Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1907-08-08

tnOuRnO TO associate ulViHlty WlUn d
throne than with cross. And because
there was so little of the throne i'll His
earthly ministry, we feel that we must
needs turn to what is secondary and
accidental and external altogether to
His real life, in order to find witness
to His divinity.
So long as divinity suggests to us
only majesty, dominion and power,
we shall miss the central evidence of
the divinity of Christ and we shall miss
the closest link which binds us to God,
and gives US the hope of becoming in
any real sense the sons of God. Our
faith in the divinity of Christ does not
rest finally upon any outward proof
but solely upon our perception and ap-
probation of His wonderful personal
ity and character. The highest, nay
the only real, meaning of the divine is
ethical and spiritual. Apart from
such meaning we may know some
thing of an infinite power, or of an in
finite intelligence, or of supreme
monarch in the heavens, but we know
absolutely nothing of the divine. To
seek to explain the divine in any other
terms than those which find our ethical
and spiritual sense, is like seeking to
convey an impression of sunset in
terms of optics and meteorology. If
to be divine means to be possessed of
all power and knowledge and visible
majesty, then we cannot call Jesus of
Nazareth divine. 1t is because the
divine has no necessary relation to
power or knowledge or kingly state,
but solely to the highest perfection of
character, that we hesitate not to hail
the Man of Galilee as in the highest
and truest sense divine. Instead of it
being necessary that He should be au-
thenticated to US by external voice or
sign, it is He who manifests, and
therefore authenticates, the Father to
us. "We know that what Jesus says
of God is true also of Himself,
and then we know it to be true of
| God" Our highest ideas of all that is
most truly and essentially divine are
based upon our knowledge and un-
derstanding of the spiritual character
of the Christ of the Gospels. The
whole spiritual meaning of our idea of
God is based upon our knowledge of
Christ. If there is purity more pure
than His, holiness more holy, a faith
profounder, hope higher and
surer, a love more tender and
deep, a purpose more far-reach-
ing and all-embracing, we know
not where they may be found. We
know of nothing in all the universe
more divine than Christ. 1t is because
we know of nothing which so exacts
our deepest spiritual homage, nothing
which so satisfies the most rigid ethical
demands, that we shrink not from Civ
ing to Him the name that is above
every name. Not power, not know
ledge, but love, is of the essence of
Gods nature. Only our Saviour's love
itself can witness to us in the truest
sense that He is divine. And yet how
slow we are to understand that our
faith that Christ is the Sun of God rests
upon our knowledge of His character,
of His spirit of love and service.
Browning, in his poem Gan Epistle.'
describes the shock, and also fascina-
ton, which this truth had fofa pagan
to whose mind it came as q startling
revelation. May that truth be as vivid
to us as to him.
"The very God! think Abb; dost thou
think?
So the All-Great were the all-Lovine
too
So through the thunder comes human
voice,
Saying: o heart l made, heart beats
here!
Face my hands fashioned, see it in my
self!
Thou hast no power nor mayest con.
ceive of mine;
, But love gave thee, with myself to
love,
And thou must love me who have dice
for thee"