Christ; let us enter into the spirit of that mystery; with him let us render to God that glory which is his due; it is the only means of restoring to ourselves that peace, of which our passions have hitherto deprived us.
SERMON XXVII.
FOR THE DAY OF THE EPIPHANY.
" For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him." — Matthew ii. 2.
Truth, that light of Heaven, figured by the star which on this day appears to the magi, is the only thing here below worthy of the cares and the researches of man. It alone is the light of our mind, the rule of our heart, the source of solid joys, the foundation of our hopes, the consolation of our fears, the alleviation of our evils, the cure for all our afflictions: it alone is the refuge of the good conscience, and the terror of the bad; the inward punishment of vice, the internal recompense of virtue: it alone immortalizes those who have loved it, and renders illustrious the chains of those who suffer for it; attracts public honours to the ashes of its martyrs and defenders, and bestows respectability on the abjection and the poverty of those who have quitted all to follow it: lastly, it alone inspires magnanimous thoughts, forms heroical men, souls of whom the world is unworthy, sages alone worthy of that name. All our attentions ought therefore to be confined to know it; all our talents to manifest it; all our zeal to defend it. In men we ought then to look only for truth, to have no wish of pleasing them but by truth, to esteem in them only truth, and to be resolved that they never shall please us but by it. In a word, it would appear that it should have only to show itself, as on this day to the magi, to be loved; and that it shows us to ourselves in order to teach us to know ourselves.
Nevertheless, it is astonishing what different impressions the same truth makes upon men. To some it is a light which directs their steps, and, in pointing out their duty, renders it amiable to them: to others it is a troublesome light, and as it were, a kind of dazzling, which vexes and fatigues them: lastly, to many it is a thick mist which irritates, inflames them with rage, and completes their blindness. It is the same star which, on this day, appears in the firmament: the magi see it; the priests of Jerusalem know that it is foretold in the prophets; Herod can no longer doubt that it hath appeared, seeing wise men come from the extremities of the east, to seek, guided by its light, the new King of the Jews. Nevertheless, how dissimilar are the dispositions with which they receive the same truth manifested to them!
