m \^-^ if ml ill'*-' v%p- Br 11 j 3 JERUSALEM FltOM THE GOLDEN OAIE SIIOWUJO THE lEWlLE AREA IN THE rOKEGIlOUND WITH IIIF MOiijIJES AND MINARETS IN THE IIOLV PLACE. -te£»8^S£isaT^ 'safe-* -♦ 4? BEAGTllUI roll SllLAIIOl) lUL JUi Ol IDE «I1CIL LAIITU lb MUUM /1U\ ON lUL ill Lh Ol lUE N IIITII THE Clfl OF TUE OKL iT IJNG Imiittiitl I 4> OR, The Life of JesLis Christ i»«* 1«^^ From His Incarnation to His Ascension. BY ZACHART EDDY, D. D. ^iih an Intmductmn, BY RICHARD S. STORRS, Jr., D. D. SPRINGFIELD, MASS.: W. J. HOLLAND & CO. 186 8. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by W. J. HOLLAND & COMPANY, In tlie Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of INIassachusetts. SAMUEL BOWLES AND COMPANY, ELECTROTYPEKS, PKINTEUS AND BINDERS, S1'KING1"IELI>, MASS. zs^ Preface This book, the fruit of many years of patient and faithful study, is Intended for the people, but not for the ignorant and thoughtless. It assumes that the majority of readers in this age are neither thoughtless nor ignorant. It is written in the spirit of the lamented Hugh Miller, who declared that it had been his aim to write ujp to the people, and not down to them. I have not, therefore, deemed it necessary to ignore those great questions touching the person and work of Christ, which now en- gage the attention, not only of theologians but of philosophers and scholars. The age-long controversy concerning supernaturalism has, in our time, extended far beyond the closets of solitary think- ers, far beyond the cloisters and lecture-rooms of the universities, and enlists, not only the startled curiosity, but the anxious concern of millions. The day seems close at hand, when the final decision of mankind on the gospel of Christ, will be pronounced. I have not hesitated to grapple with this mighty problem, and to offer what seems to me the only rational solution. I have therefore devoted the first part of the book to the discussion of miracles and other topics connected with the credibility of the gospels. I ven- ture to hope that my readers will find this discussion neither un- intelligible nor unlnterestinfT. The predominant design of the book, however, is not to meet the arguments and cavils of rationalistic assailants of Christianity, but rather to set forth in as clear and graphic a style as possible, the great events of our Lord's earthly history, and the scope and substance of His wondrous sayings and discourses. It is an essential part of my plan to avoid all chronological, topographical, 11 PREFACE. and harmonistic discussions. I content myself with following, or, all doubtful questions, the most approved authorities, though the reader will find me sometimes forsaking them all, for what apj)ears to me a " more excellent way." In the preparation of this work, while many books have been diligently consulted I have been largely indebted to a few, the most important of which are, Robinson's " Researches^'' Stanley's ''''Sinai and Palestine,^' Smith's '■'■ Dictionary of the Bible" Nean- dcr's " Life of Jesus Christy" Lange's " Life of the Lord Jesus Christy" Ellicott's ''^Historical Lectures on the Life of our Lord Jesus Christy" Andrews' ''''Life of our Lord upon the Earth,'^ and De Ligny's (Roman Catholic) '''' History of the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ." My obligations to Alford, Stier, Olshausen, Tholuck, Trench, Van Oosterzee, and other commentators on the gospels, are too numerous to be specified. I must here record my thanks to my friend, Prof. Frederick S. Jewell, Ph. D., for his invaluable assistance In preparing this book for the press. Burdened as I have been w'lth professional cares, it is possible that, but for his efficient cooperation, the publication would have been delayed for many months — perhaps, even for years. He is entitled to my lasting gratitude, and, In proportion to the enhanced value of the book, to that of my readers. I am deeply indebted to the Rev. Dr. Storrs, whose genius sheds splendor and beauty on whatever it touches, for the In- troduction which is prefixed to this book. AVhatever judgment may be pronounced on the main edifice, none who enter will fail to be enchanted with the magnificence and grandeur of the portico. It remains to offer the fruit of my toil, which has been its own exceeding great reward, to my adorable Lord and Master, who has upheld and strengthened me In this humble attempt to spread abroad among men, the fragrance and glory of His precious name. To Him, Immanuel, the Word made flesh, be glory In the Church forever. Amen. Bkookltn, March 12, 18G8. Contents. PAGE. PAGE. Preface, 1 I Introductiox, 5 PART I. INTRODUCTORY. 1. Rationalistic Lives of Christ, . . 23 2. Inviolability of the Laws of Na- ture as related to Miracles, . 30 3. The General I'robability of Mira- cles, 39 4. The Delay in the Coming of our Lord, 46 5. Posture of the Heathen Nations as preparatory to Christ's Coming, 53 G. Preparation for Christ's Coming, 60 PART IL THE BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF JESUS. 1. The Virgin IVIother, 2. Birth and Recognition of Jesus, . 3. Jesus, the Word Incarnate, . . 4. The mission of the "Wise Meu from the East," 5. The Infiincy and Early Training of Jesus, 05 6. The Youth of Jesus 101 7. Lessons from the Youth of Jesus, 106 PART IIL THE PREPARATION. 1. The Forerunner, 113 I 3. The Temptation : Preliminary, . 127 2. The Baptism of Jesus, . . . . 121 | 4. The Temptation, 134 PART IV. THE EARLY MINISTRY OF JESUS. 1. Jesus at Bethabara, 147 2 The Marriage at Cana of Galilee, 158 3. First Journey of Jesus to Jerusa- lem and the Temple, .... IGG 4 Jesus purifies the Temple, . . . 172. 5. Jesus and Nicodemus, .... 179 6. John and his Disciples on our Lord's Baptizing, .... 189 7. Jesus and the Women of Samaria, 194 8. Jesus heals the Nobleman's Son, 208 9. Jesus heals the Impotent Man, . 213 PART V. THE INTRODUCTORY MINISTRY* OF JESUS IN GALILEE. 227 1. Jesus rejected at Nazareth, 2. Jesus on the way to Caper- naum, 237 3. Jesus at Capernaum, .... 243 4. Jesus healing the Leper, . . . 251 6. Jesus heals the Paralytic at Ca- pernaum, 257 G. Jesus rebukes the Formalism of the Pharisees 265 7. Jesus chooses Twelve Apostles, 276 8. The Teachings of Jesus, . . . 290 9. The Sermon on the l\Iount, . . 297 10. Same subject — concluded, . . 304 11. The Sermon on the Plain, . . 312 IV CONTENTS. PART VI. OUR LORDS LARGER GALILEAN MINISTRY. PAGE. 1. Jesus heals the Centurion's Ser- vant, 319 2. Raising of Widow's Son at Xain, 324 3. Message of John the Baptist to Jesus, 328 4. Jesus Discourses upon John tlie Baptist, 334 5. Jesus forgives the Woman at Si- mon's Feast, 340 6. Jesus heals a Blind and Dumb Demoniac, 350 7. IMother and Brethren of Jesus, . 360 8. The Great Teacher, .... 366 9. Jesus stills the Tempest and heals the Demoniac, . .- . . 374 10. Jesus at Matthew's Teast, . . 382 11. Jesus raises the Daugliter of Jairus, 387 12. The Theory of our Lord's IMi- raculous Healing, .... 395 13. Another Missionary Circuit in Galilee, 399 PART THE LATER GALILEAN 1. Jesus Feeds the Multitude and Walks upon the Sea, .... 411 2. Our Lord's Discourse in Caper- naum, 421 3. The Syro-Pheuician Woman, . 430 4. Journey through Zidon and De- capolis to the Sea of Galilee, . 440 5. The Transfiguration, .... 449 6. Jesus heals the Lunatic Child, . 4G1 VII. MINISTRY OF JESUS. 7. The Secret Journey of Christ through Galilee, 469 8. Jesus at the Feast of Taberna- cles, 477 9. Same subject — continued, . .'489 10. Tlie Woman accused by the Pharisees, 497 11. Jesus heals the Blind ]\Ian on the Sabbath, 501 PART VIII. THE PERIOD OF OUR LORDS MINISTRY IN PEREA. 1. Final Departure of Jesus from Galilee, 513 2. Progress of the Perean Ministry, 521 3. Further Progress of the Perean Ministry, 530 4. The Feast of Dedication, . . .536 5. Jesus Dines with the Pharisees, . 543 PART PASSION 1. Mary Anoints Jesus at the house ] of Simon, 601 j 2. The Triumphal Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, ...... 608 3. Christ and the Pharisees, . . . 617 4. Christ and liis Enemies in the Temple 625 5. Same subject — continued, . . . 633 6. The Prophetic Discourse, . . . 643 6. The Heart of God, 548 7. The Raising of Lazarus, . . . 556 The Last Journey : 8. The Ten Lepers, . . .570 9. Pharisee and Publican, . 574 10. The Ambitious Disciples, 586 11. Conversion of Zaccheus, 593 IX. WEEK. 7. The Conspirators and the Traitor, 8. The Passover 9. Lord's Supper: Valedictory Dis- course, 10. Gethsemane, 11. Jesus Belrayed : Peter's Denial, 12. Tlie Trial of Jesus, . . . 13. Jesus before Pilate and ITernd, . 14. The Crucifixion and Burial, . . PART X. OUR RISEN LORD. 1. The Resurrection of Christ, . . 729 1 3. The Ascension, 2. The Risen Saviour in Galilee, . 745 | 653 658 670 080 689 697 705 716 750 Index, 753 Introduction. a Amid 'whatever changes of arts, letters, institutions, empires, one figure continues supreme in history. It is that of the man whom John baptized, ■whom Pilate criicified ; who built no capital, led no army, wrote no volume ; who seemed to the principal persons of his time to have fitly closed a restless yet an obscure life in an ignoble death ; but who named himself, and who now is named in all the written languages of mankind, the Son of God. The brilliant names of orators, soldiers, skilful inventors, sagacious states- men, gradually fade in the vividness of their lustre as other generations follow that to which their genius was first exhibited. But the name of Je- sus continues to command, and ever more widely, the love, the reverence, the obedience of mankind. Careers so splendid in comparison of his, and so rich in energetic and governing forces, tliat to rank his beside them would have looked to the cultivated men of his time like a balancing of Nazareth against the Rome of Augustus, have been lost from sight, and even from recollection, as the race has moved from them, across the expanse of peaceful or of stormy years. But his career remains always in sight ; like the star which shines in its serene heights when the lighthouse-lamp, which near at hand glittered moi-e brightly, has sunk beneath tlie lifting horizon. More than sixty generations of men, — vexed with thought, bur- dened with cares, and each accomplishing, wearily or victoriously, its oflSce in the world, — have lived, and wrought, and passed away, since the young child Jesus lay on his Mother's breast at Bethlehem. Yet they are to-day more numerous in the world, and more influential than ever before, who turn with profoundly attentive minds, because with profoundly adoring hearts, to consider what he was. and to ponder the things which he said and which he did. VI INTRODUCTION. The fact is suj^ceptiljle of no explanation, vrliicb docs not discredit human nature itself, unless wo clearly accept this man, — so humble in his circum- stances, but iu his influence so peerless and universal, — as what this volume assumes him to have been : Imma^uel, or God with us. ' The standing: miracle,' as Coleridge describes it, ' of a Christendom commensurate, and almost synonymous, with the civilized world,'* not only compensates, as he affirms, for the necessary evanescence of some evidence for the Gospel en- joyed by the primitive Christians. It supplies a demonstration of the Divinity revealed through Humanity in the person of the Lord, than which the wondei-s of wisdom and power related of him by those who saw them were not more si";nal or convincino;. K this be admitted, and if what the Church has declared from the begin- ning concerning its Lord be received as true, — that he was not merely a Jewish mechanic, of a I'are and reviving religious genius, but was the only- begotten Son of God, wliom illustrious promises had foretold, and whose coming to the world opened heaven to its hope, and made history sublime, — then the biographies which present him to mankind become, in comparison of all other documents, of a paramount interest, and a value transcendent ; and then the facts related of him in these biographies, however they surpass what men elsewhere have experienced or observed, show a fitness to him, as well as an intimate harmony with each other, which thoughtful readers must confess. In the utmost heiglit of their mystery and sublimity, they are only, after all, on a level with the nature then attributed to him. His voluntary entrance into the world, from spheres of being outside of and above it; his self-elected participation in the situation, the experiences, and the nature of man ; his residence on the earth, in its humblest poverty, and amid the collisions of its keen strifes, prolonged through the lifetime of a whole generation ; the instnictions, in which celestial thoughts drop in music from tender lips; the miracles, in which omnipotence is declared with as little of effort as when love suffuses the brightened face ; his institution of the Church, as a world-embracing organism, taking into itself those of all races, tongues, and times, and uniting them to each otlier and to himself by their common experience of his renovating life ; his free submission to a suffering and a death which a motion of his will would have made it as impossible for Lit. Rem. vol. 5, p. 428, N. Y. Ed. INTRODUCTION. yii men to inflict as to push the mountains from their place ; his resurrection from the grave, and his final crowning return to heaven in the splendors of the Ascension : — these all are things the most wonderful, of course, which history records ; which may well ' stagger, in some minds,' as Mr. Gladstone has said, 'the whole fivculty of belief;' yet they are facts which on the hypothesis of his Divine nature made manifest through the human, are none of them incredible, or even improbable ; which, rather, may be accepted, if they might not have been looked for, as the fit manifestation, and the opulent fruit, of the infinite spirit, wisdom, and will, residing in him. The permanence, the beneficence, the ever wider extension of his moral and spiritual dominion in the earth, reflect thus a freshly interpreting light on the statements of apostles and evangelists about him. With every century it becomes more difficult for the simply philosophical student, — though wholly uninfluenced by that peculiar Christian afi^ection which in the Church is sought to be propagated, — to eliminate from history, and remit to the depart- ment of fable or of poetry, the early records of this supreme man : who was born to no rank, and trained in no school, who held himself aloof from none, and did not shrink from the touch of the sinful, who sought no fame, and seemed content to strew his words on the vanishing winds, but who perfectly expressed in his crystalline character whatever all peoples concede most precious, and who to-day governs governments ; whose words are the light, his temper the model, and his life the inspiration, of all that is noblest in the modern as in ancient character and thought ; and from whose unconspicu- ous advent the new ages of liberty, of discovery, and of progress, date their birth. It is a true saying of F. W. Faber, that " the Incarnation is as much the world m which we live as is the globe on which we tread."* It is simply inevitable, then, that particular incidents, of whatever kind, reported to us from the life of the Lord, by those who knew him, saw him, walked with him, should have for those who accept them as actual, and him as the chiefest Person in history, an undecaying dignity and charm. What- ever he touched is consecrated thereby to their memories and hearts. The places where he dwelt, the cities where he taught, the hills on which he prayed, and the sea on which he sailed, are invested with the sublimcst, the most quickening associations, that can be connected with earthly scenes. It * The Blessed Sacrament, p. 308, Bait. Ed. Vlll INTRODUCTION. is not the capricious impulse of fancy, or the frenzy of superstition, — it is an intelligent and a reasonable sense of the unapproached wonderfulness which belonged to his life, and which fell from that life as a baptism of glory on the very localities amid which it was passed, — which to-day leads pilgrims from all Christian lands to the precipitous ledges that rise behind Nazareth, or the terraced and fruitful ridge of Bethlehem. The \ holy fields ^ i , Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, derive an attraction enduring as time from the consecrating footprints of him who had walked the golden streets, but who consented, for our advantage, to tread the common ways of earth, and at last to be nailed on the bitter cross. No sentence from his lips, but the heart watches and longs to hear. No action of his life, of which the believer would not reproduce, if possible, the image ; setting it again in its original circumstances, and catching the very look and gesture with which it was attended. Not only his miracles attract our attention. We think of him in the actions which in others would have been commonplace, — dining, sleeping, sitting by the way-side, greeting the traveler, or standing on the pebbly beach, — and still our souls are con- scious of a secret glow almost as ardent as when we watch him descendinsr the stony pitch of Olivet, or reasoning with the rulers on the pavement of the temple. The charm which thus emanates from the supremacy of his person, and irradiates the visible scenes which he has hallowed, would have been indeed too powerful, if not in a measure counteracted, to leave Christianity itself unim- paired, as a spiritual religion, designed for the world. And so it has beeo made impossible, in Providence, for the precise spot of his birth or his bap tism, of his transfiguration, his death, his burial, or his ascension, to be beyond dispute identified ; and no personal relic whatever remains of him. An idolatrous adoration of things earthly and temporal would have otherwise seemed inevitable in Christendom. If any jtarclnnent, like the letter to Agliarus mentioned by Euseblus* on which his hand had traced some llnej in the Syrlac language, remained among men, no setting of diamonds would be precious enough wherewith to Incase it. If the early legend had been true, and the napkin of Veronica had kept the imprint of his face as he wiped * Hist EccL, B. 1, chap. 13. INTRODUCTION. IX with it the bloody sweat on his way to the cross, the city which coutaincd it would have been, by means of it, the centre of concourse for mankind. Only in "-encral, tliorcfore, do we know where he tarried or wrought. Oidy the sifniticant facts of his life are left on record for our instruction. For these make impression on the soul, not the sense ; and, by reason of their wondcrfulncss, thoy are as near and as glorious to those who look up to them from the banks of Indian or American rivers as if these had followed the winding Jordan from^its sweet fountains to its salt grave, or had climbed to the crest of Tabor or of Hermon. And yet, as it is with all other facts which the senses report or which thought apprehends, so, most of all, with these which the gospels narrate of the Lord. They have their value in their significance, and not in their mere sublimity or strangeness. As every crystal, from the snow-flake this instant swinging through the air to the diamond on whose history volumes are written, attracts the philosopher to the study of itself because in its special structure and form it incorporates a law, and so becomes to him a lens, through which he may discern great secrets of nature ; as each heroical action of men, in the crisis of their fortunes, reveals the undetermined capacity, for tranquility amid pains, for victory over force and a joyous self-sacrifice, which forever is lodged in the consecrated soul, and so becomes to the thoughtful observer more rich in suggestion than any dazzling march of armies, or the most suc- cessful achievement of skill in the intricate whirls of diplomatic intrigue; — so, and still more, it is not so much by what they are, as by what they evi- dently contain and declare, that the facts which confront us in the life of the Lord engage and reward the thoughts of disciples. The secret of their preciousness, the hiding of their power, is in this : that — admitting the Lord to have been what faith, from both prophecy and history, affirms him to have been — through these facts are declared to us, in the sharpness and fulness of a personal revelation, the life, the might, and the character of the Most High ; that He whom men had blindly groped after, and whom, as Paul de- clared of the Athenians, they unknowingly had worshipped, is here set forth in the perfect discovery of His grace and His glory, to draw men in penitent love to Himself. The most amazing event of time, — the appearing of Him by whom all things consist, in the person of a man, partaking the experience and sharing the nature of those whom His will had first created, and whom it still restored X INTIIODUCTION. by a word from the grave to life, — this had a purpose as sublime as itself. All preceding procedures of grace and truth were completed in it ; and the waiting yet rebellious world, which had worshipped the winds, had called stars and streams to be its gods, had molten the gold, and had almost chiseled the marble into life, in its search for a divinity, gained in Him the vision of its Maker.* It is not tlien a point which needs to be argued that to one who so accepts the Lord tlie interest which essentially belongs to bis life must be supreme, ^1 and be as immortal as the soul. Tlie most vital and transcendent truth which ' the universe holds, which eternity can show, is here presented ; not as shown through words or in vision, but as realized in a life, and revealed through its continuous action. Realms of wisdom the very outskirts of which, except for this, we could have hardly hoped to tread, are opened by it ; and thus it becomes not only the means for illuminating the mind with that ultimate knowledge which interprets all others, but also for enriching the moral nature with a profound and prophetic experience, in comparison of which all else that we gain beneath ' the low-hung sky of time ' is of trifling account. "Whoever feels — what all who reflect on it with any attention it would seem must feel — that to have a sufficient and certain apprehension of Ilim from whom all being is, and in whose mind are the archetypes of tlie Universe, is of paramount consequence to those who in spiritual constitution are like Him, and whose real blessedness and perfect exaltation are only to be found in alliance with Him, must find in those records of the life of the Lord at- traction to the intentest study, while always conscious that whatever he has learned, the fulness of their treasures remains unexhausted. Such a motive as that which impels him to this study can animate the scholar in no other inquiry. He may well be assured that the spirits of light partake his interest, <- and aspire to share the rewards of his study. For it is no mere knowledge which sucli an one attains, as he dwells upon *"The God who dwells in a light inaccessible, into which the human spirit can not penetrate, must dcsceml t') liuiiianity, brini^iiii; himself into the limits of its own finiteness, in order to be truly known by it. Not until the incarnate manifestation of Deity tlirough Christ could the God afar ofT draw near to mankind. For the first time, througli this image of the Divine in Imman nature, was the idea of God enabled to enter, in a vital and substantial way, into the consciousness and thought ef the race." — Neander. Dcr erste Brief S. Joliannis: p. 123. INTRODUCTION. XI the go.-^pels, concerning the usages and the spirit of society, in the country of Palestine, in the eighth century of the history of Rome. It is noi sim])ly a new view which he gains of the mystic and solemn order of history, as he places himself at that eminent point toward which preceding centuries had tended, around which tlie world unconsciously paused in a strange peace, and fi'om which after times have taken their direction ; where thus tlie real har- monies, in what otherwise were inextricable and bloody tangles of confusion, . become apparent. It is not simply a juster impression which such a student may hope to gain, and may in fact gain, of other truths, greater than these, yet all auxiliary to the greatest : — of the guilt of sin, and its tenacious grasp on our nature, as illustrated by the mission of the Saviour; of the nature of Redemption, and the grandeur of the elements that are combined in it to accomplish the atonement and the renewal which we need ; or, even, of the glories still surpassing our thought, but surely, hereafter to appear, as the heavenly fruit of that atonement and that renewal. All these will indeed be gained by him who studies with attentiveness, and with spiritual insight, the life which began in the mystery of Incarnation, and which closed, as it seemed, in the darker mysteries of Gethsemane and the Cross. But still the essential and the perfect result to be attained from such a study is that which the Lord himself pointed out as constituting the motive which drew him to the world : " that they might have life, and might have it more abundantly;" even that unbounded and absolute life whose element is " that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Because it is true as Paul affirmed, in that majestic and luminous sentence written to the Corinthian converts, that "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," therefore it is true, as he in the preceding paragraph had said, that " we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." All other attainments are insignificant beside this. When it is accom- plished in any soul, that has within it a light and life, a plenary peace, a mystery of power, an ecstatic enjoyment, which surpass the results that Becular studies can produce as the vital force surpasses food, as thought sur- passes the reach of the hand. The solid visible frame of things might go Xll INTRODUCTION. V to pieces, in flame and tliunder, without trouliling the spirit at rest in this experience. It has nothing to wish for, except an existence continued through immortal years. Not only is the life of the Lord, in its entircncss, the inestimable means for Lringing us to such a knowledge of God, and to such an experience conditioned vipon it ; but it is wonderful to see how each separate part, the most unobtrusive and familiar particular, in that brief but ample and crowded career, bears on the result ; how each fraction of it is freighted with Divinost meaning when we have found the secret of its glory, in the manifestation it makes of God. Not only do the miracles attest His power, and unveil the energy to which the act of creation was but a choice. Not only do the signal utterances of truth show forth His wisdom, and tell us, as sunbeams tell of the sun, of that effulgent and unsearchable mind before which angels bow in awe. The silent years, so many in comparison M'ith the three of the ministry, yet of which our records are so brief, reflect the pa- tience of the Eternal, and His recognition of the fitness of times in His most gracious operations. The tears of Jesus become to us drops from the Infi- nite sympathy, beneath which our inmost hearts are melted. His interest in the humblest things reproduces before us the mind Supreme, to which nc thing is small, and which equally rounds the drop of dew and the photo-sphere of suns. His benediction of the children whom he took in his arms makes V ... U3 say "Our Father" with warmer heart. His very delay in answering Bome requests interprets the pauses in God's ways, and gives us new motives to continuance in prayer. His smile lights up the very heavens, as it re- veals the Omnipresent compassion, and pours a sunshine on our souls which brightest mornings could not image. While still from his sad rebuking glance flashes a light tliat illumines all warnings of the word, and is itself yet more admonitory ; that makes what is meant by the ' outer darkness ' almost palpable to our thoughts, and lifts the Judgment before our minds as real and near. As the Lydian river was fabled to change the very sands its current touched to grains of gold, so the Divinity of the Lord, in fact, not in fable, makes precious beyond computation or compare the minutest incidents in his career. Whatever he did, any words that he said, while he tarried on earth, become vivid in significance, and rich in the most illustrious suggestions, when studied in tlic light tliat falls upon them from his supreme nature ; as INTRODUCTION. XIU the poor frayed threads of his comnion raiment grew lustrous with celestial splendor when he was manifest in his glory. Not without reason did the woman believe a virtue to reside in the hem of his garment. And no text droops like a frail fringe from the narratives which are the woven robes in whicli he still appears to men, that has not in it a secret virtue for one who lovingly takes it in hand. What kind of study is appropriate, then, to this life of the Lord, — is necessary, if we would gain from it its proper and sufficient fruits, — is easily evident from what has been said. A kind of half-poetic pleasure may be derived from a cursory survey of it. Vague aspirations, pointing feebly toward heroism in purpose, and the beauty of goodness, may be sluggishly stirred by a consideration of detached portions of it. But if we would have the very soul ennobled and dilated, in all its intellectual powers, as that immensest thought of the world is intelligently received, that God for us has been revealed in the person of His Son, — most of all, if we would have the heart pervaded and purified by the spiritual life which this portraiture of the Lord is meant to inspire, — then we must study it carefully, largely, with intent contemplation, with all the helps which we can summon ; and then, above all, we must study it with affectionate and eager desire to know the secret meanings of it, and to have the total impression which it leaves adequate to its incomparable glory. For it is not a system of doctrines which we examine, when we seek to know this life of the Lord. It is not a series of moral precepts, the most instructive and salutary of time. We look upon a Person, in his action and discourse ; and a Person is revealed only through the sympathetic vibration which he stirs in our souls. Neither action nor discourse will open to us their inmost import till we are respon- sively related to him who is manifest in both. In this respect it is with the transcendent life of the Lord as it is with all the humbler lives of those who have served him in the world. It is of real and great account to us to be familiar, as we may be, with the life of St. Paul. A bracing, inspiring influence comes, over the centuries, from his heroic and indefatigable career. His work for men had nowise ended when his head had follen beneath the sword, on the Ostian road. He blesses us still, by his spii-it as by his words, from Phiiippi and from Corinth. But we never understand him till we are ourselves, in a measure at least, in sympathy with him. And what were a catalogue of his perils and pains, his vicissitudes XIV INTIIODUCTION. of fortune, his missions and bis martyrdom, to one who did not comprehend through such sympathy the motives that urged and the purpose that ennobled him ? It is of eminent service to us of know what we may of the life of St. John ; that man ' of fiery love and fiery hate,' whose hate was at last all melted or exhaled in a consummate love. But what could be really told us of his life, — though the narrative stretched from the shore of Gennesaret to the rocks around Patmos, — unless we had felt in our own hearts some- thing akin to that spirit in him which made him at fust the beloved disciple, and at last the chosen seer of the Apocalypse? And so, and still more, must we gain through prayer an inward and quickening sympathy with the Lord, before the very narratives of the Gospel can make Him live and move before us, whom Paul and John adoringly served ; in whom we meet the ideal of ITumanity, but are faced as well, and overshadowed, by the present Divinity ; through the tender and kindling eyes of whom we see the Creator's face shining on us, and are conscious that it is not a mere human career — the most eminent of the as-os — which we observe, but that still through those eyes, 'as meditation soars upward, it meets the arched firmament, with all its suspended lamps of light.' Through such a sympathy, wrought within us by the Spirit of God, may we come to what Pasquier Quesnel called ' the sacrament of the Gospels,'* and look to find the Lord M-hoin they present made evident to our souls. We learn then how matchless was the wisdom that formed these, and that still has preserved them, amid the disasters of letters and of empires, and has kept them as fresh and full as at first; — written with a beauty, and an unconscious pathos, which inspiration alone could have secured ; their sim- plicity as inimitable as their sublimity; even the apparent discrepancies between them becoming but tlie hooks to hold more firmly and closely to them the thoughts of their students ; their four-fold unity presenting with a per- fection not otlierwise attainable the image of Ilim, fairer tlian men, to whom alike they all give witness. The study of catechisms, and of systems of doc- trine, except as subordinate to this study of the gospels, will only give us * "And why may I not use this expression, takinpr the word Sacrament, in general, fertile sign and conveyance of 6ome sacred thinp? since nothing is more sacred, and more conducive to salvation, than tliat whicii God has deposited and concealed under the visible sign of the Evangelical word." Rcjhxt. on The Gospels, vol. 1, p. 30 ; Phil. Ed. INTKODUCTIOX. XV that remote and theoretic conception of the Lord with which many theologians have seemed to be content. Hardly more will he be to us than a doctrinal thesis, or a logical proposition ; a necessary factor in the scheme of salvation, but not, as he should be, a living, loving, active Saviour, full of might, but full of jrrace, on whom we too should have gazed with awe, on whom we too could have leaned at supper. But when, with an attentive mind, and a heart eager to catch and keep each glimpse of his glory, one ponders these mai-vellous narratives which present him, with such careful detail, in such picturesque freedom, thi-ough an atmosphere as transpicuous as that of the perfect Syrian day, it is won- derful to see how his life comes forth from the distance of otherwise vanished years, and reappears as if but yesterday it had been actual. The faith then formed in us is fiir enough from being one in which ' the sensation of posi- tiveuess is substituted for the sense of certainty, and the stubborn clutch for quiet insight.' It is a faith to which the intellect and the heart both have contributed, stimulating each other in intimate and mutually helpful reactions ; in which the imagination, using the helps of the Divine history, and quickened by the quickened affections, has bridged the ages, and brought again the Crucified and the Crowned distinctly to sight. The Lord appears to such a student, through the vital and tender delinea-i, tion of the gospels, as he promised to appear to those who should seek him after he had departed from the earth. In his meekness and his majesty, in his patience and his power, tempted yet triumphant, insulted yet serene, scoffed at by men but worshiped of angels, with the world at his disposal yet making himself the poorest in it, submitting to the crown of thorns the head on which are many diadems, allowing the nails to be driven through the hands whose touch had before unloosed for others the bars of death, — so comes before the illumined thoughts this Son of the Eternal ; this Prince and King of the kings of the earth. Ever more distinct becomes the vision, as fhe still renewed feeling awakens the mind to new intentness and clarifies it to a fresh perspicacity. Contemplating him, in his beauty of ho- liness, subjected to death for our redemption, a fire and force of affection pervade us by which conception is almost transmuted into sight. Penitence, joy, love, shame, hope, praise, — not contending, but mingling in a grateful grief, and all conspiring to a passionate tenderness, — these stir up eveiy power of thought. They make the soul alert, far-visioned ; quick to detect, and XVI INTRODUCTION. wi,se to interpret, all ttat is contained in the lucid and manifold evangelical narrative ; until that soul is as certain of its Lord, and almost as intuitive of his presence, as if the mount of his glory burned yet in the splendors that faded from the eyes of the disciples, as if the sky had not yet closed behind the ascending form at Bethany. Then is the -work of the gospels complete, for him who studies them. Then is the fruit of that Divine guidance by -which they were prepared presented in his surpassing -experience. For then, in tlie light that has shiucd from them on the person of the Lord, all things are transfigured. Life is sacred. Death is sweet. Heroism is easy ; self-sacrifice a delight. Each , work for the Master becomes a worship. The eating of bread in his dear name is not a form, nor an outward memorial, but a mystical sacrament, through which bis present love is declared. The Church ex- pands to a vast and vital fellowship of bc-licvers, knit together in him, — many on earth, and more on high. The whole earth is a temple, since the Lord hath been in it. The grave is perfumed, since he there lay. The Future is resplendent with immortal invitations. Indeed, that Future is not far off. It invests our life, at such an hour, and is prophesied in it. For the experience then already attained needs only to burst its imprisoning shell to be revealed in all the glory of the life everlasting. No man has derived the highest advantage from the study of the gospels, till he has known this grandest experience. No man lias known this until he has studied them, not with a common cursory cai-elessness, but with pro- longed and searcliing thoughtfulness, and with the heart engaged to the work as well as the intellect. But whosoever has gained and felt this has known that in it he drew nearer than elsewhere to the gates of pearl, and the in- stant vision of the King in his beauty. And ."^o it is that from all the other portions of the Scriptures, — fascinating as are many of them with narrative or portraiture, resplendent as often they are with miracle, or wondrous with prophecy, full as they all are of the truth of the Most High, and its renova- ting power, — the hearts of Christians instinctively turn to these which are central in the series. So it is that with each successive revival of God's great spiritual work in the world, the sign of its coming, the pledge of its reality, are found in the fact that through the gospels the person, the work and the character of the Lord bocome present and paramount in men's thoughts. lie Is not to them, tlion, as at ether times lie may have been, an INTRODUCTION. XVil unrlefiuecl spirit of beauty and power, rising against the eastern sky. He is not a simple doctrine of forgiveness. lie is not a being wlioin picture or statue may sufficiently represent, and to whose shrine they who think of and honor him may acceptably bring gifts like those of shells, flowers, and amber, which the royal sculptor brought of old to the ivory statue which his hands had fa.shioned.* The Lord to those to whom he has appeared, revealing him- self through the story of the gospels in completest discovery, that he might prepare them, at critical times, for his sublimest errands in the world, has been manifest in a purity which no ivory could image, and a glory of which the sun itself were a poor shrine. An inspiration raining on them, from such a radiant disclosure of him as that to Stephen hardly surpassed, has made them too go to labor or death on his behalf with faces shining like those of angels. And then the jewels they have offered to him have been the great works of a consecrated life. The flowers they have brought have been the graces, amaranthine and immortal, of souls renewed by a Divine love. They have themselves sung his praises, as neither birds nor instruments could, amid suffering and toil, or on the edge of the grave. It is one of the most marked, as it also is one of the most encouraging, of the signs of God's grace in our years, that such suitable study of the life of the Lord is now more frequent, and on the whole more successful, than for long preceding periods it has been. This has not come, as it is a fashion with some to say, from the fact that skeptics have made their most fierce and frequent attacks in these recent years on the record of the gospels. That has also been painfully true. But the movement among Christians toward the more profound and affectionate study of the same supreme record * There are multitudes, no doubt, in the Roman Communion wlio hold with one of the purest and noblest of its English adherents (Faber) that "to make Jesus better known is to make him better loved, and the love of Jesus is the sanctity of the Church." But one tfho enters a chapel of that Communion, and looks upon the crucifix, with the offerings before it, can hardly help sometimes being painfully re- minded of those lines of Ovid, describing the effort of Pygmalion to awaken into life and love his ivory image : Munera fert illi conchas, teretesque lapillos, Et parvas volucres, ct florcs mille colorum, Lilliaque, pictasque pilas, et ab arbore lapsas Heliadum lacrynias. Ornat quoquc vestibus artus. Dat digitis gemmas ; longoque monilia coUo. — Met. x : 2C0-4. 2 XVlll INTRODUCTiOX. preceded such attacks, and was tlieir oceaf^ion instead of their conpef{uencc. Peculiar outbreaks of hostile passion from the kingdom of darkness, against the kingdom of light and peace, attended the appearance of the Lord on the earth ; as if the forces that wrought to resist him had hecn held in re- serve for that critical hour, to he then precipitated, in fiercest assault of infernal phalanx, on the field of his Divine operations. The very sky of Pal- estine looks lurid, its sod seems teeming, ■with malign shapes and glancing fijrures swift for evil, as we revert to the years when he walked there. And so in our time more energies are combined against the records which testify of him because amid these he appears, to minds made fresldy attentive to him, more clearly and grandly than before. The claim which he urges on the fervent faith and the utmost obedience of those to whom he manifests God is more evident as his portrait is m^ore carefully studied. And those ■who hold his claim fictitious, and his government undesirable, must therefore shatter if they can, or darken and scratch if they can not do more, this won- drous mirror of his perfections. But the effort will be fruitless, now as before ; and the very wrath that would have nailed these life-giving narratives to the cross of a destructive criticism will be made in the end, as it has in a measure already been, to assist their triumph. The Aliyssinian Christians have canonized Pilate. The future more enlightened Christendom will recognize the real, though alas I the unintended service, rendered to the gospels, and so to the Christian culture of mankind, by those who if they could would have buried these gospels, without ointments or spices, in a sepulchre to be broken by no resurrection. The movement among Christians toward a more intent study and a wider appreciation of the life of the Lord, has had its source in an impulse of God's Spirit. But it has been aided by the reflex action of those Christian missions ■which have been so suddenly and so immensely extended in the last half- centuiy. The ])reacher of Christ among the heathen has found not his own inspiration alone, but the instrument of his chiefest power in converting men to God, in the story of the Cross. And the story of the Cross implies that of Bethlehem, and of all which intervened between the manger and the t]irone. Patiently, therefore, with most absorbed and affectionate study, have many of these watchers and workers for the Lord on darkened shores explored the story of the Master, to put him by God's help before themselves INTKODUCTIOX. xix iu the wondrous hyntbc^is of his glories, and tlicn to be able to present him to others in a like revelation of his Divine life. And from them has come the bright influence back oa those from whom they liad gone out, to inspire tbem to a similar study. -Kevivals at home have been quickened and ■widened by this influence, and have conspicuously borne its impress. The preaching of the doctrines, declared iu the Epistles, has not been neglected. The application of the rules of righteousness in the Bible to human affairs hits been only more searching than before. But the vivid and various preaching of Christ has given peculiar lustre and power to the Protr-stant pulpit in these late years ; and Christians have found themselves edified most, and men wlio had not known the Lord have been most quickly and deeply stirred, as he who came to be their Saviour, who shall come hereafter to be their Judge, has been, through discourses which were richer and more quickening than the costliest pictures, presented to them. So it is that the diligent study of the gospels is now wider, perhaps, than it ever has been. So it is that the attacks made upon them are more desper- ate. So it is that the question ' whether Christ made the Church, or the Churcb has made him,' — whether, as Owen stated it in his day, " he, being God, was made man for our sakes, or, being only a man, was made a god for his own sake,"* — has been more profoundly and eagerly discussed than it has been since the Council of Nice. And so it is, through a clearer and more general revelation of the Lord to the mind of mankind, that the infinite Spirit is now working in the earth to bring in the final glory of his reign. It is among the brightest signs of that approaching Millennial day of light and love for which the world still waits and moans, and which the Church surely expects, that He of whom the martyrs witnessed, and in whose holy faith and service millions of men have nobly lived and gladly died, is more plainly declared from press and pulpit, is more evidently seen through the Scriptural record, than for centuries he has been. A new spiritual coming and triumph of the Lord are surely to be evolved from this closer struggle of his holy kingdom with the kingdom of evil. God hasten it, in His gi'ace ! to His own honor, and the infinite rest and welfare of the world. The volume to which these pages are introductory has been prepared in the spirit of the thoughts so imperfectly uttered. It is itself a manifestation * Works, vol. 1, p. 32G ; Edin. Ed. XX l^JTKODUCTIOX. of the tendency so wiJe, and so Ijcnelieent, to wliicli reference has been made. It has been written for the people, by one whose office and joy it is to minister to them the things of Christ. The fruit of much thought, and of many judicious and enhghtening studies, written in a spirit most loyal and reverential toward him whom it would represent, and presentino- in an emphatic and animated style the results of a scholarly and .sympathetic investigation of the primitive documents which portray his hfe, as well as of what in later days has been written about them, — I can not doubt that it will circulate widely, and will bear a useful and an honorable part in the work to which it is meant to contribute May God accept and crown it, to this end, with his favor and blessing! May he who was 'the Desire of Nations,' and who is the King and Lord of mankind, accept the intention in which it originated, and the diligent fidelity with which it has been prepared, as a tribute of worship to himself! And may that Sphit of grace and truth whom he sends forth, so attend it with His influence that it shall be the means of implanting, or of nourishing and renewing, in many hearts, that most transforming and heavenly passion of which Coleridge has so excellently said : "Christian love is the last and the divinest birth, the harmony, unity, and godlike transfiguration, of all the vital, intellectual, moral, and spiritual powers. Now it manifests itself as the sparkling and ebullient spring of well-doing, in gifts and in labors ; and now as a silent fountain of patience and long-suffering, the fulness of which no hatred or persecution can exhaust or diminish." God grant such love to all who read these lines which descrdje it ; and " unto Him be glory in the Church, by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." R. S. STORRS, Jr.. Brooklyn, February 5, 1868. PART I. 1 11 1 r o (1 u c t o r y. CHAPTER I. RATIONALISTIC LIVES OF CHRIST. Christ's existence on earth, the great fact of history — queries AS to the world's history without it — its history, for fifteen HUNDRED YEARS, THE HISTORY OF CHRISTENDOM — CHRISTIANITY, NOT A DEAD OR DECAYED RELIGION — MUST BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY THE RATIONALIST — THE ATTEMPT, REPEATEDLY MADE — GIBBON, PAULUS, SEMLER, AND OTHERS — STRAUSS' "LIFE OF JESUS " — ITS PRODIGIOUS SUCCESS — COMPARATIVE FAILURE OF HIS " LIFE OF JESUS POPULARLY* treated" — STRAUSS AS AN OPPONENT OF CHRISTIANITY — RENAN'S "LIFE OF JESUS " — HIS GENERAL METHOD — IT EVINCES NO PROPER SINCERITY — ITS DEDICATION — ITS EULOGIES OF CHRIST — RENAN'S WORK OF INCIDENTAL SERVICE TO CHRISTIANITY — GRANTS THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS — CONCEDES THE HONESTY OF THE EVANGELISTS — RENAN'S denial of THEIR HISTORIC VALIDITY — RATIONALISM DE- VOURS ITS CHILDREN. "What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?" Pilate could not evade the question ; neither can we. Something: 7nust be done with Jesus who is called Christ. That Jesus once lived on the earth is confessedly the most important fact in history. Why, indeed, has no philosopher attempted to write the history of the world as it would have gone on, had Jesus never been born ? What civilization would have replaced that of Rome, already in the " sere and yellow leaf" when He appeared ? What religion would have built itself up on the ruins of the Pantheon ? What art, if any, would have flourished after the decay of Greek painting, sculpture and archi- tecture ? What literature would have sprung up out of the rich mould of the dead classics ? 24 THE LIFE OF CHRIST Perhaps the problem is too deep fur philosophy to deal with; but there can be no doubt that Jesus turned the stream of world-history into a new channel. During the last fifteen hundred 3'ears, at least, the history of the world has been the history of Christendom j that is to say, of that portion of the world which has been most profoundly moved and moulded by Christianity. The thoughts and feelings of millions are to-day inspired by Christ, whom, not having seen they love ; whom they adore and serve as a livinti: Master and Lord. The intellectual activities and social movements of the age are, to a large extent, quickened and determined by the mind of Jesus. What- ever sciolists may say touching the decay or eclipse of faith, — and they are doubtless competent to sp)eak for •themselves, — Christianity is not dead ; neither is its glory extinguished ; but it is still, in human hearts and in hu- man society, not only a vital force of wide and wondrous energy, but " the master-light of all their seeing." Else, why is it so bitterly assailed ? Do men wage war against noisome carcasses and " old clothes ?" * None are more conscious than the enemies of the gospel that it is a living and powerful reality. Of this, their virulent and ever-growing hostility is a sufficient proof They are witnesses that our holy religion is not age-stricken and feeble, but full of youthful vigor, and is even now buck- ling on its armor for glorious war, for universal conquest. Now such a religion must be accounted for by those who deny its supernatural origin. The problem ]3resses itself upon them; it refuses to be put by; it has become a sphinx-riddle ; they must solve it or die. With this prol)lem modern unbelievers have repeatedly and vigorously grappled. Gibbon, in his disingenuous way, attempted it In his celebrated Fifteenth Chapter. His *Sf. ee Carlyle, pai^sim. RATIONALISTIC LIVES OF CllIlIST. 25 acknowledged ftiilure did not discourage later assailants. Semler, Paulus, and other German rationalists, pretended to demonstrate that Christianity was a natural and in- Gvitable product of the normal, historic development of mankind ; and that its existence, its wide diflusion, its prodigious power, its heavenly spirit, and its victorious persistency through so many ages of conflict and persecu- tion, could all be accounted for without reference to any special divine intervention. The earlier rationalists, how- ever, were comparatively feeble and cowardly. It was reserved for our own century to produce the ablest and most determined foes that Christianity has ever encount- ered. Two celebrated waiters of our own time have assailed the gospel with such imposing erudition, such splendor of rhetoric, such amazing audacity, and such re- lentless hate, that the names of their predecessors in the same unholy crusade are now scarcely remembered. I refer, of course, to David Frederic Strauss and Ernest Renan. The '^^ Life of Jesus" by Strauss, published in 1835, ■created a prodigious sensation. Addressed only to the learned, it ran through innumerable cheap editions, both in German and English, and was eagerly read, not only by students in tlie universities, but also by travelers on steam-boats, by artisans and tradesmen in their shops, and even by women and children in the dom.estic circle. A vast and motley audience hung upon his lips with min- gled terror, wonder and delight. To his own amazement, Strauss, like Byron, " awoke one morning and found him- self famous." He had given voice to a wide-spread, wait- ing skepticism, the growth of ages of superstition and formalism. Infidels everywhere claimed a decisive vic- tory, and not a few sincere believers were staggered and disheartened. Strauss' " mythical theory " was so- plausi- ble, his criticism was so cold-blooded and malignant, and 2G THE LIFE OF CHRIST. his attacks on the Christ of the gospels were so daring and defiant, tliat tlie shock which he gave to the rehgious sentiment of the world was like that of an earthquake. Thirty years only have elapsed, and the same writei sends forth a ^' Life of Jesus Fojmlarly Treated" It makes no sensation; it sinks quietly and quickly into oblivion ; — a curious and significant phenomenon. The flict is, that, while Strauss utterly demolished the ration- alistic systems of his predecessors, demonstrating that they had failed to comprehend the life and personality of Jesus, his own theory of the myth has, in its turn, been overthrown and ground to powder by recent skeptics. Renan, by conceding the substantial genuineness of the four gospels, even that of John, and by broaching the theory of legendary history, has confessed that the posi- tion of Strauss is no longer tenable. The latter, how- ever, notwithstanding his failure to reconstruct the life of Christ on natural principles, — even he could not accom- plish the impossible, — is incomparably the most learned and skillful opponent that Christianity has ever met. His signal defeat serves to display, to the joy of believers and the confusion of adversaries, the impregnable strength of the gospel. Kenan's " Life of Jesus " has produced a sensation less profound, but even more wide-spread than that of Strauss. It is the production of a scholar and a man of genius, but displays less logical acuteness and strength than splendor and versatility of fancy. It is, indeed, the most brilliant and unsatisfying of French novels. Few, even among its admirers, would be bold enough to call it history. The author himself disclaims a severe, historical method. He avowedly adopts the " method of art." He invokes the " exquisite tact of Goethe" as his guide. He speaks with contempt of scrupulous attention to "the certainty of minutiae;" he deems it necessary to divine and conjee- RATIONALISTIC LIVES OF CHRIST. 27 ture ; and lie extok, as the principal excellence of his- torical writing, " the justness of the general idea and the truth of the coloring." He commends " the artistic inter- pretation and gentle solicitation of texts." He rejects certain sayings of our Lord as recorded by John, because he regards them as " unendurable to a man of taste by the side of the delicious sayings of the synoptics." Re- nan's book, as he himself intimates, is an " art-creation " rather than a history. Bearing in mind his avowed prin- ciples of composition, and especially his dislike of " petty certainty in matters of detail," w^e may read his work with real though not unmeasured admiration of his art- istic skill, while we cannot but deplore his manifest lack of reverence and truthfulness. It is painful to be under the necessity of pronouncing so severe a judgment, but one cannot help feeling, that the " Life of Jesus " is marked throughout by insincerity. For example, the dedication to the spirit of his sister can not mean what it seems to mean ; for the writer does not believe in personal immortality; nor indeed in any intelligence superior to man. The dedication, therefore, is nothing but a piece of rhetorical frost-work colored with French sentiment. So also his eulogies on Christ are, for the most part, unmeaning prettinesses. His wish to impart a romantic interest to his book, has led him to suggest certain conjectures touching the relations be- tween Jesus and the noble women of Galilee, which can not but strike a Christian mind as inexpressibly shocking. All this may be art, — and it is eminently French art, — but it is not history. Renan abounds in references to authorities which are quite inaccessible to the majority of even learned readers. He quotes largely from books that are locked up in ori- ental languages. Perhaps he quotes honestly and fairly ; but his citations from less recondite authorities so often 28 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. prove to be inconclusive and inicaiKlicI, that our confi- dence in his general reliability is sadly shaken. We find so much of the " artistic treatment and gentle solicitation of texts," that we hesitate to trust him in any case where a polemic or even an {esthetic interest is involved. So much for his general character as a biographer. Incidentally, Renan has rendered a signal service to the cause of truth. He has the candor to acknowledge the apostolic origin of the gospels. He admits that they were written " during the second half of the first cen- tury." As to Luke, "doubt is hardly possible ;" he "was a companion of St. Paul," " a man of the second apostolic generation," and he wrote his history "soon after the siege of Jerusalem." He assigns a prior date to Matthew and Mark, and concedes that the gospel according to the latter, especially, has come down to us substantially as he wrote it. Though he is scarcely consistent with him- self when speaking of the fourth gospel, he seems, on the whole, not to doubt that it is essentially the work of the apostle John, against whom, however, he betrays a singu- larly bitter prejudice. This is not all : Eenan admits the moral honesty of the authors of the gospels. While he intimates that they did not hold our strict modern and occidental notions of his- toric veracity, he grants that they were good and well- meaning men, who did not intend to act the part of false witnesses. Whatever may have been their infirmities and errors, they were not guilty of wilful misrepresentation and imposture. Why, then, the reader is ready to ask, does Renan deny the leading events recorded by the evangelists? Why does he pronounce the gospels unhistorical and legend- ary? Not because he has brought to light any histori- cal evidence by whicli their testimony is impugned and their credibility destroyed; but solel}^ on a priori grounds. RATIONALISTIC LIVES OF CHRIST. 20 He lays clown a inetapliysical dogma as a fundamental canon of historical criticism ; he declares that no amount of testimony can prove a miracle; and, as the gospels narrate many events of a miraculous nature, he pro- nounces them for that reason alone unhistorical. "In the name of constant experience, we banish miracles from history Till we have new light, we shall maintain this principle of historical criticism, that a su- pernatural relation can not be accepted as such ; that it always implies credulity or imposture ; that the duty of the historian is to interpret it, and to seek what portion of truth and what portion of error it may contain."* Whether this is to be accepted as an authoritative canon of historical criticism, will be considered hereafter ; it is sufficient to note here, that Renan, like Strauss before him, assumes it without argument. Both, therefore, beg the question at issue. Eationalism devours her own children. Semler and Paulus were annihilated by Strauss ; Strauss, notwith- standing his leviathan-scales, is crushed by Renan ; the next champion of infidelity, will put an end to Renan himself. Meanwhile, the glor}^ of the historic Christ is growing more resplendent, and His truth is surely ad- vancing towards universal empire ; for He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet." f * " Life of Jesus," page 45. 1 1. Cormtbians sv. 25. CHAPTER II. IXVIOLABILITY OF THE LAWS OF NATURE AS RELATED TO iMIRACLES. ACCEPTANCE OF THE SUPERNATURAL, NECESSARY TO A JUST LIFE OF CHRIST — THE PRESENT AVORK, BASED ON THE REALITY OF MIRACLES — REASONS FOR THE SCEPTIC'S DENIAL OF THEIR REALITY — VAGUENESS OF THE RATIONALISTIC USE OF THE TERMS, " NATURE," " LAWS OF NATURE " AND " MIRACLES " — WHAT IS TO RE UNDERSTOOD BY " NA- TURE," AS THEY APPLY THE TERM — NO DESIGN TO ADVANCE ANY PARTICULAR THEORY OF "NATURE" — WHAT IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD BY THE "LAWS OF NATURE" INVIOLABILITY OF THE LAWS OF NATURE, PROBABLY ABSOLUTE — WHETHER MIRACLES DO INVOLVE A VIOLATION OF THE LAWS OF NATURE — THE LAWS OF NATURE ADMIT OF THE OPERATION OF SUPERNATURAL FORCES — FIRST ILLUSTRATION — NATURE OF THE FORCE DISCOVERED — ^^SECOND ILLUSTRATION — NATURE OF THE FORCE OBSERVED, AND ITS RELATION TO THE INVIOLABILITY OF NATURAL LAAV — APPLICATION TO SUPERNATURAL AGENCIES — FUR- THER ILLUSTRATION, AND INFERENCES — NATURE'S HIGHEST LAW, ITS CAPABILITY OF BEING MODIFIED BY SPIRITUAL AGENCIES. It has been seen, that the rationahstic writers men- tioned in the previous chapter, agree in denying the crediljiHty of miracles. With such a denial the author of this work has no sympathy. On the contrary, he is profoundly convinced, that no man who rejects the super- natural, can construct a " Life of Jesus" which the world will accept as possiljle, or even as permanently interest- ing as a work of art. There was more, infinitely more in Jesus of Nazareth, than Strauss or Renan ever saw, — more than they could see, prejudiced, as they were, against the supernatund element in the gospels. Hence, what is here urged throughout, is based on a denial that miracles are impossible, or that they are in- LAWS OF NATUIIE AS RELATED TO MIRACLES. 31 capable of proof. It contends that the miracles recorded in the gospels are credible, and that they are sufliciently attested to take rank as proper historic facts. It proceeds on the fundamental assumption that Jesus Christ was a supernatural Being ; that He entered into the line of trans- mitted humanity in a miraculous way ; that His teachings were dictated by the Holy Ghost dwelling in Him without measure ; that the mighty works ascribed to Him were actually wrought; that, having suffered death on the cross, He actually rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. All these are accepted and set forth in the fol- lowing chapters, as essential facts in the history of Christ. In proceeding to show, as the ground of this assumption, that there is no such scientific incompatibility between nature and the supernatural in the life of Christ, as ration- alists assert, w^e ask, first, why do they deny the credibility of miracles ? Because, in their opinion, a miracle involves a violation or suspension of the laws of nature, and all experience goes to show, that those laws are absolutely inviolable. Such, in their view, is the connection be- tween natural phenomena, and so firm and unalterable is the order of nature, that a single physical result, pro- duced by a supernatural cause, would derange the whole system. They regard the supremacy, the universality, the inviolability of natural laws, as established by the inductive sciences ; and, moulded by those sciences as their entire habits of thougl^t have been, they can not easily accept the idea of supernatural causation or miraculous occurrences in the system of nature. The first noticeable fact in the reasonings of this class of writers, is the exceeding vagueness and ambiguity of the terms employed, and the absence of any thorough attempt to correct this evil by exact definition. What is meant by the terms, miracle, laws of nature, nature itself? The word "nature" is, perhaps, the most ambiguous in 32 THE LIFE OF CUEIST. use. It is applied to all possible objects of thought, — to the elements ; to plants and animals ; to beings material and spiritual ; to men, angels, and even to God hunself. Yery clearly, however, the argument against miracles employs the term in a restricted sense. As thus em- ployed, it must include only the material world; — the world of physical causes and effects, or, in other words, of sensible phenomena. If there is a world of spiritual beings or agencies, it is not included ; it does not come within the realm of the natural ; it is altogether out of a;nj] aljoye nature ; it is supernatural. The term nature, as used by the rationalistic objector to miracles, has then no proper application to spiritual beings, — to personal in- telligences ; but touches and includes only the Avorld of material or sensible things. Hence it must be borne in mind, that, in this discussion, it will ])e employed oxAy in this restricted sense. Now, it is not the intention here to advance any par- ticular theory as to the constitution of nature. " If the new doctrine of the persistency of force, — the correlation of forces, as Mr. Grote calls it, — should be established ; if all phenomena of matter should be found to be due to varieties of motion, to be varied manifestations of one essence, our present discussion would not be sensibly af- fected. We proceed upon the position that matter is an entity manifesting forces, though requiring the direct sus- tenance and co-AYorking of the power of God."* What, now, is meant by the "laws of nature?" As thus applied, the word law is obviously figurative. Our primary notion of law comes from the consciousness of duty, — from the feeling of o])ligation to act according to some authoritative rule. Hence, the term law properly signifies a rule of action. When we survey the natural * Fisher's Essays, page 476. LAWS OF NATURE AS RELATED TO MIIIACLES. 33 world, — the world of sense, let it be remembered, — we are struck with the appearance everywhere of forces in constant operation. A closer observation convinces us, that those Ibrces do not operate hap-hazard, but with well- determined regularity ; that is to say, they appear to act in systematic accordance with certain laws. Phenomena are so linked together in nature, that they present to our view striking uniformities, which, seized upon by the in- tellect, and reduced to their sunplest expressions, are called laws of nature. Having discovered many such uniformities, and finding them embraced in a homogene- ous scheme, we term the classified aggregate of their statements, science. Many other of these uniformities of action, or laws of nature, doubtless remain as yet en- tirely unknown, or are only dimly shadowed forth in phenomena still waiting to be interpreted, and to be in- corporated into science. Now, with regard to these laws of nature, it can not be denied, that, as hitherto ascertained, they seem to be fixed and invariable. Causes and effects are linked to- gether in a uniform order of succession. The presump- tion naturally is, that this uniform or invariable succession is only a relation and action, accordant with uniform or invariable laws. It is, hence, so probable that the law^s of nature are invariable, that, while those who deny their ever having been suspended or violated by the Creator, may be over-bold, the tendency of true science is to pal- liate their denial, — perhaps, even to justify it. It is indeed quite possible that, at no distant day, this absolute inviolability of the laws of nature may be so satisfactorily established, as to command the assent of every thoughtful theologian. The question now arises, whether a miracle really in- volves a violation of natural laws. It is, of course, ad- mitted, or rather insisted upon, that no miracle can be 3 34 THE LIFE OF CUEIST. properly ascribed to a physical cause ; but it is as strenu- ously insisted upon, that no law of nature is violated by a true miracle. The Scriptures, it must be remembered, make no mention whatever of "laws of nature;" much less do they intimate, that any such laws were violated by the " signs and wonders " which they record. They ascribe those signs and wonders to a divine or, at least, a super- natural agency ; but, they are far from giving any sanction to the doctrine that, in working miracles, God has sus- pended or violated those laws which he ordained at the beginning, for the government of the -world. But is it a law of nature that spiritual forces shall in no case, operate upon or among physical causes, so as to bring to pass material phenomena which otherwise would not have taken place ? On the contrary, it is here affirmed, that there are intelligent, supernatural agents, who can and do produce phenomena in nature without violating or suspending its laws. It is maintained that the natural world is so constituted, so adjusted and configured to the supernatural sphere, as to admit the presence, and come under the operation of spiritual forces, without any de- rangement of its. own order. As a means of gradually approaching the desired con- clusion, let us resort to a famihar illustration of the gen- eral principle, that a spiritual force may cause physical phenomena, without disturbing natural laws. The well- known anecdote of Sir Isaac Newton and the apple, while probably apocryphal, is still in point, as such an illustra- tion. Walking in his orchard, and observing an apple fall from a tree, he was led by this fact, into a track of investigation which resulted in the grandest scientific dis- covery of the age, — the law of gravitation. But wliat was the process of thought by which he reached the grand result? We may presume it to have been something like the following. What he saw was simply the apple mov- LAWS OF XATURE AS KELATED TO MIRACLES. 35 ing tliroiigli the space between the bough on which it grew, and the ground beneath. This would naturally suffffest the fact that other bodies, under like circum- stances, fall in like manner. The question then arose in his mind ; wdiy do they thus fall ? The answer was, very naturally, because there is a certain power of attraction in the earth, which, when they are unsupported, draws them to it. Knowing that such facts are of general, if not universal occurrence, the philosopher was led to the conclusion, — all bodies draw each other; in other words, the power of attraction belongs to matter universally. Further observation reveals the fact, that the power of attraction varies according to" the size of the bodies, and their distance from each other ; and a proper investigation of these differences in attraction, and the circumstances under which they occur, at last leads to the discovery of the fixed law for this variation ; namely, bodies attract each other directly as their masses, and inversely as the square of their distances; — a proposition, pronounced by high authority, " the most important and the most general truth hitherto discovered by the industry and sagacity of man." In all this we have, of course, supposed the labor of years, to be crowded into the space of the few moments immediately connected with the observed phenomenon. Suppose now, that, before the philosopher leaves the spot, a boy approaches, seizes the fallen apple, and tosses it into the air. As it falls, he catches it, and again tosses it upward. The apple is thus made to move back and forth between the ground and the tree. The force which brings it toward the ground is the physical force, just dis- covered by the philosopher : in other words, the apple is made to fall by the force of gravitation. But is it gravi- tation which causes it to ascend ? Certainly not. By what force, then, is it impelled in its ascent? By the muscular force of the bov's arm? Doubtless; but what 36 THE LIFE OF CIIPJST. cause i7i nature put the muscles of his arm in motion ? Science is dumb : the philosopher is at a loss. Newton can not answer the question any better than the boy who is tossing the apple. The latter perhaps will say, " I made my arm move ; " the former, " He icilled to move his arm, and it moved." Here, then, was a cause operating in nature, of which physical science can give no account. No philosopher was ever silly enough to reckon the vj'dl among physical forces. The power, then, that impelled the apple up- wards was a human will, — a spiritual power, — a power above nature, — supernatural. It was a power distinct from gravitation, and, for the time being, transcend- ing and counteracting it. But did it suspend or violate the law of gravitation ? No, the gravitating force oper- ated just as constantly and powerfully on the apple, during its ascent under the impelling force of the will, as it did while it was falling. Thus, it appears clear that, while the laws of nature are fixed and inviolable, they are just as clearly distinguished by a certain elastic flexi- bility, in obedience to which, they may, for the time being, yield to each other or to the will of man, without losing their own energy, or suffering even a momentary disturbance. The application of all this is plain. If the laws of na- ture are not violated by the intervention of the human will, in the production of phenomena which would not otherwise have occurred, how can it be shown, that they would be violated by the intervention of a super- hu7nan v:idl ? The argument allows us to suppose, that as, in the case of the boy tossing the apple, the human spirit operated on matter through the voluntary force, (of the essentia] nature of which we know nothing,) so there may be other, higher, superhuman spirits equally empow- ered to act upon matter, through some force unknown LAWS OF NATURE AS RELATED TO MIRACLES. 37 to US, or perhaps tliroiigli some, to us, unknown phase or development of the same voluntary force. ■Reverting to the previous illustration, let us suppose that the boy's hand is Avithdrawn after the act of tossing the apple, and that some invisible agency seizes and holds the apple suspended in the air, will some rationalist tell us what law of nature is thereby violated ? Certainly not the law of attraction. That remains just as truly intact as when the apple was prevented from falling by the agency of the boy. Nor was it the law of causation. There is still a cause adequate to the effect ; and there is no proof that the actual, operating force is not as truly spiritual in the one case as the other. Suppose, now, still further, that this same spiritual agency should, instead of the apple, raise the boy himself, and keep him suspended ui the air ; or should support him and preserve him from sinking, while walking on the water ; or should even cause him to ascend to the clouds, and disappear from human view; — suppose any or all of these, and what suspension of physical laws would be necessitated ? Might not all of them remain intact and in full play ? The only in- ference proper would be, that some special cause above nature, — a cause perfectly adequate, though mysterious and wonderful, had intervened and produced a series of phenomena, which, new and peculiar as they might appear to us, by no means occasioned any derangement of the natural order, or any mfraction of the laws of the material world. Evidently, then, nature is not an iron system of dead laws, excluding peremptorily from the world of things all spiritual agency, all supernatural causation. It is, rather, a system whose first and highest law is the capa- bility, in all material existences, of being reached and modified by forces of a supernatural sphere. Matter was, in fact, created for, spirit. It was intended to be 38 THE LIFE OF CIIPJST. moulded and governed by mind. It was ordained to be the instrument and servitor, as well as the limitation and vesture of thought. The monuments of human thought and purpose with which the earth is everywhere studded, all go to show, that the material Avorld Avith all its forces, some of them profoundly mysterious, was originall}^ ad- justed to the world of spiritual intelligences, so that they might be in free and unimpeded communication. How spirit acts on matter, we do not know, perhaps we cannot know. But, that our natural bodies are somehow moved and controlled by mind ; that the material elements around us are, in some way, reached and grasped by Avill, this we do know. Indeed, nothing is clearer than the fact, that the material is open and subject to the authority and im- pulse of the spiritual. No laws of nature, then, are viola- ted by the intervention of supernatural agencies ; and the objection to miracles, that they involve such a violation of the laws of nature, falls to the ground. CHAPTER III. THE GENERAL PROBABILITY OF MIRACLES. EXISTENCE OF ITNOWN PHYSICAL FORCES OF A MOST SUBTLE AND I^XOM- PUEHENSIBLE CHARACTER — RELATION OF A BETTER KNOWLEDGE OF THESE TO THE QUESTION OF SUPERNATURAL INTERVENTION — NATURE, INTENDED FROM THE BEGINNING TO BE SUBJECT TO SUPERNATURAL POWERS — THE EXISTENCE OF A PERSONAL GOD ASSUMED IN THE AR- GUMENT — THE RELATIONS OF GOD TO HIS INTELLIGENT CREATURES AS BEARING ON THE SUBJECT — PRESUMPTION IN FAVOR OF A REVELATION — CONSEQUENT PRESUMPTION IN FAVOR OF MIRACLES — THE GOSPEL HIS- TORY, ACCEPTED AS CREDIBLE — POSITION OF THAT HISTORY WITH RE- GARD TO Christ's miracles — the question as to " presuppositions" RELATIVE to CHRIST AND HIS HISTORY — THE IMPRESSIONS LEFT BY CHRIST ON THE MINDS OF HIS COTEMPORARIES — SUBLIME PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. We have already seen that miracles involve no such violation of the laws of nature, as renders them absurd or impossible. Without going into a detailed and exhaustive examination of the question of their probability, there are certain general considerations of a more popular character, which properly claim attention here. Notwithstanding the boasts of some scientific men, nature contains oceans of living forces which science has not yet explored. Some of these forces are evidently nearer the mind of man, and are more pliant to his will, than any which have hitherto been reduced to scientific description and interpretation. There are facts connected with animal magnetism, clairvoyance, somnambulism, and the so-called spiritual manifestations, so positively indica- tive of the existence of such forces, that they are as much beyond denial as they are beyond explanation. These 40 THE LIFE OF CHPJST. forces, the far-seeing mind of Lord Bacon divined and ob- scurely described ; and their reality, the most profomid philosopher of our age, Sir William Hamilton, felt himself compelled to acknowledge, notwithstanding his inability to explain their nature or mode of operation. It is quite probable, that, if these obscure forces of nature were as well understood as attraction, — as well, indeed, as they may be hereafter, — they would throw important light on the solution of the problem, — how mind acts upon mat- ter. But however that may be, until men of science have discovered all the laws of nature, it is the height of folly and arrogance for them to deny the production of material phenomena by spiritual beings ; in other words, to deny the possible or probable occurrence of miracles. The reader will perhaps ask, whether we intend to assert that the ordinary influence of mind on matter is miracu- lous ? Certainly not : but it is claimed, that the produc- tion of phenomena in nature, by a power above nature, proves that nature is so constituted as to admit supernatu- ral forces into its sphere, without any disturbance of its own order. Nay, more, the thesis may be defended, — that nature must admit supernatural forces into its sphere, or itself fall into confusion and come to nothing. It will, in time, come to be seen and acknowledged, that nature was intended from the beginning to be the subject of super- natural powers, and to afford a theater for their operation. The world originated in just such a supernatural interven- tion, — originated in that grand miracle, creation ; and it has to a great extent been, from the beginning, modified or rather glorified by a stupendous succession of miracles, — miracles which, so far from deranging the order of nature, have rather established it. Compared with these examples of supernatural intervention, the miracles narrated in the gospels are not marked by even the shadow of improba- bility. PROBABILITY OF MIRACLES. 41 The wliolc question turns on the single considera- tions—whether there is or is not any will above nature, except the will of man, able to produce physical phe- nomena. Is there a God f If there is, miracles are possi- ble and probable. This is a question which we do not here discuss. The existence of a personal God is, through- out this work, assumed. The refutation of atheism and pantheism is left to those who have the leisure to pursue it. What is here written is for those who, however they may have been perplexed by doubts as to " His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord," " believe in God the Father Al- mighty, Maker of heaven and earth." They believe, con- sequently, in an infinite self-conscious Intelligence who created the worlds, and governs them according to his wise and benevolent purpose. Now we necessarily attribute to such a Being, /ree will. We believe in His omnipotence ; in His absolute goodness. We can not conceive of Him as limited and bound by physical laws ; and we can not doubt, if we would, that He is just and good. As a personal God, He stands in the closest relations to all created persons. He is their Father; their Moral Governor ; their Judge. The world of mind, — of rational intelligences, — is, in His estimation, far above the world of matter. The latter, indeed, exists only for the former ; for " intelligence stands first in the order of ex- istence," and moral laws are higher than physical laws. This brings us to the point, that the probability of a miracle depends less on physical than on moral considera- tions. All pronouncing as to its probability, based wholly upon physical considerations, is altogether ex-parte and insufficient. A miracle is, in no case, wrought for the ma- terial world, but for the soul of man, — for his spiritual good. But inasmuch as this is the end of God's moral government, and of all His works, there can be no pre- sumption against a miracle, whenever the highest good of 42 TUE LIFE OF CnPJST. the human race demands it : the presumption, on the con- trary, is altogether in its favor. Now, that man needs a revelation, may be argued from his religious nature, and from that consciousness of his sin and ruin which has been attested by every religion since the fall, and recognized by every philosophy ancient and modern. That man is a fallen and sinful being, is not a dogma peculiar to Christianity; it is a /«ci! witnessed by the universal moral consciousness of the race. The feel- ing of spiritual need is so intense and so wide-sj^read among mankind, that it may well be called the dumb prayer of hu- manity. Now, accepting the existence of these facts; — that there is a personal God ; that Ilis highest relations are to His moral subjects ; that man has lapsed into a state of the deejDCst sin and misery ; and that everywhere the human soul is conscious of its spiritual need ; — accepting all this, we cannot but believe that a Father's pitying eye is look- ing down on our human struggles and sorrows ; we must feel, when we read that " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son " for it, that it was what might have been expected ; it was just like Him to do it, and to reveal the glad tidings of it to His perishing children. In- deed, it is safe to say that no other great fact in history has ever been able to claim so strong an antecedent probability in its behalf But it must be borne in mind, that a revelation could not have l)cen made except in a miraculous way. We do not say, it could not have been sufficiently attested ; that is still an open question. What we do aihnn is, that mir- acles are essential parts of the revelation itself Every presumption, then, in favor of a revelation from God, is equally and alike a presumption in favor of miracles. Un- less then we are to deny a revelation altogether, we must admit the probaljility of uiiracles. Having thus endeavored, (and we trust, not altogether PROBABILITY OF MIRACLES. 43 without success,) to remove the only alleged presumption against the credibility of the gospel history, it is now competent for us to assume its entire truthfulness. In- deed, the four gospels exhibit every mark of sincerity in their writers ; they are characterized by an artless sim- plicity, an earnest candor, and a high moral tone, quite unrivalled among ancient writings. They are the testi- mony of eye-witnesses, under conditions which forbid even the suspicion of delusion or imposture. Beyond this, they record the explicit testimony of Jesus Himself, to the reality of the mighty works wdiicli are ascribed to Him. Those who deny His miracles, make Him either a senseless madman or a deliberate impostor. But that '■^higher criticism" which charges intentional decep- tion on Jesus of Nazareth, may safely be left to be dis- posed of by the moral sense of mankind. The question now arises, in conclusion, whether we are to enter on our work of portraying the life of our Lord, without any " presuppositions " as to His person and char- acter. It is claimed l^y rationalistic critics that this is the only historic method. The assertion is here ventured, that true history never was written in this way, and never can be. The assertion is certainly and eminently true of biography. A man, for example, who should at- tempt to compose a life of Abraham Lincoln, with no ideas of the man derived from the impression he made on his cotemporaries, and on the public mind in general, would have no proper conception of the significance of his ma- terials. He would, of necessity, enter upon his course of investigation with an exceedingly vague and unreliable impression as to the results which he was to reach ; and his progress in that course would, as a natural consequence, be more or less fluctuatino; and unsatisfactory. The truth is, he must find the key to the man's life and character, in the impressions which he left on the minds of those 44 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. who knew him well. This key must open, to him that general conception of the man's life and character, which is his best guide and stimulus in the work of investiga- tion. The process of investigation may reveal new facts and correct erroneous notions; but it will not essentially change the original conception. Now, we find that Jesus left on the minds of his cotem- poraries the impression that He was, in a high and pecu- liar sense, the Son of God. " This view of Christ's person arose from the direct impression which His appearance among men made upon eye-witnesses, and, through them, upon the whole human race. This image of Christ, which has always propagated itself in the consciousness of the Christian Church, originated in, and ever points back to, the revelation of Christ himself, without which, indeed, it could never have arisen. As man's limited intellect could never, without the aid of revelation, have originated the idea of God ; so the image of Christ could never have sprung from the consciousness of sinful humanity, but must be regarded as the reflection of the actual life of such a Christ. It is Christ's self-revelation, made through all generations, in the fragments of His history that re- main, and in the workings of His spirit, which inspires these fragments, and enables us to recognize in them one complete whole.'* In this view, there is nothing more sublime than the prologue to the fourth gospel, with which we close this chapter, and which may well stand as the inspired motto of this Life of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, on Earth : "/?? the begin^iing was the Word,' and the Word luas with God, and the Word was God. The same zuas in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and, *Neander's Life of Christ, page 4. PROBABILITY OF MIRACLES. 45 without Him, zvas not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of me7i. " There was a man sent f'om, God, whose name was yohn. The same came for a witness to bear zuitncss of the Light ; that all men, through hint, might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. " That was the true Light which lighteth every one that Cometh into the zvorld. He zvas in the world, and the world was 7nadc by Him, and the world knew Him 7tot. He came unto His oiun, and His own received Him not. But as inany as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. '' And the Word was made flesh, and divelt among us ; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truths CHAPTER IV. THE DELAY IN THE COMING OF OUR LORD. THE CHRONOLOGY OF CHRIST'S BIRTH — HIS COMING LONG DELAYED IN THE world's HISTORY — QUESTION, WHY THIS WAS NATURALLY RAISED — ORDERED BY DIVINE WISDOM — THE DELAY REQUISITE TO A JUST PREP- ARATION — HISTORY HAS AN ORGANIC UNITY — CHRIST MUST COME INTO WORLD-HISTORY, IN ACCORDANCE WITH ITS LAWS, — AT AN EARLIER AGE, IHE WORLD WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORALLY PREPARED FOR THE ADVENT OF JESUS — SUCH A MORAL PREPARATION, ONLY REACHED THROUGH AGES OF MORAL DISCIPLINE — THE NATIONS GIVEN TO IDOLA- TRY — IDOLATROUS SYSTEMS MUST DECAY AND LOSE THEIR HOLD ON MANKIND — DELAY NECESSARY TO COMPLETE THE CYCLE OF PROPHECY — NECESSARY TO THE PROPER CIVIL CONDITION OF THE WORLD — THE DELAY A SIMPLE CHRONOLOGICAL NECESSITY. AccoRDixG to the received chronology, our Savior was born in the year 4004, from the creation. Another chro- nology, widely approved by scholars, assigns a much longer period to the history of the world before Christ. Whichever we choose to accept, our Lord delayed His coming through long and Aveary ages. In the promise made to Eve, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, there was no intimation of any long delay ; and the early expectation seems to have been, that the promise would be speedily fulfilled. Eve's language in naming Cain, would indicate it as her belief that she had already brought forth the Divine Deliverer. The ex- pectation, however, was a mistaken one : the promised Deliverer had not yet come. Age after age passed away, generation followed generation to the tomb ; the Avorld waxed more and more corrupt; millions jierished in sin and misery ; yet the night still shrouded the nations ; no '^ Day-Star from on high " appeared. DELAY OF CHRIST'S COMING. 47 But why this long delay ? Why did not Christ ap- pear in the world nearer the opening of its history? The question forces itself upon the thoughtlul mind ; and, on the whole, it is neither idle nor unlawful. It is quite analogous to the question ; Why was Jesus born in Pales- tine, among the Jews, rather than in Greece, or Eome, or India? — a problem properly regarded as both legiti- mate and important. Now we must believe that the time of Christ's advent was determined by the infallible purpose of Him who has the times and seasons in His own power, and that its long delay was ordained in infinite wisdom. Certainly, the wisdom of God may be as strikingly displayed in the selection of Christ's hirth-time, as of Christ's birth-place. That wisdom has not left us without some indications of the reasons for the time chosen. The general principle which underlies the answer to the main question is suggested by the language of the great Apostle : — " When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of Sons."* An earlier advent of the Messiah would have been, so to speak, un- timely. At no earlier period, could the conditions requi- site to the success of His mission have been prepared. There is in human history an organic coherence and / ,; , development. Events, including those called miraculous, ; do not take place without a certain connection and fixed '^ Wv^/^,/, order of evolution. This order is from the simple to the/ complex ; from the less to the greater ; from lower forms ^ of existence to those higher ; from cj'cles of action and incident more restricted in their character and relations, to those more vast and comprehensive. It was so in the * Galatians iv. 4, 5. 48 THE LIP^E OF CHRIST. creation, from the origination of dead matter to the ap- pearance of man ; it is so with the history of man, from his appearance on the newly-created earth down to the end of time. Hmnan progress in w^orld-history goes on then inevitably under great laws, by which every succes- sive stage is the result. of all that have gone before, and can in no wise either anticipate its time or change its place. Science is, therefore, not at Itiult when it seeks to ascertain the laws of man's development in the succession of human generations ; it only errs when it rests in mere physical laws, and fails to recognize, or arrogantly denies, free mind as a moving force in history. Now Christ was to enter into world-history in accord- ance with its divinely constituted laws, and to take place in it as a legitimate agency in the new evolution : He was to come into real historic relation to the human family; to penetrate as a regenerating force the great heart of mankind ; to mould anew, working from within outw^ards, the entire race ; and at length to consummate His work in the renovation of Nature itself, — in the pal- ingenesis for which prophetic souls have longed since the foundation of the world. All things were to be new-born in Him ; from Him, history was to take a new departure ; and man fallen was to become, in Him, man regenerate, — the child of God, the heir of glory and immortality. But thus He could not come — into the world's history He could not thus enter, till through successive growths and evolu- tions that w^orld-history had been brought to the proper shape and ripeness for His manifestation and introduction into it.'^ All this w^as, however, the work of ages. We often say of men like Roger Bacon and Galileo, that they were born too soon ; that they belonged to a later age ; that their genius and their lives were thrown away on cotemporaries incapable of appreciating them. So, too, if Jesus had appeared on the earth in an earlier DELAY OF Christ's coming. 49 age, He would have been born too soon ; there would have been such a lack of preparation on the part of man, that His person and His mission would have been utterly mis- understood and universally rejected : the unspeakable gift of God would have been conferred upon the world in vain. There must have been in the most ancient times, a dim consciousness of evil, — a vague feeling that all was not richt in the relations between man and God. But in the childhood of the race, appetite and passion, imagination and superstitious fear, predominated over reason and re- flection, and hence either blunted or perverted the moral sense. Even the cultivated nations of antiquity were strangely blind to moral distinctions. Almost the highest crimes known among the Greeks and Romans, were of- fences against customs and prejudices purely superstitious and conventional, while they regarded with indifference, not unfrequently with complacency, the most abominable violations of the fundamental maxims of morality. Even in the line of the Hebrew patriarchs, to whom special revelations were at intervals vouchsafed, we see evidences of the most deplorable moral obtuseness. Rebekah, Jacob and his twelve sons, though doubtless far superior to their cotemporaries, committed heinous sins without any ap- parent compunction. Now a moral sense so obtuse was by no means fitted to apprehend the teachings of Jesus as to either sin, or sal- vation from sin. But, as it was the great design of Christ's coming to take away the sin of the world by purchasing remission, and by providing those sanctifying agencies by wliich alone the hearts of men can be renewed and puri- fied, His mission would have failed of its effect, had He appeared before the moral consciousness of mankind had become cognizant of sin, and of the need of redemption. Yet, this could only be effected through a discipline under law carried on for ages ; for the apostle Paul has taught 50 THE LIFE OF CDKIST. US, that " by the law is the knowledge of sin," * and that therefore the law is " our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." Hence, notwithstanding their long-continued supernatural training, we find that even among the en- Hghtened Jews, it was not until late in their history that such acute religious sensibility and profound spiritual con- cern had been awakened, as found expression in the outcry of Paul ; " Oh wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " f Still further, it must be borne in mind that soon after the flood, idolatrous religions sprang up which ultimately extended over the peopled earth, and attained a power as prodigious as their influence was delusive. The faith of the nations in their folse gods was for many ages steadfast and undoubted ; all their modes of thought and feeling were so moulded and fixed by idolatry, that they were in no con- dition to accept a religion, which held to the spiritual worship of one living and true God ; which taught the entire sinfulness of the creature, the utter worthlessness of all creature works or oflerings, and the need of an atoning sacrifice and Savior. Now, the world could not be in any state of preparation for Christianity, before those pagan religions had run their cycle. Brought to the actual test of long expe- rience, they must be " weighed in the balance and found wanting." Their vanity, absurdity, and pollution must become manifest to the world. Their oracles must be dumb ; their priests must lose faith in the gods, and respect for their rites ; thoughtful men must find them- selves weltering in a sea of doubt and despair ; — in short, it must become clear that idolatry could do nothing for a lapsed and dying world. But no such results could be looked for except through ages of sad and fruitless and despairing experience. * Romans iii. 20. f Romans vii. 24. DELAY OF CHRIST'S COMING. 61 Again, the earlier coming of Christ would have antici- pated the full completion of the cycle of prophecy. Aside from the fact that the prophecies constituted an important part of our Lord's credentials, we must not lose sight of the indispensable need of the prophecies as preparatory to a proper reception of Jesus. It was not only necessary that the great hope of a coming Messiah should be kin- dled and kept burning in the Jewish mind ; but it was also requisite that His character and mission should be so clearly delineated and so well understood beforehand, that at least the enlightened and devout should be able to sing at His appearing ; " Lo, this is our God ; we have waited for Him, and He will save us : this is the Lord ; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice m His salvation." * Now the utterances of no single prophet, of no single age, w^ould have served to keep before the Plebrew mind this distinct image of Him who was to come : the mighty argument must be transmitted through many generations, from Adam down to John the Baptist Not until that point had been reached, — and reachea through this precise process, — could the fulness of the time come for the advent of the Savior. Still further, the free proclamation and rapid spread of the Gospel required a civil order and a civilized culture, which did not exist at any previous period, and which are the fruit of long-continued growth and development. A language must be providentially prepared as a fit vehicle for the communication of the profound truths of the Gospel, — a language- adapted alike to the compre- hension of the simple and the taste of the learned, and generally current throughout the civilized world. Through such a language only, could the preacher gain access to minds of the highest intelligence and culture, and preach * Isaiah xxv. 9. 52 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. the Gospel to every creature. Many other conditions were also necessary, such as, general peace and security among the nations ; "svell-established and widely extended civil or- ganization and order; general religious toleration; a wide diffusion of Judaism and Jewish influence ; and vast and varied facilities for intercourse throughout the civilized world. Conditions like these, assuredly-, could not be reached except through ages of national discipline and development; and did not exist until the days of the Caesars. Finally, the late coming of Christ was a simple chrono- logical necessity. Christ's appearance and abode on earth was necessarily restricted in respect to place and time. Few of earth's myriads could, in any case, behold Him : by the majority. He must be received by faith. Hence, by divine wisdom. He was placed midmost in the world's history. And in that central position, He towers, like some vast mountain, to heaven ; the farther slope stretch- ing backward toward the creation ; the hither slope, toward the approaching consummation of all things : the ages before look to Him with prophetic gaze ; the ages since, behold Him by historic faith; — by both He is seen in common, as " the brightness of the Father's glory," and the unspeakable gift of God to the race. CHAPTER V. POSTUEE OF THE HEATHEN NATIONS, AS PREPARATORY TO CHRIST'S COMING. Christ's coming, not the result of any ordinary development — THE preparation FOR HIS COMING, INDICATIVE OF SOME SUPERNATU- RAL evolution — ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS AND RELIGIONS, PRODUCTIVE OP NO TRUE MORAL PROGRESS — ASIATIC DEVELOPMENT A FAILURE — ITS IDEAS, ONLY AN INCIDENTAL INFLUENCE ON JEWISH MIND — THE MESSIANIC IDEAS ORIGINALLY JEWISH AND CARRIED BY THEM TO THE EAST — ESPECIAL RESULTS FROM GRECIAN DEVELOPMENT — THE GREEK, THE LANGUAGE OF THE THEN CIVILIZED WORLD — RESULTS FROM ROMAN DEVELOPMENT — CIVIL ORDER AND ORGANIZATION, FROM ROME — USE- LESSNESS OF GREEK AND KOMAN RELIGION TO CHRISTIANITY — PLINY'8 DESPAIR. Looking back over the ages which had elapsed previous to the commencement of our own era, we see all things pointing to Christ; but we discover no signs of any latent virtue in human nature capable of producing Him. In- deed, while we know that "He was made according to the flesh," of the seed of David, of Abraham, and of Adam, we feel that no human genealogy can "declare His generation." When we glance at the mighty preparation for the coming of our Lord, — a preparation that involved the distribution, governance, and education of nations, we must remember that that preparation was no mere process of natural development of which He was the " bright, con- summate flower." It was, instead, the express supernatural preparation of the world for the reception of Jesus as the unspeakable gift of the Father. All the efforts of seep- 54 TDE LIFE OF CHRIST. tical writers to show the contrary, — to reduce Christ to the level of an ordinary historic appearance in the normal course of human development, have utterly failed. All history gives the lie to their theory. Jesus was so plainly exceptional in the history of our race, that the deepest thinkers have steadily refused, for eighteen hundred 3- ears, to class Him with mankind as a mere man. The " Son of man" he truly was; but He was also the "Son of God." This great truth is beautifully set forth by Neander: " The human life of Christ took its appointed place in the course of historical events ; — nay, all history was arranged w^ith reference to its importance : jet, it entered into his- tory, not as a part of its offspring, but as a higher element. Whatever has its origin in the natural course of humanity must bear the stamp of humanity, — must share in the sin- fulness which stains it, and take part in the strifes which distract it."* Turning now our attention to the world into which He was about to come, we find that its history for forty cen- turies lay among the Asiatics, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Jews. Mighty civilizations were early developed on the plains of Assyria, and in the valley of the Nile. But they were civilizations without God, without even morality ; and the religions which gave them a certain infernal life and energy, had their roots in an amazing and loathsome sensuality, which opened no "pene- trating vistas of a divine world."! They came to nothing, ■v\'ithout contributing any important element to the reli- gious progress of mankind. No grand moral idea could originate among races debased by despotism and bestial idolatry. The providential discipline and development of Asia in particular, (and Egypt is historically Asiatic,) lay in ever- *Neandcr's "Life of Christ," p. 13. f Kenan's " Life of Jesus," p. 52. POSTURE OF THE HEATHEN NATIONS. 55 lasting failure and disappointment. Her empires rose and fell like ocean waves, leaving no trace of their existence. Her sages, baffled and repelled by the world without, where perpetual change with no progress seemed to justify the sentiment, " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," gave them- selves up to melancholy contemplation, to visions of the unearthly, to mystic dreams of a future life, and to the shadowing forth in symbols both colossal and monstrous, of vague and wild pantheistic imaginings. Evidently, a civilization and culture so barren and abortive, could contribute nothing to the moral and re- ligious advancement of the race. Possibly, some inci- dental influence may have been exerted upon the Jewish mind. The religious imagination thus formed and fos- tered, may have supplied the imagery which pervades the recorded visions of Daniel, Ezekiel, and the later prophets. It may even have created those modes of thought which rendered some of the discourses of our Lord, and the Apocalypse of John, intelligible and attractive to the ori- ental mind; but it contributed no ideas or dogmas to Christianity: the whole was ethically and thet)logically useless. TUiere are those who, denying the possibility of super- natural intervention, and, for that reason alone, ascribing the prophecies of Daniel to some unknown writer in the time of the Maccabees, assert that the Jews, and Jesus with them, borrowed their ideas of the future life and the Messiah's kingdom, from the degraded Asiatic nations. Such an assertion is only an intrepid begging of the ques- tion. In the acknowledged absence of historical proof, it seems far more probable that the Asiatics profited by the teachings of the Jews than that the Jews borrowed the leadins; articles of their relio-ion from the Asiatics. The truth is, the Messianic ideas were original with the Jewish race; and those ideas they carried with them into their 56 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. eastern captivity; for they had, at that time, the Psalms of David, and. the Prophecy of Isaiah. Glancing now at the younger but greater nations of the West, we clearly trace in their history a progressive prep- aration for the kingdom of God. It was the mission of Greece to develop and train the natural man; to cultivate the reason and the taste ; to create science and art ; to give to the world metaphysics, logic, rhetoric, and a language, so copious and. flexible, and yet so clear and precise, that it was fitted to be the vehicle for the transmission to all lands and all ages, of the divine thoughts of Ilim Avho spake as never man spake. As a divinely prepared mould, into which the gospel was to be cast when it should come fresh and glowing from the heart of God, it was providentially ordered that the Greek should be the language of the civilized world, at the time of the Savior's advent. The palmy days of Grecian civilization had already passed away. For gener- ations, no great philosopher, no mighty orator, no divine poet had spoken or sung in the peerless language of Plato, Demosthenes, and Homer. But Greek grammarians, rhet- oricians, orators and artists were scattered throughout the world, and their language was the dialect, not only of ,the learned, but also of the commercial classes, and that even in Palestine. It is even maintained by good scholars that Jesus himself spoke Greek. However this may be, this wide diffusion of Greek culture and the Grecian tongue was eminentl}^ fivorable to the rapid spread of the gospel. And it is especially to be noted as tending to further that great result, that the Greeks themselves were growing weary of their own endless disputes and speculations. The Grecian intellect was at length satiated with mere aesthetic fancies and metaphysical subtleties, and was bc(z;innina; to liumxer for Tr.UTii. The Romans, endowed with a genius as yet unrivalled POSTURE OF THE UEATHEN NATIONS. 57 for civil organization, legislation, and government, were also embraced in the grand providential scheme of prepa- ration for Christ's kingdom. The very existence of an empire stretching from the EiqDhrates to the German Ocean, and from the Danube and the Rhine to the cata- racts of the Nile, the African deserts, and Mount Atlas ; — an empire tolerating all religions compatible with civil order; bound together by one prevailing principle of conquest and organization, and everywhere traversed by great military roads, safe and practicable for the soldiers of the cross as well as for the iron-clad legionaries — such an empire was itself an element so favorable to the rapid diffusion of the gospel, that we can not but ascribe its exist- ence to the wise counsel and special providence of God. Thus it will be seen, that, while Christianity received its grand spiritual ideas, — all that pertained to its religious spirit and power, — from the Jewish intellect; and while to Greek culture was intrusted the task of preparing a fitting mould for the truth proclaimed by Christ; a work of no less importance was committed to the Roman mind. That she might fulfill her great mission in the world, Christianity had need, not only of just ideas and fitting language, but also of organic unity and strength. Hence, under the providence of God, it devolved upon Roman genius to settle the external order and secure the corporate existence of the church. But neither among the Greeks nor the Romans, any more than among the Asiatics, were there any germs of spiritual truth, which were deemed worthy of being trans- planted into the gospel of Christ. At the time of our Lord's advent, their religious and moral condition was deplorable in the extreme. The fearful picture drawn a few years later, by the Apostle Paul, was a portrait from actual life. Added to a sensuality more vile and abom- inable than it is lawful to describe, society was frozen into 58 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. despair by atheistic fatalism. Among educated Romans of that period, the prevailing tone of feeling touching everything spiritual and divine, was one of gloomy scepti- cism. Their culture had far outgrown the popular religion. No man of sense pretended to believe in the gross my- thology which still served to amuse and enslave the vulgar. The best minds of the time had broken loose from the old moorings of superstition, and were afloat on a fathomless sea of doubt. Of the truth of this, the more thoughtful productions of Roman writers afford abundant proof One citation will suihce for our present purpose. No more melancholy words were ever written, than these of the elder Pliny : "All religion is the offspring of necessity, weakness, and fear. What God is, — if, indeed. He be anything distinct from the world, — it is beyond the compass of man's un- derstanding to know. But it is a foolish delusion which has sprung from human weakness, and human pride, to imagine that such an infinite spirit would concern him- self with the petty affairs of men. It is difficult to say, whether it might not be better to be wholly without religion, than to have one of this kind, which is a reproach to its object. The vanity of man, and his insatiable long- ing after existence, have led him to dream of a life after death. A being full of contradictions, he is the most wretched of creatures ; since the other creatures have no wants transcending the bounds of their nature. Man is full of desires and wants that reach to infinity, and can never be satisfied. His nature is a lie, uniting the greatest poverty with the greatest pride. Among these so great evils, the best thing which God has bestowed upon man, is the power to take his own life."* The closing portions of this passage reveal the secret of that terrible passion *Neander, Church History, Intro. POSTURE OF TUE BEATHEN NATIONS. 59 for suicide, which was a marked feature of Roman life during that period. The best men of the time had come to feel that there was so little left in the world of virtue and nobleness, so little ground for either fliitli or hope, that it was scarcely worth while to live. The world was, in fact, sick unto death, and even its prayer for relief was only the inarticulate groaning, or the frenzied shriek of despair. , CHAPTEE VI. PREPARATION FOR CUPJST'S C03IING. EARLY DEGENERACY OF MANKIND, AND DIVINE EFFORTS TO PURIFY THE RACE — INSTITUTION OF THE MESSIANIC RACE AND LINEAGE — SPECIAL PREPARATION FOR THE MESSIAH AMONG THE JEWS — GENERAL CHAR- ACTER AND ADAPTATION OF THE DISCIPLINE OF THE HEBREW RACE A MONOTHEISTIC FAITH TO BE ESPECIALLY TAUGHT — ESPECIAL MEANS EMPLOYED TO ROOT IT IN THE JEWISH MIND — CONSISTENCY OF PRO- PHETIC REVELATION : NEANDER — THE WORLD'S GENERAL EXPECTATION OF SOME COMING BENEFACTOR — SPECIAL ANTICIPATION AMONG THE HEBREWS — GENERAL PEACE AMONG THE NATIONS — EXPECTANT POS- TURE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. Inspired history discloses the fact that, subsequent to the fall, human nature rapidly deteriorated until it was found necessary to destroy the world, and commence the race anew in the family of Noah. This expedient was, however, attended by only temporary and partial success ; for another swift and sad degeneration, hardly less deplora- ble than the first, speedily followed. Again God made provision for the preservation and transmission of a higher type of humanity, not now by the destruction of every family but one, but by the selection of one particular family or line from all the rest, — that of the princely, the faithful, the righteous Abraham. Tills man. so rich in all human and all saintly attributes, without doubt the noblest of all the ancient world, was sinfded out from all men. and constituted by solemn cove- nant, the father of a new race, — a race, purer, stronger, and more susceptible to special inspiration than any other, — a race to be walled in from the degraded heathen PKEPARATION FOR CHRIST's COMING. 61 world by peculiar laws, institutions, and rites, lest the chosen seed should be corrupted by base admixtures or become wholly lost among alien and heathen nations. The express import of the "covenant" made with Abraham was, that through him should be provided that " Seed " in whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed. He was set apart as the progenitor of the Messiah, by a great and solemn rite, by which j^ctierni/i/ itself was consecrated in all his descendants. Many ages, however, must elapse before the appearance of a proper 7}iaternity through which the Son of God could make His entrance into the line of transmitted humanity. His human lineage stretched through four thousand years : during all that period His " body " — His manhood — was in process of preparation.* So long did it take to prepare that " dry ground " out of which Jesus was to grow as a " tender plant." f From this original selection of the Hebrew race, it will be seen that, while civilization, — governments, laws, sci- ences and arts, — might come from the Gentile nations; religion, — revelation, spiritual worship, an atonement, and complete redemption, — must come of the chosen people ; — " salvation is of the Jews." % Hence, the special prepara- tion for the Lord's coming, wdiich the world was to witness, lay among this chosen people. It was precisely with this end in view, that they were kept for centuries so secluded from the Gentile world, and so immediately under the divine control and discipline. The direct intent in all this training, was the development in the nation of the proper religious character to secure the great ends of the divine plan. This character was the manifest result of a long- continued process of supernatural education; for the as- sumption which some have been disposed to accept, — that the Hebrew race was originally religious above all others, — *Heb., X. 5. tisa., liii. 2. J John iv. 22. 62 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. is altogether unreasonable: there is no warrant for it whatever in history. This education of the Hebrew race for its high and peculiar mission is the constant theme of the Old Testa- ment Scriptures. It is there seen to have been shaped throughout by providential wisdom to the exact condition of the race. The life of nations is analogous to that of individuals: both have their successive stages of growth and degrees of maturity. The Hebrews, though a strong and heroic race, Avere yet in their infancy; and that in- fancy, while not without a certain docility and trustfulness which gave promise of future improvement, was still wild, sensual, wilful, passionate. Hence, the discipline appointed for them was adapted to just such a childhood. It was a di^^cipline of stern, inexorable law, supernaturally de- clared, and enforced by temporal punishments inflicted by the Divine Lawgiver himself, who came among them, almost from day to day, as a personal sovereign. A peculiar significance attaches to this constant per- sonal manifestation of Jehovah to the Hebrew mind. The great, the almost inevitable drift of mind under the sole guidance of nature, is towards a polytheistic faith. Poly- theism, in some form, may be said to be the natural re- ligion of all the simpler and more untutored races. But, from the ensnaring influence and control of this polythe- ism, — this manifold nature-worship, — it was, first of all, necessary that the chosen people of God should be ex- tricated. Monotheism was to become the natural and habitual posture of their minds : they must be brought to believe inflexiljly in the grand truth so emphatically announced by their great human law-giver; "Hear, Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord."* " We do not realize how hard this was to acquire, be- *Deut. vi. 4. PREPARATION FOR CHRIST'S COMING. 63 cause we have never had to acquire it; and, in reading the Old Testament, we look on the repeated idolatries of the chosen people as wilful backslidings from an element- ary truth within the reach of children, rather than as stumblings in learning a very difficult lesson, — difficult even for cultivated men. In reality, elementary truths are the hardest to learn, unless we pass our childhood in an atmosphere thoroughly hnpregnated with them ; and then we imbibe them unconsciously, and find it difficult to perceive their difficulty." * Now, there is no reason to believe that a faith in one living and true God, would ever have become deeply rooted in the Jewish mind, had it not been for the fre- quent miraculous manifestations of God to His people, in Egypt, at the Red Sea, in the wilderness, during their in- troduction into the Promised Land, and at intervals during the long and checkered period of their subsequent history. Besides these, the law was a schoolmaster to bring them unto Christ. It revealed Jehovah as one, living, personal, holy sovereign ; it declared by many solemn utterances and impressive rites, the sinfulness of man and the neces- sity of an atoning sacrifice ; and it pointed by many sacred institutions and august ceremonies, — indeed by the entire constitution of that wonderful theocracy, to the coming Messiah. To all this was added the power of prophetic revelation. Of the force and importance of this element, the words of Neander are strikingly suggestive. "All great events which have introduced a new development in human his- tory, have been preceded by conscious or unconscious prophecy. This may seem strange to such as ascribe to God the apathy of the stoics ; or to such as believe in a cold, iron necessity of an immanent Spirit of Nature. * Essays and Reviews, page 13. 64 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. But to none who believe in a personal self-consciou8 Deity, — a God of eternal love, who is nigh unto every man, and listens willingly to the secret sighs of longing souls, can it appear unworthy of such a Being to respond to great world-historical epochs, by responding to such longings, in special revelations,"* This remark holds good, in the highest degree, of that greatest epoch in human history, — the incarnation of the only begotten Son of God. During the ages preceding the birth of Christ, the wdiole human world was travailing in pain with one great hope, dim and half-unconscious in the earlier generations, but growing more definite and in- tense, as the time for its fulfillment approached. Whether we attribute its existence to traditions handed down from primeval generations, or to sporadic revelations sometimes vouchsafed to the Gentiles, or to the dispersion of the Jews, enlightened as they were, by the spirit of prophecy, or to the instinctive yearnings of natural religion in the human heart ; we know that such a hope pervaded even the pagan world, long before the angelic song thrilled the awe-struck shepherds of Bethlehem. The noblest of all Greek minds, "the divine Plato," expressed in language which seems almost prophetic, the desire and expectation of an in- spired teacher, and the certainty of his rejection and ignominious death. We learn, also, not only from Jose- phus, but from two Eoman historians, Tacitus and Sueto- nius, that about the time of our Lord's advent a rumor was spread abroad over all the East, of the speedy coming of a great King who should reign over all the world, These yearnings of the pagan mind were what Neandei calls unconscious prophecy. It was, however, in the Hebrew race, that the longings of humanity for a divine Redeemer were shaped by the *Neander's "Life of Christ," page 21. PREPAIIATION FOR CIIKLST's COMING. C5 spirit of prophecy into definite «ind earnest expectation. From the hoary centuries, echoes of j)rophetic song reach our ears, — at first far-off and faint, but growing deep and clear, and many-voiced along the nearer sweep of the de- scending stream of the ages. Abraham sees the day of Christ and is glad. Moses, from the cloud and flame of Sinai, stretches forth his hand to point the chosen people to the coming w^orld-prophet. David sweeps his wondi"Ous harp with a bolder hand, as he sings of the coming King who shall have dominion from sea to sea, so long as the moon endureth. At length, " the bard of bards," the sublime Isaiah, takes up the strain. When the lark, from her lowly nest in the meadow, descries the first pale ray of dawn in the heavens, she springs upward above the moun- tain summits into the kindling azure, and there, under the edge of some rosy cloud, " Sin