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
