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
