The Deity of Jesus.

The Catechism presents Jesus in two principal aspects—1st, as God; 2nd, as the eternal Son of God. Now, if he was the former his whole history upon earth, down to his crucifixion and ascension, is at utter variance with the Assembly's definition of the Deity. It would amount, moreover, to a denial of the Atonement and the entire scheme of Redemption, for we lose the Mediator altogether by it. There would be no Mediator ! If, again, Jesus as Mediator was infinite, there must be two Gods. If it is averred he was, in some mysterious sense, the "Eternal Son"—the assertion is meaningless—we still lose the Atonement. A son, and yet co-eternal with his own father ! It will not do to say it is a mystery. It is nothing of the sort. It is a pure abuse of language, as it would be to talk of a circular-square or a square circle. The Catechism states that Christ maketh "continual intercession for us." Now, pray, intercession with whom, in the first place; and, secondly, how comes it that one appeal is not enough, that even the continued appeal of such a mighty one is unsuccessful, and eventuates in the damnation of the great bulk of humanity? By his sufferings and death and sacrifice do you not distinctly hold that he "satisfied divine justice"?

It is altogether too great a strain upon the faith to expect men, in this matter-of-fact proof-exacting age, to believe that God, or the eternal Son of God, entered this world through the gestation and birth of a fatherless babe, and that Mary thus was the mother of God in some mysterious sense. If such had been the case this important question at once arises : How comes it that Jesus in the dual capacity grew up and passed among men, from day to day and year to year, until about the age of thirty without exhibiting traces of the divine incarnation sufficient to engage the notice of some one historian, if not to arouse the ire of the whole Jewish nation, long before he did? History is silent as to the life of Jesus all this time, and the tradition of the Church is, to put it plainly, that Deity incog, in the person of Jesus, followed the occupation of a carpenter, house or ship builder, or something of that page 17 sort, until baptism. Such a preposterous conception is the natural consequence of dating the incarnation from the scene in the manger at Bethlehem, and is not warranted by anything on record.

The reason why history, sacred and profane alike, makes no reference of any moment to Jesus all this long period of thirty years, has always been a perplexing mystery to the Church : it is that his life so far passed without an incident above the human worth recording. He followed some lawful calling, earning his bread and eating, drinking, sleeping, and so on, just like his fellows, but on his baptism, and not till then, the spirit descended from heaven, and was revealed in and through him during the remaining three years of his life on earth. Now for the first time were put forth those mighty and god-like powers, which at once marked the incarnation and its date. Thus, by a reference to the scripture record, is easily formed an explanation why the prior history is awanting. Religion is also relieved of an unwarranted and unworthy conception of the divine being. The Catechism, where it describes the Saviour "as God and man in two distinct natures," is opposed to revelation, and should be corrected to the "Messias and man in two distinct natures." The doctrine of the deity or divinity of Jesus, the son of Mary, has done more than all other errors to drive people from the fold of Christ, and is the cause of not a little of the scoffing infidelity abroad.