Nature and the Supernatural, as Together Constituting the One System of God

📕 This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1862 edition. Excerpt: ... CHRISTIANITY NO MERE SCHEME OF DOCTRINE. 191 CHAPTER X. THE CHARACTER OF JESUS FORBIDS HIS POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION WITH MEN. The need of a supernatural, divine ministration, to restore the disorders of sin, is now shown; also that such a ministration is compatible with the order of nature, and, being in that view a rational possibility, that it may well be assumed as a probable expectation. In this manner we are brought directly up to confront the main question--Is the exigency met by the fact? is the supernatural divine ministration actually set up, and shown to be by adequate evidence? Here we raise a question, for the first time, that puts the Christian Scriptures in issue; for it is the grand peculiarity of these sacred writings, that they deal in supernatural events and transactions, and show the fact of a celestial institution finally erected on earth, in the person of Jesus Christ, which is called the kingdom of God or of heaven, and is in fact a perpetual, supernatural dispensatory of healing and salvation for the race. Christianity is, in this view, no mere scheme of doctrine, or of ethical practice, but is instead a kind of miracle, a power out of nature and above, descending into it; a historically supernatural movement on the world, that is visibly entered into it, and organized to be an institution in the person of Jesus Christ. He, therefore, is the central figure and power, and with Him the entire fabric either stands or falls. To this central figure, then, we now turn ourselves; and, as no proof beside the light is necessary to show that the sun shines, so we shall find that Jesus proves Himself by His own self-evidence. The simple inspection of His life and character will suffice to show that He cannot be classified with...