Now, my dear friends, it does seem to me, that if anything can grieve the Spirit of Christ, and the sacred heart of Jesus, this is the way to grieve him.  Oh read your Bibles, and you will see this, that whatever Jesus came down on earth for, it certainly was not to make men love him better than they love the Father, and honour him more than they honour the Father, and rob the Father of his glory, to give it to Jesus.  What did the Lord Jesus say himself?  That he did not come to seek his own honour, or shew forth his own glory, or do his own will:  but his Father’s honour, his Father’s glory, his Father’s will.  Though he was equal with the Father, as touching his Godhead, yet he disguised himself, if I may so say, and took on him the form of a servant, and was despised and rejected of men.  Why!  That men might honour his Father rather than him.  That men might not be so dazzled by his glory, as to forget his Father’s glory.  Therefore he bade his apostles, while he was on earth, tell no man that he was the Christ.  Therefore, when he worked his work of love and mercy, he took care to tell the Jews that they were not his works, but the works of his Father who sent him; that he was not doing his own will, but his Father’s.  Therefore he was always preaching of the Father in heaven, and holding him up to men as the perfection of all love and goodness and glory:  and only once or twice, it seems, when he was compelled, as it were, for very truth’s sake, did he say openly who he was, and claim his co-equal and co-eternal glory, saying, ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’

And, after all this, if anything can grieve him now, must it not grieve him to see men fancying that he is better than his Father is, more loving and merciful than his Father is, more worthy of our trust, and faith, and adoration, and gratitude than his Father is?—­ His Father, for whose honour he was jealous with a divine jealousy—­ His Father, who, he knows well, loved the world which shrinks from him so well that he spared not his only begotten Son, but freely gave him up for it.

Oh, my friends, believe me, if any sin of man can add a fresh thorn to Christ’s crown, it is to see men, under pretence of honouring him, dishonouring his Father.  For just think for once of this—­What nobler feeling on earth than the love of a son to his father?  What greater pain to a good son than to see his father dishonoured, and put down below him?  But what is the love of an earthly son to an earthly father, compared to the love of The Son to the Father?  What is the jealousy of an earthly son for his father’s honour, compared with the jealousy of God the Son for God the Father’s honour?