THE ORIGINALITY OF THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST, A PROOF THAT HE CAME FROM GOD.

In our last paper on this subject, after having determined under what conditions the originality of Christ's character was, in strict justice, to be tested, we proceeded to draw a contrast between him and his disciples, as being, in so far as earthly influences were concerned, most nearly on terms of equality. Jesus was a Jewish peasant, and with Jewish peasants is, in strictness, to be compared. The result of the comparison was such as to authorize, if not demand, the belief that Jesus was sent of God.

It may, however, be urged by way of objection, that, after all, the pre-eminence of Jesus was only a pre-eminence over the peasantry of an ignorant and bigotted nation. Were this allegation true, the fact of his pre-eminence would remain the same, and the difficulty would remain the same of accounting for the existence of this pre-eminence without the interposition of the Divine power; still would the question recur, Whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works; is not this the carpenter's son?' We do not deny that if the allegation were well founded, it might do something to impeach the claim of Jesus to be the Saviour of the world, for if his excellence was merely relative to his own day and his own people, how, it might be asked, can he exhibit a model and a standard before each successive step of advancing civilization? No doubt that something like a satisfactory answer to this question might be found in the averment, that as the great principles of human nature remain the same in all ages, and under all circumstances, and that as the excellence of Jesus related not to the evanescent but the permanent features of character, so what was pre-eminent in Judea must be pre-eminent every where.

The allegation, however, is itself untrue. The contrast was made with the Jewish peasantry, because with them argumentative justice requires it to be made. But not the less willing are we to make it with any other men of any other nation and any other period. Whom will the opponent choose to put in competition with the carpenter's son? Not one of the ancient sages is there but is sullied with some defect of character, some folly of doctrine, some inconsistency of practice. If we are to turn to the lights of modern infidelity, we shall find more to blame than praise; and among those who, at the present day, neglect, if they do not deny the Gospel, in the ardour of their attachment to what they term philosophy, there is so much of mere theoretic speculation, not to say rashness and self-satisfac

tion, and, in many cases, so marked a contrast between their teachings and their lives, that we do not think the unbeliever would be benefitted by taking any one of them as his hero, and certainly we are by no means prepared to prefer their guidance to that of Christ. And low, indeed, must that man's standard of morality be, or great and powerful the pride of his intellect, who could choose to follow the glimmerings of his own mind, or the varying lights of philosophy, rather than place himself at the feet of the apostle of Galilee.

There is a higher standard of excellence than any we have yet alluded to;-it is the standard which the man of cultivation and refinement builds up, not out of actual realities, but the imaginings of his heart. We have all such a standard in our breast an image of what is purely benevolent, of moral heroism and disinterested philanthropy-an image of chaste and lofty devotion, and the sublimity of mental power.

There is no risk in making the contrast with the highest and brightest of the creatures of man's imagination. The reality in Christ's character is superior to the fondest pictures the mind can paint, and how high soever may be the soaring of the wish or the fancy, he that is from heaven is still above all.

There is no one of the features of Christ's character on which we might not safely adventure the issue, though in order that full justice should be done to our argument, we ought to set forth, not a partial but an entire view of his excellencies. It is a singularity of his character that it is emphatically one. All its parts are blended and harmonized into one whole. And this unity itself, so unlike what we meet with even in the most highly cultivated, can in no way be accounted for except on the supposition that the spirit of God had breathed its subduing and according influence throughout the bosom of his Son. But limited as is our space, and reduced as we therefore are to selection, to what feature shall we point to challenge comparison? Shall we dwell on his entire sinlessness-a sinlessness which caused him to be designated as holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners,' and which enabled him to demand of his bitter enemies- Which of you convinceth me of sin?' Shall we advert to his forbearance, a virtue even the elements of which he could not, under the most favourable circumstances, have found in a world, whose maxim was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' and which, therefore, he must have learned of that Father who is long-suffering and ready to forgive-shall we advert to this forbearance, a virtue so foreign tó the apprehensions of the men of his day, so difficult to exercise, and still more difficult to feel, yet so inwrought into his moral frame as to appear the spontaneous dictate of his affections, enabling him, under circumstances of the most aggravated out

rage, when reviled not to revile again, when he suffered not to threaten, but rather committing himself to Him that judgeth righteously, to pray on behalf of his implacable enemies, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.' Or we

might dwell upon the happy union there was in his character, of softness and strength-softness for the endearing intercourses of friendship, and for pleading with the sinful on behalf of their own highest good-a softness which melted into tears at the tomb of Lazarus, and in the hour of agony cared for his mother about to be bereft of her beloved son; and strength, to declare the whole council of God amid difficulties the most complicated and formidable, to denounce the hypocrisy and wickedness of the very men who were eager to compass his death, and to enable him, in the force of an invincible purpose, to place himself of his own accord in circumstances which he knew must inevitably conduct him to a painful and ignominious end.

Equally striking and pre-eminent was his piety. Never before or since was contemplative and practical piety blended together in such just proportions. He sought his God in private, and in public he kept his will constantly before his eyes. His prayers were not words which passed away with the breath that uttered them, but the earnest language of the spirit which made him what he prayed to be, and invested his character with the graces on which his contemplations dwelt. He wanted to have what he prayed for, and because he asked in faith his prayer was heard. And forth from the watchings of the night or the meditations of early day he came, with the same freshness and vigour and beauty of holiness, as the type of his own choosing, the sun, displays, when rising from darkness he pours gladness over the face of nature.

But we will fix our contemplations rather on his benevolence, not because it is superior to any other of his excellencies, but because it is a power of which all men know something, and of the relative value of the several displays of which they are therefore the better able to form an estimate.

There are three qualities of the benevolence of Christ, to which we would invite attention, and on which we rest the claim of originality—its impartiality, its comprehensiveness, its devotedness.

The benevolence of Christ was impartial. By this is not meant that there were no persons whom he regarded with peculiar affection. To his love towards his mother we have already adverted, and the display of it which took place when he was on the cross surpasses in self-oblivion and tenderness any similar fact on record. And though the evangelical narrative is by no means abundant in details respecting the more private life of Jesus, it does not fail to afford glimpses which are deeply inte

resting themselves, and excite a regret that we have not fuller information. A more charming picture of the true refinements and true pleasures of domestic life can hardly be imagined, than that which appears to have adorned the house of Lazarus, the chief retreat and resting-place of Christ; and in the earnest, respectful and affectionate attentions which Jesus received during the current of his existence and at the time of his crucifixion, at the hands of several of his female friends, as well as the eager solicitude they manifested after his interment, are ample proofs of the loveliness of his demeanour amid the interchanges of friendship, and of the power he possessed to bind around him the affections of those who are distinguished by the gentler and more graceful qualities of our nature. But the warmth of Jesus' love expanded beyond the endearments of friendship; and if we were required to state on whom, in so expanding, it first and most readily alighted, the unhesitating answer would be, on the poor and the sinful. In fact, while Christianity was an administration of good designed for all, it was designed primarily and especially for those who were in physical or moral destitution. The whole need not a physician, but they that are sick,' was the principle which regulated the whole of the public life of Christ. Them that were lost he came to seek and to save; them that by reason of their poverty were cut off from the sympathies and resources of society, and left to starve in the highways and hedges of a prolific land, disowned by their relatives, neglected by the authorised teachers, and contemned by the selfish opulent, the formal pharisee, and the proud ecclesiastic; them whom the guilt of sin had contaminated, and who were consequently shunned as the leper was shunned and yet not so much from the fear of the contagion, as from an inhuman contempt of the diseased; them whom the absurd decrees of natural dislike had put under the ban of society, irrespectively of merit or demerit, merely because the name of their people was uttered by one conformation of the lips rather than another, and their skin wore a dye less deep, and their eye burned with a less ardent flame ;-these were the special objects of Christ's regards; and among the causes which conduced to his crucifixion, by no means the least powerful was found in the jealousy he excited in the minds of the authorities of Judea by his ceaseless attention to the outcast, the foreigner, and the sinful. Jesus honoured poverty by appearing as its friend; he passed by the palace to enter the cot, not that he disregarded the first, but because he knew he should meet with a welcome in the second, and because he knew that great as was the need of the inmates of the palace, greater still was the need of the inmates of the cot; and because also he was fully aware that since all the sympathies of the world are towards outward grandeur, it was needful that he who came to be the

world's Saviour should give the weight of his influence, not to those who had, but to those who had not. In fact one of the great blessings of the Gospel is the counterpoise it affords to the influence of wealth and position. It is in the human heart to worship the idols which weakness on the one side and power on the other contrive to fabricate of gold, silver, and precious stones.' And what was needed was the introduction of a principle which should recognise moral worth in every rank and every nation, and teach the inherent value and dignity of the human soul by manifesting the deepest regard even to the sinful and abandoned. It is not to be understood by these remarks that Jesus limited the displays of his love even to the poor. His heart was wide enough to embrace his kind. He loved man as man. He loved the rich not because they were rich, but because they wore God's image and were subject to all the ills of humanity. And he loved his country not merely because it was his country, but rather because it was a portion of that family whom God had sent him to redeem. Far above all the distinctions of rank, nation and kindred, his love soared, to cast the reviving and renovating rays of its influence on the world. But while he had love for all, he had special love for those whose wants were special. How dissimilar is he in this marked feature of his character from even the best of men. There is not one of the ancient worthies whom his veriest detractor would venture to compare with Jesus on this point. The regards of them all were narrowed by natural or social prejudices. The contempt which modern unbelievers have evinced towards the poor, is matter of notoriety, and how far are they who profess to follow Jesus from manifesting the same impartial and catholic benevo lence as runs through the whole of their master's life. Much is it to be feared that the impress of heathen narrowness is stamped deep on the soul of the Christian world; and while we are all ready to express our admiration of the impartiality of Christ's benevo lence, how constantly and effectually is the flow of our love interrupted by every tiny barrier which fancy or fashion may have set up. But the inconsistencies of Christians are an unanswerable evidence of their master's pre-eminence, and a proof that what is of a nature superhuman must have had a divine origin. And if, from what Christians are we appeal to what they wish to be-to what in the hours of their happiest imaginings they picture forth as the perfection of benevolence-to what even those with whom benevolence is a fairy dream or an energetic passion, have devised as the standard for their own or for others' aspirings-can any of these fictions surpass the reality which was exhibited in the life of Christ?

To the comprehensiveness of the love of Christ we have been compelled to advert, in order to convey with precision our ideas.