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VALUE OF CHRIST'S MIRACLES.

He had "power on earth to forgive sins." If we believe that He was what He said He was"the Way, the Truth, and the Life"-we must believe that He spoke the truth, when He said He could forgive sin. Could He, possibly, give us a stronger assurance than that, of His own glorious Divinity?

It is the Divinity of Christ which gives efficacy to His atonement for sin. It is impossible, therefore, to exaggerate the value of the Miracles of Christ, or the importance of their verity.

THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.

165

I

XV.

AFTER-THOUGHTS.

SAID, at page 68,-"We will reserve all discussion respecting Christ's Temptation in the Wilderness, until we get farther on. But, instead of entering on an Enquiry which really needs a volume to do any measure of justice to it, I deem it better to omit the discussion altogether. And I will give the Reader my honest reason for so doing. My mind is not made up as to the rea form of the Temptation of Christ: whether to regard the narrative of Matthew and Luke as a narrative of facts-as the description of a visionor, as a parabolic description of His own mental conflict, given by the Saviour to His disciples. Sometimes, I incline to one interpretation, and sometimes to another; and, I repeat, I judge it is better to say so, and leave the discussion untouched.

166

CHANGE IN MY OWN

If a man thinks, he cannot fail to change his opinions on many subjects in the course of seventy years. On some subjects—after weighing facts and arguments, daily, for many years-I still remain in dubiety, while on others my mind is made up, very strongly and decidedly. Some of the readers of this little volume may have been readers of the "Critical Exegesis of Gospel History, on the basis of Strauss's 'Leben Jesu,'" which I inserted in "Cooper's Journal," in 1850. Twenty-six years have gone over my head, and I am now defending many things which I then impugned.

I thank God, however, that I have held fast one precious conviction, all the way through life. It is the conviction expressed in the following words, which were prefixed to that same "Critical Exegesis":

"I yield to none in fervent admiration and love for the character of Christ. Under all changes of opinion, his moral beauty has ever kept its throne in my heart and mind, as the most worshipful of all portraitures of goodness. I seek to multiply, not to lessen, the number of his true disciples.

RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS.

167

Deeply convinced that the rapid growth of enquiry, and the spread of scientific information, among the great body of the People, are destroying all belief in what is evidently legendary, I am anxious to aid the preservation, in some minds, at least, of continued and purified attachment to the substance of Christianity, while its shadows are being dispelled. I know no higher teaching than Christ's : I acknowledge none. But His religion no longer commends itself to me by mysterious or miraculous sanctions. I hold it to be the most perfect version of the Religion of Humanity; and, for that reason, desire to see it divested of all legendary incrustations that may prevent its reception with sincere and earnest thinkers."

So I wrote, while fast bound in the logical net of Strauss. Gradually, the strong conviction grew within me that the perfectly holy and spotless character of Christ itself was a miracle, and the greatest of all miracles; and that, as I did not. believe this perfect character to be legendary, I was inconsistent in regarding the miraculous acts of this perfect Christ as mere legends. My heart could not give up its worship of the one, and

168

ONLY THEY WHO ARE WILLING

so my reason came back to its worshipful reception of the other. And thus I, gradually, broke away from Strauss's net, and returned to the loving faith in the Saviour, which I had experienced in early life.

"If any man will do His will," says Christ, "he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." They are words which seem to me more and more weighty, every day of my life, and compel me to think that many disbelieve Christianity, because they are unwilling to believe it. I am sure that with some leading sceptics of my own time, whom I have known intimately, the pride of being logical was their highest motive and the very idol of their affections. I verily believe if Jesus could have been presented to them-were it possible-as a thousand times holier than he is presented to us in the portrait of the Evangelists, the presentation would not win them. They must have their logical queries fully resolved, or they will remain unbelievers still.

I impeach no man's sincerity, in saying this, God forbid! I would do battle in defence of the

sincerity of the very men I am thinking of, though