Inspiration of Christ's Biography

Tpie argument which has been thus pursued admits of still further extra-theological treatment; for example, here is a fourfold account of our Lord’s life and ministry — confessedly a life and ministry of extraordinary eventfulness and individuality, — is that account consistent with itself; is the progress of the narrative merely a high monotony, very successfully maintained, or Is there In It an ascending motion, carrying each point to higher significance, and covering the whole with accumulating glory? If we can find such harmony between the parts, and elucidate the progress of such a motion, we shall leave it to the reader to say whether such a result is merely a clever literary feat, or is an instance of what is meant by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost. In pursuing this inquiry we shall write critically rather than theologically, honestly endeavouring to collate the facts, and leaving the reader to determine his own theology. put no Inquiry just now as to the historic credibility of the New Testament writers; we do not discuss any questions in grammar or exegesis; we know nothing of commentators or schools of Interpretation; our one business Is to Inquire wh ihcr the fourfold account of the life of Jesus

Christ is consistent with itself, and whether there is anything so pecuHar in the consistency as to suggest that the evangelists wrote their gospels under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

The unique and perilous line of judgment is determined by the claim (at least) of yiii’aciiloiis conception. Not one point of departure from that claim can on any account be allowed. We must watch the evangelists with the keenest vigilance lest they slip from that elevation, so dangerous if not true, and become commonplace narrators of a sensational story. Miraculous conception is undoubtedly claimed for our Lord by His biographers. How, then, can S2ich a beginning have a corresponding progress and an appropriate culmination 1 Let us see.

Under the ancient economy, God had elected His ministers in a manner which was directly inverted in the birth of our Lord. In the ministers of the Old Testament God had sought to call up the human to the Divine; but in the Minister of the New Testament God brought down the divine to the human. Viewing the Old Testament dispensation as an elaborate attempt to train a man who should so far overcome all natural and incidental difficulties as to exert upon society the influence of a life absolutely perfect in its purity and aspirations, we are brought to the conclusion that the attempt, though conducted by the mysterious ministry of the Holy Ghost, was obviously unsuccessful: in Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and David, it is nol

Ijispiraiioii of Christ’’ s Biography. 45

difficult to find the blemish which proves this, and in proving it demonstrates the impossibility of training, under ordinary human conditions, an ideally perfect ministry. In reading the Old Testament we cannot escape a sense of gloomy and humiliating disappointment with the quality of its foremost men. They have excellences, and yet are not excellent; they have characteristics rather than character; at all events their character is more remarkable for its sides and aspects than for Its unity and indivisible massiveness; — only momentarily do they get away from the herd of common men, and afterwards they are the weaker for their transient elevation. The prophet and the minstrel often descend from their ecstacy, and resume the ordinary associations of life; the warrior never quite advances to victory; the sufferer always falls a little short of the perfection of patience; and the godliest saint seems to miss divinity by a hair’s breadth Under these circumstances, the promise of a New Testament docs not altogether allay the anxiety of hope so long deferred, and so vexed and mortified. Let imagination pause awhile at the last of the prophets, and attempt the task of outlining a Testament that shall be N’ew; New, and yet related to the Old; that shall, be faithful to the great purpose of the former dispensation, yet bring to bear upon it an order of instrumentality that shall neither make a machine of man, nor convict God of capricious changeableness in His method of working. ,. A great task will thus fall to the lot of imagination; let us see as clearly as we can what it is: — Imagination has before it, in the Old Testament, a written account of the creation of men, the giving of law, the establishment of family life, the appointment of religious ritual, and the history of mankind for thousands of years; — on the other hand the world is tormented and disquieted exceedingly, every method of alleviation seems to have been exhausted, and every new proposition is treated with angry or sorrowful distrust. Under these circumstances, it is required of imagination to suggest a Testament that shall be New. Suppose that after the most careful -reading of the ancient scriptures Imagination should decline the task as intellectually hopeless — protesting that everything possible to its own conception has already been attempted and exhausted — Imagination may on that very account be allowed to encounter with the severest criticism any suggestion that may be offered as a solution of the difficulty. Now (whatever may be thought of the theology of the case) it must be admitted that the writers of the New Testament do instantly address themselves to the one point which the Old Testament often promised but never reached. With most startling abruptness they invert the ancient metho.l, so that instead of man being made by God, God Himself becomes man — a virgin is found to be with child of the Holy Ghost — and for “thus saith the Lord” we have “thus is the Lord”! True or not true is not the immediate question. As a mere

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matter of fact here is progress: the first page of the New Testament presents a more wonderful disclosure than all the pages of the Old, and by so much excites a hope that the answer so long looked for may at last be about to come. A miraculous birth must not be followed by a commonplace life — the discrepancy would be intolerable — yt there must be in that life, if its mission be to recover and .sanctify the world, such simplicity and approachableness as shall qualify it for admission into society as ordinarily constituted; it must proceed to its loftiest acts with the stoop of inimitable condescension, and do its lowliest work with original and ineffable dignity. With a test so unique the least flaw in homogeneousness must be instantly detected.

Starting upon the basis of the incarnation — understanding by that term the miraculous conception — the student will put in two conditions, the fulfilment of which he must regard as absolutely indispensable to the completeness of Jesus Christ’s claim. Let us mark these two conditions very distinctly: —

I. The student must demand in an agent of professedly divine descent, such redundance of power as will carry him through all his engagements with the most perfect ease. He must never go up to his work as if it lay above him, but continually descend upon it as if his most marvellous achievements were rather a relaxation than an effort of his strength. If in any case there be a strani upon the power, the laboriousness of the attempt must tell against his claim; and if in an)- case there be the slightest possible failure of power, the aspirant must be convicted of the most shameful wickedness. In the work of one who has been begotten by the Holy Ghost, and who therefore claims to be “God with us,” we must never meet with almost a miracle, — a miscarriage of power,: — we must have omnipotence, and must condemn anything short of the almightiness of God, as an unpardonable sin. In what direction, then, does the evidence point? There are four witnesses: in what degree do they approach unanimity? There are blind, deaf, lame, leprous, and lunatic sufferers claiming Jesus Christ’s attention; He is brought to the sick, the dying, and the dead; He is asked to appease hunger, to expel devils, to silence tempests; and the student demands that all these things be done — not merely done, as if by a tremendous strain — but done with infinite ease, with inexhaustible wealth and exuberance of power. The evangelists say that Jesus Christ did so. Not an instance is recorded in which Jesus Christ’s power to work miracles showed the faintest sign of exhaustion. If there is such an instance, let it be pointed out. The disciples failed and confessed the failure, and even where they succeeded the)’ disowned applause by ascribing the result to their Master. The student must insist that the ease which marks the processes reported in the fmt chapter of Genesis, mark also the whole C()ur.-,o of the ministry of Jesus Christ if He be the incarnate form of the Creator. He must be more than powerful, — He must be tower; the mere attribute of strength must be swallowed up in His essential almiohtiness. The universe in all its compass and wonderfulness must lie In the hollow of His hand, and be as perfectly under His control as it is dependent on His sufficiency; He must not avail Himself of any calculus of probability; the law of distance, weight, force, adaptation, must be in Him as the lawgiver; His word must carry with it creation and destruction; He must fill all things. An exercise of power which is merely occasional, however startling and however beneficent, would rather excite suspicion than work conviction. Great efforts are often unintended signs of weakness, securing momentary applause for the discipline which they imply, but also eliciting pity for the exhaustion which they leave behind. A life of great efforts may very possibly be a life of great failures. The difficulty of the most honest and patient discipline is to keep a steady hold of its highest points, and so to become permanently equal to still higher tasks and aspirations. The most resolute disciplinarian can insiantly point out the line of his ability; within lliat line he is mighty, but beyond it he is powerless. In Jesus Christ something higher than mere discipline must be found. His power must be native, instant, immeasurable. He must, too, stand clearly out from all surroundings, not having even so much as where

E to lay His head, — He must have nothing but pure,” naked life, and with that He must rule all things as with the almightincss of God. The source of His power must not only be secret, it must necessarily confound every attempt to discover it, and its effects must be so thorough and so numerous as to force astonishment to the point of distraction, and to drive men either to spiritual homage or intellectual despair. Surely the attitude of the student as thus described is sufficiently vigilant and sufficiently obstinate. What, then, is the concurrent evidence of the four evangelists? A few quotations will make it clear: “The people were astonished and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works?” “WMience hath this man all these things?” “No man can do those miracles that Thou docst except God be with him.” “They were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well; He maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.” “They were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered.” “The multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel.” Now the student may decline at this stage of his inquiry to discuss the strictly theological import of these passages, as his one business is to determine how far such ex-i pressions harmonise with the alleged descent of thq Worker who elicited them. Are they the common expressions of vulgar amazement, or do they carry with them the wonder and pathos of the heart? Are they collated with cunning artistic skill, or is

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there behind them a secret which can be best accounted for by the ministry of the Holy Ghost? ‘hat can have been the richness of the power, which led one poor sufiring- woman to utter the greatest saying about It that jorobably was ever uttered, — “If I may but touch the hem of His garment I shall be made whole”! The critical inquirer will put peculiar value upon this testimony because it condenses into one pathetic sentence a great body of public opinion. If it is merely a stroke of dramatic genius it is a stroke of consummate power; if it is historically true it is conclusive evidence that Jesus Christ had produced in the public mind of His day an impression that His power was at once beneficent and boundless. There is, too, in connection with this incident a feature which the inquirer will appreciate as showing that the power, though boundless, was not lawlessly expended; instantly that the woman was healed, Jesus Christ knew that virtue had gone out of Him, and demanded to know who had touched Him. Was the power of His omniscience equal to the scope of His omnipotence? Was this carefulness of a merely Infinitesimal particle of His power at all In keeping with that minute economy which insisted that the fragments be gathered up that nothing should be lost? The honest and patient Inquirer will not leave these inquiries without a thorough siftinof.

2. In the second place the student must demand that In no case shall the exercise of Jesus Christ’s ability, how useful or splendid soever the result, be accompanied by any sign of astonishment on the part of the worker. Whilst astonishing the world, He alone must be free from astonishment. All unexpected successes, like all great efforts, betray the weakness of the workers as well as illustrate their strength, so much so that every discovery in civilisation is quite as certainly a lamp hung over human ignorance as It is a contribution to the brilliance of human wisdom. The student will proceed upon the principle that as it is impossible that omnipotence can put itself into doubtful competition with a difficulty, so God can never be surprised at the result of His own work. Surprise comes of ignorance, and elation of weakness. Yet, looking at the written life of Jesus Christ, the absence of astonishment is most marked. Not one trace of vain self satisfaction is to be found in any part of the fourfold narrative. Amazement is not forbidden to common workers, — it may, indeed, be advantageous to them, as well as to thosr in whose interests they work; for wonder should stimulate inquiry, and every unexpected glimpse of light be regarded as an invitation to profounder duty. There is no monotony in the highest and serenest intellectual life, for even when youthful passion subsides it is only to be succeeded if by a more placid yet by a more exquisite enjoyment; the )-oung worker may be unable to suppress his Eureka, buL the silence of the maturer thinker is not to be mistaken for insensibility. Can men receive revelations of the depth and beauty of truth without emotion?

Or can they put into common words the divine addresses which they have heard in the secrecy of their own souls, without being startled by every tone which even imperfectly reproduces the mystic music which divides the realm of utterance from the realm of silence? Articulation (we must again insist) is the difficulty of the highest thought. What if articulation should so far reach the point of success as to betray surprise and joy on the part of the startled speaker? Nothing will be more natural or more rationally explicable. He is accounted the strong man who can suppress his emotions while prosecuting his work, and so highly is this self-suppression valued, that, not seldom is the dignity of noble self-control counterfeited by the unhealthy and demoralising conceit of indifference in the presence of the most exciting events. Let it be assumed, however, as proved by the best human culture, that strength brings quietness, and that conscious power holds surprise in check, we have to account for the fact that a man who enjoyed no such culture, healed the lame, the blind, the deaf, the leprous, and all manner of diseased people; that He quieted the sea, dispossessed devils, and raised the dead, and yet never betrayed any symptom of surprise, was never startled by unexpected results, or excited by successes which filled all orders of society with the most bewildering amazement. The worker was never unbalanced: the worker was always greater than His work: He worked as though power was the least of His characteristics, and was put forward only as an introduction to an infniltcly

54 I^Ji Paraclete,

hiofher blcssinof. The student will iind that his demand for the entire absence of surprise is thoroughly satisfied by the fourfold biog-raphy of Jesus Christ; and in noting the variety and completeness of the evidence, he will not overlook an incidental but most’ vivid illustration of Christ’s estimate of surprise in others. On one occasion the disciples told Him with wondering joy that even the devils were subject to them through His name, and He answered that they were not to rejoice supremely in such events, but rather to rejoice that their names were written in heaven, — personal rightness being better than functional success. Another aspect of the same teaching is shown in an instance of surprise at their failure; they had tried to expel a devil and had not succeeded; their failure occasioned them surprise as’well as humiliation, whereupon Jesus Christ expelled the tormentor, and told His astonished disciples privately the spiritual conditions by which alone success was possible In such cases. So that He had actually to deal with the operation of surprise within the circle of His nearest friendships, and to save His disciples from the effects of elation and disappointment by drawing them into deeper appreciation of purely spiritual privilege and discipline.

Next — how to humanise such a life — how to make it approachable — how to adapt it to ordinary society! Is this done by the evangelists, and If done is It so accomplished as to be but a literary feat or the work of a supernatura-l and Inspiring agent? Jesus Christ was the Son of Mary as well as the Son of

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God, and therefore His course must supply some conditions in many respects almost irreconcilable with the claim of divinity, — in one word, how to be God and man at the same time! If as God He has entered into the flesh that He may be visibly nearer men, and more sensibly acccssii:>le to them, He must so attemper or conceal His divinity as not to alarm them by unearthliness, and yet so gloriously display it as to secure their confidence and homage. His life must answer the question. Can God in very deed dwell with men upon the earth? To be God and man so distinctly that each can be felt, and yet so unitedly that no division line can be seen, is the intricate part which He has to play. This is surely a great problem in art, giving scope enough for failure: one slip will dispossess Him of His crown, — one false accent will prove Him the most daring of empirics. He must be with men, 3’et not of them: on the earth, yet in heaven: familiar with men, yet separate from sinners: he must enlighten the world, yet be as a sun which no hand can touch; — this is His task — how to simplify the infinite — how to stoop from heaven!

In putting the existence of these conditions to the test, it must be noticed that Jesus Christ lived much in public, and so gave opportunity enough for general criticism. There is no evidence in the fourfold narrative that He was ever indisposed on the ground of fear to meet any section of society: He conversed with equal freedom with doctors and peasants, and His social life was even too liberal for the narrow notions of conventional purists. His was not a monastic life; He went to be guest with men known to be sinners; He sat at the tables of men whose hospitality was intended as a temptation; He went to the marriage feast and the house of mourning; He loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus; He took little children in His arms and blessed them; He spoke hopefully to women who had lost the standing of sisterhood. In His manner of doing all this was there any originality of movement, any savour of heavenliness, any grandeur of simplicity? The critical student will look everywhere for the divine signature: the minutest things must bear the sacred initials, and the greatest must be glorified by the incommunicable Name. When Jehovah descended into the bush He filled it with undestroying fire, — when, in our fiesh, He walks along the common highways of life will He scorch us with intolerable heat? In ordinary life there is seldom any difficulty in distinguishing the quality of the actor, even in the simplest actions; a tone will tell the education of the speaker, a courtesy will discover his status. Nor can the quality of the actor be altogether concealed by external accidents: under the richest surface it is not difficult to see the native meanness of some souls, whilst through the poorest raiment there may shine transfiguring light. Little natures reserve themselves for ofreat occasions: majestic natures make all occasions great. There are codified lives that can move only as the book permits, and there are controlling lives that hold prescription in contempt. A remembrance of this

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fact must be carried into our examination of Jesus Christ’s written life, and to Him must be given the advantage which would be justly conceded even to an unknown name.

When Jesus Christ sat down to meat with the leading men of the times, did He ever omit to turn the conversation towards heaven? When an ardent admirer exclaimed, “Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked,” did He not instantly answer, “Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it”? When called upon to define neighbourliness, did He fear to exalt the despised Samaritan above the priest and the Levite? When the disciples would have turned away the aspiring mothers who brought their children to be blessed, did He not receive the little ones with condescending grace, and startle the self-consciousness and self-idolatry of many by saying, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven “? Did He fear to put a higher value on the mites of the widow than on the gold of the rich? These inquiries must be answered, and the reasons of the answers must be searched into with inexorable resoluteness.

Not only was Jesus Christ much in public, He was also much in secret. He withdrew to solitary places, and was accustomed to be alone in prayer. These withdrawments must have some meaning; they throw an air of solemnity over the narrative, and almost constrain criticism into worship. What if in some instances they imply weakness, and even exhaustion, on the part of the worker? This is precisely what was wanted to complete the arg-ument upon the all-sufficiency and redundance of Jesus Christ’s power, for nowhere along the line of that power have we come to any assurance of Jesus Christ’s manhood; it steadily ascended rather towards the terribleness of omnipotence! What was wanted was a pause, a break of weakness, perhaps a cry of exhaustion. An unwearying flesh could hardly have prepared us for a compassionate divinity; it required the imperfection of infirmity to complete (for human purposes) the perfection of strength: so great is the mystery of godliness! Yet the inquirer will watch tremblingly lest there be any decay of power on the side that is supposed to be divine: he will read that Jesus was weary with His journey, and yet in the moment of His weakness He offered to give the water which springeth up into everlasting life; he will find that though Jesus felt the cravings of hunger, yet there was power enough in His word to wither the fruitless fig-tree; he will find Jesus Christ asleep on account of weariness induced by long service, and in a moment he will hear this same Jesus commanding the winds and the waves to be still; he will find that Jesus wept, and while the tears were yet in His eyes He called Lazarus from the grave. All these things are plainly written in the evangelical narrative, and it is, therefore, for the student to say how far such perilous juxtapositions of weakness and power, tears and almightiness, were bold literary conceptions on

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the part of the writers, and how far they have any claim to have been dictated by an inspiring Spirit. The critic must say whether in this dual manifestation there is the peculiar kind of consistency which is required to support the theory that Jesus Christ was begotten of the Holy Ghost; and he must assign some value to the fact that in no instance did Jesus Christ employ what may be called the purely divine side of His power to save Himself from the infirmities incident to ordinary human life: He wrought no private miracle for merely selfish protection, butf was in all points tempted as other men; in short He never made any deceptive use of His omnipotence; He was not a man by mere pretence, professedly weak and suffering, yet secretly availing Himself of sources inaccessible to His deluded disciples. The consideration of this circumstance is the more important because all the signs of destitution which marked the life of Jesus Christ were precisely such as common reason would pronounce incompatible with the claim of a divine personality and ministry; they provoked contempt, they enfeebled and actually contradicted the very aims which Jesus Christ was so desirous to subserve. How, then, to find consistency in such apparent inconsistency? The student will pause to ask whether it is not through seeming contradictions that the verity ot truth is most strongly established? Falsehood descends from verity to contradiction; truth ascends from contradiction to verity: the child smiles at the self-contradictory idea that motion can be so rapid as to become rest, — the man knows that but for this fact the universe would stagger and perish. What if Jesus Christ has shown that to be most a man it was necessary to become hardly a man at all, — that is, to go down to the lowest possible point, and to be without form or comeliness or reputation?

Passing from the works of Jesus Christ the student has next to consider whether the scope and tone of His teaching (regarded as a spiritual revelation and an ethical testimony) are in keeping with the theory of His miraculous conception. It must be insisted. that Jesus Christ’s teaching shall prove itself to have properties which contradistinguish it even from the inspired teaching of Moses, the psalmists, and the prophets. But in insisting upon this contradistinction is the student aware how great a question he is raising? Nothing less than the inquiry — How can inspiration exceed itself y This question is met by the bold answer that in coming to Jesus Christ we have passed from Inspiration to the Inspirer, — 2l teacher whose doctrine is rather a living Presence than a written testimony. The student must bear in mind that this supposed Son of God cannot be allowed to contradict Moses, the psalmists, and the prophets; He must work strictly in their line, and undertake to carry their work forward to the point of culmination: He cannot be permitted to begin by ignoring the moral history of the world; He fnust accept it, and prove His authority not by diputition but by fulfilment. To deny or underrate the claim of Moses an the prophets wculd be to bring- divine inspiration into discredit; on the other hand, to give them a higher signification, and actually to displace them as the fruit displaces the blossom, is the most difficult, as it is the most ambitious, work which any man can propose to accomplish. Candour, then, requires instant recognition of the fact that in the fourfold narrative of His life Jesus Christ is distinctly represented as addressing Himself to His apparently impossible task. Here, at all events, is dauntless courage. Of course mere intrepidity considered strictly in itself may amount to nothing, yet in such a case as is now being examined the absence of it would be fatal to any claim of divinity, for God cannot hesitate, omnipotence cannot falter. That Jesus Christ frankly accepted the history of the divine government of men, as expounded or administered by inspired agents, is clear from His own words, — “Think not that I am come tp destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” At this point the intrepidity of Christ assumes peculiar value, because He defines its function, and that function is sublime alike in its difficulty and purpose. He admits nothing of failure in preceding dispensations: He does not depreciate the work of others that He may magnify His own; He undertakes to deal with the intentional incompleteness of introductory economies and to complete the circumference of revelation. In this. He proceeds upon the theory that God’s gov’crnmcnt is indivisible.

always consistent with itself, constantly evol /ing homogeneous and progressive truths. If it be justly held that teachers are reliable in proportion to the compass and grasp of their minds, some confidence must be due to Jesus Christ on the ground that He — a peasant unlettered and poor — is represented in the narrative of His ministry as dealing with doctrines which relate to nothing less solemn and comprehensive than the growth and destiny of human nature. Instead of denying the beginning, He founded a distinct claim upon it, — “Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me; but if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?” A great plea for the oneness and simplicity of God’s government!

As in the case of the works, so in the case of the words, there are two conditions which must be fulfdlcd: (i) An unequivocal claim on the part of Jesus Christ to be the Inspirer; and (2) A corresponding excitement on the part of those to whom the claim was addressed. Let us attend to’ each of these conditions. With regard to the first we cannot but be struck with the persistent identification of His own personality with the doctrine which He taught; He did not merely say, I teach the truth. He said I am the truth, — not merely I show the life, but I am the life; I am not merely inspired, I am the Inspirer Himself The inspired man is the exceptional man; of him it may be said not so much he knoius, as he is, for inspiration o

increases as well ?,^ sanctifies the volume of a man’s being. Most of iis stop at education, beingunable to reach the higher point, the point of inspiration; we have property, but not life; we are an accumulation of details; we know much, but are nothing. In the case of Jesus Christ, we find Him constantly work from His own personality, thus: — “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life; I am the bread of life, he that cometh to Me shall never huno-er, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst; he that believeth on Me hath everlasting life; I am the living bread which came down from heaven; I am the vine, ye are the branches; without Me ye can do nothing; I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man c»meth unto the Father but by Me; I am the good Shepherd; I give unto My sheep eterna’ life; he that seeth Me seeth Him that sent Me; he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; I and My Father are one.” Here is certainly a new type of man. To have conceived the notion that truth was capable of personal embodiment, and that life was the highest expression of law, was a great advance upon all former thinking; and to set Himself forth as that embodiment and that law was an assumption so novel and so startling as only to be justified by the. highest evidence. Is there, then, any accord between such an asswnption a.Dd such a dirt/i? Is it possible that never man spake like this man, because never man was born like this man? Look at the peculiarities of His speaking before answering this qucstiop. His speaking was extemporaneous as well as considered and deliberate: He gave Immediate answer;? to all kinds of questions suddenly and carefully put; attempts were made to take Him unawares, to entangle Him In His sjDeech, and to lure Him towards dangerous ground, yet He confounded the wise and took the crafty in their own craftiness. He never asked for time; he never complained of inequality; He was never betrayed into unguarded expressions which were recalled to be amended, — all this is upon the record: how came it to be there — by dramatic genius or by divine inspiration? Say that in Christ dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and these peculiarities of speech are at once made plain; deny it, and there remains the mystery that He did in the most explicit terms claim to be the Insplrer and Lord of the church. What of the second condition, that is to say a corresponding excitement on the part of those who heard Jesus Christ put forth the claim? In answering this question the inquirer will bear in mind that the people who heard Jesus Christ had enjoyed the advantage of long training, ancestral and personal, in divine things, and were by so much specially qualified to form an opinion upon religious teaching: “Unto them were committed the oracles of God,... to them pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;” to them had been addressed the question, “What nation is there so Qr-reat that hath statutes and judgments, so righteous as all this law?” Upon such a people it would be difficult, with merely commonplace sentiment and utterance, to make a deep impression. According to the narrative (fourfold, be it remembered) Jesus Christ roused their deepest emotions: —” The people were astonished at His doctrine, for He taught them as one having authority: they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying. What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? and all bare Him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth: they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works? They were astonished at His

doctrine, for His word was with power.” On the other hand He provoked contemptuous criticism: He came from a proscribed place; He adopted the most lowly surroundings; He drew upon Himself the extremest hatred of so-called righteous men: in His case the law of analogy and sequence was upset; the ascertainable elements of His personality did not account for the sum total of His Being, — so there He stood, at once a plague and a blessing, a stranger and a friend, a miracle and a worker of a miracle, a monster or a God! The student has to consider whether such results are mutually accordant, whether the Inspirer could have hesitated to make a distinctive standing ground for Himself, whether the Inspirer could possibly have taken any but

Athe foremost position, and whether the rejection of the Inspirer is not precisely the offence which would bring to a crisis the sin and madness of the world.

Here a difficulty may arise. A man who claims to have been begotten by the Holy Ghost may, from that very circumstance, be expected to be so transcendental in his teaching- as to disqualify himself for being a factor in the practical morals of the common-place and everyday world; his standpoint will be so distant and so unapprcclable that even the strongest reasoners will be unable to follow him; his teaching will be so apocalyptic and celestial as quite to miss the earthward and disciplinary side of human life. In one word, Will not such a man be too great for the occasion?

In looking at this difficulty, the student will remind himself how nearly impossible it has been for some of the highest mortal minds to simplify themselves so as to be understood even by average thinkers: those minds have almost originated planes of their own, and the universal language of a nation has been minted into new values by the unique uses to which such minds have turned it. This, however, will but remotely touch the difficulty in hand, because Jesus Christ’s pretensions exclude Him from the class of so-called original thinkers: such is the professedly benevolent purpose of His mission, that we must insist that the lliht which is shed out of the heavens of His tiivinity be so attempered as neither to dazzle nor scorch this everyday life of infirm and erring mortals. In a word, there must be the same approachableness on the side of His wisdom, as was happily discovered on the side of His power. Can the fact of such approachableness be established?

There are two sources of proof: there is first of all the direct moral teaching” of Jesus Christ, — notably the sermon on the mount, abounding in laws and maxims which the most ordinary perception can comprehend; and secondly, there is the most considerate reticence on the part of Jesus Christ, shown in such passages as — “He spake the word unto them as they were able to hear it, — I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Was it the least of His mercies that He carried the burden of truth for His church? His followers were eventually to bear it for themselves, yet (according to the promise) it was to be so gradually and effectually wrought into their very being by the Holy Ghost that, instead of being a burden, it was to be their peace and joy. Thus we come upon a power boundless and terrible, yet controlled and repressed; a power, in fact, that rises to the perfection of gentleness; and then we come upon a doctrine of like kind, stretching beyond the ken of all human sagacity and genius, yet descending into common daily life, and calling all men to a morality ineffable as the purity of God. In doing and teaching all this, there is on the part of Jesus Christ a most sweet hartnony of power and wisdom and love. What He could have done! What He could have said! Yet as God, all-miohty and all-good, adapted the light to the eye and the eye to the light, so as to bless men with the gifts of day and summer, so this worker of miracles and setter forth of strange doctrines tempered His majesty by an unspeakable condescension.

As the narrative of Jesus Christ’s life moves towards its more tragic scenes, the reader who believes in the miraculous conception feels at a loss to anticipate an exit which will be in keeping with so remarkable a besinninof. For a time the line of consistency if not broken is most darkly obscured. The mighty Man is bound as a prisoner; the Inspirer is dumb; He who never paused for an answer allows His life to be sworn away by false witnesses! Here the line of consistency appears to be at end, and Christianity, in the person of its Founder, perishes in an ignominious anticlimax. This is a moment — this moment of the Cross — of almost intolerable excitement to the reader. In his distress, he may forget the great law of life and all its labour — “Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.” Jesus Christ died and rose again; but having risen again, how is He to leave the world in a manner befitting the peculiarity of His coming into it .^ To this question there is a wonderful answer — so quiet, so complete — He ascended! Not in a chariot of fire, as if He had been sent for; He went up of His own will and by His own power; the consenting heavens received Him out of sight, without a sound to break the awful stillness. He who came as never man came, went as never man went. He ascended!

This is the argument. The question for the reader is — How can such a narrative be accounted for? How did so minute and subtle a unity come to be? Before answering it he will be reminded that as all writers of fiction endeavour to secure artistic completeness, so the writers of the gospels may have succeeded in inventing a coherent romance. To this suo-oestion there is a decisive answer: —

First: There are four authors, — not one. merely, who had but his own taste to consult and satisfy.

Second: No dramatist ever attempted to work with such extraordinary conditions as are found in the life of Jesus Christ.

Third: The Christian narrative is singularly defective in the very kind of unity which mere artists regard as essential to completeness, — so defective that some critics have not hesitated to say that th have discovered In it several discrepancies. In the construction of the gospels there is no sign of artistic effort; the unity is spiritual and latent, not literal and demonstrative.

Fourth: The moral purpose sought to be accomplished by the gospels makes it impossible that they can be mere inventions of dramatic genius. That moral purpose is to save men, to bring them to God, and to give them peace; the inconsistency of such a purpose with the representation of a dramatic personage as a living Saviour is so gross as to be, not only an offence in letters, but a crime in morality. On this theory we are asked to believe that lies are a proper medium for the transmission of truth, and that truth itself is so unimportant that it may be modified, intermixed with error, concealed or perverted, without the slightest disadvantage either to itself or to mankind. This theory is the more rnonstrous and incredible when viewed in the light of the fact that certain portions of the book which present this subtle and impressive unity, distinctly claim to be “^ merely parabolical and figurative; in doing so, they separate themselves from other portions which are thus by implication clothed with a different quality and degree of authority. We must insist that where one portion is distinctly marked as parabolical, the implication is that the portions not so marked are to be taken as history is ‘taken in contradistinction to fiction.

With this strong protest against the merely artistic or fictional theory, we must leave the reader to answer the inquiry, — How can such a nanmtive as is found in the fourfold life of Jesus Christ be accounted for?

The reasoning of the last three chapters has proceeded upon the principle that Inspiration should be its own witness; that is to say, there should be something about an inspired book which there is about no other, and that particular something should not be (i) mere fineness of words, for that is possible (and all the more probable) where th( thought is common-place and feeble; nor (2) mere solemnity of formal claim, which would in all likelihood be the first thing provided for by an ordinarily prudent impostor; nor must it be (3) the unapproachableness which forbids the scrutiny of reason, and precludes the possibility of forming a personal and independent opinion. It must be an indescribable something, which is in the very life and texture of the revelation itself, which is all the more definite because of its indefiniteness, and all the more authoritative because of its want of that special kind of assumption which marks human legislature and judgment. Undoubtedly an inspired book will have much in common with ordinary life and thought, simply because life and thought are themselves the work of the same Spirit. It must never be forgotten that man himself is an inspiration, seeine that God “breathed into him the breath of life,” and especially remembering that it is in the Bible itself that man is thus described — “There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding:” in speaking, therefore, of an inspired book, it must not be forgotten that it is addressed to a being who has himself received some degree of the inspiration of which the book is probably the most distinct and copious expression, and for this very reason there may be (perhaps must be) much in the book which man will think he could have found out for himself, something also which he may suppose himself capable of rivalling, yet somethmg just above him, tempting his ambition and tantalising his efforts, — so near yet so far, — a sheet, plainly enough, and full of common looking things, yet the four corners are fastened in heaven! Is this the method of inspiration which commends itself to the human judgment? Is it not in its very nature most human, yet something more? Does it not stand in relation to all other methods* as Nature stands to Art? In some instances, especially in the distance, Art does seem to rival Nature; she makes beautiful figures and delicate flowers, and has attained marvellous skill in the treatment of colour; yet may it not be said most truthfully — Among those that have appeared in sculpture there hath not been a greater than the master-piece of Angelo, nevertheless the poorest and meanest child in the kingdom of life infinitely transcends his proudest monument. It is, if this argument is sound, the ‘same with inspiration. Even as it is found in the Bible, coming through all human imperfection and dependent in some degree on the weary and erring fingers of many scribes, it asserts itself with a vitality and a dignity which cannot be mistaken. Inspiration must inspire, or its claim is arbitrary and untenable. On this orround the foreeoine argument has inexorably proceeded, and there we are content to rest it; still, it is only just to the case that the Bible should be allowed to give what ma’ be called its own notion of inspiration: here and there in its pages may be found some account of how it came to be inspired, and some idea of whi;, the term “inspiration.” means. Let it be observed it is only here and there that such indications are to be found, and let the reader reflect whether the very casualty of the references is not an argument in favour of the Bible. Which is the man of true quality, — He who labels himself with genealogical tables and lives on the reputation of his fathers, or he

in whose conversation and behaviour there are references and characteristics positively unaccountable except on the hypothesis that his descent is pure and illustrious. Let us hear what the Bible says about its own inspiration : —

“God ifi divers mariners spake in time past tent othe fathers by the prop lie ts!’ Does not this read rather as an incidental reference than as a formal assertion of superiority? It certainly does so when taken with the context, thus — “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the piphets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.” Is this a probable method of revelation; is it likely that a revelation from heaven would be broken up in time and method? It strikes us not only as pre-eminently probable, but as necessary if it was to address the whole world. The diversity of manner must not be overlooked as bearing upon the universality of the revelation; here is repetition without sameness, identity without monotony. Not only were the “fathers” themselves variously constituted, there was variety in the “manners” which God Himself adopted. Is it in harmony with His known administration in nature and providence to be varied in His methods, or did He hide this phase of His power until He came to indite the Bible? The argument is not that men are differently constituted, and that therefore inspiration would have different effects upon them; it is that the variety of manner was chosen by the Almighty Himself, and that the Bible would have been just as varied as it is even though it had been written throughout by the same human hand. Then as to the method of development, is that at all natural or likely? Is it probable that the Almighty would proceed by an ascending or descending: scale? We are told that He beoan by sending the prophets, and that afterwards He sent His Son. Is it likely that He would do so, or is it not? Would He first have sent His Son and subsequently have sent the prophets? Look at His plan in nature, in physical growth, in intellectual expansion, and in tlft light of undisputed instances determine the probabilities of a hypothetical case.

Another account is this — “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghosts Is this laboured or far-fetched.’* Observe the variety of the particulars in this one brief sentence: “Holy,” then the character was in keeping with the work; “Men,” then the Bible is the product of various witnesses, and thus the points of confirmation or disproof are numerous; “As they were moved,” then they had no control over their inspiration; it might come upon them without notice, it might use them as instruments for the occasion, and then leave them as common men. We know that their speech was fervent, broken, impassioned, urgent, and emphatic as the hammer of the Lord. But is such speech at all in harmony with the “movement” by the Holy Ghost which is claimed for them? Is there ardour enough to suggest the Spirit of burning? Is there coherence enough to suggest the Spirit of judgment? Of course human curiosity wishes to know how the holy men were moved; but this is not the only point on which human curiosity must remain unsatisfied, — “the wind* bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it eoeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit,” whether by way of inspiration, regeneration, or sanctification. The prophets themselves probably knew as little of the mystery of this “movement” as we ourselves do, for what can the instrument know of the music which is breathed through it, or how can the brain tell how the dream passed through it without asking consent or favour? Until men can explain their own intellectual excitements, they need not make an insuperable difficulty of the inspiration of the “holy men of God.” Every man is his own mystery.

Again: ‘’All scripture is given by inspiratio7i of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteottsness, that the man of God 7nay be perfect, thionghly furnished unto all good works.” So inspiration, like every

76 1 lie Paraclete.

other great gift of God, Is for man’s sake. Consider how this argument might have been turned. thus — “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, therefore all inquiry is foreclosed, every exercise of reason is forbidden, private judgment is disallowed, the whole book must be accepted with blind unquestioning faith, and kept at a distance like an idol in a sacred house.” Instead of this, the doctrine is that inspiration was granted solely in the interests of man. There is nothing said about the abstract glory of God, the majesty of the Creator, or’ the sublimity of the invisible kingdom; the whole idea turns upon the culture, the correction, and the edification of man, and therefore, instead of being clouded into a theological mystery, it becomes a gracious human benefaction. Happily we can compare this representation of its purpose with other statements which bear upon the divine orovernment: if it harmonise, well; if not, something will be taken from its value. Is it in harmony with the gift of Jesus Christ? The purpose of that gift was distinctly the salvation of man. Is it in keeping with the departure of Jesus Christ out of this world? That departure is thus explained: “It is expedient Jor you that I go away.” Is it in harmony with the general intention of the gifts of God? That intention is thus declared: all things are yours, and again., all things are for your sakes. Within this scheme how naturally does inspiration come, — Scripture is inspired thatjv?/ maybe instructed and perfected!

This, then, is the testimony of the Bible respecting its own inspiration. Whether that inspiration is the formidable and inexplicable d fficulty which it has been supposed to b(i. the reader must be left to decide for himself.