that life which in its human phase dwelt in the natural plane. With this condition of things, we need not be surprised at Renan's success in so weaving together facts as to form a seemingly complete whole; and the fact of his apparent success need not, and cannot, militate against the evangelistic theory of the divinity of Christ; for if the divine Christ was human, and as such came within the laws of the natural realm, then certainly he afforded a wide field in which Renan could rove, and gather his facts in proof of his humanitarian theory.

Additionally this field, wide as it is, is enlarged by the fact that this human Jesus exerted his divinity upon a natural plane. What we mean is this: While his human part was subject to natural laws, his divine was confined to the plane of nature for its exhibition. It is not the conduct of a spirit in a spiritual realm which the evangelists record; nor is it the conduct, of Jesus in his essential glory, in the bosom of the Father, which Renan is called upon to depict-a pure spirituality existing among spiritual surroundings-but that of the Incarnate Spirit in an arena adapted to natural things. As such, the Incarnate One must employ the instrumentalities adapted to this realm, in a great degree. Although the Maker of the world, and superior to it, the manifestations of the Deity must greatly be in terms of nature. That is, when he comes in contact with nature, he must use nature in that way in which nature can be used. While the Divine has his own law of action peculiar to himself in the department of the purely spiritual, yet when the natural world is entered, the action must be adapted to the natural material. In this, Deity does not lay aside his omnipotency; he only gives a fuller exhibition of himself in his power to act upon spirit as spirit and to act upon matter

as matter.

Now this divinity of Christ, being in action and appearing upon the plane of nature, must give many occasions.

when the description of that appearance must be in terms of nature. The Gospel narrative must afford frequent evidence of this. This fact, also taken in connection with Christ's perfect humanity, furnishes an explanation of the plausibility of Renan's theory, produced by his apparent success in combining texts so as to constitute a logical, probable, concordant narrative. Why! he had an abundant material with which to do this: the material of Christ's humanity, and the material of his divinity acting in the natural plane. If Renan could not attempt and perform what he contemplated, he would betray a literary deficiency most lamentable indeed.

Again, his province for gathering material in substantiation of his humanitarian idea is additionally enlarged by the fact that the divinity of Christ, operating within the natural arena, was obliged to act among human beings: as God incarnate, it was with man he was obliged to live; it was to man he was called to speak; it was man he was called upon to influence-not angels, not spirits in heavenly places. The divine exhibition was not only among men, but for men. As such it could best be in human terms; may we not say, it must, under the circumstances, be in human terms? True, God can spiritually impress the spirit of man as spirit. When, however, the spirit of man is weak, and when it is greatly held in subordination to material forces, then duly to impress it, the Divine must conform to that subordination in which the spirit of man is held. If God speaks for the good of such a man, it must sound as a human voice; if God appears, it must be in some form which will appeal to the human sight. When God spake by the prophets for the good of man, the prophet representing God delivered his message in terms of man; and when God became incarnate in the man Christ Jesus, then the same law of action must be adhered to. Moses and the prophets acted for God among and for human beings; and when God himself, of whom

these were only the representatives, entered personally, by becoming incarnate, upon a work once committed to others, it must be, in some respects at least, in conformity with the human methods which marked the proceedings of those others.

Hence, from various quarters, Renan is furnished with material of his own selection, for constructing a history. upon the purely natural basis. Since Christ was human in an essential degree, since he worked upon the plane of the human, since he labored for the human, it is far from surprising if Renan has constructed a history invested with a considerable degree of plausibility for the theory of the purely human.

ever.

We are now fast recovering from the staggering shock in which we were first placed by the perusal of the "Life of Jesus." We feel that we will not just yet give up the old faith. We are steady, and firm, and feel like delivering a blow upon Renan himself with the rule which he has given as a measurement of the truth. We will go cautiously, howWe will at least say this, That many of the allusions and facts made use of by Renan, in his own application of his rule, are by no means incompatible with the old idea of Christ's divinity, but are rather in full consonance with it; as, for instance, Christ's setting forth the law of love, the forgiveness of injury; his teaching of what defiles a man; his kindness to the Gentiles and the Samaritans; his declaration concerning the true worship of God; his deep spiritual idea of the kingdom of God; the antagonism which that kingdom will encounter; his sympathy with the distressed; "the consciousness of his moral force," as Renan terms it; the Sermon on the Mount; the apotheosis of the weak; the selection of the Twelve, and the instruction conveyed to them; his superior replies to those who would catch him in his words, as the casting of the first stone, and the giving to Caesar; his unmasking the hypocrisy of the scribes and the Phari

sees; his idea of the universal Fatherhood of God; the infusion of a loftier meaning into the oral instruction of the synagogue, which Renan says Jesus adopted; his forbidding oaths, divorces, retaliations, usury, libidinous desires, and the motive which he assigns, "that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven;" his penetration beyond the letter to the spiritual meaning of the law; his demanding a purer morality, his teaching a purer worship;—all these, which Renan grants, while connected with the human and the natural, are by no means antagonistic to the claims which take hold of the supernatural. If the God-man appeared, God-man in a supernatural sense, we should expect just these teachings from him.

We will make another assertion, and give another blow, in behalf of the old faith. We will say that any skilful manipulator of texts and events-those which Renan accepts and concedes to be reliable-could construct a history in which the divinity of Christ could be as consistently and prominently manifested as is that of his humanity by Renan. What if Renan himself in his admission of facts, unconsciously affords a basis for this assertion? Indeed, there are facts exhibited by Christ, and made use of by Renan, which can be justified only on the ground of that divinity to which Renan shuts his eyes, and which it is his predetermined purpose to exclude; such as, the commission of all power to him; his right to change the Sabbath, as Renan puts it, but as Christ expresses it, "the being Lord of the Sabbath day;" the knowledge of the Father through him; his power to forgive sins; his superiority to Abraham, David, Solomon, and the prophets; his right to judge and renew the world; his sitting on the right hand of God; his acceptance of the title of "son of David," knowing what this implied; the acknowledging that he was the Son of God, in a sense far different from any human appropriation of the title, for claim1 Chapters v., vii., x., xi., xiv., xvii.

ing which he was condemned to death; his institution of the Supper, and the meaning which it conveyed; his superior claims upon the heart; the consequences of the confession and the denial of him;-all this, which Renan admits, but which he tries to explain away, is something more than a harmony with the divine: it is the divine itself in its own exclusiveness, unmixed with any human element.

But let us no longer simply stand upon the defence in repelling the attacks upon the old faith; let us "carry the war over into Africa." In explaining away the teachings of those records which he admits to be both authentic and genuine, and which most emphatically point to Christ's divinity, Renan is very lame: certainly, at least, his explanations are very jesuitical, the Jesuit shines through every part of them; they are lacking in that naturalness and directness which flavor of the truth, and which commend them to the candid and considerate mind. His explanations impress us with their untruthfulness, by their very inconsistency and weakness; in short, by their want of harmony with a "logical, probable, concordant narrative." In the defence of his humanitarian theory he becomes a special pleader to such an extent, that he is most illogical in his logic, most improbable in his probability, most inconcordant in his concordancy, making of his hero a monstrosity of knavery, fraud, and imbecility, which even his most subtle sophistry fails to conceal, the very logical tendency of his reasonings stamping his hypothesis with falseness. Let us see if this is not the case, carrying in the meanwhile with us his own boasted sign that he has attained the truth, "success in combining the texts, so as to constitute a logical, probable, concordant narrative."

I. In chapter xv., which treats of Christ's idea of his supernatural mission, Renan concedes that "the position which Jesus attributed to himself was that of a superhuman being, and he wishes to be regarded as having a more ele