is a perfect ideal of humanity," and instances Mr. Newman. This fact is sufficiently substantiated in the above paragraph; and it was with that fact alone I had to do. That I was bound to follow Mr. Newman into all the circumstances under which he had formed or might advance his singularities of opinion, I deny: it is enough to have to do with the singularities themselves. A man, I suppose, might refer to Baxter's well-known belief in witches, or some modern's crotchet about table-turning or spirit-rapping, without entering into the question as to how he came by it, or the occasions on which he advanced it. Mr. Newman's notion seems to have sprung from the fallacious idea, already referred to in the Introduction, that "The Eclipse of Faith," instead of being an examination of certain prominent opinions of himself and others, was designed to follow "The Soul," or the "Phases," or both, step by step. I hope I have some better employment than to track all the tortuosities of his too eccentric logic.

Whether, in the present instance, he has made out his case of "very gross garbling," I now leave to the calm decision of the reader.

Mr. Newman is pleased to say, as if the occasion on which he gave utterance to the sentiment in question must come into consideration, "that I have here intruded into a controversy with which I have no concern." I think it plain, by his own confession, that I have not intruded into it, as in truth I had no concern with it; I was only concerned with the sentiment itself. His very complaint is, that I have not referred to the controversy in connection with which the offensive passage occurs.

As to the charge of "intruding," I beg to say, that, when a man gives utterance to such sentiments respecting Christ, no matter in what connection, it is quite sufficient warrant for the disciples of the Master

they revere and love to "intrude" into the controversy; and for myself, I beg to say very distinctly, I shall intrude into this or any other public controversy on which I may humbly hope to say anything to the purpose, without asking Mr. Newman's leave, or anybody else's, for so doing. For this reason, I shall now "intrude" a little more into this controversy, by making some remarks on Mr. Newman's new chapter on “The Moral Perfection of Christ.”

Mr. Newman seems to think his repulsive statements may be, in some respects, made less so, if it be borne in mind that they are especially founded on the views of the Rev. James Martineau. I am quite willing to give him the benefit of any such fact. The dubiety of that eloquent gentleman as to how much historic worth there may be in the evangelical narratives, and the latitude of his canons of historical criticism, which, if we mistake not, have fairly made his co-religionists stand aghast, do no doubt render it. very precarious to defend Christ's moral perfection as a fact, — whatever it may be as a myth, or, in short, to prove his very existence. His system may well be

called what Mr. Newman terms it," a reconstruction of Christianity," of which Mr. Martineau supposes we have the singular felicity of knowing more than the Apostles themselves! Mr. Newman remarks:

"I have to give reasons why I cannot adopt that modified scheme of Christianity which is defended and adorned by James Martineau; according to which it is maintained, that, though the Gospel narratives are not to be trusted in detail, there can be yet no reasonable doubt what Jesus was; for this is elicited by a 'higher moral criticism,' which (it is remarked) I neglect. In this theory, Jesus is avowed to be a man born like other men; to be liable to error, and (at least in some

important respects) mistaken. Perhaps no general proposition is to be accepted merely on the word of Jesus; in particular, he misinterpreted the Hebrew prophecies. He was not less than the Hebrew Messiah, but more. No moral charge is established against him, until it is shown that, in applying the old prophecies to himself, he was conscious that they did not fit. His error was one of mere fallibility in matters of intellectual and literary estimate. On the other hand, Jesus had an infallible moral perception, which reveals itself to the true-hearted reader, and is testified by the common consciousness of Christendom. It has pleased the Creator to give us one sun in the heavens, and one Divine soul in history, in order to correct the aberrations of our individuality, and unite all mankind into one family of God. Jesus is presumed to be perfect until he is shown to be imperfect. Faith in Jesus, is not reception of propositions, but reverence for a person; yet this is not the condition of salvation or essential to the Divine favor. Such is the scheme, abridged. from the ample discussion of my eloquent friend.” *

And now what answer does any Christian make to this plea of Mr. Newman, that he is opposing Mr. Martineau? Why, in the first place, just this: that whatever Mr. Martineau's opinions may be,- that supposing Jesus Christ to have been only a man, not even a great man, but only an ordinary man, who, nevertheless, had enjoyed some little reputation of being a good man, Mr. Martineau, and the Unitarians, and the Trinitarians, and all the world, have just reason to complain of Mr. Newman's contempt of all the commonest maxims of historic criticism in judging him. He does not treat Jesus Christ even with the

*Phases, pp. 140, 141.

justice and candor due to the most common historic personage. He puts impressions for facts, fancies for arguments; speaks when the documents are silent, silences them where they speak; imagines evidence where he pleases, and ignores it where he pleases ; and all for the delightful purpose of proving Christ morally imperfect! And now for an example or two.

Take his account of Christ's answer to the Pharisees who came to entrap him by their question respecting the tribute-money, and whose insidious villany he baffles by saying, "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." On this answer, (though not one syllable is added by Christ himself, nor by the historians who record it, that can for a moment countenance the fancy,) Mr. Newman ventures to say that he cannot but think our Lord "shows a vain conceit in the cleverness of his answers";* and adds, that he cannot regard his "error" as a merely intellectual "error," since "blundering self-sufficiency is a moral weakness." What can for a moment justify this most gratuitous imputation of "vain conceit" and "blundering self-sufficiency," † where there is not one syllable on the face of the history - not the faintest shade of expression to justify it? Mr. Newman may perhaps say, as he elsewhere says in reference to other points, that he is only giving his impressions, "a statement of fact concerning his own.

*Phases, p. 152. See the entire passages in the chapter on "The Moral Perfection of Christ."

† Some of the words so liberally bestowed on our Lord in this chapter will inevitably suggest to every reader an application of which the writer was little conscious. A man may shoot his arrow with exact perpendicularity over his own head. It smites the invisible and impassive air, and does no harm to that; but the missile descending, according to the law of gravity, with the exact force with which it has been projected, may smite full sore the unhappy archer himself.

↑ Reply, p. 1.

mind, and that is all. Valeat quantum!" Whereupon the reader will say, of course, Who cares for a million of his impressions, without evidence for them? and to that question I, for one, should not know what answer to give. This sort of criticism is not to do justice to Christ, even if he were nothing but an ordinary character of history; for it is to fancy evidence, not to produce it or sift it.

Nothing, again, can exceed the eccentric criticism with which Mr. Newman introduces these strictures. He says, that to "imagine that because a coin bears Cæsar's head, therefore it is Cæsar's property, and that he may demand to have as many of such coins as he chooses paid over to him, is puerile and notoriously false. The circulation of foreign coin of every kind was as common in the Mediterranean then as now, and everybody knew that the coin was the property of the holder, not of him whose head it bore. Thus, the reply of Jesus, which pretended to be a moral decision, was unsound and absurd; yet it is uttered in a tone of dictatorial wisdom, and ushered in by a grave rebuke, 'Why tempt ye me, hypocrites?'"*

The meaning here imputed to our Lord's words is "puerile" enough, but the puerility is in Mr. Newman's criticisın, not in Christ's answer. How farfetched is this gloss, (yet needful to make Christ's decision “unsound,") compared with the obvious interpretation generally put on his words: "Since you thus recognize, in fact, Cæsar's political authority by receiving the current coin which bears his image, render to him the political allegiance which you thereby acknowledge; and 'to God the things that are God's.'" This Mr. Newman calls evading the question; he has heard "the interpretation," he says, "from high Trini

* Phases, p. 152.