The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1882-01-11

Word who became flesh, and notwith-
standing his dignity as being the only
begotten from the Father, this glory was
such as became him. But John, when
recording this wonderful statement, had,
apart from every question of greater i'm
mediate inspiration, means, which seventy
years before did not exist, of facilitating
his belief, that the infant of whom Luke
tells u.s. that his mother laid him in a
manger because there was not room tor
him in the inn, was God. The teachings,
the miracles, the sufferings and death, the
resurrection attested my many infallible
signs during forty days, and the ascen-
sion, of Christ, and then the outpouring
of the Spirit, and the consequent growth
of the Church, and all the mighty works
which manifested the presence and power
of the Paraclete, all these were facts,
which must have had an adequate cause,
and which, therefore, made it easy to be-
lieve that God was incarnate in the
young child, at whose birth the angels
sung, Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace, good will to men" and
who in due time had grown in wisdom
and stature, and because the claimant of
the honor divinely bespoke through Moses
in the words; CA prophet shall the Lord
your God raise up unto you of your breth-
ren like unto me, him shall ye hear in
all things, whatsoever he shall say unto
you. And it shall come to pass that
every soul which will not hear that pro-
phet shall be destroyed from among the
people. These facts, too, developed the
meaning of Old Testament language and
ordinances, of which they were the full
fllment, and so produced a blaze of evil
dence beyond any that was enjoyed at
the time of the nativity, from many pro-
phecies verbal and typical, that the great
Deliverer promised to Jacob was to unite
divinity and humanity in himself and
be- at once, one divine person and yet a
perfect man.
The comparison to which attention has
now been called, suggests and illustrates
the important truth, that the holy incar-
nation is not presented to our faith, as an
isolated event, but as holy mystery
which is at once, the becoming end of a
grand previous preparation, and the suf-
fcient beginning of all that is wonderful
in the history, facts, claims, and promises
of Christianity; and it follows, that the
birth of Jesus Christ, while it must ever
remain an incomprehensible mystery, yet
as fact involving the Christian doctrine
of the two natures and one divine per-
sonality of our Redeemer, is made easy
to be believed by the consideration of the
preparation which terminated in it, and
the results which are to be traced to its
influence.
Lecky, who is in two senses rational
ism's historian, was compelled by the
force of truth to say: cit was reserved
for Christianity to present to the world
an ideal character, which, through all the
changes of eighteen centuries, has inspired
the hosts of men with an imprisoned
love, and has shown itself capable of act
ing on all ages, temperaments, and con-
ditions, and has not only been the highest
pattern of virtue, but the highest incen-
tive to the practice; and has exercised 50
deep an influence, that it may be truly
said, that the simple record of three short
years of active life has done more to
soften and regenerate mankind than all
the disquisitions of the philosophers, and
all the exhortations of the moralists ="
This, when we consider its author, can
not be looked upon as an exaggeration OF
the influence exercised upon the world
by the teaching and example of Jesus,
yet it is but an average sample of the
judgment of all respectable skeptics OF
our day. The wonder is, how they can
respect the apostolic doctrine touching
the person of Christ, as the explanation
of his wisdom and power. There is no
other explanation of them to be found !;
and hence the involuntary testimony OF
skepticism itself makes our faith in the
divinity of Jesus Christ easy.
Many are the new ideas transcendently
sublime, pure, and ennobling, which Chris
tianity has introduced into the mental
and moral world. One is that Of hea-
ven of sanctifed souls, a society adorned
by perfect individual nobility, secured by
absolute individual holiness, diversified
by all the amplitude of the fullest indi-
vidual liberty, and united in harmonious
symmetry by all-pervading, almighty
love. Another is the immediate and all
responsibility of the in
dividual to the one great Moral Ruler.
has laid the foundation for
freedom Of thought and conscience-and
planted the seed of religious and political
Iiberty-and revealed the obligations of
human society by making known to us
that God is a Spirit, tri-personal, and
therefore social, in the mode of his sub