book is pervaded, as it seems to many of his readers, by an es-

sential flaw. It is not merely that our Lord’s claims cannot be morally estimated apart from a clear estimate of His Person. The author professes to be answering the question, ‘What was Christ’s object in founding the Society which is called by His Name?’ Now to attempt to answer this question, while dis- missing all theological consideration of the dignity of Christ’s Person, involves the tacit assumption that the due estimate of His Person is not relevant to the appreciation of His Work; in other words, the assumption, that so far as the evidence yielded by the work of Christ goes, the Christology of the Nicene Creed is at least uncertain. The author of ‘Ecce Homo’ is however either a Humanitarian, or he is a believer in our Lord’s Divinity, or he is undecided. If he is a Humanitarian, then the assumption is, as far as it goes, in harmony with his personal convictions; only it should, for various and obvious reasons, have been more
518 Note A. On ‘Lives’ of Our Lord.
plainly stated, since, inter alia, it embarrasses his view of our Lord’s claims and character with difficulties which he does not recognise. If he believes in Christ’s Divinity, then in his forth- coming volume (besides rewriting such chapters as chap. 2, on The Temptation) he will have to enlarge very seriously, or rather altogether to recast, the account which he has actually given of Christ’s work. If the writer be himself in doubt as to whether Christ is or is not God, then surely he is not in a position to give any account whatever of Christ’s work, which is within the limits of human capacity on one hypothesis, and as utterly transcends them on the other. In short, it is impossible for a man to profess to give a real answer to the question, what Christ intended to accomplish, until he has told us who and what Christ was. That fragment of Christ’s work of which we gather an account from history contributes its share to the solution of the question of Christ’s Person; but our Lord’s Personal Rank is too intimately bound up with the moral justification of His language, and with the real nature and range of His action upon humanity, to bear the adjournment which the author of ‘Ecce Homo’ has thought advisable.
There are several errors in the volume which might seem to shew that the author is himself unfamiliar with the faith of the Church ; as they would not have been natural in a person who believed it, but who was throwing himself for the time being into the mental position of a Humanitarian in order the better to do justice to his arguments. For instance, the author con- founds St. John’s Baptism with Christ’s. He supposes that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night in order to seek a dispen- sation from being publicly baptised, and so admitted into Christ’s Society. He imagines that Christ prayed on the Cross only for the Roman soldiers who actually crucified Him, and not for the Pharisees, against whom (it is a most painful as well as an unwarranted suggestion) He continued to feel fierce indignation. This indeed is an instance of the author’s ten- dency to identify his own imaginations with the motives and feelings of Jesus Christ, where Scripture is either silent or points in an opposite direction. The author is apparently carried away by his earnest indignation against certain forms of selfish and insincere vice, such as Pharisaism; nor is he wholly free from the disposition so to colour the past as to make it express suggestively his own feelings about persons and schools of the present day. The naturalistic tone of his thought is apparent in his formula of ‘enthusiasm,’ as the modern equi-
WARE,
Note A. On ‘Lives’ of Our Lord. 519
valent to inspiration and the gift of the Holy Spirit; in his general substitution of the conception of anti-social vice for the deeper Scriptural idea of sin; and in his suggestion that Chris- tians may treat the special precepts of Christ with the same ‘boldness’ with which He treated those of the law of Moses.
Of the practical results of his book it is difficult to form an estimate. In some instances it may lead to the contented sub- stitution of a naturalistic instead of a miraculous Christianity, of philanthropic ‘enthusiasm’ instead of a supernatural life, of loyalty to a moral reforming hero, instead of religious devotion to a Divine Saviour of the world. But let us also trust that so fearless a recognition of the claims of Christ to be the King and Centre of renewed humanity, may assist other minds to grasp and hold the truth which alone makes those claims, taken as a whole, justifiable ; and may recruit the ranks of our Lord’s true worshippers from among the many thoughtful but unin- structed persons who have never faced the dilemma which this volume so forcibly, albeit so tacitly, suggests
* * » Υ,
Since these words were written, the volume under discussion has found an apologist, whose opinion on this, as on any other subject, is a matter of national interest*. If the present writer has been guilty of forming and propagating an unjust estimate of a remarkable work, he may at least repair his error by referring his readers to pages, in which genius and orthodoxy have done their best for the Christian honour of ‘Ecce Homo.’ These pages must indeed of necessity be read with sympathy and admiration, if not with entire assent, by all who do not consider a theological work to have been discredited, when it is asserted to uphold some positive truth. But it may also be a duty to state briefly and respectfully why, after a careful con- sideration of such a criticism, the present writer is unable to recognise any sufficient reason for withdrawing what he has ventured to say upon the subject. Unquestionably, as Mr. Gladstone urges, it is allowable in principle to teach only a portion of revealed truth, under circumstances which would render a larger measure of instruction likely to perplex and repel the learners. But then such teaching must be loyally consistent with the claims of that portion of the truth, which is, provisionally, left untaught; and this condition does not appear
® ‘Ecce Homo,’ by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. Strahan & Co. London, 1868. [Reprinted from ‘Good Words,”]
520 Note A. On ‘Lives’ of Our Lord,
to be satisfied by ‘Ecce Homo,’ if it be, as we may hope, only a preparation for a second volume which will assert in plain lan- guage the Deity of our Adorable Lord. The crucial chapter on the Temptation altogether ignores our Lord’s true and Divine Personality; as it also appears to ignore the personal presence of the Tempter. ‘What is called Christ’s Temptation is the excitement of His Mind which was caused by the nascent con- sciousness of supernatural power,’ p. 12. Such a description fails altogether to do justice to the real issues involved; it might apply with equal propriety to a struggle in the soul of an apostolic man. Even if this chapter does not imply Christ’s inward sympathy with outward solicitations to accept a wrong choice, it could never have been written by a person who kept clearly before his mind the truth of our Lord’s Divinity.
Mr. Gladstone draws out and insists upon an analogy between the original function of the three Synoptic Evangelists in the first propagation of the Faith, and the present function of ‘ Ecce Homo.’ But this analogy would appear to be disturbed by the following considerations. First, there is nothing in ‘Ecce Homo’ which corresponds to the great Christological texts in the Synop- tists. To these texts Mr. Gladstone has indeed referred, but they do not readily harmonize with his representation of the gradual unveiling of Christ’s Person. Indeed they teach a doc- trine of Christ’s Person which is virtually identical with that of St.John. Are there any passages in ‘Ecce Homo’ which, like St. Matt. xi. 27, or St. Luke x. 22, place the Christological belief of the writer beyond reach of question? Secondly, the ethical atmosphere of ‘ Ecce Homo’ differs very significantly from that of the Gospels. The Gospels present us with the Scriptural idea of Sin, provoking God’s wrath and establishing between God and man a state of enmity: and this idea points very urgently— at least in a moral universe,—to some awful interposition which shall bring relief. But the Biblical idea of sin is a vitally distinct thing from the impoverished modern conception of anti-social vice, in which man and not God is the insulted and offended person, and by which the protection of individual rights and the well-being of society are held to be of more account than the reign of peace and purity within the soul. The idea of sin points to a Divine Redeemer: the idea of anti- social vice points to an improved system of human education. Thirdly, the first and third Evangelists preface their records of the Ministry with an account of the Nativity. That account clearly attributes a Superhuman Personality to Christ ; and thus
Comme Eee '
Note B. On the word ‘Elohim’ tn the O. T. 521 |
it places the subsequent narrative in a light altogether different from that suggested by the opening chapter of ‘Ecce Homo.’ And the first verse of St. Mark’s Gospel is sufficiently explicit to range him as to this matter, side by side with St. Matthew and St. Luke.
The real needs of our time are more likely to be known to public men who come in contact with minds of every kind than to private clergymen. But it would have appeared to the present writer that an economical treatment of the Faith which might have been possible and natural in the first age of its pro- mulgation, must fail of its effect at the present day. Whether men believe the Gospel or not, its real substance and con- tents are now fairly before the world; and it is increas- ingly felt that the question whether Christ is or is not God, is really identical with the question of His moral character. [Since these lines were written the publication of ‘Natural Religion,’ by the author of ‘Ecce Home’ has shewn, among other things, that Mr. Gladstone’s estimate of the latter work was too generous. No true religion can be ‘adapted’ to meet the requirements of hostile thought with entire impunity. ]
NOTE B, on Lecture IL.
Tle word ‘Elohim’ is used in the Old Testament—
(1) Of the One True God, as in Deut. iv. 35, 1 Kings xviii. 21, etc., where it has the article; and without the article, Gen. i. 2, xli. 38; Exod. xxxi. 3, xxxv. 31; Numb. xxiv. 2, etc.
(2) Of false gods, as Exod. xii. 12; 2 Chron. xxviii. 23; Josh. xxiv. 15; Judg. vi. 10, etc.
(3) Of judges to whom a person or matter is brought, as representing the Divine Majesty in the theocracy, yet not in the singular, Exod. xxi. 6, xxii. 7, 8, (in Deut. xix. 17 it is said in the like case that the parties ‘shall stand before the Lord,’ ΠῚΠ") ; and in allusion to the passages in Exodus, Ps. lxxxii. 1, 6, ‘Recte Abarbenel observavit, judices et magistratus nusquam vocari Endy nisi respectu loci judicii, quod ibi Dei judicia exerceant.’ (Ges.)
522 Note C. On Our Lord’s Temptation.
(4) There is no case in which the word appears from the context to be certainly applied, even collectively, to super- human beings external to the Divine Essence. ‘Nullus exstat locus,’ says Gesenius, ‘in quo haec significatio vel necessaria vel pre ceteris apta sit. In Ps. Ixxxii. 1, the word is explained by verses 2 and 6 of the ‘sons of God,’ i.e. judges; cf. especially verse 8. Yet in Ps. xevii. 7, the LXX, Vulg., Syr. translate ‘angels’; the Chaldee para- phrases ‘the worshippers of idols’; in Ps. cxxxviii. 1, the LXX and Vulg. render ‘angels,’ the Chald. ‘judges,’ the Syr. ‘kings’; in Ps. viii, 2, the Chald. too renders ‘ angels,’ and is followed by Rashi, Kimchi, and Abenezra (who quotes Elahin, Dan. ii. 11), and others. It is possible that the earlier Jewish writers had a traditional knowledge that conbs might be taken as ondxa, Job i. 6; ii. τ; xxxviii. 7, and ἘΞΌΝ 22.
(5) But, however this may be, it remains certain that Elohim
is nowhere used with the singular of any except Almighty God.
NOTE OC, on Lecture IV.
On our Lord’s Temptation, viewed in its bearing upon His Person.
The history of our Lord’s temptation has been compared to an open gateway, through which Socinianism may enter at will to take possession of the Gospel History. This language proceeds upon a mistaken idea of what our Lord’s temptation really was.
A. How far could Jesus Christ be ‘tempted’? How far could any suggestion of Satan act upon His Manhood ?
1. Here we must distinguish between
(a) Direct temptation to moral evil, i.e. an appeal to a capacity of self-will which might be quickened into active disobedience to the Will of God; and
(8) What may be termed indirect temptation; that is, an appeal to instincts per se innocent, as belonging to man in his unfallen state, which can make obedience wear the form of a painful effort or sacrifice.
Note C. On Our Lord’s Temptation. 525
2. Now Jesus Christ, according to the historians of the Temptation, was—
(az) Emmanuel, St. Matt. i. 23. That this word is used by St. Matthew to mean ‘God is with us,’ asa title of Christ, like ‘Jehovah nissi,’ appears partly from the parallel of Isa. ix. 6, partly from the preceding αὐτός (ver. 22), used with reference to Jesus. Mary’s Son is to be Jesus, not as witnessing to a Divine Saviour external to Himself (as was the case when Joshua bore the name), but as being Himself God the Saviour.
(8) Υἱὸς Θεοῦ, St. Luke i. 35. This title is directly con- nected with our Lord’s supernatural Birth, and 50, al- though applied to His Manhood (τὸ γεννώμενον), yet implies a pre-existent superhuman Personality in Him.
3. This Union of the Divine and Human Natures in Christ was not fatal to the full perfection of either. In particular it did not destroy in Christ’s Manhood those limitations which belong properly to creaturely existence. A limitation of know- ledge in Christ’s Human Intelligence would correspond to a limitation of power in His Human Will.
But it was inconsistent with the presence of anything in Christ’s Manhcod that could contradict however slightly the Essence of the Perfect Moral Being, in other words, the Holi- ness of God. This would have been the case with falsehood in Christ’s Human Intelligence, or with any secret undeveloped propensity to self-will, that is (in a creature), to moral evil, in Christ’s Human Will. If the Incarnate Christ could have erred or sinned, the Incarnation, we may dare to say, wovld have been a phantom.
The connection between Christ’s Personal Godhead, and the complete sinlessness of His Manhood was well understood by Christian antiquity. Thus Tertullian: ‘Solus homo sine pec- cato Christus, quia et Deus Christus’ (De An. ο. 13). Thus in the synodical letter of Dionysius of Alexandria to Paulus of Samosata, it is argued that εἰ μὴ yap ἦν ὁ Χριστὸς αὐτὸς ὁ dv Θεὸς Adyos, οὐκ ἠδύνατο εἶναι ἀναμάρτητος. Οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἀναμάρτητος εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ Χριστὸς ὡς καὶ ὁ Πατὴρ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα (Labbe, Conc. i. p. 855). So St. Augustine, still more explicitly, teaches: ‘Ut autem Mediator Dei et hominum homo Christus Jesus non faceret propriam, que Deo adversa est, voluntatem,
non erat tantim homo, sed Deus et homo: per quam mirabilem
524 Note C. On Our Lora’s Temptation.
singularemque gratiam humana in illo sine peccato ullo posset esse natura. Propter hoc ergd ait, Descendi de celo, non ut faciam voluntatem meam, sed voluntatem ejus qui me misit (Joh. vi. 38): ut ea caussa esset tante obedientie que omnind siné ullo peccato esset hominis quae gerebat, quia de ccelo de- scenderat ; hoc est, non tantum homo, verum etiam Deus erat’ (Contr. Sermon. Arianor., ὁ. vii. ὁ. 6). Again, ‘Ista nativitas profectd gratuita conjunxit in unitate persone hominem Deo, carnem Verbo. ...Neque enim metuendum erat, ne isto in- effabili modo in unitatem persone ἃ Verbo Deo natura humana suscepta, nullum in se motum male voluntatis admitteret’ (De Correp. et Grat., c. xi. ἢ. 30). Again, he gives as a reason for the Divine Incarnation, ‘ Ut intelligant homines per eandem gratiam se justificari & peccatis, per quam factum est ut homo Christus nullum habere posset peccatum’ (Enchir. ad Laur., c. 36, n. 11; compare Ench. ὁ. 40. See also the passages from St. Athanasius and St. Cyril Alex. qu. by Petav., De Incarnat., lib. xi. c. 10, § 6). Theodorus of Mopsuestia was anathematized at the Fifth Gicumenical Council of Constantinople, a.D. 553, for maintaining among other things that our Lord was ὑπὸ πάθων ψυχῆς καὶ τῶν τῆς σαρκὸς ἐπιθυμιῶν ἐνοχλούμενον, καὶ τῶν χειρόνων κατὰ μικρὸν χωριζόμενον, καὶ οὕτως ἐκ προτροπῆς ἔργων βελτιώθεντα, καὶ ἐκ πολιτείας ἄμωμον καθίσταντα (Con. Const., ii. can. xii.; Labbe, v. p. 575). The language of Theodorus was felt to ignore the consequences of the Personal Union of the Two Natures: it was practically Nestorianism.
Our Lord’s Manhood then, by the unique conditions of its existence, was believed to be wholly exempt from any pro- pensity to, or capacity of, sinful self-will. When, as in the temptation on the mountain, He was beset by solicitations to evil from without, He met them at once in a manner which shewed that no element of His Human Nature in any degree re- sponded to them. For, as St. Athanasius says, He was diya σαρ- κικῶν θελημάτων καὶ λογισμῶν ἀνθρωπίνων, ἐν εἰκόνι καινότητος (Contr. Apollinar., lib. ii. 6. το). The sharpest arrows of the tempter struck Him, but, like darts lighting upon a hard polished surface, they glanced aside. Moreover, as it would seem, the Personal Union of the Two Natures in our Lord involved, at least, the sight of the Beatific Vision by our Lord’s Humanity: and if we cannot conceive of the blessed as sinning while they worship around the throne, much less can we conceive it in One in Whom ‘dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.’ Thus to any direct temptation to evil He was simply inaccessible,
Note C. On Our Lora’s Temptation. 525
to Whom alone the words fully belong, ‘I have set God always before Me, for He is on My right Hand, therefore I shall not fall.’
4. But the Personal Union of our Lord’s Manhood with His Godhead did not exempt It from simple human instincts, such as, for example, a shrinking from bodily pain. For, ‘As Man’s Will, so the Will of Christ hath two several kinds of operation ; the one natural or necessary, whereby it desireth simply what- soever is good in itself, and shunneth as generally all things which hurt; the other deliberate, when we therefore embrace things as good, because the age of understanding judgeth them good to that end which we simply desire.... These different inclinations of the will considered, the reason is easy how in Christ there might grow desires, seeming but being not in deed opposite, either the one of them unto the other or either of them unto the Will of God’ (Hooker, E.P. v. 48, 9; cf. St. John xii. 27). Upon our Lord’s Human Will in its inchoate or rudimentary stage of Desire, uninformed by Reason, an ap- proaching trial might so far act, as a temptation, as, for instance, to produce a wish that obedience might be compatible with escape from suffering. But it could not produce, even for one moment, any wish to be free from the law of obedience itself; since such a wish could only exist where the capacity for sinful self-will was not absolutely excluded. The utmost that tempta- tion could do with our Lord, was to enhance the sacrificial cha- racter of obedience, by appealing to an innocent human instinct which ran counter to its actual requirements.
B. This statement of the matter will perhaps suggest some questions.
1. Is it altogether consistent with the Scripture language which represents our Lord as κατὰ πάντα τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ὁμοιωθείς (Heb. ii. 17); as πεπειραμένος κατὰ πάντα καθ᾽ ὁμοιότητα (Heb. iv. 15); as One Who ἔμαθεν ἀφ᾽ ὧν ἔπαθε τὴν ὑπακοήν (Heb. v. 7)?
Yes. For Holy Scripture qualifies this language by describing Him as χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας (Heb. iv. 15); as ὅσιος, ἄκακος, ἀμίαντος, κεχωρισμένος ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν (Heb. vii. 26); and by connect- ing His manifestation as the Saviour with the entire absence of any sinful element within Himself: ἐκεῖνος ἐφανερώθη, ἵνα τὰς ἅμαρ- τίας ἡμῶν ἄρῃ, καὶ ἁμαρτία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστι (1 St. John iii. 5). It is clear that Holy Scripture denies the existence, not merely of any sinful thinking or acting, but of any ultimate roots and sources of sin, of any propensities or inclinations, however latent and rudimentary, towards sin, in the Incarnate Christ. When
526 Note C. On Our Lord’s Temptation.
therefore Scripture speaks of His perfect assimilation to us, to our condition, our trials, our experiences, this language must be understood of physical and mental pain in all their forms. It cannot be understood of any moral assimilation; He is, according to Scripture, the absolutely Sinless One; we are, by nature, corrupt.
2. ‘Is this account consistent with the exigencies of our Lord’s Redemptive Work?’ Did He conquer sin for us, when His victory was won under conditions differing from our own?
Certainly. He is not less truly representative of our race, because in Him it has recovered its perfection. His victory is none the less real and precious, because, morally speaking, it was inevitable. Nay, this perfect internal sinlessness, which rendered Christ inaccessible to direct temptation to evil, was itself essential to His redemptive relationship to the human family. It accordingly was deliberately secured to Him by His Virgin-Birth, which cut off the entail of inward corruption. He could not have been the Sinless Victim, offered freely for a sinful world, δίκαιος ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων (1 St. Pet. 111, 18), unless He had been thus superior to the moral infirmities of His brethren.
3. But does not such an account impair the full force of our Lord’s example 4
Certainly an example is in a sense more powerful when it is set by one who is under exactly the same moral circum- stances as ourselves. And, if Christ our Lord had been a sinner, or at any rate had had sinful dispositions within Him, He would so far have been more entirely what we really are; although He would have been unable to redeem us. If, like His apostle, He had beheld ‘another law in His members warring against the law of His mind,’ He would have come not in ‘the likeness of sinful flesh,’ but in flesh that was actually sinful, and so exactly like our own. But then He took our nature upon Him, precisely in order to expel sin altogether from it, and thus to shew us of what it was capable, by shewing us Himself. The absence of an absolute identity of moral circumstances between Him and ourselves, is more than compensated by our possession of what else we could not have had, a Perfect Model of Humanity. We gain in the perfection of the Moral Ideal thus placed before us, to say nothing of the perfection of the Mediator between God and Man, more than we can lose in moral vigour, upon discovering that His obedience was wrought out in a Nature unlike our
Note D. Unity of the Father and the Son. 527
own in the one point of absolute purity. And by His grace, we ourselves are supernaturalized, and ‘can do all things.’
4. But does not such an account reflect upon the moral greatness of our Lord? Is not an obedience ‘which could not but be,’ less noble than an obedience which triumphs over pronounced disinclination to obey? In other words, does not this account practically deny Christ’s moral liberty ?
No. The highest liberty does not imply the moral capacity of doing wrong. God is the one perfectly free Being; yet God cannot sin. The free movement of a moral being, who has not fallen, is not an oscillation between sin and moral truth; it is a steady adherence to moral truth. To God sin is im- possible. To created natures sin is not impossible; but it is always, at first, a violation of the law of their being; they must do violence to themselves in order to sin. So it was in Eden ; so it is, in its degree, with the first lie a man tells now. Our Lord’s inaccessibility to sin was the proof and glory of His Moral Perfection. ‘Nonne de Spiritu Sancto et Virgine Maria Dei Filius unicus natus est, non carnis concupiscentia sed singulari Dei munere? Numquid metuendum fuit, ne accedente zetate homo ille libero peccaret arbitrio? An ideo in illo non libera voluntas erat; ac non tantd magis erat, quantd magis peccato servire non poterat?’ (S. Aug., De Preedestinatione Sanctorum, c. 15, n. 30.)
The real temptation of a sinless Christ is not less precious to us than the temptation of a Christ who could have sinned, would be. It forms a much truer and more perfect contrast to the failure of our first parent. It occupies a chief place in that long series of acts of condescension which begins with the Nativity, and which ends on the Cross. It is a lesson for all times as to the true method of resisting the tempter. Finally, it is the source of that strength whereby all later victories over Satan have been won: Christ, the sinless One, has conquered the enemy in His sin-stained members. ‘By Thy Temptation, good Lord, deliver us.’
NOTE Ὁ, on Lecroure IV.
On ‘Moral’ explanations of the Unity of the Father and the Son.
Referring to a passage which is often quoted to destroy the dogmatic significance of St. John x. 30, Professor Bright has well observed that ‘the comparison in St. John xvii. 21, and the
528 Note E. The Theory of Hallucination,
unity of Christians with each other in the Son has sometimes been abused in the interests of heresy.’ ‘The second unity,’ it has been said, ‘is simply moral; therefore the first is so.” But the second is not simply moral; it is, in its basis, essential, for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones; it is the mysterious incorporation into His Sacred Manhood which causes the oneness of affections and of will. Thus also in the higher sphere, the Father and the Son are one in purpose, because They are consubstantial. ‘ Those,’ says Olshausen on St. John x. 30, ‘who would entertain the hypothesis—at once Arian, Socinian, and Rationalistic—that ἕν εἶναι refers only to unity of will, not of nature, should not forget that trwe unity of will without unity of nature is something inconceivable. Hence, if Christ speaks of unity of will between Himself and His people, this can subsist only so far as such unity of will has been rendered possible to them by a previous communication of His nature’ (Eighteen Sermons of St. Leo, p. 132).
NOTE E, on Lecture IV. The Theory of Hallucination.
It is said, apparently on good authority, that the language in which our Lord asserts His claims upon mankind is among the modern Jews often attributed to hallucination. The old re- proach ‘ Thou hast a devil,’ becomes in our day a theory that in the Prophet of Nazareth ‘fanatical enthusiasm reached a point, at which it could not be distinguished from mental aberration.’
As the Gospels are the only source of the knowledge which we possess about our Lord, we cannot discuss such a question as that before us, without referring to them. And surely the impression which they leave on minds of very different character and sympathies is a sufficient answer to the criticism. Channing,
who represents the most thoughtful elements of American Socinianism, has already been quoted. Dr.John Young observes that, ‘If the origin of our Lord’s language about Himself was enthusiasm at all, it must have been the very insanity of en- thusiasm, and His grave and meek life decisively forbids this supposition. There was nothing either in His sayings or doings incoherent, contradictory, wild. Both manifested entire self- possession and the calmest wisdom.’ With the judgmeut of
® The Christ of History, p. 208, ed. 1869.
Note F. The Presbyter Fohn and the Apostle. 529
this cool-headed Scotchman, we may compare the language of a typical French Protestant: ‘D’ot vient ce calme auguste dont sont empreints ses discours et qui fait dire en l’écoutant: C’est le maitre? N’est-ce pas de la possession parfaite de lui-méme, de sa sérénité constante et de lharmonie de tout son étre. Rien dans son enseignement ne rappelle l’exaltation ou l’exci- tation extraordinaire du sentiment, parce qu il n’est jamais hors de lui ou au-dessus de lui-méme; la vie en Dieu n’est pas pour lui un état exceptionnel, un Tavissement d’esprit, un sommet rarement atteint ot l’aurait enlevé linspiration extra- ordinaire d’une heure favorisée; c’est sa condition habituelle : aussi ne se révéle-t-elle pas comme chez le prophéte par ces mots bralants, par ces métaphores hardies qui traversent le discours comme des éclairs; elle se manifeste comme une lumiére douce et vive qui émane d’un foyer toujours égal ἃ lui-méme »,’
b « Jésus-Christ, Son temps, Sa vie, Son ceuvre,’ par E. de Pressensé, | Paris, Meyrueis, pp. 355, 359.
NOTE F, on Lecture V. ‘The Presbyter John’ and the Apostle.
Who was the author of the Second and Third Epistles attri- buted to St. John the Evangelist in the present Canon of the New Testament ?