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    829

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    ORTHODOXY AND UNBELIEF ,

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    [ Continued from p . 789 . ] At p . 61 we begin to approach the grand question , viz . — « As Jesus stood in sympathy with the Jews , '—( we have seen with what limitation to take this assertion)—* to what degree could the impressive eloquence of his preaching raise their religious affections , and how would this religious excitement act on their judgment and imagination ? ' In other words , what mixture of delusion may there have been in the Gospel witnesses , Jesus not excepted ? Let the author state his own ideas on the subject : —

    4 In the view which I take of the question , Jesus was an individual of an eminently devotional spirit towards God ; pure and holy in his thoughts and feelings ; compassionating the sinful state of his fellowmen ; full of loving kindness and charity towards them , and animated with an ardent desire to make them better . To crown these qualities , and give them their fullest effect , he possessed also a powerful spirit of

    eloquence ;—I say , that his eloquence , sanctity , and devotional fervour , combined with the nature of his doctrines , naturally reached the inward hearts of his hearers , struck their consciences with fear and remorse ,, and excited their minds to a high degree of enthusiasm , the effect of which was the extraordinary cure of many diseases , —a persuasion in the multitudes , and in himself , that this was owing to the power of his word , and his consequent successful assumption and exercise of such miraculous powers .

    The author adds , * Nothing in the Evangelists contradicts this view of the case . ' Yet he has undertaken to prove that they were partly deluded and partly fraudulent in their capacity of narrators ! Deluded , it now appears , in giving an account of the matter that does not contradict his own ;—fraudulent in countenancing the human origin of the Gospel!—so that from a syllogistic array of correspondences , delusions , and frauds , the Gospel comes out true at last . There must be a slip of the pen

    here . The author must be aware , that he is controverting the Evangelists all the time . To that which they describe as having originated in miracles , he ascribes a human origin ;—they only contradict his view so far . How , then , does he support his theory ? By an imaginary description of our Lord ' s style of eloquence , which I will not dispute , though it be purely fanciful , —by pressing an orthodox alternative , to which I have before alluded ( p . 9 ) , and then by bringing a profusion of passages from the life of Wesley ,

    to prove the power of religious excitement . IMow we have in the first place no reason for attributing to Jesus that kind of impassioned and vehement and exciting preaching , which is adduced as a parallel from Wesley ' s life . On the contrary , the specimens which the New Testament does give of it , exhibit n very different style , Jt is cajm , di g nified , kind , persuasive , } ropres § ive .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 829, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/37/