Lecture  III.

The Contrast Between the Teaching of Christianity and

that of the Philosophers

 

“I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” – John 8:12.

      Is this light clearly shining in the spiritual and moral firmament?  Can we behold its beams?  Do the rays of the spiritual Sun generate vitality and life in the moral World?  These are questions not of theory but of fact, which can be verified in the experience of the past and of the present.  The text affirms not only that Jesus Christ is the great illuminator of the moral and spiritual worlds, but that the light which He emits communicates also a vital influence.  He is the Light of Life.  Such an assertion was a bold one, for it removes His pretensions out of the regions of the abstract and the theoretical, and brings them to the test of fact.  If we can discover neither in the history of the past nor in the facts of the present clear and unmistakable signs of an illuminating and vital power issuing from Jesus Christ, then the author of the Fourth Gospel has placed in His mouth words which make Him bear false witness of Himself, and He thus becomes convicted of imposture.  But if, on the other hand, He has proved during eighteen centuries the great source of man’s spiritual illumination, then the writer has either reported a true utterance of Jesus, or, if a forger, he must have been possessed of a superhuman insight into the history of the future.

      This inference will be equally certain, whether we accept the Gospel as the veritable work of the Apostle John, written near the conclusion of the first century, or adopt the theory so dear to modern unbelievers, that it is the production of an unknown author some seventy or eighty years afterwards.  In either case the assertion that an obscure Jewish carpenter would be the great illuminator of the most civilized and energetic races of mankind; that he would be the creator of a new moral and spiritual life; that he would indelibly stamp the impress of his action on all the progressive races of mankind – nothing, I say, could have been more unlikely in the year 170, than that such a saying would be realized.  No human foresight could have anticipated the fact that this obscure carpenter would exert this mighty influence on history, and would distance the combined efforts for good of the wisest and the best of men.  Such an utterance, if made by an ordinary man, could have only been attributed to madness.  The question is, Have this and similar utterances which this Gospel has attributed to Jesus been verified in fact?  If they have, not only is the assertion that Jesus is the Light of the World, and the Light of Life, proved on indisputable evidence to be true, but the further conclusion is inevitable, that a spirit of the profoundest prophetic insight must have dwelt in Him who gave utterance to it – or, in other words, that it proves in Him the presence of a superhuman power.

      The evidence that Jesus Christ has exerted this mighty influence, as the illuminator of the world, and the introducer of a new principle of moral and spiritual life, is so complete and overwhelming, that I need not further discuss it.  It is, written on every page of history from the year 315 downwards.*  I have pointed out its evidential value in the last Lecture.  Look at the modern world.  Is it not everywhere present in its institutions, its legislation, its forms of thought, its morality, its language, and its social life?  The unbeliever cannot dispute the fact that the whole course of modern civilization has been deeply imbued, if it has not been actually created by Christianity.  Let the experiment be tried of striking out of the history of the last eighteen centuries every event which has been affected by its influence, and we shall empty our historical libraries.

      *I take the date of the conversion of Constantine as the starting point, because it is clear that from that time to the present Christianity has been the mightiest influence which has acted on the history of the Western world.  From that time its action emerges into the clear light of history.  Previously it had been comparatively obscure; Mr. Lecky’s observation is worthy of deep attention, that nothing is more remarkable than the unconsciousness of pagan writers of the second and third centuries of the power that was growing up among them, prior to the hour of its triumph.  This being so, we need not wonder at the inconsiderable notice it received from the heathen writers of the first.

      It follows then that the assertion that Jesus Christ is the light of the world, and the light of life, is not only capable of being verified in the history of the past, but is visibly receiving its accomplishment before our eyes in the facts of the present.  What is the inevitable inference?  I answer: Either Jesus Christ has been the manifestation of a superhuman power, or all this influence has been exerted by an obscure carpenter, whose entire moral and intellectual character must have been fashioned and developed in the narrow atmosphere of Jewish thought.  If it be objected that a large portion of mankind are still illumined by him, I reply that Christianity obeys the laws of the moral world in exerting an influence which is slowly and gradually progressive, and that its Founder distinctly stated that such would be its mode of operation.*

      *This is the idea which underlies those parables of Our Lord which draw their imagery from the processes of nature.  Among them, those of the sower, the wheat and the tares, the mustard seed, and the leaven, stand out conspicuously.

      I now pass on to consider the evidence afforded by the moral teaching of Christianity to the presence of a superhuman power in Jesus Christ.  I will first state the conditions of the argument, and point out what it is valid to prove.

      First, I assume as an established scientific truth that the forces which energize in the moral world, act in conformity with moral laws;* that the long course of human history has enabled us to ascertain what these forces are, and the laws of their action; that each successive stage of the moral world has grown out of that which preceded it; and that its changes are not sudden, nor violent, but follow a law of gradual evolution.  This being so, it follows that there are no violent breaks in the developments of man; but, on the contrary, that the entire atmosphere of thought and feeling of any one particular period, has grown out of that which preceded it, and has only slowly elevated itself above it.

      *The difference between the forces that act in the material and the moral Universe is precisely this.  Material forces possess no power of self-determination.  Moral forces energize in a being who possesses such a power.  This we designate freedom, or free agency.  Necessitarians, while denying its existence theoretically, are compelled to admit it practically; i.e., human nature is in reality so constructed, whatever account may be given of its origin, that not only is the existence of a power of self-determination one of the most certain facts of consciousness, but we cannot help acting on it as a practical truth.  This power, which man is capable of exerting within a limited sphere, is perfectly consistent with the great truth that moral forces act in conformity with moral laws.  Necessitarians are constantly in the habit of charging their opponents with assuming positions which exclude law from the moral Universe; and that the assertion of a self-determining power in man is equivalent to affirming that confusion, not order, reigns within it.  This subject is far too large to admit of discussion here, but it is not too much to affirm, that such a charge is simply a caricature of the views of those who hold in conformity with the principles of the inductive philosophy, that self-determination in man is as much a phenomenon of the moral Universe, as the absence of it is of the forces which dominate in the material one.

      Such is a brief statement of the law of human progress, as confirmed by the universal voice of history, and accepted by modern philosophy.  It is now an established truth that man presents no great gaps in the course of his intellectual and moral development, so long as he is only acted on by the forces which energize within him.*

      *The principle of production by evolution has been looked upon by many with great jealousy as a theory which is destructive of religion.  On the value of such theories as a philosophical account of the origin of things, I would not wish to express an opinion, as having no immediate bearing on the subject of these Lectures.  In fact all dogmatic assertions on this subject are evidently premature, as our inductions are as yet far too narrow to form a firm foundation for a theory so vast.  But viewed as an abstract question, there is no more difficulty in conceiving that the Creator has carried on His work in conformity with some principle of evolution than by that which is designated special creation.  I say this on the supposition that the theory presupposes an intelligent Creator acting on the forces of the Universe and moulding them to His purposes.  Such theories are only dangerous to religion when they assume that the results which we behold in the Universe have been brought about by the action of its blind forces independently of the direction of intelligence.  We know as a fact that every existing man and woman has been brought into existence by a very complicated process of evolution through a long train of ancestry, yet this is no hindrance whatever to our acceptance of the great truth, “I believe in God the Father, who made me and all the world.”  The outcry which has been raised against theories of evolution as destructive to religion is, to say the least of it, unwise.  But I am here concerned with them only as far as they bear on the Christian argument.  In this respect their importance has been far too generally overlooked by both parties in the controversy.  If for the sake of argument we assume that things have been produced in conformity with a principle of evolution (and it is important to observe that this is maintained by a great majority of unbelievers), then it follows that the principle of continuity in the development of man must be a great philosophical truth; and the existence of considerable intervals between its stages an impossibility.  As in conformity with the principles laid down by evolutionists, evolution is effected by a number of small and inconsiderable variations, it follows that it is impossible that a man can emerge suddenly as a moral and intellectual giant above those surroundings in the midst of which he has been born and has drawn his entire moral and intellectual nourishment.  This being so, a theory of evolution interposes an impenetrable barrier against the theory that Jesus Christ and His mighty action on history has been the simple creation of the ordinary forces energizing in man.  The interval which separates Him not only from his own countrymen, in the midst of whom he was born and educated, but from the greatest of men, is too wide to be bridged over by any theory of evolution with which philosophy is acquainted.  In this point of view the theories propounded by modern philosophy instead of weakening, impart strength to the Christian argument.

      It has been objected to this form of the argument that the elevated moral teaching of Christianity was due to the lofty genius of Jesus.  To this I reply, that history proves that no human being, however exalted may have been his genius, has been able wholly to emancipate himself from the conditions imposed on him by his birth, and the moral and spiritual atmosphere in which he was educated; While it is true that we are ignorant of the laws which regulate the production of genius, and of the precise extent of its action; yet the experience of history renders it certain that there are limitations imposed on it by its surroundings, which it is unable to transcend.*

      *It may be objected that I am basing my argument on the principles of the Necessitarian philosophy.  I am simply appealing to the plain facts of the moral world, which I believe to be entirely consistent with the principle of self-determination in man.  It is impossible to deny that the characters of the majority of mankind are largely, though not exclusively, formed by their surroundings; and that such as has been the environment, such will be the man.  The power of self-determination is confined within definite limits which it cannot transcend, though it may be able to effect modifications of the character within those limits.  The distinction between physical and moral law is that the sequences of the former are invariable, while those of the latter are subject to modification by this principle, as in the material Universe the action of one force may be controlled by that of another.  Whatever theory we may hold on these subjects, it is our duty to make them accord with the facts, and not the facts with the theories.  Nothing has been more common in this controversy, whenever unbelievers are beset by difficulties, than to ascribe every fact connected with Jesus which cannot be accounted for on ordinary principles, to the influence of genius.  Thus, in endeavouring to account for the mighty influence which He has exerted in history, and for the elevation of His teaching and character, it is found to be a ready way of escape from all difficulties to say that it was due to His exalted genius.  This however is really equivalent to the admission that it has been due to a force for which we are unable to account, and that a power has manifested itself in Him of a character wholly different from those which energize in ordinary humanity.

      This being so, it will follow, if there was nothing superhuman in Jesus Christ, and if the forces which manifested themselves in him were nothing but the ordinary ones which energize in human nature, the moral teaching of Christianity must have been a natural growth out of that moral and spiritual environment in which He and his Jewish followers were born and educated, aided by such influences as may have been imported into it by St. Paul and his Grecian converts.  Consequently, however exalted may have been the genius of Jesus, it would only have enabled Him to elevate Himself above those conditions in a way precisely analogous to what has been done by other great men, of whom Mahomet may be cited as an example.  His case is one which bears directly on my argument.  I readily concede that he must be numbered among the great men of our race; but the Koran makes it certain that his genius, great as it was, was unable to break through the conditions imposed on him by his birth, his education, and his surroundings.  Its whole teaching bears the strongest impress of the Arab mind, and proves that the prophet was unable to free himself from the conditions which it imposed on him.  The same truth is borne witness to by all the other great teachers of mankind.  The peculiarities of the moral and spiritual atmosphere which they breathed are indelibly impressed on their respective systems.  All are national, and local; Jesus Christ alone is Catholic as humanity.

      From these principles I draw the following conclusions:

      First.  If the teaching of Jesus Christ clearly transcends the limits which were imposed on Him by His birth and surroundings, it proves the existence in Him of a force different from those which energize in ordinary humanity.

      Secondly.  If the moral teaching of Christianity, taken as whole, not only transcends that of the great teachers of the ancient world, but solves problems, of which, while they recognized the importance, they found the solution impossible, it proves that it cannot have originated in that hotbed of fanaticism and credulity which unbelievers are obliged to attribute to the followers of Jesus in order to impart plausibility to the theories they have propounded to account for the belief in His resurrection from the dead.

      I shall assume as one of the bases of this argument the position which is taken by a large number of my opponents,* that the Jewish race, during the century which preceded and that which followed the advent, were to the last degree exclusive, fanatical, and superstitious; and that in an atmosphere of this kind Jesus and His disciples must have been born and educated; and that a corresponding character was deeply impressed on His early followers.  So much was this the case, that in the opinion of so profound a thinker as Mr. Mill it is simply incredible that the discourses attributed to him in the Synoptic Gospels can have been invented by the evangelists, or even by the Apostle Paul.  This being so, it is surprising that he did not ask himself the question, Whence did this man get all this wisdom? instead of contenting himself with a vague platitude about the genius of the prophet of Nazareth?**

      *I accept the positions laid down by unbelievers on this subject for the purposes of the argument, though there can be no doubt that they can only be received with considerable modifications.  They have freely attributed to the Jewish mind at the period of the advent an enormous amount of credulity and superstition, for the purpose of enabling them to give something like a plausible account of the miraculous narratives contained in the Gospels, and above all, of the belief in the Resurrection.  In taking this course it does not seem to have occurred to them that just in proportion as they heap on the primitive Christians this charge of credulity and superstition, they increase the difficulty of accounting for the moral teaching of the New Testament as the natural product of such a soil.  Besides, if the entire environment of Jesus was such a mass of credulity and superstition as they assume, no amount of genius could have wholly freed him from its influences; for we know as a matter of fact that even the greatest of men have shared in the credulity and superstition of their age.  Nothing is more certain than that an elevated system of moral teaching, which embodies a wide catholicity of spirit, cannot be the natural product of a soil which is deeply impregnated with these qualities.  It follows therefore that the more certainly it can be proved that such was the moral and spiritual atmosphere of the primitive followers of Jesus, the stronger will be the evidence that the moral teaching of the New Testament is not of their creation.  The evidence that their credulity exceeded that of the average of mankind hopelessly breaks down when tested by the facts of history – it is, in short, an hypothesis which has been invented to support a theory – still, in arguing with unbelievers, I am fully entitled to the benefit of their own assumptions, especially as their reasonings against the truth of the Resurrection owe all their plausibility to them.  But the evidence of the narrow-mindedness and exclusive bigotry of the Jews of this period rests on a firm historical foundation; and this fact is alone sufficient to support the weight of the argument.

      **On the other hand another class of unbelievers endeavour to prove that a considerable number of the moral precepts in the Gospels were the current sayings of Jewish doctors, who were Our Lord’s contemporaries.  The sole authority for this is the Talmud, one portion of which, the Mishna, was not committed to writing before A.D. 180 at the earliest; and the other, the Gemara, about A.D. 500.  This being the case, it is impossible to say, how far any of its sayings accurately represent the teaching of Our Lord’s contemporaries, or whether they may not have been borrowed from Christian sources.  These writers display an unbounded trust in tradition when it can be used as a weapon against Christianity, and an equal distrust in it, when it makes in its favour.  They also forget to inform their readers, that these moral gems which are scattered over twelve folio volumes are entombed in a mass of contemptible trivialities, and hair splittings, about questions of which not a single vestige can be found in the pages of the Gospels.  All the evidence of which we are in possession tends to prove that Jewish teaching in Our Lord’s time had fully entered on that course of casuistry, of which the Talmud is the consummation, and of which the moral teaching of Christianity is the absolute contrast.  But as I shall show, objections of this kind, even if they had all the value which has been attributed to them by those who have adduced them, leave the real point of issue untouched.

      Further : it will be quite unnecessary for the purposes of this argument to maintain that a large amount of moral truth has not been discovered by man’s unassisted reason.  Many persons have argued on the principle that the more they can detract from reason, the more they strengthen Revelation.  Such a position is however utterly unsound.  To assert the inability of reason to discover moral truth, is not only to contradict the most unquestionable facts; but it is equivalent to the denial that man possesses a moral nature; for if he does, the discovery of a large amount of moral truth must be possible.  To adopt this course is in fact to sacrifice one of our strongest arguments.  On the contrary, my position is, that as far as portions of the teaching of the New Testament are in agreement with that of the most enlightened teachers of the ancient world, it proves that the persons by whom it has been elaborated must have been emancipated from the narrow-mindedness of the Jew of the Apostolic age; and consequently that it could not have been evolved by any natural process out of such a moral and intellectual atmosphere.  Further; if Jewish peasants and fishermen have succeeded in accomplishing what all the masters of ancient thought, after all their efforts, failed to effect, it proves the presence in Christianity of an insight which is more than human.

      It has been objected against this line of reasoning, that some of the moral precepts which are contained in the New Testament can be found elsewhere;* and that if reason can discover moral truth, a revelation is unnecessary.  But how, I would ask, can the fact that some of its precepts are to be found scattered up and down in detached aphorisms, in the writings of ancient moralists, be valid against its originality taken as a whole?  The objection would only have weight, if some one of them had succeeded in elaborating its entire system.  Nor does it follow, that because reason can discover a considerable amount of moral truth, it can discover all that is necessary for the wellbeing of man.  But above all; it is founded on the assumption that the chief end and aim of Christianity is to propound a body of ethical truth, instead of what it affirms to be its great purpose, to communicate to man a great moral and spiritual power of which he was previously destitute.  The real point for our investigation is, Are there specialities in Christianity, which all the wisdom of the ancient world was unable to discover?  Does it bring to bear on man’s moral being, a regenerating power, of the want of which the philosopher was deeply conscious, but which his philosophy was unable to supply?  If so, the peasants of Galilee have distanced the results effected by all the great teachers of the ancient world.  Such are the conditions of the argument.

      *Of the first of these objections we have some remarkable examples in Mr. Buckle’s History of Civilization.  He not only charges the writers of the New Testament with borrowing largely from heathen sources, but he goes the length of affirming that it is a fact well known to every scholar that several of its most elevated moral precepts are quotations from heathen authors.  When we consider that the quotations from such sources are only three in number, it is incomprehensible how a man of Mr. Buckle’s extensive erudition can have committed so extraordinary a blunder.  I am aware that it has been inferred from some passages in St. Paul’s writings that he was acquainted with the Greek tragedians.  But of this the evidence amounts to little, or nothing.  Nothing can be more absurd than to affirm, because two sets of writings contain a few moral precepts which bear a close affinity to one another, that the one must have been derived from the other, when the resemblance can be sufficiently accounted for by the fact that both writers drew from the dictates of that moral nature which is common to man.  The bare perusal of St. Paul’s epistles ought to be sufficient to convince any reader of the vast difference between his teaching, taken as a whole, and the entire system of Pagan ethics; nor can the smallest trace of such an influence be found in that of Jesus Christ.  But Mr. Buckle, in common with nearly every unbeliever who has touched on the moral teaching of Christianity, persistently ignores the fact that the most striking characteristic of the teaching of the New Testament consists in its bringing the principle of faith to bear on the human mind as a great moral and spiritual power.  In fact they habitually speak of it as a mere system of ethical doctrine.  Of the second objection, the writings of Mr. F. W. Newman contain many remarkable examples.  He has even gone the length of affirming that a revelation of moral truth is an impossibility.  In giving utterance to such a paradox, he has laid himself open to a severe retort which constitutes in fact its best refutation.  As a writer on moral subjects it is clear that he must consider himself able to impart information to those who are less informed than himself; or in other words, that he has some revelation of moral truth to impart to them.  Hence it follows, if his views are correct, that what is impossible to God is possible to himself.  Numerous affirmations made by both these writers constitute a remarkable proof that high mental powers form no safeguard against the blinding effects of inveterate prejudices.  Of this a short work of the latter entitled On the Defective Morality of the New Testament, forms a singular example, the blunders in reasoning being such that if it did not bear the author’s name on the title page, it would have been scarcely credible that it could be the product of his pen.

      II.  We must now inquire in what does the moral teaching of the New Testament consist.  It naturally separates itself into three divisions.

      First: a body of special precepts in a very unsystematic form, which were called forth for the purpose of meeting the particular emergencies of those to whom they were addressed; but with no pretensions to constitute a body of ethical doctrines applicable to all time.

      Secondly: a number of principles which form the foundation of all moral obligation, and are as Catholic as humanity itself, embracing every conceivable form of duty in their all-comprehensive range.

      Thirdly: its chief speciality consists in the revelation of a mighty moral and spiritual power which is intended to render obedience to the moral law a possibility; to elevate the holy to higher degrees of holiness, to rescue those whose powers of self-control are weak from the violence of their passions, and to recover from their degradation those who have fallen into a state of moral corruption.  This principle is the power of faith in its action on the moral nature of man; and forms the great characteristic by which the teaching of the New Testament is distinguished from every other system.

      III. The following are the chief points in which the teaching of the New Testament is most strikingly contrasted with that of the philosophers; and in which its authors have transcended all the great masters of ancient thought in their deep insight into the realities of things.

      First Contrast.  Its earnestness, method, and aim.

      The first thing which strikes every reader is the intense earnestness and reality of its teaching.  He feels himself brought into contact with a power whose aim is, not to enunciate a mere set of rules for the regulation of life or to write disquisitions on the grounds of moral obligation, but to bring men into subjection to the moral law.  In striking contrast to this was the teaching of philosophy.  A large portion of its attention was directed to the investigation of the grounds of moral obligation.  These Christianity assumes as testified to by the conscience, and therefore sufficiently known.  It accepts the moral nature of man as a fact, and assumes that every one of its primary principles has a legitimate sphere of action in its proper place.  This has imparted to its teaching a catholicity which is to be found in no other system.  Thus, for the purpose of enforcing the practice of holiness, it appeals to every principle which acts mightily on human nature.  It addresses itself to the love of God, to the love of Christ, to the principle of benevolence in man, to his self-love, to his perception of moral beauty, to his sense of truth, to his love of justice, to his appreciation of the honourable, his sense of self-respect, his love of approbation, and even to his desire of praise.*  These last principles are deeply implanted in human nature; and instead of denouncing them as unhallowed or ignoble, it appeals to every one of them as holding a legitimate place in man’s moral constitution.

      *No less than seven of these principles are appealed to by St. Paul in one single passage, as incentives to holiness.  “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true; whatsoever things are honest (σεμνα); whatsoever things are just; whatsoever things are pure; whatsoever things are lovely; whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.” – Phil. 4:8.

      Striking is the contrast between this and the course which has been pursued by a large number of systematic moralists.  They have occupied themselves in endeavouring to ascertain a number of abstract questions respecting the nature of moral obligation; as, for example, whether regard for others or rational self-love constitutes the fundamental principle of virtue; and according as they have determined in favour of one or the other, they have elaborated systems based on partial principles, and in disregard of some of the great realities of man’s moral constitution.*  This is also the case with several of our modern systems.  Some of the ancient ones in this respect even displayed a spirit of fanaticism, and preached the uprooting of some of the fundamental principles of our moral constitution as a duty.  Other defects inherent in their method have stamped them with an impress which is partial, national, and local.  The New Testament, on the contrary, embraces all its principles within its comprehensive range, and is as catholic as human nature.  What is the necessary inference?  It is this: that from whatever source its teaching has been derived, it is impossible that it can have been developed by any natural process of evolution out of that hotbed of narrow-minded bigotry which unbelievers affirm to have constituted the moral and spiritual atmosphere which was breathed by Jesus and His early followers.  To attribute such a result to the genius of Jesus is to allow that it cannot be accounted for by the action of any of the known forces energizing in man.

      *Such has been the course taken by systematizers in every age, to concentrate the mind on one or two motives as correct principles of action, and to ignore all others, however deeply seated they may be in the moral nature of man.  Thus those who have taken a narrow view of Christianity have affirmed that the only motive which ought to influence the Christian is the love of Jesus Christ, and that for a Christian to act on any inferior motive, such as the desire of approbation, or the love of praise, would be almost sinful.  The love of Christ is undoubtedly the highest motive appealed to by Christianity; but while the writers of the New Testament habitually place this in the forefront, they appeal to every principle in man’s moral constitution which can be enlisted in the service of holiness.  Thus St. Paul urges the forwardness of other Churches in making contributions to relieve the poverty of the Church in Judaea as a motive to provoke the Corinthians to additional liberality.  Sectarianism would pronounce such a motive unworthy to regulate the conduct of Christian men.  St. Paul however, recognizes the fact that every principle in man’s moral nature has a legitimate sphere of action, and in so doing, he shows a comprehensiveness of view wholly foreign to the enthusiast or the fanatic.  A similar exclusiveness has been often exhibited by philosophy.  The principle of self-love is one which is deeply seated in human nature, and as such, it claims to occupy a suitable place in the philosophy of man.  But a well-known school denounces the appeal to it as a principle of action, and affirms that an elevated system of morality must be founded on absolute benevolence.  Yet Jesus Christ has repeatedly appealed to enlightened self-love as a principle of action.  Thus the writers of the New Testament, by recognizing every principle of man’s moral nature in its proper subordination, have shown themselves alike free from the exclusiveness of sectarianism and philosophy.

      Second Contrast.  The freedom of Christianity from all attempts at political legislation.

      A very remarkable contrast between the teaching of Christianity and that of philosophy is presented to us in that the former is entirely free from all attempts to deal with either political or social questions.  The universal practice of the great philosophers of the ancient world was precisely the reverse.  With them moral questions invariably assumed a political aspect; Ethics were in fact a branch of politics.  The reason of this is obvious.  Their only hope for the regeneration of man was based on the creation of sound political and social institutions, by means of which men might be trained to virtue.  Hence they thought it necessary to sketch an ideal republic, which never became an actual one.  The Jew on the contrary, who knew nothing of philosophy, was filled with the profoundest reverence for the Scriptures of the Old Testament.  These not only propounded a system of political legislation as of divine authority, but the teaching of the prophets is addressed to Israel, not in an individual, but in a corporate or political capacity.  Surely if the teaching had been the mere natural outcome of either Jewish or Gentile thought, this striking characteristic would not have been entirely wanting.

      But what is still more remarkable, the great Teacher professed to be the founder of a kingdom; yet His abstinence from political and social questions is total: the kingdom which he set up was one which was diverse in character from everything which had existed in the past, being exclusively based on conviction and persuasion.  Yet it has existed in full vigour for eighteen centuries; and during this long interval of time, not a single attempt to erect another on the same principles has proved successful.  Jesus Christ alone at one single bound has passed from the political, the formal, and the ritual, to the individual, the spiritual, and the moral.  The one single sentence of His teaching, which bears a political aspect, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” has forever emancipated the conscience from the control of the State, assigning to each their respective limits, and establishing forever the liberty of the individual.*

      *It has often been objected that St. Paul has taught the doctrine of nonresistance to Governments, however tyrannical they may be. (Rom. 13:1–9.)  This objection has arisen from a disregard of the important principle that the precepts in the Epistles, in the special form in which they are there enunciated, are not portions of a moral code, binding for all time, but were called forth by the special circumstances of those to whom they were addressed.  The Jewish element in the Church was always turbulent, and by such persons the doctrine of the Kingdom of God easily admitted of being perverted into a treasonable principle against pagan Governments, and thus compromising the Church as a political institution.  Hence it became necessary that the Apostle should carefully guard against this danger, which was so far real that the Roman Government only a short time previously had made it the pretext for expelling all Jews, and doubtless the Christians among them, from the city.  Hence in the peculiar circumstances of the Roman Church these precepts of the Apostle against political turbulence are peculiarly appropriate.  In them he lays down that civil government is a divine ordinance, and consequently civil obedience a duty which must be conscientiously rendered by the Christian.  He then decides the question which the Jews were constantly raising as to the lawfulness of paying taxes to heathen Governments, and affirms that it is a Christian duty to do so on the ground that the end of all government is the protection of the individual, and that this was the divine purpose in its institution.  It is quite true that the Apostle has given no precept as to what is the duty of Christians when Governments fail in the discharge of this their proper function.  If he had done so he must have converted his epistle into a political treatise, and incurred the danger which under the existing circumstances of the Church he wished to avoid.

      I need not draw your attention to the fact that the presence of a body of political and social legislation in the Koran constitutes the rock on which Mahomedanism is being hopelessly shipwrecked before our eyes, and utterly unfits it for being the religion of humanity.  Is it possible, I ask, that any one who was born and educated under the influences by which Jesus was surrounded could have rigidly excluded all political and social questions from His teaching?  With the experience of the past before Him, would any amount of foresight have enabled Him to guess that if He had prescribed a body of political legislation, the consequences would have been fatal to His religion, and would have caused the ruin of that kingdom which it was His purpose to establish.  Mr. Mill considers the moral teaching of Christianity defective because it dwells so little on public duties and public virtues. [Essay on Liberty.]  Such an opinion is not to be wondered at, when we consider that the whole school of thought to which he belongs place their hopes of man’s future regeneration on improving his condition politically and socially, rather than by acting on his conscience and his heart.  This most remarkable abstinence from entering on questions of this description I claim to be a striking proof that the Founder of Christianity possessed an insight which must have raised Him above all the trammels imposed on Him by His birth and His surroundings, in that while He has kept clear of all political and social questions, He has been able to enforce all the duties which they demand in the all-comprehensive principle of self-sacrifice rendered to Himself.  If He had pursued the course which many eminent moderns would have suggested to Him, and commenced His work of regenerating mankind, not by appealing to the conscience of the individual, but by addressing Himself to the external, the social, and the political, Christianity would never have survived the century that gave it birth.*

      *The mode in which Christianity deals with the great social question of Slavery is a remarkable instance of the profound wisdom which dwelt in the authors of the New Testament.  Many modern writers would have had Our Lord and His Apostles denounce it as an unhallowed institution.  What would have been the consequences if they had done so?  It would have brought down the whole weight of the Ronan Government on the Church as a political society whose object was to subvert the existing order of things, and thus have caused its speedy extinction.  If on the other hand an antislavery propaganda had been instituted, and any amount of success had attended its efforts, which in the then condition of society was in the highest degree improbable, the result would have been a war of classes; and we know as a matter of fact that the previous revolts of the slaves had been attended with one result only, the production of a frightful amount of human misery, and the more firmly riveting their chains.  The course taken by Christianity in dealing with this great evil has been very different from that which modern theorisers would have suggested, but it has been an effectual one.  Instead of a number of precepts directly aimed at Slavery, it has laid down certain great principles of duty obligatory towards all men, with the practice of which the existence of Slavery is impossible.  These have gradually leavened the whole atmosphere of thought, and after a long and severe struggle Slavery has become extinct in every nation which professes Christianity.  In this manger it has far more effectually crushed the evil than if it had openly declared war against it as a social institution.  Other social evils will share the same fate in proportion as its great principles gradually leaven the entire lump of humanity.  Nothing can afford a stronger proof that Christianity has not been the invention of a number of credulous fanatics than the wisdom it has shown in dealing with these and kindred questions.

      It will perhaps be urged that the far-seeing genius of Jesus enabled Him thus to penetrate into the realities of the distant future.  But genius can only act in conformity with the laws of our intellectual and moral being.  If therefore Jesus was a genius after the model of other great men, and nothing more, all this profound insight must have been generated in the solitary musings of a Jew, whose moral and spiritual surroundings were the atmosphere of narrow exclusiveness, and who perished at the early age of thirty-four.  We may call this genius, if we please, but it must be one which manifests the presence of the superhuman.

      Third Contrast.  The teaching of Christianity has founded the religion of humanity.

      I adduce from the Fourth Gospel another instance of the profound insight which must have dwelt in the Author of Christianity or whoever put the saying into His mouth, by which he has enthroned religion in the centre of man’s moral and spiritual being.  The utterance to which I allude, is the great utterance made to the woman of Samaria, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. ... But the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him.  God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  John 4:21, 24.

      Mr. Mill has expressed the opinion that the utterances which the author of this Gospel has put into the mouth of Jesus (and he makes no exception in favour of the one before us), are “Poor Stuff.”  It was only in conformity with the principles of his philosophy, and of the atmosphere of thought in which he was nurtured from his earliest years, that he should have been incapable of appreciating their insight and their depth.  M. Renan, however, affirms that in this utterance Jesus has for ever laid deep the foundations of the religion of humanity.  Can there be any doubt, I ask, with respect to this great saying, that an overwhelming majority of deep thinkers will confirm his verdict.  No such profound utterance had up to this time passed the lips of man.

      What then are the facts before us?  Jesus, or the author of this Gospel, who has put the saying into His mouth, must have been possessed of an insight so profound as to have burst through all the conditions of his environment, and in three short sentences laid deep for all ages the everlasting foundations of the temple of humanity.  The repudiation of what is national, local, and outward is complete, and religion is declared to rest forevermore on the Fatherhood of God.  By this act he has effected what the philosophers were unable to accomplish, the union of man’s religious aspirations with his moral nature.  Compare with this our modern worship of humanity, and its moral aspects.  Surely those unbelievers who allow a religion to be possible must concede that the Author of this saying has placed it on a foundation which will endure forevermore.  Yet the moral and spiritual atmosphere in the midst of which He was born and nurtured, was the exclusiveness of Judaism.  If it be said that an insight which rose to such an elevation above its surroundings, was due to the exalted genius of the prophet of Nazareth, I shall not absolutely quarrel with the term, but it must have been a genius which manifested the presence of the superhuman.

      Fourth Contrast.  The all-comprehensiveness of the Christian law of duty.

      I now ask your attention to the great law of duty as enunciated by Christianity, and its all-comprehensive character.  The great Teacher who, if there was nothing superhuman in him, must have been a mere peasant, nurtured in the narrow exclusiveness of Judaism, has by the enunciation of three great principles, solved all the various questions of duty raised by the endless discussions of philosophers.  These are:—

      First.  Man’s duty to man, as founded on, and originating in the relation in which man stands to God.

      Secondly.  Man’s duty to man, measured by the regard which he feels for himself.

      Thirdly.  Man’s duty to man, measured and sanctioned by the obligations he is under to Jesus Christ.

      The first of these makes the law of duty coextensive with the human family.  We are all aware that the greatest of the ancient philosophers failed to discover any law of duty which could make it coextensive with all races and conditions of men.  They did not regard duty as an obligation, to man as man, but restricted it within the narrow bounds of citizenship, race, and social condition; and consequently looked upon the majority of mankind as pariahs, who stood outside the pale of obligation.  Some dim conception of the universal brotherhood of mankind may be found in the later Stoic philosophy, but it exists only as a barren speculation, devoid of any substantial basis.  Ancient philosophy, in short, divorced morality from religion, and thereby deprived itself of all moral and spiritual power.  Jesus Christ, on the contrary, has united the two, and thereby strengthened the moral principle by all the sanctions which religion can impart.  Contrast with the teaching of the illiterate Jewish peasant that of our modern Atheistic and Pantheistic systems.  Instead of being able to announce a law of duty extending to all men, because all men are the children of the same gracious Father, who has made all the nations of the earth, the only bond of union they can suggest is, not that all men are the children of the same Father in heaven, but that they are the common descendants of some primeval savage.*

      *All modern systems of anti-Christian philosophy find it impossible to propound any principle which can form an effectual basis on which to rest the universal brotherhood of mankind.  The question demands an answer – How do we know that we owe obligations to others?  Why is self-sacrifice a duty?  To those who admit that gratitude and a sense of justice are inherent portions of man’s moral nature, and that the voice of conscience is authoritative, the answer is not difficult.  The principle that we are bound to render to others what we would wish to have done to ourselves, is at once pronounced by it to be in accordance with the highest reason.  The answer of Christianity on this point is clear and distinct.  God is our Creator, and the Creator of all men.  From Him come down every faculty and power we possess, and we are His stewards in the use of them.  He has therefore a right to demand the highest self-sacrifice; and the voice of conscience asserts that His claims are just.  As therefore all men are the children of God, all fall within a common bond of obligation, as members of the same family.  But if the Fatherhood of God, and the principle of intuitional morality is renounced, the question Why is one man bound to an act of self-sacrifice on behalf of another, becomes incapable of solution.  A system which denies that our moral perceptions of right and wrong are intuitional, is compelled to resolve all moral distinctions into mere questions of expediency; or, in other words, into the principle of self-love.  If it be affirmed that the sacrifice of self for others is a duty merely because it is conducive to our own highest happiness, the difficulty is, to prove it.  In fact there are cases of unquestionable duty, where the highest forms of self-sacrifice, even that of life itself, are demanded of us, where such proof becomes impossible.  Atheistic and Pantheistic systems of thought have no resource but to base moral obligation on expediency.  If this be its only foundation, it is clear that each man must be a measure of obligation to himself only as far as he is capable of perceiving that a particular line of conduct is conducive to his own happiness.  I am aware that this principle is affirmed to mean the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and not merely the greatest happiness of the individual.  But the question immediately arises, How do we know that it is obligatory on us to pursue the greatest happiness of the greatest number except as far as the realization of it is conducive to our own?  It is quite conceivable that the pursuit of the greatest happiness of the greatest number may involve a degree of self-sacrifice which is inconsistent with the pursuit of our own individual good.  The fact is, that all theories which refuse to rest duty on some intuitional basis resolve it into a question of accurate calculation; and the best man will be he who possesses the clearest head.  The Fatherhood of God being renounced, and the intuitional perception of any moral principle denied, Atheistic and Pantheistic philosophy are able to announce no principle binding on the conscience which will bring all mankind within the range of obligation.

      The second great principle of the teaching of Jesus renders the law of duty self-determinative, i.e., it converts the individual conscience into a law to itself.  Under it the question, What is my duty in this or that particular instance? is infallibly answered by another, which the questioner may put to himself, What would I have done to me, if I were in that man’s place?  Obedience may be hard, but the answer will certainly be unmistakably distinct.

      The third great principle carries the law of duty to its extremest limits.  The love of Jesus Christ to man is made both the measure and the motive of the love of man to man.  It has been objected (I think absurdly) that the divine rule, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (obedience to which would certainly go far to convert this world into a heaven), sets up a selfish standard of morality.  Those who have made the objection, if they had looked a little further, would have found in the last great precept of Jesus Christ, which he designates his “new Commandment,” a rule which would have gratified their most unselfish wishes; “Love one another, as I have loved you.”  This removes the ideal of duty out of self; and measures and sanctions it by the divine self-sacrifice of Christ our Lord.  Surely this is one beyond which it is impossible for human thought to pass.  On this is founded the great Christian duty of self-sacrifice, which underlies the whole moral teaching of the New Testament, and which embraces within its comprehensive range all other possible duties, whether they be individual, social, or political.  Every duty which man owes to man in every situation in life in which he is placed, he is bound to render as a grateful sacrifice to Christ his Lord, whom he is bound to glorify alike in life and death.  I earnestly draw your attention to this principle, because its existence is overlooked by the various classes of unbelievers who treat of the moral teaching of Christianity, and pronounce it defective.*  A popular school of modern thought has made the charge against Christianity of not having made adequate provision for the discharge of those duties which man owes to the public.  Surely those who have made this charge must have read the New Testament with blinded eyes, for nothing can be clearer than that its great fundamental principles of our being stewards of God, and our duty of sacrifice of self, measured by the self-sacrifice of Christ, must include every social duty which man can owe to man.**

      *I am not aware that Mr. Mill has once recognized the fact that the great Christian duty of sacrifice of self as due to Christ our Lord; nor the equally comprehensive one that the Christian in every position in society in which he is placed as God’s steward, is bound to use every gift with which he is entrusted to God’s glory, as a fundamental principle, which underlies the moral teaching of the New Testament.  His philosophy was no doubt very adverse to its recognition.  Yet surely it is absurd to discuss the value of any system, above all, to pronounce it inadequate to meet the requirements of advancing civilization, when we neglect to include its most fundamental principles in our survey of it,

      **The New Testament lays down another principle which has a most important bearing on the obligation of the Christian to the faithful discharge of all the various duties which he owes to the public.  It teaches that every mental gift which he possesses, and the position in society in which he is placed are a stewardship intrusted to him by God, for the right discharge of which he is responsible.  The overlooking of these two great principles has caused many unbelievers to charge the moral teaching of Christianity with imperfection.  It is clear that if the position in society in which a Christian is placed is a stewardship intrusted to him by God, he is bound by the strongest considerations to the diligent discharge of the various duties which it imposes on him.  If he possesses wealth, he is bound to administer it, not merely as he pleases, but under a direct feeling of responsibility to God who has intrusted him with it.  The same is true of every mental endowment, and of all the political and social influence he possesses.  Christianity, in short, is ignorant of the distinction so commonly laid down between religious and secular duties; between things sacred and the pursuits of daily life.  It has made every duty which man can owe to man a religious duty.  It has sanctified the whole of human life, including its pleasures and enjoyments, and claimed it for God.  “None of us liveth unto himself” says the Apostle, “and no man dieth unto himself,”  “Ye serve the Lord Christ.”  The error above referred to has originated in the idea that Christianity has so directed our attention to the importance of the world to come as to divert it from the concerns of the present.  This however is an evident misapprehension of its teaching.  It is perfectly true that it speaks in the strongest manner of our interest in the future state; and that the interests of this world are unimportant in comparison with those of the next.  But its assertions are no less emphatic that the only mode of securing our interests in the world to come is by a faithful discharge of every duty which man owes to man in the present.  Thus, instead of disparaging the importance of present duties, it imparts the highest possible sanction to the conscientious and faithful discharge of them.  The fact is, that Christianity lays down that this world is God’s world; and that whatever duty man is called upon to discharge, he is to do it heartily unto the Lord, and not to man, because he is bound to glorify God in his body and in his spirit, which are God’s.  Such is the provision which Christianity makes for the discharge of all the duties we owe to the public; and I maintain that it is more comprehensive than that enjoined by any system of modern teaching, and sanctioned by the highest motives that can be brought to bear on man.  If on the other hand we view the question as one of fact, it is certain that no servants of the public discharge their duties with greater faithfulness and devotion than those who are thoroughly leavened with the principles of Christianity.

      Striking then is the contrast between the all-comprehensive teaching of the illiterate Jewish peasant and that of the profoundest teachers of the ancient world.  The one is one-sided, national and partial; the other as catholic as human nature, and as many sided as the moral nature of man.  The one bears on it the impress of those by whom it was elaborated; the other has burst through every trammel which was imposed on it by its surroundings.  The one discussed questions of duty with endless prolixity; the other by a few comprehensive utterances has solved all such questions forevermore.  Whence then did this man derive all this wisdom?  The profoundest thinkers of the ancient world with all the mass of accumulated experience at their command, were unable to approach to the comprehensiveness or the elevation of His teaching.  Yet if Christianity be a mere human development, this worldwide catholicity must have been evolved out of a system of narrow-minded exclusiveness.

      IV. Another contrast between the teaching of the New Testament and that of the philosophers, which probably strikes every intelligent reader, is the relative importance it assigns to the milder virtues.  As no inconsiderable amount of misrepresentation has taken place on this subject, I will briefly state what are the actual facts.

      Respecting the views of philosophy there can be little doubt.  The political or heroical virtues occupy the first place in every system; the milder ones a place wholly subordinate; and one of them, humility, a virtue much insisted on by Christianity, has no place at all.  We have only to read the Ethics of Aristotle to ascertain the fact, and the writings of the great philosopher fairly represent the views of the ancient world.  If we consider its standpoint, the case could hardly have been otherwise.  Christianity on the contrary places the milder virtues in the forefront, quite as emphatically as philosophy did the political ones.*  Of some of these latter, such as patriotism, it takes no direct notice.  To the practice of others its exhortations are few; but so earnest is its effort to enforce the practice of the milder ones, that several of its precepts, if taken literally, and detached from the immediate circumstances which called them forth, may be said to be inconsistent with a due regard for the public rights of man.

      *I do not claim for Christianity absolute originality in assigning a more prominent place to the milder virtues.  The principle is very distinctly recognized in the Old Testament Scriptures.  In fact the assigning a prominent place to certain virtues, such as humility, the existence of which is scarcely recognized by pagan ethics, is inseparable from any system of theism which views God as the Creator of all things, and man as standing in a personal relation to Him as His creature.  Whenever this conception receives a practical recognition, all those feelings which spring out of man’s relationship to God, and from a sense of sin, are called into lively exercise.  But while the Old Testament assigns to the milder virtues a very different place from that which is assigned to them in pagan ethics, most of its great characters are striking exemplifications of the predominance of the heroic ones.  A few of them exhibit the former qualities, but taking the whole as a series, the sterner aspects of human nature unquestionably predominate.  It is therefore quite true that it has been reserved for Christianity to bring the importance of the milder virtues into prominent light, by placing them in the forefront of its teachings; and above all, by exhibiting them as the predominant element in the divine character of Christ our Lord.  The manner in which they are exhibited in Him, in the closest union with, but yet predominant over the heroical ones, constitute Him the perfect exhibition of moral loveliness.

      In considering this subject it should be borne in mind that while it was the end and purpose of philosophy to propound a complete ethical code, such was wholly foreign to the aim of the writers of the New Testament.  While the great principles of the latter are of worldwide comprehensiveness, their special precepts are invariably called forth by the special circumstances of those to whom they are addressed.*  Consequently before they can be applied to other circumstances and conditions, they require to be resolved into the principles on which they are based, and then accommodated to the altered facts.  They are in fact directions for practice under special circumstances; and to interpret them as though they were intended as abstract precepts binding on man for all time, is utterly to mistake their meaning.  Thus a strong precept inculcating the duty of obedience to governors, might be very appropriate when addressed to a body of turbulent Jews, but would be wholly inapplicable to the free citizens of a well-ordered State.  Similarly, precepts urging abnegation of the rights of property might have been very necessary when addressed to certain conditions of society, which would be absolutely pernicious if regarded as applicable to every state of civilization.**  Nothing has been a more fruitful source of error respecting the teaching of the New Testament, than this assumption that its precepts, as distinct from its great moral principles, were intended to constitute a body of ethical doctrine applicable to all time, instead of being specially addressed to particular Churches and individuals, in reference to the circumstances in which they were placed.

      *The precepts given by St. Paul to the Roman and Corinthian Churches in reference to the duty of observing certain days, and the lawfulness of eating certain kinds of food, form a very remarkable illustration of this principle.  The circumstances which called them forth have passed away: and consequently the precepts, in the form in which they were given by the Apostle, have no direct bearing on the present condition of the Church.  But the underlying principles are valid for all time for the solution of a vast number of questions beyond those which came within the Apostle’s immediate view.  They lay down the broadest principles of toleration with respect to the differences which arise among Christians in every age; and may be truly said to constitute the “Magna Charta” of religious liberty.  Would that the Church had given heed to them during the various controversies that have agitated her throughout the long period of her history!  The principles of no modern philosophical system surpass them in comprehensiveness.  Yet they are the utterances of one who was born and nurtured amid the narrowest Jewish fanaticism and intolerance, and who had carried out these principles by fiercely persecuting the Church.

      **I allude to those which seem to condemn saving, and to enjoin indiscriminate almsgiving.  There can be no doubt that if such precepts were acted on to the letter, they would not only occasion a far greater amount of misery than would be relieved by their observance, but would be destructive of modern civilization.  It has been said that such precepts are intended to embody an ideal morality, which would be fitted to a perfect state of society.  I cannot attribute anything so unpractical to Our Lord and His Apostles, for it is clear that they did not anticipate the realization of a perfect state of society during the present condition of things; and when it was realized, such precepts would be unnecessary.  The only correct view seems to me to be, that they are precepts enunciated in a very popular form, addressed to a state of thought and feeling in which the opposite tendencies were extremely powerful.  As a general fact there can be no doubt that the benevolent impulses are the weakest in human nature, and therefore require to be called forth by having the whole weight of the religious principle thrown into the scale with them; and that those which terminate in self are so powerful as to require the strongest repression.  I fully allow that these precepts (which are far fewer in number than is commonly supposed,) if carried out to the letter, amount to communism; but the great Teacher Himself has given an emphatic warning against such a mode of interpreting them, and so has the Apostle Paul (John 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6).  Taking the teaching of the New Testament as a whole, it is clear that while it makes the strongest effort to awaken the benevolent affections, it keeps itself wholly free from communistic principles.

      On the ether hand it should be observed that, although the political virtues receive but a partial recognition, they are strongly exemplified in the actions of its great characters.  While there is scarcely a precept which enjoins courage or self-respect, the world contains no grander example of these two virtues than is exhibited in the Founder of Christianity and the Apostle Paul.  I invite you to compare the portraiture of the Jesus of the Gospels as exhibiting the perfection of self-conscious dignity with that which has been drawn by the great author of the Ethics, of his μεγαλόψυχος, or magnanimous man.  The comparison makes the latter seem like a burlesque.  Though none of the writers of the New Testament have written direct commendations of courage, they exhibit the brightest example of it in their practice, and place it on its true foundation in the great saying, “It is right to obey God rather than man.”  The very men whose exhortations to the practice of the milder virtues are so strong that they almost seem to have overlooked the existence of the heroic, exhibit these latter in their practice on the grandest scale, affording them thereby the highest recognition.

      I fully concede, however, that while it is an utter misrepresentation of the moral teaching of the New Testament, to charge on it the purpose of superseding the heroical and political virtues, it was its aim and purpose to reverse the order in which they stood in the estimation of the ancient world.  Admitting the fact, the important question is, have they in adopting this course exhibited a deep insight into the realities of human nature?  Which in fact have been right, the writers of the New Testament or the philosophers, in the relative importance they have assigned to these two classes of virtues?  If this question can be decided by authority, there cannot be a doubt that since Christianity has pronounced in favour of the milder virtues, an overwhelming majority of the wisest and the holiest of men have accepted its decision as the right one.  There can be no doubt that if, during the last three thousand years, the milder virtues had occupied the place which the heroical ones have held in men’s estimation, the happiness of mankind would have increased a thousand-fold.  Take, for example, the three great political virtues, of courage, patriotism and ambition, which have in all ages commanded the most unbounded admiration.  When we calmly survey the pages of history, is it, I ask, too much to affirm that a large portion of the crimes with which it has been stained, have been due to the unrestrained action of these three qualities: qualities noble in themselves, but which become simply pernicious when uncontrolled and unregulated by the predominant influence of the milder virtues?  The political and heroical ones are highly valuable when kept in proper subordination to the milder qualities of the human mind; but when they reign supreme and alone, as they have generally done throughout the ages of the past, the perniciousness of their influence has only been in proportion to their greatness.

      I claim therefore for the writers of the New Testament, that in reversing the order of the importance of the virtues, they have shown a profound insight into the realities of human nature; and that they are right in assigning the first place to the fruits of the Spirit of God, and the subordinate one to the qualities in question.  The place they have assigned to the milder virtues, and their exhibition of them in combination with the heroical ones in the person of Jesus Christ, have, in the words of Mr. Lecky, “done more to regenerate and soften mankind, than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and than all the exhortations of moralists.”

      Fifth Contrast.  The views taken by Jesus Christ and by the philosophers of the extent of their respective missions.

      The next striking contrast between the Founder of Christianity and the philosophers is His great conception of addressing His mission to the masses of mankind, while theirs was confined to a small spiritual aristocracy.  In this respect the interval which separates Jesus Christ from the traditions of the past is profound.  He is the founder and the leader of all the benevolent and missionary exertions in the modern world, and has made the duty of following His example an inherent portion of His system to such an extent that it is impossible for any genuine disciple to avoid making Him the subject of his imitation.

      I need not in this place dwell on the exclusiveness of the great teachers of the ancient world.  This was inevitable from their position.  Their teaching was not a religion, but a philosophy, and their object was to form a school for its study.  Hence it was that nothing could be more alien to the ideas of the philosopher than to go out into the highways and hedges of humanity, and compel the degraded to come in.  The reason is obvious.  Philosophy had no Gospel of good news for such.  With the means at its command it could only address itself to the intellectual aristocracy of mankind.  Two sentences will, I think, present the contrast between the method of Jesus and that of the philosophers in a striking light.  Jesus Christ affirmed that He came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.  Philosophy affirmed that its special mission was “to those of mankind who have a natural tendency and disposition towards virtue.”  The conception which Jesus Christ and the philosophers entertained of their respective missions differed as widely as the poles.

      I boldly affirm that all modern attempts to ameliorate the condition of the masses have originated in this grand conception of Jesus Christ.  He is the originator, the leader, and the pioneer of every self-sacrificing effort which has been made for the improvement of mankind; its example, and what is more, the motive force which has impelled all subsequent efforts.  In this respect it is beyond all question that the teaching and example of Jesus has transcended that of all philosophy.  Yet if the positions of unbelievers be true, the genius of a peasant, born and educated in the narrowest atmosphere of Jewish exclusiveness, has originated and carried out this grand conception.  If it be so, the genius which has effected this great result must have been an inspiration from above, for it is unique in the history of mankind.*

      *It will perhaps be urged that Socrates took a wider view of his mission than that which I have assigned to the philosophers; that he spent his whole life in endeavouring to improve his fellow citizens in virtue; and that he died a martyr to his exertions.  There can be no doubt that he took a wider view of his mission than that which was taken by the other philosophers.  Still it was confined to the citizens of a single State; and these formed the intellectual aristocracy of the ancient world.  The philosopher affirms in his defence that it was his fixed purpose to confine his labours to his countrymen; and in reply to all exhortations to avoid the dangers which surrounded him, by transferring his labours to another sphere of action, declined to do so on the ground that it would prove an uncongenial soil.  It is clear therefore that Socrates never entertained the idea of a mission to mankind, nor even to the Grecian race, but that his efforts were strictly confined to the improvement of his fellow citizens.  With these in the public places of resort he spent his time in arguing and discussing.  Between his own conception of his mission and that of Jesus Christ, or even that of an Old Testament prophet, there is scarcely a single point of resemblance.  Jesus Christ authoritatively announced a number of great truths which penetrated to the depths of the human heart.  The method of the philosopher was to create a philosophy by awakening a spirit of sceptical inquiry.  He declared that he could affirm nothing as certain.  His whole position disqualified him to act the part of a preacher of repentance, and none would have more readily admitted than himself that he was devoid of the means of acting as the regenerator of those who were fallen into a condition of moral corruption and degradation.  His views were incapable of appreciation except by those who possessed a high order of intellectual power, and a character in some degree congenial to his own.  This is evident from the discourses attributed to him by his two great disciples, unless they have wholly misrepresented his meaning.  It is true that he addressed himself to the citizens generally, but the mode of his address was only calculated to attract the intellectual aristocracy among them.  These he endeavoured to discover in every circle of society.  The result was, that his leading disciples became, not a number of missionaries who exhorted mankind to repentance and conversion, or conceived that it was their special duty to devote themselves to the improvement of the condition of degraded man, but the founders of a number of philosophic sects.  There is nothing therefore in the conduct or the example of Socrates which at all affects the originality of the conception of the Founder of Christianity; but everything to impress us with a sense of the unique power with which He has acted as the regenerator and the ameliorator of the condition of mankind.

      Sixth Contrast.  The creation by Christianity of a mighty moral and spiritual power, which, while philosophy confessed the need of it, it failed to discover.

      This brings me to the consideration of the most striking contrast which exists between the teaching of philosophy and that of Christianity, viz. the affirmation which Christianity makes that it possesses within itself a moral and spiritual power, adequate to effect the regeneration of mankind.  This power, it affirms, can elevate the holy to higher degrees of holiness, and rescue the degraded from their degradation.  This portion of my subject is one of profound importance, and to it I earnestly invite your attention, for it is one which has been greatly overlooked in the entire controversy.  Of the want of such a power all the ancient philosophers were profoundly conscious, but all their efforts failed to produce any permanent influence on the regeneration of mankind from their inability to discover one.  The originality of the claim on the part of Christianity to have created such a power is unquestionable.

      In proof of this, I adduce the whole course of ancient philosophic thought.  If we read the entire remains of ancient literature, we shall arise from it with the conviction that the idea of preaching repentance and amendment to those portions of mankind who were sinking into a state of moral corruption, or who had already become degraded, was one which never entered into the heads of the philosophers.  Yet it is a certain fact that from the time of Socrates onwards, man, intellectually, politically, and morally, formed the chief subject of their investigations.  To their labours we are deeply indebted, for they have thrown a flood of light on what could or could not be effected by rational investigation, before the great spiritual Sun threw the radiance of his beams on the moral and spiritual world.  Their expenditure of intellect on this subject was enormous.  Of the tendency of man to moral corruption they were profoundly sensible, and have submitted its causes and its symptoms to a minute analysis of which we enjoy the benefit.  But did this produce on their part an energetic effort to work its cure.  No; they did what the Priest and the Levite in the parable did to the wounded traveller.  They looked curiously and with inquiring eye on degraded man, and passed by on the other side, leaving him to perish in his degradation.  Was this owing to inhumanity?  No; they felt that they had no means of cure.  When moral deterioration had advanced to a certain stage, philosophy contemplated it with despair.  Read your Ethics.  Portions of the Seventh book speak on this point in language which it is impossible to misunderstand.  That passage in the Tenth book, in which the great philosopher surveys the probable results of his labours, is almost pathetic in its melancholy.*  Whom did he, the spiritual physician, consider himself capable of benefiting?  A small body of ingenuous youths, born with a natural tendency to what is good. and noble; but as for the masses, they have no perception of the morally beautiful, and can only be operated on by the fear of punishment.  Such are the views which the great philosopher, with his deep insight into human nature, took of the hopeless character of moral corruption.  For it he knew no remedy.  We need not wonder therefore that the Schools pronounced on the degraded multitude the ban of spiritual excommunication.

      *Ει μεν ουν ησαν οι λόγοι αυτάρκεις προς το ποιησαι επιεικεις πολλους αν μισθους και μεγάλους δικαίως έφερον κατα τον Θέογνιν, και έδει αν τούτους πορίσασθαι νυν δε φαίνονται προτρέψασθαι μεν, και παρορμησαι των νέων τους ελευθέρους ισχύειν, ηθος τευγενες και ως αληθως φιλόκαλον ποιησαι αν κατοκώχιμον εκ της αρετης, τους δε πολλους αδυνατειν προς καλοκαγαθίαν προτρέψασθαυ ου γαρ πεφύκασιν αιδοι πειθαρκειν αλλα φόβω, ουδ απέχεσθαι των φαύλων δια το αισχρον αλλα δια τας τιμωρίας· πάθει γαρ ζωντες τας οικείας ηδονας διώκουσι και δι ων αυται έσονται, φεύγουσι δε τας αντικειμένας λύπας, του δε καλου και ως αληθως ηδέος ουδ έννοιαν έχουσιν, άγευστοι όντες.  Τοις δη τοιούτους τίς αν λόγος μεταρρυθμίσαι; ου γαρ οιόντε η ου ράδιον τα εκ παλαιου τοις ήθεσι κατειλημμένα λόγω μεταστησαι. - - - Ου γαρ αν ακούσειε λόγου αποτρέποντος ουδ αυ συνειη ο κατα πάθος ζων· του δ ούτως έχοντα πως οιόντε μεταπεισαι; όλως τ ου δοκει λόγω υπείκειν το πάθος αλλα βία. – Ethics, Book X. Chap. 10.

      To those who are acquainted with the range of ancient philosophic thought, the reason of its impotency to deal with moral corruption will not be difficult to discover.  The philosopher was profoundly conscious that there was no moral and spiritual power which he was capable of wielding adequate to cope with the violence of the passions.  Reason was the only principle to which he could appeal; but he was unable to produce convictions of sufficient strength to kindle into active energy the higher principles of our moral being.

      Let me briefly enumerate the only forces at his command, by the aid of which he could set himself to the task of reforming a degraded character.  He could appeal to the ordinary incentives to virtue, as the love of the morally beautiful, or the nobleness of self-sacrifice; but what effect could such appeals have on those in whom such perceptions were wanting?  To what purpose was it to exhort a man who had entered on the downward course of vice to practise holiness because it was morally beautiful to do so?  How could such an appeal aid the man who had become the slave of his appetites and passions, or even whose principle of self-control was weakened?  It is clear that if such a person could be reclaimed at all, it could only be by the creation of some powerful conviction in his inmost spirit capable of energizing mightily on his entire moral being.  But the creation of such a conviction was the very thing which philosophy was unable to effect.  It had nothing to hold up to the eye of faith that could mightily influence the spirit of man, or awaken him from the stupor and slavery of vice.  If, on the other hand, he appealed to the principle of self-love, and argued that a virtuous life was on the whole more conducive to happiness, the evidence of this was not sufficiently strong to command the assent of a degraded or even an imperfect character.  On such the prospect of remote good is powerless against the violence of present impulse.

      Let us suppose that a person conscious that his powers of self-control were weak, but who was desirous of returning to the practice of virtue, had consulted the philosopher as his spiritual physician, and asked him for a prescription which would restore him to moral health, what must have been his answer?  Do virtuous actions, and in time you will form virtuous principles; restrain your passions, and in time you will acquire the habit of self-control.  But if the diseased man had replied, how am I to be rendered capable of performing these virtuous actions, while destitute of the power of self-control; or how am I to restrain the violence of the passions, unless you can call into active energy some force which is capable of mastering them, no answer except a few platitudes from the philosopher’s standpoint was possible.  The reason for this is obvious.  The philosopher was incapable of appealing to the conscience through the medium of religious conviction, for of such conviction he himself was destitute.  His prescription would have been a mere mockery of the patient.

      But there was another force with which the philosopher was acquainted, and on which his only hope of the possible regeneration of mankind was based, that of habit.  The question therefore becomes one of profound importance, Is it a power capable of regenerating mankind, or reforming the individual; or must it be supplemented by a mightier influence?  Now the powerful influence of habit is undeniable.  To a very considerable extent it has made us what we are.  While it is an unquestionable fact that man possesses a principle of volition which within definite limits is capable of influencing the formation of his character, yet it is no less true that the characters of a great majority of mankind are largely affected by habits which have been impressed on them by their birth and surroundings.  According to a very popular theory of modern philosophy, even those portions of our characters which we suppose to be original, are nothing else than accumulations of habits which have been handed down by our remote ancestors.  As my present duty is to deal with facts, I am not called on to discuss the truth, or falsehood, of a theory of this description.  I only notice it, because, if true, it forms the strongest evidence of the powerlessness of habit to effect the regeneration of the individual, and of the slowness of its operation in the improvement of the race.

      As the force of habit is the only one known to philosophy which is capable of powerfully acting on character, it becomes a matter of the highest importance to ascertain how far it is adequate to effect the regeneration of the individual or the race.  On the other hand the New Testament propounds another and mightier force, which it designates faith, as alone able to effectuate this purpose.  Is it philosophically right in doing so?  If it is, it has a most important bearing on our argument.  I observe—

      First: the operation of habit on character is necessarily slow, being in fact the accumulated result of actions constantly repeated.  Consequently, the changes which take place in the moral world under its influence can only be very gradual.  This alone renders it incapable of acting as a great regenerating power on the individual.

      Secondly: habit can only act through materials already existing in the character, or the surroundings, but is incapable of creating a new principle of life.  It is a powerful lever; but without a fulcrum on which to support itself, it is powerless.  Consequently under its influences men can do little more than develop the characters which are impressed on them by their birth and surroundings.  If they are good by nature, habit will cause them gradually to increase in goodness; if bad, in vice.  I fully admit that the individual has the power, if he chooses to exert it, of slowly modifying his character under the discipline of habituation; but to render this possible, he must be possessed of a considerable power of self-control; and of this, characters that are imperfect and morally corrupt are entirely destitute.*  The old prophet exactly described the effects of habit when he said, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots: then may they do good who are accustomed to do evil.”  Philosophy itself says plainly that it can only exert an influence for good, where there is a large substratum of goodness on which to commence its operations.

      *The slowness of the action of habit in producing changes in the character is of itself a sufficient reason why it is powerless to effect the regeneration of an individual who is in an advanced stage of moral corruption.  Whatever changes can be effected in a formed character can only be gradual.  But in the case of a man who is morally corrupt, not only have evil principles to be eradicated, but good ones to be generated.  The term of human life is far too short to render the regeneration of a vicious character possible in this way, even if the other conditions were favourable.  I make this observation on the supposition that a man is attempting the work of self reform by the sole aid of the principle of habituation.  As a matter of fact we know that nothing is more difficult to uproot than a confirmed habit of vice.  Every act of self-indulgence weakens the power of self-control; and the moment the temptation presents itself, the old habit reasserts its power.

      Thirdly.  The only mode in which habit can be used as a means of strengthening the character of one in whom the principle of self-control has been weakened is by bringing to bear on him some external power of coercion.  This results from the fact that virtuous principles can only be formed and strengthened by doing virtuous actions.  But how can a man do them who is a prey to the violence of his passions?  It is evident that the only mode of enabling him to do them is by bringing to bear on him a power of external coercion sufficient to restrain him until he has acquired the habit of self-control.

      From this has resulted the political character of all the ancient and several of the modern systems of Ethics.  The philosopher saw plainly that he could do little or nothing in the way of regenerating the individual who had become habituated to evil.  Hence his only hope of improving mankind lay in founding a society in which men should be trained to virtue, or, if necessary, coerced into it by a system of discipline.  Of the effects of such a training he saw some remarkable examples in some of the small States of antiquity, which existed under very peculiar conditions.  He hoped therefore that if he could obtain the power of legislation he could produce important results in a select number of citizens in favour of virtue.  Mr. Mill has even given utterance to the opinion that what was done on a small scale by a particular system of training may be done on a larger one on mankind in general.  If the name of Sparta could elicit the sacrifice of the individual to the State, why may not the conception of humanity be made to call forth the same self-sacrifice for the interests of mankind?  I reply, that the conditions are so widely different that there is no parallel between the two cases.*  The possibility, however, need not be discussed, for there is one insuperable difficulty which ever has and ever will prevent this philosophic speculation from becoming a fact – the inability of the philosopher to create a State in which his principles can be worked out in practice.  Of this the necessary data are a body of virtuous governors and a body of subjects willing to submit themselves to their guidance.  This is a state of things which has never yet succeeded in emerging from the ideal into the actual.

      *The position taken by those who affirm that the enthusiasm for humanity may be made a substitute for a religion is this.  Several of the ancient republics, of which Sparta and Rome are conspicuous examples, succeeded by means of a careful system of training in evoking on the part of the individual a profound feeling of the duty of self-sacrifice to the interests of the State.  This was carried to such an extent that large bodies of citizens were prepared to sacrifice even life itself sooner than bring dishonour on their country.  Hence it has been argued that what was practicable on a small scale, must be capable of being realized on a large one, and that under a suitable system of training, the same spirit of sacrifice of the individual may thus be elicited for the general interest of mankind as that which was displayed by the citizen of old for the State of which he was a member.  One objection against this view is obvious; it is a theory which contradicts all the facts with which we are acquainted.  The spirit of patriotic self-sacrifice has always been the strongest in small communities.  It is no theory, but a fact, that it burnt with a far stronger flame in the small states of antiquity, which consisted of a few thousand citizens, than in our modern kingdoms, which number their subjects by millions.  Thus it was strong in Rome while the privileges of citizenship were limited to a comparatively small class, but when she became an empire, and it was necessary to extend the privileges over an ever-increasing surface, patriotism gradually died out.  The same is true of party spirit and sectarianism.  The self-sacrifice of the individual for his party or his sect is elicited just in proportion to their narrowness.  The reason is obvious.  It is necessary, in order to create a strong spirit of patriotic self-devotion, that the individual should feel that his own interests and these of the community are one; and that what is injurious to the State is likewise injurious to himself; in other words, that the glory of the State is the gain of the individual.  The feelings which inspired the patriotic self-devotion in the citizen of an ancient State are graphically placed before us in the funeral oration which Thucydides has put into the mouth of Pericles, over those Athenians who perished in the first year of the Peloponnesian War; and if we admit that the historian has accurately described them, it is evident that no system of training would be adequate to call them forth in favour of the abstract conception of humanity.  In the small states of antiquity the close binding up of the interests of the individual with those of the community was capable of a very distinct realization.  They in some respects resembled a joint stock company, in which the interest of each individual in the common weal is a definitely appreciable quantity.  If it be urged that this will not account for the readiness of the individual to sacrifice his life in the service of the State, I reply, that not only is this accounted for by the love of posthumous glory which is inherent in a large number of mankind; but in many of the ancient States the penalties attached to cowardice were so severe, that death was far preferable.  The feelings which prompt a man to surrender his life in battle are of a very varied character, and are probably never wholly due to a simple desire for the good of the community, nor altogether separate from the love of posthumous fame, the feeling of revenge, or the dread of disgrace, all of which are principles ultimately terminating in self.  From these considerations it follows that those principles which kindled the patriotic self-devotion of the citizens of ancient states would be utterly inadequate to create that enthusiasm for the abstract idea of humanity which a certain school of modern unbelief invites us to accept as a substitute for those great principles of Christianity which have created a mighty army of self-sacrificers in the cause of Jesus Christ, and through Him, on behalf of the entire family of man.  Even according to the opinions of those who have propounded this theory, the era of its realization must be delayed to the remote ages of the future, after thousands of generations of men have become silent in their graves.  Such is the phantom which unbelief exhibits before the eyes of those who, conscious of the evil which dwells within them, are sighing for moral and spiritual regeneration.

      These considerations, therefore, prove that the only agency with which the philosopher was acquainted was impotent in his hands to effect the regeneration either of the individual or the race.  Even its most eminent modern advocates, while expressing themselves in terms of hope, are compelled to adopt what is practically the language of despair.  This regeneration, if possible at all, will be only so at some indefinitely remote period of the future.  For the present we must be content to console ourselves with the assurance that man is slowly but steadily progressing for the better notwithstanding that the experience of the past proves that not a few races of mankind have entered on a course of gradual retrogression.*  The only message of good news which a popular gospel of unbelief at the present day is able to announce, though certainly not very consoling to man in his degradation, is “The fittest shall survive.”  To a man impotently struggling with the violence of the passions, “the survival of the fittest” means “destruction.”  Such an announcement is the “ministration of death” to all the degraded races of mankind.

      *This is unquestionably true of a very large numerical majority of mankind.  Witness the races in which Buddhism, Braminism, and Mahomedanism prevail, including not less than seven hundred millions of the human family.  What prospect, I ask, have these races of a future, apart from the influence of Christianity?  To these must be added the Negro race, which as far as history goes, has never had a Past; and unless it can be regenerated by the aid of external influences, never will have a Future.

      Such was the impotence of philosophy.  To do them justice, ancient philosophers felt and confessed it.  Contrast with this the teaching of Jesus Christ.  He has not only pronounced man’s regeneration possible, but has put into execution a plan for making it a reality, and has actually succeeded in recovering to holiness a multitude of imperfect and fallen men, whom no man can number.  He has created a moral and spiritual power capable of stirring the hearts of men to their inmost depths.  This power the New Testament designates faith.  He has likewise created the greatest of Societies – the Christian Church – in which the subjects of His spiritual kingdom may be trained to holiness.  The philosophers’ principle of sanctification was, Begin with the outward and penetrate to the inward by means of habit: that of Jesus Christ is, Begin with the inward, and penetrate to the outward by means of faith.  While He did not overlook the power of habit, the idea of effecting man’s regeneration by means of faith is His exclusive discovery; and experience has proved that it is the only possible method.

      It is superfluous to prove that the use which the New Testament makes of faith as the great power of sanctification in man constitutes the most striking characteristic of its moral teaching, and most distinguishes it from every other system which has been elaborated before or since.  There is scarcely a page in it in which the principle of faith is not appealed to as a great moral and spiritual power.  Yet the observations which not a few eminent unbelievers have made on the moral teaching of Christianity completely overlook the fact that this constitutes its inner life.  They have assumed that its essence lies in its ethical precepts or in its moral principles, and have entirely ignored this, its great underlying element, which imparts vitality both to its precepts and its principles.  The oversight is one which may well fill us with surprise, for it is professedly to treat a subject and to leave unconsidered its most important element.

      Nor are we ourselves without blame in this particular.  We are in urgent need of a system of moral philosophy which places Christ and the specialities of Christianity in the centre of its teaching.  I fear that I am speaking correctly when I say that a system of philosophy which points out the harmony of the great principles of Christianity with the moral nature of man, does not exist except in very partial forms.  Instead of elaborating a system which assigns to Christianity its proper place in philosophy, we have handed over the study of the science to men whose sympathies with revealed religion are small, and in whose systems Christianity can find no place.  Need we wonder if the result has been eminently unsatisfactory.  I would speak with the deepest respect for the great writers of antiquity.  To them our debt of gratitude is great, for the light they have thrown on many of the aspects of human nature, quite independently of any influences derived from Revelation; but from the time when I first studied them in this University I have felt an ever-deepening conviction that their philosophy affords no adequate place for the great principles of Christianity.  Why has not a philosophy been elaborated which has assigned an adequate place to the great principles which Christianity has brought to bear on human nature, and shown their harmony with our moral constitution?  Heathen Ethics have done what they could – the wonder is that they have done so much – but surely there is something in Christianity high above them, and systems derived from them, which, if true, ought to receive a recognized place in our philosophy, unless a divorce is to take place between reason and religion, Christianity and modern thought.  If Christianity is true, it must have a legitimate place in the philosophy of man.  Our inability to assign such a place to the specialities of Christian teaching has propelled many a thoughtful mind downwards to unbelief.

      But to return to the argument.  We have shown that the principle of habit, the only moral and spiritual force at the command of philosophy, was unable to effect the regeneration of the morally degraded.  All that it could do was to strengthen those who had a tendency to virtue in their virtuous character.  It therefore left the degraded to perish in their degradation from pure inability to help them.  Where philosophy hopelessly failed is precisely the point at which Christianity steps in.  The great Teacher has proclaimed Himself the centre of a moral and spiritual power, which is not only adequate to strengthen the holy in their holiness, but to regenerate the morally corrupt.  This power He not only claims to possess, but has actually exerted during eighteen centuries.  Who, I ask, can deny the fact that Jesus Christ has exerted an influence which has rescued multitudes from their degradation, and has restored them to holiness and to God?  It is a fact verifiable in the history of the past.  Countless numbers of sinners have had their hearts melted by the divine power which resides in Him, and in the words of the Apostle, “have been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”  Who else has exerted a similar influence?

      Let us now inquire how does Christianity accomplish this great result?  I answer by producing a conviction in the innermost spirit of man respecting the eternal realities of things.  This is faith,* which the New Testament affirms to be the great principle which can purify the heart.  The only mode by which the regeneration of a morally corrupted man is possible is by the introduction of a new idea into the mind, which from the understanding passes into the heart, and awakens principles which were previously dormant.  Unless some profound conviction respecting truth previously unrecognized can be produced, it is evident that a man morally corrupt must continue in his old groove.  Such a conviction has been proved to be capable of revolutionizing our entire moral and spiritual being, and consequently of becoming the centre of a new life.  It becomes the evidence of things not seen.

      *The faith of the New Testament ranges through various stages of conviction, and is powerful in its operation on our moral and spiritual being in proportion to its intensity.  Its limits lie between the fullness of knowledge spoken of by St. Paul and St. John and the imperfect conviction of the father of the demoniac child, expressed in the words, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief,” and include both.

      How then does Christianity seek to effectuate this result?  I answer by concentrating on the conscience the whole force of the religious principle in man, so as to produce a profound conviction respecting the realities of moral and spiritual truth.  It then presents to him the person of Jesus Christ in the divine attractiveness of His life and death, the perfect embodiment of all that is pure, holy, and lovely, in God or man, as the centre of a new spiritual life.  By doing so it has restored to holiness multitudes of degraded men which no man can number, and has elevated every holy man who has come under its influence to yet higher degrees of holiness.

      Of the principle of faith or conviction as a regenerating power the philosopher was ignorant.  How could it be otherwise?  His philosophy created no profound convictions; it was the mere region of probabilities.  Moreover, he was destitute of real religious beliefs; he justly despised those of the vulgar, but he was unable to replace them by any which amounted to real conviction.  This being so, he was utterly unable to grapple with the conscience; he had no image of divine attractiveness to present to the awakened spirit – all he could do was to appeal to cold reason; and this would awaken no emotions, or summon into existence a force capable of grappling with the violence of the passions.  It may perhaps be urged that the Platonic philosophy contains a nearer approach to the Christian conception.  Viewing the question abstractedly, I fully admit that the contemplation of the το αγαθον or the abstract idea of good is so.  But where was it to be found?  The words of the Apostle may be applied to it with entire fitness, “Who shall go up into heaven to bring it down from above?”  How were the morally degraded to raise themselves to its lofty height?  On the contrary, so far was the great philosopher from viewing it as a principle mighty to effect the regeneration of mankind, that with him it was the reward of a long and profound study of philosophy, which was to be the special privilege of the members of his spiritual aristocracy.

      Let us pause for one moment to contrast this the highest achievement of philosophy with what has been effected by the Jewish peasant.  Plato in his speculations conceived of the contemplation of the abstract idea of the good as one which might elevate to higher holiness the most advanced students of philosophy.  Christianity has unfolded this divine idea of goodness in the person of Jesus Christ in a form which is capable of acting on every member of the human family.  What the philosopher could only dream of in his study as the privilege of the select few, Jesus Christ has manifested in His life as the property of all.  Marvellous has been the fulfillment of the philosopher’s anticipations (although that fulfillment has been brought about in a manner which he utterly failed to conceive) by Him who uttered those ever-memorable words, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me.”  Philosophy in groping after truth, stumbled on speculations which Christianity has realized.

      So also has it been with the ideal republic of the philosopher.  His investigations led him to the conclusion that if men were ever to become virtuous they must be trained to it.  He therefore sighed after some institution in which man might be habituated to the practice of virtue.  Such an institution, though the subject of his constant speculations, he was powerless to create.  Jesus Christ formed the idea of the kingdom of God as the great training institution for holiness.  But with Him it has been no mere idea.  He has instituted the Catholic Church, which of all human institutions has exerted the mightiest influence for good.

      Thus the Jewish peasant has not only realized, but surpassed the results of the highest reason of the ancient world.

      Let me now briefly sum up the results of this argument.  The philosophers after the deepest study of the moral nature of man, confessed their inability to discover any spiritual power capable of effecting the regeneration of the morally degraded.  Jesus Christ has acted on them mightily; and after the lapse of eighteen centuries, He is still the most powerful regenerating influence acting on mankind.  The one discussed intellectual problems, the other appealed to the conscience and the heart.  The one contemplated the masses of mankind with despair, and would have viewed the idea of devoting an entire life to their elevation as the phantasm of a disordered brain; the other has been the founder, and the impelling motive of the efforts which during eighteen centuries have been undertaken for the amelioration of mankind.  The one coldly bade men become virtuous by performing virtuous actions, but could impart to them no power to render their performance possible; the other has breathed into man’s inmost spirit a power mighty to effect his spiritual regeneration.  The one ignored religion as a principle to act on the conscience; the other concentrated its entire force on man’s moral and spiritual nature, and placed Himself in its centre as the perfect image of divine attractiveness.  The one descanted on the duty of contemplating the divine idea of goodness as a means of moral elevation, but pronounced it undiscoverable by the multitude; the other has presented an incarnation of it in his human life.  The one speculated in his study on ideal republics; the other has created the Catholic Church.  Nor has philosophy in these latter days even with Jesus and His teaching for its model, succeeded better.  It can reach neither the conscience nor the heart.  What then is the only possible inference?  I answer that the Galilean peasant must have possessed a greatness above that of all the great men of the past and of the present united; that He stands in a position among men which is unique; or, in other words, that a superhuman power must have manifested itself in Him.

      Let us listen to the conclusion to which the study of the Synoptic Gospels has led so profound a sceptical philosopher as the late J. S. Mill.  He is of opinion that they contain beyond all doubt an actual delineation of the character and teaching of Jesus, and that it is impossible that either the one or the other can have been an invention of His followers.  He affirms therefore that it is quite consistent even for the rational sceptic to believe that Jesus Christ was all that He said that He was, – not God, for Mr. Mill thinks that He nowhere affirmed Himself to be divine, – but one with a special commission to lead men to the practice of holiness and virtue.  But if the discourses in these Gospels are his veritable utterances, it is impossible to stop at this conclusion, for He affirmed Himself to be much more than this.  He declared that He was the Christ; that He is the supreme legislator in the Kingdom of God; that His utterances are oracles from heaven; that He has power on earth to forgive sins; that He possesses a peculiar and exclusive knowledge of the Father; that all things are committed into His hands; that He possesses claims on the self-sacrifice of His followers more powerful than can be asserted by any earthly ties; that He will be the Judge of quick and dead; that in this capacity He will accept works of love done to others as having been rendered to Himself; that He can open the gates of Paradise; and, finally, that He came to give His life a ransom for many.  All these things and much more besides He certainly claims, and who can venture to affirm that the claims of Him who during eighteen centuries has afforded verifiable proof that He has been the light of the world, and the light of life, are not just?

 

Lecture  IV – The Unity of the Character of Christ a Proof

of Its Historical Reality; and The Logical Value of the

Argument from Prophecy

“Philip findeth Nathanael; and saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.  And Nathanael said unto him, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth.  Philip saith unto him, Come, and see.” – John 1:45, 46.

      A far profounder truth underlies this passage than we are commonly in the habit of recognizing in it.  It takes for granted the principle on which the arguments of the preceding Lectures have been founded, viz., that a law of continuity reigns in the moral world.  Its affirmations are based on what we now know to be a great truth of mental science, that within certain limitations, such as has been the environment in which a man has been born and educated, such will be the man.  Many prejudices may have existed in Nathanael’s mind; still it is a great truth, that such a person as the Messiah of Old Testament prophecy could not have been evolved in the moral and spiritual atmosphere of Nazareth, by the mere action of those forces by which our characters are formed.  No less pertinent is the reply of Philip, “Come, and see,” i.e., verify for yourself, and draw your own conclusion.  This course of testing theories by facts was adopted, and the result was that Nathanael recognized in Jesus the presence of a superhuman person; “Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel.”  I feel assured, if we apply a similar process to the Jesus of the Gospels, we shall arrive at a similar conclusion.

      I adopt as the basis of the reasoning of this Lecture a fact which each of us can verify for himself, namely, that the Gospels, whether we suppose their narratives to be an account of actual occurrences, or according to the views of critical unbelief, to consist chiefly of a mass of legendary and fictitious matter, contain a portraiture of the divine character of Jesus Christ our Lord.  There is the character plainly and palpably before us.  It is the grandest character known to history.  Not only have all the greatest and best of men bowed before it in humble adoration; but a large number of eminent unbelievers have confessed its greatness and perfection.  Even those who deny its historical reality cannot help allowing that it is the greatest ideal creation of the human mind.  Equally certain is it, that whether the character be an ideal or an historical one, it has proved for eighteen centuries the mightiest influence for good which has been exerted on mankind.

      The following question therefore urgently demands solution: – If a large portion of the Gospels consists of myths and legends, how has the delineation got into their pages?

      Another fact, apparent on the surface of the Gospels, has a most important bearing on this question.  Of this great character they present us with no formal delineation.  Nothing is more common than for ordinary historians to furnish us with formal portraitures of the characters of the persons whose actions they narrate, and to render them the meed of praise or blame.  All this is totally wanting in the pages of the Evangelists.  Not one of them has attempted to depict the character of his Master.  Yet so conspicuously does it stand forth in them that it is obvious to every reader and produces a more distinct impression than the most elaborate delineation.*

      *The almost entire absence of praise or blame assigned to the different agents in the scenes which they depict is a most striking feature in the Evangelists.  The absence of the expression of any personal feeling on the part of the writers seems almost like coldness.  They have not one word in commendation of the absolute self-sacrifice manifested in their Master’s life; nor of His unwearied labours in doing good; nor of His benevolence; His holiness, or His humility; or any one of the striking traits of His character.  They must have viewed His death as the most atrocious of murders; yet not one word have they uttered for the purpose of heightening the effect of His cruel sufferings, or even of drawing our attention to His patient endurance.  The whole account of the Crucifixion is a remarkably matter-of-fact one, in some respects it is even meagre; and not one word is added for the purpose of giving pathos to the scene.  Equally remarkable is their entire absence of any expression of surprise or admiration at any miracle which Our Lord performed, and the want of dramatic colouring in their relation of them.  The authors of the Gospels are exclusively occupied with the facts which they narrate; and trusted to them alone to produce the effect which they desired.  In one word, all four Evangelists write like men who were utterly unconscious that they were delineating the greatest character in history.  It is very remarkable that even with respect to the immediate agents in Our Lord’s death there is an absence of denunciation, the hardest term which they employ being that by which they designate Judas as the Traitor, softened in three out of the four into the expression, “he who delivered Him up (ο παραδίδους instead of ο προδότης).  This absence of remark is not a peculiarity of any one of the Evangelists, but alike distinguishes the four.  When we consider that their attachment to their Master was profound, it constitutes a most surprising trait, and is utterly inconsistent with the idea that any portion of the delineation has been worked up for the purpose of producing effect.  Yet it has produced one which has utterly distanced the mightiest creations of genius.

      Of what then does it consist?  To this question there can be only one answer.  It is the result of the sum total of the narratives and discourses which compose our Gospels.  These by being simply placed in juxtaposition, by their combined effect, form the portraiture of the divine Christ.  I say that this result has been produced by the simple juxtaposition of the materials, because the most cursory perusal of the Gospels must convince every reader that nothing was farther from the intention of their authors than to delineate a character by an artificial arrangement of their parts.  Their obvious aim and purpose was to furnish such a selection of the actions and teaching of Jesus Christ as would be adequate to teach the great principles of Christianity.  Yet out of what I may call a chance combination of their materials the delineation of this great character has emerged, which in the words of Mr. Lecky “has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and than all the exhortations of moralists.”  The question, Of what does the great character consist? will be best answered in his own words: it consists “in the simple record of three short years of active life,” and I may add, composed extremely inartificially.

      Another fact requires to be carefully considered.  A large portion of the Gospels consists of a miraculous narrative, and of events so closely interwoven with it, that in point of credibility they must stand or fall together.  So likewise is it with respect to the discourses in the Synoptic Gospels, which many eminent unbelievers allow to have been the veritable utterances of Jesus.  Several of these presuppose the miraculous narrative, and others contain utterances which assume in Him the consciousness of a superhuman greatness, and which it is impossible to believe him to have spoken, if that consciousness was unreal.  Now as the delineation of the character is the result of the mere juxtaposition of the contents of the Gospels, it is clear that the miraculous narratives must form an essential portion of the delineation, and the effect of their removal as unhistorical would be that the residuum would lose all cohesion and the destruction of the character be the result.

      But another fact connected with the miraculous narrative has a most important bearing on the argument.  The character delineated in it bears the same moral impress as that which is delineated in those parts which are not miraculous.  Both are embodiments of precisely the same ideal conception, and constitute an harmonious whole as far as its ideal conception is concerned; it is impossible to imagine the miraculous portions to be the coinage of one mint, and the non-miraculous of another.  Both are stamped with the same impress, and bear the clearest indications of having issued from the same die.*

      *Mr. Mill, in the last of his posthumous essays, lays down the following position, “It is no use to say that Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, is not historical; and that we know not how much of what is admirable has been superadded by the tradition of His followers.  The tradition of His followers suffices to have inserted any number of miracles, and may have inserted all the miracles he is reported to have wrought.  But who among His disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed in the Gospels?  Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee, certainly not St. Paul, and still less the early Christian writers, in whom nothing is more evident, than that the good which was in them was all derived, as they all professed that it was, from a higher source.”  This is certainly a most remarkable testimony, coming from so profound a reasoner, with such antecedents as those of Mr. Mill, to the great truth which I am labouring to establish, that it is impossible that the followers of Jesus, or their disciples, can have invented the great character depicted in the Gospels.  While, however, he justly pronounces this idea utterly untenable, he expresses the opinion that all the miraculous narratives recorded in them may be their invention.  It is clear therefore that he cannot have observed the fact pointed out in the text, that these narratives bear the same moral impress as the other portions of the character; or, to say the strict truth, that some of its finest traits form portions of the miraculous narratives, or are found in those discourses in which the superhuman aspects of His character are depicted.  A striking instance of this is found in the parabolic representation of the last judgment recorded in the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew.  Here the Son of Han is delineated; as possessing the highest superhuman attributes, yet with one exception it is the most exquisite delineation of the character of Our Lord to be found in any single passage in the Gospels, combining as it does the perfection of dignity with condescension.  As I have said, to take away all those portions of the delineation which involve the presence of the superhuman, will not produce a human Jesus, but merely destroy the divine one; and therefore on the principles of Mr. Mill, it is inconceivable that the followers of Jesus can have invented the miraculous narratives of the Gospels.  Some of them may have been within their powers to invent, but taken as a series, their moral environment is, to use Mr. Mill’s language, absolutely “above them.”  Of this, the contrast presented by the miraculous narratives in the apocryphal Gospels affords a most decisive proof.

      I also assume that it is a fact palpable to every reader, that the great character delineated in the Gospels is an essential unity.  All the parts of which it is composed fit into one another with a perfect harmony.  It should be especially observed that this is equally true of the miraculous actions attributed to Our Lord, and of the other aspects of His character.  Jesus is delineated with precisely the same moral aspect as a worker of miracles, as He is in His discourses.  The delineation is made up of a vast number of parts, or, in other words, of all the facts recorded in the Gospels; yet it forms, not a mere congeries of materials, but a perfect unity.  This is so evident as to require no further proof; and the importance of its bearing on the argument, whether the Gospels are narratives of facts, or a confused mass of legendary matter, is unmistakable.*

      *Objections have been made to the unity of the character on some minor points of detail, but even if they were true, it would not affect the question of the unity of all its grand features, or the harmony with which each part fits into the others.  This is a fact which ought never to be lost sight of in considering this question.  It has even been affirmed that the character of Jesus underwent a deterioration during the latter portion of His ministry, owing to the opposition which he encountered from His opponents, and His own disappointed expectations.  Even if the allegation were true, it would not affect the question of the essential unity of the character; but the alleged deterioration is contrary to the facts, for although during the latter days of His ministry Our Lord’s opponents are rebuked with the greatest sternness, yet at no period are the milder traits of His character more exquisitely brought out.  Serious objections have been also taken to the severity of Our Lord’s denunciations of the Pharisees, as inconsistent with the perfection of His character.  The force of the objection entirely depends on the combination of qualities requisite to constitute a perfect character.  Those who have urged it have assumed that benevolence is the one attribute which constitutes perfection, and ignore the claims of holiness, one of the ingredients of which is indignation at willful moral evil.  But if this is an essential portion of a perfect character (and I contend that it is so), then the delineators have displayed a more accurate knowledge of perfection than the objectors.  It should be observed that the severity of aspect which the Evangelists have attributed to Jesus, is not called forth by considerations personal to Himself, but by the presence of deliberate moral evil; above all, that worst form of it, hypocrisy; and even in its sternest manifestations, as in the twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew, where Our Lord denounces the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, it is accompanied by the most exquisite burst of pathos and compassion which can be found in literature – “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathiereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.”  I maintain, therefore, that holy indignation at wickedness deliberately persisted in is an essential portion of a perfect character; that its absence is not perfection but weakness; and that this portion of the delineation perfectly harmonizes with every other part.

      The existence of the portraiture being a fact, it follows that no theory of the origin of the Gospels, or of the future of their contents, can be valid which is inconsistent with its existence.  The theory that the Gospels are in all their main outlines historical gives a philosophical account of the existence and unity of the character.  The creation is fully explained by the fact that the contents of tine Gospels are a veritable record of the actions and savings of Jesus, taken from the life.  If, on the contrary, their historical character is denied, it is incumbent on those who do so to propound a theory which gives a rational account of the creation of such a character out of a mere mass of legendary matter, put together in the manner in which it has been affirmed to have been in our Gospels.  The mere assertion that miracles are impossible, and that all narratives of them must be mythic or legendary, is no solution of the unquestionable fact that their contents present us with a portraiture of Jesus Christ; and that this portraiture constitutes an harmonious whole.  A theory which asserts their unhistorical character, but which can give no rational account of the origin of the great portraiture which they contain, is crushed under its own weight.

      Two alternatives only are open to those who assert that the Gospels consist of a mass of legendary matter: – Either their portraiture of Jesus Christ must be an ideal creation of some kind, or it must have been the deliberate invention of one or mere fraudulent impostors.

      This last alternative has only to be expressed in plain language to insure its refutation.  It means that a character which has proved to be the greatest incentive to holiness which has ever been brought to bear on mankind, has been the deliberate invention of conscious fraud.  This is so intrinsically incredible that it has been abandoned by all the great leaders of modern unbelief.  We may therefore summarily dismiss it.  The only question which requires consideration is, whether it is possible that it can be an ideal creation; for if it be an historical reality, it is too clear to require argument, that He of whom it is the delineation must have been superhuman.

      The theories propounded by unbelievers respecting the origin of the Gospels, and the nature of their contents, have been framed for the purpose of giving a Plausible account of the origin of the miraculous narratives they contain.  They vary greatly in form, but the following brief statement will fairly represent their general character.  Jesus of Nazareth was a great man, who probably fell into the hallucination of supposing himself to be possessed of a divine commission, nay, that he was the Messiah of Old Testament prediction.  He gathered around him considerable numbers of enthusiastic and credulous followers.  It is uncertain whether he professed to work miracles; but his followers and their converts during the course of the first century innocently invented a number of legends, containing, as such usually do, a multitude of stories of supernatural and superhuman occurrences. These were gradually attributed to Jesus, and in time formed the substance of the popular beliefs respecting Him; and after a while they succeeded in completely obscuring the actual facts of His history.  These legends were gradually accepted by the Church as the genuine account of its Founder’s life; portions of them were slowly committed to writing, and out of a mass of materials of this kind, partly written, and partly oral, their authors, whoever they may have been, composed the Synoptic Gospels early in the second century; the fourth Gospel, which is the work of a deliberate forger of great genius, being a composition of much later date.  According to this theory, the authors of the Synoptics must be viewed as the editors of a set of legends respecting Jesus, which were floating about in the Christian Society, the groundwork of which had probably been previously reduced to writing, but which they transformed and enlarged by the aid of other materials, so as to suit the views of the respective writers, or the tastes of the different parties in the Christian Church.  The fourth Gospel however is fabricated out of a wholly different class of materials.

      Such, in brief outline, is the alternative to the acceptance of the Gospels as veritable narratives of facts, for every ideal theory, however varied it may be in form, is compelled to have recourse to legend or deliberate invention, to account for the origin of the miraculous narrative.  It will be impossible for me to point out all its inconsistencies, or to discuss its minute details in the present course of Lectures, but I have already done this in another work. [The Jesus of the Evangelists.]  I can only deal with it here in relation to a single point, that the unquestionable unity and perfection of the character which is delineated in the Gospels, renders it impossible that it can have originated in any agglomeration of myths and legends, such as the theory presupposes.

      This theory, it is true, has not been propounded for the specific purpose of accounting for the origin of the portraiture of Jesus in the Gospels, but of their miraculous narratives; as, however, the portraiture itself consists of the entire mass of facts which they record, it is clear that a theory adequate to account for the facts ought at the same time to afford a rational account of the origin of the portraiture.  This fact has been almost entirely overlooked by the opponents, and but very imperfectly insisted on by the defenders of Christianity.  The former have acted on the supposition that if they could propound a theory which would afford a plausible account of the origin of the miraculous narratives, their work was accomplished, and the basis of Christianity subverted.  But this is obviously a mistake.  Before this can be effected, a theory must be propounded which, on the supposition of their legendary character, will be adequate to account for the existence in them of the portraiture of the divine Christ – a portraiture which does as clearly exist in them as the miraculous narratives.  It is evident, therefore, that a theory which is inadequate to account for the origin of the former must be an incorrect account of that of the latter.

      It would be comparatively easy to account for the existence of this portraiture, supposing it to be an ideal one, if it was possible to assume that, like other great ideal conceptions, it was the creation of a single genius, and that the four Evangelists had used it as a common model in framing their respective delineations, which they modified to suit their own views.*  But all ideas of this kind are completely negatived by the facts and phenomena of the Gospels, for the nature of the materials of which the portraiture is composed proves to demonstration that it cannot have been due to the creative powers of any single mind; and equally certain is it that it cannot have been due to any artificial combination of materials on the part of the authors of the Gospels.  This is abundantly proved by the fact that we have not merely one single portraiture of the Christ, but four, each of which is taken from a slightly different point of view, while at the same time all the great features are identical; for the very fact that there are four delineations, each possessing a substantial unity of conception, utterly negatives the idea that the resemblance can have been due to any artificial combination of materials.  Nothing, therefore, can be more certain than that each Evangelist must have found the character already existing in the materials at his command, and that the four portraitures have simply resulted from their having arranged them in four sets of memoirs.

      *I do not mean that it would be abstractedly easy, but that it would be easy by comparison.  It has been well observed that the genius which was capable of inventing the Jesus of the Evangelists, must have been almost as great as that of the character which he has delineated.  When we take into account the conditions under which he must have worked, the success of any such attempt would have been impossible.  This I have endeavoured to show in the before mentioned work by examining the difficulties in detail, which must have been encountered and overcome by any such supposed idealist.  It is clear however that these difficulties are immeasurably increased by the necessity which every form of a legendary theory is under, of postulating, that the legends which compose our Gospels are not the invention of a single mind, but of many.

      It is a matter of indifference in reference to this argument whether the materials out of which the Evangelists have constructed the Gospels were written documents or oral traditions, or partly written and partly oral.  If we adopt the theory that the Synoptic Gospels have been largely composed by the aid of previously existing documents, then it is evident that the character must have been already virtually portrayed in those documents, and the question arises, how it got there.  The documents must clearly have been composed from traditions which, if the miraculous narratives in the Gospels are unhistorical, must have been a set of legendary inventions.  It follows, therefore, whether we assume the Gospels to have been composed by the aid of existing documents, or that the Evangelists drew directly from tradition, that the portraiture of Jesus must have been formed out of what was once a mass of floating legends; and, as a further consequence, these legends must have had numerous inventors.

      This being so, it follows that the great character delineated in the Gospels must have been the creation of the persons who originally invented the legends which compose it; and not only so, but that as many persons must have contributed to its formation, as were the inventors of the different legends, each one having delineated that portion of it which is contained in the narrative which he invented.  The only other possible supposition is, that the conception of the character was so deeply impressed on their minds, that the legends which they invented became stamped with its moral impress; but such a supposition is subversive of the theory before us; for it presupposes the character to have been already in existence, and consequently an historical reality.  Moreover, as the miraculous narratives in the Gospels are numerous, the number of persons who invented the legends which compose them must also have been large, and therefore equally numerous must have been those who contributed to the creation of the portraiture of the divine Christ.

      All this is presupposed by the legendary theory itself.  It is based on the assumption that the primitive followers of Jesus were to the last degree enthusiastic, credulous and superstitious.  In such an atmosphere the legendary spirit would run riot.  It is quite clear, therefore, if this theory is correct, that the legends in our Gospels are only a selection from a much larger number which the primitive believers invented and attributed to Jesus.  It is expressly affirmed in numerous passages in the Gospels that He performed many more miracles than are there recorded; consequently if all those were legendary, such legendary narratives must have been exceedingly numerous.

      This being so, it is hardly too much to say that the legendary theory of the origin of the miraculous narratives involves a greater miracle than any of those related in the pages of the New Testament.

      The following difficulties are insuperable.

      First: it is inconceivable that the delineation of a character, possessing the unity of conception of the Jesus of the Evangelists, can have resulted from the fusion of a number of legends, which have been invented by a variety of minds.  If it be an ideal one, it is certainly the greatest of ideal creations, and it is therefore quite as rational to imagine that one of the grandest works of art, such as a great painting, can have been produced by the selection of a number of smaller ones, the work of various artists, placed in juxtaposition on the canvas, as that the Gospel portraiture of the Christ can have originated in a similar manner.  The unity of the character and the exquisite harmony of the parts are consistent with only two suppositions.  It must be either the delineation of an historical reality, or the creation of a single mind.  This last supposition is not only negatived by the facts of the Gospels; but it has not even been suggested by those who deny their historical character.

      Secondly: the mythologists must have all concurred in inventing legends which were stamped with the same lofty moral ideal.  This is proved by the fact that the Jesus of the miraculous narratives is the same elevated character as the Jesus of the non-miraculous ones.  It is a fact which, with the Gospels in our hands, is undeniable, that wherever He is delineated in the superhuman aspects of His character, His moral elevation is as great, or even greater, than in the ordinary human ones.  Yet all these, if there was nothing superhuman in his character, must have originated in a mass of legends.

      But not only does a legendary spirit universally involve the presence of a low moral ideal (for this is the never-failing accompaniment of extreme credulity), but according to the theories widely accepted by unbelievers, these particular legends must have been the creation of a body of men who were at once narrow-minded, credulous, and I may say, fanatically enthusiastic.  Such a character its propounders are compelled to attribute to the followers of Jesus in order that they may impart the appearance of plausibility to their account of the origin of the belief in the miracle of the Resurrection.  Still more, according to the theories of modern unbelief the community in the midst of which the legends originated was animated by a strong spirit of party, which split it up into a number of contending sects.  What effect, I ask, must this have exerted on the legends evolved by such a society?  They would be deeply tinged with its moral impress, and they would bear the indubitable marks of narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and fanaticism.  Each sect would have elaborated a set of legends in conformity with its own tastes; and as the Judaizing party was the predominant one among the primitive followers of Jesus, they would certainly have invented legends which were the counterparts of their own narrow-mindedness and intolerance.  But as a matter of fact, no such spirit is impressed on the narrative of any one of the actions attributed to Jesus.  Great therefore must have been the unanimity of the inventors, and their moral ideal preeminently lofty.  I ask your attention to a few facts in illustration of the difficulties which a number of ideologists must have encountered and overcome before they could have succeeded in delineating this great character.

      1. They must all have concurred in delineating a character which is the most perfect manifestation of benevolence, tempered with the perfection of holiness.  They have at the same time invested it with an aspect of stern severity, when brought into contact with certain forms of moral evil.  I draw attention to this point because the whole range of literature which bears on this subject proves that the diversity of opinion as to how these two elements are to be exhibited in combination is very wide; not a few contending that the perfection of benevolence requires the exclusion of the sterner aspects of holiness.  Yet these two aspects of the character, as it is depicted by the Evangelists, weld together with an exquisite harmony, nor do the Gospels contain an indication of the existence of a single legend which portrayed Him otherwise, in this respect its unity is complete.

      2. Numerous as must have been the mythologists, they have all concurred in attributing to Jesus absolute unselfishness.  If we read the Gospels from one end to another, we can detect not one single selfish trait.  It follows therefore that none of the numerous legends out of which the character has been composed, could have depicted Him in an environment of narrowness or sectarianism, or once described Him as stirred to anger by a sense of personal injury.  Still anger is not unfrequently ascribed to Him; but it is invariably aroused by the extreme forms of moral obliquity.  But further: nowhere is this unselfishness more strongly exhibited than in the miraculous narratives, which according to the theory I am combating, must have been pure legendary inventions.

      3. Equally unanimous must they have been in attributing to Our Lord the highest degree of self-assertion, united with the most perfect humility.  This feature of self-assertion is such as has been exhibited in no other man.*  Yet at the same time it is blended with the profoundest humility; both fit into each other with an exquisite harmony, and are preeminently conspicuous in his miraculous actions.  This is a trait the fine touches of which defy all power of imitation, and underlies the entire structure of the Gospels.  The most accomplished idealist would have found the delineation of this portion of the character a work of the greatest difficulty.  Yet if the legendary theory be true, not only must the numerous mythologists of primitive Christianity have been unanimous in attributing this exquisite trait of character to Jesus, but they have succeeded in delineating it to perfection.

      *This self-assertion of Our Lord is unique in history; and if it had been put into the mouth of any other character would have been positively offensive.  It pervades the Synoptics, as well as the fourth Gospel, though in the latter it appears in a somewhat more dogmatic form.  Thus the Synoptics are unanimous in representing Him as basing his teaching on no other authority than His own.  This is conspicuously exhibited in the Sermon on the Mount, where He exercises the right of explaining and modifying utterances, which both He and His hearers esteemed to be oracles from heaven, on the simple basis of “I say unto you.”  Yet all the former prophets had uniformly referred their utterances, not to any inherent light possessed by themselves, but to one coming to them from an external source, always using a formula equivalent to the words, “Thus saith the Lord.”  Such a formula is never once attributed to Jesus throughout the entire Gospels.  Precisely similar is His mode of performing miracles, the reference being made solely to Himself, uniformly denoted by the words “I say unto thee,” or “I will.”  In a similar manner He is depicted throughout with a consciousness of supreme worthiness, before which every bond that unites man to man, even the highest recognized by God’s law, must yield.  Equally uniform is His aspect of self-conscious dignity.  Viewing these utterances as those of a mere man, however great, they are simply extravagant; and the extravagance is greatly increased by the humble position of the utterer.  Yet all this is united with an inexpressible sweetness and mildness of character, a humility which is perfectly natural, because it is never obtrusive, and a most unwearying patience.  Now nothing would have more tried the skill of the poet or the novelist, than to make the parts of such a character harmonize with one another.  Yet the self-assertion is free from every mark of arrogance, and the humility from meanness.  The harmonious union of all these traits is one which would have defied the powers of the most exalted genius; yet every reader instinctively feels that they are exquisitely blended together in the portraiture of the Jesus of the Evangelists.  Of this, the 25th chapter of St. Matthew and the 13th of St. John may be cited as crucial examples.  Yet if the legendary theory is a true account of the origin of the Gospels, not only must the parts of which it is composed have been the creation of a number of minds, working independently of each other, but the exquisite blending of the parts has resulted merely from their being placed in juxtaposition on the canvas.

      4. It cannot fail to be observed that the same moral aspect pervades the entire Gospels.  We do not find one conception of it cropping up in this place, and another in that; but the ideal of morality is uniform throughout, and I ask you particularly to observe that it is equally impressed on those portions which are indissolubly united with the narratives of miracles, and on the remainder of their contents.  This being so, it follows that the inventors of the legends which compose them must have been all thoroughly penetrated with the same set of moral ideas; and those too of the most elevated character.

      5. Equally unanimous must they have been in attributing the ideal of moral perfection to the character they invented; still more remarkable is it that they must have been agreed in what the ideal of moral perfection consisted.  We know as a matter of fact that there has been a very wide diversity of opinion as to the mode and degree in which the various virtues ought to be combined so as to form a perfect character.  yet the delineators of the portraiture of the Jesus of the Evangelists must on this point have been unanimous.  No trait of discord can be found throughout it.

      If then it was the delineation of many minds (and it cannot have been otherwise, if the legendary theory be true) it is evident that they must have all concurred in working out one common conception.

      I have thus adduced a few examples of the unity of conception which underlies the whole structure of the Gospels.  It would be easy to multiply them indefinitely.  I contend that their existence is utterly inconsistent with any theory of the origin of the gospels, which assumes that a large portion of their contents consists of legends which were gradually evolved during the first century, and afterwards mistaken for historical realities; and that the only theory consistent with the fact that the portraiture of Jesus is harmonious throughout is, that it is the copy of an historical reality.

      The suggestion that the great character of the Gospels, one which is more perfect than the greatest of all ideal conceptions, can have originated in the agglomeration of a mass of legends, the creation of a multitude of minds, is as much opposed to our reason, as the supposition that an exquisite work of art can have been produced by any mere juxtaposition of the parts which compose it.  We also know as a matter of fact that the moral ideal of a society in which the mythic spirit predominates is low.  In proof of this may be quoted the whole mass of legendary literature.  Such literature is invariably stamped with the moral impress of its inventors.  What the legendary spirit was capable of perpetrating in Christianity, we have the means of verifying for ourselves, by perusing the apocryphal Gospels, two of which in all probability date not later than the first half of the second century.  These are just what we should expect that such productions would be.  Their miraculous narratives are stamped with a low moral ideal.  Our blessed Lord Himself is depicted in them not unfrequently as a mischievous boy, armed with superhuman power, which he exerts with the utmost capriciousness.  I do not think that they contain an account of a single dignified miracle, although the miraculous stories are numerous; they are all distinguished by every possible contrast from those recorded in the Canonical Gospels.  It is simply incredible that the same spirit which has created the contents of the apocryphal Gospels, could have evolved those of the Canonical ones, or vice versa.  The interval which separates the one from the other is enormous.*

      *We cannot be too grateful for the preservation of these eighteen collections of myths and legends which still remain, and are inaccurately designated Gospels.  It is deeply to be regretted that we are not now in possession of the entire body of apocryphal literature which is known to have been in existence during the early ages of Christianity.  It would have made our means of instituting a comparison between it and the Canonical Gospels more perfect and thorough.  If these Gospels have perished through the indiscreet zeal of friends to the Christian cause, it proves that nothing is more injurious than zeal undirected by discretion.  Such as have been preserved, however, enable us to ascertain, not merely as a matter of theory, but of fact, what was the kind of creations which were effected by the legendary spirit, when it exerted itself on subjects connected with the history of the Founder of Christianity.  Every person who wishes to form a definite opinion on this subject should carefully peruse these eighteen productions.  I feel confident that whoever will do so, will rise from the perusal with deep conviction of the vastness of the interval which separates legendary from historical Christianity.  The following will be found to be an accurate description of the contrast between these collections of legends and our Canonical Gospels.  I quote a passage from the Jesus of the Evangelists, in which I have endeavoured to convey to the minds of those who have not read them, a correct idea of the contrast: “Our Gospels present us with the picture of a glorious Christ; the mythic Gospels with that of a contemptible one.  Our Gospels have invested Him with the highest conceivable form of greatness; the mythic ones have not ascribed to Him one action which is elevated.  In our Gospels, He exhibits a superhuman wisdom; in the mythic ones, an almost equally superhuman absurdity.  In our Gospels, He is arrayed in all the beauty of holiness; in the mythic ones this aspect of character is entirely wanting.  In our Gospels not one stain of selfishness defiles His character; in the mythic ones, the boy Jesus is both pettish and malicious.  Our Gospels exhibit a sublime morality; scarcely a ray of it shines in those of the mythologists.  The miracles of the one and of the other are contrasted in every point.  A similar opposition of character runs through the whole current of their thought, feeling, morality, and religion.”  This contrast is rendered all the more remarkable by the fact that the contents of these Gospels render it certain that if their authors had not read some of our Canonical Gospels, they must have drawn from a common source of information.  They are chiefly confined to two portions of Our Lord’s life, His infancy and boyhood, and His passion, giving also a number of incidents respecting Mary and Joseph, but they leave the events of His ministry almost entirely unnoticed.  Respecting Our Lord’s infancy and boyhood, of which the accounts in the Canonical Gospels are extremely brief, the legendary ones furnish us with the most grotesque details.  Portions of the account of the Passion and the Resurrection are nearly in the words of the Gospels; but they add a number of incidents of a character utterly unhistorical; and of speeches supposed to have been uttered by different persons connected with the scenes, the contents of which are simply incredible.

      It may perhaps be objected that a large amount of legendary matter was in existence when the Gospels were composed, and that their authors have incorporated only the more dignified portions into their narratives, and thereby consigned the rubbish to oblivion.  I reply that this theory contradicts all known facts.

      First, it is contrary to experience that the legendary spirit has ever invented anything of the elevated moral type such as that of the miraculous narratives, and the discourses found inseparably united with them in the Gospels.

      Secondly, it is incredible that several writers, nurtured in the midst of such a spirit, should have concurred in selecting all the elevated ones, and rejecting all of a contrary character.*

      *The supposition at the foundation of all legendary theories of the origin of the Gospels is that the Evangelists, or the persons who composed the documents which they employed, were themselves deeply infected with the legendary spirit.  This assumption is necessary in order to account for the miraculous narratives.  Unless they had been profoundly credulous, it is impossible that they could have mistaken a mass of floating legends for historical facts, at a time when their verification was not only possible, but easy.  Such persons could have possessed neither the requisite taste nor judgment to enable them to select from the mass of legends then in circulation those of an elevated type, and to reject the grotesque, which from the nature of the case must have been by far the most numerous and acceptable to the popular mind.  It is also clear, whatever may have been the date of the Synoptic Gospels, that a large mass of legends must have been in existence when they were composed.  Equally certain is it, although the common narrative may have been derived from a common document, that each of the Evangelists has incorporated into his own Gospel matter which is peculiar to himself, and which must therefore have been derived from legendary sources of information.  This being so, it is inconceivable that each of these writers should have concurred with the others in rejecting every grotesque legend from his pages, unless they had all arrived at a previous understanding to do so, which is not even alleged as affording a probable solution of the facts.

      Thirdly; even if this had been possible, yet as the popular legendary spirit always seizes on what is wild and grotesque, this new edition of chastened legends would never have gained acceptance by the popular mind; yet it is evident from the writings of the Fathers of the two first centuries, that the accounts in our Gospels, or at any rate, precisely similar ones, had attained universal acceptance as embodying the true type of the actions which the Church attributed to its Founder.  If it be urged that in accordance with the theory of the survival of the fittest, the legends of an elevated type would survive, while the rest would perish, I reply that this theory is not true in a community which is thoroughly infected with the legendary spirit.  On the contrary, the grotesque, as more adapted to the popular taste, survive, while the elevated ones, if such could spring up at all in such a soil, must perish.

      Nor is the theory of tendencies more successful as a possible account of the facts.  This theory has been very extensively propounded as affording an adequate ground for some of the phenomena presented by the Gospels, and the gradual formation of Catholic Christianity.  According to it the primitive Church was divided into a number of discordant Sects, which elaborated a set of doctrines and fictitious stories for the purpose of realizing their own peculiar tendencies.  When the sectarian spirit had risen to a dangerous height, it was found necessary to effect compromises between these discordant schools.  Of this spirit St. Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles are adduced as striking examples.  Both works are said to have been composed for the purpose of mediating between contending parties, and thereby creating a common Christianity.  For the same purpose the author is alleged to have largely modified the materials of which he was in possession, and to have imparted a strong colouring to, if not to have actually invented, most of the miracles which are recorded in the latter book.

      It is impossible for me in these Lectures to discuss the details of this theory.*  It will be sufficient for my purpose to observe that it is absolutely negatived by the fact that the Gospels, in addition to the narratives and discourses of which they consist, contain the great portraiture of the divine Christ, for the existence of which in their pages this theory is utterly unable to afford a rational solution.  I must, however, ask your attention to one remarkable assumption in it, which contradicts all the historical facts of human nature.  It assumes that a number of compromises have been effected between contending parties in the Church, and that Catholic Christianity has grown up out of them.  What, I ask, says the voice of history respecting the quarrels of religious sects?  Do they effect compromises?  Do they conclude treaties?  Do mediators arise who succeed in forming out of several contending sects a united Church?  On these points it returns no ambiguous answer.  Party spirit in religion, instead of effecting compromises, goes on continually widening.  Witness the history of the internal divisions of all the religions in the world.  Where have a number of discordant sects fused in one, and out of the fusion erected a common Church?  It has passed into a proverb, that nothing is more irreconcilable than religious divisions.  Yet without these compromises the theory of tendencies cannot advance a step.  It is one, therefore, which, while it may look plausible in the study, is hopelessly dashed to pieces against the facts of history and the realities of human nature.  (See Supplement  I.)

      *It is important to observe that this theory, in common with every other which affirms the unhistorical character of the Gospels, is obliged to assume the existence of a legendary spirit, as that which has created their miraculous narratives.  The only difference between it and other theories which account for them on this principle is that it is obliged to assume a certain amount of fraud on the part of their inventors.  Thus it is affirmed of the Acts of the Apostles that a certain number of its miracles have been invented for the purpose of producing a parallel between Paul and Peter, by some disciple of the former, who was desirous of effecting a union between Petrine and Pauline Christianity.  Whatever theory may be propounded on this point, it is impossible to avoid falling back on legend, or fraudulent invention, as the only means of accounting for the origin of miraculous narratives; and consequently the same line of reasoning which proves that all legendary theories are inadequate to account for the facts and phenomena of the Gospels, is equally subversive of the theory of tendencies, and of every other.  This is also true of all attempts to explain the origin of the Gospel miracles on the theory that they are imitations of similar ones in the Old Testament.  This not only breaks down by the application of the same course of reasoning, but the affirmation is inaccurate in fact; for although such similarity exists between a few of them, as far as the mere external fact is concerned, yet when they are compared together series by series, they present the most striking points of divergency, so that it is impossible that the one can have formed the model of the other.  The Old Testament series consists chiefly of extraordinary events wrought on inanimate nature; that in the New Testament, of cures performed on the bodies of men.  The moral environment of the two also differs widely.  It is true that the Old Testament contains accounts of three miracles of resurrections; so does the New; or if we include the Resurrection of our Lord, four.  But between the account of the resuscitation of a dead body by touching the bones of Elisha, and the resurrection of Lazarus, the difference is vast, not to speak of that of our blessed Lord, which rests on a strength of attestation such as can be surpassed by no fact in history.

      II.  I must now draw your attention to the argument from prophecy.  The prophecies of the Old Testament and their particular fulfillment have been already discussed by my predecessors, and into that portion of the subject I do not propose to enter.  My observations will be confined to the consideration of the character and logical value of the prophetic argument, and the freeing it from the needless difficulties with which it has been encumbered.  I shall confine my observations to the Messianic prophecies, for unless their fulfillment in the person, work, and Church of Jesus Christ proves a superhuman prescience, we shall in vain seek it in any other.  The importance of a correct estimate of the value of the argument is great, because the writings of the New Testament make it certain that Our Lord and His Apostles were far more in the habit of appealing to the evidence of prophecy than to that of miracles as a proof of His Messiahship.  The argument also, as far as it is valid, is one which admits of verification, because we have the Scriptures of the Old Testament in our hands, and are therefore able to compare their prophetical announcements with their alleged fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ, and the history of the Christian Church.

      In estimating the value of this argument, it is of the highest importance that we should have a clear idea of what the writers of the New Testament mean when they affirm that the Old Testament has received its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, and in the history of His Church.  Are the popular ideas on this subject accurate?*  Are the prophecies of the Old Testament simply predictions and nothing more, or do they include a number of imperfect delineations, shadowy outlines, and aspirations, the true ideal of which has been realized in Jesus Christ?  Our Lord on several occasions asserts that the writers of the Old Testament spake of Him.  This He directly affirms in the fourth Gospel, respecting Moses, under whose name the entire Pentateuch is intended to be included.  Yet the Pentateuch contains but a small number of passages, such as we usually designate prophecies.  St. Luke also tells us that after His Resurrection, “Beginning at Moses, and all the prophets,” He expounded unto two of His disciples, the things spoken in the Scriptures concerning Himself; and a little further on, referring to the recognized threefold division of the Jewish Scriptures, He makes use of the words “that all things might be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning Me.”  Such wide references prove that He must have held that the Old Testament did not merely contain a certain number of solitary vaticinations respecting Him; but that He was that to which its entire system pointed; that is to say, that He regarded Himself as the perfect ideal of every reality which underlay the Mosaic institutions, and of all the aspirations and imperfect truths contained in the prophets and the Psalms, as well as of the express Messianic prophecies; in one word, that He was the realization of the idea to which the entire scheme of the Old Testament pointed.  A similar view is involved in the use which the apostolic writers make of the Old Testament Scriptures.  They regard them as something very different from mere vaticinations, or in other words, as containing in imperfect outline the ideal which was realized in Christianity.

      *The value of the prophetic argument has been greatly weakened by a number of works which have attained a very wide circulation, professing to expound the prophetic Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.  These have treated them as if they were mere vaticinations, that is, predictions, which were intended to be minute descriptions of events coming in the future, and which have received an equally minute fulfillment in the facts of history.  The effect of this mode of treatment has been, not only that the obvious meaning of the prophetical passages has been utterly disregarded, and the fancies of the writer substituted in its place, but that historical facts have too often been misrepresented for the purpose of accommodating them to the prophecy.  This supposed necessity of tracing a minute agreement between all the minor points of the prophetic delineations and the events of history has led many writers to adopt what can only be correctly described as a number of evasions.  This evil is especially exhibited in that numerous class of popular writers who have treated the books of Daniel and Revelation as though they were definite historical prophecies, predicting the chief events of the world’s history between the times in which they were composed and the consummation of all things, and delineating them beforehand with the accuracy of a map.  To accommodate these to the facts of history, a system of symbolical interpretation has had to be adopted, which is little better than conjecture, and even then the events cannot without violence be accommodated to the symbols.  Such a theory of interpretation has been adopted by a man of no less learning than Mr. Elliott in his Horae Apocalypticae; and carried out by his numerous imitators.  If this theory is correct, it is plain that a successful application of it would not only enable us to ascertain the exact point in the prophetic history under which we live, but to predict the future.  Its propounders have not hesitated to predict the latter, an attempt which has invariably ended in their confusion.  Thus, if Mr. Elliott’s system had been correct, not only might the Turkish empire to have perished several years ago, but the consummation of all things should be an event of the past.  The remarkable thing is, that when the propounders of such systems have lived to discover that their predictions have been falsified by the facts of history, they have not been led to renounce the erroneous principles on which their predictions are based, but have endeavoured to show that the prophetic dates admit of being calculated from several different commencements, and consequently that their fulfillment may be deferred to some period of the future.  The effect of this mode of handling the argument has been to induce a large number of thoughtful minds to believe that it is little better than a mere system of guesswork, and rests on a logical basis which is utterly unsound.

      It is important to observe that the word πληρόω, by which the writers of the New Testament usually express the realization in Jesus Christ of the prophetic elements of the Old, bears a far wider signification than our modern counterpart, the English word “fulfill,” in its popular acceptation.  Its obvious signification is “fill up to the full,” corresponding to our more philosophical form of expression, “Realize the full and complete ideal.”  That this is its true meaning is rendered certain by the well known passage in the Sermon on the Mount, in which Our Lord says, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill, for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall by no means pass from the law until all be fulfilled.”  He then proceeds to show in what sense He claimed to be the fulfillment of the Law, by dealing with some of its precepts which only contained imperfect truths, and by enunciating the great moral ideal which was implied in the true conception of them.  Thus the full conception underlying the law which forbade murder was the law of love; of that which forbade adultery, was the law of purity; of that which forbade perjury, the law of truthfulness.  In a similar manner He was the fulfillment of the other Scriptures of the Old Testament, inasmuch as He was the complete realization of those truths which they only imperfectly adumbrated.  It is important to observe the wide sense which this word bears in the New Testament; otherwise we shall get a very imperfect estimate of the evidence which the Old Testament Scriptures bear to on Lord’s divine Mission.  While the prophetic element in them contains predictions, it is a great mistake to restrict it to bare vaticinations of future occurrences.  The latter contain no idea of type or symbol, or the realization of an imperfect truth in a more perfect ideal.  This however constitutes the essence of by far the larger portion of the Old Testament predictions as they are referred to in the New.  I fully admit the presence of a directly predictive element in the Old Testament; but to rest the entire force of the argument on the limited number of passages which contain such predictions is to overlook at least two-thirds of the evidence which Our Lord declares that Moses and the prophets render to His divine Mission.  His claims go to the full extent of affirming, that not only is He the subject of direct predictions, but that all the truths which are imperfectly, and frequently very darkly shadowed forth in their pages are realized in him as the ideal to which they pointed.

      A number of very interesting questions connected with the criticism of the Old Testament, and eagerly debated among theologians, but which have no real bearing on the prophetic argument, have been imported into this question; and have thereby distracted our attention from the real point at issue, which is this, and this only: Are there in the Old Testament Messianic prophecies, and a typical, symbolical, and ritual system, of the true idea of which Jesus Christ and His Church are the realization?  This is a simple question of fact, and one quite distinct from any theories as to the date when the various books were written, or who may have been their authors.*

      *I by no means overlook the importance of these questions; but I make these observations for the purpose of keeping them from being mixed up with the evidential value of the prophetic element in the Old Testament Scriptures.  Thus it would very materially affect our views of Deuteronomy if it could be proved that it was a forgery got up between Jeremiah and Hilkiah, and palmed off on the simplicity of King Josiah as a genuine production of Moses.  Still the great Messianic prophecy of the prophet who was to arise in the future like unto Moses would be there, and the only question would be, does it or does it not indicate a superhuman prescience?  In such a case we should have to rank Jeremiah with Balaam, a false prophet who delivered true oracles.  It should be observed, however, that as far as these theories are concerned, they are but theories and nothing more; the evidence on which they rest being little better than a foundation of sand.  This is the case with a large number of the theories respecting the nature and origin of the Pentateuch, no two propounders of them agreeing in the same view; one set of critics affirming that Deuteronomy is the later composition, and Leviticus the earlier; while another, for reasons equally satisfactory to themselves, exactly reverse this order.  The only fair conclusion is, that both endeavour to erect a pyramid on its apex.  Similarly, the evidence may be quite sufficient to prove that the book of Genesis is a composite document; but when Ewald not only affirms that these documents were five in number, but authoritatively assigns each part to its respective author, and that on no other foundation than his own intuitive faculty of divination, we seem to have reached the ne plus ultra of dogmatical assertion.  This theory is now generally rejected, to be replaced by others erected on a basis equally unsubstantial.  What we want on the part both of theologians and men of science is, not theories formed out of their own subjective consciousness, but based on facts which are capable of verification.

      Amidst the endless theories that have been propounded on these subjects, one fact is unquestionable, that every one of the books of the Old Testament was in existence (with the possible exception of the book of Daniel) in the form in which we now read them, and consequently with all their Messianic prophecies in them, when the Septuagint Version was made, i.e. at least 180 B.C.  The book of Daniel, even if we accept the latest date which has been assigned to it by the school of critical unbelief must have been written at least 150 B.C.  What more can we require for our argument?  If there really exists in the Old Testament a prophetic element, which has been realized in the New, it is precisely the same for all the practical purposes of the Christian argument, whether the predictions were uttered 180 or 1800 years before the Christian era.  In either case they prove a superhuman prescience in their author, unless by any possibility they could have been made the means of their own fulfillment.  Thus if a writer had put forth a set of predictions, which foreshadowed the events of the French Revolution, and the career of Napoleon the first in the year A.D. 1600, it would have been as certain a proof of superhuman foresight, as if he had uttered his predictions in the reign of William the Conqueror, or Charlemagne.  I fully allow the profound interest which attaches to the question of the true date of the composition of the various books of the Old Testament.  Many very important questions of theology are involved in it.  It may affect our view as to the character of their contents, according as it is determined in this way or in that.  But as far as the question, whether a superhuman prescience presided over their composition, or whether Jesus Christ is their perfect realization, is concerned, it is a matter of indifference whether they were composed B.C. 200 or B.C. 2000.

      The same is equally true of the fiercely debated question of their authorship.  Whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch; whether it has been made up of a number of older documents; whether the book of Deuteronomy is the work of Jeremiah; whether there was an earlier and a later Isaiah; whether the book of Zechariah is the work of several writers; whether Daniel was composed by the great prophet whose name it bears, or by a later writer; however deeply interesting such questions are, or however they may be determined, all this will not add one prophecy more or less to the Old Testament Scriptures; or, if they contain prophecies which have been actually fulfilled, detract one atom from the value of the Christian argument.

      I urge these considerations on your attention because there are a multitude of questions at the present day profoundly agitating the minds of theologians, on the determination of which it is commonly supposed that the life of Christianity depends.  I am far from undervaluing the importance of the questions at issue, but our duty is to contemplate this subject from an evidential point of view.  As such I have only to deal with a question of fact, from which we must not allow our attention to be distracted.  It is this: Do the Old Testament Scriptures contain predictions respecting a Messiah and a future Kingdom of God, and are these predictions realized in the person and Church of Jesus Christ?

      If the correspondence really exists between the Messianic elements of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New, it follows that Jesus must be the Christ, and Christianity a Divine Revelation.

      As this point is one of the greatest importance, I must illustrate my position by a few examples.  Nothing can exceed the eagerness of the debates respecting the date and the nature of the contents of the Book of Genesis.  Yet whatever theory we adopt on this subject, it will not alter the fact that the Book was in existence before the Babylonish captivity, and contained the affirmation that in Abraham all the nations of the earth should be blessed, and the prophecy about Shiloh, whatever value may be attached to it.  So with respect to the Book of Deuteronomy; whenever it was composed, it was certainly written several hundred years before Christ, and it contained the affirmation that at some future time a great prophet would arise like unto Moses; and it is no less certain that although the prophets who subsequently appeared were very numerous, the only one who possessed a real resemblance to Moses was Jesus Christ, Moses being distinguished from all the other prophets by the fact that he was a founder of a dispensation, in which respect Our Lord exactly resembled him.  In a similar manner the whole system of the typical worship of the Old Testament was fully evolved long centuries before the Advent, and this is equally true whichever of the innumerable theories we may adopt as to the date or authorship of the different Books of the Pentateuch.  The real question is simply one of fact: Is Jesus Christ and his Church a realization of the ideal involved in these types and shadows?  Again: the date and authorship of the 22nd and other Messianic Psalms may be open to question, and what was the precise idea before the mental eye of their authors when they composed them.  But this does not affect the fact that every one of them was in existence prior to the time of the Maccabees, and most of them several centuries earlier, and that Jesus Christ has precisely realized the idea which they embody, and that between his sufferings and those described in the 22nd Psalm the resemblance is marvellously exact.  Illustrations of this principle might be adduced in large numbers, but space will only allow me to refer to two more.  Whatever view we may take of the composite character of our present Isaiah, it cannot be denied that the former portion of it contains prophecies which are unquestionably Messianic; and whether the prophet intended them for Hezekiah or some other person, that these persons never realized their full ideal, but that this has been realized several centuries later by a Jewish carpenter.  In a similar manner respecting the second portion of Isaiah.  Even if its author lived as late as the time of Cyrus, still the great prophecy respecting the Servant of Jehovah and the future Kingdom of God must have been in existence more than 500 years before the Advent; and whatever might have been the ideas present in the prophet’s mind at the time when he composed it, it is certain that they have only received a full realization in Jesus Christ and the Church which He has founded.  The same thing is true of the Book of Daniel.  Notwithstanding all the attacks which have been made on its authenticity by modern criticism, it still remains indisputable that all its great Messianic prophecies were in existence 150 years prior to the Advent, that they announce the coming of a future Kingdom of God, which would differ from every other kingdom which had been previously set up, and that Jesus Christ has actually founded such a kingdom, which has been in existence for eighteen centuries of time.  The important question is, have the prophecies, the typology, the moral teaching, and the aspirations of the Old Testament received in Jesus Christ and the Church which He has founded, the realization of the ideas which they embody, or are all the resemblances mere guesses such as an exalted genius may have ventured on, and occasionally guessed right?

      To aid us in determining this question, let us observe what these Old Testament books really consist of.  They differ from all other prophetical books in that they are not confined to the single subject of prediction, but they constitute an entire literature.  Their composition extends over a space of at least one thousand years, and they are the work of not less than forty different authors, comprising men of every condition in life, including the king, the priest, the statesman, and even the herdsman.  The books themselves consist of a body of political and religious legislation, of histories, poems of the highest order, the utterances of prophets on the burning questions of the day, and gnomic maxims of proverbial wisdom.  Even the writings commonly called prophetical contain a large mixture of the historical element.  Most of the prophets were also statesmen; and a large portion of their writings consists of exhortations called forth by the state of public affairs, and the moral condition of the people.  Yet it is remarkable that this literature, extending over so wide an interval of time, and composed by such a variety of authors, is interpenetrated by a certain number of common ideas, connected with many of the profoundest questions of human thought; among which may be numbered the announcement of a kingdom of God to be set up on a grand scale at some distant period of the future, and of the advent of a Messiah who was to be its king.  If we take any similar collection of writings extending over an equal space of time, and composed by an equal number of authors, we shall find nothing like this in history.  But not only are these writings distinguished by this remarkable peculiarity, but many centuries after they were written a personage called Jesus appeared, who has succeeded in realizing in Himself, and in the Church which He has founded, the true idea which underlies all the predictions, the symbolical institutions, and the aspirations which are found in this mass of literature.  If we search the entire history of man, we shall find it to be true of no other person that he is the realization of the aspirations of an entire literature.

      Let us now briefly consider the prophetic elements in the Old Testament, and the value of the evidence they supply.  And first, its Messianic prophecies.

      These are of two kinds; first, those that are unquestionably Messianic, and admit of being applied to no other person.  Of these, those in Daniel, in the 37th of Ezekiel, the 23rd and 33rd of Jeremiah, several in Isaiah, and a few of the Psalms, may be cited as examples.  Of a similar character are the numerous predictions of a future kingdom of God, the idea of which as it is delineated in the prophets, necessarily implies that of a Christ who was to be its king.*  All these passages are, in the strictest sense of the word, prophecies, i.e., the writers did not affirm them to be true of any person or thing then existing; but they asserted that they should receive a realization in the future.  They announce, in language that cannot be mistaken, the advent of a kingdom of God, of a wholly different character from anything which had been realized in the past, which was to include both Jew and Gentile, and the end of which was to be the establishment of righteousness and peace.

      *It is one of the peculiar characteristics both of Judaism and Christianity, that they alone of all the systems of ancient thought place the golden age of man in the future, rather than the past.  It may be objected that the book of Genesis opens with an account of man’s being placed in Paradise; but this condition, be it what it may (for the whole account is extremely meagre, and popular ideas on this subject have been far more indebted to Milton than to the Bible for anything definite which they contain), was only enjoyed by the original human pair, and apparently for a very brief interval of time.  In striking contrast to this is the entire system of pagan mythology, which uniformly places the golden age of man at some indefinitely remote period of the past.  The idea of a future kingdom of God, in which righteousness and peace were to reign, is quite foreign to it.  The single exception to this is the fifth eclogue of Virgil, composed in adulation of the reigning family at Rome; but the language of which bears so close an analogy to that in the Old Testament respecting the advent of the future kingdom of God, that it is difficult to avoid coming to the conclusion that the one has in some way been borrowed from the other.  If, however, we take mythological literature as a whole, its views respecting man, and his future prospects, are invariably dispiriting.  Nor did philosophy take a more cheerful view of his destinies.  In fact, there was nothing in the history or condition of the ancient world that would justify the conclusion that a future Millennium of holiness or happiness was in store for the human race.  On the contrary, everywhere were present the signs of moral corruption and decay.  Nor was the condition or history of the Jewish people such as to have suggested the idea to the minds of the prophets and Psalmists.  On the contrary, they are full of lamentations at their degeneracy and repeated apostacies.  The language of the prophetical scriptures, as addressed to the times in which the prophets lived, may be summed up in one brief sentence, “Ye are worse than your fathers.”  The idea, therefore, of the future kingdom of God, and of the reign of righteousness and peace under its influences, was certainly not suggested by anything in the experience of the past, or the present; it was the result of faith in God as the righteous governor of the world, and that righteousness must ultimately prevail and flourish under His government.  The idea that some Millennium awaits man at some very remote period of the future has now become widespread, even in unbelieving philosophy; but it should never be forgotten that the original conception of it was not due either to mythologists, or philosophers, but to Psalmists and prophets, in whose minds the idea sprang up, as Christians believe, under a divine influence, and who firmly clung to it notwithstanding all the disasters of the past and of the present.

      Now it is a simple fact that a considerable number of such prophecies are to be found in the Old Testament Scriptures.  No less certain is it that after the lapse of several centuries a spiritual kingdom, differing in character from every earthly institution, was actually set up, of which Jesus Christ claimed to be the King, and which has during a period of eighteen hundred years exerted the mightiest and most beneficent influence on mankind.  We are in the presence therefore of two facts – First, a set of predictions uttered by various persons, and at widely different intervals of time, affirming that a kingdom of God would be manifested in the future, and a Messiah to be its king.  Secondly, their realization in history after an interval of several centuries.  Such a correspondence between prediction and fulfillment can be found nowhere else in the entire history of man.

      Secondly: there is another body of prophetic Scriptures, of which Jesus and His Disciples claimed that He was the fulfillment, i.e., that He was the ideal to which they pointed.  These were spoken by the prophet either of some person who had existed in the past or who was then living, but the language used was of a far too elevated character to be strictly true of the person to whom it was immediately applied.  This class of predictions may be called typical prophecies.  I mean by this term, when some event or historical character was used for the purpose of portraying a future one, which was to possess similar attributes, only higher and more perfect than those exhibited in the person or event of whom they were immediately spoken.  Thus many things are spoken of David and Solomon, which these kings were incapable of realizing.  Divine titles are given to them by prophets who were the strictest theists, and to whom the worship of a man would have been an abomination.  That such ascriptions were intended to be idealizations is proved by the fact that the later prophets were in the constant habit of speaking of a David who was to be manifested as the head of the Kingdom of God long after the historical David was silent in his grave.  This David was evidently an ideal David, or in other words a Christ, in whom the promises made to the historical one were to receive their full realization.  Similar idealizations are very common in the prophetic Scriptures, of which that of Israel may be quoted as an example.  Many of the things there spoken were only true of an ideal Israel, and are utterly inapplicable to the Israel with whom the prophets were acquainted.  Of this class of predictions Our Lord claimed to be the realization, and the correspondence to the character delineated in the Gospels and to the Church which He has founded is incontestable.*

      *The mode in which this class of prophecies has been dealt with in popular treatises has tended to throw discredit on the entire argument.  They are often violently wrenched from the context in which they stand, and treated as if they were prophecies pure and simple, their typical character being entirely overlooked.  Thus, for example, Isaiah 7:10–16, is frequently spoken of as though it were a direct prophecy of Jesus Christ.  The reader looks into the context and finds that the sign mentioned by Isaiah was one given to Ahaz to encourage him in a war then pending between Syria and Ephraim on the one side and Judah on the other.  This sign was the birth of a child of a virgin mother (as our English version renders the word) who was to receive the name of Immanuel.  Then follows a particular and definite promise that before this particular child had attained the age which would enable him to judge between good and evil, the kingdoms of Israel and Syria would both be overthrown.  All these facts are stated by the prophet in such a manner that it is impossible to get rid of their plain signification, except by having recourse to a mode of interpretation which, if applied to any other writing, we should designate a subterfuge.  Yet this passage is frequently spoken of as a direct and palpable prophecy of Jesus Christ.  I have selected it for the purpose of illustration, because it is one which the lower class of unbelievers are never weary of citing as a proof of the dishonesty of Christian commentators, and if the commonly accepted standpoint is correct, I think it very difficult to answer their objection.  The truth is, it belongs to the class of typical, or what may be more correctly designated, ideal prophecies, and the affirmation that it is a direct prophecy of Jesus Christ involves a system of interpretation which would render it impossible to be certain of the sense of a single passage in the Bible.  The child was designated “Immanuel,” or “God with us,” for the purpose of assuring Ahaz of the divine protection in the war in which he was engaged, and, however improbable the event might then appear, of the certainty of the overthrow of the two hostile kingdoms.  But, it will be urged, the popular interpretation must be correct, because St. Matthew assures us (Matt. 1:22–23) that it was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  Undoubtedly he does, i.e. in the sense in which the New Testament uses the word “fulfill.”  Jesus Christ realizes the idea involved in the passage in its fullest and truest meaning.  Nothing is more common in the New Testament than to cite a few words of a passage when the writer means to refer to the entire context.  This is done, I apprehend, in the present instance, and is implied in the words of the Evangelist when he says, “All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet,” referring to all the facts previously mentioned by him.  While the child’s name was called “Inmanuel, or God with us,” as a pledge of the divine ordering of events in a manner favourable to the Jewish cause, yet the idea “God with us” was in this case only imperfectly realized.  The conception was filled up to the full in the birth of Jesus Christ.  The child referred to by the prophet was the pledge of a temporal deliverance within a specified period to a particular nation.  The child whose birth “filled up to the full” the conception of “God with us,” was a pledge of a spiritual deliverance of all mankind, by manifesting the permanent abiding of God in a human personality.  In the birth of Jesus Christ, the saying of the prophet was filled up full, or the true ideal received its realization.

      Portions of the Old Testament describe a person who is the greatest of sufferers, but who in the midst of his sufferings displays the most unwavering trust in God, and whose career terminates in a most triumphant issue.  The description is such as not to fit the circumstances of the writer himself, of any other person known to history.  Two examples of this will be sufficient to refer to, the 22nd Psalm, and the great section of Isaiah which gives us an idealized description of “the Servant of Jehovah.”  With respect to the Psalm, if it was composed by David, it is incredible that it should have been intended to be a description of his own sufferings, as it is simply at issue with all the facts of his life; nor can we conceive of any other person whose case the description would suit.  It must therefore have been intended to describe some ideal sufferer, and that it is a very close description of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, as they are recorded in the Evangelists extending even to minute details, is an obvious matter of fact.  With respect to the “Servant of Jehovah,” there can be little doubt that the whole account was intended to be an idealized description, for taking it as a whole, there has been only one historical person, with the circumstances of whose life it will fit – Jesus Christ our Lord, whose whole work, rejection, and sufferings, followed by His triumphant resurrection, are a complete realization of the entire conception.  It has been affirmed that Jeremiah was the image present to the writer’s mind, but the description is clearly inconsistent with the known circumstances of his life.

      It follows therefore that two points are incontestable.  The Old Testament contains passages which form an idealized conception of a divine sufferer; and that several centuries afterwards Jesus Christ realized this conception in His own person, and that it has been realized by none other besides Him.

      It will doubtless be objected that this class of typical prophecies are ambiguous, as having a human subject to whom they have an imperfect reference, and an ideal conception which was to be realized in the future; and consequently, that their evidential value is less cogent than if they had simply in view a single object to which they would correspond.  To this I answer—

      First, that there are not a few prophecies of this latter description which directly predict a future kingdom of God, and the advent of a Messiah who was to be its king; and that Jesus Christ not only attempted to found such a kingdom, but has succeeded in the attempt.

      Secondly, the evidential force of typical prophecies is dependent on the number of them which converge in a common centre.  As in all circumstantial evidence, it would be unsafe to draw any positive conclusions from one or two cases; but when large numbers of them converge in a single person, and will fit in with the circumstances of none other known to history, the conjoint effect amounts to a moral demonstration.

      I now invite your attention to another element of the Old Testament Scriptures (it is a very extensive one), of which the writers of the New affirm that Jesus Christ is the complete and perfect realization, viz, its entire sacrificial system, and its symbolical worship.  This claim is also made by Our Lord himself.*  It amounts to this.  The rites, ceremonies, and institutions of Judaism all pointed to some deep-felt want in human nature.  This want they imperfectly endeavoured to satisfy; but they were in no proper sense able to do so.  What the New Testament affirms is, that all these rites, symbols, and sacrifices, as far as they pointed to real wants felt by human nature, have obtained a full realization in the person, work, and history of Jesus Christ; and that so complete is the embodiment in His person of every reality to which they pointed, that they have become forever hereafter nugatory and worthless.

      *Here again the force of the argument has been greatly weakened by the frequent endeavours which have been made to evolve out of the typical Scriptures of the Old Testament an amount of Christian truth, which we can only find in them by first putting it into them ourselves.  Thus treatises have been composed on Leviticus, which, if the views of the writers are correct, constitute it a far clearer revelation of Gospel truth than anything which can be found in St. Paul’s Epistles.  The same course has been pursued with the whole typological system of the Old Testament.  Every one of its minor details has been affirmed to be not merely a shadowy, but a very substantial delineation of some form of Christian truth so definite that it is impossible to find anything of equal clearness and precision in any portion of the New Testament.  Under this system of interpretation, it is easy to make the typology of the Old Testament affirm anything which the fancy of its interpreter may suggest.  It has been often defended on the ground that it is edifying, and enables us to arrive at clear views of Christian truth.  But certainly any system of interpretation which succeeds in evolving out of the Old Testament clearer views of Gospel truth than the direct statements of the New, is open to grave suspicion.  The principle laid down is that the typical Scriptures of the Old Testament have been so framed by the divine Spirit, that with the light of the New Testament shining on them, they form perfect delineations of some of the profoundest mysteries of Redemption.  Before this can be accepted, it is surely necessary to lay down some principle by means of which fancied analogies can be distinguished from divine utterances; but this has never yet been attempted.  No book in the New Testament so much deals with the typology of the Old as the Epistle to the Hebrews.  But its author was far from thinking that it contained a hidden Gospel, which, by the aid of the imagination could be converted into a full delineation of the Covenant of Redemption.  His words are worthy of attention.  “The law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things.”  It follows therefore that according to his views the typology of the Old Testament is not the image (εικων, the substantial resemblance) of Christianity, but only its shadow (σκια) or unsubstantial outline.  It stood therefore in the relation, not of an image, but of a shadow to the reality; or in other words, it darkly pointed to the ideal which is realized in Jesus Christ.  If it be confined to this, its evidential value is considerable, proving the truth of those aspirations and convictions in the heart of man, which its symbolism was only in a most imperfect manner capable of satisfying, but which pointed to a higher and diviner reality, Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose person and work they all find their perfect satisfaction.  But the effect of adopting the methods of interpretation above referred to, has been the wide diffusion of a belief among thoughtful minds, that the typology of the Old Testament, with its supposed fulfillment in the New rests on so unsubstantial a basis as to deprive it of all evidential value.

      Here, again, we are in the presence of a simple question of fact.  The writers of the New Testament affirm that Jesus Christ is the ideal embodiment of whatever was real in the institutions of the Old; the substance of which they were the imperfect shadows.  Whether this be so or not we can determine by a simple examination of the Old Testament, and by comparing its entire system of symbolism with the reality in the New.

      Of this realization, I must content myself with citing two remarkable illustrations.  Nothing is more certain than that the New Testament is founded on the Old; Christianity grew out of Judaism.  Unless the Old Testament had been written, not one page of the New would ever have been composed, or the claims of Jesus to be the Messiah set up.  Yet Christianity claims the right to supersede its entire system on the ground that Jesus Christ is not only its complete and adequate realization, but has so realized it, as to have rendered its imperfect methods nugatory.  This has been effected wherever the Christian Church has been established, and constitutes a proof that whatever was real in Judaism has been so fully satisfied by Christianity, that the shadow has become useless now that we are in possession of the substance.  So complete a supercession of one system by another which is founded on it, and has grown out of it, is without a parallel in history.

      Secondly: the rite of sacrifice was universal in the ancient world.  The only conclusion which is consistent with this fact is, that it must have had its origin in some deep-felt want of human nature.*  It formed the very essence and centre of Judaism.  Now the writers of the New Testament affirm that Jesus Christ has performed an act which has realized the ideal which was embedded in the entire sacrificial system of the ancient world; and has thereby rendered it unnecessary and unmeaning.  What, I ask, has been the verdict of mankind respecting this?  Have they found in Him the reality which the old sacrifices vainly attempted to realize?  There can be one only answer to this question.  Wherever Christianity has been accepted, the entire sacrificial system so deeply entwined with every institution of the ancient world, has perished; and a bloody victim has never once stained the altars of the Christian Church.  It still has one great sacrifice to offer to God; but it is the sacrifice of self.

      *It has been often asserted that the practice of sacrifices originated in a divine institution.  Whether this were so, or not, we have no means of arriving at a certain conclusion; for the Bible makes no affirmation on the subject.  It always speaks of sacrifices as a thoroughly established portion of divine worship, and describes them as having been offered by the immediate descendants of the first man; but it affirms nothing as to whether they were instituted by God, or were a spontaneous suggestion of the human mind.  It is highly probable that God may have revealed himself to mankind prior to any revelations which are recorded in the Bible; but as no record of them has survived, it is most unsafe to attempt to determine, on mere abstract principles, what must have been their contents.  To do so, is to imitate the unsound practice of those historians who, when certain facts have perished, endeavour to supply the deficiency by elaborating them out of their own consciousness.  One thing is certain.  The practice of sacrifice corresponds to a need which has been in all ages deeply felt by human nature, and is an imperfect endeavour to satisfy it.  This is sufficient for my argument.  Jesus Christ has so completely satisfied that want that He has superseded the practice wherever His religion prevails.

      Further: Christianity has realised the ideal of that to which the dispensation of the Old Testament pointed in its general outline, but only imperfectly realized.  Thus the conception of Judaism involved that of a Church; but its institutions, strictly in conformity with the ideas of the times, limited it to the members of a single nation.  Christianity has swept away all the restrictions, broken down all the walls of separation, and created the Catholic Church.  The conception of Judaism was that of a theocracy; that theocracy involved a vast system of symbolical worship, and the existence of an hereditary priesthood.  Christianity retains the conception of the theocracy; but it is one altogether spiritual and moral, the priesthood of which is the entire Christian community.  The moral teaching of the Old Testament was one of great elevation; but was rendered imperfect by being frequently obliged to accommodate itself to the circumstances of the times, which were those of barbarism, ferocity and war.  Jesus Christ in His teaching has realized the conception on which it is based, and freed it from its imperfections.  The great men of the former dispensation were filled with the deepest aspirations for a light which would illumine many of the dark problems in the midst of which they struggled; above all, which would throw a cheerful ray on man’s destiny beyond the grave.  The light which they vainly struggled after has been imparted by one of their countrymen who, to all external appearance was only a Jewish peasant.  My text affirms that Jesus is He of whom Moses in the Law, and the prophets did write.  If He has fulfilled them; i.e., if He is the ideal to which they pointed, He must certainly be the Christ.

      Let me now briefly sum up the prophetic argument, and exhibit its conjoint force.  The Old Testament many centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ, announced the setting up of a future kingdom of God, and the advent of a Messiah, who was to be its king.  Such a kingdom of God has certainly been set up by Jesus Christ, in which He reigns as king.  It affirms that a prophet should appear in the future like unto Moses.  A multitude of prophets have appeared; but the only one who bears this resemblance is Jesus Christ.  It has described a person of exalted holiness, and possessing a superhuman character, as suffering for others.  The full conception of such a character is fully realized in Him, and in Him alone.  It announces a Messiah who was to be a royal priest.  Jesus Christ has assumed this office, and nullified every other sacrifice but His own.  The Jewish dispensation consisted of a mass of rites, ceremonies, symbols, and shadowy representations.  Jesus Christ and His Church are the embodiment of all the reality which they contain; and have rendered them for the future as worthless and unmeaning as it would be to hold up a candle to the noonday sun.  Its great kings and prophets earnestly longed for better things to come.  Those aspirations have received their satisfaction in the person, actions, and teaching of the divine man.  The teaching of the Old Testament, while founded on eternal truths, bears evident marks of imperfection.  Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the ideal, after which the Law and the prophets were dimly groping.  The argument is spread over a large amount of space, and consists of a multitude of minor details; but such are its salient points.  View them not separately, but as they converge in a common centre, in the one great Catholic Man, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Is it possible that this vast concurrence of circumstances in a single person can have been the result of a number of fortunate guesses?  But if it has been the result of foresight, that foresight must have been superhuman.  The only plausible objection to this conclusion is, that the character of Jesus has been elaborated out of the Messianic ideas of the Old Testament, and various apocryphal writings, and falsely attributed to Our Lord.  On this point I shall offer a few remarks in a Supplement.

 

Supplement  I

      It has been often confidently asserted that the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel differs widely in conception from the Jesus of the Synoptics.  If this be so, it may be urged as an objection against the argument of this Lecture, although even if this difference were an actual fact, it would lose none of its validity as founded on the unquestionable unity of the character which is delineated in the Synoptics.  Still however as I am firmly persuaded that the objection is groundless, it will be desirable to offer a few general observations in proof of the identity of the character delineated in the fourth with that depicted in the first three Gospels.

      In what then does the alleged difference consist?  The answer must be, that the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel is delineated as possessing far higher and diviner attributes than the Jesus of the Synoptics.  This is founded on the fact that the discourses recorded in this Gospel represent Our Lord as ascribing to Himself a number of divine attributes which are wanting in the Synoptics.

      The fact is unquestionable, that the discourses of this Gospel represent Our Lord as making a large number of dogmatical assertions respecting Himself, which are not found in the other three; but that this constitutes any real break in the unity of the delineation, I deny; in other words, I affirm that the four portraitures are simply four delineations of the same character contemplated from a different point of view.  The difference is precisely this: The Jesus of St. John directly affirms His divine character; the Jesus of the Synoptics is so delineated, that the assumption that He must possess a superhuman character is the only adequate explanation of the delineation.  The Jesus of St. John is in fact the explanation of the Jesus of the Synoptics.  In proof of this I observe:–

      1. The Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke contain a deliberate affirmation on the part of Our Lord, which forms the connecting link between the Jesus of the Synoptics and the Jesus of the fourth Gospel.  I quote from St. Matthew:–

      “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.  Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.  All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and none knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.  Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

      This passage proves what has often been denied, that the Synoptical traditions represented Jesus as making dogmatical affirmations respecting Himself.  Further, that the assertions which He is represented as making in this passage are fully on a par with anything which can be found in the fourth Gospel.

      The first portion of this utterance, affirming the hiding of the fundamental elements of Our Lord’s teaching from the wise and prudent, and their revelation to babes, embodies the essence of several of the thoughts contained in the great discourse which was delivered in the synagogue at Capernaum, in which He asserts the necessity of a divine influence for the appreciation of His teaching (John 6:36–37; 41–44; 65), and also underlies the principles involved in several of his controversies with the Jews, as they are reported in this Gospel.

      The second, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight,” affirms the perfect coincidence of His own with the Father’s will.  Declarations of a precisely similar import are scattered widely over the discourses of the Fourth Gospel, of which John 4:34; 5:19, 30; 6:38; 8:29, may be cited as examples.

      The third affirms that all things are committed unto Him by the Father.  The fourth Gospel reiterates again and again, that this power, which is inherent in the Father, is manifested through the Son.

      The fourth affirms in direct terms that a perfect knowledge of the Son is possessed by the Father alone – “None knoweth the Son but the Father” – and that the Son in like manner possesses an equally exclusive knowledge of the Father – “Neither knoweth any one the Father, save the Son.”  The reader of the fourth Gospel cannot fail to observe that these assertions cover a large portion of Our Lord’s dogmatical affirmations respecting Himself, which are really little more than amplifications of them.

      The fifth assertion is, that He is the exclusive revealer of the Father.  This is reiterated again and again in the fourth Gospel.

      The whole concludes with the invitation to the weary and heavy laden to come to Him, with the promise of finding rest, and that the burden which He would lay upon them would be light.  Portions of Our Lord’s last discourse, in which He promised His disciples peace, and proclaimed that His service must be a service of love (John 14:27–31; 15:9–17; 16:33), are the perfect analogue of this affirmation.

      It follows therefore that a large portion of the utterances in the fourth Gospel, against which so much exception has been taken, as though they constituted a delineation of Jesus fundamentally differing from that of the Synoptics, are little more than expansions of the thoughts which are contained in this single passage.  Yet as it is deliberately ascribed to Him by the Synoptics, their authors must have thought it in harmony with the traditions which they followed.  From this we may safely infer that it could not have been the only one with which they were acquainted.

      2. The form of the Synoptical delineation implies the existence of utterances of this description.  In fact the Johannine portraiture is its direct counterpart and vindication.

      The first proof of this which I adduce is that the Synoptic delineation of Our Lord’s teaching invariably represents Him as resting the truth of His affirmations on no other authority than that of His own consciousness.  He never speaks as though his knowledge came to Him from without; but all His assertions rest on His own ultimate authority.  His utterances are in fact equivalent to oracles; but they rest on the simple basis of “I say unto you.”  Of this the mode in which He deals in the Sermon en the Mount with the Old Testament Scriptures (which as a Jew He must have viewed as of divine authority), explaining, enlarging, and occasionally annulling some of its precepts as defective, by no other authority but His own, may be cited as a crucial example.  Without the smallest hesitation or faltering, the Jesus of the Synoptic narrative sets himself down in the seat of the chief legislator of the kingdom of God; nor can we trace in it one single indication of a misgiving on His part that He was not supremely worthy to fill it, or that His utterances were to be viewed as anything short of oracles from heaven.

      But further: equally uniform is the Synoptic delineation of Our Lord as a worker of miracles.  The utterances with which He announces them are as follows: “I will, Be thou clean,” and the leprosy immediately departs.  “Young man, I say unto thee, arise,” and the dead stands up.  “Receive thy sight,” and the blind man sees.  “That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed and walk,” and the sick man carries his bed.  “Come out of the Man, thou unclean spirt,” and the demoniac is restored to sanity.  To the waters, he says, “Peace, be still,” and the storm ceases.  Such is the invariable form of the Synoptical delineation, which never once represents Jesus as appealing to any power but His own, or entertaining the smallest doubt that He possessed it inherently, or even as performing a miracle after the utterance of a prayer to enable Him to do it.  In this respect the delineation of the Synoptics is equally divine with that in the fourth Gospel.  In one respect it even transcends it, for while the discourses of the fourth Gospel contain numerous passages which refer His miraculous works to His own concurrence in action with the Father, and describe them as the Father’s testimony rendered to Him, there is not a single passage in any one of the Synoptics which makes any such affirmation, except on one occasion in a discussion with the Pharisees as to the source of His miraculous power, which they attributed to Satan, He uses the words, “If I by the finger of God cast out devils,” and the affirmation made on one occasion by the author of the third Gospel, that Jesus went out “in the power of the Spirit.”  In a similar manner, the Johannine discourses far more definitely affirm the derivation of Our Lord’s teaching from the Father, than any declaration of His own, which is recorded in the Synoptics.

      It follows therefore that the utterances above commented on, and the discourses in the fourth Gospel, constitute the only adequate justification of the Synoptical delineation; and instead of the two delineations being portraitures of different characters, the one forms the direct counterpart of the other.

      Equally uniform are the two delineations in attributing to Jesus the most perfect union of His own consciousness with the divine, and in carefully distinguishing it from that of other men.  Of this a remarkable instance may be cited in the exactitude which both the Synoptics and the fourth Gospel attribute to Him in the use of the word “Father.”  They make it clear that He claimed that God was His Father in a sense different from that in which He is the Father of other men.  In all four Gospels the usage in this respect is uniform.  He frequently speaks of God under the character of “Father,” but it is invariably “My Father” when He speaks of Him in relation to Himself; and “your Father” when He does so in relation to others.  Never is the expression “Our Father” once attributed to Him in either of the Gospels, except in the prayer which He composed, not for His own use, but for that of His disciples.  Such uniformity on a minute point of this description constitutes the strongest proof of identity of conception.  The contrast between our Lord’s view of the relationship in which He stood to God, and that in which other men stand to Him, is brought out more strongly in a passage of the Fourth Gospel, “My Father and your Father, my God and your God,” and the distinction is invariably observed by all four Evangelists.

      3. A claim of the most complete sacrifice of self on the part of His disciples is several times attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.  So strong is this demand that no greater amount of self-sacrifice could be rendered to Almighty God than the Galilean peasant claims for himself.  Two passages in these Gospels explain the grounds of this demand, viz. His inherent worthiness, and that “He came to give His life a ransom for many.”  On another occasion it is enforced by the consideration that He would deny those who denied Him, and confess those who confessed Him before the angels of God and His Father who is in heaven.  Such claims, and on such grounds, were never elsewhere made by mortal man.  In these respects the portraiture in all four Gospels is uniform, and the Johannine asseverations are only an expansion of those in the Synoptics, and a formal statement of the grounds on which such demands can rest.

      4. While the fourth Gospel attributes to Our Lord the strong dogmatical assertions which we read in its pages respecting the dignity of His person, it delineates the other aspects of His character as being equally human with those of the Synoptics.  Thus St. John describes Him as sitting near Jacob’s Well, wearied with His journey; the Synoptics on several occasions represent Him as retiring to rest Himself after His day’s labours.  In the account of the Resurruction of Lazarus, the fourth Gospel represents Him as shedding tears of sympathy; and the whole description, while attributing to Him a very divine character, invests Him with a number of characteristics which are exquisitely human.  Similarly, the third Gospel depicts Him as shedding tears and uttering the most pathethic lamentation over Jerusalem and its impending ruin.  So again the whole description of the Last Supper in the Johannine Gospel delineates Him as exhibiting the same aspects of character.  Its traits are even more delicately drawn than the corresponding incidents in the Synoptics.  Similar also is the narrative of the betrayal, the trial, and the crucifixion.  In both the Synoptics and the fourth Gospel the identity of the character is unmistakable.

      Here it will be necessary to answer an objection.  It has been affirmed that the author of the fourth Gospel has omitted the account of the agony in the garden because he thought it inconsistent with the divine character which he has attributed to his Master.  That such an assertion can have been made in the face of the facts above referred to, and numerous others contained in this Gospel, is only one of many proofs that the enunciators of certain theories are ready to accept anything which is in accordance with their preconceived opinions on a very slender foundation of evidence.  What was the reason which led the author of this Gospel to omit from his account of the passion any reference to the agony in the Garden, it is now impossible to determine; but nothing can be more certain than that it could not have been that which has been alleged by the school of critics to which I allude.  This is rendered evident by the fact that while he omits the account of the agony, he alone of the Evangelists gives us an account of another perturbation of Our Lord occasioned by the prospect of His sufferings and death, which occurred only two days previously.  Both delineations depict Him in an aspect equally human.  It is impossible therefore that the author of this Gospel could have omitted the account of the agony because he thought it derogatory to the character which he attributed to his Master.

      The following is the Johannine portraiture:–

      “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?  Father save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour.  Father, glorify Thy name.  Then came there a voice from heaven, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.  The people therefore that stood by and heard it, said that it thundered; others said, An angel spake unto Him.  Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.  Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world, be cast out.  And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”  John 12:27–32.

      The following is one of the Synoptic delineations of the subsequent agony:–

      “He said unto them (the apostles), Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.  And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.  Then saith He unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with Me.  And He went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.  And He cometh unto His disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What! could ye not watch with Me one hour?  Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.  He went away again the second time and prayed, saying, O My Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, Thy will be done.  And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy.  And He left them and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.”  On this follows the narrative of His voluntary self surrender into the hands of his enemies.

      If the fourth Gospel is a forgery, its author must have been an adept at his art, for its delineations are almost perfect of their kind.  But the idea that he invented the narrative of the perturbation, and suppressed that of the agony, for the purpose of imparting a more divine aspect to his Master’s character, is only consistent with the idea that he must have been little better than a bungler; for the description in the Synoptics is the grander of the two, and the union of the will of the sufferer with that of the Father is absolute and complete.  To say the least of it, the struggle as depicted in the Synoptics is Godlike and strictly in conformity with the entire scope of the Johannine delineation.

      5. The identity will become more and more apparent if we compare an entire section in the Synoptics with a parallel one in the fourth Gospel.  As it is longest and most complete, I will take that, which on the theory that the character is an ideal one, may not inaptly be designated the drama of the passion.  It will only be necessary to notice its chief incidents.

      This really commences with the anointing of our Lord at Bethany, as preparatory to His burial.  It is narrated out of its proper place by the Synoptics, but it is evident that they attached a high importance to it, for it is the only event connected with His life which they represent him as declaring that it should be proclaimed to the whole world for a perpetual memorial of the act.  It is worthy of notice that this latter circumstance, which impresses on it a certain divine significance, is omitted by St. John, but in other respects the descriptions precisely correspond.  To this follows the account of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, in which all four evangelists concur in representing Him just prior to His great act of self-sacrifice, as openly assuming the character of the King Messiah.  Notwithstanding several minor variations, the delineations are similar throughout, except that the Synoptics ascribe to our Lord the high Messianic act of cleansing the temple, which St. John omits to notice.  At this point the narratives diverge: those of the Synoptics representing Him as being engaged during the days which intervened between his entry and the Passion in teaching in the Temple, and in discussions with the Jews, while the only incident mentioned by St. John is the interview with the Greeks and the mental perturbation above referred to.  Here, however, it should be observed that the Synoptical delineations portray Our Lord in an aspect preeminently divine in the scene immediately preceding the account of the Passion, which is wholly unnoticed m the fourth Gospel; I allude to the prophecy which they ascribe to Him of the destruction of Jerusalem, His final advent, and the supplemental parable of the Last Judgment attributed to Him by St. Matthew, who is allowed to be the greatest authority for Our Lord’s discourses.  This last portion contains the grandest and most perfect delineation of Our Lord in his divine and human characters to be found in the New Testament, and is certainly not exceeded by anything which is affirmed respecting Him in the fourth Gospel.

      This discourse is remarkable, as being the only one of any length in the Synoptics, except the one above alluded to, in which our Lord is described as making a number of direct assertions respecting Himself, after the manner of the fourth Gospel.  Even if we take the discourse as it is recorded by St. Mark and St. Luke without the additions in St. Matthew, our Lord portrays Himself in an aspect preeminently divine, the brightest objects in nature being darkened before the manifestation of the glory of His appearance, surrounded by the Angels of His might, to take possession of His Messianic kingdom.  Yet this grand delineation, perhaps the grandest in the entire Gospels, which the Synoptics have inserted immediately before their description of His lowest humiliation, is left altogether without notice in the Fourth Gospel.  This is simply inconceivable if its author was a forger who invented his fiction for the sole purpose of glorifying his Master.  The only incident in the Johannine narrative which supplies its place is the voice of encouragement from heaven in the account of Our Lord’s mental perturbation.

      The Johannine narrative of the last supper, while differing in numerous points of minor detail, which have no bearing on the present argument, from those of the Synoptics, consists of three scenes, the washing of the disciples feet, the detection and exposure of Judas, and the warning given to Peter.  In each of these our Lord is delineated in an aspect exquisitely human, the perfect combination of dignity with humility, and condescending love.  Its finer touches cannot be surpassed.  It must be read, and carefully meditated on in order to be fully appreciated.

      How stands the case with the Synoptics?  It is clear that all four evangelists intended in their respective narratives to delineate our Lord in His profoundest humiliation; and it is equally certain, notwithstanding their variations, that the conception is identically the same in all four writers.  The last two incidents in the Johannine account form a portion of that of the Synoptics, while the first is omitted, and in St. Luke’s Gospel there is inserted in place of it the account of the unseemly contest for superiority among the disciples, immediately after the institution of the Lord’s Supper, and His rebuke.  The variations of detail in the four narratives only confirm the identity of the character as proving that among the various records of incidents handed down in the traditions of the different Churches, there was no real diversity of delineation.

      Here the fourth Gospel again diverges from the Synoptics.  Immediately after the supper, it describes our Lord as uttering a long consolatory address to the disciples, concluding with His great intercessory prayer.  While this address contains a number of the most exquisite human touches, it also depicts Him in the diviner aspects of His character; the prayer of intercession being the act of self-consecration immediately before His voluntary sacrifice.  There can be no doubt that the insertion of the address and prayer in this particular place, heightens the effect of His self-sacrifice, which follows; but precisely the same result is produced in the Synoptic narrative by the introduction of the great prophetic utterance, with its additions in St. Matthew, immediately before the account of the Paschal supper.  In both Our Lord is described as investing Himself with superhuman greatness, immediately before His lowest humiliation; and it is impossible to affirm that the speaker, in the Gospel of St. John, has portrayed Himself in a more divine aspect than the speaker in that of Matthew.  The one is in fact the counterpart of the other, only the portraiture is taken from a somewhat different point of view; but the identity is unmistakable.

      We next pass on to the scenes of the arrest and trial.  Here the minor details differ considerably.  I need offer no further remarks on the omission of the agony in the Garden from the Johannine narrative, for amidst numerous variations in the incidents, the same fundamental conception prevails throughout all four narratives, viz, that of Our Lord’s voluntary self-surrender.  This is expressed in the fourth Gospel by the mode in which Jesus is represented as meeting the band at the entrance of the Garden: in the Synoptics by the declaration that He had only to pray to His Father, and that He would immediately obtain the aid of twelve legions of angels: the Synoptics record the one, and the fourth Gospel the other.  It is therefore absurd to affirm that the incident in question was invented for the purpose of heightening the effect.  Both delineations are portraitures of Jesus supported by a consciousness of the divine within Him, in an act of voluntarily yielding Himself up to death.  It is worthy of remark that while the Synoptics describe Him immediately before His condemnation as making a deliberate assertion of His superhuman character before the Jewish council, this incident is wholly omitted by St. John.  The only thing which corresponds to it in this Gospel, if it may be really said to correspond, is His deliberate assertion of His Kingship in reply to the judicial inquiries of the Roman Governor.  When interrogated by him on the question of His divine origin, He made no answer.  It is clear, therefore, that in either case the character is the same, however much the incidents may vary.  This variation of the incidents, while the identity is preserved, constitutes the strongest possible proof that the character is not an ideal creation, but an historical reality.

      The narrative of the condemnation, and the crucifixion calls for little remark.  Here again the incidents are extremely varied.  But the greater the amount of variation, the greater force it imparts to my argument, for not a single variation affects the identity of the character.  It is impossible to affirm that the author of the fourth Gospel has imparted a more divine, or even a less human aspect to our Lord, either before Pilate, or on the cross, than is attributed to Him in the Synoptics.  If he has omitted the cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?” which is attributed to him by the latter, he has inserted that of “I thirst” which they omit.  Surely this is equally human with the former.  Again, if he has attributed to Him the triumphant exclamation “It is finished” prior to His death, we know from the Synoptics that He uttered some cry which produced awe in the mind of the centurion; and it has its complete counterpart in St. Luke’s Gospel, in the answer to the prayer of the repentant robber, that He would remember him when he came into His kingdom, “Verily, I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.”

      Nothing is easier than to raise a number of minute objections on account of the variations with which the Evangelical narratives abound; and to say that one thing has been invented, or left out for this purpose, and another for that.  What was the express design of each Evangelist in making these additions, and omissions, or what was the precise amount of matter which each had before him, it is now impossible to ascertain; and if we supply our deficiency of knowledge by conjecture, we may make out any thing which falls into harmony with preconceived ideas.  But amidst this divergency of incidents, one thing emerges into the clearest light, that the portraiture of the Jesus of the Evangelists constitutes an essential unity; that the separate delineations fit into one another with exquisite propriety, and that the separate parts of which each delineation is composed, adjust themselves to each other as portions of one great whole.  Each Evangelist has some points in his delineation peculiar to himself, and delights to dwell on some particular aspect of the character of his Master; but all these variations amount to nothing more than that they have each contemplated the great reality from a somewhat different point of view.  Identity of character arising out of great diversity of materials, points to one thing, and to one thing only – historical reality.

 

Supplement  II

      It has frequently been asserted that the Messianic character of the Jesus of the Gospels has been evolved out of the Messianic delineations of the Old Testament, and the Apocalyptic literature current at the time of the Advent, of which the Book of Enoch, the Second Book of Esdras, certain collections of Sybilline verses, and a few others are examples.  This objection, which, if valid, would be fatal to the whole prophetic argument, has derived a certain amount of plausibility from the fact that the Messianic prophecies and the typology of the Old Testament have been frequently represented by Christian writers as being such distinct, full, and definite predictions of Christ, as to have made it comparatively easy to elaborate the Messiah of the New Testament out of the prophetic intimations of the Old.  This being so, although the foregoing arguments are valid for the disproof of this particular form of the ideal theory, yet it will be desirable to offer a few additional observations for the purpose of showing that the data furnished by the Old Testament and the Apocalyptic literature in question are utterly inadequate to have afforded the materials for this grand delineation.

      A large number of Christian writers in their eagerness to impart additional force to the prophetical argument, and a divine authority to doctrines which it is impossible to prove by the direct statements of the New Testaments, but which they consider to be integral portions of Christianity, have represented the Old Testament as containing a veritable Gospel.  In adopting this course they have not perceived that they were cutting away the ground from under their own feet for if the delineations of the Old Testament are thus clear and distinct, or in the language of the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, εικόνες, and not σκιαι of Christianity, it would have been comparatively easy for mythologists and inventors of fictions, to have delineated the Jesus of the Evangelists.  The truth however will be found to be, that the only way of finding in the Old Testament what it has been alleged to contain, is by practising on ourselves the fallacy of first putting into it what we imagine that we find there.  This mode of procedure has greatly impaired the value of the Christian argument in the eyes of thoughtful men; and put a dangerous weapon into the hands of opponents.  For all evidential purposes it is as valueless, as it would be foolish in common life, to act on the assumption that a purse which we ourselves had filled, was a present made to us by a considerate friend.

      In estimating the amount of light communicated by the prophetic Scriptures of the Old Testament, it is necessary to consider, not what we think that we can see in them with the light of Christianity shining upon them, but what was the only thing which any one could have seen in them who lived before Jesus Christ appeared as the realization of the ideal, towards which they obscurely pointed.  In determining the question whether the Messianic conceptions of the Old Testament and the Apocalypses can have served as the model for the Jesus of the Gospels, it is our duty to contemplate them, not with the light which has been thrown upon them by the New Testament, but in the plain obvious meaning which they must have presented to the delineators themselves.  In discussing this question it will be only necessary to consider the chief Messianic prophecies; for the idea that the typology of the Old Testament could have formed any portion of the model which has been employed in the delineation of the Jesus of the New, is too absurd to require serious refutation.  It could only have served that purpose if it had been first put there by the delineator.

      What then were the Messianic conceptions which the Old Testament and the Apocalypses would have supplied, and how far would they have aided them in delineating the ideal Jesus of the Evangelists?

      Let us suppose that such a delineator had in his hands the book of Enoch.  I notice this apocalypse first, because it contains the Messianic conception in its clearest and most distinctive form.  It is very doubtful whether the Messianic delineations of this book have not been inserted in it at a period subsequent to the advent, for the evidence that it is a composite work is strong.  On this point, however, I will not insist, but suppose that the delineator of an ideal Christ may have been in possession of the entire book.  What aid would it have afforded him in creating the great portraiture of the Gospels?  He might have derived the following hints: that while the Messiah was to be divine, He was not to be invested with the attributes of absolute Deity; He is affirmed in it to have existed prior to all creation: His most usual designation is “the Elect One”; He is also repeatedly designated as the “Son of God,” “the Son of Man,” and once as “the Son of Woman”; He is invested with the titles of King and Judge of the world; He possesses righteousness, is gifted with wisdom, and knows all secret things; He possesses the Spirit in all its fullness,  His kingdom is everlasting, and He stands highest in the acceptance of the Lord of Spirits.  Although the book nowhere affirms the doctrine of an incarnation, it is unquestionably implied in the designations given to the Messiah, of “the Son of Man” and “the Son of Woman.”

      It is a remarkable fact, that as far as this book contains anything which maybe called a portraiture of the Messiah, the character which it attributes to Him is one altogether divine.  Although He is repeatedly called the Son of Man, no one trait of character strictly human is ascribed to Him.  Further, it does not contain one single intimation that the Messiah was to be a sufferer; and that through His sufferings He would enter His glory, which constitutes one of the most striking features in the delineation of the Jesus of the New Testament.  The form of the book is that of a vision: and its Messianic portions are not portraitures or obscure typical outlines, but affirmations respecting Him in the most strictly dogmatic form.  It is very remarkable that although He is repeatedly called the Son of Man, He is nowhere represented as exhibiting simply human characteristics.

      It will be at once seen that the Messianic portions of this book are greatly in advance of anything contained in the Old Testament.  Whatever view we may take of its authorship, its characteristics are very striking; and this is rendered the more so, because the reader is led by the occurrence of certain words and phrases used in common by its author and those of the New Testament, to the almost inevitable conclusion, either that the author was acquainted with some of the books of the New Testament, and derived his phraseology from them; or vice versa.  If we adopt the former hypothesis it is difficult to account for the absence of any delineation of the Messiah in a purely human, above all, in a suffering character.  If on the contrary the Messianic portions of the work are assumed to have been in existence prior to the advent, it becomes equally difficult to account for the extremely advanced form of its dogmatical assertions, for which the remnants of Jewish literature which bear on the ideas of the tines; afford no adequate vindication.  The balance of probability in favour of its post-Christian date greatly preponderates; and therefore in allowing that it might have been used by some supposed delineator of the ideal of the Gospels, I give him every advantage.  The question therefore arises, how far would the dogmatic assertions of this book have aided an idealist in his portraiture of the Jesus of the Evangelists?

      It will immediately strike the reader, that while this book contains a number of dogmatic statements respecting the Messiah, it makes not a single attempt to give us a dramatized portraiture of Him; by which I mean, that it never embodies the attributes which it ascribes to Him in a living character.  This, on the contrary, forms the very essence of our Gospels; in which Jesus not only possesses certain qualities; but actually exhibits them over a wide sphere of action, and in every variety of circumstances.  It will be at once seen that between merely affirming that the Messiah was both Son of God and Son of man, and delineating Him in a career in which He is made to act both these characters with exquisite propriety, the difference is vast.  In a similar manner it is easy to ascribe to such a person wisdom, holiness, benevolence, or any other virtues, or even to affirm that he will be the future judge of the world; but it is a very different thing to dramatize him as exhibiting these characteristics over an extensive sphere of action.  This is what has been effected in the New Testament; but of the mode in which the Messiah was to be delineated as uniting the divine and human characters, or as exhibiting in action a number of virtues, the perfect combination of which in any single person is a matter of the greatest difficulty, the book of Enoch would not have furnished a single hint.  The difference between this book and the Gospels may be summed up in the following sentence.  The book of Enoch declares what attributes the Messiah in conformity with the ideas of its author ought to possess; the Gospels set before us a delineation of what, contrary to the ideas of their authors, He actually was.  The one utters a number of dogmatical assertions respecting Him, the other presents us with an actual portraiture of a living Christ, exhibiting in perfect harmony the holiness of man, and the holiness of God.  The one resembles a person who says to an artist, paint a magnificent picture, exhibiting certain principles; the other resembles the artist with the picture in his hands exhibiting the highest conceptions of genius, and finished in the highest style of art.

      It follows therefore that although he might have learnt from this book that the Messiah was to be a person who would possess high, but not the highest form of divine attributes, that He was to be the Son of man, Son of woman, and the Son of God, that He was to be the revelation of the Lord of Spirits, and the future Judge of the world, the delineator would not have derived a single hint as to how these characteristics were to be exhibited in action.  Still more devoid of assistance would this book have left him, in depicting the human aspects of the Christ of the Gospels.  The solitary hint that it would have given him would have been its assertion that He was to be the Son of man.

      But as I have said, the aspect of the Messiah as a sufferer is utterly wanting.  That He was to suffer, above all to die, the book does not give the smallest intimation.  Its Messiah is altogether triumphant and divine.  On the other hand His character as a sufferer is one of the most striking aspects of the Christ of the New Testament.  A Christ in whom this portion of the Evangelical portraiture is wanting, is an utterly different one from the Christ of the New Testament, and if this was the only distinction between them, it would constitute a proof little short of demonstration, that the Messiah of Enoch could not have served as a model for the Christ of the Gospels.  I need hardly say that if the suffering Jesus is an ideal creation, it must have been one of the most difficult portions of the whole character to conceive and dramatize.  It follows, therefore, that apart from its seven or eight dogmatical assertions respecting certain attributes which the Messiah was to possess, the Messianic elements of the book of Enoch would not have afforded the smallest assistance to any body of idealists, who may be supposed to have imagined the Christ of the New Testament.

      2. But may not another apocryphal book, that of Esdras, have supplied the deficiency, and formed the model of the suffering Jesus?  Here again, great uncertainty exists respecting the date of the work.  Whatever may be said of the greater part of it, there cannot be the smallest doubt, that a few passages in it are interpolations in favour of Christianity.  While the book of Enoch displays a generally triumphant tone, this apocalypse is distinguished by the tone of profound melancholy which pervades it.  Under its influence, it recognises the fact that the Messiah was to die; but as with the other book, the idea of His death as a sacrifice is foreign to its contents.  Its Messiah is one preeminently Jewish, – an aspect of thought which distinguishes the entire work.  With the exception that the Messiah was to die, and the world to return to chaos before the Resurrection, it furnishes us with no fresh element of Messianic thought.  If we adopt the highly improbable supposition, that this book was in the hands of some idealists, who have invented the portraiture of the Christ of the Gospels, the only possible aid it could have afforded them was the idea that the Messiah was to die; but how the conception of a dying Messiah was to be combined with the triumphant one of the other apocalypse, or how the Messiah of Esdras was to be metamorphosed into the Christ of the Gospels, it would have imparted to the idealist neither aid nor suggestion.  Any one who carefully peruses this book must arise from it with a firm conviction, that it has not formed the model of the supposed delineators of an ideal Christ, who, according to any theory which does not ignore the plain facts of history, and the possibilities of things, must have been as numerous as the inventors of the legends of which the Gospels are said to be composed.

      3. It being clear, therefore, that these two apocalypses have not supplied the materials out of which a number of ideologists have succeeded in delineating their Christ, it will be needless to inquire whether the remaining works of this description can have been used for the same purpose.  A cursory perusal of them will be sufficient to convince the reader that they are incapable of supplying the deficiency; and it is also certain that portions of them must have been composed at a period subsequent to the Advent.  This being so, it only remains to inquire what amount of aid could have been furnished by the Messianic elements in the Old Testament.

      4. The book of Daniel would have furnished the conception of a Messiah who, while He was to be invested with superhuman attributes, was also to be the Son of Man.  From it they would also learn that the kingdom of God, the advent of which it announces, would differ from all other earthly kingdoms.  Another prophecy of the same book would have informed them that one of the purposes of His coming would be to make an end of sin and reconciliation for iniquity, and that to effect this object the Messiah would die by a violent death.  From this, when viewed in connection with the other prophecies which assign to Him a kingdom without limits and without end, it is highly probable that they would infer that it was part of the Messianic character that He should be raised again from the dead; but this could only have been an inference, for the book nowhere affirms that such would be the case.  This book and that of Enoch are affirmed by those whose theories I am controverting, to have contributed largely to the formation of the Messianic conception of the Jesus of the Evangelists.  It is clear however that the points above referred to form the utmost aid which it could have afforded to the supposed ideologists, but that it would have given them no hint as to the proportions in which the divine and human were to be combined in the person of the Christ, and have left them entirely in the dark as to the mode in which the character was to be delineated.  In one word, as far as this book is concerned, with the exception of these imperfect hints, the entire portraiture, as it appears in the Gospels, must have been their own pure invention.

      5. The Old Testament contains two distinct classes of prophecies, one of which depicts the Messiah in the divine, and the other in the human aspects of His character.  These are very rarely combined in the same prediction: I mean those which speak of Him as a glorious King, and those which speak of Him as a sufferer.  Ideologists therefore could only have arrived at the conclusion inferentially, that these two classes of predictions were intended to refer to the same person.  If they inferred that this was to be the case, the problem how the union was to be effected, and the character dramatised over a course of action, would have proved to be one of which each ideologist would have propounded a different solution, and thus have rendered all unity of delineation impossible.

      6. Let us now turn to the greatest prophecy in the Old Testament, that of the Servant of Jehovah, in the latter section of Isaiah.  It is evident that if this prophecy is not sufficiently definite to have furnished the materials for constructing the Christ of the Gospels, no other, nor the whole in combination, can have been adequate for the purpose.  What then are the materials with which it could have furnished them?

      Taken as a whole, it presents us with five characters, viz., that of Jehovah himself, of the Servant of Jehovah, of an ideal Israel who is often identified with the Servant of Jehovah, of the actual Israel, and of the prophet.  The ideal Israel is the prophet’s conception of what the historical Israel ought to have been in its covenant relation to Jehovah, as distinct from what it actually was.

      Throughout the entire section which contains this delineation, Jehovah Himself is frequently introduced as a speaker, proclaiming His own omnipotence, and revealing Himself in His capacity as a Saviour.  His personality and that of the Servant of Jehovah are preserved distinct throughout the entire prophecy, and there is no confusion or intermingling of the characters.  It should be observed that the Servant of Jehovah forms the Messianic delineation.

      The conception of the Servant of Jehovah makes its first appearance in the forty-first chapter.  It is clear that he is here identified with the ideal Israel.  Precisely the same conception is continued throughout the following chapter, where the Servant of Jehovah, still the ideal Israel, is invested with Messianic attributes of a very high order, which the Gospels affirm to have received their perfect realization in Jesus Christ alone.  It should be observed that not only are the personality of Jehovah and that of His Servant kept perfectly distinct, but the latter is invested with no attribute which is properly divine.

      The forty-third chapter opens with another ideal delineation of Israel as the Servant of Jehovah, who is described as His witness.  In this chapter we are first introduced to the historical, as distinct from the ideal Israel whom Jehovah addresses in terms of expostulation.

      The forty-fourth chapter again presents us with the ideal Israel as Jehovah’s Servant, who receives a succession of promises, and to whom Jehovah proclaims His omnipotence.  On this follows a description of the character of the historical Israel.  Then the ideal Israel is again introduced with assurances of pardon, for whose sake a deliverer is raised up in the person of Cyrus, who is expressly called to his work for the sake of Israel, Jehovah’s Servant, and Israel His elect.

      The same imagery is continued until we arrive at the forty-ninth chapter, where a speaker is introduced who designates himself by the name of Israel, and declares himself to have been formed from the womb to be the Servant of Jehovah.  He describes himself as having been discouraged at the greatness of his work, but as supported by the strength of his God.  His special office is to bring the actual Israel near unto him, and he declares that though he should fail in the attempt, he would still be glorious in the eyes of Jehovah.  In the fiftieth chapter he first makes his appearance as a sufferer, yet as firmly bent on the performance of his work, trusting in the aid of the Almighty.

      In the fifty-second and fifty-third chapters we are introduced to the last appearance of the Servant of Jehovah, unless in the subsequent Messianic prophecies the same person is addressed, but not named.  It is by far the most remarkable of them all, the well-known description of the Man of Sorrows.  The Servant of Jehovah, though acting prudently, is described as having his visage more marred than any men, yet he is to sprinkle many nations, while kings shut their mouths at him.  He has neither form nor comeliness; he is despised and rejected of men.  He bears our griefs end carries our sorrows.  He is wounded for our transgressions, smitten of God and afflicted.  The Lord lays on him the iniquity of us all.  He is unresisting like a lamb, and his life is cut off by a violent death, to which he submits, not for his own sin, but for that of the people.  His soul is made a sin-offering; he bears the sins of many, and makes intercession for transgressors.  As a reward for his sufferings voluntarily submitted to, be is not only assured of their triumphant issue, but that he himself would be satisfied with the result.

      This is the most important Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament, not only on account of its length, but because the Servant of Jehovah is dramatized over a limited sphere of action.  It is easy to perceive, now that the reality is come, that the Jesus of the New Testament is the perfect realization of these various shadowy delineations: but the question is, does it afford adequate materials, out of which a number of ideologists could have created the portraiture of the Christ of the Gospels.

      The reader will at once perceive that the larger portion consists of doctrinal statements respecting the nature of the Messiah’s work.  The express delineations of his character are few.  They are in fact assertions of what it was to consist of, rather than actual delineations.

      Supposing a body of ideologists to have arrived at the conclusion that the Servant of Jehovah was intended to be a delineation of the Messiah, they might have learned from the fifty-second and fifty-third chapters the following facts;

      First: he was to be one of the greatest of sufferers.

      Secondly: he was to be despised and treated with contempt.

      Thirdly: that his sufferings were to terminate in death.

      Fourthly: that they were to be undergone voluntarily.

      Fifthly: that he was to exhibit in his sufferings the patience of a lamb.

      Sixthly: that his sufferings would terminate not only in a triumphant issue, but in a result satisfactory to himself.

      Such are the materials which this prophetic delineation would have supplied to the ideologists, to enable them to portray the suffering Christ of the Gospels.  It will be at once seen how imperfect a model they would have formed on which to construct the drama of the Passion.  It is important to observe that they are confined to that portion of his Messianic character alone, and would have left them entirely in the dark as to how the diviner aspects were to be combined with the human, or how the other portions of the character portrayed in the Gospels were to be delineated.  The suffering Christ constitutes only a portion, though a very important one, of the great portraiture of the Gospels.  The six points above referred to, would have only served as simple directions to construct a character in which these particular aspects were to be perfectly embodied: but they would have left the question unsolved as to how this was to be effected, and on the remaining portions of the delineation, as it appears in the Gospels, these two chapters would have afforded them not the smallest assistance; consequently each ideologist would have delineated his Christ according to his own imagination, which must have destroyed the unity of the conjoint work.

      7. There are unquestionably other prophecies in Isaiah, which assign to the Messiah attributes of a far higher order than those attributed to him in the section which contains the description of the Servant of Jehovah.  These however afford not the smallest hint as to the mode in which the divine aspects of his character were to be delineated in combination with the human.  The combination of a divine with a human character is a rock on which all poets and ideologists have suffered shipwreck: and it need hardly be observed that the difficulty of effecting the union is greatly increased when it is necessary to delineate the human as a sufferer.  But it is very unlikely that a number of ideologists who used Isaiah as their model, would have arrived at the unanimous conclusion that the divine and human aspects of the prophetic delineation were to be combined in a single person.  It is far more probable that at least some of them would have considered that two Christs were intended by the prophet, one of whom was to exhibit the divine, and the other the human attributes of the Messianic delineation.  On such a point disagreement would have been fatal.  If, on the other hand they arrived at the conclusion that both were to be combined in a single person, this would have at once launched them on the boundless ocean of conjecture as to how the union was to be effected, without rudder, compass, or star to direct their course.  It is evident that the only possible result must have been the creation of as many ideal Christs as there were ideologists.

      8. I need hardly pursue this subject further; for it is evident that if the Messianic delineations in Isaiah would have been incapable of furnishing the suitable materials for framing the portraiture of the Christ of the Gospels, this result could not have been accomplished by all the other Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.  In fact, the larger their number, the greater would have been the embarrassment which they would have caused as to how the various scattered rudimentary delineations were to be combined into a harmonious whole, and exhibited in the actions and teachings of a living Christ.  They would have formed little more than a body of directions to construct a character who was to exhibit a certain number of attributes; but artists of every kind are painfully aware that between an order to do a thing in this or that particular way, and its realization, the interval is wide.  Such must have been the position of ideologists who had nothing else to aid them in the delineation of an ideal Christ than the Messianic elements in the Old Testament.  Instead of the unity of the Jesus of the New resulting from their labours, they would have constructed Christs of a wide diversity of conception.  The Christian typologist has a very different task before him.  He is in possession of the substance which, after he has seen and contemplated, it is comparatively easy to discern, in the shadowy outline.

      If it be urged that if ideologists had accepted the twenty-second Psalm as Messianic, it would have aided them in the delineation of the Passion, I fully admit that its imagery would have suggested to them the idea that the Messiah was to die by crucifixion, and that several circumstances connected with the death of Our Lord are described with remarkable precision; as the staring and insulting crowd, the limbs almost dislocated, the piercing of the hands and feet, the effects of the thirst, the parting of the garments, the offer of vinegar to drink, and the triumphant issue to which these sufferings tended.  These suggestions it would unquestionably have afforded; but when the drama of the Passion is contemplated as a whole, beginning with the anointing, and terminating with the Resurrection, including the calm composure and perfect self-surrender of the sufferer, it will be seen that although the materials afforded by the Psalm would have furnished them with these facts, they would have been wholly insufficient to have enabled them to construct the grand drama of the Gospels, of which they only form an inconsiderable portion.  It is also evident that as to the rest of the portraiture of the Jesus of the Evangelists they would not have furnished a single hint.

      Once more: when historical characters, such as David, are idealized as typical representations of the Messiah, instead of aiding the ideologists, it would have led them astray in their delineation of the Christ of the Gospels.  Now that the reality has come, we see plainly that the idealization was intended to be confined to David in his capacity of King of the theocracy.  But it is hardly possible that this would have occurred to an ideologist.  On the contrary, he would have been almost certain to have considered that the personal character of David was the thing intended; and consequently, instead of delineating a character who was mild and humble, he would have portrayed one of which the heroic qualities would have formed the leading characteristic.  Above all, he would certainly have invested him with the character displayed by the Psalmist in the imprecatory Psalms.  But between the delineation of Him who prayed, in the extremity of his agony, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” and the language of the Psalmist in these Psalms, such as: “Let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children”; “As he clothed himself with cursing like as with a garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones”; “Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.  Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones,” the contrast is striking.

      These brief observations will I think be sufficient to show that the prophetical Scriptures of the Old Testament would have been utterly inadequate to furnish the materials out of which the ideologists could have constructed the Jesus of the New.  The more closely the materials at their command are sifted, the more firmly will this conclusion be established.  If it be an ideal creation, it is certain that they must have evolved it out of their own imaginations, without a model or outline to direct them.  But this supposition I have shown not only to be in the highest degree improbable, but. one which is absolutely impossible.

 

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