Need I say more? Who does not see how this sublime fact exalts man's dignity at the same time that it illustrates the worth of man's nature? By the mere fact of God having assumed his form is man's nature glorified; and all men, so to say, have their share of the honour done by God to humanity in uniting himself with it, and in accepting, for a moment of time, all the conditions of humanity. But as far as mankind is here concerned, it is far more than a mere accession of an honour or a glorifying of his nature: it is a striking manifestation of the value that all men have in the eyes of God. For it is not for some of them only, for some class or nation, or portion of humanity, it is for all humanity that God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ has submitted to all human sufferings. Every human soul is the object of this divine sacrifice, and called upon to gather the fruit.
This is the source, this the privilege of Christian charity. The dogma makes the force of the precept itself. Jesus crucified is God's charity towards man. Impossible that men should not feel themselves bound to act towards each other as God has done to them; and towards what man is not charity a duty? Without the divinity and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the value of man's soul, if I may be pardoned the expression, sinks,—neither his salvation nor the example of his Saviour is any longer the question,—charity becomes nothing more than human goodness; a sentiment, however noble and useful, still limited both in impulsive energy and in efficacy; having its source in man alone, it can but incompletely solace the unequally distributed sufferings of mortality. It is not suited to inspire any long effort or great sacrifice: it is not adequate to convert the longing desire for the moral amendment, the physical relief of humanity, into that inextinguishable sympathy and untiring and impassioned emotion which really constitute charity, and which the Christian Faith, in the history of the world, has alone been able to inspire.
Thus the essential precepts of Jesus, the virtues which He commands as the basis and source of all the others, have an intimate connection with his doctrine, a doctrine "which is not," He tells us himself, "his, but of him that sent him;" that is to say, they are connected with the fundamental dogmas of the Christian religion. No one denies the perfection, the sublimity of the Gospel morality; men indeed seem to feel a sort of self-complacency, a satisfaction in celebrating it, with a view to the conclusion, more or less explicitly stated, that that morality constitutes the whole Gospel. This is, however, not less than absolutely to mistake the bond which unites in man thought with sentiment, and belief with action. Man is grander and less easy to satisfy than superficial moralists pretend; the law of his life is for him, in the profound instinct of his soul, necessarily connected with the secret of his destiny; and it is only the Christian dogma that gives to Christian ethics the Royal authority of which they stand in need to govern and to regenerate humanity.
III. Jesus And His Miracles.
I have called myself one of those who admit the supernatural; and I have stated my reasons. I might stop there and enter into no special reflection as to the Gospel Miracles. The possibility of miracles once accorded in principle, nothing remains but to weigh the value of the testimony in their support. In the second series of these Meditations, where I treat of the authenticity of the localities specified in the Holy Scriptures, I shall occupy myself with this examination. It is not, however, my wish to elude, upon the subjects that lie at the bottom of this question, any of the difficulties that it presents: for here we find the point of attack sought by the adversaries of the Christian faith. The image of Christ as it results from the Gospel would be besides singularly unfaithful, did we not range in it his miracles by the side of his precepts.
I avow once more my belief in God, in God the Creator, the Sovereign Master of the Universe, who orders it and governs it by that independent and constant action of his providence and power styled the Laws of Nature. To those who regard nature as having existed from all eternity of itself, and governed by laws immutable and proceeding from fate, I have nothing to say of Jesus or his miracles; the question at issue between them and me is more important than that which respects miracles; it involves the very question of Pantheism or Christianity, of Fatalism or Liberty, affecting both God and man. Upon these subjects I have already expressed my general opinion and its grounds. I propose to enter further upon it in the third series of these Meditations, when I come to speak of the different systems which are now in conflict throughout Christendom. But at this moment I address myself to Deists and to men of wavering minds, and to these alone.