Let us resume; and
follow me.
Betrayed and abandoned by cowardly disciples; such, O divine Savior,
has been Thy destiny. But it was not enough that the apostles, the
first men whom Thou didst choose for Thine own, in violation of the
most holy engagement, should have forsaken Thee in the last scene of
Thy life; that one of them should have sold Thee, another renounced
Thee, and all disgraced themselves by a flight which was, perhaps, the
most sensible of all the wounds that Thou didst feel in dying. This
wound must be again opened by a thousand acts of infidelity yet more
scandalous. Even in the Christian ages we must see men bearing the
character of Thy disciples, and not having the resolution to sustain
it; Christians, prevaricators, and deserters from their faith;
Christians ashamed of declaring themselves for Thee, not daring to
appear what they are, renouncing at least in the exterior what they
have profest, flying when they ought to fight; in a word, Christians
in form, ready to follow Thee even to the Supper when in prosperity,
and while it required no sacrifice, but resolved to abandon Thee in
the moment of temptation.
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