The various phases, through which it passed in the course of controversy, greatly assisted those who came after, in their efforts to attain dogmatic precision. This important work was accomplished by the Council of Nice, when the perfect Divinity and the perfect humanity of Christ were equally recognised; and the mysterious union of the two in the one Person was declared to be the teaching of Scripture. From that period this was accepted as the orthodox doctrine of the Church.

It is only such a view that can harmonize with the work of redemption. "It was necessary that the Atonement should take place in and through humanity; for in and through it was the union between the ideal and the actual to appear. But it was equally necessary that it should take place in separation from and above humanity; for it could only be effected as an act of God." He who was to meet and satisfy the judicial requirements of God upon sinning man, must be able to invest His mediation with a Divine virtue; and, therefore, must Himself be Divine. And He who became the Representative of man, must be prepared to sustain His representation in the nature which had been guilty of the transgression; and, therefore, must Himself be man. By the union of the two natures the rights of inviolable justice, and the liabilities of man, were efficiently met. "He is the Son of God: as the living unity of all the revelations of God, He appears with the power of eternity in the midst of time. But He therefore is also the Son of man, the living unity of all pure and elevated human life, the most intensely human being, in the light of a holy life. As the Son of God, He feels Himself, in virtue of His Divine consciousness, to be resting in the bosom of the Father;' (John i. 18;) and as the Son of man, He bears on His heart the whole human race, and strives to raise them with Himself into His glory. (John xii. 32.) Atonement is the central point of His being in Him Divinity and humanity, the spirit and nature, heaven and earth, are re-united."

This event, God "manifest in the flesh," was the grandest in the annals of our race. It was the point to which all history aud prophecy, in their mutual relations, had been tending, and for which they had been preparing. All centred in the one fact,-God in man. It was the completion of the past; and the commencement of a new period in the history of the relations of God to mankind,-the commencement of the work the issue of which will be, properly understood, man in God. It is the centre around which the world and humanity revolve. "Because Christ has this significance in the midst of the world's history, time has its consummation in Him, and eternity appears with Him, and in Him, in the midst of time. Before time was, He was in God as the principle, the root, the motto of the world. He will be, too, when time is no more, as the Head of 3 z

VOL. XIV.-FIFTH SERIES.

a new world, in which nature will be glorified in the spirit, the spirit incorporate in nature. Thus Christ is the Alpha and Omega in the development of the world." "It is in the very nature of things that the whole history of the world before Christ should point to Him. In all those affairs of the world which have essential reference to the climax of the future, tendencies and preludes may be perceived, whose fulfilment is given in Christ. And thus is time fulfilled in Him. We see here both the yearning of humanity after God, that is, its craving after eternity; and the satisfaction of this yearning, namely, the manifestation of God, as it gradually dawned upon rough and sinful human nature in the ecstatic visions of patriarchs and prophets, until the time of its full appearance came. The life of Christ forms the eternal centre of humanity."

The Person of Jesus Christ, as presented in the historic records of the New Testament, furnishes a study of unequalled interest. His childhood was perfect, altogether unlike that of every other person who has been born of woman. He was denominated "that Holy Thing" prior to His birth; and the tendencies of His character, and the indications of His mission, appear in His entering upon His "Father's business" with the first assumption of independent action. He was a celestial flower, which every one admired, and the fragrance of which filled the house of His Father. In His manhood He was perfectly innocent and sinless. He passed through the severest forms of trial from friends and foes; and yet the pure light of His character was never shaded by the exhibition of sinful emotion. He confidently and triumphantly challenged His keenest and most malignant observers, who would have exulted in convicting Him of sin. His religious character was unique. No repentance marked it, as in the case of sinful men. No confessions of error, and no prayers for personal forgiveness, are ever uttered by Him. He dwells in a lofty isolation; and holds a communion with the Father, both as to its mode and its intimacy, which the most holy of men never aspired unto. He invariably maintained a calm benignity, and practised a sacred beneficence, which evidenced the deepest peace of soul, and diffused a holy joy around Him. His claims were of the most astonishing character. He unhesitatingly declared, "I came forth from the Father;" "Ye are from beneath, I am from above;" "Behold, a greater than Solomon is here;" "I am the Light of the world; "I will draw all men unto Me." And these amazing assertions of His own rights were maintained by Him in such manner as to command the assent of persons gathered from all orders and classes of men. These pretensions, which, if made by any other person, would have awakened universal contempt, and brought down upon the pretender an ignominious degradation, were felt to be perfectly natural in Him.

His passive virtues were equally extraordinary. He underwent wrong without resistance; and patiently endured the sufferings which the hatred and malignity of men inflicted on Him. In the midst of all, He preserved the sublimest dignity, which perplexed and overawed His persecutors and judges; and with the truest heroism He voluntarily surrendered His life in the accomplishment of the work which "the Father gave Him to do." So impressive was the whole scene, that men of stony hearts smote their breasts and exclaimed, "Truly this was the Son of God."

His undertaking distinguishes Him from all other persons. "The grand idea of His mission was, to new-create the human race and restore it to God, in the unity of a spiritual kingdom." He pursued His object with the utmost evenness of courage, and in unshaken confidence of ultimate success. He commenced the erection of His kingdom by the introduction of "the poor" into its privileges and blessings; thus first honouring those who had hitherto been despised by the great ones of the world. His plan was altogether superhuman. While He sought to establish His cause, He raised no party, and awakened among His followers no partisan feeling. The members of His kingdom were among the most loyal to the governments under which they suffered persecution. His principles were universal and all-comprehensive, rising immeasurably above the ordinary motives of men, who work out their objects by the strength of the following they are able to gather. He united in a common brotherhood men of all nations, ranks, and dispositions.

As a Teacher, He was transcendently above all mere earthly masters. His instructions were original and independent, coming from the depths of knowledge and truth in Himself, and not from acquisitions made in the schools of human learning. This peculiarity called forth the wondering and inquiring exclamation, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned ? " He uttered maxims for all time, and of universal application, which find their response in the heart of man wherever they are proclaimed. His methods of instruction were equally singular. He announced the greatest truths in the most direct and positive manner, and never proceeded to prove them by a process of argument; thus intimating that His assertion was the voucher of truth. He did not for a moment deviate from the strict line of His teaching to win the assent of the multitude, or to conform to the expectations of His friends. His statements were always free from one-sidedness, expressing the most complete views of God, of man, and of nature, which came from "the simple intuition of His superhuman intelligence." He presented doctrines which "transcend the deductions of human philosophy; and opened mysteries which defy all human powers of explication, with a simplicity that accommodated itself to all classes of

minds." The morality of His teaching was pure and perfect, free from everything merely artistic and theoretic; and was propounded in precepts which carried their own evidence with them, though they ranged high above the precepts of men. He taught men to pass, in the exercise of their practical sympathy, the boundaries of family and nation, and to call every man "neighbour" and "brother." The universal practice of the morality which He inculcated would recreate this lower world, and bring down to every heart the light and joy of heaven. The unearthly superiority of the character of Jesus was such, that increasing knowledge of Him, and intimacy with Him, while they won the most intense and tender attachment, instead of diminishing the feeling of reverence which He inspired, only tended to render that reverence more deep. This extraordinary peculiarity appeared alike in connexion with His friends and His enemies, who felt the irresistible force of a power which they could not understand.

This brief representation of the character of Jesus, consistent and harmonious in its parts, is widely different from the purely arbitrary and fictitious one, which a short time ago produced so great a sensation, but which carries its condemnation along with it in the incongruities and contradictions which it attempts to unite. Like other pieces of fiction, it owes its special attraction to its daring extravagance. The picture which is drawn with so much artistic care, and with so much reference to effect, aims to unite attributes of character which have never been found to co-exist in the same person, and which in fact preclude the presence of each other. If the author of this pseudo Life of Jesus wished to startle the literary world with a display of genius in its boldest forms, it was certainly competent to him to produce an ideal hero whose character was destitute of all historic basis. But in writing what purports to be a Life of Christ, the records of history, and not imagination, must be our guide. It cannot be allowed to the biographer to form his own ideal of a character, and then to select from the original sources of information whatever may seem to support his arbitrary conception, to distort other portions to his use, and to ignore whatever contradicts his idea. This, in some respects, remarkable production is destitute of the forms of historic reality, and displays a deep-seated antagonism to Christianity. These efforts of fancied wisdom are but the spasmodic efforts of rancorous and short-sighted dislike to the "truth as it is in Jesus." They carry their refutation with them. The fact, the power, and the triumphs of Christianity are patent: whence did they come? Could they have had their origin in the person described by this writer? The common sense of men at once apprehends the moral impossibility of this. The Jesus of this author

As a work of

could never have been the founder of Christianity: it must have had its origin in an essentially different person. It is not the Jesus of Christianity, nor the Jesus of the Gospels, that we see in the pages of this romancer. "He has represented the most pious of men as a deceiver; the most simple as ambitious; the most narrow and prejudice-fettered as the enlightener of all nations." These contradictions can only meet in the fancy of the novelist. fiction even, though brilliant, it is not homogeneous. This glowing picture does not present to us the Christ of later history, whose name is associated with the grandest moral results which the world has ever witnessed, and which is now a greater power among mankind than any other. This is "not the Person who stands at the birth of Christianity, to whom all ages have been looking back, and whose image all Christians have borne in their hearts." The Jesus here portrayed could not be the founder of the religion which has won such triumphs of truth and purity, and which gives the assurance of its becoming the means of a world's regeneration.

The Person of Jesus has been set forth in a more recent effort, of an entirely different order. Much of truth and beauty characterizes this representation; and the portraiture is drawn with the hand of a master. We feel that Jesus was all the author declares Him to have been; but we also feel that the principles on which His success is accounted for are totally inadequate to the results attributed to them. The Person who rises before us from these pages is also really superhuman, though we are left to conclude that He is nothing more than a man of superior order. We cannot accept the theory that the writer has been preparing his way for a fuller announcement of his conception of Jesus. He has aimed to give the highest possible representation of Him as human, that he might furnish a reason for the results of Christianity. But his figure is too large, or it is too small. Represented as a man, we feel He is out of proportion and sympathy with our common humanity. We cannot claim kindred with Him. Let that great fact be given, which is never once in the remotest manner referred to, that He is Divine, as well as human; then we can account for the marvellous teachings and power of the author's Jesus. But, without that fact, we lay down the book with the utterance, "It is beautiful, but impossible."

The Jesus, the features of whose character we have briefly sketched, is the Jesus of the evangelists. The work of Christianity is in harmony with such a character. It requires a Founder pure and perfect, transcending all instances of human greatness. "All the splendid single virtues in which each of God's heroes has appeared so great, blend in wondrous harmony in Him; and it is for this very

"Ecce Homo,"