THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. produce this effect. 113 Still they may be severally assigned to classes, with which the daily intercourse of life and our common observation of human nature have rendered us familiar. Who has not often met with persons resembling Mary and Martha, Peter, John and Pilate in their principal features? But the character of Jesus stands alone, without precedent or pattern. It constitutes a specimen-a model by itself. The history of the world furnishes us with no other instances to be classed along with it. Here the loftiest and loveliest attributes of humanity meet in full developement in one individual. In his person, not only are conjoined in the profoundest harmony those remarkable qualities, which have been exhibited by different men at remote intervals, "every creature's best," but we discern new forms of virtue, a new manifestation of greatness. Although through the extravagant errors which have prevailed concerning the nature of Christ, his character has been but very partially apprehended, still it has generally been felt to be the grand argument for Christianity. But it appears to me that the very remarkable manner in which it is bodied forth in the four Gospels has never arrested the attention which it deserves. For my own part, I am at a loss to say which is the most astonishing, the character itself, or the way in which it is exhibited by the historians of the life of Jesus. In him we have a new and original specimen of human nature. If he never had an existence-if he were a fictitious personage, it is evident that the writers of his life 114 THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. had no model to go by. But while he is original, he is at the same time perfectly natural. He is an harmonious whole, a self-consistent individual. This is abundantly enough to satisfy me of his reality. For it is not for minds deluding or deluded, and one or the other we must suppose the New Testament authors to have been if we do not admit their truth, it is not for such minds, nor is it within the ability of any human mind to produce a new creation, to make a new form of humanity, stamped all over with the truth and naturalness which characterize only the works of nature and of God. But this is not all. The crowning wonder still is the manner in which the character of Jesus is placed before us. At once, in the highest degree, new and natural, it is nowhere elaborately described in the four Gospels. There is not the slightest appearance of an attempt at minute description or analysis. That the writers felt most deeply the force of the character of Jesus, is not to be doubted. But, (and perhaps for this very reason, because they felt it so deeply,) they do not endeavour to define its force, or to point out wherein its peculiar greatness and beauty lay.* In the briefest and most rapid *"To analyze the characters of others, especially of those whom we love, is not a common or natural employment of men at any time. We are not anxious unerringly to understand the constitution of the minds of those who have soothed, who have cheered, who have supported us; with whom we have been long and daily pleased and delighted. The affections are their own justification. The Light of Love in our Hearts is a satisfactory evidence that there is a body of THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 115 manner they have related a variety of occurrences in which he bore a conspicuous part. Their narrations show no traces of care or labour, no pains to put things together in a way to assist the reader to form, I say not a consistent idea of Jesus, but so much as any idea of him at all. They seem to be possessed with only one very plain and natural purpose-a simple relation of the things they had seen and heard, as they appeared to them. The reader may find a sufficient exemplification of these remarks, in the instances which I have already adduced in another connexion. Still one case occurs to me so strikingly in point that I must mention it here. Once, as we read, a young man, of a very winning appearance, came and knelt before Jesus, saying, "Good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He is rebuffed with the reply, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, God." Again, when a woman, with an amiable sensibility, broke forth in blessing the mother of Jesus, his language is, "Yea, rather blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it." Now these instances would seem to imply in Jesus an extreme sensitiveness to any disposition on the part of those around him, to magnify him personally. And yet, when Mary came and poured that costly ointment upon him, an act whereby she expressed the greatest personal reverence, he upheld the propriety of the apparent waste, and paid no respect to the very plausible suggestion worth in the minds of our friends or kindred, whence that light has proceeded."-Wordsworth, Essay on Epitaphs. 116 THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. "Why was not this ointment sold, and given to the poor?" A consideration of the respective circumstances of the three occasions alluded to will satisfy us, that the language of Jesus on each occasion, was expressive of and consistent with a healthy sensibility of mind. We shall recur to these passages of his life more particularly hereafter. In the meanwhile it is interesting to observe, that for all that appears in the letter of the narratives, there is a downright inconsistency. Looking only at what they expressly mention, we scarcely recognise the same individual in him who so willingly received the costly offering of Mary's reverence, and yet so promptly rejected the respectful address of the young ruler, at one time, and at another, sought so instinctively to give a different direction to the sensibility of the female who poured out her benedictions upon his mother. Here is most impressive evidence, to my mind, that the writers of his history were wholly unconscious of any attempt to portray his moral features, or to communicate an individual idea of him. They are entirely occupied with the facts, the particulars that had been passed before their eyes, and they leave all conclusions and inferences to take care of themselves. Now this, I say, is the great and all-satisfying miracle -that from histories of this description we are able to form in our minds a distinct and consistent conception of an individual such as the world has never seen before nor since. If, indeed, instead of being what they are, the four Gospels were careful and laboured descriptions of THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 117 Jesus Christ, profound critical analyses of his moral traits, even in this case I should be at a loss to understand how so grand a moral idea could ever have been suggested to the human mind but by reality. In its reality I should find the most obvious and satisfactory cause of its existence. But as it is, it is immeasurably more surprising that from such books as those of the New Testament, for the most part the merest record of particulars, briefly told, we should come at a result so novel, so sublime, and yet so perfectly natural. Thinking only, as it appears, of relating what they had seen and heard, with such faculties and opportunities as Providence had granted them, the authors of these histories have unconsciously furnished us with the means of forming an idea of individual character, the most harmonious, the most beautiful, and the most kindling,-an idea fitted to stir up our best sentiments, to give life and power to our noblest springs of action, to transfigure, purify and elevate our whole nature, through the admiration and love it awakens, the imitation which it sets us upon attempting. Surely an idea full of this living and generous influence, possessing a power so practical and beneficent, so accordant with the highest principles of the human constitution, must be founded in reality. A mere human fiction, the offspring of ignorant delusion or narrow cunning, never could have such an effect. Otherwise, all distinctions between the true and the false are broken down and obliterated. As I have already remarked, the character of Christ has as yet been very imperfectly understood. It would |
