206

Christus, si non Deus, non bonus.'

not God, He is not a humble or an unselfish man. Nay, He is not even sincere; unless indeed we have recourse to a supposition upon which the most desperate of His modern opponents have not yet ventured, and say with His jealous kinsmen in the early days of His Ministry, that He was beside Himselft. Certainly it would seem that there must have been strange method in a madness which could command the adoration of the civilized world; nor would any such supposition be seriously entertained by those who know under what conditions the very lowest forms of moral influence are at all possible. The choice really lies between the hypothesis of conscious and culpable insincerity, and the belief that Jesus speaks literal truth and must be taken at His word u.

You complain that this is one of those alternatives which orthodoxy is wont to substitute for less violent arguments, and from the exigencies of which you piously recoil? But under certain circumstances such alternatives are legitimate guides to truth, nay, they are the only guides available. Certainly we cannot create such alternatives by any process of dialectical manufacture, if they do not already exist. If they are not matters of fact, they can easily be convicted of inaccuracy. We who stand in this pulpit are not makers or masters of the eternal harmonies; we can but exhibit them as best we may. Truth, even in her severer moods, must ever be welcome to sincerity; and she does us a service by reminding us that it is not always possible to embrace within the range of our religious negations just so much dogma as we wish to deny, and to leave the rest really intact. It is no hardship to reason that we cannot deny the conclusion of a proposition of Euclid, without impugning the axioms which are the basis of its demonstration. It is no hardship to faith that we cannot deny the Divinity of Jesus, without casting a slur upon His Human Character. There are

t Channing, Works, ii. 56: "The charge of an extravagant, self-deluding enthusiasm is the last to be fastened on Jesus. Where can we find traces of it in His history? Do we detect them in the calm authority of His precepts; in the mild, practical, beneficent spirit of His religion; in the unlaboured simplicity of the language in which He unfolds His high powers and the sublime truths of religion; or in the good sense, the knowledge of human nature which He always discovers in His estimate and treatment of the different classes of men with whom He acted? The truth is, that, remarkable as was the character of Jesus, it was distinguished by nothing more than by calmness and self-possession.'

Cf. Guizot, Méditations sur l'Essence de la Religion Chrétienne. Paris, 1864, pp. 324–326.

Christ's Godhead warranted by His character. 207

fatal inclines in the world of religious thought; and even if men deem it courteous to ignore them, such courtesy is scarcely charitable. If our age does not guide anxious minds by its loyal adherence to God's Revelation, its very errors may have their uses; they may warn us off ground, on which Reason cannot rest, and where Faith is imperilled, by enacting before our eyes a reductio ad absurdum or a reductio ad horribile.

Of a truth the alternative before us is terrible; but can devout and earnest thought falter for a moment in the agony of its suspense? Surely it cannot. The moral Character of Christ, viewed in connection with the preternatural facts of His Human Life, will bear the strain which the argument puts upon it. It is easier for a good man to believe that, in a world where he is encompassed by mysteries, where his own being itself is a consummate mystery, the Moral Author of the wonders around him should for great moral purposes have taken to Himself a created form, than that the one Human Life which realizes the idea of humanity, the one Man Who is at once perfect strength and perfect tenderness, the one Pattern of our race in Whom its virtues are combined, and from Whom its vices are eliminated, should have been guilty, when speaking about Himself, of an arrogance, of a self-seeking, and of an insincerity which, if admitted, must justly degrade Him far below the moral level of millions among His unhonoured worshippers. It is easier, in short, to believe that God has consummated His works of wonder and of mercy by a crowning Self-revelation in which mercy and beauty reach their climax, than to close the moral eye to the brightest spot that meets it in human history, and— since a bare Theism reproduces the main difficulties of Christianity without any of its compensations to see at last in man's inexplicable destiny only the justification of his despair. Yet the true alternative to this frightful conclusion is in reality a frank acceptance of the doctrine which is under consideration in

Channing, Works, ii. 61: 'I know not what can be added to heighten the wonder, reverence, and love, which are due to Jesus. When I consider Him, not only as possessed with the consciousness of an unexampled and unbounded majesty, but as recognising a kindred nature in all human beings, and living and dying to raise them to a participation of His divine glories; and when I see Him under these views allying Himself to men by the tenderest ties, embracing them with a spirit of humanity which no insult, injury, or pain could for a moment repel or overpower, I am filled with wonder as well as reverence and love. I feel that this character is not of human invention, that it was not assumed through fraud or struck out by enthusiasm; for it is infinitely above their reach."

208 The Christ of history is the Christ of dogma.

these lectures. For Christianity, both as a creed and as a life, depends absolutely upon the Personal Character of its Founder. Unless His virtues were only apparent, unless His miracles were nothing better than a popular delusion, we must admit that His Self-assertion is justified, even in the full measure of its blessed and awful import. We must deny the antagonism which is said to exist between the doctrine of Christ's Divinity and the history of His human manifestation. We must believe and confess that the Christ of history is the Christ of the Catholic Creed.

Eternal Jesus! it is Thyself Who hast thus bidden us either despise Thee or worship Thee. Thou wouldest have us despise Thee as our fellow-man, if we will not worship Thee as our God. Gazing on Thy Human beauty, and listening to Thy words, we cannot deny that Thou art the Only Son of God Most High; disputing Thy Divinity, we could no longer clearly recognise Thy Human perfections. But if our ears hearken to Thy revelations of Thy greatness, our souls have already been won to Thee by Thy truthfulness, by Thy lowliness, and by Thy love. Convinced by these Thy moral glories, and by Thy majestic exercise of creative and healing power, we believe and are sure that Thou hast the words of eternal life. Although in unveiling Thyself before Thy creatures, Thou dost stand from age to age at the bar of hostile and sceptical opinion; yet assuredly from age to age, by the assaults of Thine enemies no less than in the faith of Thy believing Church, Thou art justified in Thy sayings and art clear when Thou art judged. Of a truth, Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ; Thou art the Everlasting Son of the Father.

Channing might almost seem to have risen for a moment to the full faith of the Church of Christ in the following beautiful words; Works, ii. 57: 'I confess when I can escape the deadening power of habit, and can receive the full import of such passages as the following: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" "I am come to seek and to save that which was lost;" "He that confesseth Me before men, him will I confess before My Father in Heaven;" "Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me before men, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He cometh in the glory of the Father with the holy angels;' "In My Father's house are many mansions, I go to prepare a place for you;" I say, when I can succeed in realising the import of such passages, I feel myself listening to a being such as never before and never since spoke in human language. I am awed by the consciousness of greatness which these simple words express; and when I connect this greatness with the proofs of Christ's miracles, I am compelled to speak with the centurion, "Truly this was the Son of God." Alas! that this language does not mean what we might hope, is too certain from other passages in his writings. See e.g. Works, ii. 510: 'Christ is a being distinct from the one GOD.'

LECTURE V.

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST'S DIVINITY IN THE

WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN.

That Which was from the beginning, Which we have heard, Which we have seen with our eyes, Which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life; (for the Life was manifested, and we have seen It, and bear witness, and shew unto you that Eternal Life, Which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us ;) That Which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.-ST. JOHN i. 1-3.

AN attempt was made last Sunday to determine, from the recorded language of Jesus Christ, what was the verdict of His Own consciousness, expressed as well as implied, respecting the momentous question of His higher and Eternal Nature. But we were incidentally brought face to face with a problem, the fuller consideration of which lies naturally in the course of the present discussion. It is undeniable that the most numerous and direct claims to Divinity on the part of our Lord are to be found in the Gospel of St. John. While this fact has a significance of a positive kind which will be noticed presently, it also involves the doctrine before us in the entanglement of a large critical question. To leave this question undiscussed would, under existing circumstances, be impossible. To discuss it, within the limits assigned to the lecturer, and even with a very moderate regard to the amount of details which it necessarily involves, must needs make a somewhat unwonted demand, as you will indulgently bear in mind, upon the patience and attention of the audience.

If the Book of Daniel has been recently described as the battle-field of the Old Testament, it is not less true that St. John's Gospel is the battle-field of the New. It is well understood on all sides that no question of mere dilettante criticism is at stake when the authenticity of St. John's Gospel

210

Earliest objections to St. John's Gospel.

is challenged. The point of this momentous enquiry lies close to the very heart of the creed of Christendom;

'Neque enim levia aut ludicra petuntur

Præmia; sed Turni de vitâ et sanguine certant a.”

Strange and mournful it may well seem to a Christian that the pages of the Evangelist of Divine love should have been the object of an attack so energetic, so persevering, so inventive, so unsparing! Strange indeed such vehement hostility might be deemed, if only it were not in harmony with that deep instinct of our nature which forbids neutrality when we are face to face with high religious truth; which forces us to take really, if not avowedly, a side respecting it; which constrains us to hate or to love, to resist or to obey, to accept or to reject it. If St. John's Gospel had been the documentary illustration of some extinct superstition, or the title-deed of some suppressed foundation, at best capable of attracting the placid interest of studious antiquarianism, the attacks which have been made on it might well have provoked our marvel. As it is, there is no room for legitimate wonder, that the words of the Evangelist, like the Person of the Master, should be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. For St. John's Gospel is the most conspicuous written attestation to the Godhead of Him Whose claims upon mankind can hardly be surveyed without passion, whether it be the passion of adoring love, or the passion of vehement and determined enmity.

I. From the disappearance of the obscure heretics called Alogi, in the later sub-apostolic ageb, until the end of the seventeenth century, the authenticity of St. John's Gospel was not questioned. The earliest modern objections to it seem to have been put forward in this country, and to have been based on the assumption of a discrepancy between the narrative of St. John and those of the first three Gospels. These objections were combated by the learned Leclerc; and for well-nigh a century the point was thought to have been decided c. The brilliant reputation of Herder secured attention for his characteristic theory that St. John's Gospel describes, not the historical, but an ideal Christ. Herder was followed by several German writers,

a Virg. Æn. xii. 764, 765.

b That the Alogi had no idea of a recent origin of St. John's Gospel is clear from their ascribing it to Cerinthus. Dorner, Person Christi, i. p. 501, note. S. Epiph. Hær. li.

It ought perhaps to have been added that Evanson's attack upon St. John in 1792 was answered by Dr. Priestley.