“And The Word was made Flesh and dwelt
among us (and we beheld His Glory, the Glory as of The Only Begotten of The
Father), full of Grace and Truth.”—
STEROTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 82 & 84 Beekman Street. |
E. O. JENKINS PRINTER, 22 & 24 Frankfort St. |
THE following able analysis of this work is from a review of it in the columns of “The London Morning Advertiser,” of June 1, 1855:—
“This work belongs to the highest class of the productions of modern disciplined genius. The author modestly intimates only the simple truth when, in the preface, he states that the construction, if not the idea, of his high argument, is new to the world. Its materials are obtained by a wise and severe application of the inductive method of discovering truth, to those general portions of the evangelic narratives, which are readily acknowledged to be undoubtedly historical by the most profound and frank skeptics.
“The author consents, for the sake of argument, to leave out of view all that is miraculous. He gathers together some of the facts, with their teachings, which present to men the manhood of Jesus, and endeavors to prove that such a manhood, under the particular outer conditions, can only be possible by the presence and union of Godhead.
“We can not, in our very limited space, do more than give
a brief, though not unpremeditated, description of the work. We take up the book
as seekers after truth, and our author speedily introduces us to ‘the outer conditions
of the Life of Christ.’ Without perplexing us with too minute details, or with innumerable
theories, Mr. Young leads us into the immediate presence of great historical facts.
We pause in their presence only long enough to see and understand clearly the great
realities themselves: and we are hurried onward to the next step in his argument—‘The Work of Christ among Men.’ This is handled somewhat more fully, as was becoming
so high and regal a theme; but even here he will not allow us to delay too long.
As illustrations can at best only shadow forth ale writer’s own conceptions of his
subject, the author indulges in but few. The spirit
“In all the three parts of the work it is demonstrated that the only philosophy that can satisfy the facts of the case lies in the doctrine of the Incarnation of Divinity. The Incarnation is ‘the enlightening fact.’ The argument cumulates in force as we are brought nearer and nearer to this mysterious Being, until it finally becomes so irresistible that we anticipate the inquiring look of our guide, by the confession, that only the doctrine of the Incarnation of Divinity can harmonize the phenomena which history affirms were actually harmonized in the life of Jesus. A joyous smile instantly lights up the countenance of our guide when he adds: ‘Grant the fact of the Incarnation of Divinity, and you grant that which demands the miraculous and divine as its necessary and natural companions. In the person and life of Jesus, the miraculous becomes natural and inevitable. The evangelical narratives are justified, and raised above suspicion. The world has a Saviour.’
“We would express our own obligations to Mr. Young for the help given us in perceiving the consistency and unity of the life of Jesus. We heartily recommend this book to all earnest thinkers, for such alone know the worth of a helpful book. Mr. Young has succeeded admirably in condensing his great argument into the small compass of 260 pages—no insignificant achievement in this age of ours. There are many minor matters we wish corrected; but these sink into nothingness by the side of the feeling, of which we are conscious while studying this volume: that this method, by its severe simplicity and directness, excites within us feelings of devotion and adoration. We may describe the book as one of the best works, in modern English, for introducing us to the knowledge and life of Jesus.”
THIS book appeals to those who are prepared to treat, if with severe, yet also with dispassionate criticism, one of the gravest subjects of human inquiry. It is not formally controversial, but it is virtually so, and is offered as a humble contribution in aid of other more elaborate efforts to correct and repel an indiscriminating infidelity.
The argument, in its idea, certainly in its construction, differs materially from those by which the truth it would establish has usually been supported. It is also purposely cumulative, and—if the conception be just and the execution answer at all to the conception—it must increase in force with the successive steps, and will be the weightiest at the close.
A profound mystery is here commended to
London, 27th March, 1855.
ANALYSIS.
INTRODUCTION. |
|
PAGE | |
Usual Form of the Argument.—Another Species of Proof.—Earthly Life of Jesus, not sufficiently investigated.—Ms Humanity alone, assumed here.—Inspiration, not essential in this Argument—General historical Validity of the Gospels assumed.—The Life they record, not mythical, but real.—“Behold the Man” |
19 |
BOOK FIRST. |
|
THE OUTER CONDITIONS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. |
|
PART I. |
|
HIS SOCIAL POSITION. |
|
His Mother, her views respecting Him, and their Origin.—The Influence of these on Him.—Nothing else in the early Life of Jesus, favorable to his subsequent Elevation.—His Poverty, Hindrances in this to His Ministry.—“The Carpenter.”—His want of Formal Education, and of Patronage |
27 |
PART II. |
|
THE SHORTNESS OF HIS EARTHLY COURSE. |
|
Duration of His Ministry.—His Death.—Earthly Causes of it.—Intolerance
of the World, and His own unconquerable Will.— |
41 |
PART Ill. |
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THE AGE AND PLACE IN WHICH HE APPEARED. |
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Moral Condition of the Age.—Gentile World.—Judea.—Galilee.—Nazareth. Mythical Theory.—Irreconcilable with the outer Conditions of Christ’s Life.—These, undoubted Facts.—Not Myths.—Not founded on Messianic ideas |
50 |
BOOK SECOND |
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THE WORK OF CHRIST AMONG MEN. |
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PART I. |
|
HIS OWN IDEA OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE. |
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His Public Position, an Act of His own Will.—His Claim to Messiahship.—His Idea of Messiahship.—Not Temporal but Spiritual.—Not National but Universal.—Jesus, in this Respect, alone in His Age, His Country, the World |
57 |
PART II. |
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THE COMMENCEMENT OF HIS MINISTRY. |
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Dealt with the Age and the Country, collectively.—Their character.—Christ the Incarnate Conscience of both.—He, not conscious of personal Guilt—Began by rebuking, in order to reform the Nation |
67 |
PART III. |
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THE MARKED CHARACTER OF HIS PUBLIC APPEARANCES. |
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I. Severity.—Moral Condition of Palestine.—Scenes of His early Ministry.—Scribes and Pharisees.—Formalism, Hypocrisy. II. Tenderness.—Instances and Source. III. Simplicity.—General character of His Life.—Relation of His Teaching to Times, Places, Persons.—His Words and Illustrations. IV. Authority.—Testimony of His Hearers.—Claim to Connection with God |
77 |
PART IV. |
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HIS TEACHING. |
|
CHAPTER I. |
|
PRELIMINARY, GENERAL VIEWS. |
|
Record of Christ’s Teaching.—No formal Account of it prepared.—Mind of Christ, sole Fountain of the Truths announced in the Gospels.—Summary of His Teaching.—A universal spiritual reign of God on Earth.—“Kingdom of Heaven,” etc., etc., etc. |
91 |
CHAPTER II. |
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THE SOUL. |
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SECTION I.—REALITY AND GREATNESS OF THE SOUL. |
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Ignorance of Matter and Spirit.—Idea of the Soul Intuitional.—Universal Indifference to the Soul.—Jesus reveals it.—No formal proof of it.—His Teaching based on it.—Origin of the Soul.—Attributes.—Gospels teach its unutterable Worth.—Determines Man’s Place in the Scale of Being |
104 |
SECTION II.—THE SOUL’S ACCOUNTABILITY AND IMMORTALITY. |
|
Accountability belongs to the Rational and Moral Nature.—Activity,
Unconscious, Instinctive, Intelligent, and Voluntary.— |
112 |
CHAPTER III. |
|
GOD. |
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SECTION I.—GOD’S SPIRITUALITY, UNITY, AND MORAL PERFECTION. |
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Foundation of all Religion.—Being of God assumed in the Gospels.—An original Intuitions—Proof in our Nature of Divine Spirituality.—Angelic Souls.—Spirituality includes Life and Intelligence.—Vegetable, Animal, Intellectual, Moral Life.—The original parental Life.—Infinite Intelligence.—Christ at Jacob’s Well.—One Infinite, accounts for existing Phenomena.—More than One, contradictory.—Dualism.—Polytheism.—A Supreme among the Gods.—Christ proclaiming Unity.—Heathen Sentiments and Presentiments.—Gods of Paganism, their Character.—Jewish Misrepresentations.—The God of Christ, perfect Excellence |
121 |
SECTION II.-GOD’S PATERNITY. |
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Type in Men, Reality in God.—Childship of all Souls.—In Soul alone, a Likeness to God.—Authority in God.—Love.—Great Family of God.—Introduction of Moral Evil.—Fatherhood of God in the Teaching of jesus.—Parental Love, the moving Power of the Universe |
135 |
CHAPTER IV. |
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THE RECONCILIATION OF THE SOUL AND GOD. |
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Departure from God, Root and Essence of Evil.—Ever-widening.—Retributive Character.—Ruin of Spiritual Nature.—Union and Separation of Minds.—End of Christ’s Mediation, of His Death, and of His Life in Reconciliation |
144 |
PART V. |
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THE ARGUMENT FROM HIS WORK TO HIS DIVINITY. |
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Human Systems of Religions Truth.—Mohammedanism.—Hindooism and Buddhism.—Talmudism.—Ancient Jewish Scriptures.—Stoicism, earlier and later.—Errors and Excellences.—Socraticism or Platonism.—Philo-Judæas.—Life of Socrates.—His Death.—His Faith and Hopes.—Christian Views of them and him.—Christianity contrasted with Teaching of Socrates.—Solution, Christ’s true Divinity |
153 |
BOOK THIRD. |
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THE SPIRITUAL INDIVIDUALITY OF CHRIST. |
|
PART I. |
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HIS ONENESS WITH GOD. |
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Communion between the created and the untreated Mind.—Human Side of the Doctrine.—Effort to conceive of God.—Faith in His Nearness to us.—In His Love.—Sense of Dependence.—Veneration.—Trust.—God listening and responding to the Soul.—To Christ, God the greatest Reality.—Christ alone with God.—Habitual, original Union.—Walked with God. |
191 |
PART II. |
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THE FORMS OF HIS CONSCIOUSNESS. |
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Nature of Consciousness.—Its Universality.—Value of its Testimony.—Christ’s Consciousness.—Its Highest Development.—Expressed to the Last.—Interpretation of it.—Proof of Validity of his Claims. |
208 |
PART III. |
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THE TOTALITY OF HIS MANIFESTATION BEFORE THE WORLD. |
|
True Man.—Peculiar Susceptibility.—Sufferings and Provocations.—Unconquerable Patience.—Absolute spiritual Perfection.—Simplicity and Freshness.—Uniform Perfection.—Jesus a Manifestation, not an effort.—A pure Original, not an Imitation.—Alone in History. |
216 |
PART IV. |
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THE MOTIVE OF HIS LIFE. |
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Absence of Selfishness.—Presence of pure and lofty Motives.—His active Goodness.—Views of the Soul.—Love of Man as Man.—Gave His Life, a Sacrifice. |
285 |
PART V. |
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HIS FAITH IN GOD, TRUTH AND THE REDEMPTION OF MAN. |
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Foreknowledge of His death.—His Solitariness.—Never disappointed.—Truth a Provision for the Wants, Cure for the Evils of the World.—Attributes of God.—Expressions and Proofs of Christ’s Assurance.—Institution of the Supper.—Interpretation of these Facts. |
242 |
PART VI. |
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THE ARGUMENT FROM HIS SPIRITUAL CHARACTER TO HIS DIVINITY. |
|
Moral Aspects and outward Facts of Christ’s History.—A Character
such as His, not once realized.—Interests of Truth and Virtue.—Moral Condition of
Mankind, charged upon God.—Humanity in Christ peculiarly conditioned.—Idea of Incarnation
universal.—A Primitive Revelation.—A universal Want.— |
248 |
CONCLUSION. |
|
Incarnation of Jesus sheds Light on all the Wonders of His History.—Supernatural Birth.—Resurrection and Ascension.—Miracles of His Life.—Spiritual Meaning.—Typical Character.—Sophistry of Strauss.—Extraordinary Tokens of Divinity Demanded.—Voice of God.—The World summoned to hear and believe |
258 |
BOOK I. | THE OUTER CONDITIONS OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. |
II. | THE WORK OF CHRIST AMONG MEN. |
III. | THE SPIRITUAL INDIVIDUALITY OF CHRIST. |
Usual form of the argument.—Another species of proof—Earthly life of Jesus not sufficiently investigated.—His humanity alone assumed here.—Inspiration not essential in this argument.—General historical validity of the Gospels assumed.—The life they record not mythical, but real.—“Behold the Man.”
A CHANGE in the form of the argument for the proper deity of
Jesus Christ seems to be demanded in our day. Accepted and familiar proofs may not
have lost their strength, but they have lost their freshness, and they are wanting
in adaptation to the peculiar intellectual culture and structure of the present
age. Sacred criticism, directed to the historical, prophetical, and devotional books
of the Old Testament, and to the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, has
long submitted its methods and their results to the judgment of the world. Dogmatic theology,
also, connecting itself closely with the reigning logic and metaphysics, has long
announced its expositions of sacred truth. Arguments on this subject have been
accumulated in astonishing number, and have long maintained an acknowledged prescriptive
authority. But it is
A temperate and conciliatory spirit is demanded toward those
to whom we present the claims of religion and the exhibition of such a spirit can
not injure or endanger Christianity. With perfect safety we may forego, for the
time, the inheritance The pre-supposition (voraussetzung) with which Neander commences
his Life of Christ is certainly fatal to it as an argument, although its value as
an exposition of the Gospels, and a critical defense of their authenticity, is in
no degree affected by this circumstance. What he calls “the Christian consciousness”
(das Christliche Bewustseyn) is not innate but acquired, the result of education,
and therefore of no authority.—Das Leben Jesu Christi, Hamburg, 1855, Einleitung,
s. 4.
A still larger sacrifice, in the same spirit of conciliation,
will be found compatible with safety and honor. The inspiration of the Christian
records is not to be demanded here. No collection of writings has passed
through a fiercer ordeal than the books of the New Testament. The severity of criticism,
it may be safely said, the venomous malignity with which they have been assailed,
has no parallel in the history of literature, or of the religions
By far the ablest of the modern adversaries of the validity of
the New Testament, who has subjected it to the most severe analysis, and has
brought to his task the largest amount of learning and of philosophic power, has
admitted at least a basis, even a broad basis, of historical truth in the
Gospels. He concedes that Jesus of Nazareth lived on earth, and that his
character, saving the miraculous element so largely blended with the delineation
of it, substantially was what it is represented to be by the Evangelists. ”Das Leben Jesu.” Even Germany now consents that this attempt
to place the Christian Gospels in the same category with heathen mythologies is
only an ingenious fallacy, an elaborate defeat. One thing we must be permitted to
mark: Strauss begins his criticism by aiming to create a prejudice, at all events
a prejudgment Surely this cannot be too severely reprobated; it is unscientific,
it is unphilosophical, it is morally wrong.
The Gospels, then, contain the history of a life once actually spent on this earth. The writers relate on the whole what they saw and heard, and on the whole convey the impression which was left on their minds by a real, living being. It is enough. This lowest stand-point is enough. Take only the earthly life of Christ, suppose only that in a broad general sense it is faithfully represented—behold only the Man—He shall indicate and demonstrate union with absolute Godhead. Such a Humanity as his is utterly inexplicable, except on the ground of true Divinity.
PART I. | His social Position. |
II. | The Shortness of His earthly Course. |
III. | The Age and Place in which He appeared. |
THAT life on which it is proposed to found an argument for Divinity
was singular in the materials and the mode of its formation. The outward and the
inward aspects of every earthly course are mysteriously related to each other. The
age, the country, the physical organization, education, society, and the like, exert
an acknowledged influence in the intellectual and moral development of a human being.
Native force of character may rise above the accidents of birth and early position
and all the external conditions by which the soul is limited, so that it can never
be predicted with certainty, from any given circumstances, what a man’s future life
shall be, because we can never foresee how the action of these circumstances may
be modified, and what minute and delicate influences may either neutralize or assist
their effect in the progress of years. But the fact of dependence and of moral causation,
nevertheless, has almost the constancy and sovereignty of a universal law.
His Mother.—Her views respecting Him and their origin.—The influence of these on Him.—Nothing else, in the early life of Jesus, favorable to his subsequent elevation.—His Poverty, hinderances in this to his Ministry.—“The Carpenter.”—His want of formal education and of patronage.
IT will be proved that the common formative principles which have just been referred to utterly fail to explain the life of Jesus. His life, we shall find, stands out a mysterious exception to all the ordinary laws that govern the destiny of men. What He ultimately became, so far from harmonizing with his early course and his outward condition, was reached not because hut in spite of all the influences descending upon him from both of these regions. It was not a natural result of the circumstances amid which he grew up, but one which, unless to some hidden antagonist force, these circumstances must have rendered absolutely impossible.
We can recognize one specific agency, indeed, though only one,
which undeniably had an effect
Twelve years after the birth of Christ, an incident occurred,
which is the more remarkable, because it forms the solitary piece of intelligence
which is communicated to us respecting a period of his life, extending over nearly
thirty years. On the occasion of the Passover, the child Jesus remained behind in
Jerusalem after Mary and her Ἔτι δ᾽ἄρα, παῖς ὢν περὶ τεσσαρεσκαιδέκατον ἔτος, διὰ τὸ
φιλογράμματον ὑπὸ πάντων ἐπητούμενος, συνιόντων ἀεὶ τῶν
ἀρχιερέῶν καὶ τῶν τῆς πόλεως πρώτων ὑπὲρ τοῦ παρ᾽ ἑμοῦ περὶ
τῶν νομίμων ἀκριβέστερόν τι γνῶναι. Vita Josephi, sec. 2, in Oper. Geneva, 1688.
But this, be its value what it may, was the solitary agency
in the early life of Jesus helpful to his subsequent elevation; and except this,
not a single friendly element can be discovered throughout the history. All else
is not only not auxiliary, but thoroughly obstructive. When the whole of the conditions
under which the destined development of his character and his life was effected
shall have been carefully examined, it will then appear, we
The New Testament makes no secret of the place which Jesus occupied
in the social scale. The family from which he sprang belonged to the lower ranks
of life; Joseph, the husband of Mary, being a working carpenter. His birth-place,
the wanderings of his infancy, his home in such a village as Nazareth, his humble
occupation for many years, his dependence afterward on the labor of his disciples
and the charity of other friends, are affecting evidences of the poverty of his
condition through. life. The fact is noticeable in itself; but it is profoundly
interesting to those who find in his later manifestations a Being who irresistibly
draws toward himself their veneration, their trust, and their hope. They
believe him to be the Redeemer of the world, and they are astonished that, when
on earth, he was ranked with the ignoble and the poor. But the fact, as they dwell
upon it, becomes suggestive and quickening; they see that it is fitted to shed
marvellous peace into the bosom of
But the prevailing sentiment of mankind is not to be mistaken.
Even if this sentiment were not hostile, it is plain, on other grounds, that a poor
man must necessarily, just because he is poor, en counter peculiar and numerous
hinderances in forming and executing any purpose, however modest, for the good of
his race. His knowledge of the world, for example, his acquaintance with books,
and his intercourse with able and cultivated men, must in the generality of cases
be exceedingly limited. By the necessity of his condition, he is shut out from much
that is quickening and liberalizing, and fitted to impart comprehension, self-reliance,
and freedom. But in addition to real hinderances of this nature, he has to struggle
against a deep and almost universal prejudice. It is not supposed that any thing
great or good can originate with persons like him. Such is the evil effect
of social distinctions, that it is almost felt that nothing great or good ought to originate with persons like him; and that, if it did, this would almost
amount to a crime against the usual course of the world. The contrast between his
condition and his aims is painfully present even to himself, but still more to others; and the more aspiring these aims are, this contrast operates the more oppressively
and injuriously. The instances are rare indeed, in which a
In addition to the fact of poverty, it must be taken into account
that almost the entire of Christ’s life was spent in manual labor. Dwelling, till
he was thirty years of age, in the house of Joseph the carpenter, we are left to
imagine that he, too, was engaged in the same handicraft. But this matter is set
at rest by the question of the people, no doubt put contemptuously, which is distinctly
mentioned by one of the evangelists, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of
Mary?”
What direct and formal education he received, can only be conjectured,
but the high probability is, that it must have been of a most limited character.
Some of his countrymen, when they first heard his discourses, exclaimed, “How
knoweth this man letters, having never learned?”
High patronage has sometimes made up for the absence of other
advantages. But the poor were the associates of Jesus—his only associates from
Duration of His Ministry.—His Death.—Earthly Causes of it.—Intolerance of the World and His own unconquerable Will.—Shortness of His Life in relation to the Form of His Work—in relation to His Influence on succeeding Ages.
THE disciples of Christianity suggest that, had the Redeemer of the World lived to old age, the impression, at least on their minds, of feebleness, imperfection, and decrepitude must have been deeply injurious. They suggest, besides, that Jesus lived long enough to gain a full experience of the world—a knowledge of the duties, trials, and hazards of life—and long enough for the full probation of his personal character and for the completion of his great work for the world. Whatever force there be in these suggestions, let the simple fact of the case be here briefly stated: Jesus passed away from the earth when he was only thirty-three years of age. Thirty years he spent in Nazareth; for three years he ministered before the world, and then he suffered death by crucifixion.
The early death of Christ is one of those peculiar conditions which, it is believed, give extraordinary significance to his character and to the actual results of his course. This fact, viewed in connection with its consequents, is so strange, that it is imperative to attempt a brief investigation of the causes which led to it. In this discussion, the fact is regarded simply in its historical significance, not at all in its doctrinal and spiritual relations. The nature and design of Christ’s death, or its bearing on the redemption of the world, or the high and holy purposes which God might contemplate in it, are not to be considered here. The human causes only, which fixed so early a period to the life of Jesus—not those which lay in the Eternal Mind, but only those which sprung up on this earth—come within the scope of the present argument.
Among these causes, the first place must be assigned to the intolerance
of the world; the second to that force of will in the soul of Christ, which no
amount of intolerance could conquer. With respect to the first, the simple historical
fact is, that men could bear Jesus Christ no longer, and Were in haste to
put him to death. Spiritual truth and its advocates are offensive to the world.
The one and the other, indeed, may commend themselves to the human conscience, and
be secretly reverenced even where they are publicly disowned. All that is of God
shall finally triumph as surely as God lives;
The world demanded that Jesus Christ should die. There was nothing
in his spirit, doctrine, or
Jesus heard the cry of the excited multitude, and with awful
serenity and force of will he signified his consent. He would die if he
must die, but he would not deny himself. Individuals not of common mold and
not dishonest have quailed before
Jesus of Nazareth was able to die, if he must die. He was prepared to offer himself up; a precious and noble sacrifice, a nature just expanded before the eye of the world, a life in its freshness, vigor, and promise, and fitted for high service to God and man. In uncomplaining silence, in all the dignity of perfect meekness, in the gentlest spirit of love that the world ever beheld, he laid down his life. His soul, calm, humble, meek, and loving, was immovable as a rock. The intolerance of men met in him a force of will not to be overborne. If he must die he could die, and he did die at the age of thirty-three.
The fact which remains, apart from the earthly causes which brought
it about, is this, that Christ acted directly and publicly on the world only for
three years, and that he died in comparative youth.
He whom Christians recognize as the Redeemer of the world was
only a youth. Whether his religion be regarded as a system of doctrines, or as a
body of laws, or as a source of extraordinary influence, it is passing strange
that he should have died in early life. His brief period of existence afforded
no opportunity for maturing any thing. In point of .fact, while he lived he did very little, in the common sense of doing. He originated no series of
well-concerted plans, he neither contrived nor put in motion any extended machinery,
he entered into no correspondence with parties in his own country and in other regions
of the world, in order to spread his influence and obtain co-operation.
We are not yet entitled, to place the youth of Christ and the
other outer conditions of his life, by the side of his public ministry and his personal
character. But even here, an amazing contrast rises up, which we must suggest for
an instant. In the ordinary course of events, the memory of a mere youth,
however distinguished, would soon have utterly perished from among men. But Jesus
lives in the world at this moment, and has influenced the world from his death till
now. It is no fiction, no mere conjecture, but a fact; an unquestioned, unquestionable
fact. There have been multitudes in all the ages since his death, and at
It is time to remember that we are now only
laying the foundation, not constructing the edifice.
But this is the foundation on which it is proposed to rest the argument for the Divinity of Christ.
Moral condition of the age.—Gentile world.—Judea.—Galilee.—Nazareth
Mythical theory.—Irreconcilable with the outer conditions of Christ’s life.—These, facts not myths.—Not founded on Messianic ideas.
THE circumstances to be introduced here do not need extended
notice, but they are too important to be omitted entirely. The age in which Jesus
appeared, the nation to which he belonged, and the place where he dwelt while among
men, formed an obvious limitation around his earthly life. If there shall be found
any thing free, and catholic, and world-wide in the affections and purposes of his
soul, it must be remembered that he was born a Jew, one of a people who had been
long accustomed to over-value themselves and to under-value all the rest of the
world—a people who had become notoriously proud, narrow, and intolerant. He appeared,
besides, at a peculiar crisis in the history of that people, and indeed of the
world. The testimony of many independent witnesses proves beyond Joseph. Antiq. Jud. See the detail commencing,
Καὶ πρότερον
τοῦ τῶν Ἰσιακῶν, κ. τ. λ. lib. 18. cap. 3., Geneva, 1663.
Thus far our task is accomplished; however briefly and hastily,
the outer conditions of the life of Christ have been spread before us. But
it would be an unpardonable omission, if even here, special attention were not invited
to the fact that these are utterly irreconcilable with the vaunted mythical theory.
The ablest expositor of this theory, while admitting a certain basis of historical
truth in the Christian Gospels, denies altogether their authenticity as histories,
and maintains that the Life which they delineate, like the ancient mythologies of
Greece and Rome, is fabulous rather than historical. What seem to be facts he pronounces
myths, shadowing forth certain spiritual truths, and these he labors to show
were the very truths most firmly believed by the nation in connection with the expected
Messiah. His avowed purpose is to prove that by the aid of their imagination the
writers of the Gospels wrought up the scanty materials which they possessed into
a series of fables, each containing a spiritual meaning, and that meaning always
With the utmost confidence we can defy contradiction when we
assert that these principles are incapable of being applied to that series
of facts which has formed the subject of the short review we have just finished.
With whatever plausibility they may be brought to bear upon other parts of the evangelical
narrative, it will baffle the most dexterous criticism to adjust them to this portion
of it: “The corrupt and debasing influences amid which Jesus grew up in the village
of Nazareth”—“The shortness of his earthly course, and its ignominious close”—“His poverty, his humble trade as a carpenter, and his want of education
and of worldly patronage”—these are the things which we have put forward as the
outer conditions of Christ’s life. These were not only not in harmony with
the Messianic ideas of the Jews at that time, or indeed at any time, but they were
diametrically opposed to them. We make bold to maintain that they were the very
last things which a Jew would ever have dreamed of connecting with the life of his
Messiah. They are not Messianic; the most unscrupulous ingenuity can never
construe them into myths, or make them harmonize with national and traditionary
fancies. Whatever be fable, these are certainly facts, and would have been
eagerly concealed, if they had not been received and undeniable facts;
“Jesus was a resident in the village of Nazareth till he was thirty years of age. He died in comparative youth, when he was only thirty-three years old. He was a working carpenter; poor, unknown, untaught, inexperienced, and unbefriended.” We shall go to some obscure hamlet of our land, known chiefly for the extreme profligacy of its inhabitants—we shall go to the workshop of a carpenter there, to a young man at the bench, earning his bread by the labor of his hands, remarkable only because amid the surrounding vice, he has preserved himself uncontaminated—we shall go to this youthful artisan, not yet thirty years of age, born of humble parents, brought up in a condition of poverty, associating only with the poor, in no way connected with the rich, the learned, the influential, or receiving assistance, or even countenance, from them—we shall go to this poor young man, who has had no intercourse with cultivated society, no access to books, no time for reading and study, no education but the commonest, and no outward advantages of any kind above others in his humble station, from his birth till that time. Such, in simple historical truth, such exactly was Jesus of Nazareth; and these were the very conditions under which he developed his future character, and rose to his future position.
PART I. | His own Idea of His public Life. |
II. | The Commencement of His Ministry. |
III. | The marked Character of His public Appearances. |
IV. | His Teaching. |
V. | The Argument from His Work to His Divinity. |
His public position, the act of his own will.—His claim to Messiahship.—His idea of Messiahship.—Not temporal but spiritual.—Not national but universal.—Jesus alone in his age, his country, the world
IT is a fact that Jesus of Nazareth rose to a position of unrivaled prominence in the eyes of his country. Whether this may appear to have resulted, according to the natural succession of events, from causes which are at once obvious, or whether it shall be found inexplicable on ordinary principles, the fact itself remains; and no naturalistic, rationalistic, or mythic theory, can expunge it from the record.
Perhaps the broad and startling peculiarities of the age in which
Jesus appeared, on the one hand, influenced his mind, and on the other hand, prepared
his countrymen to recognize his assumed prominence. The great epochs in the history
of the world, when it is laboring under some intolerable burden, or heaving with
some new and urgent mission just ripe for development, find for themselves
It is certain, that no demand from any quarter was made upon
Jesus to attempt the emancipation of his country and his age. The eyes of the nation
were not turned to him and no party in the nation, perhaps not an individual, was
prepared to find a Redeemer in him. The transition from private to public life was
spontaneous on his part. The first thought, the matured purpose, and the decisive
act, were all entirely his own. He came forth of his own accord—he assumed
a public position, and was not compelled, or even invited, or even encouraged,
to accept it. This was marvellous. We can not but ask, did it not abash a man in
his condition to become, and above all, to make himself, an object
of universal attention? Did not his want of preparation, and his conscious incapacity
for a great public enterprise overwhelm him? Did he not
The highest end of Christ’s mission, whether in his mind,
or in the evangelic record, is not now the subject of investigation. His entire
life, his personal character, and his public labors would require to be spread out; and not only his life, but his death, with all its mysterious meaning; and not
only his life and his death, but the subsequent history of himself and his cause
would require to be examined, before we could reach even the materials for forming
a correct judgment of his mission, in its wide and holy significance. It is enough
at present to know, that he claimed to be The
It is historically certain that at this period the advent of
a deliverer was widely expected, and expected with intense enthusiasm. The Gentile
world, groaning beneath its burden of darkness and crime, awaited a supernatural
redemption; and Judea was tremulous with a hope well defined, and established by
the authority of many a sacred text. It was not wonderful that, in a time of universal
and high excitement many unfounded claims should be put forward, and especially
that among the Jews pretenders should start up, moved by personal ambition or patriotism,
or religious enthusiasm. Besides, it must not be overlooked that the appearance
of John the Baptist, a genuine claimant of religious distinction, whose success
at this period was unbounded, was calculated not to repress, but to deepen the aspirations
of other susceptible souls. Perhaps in this way, humble as Jesus was, the latent
spark of ambition, patriotism, or piety, was kindled up in his breast, and at last
in that obscure village, he came to hope and believe that he was “the elect of
God.” But a critical and vital question demands solution here, before we can consent
The Jewish Messiah, Channing’s Sermon on the Character of Christ, Glasgow
edition of works. p. 425.
We have looked only at one side of the popular faith. Viewed
from an opposite side, the originality and individuality of Christ’s idea will be
still more apparent. The Messiah, in the belief of the Jewish nation, was to be
not only a monarch, but emphatically a Jewish monarch; reigning, indeed, over all
the kingdoms of the world, but acknowledging a peculiar relation to the ancient
people; his throne being in Jerusalem, and his ministers and distinguished servants,
Jews. This belied at a time when they were laboring under a foreign yoke, had become
tenfold more dear; every feeling of patriotism was enlisted on its side, in circumstances
when, if ever, patriotism is genuine and fervid; not to say that, in this case,
patriotism was invested with the sanctity of religion. Last of all, the popular
faith harmonized with the deep hereditary contempt of the Jews for the rest of mankind,
with their settled persuasion of the distinction which God had made between them
and all other nations, and with their long-cherished anticipations of permanent
and undisputed pre-eminence. Nothing can be more clear than that, to oppose a belief
so deep-seated, to crush hopes so sacred, to disown the distinction between Jews
and Gentiles, and to look with equal favor on both, was to invite unmeasured and
relentless hatred, and certain disgrace See Whately’s Introductory Lessons on the Christian Evidences.
But, independently of any personal or public object which he
might have in view, how could he have failed to adopt as his own, the faith of his
country in this matter? He had been brought up, like others, in all the common
views; he must have heard them often from his mother’s lips, from. grave and pious
men also, and especially in the synagogue of Nazareth on the Sabbath days. There
is no reason to think that he can have heard any thing but the common views, from
his infancy upward. But he had risen, nevertheless, to a purer and loftier faith,
and somehow had formed for himself quite a novel and original idea of the character
of the Messiah. “The hour cometh,” he said to the woman of Samaria, “when neither
in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, ye shall worship the Father; . . . when
the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”
That poor young man whose external history we have looked upon,
was alone in his country, in his age, in the world. His great soul rose above religious
prejudices and errors, and above all national, educational, and social influences.
He stood forth not a Jew, but a man to fulfill a high and purely spiritual mission; embracing not Judea only, but the world; not a nation only, but universal
He dealt with the Age and Country collectively.—Their Character.—Christ, the Incarnate Conscience of both.—He not conscious of Personal Guilt.—Began by rebuking, in order to reform, the Nation.
THE marked difference between the views which are now held of
the office of teaching, and those which were prevalent in the ancient world,
must not be overlooked. Very extended freedom of investigation and communication was
enjoyed in heathen nations by all classes, without distinction. The priesthood were
not considered to possess higher rights and powers in this respect than others,
and any individual, without violating any law or any established usage, might found
a school and promulgate his faith or his skepticism. No restrictive policy, at least
as to persons, was sanctioned even in Judea, and even the office of religious teaching was not reserved for the clerical or any other privileged order. There
were rabbis, the heads of schools for sacred learning, and there were also scribes
and lawyers whose business it was to
But the voice of Christ was lifted up, and the world heard, as, indeed,
the world hears to this day. In some of the villages of Galilee, he first began
to speak, to individuals or to small or large assemblages of persons,
as the circumstances might be. He journeyed throughout Galilee, then throughout
the other parts of Judea, and was frequently in Jerusalem preaching and teaching.
It is the first tones of his voice which we now seek to catch,
the commencement of his ministry which we now seek to observe and interpret.
He began to deal with facts rather than with doctrines—with this fact especially,
that one great era in the world’s history was then closing, and another of higher
It does not rest on his statements only, but on ample historical
evidence, that that particular period bore the character of deep hypocrisy and ungodliness.
Rigid observance of religious ceremonies was combined with ignorance of religion
itself and with an utter destitution of its spirit. Gross wickedness was hidden
beneath the forms and the name of sanctity. Spiritual worship, the veneration and
love of a God of righteousness, purity, truth, and all moral excellence, was almost
unknown. There was a magnificent temple, an established worship, an ordained priesthood,
a vast and gorgeous ritual, and sacrifices, and offerings, and feasts and fasts.
There were also synagogues open every day and recognized forms of prayer which were
repeated, not only in private, but in the market-places, and at the corners of the
streets. It was even sought to invest the food, the dress, the looks, the postures
of the body with the sacredness of religion; and if such things as these
had constituted piety, that age must have been pre-eminently pious. But Jesus declared
that true worship is perfectly separable from these things, and is not essentially
connected with any of them, though it may consist along with them all. God looks
to the soul alone, to its genuine and unconstrained
Human virtue was as little understood in that age, as
Divine worship. A selfish spirit had consumed the heart of all true goodness, not
only as between man and his God, but as between man and man. Morality had become an
organized hypocrisy, truth and inward excellence empty names, and ritual observances,
which contained no homage of the understanding or of the heart, were the nail thrown
over unrighteous and impure lives. Jesus proclaimed the sacredness, dignity, and
beauty of moral excellence, and that, without this, there could be no greatness
and no worth. He conveyed to the ears of his countrymen, some things altogether
new, and others he announced with greater clearness and with new authority. The
greatness of humility and the dignity of love as taught by him, were new, and they
were too palpably unwelcome, as well as new, to Gentiles and Jews. The pride, ambition,
and covetousness of the human heart, the doctrine of retaliation, and the warlike
spirit of the times, were utterly opposed to this teaching. Jesus blessed and honored
the poor in spirit. He taught that virtue consisted in the patient endurance and
the sincere forgiveness of wrongs, and in kindness to the wrong-doer; consisted
not in revenge, but in love, in genuine good-will—good-will even to
Whether or not the ministry of Christ realized at the last what
it promised at the commencement, it certainly began with a faithful revelation to
that age of its own moral condition. The truest benefactor of any age, is he who
exposes and expresses it to itself. Self-knowledge is wealth and well-being, the
basis of moral reformation and of moral progress, whether to the individual or to
the multitude. In this case, conscience, stronger than the pride and the blindness
of the soul, brings up from the depths within an image which the man or the multitude
fails not to recognize; and the look of which, though it alarms, corrects and heals.
He who shall touch and quicken another’s conscience, who shall present truth to
it, and rouse it to fidelity,
Boldness and honesty are not always associated with becoming
modesty, and a keen perception of what is wrong in others, is very separable from
a quick sensibility to the faults of one’s own character. Had this Jesus, we are
entitled to ask, no share in the guilt of his country? Admitting that his powers
were extraordinary—that he was, as he seemed to be, able to descend below events
and manifestations, down to their hidden causes, and to bring up these causes discovered
and interpreted—admitting that in his recorded statements no want of comprehensiveness
of observation, sobriety of judgment, or impartiality of spirit, can be detected,
are we to forget, that he himself belonged to the country, to the age which he so
unqualifiedly condemned; and have we not a right to ask whether he, therefore,
was not necessarily involved in their guilt? It will be shown hereafter, and it
is scarcely denied by any intelligent and candid rejector of the higher claims of
Christianity, that the personal character of Jesus was unimpeachable; at all events
was in point of fact unimpeached. Proclaiming the sins of others, he, so
far as the evidence goes, was above suspicion, above charge; and in all
his utterances, there is nothing to indicate a sense either of personal guilt or
personal danger. It often appears, in what he says and does, that the spiritual
condition
The question imperatively demands an answer—Who was this, whose
mode of looking on human affairs and whose feelings were so original, so superior,
and who professed to be gifted with such uncommon insight into the moral state of
the world, and with such fore-knowledge, withal, of its coming destinies? What
right had he, to pronounce on the spiritual condition and the pressing duty
of his country? It is said, in reply to these questions, that the convictions of
his conscience were imperative? There is indeed no higher authority than conscience,
and no higher virtue than to bow implicitly to that authority. But how did it happen
that Christ’s conscience alone was thus clamorous, and that he alone was compelled
to speak out? A. man distinguished in the church or the state, venerable by years
of sainted character, and of large and ripened experience, may be allowed to do
what would be presumptuous in any other. But this was no gifted, experienced, or
distinguished character; no statesman, priest, or venerable sage; but to all mortal
seeming, an inexperienced, uneducated
I. Severity.—Moral Condition of Palestine.—Scenes of His early Ministry.—Scribes and Pharisees.—Formalism and Hypocrisy.—II. Tenderness.—Instances and Source.—III. Simplicity.—General Character of His Life.—Relation of His Teaching to Times, Places, Persons.—His Words and Illustrations.—IV. Authority.—Testimony of Hearers.—Claim to Connection with God.
THE individuality of Jesus strongly impressed itself on his whole public life. It gave a unique form, as has just been shown, to the beginning of his ministry, and the same impress, but drawn with deeper lines, was left on his. entire subsequent course. One of the most marked features of Christ’s spirit and manner in public was
I. The terrible severity with which, although seldom, he
exposed and denounced evil. Friendless and powerless as he seemed to be—as in his
earthly relations he certainly was—he did not repress on necessary occasions a burning
indignation and if a voice of thunder was required to awaken and alarm that generation,
such a voice was lifted up and resounded Matthew, Mark, and Luke, passim.
Upon the scenes of his earlier ministrations, he poured forth
his indignant, yet pathetic warnings—“Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee,
Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which have been done in you, had been done
in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and in ashes.
But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of
judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art
But the objects of deepest aversion and abhorrence to Jesus were
the Pharisees, Lawyers, and Scribes, the leaders of the chief sect in that day,
the transcribers and interpreters of the Bible. He was strikingly more patient with
the Sadducees, the latitudinarians and freethinkers of Judea, although he decisively
condemned their principles. Even to the convicted and gross violator of the laws
of morality, he spoke with wondrous gentleness. But his severity was consuming,
when he turned to the high religious professors—the men of stern orthodoxy and of
saintly rigor—the admired but unworthy champions of Judaism. Hypocrisy, pretense,
hollow semblance, were of old, and they are still, unutterably abhorrent to Christ; and nothing was, or now is, so dear to him as simplicity and sincerity. If there
be still, as there were of old, men “who tithe mint and anise and cummin, but
neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith,” in whom,
however fair their exterior, are found not the living principles of religion, but
only dead dogmas and submission to outward forms, Christianity disowns them as Christ disowned these. The kingdom of God on earth which he announced and founded,
is the reign of living principles in the soul, not the
Against hypocrisy, formalism, pretense, Jesus lifted up his voice
in the severest tones. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
“Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.” “Ye shut the kingdom of heaven
against men, and neither go in yourselves nor suffer them that are entering to go
in.” “Ye love greetings in the market-places, and the uppermost rooms at feasts,
and the chief seats in the synagogues.” “Ye bind heavy burdens on men’s shoulders,
but ye yourselves will not touch them with one of your fingers.” “Ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers.”
“Ye compass sea and land to make
one proselyte, and when he is made, he is tenfold more the child of hell than before.”
“Ye cleanse the outside, but within ye are full of extortion and excess.” “Ye
strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” “Ye blind guides.” “Oh, fools, and blind.”
“Whited sepulchers, outwardly
But severity in Christ was exceptional and occasional, as it was terrible. It was awakened only toward certain aspects of the age, and only toward certain classes of character. Another and quite opposite attribute pervaded and distinguished his official life—the attribute of
II. Tenderness. The great lights of the world, brilliant
but cold, have not often reflected, much of this gentle virtue. Philosophers and
sages have deemed susceptibility of heart unbecoming their character and vocation.
A gifted and God-sent man, it is thought, must be superior to all the tenderer and
softer impulses of ordinary human nature; and it is found in fact, that when men
imagine they are appointed to act in God’s name, they at once assume a sort of holy
isolation and crucify the
The life of Jesus Christ is full of incidents, that reveal
surpassing tenderness of heart. As he journeyed to Jerusalem, when he drew near
to the city, he wept over it, and said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest
the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered
thy children together, as a hen cloth gather her chickens under her wings, but ye
would not!” “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this, thy day, the
things that belong to thy peace; but now they are hid from thine eyes!”
III. Simplicity very strikingly marked the public appearances of Christ. He was perfectly unaffected and inartificial. It will be difficult to find in the Gospels, even a seeming indication of disingenuousness on his part. No latent wish was in his heart to conceal any circumstance connected with his origin, his past history, or his present position, from the fear that it might be unfavorable to his reputation and success. There was nothing in him like maneuvering, desire to create impression, gain influence and produce effect. If men who are really great, or who would be thought great, contract eccentric habits, adopt a peculiar mode of living, select some wild and strange abode, affect a singular dress, or manner, or look, or tone of voice, we shall search in vain for such extravagances in him. He affected no singularity, he assumed no consequence; his dress, his mode of living, and his speech continued to be to the last those of the common people. He appeared before his countrymen simply as he was and had always been, not at all solicitous to adapt either his history or his modes to his altered position.
Christ had no particular building, like the Jewish doctors,
or the heathen philosophers, where he
Christ composed no formal discourses, delivered no carefully
constructed orations, but always spoke perfectly natural, making use of the commonest
objects and incidents for illustration, just because they were near, and easily
understood, and free to all. The lily, the corn-seed, the grain of mustard, the
birds of the air, the falling of a tower, the rain, the appearances of the sky,
these, and the like, gave occasion for the utterance of high and imperishable ideas.
And the language in which these ideas were uttered was the language of the common
people. No severe philosophical style did he adopt, no scientific formulæ, did
he introduce, no new terminology did he create, no rigid dialectic method did he
pursue, no high and hard abstractions, and no close and elaborate argumentation
did he affect. He conveyed his instructions in the most unpretending and
informal manner, and in the common est and simplest words. He owed literally
nothing to phraseology, to modes, to circumstances. Whatever influence he
acquired, and whatever power he exerted, it was owing to simple reality; in no
degree to management,
pretense, tact, or show. He did nothing—nor even seemed to wish—to suggest an idea
for which there was not an actual basis, or to make the idea seem any other than
the actual basis sustained. In his manner, his words, and his
Simplicity is true greatness, it is moral nobility, and reveals a nature too pure and too genuine to endure deception or pretense. But was this likely to have been the taste, or if the taste, the attainment, of one in the circumstances of Jesus of Nazareth, had he been no more and no other than his external life disclosed?
Blending with the attribute of simplicity there was a mysterious
IV. Authority, which marked the public appearances of
Christ. Those who listened to him often testified that “his word was with power.”
Aided, then, by the general views at which we have now arrived,
let us thoughtfully follow Jesus in his wanderings through Galilee and Judaea, and
look upon him in the village and the city, on the mountain side and the lake, surrounded
by a small and select company, or by a vast mixed multitude. Recalling all the facts
of his early history and his outward condition up to the moment when he entered
on his public course, our interest, almost anxiety, can not but be profound. What
is there—we try to satisfy ourselves as we ask—what is there about his general spirit
and manner as a public man, to distinguish him from others? Without regarding at
present either the subjects which he selects, or his method of treating them, we
ask, what is the general impression left on the mind of his qualities as a teacher? Are there manifest signs of his origin and previous condition, marks
And was this verily a young man just taken from the carpenter’s workshop, uneducated, inexperienced, and friendless? It was. But if so, was he only this and no more?
A more decisive reply to this question, and from a higher region of thought than we have yet ascended, may perhaps be found. Christ’s teaching itself may convert into certainty the conjecture which even his marked qualities as a teacher suggest. The words that fell from him, the spiritual doctrines which he revealed, may throw fresh light on his origin, and irresistibly lift our faith above the mere outward history which belonged to him. The inquiry, at all events, is worth whatever pain can be bestowed upon it, and it must be conducted with candor and with patience.
THE medium through which the teaching of Christ is presented
to the world, is very singular in its character. His disciples can
not appeal to any work from the hands of their Master, constructed for the purpose
of giving a full and systematic exposition of his doctrines. Nor did the
Master, in default of such a work from his own hand, select for this high task one
of the most gifted of those who were attached to his person, and prepare him, by
a special course of instruction for accomplishing the task with success. The Arabian
prophet committed, to writings dictated by himself, those views which he wished
should be connected with his name. The writings of Epictetus, Seneca, and the later
Stoics, yet extant, contain a full exhibition of the ethical and divine philosophy
of that remarkable school. Socrates has found historians
It is not to be expected, under all these disadvantages,
It must be distinctly understood in the outset that whatever
spiritual truths are taught in the Gospels, their authorship shall here be attributed
without scruple to Jesus of Nazareth. It was intimated at the earlier stage of this
investigation that there was incomparably greater difficulty in supposing that the
Christ of the Gospels was an ideal creation, existing nowhere but in the minds of
such men as the Evangelists, than in supposing that they had only represented
a real living being, and were able to represent him in the manner they have done,
because they had actually seen him. The argument is the same in kind, which we now
apply to a particular department in the life of Christ. It is every way more natural
and less difficult to conceive that such men as the Evangelists were, merely
record what they had actually heard
What, then, are the spiritual truths which are clearly and undeniably taught in the Gospels? Without attaching importance to every word and every occasional expression, without straining and forcing the language, and contending for all which it might be possible to prove lies in it, we seek now to give prominence only to so much as, it can not be doubted by any dispassionate reader, it contains.
We enter on this investigation with a feeling of deep solemnity and with conscious singleness of purpose, seeking not to exaggerate in any thing, but rather to understate the results of impartial inquiry, and desirous that whatever is here asserted, respecting the substance of Christ’s teaching, should be severely tested by an appeal to the Gospels themselves.
It could serve no good purpose to notice all the subjects of
secondary importance on which the mind of Christ may have been incidentally express.:
ed. His views of civil society, of the relative duties of rulers and subjects, of
poverty and wealth, and of the two conditions of human beings represented
One who for the first time should intelligently examine the Christian
Gospels, could not fail to be struck with the idea manifestly underlying their whole
extent, and often lifted up into singular prominence, of a Universal Spiritual Reign,
by the name of “the kingdom (or reign) of God”—“the kingdom (or reign) of heaven.”
Such a man would certainly reach the conviction that Jesus taught in a very unpretending,
but at the same time a very intelligible manner that the human race, without distinction
of Gentile and Jew, were destined to the highest spiritual elevation, of which their
nature and their condition on earth admitted. The noticeable fact is, that the youthful
Galilean carpenter
The doctrine of an universal spiritual reign opens to us another with which it stands closely connected. It is this, that the great battle of the world and of all time is with sin; not with suffering so much, as with that which is the cause of all suffering—with moral evil, the root and source of physical evil. The Christian Gospels are distinguished by the frequent and vivid representation of sin as a deep and deadly evil in the heart, as voluntary departure from rectitude, from purity, from truth, from love—in one word, from God, separation from Him in thought, affection, and will. Particular crimes—falsehood, impurity, revenge, avarice, ambition, and the like—are sometimes singled out for special reprehension; but, more frequently, the parent source of crime in all its forms is declared and exposed. The greatness of the evil stands out with appalling distinctness; its debasing and polluting nature also, and its plague-like power of self-propagation and perpetuation. In the teaching of Christ, sin is an undoubted and awful reality, the bitter cause of all that afflicts and crushes the world, the death of the human body, the perdition of the human soul.
The forgiveness of sin is as real in the Gospels, as its existence and its atrocity. The doctrine appears in a more expanded form in thee Apostolic Letters; and there its nature, its basis, and its limitations are stated with greater variety of language, and its different aspects are set forth by a multitude of figures borrowed from the ancient Jewish worship. But its importance and truth are clearly taught in the words of Christ. The nature of God, the perfections of his Being, and his relation to his earthly creatures, are so exhibited as to render forgiveness sure, and clear as sunlight. He who is true, and just, and holy, is also ineffably gracious: the burdened soul, crying for emancipation from evil, and trusting in God, has perfect assurance of pardon. The foundations of this fact yet wanted a flood of light which the Cross was to pour down upon them, and it was to be made yet more manifest how necessary and how glorious a thing God deemed it to be to forgive sin, and how intensely, how infinitely interested he was in this issue. Bat the certainty of forgiveness from God—unlimited and free forgiveness—was lifted up on high, one of the divinest lights in the public life of Jesus.
Pardon of sin—not as a doctrine merely, or even as an object
of hope, but as an experience, a fact realized in the soul—supposes the reunion
of man with God, and is the living germ of all spiritual excellence. The first necessity
of man is the recognition
There arises the doctrine of Providence, connecting every moment of our earthly life, and every event with the Supreme Power, and with an invisible world. It is seen that there are vast spiritual laws which overspread and enwrap the universe; sin is death, holiness is salvation. These laws are in harmony with the will of God, but they are eternal and immutable in themselves; not arbitrary appointments, not originated by God, but founded in the unchangeable nature of things. These laws are what they are, by necessity, and never were, and never can be other than they are. Amid the sway of these eternal laws, guiding their administration and reigning supremely over all, is the great God. Spiritual providence is his government of the world, by these laws, and in the exercise of all his infinite attributes. It is universal, minute, unslumbering: it is wise, it is holy, it is merciful: it is for, not against, the good; always for the good, putting down evil, protecting, nourishing, helping every thing that is good; bringing forth the largest amount of good with the smallest admixture of evil. It is terrible only to evil, it invites to reliance and hope.
The doctrine of Prayer harmonizes with that of Providence. It
rests on the fact of our dependence
Piety toward God is the basis of all moral excellence; and it
is a noble pile of virtues which is erected on this basis, in the teaching of Jesus.
Common and acknowledged excellences—integrity, truthfulness, purity, temperance,
justice—find their due place here; but, in addition to these, there are elements
either altogether or almost unknown elsewhere—humility, meekness, forgiveness, self-denial,
love to enemies. It is not only taught here that we should love others
as we love ourselves, and do to them as we would have them do to us, but it
is inculcated that the reigning principle in the soul must be a universal
and genuine
Genuine, glowing, profound regard to God and to man is described as a Divine life in the human soul, an undying spark from the eternal fire, which, once enkindled, is never extinguished. The origin of the Divine life—its supports, conflicts, and varying manifestations—are all set forth with simplicity and power. Spiritual truth is shown to be the aliment of the spiritual nature, “living bread,” of which if a man eat he shall hunger no more; “living water,” of which if a man drink he shall thirst no more. Spiritual truth, understood, chosen, adopted into the soul, is the priceless good; it is blessedness, freedom, power, and wealth; it is pure, exalted, imperishable treasure.
It can not be overlooked, that we have here, in a new form, the idea which at first we found to be the most prominent in the Gospel—the idea of a reign of God in the soul of man. The working out of this idea, in one or other of its forms, occupied the entire personal ministry of Christ. He lived for this, and for this he died, not to promulgate only, or to predict, but actually to found, a reign of righteousness, purity, truth, love, and peace, a spiritual kingdom of God among men.
The rapid and condensed view of the teaching of Christ which
has been presented, may be sufficient to help us to form a general conception of
its character, but much more extended and particular acquaintance with it is required
for the purpose
ON the very threshold of this subject we are arrested by the
humiliating necessity of confessing ignorance. That which formed one of the high
themes of Christ’s teaching—the soul—is absolutely unknown, so far as respects its
distinctive essence and nature. At the same time the ignorance thus confessed is
not peculiar to this region of thought, Tor that which we call matter, and which
is immediately and constantly before our senses, is as little understood as that
which lies beyond the reach of sense, and which we call soul or spirit. Is there
then any real distinction between the two? is there in the nature of man an actual
element answering to the word spiritual, something distinct from and higher than
the material organization? This is the question which has burdened and troubled
the ages and up to this day the only reply to it which at all satisfies the reason,
and furnishes ground for an enlightened faith, is that which finds in the soul
The fact is not to be denied, that the nations and
Without consulting the history of remote ages and of distant
lands, our own times will supply evidence sufficiently extended on this subject,
and our own country will furnish instances the counterpart of which, we need not
doubt, can be found in all other regions of the earth. Among ourselves, there are
human beings that scarcely know that they have a soul. A faint echo of the divine
voice may still linger in these sunken natures, and it may never be absolutely impossible
to awaken them and to make them catch the dying sound, but virtually they live on
as if that voice had never been uttered, and as if no echo of it lingered
within them. These beings, from their birth upward, have put forth no powers but
those of their bodies, and have conversed only with the objects of sense. The external
world alone—the labors, interests, attractions, duties, and wants which belong to
it—has successfully appealed to them. There has been every thing to deaden the sense
of a higher nature, little to awaken and stimulate it. The struggle to provide for
daily necessities, and still more the indulgence of low sensual appetites and confirmed
habits of vice, have rendered every thing connected with a spiritual world uncongenial
and alarming. In this way, multitudes among .us are scarcely ever disturbed by the
Jesus came to the world with this boon in his hand, at a time
when the soul was awfully unknown. An age of marvelous intellectual activity,
of high cultivation, and of abundant produce, of its kind, scarcely believed in
the soul. A few of the more privileged and gifted minds, a few wise and earnest
men, longed for inward light, and they found it in measure; but to the world generally
the soul was almost unknown. Even in Judea, gross materialism had darkened and enervated
religion. It seemed to be imagined that the service of God needed no intellect,
no conscience, no heart, no spiritual nature, but only eyes, hands, lips, features
of the countenance, movements of the body.’ To Jews and Gentiles, the soul in its
real greatness, in its noble attributes, in its vast capacities, and in its high
destinies, was practically unknown. There was needed, if not a revealer of
what was new, a
Who shall stand forth to tell to man that he has a soul? Who shall redeem the birthright so vilely cast away, and lift up in the sight of all nations the forgotten, forsaken, dishonored mind? Who shall read aloud the handwriting of God on the nature of man, restore the text once so fairly inscribed, clear it from all false glosses, all various readings, all mistakes and blots? Who shall give back to the world the Divine original, after the interpolations and corruptions of a thousand ages? Jesus of Nazareth has done nothing less than this. In his teaching may be found the reality (and not less the greatness, the accountability, and the endless life) of the soul, revealed with a luminousness and a fullness, for which we look in vain elsewhere.
There is no formal exposition in the recorded sayings of Christ
of the doctrine of the soul, its origin, its nature, its union with the body, its
powers, its laws, and its fate. None of these form the subject of elaborate argumentation,
or of brilliant discussion. There is no array of evidences on the one hand, and
no enumeration and refutation of errors on the other hand. Nothing like proof is
ever attempted. Jesus spoke to men, as if he knew that they did not need
proof, and that they already had within them the highest proof, of which
the subject admitted. He spoke of the soul,
The mechanism of the body is curious and mysterious, the earth
around and the skies above are full of wonders, the present life has its interests,
attractions, and noble uses but there is that within man to which, not in the frame
of the body, nor in the structure of the visible creation, nor in the machinery
of the present life, any resemblance can be found. Christ’s voice proclaimed the
soul and amid the degradation, the profound torpor, and the guilty self-abandonment
of the world, the sound was renewed and prolonged, The soul! the soul! And that
whose being was thus heralded, was in itself truly great. Its origin exalts
it marvelously. The offspring of God, and bearing on it the image of the Father,
the soul is great. Its attributes, incomparably higher than any which reside in
matter, make it great. Its vast capacities, also, and, most of all, its immortal
destiny, make it great. In the Gospels, the soul is often contrasted with earthly
things, and lifted up above them all. The words of Jesus are framed to convey to
the bosom of a man a solemn assurance, and to create a deep conviction of
his unutterable worth. As a matter of fact, they have done this in the most unpromising
circumstances, and have effected what all other agency fails to effect. The ignorant,
the uncultivated, and the vicious, have been taught by them
Accountability belongs only to the rational and moral nature,
and it belongs to this, of necessity. A river flows on in its course; but whether
rapidly or slowly, in a wide or narrow stream, and with clear or troubled waters,
it flows unconsciously
The spiritual nature of man belongs to quite another order of
existence. It is not passive merely, but active; and its activity is not instinctive
merely, but intelligent and voluntary. Here is Reason, here Conscience, here Will,
the royal power in the soul, the presiding judge in the inward tribunal, who hears
what the understanding,
Oftener, perhaps, than under any other aspect, Jesus represents
the human soul as exposed to that Eye which unerringly perceives all its
evil and its good, and he teaches that therefore there is unutterable solemnity
in every act of the spiritual nature, and that what a man thinks, feels, resolves,
or does, is the gravest of all questions. The lesson
It is often assumed that immateriality involves .immortality. It does involve indivisibility—the immaterial is the indivisible but whether indivisibility and immortality are synonymous may admit of some doubt. Matter is made up of parts it is capable from its nature of being decompounded and dissolved. But are we quite sure that decomposition and dissolution are destruction—are we not rather sure that they are not? Does not all the evidence on this subject which we possess sustain the conclusion that matter is not destroyed—that, though its parts are separated and its form changed, it is not destroyed, not annihilated? If, then, we can not argue destructibility from divisibility in the case of matter, it is palpably fallacious to rest the proof of indestructibility in the case of mind, on indivisibility, that is immateriality. The soul is imperishable, but the certainty of this must not be grounded on the fact that it is immaterial and indivisible. The self-action and self-government of mind exalt it immeasurably above unconscious matter, and above all animal instincts and faculties. Its intellectual, and especially its moral powers, its unlimited capacities, and its lofty aspirations, create a strong presumption that it is formed for a higher destiny than they. But a strong presumption is not positive proof.
The absolute certainty of the soul’s eternal existence is distinctly
affirmed by Christ; but the ground
Jesus Christ teaches that sin is perdition; not that
at some future day it shall produce death, but that it is death. From first to last,
throughout all its course, at every moment, moral evil is only death. Unless it
be extirpated, the soul can only die it may exist in the sense of simply being, but it is really dying rather than living; and forever, its existence is a
death, a process of perdition, whose final issue lies behind an impenetrable nail.
But life is the destiny of that nature which has been emancipated from moral evil.
There is a holier and mightier vitality than that of the animal frame, or even than
the physical life of the mind; that is, its power to think, feel, and resolve.
There is a life of life to man. God is the spring of pure being. Separated from
him by ignorance or false views, by conscious guilt, distrust, and enmity, the soul
carries in it the seeds of death, and in order to live, it must be restored to God,
and God must be restored to it, to its knowledge, confidence, and love. It is
this life of God in man which Christ’s gospel teaches is eternal; which not
only shall never be extinguished, but is essentially and necessarily immortal. On
earth, in heaven, any where, every where, throughout the universe, this is the
eternal life; the only eternal life known to Christianity—union or reunion of the created
This is brought to light by the Gospel, but nowhere else.
“The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
THE age in which Christ appeared, fearfully dark as it was, was yet not content to abide in darkness. Even then there were burdened hearts that did earnestly seek after God, and a piercing cry was lifted up from the depths of paganism for the true light of Heaven. Jesus came to respond to that cry, to quiet the troubled bosom of man, and to bring to his knowledge the only object of worship and of love. To reveal God, is a still higher office than to make known the soul. The doctrine of God is the foundation of all religion. Every system of religion must have a god, and the character of the religion corresponds necessarily with the character of the god—is, indeed, wholly determined by this, and will be material or spiritual, feeble or powerful, pure or corrupt, degrading or elevating, cruel or benignant, just as the Being for whom it claims the veneration of men recedes from absolute excellence, or approaches it.
It formed no part of the work of Jesus to demonstrate
the being of God to the world. The “a priori” and “a posteriori” proofs on this
subject, as well as the historical proof grounded in the alleged consent of all
past ages and of all nations, find no place in the Gospels. No trace of the argument
from the work to the worker, from the contrivance to the contriver, from the marks
of intelligence and design in the visible universe to an all-designing mind, is
discoverable here. The old hypothesis of the eternity of the universe is not combated,
nor that of the everlasting concourse of atoms in immensity, and their fortuitous
combinations, producing all the manifold results which we now witness in the creation
around us. The existence of a Supreme Eternal Cause is assumed in the New
Testament, as a first principle; and, as in the case of the soul, a direct and
fearless appeal is made here, also, to the intuitions and to the consciousness
of the human mind. It is in these, at last, that we reach the most satisfactory
ground of faith in the being of God; and it may be fairly questioned whether,
apart from these, the “a priori” and “a posteriori” arguments have ever by themselves overcome the settled
unbelief of a single human being. There seems to be a primitive faith on this subject,
which can only be traced to the same origin with the mind itself. It is congenial
and native to the soul to believe in God. Men may work
In passing from the Being to the Nature of God, we are compelled
to reason from ourselves; for from ourselves alone, from our own higher nature,
a pathway is found up to the Highest Nature of all. The common argument from effect
to cause is unanswerable, so far as it goes; the material universe proves the being
of a God, for the simple reason that every effect must have a cause. But the material universe does not and can not prove the spiritual nature of
its cause. The only proof, the only hint, of this is given in our own spirituality,
and nowhere else. The New Testament affirms the existence of angels, a race
of pure spirits, intermediate between man and God. The fact rests entirely on the
authority of revelation, but it seems to involve no peculiar difficulty. The idea
of unembodied
The spirituality of God suggests two leading ideas, Life and
Intelligence. God is a Life. The word brings us to the verge of an impenetrable
mystery, before which we stand in helpless wonder. The first step in the ascent
from unorganized matter perplexes and confounds us. We may be able to watch the
vegetative process in its successive stages, and to distinguish the phenomena which
mark each
Next above animal life is intellectual, by which even the lower
animals are distinguished in different degrees, indicating, as they often do very
plainly, that they too have their thoughts, their affections, their calculations,
their reasonings, and their plans. Here is life within life, mystery within mystery; but it is in man that both are revealed in their true greatness. Reason in man
surpasses immeasurably the highest forms of intelligence as it exists in the inferior
tribes, and at all events at this
But the God of the New Testament is not a quality, not an idea,
or a process, or a law, not a thing, but a Being, an Agent. He is truly a Life; but
as truly he is a Mind, The Presiding Mind of the universe. If created spirits
are endowed with high capacities, and enriched with varied and vast knowledge, what
must be the resources and the powers of the All-creating Spirit? “He that planted
the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed
Such a doctrine of God as we have imperfectly sketched surely
demanded, for its announcement to the world, a great occasion and an extraordinary
herald. But it was a Jew, a young man, a working carpenter, who published
the doctrine eighteen hundred years ago, and to a poor woman. After a long journey,
Jesus was sitting by the side of a well, in a retired place, when a woman of Samaria
came to draw water. She belonged to a people with whom any other Jew would have
scorned to hold intercourse; but he began to talk to her on the
This is a specimen of Christ’s teaching, not an exception to it. Thus uniformly he turned the thoughts of mankind to the Infinite, Ever-living Intelligence, and summoned the world to believe and adore.
The idea of more than one Infinite Being is contradictory and
impossible. On the supposition that there are two or more, they must be either in
harmony or in conflict. But if they are in perfect
But we have to do with the ancient, not the present, state of
opinion and of faith among mankind. The mildest form of departure from Divine unity
in the ancient world was that which was found among the Chaldeans and Persians,
nations certainly not the lowest at that time in the scale of advancement and civilization.
Their creed comprehended two objects of supreme worship, one the author only of
good, and another the author of all evil, and nothing but evil; of course, the
first a purely benevolent, and the second a purely malevolent being, answering to
the light and the darkness found alike in the natural and in the moral world. At
this day, we possess far higher means of unraveling the dark phenomena of providence
than were accessible to antiquity. We have learned to resolve physical into moral
evil as its necessary cause, direct or indirect; and for moral evil itself,
we have been taught to regard it as the voluntary abuse of the freedom of
the created will. We may be able to perceive that in the very existence of
a created will, there. was involved the possibility of
By the side of dualism, the enormous polytheism of the ancient
world reared its head. The deification of spirits evil and good, of the elements
of nature, of the signs of the sky, of human beings, of beasts, birds, reptiles,
insects, inanimate wood, stone, clay, was widely, almost universally sanctioned.
Sky, and earth, and sea, and mountains, and valleys, and forests, and rivers were
peopled with gods and goddesses. It may be true, at the same time, that every ancient
religion contained
From Egypt and Persia, from Greece and Rome, from idols and temples,
from priests, poets, and sages, we turn to the lowly Teacher of Nazareth. He proclaimed that God is One, and that the universe is one in its origin and its
end, and is under the dominion of one Supreme Ruler, the King eternal, immortal,
and invisible, the only wise God. From the beginning to the close of his ministry,
he proclaimed one true God. Every where always he proclaimed the One God. No hint
of any other doctrine than that of absolute divine unity is ever given; none other
is named or noticed. “There is none good but one; that is God.”
The occasion will arise, at a mere advanced stage of our inquiries,
for noticing with special interest the sentiments of certain heathen philosophers
and moralists concerning God. It is here cheerfully admitted, that these sentiments
are often very just, very noble, very strengthening, and very sanctifying, and are,
in truth, the early promise of a diviner age. Light shone in the darkness, and these
men almost saw the daybreak, and almost descried the first streaks of the dawn of
a hallowed morning. Some of their ideas respecting God, his majesty and his purity,
his wisdom, and even his mercifulness, astonish us by their profoundness and their
grandeur. But they were entertained, by few—oh, how few, out of the vast multitudes! They also partook more of the character of sudden and transient inspirations
Turning to the Jewish nation, from whom so much might have been
expected, we find that they had shockingly misrepresented the character, the attributes,
the doings, the very nature of the True God. In the prevailing conceptions of the
people, his justice was little else than revenge—his love partiality—his providence
special and arbitrary interposition—his revelation a cabalistic secret—and
Jesus of Nazareth revealed a Being necessarily opposed to all evil, and essentially righteous, true, pure, and good. All conceivable and all possible perfections dwell in his nature, and shine there in unclouded light. This God is Excellence, only Excellence, Excellence Infinite and Everlasting. The very idea of such a Being is Divine. Were there defect in God, even to the smallest amount, he could no more be the resting-place of the created mind; a dark shadow would fall upon his whole character, and a torturing and insupportable sense of insecurity would afflict the whole universe. But Jesus of Nazareth summons us to worship a Being in whom the intellect, affections, and conscience of man may safely repose—an object worthy of the eternal admiration, confidence, and love of all rational creatures—the Only Holy One, the God of Glory.
The relation which God sustains to man is only less important,
than his Being and the properties of his Nature. “How is God connected with
me? How is he affected toward me?” are questions of infinite interest
to a rational being. The answer of the Teacher of Nazareth to these questions is
The peculiar representation which is thus given of God’s relation
to man is beautifully suggestive, among other things, of authority, the very highest
form of which known in this world is the parental. The power of a sovereign, however
extensive it be,
The relation in which God stands to them sheds amazing glory
on intelligent beings of all orders. All souls wherever they are in the wide universe,
are brothers; all have one Father, even God. The immense brotherhood, the vast
family, it is hardly possible to embrace by any effort of imagination,
The first-born of God, the elder sons of creation, unfallen angels, are associated in the invisible state with multitudes of disembodied, perfected human spirits. Another division of the great family is found on this earth, and it includes a vast majority of the earth’s inhabitants. They are children, but they have wandered from their Father, have ceased to think of him, almost to know him, and with them God is patiently striving by his spirit in their minds and by his outward providence. A third division includes the reclaimed children of God in this world; those who have been arrested in their wanderings, have heard the voice of their Father, and have been subdued and won back to him. Between such reclaimed souls on earth and their God there must exist a singular tenderness of affection. They are his sons twice born, by generation and regeneration, his offspring at first, but also created anew and restored to him by trust and love. Of every one of them the Great Father proclaims, “This my son was lost and is found, was dead, and is alive again.”
But a terrible darkness overshadows the remaining portion of
the family of God, unreclaimed minds, human and angelic, in the invisible world.
The entrance of sin and death among rational creatures is a tremendous and unfathomable
mystery.
This great fact was announced marvelously often
Jesus of Nazareth reveals for the worship and love of man, a Spirit; One Spirit, the dwelling-place and Fountain of infinite moral excellence; a Being standing in the nearest possible relation to intelligent creatures—the Father of souls!
The world was ignorant of its high descent, of its Divine parentage. The mind of man, God’s own child, had all but lost the sense of its origin. Jesus came near to tell men that they had still a Father, and that their Father pitied and loved them. He came to wake up in the bosom of God’s fallen sons a cry after their Father, and to bring back the guilty wanderers to their home!
To investigate the doctrine of reconciliation, in the sense of
the theological schools, would require a much broader basis than the materials
which belong to our proper subject afford. That subject deals only with the
personal teaching of Jesus Christ, and with the bearings of his teachings as
he himself exhibited
them, on the wants of human nature and on the state of the world. It does not
reach the later expositions of the Christian faith by the Apostles; and still less,
that classification of its articles, which was not accomplished till long after
their times; and least of all that elaborated system, the boast of modern theology,
so minute in its details and marked by such rigorous regard to logical order. Two
subjects were prominent in the personal teaching of Christ—the soul and God. But
there was an obvious design in the selection of these subjects, besides their
intrinsic importance. In interpreting the soul and in revealing God, Jesus aimed
at more than simply communicating new
This ever-widening separation, again, between man and God, contained
within itself manifold spiritual calamities. God is the Fountain of infinite rectitude,
purity, wisdom, truth, and love; and the entire system of things created by him
in all its parts, and especially the moral nature of his children, as he formed
them, was an expression and embodiment of these principles. It belonged to the
moral nature of man as constituted by God, it was its positive destiny to move in
harmony with the Eternal Reason, and the Eternal Will, and thus moving, to be as
surely blessed in its degree as God himself is. The act of willful departure
from God, therefore, was not simply a violation of filial duty on the part of God’s
children; it was direct
But the secondary and remoter consequences of departure from
God were not less lamentable, than its primary effects. The laws of spiritual providence
possess an almighty, retributive energy. Never a wrong can be done to God without
its recoiling on the wrong-doer, with direful violence. Men were faithless to God,
and ere long they were false to themselves; they abandoned God, and ere long they
became strangers to themselves; first they dishonored God, and then they degraded
their own nature. In a world from which the true God had been banished the human
soul was trodden in the dust, and its holier powers and its immortal destinies were
shrouded in thick darkness. The first and highest relation, the relation to God,
being violated, all other relations were in their turn overthrown, and the spiritual
nature. itself became a disorder and a ruin. Separation from God is not a partial,
but a universal and unmitigated evil, it is death. The stream cut off from the fountain
must be dried up, the branch severed from the tree must
The union of minds, whether of the created with each other or
of the created with the uncreated, can consist only in knowledge, love,
confidence, and sympathy. For the real union of any two souls it is essential,
first, that they understand, and then that they appreciate and esteem one
another; that they cherish a mutual confidence and a sympathy in each others’ pursuits, tastes, and aims. Ignorance, dislike, distrust, and want of sympathy,
it is seen in a moment, must be death to their union; and, on the other hand,
that union is obviously more living and more real as their knowledge and esteem
of each other are increased, and as their mutual confidence, sympathy, and love
are deepened.
The reconciliation of the soul and God was the highest end of
the personal ministry of Jesus. He often spoke of this as connected with his life,
and as still more mysteriously related to his death. “God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish
but have everlasting life.”
Human systems of religious truth.—Mohammedanism.—Hindooism and Buddhism.—Talmudism.—Ancient Jewish Scriptures.—Stoicism, earlier and later.—Errors and Excellences.—Socraticism or Platonism.—Philo-Judæas.—Life of Socrates.—His Death.—His Faith and Hopes.—Christian views of them and him.—Christianity contrasted with Teaching of Socrates.—Solution, Christ’s true Divinity.
IF the representation of the teaching of Christ which has been
offered be faulty, it is by defect, not by excess. For our purpose it may have been
sufficient; but it is only by the critical and minute study of the
discourses and sayings of Jesus that we learn to do full justice to his character
as a Teacher, and that we gain an impression at all adequate of his
spiritual opulence and power. The words of this Being, even on common occasions,
discover a breadth and universality without example; they are always very simple,
but profoundly suggestive, sometimes of inexhaustible force. Jesus not only announces
separate ideas of the highest value, but his sayings may be likened to rich seeds
or roots of truth, from which spring up manifold living growths.
The teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, as we have attempted to describe it in the last chapter, must now be compared with whatever portions of professed truth the world has received from other hands, in other places and ages. A spirit of strict impartiality must guide the comparison.
I. The latest noticeable antagonist of Christianity is the system
which owes its birth to the genius, perhaps the piety, of Mohammed; and to which,
on several obvious grounds, no inconsiderable importance belongs. It has spread
itself over a large part of the globe; it is accepted by a hundred and fifty millions
of the human race; and is, in itself
II. At the opposite extreme in point of time from the religion
of Arabia, and not less opposite in point of character, stand the Hindoo or Brahminical
and the Buddhist systems. Our notice of them shall be very short, and it is on this
account that we have ventured to depart in this instance from the chronological
order. The great antiquity of these systems
III. We return to the order of time; and, beginning with the
age of Mohammed, and passing back from it toward the Christian era, we meet with
certain Jewish writings, to which it is maintained the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth
was largely indebted. The modern Jew asserts with much assurance, that all which
is really valuable in the sayings of Christ, was borrowed, more or less directly,
from the Talmud. That collection of traditions, and of expositions of the ancient
Scriptures, known by this title, consisting of the Mishna or text, and two commentaries,
the one the Gemara of Jerusalem, and the other the Gemara of Babylon, has long been
regarded by the Jewish people, and is still regarded, with the highest veneration.
We
IV. The peculiar poetical imagery, and the magnificent and gorgeous
diction, which distinguish many passages of the Old Testament, are palpably wanting
in the Christian Gospels. The lawgiver, the reformer, the poets, and the prophetic
sages of ancient Israel speak in the name of Jehovah, in grand and solemn tones; but in the New Testament
V. About three hundred years before Christ, Athens, rich in great
men and in systems and sects, listened to the claim of a new teacher, Zeno, the
founder of a new school. The system of the Stoics merits attention in this place,
not so much in its early as in its later form. It became at last a
theology and an ethical code more than either a physical or metaphysical
philosophy, and at the commencement of the Christian era, and for two centuries
later, it exerted no inconsiderable influence on the world. The names of Zeno, of
Cleanthes, of Epictetus, and of Marcus Antoninus, are not forgotten at this day,
by those who are interested in the genuine efforts of the human soul, and who watch
the strugglings of the light of God with the darkness of the world. At the same
time, it must not be forgotten, that the stoicism which is represented to
us by this name was the product, not of a single mind, but of the combined efforts
of many
It would be easy, without any injustice, to produce a humiliating
account of the errors of stoicism. We can not wonder that, on subjects which to
this day defy speculation, such as the essential nature of things, the reasonings
of the Stoics should be puerile and contradictory. The idea of infinity or incorporeity,
they were able to attach to nothing, except the vacuum which encompasses the universe.
An infinite, even an incorporeal God in the proper sense of the term, they knew
not. Philosophers of this school speak of the incorporeal reason, but they
can mean only the unembodied reason. Between God and matter they recognized
no essential Quidquid est quod nos sic vivere jussit sic mori, eadem necessitate
et Deos alligat. Irrevocabilis humana pariter ac divina cursus vehit.—Seneca,
Op. Parisiis, 1761, p. 78.
Large and just exception must be taken to the doctrine of this
school on the subject of moral excellence, its foundation, its nature, and its laws.
Piety toward God, as they described it, is little else than a callous surrender
to irresistible fate; self-government is crucifixion of the best affections of
the heart; the highest crime against God and
But, in spite of numerous and serious errors, the ethical system
of the Stoics was wonderfully grand, and wonderfully pure. When we think of principles
like the following—“that the highest end of life is to contemplate truth, and to
obey the Eternal Reason and the immutable law of the universe; that God is to be
revered above all beings, to be acknowledged in all events, and to be universally
submitted to; that the noblest office of wisdom is to subject the passions, dispositions,
and conduct to reason and virtue; that virtue is the supreme good, and is to be
pursued for its own sake, and not from In the Enchiridion of Epictetus, and in his lectures (both
compiled by his disciple Arrian), and in the writings of Seneca, especially his
De Providentiâ, De Sapientis Constantiâ, De Brevitate Vitæ, and De Vitâ Beatâ,
the errors and the excellences of Stoicism are fully discovered. Very touchingly
also, are we brought into contact with the system, as a personal experience, in
the Meditations of Aurelius. “Marci Antonini Imperatoris, eorum quæ ad seipsum,
libri XII.” Oxon. 1704. Especially lib. iv. cap. 10, 24, 29, 33, 34, 41, 44, 45;
also in some parts of the Noctes Atticæ of Aulus Gellius.
VI. Upward of a hundred years earlier than
About the time of Christ, or shortly afterward, a profound
interest in the doctrines of Socrates and Plato was awakened throughout the Jewish
world, by the writings of Philo of Alexandria. These writings are a compound of
Judaism, Orientalism, and Platonism; but the Platonic element very decidedly predominates.
It may be safely pronounced impossible that Jesus of Nazareth can have been acquainted
with the works of the Alexandrian Jew. It is quite incapable of proof, and
is most improbable, that any of these works were even in existence, in the lifetime
of Christ. If they were, it can have been only a short while; and nothing is more
unlikely than that Jesus, in an obscure village, and in the position of a working
man, had even heard of them, far less examined them. The fact, however, is interesting,
and it directly bears
It is not necessary here to point out the defects and errors
of that system. They are confessedly important and numerous. For example, Socrates
distinctly maintained the pre-existence of human souls, before their entrance into
the bodies of the present race of men. He taught also the transmigration of souls—at
least their possible occupation of other bodies after the death of those
they now inhabit—and, as the punishment of their vice, their occupation of the bodies
of irrational animals. It must be admitted further, that his reasonings on the immortality
of the soul are not seldom as unsatisfactory as they are subtle and refined. And
then, the last words which he uttered, desiring that an offering he had vowed to
Esculapius might be paid by his friends, are a melancholy testimony against him.
It was clearly his conviction, that a wise and good man ought to worship the gods
recognized by the country to which he belonged. Hence Xenophon expresses his amazement that Socrates was charged
with denying the gods of Athens, as if nothing could be more utterly groundless:
(ὡς οὐκ ἐνόμιζεν οὓς ἡ πόλις νομίζει
θεοὺς ποίῳ ποτ᾽ ἐχρήσαντο τεκμηρίω.—Comment. lib. i. cap. 1, 2. Berol. 1845. ὁ τὸν ὁλον κόσμον συντάττων τε καὶ συνέχων, ἐν ᾧ πάντα τὰ
καλὰ καὶ ἀγαθά ἐστι, καὶ ἀεὶ μὲν χρωμένοις ἀτριβῆ τε καὶ ὑγιᾶ καὶ
ἀγήρατον παρέχων. . . . . . . . . οὖτος τὰ μέγιστα μὲν πράττων
ὁρᾶται, τάδε δὲ οἰκονομῶν ἀόρατος ἡμῖν ἐστιν.—Comment. lib. 4.
cap. 8. 18. ἀλλ᾽ οὗν δίκην γέ τοι διδόασιν οἱ παραβαίνοντες τοὺς ὑπὸ τῶν
θεῶν κειμένους νόμους, ἢν οὐδενὶ τρόπῳ δυνατὸν ἀνθρώπῳ διαφυγεῖν,
ὥσπερ τοὺς ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπων κειμένους νόμους ἔνιοι ταραβαίνοντες
διαφεύγουσι τὸ δικὴν διδόναι.—Idem. cap. 4. 21.
The life of Socrates must not be overlooked, when attempting,
in however brief a manner, to οὐ γὰρ ἀνθρωπίνῳ ἔοικε τὸ ἐμὲ τῶν μὲν ἐμαυτοῦ ἁπάντων ἠμεληκέναι,
καὶ ἀνέχεσθαι τῶν οἰκείων ἀμελουμένων τοσαῦτα ἤδη ἔην, τὸ
δὲ ὑμέτερον πράττειν ἀεί, ἰδίᾳ ἐκαστῳ προσιόντα ὥσπερ πατέρα ἢ
ἀδελφὸν πρεσβύτερον, πείθοντα ἐπιμελεῖσθαι ἀρετῆς. καὶ εἰ μέντοι
τι ἀπὸ τούτων ἀπέλαυον, καὶ μισθὲν λαμβάνων, ταῦτα παρεκελευόμην,
εἶχεν ἄν τινα λόγον . . . . . ἱκανὸν γὰρ οἷμαι, ἐγὼ παρέχομαι
τὸν μάρτυρα ὡς ἀληθῆ λέγω, τὴν πενίαν.—Apol. Soc. in Plat. oper. Lipsiæ, 1829, tom. 1. p. 63. ὑμεῖς μὲν ὅντες πολῖτά μου, οὐχ οἷοί τ᾽ ἐγένεσθε ἐνεγκεῖν τὰς
ἐμὰς διατριβὰς καὶ τοὺς λόγους, ἀλλ᾽ ὑῖμν βαρύτεραι γεγόνασι καὶ
ἐπιφθονώτεραι ὥστε ζητεὶτε αὐτῶν νυνὶ ἀπαλλανῆναι..—p. 72.
The defense of Socrates, followed as it was by his death,
is perhaps the most remarkable, all circumstances considered, of human productions.
He describes the aim of his life—“I pass my time. doing nothing but persuade
you, both young and old, to care so earnestly neither for the body, nor for treasures,
nor for any other thing, as for the soul, by what means it may be ennobled in the
highest degree.” Οὐδὲν γὰρ ἄλλο πράττων ἐγὼ περιέρχομαι ἢ πειθὼν ὑμῶν καὶ
νεωτέρους καὶ πρεσβυτέρους μήτε σωμάτων ἐπιμελεῖσθαι, μήτε χρημάτων
πρότερον μήτε ἄλλου τινὸς οὕτω σφόδρα ὡς τῆς ψυχῆς ὅπως ως̔ ἀρίστη ἔσται.—Apol. p. 61. Ἐγὼ ὑμᾶς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φίλω, πείσομαι
δὲ τῷ Θεῷ μᾶλλον ἢ ὑμῖν, καὶ ἕωσπερ ἂν ἐμπνέω καὶ οἶός τε
ὧ, οὐ μὴ παύσομαι φιλοσοφῶν, καὶ ὑμῖν παρακελευόμενός τε καὶ ἐνδεικνύμενος,
ὅτῳ ἂν ἀει ἐντυγχάνω ὑμῶν λέγων οἱάπερ εἴωθα..—Idem, p. 60. λέγω ὅτι καὶ τυγχάνει μέγιστον ἀγαθὸν ὂν ἀνθρώπῳ τοῦτο,
ἐκάστης ἡμέρας περὶ ἀρετῆς τοὺς λόγους
ποιεῖσθαι, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων
περὶ ὦν ὑμεῖς ἐμοῦ ἠκούετε διαλεγομένου, καὶ ἐμαυτὸν καὶ ἄλλους
ἐξετάζοντος, ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος, οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ.—Idem, p.
71.
After the sentence of death had been pronounced, he tells his
judges that he might have escaped had he employed another method of defense. But
he adds: “It is no matter of regret to me now, that I have defended myself in
this manner, but I should much prefer death from taking this course, to life on
that ground (that is, having followed any other course) . . . . This truly
is hard, oh Athenians, to escape death but it is far more difficult to avoid wickedness.” οὔτε νύν μοι μεταμέλει οὕτως ἀπολογησαμένῳ, ἀλλὰ πολὺ μᾶλλον
αἱροῦμαι ὧδε ἀπολογησάμενος τεθνάναι ἢ ἐκείνως ζῆω . . . . .
τοῦτ᾽ ἦ χαλεπόν, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, θάνατον, ἐκφύγειν ἀλλὰ πολὺ
χαλεπώτερ ν, πονηρίαν..—Idem, p. 74. Ἀλλὰ καὶ ὑμᾶς χρή, ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί, εὐέλπιδας εἶναι πρὸς
τὸν θάνατον, καὶ ἕν τι τοῦτο διανοεῖσθαι ἄληθες, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἀνδρὶ
ἀγαθῷ κακὸν οὐδὲν οὔτε ζῶντι οὔτε τελευτήσαντι, οὐδὲ ἀμελεῖται
ὑπὸ θεῶν τὰ τούτου πράγματα.—Idem, p. 79. Ἔγωγε τοῖς καταψηφισαμένοις μου καὶ τοῖς κατηγόροις οὐ πάνυ
χαλεπαίνω.—Idem, p. 79. Εἰγάρ τις ἀφικόμενος εἰς ἄδου, ἀπαλλαγεὶς τουτωνὶ τῶν φασκόντων
δικαστῶν εἶναι εὑρήσει τοὺς ὡς ἀληθῶς δικαστάς, . . . . .
ἆρα φαύλη ἂν εἴη ἡ ἀποδημία. . . . . . ἐγὼ μὲν γὰρ πολλάκις
ἐθέλω τεθνάναι, εἰ ταῦτά ἐστιν ἀληθῆ.—Idem, pp. 77, 78.
After his condemnation, awaiting the hour of his martyrdom, Socrates
spoke in such language as the following, to the friends who continued their faithful
attendance upon him—“It would be ridiculous for a man who during his life has
habituated himself to live like one who was very near to death, to be afterward
distressed when this event (which he had long anticipated) actually overtook him. . . . .
Shall one who verily loves wisdom, and entertains the strong
hope that he shall find that which deserves Γελοῖον ἄν εἴη, ἄνδρα παρασκευάζονθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν ἐν τῷ βίῳ ὅτι
ἐγγυτάτω ὅντα τοῦ τεθνάναι οὕτω ζῆν, κᾄπειθ᾽ ἥκοντος αὐτῷ τούτου,
ἀγανακτεῖν. . . . . . φρονήσεως δὲ ἄρα τις τῷ ὄντι ἐρῶν, καὶ
λαβὼν σψόδρα τὴν αὐτὴν ταύτην ἐλπίδα, μηδαμοῦ ἄλλοθι ἐντεύξεσθαι
αὐτῇ ἀξίως λόγου, ἢ ἐν ἅδου, ἀγανακτήσει τε α̉ποθνήσκων,
καὶ οὐκ ἂσμενος εἶσιν αὐτόσε—Phœdo in Plat. oper. ut supra, tom.
i. pp. 116, 117. Οὔκουν οὕτω μὲν ἔχουσα, εἰς τὸ ὁμοῖον αὐτῇ τὸ ἀειδὲς ἀπέρχεται,
τὸ θεῖόν τε καὶ ἀθάνατον καὶ φρονίμον; οἶ ἀφικομένη ὑπάρχει αὐτῇ
εὐδαίμονι εἶναι, πλάνης καὶ ἀγνοίας καὶ φόβων καὶ ἀγρίων ἐρὼτων
καὶ τῶν ἄλλων κακῶν τῶν ἀνθρωπείων ἀπηλλαγμένη· ὥσπερ δὲ
λέγεται κατὰ τῶν μεμυημένων, ὡς ἀληθῶς τὸν λοιπὸν χρόνον μετὰ
θεῶν διάγουσα.—Idem, p. 138.
These were the words of a heathen, nearly five hundred years
before the advent of Jesus Christ, of a man who had never seen a line of revelation,
so called, and could have had no knowledge. of the existence of such a thing;
a man who lived in the very center of polytheism, who was himself a child
and an avowed disciple of polytheism, and who to the last religiously observed the
worship of
But, by the side of the best of all the ancient systems of morality and religion, we are now prepared to place the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, and, with this view, we shall first recall, in the briefest form, the chief subjects of that teaching.
“A universal spiritual reign, the reign of rectitude, purity, wisdom, truth, love, and peace, the reign of God in the understanding, conscience, heart, and will of men.” “Human sin, Divine pardon.” “Prayer.” “Providence.” “Worship.” “Human virtue grounded in piety toward God.” “Among the essential elements of virtue, humility, meekness, forgiveness, pure love, self-sacrifice.” “Piety and virtue, a true life of God in the soul.” “Spiritual truth received into the soul, the seed of this Divine life, and the germ of the reign of God in man.”
Yet more specially: “The doctrine of the human soul, its reality, greatness, accountability, and endless life.” “The doctrine of God, his Spirituality, Unity, Moral Perfection, and Paternity.” “The doctrine of the reconciliation of the soul and God; God in his holy mercy looking upon the soul; and the soul, in penitence, faith, and filial obedience, yielding itself to God.”
This enumeration is almost enough; there are doctrines here
of inexpressible importance, perfectly Ὑπὸ τοῦ ἔμπροσθεν λόγου σφόδρα πεπεισμένους ἡμᾶς πάλιν
ἐδόκουν ἀναταράξαι καὶ εἰς ἀπιστίαν καταβαλεῖν.—Phœdo in Plat. oper. tom. i. p. 150. Ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἥδη ὥρα ἀπιέναι, ἐμοὶ μὲν ἀποθανουμένῳ, ὑμῖν δέ
βιωσομένοις. ὁπότεροι δὲ ἡμῶν ἔρχονται ἐπὶ ἄμεινον πρᾶγμα,
ἄδηλον παντὶ πλὴν ἢ τῷ θεῷ.—Apol. tom. i. p. 79.
Christ, also, is the only teacher who always expresses himself, not only without doubt, but without effort. Socrates and Plato reach some lofty and, holy thoughts, but it is with great labor, and after protracted and severe study. Jesus Christ utters the highest truths with perfect facility, and presents them in familiar and simple language. He has needed no laborious and prolonged search, he employs no severity of argument, and gives no sign of effort. Truth is native to his soul, and his words are the immediate and natural and unlabored outpourings of the fullness of his mind.
We are constrained to ask, who was this Jesus Christ; what could he be, when even the sage of Athens suffers by comparison with him? While this question waits solution, differences between Christ, and Socrates, and Plato, still wider and more startling than those which have been named, crowd upon the mind.
First.—Socrates must have labored thirty or forty years as a teacher of Philosophy, and Plato a still longer period, both ever necessarily increasing their power, as well of acquiring as of communicating truth. Jesus Christ labored only three years.
Second.—Socrates had advanced to the middle period of life before
he assumed the position of a
Third.—Socrates, before he ventured to teach, spent many consecutive years under the most celebrated philosophers then in Greece, in studying all the branches of learning with which that age was conversant. Plato having before been taught by other celebrated masters, was for eight years a pupil of Socrates. After the death of Socrates, he spent many years in traveling into various and remote countries, in pursuit of knowledge in all its branches, conversing with the priests of Egypt, perhaps even the sages of India, certainly the philosophers of Italy and Greece. Jesus Christ was never beyond the limits of Judea in his life, excepting in childhood. He had access to no famous school and to no celebrated masters in his own or other countries. The common amount of education he may have received, and for the rest he wrought with his hands to gain his daily bread. In place of study, there was only manual labor up to the time when he began to teach the world.
The question must be renewed, and with an earnestness yet more
intense, who was this Jesus Christ? The three points of contrast just named
Even if the teaching of Jesus Christ had been inferior in substance and in form to that of Socrates and Plato, the overwhelming differences between him and them which have been named. would yet have defied all the ordinary methods and means of interpretation. But how much more must this be true, when that teaching is not inferior, when it has been proved to be incomparably superior! It exhibits doctrines infinitely momentous which were unknown in Athens and in Rome. What is still more, it may be affirmed without misgiving, that of all the spiritual truth existing in the world at this moment, not only is there not a single important idea which is not found in the words of Christ, but all the most important ideas can be found nowhere else, and have their sole fountain in his mind. From his mind there shone a light which neither Egypt, nor India, nor Greece, nor Rome, had ever kindled, which no age before his day ever saw, and none since, except in him alone, has ever seen.
These, then, are the simple historical facts of Christ’s state on earth, on the
one hand, and of his work among men on the other hand; and they demand interpretation. The supposition that he was merely a messenger
and a prophet of God, a man divinely selected and furnished for a Godlike work, does
not satisfy, never can satisfy, the extraordinary conditions of the case. The world
has heard the voice of many God-sent men, the organs
The work of Christ, and the outer conditions of
The case with which we have to deal may still further be briefly
stated, thus—“There are difficulties which every thoughtful mind must
recognize, when we attempt to connect the teaching of Jesus Christ with the
outer conditions of his life:
We assert, without fear of contradiction by any competent and
candid thinker, that under the conditions amid which Jesus was placed, such knowledge
and such spiritual opulence and power were morally and even physically impossible
to a mere human mind. God never acts in defiance of the nature and laws of the soul,
but always in harmony with them: we speak with reverence, God could not act
in defiance of the laws of the soul which he has himself established. This is
not the region of miracle, so called and mere physical omnipotence has no place
here. Mind is not to be forced. God could destroy the soul; but, continuing to be
what it is, God can act upon it only in harmony with its laws. Now, the fact that
a young man, only thirty-three, a poor man, a Galilean carpenter, uneducated, unprivileged,
and unpatronized, rose to a profound, far-reaching, lofty wisdom, and to
an illumination and wealth of soul which are without See Note A, at the end of the chapter.
Our argument is to receive important confirmation from another region of the life of Jesus. But, even here, that life has supplied presumptive evidence amounting to the strongest proof, of a doctrine which, awfully deformed and corrupted indeed, has yet somehow found its way into most of the philosophies and religions of the world—the doctrine of Incarnation, God in man. “They shall call his name Emanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us.”
This is the only other position which merits consideration for a moment. The idea that Jesus was more than man, yet not God in man, that he pre-existed as an angel, or as the first of creatures, we believe, has now passed away from all sober minds. It is so purely fictitious, and so obviously encounters all the difficulties, without having the peculiar grounds, or any of the compensating advantages of the higher hypothesis, that we question if even a solitary supporter of it could be found in the present day. Few or none who are convinced that Jesus was not, and could not possibly be merely man, will hesitate to adopt the conclusion, that he must have been God in man.
PART I. | His Oneness with God. |
II. | The Forms of His Consciousness. |
III. | The Totality of His Manifestations before the World. |
IV. | The Motive of His Life. |
V. | His Faith in Truth, God, and the Redemption of Man. |
VI. | The Argument from His Character to His Divinity. |
THE peculiar conditions of the earthly life of Jesus have now been examined. The time and place of his advent, his parentage, his social position and his early death, strike the least reflecting, and give extraordinary significance to his subsequent history. They therefore first received consideration.
It seemed proper, then, to look at the more prominent and public developments of a life which formed itself under such peculiar conditions. The position to which Christ actually rose, his own idea of that position, the commencement of his public course, the qualities that marked his public appearances, and his teaching itself; contrasted with the speculations and discoveries of other lands and ages, were successively reviewed.
We presume now to venture still nearer to this mysterious personality.
Advancing beyond his outward circumstances and his public life, we meditate a close
inspection of his inner spiritual being, the sphere of his conscience and his soul.
We seek to penetrate that holy place where, exposed to the eye of the Omniscient,
lie all the hidden principles of
The proper spiritual individuality of Jesus Christ was evinced in his oneness with God, in the forms of his consciousness, in his manifestation before the world as a whole, in the motive of his life, and in his calm assurance of Triumph.
Communion between created and uncreated Mind.—Human side of the Doctrine.—Effort to conceive God.—Faith in His Nearness to us.—In His Love.—Sense of Dependence.—Veneration.—Trust.—God listening and responding to the Soul.—To Christ, God the greatest Reality.—Christ alone with God.—Original, habitual Union.—Walked with God.
COMMUNION between the uncreated and the created mind is a contested
subject in the theological schools. We mingle not in the conflict, but venture to
express the profound convict ion that, if God be the Father of minds, then the idea
is very rational and very refreshing that he should mercifully regard his intelligent
offspring, and be ready to converse with them; and, on the other hand, that they
should seek to communicate with him. But it is a hard effort for the created
mind even to conceive of God, much more to commune with him. A perfectly just conception
of God is impossible. The Infinite can never be contained within the finite. The
utmost possible to us is to strive to approach, for we can never even approach,
however distantly,
To stretch toward the Infinite is the first effort the second
is to connect the Infinite with our personal sphere, our movements, interests, and
destinies. Nothing is more certain than that God is as cognizant of every human
soul as if it alone existed in immensity. The changes in our outward condition,
and all the passing shades of emotion and of volition within, must be instantly
perceived by him. His awful presence is unutterably near to us, the open Infinite
Eye gazes upon us every moment. When this faith is once reached, life becomes invested
with wondrous sanctity; but it is not enough. Does the Great Being who is so mysteriously
near, also love the creatures he hath made? Perhaps the open Infinite Eye is cold
as it is luminous, and in conducting the vast interests of the universe, God is
indifferent to what is passing in individual minds,
The mind of man in deep earnest stretching up toward the infinite
God, believing in his mysterious nearness and in his love, presumes to utter itself
before him. At such a moment, its first feeling is that of absolute dependence.
It is in the very condition to trace back existence, preservation, and all good
for the present or for the eternal life to the uncreated Source. Along with this
sense of dependence, there is deep veneration, not simply love, but such love as
finds its proper object only in God—love mingled with awe, love taking its very
highest form, the form of reverence. There is superadded simple trust, trust in
parental love commanding infinite resources, the confiding look and confiding heart
of a child. The mind of man gazing up to the Infinite Nature with mingled dependence,
reverence,
This is the human side of communion, but there is here, as
yet, no interchange. There is outgoing from below, but no response from above.
On earth the communion of one human mind with another is profoundly mysterious,
and it is far more rare than we imagine. Intercourse by looks, words, and acts,
is universal; but real mental fellowship, communion of intellect with intellect,
conscience with conscience, heart with heart; communion of soul with soul is excessively
rare. It is always and necessarily imperfect. The real and great differences between
one soul and another, and the consequent proportional defect of sympathy between
them, mental and moral incompetence and poverty on the one side or the other, or
both in different respects, constitutional or acquired reserve, shame, pride, and
fear, necessarily prevent the entireness and the freedom of communion. But such
as it is, it is real, and there are palpable expressions and tokens of it, and a
palpable medium through which it is conducted. There is no palpable medium of intercourse
between the human soul and God, and on the side of God there are no palpable expressions
and tokens of its reality. The region belongs to pure faith; we only believe that God
is responding to us; that is literally all. But this faith is
rational, and it is purifying and exalting. If one human
Jesus Christ possessed this privilege in a higher degree than
it was ever possessed by man, and he exhibited this excellence in a maturity which
was never beheld on earth before or since. On reading his life, the impression is
irresistible that his soul was full of God. The selection of a few great occasions
could not convey to us an adequate conception of the constancy Sand closeness of
his union with the Invisible Father. His labors were incessant he was in the midst
of the ignorant, who
But the deep yearnings of Jesus’ soul, the Divine force
within, often drove him into literal solitude, that he might give unrestrained
and full expression to his spiritual emotions. In every one of the eventful
crises of his life, he gave affecting testimony to the reality of his oneness
with God. “He went into a desert place, and there prayed.” See
Christ’s attendance in the temple or the synagogue,
Nature of Consciousness.—Its Universality.—Value of its Testimony.—Christ’s Consciousness.—Highest Development.—Expressed to the last.—Interpretation of it.—Proof of the Validity of His Claims.
THERE is an inward sense, the counterpart of the senses of the
body. These reveal the external, this the internal world. The eye and the ear assure
us respecting the existence of material objects; consciousness assures us respecting
the actual facts within our minds, our experiences, motives, thoughts, and aims
at every movement. In this, all mental phenomena is realized; by these all material
phenomena are perceived. Consciousness belongs to men universally; it is one of
the acknowledged attributes of the human soul, and not the least wonderful. Every
human being is distinctly conscious of what is passing in his mind at any moment,
of the evil and the good in him, his insincerity or sincerity. It is one of the
mysteries which are, nevertheless, undoubted facts of our
The evidence of consciousness is available only in a very limited degree, beyond a man himself. Generally the inward testimony is anxiously concealed from other men; through mere carelessness it may be misunderstood, or it may be designedly mutilated and falsified. But if a faithful report of it could be obtained—if we were able, by satisfactory evidence, to ascertain beyond doubt that what was said to be a positive consciousness was really such, this testimony would be as convincing and as valid to others as to the man himself, and we should reach a species of proof than which none can be higher or stronger. The Gospels profess to report, in Christ’s own words, the voice of his soul to himself, and it is this report which must now be impartially examined; Christ’s own statements respecting what he himself found and felt in his nature.
This Being, then, never uttered a word to man or to God which
indicated the sense of a single defect in his whole life. The Old and New Testaments
record the lives of many godly and honored men—Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Ezekiel,
John, Peter, Paul, and others; but they all confess faults and sins, and repent
and throw themselves on the mercy of God. Religious biography leaves on the mind
an impression of the same character,
But Jesus Christ uniformly expressed a distinct sense of faultlessness
and perfection. He never once reproached himself, or regretted any thing
he had ever done or said. He never uttered a word, to indicate that
he bad ever taken a wrong step, or neglected a single opportunity, or that any thing
could have been done or said more or better than he had done and said. Here is a
being who was always calmly, perfectly conscious of faultlessness. “I do always
those things which please the Father.”
There is a still more mysterious utterance of Christ’s inward
nature. We find him avowing the most extraordinary sense, not merely of personal
perfection, but of official greatness. “I am not alone, for the Father is with
me.”
But more mysterious, more awful still, were the words in which
Jesus sometimes pronounced himself. On several separate occasions he employed in
the hearing of men, language which human lips could not have uttered without impiety.
“Thy sins be forgiven thee.” “The Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins.”
The frequent utterance of a mysterious and distinctive consciousness,
on the part of Jesus, can not be disputed. To say nothing of the inspiration of
the New Testament; unless it be utterly fabulous and false, if even in the most
loose sense it be authentic, this is certain, that Jesus often expressed without
reserve a sense of personal faultlessness and perfection; and what is more, a sense
of the incomparable dignity and sacredness of his official position. In his own
conception, he stood between man and God, in a crisis of the world’s history which
had no parallel. He was alone in the ages, bearing a burden for which no former
age was ripe, and by which no subsequent age was to be oppressed. He was doing a
work in which he could have no partner;
Such, supposing the Christian record to be of the smallest historical value, is the indubitable fact. Can it be accounted for—can any important con-elusions be founded upon it—what does it really involve?
1. Perhaps some of Christ’s injudicious and overzealous followers suggested to his mind the pretensions which he avowed. This is not conceivable: for the consciousness which he expressed comprehended far more than any of them believed, or even understood at the time, much as they honored and loved him.
2. Perhaps the language of Christ originated in mere vanity and conceit. It must have been consummate, unparalleled vanity, if it was vanity at all; but this is plainly incompatible with the sobriety and solidity of his deportment. Besides, the idea expressed was too lofty to have had such a despicable origin; it was too spiritual, and too closely connected with God, with religion, with the unseen world; unless, indeed, he had been utterly reckless and profane.
3. Perhaps it originated in a deep-laid scheme of ambition. The prompt answer to
this suggestion is that such was not Christ’s character at all. He was no crafty
and designing hierophant or demagogue. His own declaration was simply true, and
4. Perhaps it originated in enthusiasm. Channing, p. 427.
5, Perhaps it originated in mere mistake. With all his excellence, intellectual
and moral, was not Jesus Christ nevertheless singularly mistaken on one point? Perhaps
he fancied himself greater and better than he really was. Without the slightest
intention to deceive, with entire sincerity and honesty, he uttered what he thought was the voice of his consciousness; but it was a mere fancy, a serious, but
not altogether unlikely, mistake. It occurs to us to ask in this connection, was
Jesus Christ also mistaken, when he uttered in the ears of men truths, which the
wisest and best souls ever sent into this world before had never imagined? Was
he also
We can come only to one conclusion, that the words of Jesus were a faithful and genuine expression of his consciousness—a consciousness which creates an impassable distinction between him and all men. In that true voice of his soul, there is the strongest evidence of indubitable reality. He spoke what he felt, and he felt what he truly was. His nature was conscious of the profound mystery which belonged to it, and he simply uttered this consciousness, and no apparent inconsistency between what he claimed and what he seemed to be, troubled him for a moment.
A young man who had not long left the carpenter’s shop, who at
the moment he spoke was in a condition of poverty, and was associated only with
those who were obscure and poor like himself, calmly declared his sense of perfect
faultlessness and of extraordinary relation to God. Is it possible, that any candid
mind can reflect on the plain facts of this history, and on the principles which
True Man.—Peculiar Susceptibility.—Sufferings and Provocations.—Unconquerable Patience.—Absolute spiritual Perfection.—Simplicity and Freshness.—Uniform Perfection.—Jesus a Manifestation, not an Effort.—A pure Original, and not an Imitation.—Alone in History.
CHRIST’S original and constant oneness with God prepares us to expect in him, an extraordinary elevation and purity of character. His mysterious consciousness, also, is the proof of moral greatness which never belonged to. man. But in addition to these, there is a proof of his spiritual individuality, which comes home more directly to the consciences and hearts of men, and is fitted to move them more powerfully. It is found in his life, as a whole, in the entire unfolding of his character before the world from first to last.
His identification with universal humanity can not fail
to be recognized at once. He belonged to no privileged class, and as an inhabitant
of the world, he enjoyed no protection or advantage of any kind which was not common
to all other human
But Jesus Christ was man in the wide sense of that term,
and was placed altogether in the ordinary circumstances which attend the lot of
humanity on earth. He belonged to the masses and was brought up with them,
unprivileged and undistinguished. His associations, all his outward relationships,
his speech and his dress, were of the same
Thus conditioned, Jesus had to encounter a difficulty of overwhelming
force, altogether peculiar to himself and arising out of the constitution of his
soul. In his own idea, whether true or false it matters not, he was born to a Godlike
work. A. mysterious purpose lay in his mind; it was to redeem and reclaim a world,
to recover man to God and to immortal perfection. This was the passion of his heart,
and the very nature of this passion, this purpose would necessarily render him more
keenly susceptible and more dependent on grateful appreciation. But he was unappreciated
and unsupported. Even his disciples, instead of fortifying him by their enlightened
sympathy, vexed him with their low and earthly thoughts, and without The Rev. T. H. Horne, in his “Introduction to the Study of
the Scriptures,” vol. i. p. 422, puts into English a magnificent eulogy of the character
of Jesus, by J. J. Rousseau. The piece, in itself, is surpassingly beautiful and
eloquent, but considering who its author was, it is beyond measure astonishing.
The original passage will be found in the “Emile, on de l’Education,” liv. 4. Œuvres,
tom. ii. p. 91, 92.—Frankfort, 1762.
Was ever man like this? Was such a manifestation of a human soul ever even imagined? Certainly never, except in this instance, was such a manifestation described.
Greatness, in the sense which most commends itself to many minds,
can not be claimed for Jesus. His name is not associated with the philosophy,
the literature, or the science of the world. He occupied a position far above them.
The good sense and the good taste of candid men will pronounce
The difficulty which we chiefly feel in dealing with the character
of Christ, as it unfolded itself before men, arises from its absolute perfection.
On this very account, it is the less fitted to arrest observation. A single excellence
unusually developed, though in the neighborhood of great faults, is instantly and
universally attractive. Perfect symmetry, on the other hand, does not startle, and
is hidden from common and casual observers. But it is this which belongs emphatically
to the Christ of the Gospels;, and we distinguish in him at each moment that precise
manifestation, which is most natural and most right. It is wonderful, that the
In human beings, there never is an approach to sustained, proportioned,
and universal goodness. The manifestation in one direction is so high as
to be unnatural, while in another direction, it falls perhaps below the standard
of our conceptions. This wondrous Person always is, and acts up to the
idea of perfect humanity—never unnaturally elevated so as to be out of fellowship
with men, and never below the highest human excellence, conceivable in the particular
circumstances at the time. If men possess a virtue in an unusual degree, the probability
is, that they will be found to exhibit a defect or fault in the opposite direction.
The virtue itself shall pass into a fault, and shall occasion the injury or the
neglect of other qualities equally essential. A man is remarkable for sagacity and
decision, but he shall be coldly unsusceptible; or he is tender and ardent, but
he shall be wanting in resolution and in judgment. He is remarkable for dignity of deportment, but he
shall be reserved and proud; or he is communicative and accessible, but he shall be wanting in becoming self-respect.
It must be most distinctly noted, that the character of Jesus
was a manifestation not an effort. Men rise to spiritual excellence; but
it is from the imperfections and errors of first efforts, it is after repeated
failures, and as the result of a long and hard struggle with evil; and whatever
triumph be achieved, the struggle, not unattended with frequent defeat, is prolonged
to the last. This is the unqualified testimony of individual experience and of universal
observation. But, in the case of Jesus
The character of Jesus, besides, was a pure original, not an imitation. The
model existed not, and had never existed, from which it could have been copied.
There is no record, in the writings of all nations and of all times, of a life
for which absolute perfection is claimed from its beginning to its close. But the
character of Christ drawn in the Gospels, though undesignedly on the part of the
writers, is human perfection, in which we can discover no defect, and which we can
imagine nothing beyond. Nor is it the concentration in a single life of attributes
which, though they never all existed in combination before, had all existed
separately, in different proportions, in other lives and other times.
The suspicion is very groundless that that manifestation which
is delineated with great artlessness in the Gospels, was not real, but ideal—a creation
of the writers’ own minds, not a simple account of what they had actually witnessed.
We need only refer to the intellectual and moral condition of Judea, with its known
principles, habits, and tastes, to the position and character of the evangelists,
and then to the representation itself which they have executed, in order to show
convincingly that such a suspicion is the most groundless which can be imagined.
That country and these men could never have conceived or described such ideal spiritual excellence, as that which they have attached as a reality
to the person of Jesus; least of all was it possible, that this idea could have
been connected with the name and the office of the promised Messiah. This was not
their idea at all, especially in this connection. In several most important
respects, it was exactly the opposite of their idea; and by no possibility could
it have originated merely
Never passed before the imagination of man, and never but once alighted on this earth so heavenly a vision. Once, in all human history, we meet a being who never did an injury, and never resented one done to him, never uttered an untruth, never practiced a deception, and never lost an opportunity of doing good, generous in the midst of the selfish, upright in the midst of the dishonest, pure in the midst of the sensual, and wise far above the wisest of earth’s sages and prophets, loving and gentle, yet immovably resolute, and whose illimitable meekness and patience never once forsook him in a vexatious, ungrateful, and cruel world.
If the New Testament had contained only the character of Jesus, as it unfolded itself in his intercourse with men, it had deserved a place above all human productions, it had been a mine of spiritual wealth, and a fountain of holy influence unknown to every other region, and to all the ages of time.
Absence of Selfishness.—Presence of pure and lofty Motives.—His active Goodness.—Views of the Soul.—Love of Man as Man.—Gave his Life a Sacrifice.
THE recorded life of Christ proves that he neither sought to
gain, nor, in point of fact did gain, power, wealth, or fame, for himself, or for
any connected with him. He had frequent and fair opportunities of gratifying ambition,
had his nature been tainted with that passion. Occasions were even thrust upon him,
and the amplest means were ever ready to his hand. The Jews expected in their Messiah
a king, and were burning with impatience for his advent. Jesus needed only to have
announced himself, and the country would have hailed him with enthusiasm, and would
have enthroned and crowned him. As a matter of fact, such was the state of the public
mind, that on more than one occasion, the people were about to take him by force
to make him a king, but he quietly withdrew till
The entire absence of selfishness, in any form, from the character
of Christ, can not be questioned, and not less undoubted was the active presence
of pure and lofty motives. His life was not only negatively good, it was filled
up with positive and matchless excellence, and was spent directly and wholly in
blessing the world. A large portion of it was occupied with teaching, and both in
its design and its native tendency, Christ’s teaching was only restorative and healing,
and itself at once reveals the motive in which it originated—love of man, profound,
unselfish love. This reigning spirit was yet more apparent, though not more really
present, in another region of Christ’s life. He lived not merely to announce spiritual
truth, but to relieve and remove physical suffering. The supernatural character
of this portion of his work among men, we do not urge; but apart from this,
We are entitled to assert that compassion for humanity held the
place of a master-force in the soul of Jesus Christ. The man is worse than blind
who does not perceive the charm of a subduing tenderness streaming fresh from his
heart, and shed over his whole public life. It is related that, once as he looked
upon the multitudes that lead assembled to listen to his teaching, “he had compassion
on them, because they were as sheep that had no shepherd.”
A single act of pure generosity fails not to touch the human heart; all men bow down instinctively before it. There are some human names which the world can never forget, the names of those who, in different departments, perhaps for a course of years, exhibited wonderful devotion to the good of others. What then shall be said of Him, whose entire life was spent in benefiting, not a single class, but all classes of men, and in originating, not one form, but endless forms of good, from the lowest up to that which relates to the immortal nature and to its highest destinies? Christianity, and Christianity alone, is the revelation of a pure and perfect love the unavailing of the solitary living model of this grace which humanity has furnished. A profound secret of God, the unfathomable mercy of his nature was to be divulged to the world. It was pronounced in words, in words of deep significance; but it was also expressed by a sign; and there stood before men an impersonation of perfect love, a life which disclosed and embodied intense, inextinguishable, self-sacrificing love.
His Foreknowledge of his Death.—Solitariness—Never himself disappointed.—Truth, a Provision for Wants, Cure for Evils of World.—Attributes of God.—Expressions and Proofs of Christ’s &ate of blind.—Institution of the Supper.—Interpretation of Facts.
IT is one of the marvelous facts in Christ’s history that he
distinctly foreboded the calamities which were to befall him. Evil did not come
upon him unawares; its pressure and its bitterness were aggravated by anticipation.
No explanation is here offered of this fact, and nothing will be built upon it in
the way of argument, but it stands with great distinctness in the narrative. “From
that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto
Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes,
and be killed, and be raised again the third day.”
Speedy triumph he did not and could not anticipate. With that profound and calm wisdom which we have already seen distinguished him, he could not fail to know, when he thought of the insidious and mysterious working of sin, and its almost indestructible force, that it must be long before it could be forever extirpated. When he saw human nature fallen from God, and darkened and diseased, he could not fail to know that its restoration, purification, education for immortality, and complete cure, must be a slow and protracted process. When he looked upon the vast empire of evil, the growth of thousands of years, its foundations strong and deep, and its ramifications innumerable, he could not fail to know that its entire and final overthrow must be the work of ages. Tremendous conflicts must precede such a triumph as he anticipated; centuries of darkness and struggle must intervene. But he knew, at the same time, and was calmly assured of the perfect adaptation of spiritual truth to the spiritual condition of the world; and he saw in that truth, if the only, yet the sure provision for all the wants of men, if the only, yet the infallible, remedy for all the evils that preyed upon them.
“The spiritual nature within man, the spiritual
This, then, is the state of the case, as a mere matter of history:—A young man destitute of resources,
Can this have been only human? Was there ever a manifestation of mere humanity like to this. Can any thing short of the union of divinity with this humanity account for the acts and states of Christ’s mind?
This is not all; the narrative offers some additional facts.
At the Last Supper Jesus told his disciples, as they sat around him, that the time
of his death was near at hand. Were his confidence and courage shaken by the prospect?
Did no fear disturb him—fear of the effect which his death might produce on the
opinion of the world? Did no feeling of uneasiness rise within him as if after
all he might fail? At all events, was he not anxious that the ignominious termination
of his course might be concealed after he was gone? No, he was not; but, with
perfect composure, he made provision that not only his death itself, but all its
agony and its shame should never be forgotten
Was ever serenity like this? Can any thing more touching, more sublime than this be conceived? Was it ever heard of, before or since, that a person, in the position of a malefactor, took pains to preserve the memory of his disgraceful death? Jesus Christ, about to be crucified as a felon and a slave, commanded and provided that the fact should be remembered to the end of time—did so in the full confidence that he should at last triumph. And the fact has been remembered. This is the mystery—if he be not all that he claimed to be—this is truly more miraculous than any thing ever so called, more inexplicable on all natural principles. The fact has been remembered for eighteen hundred years it is remembered at this day; and it has been and is remembered, not as a form, a time-honored custom, but minds have been won to Christ—human hearts have been and are inviolably attached to him.
Christ’s assurance of triumph is a historical fact; his actual
triumph for nearly two thousand years is no less historically certain: the two
combined
Moral Aspects and outward Facts of Christ’s History.—A Character such as his not once-realized.—Interests of Truth and Virtue.—Moral Condition of Mankind charged on God.—Humanity in Christ peculiarly conditioned.—Idea of Incarnation universal.—A primitive Revelation.—A universal want.—Provision for this Want made once for all.—Higher Nature in Christ, not higher Office merely.—Absolute Divinity.—This secured Aids and Influences incommunicable to others.
THE spiritual individuality of Christ, we have found, is striking
as it is manifest. Whether we look to his oneness with God, to the marvelous forms
of his consciousness, to the totality of his manifestation, to the motive of his
life, or to his unconquerable faith, his character, take it all in all, must be
confessed to stand alone in the history of the world. But this character, in its
unapproachable grandeur, must be viewed in connection with the outward circumstances
of the being in whom it was realized—in connection with a life not only unprivileged,
but offering numerous positive hinderances to the origination, the growth, and,
most
This question is met by the suggestion that Jesus needed and
received for the mission with which he was charged, extraordinary protection from
God—protection for his intellect, his conscience, and his heart; and not only protection,
but extraordinary divine influence, in the illumination, invigoration, guidance,
and entire culture of his spiritual nature. It is suggested that, by the holy power
and under the sheltering care of God, his character was preserved faultless, and
rose to the highest perfection of which humanity is capable. Certainly, special
powers are demanded for special functions, and it is fitting that unusual honors
should attend unusual responsibilities. It is obvious, also, that God has a right
to withhold or bestow his own gifts, and to
If such be the inevitable conclusion to which these premises
lead, we have no alternative except to abandon them as false and impious. Jesus
Christ can not have been merely man. No mere man,
We can not hope to discover, in the religions of mankind, the
method of solving the deepest problem of Christianity, but it is quite possible
that they may illustrate, perhaps confirm, the only satisfactory solution which
has yet been suggested. In these religions, almost without exception, the idea of
incarnation will be found under one form or another. It is related that Paul and
Barnabas in the city of Lystra were about to receive divine honors; Barnabas was
to be worshiped as an incarnation of Jupiter, and Paul as an incarnation of Mercury.
The people of Lycaonia cried, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of
men.”
In the New Testament this awful doctrine stands apart from all
the additions which the fancy, or folly, or corrupt taste of men have in other cases
introduced. Here is not a baseless invention, but a thing for which numerous and
extraordinary proofs can be advanced. This also, instead of creating perplexity,
which had not otherwise existed, relieves and removes perplexity, the existence
of which is indubitable, and the removal of which by other means is impossible.
What is still more, this is not gratuitous mystery, the only purpose of which
The mystery of incarnation, notwithstanding the considerations which have been advanced, remains as dark as ever. The union of divinity with humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, we can not explain, can not comprehend; but that such union existed, we must believe, because it rests on evidence which can not be set aside; and some, at least, of the consequences that follow from the mysterious fact are perfectly intelligible to us. It is clear, for example, as we have sought to prove, that incarnation is sufficient to create, and alone can create, that amount of difference between Jesus Christ and all men, which the facts of his history, otherwise irreconcilable, demand for their solution. Humanity in him, existing under conditions which are found nowhere else, we do not wonder at moral peculiarities which would otherwise be confounding. His spiritual perfection, inexplicable on every other principle, on this principle is intelligible and consistent.
In the personal character of Christ, then, we have the evidence
not only of a higher office, but of a higher nature, than ever belonged
to man; the
In him who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners; in Jesus, the son of Mary, the words of the ancient oracle received their beautiful
fulfillment—“Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the
government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
Incarnation of Jesus throws light on all the wonders of his history.—Supernatural Birth.—Resurrection and Ascension.—His Miracles.—Spiritual meaning.—Typical character.—Sophistry of Strauss.—Extraordinary tokens of Divinity demanded.—The Voice of God.—World summoned to listen and believe.
THE argument which it was proposed to construct, is completed.. We have found, first, that the public ministry of Christ, and second, that his spiritual character is incapable of being reconciled, on any natural and known principles, with the outer conditions of his life. In the one case and in the other, and much more when the two are taken together, there is no escape from the conclusion, that the secret of harmony here is altogether preternatural, and is nothing less than the union of Divinity with humanity, in his sacred person. The argument, by means of which this conclusion is reached, we have sought to show is based on an ample, a relevant, and an impartial induction of facts.
The doctrine of Incarnation is simply true. It is the darkness,
but it is also the glory of the spiritual
Having reached this conclusion a flood of light is reflected back on the Christian records; and many of their announcements, before scarcely credible, become luminous and consistent. These records are separated at once and forever from all mythologies, whether of Egypt, India, Greece, or Rome. Their foundation is not fable, but fact—a fact, profoundly mysterious, indeed, but also incomparably glorious. The combination of mystery and glory at the very basis, and on the very threshold of the Gospels, not only prepares the mind for all the peculiarities of their structure, but demands, and even necessitates, discoveries in harmony with this primal characteristic.
If Jesus be the Incarnation of Divinity, it is no
Again, such an entrance into the world, and such a departure
from it, could comport only with a life-course full of testimonies and tokens of
Divinity. The miracles of Jesus are in strict harmony with the commencement and
the close of his career, and, like them, have their ground in the unexampled constitution
of his personality. They are indeed essential to that mysterious existence of his, in
Strauss, in one of his minor pieces, argues against the value
of miracles in some such manner as this (without quoting the express words,
we give the spirit of his argument):—“Jesus is said on one occasion to have fed
five thousand persons miraculously; but God, every day, supplies the wants of unnumbered
myriads. Jesus is said to have given sight to the blind and even life to the dead; but sensation and vitality are the daily gifts of God to the world in cases past
all reckoning. Which is the greater wonder? and what wisdom can there be
in placing a lesser miracle before those who will not be moved by the greater miracle?” We admit the principle and maintain it against him. His argument is a palpable,
we are tempted to say a paltry and wicked, because known, sophism. The question
is not, whether the laws of nature and their constant operation be or be not more
truly wonderful than any special departure from them; the question is not whether
there be or be not really more of God, in the one than in the other. But the question
is this, whether, as a matter of simple
We return to the position, that, since Jesus was verily an Incarnation
of the Godhead, miraculous works in his life were only becoming and natural. This
does not in the least exclude the application of the severest criticism, to the
historical accounts of the Christian miracles. But the unbroken course of nature,
in the presence of a fact so stupendous as Incarnation, had been of all things unnatural
and incredible. The Divinity within Jesus must have flashed forth through many outlets; and, on the other hand, the world could not but thrill responsively, when it felt
the very touch of God. Necessarily, there must have been at such a time extraordinary
appearances and movements. It was only reasonable, indeed inevitable, that an age
in which the profoundest mystery of all time was unvailed, and in which Divine religion
was to reach its full development, should be distinguished by unwonted signs from
heaven. It was only reasonable, indeed
In nature, its scenery, processes, productions, and very
silence, God speaks to his rational offspring, and speaks intelligibly and
impressively. In spiritual providence, its operations, ordinary and extraordinary, its history
and its laws, God speaks. In
But once, only once, in all time, the Godhead tabernacled in flesh, and from within this marvelous vail gave forth its holy and grand announcements. The first, the lowest, but yet also the last and highest, duty of the world, is to listen and believe. The command to all ages and to all men is, listen and believe. That command was given of old in Palestine, from the opened sky, beneath which Jesus of Nazareth stood—“This is my beloved Son, hear ye him.”
Isaiah
Matthew
4:17 4:23 4:24 5:41 7:29 8:11 9:2 9:6 10:22 11:21 11:22 11:23 11:28 11:29 12:27 12:50 13:54 14:23 15:32 16:21 18:4 19:17 20:18 20:28 23:13-33 24:14 25:32 26:26-28 26:29 26:31 26:36 26:45 26:46
Mark
1:35 6:3 6:46 12:32 14:22-24 14:62
Luke
4:32 5:16 6:12 7:47 9:28 10:24 11:31 11:32 13:29 13:34 19:42 22:17-20 22:29 22:29 23:28 24:47
John
1:14 1:14 1:46 3:16 3:16 3:46 4:14 4:21 4:21-23 4:22-24 4:34 5:17 5:17 5:24 5:25 5:26 6:35 6:46 6:46 6:66 6:68 7:16 7:46 8:11 8:12 8:14 8:29 8:29 8:46 8:46 8:56 10 10 10:4 10:5 10:11 10:14 10:16 10:17 10:30 11:25 11:35 12:32 12:50 13:31 13:32 14:6 14:13 14:16 14:19 14:20 14:27 14:30 15:16 16:2 16:22 16:25 16:28 16:32 16:33 17:1 17:2 17:3 17:3 18:4 18:5 18:36 18:36 18:37 18:37 19:11 21:15
Acts
Romans
1 Timothy
1 John
i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi xii xiii xiv xv xvi xvii xviii 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 117 118 119 120 121 122 128 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260