SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

[January 6.]
ON SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY.

Read the Gospels, simply as historical memoirs; and by such aids as they alone supply, make yourself acquainted with him who is the subject of these narrations. Bring the individual conception as distinctly as possible before the mind; allow the moral sense to confer, in its own manner, and at leisure, with this unusual form of humanity. “Behold the man”—even the Savior of the world, and say whether it be not historic truth that is before the eye. The more peculiar is this form, yet withal symmetrical, the more infallible is the impression of reality we thence receive. What we have to do with in this instance, is not an undefined ideal of wisdom and goodness, conveyed in round affirmations, or in eulogies; but with a self-developed individuality, in conveying which the writers of the narrative do not appear. In this instance, if in any, the medium is transparent: nothing intervenes between the reader and the personage of the history, in whose presence we stand, as if not separated by time and space.

It may be questioned whether the entire range of ancient history presents any one character in colors of reality so fresh as those which distinguish the personage of the evangelic memoirs. The sages and heroes of antiquity—less and less nearly related, as they must be, to any living interests, are fading amid the mists of an obsolete world; but he who “is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever,” is offered to the view of mankind, in the eyes of immortality, fitting a history, which, instead of losing the intensity of its import, is gathering weight by the lapse of time.

The Evangelists, by the translucency of their style, have given a lesson in biographical composition, showing how perfectly individual character may be expressed in a method which disdains every rule but that of fidelity. It is personal humanity, in the presence of which we stand, while perusing the Gospels, and to each reader apart, if serious and ingenuous, and yet incredulous, the Savior of the world addresses a mild reproof—“It is I. Behold my hands and my feet; reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing.” And can we do otherwise than grant all that is now demanded, namely, that the Evangelists record the actions and discourses of a real person?

It is well to consider the extraordinary contrasts that are yet perfectly harmonized in the personal character of Christ. At a first glance, he always appears in his own garb of humility—lowliness of demeanor is his very characteristic. But we must not forget that this lowliness was combined with nothing less than a solemnly proclaimed and peremptory challenge of rightful headship over the human race! Nevertheless, the oneness of the character, the fair perfection of the surface, suffers no rent by this blending of elements so strangely diverse. Let us then bring before the mind, with all the distinctness we can, the conception of the Teacher, more meek than any who has ever assumed to rule the opinions of mankind, and who yet, in the tones proper to tranquil modesty, and as conscious at once of power and right, anticipates that day of wonder, when “the king shall sit on the throne of his glory,” with his angels attendant; and when “all nations shall be gathered before him,” from his lips to receive their doom! The more these elements of personal character are disproportionate, the more convincing is the proof of reality which arises from their harmony.

We may read the Evangelists listlessly, and not perceive this evidence; but we can never read them intelligently without yielding to it our convictions.

If the character of Christ be, as indeed it is, altogether unmatched in the circle of history, it is even less so by the singularity of the intellectual and moral elements which it combines, than by the sweetness and perfection which result from their union. This will appear the more, if we consider those instances in which the combination was altogether of an unprecedented kind.

Nothing has been more constant in the history of the human mind, whenever the religious emotions have gained a supremacy over the sensual and sordid passions, than the breaking out of the ascetic temper in some of its forms; and most often in that which disguises virtue, now as a specter, now as a maniac, now as a mendicant, now as a slave, but never as the bright daughter of heaven. Of the three Jewish sects extant in our Lord’s time, two of them—that is to say, the two that made pretensions to any sort of piety, had assumed the ascetic garb, in its two customary species—the philosophic (the Essenes) and the fanatical (the Pharisees); and so strong and uniform is this crabbed inclination, that Christianity itself, in violent contrariety to its spirit and its precepts, went off into the ascetic temper, within a century after the close of the apostolic age, or even earlier.

Under this aspect, then, let us for a moment consider the absolutely novel phenomenon of the Teacher of a far purer morality than the world had heretofore ever listened to; yet himself affecting no singularities in his modes of living. The superiority of the soul to the body was the very purport of his doctrine; and yet he did not waste the body by any austerities! The duty of self-denial he perpetually enforced; and yet he practiced no factitious mortifications! This Teacher, not of abstinence, but of virtue; this Reprover, not of enjoyment, but of vice, himself went in and out among the social amenities of ordinary life with so unsolicitous a freedom as to give color to the malice of hypocrisy, in pointing the finger at him, saying, “Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber; a friend (companion) of publicans and sinners!” Should we not then note this singular apposition and harmony of qualities, that he who was familiar with the festivities of heaven did not any more disdain the poor solaces of mortality, than disregard its transient pains and woes? Follow this same Jesus from the banquets of the opulent, where he showed no scruples in diet, to the highways and wildernesses of Judea, where, never indifferent to human sufferings, he healed—“as many as came unto him.”

These remarkable features in the personal character of Christ have often, and very properly, been adduced as instances of the unrivaled wisdom and elevation which mark him as preËminent among the wise and good.

It is not, however, for this purpose that we now refer to them, but rather as harmonies, altogether inimitable, and which put beyond doubt the historic reality of the person. Thus considered, they must be admitted by calm minds as carrying the truth of Christianity itself.

[January 13.]

There are, however, those who will readily grant us what, indeed, they can not with any appearance of candor deny—the historic reality of the person of Christ, and the more than human excellence which his behavior and discourses embody; but at this point they declare that they must stop. Let such persons see to it—they can not stop at this point; for just at this point there is no ground on which foot may stand.

What are the facts?

The inimitable characteristics of nature attach to what we may call the common incidents of the evangelic history, and in which Jesus of Nazareth is seen mingling himself with the ordinary course of social life.

But is it true that these characteristics suddenly, and in each instance, disappear when this same person is presented to us walking on another, and a high path, namely, that of supernatural power? It is not so, and, on the contrary, very many of the most peculiar and infallible of those touches of tenderness and pathos which so generally mark the evangelic narrative, belong precisely to the supernatural portions of it, and are inseparably connected with acts of miraculous beneficence. We ask that the Gospels be read with the utmost severity of criticism, and with this especial object in view, namely, to inquire whether those indications of reality which have already been yielded to as irresistible evidences of truth, do not belong as fully to the supernatural, as they do to the ordinary incidents of the Gospel? or in other words, whether, unless we resolve to overrule the question by a previous determination, any ground of simply historic distinction presents itself, marking off the supernatural from the ordinary events of the evangelic narratives?

If we feel ourselves to be conversing with historic truth, as well as with heavenly wisdom, when Jesus is before us, seated on the mountain-brow, and delivering the Beatitudes to his disciples; is it so that the colors become confused, and the contour of the figures unreal, when the same personage, in the midst of thousands, seated by fifties on the grassy slope, supplies the hunger of the multitude by the word of his power? Is it historic truth that is presented when the fearless Teacher of a just morality convicts the rabbis of folly and perversity; and less so when, turning from his envious opponents, he says to the paralytic, “Take up thy bed and walk?” Nature herself is before us when the repentant woman, after washing the Lord’s feet with her tears, and wiping them with her hair, sits contrasted with the obdurate and uncourteous Pharisee; but the very same bright forms of reality mark the scene when Jesus, filled with compassion at the sight of a mother’s woe, stays the bier and renders her son alive to her bosom.

Or, if we turn to those portions of the Gospels in which the incidents are narrated more in detail, and where a greater variety of persons is introduced, and where, therefore, the supposition of fabrication is the more peremptorily excluded, it is found that the supernatural and the ordinary elements are in no way to be distinguished in respect of the simple vivacity with which both present themselves to the eye. The evangelic narrative offers the same bright translucency, the same serenity, and the same precision, in reporting the most astounding as the most familiar occurrences. It is like a smooth-surfaced river, which, in holding its course through a varied country reflects from its bosom at one moment the amenities of a homely border, and at the next the summits of the Alps, and both with the same unruffled fidelity.

As the subject of a rigorous historic criticism, and all hypothetical opinions being excluded, no pretext whatever presents itself for drawing a line around the supernatural portions of the Gospels, as if they were of suspicious aspect, and differed from the context in historic verisimilitude. Without violence done to the rules of criticism, we can not detach the miraculous portions of the history, and then put together the mutilated portions, so as to consist with the undoubted reality or the part which is retained.

Or take the narrative of the raising of Lazarus of Bethany. A brilliant vividness, as when a sunbeam breaks from between clouds, illumines this unmatched history; and it rests with equal intensity upon the stupendous miracle, and upon the beauty and grace of the scene of domestic sorrow. If we follow Martha and Mary from the house to the spot where they meet their friend, and give a half-utterance to their confidence in his power, at what step—let us distinctly determine—at what step, as the group proceeds toward the sepulchre, shall we halt and refuse to accompany it? Where is the break in the story, or the point of transition, and where does history finish, and the spurious portion commence? Is it when we approach the cave’s mouth that the gestures of the persons become unreal, and the language untrue to nature? Where is it that the indications of tenderness and majesty disappear—at the moment when Jesus weeps, or when he invokes his Father, or when, with a voice which echoes in hades, he challenges the dead to come forth; or is it when “he who was dead” obeys this bidding?

We affirm that, on no principles which a sound mind can approve, is it possible either to deny the reality of the natural portions of this narrative, or to sever these from the supernatural. But this is not enough; for it might be in fact more easy to offer some intelligible solution of the difficulty attaching to the supposition that the gospels are not true, in respect of the ordinary, than of the extraordinary portion of their materials. If we were to allow it to be possible (which it is not) that writers showing so little inventive or plastic powers as do Matthew the Publican, and John of Galilee, should, with the harmony of truth, have carried their imaginary Master through the common acts and incidents of his course; never could they, no, nor writers the most accomplished, have brought him, in modest simplicity, through the miraculous acts of that course. Desperate must be the endeavor to show that, while the ordinary events of the gospel must be admitted as true, the extraordinary are incredible. On the contrary, it would be to the former, if to any, that a suspicion might attach; for, as to the latter, they can not but be true: if not true, whence are they?

The skepticism, equally condemned as it is by historical logic and by the moral sense, which allows the natural and disallows the supernatural portion of the history of Christ, is absolutely excluded when we compare, in the four Gospels separately, the narrative of what precedes the resurrection, with the closing portions, which bring the crucified Jesus again among his disciples.

[January 20.]

If those portions of the evangelic history which reach to the moment of the death of Christ are, in a critical sense, of the same historic quality as those which run on to the moment of his ascension, and if the former absolutely command our assent—if they carry it as by force, then, by a most direct inference, “is Christ risen indeed,” and become the first fruits of immortality to the human race. Then it is true that, “as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” No narrative is anywhere extant comparable to that of the days and hours immediately preceding the crucifixion; and the several accounts of the hurried events of those days present the minute discrepancies which are always found to belong to genuine memoirs, compiled by eye-witnesses.

The last supper and its sublime discourses; the agony in the garden, the behavior of the traitor, the scenes in the hall of the chief priest, and before the judgment-seat of the Roman procurator, and in the palace of Herod, and in the place called the Pavement, and on the way from the city, and in the scene on Calvary, are true—if anything in the compass of history be true.

But now, if our moral perceptions are in this way to be listened to, not less incontestably real are the closing chapters of the four Gospels, in which we find the same sobriety and the same vivacity; the same distinctness and the same freshness; the same pathos and the same wisdom, and the same majesty; and yet all chastened by the recollected sorrows of a terrible conflict just passed, and mellowed with the glow of a triumph at hand.

Let it be imagined that writers such as the Evangelists might have led their Master as far as to Calvary; but could they, unless truth had been before them, have reproduced him from the sepulchre? What abruptness, harshness, extravagance, what want of harmony, would have been presented in the closing chapters of the Gospels, if the same Jesus had not supplied the writers with their materials by going in and out among them after his resurrection.

On the supposition that Christ did not rise from the dead, let any one whose moral tastes are not entirely blunted, read the narrative of his encounter with Mary in the garden, and with his disciples in the inner chamber, and again on the shore of the lake; let him study the perfect simplicity and yet the warmth of the interview with the two disciples on their way to Emmaus. The better taste of modern times, and the just sense of what is true in sentiment and pure in composition, give us an advantage in an analysis of this sort. Guided, then, by the instincts of the most severe taste, let us spread before us the final portion of the Gospel of Luke, namely, the twenty-fourth chapter, which reports a selection of the events occurring between the early morning of the first day of the week, and that moment of wonder when, starting from the world he had ransomed, the Savior returned whence he had come. Will any one acquainted with antiquity affirm that any writer, Greek, Roman, or barbarian, has come down to us, whom we can believe capable of conceiving at all of such a style of incident or discourse; or who, had he conceived it, could have conveyed his conception in a style so chaste, natural, calm, lucid, pure? Nothing like this narrative is contained in all the circle of fiction, and nothing equal to it in all the circle of history; and yet nothing is more perfectly consonant with the harmonies of nature. We may listlessly peruse this page, each line of which wakens a sympathy in every bosom which itself responds to truth. But if we ponder it, if we allow the mind to grasp the several objects, we are vanquished by the conviction that all is real. But if real, and if Christ be risen indeed, then is Christianity indeed a religion of facts; and then we are fully entitled to a bold affirmation and urgent use of whatever inferences may thence be fairly deduced.

Acute minds will not be slow to discern, as in perspective before them, the train of those inferences which we shall feel ourselves at liberty to deduce from the admission that Christianity is historically true. This admission can not, we are sure, be withheld; and yet let it not be made with a reserved intention to evade the consequences. What are they? They are such as embrace the personal well-being of every one; for, if Christianity be a history, it is a history still in full progress; it is a history running on, far beyond the dim horizon of human hopes and fears.

[January 27.]

But it is said, all this, at the best, is moral evidence only; and those who are conversant with mathematical demonstrations, and with the rigorous methods of physical science, must not be required to yield their convictions easily to mere moral evidence.

We ask, have those who are accustomed thus to speak, actually considered the import of their objection; or inquired what are the consequences it involves, if valid? We believe not; and we think so, because the very terms are destitute of logical meaning; or imply, if a meaning be assigned to them, a palpable absurdity.

If, for a moment, we grant an intelligible meaning to the objection as stated, and consent to understand the terms in which it is conveyed, as they are often used, then we affirm that some portion of even the abstract sciences is less certain than are very many things established by what is called moral evidence—that a large amount of what is accredited as probably true within the circle of the physical and mixed sciences is immeasurably inferior in certainty to much which rests upon moral evidence; and further, that so far from its being reasonable to reject this species of evidence, the mere circumstance of a man’s being known to distrust it in the conduct of his daily affairs, would be held to justify, in his case, a commission of lunacy.

No supposition can be more inaccurate than that which assumes the three kinds of proof, mathematical, physical, and moral, to range, one beneath the other, in a regular gradation of certainty; as if the mathematical were in all cases absolute; the physical a degree lower, or, as to its results, in some degree, and always, less certain than those of the first; and, by consequence, the third being inferior to the second, necessarily far inferior to the first; and therefore, always much less certain than that which alone deserves to be spoken of as certain, and in fact barely trustworthy in any case.

Any such distribution of the kinds of proof is mere confusion, illogical abstractedly, and involving consequences, which, if acted upon, would appear ridiculously absurd.

It is indeed true that the three great classes of facts—the universal, or absolute (mathematical and metaphysical)—the general, or physical, and the individual (forensic and historical) are pursued and ascertained by three corresponding methods, or, as they might be called, three logics. But it is far from being true that the three species of reasoning hold an exclusive authority or sole jurisdiction over the three classes of facts above mentioned. Throughout the physical sciences the mathematical logic is perpetually resorted to, while even within the range of the mathematical the physical is, once and again, brought in as an aid. But if we turn to the historical and forensic department of facts, the three methods are so blended in the establishment of them, that to separate them altogether is impracticable; and as to moral evidence, if we use the phrase in any intelligible sense, it does but give its aid, at times, on this ground; and even then the conclusions to which it leads rest upon inductions which are physical, rather than moral.

The conduct of a complicated historical or forensic argument concerning individual facts, resembles the manipulations of an adroit workman, who, having some nice operation in progress, lays down one tool and snatches up another, and then another, according to the momentary exigencies of his task.

That sort of evidence may properly be called moral, which appeals to the moral sense, and in assenting to which, as we often do with an irresistible conviction, we are unable, with any precision, to convey to another mind the grounds of our firm belief. It is thus often that we estimate the veracity of a witness or judge of the reality or spuriousness of a written narrative. But then even this sort of evidence, when nicely analyzed, resolves itself into physical principles.

What are these convictions which we find it impossible to clothe in words, but the results in our minds, of slow, involuntary inductions concerning moral qualities, and which, inasmuch as they are peculiarly exact, are not to be transfused into a medium so vague and faulty as is language, at the best?

As to the mass of history, by far the larger portion of it rests, in no proper sense, upon moral evidence. To a portion the mathematical doctrine of probabilities applies—for it may be as a million to one—that an alleged fact, under all the circumstances, is true. But the proof of the larger portion resolves itself into our knowledge of the laws of the material world, and of those of the world of mind. A portion also is conclusively established by a minute scrutiny of its agreement with that intricate combination of small events which makes up the course of human affairs.

Every real transaction, especially those which flow on through a course of time, touches this web-work of small events at many points, and is woven into its very substance. Fiction may indeed paint its personages so as for a moment to deceive the eye, but it has never succeeded in the attempt to foist its factitious embroideries upon the tapestry of truth.

We might take as an instance that irresistible book in which Paley has established the truth of the personal history of St. Paul (“The HorÆ PaulinÆ”). It is throughout a tracing of the thousand fibres by which a long series of events connects itself with the warp and woof of human affairs. To apply to evidence of this sort, the besom of skepticism, and sweepingly to remove it as consisting only in moral evidence, is an amazing instance of confusion of mind.

It is often loosely affirmed that history rests mainly upon moral evidence. Is then a Roman camp moral evidence? Or is a Roman road moral evidence? Or are these and many other facts, when appealed to as proof of the assertion that, in a remote age, the Romans held military occupation of Britain, moral evidence? If they be, then we affirm that, when complete in its kind, it falls not a whit behind mathematical demonstration, as to its certainty.

Although it is not true that Christianity rests mainly upon moral evidence, yet it is true that it might rest on that ground with perfect security.

It is to this species of evidence that we have now appealed; not as establishing the heavenly origin of Christianity, which it does establish, but simply as it attests the historic reality of the person of Christ, and here we must ask an ingenuous confession from whoever may be bound in foro conscientiÆ to give it, that the notion of Christianity, and the habitual feelings toward it of many in this Christian country, are such as if brought to the test of severe reasoning could by no ingenuity be made to consist either with the supposition that Christianity is historically false, or that it is historically true! This ambiguous faith of the cultured, less reasonable than the superstitions of the vulgar (for they are consistent, which this is not,) could never hold a place in a disciplined mind but by an act, repeated from day to day, and similar to that of a man who should refuse to have the shutters removed from the windows on that side of his house whence he might descry the residence of his enemy.

If Christianity be historically true it must be granted to demand more than a respectful acknowledgment that its system of ethics is pure; or were it historically false, we ought to think ourselves to be outraging at once virtue and reason in allowing its name to pass our lips. While bowing to Christianity as good and useful, and yet not invested with authority toward ourselves, we are entangled in a web of inconsistencies, of which we are not conscious, only because we choose to make no effort to break through it. If Christianity be true, then it is true that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,” and must, “every one of us, give an account of himself to God.” What meaning do such words convey to the minds of those who, with an equal alarm, would see Christianity overthrown as a controlling power in the social system; or find it brought home to themselves, as an authority, they must personally bow to? Christians! How many amongst us are Christians, as men might be called philosophers, who, while naming Newton always with admiration, should yet reserve their interior assent for the very paganism of astronomy.

A religion of facts, we need hardly observe, is the only sort of religion adapted powerfully to affect the hearts of the mass of mankind; for ordinary or uncultured minds can neither grasp, nor will care for, abstractions of any kind. But then that which makes Christianity proper for the many, and indeed proper for all, if motives are to be effectively swayed, renders it a rock of offense to the few who will admit nothing that may not be reduced within the circle of their favored generalizations. Such minds, therefore, reject Christianity, or hold it in abeyance, not because they can disprove it, but because it will not be generalized, because it will not be sublimated, because it will not be touched by the tool of reason; because it must remain what it is—an insoluble mass of facts. In attempting to urge consistency upon such persons, the advocate of Christianity makes no progress, and has to return, ever and again, to his document, and to ask: Is this true, or false? If true, your metaphysics may be true also; but yet must not give law to your opinions; much less, govern your conduct.

Resolute as may be the determination of some to yield to no such control, nevertheless if the evangelic history be true, “one is our Master, even Christ.” He is our Master in abstract speculation—our Master in religious belief, our Master in morals, and in the ordering of every day’s affairs.

It will be readily admitted that this our first position, if it be firm, sweeps away, at a stroke, a hundred systems of religion, ancient and modern, which either have not professed to rest upon historic truth, or which have notoriously failed in making good any such pretension. These various schemes need not be named; they barely merit an enumeration; they are susceptible of no distinct refutation, for they are baseless, powerless, obsolete.

Say you that Christianity is intolerant in thus excluding all other systems? A religion which excludes that which is false is not therefore intolerant. If it be true, it must exclude all that is untrue. Let us have a religion willing to walk abreast with other religions—religions affirming what it denies, and denying what it affirms—but indulgent toward all. An intolerant religion is the religion of a sect, and of a sect in fear.