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"attempted it, have attempted in vain!" I can think of no other answer but this ;"They were taught of God."

But there is something still remaining to be mentioned in the character of Christ, which is equally, if not more extraordinary. While the Evangelists uniformly represent him as a partaker of human nature, they also speak of him as being more than man: for he is not only called, the Son of Man, but, the Son of God. Here then is an additional difficulty in delineating the character of Jesus. There must be added, to the perfection of a man, the elevation becoming "the Word, who was in the beginning with God, and who was God, by whom all things were made:" nor do we search for it in vain. Along with the most amiable condescension that ever adorned human nature, there is united an uniform dignity of sentiment and conduct becoming his exalted rank, as the Son of God. Jesus speaks with authority; he promises with a consciousness of his power; he confers blessings as one who has a right to bestow. In every thing, and place, and time, he preserves, without the remotest semblance of pride or assuming arrogance, the tone of a master, and the dignified deportment of one who came down from heaven to give life unto "the world; and who was the only begotten "of the Father, full of grace and truth."

There is another thing respecting Jesus Christ

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which deserves to be thrown into the balance ; and it is by no means destitute of weight: namely, that the Evangelists do not present a popular character. There is nothing of the air of an impostor in it it was not calculated to gain the approbation of the Jews. They expected a Messiah who would lead them on to victory, who would subdue all their foes, and who would exalt them to worldly dignities. Their hopes of these things were high and warm, and of long continuance: They had drunk them in with their mother's milk: they had received them by tradition from their fathers. Those who wished to impose on them and gain their favor, flattered their prejudices, and promised them worldly greatness. did the false Messiahs act. We see them at the head of armies, endeavouring to gain glory to the Jewish nation, by the edge of the sword. But Jesus of Nazareth comes in a way which was altogether unexpected; in a way which dashed all their hopes, and robbed their minds of those golden dreams which had so long delighted them. In short, it was a total disappointment in a matter which was the sheet-anchor of their hopes, and which occupied their whole souls. But there is even more than a disappointment: Jesus enjoins an opposite temper on the subjects of his kingdom; and he enforces it by his own example. Instead of cherishing their fond expectations, that he

would erect his standard, and lead him forth to victory and glory, he speaks" of the Son of "Man being betrayed into the hands of sinners, "who would scourge him, and spit upon him, "and put him to death." Nay, more, instead of encouraging their ideas of superiorty to the Gentiles, he utters various parables to convey the unwelcome, because humbling idea, that the Gentiles were to be admitted to a participation of the same privileges with the Jews; and that men of all nations, who received the gospel, were to be melted down into one holy brotherhood. Is this the conduct of an impostor? Can either the person described, or the writers, excite suspicions of an intention to deceive* ?

* Instead of soliciting permission, I shall be entitled to thanks for inserting here the no less just than eloquent, the inimitable description of the character of Christ, drawn by the hand of a master.

"I will confess to you that the majesty of the scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel hath its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers, with all their pomp of diction: how mean, how contemptible are they compared with the scripture! Is it possible that a book, at once so simple and sublime, should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage, whose history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in his manners! What an affecting gracefulness in his delivery! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! What presence of mind in his replies! How

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The manner in which the disciples narrate the life of Christ, is likewise uncommon and worgreat the command over his passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live and so die, without weakness, and without ostentation?-When Plato described his imaginary good man with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ: the resemblance was so striking that all the christian fathers perceived it.

"What prepossession, what blindness must it be to compare (Socrates) the son of Sophronicus to (Jesus) the Son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion is there between them! Socrates, dying without pains or ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was any thing more than a vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. Others, however, had before put them in practice; he had only to say, therefore, what they had done, and to reduce their examples to precept.-But where could Jesus learn among his competitors, that pure and sublime morality, of which he only hath given us both precept and example?-The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends, appears the most agreeble that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed 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 were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction ?

thy of peculiar notice. There is something here perfectly unique: the whole compass of human literature furnishes nothing similar. That the men who wrote the gospels loved their master, is too plain to be denied. Their renunciation of every worldly advantage and prospect, their entire devotedness to his cause, their multiplied and bitter sufferings for his sake, all display both the sincerity and fervor of their love. In what raptures will they describe his life and death! But on examination we find no such thing. The writers of the epistles speak in ecstacy of his excellence and love: The prophets do so too. Isaiah, especially, has all the impassioned expressions of a 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 obviating 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 truth are so striking and inimitable, that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero."

What a mind! to conceive ideas so beautiful and so just! The divinity of the New Testament is displayed as with a sun beam! But what a heart! to resist the force of all this evidence, to blind so fine an understanding, and to be able to subjoin, "I cannot believe the Gospel!"

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