Upon no correct or reasonable supposition whatever but that the Lord Jesus was the very person he assumed to be, the person whom the Christian Scriptures describe him to be, viz., the Messiah of the Church, and " God manifest in the flesh," can we account for the solitary and awful grandeur* of a character "holy,

* Bishop Sherlock, in contrasting the character of Jesus Christ with that of Mahomet, has, in one of the most beautiful personifications in our language, finely touched the argu. ment for the truth of Christianity here contended for. "Go," says he, "to your Natural Religion; lay before her Mahomet and his disciples arrayed in armour and in blood, riding in triumph over the spoils of thousands and tens of thousands who fell by his victorious sword; shew her the cities which he set in flames, the countries which he ravaged and destroyed, and the miserable distress of all the inhabitants of the earth. When she has viewed him in this scene, carry him into his retirements. Shew her the prophet's chamber, his concubines and wives; let her see his adultery, and hear him allege revelation and his divine commission to justify his lust and his oppression.

"When she is tired with this prospect, then shew her the blessed Jesus, humble and meek, doing good to all the sons of men, patiently instructing both the ignorant and perverse; let her see him in his most retired privacy; let her follow him to the mountain, and hear his devotions and supplications to God. Carry her to his table to see his poor fare, and hear his heavenly discourse. Let her see him injured, but not provoked; let her attend him to the tribunals, and consider the patience with which he endured the scoffs and reproaches of his enemies. Lead her to his

harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens,"*"who did no sin," and "who knew no sin."‡

The REV. CHARLES BRIDGES, in his excellent Memoir of Miss M. I. Graham, (and which I take the liberty of strongly recommending to the notice of the young,) who had been considerably tinctured with infidelity, states that the character of Christ, as a proof of the credibility of the Christian revelation, arrested her peculiar attention. A minute scrutiny of his spotless life was most satisfactory in its result. "The more," said she, "I studied this divine character, the more I grew up, as it were, into its simplicity and holiness, the more my understanding was enabled to shake off those slavish

cross, and let her view him in the agony of death, and hear his last prayer for his persecutors- Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'

"When Natural Religion has viewed both, ask-which is the prophet of God? But her answer we have already had when she saw part of this scene through the eyes of the centurion who attended at the cross; by him she spake and said, Truly this man was the Son of God."-See Sherlock's Sermons.

* Heb. vii. 26. + 1 Pet. ii. 22.

2 Cor. v. 21.

and sinful prejudices which had hindered me from appreciating its excellence. Truly, his

words were dearer to me than my necessary food. He was my 'All in All.' I did not want to have any knowledge, goodness, or strength, independently of him. I had rather beaccepted in the Beloved,' than received (had that been possible) upon the score of my own merits. I had rather walk leaning upon his arm than have a stock of strength given me to perform the journey alone. To learn, as To learn, as a fool, of Christ,―this was better to me than to have the knowledge of an angel to find out things myself.

"From that moment," she adds, "I ceased to stumble at the doctrines of the cross. The doctrines of Scripture, which had before appeared to me an inexplicable mass of confusion and contradictions, were now written on my understanding with the clearness of a sun-beam. Above all, that once abhorred doctrine of the Divinity of Christ was become exceeding precious to me. The external evidences of Christianity, though I now perceived all their force, no longer necessary to my conviction.

were

From that time," she concludes, "I have continued to sit at the feet of Jesus, and to hear his word,' taking him for my teacher and guide in things temporal as well as spiritual. He has found in me a disciple so slow of comprehension, so prone to forget his lessons, and to act in opposition to his commands, that were he not infinitely meek and lowly of heart,' he would long ago have cast me off in anger, but he still continues to bear with me, and to give me 'line upon line, and precept upon precept;' and I am certain that he 'will never leave me, nor forsake me,' for though I am variable and inconsistent, 'with Him there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.'

Such was the effect produced upon this intelligent lady's mind by an examination of the moral character of the Lord Jesus, and I am satisfied that a similar result will follow in every instance the adoption of the same course. At least we do claim from infidels, if they will still continue to reject the truth, that they furnish us,.

* Page 17-19.

upon their own principles, with some reasonable account of the source whence sprung the ineffable purity and benevolence of the Son of God. Till they have accounted for his unequalled character they are chargeable with the utmost levity and irrationality in persisting in their unbelief.*

2. Contemplate, as another internal evidence of the divine origin of Christianity, the unrivalled sublimity of its diction.

Compared with the rich treasures of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, all other compositions must retire into the shade. Rousseau must have felt this conviction most powerfully when he made the following reluctant but important concession:-" I will confess," said he, "that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel hath its influence upon my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers with all their pomp of diction;

See a very able Discourse on the Character of Christ, as an evidence of the Christian Religion, by the Rev. W. Walford, in a volume lately published by the Independent ministers of London on the Evidences of Christianity. See also the present Bishop of Calcutta's Seventeenth Lecture on the Evidences, &c.