity toward men, such indifference for human glory, such zeal for the glory of the Supreme Being, such elevation above whatever is admired or sought after by men? How great is his zeal for the salvation of men! It is to that object that he directs all his discourses, all his cares, all his desires, and all his anxieties. The philosophers criticised only the men, and solely endeavoured ​to expose their weakness or their absurdities: Jesus Christ never speaks of their vices but in order to point out their remedies. The former were the censurers of human weaknesses; Jesus Christ is their physician: the former gloried in being able to point out vices in others, from which they themselves were not exempted; he never speaks, but with the bitterest sorrow, of faults, from which his own innocence protects him, and even sheds tears over the disorders of an unbelieving city: it is easily seen that the former had no intention to reclaim men, but merely to attract esteem to themselves, by pretending to contemn them; and that the only wish of the latter is to save them, and that he is little affected with their applauses or esteem.
Pursue the whole detail of his manners and of his conduct, and see if any righteous character hath ever appeared on the earth more generally exempted from all the most inseparable weaknesses of humanity. The more narrowly he is examined, the more is his sanctity displayed. His disciples, who have it best in their power to know him, are the most affected with the innocence of his life; and familiarity, so dangerous to the most heroical virtue, serves only in his to discover fresh matter of wonder. He speaks only the language of heaven: he never replies but when his answers may be useful toward the salvation of those who interrogate him. We see not in him those intervals, as I may say, in which the man re-appears; on every occasion he is the messenger of the Most High. The commonest actions are extraordinary in him, through the novelty and the sublimity of the dispositions with which he accompanies them; and, when he eats with the pharisee, he does not appear a man less divine than when he raises up Lazarus. Surely, my brethern, nature alone could never lead human weakness so far; this is not a philosopher who enjoins to others what he doth not himself, it is a righteous character, who, in his own examples, adopts the rules and precepts of his doctrine; and holy must he indeed be, seeing the very disciple who betrayed him, so interested to justify his own perfidy by an exposure of his faults, renders public testimony, however, to his innocence and sanctity: and that the whole challenged malice of his enemies hath never been able to convict him of sin.
Now, I say, that, if Jesus Christ be holy, he is God; and that, whether you should consider the doctrine which he hath taught us with respect to his Father or with respect to men, it is no longer but a mass of equivocations, or qualified blasphemies, if he be only an ordinary man, merely deputed by God for the instruction of men.
I say, whether you should consider it with respect to his Father. In effect, if Jesus Christ be but a simple messenger of the Most High, he comes, then, for the sole purpose of manifesting to idolatrous nations the unity of the Divine essence. But, besides, that his mission principally regards the Jews, who for a long time past, had not returned to idolatry, and, consequently, needed not that God should raise up a prophet to reclaim them from an error of ​which they were not guilty, and a prophet whom they were taught from the beginning of the world to expect as the light of Israel and the Redeemer of his people; and, besides, in what manner doth Jesus Christ fulfil his ministry, and what is his language with regard to the Supreme Being? Moses and the prophets, charged with the same mission, never cease to proclaim that the Lord was one and the same; that it was impious to compare him to the similitude of the creature; and that they themselves were only his servants and messengers, vile instruments in the hands of a God, who, through them, operated great things. No dubious expression escapes from their mouth on so essential a point of their mission; no comparison of themselves to the Supreme Being, always dangerous, in consequence of the natural tendency of man to prostitute his homages to men, and to raise up for himself palpable and visible gods; no equivocal term which might have blended themselves with the Lord, in whose name they spake, and have given birth to a superstition and an idolatry, to combat which they only came.
But if Jesus Christ be only a messenger such as they were, with how much less fidelity doth he fulfil his ministry! He continually says, that he is equal to his Father; he acquaints us, that he hath come down from heaven, and that he hath quitted the bosom of God; that he was before Abraham; that he was before all things; that the Father and he are one; that eternal life consists in the knowledge of the Son, as well as in the knowledge of the Father; that whatever is done by the Father, the Son also doth. Had any prophet, down to Jesus Christ, spoken in a language so new, so strange, so disrespectful toward the Supreme God; and who, far from rendering the glory to God as the author of every good gift, hath attributed to his own efficiency the great things which the Lord hath deigned to operate through his ministry? Every where he compares himself to the sovereign God; on one occasion, indeed, he says that the Father is greater than he; but what language is that, if he be not himself a God manifested in flesh? And would we not consider as a fool any man who should seriously tell us that the Supreme Being is greater than he? Even to dare to compare himself with the Divinity, is it not equalling himself to him? Is there any proportion either of greater or less between God and man, between the whole and nothing? But what do I say? Jesus Christ is not content with saying that he is equal to God; he even justifies the novelty of these expressions against the murmurings of the Jews who are offended at them; far from clearly undeceiving them, he confirms them in the offence; on every occasion he affects a language, which, unless cleared up and justified by his equality to his Father, becomes either foolish or impious. If he be not God, what came he to do upon the earth? He comes to offend the Jews, by giving them room to believe that he compares himself to the Most High: he comes to seduce nations, by procuring to himself the adoration of the whole earth after his death: he comes to spread fresh obscurity over the universe, and not, as he hath vaunted, to ​spread understanding, light, and the knowledge of God. What! my brethern, Paul and Barnabas rend their garments when they are taken for gods; they loudly proclaim to the people who wished to offer up victims to them — Worship the Lord alone, whose servants and ministers we are. The angel in the Revelation, when St. John prostrates himself to worship him, rejects the homage with horror, and says to him, " Worship God alone; I am only thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus." And Jesus Christ tranquilly suffers that they render divine honours to him! And Jesus Christ praises the faith of the disciples who worship him, and who, with Thomas, call him their Lord and their God! And Jesus Christ even confutes his enemies who contest his divinity and divine origin! Is he, then, less zealous than his disciples for the glory of him who sends him? Or is it a matter of less importance to him, pointedly to undeceive the people on a mistake so injurious to the Supreme Being, and which, in fact, destroys the whole fruit of his ministry?
Yes, my brethern, what a blessing hath the coming of Jesus Christ brought to the world, if those who worship him be idolatrous and profane! All who have believed in him have worshipped him as the eternal Son of the Father, the image of his substance, and the splendour of his glory. There is but a small number of men in Christianity, who, though they acknowledge him as a messenger of God, yet refuse to him divine honours; even this sect, universally banished, and execrable even in those places where every error finds an asylum, is reduced to a few obscure and concealed followers, every where punished as an impiety from the instant that it dares to avow itself, and forced to hide itself in obscurity, and in the extremities of the most distant provinces and kingdoms. Is it, then, that numerous people of every tongue, of every tribe, and of every nation, which Jesus Christ came to form upon the earth? Is it a Jerusalem, formerly barren, and become fruitful, which was to contain tribes and nations in its bosom, and where the most distant isles, princes, and kings, were to come to worship? Are these the grand advantages which the world was to reap from the ministry of Jesus Christ? Is this, then, that abundance of grace, that plenitude of the Spirit God shed over all men, that universal regeneration, that spiritual and lasting reign which the prophets had foretold with such majesty, and which was to attend the coming of the Redeemer? What, my brethren, an expectation so magnificent is then reduced to the miserable sight of the world plunged into a new idolatry? That event, so blessed for the earth, promised for so many ages, announced with so much pomp, so earnestly longed for by all the righteous, and held out from afar to the whole universe as its only resource, was then to corrupt and to prevent it for ever? That church, so fruitful, of which kings and Caesars, at the head of their people, were to be the children, was then to contain, in its bosom, only a small number of men, equally odious to heaven and to the earth, the disgrace of nature and of religion, and obliged to seek, in ​obscurity, a shelter for the horror of their blasphemy? And all the future magnificence of the Gospel was then to be limited to the formation of the detestable sect of an impious Socinus?
O God! how wise and reasonable doth the faith of thy church appear, when opposed to the absurd contradictions of unbelief? And how consoling for those who believe in Jesus Christ, and who place their hope in him, to behold the abysses which pride digs for itself when it pretends to open new ways, and to sap the only foundation of the hope of Christians.
Behold, my brethren, how the doctrine of Jesus Christ, with relation to his Father, establishes the glory of his eternal origin. Thus, when the prophets speak of the God of heaven and of the earth, their expressions are too weak for the magnificence and the grandeur of their ideas. Full of the immensity, the omnipotence, and the majesty of the Supreme Being, they exhaust the weakness of the human language, in order, if possible, to correspond with the sublimity of these images. That God is he who measures the waters of the ocean in the hollow of his hand, who weighs the mountains in his balance, in whose hands are the thunders and the tempests, who speaks, and all is done; who faints not, neither is weary, in upholding the universe. It was natural for simple men to speak in this manner of the glory of the Most High; the infinite disproportion between the immensity of the Supreme Being and the weaknesses of the human mind must strike, dazzle, and confound it; and the most pompous expressions are too feeble to convey its astonishment and admiration.
But when Jesus Christ speaks of the glory of the Lord, it is no longer in the pompous style of the prophets; he calls him a holy Father, a righteous Father, a merciful Father, a Shepherd who pursues a strayed sheep, who kindly bears it home himself; a Friend who yields to the importunities of his friend; a Father feelingly affected with the return and the amendment of his son: it is clearly seen that this is a Child who speaks a domestic language; that the familarity and the simplicity of his expressions suppose in him a sublimity of knowledge which renders the idea of a Supreme Being familiar to him, and prevents him from being struck and dazzled, as we are, with his majesty and glory; and, lastly, that he only speaks of what is laid open to his view, and which he possesses himself. A person is much less struck with the eclat of titles which he has borne, as I may say, from his birth: the children of kings speak, without emotion, of sceptres and crowns; and it is likewise the eternal Son alone of the living God who can speak so familiarly of the glory of God himself.
Behold, my brethren, seeing we participate with Jesus Christ in all his blessings, the right which he hath acquired for us, of considering God as our Father, of daring to call ourselves his children, and of loving rather than of fearing him. Nevertheless, we serve him like slaves and hirelings; we dread his chastisement, but we are little affected by his love and his promises: his law, so righteous, so holy, has nothing pleasing for us; it is a yoke which op​presses us, which excites our murmurs, and which we would soon free ourselves from, were our transgressions against it to go unpunished: nothing is heard but complaints against the severity of its precepts, but contentions in order to support the propriety of those sufferings which the world always mingles with their practice: in a word, were he not an avenging God, we would never confess him; and it is to his justice and to his chastisements alone that he is indebted for our respect and homages.
But the doctrine of Jesus Christ, with relation to men whom he came to instruct, doth not less establish the truth of his divine birth; for I speak not here of the wisdom, the sanctity, and the sublimity of that doctrine: in it every thing is worthy of reason, and of the soundest philosophy: every thing is proportioned to the wretchedness and the excellency of man, to his wants and to his exalted lot; every thing there inspires contempt for perishable things, and the love of eternal riches: every thing there maintains good order, and the peace and tranquillity of states: every thing there is grand, because every thing is true: the glory of the deeds is more real and more shining in the heart than the deeds themselves. The wise man of the Gospel seeks, from his virtue here below, only the satisfaction of obeying God, who will one day amply recompense him for it; and he prefers the testimony of his own conscience to all the applauses of men: he is greater than the entire world, through his exalted faith; and he is below the least of men, through the modesty of his sentiments. His virtue seeks not, in pride, the indemnity of its sufferings: that is the first enemy which it attacks; and, in that divine philosophy, the most heroical actions are nothing, from the moment that we count them as any thing ourselves: it considers glory as an error, prosperity as a misfortune, elevation as a precipice, afflictions as favours, the earth as a place of exilement, all that happens as a dream. What is this new language? What man prior to Jesus Christ hath ever spoken in this manner? And if his disciples, merely in consequence of having announced this divine doctrine, were taken by a whole people for gods descended upon the earth, what worship shall they have it in their power to refuse to him who is the Author of it, and in whose name they announce it?
But let us leave these general reflections, and come to the more precise duties of that love and dependence which his doctrine exacts of men with regard to himself. He commands us to love him as he commands us to love his Father: he insists that we dwell in him, that is to say, that we establish ourselves in him, that we seek our happiness in him, as in his Father; that we direct all our actions, all our thoughts, all our desires, that we direct ourselves to his glory, as to the glory of his Father. Sins themselves are not remitted but to those who sincerely love him; and all the righteousness of the just, and the reconciliation of the sinner, are the effects of the love which we have for him. What is this man who comes to usurp the place of God in our hearts? Is a creature worthy of being loved for itself, and every noble and estimable ​quality which it may possess, is it not the sole gift of him who alone is worthy of all love?
What prophet prior to Jesus Christ had ever spoken thus to men, You shall love me: whatever you do, you shall do it for my glory? You shall love the Lord your God, said Moses to the children of Israel. Nothing is amiable in itself but what can bestow happiness upon us: now, no creature can be our happiness or our perfection: no creature, consequently, is worthy of being loved for itself; it would be an idolatry. Any man, who comes to propose himself to men as the object of their love, is impious and an impostor, who seeks to usurp the most essential right of the Supreme Being: he is a monster of pride and folly, who wants to erect altars to himself, even in hearts, the only sanctuary which the Divinity had never yielded up to profane idols. The doctrine of Jesus Christ, that doctrine so divine, and so much admired even by the pagans, would no longer, in that case, be but a monstrous mixture of impiety, of presumption, and of folly, if, not being himself the God blessed in all ages, he had made that love which he exacted of his disciples the most essential precept of his morality; and it would be a ridiculous mark of ostentation in him to have held himself out to men as a model of humility and modesty, while, in fact, he was carrying presumption and unlimited compliance to a degree far beyond all the proudest philosophers, who had never aspired to more than the esteem and the applauses of men.
Nor is this all: not only Jesus Christ insists that we love him, but he also exacts of men marks of the most disinterested and most heroical love: he insists that we love him more than our relations, than our friends, than our fortune, than our life, than the whole world, than ourselves; that we suffer all for his sake, that we renounce all for him, that we shed, even to the last drop, our blood for him: whoever renders not to him these grand homages is unworthy of him: whoever puts him in competition with any creature, or with himself, insults and dishonours him, and forfeits every pretension to his promises.
What! my brethren, he is not satisfied, as the idols, and even the true God himself had appeared to be, with the sacrifices of goats and bulls! — he carries his pretensions still farther, and requires of man the sacrifice of himself; that he fly to gibbets; that he offered himself to death and to martyrdom for the glory of his name! But if he be not the master of our life, by what right doth he exact it of us? If our soul be not originally come from him, is it to him that we ought to return it? Is that regaining it, to have lost it for his sake? If he be not the Author of our being, do we not become sacrilegious and murderers, when we sacrifice ourselves for his glory, and when we transfer to a creature, and to a simple messenger of God, the grand sacrifice of our being, solely destined to confess the sovereignty and the power of the eternal Maker, who hath drawn us from nothing? That Jesus Christ die for himself, well and good, for the glory of God, and even that he exhort us to follow his example: many prophets before him had died for the Lord's sake, and had exhorted their disciples to walk ​in their steps; but that Jesus Christ if he be not God himself, should order us to die for himself, should exact of men that last proof of love, — that he should command us to offer up a life for him which we hold not of him, is it possible that men should have ever existed upon the earth so vulgar and so stupid as to allow themselves to be led away by the extravagance of such a doctrine? Is it possible that maxims so ridiculous and so impious should have been able to triumph over the whole universe, to overthrow all sects, to recall all minds, and to prevail over every thing which had hitherto appeared exalted, either in learning, in doctrine, or in the wisdom of the earth? And, if we consider as barbarians those savage nations who make a sacrifice of themselves upon the tombs and ashes of their relations and friends, why should we view in a more respectable light those disciples of Jesus Christ who have sacrificed themselves for his sake? — and shall not his religion be equally a religion of barbarity and of blood.
Yes, my brethren, the Agnesses, the Lucias, the Agathas, those first martyrs of faith and of modesty, would then have sacrificed themselves to a mortal man. And, in preferring to shed their blood rather than to bend the knee before vain idols, they would have shunned one idolatry only in order to fall into another more condemnable, in dying for Jesus Christ. The generous avowers of faith would then have been only a set of desperate and fanatical men, who, like madmen, had run to death. The tradition of the martyrs would then be no longer but the list of an impious and bloody scene. The tyrants and persecutors would then have been the defenders of righteousness, and of the glory of the Divinity, — Christianity itself a sacrilegious and profane sect. The human race would then have totally erred. And the blood of the martyrs, far from having been the seed of believers, would have answered the sole purpose of inundating the whole universe with superstition and idolatry. — O God! can the ear of man listen to such blasphemies without horror? and what more is necessary to overthrow unbelief than to show it to itself?
Such are our first duties toward Jesus Christ; to sacrifice to him our inclinations, our friends, our relations, our fortune, our life itself, and, in a word, whatever may stand in the way of our salvation; it is to confess his divinity: it is to acknowledge that he alone can supply the place of all that we forsake for him, and render to us even more than we quit, by giving us himself. It is he alone, says the apostle John, who contemns the world and all its pleasures, who confesses that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, because he thereby pronounces that Jesus Christ is greater than the world, more capable of rendering us happy, and consequently more worthy of our love.
But it is not sufficient to have considered the spirit of the ministry of Jesus Christ in his doctrine; it is necessary to consider it, secondly, in the special favours and blessings which the universe has received from him. He came to deliver all men from eternal death; from enemies of God, as they were, he hath rendered them his children; he hath secured to them ​the possession of the kingdom of God, and of immutable riches; he hath brought to them the knowledge of salvation and the doctrine of truth. These gifts, so magnificent, have not ended even with him: seated on the right hand of his Father, he still sheds them over our hearts; all our miseries still find their remedy in him; he nourishes us with his body; he washes us from our stains by continually applying to us the price of his blood; he forms pastors to conduct us; be inspires prophets to instruct us; he sanctifies righteous characters to animate us by their example; he is continually present in our hearts to comfort all their wants: man hath no passion which his grace doth not cure, no affliction which it doth not render pleasing, no power but what springs from him: in a word, he assures us himself, that he is our way, our truth, our life, our righteousness, our redemption, our light. What new doctrine is this? Can an individual man be the source of so many benefits to other men? Can the sovereign God, so jealous of his glory, attach us to a creature, by duties and ties so intimate and sacred, that we depend almost more upon that creature than upon himself? Would there be no danger that a man, become so beneficial and so necessary to other men, should at last become their idol? That a man, author and dispenser of so many blessings, and who discharges, with regard to us, the office and all the functions of a God, should likewise, in a little time, occupy his place in our hearts?
For observe, my brethren, that it is gratitude alone which hath formerly made so many gods. Men, neglecting the Author of their being and of the universe, worshipped, at first, the air which enabled them to live, the earth which nourished them, the sun which gave them light, and the moon which presided over the night: such were their Cybeles, their Apollos, their Dianas. They worshipped those conquerors who had delivered them from their enemies, those benevolent and upright princes who had rendered their subjects happy, and the memory of their reign immortal; and Jupiter and Hercules were placed in the rank of gods, the one for the number of his victories, and the other in consequence of the happiness and tranquillity of his reign. In the ages of superstition and credulity, men knew no other gods than those who were serviceable to them; and such is the character of man, his worship is but his love and his gratitude.
Now, what man hath ever benefitted mankind so much as Jesus Christ? Recollect all that the pagan ages have told us of the history of their gods, and see if they believed themselves indebted to them what unbelief itself acknowledges, with the holy books, the world to be indebted to Jesus Christ. To some they thought themselves indebted for favourable winds and a fortunate navigation; to others for the fertility of seasons; to their Mars for success in battle; to their Janus for the peace and tranquillity of the people; to Esculapius for their health: but what are these weak benefits, if you compare them with those which Jesus Christ hath showered upon the earth? He hath brought to it an eternal ​peace, a lasting happiness, righteousness and truth; he hath made of it a new world and a new earth; he hath not loaded a single people with his benefits, he hath loaded all nations, the whole universe: and what is more, he hath become our benefactor only by suffering as our victim. What could he do more exalted or more noble for the earth? If gratitude hath made gods, could Jesus Christ fail to find worshippers among men? And were it possible that any excess could take place in our love and in our gratitude to him, was it at all proper that we should be so deeply indebted to him.
Again, if Jesus Christ, in dying, had informed his disciples that to the Lord alone they were indebted for so many benefits, that he himself had been merely the instrument, and not the author and source of all these special favours, and that they ought, consequently, to forget him, and to render to God that glory which was due to him alone; but very differently than with such instructions doth Jesus Christ terminate his wonders and his ministry. He not only requires that his disciples forget him not, and that they do not cease, even after his death, to hope in him; but, on the point of quitting them, he assures them that, even to the consummation of time, he will be present with them; he promises still more than he hath already bestowed upon them, and attaches them for ever to himself by indissoluble and immortal ties.
In effect, the promises which, in that last moment, he makes to them, are still more astonishing than all the favours he had granted to them during his life. In the first place, he promises to them the consoling Spirit, which he calls the Spirit of his Father; that Spirit of truth, which the world cannot receive; that Spirit of energy, which was to form the martyrs; that Spirit of intelligence, which was to enlighten the prophets; that Spirit of wisdom, which was to conduct the pastors; that Spirit of peace and charity, which of all believers was to make only one heart and one soul. What right hath Jesus Christ over the Spirit of God, to dispose of it at his pleasure, and to promise it to men, if it be not his own Spirit? Elijah, ascending to heaven, looks upon it as a thing hardly possible to promise to Eliseus, individually, his twofold spirit of zeal and prophecy: how far was he from promising to him the eternal Spirit of the heavenly Father, that Spirit of liberty which agitates where he thinks fit! Nevertheless, the promises of Jesus Christ are accomplished; scarcely hath he ascended to heaven when the Spirit of God descends upon the disciples: the illiterate become at once more learned than all the sages and philosophers, the weak more powerful than the tyrants, the foolish, according to the world, more prudent than all the wisdom of the age. New men, animated with a new Spirit, appear upon the earth: they attract all to walk in their steps; they change the face of the universe, and, even to the end of ages, shall that Spirit animate his church, form righteous souls, overthrow the unbelieving, console his disciples, sustain them amid persecutions and disgraces, and shall bear witness in the bottom of their heart that ​they are the children of God, and that they are entitled, through that august title, to more real and more solid riches than all those of which the world can ever despoil them.
Secondly. Jesus Christ promises to his disciples the keys of. heaven and of hell, and the power of remitting sins. What! my brethren, the Jews are deeply offended when he pretends to remit them himself, and when he seems to attribute to himself a power reserved to God alone; but how will all nations of the earth be scandalized when they shall read in his Gospel that he hath even delegated his power to his disciples! And, if he be not God, hath the mind of man ever imagined such an instance of temerity and folly! What right, in effect, hath he over consciences, to bind or unbind them at his pleasure, and to tranfer to weak men a power which he himself could not exercise without blasphemy!
Thirdly. But this is not all: he promises to his disciples the gift likewise of miracles; that, in his name, they should raise up the dead; that they should restore sight to the blind, health to the sick, and speech to the dumb; that they should be masters of all nature. Moses promises not to his disciples the gifts with which the Lord had favoured him: he is sensible that the power is not his own, and that the Lord alone can bestow it on whomsoever he may think fit. Thus, after his death, when Joshua arrests the sun in the middle of his course, in order to complete the victory over the enemies of the people of God, it is not in the name of Moses that he commands that planet to stand still; it is not of him that he holds the power of making even the stars obedient to him; when he wishes to exercise it, it is not to him that he addresses himself: but the disciples of Jesus Christ can operate nothing but in the name of their Master; it is in his name that they raise up the dead and make the lame to walk; and, without the assistance of that divine name, they are equally weak as the rest of men. The ministry and the power of Moses terminate with his life; the ministry and the power of Jesus Christ only begin, as I may say, after his death, and we are assured that his reign is to be eternal.
What more shall I say? He promises to his disciples the conversion of the universe, the triumph of the cross, the compliance of all the nations of the earth, of philosophers, of Caesars, of tyrants; and that his Gospel shall be received by the whole world: but, doth he hold the hearts of all men in his hands thus to answer for a change of which the world had hitherto no example? You will, no doubt, tell us, that God layeth open the future to his servant. But you are mistaken: if he be not God, he is not even a prophet; his predictions are dreams and chimeras: it is a false spirit which seduces him, and which is concerned in his knowledge of the future, and the sequel hath belied the truth of his promises: he prophesies that all nations, seated under the shadow of death, shall open their eyes to the light; and he sees not that they are on the point of falling into a more criminal blindness in worshipping him: he prophesies that his Father shall be glorified, and that his Gospel shall every where form to him worshippers in spirit and in ​truth; and he sees not that men are going for ever to dishonour him, in placing upon an equality, with him, even to the end of ages, that Jesus who ought to have been considered only as his servant , and prophet: he prophesies that idols shall be overthrown; and he sees not that he himself shall occupy their place: he prophesies that he will form to himself a holy people of every tongue and of every tribe; and he sees not that he comes only to form a new people of idolaters of every nation, who shall place him in the temple as the living God; whose actions, worship, and homages shall all be directed to him; who shall do all for his glory; who shall depend solely upon him, live only for and through him, and have neither force nor energy but what they receive from him: in a word, who shall worship him, who shall love him a thousand times more spiritually, more intimately, and more universally, than ever the pagans had worshipped their idols. This, then, is not even a prophet; and his relations according to the flesh, are guilty of no blasphemy when they say " he is beside himself," and that he bestows, on the dreams of a heated imagination, all the weight and reality of revelations and mysteries.
Behold to what unbelief conducts. Overturn the foundation, which is the Lord Jesus, eternal Son of the living God, and the whole edifice tumbles in pieces: take away the grand mystery of piety, and all the religion is but a dream: deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, and you cut off, from the doctrine of Christians, all the merit of faith, all the consolation of hope, all the motives of charity. Thus, with what zeal did not the first disciples of the Gospel oppose those impious men who, from that time, ventured to attack the glory of their Master's divinity? They well knew that it was striking at the heart of their religion; that it was ravishing from them the only alleviation of their persecutions and sufferings, all confidence in the promises to come, and all the dignity and grandeur of their pretensions; and that, that principle once overthrown, the whole religion dissipated in smoke, and was no longer but a human doctrine and the sect of a mortal man, who, like all the other chiefs, had left nothing but his name to his disciples.
Thus the pagans themselves then reproached the Christians with rendering divine honours to their Christ. Pliny, a Roman proconsul, celebrated for his works, giving an account to the emperor Trajan of their morals and doctrine; after being forced to confess that the Christians were pious, innocent, and upright men, and that they assembled before the rising of the sun, not to concert the commission of crimes, or to disturb the peace of the empire, but to live in piety and righteousness, to detest frauds, adulteries, and even the coveting of the wealth of others; he only reproaches them with chaunting hymns in honour of their Christ, and of rendering to him the same homages as to a god. Now, if these first believers had not rendered divine honours to Jesus Christ, they would have justified themselves against that calumny: they would have rejected that scandal from their religion, almost the only one which shocked the zeal of the Jews and the wisdom of the Gentiles; they would ​openly have said, — We do not worship Jesus Christ, for we know better than to transfer to a creature that honour and worship which are due to God alone. Nevertheless, they make no reply to this accusation. Their apologists refute all the other calumnies with . which the pagans endeavoured to blacken their doctrine; they clear up and overthrow the slightest accusations; and their apologies, addressed to the senate, attract to them even the admiration of Rome, and impose silence on their enemies. And, upon the accusation of idolatry toward Jesus Christ, which should be the most crying and the most horrible; upon the reproach of worshipping a crucified person, which was the most likely to discredit them, and which ought indeed to have been the most grievous to men so holy, so declared against idolatry, and so jealous of the glory of God, they are totally silent; and, far from defending themselves, they even justify the accusation by their silence? What do I say? By their silence? They authorize it by their language, in professing to suffer for his name, in dying for him, in confessing him before the tyrants, in joyfully expiring upon gibbets, in the sweet expectation of going to enjoy him, and of receiving, in his bosom, a more immortal life than that which they had lost for his glory. They suffered martyrdom rather than bend to the statue of the Caesars, rather than allow their pagan friends, through a human compassion, and to save them from torture, to falsely attest, before the magistrates, that they had offered incense to the idols, and they would have submitted to the accusation of paying divine honours to Jesus Christ, without any attempt to destroy the imputation? Ah! they would have proclaimed the contrary from the house-tops; they would have exposed themselves even to death, rather than to have given room to so hateful and so execrable a suspicion. What can unbelief oppose to this? And, if it be an error to equal Jesus Christ to God, it is an error which has been born with the church, and upon which the whole structure hath been reared; which has formed so many martyrs, and converted the whole universe.
But what fruit, my brethren, are we to draw from this Discourse? That Jesus Christ is the grand object of Christian piety. Nevertheless, scarcely do we know Jesus Christ: we never consider that all the other practices of piety are, as I may say, arbitrary; but that this is the ground-work of faith and of salvation; that this is pure and sincere piety; that, continually to meditate upon Jesus Christ, to have recourse to him, to nourish ourselves with this doctrine, to enter into the spirit of his mysteries, to study his actions, to count solely upon the merit of his blood and of his sacrifice, is the only true knowledge and the most essential duty of the believer. Remember, then, my brethren, that piety toward Jesus Christ is the cordial spirit of the Christian religion; that nothing is solid but what you shall build upon that foundation; and that the principal homage which he expects of you is, that you become like him, and that his life be the model of your own, in order that, through your resemblance to him, you may be included in the number of those who shall be partakers of his glory.