precautions lest, in the revolution of ages, the credulity of his people render to him divine honours: he goes up alone to the mountain, to expire far from the sight of his brethren, in the fear of their coming to offer up victims upon his tomb, and for ever removes his body from the superstition of the tribes: he does not show himself to his disciples after his death; he contents himself with leaving to them the law of God, and employs every mean to obliterate himself from their remembrance. And Jesus Christ, after all the miracles which he operates in Judea, after all the prophecies which had announced him, after having appeared as a God upon the earth, his tomb is known to all the universe, exposed to the veneration of all people and ages; even after his death he shows himself to his disciples. Was superstition, then, less to be dreaded here? Or is Jesus Christ less zealous than Moses, for the glory of the Supreme Being and for the salvation of men?
Elijah, it is true, raises up the dead; but he is obliged to stretch himself out upon the body of the child whom he recalls to life; and it is easily seen that he invokes a foreign power; that he withdraws from the empire of death a soul which is not subjugated to him; and that he is not himself the master of life and death. Jesus Christ raised up the dead as easily as he performs the most common actions; he speaks as master of those who repose in an eternal sleep; and it is thoroughly felt that he is the God of the dead as of the living, never more tranquil and calm than when he is operating the grandest things.
Lastly. The poets represented to us their sybils and their priestesses as mad women, while foretelling the future: it would seem that they were unable to sustain the presence of the false spirit which dwelt within them. Even our own prophets, when announcing future things, without losing the use of their reason, or departing from the solemnity and the decency of their ministry, partook of a divine enthusiasm: the soft sounds of the lyre were often necessary to arouse in them the prophetic spirit; it was easily to be seen that they were animated by a foreign impulse, and that it was not from their own funds they drew the knowledge of the future, and those hidden mysteries which they announced to men. Jesus Christ prophesies as he speaks; the knowledge of the future has nothing either to move, disquiet, or surprise him, because all times are contained in his mind; the future mysteries which he announces are not sudden and infused lights to his soul; they are familiar objects to him, always present to his view, and the images of which he finds within himself; and all ages to come, under the immensity of his regards, are as the present day which illuminates us. Thus, neither the resurrection of the dead, nor the foretelling of the future, ever injures his natural tranquillity; he sports himself, if I may venture to say so, in operating miracles in the universe; and if he, at times, appear to tremble and to be troubled, it is solely when viewing the sin and the perversity of his people; because the more exalted one is in sanctity, the more does sin offer new horrors; and that the only thing which a Man-God can
