The Jesus of the Evangelists; His Historical Character Vindicated Or, an Examination of the Internal Evidence of Our Lord's Divine Mission with Refere (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: chapter{Section 4CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. The most important question of theological discussion in the times in which we live respects the historical reality of the person of our Lord. Compared with this all other subjects of religious thought sink into insignificance. The great religious controversies of bygone ages have respected dogmas which different orders of minds, according to the variety of their conformation, have pronounced more or less essential to the Christian faith. Many of these have become extinct, others are in process of extinction, yet the Christian faith still exists. But in this question is involved the life of Christianity itself. It is nothing less than has the Church a Christ, or has she been believing in an idea which never had an historical existence ? The whole tone of earnest religious thought is steadily making an effort to form a distinct appreciation of the person and character of our Lord. Religious minds are rising to a clearer perception that he is the rock on which the Church is built, and that Christianity is not founded on speculative principles, but on an appreciation of him as a living life, and a spiritual power. The older forms of theological metaphysics and dogmatic speculation are felt to be barren, uncertain in their evidence, and unsatisfying to the wants of man. An increased inquiry into the nature of speculations which once possessed the deepest religious interest, has produced the conviction, that their solution lies beyond the powers of the mind j and that dogmas, whose solution is impossible, and the very terms of which we are unable even to conceive, can be no essential portion of the Christian faith. The progressive advance of science has raised questions which have hitherto been considered as belonging to the exclus...