St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-06-01
THE HIsToRIC CHRIsT.


THE HISTORIC CHRIST.
The American congress of churches
closed its session without solving any of the
problems of religious thought which are
now perplexing the human mind. The
final subject of discussion was, The Histor-
zeal CHRIST Considered as the True Center
of Theology. The opening invocation was
made by the Rev. CHAUNcEY GILES,
SwedenbOrgian, sect that regards CHRIST
as absolute deity, but encompasses the his
torieal CHRIST with cloud of mysticism,
while the leading paper on the subject was
by the Rev. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, a
Unitarian of the conservative wing, who OPP
poses the merely theistic UnitarianS, or
radicals, and personally accepts the mir
acles and resurrection of JESUS, while
holding him, as CLAIMING did, to be the
only Pattern Man. not the incarnate GOD.
The addresses that followed were by Prof.
ROBINSON, president of Brown uni
versity, who is a Baptist, and by
President PORTER of Yale, a Congre-
gationalist. The speeches of both of these
gentlemen threw no light upon the subject,
DR.. ROBINSON merely reiterating the ortho-
dOX belief that CHRIST is living Person,
that this Person contains two natures-the
divine and the Humankind that HE eX-
listed elsewhere before He was on earth and
that He assembled from the grave to where
He had been before President PORTER
was vague and incOnsequent in his remarks
as reported, but the upshot of them seemed
to be that while theology must always be
free and progressive it must always center
on the person of CHRIST. 1--WE see dis
tinctly," he says, chow step by step there
was progressive faith, ending in the ac-
acknowledgement of CHRIST as divine" 1t is
not easy to tell except from the status of
DR.. PORTER as an orthodox Congregation
alist, whether he means that the divinity
of CHRIST was "a development of Chris
tan doctrine" not held at the beginning, in
which case he comedies all that the Unita-
rians allege against the Nicene creed, or
whether he means that this germinal belief
grew with Christianity itself and all other
matters of doctrine or practice initiated
by it.
1t is assumed that all who call themselves
| Christians will admit that the historical
CHRIST is the basis of Christian theology.
But in these days of revised TRANSACTIONS
there is more difference of opinion than ever
as to the CHRIST of history. Some words
attributed to Him in the authorized version
have been left out in the new translation.
Texts with which ones ears have been
familiar from childhood, and upon which
great superstructures of dogma have been
built are found conspicuous by their alb
sence from the oldest manuscripts, to which
| the translatorS of King JAMES time had no
access. And when Christians do agree
about the words spoken by the historical
| CHRIST, such as where He speaks of His
second coming and about life and eternal
death, they are still far from agreeing
about the millennium and the limited dura-
ton or endless continuing of future punish
ment.
Still, when all is said, the Person of
CHRIST does stand out,a ERNEST REMAIN
admitted, amid the encircling gloom of his
| tory as portrait full of sweet ness and
| light not found in any other. What
think ye of CHRISTI" is a question engag-
| ing humanity to-day with more interest
than it did eighteen hundred years ago. 1t
is an immense, an overwhelming question,
| this consideration of what is involved in the
| historical CHRIST. Other masters have
come and gone, both before and since His
| time, yet the civilized world dates the years
and centuries from His birth. The Christ
ian era must represent new and supernat-
ural order in the world or this would not be
so. The evangelists have left us an indestruc-
| tible portrait of the historical CHRIST and
that He, and not another, is the Savior
to whom the prophets, apostles, creeds and
| churches bear testimony. So that while the
congress of churches has failed to solve the
| problems or clear away the doubts which
have been perpleXing the human mind re-
lating to this historic figure, it has shown
the possibility of the churches and of all
Christians who love the purity of CHRIsT's
gospel. while they disbelieve church dogmas,
joining hands for promoting objects of
Christian morality and Christian charity.
When we see churches calling themselves
Christian able to meet and cooperate with
increasing harmony, the face of the historic
CHRIST shines with a halo of sweeter light
as it looks down upon us through the ages
| as Judge and Redeemer.