suggested, the effect produced by such a faith when real upon the religious ideas regarding God of all who really hold it. On the supposition, for example, that the Christian's faith in Jesus is vain—that he is worshipping, loving, serving a creature, or a mere creation of his own mind, instead of the only living and true God—how can we account for the actual results of a faith so false and blasphemous upon his ideas regarding God?
It is not denied that a vast body of men and women in every age have had sincere faith in Jesus as God, and loved Him with their whole soul. Now, what effect has such faith upon their views of God, and their feelings towards the Supreme Creator and Upholder of all things whom "pure Theists" profess alone to worship? Has this faith in Jesus as divine had the effect of producing false impressions of God on the Christian's heart; of exciting low and degrading views of His being and attributes, lowering as it were the Majesty of the heavens from His throne, bringing Him to the level of our every-day humanity, and presenting Him to the mind and imagination in an aspect which inspires no reverence? Or has it not had the very opposite effect, and that, too, just in proportion as the worshipper has apprehended the oneness, in His divine nature, of the Son with the Father? Has not God, then, appeared more glorious and majestic than ever; His throne more elevated above every other throne; His glory more visible in heaven and earth? Can any Jew, we ask, however devout, appreciate more fully than a Christian the Old Testament descriptions of the unity and perfections of Jehovah, or prostrate himself with a more simple, undivided, and confiding heart before the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Can the synagogue sing David's psalms with more truth than the church? or does Unitarianism withdraw any veil which conceals the perfections of God as Creator, Ruler, or Father, from the eyes of him who has intense and undying faith in Jesus as the Eternal Son? Oh! where on earth can we find more exalted and pure thoughts of the one living and true God, as revealed in nature and in the Old Testament, profounder admiration of His character, or deeper reverence for His will, than among Christians who love and honour the Son even as they love and honour the Father? But how is this to be accounted for if they believe a lie? How has an idolatry, a baseless and profane hero-worship, had this remarkable moral power of producing such true and spiritual views of God, as all men must admit to be most worthy? and producing, too, we dare to add, such strong faith and affectionate reverence towards this God, as exist in no other human bosoms? Is it possible that the true God can be thus apprehended and loved through a medium so false as idolatry? On the supposition, however, but on no other, that Jesus is really one with God, the knowledge and love of the Son must necessarily lead to this very knowledge and love of the Father. "He that seeth me, seeth the Father also." "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also." "Ye believe in God, believe also in me."
5. Consider, again, the Person of Christ, not only in the light of Christian character generally, but with the addition of Christian knowledge as to its cause. It will surely be admitted that, to whatever extent the term Christian has been misapplied as indicating character, and in however many cases it has been unworthily or only formally assumed, yet it includes within its widest embrace the best men and women this earth possesses, or has ever possessed. There is a certain kind of character which all men whose moral sense is not blunted recognise as the culminating point and perfection of humanity. They may not themselves attempt to realise it, or they may deem it unattainable, but nevertheless the idea of what constitutes a good or perfect man is no sooner presented to their minds than conscience accepts it as that which ought to be. Now, it is admitted even by the atheist that such an idea is embodied in the historical character of Jesus Christ, and in the life, consequently, of every man just in proportion as he possesses His Spirit, obeys His precepts, and walks in His steps. But there are, and have been in every age, persons who have done this, if not in a perfect, yet in a more perfect degree than by any others among mankind. Or supposing it were admitted, for the sake of argument, that, so far as we had the means of judging, there has occasionally appeared, without faith in Christ, a certain product of character, apparently as pure, lofty, self-denying, loving, and devoted to God as any which ever professed to owe its origin to Jesus Christ; yet, where has there been on earth such a body of living persons as those Christians who, within the bosom of the universal Church, during eighteen centuries, have manifested that kind of character which all men profess to admire and reverence? In vain one tries to conceive the flowers of moral beauty and glory that have sprung up within the garden of Christendom! Being rooted in the earth, they may have been soiled, indeed, by its dust, but they yet expanded in loveliness to the sky, and sent forth a fragrance to the air, peculiar to the plants raised by the Great Husbandman. Number, if you can, the saints of the Christian Church; the young and old, the poor and rich, who in every age and clime have been truthful, simple, sincere, patient, forgiving, and compassionate; who have enjoyed an inward life of peace with God, maintained an outward conduct, and possessed a reality of abiding love to their Father in heaven and to their brethren on earth peculiar to themselves. Their lives have been a blessing to the world, and a happiness to their own hearts; their deathbed has been freed from the fears of a dark future, and brightened by the pure prospect of continued life and joy. The Christian Church, and the Christian Church alone, contains such characters; and these are the lights of our homes, the salt of the earth, and the only security of the world's progress.
Now, to what is this great result owing? How is this product of character, which is affecting the world's history, and gradually leavening the whole lump of humanity, to be accounted for? What power has originated it, or by what has it been sustained? Who are more entitled to give a reply to such questions than Christians themselves? They alone can know by what motives, they have been actuated, by what strength supported, and by what hopes animated. Ask them, then, and what will be their reply? Each and all will but echo the words of Paul, as expressing the secret of their life: "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life I live in the flesh I live through faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." "The love of Christ constraineth us," "I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who hath enabled me." "The Lord stood with me, and strengthened me." "The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory for ever and ever!" "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me." This is the experience of the living Church of Christ, of all lands, and of all time—the creed of each genuine believer; of the early martyr and mediaeval saint; of the pious Protestant and Papist; of the cultivated Christian philosopher and the half-taught Christian negro; of the young man who has overcome the wicked one, and of the old patriarch who departs in peace, because his eyes have seen salvation; of the Christian Greenlander who died yesterday, and of the sweet Christian girl who died to-day, leaving the bosom of her mother for the bosom of her God; of each and all the ten thousand times ten thousand who have so lived and died, with one conviction of truth the strongest in their minds; that whatever strength, peace, or good they possess as true life, they owe all to the One source of life—the Lord Jesus Christ! What are we to conclude from these unparalleled facts, which can no more be denied than the realities of human history or of human experience? Have all Christians been deceived? Have they been believing a lie, and has this great life of life in them been sustained by a delusion? Is there no such person as Jesus Christ, the Lord of life, the living Saviour of sinners? Is this not a fact but a fiction? Can it be that the moral government of God exists, and yet that it admits of such a moral anomaly as this—the regeneration of human character by a falsehood! Impossible! I say it with deepest reverence—as sure as there is a God of truth, impossible! The Christian Church has not been deceived. Unbelievers in Jesus have not had the light of truth given them, while those who have loved and served Him have been permitted to walk in the darkness of intellectual untruth and in the vain belief of an idol! Jesus is Divine as well as human. "He was, and is, and liveth for evermore!"
III.
WHAT CAN WE BELIEVE IF WE DO NOT THUS BELIEVE IN JESUS?
If all this evidence is insufficient to prove the Divine nature of Jesus Christ, it may be well to consider on what religious fact or truth we can fall back, as being based upon surer evidence, and affording, therefore, a surer ground of faith and hope.
1.
