requires at your hands : and it is justly accounted the greatest
blessing of your exalted station, that you have it in your power to
consecrate to your Saviour what would otherwise be the cause
of your condemnation. What treasures of grace, would you but
store them up. But this I shall now set forth in a clearer point
of light.
As God, and humble, he demands honour and glory ; and,
accordingly, he seeks adorers from among the Gentiles. But
what adorers ? Men distinguished by their dignity, who, pros-
trate and lowly in his presence, to a great degree, do him more
honour, and procure him more glory, than the shepherds of Judea
with all then- zeal. Nothing, in fact, can do him greater honour,
and procure him more glory, than the homage of the great. Now,
on whom but yourselves doth it depend, to give him that glory of
which he declares himself so jealous ? Why were you invested
with authority in the world ? Why did God place you in your
present elevation ? What is it not in your power to do for him ?
And, if compared with you, what doth the rest of mankind do ?
To you it is owing that the doctrine and religion of this God-man
are held in veneration. It is by your means that his worship is
24 ON THE BIRTH OF CHRIST.
readily, solidly, and universally established ; and it is authorised
by your example. To what better purpose, to what equally
good, can you exert your power ? And what doth it cost you
but the will to do it ? By this rule you ought to estimate your
places at court, and public employment. With this only view it
is allowable to entertain a passion for them, or to indulge compla-
cency in the thoughts of possessing them. In every other respect,
they ought to create sorrow. But your comfort should be, that
you have by means of them, a fair opportunity of glorifying the
majesty, and carrying farther than others the interests of a God
reduced to so great a degree of debasement.
To draw to a conclusion. As God, and poor, he demands
relief, no longer for himself, but for his members, which are the
poor. On this occasion, I should not acquit myself thoroughly of
my ministry, did I forget the poor — the members of Jesus Christ.
If you be Christians at all, you must be fired with emulation of
those blessed wise men, who came a long journey from the extre-
mity of the east, and appeared before the Saviour, not with empty
hands, but offered him presents, of which he accepted. And I
say, that he insists upon receiving from your hands a similar obla-
tion; I say, that without seeking him so far, you may find him in the
midst of you, because he is so in reality ; and because he is in
places, and in stations of life, in which he suffers as much, and is
as much forsaken, as in the stable at Bethlehem : I say, that the
poor, who surround you, and whom you see, and still more those
whom you do not see, and who cannot approach you, are in your
regard the same Jesus Christ, to whom the shepherds presented
the produce of the fields, and the wise men made an offering of
gold and frankincense : I say, that we learn from the doctrine of
faith, that what is given to the poor, is given to Jesus Christ, and
with more merit when put into their hands, than if put into
his without any intervention. Hence, and what a fund of confi-
dence ! hence your riches, according to the ordinary course of
things, an obstacle to salvation, are perfectly innocent, and become
salutary ; hence they lose the characteristic of reprobation which
the scripture gives them ; hence they coincide with, and are a
supplement and support to, the poverty of Jesus Christ, as he
enters into a holy association with you, partaking of your property,
and imparting to you his merits ; hence, made holy by this parti-
cipation, they change their nature, and from treasures of iniquity
ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR. 23
become the occasion of that most excellent virtue, charity ; hence
those curses which the Son of God thunders out in the gospel
against riches, will not light upon you. Jesus Christ (says St.
Chrysostom) is too just and faithful to execrate riches which he
himself demands. " Blessed is he/' cries the royal Psalmist,
" who understandeth concerning the needy and the poor." Ps. xl.
And I say the same thing, and with greater reason, as the poor
are for a Christian, in a special manner, a mystery of faith. But,
resuming my principle, I add, blessed is he who understandeth
concerning the poverty and humility of a God-made man.
Because he humbled himself, (says St. Paul,) God, for his ex-
altation, enjoins the whole world to bend the knee to his Name ;
and it is in the courts of princes that this prediction is authenti-
cally verified, as the powers of the world, which we revere in
them, are endowed by heaven with particular grace, to honour
and adore this Word made flesh, who condescended to appear in
an abject state on our account. Thus (says St. Chrysostom) is
this divine Saviour requited for the humiliations he underwent at
his birth, persecuted by Herod, and obedient to Augustus. But
thanks be to heaven, the world, at present, wears another aspect ;
and we see mighty monarchs obedient to Jesus Christ, using all
their endeavours to promote his reign, which I call, not the pro-
gress, but the completion and glory, of our holy religion.
SERMON II.
ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR.
" The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom ;
but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a scandal, and unto
the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them who are called, both Jews
and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God."
1 Cor. i.
If ever the preachers could with any show of reason blush at their
ministration, is it not to-day, when they see themselves necessitated
to publish the astonishing humiliations of the God they announce ;
the outrages he received ; the weakness he felt : his langour ;
his sufferings ; his passion ; his death ? And yet, says the great
c
26 ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR.
apostle, notwithstanding the ignominies of the cross, I shall never
blush at the gospel of my Saviour ; and the reason he assigns for
it is as surprising as, nay more surprising than, the notion he con-
ceived of it. I know (he adds) that the gospel of the cross is the
power of God, for all those who are enlightened with the light of
the faith. "lam not ashamed of the gospel ; for, it is the power
of God to every one that believeth." Rom. i. St. Paid, far from
being ashamed of it, placed his glory in it. "God forbid,"
Bays he, writing to the Galatians, " that I should glory, save in
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Gal. vi. Far from being
ashamed of the cross, in the exercise of his ministry, he positively
asserted, that, to support with honour, the most ready and infal-
lible means was, to preach the cross of God made man ; and that,
in reality, there was nothing in all the gospel more noble, more
wonderful, or even more proper to satisfy a man of good sense,
than this profound and adorable mystery : for this is the literal
sense of the passage I have chosen for my text : " The Jews re-
quire a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom." 1 Cor. i. The
incredulity of the Jews requires that we make them see a miracle ;
the pride and vanity of the Greeks make them plume themselves
upon their wisdom ; both the one and the other have taken an
obstinate resolution not to believe in Jesus Christ, but on one of
these two conditions. But, for my part, (says the apostle,) in
order equally to confound the incredulity of those, and the vanity
of these, I am determined to preach Jesus Christ even crucified ;
and the reason of it is, that it is eminently a miracle of God's
power, and a master-piece, at the same time, of God's wisdom ;
a miracle of God's power, which alone should strike the Jews
beyond every other miracle : " Christ crucified, the power of
God ;" a master-piece of God's wisdom, which alone is more than
sufficient to make the Gentiles submit to the faith, and bid farewell
to all worldly wisdom : " Christ crucified, the wisdom of God."
An admirable idea this of St. Paul's, representing perpetually
to himself the passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ, as a mystery
of power and wisdom. Now it is to this idea, beloved Christians,
I mean to adhere, because it seemed to me, on one hand, more fit
to give you edification ; and, on the other, more worthy of Jesus
Christ, whose funeral sermon I have undertaken this day to preach.
For our business now is, not to bewail the death of that God-man ;
our tears, if any we have to shed, must be reserved for another pur-
ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR. 27
pose ; neither can we be ignorant of what that purpose is, since
Jesus Christ himself hath told it so positively and so distinctly, when
going to Calvary he said to the daughters of Jerusalem : " weep
not for me, but for yourselves." I say, our business now is, not to
bewail his death, but to meditate upon it ; to dive into the mys-
tery of it, to see the work of God : our business is to discover in it
wherewithal to fix and strengthen our faith ; and this is what,
with the holy grace of my God, I undertake to do. A hundred
times your hearts have yearned and melted at the melancholy story
of the passion of Jesus Christ ; but I mean to convey instruction
The moving and pathetic discourses you have heard, have often
filled your souls with grief, but perhaps a fruitless grief, or at most
a transitory grief, without effecting a change of manners. My
design is, to convince your reason, and dwell on something more
solid, which may be, in future, a ground for all the pious senti-
ments which this mystery shall inspire. This, therefore, beloved
hearers, is the division of the following discourse :
1st. You have not as yet, perhaps, considered the death of our
blessed Saviour, but as the mystery of his humility and weakness ;
but I shall make it appear that he hath, in this mystery, displayed
peculiarly his omnipotent power.
2ndly. The world hath hitherto considered this mystery as a
folly ; but I shall make it appear that God in this mystery, hath
most particularly set forth his wisdom.
Give me, O Lord ! to handle worthily so great a subject, the
zeal with which your apostle was filled, when you had chosen him
to carry your name before nations and kings, and to make them
revere, in the very humiliation of your cross, the divinity of your
person. I speak not, as St. Paul did, to Jews or Gentiles ; I
speak to Christians by profession ; but among whom some are,
every day, perceived unsteadfast in the faith, who, full of worldly
maxims and notions, and relying too confidently on human pru-
dence, are, although Christians, sometimes disturbed, and even
tempted, when the God whom they adore is represented to
them as loaded with ignominy, and dying on a cross. Now upon
this account it is, that I would strengthen them, by making them
know the gift of God, hidden in the mystery of your death ; and
by impressing on their minds a right idea of your seeming weak-
nesses. Bear me up, therefore, O my God ! but give to my
hearers, at the same time, the docility withiwhich it is incumbent
c2
28 ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR.
on them to hear your word, to the intent that they may not only
be persuaded, but converted and sanctified.
Part I. That a God, as God, should act as Master, and
supreme Lord ; that out of nothing he should, with a word, make
heaven and earth ; that he should work prodigies throughout the
whole universe, and that nothing should resist his power, is a
thing, Christians, so natural to him, that for us it is hardly a sul>
ject of admiration : but that a God should suffer ; should expire in
torments ; should, as the scripture speaks, taste death — he who
alone possesses immortality — is a thing that neither angels nor men
will be ever able to comprehend. Well may I, therefore, cry out
with the prophet : " Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this !"
Jer. ii. For, this is that which surpasses all our understanding,
and which requires all the submission and all the obedience of our
faith ; but it is also in this great mystery that our faith hath over-
come the world : " This is the victory that overcometh the world ;
our faith." 1 John v. True it is, beloved Christians, Jesus
Christ hath suffered, and died. But in speaking of his death and
sufferings, I make no difficulty of advancing a proposition, which
you would look upon as a paradox, if the words of my text did
not dispose you to hearken to it vsith respect. I maintain that
Christ our Lord died and suffered as a God ; that is, in a manner
suitable only to a God ; in a manner so peculiar to God himself,
that the great apostle, for no other reason, did not hesitate to
declare to Jews and Gentiles : This crucified Christ, my brethren,
whom we preach to you, whose death scandalizes you, who, on
Calvary, seemed to you struck by the hand of God, and reduced
to the utmost weakness, is the power of God himself. That which
you despise in him, is what raises in us a veneration for him. He
is our God ; and that he is so, we want no sign or proof but his
cross. This, in short, is the substance of St. Paul's theology.
Let us enter, dear Christians, into the spirit of these divine words :
" Christ crucified, the power of God ;" and let us draw from
them the fruit they ought to produce in our souls.
I say, that Jesus Christ died in a manner suitable only to a God-
man. To convince you of it, more is required than a plain
exposition of facts. In effect, a man who dies, after having foretold,
himself, in terms the most express and clear, all the circumstances
of his death ; a man who dies performing miracles, nay the greatest
miracles, to show there is nothing but what is preternatural and
ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAYIOUR, 29
divine in his death ; a man whose death, if we consider it tho-
roughly, is itself the greatest of all miracles ; inasmuch as, far
from dying like other men, through loss of spirit, he dies, on the
contrary, through an effort of his omnipotence. But, what sur-
passes all the rest ; a man, who, by the infamy of his death,
arrives to the highest pitch of glory ; and who, expiring on the
cross, overcomes by the cross, the prince of the world ; tramples
by the cross upon the pride of the world ; erects his cross upon
the ruins of .the idolatry and infidelity of the world. Is
not this to die like a God ; or, if you like that better, like a God-
man ? And on this ground it was that the apostle went, when he
said, that this man, dead on the cross, was not the minister of
God's power, but the power of God made flesh : " Christ cruci-
fied, the power of God." Let us not separate these four proofs ;
and you will allow, that there is no reasonable, or even obstinate
mind, that ought not to be effected with them. Now to come to
particulars. 1st. None but a God can dive in such a manner
into futurity, as to have it absolutely in his power, and be able to
say absolutely and authoritatively, tliis or that shall come to pass,
although the matter in question depend upon an infinity of free
causes that must necessarily concur in it. None but a God can
knoAv distinctly, and of himself, the bottom of hearts, and search
into the most hidden secrets and close intentions, in such a manner
as to know infinitely better and clearer, what is in the thoughts
and will of man, than man himself. Now this is what Jesus
Christ did with respect to his passion and death. Indeed to hear
him speak of his passion, long before the exhibition of that tragic
scene, or liis enemies had formed plots against his life, one would
imagine that he relates the circumstances of a present event ; so
minutely he points out and makes known every particular. And
to see him on the day of that sad catastrophe, undergo the various
torments prepared for liim, one would imagine that his tormentors
were not so much the executioners of the sentence pronounced
against him, as of his own prediction. In short, (says he to his
apostles, in order to prepare them for this doleful mystery,) we
are now going to Jerusalem, and whatever hath been foretold of
the Son of man, will be accomplished. This Son of man, (for so he
was pleased to express himself,) whom you behold, and now speaks
to you, will be delivered to the Gentiles : he will be outraged,
insulted, scourged, buffeted, crucified ; they will spit in his face ;
30 ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR.
he will die ignominiously, and will rise again the third day. Mind,
Christians, the reflection which St. Chrysostom makes in this
place ; for mam/ ages past, there had been prophets in the old
law, forerunners of the Messiah, who had published all these particu-
lars. As the chief obstacle which was one day to alienate worldly
minds from believing in Jesus Christ, was the supposed scandal
which the ignominy of his death would cause, God in his singularly
providential wisdom had revealed to his prophets, that the death
thought ignominious of the Messiah, would, in the fulness of time,
be a sovereign remedy for sin ; a solemn reparation of sin ; a means
to bring about the salvation and redemption of the world : in fine,
that the prophecies, those irrefragable testimonies of his divinity,
rendered the very ignominies of his death, not only venerable, but
adorable ; and that men, in this view, far from being scandalized
at it, would be persuaded that there was in the passion of our Sa-
viour nothing but what was above mans power and comprehension.
For (says St. Chrysostom) this was God's design, when, in the
Old Testament, he made Isaiah speak of the sufferings of Jesus
Christ with as much certainty, and in terms as precise, as the holy
evangelists have done in the New. But this design of God was
still more plain and obvious, and the proof of it much more con-
vincing and affecting, in the immediate prediction of Jesus Christ
himself: for he tells his disciples, discoursing with them about
his approaching death ; I am the man of sorrows, mentioned by
Isaiah, and am now about to fulfil, to a tittle, whatever hath been
written upon that subject. The time is come for the consumma-
tion of these things, and you yourselves shall presently bear witness
to it ; but it behoves me to forewarn you of it in this manner, that
you may hot be disturbed at it.
Accordingly, whatever this adorable Saviour had pointed out to
them in the books of Moses and the prophets, as relating to himself, was
fulfilled, shortly afterwards, to the letter, in the bloody catastrophe
of his death and passion. It was in consequence, and in virtue of
these divine prophecies, of which he was personally himself the
subject, that the Jews, instead of bringing him, which according
to law they should have done, to judgment, as he was a Jcav,
delivered him over to be judged by Pilate, who was a Gentile ;
that the soldiers, contrary to all the forms of judicature, over and
above the sentence of condemnation passed on him, added insult
and inhumanity ; spat in his face, and bruised him with buffets ;
ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR. 31
that in every the minutest circumstance, the price at which he
he was to be sold — the use to which that money was to be ap-
plied — the casting lots for his garment, and the gall which waa
presented him, the scriptures which he applied to himself were,
it should seem, the rule of all the things his enemies had
plotted against him ; as if he had suffered only to justify the
oracles delivered so many ages before his appearing in the world :
« That the scriptures might be fulfilled." Matt. xxvi. w That
the word which he had said might be fulfilled." John xiii. This
argument was so solid, that there needed no more to convert the
famous eunuch, treasurer to the queen of Ethiopia, of whom men-
tion is made in the Acts; and to whom Philip, the deacon,
explained the wondrous things I preach. These prophecies, and
many others, literally and punctually verified in the passion of
our Saviour, obliged him to acknowledge the Messiah promised,
and sent by God in the fulness of time. Shall we, beloved bre-
thren, who are vested with the glorious character of Christians,
be less feelingly affected than he was ? And shall that which was
sufficient to convince a man not yet enlightened with the gospel
rays, be destitute of power sufficient to confirm us in the faith
which we profess ?
The same I say of secrets hidden in the recesses of the heart, of
W T hich Christ Jesus showed very evidently in his passion that he
was master. He foretold to his apostles, that one among them
would betray him ; and Judas actually had it in his thoughts to
betray liim ; and did betray him : he foretold to St. Peter, that
he would deny him ; and St. Peter did in reality deny him : he
foretold to him, that notwithstanding his lapse, his faith would not
fail him ; and, notwithstanding his lapse, his faith did not fail him.
He foretold to him, that, after his conversion, he would be the
encouragement of his brethren ; and, in fact, his conversion inspired
them all with courage : he foretold to Magdalen, that the action
which she then performed, by pouring a precious ointment on his
head, would be praised and preached throughout the world ; and
it is to this day spoken of, to her commendation throughout the
world : pie foretold to Jerusalem, with streaming eyes, that it
would be destroyed and ruined to all intents and purposes ; and
Jerusalem was besieged, sacked, and laid in ashes, by the Romans,
so that there did not remain one stone upon another. Was not
this knowledge of things hidden in the dark recesses of futurity,
32 ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR.
and of the most impenetrable secrets, evidently the knowledge of
a" God that "searcheth the hearts and the loins ?" Psalm vii.
And had not the man who died in this manner, revealing and
manifesting that which neither was nor could be known, saving
only to God himself, all the power of God himself ?
2ndly. But what I have to add should make a still greater
impression on you. This God-man dies working miracles ; and
what miracles ? Ah ! Christians, have there ever been, or will
there ever be such illustrious miracles ? At the point of death as
he is, he makes the earth tremble ; opens the sepulchres ; resusci-
tates the dead ; rends in two the veil of the temple, and hides in
more than Egyptian darkness the great luminary of the world ;
prodigies equally astonishing and unheard of; prodigies, with
which the soldiers were so deeply affected, that it occasioned their
conversion ; but a conversion (as St. Augustin remarks) arising
from the efficacy and virtue of the very blood they had spilt.
And, indeed, whatever I have said, St. Matthew reports in
express terms : " When they saw the earthquake, and those things
that were done, they feared greatly ; saying, Truly this was the
Son of God." Matt, xxvii. I am aware that there have been, even
among the Christians, impious men, and greater enemies to Jesus
Christ and his cross, than either Jews or Gentiles, who have not
been ashamed to question the truth of these miracles, pretending
that they might have been fictitious, and that the holy evangelists
might have formed a scheme among themselves to publish them in
the world, with a view to exalt their Master's glory. But here, to
use a scripture phrase, impiety is its own confusion ; and, rising in
in opposition to the Deity, displays its ignorance and malignity.
For, not to examine the rashness and folly of this impiety, whereas
it hath no other foundation than the prepossession and spirit of
libertinism; it ought to be shown (says St. Augustin) what
inducement the holy evangelists could have to publish to the
world these miracles of Jesus Christ, were they persuaded they
were false miracles. Is it not clear, that all the fruit they could
have expected from a publication of that nature, was public hatred,
persecutions, fetters, dungeons, and cruel torments ? Far, there-
fore, from believing they could have delighted in inventing and
spreading abroad such miracles, we ought rather to be astonished,
that though they knew them to be true, they had the courage and
resolution, at the expense of their lives, to bear witness to them.
ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAYIOUR. 33
Further, (continues the same St. Augustin,) the style alone
in which the evangelists have written the history of Jesus Christ,
and of his passion — their simplicity, frankness, and sincerity,
show very evidently, they did not write influenced by passion and
prepossession ; but as irreproachable andTaithful witnesses to the
truth, of which they were themselves the martyrs — even to the