208 IF FICTIONS, THEY WOULD INJURE As there are few interpolations worth speaking of, calculated to affect doctrines, we may be very confident that there are none in the case of the facts related. But to perceive how utterly groundless is the suspicion, that the accounts of the miracles may have been inserted into these narratives at a period subsequent to that in which these books were written, we have only to glance at the Apocryphal Gospels. There is one, for instance, entitled, 'the Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus.' It is full of stories, the most childish and ridiculous; stories which satisfy us, at once, of the impossibility of fabricating miracles that should not betray their falsehood by their palpable inconsistency with the character of Jesus. But none, not even the authors of the New Testament histories themselves, could have forged miracles that should harmonise with the Spirit of Christ. In him we have a new manifestation of moral beauty. So much is admitted, even by those who deny any extraordinary agency in the introduction of Christianity. To connect mere fabrications with such a character, without producing the most striking discordancy, would be combining the grossest delusions with the loftiest truths. Can the brightest light and the deepest darkness be so united that the eye cannot instantly discern the widest difference? Now to my mind it is wonderful enough, that the mira the allegorical method of Interpretation, may be gratified by consulting a Review of the "Publications of Bishop Hopkins.”—Christian Examiner, 3d Series, No. vi. THE MORAL IDEA WHICH IN FACT THEY REVEAL. 209 cles, attributed to Jesus, do not directly and manifestly militate against his character. But this negative evidence of their reality, powerful, and altogether singular as it is, is not all. It is but the shadow of the argument which they carry with them. They not only do not violate the original beauty of that life, but more strikingly than anything else related of Jesus, they reveal, exalt and perfect the moral idea which we form of him. They give us a conception of moral character, of the spiritual power and glory with which humanity is capable of being clothed, that we could not form by any other means. Nay, they harmonise not only with his life, but with the profoundest philosophy of our being. I cannot desire nor imagine any evidence for their reality more complete and satisfactory. Every one feels the force of the internal evidence for Christianity, expressed in its moral lineaments, in the wisdom and benignity of its precepts, the purity and thoroughness of its rules of life, and the virtues of its Founder. If I do not mistake, here lies the main foundation of every intelligent man's faith. The internal moral evidence the most sceptical have felt. Now what I say is this, that in no part of the New Testament histories is this moral power, in my view, more conspicuous than in the accounts of the miracles of Jesus. There is that in them, which goes to my heart as directly, creating faith there, as his eloquent recommendations of peace and love. In the exercise of his singular power, there is not only no display, nothing done for effect, no puerility, but a sublime 210 JESUS AS A PROPHET. "majesty of action," a godlike singleness of purpose, a perfect naturalness, in which the heart may behold, with awe and with tears, the crowning manifestation of Divinity. His authority over matter arrests my attention, chiefly as it reveals his moral power, evinced in an entire freedom from pride and every selfish aim, and the complete, yet calm devotion of his whole being, with all its unprecedented gifts, to the cause of truth and of God. CHAPTER X. JESUS AS A PROPHET. "-Thou prophetic spirit that inspirest The human soul of universal earth!" WORDSWORTH. My chief object in this chapter is, to show how satisfactorily the great Founder of Christianity is proved in the histories of his life to have been possessed of an extraordinary knowledge of future events. I wish first however, to make some remarks upon the nature of his Prophetical Gift. Whether he pierced the veil of Futurity by special, instantaneous inspiration of God, or by the natural intuition of his own wonderfully endowed being, I do not pretend THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 211 to determine, I do not know. But one thing is very plain. I cannot shut my eyes to the analogy that presents itself between the prophetical power of Jesus and the very nature of all mind. All things are in an infinite variety of ways interwoven with one another-great and little, high and low, past, present and future. The knowledge of any one thing involves an acquaintance with numberless other things. How far into the depths of the Past hath the eye of Science penetrated, simply by surveying the present appearance and condition of the earth! What mighty and remote revolutions hath the human mind predicted by observing the present positions of the heavenly bodies! Nay is not our very nature as it exists in all men, in a feeble degree perhaps, but still in a certain sense, prophetical? What is this yearning that we have towards the Future, or, to say no more, the bare idea of the Future, what is it but the germ of prophecy in the human soul? It reveals at least the desire and capacity of foreknowledge-that faculty of our being, which, let us only advance as we may, and as we feel that we ought, will qualify us to receive whatever communications of foreknowledge may be made to us here or hereafter, and however they may be made. Beautifully, but not more beautifully than truly, has it been said, "Know'st thou Yesterday, its aim and reason? 212 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. But why fear not the Future? Why calmly wait? Because to the mind that wisely listens to the Past and faithfully uses the Present, there must come the assured conviction that the Future has in store for it no real evil. To know so much of Futurity as this, though we should never know more, is it not prophetic knowledge? To know and feel that the Everlasting Future can do us no harm, surely this is to see with a prophet's ken! But some minds have seen further and more clearly into the coming Time than others. Their knowledge of futurity was the result of no process of reasoning-no weighing of probabilities. It was not the product of calculation. It was Sight. And they saw not the visible world with the outward eye more distinctly than they foresaw what they foretold. Such were the ancient prophets. "Abraham," said Jesus, "saw my day and was glad.” The eye of the body is but a dim type of the eye of the prophetic soul. But never in the flesh have we had such a manifestation of prophetic vision as in Jesus Christ. He has cast all other prophets into the shade. His prophetical ability came not by education nor by reasoning. It was a special gift of God. Still its whole manifestation in the life of Jesus is in perfect harmony with nature. It is new, unprecedented, but still analogous to all that we see and know of mind, of spirit. And thus it reveals upon itself the Divine Signature, and proves that it is the inspiration of the Father of Spirits. Wonderfully endowed as Jesus was, he could not but |