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THE TRUSTWORTHINESS

dissipate all doubt for ever! Upon reflection, it is true, we recollect that he is never said to have used his extraordinary gifts for his own sake. It was not physical power that he sought to exercise, but moral power; the power of a love which no insensibility on the part of its objects could exhaust-of self-forgetfulness-of fortitude of meek and patient endurance. He sought to show how one might do and endure, not from necessity, but voluntarily, to disclose the before unrevealed energy of a generous and self-denying free will. And had he relieved himself, had he shrunk from suffering pain and contempt, he must have forgotten his great spiritual purpose.

But, although this explanation is at hand, the narrators, be it remembered, do not suggest it. They record the sneers of his enemies, in all their naked force, unrelieved by a single word of comment. But I must pause here for the present.

Many a one, I imagine, when disturbed with doubts about the truth of the New Testament history, has secretly wished that he had been permitted to live in those days to be present on the spot, and then how easily might he have satisfied himself. For my own part, I confess, I shrink at the thought of such a trial. A trial it must have been, as every one will perceive, who is aware of his own weakness, and knows the tremendous power of the example of a multitude. I fear I should have wanted courage and candour to resist the accumulated authority of the rich, and great, and learned, of the mass of the people, and have fallen in with the general insensibility, or participated in those prepossessions which presented so effectual a barrier against the force of the words and works of Jesus. One thing does seem to me most desirable. Could I

only have an account of those events from persons, or from only one person, whom I know, in whose good sense, integrity, and fairness, I have perfect confidence, then I should have a ground for my faith, than which none could be surer. Could individuals of this character have been present, and could we have their testimony, nothing would be wanting. I open the Four Gospels, and I feel that this want has been supplied most amply. When I read these books in the way in which I am now attempting to do it, I care not what names they bear, I see-I know that they are the work of an honest and impartial spirit. Nowhere in the writings of the dead, or in the conduct of the living, do I discern evidences of integrity and singleness of mind so luminous and affecting. I see none of the art of a fraudulent design-none of the incoherence of self-delusion. These histories command my cordial confidence. They are to me full of inspiration, not a vague mystical inspiration, but the inspiration of truth and honesty, the same spirit that breathes in every honest man, in every true word, the Holy Spirit. God give us this spirit without measure!

We have remarked upon the honesty of the Christian historians, particularly as it is evinced in the manner in which they speak of the principal personage of their narratives, the great object of their reverence and faith. They make no attempt to show him off. They manifest no apprehension about the impression that may be made by what they record. I am struck with the exhibition of their free, unguarded honesty, in the case which I am now about to mention.

We are given to understand with the utmost explicitness in these books, that Jesus was possessed of the most extraordinary powers-that he could heal the sick, give sight to the blind, and raise the dead, by a word. Numerous instances are detailed with remarkable particularity, in which, in the most public and satisfactory manner, he exercised these miraculous gifts. But on more than one occasion we are told that some of the principal men of the community came to him, and requested him to perform a miracle-to give them a sign, thus affording him an opportunity, as it would seem, of convincing them of his authority as a messenger from Heaven. "How long," said they, with apparently great plausibility," how long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." On these occasions, as the historians have not hesitated to inform us, he directly and uniformly refused to com

A SIGN DEMANDED AND REFUSED.

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ply with the request made to him. They give us no explanation of the reasons of his refusal. They leave him open to the charge of having evaded an appeal apparently very fair.

It is not my immediate purpose to state the grounds of the conduct of Jesus in these cases. Still, as it admits of an explanation at once sound and rational, not only in accordance with but illustrative of the dignity of his character and the spirituality of his object, I may be permitted to hint at it in passing. The Jewish nation, as I have already had occasion to state, cherished the fond expectation of the appearance of a military leader and king, who should deliver them from Roman bondage, and place them where, as the peculiar people of God, they fancied they belonged, at the head of the human race. The existence of this expectation is proved incidentally, and therefore the more satisfactorily, by the Christian records. So we need not resort to other witnesses to establish this point, although they are not wanting. How tenaciously this hope clung to the minds of the Jews may be gathered from the conduct and feelings of the adherents of Jesus. They evidently expected him to establish a worldly kingdom, and to distribute among them its chief offices and honours, and out of this expectation there frequently rose among them jealousy and strife. After all that he had said and done to the contrary, they still cherished this hope to the very last. And just before his final disappearance their language is, "Lord, wilt thou now restore the kingdom to Israel ?" As confidently as the Jews looked for a Messiah, they looked for him to be a temporal Prince and Deliverer.

Seeing then that this expectation existed so widely and deeply, is it not natural to infer that those who demanded of Jesus" a sign from heaven," failed of being

40

THE NATURE OF THE SIGN REQUIRED.

convinced by what he did actually say and do, because, although it proved him to be no ordinary man, still it did not carry out and realize their darling idea of the Christ? They wanted him to assume a character and to perform miracles, conformable to their cherished and pre-established notions. So that although at first sight it may appear that when they asked of him “a sign," they meant merely a display of miraculous power, no matter of what description, we may suppose that they intended a sign of a particular sort, a sign which should correspond to and justify their prepossessions. Indeed, it may be gathered from the Jewish writings, that an idea was entertained that the Messiah, when he came, would give some peculiar token or signal— some extraordinary display of power-a luminous appearance in the heavens perhaps, for it is not distinctly defined, which should be a credential of his authority, to point him out to the people as the Messiah, beyond the possibility of mistake. The Apostle Paul, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, observes, that the Jews seek after "a sign." And the inference is thus confirmed, that the sign sought was of a peculiar character, a sort of signal corresponding to the universal idea of the expected Deliverer. The demand for a sign, therefore, was equivalent to a demand for evidence that he was such a personage as was expected. But Jesus did not present himself to the nation as a military Leader. The office he assumed was infinitely superior to that of the most brilliant conqueror. Evidence therefore was demanded, of which the very nature of the case did not admit, and which he could not give. The grandeur and dignity of his aim prevented it. It was not he that made the Pharisees to doubt. Their doubts resulted from their own false prepossessions. These it was that led them astray or stopped them short of conviction.