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
