অগ্ৰস্থায়ণ ১৮৪১ The ins piration which was invented to guard the become an occasion of falling. sanctity of the shrine turns out to be a traitor. The irresistible necessity under which they lie of accepting every word of the Gospels at last lands them face to face, not with a God man, but with a very fullible man indeed—mistaken alike in his interpretation of Old Testanent Scripture, aud in his own predictions, of the future. They can only save their belief in the infallibility and Godhead of Jesus, by branmalíng tts false history the only documents by which hoy have any knowledge of all that such ot being lived und died om eurth. And here we must press the corollary that if any error ye detected in a book alleged to be Divine, the single error is enough to cast a doubt on the Divine origin of all tille rest. There is, however, another class of persons calling themselves Christians, who do not believe in the infallibility of the New Testament, o in the God-head of (shrist, but who, nevertheless, regard him as so Superlıuman as not to have been capable of the frailties attributed to him in the Gospels. One afte: another of these unpleasant lines in the narratives they strike out, as due to the ignoronce or blindness of the evangelists, and will not accept from them a single statement. derogatory to their Christ. This is certainly picturesque, and may have its uses in the cultivation of sentituent ; but it is utterly destitute of logical basis. Moreover, , it is an unconscious injustice done to some of the world's best and wisest teachers to refuse to accord to their biographies the same refining process as is applied to the life of Christ. If it be permissible to believe only the best that is reported of any one, and to disbelieve every word of his recorded mistakes or weaknesses, surely consistency demands that the same charity should be extended, without invidious distinction, to all whose names are illustrious for sublimity of charaeter and brilliancy of moral heroism, I must, for one emphatically repudiate the sentimental theory, and take my opinion of what Jesus was from his own followers and culogists. At all events, if I have no right to say that he was inferior to their representation, I have n right, on the other hand, to say that he was better than they represent him to be. THE EVIDENCE OF JESUS i i* | ン( な On turning to the (Hospels, we tìınd that Jesus has made fewer applications to himself of Old Testament Scripture than the evange lists have inale for him. We are also struck by the general and vague character of some of Christs' own references to Hebrew Scrip А8 of this I the following passages: John V. 39 and 46. “Search the Seriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal til re. example will quote life: and they are they which testify of me.” “Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me : for he wrote of me." lu both of these passages you will observ that, while the statements appear definite enough, they are deficient in that very kind of precision which is needed to prove their accuracy. He distinctly declares that the Scriptures testify of him, and even more distinctly that Moses wrote about hin. Bnt he throv s the burden of discovering the passages which h thinks were written about him upon ourselves A}} we can do, then, is to select sonne pas sages from the writings which is most likely to apply to him, and see if it really applies The Apostle Peter, according to the , leis of th’ is post', s, to him or to some one else. lias given us a good specimen in the werds (Acts Ill. 23), “For Moses truly said unto the fathers, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of the , of thy brethren, like into me . unto him, shall I)et. XV 11 [. 15. fortunatoly for the argument, it, ltu m» oni that Moses did not write this Book of Deuteronomy and therefore ye hearken." (, n quotation is of no value in supporting the assertion of Josus, “ Moses wrote of nie." Jesus was eertainly mistaken in regarding Moses as the author of the Pentateuch. It is more than doubtful that Moses ever wrote a line in the Bible at all, so the assertion by Christ before us can not be uccepted. But, words, we find, on reviewing the contest, that he was speaking to his own people in anticipation of his own removal by death ; and history tells us that a “prophet” like unto him was found in the person of Joshua the assuming that Moses said these Son of Nun, who succeeded Moses as leader , and teacher of the people of Israel. It is not to be credited that Moses utterly disregarded
