please him (5)." The exaltation just spoken of expresses the kind of death which he was to undergo. It was followed, as he had foretold, by the conversion of a considerable part of the nation; and the effect of his death was so prompt, that when he had scarcely expired, and while he was still fastened to the cross, many of the spec tators struck their breasts, and confessed that he was truly the Son of God. It was principally in this quality that they were to recognize him, and the cross forced them to do so by an incomprehensible miracle of God's omnipotence, which extracted from the shades of death the light which was to illumine the world, and the glory of his Son from the infamy of an ignominious death. It seems that the virtue of the cross operated by anticipation; for “When he spoke these things, many believed in him." We may, perhaps, feel surprised at this, considering the almost impenetrable depth of his words. We can scarcely understand them when reading and study. ing them-we who may be said to have the key thereof in the distinct knowledge which we otherwise have of the principles of Christianity. How could they comprehend them-they who as yet had no idea of those truths which we have here such difficulty in unravelling? It is this which has induced a belief, and a well-grounded one, that Jesus Christ, in order to place his instructions within reach of his hearers, gave them much more amply than they are reported in the sacred text, and that what we have of them is only an abstract. Thus we can conceive that what is obscure to us may have been clear to those who heard him; and in this way we can account for the faith of those who believed. Although, even in the supposition that the Saviour's words might not have been understood, there would still be reason to believe that he left no excuse for the infidelity of those who did not believe him. The miracles which he performed rendered it, as we have already said, obligatory on all to believe him, even without understanding what he said. (5) Unity of nature renders the Father inseparable from the Son; but God unites. himself inseparably with those who always execute his wishes; and, for this reason alone, he would have been inseparable from Jesus Christ. This is what the Saviour here teaches to all the just, who should, therefore, both derive courage and consolation superior to every emergency from this consolatory reflection, viz., God is with me, and he will never desert me so long as I endeavor to execute his wishes. But it was necessary to instruct and to strengthen the new proselytes. "Jesus said then to those who believed him: If you continue in my word, you shall be my disciples indeed." For you are not established as such by a mere transient acquiescence: you must act on a clear and settled conviction. If to that end you are called upon to make many sacrifices, they shall not be without their reward. Intelligence shall follow faith; and because you have commenced by believing, as a premium for this humble and prompt docility, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The children of the patriarchs took offence at the terms "make you free." "We are," they answered him, "the seed of Abraham, and we have never been slaves to any man. How sayest thou, You shall be free?" They would have spoken with more truth, had they spoken with more modesty. These men, who were so proud of their liberty, had been slaves in Egypt and in Babylon, and they were then actually subject to the Romans. But Jesus Christ wished to teach them that there is a slavery more shameful still than that exterior and transient slavery which is not incompatible with the liberty of the children of God. It was, therefore, with a view to impress them further with this important truth, and to fix it firmly in their minds, that "Jesus answered them [*with a sort of oath]: Amen, amen, I say unto you: whosoever committeth sin (6) is the servant *Espèce de serment.-The French expression of P. De Ligny. (6) The apostle Saint Peter assigns the reason. Whoever, saith he, allows himself to be vanquished, becomes the slave of the conqueror. In these words, as in those of Jesus Christ, sin is, as it were, personified, and represented, first as an enemy with whom we are at warfare; and then as a master, or rather as a tyrant after victory. We are its slave in many different ways: 1st. By the enslavement to sin itself. The will scarcely retains any force to resist sin, and the habit of committing it becomes a species of necessity. 2d. By subjection to the demon, the father of sin and the tyrant of all sinners, over whom he acquires those rights which he begins to exercise in this life, and which shall render him eternally the master and the executioner of their souls and bodies. 3d. We are enslaved by sin, and we are, in a certain sense, its eternal slave, by the absolute impossibility of bursting its chains. All the strength of creatures is insufficient to effect this liberation, and God alone can do it by the omnipotence of his grace. Oh, sinner! even though you be a freeman— were you even the master of all mankind—you would still be no more than a vile slave, and the lowest of slaves, if you be the greatest of sinners. of sin. Now, the servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth for ever. If, therefore, the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed (7)." CHAPTER XXXVII. SEQUEL OF THE DISCOURSE.-JEWS FLESH; CHIldren of THE DEVIL, BY IMITATION.-JESUS CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM, ACCORDING TO THE THE preceding instructions are addressed, at least in part, to those who had believed in the Saviour; not so the words which immediately follow. Although it does not appear that Jesus Christ interrupted his discourse, yet he here treats his hearers as murderers and children of the devil. We cannot conceive how such reproaches could apply to these new believers; it can only be explained in one or other of these two ways. Either the faithful were mixed up with the crowd of unbelievers, where the eye of Jesus Christ well knew how to distinguish them, although there was no outward mark whereby men could know them. In this supposition, the commencement of this discourse might have been to them, and the sequel to others. Or, perhaps these fickle converts, irritated, because he seemed to treat them as slaves, had passed suddenly from faith in his doctrine to hatred towards his person, and entered into the de (7) Neither Abraham, nor Moses, nor the prophets possessed the power to emancipate them. These great men themselves could only have been made free by the Son. He had raised them from the rank of slaves to that of children, by associating them through grace in the divine filiation, which he alone possesses by nature. By this title they and all the just who either existed before or after the Incarnation, shall dwell eternally in the house; that is to say, in alliance with God. Whereas, the incredulous Jews are already visibly excluded; so, likewise, impenitent sinners are invisibly excluded at the moment of death; and both one and the other shall be visibly excluded, and in the most conspicuous manner, at the day of judgment that day when the last and universal discrimination between the children and the slaves shall be made in the presence of all creatures. sign of putting him to death. This will not appear impossible to those who know the temper of the mob, and the strange revolutions that a single word, when misunderstood, may bring about amongst them in an instant. However, the first of these two explanations is the most natural and the most likely. Whatever it was, Jesus continued to speak thus: (a) "I know that you are the children of Abraham; but you seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with my Father; and you do the things which you have seen with your father." He gives them to understand that, besides Abraham, who was their father according to the flesh, and who was also his, there was, on either side, another father, whose spirit they imbibed, and whose works they copied. God, who is the Father of Jesus Christ by nature, was also his Father in the sense we have just mentioned. It is easy to guess whose children these perverse men were by imitation and resemblance. But, as they were then thinking of Abraham only, "they answered him, and said [a second time]: Abraham is our father. If you be the children of Abraham, saith Jesus to them, do [therefore] the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who have spoken the truth to you, which I have heard of God. This Abraham did not. You do the works of your father." Then they at last understood that the question was not of carnal filiation, but of that which is according to the Spirit. As they were more disposed to glory in the latter than the former, "they said, therefore, to him [arrogantly]: We are not born of fornication; we have one father, even God." The word fornication is so often employed in Scripture to signify idolatry, that, apparently, they wished to repudiate the charge of being idolaters, since they allege this as a proof that God alone is their father. But the belief in one God is not sufficient to establish this. The Jews of the present time-the impious whom we name Deists-nay, the demons themselves, acknowledge only one God, and, notwithstanding that acknowledgment, they are not his children. No one can ever be such except by adding love to knowledge, and (a) St. John, viii. 37-59. to the faith of one God that of Jesus Christ, his son and envoy. True faith, faith which justifies, and gives children to God, rests entirely on this double foundation, as Jesus Christ elsewhere said, and as he is going to declare to them from this very hour. "He, therefore, said to them: If God were your father, you would, indeed, love me; for from God I proceeded and came. For I came not of myself, but hesent me. Why [therefore] do you not know my speech? Because you cannot hear my word." Jesus Christ had given them, in point of fact, all the proofs which could be required by reasonable minds. Every vestige of reason was taken away from their incredulity, leaving it none other but the furious and envenomed hatred wherewith they regarded him. It alone stoppeth the ears of these deaf asps, so that they will not hear the sweet accent of his voice which charmeth wisely (Psalms, lvii. 5, 6); and truth was odious to them solely because they could not endure him who spoke it to them. Although it be not rare to find among men examples of the like malignity, it seems, nevertheless, to be more natural to the devils. This it was that the Saviour had endeavored to make them understand up to that time, but with delicate caution; yet at length he speaks openly, and says to them, without reserve: "You are of your father, the devil; and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning (1), and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him (2). When (1) When he persuaded the first man to eat that fruit, of which it had been said : What day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death. This blow was mortal to all mankind; and, by striking this blow, the demon slew all men without exception. He is, therefore, pre-eminently a murderer, and in this sense the only murderer, inasmuch as other murderers only accelerate the inevitable effect of the blow which he has struck. The latter, nevertheless, are justly styled his children, because they imitate his wickedness, and that they all do the same kind of mischief as far as it is in their power. But this qualification was still more applicable to the Jews, because, by seeking to murder Jesus Christ, they sought, as far as it lay in their power, and as Saint Peter reproached them for doing, to destroy the author of life—he who, by resuscitating all men, would fully repair the evil which Satan hath done. True it is, that so great a good was to be the fruit of his death. But they knew it not; and their malice would not have been less fatal to mankind than that of Satan, if, whilst they deprived the Saviour of life, they could also have stripped him of his power. (2) He is no longer inclined to state the truth, which was a consequence of the original rectitude in which he was created. He stood not in the truth; therefore he |