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
