stamps on Christianity the resplendent signet of Divinity. It re-echoes in Reason's ear the very voice that broke through the overshadowing cloud on the Mount of Transfiguration, "This is my beloved Son: hear him!”

We are aware of the tendency of certain schools of philosophy to deify humanity: but he who can contemplate the loveliness of Christ's spotless virtue; dwell on his weighty sayings, or listen to his tones of mingled softness and majesty; see the dead man come forth from the grave at his bidding, or hear him by a word hush the winds and waves into silence; hear him, too, proclaim forgiveness of sin, and testify his right by commanding the palsied sick to take up their bed and walk: who can witness his sympathy for the afflicted, and his own unruffled calmness amid insults and injuries; follow him through the closing scenes of his sufferings, and behold his meek submission, his magnanimity, his good-will to his enemies; stand by, while, in accomplishment of his own prediction, he bursts the bands of death, and hear him, as he ascends from earth to the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, challenging to himself the attributes of final Judge, and the sceptre of unlimited rule: he who can see and hear all this, yet discover in him no glimpse of Incarnate Deity, nothing above the utmost capabilities of man's nature, must indeed be hopelessly prejudiced or willfully sceptical. The rays of the sun might pierce the blind man's lids, but the blindness of such a mind is incurable.

We are aware, too, of the proneness of fanatics to magnify their object and exaggerate its importance, until their leader, dismissing the humility of a follower of Christ, complacently regards himself, as he is called, the Jesus Christ of the age! But if we are shocked at the impiety of all such pretensions, we can hardly be less amazed at the ignorance which the pretenders themselves betray. To deny the historic reality of such a person as Jesus of Nazareth; to regard his mission as simply the natural development of a great idea; or to resolve his teachings and doings into a series of myths, does, indeed, show how easily philosophy, falsely so called, may unhinge the mind, as infidelity always corrupts and petrifies the heart: but to arrogate to one's self the character and mission of Christ, only proves that fanaticism may craze the brain as well as sear the

conscience. Astounding presumption! reckless, incorrigible folly!

Look at the Author and Finisher of our faith! Infidelity may vent its foul aspersions, or brood in secret over its dark thoughts; but, though Argus-eyed in its malignity, it can discover not even a defect, much less a fault, in his character. Embodying the greatest moral strength with the most uniform and consistent virtue, a more perfect model defies conception. His meekness, his purity, his benevolence, his firmness and strength of purpose, and at the same time the lofty and "before untrodden range of his intellect," present him to us as the GREAT and GOOD without a parallel among mortals.

Yet in one sense we may see even Christ himself in the present: for whatever is good in the present is strictly referable to the light of his teaching, to the peculiar excellence of his example, and to the fervour and force of his disinterested love; and wherever men are engaged in doing good with an eye single to God's glory, there he is present, by his wòrd and Spirit, to sustain, and cheer, and prosper the work of their hands; and whenever two or three meet together in his name, there is he to bless them with his life-giving, peace-speaking presence; and whenever and wherever his ambassadors proclaim his messages of love and mercy to dying men, he is with them, and will be with them "even to the end of the world.”

They who consult the oracles of worldly wisdom may question the truth of the evangelic records, or regard Christ as no more than a prophet sent of God, or even degrade him to a level with themselves: but he who listens to the responses from the sacred oracles, will be taught to acknowledge and adore him as "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person;" for it is written that "all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father." He will even be taught to welcome and rely on Christ as the Lord his righteousness, as well as his sacrifice for sin; since it is written that "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight." Nor will his own renunciation of all self-righteousness at the foot of the cross render him less desirous of "cleansing himself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit," or less zealous "in every good word and work.” No; the answer to all our inquiries at the oracles of God respecting Christian character

and hope is one and the same: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."

Oh! it is not that all evidences of a Divine mission, and of a glorious salvation from the guilt and power of sin, do not cluster around the person of Christ Jesus, that so many reject his claims: 1 it is rather that so few who profess to regard him as the Son of God, breathe his spirit, and imitate his example.

1 Different writers have adverted to Christ's character as conclusive proof of the truth of his mission; but none have presented the argument in a clearer light than a late Unitarian divine, to whose 'Discourse' the author is indebted for some important suggestions. The wonder is, that he had not perceived the conclusion to which his own reasoning tends. "As an effect," he says "it must have had an adequate cause;" and simply "to refer the character of Jesus to a mission from the Father," is not an adequate cause. This were sufficient to account for the character of a Moses, or a Paul; but not for one who embodied in himself the perfections of Deity. On the supposition that a Divine being had assumed our nature, it is impossible to conceive in what respect he could have transcended in excellence Christ himself. If "his character can be explained by nothing around him," it becomes a question whether the principle of his existence was physically derived from Adam. The evangelists distinctly intimate that the principle of personality and individual existence, in the Son of the Virgin, was union with the uncreated Word; and therefore we do injustice to his history, if, in attempting to account for "his singular eminence of goodness," we overlook the fact of his miraculous conception; while this fact evidently implies some higher purpose than simply a mission from the Father to instruct men, as it necessarily involves the idea of two entire, distinct natures in one person. The evangelists, in their narratives, were consistent with their own view of Christ, as "Emmanuel" God with us; but an Unitarian in deducing the truth of Christianity from the character of its Founder, must needs be inconsistent with his own theory as to the nature of Christ. (See Discourses,' etc., by W. E. Channing page 349.)

THE INFIDEL JEWS.

AMONG the innumerable evidences of Christ's mission, the fact that he was rejected only by those who were false to Moses, furnishes one which, though not at once obvious, is, on reflection, not the less conclusive. An impostor may be a dogmatist, but no impostor ever invited scrutiny or challenged scepticism; much less would an impostor have ventured to refer a whole people to the archives of their nation in attestation of his claims, fearlessly appealing to the actual founder of their religion in final confirmation of the divinity of his own mission.

An impostor might have availed himself of that general expectation which pervaded the Jewish mind, of a coming Messiah; and, though he might have deceived some by flattering their prejudices and ministering to their passions, he must have failed in any attempt to make his character and actions answer to prophetic description, or accord with the Mosaic writings. Hence, all false Christs, for such did appear, were detected and exposed; but the more the claims of Jesus Christ were investigated, the stronger became the conviction that he was the Messiah who should come.

To whom could the original promise of a Saviour have referred, if not to him who, though born of a woman, was "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person?" To whom could all the sacrifices of the Mosaic dispensation have pointed, if not to him who should "take away sin by the sacrifice of himself?" In whom could the prophecies have met their fulfilment, if not in him "who came unto his own, and whom his own received not," and who was led as a lamb to the slaughter?" Who could have

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been "the end of the law for righteousness," if not he who was made under the law, yet without sin," who fulfilled the violated law, and made it honourable? And who could have furnished such an illustrious antitype of the Jewish legislator, as he who, like Moses, was miraculously preserved in his infancy; who fasted forty days in the wilderness, as Moses did on the Mount; who in an especial manner enjoyed intercourse with his heavenly Father, as Moses conversed with God face to face; who appeared as a mediator between God and man, as Moses stood in the gap; and who, even as the lawgiver and liberator of the Israelites, appeared with supreme power to save his people from their sins, to liberate them from the bondage of Satan, to open to them a way through the grave, and conduct them safe to the heavenly Canaan?

By consulting the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, where the prophecy is recorded, the reader may perceive that Moses distinctly referred to a great prophet who was destined to succeed him, and whose office it would be to establish a more spiritual religion; that he describes him as a lawgiver who should promulge a new law; that he furnished the Jews with a test by which they might distinguish the Messiah from a false prophet; that none of the prophets ever pretended to such a commission as Moses prophetically ascribed to Christ; and that, if Christ be not the person to whom Moses referred, the Messiah has not yet come.

But if Moses did foretell the coming of the Messiah, one who was to dissolve the ancient Levitical covenant, and usher in a new and spiritual dispensation; and if, in every respect, Jesus Christ answered to his prophetic description, as well as to the descriptions of other prophets sent of God; if the evidences of his Messiahship were so palpable, even in his birth and boyhood, that the aged Simeon could exclaim, "Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation," why did so many, who called themselves Israelites, not believe on him? Why did they hold out to the last, not only against the proofs furnished by the Old Testament writers, but against the more obtrusive evidence furnished by his own word and works?

Shall we say that, though they knew Moses referred to a coming Messiah, prejudice blinded their eyes against Christ?