religious thought had passed through many revolutions; since Jesus, it has made great conquests: but no one has improved, and no one will improve, upon the essential principle Jesus has created; He has fixed for ever the idea of pure worship." Be it so; but all "confessions of faith," we may add, are not "travesties of the idea of Jesus,” as Renan in this connection asserts, but interpretations and amplifications of it, compared with which his own "confession of faith"-for he certainly has one-is an impious caricature, and a burlesque on everything sacred and Divine as revealed to the prophets and apostles, and recorded in the Book of God.

Is it not more than a little strange that a man holding the foregoing views relative to the "universal and eternal religion" which Jesus has "created," and which "no one has improved and no one will improve upon," should nevertheless be found entertaining in connection therewith so many opposing and irreconcilable sentiments. As it came

from Jesus, he tells us, it had the character of an eternal religion, pure worship, pure Christianity, &c. ; but, notwithstanding this character of purity and perfection which he gives to the religion of Jesus, to a multitude of other irreconcilable sentiments, very many of which we have already noticed, he adds: "The immense moral progress which we owe to the Gospel is the result of its exaggerations." Strange that there is no inherent power of a progressive nature to be found in the morality of the Gospel itself, but it must be indebted to "exaggerations, chimeras," and other principles wholly outside of itself, for the wonderful success that has everywhere attended its propagation. It surely speaks little for its Divine original, if truth itself (acknowledged to be such by M. Renan) is so impotent that it can 1 Page 303.

make no progress except as associated with the potency of error. If immorality is thus indispensably allied to morality, and truth so entirely dependent upon error for its progressive existence, why does M. Renan seek to dissolve the connection between them? Since they have worked so harmoniously and successfully together for so many centuries, why seek to bring about a disruption between them, and thus retard their onward progress? To be consistent with his own principles of moral philosophy, he had much better be silent, and let the twin sisters alone. Where consistency is wholly wanting, however, its exercise cannot be expected.

Whether, however, the "exaggerations" to which M. Renan refers were indispensable to the success of the Gospel or not, it is some satisfaction to know that M. Renan thinks he can discern some gleams of truth intermingled therewith, one of which he tells us is the right of liberty of conscience. "Jesus," he says, "was the founder of the rights of free conscience." To which, however, we would simply reply, that while conscience certainly has a right to civil freedom, Jesus did not make it so free but that it is still bound to be kept "void of offence toward God and man ;" and to be kept thus void of offence toward God, it must, of course, be enlightened by God's Word, which cannot be with him who denies that God has given us a written Word. The relation of such a man with God is thus described by St. John: "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son."2 And in his second Epistle he further describes the case of such a man by saying:

"Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doc

trine of Christ, hath not God." Let M. Renan and others likeminded ponder well the concluding words of this passage.

1

"The day will come," Renan continues, "when the domain of things spiritual will cease to be called a 'power,' that it may be called a 'liberty.'" This day has already come the day has long since come in which "things spiritual" were called a liberty." So called by Christ when in the flesh, it has been echoed and re-echoed by His true followers from that day to the present. Nor will it cease to

66

be the watchword of the Christian in connection with the truth and kingdom of Christ till time shall be no more. But as to "things spiritual" ceasing to be called a “power,” in a civil sense they certainly may, but in a spiritual and religious sense, never; for "the kingdom of God," the Apostle says, "is not in word, but in power." And again : "The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth," and is preached, he further says, "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

"4

Speaking of the freedom allowed men in ancient times, as compared with the interferences and restrictions of the present, Renan says: "Jesus, during three years, could lead a life which in our societies would have brought Him twenty times before the magistrates. Our laws upon the illegal exercise of medicine would alone have sufficed to cut short His career." " It is well for the world, then, that He did not live in our day, or the “ illegal exercise" of His medical skill might have proved fatal to His divine mission, and the glorious results springing therefrom might never have been achieved, Had it pleased God to have chosen our day for the manifestation of Himself in the flesh, however, perhaps in the recorded history of His life there might still be found 1 Page 300. 2 I Cor. iv. 20. 3 Rom. i. 16. 4 1 Cor. ii. 4. 5 Page 310.

the words, "No man laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come."

66

In a similar strain he speaks of the prophet Elijah, "presenting himself at the palaces of sovereigns, compelling the sentinels to stand aside, and, with an imperious tone, announcing to kings the approach of revolutions of which he had been the promoter." "The very idea" of such a thing occurring in our day, he says, “provokes a smile." Such, however, he adds, was Elias; but Elias the Tishbite, in our days, would not be able to pass the gate of the Tuileries.” 1 No more likely to, we admit, than that Peter, with the angel for his conductor, "passed the gate" of the prison in which he had been incarcerated. Perhaps, however, if put to the test, one gate would prove no more difficult to open than the other, not even though the reigning power of the French Tuileries might be present to guard it. But modern power is great, no doubt; and perhaps it will one day, be summoned by those in authority, to dispute and resist the mandate of the angel who shall stand "one foot on the sea, and one on solid land," and swear "by Him that liveth for ever and ever, that time shall be no longer!" but, perhaps, when that day arrives (and it will arrive), M. Renan will be constrained to think otherwise.

This privileged "freedom," however, which the ancients enjoyed by reason of the favourable times in which they lived as compared with our own, was not, in our Lord's case at least, of very long continuance; for, speaking of the cruel and unwise policy of the Jews in putting Jesus to death, inasmuch as it defeated their own aims, Renan says: "Left free, Jesus would have exhausted Himself in a desperate struggle with the impossible. The unintelligent 1 Page 305.

hate of His enemies decided the success of His work, and sealed His divinity." And may we not say, that it is the "unintelligent hate" of his nineteenth century enemy to this doctrine, that leads him to vainly attempt to unseal “his Divinity?" But as there was not wisdom enough in the Jewish policy to prevent the successful issue of a mission which was Divinely decreed, and which, therefore, went on and terminated exactly as it was written of it; so, neither will the wisdom of a Renan's philosophy, levelled as it is against the Divine person, word, and work of the Messiah, prevent the onward march and successful promulgation of "the truth as it is in Jesus," until it shall have fully accomplished that whereunto it was sent, the spiritual regeneration and eternal salvation of all who shall truly believe in Him as the Deity incarnate, propitiating the sins of a fallen world.

1 Page 256.