the vilest people on the earth. The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophising with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonising pain, abused, insulted, cursed by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed, indeed, the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God: "Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks of fiction; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty, without removing it; it is more inconceivable that a number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that one only should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the Gospel, the marks of whose truths are so striking and inimitable, that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero." 1 It seems ordered by Divine Providence, that infidels should unwittingly, and to their own confusion of face, furnish some of the most striking testimonies to the truth of His word. To him who could, after writing the above, say, "I cannot believe the Scriptures," may He not reply, "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee."2 Byron also, who like Rousseau and others, indulged in the pride of unbelief, was constrained to remark, "If ever man was God, or God was man, Jesus Christ was both." But the lives of these men sufficiently attested the "evil heart of unbelief" that was the root and spring of their infidelity. Of such the Psalmist has said, "The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God."3 Coleridge considers, "that we should not exclusively think of Christ as the Logos united to human nature, but likewise as a perfect man, united to the Logos. This distinction is most important in order to conceive, much more appropriately to feel, the conduct and exertions of Jesus." 4 It is well we should contemplate Jesus as our perfect human exemplar, as well as our Divine Redeemer and Sanctifier, that we may endeavour 1 Rousseau's Emilius, vol. ii. p. 218. 3 Psalm x. 4. 2 Luke xix. 22. 4 Table Talk, note, p. 86. to follow the steps of His most holy life, ❝till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."1 At the same time, the view of His absolutely perfect, unblemished human character assures us that He, and He alone, could be a perfect atonement for our sins. For the necessarily infinite value of the atonement to be made for the sins of the whole world, demands a sacrifice of infinite perfection and value. The "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," must needs be of absolutely sinless perfection of nature, as set forth in the "Lamb without blemish and without spot; "2 not only free from sinful deed or thought, but from that natural taint or corruption of human nature we all inherit from the fall; and the supposition that He in any degree participated the fallen nature of man, would vitiate the doctrine of the Atonement. But He suffered, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God;"3 and God "hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Again, the absolute perfection of character, such as was never from the beginning of time depicted of any other being, attests at once the inspiration of the evangelists, and the divinity of Him whose unequalled perfections are thus delineated. For how is it possible to conceive a poor, illiterate fisherman, such as John, imagining or composing such a biography as shines from the pages of his brief Gospel narrative of our Lord's words and acts? How are we to explain this, save by the fact, that he was, as promised by His Lord, (John xvi. 13,) “guided into all truth," by the Holy Spirit.5 NOTE XVI.-PUBLISHING THE GOSPEL TO ALL NATIONS.-The publishing of the Gospel to all the world, by the apostles, in obedience to their Lord's command, and the dissemination of Gospel truth, has been briefly noticed at pp. 132 and 186, and will be further dwelt upon in Note XVIII. The extent to which the Holy Scriptures have been disseminated throughout the world, and the vast number of translations made of them, so that it is morally impossible the sacred canon could ever be lost, even were not its divine Author engaged for its preservation through 1 Ephes. iv. 13. 2 Exodus xii. 5; 1 Peter i. 18, 19; Heb. ix. 13, 14; and x. 4-14. 5 See Barnes' Notes, Preface to John's Gospel. all time,1 may be judged from the following statement, made at the Jubilee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in 1853, when it was mentioned that, since the founding of the Society, fifty years ago, eight thousand Branch Societies have been instituted, the Scriptures translated into one hundred and forty-eight languages and dialects, of which one hundred and twenty-one had never before been printed, and upwards of forty-three million copies of the Scriptures distributed among, it was computed, six hundred millions of the human race! What a happy contrast with the time of Henry V., when it was enacted, “That, whosoever they were that should read the Scriptures in the mother tongue, should forfeit lande, catel, life, and godes, from theyre heyres for ever; and so be condemned for heretykes to God, enemies to the crowne, and most errant traitors to the lande."2 This Society now circulates one million five hundred thousand copies of the Bible a year! so that they have now, (1860), circulated between fifty and sixty million copies! In estimating the importance and extent of the above diffusion of God's Word, we must bear in mind, that it is the result of the labour and liberality and Christian zeal of only one of the many Societies working together for the enlightenment of the world, by the spread of God's truth. Who shall say that this scattering of His Word among all the nations of the earth, is not a most cheering fact, and does not afford abundant hope for the ultimate full fruition of these comparatively recent missionary labours now being carried on in all parts of the world, in the universal extension of God's eternal truth, made known "for the healing of the nations; or who, in the face of those magnificent and soul-stirring promises of God, which “are yea and amen,” in Isaiah ii. 1-4, and Micah iv. 1-5, Isaiah lxv. 17-25, and Habakkuk ii. 14, shall presume to say they shall not be completely fulfilled beyond what the sin-blinded faculties of man can conceive or believe. Alleluiah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.”3 NOTE XVII.-TYPICAL PREFIGURATIONS OF MESSIAH.-It has been beautifully observed by De Quincy, that analogies are "aerial pontoons.' And this expression seems peculiarly applicable to representations of things unseen and spiritual, which only can be understood or received by our finite understandings through the instrumentality of such aids 1 Matt. xxiv. 35; Isaiah xl. 8; and lix. 21. 2 See also" The Book and its Story," p. 132. D D 3 Rev. xix. 6. bridging over the infinite space that divides things temporal from things spiritual. 1 As Plato has well observed, "It is difficult fully to exhibit greater things without the use of patterns." The mind of man is so constituted as to derive knowledge mainly through analogical reasoning or comparison of things, a fact in itself an evidence of the unity of design pervading creation. Lord Bacon has remarked, “As hieroglyphics preceded letters, so parables are older than arguments. And even now, if any one wishes to pour new light into any human intellect, and to do so expediently and pleasantly, he must proceed in the same way, and call in the assistance of parables." So long as our faculties are confined to this scene of time and sense, we must derive our ideas and knowledge of things spiritual from earthly figures, analogies, or types. In the rude, earlier ages of the world, symbols and parables are the only means of teaching general, and especially spiritual, truths; and the progressive teachings of Scripture are in perfect accordance with the progressively extending capacity of the human mind for receiving such knowledge. The gradual revealings of God's Book of Inspiration, are paralleled by the step by step unfolding of His Book of Nature. Bishop Butler has happily called the Bible, "The History of the World as God's World." and this history of God's dealings with the human race, constitutes, from the first verse of Genesis, to the last of The Revelation, a progressive unfolding of the wondrous truth of Redemption by the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," adapted to the condition of man in all ages. The light becoming clearer and more spiritual, from the first dawn of it in the earliest typical institutions of sacrifice and circumcision; onward, to the Levitical ordinances, which are a complete series of typical representations of the manner, blessings, privileges, etc., of the great plan of salvation; so that all the chief doctrines of it may be seen represented in typical shadows or pictures, which not only served to foreshow that inconceivably wondrous design, and prepare men's minds for its reception, but also to be a perpetual representation of the great doctrinal truths of the Gospel, and thereby guard them from misapprehension or misrepresentation. Then we find the prophets and psalmists gradually unfolding the great mystery "kept secret from the foundation of the world," of the mere symbolic nature of all these institutions, and their foreshadowing reference to the Redeemer of the world. This being progressively more clearly stated, till, "When the fulness of the time 1 Plato's Statesman. 1 was come," and mankind were prepared for the great event in the world's history, the full development and manifestation of God's gracious designs through His Son, in the redemption and regeneration of man, is manifested to the world by the advent of the eternal, long-promised Messiah. But the typical teachings of Scripture have not ceased because the great types of Messiah have been accomplished in His advent and finished work of atonement; neither should we be right in restricting them to the foreshadowings of Messiah. In every good or evil human being pourtrayed in Scripture, and every consequence of good or evil actions, we behold representations of the typical "seed of the woman," and "seed of the serpent." And as then, so "Two manner of people are now seen struggling in the womb of time-a Cain and an Abel, an Ishmael and an Isaac, an Esau and a Jacob, an Absolom and a Solomon, the elder born after the flesh, and the younger born after the Spirit." 2 How complete and beautiful an illustration of our walk through the wilderness of sin in this life towards the heavenly Canaan, is set before us by the wanderings of the Israelites, designed as the Apostle informs us as our ensamples or types.3 And to this day the Old Testament types, and New Testament parables are the most powerful modes of engaging the mind and enlightening it as to the otherwise incomprehensible doctrines of Scripture. Thus the great mystery of Redemption by the sacrifice of the eternal Son, though our faculties are unable to fathom it, or see the reason or necessity of it, is yet commended to our hearts and feelings by the healing of the Israelites by the uplifted type. Even the miracles of our Lord, "The blind receive their sight, etc.," are typical representations of His spiritual operations still carried on in the believer's heart. And the significance of types and parables have now, in this advanced period of the progressive clearer development of God's truth, assumed a deeper, more spiritual aspect, and more active influential teachings. 4 And now that He, the "Second Adam," has come to shew us the more exalted God-like qualities and capabilities of that "temple of the Holy Ghost," the human soul-and as He who "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," has taken upon Him our flesh, that He might become "the first-born among many brethren," and so manifest to us 1 See Note xi. 2. 2 "Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation." 3 1 Cor. x. 6-11. 4 Matt. xi. 5. |