EDITOR'S PREFACE.

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The work of Dr Lange, translated in the accompanying volumes, holds among books the honourable position of being the most complete Life of our Lord. There are other works which more thoroughly investigate the authenticity of the Gospel records, some which more satisfactorily discuss the chronological difficulties involved in this most important of histories, and some which present a more formal and elaborate exegetical treatment of the sources; but there is no single work in which all these branches are so fully attended to, or in which so much matter bearing on the main subject is brought together, or in which so many points are elucidated. The immediate object of this comprehensive and masterly work, was to refute those views of the life of our Lord which had been propagated by Negative Criticism, and to substitute that authentic and consistent history which a truly scientific and enlightened criticism educes from the Gospels. It is now several years since the original work appeared in Germany, but the date of its first appearance will be reckoned a disadvantage only by those who are unacquainted with the recent history of theological literature. No work has in this interval appeared which has superseded, or can be said even to compete with this. So that, while it is no doubt a pity that the English-reading public should not have had access to this work long ago, we have now the comfort of receiving a book whose merits have been tested, and which claims our attention not in the doubtful tones of a stripling, but with the authoritative accent of one that has attained his majority.

A cursory notice of the leading works which have more recently been added to this department of literature, may serve both to aid younger students in selecting what may suit their tastes or intentions, and to show that the present work is by no means out of date. And, first of all, there has been issued a new edition (1854) of the work of Dr Karl Hase (Das Leben Jesit), originally published in 1829. This book is intended mainly for an academical text-book; such its merits are willingly acknowledged. In less than 250 pages this compact volume exhibits, one may say, all the opinions and literature connected with the life of our Lord. As an State compendium of the whole contents o this department of literature, nothing more can reasonably be desired. This must of course be taken with that exception which we have to attach to the majority of German works, in consideration of their ignorance of our own literature. This is manifest in Dr Ease's manual, and sometimes even absurdly so. But, with this exception there given in this volume a complete view of all the opinions which have been entertained regarding the ideas and incidents of the life our Lord, accompanied by copious references to the writings where these opinions are maintained. The style is dense and clear, and the arrangement perspicuous, so that the use of the volume as a text-book is easy. Unfortunately, the author's own opinions are not always such as can be adopted, but must rather be added as one more variety to the mass of opinions he presents to our view. His critical judgments, often useful in demolishing the profanities of the vulgar Rationalism, are themselves tainted with the meagre theology of Schleierrnacher and De Wette. He denies the divinity of Christ, while he considers Him a sinless, perfect man, in whom humanity culminates and is glorified, and by whose doctrine and life the new community is founded. He at once and distinctly enounces his position, saying (p. 15), Since the divine can reveal itself, in humanity only as veritable human, the perfect image of God only as the religious archetype of man, the life of Jesus must be considered as simple human life; and without giving free and constant play to the human development, we cannot speak of a history of Jesus. To find such a view held by a man of accomplished critical ability, of vigorous and clear intellect, and great research, is not so surprising as to find it held by one who professes, as Dr Hase does, to take John's Gospel as the most faithful representation of our Lord.

Another work of importance is that of Heinrich Ewald (Geschickte Chrislus und seiner Zeit, 1st ed. 1854, and 2d, 1857). This forms the fifth volume of the author's History of the Hebrew People, and contains very thorough and instructive discussions of the historical circumstances of the life of Christ. The political condition of the Jews, their internal factions and their relations to the Gentile world, their religious and moral declension, are exhibited with much ability and learning; and the significance of the appearance of our Lord as a Jew in the time and place He did, is brought out with great acuteness and originality. But here again the whole work is blighted by the defective view of our Lord's person, and the un justifiable treatment of the documentary sources, which have spoiled so much of German criticism. Ewald views Jesus as the fulfilment of the Old Testament,—as the final, highest, fullest, clearest revelation of God, as the true Messiah, who satisfies all right longing for God and for deliverance from the curse,—as the eternal King of the kingdom of God. But with all this, and while he depicts our Lord's person and work, in its love, activity, and majesty, with a beauty that is not often met with, there is but one nature granted to this perfect Person, and that nature is human. He is not a man such as the rest of us, not one of the million, but the Sent of God, the Word of God, even the Son of God, prepared for through the ages gone by, attended throughout His life by the power of God, endowed with the highest gifts and imbued with the Spirit of God, so that He speaks out of God and works the works of God;—but still He on whom all this is conferred, through whom God wholly reveals and communicates Himself, and on whom the world in its helplessness hangs, is but a man. In the concluding chapter of the volume (p. 498) occurs the distinct utterance that so many former pages have seemed to contradict:—'Even the highest divine power, when it wraps itself in a mortal body and appears in a determinate time, finds its limits in this body and this time; and never did Jesus, as the Son and the Word of God, confound Himself, or arrogantly make Himself equal, with the Father and God. Still, this volume is one from which a great deal may be gained. It abounds in noble, elevating thoughts, most eloquently expressed; in sudden gleams into new regions, which fire the soul. The delicate and profound spiritual insight of the author, his sense of many, if not of all, the necessities of a sinful race, enable him to apprehend and depict with wonderful power the perfect humanity of our Lord, and in part the fulfilment of His mission.

A work of very different character appeared at Basle in 1858 from the pen of Professor C. J. Riggenbach. (Vorlesungen uber das Leben des Herrn Jesu.) These Lectures profess to be popular, and aim throughout at the accurate apprehension of the subject on the part of the hearer, rather than at learned or ostentatious disquisition on the speaker's part. He discards much of the conventional scientific terminology, as being nothing better than Greek and Latin fig-leaves to hide the nakedness of our knowledge. Through his own veil of popular address, however, it is easy to discern the thews and sinew of a vigorous intellect, and the careful and instructed movement of one who knows and has thoroughly investigated the numerous difficulties of his path. Here and there, too there is inserted an excursus which enters with greater minuteness into some topics which calls for fuller discussion. In these, the author's strength and culture are more nakedly revealed, and valuable contributions made to the solution of the questions at issue The characteristics which this work displays, as a whole are accuracy, taste and judgment, impartiality reverence an spiral discernment, and an easy, graceful, and lucid style. It much what there is great need of among ourselves,—a volume which should exhibit in a popular form, and in a well-arranged narrative, the results of the immense amount of labour that has recently I spent upon the Gospels.

Such a want can scarcely be said to be supplied by Bishop Elicott's Historical Lectures on the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ (Hulsean Lectures for 1859);¹ though he too proposed to combine a popular mode of treating the question under consideration, and accuracy both in outline and detail. The actual combination is, we fear, too mechanical. A work which is so loaded with foot notes is in great danger of being unpopular. The narrative flows along the top of the page easily enough, but one is always for getting, and ignoring its intrinsic value, and counting it merely as a row of pegs to hang the notes upon. The notes themselves are a valuable digest of all the important questions which are started by this subject, and present a selection of authorities which renders the volume an admirable guide to the student. In judging of this work, too, we must bear in mind that, until its publication, the English reader had access to no similar volume, except that of Neander. Probably, however, this book is scarcely of the same value, though it may be to many of as much interest, as those admirable commentaries by which the author has won himself so much grateful and affectionate regard, and by which he has done so much to maintain among us a respect for sound theology and Christian scholarship.

And lastly, there is the unhappy work of M. Ernest Renan (Vie de Jésus, 1863), the most deplorable literary mistake of this century. It reveals a lamentable ignorance on the part of the French public, that a book, which in Germany would have been out of date twenty years ago, should now create so much excited interest. But, as we have ourselves been recently taught in this country, it is some times the case, that a man makes use of a popular style to introduce as novelties, statements that have been slain and buried among scholars, or to start afresh doubts that belong to a past generation. This appeal to the people, which has been so much practised of late, and which can be made with every appearance of earnestness and honesty, is not always quite above suspicion. When one brings before the public questions which have exercised the ability of professional theologians, might it not be expected that the public should be made aware that these questions are not now for the first time broached, that many critics of learning and skill have spent much labour on their solution, and that the answer now propounded or insinuated is not the only answer that can be or has been given? This, however, is by no means always attended to. An old difficulty is produced as if now for the first time discovered, and set forward as that which must quite alter the old ways of thinking, and shake us out of our established beliefs; whereas it has been considered all along, and either satisfactorily answered among scientific theologians, or else reserved for possible solution when the branch of inquiry which might throw light upon it has been more fully pursued. And in no work more than in that of M. Renan, is the labour of earnest and skilful critics ignored. Theories which have been abandoned are here used as established, and statements hazarded which no one can be asked to accept who understands what has been proved about the Gospels. If .this ignorance be real, then it is culpable in one who undertakes with a very unseemly confidence to instruct an erring Christendom; if assumed, then it is nothing short of the most unworthy insolence towards those who have laboured in the same field as himself.

The Christ whom M. Renan depicts, is not the perfect man of Hase, still less the perfect revelation of God that Ewald delights to invest with whatsoever things are pure and lovely, but a good-hearted Galilean peasant, who gradually degenerates into an impostor and gloomy revolutionist. The 'Rabbi delicieux' becomes, by some unaccountable transformation of character, a morbid, disappointed fanatic when M. Renan but waves over him his magic wand. The miracles performed by him have been enormously exaggerated, and cures which a physician of our advanced age could very simply have accomplished were then looked upon as divine works. At first, Jesus was unwilling to appear as a thaumaturge; but he found that there was but the alternative, either to satisfy the foolish expectations of the people, or to renounce his mission. He therefore prudently and honourably (M. Renan thinks) yielded to his friends, and entered on a course of mild and beneficent deception. It apparently forms no part of the author's plan to show how this picture is reconcilable with the statements of the Gospels. The references to the narratives of the Evangelists, which are to be found almost every page, are quite useless, being often detached from their immediate connection, and frequently grossly misapplied. So that his able reviewer, M. de Pressense, has good cause to say: 'Achaque pas on a des preuves nouvelles de l'aisance incroyable avec laquelle M. Renan traite les documents et de l'absence de toute néthode rigoureuse dans son livre' (L'Ecole Critique, p. 20.) His occasional references to other and more recondite sources and his comparison of our Lord to Cakya-Mouni, may be intended to show how impossible it is for plain people to form a correct estimate one who lived so long ago, and under such foreign influences, and to beget the feeling that there may have been hid, among the centuries and millions of the Eastern world, reformers as zealous and philosophers as divinely inspired as Jesus; but we think it likely that most readers will find a truthfulness in the simple portrait of the Evangelists, which is not to be found in M. Renan's erudite pages, and will refuse to abandon their belief in Him whom the Evangelists represent, even though they have not read the Vedas or the Talmud at first hand.

The work of M. Renan is open to three fatal objections. It has, first of all, no historical basis. He refuses to accept the only documents from which a Life of Jesus can be derived, or he has so used them as manifestly to annul their value as historical witnesses. If in one sentence he admits their truthfulness, in the next he contradicts them. The person whom he exhibits to his readers, is not the Jesus of the Gospels. He has first formed his idea of a character, and then has selected from the original sources whatever might seem to corroborate this idea, leaving altogether out of account, and without any reason assigned for the omission, whatever contradicts his idea. Now, to say nothing of the folly of so unscientific a treatment of any historical documents, or of the utter worthlessness of whatever may be produced by such a method, every one sees that the arbitrary criticism of the author has laid him open to criticism of a like kind. If it is but a matter of private judgment what we are to receive from the Gospels, and what to reject, then why is M. Renan to become my teacher? He says, that in the relation of such and such an event or discourse, Luke is to be preferred; Ewald and Hase both come forward with denial, and as sure us that, beyond all contradiction, John is to be preferred. To this no reply is possible on the part of M. Renan. He has started without principle, and has no principle to fall back upon. He has arbitrarily judged the Evangelists, and arbitrarily must himself be judged. .

Then, secondly, not only is the character which he depicts baseless so far as historical evidence goes, but it is inconsistent with itself, and therefore impossible. The author's method is bad, his result is worse. He has invented a historical character, and his invention does not even meet the requirements of poetry. He has been much praised as an artist; but he lacks the highest quality of an artist, truthfulness of conception. With unusual power of representation, with a cultivated faculty for reproducing past events and transporting his readers to scenes far distant, he fails in comprehension. His work is fragmentary, not a whole. Several of its parts lack nothing in artistic beauty and power; but when we endeavour to put them together, we find that they have no affinity. All that this writer lacked in order to produce a work of incalculable influence and profit to the world, was the fellowship with his subject which would have given him the meaning and place of each event in the life, by enabling him to conceive the purpose and spirit of the whole. But starting with his own low conception, he has been forced to interpret certain acts of our Lord by causes wholly insufficient, and to exhibit a growth of character and progress of incident which a second- rate novelist would be ashamed of. He has represented the most pious of men as a deceiver, the most simple as ambitious, the most narrow and prejudice-fettered as the enlightener of all nations. No real character combines such contradictions; no dramatist who values his reputation represents his characters as passing through any such unnatural transitions. M. Renan's book is one more proof, that we must either raise Jesus much above the level of a mere pious, pure man, or sink Him much below it.

Then, thirdly, this person depicted by M. Renan is unfit to serve the required purpose. This 'Vie de Jésus' is the first book of a proposed 'Histoire des Origines du Christianisme.' And it must occur to most readers that this figure is quite an inadequate origin of Christianity. Granting that the portrait here given us were historically correct, that the conception were consistent and truthful, yet the person represented is not that person who stands at the birth of Christianity. This is not He to whom all the ages have been looking back, and whose image all Christians have borne in their hearts. This is not the morning star. Does M. Renan answer, that it is a mistake to which we have been looking back? Still it is this mistake which has made us Christians, and not the Christ of M. Renan. We descend with him to his own level, and altogether deny that the person exhibited in his volume is He who has caused and maintained our religion. What claim has this Galilean peasant on us? What has he done for us, that for his sake we should endure all hardness, taking up our cross daily and following him? He has lived well, he has spoken well; but with how many besides must he share our respect? Is it because this man has lived, that through all these centuries men have humbled themselves? this man they have been clothing in clothing the naked—whom they have seen represented in all that needs consolation, sympathy and help? Is it the remembrance of this man that has made life a ministry, and death a triumph? This man makes no claim on us—does not know us, and we will not own him. This person is not he who has called forth the trust of a world; this work is not that on which sinners, in the hour of their clearest vision of God, have rejoiced to rest; this character is not that which has moulded all that has been best on our earth, and all that has shone bright in its darkest places. If this be the founder of Christianity, then we must look for Christians among the sceptical and the Deists, among the careless and profane; and we must call that better religion which men (at their own instance, forsooth) have developed, and which has been the real belief and hope of Christendom,^ some other name. If this be the founder of Christianity, and if Christianity be the right belief, then all religion must cease from the earth; for not only is this character unfit to sustain Christianity, but it is unfit to sustain any religion; it wants the bond.

Before passing from this brief account of the very interesting literature of the life of our Lord, there should be mentioned two works, which, though they do not undertake a consideration of the whole subject, are yet so eminently serviceable in their special departments as to deserve careful study. One of these is the work of Lichtenstein on the Chronology of the Gospel Narrative (Lebensgeschichte des Herrn Jesu Christi in chronologischer Uebersicht. Erlangen, 1856). This author has the great advantage of writing after Wieseler; and, as the complement and corrective of the investigations of that very sagacious chronologist, his work does admirable service. With a mind well adapted for such research, scholarly, well-balanced, impartial, and clear, he has provided what is perhaps, on the whole, the safest chronological guide through the perplexing intricacies of this history. The other work is The Life of our Lord upon the Earth, in its Historical, Chronological, and Geographical Relations, by the Rev. Samuel J. Andrews. (Lond. 1863.) In this unassuming volume the various opinions of the best authorities are brought together, sifted, arranged, compared, and weighed; while the author's own opinion, though never asserted with arrogance or parade, is always worthy of consideration. In deed, this work is indispensable to any one who intends a thorough study of the subject, but yet has not access to the authorities themselves, or has not leisure to use them. And so extensive is the literature of the mere external aspects of this Life, that it will still be but a few who can dispense with such a handbook as this. The accuracy of his references, and impartiality of his citations, as well as the fairness and candour of his own judgments, inspire us with confidence in the author.

Such being, so far as we know, a fair statement of what has transpired since the original publication of the work of Dr Lange, and which might be thought to diminish its value, it is obvious that this work has neither been superseded nor found a rival. And, regarding these volumes herewith issued, it is not too much courtesy to ask from the reader that he judge considerately a work which enters into all the difficulties of so wide and delicate a subject, and which emerges, as this does, from the turmoil of German opinion. There are but few occasions on which even this consideration will be required, and we believe that every candid reader will instinctively and spontaneously give it. For the genius of the author and the unmistakable direction of his theology, his love of truth and open ness to conviction, disarm criticism, and turn assailants into apologists, if not into partisans. The author was himself well aware of the difficult nature of the task he had undertaken, and at the appearance of the second volume of his work he made a statement which it is proper should be before the reader:—'The author has had to enter into difficulties which have been left more or less unsolved in theological discussions. The result of his labours on these subjects he commits with confidence to the liberal and evangelical theologians of the present and the future. They who, confusing the general Church point of view with their own respective assumptions, formed as they are within the Church, meet with aught that seems strange to them in the discussion of single points, will find it a reasonable request, that they would, before passing a decided judgment, not only carefully weigh the reasons given by the author, but also com pare his view with the views prevailing among Church theologians on the points in question. How very easily erroneous judgments may be precipitately formed, has often been proved. Before the bar of truth such judgments would be unimportant but though I do not, for this reason, fear them on my own account, I would yet, as far as possible, prevent others forming them, from an apprehension of the curse resting upon all error. This cannot, however, apply to those whom a gloomy fanaticism induces to be always hunting for suspicious passages. They will find much which may lie open to the attacks of their uncalled-for decisions.

There are some brunches of Theology which, as the cautious Nitzsch says 'are yet young and tender'—some questions on which the church has not pronounced; and on these the author will no be found to hold invariably the same views which are currently received in this country. There is, e.g., the old question whether Christ would have come in the flesh, if Adam had not sinned? whether Christ is necessary for the perfection as well as for the redemption of humanity? This is a question which so far as the voice of the Church goes, may be answered either affirmatively or negatively. It is a question which must be answered not so much by direct statements of Scripture, as by its connection with other and already answered questions. It would probably have answered in the negative by the majority of our own theologians, and by the systematic divines of the seventeenth century. But the vast majority of German theologians have declared for the affirmative; Müller and Thomasius being almost solitary exceptions. may be significant, that the theologians who have habitually treated the doctrines of grace, and from them reasoned to the person of Christ, have maintained the negative to this question; while those who have made the person of Christ their first and main study, and only from it inferred the other doctrines, have adopted the affirmative. However, it will not be thought surprising that, in the following volumes, considerable use should be made of the position, that apart from sin and the purpose of redemption, Christ would have come in the flesh—hat the incarnation was required not only for the restoration but for the completion of humanity. This is not the place to urge what may be said on one side or other of the question, nor even to decide whether the question do not lie in a province altogether beyond Theology, and into which only incautious and immoderate speculation intrudes. This is not the place to show how the affirmative answer admits of a somewhat attractive application to some of the cardinal doctrines of our faith, and how many probabilities range themselves in its support; nor, on the other hand, to show that it seems to bring the nature of God unduly near to that of man (thus bordering dangerously on Pantheism), and to make light of that separation between the divine and human which has been brought about by sin. But it seems necessary, in one word, to warn the in experienced reader, that if the incarnation of Christ were from the first and by the very idea of humanity required, then the humiliation of Christ becomes a different and less grievous humiliation than we are wont to consider it, and the aspect of Christ's life upon earth in many points altered.

But besides these questions, about which there may be private opinions, and which must be decided rather by the general tone of Scripture than by its express statements, rather by their results and bearings upon other doctrines than by their own contents, there are dogmas which it is quite easy to state abstractly, but most difficult to apply to actual cases. It is one thing to state dogmatically the constitution of Christ's person, another to carry this dogma through the life of Christ, and exhibit the two natures in harmonious exercise. It is one thing to state that the two natures ever concur to the same resulting act, another to single out one particular act and exhibit this concurrence. Now this seems to be the great problem which those have to face who undertake a rigorous treatment of the Gospel history. It has been too much the custom of writers on the life of Christ to satisfy themselves with an occasional statement of the doctrine of His divinity, without attempting to keep the reader face to face with this doctrine throughout the whole history. In Germany the difficulty of exhibiting the perfect divinity of Christ throughout His earthly life has been so strongly felt, that their writers on Christology have revived an old and detrimental heresy, which delivers us from the necessity of attempting to exhibit full and perfect divinity in this period of our Lord's existence. It is believed by many of their theologians² that the Logos, in becoming incarnate, divested Himself of some of His attributes—that the emptying Himself of which we read in the Apostle Paul, means a self-examination whereby the divinity became as it were asleep in the person of Christ, or absent, or voluntarily incompetent for divine action,—whereby at least He really emptied Himself of the fulness of divine power. This doctrine is but the inevitable result of keeping in the background the divinity of Christ's person. If the divinity be but the necessary substratum of His person, be an in operative constituent of His person, then the actual presence of real, complete, active divinity becomes awkward and undesirable. But if the person of our Lord be really and indissolubly of two natures; if in each moment of His earthly life there is present the divine as well as the human nature; if in each act or word of His the divine and human natures are concurrent,—then it must be the task of one who undertakes a life of this person to exhibit the two natures, and not either in separation from the other. Doubtless there is a skill in the Evangelists which no uninspired pen will ever rival, and by which we are made to feel the presence of the divine nature through out the human life; yet surely it is our duly to endeavour, in our expositions and developments of these inspired records, to maintain the impression which their immediate perusal produces. If they often bring out to view the divinity of our Lord, where also the very feebleness of humanity is conspicuous; if, when they show us a weary and foot-sore wanderer seated by the well in the heat of the day they make us feel a reverential awe for that weakness, in as much as it is the humiliation of a divine person; if, when they show us the man hanging on the cross, faint for thirst, they show us also the divine power to speak forgiveness with His latest breath to the dying sinner by His side; if, when we see human weakness at its depth sinking in death, we hear also the divine proclamation of a willing sacrifice, the It is finished of one whose life no man can take away;—then a life of Christ is just in so far imperfect as it effaces from our minds this distinct impression of divinity and humanity acting in the one person.

Now it need not be denied, that in these volumes there is room for improvement in respect of this leading problem. The author holds most distinctly and decidedly the doctrine of our Lord's divinity, of His personal pre-existence as God the Son. If this doctrine is not always in view where we might expect it, then this is not by any means because the author would thus insinuate that the person contemplated is merely human. There is not the smallest ground for suspicion of this; we almost feel that it is doing him a wrong to make this statement. Yet we are not quite sure that all readers will take up that idea of the Person which the author would desire. We think that he has sometimes ascribed to the humanity what can only be ascribed to divinity. We think that there is visible throughout the work an undue desire to attribute as much as possible to the human faculty of our Lord. Now, of course, it is not at all easy to say what is and what is not competent to human nature. We do not know, except by its exhibition in Christ, what that nature is capable of. It has only once been seen in perfect development and exercise, and that is in the case in question. So that it is often difficult to make any valid objection to one who asserts of this or that action in the life of our Lord, that it is simply human. It may be an action which demanded far more than ordinary human faculty, and yet may possibly be within the range of perfect human faculty. It is impossible to produce from human history any similar exercise of power or wisdom; and yet this being the culminating point of human history, we expect here to find unrivalled human action. In short, we are to beware of confounding perfect humanity with divinity, and, in the life of Christ, of ascribing to His divine power what ought to be attributed to His perfect human nature. But there is no necessity that we should pronounce upon every action whether it be competent to human nature or no. We are not to expect to go through the life of Christ, saying, This His humanity does, and this again His divinity. Both human and divine acts are competent to this person; and though now it is a human and again a divine act which He does, though now He for gives sin and again sleeps through weariness, His humanity and divinity are alike and together engaged in each. But sometimes it is apparent that such and such an act of His is divine, and there we can say, This person is not merely human; and sometimes it is apparent that the action is human, and there we can say, This person is not merely divine.

So that there are two positions which must regulate our conception of any single action of this life. First, Every act in the life of Christ is a divine as well as a human act. The divine nature of Christ is not only present, as a spectator or sleeping partner of the human, but is energetic in every act. Especially is this true of some of those actions which are most conspicuously, and to some beholders exclusively, human. It is true of His dying. This is an act, it is shortly said, which God cannot perform. But what was this dying? It was the separation of the human body and soul of our Lord. And this God the Son did perform. He offered Himself through the Spirit. The divine nature did not die; but the dying here in question was the act of a divine person, was an act by, in, and on a divine person. If not, then this dying was little to us. If there was here a retirement of divinity that this human act might be performed; if there was a self-depotentiation of the Logos that men might work their will with the humanity, then this was not the sacrifice sufficient for our atonement. We must lay aside our natural expectation, that wherever God is, the utterance of His presence will be loud, His glory manifest, His acts appalling and stupendous. We must learn to see God stooping to lift the little children, veiling His glory in the compassionate and wistful look of a brother, that the diseased might come to the touch of His hand, and the sinner listen to His word of forgiveness; leaving the place of His glory empty, that He might follow and recover the abandoned; becoming flesh, that He might taste death for every man.

On the one hand, the humanity of Christ must not be regarded as impersonal, as a thing used by God, as a collection of passive, unwilling faculties, but as fully equipped humanity, not indeed existing as a person outside of the divinity, but neither interrupted by the divinity in the free exercise of any human faculty, nor pre vented in any human weakness. And, on the other hand, the divinity must be regarded as complete and perfect divinity, not divested of any divine power by its union with the human nature, not at the incarnation laying aside nor emptying itself of any of those divine attributes which it was the very purpose of the incarnation to manifest and glorify, not in respect of any divine attribute ceasing to be what He previously was by becoming what He previously was not.

The second position is this: every divine operation in the life of Christ was immediately the operation of the Spirit. This is a simple corollary from the established theological truth, that every operation of God on things external is through the Spirit. Whatever, then, the divinity of Christ performed after His human birth, was the result of the sending forth of the Spirit from the Son dwelling in the person of our Lord. There is not merely an influence of the Holy Ghost on Jesus, a mere man, so that the miracles are per formed in no sense by the divine nature in Christ, but by powers conferred from without. There is the Holy Ghost in His fulness residing in this Person, so that without this person there proceeds no power from divinity to any created thing. And it is just this which distinguishes the miracles of Christ from the miracles of a mere man; the latter being performed by virtue of a divine power which only for the time is communicated to the person, the former being the forth-putting of a power of which this Person is the proper residence. And yet the miracles are given to Him by the Father to do, and are in a sense not His own works. For as in His whole mission the Son is the Sent of the Father fulfilling His will, so the works which He does are the Father's works. And this both because He Himself is the Father's commissioner on earth, and because without the Father the Spirit, by whose working this com mission is discharged, is not given. So that the distinctive agency by which the miracles of our Lord were wrought was the incarnate Person dwelling in union with the Father, and possessing the fulness of the Spirit; was not the divinity of Christ without the Spirit, but was not the Spirit without the divinity.

We are therefore under no necessity to inquire (as the author unduly does) whether or no the miracles may not be brought a little nearer human nature. They are no doubt performed through the human nature, but so is every divine act in the life of our Lord. We see the human nature active in all its faculties throughout the miracle; but we are not on that account to suppose that the miracle is explicable on human principles and laws, for all the divine acts of Christ are human acts also,—the acts of a Person in whom the Spirit of God is harmoniously co-operating with and possessing every human faculty. That we see ordinary and human mean's made use of in some of the miracles; that we see inquiry as to the nature of the disease, and delay in its cure; that we see many traces of human procedure; that we see humanity doing its utmost in these miracles;—all this is assuredly no reason for our seeking to ascribe to the human nature more than the most ascertained science would warrant, because in the whole life of Christ we are prepared to see the highest manifestations of divinity in juxtaposition with ordinary human action. To say that, in this case or that, the divine nature of our Lord is not manifestly exercised in distinction from the human, is only to say that here you have an instance of what must be everywhere expected in His life. And when a demand is made or a longing betrayed, that in the miracles the divine nature be exhibited without the intervention of the Spirit; or when, as a result or accompaniment of this, there is manifested a tendency to ascribe as much as possible to the human nature influenced by the Spirit, without the ascription of this very influence of the Spirit to the divine nature resident in Christ, then there is not only a misconception of miracle, but a misconception of the Person of our Lord.

It has been thought better to make these general statements by way of preface, than to adopt the somewhat invidious expedient of interrupting the course of the author's argument by interjectional comments. On the one hand, we have considered it unjust to an author to use for the refutation of his views the very pages which were intended to advance them; and, on the other hand, we have presumed that it would not be very interesting to the public to be informed of every instance in which the private opinion of the editor might differ from that of the author. This applies especially to the section on Miracles. No attempt has been made to put the reader in possession of a theory of miracles which might be thought more adequately to satisfy the requirements of the Gospel narratives. This would evidently have required a much larger space, and much stronger claims on the attention of the reader, than our connection with this work would allow us to assume. Where, however, any point seemed to admit of being treated in the narrow limits of a foot-note, we have used some liberty with the author, always in a respectful spirit, though not always finding room for the forms of polite deference; and where an opinion opposed to the author's seems to have been treated with less consideration than it merits, either intrinsically or by reason of the consideration due to its advocates, we have not scrupled to produce and support such opinion. But throughout we have felt this business of annotating a delicate one, and have not altogether regretted that the time allotted for the task prevented a more frequent and substantial interference with the writings of one whose statements it is almost equally difficult to supplement and unsafe to contradict. Care has been taken to render the work as available as possible to the English reader. In the case of those books referred to by the author, which have been translated into our own language, the references have been made to the translations. Where the works have not been translated, the German titles have been left as in the original, for distinction's sake. A full and carefully compiled index will be given in the last volume.

We sincerely wish that some abler, steadier hand could have been employed to launch these volumes, for now more than ever do we understand the grandeur of their subject and the paramount importance of its accurate apprehension; but we trust that those who most distinctly and painfully see the defects of our share in the work, will not the less earnestly desire and pray that it may diffuse juster conceptions of the Person, and work of our Redeemer, and may beget an interest in His earthly life which may be the beginning of eternal fellowship with Him in the life everlasting; that those even who come but to touch the hem of His garment, to observe His movements, to speculate on His miracles, to consider the development of His character, to retire for a little from the glare and hurry of our day into the fresh and calm morning when the world awoke at the touch of its Lord,—that even these may be drawn to follow Him, and may pass from the first confession of Peter, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, to the last, 'Lord; Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.'

THE EDITOR.

EDINBURGH, March 1864:

1) The work of Dr Hanna promises well in this direction, but 'finis coronat opus.' And, so far as it goes, M. de Pressensé's 'Le Redempteur' is a good popular exhibition of the leading features of the life of our Lord.

2) We are surprised to find that Alford (on Heb. i. 4) gives the weight of his name to a doctrine which, to say the least of it, seems plainly enough condemned by the Athanasian Creed.