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
