effusion of their blood. They discover no traces either of indig-
nation against the Jews, or of compassion for their Master ; they
speak of him as men the most indifferent, and most disinterested
in the world would have spoken. They recount his weaknesses in
the garden ; his apathy ; his frights ; his wasted spirits ; the galling
affront he had to undergo in Herod's palace; the contemp-
tuous usage of that prince towards him ; the shameful and unjust
treatment he met with in the s houses of Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate ;
and these they relate more punctiliously and more diffusely than
even his miracles.

This is not all ; for if these miracles had been fictitious, would
not the Jews, whom it so much imported to discover the impos-
ture, and who were not destitute at that time of able penmen, have
taken care to undeceive the world ? Would they not have pro-
tested against it ? This, however, they never did ; this they do
not at this day, as their best authors, particularly Josephus, would
make good the reverse against them. That universal eclipse which
happened, contrary to the course of nature, had in it something so
prodigious and so remarkable, that Tertullian, two centuries after,
speaks of it to the pagan magistrates of Rome, as of a singular
fact — of which they kept the tradition in their archives.
This fact, which was unquestionable and avowed, surprised that
heathen philosopher, Denis the Areopagite, (but who afterwards
became one of the strongest pillars and greatest ornaments of our
religion,) in such a manner, that, remote as he was from Judea,
and still more so from any knowledge of our mysteries, he of
himself found out that this eccentric darkness was an origin
of light for him. Accordingly, it disposed him to receive submis-
sively the truths of faith, and the instructions of St. Paul. What
shall I say of the famous criminal crucified with our blessed Saviour,
and instantly converted by the same Saviour ? Could this change
of a wicked wretch, who all on a sudden, became a vessel of elec-
tion and mercy, be attributed to human persuasion ? Doth it not
on the contrary, appear to have arisen from a supernatural and



34 ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR.

divine principle ? If Jesus Christ had not acted as God, how could
he, dying upon the cross, have made his divinity known to this
miscreant, and have made him openly confess it ? And doth not
this miracle of grace corroborate all the prodigies of nature, by
which heaven and earth, as it were in concert, honoured this
agonizing and expiring God ?

But, you will tell me that the Pharisees, notwithstanding these
miracles, persisted in their incredulity. Granted, Christians ; but
without attempting to fathom, in what regards this matter, the deep
abysses of God's judgments — judgments equally venerable and
dreadful, you know how great a spite the Pharisees bore our
Saviour ; you know how great the power of such a passion is, in
binding minds and hardening hearts. However inconceivable the
obstinacy of the Pharisees might have been, we might perhaps find
at this day, in the world, nay, the Christian world, men as incredu-
lous, were they but to see those who differ from them work mira-
cles ; men, who would sooner attribute these miracles to hell, as
the Pharisees attributed those of our blessed Saviour to the prince
of darkness, than give up their prejudices and their hatred. Be
(hat as it may, (says St. Chrysostom,) from thence it is, that the
reprobation of the Pharisees took its rise ; and this mysterious work
of divine predestination and reprobation appeared in tliis — that
the same miracles which converted the soldiers, and a numberless
multitude of other people, served to confirm the Pharisees in their
inflexibility and indocility. But it is by this difference that we may
discover in Jesus Christ expiring, the all-powerful virtue in ques-
tion. For (as St. Chrysostom says, arguing on this topic) now,
at his dying, he distributes mercy and justice, saving some and
reprobating others ; dispensing rays of light to the blind, who lived
in the darkness of infidelity, and blinding the most enlightened,
who abused their lights ; converting those to grace, through mercy,
and suffering these to perish, through, justice : thus, to display in
his very death, those glorious and essential attributes of his divinity !

There was but one miracle which our Saviour declined working
in his passion, and that was, to save himself, as lus enemies pro-
posed to him, assuring him that if he would come down from the
cross, they would believe in him. But why did he not work this
miracle ? The reason is easily seen (says St. Augustin) : this
one miracle would have destroyed all the rest, and stopped the
course of the great work he had undertaken ; a work to which all



ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR. 35

the others referred, as to their end ; namely, the redemption of
mankind ; a work which was to be consummated on the cross.
Moreover, his enemies, blinded by passion, would have paid no
more regard to tins miracle, than they had done to raising Laza-
rus from the dead. For if the evidence of the fact, which obliged
them to grant that Lazarus, who had been dead in his grave four
days, was incontestably resuscitated, instead of inducing them to
believe in Jesus Christ, induced them to take a resolution to
destroy him, because it was not reason, but passion, that presided at
their councils : can we suppose, that though they had seen him
disengage himself from the cross, they had been more sincere, and
better disposed to give him the glory due to him ?

But to insist no longer on what regards the Pharisees, tell me,
Christians, did Jesus Christ, in the conjuncture in which I consi-
der him, as he had it beyond all doubt in his power to save himself,
but did not choose*it, do something greater and more exceeding
the power of man, than if he had chosen to save himself ? If
we compare miracles — (lend all your attention to this, which you
have not perhaps as yet sufficiently considered, and which to me
seems extremely edifying,) — if we compare miracles, that meekness
with which he permits the soldiers to seize liis person, after casting
them upon the ground, by only presenting himself before them,
and saying these words : "I am he ;" that gentle rebuke he gave
St. Peter for the indiscretion of his zeal, whereas he drew his sword
against one of the high-priest's servants, letting him know that he
need but pray to his Father, and that his Father would send him
whole legions of angels, to discomfit his foes, and defend him ;
and, to convince him that he did not speak in vain, actually curing,
in a miraculous manner, the servant whom Peter just before had
wounded ; that so admirable a silence, and so constantly supported
before his judges, particularly Pilate, who, knowing his innocence,
questioned him only to have an opportunity of acquitting him ; that
refusal to satisfy the prince's curiosity, whose protection he might
so easily have procured ; that giving up his own cause, and conse-
quently his life ; that tranquillity and peaceful deportment in the
midst of a thousand insults ; that resolution to bear every thing,
without demanding satisfaction, without impeaching any person,
without uttering the least complaint ; that heroic charity, which
made him, as he expired on the cross, plead the excuse of his per-
secutors : was not, I say, all this, in a man, whose conduct in all



36 ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR.

other respects was irreproachable and full of wisdom, more mira-
culous, than if he had chosen to escape the hand of his executioners,
and had diseno-acred himself from the cross ? " Christ crucified,
the power of God."

3rdly . He died, therefore, because it was his will to die ; and died
in the manner he chose to die : circumstances, according to St.
Augustin, peculiar to a God-man, and which demonstrate, even
in death, the sovereign independence of God. Now it is hereon,
Christians, I found this other proposition ; that the death of Jesus
Christ, thoroughly considered in itself, was not only a miracle, but
a miracle the most singular of all miracles. The reason of it is,
that other men die through weakness, through violence, through
necessity ; but he died, I do not say by choice, and a free dispo-
sition of his will, but by the means of his absolute power. So that
he never, as Son of God, and as God, made a greater effort of his
absolute power, than at the moment he consented that his blessed
soul should be separated from his body ; and for this, two reasons
are assigned by the schoolmen. First, say they, because Jesus Christ
being without sin, and absolutely impeccable, he could not but be
naturally immortal. Whence it follows, that as his body and soul
were united hypostatically with the divinity, they could not be se-
parated without a miracle. It was necessary, therefore, that Jesus
Christ, to bring about this separation, should break, as I may say,
through all the laws of ordinary providence, and use the whole
power he had received from God, to destroy this life, which, though
human, was nevertheless the life of a God. Secondly, because Jesus
Christ being eminently, in virtue of his priesthood, the sovereign
Pontiff of the new law, none but he could, or ought to offer to God
the sacrifice of the redemption of the world, or immolate the Victim
ordained for it. Now his body was this victim. None but him-
self, ought, therefore, to immolate this body'; none but himself had
the power necessary for that end. His executioners, it is true, were
the ministers of God's justice ; but they were not the priests, whose
duty it was to offer this sacrifice to the Deity. For that purpose,
there must be a pontiff, holy, innocent, and immaculate, separated
from the whole host of sinners, and invested with a special character.
Now this character was suitable only to Jesus Christ. Whence
St. Augustin concludes, that Jesus Christ was most wonderfully,
at the same time, the Priest offering, and the Victim offered.
It was, therefore, he himself that sacrificed himself; he himself



ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR. 37

that exercised on himself this function of priest and pontiff; he
himself that destroyed, at least for a few days, that adorable com-
pound of a suffering body and a glorious soul ; in a word, it was
he himself that brought about his own death. His life was not
taken from him by the bloody hand of execution : he laid it down
of his own accord. "No man taketh my life from me ; but I lay
it down of myself." John x.

He died (says St. Augustin) upon the cross ; but, properly
speaking, and in rigour, he did not die by the punishment of the
cross. And to make this point appear, it is certain, from the Jews'
own testimony, that the punishment of the cross, or rather that
which made condemned criminals die upon the cross, was not merely
the being nailed to it, but the being broken alive on it. Now
Jesus Christ, according to the prophecy, had breathed his last,
when they set about to break his limbs ; and accordingly, "Pilate
marvelled if he were already dead." Mark xv. And what puts it
beyond all doubt that he died not by the failing of nature, is, that
"he gave up the ghost, crying out with a loud voice :" a thing so
extraordinary, as the evangelist reports: "When the centurion,
who stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up
the ghost, he said, Truly, this man was the Son of God." Mark xv.
Had the centurion, who thus reasoned, been a disciple of our
Saviour, perhaps his reasoning and testimony might have been sus-
pected. But he is an infidel, who justly concludes, without hesi-
tation, from what he observes, that the manner in which Jesus
Christ dies is wholly miraculous ; and from this miracle, seeing
that he so gave up the ghost, he draws the consequence, " Truly,
this man was the Son of God." What need there more to make good
the great apostle's words, "Christ crucified, the power of God?"

True, it is, our blessed Redeemer was not exempt from weak-
ness and sorrow at his death. To this I might answer, with the
prophet, that the sorrows and weaknesses which he discovered were
not his own, but ours ; and the wonder is, "that he truly bore our
weaknesses, and carried our sorrows." Isaiah xv. But as this
thought, however solid, seems too refined for worldly and unbeliev-
ing minds, I answer otherwise with St. Chrysostom, and I say,
yes ; our Saviour had his weaknesses; and the wonder is, that these
weaknesses were so many distinct miracles, in the course of his
sacred passion. For If he sweats during his prayer in the garden, it
is blood he sweats ; and so copiously, that the ground is bedewed



38 ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR.

with it. If, a few moments after he expires, his side is laid open
with a lance, blood and water issue forth from it, and he who
relates the fact, assures us, that he himself saw it, and that his testi-
mony deserves credit ; one would imagine, that he dies and suf-
fers only to display the power of God in his person: "Christ
crucified, the power of God."

4thly. Proceed we now to the last, but most essential proof: it
is to see a man, whom the ignominy, the confusion, and infinite
humiliation of his death, raised to all the glory which a God can
assume : insomuch, that at the mentioning of his name, and sight
of his cross, the most mighty powers of the world bend the knee,
and fill prostrate, to pay him homage for their greatness: "He
humbled himself, and became obedient unto death ; even the death
of the cross. Upon which account, God hath so exalted him, that
at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow ; of those in heaven,
and those on earth, and those under the earth." Phil. ii. This
is what God revealed to St. Paul, at a time when all things seemed
to combine in opposition to the fulfilling of this prediction ; at a
time when, after the views of human prudence, this prediction must
have been looked upon as chimerical ; at a time when the name of
Jesus was held in abhorrence. Nevertheless, the apostle's predic-
tion is fulfilled. What was an article of faith for the Christians of
those times, is it not, in some measure, so for us, in that we are wit-
nesses of the thing, and are not under the necessity of captivating
our understandings to believe it ? The powers of the earth now
bend the knee before Christ crucified. Our sovereigns, nay, our
greatest sovereigns, are foremost in setting us the example ; and it
depends upon ourselves to comfort ourselves, and say to ourselves :
this is that which St. Paul foretold ; and that which in the days
of St. Paul I should have rejected as a dream, I see is evident,
and past all doubt. Now, beloved Christians, a man whose cross
(as St. Augustin finely expresses it) is gone from the infamous
place of execution, to be made an ornament to the brows of em-
perors : a man, who without aid or arms, by the sole virtue of the
cross, vanquished idolatry, triumphed over the power of supersti-
tion, destroyed the worship of false gods, conquered the whole
universe: a man who, as the church sings, could reign where
others cease to live, that is, could reign upon the rood, which was
the instrument of his death : and, what is still more to be wondered
at. a man who had declared in his life-time, that all this would



- ON THE TASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR. 39

come to pass ; "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw every
tiling unto me ; this he said, signifying what death he should die ;"
(John xii.) is not such a man more than man ? Is he not man and
God, too? What virtue hath not the cross, on which we behold
his image had, to make the people pay him adoration ! How
many apostles of his gospel ; how many imitators of his virtues ;
how many confessors ; how many martyrs ; how many holy souls
devoted to his worship ; how many disciples fired with zeal for
his honour and glory ; or, in more comprehensive terms, how
many nations; Iioav many kingdoms; how many empires hath
he drawn to him by the undiscoverable, but all-powerful virtue
of this cross! "Christ crucified, the power of God."

Alas! my brethren, the Pharisees saw the miracles of this
crucified God, and were not converted. This is almost incom-
prehensible. But tell me, is not that which happens in our-
selves as incomprehensible ? For we actually see a greater mira-
cle in the death of Jesus Christ, a subsisting miracle, an averred
and incontestable miracle: I mean the triumph of the cross;
the world converted ; the world made Christian ; the world sanc-
tified by the cross. "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw every thing unto me." This we see ; and yet, notwithstanding
this miracle, our faith is languid, weak, and unanimated. This
we ought to lament with tears ; this ought to make our blood
run cold. But to profit by this mystery, instead of lamenting
through a sentiment of a short, superficial devotion, let us la-
ment in the spirit of salutary compunction. Jesus Christ worked
miracles at his death; he must work another that will crown
all the rest, and that is, the miracle of our conversion. He split
rocks ; disclosed sepulchres, and tore assunder the veil of the
temple : the sight of the cross must split our hearts, perhaps
harder than those rocks ; it must disclose our consciences, perhaps
to this time, shut up like sepulchres ; it must tear our flesh, this
flesh of sin, by the holy rigours of penitence. For why should
not this dying God convert us, since he converted the perpetra-
tors of his death ? And when will he convert us, if not on this
day, when his precious blood is shed in abundance for our
salvation and sanctification ?

Ye sinners who hear me, this it is that should fill you with
confidence. As long as you are sinners, you are in that quality,
enemies of Jesus Christ ; you are his persecutors. Shall I say it ?



40 ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR.

and as St. Paul hath said it before me, why should I not say it ?
you are his executioners. For, as often as it happens that you
yield to temptation, and commit sin, you crucify afresh the Saviour
of men within yourselves. Let it be remembered, however, that
the blood of this God-man hath had the power and efficacy to blot
out the sin even of those Jews who spilt it. In this it is (says St.
Augustin) that the virtue of Jesus Christ's redemption appeared ;
in this it is that he appeared a Saviour. Of his enemies he made
chosen servants ; of his persecutors he made saints. Sinners as
you are, and how great soever, have you not, therefore, all
imaginable right to hope in his divine mercy ? Approach the
sacred throne of his grace, which is his cross ; but approach it with
contrite and humble hearts; submissive hearts ; hearts purified from
the corruptions of the world ; docile hearts, and susceptible of the
impression of the heavenly spirit ; for such is the miracle which this
saving God would operate in you to-day by the virtue of his cross.
Your return to God, a perfect return, after having gone astray so
long ; your repentance, an exemplary and speedy repentance, after
so many scandals and disorders ; the profession you shall make, an
open profession of living like Christians, after having lived so long
like libertines, is the miracle which will prove that Jesus Christ
crucified, is personally the force and power of God.

Ah ! my Lord, shall I be so happy as to find that this miracle
is visibly accomplished in my hearers, as it was effectually accom-
plished in the soldiers who were present at your death, a great
number of whom adhered to you, as to the author of their sal-
vation ? Will you give, Lord ! for that purpose, a sufficient
blessing to my words ? and may I entertain the pleasing hope,
that, among those who hear my words, some will have
the centurion's feelings ; that is, will depart, after this discourse,
not only affected, but converted ; not only bathed in tears, but
determined to glorify God by their good works ; not only per-
suaded, but sanctified and moved by the Christian sentiments
with which this first part shall have inspired them ? Though the
unbelieving Jews is scandalized at the cross ; Jesus Christ dying
is the power and force of God made flesh : " Christ crucified, the
power of God." This you have seen in the first part. Though
the Gentile laughs at it, and considers the cross as foolishness ;
Jesus Christ dying is the wisdom of God himself: " Christ cru-
cified, the wisdom of God." This you shall see in the second part.



ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR. 41

Part II. How just, how holy, how incomprehensible soever
Almighty God is in all his works, and in his revealing himself to
us ; yet it is not surprising that man, on account of his pride, and
ignorance, hath oftentimes taken upon him to censure the works of
the Lord, and been so rash as to take scandal at them. The
thoughts of man and those of God being, as the sacred text
expresses it, since the fall of the first man, so opposite as they are
to one another, this scandal was a necessary consequence of it in
some measure. What should surprise us still more is, that man
(as St. Gregory, pope, observes) is scandalized at the goodness of
God ; at the prodigies of the love of God ; at the abundance and
excess of the mercies of God. It was into this irregularity that
the heresiarch Marcion fell, when, under the pretext of a false zeal
for the Son of God, he would not believe that the Son of God
either verily suffered upon the cross, or verily died upon it ; as if
the cross and death had been absolutely beneath the majesty and
holiness of God. Against this error God raised up Tertullian,
who openly attacked it, and was thereby considered as the cham-
pion of the sufferings, death, and passion of Jesus Christ; an
error, which, notwithstanding the establishment of the Christian
religion, is, perhaps, but too general at this day ; an error against
which my duty obliges me, on this occasion, to exert the whole
force of the word of God. Renew your attention, I beseech you.
The mystery of a crucified God appears to modern philosophers,
as well as to the Gentiles, a folly ; and St. Paul, on the contrary,
declares, that in regard to the elect and predestinate, it is a mystery
of God's wisdom : " Unto them who are called, Christ crucified,
the wisdom of God." Now let us examine which of the two, the
apostle or the philosopher, hath formed the best and most rational
judgment : the apostle, after being instructed in it by our Saviour
himself in a miraculous manner; the philosopher, who knows
nothing of it, but what hath been revealed to him by flesh and blood.
Let us examine whether in this seemingly so sublime a mystery,
and beyond the depth of our weak reason, there is, in fact, any
thing repugnant to reason : for, God will not reject the judgment
of our reason ; and provided that our reason is neither prepossessed
nor obstinate, he is willing to admit it into the council of his wis-
dom, and answer to the difficulties it may allege. .

Which, and how many, beloved Christians, are the 'points in
question, relatively to the present mystery? There are two,

D



42 ON THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR.

(replies St. Leo,) both of them equally difficult and necessary ;
namely, to satisfy God, offended and dishonoured ; and to reform
man, perverted and corrupted. These were the ends for which
Jesus Christ was sent, and to which the mission he received was
directed. Now, I ask you : . in order to attain these two ends,
God as lie was, could he have taken a more powerful, a more
effectual, and a more infallible means than the cross ? And can we
ourselves, with all our supposed power of reasoning, imagine to
ourselves another in which the proportions would be observed, I
do not say with more, but with equal exactness ? Let us go to
Calvary, and having contemplated what passes there, let us study
our religion, of which we have here the height and depth, which
St. Paul so ardently wished to comprehend.

1st. Satisfaction must be made to God, and none but a God-
made man can make it : this stands to reason. What hath this
God-made man done ? Alas ! Christians, what hath he not done ?
Hath he not, with a view to cancel our debts, had the greatest
care to pitch upon that which could solely and sovereignly fill up
the measure of the satisfactions Almighty God expected, and had
a right to expect ? In what consisted the offence committed
against God ? In this, that man, forgetting himself, proudly
affected to be like God: " Ye shall be as gods/' And I, says
God-made man, who am not only like to God, but equal and
consubstantial with him, through a very different kind of forged-