But farther, the humble condition of Christ was peculiarly appropriate to his character as a teacher; and had he been differently circumstanced, he could not have fulfilled some of the important objects of his mission. Viewing him as a teacher, what would have been the consequence had he been surround ed with outward pomp and splendour? It would have defeated all his instructions, and he could not have " left us an example that we should follow his steps." Had he been in the circumstances sup posed, he could not have said, " Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly;" " I come not to be minister ed unto, but to minister." He could not have com manded his disciples to deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow him. Such an injunction would have been quite inappropriate had he been placed in circumstances where self-denial was never exercised, or where patience and fortitude were never required. He was placed in circumstances which afforded an ample display of all those virtues which we ought to imitate. Had he appeared as a temporal prince, his followers would have been in toxicated with vanity and ambition: had he appear ed in the radiance which usually accompanied the manifestation of angles, men would have been de terred from approaching him, and would have deemed it presumption to attempt to imitate him; but he exhibited an exemplification of all the vir tues which he recommended, and being surround ed by the wants and all the external evils which accompany our nature, he has left the most perfect pattern of meekness, resignation, patience, and for titude.
If a teacher, then, was to be sent from heaven for the instruction of mankind, which even Socrates conceived to be necessary, it is impossible to con ceive him placed in more favourable circumstances for discharging this important part of his office than those which marked the whole life and minis try of Jesus of Nazareth.
But we must look a little more minutely into his character before we proceed to consider the great work which lie came to accomplish. In this inves tigation we must be guided by the intimations of Scripture, subjecting them to the rules of sound criticism, and not forgetting the most essential of all rules, viz. to make Scripture its own interpre ter, and to explain the passages which appear ob scure, by reference to those whose meaning is in controvertible. A very different plan, however, is adopted by one Christian denomination. For they who call in question the divinity or Jesus are forced to take their stand on texts of doubtful meaning, which they interpret according to their prejudices and preconceived opinions, and then endeavour to reduce the plainest texts of Scripture to a standard which has no existence but in their own fancies.
The first intimation of the personal dignity of Jesus is conveyed in the annunciation of the angel to his mother, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the holiest shall overshadow thee; therefore, also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." Luke i. 35. There is here a style and formality entirely novel; nothing like it was ever said of any of the ordinary children of men. Our translation does not convey the full force of the original, which is literally " the born holy" shall be called the Son of God. This marks his filiation to God, by a character not applicable to any of the sons of men. He was born holy; and this cannot be predicated of any ordinary mortal, who is con ceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity. Ps. li. 5. This inborn holiness of Christ was necessary to the efficacy of his atonement; for it would be in the highest degree absurd to suppose that a creature, possessing the sinful infirmities and imperfections of human nature, should be able to make an expia tion for the sins of men.
But the text which has been quoted only leads us to conclude, by legitimate inference, that Jesus could not be the Son of Man by ordinary genera tion. The Evangelist John goes a great deal far
ther, and commences his history of the life of Christ with these remarkable words, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God: the same was in the beginning with God; all things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." I have already endeavoured to show' that St. John uses this language in conformity with the received notions among the Jews, who always spoke of the Word as a divine person. It would be sufficient, then, to show that the sacred writer applies the de signation of the Irord to Jesus of Nazareth, to sa tisfy us of the view which he entertained of his character. On this point he leaves us in no doubt; for in the course of a few verses, he says, " the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth." Thus, then, St. John describes Jesus of Nazareth by the appel lation of the Word; and the Word he identifies in every respect with God; he was with God, and he was God. This text is important in more views than one; for it not only asserts the divinity of Je sus Christ, but points out most distinctly a plu rality of persons in the Godhead; it affirms, in the first place, that the Word was with God, to indi cate a diversity of persons; and, in the second place, that the Word was God, to point out an identity of essence.
This is one of those clear and decisive texts which one would think it impossible for ignorance to misunderstand, or sophistry to pervert. But this does not hinder the determined prejudices of the Socinians from attempting to explain away the pre-existence and deity of Christ, as indicated in this text. To accomplish this hopeless object, they explain the words "in the beginning" as applying not to the beginning of creation, but to the begin ning of the Christian dispensation; it was not till then, they say, that the word was with God; and thus they affirm that Christ had no existence till he appeared in the flesh to instruct mankind. This is a fair specimen of Socinian criticism, and we may judge what degree of deference is due to it, when we see the patrons of this system affirming that he, of whom the evangelist declares that he made the world and all that is therein, had no existence till he was born in Bethlehem. That a deist should hold such an opinion is natural and intelligible; but it exceeds all reasonable indulgence that persons should pretend to form their creed on the Scrip tures, and yet should go directly in the face of their most obvious meaning.* They will say, indeed, that they found their arguments on criticism: they do so, but it is such criticism as Socinian interpre ters only can admit; it is contradicted by the whole authority of the learned of all ages and nations; and before their system can prevail, they must have influence not only to supercede all the existing ver sions of the New Testament in the different lan guages of the world, but they must set aside all the received lexicons and glossaries, and get the world to adopt a new system of Socinian Greek. In fact, according to the mode of interpreting employed by these theologians, the New Testament, instead of being a revelation of divine truth, is an enigma, concealing under its most obvious meaning a series of puzzles which would require more than an CEdi pus to unriddle them. And if this record of our faith was not written under the influence of inspi ration, as Socinians contend, an inspiration would, at least, be necessary for every one who interprets it according to their method; for he must leave the obvious meaning, and torture every obnoxious text till it can be reduced to the standard of Socinian orthodoxy.