SECTION VI. The moral Characters of Chrift, the Prophets, and Apostles, prove the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures. THE character of Chrift, as it may be collected from the plain narrations of the gofpels, is manifestly superiour to all other characters, fictitious or real, whether drawn by historians, orators, or pocts. We fee in it the most entire devotion and refignation to God, and the most ardent and univerfal love to mankind, joined with the greatest humility, felf-denial, meeknefs, patience, prudence, and every other virtue, divine and human; to which we are to add, that, according to the New Teftament, Chrift, being the Lord and creator of all, took upon himself the form of a fervant, in order to make atonement for all; that, with this view, he submitted to the helplessnefs and infirmities of infancy, to the narrowness of human understanding, and the perturbations of human affections, to hunger, thirst, labour, weariness, poverty, and hardships of various kinds, to lead a forrowful, friendless life, to be misunderstood, betrayed, infulted, and mocked, and at last to be put to a painful and ignominious death. The manner in which the evangelifts fpeak of Christ, fhews that they drew after a real copy, i. e. fhews the genuineness and truth of the gospel history. There are no direct encomiums upon him, no laboured defences or recommendations. His character arifes from a careful, impartial examination of all that he faid and did; and the evangelifts appear to have drawn this greatest of all characters, without any direct defign to do it. Nay, they have recorded fome things, fuch as his being moved with the paffions of human nature, as well as being affected with its infirmities, which the wifdom of this world would rather have concealed. But their view was to fhew him to the perfons to whom they preached, as the promised Meffiah of the Jews, and the Saviour of mankind ; and as they had been convinced of this themselves, from his difcourses, actions, fufferings, and resurrection, they thought nothing more was wanting to convince fuch others, as were serious and impartial, but a fimple narrative of what Jefus faid and did. And if we compare the tranfcendent greatnefs of this character, with the indirect manner in which it is delivered, and the illiteratenefs and low condition of the evangelists, it will appear impoffible, that they fhould have forged it, that they fhould have not had a real original before them, so that nothing was wanting, but to record fimply and faithfully. How could mean and illiterate perfons excel the greatest geniuses, antient and modern, in drawing a character? How came they to draw it in an indirect manner? This is indeed a strong evidence of genuineness and truth; but then it is of fc reclufe and subtle a nature, agreeably to this, has been fo little taken notice of, by the defenders of the chriftian religion, that one cannot conceive the evangelifts were at all aware that it was an evidence. The character of Christ, as drawn by them, is therefore genuine and true; and confequently, proves his divine miffion, both by its tranfcendent excellence, and by his laying claim to fuch a miffion. The characters of the perfons, who are faid in the fcriptures to have had divine communications, and a divine miffion, are fo much fuperiour to the characters, which occur in common life, that we can scarce account for the more eminent fingle ones, and therefore much less for fo large a fucceffion of them, continued through fo many ages, without allowing the divine communications and affiftance, which they allege. It is true indeed, that many of these eminent perfons had confiderable imperfections, and fome of them were guilty of great fins occafionally, though not habitually; however, upon a balance, after proper deductions are made, on account of their fins and imperfections, it is left to the impartial reader to confider, whether the prophets, apoftles, &c. were not fo much fuperiour, not only to mankind at an average, but even to the best men among the Greeks and Romans, as is not fairly to be accounted for by the mere powers of human nature. The characters of the eminent perfons mentioned in the fcriptures, arise so much in an indirect way, from the plain narrations of facts, their fins and imperfections are fo fully fet forth by themselves, or their friends, with their condemnation and punishment, and the vices of wicked. men, and the oppofers of God and themselves, related in fo candid a way, with all fit allowances, that we have in this a remarkable additional evidence for the truth of this part of the fcripture hiftory, befides the common ones before given, which extend to the whole. Hartley on the Truth of the Chriftian Religion. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. THERE is no argument for the truth of chriftianity, more irrefiftible than the character and conduct of its first propagators, and especially of its glorious author. No human fagacity could, from meer invention, have put together a fictitious account of the behaviour of a perfon, in fo many ftrange and uncommon particulars, as the evangelifts have told us of our Saviour, without either fwelling up the imaginary character into that of the hero of a romance, or drawing it defaced with faults and blemishes. That human invention is by no means equal to any such task, is evident from the unsuccessful attempts, which have been made by the greatest masters of description, to draw perfect characters, especially where any thing supernatu、 ral was to have a place; and that such a character as that of our Saviour, fhould be drawn fo uniform and confiftent, at the fame time that it is fo wholly new and peculiar, that in all the hiftories, and all the epic poems in the world, there is no pattern whence the leaft hint could be taken, to form it by; that this character, in which the greatness is of fo extraordinary and ftupendous a kind, that whatever is great in those of warriors, or heroes, or kings, is despised and neglected by him, and infinitely beneath him; that such a character fhould be the invention of a few illiterate men, and that it fhould by them be exhibited, not by ftudied encomiums, but by a bare, unadorned narration of facts, but fuch facts as are no where else to be equalled. He who can believe that all this could be the effect of mere human invention, without fuperiour interposition, must be capable of believing any thing. So Ꮓ |