openly have said, — We do not worship Jesus Christ, for we know better than to transfer to a creature that honour and worship which are due to God alone. Nevertheless, they make no reply to this accusation. Their apologists refute all the other calumnies with . which the pagans endeavoured to blacken their doctrine; they clear up and overthrow the slightest accusations; and their apologies, addressed to the senate, attract to them even the admiration of Rome, and impose silence on their enemies. And, upon the accusation of idolatry toward Jesus Christ, which should be the most crying and the most horrible; upon the reproach of worshipping a crucified person, which was the most likely to discredit them, and which ought indeed to have been the most grievous to men so holy, so declared against idolatry, and so jealous of the glory of God, they are totally silent; and, far from defending themselves, they even justify the accusation by their silence? What do I say? By their silence? They authorize it by their language, in professing to suffer for his name, in dying for him, in confessing him before the tyrants, in joyfully expiring upon gibbets, in the sweet expectation of going to enjoy him, and of receiving, in his bosom, a more immortal life than that which they had lost for his glory. They suffered martyrdom rather than bend to the statue of the Caesars, rather than allow their pagan friends, through a human compassion, and to save them from torture, to falsely attest, before the magistrates, that they had offered incense to the idols, and they would have submitted to the accusation of paying divine honours to Jesus Christ, without any attempt to destroy the imputation? Ah! they would have proclaimed the contrary from the house-tops; they would have exposed themselves even to death, rather than to have given room to so hateful and so execrable a suspicion. What can unbelief oppose to this? And, if it be an error to equal Jesus Christ to God, it is an error which has been born with the church, and upon which the whole structure hath been reared; which has formed so many martyrs, and converted the whole universe.
But what fruit, my brethren, are we to draw from this Discourse? That Jesus Christ is the grand object of Christian piety. Nevertheless, scarcely do we know Jesus Christ: we never consider that all the other practices of piety are, as I may say, arbitrary; but that this is the ground-work of faith and of salvation; that this is pure and sincere piety; that, continually to meditate upon Jesus Christ, to have recourse to him, to nourish ourselves with this doctrine, to enter into the spirit of his mysteries, to study his actions, to count solely upon the merit of his blood and of his sacrifice, is the only true knowledge and the most essential duty of the believer. Remember, then, my brethren, that piety toward Jesus Christ is the cordial spirit of the Christian religion; that nothing is solid but what you shall build upon that foundation; and that the principal homage which he expects of you is, that you become like him, and that his life be the model of your own, in order that, through your resemblance to him, you may be included in the number of those who shall be partakers of his glory.
