HOW TO ACCOUNT FOR JESUS CHRIST.
By Dr. A. P. Peabody
HE is not to be accounted for by any spiritual Darwinism, by any possible process of development. Do what you will with his character, you cannot bring him into line with his predecessors, whether Jewish or Gentile, or with the culture or standard of his age. These eighteen centuries of progress have not brought the advanced guard of humanity up to him. We can trace the rudiments of other pre-eminent characters, and show whence and how they grew. There is no human or earthly accounting for him. The character of Christ as portrayed in the Gospels is the highest possible evidence of their authenticity. It is a character which, without an original, could not have been conceived by the evangelists; one for which they had neither the materials within their reach, nor the genius or culture requisite for its invention. As an actual character, it could not by any possibility have been formed by antecedent or surrounding influences. It was not a natural development; for human virtue has not yet developed up to its standard. Its human side cannot possibly be authentic, unless its divine side be equally authentic.—Dr. A. P. Peabody.