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 ^"^ T.T.S, P^,Bo< ^^ 
 
 LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES 
 
 or 
 
 \ 
 
 • \ 
 
 'V 
 
 THE ACQUITTAL OF JESUS; 
 
 OB, 
 
 HIS DIVINITY DEDUCED FROM 
 
 HIS CHARACTER AND CLAIMS. 
 
 / • 
 
 / A Sermon preached before the Syno4 of the Presbyterian Church of the- 
 
 / ,1. Iiower Provinces, at New Glasgow, June, 1867. 
 
 ■4 .' 
 
 By rev. JAMES BENNET, A. M., Moderator. 
 
 \Puhlithed by request of Stfnod.J 
 
 
 CAN 
 BV 
 
 HALIFAX, N. S. 
 
 JAMES BARNES, CORNER SAGKVTLLK AND GRANVILLE STS 
 
 1867. 
 
 6 4-T 
 
 t 
 
 .z 
 
 * 
 
CpBIS 
 
 J 
 
 f<^^ /<&/a/ 
 
 Iliill|uu$ic (iollciir ilibvari) 
 
 JOHN JAMES STEWART 
 
 COLLECTION 
 
 4: 
 
 \\K" 
 
 % 
 
Mt I'ajial (S)0Utnmnm 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ACQUITTAL OF JESUS. 
 
 Luke xxhi^ 14. — " Behold, 1, having examined him before you, have found u.- ."ault in 
 this man touching those tilings whensof ye accuse him." 
 
 TiLATE, looking on the accused with the 
 «ye of a Roman judge, and seeing his inno- 
 cenoj; of the charges which affectsd the 
 oatwMrd weal of society, and the authority 
 of hu sovereign, as well as the uuacinow- 
 ledgeo' yet apparent envy of lus accusers ; 
 discerning under all the colourings of n, alioe 
 the hues of innocence, urges again and again 
 *' I find no fault in him," and yet *ith 
 weak and wicked inconsistency, pront'un- 
 ces Jetuis guilty and delivers him to be 
 crucified . 
 
 Pilate is not alone in his irconsistency. 
 There are many even in the present dty 
 who aftt'i" examination of the chargts 
 which have been brought agaiv.st Christ, 
 have proEounced his character faultless, 
 and yet w'ch strange conclusion they con- 
 demn his Ci'iiims. They would not crucify 
 him, bat Hiaj would consign him to a place 
 in which he will hurt the world no longer 
 with his superstitions. Covering him with 
 the mockeries of royalty they even pre- 
 tend to bow to his sceptre, and, while 
 acknowledging his superiority, they reduce 
 him to a rank to which he refuses to des- 
 cend, coupling bis name with that of Con- 
 fuscius, Zoroaster, Socrates or Mahomet. 
 Such judgment Christ deems only an- 
 other sentence to crucifixion, and he will 
 hold those who pronounce it guilty of his 
 ifhame. 
 
 Only one of two courses is open to his 
 
 judges, either to condemn him altogether, 
 or to acquit him fully. It cannot ho con- 
 cealed that the charges brought against him 
 by the Jews were founded on claims which 
 he made. He did intenl to take the place 
 of Moses ; to break the shell of Judaism 
 that the beautiful truth which it contained 
 might come forth in plumage and in song ; 
 to raise the temple of his body from its 
 ruin in the grave ; to establish a kingdom 
 in which all kings should be subjects ; to 
 make himself worshipped, as the Father who 
 was one with him ; to sit chief in the affec- 
 tions of man, as the veiry God of his life. 
 All this he claimed, all this he has done. 
 These claims were just if there be no fault 
 in him. If unjust, he is one of the highest 
 criminals or the greatest madmen the world 
 ever saw. There was no legitimate course 
 for the Jews to pursue buf, either to con- 
 cede his claims or to condemn his conduct. 
 In what form should that condemnation 
 ,'iave been made? The Jewish law de. 
 rianded death for such crimes. According 
 ti> the charity of Christianity, punishment 
 for them is remitted to a higher tribunal. 
 Bit conscience must ever condemn such 
 false claims while refusing to .assume the 
 weapons of justice to destroy him who 
 mak^s them. The Jew however, had to 
 acquit him altogether or besides condemn- 
 ing h>8 assumptions, he must condemn him 
 to dea A. Pilate might have acquitted him 
 
 X" -^>- tj''^ 
 
 t'C'-i 
 
^ 
 
 THE LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES 
 
 in the light of Roman Law, but if he really 
 found no fault in him on account of these 
 claims, i.e is doubly guilty in decreeing his 
 death. No dotibt his declaration regarding 
 Christ's innocence has relation solely to the 
 requirements of Roman Law. He goes no 
 deeper. "We must. It is not competent for 
 us to say he committed no act which Eng- 
 lish law would make criminal. We have 
 ahigher law. It is the law of God written 
 on the heart. By our law if he were not 
 the son of God and yet made himself such he 
 ought to die — that is morally — he must be 
 consigned to the Calvary in which outraged 
 opinion crucifies all sach characters. We 
 can have no king who is either a wild en- 
 thusiast or a deceiver. Is it not blasphemy 
 to say that Go<rs best gift to man was 
 tainted with madness, or corrupted with 
 hypocrisy ? 
 
 The controversy about Christ is not es- 
 sentially changed. The same great ques- 
 tion remains to be debated, Was he that 
 which he claimed to be 1 It is important 
 that we should see this, and that we should 
 not be blindfolded, by the assumptions 
 made by the opponents of Christianity, as 
 though it were not a question of honesty or 
 imposture. It is on lYL arena not that of 
 the natural sciences that the main battle of 
 the evidences i« to be fought and won. 
 
 But here we are met in limine by the en- 
 quiry about the witnesses. As on the triaj 
 before Pilate they were false, so we are tald 
 they are not now to be depended upon- 
 They deal ia hearsays. We have not the 
 testimony of the eye-witnesses. The gospels, 
 it is said, can no doubt be traced up to near 
 the age in which Jesus lived ; but there is i\ 
 number of years after his death in whch 
 the gospel was traditional. This region is 
 inaccessible to the explorer. We cannot 
 tell whether tho stream of the gospel history 
 here partakes more of the showers of hea- 
 ven or the springs of eaith ; whether it 
 flows from sources of fact or wells of 
 Tonder. Which of the Evangelists wrote 
 first •? What is the relation of their writings 
 to each other 't Have we indeed the records 
 of those who saw and heard Him, or only 
 of those who dealt in second-hand rehear- 
 sals .' Are our Gospels by the authors 
 
 whose names they bear, or only according 
 to ihe report of their reputed authors T 
 Whence the curious coincidences and 
 strange differences of the Synoptics ; — 
 whence, especially, the contrast between 
 them and John ? Instead of the testimony 
 of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, it is 
 asserted that we have that of ceitain per- 
 sons after their death, using their name? 
 and influence to give substance and fixity 
 to the gigantic shadow of Jesus which the 
 imagination of a nation of wonder-lovers 
 had raised and cast athwart the age. The 
 biography of Jesus is thus a fanciful narra- 
 tive, having a remote analogy to his real 
 life. It is evident it will be only after a 
 great deal of cross-questioning we will get 
 at the real facts of the case. But in this 
 we are g'mtly assisted by the critical school, 
 Wolfenbuttel, Strauss, and others, who have 
 set themselves to sift the false from the 
 true, the fiction from the subtratum of fact. 
 If they had been as successful as preten- 
 tious, we should have had to thank them. 
 Their labours, however, have been a fail- 
 ure. It could not be otherwise. The 
 purely scientific faculty will ever fail to 
 comprehend what is above the order of 
 nature. But let us hear them. The pro- 
 blem they would solve is how much and 
 what fact underlies this fiction. As they 
 have decided that the miracle is impossible, 
 every thing miraculous is rejected. The 
 incarnation, the mighty works, the fulfilled 
 prophecies, the resurrection, the ascension, 
 are all to be attributed to the popular 
 imagination ; the residuum is a man of 
 striking originality, biologizing influence, 
 and elevated character; carrying captive 
 the imagination by his fresh and charming 
 discourses, curing diseases which specially 
 depend on mental states, and by his vast 
 popularity aiming at universal empire. As 
 to the mode in which he came to be accre- 
 dited with so many wonders — what more 
 plain ? In his own day, as usual in snch 
 cases, his doings were exaggerated. In the 
 next age the proportions swell. Tlie nar- 
 ratives, oral at first, when reduced to writ- 
 ing blend fact with fiction, and round oflf 
 the real with the more charming ideal. 
 The wonderful life must spring from a 
 
 f 
 
 fSH 
 
OF THE ACQUITTAL OF JESUS. 
 
 .0 
 
 t 
 
 miraculous hirth, and come to a miraculous 
 close. What so natural as the production 
 of the supernaturnl ! Given a man of 
 grand intellect, ecstatic temperament, good 
 morals — in connection with an ignorant 
 people of active imagination, and sec the 
 result, — tlic mythic — historic Christ ! How 
 beautiful, captivating the taste of our age, 
 and fully explaining to the critical concep- 
 tion the most wonderful events the world 
 ever witnessed ! 
 
 This theory derives its plaui ibility from 
 its object — which is not to find out the 
 truth but to get rid of the miraculous. The 
 nineteenth century, it is said, does not be- 
 lieve in miracles. Why reject the incarna- 
 tion, the works, the resurrection? The 
 reply is, the science of the nineteentii cen- 
 tury will not let us admit sucli things as pos- 
 sible. Universal experience is against them. 
 Law will not admit them. You have only to 
 ask Baden Powell. The vote of the scien- 
 tific world is that the miracle is impossible. 
 We say no. We summon the scientific 
 world lieforeus. You say gentlemen that the 
 miracle is impossible. On what grounds ? 
 "We have never seen one; all things pro- 
 ceed according to established laws." That is 
 good reason for strong improbability. We 
 hold that the miracle is very improbable, 
 but we cannot conclude its impossibility on 
 such grounds. Is it not possible tliat he 
 who constituted the order of nafare should 
 for some purpose arrest that progress 1 
 Here our scientific world will divide into 
 two sections, the atheist and inipcrsonal 
 pantheist saying. No, nature is its own 
 auth"- \* never varies — the theist, admit- 
 ting . abstract possibility. Well then, 
 none but atheists and pantheists of the 
 scientific world will deny the possibility. 
 Their reason is, that there is no God. — 
 But those who have tried to get rid of 
 God as far as possible, making all creation 
 but development, admit that their hypoth- 
 esis does not account for the formation of 
 the first life germ. God is still necessary 
 tor that. But indeed if the doctrine of the 
 conservation or correlation of forces be 
 correct, all the force of creation as develop- 
 ed to this day, was contained in the forma- 
 tion of that first germ. The science of the 
 
 present day has corrected that metaphysical 
 philosophy which saw in cause and effect 
 only antecedents and consequents. Fara- 
 dy, Liebig, Grove and Thompson, all tell us 
 there is nothing in the effect which was not In 
 the cause.* Well, go back and back and 
 when you have come to the first cause, the 
 originator of the first life germ, you must 
 admit that this is the power which formed 
 all. To form a single life germ may ap- 
 pear a small affair, but to form a life germ 
 which contains in it the cause and power to 
 develope all life germs — behold the almigh- 
 ty God ! You iiave hid him from us, O 
 ye men of science as long as possible, with 
 your development theories, but to make 
 your theories complete you have at last 
 confessed the necessity of God. 
 
 " But what then ! God has formeil all 
 to go on by unchanging l^w. Can he in- 
 terfere with the work of his hand ?" Cer- 
 tainly, unless you can prove that his force 
 was 'exhausted in the creative act. Ho 
 would be a bold man who would affirm 
 that. Who will so bind God to his work 
 that he cannot operate upon it, but that he 
 must helplessly let it run on in obedience to 
 Is he greater than God f If so the God of 
 
 * The theo^ of Brown, that all we ki;ow 
 of Cause and Effect is that the one invariably 
 follows the other, is generally acquiesced in 
 by the metaphysicians. Thus, J S. Mill, in 
 his recjnt examination of Sir W. Hamilton's 
 Philosophy, says, Vol. 2, page 279, (Boston 
 edition). " What experience makes known 
 is the fact of an invariable sequence between 
 every event and some special combination 
 of aritecedent conditions in such sort that 
 wherever and whenever that union of antece- 
 dents exists, the event does not fail to occur. 
 Any must in the case, any necessity other 
 than the unconditional universality of the fact 
 we know nothing of." 
 
 On the other hand, E. G. J. R. Mayer, in 
 his treatise on the Forces of Inorganic Nature, 
 published in Liebeg's Journal, says, " Forces 
 are causes: accordingly we may, in relation 
 to them, make full application of the princi- 
 ple — Catisa cemuit Efftctum. If the Cause C 
 has the Effect E, then C = E. If, in its turn, 
 C is the Cause of a second Effect F, we have 
 E = F, and so on : C = E = F = C." He 
 then proceeds to shew that the Cause passes 
 into and is to be found wholly in the Effect, 
 or Effects which oftentimes can be resolved 
 back into ^heir causes. Is there co mmt, no 
 necessity here ; no knowledge, as Brown would 
 affirm, of anything but sequences? and as 
 Mill continues to say in the teeth of all the 
 scientists ? 
 
THE LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES 
 
 the original impulse no matter whot might 
 be the advantage of interference? Man at 
 least is not so helpless. He can interfere 
 with hia own works to stop tliem, to vary 
 them, to guide them. Ho interferes even 
 with God's works every day, breaks chp.ins 
 of natural causation at a thousand points. 
 Is he greater than God ? The God of 
 science is a miserable fetish. The spirits 
 locked up in caves by genii are less helpless. 
 Let science at least give God some liberty 
 —a freedom of will which, either by or 
 without motive save what he finds in him- 
 felf, is able to do what his creatures can, in 
 regard to their works daily perform. But 
 in doing this it concedes the possibility of 
 the miracle. 
 
 " But though possible, the scientific mind 
 so accustomed to absolute regularity finds, 
 itself at last incupable of conceiving the 
 suspension for a moment of any one natur- 
 al law. Childh^oo believes any wonder, 
 youth begins to doubt, manhood to deny, 
 and as knowledge increases the possibility 
 of the miraculous vanishes." Well we 
 cannot deny the tendency. We feel that 
 all material things go on by fixed laws, 
 but are we scientific in making our expe.i- 
 encc the measure of all experience ? We 
 should not permit our tendencies to pro- 
 nounce impossible what we have previously 
 seen to be possible. Science should put 
 the curb on its tendencies or it will plunge 
 into absurdity. The wise tongue will be- 
 come a babbler. Strange that science, the 
 highest thought of the grandest being made 
 by God, — the great contradiction of athe- 
 ism — should affirm atheism as its faith. 
 But we remember " the world by wisdom 
 knows not God." 
 
 So we return to the consideration of the 
 trustworthiness of the witnesses with this 
 thought, that though they should affirm 
 some things that are miraculous about 
 Christ, we are not to assume that all this is 
 mythical, the work of popular imagination. 
 We refuse to take it for a canon that the 
 miraculous is to be rejected because it is such. 
 We are not about to affirm at present the 
 inspiration of the record, the truth of the 
 miracle, and, as a conseouence the divine 
 origin of Christianity. H has been said 
 
 that in the present day the miracle is the 
 great weight which Christianity has to bear. 
 Miracles do not sujjport it — they are sup- 
 ported bj' it. If that were true, and in one 
 sense it is, we have this position to make good 
 — It is able to Itear them. Only know Christ 
 and all miracles will be possible unto you. 
 
 But wo nmst not forget the Mythical 
 Philosophers. They have taken away the 
 miracles ; well, let them in the meantime. 
 What do they leave us ? Christ's teachings? 
 Yes, pretty much. Christ's character 1 
 Yes, that too ; for it would be evidently 
 more difficult to suppose such a character 
 invented, than that one actually existed 
 sustaining it. We have to thank Rousseau 
 for tiie most eloquent expression of this 
 truth. The witnesses, then, are trust- 
 worthy so far. Then we can have Christ 
 up before us. If Strauss refuses to allow 
 John to come up as an eye-witness and re- 
 porter of actual sayings — Renan, his pupil, 
 thinks there is no good reason why he should 
 be put out of court. After all, he only 
 says in his own way what the others have 
 said in their way. We have no objection 
 to admit that he presents the doctrine of the 
 incarnation after a Platonic fashion, but he 
 presents it. " The word was made flesh," 
 contains all that Luke has spread over two 
 chapters. John, too, has a retentive mem- 
 ory for the antilogies which often arose in 
 Christ's communications with the Jews. 
 We shall not, however, assume anything 
 which our opponents are unwilling to 
 grant. If there be any sand beneath our 
 foundations we are willing that it be re- 
 moved, if only we at last come to the rock, 
 and that rock is not John, or Matthew, or 
 Peter, but Christ. 
 
 The point, then, at which we commence, 
 is that a certain character has been drawn 
 of Christ by the Evangelists, which is alto- 
 gether original and unique — tlie history of 
 the world presents nothing like it. Moses 
 and Elias, Isaiah and Ezekiel grow pale in 
 the light of this bright star. It was no 
 affectation, but simple truth, which led the 
 Baptist to say, the latchet of his shoe I am 
 not worthy to unloose. All the world has 
 looked to it with the long wonder of eigh- 
 teen centuries. Imposture, or superstition. 
 
or THB ACQUITTAL OF JK8U8. 
 
 i^ 
 
 i' 
 
 or charm, or myth, might in that period 
 have produced some equal if they produced 
 Him. But \vc seem doomed to know no 
 second Jetus. Our admiration grows as 
 each new heroism of his life is evolved. 
 Even scepticism praises, — is rapturous over 
 his character. 
 
 The character as drawn by the Evange- 
 lists is wonderfully real. Its completeness 
 of suprrnature makes it natural. We find 
 a perfect harmony between the grandeur of 
 the man and the (Jod that indwells. The 
 claims, facts, teachings agree, Wc are 
 struck with this. The followers of Jesus 
 have hardly recognized tliis more than 
 many of the sceptical school of the present 
 day. The sarcasm of Voltaire and the 
 coarseness of Paine have given place to 
 compliment and courtesy. I need not 
 quote Rousseau, an his testimony is so 
 widely known. Parker says, " he unites in 
 himself the sublimest precepts and divincst 
 practice, thus more tiian realizing all the 
 dreams of prophets and sages; rises free 
 from all the prejudices of his ago, nation, 
 and sect ; gives free range to the Spirit of 
 God in his breast, sets aside law, sacred 
 and true, — honoured as it was, — its forms, 
 its sacrifices, its temples, its priests, puts 
 away the doctors of the law, subtle, irre- 
 fragable, and pours out a doctrine beautiful 
 as the light, sublime as heaven, true as 
 
 God Eighteen centuries have 
 
 passed since the sun of humanity rose so 
 high in Jesus. What man — what sect has 
 mastered his thought, comprehended his 
 method, and so fully applied it to life." — 
 Then Renan says : " Jesus had no visions. 
 God is in him ; he feels that he is with God, 
 and he draws from his heart what he says 
 of His Father, The highest consciousness 
 of God that ever existed in the breast of 
 humanity was that of Jesus." Indeed, the 
 whole of the " Origins of Christianiti/," is a 
 laboured panegyric on Jesus according to 
 the ideal of the Frenchman, tempered by 
 the airs and scenery of Galilee and Jerusa- 
 lem. Strauss is too cold to express admira- 
 tion for the noble tower of character he set 
 himself to destroy. Newman is depreciat- 
 ory. But with few exceptions the critical 
 school pronounce him divine. Whenever 
 
 they doprcciato they have first had to de- 
 stroy. How 1 By attempting to show that 
 the character of Jesus is in large meosare 
 the result of imagination. They do not 
 say it was invented. That has been shown 
 to be impossible. What is the process then ? 
 There was an actual Christ; but what 
 we have is this Christ sul)limed, elevated. 
 What there was of actual nobleness in the 
 real Jesus was made nobler, of purity, purer, 
 by passing through the contemplative soul 
 of John, the ardent mind of Petor, the 
 loving heart of Mary, — the golden charac- 
 ter was refined in the alembic of the church's 
 enthusiasm — the rough angularities were 
 all polished off— the gross was filtered, and 
 the flawed became perfect. What a grand 
 work of moral art is this Galilean imagina- 
 tion capable of ? A fortuitous concourse 
 of moral ideas has agglomerated round a 
 rough pretentious character, and behold the 
 glorious, the divine image, which men have 
 worshipped To;- eighteen centuries — and yet 
 worstip ! It is strange that no such result 
 over was seen before or since. What was 
 there in that patristic Pharisaic age which 
 so sublimed the minds of the followers of 
 Jesus, if not himself, that could produie this 
 unparalleled spiritual sculpture 1 If we 
 should affirm that the Venus de Modicis 
 was fashioned by a hundred sculptors, not 
 one of whom had learned the art, by each 
 one taking up the chisel and working a lit- 
 tle on the rough block, without common 
 design, we should not say such a foolish 
 thing. Admit that the report of a wonder- 
 ful work may grow into a miracle, we are not 
 helped thereby to see how the character of 
 God in man can be the growth of an imagi- 
 native enthusiasm, as an exquisite aroma 
 rises from a garden of flowers. The traits 
 of His character are too distinct, as well as 
 proportionate, to be the result of such social 
 efflorescence.* The account of the miracle 
 
 * " The complete catalogue of the virtues 
 could give no adequate view of the great pe- 
 culiarity in the character of Jesus ; the abso- 
 lute similarity in all moral faculties, the per- 
 fect inward harmony unruffled by the slight- 
 est passion or selfishness. Never a moment 
 withdrawn from the closest communion with 
 the father in heaven, or from unreserved de- 
 votion to the welfare of mankind." — Schaffg 
 History, page 56, Vol. 1. 
 
THE LOOICA.L CONBEQUENCES 
 
 may grow, but this if no (luestion of tize, 
 hut of quality. While tlio Hto.y grows the 
 popular imagination makes it grotesque. 
 All proportion is lost, and the original har-' 
 mony bocomes a discord. All the mytho- 
 logies prove this. On the other hand think 
 of the beauty, the proportion of Christ's 
 rharacter. Ask how any portion thereof 
 had its excellent beauty if not from Himself. 
 Did the sermon on the Mount instead of 
 proceeding as we have it from hims«If, ro^ 
 reive a grandeur to which it had no preten- 
 sions from floating in the cloud-land of 
 tradition for some years, till at last it was 
 condensed as an exquisite but combinate 
 essence of Jesus and His Church, by Mat- 
 thew. Or have wc not rather to fear that 
 much of the original beauty and force have 
 been lost ? Jesus is in some respects to us 
 but the shadow of what he was. We have 
 but a few of his sayings and doings — a frag- 
 ment. The world could not contain the 
 l)ook of the whole. But fragmentary as is 
 the life as shadoweJ forth by the Evange- 
 lists, we sec as in a picture the glory of 
 the Lord. Ex pede Herculem. These frag- 
 ments indicate the colossal grandeur of the 
 Jesus who was — the lowest estimate of the 
 greatest sceptic being that He was the great- 
 est and best of the sons of men — the more 
 adequate being that here indeed is God 
 manifest in tiie flesh. 
 
 The character of Jesus as indicated in 
 the gospels is then real. There may bo 
 great differences in its shading as presented 
 by John and Matthew, but whatever there 
 is of grandeur in each is from Him. The 
 sermon on the mount is his, the para- 
 bles are his, the discussions with the Jews 
 are his, the instructions to the disciples are 
 his, the prayers are his, the claims arc iiis. 
 No one would have had the hardihood to 
 write unless he had uttered those daring 
 words, " I proceeded forth and came from 
 God," " I and my father are one," "Which 
 of you convinceth me of sin," " the son of 
 man which i? in heaven." "I am the 
 bread of life " " he that eateth me shall live 
 by me. Except ye eat the flesh of the 
 Son of man, and drink his blood ye have 
 no life in you." The idea that John in- 
 vented such expressions would go far to 
 
 elevate him to the throne of Joius, but for 
 the diabolism of the deceit. To say that 
 these great words are but the echo of the 
 imagination of the disciples who saw in 
 Jesus a sublimity of character, in correii- 
 pontlenco with such clainis is to leave the 
 problem for solution which it was intended 
 tc get rid of — the same character ; only in 
 this way we have no means of finding out 
 how that character was made known to the 
 disciples. If they did not get their ideas of 
 his character from the sublimity of his 
 words and claims and personality, where 
 did they get them ? From the miracles "? 
 Well let us say we are agreed. But this 
 would at once establish the divine character 
 of the whole. Ah, scepticism will take 
 care of that. They got the character from 
 the imagination that the miracles were 
 wrought. Well, let us see how this will 
 work. We want a basis for the invention 
 of these grand claims. If, having reduced 
 the grandeur of his teachings and clainriS, 
 you now take away the miracle as a reality, 
 what is left as the foundation of the inven- 
 tion T You must have some basis for popu- 
 lar fancy to build upon — some material to 
 work with. To make bricks without straw 
 was hard, but this were like requiring them 
 to be made without clay as well. No 
 doubt popular fancy is capable of great 
 feats, but they are grotesque, and hardly 
 equal to the formation of a grandcon- 
 sistent character, with only a few tricks 
 of legerdemain to begin with. With won- 
 derful works the popular imagination may 
 make their author a saint — the man of hair- 
 cloth and cells, of fasting and prayer — but 
 never a Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, all the 
 miracles in the world, without the one 
 miracle, his supernatural character, could 
 never have given us The Lord and Master. 
 But we are going too fast. It is, 
 admitted he is a great and glorious chai-ac- 
 ter, — a good man, a great teacher, an ex- 
 cellent moralist ; one who knows more ot 
 God than all the world besides — the breath 
 of his voice is redolent of heaven. All this 
 the sceptical school say. This is much ; but 
 had this been all we should have had no 
 historic Christianity. We should have read 
 some things of him along with the sayings 
 
 I 
 
OF THE ACQUITTAL OF JK8U8. 
 
 of Solon, or the philosophy of Plato of 
 Zeno. No — Jesus does not come before us 
 iw a teacher or a philosopher, but as heaven- 
 sent, God-oounsellcd — as the Son of (»od. 
 Ho proceeded forth and came from God. 
 lie and His Father are one. He that hath 
 iieen Him hath seen the Father. Ho is 
 King — by truth and right King of all. 
 Why, these claims of His arc the very 
 charges on which he was condemned. He 
 speaks blasphemy — he wants to be a king. 
 Well, we must take one of two positions. 
 Kither his claims, which wc have seen were 
 made, are just, or it was right to put him 
 to death, or at least confine him to some 
 asylum. Christ was what he claimed to 
 be, or ho was the greatest of madmen or or 
 impostors.* The sceptical world resile from 
 •uch conclusions. 
 
 It is always to be borne in mind that a 
 large part of the character of Christ is made 
 up of his claims. His teachings raise him 
 above philosophy, his innocency and iamb- 
 like nature captivate our affections ; his 
 goodness and beneficence are a new leaven 
 introduced into the lump of humanity; but 
 his claims, wo hesitate not to say, have 
 clothed him, to us, with the attributes of 
 God. That which gives him most dignity 
 in the Church's estimation, is that which 
 the sceptic thinks extravagant and absurd. 
 We should never have seen in him that 
 grand presence which makes us bow, but 
 for the consciousness of right and power 
 evidenced by these claims. So far from 
 
 • The divinity of Christ . . . appears . . . 
 in his own express testimony respecting him- 
 self. This must be either true or fearfully 
 presumptuous, and indeed downright blas- 
 phemj'. But how can the latter supposition 
 stand a moment before the moral purity and 
 dignity of Jesus in his every word and work, 
 Hud acknowledged by the general voice even 
 of Unitarians and Rationalists? Self-decep- 
 tion in a matter so momentous, and with a 
 mind in other respects so clear and sound, is 
 i)f course equally out of the question. Thus 
 we are shut up to the divinity of Christ, and 
 reason itself must at last bow in silent awe 
 before the tremendous word, " I and my 
 father are one."— Schaff^n History, Vol. 1, 
 page 57. 
 
 The above and preceding extracts or notes 
 were not seen by the author till after his ser- 
 mon had gone to press. Similar views are 
 presented by Ullman and many other devout 
 thinkers. 
 
 thinking him fanatical or audacious in mak- 
 ing them, they seem to ui most reasonable. 
 To affirm the supernatural is in him most 
 natural. On men of medium dimensions 
 the armour of the giant is ridiculous, but how 
 iHJsecming on the giant. Ulysses easily 
 bends his own bow. Alexander affect- 
 ing tlic nod of Jupiter is only a fit bur- 
 lesquo in the midst of drunken orgies. 
 When Phaeton attemptctl to drive the 
 horses of fho sun, he could not sustain the 
 character ho assumed a single day. Christ 
 sustained the claims he made for years — 
 ha'J sustained them for eighteen centuries. 
 Upon what part of his character will the 
 scepticism of the nineteenth century inflict 
 a wound '. Which of you convinceth mr 
 of sin 1 still rings through our ears. Shew 
 us an immorality. Is it the dead fig-tree 
 that is objected ? —as if God by his light- 
 nings had never blasted a vine. Is it his 
 denunciation of the Pharisees ? As though 
 virtue became vice by the strength of its 
 denunciatipns of vice. The charge may be 
 made an^ong those who think that the 
 manifestation of a divine anger against the 
 false and hypocritical is itself criminal. 
 But we must not forget that complicity in 
 the miracle working character, which it ap- 
 pears the disciples forced upon him, is 
 charged, — and if the charge be true, (the 
 miracles being, of course supposed false,) 
 then his innocency vanishes. The forbid- 
 den fruit has been eaten, and the world is 
 lost a second time. Satan has been sucess- 
 ful, and the leaven of the Pharisees, which 
 is hypocrisy, infects his whole chara6ter. 
 He who could join in complicity to deceive, 
 may lay aside the claim? of Mcssiahship 
 and honesty at the same time. It is not so, 
 however. The record gives us no shadow 
 for such a charge. That the disciples be- 
 lieved him to work miracles ; that he be- 
 lieved in his own power to do so, is as plain 
 ae noon-day — unless we agree with Strauss, 
 that the whole of the accounts were manu- 
 factured from some mythic germs. Kenan, 
 who accepts the accounts generally as 
 a record of what was supposed to have 
 taken place, tells us that Christ pretended, 
 contrary to his better judgment, to work 
 the miracles forced on him. In making 
 
10 
 
 THE LOGICAL CONSEQUBNCES 
 
 thic charge, though he does not seem to 
 know it, 'le has reduced aeeua to the level 
 of the mc untebank. No doubt, he tells uj, 
 that Chridt, to withdraw himself from this 
 false position, thought it necessary to urge 
 on the crisis which would destroy him- 
 self, but establish his cause. Admirable 
 resolution for one who deceived both his 
 disciples and the multitude. By martyr- 
 dom he will establish a cause which is be- 
 ginning to totter, because founded on sup- 
 posed miracles which he cannot further 
 supply. Tired of sustaining a false posi- 
 tiop, he rushes to death that he may become 
 the patron of the true and the hope of the 
 world ! It is too absurd. He who claimed 
 to have come from God, to be the image of 
 God, and to have sustained in the opinion 
 of the author of the " Origins of Christian 
 ity," that character with dignity, was surely 
 not the one to preteful miracles, 
 
 Yet the claim to work miracles is every 
 where made by him. This is no* to bo for- 
 gotten. Deny the miracles still they v/ero 
 supposedlto be wrought by him oryoucannot 
 have a starting point for the myth. They 
 could not be supposed to be wrought with- 
 outan attempt to work them. If he attempt- 
 ed them and they were not re x\, he either 
 deceived liimself or he deceived others. The 
 latter is impossible. The natuic of man 
 does not admit of such antitheses. That 
 the most nob!'? being of all the ages — thus 
 according to recent sceptic opinion — 
 should be a deceiver, no honest man can 
 candidly affirm. Did he deceive lumsclf ? 
 TMs would seem a weakness incompatible 
 wit'i his great strength. Then if the mira- 
 cles were not wrought they could neither 
 have 'leen attempted nor pretended. But 
 where then is there any foundation for 
 the accounts? Tnere is none. Had there 
 been no ittempt there had been no history 
 of the success of the attempt. Had there 
 not been m,\ny attempts there had been no 
 such numercus and detailed accounts as we 
 have. The u'^.most fertility of imagination 
 could produce .10 fruit without seed. Some 
 of this must have been sown. It must 
 have been scattered broadcast to ])roduce 
 Boch an abundant harvest in so short a 
 tlroe. Without doubt then Jesus attempt- 
 
 ed the cure of many diseases, hut did he 
 only attempt them ? Is imagination or 
 faith — if you will — to be accredited with 
 their success ? Was there no reality in the 
 hundreds of cures which the grave evangel- 
 ists sot down to the account of Jesus f Be 
 it so. But wliat becomes of ilie noble 
 character of Jesus ? Self deceived was he ? 
 We cannot admit it. Did he deceive 
 others 1 With his character that is impos- 
 sible. 
 
 But it may be said there were no doubt 
 cures of such diseases as may bo acted on 
 by an exceedingly powerful nature working 
 beneficially, medicinally upon weak diseas- 
 ed ones. What then ! Why then it is only 
 the amount of the curative virtue that is 
 objected to by scepticism. Grant tliat any 
 disease was really cured by the power of 
 his great presence, by the virtue which went 
 out of him, why not admit that some dis- 
 ease more difficult of cure in our estimation 
 might be operated on bv the same presence 
 and nature — and more difficult ones still 
 tell you come 10 the most difficult of all — 
 the arrest of death — the resuscitation of 
 the corpse. The least is in some degree 
 miraculous, which having admitted you can« 
 not say unless you know the amount of cu- 
 rative virtue in the cause, how great must 
 be the power of that disease which its 
 agent cannot conque •. 
 
 But this does not touch those miracles in 
 which material npturc bent like a worship- 
 per to his wishes. Did he attempt any of 
 them ? The same line of argument would 
 shew that the attempt was made, or the 
 story could not have had its necessary germ. 
 But why should tliere be difficulty in ad- 
 mitting them. Is it impossible that spirit- 
 ual will can operate on matter save tlirongh 
 material media and contact? Then crea- 
 tion was impossible. God is a spirit yet 
 he wheels the worlds. Grant this claim 
 that Christ came from God, wliere is the 
 difficulty about the delegation of such 
 power. Why should he who guides the 
 planets not be able to grant power to 
 another to control the eca. Tell us the 
 scientific reason against this rational posi- 
 tion. Many of the most sceptical believe 
 in the mesmeric will as a mechanical ageat. 
 
 
or THE ACQUITTAL OF JESUS. 
 
 11 
 
 There is certainly no absurdity in auch 
 suppositions althoagh science has not dis- 
 covered any naediam through which the 
 action can take place — nor is there any 
 proper reason why the Creator, who is the 
 prigin of all the forces of the universe both 
 spiritual and physicial, should i.^ t, to his 
 own Son grant a potency which He con- 
 stantly exercises. If we have the proof 
 that Jesus is the Son of God, and that, he, 
 attempted such works it is certain they 
 were done. The moral certainty neutral- 
 izes the natural improbability. To be as- 
 sured that Christ wrought these miracles it 
 is only necessary to know that he was wise 
 good and true. 
 
 We approach another point — the Incar- 
 nation. We may observe he never aCirmed 
 t'Us explicitly of himself. But is it not 
 the only legitimate explanation of his life ? 
 It has been said th.'it the account of his 
 origin must have been derived from the 
 mother of Jesus. Well but this account 
 can be judged of by its verisimilitude with 
 the other facts. The truth of the mother's 
 account is corroborated by the son's charac- 
 ter. Had not the life of Jesus already 
 nc'.'ossitated the incarnation as a logical 
 postulate prior to a word on the subject 
 from Mary? Such^ seems to have been 
 John's judgement. '* We beheld his glory 
 the glory , as of the only begotten of 
 the Father full of grace and truth." Why 
 has none like him appeared on earth? 
 Doet net the reply sound natural — because 
 none had a similar origin. After Alexan- 
 der came Hannibal, CiBsar and Napoleon, 
 and with Socrates are associated Pluto 
 and Aristotle ; but Jesus sits os. his own 
 unapproachable throne. Wo speak of or- 
 ders of warriors, poets, philosophers, pro- 
 phets, but there is only one Christ. It is 
 no disparagement of Socrates, to say that 
 he mght have sat at the feet of Paul and 
 listened to his wonderful discoursings, with 
 rapture, yet Paul afar off worships Christ 
 If Plato had heard John he would have 
 given up his charming dialectics to wonder 
 at the discourses Inspired by the word that 
 was made flesli. The influence of Jesus 
 upon the disciples, and upon the world, is 
 the standing miracle of history. Did all 
 
 this influence flow from a man like ourselves? 
 Yes like y«t how unlike — like sinners yet 
 holy. And whence the holiness ? Is it the 
 foul well of humanity that has ever kept 
 pouring out muddy, dirty, slimy, fetid wa- 
 ters before and since, which for one short 
 hour sent out such a sweet stream, that the 
 centuries as it flowed down have rejoiced 
 to drink of it ? Strange inexplicable life i» 
 God be not his special Father. Ab, it is the 
 incarnation alone which explains how this 
 sweet life flows from the bitter fount of 
 humanity. Tell mo not of the impossibili- 
 ty of the incarnation. Jesus had been im- 
 possible without it. The incarnation is the 
 only correct solution of the Problem 
 Chbist. 
 
 Wht'tiier in an enquiry of this kind we 
 should start with ine assumption of the 
 incarnation or arrive at it as our goal, is a 
 question for each enquirer, Neander, the 
 author of " Ecce Deus," and others, take 
 the fcMitier course. The author of " Ecce 
 Homo " having commenced with the mere 
 man life, has ascended to something ap- 
 proaching a Divine origin. "It pleased 
 the Father to l)eget no second son like 
 him,' is an expression pointing this way. 
 The course pui"sued by Strauss and Rcnan, 
 and others, assuming the miracle as impos- 
 sible, is utterly unscientific. It seems fairer 
 to assume nothing, to interrogate the facts, 
 letting them devclope conclusions, rather 
 than assuming conclusions to make the 
 facts accord with them. Th«! last mode 
 was that of necessity pursued by the disci- 
 ples. Having seen the works, companied 
 with the man, heard his words, considered 
 his claims, they were at last in a position 
 to answer the question, " Whom do you 
 say that I am ?" and intelligently to aflBrm, 
 " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God." It may be, however, thought that 
 this is an experience which cannot be re- 
 peated. They have announced a conclu- 
 sion which it is for us to verify. The 
 discoverer of a law in nature stands in a 
 diflbrent relation to it from any one who 
 may come after him. It is allowable .or 
 the follower to interrogate all the facts 
 which hav« led to the discovery, but from 
 the beginning he v/ill have reference to the 
 
12 
 
 THE LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES 
 
 conclusion of his predecessor — not, how- 
 ever, as having adopted it implicitly, but 
 as a thec-y by which the facts may be ex- 
 plained. I believe tiiat starting with the 
 incarnation es a doctrine, we shall find all 
 the facts take their proper place under it ; 
 and also that from the mere consideration 
 of the facte, we shall ultimately arrive at 
 the deity of Christ as the necessary law 
 from which such a life must flow. We ex- 
 press our conviction that the indisputable 
 character of Christ will necessitate the 
 affirmation of the miracle and of the incar 
 nation. This method of testing the cha- 
 racter with a view to the discovery of the 
 nature from which it springs, has great ad- 
 vantage with the sceptic. The character of 
 Christ puzzles him, confounds him. It is 
 a Sphinx which eats up all the daughters 
 of his thoughts. No Edlpus will ever solve 
 for him the riddle. I have seen no expla- 
 nation of the confessedly lofty, glorious, 
 pure character of Jesus from the pen of 
 Rationalism, which is not self-destructive, — 
 affirming what it denies, denying what it 
 affirms, — allowing so much to Christ that 
 it must allow all — a perfect manhood, sin- 
 lessness, sovereignty, God — nature. He is 
 a miracle, and why should He not begin in 
 miracle, evolve miracle, triumph over the 
 grave, trample on death, and ascend to God 
 as His natural fathei, and to heaven as His 
 native home ? 
 
 The argument against the miracles of 
 Christ often presents itself in the following 
 form. Miracles have been pretended in 
 all ages. We have apparently well attested 
 accounts of some of them. What can be 
 said to those of Port Royal &c. Where 
 shaH we stop? Admit those of Ciirist and 
 it is argued wo have no barrier against a 
 perfect inundation of the miraculous, 
 sweeping away the deductions of reason 
 and the facts of observation in a general 
 deluge — not even leaving us a Newton in 
 his Principia, like another Noah to float over 
 snbmerged science. Such is the form 
 which the reasoning assumes. But is this 
 reasoning reasonable? Having a good 
 claim to an estate should I be debarred 
 from an action at law for its recovery, on 
 the ground that other unfounded claims to 
 
 that or other estates will be encouraged by 
 my deed ? Absurd ! Because I believe 
 that those flashing brilliants in the crown 
 of the queen of the greatest empire are 
 dit\monds of incalculable worth, I am not 
 necessitated to admit, that the tiara of a 
 stage heroine, who assumes for the night 
 the sovereign character, is set with gems of 
 like worth, although their sheen may be as 
 dazzling. We come to probable conclus- 
 ions about paste and pearl, about coloured 
 glass and rubies, about tinsel and gold, 
 from a knowledge of the position and char- 
 acter of their wearers. In the moral world 
 we make like deductions. We want to 
 know who this priest, prophet, prince is, be- 
 fore we accredit him with the diamonds of 
 heaven and the signet of God. If indeed we 
 could bring them to the trial — make a per- 
 sonal eye witness examination, it would not 
 be necessary to say, or think much of the 
 quality of the possessors. But this we, 
 who live long after the shining acts, have 
 been hid in the night of the ages, only as it 
 were gleaming fitfully on us from the past, 
 cannot do. To an extent we still can do 
 this with telescopic thought — we can still 
 bring them near, and view their wondrous 
 majesty. But when dealing with those who 
 deny the evidence, who talk of the impro- 
 bability of God's granting those jewels of 
 his crown to be worn by any one — we may 
 shew that what were otherwise improbable 
 becomes only a natural assumption when 
 we find that it is from the head and bosom 
 of His own Son, that they flash their light 
 over the naturalism of the world. Is He, the 
 sinless one, the ohiy perfect man, the only 
 begotten of the Father, whose claims to 
 Godhead have been accepted by the highest 
 thinkers and the best of men — from Thomas 
 the leader of sceptics, and Paul the con- 
 verted persecutor, down to all who accept 
 his religion in its vital power, — as their 
 Lord and God. — I say, is he to stand in the 
 world without any other ornature save that 
 of His own transendent character ? Well, 
 He might have done so ; but assuredly 
 when we have accepted the miracle of his 
 being and character, we can feel but little 
 hesitation in accepting the belief that God 
 also by His own supernatural Son should 
 
 m 
 
OP THE ACQUITTAL OF JESUS. 
 
 13 
 
 perform supernatural works — not more in 
 attestation of his mission as God's ambas- 
 bassador and revealer, than as the proper 
 and fitting setting of the crown of moral glory 
 with which his own proper Godsonship had 
 already encircled his head. We believe him, 
 first for his words, which reveal to us his 
 character ; and we believe his works as the 
 secondary evidence of that great doctrine 
 which we have already received, — that 
 Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living 
 God. 
 
 Christ, then, when truly seen, known 
 with the feeling and heart, becomes to the 
 Christian his own evidence. I say seen — 
 rather than affirmed as the result of any 
 logical process. Indeed they who trust 
 alone to a verbal and constricted logic will 
 never know Christ, or only at a great dis- 
 tance. Lopic and reason are greatly lauded 
 by the sceptical school — and justly too ; — 
 but some other fine faculties of our nature 
 are too much despised in weighing religious 
 questions. Perhaps the sceptic will smile 
 when we quote Paul, that " with the heart 
 man believeth unto righteousness." What 
 have the heart and feeling to do with evi- 
 dence 1 it bus been said. Ah, it is a miser- 
 ably dry barren logic that tries to deal 
 with moral questions without them ! It is 
 like the tap-root of the tree proposing to do 
 without the million fibres which search 
 after all nourishments bringing them up 
 fo( the use of the root, which is thus but 
 as the channel through which the juices 
 pass, to the elaboration of bud and leaf- 
 flower and fruit. Upon the state of the 
 fibre as much as on that of the root is the 
 health of the tree dependent ; and upon the 
 .state of the feeling, as much as on that of 
 the reason, are true judgments and healthy 
 conclusions in the moral world founded. 
 A man of dull feeling, hard heart, and de- 
 praved moral sentiments, will as much miss 
 a true apprehension of the character of 
 Jesus Christ, as though reason were unseat- 
 ed and lunacy were ascendant. Indeed, 
 our perception of Christ's character is de- 
 pendent on our whole being — on our capa- 
 city as reasoners, and on our cliaracter as 
 men. What is Jesus to each man but his 
 ideas of Jesus ? What is anv man to us 
 
 but our ideas of him 1 The Jesus of the 
 Gospels is one, but the Jesus of each pers^yn 
 is many. There will be a general simili- 
 tude in the images within the souls of his 
 many worshippers, but each man will give 
 him a subjective colouring from the charac- 
 ter of his own reason and heart. There 
 are, no doubt, great specific types of opinion 
 regarding him, differing widely, not merely 
 as the leaves of the same tree differ, but as 
 the bramble from the pine. There is the 
 low humanitarian view, like ivy creeping 
 along the earth, taking hold of Christ a» 
 though he were some ancient tower to be 
 adorned with the graceful foliage of senti- 
 ment and compliment, but as belonging 
 essentially to the decaying past. Then 
 there is the view of the Arian, clinging 
 with its tendrils to his superhnm&nity, and 
 drawing its nourishment from the Divine 
 unigenitus ; and there is the still higher 
 Trinitarian view, which beside all that, lays 
 hold on Him with its hopes and worship as 
 very GodAjf very God, although within the 
 limits of the human. In these great types 
 of belief there is vast variety, corresponf'ant 
 with the clearness of the perceptions of 
 those who bold them, setting at defiance 
 the definitions of Athanasius. But as there 
 is a true type of the tree or of man, to 
 which each individual more or less conforms, 
 and yet is not absolutely alike, so there 
 is the true type or idea of Christ, to which 
 all men's souls which are made strong in 
 reason, and pure in heart, tend to conform, 
 — that is to say, who are regenerate, for 
 what is regeneracy in its effects but the 
 restoration of our whole being to strength 
 of reason, to purity of nature, to holiness 
 of purpose and life — the spirit of God 
 having used the truth for this very end, 
 that the Man of God might be made perfect. 
 Of course sanctification implies that the 
 capacity for truth and for righteousness 
 requires still further to be enlarged and 
 filled up, leaving room for differences of 
 opinion of Christ. Nor should there be 
 any attempt to force men to the adoption of 
 opinions which may have closer conformity 
 to the objective truth than those to which 
 they have already attained. By our con- 
 fessions and our catechisms, and our teach- 
 
!r~ 
 
 u 
 
 THE lOGlCAL CONSEQUENCES 
 
 ings, we ought to present the various Chris- 
 tian doctrines as near as possible to the 
 truth, as seen through the translucent mind 
 and pure heart ; but remembering, that the 
 only true teacher is Jesus himself, — and 
 that it is by seeing Jesus that the soul is 
 made fitter to see him better ; that it is by 
 the Gospel history that the spirit works in 
 purifying the soul, so that at last the trans- 
 figured Son of Grod stands before the illu- 
 minated mind of his disciples. It is only 
 by companying with Him, by hearing His 
 words, by considering His sweet inno- 
 cence. His dove-like purity. His unwearied 
 labour, His self-renunciation, His meekness 
 under suffering, — that, with Peter, we are at 
 last led to exclaim — " Thou art the Christ 
 the Son of the living God." ' - 
 
 We have thus, starting from the basis 
 which scepticism itself allows, arrived, by, 
 as we believe, a fair enquiry, at an intelli- 
 gent affirmation of the supernatural charac- 
 ter, Divine nature, and marvellous works 
 of Christ. Perhaps some of you may think 
 that I might have better employed my time 
 than in rehearsing and discussing objections 
 against our faith, with which the great 
 body of the Christian people are not trou- 
 bled. Probably, however, such a view will 
 be found to underrate the advances which 
 scepticism is making among the ranks of, 
 especially, the educated classes. In the 
 workf=hops of our cities among our artizans, 
 the theories I have brought before you are 
 subjects of common conversation. Scien- 
 tific men ignore Christianity. A portion 
 of the periodic press makes its daily, week- 
 ly, monthly and quarterly attacks upon it. 
 Scepticism is in th<; murky air of our cities; 
 our steamboats carry it on the seas and 
 rivers ; our locomotives through our towns 
 and villages, and the rural homestead often 
 feels the infection of doubt, and denial of 
 whatever is sacred. It is of Importance 
 that those who have been set apart to de- 
 fend the faith should be especially conver- 
 sant with the Attacks which have been and 
 now are being made upon it. The ostrich 
 hiding its head from the pursuer, is no 
 proper example to follow. Ignorance is a 
 shield through which the shafts of the 
 enemy reach the heart. Knowledge is a 
 
 better buckler He that would gain the 
 battle, must be able from a commanding 
 height to survey the whole field. It is as 
 necessary we shonid know what and where 
 the enemy's forces are, as the position and 
 powers at our disposal. To contemn the 
 enemy is often to lose the field. On the 
 other hand, ignorance often so magnifies 
 the foe as to induce retreat and bring dis 
 aster. He possesses poor courage who is 
 afraid to look both truth and error in the 
 ey?. We need to know what Christ's 
 enemies say of him, with their own lips, 
 and to deal fairly with their own words. 
 To misrepresent them is bad policy and 
 worse morals. — Christ listened to Satan and 
 answered him. He was not afraid to stand 
 before the judgment seat to be judged 
 fairly ; nor is he now afraid. All he wants 
 is that his disciples should not forsake him 
 and flee, but stand by him, and with the 
 words of truth defend him. He cannot 
 speak now, but by us. Let him not be 
 crucified among us, as he often has been 
 since Pilate gave sentence against him. 
 We may shrink and cower like the disci- 
 ples, while Jesus again bears his cross, and 
 bemuse we hide oui heads in ignorance, 
 think that all goes well with him and with 
 his cause. We may be debating who shall 
 be greatest in the kingdom, like the Jews 
 when the battering' rams of Titus were 
 shaking the solid walls of Jerusalem. Let 
 the people be at rest, but it is not good that 
 those to whom the leadership of Christ's 
 armies is entrusted "honld sleep through 
 the whole night, while attacks are made. 
 We ought also to make Wch enquiries for 
 our own sakes. It may be more comfort- 
 able to be at ease, free from the cares which 
 enquiry and discussion impose, as well as 
 from the doubts they may originate ; but it 
 is not good for an intellectual soul, were 
 no general issues at stake. " Never are the 
 truths of salvation properly received by us 
 without the free exercise of our own mental 
 powers." The reception of dogmas fron* 
 authority never produces right fliith. Even 
 thd faith which has sprung up in the soul 
 from the evidence of Jesus in his own 
 Gospel, will bear all the more and better 
 fruit from the stirring of the soil at the 
 
 '■■-f 
 
OP THE ACQUITTAL OF JESUS. 
 
 15 
 
 % 
 
 proper time. It seems as though it might 
 kill the tree to bare its roots to the cold 
 nipping frosts — yet true culture requires 
 this. Has not the Divine Husbandman 
 said, I will dig about it 1 What has He 
 been doing by those processes of thought 
 which the sceptical school have necessitated, 
 but baring, as it were, the very roots of 
 faith in all Christian souls, that they might 
 grow better. I can say from experience, 
 that I feel more truly and certainly chris- 
 tian, from re-investigation of the evidences 
 in the light of recent objections, but espe- 
 cially the gr^t evidence — the character of 
 Jesus. But, indeed, are we not doing this 
 always 1 "Whenever we open the Gospels 
 in a right spirit we are conscious of the 
 pure presence of Him who proceeded forth 
 and came from God. But, you bay, every 
 
 sceptical book and argument is a lui dark 
 shadow obscuring that character. Yes, but 
 I have observed that the Sun of Righicous- 
 nesss turns these clouds to heavenly glories. 
 In them we may, if wc are in His com- 
 pany, see Him transfigured. Jesus has so 
 shone, even upon many sceptic minds, that 
 they have raised for Him a tabernacle for 
 worship. We have gone beyond them Ik 
 their conclusions. They will rise to our 
 conceptions, we cannot descend to theirs. 
 We have placed on the mount of trans- 
 figuration the temple to which all nations 
 shall flow, and the eyes of all the ages shall 
 turn— where Jesus sits, in its holy of holies, 
 the sinless, the holy, the perfect— the Son 
 of Man and the Son of God, the only- 
 begotten — very Goo ot very God, Saviour, 
 Propitiation, Ruler and Judge. 
 
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