faith in his own messiahship. Infidelity must take the ground, and, at the present day, almost universally, does take the ground, that Jesus was a religious enthusiast. His ethical system and, perhaps, a part of his religious teaching, are praised, but his distinctive claim to be the Messiah of God is rejected as decidedly as it was by the Jewish elders who crucified him. As if to make up for this dishonor put upon his pretensions, abundant laudation is bestowed, as we have said, upon the character of Jesus. Skeptical writers of the present day have much to say of the fine balance and equipoise of his faculties. Even Strauss, in his latest work, pays homage to the harmony of his nature. But these writers frequently go farther; they describe him as the embodiment of whatever is pure and good, the highest exemplar of moral excellence.

We deny the consistency of their position. We deny the justice of this judgment concerning Jesus, if, indeed, as they tell us, his extraordinary claims were founded in illusion. are obliged with all solemnity to affirm, that the indulgence of the thought that these awful claims were the fruit of selfdeception, carries along with it, as a necessary consequence, a feeling towards Jesus quite opposed to the reverence and abundant admiration which they are still disposed to lavish upon him. In other words, the cherishing of a delusion of this character is incompatible with that moral soundness, that clear and thorough truth of character, the lack of which debars one from being the legitimate object of such reverence and admiration. In short, the skeptical view of the claims of Christ strikes indirectly, but with equal effect, at his character. It is impossible to stop with attributing to him the weakness of an enthusiast. Such a delusion, though it be unconscious, can have no other ultimate source than moral infirmity. That profound truth of character, which ensures self-knowledge, clarifies the intellect, and keeps a moral being in his own place, can no longer be supposed. A sentiment of mislike— of aversion-must take the place of moral reverence. In ordinary life, any one who dreams himself entitled to more of honor and deference than belongs to him, and more of control than he has a right to exert, excites a natural disesteem.

Men

divine that false pretensions, even when they are unconsciously false, spring from some occult fault of character. And when claims are mistakenly put forth which would lift the subject of them to a higher than earthly pinnacle of dignity and power, the same verdict, with proportionally augmented emphasis, must follow..

The supernatural claims of Jesus are thus identified with' the excellence of his character. Both stand or fall together. Trust in him has a warrant in his transcendent goodness. He could not be self-deceived, and therefore his testimony respecting himself is credible. He who lived and died for the truth, was not himself enslaved by a stupendous falsehood. But respecting himself, not less than in respect to the other great themes of his teaching, he saw and uttered the truth. "To this end," he said, "was I born, and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth. He that is of the truth heareth my voice."

ARTICLE II.-DID CHRIST SUFFER AS DIVINE?

THE work of Christ in atoning for the sins of men involved the necessity of his suffering. The proper desert of the guilty is penal suffering; and the Mediator, who became a sacrifice for them, must, in some relation to the divine government, have endured vicarious suffering: not necessarily, the same in kind or degree; but a kind, and a degree, which in the place of the deserved penalty should as fully sustain the authority of the Great Lawgiver. Thus far, believers in an evangelical atonement generally agree.

But the question has arisen, in respect to which there seems to be by no means the same concurrence of views:-Were the sufferings of Christ limited to his human nature; or did He suffer also as divine?

In Luke xxiv. 26, 46, the language of our Saviour is, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things." "Thus it behooved Christ to suffer." The word "Christ" generally denotes both the human and the divine nature of the Messiah; while the word "Jesus" commonly denotes his human nature. The above passages would therefore seem to favor the opinion that the Messiah, in his atoning work, suffered in his whole nature, both as human and divine. But while these and other passages favor this view, they will not be regarded as conclusive. This question is not in fact easily settled on purely exegetical grounds. It involves the discussion of facts and principles in Christianity, in Theology, and in Mental Science; though in the latter, only so far as the human mind is the image of the divine.

The object of the present Article is, to sustain the position that Christ suffered as divine.

The grounds on which we base this argument, are the acknowledged nature and character of God; the fact that Christ came to manifest God;' and the relation of divine suffering to a divine atonement.

But we are met at the outset with the objection, that it is impossible for us to know enough of the divine nature to affirin that God can suffer; for he is the Absolute and Infinite One; if we attempt to reason concerning the Absolute and Infinite, we go beyond the limits of finite powers into a region where every step involves us in contradictions and absurdities.

But if we cannot affirm, because of his incomprehensible nature, that it is possible for him to suffer, neither, for the same reason, can we affirm that he cannot suffer; and this objection, as nullifying itself, leaves the subject fairly open to evidence or to arguments upon other grounds.

And here we are met with objections more formidable, based upon directly the opposite ground, viz: that we know too much of the divine nature and character to believe it possible for God to suffer. More definitely, the main objections to this view are two; founded, one of them, upon the supposed nature, and the other upon the acknowledged character of God. The first may be stated thus: From the perfection of the divine nature there can be no cause of suffering in himself, and he is sovereignly independent of his creation and eternally sufficient unto himself for his own happiness; therefore it is impossible that he should suffer.

The second objection is this:-The perfections of God's character as the all-wise, powerful, and benevolent Creator, are inconsistent with the idea of his suffering.

In reply to the first objection, it is admitted at once, that the Infinite and Perfect One can have no cause of suffering in himself, and He is entirely sovereign in respect to his own counsels and action. He planned His own creation, and called it into being by his own power and according to the counsel of His own will. But may we assume that he cannot suffer in any relation he may bear to his creatures? By his nature he is a moral being, and as such perfectly benevolent. As benevolent, are we sure that he could be satisfied with his own existence and happiness? Does not the very idea of benevolence imply an object of regard, and a sphere of activity outside his own nature? And may not a world of beings, therefore, which he can bless, be so correlated to the divine nature, as to

be essential to his complete happiness? We read from inspiration concerning the heavens and the earth, "For thy pleasure, they are, and were created." Now, if it was God's pleasure to create the heavens and the earth; if, in the light of His omniscience and benevolence, He saw it good to create a world distinct from Himself, as the proper sphere of His active, out-going benevolence, could it have been equally to His pleasure not to have created it? If not, then his complete happiness is related to a creation distinct from His own nature, as the object and sphere of his benevolence.

Justice also belongs to the divine nature. Its appropriate, if not exclusive sphere, is in a moral creation; and so far as his happiness consists in the exercise of justice, it depends directly upon his own maintenance of justice, and indirectly upon a moral creation where his justice shall prevail. Hence, without such a world, would not his happiness be incomplete? And, furthermore, would not a world where injustice should prevail occasion his displeasure? So of his creative power, His love, and all His perfections and attributes that find happiness in going forth out of Himself. It follows, then, that His sovereign independence and sufficiency in Himself are not to be conceived of as entirely disconnecting His happiness from the world He has made, or as necessarily incompatible with His suffering.

The second objection assumes that the perfections of God's character, as an all-wise, powerful, and beneficent Creator, are inconsistent with the idea of His suffering.

The reasoning is like this:-" God could create all that He saw it best to create; He would create that and nothing besides; therefore, he can find nothing in his entire universe that can give him displeasure, for he is unchangeable, and nothing exists but by his creation or permission."

True, the Most High could survey all his work with entire complacency and pronounce it "Good." But is all that he permitted good? The question is not, whether he wisely permitted what he did permit; but allowing this, whether having created moral beings, and permitted them, in the exercise of their freedom, to abuse the powers he gave them in transgress